Chapter 31

The moment Sakumo closed the door to our room he gave me a pointed look that told me to seal the room and start speaking. I unsealed another one of Grandma Mito's silence seals and activated it, before turning back around.

"Wait! I want to feel good when we speak about serious stuff and I had to swim through questionable water more than a dozen times. Let me get a shower and some nice clothes first," requested Ariha with a raised hand.

"Fine, but you'll explain after we have showered," grumbled Sakumo while giving me the stinky eye. Ariha skipped into our personal bathroom and closed the door.

We waited in silence for her to finish, once she came out Sakumo got inside. Ariha had put on fluffy pyjamas and was doing her hair while waiting. She was humming a tone and looked only slightly interested in the coming explanation.

"Why aren't you as interested as Sakumo-kun?" I asked her.

"Hmm?" She turned around, smiled at me and answered. "If it were a bad thing you would have told us sooner. I think it's just one of your strange quirks or another of your hyper-advanced Chakra control training exercises."

"Thanks for the trust," I mumbled, truly feeling it before the effect got dampened down. We waited for Sakumo to finish in silence. I took a quick shower after him and only pulled on a pair of boxers before walking back out.

Ariha was now laying in her bed and making it comfortable for herself. Sakumo was sitting on a chair and maintaining his sword. The many diving we did was not exactly good for the blade.

"I know you have a nice six-pack, but why are you showing us that now?" Asked Ariha with a joking tone. I wordlessly released the almost constantly applied Genjutsu and they could see my body without the illusion. Normally I wear gloves, long sleeves and trousers to hide them, on top of the Genjutsu.

They stared wide-eyed at my almost naked body. Black intricate lines and symbols were visible all over it. A special seal now also on my stomach. It looked as if I was a tribal warrior.

"These seals, what are they?" Asked Sakumo after a long moment.

"The seals on my arms, legs, hands and feet, as well as back are Inhibition Seals, normally designed for prisoners. If activated they put a certain amount of pressure on the body and make every move harder and more taxing. Prisoners are stopped from escaping and I use them for training.

Grandma Mito has drawn them the day we became Genin and ever since I was almost always sealing part of my strength away."

"So..., how much stronger are you or how much have you sealed away?" Asked Ariha. She looked a little disappointed and angry, but not at me strangely.

"Hmm, let me put this into numbers and terms. There is strength, endurance, intelligence and reflex. Sakumo here has a reflex of 370, a strength of 250 and the endurance of 320, according to my data. My current seal would take 140 away from him in all of these attributes. He would not only be slower but also have less strength and endurance. You feel exhausted faster, do less damage with your hits and are slower to deliver them.

A normal civilian, for example, has a reflex of 10. And a Genin up to 70, everything between 70 and three hundred is usually Chunin. 300 to 500 in a single field is a special Jonin with 500 to 1000 in more than three attributes a Jonin. Don't nail me down on these numbers, but they are what I came up with to categorize my strength."

Both were now openly gaping at me. "I can keep up with some of the Special Jonin with my speed, so your numbers are close to accurate. But how fast are you really?" Asked Sakumo in bewilderment.

"Roughly at low Jonin level. If I take the same value system then my reflex would be at roughly 470," I answered again much to their shock.

Ariha let herself fall back down into her pillow and hit the bed with a short angry jell. "I thought I was catching up to you! You know Kenshiro-kun, sometimes it feels horrible to be your teammate."

"Sorry, it's something I kept hidden because it's my last line. If people think I am only this strong they will either underestimate me or don't put too much hope into me. You would have acted differently if you had known that I can give Sensei a fight," I apologized.

Ariha sat up again in a blink and pointed at me. "This, I mean right that! You are too good. You can fight Kagami-Oji, you know more about Chakra and how to train it than anyone in Konoha, you are good at planning, know how to speak and are generally hard to hate. It's as if we have Mr Perfect in our team, is there anything you can't do?"

I answered quickly and in an even tone, which gave my words even more weight. "I have trouble showing empathy. I rarely understand what people mean when they speak and either has to take their words at face value or need to fall back on memories of similar situations. I can't see if someone hates or loves me simply by their normal body language. They need to be very specific or say it directly.

