One Thousand Hands (OC- Senju SI)

Pre-chapter A/N; Happy Holidays Everyone. Here's this week's chapter right on time for your enjoyment. The next three chapters are up on Patreon (www.patreon.com/Oghenevwogaga) as always. There's a handy little December discount on both monthly and annual plans. If you just want to read complete chapters and not my work in real-time then feel free to purchase this story as a collection on my pa-treon page- nice way to support this story, and me while you're at it. Enjoy! 

A look at the sun's position once I stepped out of the tower told me that it was just about time for Kushina to be finished at the academy. Sure, I could stop by the hospital to heal the few wounds that had managed to stick to my body, but Grandmother Mito could just as easily handle that when I got home, and shipping out tomorrow meant that I'd be hard pressed for time to spend with the little kid so it was best to get it over and done with as soon as possible. I jumped across the rooftops, taking a straight path to the academy, and arrived just as the bell rang, and the children began to troop out in swarms. 

It did not take me long, or even any effort, to find mine. She was a shining spot of red hair surrounded by a few other spots of red hair. The Uzu children had finally made it into the academy about a week or so ago even if the new clan head was still yet to be chosen. I debated calling out her name, but figured there was no point. The second I was within range of hr passive scanning, her neck snapped up, and her eyes met mine. I doubted she could even hear the words that were tossed at her from all around as she suddenly began running in my direction. At her height, there was little need to bend to pick her up so she just jumped to cover the rest of the distance and I caught her in my hands, twirling her around once, twice, thrice, and then dropping her back on the floor. 

"Shoriiiii. You're finally back" She said. 

"Finally? I was barely even gone for two days." 

"A long time" She said with a serious nod that was echoed by her fellow Uzumaki. I could see it now in the way they followed her around and hung on to her every word. They saw her as a leader figure of some sort. Of course they did. They were new to Konoha, and each and every one of them stuck out like a sore thumb so they probably stuck together for safety and as a group decided to cling to the one who as most used to the situation they found themselves in. It was probably something that someone with much better clearance than me had engineered, but I didn't particularly care to interrogate the situation further. 

"Hello Little ones." I said, dropping to one knee to let them all meet me eye to eye. 

"Kushina, introduce me to all your friends please" I said, and then girl preened under the attention before she began to speak in rapid fire fashion, introducing me to each child and how they were related to her. 

XXXXXXX 

"So Suna, hmmm" Grandmother Mito said, leaning heavily on her cane at the doorframe as I had just finally managed to tire Kushina out for the day and put her to bed in her room. 

"Indeed. Did Sarutobi tell you?" I asked, already knowing the answer. 

"Tell me? He sought my permission as a matter of fact before even daring to make his plan and while I made sure I registered my displeasure with the lack of foresight on display, I did permit him to assign you the mission. You are a Senju. You are the Grandson of Hashirama, the Grandnephew of Tobirama, and the son of Itama. Konoha is your birthright, and you will defend her just as those who have come before you would have" She said, walking closer and placing her hand on my face. I leaned into the touch and nodded. Our eyes met, and I could see the sadness that laid within them. Those men had been my forebears but they were all dead, and while I had only known one, she'd known all three for decades and loved each of them deeply. This was a woman who had lost so much and was still putting more on the line. 

"I will come back, Grandmother" I told her, even as I felt tears well within my eyes for no damn reason! I hadn't cried at the funeral. My god, what was going on here? 

"Your Granduncle. He left you a lot." She said. 

"Yeah, I know. What didn't he leave me?" I asked with a chuckle. And that was true. Apart from a few tokens and some money given to Tsunade, Nawaki, and their mother, he had left me the bulk of his property. 

"Indeed. He had never bothered distinguishing what property belonged to him as a person, and what belonged to him by virtue of being the Hokage. A lot of things were tied down for that, but in exchange for my approval in having you assigned this mission, Hiruzen has released all the property that he left behind. Come let's go look at it" She said before taking my hand and leading me down the hallway. 

I allowed her rest her weight on my body. Just like with Granduncle on his deathbed, I was beginning to realize just how old she had become in my lifetime. This was the same woman that had bent me over her knee after I'd made an explosive tag in the classroom as a child. Now, it felt like she could barely ever move without that insufferable cane of hers. It wasn't much of a surprise in the end though. She'd been a decade Hashirama's senior when they married, and had seen her fair share of living, but it felt like much of the aging had happened in the last few years. 

