Hey everyone, sorry for the delay in posting this chapter, but it's been a lot of things, and I know you're not really interested in what's going on in my life, but if you've ever had a family member say, "I need a little help for a few moments," and those moments turn into the whole day, well, something like that happened yesterday; the other days it was because of my other fanfic.
Without further ado, let's get started.
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During my daily rejuvenating dream, I saw myself ruling the world, sitting in a beach chair, while Hashirama and Madara fanned me with two beach leaves as if I were a servant or slave, while I watched my enemies being tortured in the lava of a volcano, writhing and suffering endless agony.
Life seemed perfect, only to be interrupted by Hashirama and Madara; they were replaced by Naruto and Hikari.
"You have to wake up," they both said at the same time.
At that moment, I opened my eyes to see them both shaking me from side to side.
"Wake up, wake up, wake up," they said in unison.
"What are you doing?" I asked calmly, hiding my murderous urges at the way they woke me up.
"You said you'd teach us a super cool and epic jutsu," Naruto said excitedly.
"Did I say that?" I questioned.
"Yes, it was 7 days, 4 hours, 37 minutes, and 29 seconds ago," Hikari replied. "Now 30, now 31, now 32," she began.
It must have been my wood clone who did it.
"It doesn't hurt to teach a jutsu, honestly," I said, making both of their eyes light up. "But you need to understand something."
"What?" they asked in unison.
"If you come back into my room again, which was sealed and locked, I assure you that your punishment will last here until you graduate from the academy at age 12, so I'm giving you 5 seconds to get out of here if you don't want to face the consequences."
Without another word, I watched as the two of them vanished from my room in record time, leaving me alone.
"Ugh," I simply groaned, relaxing, trying to calm my murderous urges. "Today's going to be a long day."
...
As I watched the two children meditating—since I wasn't about to teach them a high-level jutsu, given that they were only three—I glanced at the last of the trio, who was punching a tree, which had protective padding to prevent him from smashing his fists.
"We've been sitting meditating for two hours straight," Hikari complained, sounding annoyed.
"Yeah, but his partner isn't exactly cooperating," I said, as we both looked at Naruto, who had fallen asleep an hour and a half ago.
"Ugh, but he's him and I'm me; teach me and you can leave him there," the redhead argued, giving me a knowing look.
"Weren't you supposed to be a team, and if one of you didn't progress, neither did the other?" I repeated her words in her face as Hikari began to run her hands through her ponytail, clearly uncomfortable.
"Heh, well, there's no need to keep up with those childish games, is there?" she tried to convince me.
"But you're a child; they're both three years old," I reminded her, making her puff out her cheeks so she'd get up and leave. "What are you going to do?"
"Something useful, since you don't seem to be planning on teaching us anything," she said, walking on her small legs.
I'm surprised at how precocious children can be in this world—me, Kakashi, and now, from what I've seen and also from what I've been told at the ninja academy.
I still remember when they told me that brat wanted to graduate early. At first, I refused, but seeing that it was truly a waste and that he wasn't doing anything there, not to mention that Fugaku came to talk to me and convinced me to accept the idea, I ended up doing it.
Right now, Itachi is a genin of a few months; Unfortunately for me, the ninja academy reforms are still under discussion and will likely only be 50% implemented next year, so he won't be able to attend.
In fact, that's precisely why I refused, knowing this could happen, but I don't care anymore. With me here, the Uchiha won't rebel, and if for some reason they do, Mokuton, where daylight has never been seen, will change their way of thinking if they survive.
So, Itachi's mindset doesn't really matter to me, since I have three kids to take care of and raise; I can't and don't want another one here to worry about.
"I think we're done here; let's get back to what we were doing," I told Yami, who stopped hitting me.
"It's about time," he said seriously.
I just stared at him for a few minutes, neither of us saying a word. That sounded very Uchiha to me.
Without thinking, I appeared beside him, and he grabbed my cheeks.
"'It's about time', says the mini-ninja; isn't he that cute? "I started showing him.
Yami tried to break free, but because of the difference in strength, being so vast, he couldn't do anything.
"Mom, stop; it hurts." At that moment, I let go to see his red cheeks; I don't know if it was from embarrassment or from what I did, but he looked very adorable.
"Are we going to train or not?" Yami asked, annoyed and sulking.
"Yes, let's begin," I said, watching him as he got into a fighting stance.
Right now, I don't need these three to know incredible jutsu or fight like jonin, but rather to have a solid foundation. The best thing is to train them to build large chakra reserves and develop good ninja combat skills.
That's why their training consists of meditation, for the spiritual side; running and exercise appropriate for their age, for the physical side; and controlled sparring, for coordination.
I quickly drew a wooden kunai and threw it at Yami, who drew his own and stopped it.
Right now, because of our age, I'm training Yami with ninja weapons, including setting simple traps, while with the chaotic duo it's just normal combat training.
...
"I see, so there's a kid in Danzo's ranks who uses Wood Release just like me," I summarized what Kakashi was telling me.
"That's right, Hokage-sama, he's an asset called Kinoe," Scarecrow replied.
I was left wondering why I'd forgotten this. It's not like Yamato, or Kinoe now, is someone unimportant.