I think that's why Tsu-chan is this important to me, with her, I just know what she wants and thinks. We have some strange connection, call it a twin thing, but I always know what she feels when she looks at me." It was the truth, with Tsu-chan I have less of an emotional damper as I have with other people.

Ariha grunted in frustration and hit her head against the pillow. "Did I say something wrong?" I asked Sakumo.

He smiled wryly at Ariha, before answering me. "You didn't say anything wrong itself. It's just that the way you said makes Ariha-chan the bad one if she continues. I too have noticed that you... lack in the social department. It is not obvious on the first glance, you hide it well, but whenever there are emotional grey areas or morally problematic situations during a mission you tent to fall back to our opinion.

The next time you come into the same situation you often repeat whatever Ariha-chan or I have said the last time. I think your skill in Chakra manipulation is a good reflection of your personality. They are designed to give the most results, effective and with a certain goal. You too are handling missions like that.

For example, the three Genin that had the second tablet, your clones could have incapacitated them without killing them, but instead, they killed them." I interrupted and tried to explain.

"Yeah, they could have freed themselves and then cause trouble for us or Tsu-chan's team."

"That's exactly what I wanted to say, you took the most effective route. You did not think about the Genin as people, but as an obstacle in your way. Sometimes you don't think about future consequences as well. It was the same when we had our first kills," continued Sakumo.

"I remember that day, hard to forget if it is burned into my head with the activation of my Sharingan. You were the only one of us that stayed calm. What you've said then helped me to calm down. Was that something where you fell back on memories as well?" Piped Ariha up, she hasn't sat up again and was just staring at the ceiling.

I rubbed the back of my head and tried to formulate my words. "I think it was partially. It was the truth that every Ninja should be able to live with what they do and only worry once they can't accept what they have done. I worded it in such a way that you should only kill those that want to cause harm to you. For me, it doesn't matter who I kill, as long as I got something out of it or help those I like."

They stayed silent, processing the information that I have essentially told them that I could kill babies if it benefits me. That fact had scared me when I realized that I really could. For all the time of a few seconds, then the panic and fear got calmed down to a low level. I still know and understand that I don't want to be able to, but once I am in the situation no own emotion will stop me. Gamer's Mind at its work. It was the same with dads death, I felt sad and angry, yet not at the level that I should have had. It came close, yet Gamer's Mind brought me down again and again.

"Please tell us if we do or say something that you don't understand. We want to understand you and want you to understand us, okay?" Asked Ariha with a sincere expression. I nodded slowly to show her that I will.

"You've said that most of the seals are Inhibition Seals, what are the others? I can see a clear difference with the seal on your stomach, compared to the rest," asked Sakumo then.

"Ever the observant one, ain't you?" I started with a small wry smile. "This, °sigh°, this can cause war and is only a recent addition." They looked worried but did not stop me from continuing. "Do you know what a Jinchuriki is?" I then asked.

Sakumo shook his head, but Ariha nodded. "It means Human Sacrifice. A Jinchuriki is a person with a Bijuu sealed inside them. They are said to be neigh to unkillable, have immense Chakra reserves and can be called an army of their own. Lord First had distributed the Bijuu to the main villages in an attempt to cause peace, which didn't work.

Suna has the one tails, Kumo the two and eight, Iwa the four and five, Kiri the three and six, Taki the seventh and Konoha the nine tails. No one knows who the Jinchuriki for the nine tails of Konoha is and he or she is not getting used in any missions or during the war. Which is the opposite of the other Jinchuriki, they are walking army killers and are used as such," explained Ariha for Sakumo.

"Okay, so what does that seal have to do with you? Do you want to tell us that you are the Jinchuriki of the nine tails? You would be old enough," asked Sakumo with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm not the Jinchuriki for the nine tails, that is someone else who I do know. This person is the reason why I had to learn seals from Grandma Mito, in case something happens and I have to seal the Kyuubi. No, Iwa no longer has two Bijuu," I explained.

"When?" Asked Ariha simply.

