In his office, Hiruzen was looking with an exasperated expression at his second son who was pouting heavily.
"So, care to explain what happened?" Hiruzen asked to which Asuma answered as petulantly as one could expect from a child his age.
"I just wanted to test my skills."
"That is no excuse to use your chakra strings to flip the skirt of that Kurenai girl." Hiruzen said with some degree of irritation.
He was already filled to the brim with taking care of things now that the Third Ninja War seems to be approaching more and more.
Hiruzen has spent the last year hard at work, having all sorts of meetings with diverse groups and clans like that of the Tsuchigumo Clan and the Yumegakure as well as making sure that Takigakure knew just who they were allied with and checking the training of all their shinobi.
It was hard work, but all the higher ups from Konoha were trying their best at this time.
Danzo for instance has been hard at work, sending his ROOT ninjas disguised as members of other shinobi villages and causing damage to other nations' villages and citizens, making sure that there was no way they could form any great alliance against Konoha. Heck, with how things were going, Hiruzen was relatively sure the other villages would start a war amongst themselves due to simple pressure from the Daimyos and the civilians of the land.
Hiruzen had to sigh at this, Danzo really was amongst the very best when it comes to these sorts of underhanded tactics that Hiruzen himself avoided. Just as Tobirama had wanted, they were to be the light and darkness of Konoha, even if more and more Danzo grew extreme in his views and caused troubles.
As for Kohaku and Homura, the two were responsible for ensuring the supply lines of Konoha in terms of weapons, seals, medicines, and food were maintained to as high a degree as possible. Things were progressing well for Konoha, but it was still a lot of hard work that had to be done by Hiruzen who was feeling more and more his years catching up to him.
Just this morning he felt some joint pains once more. Thankfully the weed he smokes makes him get better when it comes to those things, but it was just a sign he was getting rather old.
Still, having one of his stronger Jonins, one of the absolute best Genjutsu users in the village (outside of the Uchiha), come in to complain about how his son has been acting was… discouraging.
Asuma himself, seeing his father's disappointed expression, looked down and said.
"Sorry. I was just kinda bored since Setsuna hasn't been coming to class as often and with Kakashi becoming a Genin already, school just became kinda boring." Asuma says and Hiruzen sighs.
He knew that Asuma wanted to graduate too. Since Kakashi did his graduation test early and was able to become Genin at age six Asuma has been trying as well, pushing for it since that time, but Hiruzen would not allow it.
The Hokage knew that his child had the necessary skills already. He might not be as much of a genius as Kakashi or Setsuna, but he has been working hard constantly thanks to the former serving as an example and the latter helping him improve. Heck, the whole genius class was getting stronger and stronger at a considerable rate which surprised Hiruzen a lot. They had the potential of becoming the strongest class Hiruzen has ever seen, and that seemed to be thanks to Setsuna who used his Byakugan to observe and help his classmates in all sorts of ways.
Even the Uchihas seemed to listen to him according to the teacher there, even if it took the Hyuga beating the crap out of them several times until they did so.
Still, Hiruzen could accept one child graduating extra early like Kakash, but if several did so all at once then the other villages' spies (because there would definitely be spies) would report it and this might spook the other villages into action. Kakashi alone would not make them react, two dozen 'kakashi' showing up is a whole other matter so Hiruzen did not allow anyone else from graduating early.
But this and that are separate matters. Hiruzen still had to make sure his son would learn how to act properly, not only as a shinobi, but as a future ninja of Konoha and the young master of the Sarutobi Clan.
"I don't want your excuses. What I want is for you to go to her house and apologize to her for what happened and promise her to never do that again." Hiruzen said to Asuma who grimaced.
He didn't like the idea of doing that. It was just a harmless prank, it should not need him to go to her house just for something as simple as that.
"But father-"
"No buts, or I will personally tell your mother about this and then SHE will make your butt red from the spanking." Hiruzen threatened, shamelessly using his wife as a threat to his son who looked terrified of this happening.
