Chapter 12: 8 Years Later
8 Years Later
They were graduating. It was time for Kamui's class to become genin since they had finally reached the age of 16.
The past eight years had been interesting for the village hidden in the leaves. Through that time, the international situation had been pretty stable. Due to Minato's deterrent presence, the five great nations remained at peace with each other. That said, there were a few minor conflicts between nations. The hidden stone village was one nation who had quite a few defections from ninja who wanted revenge on the yellow flash. A lot of those ninja made assassination attempts on occasion, but there were still a few unaccounted for. The fact was that Minato had generated quite a lot of hate for himself during the third shinobi war and a lot of those ninja wanted revenge. While the Tsuchikage couldn't give it to them due to it being a lost cause, their emotions wouldn't let them take no for an answer and they defected.
During this period, the clans had also developed quite a few new techniques to expand their skillset as a consequence of the revealed intelligence exposure. They hosted large clan training sessions where everyone was required to submit and test a multitude of ideas. Clan-level techniques were not built in a day, month, or even a year. Traditionally, they were built and refined over several generations. In this case, the clans had to expedite this process.
One example of a new technique was the Nara clan's new shadow paralysis shuriken. By condensing their jutsu into the form of a small shuriken, they can paralyze their foe as long as the shuriken hits their shadow. This one is definitely one of their hardest techniques to learn though. Condensing enough chakra to allow the shadow paralysis jutsu to be thrown far enough and having it still be effective for a period of time on landing is taxing on the mind and chakra pool to say the least. That's just one example of the changes made. The other clans had new techniques as well.
Kamui herself also had a productive eight years. Since she had to moderate her growth, her physical exercise was guided closely by Yume. She would make sure Kamui didn't do more than what was healthy for her body at its current age. She also focused pretty heavily on manipulation of the five basic elements. Her goal had been to build the strongest foundation possible for her fusions. She would isolate and combine different variables involved in elemental control. At this point, she had a very strong base in the five elements. What she couldn't do though, was use the more obscure principles of some of the elements. An example would be the gravity manipulation of the earth element that the stone village ninja were famous for; she just couldn't figure out how it worked. She would need to see them do it.
She even began delving into a few fusions. Her current favorites were vapor release, ice release, and scorch release. They were the three releases she started using the most in the last year. That said, no one knew about her ability to fuse elements yet. The only one she publically showed was scorch release due to it being easier to accept. She actually planned to show her ability to use the others once she became a genin. In her mind, she'd physically be at the initial jonin level by that point, so it was a good time. For medical ninjutsu, she had gained a very strong theoretical understanding of the art, but hadn't yet delved too far into learning it practically. It would be useful for her comrades, but so would becoming a strong combatant. Her own strong regenerative traits made it so she wouldn't have to worry about a medic herself. Learning that art in detail was on her bucket list though.
One interesting thing she did do in that subject was the posting of a research request on her theory that excessive strain on young children's bodies stunted their potential. In that request, she included the full scope of her research into the subject along with mixing in insights from Yume's memories. Due to the feasibility of the subject, she actually managed to convince her father to put it on the hospital's top research list. The best part for her was that it was just having them confirm what Yume already knew. According to Yume, those facts were common knowledge in her predecessor's old realm. For Minato, this would go a long way to solidifying his policy on keeping the age of conscription at 16. If the research proves the theory, then it would be detrimental to do otherwise. They could even 'leak' the results to change the way the various villages operate and make the shinobi continent safer in the long term.
On the Uchiha's side, Itachi was the current clan head with Shisui Uchiha as his second in command. He had challenged Mikoto and succeeded in winning the position. With that, Mikoto officially married Minato and Kushina. These events happened in the second year of Kamui's academy days and they already had three more baby siblings. Kushina had one kid with black hair and Mikoto had two kids. One with Minato's blond hair and one with Kushina's red. Kushina's new daughter was named Reina Uzumaki. Mikoto had a boy and a girl; the red-haired boy was named Menma Uzumaki, while the blond-haired girl was named Kazumi Namikaze. Basically, each of the three parents got to name one child and the two kids with Kushina's DNA were added to the Uzumaki clan to repopulate it. It also served to protect Naruto from being forced into the clan restoration act.
