Natsumi took to Gai's training like a fish to water.
While my physical conditioning is technically better, her natural advantages just blow me out of the water when it comes to stamina. The exercises that I needed a month to be able to complete, she pulled off in a week.
Physical conditioning isn't a matter of talent, and all the skill in the world doesn't help you if someone just outclasses you in sheer strength and speed.
That isn't to say that she isn't talented, because she's a diamond in the rough.
She isn't a prodigy, once I managed to clean up the messy form that Mizuki instilled into her she became alright, but her advantage is that she can just train more than almost anyone else. I'm still significantly more skilled than her but unless I use my Interceptor Fist she can press me a decent amount, because unless I redirect it I can barely keep up with her power.
That, in combination with the fact that even now she can push me to exhaustion before she even starts breathing hard, means that wars of attrition just aren't an option when it comes to her. You either put her down fast, or you prepare to fight someone who can both overpower and outlast you.
She also has a lot of chakra, and I do mean a lot. I was helping her get used to making chakra and she has so much energy that not only could I feel it, despite not being a sensor, but I could also tell that her physical energy was much larger than her spiritual energy, the difference was even greater than mine.
Ashura reborn indeed.
But what showed her potential above all else, what would have screamed at me that she was going to go places even if I didn't already know that she'd likely end up as one of the strongest people in the world, was her determination.
She would not give up, she didn't know the meaning of moderation and until Gai of all people told her that resting properly was just as important as training she would train herself to exhaustion every single time.
If she didn't have Kurama to bail her out she'd be dead by now, I know I would be if I tried to train as hard as she did.
And even now, she could still train a lot more than I could. For example, say that a skill required 100 hours of constant practice to master, theoretically, with 8 hours a day of constant uninterrupted training, you could master it in a little over 12 days.
Realistically, considering the physical and mental fatigue that comes with training and especially with training that heavy, it would probably take somewhere from 20 days to a month to master it, maybe more if it required active chakra usage to train.
Talent plays a part, I inherited the talent that comes from being Indra so I could cut that down significantly, maybe I could pull off the 12 days because my talent would allow me to master the skill faster and I wouldn't need the full 100 hours to do it.
Natsumi can go through this ideal intense training, she could master it in 12 days because unlike me, who would be dropping dead and making no progress by the 5th day at most, she has so much stamina, chakra, and sheer determination, that she can just ignore the exhaustion.
Not all of it, mind you, not only is this type of training too heavy for kids our age, Gai said so himself, but just because she has more energy doesn't mean hers is endless. But even still, she can keep up a pace of training intense enough to match my talent with only minor lingering fatigue.
If she really wanted to push herself, she could go for sessions of intense training for massive progress, then take advantage of her enhanced recovery rate to rest up back to full in a day or two, and skyrocket past almost anyone in terms of growth.
She truly fits the term 'genius of hard work' better than anyone.
It has been two months since that night and while I'm still ahead of her, both due to me being significantly more talented than her and due to my Sharingan allowing me to cheat, she has been quickly closing the gap.
That got me thinking, I originally wasn't going to get involved with her, she was far too much trouble for it to be worth it.
She's loyal to a fault, not a bad trait on a colleague or maybe even a friend, but given that I intend to leave and that loyalty also applied to the village getting close to someone who will keep pursuing me no matter where I go isn't the greatest of ideas.
She'll also be one of the few people in the world powerful enough to actually fight me, while I don't plan to go through the whole eye swapping bullshit that canon Sasuke did I do intend to get as strong as possible, as if I do become immortal I will literally have all the time to train so I will eventually outstrip even canon Sasuke in power even without the Rinnegan/EMS.
So yeah, getting the one person who might be able to match me in battle dead set on bringing me back to Konoha wasn't part of the plan.
But it might be worth it, my initial idea was just ignoring the Akatsuki, they aren't my problem and I don't really care about what they do beyond what plans for immortality I have that require Hidan and Kakuzu, maybe Sasori but I don't fancy spending eternity as a doll if I don't have to.
Realistically, though, my plans involve killing Itachi and Obito, so them leaving me alone was never an option even if I didn't need to poke and prod at two of their members. And I doubt Zetsu would be pleased if the latest Indra, myself, told him to fuck off and that I didn't plan on dying so he wasn't getting a new pair of Rinnegan ever again.
Plus, you know, Kaguya.
So it might be a good idea to get someone to deal with them for me, and in that regard there is no candidate better than Natsumi. Her chances of being able to handle them were already pretty good without me handling Obito, and with this extra training and maybe the gates she'd be golden.
