Chapter Twelve

Pre-Chapter AN: Hey, thanks for reading this. It's literally my favourite thing to write these days. Enjoy the chapter, and let me know how it sticks if you enjoy it. 

After reading this, you can either wait till next week for the next chapter or read the next two on pa-treon right now and keep reading as I write. For the pa-treon, you can remove the hyphen between pa and treon and google it then search for my username- Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting in your address bar. 

Have fun with this- Also, in case you haven't checked out my other story (Gamer of the Desert) yet, then please do so. It's also set in the Naruto universe. It's an SI into Gaara with some gamer elements. I can guarantee you'll love it. It's also much farther along than this one so gives you something to really sink your teeth into. 

SEVEN YEARS BEFORE THE SECOND GREAT SHINOBI WORLD WAR

"Did someone get the name of the truck that hit me?" were the words he seemed to wake up with. Of course, they were. He thought himself funnier than he really was. The idiot. The reckless, foolish idiot. She itched at her Chunin vest as she watched everyone else in the room jolt to attention and run towards his bed. They probably thought he was just waking up. She knew he wasn't. He'd been awake for a minute or more at least. Their time on the same genin team had taught her that he had the habit of waking up and then pretending to be asleep for a minute or so longer. She couldn't tell you why, for the life of her. But her best guess was that it somewhat related to his inability to be honest about a single thing in his life. 

"You're awake" Izuku said with a breath. Rushing towards the bed. Those already next to the bed, his cousin Tsunade, and Grandmother Mito were more than willing to give the Uchiha boy space to see their little relative. 

"Yes I am" He said, leaning upwards on the pillow. He looked so different. A year of being bedridden would do that, she knew. But she still hadn't been prepared for it. She'd avoided this room for a long time, after all. When he hadn't woken up in the first three months and the Doctors said they were not sure if he ever would. What a fool. Getting so injured in a fight against a superior opponent. 

"But the better question is who are you?" He asked, making the entire room freeze. Amnesia? She wondered for a second before dismissing the thought. He'd clearly remembered to play his usual trick, so would it be a surprise if he was choosing to play another one?

"He's pulling your leg" She spoke out as she saw his cousin lean over to him with her hand glowing green and his grandmother let out a sigh of tiredness. At her words, he burst into laughter. 

He turned to her next, "You just had to ruin my fun, didn't you, Uzume?" He asked her with a look at her. His smile quickly died as he looked at her. 

"Baka" His cousin with the oversized chest said and swung her fist into his head. He barely even reacted to the obviously soft blow beyond turning to peer at Izuku and then Toshiro in turn. 

"How long have I been out for?" He suddenly asked with a serious look on his face. Well, she wasn't going to be the one dropping that bomb on him. 

"What is the last thing you remember?" His Grandmother asked instead, dodging the question. 

"I asked first" He replied, stubborn as ever. 

"Don't take that tone with me, brat. You're not too old for me to bend over my knee".

"And how old is that? How long have I been out for?" He asked again. There was an urgency in his tone. Strange. He usually hated urgency. Never in a rush. Always patiently waiting for the next thing to happen — it was another thing she hated about him. 

"A year and a few months. No more than that" The voice didn't come from any of those already in the room. It was the Second Hokage. Somehow, without anyone noticing, he had appeared next to his Grandnephew's bed and had Shorirama's hand in his own. 

"A year" The boy echoed. His voice distant. He looked so small in that moment. Like he wanted to shrink into the bed and disappear. Something in her ached at that. 

"Yes. Now answer your Grandmother's question, Shorirama".

"I remember fighting the Yonbi Jinchuriki, Roshi. I was losing." 

"So you know what he was then" The Hokage commented, tone reserved. 

The old woman by his side was not nearly as restrained. "If you knew, then what in the seven hells made you use the three-body disruption seal against a Jinchuriki of all things? I didn't even teach you the seal, this boy" She was not screaming, but her anger was heard nonetheless. She had that habit that her clan elders didn't. The ability to show your rage without screaming. It was dignified. Uzume decided that she rather liked Mito Uzumaki right then and there. She was named after her, after all.

