#//applicable to all shinobi and former shinobi;;;;

[the-letter-horror-lover]

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 68: Threats and Offers

Chapter Text

Obito was conscious when he was taken into the village, and the elders were there to meet him. Kakashi must have gone ahead of himself at some point by using the Hiraishin. He can’t take me with the technique, but he can at least save himself some time.

“So, this is our youngest rogue ninja,” one of the elders said with a squint. “I hope his capture was not too much trouble.”

“It doesn’t matter now. He can’t get out of here.”

“You’re sure of that? How do you know all of his techniques?”

“He would have escaped before this. I concealed the fact that it was suggested to bring him in alive.”

“It was suggested?” Obito asked. “So, you had a choice? You had to think for yourself about what was best for the village?”

“Yes, that was within the confines of my orders,” he said without changing his bored tone of voice at all. “I hope this is enough to consider my application for Jonin.”

“We shall have to adhere to what we stated earlier, or rather, what we implied. If you specifically went to retrieve the rogue ninja on the promise that your promotion was only delayed because you had not completed the mission yet, then we shall have to at least go over your application again.”

“Thank you.”

The formerly masked ninja regarded everything that was going on around him with a dispassionate glare. It did not in the least bit surprise him that Kakashi made rank before he did, not even after he heard it out of Dramada that he was being considered. I was right to think I wasn’t worthy of it. Even after I could use the Mangekyo, I can’t use it to get out of here.

“Has it been decided?” he asked. “Have you come up with what you’re going to do to me for leaving? You’re aware that’s all I did-“

“A shinobi of the leaf is simply a tool of the village,” one of the elders said. “A tool that is not there to be used can be destroyed without consequence.”

“These are your masters, Kakashi,” Obito said. “I just thought you’d want to know.”

“I already did.”

His old teammate said nothing more to him as he walked through the crowd that had gathered.

“You are slaves!” he shouted to all that had gathered. “Maybe you didn’t realize it, but here’s the proof! What’s a job that you can’t even quit? If you’re not a slave yourself, the ninja you know-“

The shouting came from all sides. Some approved, most likely, some were annoyed that he would make such accusations against the village, and some were shouting unrelated things. He was not hoping for anything specific to come about from his act of rebellion, but he was angry enough that he was not worried about it. He was angry enough that he only wanted to destroy something.

The elders called in various shinobi to restrain the crowd, not that they would be informed of why the shouting had started. It had been made plain that when push came to shove, they were not allowed to quit, meaning their continued services were compulsory. Did we ever agree to it, knowing that we would have to continue to serve them for the rest of our lives? Could that have been explained to us when we were six?

Perhaps he was thinking too little of his former self. He knew that he was more advanced than the average kid by leaps and bounds, but the past few days had proven he was not immune to making mistakes. Was that only his youth, though, or was that as Kakashi had said, that his successes had driven him to overconfidence? It still embarrassed him that his old teammates realized he was partially responsible for the coup on Nami.

When the situation was brought under control, the majority of the normal people of the village were back in their homes, and quite a few shinobi he recognized were around, including Guy’s team, looking on from a nearby roof. It was announced that Obito was a deserter who had attempted to inflame the crowds to assist with his own escape. He could demand to have things officiated by the Hokage, he knew, but there was no point in that. Even if he had been advancing the cause of peace, there was no record of his actions that anyone would accept. It’s better if I just die here. It’s better if I get them angry enough to get rid of me before they use any advanced ninjutsu to interrogate me.

There were no objections as the charges were announced. Not only did the village have someone to blame for any missions on which they had sent him in the past, they could hold up his death as an example of their ability to self-regulate, a fundamentally ridiculous concept as that was. He sighed deeply before he shouted again.

“There’s a better way forward! We don’t have to obey the Daimyo, and we don’t have to confine chakra manipulation to martial purposes! I stole the book called Beyond Healing from the great library of Kirigakure and we’re teaching the material to-“

The container was tipped over again, as if that would shut him up. The problem was that he was in a fundamentally helpless position, but there were no convenient ways of keeping him from communicating with the village. If anyone heard him, he could only hope that someone would understand why he did everything of which he was accused, but either way, he was leaving his friends to clean up his mess. Strangely, he felt a different calm than the time that he confronted Kakashi.

Is this why I can never use my dojutsu? Is it because I have hope? Is it because of the curse of hatred, or because I don’t have it? Why wouldn’t I be effected by it?

It was announced that his execution would take place immediately. There were words of protest about the time and place, but no one was going against the elders directly; that was sheer folly when he was being punished for that very crime. He could hold out hope, he supposed, that some of them really wanted to support him, but were constrained by thinking that they were alone in that regard, but it made no difference. Even his friends were going to be okay with killing him.

Strangely, or at least in a way that was strange to him, that was what made him feel like losing all hope. He already knew that the world had a lot of problems with it, and his own village was not the least guilty in causing problems, and- why were they just going to abandon him? What had he ever done to them? He thought of Rin telling him not to fall victim to the curse of hatred. Where was she, though? Was she still on some mission relating to the Bijuu Escalation?

Someone was saying that there was no need to prolong his suffering and that it might as well happen quickly and cleanly. Ebisu volunteered to take care of it himself, taking a kunai and standing thirty paces away. Obito smiled. It was no mystery to him that his old classmate was trying to be merciful to him. His opportunity, however, was denied by another shinobi who stood in front of him.

Morino Ibiki had returned.

“Oh, you’re a tokubestu-“ he started, noticing the mark on the young man’s hitai-ate.

“That’s enough out of you, Uchiha,” he said. “It looks like I made a mistake. I could have made you suffer and die three years ago, and out of some misplaced sense of mercy, I spared your life.”

It was a jarring feeling. He had been beyond certain that the torture specialist had planned out the whole thing, and that their battle was just a performance for the crowd. He remembered being bound by chains in a summoned cage, in a position where he really only could have used dojutsu-

“There’s no need for this-“ someone was saying.

“I need to do it,” he said, pushing an annoyed Genma out of the way. “We need to show the world what we do to traitors. We need to make them suffer.”

He had no time to think, not when a cage was summoned around him, covered in spikes inside and out.

“That’s pointless, you asshole!” he shouted. “I’m already restrained, and the spikes won’t hurt me!” He was crying. “I thought we were friends!”

“So did I,” he said, summoning a strange device into his hands. Obito realized with a start that it was a drill, like he had seen construction workers using. He realized he was screaming when his self-appointed executioner came closer and closer.

“If I get out of this, I’ll kill you!” he shouted, pointlessly.

“I’d like to see you try.”

Right as the drill bit was about to touch his forehead, though, he saw only blackness. He was still trapped in the metal container, but there was nothing and no one around him. For a strange moment, he thought it was an afterlife, but he was still breathing. Did people breathe in the pure realm?

There were square platforms all around him and he realized he was on one himself. He remembered, of course, that a fire jutsu had burned through the adhesive, but it was challenging to make one without being able to make hand signs. Channeling chakra to his legs, he ran the risk of injury by kicking down as if he was running through the woods, breaking the container along the lines of fracture where Kakashi broke it before. With more freedom of movement, he managed a basic Katon, destroying the flammable adhesive, burning the skin beneath it, but freeing it all the same. Using the Hiraishin directly after that, he found he was back in the land of lightning.

The wind whistled around him, and he stood up as soon as he managed to free the rest of him from the container. He was badly burned on his hands, but there was nothing to do but stagger over to a nearby stream and crouch in it. He realized his iron mask was what he must have used as the basis of his teleportation jutsu.

In the stream he had no more than wet his hands and forearms before he collapsed onto his back and started breathing heavily. The excitement of nearly losing his life and escaping by some mechanism he still did not exactly understand was weighing heavily on him, it was like going from being hot and nearly dehydrated to having a jet of freezing water sprayed in his face. There was a lot to process, and he probably should have warped to the Uchiha village, where he could be healed, but for some reason not entirely rational he felt like he would have been putting them at risk, and he remembered that there was work to be done in Rai.

Struggling to his feet, he ran up a nearby mountain as quickly as he could go, catching sight of a nearby gathering of ninja. He had destroyed his own cloak, but he had regained the mask and could get a new cloak soon enough; it was nothing more than a length of black cloth. When next he warped to Nami, he could get it squared away. It was, as he had observed, not nearly the most important matter to be addressed.

The gathering beneath him surrounded a pair of pots, identical in appearance, and he knew at once that both of them contained tailed beasts. The first one must have been used a while back. He said it was in his family and he just studied it and learned to replicate it. With a white knuckled clutch of the hand, he realized the most likely intention of capturing them alive was to later use them against Konoha. Even releasing them to do whatever they wanted would basically guarantee that a bunch of people died.

“It looks like someone has come back.”

The Raikage was standing around with a handful of senior ninja and the same man Kakashi had been pretending to be, rather expertly if no one ever saw through him.

“I know what you’re about to say,” he said, still perched at the top of the mountain. He did not trust himself to be fast enough to risk reducing the distance between himself and that many skilled lightning ninjas, least of all their leader. “You’re about to ask that man where he took me if he was supposed to collect the bounty that Konoha put out.”

“I was,” the village leader confirmed.

“He never took me anywhere, because a ninja named Hatake Kakashi took his place. He must have studied your confidant’s movements for days before using the transformation jutsu to make sure that nothing was out of order. If you send a letter to the Hokage saying that you know one of his men infiltrated your office, he’ll confirm it.”

“The Hokage?” someone asked, or rather, demanded. “Konoha had a man on the inside?”

“The real reason he was there was to look for an agent from Nami, most likely. He knew that the waves would want to reach out to the lightning to keep from going to war with the rest of the water countries. If that happened, I think we all know who would die first.”

“Why would he want that to happen?” the Rakage asked. “Why would anyone from Konoha seek to prevent an alliance between us?”

“Greed, most likely,” Tobi said. “If you shake hands with the self-appointed Namikage, then Sarutobi Hiruzen can’t do it himself. Worse yet, you’ll have an allied country, and you’ll have two tailed beasts under wraps.”

“This is something you want, then?”

“There are various things that I want,” he said, evasive again. “One of the things that I want is for you to see what it’s like to be powerful.”

“The Lord Raikage is the most powerful shinobi in the world!” one of the senior ninja shouted before being silenced.

“I wasn’t talking about personal ability. I don’t think anyone has any doubt of that. I was talking about influence. When Rai is on the same playing field as Konoha, the other countries of the world will begin to shift blame in your direction. When the founder of the first hidden village reached out to his imitators and invited them to the table, he took no initiative to keep them from growing powerful.”

“He died shortly after that, if I remember correctly,” the village leader said, leaving no real doubt that he was correct. “He was killed by a man he called a friend, and that friend wanted to advance the position of Konoha and his own clan.”

“Welcome to the world of the strong. I hope you like your new responsibilities.”

He ran off without another thought. It was not a certainty to him that he should have avoided saying anything about how they should pick up Nami, or whether they would refuse just because some unknown agent suggested it, but in a sense it was the same as with any other thing he had suggested. No one knew who he really was, and they would only go along with it if they thought it was good for them. Konoha probably really does want Nami; they just don’t know that it’s available. Garen might refuse them on principle, though.

Though he had initially wanted the island to join the land of fire, he could not really say that it would drag out the peace. It was entirely possible that the move would provoke the rest of the water countries to declaring war before they lost all hope of victory, whether or not their chances were enviable either way. A fifteen percent chance might have been better than a ten, but they would take ten over zero.

He felt Shiranami’s words echo in his mind as he used the Hiraishin once he was sure he was out of sight, exhausted and still pretty injured. Is it really necessary for Konoha to completely dominate the rest of the world in order for there to be peace? Do we have to completely control everything?

Removing his mask and stepping into the small house where their resident healers worked, Obito felt himself being fussed over and answered their questions absently. He had to get over to Nami, and he would, but he was exhausted, and it could wait another day. I just have to tell Garen that there’s some chance they would accept his offer, and that they wouldn’t have any reason to do anything harmful to the waves.

He knew the swordsman’s interest in any alliance arrangement from the fact that he had tried to avoid being recognized internationally for as long as possible. They wanted the same thing. Neither of them wanted a world war, though one because he lived on a small island that was definitely going to get destroyed and the other for some vague, idealistic reasons that he found hard to articulate in practical terms that people would accept.

As he felt the familiar sensation of iryo-ninjutsu taking care of his minor injuries, he wondered whether or not he could call himself good, and he could only think that he would have to consult the written works surrounding Ninshuu. Those were the only sources of information, as far as he was aware, about how the world had been created, and they would have to serve in telling him how the laws of human behavior worked. For them to have been etched into the fabric of the universe, he reasoned, they must have been written at the same time. Even if it would only satisfy his curiosity, he wondered what such ancient works would have to say about him.

He was eventually released and effectively returned to Shingo and Hazuki, who were grateful to be able to provide their own kind of care as he explained between bites what all had happened. It was the first time he had directly told anyone he wanted to arrange an alliance between Rai and Nami, but that in itself was going to be politically challenging. The Raikage was theoretically beholden to the lightning lord, but Garen recognized no authority above him. Even if it was only a secret alliance, and by all appearances the larger country would have conquered the smaller country, something had to be said in the actual delegations.

The following morning, he was off to the land of waves without a moment longer of delay. He had effectively no choice but to proceed with everything he had arranged so far, now that the lightning ninjas had been informed that there was an interest, it was not a good idea to bait and switch them at all. Everyone was aware, of course, that the larger country could easily conquer the smaller country in actual fact, not just in public perception, but there was an advantage in going quietly rather than being eliminated. Making things easy on the Lightning Daimyo would be well rewarded.

“I almost didn’t recognize you without your cloak,” the swordsman said as soon as he showed up. “What happened?”

“A lot.”

Without going into an excessive amount of detail about exactly everything that had come to pass, he informed his occasional friend of the current situation, to the best of his understanding. The wielder of Hiramekarei was listening intently, though he was not entirely happy with the result.

“Tobi, I’ve been debating your assessment of our position, and you might well be correct that we need a powerful ally.” He frowned. “You’re smirking. Don’t ask me how I can tell through the mask.”

“Your voice has taken a more diplomatic tone,” he said, matching it somewhat. “I can tell you’ve been in meetings. You’ve found out that it’s not all about killing people.”

“I never said it was.” He took a breath. “I would have preferred to unite Shimo, Ame, and Taki against Kiri, using the argument that they never protected us and only ever used our alliance as a cover for their own actions. We could move the new head of our alliance to Taki, putting it between-“

“Between Konoha and Iwa, instead of out in the middle of the sea where it could be defended by water ninjas.” He shook his head. “No one’s going to agree with that, least of all Riwa. I can see why you didn’t even bring them up. I know why you don’t want to be on the same side as Rai. It’s dangerous. If they were your allies, though, they’d have no reason to attack you. You could send them some nominal tribute, supposedly to make it look like they were in charge of you, but really to give them enough of a reason not to change the terms of your agreement.”

“How exactly are we going to- ‘make things easy on the lightning lord’?”

“Give them a reason to conquer you,” he said, knowing it was a pill that was not going to go down easily. “Conduct a nominal attack. Don’t do any real damage. You actually don’t even need to attack them; just let them say you attacked some village of theirs and then claim credit for it.”

“I’m really starting to doubt you don’t just want to hand us over to Rai, Tobi. Here I was, this close to crossing that off-“

“It won’t go in any of Tetsu’s books. If it’s not a real attack, they’ll never be able to verify that it was a real attack, and they won’t write it down.”

“Who cares what some bleating mountain goats think?” he asked. “Tobi, you’re seriously suggesting that we give them real, permanent leverage over us in all diplomatic exchanges going forward, and what makes that not so bad as it sounds- is that a bunch of professional fence sitters are going not going to confirm the public opinion?”

“It’s strange to hear you call someone a fence sitter when your position for several months was ‘okay, I’m the Namikage and I’m taking over this island, but let’s hope no one else finds out that’- I’m sorry, what did you think was going to happen? If it’s unrealistic for them to survive by neutrality, it’s just downright stupid for you to try to survive by hiding.”

“You were the one who told me that no one was aware that Kusa has ninjas.”

“Okay, that’s different- We don’t actually know whether or not Iwa knows, and they didn’t just suffer a coup. No one’s going to be asking any questions about who’s in charge of them, so no one’s going to start pointing fingers at the theoretical ‘Kusagakure’.” He sighed. “Don’t tell me you reached out to them for an alliance. I keep thinking that maybe Konoha could pick them up, but even that is a stretch. They’re afraid of Iwa more, even though the land of fire is just as close and objectively more powerful.”

