You are Uzumaki Shiki, son of the (in)famous shinobi Uzumaki Naori and Uzumaki Ryūzetsu. The former, the great shrike sage Naori-ue, was a heroine of the Fourth Shinobi World War before she became the village head of your home, Amegakure. But before that she was a member of the notorious mercenary organization Akatsuki, a skilled assassin and general problem-solver who used many exceedingly rare techniques empowered by the energy of the living world itself in a bid to end all warfare through overwhelming skill and power.

It’s only next to the woman whispered of as an ‘avatar of war’ that Ryūzetsu-ue could possibly be the less renowned of your parents. Formerly an ANBU of Kusagakure, she would eventually use her skills as the prison warden of the world’s most secure prison designed specifically to hold shinobi. But more to the point, Ryūzetsu-ue was born with a rare kekkei genkai known as the ‘Ryūmei’ which had previously been used only as a sacrificial resurrection technique. It was your mother who finally managed to draw out its full potential for the first time since its emergence, and you inherited that power from her bloodline.

It’s that rare ability that you feel like working on now.

“I’m about to do something really difficult and dangerous,” you tell Kōshū. She’s the daughter of the current Mizukage, who married the older sister of the current Kazekage - she possesses an exceptional confluence of bloodlines as well, so she probably understands this particular set of risks. “I’m going to train the Ryūmei.”

“The Ryūmei?” she wonders. “Is that something you inherited along with those eyes?”

You nod. “Yes. It involves splintering off a portion of my soul and projecting it outside my body.”

Kōshū stares at you blankly. “Wait, what do you mean ‘soul’?”

“Okay, so first thing is a badly-kept secret,” you explain patiently, “which is that what you call a ‘soul’ is a real thing. So are ghosts - which are just impressions of a person’s spiritual energy that linger in the world without the physical energy. So basically, I turn part of myself into a ghost.”

“Wait, so like the spiritual component of chakra?” she wonders. “That can be separated?”

You nod. “Yup. Manipulating it apart from physical energy is a really rare ability - the Yamanaka clan here in Konoha can do something more like mind control, and there was supposedly a jōnin here who was famous for possessing other people’s bodies. I’ve also heard that the Second Hokage had a similar technique, but so far as I’m aware doing it freely is limited to my mother’s clan, of which she, my sister, and I are the only living members, and those who possess the Rinnegan.”

“Is it related to the Rinnegan, do you think?”
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