38 [Revelation]

As the day soon turned to evening, Sasuke and Karin finished their training and began to head back home. 

After they had arrived home they made some dinner for themselves together.

As they sat at the dinner table after eating their meal, Sasuke summoned a shadow clone and had it fetch something from his room.

"What are you trying to get?"

Karin leaned forward from the table and asked Sasuke, confused about what he was trying to get.

"Just a book..."

Sasuke replied in a slightly distracted tone.

Soon the shadow clone returned grasping a tattered, black book in his hand. As the clone handed the book to Karin it promptly dispersed itself.

"A book?"

Karin's words were filled with incomprehension as she didn't understand why Sasuke would give her such a tattered old book.

'Surely this can't be a gift?

I mean if it is...

Do I have to pretend that I like it so he doesn't feel too bad...?'

Whilst she was lost in her thoughts, Sasuke's words soon distracted her.

"Try to read the contents of the book."

Sasuke propped his chin onto both of his palms, watching on in anticipation as he hoped that at least Karin would be able to find something in the book.

Though a bit lost, Karin listened to Sasuke and opened up the book as she gazed at its contents her face soon morphing into utmost confusion as she kept reading.

"What language is this...?"

Karin asked Sasuke, confusion etched onto her face as she wondered if he was making fun of her by handing her this illegible book.

'So she can read it...'

Sasuke almost couldn't contain his surprise as he had checked with several people over the years to see if they could read something from this but most of them thought he was just joking as they found the pages to be empty.

"It's Fuinjutsu..."

The two began to discuss the contents of the book. However, much to Sasuke's disappointment he found that they saw the same content in the book.

'I was probably thinking a bit too much...

At least I can confirm that this book should have something to do with the Uzumaki's...'

Before Sasuke could ask Karin to return the book and have both of them head to bed, an idea soon began to sprout in his mind.

"Karin..."

Sasuke muttered Karin's name suddenly, arresting her attention from the book.

"Right here! Anything wrong?"

Karin jokingly raised her hand as she looked at Sasuke, trying to figure out what he was thinking now.

"This may sound a bit strange...

But could you drop a bit of your blood onto that book"

Sasuke asked, slightly worried about scaring Karin with his words but her reply soon surprised Sasuke.

This experiment was something Sasuke had done previously with the book with his blood, honestly, he blamed the excessive cultivation novels that Ren had read.

"That's it?"

Without any hesitation, Karin brought her thumb to her mouth and bit into it.

She then brought her bloody thumb into contact with the book which seemingly gave no response from this.

Sasuke sighed in disappointment, he shouldn't expected anything from this.

'I mean this is Naruto and not some sort of Xianxia...'

He walked over to Karin who had placed the book on the table and held her hand as he began to use his newly learned Mystical Healing Palm to heal her wound.

Normally an A-Rank Jutsu would take much longer to learn, but Sasuke with his high chakra control and a cheat code in the form of shadow clones could learn it much faster than others.

'Hmm, my technique does seem to be rather weak for now.

It is much slower than I had expected, but it should improve with practice.

At least it should suffice for this minor injury.'

Whilst Sasuke had his thoughts wander, Karin wasn't any different.

'He held my hand...

HE! HELD! MY! HAND!'

As Karin was internally screaming to herself, she glimpsed at something behind Sasuke.

"Hey, Sasuke?

Is that book meant to be doing that...?"

Karin caught Sasuke's attention with her words and used her uninjured arm to point towards the book that was resting on the table.

Sasuke turned around and the book soon reflected itself in his onyx-black eyes.

The previously unassuming black book, though still tattered soon began to glow with a soft golden light as its physical appearance began to change.

Once this strange situation ceased, the book appeared before their eyes but this time it took on a vastly different appearance.

The previous book had a plain black cover with only the eight-pointed sun ray adorning it, but now several intricate golden markings stretched across the cover of the book.

Most importantly, the previous sun ray was replaced by a golden palm that had a strange symbol at its centre.

