Half an hour later, I stood up and looked at my hands.
Something fundamental changed about me. God sent me here, telling me I wouldn't be born with all the Uzumaki abilities... but I was sure I just changed that. I somehow knew I could invoke those sealing chains, but I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of Tsunade and Shizune, who at some point had joined her teacher to check the condition of my body. It was like my chakra learned how to form a new type of chakra all on its own.
"Tell me a lie," I ordered as I looked at Shizune.
The young girl immediately started fidgeting as she looked to be put on the spot suddenly. Eventually, she stammered out, "I-I'm secretly 220 years old, and Senju Hashirama is my great-great-grand nephew."
I fought the urge to facepalm, but I was delighted. Having Saiken in me and being a sensor ninja always made me keenly aware of people's emotions, but something changed. I for sure gained Mind's Eye of Kagura, a completely busted Uzumaki bloodline ability that I would try to use to its full potential.
It took being a sensor ninja to a whole new level. From my understanding, it was basically being a Hyuga without the byakugan's x-ray vision, but all the other benefits that came with it and then some. I would unearth all that I could about the ability over time.
Tsunade looked at me as I towered over both women, and I could feel the conflicted emotions wave off of her.
"You're wondering why I shared this with you when I could have given it all to Kiri and finally made my village stronger than your grandfather's Konoha?" I asked with a lifted eyebrow. But I didn't wait for an answer and responded myself, saying, "Family. It's not the whole truth, but it's the part of it that should matter to you."
Taking a look at the complicated expression of Shizune for a moment, I continued, "If you want to take the pill before offering it to Naruto, I could stay and make sure nothing happens to you? I can't give you someone's grave for me to swear on, but I promise you that my offer to make you my child's mother was genuine. Can't do that if I poison you to death. Plus, I could kill you with many, many different and easier ways. You've felt my chakra."
Tsunade looked angrier and angrier the more I talked, but I felt genuine intrigue from her. I wasn't full of myself thinking that getting with me and fathering me a bastard intrigued her and knew it was directed at possibly getting her Senju bloodline 'purified' and maybe getting closer to her grandfather that way, but I still didn't shy away from teasing the woman some more without fearing a punch to the groin.
"If you're deceiving me, I will use the last of my strength to detonate my Yin Seal and take you with me to the Pure Lands," Tsunade eventually decided and sent a fearful Shizune away with the pill bottles I had thrown her to use on Naruto. The Sannin looked at me and ordered, "Sit over there," as she created a small sealing circle on the ground.
Wow, she actually wanted to bind me in place so that I couldn't get away fast enough for her to actually blow herself up the moment she noticed something wrong.
Crazy, but I respected it.
As she sat in front of me with both of us far away from my own buried puke, I couldn't help but quip, "Please get a bucket or punch some holes first. I don't care to get puked on, no matter how good-looking you are."
I felt Tsunade go through a whole host of emotions that I couldn't accurately pinpoint, but by the scowl on her face, I knew I was wearing her patience thin.
Many amazing love stories started that way. So I wasn't too worried about my chances.
Eventually, Tsunade merely huffed and put the pill into her mouth without allowing me to feel the changes inside her like I offered to her before. But I didn't mind. I instead played around with my Mind's Eye of Kagura and tried to see the changes from where I was sitting by subtly bathing my immediate surroundings in my chakra.
Tsunade's cheeks gained a pink blush as her body heated up quite a bit. Her breathing grew erratic, and I was pretty sure she started wincing in pain, though she kept quiet.
Ugh. Women.
Watching the whole process, I learned that she should have definitely started off by swallowing a cleansing pill and dealing with the aftermath.
She puked out impurities like it was going out of fashion. It took a lot longer than it did for me, too, likely because the pill was working on her cleansing much, much longer than it did for me, who ate a cleansing pill every other weekend.
More than that, Tsunade also puked out much more blood than I had, and I saw her actively healing herself through the impending anemia with her weird rebirth jutsu that kept her looking like a woman in her early 20s. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was clear that she thought I would take advantage of her situation by the urgency with which she regenerated her blood.
