'I'll be selfish to protect you all, I hope you can forgive me…'
Without hesitating Soutarou walked Mikoto back home and then flickered back to the Senju Manor where he quickly found Mito and literally prostrated himself and said, "Please help me Mito-nee-san!"
Mito who had been dealing with annoying paperwork had been ready to deal with Soutarou's antics and in fact had been anticipating them readying pranks and methods to exhaust him only to find his emotions much more stable and almost 'mature.' If not for knowing his unique chakra signature she would've believed that someone had used transformation jutsu to imitate him. Mito, quickly shaking off her stupor, responded much more gently than she had spoken with him lately, "What do you need, Soutarou… What do you need help with."
Soutarou took a deep breath and said, "Please help me challenge Fugaku Uchiha for Mikoto's hand in marriage!"
Mito just stared as she felt some screws come loose from her brain and her brain rattle around as if a support column had fallen. She said without thinking, "Huh?"
Soutarou just repeated himself to which Mito just clutched her forehead and thought, 'I knew it this boy always comes to me to start trouble! What am I going to do about Naori, Kushina, and Tsunade? You're showing too much favoritism! Since he dares be this bold I'll be bold as well!'
Mito glared at him and said, "What about Tsuna? What about Kushina? What about Naori? If you can tell Mikoto loves you, what about the others?"
Soutarou shamelessly without hesitation and as much confidence as possible said, "I'll have a harem so everyone can be happy!"
Soutarou grit his teeth waiting for a beating, instead he heard the most exhausted sigh of his entire life come out Mito's mouth as she muttered, "What the hell… Hey brat. You're only 10 years old. Why bother with this now? Focus on training! Or else I'll beat you into next week!"
Soutarou just forced out a smile and shook his head and said, "No! Mikoto can't focus on her studies or her training if our team is going to survive we all need to put our 100% I know what I'm doing is stupid, but I-"
Mito frowned but said, "Fine. Figure your relationships out. I'll arrange a sparring match to decide Mikoto's engagement on the fact that you wholeheartedly accept the Senju name. Souta-chan. Dattebase (You understand)?
Soutarou, smiling, winked at her and said, "Dattebayo~! (Believe it)"
Mito waved him off before saying, "what's your progress on elemental training?"
Soutarou quickly responded, "So far I've managed to finish stage two of wind style training, water style, earth style, and lightning style… As for fire release I haven't focused on it as much, but I'm close to mastering stage two as well."
Mito replied, "Good finish fire style training and work on your jutsus and focus on taijutsu. In fact, go find Tsunade and work on that now."
Soutarou nodded and left the room while Mito just watched his fleeting vestige.
~Mito POV~
Mito just stared the way Soutarou left and clutched her forehead.
'The only good part of this is that boy seems to have gained some resolve… from what I remember it was around this age Hashirama met Madara and formed their dream of making a village… if Madara had been a girl would either of them had ever fought? Well we have Mikoto and Naori to test that theory. Well since that boy wants to put our alliance with the Uchiha into a weird position he should do so bearing the Senju name, this way I can send a middle finger to Madara and take away their most talented members under the Senju name. As Tobirama would say… evil uchiha I've won this round!'
Mito quickly pushed aside all the reports coming from the borders and opposing village anbu and quickly wrote a few formal letters and had a messenger come and take the letters straight to the Uchiha Clan while she headed off to the Hokage Office to officiate Soutarou's name change…
~Yuya (Clan Leader) & Setsuna (First Elder of the Uchiha Clan) Uchiha POV~
He read a letter from Lady Mito to himself,
'Dear Clan Leader Uchiha,
I regret to inform you that I cannot in good faith support an engagement between Mikoto Uchiha and Fugaku Uchiha. While it is not my place to intervene in the affairs of other clans or people, it is my place to intervene in both my own student's and my granddaughter's student's matters when I can wholeheartedly see she does not wish for this engagement. As a result I formally request that Soutarou Senju and Fugaku Uchiha have a formal sparring match to decide the matter. If Soutarou Senju wins Mikoto Uchiha will have free reign over whom she wishes to marry whether that person be a member of the Uchiha Clan or not, while if Soutarou Senju loses the Senju-Uzumaki Clans will accept the result and formalize our alliance with the Uchiha and unconditionally support one policy of the Uchiha Clan's choice. Best wishes and may the best man win, regardless of the outcome may this be the last time the Senju, Uzumaki, and Uchiha fight. Let this fight be the end of the Sengoku Era policies.
Regards,
Wife of the First Hokage, Mito Uzumaki.'
Both Uchiha leaders read the letter with complicated feelings as they felt no hostile emotions from Mito and saw a path back into the village's upper echelons while at the same time they felt a bit of pity for Fugaku.
Both thought at the same time, 'So be it.'
~Mikoto POV~
Mikoto's day had been to say the least a blazing inferno of emotions, the boy she'd unknowingly and then knowing liked for nearly 7 years now had finally responded to her. At the same time, despite not wanting to share, she felt terrible that her best friend, the one person who understood her about 99% of the time, might not get her happiness. Another thing that worried her was acceptance from Naori-san and Tsunade-sensei. Both of whom she looked up to and deep down knew held great affection for Soutarou. Worst of all, what if Mito-sama didn't accept her? all of these emotions twisted her gut and made the blissful happiness turn into an ugly moshpit of feelings. Still Mikoto's heart hoped that somehow it'd all work out and that she too could have her happiness. Lost in her thoughts Mikoto didn't notice when her grandfather knocked on the door several times or even when he came in she just kept staring out the window. Sestuna, her grandfather and the First Elder of the Uchiha Clan sighed before saying, "Mikoto."
