Family planning was an incredibly important task for shinobi clans. They had to breed to keep the strengths they wished to retain, breed out the weaknesses they wanted gone, and all the while avoid the pitfalls of inbreeding.
Even the Targaryens recognized this, Itama knew, after receiving a vision some months previous. In the vision Daeron received a letter from King's Landing by his mother, informing him that his sister had just given birth to Maelor. This was great news, because it meant his brother (!) now had a second son, a spare for his own heir.
A half-Uchiha had a moderate likelihood of awakening a sharingan. Should they mate with a non-Uchiha, their quarter-Uchiha off-spring would probably have less than a 20% chance of doing so. Or it might only awaken in one eye. The solution would be to try for multiple kids, hoping at least one of them could awaken it, and then marry them off accordingly back into the bloodline.
An Uchiha who awakened their Sharingan (in both eyes) almost automatically became an elite warrior. The potential of an Uchiha without the Sharingan, however, was merely average. The Sarutobi had just as good fire-natured shinobi with bigger chakra reserves. And without ocular genjutsu, well, the Kurama had them beat and the Senju clan had genjutsu users too.
The Senju genes on the other hand had the advantage of always being "activated", even if the potency naturally weakened with the generations. It allowed them to be much more flexible with marriages and in introducing new blood to the clan. Their open outlook and practices had garnered them the monikers the Clan of Love and the Clan of a Thousand Skills.
Centuries past a group of pacifists had broken off from the main Senju clan and fled the Land of Fire. They had made their way to an island, protected by whirling tides, and founded a village there. While the Senju had been fighting almost non-stop for centuries, the Uzumaki had built themselves a fortress to sequester in.
The island itself had rocky soil, difficult to grow much in, but they had access to the sea. Squid in particular was important, not just a source of sustenance but also for ink. They were a mystery to most, seldom had cause to venture out into the mainland or the Land of Water, and rarely accepted outsiders in. Only the Senju had married in, to prevent inbreeding. A score of Senju had been sent during the late years of Itama's great grandfather's leadership.
The Uzumaki, genetically purer owing to their isolation, possessed even stronger bodies than the Senju. Their chakra was denser, allowing them to manifest it physically in sealing chains. A few had special chakra that was inherently healing. They were known to be active as shinobi into their sixties, and could easily live to a hundred and twenty.
And now it was time to inject the Uzumaki vitality into the Senju mainline again.
"We are being pursued," Tobirama announced from where he had been sitting in meditation, a slight smile on his face.
All the activity in the vessel came to a grinding halt, everyone turning to Tobirama.
"Over there," he said, pointing south-east.
Itama leaned against the railing and narrowed his eyes, trying to see past the roiling waves and the glare from the sun.
"Wakō," their captain spat.
Sure enough, a single ship was coming their way, single-masted with oars propelling it.
The unluckiest pirate crew in the world, Itama thought, observing Tobirama's lackadaisical air.
They held true to their own course, towards Uzushiogakure, and noted idly how their pursuers came closer and closer.
When Itama could start to make out their faces, he jumped overboard, landing on the sea.
The pirates made panicked noises but Itama paid them no mind. He drew his father's sword and held it with both hands, taking a stance that had the tip of it pointed in line with his heels.
Channeling chakra, he sprinted forward, water accumulating around the blade. With a grunt and flash of chakra, he sent the water forward in an upward diagonal slash across his body. He then led the momentum of the movement into another slash.
The arcs of water flew forward, flying in the shape of his blade into the ship. The first arc sliced into the bow and went right through it. The second bit into the thick mast.
Itama grinned, watching as the bow cracked and the ship began to take in water. Then the mast tilted precariously before collapsing, crashing onto the ship amid the yells of the pirates.
The water next to Itama began to churn, before the head of a water dragon appeared, rising out of the water. The massive water construct shot up, out of the water, into the air, and then right into the ship. It absolutely pulverized the ship and continued further, pulling everyone on it down into the depths.
Itama scowled, raising a hand to shield his face from the spray of water, before leaping backwards and then jumping up onto their ship.
