The days after that marked a drastic change in the household. Hashirama's mood improvement seemed to be contagious, and slowly his mother and brother came out of their grieving too. The kids went back to their usual morning schedules, and Kimiko-sama resumed her duties.

However their afternoons changed quite a bit.

Hashirama grew a bit more solitary and started to privilege training alone in the forest. People didn't question it however, as they all knew that the consecutive loss of two brothers must have been harsh on him.

Tobirama was a bit peeved when he was denied the opportunity to go with him, but he too had other things to do. He had become obsessed with practicing and learning new jutsu. However, no matter how skilled he was compared to others, he just wasn't the natural prodigy that his older brother was, nor did he have a fancy rare kekkei genkai or legendary eyes. What made him stand out however was his keen intellect, and his extreme sensitivity to chakra. He sometimes locked himself for days on end in the library, researching battle techniques, studying war manuals, and meditating to improve his skill as a sensor.

Tobirama wasn't the only one who had become obsessed with his skills after the tragedy. Itama's whole team had been wiped out during that battle as well as many other kids around their age. After studying the matter extensively, results showed that it was mainly due to their lack of skill. Some of them were shaky even on the basics, like taijutsu and shuriken jutsu, and the best one could barely perform a Doton correctly. This was a shame to a clan that prided itself on being the clan with a thousand skills. Many people voiced their discontent, mostly grieving mothers, and so the clan decided on some new measures.

It had been decided that all the kids bellow the age of twelve would be sent back to basic training, and that they would have to pass a test designed to judge their skill in a shinobi related scenario, before they could be given the title of shinobi and sent on missions or into the battlefield.

It wasn't what the fearful mothers were hoping for, but at least it ensured that no more kids will be sent on missions while still heavily underprepared for the task.

It had also been announced that the first official girls promotion would be joining the ranks of the students the following autumn. Despite Hashirama's vehement protests, Yume and eleven other girls were picked to join, including her two cousins, Yuri and Yuki, and Butsuma-sama's niece, Senju Touka.

Yume had been thrilled, despite how lousy the training schedule seemed to be, compared to what she was doing on her own. Every two nights, she went to study under Hakuja Senin for an hour or so, and she practiced what she learned every chance she got. And she was making progress.

The old snake first made it her mission to correct how Yume was even seeing things. So far, she had just been using her eyes like a regular human being, but Hakuja senin had shown her she could use them just like her mother described the power of the Sharingan. Her analytical abilities improved immensely, as well as her reaction time, and now she was even able to read chakra movements.

Then she moved to practice the first of the Six Paths: the Animal path. Given that she was already familiar with Kuchiyose no Jutsu, the Sage thought that she would be quite at ease with summoning other animals, but the results were not as expected. Despite her large chakra pool as half a Senju, half an Uchiha and a Rinngan wielder, Yume seemed to only be able to summon kid animals, to the despair of the sage. They theorised that these animals will grow in size with her, in the same astonishing way Kenji seemed to be doing. Long gone was the adorable, easily kickable, snake she first met. He was now at least her size, and growing faster every day.

But at least the animals seemed to understand and, most importantly, obey her. She was now learning how to be able to share their visions and how to adapt to the sensory overload that came with having multiple moving fields of vision at the same time.

So these days, while others thought that she was practising her shuriken jutsu or meditating, she would summon as many animals as she could do discreetly, and then send them to walk in different directions of the forest so she could get used to seeing what they were seeing. She knowingly avoided the area where Hashirama went to train, since she felt that it would be wrong to spy on him like that.

However, they did have an interesting conversation one day, which made her really curious.

Over the course of the summer, Hashirama had grown a bit more forgetful, and he would often neglect his duties. While Tobirama was getting more and more annoyed, Yume had no problem helping him out. He was making outstanding progress, especially regarding his Mokuton.

