Inside the room that Hyūga Hiashi brought me to was a frail looking woman as pale as paper. Her cheeks were sunken, the rings under her eyes deep. Her hair was all white – to my eyes a clear sign of prolonged exposure to medical jutsu considering her age.
She was clearly very ill.
I greeted her warmly as I sat down next to her bed, "Hi there. Your husband asked me to take a look to see if Tsunade's words ring true and whether I am truly able to cure you."
She didn't say much, only weakly turned her head to the door for a short moment before turning back to me and faintly nodding.
"I'm going to insert some of my chakra into you, please don't cry for help," I quipped with a reassuring grin that probably wasn't very reassuring and placed my hand on her forehead.
Minutes passed before I muttered, "Maybe I should have just asked what kind of diagnosis Tsunade arrived at."
Of course, I found out what was ailing her, but the choice to ignore Tsunade's opinion to spare me the effort was plain idiotic.
"Hmm, Autoimmune Chakra Disorder, huh?" I pondered under my breath.
Basically a rare condition where your own chakra turned against you until you suffered systemic organ failure and lost vitality by it just plainly bleeding out of your damaged chakra pathways.
I had seen such a case in Kiri once but didn't care enough to find a special pill to treat it. I simply gave the guy a few pills to cleanse his body of filth because that often did the trick and another to strengthen his physique… but he died on a mission after feeling better before I could find out how viable of a treatment that was.
"You probably have attendants to help you wash, right?" I asked rhetorically. The woman was too weak to casually engage in conversation and clearly didn't mean to waste her limited breath on someone acting as frivolous as I.
I flared my chakra and Hiashi entered.
"Someone will have to help your wife wash. It won't be pleasant," I instructed, turned my hand to make two pills appear in my palm and made Hyūga Ryoko swallow them with a chakra thread before anybody could protest.
I clapped my hands to dust them off and stood up, saying to Hyūga Hiashi who looked on incredulously, "I'll have to come back tomorrow to see what changed. By my estimation, once she's done bathing and getting rid of all the filth, she will fall into a very deep sleep. There won't be much pain but a lot of discomfort and copious amounts of muscle spasms that will tire her out. No need to fret, it won't adversely change her condition."
Once I walked outside, I saw a branch family maid walk inside and gasp after seeing black filth oozing out of her lady's pores. With a grin, I body-flickered in front of Hinata and greeted, "We meet again, little one. Did you pass the first exam?"
She nodded, barely managing to meet my eye-level.
Patting her head, I praised, "Good job. Remember my words and give my cute little genins some challenge. I can't have them become arrogant."
Before getting an answer or a question from Hanabi next to her, I vanished with another body-flicker to mock the traditional values of the Hyūga clan that would expect me to walk out of their clan territory with the help of a branch family member and casually left.
The next day around noon, my sister accompanied me to the Hyūga clan with Karin while leaving Fuen in charge of keeping an eye on the two genin teams.
After a branch family guard brought me to the clan leader with clear displeasure written on the faces of everybody I met – those with the Caged Bird seals had been punished for my actions yesterday despite being unable to stop me even if the whole clan had tried – I arrived back in the courtyard of the Hyūga clan matriarch.
"Who are they?" Hyūga Hiashi asked without letting his displeasure known for my sudden exit yesterday. He regarded the hair of both women especially.
"My sister Uzumaki Himari. She is here for a second opinion. Don't worry, she's a decent medi nin," I introduced and earned myself a slap that I deftly avoided without looking.
"You bastard! I am the leading medi nin in all of Kirigakure! I've been running the hospital for eight years!"
I ignored her outburst and pointed at the smaller girl and said, "And Uzumaki Karin, her student."
Hyūga Hiashi, shortly overwhelmed by the fact that I brought two Uzumaki clansmen, just looked at us with as much disbelief as someone as stiff as him could show, but he was snapped out of his idle thoughts by me asking, "How is your wife?"
He finally looked at me with a small scowl and chided, "You could have warned us a bit better of what was to come. For now, she is fine but resting."
I shrugged with a small laugh while Himari looked at me with narrowed eyes and accused, "You gave her a cleansing pill and didn't tell anyone what to prepare for? You're a foul man, Yo-kun."
"I don't have many pleasures in life," I pointed out with a laugh and entered the room of my patient.
She was sleeping and the fatigue was deeply etched into her face – but she still looked better than yesterday. Her hair was still white but gained a lot of strength. Her pale face was a little more ruddy. And most importantly, her fingers were no longer as bony and spindly as before.
"Man, oh man," my sister commented. "You're saying Tsunade kept someone suffering from ACD alive for years and this is the result? She looks like a ghost."
"Can't you say something nicer?" I asked as I pointed to Hinata, who was primly sitting next to her mother's side while looking at us like a deer caught in headlights.
"Sorry, girl. But you must know better than us what your mother has been through," Himari waved away and touched Hyūga Ryoko's wrist under the keen glare of Hiashi.
The man was probably fuming because he hadn't said a word about allowing us entry or about my sister giving a second opinion, treating his wife.