"Show off," he muttered, pouting at his brother and garnering chuckles from their clan members. The brother in question merely smirked.
—
They paid the captain and his crew for their services and transferred over to the patrolling Uzu fishing ship, which navigated the large whirlpools and took them all the way to safety.
The Uzumaki, in possession of their own sensors, had already noticed their arrival and sent a welcome party ahead to the shore to greet them. At the head of it was Uzumaki Ashina, the leader of the clan, followed by his wife Tenazuchi. All of them, including the sailors, were red-headed.
The relatives in his dreams, the maternal ones whose home he occupied, were red-headed too, but more the light red of rust and copper.
They walked up the beach, along winding mountain paths and through thick woods to finally get to Uzushiogakure.
Arriving in the main town, a cluster of traditional and colorful houses built along the shore of an inland lake, their party was split up. There was no inn or designated guest houses, but half their party was distributed among two abandoned houses clustered at the outskirts. The elders stayed with some of the descendents of the Senju sent three generations back.
In the Land of Fire, the Senju were a big deal. They had hundreds of members, had a wide network of allies, trading partners and informants. They charged premium prices for their services and nobility - a caste above their own - talked to them with respect. Treated them almost as equals. They were a big deal.
It quickly became apparent to Itama and Tobirama that the Uzumaki did not view them as equals.
When they brought their offerings, which included paper, medical supplies, tea leaves, honey, fine sake and various spices; they received their first and only grateful smiles. Even a promise to turn a third of those reams into various seals to take back home.
Besides the initial greeting, there was no celebration at the visit from their kin, no festivities or the likes.
The leader, Ashina, was more than two decades older than Itama's father had been at his passing. But that only placed him about the average age in the village and older than their own elders. The rest of the Senju party, besides Itama and his brother, hovered around the twenty mark, a testament of their strength and perhaps luck.
When the Senju gave the Uzumaki a report about the latest war, the eyes of their hosts visibly glazed over or their lips pursed in silent condemnation. When Yuichi, a guard, mentioned that he was genetically only 25% Senju, as his grandfather had married the daughter of a merchant - the lowest caste - and Yuichi's father had in turn married a second-generation kunoichi, the red heads became noticeably colder towards him.
"I didn't think they'd be so… judgemental," Itama complained to his brother one night.
"Can you blame them?" Tobirama responded, after a pause. "Each and everyone of them enjoy a dozen decades on this paradise island, safe from the world. Meanwhile we send our kids to die in wars and then dilute our blood in our desperate efforts to replace them."
Itama tried to imagine spending over a century with Tobirama, Hashirama and little Kawarama. With Father. No Uchiha, no Hagoromo and no Fuma.
"I suppose…" he mused. "But they don't seem to be enjoying their lives."
The Senju teen cracked a grin as Tatsuyoshi's goofy hiccup-laughter carried over through the walls as if on cue. Besides him Tobirama also shifted, amused.
Safely protected behind the powerful Uzumaki barriers and having delivered their goods, their clansmen were treating this as a vacation. They joked around, played games and made merry every night. All in stark contrast to the Uzumaki themselves.
He tried, again, to imagine being stuck on an island for over a century, interacting with the same siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-aunts, great-uncles, great-grandparents, great-great grand aunts, great-great grand uncles…
"Perhaps cherishing life comes easier when it is constantly at risk of ending," Tobirama stated idly.
"Maybe life is just boring when you get to live so long? Tomomi only lived for ten years but seemed pretty happy every day," Itama said, smiling. Tomomi was a guard dog they had kept in the Senju settlement, a final detection layer and a source of joy to kids and veterans alike.
"An astute observation," Tobirama deadpanned.
Itama laughed.
–
The next day they were introduced to Uzumaki Mito, their future sister.
Mito was older than their brother by two years. She held herself confidently and passed a critical eye over the two of them, no doubt hoping to learn something about her fiance through his brothers.
Mito was a grand-niece in-law of Lord Ashina through his wife. The man's own female grandchild was not of the right age, making Mito a better fit.