That Kekkei genkai had always been an enigma, and Hashirama barely knew how to control it. His parents had only discovered it by chance, when he had once kept their garden green although the winter. Such a task was of course demanding in chakra, and for three months, their usually quite energetic eldest was always tired and often falling sick. It was finally Butsuma-sama that made the correlation between the fact that the garden seemed to always do better when Hashirama was fine, and that it would start welting once he could no longer supply it with chakra. After a few tests, they discovered his ability, made him study hard for it, hoping that it might lead to the supremacy of their clan. After all, Hashirama had always been kind of a prodigy.

But for a few years, aside from being able to grow flowers, some plants and a few trees, Hasirama hadn't made a lot of progress. It was difficult to make progress when you didn't even know what you were supposed to be walking towards, even for a prodigy. It also didn't help that, on the few times he had actually tried to use his ability against someone in training, he ended up severely poisoning a lot of other people. When the war started, Butsuma-sama had just put a lid over the matter, and told his son to only use the five basic nature transformations that he excelled at.

But now Hashirama seemed in a good creative streak and, while he still didn't like showing what he came up with, Yume believed him, to Tobirama's despair, and gave him as much help as she could.

So one day, towards the end of the summer, she went outside the compound to gather firewood in his stead. As she was making her way back, he caught up with her out of nowhere, and started heavily apologising once again: "Yume-chan! I'm so sorry you had to do my chores for me once again. I've been meaning to do it, but I lost track of time while training. Here, please, at least let me carry it back ."

After some tug and pull, Yume finally consented to giving him her stack and they walked back together. On their way, she gently asked: "Has your training been good today?"

Hashirama smiled: "Yeah, it was fun. I actually learned a new move. I can teach it to you if you want. You're already really good at taijutsu, but it never hurts to know more. And I can see how hard you're working to prepare yourself."

Yume happily nodded, and they went back into their silence.

Suddenly, Yume heard him say: "Yume-chan, can I ask you a question? About the Uchiha"

Yume almost came to a halt, but she asked quietly: "What do you want to know?"

He awkwardly tried: "Did your mother ever talk about the people she knew there? Like the kids about my age? Specifically, someone called Madara "

She looked at him quizzically: "Why do you want to know?"

Hashirama seemed to have not thought this conversation all the way through, because he started stuttering: "I...it's just that...Well, you know….I mean...Just...Just forget about it. It was stupid of me to ask."

They walked a few steps, before she finally announced: "I think that I have a cousin that goes by that name."

Hashirama's head snapped to look at her: "A cousin? Like in the sense of a clan member? Or like in the sense of me and Touka?"

Yume was amused: "The second one. My mother's twin brother had a couple of kids before she left the clan. The eldest one was three or four around the time she was pregnant with me, so she knew him quite well, and liked him even more. She talked about him sometimes. I'm sure that his name was Madara.". Then she frowned a little bit before adding: "But you must be careful, if you ever meet him on the battlefield. Mama used to say that he was a prodigy if she ever met one. And that's coming from the woman who characterized my father's style in combat as graceless and a disgrace to the word shinobi."

Hashirama had a good laugh: "She seemed to have been an amazing woman by all accounts. I'm sad I never got to meet her. But I need to ask. Do you think that you might want to meet him? Or any of your other cousins? Or your uncle?"

Yume thought about it for a while, and then said seriously: "I have no problem with his kids, but Uchiha Tajima will never be my uncle. Not after the way he and his father treated my mother. It was because of them that she fell sick and died so young. And if she was here, Papa probably would have been alive too. I can't forgive that."

Hashirama looked like he wanted to say something, but at the same time, both of them spotted an angry looking Tobirama waiting by the entrance of the compound for them.

That night, she got a scolding for being a pushover, and he got a scolding for being irresponsible, but thankfully, Tobirama was no snitch, and didn't report them to his father, like he always threatened he would.

The following day, Hashirama went into the forest once again, and Tobirama seemed to be done with waiting because she noticed him following behind his brother secretly. Not wanting to get in the middle of a fight between the brothers, she went on with her day as usual.

