"Good morning, Mito-sensei."
The words were dipped in honey but delivered with the underlying resonance of a drawn blade scraping against its sheath. It was a tone so masterfully passive-aggressive that Tsunade, who was lazily stretching her hamstrings nearby, actually paused to appreciate it.
She shot a glance at her grandmother, who was serenely sipping a cup of tea as if she were observing a particularly interesting species of beetle and not a pint-sized volcano in a training outfit.
Even Tsunade, who was still mastering the fine art of not saying everything she thought, could feel the waves of pure, unadulterated resentment rolling off her friend. It was almost impressive.
Azula had managed to condense the frustration of an entire week of what she clearly deemed 'wasted time' into three simple words.
This entire… situation… had begun a week ago. When Tsunade had first learned that her best friend had been formally taken as a student by her own grandmother, her initial reaction had been sheer, unbridled shock.
Then, a spark of competitive fire had ignited in her gut. If Azula was getting private lessons from her grandma herself, then by the Sage, Tsunade would be right there too, ensuring she didn't fall behind.
For the first few days, Azula had envisioned learning secret Senju taijutsu katas, maybe getting a sneak peek at some of the less-lethal Uzumaki sealing arrays, or at the very least, some advanced chakra exercises that were different from the Uchiha.
Reality, thus far, had been a profound disappointment.
For seven. Entire. Days. Mito had not taught her a single ninjutsu. Not one sealing formula. Not even a cool, flashy taijutsu move. Instead, their curriculum had consisted entirely of what Azula had sarcastically dubbed "Advanced Pretending to be a Tree" exercises.
They'd meditated for hours. They'd practiced walking on water… slowly. They'd balanced on increasingly unstable surfaces while maintaining perfect chakra flow to their feet.
They'd even spent one entire afternoon trying to mold a perfect, stationary sphere of chakra in their palms—a task Azula had mastered before she'd lost her first baby tooth.
It was, in Azula's not-so-humble opinion, an insult to her intelligence and a criminal waste of her prodigious talent. Her chakra control was, after all, her masterpiece.
It was the one thing she knew, with the unshakable certainty of a fundamental law of the universe, that she was better at than anyone else her age. Possibly anyone else, period. To be forced to drill the basics was like asking a master chef to repeatedly demonstrate how to butter toast.
Mito, for her part, seemed utterly unperturbed by the glacial chill emanating from her smallest student. She took a final, slow sip of her tea, placed the cup delicately on a small stone table beside her, and smiled a smile that was all serene wisdom and hidden amusement.
"Before we proceed to the next stage of your training," Mito began, her voice as smooth as polished river stone, "I have a question for you, Azula. What do you believe you should do? Exploit your most obvious, overwhelming advantage? Or learn something new that may, in the long term, be profoundly beneficial to you?"
Azula's eye twitched. It was a microscopic spasm, but to Tsunade, who was watching this verbal duel with the rapt attention of a spectator at a championship match, it was as dramatic as a thunderclap.
This was the heart of the issue. The source of the resentment. Mito had been actively not exploiting Azula's biggest advantage. She'd been ignoring the gleaming, hyper-efficient engine in favor of checking the tire pressure. Repeatedly.
Unbeknownst to the fuming girl, Mito's motives were more complex than simple pedagogical torture.
Her initial hypothesis was that Azula was a temporal refugee, a soul catapulted back in time from some distant future.
The girl's knowledge was sometimes eerily specific, her combat instincts preternaturally mature, her perspective… skewed. The way she'd once offhandedly mentioned the 'economics of a multi-village shinobi system' a few days ago had made Mito spit out her tea and spend three hours drawing diagrams.
So, Mito had devised a test. A week of 'basics' was a perfect cover.
She'd engage Azula in discussions about chakra theory, politics, history, and ninjutsu, probing for anachronisms, for knowledge that shouldn't exist yet. She'd wait for a slip-up, a mention of a technique or an event from a time yet to come.
The results had been baffling. Azula was a paradox.
In some areas, she was a savant. In others, particularly the foundational theories of Nature Transformation and the more esoteric branches of chakra science, she was a complete novice.
It was like meeting a mathematician who could instantly solve impossibly complex equations but had to be reminded what the number 'zero' was.
