Chapter 21
Sakura flipped open the deceiving cover of the seemingly inconspicuous book. And once again she read the first words—the most provocative title to a book she'd ever come across.
She hadn't imagined it after all.
Of course, that would've made things far too easy for her.
Sakura was almost disappointed to find all of this hadn't simply been an intricate prank when she turned the page and read the headline at the top of a long text.
'1: The Uchiha—The Most Savage and Depraved Clan of the Elemental Nations'
The first thing she noticed were several underlined passages of the text scattered across the page. Taking a quick look at them, Sakura found the highlighted words to be just that—some reasonably placed highlights. Maybe the author was putting emphasis on the important bits by underlining in dark blue rather than plain black like the text.
Sakura began reading.
The text itself was rather tame compared to the accompanying title. It summarized the history of the Uchiha in a short paragraph, which was quite contradictory to what the headline implied, as Sakura had expected an elaborate introduction, starting from the enigmatic origins of the clan and their ablities, their steady uprising, to the massive territory they eventually ruled under their amassed power.
The first part of the book had none of that. Instead, most of that page and the following ten or so discussed the mystery of their dominant, prevailing powers. The focus lay on the question of how the gods would allow such overpowering and mighty eyes to exist when most hoping to amass the power the Uchiha possessed would have to do so by mastering hard-earned techniques created and passed down by one's ancestors. The Mangekyō, especially, was described as the prime example of said imbalance.
'It endows its wielders with powers far beyond the rightful limits of mortal men. Such abilities, bordering upon the divine, create a grievous imbalance. To allow these forces to contend among the common man is a profound disruption of the natural order.'
In other words, the author thought it was unfair.
The whole text was written in a degrading manner, dehumanizing the Uchiha by making them out to be vicious beasts that only cared about spilling the blood of their victims. At the same time, righteous people with 'fairly-gained abilities' were held in high regard, praised even.
On page 15, Sakura saw the first annotation.
Messy, scratchy handwriting next to neat, cursive letters. The words held the same hue of dark blue that the underlines were in.
Right. This book had been commented by someone. The same person who'd marked down the approximate publication date.
The annotation—if it could even be called that—was nothing out of the ordinary. The author had gotten a date wrong by a few years, which was corrected. It was about an ambush on another clan, the Senju. The author mentioned it amongst other examples to further undermine the cruelty of the Uchiha. In that particular case, they had attacked a child in a place far away from the main battle, leaving it to bleed out alone in the depths of a forest.
It was cruel, yes, but Sakura couldn't help but think that such actions went both ways. Both Uchiha and Senju had been ambushing each other in dishonorable ways and would use dirty tricks. The author was clearly biased, though she had known that from the moment she read the title.
Sakura skimmed through the rest of the first chapter. It was all repetition of the same few points; the Uchiha were evil like no other; granting them magical eyes for nothing was against the balance of nature; real Shinobi made sacrifices for power, and therefore you should hate them too. She began wondering if the title had been a fluke; maybe the author didn't know anything concrete after all.
Sakura finished part one with a flicker of hope, because maybe she could leave it at the gates or put it back. Doing the latter hadn't been an option back then. The library workers had seen 'Kakashi' making a beeline to the box that held the book—they couldn't know that she had originally gone for the chakra book and gotten off track when she saw a dusty box underneath—and proceeded to groan and curse after studying the book for some time. Sakura had had no guarantee that the book was harmless or that the woman at the counter wouldn't be curious and pick it up afterwards. It didn't even have that weird spell that artificially caused one to lose interest anymore.
Once someone of high enough power got their hands on the damn thing, the next things to happen were pretty clear; the book would reach the Uchiha through some way or another, the clan head reads it and finds the contents to hold clan secrets, the library workers are questioned, Kakashi is approached but he couldn't have been at the library that day, so professionals are ordered to find any residue chakra—and Sakura didn't know how advanced those techniques were at this point—and then the Uchiha had a lead and she would have to live in constant fear of how much they knew and what she could allow herself to do.
