Satoshi Senju was a scarred, grizzled, and bitter man.
He was a survivor of the Warring States Period and a veteran of the Great Shinobi War. The fourth sibling out of six, Satoshi's first memory was his father handing him a kunai.
He was bred for war. He was born in it. He was good at it. He even enjoyed it. The fight, the struggle, the thrill, the adrenaline. Every battle refined him and made him better. Each conflict tested his conviction, and each victory validated his existence.
But as war gave him his identity, it also took it from him. The war had ripped his family apart.
All his siblings died in meaningless conflicts throughout the Land of Fire. He remained alive only due to him being too young to be sent into the battlefield and his father's heart-wrenching guilt.
Satoshi's parents had taught him the sheer brutality and apathy present in war with cold, hard hands. At first, he did not get it. He did not even remember his dead siblings or family members.
Why was he fighting these battles? Who were these people to him? For whom was he getting revenge? Satoshi had these questions, for which he had no answers.
But Satoshi was a filial son and a true shinobi. So he kept quiet and followed the orders of his parents, his commanders, and his clan leader without hesitation. Because it did not matter whether the war was personal or not.
Until it suddenly was. The world played a cruel joke on him when a regular reconnaissance mission took his parents from him. There was not even a body left of them.
All Satoshi found was a mangled, bloody blob of flesh wrapped in cloth bearing the sigil of a red and white fan. Satoshi burned the image into his very soul as he finally understood hatred.
Vengence became his very life, as each death of those red-eyed mongrels brought more satisfaction to him than anything else.
Satoshi deliberately chose suicidal missions and battles, specifically where he would kill the most number of Uchihas and anything related to them.
His hatred had nearly consumed him when he found his soul. Hana, sweet Hana, brought peace and comfort to his life and gave him reason to live.
She gave him three wonderful children: Saburo, Denji, and Haruka. His pride and joy.
Satoshi gave them everything. He utterly loved them. Saburo, the ambitious little genius who learned Water Dragon Jutsu when he was just 10 years old; Denji, the crafty gremlin who lightened up the whole clan compound with his pranks and jokes; and Haruka, the apple of their eye, the dutiful daughter who kept the family together.
They carried his hopes and dreams. They were his legacy. Satoshi had his family beside him. He forgot his vengeance. He gave up his hatred. Satoshi's life felt complete.
And then suddenly, on a single bad day, everything changed. Death came for them.
Satoshi stared at the headless and ravaged bodies of his wife and sons numbly. They were wrapped in pristine white cloth. His sons, the future he fought for, and the legacy he owed to his ancestors were dead. His wife, Hana, the mother of his children, was dead.
They died protecting a healing house from an ambush by the Uchiha clan.
The clan leader somberly gave him a few words of consolation and said that his wife and sons died as heroes.
He did not care for that. His wife could be the worst betrayer, and he would still love her. His sons could become the vilest and most abhorrent of creatures, and he would still have them alive rather than as dead heroes.
His daughter, Haruka, cried her heart out as she kneeled beside the bodies of her mother and brothers. But no tears came to Satoshi.
Satoshi lost his humanity that day.
For the months after that, Satoshi lived in a murderous haze as he caused as much pain and suffering as he could to anyone related to those red-eyed demons.
Men, women, children, and the and the elderly—it did not matter. He killed them all. Satoshi used to cut off their heads and throw them at their families on the battlefield. Every bit of pain that he caused them made him feel good.
But that ended when clan leader Hashirama made peace with the Uchiha clan. Satoshi raged and shouted all he could, but he too knew that this war was going nowhere.
Many of them, including the clan head's brother, Tobirama, wanted to end the Uchiha and their allies. They were on the backfoot. Tobirama had just killed Izuna Uchiha, the second-strongest of their clan.
Satoshi, too, wanted revenge for his family.
But peace was priceless and hard to achieve. Haruka's innocent face came to his mind whenever he thought of facilitating the end of their opposition. A chance to finally stop the never-ending conflict between their clans was too good to pass up.
Satoshi bore all his hatred, rage, vengeance, sadism, heartlessness, and inhumanity deep inside his heart and chose peace for his daughter.
Satoshi remembered him and Haruka watching on as both leaders, Hashirama and Madara, shook hands, signifying the end of enmity.
Konoha was established, the long-going warring states period had ended, and Haruka was growing up to be a splendid kunoichi. Satoshi was out of work. But he was happy with his choice. It was time for early retirement.
But as with nearly everything in his life, it all went to sh*t again. That fucking traitor, Madara, betrayed his clan and village. Lord Hokage and Madara batted it out the final time. And the long-haired fucker finally kicked the bucket.
Satoshi, along with a few other like-minded and proper individuals who saw the truth for what it was, were itching for those damned Uchihas to make a single wrong move. They were watching with hawk eyes.
