33 Naruto : Domination: Chapter 33

( 05 June - 8 years AK )

We went away from Iwa as quietly as the Hokage had appeared. We crossed the stone doors and started running, the Hokage and the Anbu group setting the pace.

From the direction we took, I believed we would be crossing Taki's borders before reaching Hi no Kuni.

I let the steady run led me into a lull, I had to take a soldier pill, but it was a comfortable pace.

I let my mind fade back to recent events.

Once I felt that the currents outside my safety whirpool were no longer lethal I let my Ashura form vanish and, riding the current and manipulating it so that it would bring me upwards, I had reached the surface.

When I climbed to the surface of the water, I stood on unsteady legs. That jutsu was bulshittingly chakra intensive, wonderful chakra control or not.

I amusedly took notice of the fact that the water stood at level with the second rows of spectators. The drains placed underground were likely working far beyond their capacity.

The crowd stood silent until the referee jumped into the arena, looking through the murky waters to be sure that the disappearance of her chakra matched the death of the kunoichi.

When he declared me the victor, the crowd roared its approval, my disgust climbing higher and higher with each second.

The following hours had been a flurry of events I really didn't keep track of, I only distinctly remembered stealing Shin's jug and tossing down a few gulps of sake. But only after some noble from the capital of Hi no Kuni offered me a place among the twelve fire guardians coming December, since Sarutobi Asuma was returning to Konoha.

I had been bewildered, but the man had explained that I would be trained by the others and that it was an open offer, I didn't have to answer immediately.

I didn't have the time to be surprised, since I had to deal with the congratulations of people I actively disliked, and I had to force myself to not assault Tsume, who had thanked me for having avenged her daughter.

Like the dead cared about what happened to their murderers.

I had closed myself off, being respectful towards the Hokage and my 'sensei'. Thankfully, Jiraya had already left. I wasn't sure I could hold myself back against him. We picked up the Haimaru brothers from a training ground, where they had been howling their grief to the sunny afternoon.

I had less than six months to decide about the offer from the Daiymo's court. But the more I thought about it the more I liked it. The only thing I felt looking at Shin was grief, it was like looking at an incomplete puzzle. The missing piece was obvious.

And the further I stood from Guy, the better.

...

( 12 September- 8 AK )

I signed in my report on the successful D-rank I had just performed and pocketed the slip of paper with my authorized payment on it.

I left the tower with a skip in my step, it was half-past nine, and I had the rest of my day free.

I hopped to the bank, where I made a withdrawal and roamed for a while in the market district.

It was a good day. The air, while crossed by the occasional breeze, was still warm, and the sky had finally cleared up after the raining week we had just had.

I entered the shops of a couple of artisans, taking my orders away with me, and flickered over to the Uchiha's compound.

I went to my yurt on the Uchiha' grounds and dropped most of my stuff, before heading outside and walking over to the vegetable garden I had set up in June.

I paid rent to Sasuke in the form of tomatoes. That kid would kill for a tomato.

I had been unwelcome for the first weeks since my return, but the things obviously started to change when I dropped a tip here and there when I saw Sasuke training.

In July I had even accepted to spar with him, correcting his form. Not that there was much to correct, but hazing was awesome. There was simply something thrilling in making him feel stupid for throwing a kunai with his whole arm instead than with a twitch of the wrist.

My routine quickly became: D-rank in the morning, then free time until Sasuke returned to train.

Well, free time meant that I did my own training, I performed the less intensive ones directly on the dead clan grounds, but I booked a different training ground each week to experiment.

I had left alone my ninjutsu, I knew that after my display in Iwa I was more than likely kept under surveillance, and the less I used the Saku Kōzui, the better.

So I went back to refining my chakra control and kept up working with the gates.

That generally meant that I was always aching in a way or another.

The good news was that my chakra capacity was growing much faster than its natural maturation would have made me believe.

I had already accepted the offer of the Twelve Guardians. For several reasons.

First and foremost, I disliked being kept under constant watch. I had no proof it was happening, but I strongly suspected it.

Two, Might Guy had stopped actually teaching a couple of years before, and working side to side with the other eleven Jonins meant that I would be able to pick up things in one way or another.

Three, with the death of Hana, I had chosen to turn the world into a civilized place, and in the capital I would undoubtedly have more freedom of movement to do what I deemed necessary.

Four, I kept feeling Hana's absence, Shin had started running messages across the border and the Haimaru brothers were back on the Inuzuka compound, working with Tsume in the Tracking squads. And I knew, I knew it wasn't Guy's fault, but I blamed him nonetheless.

I unsealed the windows I had purchased and got to work.

If there is one thing ninjas can always be very good at, is working quickly.

In three hours, I had set up a greenhouse around the vegetable garden. It was 12meters on the long side and 10 on the short one. It had cost me around half of my savings, but my evil plan to transform Sasuke into a sane human needed it.

I went back to the yurt, smirking at the memory of Sasuke's indignant splutter when he noticed the thing I had built.

Well, I couldn't live in a tent for six months, could I?

Another big chunk of my money went into food supplies. But not common ones.