The time-traveler theory was crumbling. But a new mystery was taking its place. How could someone with such gaping holes in her foundational knowledge possess such flawless, almost supernatural chakra control?
It was a level of precision Mito had only ever seen in one other person: her own husband, Hashirama. And even that was a different kind of control—a vast, overwhelming, life-giving force.
Azula's was surgical. Absolute. It was as if the chakra inside her wasn't a wild energy to be harnessed, but a perfectly disciplined army that awaited her slightest thought.
And she was hiding its full extent. Mito knew it.
In fact, Azula hadn't even hinted at her ability to perform most ninjutsu without hand seals, a skill that would have shattered the foundational understanding of every jonin in Konoha. The girl was playing her cards impossibly close to her chest, a habit Mito—who was more knowledgeable than Azula thought—found both prudent and intensely frustrating.
Now, faced with Mito's question, Azula's mind raced. Finally, a pivot. A chance to escape the tedium. Should she push to leverage her impeccable control? Learn high-level genjutsu? Master medical ninjutsu?
Both were paths that demanded finesse, not brute force. Or should she stubbornly insist on the original goal: the mysterious and powerful art of fuinjutsu?
After a long moment of internal debate, she decided on a different tactic. She'd ask the expert.
"Mito-sensei," Azula said, her voice carefully neutral, "is there not a third option? A way to further explore and weaponize my chakra control that would provide a significant boost to my strength in the short term?"
The unspoken part of the question hung in the air: …so this isn't a complete waste of my time?
Mito looked at her, a flicker of genuine surprise in her violet eyes. It was a good question. Strategic. It showed she wasn't just impatient; she was thinking about efficient growth. A slow smile spread on Mito's face. "An excellent query. But it leads me to another. What do you believe is your biggest talent?"
Azula blinked. Was this a trick question? Was the sky blue? Was ramen the pinnacle of culinary achievement in this world?
"Isn't it my chakra control?" she asked, confusion piercing through her irritation. She glanced at Tsunade, who just shrugged as if to say, 'Yeah, I also want to know, obviously.'
Mito shook her head, her long, crimson hair swaying gently. "In almost anyone else—even in a prodigy like Hiruzen Sarutobi—if you gifted him your level of chakra control, it would instantly become his defining, greatest talent. But not for you, Azula. For you, it is merely a symptom. A byproduct. It is the magnificent cart, but it is not the horse."
Azula's competitive spirit, which had been languishing in a dungeon of boredom, suddenly perked up. It rattled its chains. It looked out the window.
A gamble? This whole endeavor—throwing her lot in with the Hokage's wife—had been a massive gamble. Was it already about to pay out after only a week?
She looked at Mito, her golden eyes wide with anticipation, waiting for the sage to continue, to unveil the mystery.
Mito said nothing.
She just sat there, smiling that infuriatingly knowing smile.
The silence stretched. A bird chirped. Somewhere in the distance, a leaf fell. Azula felt a vein throb in her forehead. She understood, with sudden, horrifying clarity, exactly what Mito was doing. This was retribution.
This was payback for all those times Azula had answered one of Mito's probing questions with a cryptic, 'I have a theory,' or 'It's complicated,' before clamming up. The master was teaching a lesson in frustration, and the student was getting an A+.
Just as Azula was about to break the silence with a very un-disciple-like growl, Mito spoke, but not to her alone.
"Azula. Tsunade." Her voice was soft but commanded absolute attention. "A question for you both. What is the one thing, the fundamental essence, that all living beings share? Be it humans, animals, trees, and the like? What is the common thread of life itself?"
Tsunade, who had been enjoying Azula's squirming, straightened up. This was more like it. A philosophical question. A test of understanding.
She'd been fielding these from her grandparents since she could talk. She scrunched up her face in thought, her brow furrowed. What did a person, a bear, and an oak tree have in common? They were all… alive. But what did that mean?
Her grandfather's teachings came back to her. His endless lectures about the Will of Fire, about understanding the world, not just dominating it.
"I think…" she began slowly, choosing her words with care. "I think it should be their spirit. Their life force. They all possess a unique spirit, a consciousness that makes them a living being and not just… a thing. And I think… the stronger that spirit, the greater the power they can exert on the world."