Had she accepted some of Saiken's healing chakra, the pill would have likely done much more for her bloodline, but by the looks of things, all that healing work didn't take away too much of the pill's effect either.
"You're too stubborn for your own good. I get that I'm a stranger to you. An enemy even. But again, I could just kill you in easier ways," I eventually accused with a sigh. The pill was almost fully digested by that point, I reckoned.
"How did you make this pill?" Tsunade asked as she regulated her breathing, completely ignoring my presence in front of her otherwise.
"How does the Flying Thunder God jutsu work?" I countered with a deadpan.
Tsunade scoffed and answered, "Can't fault me for trying. I can create many kinds of medicines myself, but nothing even remotely as strong as that."
"Just assume it's a mutated kekkei genkai that only I wield," I 'revealed' and held up my hand to show her a fire chakra that she had never seen before. Nobody had, except for Saiken and I.
My most advanced kekkei tota. A mix of fire, water, and yang release. I sucked at naming things and named it 'flowing flame of life release' because that was pretty much what it was. That liquid fire could heal superficial injuries like cuts and bruises pretty much instantly. But it could also destroy any other chakra it came in contact with to feed itself and grow on its own. So, using it to heal someone that wasn't me? Very bad idea. Using it to kill someone with very little effort? Also a bad idea because it was way too flashy.
I did wonder if it worked on Obito and sticks to him even when he entered his kamui dimension. I might get the opportunity to find out soon. I kind of wanted to know if circulating this chakra inside my body would get rid of Mangekyō Sharingan level genjtusu like it did with regular genjutsu chakra.
But even if it didn't help against the Mangekyō Sharingan, nothing beat that kekkei tota when it came to pill making. Because fire plus yin flames didn't work for most recipes, and my earth release affinity was lacking quite a bit compared to the water release that I worked on a lot more after having Saiken put in me. The tailed beast's chakra was pretty much water chakra by default, after all. It just came in three different flavors of pure water, acid, and healing chakra.
Tsunade watched the fire swirl around my hand with narrowed eyes for a while before she sighed and continued to watch her own physique's transformation. Already, I could feel the woman's vitality growing by a crazy amount, and I was certain that Tsunade indeed awakened at least a nascent form of a Senju sage body.
She eventually pressed her hand on the ground after biting a finger and summoned a puppy-sized slug.
"Lady Katsuyu," I greeted respectfully before Tsunade could, and the blonde woman merely rolled her eyes.
The slug looked at me for a moment, then at my stomach before addressing me.
"Greetings, Uzumaki-kun. You know of my existence and my real name?"
"Pleased to meet you, my name is Terumi Yoshihiro, but you may call me however you like," I greeted once more with a small bow from my sitting position before I countered, "The slug summoner contract had been in the Senju clan for generations, no? Was it supposed to be a secret to someone from a clan that used to be allied to the Senju?"
The slug all but shrugged if she had had a body and agreed, "I suppose not. But you were born around the time of Uzushiogakure's fall, were you not, Yoshihiro-kun?"
"True, true. I'm still not completely ignorant," I admitted with a small grin.
Before anybody could continue, Tsunade, with a tick mark slowly forming on her temple, said with great difficulty, "Katsuyu-sama. May I have a moment of your time before you chat with the boy?"
"Ah, of course, Tsunade-sama," the little avatar of the slug sage agreed with her pleasant child-like voice.
"The changes in my body. Can you tell me if my feelings are correct? Is this what my grandfather's body was like?" Tsunade asked, and I felt that she was anxious to know the truth. Otherwise, she would have sent me away before asking such a sensitive question.
I desperately wanted to quip that Hashirama definitely didn't have such a nice pair of jugs, but I kept quiet as Katsuyu crawled onto her summoner and felt the changes in Tsunade's body.