Mikoto's head involuntarily turned towards him as her face started burning up in embarrassment to the point where her sharingan instinctively activated shocking Setsuna who almost forgot what he came to say. Setsuna shook off his surprise before saying, "Congratulations on awakening your third-tomoe… as much as I'd like to congratulate you on what I'm about to say next I hope you know what you've done. And how it might affect the Uchiha Clan."
Mikoto's brows furrowed and she tilted her head slightly in confusion before asking, "Grandfather, what could I have possibly done?"
Setsuna's eyebrow rose before saying, "You're saying you didn't make that boy Soutarou, who got adopted by Mito-sama and that you've always liked, challenge Fugaku?"
Mikoto's eyes went wide as she shuttered out, "H-he did what?"
Setsuna grabbed his forehead and slowly massaged his temple before saying, "So it seems you didn't… What a heroic boy… what do you think his chances of winning are?"
Mikoto pursed her lips and said, "Honestly grandfather if Soutarou takes Fugaku seriously… even if Fugaku is a so-called talent and has awakened the three-tomoe… he's nothing before Souta-chan."
Setsuna's eyebrow twitched before questioning, "Souta-chan? Really Mikoto? And is Soutarou really that talented? I know that boy is two years younger than you and Mikoto he's 6 years younger than Fugaku. Please be serious"
Mikoto's sharingan swirled in annoyance before she put her own grandfather in a genjutsu where she showed him exactly what Soutarou could do. At the end Setsuna's own sharingan reacted and broke him out, but the fact of the matter was that Mikoto's yin energy was strong enough to overpower him in the first place… moreover what Mikoto had shown him had genuinely sent a chill down his spine. He knowingly said nothing else and said, "Their 'duel' or spar or whatever you'd like to call it will be in three days… I hope that-"
Mikoto looked off into the distance and said, "You needn't worry grandfather, I'll be there."
Setsuna shook his head and left before adding, "Don't get lost in your obsession like so many Uchiha before you… you should care about the person you love. Do not love them selfishly without caring for their wishes too. I hope I don't regret this Mikoto. I really do."
~Soutarou POV~
Soutarou had spent the last few hours after dropping off Mikoto practicing infusing chakra into his body and practicing using monstrous strength. He now realized why Tsunade or the future Sakura only ever used one limb at a time, rather than spreading the chakra throughout your body the idea was to focus into the point of impact. Tsunade's now improved Demon's Monstrous Strength used the same concept and added in using chakra similar to a body flicker to accelerate specific body parts to increase total force. In fact Demon's Monstrous Strength not only concentrated around a specific limb, but also increased chakra density in a manner that increased mass temporarily making it much, much more destructive than the normal Monstrous strength. Regardless, Soutarou who had mastered this concept realized how far it pushed one's chakra control as well as how heavy in yang chakra it was.
'The way this works… I wonder what if I rotate the chakra on the body part I use to attack with? Won't that be like a pseudo Rasengan? In fact thanks to monstrous strength aren't my chakra shape transformation and chakra control at a good enough level to create the 'Rasengan'?
Soutarou who ended up practicing alone because Tsunade had to leave for a mission suddenly found himself and several clones practicing on water balloons much like the future-naruto would except, Soutarou who had already mastered several concepts basically flew through stage one with the water balloon and ended up only needing a bit of time on the second step as well with the rubber ball. However, Soutarou was quite stumped on the containment and final step of Rasengan training. You see, Soutarou had a massive quantity of chakra even though the system rated it as SS+ it was actually above that and instead was representative of only Soutarou himself. So manipulating chakra on such a small scale actually became a difficult task for Soutarou.
'Hmm… should I do it the way Naruto did it?'
Soutarou formed a wood clone and had it support him in forming a Rasengan outside of the empty balloon and sure enough a swirl orb of pale blue chakra formed in Soutarou's hand.
'It's truly beautiful… Though now that I think about it I have to say I'm sorry Minato, it seems in this life I'll be taking a lot of things that belonged to you…actually sorry not sorry!'
While Soutarou had been training as well as acting like a gremlin in his mind and uttering nonsense he hadn't noticed a notification from the system the entire time. Until he was thinking about if the system would give him any benefits in training the further evolutions of the rasengan.
[System Quest:
Save Mikoto from her Engagement
-Perfect a self created technique in Three Days
-Defeat Fugaku Uchiha and prove that you're a genius even without wood release.
-Bonus: use self created technique to defeat Fugaku Uchiha
Rewards: Amenomihashira and methods of elemental integration for it
Bonus: Extreme nerve response time and extreme heightened visual prowess]
'Huh how did I not notice this… well I guess I know what I have to do.'
Quickly Soutarou sent a mental pulse through all of his wood clones forcing each of them to halt what training they had been doing half of his clones began working on an advanced chakra control method he would dump different colored sands and using his chakra control selectively pick up sand and then using precise chakra control move into the correct container. The other half began creating shadow clones to assist in the chakra control of using a Rasengan. And so 150 clones, 100 wood clones, 50 shadow clones, began spamming rasengan rapidly draining through their chakra reserves making Soutarou go pale from chakra expenditure before he sat down and began meditating to recuperate the lost chakra. Slowly, but surely two and a half days passed. Finally late at night at a little past midnight, Soutarou finally flickered with joy and exhaustion as in one hand shone a bright swirling blue orb that formed without any support… 'Let's do this'… Soutarou's eyes gleamed in the dark reflecting the blue orb…