The next day, Seina headed to her hospital classes as usual. What was curious was finding both Mina-senpai and Shizune, the apprentice of the new Hokage, waiting for her. As soon as they saw her, they quickly ushered her into the practice room they used for their classes.
"Seina-san, we were waiting for you," Shizune greeted her, and she nodded. "Tsunade-sama has been studying the recipe book you gave her, and I have tested the samples you provided."
"The verdict?"
"They are on average 120% more effective than the medicines we currently have. I was just discussing this with Mina-san."
"I only had time to skim through the book you gave me yesterday, but I'm also impressed," Mina assured her, pulling out her copy. "I don't know how you managed to do all this in such a short time studying our books, but I must congratulate you."
"Tsunade-sama would say the same if she were here, and she's very demanding!" Shizune added with a big smile. "In fact, I had to force her to stay in her office, but she wanted to speak with you personally. Since she's so busy with her new position, she sent me to test your knowledge, if you're willing, and she offered to teach you personally."
"You have a gift, Seina," Mina-senpai interjected. "I've been teaching you what I could with the time we have, but if I were you, I wouldn't miss this opportunity."
"Sounds good," she said, feeling both nervous and excited. "When do we start?"
She spent the next few hours being questioned by Shizune, just as Mina-senpai had done months ago. Seina didn't shy away or hold back in any of her answers, demonstrating her worth impressively. She didn't want to miss the opportunity to learn from the Hokage herself. When Shizune ran out of questions, she sat on a stool with an amazed and excited expression.
"Mina-san was right," Shizune shook her head. "Your knowledge is impeccable. You have a gift. I'll speak with Tsunade-sama this afternoon. Come here tomorrow, and I'll have news from her."
"Thank you very much," she bowed. She gathered her things and left the hospital with a huge smile.
She went straight to the training field where she knew her team would be waiting to train with her. When she arrived at 10 sharp, she saw she was the first to appear. She created a few clones to warm up, but not even five minutes passed when she saw Naruto's blonde hair shining in the sunlight.
"Yo!" Kakashi-sensei greeted, closing his book and putting it away. "How were your medical classes?"
"I didn't have class. Shizune was examining me. She says Tsunade-sama will teach me personally if I impress her."
"Really?!" Naruto exclaimed, jumping on her.
"I'm sure she was impressed," her teacher assured her. "Congratulations, Seina."
"Hn," Sasuke said and helped her up from the ground.
"Wait until she sees the X-ray glasses I plan to give her," she grinned from ear to ear, making Kakashi-sensei laugh. "Well, shall we start training?"
"What a hurry all of a sudden!"
"Now that I'm not going to hold back as much, I want to see what happens," she shrugged, referring to her magic.
"Mmm… Alright. We'll fight, you and me. Don't hold back."
"Huh… Mmm… Okay," she thought out loud. No way was she going to use some spells or curses.
Kakashi-sensei raised an eyebrow, surely interpreting her hesitant tone correctly, but he didn't challenge her to use all her power. Maybe because he wasn't sure what she could do.
"Why don't we do this? I'll send my clones first, and don't hold back."
"Sounds good to me."
She watched as Kakashi-sensei created a single clone and retreated from the field with Naruto and Sasuke. Seina used all the necessary spells to give herself an advantage, most of them commonly used in field missions by Aurors. The only thing that revealed her location was the trampled grass under her feet, the one thing her invisibility bracelet couldn't make disappear. Still, she vanished, hiding near a tree while her master's clone tried to find her, taking a taijutsu stance.
She started by conjuring a flock of dozens of birds to distract him, making them attack him. Then she conjured all sorts of animals to jump on him. She saw how he dealt with them, some with more difficulty. She thought about what to do next, but wanting to see if he could really sense her magic or not, she cast a decapitating curse. Since it was a colorless curse, he didn't even notice it and it hit. The clone vanished in a puff of smoke, to her team's amazement.
"Did you just cut off my clone's head?" Kakashi-sensei asked with an incredulous smile on his lips. "Impressive. I didn't see it coming. Again."
He summoned another clone for her, and from her hiding place, she thought about what to do. She had already tested her theory. Now she wanted to test something else, but hesitated about whether to do it. What would happen if she used Legilimency as a genjutsu? If it worked and, for example, left the clone catatonic… What would happen when those memories returned to Kakashi-sensei? When she tried something less aggressive, she realized the clone had no brain. It was literally a black hole connected to Kakashi-sensei. Interesting. She abandoned that line of attack. She started sending other spells, some jokes and others more malevolent until, a while later, Kakashi-sensei stopped her.
