At midnight, I appeared in the pre-arranged meeting spot in the Uchiha district.
Waiting for me were two women who looked like sisters, though one of them looked a lot worse for wear.
Mikoto sat primly at a table, brewing tea for her cousin and me. 'Miko-chan' sat at the table with a lost expression and somewhat weary frown.
As I sat down at the table, both women gasped in surprise at my sudden, flashy arrival. I greeted the two with an impish smirk.
"Terumi-sama! This is… certainly a sudden entrance," Mikoto exclaimed with a hand resting above her heart.
I nodded before addressing both, "Just call me Yo-kun in this setting. And you are…?"
'Miko-chan' gave her cousin a short, exasperated glare and turned to me, quietly introducing herself, "Uchiha Namiko."
I nodded, refraining from praising her name as beautiful because it clearly didn't suit the atmosphere. Instead, I held out my hand and gestured with my eyes for her to place her hand or rather her wrist in mine.
When she complied after seeing Mikoto's encouraging nod, I used my limited but powerful medical ninja prowess to see everything that was wrong with Namiko.
The list was long and frightening.
I immediately found three badly set fractures at her ribs, wondering how an Uchiha medi nin could miss something like it but reserved my judgement for now. She was missing an eye, the eye socket empty and the ocular nerve frayed instead of cut – so it was yanked out. The reason one of her arms was crippled was a ruptured chakra acupoint just past her shoulder joint. Her muscles close to that injury and the tendons accompanying these same muscles weren't properly healed, either, but chakra was doing its best to compensate.
Continuing my observations, I noticed a broken finger bone, a debilitating partial tear of a blood vessel near her kidney that would have killed a civilian without chakra in minutes but was temporarily held together in a ninja's body with a chakra acupoint closeby, and Namiko even had a cut at her hip long enough to almost reach her knee that was merely bandaged but not treated.
With furrowed brows I asked in disbelief, "Are the Uchiha this terrible at medical jutsu? You don't have a single person to fix the most obvious, life threatening issues?"
Mikoto shook her head with a frown of her own and waited for Namiko to explain.
When she did, the woman only muttered, "I lost my whole team. I didn't want to burden my clan any more than I already had."
I rolled my eyes, put both women in a genjutsu with a single hand seal and put two pills in Namiko's mouth while they were under before summoning my bathtub sized furnace from my plant dimension.
With a quick water jutsu, I filled it up and poured a few crushed pills into the water before heating the medicinal bath to a nice hot soak.
Once I was done with my preparations, I undid the genjutsu, enjoyed both women looking flabbergasted that I could even do that so casually to two Sharingan-owners, and instructed Namiko to undress down to her underwear.
She complied, though reluctantly, and allowed me to treat the most glaring wounds like the near-ruptured blood vessel that would have killed her the moment she ran out of chakra, and the deep cut on her hip. My job was easy because my pills were already doing their best to fix the kunoichi's body – but neither of the two women looked at me particularly fondly when I re-broke her ribs that didn't settle properly with a perfectly controlled one inch punch.
I could only shrug and allow the results of my work to speak for me.
Once settled in the bath to rejuvenate her skin and help get rid of the scars, I placed my hand filled with healing chakra from Saiken on the woman's head. I did have pills that would help the woman regrow the missing eye, but I wouldn't just use them on a random Uchiha ninja who wasn't loyal to me. Instead, I wanted to help heal whatever wounds were inflicted when the eye she used to have was clawed out rather wildly.
"Two-tomoe or three-tomoe?" I asked casually as my chakra properly mended the frayed nerve in her eye socket to make sure there were no phantom pains.
Namiko briefly looked at Mikoto before answering, "Three."
I merely nodded, glad to have satisfied my idle curiosity.
I judged that her chakra was big enough to have awakened her Sharingan, additionally, her body, while battered, was trained well above a regular chūnin's standard. She was a veteran and therefore not a 'mere' one-tomoe Uchiha.
"You're an idiot," I calmly accused once I was done with her eye and started mending the finger. "Had you sought help, you would have spared yourself an immense amount of pain."
All Namiko did was shake her head. It seemed like she thought she deserved the pain.
'Ugh, I'm not fucking a woman with such a depressed mindset,' I thought with an inward groan, but I wasn't too mad about it.
I lost nothing but gained more good will from a powerful clan that somehow evaded getting wiped out. All those spies I put on the Uchiha clan over five years ago were for naught… mostly.
With the added Kumo conflict that didn't originally exist, it was no surprise that the Uchiha massacre was changed.
Done healing the wounded Uchiha kunoichi, I left my furnace there to collect it later – nobody could steal it without an immense amount of fūinjutsu knowledge – and teleported back into my room when Mikoto wasn't looking.
The next morning, Naruto waited for me outside the inn.
"Hey Uzumaki uncle," he greeted with a wave but kept his voice down – something that went against his character.
"You must know it will look terrible to the village elders if you seek me out so casually," I greeted with an amused smile.
