Chapter 4: Uzumaki clan's questionable origins

"One more time Ryuuji!" Kushina shouted as she completed a set of hand signs.

"Yes!" Ryuuji nodded and started to knead his chakra, focusing on gathering it around his arm, it was a difficult process and the purpose behind it wasn't simple.

Kushina hit the floor with her hands and the ground started to lift slightly, soon a cylindrical rock 1 meter tall and with a circumference of just 30 centimeters had been erected at the middle of the training ground. "Now!" She shouted.

Ryuuji roared as he jumped towards the object Kushina created with Earth release, as his fist touched the rock, there was a slight delay of less than a second, and the pillar exploded in many fragments.

Seeing this Kushina nodded to herself and walked towards the kneeling Ryuuji who had tears in his eyes and was clutching his hand.

"See? I told you that your chakra control wasn't good enough to try this yet." Kushina sighed as she gave him that look...

Ryuuji looked at her with teary eyes but said nothing, so what if he wasn't ready? He wanted to get stronger! He wanted to become powerful to protect the people he loved just like Musasabi Naruto! He might be a child but he could feel the lingering despair in the air just like any other, it made him scared, it made him feel something in his heart that he couldn't understand.

"So what!? I don't care! Humph!" With the tears falling from his eyes, Ryuuji turned his back towards her and massaged his hand that was pulsating from the pain of the punch he had just made, not like it would solve the problem though... the knuckles of his fist were completely red, a single look was all it took to notice how the skin was ripped off from the hand around there leaving the meat of the hand visible.

Kushina was about to crouch and help him with the little medical ninjutsu she knew, but before she could though, she opened her eyes wide.

"WHAT!?" Noticing what was happening right in front of her eyes, she couldn't help but hold his hand and watch closely!

Ryuuji himself didn't notice as he entered a mysterious state, his mind had completely dozed off as a calming sensation pulsated from his heart and spread to every single cell of his body, each pulse sending a wave of energy that made his body relaxed to the point he couldn't even feel his muscles, this wonderful feeling extended again, and this time he felt like he knew everything around him, he couldn't tell how far he could know everything, but it was at least until the training ground 32 that was a few dozen meters away from him.

When that sensation stopped, Ryuuji's consciousness recovered and he stared towards his hand with a stiff expression on his face. "W-what!? How did it heal already!? What is this mist coming from my hand!? Am I melting!?"

Kushina had no time to answer as Ryuuji quickly hugged her and started crying.

"Aunt Kushina! Buah! I don't want to die! I don't want to melt!"

Noticing how he was wetting the blue shirt that she usually wore underneath the flack jacket with tears, she quickly hugged him and tried to calm him down. "Relax, relax, Ryuuji... It's okay, you don't have to fear what's happening with you... this is normal..."

Ryuuji sniffed a few more times before calming down and looking at her with a question in his eyes.

"Ryuuji, you're actually very lucky... this ability is even rarer than the one I have inside the Uzumaki clan..."

Hearing this Ryuuji blinked his eyes in confusion before asking. "Aunt, does this have anything to do with what I just saw?"

"Did you see something!?" It was Kushina's time to be startled.

"Um... it felt like I knew everything around me even if it was far, but it felt grey... although some things were blue?" Ryuuji frowned and lowered his head trying to remember that feeling, only to unknowingly activating it again, entered that dazing state for a few seconds, he shook his head before spilling some blood and falling on his back.

Kushina who was already at his side, quickly grabbed him and rushed to her house, she would have to look into her Uzumaki Fuinjutsu Scroll to confirm something, after all, the secrets of the Uzumaki clan were all stored there, but they went much further than just talking about fuinjutsu, it also had data regarding every known ability related to the Uzumaki clan.

Once she got inside her house, she first used the technique that the Slug princess herself had taught her, the 'Mystical Palm Technique' to make sure his body was okay and healed, before rushing to the small safe covered by three similar seals overlapped, a personal creation that still needs improvements which she called Twelve Trigrams Sealing Style, it wasn't stable enough to seal a living being yet, but it could definitely be used to make something locked for pretty much forever!

After lifting the seal she took her scroll. There was another seal on it, the same variation of the Four Symbols Seals that was on Ryuuji's scroll, it could even be considered the most secret branch of fuinjutsu techniques that the Uzumaki created in the shadows, one that could manipulate blood even further than the usual summoning techniques...

Cutting the tip of her finger using her teeth, she let a drop of blood fall on top of the seal and quickly healed her wound using medical ninjutsu, once the seal was lifted she opened the scroll up till the end. After reading through it for a while she snapped her fingers and ran to grab a notebook and pen.

In it, she wrote: [... Despite not being called Kekkei Genkai, the outstanding abilities granted by the Uzumaki blood are far too mysterious for it to be called normal. The elders had looked up the information regarding our origins but not much that wasn't known before was found.

Sure, we are descendants of the Sage Of The Six Paths, but we don't believe the true origins of our bloodline lies just in there, and that's where the Sage Continent comes into the story. I, Uzumaki Toru assure you that all the information here is true, incomplete but true, it revolves around something our ancestors called 'Real chakra', and what was later referred to as 'Fruit-corrupted body.'

The ancient registries found could be barely translated but what we managed to understand was that, before the Chakra we know of actually came to exist, humans in the furthest reaches of the world had managed to learn how to wield the power of life, Natural Chakra, according to then, the development of original chakra control techniques were based on the observation of nature and the beings that lived surrounded by it, toads, tigers, hawks... Once mastered they would change the body on a fundamental level, causing the birth of something they called, Blood Blessings, which were then passed on with each child that was born.