"... Naruto, Sasuke, you start training with my clone. I need to talk to Seina for a second."
Seina followed Kakashi-sensei deeper into the forest. She used all the spells she knew to ensure they were alone and that no one would hear them or read their lips, and she sat on a fallen log in front of her teacher.
"When you told me your limits were power and imagination, I don't know if I fully believed you... Maybe I didn't realize what that meant," he said with a serious face. "You can read minds, enslave people, decapitate them, make them explode... I think it would be better if I asked you what you can't do, no matter how hard you try."
"Bring the dead back to life," she replied sincerely after thinking about it, "and I suppose create real love."
"... Is that your only limitation?" he asked, completely astonished. "How do you know you can do everything else?"
"I already told you."
"Yes, power and imagination, but I want to know how you do it since it's not a jutsu."
"I already told you I have a secondary energy," she sighed. "Like chakra, but I don't need seals. I just think of something, and I do it."
"Let me get this straight. You're telling me," Kakashi-sensei began exasperatedly, "that you have a completely new kekkei genkai that doesn't even use chakra. One that, apparently, we can't perceive."
"Yes."
"God..." he took a deep breath. "We're going to have to train a lot, Seina. I hope you know that. No one can know everything you're capable of, understand? Decapitating jutsus all you want, but if you're going to enslave someone, no one can find out. Some abilities will have to remain secret."
"I know. I trust you," she said with words for the first time, "that's why I showed you a bit of everything. Well, that and because I wanted to see what would happen."
Kakashi-sensei seemed more animated hearing her, but he still had a serious expression, and perhaps even a bit fearful of what might happen if people found out about the extent of her powers. They sat there for a while longer, she waiting for him to say what he was thinking and her master staring into nothingness with a contemplative look, as if his mind was racing.
"I think I'll have to rethink how to train the entirety of your powers. If most of your abilities are like that imperceptible jutsu, you won't be able to use them in training. Honestly, those destructive abilities of yours aren't necessary for C-rank missions."
"That's fine. I'll use, let's say, less dangerous jutsus."
"Less dangerous," Kakashi-sensei chuckled. "Which ones would you say are your most dangerous jutsus?"
"In what sense? To kill someone or without killing them?"
"...To kill."
"Hmm... I can think of many ways to kill someone: from boiling their blood, using cursed fire, making them explode, turning them inside out, depriving them of oxygen, turning them into an object... I don't know. Anything you can think of."
The Blacks had been a true mine of information and, interestingly, her paternal family hadn't fallen behind either, despite their good reputation. Kakashi-sensei looked at her with a blank face and nodded.
"All those jutsus, save them for real combat. If you face an enemy you need to kill, you can use them. Let's get back to training. I think until further notice, you'll train your other powers with my clones."
She nodded. When they returned to the clearing, they saw Naruto and Sasuke fighting against a couple of clones. The training resumed, this time without using her invisibility, and Kakashi-sensei's clones attacked her again. Since they could see her, the fight was more balanced. She limited herself to using transformations and spells, as well as less dangerous ones interspersed with ninjutsu and taijutsu. It was the first time she fought Kakashi-sensei using nearly all her power. She immediately noticed the difference because the jonin seemed to be holding back much less than usual. If it weren't for her spells, she wouldn't be able to see him due to his speed.
Tired of dodging his trajectory and avoiding punches, she decided to practice her apparition again. She disappeared from the spot where she was about to be hit and reappeared behind him. He tried but couldn't escape the invisible spell. Using a levitation spell, she left him hanging by the foot in mid-air to his astonishment. The other clones adapted to her apparitions without flinching. Shortly after that, all the clones were defeated, and new ones took their place.
Seina couldn't stop smiling the whole time. She was having more fun than ever before. Almost every time she trained with other Aurors, she held back, and although she was still holding back now, it was obvious that Kakashi-sensei was a much better opponent than any wizard or witch.
"Stop."
She stopped attacking, landing on her feet in the grass among the smoke clouds from the clones. She caught her breath after all the effort she had made for so long. Damn, she had to train more on her magical stamina. Naruto and Sasuke collapsed on the grass, after having fought like her against the jonin's clones, and Kakashi-sensei sat in front of them.
