I had my ninth birthday the other day. Tsunade had estimated from my stories a rough date for when I would have been born. Originally my birthday was supposed to be a small event in the clan but once invites were sent out to people from my academy class it changed into something else. Our clan has recovered it's position where Tsuna is now called the princess of the village and some people even call me a prince. I absolutely hate it but it's not something I can change right now. The clans in Konoha saw this as a way to make a good impression on me. Soon most of the clans of Konoha had managed to find a way to come to the party.
What was supposed to be a nice, enjoyable party to celebrate my birthday had turned into my nightmare. I spent most of my time that night entertaining guests along with Tsunade. There have been plenty of stories I've remembered with this kind of atmosphere and they didn't do it justice. I barely spent anytime with my classmates or others my age. Instead I had to talk to a bunch of people who wanted nothing more than to make a good impression. Fugaku looked at me with a slight hint of hatred in his eyes. The Uchiha weren't as looked down upon as before with the second but it hurt his pride to see the Senju's popularity with the village.
Talking with Mikoto and their children was a lot more enjoyable. Sasuke fawned over Itachi while Ruka hid behind her mother. The family looked a lot more harmonious than I thought. It made me wonder if in this life he'll still try to aim for the seat of power. I wondered about saying something to Tsunade or Minato. There is still the matter of that stone tablet but at this point I know that Fugaku has already read it. Even without the same circumstances he might still plot against the leaf. On the opposite end of the spectrum Hiashi Hyuga spent his time talking up his daughter, Hinata. I could only think that he's trying to marry off his daughter so she could be of use to the clan. I wasn't sure if she had already lost his confidence or not but it wasn't looking good for her.
Minato showed up briefly while his family stayed for the full party. He had to go back to work shortly after arriving. Kushina was pregnant again making this the third child for them. Even when I wasn't around their family I could hear Naruto running around. I knew what he was like but I guess with having a family his antics were dialed back a bit. Akane on the other hand was so well behaved I didn't think of her as the same age as Tsuna. She just seemed more mature than the people around her. Kushina got upset at me when I kept staring back and forth between her and her daughter. I could tell she wasn't happy with me but then she just started complimenting her daughter. Then her mood would sour when Naruto would run through the hall doing something she'd be embarrassed about. The rest of the night was filled with other meetings that ended up with pleasantries and chatting that didn't interest me.
At the end of the night I fell asleep so quick that I don't remember entering my room. I couldn't believe how exhausting it was. My gift from my family was a teacher to help me learn the summoning jutsu. Tsunade had made preparations for this a while ago but apparently my teacher was out of the village on a mission. This lead me to believe that it would be Jiraiya who would teach me. I wasn't surprised even a little bit as I was now sitting across from him.
"Hey kid long time no see!" Exclaimed the white haired man.
"It's nice to see you as well Lord Jiraiya."
"Come on now. You know you can just call me Jiraiya, no need for formalities." I looked at him for a bit.
"Is pervert acceptable?" I asked with a serious expression. He didn't look very amused before he responded to me.
"How about sensei? Your aunt told me that you're having some trouble with your chakra control and asked me to see if I could help you out."
"That works for me. I'd like all the help I can get." I said as I haven't had any success while waiting for him to come.
"You've become a lot more confident in yourself since I've last saw you. Glad you aren't that scared little boy anymore." He said with a smile.
"Only when Tsunade is mad at me." I said as I'm still scared of her when she's in a bad mood.
"Aren't we all?" Jiraiya said with a hearty laugh. "Your aunt is a fantastic woman. You're lucky to have her."
"I know that. I've also told her that a lot. I'm thankful for her giving me such a great home as well." He looked happy to hear what I said.
"Good she deserves to have a family that loves her like you two do. Besides I see you've been taking good care of that necklace of hers."
"I have" I said as I clutched it in my hands. I suddenly thought of something that I wanted to say to Tsunade. "Speaking of which I need to say something to Tsunade in a bit. Do you know if she will be watching us today?"