No way, Hiruzen spends most of his time with his duties as Hokage which leaves Biwako Sarutobi to raise Asuma for the most part and that woman was, well, let's just say she believes 'tough love' is never quite enough.
"Fine, whatever." Asuma said with a defeated tone before getting up and leaving the room his father was in. He was still dissatisfied by all of this, but he could not fight back against his dad no matter how much he might want to do so.
He was the Hokage, after all.
As for Hiruzen, he went back to his work. Specifically, he was having a slight headache at the moment due to the caravan to the land of steel they would be going next. They had made a rather large order of equipment like ninja swords, kunais, and shurikens there since they were the very best at those, but this caravan would need to travel by land and the land of Iron is situated between the lands of Earth and Wind.
Just like how Konoha tried to intercept the convoy from Sand Village, it was near inevitable that those two villages would try something like that.
They need the guards of that place to be strong enough to push back against anyone who might try something, someone who could defend even if a Jinchuuriki tries something there or Suna tries to do something with their poisons.
Unfortunately, Sakumo would not be suitable for this as both the villagers and ninjas would not accept him taking this job after his last failure (Danzo did far too good of a job of lowering the man's prestige so there would no longer be talks of Hokage succession in these tense times), but even if the man was only taking some missions when he wanted to now that he was no longer in Ambu, there were still other options.
Hiruzen looked at the many options available until he reached a suitable conclusion that should work nicely. The Third Hokage knows his time as Hokage is coming closer and closer to the end, he was not foolish enough to not realize this and he only wanted to stay in charge until this next war as to make sure things stayed well. After it, he would resign to make sure to raise his son well, but he still wanted to make sure the village was in the right hands and that whoever was in charge later would at least be willing to let him stay in an advisory position.
Not to control Konoha, but to at least have a voice and help make sure the village was in a good position moving forward. He originally thought of Orochimaru, but the man was far too interested in experiments to bother with managing the village well (he'd likely dump most of the work on Hiruzen and Danzo, so his retirement would be pointless).
His second option, Minato, was not a bad one. The kid was still young, but he had already mastered the Hiraishin technique from the second hokage and was dating the village Jinchuuriki while being the disciple of Jiraiya. He had great qualifications… but he was still very young and his prestige and lineage would not be enough to truly control those more egocentric and overly 'noble' clans like the Hyuga and Uchiha.
Konoha would not be able to truly unite under him for many, many years. Hiruzen would still be able to help, but it would not be ideal for him.
He would still be Hiruzen's option with things how they were before… but things had recently changed. Tsunade Senjuu, the granddaughter of the First Hokage, head of the Senjuu clan, and his own disciple finally seems to have recovered from her mental issues and had regained her old fire.
She would be an even better Hokage in Hiruzen's mind, someone with more than enough 'nobility' and prestige, with comproved strength, respected throughout the village, everything was certainly ideal. Yes, she would do nicely on this mission, to show the village and others that the old Tsunade was back and able to move.
Reaching a decision, Hiruzen did some hand signs and an Ambu appeared in front of him.
"Go ask Tsunade to come over here. I have a mission I would like her to do." Hiruzen said and the anbu nodded before going to execute the mission.
Now the old Hokage just had to decide who else to send with Tsunade. Options, options…
Setsuna's P.O.V.
Focus. Focus. Carefully separate the physical and spiritual energies from the chakra, separate the Yin Yang energies that compose chakra, let the yang energy overflow and fill my cells carefully.
It is like osmosis, making the cells drink in the pure physical energy as much as they possibly can. Not too much, not too little.
Yes, just like that. Now, it doesn't need me to be fast at this. Just to release a punch and-
BOOM
I look at the result of my punch. A boulder that teacher Tsunade had set up for me was completely smashed as my fist stayed in place. A smirk surging as I looked back to see the teacher nodding in my direction.
"Not bad, kid. You learned this way faster than I did back then. Give it another year of this and you should be able to use my strange force technique instinctively and instantly instead of needing to take your time to carefully focus on it." Teacher Tsunade said with a small smile as she turned to the side and saw Shizune still not able to do it.