"We need to integrate Seina's powers into the group. That means more team training. I know you all love that," the jonin laughed at Sasuke's groan.
They started training again after lunch. Kakashi-sensei seemed to have suddenly changed his mindset. Ironically, she felt like she was doing an intensive course. The problem was that she wasn't entirely sure it had a foreseeable end.
The next day, at 8 AM in the hospital, not only Mina-senpai and Shizune were waiting for her, but also Tsunade-sama. They led her wordlessly to the same classroom as the day before, feeling a sense of déjà vu, and she sat in her seat.
"I've analyzed the recipe book, your samples, and I've received Shizune's evaluation," the Hokage said right away. "You're more than qualified to serve in the hospital and learn everything I know. Honestly, you've impressed me like few people before. I want to offer you to be my apprentice, if you so desire."
"It would be a great honor that I would gladly accept, Tsunade-sama."
"Perfect," the Hokage smiled. "From now on, I'll replace Mina in your studies. She's already told me about your use of clones to study, so I want you to learn all this."
She pointed to a true mountain of books that made her blink in astonishment. Still, she didn't complain. Tsunade-sama nodded, pleased by her silence, and then continued detailing her study plan. She immediately noticed the leap in quality between Mina-senpai and the Hokage.
"Since I see your knowledge of iryo ninjutsu is intermediate, you'll come with me to Lee's operation, if possible, or another operation of equal complexity. I just want you to see what you can aspire to."
"Hai."
"Also, I'll use one of your potions. The one that repairs nerves. I think with the combination of my operating experience and your potions, Lee will recover much faster than expected."
"I have something that might help," she said, smiling. She took out the glasses she had made on purpose.
"Glasses?" the Hokage asked, taking them from her hand with a confused expression. Then she put them on and gasped in surprise. "How is this possible?"
"Tsunade-sama?" Shizune asked.
"Try them on, Shizune."
"Impossible!" Shizune exclaimed, looking at her own arm.
She knew she must be seeing her own tissue. The glasses not only acted like X-ray vision, passing through flesh, but they also allowed viewing samples with their real coloration, with structures illuminated by a spell. These glasses had been her project for her mastery of runes, but the idea had been purely Hermione's. With these glasses and George's chain of stores, they had become the richest magical family in the United Kingdom.
"How is this possible?" the Hokage asked aloud, examining the glasses with an eagle eye.
"Fuinjutsu," she said.
All eyes turned to her, astonished.
"You... made X-ray glasses without X-rays with fuinjutsu," Tsunade-sama laughed, delighted.
"I'd like to talk in private, with Kakashi-sensei present, if possible," she said.
The Hokage looked at her for a few seconds, analyzing her request, and then nodded.
"Come on, I'll make him come to my office."
Minutes later, she found herself in Tsunade-sama's office. It was much more cleared out, except for the file cabinets and essential furniture. They had even painted the walls beige instead of leaving them green. Kakashi-sensei appeared shortly after. Seeing her alone with the Hokage, he seemed to understand what it was about.
"Well, we're all here," the Hokage started, seeing Kakashi-sensei send a glance at the ceiling. "Is someone going to tell me what's going on?"
"Could you raise the security barriers, Hokage-sama?" the jonin requested. The Hokage complied, curious. "Thank you. I'll get straight to the point. Seina has a new kekkei genkai."
"A kekkei genkai?" the Hokage asked, looking at her with surprise. "Then, the glasses aren't made with fuinjutsu?"
"I can only activate them with my kekkei genkai," she said, "but it's like fuinjutsu."
"I see."
"Seina hasn't just made those glasses. Another one of her inventions is this bracelet," he showed the discreet silver bracelet. "With it, I become invisible. No one can detect me. Not by chakra, nor by smell, temperature, sound. Nothing."
"Okay," she nodded slowly. "And what else can you do?"
"Everything. Summon things out of nowhere, transform things into other things, create barriers, make things disappear... Look at this," she said, sticking her whole arm into her fanny pack.
"How is this possible!?"
"The inside is bigger than the outside."
Tsunade-sama blinked wide-eyed. She tried to dispel a nonexistent genjutsu, to no avail. Kakashi-sensei took advantage of the moment of silence to update her on everything related to Naruto and her. From her connection with Kurama, Danzo's Anbu, the unknown person who attacked the village, to her kekkei genkai... To say the Hokage looked exasperated was an understatement.