"Yesterday, you know, the guys I hugged? Each of them is a Jinchuriki. The girl of the three tails, the other Kiri Genin of the six tails and the redhead boy of Iwa has had the four tails."

"You killed the Jinchuriki of Iwa and sealed the Bijuu into yourself? Why? This is crazy! They will demand your head for this," shouted Ariha angrily. Small tears were starting to gather in her eyes.

"It was the best time and chance. Roshi, that was his name, was still 'weak' as a Genin, no control over his Bijuu. But with time he would have and Iwa does not like us, at all. I couldn't allow him to live and risk him destroying us if we get into another war with Iwa. You don't know the stories of destruction that one of the Bijuu can cause. Hashirama-Oji and Tobirama-Oji have told me and Tsu-chan about Madara and how he used the nine tails. It is not only a saying that they had to rewrite the maps after a fight against Madara and the nine tails. They really had to.

Roshi and his teammates had fallen asleep due to the moss and my clone was easily able to take him out. It then informed me about his find and I left a couple of clones to guard you, while I went out to seal it into me.

Iwa will think Kiri was responsible, it is their exam. And even if they find out, they can't demand the Bijuu back. We all signed contracts that allow us to kill each other during the exam, this includes their Jinchuriki. It is their fault for allowing him to participate.

The most they can do is send assassins to kidnap and then kill me after transferring the Bijuu. I already am a target for assassinations, thanks to my clan position. Tensions are already rising, war will happen soon. Me having the four tails won't change that. And transferring the Bijuu is something not really possible, the moment they try, my seal will explode with all of the Chakra the four tails has. It will take out their whole village, if not more."

"Still, if they find out. Couldn't you have sealed it into something? I heard you could seal them into objects," tried Ariha, she was looking at Sakumo for help, but he too did not know what to say. Their knowledge about seals wasn't very deep. At most, they knew snippets from me or how to make the basic exploding tag.

"I had no such object and I did want to have the four tails. It is said to give its user incredible control over fire and the benefits of having a Bijuu are immense. Overnight I feel as if I am a lot healthier and I think my Chakra capacity has almost doubled.

I also think the Bijuu are increasing the Jinchuriki's growth. All three of them felt too strong, they either were trained in an almost gruel form or their Bijuu allows them to grow muscles faster."

"I just worry that you have signed your own death with this stunt. How will you stop the sensors from finding out? You did find them because you could feel the Chakra of the Bijuu within them, am I right?" Asked Sakumo.

"Yes, but my seal has two forms. The current one is sealing away the whole of its Chakra, I can't use it and it can't be felt. At least not without a true master sensor. Once we are back in Konoha I will change the seal into a variation that allows me access to the four tails Chakra. No one knows who is containing the nine tails, I can easily take her or his public place."

They both nodded slowly, understanding my thoughts and slowly agreeing with me that it might work. "By the way, am I the only one that has to speak about his feelings and insecurities?" I asked jokingly.

"Well, you don't have to feel insecure about some parts of yourself," joked Ariha with a pointed look at my boxers.

"Something you want to tell us Ariha-chan~?" Sung Sakumo teasingly. Ariha got beet read and realized what she had said and implied.

"What about you Sakumo? You were pretty loud in the onsen, something you want to tell us about you and Tsunade?" Countered Ariha back with a grin.

Sakumo paled and looked slowly at me, something of my expression must have further scared him. "No, not with our resident sis-con. And I get the distinct feeling that she won't be much different than him," he then said carefully and with a constant eye on me.

"I know, hey Kenshiro-kun, does Tsunade have something against me?" Asked Ariha with a frown.

"Kinda, it's not explicitly your fault. Tobirama-Oji has told us stories about the Waring Era and was able to convince Tsu-chan that the Uchiha are a clan of Jutsu stealing and often backstabbing people," I answered with a shrug.

"Great, the leader of your own village hates you and your family. It can't get any better," cursed Ariha.

My next words proved that it could always become worse. "Both Tsu-chan and I know, eh... about, how should I say... your eyes and how to advance them beyond the three stages and even beyond that. Tobirama-Oji is very throughout with his research. It were still the warring times and the Senju needed to know."