"Oh. So that's what I did".

"Of course it's what you did, now."

"Mito" The Hokage cut her off. 

"Let us just thanks the gods that Shorirama has been returned to us. The matter with the Yonbi is in the past" He said. 

"You know it isn't. Iwa is…"

"Mito" This time his tone was cold. Colder than the freezing waters he'd commanded to crush a tailed beast of all things to death. She'd been there, but still hadn't been able to conceptualise all that she had seen. So much water. So much power. So much Chakra. And this was the lesser brother. Far from his prime even. What kind of monster had Hashirama been? And they said the Uchiha and Senju were equals. Laughable. Her father was a powerful jounin, there was no doubt about that. But there was no way he'd have won a fight like that. 

"That is a matter for another day. I just want to be happy with my nephew today. Can we do that?" He asked her. He looked so tired. She instantly felt awkward. Like this was a moment she was intruding on. 

The feeling intensified when the Uzumaki woman let out a half-sob and practically tackled Shorirama in a hug before dragging the Hokage into it. 

"Okay, kids. That's enough Senju-time for today" Tsunade spoke, beginning to usher them out. Only the woman's formidable strength made Uzume listen to the request. Uzume hated being addressed as a child. She'd won the first and only ever chunin exams. She was a Chunin, for gods' sake. 

"So what do we do now?" Toshiro asked when they all began looking at each other after the door was shut behind them. 

"Want to spar?" She turned to Izuku. 

"Sure" 

XXXXXX

"How do you feel, really?" Grandmother. Mito asked after both Tobirama and Tsunade had had their fair share of time at my bedside. She'd sent them out once the sun begun to go down and said she would be the one sleeping here tonight. As usual, none could prevent her from doing the thing in her head once it got in there. 

"Good. I feel a bit lethargic, but I should be fine" I said to her. 

"Uh-huh" She didn't believe me. 

"Tell me, Shorirama-kun. What's different?" She said, looking at me again. 

"What do you mean?" I asked her, still feigning ignorance. 

"I didn't teach you the three-body disruption seal. You reverse engineered it from having seen a complete version once. An act of extreme genius. At least, that's what I would have called it if you didn't manage to fail." 

"What?"

"Why else dot you think you've been unconscious for so long? Tsunade fixed up your body in three months. Subsequently, I had to begin working to save you. You didn't use the three-body disruption seal on only the Iwa boy. Without the right safeguards in your improvised matrix, you had the pleasure of having your seal affect you just as much as it did your opponent." She explained. 

"So how did you fix me?" I asked her. 

"I just had to find all three parts of you and bring them back together. Your chakra remained in your body, no doubt because it was trying to fight off the invasion of the tailed beast chakra in your body. Purifying that was a mess and a half after he'd burnt half your pathways in your body with his chakra, and your chakra was gaunt crazy on the other half trying to fic the problem but not knowing how. That meant your body was the most intact part of the trifecta. Your mind? It was partly broken from the pain, but Inosuke Yamanaka had an easy time of piecing you together." My panic must have been absurdly clear on my face because she laughed. 

"Don't worry. He wasn't allowed to look around, just to put you back together as you ought to be. Those first two parts were easy. Do you know what was hard?" She asked, pinning me to the bed with her stare. 

"My soul" My voice was far away. 

"Your soul. Right in one. Where was all this wisdom when you were trying out untested seals in the battlefield?" Her sarcasm was scathing. 

