Chapter Text
Year 51, Uzumaki Sei Age 13.
The red-haired boy appeared out of nowhere on a very sunny day. He walked up to the gates with too much grace, Akimichi Maruta thought he was one of Konoha's genin until he had a clearer picture of the very bright red hair. He only launched from his seat when he saw the red eyes, his partner sending a suspicious glance up at him, then the young boy, until he similarly got to his feet with a gape.
He jumped out and blocked the boy's path.
"Who are you?" he said with a little more vitriol than he imagined.
The red-haired boy seemed to swear. The Uzumaki headband on his forehead glinted under the sun, and his black outfit was torn. The shade of dark red haori tied around his waist didn't exist in the Land of Fire.
"Can I," the boy grated out. He paused.
"Can I see the Third?"
Akimichi Maruta held back the urge to scoff in the boy's face. They stared at each other silently. The very Uzumaki-look of the boy made him think twice.
This boy wasn't his case to handle.
"Follow me."
He signalled his partner to stay, walking into the village with a quick glance to the chuunin who stared at them for a moment too long before jumping away to report to the office in advance. Akimichi Maruta didn't know what the Hokage would do to the boy, or why the boy wanted to see the Third, but the hardened expressionless face on such a young child was enough for pity to war over suspicion.
He took to the rooftops. The boy followed surprisingly well, even when he raised his speed. He purposefully took sharp turns, which the boy sometimes ignored in favour of the nearest surface, or took with him seeming for the sake of it. For someone fresh out of the ruins of Uzushio, the boy was in pristine condition.
By the time they reached the Hokage tower's entrance, Akimichi Maruta could honestly say he tried.
"Someone will take you from here," he began to say.
"Maruta-san," the woman at the reception desk stood, "Hokage-sama asked that once you arrive you're to lead him in yourself."
Akimichi Maruta's lips thinned. If the Hokage was already testing this boy and requesting his opinion too, it was likely he'd see the boy around more in Konoha. He said his thanks, slammed a heavy hand on the boy's shoulder, and began walking.
"When you greet the Third," he advised, "don't move until he's finished observing you."
Uzumaki Sei looked up at him with slightly rounder eyes.
"Thank you."
The boy was sharp. He grunted and led him up a flight of stairs before knocking on the red door. He wondered if the boy noticed the genjutsu.
"Hokage-sama. I've brought the Uzumaki."
"Come in."
The door swung open, but the boy stopped. He seemed frozen, and Akimichi Sei similarly tensed wondering if he was going to attempt an assassination. But aside from his eyes fixed on the Third, the boy didn't move.
Akimichi Maruta pushed his back.
The boy stumbled lightly, but soon recovered. He then faced the Third as though he'd seen a ghost. Or, as though he was looking at one. Slowly, with the silence the Third spent observing him, the boy recovered his expression into the mute resting face he'd maintained, but both Akimichi Maruta and the Third had seen him break down. It had been an instant, but it had spoken volumes.
"You are...?"
The boy opened his mouth, closed it, then seemed to falter. His hesitance was so palpable Akimichi Maruta wondered if the boy was doing it on purpose.
"You don't remember," he finally said, looking resigned.
"You? I would remember meeting someone like you if I've ever been to Uzushio." The Third returned.
The Uzumaki seemed to consider that, before settling into his initial resting face.
"I'm... Uzumaki Sei. I came to ask for sanctuary."
The Third puffed, and the pipe glowed.
"You wanted my permission instead of going through the applications first?"
Uzumaki Sei considered. He gently shook his head.
"I didn't know there was one. I thought..."
Sarutobi Hiruzen leaned back into his seat. The boy's red hair and red eyes were Uzumaki, but the fact that he couldn't sense his chakra was concerning. It was minimal, confined to the boy's own body, and unmoving.
"Well, I wish you good luck in your applications then."
Uzumaki Sei stared at him like he wanted to eat him. Sarutobi Hiruzen couldn't tell whether the boy wanted to practice cannibalism or was insanely attracted to his wrinkles.
