"Now everyone knows you're Tōka and Hōkaku's daughter!"
The news struck Shingetsu like a bolt from the blue. Her spoon clattered into her bowl, and she let out an involuntary cry.
"What?!!!"
At the thought that her deadly, complicated parentage-a ticking time bomb-had now been exposed for everyone to see, Shingetsu's vision went dark.
Wonderful. Now she was bound to get dragged into the endless overt and covert struggles between the two clans. She might even become the center of it all!
No, considering she had been unconscious for nearly a month, she was probably already mired in that swamp of tangled disputes. Never mind anything else; the Senju Clan knowing she had awakened Wood Release was enough of a headache on its own.
The Senju Clan's obsession with Wood Release had long since reached the point of madness. Almost everyone in Konoha, and even the shinobi world at large, agreed on that.
Some Uchiha elders who had spent practically their entire lives opposing the Senju Clan even turned their old rivals' unsavory experiments into horror stories, specifically to frighten children like her. Once they had the little brats screaming, they would burst out laughing themselves. They really were shameless.
Having grown up listening to those Senju Ghost Stories, Shingetsu went pale and stared blankly whenever she imagined the Senju Clan directing all that madness at her.
Waaah, I'm going to stay home forever and never go outside...
Too miserable even to cry, Shingetsu stopped eating her porridge. She pouted and fretted over her future, which seemed more uncertain and hopeless the longer she thought about it. In the end, she simply slumped over the table to escape reality.
"Hehe, Shingetsu, you ought to call us your uncles."
Hashirama Senju, who had remained in Shingetsu's yard and effortlessly dodged the Uchiha's storm of attacks, leaned over with a smile to add that remark. Then he looked at the dejected Shingetsu inside the house, his eyes shining.
Clearly, he was looking forward to it.
But Shingetsu, already thoroughly depressed, wanted nothing to do with him. She silently turned her head, ignored his remark, and stared off elsewhere.
Beside Hashirama, Tobirama Senju had nearly had his face ruined by a kick from Madara. He had already given up resisting and was slinking out of the yard with a hand over his injured nose. At Hashirama's words, he immediately broke into a sprint, terrified that Madara's wrath would catch him too.
"Hashirama!"
Madara Uchiha flew into a rage. Even if Hashirama was his closest friend, he disliked him getting too close to Shingetsu. Claiming kinship to take advantage was absolutely beyond what he would tolerate!
Still, blood ties within large clans were tangled to begin with. He and Shingetsu could technically be considered relatives too. If they really traced things back, she could call him her uncle as well.
Family seniority really was a remarkable thing.
"Get out already!"
"Madara, at least let us take that pot of fruit."
Dodging another attack from Madara Uchiha, Hashirama pointed at the potted plant on the balcony, its lush growth visibly abnormal. Tobirama Senju, who had been about to flee using the Flying Thunder God Technique, stopped and followed his brother's finger with his gaze.
"Is that... Wood Release?"
Looking at the strange fruit he had never seen before, Tobirama widened his eyes in surprise. Even though he had already guessed it was a product of Wood Release, his heartbeat still became inexplicably erratic.
Incredible. To his senses, it was clearly just an ordinary plant!
After years of dealing with Hashirama's Wood Release, he noticed the unique qualities of Shingetsu's version almost instinctively. In an instant, his thirst for knowledge blazed to life.
"Shingetsu grew that fruit with Wood Release. Take it back and examine it. That's all right, isn't it, Madara?"
"Take it and get out!"
In the end, with Madara's permission, the Senju brothers promptly carried off the entire potted plant.
Now down one potted plant, Shingetsu watched the two disappear from view. But soon, two more sets of hurried footsteps were rapidly approaching. Light yet urgent, they betrayed their owners' anxious hearts.
For shinobi, who placed immense importance on concealing their movements, this was actually extremely rare. With senses far sharper than an ordinary person's, even the faintest footstep sounded unbearably loud to them.
A figure moved almost too quickly to see, crossed the courtyard, and flew to Shingetsu's side, pulling her into a fierce embrace. Caught off guard by the tight hug, Shingetsu pressed her face against the newcomer's shoulder and felt her warm chest heaving rapidly.
"Mom?"
Tōka clenched her teeth and said nothing, looking down silently at Shingetsu with eyes already brimming with tears. At that call, they spilled out like water rushing through a long-closed floodgate.
Her cheek soon pressed against Shingetsu's as well, carrying a familiar scent she had dearly missed. The warmth was like spring water washing over her chest, soothing Shingetsu's tense heart and letting her quietly savor this happiness.
His black clan robe stained with large patches of blood, Hōkaku stood silently in the yard, gazing in a daze at the embracing mother and daughter. He had only just finished fighting members of the Senju Clan.
For the past month, he had been in agony almost day and night. Both the unconscious Shingetsu and the Senju Clan spying on them around the clock had tormented him.
Unable to wake his daughter, he could only pick up his weapons and thrash those with ill intentions. Whether they served the Senju or the Daimyō, he treated them as punching bags for his anger and anguish, venting the boundless hatred and pain in his chest.
Those days spent drifting between bloodshed and loneliness had nearly suffocated him. Someone who had known happiness found loss all the harder to bear. But now, his long, bitter wait had finally been rewarded.
