Pre-Chapter A/N: Here we go with another chapter. Here on time! Next five chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
TWO MONTHS LATER
I read through the latest report from the land of Rain and could just about stop myself from scowling.
"Is there a reason this has been allowed to happen?" Uzume asked from her position by my right-hand side. She saw the same thing I was seeing. It didn't matter that the reports from Yaga—who had admirably decided to start writing reports about the progress on our alliance's goals as a gesture of goodwill (and of course, an attempt to ensure that we were not relying only on what our agents on the ground were saying)—spoke of territorial gains. It did not matter that even our anbu described these gains, albeit with far less enthusiasm, because from here we could see the bigger picture, and it was not good.
"Allowed is a strong word. The other warlords are capable strategists of their own. With our involvement on one side, it only makes sense that the others would do this, does it not?" Shika asked with a tone that bordered on disinterested. I said nothing for now. Uzume would make my displeasure known, and when she went too far, I would rein her in.
"If it only makes sense, why have we not done something to prevent or at least delay it then? Are you not supposed to be some sort of master strategist?" she asked.
"Every single pre-incident indication we had said that neither of them would even contemplate working with the other. Not even if their destruction was guaranteed. The fact that they have been so easily able to come together, and marshal resources in opposition of us, tells me that there is some other force at play. Some force strong enough—either in terms of martial might or influence—to be able to ensure that the warlords listen to him. The existence of such a force was not something we anticipated in our preliminary planning as a result of that estimation," Shika said. Attention then naturally shifted to Uraume. It was the anbu that gathered intel of this sort, of course.
When Root was better established, they would be a secondary source, but for now, control of our major spy network fell to the Anbu and thus to Uraume.
"If such a person exists, then they did not do so three months ago. My people were thorough. No clandestine meeting in the dark, no secret letters being exchanged by trusted subordinates. None of the things that would signal a willingness to ally was visible in their relationship, and yet here we were. The two remaining Warlords in the land of Rain had made common cause, abandoning fringe territory for Yaga and my shinobi to gorge themselves on while most likely using the time to fortify their central areas and hunker down.
They lay in wait, expecting us to attack so they would turn the situation around on us by turning the place into a death trap. It was almost clever. Almost.
"Well, they sure found some way to get around their differences, didn't they? Does it even matter how they did it? All that matters is how we stop this," Uzume said with a harsh scowl on her face. She was not pleased with any delays in Ame. Because delays in Ame meant things would not move forwards in Rivers. And until we dealt with both Ame and Rivers and brought them into the fold, nothing could progress regarding the Hidden Sand. And she wanted her rematch with Bunpuku. The man had been able to hold her to a stalemate the last time, but it was a win for him because he had a village full of shinobi on their way, and so Uzume was forced to retreat.
"The earlier proposals are still open for your consideration, Hokage-sama," Shika said. I shook my head before sighing.
"I will not countenance a greater investment in force. So far only a single Konoha shinobi has been lost. I intend to keep it that way. Yaga must prove his worth as an ally," I said.
"He is not going to step into that meat grinder. Any attempt to convince him to do so has failed already. I am sorry to say it, but in this situation, he has us beat. He knows we want Ame, and we want it fast. He can afford to wait. Especially with our resources plugging the holes in his supplies. He can wait and slowly take more and more territory while allowing his enemies to simmer in their pot. Those two will eventually clash. No matter what is keeping them together now. It can never last forever," she said. I nodded at that.
"And just ordering him to attack?" I asked.
"Would you give an order that you know will not be obeyed?" Shika asked. I'd seen that one coming.
"If he doesn't obey, we find someone that can," Uzume snarled from her place.
"That's even worse than just giving him more shinobi to use for his purposes. We'd lose lives, time, and still have to deal with the disaster that is holding Ame. We can no longer partner with any of the other Warlords—not like we would even want to. His close commanders are kept close. Shika has probed there for any exploitable weaknesses, but there are allegedly none—"
"Their loyalty to him is absolute," she said.
"Going in on our own would mean having to deal with the two we are already facing, and then facing Yaga once we finished there. It would be a waste. More of a waste than giving him what he wants," I said.
"So what do we do then? We are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Either we follow this plan of his and wait, accepting the delays to the war effort, or we force his hand either with a greater investment of force, or by breaking the alliance," Toshiro said from his place. I nodded at his analysis of the situation.
"Or we do something in the middle of both. Hit on both but not commit fully in either direction," I said, when I made up my mind on what to do.
"And what is that?" Uzume asked.