Essentially, she was trespassing and harassing the ill woman as an enemy village kunoichi – economic alliance be damned.
With Himari standing behind me once she was done checking on her, I infused my own chakra into the Hyūga matriarch and checked the changes my pills brought on.
"Her chakra coils look raw and unused," Himari commented from behind me.
I nodded and explained, "They've essentially rebuilt themselves thanks to my work. But they are still too fragile. I can't say for sure if this already did the job."
My sister thoughtfully nodded as I turned to Hiashi and ordered, "I can leave her like this and all you will pay me with is update reports on your wife's condition written out by a capable medi nin."
Hiashi clenched his fist in anger and annoyance, likely because – smart as he was – he figured out I treated his precious wife as a test subject.
"Or I will do something that guarantees her living another ten years in good health," I proposed before my smile turned sinister, "and all it will cost you is a single Hyūga maid."
Karin behind me slapped her forehead in annoyance, my sister groaned and rolled her eyes. Hinata looked like I said something ridiculous, again, and Hiashi merely studied my impression with his usual frown.
"My people are not to be bartered," Hiashi eventually declared with all the superior air only a clan head could project.
"Oh yeah? Why don't you call your brother to show me out then," I quipped with a wide smile.
Many things changed due to my intervention. But Hyūga Hizashi, Neji's father, still died because of that ridiculous demand from the Kumo 'peace' delegation.
It was a particularly bitter pill to swallow, because Kumo was still the first village to break the peace treaty and actively fight Konoha's forces not even a decade after Hiashi's brother's sacrifice. And because of Danzō's schemes, the Hyūga clan wasn't even sent to avenge this tragedy. Instead that 'honor' was given to the Uchiha so that they would dwindle into obscurity on the battlefield with help from Root.
"Thank you for your services so far," Hiashi evenly stated, his mood worsening. "That will be all."
On my way out with a visibly embarrassed Karin and Himari, I waved, "You know where to find me if you change your mind!"
"Why are you such an asshole?" Himari asked, uncaring that she was overheard by the guard bringing us out of the Hyūga compound.
"They've done it before, why not trade the life of someone they treat worse than cattle for the life of their clan head's wife?" I asked with an uncaring shrug.
"Why ask for a maid then and not a kunoichi?" Karin asked in a small voice. "I thought you were into strong women."
Seeing the little Uzumaki's cheeks turn red, I laughed, slung my arm over the shoulder of one of the Hyūga branch guards and pointed to her while addressing my two companions, "Look at these cute eyes. With them, I could make even the least talented brat a god among mortals. Just look at that waste Ao. Even he's an elite jōnin through his own meager efforts because he managed to snatch just one eye."
The guard shrugged off my arm and pretended she didn't hear anything, but I could feel in my mind's eye that she bottled up many emotions. Mainly grievance and longing.
"Come. I'll need to give my students a last pep talk before they step into the Forest of Death tomorrow," I waved away once we reached the gates of the Hyūga estate.
I was almost certain that the second phase should have started a day after the first exam – but for some reason we all had to wait a day for it to happen.
I sometimes wonder what domino I set in motion for that to happen.
I had already seen Orochimaru, even though nobody knew it was him among the Iwagakure faction. His disguise was certainly a surprise, and I wondered what else would change with this new and improved Konoha Crush plan. Iwa sent a dozen elite jōnin together with the one Orochimaru pretended to be.
If Konoha really was stupid enough to not suspect anything, Sarutobi Hiruzen could only blame his own lacking methods.
Hours later, I enjoyed a home cooked meal by someone whose voice I heard for the first time.
"Dig in, Yoshihiro-san," Nohara Rin, now known as Hatake Rinko and sporting white hair, ordered with a sweet smile as she set the table and joined Kakashi and I.
"Smells nice," I praised and started doing as I was told.
I didn't say anything else, because I enjoyed Kakashi squirming uncomfortably.
"How is it? Do you like it?" Rin asked with an expecting smile after she watched me shovel another bite into my mouth. She hadn't eaten anything herself yet and just watched me.
It was weird.
"You're a decent chef. Kakashi must be lucky," I commented with a smile full of praise and Kakashi slumped into his chair even further.
Rin turned to the copy ninja for the first time, her smile turned even more doting, and she gently chided, "Eat Kakashi-kun. You need all your strength."
Kakashi groaned.
Eating some more as I enjoyed Kakashi squirming, Rin suddenly turned to me and said, "By the way. Did you wash me all these years when you cared for me?"
I just laughed hearing the absurd question and despite me not seeing much of Kakashi's face because he kept putting up his face mask after every bite, I noticed he visibly paled.
"Haha, maybe once or twice. But it was mostly Saiken or my maids who did it," I waved off, still amused.
"So you got a glimpse?" Rin asked, her smile not really reaching her eyes now. "How about you compensate me for that?"
Her tone of voice was still playful, so I wasn't offended. She staked all my good will on that and won. I felt that she knew that I was the sole reason I survived and would never ask anything of me ever, if it was for her own sake. Kakashi looked pretty horrified, though.
