Chapter Text
The Senju Clan has a secret.
Why it was a secret... The reason changed over time.
At first no one knew.
Then only a select few knew.
Then the secret came out to the entire Clan, but secret was the best way to avoid having their miracle healer targeted for assassination.
After that, there was some measure of embarrassment. The secret was unruly and free spirited, and didn't hesitate to go against the council or Clan Head's wishes if she felt it was needed.
As time passed and the whims of their secret all, one after the other, turned out to be wildly beneficial to the Clan, the protective secret took something of a religious flavor.
Their secret didn't want to be found out, hid when a stranger might see her. So they did as she wished.
Sakurama.
That was their secret's name. One which had, despite the obvious parallels, nothing to do with the Kurama Clan. She was named that way because of her Sakura-pink hair, and because all of her brothers had names that ended in -ama.
Sakurama was the best healer of their Clan. She had taken to teaching others her knowledge. but she wouldn't tolerate any backtalk or doubtfulness from her students. She only taught those that sincerely wanted to learn her ways. Healers that came to her asking to be taught but really wanted to prove that she couldn't possibly know more than they did since they had experience on their side were invited to stop wasting her time.
She was also their best midwife. And despite what most healers would do, prioritized that over any other kind of healing. the only thing that came before tending to expecting mothers and children for Sakurama were immediately life-threatening injuries. Otherwise, she made the wounded warriors wait until labor was done with and newborns were safely delivered.
Her exceptional healing prowess weren't the only reason why she got away with doing anything she wanted. She was also incredibly strong. Had been even when the body she lived in was four years old.
There was only one person she had taught the secret of her incredible physical strength to. Touka, her rebellious cousin, who didn't think that being a shinobi should be reserved for men.
As far as they knew, three shinobi had tried to get Sakurama to teach them too. They hadn't managed, though no one knew if it was a case of secret technique, or the same phenomenon of not wanting to waste he time with entitled students as for the healing classes.
The fact that Sakurama occupied the same body as Tobirama, their secondary Clan Heir was probably important to mention.
It had the effect of making her incredibly protective of all of the Clan Head's children. Though Butsuma himself was noticeably excluded from that protectiveness. In fact, she seemed to think that her father was the first one her siblings needed protection from.
There was some speculation as to why that was.
Since Sakurama was born with the spirit of an adult, some thought that she simply disliked Butsuma on principle, for not being her original father. It fell apart a bit in the face of how much she loved her step-mother, though.
Maybe it was an effect of the title. Butsuma was Clan Head, and as such, he had to put his Clan ahead of his personal feelings. And sometimes even ahead of the safety of his children. Something that the extremely protective Sakurama obviously despised.
In any case, Sakurama loved her siblings, and her mother in law, but not her father.
While the initial reason why they humored Sakurama was because she was strong enough that going against her wasn't worth it, they quickly realized that it wasn't all.
Almost all of the things she insisted on ended up being beneficial within one to three years.
They had never had so many healthy children as they did since Sakurama declared care for pregnancies her first priority. Not only did more babies survive. Since more mothers lived, the numbers also compounded themselves.
When she fought tooth and nails to have none of her siblings sent out on missions before they were twelve, they gained actual competent fighters out of them instead of half-baked canon fodder.
She bought an absurd number of piglets. Now her siblings had an army of nin-boars.
She went up against the whole council to oppose a counter-attack on the Uchiha when they tried to storm the Senju lands. She built her own retribution mission that didn't kill anyone, but now they had a mostly stable truce. And the truce meant that they had freed up manpower for more mission while allowing them to guard their borders guarded even better since they didn't have random skirmishes.
Shortly after Tobirama-sama turned fourteen, he and Hashirama-sama decided to grow a child Buddha statue out of Mokuton in the head house's garden.
From there on, it wasn't uncommon to see Sakurama-sama run out of the house and kneel next to the wooden child Buddha, hands glowing green like they did any time she healed someone. She always looked perfectly serious about healing the statue. Her hands hovering over chest or belly, forehead or legs.
Maybe the Buddha statue was meant to turn real some day?
Since half the theories about Sakurama involved her being a Bodhisattva, ... It might happen?
The Senju had a secret.
They were going to keep it until she didn't want to be a secret anymore.