Senjutsu and Going Back

Author's Note

I am back. I spent so long not sure what I wanted to do with this story. Honestly, I couldn't find the energy to rewrite some of the earlier chapters to better expand on Hinata and Sasuke's relationship. In the end, I added a couple paragraphs to time skip to the Chunin Exam finals to show they interacted a lot. I'll probably go back later and develop it further.

--------------------------------------------------------------I opened my eyes, sitting up and letting the covers fall around my waist. Looking next to me, Hinata was still asleep, so I moved quietly to get out of bed and put my clothes on.

'Well that happened. Gotta love that perfect control of my blood flow.'

Moving into another room, I walked to a mirror and stood in front of it, looking at my eyes. Channeling chakra into them, they shifted into my base Sharingan with three tomoe. Continuing to channel chakra my eyes shifted, changing into the Mangekyo Sharingan.

Looking at the eyes I had gotten from killing Itachi, I felt a sense of relief. I finally felt free and these eyes were the representation of that freedom. Activating my storage seal, I pulled out Itachi's body. Not feeling an remorse, I removed his eyes and put them into two small jars I summoned.

Resealing Itachi's body, I formed a clone with extra chakra in it. The clone already knew what to do so I moved into the surgery room and laid down on the table. As my clone was about to put me to sleep, Hinata walked in, not having bothered to get dressed.

"You're doing the surgery without me?" She asked.

"I thought I'd let you sleep."

"Fair enough, just be careful." Hinata said.

Nodding my head, I laid back down and my clone used the jutsu to put me under.

Opening my eyes a little while later, I looked over the memories I had gotten from my clone. The surgery had gone perfectly with no complications. Hinata had left to get some more rest, so she wasn't waiting around while I was under.

My eyes felt odd for a second as they weren't originally part of my body. It took a second, but I could feel my control of my body assimilate and make the eyes completely mine. Returning to the mirror, I channeled chakra into my eyes once again. They quickly passed the base sharingan and shifted into my new Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. Looking at the pattern, it was a mixture of mine and Itachi's eyes.

When I activated the EMS I got the knowledge of the abilities it granted, which led to a surprise. It seemed that I had Amaterasu like I expected, but my other ability was Tsukuyomi instead of Kagutsuchi.

'Maybe it has to do with my control of my body making the eyes mine. It incorporated the abilities of Itachi's eyes into my own. I wonder what it will do to my Susanoo then.'

Unable to test Tsukuyomi, I instead tried using my other ability. "Amaterasu" I said and black flames erupted in my vision. As soon as they appeared my body began to get hot for the first time since I had underwent the surgery. The heat quickly went away and I felt like I normally did again.

'What the hell was that?'

Focusing on my hand, I shifted it into my fire form and found that the originally ordinary flames had now become Amaterasu flames. Shifting the rest of my body, I found myself completely composed of Amaterasu flames.

'Well this isn't bad at all. Water's not really a weakness for this form anyone since Amaterasu can burn on water.'

Shifting back to my normal form I extinguished the flames and made my way into the bedroom. Hinata was still asleep, but as I walked in she woke up and turned towards me.

"How did it go?" she asked.

"It went well besides a couple unexpected surprises. I got Itachi's ability to use Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu, but when I tried the flames they changed my fire form into Amaterasu flames."

"Well that's good then. You're a lot stronger now, I'll have to hurry and catch back up." Hinata said smirking.

"Ha, we'll see. We finished part of my goal, but there's one thing I want to do before we go to Konoha. I think it's time I finally visit the snakes." I said.

"So you're finally starting sage training then. I'll have to use that time to finish my own training then. It will be hard for you to leave so soon though."

"Well, there's no hurry. I can leave for the snakes in a few days." I said.

"Well that's perfect then, we can make the most of that time." Hinata said with a smile on her face.

--------------------------------------------------------------A week later

I appeared in a puff of smoke at Ryuchi Cave. Walking into the entrance of the cave, I continued further into it. I could hear slithering all around me as I walked deeper and deeper in. Eventually, the cave opened up into a wide room with a giant white snake wearing a turban.

"We have been waiting for you Sasuke. Ever since you first summoned us we have seen that your control of chakra is perfect. You have the potential to learn senjutsu, if you succeed is on you."

"I'm ready to learn." I said.

The snake sage slithered toward me and opened its mouth, showing its giant fangs.

"Prepare yourself to control the nature energy" the snake sage said and lunged down with its fangs towards my neck. I could see it coming, but I wasn't sure if it would be able to pierce my skin so I weakened the strength of my skin when it was about to make contact.

When the fangs entered my neck I felt a sudden surge of natural energy rush into my body. Once it was in my body it fell under my control, so I immediately began to control it. I filtered it throughout my body, balancing it so that no one place had too much natural chakra.

