[5] History of the Senjus

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Chapter 5: History of the Senjus

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The next day, King Cobra ran to the Senju house after hearing the news. Needless to say he was pretty shocked after witnessing the green vines and trees that stood out from the otherwise sandy area.

He was baffled.

Cobra's mind raced to figure out who caused this— knowing it was either of the Senju siblings, and how he could use this opportunity for the advancement of Alabasta.

The country's currently facing a great catastrophe with the most severe drought in decades. The land was growing too dry for people to cultivate crops or even gather water. At this rate, the country will be in ruin in the upcoming few years.

That problem could easily be fixed if forests suddenly appeared around the entire country, bringing rain clouds from all over the sea and therefore fixing the dry land in a matter of weeks.

Preparing his mind, Cobra went and met Tsunade and Hashirama, and after talking with them for a bit, he was surprised to find that— unlike how he had expected, this wasn't Tsunade's doing. He was speculating that perhaps she had created a medicine that could cultivate trees, given she was a talented doctor, but it seemed to not be the case.

It was Hashirama, the kid, who had supposedly eaten a devil fruit that allowed him to do what he did.

This boy could create trees at will. Just the sheer help that power could provide the Kingdom was incalculable…

Cobra almost wanted to have Vivi marry him to make him chained down to Alabasta on an emotional level. Except he loved his daughter and would never sell her to marry for political reasons. But he damn well didn't hate the idea if Vivi agreed as well. But that's for later, maybe when she's old enough.

For now, he offered something else.

"So let's get this straight. We get the rank of Nobility in exchange for helping the Kingdom by creating forests all around it?" The boy, once again speaking beyond his age, asked as Cobra nodded. "Ahh… no thanks. The rank of nobility doesn't interest me. Though you can treat me like a sort of mercenary, similar to Sir Crocodile, except instead of how he keeps the country safe from pirates, I will keep it safe from drought. Good enough?"

Cobra gulped as he decided what sort of payment the boy would want for this job of "mercenary".

"Well," this time, his older sister spoke, making Cobra a bit more comfortable. "You can just pay us with money, better living quarters, and a personal training centre similar to the Marines. Is that fine enough, Shira?"

Cobra sighed in relief as the boy considered for a moment before nodding.

"Not the worst thing possible."

With that, it was decided that the boy will become the country's ultimate saviour.

* * *

It had been two years since then. Tsunade had successfully become a Doctor, and had a high paycheck too now that the Kingdom was far more stable than the last few years due to Hashirama's magical work.

Hashirama was 10 years old now, and today was his birthday. But that wasn't the most important thing today because his sister had finally decided to tell him about their past.

"So I think it's about time you learn about it, now that you are old enough," Tsunade said, sitting on a couch in front of him with her legs crossed. "Honestly, I would have waited until you were a bit older, but you are very mature for your age— probably due to your prodigal genetics, so I guess it's fine."

Hashirama silently nodded and allowed her to continue.

"We are a part of the Senju Clan, the last remaining members of it, and as far as I know the last descendants of the Uzumaki bloodline as well. As we are grandchildren of Tobirama Senju and Mito Uzumaki."

It was just the start, yet Hashirama almost choked on air.

Tobirama and Mito? Whoa.

"Both the Senju and Uzumaki derive from the land of Samurais that is the Wano Country. In fact, both these clans originated from a single clan a very long time ago, and had the family tradition to marry amongst one another. However, the Senjus left Wano a few centuries ago, while the Uzumakis stayed." Tsunade said. "As you can probably guess, the reason why our grandfather married our grandmother was because he theorised only the mixed bloodline of Senju and Uzumaki can create a child with Wood Release. Because no other Wood Release user was born since the time of the Senju Clan leaving Wano, which had cut the marriage tradition between these two clans."

"Since that time, the Uzumaki clan's population started to decrease slowly, the birth rate was falling lower than the death rate. A few decades ago, less than a dozen Uzumakis remained, so our grandmother, the then leader of the clan, Uzumaki Mito, left Wano with the rest of the Uzumakis in search of the Senjus. She theorised that the previous marriage tradition between these two clans had created a synergy between them for generations that reacted negatively when they married someone of another clan.

Turns out, she was right.

Because when she did find the Senjus, with the entire clan then going by the name of Senju Pirates, and convinced grandfather to marry her, they had lots and lots of children in the upcoming few years.

…Except due to being pirates, having so many children in a ship wasn't the best idea."

An eerie silence fell on the room as Hashirama absorbed her words, nodding, and allowing her to continue.

