Under the Daffodils || Naruto Fanfiction

Chapter 9

It is two more weeks before Isamu is allowed to be put on the active roster.

"Remember, the healer said your body cannot handle one more chakra exhaustion. Your childhood chakra exhaustions have put too much of a strain on your body." Izuna frets over her like a mother hen, keeping an eye out for sharp edges the Uchiha girl could fall over onto.

Isamu hums in acknowledgement and Izuna crosses his arms, displeased with her dismissal. "This is serious. You could die the next time you pull something like that."

She nods. "I will try to not worry you."

The man next to her groans at Isamu's evasion and gives up. They part ways, Izuna heading to the Uchiha compound while she heads to the Senju's. The Senju guard recognizes her immediately and seems to struggle between bowing at her and throwing her the stink eye. He settles for a nod, before leading her to the Senju head's home.

"You're here." Senju Hashirama greets her, his presence and voice as warm as the midday sun with rays as warm as its center.

"Thank you for inviting me to your home, Hokage-sama, Mito-sama." Manners were ingrained into her body from her childhood, and Isamu blinks when her thoughts drift away to the nights of caning from a decade before.

Mito smiles, her eyes crinkling into crescents. "Would you like to see him?"

Isamu nods subtly, bad thoughts dissipating from her head. It is why she is here after all.

The red-haired woman disappears into the hallway and comes back, this time with a bundle snug in her arms.

"His name is Senju Shori." She stares at the baby, a progeny of the God of Shinobi and the greatest fuinjutsu master in all the five nations combined. The tiny baby, with soft tufts of red hair and eyes as dark as the deep forests descended into the night. "You're his godmother."

Isamu hesitantly reaches a finger towards the tiny thing, watching as he garbles and struggles to grab her finger with his pudgy right hand, squeezing it with all the might of an infant.

"It's an honor." She whispers.

It is one more life she has to protect.

"He was born when you two were off chasing the bijuu," Mito says, a tender smile on her lips as she looks at her son. Isamu turns to look at Hashirama. That means he had missed his son's birth, all for the search of a potential peace attainment, for a maybe. He looks sheepish but even that cannot hide the rumbling guilt in his eyes.

"And you still have the Kyuubi to search for." Mito finishes.

"We do." Isamu agrees, looking to Hashirama for his guidance. It's been three weeks since she was last hospitalized and there has been no word of the hunt.

"A month." Hashirama decides. "When Itama is fully healed."

"He's going along?" It is Mito who asks the question, disapproval lacing her tone, like a mother chiding her child.

"No," Hashirama says, then says in a softer voice. "But I need to make sure that he is okay before I leave Konoha once more."

Silence descends at his words. Isamu nods. "One month it is."
——-
The number of missions are on a rise with the formation of four other nations. Conflicts arise and active shinobi suddenly find less and less time for themselves, the people who were once students now become shinobi, forced to fill the workforce. They find themselves fighting again- and this time with a different enemy.

Isamu lugs her body from one mission to another, sometimes on solo assassination missions, sometimes on team tracking and infiltration. Akio, Nobu and Kagami are exceptional shinobi, as to be expected from the students of The Uchiha Isamu, and it is not long before they are each sent on their own solo missions.