I watched as my original vanished in a flash of light, their consciousnesses returning to their bodies. Hopefully, at least. I'd done what I could there. The world around us began to dim and fracture even as I pushed myself to the absolute limit of my imaginary body. Scraps of the great seal I'd helped my progenitor to finish in time flew from my hands onto the dissolving floor, just barely impacting in time to begin emitting the weak force field which would keep my small bubble of reality stable.
I breathed a small sigh of relief as the ground under my feet firmed up, returning to the consistency of stone tile instead of shifting sand.
'You sabotaged my efforts.'
I twitched, my head turning to see the red eyes pressed against the outside of the shield preserving me from the empty void beyond. Reduced to only a barely-defined specter clinging to existence, I still knew enough to understand who and what this was.
"I have to admit, you're one hell of an opportunist," I allowed, sitting down and beginning to remove the handful of things I'd saved from my lab. If my original had seen me pocketing so much, he'd declined to comment. "You're also stubborn as hell. I'm not sure I could think of another soul who could maintain cohesion halfway to the Pure Land like we are right now. Especially exposed to the raw energy between the realms like that."
'Yet you linger as well.'
I snorted, beginning my work. "Not for long, either way."
'You will explain your working, seal master.'
I frowned at the wispy shadow of a voice that was felt more than heard. "No, I don't think I will."
'Then, as you have interfered in my plans, I will foul the working you construct.'
I hummed in thought, weighing my options. On the one hand, I was confident in my barrier being able to keep out the eldritch forces of unreality that my bubble of reality was just kind of floating in. On the other hand, I knew the consequences of telling Madara he couldn't do something. While explaining myself wouldn't necessarily cost me anything, I was loath to invite meddling by telling him what I was up to, either. Which meant... if neither option was appealing, create a third and go for that.
"Why do you even care?" I asked instead. "Neither of us are long for this world. What I do with my last few minutes before I pass through to the afterlife or non-existence is my own business."
'I yet linger here, as do you. Returning to a restless slumber in the girl's soul is an unappealing fate. While I know only the basics of the esoteries of the seal master's art, your feats so far inspire curiosity. Besides, if you truly are destined for nothingness or the Pure Lands, then telling me will do you no harm.'
I frowned, working intently as I considered him calling my bluff.
"What this world calls the Pure Land is, in truth, a repository for all which is immaterial." I explained slowly. "As such, I have theorized that souls destined for reincarnation will pass through the immaterial to other worlds."
The shade of Madara was silent for a long moment.
'You seek to escape your fate by turning it against itself. Forcing an incarnation in another land.'
"Close enough," I replied, still working on my seals. "Honestly, I'm not even sure if it will function as intended. Seals are an art used in the material world and we most definitely are no longer there. Still, hope springs eternal, I suppose. Going to sabotage me now, out of spite that I prevented you from taking over a young girl's life?"
'I am considering it. Though I find it curious that you would not attempt to return to the material world. Would not that be easier?'
I huffed a quiet laugh. "My progenitor is taking care of that. While playing the older sibling is an entertaining thought, I trust myself enough to have things handled. Me showing up would just complicate matters."
It could also make one of us redundant, or at least less vital to the village. That would depend on whether or not my ability to draw information from the source of all knowledge carried over, but...
Well, given what I was pulling from it right now, I had no reason to think it wouldn't. After all, I was just a chakra construct, albeit a bit sturdier than what was considered normal. I had only the energy remaining in me which had taken a reasonable facsimile of flesh, blood, and bone. Unlike the real thing, though, I was more flexible. I was also closer to that same source.
Until now, I had been getting one or two bits of potential every month.
Now? I was getting the same thing every minute.
Or, at least, it felt like minutes. Time might not function all that well here, adrift as I was between worlds and slowly drawing closer to the Pure Lands themselves. It could just be that I was perceiving time more rapidly and, if I did return to the physical world, years might have passed in my absence.
'You do not think your life worth fighting for? You are content to allow someone else, even if it is a version of yourself, to take it over?'
There was disgust and disbelief in the rasp of a voice. I wanted to laugh, but had no need to antagonize him so. "We cannot all be Uchiha Madara."
'You know me.'
