Hmmokie: Great idea! I actually considered it for a while, but you can see the course I decided on.

Benshai: I feel you, for I am the same. And I do try to keep in mind character growth so hopefully I will not disappoint!

PepperonyOwl/ChloeMika: Thanks! I hope you keep enjoying.

La Marabouteuse: I have kept the work on her summons mostly at the background waiting for a moment of high tension for the reveal. Hopefully I am not too cruel with the cliffies.

vonGrimm: Thanks! I do try, but its nice to have it acknowledged.

thewhiteangel213/garneauyoann: Thank you!

Seo: Thank you, and I try. I'm going through dark times myself, and I do not usually review on what I read, so I understand.

Blackjack: I absolutely agree, and a small arc is already in the works adressing exactly that.

'What a mess'

Hiruzen Sarutobi, Konoha's third Hokage, the god of shinobi, the legendary professor, teacher to the 3 legendary sannin, student of the second hokage himself. He had seen a lot of what the world has to offer. Has seen nations be born, nations be destroyed, incredible geniuses that fail to live up to their potential, and apparently good-for-nothing jokes that reach S-rank. The creation of jutsus so unthinkable they defy reality. Hell, he had seen 2 world wars, leading the second one and even part of the first.

As such, it could be said that Hiruzen had way more experience than most, even when he was younger.

But even with all he had seen, there were some things he detested witnessing. And the loss of innocence was one of them.

Granted, there was not much he could do about this since the academy pumped out child soldiers at a regular rate, but even then, he always made sure to give them the most time he could before they would have to face the grim reality of what it means to be a ninja. Still, sometimes it was out of his hands.

He had always been keeping tabs with the youngest Uzumaki, of course, as was his duty. There were only two Uzumaki left that they knew of, and they both were in his village. One was the jinchuriki of the Kyubi no Yoko, which made her valuable by default. But, ever since Mito had informed him of the prodigious talent Akane had for the sealing arts, even among the Uzumaki, his interest in her skyrocketed.

Sealmasters were scarce, Konoha only having two at the moment, and with the inheritance Mito left, she would surely reach mastery by Uzu standards, which would put her above even Jiraiya and himself. Such a degree of proficiency would surpass the designation of sealmaster and would probably coin a new level. Maybe seal grandmaster? Or grandmistress, as would be the case.

But apart from her talent in sealing, she had also demonstrated a single-minded approach to training that would make even the most committed of shinobi feel inadequate. She did nothing but train in one way or another. Pushing her body to the brink of destruction, all to start again the next day. He would be challenged following the same schedule, even without his many other responsibilities.

However, even with all the effort she put in training, she never seemed to progress adequately, always scoring at the middle of the pack. Hiruzen had thought it was for the best at the time. Better she became a member of the barrier corps instead of an active shinobi since it was clearly where her talents laid.

He was, for the first time in a while, proven wrong.

He had been surprised by her application to participate in the graduation exam, but he allowed it, as it would only make placing her in the support ranks easier. He never even considered she would pass, taking into account her middling performance and the years she had left to cover.

When he received the report of the 'true' extent of Akane's abilities, he was beyond impressed. Flawless in everything she did for her current level, apparently. The only aspect of the shinobi arts she held no obvious talent for was genjutsu, but he suspected otherwise. When she graduated, he had been in a conundrum between allowing her obvious combat talents to develop or following her initial plan of nurturing her sealing talent. He genuinely did not know what to do.

Only to get the surprise of his life when a flying paper crane of all things entered his office and unfolded itself, informing him of a kidnapped shinobi. He sent an anbu squad, hoping for them to be enough to solve the situation, only to receive the report the kidnappers were already dealt with when they arrived. By an eight-year-old, fresh out of the academy genin. Not only that, but she also killed 4 chunin, 1 jonin, and captured another jonin.

That was a significant leap of her already demonstrated capabilities, so the decision to have her develop her combat talent was made. He still wanted to get a feel for her personality, however, and took advantage of the debriefing of the incident to get it. Between Kushina, Minato, and Akane's accounts, the picture did not look pretty. Infiltration and kidnapping? It was very worrying, but as the problem had been solved, he decided to only put pressure on the Raikage by doubling the patrols in the routes between his land and the land of fire. He thought it was enough.