"A provisional deployment. A small group. Three shinobi. One of them will take over operational control of the Konoha contingent as well as functional control of the alliance. Someone stronger than Yaga with my voice behind them," I said.
"Your students?" Shika asked, already seeing what I was leading them towards. I nodded.
"Are they ready for that though? It might be a civil war and smaller in scale than what we fought in, but it is still going to be war," Toshiro pointed out. I nodded.
"They are ready. And if they aren't, they will be made ready. The point here is that they will be able to speak with my voice in the way an Anbu agent will not. Yaga will know to respect them. All three of them are stronger than he is, as well. And they will have orders to remove him if he proves problematic," I said.
"Sounds good to me. I could go with them to expedite things. Rip those fools out of their bunkers and see what they can do," Uzume suggested.
"No. That would be an unreasonable escalation. Best to keep you here, and besides, we have things to prepare for, you and I. Let the kids get the experience they need. They are to be this village's future, and they must begin to make actions to secure that future on their own," I said.
"I will draft up the mission parameters. I assume Minato will be placed in charge of this?" Shika asked.
"Yes. Proceed with that. This will be a good test for him. Now to the next order of business. Have things finally been prepared for the announcement?" I asked. I hated how many delays we'd gotten on something that should have been so simple in the end.
"Are you still keen on having an exhibition for it?" Shika asked a question she knew the answer to.
"Of course."
"Then my bit is handled. Reiji-san will have to tell us if his people are ready with the barrier," she said. I turned to the previously silent Uzumaki who was scrawling down something on the scroll in front of him. I hadn't said anything about his obvious distraction. I knew what it was like to be working on a difficult seal and getting into the flow of it. It was a statement of how much respect he held for me that he even came here.
"Huh?" he asked when he looked up and found half the room looking at him.
"The barrier for the exhibition around my announcement?" I asked.
"Your initial request for a passive barrier ended up being impossible considering the scale of what is to be accomplished here. We have managed to create an active barrier that can be maintained by six members of the corps. However, each match can only last 15 minutes. Anything more than that, and the barrier would fail," he said.
That was… acceptable.
"Will the exhibition and announcement take place before or after your team is sent to Ame?" Uraume asked.
"Before. Best to get it over and done with," I said. She nodded, noting down something on the papers in front of her. Her puppet hand caught the sun in a way that drew my attention. I had to check in on her to make sure it was still working as expected. I didn't anticipate any problems, but wear and tear was a reasonable risk, and it was possible that Uraume would accept any deterioration short of full loss of function as part of some deluded attempt not to stress me.
"Alright then. The guest list is still to be as extensive as initially planned?" she asked.
"It is to be an exhibition, is it not? The Daimyo and his court could do with another reminder of the strength of Konoha and its shinobi," I said. Even with my attempts to diversify our income streams, still the bulk of Konoha's funding came from missions and completing them. Granduncle had started the Chunin exams for a reason. They were an advertisement more than anything else, and considering we hadn't held one since the war ended, it was for the best if we gave our clients a reminder of just what they were paying for before they started getting foolish ideas in their heads.
"I must reiterate my objections to this exhibition—"
"Consider them noted and ignored," I interrupted Shiba before he could get going about the risks again. He was right for sure on some of them, but the point of this was to show the world that Konoha did not see them as a threat. What did I care if it meant that spies could have a better idea of how our shinobi fought as a result? They should take all the notes and build all the countermeasures they wanted. A shinobi that could be beaten by a single counter was not a shinobi that deserved to live, and I would not be considering promoting these people if they did not have what it took to deal with the increased scrutiny.
"Thank you, Hokage-sama," Shiba said, with a nod. I gave him a return one of my own. He was one of the few people I knew would not object to being addressed so bluntly. He actually preferred it.
"The list has been drawn up. We can proceed. Does four matches work for you?" Shika asked.
"Yeah, that works."
"Now on to the next matter on the agenda," I said when no one said anything else. I nodded at Shika to take the lead.
"The budget. Both the hospital and R&D department have requested budget increases to the tune of 15% and 20% respectively. Kagame-san, Toshiro, please address us on your increased needs," she said.
XXXX—SUIREN HOZUKI
"Again," he commanded of his student. The boy looked over to him for a second, clearly about to complain, but his common sense managed to return to him in time before he did something stupid. Something that he would have regretted for the rest of the evening for sure. He weaved the seals and intoned the jutsu: water release: water bullet barrage. His voice cracked halfway through, but the jutsu was still crisp as he spat out a deluge of water balls shaped to penetrate through a target rather than bludgeon them like the base jutsu—the water ball technique—would.
