Chapter 221: The House Was the Real Main Character All Along

Chapter 221: The House Was the Real Main Character All Along {I published the house pics (normal house) on my discord so join there and check it out} {https://discord.gg/vv884FK5r3} ~~~ Ren stared in sheer awe, brain short-circuiting at what he was seeing, because now, now he wasn’t just looking at a palace. Now he saw the frame, the structure, the positioning of seals and the dormant chakra conduits that ran up the trees and across the beams. This place wasn’t just a compound. It was a giant dormant chakra machine built into the forest. A sealed construct of massive scale, lying still in the earth. "There’s no way. There’s just no fucking way." He looked at the scroll again, scanning the next few lines to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. Nope. It was there. A chakra-powered mobile fortress. Not moving right now, of course. But the thing was there. "This entire thing is a goddamn mecha," he whispered. He wanted to laugh or scream or start jumping on the canopy and yelling "I FOUND A GOD DAMNED MECHA!" But instead, he sat down cross-legged and just stared at the compound below, scroll in hand, silently vibrating in place from pure disbelief. He exhaled and tried to calm himself down as he stared at the house from atop the canopy. From here, the entire compound lay before him, each wing, the courtyard, the central pond, the tree glowing faintly in the sun. He clenched the scroll in his hand. This thing, it was real. He took a deep breath to calm down but it didn’t help much. The excitement buzzing through his veins was ridiculous. If what this scroll was saying was even half true, then he might’ve just stumbled upon the dream of every single guy in the universe. A childhood fantasy turned real. He flicked the scroll open again and forced himself to start reading it properly this time. The more he read, the more his excitement cooled down because while yes, this house really was what he thought it was, a massive, living, moving golem, the scroll also made one thing very clear. It wasn’t usable, not yet. That single fact was enough to bring him back to earth. So he sat down on the canopy, legs crossed, and read through the scroll again, word by word. As it turned out, this entire courtyard, the house, the tree, everything, was sitting on top of a colossal Fuinjutsu array. But unlike the kind of seals used for standard defense or offense, this one wasn’t made for combat at all. This was infrastructure. A foundational formation, like a spine and nervous system. This array was the very base that allowed the house to transform. The entire estate, every wooden beam and courtyard stone, could rearrange into a construct. A mobile, massive construct. The four wings of the house weren’t just symmetrical architectural choices, they were the limbs. Arms and legs. The central courtyard, the heart of the estate, was the chest. And the yang-rich plant, the one quietly growing at the very center of the courtyard, was the core. But calling it a core was misleading. The scroll was very specific about that. This plant, created through a fusion of Hashirama Senju’s blood and wood release, wasn’t actually a power source. It was a catalyst. It didn’t power the golem. It helped someone else power the golem. Because the true fuel behind this absurd machine wasn’t some tree, it was yang chakra. And not just a little. An insane, monstrous amount of it. Enough to make even a highest level Uzumaki go pale. The plant simply stored about half of the total yang chakra required. The other half had to come from the user. Whoever intended to pilot the golem had to inject it with ’life’, literally. That’s what made this thing different from any ordinary earth golem. It had to be given life. Only then could it move, think and react. He stared at the scroll again. This wasn’t just some concept drawn up by a madman. This was something designed by the Uzumaki clan themselves. It was something they started building after seeing the scale of Hashirama’s True Several Thousand Hands and Madara’s Nine-Tails-wearing Susano. The Uzumaki had stared at those two gods of war and thought, yeah, we want that too. But they didn’t have wood release. They didn’t have bijuu to slap armor on. What they had was vitality. Stupid levels of vitality, that and Fuinjutsu. So they started from there. They poured generations of knowledge into this thing. Blood, sweat, and absurdly complicated seals. And somewhere along the way, they realized something horrifying, the cost of activating this golem was way higher than they thought. The yang chakra requirement was unreal. No normal shinobi, no matter how strong, could meet it on their own. So they turned to Hashirama. He was family, married to Mito. And he was excited as hell when he heard what they were doing. The man literally bled for them, using his blood and wood release to create five trees. Not just any trees. Storage trees. Each one capable of holding an absurd quantity of yang chakra, harvested from Hashirama himself. But it came at a cost. Hashirama’s health took a nosedive. The man might’ve had god-level healing, but even he wasn’t limitless. Mito stepped in and shut it down after he finished five. That was all they got. Then, enter Tobirama. Being the smartest man in the Senju clan he saw the potential in the golem project, and being Tobirama, immediately offered a trade, one complete golem whenever it was completed, in