Sakura turned a page, murmuring to herself, "But if the book doesn't hold any dangerous information—"
'2: The Gruesome and Inhuman Means to Attain Preternatural Powers'
As she read the text beneath, with growing horror dawning upon her, it became clear that the book title that had first led her to take the books home wasn't of words without substance—it was exactly what she had feared.
'I, along with many others, once believed that the eyes of the Uchiha were a gift bestowed by the gods. Yet, the truth is far darker. The Uchiha have deceived the world, claiming that the Sharingan, along with all it entails, was granted to their family by the Goddess Amaterasu. But, as my readers well know, I have revealed the Sharingan to be nothing of divine origin. I now write once more to uncover the same truth about the Mangekyō Sharingan, a monstrous perversion of the Sharingan.
'It stands thus; the Uchiha partake in a hidden and grisly rite, concealed from the eyes of the mortal world—and even from the gods themselves.
'For the nature of the ritual is wholly inhumane, an affront to the teachings bestowed upon us by the Sage from whom they claim to be descended.'
Her eyes wandered down, as she desperately hoped not to find the words that'd hammer the final nail to her conclusion.
But there it was.
'Seduced by the power that the act confers, they slay their own kin and gouge out the eyes of their closest relatives.'
Sakura sucked in sharp breath. "Fuck. I'm dead."
As the chapters progressed, the revelations of the author were explained in fine detail. It mentioned the requirements to awakening the final form of the Sharingan, the Mangekyō (Sakura let out a relieved sigh, realizing the author didn't know about the Rinnegan.) and the drawbacks of using it; eventual blindness.
There was a long description of the history of the Uchiha attempting to prevent losing their sight: the discovery of a method that the author titled 'replacement eyes', experiments conducted in a hidden corner of the Uchiha clan that would test the limits of the procedure—'The report delineates that a blood match of no less than three tenths must be established, which pertains to siblings or cousins of remarkably close relation'—a series of internal conflicts that happened between members of branch families, in which siblings would challenge each other with stakes that would go as far as the sacrifice of the defeated one's eyes.
The sheer amount of detail was ridiculous. Hell, there was a two-page list of documented Mangekyō abilities with the name and date of death of each user.
Some parts were incomprehensible. The author would go on and on about a theory that made no sense, writing with no foundation and into murky nothingness. Some bits and pieces of an otherwise coherent text seemed out of place. 'The Mangekyo is not possible to recreate.' a line said. Huh?
That didn't change anything about the main fact. Much as she had first feared, the author did know top-secret information. It was severe and detrimental. And the book was almost certainly illegal, not to mention the wrath of the Uchiha that the existence of this tome would incur.
And she had taken it home.
Damn.
There was another thing that was almost as bad as the contents of the book: the comments.
Sakura had tried to ignore them for the most part in favor of concentrating on reading the contents of the text and attempting to maintain her-fucking-calmness, but the amount of navy words at the side picked up along with the pace of the author's descent into vehemence.
It started with harmless things—skeptic reactions towards the claims made in the book.
'Must investigate source of these allegations' below an underlined passage detailing a siege that ended in defeat because a majority of the Uchiha participating in the battle had awakened the Sharingan at least two decades prior, causing an overall low reaction time to visual inputs.
'Evidence of validity needed before making such claims.' next to a particularly gruesome incident that apparently happened in the midst of a drought.
'motives and originis of the author suspect.' and in smaller letters underneath that, 'an Uchiha himself?'
Then the author revealed the secret to attaining the Mangekyo, and the person's skepticism and suspicion abruptly disappeared, as if it were clear to them that this revelation was the truth.
'If true, this is a betrayal of everything we stand for.' The first two words were scribbled out—realization in retrospect?
'Such inhumane rituals cannot be tolerated.'
On one hand, they seemed to be swayed by the fury that the author was expressing, and the comments were filled with short, angry reactions.
'Utterly vicious'
'a grotesque mockery of true strength.'
On the other hand, some paragraphs were met with speculation and theories of the person themselves.