After some time the White Snake Sage stopped and removed it's fang from my neck.

"Good, now mix it with your chakra pool, balancing the levels of natural energy with your own chakra." she said.

Nodding my head, I drew all of the natural energy I had dispersed through my body back into my core, mixing it with my own chakra in perfect balance. Normally I would have trouble controlling the nature chakra, but my perfect control made it easy.

As soon as the two chakras were perfectly balanced, an ethereal cloak appeared around me. I was covered in a purple layer of chakra, with my eyes taking on a serpentine appearance. A horn formed in the middle of my head and snakes formed out of chakra began to circle my body before combining with the cloak.

Moving around and getting a feel for sage mode, I could feel the enhancements in my body. I had been strengthening my body for as long as I had been in this world and now it felt like I had pushed myself even further than before. I doubted very many things could even manage to pierce my skin. I had an awareness of my surroundings I could never achieve before. Every snake in the cave could be sensed by me now.

"You are the fastest person to ever have achieved sage mode in any of the summons. The record before you was Minato Namikaze, who achieved it in a week and a half." The White Snake Sage said.

"It feels great." I replied.

"Indeed, that is how it feels to be one with nature. Now try to disperse sage mode and absorb nature chakra on your own."

Nodding my head, I released the nature chakra from my body and sat down completely still. Now that I had felt the amount of nature chakra the White Snake Sage had injected me with, it was easy to sense all of the nature chakra around me. Drawing it into my body, it moved rapidly at first before truly entering me and falling under my control. I once again mixed it with my chakra pool, entering sage mode again.

Standing up, I could tell that with the amount of nature chakra I had gathered my sage mode would only last for a little while.

'Now I just need Jugo's kekkei genkai.'

"Thank you, I appreciate you teaching me." I said.

"All I had to do was inject you with natural energy, from there you did the rest. Go forth as the first Snake Sage in a long while."

I nodded my head and reverse summoned myself out of Ryuchi cave back to the base. Dispersing my sage mode I entered the main room where Hinata was practicing with her water control.

She looked up when I entered, turning towards me. "That was quick, you were gone all of what 2 hours."

"Yeah well, senjutsu is just chakra capacity and control and I've got both in spades."

"So is it time to head to Konoha then? I didn't manage to get much training in while you were gone." Hinata asked.

"We've got one thing to take care of before we leave. It's time to get those other kekkei genkai."

"Alright, let's get this over with. I'm kind of excited to see everyone again. I wonder how much Hanabi has changed, hopefully my father isn't pushing her too hard. She should be a little ways into the academy by now." Hinata said.

We made our way to the surgery room and undressed, laying down on the tables as I formed a couple of clones to perform the surgery on us.

Much like the last one, this went smoothly, but it would have to be the last one we did. The body could only handle so many genes being added before it became a chimera, warping your appearance. We both wanted to avoid that, so we were fine with stopping with two.

When we woke up, I could feel natural energy much easier and with just a thought it rushed into my body, instantly filling me up with enough for sage mode and causing me to enter it.

"Woah, that's a really pretty shade of purple." Hinata exclaimed.

"Yeah, I like it a lot too. How do you feel?" I asked.

"I feel great. I want to try the jutsu Orochimaru had." Hinata said jumping up.

"Maybe put some clothes on first." I remarked.

Hinata nodded and got on her clothes while I did the same. She then formed the hand signs for Swift Release: Shadowless Flight. Hinata blurred across the room, ramming straight into the wall.

Shaking off her disorientation, Hinata said "Alright that's going to take some getting used to."

"You want to spend a few more days here and practice?" I asked.

"No, I can practice on the road. Let's take one of the farther marks and enjoy the sights a little." Hinata.

Moving over, I took Hinata's hand and teleported us to a mark a little farther away from Konoha than my closest one.

We took a few days to walk to Konoha, which Hinata spent getting the feel for Swift release. The way swift release worked was rapid movement in short bursts, which was different that our base speed or my enhancement with the Lightning Cloak. She needed to practice a lot to get a feel for it and keep her awareness while she moved. The Byakugan helped as she could practice being aware in every direction, preventing the tunnel vision that could form from moving at that speed.

It wasn't long before we were walking along the main street to Konoha. When it came into view it was nostalgic looking at the towering Hokage tower in the distance.

"I'm so curious about how everyone has changed. Naruto and Sakura were pretty similar to how they were before we left. Do you think they're the same?" Hinata asked me.

"I think they'll still be the same people they were before. They probably just grew up, I mean I doubt Kiba or Shino are any different than they were."

"Yeah, those two don't seem like they would change all that much. Ino, Choji, and Shikamaru might be different though."

"If Shikamaru isn't the lazy bastard he always was then the world is probably ending." I remarked.

From there we made small talk as we closed the distance between us and what used to be our home.