When questioned by the council on the feasibility of the odd insemination method and its further dissemination, Kushina just dismissed it as an Uzumaki clan secret. It took a year of pestering for the council to convince Kushina to give up the method. Apparently, it's an Uzumaki-style seal that allows for the conversion of a sperm to an egg and vice versa. It was created by accident when the Uzumaki were trying to use seals to blend water and earth release into yang release. It's a technique that allows any two people to make children with each other, though two males would require a woman to carry the resulting baby to term. Normally, she would just produce and sell something like this herself, but they had a lot of money between the two of them already, so Kushina sold the method to the village with a stipulation requiring they give the Uzumaki clan 5% of any seals sold to anyone. It's less than what she could make by selling it herself, but she gets a really solid amount without having to produce them herself. Plus, with clan culture, the demand would be high.
Funny enough, it was while watching the effects of the seal that Kamui awakened a fourth tomoe. The first concentric ring shrank in closer toward the pupil. After that, another concentric ring appeared outside the first and the fourth tomoe appeared on it. When it awakened, it glowed a green color. The problem was that they didn't know what it did. Itachi had previously theorized that each tomoe came with an ability based on what Kamui was observing when it awakened, but that still wasn't fully tested; it probably had something to do with her desire to learn what she's viewing. They weren't sure which abilities were the result of the tomoe and which were natural to her. The three abilities they assumed were tied to the first three tomoe were her abilities to manipulate spatial energy, manipulate chakra externally, and read the intent of chakra. They weren't sure on the limits of these abilities in the long-term though They were also unclear as to why her base sharingan could evolve passed the third tomoe in the way that it did, or even if it was still a base sharingan at all.
[A/N: Slight spoiler at the end on how the eye will develop to give context to what happened here. Once you see the next A/N, the chapter is finished. It's just meant to give a brief outline of the development model I'm using for her eyes.]
Naruto and Sasuke became rivals to each other. It was mostly friendly, but could get pretty heated at times. At some point Sasuke adopted the dream of wanting to become Hokage to surpass his brother, who was only a simple clan head. This led to frequent scuffles between the two Hokage prospects, which also ended up improving their skill levels in the long run. Both of them reached high chunin in physical prowess, but focused on different areas. Naruto focused on sealing, kenjutsu, and ninjutsu, while Sasuke focused on taijutsu, kenjutsu, genjutsu, and ninjutsu. Naruto focused on Wind and water, while Sasuke focused on lightning and fire. They were two opposites and were seen as the most talented shinobi in the class if you didn't count the anomaly. Naruto even learned the rudimentary form of the flying thunder god. He still wasn't able to use it for combat, but it was a massive start. Sasuke on the other hand managed to improve his sharingan to the third tomoe and started to grasp the basics of his own combined nature transformation of his two elements. The evolution of his eyes was done through controlled genjutsu sessions supervised by his mother. She put him under strong genjutsus at points she felt he was ready, watched his eyes evolve, and counseled him about it afterward. It wasn't ideal, but it was required for his eyes' evolution.
[A/N - Slight Spoiler:
Six will be the maximum number of tomoe abilities. Yume's secretly helping her build her own version of the Rinne-sharingan with six abilities. The six tomoe eye will be limited to the iris and pupil and will always have a normal sclera; I don't like the aspect of the Rinnegan that covers the whole eye. Regular Rinnegan wielders will still have the old version though with a few tweaks. Also, she still hasn't unlocked the mangekyou portion of the eye as it exists as a separate component.
As a story element, I normally would withhold this information to be revealed in the story, but considering how many fan fictions there are with super overpowered original characters, I thought I would clear this up. There won't be a sudden power up when she gets all six tomoe. She has to earn the truth-seeking balls and the six-paths senjutsu through fusing all the elements. It won't be free like it was for Naruto in cannon. As a side note, this also means that there are quite a few abilities that she won't receive, like the multi-vision that pain was famous for or the outer path. As compensation, the abilities that she does receive will be broader in scope. To be clear, it would be wrong to call them skills; rather, they're expressions of her ability to access different energies. Since she still has to go through the long process of learning how to manipulate them, I don't mind giving it to her early. In this chapter, for example, think less of what she observed specifically and more on what force was being manipulated to make it happen. Hope that clears some things up.]
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