"P-please say that again, Lord Shinobi," the husk of a woman in front of me stuttered out with disbelief. Her arms were littered in bite marks, her skin was sallow and unhealthily thin.
And there I stood in all my tall, imposing glory, as I cursed at all the blood that had stained my cool dark-red haori with the Uzumaki swirl on the back. Usually you could barely see the blood of my enemies, which is why I chose this color, but I was rather angry after seeing Uzumaki Karin dressed in tatters as some random genin of this shithole bit her after he cut himself with his kunai just to show his friend that even the blood of the little girl 'worked'.
'Who does something like that to a toddler?' I thought in disbelief before my rage took over.
So, I used taijutsu instead of burning everyone from a safe distance and used too much strength as I shattered their, to me, untrained bodies. They were chunin at best, and thanks to my pills and training, my body at its base was strong enough to rival Fourth Ninja World War era Might Guy with his first or second gate opened.
Still, as I combed my shoulder-length red hair out of my face with one hand, my blue eyes looked at the woman covered in bite marks with disbelief.
"Wait, you're not messing with me? You have no ninja education? You were just a civilian in Uzushiogakure?"
"L-lord Shinobi, I had just turned two when our village fell," the red-haired young woman explained in clear distress.
"Ugh. Of course you were," I muttered as I slapped my forehead. "Never mind then. I'll take you with me anyway. Not that I liked him, but my father was an Uzumaki, too. There's no way I'll let you and your daughter live like this."
The woman looked conflicted as she stole glances at her daughter before she deeply swallowed and asked, "If I offer my body, no, my life to you, will you promise me not to use my daughter and give her a life worth living?"
I looked at the woman in deepening disbelief once more before I asked, "Look. Sorry, your name is?"
"Kaede," the Uzumaki mother answered in a small voice.
"Look, Kaede-san. I will use neither of you. Nobody will ever bite either of you for healing unless you consent, and it is truly necessary. You don't believe me? Look at this," I ordered with an annoyed huff as I cut my arm with a tanto - a very expensive chakra metal short sword that I wielded to look cool.
Under Kaede's disbelieving look, I used Saiken's chakra to close the wound that was already healing quickly because the six-tailed beast made me a great medical ninja anyway, not that I needed it for small stuff like this with my pill-enhanced Uzumaki vitality.
Though, in all fairness, I was an ignorant medic nin who could only fix things by puzzling them back together with the six-tailed slugs chakra or using these healing pills that just fixed anything or nothing that I made.
At this point in time, I still blew everybody else out of the water who wasn't Tsunade or was personally trained by her, even if I couldn't diagnose shit. Just throwing all my overpowered resources at a problem fixed almost anything I came across thus far.
"Y-you're not going to drink my blood?" Kaede asked, still not entirely sure.
"Lady. I am an Uzumaki myself. After hearing about you and coming all this way, I thought I might be able to get a fūinjutsu teacher. But even if you know nothing about sealing, I can't just leave you to suffer and die here, either. At worst, you'll become a cook in my household if you have nothing else to offer. Can you cook?"
Kaede shyly nodded as she grabbed toddler Karin and started silently crying, her shoulders trembling.
"You seem to like kids, maybe I'll make you look after a few brats together with my mother and Pakura... Anything here you want to take with you? Otherwise, you're coming with me so that those bastards can't hurt you anymore," I questioned as I looked out of the window.
I sensed a few more ninja on their way.
"No. There's a scroll with the kage. He took it from me and asked me to unseal it countless times, but I didn't know how. My grandfather gave it to me before he stayed behind to stall for time while we were fleeing..."
"Got it. In that case, you don't need to pack anything. Those rags on you are not fit for someone of my clan. You'll get better clothes when we reach my home," I quipped and turned back to look at the girl and her mother.
Karin immediately slumped in Kaede's arm and the mother quickly looked at me in worry before I gently shook my head and reassured her, "There's no need for either of you two to stay awake to witness the slaughter."