At first, he was impressed by Akane's professional demeanour, but only really elevated her bearing in his opinion when she withstood the undivided attention of himself, Jiraiya, his 3 advisors, and a room full of anbu without faltering in the slightest.

She was a very good seedling, in his opinion.

Only to have her practically publicly condemn him for not retaliating against Kumo.

He understood her position, he really did. She watched her village get destroyed by an alliance including Kumo, and then the only link she had to her family was almost taken by them again. Of course she would want retribution, it was just natural. What he did not expect was the vehemence with which she argued her case, in front of some of the most influential members of the village, no less. And when he made his opinion clear to her, well, she did not take it with aplomb.

He had, never in all his life, experienced that much pressure from a normal jonin, let alone an eight-year-old genin. And the way her chakra lashed out on stages only showed the ridiculous amount of chakra control she had. That, coupled with her chakra reserves which dwarfed most of his jonin, made her one of the future pillars of the village.

And then she expressed thoughts that could be considered treasonous.

The fact that she had deduced Kushina's burden by herself and broke down how little they had to risk if a war actually broke out in a way even a toddler could understand also made it clear she was intelligent enough to know how those words would be taken, which meant she was either actually considering deserting, or she, knowing her own value, was putting pressure on him to retaliate.

Honestly, he did not know which option was worse.

That she negligently incapacitated one of his anbu that approached her from her blind spot in the middle of a rage was another alarm bell for her potential, which only made this situation even more complicated. Honestly, he understood the girl, but she would have to be watched, if not for any other reason than that it was protocol to watch any of his shinobi when they presented a mental state similar to what she showed.

Still, that would not be enough for everyone, which was the main reason for his weariness. As he observed his livelier student, his former teammates, and his anbu captain, he could not help but sigh again.

'This really is a huge mess.'

"Well, that was… interesting." Jiraiya broke the silence.

"As out of line as the girl was, Hiruzen, she was right." Danzo spoke up. "We can take the advantage if we act right now. War is not a desired outcome, but not one we would shy from." His other teammates nodded.

"We are not risking it, Danzo." He sighed. "That's final." Reluctantly, his old rival nodded.

"What about the girl herself?" Koharu asked. "What she showed…"

"Indeed." Danzo spoke up. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Hiruzen, but was her chakra not as oppressive as my own?" He quirked the corner of his lips, seemingly amused.

"To have that presence at such a young age…" Jiraiya spoke. "She could be either the best thing to ever happen to us, or a disaster in the making." He mused, to which his teammates nodded.

"She should see a Yamanaka, at least." His anbu commander spoke up. "Her mental state is obviously off, so we should hold up in assigning her team."

"It won't matter." Danzo spoke up. "People with those eyes, they won't ever stop until they get to their goals. If you don't assign her a team, instead of waiting for the personal instruction of a jonin, she would join the genin corps, get everything she can from them, and move up the ranks by herself." Opinion given, he stood up to leave. "One way or another, she will be a very interesting shinobi."

After Danzo and his other teammates left, Hiruzen only had one more question he needed to ask. "Could you take her on your team, Jiraiya?" His student nodded.

"Probably. But I really think you should get a Yamanaka to look at her." He spoke. "Just from that little outburst it's obvious the girl's unstable. If I were you, I wouldn't allow her to get a team until her head is all fixed up. But given that she already graduated…" He shrugged.

"I see." He responded. "Thank you Jiraiya, that would be all."

He needed to sort everything out this week before team assignments happened. And as much as he hated to admit it, the girl indeed was too unstable to become a shinobi if she could react that way in front of her commanding officer, no matter how much stress she was under.

"I'm sorry?" I asked the academy sensei of the graduating class once he finished assigning teams and asking me to follow him, where he proceeded to tell me the most idiotic thing he could have told me.

"The Hokage deemed you mentally unfit for service. As such, you must attend mandatory therapy for a period no shorter than 6 months until your therapist deems you fit to join the shinobi forces." He calmly told me. I tilted my head.

"Am I not already a shinobi?" I asked, signalling to the headband I now wore as a necklace. He nodded.

"Yes, you are. However, this is a special provision that is occasionally used. As the students who get a jonin sensei are the cream of the crop, you must be in perfect shape, this includes mentally. Since you are a very promising shinobi, but the hokage also considers you need help, you are being withheld from a team until such a time as your therapy has finished." I hummed and nodded.