'connection to Byakugan? Records on similiar ancestry between U. and H. could hint at further potential in H'
An unusually long annotation was next to the list. The person noted down further aspects, like familial ties between people, and called attention to some properties occurring two or three times across multiple people, specifically the fact some of them were closely related. They wondered about a correlation between blood ties and the chances of certain mutations of the Mangekyo appearing.
Those things weren't bad or anything. Most of the time, it was what Sakura expected of someone commenting an old book.
But then there were... other things. Things that some of the comments implied.
One, T.S. was in a high position.
T.S. was providing information. And not just any—confidential information. They knew about matters concerning other noble clans, such as their methods of training and the workings of their techniques. Clan secrets.
They wrote the most about the Uchiha. Paragraphs upon paragraphs of history, down to the personalities of Clan Heads, minor political disputes between the Uchiha elders, jutsu unique to the Uchiha clan and their weaknesses, the specific workings of the Sharingan, at which moments to strike when facing an Uchiha, and how the drawbacks of the Sharingan made them 'easier to kill'.
This person had access to classified information—a lot of it. And getting so much on a highly respected clan was damn-near impossible as a person of less standing.
Two, T.S. lived during the Founding of Konoha.
Sakura didn't find it hard to figure out the time that the book was commented, even though it was never specifically mentioned. Quite the opposite; it was almost impossible not to know the time frame after a certain point, with how much T.S. was referencing certain people.
'How can we trust those who practice such darkness? Why form an alliance?'
One part talked about the legend that described the Uchiha descending from Gods. The author—by this point wholly immersed in reveling in their own discoveries—narrated about the myth of the Rinnegan ("Aha! Here it is!" Sakura exclaimed at reading the word.) and noted how it would be pursued by some Uchiha as the ultimate evolution of their eyes. And, while many didn't go that far, the Uchiha would use a tale of divine selection as leverage for feeding into their drive for power.
'This explains their behavior. Madara's ambition knew no bounds—dangerous and unpredictable. Konoha rid itself of him for good.'
Next to another paragraph, 'Anija's faith in the Uchiha ultimately led to that man's well-deserved demise.'
And finally,
'My brother's vision of joint rule with Madara was never feasible, as he designed the Hokage's seat of power to only ever be accessible to a single individual.'
It was unmistakably clear.
T.S. stood for Tobirama Senju.
"Well, fuck."
"'A lack of increase in chakra reserves is often a result of a lack of knowledge in the field, overestimation of one's capabilities, or confirmation bias. Meditation and frequent use lead to expansion in due time, which is why utmost patience is required.'" Sakura read out loud. She sighed. "... Another garbage 'medical text', it seems."
She had been at this for hours, days even. Every book she picked up was filled with information she already knew by heart and nonsense with no meaning behind it.
Just like now. This text was basically telling her that she was just imagining things and to be more patient. The problem was that she had been patient the past two months and had seen no results.
Her eyes unfocused, Sakura realized she had been reading the page without comprehending the meaning of it—something that had been happening pretty often the past hour. She set the book aside. It didn't seem like she'd learn anything new anyway.
Who would have guessed that her biggest problem after time traveling would be her chakra reserves?
Not her.
When she had first come here, Sakura had been confident in her ability to train this civilian body into that of a shinobi, a fighter. And she was making progress in the physical department, albeit a small one. After all, she was a medic.
Yet, now she was sitting next to stacks of books and scrolls, struggling to keep her eyes on the tenth book she would read today. And it was not going to be the last.
But really, she couldn't have known.
Sakura couldn't have known that her pocket-sized chakra pool was practically incapable of growing, being stuck and not changing from the meager state she had found it in. Two whole months of daily meditation, and she still couldn't perform more than six E-Rank jutsu.
The books she was reading didn't say anything about cases like these. They all said that, unless the person is unable to mold chakra in the first place, the chakra reserves would increase with enough use, and the process would even be sped up through meditation and physical training.
And she was seeing none of that. Sakura groaned, putting her hands to her face. Do I really have to do it?