“The Hokage has his hands full. It’s easy to think he won’t throw a kunai at them.”

“I mean, yeah, he’s really busy now, but it’s been like this for at least half a decade.” He sighed. “At the end of the day, I can’t make this decision for you. You’re in a better position than I am to decide whether you want to be in an alliance with Rai or Konoha, but I’d really recommend picking one or the other.”

A moment passed in silence.

“All you get out of it is peace?”

“I hope you don’t think I’m too selfish,” he said after a moment. “It’s all I want. Well, I hope it’s all I want, even if there’s a part of me… there’s a lot that’s happened that I haven’t told you.”

“I can tell,” Garen said, standing up and offering his hand for the shaking. It was a business custom that he might have picked up from Gatou or one of his associates. “We’re friends.”

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 69: Gains from War

Chapter Text

Kakashi had cleaned him out of his gear after knocking him out, but that was okay. He was pretty sure his former friend had turned over one of his marked-up kunai to the leaf, and that meant it was probably in the middle of the village, where no strategic advantage could be gained by warping there, if it had not been destroyed. As he helped some of the kids with the homework he had assigned them, he hit himself on the head as he realized that his exploits had probably put the final nail in the coffin for Minato’s campaign, if that was not already in place.

Well, they might factor in the fact that his other two students are doing a good job for the village. That was what I wanted, anyway. If he remembered correctly, though, Rin had told him that the elders had seen through his plan; they even suspected the three of them of having come up with it together. I guess that should’ve been my first clue that I wasn’t as good at manipulating people as I thought. I don’t even like it, to be honest.

“Obito, what’s the central task of a ninja?” one of the kids asked. He smiled a bit. They always came to him with questions even when it was just directly asking him what to put for their homework.

“You’ll have to find that out for yourself,” he said, putting a hand on his head. “I don’t believe that we’re qualified to tell you, not right now, anyway.”

“Well… why do you do things as a ninja?”

“Everything I do, I do for peace,” he said after a moment. “I’m aware that the kind of peace we have at the moment is the kind where everyone’s holding off on attacking because the alliances are a mess and everyone’s afraid, but I’ll take it. The longer we go without killing anyone, the longer we have to see that we all like it better this way.”

“What about when a country would gain from war?”

“You mean like taking over more territory?” he asked. “Yeah, that has happened in the past, so it’s not like we won’t have to have measures in place to keep the lords under control. What if, rather than an alliance, though, we had an agreement with say, Kiri, not to attack each other without the approval of some other country, then maybe the kind of peace we have now would go on for longer.”

He was aware that it could be argued that the absence of war ultimately benefitted the large countries more than the small countries, because it meant that the large countries would get to keep their gains from war, while the small ones would not be allowed to catch up, but it seemed more obvious that the reverse was true, and that the small ones would gain the most by virtue of not being destroyed. Garen, who seemed to genuinely care for his country, probably wanted peace most of all, though it was already going to start to be a controversial issue that he was the uncontested leader of his country. The lord of sound had already said that the land of waves had been turned into a military dictatorship, and while no one cared what he had to say, the fact that it had been said put a kind of pressure on the kages to respond.

More distressing news had come from Shingo.

Unsurprisingly, the water countries did not take kindly to Nami’s newfound refusal to give them any kind of show of support, and this was before discussions with Rai had even resolved, at least based on the fact that nothing had happened. Taki, Ame, Riwa, and Shimo had all agreed to send representatives to a discussion about formally becoming one country, putting Kiri directly above them in a chain of command, essentially abandoning the pretense that they were all in an alliance. There were those who said that this effort was entirely nominal, but it would be too easy for them to invade the land of waves and just subject it, so this was probably the most they could do without invading. They must not want to show the others that’s what happens when they step out of line.

It was a good sign, in a sense. The fact that the mist did not want to be feared by its own allies basically meant that it was less likely that it wanted to be feared by the rest of the world, though that brought with it its own kind of annoyances. Acting like it was peaceful, or perhaps just more peaceful than other countries, and that everyone else was driving it to violence was basically impossible to disprove, but perhaps it was still a nice problem to have. As annoying as it was for them to constantly seek out justification for war, it was better than having them just declare war to scare the smaller countries into submission.

“Oh, Dramada wanted us to tell you that he had a mission for you.”

“When did you hear that?”

“This morning? I think? It didn’t sound all that urgent. Why?”

“Next time he tells you something to tell me, I need to know right away,” he said, getting up and walking off. They probably didn’t want to have to lose their source of information. I don’t regret teaching them to be that clever, but I really wish they’d realize that cleverness and honesty aren’t contradictory.

“Good day, sir,” he said, hoping to recover from the slight to his honor in the form of being made to wait for part of a day. It was not as if the village leader had ever been outwardly annoyed about that, but in all honesty, Obito felt like he deserved the respect, and he was even more grateful to have a place to live, now that he was certain he would be executed if spotted by someone from Konohagakure. “I just heard something about a mission.”

“I asked Sagara if she was available, but it appears she was unable to answer me. I hope nothing has gone wrong with her, but at the moment there is no cause for concern. This mission will take you to Riwa.”

“What’s there, sir?” he asked.

“First, I feel the need to clarify some information. You have used the Mangekyo only recently, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir. I felt that my eyes were bleeding, and that was moments after I avoided an attack from Kakashi that I should never have been able to avoid. It was like I had put myself under some kind of genjutsu for a moment, because everything was black, and then I could see again. I thought that my ability was basically obscuring my vision, and I could not determine what the ability was, and did not focus on it. I only managed to activate it involuntarily.”

“I see. It makes sense you would focus on other ways of getting out of there. You said you thought you were in the pure realm when you managed to use it again.”

“I… unless it’s another world. I can’t say I’ve been to any other world, but… I don’t know, I guess I assumed it was the pure realm because it seemed like… I don’t know, it seemed like it was stable, rather than a temporary world that some jutsu might be able to create. The sky was black, and the land was just these gray squares.”

“There was no one else with you?”

“That’s correct.” He would have mentioned it in his report, but he could see why the older man was asking. “I know it’s more likely that it was some other world, but I’ve never heard of it.”

“I see. I only wish to make sure that I have everything in order. The way I understand it, your eyes are currently on a path to being burnt out. Even if one day used by someone else, they will most likely continue to burn out if used for their abilities.”

“That’s true, sir, unless we find some medical ninjutsu that can reverse the deterioration to my vision.” The specialists they had were still hard at work trying to find a way to combat the vision deterioration, but they said they were fighting a losing battle, and there was an obvious solution staring him in the face. “Are you suggesting that I should transplant my mother’s eyes?”

“I was thinking it would be best to use one from your mother, and one from your father.”

The plan had its advantages. He could not say for certain that he would be able to use the techniques at their full strength, but he would have a wider array of techniques he could use. It made sense with his general fighting style.

“I think you may be right, sir. It would be good for me to have options.”

“There is another factor, I confess. Whatever you decide leaves a single eye for Mado, if you would be willing to part with it, and I would rather that her abilities would not duplicate Uno’s, who himself has one from your father and one from the Hyuga.”

“Should I go ahead and perform this operation before this mission?” he asked.

“No, this mission is time-sensitive and should not require the use of your new dojutsu, though if it does, and you burn out your eyes, I understand you can still use the Hiraishin to escape. Within five days, we need you to undermine the leading faction in Riwa.”

“I see,” he said. “I… admit I basically ran away from a mission one time because I couldn’t kill someone who hadn’t committed the crime-“

“There are three main rivers that do not make up the borders with Konoha and Suna, and that means the country has five competing lords, each with very little power of his own. Part of the reason that the leading faction has sent its representative, even as cautious as they are about foreign authorities, is because they intend to have their own river lord religiously legitimized. You and I may not see the difference, but even though all five of the competing lords have been blessed by one local holy man or another, none of them have ever been declared to be in line with the Mind of Water by a sage from Kiri.”

“You’re not about to tell me he’s a good guy, though, are you?”

“No. If the mist is the most dogmatic out of any country in the world, as has been said of them, for better or worse, the rivers have twice the fanaticism with a quarter of the attention paid to the guides about seeking peace and fairness, or the truth for that matter.” He sighed. “It may be that you met a handful of mostly innocent kids when you were there, but many of the leaders are even more violently corrupt than you would expect for how weak they are and how hard they have to struggle for dominance.”

“Well, I guess they do have to compete with each other,” he said. “Thanks for teaching me so much about diplomacy, sir. It’s served me well so far.”

“There’s a saying, before you go, that the pen is mightier than the sword. I assume this comes from some country where they use pens, a writing implement, but I find it rings true no matter where you are. Force is necessary, and there will come a time when people will not listen to reason, but more can always be accomplished through the unimpressive, inglorious work of forming agreements than with violence.”

“I’ve started thinking that it’s true myself, though maybe I wouldn’t have used the same words.” He noticed he was looking off into space. “I just really hope that it’s not wishful thinking.”

Obito left without another word, throwing on his cloak on the way out. It had not been troublesome to get a new one after asking Garen, as he had thought, and he put on the mask after that. Fortunately, he had a quick way of getting to Riwa, and he took advantage of it right away, though the next step completely mystified him. I should still be careful about using the Hiraishin. Kakashi knows it, and it won’t take Rin long to figure it out if she hasn’t already.

As he had not heard anything about her, he guessed that she was still working with the village on the Tailed Beast Escalation, which had met with moderate success overall. The Fire Daimyo, at the very least, was able to pretend that there was no problem, and that there would be no difficulty if someone else were to invade Konoha; he went so far as to throw a ball for various dignitaries of the continent. He tried not to spitefully comment that countless wars would be planned out at such a meeting.

In mere moments, he went from the border town to a much larger settlement, moving quickly and avoiding what looked like a band of outlaws on the way. According to the strongest faction, the rest of the factions were no better, but that was not the real reason he was letting them be. It’s a value judgement. It was something of which he had to remind himself every so often. I can’t let some bunch of jerks get in the way of-

What was he doing there? Was he advancing the cause of peace? It certainly seemed like a good idea to kick one of the legs out from under Kiri’s alliance. What if Shimura Danzo uses that as an excuse to go to war, though? Scowling, he remembered that Dramada’s primary, if not only interest, was protecting the secret village, and if the eye of Konoha were pointed in some other direction, then he would be none too displeased. Peace might be the best circumstance, but only because people might theoretically not support using violent means for everything going forward, at least in his case.

Tobi had not really thought about what kind of strategy he would take with the mission, so he supposed it was not that terrible that he had not thought about what he wanted to accomplish. They were interrelated concepts, after all. Would Konoha invade if the water alliance looked weak enough? I can see the elders deciding to hack some limbs off, but Kiri itself wouldn’t have become any easier to invade. He shook his head. There was no way he could guarantee their response. They might, for all he knew, just worry less about one enemy and switch their focus to another enemy.

“The reason I’m here is to test the alliance itself,” he said after a moment, to no one in particular. If the Mind of Water and its adherents wanted to claim Nami as their clay, they would first have to defend Riwa, or determine what exactly it was, after going through the trouble of declaring it a sovereign entity, and pointing out its current leader.

Kakashi had been right about his overconfidence. He had been fortunate enough to succeed a few times in his infiltration missions here and there, and basically that was enough to make him think that he did not need to take any time researching the area and creating a disguise for himself. It isn’t going to be good enough for everyone to just show up and start making suggestions. I’m being stupid to even think that there’s no one who would have done that already.

The large settlement where he had come had several shinobi passing through it, which he had to assume was unusual; he could tell they were all local and the country did not have all that many ninja of its own. They’re all dressed the part. I might be able to just see where they’re going.

Sighing, he took off his cloak and shirt and put them both in his pack. He doubted he could pretend to be a Riwa local when among them, but it seemed more believable that he had been there before. I only have five days. I have to get in thoroughly and quickly. No time to waste.

Following the strange shinobi, he watched as they glanced over at him, paying special attention to his mask. Was it so strange for a ninja to wear one? Or, had he become famous in his exploits? The simple iron mask did not really look anything like his previous one of wood. They reached a large field that seemed to be fed by the river, where an older shinobi was waiting for them.

“Fifty years ago,” he started, walking between the rows of crops. “I was the only shinobi around. If you’ll believe it, I was high born in Kiri, and I gave up my status by coming here. I decided to hold this meeting here because of the potential of our great land. We could easily become the exclusive crop trading partner with Suna, but only if we take our land back from them. The narrow strip of arable land is effectively subjugated to prevent even a spark of revolt from fanning all at once into a raging fire.”

He made no attempt to prevent anyone from speaking, but they only whispered.

“There are those of you who wonder about the enemy’s response,” the old shinobi asserted. “My brother, Haruta, has assessed that they could defeat us if they came in force, but they could not take back their land, not without the use of total war. There are those who say the world is changing and that countries will need a cause of action before going to war. We have the best cause of action there is- no restitution for our loss can be expected through peaceful means. Kiri would have us attack Konoha, to the end of our own destruction, while Suna and Iwa simply wait for the war to be over, and then snap up the countries nearest them.”

Tobi had not thought of that particular course of action, but of course it was entirely possible. The water alliance, politically unified as it was at the present, was still not defensible, and even if Konoha would be focusing on defending itself on all sides, the same could not be said of the two large countries to the west. They could easily make only a token effort against the land of fire, or even only defend themselves against fire ninjas who made it into their own borders. When the war was over, however it ended, they would use what was left of their strength to snap up Ame, Kusa, and at least parts of Taki and Riwa, leaving small border countries. It seemed no one else in the crowd had thought that Suna and Iwa intended to cheat the alliance either.

“Did Haruta tell you this as well?” someone asked.

“We have had no choice but to conduct extensive spying operations against both of our western enemies. While it is true that Konoha has grown too large and powerful, and it stands to reason that we must deal with them, as we are the only shinobi with the counter to fire techniques, we must never delude ourselves into thinking that their defeat will mean the end of war. We have fought, we have even fought them, since before my grandfather was born, before the villages were ever formed, and no alliance will protect us from the reality of war for small countries.”

“What shall we do, then?”

Tobi could not identify who was calling out or whether or not he had been planted. I should have expected the speech would take on a tone of… justifying their actions. What was I expecting? Were they all going to drink blood and howl?

“We are going to conduct a false flag attack, supposedly by Konoha, on Suna. When we return victorious, the entire country will be ours. The land of wind will be busy using the occasion to declare war, but we shall stay put. We shall continue killing local authorities and agricultural managers. Kiri has sent messages to all of our allies that the war will not start with a false flag attack, but neither of the other three parties has reason to go along with it. The records that Tetsu keeps will be made irrelevant, or so they think.”

“Will the sand ninjas realize that the attack is really from us?”

“No. They have their own reasons to suspect that Konoha would give them special attention during a war for its own survival, and their own measures to deploy if their own survival is in question. As much as we look like Riwa forces, the more our enemy will be convinced that we were fire ninjas putting on a show. Their most likely move from this position will be to deploy their secret weapons in the direction of Konohagakure, and in this sense they may actually contribute to the war effort.” He took a long breath and looked down for a moment before looking back up. “I recognize; we all recognize that the enemy’s actions are hard to predict in an unprecedented context, but as stated this is their most likely response, and from our position, it is all we can do to have courage.”

There it was again. It was the justification from position, and it almost made him relax into a more self-assured state. The fact of the matter is, Konoha uses an opposite justification from its own position all the time. I can’t even remember how many times I’ve heard someone say that we need to act as a leader and take part in various conflicts, only because we were the most powerful. Would anyone ever be grateful that we stepped in? Would it ever be a conflict in which we had nothing to gain?

Long after everyone had parted, Tobi continued to stand there. The announcement of the plan in a public place was probably necessary given the mass disorganization of the country, with the ninjas divided between the leading faction operating out of Tanigakure, as well as four others. I doubt that everyone in that announcement was even in the same faction. The old man was just counting on their general patriotism if he chose not to filter them at all.

“I have yet to see you here,” Haruta’s brother said of him as he returned. The sun was setting and it seemed the shinobi loyal to him or his plan were only making final preparations. I can’t identify whether or not supporting him will get me anything.

“Call me Tobi,” he said, not having moved. “I’m not from around here, but I’ve been before.”

“What do you think of our plan?”

“What if there is no war?” he asked. “What if the rest of the allies decide not to accept your attack on Suna as an attack by Konoha? What if they decide they need a real attack to start the war?”