Seriously, I had not anticipated this to happen, because what the fuck? Still, I suppose unforeseen circumstances are something we all have to deal with now and then. Actually, this works for me. No sensei to hide things from, no teammates to hold me back, this was a perfect opportunity for me.

"Thank you, but that will not be necessary. I will go register my file with the genin corps and begin my duties there." I bowed a little and left while the sensei was still flabbergasted.

After all, who would decline a jonin sensei even if it was at the cost of 6 months of therapy?

Still, that fit me like a glove.

Usually, the genin corps was a place where dreams go to die. About half of the genin that went there never moved ranks, with the other half reaching chunin at most. As a matter of fact, there are very few jonin that came from the genin corps. A number of 1 for every 200 seems generous. The main reason was the lack of teachers. You cannot improve if you do not know how to, after all. This was, for me, a non-issue. And since I would have no direct superior, I could take missions at any pace I wanted, as long as I took the mandatory one per week.

That meant I had a lot of time free for training. And since I was close to reaching a major breakthrough in my chakra capacity, I wanted nothing more but to train.

The face of the Hokage once he summoned me to his office in an attempt to have me get therapy and I repeatedly rejected him and a jonin sensei in favour of the shinobi corps was priceless. Hell, he even offered to halve the time I would have to attend it for, and yet I still refused. His defeated form once he realized I would not change my mind was priceless. He probably thought he had ruined the career of a promising shinobi.

Heh, sucker.

My progress in the last three months stagnated a little other than my ridiculous progress in chakra reserves. I had reached S-rank in that regard, which was the bare minimum to attempt to do what I was about to do. Other than that, discounting the jutsu I stole while watching other shinobi train, I really did progress little, but it would all be worth it.

Right now, I was in the middle of the forests of fire country, surrounded by trees. I had killed every bandit and enemy shinobi that I felt with My Kagura's Mind Eye, so I was confident of my solitude. As for the reason? Well, what I was about to do required intense concentration and a place with abundant natural energy.

This was a project that had been in development during my past few lives. It all started with the Sage Body; a constitution often found in certain clans which made the use of natural energy almost trivial. Some even constantly and unconsciously drew said energy into their bodies for years, reinforcing them massively.

As such, why is it that not one of the summoning clans thought of something similar to this? Well, the answer was simple, really. Those clans were so in sync with their particular form of sage mode due to the similarities between them that it was unnecessary for them to reinforce their bodies with natural energy since they could be almost endlessly in sage mode. That was why this took me so much time to figure out.

Actually, the only way I actually managed to do it was with the blood, tissue, and chakra samples I obtained from baby Hashirama to ones I took from grown Hashirama my last life. By comparing the differences and similarities between them, I managed to figure out how exactly the natural energy interacted with the body and such.

As I lay starkers in the middle of the forest while my clone finished up the seal array in my body, I took deep breaths, preparing myself for this endeavour.

Honestly, if I did not have the ample experience I have in sage mode and feeling natural energy, this would be a fool's errand, since I would need the seal to absorb and distribute through my body just enough of the stuff to completely saturate my full body, but not enough for it to mix with my chakra so it creates natural chakra, which is the fuel of sage mode.

It would also, according to my speculations, be a painful and elaborate process at the beginning, which was why I had taken 10 consecutive missions last week, giving me 10 weeks of free time to figure this out.

As the ink was done drying, I dispelled my clone and sat down on a meditative position. With a single handseal and a burst of chakra, the array started to glow and compress itself until all that remained was an intricate circular seal right over my heart, which connected directly to the gate of death.

As soon as the seal connected with it, I concentrated on the natural energy surrounding me and made sure to take a small but constant stream of the stuff and direct it towards the seal, which was waiting for the energy it was supposed to funnel. Once the connection was made, I only had to keep the natural energy flowing for a few seconds until I felt the seal started to take it in autonomously.

After a few minutes passed and I could feel the natural energy moving in my body, I took control of it and started to disperse it homogenously all over my body. It was a balancing act, to be sure, since I needed to make the natural energy stay all over my body until the seal recognized how it was supposed to distribute it, and that would only happen when my body was saturated. Until then, I had to manually move all the natural energy entering my body to the right place, so the balance was not broken.

