Ch168. Yuriko Yukimi

"Where to start?" Yuriko gazed at her hands while looking a bit lost.

"What about starting on how did you actually get yourself into the position of a prisoner?" Rei quipped, trying to help Yuriko find some good point to start her life-story while also making it easier for her to start talking now that she had certain guidelines and something different than her past torturous years to focus her attention on.

"Right..." Anger flashed through Yuriko's eyes as she remembered what happened to her but this anger quickly disappeared as she bit her lower lip before forcing her body to completely relax. Her eyes gained a determined glint, knowing she had to get it off her chest if she was to come to terms with those feelings.

Taking a deep breath, Yuriko slowly started, "I was a part of the now-almost-extinct Yukimi clan, the founders of Yukigakure. It was actually my grandfather who founded the village." Yuriko said a bit self-mockingly while her voice shook at the memory of her childhood.

The second Tsunade heard her, she halted for a moment and her attention almost doubled. She could not believe how similar the circumstances between them were. Looking again at the woman with slumped shoulders who was projecting a dejected aura all around herself, Tsunade could only wryly smile. She briefly wondered if she also became such a sorry sight if she didn't meet Rei.

"Since young, I lived in luxury and the only thing expected from me was to better my ninja arts. Especially my bloodline which seemed to be extraordinarily strong. Grandfather often used to say that according to the records of our clan, I am the first in two centuries to have such strong blood." Yuriko said in a sad nostalgic tone, not even knowing how many memories this evoked in Tsunade. When Rei naturally noticed it but he could only gently put his hand around Tsunade's shoulder and cuddle her closer to himself in order to give her a bit of consolation.

"Things like cooking, cleaning, and so on were not important. All I had to do was focus on developing my bloodline Jutsu, the Snow Release which is capable of absorbing the chakra of the enemy and replenishing our chakra with it among other things."

"And I guess you got curious how it works on a deeper level. That's how you learned elemental Sage Mode, isn't it?" Rei nodded. It was a possibility. After all, Hashirama's situation was not much different. If the bloodline was capable of transferring the chakra of one person and remaking it to fit another before replenishing his reserves... there simply had to be nature energy involved in that.

Tsunade's research showed that there are many bloodlines that unknowingly use nature energy in their Jutsu without even the caster noticing. For example, the Kaguya clan. Their body is very sturdy and that is because of natural reserves of nature energy it takes in. These reserves are very small and it can't really be called Sage Mode as there is no mixing with chakra involved but instead, these reserves are needed for the 'body manipulation' with which the Kaguya clan members make holes for their bones to stick out from their bodies and then seal them shut. If somebody attempted to coat their underskin with bone armor as Kaguya could, it would be a very painful experience to live with. It is only thanks to these natural reserves of nature energy that the members of the Kaguya clan do not scream in pain every time they use their bloodline and are able to use it so efficiently.

Honestly, Rei had to admit that chakra was a wondrous but also a very unknown thing in this era. No Uchiha would tell you they use and need mostly Yin Chakra for their Sharingan. Why? Because they do not know about it! They never bothered to study it that deeply. As a ninja clan, they are focusing on the development of Jutsu and do not try to understand how exactly it works. Their explanation is... It's our bloodline, duh... And that's it.

Tsunade spent a lot of time working this out with the pair of Sharingan eyes Rei bought on the black market for a literal fortune. With the Third War being barely over, one would not believe the things that he could get in the black market. Anyway, it was proof that there is more to the bloodlines than it appears at the first glance. Some bloodlines, such as Kurama, Hyuuga, not to even mention, Akimichi giant-shift bullshit, simply have to work with something stronger than the chakra of an individual. There is simply no way for a singular Akimichi to have enough chakra to be enlarged by a factor of a hundred, no matter how fat he is.

"Yes... after prodding and probing, I learned to manipulate the non-chakra energy in the air... er, Nature energy, as you called it." Yuriko gave Rei a meaningful look. For her and her clan, this energy was something new. As for Sages... she never heard of them.

"But... back to the topic." The atmosphere in the room suddenly grew downtrodden as Yuriko slumped her shoulders even more before continuing, "Since I was busy learning the ninja arts, I had no time to do menial tasks. I was given an attendant... a slave if you will." The air around Yuriko grew heavy as her killing intent involuntarily poured out of her, earning her a few raised eye-brows. Even Maki, the newest member of the group had already experienced far heavier killing intent from Yugito or Mei when they spared so this was frankly nothing but amusing. Nevertheless, they quickly understood this 'attendant' will play a crucial role in this story. Yuriko gritted her teeth before she barely restrained her anger to get the next sentence out of her. "His name... Mikado Suzufumi."