My fingers danced as I considered my reply and... an idea began to form. Maybe I could give my progenitor one last bit of help? "I know a great deal. Some myth, some legend, some fact which is mistaken for either of the former. I even happen to know a thing or two about talking shadows and giant trees."
'...what would you know of shadows?'
More knowledge flowed into my mind and I kept my breathing even as I worked on an ever-more-complex design which had grown to cover my shard of reality. "I was once given a very important piece of advice, 'Never trust anything that you can't see where it keeps its brain.' Why did you trust a strange manifestation of energy which whispered secrets to you, which guided you to obsess over nonsensical scrawls on an ancient tablet?"
'You speak madness, boy. The creature was my manifested will to carry on my great work. To see myself reborn!'
"For what it's worth, it's a compelling story. You were an unimaginably powerful shinobi during your life. It isn't so hard to believe that you could manifest the Black and White Zetsu creatures or create the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path." The way the specter pulsed and its pale-red eyes widened as it struggled to maintain cohesion told me how much I had shaken it.
'How do you know these things?! You will tell me at once!'
"Ah," I sighed and shook my head, a smile tugging at my lips. Just a bit more. Just a bit more and he would lose hold. I wanted to believe there was another way out of this situation, but it was hard to trust Madara's goodwill when he stood to lose nothing from screwing me over. "It's still just as easy to lead you around by your nose as it is Satsuki, you know? I suppose some things never change. Neither of you ever seem to make your own choices. I suppose that makes me Satsuki's Hashirama, in a way. Even were we to come to the same fate as you and he did, she would still live her life around what she perceived me to want, merely so that she could covet it instead."
'You know nothing! You are a fool!'
"That's because you and Hashirama are the same, at the end." I continued, heedless of his cries as long shadowy tendrils clawed at the bubble, threatening to pop it. "You both lived your lives for others, dreaming of peace. Hashirama was at least honest, though. You lied to yourself that you only wanted power."
The shadowy specter gave one last cry and, as it tried to draw back for one last attack, finally lost purchase and was drawn away into the wild energy between worlds.
I sighed in relief. Maybe it would help, maybe it wouldn't. If the specter returned to Satsuki's subconscious and took up its place in the long line of reincarnations her soul had been through, perhaps the questions I'd posed to her would poison the well between her and Zetsu some day, or cast doubt on the tablet if she decided she needed further power.
Looking at my seal, I took a final breath and could only hope this worked.
-6 Months Later-
I shrugged my shoulders and popped my neck as I put the finishing touches on the latest sword I'd forged, putting the sharpening stone aside and examining all aspects of it before laying it down next to the other five in the latest series I'd created. Looking to Torune, I nodded as I handed the case of blades off to him. "As I said, these are for ANBU. Wear the inhibitor gloves and absolutely do not channel chakra into them while you finish the handles and sheaths. Use the guards I've prepared for them, too."
"I understand, sir. I will not deviate from the instructions," Torune replied with grave seriousness.
"Good." Wiping my hands off, I turned. "I'll be in my workshop if needed."
Nodding to Sagara as I passed, the man merely grunted and continued the fine work on a new project someone had commissioned. I think it was a chunin judging by the materials arrayed. Disregarding that, I made a quick gesture towards the trap door to my underground lair and dropped through to the ground below.
The entire area had been completely redesigned and now bore far more room and, somewhat regrettably, another person.
Sai perked up as I hit the ground, busy as he was organizing notes and papers for my 'department.' "Captain, I've organized the requests from the Hokage's office. Do you want to look over them now or later?"
I sighed and took the scroll from him. "Sai, we've been over this. I'm not your captain. I'm not your commanding officer. I am a civilian. I want to stay a civilian, even if only by technicality. Stop addressing me as your superior."
The psychologically-damaged child soldier tensed slightly as he bowed. "I apologize, but I cannot. By order of the Hokage himself, I am answerable to your authority above all save his own. Captain is the least respect I can allow myself to refer to you with."
I frowned. "If you absolutely must, just refer to me as 'sir.'" I paused and rolled my eyes as I opened the scroll. "Consider that an order."