Naruto stiffened but gathered his courage and explained, "Kiri and Konoha have an alliance, this is fine."
He quickly took me by the arm and brought me to a quiet corner with nobody able to listen to us openly.
I still felt a concealed presence nearby, an ANBU most likely, but I didn't inform Naruto. I also didn't bother finding out who it was. I didn't care enough to find out.
"Uncle, I have questions," Naruto asked with a conspiratorial whisper.
"Shoot," I replied with an uncaring shrug.
"You're Terumi Yoshihiro, hailed as the strongest jinchūriki in the world, right? The Red Demon of Kiri?"
I nodded with a friendly smile.
Naruto didn't seem to care about my reputation and merely asked, "Is there a secret to becoming more powerful as a jinchūriki?"
"Oh? What makes you ask… me?"
"Konoha doesn't have any other jinchūriki, d'uh," Naruto replied with a mocking frown.
I flicked his forehead and rephrased my question, "Why come to me for help if you're already as strong as you are? Aren't you the best graduate by quite a bit this year?"
Naruto's annoyed glare after the flick eased into a sheepish grin that quickly hardened as he explained, "I want to help end the conflict with Kumo. They say Killer B is really really powerful and we constantly hear about his involvement at the frontlines, but I'm just… me. I don't want to embarrass Tsunade-nee and Kakashi-sensei."
"There is an easy fix for this. If you want to grow stronger, ask your Tsunade-nee to give you all the pills I prepared for you," I advised with furrowed brows without really thinking about it.
He still hadn't taken the bloodline pill. I already felt that yesterday at Ichiraku Ramen.
"Huh? Those pills are from you?"
"Of course, your Uncle Uzumaki is a multi-talented and handsome genius without equal," I answered with a haughty look and fanned my face with an upturned nose.
"Wow… does that also mean you're Mito-chan's and Dan-kun's father?"
My form stilled – I hadn't thought that Tsunade would allow those brats to figure that out. Either Naruto was much too clever for his own good, or Tsunade spilled the beans while drunk.
Ugh.
I decided to have fun with it because I ultimately didn't care and showed Naruto a very distraught look as I kneeled down to his eye-level and grabbed his shoulders, "It's terrible Naruto-kun! Tsunade broke my heart all those years ago when I told her about your situation, you know when you were still alone in Konoha. I thought she would choose love and stay with your Uncle Uzumaki, but she just disappeared with little Shizune-chan in the dead of night, leaving behind only a simple letter."
Wiping away the tears I produced with a seal-less water jutsu, I acted with over-the-top heartbreak and 'read out loud' from memory, "Yoshi-nii. You know my heart aches for you. But I am going to a place where you cannot follow. My homeland, my grandfather's very legacy and of course little Naruto-kun – they need me! If only our villages were allies instead of enemies – alas you cannot come along like my heart wants you to! May you find love wherever you go, your Tsutsu-chan.'"
Naruto's eyes misted over. He had fully bought my act as he cried out, "That's so unfair! You haven't even met your two children, have you? Don't worry, uncle! I'll confront Tsunade-nee and make her see reason! Dan and Mito are the best! I know they want to know their father, too!"
The blonde jinchūriki was about to storm off, but I called out after him, "Don't forget to ask for your pills, Naruto-kun! You need to grow stronger for your loved ones! Also, try befriending Kurama! He's just a block-headed tsundere! Hard on the outside, soft on the inside!"
The boy turned back, his tears streaming even more as he reassured me with a thumbs up, "Even now you think more about me than yourself. You're the best, Uncle Uzumaki! I'll definitely grow stronger!"
Standing alone inside the alley for a short moment as my tear-stricken face turned into a disbelieving smile, the 'ANBU' who had observed us suddenly appeared in front of me.
"You shouldn't mislead children like that," Kakashi chided as he tucked away the novel he had been reading.
I shrugged and countered, "I shouldn't do many of the things I do. Hasn't stopped me. Plus, he's a genin. That's as much of an adult as you can get to the vast majority of people."
"You shouldn't mislead impressionable brats like that," Kakashi rephrased with a deadpan at hearing my righteous tone.
"What brings you here, Kakashi-chan?" I asked with a small smile to change the topic.
His lone visible eye made him look visibly conflicted for a short moment before he bowed his head and said, "Thank you for saving Rin's life."
"She lived? That's great news," I praised with a small nod.
Kakashi's expression only tensed more as he continued, "Rinko has asked me to invite her benefactor for dinner. Please make the time tomorrow before sundown. I… we still live where you previously… where we last met."
"Sure," I accepted with a shrug. "How covert should my arrival be?"
Kakashi's shoulders slumped, he deeply sighed and then answered, "Very."
I walked out of the alley laughing leisurely until I managed to do what I set out to do – buy a whole bunch of dango for breakfast for the Kiri delegation.
Later in the day, my cute genin already passed the first 'written' exam and while my sister, Karin, and Fuen were celebrating their success with them at some BBQ joint run by the Akimichi, I sat inside the 'guest hall' at the main compound of the Hyūga clan. The invitation came as a surprise as I watched the first test unfold. A branch family Hyūga shinobi had handed me a scroll in full view of the Hokage.
