Akashi and his grandfather Tetsuma were standing at the edge of a lake in the Uchiha compound.
This is where the young of the clan often come to perform the ritual of adulthood
In this clan, one of the traditions was that you could only be considered an adult when you could perform the Fireball Jutsu.
Of course, it was not an absolute rule, but Tetsuma wanted him to do it.
Due to the massive amount of chakra that Akashi had, they never allowed you to actually use any jutsu because his meridians weren't yet ready to circulate such an amount of chakra despite his great physical strength.
Despite that Akashi had made the best of his situation
"Honestly, your theoretical understanding of chakra and jutsu chiki is already at the level that chunin will never even understand, you won't have any trouble with this,"
The old man said with a sigh, a mix of Pride and helplessness in his tone.
His grandparents made him focus all his attention on control and reinforce his basic abilities.
Being from ancient clans they all knew how important chakra control was for a ninja.
And as a transmigator and dedicated otaku, Akashi knew from his vast anime knowledge how important control was for a fighter.
He had collected and read all he could from the Uchiha and Uzumaki collection.
He had also, with the help of the new organization built by himself and his grandparents, collected all types of chakra control techniques from around the world.
He had read, reread, and practiced them with fantastical fervor
"It is time to put what you learned in practice," the old man said
"With pleasure." Akashi had a grin as he said that
In an instant, Tetsuma formed multiple hand signs, not too fast, not too slowly, so that Akashi could see his hand signs, and took a deep breath
"Fire style: Fire ball jutsu"
Whoosh
He spat a ball of fire the size of a small house above the lake.
Sizzle
The surface of the water started to boil due to the heat generated by the jutsu of te old man.
Tetsuma maintained the output for a few seconds before stopping allimenting the jutsu.
The fireball remained floating above the water for a few seconds before slowly disappearing.
Clap clap clap
Akashi theatrically clapped for his grandfather
"Did you take a good look?" he asked, a little surprised to see that Akashi hadn't activated his sharingan to look at the technique, something that he had started to do a while ago.
He often asked people to perform jutsu for him to copy.
In fact it wasn't just for jutsu he used it nearly all the time to observe the world around him.
"Yep,"
"You didn't use your Sharingan?" he noted as Akashi walked in front of him
"I want to see if all the lessons I had were useful."
Saying it made the same handseals while circulating the chakra in his body in the specific pattern.
"Fire style: Fire ball jutsu"
Whoosh
Without any trouble, he spat a fireball nearly as big as the one his grandfather
"Ah," Testsuma exclaimed as he saw it
After the fireball dissipated, he looked at the old man
"What do you think?" he asked tetsuma,
Akashi had always compared himself to the best ninjas like Minato Namikaze, Uchiha Itachi, or Kakashi Hatake, and he always believed he was even better than them, particularly with his bloodline and adult mind.
Of course, being able to replicate techniques that he saw only once, even without the Sharingan was a given.
'If I couldn't even do what this stupid Itachi kid did before my age, I really don't deserve my second chance.'
"Did you train the fireball before?" the old man asked looking at Akashi a little bit suspiciously
"Of course not!" He shook his head
"I am hurt by the lack of faith that you have in me. In fact, went out of my way not to train and not to look anything up on that particular technique so that I could be sure of what I was doing,"
Akashi responded, he was extremely proud of himself, and it could be seen on his face
"I see!" Tetsuma nodded, satisfied with the response
"Always knew you were a genius, and yet you still managed to surprise me, all the time,"
"That's true.... You should be used to this by now,"
"Anyway, I'm not done." With that, Akashi turned his attention back on the lake
"You two, stopped me from practicing ninjutsu for years. Even under supervision, I was stuck theorizing, circulating chakra, and copying techniques, now I can finally let go and use all the techniques that I have in mind,"
Whoosh
In a flash, he quickly made another series of hand signs
His long red hair seemed to attract the light of the sun as he made another technique
"Fire style: great fireball technique"
In an instant, by putting in more of his massive chakra Akashi spat out a ball of Fire thrice the size of the previous one,
But it was not the end
Fire style: Crimson claw technique
He spat multiple smaller fireballs that moved in different directions before converging in a single point.
Fire style: Rolling Fire
Akashi launched another technique that moved like a wave on the water.
For nearly half a day, Akashi continued to test all the fire techniques that he had copied with his sharingan or learned from books.
His massive reserve of chakra allowed him to do it.
If the members of the Uzumaki clan hadn't erected a special barrier for him he would have attracted an enormous amount of attention.