She finished, looking proud of herself. It was a good answer—and a Senju answer.
Mito's face blossomed into a warm, genuine smile. She reached out and ruffled Tsunade's blonde hair affectionately.
"A wonderful answer, my dear. Truly. You have been listening to your grandfather." Tsunade beamed.
Then, Mito's violet eyes shifted, their intensity focusing solely on Azula. "And you?"
Azula had been quiet, her mind racing down a different, darker path.
Spirit? Life force? That was too vague, too sentimental. She dealt in harder currencies. Her mind, sharp and analytical, went straight to the core mechanics of the world she found herself in.
In this universe of reincarnation and summoned souls, what was the one immutable, transferable, exploitable constant?
"Or," Azula said, her voice low and certain, "is it their soul?"
She didn't say it casually. It was a calculated answer. She was thinking of Orochimaru's body-swapping technique, a horror she thankfully hadn't encountered yet.
She was thinking of the Impure World Reincarnation, that ultimate desecration jutsu that sacrificed a living vessel to serve as a clay puppet for a summoned soul, overwritten and reshaped by the very data contained within that spectral entity.
The implications were terrifying… and fascinating. If the soul was a perfect record of a person—their knowledge, their skills, their genetic blueprint—then mastering the soul was the ultimate power.
Not for her, the messy business of training and effort. True power would be a simple, clean transaction: find a soul, absorb its data. It was the most efficient upgrade path imaginable.
Mito did not smile. She did not pat Azula on the head. She simply stared, and for the first time since Azula had met her, the unflappable Uzumaki matriarch looked genuinely… exasperated.
A long, weary sigh escaped her lips, the sound of a teacher who has just asked 'What is 2+2?' and received a doctoral thesis on quantum mathematics in return.
"By the Sage," Mito murmured, almost to herself. "What, in the name of all that is holy, are you exactly?"
The girl was an enigma wrapped in a paradox and sealed in a layer of unnerving pragmatism. She could be blissfully ignorant of basic chakra theory yet casually drop truths about the soul that would make the priests at the Fire Temple faint.
"Yes," Mito conceded, her voice returning to its normal measured tone. "It is. And that is your greatest talent, Azula. Not your chakra control. That is merely the magnificent tool your true talent has created. Your greatest asset is your impossibly, abnormally powerful soul. A dense, potent soul means an overwhelming reserve of Spiritual Energy. And that, in turn, means you have an innate, staggering affinity for Yin Release."
The pieces clicked into place in Azula's mind with an almost audible snap. Of course, Yin Release. The power of imagination, of form, of spirit.
It was the foundation of genjutsu, of shadow clones, of sealing, of all techniques that shaped reality through mental and spiritual energy.
Her perfect chakra control wasn't just because she was Azula apparently; it was the product. It was the precise hand of a master artist, but her soul was the boundless, brilliant creativity that guided it.
A thrill, cold and sharp and exhilarating, shot through her. This was it. This was the payoff.
"Can you explain it to me more clearly?" Azula asked, her earlier resentment completely forgotten, replaced by a ravenous curiosity.
This touched on the deepest mystery of her own existence. That constant, nagging feeling of being… more than one, a fusion, an amalgamation.
Was she a normal person who had gained Azula's memories and skills? Or was she Azula, somehow grafted with the consciousness and knowledge of a person from another world?
Mito, seeing the fiery intellect now fully engaged, decided to abandon the roundabout lessons for a moment of direct truth.
"Since you seem to understand the concept of Yin and Yang nature," Mito began, "then you know that every living being is a balance of both. Spiritual Energy (Yin) and Physical Energy (Yang) combine to create chakra. The quantity, the quality, and the balance are unique to each individual. Most have a slight inclination one way or the other. You…"
She gestured at Azula as if presenting a fascinating natural phenomenon, "…you are not most people. You are a landslide. A tsunami of Spiritual Energy. Your chakra control is so precise because your spirit has an iron-fisted dominance over the physical energy it mingles with. It's not a negotiation; it's a command."
Azula nodded slowly, processing. It fit. It fit perfectly. It explained why molding chakra felt as natural as breathing, why the energy within her felt less like a wild river and more like a perfectly loyal extension of her own will.