"She said she would watch us before she heads off to her meeting in the afternoon. Apparently there is a large meeting amongst the higher ups of the village that she has to attend."
"She never mentioned anything to me about that." Jiraiya had a smile on his face.
"Don't worry you'll know these things when you become the Patriarch of the Senju. No need to rush into the role. You should enjoy the youth while you have it." He laughed at me again. He wasn't wrong in what he said since Tsunade didn't inform me of all of the clan's business.
"Well let's get to it. I heard that you guys have a training field here now? Let's head over there to start." Jiraiya had me lead the way as we walked through the compound. Our grounds we're constantly expanding and we bought more land around us. Eventually we had our backs to a forest that we owned. Our main building is slowly being surrounded by other houses and some miscellaneous buildings to be used by the clan. While we are nowhere near the size of the Hyuga and Uchiha Clans we are holding our own.
Once we arrived in the field Jiraiya had found some shade under a tree to rest. He put me through a series of tests before he told me anything. The first was to use grass and have them stick to my palm as I held my hands out. I could do that after a few tries. The second was to try running up a tree. The third was to use a few different jutsus. After those three he stopped me.
"I was planning on having you do a few other things but I think I have an idea of why Tsunade asked me about this. You see chakra is made up of two different parts. Do you know what they are?"
"Yes they're made up of spiritual and physical energy." I told him recalling the information I had learned in the academy.
"You've done your homework and what happens when those two energies are out of alignment?"
"You fail in creating your jutsus?"
"Well that's one way of looking at it. What I can tell from you is that you use much more chakra than necessary in forming or using your ninjutsu."
"You could tell that from just now?"
"Well yeah. I mean it's pretty simple to do when you can feel the flow of chakra around you."
"Then can you tell me what I'm doing wrong?"
"I can but you have to do something for me kid." Jiraiya said as he had a grin on his face. I wondered if this is what it feels like to make a deal with the devil.
"What do you want?"
"I want your help in thawing your cold aunt's heart towards me. If you can help me with that then I can help you as much as I can. If not I'll still teach you anyways." He said with another laugh. I think he enjoys messing with me. I was ready to retort to him but a few prompts showed up in front of me. I guess I wasn't the only one who wanted to help those two since I got rewarded with two prompts. [Help Jiraiya with his request. Reward: ? Failure: none. Do you accept? Yes/No?] [Perform the summoning jutsu today. Reward: Summoning contract Failure: Unable to improve chakra control. Do you accept? Yes/No?]
"That's fine" I said with a straight face with no hesitation.
"Wait? Huh?" He said a little shocked.
"I don't mind"
"Kid do you know what I'm talking about?"
"A little but I don't know why you want it to happen. I just know adults want to be with people because they like them."
"You're not wrong but I feel like there's something off with your answer." He said trying to find out what he felt was wrong about what I said.
"Okay kid the first thing you're going to need to do is figure out is finding the balance between the two energies that make up your chakra. To do that you need to..." He went into a long winded explanation which was a mix of what I knew and a few things I haven't heard before. He let me try to practice on my own for a bit as he pulled out a notebook to start writing a bit. At some point Tsunade came and sat down next to him as she watched me go through the exercises he gave me. The two had talked for a bit when Jiraiya had interrupted me.
"Have you noticed anything weird since I asked you to do this?"
"No matter what I do something just always seems off? I can't shake the feeling that there is something blocking me from doing what I want."
"Good, good. You've started to notice your problem. What do you think is blocking you?"
"I don't know." I said as couldn't think of what it could be. I'm not a host to a tailed beast like Naruto or Kushina. There shouldn't be any other chakra to get in the way of me doing this. Maybe when I was being experimented on something happened and that's the cause? I got upset and sat down with an obvious pout on my face. How was I supposed to know something that I don't. Should I head to the library and try reading through some more scrolls on this?