I might not have wanted to say that, Ariha became pale as chalk and started to cry for real. "Please, don't think I would do that. I...the eyes are not worthy of the costs," she started to plead for us to understand. Sakumo was completely bewildered and looked frantically between us.

"Ariha-chan, don't cry. Sakumo-kun thinks he has done something wrong," I joked in an attempt to cheer her up. Needless to say that it didn't work.

"But, you said that you know." She began to laugh almost hysterically, further worrying Sakumo. "The Sharingan, best Dojutsu in the world, fucking curse it is. Who would want a Bloodline with such requirements?" She looked as if she wouldn't calm down on her own, so I motioned for Sakumo to go over to her and hug her.

He shook his head and gestured at me to do it. I raised an eyebrow and gestured at my lack of clothing, and yet he still refused. Stupid friend, throwing me to the wolves.

With a light sigh, I sat down next to Ariha and gave her a one-armed hug. She instantly latched onto me and started to cry into my shoulder, smearing snot and tears into me. It felt gross and I wished I could have ignored her. But that is a social thing I knew would not have been okay.

She calmed down after crying for some time and just laid on my shoulder. She didn't break the hug and also had not fallen asleep. "Since when have you known?" She asked silently.

"From the day we started the Academy. Tobirama-Oji has told us that we might have to fight with Uchiha and that we should be wary of them and why," I answered and softly went through her hair with my free hand.

"Could someone please tell me what just happened? What is so bad about your Sharingan? Isn't it a great tool?" Asked, almost pleaded Sakumo to know.

"I can't tell you, it is a clan secret. Most Uchiha would want me dead for me knowing, more than they already do," I replied and looked at Ariha. She looked up at me and her eyes were pleading me not to make her explain. "You know as well as I do that Sakumo-kun has the right to know. I have told both of you about the Bijuu and my trouble with emotions. It's your turn to come clean," I said softly.

She took a deep breath and freed herself out of my hug, yet one hand stayed rested in my own. Should I think that there may be more than friendship in her feelings for me?

I couldn't think about that stray thought further. Ariha started to explain, visibly straining herself to stay calm. "The Sharingan has three forms. The first is your basic tomoe Sharingan, from one to three. You have to feel the presence of death to awaken it. Either you feel that you will die or that someone close to you will.

The second stage, that's where it turns into a curse. It is said that you have to kill your best friend or family to awaken the next stage, the Mangekyou Sharingan," Sakumo sucked in a sharp breath and Ariha winced, before slowly continuing, "it is stronger than the fully matured Sharingan and has additional powers. Yet it also robs you of your eyesight, to prevent that you have to take the eyes of a family member for yourself.

To get more powerful with your own bloodline you have to first kill someone you love and then rob your own family of their eyesight. The Sharingan is no great tool, it is a curse. The clan thinks that the normal Sharingan is the greatest in the world, they are forcing their children through training and deadly situations to awaken it." She increased her grip on my hand. I pressed back in an attempt to signal her that I was with her.

"You are not completely correct Ariha-chan," I said.

Her head turned to me with a crack and she looked at me with wide eyes. "This is what Father has told me, the clan head. He knows about the Sharingan more than anyone," she argued. But I still denied her claim of knowing by shaking my head.

"How to get the first stage is correct, but not the second. You don't necessarily have to kill your best friend. You only need to give yourself the fault for it. You must think that you are the reason for their death. And I also think that it should be possible to exchange the eyes with your family and not leave one of them blind.

Tobirama-Oji was very throughout with his research. He found out that the acquisition of the next step changes something in the brain of the Uchiha. They will start to think differently, the change is strongly influenced by the way of acquiring the new stage.

If you get the first stage for only the reason of gaining more strength you will seek out more and more strength, which will make it easier for you to really kill your best friend to gain the next stage and then the family member for the last stage.

But if you get your first stage because you worry for someone, then you will want to protect him or her more strongly, which most often prevents the killing of the best friend.