Apparently, before the calamity befell on the inhabitants of the Sage Continent, they even came to discover that our bodies were governed by the concept of Yin and Yang, with Yin being the soul, and Yang the container of the soul, and that using chakra was what caused the Harmony of Yin and Yang to shift and adapt once someone became strong enough.

Based on this, we came to the conclusion that the following abilities: 'Mind's Eye of the Kagura', 'Vitality Replenishment Physic' [1], and 'Heavenly Mandate Chains' [2]; were all acquired prior to the existence of Chakra, and that our clan actually merged with the Senju at some point before separating again, we are not the ones make using of their bloodline, they are the ones making use of ours...

Well, this is all speculation, the data we have might be several thousand years old and although it matches our understanding of the facts, there's no way to know whether or not that is the fact or something made up by an ancestor, after all, there's nothing else in the world that mentions the Sage Continent, or Natural Chakra. Other than that, below is the methods of training, precautions, and side effects of each of the main abilities within our bloodline.

...

]

After reading everything, Kushina couldn't help but gulp, if this was correct, didn't that mean that Ryuuji inherited everything the Uzumaki blood had to offer? Even though that did seem to be the case, she couldn't confirm anything yet, after all, it didn't mention anything regarding the ability to suppress Biju chakras...

Shaking her head, she went back to see how Ryuuji was, and contrary to her expectations, he was soundly sleeping on the sofa, giggling at his behavior, she brought him into the guest's bedroom and put him on the bed before covering Ryuuji with a blanket.

The next day, Ryuuji was startled seeing where he was, rushing out towards the kitchen, he saw Kushina lazily eating some fruit and asked.

"Aunt! What happened yesterday?!"

"Eh? You blacked out because you exhausted most of your chakra while using a special ability of our clan." Kushina laughed at him for being worried over such a small matter before throwing a green fruit that had a reflective surface towards him.

"What's this?" Ryuuji lifted the fruit to look at his own reflex with curiosity.

"It's called apple, you should eat it, it's good for the body."

He nodded and quickly ate the fruit, before he could ask about what training they would do today, a man wearing a mask with red strokes that resembled a Neko (cat) appeared inside Kushina's house.

"Kushina-sama!" Neko kneeled and lowered his head but didn't wait for her to react. "Lord Sandaime requests your assistance in the battlefield at Kusagakure to assist in the treatment of the injured."

"What!? Why am I being drafted to the war!? Could the situation be that bad?" Kushina's heart sank hearing Neko's words, based on what the old man had told her, a situation where she would be summoned to assist in any war was very unlikely to happen...

"Lord Sandaime asked me to explain to you Konoha's current situation... Kumogakure, Sunagakure, Iwagakure, and Amegakure are all fighting Konoha... currently, we have four different main battlefields, and theres' no telling whether or not Kirigakure will also join forces against Konohagakure.

"This time, even the patriarchs of the Hyuga clan and Uchiha clan are fighting personally, everyone has let behind their grudges to help because the situation is dire, right now, the strongest shinobi in the village beside the Hokage are the few members of the Ambu and root, they were all here to protect the village against possible invaders..."

Kushina hearing those words couldn't help but tremble at the thought of how dangerous it must be for Minato and his team right now, she never considered it before, but the possibility of someone she held dearly in her heart dying in this war was actually possible!

"What about Ryuuji? I can't leave him here alone!"

Neko looked at Ryuuji, seeing the small kid whom he had been taking care of till recently, the son of his deceased best friend who allowed him to bring back the most crucial information for the preparation of this war, he sighed and said as determination appeared in his face.

"The Hokage gave me permission to help you take care of him on the battlefield if you choose to go, I'll be acting as his personal bodyguard."

Hearing his words, Kushina couldn't help but take another look towards Neko, he was like the left hand of the Hokage and even though he had such status he was willing to protect Ryuuji? Thinking that there was something fishy in this story, she decided to probe him later, but right now it wasn't time for that. Turning her head towards Ryuuji, she kneeled in front of him and gave him a hug.

"Ryuuji... I'm sorry, but I'll have to take you with me... if possible I didn't want you to see the battlefield, but this will be good for you, you might end up learning a valuable lesson about what truly means to be a Shinobi..."

Ryuuji gulped and nodded, his hands were trembling but he steeled the resolve in his heart, he wouldn't back away from this, as a future shinobi, he had to face everything with courage even if he felt fear! Just like Musasabi Naruto said!

______

Footnotes

1: Besides all the original stuff I created for the Uzumaki clan in this chapter, this thing refers to the same ability that Karin has shown, to use chakra in order to heal injuries, you can look up the Uzumaki clan in the official fandom (narutopedia) and there will be more information regarding this there.

2: This is basically how the ancestors of the Uzumaki clan used to call the Adamantine Sealing Chains. What Kushina doesn't know is that the Adamantine Sealing Chains as the name suggests is already a kind of natural sealing chakra produced by the members of the Uzumaki clan, the main difference is the purity of the chains for this fic's universe, with common members possessing, silver-colored chains, and those like Mito (Uzumaki Mito, the wife of Senju Hashirama, former Jinchuriki of the Kyubi), Kushina, Karin (someone from the future who was yet to make an appearance), and Ryuuji possessing golden ones, also, if you didn't notice from I what I told, Karin also inherited the three main abilities of the Uzumaki clan, just to a level slightly bellow that of Ryuuji just because...