"Either way, your soul drifted off. I had to find it. Do you know how much meditation and fuinjutsu I had to do to even figure out your soul wasn't in your body in the first place? And then I had to figure out how to get it back. Your body was alive, wasn't it? There had to be a way to get your soul back. And then I had to go to my nephew, grovelling for access to the clan's records on the matter to fix what my stupid Grandson did to himself. That wasn't even enough. We had to beg some more. Beg the Temples. The Fire Temple had nothing useful, but the Wind Temple had a monk with some expertise on matters of the soul that was willing to consult on your case in exchange for enough money to build ten Temples. We paid, of course. You are the future of the clan, are you not? And then it worked. His expertise, plus the clan records, and all the studying I did. It gave us enough to reach into the ether and drag your soul back. After all that, I know there's no way you woke up normal. So tell me, Grandson of mine, what is different?" At the end of her tirade, she looked close to tears. I could feel it. The sorrow in her. The desperation. The sadness. I felt it. She'd thought I was dead and gone. Really did. 

"I activated this" I told her with a sigh as I reached towards my eyes with my chakra and activated the switch I'd begun to feel there the second after I woke up. I felt my vision change. I was right then. It was the Byakugan. I could see all around me. All 360 degrees in black and white and several metres around me. 

She looked different through these eyes. So radiant. It was like she was a sun. I knew staring at her for too long would make my eyes hurt over time. I could see Tsunade at her office. She had an office now. Her chakra stood out to me like a beacon in the night's sky. I could barely see past the Hospital, but I knew that over time, that would get better. 

"I was right" Her words brought me back to reality. 

"What?" 

"Your soul. It fit right back in your body, like it slot right in. But you came with something extra. I couldn't tell what it was. But I knew things couldn't be the same. Well, if there was anything that could happen after that experience, then gaining the most powerful doujutsu in Konoha out of the bargain isn't a bad deal at all." She said the last bit with a smile that I quickly shared with her. Most powerful doujutsu in Konoha, of course. Let's just pretend the sharingan didn't exist.

"That's not all, is it?" 

"No. I can sense things now. It feels like my chakra is constantly reaching out to my surroundings." I told her. She nodded. 

"That sounds like the Mind's eye of the Kagura. I'll look into it, so I can be completely sure" She said. 

"Now sleep. Get some rest" She placed a finger on my forehead. I felt the genjutsu. I could have shattered it in a second, but I allowed it take me in its grasp. Sleep never came easier. 

And then when I fell asleep, I woke up immediately. In a green field. Just grass for miles and miles. I looked all around me, and then suddenly got the irresistible urge to move East. What a strange dream, I thought to myself as I followed the urge and began to walk. 

It felt like he walked for miles but had made no progress all the same. The distance between where he wanted to go and where he was coming from seemed to remain the same for hours and hours of walking. At least, he felt like he'd spent hours. For all he knew, it could have been days or even only a few minutes. Hours more, or maybe days, passed, and he finally crested the hill to the other side. It was only a few hours ago that he had noticed that his journey was actually across a hill. At the top of the hill, he took a look downwards. 

The greenery stretched for a few more miles, but then transitioned to a sandy beach front. At the end of it was water more beautiful than he'd ever seen in either of his lives. It stretched across the horizon. Deep blue and calm. The water was beautiful. He was saying it again because of how true it was. It was almost like it was calling out to him. He heeded it and ran. Ran like the winds were pushing him forward. At his top speed and beyond. It felt like he was flying. The cool ocean breeze blew across his body as he ran. He laughed. Nothing was funny, but everything was just so calming and serene. Had he ever been happier in his life? Never. Everything was perfect. Was this what inner peace felt like. 

He ran to the water, and it was when he got there that he snapped out of the trance-like sensation that running towards the water had woken up in him. There was someone there. He couldn't see anything of them beyond their back profile. They were squatting at the beach and writing something with a stick. They weren't dressed for the beach, however. They had on a long flowing robe. The robes and the white hair that travelled down to their waist rose a feeling of familiarity within him. 

"Hey" he shouted. No response. He called out again, deciding that they must have been so lost in thought that they zoned out their senses. Still no response. He walked even closer. There was no chance of being unheard now, and he still chose to shout to be sure. And yet, there was no response. The person was not reacting at all. If he had a hold of his better senses, he might have ignored them and moved on. But now, he was thoroughly overpowered by his curiosity. He walked right up to this person and took a hold of their shoulder before forcefully turning them around to face him. 

