seijaku

For a few days, everything went back to normal. Well, kind of.

Now that my big secret had been revealed to the most influential clan leaders in the village, it didn't take long for the news to spread. As I was walking through the village proper (by myself, finally), a few people approached me with questions. This was alarming because, up until now, it seemed like the whole village had made a point of avoiding me at all costs.

A young woman—a girl, really—asked me if I could really see into the future. I tried to explain that I didn't have visions of the future that way, just that I had already watched certain events play out in another life, but that didn't do me any favours in the way of clearing things up. A couple of children, ones I actually recognised from the ball game Chigiri and I had crashed that one day, followed me a ways asking all kinds of questions about whether or not I was an alien from outer space, and if I could tell their fortunes or read their minds. One of the vendors who had turned me down during my job hunt flagged me down to ask if I were still looking for work (because he could use a big name like mine to drum up some business at his bao shop).

It was all a little overwhelming to be honest. Now that I had my freedom, I didn't want to use it. Leaving the Uchiha District was just asking to get hounded by a bunch of strangers who only had a very broad and vague understanding about me based on rumours and hearsay. They still treated me like a freak, but this time I was more of a spectacle rather than an outcast.

My training sessions with Sasuke and Hikaku were welcome reprieves. Sasuke actually approved of the extra lessons Hikaku could provide from a katon-user's perspective. Although, he was notably more...careful around me now. He had started apologising a lot more when training got a little rough and trying to get me to take more breaks. It was starting to piss me off.

"Sasuke," I called over to him as I leapt down from the tree I had just scaled using only my feet.

"What is it? Something wrong?" He asked as he jogged over to me.

I bit out a sigh, blowing my hair out of my face. It had gotten pretty long, my brown roots contrasting with the bleach-blond ends.

"No, nothing's wrong. That's the problem," I said. Sasuke furrowed his brows and tilted his head at me. "You've been treating me like I'm gonna crack any second. You're not subtle."

The look on his face betrayed the fact that he'd been aware of his actions all along. He held his arms down by his sides and offered me a small bow.

"Please accept my apologies, Kai-san," he said as he straightened up again. "It wasn't my intention to insult you. I just... Now that I know what happened to you, I—"

"It's not 'what happened to me'," I corrected him, "it's what I did to myself."

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to release some of the pent-up frustration I had been holding back up until now.

"I don't need to be coddled, Sasuke. I need to be trained. I need you to keep training me like I'm any other student—like you were before you found out who I was."

Sasuke's eyes crinkled the way they did when he was holding back a smile. It always looked like it hurt him to do it.

"I understand completely, Kai-san. No more hand-holding," he assured. "I won't let my feelings get in the way of being a good mentor for you."

The way he said that struck me as odd. Something about the tone of his voice, or maybe his choice of words—it seemed like there might have been more to his sudden shift in attitude than a simple concern that I was going to go off the deep end again. Was I being an asshole about this? I didn't think so. I was setting a boundary that I didn't want to be treated any differently than before. My past had nothing to do with the present.

We exchanged a nod of mutual understanding. Then his hand twitched and I immediately crouched into a defensive stance. There was a smugness to Sasuke's grin as he whipped out four kunai knives and launched them at me one by one. My reflexes had gotten much better now, enough to avoid all but the last one, which grazed my arm. I saw him pause, consider his next move, and then he decided to go in for another attack.

I smiled then, too. Good.

 

Hikaku, on the other hand, never even humoured the thought of holding back on me. He told me without pretense that he wouldn't be pulling any punches, except these ones were metaphorical. Sasuke helped me with the physical side of things, while Hikaku focussed on my jutsu. Luckily my training up to this point had been sufficient in preparing me to wield and control my chakra at an adequate level, so now it was a matter of manipulating that chakra into a physical element: water.

"Gather it in your stomach," he instructed, slowly circling me as I held my position atop a wooden post, balancing on one foot with my fists pressed together in front of my abdomen. "Let it boil. Focus your energy in one spot until it feels hot. And hold it there."

I had already begun to sweat just from standing like this for so long. He wouldn't let me switch legs, and when I started to lose my balance, he spat a fireball in my direction. Talk about brutal.

"Is it boiling?"

"I think so?"

"Stop thinking. Feel it. Command it."

I knitted my brows together, trying to concentrate. I could feel something in the pit of my stomach, but it didn't feel hot. It kind of just felt like I needed to fart a little bit.

"I don't think this is working."

"I said to stop thinking."

I let out a groan as I lowered my hands and put my other foot back on the ground.

"Dude, I have ADHD. I never just 'stop thinking'. Can't we try something else?" I asked. Hikaku paused to stare up at me from the ground in front of the post, brow quirked.

"Firstly, don't address me so informally. I am Sensei to you when we are training," he said. I rolled my eyes. "Secondly, there are no shortcuts to—"

"—Becoming a shinobi. Yeah, I remember."

I sat down atop the post with my legs crossed, resting my cheek on my hand.

"This whole jutsu thing is a lot harder than I thought it'd be," I admitted. "I thought that once I had my chakra under control, it'd be a cinch, but if I have to go all monk-mode about it just to spit out some water, it'll never happen."

"Why is that?" Hikaku asked. "What is this 'ADHD' that clouds your mind?"

Right. New world terminology went right over these people's heads.