"The Senju Pirates, who were somewhat famous a couple of decades ago, had many enemies, both Pirates and Marines alike, who took the opportunity of the vulnerable crew members to attack us and therefore killing many of us. Grandfather was a stubborn old fool though, so he didn't accept grandmother's suggestion of quitting life as a pirate even after that. Which in the end led to the disbanding of the Crew after grandfather and grandmother died while protecting us from a marine attack, led by an admiral.

Our parents were one of the lucky ones who managed to survive and form a small merchant business that travelled from island to island to sell goods.

Over the years, we heard the news of every other of our relatives dying, in one way or another. Some got found out by the marines, some got targeted by old enemies. For that reason, we were planning to leave the Grandline after your birth, as we didn't want to die like them.

Yet, that's when that… fateful night struck and all our plans were down to the water."

Tsunade's eyes were watery by then. She barely held in and she gulped in a sigh.

"The attackers weren't a pirate crew we knew from before, so it wasn't revenge. It was just your usual pirates, attacking ships for money and women. Unfortunately, it was the day of your birth so we were very vulnerable, and the only fighters of the ship weren't enough to hold against the attackers, which resulted in the total annihilation of our family, and consequently the last members of both the Senju and Uzumaki clan, excluding you and me."

Tsunade finished, falling silent as a solemn look appeared on her face. Her eyes were red as she looked at him, unblinking.

"What's the name…" Hashirama, who was silent until now, finally said something. "...of the pirate crew who attacked us? Don't tell me you're gonna hide that from me after telling me so much else."

"..." From her expression, Tsunade did seem to be planning on doing that. But in the end, she just sighed. "The… Donquixote Pirates. You may have heard of them, the crew's Captain became a Warlord of the Sea just a few weeks ago."

"...Yes, I heard of him." Hashirama went silent. "Sister, you want revenge?"

What sort of question was that? The colour of her eyes alone answered that question. Hashirama himself didn't feel much about this, given he knew none of the people who died, but still— it was his biological family of this world. Moreover, Doffy made his sister live with this extreme helplessness and anger eating her from the inside out. He needed to pay.

"Alright," Hashirama nodded, even before she could answer his question verbally. "It will be hard, he's pretty strong given he did become a Warlord. But I guess you don't mind waiting until both you and I grow strong enough to challenge him. Since you managed to wait 10 long years, you can wait a bit more."

"I-... Yeah, that's right. I am willing to wait." She said, quickly wiping her eyes and looking back at him again. "Anyway, that's the only thing you had to ask? Nothing else? Like, where is Wano?"

"Uh… yeah, that's right, where is Wano?" He said quickly, making her giggle aloud.

"It's alright, you don't have to pretend. I can tell you have no interest in that, and I don't have enough knowledge of that place myself, just stories from Grandma." Tsunade said. She then walked over to him, leaning closer and pressing her forehead with his. "Now that the story is done, it's about time I give you a birthday gift. Fuinjutsu. It's a sort of complicated drawing that uses special ink and a combination of chakra movements to create seals."

Essentially, "Fuinjutsu" wasn't something unheard of in this world of One Piece. To its core, Fuinjutsu was similar to the technique— used by Baroque Works's Miss Goldenweek— [Colours Trap]. Except since Fuinjutsu was utilised by Chakra and that technique probably wasn't, the effects of the former should be far beyond the latter.

"Sorry, I actually know very few of these techniques. Because I just lazed around and refused to learn most of the time when grandma tried to teach me those. Thought I will always have time to learn later…" her voice went low once more before she quickly cleared her throat. "But I will teach you each and every one of the ones I know of, okay baby? With [Strength of a Hundred Seal] as the starting jutsu." She pointed at the rhombus-luke shape on her forehead. "This diamond thingy, basically. Sorry, I didn't explain when you asked before, I thought you'd be too interested in it and want to learn, but there is an appropriate age and chakra level for this that you didn't have back then."

When he nodded, not finding it in himself to be mad at her, she continued speaking with a smile. "This seal here stores chakra, a lot of it, over time. For emergency use when you run out of your chakra and or are feeling very tired and drained in a situation where you need energy. When activated fully though, it grants the user a great Regeneration Speed, though I doubt you'd need that."

She watched his reaction before smiling.

"On top of that, as the name suggests, it boosts your strength." Her smile grew cheeky. "Which means, no girl will be able to forget your strength after spending one night~ they must be so jealous of me."

"Please shut up." Hashirama frowned. "You are too deprived of male attention, to say that to your own younger brother. I suggest you get yourself a man already. You are 26."

"..." Tsunade lowered her head as her eyes lost their light. "Can't you be a bit more gentle with your words? You are hurting my self-confidence."

"No."

"..."

"You should get yourself a man."

…Rather than listening to his words though, she insisted he slept with her tonight to compensate for hurting her.

What could he do to the much larger woman? In the end, he had no choice but to become her body pillow once more.

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