"Beautiful." he said the word without even intending to. That was how beautiful she was. The woman in front of him. She had aristocratic features that put the entire hyuga clan to shame. And the comparison became even more apt when he noted the byakugan in her eyes. The activated byakugan. So she had seen him coming then. She was still silent, just looking at him. No, it felt like she was looking through him. 

"Who are you?" He felt pushed to ask. He wanted to know, and his senses told him the answer to that question would be the most important thing ever learned. 

"Who are you?" She replied almost immediately. Her voice was perfect. It tingled as it crossed his ears. 

"I asked first. So answer me. Who are you?" I asked her again. 

"Who are you?" She replied in the same tone she'd used before. Like this was some sort of grand joke. So be it. I knew when someone had me at the disadvantage. 

"I am Shorirama Senju, firstborn son of Itama Senju and Hinori Hyuga. Heir to the Senju Clan. Now, I ask you again-who are you?" 

"Who are you?" The smile on her face was wide now. 

"Are you trying to tell me something will all this?" I asked. She nodded. 

Okay. She wasn't being entirely unhelpful then. I just had to figure out the hidden question she was asking. Or the answer she wanted me to give. This was important. I could feel it. 

"I am a Genin of Konohagakure. Who are you?" 

"Who are you?" 

"What is your name?" I tried a different tactic. 

"What is your name?" She asked right back. 

"Will you just repeat everything I ask?," I probed

She shook her head. 

"Who are you?"

"Who are you?" 

"Are you a Hyuga?" 

"Who are you?" She didn't repeat my question, I noted. 

"Are you an Otsutsuki?" I asked the real question that had been on my mind. 

"Who are you?" She asked again. But this time, her smile was a tad wider. I was on to something. 

"Are you Kaguya Otsutsuki?" 

"Who are you?" She was frowning now. 

"Are you my ancestor?" 

"Who are you?" Her frown lightened a bit, but it was clear that she had not been happy with the Kaguya question. 

"Are you an Uzumaki?" I took a wild shot.

"Who are you?"

"I am Shorirama Senju of the Senju, Hyuga, and Uzumaki Clans. Who are you?" 

"Who are you?" 

"Are you me?" 

She smiled widely at that now. 

"Yes." 

And then I was dragged to wakefulness. 

_ It had taken them three weeks to clear him to leave the hospital. He hadn't spent all that time in bed. Even with Tsunade working on his body while he slept in his coma, he still had some physical therapy to do. Not as much as he would have had to do without the world's premiere medic on his case, but still enough to keep him occupied for a few weeks. Walks along the hospital's gardens, monitored rounds of physical exercise, even some limited taijutsu sparring had been allowed, all for the sake of making sure that everything worked just as it should. 

Finished with that, he was finally allowed to return home. Home, for now, was Mito's place. He didn't have the will to see his mother at the moment. She hadn't even been able to rouse herself from her self-imposed isolation to visit him while he'd been comatose, and he could not deny that it hurt. They weren't close, but she was still his mother. He'd expected at least something along the lines of the very bare minimum. He removed thoughts of her from his mind as he turned to the person who was in the forest with him. 

 "Watch me, Shori" She said as she spun in the kaiten. With his byakugan activated, he could see every element of the jutsu. Every part of it. 

"What did you see?" She asked the second she deactivated the jutsu. 

"Well, you're releasing chakra from all your tenketsu at the same time and then forcing it to mirror your movements. That's what creates the kaiten. You release the chakra, and then you begin to spin. It is the act of spinning itself that makes the chakra move in the continuous rotation that we see. And then after the first two or three spins, the chakra begins to spin on its own, used to the movement and then moving even faster because chakra did not have nearly as much mass as you do, so it can move faster on its own rotations than you can" I analysed, telling her what I'd seen. 