"It's like...I'm never not distracted," I explained. "There's always some train of thought going on in my head whether I actually want to think about stuff or not. Actually, there are a lot of different trains of thought all happening at the same time and going in different directions." I glanced over at him just in time to see his confused expression. Ugh. "Trains are like big wagons that run on special roads."

"So you have trouble staying focussed?" he surmised. I shrugged my shoulders.

"That's a really simple way of putting it, but yeah. I need something else to multitask with or I have to do things spur-of-the-moment so I don't psyche myself out over it."

He seemed to ponder this information for a few moments. Honestly, I was expecting him to just blow me off and demand that I keep trying anyway, but he actually appeared to be trying to think of alternatives for me.

"Spur of the moment, you say?" he repeated. "Very well. Let's see how your mind responds when you run out of options."

"What do you—"

Before I could finish asking the question, Hikaku spun together a series of hand signs just before expelling a line of fire from his mouth. I scrambled back up to my feet as a circle of flames surrounded the post on which I stood.

"What the hell, man?!" I yelled, looking around frantically as the flames quickly began to encroach closer and closer to the base of the post.

"No time for thinking. No time for distractions. Only action and reaction," Hikaku said.

"I haven't even managed to squeeze out a light drizzle—what makes you think I can put out a fire like this?!"

Hikaku shrugged, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his yukata.

Fuck. This was messed up. I closed my eyes and tried to remember how Sasuke had guided me to gather my chakra in my hand when he was trying to find out my chakra nature. If that were enough to wet some paper, then maybe I could intensify it enough to produce something more substantial. I held my hand in front of me, focussing on the centre of my palm. I imagined the energy in my body flowing into my shoulder, down my arm, into my hand, through my fingers.

It felt hot.

But maybe that was just the air around me as the flames started charring the sides of the post.

"You've harnessed your chakra," Hikaku called. "Now use it: Tora, Sara, Ee, Ushi, Tora, Mee."

Tiger, Monkey, Boar, Ox, Tiger, Snake. The hand seals for a jutsu called Suiton: Liquid Memory. This was the jutsu Hikaku had been trying to get me to perform all morning. A jutsu to control water—nothing fancy like spraying it from my mouth or trying to hold the shape for a spherical prison. Just manipulating an element. He made it sound so easy.

I formed the signs with my hands from memory. I had had a lot of time to study hand seals when I was just a fan of the show and it all came back pretty easily once Hikaku gave me a few refreshers. I took a deep breath and held it in my lungs. Then I threw my hands out to my sides as if droplets could fly from my fingertips.

A faint sizzling sound reached my ears and I cracked open my eyes to look around me. The grass surrounding the post was slowly draining of colour to a dead brown hue, but the fire had been engulfed in a vortex of misty water vapor. It swirled around the flames like a thin cloud, gradually putting out the fire until it was completely gone. I released the tension in my arms then and the water disappeared back into the ground, forming a puddle around the base of the post. Looking below me, I noticed that the char marks had nearly reached the top of the wooden pillar and my heart leapt into my throat. My poor little toesies almost got roasted.

"Kai."

"Huh?"

I whipped up my head to look at Hikaku, a little frazzled. He, on the other hand, looked...shocked?

"It was weak, but...you did it," he mumbled. "You actually did it."

I pursed my lips and put both hands on my hips.

"Yeah, no thanks to you. You could have killed me, you know," I grumbled as I hopped down from the post.

"Don't be petulant," Hikaku said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "At your level of experience, it would have been truly embarrassing if you couldn't use such a basic jutsu."

Tell me how you really feel, why don't you? I thought to myself.

"Now we can move on to more advanced techniques," he continued. A dubious expression crossed his face. "And now I know the most effective way to motivate you."

That was a threat. This was no longer good-faith training—this was an active life-or-death situation from which there was no escape unless I pushed past my limits. I could already tell that having Hikaku as a mentor was going to be as exhausting as it would be perilous.

 

When I returned to Madara's house in the evenings, I helped him get around as much as I could without being overbearing. He put on a strong front out in public, but his injuries were taking a lot out of him during the recovery period. I could see how stiff he was when he walked and he wasn't subtle about the little groans he let out when he had to bend over or sit down or reach above his head. I made a few of the obligatory old man jokes to lighten the mood, but it was clear that his state was getting to him.

"It's really not a big deal," I assured him again as I brushed out his hair after our bath tonight. "You had to make it convincing, right? That's all it was. Believe me, when you fought him for real in the other timeline, you caused some serious damage."

"But only with the help of Kurama," he argued. That was his come-back against everything I had to say on this matter. "Without the Nine-Tails, I—"

"Would have had to figure out something else," I interrupted. "It's not just about strength all the time. It's also about strategy and cunning. You're smarter than he is. That gives you an advantage."

That seemed to shut him up for a moment, at least. I imagined it might not have been a great feeling for him to realise that he didn't match up to Hashirama physically, but that didn't mean he was the weaker opponent. It just meant that he had to refine other assets to make up for it, which made him a more well-rounded fighter overall.

I had found that I enjoyed bath time a lot more now than I did before. Madara had a way of making me feel comfortable around him, which was perhaps a little bit odd, considering who he was. I never had to overcome any feeling of fear toward him, though, as a normal person from this universe might have had to. Instead, I met him under the impression that he was little more than a dedicated cosplayer and, even once I came to accept that he really was the real Madara Uchiha, it wasn't anything...special? I knew of a Madara from my own timeline, I lived with one in the recesses of my mind, I knew him as a character from a work of fiction. If anything, it took me a lot longer to take him seriously at all because of that.