“We die. Fortunately, it’s not very likely. You have asked some interesting questions, Tobi, and if you have more, you can direct them to me later. Urgently, however, I have to ready for the attack. You understand if I don’t have the most unified fighting force.”

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Yeah, I’ll be right there with you.”

It’s something I never considered. My whole plan of stacking up powerful countries next to each other was based on this idea that no one would want war if a positive result could not be guaranteed. There are those, however, who don’t wait around for a guarantee to attack. There are those for whom war is an opportunity, even if not from a position of strength.

He took a deep breath before running off again.

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 70: Ninja Diplomacy

Chapter Text

Tobi had no ability to stop a moving force of ninja once it was moving, but he tried not to feel bad about it, because chances were, no one had seen it coming. He could try warping ahead of them to the farms on the edge of Suna, but what would he accomplish by going there? Telling the people to evacuate? Telling them to prepare, to call the Kazekage? Did Riwa have a right to the land? Did Suna have a right to it if the invaders could be forced out?

The truth of the matter was that there were no river people any more than there were island people or mountain people. Shinobi might be born with one affinity or another, but the places where everyone lived had always been determined by bloodshed. There was no realistic argument of primacy; every footprint of usable land, and more than enough of it that was not useable at all, had been taken by its current owners, and almost all of it had been taken before that.

“What’s with the mask?” a kunoichi next to him asked. “Are you ashamed of what we’re doing here?”

“No, I’m just a missing ninja from another country. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh, we don’t. Most of us are going to die, so it doesn’t really matter if someone like you dies along with us.”

“You’re not worried about that?”

“Nope. I was disowned by my family and the temple and I never wanted to leave a legacy behind. I don’t need more years because I don’t need to accomplish anything.”

“You don’t want to live?”

“The only moment that really exists is the present. If I had my way, I would use as many drugs as I could and then die, ending things on a perfect high note. Unfortunately, I can’t get ahold of that many different drugs anywhere in Riwa, so the experience would be rather lackluster. I decided to make blood my vice instead.”

The party had come to a stop, perhaps waiting to meet up with some other company. How did they mobilize this quantity when the country isn’t even unified? He could try to tell himself it was because they could all unite against Suna when it came down to it, but by taking some kind of offensive action without waiting for Kiri’s approval, they were going against the largest faction, against the man who was probably calling himself the River Daimyo.

“How’d you find out about this?” he asked. “Are you from Tanigakure?”

“You got it in one. There’s an underground… newsletter? I guess that’s what you’d call it. It’s been making rounds all over the country, and basically most of the people are here because it’s been agreed that our only hope is to drop everything and go along with this plan. We don’t even know who came up with it.”

“I think it’s this old shinobi named Haruta and his brother.”

“Sick.”

“You weren’t interested, were you?”

“No, not really.”

Whether or not the kunoichi standing around with him was interested, he might have expected some people had to be, if for no other reason than to verify that it was not the plot of some faction, but it seemed that the speech had clarified that it was, and no one was leaving on that account. The faction leaders must have thought of some way that it benefits them as well. From a really naïve perspective, you could say it benefits them all equally, but practically it’s just as likely that taking another river will give them another minor river lord.

Tobi decided that he was in a uniquely bad scenario where there was no one person he could identify as a benefactor to be assassinated. Isn’t that all the time, though? What could I do about Rai going to war against Shimo?

Getting the land from a stronger enemy would be challenging, have a chance of backfiring badly, and would require a careful effort to prevent factional sabotage. The third problem, when he thought about it, might have already been solved by the fact that it was a bunch of random shinobi from around the country who had no orders to follow that would make the operation likely to succeed except those from Haruta’s brother, who knew the whole plan. Most likely, they intended to kill local authorities and install instigators to get their own people into positions of influence. Even if the territory remained under the official control of Suna, they could sabotage the harvest and sell more of their own crops.

He wondered what he was even doing, in a different way than when a few minutes earlier. Did he have any power to prevent it if effectively the entire country of Riwa wanted to take a bite out of a neighbor? Dramada wanted him to kick one of the legs out of the alliance of water, but could he even accomplish that, even if he knew it would give them a better chance of staying at peace? What can I gain from joining in their assault?

Nothing seemed harder than manipulating the land of rivers, so he had to hand it to the brothers who had apparently managed to reach across the factional lines and make it look like it was all their idea. Wait a minute… most of the defenses should be down…

He raced to the nearest river and ran upstream, reasoning that most of the river lords would be in the north of the country. The rivers were ultimately fed by a large lake in Ame, so if one section of the river could be said to have more power than another, it would be closer to the source. He came to a large town, larger than the border had been.

“Excuse me, I have an urgent message for the local river lord,” he said to the first person he met, a woman with a basket on her head, though it seemed she was having trouble balancing.

“I’m not able to say where he is right now, but I guess you could check the great dock house,” she said before walking off again. Even if she were in the business of keeping secrets, that’s probably not a secret. Where the nearest authority figure lives is probably common knowledge to everyone who lives in this town.

The buildings were mostly wood, and it seemed quite a few of them were raised on stilts, which he guessed was a measure against flooding, but might also have been a measure against bandits. If a few buildings were a man’s height off the ground and the rest were normal, then they were the least likely to be robbed. Of course, if all of them were off the ground, then it was all the same, but that would not cause any one person to lower his or her own home.

The one building that was on the ground was the great boat house, and there were guards on patrol around it. It takes too much chakra to toss a kunai in and use the Hiraishin. I’m better off just walking in under the pretense of giving him the message that I’m supposed to have. Writing some coded message in small text on the back of an explosive tag, he took the cord and spiraled it up on the back, he walked up to the front, where he was stopped.

“Who are you?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” he said. “I’ve got a message.”

“If you can’t say who you are, we’ll have to take it inside for you.”

“That’s not a problem. It is urgent, though, so make sure he gets it soon,” he said, passing it off after igniting the fuse with his own chakra. I need a new disguise. Maybe I can get through this quickly enough in the iron mask, but I don’t want to become known as an assassin. I really don’t want to be recognized at all. “Be careful with it; there’s a security measure in place.”

It was unlikely that they would pass the death off as an accident, unless the guard just decided to lie about it. It’s unfortunate that there’s really no uniform that would get me past all these different- Just as the thought crossed his mind, he saw a man who had to have been a torturer. He knew from Morino, back when the two of them exchanged words a few times, that it was only a common misconception that torturers wore red because the blood would never wash out. Really, it did wash out, and if the wearer failed to wash it out properly, it would stain and in some cases shrink, no matter what color it was.

Following the torture specialist, recognizing him from a tool at his belt, he was thin and short, but probably quite strong, as evidenced by the way he was climbing a ladder with one arm, looking back at Tobi as he went up. He did not, however, stop to ask what he was doing there. It’s not his house. He’s going to meet someone. That complicates things.

“Araga by the mouth of the Degenge wanted answers out of the man from Tetsu,” the specialist was saying to his host. “In the meantime, though, we’ve got an interloper, an uninvited guest.”

The masked ninja showed himself inside, seeing an old lady and the torturer were alone in the room. Using a genjutsu to dodge an attack from a scalpel, he feinted a basic Katon to get the enemy to try to kick him, giving him an opportunity to catch the leg and kick his other out from under him. As soon as the torture specialist was on the ground, he strangled him. The elder was shocked, but she had not screamed, either for help or because of any emotion. Instead, she regarded him coldly.

“Who are you?”

“You don’t want to know. Who’s Araga and which one is the Dengege?”

“It’s the river in the middle of the country. You’re not from around here, are you?” Each river is less than a day apart. Even at the widest part of the country, I could run across the whole thing in a day. It’s obvious that they would use the rivers as landmarks.

“Araga’s the river lord, then?” he asked, figuring it was a name that needed no introduction.

“River lady, technically, but yes.” The old lady smiled as he got the torture suit off the corpse. “Are you going to kill me as well?”

Tobi knew better than to leave people alive just because of sentimental reasons, and he could not afford to have people talking, but leaving a pair of bodies was not much better than leaving just one. I can’t blame the murder on her. No one would ever believe that an old lady could have strangled him. However…

Quickly getting a pair of spiked clamps off the man’s belt, he threw them across the room, hitting the old lady in the neck before getting a rope out of his pack to tie it around the corpse’s neck and then tossed the other end over the rafters, pulling him up and tying it off before yanking on him. Putting his own black cloak around the body after he dressed himself, he figured the murder-suicide would look a bit less fake as long as the torturer was wearing something. Most likely, the two people he had just killed were criminals even by the standards of Riwa, and few people would be able to identify them. Anyone who can just sit there saying nothing when someone else dies- I don’t even want to know what they’re trying to do out here. Why work with the river lords, or any one of them?

Dressed in the leather costume of the torture specialist, he wondered about his own propensity for violence before carving a jutsu-shiki into a rock and tossing it into a nearby river, which he was pretty sure was not the central river. Using the Hiraishin to go back for the night, he was surprised at how much time had passed. It felt like he had accomplished little, but there was no choice to be had; he had burned through a lot of chakra just moving around.

“That’s a strange suit,” Shingo said. He realized his door was open; he found it like that every so often because they all had a habit of leaving doors open while cleaning. “Where’d you get it?”

“It was this guy who tried to kill me as soon as I heard one thing he said.”

“I’ve done that a couple times,” his friend commented neutrally. “Sometimes that’s how it is, though, you have to kill people who didn’t really walk into it.” He took a breath. “My father was in the war and he figured that a lot of the people he killed- he could have been friends with them. He respected them. He didn’t always like them, but…”

“Well, that’s part of why war is so terrible,” he reminded himself. Is there anything that you can do to try to prevent war that you couldn’t justify just by saying you were trying to prevent the war? Is there anything that I’ve already done that I couldn’t justify?

For the moment, he would have to trust his own plan and go to sleep.

When he woke up, he was back in the field straight away, finding himself, of all places, in a field. The rock had washed up on the bank of a river, putting him substantially further to the south than he had been the previous day. If he succeeded in killing one of the river lords, he was going to have a harder time getting to the next one, but he still had plenty of tricks up his sleeve. Feeling the coastal wind, he decided it was wisest to start running east, where, sure enough a large town came into view.

The buildings were made of light wood paneling for the most part, because every one of them was built around a tree, which was again probably because it was easier to defend and easier to protect from flooding. They probably do a lot of farming in this part of the country, though. There are fields up and down the banks.

A gaggle of farmers had gathered around someone who looked like an official, and though their voices were not raised, Tobi could tell that the situation was tense. Basically, they wanted their debts eliminated by Ireto of the Odonge, and he realized he was not on the river he thought he was. I must be further to the east or west than I realized. Not nearly as far south as I thought. I really wish I had a map of this country going in.

“Gentlemen, why don’t we take this conversation to the man himself?” he asked, approaching.

“Ireto is a cautious old badger. He won’t let anyone near him- only ever sends these messengers out so we don’t have any necks to wring.”

“I happen to be good at wringing necks. If you could just tell me where to find him, I could arrange a face to face conversation.”

“Well, would you look at that- a shinobi doing something useful for a change,” a middle-aged farmer said, smiling to reveal some of his teeth were missing. I saw a lot of sugarcane on the way in here; it could have something to do with that.

The official, by contrast, in his light but conservative robes, looked visibly frightened. If he thought for a moment it was an empty threat, he quickly reassessed the situation, of which the most likely explanation was that a rogue ninja was looking for a job, but the farmers would keep him in place. A young man of about sixteen explained the layout of the area and even gave him directions to find the Dengege, since he had asked.

Without another word, he was off. There was a guard outside one of the central treehouses, but it hardly made a difference for him. This isn’t a shinobi settlement. Probably, the only interaction these people have with ninja is seeing them kidnap kids who demonstrate any kind of ability with chakra. After that, they’d get taken to Tanigakure if not some closer rebel cell or a band of criminals posing as servants of the river lord.

It was not surprising that when he found the river lord in the large treehouse that served as his government building, he was in a meeting about agriculture, but with investors instead of the farmers themselves. The bad harvest might have been part of what prompted people all over Riwa to go against Suna. If they get a foreign trade deal, they can sell the same amount of crops at substantially higher prices. Looking through the open window, it seemed that the investors were annoyed about the prospect of more land being acquired. They accused him of selling out to the shinobi.

“Gentleman, this man is no friend of the ninja arts,” Tobi said, entering and walking up silently while everyone was focused on the kingpin of the meeting. Standing right behind the old man, he looked around to see Ireto put a fist over his heart. That’s convenient. I was going to let the farmers have him and try to get it to look like they went too far by accident, but they really wouldn’t want to kill him.

“He’s having a heart attack,” someone said, not doing anything.

“We’ll see if the eddy can do anything about it,” he said, taking hold of the river lord. “We’ve fixed worse things than heart attacks.”

“Well, you’d… you’d better,” the same person said. He was not particularly looking.

Without anywhere else to leave the old man, he took him to his personal quarters as directed by the servants and locked the door before exiting out the window. In truth, it was doubtful that the village hidden in the eddies had ever come to the rescue of a civilian, and he felt somewhat bad for that particular river lord. No one wanted to deal with the effects of a downturn or even the potential of a downturn, especially not when everyone was reacting so quickly and demanding a response out of him. Was this better for their area? Was there anything he could do that would work for everyone?

He ran off without any delay to the Dengege, which was in the center of the country, meaning he had further east to travel, and turned to the north, finding the town quickly. It looked like an industrializing town with waterwheels everywhere. Most things should revolve around the manufactories. The leader is going to be well-protected, but the town would not have had the same kind of impact from the potential of adding new territory. One of these days I would really like to solve problems by doing something other than killing people.

Exchanging a few words with a nearby concrete worker, he found out that the river lady was not in some kind of secured compound, but disguised, and most likely by the banks of the river itself. Why would he tell me that, though? Does everyone in town know she goes around in a disguise? He thought for a moment that she had not heard of the other attacks, but it was entirely possible that she knew, but was confident in her ability to disguise herself. She could also be leading me into a trap. The first two could have been luckier than I realized.

There were several women washing clothes in the river; it was a fitting image for the time of day. I can’t see someone who has the whole town at her command doing this herself… but wouldn’t that be perfect for her cover? Wouldn’t I do something like that if I were trying to blend in?

What he knew was that there was no way she could just indefinitely hide from everyone, not if she had a town to run, especially not if she involved herself to the same degree as the old man from the last place. Countless questions plagued him as he went over to a gaggle of woman working together. You could relay orders through people no one would suspect. They could just load up a basket and walk off somewhere, and everyone would think that they were just delivering the clean laundry.

“And what do you have to do with us?” one of the women asked, her hair bound up so that she could work without it distracting her. I’m probably looking for one of the older ones.

“I have an urgent message to deliver to the river lady,” he said.

“Oh, well, you could tell us, and then we’ll tell her when she gets back, or if we see her somewhere else.”

“This is secret information,” he said. “It’s about the man from Tetsu.”

“Oh, the rogue? We know all about him. What the river lady decides to declassify is business that is already resolved, for the most part.” The old woman smiled, but another one looked down, then pretended she had something in her eye. Even before I awakened the Sharingan, I had trained my powers of observation enough to pick out something like that.

Lying would do him no good. He was almost certain that he was in the presence of his target, and thanks to the torture specialist, she knew more than he did about the foreigner. Even if he said something she could not have possibly known, like something about how he had an accomplice, she would have to verify the information first.

Instead, he thrust an arm forward to seize her throat, but he was blocked by two jets of water hitting him at the same time. Kunoichi. Rolling out of the way of a thrown senbon, he got to his feet and kicked straight out, predicting that his enemy would rush him. If they wanted to protect his target, they were right to move forward to draw his attention before he could do anything.

Fortunately for him, however, their efforts to protect her revealed who she was. The enemy ninja created several water clones, but he was not fooled; he had his shot and he took it, flinging a hook from his belt right at the forehead of the oldest one there, whose pendant flew forth out of her modest raiment as she was thrown backward from the force of the impact. It was with a sickening sound that the torture device hit her, and her associates all froze for a moment as they realized that her revealing a detail that one of them did not know had cost her dearly. They turned back to him, but it was easy enough to jump backward and use the Hiraishin, taking him to the eastern border, where he had stayed once, what felt like a long time ago.