Ignoring the fear that was creeping down Kakashi's spine, I asked with a smile, "Oh? Did you have something in mind?"
"You can help Kakashi-kun control his eye better, right? You did it for that Kiri-nin Ao who stole the Byakugan?"
I nodded, my head slowly turning to look at Kakashi.
I shrugged and agreed, "Sure. That's easy enough."
Squinting at his Konoha headband hiding Obito's Sharingan and thinking about the implications of possibly allowing Kakashi to access the Kamui dimension early if I allowed him to control the Mangekyō Sharingan well ahead of time, I took out a singular pill from a 'scroll hidden in my sleeves'.
I tossed it to the shinobi with a challenging grin and asked, "If he is man enough to see whether or not I will poison him?"
Kakashi only hesitated for the briefest moment as he studied the pill and that was already enough for Rin to take a wooden spatula and reach across the table to slap Kakashi on the forehead. The Konoha jōnin could have evaded the hit very easily, but took it as he stared at his now-wife.
I thought the marriage was just a show for a bit when I heard the rumors, but the official story was that Hatake Rinko was a cousin of his from the Land of Fire capital that he fell in love with during a mission and brought back to Konoha. Rin now lived as Kakashi's wife in earnest and it showed.
"Will you really not trust the man who saved my life and nurtured me for years before bringing me to you?" Rin asked, her tone now noticeably angry and hurt.
Wow, she really didn't mess around.
Kakashi swallowed the pill immediately under the glare of his wife. The glare instantly melted into a sweet smile, her anger clearly just an act to get rid of Kakashi's indecision.
A minute later, he clutched his head and took off his headband. A lone blood tear escaped his eye socket containing Obito's Sharingan and then, Kakashi noticed the pain was gone and his Sharingan deactivated. The constant drain on his chakra that he lived with for over a decade stopped.
It was a pill I perfected to help reduce the risk of rejection during organ transplants. I made it in my youth in case I was ever maimed during a mission and needed to replace parts of me. It just turned out to be way more overpowered than I ever planned it to be.
"Give it a week and you'll be able to freely enter and exit the three-tomoe state as your body adjusts to the new normal. With enough time, maybe you can go beyond that," I explained with a reassuring smile as he regarded me with a complicated expression.
Rin threw herself at me and kissed my cheek before hurrying across the table to fiercely hug Kakashi and whispering, "Finally you have fully accepted Obito-kun's last gift to us."
I almost slapped my forehead at the big red flag she just called into existence and quietly left as the two lovers were overjoyed with Kakashi's newfound control over Obito's eye.
Since I was already dealing with one Sharingan, I decided to deal with another and appeared inside the house where I treated Uchiha Namiko.
The woman was currently changing the various bandages I applied with herbal medicines from my plant dimension to help address the many scars. She was getting help from Uchiha Mikoto. And she didn't even react when she saw me and merely pointed for Mikoto to turn her head so that she could see me, too.
"You shouldn't come here so early in the night," Mikoto chided and helped her cousin cover herself up.
"If you're worried that I was seen, rest assured. Not even a Hyūga staring a hole into the wall could have seen my arrival here," I placated and sat down at the table.
"Why have you come? I would have called for you tomorrow once the exam had started," Mikoto reminded me once she was finished helping Namiko put on a kimono.
Watching her move over to a tea set and heat water with a small E-rank fire ninjutsu, I said, "You have not paid me for my services. You merely implied I could get lucky with your cousin, but she turned out to be a hopeless and suicidal kunoichi who I'd feel terrible taking advantage of," I accused and Mikoto's head snapped in the direction of her cousin. "No worries, she thinks we're talking about the weather for the upcoming chūnin exam in the Forest of Death."
I had put her under genjutsu the moment I put a foot in the room.
"Please excuse the deception," Mikoto apologized with a sigh of relief once she saw her cousin not react at all. "I was merely trying to save a dear member of my family."
Nodding, I asked once more, "So what will you pay me with?"
"I am a married woman," Mikoto chided with false bashfulness but I wasn't amused by the implication. She saw that and immediately changed the subject to ask, "What is it you want Terumi-sama? You can't ask for too much. You did say you would help even if you couldn't bed her."
"I don't know," I said with narrowed eyes, thinking about it for the first time. "Have you awakened your Mangekyō Sharingan?"
Mikoto's eyes widened for a moment, clearly shocked that I knew about the eyes and dared to ask. But the secret of the Mangekyō Sharingan, now that her son Itachi and Shisui were rogue nin was no longer a true secret in the Elemental Nations. Many older ninja, Ōnoki especially, shared their knowledge about 'Madara's supreme dojutsu' with the world to warn the other villages and openly mock Konoha for losing 'two shinobi on their path of reaching Madara's strength'. No matter how truthful such a statement was.
"I have not," she declined with a small shake of her head, "And I will not share whether or not others of my clan have awakened our noblest bloodline limit."
I could have mocked her and asked if she didn't know about the Eternal Mangekyō or the Rinnegan, but I would gain nothing from such an interaction.
"Do you want to awaken it?" I asked instead.
And enjoyed her incredulous expression.