After that, I put Kaede in a genjutsu, too, and placed both girls in my plant dimension after putting a healing pill in both of their mouths.
"On another episode of fire murder hobo," I whispered under my breath as I stepped out of the shack Kaede had lived in at the outskirts of Kusa. My attire slowly changed from the red haori to green nondescript ninja clothes reminiscent of Konoha ninja attire under a transformation jutsu.
The building Kaede used to call home slowly started to catch fire under the influence of my chakra, and I looked at the shinobi in front of me after putting on a mask stolen from a Konoha ANBU.
"Who are you, and what have you done to the red-haired woman?" One of the leading jōnin shouted in anger.
"Is the red hair on my head not a good enough clue for you? You assholes dared to use one of my clansmen as a healing tonic. For that, I want my pound of flesh back," I answered with a menacing glare.
Oh, right. They didn't see it. The mask.
I didn't wear my Kiri ninja headband, not that I wore it particularly often, I also didn't use my signature bloodline limits as I pretended to form hand seals, but instead simply created a giant Katon/Fire Release: Great Dragon Fire jutsu, and devastated the shinobi in front of me without a care in the world.
Sure, anybody who knew about me would instantly pin this on me.
Red hair, fire jutsu without equal, my good looks. No wait, the mask.
But I did everything Kiri could ask of me to not expose them to a potential incident that could trigger the Fourth Ninja World War early.
I even killed all the witnesses.
Oh? Or did I?
"You survived that?" I asked the white-haired woman with unusual pale eyes and a green headband.
She wore the Kusagakure ANBU flak jacket and looked to be around sixteen, maybe younger. And her hands were covered in blisters while most of her clothing was singed.
"Y-you're a monster," the girl breathed out in disbelief, the pain almost too much for her. She seemed to realise that despite managing to put up a defense, she was hopelessly outclassed.
"Am I? Want me to get Kaede back so you can bite her and drink a little blood to deal with those burns?" I asked mockingly as I just watched the young woman with narrowed eyes.
I didn't walk towards her. Nor did I walk away. Nobody else was coming, only she and I were still here.
"I never drank her blood! That woman was truly pitiful!" The white-haired kunoichi spat out angrily, her body trembling from the pain.
"Oh? Okay, you got my attention. What is your name?"
Fury started to fill the woman's pale eyes more and more, but it evaporated as I made a basketball-sized fireball spin above my palm without hand seals. My personal creation, the Fire-Rasengan of Ultimate Hoop Destruction and Fiery Gigadeath, name still subject to change, immediately had the woman gulp down some fear.
Reluctantly, she answered, "Makihara Ryuzetsu."
"Ryu-san. I'm gonna shorten that name because I know a few Zetsu that I really don't like," I narrated, though I didn't care that she didn't get my point, "Ryu-san, I'm going to give you a choice. I'll be perfectly honest and say this offer exists because you're pretty, but, no worries, I won't force myself on you. I just like eye candy. You may die here and now for what your village did to those two Uzumaki clansmen, that's option one. Or I'll take you with me, and you can live as Karin's shinobi teacher when I'm not around in case Kaede confirms you never came to her to bite her."
Ryuzetsu bit her lip, hard. There was an unsolved matter here in Kusa, the Hozuki Castle in particular, that she desperately wanted to settle in this life. But dying here would never allow her to get revenge for the murder of her childhood friend Muku, son of Mui, as he was sacrificed to the 'Box of Ultimate Bliss'.
Not that she told me any of that or that I learned about this particular plotline then and there since I never watched any of the Naruto movies in my last life.
"Fine," she spat reluctantly, and with narrowed eyes, I put the woman under a genjutsu, force-fed her a pill to deal with the burns, and dropped her into my plant dimension.
"Time to kill a kage..." I mumbled under my breath as I looked at the prominent, faraway main building of Kusagakure in the distance.
—————
Casually throwing a scroll up and down that was roughly the same size as my forearm, I made my way back to the Land of Water, Mizu no Kuni. Well, I did plan to make a pretty large detour. It wasn't often that I was allowed to leave the village and I needed to make the most of it.
