Pre-Chapter A/N: Please check out the first chapter of the novel I'm working on on Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/oghenevwogaga)—it's completely free to access.
What can I say except you're welcome? Here we go. Lovely to have you all here, and I hope you enjoy this one. If you do, feel free to head over to Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/oghenevwogaga) and read the next three chapters- I update there on a daily basis so there's always something for you to read. There's a cheeky 20% off to celebrate my birthday till the end of the month so take advantage of that while you can.
"Do I really need to be naked for this?" I asked her even as I resisted the urge to cover myself with my hands. I felt naked enough, no need to show just how self-conscious I was about the situation. Grandmother Mito laughed even as she passed a pot of ink to one of the other women. I was in a specially prepared sealing chamber, surrounded by nine of the best Uzumaki seal masters, and naked as the day I was born.
"Just be happy that Lady Mito vetoed letting us have our apprentices come in to watch" One of the men, Souta— or Uncle Souta as he insisted that I call him— joked off to the side.
"Stop teasing the boy" Ayame said in reply as she began to draw a seal on my chest. I'd thought that having the Kyubi transferred to me would be an easy thing. Just do some sealing and presto-chango, mission accomplished, but I'd never really considered all the work that went into creating a jinchuriki. In my defence, my sealing studies were focused on far more useful applications.
"Why should I? He's the one who thinks he's too good to be a proper clan head" Souta said again, even as he began drawing another seal on my shoulder.
"Like I said seventy times already, I had a mission and was sent out for the war. It wasn't like I wanted to be away from you guys" I said, even as I was certain that I did want to be away from these people.
"Didn't ask, don't care" Souta replied. I resisted the urge to facepalm as Takeshi came to my side and began scrawling a seal down my arm. The purpose of all these sealing rituals as to prepare my body to host the Kyuubi by basically relaxing my chakra coils and a hundred other things— think of it like clearing the grass to make space for a house about to be built. Or like tiling a pool to prepare it to contain water.
Now, I can already see you wondering— why didn't Naruto need any of that in canon, and why didn't Kushina need it here? Because the Shinigami did their sealing, and let's just say that then shinigami is a much better fuinjutsu master than even the best Uzumaki. Clan myths said that the first Uzumaki learned to use sealing jutsu by following the Shinigami around. Of course, it was probably a myth, but considering we invented a jutsu for calling upon the shinigami, and even managed to seal him into a mask that called him forth when one wore it, there might have been a grain or two of truth in there.
"Leave the boy alone, Souta. He said he's doing his best and now that we have him back, we can do all the rituals and be done with it," Himari said as she began to scrawl a seal on my left buttock. I tried not to reach from having the cold ink on such a sensitive area.
"What rituals?" I asked.
"Do you think one just becomes the Head of the Uzumaki clan just like that?" Souta asked with a chuckle.
"I do wonder at what you have been teaching the boy, Mito" Kaito said. He wasn't painting me. Instead, he stood off to the side, watching everything with a careful eye. I hadn't believed it when I'd been told, but somehow this man was Grandmother Mito's Uncle. That made him so old that he could have been my Great-Grandfather. Needless to say, he'd gone on in the years. His hair had lost its redness and luster, being a dull grey that fell to his knees, but he could still move around with only a cane and apparently remained the clan's foremost expert on the adamantine sealing chains. He was a man very much set in his ways and seemed keen to find fault in everything.
"With how far he was from the line of succession, you can't have expected me to waste time teaching him that stuff"
"Waste time?" Takeshi almost roared.
"The traditions of our clan are not a waste of time"
"I am sure she did not mean it that way, Takeshi-chan" The old man stepped in, defusing the tension. Correction. He was intent on finding fault in everything apart from his precious niece.
"Yes, I didn't. I just meant that it never came up." She said.
"So what are these rituals?" I asked, as I swallowed the instinctive gasp that came from Ayame pulling my penis to one side to begin scrawling on my left thigh. I just thanked the heavens and everyone up there who would listen that being a shinobi meant I could control my blood flow enough to avoid getting hard— that would have been even more embarrassing.
"The Uzumaki clan head goes through rituals to connect you to those who came before, to allow you to call on their wisdom where necessary and their strength when expedient. The Clan Head must be the greatest and most powerful of us to bear this burden, so there are rituals to ensue he is so. Small things— strength, speed, better chakra control, better chakra recovery through seals to make all that possible" Kaito said. I nodded, not allowing my excitement to show on my face, even if it was palpable.
"Okay, the seals are done. Now for the chants and dance" Souta said, slapping me on my sole unmarked shoulder. I sighed as he stepped back and began to sing. It was in a language I couldn't truly understand when it was spoken. I could read the Uzumaki script as well as anyone could, but speaking it was an entirely different matter. I began the dance with a lurch to the left. In my first life, I'd been a terrible dancer, and while I could scarcely claim to be a great one, I had far greater control of your body, and we had rehearsed this part for hours.
