Close call

Koharu entered the Uzumaki house stealthily, believing that Tsunade had managed to neutralize the two mothers. At her time, she was one of the best-skilled Kunoichi in the world, but since Sarutobi was a prodigy, he outshone her. However, for her, that wasn't a problem, since that way, she kept a low profile and would always have the surprise factor in her favor.

She walked through the corridors and felt a presence in the house's basement, so he reached the stairs and began to descend with remarkable stealth...

As she prepared to end the life of Tsunade's nephew, she knew however that, in the end, he was an Uzumaki.

After, there would only be Kushina left for Konoha, but she could arrange a marriage for her to have another possible container for the Bijuu in the future.

When she finished going down the stairs, but was surprised to find the boy folding his arms and staring at her.

"Wow, so the ability to feel emotions didn't come from Mito-sama but from you, Kyuubi..." The old woman smiled softly.

"What are you talking about?" The prince said as he hardened his gaze.

"I'm surprised you didn't act before when Tsunade took the boy's mothers away.."

Koharu said as she watched the Uzumaki carefully, believing the fox had completely taken over his consciousness.

"Anyway, today, you'll die. I hope you're ready…"

The older woman took out from among her clothes a Kunai with a handle slightly longer than a normal one.

"You don't scare me…"

Menma spoke but found he could only dodge the slash that the woman launched at chest height thanks to his Sharingan, which was activated practically by instinct. However, the black shirt he was wearing did not have the same luck, and he soon manifested a cut that left the boy's chest partially exposed.

"For an old hag, her speed is surprising..." The prince thought analytically, looking carefully at his enemy.

"I didn't think you could avoid me…"

The older woman spoke as she threw herself forward again.

"But you're not going to save yourself!"

Again the boy had trouble dodging the woman, but in the end, he could do it and avoid a bigger problem. However, the woman continued to attack insistently all over the place, surprising the prince with her ferocity and that alarming speed for a person her age.

"Are you surprised by my ability, Kyuubi?"

The woman smiled confidently when, after launching a lunge that the boy dodged, she launched a kick that sent him crashing into a wall of the room, falling to the ground seconds later

"Damn..." The Uzumaki Prince murmured, slowly getting to his feet.

"I may be old, but at the time, I was the best Kunoichi in the world"

Koharu said as she looked at the boy with contempt.

"Taijutsu, Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, Fuinjutsu, Kenjutsu... There is no Ninja art that I could not master…"

"She's strong…"

Menma thought to himself seriously.

"Well then, it's time to show you my ability…"

The woman performed a sequence of extremely fast hand seals

"Katon: Ryugamu (Fire Element: Dragon Bite)!"

The old woman's hands were surrounded by intense Katon Chakra, and she again launched herself toward the boy, who transformed his Sharingan into a Byakugan. Koharu tried to throw a burning grab at the boy and managed to grab his right arm, causing Menma to try and suppress a pained expression.

Using his Tenketsu to expel Chakra from his body, Menma quickly freed himself.

"He went from the Sharingan to the Byakugan in seconds…."

The old woman thought suspicious.

"I've never seen anything like this before."

She coldly focused on Menma.

"What the hell are you?:

"If you beat me, maybe then I'll tell you…"

Menma spoke as a bone stake emerged from the palm of his left hand.

"Very well, I hope you don't die before that…"

The two rushed forward, and during the short distance that separated them, the older woman pulled another Kunai from between her clothes that she imbued with Chakra quickly, ready to finish off the child.

Menma, seeing her rush forward, circled around to impale the woman in the back.

"Nikkou no Jutsu (Sunlight Technique)...!"

To Menma's surprise, the woman gave off an extremely bright glow from her entire body, which left him totally blind due to the increased vision of his Byakugan.

"What the hell…!"

He thought as he launched his attack practically blindly.

When he regained his sight, he was stunned...

His right arm was on the ground, severed at the midpoint between the elbow and the shoulder. He grimaced in a fury and yelled at the ceiling as he grabbed the remaining bloody stump.