"I understand the theory, Mito-sensei," Azula said, her voice laced with a new, deep respect. The 'roundabout way' now made sense; it was a foundation she hadn't even known she was missing. "But what I need to know now is… what does that mean? Practically. If my Yin nature is my biggest talent, what do I do with it?"
"You don't have to be so impatient, Azula," Mito said, her voice the auditory equivalent of a warm blanket. "In this world, everything is connected. It's all one big, chaotic web. Pull a thread here, and a shinobi on the other side of the continent trips over his own kunai."
"I can tell you why your Yin nature is so special," Mito continued, her eyes twinkling. "But first, do you even know what Yin and Yang chakra natures truly are, apart from the 'spiritual vs. physical' party? If not, what is the use of hearing something you don't understand?"
Azula opened her mouth, a scathing retort about her extensive research in the Uchiha archives on her lips, but then snapped it shut.
She had been impatient. And admitting that Mito, the living Wikipedia of esoteric chakra nonsense, might know more than some dusty clan scrolls was… tactically sound. For now. She gave a curt, regal nod, the kind that said, 'Proceed, peasant, but be entertaining.'
"Excellent!" Mito chirped, as if Azula had just delivered a fascinating dissertation. "Yin is the spiritual power. The power of imagination, will, and mind."
"Like Hashirama would have said, it's the part of you that looks at a rock and thinks, 'You know what? That rock would be much improved if it were on fire.' Every living being has it. Yang is the power of the body, the physical medium—the cellular machinery that actually makes the rock catch fire when you yell at it."
She leaned forward conspiratorially. "Naturally, having a surplus of either is like being born with a bigger chakra battery than the other kids. That's the Senju and Uzumaki party line: all about the Yang life, big muscles, bottomless stamina, can fight all day."
"Your lot, the Uchiha… you're the weird, broody artists. Your power comes from your massive spiritual power that makes very few things able to shake you emotionally. It's why, through this willpower with the medium of eyes, you can stare moodily into the middle distance and accidentally manifest a giant skeleton made of hatred."
It was the truth. Azula had once labored under the delusion that the Uchiha were chakra lightweights. Then she realized the scale was just broken.
They weren't weak; they were just being compared to the walking chakra reactors known as the Senju and Uzumaki.
If not for their insane Yin reserves, how could Izuna have gone toe-to-toe with Tobirama? How could Madara have fought the botanical monstrosity that was Hashirama? How could Sasuke, with his one emo glare, hope to keep up with Naruto and his thousand best friends?
Seeing she had Azula's full, albeit grudging, attention, Mito's voice dropped into a more serious, yet no less captivating, register.
"But let's go deeper. Yin doesn't just represent the spirit; on a fundamental level, it is the soul's signature. The strength of your mind, your spirit, your indomitable will to be the best at everything—it all radiates from the soul."
She paused for effect. "Which brings me to the most knowledgeable person I have ever seen: Tobirama Senju."
Azula perked up. Now they were getting somewhere. Edgy forbidden jutsu. This was what she came for.
"Tobirama looked at the Tailed Beasts," Mito explained, "and asked the kind of question that makes me laugh when I taught about it: 'Why don't they die? They're just sentient chakra. So why are we, the pinnacle of evolution, stuck in the body and dying with it?'"
"His answer was a pair of forbidden jutsu. One was based on the Tailed Beast principle. The other… well, it's something based on the Spirit Transformation Technique. Tobirama's version was… different. It was classified as Kinjutsu because it didn't send your spirit. It launched your actual soul out of your body like a catapult."
Was Azula shocked? Not really. As a VIP-tier connoisseur of fanfiction on a certain website she couldn't name, she'd read this theory a thousand times.
She'd even gone on a deep dive through Narutopedia one lonely, data-filled night when there was no one else to… well, no one else to talk to.
She'd learned that Tobirama's technique wasn't the simple Spirit Transformation; it was an S-Rank abomination, a dark prototype to Orochimaru's Living Corpse Reincarnation, something Kishimoto himself had hinted at in a data book.