"Thank you, Hokage-sama."
The boy bowed gracefully. With a short nod from Akimichi Maruta, he left.
"Maruta."
"Yes, sir."
"What do you think of the boy?"
"I'm not sure, Hokage-sama. He had no issues catching up to me on the way here."
"The Uzumakis didn't come to us not only because of their pride, but because some felt betrayed. I don't know what the boy's thinking, but if it's the latter..."
"He seemed to know you, Hokage-sama. Do you not remember him?"
"No," Sarutobi Hiruzen sighed out a stream of smoke, "not at all."
Konoha didn't offer sanctuary because they didn't need to.
No Uzumakis came to their doors.
---
Sei cupped his hands under the faintly glowing orb. The red chakra which pulsed with its flickering light tickled his hands.
"I'll need to wait a while, Kurama," he whispered, "a long while, maybe."
The light pulsed again. Sei smiled, wider than he'd ever allowed. In the confines of his mind, he was free from pain. The water rippled underneath his feet, pure and blue, and the walls gleamed white despite the cracks which ran through them.
"Don't be ridiculous. If I'd gone in there blazing with power, I'd have been put down first and declared an enemy second. Only you'd go such brutal lengths without a care for politics and the current climate. They're at war, Kurama."
The light pulsed again. The water beneath his feet vibrated.
"They won't care. I'll make sure they don't."
The chakra swayed and left his hands. Sei lowered his hands and sat. The water lapped at him, but it was barely a centimeter deep. Lying down, it barely brushed the tip of his ears.
"I didn't believe you when you said you'd be gone," he spoke painfully at the orb which buzzed above him, "but you really are."
He closed his eyes. For the first time since the losses, he could finally mourn.
---
It wasn't long until the entire jounin contingent of Konoha realised the new red-haired shinobi walking around Konoha was one of them. The final exam to place him had gone horrendously for both sides, according to the rumours, and the bandage which was still wrapped up to his neck only proved it. Also according to hospital staff, the Uchiha who sparred with him had been hospitalised for a day.
As shinobi of wartime, the only thing that kept them entertained was gossip and the competition of who-got-the-most-sleep. Naturally, the gossip sails turned to full-blown speculation about the Uzumaki who just ranked jounin, and who was still under observance. He was running C and D-rank missions during peacetime for that reason but what was he really like? How strong could he possibly be?
Someone got his answers unwillingly.
"You should adjust your stance."
Nara Shikaku flinched and immediately threw a kunai towards the voice. He overreacted, he knew, but no-one had that voice and that tone. He watched long, pale hands reach up and snatch the kunai by its ring, twirl it, and throw it back right before his feet. He looked up and met red eyes.
"You're... The Uzumaki jounin."
The red-haired boy, two years older than him according to the rumours, didn't look pleased to meet him.
"Uzumaki Sei. Nice to meet you, Nara-san."
"Why should I adjust my stance?"
Uzumaki Sei looked at him as though he was seeing someone else, and Nara Shikaku didn't know what to make of that. He shifted wondering why the other boy had talked to him in the first place. Even though Uzumaki Sei was new to the village, he was still a jounin. As far as he knew, jounins didn't talk to genin-to-be's.
"You remind me of my friend," silently, Nara Shikaku thought that was morbid, "he always used to slouch on both of his feet until he was knocked off a ledge during our spar one day. He learned and angled his body to his left since then."
Nara Shikaku looked down at his feet and looked back up.
"Thanks, I guess."
Uzumaki Sei nodded, sitting against the tree. Training ground Nine was rarely empty like it was today. He wondered if the Uzumaki chose to come here to avoid the stares, or if he came here because he thought a genin would be easier to chase away. He didn't seem too bad, or mean, so Shikaku settled on the first explanation of many his mind came up with.
"Is it alright if I watch you train?"