Then, once you have the first stage and somehow gain the second, it will again change your brain. If you have done it for the strength of the eyes you will further fall into the greed for power, no longer caring whom you have to kill for more strength.

If you feel responsible for the death of the loved one you will either begin to hate yourself or will seek other reasons for her or his death. Like the village that sent him/her out on the mission that caused the situation.

An example would be this. We get sent out on a mission, you get into a fight and are losing. Sakumo now jumps into an attack that would have killed you and dies. You give yourself the fault and awakens the next step. This will then make you hate the killer even more strongly and possibly cause you to blame Konoha for Sakumo's death. He wouldn't have died without the mission.

I think the reason why your clan believes that you need to kill a friend for the second stage lies within their normal way of acquiring the first stage. You spur your own children on to become strong, to get stronger and to further prove your worth. They will often do dangerous things to get their Sharingan, to show off and to prove that they are strong. Their want for strength and need of the Sharingan to show that strength leads them on a destructive path.

Madara is the perfect example. He needed strength to survive the Warring Era, he gained the Sharingan to get stronger. This made him automatically seek more strength and even more strength. He must have known about the requirements for the second stage, just like you do, and the need for strength made him kill his best friend. The danger of the Senju made him focus his hate on my clan, instead of himself. As he needed the strength of the second stage to fight the Senju at an even footing. His brother, Izuna, was the same, both had the Mangekyou Sharingan, according to Tobirama-Oji.

Then, once they became almost blind he took the eyes of his brother. He didn't kill him like it is said in the history books. Tobirama-Oji did, it was during one of their many skirmishes, where Tobirama-Oji mortally wounded Madara's brother. When they fought the next time Madara had a new design in his eyes, he gained the last stage by taking the eyes of his deceased brother." Both were looking at me with rapt attention, but I wasn't finished, I could add one more part to the tragedy that was the Sharingan Curse.

"One of ancient Uchiha probably killed his or her best friend in a fit of rage or during training and gained the next step, thinking that this was needed to do. The brain of his or her fellow Uchiha made them think that they need more strength and so they followed the advise and killed their own best friends.

Then, at some point, one of these Mangekyou holders got an eye wound and got the eyes of someone else implanted. They quickly found out that they could now see again and began to think that they need a pair of eyes from close family. The close family ties make it more likely for the body to accept the eye, it does not need to be immediate family. Again, their brains made them crave for strength, which in turn made them more agreeable to kill their own family, rather than simply exchanging eyes.

Heh, if you think about it, we Senju are the cause for your misguided thinking. Without us and the Warring Era, you wouldn't think that you would need to kill your best friend. Without us, Madara wouldn't have become crazy in his lust for power. And without us, you wouldn't have the need to gain the Sharingan this forcefully.

So it is more I who have to apologise and not you. I was never concerned with you even thinking about killing me or Sakumo. You gained your Sharingan while protecting yourself, maybe thinking about either Sakumo or me.

So you don't have to cry or plead for us to believe you, I always believed that you would stand next to us and not with a Kunai in hand behind us," I finished and whipped a tear away from her cheek.

She hiccuped once and then threw herself at me to begin another session of crying and sobbing. I looked at Sakumo for help, only mildly aware of why she was crying again. I know that I spoke kinda corny at the end, but was it really this much?

Sakumo smiled wryly but had no advice for me.

"Well Sakumo, now you know two secrets about us. My body and Ariha-chan's most guarded secret about her Dojutsu. Anything you want to share?" I asked, more jokingly than earnestly.

Sakumo knew that I was mostly joking and reacted with a laugh. "Sheesh, no pressure right?" But then became quickly sombre and serious. "Well, there is one thing. My clan, it has its origin in the way of the samurai. As such honour is written capitally. Dishonour yourself and you have to gain your honour back or get kicked out of the clan. Most times it isn't possible to regain your honour, if that happens we are strongly encouraged to do Seppuku. If I were to fail a mission and am the reason for the failure I would have to kill myself or lose the name Hatake."

Ariha had stopped crying and was looking at him with a slightly horrified expression. "Is every clan in Konoha crazy?" She asked half-jokingly.