Tobi had been there with Mado and Uno on their first real mission together, and it might have been the first time he had ever seen the Mangekyo in action. With his own, which seemed to be a defensive ability, he did not know how he felt about it. There were Uchiha that just died without ever awakening the dojutsu, and he was glad to not be one of them. As unfair as it was, he was glad that a convenient ability had effectively appeared out of nowhere to save him from certain death, even if, technically, it appeared right when it was said to appear.

None of his victims in the land of rivers so far could say the same, and with his very best effort, the rest would be equally unfortunate.

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 71: Ninja Hospitality

Chapter Text

Without any information on the remaining river lords, of which Tobi sincerely hoped there were only two, with three down, he ran to the south. It was more than a day from north to south, but he was already close to the southern coast, thanks to the Hiraishin. Even though he had an idea that most of the large towns were located in the north for greater control over the downstream flow, it stood to reason that there was at least one port city in the south, at the mouth of a river, or between the mouths of two. With a port city, they could open up trade with Nami, and if they went far enough, Kiri, and this was effectively the only link between the water countries, disrupted as it was at the moment.

The masked ninja realized he was running further downhill than he might have thought, and the land around him was becoming infirm, causing him to have to jump from trees, even though they were sparser than in his home country, which was covered in deciduous forest. He remembered that the lake in Ame fed the rivers where they split, but it was fed by two deep-cutting rivers that formed the borders around Kusa, both falling from the edge of Taki. It’s not possible to point out how much of the water comes from rainfall and how much of it comes from the northern sea, but it’s all the same at this point.

The port city was closer to the west than the east, but he knew it right when he saw it. The beach stretched out as far as the eye could see, and from his picturesque vantage point, he could see that almost every building in town had an awning around it, and it was easy to see why. The sun was practically boiling him in the leather suit he had stolen, and he took it off for no other reason than because he would not be able to function in it, whether or not it disguised him. I’ve got more than enough chakra for a Henge if it comes down to that.

All the buildings were painted with light colors, reflecting the sunlight rather than absorbing it, and the people, even officials, were almost entirely dressed in thin, white clothes that protected their skin from the sun without retaining any of their own body heat. The effect of nearly constant exposure to the light on their skin was noticeable, as much as they managed it, but it seemed no one was suffering from it. Maybe it’s hard to suffer from anything, when you’re at the beach, though I guess this is normal for them.

Though he knew how to swim, he was more of a lake person than a sea person, and the lack of cover from the trees was distressing him even more than the consequent heat, an afterthought next to everything else. I’ve been to the south before, but it was never this bad.

He caught sight of a pair of shinobi who were definitely poorly dressed for the occasion. They had on long, black cloaks with popped collars and the only concession they seemed to make for the sun was a pair of straw hats that obscured their identities further. If they’re not here for the same reason I am, I’d better avoid them.

Tobi found himself looking around for meaningful information for over an hour, dealing with people who were mostly just uninterested in answering his questions, too consumed with the casual bliss of the beach, he assumed and was surprised to see everyone’s attention drawn to one of the taller buildings in the city, where an explosion had gone off. Joining the crowd, trying to blend to the very best of his ability, he saw an old man fall, or jump, from the building. It was too fast of a trip to the ground to even guess at the man’s identity; all he could do was jump into action and hope it worked out. Perhaps all the excitement had jarred at least one person out of the indifferent haze that seemed to have settled on the whole city.

Jumping into the air without most of his gear, not having had a chance to replenish much of it after Kakashi confiscated it, he could only change the direction of the victim’s fall, bouncing off a nearby street post and moving at a fifteen degree angle from the ground. Grabbing the man around the midsection, he tried to twist into a roll, but there were too many people in the way. At least a few of them were about to get painfully kicked by his feet as he was trying to land. Without even thinking about it, he used the Sharingan with his eyes closed, escaping with the old man into the strange world and landing gently.

“Ohh… I think I… broke something...”

Tobi realized that his clothes were all silk and he wore a hat like the other river lords had. Damn. Damn, I had a perfect chance… but do I really regret this? I don’t even have an idea of this old man’s character. I just know that he’s in charge of a coastal city.

Really, he knew only a trivial amount more about the others, but it made things easier on his sense of guilt, having some fault to find with them. Even if he knew each one stood in the way of his plan for peace, the only plan he could use, he wished he could leave people still alive.

“Are you quite all right, son?” the old man asked. Was it all that surprising he was concerned about someone else? Did it really mean anything? “There are people who could look after you in the city… I’m not sure where we are now…”

“Neither am I, but we won’t be here much longer,” he said. “I need you to lie low. Those guys in the black robes are going to be back to try to kill you again when they find out you lived.”

“I have a city… I have a duty to the people of the Oroge…” He shook his head. “Even with my ministers, I can’t simply disappear.”

“I know.” What was so hard about it? Was it the fact that he had just saved the man’s life? Was it his childhood admiration for the elderly coming back in some form? “I know, but I can promise you, if those shinobi find you, then you will disappear.”

“What do they want?” he asked. “Why… would they kill me?”

“I’ll get back to you on that.” His eyes were hurting and the world around them felt like it was unstable. Could I leave the old man in there and let him out later? No, I don’t trust myself to use this ability on command just yet.

Leading the leader to the awning under a great building, he wished he had a spare cloak, even as hot as it was. Seeing that the building was an exchange house, he walked up to the counter as if they were doing business, like nothing was out of the ordinary.

“Where are we going?”

“I’m not from around here,” he admitted. “Where can you go to… where can you lay low around here?” He shook his head after thinking of sending him to one of the other towns. “Trust me, you really don’t want people to think that you were the only river lord not mysteriously killed by shinobi.”

“We could go to my sister’s vacation home, but what is this?” the old man insisted. Tobi looked over his shoulder and one of the shinobi from before could be seen questioning random civilians. Won’t be long before they figure out what happened. They’ll probably want to know what kind of trick I used to save the old man; then, they’ll have a better idea of what clan I might be.

“I’m thinking it’s to cause a general rebellion against Tanigakure,” he said at length, taking a crowded route of out town. The money changers had given him some local currency for his ryo, which allowed them to buy a pair of straw hats of their own. “Basically, the other four river lords are vulnerable if their shinobi are off fighting for the strip of land in Suna. It’s the perfect time for someone to get rid of them. Men will start to think that the plan to go and die for a sixth river was anything but a grassroots effort, they’ll think that the ‘legitimate’ river lord set them up, or maybe it was the idea of someone from Kiri. They need a unified Riwa more than they need a bigger, stronger Riwa.”

“I see,” the old man said. “I was something like a mayor here before the struggle for the country started. To be completely honest, I thought myself too old to put my hat in the ring. No one would want to support me if I had to turn over my position so soon.”

They reached the road out of town and kept on it. No one was following them at the moment, but he doubted that he could go back into the dark realm; even though the dojutsu came naturally to him, the toll on his chakra was high, as with anything he had just learned. It was not as if he had done nothing the entire day. At least the sun is setting now. It’s like it decided to be even brighter for a while as it was going down.

“I noticed the coins you gave the exchange desk were from Konoha.”

“I knew that we were going to have to buy a basic disguise to get out of there, and I didn’t want you to be seen buying anything. Whenever I’m searching for someone, I always ask the sellers if I think my target might have bought something recently. There was going to be a markup for the exchange, but it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“I had not thought that someone who had come to save me would be from Konoha. I have always been critical of our neighbor’s propensity for militant action…”

“Well, you can stay critical,” he said, not wanting to take credit for something that was strictly coincidental. “I don’t know anything about those assassins. They might have been Anbu.”

“I have heard about the different forces that the powerful countries employ. It is rather frightening, I must say, that even with an army of shinobi, they each need an even more secretive unit that goes around in masks.”

“It’s not for hiding it from foreign interests, for the most part. It’s for hiding it from their own citizens.” He looked around as if he would see them around. “I don’t know how to protect you if the Hokage wants you gone, but I don’t think he does. I think he’s too busy with the Bijuu Escalation.”

Nothing was said as they walked to the house. The place was constructed like an old villa, with a central courtyard that kept the heat off. From a quick glance with the Sharingan, he saw no traces of chakra, meaning the place was unoccupied.

“It looks like your sister’s not here.”

“She lives with her husband now, one of my rivals if you would believe it. We try to keep things cordial between us, but the… the politics seems to have a mind of its own. It’s rather like a poison that infects everything it touches. An old man cannot simply enjoy time with his last remaining relative.”

“I was kind of hoping that I wouldn’t discover anything unsavory about you after I decided to intervene,” he admitted. “I’m impressed. It’s like I’m being taught a lesson about why it’s always better to save someone’s life.”

“Oh, I would not say I was ever perfect. I have more than enough skeletons in my closet, but everyone does.” He thought for a moment as they went to the room in the house where the water drawn from the well would cool. “At the same time, you would make a poor ninja if you could never kill someone who did not, in your opinion, deserve it.”

“Our opinions don’t really enter into it most of the time,” he said, sighing as he joined the old man in a drink. “I just… when I started out, all I think I really wanted was to do the right thing, and to me that meant I had to take over as Hokage, but that’s sort of indebted to this idea that everyone has to remain tools of the village, and I would just be the one using the tools, except when the Daimyo has a job for me to do.”

“What service do they provide for you?” the old man asked. “I always wondered how Yugato managed to get Tanigakure to support him.”

“Well, part of it is that they helped build it; they funded the whole thing from the ground up. It really wouldn’t be able to sustain itself economically if it weren’t for the constant stream of contracts coming in, especially because you’d have kids just checking out and becoming rogue ninjas if they got hungry or bored enough.” He sighed. “Something people don’t understand is that you can’t just write contracts to write contracts. There has to be a real need for you to do something, or there’s no one who wants to pay for it. You could be the best in the world at digging ditches, and you could use an earth transformation to dig a ditch clear across the continent, but if no one asked you, what good is it?”

The river lord said nothing, drinking the well water instead. If it was strange not to get water from the rivers, he guessed that it might be hot or salty or something. Tobi had little enough experience in the country to classify things as unusual.

“Basically, the Daimyo and various people under him generate problems for us to solve, which basically means people for us to kill, things for us to steal, and D-Rank missions. They look for ways to use our services, and there’s a case to be made that it makes us stronger.” He set down the cup of water. “It’s not as if they do nothing else; there’s an entire country and someone has to be the governing force over all of it. We’re not Nami.”

They exchanged a few words about what had gone down over there before he got up and made to leave, at which point the old man rose to see him off, thanked him again, and promised not to call attention to himself. If he had the assassins’ motive right, in that it was the same as his own, they would not worry about it as long as he stayed quiet. I still don’t know about them, though. While I can still get out of here with the Hiraishin, though, I could take the chance to find out.

Walking back outside, he had a question to answer, and he knew just how to figure out the truth of it. The city came back into view in a matter of minutes; he could move much faster without the old man. The black cloaked-shinobi would have split up at that point. It would have taken them less time than that, actually; it would become clear that there was basically no one else in town with any chakra control and there was, consequently, no risk.

It crossed his mind that he could put the leather back on, but he would just as soon have jumped into a raging fire. How do people carry anything around here if all the clothes are so light you’d tear straight through them just by putting a kunai in your pocket, and that’s just from the weight? Even keeping everything in his pack made him feel like an upright turtle, even as he ducked into an alley to get out of the sunlight. If I ever come back to this part of the world, it’ll be too soon.

“You look a bit hot, kid. Suiton: Daikodon no Jutsu-“

Tobi had not the time to turn and see what was going on before being hit by a water release, which took the form of a giant shark that nearly tore his arm off in the time it took to close the distance. He would have liked to be refreshed by it all, but it was all he could do to avoid a massive sword blade. When he got to his feet, it seemed the enemy was reassessing him, in the middle of an alley as they were. His partner was not with him.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Why are you trying to kill the river lord?”

“I might as well ask you the same question. We had to clean up your mess, you know. In the north, we heard about some kid in a metal mask just like yours, and if you’ll believe it, he botched an assassination. Now, my partner and I are professionals; we know how to handle this. We went right up to the local river lord and told him we were chasing you. Didn’t have any information for us, but he did turn his back once, and that was enough to cross him off the list.”

“You’re not Anbu?” he asked, breathing heavily. It occurred to him that he could not get away with the Flying Thunder God Technique, not with his hand as badly injured as it was. His partner’s going to be here any minute… unless he doesn’t think he needs his partner, which he probably doesn’t.

“No, we’re a lot worse than that,” the strange young man in the black cloak said, his face still hidden under the shadow of the straw hat. Even the sword was hidden, it was covered all up and down with white wrappings. It was so massive, that it was fair to say that it was not a sword at all, but the strong shinobi used it like one.

“You’re from Kiri… and you call yourself a professional. You’re one of the seven-“

“Never cared much for legends.”

He got past Tobi’s guard and punched. He felt chakra seeping out of him. All at once he was surrounded by a sphere of water with a hand on his neck. A breath was forced out and bubbled to the exterior of the water prison. What even is this technique? He had seen the hand signs, but it was too fast for him to react. The enemy had to have at least three years on him, and he had to have been working with trained killers every step of the way; there was no other way to get that level of skill. He could not even guard from his position and he was beaten thoroughly before the water collapsed around him. Barely conscious, he looked up, seeing the other one had joined them. This one took off his hat to reveal inhuman white skin.

“What are you?” he asked.

“I’m someone who doesn’t care for the sun,” he said, crouching down. “Let’s see who you are, though.” He removed the mask and frowned.

“What… were you expecting?”

“I don’t know, exactly, but this wasn’t it. I’m surprised you lasted this long. You’re what, a Genin? Are you local?”

“No,” he said, figuring that could be proven or disproven quickly enough. I have to think. I have to make myself useful. “I’m from Nami.”

It was the first thing that came to mind that had a chance of interesting his strange captors. He only knew that one was from Kiri, but he had no idea if they were acting under the auspices of the Mizukage. He doesn’t even seem to be aware that the shinobi swordsmen are real.

“Get him inside. Make sure he’s restrained. It’s not important if he heals or not, but in this condition, he won’t last long. He’s bleeding all over the place.”

When he looked down, he realized it was true. He must have been cut with the sword, or the teeth of something, because he had long red stripes raked across his bare chest, which was turning red from the sun. As he felt himself being dragged somewhere, he supposed he was glad he had removed his shirt, because the only difference would have been its destruction.

“They probably use this room for washing clothes. Look at all the laundry piles.”

“Good. No one should be in here at this time of day. We’ll check the town to see if there’s any word of the other river lords being killed. The kid saved us some trouble, for the most part.”

“We still need to find out if people are saying they were all killed on the same day. That was in the contract, remember?”

“It was, but we can’t hold ourselves responsible for how people decide to perceive the situation. We also couldn’t have predicted that this little shit would send a few of them to the pure world ahead of schedule.”

“Do you think the contractor would be interested in that kind of excuse?”

“No. We don’t need to report anything if no one asks us. No one ever has the full story, and for the most part, people seem to have learned to accept that.”

In his delirium of blood loss and pain, Obito could only think of the general in the land of iron, who accused the shinobi world of not caring about the truth, of giving up on it. When his vision cleared as he managed to staunch the bleeding with a free hand, he saw half of a strange expression on the shadowed face of one of the ninja.

“That’s how it always is. You never say why we do anything. I’m getting a little sick of it, to be honest.” He looked over at the formerly masked ninja. “Are we killing this kid or not? Is he even important?”

“Someone could have anticipated our plans. We need to allow him to recover from the blood loss; he’s almost certainly delirious now.”

“I’ll tie him up. We’ll have answers out of him in the morning.”

The shinobi made sure that the bleeding was staunched and that he would not die in the next few hours at the very earliest. Obito was at a loss as to what to do. He was out of chakra, and he had no idea how to activate the dojutsu that had saved him before. With a broken arm, he could still, theoretically, use various hand signs for ninjutsu if he used his other hand or his feet to move the fingers into position, but that was not going to happen if he found himself tied up. Drained of chakra, there was nothing to do but accept his fate for the time being and hope they intended to keep him alive.

When the two mysterious shinobi left him alone, he found it easy to regret leaving the villa with the old man. It had been tempting to get out there and look for answers, but he should have figured that two adults, even if he had no reason to think they were above Chunin, would be able to take care of him, even if they did not know he was coming. Kakashi was right. Not only did I get cocky with my infiltration skills, I got cocky with my fighting ability. I’ve had a good amount of wins lately, and that made me think that I was better than I really was. I thought as long as I had the Hiraishin, I would be fine, but now I don’t have that.

There were many things he could say he was at the moment, but fine was not one of them.