XXXXXX
Today, I become the Kyubi Jinchuriki, I thought to myself as I stared at the Kunai I'd marked with my complete Hiriashin. I could complain all I wanted about having so many Uzumakis hovering over me during the preparation process, but they had been helpful. Uncle Kaito, as he insisted I call him, had taken one look at my seal in progress and wacked me over the head before explaining seven different reasons why my seal was inefficient. It didn't even matter that I was working in a secret language— my sealing style was still based on the Uzumaki script and for some reason the damn geniuses could just puzzle out what I was trying to achieve with seconds of looking. 'They've been practicing for so long that they've forgotten more about Fuinjutsu than you've managed to cram in that thick head of yours', was how Grandmother Mito put it when I expressed my surprise.
They'd even solved the problem of needed a seal in negative space. For some reason, the Uzumaki clan had a seal for placing things in the space between dimensions. I didn't even want to know what sort of eldritch horror they'd created that needed such lengths to get rid of. Souta didn't know either. It was just something they had in the clan library. Either way, in a matter of days, I'd made more progress than I'd made in years of time (if you took my clones into account) on my own. It still wasn't perfect, of course. Completing the seal was only step one of using the jutsu. I just hoped that I wouldn't be forced to redo the whole thing because Kurama changed my chakra network so much that it would be necessary— Minato was proof that it wasn't necessarily the case, but we were becoming Jinchuriki through different means entirely.
"Shorirama-niisan" Kushina screamed as she entered the room. At least, it was a scream to me. To her, it was a perfectly reasonable tone. I picked up the girl and, planting her squarely on my shoulders, made my way out of the room.
"Grandma sent you to get me for breakfast, didn't she" I asked. She nodded vigorously, not caring that I shouldn't have been able to see her. The vibrations from her body gave me the gist as she pulled at my hair like I was some sort of horse she was riding.
"Faster, Shorirama-niisan" She cried.
I body flickered to the dining room and studiously studied Kushina as I took her off my shoulders to avoid Grandmother Mito's obviously disproving expression. Ninjutsu in the house was a big no-no. I heard her sigh, and felt safe to put a pouting Kushina back on the ground, ignoring her cries to go again.
"When you get your headband, you can body flicker all you want. I'll even teach you the jutsu" I said to her as I took a seat, spooning some potatoes on to my plate.
"Are you ready?" Mito asked.
"As I'll ever be. Are you?"
"I've kept him imprisoned for decades now. I think it's time to pass on the load" She said, even as I could tell that she looked apologetic about transferring it to me. I smiled, trying not to show any of the nervousness I'd felt. I'd examined the seals a hundred and one times already. The Nine-tails was going to be placed within my chakra network, but separate from it. It wouldn't have any access to my mind or my emotions unless I let it. But if I failed to build a good relationship with him, then I'd have to spend a solid quarter of my chakra reserves focused on keeping him suppressed. With any other tailed beast, the chakra requirements would be much lower— the same would have happened if I was a perfectly compatible host, like Kushina would have been. Instead, this was the Nine-tails, and I remained myself. It would be costly, potentially crippling, but what was life without risk?
—
Why did every step of this seem to require me to be naked? At least this time, as I laid on top of the stone tablet, a white piece of cloth had been laid over my waist to preserve my dignity. Thankfully, Grandmother Mito did not have to be naked for this. That sight would have scarred me for life, for sure. Annoyingly enough, both Hiruzen and Danzo were here.
He had insisted on witnessing the transfer with his own eyes, and the Uzumaki clan was not entrenched enough to say no to the Hokage without consequence. It was another humiliation I would make him pay for, in time. With my thoughts on Hiruzen, I never even noticed as the ritual began. We were in a massive sealing circle and there were close to a dozen Uzumaki around us weaving hand-signs and funneling their chakra into this procedure.
"Tailed Beast Transfer Jutsu: Activate" Uncle Kaito intoned, and the seal around us lit up, coming to life in a matter of seconds. It released power that flowed into Grandmother Mito first, lifting her up from the tablet. She grunted as it ran through her before stopping at her stomach. The next thing, a red lumpy beam of chakra was leaving her stomach, flowing into the air before driving into my own stomach where the empty seal that Kurama would inhabit stood. The chakra flowed into me and I didn't grunt like my grandmother did. No, I screamed. It felt like acid was being poured right into my veins— like I was drinking it, having it injected into me, and having it shoved into my arse all at the same time. It went without saying that it was a uniquely uncomfortable experience.
And then it lasted for an eternity. I had no idea when I fell unconscious, and I would refuse to believe Grandmother Mito's assertion that I'd only lasted two minutes before falling. I'd been conscious for at least an hour, I was sure.
XXXXXX
When I woke up, I was in a grassy field. I could tell that the grass went on for farther than the eye could see. I was naked, but that didn't seem to matter. Nothing seemed to matter to this place. I spotted a hill, and I just knew that I had to crest it. I took off on a run, and never even noticed when white robes appeared around my body, clothing and protecting me. My feet remained bare, but there were no stones in the grass, just lush and soft soil. I ran across, running over the hill and being presented with a beach.