The woman, even though she had her right shoulder impaled by the stake and had lost movement, was fine.

When the fight was done her shoulder could be healed with Medical Ninjutsu.

"Ha... I wanted to cut you in two… Was the cut shallow?" (Guess the quote)

The older woman said as she stood up with difficulty seeing the child at her feet.

"Although, in the end, you're just a beast…" She slowly approached the boy, ready to decapitate him with the blood-stained Kunai she held in her functional hand.

"Well then... Anything to say before I kill you?"

Koharu said as she went to give him a free blow to the base of the neck.

"Now…!"

The furious prince yelled in the direction of the entrance.

The Kunoichi turned around only to find a large amount of chloroform-soaked sheets of paper, which soon went to her nose, mouth, and eyes.

She immediately identified the smell of the chemical and tried to remove the papers from her face, but unable to see, she could not avoid the powerful chains that quickly captured her arms and legs...

The last thing she could feel before losing consciousness was a brutal punch at the base of her spine that sent her crashing against one of the place's walls, which gave way easily to the force of the blow.

"Master!"

The three women approached with visible concern.

"Are you alright?!" They asked in chorus.

"Don't ask stupid questions…"

The boy said in a harsh tone as he struggled to contain the blind rage that threatened to invade him.

"S-Sorry…"

The Kunoichi muttered fearfully as Menma turned around to see the severely injured Koharu.

'I could have died…'

The future patriarch of the Uzumaki began to reflect as he gritted his teeth.

'I was this close to dying! The fact that my attack went through her shoulder and prevented her from cutting my body in half was a mere coincidence. I launched the attack desperately while blind in the middle of that light…'

He closed his eyes to try to calm down.

'Since that day I killed those second-rate Ninja, I thought I wouldn't have any problems until many years later…'

He began to breathe deeply through his mouth as he watched Koharul tremble slightly.

'I let overconfidence blind me, which could have cost me my life... Everything could have gone to waste!'

He clenched his fist in rage.

'Now I understand the truth about deception… Going through Tsunade's memories in detail, I thought that this woman was an ordinary Ninja….'

Menma sighed as he decided to focus on the future.

"Get over here and heal me…"

Menma said through strained breaths.

"Yes, master!"

The two slaves placed their hands onMenma's chest and soon began to transfer their energy to him as Tsunade began to heal him.

Menma immediately felt his strength return to his body slowly.

"What do we do now, master?" Kushina asked expectantly.

"Have you already brought the woman I told you about?"

The Uzumaki Heir questioned with growing calm.

"Yes, a woman five years older than us, Yuzu Sakaki, is in the living room. She is completely asleep," Konan answered softly.

"Very well… Bring her."

—---------

Little by little, Koharu regained consciousness...

She felt sore from the blow received and slowly opened her eyes suspiciously. She immediately realized that she was chained so that her arms were tied over her head, dangling from the ceiling, and she was suspended several feet from the ground.

"Tsunade!"

The Kunoichi shouted angrily.

"Where are you, disgusting alcoholic?!"

As she shouted, she became surprised.

Her voice was no longer raspy but was melodious, just as she remembered it from when she was young. She lowered her gaze and was surprised that her breasts no longer sagged and were now firm. She grew increasingly confused, noting that she wore the same outfit as her youth, and her throat tightened at the signs that her body had visibly changed.

"I see you're awake…" Menma said as he stood in front of her.

"What did you do to me, damn Kyuubi?!"

The woman faced the young prince.

"I simply returned your body to its biological age of 29 years…"

"What?!"

The woman was visibly puzzled.

"Surprised?"

The Uzumaki Prince smiled darkly.

"I think the change suited you well…"

The council member was really beautiful. Her now brown hair had come loose from one part of her hairstyle, leaving a side fringe that covered part of her forehead, and something that stood out from her delicate features was her full lips and generous body proportions close to Tsunade herself.

"How did you do it, damn fox?!"

The Kunoichi bellowed angrily.

"Let's clarify something…"

Menma spoke as the smile disappeared from his face.

"The Kyuubi is here…"

He said as he placed his right hand on his chest.