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 72: Benefit of Hindsight

Chapter Text

Obito felt naked without his mask, but he could put up with that next to a broken arm and legs that would not respond no matter what he tried. He did not know them, but he knew of jutsu that would stop the motion of various limbs. In his case it was just because he was tied up. I need chakra to get out of here. It’s the only thing that’s going to come back to me.

Getting his left arm out of the ropes, he crawled over to a laundry basket of sorts and lashed downward with what little chakra he had, landing in it. He could hope for a better night’s sleep in there and he could also hope to delay his own discovery by his captors. If he got really lucky, they would think someone else had come along and rescued him, but he was rarely so fortunate. One thing he knew was that if they found him again, they would take no chance of his escaping. They could keep him tied up, and at least one of them could drain his chakra. As much as he might learn from going wherever they were going to take him, he would never come back.

When he at last managed to go to sleep, he was curled up in a ball and trying to keep his broken arm in a position where it would not heal badly. If feeling miraculously came back to it overnight, then he could use it, but that was doubtful. He had suffered from broken bones before, and the only reason they ever healed more quickly than over the course of a few weeks was Rin.

It was strange that he missed her so much, even though he had given up on her as a romantic interest, or at least he initially thought it was strange, and then he reconsidered. Before that, she had been his teammate, and he cared for her. Did it really ruin everything when he confessed he had feelings for her? Was that ever how things worked, in that he made things permanently weird between them, and that they could never be friends again? If anything made it impossible for us to be friends again, it was the fact that she told everyone that I had mastered the Hiraishin.

She had to be wrong in doing so. Everything he had done since he ran away was based on a belief that at least sometimes, the right thing to do was to not follow orders. He had followed the orders of a different commander since then, so maybe it was more like he had a problem with their idea of a shinobi, or the shinobi world. Unless what he proposed as an alternative was unworkable, then he could say that he had been wronged.

When he woke up, he could only think about his former friends in Konoha. He had lost a wealth of training partners and he was sure that a lot of them had already surpassed him, and then there was Kakashi, who was always ahead, and probably always would be. Then there’s Morino. Silently working on the knots with a free hand, he was grateful that he had learned how to leave slack when being tied up to allow himself to slip out later. I had thought at one point that he would be something like a mentor. Maybe he was just too in love with the village.

That was unfair. He loved the village at one point. There was even a long stretch where he wanted to be Hokage, and he had always seen the position as one of service, not unilateral personal benefit. I guess I can thank Sandaime for that. Obito had never lived under the previous leaders, but he had seen in other countries the rule of more selfish authorities.

As he moved his other hand into position, he remembered that Minato could use the Flying Thunder God Technique with only one hand, but that was something of an advanced form, and the students had all been instructed to use both hands. It shouldn’t make a difference. As long as I can get myself into position-

He felt the chakra drain out of him like he was having his internal organs removed. In the years since he had been independent, there had been plenty of times where he was forced to use the last of his chakra, but it never got any easier. Doing the same while injured was especially painful; it felt like depriving himself of the only thing that was healing him because that was exactly what it was.

“Hey, uhh… Shingo?” he called out. Hazuki came to the door, holding the kid. “Can you get me untied?”

When at last he was making his report to the village leader, he was sufficiently embarrassed, but the news had already broken across much of Konoha. The meeting of the leaders of the water alliance countries was supposed to be handing their authority to the water lord, but the land of rivers had almost unilaterally decided that the self-appointed river lord who went to the meeting had no authority to give. Unable to point the finger at anyone other than Tanigakure for the assassination of the other four members of the nobility, because there was no clear motive, it was decided that Yugato, who had the support of the hidden village, had given the order either to his own shinobi, or someone hired, to have them eliminated. It could have been a way of making sure Kiri would not pick anyone else; it could have been required by the other countries in the alliance- having multiple possible explanations made it more likely that they had done it rather than less likely.

Whether it advanced the cause of peace or not, his efforts to cause a general revolt against the hidden village and its civilian partner suited Dramada’s intentions quite nicely. Is that what I should be doing? Can I serve the secret village as long as I don’t know that we’re going to start a world war? Can I trust him not to try to start a world war?

Could I trust Morino?

As the leader of the village apologized and left him in the office for a moment, he thought back to his interaction with that particular torture specialist. There had been a lot going on at the time, and if he could be honest with himself for a moment, he did not actually want to think back to what had happened. He felt betrayed. Even if the other ninja had always been loyal to the village, and never to him, he would have liked to have known- but even if he did, he would still hurt, because he still placed his trust in the other Chunin exam finalist.

Trust was not something that went both ways, he knew. Just because he trusted someone did not mean that someone was under any obligation to trust him. In that way it was like respect. Trust and respect were almost universally unidirectional between parents and children, as was, by consequence, obedience and its expectation. Couldn’t he recognize that I trusted him, though? Wouldn’t that make a difference to him?

“I thought we were friends” was what he had shouted. “So did I” was how his supposed friend responded. Before that, there had been some reminder of the fact that he was an Uchiha. No… could he have been aware that our clan’s dojutsu rely on stress? What if he didn’t volunteer to kill me? Wouldn’t it go to Ebisu, who volunteered first?

His old friend would have taken care of it peacefully, like a lamb at the slaughter. He, like every other academy graduate, knew how to kill people without any excess suffering. Morino knew how to make it hurt more than most. He knew how to summon spikes and cages and chains and hooks- if anyone could have scared a red eye into using a technique that would save his life, he was the best candidate. Obito was not aware of whether or not the torture specialist knew as much, but the same thought had crossed his mind when being trapped by the cage as had the first time, that only an eye technique could have saved him.

He would have, though, wanted to get me thinking along those lines, if he wanted to save my life from the merciful death I would have had at Ebisu’s hand. He wanted to hit his head against a wall. The other finalist in the Chunin exams had convinced him in that moment that he was going to suffer in death to induce panic, because he could tell that the Uchiha was trying to get himself killed as soon as possible. He realized I had already accepted my death. He knew I wouldn’t panic just because it was actually happening. Only something worse could get me to reach within and force my way out of there.

There was some doubt that he knew anything about the Mangekyo Sharingan or the abilities that manifested themselves within Obito, his junior. At the same time, Kakashi had somehow called ahead to the village, either by teleporting there or communicating with a Yamanaka or something else- and it was perfectly possible that he reported the prisoner he captured had an ability to completely disappear that he could activate without using hand signs.

“Why didn’t he keep me knocked out, then?” he asked himself, having reached a strange point in his theory. Obviously, as soon as he was turned over to the village, it was the village’s fault whether or not they managed to sentence him without his escaping, especially if he had informed them about the captive’s abilities, but did he have any reason to want him to escape. Rin’s words returned to him.

“Oh, I forgot to ask,” Dramada said, returning and awakening him from his reverie. “How is your arm?”

“It’s set,” he said. “It should heal on its own now that they’ve gotten it started.” He took a breath. “Those guys in the black cloaks actually did a lot to heal the damage they did to me, but I wasn’t fully conscious. I really couldn’t tell the healers what they did.”

“You didn’t mention they were wearing black cloaks.”

“They didn’t care about getting hot, I guess. They also didn’t care about standing out, or that was what they wanted. I really don’t know how they could even function in sunlight that intense; I’ll be honest, I kind of wilt this time of year, especially that far south…“

“Though I know little about ninjutsu, I understand that there are ice seals that have been used to great effect throughout the water alliance,” the older man said. “Perhaps it would be worth looking into those.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’ll give it a shot. I just… it’s all kind of embarrassing. I mean, I think I technically succeeded, but all I did was save them some trouble, and I don’t have a clue why they’d want to kick a leg out of the table. I guess they could have bene sent by Suna, or someone else who wants to pick up a piece of Riwa.”

“What would be best for the land of rivers?” Dramada asked unexpectedly.

“I… I’m not sure, sir,” he said. “I don’t think I’m the right person to ask. The land of rivers is just kind of a term that we use because there are five rivers running through this disputed land that no one entity has managed to conquer yet. I’m betting that if they weren’t on the other side of the continent from Rai, we’d have never heard of it.”

“That’s true. I suspect the only reason Shimo has held on as long as it had is because of its integration of wind release. Ice is an exceptionally poor conductor of electricity.”

“I see… not really a defense, but they at least wouldn’t get completely destroyed… except, they did, because the cloud is so much stronger. I’m starting to think that at least part of the point of destroying the land of frost was to prove to Kiri that they could, at any time.” He sighed. Because neither the lightning lord nor the Raikage had any allies, people might not have thought of them as power hungry, but really it was the opposite. They opposed other countries forming alliances and insisted that alliances were dangerous, but they had every intention of continuing to build up their strength internally.

“It’s an interesting observation that you make about the land of rivers, and I thank you for it, but what I thought you should see from my question is something you understood quite clearly. You and I do not know what is best for the land of rivers, nor would we be the first to be consulted on the subject.”

“I get it,” he said, sighing a bit. “Even if I did know what was best for their country, I couldn’t put that ahead of what was best for the continuation of peace, and I… well, I really couldn’t even put that ahead of what was best for Konoha, even if they’ve turned me out.”

Dramada frowned and looked to his work on his desk for a moment.

“You were always such a nice, sociable child. I had worried you would have so many friends, that even if you were in a terrible bind, you could not be persuaded to leave.”

“Strangely, sir, right now I think I had more friends than I realized,” he said, thinking of Ebisu and Morino, each trying to help him, if in different ways. Did he ever see a flash of red in my eyes? “You’re right, though. I probably wouldn’t have left if I didn’t think I was helping my friends, and I think I realized that when I… well, I started to question whether or not leaving really helped them.”

“I heard that both of your friends were assigned to kill you.”

“Yeah, that’s… true, sir.” He kept a sigh in. “I don’t know what’s going to happen with that. Rin seemed to imply that she might have if she could, but I had backup. At the same time, though, it became obvious that she was only using that as an excuse. She healed me.”

“I remember.”

“I know I said it, but you probably hear a lot of reports, so I wasn’t really sure you’d remember that one detail.” Obito paused, wondering if he had been insulting, implying the old man might forget something. “It’s not the same with Kakashi. If there’s any part of him that wants me to stay alive, it’s not in charge of anything. I think I might have figured out why he does what he does, but I… well, I shouldn’t have expected him to just… completely abandon the Shinobi Rules or something.”

“Beliefs can be hard to change. Even when you do not see them change, however, you should not assume that nothing has happened.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Have you ever changed your beliefs about something?”

“Well, yeah, here and there. I mean, I guess I must have, when I think about all the things I believed a few years ago, I just don’t really… remember changing them.”

“Exactly. Beliefs rarely change by conscious choices, and even more rarely change immediately. For you to change your belief about something immediately, it would have to be a pet theory you were prepared to discard if you heard so much as one word from someone who knew something on the subject.”

“Okay, that makes sense… I guess you could say that the more you believe something, the harder it is for something to come and change that. It’d take a lot for someone to try to convince me that… well, there are a lot of obvious things, like the world being flat, I was just trying to think of something more specific to me, but I guess I don’t have a lot of deeply held beliefs.”

“That’s not entirely a bad thing. It’s just a fact that describes how you function,” Dramada said after a moment. “Of course, it would not be good to have no resistance to persuasion. Imagine changing your beliefs every time the slightest clue indicated you were wrong before.”

“Okay,” he said, thinking. “Okay, so I really shouldn’t expect much to change with Kakashi. I just told him what I thought, anyway. I’m sure there’s some way he looks at the same thing. I know he’s a lot smarter than I am and he knows more about his own life than I would.” He put a hand to the back of his head. “To be honest, I feel kind of dumb now.”

“I would not say so. I think it was fair for you to try to come up with a reason to get your old teammate to let you go. You have also implied that you still care about him and Rin.”

“Yeah… yeah, I do. It’s weird, and at first I thought it was just that if only they had a chance to listen to me explain myself, but really that wouldn’t change anything. They were able to figure out why I ran for it, and so was the village. It wasn’t the kind of clever trick that I thought it was.”

Without anywhere else to take the conversation, he decided to let Dramada get back to his own work after being assigned another mission, which took him to Taki. It sounded dangerous, but he was sure that the tailed beast in that area would have been handled already, unless handling it only constituted pushing it further into the country.

It’s weird that Uno and Mado still aren’t back yet, but if nothing’s been mentioned about them, then I guess I can assume that they aren’t in danger, and we would only know that as long as they made regular reports about their progress. It was still somewhat strange that none of those reports had ever been related to him.

Running, he was not at the absolute top of his game, but he was able to make some progress in the direction of the land of waterfalls before collapsing, which would entail throwing one of the wind-kunai just to see how far he could get it to go. The journey was thankfully uneventful as he ran to the northwest. I haven’t been out this way in years, but it feels like it was just yesterday.

It was strange to think that was where he had awakened the Sharingan, but he supposed there was no way around it. He had heard it directly out of Kakashi that his eyes turned red right before he woke up, which was right when he started helping get Rin out of there, who had the least defenses against genjutsu at the time. The experience, however, had made him think back to the long time before, which might have included a few incidences of his eyes flickering red, based on circumstances that were strange to him when he looked back.

When he was at last out of chakra, he threw the kunai that was marked up front and back, and used the Hiraishin to get back to the secret village, where he was all too ready to collapse into the bed. It was luxurious that he could just reappear at the house of Shingo and Hazuki whenever, though he wondered if they ever worried about him if they saw he was missing for the night.

The door opened, but there was no sound. All he saw when he looked over was a young boy staring at him. He squinted.

“You can walk now?” he asked. There was no response. “Huh. I guess walking usually comes before talking. You’re a smart kid, though. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

Waking up the following morning, he at breakfast with the family, trying to comprehend the strange phenomenon that there was a new person there with them. The parents seemed less surprised. It must have dawned on them earlier. Their new person, though, was not a guest like he was, he had not come from somewhere else to join them, this was the first time that little Shisui was anywhere.

When he left, he warped back to the kunai, finding he was close to the border to Taki, where he decided to cut a jutsu-shiki on a nearby tree as he crossed, thankful that there was no one around. There seemed to be no overwhelmingly powerful genjutsu taking over his brain, but he was not sure what it would show him at the moment. That seems like a good thing to know about yourself, though. Then you at least know if someone is keeping you under an illusion somehow.

His task was to frame a certain man for a crime he would have to commit himself. The target was first seen in Konoha farther back than anyone was alive, but he was not to be underestimated as an old man. The only thing that Dramada seemed to know about him was that despite his advanced age, he was incredibly powerful in different arts, including taijutsu.

Obito wondered how urgent of a mission it could be, and what the purpose was, but neither would be explained to him, he knew. It was not as if he would refuse even if he learned what the secret village’s interest was. It did not seem all that likely that they were just trying to kick another leg out of the table of the water alliance, even if he could think of nothing else.

A pair of waterfall shinobi seemed to recognize him as soon as he showed up.

“Uchiha Obito,” one said, confirming exactly what he thought, as strange as that sounded. “We were informed that you would be coming here.”

“Who told you?” he asked. The kunoichi smiled.

“He wasn’t informed of how much we knew. I expect they decided that we would need him as soon as he arrived, and then that they should go ahead and send him. We are aware you are a missing ninja working with a criminal organization. You’ll find we’re quite capable of being discreet.”

Her voice was reassuring even in their current context.

“Who are you two, then?”

“I’m Renden. You might have run into me once before. This is Erisa, she’s a local.”

Obito squinted. It had been a long time, but he was indeed looking at the one time Chunin of the leaf, Renden of the Pyon clan. The girl was wearing a Taki hitai-ate with the cloth covering much of her head, and had a fair few tattoos on the exposed skin on her arms.

“I never expected to see you again,” he said. “Come to think of it, I never learned what happened to you.”

“Well, it’s nothing too special. I did something on a mission that I knew no one would ever-“ He looked back and forth. “No one knows about it, though, so keep a lid on it. I’d rather have everyone think I just died.”

“Your secret’s safe enough with me,” he said. “If I see anyone from Konoha again, they’ll kill me.”

“That’s good,” the tattooed kunoichi said. Somehow she wore a nicer expression than he would have expected to suit her efforts to look tough. “We were hoping for as much discretion on your part as we… intended to employ.”

“How did you get in contact with… never mind, that doesn’t matter.” We’re moving like right now. If Dramada sent me on this mission… “Just go ahead with the orders. I’m ready for anything.”