"Not quite," Katsuyu said as she reached a verdict moments later. But before Tsunade could slump down in regret, the slug continued, "But you certainly come very close. Learning my Shikkotsu Forest sage arts should come to you quite easily now. Your body naturally absorbs nature energy already. Have you tried one of your esteemed grandfather's wood jutsus yet?"
The lone-living Senju shook her head as she bit her lip. Katsuyu encouraged her to try, so Tsunade formed three hand seals and clapped her hands before she mumbled, "Mokuton/Wood Style: Wood Clone Jutsu."
In a mere second, another Tsunade formed slowly from the ground up starting out as a sapling. Tsunade stared at it in absolute disbelief, and I wasn't far behind.
As far as I was aware, after coming to this world and learning its history, in an entire millenia, wood release had been entirely unique to Hashirama. It wasn't a Senju kekkei genkai at all before he came along. I wanted to goad Tsunade with the chance to get the Wood Release, but I didn't really believe it. I was honestly quite sure at that point that Ashura's chakra was needed for that cheat-like ability.
Well, the god that sent me here did say that a kekkei genkai would be imprinted into a user's DNA and get passed on to their descendants once they manage to create a kekkei genkai… soooo… this must be what happened here?
"Congratulations, Tsunade," I said and broke everyone, even the clone, out of their stupor. The woman didn't even notice that I dropped the honorific I had used before and slowly stood up to walk out of the seal she had me sit in to make sure she could kill me if I had duped her.
It took me a while because I didn't actually solve the seal and walked out as 'intended' but once I did, I kneeled down in front of Katsuyu to be closer at her eye level.
"Are you familiar with the abilities of the Uzumaki clan? Can you tell me if I unearthed all of their abilities?" I inquired with curiosity etched on my face.
"I shall try and find out," Katsuyu cheerfully agreed, and I heard her quietly gasp the moment she touched me.
So I was able to hide my chakra even from her in this form? Good to know.
"You should have. There's many overwhelming bloodline limits in your body. It is hard to tell," the slug sage eventually muttered with a little sadness in her voice.
Was she sad because she couldn't tell me for certain?
"No worries, I'll manage to find enough pieces of the Uzumaki legacy to know for sure. Can you tell me how high my nature energy affinity is? I have no concept of there being sage bodies in the Uzumaki clan," I argued back in a soft voice as a small Katsuyu detached from the puppy-sized slug and hid in my pocket.
Oh my.
"Very different from Hashirama-sama and Tsunade-sama," the immortal sage beast mumbled before her head nodded slightly, "But a very high affinity. Better than Tsunade-sama even. Have you spent a lot of time in places of high quantity and quality nature energy?"
"I did, since I was quite young, in fact," I answered, uncaring if Tsunade and Shizune learned more about it.
It wasn't like I spelled out for either of them that I owned a private sage region dimension sealed into my soul that I could enter and exit whenever I pleased.
"But what you're saying is that a kid between Tsunade and I is pretty much guaranteed to be born a natural sage?" I asked as I decided to mess with Tsunade some more.
Katsuyu, apparently oblivious to social cues, immediately nodded and agreed, "Very high chance. Your gifts should complement each other and bless your progeny with many beneficial abilities and untold talent rivaling even Hashirama-sama."
I grinned at Tsunade, who slowly unclenched her fist as she started pouting at her summoned beast.
"This has been very enlightening. Tsunade, if you sell my pills to gamble the money you get from the sales, I'll kill both you and Shizune. If you have any questions or are indeed interested in my proposal to pop out the most talented kid this world has ever seen, I'll stay on that mountain over there for three days. Find me," I explained with a friendly smile as I pointed to the horizon where the sun had set long ago. "I wouldn't mind a scroll with Uzumaki teachings in compensation either, but not out of obligation. Those pills for you and Naruto are free. But what's family without a little back and forth?"
Staying in a village in enemy territory was overrated when I could sleep in the house that I built myself in my plant dimension and just practiced my new chakra chains out in the wild without anybody bothering me.
