After examining Kawaki and postponing the testing phase of his Kāma and its reaction with the divinity that was extracted from Momoshiki, Naruto went over to the Senju ancestral house for Tsunade's weekly healing session.
Despite the entire Senju compound having been converted into a residential district, Tsunade's residence was massive. Naruto had to go through a large set of metal gates before passing the yard, only to reach the main door of her home.
"I should look into upgrading my house." Looking at his surroundings made Naruto want to shift into a more luxurious area. "Maybe once I have certain things more under control. Once I free Kaguya, I'll try to play with her ability to create separate dimensions …"
Amidst his musings, Naruto knocked on the door, only to have Tsunade open it within a few seconds.
"Somebody is excited," he teased Tsunade, who seemed to have switched her usual outfit for a comfortable green robe that had quite a deep cleavage. Naruto's tracking necklace was still on her, the pendant going in between the tempting valley that wanted to draw Naruto's gaze toward it.
"Come on in," Tsunade said, uncaring about the slight inappropriateness of her attire. "Help yourself if you want something."
The seventy-something-year-old woman who looked like she was in her early thirties sat down on a comfortable armchair and pulled a lever, reclining it back. She leaned on the comfortable cushions and hummed lazily.
"Granny Tsunade? Reading? Impossible." Naruto asked with a surprised expression as Tsunade grabbed a book from beside her table. Glancing at the cover, he observed it to be a compendium summarizing the recent advancements in medicine and biology.
"You want to get punched, brat?" She looked at him with annoyance. "Do you think I would pass my time doing this if you didn't have your clones surveilling me for all your waking hours?"
"You are too irresponsible," Naruto said. "I saw the results of giving you free rein the day you came to Konoha. All three gambling houses started throwing nightly parties for a week straight after the legendary sucker showed up and emptied her pockets in all three of them in one night."
"All right, all right," Tsunade waved her arm. "You can do your thing. It's going to take a while, and I would rather get some of my reading done in that time."
"What an ungrateful woman," Naruto sighed and shook his head as he sat on the adjacent couch and placed his hand on her head before invoking Yin-Yang Release to heal her vitality. "I'm doing you a favor here, you know that?"
"By pulling me back out of my retirement and forcing me to manage the hospital again? Some fucking favor. I feel like it would've been better to exhaust myself to death drinking and gambling every day."
"I feel that Sakura's skills would be better utilized elsewhere," Naruto said. "Now that you are back in Konoha, I can pull her out of her shitty job and let her do something more important."
"And pawn that shitty job over to me?"
"It's not shitty for you. You have a monetary stake in the hospital. Not to mention, you are capable enough to delegate tasks instead of being guilt-tripped into dealing with half the patients. You can even teach them better than Sakura because of how much experience you have," he said. "And the cherry on top— Sakura never returns home before nine or ten in the evening. You are here relaxing after ending your shift at five. The hospital is still the same, with no reported abrupt deaths or anything. It's a win for everybody in my book."
"Fine, whatever. It's better to have something to do than waste my days being bored in this huge place all by myself," she said comfortably. "Mind scratching my head while you heal me?"
"This is not a massage session," Naruto admonished, but he still did as she asked and lightly scratched her scalp.
"I think I'll go to sleep." Tsunade placed her book down and closed her eyes. "No need to wake me up once you are done. Just leave after closing the door behind you."
"Sure," Naruto agreed and continued healing her while scratching her head.
Almost an entire hour passed as Naruto kept himself occupied with his thoughts. He was positive that Tsunade was already in a deep sleep and wouldn't be waking up any time soon.
"Hey, brat," Tsunade spoke sleepily, disproving Naruto's thoughts. "Does your new job assignment for my disciple have something to do with her modified Strength of a Hundred seal? It's completely different from what it was before."
"You noticed, huh?"
"I have spent a lifetime using that technique, perfecting it and understanding it to its core. I can notice the smallest changes in its effects even without examining it with my chakra. Those changes weren't made by her. The seal may look like my Byakugō, but it couldn't be further away from the original technique. Its functioning barely seems similar to the original despite the same effects."
"It is a safety measure," Naruto said after pausing in thought for a few seconds. "A special Uzumaki seal that was used by the patriarch of the clan on the members of his inner circle. It manifested itself in Sakura's Strength of a Hundred Seal because that is the most prominent move in her repertoire."
"Like the thing the Hyūga use to this day? Or that seal Danzo used on members of Root?" Tsunade looked positively disgusted. The only reason she hadn't flipped out was because it was Naruto, and she had some trust that he wouldn't take such an action. That's why she gave him the opportunity to explain himself."