Perhaps he's a secondary character, or even tertiary, but that doesn't change the fact that he shares the same bloodline.
Furthermore, this individual is the strongest proof that Hashirama didn't become the ninja god simply because he possessed Wood Release, but rather because of his vitality and special chakra, which, luckily, I was able to inherit.
Now, it's debatable whether I'm on par with the ninja god of that time, but that doesn't change the fact that I am currently the strongest ninja of this era.
That Madara who just pops out of a cave doesn't count, not to mention he's already old; I'd put a fan next to him and he'd vanish into dust.
Now, putting the nonsense aside, it's useful to have Kinoe here, or I could just take him to further enrage Danzo and see how far I can push him until he tries something, giving me an excuse to kill him without getting blamed.
"Hokage-sama, can you hear me?" Kakashi asked, his eyes wide with death.
"Ah, sorry, I was thinking about something you said," I replied, paying attention.
"What do you plan to do with him?" he asked.
"Hmm," I thought, just looking at him and realizing that if he's been talking about him so much, it must be because Kakashi is worried about him. "What do you think we should do?"
My question caught him off guard, making him open his eyes wide and freeze.
"I'd like to bring him here," Kakashi finished.
"And he wants to?" I questioned, leaving him speechless; all I could do was sigh. "Find him, talk to him, and if he really wants that, then I'll see what I can do."
"Thank you, Hokage-sama," Kakashi replied, bowing.
"Yes, yes, whatever. You can go now. I still need to talk to myself about how I convinced the daimyo to make a deal with the Land of Iron regarding the trade of chakra-conducting metal," I said, gesturing with my hand.
With that, Kakashi left the office with a shunshin. Leave me alone.
How can I get that brat into my plans? I wondered to myself. Just looking at a few documents on some ninjas I had selected gives me an idea.
...
"So it's you, the degraded Hashirama, huh?" I said, sitting down and looking at Kinoe while Kakashi stood to one side of the training field, supervising/preventing any trouble.
"Ah, well, this..." he began, but it was clear he didn't quite know what to say, perhaps because of the situation, perhaps because of seeing me, or perhaps because of the murderous intent I was sending his way; anything could be it. Now, what could it be?
"Well, enough of this nonsense; you want to get out of here, right?" he ordered authoritatively.
"That's right, Hokage-sama," Kinoe declared, standing at attention.
"Then you prove yourself to be a worthwhile asset," I said, summoning the katana I should have given to Raido but haven't yet.
I saw Kinoe swallow hard at this; I can't really blame him. Facing the strongest ninja in your village, intent on killing and looking for a fight, while you're a 14-year-old brat who can barely make a few sticks of wood, I think it's normal to feel a little nervous, especially since, for some reason, this kid didn't receive Danza's brainwashing treatment. Whether it's cinematic magic or a sign of senile dementia, I'm sure he's not.
Drawing my sword, I prepared to attack, and when I say "prepared," I mean I charged forward with incredible speed.
In response, Kinoe made the same hand gesture as Hashirama, something I only do for the most powerful Wood Release jutsu, and several smooth pieces of wood, like processed wood, shot out, trying to stop me.
I simply infused my swords with chakra and, with several simple but precise movements, sliced through the wood that was trying to reach me.
Kinoe, seeing that he was very close, drew a kunai to defend herself.
"Too slow," I said instinctively; after so much training with those two, I've developed a bit of a teacher's instinct.
With a slash, I struck his kunai, which flew out, allowing me to spin around and kick him backward.
"You could have crouched down to create a wall of earth to lift me up and take me out of your attack range or broken the ground to throw me off balance so I could counterattack," I said, pointing my sword at him.
Kinoe stood up, blood trickling from his mouth. I wasn't going to hold back as much as I did with Yami, Naruto, and Hikari; here I could use some force. Besides, you always learn something better through hard knocks, and you learn better the more painful the blow.
I'm not saying this as an excuse to hit my subordinates hard to relieve stress; it's just how it is.
"I'm not that fast at jutsu," Kinoe said.
"Then learn to use jutsu with fewer hand seals, or learn to do it quickly, like that loser over there watching," I said, pointing at Kakashi.
The individual I mentioned was holding an orange book, chuckling quietly, just waiting to hear his name called and point at it.
"Me?" he asked, unaware of what they were saying about him.
"If you take more than three seconds to attack your opponent, you're a wasted ninja; all that's left is to die in foreign territory and hope the enemy doesn't do anything strange with your body." With that said, I launched another attack.
During this time, I watched Kinoe try to attack, defend himself, attempt jutsu, and improvise as best he could.
After 10 minutes of somewhat intense training, I saw Kinoe collapse to the ground, breathing heavily.
"Good, you passed. You're good enough to be an elite chunin, but you're missing something," I said honestly, grabbing his clothes and lifting him into the air.
"What will happen to me?" he asked, panting.
"You won't be Kinoe anymore. That was your name with the root; now your name will be Yamato, period. Do you understand?" I told him, and he felt a sense of dread. "Well, I was planning to send you to the ANBU, but the higher-ups were asking me to get some bodyguards for when I left the village and had to handle things diplomatically."
"???" Kinoe, now Yamato just stared at me, not understanding what I meant.