For a guy who was asking, he'd already made himself comfortable against the tree. Nara Shikaku frowned but nodded anyways. Any training with a jounin willing to watch was a valuable opportunity. No genin would take that for granted, especially when they were being promoted so unprepared.
"You're gonna help?" He demanded more than asked.
"Of course," Uzumaki Sei tilted his head, but his eyes were already closed, "if that's the price for intruding on your training."
Nara Shikaku casted another suspicious glare his way before turning his attention back onto his shadow. This time he angled his body to his left.
A shadow stretched, curled around a base of a tree, and quivered.
Uzumaki Sei quietly hummed. It had been so long since he'd felt the Nara clan's cold chakra, their innate off-balance yin chakra which powered their jutsu. Shikamaru's had turned colder with each passing day since the devastation until he was the only one who could find solace in it. His personality had taken on a similar nature although it could be said everyone else's had too.
The shadow retreated, shaking in exertion, and from a distance away Nara Shikaku leaned on his knees and panted. Uzumaki Sei frowned. That was shorter than what Shikamaru had pulled off when they had been children.
The shadow extended again. The tree stopped shaking.
"Perhaps you could work on your chakra control first," Sei offered with hesitance.
"I have," Nara Shikaku snapped back with all the confidence of a genin-to-be, "I can walk on trees."
Uzumaki Sei cracked open an eye.
"I'm talking about the kind of control where you understand exactly how much chakra is needed for every meter's distance you cover. With the amount of chakra you're using now, you should be able to hold on for an hour."
"My cousin's better than me and his limit's 40 minutes," Nara Shikaku snapped again, "what makes you think an hour's possible?"
"Since when did you base your own potential on your cousin's capability?"
Nara Shikaku's shadow wavered but he clenched his hands tighter. He had nothing to say to that, although what he'd thrown out was something he'd said just to get the Uzumaki off his back.
Uzumaki Sei sighed, stood, and grabbed his shoulder.
"This is the fastest way to make you feel what perfect chakra control is like. Allow me to demonstrate?"
The slight pulse of chakra made Nara Shikaku understand what he was intending to do immediately. His brain first raised flags, red flags, because he wasn't sure whether to trust this stranger in Konoha with his chakra system. His instincts raised a green flag and wasn't that interesting? He'd never felt chakra so warm in his life.
With a quick nod, he resigned himself to whatever torture the Uzumaki had planned in his mind. He wasn't risking much since there were eyes on the Uzumaki at all times. If all came to worst, he'd be carried off to the nearest medic.
The pulse of chakra became a steady stream into his body. Slowly, the quivering in his shadow stopped. Nara Shikaku watched with amazement as a quarter of his chakra was guided back into his own body. With three-fourths of what he had originally been using, the shadow beneath him tightened into a narrower line from his feet to the tree ahead, clenching the tree as though it was going to drain its life.
In fact, he realised with awe-inspired horror, the Uzumaki was guiding not only his chakra but replacing the one-fourth which he'd guided back with the tree's chakra and the tree was indeed rapidly dying. His mouth parted in a wordless exclamation, because that was some high level of chakra control.
(It wouldn't be until he becomes a jounin that Nara Shikaku realizes what strong display of chakra control that had been. Now, he was too young to understand the prowess of a chakra control that Senju Tsunade would be hard pressed to perform.)
As soon as the chakra finished circling once in his body, it left as smoothly as it entered. Nara Shikaku sucked in a breath, regaining control of his own chakra. Behind him, the hand lifted. He swivelled around to look at the Uzumaki with wide, round eyes.
"That's your potential, Nara-san." Uzumaki Sei met his gaze squarely with tired red eyes.
For the first time in his life, and Nara Shikaku could attest to it, he was rendered speechless.
"I've found there's no limit to one's potential," Uzumaki Sei said as his gaze drifted to the dead tree, "if they're taught as much earlier on. With more time to realise someone's dreams, the more experienced they become in both failure and success. If Uzushio had more time..."