"I see. Thank you for the information, Kakashi. Tomorrow I was supposed to have another meeting with the jonin commander and the commanders of other departments. I imagine that's what you wanted to talk to me about."
"There is one more thing..."
"Surprise me," the Hokage sighed, resting her head on one hand. "What is it?"
"It's possible that Itachi Uchiha is innocent."
"...Do you have proof of that?"
"Only circumstantial. I didn't want to draw attention while you weren't here."
"I see. You did well. Present yourself at the meeting tomorrow with Shikaku. If what you say is true, we're going to need help to unravel all this." Then she looked at her. "As for your kekkei genkai, as Kakashi has told you, be careful about what you show. Medicines and objects with fuinjutsu are fine, but keep everything else to yourself for now. On the other hand, since I see your inventions are of great utility, I think it would be best to arrange some kind of contract to supply you with materials and a commission pay in exchange for said inventions. Is it okay if I discuss this with the department heads tomorrow? Not everything, just your inventions."
"That's fine with me. In fact, I was expecting something like that since I have many ideas I'd like to try."
"Perfect."
They left there more relieved, especially her master. He put an arm around her shoulders, seeing that she also seemed less tense than before, and they walked out of the Hokage's tower.
"You did well to call me. I wanted to talk to her about that," her master encouraged her. "Now at least you have the Hokage's support. Well played."
"I know," she nodded with a sigh. "The truth is, I felt almost guilty for keeping everything I can do to myself, considering it could help a lot."
"I know. That's why I didn't say anything the other day against it," he said, alluding to their conversation. "Come on. The others are waiting for us to train."
They went back to the clearing where they usually trained. They spent the morning training ninjutsu, much to Naruto's delight.
"These fire jutsus are more complicated than they look," Naruto complained, throwing himself onto the grass.
"That's because you're used to using wind nature. You'll see that the more you practice, the easier it will be," Kakashi-sensei recommended. "Ah, I almost forgot. Naruto and Sasuke, remember your medical check-up the day after tomorrow in the afternoon at the hospital."
"Eeeeh? But we're perfectly fine!"
"New orders from the Hokage. That's what happens when the leader is a doctor," Kakashi-sensei shrugged. "If you want to complain, you know what to do."
"Yeah, right! Do I look like an idiot? If I complain, she'll send me to the hospital with one punch!"
Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke laughed in his face. Seina, who had already been examined, rolled her eyes. It was just a formality. Even so, she had to admit that maybe he was right about the punch. She suppressed a laugh at her brother's horrified face.
"It's not that bad, Naru."
"Leave it. He's such a dobe he can't stand even 5 minutes in the hospital without complaining," Sasuke teased.
"Take that back, teme!"
"Why do I even bother speaking early?" Kakashi-sensei sighed.
They headed back home, stomachs growling from hunger and sweaty from training. She spent the afternoon studying one of the books Tsunade-sama had given her. She and her multiple clones, much to Naruto's boredom. At least, that was her intention, but after an hour of pestering her, Naruto convinced her to continue working on their created summons.
"Your clones can study for you, nee-chan, but they can't finish this," he had sworn for the umpteenth time.
"Isn't it that you want me to finish my summons to start creating yours?" she asked irritably.
"Uh, maybe?" her brother touched his head with a blush.
"Hn. Dobe."
She sensed Sasuke's thoughts on how they barely saw her outside of training and gave in. He was right. Between the hospital, her research, and training, she had no time to spend with Naruto and Sasuke without working on something. With Kakashi-sensei out of the house doing who-knows-what, they were alone to laze around.
"Don't you feel strange?" Sasuke asked, taking the words out of her mouth. "It's like, despite trying, things don't completely return to normal."
"You're right. I feel like something bad is about to happen," Naruto confessed. "The problem is, I don't know what or when. It drives me crazy!"
"Maybe it's a mix of both," she shrugged. "Maybe things won't be like before and, at the same time, we're still in danger. Who knows?"
"It bothers me not being able to do anything to stop feeling like this," Sasuke muttered. "I don't even remember the last mission we had."
"The teme is right. I want to go back to doing missions again. I can't stand staying here any longer," Naruto complained.
"You're the least qualified to speak up, dobe," Sasuke hissed. "Who was it among the three of us who left for a month while the rest of the team was stuck here, cooped up at home like prisoners?"
"I knew you'd throw it in my face sooner or later!" Naruto groaned. "Besides, I almost died! What are you complaining about?"