Three weeks before, a caravan had made its way into Konoha, carrying olive oil from the southern regions of Kiri, and more importantly wheat flour.

I had questioned the merchant but he had refused to tell me where he had purchased it. Bastard.

Still, I purchased fifty kilos of wheat flour and sealed it away. These people had no idea of the good foods one could produce with it. If I were free to do so, I would have followed the caravan once it left the village.

I had no idea wheat existed in that world.

I more or less lawfully had managed to get my hands on some brewer's yeast.

At least these people had cows.

I had purchased two young calves and butchered them earlier in the week.

I then sliced into small pieces the dried and cleaned stomachs of the young calves, before putting it into salt water together with some wine, to lower the PH of the solution.

After several days, I had filtered the resulting solution. Finally, I had used the crude rennet that remained in the filtered solution to coagulate milk, at least I didn't have to milk a cow, I had been able to simply purchase it. About 1g of this solution coagulated up to 3 liters of milk. I had created cheese.

I had few kilograms of fresh cheese resting in my yurt, while I had sealed away all that risked going spoilt. Storage scrolls were just awesome that way. For the things you stuffed into them, time stopped moving.

It worked only with stuff that didn't have chakra. Yeast and organic matter of every kind likely contained senchakra, but for some reason it didn't interfere with the fuinjutsu. I really hoped that one of the guardians could show me the ropes in the capital.

And for those smart enough, yes, I was going to introduce pizza into a world of heathens.

I felt like I had downloaded the smurfs' village app and was building my way up from the ground.

The mind-blowing paradoxes of the narutoverse never ceased to surprise, they had milk, but not cheese, seriously what the fuck?

They knew enough to build X-ray machines, but nobody ever played with nuclear energy?

They had warships, but not even one little plane?

Well, necessity was always the great inspiration, with chakra and its applications around I was bound to cross a few inconsistencies.

The cheese had been spread by the roman empire mostly because it could last long before going spoilt, but in a world where storage scrolls allowed to freeze food in time...

It even explained how we managed to eat fresh salt water fish every day.

The worldwide economy was still a mystery waiting to be unraveled.

Their world had clearly crossed a form of the industrial revolution, there were TVs, and if I remembered correctly even video meetings and movies.

Yet, from what I understood, each village had its own private network.

When I finished patting myself on the shoder and finished munching over how strange the world was, I went back into my yurt and unsealed the second custom made the order I made.

It was a stringless guitar (I didn't want the carpenter to be able to reproduce it whenever he wanted after all).

From my pocket, I extracted two music wires made of iron and two composed of steel.

The blacksmith had been skeptical when I had made my specifications, but he was specialized in ninja wire, and I had paid handsomely, so he respected my request.

The pain had been to strike a balance between increasing the tension of the wires (which required wire of greater tensile strength or a larger diameter) and achieving a good tone quality (which required a small string diameter). We worked together on it for the better part of a month, but we realized it.

I tied the strings in their rightful place and tried a couple of tabs.

The sound was smoother than I remembered.

Say what you want about the uncultured barbarians of the elemental nations, but the carpenter of the fire nations are worth their salt.

The elemental nations made use of flutes drums and shamisens, but they would be in for a revolution on every single front.

I sad thing I had realized far too late was that with his enhanced reflexes, a ninja had a very easy time learning how to play the guitar.

Or at least, I had taken only a couple of hours to familiarize myself with the guitar and in less than a day I was able to perform the songs I had learned in my first life without too many issues.

Sometimes I went too fast, but correcting myself took little effort since I had control and awareness over my own body that simply would be impossible without chakra.

...

( 28 November- 8years AK )

I perched myself on a tree in the Uchiha's compound, my ear easily picking up the source of the music. I watched into the window, finding him easily.

He had been smart, leaving a piece of cloth between the strings and the gut of the guitar, so that he had effectively lowered the volume.

But he was holding one of the only two guitars in the world, so it was difficult to miss.

Tricking Sasule into picking up playing the guitar had required a week of exasperation.

In the end, I promised him to spar once every week, if he started playing the guitar.

I had shown him the ropes, and for his young body, the extreme speed and truly superhuman reflexes ninjas were equipped with were still a work in progress, so whatever he had learned he had earned through hard work.

It made him some good. Being a prodigy only at learning how to kill people would mess up the brain of anyone. It was good that he had a part of his life that wasn't dedicated to death.

Sure, he started playing only because he would earn himself a spar against me if he displayed sufficient improvement, but I took what I could.

The kid needed a shrink, not to be forced to work through his feelings with music.

Still I was almost pissing myself with laughter when I recognized 'Nothing else matters' by the Metallica.

He still had an easier time than any civilian kid, harsh training since one could walk would do that to anyone.

I kept myself hidden, and after a while the song was lost into a movement that Sasuke was creating on a whim.

I spotted a tear trailing down his cheek, and relief hit me like an avalanche. My absurd half-assed plan worked!

He wasn't repressing! Yahoo! I left as quietly as I came, going back into my yurt, in a couple of days I would be leaving for the capital.

...

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