'A Rinnegan?'

Sasuke realised what this thing in the centre of the palm was, but that only served to make him feel rather confused.

However, he remembered that in the Boruto series, there was a member of the Otsutsuki main branch had a Rinnegan on his palm.

'Could that be a trait for the main branch Otsutsuki?'

Despite being a bit unnerved, Sasuke gave the nervous Karin a head pat and grasped the book in his hand as he gently opened it.

The contents on the first page itself have already been changed.

'The Hand Of God:

For Truth

For Power

For Godhood'

'Hand of God...?'

Sasuke's eyes gleamed as he realised that this was most likely the name of this anomalous Otsutsuki influence that had haunted him for so long.

It also confirmed something that Sasuke wasn't exactly happy about.

 'So it isn't Kara...

And two different secret Otsutsuki organisations shouldn't exist together like this behind the scenes.

So has one of them disappeared?'

If this group is the one behind that lab, likely, they should no longer be active.

Those Zetsu were probably left there many years ago and forgotten about, which indicates that this organisation was busy with something at that time.

With every fibre of his being, Sasuke wished that it was this Hand Of God group that disappeared as that would mean he wouldn't have to confront something unknown.

However, the fact they seem to not have existed in Sasuke's memory of the anime worried him.

Maybe Kara doesn't exist in this world?

But that brought even more questions to Sasuke as he realised if Kara didn't exist then perhaps Isshiki in turn probably wasn't in this world.

Sasuke didn't think Isshiki would change the name of his organisation, as there seemed to be no reason for such a thing.

'Perhaps the anomalies in this world may have begun during the time Kaguya and Isshiki arrived at this world...'

Then there was the organisation's motto which didn't exactly feel comforting to Sasuke.

'Their goal is...

Godhood?'

The aim of this unknown organisation couldn't have been clearer, the motto and the lab report both point to them trying to create a God.

'The real question is...

Did they succeed?'

The report for Subject #293 suddenly appeared in his mind.

What had happened to him?

Is he still 'alive' today?

If so in what form?

Sasuke attempted to clear his mind from these distracting thoughts he kept reading the contents of the next page.

'For my future descendants that are reading this.

I will tell you the history of our illustrious clan.

Allowing for you to understand our past and use it to craft your future...

This book you are reading is merely a copy.

A copy produced by the greatest Fuinjutsu masters of the Uzumaki clan.

The original book was found by us centuries ago and showed us how to use these strange symbols as a medium for chakra.

It was from an unknown organisation that we had never heard of.

Though initially wary of the strange book, we soon hoped to use it as a means of protection in this cruel world.

And we succeeded.

Through this book alone we the Uzumaki developed into a powerful ninja clan.

However, we weren't satisfied with merely this alone.

We searched the ninja world for more books like this and the presence of this organisation in an attempt to further our strength.

What we found was...

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

It was as if this group just disappeared from the world all of a sudden.

Even stranger was how many of our clan members silently disappeared during this search.

Soon after, we abandoned the search and used our knowledge of these symbols to decipher the rest of the book's contents in more detail.

After deciphering most of the book we learned to apply these new 'seals' into practice and grew even stronger.

We were so strong that even the Senju and Uchiha were wary of our power.

As more of our clan members grew in spiritual strength and as we used our powers more often in the world- we attracted the attention someone.

No.

Something.

It was a strange apparition that began to haunt us.

During our dreams, 'it' began to appear.

Initially, this entity would just stand motionless, but would soon be able to move around the dream world.

Soon after reaching this point, the victim would end up dying.

Their bodies may seem perfectly fine, but it was as if their souls had vanished.

Worried about having the same fate befall us, we sought to communicate with this creature.

This thing...

This God?

We learned it needed one thing and one thing alone- souls.

Realising this, we began to create seals based around it and used these seals to target our foes.

To allow for this creature to recognise us we even developed strange masks to wear when we communicated with it.

For this God, we simply called it the...

Shinigami'