I wanted to think that that attitude had helped more than it got me into trouble. Madara acted differently around me than how I saw him act around others in the village. He was more stiff with them. He put on this air of dignity and strength out in public with his back straight and his head held high, every bit the image of a man well on his way to carving out his own legacy. In moments like this, though, without anyone else's eyes on him and in the comfort of his own home, he seemed more...fragile. He wasn't as jumpy or prickly. It was nice.

After finishing with the brush, I helped him tie back his hair the way he liked to keep it at home and then we left the bathroom in our robes to prepare supper for the night. He insisted on helping with meals in spite of the ache in his body.

"Could you tell me again how the headmates work?" he asked as we moved around the kitchen, grabbing dishes and ingredients. I let out a bemused sigh.

"I'm running out of ways to explain it," I said. I had already told him they were like ghosts, the souls left over from their own past lives, memories of who they once were—all of it seemed to go right over his head.

"Yes, but I still don't understand," he said, glancing over at me curiously. "How did they end up with you? What brought them all to you?"

That was a question I had never figured out an answer to, so I shrugged.

"No idea. It's just...been like this since I was young. They just kind of...showed up one day, I guess. Ironically, the first headmates I ever spoke to were people from this universe."

"Really? Who were they?"

"Nobody you'd recognise," I said with a wave of my hand as I grabbed a regular onion and a couple green onions for slicing. "They were part of this...group of shinobi that called themselves the Akatsuki. They don't come around until years in the future, and I'm not sure the Akatsuki will even form in this new timeline now that we've changed it, but they tried to capture all the people who hosted the tailed beasts so they could bring back the Ten Tails."

I glanced back at him, pursing my lips.

"It was a plan to try to finish what you would have started to activate the Infinite Tsukuyomi."

Madara averted his gaze. It was clear that he was still ashamed of himself for being manipulated so thoroughly to the point that he would have been the catalyst that triggered such awful events. I wished that I could have spared him from the knowledge when I had told him the truth, but I also believed that it was necessary. He might not have believed me if I hadn't been so forthcoming with those details.

I turned back to the onions, grabbing a knife to start chopping them up.

"Uh, but anyway. I like to think it's just because I'm, like, some sort of spiritual magnet, or something, but I'm not really a spiritual kind of person. Not in the traditional sense, anyway," I said. "I have all these memories and I feel very connected to the people I used to be, but it's not like I meditate or spend time out in nature or philosophize about the world or anything."

I didn't use to, anyway. Nowadays, that wasn't so true. Without the hustle and bustle of modern technology and the expectations and distractions that came with it, I had no choice but to find entertainment elsewhere. Going on nature walks through the woods surrounding Konohagakure had proven to be quite fun, actually. I had started to identify trees and plants by their leaves and I even had the beginning of a cool rock collection. As someone with autism, I was disappointed in myself for not having something like this sooner. Madara didn't really understand why I kept bringing rocks home, but that was fine.

"Maybe there are secrets about yourself that even you do not yet know," Madara proposed. He was busy mixing together the broth for the oyakodon we were making tonight, adding different seasonings and spices to a skillet for simmering. "...Do they talk to you often?"

Yeesh. The way he said that kind of made it sound like he sort of maybe still believed I might have been talking to myself that night. I really can't blame him, but still.

"...Not often," I admitted. "Less now than they used to, anyway. I thought... When I got here, I thought maybe they had disappeared when I..."

I swallowed down the way my voice wanted to shake. It still wasn't easy to think about this, let alone talk about it.

"They were quiet for a long time, until I heard one of them again. I haven't...heard from all of them, yet."

"How many of them are there?"

Oh, boy. I didn't really make a point of keeping track of the number at any given point in time, since they came and went as they pleased, or fell dormant for a period of time. Usually I would just refer to the directory we had made for ourselves to get an accurate headcount, but in lieu of that...

"I think it was...around seventy last time I checked? Something like that," I said.

The sound of the knife hitting the floor made me jump. I looked over at Madara to find him already staring at me, slack-jawed. Oh, right. I had almost forgotten how absolutely insane that must have sounded.

"I know it sounds like a lot," I rushed to explain. "But it's not like they were all talking at once all the time. Our headspace is a big place. Or it was. I don't know. Uh, never mind."

It would be really cool to stop talking about this right about now. I had never been very good at explaining this sort of thing to anyone. Only very few people in my life knew about it. Sure, my headmates and I had an internet presence where we could be ourselves more freely, but it wasn't the same as if they were walking around in my body and talking to my family or coworkers. I was never able to grant them as much autonomy as we all would have liked due to the nature of our system. Someone else coming into control of my body was an exhausting feat in and of itself. I was always forced to act as more of a medium between them and the outside world.

Although... Now that I thought about it, Issei was able to switch places with me with relative ease. Was it just because he and I were close already or did it have something to do with my being in this new universe? Did the chakra in my body have any impact? Was it because I had died and this really was just a really vivid hallucination happening in the span of a single second as my body experienced brain death? Hard to say.