And there's another benefit in putting in the effort to see her grow, while the teachers of the academy didn't say anything and Gai didn't mind I can't imagine most shinobi will be all that pleased with me copying their skills. So if I could nudge her into growing in the ways most beneficial to me and owning me enough that she wouldn't mind me copying her skills, I could get both a training aid and a sparring partner out of it.
With her chakra reserves she could practice most jutsu and get them down to perfection, and then I just show up and can copy them easily. Not to mention there are plenty of skills that I could copy that she could master incredibly fast if she just gains access to one thing.
Shadow clones.
They were one of my first ideas for getting stronger, but not only do I not have the chakra to use too many of them, I have been training to increase my reserves but it will be a while before they grow to that level, the jutsu is also on a scroll that requires a fully mature Sharingan to read.
And given that mine is still at the first tomoe, it will be a while until I can get them.
But when I do, I wouldn't mind teaching it to her, especially when it would mean getting both a beast of a shinobi to handle the Akatsuki for me and someone capable of mastering jutsu for me to copy at an unrivaled rate.
And honestly, the only real issue would be her stubborn loyalty to Konoha, her power wouldn't really matter if I could convince her to just leave me alone. As scummy as it is, if I could get her to see things my way and be loyal to me above Konoha, or at least not be so loyal to Konoha as to refuse to let me leave, then I get all the benefits plus one of the strongest people in the world as an ally.
Do I feel bad for manipulating a little girl like this? Yes, very much so. But if that is what it takes to ensure the biggest threat to my plans never comes to be then so be it.
Shinobi are monsters, and if that is what I need to become to achieve immortality then that is what I will do because I made a vow. I'm never returning to the Void, and I'll do whatever it takes to escape it.
I wonder what it says about me that the only difference between me and the shinobi I call monsters is that they are loyal to their villages while I'm only loyal to myself? I'd like to think that the fact that I can see the hypocrisy means I'm better than them, but that feels like I'm making excuses.
I can at least draw comfort from the fact that while I might not be able to tell her much of who and what she is, I can at least tell her this, and frankly? She deserves to know.
That it works in my favor is just a bonus, I'm doing this because she's a little girl and she deserves to know who her mother was and that she loved her, or at least that is what I'm telling myself.
"What is this about?" Natsumi asks, standing in my living room. "You've been acting weird all day."
She ended up being something of a semi-frequent presence in my house, if only because Gai told her that a healthy diet was important for training and she couldn't just eat ramen all the time, she interpreted that as my cooking would make her stronger, and I didn't have it in me to turn her away.
I didn't realize how much the loneliness was getting to me, it was one of the worst aspects of the Void but now that I'm back to being alive and have so much to do I guess being social kind of slipped through the cracks.
I might not be able to fully trust her, not because she'd betray me but because she would never understand even if I did tell her the full truth, but it has been...nice, to have someone I can talk to.
"I found something I think you should see." I say, pulling out Kaa-san's journal.
"Books again!?" She groans. "They're boring!"
I shake my head and the serious expression on my face has her sobering up.
I hand her the picture and she looks at it in confusion, even as I see a glint of sadness and resentment at seeing me with Kaa-san.
I can almost hear her thoughts, she must think that I'm rubbing it in that I knew my mother and she didn't, better not let her jump to conclusions.
"My Kaa-san wrote in her journal that she had a best friend, a redheaded woman that she considered a sister in all but blood." I say. "She wrote that her friend lost her clan and that when she was pregnant they promised that her child and I would be raised together."
"Why are you telling me this?" She asks, and I can see the suspicion mounting, Natsumi might not be the smartest but she's far from stupid. "Who is the woman?"
I sigh.
"The woman in the picture is Kaa-san's friend, Kushina Uzumaki." I say. "And I believe she was your mother."
I wordlessly hand Kaa-san's journal to Natsumi, the pages talking about Kushina already marked, and I can see the many different emotions flashing through her face.
She is silent for a few minutes, quickly reading through every marked entry even as tears stream down her face. Finally, she looks at the photo again and gives a waterly smile.
"Kaa-san." She says softly.
I can see the emotion in her gleaming blue eyes, the sadness, the longing, but also the happiness of finally knowing who her mother was and the hope that she might not be alone after all.
Nagato kind of isn't an option, but if I run into Karin I'll be sure to send her Natsumi's way, she deserves that much.
Her eyes raise back to mine and while she doesn't say anything, still shuddering and softly crying, I can see the gratitude in her eyes.