But that evening, the three men of the Senju main family seemed to be on edge. Kimiko-sama and Yume kept exchanging worried looks, but neither was able to understand what could have happened.

With her new abilities, Yume had been able to read a little bit of the aura their chakra was giving and it didn't look any good. Butsuma-sama's was sinister and plotting, Tobirama's was overflowing with guilt, and Hashirama's was a mixture of anger, grief and confusion.

After the meal, the men locked themselves in the study,and went straight to bed after an hour of plotting god knows what.

That night, no one slept soundly, and the morning was even weirder and more solem. Tobirama and Butsuma even geared up before following behind Hashirama out of the compound. Yume was worried sick, but she knew that she couldn't follow behind them. Kimiko-sama might spoil her a lot compared to her other kids, but she was also a severe woman. Under no circumstances would she allow her to go behind their clan head's back or spy on him.

But that didn't mean that she didn't have a way of knowing what was going on. As soon as she was able to get away for a while, she summoned Kenji as well as some smaller sized snakes of the Cave. Then using all the sage had taught her, she channeled her chakra through her eyes and cast the genjutsu that allowed her to control them and share their vision. Their eyes glazed over and were soon covered with a light purple sheen that made them look like Rinnegans.

Only Kenji was left with his own will and consciousness intact and he nodded at her taking the lead of the team. It took the snakes a while, but they were quite a few and were able to cover a large area, and so she was able to find the three Senju men.

While the others were following her order to move around, to give her a fuller vision of what was going on, Yume focused on what the couple of snakes on site were showing her. Butsuma-sama and Tobirama were waiting behind a large tree, weapons out, while Hashirama was standing in front of the river delimiting their border, playing with something in his lapel.

They didn't have to wait for long before a pale boy with spiky hair, dressed in a purple yukata appeared on the other side of the river. Hashirama and him exchanged a couple of words, but Yume had no way of knowing what they said, since hearing was not something the animals shared with her.

After that Hashirama and the boy took out something from their pockets and threw it on the river. Fortunately, she could look from many angles, and was able to catch that they had thrown stones. It was odd that they would carry those with them, since they were literally on a river bank filled with stones.

Nevertheless, the stones skipped on the surface of the water, and were caught by the awaiting hand of the boy on the other side of the river. For some reason, both seemed to examine them with attention, before their expressions changed. Suddenly, the boy with the spiky hair said something, waved goodbye and bolted out of the river. It looked like Hashirama was relieved and about to do the same, when Butsuma-sama and Tobirama bolted out of their hiding spot and started running after the other boy.

Yume had no reason to send her snakes to the other side of the bank, especially when they could have been easily spotted if not covered by the thick foliage, and their Rinnegan looking eyes would have been a dead give away of their master. So she too was extremely surprised when two silhouettes blotted from that side of the river too, and started running towards Hashirama-sama.

Fortunately, they came to a stand off. Two on two, Tobirama and a boy his age, and Butsuma with a man his age too. A man wielding a three tomoe Sharingan. Just a look at his confident expression while facing the strongest Senju, and the situation became crystal clear to Yume. Her conversation from two days ago with Hashirama came back to mind, and she just knew that the pale spiky haired people she was looking at were her mothers family: Uchiha Akari's brother, Uchiha Tajima, his eldest son, Uchiha Madara, and probably one of his younger brothers. Or maybe the son of another of her mother's brothers, a boy that she had told her was Madara's age, and named Hikaku.

This was her first time ever seeing them, or seeing any Uchiha, so she was lost in some foreign feelings, and barely registered as the opponents exchanged some words and then lunged for each other.

To her horror, she watched as the two adults in the situation while caught in a stalemate, jumped in the air, and launched kunai or knives at the unaware kids fighting next to them. She must have probably let out a scream, as she watched a knife make its way to her best and only friend, while he was unable to defend himself. In the last moment however, something collided with both weapons and made them stray from their trajectory.