"Jiraiya is what I thought really the case?" Asked Tsunade from his side.
"You're going to spoil all my fun today." He said with a smile
"You're not joking about this?"
"No but it looks like the kid doesn't even realize it himself which is a bit of a shame."
"What are you two talking about?" I asked hoping someone would fill me in.
"Alright kid, here's the deal. The reason for your chakra problems is that you've unconsciously been adding a third element to your chakra throwing the balance all over the place. To compensate for that you've been using up more of your other elements to try and overpower the part you accidentally let in. That's why you have trouble with your control. In order to fix this you need to learn how to utilize nature energy." Now it made sense why Tsunade specifically wanted him to teach me. If this was then there would only be two people that could teach me this in the village one was him and the other was Minato. Since she can't ask Minato for the favor due to others seeing it as a political move she opted for Jiraiya. Honestly getting him would probably be easier anyways.
"You're telling me I need to learn how to use nature energy before I can properly control my chakra?"
"Yup." He laughed once more.
"What do you think is so funny about this?" Tsunade had glared at him "Is he going to have problems learning how to use regular chakra now?"
"Of course not. I just find it funny that the kid has to do something akin to learning how to run before he's even able to crawl. If he learns how to control nature energy then he should be able to figure out how to avoid using it for his jutsus. If he learns how to the nature chakra then he should be the youngest sage in the village in a long time. He should be able to use his normal chakra much better once he can feel nature chakra. Once he learns to control everything I think his ability will be much greater since I can already tell he has an above average chakra pool."
"Do you need to bring him to Mount Myoboku?" She asked wondering where we'll go from here. Sage mode was something that her grandfather, Hashirama, excelled at. He was able to enter it in a natural state while Jiraiya needed the help of the toads to extend his duration in sage mode. Minato unfortunately wasn't that adept at using it.
"I'd like to. If he has the potential to be a sage than I think the toads will be happy to help him."
"Does this mean I get to learn the summoning jutsu now?" I asked hoping that I would be able to.
"Hold your horses kid. We have some things to take care of first before we learn something like that."
"Like what?" Now that I think about it. I should already know the hand seals for the summoning jutsu. I think it was boar, dog, monkey, bird and ram. Wait no that doesn't sound right. Was it bird then monkey? Or bird then ram? Bird then monkey sounded right so I should try that one and see what happens. I already knew that Jiraiya had done this when he was younger and ended up fine. I was getting a little impatient now that I remembered I could perform the seals without being taught them.
"Well didn't you say you were going to help me out and not to mention we need your aunt's approval before I take you anywhere."
"Okay fine I'll take care of it now."
"Tobi, wait. Stop. Don't you dare." Jiraiya's attitude took a complete 180.
"Auntie." I called out to Tsunade to the horror of Jiraiya. "Jiraiya says he wants me to soften you up so he has a chance with you. He promised me all sorts of things if I told you the good things about him."
"Kid, you're rotten to the core. You know that? I can't believe you'd make up such lies in front of your aunt like this."
"He didn't say anything weird to you did he?" Tsunade asked after having her fist fall on top of Jiraiya's head. She was too used to him by this point as she just expected things like this. I shook my head to let her know.
"Good I wouldn't want him to infect you with his…" She stopped and I could only assume she was looking for the right word. "Hobbies. I have no problem with you going to train with him but don't pick up any of his bad habits."
"I won't besides I don't understand those things anyways."
"I'll tell you when you get older but for now keep doing what you're doing. It's better this way." She said as we both know I have a lot of knowledge about things I really shouldn't know about at this age. I held the necklace in my hand as I thought about how I could get these two a little closer together. I want them both to be happy and I thought that maybe things could change in this life for them.
"I see you've been taking good care of it." She said with a smile.
"I have. I'm sorry I almost made you regret giving this to me but if anything it proves that this isn't cursed." I said with my own smile at the end. Tsunade had a bit of a blush as she had a fleeting thought.