My stomach churns, and I hug her more to hide my grimace than to comfort her.
-[TGaE]-
I eventually guided Natsumi to one of the couches, where I held her until she fell asleep in my arms.
Even with her endless stamina, the emotional situation must have left her spent.
She has slept here on occasion, so I already had a room prepared for her and I tucked her in and let her rest. Not that she stayed there long because soon after I went to my bed I heard her walk into my room.
Neither of us said anything, but I gave her some space and held her as she slept with her head on my chest. She was a comforting warm and I slept better than I ever had since the massacre.
After that things developed into a comfortable routine, Natsumi took her time to read through Kaa-san's journal carefully and I shared with her a few things I knew about Kushina, claiming that Kaa-san told me.
The subject of who her father was came up but I told her I didn't know, I could justify having figured out who Kushina was due to their last names and similar appearance but there was no mention of Minato in the journal so it would be suspicious at best.
Not that revealing who Kushina was isn't, but that was a calculated risk to gain a ton of free points with Natsumi.
And it worked, I thought that after the initial shock had passed things would revert back to how they were before, albeit with an excuse for me to get closer to her, but instead Natsumi all but moved in with me.
When I asked her about it, she said it was what her Kaa-san would have wanted, before asking me if I wanted her to leave and giving me a look so filled with fear of rejection that it made me feel even worse than I already was for manipulating her.
I let her stay, of course, having her around constantly would only make her more dependant and loyal to me. And I couldn't say no to her when she gave me a look like that, something she picked up on and is happy to exploit.
She decided my cookbook, with the addition of a few recipes from Before, was her own personal menu and had me cooking what she wanted every day.
I sometimes wonder who is manipulating who.
One subject that also came up, and one I genuinely didn't expect, was why Kaa-san didn't adopt her.
I had no idea, and the clear resentment in her eyes was a pretty shocking contrast to the "I'll forgive anyone" idea that I had from her, mostly based on expecting her to be similar to Naruto.
I told her I thought she might have tried but not been allowed to, that because she was the heiress of the Uzumaki clan and Kaa-san was the Uchiha clan matron the Hokage might have seen it as one clan taking advantage of the other and forbidding it.
Assuming Kaa-san tried at all, which I didn't know for sure but like to think she did, it was more likely because of the tensions between the Uchiha and the village and Natsumi's jinchuriki status, but I couldn't exactly tell her that.
My actions had consequences, however, and now I find myself in the presence of one of the few people I hoped to avoid, at least until I was strong enough to kill him.
And make no mistake, it will be a long time before I'm remotely ready for him. Hiruzen Sarutobi did not become God of Shinobi by asking nicely.
"This is some delicious tea, Sasuke-san." He says.
He just showed up here, and since I couldn't exactly turn the Hokage away I did the best I could to accommodate him. I'm hoping that I can come off as a starstruck child, but given who he is if he suspects anything no acting I can do will fool him.
"Thank you, Hokage-sama." I say, bowing my head.
At least Natsumi isn't here right now, she went for some light exercise an hour ago and should only be back by lunchtime.
He gives me a grandfatherly smile, and if I didn't know any better I would have believed it.
"So.." He starts. "I heard you have been training with Gai-san."
Of course he did, as if he would miss the last 'loyal' Uchiha getting the attention of Konoha's strongest jonin short of Jiraiya, maybe even more if you consider the 8th Gate.
"Gai-sensei generously took me under his wing." I say. "I am very thankful for his teachings."
"No need to be so formal." He says. "We are in your home, after all."
No thank you, I'd rather be overly formal than risk blurting out something I shouldn't.
"Of course, Hokage-sama." I bow again.
"Gai has been very impressed with your performance." He says.
"I can only hope I'll be as strong as he is, one day."
"He was also happy you found a friend." He mentions casually.
Done beating around the bush, are we?
I nod, letting a small smile appear on my lips.
"Natsumi tells me you were the one who found out who her mother was." He says.
"Yes." I say. "My Kaa-san left some personal journals, it wasn't hard to put it together, though I have no proof."
"I see." He says. "May I have a look?"
Why does he want to look through Kaa-san's journals? Is he worried about Minato being found out? Is this about the Kyuubi?
No matter, there is no way I'm letting the guy who did nothing as my family was murdered touch their personal belongings. Realistically I might not be able to stop him, but I'll still try.
"I'm afraid not." I say, doing my best to look apologetic but still unwilling to bend. "Those are the personal belongings of the Uchiha clan matron, there are clan secrets in there, I'm sure you understand."