Out of the three candidates that had been presented before them, the Senju elders believed her to be the best complement to Hashirama as a leader and clan matriarch.
In terms of personal chemistry however… Itama did not know if Hashirama would mesh well with the stiff person in front of him. He would hate to see his older brother trapped in a loveless marriage with a woman who would likely outlive him and their offspring.
"Anija is the strongest shinobi our clan has seen in generations," Tobirama informed her seriously. "Only Uchiha Madara and Sarutobi Sasuke can rival him in the Land of Fire. He will be an excellent protector and provider for you and your children."
Tobirama brought out a scroll, rolled it out on the floor in front of him and activated it. A wooden sculpture in the likeness of Hashirama in a striking pose appeared. With a handseal, he projected a henge over the sculpture, giving it color.
Mito passed an idle glance over it, before sipping from her tea cup and allowing the silence to stretch.
"He does indeed appear fierce."
"His reputation precedes him."
"To summarize then," Mito began, in a dry tone. "Your brother is an overwhelmingly strong shinobi, famous across the continent?"
"And charismatic," Tobirama added. "Whenever he leads our forces, or those of our allies, in battle his speeches are most rousing. He attracts people close to him and makes friends wherever he goes"
"And does his popularity extend to women as well?" she asked neutrally, putting down her tea cup and reclining slightly.
Tobirama furrowed his brows.
"I suppose. We have received countless requests for marriage alliances from across the continent," he admitted, haughtily. "Anija certainly does not lack for options."
Itama's right eye twitched.
"Ahem. Hashi isn't just some strong warrior, he's kind and gentle too" Itama interjected. "He makes sure to invite our widows for dinner once a week. He takes good care of everyone in our clan, makes them feel seen."
"Oh?"
"Yes. After the Ouchi succession crisis, he went back and grew houses for war refugees, for free! In fact he often gives alms to the poor."
"That is, not to say, that he is a spendthrift," Tobirama added, sending Itama a glance. "Anija is an able administrator of our clan finances. He will not leave you destitute nor left wanting."
Itama rolled his eyes, before leaning forward.
"Let me tell you a secret about Hashi."
Mito quirked an eyebrow.
"Let's hear it."
"Hashi… Girls make him all shy and tongue-tied."
"Itama!" His brother scolded, eyes flicking between the two of them. Mito looked amused.
"One time…" he began, gleefully telling her the story of when Shimura Nana had snuck into his war tent while he had gone to bathe in a nearby pond. Nana was a kunoichi specialized in infiltration and seduction, known in particular for being proficient in certain futon vacuum techniques unique to the Shimura and their Baku summons.
At the unexpected sight of her and her offer, rather than handle the situation gracefully and discretely, Hashirama had yelped. Yelped so loud, in fact, it alerted and summoned half the camp, triggering a diplomatic incident.
Tobirama palmed his face, but the story and Itama's telling of it was rewarded by a giggling from Mito.
–
Later, having come to some kind of decision, Mito invited the two of them to come along and visit their sealing temple. Sealing primarily held spiritual if not religious importance to the Uzumaki, in some aspects not unlike the teachings of the fire temples.
That was not to say they did not have a scientific approach to their study of seals and chakra. But, rather, their discoveries clearly informed how the Uzumaki understood their own role in the Universe.
"What's that?" Itama asked, almost feeling compelled to whisper.
Mito had led them through the halls of the temple-lab-complex, located at the top of a hill next to Uzushiogakure. Passing through the entrance and down a corridor, they had turned right into a large hall. A hall whose entrance had a plaque with 天道 on it.
In the middle of the space was a… black sphere? Suspended in the air? Beyond its shape and color - or lack there of - it had no other discernible feature. Itama and Tobirama attempted to observe it from different angles on the room, but its appearance did not change, making it look two-dimensional. It sucked in all the light that struck it and reflected nothing back.
On the floor and on the ceiling above it seals were lined up in a pentagon shape. Surrounding them were Uzumaki, some locked in meditation, hands grasped; others diligently writing in scrolls.
"It's part of a long-running space-time experiment," Mito offered, voice also low. "They are collecting data on a gravity seal."