"No," he shook his head. "I cannot control Sakura's actions. She gladly agreed to it after I explained the benefits. After her Strength of a Hundred seal mutated, her chakra storage was directly tripled. Not to mention that her chakra production also increased, allowing her to store even more chakra in it every day. The only downsides, if they can even be called that, are that the seal allows me to communicate with her telepathically whenever I want, and it allows me to track her location."
"What prompted this? And where did this seal even come from? My grandmother never mentioned such a seal. If it was a possibility, then she would've definitely passed it on to Grandfather."
"For your first question. The operation for Kawaki's collection. We lost seven of our twenty-seven elite jōnin. They are all the strongest among the jōnin. Clan heads, our top combatants below me and Sasuke. Out of those seven, three betrayed us — one in Konoha and two in the field. As for the other four, they were put under genjutsu and taken out by Outers just as we were turning things around."
"So traitors," Tsunade said. "This operation happened today. You probably gave that seal to my disciple a few days ago."
"The Ōtsutsuki are a dangerous bunch. I was prepared for such a deep infiltration of our forces. There are very few people whom I can trust in Konoha, but if they are put under a genjutsu or manipulated with some even greater method, I won't even know before being stabbed in the back. I was going to ask you to take this seal as well once you settled down a little."
"How do you know that I'm not a traitor right now?"
"Hah," Naruto scoffed. "You? A traitor? The only entity you have the guts to betray is yourself. And even if you are an informant for Kara, you have no idea about my plans regarding them. The councils, meetings, and the hospital. You have a significant influence in the village, no doubt. But I told you, right? The Hokage is the face of the Land of Fire's military might. Not the Shinobi council. Not even the clan heads and elders. The Hokage."
Tsunade went silent after hearing Naruto's words.
"As for this seal's origins? It is only usable and accessible to the patriarch of the clan and requires Uzumaki blood. It is similar to yet also different from a bloodline ability."
"That dumb brat who told me that he was going to become Hokage has finally turned into a ruthless military leader. I almost feel melancholic about you losing the brightness you exuded in the past."
"I'm still the same, Granny. I have simply understood how to dissociate between being Naruto Uzumaki, the father of two amazing children and husband to a beautiful wife, and being Naruto Uzumaki, the Seventh Hokage of Konohagakure. That's all. I simply keep my cards close to my chest."
"Do I have the option to refuse that seal?" Tsunade asked.
"Of course," Naruto nodded. "You can refuse. You can take your time to think about it. You can take it right now. That gets rid of this dumb-looking black necklace as well." He grabbed the pendant from Tsunade's chest and showed it to her. "If you wish to become a part of my inner circle. The people who will truly run the village in a few more months. You will need this seal. And no, I won't tell you who else has it at the moment."
"Give me some time to think, brat," Tsunade said thoughtfully, not caring about Naruto's offensive action when he grasped the pendant before. "Anything you think I should know about this seal?"
"A permanent two-way telepathic connection, location tracking, chakra sharing … To a limited extent, I can also cast certain jutsu through the seal, but that's pretty difficult for me to do for the time being. Oh, and an induced mutation to your most prominent abilities that enhances them significantly. Sakura's Strength of a Hundred seal was mutated and enhanced; it will probably do the same thing for you."
"You will be increasing my surveillance even more now, aren't you? If I refuse, things are going to be even more annoying."
"Don't worry," Naruto said. "I will just have someone remove your memory of this conversation. You won't be inconvenienced further."
"I somewhat just want to refuse."
"I won't pressurize you to accept the seal. But it comes with more than enough benefits. If I can get my remote jutsu technique down eventually, I might even be able to revitalize you remotely. Not only that, but your healing sessions won't be limited to weekly two-hour-long sessions, and the treatment could be finished within months instead of years."
"My body will still need time to get used to the newly introduced vitality, Naruto. That is what limited my sessions to one a week."
"True, but that seal has mysterious methods. I shouldn't be able to directly give my chakra to someone to help them recover from chakra exhaustion, lest they get overwhelmed and their tenketsu break down. But that's not what happens. The chakra introduced through the seal acts as if it is the recipient's chakra. Maybe this technique could also surprise us."
"Give me some time …" Tsunade said, closing her eyes again.
She seemed calm, but Naruto could tell that her thoughts were in turmoil after the bomb that he'd dropped on her. He let her think and continued healing her while scratching her head.
By the time he was finished, Tsunade was actually asleep, so he covered her with a blanket he found nearby before silently leaving her house.
***
If you like the story, follow it and leave a review and whatever else, it motivates me a lot. I try not to leave any mistakes in the chapters, but if you find something glaring, let me know, and I'll try to fix it.
If you want to support me, check out my Patréon. I post advanced chapters there and do weekly polls to decide the stories that I will be posting for the week. No pressure though, I'm eventually going to post my content publicly regardless.
www.patrèon.com/addyctive
(Replace the è with e)