"What are you thinking about over there?" She asked as my smile only got bigger.
"Isn't it about time for you to find someone for yourself? I know I've probably started to get marriage proposals as a few of the guests hinted about how beautiful their daughters were during my birthday party." Jiraiya was awfully quiet to the side. I found out the reason why was that he was too fixated on Tsunade.
"Tobi what are you talking about?" She said as she tried to deflect what I said.
"The people you care about won't die anymore. There will be people in the future who will carry on the dream of Dan and Kawaki. I don't plan on following their dreams but I will help the ones who are meant to." I said as I took off my shirt to show my scar. " I've already showed that when I survived this. You should make up your mind on how you feel about things. You never know when it might be too late as Jiraiya might not always be here."
"Kid what do you mean by me not always being around."
"Tobi this isn't one of those cryptic visions you've had before?" Tsunade asked as we were still hiding the fact that I knew about this world as a story.
"Who knows what I'm saying? I'm just a kid." I said teasing the two.
"Do you know how to make him talk?" Jiraiya said as he looked at Tsunade.
"Yup. I know what makes him sing if you'd like." She said as she got up. She walked over to me and grabbed me by the collar. "You know I really don't like when you talk like this. I thought you'd tell me everything that we needed to know."
"I have done that and I know that you know I didn't tell you everything."
"So I was right in saying that this is from that?"
"Yeah but I just want you to be happy which is why I said it." Her expression softened after I told her that. "You took his death hard."
Tsunade let me down as her grip lost all of its strength. I took a couple of steps back and looked at her face. It showed that she had trouble accepting it. "How did it happen Tobi."
"I'm not going to tell you, at least not now."
"What did the kid say?" Jiraiya asked as he had recovered from his earlier beating. I could hear his wooden sandals as he approached the two of us. Tsunade told him what I said. Jiraiya held up a hand to his chin as he thought about it.
"Kid, can you tell us anything about it?" I shook my head as I was resolute on this. There were too many things this impacted as I wasn't sure how Akatsuki would look at this point in time. I knew they were going to wait until I was roughly eighteen to attack the leaf. Why should I tell them beforehand only to have them attack sooner. In the worst case scenario Pain would destroy the village and we wouldn't have Naruto to make him revive the dead. I couldn't let that happen.
"He's oddly resolute about not wanting to tell me. Something big must have happened if it resulted in your death." The two continued to talk about what it could be. Knowing that this was my chance to get out of here I took it. I bit my finger to use my blood as a catalyst. I wove the five hand seals needed and slammed my hand into the ground. A circle of seals extended outward from my hand as the two in front of me were forced out of their shock.
"Kid, what are you doing. You shouldn't use it like that." Jiraiya said as he started to run in my direction. Tsunade was already a step ahead of him but my figure vanished in the smoke. Once I slammed my hands down on the ground I felt like one of my rifts had forced me to enter it. I was sucked into something and I had no idea where this would go. The only reference I had was what Jiraiya had done when he did this to end up on Mount Myoboku. It was possible that he was extremely lucky to end up there while I might be thrown somewhere else entirely.
After what felt like forever I was thrown from whatever I was in. I found myself falling from the sky when I could see my surroundings again. In every direction I could see was vast plains with clusters of trees every now and then. I looked directly down to see that this wasn't a fall I could survive without luck. Today was the birth of a new fear in me. The fear of being thrown through a rift and free falling from the sky. I know it might be a bit specific but I could probably round it off at a new fear of heights. I was screaming at the top of my lungs for help.
Eventually I thought I was going to die but I didn't want to do so without a fight. I figured if I could find a way to slow my descent or roll I could find a way out of this. I thought about a wood style jutsu that could help me out. If I could make a tree at the right angle I might be able to slide down it to stop myself but I don't know if I had the Chakra for it. I used up all the chakra I could as I thought about the shape I wanted it to take. I closed my eyes as so I could concentrate better. I could feel the chakra change and leave my body. I knew I didn't have much time left so I kept my eyes closed while concentrating on the shape.