"Gravity seal?" Itama repeated. Next to him Tobirama crossed his arms and closed his eyes, immersing himself in his own sixth sense.
"About two hundred years ago, gravity seals were invented by Lord Maebashi. The ocean floor around our island produces a lot of geothermal energy, resulting in the formation of the whirlpools. He wondered what would happen if a gravity seal was boosted by connecting to a chakra collection seal, channeling these immense pools of natural energies? Sadly he was unable to see his experiment come to fruition as there was no way to safely conduct it at the time."
"When did you begin this experiment," Tobirama asked.
"Over three decades ago," Mito answered. "It was only then that we were able to devise a barrier seal able to counteract the gravitational effect to within the barrier."
"Why is it so… so black," Itama wondered.
One of the men taking notes snorted, bringing their attention to him. But when he kept quiet, Mito answered in his stead.
"That sphere is black because light is failing to escape its gravitational pull. We call the edges of that sphere, the black hole, the event horizon..."
"In other words, without those protective seals the entire solar system would be sucked into that sphere within minutes," the man finished.
The Senjus' eyes widened.
"Th-that sounds dangerous," Itama stammered. Are these Uzumaki out of their minds?
The Uzumaki did not deign to give him a reply.
"What does gravity have to do with space-time?" Tobirama asked, after a pause. "You said it is a space-time experiment."
"Gravity has everything to do with space-time," the man responded, his back to them. "You are traveling forward through space-time, one second per second. Objects of mass distort and stretch the very fabric of space-time, causing your body to drift askew. You experience that as an acceleration towards the core of the Earth."
Itama tried to wrap his head around that statement, failing utterly. Instead he turned to his brother and enjoyed the pinched look.
"Do the protection seals work by nullifying the distortion of the space-time fabric...?"
"Not quite. If we just created a reverse anti-gravity seal we would all be repelled out of this solar system. At best we would only see a bright white light, the opposite of the black hole."
"How then?" Tobirama demanded.
"An interleaving combination of anti-gravity and pulsating anti-time seals."
He held up a hand to forestall Tobirama's next question.
"The anti-time seals rotate the time axis within the enclosure out of alignment with our own dimension. A small mis-alignment means time might slow to a fraction of the other. If you're familiar with trigonometry, it is proportional to the cosine of the angle between the two time vectors. Our anti-time seals momentarily rotate the alignment so it is completely orthogonal, freezing time and in turn the 'gravitational' effects."
"I should like to read up on this further," Tobirama announced after a pause with a gleam in his eyes, as giddy as Itama had ever seen him. He received a shrug from the man, while Mito generously promised she would provide him with some scrolls.
Meanwhile, something in the man's explanation was nagging at Itama's brain.
"If time can slow down or even stop, could you also make it go backwards?"
"To be clear - it's not exactly about time being stopped. It is rather that the time within the enclosure can move completely independently to our's. We can choose to view it at a certain moment of time within the enclosure's timeline. The same way you can grab a book and choose where you wish to open it."
"But, like, our world moves forward in time right? Could you realign the enclosure thing to have time move backwards in it? For every year you age, the people inside would become a fraction of a year younger?"
"Sure, kid. But just by observing the start-end, or end-start, of the experiment you'd run the risk of breaking the laws of causality and causing a time paradox. We're not actually trying to destroy the world," he said, chuckling darkly.
"What's a time paradox?"
"It's when the straight arrow of time gets turned into a delicious bowl of ramen."
"Oh," Itama said, not sure if the man was serious. "What if the enclosure could not be observed?"
"Impossible; it is an enclosed space within our own universe," the man responded, waving at the black hole in front of them. "Now please be quiet, you're making me hungry."
What if it was a different universe? He wanted to ask. What if you were watching out of the eyes of a teenager as he aged backwards in your dreams. Would that count as observing? But he dutifully kept quiet.
Tobirama gave Itama a look of consideration.
"Thank you for humoring our Senju cousins, Utsunomiya," Mito expressed with a shallow bow to his back, before leading them out of the room.