She could only sigh, Shizune was extremely talented in healing but she naturally had little in the way of pure Yang energy which limited her growth in this sort of thing.
From the way I see it, Shizune is not truly suited to be completely focused on following Tsunade's steps. She has much more 'yin', much more spiritual energy than physical one. She can use healing no problem. Teacher herself said that by age 13 or 15 she would be no worse than herself when it comes to healing, but the other techniques of Tsunade are just not suitable for her.
Shizune seems to still be stubborn, but I hope she will listen and train her advantages soon instead of stubbornly clinging to something that just won't work.
"You guys still training?" A sing-song voice said from the corner and, turning to look I saw the redheaded menace. "You guys are too boring, don't you do anything except training?"
"We kinda need to do that if we intend to improve. Not everyone can just read books to improve without needing to train to develop chakra or their natural bullshit abilities." I said snarkly to the girl who growled at me.
"Say that again, baka white, and I will show you what is what." Kushina Uzumaki said to which I rolled my eyes and just continued with my training.
The girl was not really lazy, she worked somewhat hard with learning how to control her bijuu chakra and study sealing… but she never could go out on missions so she mostly stayed in the Senjuu compound with the rest of us. So, whenever she grew bored she would try and pull a conversation with us or go out with her boyfriend.
When she was out it was okay, but when Minato was out on missions she would come talk with us and it was 99% about Minato this and Minato that.
Teacher, on the side, sighed and asked.
"So, where were you just now?"
"Oh, places." Kushina said with a disinterested tone that made Tsunade squint her eyes at the girl.
"What 'places'?"
"Places as in Ichiraku Ramen and Minato's house and going shopping with Mikoto and-"
"Kushina." Tsunade said in a stern tone that shut the girl up. The blond Senjuu took a deep breath as she saw Kushina's deer on a redlight expression and said. "You remember what we discussed, correct? About you only being allowed to do 'that' after you marry. I do not want you risking getting a child before you are even in a proper relationship, I have seen far too many innocent girls who got pregnant due to some bastard sweet talking them and when it was time to take responsibility they bail."
"Oh, right, yeah we did talk about that." Kushina said in a light tone, Tsunade's eyes hardening causing Kushina to gulp. "I swear, we didn't do anything. Just kissing."
Tsunade continued to glare before turning in my direction who really, really didn't want to get involved.
"She is telling the truth. I didn't see her doing anything beyond that." I said as Kushina shot a glare at me for being Tsunade's 'spy' and personal guarantee of Minato being cockblocked.
I remember how last week Kushina and Minato tried to go further and I, as part of my training, was able to see it happening with my Byakugan. No, I was not trying to perv on her, my hormones had yet to kick in so even if I could appreciate it there was little else happening for me. Instead, I just used the two to test my eyes, find out where they go in Konoha and see if I could even check what they were talking or, in this case, doing with their mouths..
Kushina really is a redhead, and I was honestly shocked that the 'Brazilian' cut was popular here in this world. Nice. Regardless, I reported it to Tsunade who went there to catch Minato with the hand (or to be more specific the tongue) where he shouldn't.
If not for Minato already knowing the Flying Thunder God I think he would have gotten a nice pension from the village while he recovers in the hospital from having both legs broken right then and there.
Teacher is very, very protective to all those she cares for, almost smothering in some cases.
Of course, Kushina would later find out I was the one who snitched her and put a seal on me that made me unable to control my intestinal movements for a full day. Fucking bitch, that was so not cool.
Tsunade clearly wanted to say something more, but an Ambu showed up at this moment in time.
"Lady Senjuu, Lord Hokage wants to see you." The Anbu said and Tsunade grunted in agreement.
She then turned to us and spoke up.