Even his grandfather could not help but look at him with bewilderment
'My grandson really is a monster,' he thought proudly looking at the kid evaporating the lake in front of him
Once Akashi was done, the amount of water in the lake had nearly been halved.
...
In the Hokage Tower
Hiruzen and his advisors were looking at the pile of reports from the war we've been having headaches with
"We can't continue like that," Homura said, putting down another stack of papers "I am starting to have some cramps."
"How dare you complain about some paper work? We have a war going on," Danzo rebuked in Sterly
"Calm down, it was only joking," Koharu said, putting her own finished papers on the table.
Once everything was over, they finally started to talk about the war going on and our plans for everything else
"Have you decided what to do with the Uzumaki child?" Danzo asked. He had never said it, but he was very interested and jealous of Akashi, but until now he had never managed to get his hands on him, nor on any other Uzumaki residing in the village for that matter
"They have until now been protected by Tetsuma, but he is going to the battlefield soon, it will be our time to act," Hiruzen said calmly
"Those Uzumaki!" Danzo said with obvious disapproval in his tone.
"They have been living here in Konoha for so long under our protection, and yet they refuse to establish roots here,"
It was obvious that he was holding some resentment toward them, after all, he had long coveted the powers of their clan
The original plan was that once Uzusiogakure was sufficiently better, they would come and save a few children with the inheritance of the whole clan before bringing them back to Konoha, creating a new bloodline limit for the village.
Unfortunately, nothing went as they expected, and everyone in Uzushiogakure tragically died.
They didn't cast their attention on Uzumaki already present in the village, unfortunately, they were already under the protection of an elder of the Uchiha,
Plus, Mikado Uzumaki, Akashi's grandmother, had some prejudice against them.
Granted, her dislike for them was completely justified but, it didn't change the fact that but the wrench in their plans.
But with the dissatisfaction that the Uchiha had toward Tetsuma, it will soon be resolved.
That dissatisfaction was partly due to the political situation of their own Clan and partly because of the high command's own actions. Tetsuma was the one chosen to command the first deployment of Uchiha on the frontline, taking him far away from his grandson and the other red-haired Uchiha.
"Maybe Lady Mito would have been able to help us with that problem, it is unfortunate that she died even before the war started," Homura said
"There's no need to reminisce about that, she already died a long time ago. How is little Kushina, by the way?" Koharu asked as she remembered the little girl that has become the nine tails jinchiruki
"She's fine. She's doing very well in school, and inherited Moto's will and love for the village, she is also very good friend with little Minato,"
"That's unfortunate that the others aren't like her,"
"Minato Namikaze? Jiraya's disciple. I heard he is already very familiar with the flying raijin jutsu of the second hokage," Homura commented. He paid attention to the young boy, a rising talent in the village.
"He is also a very good friend of Nawaki," Koharu added
Nawaki was Orochimaru's disciple, so it was obvious that the two young boys would know each other.
In fact, it was not just Nawaki that Minato knew, he was also acquainted with Akashi
The truth is that Akashi had purposefully made sure to meet Minato through Nawaki.
After all, in this world, Minato was considered by all to be a painless genius, and with his memory of the canon manga, he had to meet him, even if it was just to use him as a reference for power.
"I heard from my men that Akashi is friends with them, you should be careful not to let them be too close. We don't want them to be influenced by that Akashi kid," Danzo said with his usual cold expression, us police being paranoid, particularly when it concerns the Uchiha
"You worry too much," Hiruzen scoffed, nearly laughing
"Nawaki and Minato are not the kind of boys to be easily influenced by another person. Their conviction and thought process are firm and already well formed."
Hiruzen, I've been brainwashing people with the wile of Fire for years now.
He was good at judging people's character
"Unfortunately, the same can be said for Akashi, otherwise, he would have been influenced by those two by now. This is in fact one of the reasons why I allowed them to be in contact"
"Hum"
Danzo harumphed at his friend's statement. Having known Hiruzen for so long, he knew what kind of man he was, he like to use the soft approach to subtly manipulate people
What the two of them did not realize was that Akashi himself had purposefully made sure to get close to the heroes and future Heroes of Konoha before they became exceptional, and that people like Danzo and Hiruzen started to keep too close an eye on them.
Tsunade, Orochimaru, Jiraya, Nawaki, because it was only through them that he could more easily get closer to his true targets, Minato Namikaze and Dan Kato.
Due to his relationship with them, he had been able to see them use their signature jutsu during spars or training.
In the case of Minato, we even saw a glimpse of his notes on the flying thunder god.