"I can tolerate for a moment what you must suffer for a lifetime, Mito," Utsunomiya grumped over his shoulder, with a huff.
Their next stop was another hall, this one marked with 人間道.
In one corner was an altar to the Uzumaki patron god Ryujin, the guardian of the sea. The god was shaped like a dragon, more like a water serpent than the flying, fire-breathing Tessarion from his visions.
The altar was bedecked with the bounties of the sea, like shells and mother of pearl, along with vials of ink.
In front of it was a raised stage where, to their astonishment, a theater recital seemed to be taking place.
On the far end of the room were four Uzumaki in a hayashi ensemble, each of them playing an instrument: a transverse bamboo flute, a taiko-drum, a hip-drum and a shoulder-drum. Closer to them, arrayed in a crescent with their backs towards them, were half a dozen Uzumaki providing vocals. Some were chanting, others singing in low tones.
All of them wore masks in line with their gender and age (going by their respective hair colors), but in the middle of the singers and instrumentalists were performers wearing different colored, horned, masks.
In fact, horned masks had been put up all along the walls of the hall, creating an eerie feeling of being watched. One in particular, resembling an oni, seemed to be staring deeply into Itama's very soul…
"The Hannya mask," Mito informed him, shocking him out of his focus. "Tobirama," she murmured then. "As a sensor, what does your sense tell you?"
"Their chakras…" Tobirama mused. "They are synchronizing their chakra, creating a patchwork."
Itama could not feel their chakra but he could certainly hear the harmonization of the chants and the flute. Occasionally one of the performers stamped their feet, matching the percussion.
They had intruded on the performance mid-way but Itama began to understand the plot. A performer in a light blue mask, representing a dragon, was beseeching another performer, in the guise of an abbot, to not leave the temple, claiming that all knowledge necessary for enlightenment could be found on the island. Another character in a red mask was trying to tempt him otherwise, appealing to his curiosity, his vanity, and finally his fear of missing out.
"East or west, north or south, up or down - direction-less you intend to wander the Earth. Yet enlightenment comes from within," the dragon's actor sang slowly, mournful.
Eventually the abbot rejected the red, metaphorically achieving enlightenment.
Itama's only warning was Tobirama's gasp, before an explosion of chakra rocked him.
The abbot Uzumaki was held up by the blue and red masked Uzumaki respectively, his chakra exploding out of his tenketsu into a hazy image of a man. Above it, a formless blue shade began to take shape, gradually forming into a silhouette of Ryujin.
"Is he going to die?" Itama queried lowly, eyeing a particular tendril of chakra escape out of the abbot's gaping mouth.
"His chakra is leaving his body but their collective chakra is pouring in at the same rate, having changed into a facsimile of his own nature," Tobirama observed.
"Yes," Mito confirmed. "They are able to sustain his body while his soul wanders… elsewhere."
"Amazing," Itama expressed, a thousand and one questions appearing in his mind.
The chanting and drum-beating had stopped, the group holding hands and entering what was
clearly a meditative state.
Before he could utter one, Mito led them out again.
" What purpose did Ryujin serve in this ritual?" Tobirama questioned, beating Itama to the punch once they were no longer at risk of disturbing the ritual.
"Ryujin presides over the ascension and maintains the connection between the Abbot's body and his soul. The Ryujin mask acts as a means to channel that will into the world of spirits."
"My turn!" Itama said, cutting Tobirama off. "What does it mean for a soul to just… wander?" he asked, waving his hand around. "What's the world of spirits? And could a soul migrate over from another Universe? And…"
"Slow down," Tobirama chastised him.
"First of all," Mito began, taking a seat on a rock along the cliffside. The Senju brothers took their own seats in front of her, enjoying a view of the sun setting over the sea, in the direction of their home continent. "I am far from an expert in this field. Your brother, with his senses, has greater insight than I do."
Mito paused in thought.
"But what I can tell you is that your chakra is both produced by your body and required to sustain it. It can be expended, projected and even transformed into other energy. More than that, as you age and act as a living foundry pouring chakra into the world, you are imbuing it with your own essence"
"Imbuing it with my essence?" Itama repeated, tilting his head.
