A Somber Event

Grandma Mito's funeral was not the spectacle you would come to expect for Konohas First Lady. It was a quite and closed knit affair. Only the main high officials like the Konoha Council and Hiruzen were present. Apart from them it was just Tsunade , Kushina, Kakuzu, and myself. Standing next to Tsunade I noticed she had a tough time looking at Kushina.

She couldn't bring herself to completely hate the girl but seeing her brought her pain. No matter how minuscule Kushinas role in the death of her grandmother it was hard to separate the girl from the matter. In an act of good faith to her grandmothers wishes Tsunade was maintaining guardianship over Kushina. The girl would want for nothing in her life but going forward she intended to create a distance with the girl until she could come to terms with things. Deep down she also saw it as an excuse to remove her from Rens immediate vicinity.

Over the past year the opposition to Ren being her husband had greatly diminished. Rens false growth he performed earlier in his life to be taller than her had proved ineffective as he had actually grown to be the false height naturally. That or the body modifications he recently performed were meant to boost his height. Rens complex on his height showed particularly with his and Gengetsus constant squabbles and jabs at one another. She wouldn't put it past him to have spent an exorbitant amount of chakra or steal a body specifically with such a goal in mind.

In most things Ren trusted her far more than he should but in matters of male ego he would be extremely secretive. When creating her strength of a hundred seal he refused to facilitate it with the use of her own chakra. It had to be his chakra due to his incessant need to be her equal. Life was a funny thing though, now she was worried her qualifications to be his wife were too low. The body modifications performed through the Earth Grudge Fear technique were outstanding.

Outstanding to the point she was opting of using the technique herself. Her desire for the technique was originally purely medical. After a thorough analysis of the technique however the immortality produced as a byproduct was something she wanted for herself. It could remedy a lot of the issues with her creation rebirth technique as well. The only demerit was the implications of using the technique implied she would have to steal people's hearts. A little demerit that could be avoided by stealing cloned hearts and body parts.

Paired with Rens Save and Load ability as he called it, Earth Grudge Fear could be a perfectly ethical technique. One that could change the world if Ren so wished. Sadly Ren would never release the technique far and wide. He never could as the hunt and effort to steal his ability would be on a worldwide scale. A level of danger they likely could not handle would accompany releasing the secret of the technique.

In truth Rens secrets had piled up to be far more terrifying assets to any village than could be measured. Ren would be immortal and soon she likely would be too. A unique little fact that while she and Ren had never fully addressed would likely lead to them not being suitable to live in Konoha any longer. An immortal life couldn't be hidden long when they lived in a village, eventually everyone would notice and the hunt would begin.

It began to make sense as to why Kakuzu was such a well hidden powerhouse. The fact Kakuzu tried to kill her grandfather was weird but the implications to his age were fascinating to a medical ninja. Kakuzu refused to call the Earth Grudge Fear techniques byproduct immortality, but he knew to keep the secrets of his long lived life in his physical prime. To maintain the secret of the fact he never aged as well as he had was quite easy when he spent his life as a bounty hunter. Kakuzu refused to admit what he had become but it was clear he knew it needed to be hidden as much as humanly possible. Such things didn't come without a detriment however as the man was clearly lonely.

The release of the technique to Ren likely had been a way to bind their lives together. It was unclear to her if it was a byproduct of being a ninja but the amount of unspoken agreements made by the two was staggering. Ren clearly knew how to abuse the Earth Grudge Fear techniques special properties so he walked into the agreement happily. Kakuzu may hide behind his greed but his desire to belong to something more again was clear. He wanted a community, a life more like the original he had in Takigakure. Naturally giving Ren the technique was a play to get back to that time in his life.

As she stared at her grandmothers grave she was formulating the plans for her future. Rens not so subtle jabs at the life of shinobi impacted her more in this moment than any other. Her grief was overshadowed by her minds effort to plan and move forward. The fact she couldn't properly grieve her grand mother was quite disconcerting. Ren was right the shinobi life desensitized the effects of even a loved ones death. This became the most apparent when her Sensei had the gall to promote the will of Fire in front of her to Kushina.

Indoctrination was nothing new to her. Everyone in the village called it patriotism but the truth was much different. The propaganda had ramped up considerably over the last few months she was here as they were preparing for the oncoming war. Manipulating the children around to begin choosing mates, to be prepared to die, to be perfectly fine with the possibility they may have to bury family or friends.

What future could a child really have in world like this? Can her and Ren even still conceive a child together with the modifications performed?

Good heavens she was thinking way too far ahead now. Then again seeing Rens figure she knew that may not be too far ahead. He was always a bit of a pervert growing up but he never made any untoward moves against her. The ever growing amount of hormones he would have in a few years meant that would soon become a rapid change.

Escorting Tsunade around the village was a somber event. Tsunade was so far out of it and as we reached the Senju/ Uzumaki compound. The sudden blush on her face when we walked in to our home really threw me off. Had she drunk at the funeral and I not noticed? Strange but not possible. Kakuzu would of cut her off if she took it too far. The role of treasurer was pretty serious to the guy.

Kakuzus transition into his new life was one of the biggest shocks I've had. The man clearly liked belonging to a group or at least having some form of structure in his life. A tiny little detail that I didn't have a chance to account for when I had the guy join me. In all honesty in my original plan he was supposed to be dead by now. Were it not for his terrible temper and his willingness to kill off teammates being a normal village ninja would be possible. Not that he would want be one anymore anyways.

Instead the man was now the manager of the Senju estate and full time bodyguard. The news I was Senju Ren and not Prince Zuko was taken quite well by him. While he may not admit it, he also seemed to like the affiliation to the Senju far more than the Daimyo. Changes to the canon in this form maybe a little overboard on my part but as long as I limit him a bit it shouldn't be that bad. Probably….