A beach that cradled the clearest ocean I had ever seen. The water reflected the cloudless blue sky, and out by the ocean there was a woman. A familiar woman. This place again, I realised. I'd seen this woman before, and I knew exactly what she was and what she wanted now. I'd been thinking about it for so long that there was no chance I was wrong.
I ran down the hill, almost whooping as I felt the wind run through my hair, through my skin, through my very being. It felt good being here. I ran towards her, and this time she turned to me before I reached her.
"Who am I?" She asked.
"You are me" I responded instantly and the woman, black haired, and white eyed, pale as Otsutsuki, and more beautiful than any Hyuga smiled. It was a beautiful thing, her smile.
"And you have perverted us" She said before a hand reached out to me faster than I could react. She pushed me, and instead of falling into the ground I was standing on, I fell into water.
With a jolt, I forced myself back up, until I was standing atop the water again, and the grassy field was gone. Instead, I was in some sort of ocean cave. I jumped out of the water I was standing in and began to walk forward, moving deeper and deeper into the cave. I couldn't understand what sort of dream I was having anymore. First that woman, and now this. This place that felt familiar and yet alien at the same time. There was a red glow coming from the end of the cave, I realised, and I turned the last corner. It was massive. No, he was massive, I corrected. The anime had done nothing to sell his scale. He was easily as tall as a mountain, and his tails? Each of those tails seemed long enough to wrap around the world. His body was lean and muscular, and his claws were the size of fully grown men. They weren't even his most dangerous feature. That honour went to the teeth in his mouth. He let out a snarl on seeing me, and I as given a full view of those white death machines in their full glory. There was a line drawn across the ground of the cave that seemed to represent the seal that was dedicated to holding him down.
"Human" his voice was a deep baritone that made my bones shake.
"Tailed Beast" I returned with confidence I didn't really feel. If there was one thing I was thankful for, it was the fact that my mouth worked faster than my brain could comprehend.
"So this body is to be my prison" He said, looking around the cavern. He seemed calm, but I was not going to fall for that. Foxes were known for being tricky for a reason, and this one was the greatest fox of them all.
"It need not be a prison" I said.
"And then what else could it be" Dare I say, he sounded intrigued?
"It could be a home. A place where—" I had barely begun, turning my head to the side before he suddenly jumped into motion, covering the distance between us in seconds and then reaching with his claws to rend me in pieces. The seal took effect immediately he tried to attack me, and he was sent hurling back into the cavern's wall. That had taken a chunk of my chakra, I realised. Fuck. This seal was going to be even more crippling than I expected. I needed to work with him. I needed to create some measure of camaraderie here, and against my better judgement, there was only one idea that came to mind.
"You know ninshu right?" I called, but he had gone to sulking against the wall. What a big baby.
"Kurama!" I called out to him.
His head snapped to mine. Good I had his attention.
"How do you know that name?" He growled. And his anger as well, it seemed.
I just pointed my fist right up at him.
"Do you want to know, Kurama, eldest son of Hagoromo Otsutsuki? Then bump fists with me, and find out" I said. He stalked forwards, moving with grace that belied his massive size. I could see that he was clearly torn about something. Of course, he was. Ninshu was a two-way street. Once we bumped fists like this, then there was no going back for either of us. He would understand everything there was to know about me, and I would understand all that he was. There would be no lying to each other after today. My Grandfather had studied Ninshu as a way of realising his dream of peace, but the second he had found out that side effect, Granduncle Tobirama had taken one look at his work and told him to pack it up.
He was right to do so. The only reason I was even willing to do this was that Kurama was safely within my seal. No one would be getting to him easily, and if they did, then I had much bigger problems to think about. He must have thought the same because he smashed his fist into mine.
The seal forced his arm to slow as it approached me, turning what had been a deadly punch into a gentle fist bump. Our chakras connected, and just like Grandfather said, everything changed.
A/N: I got the inspiration for ninshu with Kurama from another piece of fan fiction, Pushing Through the Limit by Kir C. Yes, Jinchuriki Shorirama has become a thing. From Hiruzen's perspective, Shorirama is a loose canon and this ties him strongly to the village. It also gives the village an S-class defender in case things go wrong in the war. Yes, that does mean Hiruzen himself is going to be shipped out. We know that he and Onoki threw hands on multiple occasions, so this is my in-universe explanation. As for the Suna front, things have gone so well there that they can pull back. Konoha is fighting a defensive war on multiple fronts, and it won't be wise to start a costly offensive in the desert of all places while still fighting with Kumo and Iwa. This isn't the end of Shori's involvement in the war. Just the end of this stage of it. As always, the next three chapters are up on Patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/oghenevwogaga). If you just want to read complete chapters and not my work in real-time, then feel free to purchase this story as a collection on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/oghenevwogaga) page so you get to read each chapter after I finish it and not necessarily the daily updates available with a regular patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/oghenevwogaga) membership- nice way to support this story and me while you're at it. Enjoy! There's a cheeky 20% off to celebrate my birthday till the end of the month so take advantage of that while you can.