Over the days that followed, Shingetsu stayed within the clan compound and stopped going out into the village.
While Shingetsu had been unconscious, Tōka had faced considerable criticism within the Senju Clan because of her. Some elders had even instructed her to use her position as Shingetsu's mother to bring the girl to the Senju Clan Compound. Thoroughly disappointed by all of this, Tōka had simply gone to her old adversary Hōkaku's home so she could more easily care for the unconscious Shingetsu. Even now that her daughter had awakened, she had no intention of moving out.
For Hōkaku, it felt like returning to the time when Tōka was pregnant and he had cared for her day and night. To his surprise, although nearly six years had passed, he still remembered her preferences and habits clearly.
Although the careless members of the Senju Clan were a disaster at housework, he had long since grown used to looking after them.
Besides her family members, the little Uchiha children often came to see her too, telling her amusing stories from school and the village.
Kagami brought dango every day, and soon his allowance could no longer cover his spending. Miki and Inari delivered Chinatsu's letters, complaining that the Senju crowd came over every day to ask when Shingetsu was finally returning to school. As for Kazuma and Kaen, those two clowns spent all day clamoring to see Wood Release.
Shingetsu eventually granted their request to perform like a trained monkey-she used Wood Release to grow vines, hung the two upside down from a tree, then sat up in its branches and watched them scream.
Day after day passed in that peaceful fashion. Although she had declared she would stay home forever, the dull, repetitive boredom inevitably made Shingetsu feel as though she was about to grow mold.
It was during this period that the Wood Release test results came back.
The newly built laboratory beneath Konoha held countless advanced instruments at the forefront of their age. Scrolls filled with forbidden technique formulas and experimental data packed the shelves, arranged according to a system only Tobirama understood. Chilling organ specimens floated silently in strange liquids.
At the center of the laboratory stood Tobirama Senju, his expression grave and his eyes lowered, lost in unknown thoughts. In front of him, the potted plant brought back from Shingetsu's home was carefully preserved inside an instrument connected to countless tubes and devices.
"Tobirama, are the results in?"
Summoned by a written message from his younger brother, Hashirama Senju walked cautiously through the eerie laboratory. His face grew a little pale as he looked at the room, even more sinister than on his last visit, and at Tobirama, who looked all the gloomier in these surroundings.
As expected, he still disliked the cold smell of disinfectant in Tobirama's laboratory. Normally, he would never come here without a reason. But Shingetsu's Wood Release was no small matter, so he had been forced to steel himself and come.
In response to Hashirama's question, Tobirama nodded slowly. As he looked at the plant, still vividly green inside the instrument, his eyes held both solemnity and wonder.
"She really is different from you."
The plant had been placed in sunlight and soil, in conditions that simulated its natural growing environment. Without anyone supplying chakra, it had not only retained its vitality but continued to grow vigorously.
Just like an ordinary plant.
But an ordinary plant would not produce fresh fruit in such a short time. Barely any time had passed, yet this plant had already borne a second crop.
Tobirama Senju was by no means an expert on plants. He had only studied them in passing while researching Wood Release. Even so, this plant, altered by Shingetsu's Wood Release, had left him deeply astonished.
If he had to describe it, Tobirama would call it a superior kind of plant: powerful vitality, a shorter maturation period, and abundant nutrients and energy. Not only that, it even tasted quite good.
"These fruits are edible. They're not like your imitations that do nothing when you eat them."
Tobirama pointed to a basket beside him, filled with washed strawberries, all newly grown. He grabbed a few and tossed them into Hashirama's hands, then took one himself and held it tightly in his palm.
After a moment's hesitation, he finally put the fruit, which still seemed utterly strange to him, into his mouth and chewed. Soon, the strawberry's sweetness filled his mouth.
Tobirama Senju's brows drew together involuntarily. The sweet-and-tart flavor was clearly something a little girl would enjoy, but it was not to his taste. He stopped after just one. Hashirama, however, seemed to love them. After finishing the fruit Tobirama had tossed him, he went straight to the basket and began eating them one after another.
As he tasted that excessively sweet flavor, Tobirama, now replenished with sugar, could not help sinking into thought-
What exactly made Uchiha Shingetsu's Wood Release so special?
To him, Shingetsu's Wood Release possessed far too much vitality. These could hardly be considered products of chakra; they were practically creations of nature. It was simply too abnormal!
Whether her unusual eyes or this extraordinarily unusual Wood Release, could she really possess such abnormal traits merely because she had both Uchiha and Senju blood?
Countless questions flashed through Tobirama's mind. In the end, he understood only one thing: Uchiha Shingetsu herself was an anomaly who could not be judged by common sense.
A deep sense of regret rose within him. Unlike his good-natured older brother, Shingetsu would not casually give him a vial of blood, much less let him remove muscle tissue to culture cells. If he dared to do that, an enraged Madara Uchiha would make sure he never saw the next sunrise!
Yet having such a perfect subject for observation and being unable to approach her was excruciating. Tobirama felt as though countless insects were gnawing at his heart.
I had to find a way to get close to her!
At that thought, Tobirama turned and glanced at Hashirama Senju, who was happily eating the strange fruit, and reminded him:
"Brother, it's time you taught her Wood Release."
Before you continue