The morning of Seimei's birth was marked by chaos. Not the usual screaming of mothers in labor, but the bizarre sight of a midwife fainting when she saw the gills on the newborn's neck.
"It's a fish! No, it's a baby! Wait, why does he have sharp teeth?" she screamed before collapsing.
Seimei's mother, a proud Hoshigaki warrior, merely chuckled. "That's my boy. Already scaring people without trying."
The Uzumaki side of the family was less impressed. "We don't grow gills! What is this madness?" Aunt Nagisa demanded.
"Relax," Seimei's father said. A stoic Senju with the emotional range of a damp log, he added, "He'll need those gills when the Fūma side inevitably throws him into a river to test his survival skills."
Growing up was…complicated. By the age of three, Seimei had discovered he could breathe underwater, turn his skin to slime, and create whirlpools—all useful skills until he accidentally flooded the clan's vegetable garden.
"We needed that cabbage!" Grandpa Fūma yelled, shaking his fists at the soggy mess.
"Cabbages are weak," Seimei declared, puffing out his chest like a tiny warlord. "I will grow stronger than any vegetable!"
By five, Seimei's Kokugan had awakened, giving him the ability to analyze chakra like a genius tactician…except he used it to cheat during hide-and-seek.
"You can't hide from me, Cousin Shoji!" Seimei bellowed, finding the poor boy in less than ten seconds.
"This isn't fair!" Shoji whined. "Your eyes are hacks!"
Despite his quirks, Seimei's talents couldn't be denied. By seven, he'd mastered the art of water clones, though they were oddly slimy and tended to slip out of formation during training.
"Focus, Seimei," his father scolded. "Your clones look like melted candles."
"They're creative," Seimei retorted. "Artistic, even."
Life wasn't all fun and gills, though. Clan politics were a minefield, and Seimei had an uncanny ability to walk straight into them.
At a diplomatic gathering, he loudly proclaimed, "Why do we need alliances? I can beat them all up!"
His mother slapped her forehead while his father muttered, "He's your son."
Training sessions were equally chaotic. When his Fūma cousins taught him how to wield a shuriken, Seimei decided bigger was better and launched a massive windmill shuriken…straight into the clan's storage shed.
"Not the rice!" someone cried as sacks of grain exploded like fireworks.
By ten, Seimei was a force to be reckoned with, though his reputation was less "great warrior" and more "walking disaster."
"Why do we even have him on the battlefield?" an elder grumbled after Seimei accidentally drenched their campfire with a stray water jutsu.
"Because he's unpredictable," his father said. "And unpredictability wins wars."
Despite the skepticism, Seimei's abilities shone during his first real mission. Tasked with guarding a caravan, he single-handedly fended off bandits using a combination of slime traps, whirlpool barriers, and the terrifying sight of his shark-toothed grin.
"That kid's a monster!" one bandit screamed before fleeing.
Back at camp, Seimei basked in the praise, though his ego took a hit when his grandmother pinched his cheek and called him her "little water baby."
As Seimei grew, so did his ambitions. By twelve, he'd declared his goal to unite the clans through sheer charisma (and a healthy dose of intimidation).
"I'll be the greatest shinobi ever!" he proclaimed, standing atop a rock for dramatic effect.
"Get down from there before you fall," his mother yelled.
Seimei's journey was only beginning, and if his childhood was any indication, the world wasn't ready for him. Armed with his half-everything heritage and a knack for causing chaos, he was destined to become a legend…or at least a very entertaining one.
And so, the tale of Seimei began, not with a prophecy or a grand battle, but with a gilled, sharp-toothed boy accidentally setting a tree on fire during water jutsu practice. Truly, the stuff of legends.