"Thank you for accepting the invitation, Terumi-dono," Hyūga Hiashi greeted, sitting there all regal in the seat of honor of his traditional home.
He looked indifferent to everything in life, even my lack of respect as I sat there rather casually and looked entirely not groomed enough for such a setting, still running around without a shirt under my carelessly bound kimono.
But I had helped Fuen identify the person she wanted to kill after breakfast with the help of my mind's eye to look for all the root bases and she had thanked me with rigorous sex instead of killing the man. And I rarely put much effort into my appearance anyway. I looked good in anything, in my humble opinion.
I waved away his formal manner of speech with an easy-going smile and asked, "What is it I can do for you, clan head?"
I saw an elder to the side almost ready to jump up and smack my face, but they managed to keep it in. Instead, Hyūga Hiashi looked at me deeply, and took a calming breath.
"I would like to enlist your services as a medical ninja," the Hyūga clan head eventually explained and I saw his jaw and hands clench a little.
He was nervous!
"Oh? Senju Tsunade has lived in the village for almost a decade now and she can't help you? Or are you too proud to ask a Senju for help?" I asked with my infuriating smile intact.
I didn't know what this was about at all.
"Tsunade-sama has provided my wife with ample care over the years, but even the Sannin was unable to aid in the cure of Ryoko's ailment. She has prolonged my wife's life for as long as she could," Hiashi diplomatically described, his face showing as much unease as such a stiff man could allow. "When tensions were high during Tsunade-sama's last visit… she suggested that I should seek you out."
So a Hyūga made a careless comment about how Tsunade sucked at her job for failing to make the sick woman all better and the reluctant mother of my two children told them to fuck off and ask me as the only other qualified option?
I couldn't hide my grin at that.
That totally sounded like the Tsunade I knew.
"Tsunade is certainly right. I don't mean to boast, but if she weren't around there would be nobody better than me," I agreed with my stupid smile still on my face as I leaned back in an effort to not barrel over laughing.
That finally seemed to irk one of the main family elders in the back as he thundered, "Have you no sense of decorum!?"
I only shook my head and chuckled, which seemed to piss the man off even more. When the old fart dared to rouse his chakra, though, I drowned out the entire building in my own chakra as I looked at him mockingly.
"Want me to wipe out your entire clan, old man?"
Every elder in the room activated their byakugan at that threat, but almost all of them immediately recoiled in horror.
Hehe, I didn't restrict my chakra at this point and probably almost blinded all these stuck-up fools. It should be like looking directly into the sun on a sunny summer day at noon to them, not that the byakugan was such a shit kekkei genkai that they would actually turn blind upon seeing a bunch of chakra.
Satisfied as they winced and deactivated their byakugan, I looked at Hiashi who was the only one who didn't use his dojutsu with the same shit-eating grin I kept for the duration of these talks. Almost mockingly I asked, "I don't think I'm wrong, am I?"
"With Tsunade-sama vouching for you, I believe you have a chance," Hiashi said evenly, ignoring the rest of the protesting main family elders. "Please excuse the… heightened agitation of my clansmen."
I could hear it in his voice. He, too, was fed up with these elders in some small part. Likely because they almost cost him the chance to see his wife regain her health.
"In that case, lead the way. I don't know yet what I'm going to charge for my services, but it costs you nothing just for me to go to see what I am dealing with," I placated lazily and stood up.
Hiashi, moving like he had a broom up his rear, led the way surrounded by four caged birds. Walking next to the two branch members who were clearly at jōnin strength, I asked, "Does the seal itch?"
One of them had his lips twitch, the other looked at me like I just asked him the most outlandish question there was, so I clarified while pointing to my forehead, "The Caged Bird seal. Does it itch when nobody is controlling you?"
Dumbly, the Hyūga branch member shook his head in denial.
"Huh, would have bet a million ryo saying otherwise," I whispered under my breath and ignored the incredulity of all five Hyūga clansmen in my earshot.
When we finally reached the courtyard in question, I saw two little girls, one thirteen while the other one was around eight. I greeted them with a friendly wave, and they, too, looked at me like I was an alien.
"My daughters, Hinata and Hanabi," Hiashi introduced with his calm, detached cadence before coming to a stop at a sliding door like all these traditional homes had.
Before he could say anything, I instructed, "Look all you want with those eyes, but I'll enter alone. Rest assured, there won't be any funny business."
Seeing me wink and walk past him, I was sure Hyūga Hiashi was reaching the limits of his patience with my antics but I didn't care.
The Hyūga clan was one of the clans I least respected in this world.
Not because their bloodline limit sucked. I least respected them because in their storied history they barely managed to raise any kage-level shinobi despite having a dojutsu and bloodline of a powerful alien race and they still were arrogant enough to treat their own clansmen as slaves. That and their bloodline didn't suck – they just sucked at maximizing its potential.
But then again, I cared for none of that.