So concentrated was I in my task, I did not notice how long it took for the natural energy to completely flood my body, but I noticed the moment it did.

The seal started absorbing absurd amounts of the essence of the world and moving it all where it was supposed to go, being all over my body. It was different than when I did it, however, since it not only stayed there, but with the new influx of the stuff it completely permeated every cell of my body.

Bones, muscles, skins, organs, even my chakra network. I could feel every part of my body on fire. Like it was being destroyed and reconstructed multiple times. It was painful, true, but not as painful as I expected. The hard part was in keeping my concentration through the pain so I could make sure it saturated my body entirely.

For 3 days I stood in that patch of forest. Naked, and absorbing natural energy until my body could not take anymore. I felt something shift about my body and perception. It was like my connection to the world itself was strengthened. I could feel natural energy way more keenly than before, and I could feel my body through it. I could clearly feel my saturated body constantly strengthening itself. Little by little, my bones became harder, my bones denser, my chakra network wider, and my chakra itself more refined, denser, and more responsive to me.

I stayed still observing the changes my body went through for a couple of days, until the strengthening became so slow it was barely noticeable. Once I opened my eyes, what greeted me was impressive. Every leaf I could see was much clearer than I had ever experienced without my sharingan active. Out of curiosity, I activated my sharingan and detachedly noticed what I could see was now comparable to my sight using the mangekyou, and so I activated my eye's evolution.

I inhaled sharply.

The strain that my eyes usually suffered when my mangekyou sharingan activated was gone. Not reduced, not unnoticeable, but completely gone.

As a matter of fact, the vision and feeling on my mangekyou sharingan was even better than my experiences with the eternal mangekyou sharingan. But why?

'Of course, I have a sage body now.'

I wryly smiled. The mangekyou sharingan placed a great strain in the user's eyes, mainly because of the huge amount of chakra that was forced to circulate through the optic nerve. Once an eternal mangekyou sharingan was obtained, though, that problem disappeared because the eyes you now had were saturated in foreign chakra which was slowly eroded and replaced by your own over a period of time. Because of that flood of chakra used to 'adapt' the new eyes for the user's chakra, the optic nerves were strengthened. Depending on how close the chakra compatibility was between the user and the person whose eyes you were implanted, the harder your body would work to replace that foreign chakra, which reinforced the optic nerve to an even greater degree. This was the secret of the eternal mangekyou sharingan.

But with the entirety of my body, including my eyes, optic nerves, and chakra network being enhanced by natural energy and my new denser and more refined chakra? The process was similar enough that, should my speculations be correct, I managed to obtain an eternal mangekyou sharingan without a transplant and, more importantly, completely by accident. Perhaps with a lot of use my vision would still deteriorate, but my body was still being constantly strengthened by natural energy and would continue to be until it could no longer improve.

A perfect body. I could hardly wait.

With a smile, I hiraishined to one of my vaults to test this new body of mine. It would take a while to get used to, that I knew, but the benefits were definitely worth it, and I was sure I had only noticed a few of them.

The first thing I noticed about the changes to my body that actually made my jaw drop was the evolution of my physical prowess. I had stated I was at high chunin already without my seals, but this did not mean I had the actual strength of a chunin. It meant that I could take a chunin one on one and win with my body alone. How? Well, mainly thanks to a combination of perception, reaction time, speed, stealth, targeting, and combat experience. All of those combined made me reach high chunin level, maybe toku-jo on a good day. My physical strength was always somewhat pitiful, mainly due to me being eight years old with a body to match.

Now though? My bones, my muscles, my organs, my everything, was strengthened to a, frankly, ridiculous degree. So much so, in fact, my body was comparable to the average chunin, and this meant strength, speed, and all the aspects I listed above. And if physically I was at chunin level, I could confidently say I it now was at a solid jonin level. And I had not even started to rigorously train my body, I shuddered to think what the result would be once I did now that my body was strong enough to take it.

Of course, that was far from the only advantage my transformation brough to me.

My chakra reserves, previously barely on the kage level, grew slightly. Honestly once I figured it out, I was a bit disappointed with the 'underwhelming' growth, even if the quality of my chakra itself overwent a fundamental transformation. I quickly changed my mind when I tested a wind blade with the same amount of chakra I usually put into it.