"...I don't mean to make you uncomfortable by asking," Madara said after a moment to regain his composure. "I've simply never heard of such a thing before."

"Well, I doubt you would have," I said. "It wasn't really talked about much where I come from, either, and the ones who had similar experiences were all really different from each other, too."

A few beats of silence passed after that until Madara spoke up again.

"When we met," he said, "and you first warned me about the path that I was on, you said... You said something about a different life I lived. ...A different version of me. Was that...? I mean, was I...?"

It was clear he didn't quite know how to phrase the question, but I could piece together what he was trying to ask all the same.

"Yes, a different version of you lives inside my head," I answered without an ounce of subtlety. "I'm guessing you're curious to know what his life was like?"

My eyes drifted back over to him to see him nod at me in silence. I took a deep breath and sighed. I had added the chopped-up onions to the broth he had made and now we both worked on pulling apart the chicken to add to the skillet.

"It was...more or less the same, up until he died. Um, except Izuna didn't, uh...die at the same time." I cleared my throat a little, hyper-aware of the tension that suddenly appeared in Madara's body beside me. I had a feeling that the topic was still a bit raw for him. "Because of that, though, he and Tobirama actually got...kinda close? But he still believed in the Infinite Tsukuyomi and when Izuna did die, that's what set him off.

"When he used the Izanagi to come back to life, he didn't master the Rinnegan until he was already about to die of old age. He planted the seeds in another Uchiha's mind to approach that Akatsuki group I mentioned before to help with the plan. A lot of other stuff happened after that, but when it all came to a head, that Madara was revived with Tobirama's Edo Tensei jutsu and used another Rinnegan user's jutsu to come back to life for real. After the war, he was still alive to see the aftermath, and Tobirama was revived, too, by the Sage of Six Paths."

That was a lot of information at once, so I paused there to focus on the food preparation while Madara had a moment to digest what I had said. After adding the chicken to the broth to start cooking, I cracked four eggs into a bowl to whisk together while he tended to the skillet.

"So that version of me allowed himself to be manipulated and he still lived to tell the tale?" he asked. "Why did he turn out differently than I would have?"

"It's hard to say," I admitted. "Slight, little variations like that can have a huge impact on the way future events unfold. Maybe it was the timing of Izuna's death, or maybe it was a different choice of words somebody used, or...maybe that version of you just came to reason more quickly."

"What happened after that war? Why was Tobirama revived, as well?" he asked.

"Well, the thing about Edo Tensei is that, unless the soul is still being controlled, it chooses when it goes back to the afterlife," I explained. "Tobirama's soul still had some unfinished business with you. Er, with that Madara. Sorry."

"What kind of unfinished business?"

Ah. That was the question I really didn't want him to ask. I cleared my throat again, keeping my eyes on the bowl in my hands.

"...Those two kinda...uh, fell in love?"

Well, there went all the rice that Madara just poured all over the floor instead of in the pot of water he had placed over the kamado. I heaved another sigh as I poured the whisked egg over the chicken and broth in the skillet to heat up under the lid.

"That's absurd," Madara finally barked after a prolonged silence. I shrugged my shoulders as I turned to face him and leaned back against the counter.

"You asked what happened. That's what happened."

"Why would I—"

When Madara's flailing caused more rice to spill out of the bag in his hands, he paused to right himself and finally pour the grain into the pot of water. Then he marched across the kitchen to grab a broom to clean up his mess. He was still a little stiff with his movements, but I wasn't going to help him with this one. That mess was all him.

"Why would any version of me fall for such a...such a—self-righteous, egotistical, smug—"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. But, like I said, those two got close even before the village was founded," I reminded him. "They had...time to warm up to each other."

"Don't make me gag," Madara spat. "You can tell that copycat of mine he's got the inferior taste between the two of us."

"How about you tell me yourself?"

Uh oh. Something felt...weird all of a sudden. I immediately recognised it as the same sensation I had felt whenever Issei had taken over, but this time, the presence that now occupied my body was a lot warmer. It prompted my back and shoulders to straighten. My arms crossed over my chest without my say-so, a new glower on my face that wasn't there before.

Madara, on the other hand, slowly turned to look at me with a furrowed brow. It appeared that even he could hear the shift in my voice, the tone slightly lower, more a growl to it. Not unlike his own.

"...What?" he said, having completely abandoned the mess he was just in the middle of sweeping up.

I—or rather, he—stepped forward, pushing off of the counter I had been resting against.

"Did you think I was going to sit back and listen while the two of you gossiped about my life like it's some entertaining sitcom?"

Internally, I rolled my eyes. He always was so dramatic.

"A what?" the other Madara asked, squinting his eyes. Most of my headmates had picked up a thing or two about my world while living in it, even if they rarely got to interact with it themselves.

"For your information, I once held the same reservations you do about Tobirama," said the Madara currently posturing against the one in front of us as if he still possessed the same large, commanding presence he once did.

Unfortunately, he was now stuck inside the body of a five-foot-four, pre-HRT transman who had only recently started caring about physical health, so he was probably a little less intimidating than he would have liked.

"Unlike you, however, I learned how to get over myself and see him as more than the annoying Senju who used to get on my nerves," ghost Madara continued. "He has a brilliant mind, you know."

The Madara standing across the room still had a bewildered look on his face. Slowly, he set aside the broom and walked forward, circling around us as if he weren't sure we were real.