"Well, the Hyuuga are forcing their second born into a form of slavery to the main branch. Branch members are often wearing a piece of cloth on their forehead to hide a seal. The seal allows the main member to inflict extreme pain or even death upon the branch member. Even their newborn children get marked with the seal. The Aburama have bugs crawling through their body, the Yamanaka are constantly inside the head of each other. The bloodline of the Kurama more often than not kills their user before they mature, the Akimichi die if they don't eat so much, the Nara are so logical and intelligent that they often lack in emotions or care for others, and Sarutobi are arsonist of the highest order," I answered, much to the horror of both of them.

"What is the dirty laundry of the Senju? I mean, my clan forces its members to kill themselves, Ariha-chan's clan is prone to craziness and the Hyuuga are slavers, what have the Senju done?"

I thought about it for a moment, there wasn't really something truly horrifying about the Senju. "Well, I can't find something on the same level as the Hyuuga, psychologically changing as the Uchiha or mental pressuring as the Hatake. What might be is that we train our children the moment they can walk if the parent wants them to be a Ninja. It gets less and less nowadays. But I got my first training when I was one and Tsunade a year or so later. But that's pretty common for Ninja.

Other than that, well, we are a curious bunch. The things Tobirama-Oji does for his Jutsu or knowledge are crazy. Grandma Mito's seal experiments have once ripped open a rift into a dimension filled with hellish creatures, only the fail safe kept us from a demon invasion. And what Tsu-chan and I have done to get our medical knowledge was brutal and what we do to learn stuff we like is generally strange.

I mean my body is filled with seals that are meant for prisoners, just because I want to get stronger faster. Tsu-chan and I were operating on ourselves to learn the ins and outs of the human body. We often broke our own legs or arms to train our medical Jutsu. We even once cut each other open and performed surgery on each other to check if everything was in us like the books claimed. She almost sterilized me when we went over our reproductive organs," I laughed at the end. The good old times, what crazy shit Tsu-chan and I have done to learn about medicine was crazy and fun.

I scratched the back of my head in embarrassment. I noticed that Ariha was no longer hugging me and that both she and Sakumo were looking at me in disbelieve. "Ah, you don't have to worry. Tsu-chan is skilled and didn't leave a scar and I did stitch her back together as well." I quickly said.

"I can clearly see what he meant with unable to see social taboos or moral problems," told Ariha with a look at Sakumo, who only nodded weakly.

"Hey, Tsu-chan asked. You wouldn't be able to deny her puppy eyes as well, they are devastating. If someone with such eyes asks you to cut you open and look at your liver you lay down and help," I defended myself. Every good brother helps his sister if she has a request.

"I highly doubt that," said Sakumo in an absolutely certain way. I just shook my head at his naivety. Tsu-chan's puppy eyes are devastating.

"Wait a minute, if you can perform surgery on her, then can you do medical Jutsu as well?" Asked Ariha suddenly suspiciously.

"Eh, what no? Of course not. Tsu-chan is the genius in medical Jutsu," I hastily said and waved her off.

Her eyes narrowed. "I smell a lie. Tell us, how good are you in medical Jutsu?"

"Promise you won't tell anyone okay? I promised Tsu-chan that medical Jutsu will be her thing," I requested once I knew that they had me. Both nodded and promised to not tell anyone if not needed. "Well, I might be better at it than her. She does know more about the body and what affects it, but I am better at the Jutsus itself. I started inventing new control techniques to help her get better at them," I explained.

"A sis-con through and through. Are you even aware that you act as if you are married to your sister? Every second thought, action or word has something to do with Tsunade-hime," said Sakumo amused at the reason for my control training.

"Hey, I take offence to that. I am not sexually attracted to my sister. This is a twin thing, I can't explain it very well or describe it clearly. I just have the need to help and protect her, how is it my fault that many simply lack the skills or qualifications to do that?" I replied with a huff.

Ariha began to giggle and then laugh, soon followed my Sakumo and then me once the laughter got too contagious. At least the mood was better than before. I think this talk was good for the team, sharing secrets and fears is a good way to bond. Also to make you vulnerable, but that's something I try to ignore.