The Uchiha clan was angry, of course. Whether it was because they were against Madara or because they could not join him like the filthy traitors they were, he did not know. Though he was pretty sure it was the latter,.
Then Lord Hokage died of wounds while claiming that Madara was manipulated. Heh, as if anyone would even entertain the thought. No one said anything because everyone knew that Lord Hashirama still considered Madara his friend.
Then, the world was introduced to a higher form of war: war between Shinobi villages. Resources, missions, jobs, cost of living, safety, and the regular lack of empathy—some or most probably all of them—caused disagreements, which led to some fights, then some skirmishes, then a full-blown war.
Without the detterrent of Lord Hokage and that rabid dog Madara, anyone and their mother wanted a piece of Konoha.
Thus, the Great Shinobi War began. Satoshi once again dove into the battle field. He looked out for his daughter and kept her safe from darkness. He gave her permission to live life as she saw fit and make her own life choices. He gave her independence, which he never had in his younger days. Which, in hindsight, was an idiotic move on his part.
It was going well, Satoshi was doing his job well, and the war was progressing well in their favor under the leadership of the new Hokage, Lord Tobirama.
Then, in an ambush by Iwa, his right arm got turned into ribbons by the explosions caused by the mad bombers. Drugged and bandaged to all hell, Satoshi stubbornly clinched his life when he heard of his daughter being together with a Fuma boy of all people. Why would she choose that boy out of so many capable and respected eligible men? It was mind-boggling to him.
Gossips and rumors spread about his clan and his daughter marrying a boy from the Fuma clan. Many were disappointed in Haruka's choice. Nobody told him outright, but their behavior showed their opinions and thoughts about his daughter.
Satoshi shut them all up. He was an elder of the Senju clan. His daughter's choices were of her own, and whether he liked them or not, he fully supported her.
Fuma clan, the discount Uchihas. He had killed many of them during his time. They were loyal to a fault and far less arrogant than the Uchihas. But that was a very low bar to pass. Anyone was better than the Uchihas.
Satoshi investigated the boy meticulously and found nothing suspicious. Though he was sure that the boy had somehow seduced his precious Haruka, The boy was loyal, responsible, had some ability, and most importantly, he loved his daughter. They even had two children together.
Though the boy's mother was a Fuma, He had none of the many bad qualities that infested their clan. Hideo had a good head on his shoulders. And if anything happened to Haruka and her children, Satoshi would lose no sleep removing that head from the boy's shoulders.
It had been three years since the Great War ended. Saroshi spied on his granddaughter Naoko many times when she visited the academy. He did not know whether she knew about him or not, and Satoshi had not even seen his grandson.
Due to tensions between him and the boy's parents, they had never gotten together until now.
Satoshi sat stoically in the private booth while he tried and failed to glare at the boy's mother, Megumi Fuma, which she returned with equal measure. Both unleashed and clashed their chakras, trying to come out on top. The boy's father, Hiro Masayoshi, a watchmaker by profession, was sweating bullets under the pressure created by the clash of their chakras.
Satoshi was grinning inwardly as he was winning the little clash. Megumi Fuma was a genjutsu and poison mistress. She had the skill but little power. Satoshi's chakra pressure nearly crushed hers when the door of the booth opened.
A family of four came in with nervous but hopeful smiles as the three old people observed their children and grandchildren.
While the Fuma couple went to greet the family, Satoshi screamed inside him as he saw the young boy for the first time. The boy, Jinsuke, his grandson, looked almost exactly like his dead son. The straight black hair, the dark brown eyes, the reserved smile—except for some unimportant details he surely got from his father, the boy looked like the spitting image of his son. The resemblance was uncanny.
Satoshi had many nightmares about his dead sons. He had many regrets, and one of the most glaring was that he failed to train his son properly. He failed to make sure his sons were ready to take the world on. He failed to protect his sons. He held himself responsible for his son's death.
Satoshi never thought he would ever get another chance.
So, as his heart kept beating like a war drum, Satoshi controlled his emotions and approached his grandson.
Jinsuke was talking happily and animatedly with his paternal grandparents as he saw a heavily scarred old man slowly approach him. The man wore an elegant yukata whose right sleeve hung empty.
All talks stopped as the old man stopped in front of him and slowly bent down so both of them would be face to face.
This man was his maternal grandfather, Satoshi, an elder of the Senju clan. Jinsuke expected greetings, happy smiles, and even apologies. But the old man went straight to the point.
He painfully morphed his scarred face into an ugly smile as he made his intentions known to Jinsuke: "You are learning to be a shinobi; I will teach you to be the best."
Satoshi Senju was a scarred, grizzled, and bitter man. And he would not fail this time, no matter what.
Author Notes: A bit longer chapter. I wanted to flesh out the backgrounds and characters MC's family members.
Some of the future chapters will be similar.
Small Time Skips will be coming.
It makes character development easier for me.
I am not sure whether it is good or bad.
Let me know your opinions.
Thank you.