"Huh? Tsunade, what are you reading?" Mito asked curiously, raising a brow at her granddaughter, who had just trudged home from the academy like a soldier returning from a lost war.
Normally, anyone could tell why Tsunade was gloomy—her mother's recent death was still a heavy stone in her little heart.
But today her aura of doom had a different flavor. Instead of sulking with her fists clenched or staring at the tatami like it owed her money, she was clutching a strange book (manga, but they didn't know yet).
The covers showed what looked like a kid with a sword blasting water all over the place—probably water, which made her recall her recently deceased brother-in-law.
On the other end of the cover, however, there was a suspiciously familiar figure: a girl who looked like an older Azula, striking a dramatic pose while laughing maniacally and setting the world on fire.
Tsunade's face screamed, "Why is my rival playing as a fire goddess?" and her curiosity was practically chewing holes through the pages.
The truth was, Tsunade had two reasons to sulk today.
The first was obvious—the grief she was still carrying from her mother's death. The second was the dreaded academy test, or to be more precise, the practical combat. Aka, the moment when everyone realized that not all students were created equal, and some came pre-installed with unfairly broken cheat codes.
Because today, for the first time, Tsunade had witnessed the raw power of the so-called Uchiha Princes.
And Tsunade, the future Legendary Sucker-Puncher of Konoha, had to admit—if she ever fought Azula seriously, she'd probably lose. Badly. Like embarrassing enough to change villages badly.
That realization stung. After all, she had already sworn in her little heart that she would protect her family: Grandma Mito, her baby brother Nawaki, her many uncles and aunts… everyone she loved.
But what kind of protector couldn't even beat a classmate her own age? She felt… useless. And if there was one thing Tsunade hated more than losing, it was feeling useless.
When she'd arrived home earlier, she hadn't seen Mito around. Probably taking care of Nawaki, Tsunade assumed, so she decided not to bother her.
Instead, her eyes fell on the mysterious book Azula had handed out to everyone in class. Normally, she would've tossed anything that wasn't money straight into the nearest fireplace, but… Azula had poured an entire month of her time into this.
A month! That was practically a lifetime investment for a five-year-old. Tsunade couldn't help but be curious.
She spent over five minutes just analyzing the cover, squeezing out every detail like she was interrogating a criminal.
And the more she looked, the more she had to admit something shocking: that older Azula on the cover… actually looked kinda cool. Annoyingly cool. Like, "I hate her but I want to be her friend" cool.
Just as Tsunade finally cracked open the first page, she heard Mito's voice calling her.
Immediately, her paranoid little brain screamed: "Is this book cursed?!" Every time she tried to read it, something interrupted her. If the book started whispering her name at night, she was out.
But she quickly shook off the thought and called back, "Grandma, I came home earlier but didn't bother you since I thought you were busy with Nawaki. As for this—uh, this is Azula's book. The one she spent an entire month drawing. It's… kinda interesting."
Of course, Mito already knew Tsunade had returned the moment she stepped inside. Between the layered Uzumaki barriers and Mito's monstrous sensory ability—which basically made her the living Byakugan of Konoha—there was no way she could miss it.
Still, she walked over, scooped Tsunade into her lap, and sat down on the tatami with the book pressed between them.
It was a familiar scene: usually, Mito would unroll scrolls to teach Tsunade ninjutsu. This time, however, a book filled with drawings from a rival replaced the sacred scrolls.
On the first page, there was a boy and his mother. The boy was about to sell charcoal. Simple and innocent. Mito blinked, impressed. The art wasn't messy scribbles—no, it had texture, color, and a surprising amount of polish.
But what really caught her attention was the theme. When had an Uchiha ever cared about the struggles of ordinary people? This wasn't a "my clan is awesome" propaganda piece. It was a kid hauling charcoal through life's hardships.
Even more surprising, the boy, Tanjiro, started monologuing about how life wasn't easy—but still called it a blessing. He compared life to the sky: sometimes cloudy, sometimes bright, always changing.
Mito nearly dropped the book. She was speechless. Since when did five-year-old Uchihas have optimistic thinking? Most of them could barely spell patience without stabbing something first. And here was Azula, somehow channeling the wisdom of wandering monks into her doodles.