She'd lost a son and a brother-in-law here in Konoha, and then the majority of her clan in Uzu. 

"How did you even convince him to have to give something in exchange?" I asked as we walked. "Last time we spoke he didn't hesitate to remind me that I was just a regular shinobi, and he didn't have to give me any special considerations" 

"Oh. I knew something slipped my mind to mention when I saw you. Maybe if you learned to say goodbye before leaving your poor Grandmother, my memory would stop slipping" I gave her a deadpan look. 

"He sprung the mission up on me. I didn't get any chance to say goodbye to either you or Kushina. Wasn't my fault". 

"Uh huh. Well, it's not like there's much you can do about it either way, but you have been placed in the running for the position of Uzumaki clan head" 

"What?" 

"As the eldest member of the clan, I was allowed to enter a name into the running. Yours was the only one who made sense" Of course she'd been the one to do it. 

"I''m not even an Uzumaki" 

"You might not bear the name, but my blood runs through your veins as surely as Hashirama's. You're a fully realised seal master and an S-ranked shinobi at the same time. The Uzumaki Clan could use someone just like you to guide them into the next generation." 

"But I'm a Senju. I don't know the first thing about ruling Uzushio or the Uzumaki clan". 

"Do not underestimate my teaching. You are as well educated as any other Uzumaki out there. You know the family's myths and stories. Besides, it's a good thing that you have no idea how to rule Uzushio. The Island is gone now. The future of the Uzumaki clan lies in Konoha, and Konoha is in your blood. Do not get me wrong, you being my Grandson played into making this decision, but this decision is as much for the benefit of my clan as it is for you. The Uzumaki must integrate with the village. As the last clan to join and doing so in the wake of a disaster that lost the Village a Kage, it would be easy for the others to discriminate against the Clan. It would be easy for them to be treated as outsiders. But all that ease disappears when their Clan head is Hashirama's own grandson, born and raised in Konoha. The other clans and the civilians will be forced to accept the Uzumaki as one of their own with you at the helm" She said, and I stared at her, shocked. That was the most I'd ever heard her talk apart from when she was teaching. I nodded, accepting the request and I pushed through the door and into the room. 

It was something else. From top to bottom, there were scrolls. Scrolls, and various knick-knacks. One of them that instantly drew my attention was a hilt. Just a tube that was shaped like a Vajra, a lightning bolt that had been wielded by Indra in mythology. I was familiar with that weapon. Very familiar. Of course, I'd only gotten to study it for limited times and never to actually wield it, it still felt familiar in my hands when I picked it up. I could feel it beg for my chakra and I ceded its requests, smiling when the seals activated and just like a lightsaber, it produced a blade of pure plasma that extended a few feet out. I smiled at it. It was perfect. 

Granduncle Tobirama and I had worked on quite a few projects in his lifetime, but this was the very first one. I hadn't even been old enough to join the academy when he built this. I knew little about sealing so he'd designed the seals alone and what little he'd tried explaining had gone over my head almost entirely. But I knew the physics of what he was trying to build. I knew that the secret to bypassing the power constraints was making the stream of energy a loop so the blade could be activated indefinitely without expending any energy and only losing energy when the loop was broken- when it was actively cutting something, or stabbed into something. I had no idea if he'd been able to figure it out in canon but considering how much the weapon had drained its thief in the canon. 

I strapped it to my waist after I deactivated it. She'd be coming with me. I wasn't much of a swordsman, but that was probably good. The reason Granduncle had never used the weapon in his life was because of how it messed up with all his training as a swordsman. Suddenly moving from using traditional blades to only a hilt was one hell of a mindfuck. How he'd put it was that with a traditional sword, much of the weight was spread along the blade so with every swing, one could allow them weight of the blade lead them but with only a hilt which the raijin no ken was since plasma had no weight, all his muscle memory was useless, and even acted as a hindrance. 

"I knew you would find a few of them useful as you got ready to ship out, but these are not only from your Granduncle" She said then, and then I could see it. More and more of the notes were in a flowing script that did not belong to him. Mito's handwriting I realised. Not just her writing either. Some things were written in a less practiced hand that I could recognize from the writings I'd been given about the Mokuton. It was Hashirama's writing. While Mito wrote about seals and theorized about various seal combinations, Hashirama's writings were about ninjutsu. Not just wood release, but his theories about how chakra itself worked. 

I flipped through the notes art a rapid pace, but a cough drew my attention again. 

