31 Chapter 31: Hope

Tsunade could not help but be surprised by the sharingan that was in the place of Kenta's eyes.

Even the most monstrous of geniuses like Itachi, Shisui, and Sasuke, were not able to awaken the sharingan at the young age of 6.

So for Kenta to be able to do this made Tsunade think it was one of three reasons why he was never shown in the anime.

'Either he is a genius that died early due to the war, Danzo targeted him due to his potential and his sharingan, or he simply didn't receive the same emotional stimulus like I'm giving him now.' she guessed.

No matter the reason Kenta wasn't in the show, Tsunade now had to take Kenta a bit more seriously than before.

Kenta charged at Tsunade and immediately began to engage in taijutsu with her, while also constantly jumping back, attempting to use the smoke to conseal his movements since his sharingan could still see her.

Tsunade then decided to attempt a technique that she had never tried before. She had gained inspiration of the technique from a television show she saw in her past life.

She slipped off one of her sandals and began to channel chakra into her feet. Kenta did not know what she was trying to do, but he still decided to not give her the time to complete whatever she was planning.

He then used the steam as concealment as he yelled

"Fire Style: Fire Dragon Bullet!!"

This was the only other technique Kenta had learned from his father other than the Great Fireball Jutsu, before he died by a spy from Kumo who was attempting to flee Konoha.

This caused Kenta to begin to despise and blame himself as he saw it as the only way to deal with his grief. He constantly thought things like 'Why didn't I tell him to stay home that day?' or 'Why did I ask him to train me the night before. Maybe he was too tired while on duty and that caused him to be killed.'

These thoughts plagued Kenta as he was unable to figure out why he was not able to stop his father's death. This caused him to eventually see the Uchiha Clan as all he had left, since he felt like that was what his father may have viewed the clan in the same way. He was afraid he wouldn't live up to his father's name. So his plan was to follow in his father's footsteps and join the Uchiha Police Force after he graduated at the top of his class.

However, his plans were derailed as he lost his battle against Tsunade and felt completely outclassed by her. The reason why he wanted to fight her was not some ancient rivalry that needed to be continued by the two, but to prove to himself that he could still follow in his father's footsteps.

BOOM!!

The jutsu slammed into where Tsunade was and created a large amount of dust and smoke.

But just as Kenta's feet touched the ground inside the smoke, he was faced with Tsunade throwing a punch into his stomach which knocked him into the air.

Tsuande had completed her Jutsu when he first began to use his jutsu, with her only waiting on him to touch the ground again before she could accurately "see" his location.

The jutsu that Tsunade had created was based on Toph Beifong's "Seismic Sensing Technique", which sent vibrations through the ground to allow her to pick up on any movements that she felt. Although Tsunade accomplished this by sending miniscule amounts of chakra through the ground by using her chakra control and Earth Release.

But the technique had a large drawback due to the fact Tsuande had not begun to master her Earth Release, which made the technique highly limited to only being able to sense a small distance around her. But after Tsunade masters her Earth Release and unlocks the Kagura of the Minds Eye, her sensing capabilities may be able to cover at least the size of a Shinobi Village.

But the technique was still more than enough to pinpoint Kenta's location, which she promptly used to take him out.

The smoke finally cleared for Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Sakumo to see what had happened, with it revealing Tsunade standing over Kenta as he lay out on the ground.

"Why!! Why can't I do it? Why can't I beat you!! Why can't I follow in his footsteps?" Kenta said with tears beginning to come out of his eyes, though he said the last part loud enough to where only Tsunade could hear it.

"Would he want you to follow after him. I don't know who you're talking about, but I'm guessing they're gone. I don't know why you seem to blame yourself for them dying, but I can assure you they wouldn't want you to." Tsuande said while staring him in the eye.

Tsunade's words seemed to make Kenta infuriated as he got up and grabbed her shirt with the tears still dripping down his face "How do you know what my dad would want!! It's my fault that he's gone! If I had just-" Tsunade interrupted him in the middle of his sentence as she said

"Stopped him? Or something foolish like that? Your father sounds like the type of man who died for a cause he believed in. And while I don't know him, I know for a fact that he hates for you to become the type of person who drowns in his own sadness and blames himself for things he couldn't affect." Kenta then seemed to lose all light in his eyes as he sat onto the ground in front of her and asked

"Then what am I supposed to do now? I don't have a purpose."

Tsunade stared back at the boys black eyes as she said what could only be considered her truest thoughts "I don't know what to tell you to do since I don't even have a purpose myself. But I know one thing, I'm scared. Scared that I'll lose my home. Scared that I'll lose everything I care about. Scared that I won't be there for my family and friends when they need me. So I can't give you a purpose because I don't even know my own." Kenta seemed to lose the last flickers of light in his eyes as he heard that, however Tsunade's next sentence seemed to reawaken them.

"But I can give you a goal. Surpass me. Let me be your target. Let me be your endpoint. And I'll make sure you never reach it, so that we both continue to grow. To surpass your father. And we'll do it so we both don't have to be scared. So that we both can protect what we care about." 'And so we both can let go of the past.'

The last part went unsaid. Though Kenta seemed to be affected by the words as he looked at Tsunade with light once again becoming clear in his eyes as he began to smile at her.

Tsunade simply smiled back, hoping that she had helped someone not go through the same pain she once had too.

However what Tsunade didn't notice was the elderly looking man who was watching the entire event unfold a distance away from the training grounds.

"I think this is proof our clans were supposed to be friends. I don't think anyone could understand that more than us, Madara." Hashirama said with a sad smile adorning his face by the end as he stared into the sky.

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