They flew through the training ground and into the distance.
"Again," he commanded. This time, the boy was not so wise.
"But Sensei—" he began and stopped short. Suiren body flickered forwards. The boy could do nothing to react or stop him as he backhanded him to the ground. He had pulled his strength at the last second so that instead of spitting out his teeth, he spat out blood.
"Again," he reiterated as the boy looked up at him. The boy nodded, pushing off from the ground and beginning to weave the seals of the technique. The flaw was still there even as the jutsu came out crisp. Near perfect. But not there yet. Not enough. He was not here to train a Jounin-level shinobi. He was to produce an S-rank for the glory of Kiri, and at that level nothing but perfection was even remotely tolerable.
"Again." Another attempt. Same flaw.
"Again." Same thing.
"Again." Same.
About to reissue the command once more, Suiren brought himself up short as he felt a chakra signature intrude into his range. A very familiar chakra signature.
"Stand straight," he commanded the boy that had begun to bend over on himself at the break he had been inadvertently given. He knew better than to dally and so was standing at attention by the time their guest landed in front of them.
Anbu mask with no features other than the symbol of the hidden rain on the forehead, tall frame for a person his age, red hair that fell down to his back, and more chakra in a single being than Suiren had felt in his whole life.
"Zero," he said in greeting.
"Jounin Suiren Hozuki, wielder of Kubirikocho," he said in return.
"The Mizukage has a message for you," he continued. Suiren nodded. That went without saying. There was only one reason for his cousin's favourite attack dog to be sent his way. Few of them were good.
"I am ready to listen," he said.
"Mizukage-sama is not pleased with the progress of the weapon. I have been directed to inform you that the mission assigned to you is non-negotiable. The weapon must perform adequately here, or both you and it will be replaced," Zero said. When Suiren nodded to show that he understood the words sent his way, a scroll was tossed his way. He caught it with a flick of the wrist, and by the time said wrist came back down, Zero was gone.
"Sensei?"
"Did I permit you to stop? Keep practicing the jutsu while I look at this. If those fingers stop moving, I'll be making a necklace out of them since you clearly don't need them," he threatened while unleashing a small amount of his killing intent. The boy froze and then got to work instantly. Suiren internally nodded in satisfaction before dragging the scroll open.
Like Zero had said, it was a mission assignment. A collection of pirates in Nagisawa. Kiri intel had just confirmed that three different crews would be meeting there in a matter of days to discuss an alliance for the purpose of making a bigger raid on some noble's shipping operation. That part did not matter much.
What mattered was that they had been instructed to kill the pirates down to the man. It was a B-rank mission. So some of the pirates would have training in using chakra, but enough of it to be a true threat.
Suiren could not remember the last time he took a B-rank. So this had been assigned for the benefit of his student. A student he had only had for months. A student who hadn't even been a full genin before being assigned to him. It was preposterous, but it was how Kiri worked.
There were no training ponds here. Here, their young were tossed straight into the ocean and left to fend for themselves. Either they learned to eat the sharks, swim with them, or they became shark food. It had been his mistake to think anything less would be expected in this case.
That his life was tied to the boy's performance was not a surprise. To whom much was given, much was expected.
"Come here, boy," he instructed.
"What?" he replied, losing concentration and bending over as the water gathered for the jutsu in his throat lost cohesion and expanded. The water flowed from his mouth like vomit even as it blocked his airways with its expansion and made it impossible for him to breathe. Suiren scowled and stepped forward to help. If the boy died before even going on a single mission, his execution would be a thing of legend.
—
"Where is Nagisawa?" he asked.
"East of Kiri?" the boy responded.
"Are you asking me or telling me?" he pushed.
"Telling you, sensei," he said. Suiren turned to his side, noting that the boy had managed to put on all his equipment correctly, before backhanding him.
"Then you were telling me something untrue. Nagisawa is to the West. When we return to the village, you will find a map of the Elemental Nations. Yes, I said the whole Elemental Nations. And you will memorise everything. Next time I ask a question and you don't know the answer, just say so. Do not lie to me," he warned.
"Last time, you said that it's better to guess than to say I don't know," the boy's voice came from the ground. Suiren swallowed his smirk.
"Then know the answer. Let's go," he said.
A/N: I love Suiren's character for quite a few reasons (most are yet to happen). And as for Zero? Well, I'll have your best guesses. Next five chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.