It gouged the wall for a good 3 meters. Solid, compressed, seal-reinforced rock wall.

I quickly reached the conclusion that my chakra had functionally grown about 10 times, even if the quantity remained almost unchanged. The refinement and compression my chakra went through made it apparently as strong as senjutsu chakra without it being so, which led me to salivate to the prospect of actually using sage mode. It would be beautiful.

My sensory range had also dramatically increased. From having a passive range of 500 meters it went up all the way to 2 km, and that was passively. When concentrating, it actually reached about 20 km, which was unbelievable. Hinata, one of the best Hyuga we were shown in the series, could reach a range of 20 km with her byakugan while concentrating on a single direction, while I could do the same for every direction, including the byakugan's blind spot. Better yet, my Kagura's mind eye, chich I could use with slight concentration, not like my full sensory range, went from 10 km to a, frankly, ridiculous 50 km.

All of this guaranteed I would not be snuck upon by anyone save for the most skilled of assassins, and even they had better bring their a-game. And my range would grow with my chakra, so I was still short of my prime.

What I considered the best about the changes my seal brought me, though, was none of those. Oh no, it was my regenerative ability.

While I would not be regrowing half of my torso or something as outrageous as that like Madara did, I could recover from a broken bone in a matter of hours, with a non-lethal stab only taking about 15 minutes. And if I channelled chakra to the wound, well, I got a bit adventurous and nicked my heart with a blade. Not lethally, of course, just enough to be considered a serious injury. Somehow, my body deemed that injury more important than the whole stab wound that caused it, and it recovered within a minute. It was bloody amazing.

And those were just the main effects. As side ones, well, let's just say my affinity for the wind element was not any weaker than the nidaime's water affinity, which was already considered legendary. And my water affinity rose even more so, to the point I could, quite literally, pull water from my surroundings and manipulate it without using any jutsu. Hell, not even hand signs were necessary. My fire affinity was also strengthened, but not to a point I could consider abnormal. If I had to compare it to anything, I would say it was at the same level of a non-clan shinobi from the fire nation, so very average. It was still better than what I used to have, but nothing really game changing. What was game changing, though, were my affinities with the other 2 elements. Suddenly, I had an earth affinity that was a little better than my fire one, which was already decent enough, and a minor lighting affinity comparable to my fire one before my transformation. I was, quite honestly, baffled. It was like I had gained a discount rinnegan and its affinity for all 5 nature transformations.

Just so you get it. Most people are born with 1 nature affinity, and its potency varied. Some lucky civilians and people with shinobi ancestry usually had 2 of them with one of them being considerably stronger than the other. Only the truly lucky ones got 2 affinities of comparable strength, which were about 1 in 10,000. As for 3 affinities? That mostly happened in unions between clans, and even then, it was rare for 2 of the 3 to be dominant. This was my case. Four affinities were usually only found in elemental kekkei genkai clans that intermarried, but even for those the same rule held true, they would be lucky to get 2 of them to be dominant. In my 1,000 years of life, I had never met anyone with 3 or more dominant natures. To have affinities with the 5 elements was thought to be exclusively a trademark of the sage, or the rinnegan to be more exact.

Now that you have that information, let us analyse how ridiculous I am.

I had a monstrous water affinity. And I mean monstrous, I had never seen anyone with an affinity to the degree of the one I had. My wind affinity, while not as powerful, was already in the top percentile of what I had found through a millennium. My Earth affinity was well above average even for a talented iwa shinobi. My fire affinity was average, which was what most people get in fire country. My lighting affinity was a minor one, which would already be good in combination with the fire one, let alone all of the 5 combined.

To sum it up, I had received a considerable boost for my water and earth affinities, and a minor one for the other 3 natures. I chalked the ratio up to the natural energy I absorbed, which was emanated mostly from the forests I was surrounded by. And as we know, wood style was composed of water and earth, which would explain my major buff in those 2. As for the other 3, well, they were nature affinities for a reason. Even in an area where earth and water were predominant, it was bound to still have traces of the other 3 elements.

This moved many plans I had forwards by about a decade, so yay.