"...You're not Kai-san, are you?" he asked then. I felt myself roll my eyes—physically this time.

"Keep up, will you? You're embarrassing the both of us," said Madara 2.0. Or was he 1.0 since he came before this Madara? Or did that not matter since this is in the past anyway and this universe could have been progressing simultaneously alongside my Madara's universe at the time that he was alive so technically they lived at the same time—

"Incredible," Madara muttered. "Your chakra signature has changed completely."

Wait. What?

"It has?"

The Madara in my body looked down at himself, concentrating until he could register nearby chakra signatures the same way his doppelganger was doing now. It seemed to take him a moment to do so, likely rusty from so long without use of his own chakra, but as soon as he saw it, so did I. The pattern of our chakra was nearly identical to Madara's. Nearly, but not quite.

With a single hand sign, I felt a strange, dizzying sensation as my perception of the world around me changed instantaneously. I was taller now—not by much, but still taller—and my center of gravity had changed slightly, making me wobble on my feet. Well, not my feet.

Madara's feet. My Madara headmate had produced a henge to turn into himself, even though I hadn't perfected the art of manifesting my chakra in such a complex way yet.

Holy shit.

"You are me," the other Madara said in awe, looking us up and down.

"Not quite," my Madara (whom would henceforth be referred to as "Dara" because this was starting to get too confusing). "But who cares about that? I have my own body again."

Uh—Well, it's still my body.

Quiet.

"Incredible," Madara said once more. "I didn't think... Well, I wasn't sure—"

"That we were real?" Dara finished, arching a brow at him. "I don't blame you, but now you have proof. Certainly more proof than I had at first."

"So it is true. You've reincarnated into the body of another."

"That's one word for it," Dara said, crossing his arms again. "There are mysteries about the soul after it passes on from life that continue to confound myself and nearly everyone else I share this mind with."

"What is it like?" Madara asked, still gaping at the mirror image of himself. "Is this what becomes of everyone who passes away? Kai said there were nearly seventy of you. Do you...see them, physically? Or do you only hear their thoughts?"

"You're asking too many questions. I don't care to waste what little time I have humouring your bewilderment."

"Uh, hey, guys..."

I groaned out loud as I fought to take back control of my body. I could feel Dara resisting, but even he couldn't bar me from my own flesh. As soon as I pushed him further back into my mind, the henge dissipated and I was left looking like myself again.

"Maybe we should...do this some other time?" I suggested, slightly out of breath. I suddenly felt extremely tired, unlike when Issei had taken front. It must be because of the jutsu. "The food's still...cooking..."

Oh, I felt very tired. I swayed on my feet, my eyes losing focus, and the next thing I knew, Madara had me propped up in his arms, looking down at me with a concerned expression.

"You're back," he said. "Here, rest."

He carried me over to the sofa to place me down and then took a seat next to me. I could barely keep my eyes open, they felt so heavy. Every limb on my body felt like gravity had been turned up a few notches. The way my stomach flipped wasn't helping.

"What just happened?" Madara asked quietly.

"The, uh...the jutsu, I think it... I think it was...too much for my body..."

 

I couldn't be sure what happened after that. I very well could have passed out then and there, but considering I wasn't starving when I woke up in bed the next morning, I could only assume that Madara managed to help me eat something before I went down for the night. I certainly hoped so. That oyakodon was starting to smell amazing before my body was used like a shapeshifting telephone.

When I did finally come to, I was still dressed in my kimono from the night before. I couldn't help but smile and shake my head as I rolled onto my back on the bed. Leave it to Madara to be bashful about undressing me before putting me in his bed when he had already seen the goods multiple times at this point. It was...a sweet gesture, if nothing else. It was honestly a relief to be able to trust someone to be respectful like that.

When I turned to glance around the room, however, all relief vanished from my mind as I noticed how bright it was outside the window. Shit, I'm gonna be late to work.

Tobirama hated tardiness. It was the one slight by which he would not abide. I all but leapt out of bed, threw on the first set of clothes I could dig out of the closet, and ran out of the bedroom. I made a quick pit-stop in the main room to put on my shoes, which gave Madara the perfect opportunity to stop me since he was already in the middle of eating breakfast out in the kitchen.

"Oh, Kai-san—"

"Can't talk. I'm supposed to be at Tobirama's lab, like, right now."

"I understand you're in a hurry, but—"

"Later!"

I ran out the door before he could get another word in. Not only did I not have time to entertain the long and convoluted conversation that Madara undoubtedly wanted to have about my headmates and their interactions with this world, but I also...didn't want to. Not right now, anyway.

Last night was a lot to take in. I hadn't expected another headmate to make themself known so suddenly, let alone anyone who came from this universe (albeit not this timeline). I also was not expecting said headmate to push the body past its limit with a jutsu I surely did not have the chakra reserves to perform, much less maintain for any length of time. That revelation had also opened up a door to a world of possibilities.

If my headmates could front that easily now, and if I could learn to maintain a henge jutsu like the one Dara performed last night, did that mean they could, for the first time, interact with the outer world in their own bodies? And what about the shadow clone jutsu? That one was surely more complex and further away from my current abilities than a mere henge, but, theoretically, couldn't we use both jutsu in tandem to allow my headmates to roam freely outside of my body?