From that one line about life's struggles being blessings, Mito saw a shadow of her late husband—the man who had ended the Warring States Era and dragged the shinobi world into a fragile peace. It was eerie.
She almost expected Hashirama's ghost to pop out and say, "See? Told you kids are the future!"
Shaking her head, Mito kept reading. Apparently, this was a world without ninja at all. No jutsu, no chakra, no exploding tags. Just ordinary people. And yet, somehow, the boy Tanjiro was popular, kind, and… oddly gifted with a superhuman sense of smell.
At that moment, Mito thought to herself: What in the name of all nine bijuu has Azula been taught?
At first, Mito was only half-interested in whatever Azula had written. It was with the mentality of, "Eh, just another one of those weird books with too many words and not enough pictures."
But as she finished reading the first chapter, her eyes refused to leave the page. Her "I'm just curious" attitude started crumbling, and before she knew it, she was reading it seriously because it was really interesting and worth reading.
Why? Because this story wasn't about ninjas. No jutsu, no kunai, no smoke bombs, no "for the glory of the clan" nonsense.
Instead, the world inside those pages was crawling with demons. And not the kind of demon that politely lives inside your belly and occasionally lends you chakra. No, these were the real deal, the kind that treated humans like an all-you-can-eat buffet of meat.
And those who fought them weren't superhumans, not jinchūriki, not people who could sneeze and blow up a mountain like Hashirama.
Just… regular humans. The kind who struggle to open pickle jars. The kind who trip on flat surfaces. Mito was hooked. If plain old humans could stand against monsters like these, then maybe there was hope for Hashirama's dream of peace.
The book spread faster than a rumor about the Hokage peeking in the women's bathhouse.
Mito and Tsunade weren't the only ones reading it; pretty much every student who got their hands on a copy from Azula ended up glued to it. And when their families noticed, they joined in too, flipping through pages like it was the most exciting thing since free dango day.
Even the Hokage himself couldn't resist. Hiruzen, mighty leader of the village, protector of peace, wielder of terrifying jutsu… sneakily 'borrowed' a copy.
How? By yoinking it from a white-haired kid who was too distracted yelling at a toad to notice.
Meanwhile, the grand architect of all this chaos, Azula herself, didn't give a flying shuriken. After drawing the manga, she couldn't even be bothered to read it.
It was because she already knew the plot by heart. She wrote it, after all. And besides, if you know every twist and turn, rereading your own work can feel about as exciting as reading a grocery list.
Of course, as early as she started, she wasn't in this for fun but first, reputation, and of course, the hellish wealth to rival the whole of Konoha.
Second, she wanted to play with the Uchiha clan's little red-eyed toys. With the right emotional gut punches, maybe she could awaken Sharingan left and right.
Heck, maybe even push her own mother—already sporting a fancy Three Tomoe Sharingan—over the edge into awakening the Mangekyō, just by watching "her daughter's tragic death" on paper.
Yes, that was the 'big' change Azula made to the story. She didn't just shamelessly insert herself into it—she went all out. She had already apologized to Rengoku because he was gone, replaced by none other than herself: an older, stronger, cooler version. Bold move. Some might call it narcissistic. Azula called it branding.
But reputation and teary-eyed Uchihas weren't enough. Azula had another card to play: the Tribunal.
Her plan was to create Konoha's first-ever court system. Judges, lawyers, trials, the whole package.
Because if the Uchihas kept dishing out 'justice' like overzealous hall monitors, people would always fear them. But if justice was delivered publicly, with fairness and drama, the Uchiha would stop looking like power-hungry cops and start looking like Konoha's heroic messengers of justice.
Of course, there was one problem: who would propose the idea? If her father went to the Hokage and said that this was his plan, or the Uchiha's plan, Hiruzen would pick it apart like an overcooked piece of ramen.
But if she—mischievous, playful Azula with her reputation for pulling silly stunts—presented it, Hiruzen would probably chuckle, think it was just another one of her 'antics,' and then lower his guard. That's when the brilliance of the plan would hit him.
So yes, instead of training harder or chasing power, Azula was wasting precious time doodling and scheming about courtrooms.
But in her mind, it was necessary. Because once the Tribunal was established, Konoha would witness justice in its purest form: criminals defended, trials held in daylight, verdicts reached before everyone's eyes. No more whispers of bias, no more fear of Uchiha-only justice.