"Shizune, you can go into the greenhouse to check the herbs housed there and study them some more. I want you to write your interpretation of the possible uses of at least three herbs and a viable combination for both poison and medicine and show me them." Shizune nodded at this with a determined expression. The girl might not have that much talent for the Yang techniques, but her raw potential for the use of medicines and such is astounding and Tsunade wanted her to learn more of them from what I see.
It is not a bad path. If she learns it well enough she could be similar to Chiyo of Sunagakure who can kill with a single scratch or maybe she can develop jutsus that use poison like Hanzo of the Salamander.
Who knows really?
Teacher then turned to me and said.
"Setsuna, I want you to try and change the places of the Strange Force Technique. I want to see you using them from all parts of the body."
"Understood, teacher." I said with a nod at her.
She nodded back before turning to Kushina.
"And as for you, you can-"
"I am gonna go study seals some more." Kushina said, not caring about stopping to listen to Tsunade's words who in the end just shrugged and left the Uzumaki do as she pleased.
Teacher then left and Shizune gave me a wave of goodbye as she ran to the warehouse. It was only me and Kushina in here as I raised a brow and showed her my open palm.
The girl snarled slightly as she took out a simple small booklet from her pouch and threw it at my hand. Looking over, it was what I had requested, the basic matrices and theories for the Uzumaki sealing techniques.
"Pleasure doing business with you." I said with the same sort of sing-song voice she used at the start to which she huffed in indignation before turning around and leaving.
I almost laughed at this as I put the booklet away. Our agreement was simple, I would not tell her on Tsunade (as long as she was still a virgin since THAT is something Tsunade can find out if she wants to) so the Uzumaki can do as she pleases with her boyfriend, in exchange for letting them go into third base without me telling on them she had to give me some of her books and sealing techniques.
Not the truly big stuff, she would not give me anything near A or S rank just for that, but books of the basic theory of the Sealing techniques of the Uzumaki family as well as some lower end sealing matrixes is something she is much more okay with sharing.
Hope Minato's dick was worth sharing this with me, but from what little I saw, there was little there to speak of. Poor guy, barely three inches downstairs, Kushina will wring him dry sooner or later that is for sure.
It was late at night as I was practicing my Tai Chi.
I started it again last year as I felt the training getting too hard even for me. My body hurt more than I could handle, but the thought of stopping did not sit well with me so I tried this as a way to feel better.
On a physical level, Tai Chi improves strength, flexibility, aerobic conditioning and balance. It's been proven to improve cardiovascular fitness, lower blood pressure, prevent falls and help people who have arthritis (which means helps you down to the bone).
Not only that, Tai Chi also helps with mental aspects like improving the mood and mental health, improving cognitive ability, and help with getting a better sleep.
Since there were no real downsides by trying it, I have done it once and found out it works wonders not only to help one get relief from pain, but most importantly it has a positive result on my chakra reserves!
Maybe those legends of the origin of the art that says the creator had near supernatural powers and huge reserves of internal energy had some merit? Who knows it really, what matters is that it actually works here.
This is a physical exercise that not only serves to train and improve my physique, but has positive effects on my spiritual energy too, which makes my chakra all the stronger for it.
After I figured that out I wanted to kick myself over not having tried it sooner, but what was done was done so I simply did this every night since. I would practice it and try to integrate it and gentle fist together, but it was slow going in my eyes as the two, while similar, were not the same.
This also made me write down all sorts of ideas to try in the future to improve myself further whenever I hit a roadblock or something. There were many unique ideas there, and I feel like it would be interesting to try them out later.
As I was doing my 'snake creeps through the grass' I saw Tsunade entering. The woman took way longer than I expected, I hope everything was okay.
"Kid, you seem to still be hard at work." Tsunade said with a small smile and I shrugged.
"I won't get to live long if I don't improve now." I said easily. "Besides, I still have a dream I want to fulfill."
"Oh, is it that mysterious dream you never tell me about? What was it again?"
"Secret." I said with a smile, refusing to speak up.
No way, she might not accept all that well my dream of ending the current Hyuga clan. For me, that is downright a necessity, ending the rule of those elders and the main branch is something I wish more than I would care to admit to anyone.