"While I do not doubt you will spend the rest of the night here if you get the chance, might I remind you that you have been chosen to head out tomorrow. There's only one more thing I have for you" and at that, she pointed her cane over to a massive scroll resting against the wall. I figured it was just an empty sealing scroll, but it was clearly not just that. It had a heft to it that marked it to my senses as full. It was one thing I'd found I could do passively the better I became with fuinjutsu. Just feel at a seal and get some sort of understanding of what it aimed to do and its status. 

"Open it" I did not bother turning around to my Grandmother's obviously expectant face and did as she bid instead. I unruffled the scroll, and it spread out over the floor. I could see then that it was not just one storage seal, but multiple. 

"You can use this to take most of this room with you when you head out. If there is one thing my Sons complained to me about enough from the first war, it was the boredom that hit them when there was no fighting or planning to be done. With this to keep you busy, I hope you don't go looking for any additional trouble" She said, and I actually chuckled. From practically raising Kushina and watching the other Uzumaki once in a while, I'd come to learn what exactly my problem was. I had way too much energy just as they did, and they had a pathological need to be entertained. If that wasn't happening, they sought out things to entertain them. I could see the same signs in my behaviour from when I was younger, and it was clear now that she was giving this to me for more than just advancing my education. 

"Two of the seals are full?" I asked her then 

"Open them. I won't ruin the surprise." I smiled up at her and unsealed the first one. The gasp I let out was entirely involuntary as I beheld it. It was perfect. The armour was black with red highlights. Not a one-to-one replication of Hashirama's as I'd worn in my chunin exams. Instead, it reminded me more of Tobirama's war armour. The styles were similar. There was no neckpiece that went up to my chin like with the former armour. It was neither a copy of Hashirama's or Tobirama's, but the style was similar. It was clear that it was supposed to make it clear that I was my own person while recognising the influence of those who had come before. It felt solid to the touch, but seemed to barely weigh a thing. Seals. All around it were seals of different designs, achieving different purposes. 

"I won't tell you too much about the script to avoid ruining the surprise, but just know that you will be able to use this in both the deserts of Suna and the Mountains of Kumo without much difficulty." I nodded. When my eyes had devoured the armour from the beginning to the end, and gone over every inch of it, I moved to the other seal. I had a creeping sensation of just what was within the seal. 

I pushed my chakra in and this time there was no gasp. I was struck dumb. It was a war-bow. A full war-bow, and not one of the smaller ones I'd grown accustomed to using. 

"You've had a bit of growth spurt so I think you should be clear to use one of these now" She said, and I nodded while reaching out to grab it. 

The seals across its form lit up as the bow pulled at my chakra without asking. 

"Draw it" She asked, like she needed to. I was going to pull at the string that was calling me to pull at it. It wasn't a question. I reached out with my fingers, talking hold of the string, and dragging it backwards. It took more strength than I was used to, but that was no problem. When I finally drew it more than two inches backwards, I could see a bolt of plasma form between the string and the bow wood. I looked up at her in shock. 

"Raijin no ken in a bow. You've tried it before, but trust me, this goes beyond anything you have ever attempted" She said, and I believed her. I believed her completely. For one, the drain. The drain felt manageable. Like I could draw and loose this a hundred times before feeling the strain. It was one hell of a weapon. 

When I moved to draw it fully and take aim, I was called back to reality with the pain of a cane crashing against my head. "You can't fire that thing in here, boy" She said, and I flushed and took the correction. 

"I was going to fire it out the window" I defended halfheartedly. 

"The closed window?" She asked with an arched brow. 

"How'd you even get close to me so quickly. Thought you had issues walking" I pointed out with narrowed eyes, and just barely resisted the urge to burst into laughter when her cane suddenly dropped to the floor, and she did her best impression of a person struggling to stand as she pushed all her weight on me. I sighed and reached down to get the cane and placed it in her hand again. 

"Take me to my room. I might as well go to bed now" She said, and I nodded and began to walk with her. 

"You will not attempt Hiriashin without my approval" She said after we'd crossed half the manor and were about to reach her room. 

"Yes Grandmother" 

"I do not joke, Shorirama. I see not why you've been obsessed with that abominable jutsu for so long, but promise me that you will not even think of trying to use it without me going over your seal first and being there to make sure I salvage you out of whatever goes wrong" She said, I nodded. 

