I lingered in front of the door a little bit longer than necessary. The wooden frame still felt foreign, not quite my door, not quite my home. Unsurprising that, I just brought it after all.
I could've slipped in by now like any self-respecting shinobi. Through a window or dropped from the roof, but the bouquet in my hands made that seem... wrong somehow. I'd sealed the flowers away before meeting Tomoe, and now they felt oddly substantial as I held them again. Like I was playing at being normal, mimicking the romantic gestures I'd seen in those cheesy movies back in the other world.
Dammit, listen to me. Acting like I'd never given flowers to a woman before. I had. Plenty of times, actually. Usually, as foreplay, rarely with any real meaning behind it. Just another move in the dance that led to someone's bed.
Yet, I was merely delaying. It wasn't a matter of flowers.
Itachi's words still grated in every corner of my mind. That bastard didn't need his Sharingan to crawl under your skin and make himself at home in your head. His little psychoanalysis session kept replaying.
I shook my head and propped myself up straighter and raised my hand to knock, then paused. What if Shiho wasn't even here? We'd barely discussed her moving in. Yesterday had been all hormones and hasty decisions, and then I'd vanished for the entire day. She probably went back to her own place. Why would she stay in an empty house with nothing but a futon?
The thought made me feel like an even bigger idiot. I tilted my head back toward the moon, sighing at my own idiocy. The day had started so well...
I reached for the door handle just as it slid open on its own.
Shiho stood there, her curious frown melting into pure radiance when she saw me. "Eishin! You're back! What were you doing out there? Were you actually knocking? That's so—" She stopped mid-sentence as if remembering or realizing something, her cheeks flooding with color. "Oh! Could it be that you want me to... to properly..."
….huh?
She started fidgeting, her hands twisting together as she fought with herself. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper but trembling with nervous excitement, "W-welcome home, d-dear. Would you... would you like dinner, or a bath, or... or m-me?"
The last word came out as a strangled squeak. Shiho immediately looked like she wanted to disappear into the floorboards, her whole body doing this adorable little squirm-dance while she made soft, cute noises.
I snorted, then broke into genuine laughter. The sound surprised me—when was the last time I'd laughed like that? Something loosened in my chest, like a knot I hadn't realized was there, suddenly coming undone.
"P-Please don't laugh!" Shiho's face went even redder. "I read it in a book... I thought... w-was it too bold? You're being mean! I was trying to be a good... a good..."
"Sorry, sorry." I held up one hand, still grinning. "It's just—you're perfect, you know that? And I'd be delighted with all three, but let's start with these."
I offered her the bouquet, watching her expression shift from mortification to wonder.
"Are... are these really for me?" she whispered, like she couldn't quite believe it.
"Unless there's another gorgeous blonde hiding in the pantry," I said dryly. "Yes. For you."
Shiho took the flowers with reverent care, bringing them up to inhale their scent. "They smell wonderful," she breathed, then looked at me through those enormous glasses for a long moment.
"… do you like them?" I asked, then immediately wanted to kick myself. I should know her favorite flowers. What kind of bastard doesn't learn those details about the woman carrying his child?
Her answer was to rise up on her tiptoes and press her lips to mine. The kiss was soft, tentative at first, then warmer as she melted against me. Her free hand found the back of my neck, and for a moment, everything else faded to nothing.
She pulled back, still hugging the bouquet to her chest. "Thank you. They're perfect." That smile— all teeth and genuine joy — made something twist in my chest. Getting that expression for a handful of flowers felt like theft.
I wondered if I could earn one every day. Would she get bored if I brought her flowers all the time? Would the novelty wear off until she started rolling her eyes instead of lighting up? Where would she put them all? How many vases would she need?
Probably. That's how these things worked. Too much of anything good and it loses its meaning. But god help me, I wanted to see that smile every single day. I know in keen certainty I'd never get tired of it.
I leaned in to steal another kiss, shorter but no less sweet. "How was your day, sweetheart?" Then went inside.
The question made her practically vibrate with excitement as she followed. "Oh! It was wonderful! We had our first guest!" She beamed, clutching the flowers to her chest. "Ayame-san came by!"
