The day after that rather concerning revelation about what caused me to be reincarnated in the first place was filled with a lot of introspection. I just sorta disassociated my way through the training and found myself in the back of the smithy's workshop, filing down the edges of a piece of steel that held a slight curve to it.
"Your father told me this is where I'd find you. You worried Ryunosuke, y'know." Lady Biwako's voice called from the doorway.
"It's been a rough day, Auntie." I spoke softly, continuing to remove the burs from the edge.
I had my throat cut once. Never again.
"That's a gorget if I've ever seen one. You'll want a mesh scarf to cover it. Any Shinobi worth their salt will know it's there, but a shuriken won't cut through." Biwako spoke, settling into a chair beside me as I worked. I stayed quiet, placing down the cleaned up armor piece and picking up another piece of metal to clamp into the vice and work on.
"That your trigger piece for your flare launcher? Awful thick. Thicker than your journal says anyway."
"I'll lose some material during the shaping process. Having the piece thicker allows me some more margin of error." I spoke, beginning to file the steel to shape. "I'd been wondering where that went off to. I figured Uncle Hiruzen would've taken more of an interest."
"Clan Secrets are Clan Secrets, Nephew. Even new ones. Hiruzen may be a nosy bastard, as are most Shinobi, he respects your wishes enough to not poach your designs."
"I'm not naiíve enough to believe that, Auntie." That earned me a flick on the head and a chin grab that turned me to face the black eyes of my great aunt.
"You're not as smart as you think you are, Sekitangara Isshin. You are still young, and you have much to learn about the ninja world you're about to enter. Whatever preconceptions you have are not accurate to the reality of things." Biwako spoke, grave seriousness in her tone. "One of which is respect."
Indignation filled me as I glared at my great aunt, and my mouth moved before I could stop myself. A problem I seemed to be having more and more recently.
"My attitude is not due to a lack of respect, Ooba-sama." I growled out "I'm well aware of the stresses Hokage-Ooji faces, especially in the time we're in. I respect his authority, yes. but he's family, as are you. To me, you are Auntie Biwako before you're Jonin Sarutobi Biwako, First Lady of the Leaf."
"And it's because I'm your Auntie that I'm here to help educate you, Nephew. For the love of Kami I delivered you, boy. It's insulting to see that your first instinct is to think your own kin wouldn't trust you." Biwako spoke, face softening a hair. I hit her with a deadpan stare.
"Auntie, you're Shinobi. You shouldn't trust me." I don't even trust me. I'm an idiot.
"And that is my choice to make, Nephew. But even with those old eyes of yours, when I look at you, I see the crying child I held in my hands and gave to your mother. Shinobi aren't tools, Isshin. Contrary to some people's preference. We are still human, Isshin."
"I know that, Aunti-"
"Do you? Do you really? Because you're too young to know how to bottle up your emotions, but you're doing it anyway." Biwako's face softens bringing a palm up to cup my cheek gently, "your mother is worried, I'm worried. Isshin you're still a child. You're not a Shinobi yet."
I don't know when my hands started trembling, only that the sound of the file falling from my hand and clattering to the floor rang in my ears as my eyes started to water. I forced them back, clenching my fists.
"I-I'm scared, Auntie." I spoke, voice cracking. "I know things. Things I should have no possible way of knowing. Secrets. Weapons. But I can sense people, Auntie. How strong they are."
I had a hard time turning it off, and it got worse the more I used it. It was an awareness of things that hammered in how insignificant I was in this world of beasts that could level mountains by accident.
It didn't help that I could still feel the bubbling of the Nine-Tails' chakra in baby Naruto. Like a compass pointing north I could always tell where he was, at least within the Village. But even that was still enough to have me perpetually on edge.
"My designs can stop a charging bear in its tracks, but even that's not enough. Not enough!" Tears were flowing now, as I tore myself from Biwako's grip and paced around the workshop, clasping my head in my hands as I continued.
"It is the duty of the firstborn son to protect when the father cannot. Pa and Pop Pop can't fight, so it falls to me. I can't be effective if I let myself feel. I have to work, there are things that I need to get done if I want to do that duty well. If I let myself show my emotions, what I truly feel about the situation we're in….it wouldn't end well. Not at all."
My father taught me that. My first father. I was his backup, and when he got older, slower, I was the first line. Now I'm the first and only.
I like my family. I like Yoroi's goofy demeanor, his caring nature. I like Sakura's worrisomeness, because it shows she cares, I like her reasonableness, and her ability to adapt to having someone like me being her son.
I like Ryunosuke, his wisdom and straightforwardness, he treats me like an adult, despite how small I am and my snark.
I don't want to lose them. I almost did. Because I couldn't handle a damn roar.
"What use is being able to crumple a man at 800 yards when Hashirama Senju could turn a whole city into a corpse filled thicket a mile away?" I whispered, voice breaking again as I slumped against the wall of the workshop, shoulders shaking as I wept into my arms.
Warm arms wrapped around me and I was pulled into a gentle embrace as Auntie Biwako let me cry.
It could've been five minutes, it could've been an hour, but I let it out. The pain and grief of being murdered and sent here, of losing my home, my original family, my fear of the responsibilities that I've placed upon myself.
The terror of being so powerless against the forces of this world.
By the end of it, my voice was hoarse, and I had stained Biwako's yukata with my tears.