“That’s good,” Erisa repeated. “We need you to help us kill the council of elders.” He frowned. It seemed like the direction in which he was facing was an increasingly bad place for authority figures to be, and someone was going to start connecting the dots. “We also need to frame Kakuzu the Immortal.”

“I heard. That makes it so much better.”

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 73: Falling Fortress

Chapter Text

Obito helped the strange pair in Taki hitai-ate get into position before receiving one himself, which he took without questioning it. If they needed his help, there was no way that there was going to be a trap on the metal in the fuinjutsu or anything like that. They were at the bottom of a waterfall looking up at the Falling Fortress.

“That’s where our targets are?”

“It’s where they will be, soon. There’s a lot of prep work we have to get in place before that. First of all, do you know about civilian inquests?”

“What are those?”

“It’s where they try to see if a normal person committed a crime,” Erisa explained helpfully.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of that; it was just called by a different name.”

“Okay, great, and you realize why there’s no point in putting a shinobi in one of those, right?”

“Well, yeah. There’s never any proof. If there is, he wants you to know, and all there’s left to do is send someone after him. Don’t tell me we’re going to try to get this Kakuzu guy legally-“

“No, but it’s a level to the trick. What the perpetrator of this crime might not know is that there are shinobi watching the fortress. The council of elders, or the Greats, as some of the locals call them, have employed shinobi for decades, but because they’ve never called attention to it, they probably don’t realize that it’s an open secret.”

“I see,” he said after a moment. “So, we’re going to leave a trail for them to follow, and they’ll think they’re not being set up. That trail leads to something we’ve stolen from the bait.”

“That’s correct,” Erisa said, taking a deep breath. “We also have to not get caught in the process. We’ve never seen you in action, but we have it on good authority that you can get out of there under orders.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” he said. “There shouldn’t be any issue with that. Do we know what kind of jutsu this Kakuzu uses? How do we make it believable?”

“Thing is, he uses every kind of jutsu there is,” Renden said. “Well, everything except metal. That’s why I’m not going to be killing them myself.”

“Does it matter how many of them we kill?” he asked. Generally, if the point was to set someone else up, then it would not, but if they really wanted all the elders dead-

“Get all of them to be on the safe side. Erisa, take him to the old hideout.”

“Got it.”

The two of them were running off immediately. Taki was covered in forests, rivers, lakes, rock formations, and of course, waterfalls. Effectively, the whole country was on a cliff, with waterfalls running down on all sides; there were only a few places where one could cross. They reached a hollow in the rock under a cascade.

“Wow, this place looks pretty cool. I’ve never been behind a waterfall.”

“It’s more than just the water that keeps people out,” the kunoichi said. “Anyway, we’re pretty sure that Kakuzu used this hollow as a secret base for a long time. When we first found it, there were letters to him in here.”

“So, he was just a scapegoat of convenience?” he asked. “You found someone you could blame and you were really here to kill the elders?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” Erisa said, putting her hands on her hips.

“I don’t tell a lot of stories.” He looked around the room for something that could be used to plant evidence. Even if we had a piece of clothing, would it do any good if it hadn’t been worn recently? Would they know?

“Renden is my half-brother. No matter what he’s done, I’ll always look out for him, and the same goes for me. My mother’s family is influential in Taki… well, I might as well say it, they run the most important business of all; it’s hydroelectricity. Outside of the shinobi families, the Greats consider them to be the greatest threat at taking over the fortress, and I won’t get into it, but the ballots are cast by land allotment, and my mother’s family owns something like thirty percent of the most valuable land in the country. With a reasonable amount of shinobi behind them, they would be unstoppable.”

“I see,” he said, looking through the personal effects of the rogue ninja. It was not a time-consuming task; the room was spartan and probably long since abandoned. “Where does Kakuzu fit into this?”

“Well, a long time ago, he was mistreated for his failure to kill your Hokage.”

“Sandaime?”

“No, Shodai. Did no one tell you he’s been around for a long time?”

“Uh, no, someone did, but I just sort of underestimated how long. He came back in disgrace?” I wouldn’t have thought Madara would even let him leave. He must have had more important things going on.

“He most likely came back as a warning not to try to mess with Konoha again. According to the records, he was barely alive and there were characters all over his skin. The records don’t say anything about what the message said, but it’s not hard to guess.” She sighed. “Ever since then, he only looks out for number one. He’ll take any job as long as it pays well, and it’s starting to look like the elders might use him against my family.”

“You couldn’t get some shinobi together to fight him off?” he asked. Most mercenary types would not bother if it ever got to be too much trouble. “What’s to stop someone else from sending him after your family?”

“Okay, well, for the first part, no, we couldn’t fight him off. He has a reputation to maintain as a contract killer and he’s basically a one-man army. I have never heard of anyone surviving in an attempt to take him down. For the second part, no one else has the money, and we can send him off to some other part of the world, like Rai, where we can hope someone gets rid of him.”

“Best of luck,” he said. It did not sound to him like everyone was misunderstanding their target. If anything, they were being too nice to him by giving him one last contract, but he was not about to say that he knew how to deal with a rogue ninja from the land of waterfalls. He was, however, executing a regime change.

Is it really the same thing, though? Wouldn’t they get control of the country if I didn’t do anything, but they might get deposed themselves? Aren’t I technically stopping them from being knocked over?

One thing he knew was that Dramada had an agreement with the girl, whether or not her family really knew who was on the other end of the deal. If they had any financial involvement, though, he could see why they might want to know. Why not put out a contract for the hidden villages, though? Wouldn’t that be easier than contacting some unknown?

They went out of the base with a cadaver that their intended victim might have kept around as evidence for someone else’s death. Basically, it was a head that belonged to no one Obito could identify, but according to Erisa, the shinobi protecting the elders would know the moment they saw it that whoever had killed the first victim was behind their crime as well. From what they knew, even if Kakuzu had an alibi, he would not use it. All his meetings, after all, were strictly confidential, and there was some reason to doubt that he would even be interested in convincing people he had not been responsible for killing the Greats.

The plan was moving as quickly as he had expected. Renden, as had been arranged, was hard at work with the scouting, verifying the position of the guards. The ones they could see, at least, were at a respectful distance.

“What’s up with that?” he asked.

“They’re technically not supposed to know what goes on in the meetings,” Erisa explained. “They do, because they screen all the letters and they usually have a small amount watching the meetings more closely, but standing a few paces out of earshot is kind of a show that they do not particularly want to listen in.”

“That’s how you heard about the plan to kill your family,” he supposed. “Some of the guards here are loyal to the hydroelectricity plants-“

“Well, no, they’re loyal to Takigakure, but so are a lot of the shinobi that work with my family. I don’t know how things work in Konoha, or really any other country, but here it seems like we just allow the normal people to think that they are in charge. I guess they take on a lot of tasks that we would have to do ourselves, but honestly I don’t think we can keep up with it. I’m not really doing this because of politics, but my family can at least say why they should be in charge.”

Obito placed several explosive tags at various places on the outside of the fortress, reminded, and annoyed, that his kunai was his only ninja tool at the moment apart form the tags that he could make himself. He looked over at his partner, who had countless tools.

“Hey, can you give me a couple of those just in case? I really only use projectiles and occasionally steel cable.”

“Sure, but… it’s not expected that Kakuzu would use them. He generally uses elemental transformations, most likely due to his incredible chakra reserves.” He tossed a couple senbon needles and the neither masked nor cloaked ninja caught them.

“Thanks for telling me, but I still think I’ll need these,” he said. “The thing is, I don’t have all the chakra in the world, so I don’t want to waste any of it killing people or firing at them and missing. If I hit five or six creepy old corrupt politicians with senbon, I can stack their bodies up and burn them with a single Katon, and no one’s going to know how they died after that.”

“That’s a good point.” Renden seemed to look back out over the waterfall and then back to him. “I’m glad we had this exchange. I know we’re trying to get this done quickly, but we have to do it properly the first time, so we can’t afford any mistakes or communication failures.”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page now.”

At the same time, he still suspected there was some specific purpose in selecting their fall guy.

The elders arrived around the front of the fortress without any fanfare. Since the fortress itself was built out of massive logs and seemed to go up into the clouds, no one noticed as he looked down on them from his position. We have to wait until they’re in the ‘closed meeting’ before killing them. That means we kill the shinobi who are already inside the fortress first.

He and Renden were on different sides of the massive fortification, with Erisa following after. Getting using the Sharingan to see through any genjutsu, he saw that there were none, and then he used his chakra perception skills to find the first of the guards, pacing the length, and width, and length again of an upper hallway. We’re not going for anything impressive or entertaining. It doesn’t matter how they discover this body if we get rid of it along with the rest of the guards.

Dropping down behind the guard, he hit the target in the back of the neck with a senbon before extracting it. Might as well pick up some kunai while I’m here. Looks like he’s lightly equipped, though. They probably don’t expect to see any action, at least not most of the time.

Throwing himself forward, he rolled under what had to have been an attack from the guard’s partner, or someone else with a similar patrol. It might have been counted as fortunate that he was being attacked, because that meant that the shinobi were not clever enough to set off the alarm, but he was reacting to the water in a way he would not have expected. The technique missed him, but he still shuddered as he ran forward and beat the enemy with taijutsu before slashing at his throat, having avoided another attack. The guards were not slouches, but they were probably expecting that they would never be targeted and killed; they probably thought that any threat would not know about them until it was too late.

Dragging both bodies to the nearest storage room, he took a moment to survey the interior of the fortress. It seemed the upper area was dedicated to living quarters and smaller meeting rooms, while below, there was a main hall of sorts, where all the elders could gather at once. It’ll take them a while to notice a smell coming from above them, and that’s even if they have ninken with them.

He tried not to worry about whether or not they were guilty of anything other than failing to do their jobs when he looked for more shinobi to kill. Even twelve would be a light guard for the whole fortress, but they probably couldn’t justify it in the budget. The whole country doesn’t have all that many ninjas, and I can’t see anyone approving a plan to keep them in one place when they could be out earning gold.

A sensor type found him and attacked him, probably out of anger, based on the expression on her face. Kicking her in the gut right when she reached him, overestimating the reach on her dagger by a hair’s breadth, he knocked her out, but then remembered he had to kill her, because she had seen him, and slashed her throat. He could not really tell if he was being unintentionally merciful because she was a kunoichi, but he really had to break the habit if that was the case. There were more than enough shinobi of the female persuasion who could destroy him, and every day he counted himself lucky not to have run into them.

Scanning for more chakra signatures, he created two clones to follow behind him. If the guard was aware of his presence, it was better that they went after the wrong target first. He took a deep breath, readying himself to have to pick up after Renden if the other ninja was unfortunate enough to die, but he doubted it. His ears twitched as he heard someone going the other way, opening one door, then another.

Running around the corner to find another guard, he used a lightning jutsu the moment that the enemy started on a water jutsu, and they both canceled at the same time with the same look of resignation in their faces. If the young adult in front of him had any reservations about killing a kid, he would not live to regret them. The clone avoided a jab with a kunai, making it look real for a moment, to the mind corrupted by hesitation, and Obito jumped past him right as he attacked again. It was in that moment that his fate was sealed.

“It’s a shame,” he muttered, killing the target silently with a stolen dagger before picking up the kunai. “Well, maybe it would be if you were better at this.” He really wished he could have killed nothing but incompetents, but he reminded himself he was only being unfair. It was not as if most ninja were; it was just that if one stuck to the job description, then his rank would be an accurate predictor of his ability. Perhaps it was all the time functioning as a teacher that gave him an impulse to reward strength and decisiveness.

If anyone had heard him or the guard, no one revealed anything. Using the insight of the Sharingan again, he found another active threat directly in front of him at the end of the darkened hall, sparing not the chakra that it took to run all the faster, bouncing off the walls of the narrow hallway with the same pulse as the energy that moved through his arms and legs. Throwing a senbon in midair, he created a distraction for what looked like an older shinobi, who might have been a guard captain. Flattening himself against the roof as he practically flew to the end of the hall, he dropped with a kunai in hand and no warning until his knees landed on the target’s shoulders and the blade went into his throat. It was not a regular takedown, but it was something he almost instinctively understood how to do, and as the victim went through a momentary perimortem struggle, he grabbed a length of cord off the man’s shoulder.

A voice called out to him. With his own dojutsu, he was not able to say whether it was real or a genjustu, but he was certain that someone knew of his presence. The voice was speaking without words, and yet with every intonation it felt more persuasive. It’s a mental kekkei genkai. I’d have to capture the enemy alive to make use of it.

Trying to calm himself down, he fought off a momentary fear that his skills at resisting illusions had atrophied because of the Sharingan and the nearly universal preference for visual genjutsu. Even if he could not hear the truth, he would have to rely on his ability to see it, and that would allow him to see the attack coming, whatever he picked up with his ears. The strange story about the nobility of the Greats and the honor inherent in protecting them continued, and he reminded himself that there was an imminent threat to his own life, which would be the case even if the story had been true.

Jumping out of the way right as the attack came, it was a smaller boy with narrow shoulders, which made it hard for him to have any reach in taijutsu, and explained his reliance on projectiles. Obito responded by grabbing one of the shuriken out of the air and throwing it back, which scared the enemy into a retreat. Damn. I shouldn’t have assumed he’d stick it out.

Running after the thin boy, he chased him until his target ducked around a corner, only to be tossed back a moment later. Renden emerged and they had the same thought.

“It looks like they don’t have a way of raising the alarm for the elders. Even if they thought they could handle us, it should be procedure to warn the civilians so they don’t get caught up in it.” He picked up the body and started walking back to one of the others.

“Eh, it might have been just what we wanted. I don’t really know if that’s what’s going on, but they might have thought that we wanted them to raise the alarm, dragging more shinobi over here from elsewhere, and keeping the elders from entering the fortress.” He took the chance to look over the older ninja’s gear when they got back to it. “Yeah- there’s no radio.”

“Huh. I don’t know everything about electronics, but I don’t think it’s all that complicated to set up an alarm system. You just have to have a magnet that completes the circuit and wire that to a bell somewhere. They wouldn’t have to be carrying radios on them; there would just have to be places where they could go to hit the alarm.”

Rather than responding, Renden opened a door that they passed and tried to turn on the lights.

“No electricity. I don’t remember cutting the wires. Either Erisa took care of it, or her family just disconnected their power from the line. That’s probably a bad idea, so we’ll assume it was the first one.”

“She didn’t tell you that part of the plan?”

“No, but it’s not too strange. She probably thought I’d figure it out.”

Cutting the line was something that Kakuzu definitely could have done, even though he was from before the days of electricity. She must have timed it well, though, if she cut the wires right before we jumped in-

The two of them took a staircase down to the ground floor, where they passed through some coat room before entering the main hall. The elders had gone inside, but the grand entrance was not opening again. Obito scanned the edges and found a wire running away from it.

“Clever, and yet so stupid,” he muttered. “It’s the door mechanism. It’s been magnetized shut.”

“That might have sounded like a good idea at one point,” Renden speculated. “They didn’t realize that they’d ever be at odds with someone who knew where to find the wires.”

“That sounds like what happened,” he said, scanning the room for alternate exits. “Let’s not wait for her to catch up with us. She’s probably planting the evidence now. We should just get rid of them and get out of here.”

“Way ahead of you.”

They made short work of the tightly gathered elders and incinerated the bodies directly afterword. It was not any display of ability or heroism, but he felt like he was closer to winning an imaginary argument with Kakashi if ever his old teammate were to suggest that he lacked conviction. I just want to know that I’m doing the right thing. If that’s a huge problem for you, it’s because you can’t explain how what we’re doing is right.

When they were done with the burning, Obito was running low on chakra, but he had enough to get out of there, as he related. Using the Hiraishin, he realized something was wrong and it was not working. Trying it again, he burned more chakra to no avail. Renden looked as concerned as he was.

“I’m… I feel kind of faint. We need to get out of here.” His partner practically carried him back up the main staircase, and then back up to the roof through the same way they had used to come in, a small access port disguised with a genjutsu. The first time, he had not even noticed it. Is my Sharingan not working? I can’t even…

He collapsed on the roof. Something was wrong with him, but he had no idea what. Fortunately, no one counted him as dead weight. I never should have gone on this mission. I kept thinking that I could always teleport away no matter what, but evidently I can get sick or something.

At the very least, his mind was working, but he could not do anything as he was dragged out of there. His eyes were bleeding. I don’t understand. I didn’t even use my Mangekyo techniques. It’s not supposed to work like that.