"So it's true" She said, looking at me with shock on her face. 

Around us, some of my trainers stood, but the only one who seemed to matter was Uraume's own father. Uncle Hiroshi, mother's brother and the man of the hour, stepped forward at that. 

"When they first said you'd activated the Byakugan, I was curious. You were born with eyes of brown. Not the lavender that the clan shares. How could the byakugan appear in such eyes? I'd wondered. It had never happened before. That was what made me ask your trainers monitor you for differences between your byakugan and ours. When they came with their suspicions, I needed a way to test them and that was why I called this particular gathering." He said. 

"And what's the difference?" I probed, curious as to what he meant. 

"What do you see when you activate your byakugan?" He deferred, asking his own question. 

"I asked first" I shot, not in the mood to play this game again. That dream hadn't repeated itself since then, but it still bothered me. That hadn't been any regular dream. 

"Your answer will help me answer your question" he explained, calm in the face of disrespect that had his attendants bristling. 

"Fine then. I see chakra. All around us, I see the flow of chakra and everything else I guess." 

"The flow of chakra. How finely do you think you see this flow?"

"If there was any comparison, I'd saw down to the atomic level. I can see each individual mote of chakra".

"Exactly as I suspected. Your eyes are different from ours. I suspect we both perceive the physical world at or close to the same level. But it's when it comes to the Metaphysical that the differences appear. Your chakra perception is more detailed than ours. I could not say for certainty how stark the difference is without being able to see through your eyes, but I can tell you that when I see the Kaiten, I see a mass of chakra in rotation, and not individual bits of chakra like you do." He opined, and I nodded at his words, already wondering as to the reason for this. 

"Our working theory as to why this is the case is your Uzumaki blood. The Uzumaki have a sensing ability said to be on a level close to that of the byakugan. I suspect that the reason you can perceive chakra in such detail is a result of the combination of both these kekkei genkai" He said, coming closer to me and staring at my byakugan. 

I met his gaze, and we stared at each other for a few seconds before he walked backwards. "Alright then, I only have one more experiment in mind. Show me the Kaiten, Shorirama" He said. 

I tilted my head at him, wondering if I should play along. But ultimately, there would be no point in resisting for resistance's sake. 

Just as Uraume had done earlier, I released small bits of chakra from each of my tenketsu before beginning to rotate from left to right. The same direction in which my hair grew. The chakra followed along for the first two spins before taking off on its own and beginning to spin around me even faster than I myself was moving. After keeping the technique active for a minute, I began to slow down and then ceased the flow of chakra before planting my feet on the ground. 

There was silence all around me. Awed silence. "I christen it the Kyūkyoku no Byakugan" My Uncle said with a wide smile on his face. I facepalmed. 

"Application: Denied" The spokesperson for the Hyuga elders spoke, and I could see Uncle Hiroshi face fault at the verdict. The Hyuga clan was strange, I thought to myself. 

"The Byakugan displayed by Shorirama Senju is indeed the very pinnacle of our clan's visual prowess and a testament to the comprehensive planning and centuries of careful breeding that led to his mother and our illustrious clan head here, but it is not different enough to warrant an entirely different epithet. Especially when such an epithet is one like the name, 'Kyūkyoku no Byakugan'. I see nothing in his eyes that are not in my very own Or the ones that mine own ancestors have had for millennia. We urge our great clan head to cease this dangerous rhetoric at once. And if that will be all, then we must move on to other matters." He said, giving me and Uraume a meaningful look. 

I took that to mean that they wanted us to get out and leave them to their business, but they couldn't ask. I could see why. I was the Senju Clan Heir and with Granduncle busy with Hokage duties, I more often than not filled in the role of Clan Head when the Senju were concerned, so I could not be dismissed out of hand. 

I nodded to their request and gave a shallow bow, as opposed to the deeper one Uraume exhibited before we left their hallowed meeting room. 