It was an exhilarating thought, but a concerning one all the same. The advantage of having a catastrophising thought process was that I could consider worst case scenarios up front. That being the possibility that my headmates, after getting a taste of freedom from the headspace, wouldn't want to go back, which was an entirely reasonable desire, but also an entirely impossible one to grant. There was no way I was ever going to be able to maintain those kinds of jutsu forever. I wasn't sure on the technicalities yet, but reason would suggest that our shadow clones would run out of stamina and disappear eventually. Rinse and repeat.

It all sounded well and good in theory, but I couldn't help worrying that it was going to result in high expectations that I wouldn't be able to meet. Maybe this was something that I could talk through with Tobirama at the lab. He didn't yet know that I had other people living in my head, but I didn't have to go into that much detail to pose the question about how those jutsu function together.

I would have to play my cards right to get him to entertain any of my questions, though, since it was already an hour past sunrise by the time I made it to his lab.

"What part of 'be here at dawn' was difficult for you to understand?" he bit at me as soon as I squeezed through the entrance that he unsealed for me. "I don't have need of an assistant who can't even follow a simple schedule."

"I know, I'm sorry. I overslept. Won't happen again," I told him, though I knew that that wasn't necessarily a promise I would always be able to keep. I was just lucky that my body's internal clock had adjusted itself enough to fall asleep and wake up earlier than I used to.

Tobirama just shook his head and resealed the door behind me before returning to his table in the centre of the room.

"I should hope not," he said. "But now that you're here, we can finally discuss something I've been pondering since we detained Zetsu."

I blinked at him as I moved to sit on a stool across the table from him. I supposed it should have only been a matter of time before Tobirama started asking more questions about that, considering we hadn't had a chance to address the topic during the clan meeting I was part of before things got a little too...intense.

Tobirama produced a scroll from one of the draws behind him and then turned back to unfurl it across the table. It seemed to be a long string of kanji that I still couldn't understand that well with other, strange symbols interspersed. I recongised those to be unique to jutsu in this universe, similar to the sigils used in alchemy to hide the true meaning of alchemical ingredients or rituals. Was this a jutsu he was working on, then?

"This is the framework for Edo Tensei," he explained, confirming my suspicions. I sat up a little straighter, more invested now that I knew this had to do with such an important jutsu. "It includes the formula for the tags required to control the reanimated subject." He pointed to a section on the scroll that looked as though it were framed by quotations of a sort. "I was wondering if you thought that something similar could work on Zetsu so that it, too, can be controlled and possibly put to better use."

"Uhh..." I furrowed my brows as my gaze lingered on the scroll for a moment before darting up to meet his. "Are you saying you want to...weaponise Zetsu?"

"In a manner of speaking," Tobirama replied. "It's clearly a being of great power if it had managed to orchestrate the near total destruction of our world in another life. It seems...unwise to let such power go to waste now that we have it in our hands."

Woof. Okay. This was a bit more extreme than what I was ever expecting to be privy to as Tobirama's assistant, not to mention a little...crazy? I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as I chewed over my next words.

"Well...to be honest, I'm not so sure that's really a great idea," I admitted. "The idea was to destroy him for good so that he couldn't pose a threat to the future anymore. Even if you can devise a way to control him, there's no guarantee that that control will last forever, or that he won't find a way to break out of it and cause even more destruction as a result. In my opinion, it's better to err on the side of caution with this one."

"...I see." Tobirama pursed his lips together at that and then, after a moment, slowly began to roll up the scroll again. "My apologies. I was under the impression that you weren't a coward who would turn up his nose at a little risk in the interest of progress."

My face fell flat as I stared at him across the table.

"Okay, first of all, trying to manipulate me by insulting my pride or whatever is super cliche and not cute at all," I told him. "Second of all, I'm not afraid of taking risks. What I'm afraid of is doing something that could drastically alter the course of history in ways I can't even begin to anticipate."

"Haven't you already done that, though?" Tobirama asked, arching a brow at me. "By helping us capture Zetsu instead of allowing it to continue to to manipulate Madara, isn't the future completely out of your hands now? Why stop there? Why not help me—help us—reach for something even better than what we could have had in the other timeline?"

"What makes you so sure this is better? Do you even have a clue as to what Zetsu really is?"

He paused to consider that question, silently searching my eyes for a moment before opening his mouth to respond.

"...Not precisely. From what I've seen of it, it's some sort of...manifestation that is neither man nor beast. Is it one of the creatures you said came from beyond the skies?"

I shook my head.

"No, but he was created by them. By Kaguya, to be exact," I explained. "He's a manifestation alright—a manifestation of Kaguya's will, something she brought into existence specifically to create the means to bring her back to life. To control Zetsu is to control Kaguya's will and I just don't think that's something you're prepared to handle."

Tobirama scoffed.

"I see what this is. You doubt my capabilities. Need I remind you that you're the one who told me that I'm destined to devise some of the most powerful jutsu known to the shinobi world?"

He's got me there. I have told him that before, even going so far as to accidentally let slip about a soul transference jutsu that, apparently, he hadn't conceived just yet and had now begun work on. I should have known better than to inflate his ego more than it already was.

"No, you don't need to remind me about that," I said with a put-upon sigh. "But maybe you should remember that you asked me to be your consultant because you value my insight on this sort of thing, right? So my advice is that you shouldn't try to bite off more than you can chew just for the sake of innovation. Some ideas are better left unexplored."