"Oh boy, I think I know where this is going..." The corner of Rei's lips twitched. "Mah~, you will be delighted to know he died by being literally backstabbed by his right-hand man and had enough time to realize what happened to suffer through the betrayal. Not the most painful of deaths but a very pathetic and enraging one indeed."

That remark created a small satisfied smile on Yuriko's lips but her face still showed a slight discontent at being unable to kill the man herself.

"I was good to him, you know?" Yuriko started in a low tone, "I never treated him like a slave. There were other slaves but he had so much freedom and his life was simply better because of me. I even allowed him to practice ninjutsu from scrolls belonging to my clan! And then... twelve years ago when our clan was not in the best shape because of the Second Ninja War, I turned my back on him after a long and exhausting fight and with a slight dull ache on the back of my head, the world suddenly grew dark." Yuriko's eyes showed exactly how helpless and bewildered she felt at this betrayal.

It was almost poetic. The man who stabbed her in her back died by being stabbed in the back by a man he trusted. Rei only barely held himself from chuckling, mostly to not seem like laughing at the distraught woman. Mei, Ringo, and Tsunade didn't have such a problem. They all chuckled, grinned, and snorted respectively which earned them a disapproving glare from Konan and Pakura.

"After that, I found myself in the underground cell we used as a prison for important people. Now, I was a prisoner in the village belonging to our clan and I had no idea how or why..." Yuriko sighed, "But Mikado came a few hours after I woke up to gloat. He actually managed to pull off a revolt. The slaves of our clan apparently didn't like that in times when people of the Land of Snow mostly starved and froze to death on a daily basis, they had a safe place, a warm bed, enough food for a minimal amount of work. Our clan, or at least most of it, never mistreated their servants as it was counterproductive but... maybe that was a mistake." Yuriko quietly said, looking conflicted and confused. It was obvious she had no idea why exactly did their servants betray them.

"Mikado said the reason why many of the Yukimi clan died during the Second War was the drugs our servants were putting into our food." Yuriko lowered her head to hide the tears that started streaming down her cheeks with her hair before she wiped them away. "Most of my family died in the war. The clan was so weakened that Mikado, who was one of the most skilled people in the ninjutsu in the village after the heavy losses the Yukimi clan incurred, was capable of killing almost everyone who could give him at least a bit of resistance. He killed them in their sleep... I should not have let him get stronger." Yuriko lamented, growing silent for a moment as her gaze grew distant.

"See? That's why you have to use Seals to put safeguards on people!" Rei burst out, nodding in agreement to himself, highly satisfied at being proven right. Only after getting a few disapproving looks from his girls did he add in a small voice, "I mean... if you want to enslave somebody, you gotta make it foolproof, no? Not that I would ever put such a failsafe on you... Hehe."

Rei... didn't realize his girls silently agreed with him and only glared at him because of how inappropriate that remark was at the moment.

Yuriko, whose mood slightly improved watching Rei getting glared at for his remark, decided to continue. On one hand, she was on the verge of breaking down, on the other, she knew it was important to not bottle it up. "It was hell for any captured member of my clan, especially women and children. Mikado especially liked me watching how he and his subordinates torture my clansmen in various ways while showing me how superior he apparently is to me." Yuriko shuddered, her thighs clamped together and her arms hugged her body as she tried to make herself seem small. "The first five years, it was pure torture and I was the last of my clan alive, living only to satisfy Mikado's vanity. It was only later he thought about creating chakra armor after a lot of experiments..."

Yuriko was now openly sobbing in between the words and Tsunade decided to cut this short. She pulled herself away from Rei and stood up before walking towards Yuriko and hugged her while whispering 'All is fine, you are no longer there.' until the woman finally calmed down.

"Yeah..." Rei slowly started when he saw Yuriko finally calm enough to listen, "I think we can wrap this up. Tsunade... would you mind showing her her room and tucking her into the bed?"

Before Tsunade could react, Yuriko almost desperately asked, "What will happen to me now?" She simply had to know what to expect as surviving being a test subject once more... she would rather kill herself.

"What do you mean?" Rei snorted in a ridiculing manner, "Do you think we will use you to create these cores? Bah, if you can do it with your bloodline, we can definitely learn it with our bloodlines or different methods. Using you is simply inefficient and insufficient! You can simply stay here until you fully recover and teach us how to do that little nifty trick of yours. After that... do whatever you want. You can leave and roam the world or join my new village. It will be up to you." Rei nonchalantly shrugged. He had no intention of holding Yuriko against her will after he learned how to create batteries working on nature energy from her. The Silence Seal was on her the second she stepped through the portal so Rei was not afraid of her talking about Uzushio or his group.

After all, as Yuriko's life-story proved right, safety measures were EXTREMELY important.