With my chakra levels, body cultivation, and stamina pills, I could make the trip in two days at most, but I didn't really like the atmosphere in my 'home country'. Barely any sunshine because of the perpetual mist, the controlled Yagura was a tyrant, deceit and bloodshed everywhere.
*You're doing it again, Yo-san,* a soft voice told me inside my mind.
'Oh? What do you mean, Saiken?'
*You're plotting, but at the same time doing nothing,* the six-tails softly chided.
'I told you I don't want to be Mizukage. Mei has to be Kiri nin's shining light...'
*You could still do more to make your home a better place,* Saiken argued softly.
'Oh? You have an opinion on the matter?'
*You could have stopped Kisame-san from trusting the masked man's words. In fact, you could have helped many of the other Seven Swordsmen and killed the previous wielder of Samehada, Fuguki, yourself. You rescued those girls from the Kaguya clan before the males forced themselves on them like animals, helped the young members of both the Yuki and Kuriare clans and several others to escape total extermination... but you could have just subordinated these clans, and nobody would have bat an eye with your strength. You could do that for the Hozuki clan before the kage finds an opportunity to get rid of them, too. You're powerful. Nobody would dare lay a finger on them in the village with your say so...*
'I can't heal the resentment of the clans and those of the villagers that had simmered below the surface for decades. I can't go against Yagura without having to fight Obito while he is still interested in punishing the village for what they did to Rin. The old generation is to blame, and I allowed the fire to burn so that fresh offshoots can grow in the nourishment of their ashes. I'm not Ashura with his talk-no-jutsu. Let Mei become Mizukage, abolish the caste system, and then introduce those kids to the village,' I argued back in my head.
*If you are so callous about all those lives, why seal part of my chakra in your dimension where a second me is slowly growing so that I won't die when these people re-create the ten-tails?*
'Because you're nice to me, Saiken. The only reason I'm alive is because you allowed me to become a perfect jinchūriki before there was ever the chance that the Third Hokage, Orochimaru, or Shisui annihilated me on the battlefield during the Third War,' I thought with an exasperated sigh.
Sure, I made certain that I wouldn't die if Pain came to take my tailed beast away, but I thought about what will happen to Saiken if Naruto does something different and the tailed beasts don't survive the coming Fourth Ninja War. After all, my presence changed many things.
It started with Haku, who was sadly a boy not that I would have groomed him if he wasn't, who was in my compound and not with Zabuza, so Naruto's first mission outside Konoha would be vastly different.
And if that changed, what else would change? Would Naruto miss his chance to become stronger in that fight or change his dynamic with Sasuke, which would result in him dying in later missions? Would it mean Sasuke won't defect, so Naruto won't leave the village with Jiraiya, so he won't learn Toad Sage mode and die versus Pain during that particular story arc?
If that happens, Black Zetsu wins, and Kaguya will leave the moon. The Otsutsukis would try to kill everyone on the planet to make a chakra fruit, and I'm not allowed to hide in my dimension.
Did I want to fight selflessly all my life because something I did killed Naruto? No thanks. I needed to ensure that little shit would be as strong as he could be. His character was set in stone anyway with Ashura's chakra molding him to be a selfless golden boy.
Or so I hoped.
*Okay, then why not kill the daimyo of Mizu no Kuni? Yagura and the masked man are troublesome, but the daimyo encourages the exploitation of his population and fans the fires of conflict in your village so that his guards may hold the illusion of superior strength,* Saiken softly argued back with her soothing voice in my mind.
'You know what? The daimyo actually is inconsequential in the long run. So his life or death won't change much for the rest of the world. I will kill him and his guards when I'm back. Will you help me think of all the consequences?'
*Of course I will, Yo-san. What will you do before going home?*
'I managed to finally create the bloodline pill! So, I'm going to see if a certain woman won't want to carry my child!'
—————
Running around in disguise while in the Land of Fire where it bordered the Land of Grass was really unbearable. But sadly, running around with red hair and a Konoha ANBU mask while in Konoha's territory was not feasible. I would stick out like a sore thumb.