Sadly for everyone involved, me especially, space-time jutsu were not among my many strong suits, and I didn't have the personal notes of the Second Hokage to cheat my way into learning things like the Flying Thunder God technique either. So I used my body's strength and the body-flicker jutsu to scale the mountain I pointed at with blinding speed before Tsunade could retort.
Any offer from her after what she just experienced would either be empty, rushed, or insincere. So I let her sleep on it. And if she decided that she wanted nothing to do with me, so be it. But she better bring those pills to Naruto, or I don't mind changing the Fifth Hokage to somebody else by eliminating the original choice. My peaceful future depended on it.
When I finally reached the mountain, I took out the small hamster-sized slug that hid itself in my pocket and asked, "You wanted to talk to me in private, Lady Katsuyu?"
"Indeed, Yoshihiro-kun. I did not want to expose you, but the flavor of the natural energy in your body is unfamiliar to me. Could you sate my curiosity and tell me if there is a sage region that I am unfamiliar with? It tastes like greenery and life. I am quite curious as to who rules it."
"You can keep a secret, right?" I asked Katsuyu more to be a bit childish than to actually receive an answer to my question.
As a transmigrator, I was well aware of Katsuyu's personality. Other than her summoners, Katsuyu had no ambition, no grand plans, and no penchant for gossip. At most, she would reassure Tsunade that I was genuine and vouch for my character without spilling the beans.
So, without waiting for an answer, I entered the plant dimension with the slug in hand. I had literally nothing to lose with this. Nobody could make her talk. She had no way of entering here without my help. And she had no inherent greed for the riches this dimension held.
And despite our first encounter being quite antagonistic and frankly very lop-sided, I was still a simp for Tsunade.
—————
After taking a stroll through the dimension with Katsuyu and allowing her to eat some of the 'lesser' plants that were mostly used for food pills, the slug unsummoned herself and left me to my devices.
Three days later, I stood in front of a small fire that I controlled and used the adamantine sealing chains I finally learned to use to roast some meat with seasonings grown in my plant dimension. Well, I had an initial grasp on how to use them.
If Tsunade didn't arrive on this day, I'd make my way back to Kiri after this meal. Karin and her mother were enjoying their time in my dimension, but I felt that Kaede was slowly getting anxious. Without me present, the entire dimension only had three living beings inside, after all. Four, if you count Saiken, who had adjusted her go-to appearance when she transformed into a human as the tailed-beast acted as a maid inside the plant dimension. The voice was a giveaway before, but all her transformation jutsus resulted in Saiken looking like a woman. I could finally tell her gender without having to have an awkward talk about it.
Instead of looking like a blend between Pakura and Mei, she now looked like Tsunade but with pale pink hair and irises. Saiken likely felt my feelings for the Sannin that were far from romantic and instead plenty lustful.
I doubted the tailed beast wanted me to fuck her. And I definitely didn't want to fuck a giant slug chakra construct that was as old as chakra on this planet. So I was left wondering why Saiken did it. To mess with me? Or to be eye candy for me?
Just as the meat I had skewered with my chakra chain construct was about to be finished while my vegetable broth was long done and smelling divine with the unmatched ingredients of my plant dimension cooked to perfection, I felt two people getting closer to me rapidly.
"Was it really necessary to move so far away?" Tsunade asked in clear annoyance.
"Well, nobody disturbed me here so far away from everybody else and I didn't have to kill any Fire Nation shinobi… So win-win?" I asked with a small shrug. "Hungry?"
Shizune desperately nodded and I wondered if Tsunade helped get the young kunoichi some food recently or if her new and cleansed sage body made her forget that normal people needed food and water to live. A sage body was quite intoxicating, I would freely admit.
Looking at Shizune for a small moment, I realised that Tsunade must have used her to test the other pills. The young girl's skin, despite the hunger burning in her eyes, was much better looking compared to three days ago.
She definitely ate two cleansing pills at minimum.