exchange for four of the five trees Hashirama made. The Uzumaki accepted. But even with the trees, they still had a long way to go. There were refinements to make. Chakra flow systems to stabilize. Piloting mechanisms to work out. Time passed. Progress slowed and then Hashirama died and Tobirama followed soon after. Neither of them got to see the finished product. But the Uzumaki kept going. They pushed and pushed. And eventually, they did it. They completed two. Just two golems. One for themselves and the other for the Senju clan and then the word got out. That was the mistake because the moment the other villages heard even rumors of a working Uzumaki construct, they panicked hard. They had seen what large-scale chakra constructs could do. Most of them still had scars from watching Madara or Hashirama fight. So under the excuse of stopping dangerous forbidden jutsu development, four of the Five Great Nations banded together and attacked the Uzumaki clan. They came in expecting to crush a half-built project. Instead, they were met with a monster. The single completed golem was activated and it moved. No one knew who piloted it, only that it fought with overwhelming power, turning the tide of the battle in ways that didn’t even make sense. And then, as a final move, it self-destructed. It took out the Uzumaki clan head, the golem itself, and a horrifying number of shinobi from all four villages. That was a true tragedy which the four villages shared together and as if to not remember anything about this they erased it’s mention from existence because none was left, or so they thought. The one inside the Senju compound was the last remaining golem in existence. Out of the two ever made throughout history, this was the only one that had survived. Nobody knew it still existed, not the Leaf higher-ups, not the enemy factions, not even the clans that were usually good at sniffing out secrets. If word ever got out that this thing was still intact, let alone hidden in front of the village, then this entire area would’ve been reduced to rubble within a day. No question about it. Because this wasn’t just some relic or broken project and even if the one here wasn’t complete or usable at the moment, just the fact that something related to that monstrous thing was real would be enough to make every power-hungry faction lose their minds. Ren stood in the courtyard, grin stretching ear to ear like a kid who just found out Santa was real. He couldn’t help it. His heart was pounding in his chest as he carefully furled the scroll and slipped it into a pouch on his belt. He knew it wasn’t usable yet. But it wouldn’t stay that way forever. He exhaled, trying to calm himself down. The scroll made it clear, the golem couldn’t be activated without an absurd amount of chakra. Not even your average high-tier shinobi would be able to use it. According to the records, even an Uzumaki shinobi, people renowned for their massive chakra reserves would go pale trying to operate it alone. That’s how crazy the requirements were. If Ren had to guess, this model must have been designed with people in mind but ended up being created for Jinchuriki. People who carried tailed beasts inside them. That was the level of chakra we were talking about. But that’s where Hashirama’s plant came in. The special yang-rich plant created using his blood and Wood Release, this acted as a pseudo-core and stored half of the chakra needed. Only the remaining half had to be provided by the user. Which, to be clear, was still a ridiculous amount. The scroll said the remaining chakra needed was roughly equal to a full-power Kage-tier shinobi. And that was after the plant helped. Which basically meant, outside of tailed beast hosts or chakra monsters like Hashirama and people of Uzumaki clan nobody else could operate it properly. Even Ren, who was known for having absurd chakra for his age, fell short. Sure, he could brute-force a one-time activation with clones acting as batteries, but that was a half-measure. Not something reliable or sustainable. If he wanted to really use the golem, he’d have to wait until his chakra reached that high Kage-tier threshold. He sighed, remembering his last check-in with the system. His chakra stat sat at 84. Sounds close to 90 on paper, but Ren knew better. The difference between levels wasn’t linear, it was exponential. Once he’d entered the 80+ range, every point gained was like climbing a mountain. His chakra at 80 was already leagues above what it was back when he peaked at jonin-level, but 90 was a whole different league. He estimated that his chakra at 84 was probably four times what it used to be at 79, so the leap to 90 would be an even bigger gulf. So even though six points didn’t sound like much, but it was. He’d need time. Still, even with all that waiting ahead, one thing was certain. The golem was his. No one else even knew about it. That alone gave him a massive advantage. And when he did hit the necessary chakra level he could activate it without anyone’s help. But he also understood the risks. If word ever got out, if people saw him walking around in a weapon that was supposed to have been destroyed decades ago, there’d be hell to pay. Investigations, assassination attempts, alliances forming just to take him out or claim the golem for themselves. So he made a decision then and there. He wouldn’t use the golem in public. Not until he reached peak Kage-level strength. At that point, even if people did