Using her snakes, she was able to understand, like the others did, that it had been Hashirama and Madara who threw the life saving stones. Then both kids jumped to the front of the battlefield, in a protective stance in front of the even younger kids. Words were exchanged, and her only clue about how good the conversation was going was how Hashirama's expression kept getting more sorrowful by the second.

Uchiha Tajima then said something, and to her surprise, Uchiha Madara just shook his head, and turned his back to his opponent, and started to leave. Hashirama then said something, but then, under the astonished eyes of everyone present, Uchiha Madara turned to face him with a two tomoe sharingan activated.

Whatever happened, Uchiha Tajima seemed to have been satisfied, and he left the clearing with the boys of his clan, with a smile on his face.

The Senju also started retreating after they made sure that there would be no sneak attacks. Yume finally was able to let out a breath she didn't know that she was even holding. Unbeknownst to the men, her snakes kept following behind them, and covering their backs all the way back to the compound.

But it was a tactical mistake on her side.

Somewhere along the road, Tobirama's keen senses must have picked up the tiny creatures following them, because he parted ways with his brother and father at the entrance door. Neither was in the mood to talk to him anyway, so they barely acknowledged him, and Butsuma just aimed for his eldest son's collar and started dragging him towards the house, under the quizzical looks of some clan members.

Tobirama returned to the edge of the forest, and the snakes who were in charge of guarding him kept following behind him. Yume was intrigued too, so she kept looking, but she too was caught off guard when he expertly threw kunai in all three directions, and managed to pin one of her snakes. That must have hurt and she made a mental note to apologize later and properly nurse the wounded snake, but at the moment, she had other concerns.

Tobirama went to catch his prey, and one look at the eyes of the snake made him gasp, frown, and then decisively store it in his lapel, while walking back hurriedly to the house.

It took him only a few minutes, before he barged into her room where she was expecting him. He took out the snake and threw it in front of her while saying: "What the fuck?"

She caught the poor wounded creature, and his friends and siblings who were also hiding in nooks of the rooms came out, and started to slither towards them. Tobirama watched astonished as she used the first aid kit she had already prepared on the animal, while the others whispered comforting words to it.

Only Kenji turned to galre back at him and said: "What the fuck back to you! Did you really have to throw a kunai at poor Aoi-chan? She was always a timide one, and now she will probably never go out of the cave again!"

Tobirama ignored him, and looked at Yume once again: "Summoning snakes?"

She sighed, while tying the bandage in a knot: "It's a long story."

He flopped on the ground, still glaring: "I'm all ears."

She returned his glare with a challenging look: "I will tell you my story, if you tell me yours first."

He was not impressed: "Why should I tell you anything? In fact, what's stopping me from going to my father right now, and making you answer to him?"

Yume raised an eyebrow at him: "Let's look at it this way: I can send back these guys any moment I want, and not a trace of them will be left. You can say what you want, but I will deny it tooth and nail, and it will be just your word against mine. Of course, your father and the clan will probably believe you, but its not like they will torture me for information if I don't want to say anything. On the other hand, your reputation as a snitch will be cemented . And let's face it, whatever it is you did, Hashirama-kun is clearly mad at you, so can you really afford to lose the only other person who can bear this temper of yours?"

Tobirama glared, but he was also the kind of guy to know when he was beat, so he sighed: "Fine! I will go first."

And then he started telling her about what happened. It turned out that after Itama's death, Hashirama had struck an unlikely friendship with Uchiha Madara who he had met by the river. All this time, while they thought he was training his Mokuton alone in the forest, he was actually with Madara, doing only god knows what. Neither had exchanged their last name, so it was just a friendship, and nothing harmful. But after Tobirama saw them together, he recognised the Uchiha chakra, and told his father about it. Butsuma-sama then decided that they should ambush him and try to get tactical information from him. The Uchiha side probably had the same idea, hence Uchiha Tajima's presence. But that was not counting on the fact that neither Madara nor Hashirama wanted to fight each other. At least this once, because before Madara had left, he had left Hashirama with the promise that they would soon meet at the battlefield, but this time as enemies.