The thing was, she knew why her efforts weren't working. She was about 90 percent sure what the cause was. And she could think of exactly one method to solve the issue. Her distress was rooted in the nature of that method. It was tedious, unsafe, and difficult. But it was the only thing that could work.
Her core—the place where physical energy and spiritual energy would be molded into chakra—had looked just fine upon inspection. She wasn't very knowledgeable in that field, but that she could tell.
That didn't matter though.
Her chakra pathways were the real problem.
They weren't... normal. They didn't look the way a healthy person's chakra network should look. Normal people had a few, thick pathways of chakra.
Her pathways, however, were dozens in number and unbelievably thin. It wasn't uncommon for pathways to be slim due to little use, and she had been refraining from using any more chakra than necessary and concentrating on training her body instead.
But this wasn't just 'slim'.
This was paper-thin, 'could snap at any moment' slim.
They were so slim, in fact, that she hadn't noticed at first how tangled up they were.
Upon closer look, her pathways were intertwined and intertwisted, a jumbled mess of impossibly thin strands. There were even areas where they were entangled into a ball of pathways, where she couldn't tell one apart from another. It was tangled on such a miniscule level, there was no way it didn't have any effect on the chakra network's ability to allow smooth passage.
Perhaps that was why her chakra reserves weren't expanding. She had come to that conclusion long ago. Days before her meeting with Kakashi, she had discovered the mess of a network she housed and fallen into a state of shock. Ultimately, she ended up choosing to ignore the obvious problem and search for an alternative cause, even if that meant hours of cramped legs and books upon books of nonsense chakra theory.
Because the other option was that much worse.
That was-Untangling.
Sakura had never heard of someone actually doing it without suffering consequences, but it was technically possible to move the position of chakra pathways. It was possible. But it would be done by breaking the one rule that nobody ever taught shinobi because it was so obvious.
Instead of concentrating chakra at the designated chakra points, one could concentrate it in the middle of a pathway and move the compressed chakra in order to cause motion in the pathway itself.
There were a few things to consider with that method, though. There was a reason why no one did that anymore.
One, extremely high chakra control was required. A lack of control over the energy would quickly lead to clogging up and damage in the pathways. Worst case, the medics wouldn't be able to solve the issue in time, and an area of one's chakra network could be permanently disabled.
Two, there wasn't enough research on that topic to tell whether there were side effects to a higher current of chakra in pathways. It couldn't be without its risks, though, since enough people with chakra control well enough that a mishap was out of the question had suffered damages already.
Three, it would take a long time. A very long time. Making a rough estimate of the amount of chakra pathways—no chakra strands, untangling just the area leading to her right hand—would take at least half a year. And that was assuming she would be quite proficient at it.
In conclusion, it was troublesome. Troublesome and risky.
Sakura had believed she had gotten somewhat used to coming across random changes by now. Well, it turned out she wasn't at all prepared to be faced with arguably the worst starting conditions to become stronger than last time around. Not to mention that the mystery of why all these changes had occurred still remained.
Was untangling really going to be the way to go?
She had already tried meditation. Hours of it. Then she had systematically gone through every listed technique in the most well-known chakra theory books—all to no avail. Next, she had tried the less popular methods, the ones that were only mentioned once, maybe twice, if the author was famous enough. The methods became more and more obscure.
Some had her completely drain her chakra pool while under various different circumstances—while meditating, while submerged in water, while hanging from the ceiling, while making hand signs, while meditating and being submerged in water—and others focused completely on the spiritual part of chakra molding, so she would regularly cleanse her mind and purge any evil energy that may have possessed her, or attempt to feel the life around her.
And after even that wouldn't do anything to her chakra reserves other than repeatedly draining them, she had mostly lost hope.
There was one more thing she could try, though she wasn't sure if that would even do anything at all. It didn't require any chakra. Rather than expanding her chakra pool, the theory of this technique consisted of searching for things that are 'causing disruption in one's mind' by entering her 'lower consciousness', whatever that was supposed to mean. It seemed to be similar to a second mindscape, a deeper one. It sounded overall very strange and untrustworthy.
She likely wouldn't die, though. And that was enough for Sakura to try it.