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. I'd made my interest in the jutsu known, even as a child. Back then, Granduncle Tobirama had held me off with promises of later while Grandmother Mito replied with disdain whenever I asked. It wasn't until I'd made Jounin that I realized the truth. Tobirama's flying thundergod was incomplete. That was why he hadn't been as well known for the jutsu as Minato. Each usage caused tremendous strain on his body. It was why he had not used it against Izuna until he had a literal sure killing blow. It was why he suddenly became more indiscriminate with its use when he was brought back as an edo tensei. To put it simply, it was not a jutsu made for combat. Mito's own disdain for it came from the fact that not only did the seals fail to make sense, they also hurt their user. To her, it was a foolish jutsu and that was it. 

I knew Minato would figure out some way to complete the jutsu, but I had no idea how he'd done it. It was never shown in the anime, and here the boy was still in the academy, still wet behind his ears. 

"I promise, Grandmother" it was an easy promise to make. I would not see myself killed out of haste. 

"Good. Now, you can leave me here. I can feel you vibrating to get back to the work station, and it tires me" She said, leaning away from me and beginning to walk to her room with no difficulty. I just flashed her a bright smile and body flickered back to the room. 

Tomorrow, I would go to war. Tonight, I would prepare for it. 

A/N: The Second War is what this story has been building up towards for its entire rundown. This is easily one of the most complex times in Naruto history. Konoha is at war with a minimum of three nations: Kumo, Iwa, and Suna. Kiri is a rogue element that can come in at any time. The War is being fought on foreign soils: Frost, Rain, and Rivers. These nations will not just allow shinobi run roughshod. You already know some of what is to come with Hanzo and the rain, but in this story, he will not be the only one. The Major nations are the actors, and the minor nations are the stage. The shinobi of the minor nations? Well, let's just say they're the music that draws this whole thing together (terrible analogy, but work with me here). I really hope I bring this home just the way it needs to be. 

This is the End of Arc 1 of this story. Call it the Pre-War Arc, if you will. The next three chapters are up on pa-treon as always. There's a handy little December discount on both monthly and annual plans. If you just want to read complete chapters and not my work in real-time then feel free to purchase this story as a collection on my patreon page (www.patreon.com/Oghenevwogaga)- nice way to support this story, and me while you're at it. Enjoy! 

Arc 1 of this story has finally come to an end, so here is the state of things among the nations: 

*Konohagakure*: 

Kage: Hiruzen Sarutobi 

Special War Powers: 

Kushina Uzumaki- Jinchuriki of the Eight Tails Sakumo Hatake Tsunade Senju, Orochimaru, and Jiraiya Shorirama Senju, Head of the Uzumaki Clan

Enemies: 

Iwagakure no Sato Kumogakure no Sato Sunagakure no Sato Kirigakure no Sato Amegakure no Sato Shimogakure no Sato

Allies 

Takigakure no Sato

Nil 

*Iwagakure*: 

Kage: Ohnoki The Fencesitter 

Special War Powers: 

Han- Jinchuriki of the Five Tails Azula- Jinchuriki of the Four Tails Takeshi the Immovable Mountain Kaen of the Explosion Release Hikari and Tsubaki of the Lava Release

Enemies 

Konohagakure no Sato Sunagakure no Sato Amegakure no Sato Takigakure no Sato Shimogakure no Sato

Allies 

Kumogakure no Sato Kirigakure no Sato

*Kumogakure* 

Kage: Ay the Third 

Special War Powers 

Enji, Jinchuriki of the Two Tails Kinkaku and Ginkaku Killua Yatsuki the Living Storm Yui of the cloth Sora of the Magnet Release

Enemies 

Konohagakure no Sato Amegakure no Sato Takigakure no Sato Shimogakure no Sato

Allies 

Iwagakure no Sato Kirigakure no Sato

*Kirigakure* 

Kage: None 

Special War Powers 

The Seven Swordsmen of the Mist

Enemies 

Konohagakure no Sato Amegakure no Sato Takigakure no Sato Shimogakure no Sato

Allies 

Iwagakure no Sato Kumogakure no Sato

*Sunagakure* 

Kage: Tetsuo of the Iron Sands 

Special War Powers 

Tsubasa, Jinchuriki of the One Tails Chiyo Kōsuke the desert blaze Hayate of the Six swords Riku the golden fisted monk Piandao the weasel

Enemies 

Konohagakure no Sato Iwagakure no Sato

Allies 

Nil