I pulled away, and she brushed my mussed hair out of my face, giving me a soft smile.
"Feel better?"
I gave a nod, rubbing at my eye with the back of my fist.
"Good. Now Isshin, you're worrying about hammers when a scalpel is the tool for the job. In addition you're forgetting something incredibly important." Biwako brought a hand up and tapped at the sigil of the leaf on the forehead protector she wore around her neck.
"You're not alone, Isshin. You are part of a Clan, which is part of a Village, which is filled with hundreds of people sworn to help one another in times of crisis. Your Circle is small right now, but filled with powerful people. As you grow, it'll expand, and you will have more people to rely on, to get help from in times like this. When you feel helpless against the wind. A single stone may be an effective weapon, but it's when it brings a million of its friends with it when cities tremble."
I gave a small smile, nodding, not finding much more to say.
"Now, crumple a man at 800 yards you say? Tell me more."
Now this, this I could talk about.
And that, is how Sarutobi Biwako became one of my precious people.
—-
"Alright, Ooji-sama, Oba-sama, ANBU-San, I need all of you to keep those shades on, if you've got em on under the mask I don't care. These are thicker so the light doesn't burn out your corneas." I barked out orders with the ferocity of a drill instructor scorned.
An amusing sight, judging by Grunkle Sarutobi's grin even if he did put on the thick shades.
Jokes on you old man, you look like a shaved Master Roshi now.
Three weeks had passed since my heart to heart with Nana Biwako, and I had taken her advice to heart.
Dad helped me get the right steel, and assisted in shaping the barrels.
Mom used her old merchant buddies to find me percussion caps, and old Honshu had given me enough to last me years.
Pop Pop taught me a technique he learned back in Stone to draw certain minerals out of the earth, should they be present. A gift that I would use enthusiastically throughout my career.
Asuma and Nanako helped me find testing grounds free of prying eyes, for a price.
Asuma wanted some boutique cigarettes from Kanzaku Gai, and Honshu helped me track those down, thank God.
Nanako…wanted to learn how to shoot. That would take me a while, but she dragged the promise out of me despite my aversions to it. Apparently Biwako had let slip the 'crumple a man at 800 yards' and Nanako wanted that tool in her pouch.
Still, the end result was me, the day before my 6th birthday, standing in a hidden training field with a belt of flares and a break action 12 gauge shotgun flare launcher pistol. Ignore that first bit.
It's a surprise tool to help us later.
Each Flare shell consisted of a brass or copper shell, each primed with a percussion cap.
Not ideal, but this was still experimental.
The shells were all black powder propelled, with some loaded hotter than others, but the payload is what took the cake.
"This is what I call an Illumination shell. Utilizing a small parachute and a timed fuse, it can hang in the air and provide light in pitch darkness for up to sixty seconds. In a pinch, it can also be used as a fairly effective flashbang." I spoke, holding up the shell for the three of them to see before loading it and firing down range. Too much risk of someone seeing it to fire it into the sky as intended, but in the slowly darkening dusk of the autumn night, the Magnesium flare lit up the training ground in a bright blue/white light that caused the shadows of the trees and branches to dance macabre.
"I see no advantage this has over a flash tag, Sekitangara-san." The ANBU spoke, it wasn't Nanako, and it wasn't Kakashi either because I couldn't see any silver hair. Still, I countered.
"Flash tags require chakra and sealing ink, both of which are detectable with a skilled sensor. Even if it's for a split second, a skilled sensor can detect a flash tag going off even beyond earshot. Now, this isn't intended to be used as a weapon. It's a life-saving tool. When stealth is no longer an option and you simply need a friendly force to know where you are, and the status you're in, that's where this comes in." I spoke, breaking the action and the shell ejecting out under spring pressure. I caught the shell, inspected it for cracks or deformations, and put it away, withdrawing two more shells.
"These are the signal flares. Estimated flight height is about 500 to 600 feet into the air, with proper arc it can travel a further distance. These are incendiary in nature, utilizing different chemicals to achieve different color flames at different temperatures and burn rates. Now, black powder is a cast iron bitch, but I'm working on fixing that issue." With that, I fired the second shell, bright red light, not as bright as the illumination shell, but still enough to see even in daylight. It flew about 800 feet at a 45 degree angle, the projectile hitting the forest floor and spinning as it burnt out.
"Red is 'Get the fuck over here now people are dying!' It leaves a trail visible to the trained eye and can be tracked easily. Once again. If you're using this at all, Stealth is no longer an option. Now Green, on the other hand." I ejected the shell and loaded the third and final shell of the test, firing it in an arc that reached the 900 feet mark. "Can be used to signal an 'All Clear' or similar message without the use of radio or chakra. Now. I had only intended to make one of these. But someone spilled the beans, didn't they, Ooji-san?"
I gave a pout at my Great Uncle, the Third Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, and he simply laughed at me.
He's making me embarrass myself in front of ANBU command and he's laughing. Jerk.
"I've seen similar tools used by the Samurai of the Land of Iron, but those were massive cannons designed to launch stones with enough force to destroy castle walls. To see it scaled down enough for a child to fire with one hand is impressive of your ingenuity at the very least, Isshin. I see you have additional ammunition, are those simply backups in case of a misfire?" Sarutobi-ooji asked, and the grin on my face became just a bit vicious.
"Let's just say these are my own brand of sending a message, Ooji."