"As I said, it is not something I am an expert in; you are free to ask my clansmen for clarifications."
She ignored the skeptical look he leveled at her.
"When you die, the chakra within you leaves the confines of your body. Why? Either because what we call your 'spiritual energy', yin, is unable 'will' it into staying inside following brain death; or because your body is unable to replenish chakra by metabolizing calories into physical energy, yang, following extreme fatigue or organ failure."
Tobirama nodded in agreement. "There are particularly strong genjutsu that can kill you by… overwhelming and unraveling that will, tricking your mind into thinking it is already dead. The Uchiha use it to kill civilians but with a glance."
Mita acknowledged his words with her own nod, before continuing her explanation.
"It has long been known by our sensors that after an Uzumaki with particularly dense chakra dies, their chakra can still be sensed. It can even, for a short time, take on sensable emotions, suggesting that some kind of sentience remains, or at least the echoes of a sentience. Over time the chakra dissipates and disperses, some joining what is known as the world's background chakra, some even turning into nature chakra. Past Uzumaki sensors began collecting measurements on the half-life of prominent individuals - how long until half remained, and then how long until half of that remained, and so on. The Spring Dragon God ritual you witnessed is part of the latest rounds of experiments…"
She stood up and began trekking down hill, down to the main village. The two male teenagers also rose to follow.
"And? What have you discovered," Tobirama pressed.
"The Abbotts all remember leaving their mortal confines; dying, in a sense. They remember becoming so much more, though they struggle to put it into words. Before they added the masks their 'souls' would simply wander off and another Uzumaki would have to seal them back into their bodies before their bodies completely died."
"You can seal a departed soul back into a body?" Tobirama asked, incredulously "Oh that was rhetorical, don't answer that, of course you Uzumaki can." Then he adopted a thoughtful look that Itama associated with trouble.
"To answer your last question, Itama," she finally said, to his confusion as he wracked his brain. "My answer is: I don't know. According to our own understanding, if the soul in the other Universe had chakra then yes it is possible that such a soul could potentially wander here. Sealing animals live in realms adjacent to our own, translated sidewise in a fifth, spatial, dimension. They have chakra."
"What if this person didn't have any chakra?" Itama pondered. Both of his companions' eyebrows furrowed.
"Itama, how could anyone possibly live without chakra?" Tobirama chastised him. Mito raised her hand, before he could continue.
"Actually… There are some in the clan who believe that chakra was a gift from a legendary figure known as the Sage of Six Arts, who was said to have lived over a millennia ago. In those days, humans were born and simply died without chakra."
"Everyone has chakra, even the weakest of civilians," Tobirama grumbled.
"But without chakra, they had no souls in those days?" Itama pondered. "None of that 'imbued essence' that remains after death?"
"... Indeed." Mito confirmed, reluctantly.
What a depressing thought.
–
Mito graciously led them all the way to their guest house door, despite their words that they could find their way back.
"It is most impressive what the Uzumaki clan has achieved. None of these things were ever recorded in our clan records," Tobirama said as their home appeared, a pair of their guards sparring to the side.
"Yes, thank you for giving us the tour!" Itama exclaimed.
"Indeed, the last two centuries have seen us make great strides. As my future good-brothers I wanted to give you a glimpse of all the wonders I will be leaving behind when I join the Senju," the woman told them.
The two Senju in question froze, before turning to her. Tobirama's face flashed through shock, then glee before finally landing in an expression of self-satisfied smugness. Itama's face simply broke into a wide grin.
"Welcome to the family, sister!"
—-
天道 - Path of Heaven
人間道 - Path of the Human Realm
Uzumaki clearly enjoy treading the different Paths, special eyes or no.
In this rendition of the Uzumaki they are portrayed as an arrogant bunch. Would you treat someone who would only live a fraction of your age-span as an equal?
Regarding the play, I took inspiration from the Noh play called 春日龍神. I quite like the rendition by Imafuji Chotatsuro; listening to it might help give you an idea of the musical performance Itama and Tobirama were an audience to.