Another side effect would be my overwhelming sensitivity for natural energy. If before this I could sense it thanks to my bountiful experience, I could now do it because it was impossible to ignore, even when I was trying to. This would make my future training in sage mode a piece of cake.

Honestly, no wonder Hashirama was so fucking overpowered. With a sage body, he could feed more chakra to one of his trees than a normal jonin had and still create dozens of them. I was now even more eager to reach my prime. Imagine the jutsus I could unleash…

And that is not even considering my chakra regeneration. Unless I was spitting out b-rank jutsus nonstop, I regenerated more than I spent.

Not everything was sunshine and rainbows, though. Once the adrenaline of the change died down, I was out like a light for a month. I woke up feeling pain all over my body, and with an appetite the size of a mountain. It took me another week just to recover from that. I spent my remaining 3 weeks of leave getting used to my new body, which was harder than it sounded. If I was not careful, I exerted full pressure when holding stuff, usually leading to the destruction of said stuff. I was still regulating my chakra usage, because even with perfect control I could not know how much of my denser chakra certain jutsu required. That knowledge could only be obtained through training and experimentation. I was mostly there, but that small inconvenience irked me.

I would not want to overpower a paralysing lighting jutsu by accident and kill my target. That would be a rookie mistake I would never be caught committing.

Still, with everything I gained, I could easily take on any but the most skilled of jonin. Nothing bad for an 8-year-old if I say so myself. I would feel like I was cheating if it was not for all the years I invested researching and developing that seal. As it was, I saw it as a high investment, high risk, high reward kind of deal.

And oh boy, was my reward big…

Hello, my beautiful readers! Crimson here.

I thought it would be prudent to give you an update about my life and mental state. And, well, things are moving forwards.

It really is a whole different thing intellectually understanding what depression is and actually having first-hand experience for suffering from it. I always thought it was more of an emotional state instead of the very serious medical condition it is. If you want to, search in google images the difference between a depressed brain and a normal brain. It was mind blowing when my therapist showed me I was not being dramatic and was actually suffering from a medical condition.

Anyway, moving on with my current state. I am better. Not by much, but better. I still struggle to sleep some nights and there are some days I, literally, do not leave my bed. I don't read, don't write, don't watch tv, nothing. I just spend the whole day laying down on my bed contemplating the many different ways my life is fucked up. It's not very pretty.

BUT, I am moving forwards. I have more energy than usual most days, the same energy I remember having 4 years ago before my depression even started to be a notion in my mind. It's like the difference between being sedated and lucid, if you guys know what I mean. Before taking anti-depressants, my life was so… grey. Lifeless. Purposeless. Empty. Things that should've made cry, laugh, angry, or happy, just slipped by. I didn't care about anything, and in the moment, it didn't look like it was a problem. It took me a failed suicide attempt to actually realize I was sick, and it was a shocking experience for me, who never even seriously considered the possibility of taking my own life before I tried to do just that. It was awful.

The pills, though, have returned some life to me. I enjoy writing again, so there is that.

I've been listening music again! You have no idea how excited I am by that. I had not realized before, but I was so fucked up I spent about 2 years without listening to music at all. It is refreshing.

Anyway, the point is that while I'm still not in a good place, I'm not tethering on the edge of the abyss just waiting for a moderately strong breeze to push me over. It will take me a long time, probably years, to get to how I was before, if I can ever accomplish it, but for now I am better. I'm even writing an Overlord fanfic to pass my free time! I've written 60k words in about… 2 weeks? Maybe? Something like that. I am enjoying it.

As for this work, well, I'm working on it. I have more stuff ready than I did last time I updated you guys, but I feel its still not enough. I am excited about the prospect of enjoying writing as much as I used to, but I make no promises.

Progress in these kind of conditions is not linear. So, even if I was feeling at the top of the world right now —which I'm really not—, I could be just as bad as when it all first started tomorrow. As such, please have a little patience if you start getting frustrated with my release rate. Hell, you can even read BANIX's work, I recommend it a lot, since it was what inspired me to write a pokemon fanfic in the first place. And his pokemon works combined have a total of over a million words, so it will las you for a while.

As always, I hoped you enjoyed and my rant was not a bit too much for you, but I wanted to let you know, since internet is the only place where I can do this kind of stuff outside therapy. Anyway, stay happy and healthy.

Crimson out!