Seina sighed as she saw them start to argue again about who had it worse. She managed to separate them, threatening to go back to her textbooks if they didn't shut up, and they started working on the summons. Naruto, who could use runes, was in charge of carving them into the rock while Sasuke, with his Sharingan activated, copied his brother to speed up the process. She simply shaped them, animated them, and activated the runes when they were ready. In less than 5 hours, she was satisfied with the number of creatures she now had at her disposal.
"I think we can finish in a couple of days at this rate!" Naruto said, using clones to carve the runes.
"Maybe."
"Seina, you can leave my summons in your suitcase," Sasuke said. "Personally, I don't think I'll use a suitcase just for me very much."
"So, you don't want a suitcase?"
"It wouldn't be bad to have all this, but practically speaking, with one suitcase, yours, for the entire team, it's more than enough. It would be more practical for Naruto and me to have those modified tents in the future, when we have missions with other people."
"Ugh... The teme is right. As long as we can summon our summons, I have no problem with them staying here, if you don't mind."
Seina blinked at her teammates' mature decision. While it's true that creating a suitcase wasn't quick, it wasn't a lot of work for her either. Even so, if both Sasuke and Naruto agreed to share the space in her suitcase, it was fine with her. She sensed Sasuke's thought that, this way, she would have more free time instead of spending more time on something unnecessary. She patted him on the shoulder, understanding where his concern and decision came from, but said nothing.
"Alright. Then we can focus on finishing all the summons."
"Yosh! Let's try to finish them today!" Naruto cheered. Both Sasuke and she nodded.
This is how Kakashi-sensei found them hours later when he came up the stairs. He paused, looking at the huge red dragon that Sasuke liked, which she had created from a few large stones.
"I see you've made great progress."
"Tomorrow we'll finish this project," she said, suppressing a yawn.
"By the way, I've been talking to Tsunade-sama about your brother, Sasuke..."
"And? What did you find out?"
"It seems she has been looking for your family's files in the Third Hokage's old documents."
"And what did she find?"
"That's the thing. Someone has stolen them."
"What?!" Naruto shouted. "But... that means something weird is going on! We were right!"
"I don't know if you were right about everything, but it's clear that someone doesn't want Tsunade-sama to read those files. Only the documents from a year before the massacre are missing, so if Tsunade-sama hadn't been looking for them specifically, she wouldn't have even noticed, as the file drawer isn't completely empty."
Seina frowned while the team pondered what they had just learned. What sense did it make to steal the papers just like that? She would have left a fake copy so no one would suspect anything. That would have given her more time, if she were the culprit behind all this mess, to avoid being caught. Unless the culprit was completely confident that no one would look at those files or thought they had more time to replace them with forgeries, or simply was so arrogant that they didn't care if people knew something strange was happening by stealing those files... Which option was the true one? She didn't know.
"And how do we know those papers existed in the first place?" she asked, realizing that maybe they hadn't been stolen.
"They existed," Kakashi-sensei sighed, ruffling his hair thoughtfully. "The restricted staff in charge of document administration has already confirmed it. They were in the Hokage's very office. That means someone took those files in a short period of time: from the Third Hokage's death to the Fifth Hokage's ascension."
"And why did the Hokage have those secret files in his office?" Sasuke asked, annoyed.
Until now he hadn't opened his mouth, but she sensed that his feelings were contradictory. On one hand, he felt almost guiltily glad to have reasons to believe in his brother's innocence, but on the other hand, he was angry that the hints of Itachi's innocence made him reconsider how he felt about the murderer of his family. He had believed for so long that Itachi was the culprit that now he didn't know exactly how to feel.
If you added to that the fact that someone was conspiring, even now, against his family... Seina would be furious too. The only thing keeping Sasuke from flying into a rage and stabbing anyone who looked at him wrong was knowing that both Seina and Naruto, and now Kakashi-sensei, wouldn't let it rest until the truth was known. And it was true. She wouldn't stop until they had a clear culprit with real evidence. Even if she had to use her powers to find out.
"He probably thought they were safer in his office than in the archive... Interestingly, he was right. They were only stolen after his unexpected death," the jonin explained to them.
Seina frowned as she thought about who could have stolen those documents. Now it was obvious they had an enemy in the village. After all, Sasuke wasn't going to stop until he knew the truth, and Seina knew the culprit wasn't going to let themselves be caught so easily. Sooner or later, a confrontation between them was inevitable.