Just the thought of those idiotic elders suffering beneath my feet or being tortured by someone that would make Orochimaru want to take notes fills my heart with joy.
Teacher just shook her head in amusement before she told me something.
"Anyway, I will have to go out on a mission tomorrow and I should take around a month or so to come back. You will have to stay here with Kushina and Shizune, is that fine with you?" Tsunade asks and I grimace slightly before reluctantly nodding.
Kushina will 100% use this time to try and get back at me for blackmailing her and such. Damn it.
But, something caught my interest there. Normally, Hizashi only allows me to stay in the Senjuu compound instead of the Hyuga compound because of the clan liking the fact one of their members is the direct apprentice of one of the Sanin, the last Senjuu, the granddaughter of the first hokage, and the most likely candidate for Fourth Hokage.
But, if Tsunade shall be traveling for a month, I would expect the clan to tell me to go back and live there. They do love to make sure I have 'deep ties' with them by trying to make me be friends with Ko (who is a wimpy bossy bitch in my eyes, kid is a shinobi in training but just wants to run away and hates the mere thought of getting into a fight).
It seems I am still too easy to read as the teacher spoke up.
"Hizashi will be coming in the mission too and your old house has been demolished due to them needing to do repairs in the plumbing system. It was either you go stay with the head of the family or you stay here for a month, I think you would prefer staying here correct?"
"Thank you very much, teacher." I said with a deep bow. No way, Hiashi as the heir of the family was not that bad and his wife was a hot future milf who was very gentle even to those from the side branch like me, but the current head of the family is one of the absolute bastards one can find.
I still remember last year's new year celebration where all branch members (including me) were made to sit in seiza from early in the morning until the time the new year happened with the elders in front reciting the greatness of the main branch and the honor that was serving them, singing praises to the side branch members who perished in the line of duty on the same way they did about the main branch members who 'helped' produce more Hyugas.
And, on the very end, the Patriarch stood in front of us all and made everyone shout loudly about how it was our duty, honor, and fate to serve the main family. We had to repeat that 365 times, one for each day of the year that was to come.
Poor Kang, that little kid was almost two years younger than me being only 5 now and that was his first meeting. He ended up falling asleep during the ninth elder speech and was woken up via the cage bird seal being used to make him almost pass out. The elder torturing the kid as if it was normal was another mark as to why I wanted to end this disgusting practice.
So, yeah I am glad I did not end up back at the Hyuga compound.
"You are welcome, kid. I will go to inform Kushina and Shizune about this, so you can continue your training. Oh, and here, a gift." Tsunade said as she threw me a small token. "I would give it to you on your birthday in a few weeks, but since I won't be around you may as well get it now. This is a token I got from Shikaku to allow you to visit the Nara forest. There are some interesting herbs that only grow there and you might be interested since you like to study medicine so much, Shukaku owed me one so he let me have this and give it to others, but you can't harm the deers understand."
"Yes, teacher." I said quickly, not minding such conditions whatsoever since I had wanted to visit and explore that location for a very long time by now.
The Nara Forest should have just what I need for me to produce the medicine I want considering it is where their deers are from. Their antlers can be used to produce medicine to explosively increase one's chakra, that is not something that can be explained normally so perhaps it is some sort of herb combination they have that allows for their bodies to produce chakra.
And it is chakra, not nature energy! I am sure of that since, if the herbs these deers eat were related to nature energy, then the deers there would have become like summon beasts instead. All researchers indicate as such, that excessive ingestion of food with nature energy is what is needed for regular animals to develop intelligence and eventually into proper summon animals.
Oh yes, going there is something I will certainly appreciate a whole lot. Just the thought of maybe finding herbs that can help me with my research gets me excited!
"Thank you, teacher. This means a lot." I tell teacher Tsunade who nods her head with a small smile before she goes inside and I return to my katas.
Things are really looking up for me. Watch out Kisame, someone else is gonna be the next 'Tailed beast without a tail'