Despite this clearly not being the answer he wanted, Tobirama looked down at the scroll in his hand and seemed to contemplate my words. At least he didn't appear to be so hellbent on his research that he was completely deaf to reason. That was a good sign.

"...Then what do you propose we do with it?" he asked. "If you disagree with the idea of using it, how do we kill it?"

I had to think about that for a moment, trying to recall what became of Zetsu in canon. How did they end up killing him?

"...I don't know," I said. "I think... I think they— No, yeah, they never actually killed Zetsu, they just ended up trapping it alongside Kaguya in some...big rock, or something."

"So you think we should just seal it away? Does that not pose the same risks as trying to control it? What if it manages to break out again?"

"Yeah, I'd be worried about that, too. I never got to see if that decision came back to bite them in the ass later," I said, lifting a hand to run it through my hair. "I'm not even sure if that were ever in the cards for the direction of the story's sequel, but I wouldn't say it's outside the realm of possibility."

"So what, then?"

"I don't know."

"You say that a lot."

"Well, what do you want from me?" I raised my eyes back to Tobirama's, gaze hardening. "I'm just a guy who watched a show once. I'm not some—some all-knowing oracle who has all the answers. I know what I'd do if I were writing the story, but I'm not, so this is all just a guessing game now."

I huffed out another sigh and hopped off the stool to start pacing around the room instead. This was all a lot of pressure to put on someone who was, for all intents and purposes, just a regular person who couldn't hack it in the real world, who never thought he'd amount to anything and decided to take the easy way out. If all of this were just part of the grand design I was always meant to follow, then didn't that just mean I was only born to die over and over again, each time in stranger and stranger circumstances? What kind of shit was that? What was the point?

"...What would you do?" Tobirama asked then. I stopped pacing long enough to glance back over at him. "If you were the one writing the story, what would you do?"

How would I fix everything?

I dropped my gaze to stare down at my feet. I may have had a few ideas of things to try, but that didn't mean I was confident that any of them would work. Besides, if I were taking over the narrative, I'd probably end up doing some really fucked up shit, like killing off main characters for plot twists, or purposefully weaving in events that foreshadowed future perils to come. Even if I did have that kind of influence, even if it would have made for a good story, I couldn't make something like that happen in good conscience. Not when I was part of that story and the world around me was no longer fiction, but my reality.

...I shuddered to think of a world where I was just some pawn in someone else's story now. A world in which I never had any real control over my own actions and everything was just a means to an end. Now that would be fucked up.

"...Let's just...try to figure out a way to kill it for now," I said finally, shoulders slumping. "Stab it, set it on fire, crush it—throw whatever we can at it and see what sticks. If all else fails, then we can try sealing it away until we can figure out a more permanent solution."

It wasn't much of a plan, really, but it felt like the safer option than trying to turn Zetsu into a living weapon. That was just a path I had a bad feeling about following.

"Fine," Tobirama conceded. "We'll try things your way for now, but if none of that works, then you'll assist me in developing a means to control Zetsu instead."

My brow twitched as I looked up at him again, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Since when is this a negotiation?"

"Since my brother is the Hokage and I have more authority than you do, mouse."

"Just because— What?"

"Hm?"

"What did you just call me?"

I caught the briefest glimpse of a curl at the edges of Tobirama's lips just before he turned his back to put away the Edo Tensei scroll and retrieve the other files he'd been working on instead.

"It's just a nickname. Don't look so offended."

Why, that smarmy, little...

I put on a halfhearted glower as I begrudgingly returned to the table to pick up where we left off on his soul transference jutsu, pointedly ignoring the heat that had begun to crawl onto my face. I wasn't used to being the subject of pet names myself, let alone ones that, on the surface, were a little demeaning.

...It was kind of cute, though, so I supposed I could let it slide. Just this once.

 

After finishing our work in the lab, I headed straight for my training with Sasuke. I did manage to slip in a few questions about the shadow clone henges, but Tobirama began to grow a little too suspicious about my intention behind those questions, so I had to back off. I did find out that it was at least possible, in theory, to maintain both jutsu like that for an extended period of time with enough chakra reserves. He noted, however, that the ability to store the amount of chakra required for something of that intensity was restricted to only certain, gifted individuals.

Even though I hadn't explicitly stated that I was asking for my own purposes, I could read between the lines of his implications. I didn't have the necessary capacity to reach that level of chakra, which was...a bummer, to put it lightly. It also meant that the number of shadow clones I would be able to produce at any given time, even once I started nearing my full potential, would be severely limited compared to what I wanted to use them for. Most shinobi could only manage a handful of shadow clones, a far cry from anything someone like Naruto could achieve.

It made sense, I guess. I wasn't anything close to the kind of "chosen one" protagonist who could accomplish such feats. I would be lucky if I made it to chūnin rank even after all my training. Technically, I wasn't even officially a genin yet.

"Why so glum today?" Sasuke asked as I leapt up to the top of the cliff where our training normally took place. "You look a little more disheartened than usual. Don't tell me you let Tobirama get under your skin again."

I huffed out a laugh, brandishing a kunai from the pouch I had begun to keep strapped to my thigh to prepare for our sparring session.

"No, not quite," I reassured him. "We just had a really...philosophical discussion, is all. Don't worry, I'm not gonna let it distract me."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that, especially since I have something of a treat in store for you today," Sasuke said with a wide grin. I blinked, lowering my kunai.