They sat in silence for a while, but then Yume dropped the snake in her lap gently, and scootched closed to where Tobirama was.

And then she delivered the hardest punch she could muster, straight to his gut. Fortunately, he was just as skilled as a shinobi, and he only let out a grunt, even when the air got knocked out of him for a while. He glared at her: "What the hell was that about?"

She glared back: "You got off easy, because you saved his life this time, by telling on him. But next time you go behind his back like this, I will personally break every single bone of your body. Mark my word. I don't care if his friends are Uchiha. I don't care if he befriends the devil himself. You never tell on him. If you have questions or worries, you tell him first, and listen to his explanation. You should know where your loyalties should be right now, otherwise I will personally show them to you. And it won't be pleasant."

Tobirama was shocked, a bit outraged, but the guilt he felt stopped him from being able to respond. Yume continued: "Hashirama-kun would give his life for you. He loves you so much,and he would never, ever do anything to hurt you. Or the clan for that matter. I know that you like to call him irresponsible and naive and an airhead, but I also know that you don't believe in any of it. You know that he will one day be an amazing leader, and that he will accomplish great things. So you will do him the courtesy of giving him all the respect his position deserves! As both your older brother and your superior."

When she finished, she was positively red with anger. Tobirama and she continued to stare at each other, before he gave up first, and turned his head the other way: "Okay, okay! I didn't know that you felt so strongly about the matter. Jeez, who knew that scaredy little Yume could ever be so fierce?"

Yume finally collected herself, and realised that she might have overreacted. She sat back down properly, and went back to looking at her snakes, who were all following the scene curiously. Kenji came closer, and climbed to wrap himself around her neck, while still throwing nasty glares at Tobirama from time to time.

When she started patting his head, Tobirama raised an eyebrow: "You realise how creepy this looks right. You were never a social butterfly to begin with, and if you start walking around surrounded by snakes like this, all the creepy nicknames the other kids gave you will gain legitimacy."

Yume laughed: "I won't do that just yet. But there is something appealing about becoming the scary snake lady of the clan."

Tobirama gave a good humored laugh, but continued: "So? Are you going to tell me now?"

She sighed, and then told him about her adventures for the last month. She watched as his jaw dropped to the floor several times, but he never stopped her, or showed any signs of not believing her.

Finally, he asked: "So you are a disciple of the Great Snake Sage? And you know where the legendary Ryushi caves are? And you're learning how to use the legendary Rinnegans?"

She answered: "Well, I wouldn't call myself a disciple. I would if she didn't keep mentioning that, to her, this was all a business transaction, and that she would make me pay for it later. And I don't technically know where the Caves are. Kenji here reverse-summons me there when needed. And yes, I am learning the techniques of the Six Paths."

He just nodded: "Interesting.". He stopped for a while but then asked: "But why now? You never showed any interest in the powers of the Rinnegan, so why are you learning about them now?"

Yume blushed deeply, knowing that any answer she gave would give her true motives right away. Tobirama was, as mentioned several times before, quite smart and attentive to detail. The moment she blushed, he knew that it had something to do with her weird fixation on his brother, and he lost all interest in the answer.

But before he could say anything about it, they heard a loud crash coming from outside the room. Their keen hearing told them that it came from the outer courtyard, so they rushed back towards there.

Arriving in front of the door of the study, they found a worried Kimiko-sama pacing nervously in front of the door. When she saw them, she gave them something that was meant to be a reassuring smile and tried to shoo them away: "Kids, there's nothing going on in here . Go back to your rooms. Hashirama and Butsuma are just talking."

But neither made a move to go away. Yume was frantic, as she didn't miss the way Tobirama's hands were balled into fists, or the hateful glare he was sending to the door. She had always known that Butsuma-sama was very hands on when it came to disciplining his sons. It was something that her father had mentioned several times. And when they started training with her, she sometimes noticed the remnants of such discipline.