come for him, he’d be strong enough to handle them. Until then he’d test it quietly. One activation, just to make sure he could do it. Just him... and the sleeping giant which was the house. ~ Ren exhaled as he landed lightly from the tree canopy, his boots hitting the worn stone path of the Senju courtyard with a soft crunch. Ahead, the small group of old men still waited patiently near the entrance gate. Yoshido stepped forward with a worried look, clearly about to speak, but Ren casually waved him off with a lazy flick of his hand. "Don’t worry," Ren said, brushing imaginary dust off his gloves. "I’ve explored the house. Got what I needed. Whatever was taken is already accounted for... I’ve got a few things in mind for that too. So don’t stress." At that, Yoshido and the rest of the elders visibly relaxed, releasing a breath like they’d been holding it in for years. They weren’t just nervous about Ren being disappointed, they were worried the place was too empty, too hollow. Everyone knew how thoroughly the ANBU had scrubbed the compound after Tsunade left and the last direct Senju died. The house should’ve been nothing more than a skeleton by now. That was the fear, that Ren would walk through the birthplace of legends and find it stripped bare, insultingly hollow. But he hadn’t. He’d found something and hearing that was more than enough for the elders. None of them asked what he found, though the question definitely hung in the air. But they weren’t stupid. Even if curiosity clawed at them, they weren’t foolish enough to overstep. Yoshido probably had enough standing to ask, given that he had once been part of the main Senju support force during the Second War. But the rest were just civilians. Old men who once bore the name, now clinging to tradition. Whatever Ren had uncovered was clearly out of their league. Ren glanced their way and could tell immediately what was going through their heads. It wasn’t hard but he didn’t say anything he let them wonder. After all, even if it got out that he had recovered old Senju scrolls, historical documents or Fuinjutsu knowledge nobody in the village would dare come after him. Not right now. For one, the whole of Konoha was walking on eggshells around him ever since the last council session. No one wanted to poke this particular bear. And two, the only person who would’ve been crazy enough to try stealing from him regardless of the consequences was currently too busy trying not to lose his life at the council table. So he was free. At least for now. He didn’t waste another second on them. Instead, he leapt lightly onto the massive torii gate that marked the formal entrance to the clan grounds. The ancient wood groaned faintly beneath his weight, but it held strong. He walked across the beam and stopped at the center, directly over the carved Senju clan symbol. Without ceremony, he bit his thumb and let a drop of blood fall onto the symbol. The reaction was immediate. A pulse of chakra hummed through the wood. Faint at first, then sharp. The clan emblem shimmered, glowed briefly, and then split open down the center like a secret being unsealed. A small metal token dropped into Ren’s hand as the symbol sealed shut again, returning to its dormant state. The elders saw this and instantly stiffened because they recognized it. Without a word of instruction, they stepped back from the gate, moved outside the boundary of the compound, and stood in perfect silence. Ren inspected the token with a faint smile, then pricked his thumb again and let a second drop of blood soak into its etched surface. Another chakra pulse traveled through the compound . He had to admit, this bloodline recognition stuff was starting to grow on him. He’d seen multiple versions of it just today. Seals that responded to blood, chakra, or both with layered permissions and hidden triggers. It was fascinating, and part of him really wanted to sit down and reverse-engineer every last one of them. Shaking off the thought, he dropped down from the torii and landed inside the compound proper. The token still pulsed faintly in his hand. He looked up and met the eyes of the elders standing just outside the gate. Without another word, he channeled a surge of chakra into the token. There was no visible explosion, no flash of light. Just a deep, resonant thrum and then a dome of chakra expanded outward from the center of the compound. It wrapped the entire Senju grounds in a semi-transparent field, sealing it off from the world outside. Chakra signatures vanished. Sound was dampened. The outside world couldn’t see in. The elders dropped to their knees and placed their hands on the ground, heads bowed low. And then, in perfect unison, their voices rose. "The name we whispered in mourning now shakes the ground awake. He steps through fire and silence and we remember who we are. Stand, Senju! Stand tall!" ~~~~~ {Another interesting Chapter to write, I already told you guys that there was a need for me to explain the house in detail and this was just a part of it because there’s more to come about the house itself. Also, I am kind of conflicted if I should do the Uzumaki treasure hunt arc like so many other fics, so tell me what you guys think I should do. But even if I do write it, it would be definitely after the Uchiha Massacre.} {If you want, you can support me on pat-reon} { h t t p s : / / w w w . p a t r e o n . c o m / Z e e n o n } {You know what else} {280 Stones = Extra Chapter} {STONES!!!!}