The Uzumaki's eyes flickered back to him. Instinct told Nara Shikaku he wasn't the first person this Uzumaki had taught, or offered to look over someone's training. There was also the alarming fact that Sei-san must know how his clan jutsu works in order to have shown him a 'potential' like that, and Uzumaki Sei wasn't a Nara for all he knew. He had to keep an eye on this jounin.
"My name's Nara Shikaku. You can call me Shikaku, Sei-san."
Sei's eyes widened in surprise. Shikaku wondered why, briefly. He wasn't famous by any account aside from his position as the clan heir. Uzumaki Sei shouldn't have had that much time to look into clan politics. Unless he was surprised by his offer of cordiality, which was more acceptable.
"Nice to meet you, Shikaku."
Looking at Sei's stiff expression but kind eyes, Shikaku knew he was going to swindle out a promise from the Uzumaki to train him, no matter what.
---
To do that, he started watching.
Konoha knew it was on the brink of war. Its internal politics, therefore, was as sensitive. If Sei flickered to the roof whenever he saw Uzumaki Kushina, the elders and clan council were more than happy to leave him to flee. Even if Uzumaki Kushina searched the entirety of Konoha day after day since hearing the rumours of the last Uzumaki survivor, Uzumaki Sei made sure they never ran into each other.
According to Shikaku's father who took great amusement in his son's interest towards the Uzumaki (and was also interested by the fact Uzumaki Sei knew his clan jutsu), this satisfied those who were concerned the Uzumakis would band together to instate a position in the clan council. It made Shikaku even more curious about the boy who held himself like an old war veteran, was more mature than any of his friends, and remained determined to be alone despite losing his entire village overnight.
When he reached two weeks of inspection Shikaku realised Sei-san preferred the training ground he used. Training ground 9 was always occupied by one genin group or another, but it was mostly deserted due to its distance from the village at night. That was when Sei-san appeared doing nothing but standing in the middle of its field for hours on end with his eyes closed.
Sometimes, and this Shikaku noticed only because of his persistent observations, he'd move into basic kata stances that were so clearly Konoha's ever so slowly, repeating them for hours on end. When he didn't have C-rank or B-rank missions Sei-san waved him over, asked him on his progress, and repeated the chakra control example with him.
And finally, on the second day of the third week of his Sei-san-watching, Sei-san looked up at him in the tree with a wry edge to his mouth.
"Would you like to try sparring with me?"
"Yes!" He jumped down from the tree, long used to Sei-san's impeccable ability to single him out from wherever he hid.
He'd been waiting for the offer for so long, he could almost taste the victory of having forced Sei-san to have said it first.
"And you children can come out too," Sei-san spoke towards the bushes, "you can watch if Shikaku agrees."
Shikaku turned to look at the bushes with round eyes. It rustled, and shook, until Inoichi and Choza jumped out with sheepish grins on each of their faces. Shikaku laughed in surprise. It was obvious they'd tracked him around the village, considering the state of their clothes, and they'd done it for quite some time. It was the only way their hesitant but hopeful looks could be explained.
"I agree," he said easily as they shared knowing glances.
"Then let's begin with taijutsu," Sei nodded at the grounds, "and with your signal we'll combine some easy doton jutsu's mid-spar."
Shikaku scrambled to the center of the training grounds. Rolling the chakra which was thrumming with excitement in the pattern he'd familiarized himself with over the past three weeks, he brought his hands together ready to unleash his shadows.
Sei raised a hand.
Inoichi, being the quick-witted Yamanaka he was, grabbed a pebble and balanced it on his thumb.
The stone landed as fast as he flicked it.
"Doton... shit!"
Shikaku shrieked as he threw himself to the side. Where he once stood was now a crater the size of Choza.
Lashing out with his shadow, which had grown faster and sharper as Sei-san had promised, he struck for an edge of Sei-san's shadow... which wasn't there.
"Shikaku," Sei said as his fist grazed his cheek, "there's no thinking in taijutsu."