He raises an eyebrow.
"But Natsumi could read them?"
"She read only the parts I let her." I wouldn't exactly mind letting her read the rest, but she showed little interest in anything not related to Kushina. "And even so, it was only because it was what Kaa-san would have wanted."
For a moment I think he'll force me to hand them over, but he just nods.
"I understand." He says. "But if you find anything else, please let me know before you tell her. Her clan had a lot of enemies and I kept the knowledge from her to keep her safe."
I raise an eyebrow, I can see that with Minato, but she even has the Uzumaki last name, how would knowing about Kushina put her in danger?
Almost as if he can read my mind, Hiruzen answers.
"The last name could be passed off as honoring our fallen allies, and she lacks the Uzumaki red hair so they wouldn't think her more than an orphan." He says. "But if it got out that she's related to a jonin who fought in the last war, especially one that was a confirmed Uzumaki, it would be harder to hide it."
"So you are hiding her by telling the truth and having your enemies believe it to be a lie?" I ask, shocked at the ingenuity.
"Indeed." He laughs.
A silence falls over us as I consider that for all the credit I gave to his intelligence, it might not have been enough.
Then he stands up.
"Thank you for the tea, Sasuke-san, but I'm afraid I must go."
I nod and he walks to the exit, I only let out the breath I didn't realize I was holding when I'm sure he is not coming back.
I might not be able to keep myself constantly on guard, I'd snap if I tried, but I can't let myself forget that for as good as my position is, I'm still in enemy territory, and they won't hesitate to kill me if I give them a reason to suspect I'm not the Sasuke they believe me to be.
Even if I was willing to just give up on my revenge, and I'm not, I am far too valuable for them to just leave me be, I can't just leave. No, if I am to have any chance at living, at not being a prisoner and a slave to Konoha but instead at being free and achieving my goals, they need to die.
And here I thought immortality would be the hardest of my goals to achieve.
-[TGaE]-
The rest of the day after Hiruzen left had me jumping at shadows. I knew that, realistically, if he suspected something he could have me dragged to the Yamanaka for mind rape whenever he pleased and even if by some miracle I was declared clean I would be expected to smile and be understanding. He did it to protect Konoha, after all. So there was no point in being nervous, either he knew and there was nothing I could do about it, or he didn't and I was just risking him finding out by acting suspiciously.
But knowing that and calming down my nerves were two different things, I was never gladder that Natsumi didn't get tired when she noticed my nervous energy and proposed a spar to let me spend it.
I was feeling very possessive of Kaa-san's journal after that, Natsumi deserved to know and it benefited me to show her, but Hiruzen wanting to get his hands on one of my most valuable mementos from Kaa-san? Not if I had any say in the matter.
So with me sleeping alone for the first time in a while, Natsumi didn't always sleep in my bed but she often slept at least in my house so her going home was rare, I held it to my chest as I slept chest down, keeping it hidden between my body and the bed.
It wouldn't actually fool a shinobi, but it made me feel better.
What didn't make me feel better was waking up in the middle of the night to a masked figure trying to take it. I probably wouldn't have woken up at all if I hadn't already been jumpy before and even still I only had a split second of confusion as I instinctively activated my single tomoe Sharingan before mine met a single, fully mature one, and I blacked out.
Even then, by the time I woke up in the morning, it was back in my arms and it was only the Sharingan's perfect clarity that told me I hadn't dreamt that.
Fucking Kakashi, of course.
I understood, Kakashi was an ANBU and the Hokage wasn't about to trust me and risk Minato or Kurama coming out on the off chance that either of them were mentioned in the journal, and I wasn't even all that mad at Kakashi personally.
But it showed me something I had been trying to ignore, I already knew there were ANBU watching me but with them being invisible to me I could pretend to have some privacy. But now, all I could think of was what if they came to kill me?
I was asleep, I never heard Kakashi enter or leave, he put me to sleep with a literal glance, he could have killed me easily and I would only know when I woke up in the Void again.
What if they came to kill me? I wouldn't even be able to see it coming, all my efforts and by the time I ever noticed something was wrong, if I noticed at all, it would already be too late.
Kakashi wouldn't, at least not unless Hiruzen told him to, but what about Danzo's men? If Danzo as much as suspected that I wasn't blindly loyal to Konoha he wouldn't kill me, Itachi's threat would prevent that, but he would use Kotoamatsukami on me.
The idea of having my very sense of self rewritten was almost worse than dying again to me, almost.