When he felt some amount of consciousness again, he had been stripped and a small injury had been found. After having been cut with a reactive blade of some sort, it was explained that he had been bleeding chakra, and that his ruptured tenketsu port had been dumping out energy even after the original wound might have healed. Even if he could form words, he doubted he could explain what had happened to him. He went to sleep again, or rather, more asleep than before.

The Shinobi Rules

Silirt

Chapter 74: Dishonor and Discontent

Chapter Text

Morning brought with it a dull ache and a feeling like he was still exhausted. He could move around, but until he saw someone who could help him, he was a stuck pig. Erisa introduced him to a healer, but he was hardly paying attention as the old man entered their hiding place and started work on him. He had to take his word for it when the procedure was over, but an hour later, he felt the tiniest bit better.

“Can you see now?” Renden asked.

“It wasn’t that I couldn’t… see, I just… couldn’t open my eyes.”

“Okay. I don’t think there’s any point in giving you an update with the situation, then.”

“I can hear you,” he said. “Just… tell me.”

“There’s no word out of the fortress yet. I used some tricks to make it look like we used more elemental transformations, but there’s a… there’s a snag. They say that Konoha is a suspect.”

“Is it… because we burned them?” he asked, straining himself somewhat. “Since when does the leaf…”

“I don’t know. To be honest, even after having been one of them, I don’t know all the tactics. Do you?”

He had to admit that he did not, but it was not something he had ever been ordered to do. Somehow, they’re disregarding the evidence. Did they find it? Did they decide that it must have been a frame job?

According to Renden, though, that was all he knew, and Obito had no use for speculation. He was just as capable of coming up with theories himself. Eventually, he was replaced by Erisa.

“Are you awake?” she asked.

“I would be,” he said. “Do we know anything else?”

“I am more concerned about you. Do you feel any better?”

“I don’t feel like I’m dying now.”

“You felt like you were dying before? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Well, I… didn’t know if I could trust you two. I… I know I’m a deserter, but you two have your own interests, so I can’t expect you to prioritize me… I’ve had a lot of bad luck lately.”

The kunoichi frowned with her eyes, insulted. He had figured that she saw herself as a caring person, and when he suggested that he did not know she would take care of him, she seemed to take it that her nature had not shown through. She set a bowl of soup in front of him and left without another word. Struggling to sit up after that, he managed to eat, and started to feel less like a sponge.

Well, if I haven’t insulted them so much that they’ll decide to frame me instead, we need to figure out why the elders didn’t think it was Kakuzu. We don’t know whether they found the evidence we planted or not. It did not seem like they had, though, because he would have thought they would make an announcement.

“What if they didn’t, though?” he asked himself. No one else was around, after all. What if they found the evidence and decided not to report it? Then, they wouldn’t have to go after that one-man army, and instead they get to suspect someone else. He thought a moment longer. Wait a minute, even if they thought he did it, if they know that he only does jobs for money, then wouldn’t that mean someone had to be paying him a lot to get rid of the Greats.

He went outside to find Erisa taking care of her tools.

“Should you be on your feet?”

“That’s not important right now. Even if Kakuzu killed those people, who put the hit out, and who paid him?” he asked. “What was the story supposed to be?”

“The story was supposed to be that he decided to get rid of the main government of Taki. He was betrayed.”

“He was betrayed decades ago. No one else alive today probably remembers that. Why not get revenge before now?” He shook his head. “There was a problem with the plan. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. Even if they think it’s possible that what we were suggesting was correct, who’s to say they just give up? Why would they publicly accuse a known assassin of anything? Wasn’t your family going to dispose of him by sending him off somewhere-“

“For the most part, it doesn’t matter what they think,” the kunoichi said after a moment. “For the most part, thanks to you and Renden, those people are dead. We just didn’t want it to look like a coup-“

#naruto fanfiction

[ulittuq-writes]

a bullet point sakura au I will not write b/c I have enough projects going already

After the chunin exams, Sakura is desperate to be better and stronger and she’s tired of surviving off of luck and the whim of her enemies

Because she thought she learned after Wave, after she shook and shook and got her first taste of the blood and death that comes with a shinobi life and she still wanted it but she didn’t know how to get there (because she was the top of her Academy class, but she knows now that means very little, in the face of violence)

And she thought she learned again after the Forest of Death, when she cut the hair she spent years caring for because she wanted to be pretty and delicate but now she knows those are just kinder words for weak

Only she’s still just-Sakura, all soft hands and trembling legs

(She’s more than that, of course. She’s on a team of legends and gods-in-the-making and it takes a certain kind of resilience, a certain kind of strength, to withstand that. But she’s just thirteen and insecure and hateful.)

So she makes a plan, because she’s a paper ninja okay? She likes plans and lists and seeing a path written out neatly.

(She’s not the best at following through, sometimes, because she gets angry and impulsive in her anger, but she’s more stubborn than angry, most of the time, so it works out.)

There’s a brief moment, after the chunin exams and between Naruto leaving to bring back Tsunade and Sasuke being retraumatized by his brother and the fight on the hospital roof, when team seven still has training and Sakura learns to hate Kakashi, a little.

Before, she had been grateful that training didn’t amount to much, because it meant she had more time to try to talk to Sasuke and less time spent sweating.

But now she sits to the side while the boys spar and she remembers Kakashi saying “looks like the kunoichi has better chakra control then either of you” and it had felt like praise scrapping the wrong way, because he didn’t say it to her, because he used it to motivate the boys.

Because his eye never really settles on her and, sure, he’d give up his life for her, but he won’t train her

But then Sasuke leaves her on a bench in the dark

But then Naruto leaves and Kakashi in still in the village but she never sees him

So one day, Sakura is training and she stumbles on Anko being badass and

Look, Sakura looked the godaime hokage in the eye, in a different world, and demanded she train her

And that’s not this world, but she still has the courage to stare into the eyes of a woman who could kill her with the flick of a finger and demand to be taught

And Sakura is goddamn persistent. She spent years obsessed with the same boy and tried to shape herself into an image he could love. She is relentless.

Of course, when she asks Anko to train her, the answer in “no way in hell” but again, Sakura doesn’t take no for an answer

Eventually, Anko relents and says “okay, show me what you can do” and Sakura becomes a badass eventually but she’s not a badass now, so all she’s got in the barebones of techniques and her own stubbornness

(Anko’s heard about team seven, of course, so she knows that this kid was trained by Hatake, but it doesn’t fucking seem like it and the next time she sees Hatake she’s going to burn his porn)

It’s a situation of “ah fuck, someone’s gotta teach this kid so she doesn’t end up dead and goddamnit looks like that someone’s gonna be me”

So reluctant-teacher Anko who is not getting attached nope, she’s not! Sure, she gives the kid shit like premixed poisons and explosive seals and some goddamn sensible clothes, but she’s not getting attached!!

And Sakura is simultaneously having the time of her life and regretting all of the decisions that led to this

Because she’s finally learning and getting strong and she can be useful! But she wakes up and goes to bed sore and she’s got bandages on her hands because of the blisters and she doesn’t have the energy to look pretty (because old habits die hard) only there’s no one to look pretty for and she’s alone and she trains more to drown out that thought but training means Anko (either Anko herself, or using the supplies Anko helped her pick out and practicing the techniques Anko taught her) and Anko means she’s not alone

(Sakura has a little puppy crush on Anko for a hot minute because Anko is pretty and terrifying and apparently Sakura has a type but almost every ninja is pretty and terrifying and Sakura is a hopeless bisexual and suffering (on that note, her and Ino are something approaching friends again and Sakura is resolutely ignoring how pretty and smart Ino is because she is not going to loose Ino’s friendship again when she’s just got it back) (Ino, for her part, is finding harder to ignore her own feelings))

Sakura’s just big mess of emotions and puberty is only making it worse

Anko had no clue what to do with all these emotions, but like, she can’t deny she’s attached now, so she needs a Responsible Adult

Enter Genma

Who’s not like super emotionally healthy but he’s slightly better than most shinobi and he’s leagues ahead of Anko (fuck Orochimaru)

So Genma joins in on the training and Sakura now has two (two!!) adults who are invested in helping her

Genma is the one to bring up learning medical ninjutsu because Sakura has such good chakra control

At first, Sakura is reluctant, because she doesn’t want to be confined to being a medic. Medics usually stay behind the line and Sakura’s been training to fight, she wants to fight and not be regulated to the sidelines

But Anko says, “let them try stopping you from fighting” and Genma points out that “frontline medics are a thing. Our Hokage is one. Besides, you don’t have to specialize, just learn the basics.”

So Sakura learns the basics of healing (she learns enough to patch people up enough to get them back into the fight or keep them alive to possibly reach real medical attention) but mostly she focuses on becoming as terrifying and strong as Anko and as steady and lethal as Genma

When Naruto comes barreling back and says “we can save Sasuke” Sakura’s immediate reactions is “no” because she’s spent the past years with Anko and would gladly dismember Orochimaru and anyone who willingly abandoned the village for that snake doesn’t deserve saving

But she’s a little conflicted because team seven could have been something great and she caught glimpses of it during the forest of death and the invasion and how they worked together but

She’s not just a teenage girl full of dreams anymore, she’s a shinobi and she has ghosts that follow her and she once had her hands inside of someone’s gut trying to heal them (she had to let them die because the battle was still going and she needed every iota of chakra to get out alive herself) and team seven was only ever a dream

So this Sakura is more bitter and cynical and doesn’t keep childhood crushes alive and she can’t stave of death with a spark of chakra but she can weave illusions without the twitch of a finger and she keeps poisoned senbon in her hair and she’s gotten into the bad habit of putting them in her mouth (but that’s okay, Genma’s done it before too (and she used to make fun of him so much for it but then it happened to her and was like “FUCK”)) and she’s made herself a weird little ninja family

The thing is: Sakura has always had a soft heart and she still does because part of her will always be that little girl who wore her heart on her sleeve, but now Sakura is soft for only a select few and now she holds her heart in her mouth where she can let it smile and laugh and love, but most often hides it behind bared teeth

She still goes with Naruto to bring Sasuke back partly because she loved him once (even if maybe she only ever loved the idea of him, loved the idea of someone important and special loving her—whatever it was, she spent years with it and that has to count for something) and partly for what team seven could have been (they were like celestial bodies, pulled in by each other’s gravity only to slingshot away) but mostly because she was ordered to and there’s something poetic about the people Sasuke abandoned bringing him back

Of the people the boy-avenger deemed too weak to brother with breaking him down and dragging him home

And Sakura’s a little (okay, a lot) bitter and angry and maybe breaking Sasuke’s legs will make her feel better (which is not the healthiest approach, but shinobi aren’t known for their healthy coping mechanisms)

And if they run into Orochimaru well, that’s just a bonus (Sakura had crashed at Anko’s place enough times to know that all of her nightmares feature her former teacher)

Sakura recognized Tenzuo because she’s run a few missions with him in anbu (she doesn’t run anbu missions regularly, but Konoha’s still scrambling a bit from the crush and she has a very applicable skill set so she’s been pulled for a few missions)

She doesn’t recognize Sai, but she recognizes the emptiness in him, how he was scooped out a hollowed until there was nothing left but a weapon (there’s a certain mindset necessary to run anbu missions (a mindset Sakura is good at, because Inner isn’t prominent anymore, but she still remembers how to separate parts of herself and lock them away) and she works part-time at T&I—she’s seen empty people, she’s emptied people)

Sai calls Naruto dickless and Sakura ugly and Sakura just laughs

Because she doesn’t care about being pretty, not anymore, and she knows she has a big forehead and her limbs are gangly in the way only a teenagers can be, but she’s a good shinobi and she can protect the people she care about, the people she’s soft for—and that’s what matters

#mars writes #haruno sakura #naruto #bullet point fic #please let the formatting be okay I’m tired to messing around w it

[manga2day]

Zabuza Momochi

Are you here to learn more about Zabuza , the incredible Swordsman in the Naruto animated series ? So do not move, you are indeed in the right place! ⚔ Zabuza Momochi (桃 地 再不 斬, Momochi Zabuza) is a fictional character from the Naruto manga. He is a mercenary with the nickname of Hidden Mist Demon (霧 隠 れ の 鬼 人, Kirigakure no Kijin). He was a missing ninja from the Seven Mist Swordsmen of Kirigakure. A powerful ninja endowed with new special skills, this hired killer, also known as the demon of the village of the bloody mist , marked the Naruto series thanks to his cold and scathing character traits and his legendary sword so imposing, the Kubikiribôchô . In this guide you will discover: - A complete biography of the character - Zabuza's story during his appearances in Naruto - Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, and Kenjutsu Prediction Skills - Some interesting facts about Zabuza So young ninja, are you ready to start this ultimate guide? Let's get started without further ado! 💨

HISTORY OF ZABUZA

Before the end of the fourth Mizukage , Yagura Karatachi, the village of Kirigakure began pitting the graduates of Kirigakure Academy against each other in death matches so as to result in a final exam. The most qualified students were named the Top 7 Mist Swordsmen. After Zabuza, not yet a student himself, killed over one hundred Academy students, the practice was discontinued and he would later be known as the "Demon of the Hidden Mist". His fame grew over the years, he became an Anbu , killing Konoha Kumade Toriichi's ninja at that time, before finally joining the Clan of 7. 🔪 At one point, he discovered Haku , a child with a very special hereditary kekkei genkai , began training him to become the ultimate weapon. In the anime, he and Haku saw the Kaguya clan attack Kirigakure but chose not to help the village. Soon after, they met Kimimaro , the next survivor of the Kaguya. Although Haku wanted to talk to the boy, Zabuza forced him to leave Kimimaro alone. 😥 During the Fourth Mizukage's reign over Bloody Mist Village, Zabuza found himself at odds with how the village worked. He assembled a group of supporters and attempted a coup against the Mizukage , which resulted in an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Yagura. Zabuza then subsequently fled accompanied by his weapon "Haku" and with other disciples, including the Demon Brothers, becoming mercenaries in order to raise funds for a second attempt in the future, which is why he worked with Gatō. With his departure, he took the Kubikiribōchō with him, causing Kirigakure to lose one of his famous swords. 🗡️  

ZABUZA PERSONALITY

Zabuza was initially described as a very brutal character, devoid of any empathy, going so far as to be arrogant and cold, yet ambitious nonetheless. He tries to do everything to become the main hit man to Gato to earn enough money to launch a second coup on the Mizukage, and thus kill anyone who stood in his way, including the plot to kill Gatō once he received sufficient funds from him. His reputation for his unparalleled cruelty began as a child, when he killed all applicants for Kirigakure Academy, which earned him the nickname "Demon of the Hidden Mist" (霧 隠 れの 鬼 人, Kirigakure no Kijin). He has a habit of using his own henchmen as pawns to achieve his ends and to satisfy his ambitions.

For example, he raised Haku to be an effective tool, to be rejected when he had no use to exploit; though unlike future antagonists, he was outspoken about the purpose for which he needed his recruits, forgoing any form of manipulation by pretending to be benevolent to inspire loyalty. This fits with his cynical view of the world, which only includes users and users, as well as shinobi's view of being nothing more than tools. Despite himself, Zabuza grew up caring deeply for Haku and seeing him as more than a tool. 👶 Zabuza is a very insightful and observant opponent, able to analyze his opponent's innermost skills after observing him just once, but becomes overconfident if he sees technique as useless. Despite his cruelty, Zabuza possessed a softer side that he himself largely ignored. After Haku's death, while Zabuza initially scoffed at his usefulness, Kakashi notes that Zabuza is no longer able to fight to his true potential as he is secretly distraught by the loss of Haku. In his final moments, Zabuza realized how much he really cared for Haku, and after being convinced by Naruto Uzumaki, he sacrifices his life to kill Gatō.and will die a little later, wishing to have the possibility of accompanying Haku in the afterlife. 💀 Nonetheless, he seems unwilling to tell others about it, barking at everyone to shut up. Kakashi also noted that he had hesitated for a long time before suggesting the idea of ​​going to Haku during their battle on the bridge. This lack of hesitation during the Fourth Shinobi War made Kakashi realize that the Zabuza who had come back from the dead was completely different. Zabuza also showed a more honorable side of him after his reincarnation, when he showed his aversion to fighting in the ranks of someone who stooped so low that he used words as fighters, at the same time rendering the resurrected immortal. His sense of honor is even more powerful when he pleads with Kakashi to prevent him and Haku from causing harm, wishing his death as a human being preserved.