Now, according to the laws of her past-life memory—which was notoriously fuzzy, probably from a combination of sleep deprivation, internet addiction, and other 'nightfuls' she refused to specify—she shouldn't recall this so clearly.
But that was the perk of being reborn in the Ninja World: spiritual energy was a real, tangible thing. It was like her brain had been upgraded from dial-up to fiber optic.
She couldn't remember her second-grade teacher's name, but she could absolutely recall the exact wording of an obscure Naruto forum post from 2014 with a little mental effort.
She'd never learned the specifics of the jutsu, though. And looking at Mito's serene face, she doubted the woman would just hand over the instructions for metaphysical identity theft.
But then, plot twist!
"Tobirama never used it," Mito said, shattering Azula's expectations. "A theoretical exercise only. But in theory, it would allow his soul to vacate its original 'container' and attempt a hostile takeover of a new one."
"The consequences, however, were… messy. First, his original body, now an empty vessel, would immediately realize it was redundant and begin a rapid process of cellular collapse. Second, the new body had to be perfectly compatible with his soul's unique… let's call it its 'data.'"
"Otherwise, it would be like trying to put a one-ton rock on a baby. The new body would also collapse. And since a soul is arguably more unique than everything, finding a compatible host is, for all intents and purposes, impossible."
Azula didn't need to ask how he'd tested this. The words 'human experimentation' hung in the air, silent and grim. It sounded exactly like the rough draft of Living Corpse Reincarnation.
Frankly, it sounded like one of the biggest bugs in the entire shinobi system. In some ways, it seemed even more hardcore than the Otsutsuki's Kāma. Those aliens needed to pre-install their data like a virus. Tobirama was trying to brute-force a direct upload, and Orochimaru perfected it.
Unbeknownst to Azula, Mito was watching her reactions like a hawk. This wasn't just a history lesson. Even though she observed that there also shouldn't be someone from the future or another person taking control of an Uchiha body through many factors, she didn't let down her guard.
But the evidence wasn't there. There was no sign of the spiritual static, the soul-deep scarring that such a violent process would inevitably leave. Mito would know, and through Azula's reaction at mentioning this, it looked like she wasn't surprised.
Mito had helped Tobirama develop it, after all. His goal was academic madness: 'Can the soul exist independent of the body?'
The problem was, he was a brilliant biologist but a lousy mystic. He couldn't see or sense souls.
So, they'd raided the Uzumaki clan's archives—a treasure trove of things man was not meant to know—and together, they'd developed a sensing technique. A way to perceive the soul's energy without needing to put on a mask and talk to the dead.
It was this technique that allowed Mito to sense the mind-boggling strength of Azula's soul and the unique, terrifyingly pure quality of her Yin chakra. It was the most singular thing she had ever felt.
But these state secrets, these dark chapters of her past with the Second Hokage, were not for Azula. Not yet. The observation period was still ongoing.
"I assisted in the development of the sensing aspect," Mito admitted carefully, editing the truth with the skill of a seasoned politician. "It granted me the ability to perceive the soul of others. It's similar to sensing chakra, but… deeper. More fundamental."
She let that hang in the air for a moment before delivering the grand finale, the core conceit of Tobirama's insane thesis.
"Tobirama theorized that the soul isn't just a passenger. It's the architect. It's the original blueprint. Every bloodline limit, every shred of talent, every last drop of chakra potential… it's all engraved there first, and the body simply follows the instructions."
"His Kinjutsu was the ultimate response. If you could bind your soul to another's vessel without rejection, you wouldn't just get their memories. You would overwrite their very existence. You could obtain their Kekkei Genkai, their talents, their everything, as if it had been yours all along."
Mito's smile finally faded, replaced by a look of profound seriousness. "The 'genetic collapse' he predicted wasn't just the body failing. It was the soul's immense data trying to forcibly rewrite the host's physical code to match its own divine blueprint."
Azula simply stared, her earlier impudence completely gone, replaced by the chilling awe of someone who has just been shown the true, terrifying engine that lurks beneath the world's hood. It was a lot to process.
(END OF THE CHAPTER)
Okay, not completely used to the university but here's today's chapter, by the way, now I think Azula's intention of being Mito's disciple is indeed one of the best things right?
And don't forget to vote, come on.