I needed a way to detect them, if for no other reason than being aware of threats. Until I became immortal, or at least durable enough to shrug off fatal blows, sneak attacks were a dangerous possibility to me.
I was growing stronger, I might not have done anything too impressive by shinobi standards thus far but I was already superhuman, I could already run and jump faster than any human from Before could. But I couldn't fight what I couldn't see, and the notion of just being snuffed out, not even seeing my death coming and being able to struggle against it, shook me to my very core.
I needed a sensory technique, one that it would be impossible to hide from and one that would let me tell if someone wanted to harm me.
An incredibly tall order, obviously, I can think of S-rank shinobi that would kill for a technique like that, how can a measly academy student develop it?
Metaknowledge, that's how.
You see, while I may lack the chakra control to do any sort of precise chakra manipulation, I was still working on that with good results but I still needed time, and while I certainly didn't have the nature transformation skill to do anything even remotely advanced in that regard.
I did remember Tou-san teaching me the Great Fireball jutsu, and I could work on my fire release through it, but I hadn't practiced in months and my affinity was lightning anyway. I had way too much stuff to work with to try and train more than one element, I'd rather just master one element to its maximum before thinking about adding any others, and with how much I have to do that won't be until I at least am at a solid elite jonin level and have access to a few shadow clones, and between fire and lightning I'd pick lightning easily.
What I did have plenty of was skill in manipulating raw physical and especially spiritual energy, as that had been the focus of most of my chakra control training.
And what do I know about that requires manipulating spiritual energy, that supposedly gives sensing so powerful that if two users connect they can understand each other perfectly even without words, and that bypasses my low chakra control by existing before the ability to even mix physical and spiritual energy into chakra ever came to be?
Ninshu, of course.
If my memories of canon are correct, and they are, ninshu requires connecting your spiritual energy to someone else's, letting you share feelings and even memories. Hagoromo originally designed it to help people understand each other and bring peace to the world, and chakra was just the accidental creation of Indra, myself I guess, when he combined that energy with physical energy to see what would happen.
A thousand years of war, that's what happened, but I guess hindsight is a bitch even to demigods.
But I digress, if that is how ninshu works, then with some training I should be able to use it to sense other people's emotions, which would fit nicely as my sensory jutsu. I doubt even Danzo's drones are capable of not feeling anything at all, so hiding from it is all but impossible.
I doubt it will be easy to pull off, however, and that is ignoring that I would need to be able to both shield myself to not transmit my emotions and learn how to make it undetectable, it would still be useful even if people could tell I was using it, but I'm not about to leave such an obvious flaw open if I don't have to.
But this technique has far too much potential to give up just because it will be hard, both on the field and at home, so I will have to figure it out.
Heh, it might not exactly be a Kirin or Rasenshuriken, but a technique like that would be A-rank at least, if not outright S-rank. If I can pull this off at 8-years-old, what kind of monster will I be as a teenager? As an adult? Hell, I'll be immortal so I will have literally centuries to do it.
Who knows, maybe my aspiration to surpass canon Sasuke even without the EMS or Rinnegan will actually come much sooner than I expected.
I can hardly wait.
-[TGaE]-
I have two college tests this week, so sorry if this chapter felt a bit rushed and took a while, I just didn't want to wait too long to update without at least giving you guys a heads up first.
On a related matter, things have been picking up IRL for me, it is the end of term and I got a job, so to avoid having to apologize every time I can't post as fast as I'd like and to keep a somewhat consistent update schedule, I'll be updating this fic once a week.
I found it better to ensure a weekly update schedule and have a few chapters already done if I can't write that week than to try to post multiple chapters per week and rarely manage it because I don't have as much free time as I'd like.
So in short, this will be weekly updates and if I have some extra free time I'll get started on the following week's chapter. Hopefully, that will ensure that there is a chapter every week.
I'm not sure if it will be every Tuesday, I'm leaning towards every Thursday or Friday, but we will see.
I won't go into too much detail for this chapter because two tests, but I will say that Sasuke and Natsumi's relationship will be a sort of two damaged people finding comfort in each other, so it won't exactly be healthy and it will have moments like this one, but it will develop into something better eventually.
I didn't really like this chapter, maybe it is stress, maybe not, you tell me what you think and if you have any problems with it tell me how to fix them, I won't change the chapter but I will take your suggestions into consideration for future ones.
Also, as you saw, I changed the AN from bold to italics, a reviewer said it would look better so I'm testing it.
Anyway, reviews are appreciated, and see you next time.