In Konoha, at the Tanehiko household,
Kudo opened the door and quickly took off his shoes. "MOM, I'm back!" he shouted down the passageway to the living area. It was currently dusk, so his mother had likely returned.
Ina came rushing down the stairs. "What took you so long? You said you would be back in 2 days; it's been four days!" She walked up to him and squeezed his face. " I was worried about you." Ina hugged him excessively.
"Mom, look." Kudo said, his eyes flashing red as his Sharingan activated, "You-!" Ina shrieked. Her heart was pumping with all sorts of emotions. "What happened?" She asked sternly, as she knew the great cost of activating the Sharingan. Kudo led her into the living area and narrated the story of how it happened.
"Tsunade! That waste of breath; it seems she hasn't changed after all these years, and to think your father thought fondly of her and she almost killed you. Makes one wonder if the only good Senju was your father. Seriously, these pests can never leave the Uchiha alone." Ina ranted as she stood up to make dinner.
"Kudo, what do you want for tonight?" Ina asked, taking out pots but hearing no reply, so she turned to see her son staring at her, shell-shocked. "What did you say, Mom? Dad was what, a Senju?" Kudo questioned, unable to believe it.
"Ohh," Ina gasped he hand on covering her mouth, "Pretend you didn't hear that." She turned swiftly, about to rush upstairs but was stopped by a firm grasp. "Explain." Kudo led her back to the table.
"Well, your father is indeed a descendant of the Senju. Back then, during the time of the 2nd Hokage, when he ordered his clan disbanded and dispersed into ordinary people among Konoha, most of the Senju who honoured and respected lord first and Second obeyed the order, and your father's parents were such people. Though a small number rebelled against the order and still retain the Senju name, they are few.
Your father, like many others, was raised without knowing that they are descendants of the Senju. He only found out when he traced his origins after discovering that I come from the Uchiha clan, since I didn't behave like an Uchiha. So, yeah, your father and I are descendants of the founding clans of the village." Ina said. Her gaze was on her son, who remained quiet, absorbing it all in.
'Damn.' Kudo thought as his mind went over all the possibilities, but slowly it made sense. "Does that mean I will become super powerful?!" he asked, throwing her off. She smiled sweetly, "No, sweetheart." Her earnest answer threw him off. " Why ?!" He groaned. "Bloodline doesn't necessarily mean you will become a better shinobi than those without it. There are powerful and weak Uchiha in the Uchiha clan; same goes for the Senju. All that matters is that you keep moving and never give up. Write your own story and tell it yourself, not your bloodline." Ina stood up, rubbing his head gently, and went back to cooking.
'She is right. Given how many Senju have dispersed into the civilian population, no one has ever lived up to the mantle of Lord First and Second. None of the Uchiha have lived up to the mantle of Lord Madara. It's just like Dad said, 'Earnest pursuit of my conviction is the only thing that matters. Strength is being able to protect what matters to oneself.' Regardless of what bloodline I have, it doesn't change the things that need to be done.' Kudo thought, standing up to head to his room.
The night quickly passed, and the team had 5 days of rest, so Kudo rushed towards his training ground. He probably owned it because he had booked it out until the chunin exams. With their recent C-rank mission, it would probably be followed up by a month or so of D-rank missions in the village.
After arriving at training ground 7, Kudo headed to one of the largest lakes in the training ground and began meditating. He was infusing his chakra, trying to infuse the maximum amount that he could. His chakra reserves had exploded after the awakening of the Sharingan; he could feel that he was significantly stronger, but he didn't know by how much.
After 2 hours of constant meditation, a feeling of bloating and blunt pain arose within him, causing him to stop. Ludo stopped and slowly stretched. "Well, let's see," He smirked as he activated his sensor technique towards himself, "Holy…!" He shouted as he stood gobsmacked. From his chakra reserves, he was still very much shy of jonin-rank chakra, but he had far outpaced his previous level; he had elite chunin-level chakra. Elite chunin-rank shinobi were still chunin but held vastly more experience than regular chunin; they formed a large part of a shinobi village's combat force. Kudo's chakra had risen to such a level.
"I thought it would take a while to get to this level, well, not that I'm complaining." He mused, "Let's get started on my chakra control first." Kudo started with the leaf exercise and sat down for another couple of hours as he tried to control his now massive chakra reserves.
Shinobi didn't have a means to store chakra outside of special fuinjutsu seal formulas, so the chakra that they infused eventually dissipated if it was left unused for a long time. Chakra control went beyond using chakra for techniques; if mastered, the dissipation of chakra can be reduced massively, allowing for sustained chakra levels. For most shinobi, their rate of chakra infusion was greater than the rate of dissipation; however, when you are on standby for days or weeks in a patrol tower, you can't be infusing chakra every few hours, so for chunin it was very important to get at least an elite level of chakra control if they wanted to rise quickly in power, but who had the patience to repeat the chakra control exercises for hours on end.
Kudo had found his reason; Tsunade had called his chakra control shit, so he wanted to prove her wrong. If it took reworking his fundamentals, he would do it.