One second, two seconds, three seconds, five seconds went by with nothing happening. Ten seconds went by and I still didn't open my eyes. It wasn't until thirty seconds that I finally opened my eyes as I recalled what it felt like to be dead. This wasn't that feeling. I opened my eyes to find that I was surrounded by fur. I had landed on a furry animal most likely. I blinked a few times as I couldn't believe my luck.
"Hey kid are you gonna get off me anytime soon?" A deep voice had resounded from somewhere.
"Thanks for saving me mister." I tried to move but I kept getting stuck on his fur as I was almost entrapped within. It was like trying to walk on quicksand or a couple of feet of fresh snow. Every step I took my legs would get swallowed by its fur. It took me a bit before I managed to fumble my way off of its back. I landed on the ground a little awkward but nothing broke so I was content with that.
"What's a human like you doing here?" asked the furred creature in front of me. The creature was a lot larger than I thought it would be. It towered over me as it lowered its head to look at me. That was when I realized that it was a giant wolf and its canines were taller than I was.
"Where is here exactly?" I said slowly trying to gain a little bit of distance.
"Hmm. You don't know how you got here boy?" I shook my head hoping not to let him smell my fear. I knew if I talked right now I'd bite my tongue or do something stupid. "You're in the Endless Plains."
The wolf started to walk around me. Its huge paws shaking the ground each time he moved. I followed the wolf's head as he moved around me. I made sure to keep eye contact with the wolf as long as he was surveying me. If I could get him to acknowledge me then I may be able to find a clan willing to sign a contract with me.
"Interesting. For such a young human to not be afraid of me. It's been a long time since I've seen one like you. Most of the humans that I've seen have tried to run when they meet us." He said as he stopped his pacing. Once he did that we both stared at each other. He was the first to break the deadlock as he let out a loud domineering growl just a feet away from me. I wanted to run but I knew deep down I wouldn't survive if I did that. For some reason I was feeling that if I wanted to live through this I'd have to stand my ground. I'd have to be seen as something worthy of taking an interest in. The wolf's growl felt like it lasted hours to me.
"What's your name boy?" The wolf asked as he seemed different from before.
"Tobi Senju." I stuttered a bit almost biting my tongue. Although I stood my ground my dignity didn't stay in tact.
"Well boy what brings you to this place?" He said with a different tone.
"I performed a summoning jutsu without a contract and I ended up here falling from the sky. I knew it was risky but I didn't think I'd fall from the sky when I did it."
"You're lucky if some log hadn't poked me in the stomach I wouldn't have moved out of my nap" He said while looking over at the log that grew out of the ground. I froze upon seeing my failed attempt to save myself. If I landed on that I'd die from being impaled. The log I made had been sharpened at the end to the point where the ramp I imagined was closer to a giant spear.
"I'm sorry. I made that when I was falling hoping that it would help me out. Looking at it now the only help it would give me would probably be a swift death." The wolf grew angry after hearing that I was the one who made it.
"Boy did how did you think making a spear would help you out when you were going to fall on it?"
"I wanted it to be a ramp or a slide that I could fall along but I don't have the control to do it right. I have a problem with my control and I was hoping to find someone to teach me how to feel nature energy." The wolf looked at me and I was unsure of what it was thinking.
"I heard that there was once a man who could use wood like you did but I can't recall what his name was."
"That would be Hashirama Senju of the Senju Clan. He died a long time ago but I'm a member of that same clan. The current head is my aunt who is contracted with Lady Katsuyu." I said to the wolf.
"Ah yes the Senju Clan. I remember a long time ago one of the members of that clan made a contract with us. I can't remember his name now but I'm sure the patriarch does." The wolf decided to grab me and throw me on his back. "If you're a part of that clan then the patriarch might want to see you."