"As right now, she's no freer than you…"

"What do you mean?"

Koharu murmured in bewilderment.

"I am Menma Uzumaki, and I have been all this time…"

"And then how the hell did you do this to me?!"

'I don't think you know about it, but I used a Shikijutsu to exchange your biological age with that of a poor wretch whose name I don't even remember…"

Menma replied mockingly.

"That's why we exterminated that clan of yours!"

She said she faced the boy furiously.

"Your horrendous Shikijutsu play with the laws of nature!"

"Wow... I didn't expect that…"

Menma said thoughtfully.

"So it was because of the Shikijutsu that exterminated the clan?"

"That's right."

Koharu spoke as she tried to regain her calm.

"The Uzumaki was a danger to the Ninja World since they could use Shikijutsu and their Fuinjutsu to cross the barriers of reality."

She then hardened her gaze.

"Now I understand several things…With the Sharingan, you surely brainwashed your mother, the foreigner, and the alcoholic."

"Wow, you're a smart, old lady."

The boy smiled mockingly.

"But you're only partly right…"

"What do you mean?"

The woman fixed her gaze on the boy.

"Why explain it to you if I can show you?"

Koharu realized her mistake when the blue eyes became the Uchiha's Doujutsu.

"N-No…"

She immediately got caught in Uzumaki's pupil power, and her gaze clouded. Unprepared and with her chakra previously blocked with the power of the Byakugan when unconscious, she was easy prey for the young prince and his powerful eyes...

He entered the woman's mind almost instantly and quickly accessed her memories.

"Who would have thought that you have a heart…"

A solitary tear slipped from the right cheek of a defenseless Koharu whose privacy was violated. Secrets that she had never revealed to anyone being pried apart.

"One so fragile…"

Menma gave a wicked laugh as he looked at her distraught expression.

----------

"Thank you very much for the food…!"

The deadline had expired, and finally, the talented and renowned Medical Kunoichi Shizune, a beautiful woman with black hair, somewhat thin but extremely tender and friendly, had arrived in Konoha to meet her mentor.

She had a hard time avoiding her teacher's creditors, but she was able to get it, and now free, she set out to reach the village. At first, she went to the house where Kushina and Konan lived, but like Tsunade, she soon realized that the place was uninhabited, and it took her a while to search, but she ended up finding the new house.

He was already eating a delicious bowl of ramen with the whole family.

Shizune was happy seeing that, as Tsunade was, in turn, happy to be around the black-haired boy, who was Minato's son.

Minato, a boy she treated as if he were her son ever since she remembered when they were visiting Konoha. She could tell that she was fond of the little one because she carried him on her legs and allowed herself to be hugged possessively by him.

Then all of a sudden, she yawned.

"I'm sorry…"

She smiled, embarrassed when she felt that all eyes were on her.

"It's just that the trip has been long, and the ramen has been delicious, Kushina-kun."

She said as she yawned again

"It's because my ramen is special…"

Kushina said as she also made the gesture.

"And it also makes me sleepy…"

"Maybe we haven't slept well, with the strange disappearances that have occurred lately…"

Konan added, rubbing her eyes as well.

"Auntie…"

Menma turned to see the voluptuous Sannin

"Are you going to sleep too?"

"I think so, honey…"

Tsunade said, looking more asleep than awake

"If you don't mind, I'll rest for a moment…"

Shamelessly, Shizune leaned on the table and fell fast asleep.

"So am I…"

Konan said as she rested her head on the table and let herself be overcome by sleep.

"Good night…"

Kushina fell face down next to her bowl of ramen.

The Sannin fell asleep leaning back in her chair, while Menma then watched as the plan to trap Shizune by poisoning her with a powerful sedative hidden in the food succeeded.

With the poison being supervised by Tsunade so that it was undetectable, Shizune could not find any traces.

After the matter with Koharu Utatane, he would never trust himself again under any circumstances or in any scenario, no matter how favorable it was.

That was the value of learning from past mistakes.

And the most sensitive people in the world had an intense chill at that moment…