That was... unexpected. And interesting.
"Apparently, she heard you'd been in the hospital and wanted to check on you." Shiho adjusted her glasses, looking weirdly proud. "She's very sweet. And very pretty. I... um..." She looked down, biting her lip, then peeked up at me through her lashes. "I didn't realize she was one of... yours. I told her she didn't have to rush off, that I'd love to get to know her better. I don't want to be the jealous type, Eishin-sama. I want to get along with everyone you... care for."
I stared at her.
I didn't correct her assumption about Ayame. She looked so happy, so eager to be part of whatever she imagined my romantic life to be. That it felt like a crime to even try.
Besides, I could always make it true later. Not tonight, though. Tonight I needed a shower and something that wasn't hospital food.
After cleaning off the day's frustrations, I joined Shiho for Ayame's ramen. She chattered about her day, some encryption puzzle that had her genuinely excited, while I tried to focus on her voice instead of the lingering echo of Itachi's psychological dissection.
"How was your day?" she asked eventually, those wide eyes full of genuine interest.
"Long," I said, deflecting with a smile. "But better now."
She accepted the non-answer with that trusting way of hers, probably sensing I didn't want to elaborate. Smart girl. No need to poison her good mood with tales of Uchiha mind games.
When we finished eating, I scooped her up in a princess carry, earning a delighted squeak. Our bedroom was pathetically bare. Just a futon on the floor and nothing else. I really needed to furnish this place properly.
But as I settled down with Shiho curled against my chest, her small form fitting perfectly in the curve of my arm, I found I didn't have the energy for anything beyond this. Not sex, despite my body's automatic interest. Not conversation. Just the simple comfort of holding someone who chose to stay.
— — — — — —
I spent the next few days holed up in my new, mostly-empty house like some kind of hermit. The original plan had been to schmooze my way through Konoha's civilian market, hawking my simplified sealing scrolls to anyone with enough coin. Make connections, build a reputation, all that entrepreneurial bullshit.
But Tomoe's invitation and the subsequent mind-fuck courtesy of Itachi had left me... rattled. More than I cared to admit, even to myself.
So instead, I found myself hunched over parchment, trying to recreate the Eight Trigrams Sealing formation I'd glimpsed on Kushina's stomach. I did my best, but it was incomplete. Frustratingly, pathetically incomplete. Maybe sixty percent if I were being generous with myself.
My memory, for all its reincarnated advantages, was still shit when it came to photographic recall. Which meant I'd need more visits to the red-headed MILF. More 'stomach massages' to study that seal up close.
The thought should've excited me. Hell, it did excite me on some level. But I didn't have it in me to act on it.
I shoved the incomplete scroll into a corner with all my other half-finished projects. The growing pile of abandoned ideas, I dumped there after the relocation.
Instead, I trained.
Now, most sensible people would question the wisdom of intense physical training immediately after a hospital stay. They'd cite muscle recovery, cellular regeneration, and the need for rest. And they'd be right, if we were talking about normal people. But shinobi were built different. Our bodies heal faster, adapt quicker, and respond to stress in ways that would make doctors from my old world write entire medical textbooks just to explain the impossibility of it all.
The key was understanding that my body had just undergone forced stasis. Lying in a hospital bed, pumped full of medical chakra and regenerative solutions, my muscles had been inactive. Atrophied, even slightly. Not dangerously so, but enough that I could feel the difference. The slight sluggishness in my movements, the way my chakra pathways felt just a hair slower to respond.
Training now wasn't recklessness. It was necessary rehabilitation.
I started slow. Chakra control exercises first, then basic katas, taijutsu forms I could do in my sleep, letting muscle memory take over while I focused on breathing, on the flow of movement. Nothing explosive. Nothing that would tear healing tissue or strain recovering organs.
By the second day, I'd graduated to resistance training. Weighted movements, holding positions until my muscles screamed, then holding them longer. The burn felt good. Felt real. Every ache was proof that I existed in this body.