He paused deliberately, allowing Shikaku to scramble to a position as he slowly lowered his fist. When he seemed poised to attack once more, Sei got into position again. This time, he gave a slight tilt of his head before attacking.
Shikaku didn't have time to think, as Sei-san said, and he acknowledged this by instinctively ducking a roundhouse kick. He blocked a side-kick which was definitely going to bruise his forearm for the whole month, threw off a part of a series of jabs which landed squarely on his left shoulder, and shrieked again at a side kick which stopped at a hair's breath from his abdomen.
Inoichi and Chouza stiffled a gasp as Shikaku stumbled forward to punch Sei, but was instead heaved up into the air by his neck.
Going through the academy's basics, Shikaku countered the single-handed chokehold with a jab to the juncture between Sei-san's thumb and wrist, but was instead released onto Sei-san's waiting foot.
"Work on your basics," was the most offensive insult he heard as he was thrown across the training ground and onto the opposite tree.
"Wait," Shikaku gasped once he recovered from the impact, "this isn't fair."
Sei-san seemed to consider his objection at least, which Shikaku found was a relief. At least he wasn't being insulted for the sake of Sei-san's pleasure. Which also meant Sei-san had spoken only the truth, which was all the more insulting.
"You're right. I thought too highly of you and forgot you've just made genin."
He spoke with such a flat voice Shikaku knew he wasn't teasing.
"The fastest way to learn taijutsu is by sparring someone of a slightly better mastery. I was unable to control the level of difficulty for you just now."
"Yeah, yeah, I think this was enough."
It had been barely twenty moves but Shikaku felt as though he'd done all he needed. A shadow fell across his face. Raising his arm, he came face-to-face with Sei-san's expressionless but quietly disappointed look. He hadn't even broken a sweat.
"Are you sure?"
Something deep within him, and Shikaku was good at listening to this voice of logic and reason, told him if he replied "yes" to Sei-san's question he'd never be asked to spar again. In fact, Shikaku knew with certainty the faint disappointment that appeared when they first met and now wasn't in his lack of talent but in his lack of effort.
Was it worth all this trouble? He could always get help from his father and his future team leader. Guidance was found commonly in Konoha as long as one asked for help. So was it worth the extra trouble to train with Sei-san? An additional workload, a promised time of hard work, on top of the things he was already set to gain from following the average curriculum?
"No," Shikaku sighed as he resigned himself to an eternity of self-hate, "no, I can go again."
He blinked as Sei-san's eyes creased and his mouth turned up into a small smile.
"Good."
Okay, Shikaku stared up at the sky in a daze, I might stick to this torture just for the sake of seeing that again.
---
Considering the amount of reports which were being made to the Hokage everyday, Sei counted this by the number of times the ANBU assigned to him left in the middle of their shift, Sei knew he wasn't going to be given D-ranks and C-ranks any longer.
It had been a short trial period and an even shorter amount of time to understand who Uzumaki Sei really was, but Konoha didn't have the time or resource to spare evaluating a young teenager from the ruins of Uzushio. When Sei was handed the A-rank scroll in the Hokage's office, he accepted it without a word and a knowing air.
Releasing it right before the Hokage, he read through it quickly before snapping it closed once more.
"I heard you've been training some of our genins."
Sei shook his head.
"I've only been training one. I've only given out a few pointers to others."
"Nara Shikaku, was it?" Sarutobi Hiruzen emptied his pipe with a sequence of taps.
Sei waited for the final tat-tat-tat to finish ringing.
"He was the only one persistent enough."
"He seems to have taken a liking to you."
Sei's face twitched into a brief frown.
"Shouldn't you be more concerned about my well-being than his?"
Sarutobi Hiruzen froze, as though he hadn't considered that. He soon broke into laughter.
"You're right," he chuckled, "a genin can be more harmful than a jounin."
Sei glanced at the scroll in his hand. He didn't know whether Hatake Sakumo would take well to the news of going on a mission with him. In fact, he didn't know whether he could deal with Kakashi's father himself.
"At least a jounin intends harm," Sei agreed.