Chapter 12.2- One Thousand Hands

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“How do you feel, really?” Grandmother. Mito asked after both Tobirama and Tsunade had had their fair share of time at my bedside. She’d sent them out once the sun begun to go down and said she would be the one sleeping here tonight. As usual, none could prevent her from doing the thing in her head once it got in there.

“Good. I feel a bit lethargic, but I should be fine” I said to her.

“Uh-huh” She didn’t believe me.

“Tell me, Shorirama-kun. What’s different?” She said looking at me again.

“What do you mean?” I asked her, still feigning ignorance.

“I didn’t teach you the three-body disruption seal. You reverse engineered it from having seen a complete version once. An act of extreme genius. At least, that’s what I would have called it if you didn’t manage to fail.”

“What?”

“Why else dot you think you’ve been unconscious for so long? Tsunade fixed up your body in three months. After that, I had to begin working to save you. You didn’t use the three-body disruption seal on only the Iwa boy. Without the right safegaurds in your improvised matrix, you had the pleasure of having your seal affect you just as much as it did your opponent.” She explained.

“So how did you fix me?” I asked her.

“I just had to find all three parts of you and bring them back together. Your chakra remained in your body, no doubt because it was trying to fight off the invasion of the tailed beast chakra in your body. Purifying that was a mess and a half after he’d burnt half your pathways I you body with his chakra, and your chakra was gaunt crazy on the other half trying to fic the problem but not knowing how. That meant your body was the most intact part of the trifecta. Your mind? It was partly broken from the pain but Insuke Yamanaka had an easy time of piecing you together.” My panic must have been absurdly clear on my face because she laughed.

“Don’t worry. He wasn’t allowed to look around, just to put you back together as you ought to be. Those first two parts were easy. Do you know what was hard?” She asked, pinning me to the bed with her stare.

“My soul” My voice was far away.

“Your soul. Right in one. Where was all this wisdom when you were trying out untested seals in the battlefield?” Her sarcasm was scathing.

“Either way, your soul drifted off. I had to find it. Do you know how much meditation and fuinjutsu I had to do to even figure out your soul wasn’t in your body in the first place. And then I had to figure out how to get it back. Your body was alive, wasn’t it? There had to be a way to get your soul back. And then I had to go to my nephew grovelling for access to the clan’s records on the matter to fix what my stupid Grandson did to himself. That wasn’t even enough. We had to beg some more. Beg the Temples. The Fire Temple had nothing useful, but the Wind Temple had a monk with some expertise on matters of the soul that was willing to consult on your case in exchange for enough money to build ten Temples. We paid of course. You are the future of the clan, are you not? And then it worked. His expertise, plus the clan records, and all the studying I did. It gave us enough to reach into the ether and drag your soul back. After all that, I know there’s no way you woke up normal. So tell me Grandson of mine, what is different?” At the end of her tirade, she looked close to tears. I could feel it. The sorrow in her. The desperation. The sadness. I felt it. She’d thought I was dead and gone. Really did.

“I activated this” I told her with a sigh as I reached towards my eyes with my chakra and activated the switch I’d begun to feel there the second after I woke up. I felt my vision change. I was right then. It was the Byakugan. I could see all around me. All 360 degrees in black and white and several metres around me.

She looked different through these eyes. So radiant. It was like she was a sun. I knew staring at her for too l.ong would make my eyes hurt over time. I could see Tsunade at her office. She had an office now. Her chakra stood out to me like a beacon in the night’s sky. I could barely see past the Hospital, but I knew that over time, that would get better.

“I was right” Her words brought me back to reality.

“What?”

“Your soul. It fit right back in your body, like it slot right in. But you came with something extra. I couldn’t tell what it was. But I knew things couldn’t be the same. Well, if there was anything that could happen after that experience, then gaining the most powerful doujutsu in Konoha out of the bargain isn’t a bad deal at all.” She said the last bit with a smile that I quickly shared with her. Most powerful doujutsu in Konoha, of course. Let’s just pretend the sharingan didn’t exist.

“That’s not all, is it?”

“No. I can sense things now. It feels like my chakra is constantly reaching out to my surroundings.” I told her. She nodded.

“That sounds like the Mind’s eye of the Kagura. I’ll look into it so I can be completely sure” She said.

“Now sleep. Get some rest” She placed a finger on my forehead. I felt the genjutsu. I could have shattered it in a second, but I allowed it take me in its grasp. Sleep never came easier.

And then when I fell asleep, I woke up immediately. In a green field. Just grass for miles and miles. I looked all around me, and then suddenly got the irresistible urge to move East. What a strange dream, I thought to myself as I followed the urge and began to walk.

A/N; Guess what’s happening?