Besides, there was something meditative about physical exhaustion. When your body hurt enough, your mind got quieter. Itachi's voice faded to background noise when I was too busy counting reps to think about existential dread.
The chakra exercises helped too. Precision work, shaping elemental nature transformations, practicing the kind of fine control that separated competent shinobi from dead ones. I couldn't do anything too flashy—didn't want to accidentally blow a hole in my new house—but it was training as efficiently as was allowed.
And efficiency mattered when you were working with a recovering system. Every wasted movement, every sloppy chakra application, cost more than usual. So I learned to be economical. To do more with less. It was the kind of training that actually made you better rather than just tired.
I also started using the early dawn and dusk hours to meditate, taking advantage of the residual Nature energy still lingering in my system.
Playing with Senjutsu without proper guidance was a great way to either turn yourself into a rock or a pet.
So, taking that into account, I consciously decided to focus solely on sensing. Not absorbing. Just... feeling it out there, learning to recognize the distinct signature of natural energy versus the chakra I was used to working with.
I didn't expect much. Maybe a vague awareness, if I was lucky.
Turns out, I was very lucky….. that oddly felt like a trap. Too good to be true sort of thing.
By the third day, I could feel it. Actually feel it, not just imagine I could. The Nature energy that permeated everything, subtle and constant, like a frequency just below normal perception. It wasn't as clear as when I'd been surrounded by Momiji Sanctuary's blessed trees, where the concentration made it impossible to miss. But it was there.
And that's when my self-control started crumbling.
Because once I could sense it clearly, the temptation to try absorbing it became almost overwhelming. Just a little bit. Just to see if I could balance it properly, mix it with my chakra in the correct ratio. The power boost from Senjutsu was no joke—I'd felt what it could do, how it amplified everything. Speed, strength, jutsu potency, even sensory perception. All of it enhanced to ridiculous degrees.
But I held back. Barely. Reminding myself that "just a little bit" was exactly how idiots ended up as stone statues with really surprised expressions.
Besides, stones could neither fuck nor be dads, so…
By the fourth day, my physical training and taijutsu practice became plagued with new ideas. Specifically, ways to integrate Senjutsu with my speciality, jutsu-shiki.
Because apparently, I was cursed to never finish a single goddamn project before getting distracted by the next shiny concept.
It was maddening. I'd be mid-kata, working on a strike sequence, and suddenly my brain would derail into theorizing about how Nature energy might interact with formulaic chakra structures. Could you encode Senjutsu into seal matrices? What would happen if you tried to store it? Would the formula stabilize the volatile energy, or would the whole thing explode in your face?
The ideas came fast and frequently, which should've been impossible. Revolutionary concepts were supposed to be rare, hard-won through years of dedicated research. But here I was, getting bombarded with possibilities faster than I could write them down.
Eventually, I had to start keeping a notebook. Just to clear my head enough to focus on actual training. Pages and pages of scattered theories, half-formed equations, seal designs that might work or might create localized catastrophes. The whole thing read like the journal of someone slowly losing their mind.
Which, fair. I probably was.
The Senjutsu-jutsu-shiki combination looked amazing on paper. It really did. The potential synergy between natural energy's raw power and the precision of formulaic chakra manipulation could theoretically create techniques that made standard ninjutsu look like party tricks.
But realistically…. The chances of it actually working were somewhere between "snowball's chance in hell" and "pigs flying in perfect formation while singing opera."
Too many variables. Too much that could go catastrophically wrong. The energy types were fundamentally different. Nature energy was wild, primal, resistant to the kind of rigid structure that jutsu-shiki required. Trying to force them together seemed like a recipe for disaster.
It simply wasn't realistic.
That said... the world had never been changed by realistic men. Every major breakthrough in history came from someone delusional enough to ignore the obvious impossibility of their goal. Every technique that defined an era started as someone's crazy idea that shouldn't have worked.
So I didn't dismiss it. Couldn't, really, even knowing how unlikely success was. Instead, I gave it space in my mind, let it percolate alongside everything else. Maybe something would come of it. Maybe I'd just waste time chasing phantoms.
On the fifth day, a summons from the Hokage arrived.
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