"What kind of treat?"

"Kagami-kun! You can come out now."

My eyes widened a bit as I turned to watch the little menace leap out of the nearby bushes with quite the dramatic mid-air flip, nailing his landing with his a kunai in hand and much too smug grin of his own. I blinked at him a few times before glancing back at Sasuke, arching a brow.

"...You want me to fight a kid?" I asked incredulously. "We've sparred before—we're basically on the same level skill-wise, but don't you think it's a little unfair if—"

"Nuh-uh! Hikaku sensei told me to hold back on you, but Sasuke sensei says I'm allowed to go all-out this time!" Kagami boasted, hands proudly on his hips. I squinted.

"You were not holding back on me, squirt. I could tip you over with my pinky finger." I rolled my eyes. "This is silly."

"If you think so, then why not give it a go just for fun?" Sasuke urged with a wave of his hand, moving to retreat to the sidelines where he could lean against the trunk of a tree. "If you really have the advantage here, then this should be easy for you, right? Call it a free win."

"But he's a child."

"Oh, come on. Are you going to break his little heart by denying him a real spar? How cruel."

Okay, this was absurd. I could tell that Sasuke was goading me on with every confidence that I was underestimating my opponent, but Kagami was, like, what? Seven or eight years old? There was no world in which this was a fair fight for anybody.

"Bring it on, Kai-san! Give me all you've got!" Kagami declared, holding up his hand in the standard Seal of Confrontation as we normally did during our spars. I sighed and scratched my head.

"If you insist, kid. Don't say I didn't warn you," I replied, lifting my other hand to mirror his.

As soon as I did, Kagami sprang into action, kicking off the ground to launch himself high into the air and start throwing kunai at me. This was hardly anything new, so it was a simple matter to deflect each knife with my own and then charge forward with his was still air-born to strike from underneath. I had gained much more precise control over my chakra over the course of my training to the point that I no longer made the mistake of putting too much or not enough force behind my movements. When I used my chakra to propel myself upward, it was calculated, allowing me to meet him right where I wanted to in the arc of his descent. Our kunai clashed, forcing us both to push away from each other and land again.

I swung my kunai around my thumb to change my grip and sprinted forward again, not willing to give him a chance to regain his balance first. He braced himself as he faced my approach head-on, preparing for a direct attack, but I jumped at the last second, just as he extended his arm to swipe his kunai at me, twirling around in the air to land behind him instead. I kept the tip of my kunai pointed away when I brought down my hand to deliver a blunt strike to his head in the hopes of knocking him out as gently as possible.

I only noticed too late that his lack of a reaction should have been suspicious. As soon as my hand made contact, what appeared to have been his body went up in a cloud of smoke, leaving behind only a log in its place. Ah. A substitution. When the hell did he learn that?

Footsteps quickly approached me from behind. I turned around only quick enough to block his blade with my own, widened eyes meeting the grin that hadn't left his face. He was clearly having way too much fun proving me wrong.

"Good senses, but you should never let someone get behind you, Kai-san," Sasuke called out.

I pushed Kagami away again, flinging my knife back into its previous position, seeing as pulling my punches clearly wasn't going to do me any favours here.

"Alright, I'll admit it. I didn't see that one coming," I said, keeping my eyes trained on my opponent. "Remind me to give Hikaku an earful for not showing me that yet."

Kagami giggled and charged at me again, except this time he used his speed to dart back and forth, practically disappearing from sight with every other movement while I tried to keep track of what angle he was coming from. It seemed like his zigzagging path would lead to him coming from my left when he got close enough, so I prepared for his assault by couching low and throwing out my leg for a kick that I intended to aim for his stomach. That contact never came, though, and my eyes flickered to the right to see him lunge forward from that direction instead, kunai aimed right at me.

Without enough time to recentre my own balance, all I could do was let myself fall backward, my back hitting the ground and leaving just enough open space for Kagami to fly right over me. He bounced back as soon as his feet touched the ground, much quicker than I could stand up, and suddenly the heel of his foot collided with my forehead before I could even so much as blink. I fell backward again with a grunt to the sound of Kagami's victorious laughter.

"This is way easier than I thought it'd be! Chi-san said you were supposed to be strong."

"That's not very polite, Kagami-kun. Remember your honour," Sasuke chided, though the sound of barely restrained laughter rang clear in his voice.

I picked myself up off the ground with a defiant growl, a smirk tugging at my lips.

"You better buckle up, brat, because I'm not going easy on you anymore," I told him, only to receive a snort in response.

"You're funny, Kai-san. You can't beat me because I'm gonna be the best shinobi in the world!"

"Oh, yeah? Well, you'll have to beat me a hundred times before that happens."

"No problem!"

"You've got a big head for such a small runt."

"You should remember your honour, too, Kai-san."

I ignored Sasuke in favour of launching myself at Kagami again. Honour could come later, after I knocked him down a peg or two. There was absolutely no reason I should have been losing to this squirt.

(I would, in fact, lose several more times before Sasuke blew the metaphorical whistle.)

In spite of my own wounded pride, though, at least this sparring session was really fun. I definitely needed the reprieve after all the dragging around the weight of the world and whatnot. It was nice to be able to forget about everything else for just a little while.