Which was something I'd been holding off on, but it seemed necessary to resort to, sadly. As much as I'd been trying to effectively 'do my own thing' even after the Hokage had discovered what I really was, it turned out that accidentally provoking something akin to a hostage crisis involving the heirs of three major Konoha clans...
Well, it meant the days of 'doing my own thing' were effectively over.
I had formal oversight now, having been placed under the official joint command of the ANBU Commander and the Jounin Commander, even if I actually answered to Sarutobi more often than not. Still, I'd gotten to meet Nara Shikaku and had to endure a very long lecture on how things were going to be from now on. That amounted to giving me official subordinates as well, effectively giving me Obito's old job of riding herd on Sai and Torune... who were probably still spying on me and reporting to either Itachi, Shikaku, Hiruzen, or some combination of all three.
Fucking ninja.
On the one hand, I could have fought the effort to more firmly bring me into the fold, but I was also mature enough to understand there were limits to the old man's goodwill. Making an informal relationship more structured with checks and balances against crazy bullshit happening again was an entirely reasonable request when the fallout of any of my experiments going awry would almost certainly involve the incapacitation or deaths of the shinobi and civilians the Hokage was supposed to protect.
When one looked at it like that, there were only a few real options open to me. I could have simply returned to the life of a simple craftsman, as much as I could anyway. I'd need to stop tutoring my friends, break ties with them as much as possible, and stop delving into weird esoteric secrets lest I accidentally tear a hole in reality when I didn't mean to. The other feasible path forward was to request a much more isolated workshop in which I could do as I pleased far away from the possibility of anyone getting caught in the blast zone. This would also require largely breaking ties with my friends given they wouldn't be of adequate rank to know where my new workshop was for a few years, given I would become a new S-Rank Village Secret.
The only other things on offer were to either formally join the shinobi forces or give everything up as a bad job and just run off to do my own thing. Both were unappealing for what I felt were obvious reasons.
The end result of this situation being that, through only a tiny bit of fault of my own, I'd ended up suffering through a regular paycheck and a much simplified daily regimen with a healthier work-life balance.
Because, as it turned out? Being officially employed meant enumerating all of your duties so that a schedule could be drawn up and a pay rate recommended. So I'd had to explain that I was regularly pulling twenty-hour days to Hiruzen, resulting in the village outright paying Sagara compensation for letting me keep cover as his senior apprentice and make a few specialty swords while the old man looked for a few actual apprentices to pawn the grunt work off on. Which immensely lessened the duties I had as a blacksmith, leaving me more time to do my tutoring and work on village projects.
Also sleep. For some reason people kept insisting I do more of that.
"Okay," I muttered, having finished reading over the projects I'd been sent. "I've actually got a head start on the prosthetics they want me to work on, so I'll put a package together for you to get over to the regular R branch's director. Have we lied about stealing something from Suna, yet?"
Sai cocked his head for a moment. "No sir."
I snapped my fingers at him. "Use that, then. Get Itachi to sign the requisite paperwork to pass them off and have the normal tinkerers reverse-engineer them."
Sai nodded quickly. "As you say, sir. What about the elemental testing seal research put forward by the Jounin Commander? He wants to roll it out for the next induction of students at the Academy."
My eyes flicked over to that part of the scroll dismissively. "I'll have that ready by tonight." I paused. "Scratch that. I have dinner with the girls. Tomorrow. It's easy enough, I just need to make a few notes on how to replicate it." I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. "Maybe I should start writing long-form manuals for entire disciplines. See if that's something the Hokage wants."
"I'll put the question forward to the ANBU Commander when I report to him for the other paperwork," Sai assured me.
"If that's all that's on the docket for today, I'll see about actually getting some things done before I need to quit for the day." I popped my fingers as I stepped up to my Matter Printer. "I'm also ordering you to take the rest of the day off once I leave. If I can't work eighteen-hour days anymore, neither can you, Sai."
Hearing his fumbling affirmative, I took a breath and felt the seals on my body begin to flare with the intricate workings I'd wrought onto my own flesh. Chakra from Naruko and Satsuki had been donated and replicated until I no longer needed constant transfusions. Now, I could produce Sage Chakra on my own.
"Let's get to work."
The room flashed and material for my next project began to appear out of nothing.