In short, Azula was about to turn the Uchiha from 'terrifying police force' into the legal equivalent of caped superheroes. All with a manga, a Tribunal, and a shameless cameo as herself.
And the best part was that probably everyone would be too busy binge-reading her story to notice the puppet strings she was quietly pulling.
She wanted that if people in Konoha saw an Uchiha glaring at someone, the general assumption was: that person had messed up.
Because the Uchiha were supposedly impartial, noble, and serious-minded.
Azula figured if she could use her schemes to build that reputation even higher, then when the time came for her to compete for Hokage, if she did it someday, she wouldn't even need campaign posters. The phrase 'Hated by an Uchiha? Must be guilty' would basically run her election for her.
But of course—Azula hadn't forgotten her true goal. Becoming stronger was still the response for everything, but the problem was she was starting to hit a wall.
By now, she had learned pretty much every ninjutsu appropriate for her stage.
She could breathe fire like a dragon with indigestion, shoot lightning like a storm cloud with anger issues, and hurl around flashy elemental combos that would impress even the Academy teachers.
Only two techniques she had avoided like plague-infested ramen, but that could increase her strength in a short time and were relevant even in the Boruto fanfic era, were the Rasengan and the Chidori—because they both came with one tiny, annoying side effect: blowing up your own hand.
Besides, both jutsu guzzled chakra like a drunk uncle at a sake festival. Even Kakashi, during the beginning of Naruto, could only use it about three times a day.
And anyway, most of the other 'new' jutsu were just slightly spicier versions of things she could already do. Fireball? Try bigger fireball. Lightning strike? Try zigzag lightning strike. She already had bending—why waste time reinventing the wheel when she was basically born with a sports car?
Her main limitation wasn't skill. It was the same problem every short-statured prodigy ran into: not enough chakra, and not enough physical growth.
In her mind, if she had a bigger chakra pool and a more mature body, she'd already be walking around at Kage-level without even needing the Sharingan. And wouldn't that be a flex?
Still, Azula wasn't the type to just sit around twiddling her thumbs while waiting for puberty to grant her upgrades. She needed something new to chew on, something important, something game-changing. And she had just the thing in mind: sealing techniques.
Who was the best sealing master in Konoha? That was an easy one—Mito Uzumaki, no contest.
Honestly, the only person in history who might rival her was the legendary Ashina Uzumaki.
But Mito wasn't just a sealing genius. According to the clan's records, she was also the greatest sensor Konoha had ever seen.
The woman could probably detect someone sneezing three countries away and tell you whether it was pollen or a cold.
People said she had mastered all the legendary techniques of the Uzumaki clan, that in her prime she had been one of the strongest shinobi alive—someone only Madara and Hashirama themselves could truly challenge. Oh, and she had the Nine-Tails living inside her like some kind of demonic roommate.
Sure, she couldn't fully weaponize the Kyūbi the way Naruto would someday, but Mito didn't need full control.
She was still terrifying enough. And, technically speaking, she was also the head of what used to be the Senju clan. The name might have been quietly retired, but that didn't mean the legacy or the members had just vanished into thin air.
Azula was certain that somewhere in Mito's possession were Tobirama's research notes, his personal experiments, and maybe even the keys to the juiciest forbidden jutsu Konoha had ever banned.
And if Tobirama hadn't passed down his ridiculous ninjutsu encyclopedia to her, then Mito would definitely still have easy access to the Scroll of Seals. Which meant… jackpot.
From Azula's perspective, if she wanted a teacher, it had to be Mito. End of story.
Sure, she could technically consider someone like Sakumo Hatake. Well—the guy was only a chunin right now. A talented chunin, yes, but still a chunin.
That was like choosing to learn swordsmanship from a kid at summer camp when you had the option of training under a legendary samurai.
The only real question was: how in the world was she supposed to convince Mito Uzumaki to take her on as an apprentice?
Because walking up to Mito and saying, 'Hey, super-powerful, terrifyingly competent, Kyūbi-carrying master of seals—teach me everything you know' wasn't exactly a winning strategy.
(END OF THE CHAPTER)
So, what do you think about becoming Mito's disciple? And if you agree, what kind of Ninjutsu (your original idea) do you think Mito have that she can teach Azula that are super useful? And don't forget to give me your power stones.