But ever since Kawarama had died, the people in the house had all started believing that he had outgrown such behavior. He still sometimes pulled them too harshly, or delivered a resounding smack on the top of their heads, but nothing too drastic. And he had never raised his hands anywhere near her.

But now, she was unmistakably hearing the sounds of him beating up Hashirama. Probably because his eldest had dared to disobey his orders, and let Uchiha Madara get away.

All she knew after that was that she saw red for a moment, and it was as if someone else had taken control of her body. A very angry someone else.

Under the astonished eyes of the mother and the brother, she kicked the shoji doors open and was met with a sight that made her blood boil. Hashirama had been thrown against a wall, making a small dent and cracks in it. He was bleeding from his nose and from a gash on his forehead. He was barely sitting on the ground, his legs outstretched in front of him, and his arms laying limply on his side. He was very much awake, but one of his eyes was swollen, and the other twitched a little as he worriedly stared at her.

Butsuma-sama was standing on top of him, bent slightly at the waist, his left arm raised like he was about to deliver another punch. His head had also snapped to her, and he growled: "Get….!"

He didn't have time to finish because a sudden glow entered Yume's eyes as she fixed him. She raised her right hand, her palm facing him, and she felt her chakra flow as she loudly bellowed words that came to her brain instinctively: "Shinra Tensei!"

And then Butsuma-sama, a forty something giant of a shinobi, was sent flying to the opposite wall, seemingly out of nowhere. The push had been strong enough to crack the wall, destroy it and throw him outside leaving a human shaped dent in the wall.

Yume didn't even hear Tobirama's gasp, or Kimiko-sama shriek, because she ran towards Hashirama's sparwaled form, and gently held his upper body in her embrace. Her eyes kept checking him for more wounds, while he unblinkingly stared at her. He tried to start: "Yume-chan! Your eyes..are glowing!"

She looked at him, surprised, and freed a hand to touch her own face.

But at the same time, Butsuma had come out of the debris, and back into the room. Her hawk-like eyes watched as he too carefully circled them, and made his way to stand protectively between her and his wife and younger son.

She no longer saw him as her father's friend, nor as the man who took her in. To her, he was a threat to Hashirama-kun's safety. A threat that needed to be eliminated.

A condensation of chakra came out of her, seemingly from every cell in her body, and for some reason, without having undergone any of the basic changes they were taught. Just raw, strong and destructive energy. It came in the form of a purple aura that gently surrounded her and Hashirama but otherwise created dents in the floor and wall near her, and created a small storm in the room and hallway that made the other three take a few steps back.

She made a move, looking like she was about to lunge at Butsuma this time, but two strong arms threw themselves around her and held her in place. She viciously turned around and was met with the pleading look on Hashirama's face as he said: "Yume-chan, that's enough! Thank you. You've done enough. Please just calm down now. I don't want you to do this. You don't need to protect me. Look, I'm fine. It's over now. Please ,calm down."

Yume stared at him for a few seconds, but she decided to obey him in the end. Turning her face back to Butsuma, she hissed at him: "If you ever put your hands on him again, I will kill you."

Just like that. Simple but extremely powerful as a statement.

And no one in the room thought that she wouldn't be able to make good on that promise.

AN: Hi and thank you again for reading!

I'm writing this note because I wanted to clarify something. In an earlier note, I said that the inspiration for Yume is Hyuga Hinata. I meant it in the sense that she would fall in love with the S.H. and use that love as a drive to keep improving herself. But the more I write, the more I feel like I'm failing to capture what the character was all about. Instead, I now think that I'm writing something closer to Mikasa Ackerman in SNK, someone who is strong from the get go, and uses that strength to protect the one she loves.

That's all I had to say. Thank you guys for the favorites, follows, kudos and comments. They really make my day.

Stay safe and healthy!