A wide-brimmed straw hat and a cloak were pretty stuffy in this summer heat, but it wasn't discomfort in heat that annoyed me. It was running around like a low-tier villain in an edgy outfit.
'How are our guests?' I inwardly asked Saiken, who had her avatar inside my plant dimension. The god was pretty generous in that aspect I quickly learned. Since both Saiken and the dimension were more or less sealed inside of me - one in my soul, the other in my body - I could keep talking to the tailed beast while she was inside the plant dimension despite the time dilation that still happened when she was inside the dimension.
*Karin-chan is still sleeping. Her body is rapidly healing itself from all the malnourishment and abuse thanks to your pills and the abundant natural energy you force into the hut with that seal experiment. Kaede-san is watching over her with a fond smile now that she finally understands you are here to help her. Her body is currently inside your second cauldron, just like you instructed, to take the medicinal bath to get rid of all her scars.*
My pill cauldron that the god granted me would likely be a supreme treasure in any cultivation novel. And for pill ingredients, it could even house many more ingredients that it realistically should allow size-wise, but it was still just as big as a fruit basket, and it wouldn't allow for someone to sit inside... or help produce thousands of low-tier pills in a few sittings to save my time. For that reason, I had a second cauldron made in the Land of Iron and paid the equivalent of dozens of S-rank missions for what was essentially a circular bathtub with a lid, both made entirely out of chakra metal.
It wasn't very pure chakra metal because that would be a waste, but it was still ridiculously expensive because it wasn't low quality either. The Terumi clan could have never paid for it because despite being part of the highest caste of Kiri since they were involved in its founding, the clan barely had twenty jōnin before I came along. And without Mei and I, they would have never had a kage level shinobi in this era either. Not anytime soon, at least.
But my scheme with Danzō for the pill recipe and me selling those food pills for years had allowed me to pay for the crazy expensive item anyway and stop one of the local clans from facing bankruptcy, gaining life-long allies with an influential former ninja clan I didn't even know existed before.
'Thanks for keeping an eye on them. You're in your human form?'
*Indeed, Yo-san. Thank you again for patiently researching the transformation jutsu together with me.*
'Eh, you should be free to look like you want. It was more for my own selfish convenience,' I countered with a shrug.
Mentally continuing idly chatting with Saiken, I eventually reached the fifth village with a gambling district since coming to the Land of Fire. And finally, my senses picked up a subdued but gargantuan chakra. This was promising.
I entered the casino with that particular presence inside, used a transformation jutsu to get rid of my red hair for a while, and sat opposite the blonde woman I had been searching for. It was hard to get a seat at the table because everyone wanted to bet against the legendary sucker, but eventually, I just employed a genjutsu that made a few guys run home to check their stove.
Versus civilians, my yin affinity was simply broken and allowed me to do all that without hand seals thanks to the busted chakra quality in my body. Any trained ninja, however, still required me to use hand seals for genjutsu.
For now. I kept up my training and created new pills constantly.
Before I could get a word in, another round was played, and Tsunade won against all odds, no matter how stacked they were against her. She suddenly looked up, regarding everyone with a glare before her eyes settled on me as she quickly recognized my disguise.
With narrowed eyes and a tick mark forming on her temple, she cashed in her chips with the help of a teenage girl and ran outside. I could only lament my luck, or rather hers, and follow them.
At the edge of the village, Senju Tsunade was already waiting for me with crossed arms and a deep scowl on her fair face.
"Tell the old goat that I am not returning home!" She spat with gritted teeth.
"Uh, you misunderstand, Tsunade-san," I answered, and by her guarded expression, it looked like I was a little too familiar with her. Should have used a different honorific.
"So the old man didn't send you? Why are you after me then?" She asked in clear suspicion and irritation.
"Ideally, I'd like you to bear me a child," I answered with a sincere smile.
By her rapidly declining mood, I could only assume that my smile didn't seem very sincere to her…