"Your clan really does things differently," I commented to Uraume. It seemed so strange to me to watch a clan head be overruled by his own Clansmen. Such a thing was impossible with both the Senju and Uzumaki clans. Even as Clan heir, there were hardly any people who could countermand my orders, and most of that was on account of my age. By the time I became Jounin, even Tsunade would be unable to turn down a direct order from me. At least, courtesy said that she would be. I had the very strong feeling that she cared little for things like that. 

"It does?" Uraume asked, surprised. Of course, she was. How would she know how other clans handled things? 

"Well, we don't really have a council or anything like that in the Senju Clan. The Clan Head does have the smaller families pick leaders who report to him to keep thing running smoothly, but a council capable of overruling his decisions? That's a touch liberal for us" I told her with a smile. 

"Oh, I see then. I'm surprised none of your teachers have taught you this, but I'll pick up the slack. Our clan used to run like that. The words of the Clan Head were law until three centuries ago. One Clan Head. His name has been scrubbed from the records for his deeds. All we know him by are his actions and the epithet, 'The Scourge of the Hyuga' " She whispered the title, almost as if saying it out loud can the risk of summoning the man who was most definitely long dead. 

"What did he do?" I probed, infected by a rapturous curiosity. 

"He killed. Killed so many people that books fail to say. Say how many he killed or how many he tried to kill. Although, both things were oft one and the same. Kill them all, he did. Did with his Gentle Fist. Fist to the neck, fist to the chest, fist to the head. He was insane. He made rule after rule and killed all who hesitated or otherwise disobeyed him. Eventually, he'd killed so many that the clan was unsure who belonged where or how. By the time he died, there were so many dead that no one knew a thing to do. And even worse, or better, I guess. He'd killed all his own children before he died, so there was no natural heir to take after him. And so when the question of leadership came, those who remained of the main branch decided it was best to establish a council who would rule in concert. The Clan Head would be chosen from the council and would serve as a sort of tie breaking vote if the council was torn on a matter. He would also serve as the face of the clan to outsiders. That is the role my Father presently serves, and the role I intend to serve after him" She said. 

"So it passes down, then?" I asked her. 

"No. Father did not become Clan Head until after Aunt Hinori married your own Father and joined our clan. With that fact to consider, the elders decided that he would be the best choice for the position. Grandfather had never been clan head, and his father before him either." I nodded to her words. 

"But you intend to inherit" I challenged, seeing something fishy about her reasoning. 

"Well, I am your cousin. I doubt the Elders would be silly enough to overlook the Hokage's cousin". 

"Hokage?" 

"Of course. Aren't you Hokage-sama's heir?" She seemed confused. 

"Yes, to Headship over the Senju clan. Not the position of Hokage." 

"Are they not one and the same?" 

To that, I could not think of a good enough reply. She was right to an extent. I could say whatever I wished about how the position of Hokage was separate from the Senju Clan, but the fact remained that there had been two hokages in the history of Konoha, and the both of them had been Heads of the Senju Clan at the same time. Sure, I knew that Hiruzen would take the position in time, but that was yet to happen. It was also possible that it wouldn't happen. Tobirama had lived much longer than he had in canon. Who was to say that he'd end up leaving the village to Hiruzen by the time he croaked. I hesitated to say it, but I could indeed foresee a situation where Tobirama did pass down the hat to me. Especially if I became just as strong as I needed to be. 

A/N; Minor time-skip. Yes, Shorirama was in a coma for over a year. Tailed beast chakra is poisonous. Roshi was essentially cooking him from within for minutes. There had to be consequences. So I weighed up having a few months of active recovery time where he could do little and less, or a straight-up coma-skip. I chose the latter. I don't feel skilled enough to write an arc like that and maintain interest. I've never actually seen any arcs like that done well before, so that's also a factor. As I said earlier, the next chapter comes up next week or skip the wait and read the next three along with daily uploads on pa-treon. For the pa-treon, you can remove the hyphen between pa and treon and google it then search for my username- Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting in your address bar.