APPEARANCE OF ZABUZA

Zabuza was a tall man, rather muscular because of his giant sword and with light grayish skin. He had short black hair spiked to the side, dark brown eyes, and small eyebrows. In the anime and manga, he was mostly seen wearing bandages like a mask on his face. Later, we can observe that under his mask he had a rather slender face, with a special characteristic reminiscent of sharks: he has  jagged teeth , a trait he shares with his fellow swordsmen. He wore his forehead guard to the side on his head, and before his disappearance from Kirigakure, donned the Anbu uniformof the village and the bulletproof jacket. After his desertation, and during his first appearance, he was seen shirtless, with his chest covered only by a belt to which he attached his Kubikiribōchō (his great sword), wearing baggy pants with the striped pattern typical of his village, Kirigakure, and stained patterned wrist warmers extending to the elbows, as well as matching leggings. ⚔️ During his second appearance, we could see him wearing a sort of black sleeveless shirt and pants of the same color, with a waist guard, and once again, with his wrist warmers and striped leggings. by Kirigakure. Other swordsmen of his generation wore an outfit identical to this one, implying that it may have been clothing related to the group. While wearing this outfit, just like his fellow swordsmen, he had bandages tied around his neck like a scarf. As a child, Zabuza's outfit  was a dark sleeveless shirt with light suspenders and a circular mark on the back, emblazoned with the kanji indicating "demon" (鬼, oni). He also wore dark pants with two straps covering the bottom and a hip pocket, as well as black shinobi sandals and black mitten gloves. 🧒

ZABUZA'S ABILITIES

As Kiri's former high-ranking ninja, Zabuza was a very powerful fighter. Vicious and offensive in combat, his talent has been observed more than once, since his early childhood, even before he started at the Academy yet, as he alone was already killing more than a hundred. of trained students. As an adult, even severely injured and both arms paralyzed, Zabuza has proven to be a dangerous opponent, capable of taking down dozens of men specially hired by Gatō and even Gatō himself. 💥 CHAKRA & TECHNIQUES Zabuza was very strong physically, able to effortlessly wield his Kubikiribōchō greatsword for long periods of time undisturbed, even with one hand. He was also incredibly quick and equally proficient in taijutsu , able to match Kakashi in disciplines and with the latter able to fight and kill dozens of Gatō's men despite losing both of his arms, using blows from well coordinated foot and while having a kunai in his mouth ... During these adventures, he showed remarkable levels of endurance, able to continue to fight effectively despite the injuries he received from Kakashi and the large number of blades that pierced it. 🔪 Zabuza was also a powerful  master of stealth and assassination.  This killer was also known in other countries for his talents and his great facility to kill his opponents in the most total fog. Kakashi noted that his silent killer prowess was second to none. This ninja skill develops tremendous pressure in his opponent even before Zabuza attacks, as it is noted that even the slightest movement of the eye was enough to alert Zabuza of his victim's location. 👀 True to his nickname, Zabuza possessed an incredibly strong chakra, which could be visibly seen when released, taking on the image of a demon. Even barely standing, a single glance from Zabuza left the rest of Gatō's thugs stiff with fear. Likewise, Zabuza has very advanced chakra control, able to perform a second technique while maintaining another. Even more interestingly, he is able to do this by performing one-handed seals. 👋 NINJUTSU KENJUTSU

During his time as Kiri's ninja, Zabuza was one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist,  a team made up primarily of the village's top sword-wielders. This generation of swordsmen he was fortunate enough to exist was considered the most incredible ever to be created in Kirigakure, another testament to Zabuza's impressive skills. Zabuza's signature weapon was the Kubikiribōchō.It is a sword that has marked the fans, it is very long and wide, even oversized. Its shape was designed to easily behead enemies. This great weapon has a unique ability: to absorb iron recovered from the blood of its victims to repair itself if damaged or melted. Zabuza was a master at his wielding, being able to send many opponents to their deaths in just one circular motion, and claiming his sword "never cuts a second time". This retort certifies that it only needed one single attack to easily liquidate its victims. 🤺 Despite his build, the weapon's weight didn't seem to slow Zabuza at all, as he could use it in combat for long periods of time without any visible pressure on himself, which Suigetsu Hōzuki failed to realize. As well as handling it very skillfully, Zabuza could also spin her around at several of her victims with enough power to lodge in a tree trunk. 🌳

He also wielded a kunai with a sharp protrusion on one side (which in the anime is a variation of Kiri's standard kunai), designed to stab and stab instead of slicing, which fits his stealth attributes perfectly. Zabuza could also use the fūma shuriken in the same way, using them in melee combat by rotating the weapon in his hand to attack his opponent. 🔪 TRANSFORMATION OF NATURE

Zabuza had great skill in water release techniques. He could perform several while keeping another active, as seen when he kept Kakashi trapped in his Water Prison technique while continuing to titillate the other members of Team 7 with the through an aqueous clone. He therefore had the possibility of creating and launching several clones at the same time, in order to use them as a diversion technique in the face of threats. He has also shown his mastery of highly destructive aqueous attacks by launching powerful torrents, shaped like a towering dragon and giant waterfalls at his opponents. 🚿 Zabuza was particularly adept at the technique of camouflage in the mist as it made his assassination silent and even easier to perform. By covering the area with thick fog, Zabuza was able to blind his targets, making it even more difficult for them to defend against him. In this way, Zabuza had the obvious possibility of launching stealth assaults, both in tight spaces and open. He could then suddenly disappear from sight of an opponent, while hitting them repeatedly without being visible. His skill with this technique was such that he could create an impenetrable mist, without even needing to recharge himself in the water nearby. Even Kabuto Yakushikept Zabuza's use of the technique in high regard, as seen when he was ready to sacrifice other reincarnated shinobi to protect Zabuza, and thus keep the technique as it is. 💨 INTELLIGENCE Despite his attraction to using piercing and direct attacks on his enemies, Zabuza was also very capable of intellectually leading and overseeing things. Through his days as Anbu, Zabuza possessed a deep knowledge of the pressure points of the human body and the most vulnerable organs. Zabuza also knew foreign techniques and the kekkei genkai, knowing the Sharingan and instantly recognizing the technique of Multiclinage. Zabuza was also a qualified teacher, as it was under his supervision that Haku was able to become such a powerful shinobi / ninja despite his young age. 👨‍🎓  

THE BEST TECHNIQUES FROM ZABUZA

- Kiri Gakure no jutsu Ninpô (霧 隠 れ の 術, Camouflage in the mist): Technique which allows Zabuza to camouflage himself from his opponents in a thick and dense fog. It is impossible to discern a single movement there, which makes dôjutsu such as Byakugan or Sharingan ineffective. - Suiton - Mizu bunshin no Jutsu (水分 身 の 術, Aqueous Cloning): Technique that creates an aqueous clone that can only be controlled at close range. - Suirô no jutsu (水牢 の 術, Technique of the aqueous prison): Technique which allows to imprison an opponent in a kind of aqueous prison. - Suiton - Suiryûdan no Jutsu (水 遁 ・ 水 龍 弾 の 術, Suiton - The Watery Dragon): Technique that allows Zabuza to create a cascade of water having the appearance of a Dragon to fall on an enemy. - Suiton - Suijin heki (水 遁 ・ 水 陣 壁, Suiton - The water barrier): Very powerful technique which allows the accumulation of a large mass of water in the form of a wave to be knocked down on his opponent. - Suiton - Daibakufu no Jutsu (水 遁 ・ 大 瀑布 の 術, Suiton - The great cataract): Technique allowing to form a large watery amat in order to project it on its enemy with a significant force.

HISTORY OF ZABUZA IN NARUTO

Part i PROLOGUE: THE LAND OF WAVES In order to earn money to plan a second coup, Zabuza became a mercenary assassin for hire. As part of one of his jobs, he was hired by Gatō to kill a bridge builder named Tazuna, who poses a threat to his employer's business. When the Demon Brothers failed to take out Tazuna - intimidating an enraged Gatō with his sword - Zabuza decided to deal with the Bridge Builder personally. While tracking down his target, Zabuza discovered that Tazuna was protected by Kakashi Hatake and his students. Wanting to test his ability, Zabuza challenged Kakashi to a battle, and Kakashi obeyed by revealing his Sharingan . 👁‍🗨 Soon after the start of the battle, Zabuza managed to catch Kakashi off guard and trick him with his water prison technique. Needing to stay with Kakashi to keep him imprisoned, Zabuza sent a water clone to kill Tazuna and the rest of Kakashi's team, believing it to be a simple mission to complete. However, Naruto Uzumaki created a plan and, with the help of Sasuke Uchiha, managed to sneak up on Zabuza, forcing him to free Kakashi. So Kakashi and Zabuza resumed their fight, although Kakashi's Sharingan quickly gave him the upper hand. By copying Zabuza's technique, Suiton - Suijin heki before he could use it, Kakashi was able to defeat Zabuza. 🌊

Before Zabuza could be killed by Kakashi, Haku appeared, disguised as a ninja hunter, and threw two needles in Zabuza's neck, apparently killing him. Taking Zabuza's body away, under the pretext of having to destroy it, Haku resuscitated Zabuza, the needles having been used to temporarily paralyze him. Although Zabuza's life was saved, it took him a week to recover, and he was planning to return to kill Tazuna and Kakashi.A week later, Zabuza and Haku appeared in front of Team 7 for a rematch. While Haku took care of Kakashi's students, Zabuza took care of Kakashi. Having learned how the Sharingan works through Haku's knowledge, Zabuza covered the area with a thick mist and kept his eyes closed to nullify the Sharingan's two abilities. In doing so, Zabuza was able to cut off Kakashi's momentum with his sword, severely damaging his opponent. However Kakashi allowed himself to be attacked and summoned his ninken to sniff the blood, now on Zabuza's sword and thus took advantage of the fact that Zabuza was keeping his eyes closed in a thick fog to launch a surprise attack and finish him off with the low. 💥 Unable to retaliate, Kakashi prepared to kill Zabuza with his Slaying Bolt and charged at Zabuza. Before Kakashi's technique could meet its target, Haku appeared as a human shield and took full force of the attack, fulfilling his promise to be only a tool for his master. Freed following Haku's intervention, and not wanting to allow the opening created by Haku to be wasted, Zabuza attempted to pass through Haku's body to kill Kakashi, but Kakashi was able to avoid him and injure Zabuza in the middle. arm. With Zabuza no longer able to fight, Gatō arrived and revoked their agreement so he could ask his own minions to kill Tazuna instead.. With no more reason to kill Tazuna, Zabuza ended his battle with Kakashi, although Naruto was not satisfied with it. Irritated Read the full article

[myaekingheart]

123. ‘Til Death Do Us Part

read the scarecrow and the bell on ao3 index | from the beginning | < previous | next >

Let them talk and talk and talk Let them say what they want We will laugh at the thought they don't know what we've got Every year that goes by, a year older we are You'll still be beautiful then, bless your beautiful heart -All My Heart, Sleeping with Sirens

               Sekkachi lit the cigarette hanging from her mouth as she and Rei walked through the bustling Konoha streets. A part of her was still trying to adjust to her new role as maid of honor—in the past few hours, it had yet to fully sink in. The thought of poofy dresses and endless flowers made her nauseous but she was not going to object if this was what Rei really wanted. Perhaps Sekkachi was what Rei needed, anyway. Someone who was an outsider, who wouldn’t smile and nod along with whatever Rei wanted but rather would remain honest and level-headed. And besides, no other friendship rivalled the bond that she shared with Sekkachi in the first place.

               “So how deep into the pit are you?” the blue-haired kunoichi asked.

               “What do you mean?” Rei cocked a brow.

               “The planning shit” Sekkachi explained, rolling her hand emphatically for extra oomph. “How far in are you? Do you want to slit your throat yet?”

               Rei narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. “That’s not funny” she muttered. Turning about face, she sucked in a sharp breath and replied, “We have a date set but we can’t really do anything else until our marriage license application gets approved.”

               An incredulous laugh burst from the pit of Sekkachi’s chest at the concept. “A marriage license application? You have to ask permission to get married?” she asked.

               “Unfortunately” Rei sighed. She raked her fingers through her hair as she further explained, “They do it so that they can run background checks and make sure neither party is just some rogue trying to infiltrate the village through marriage or something, I guess.”

               Sekkachi shrugged, taking a long drag of her cigarette. “Eh, I mean, that’s fair enough” she started, “but I don’t think the government is going to have anything to worry about with you two.” She flicked some ash onto the ground with a smirk. “I mean, really, who the fuck is going to question Kakashi Hatake’s legitimacy?”

               Shrugging, Rei replied, “You never know.”

               “So what date did you guys pick?” Sekkachi asked. She frowned down at the ground as she narrowly avoided a freshly-spat wad of gum.

               “March 14th” Rei replied. “White Day.” A small smile tugged at her lips at the thought. It was something so simple and yet she was so pleased and proud with the idea. It was truly the perfect date.

               Sekkachi blinked, pausing a moment, before turning to glance at Rei. “You’re waiting all the way until March?” she asked. “Isn’t that, I don’t know, kind of a long time?”

               “It’s less than a year!” Rei countered, her voice rising an octave. “I need time to figure everything else out. You can’t plan a wedding in a weekend, Sekkachi.”

               Scoffing, Sekkachi balanced her cigarette between her lips and reached back to tighten her ponytail. “Well, if I ever get married, I bet I could do it. I mean, how much can there really be to figure out?” she commented. She exhaled and a cloud of smoke enveloped her face, hazy and surreal. “I mean, you throw on a white dress, corral everyone around like cattle, say ‘I do’ and boom, you’re hitched.”

               “It’s not that simple…” Rei muttered under her breath. Maybe this was a mistake, asking Sekkachi to be her maid of honor. She knew full well that Sekkachi was no expert in wedding planning—she wasn’t even a novice—but this was a level of ignorance beyond anything Rei could’ve ever expected.

               Sekkachi smiled wistfully as she took another long drag. “Or maybe I’d just elope” she mused. “Cut out the bullshit completely.”

               Rolling her eyes, Rei snarked, “You’ve gotta narrow it down to one girlfriend first.” Sekkachi shot her a sharp but amused glare, surprised by Rei’s sudden sass. Her shock helped lighten the stress of the moment, however, and Rei couldn’t help but chuckle. “And one-night stands don’t count as girlfriends” she added matter-of-factly.

               Sekkachi wrinkled her nose and punched Rei lightly in the arm. “I said if, smartass” she shot back. “The chance of me settling down in the first place is slim at best so don’t get any ideas.”

               But it was too late—Rei was already concocting ways to theoretically torture her. “I would throw you the cringiest bridal shower to ever exist” she grinned. “I’d have everyone wrap you up in so much toilet paper, you’d be a mummy bride by the end of the day.”

               “Hey!” Sekkachi exclaimed. “Listen, that is one dumb party game I would not argue with. Do you have any idea how much fucking time I spend in the bathroom? Free toilet paper would be a godsend.”

               Shaking her head, Rei replied, “Well, all I’m going to say is you better not plan any of those dumb party games for my bridal shower, or else you’ll end up in a coffin for real.”

               “Oh, that’s a shame” Sekkachi pouted. “And here I was really looking forward to chaotic wedding charades.”

               “Nope” Rei insisted. “Not happening. In fact, maybe don’t even throw me a bridal shower at all. I don’t want to deal with people anyway.”

               “Hey, I’m not going to argue with that” Sekkachi grinned, tilting her head back as she exhaled toward the sky. “The less work for me, the better.”

               “I should’ve known you’d be the laziest maid of honor on the planet” Rei laughed.

               “I’m not lazy” Sekkachi countered. “I’d prefer to call it…exertive minimalism. And hey, who knows? With my help, maybe you’ll get your shit sorted out so quick you can just say fuck it and get married ASAP!”

               The smile on Rei’s face immediately fell flat. If only Sekkachi knew the strife she had been facing the past few weeks in terms of time. She needed that deadline, she needed a set plan. A sinking feeling filled the pit of her stomach as they turned the corner and her apartment building came into view.

               Sekkachi shrugged, taking one last drag before snuffing her cigarette into the dirt with the toe of her sandal. “I mean, it’s your wedding, you can do what you want” she replied. “I just honestly don’t think that you’re going to need that long to figure everything out. Besides, anything can happen and in this line of work, better to be safe than sorry, you know?” Her nonchalant laughter grated in Rei’s ears, aggravating and insensitive. She tugged at her ponytail, tightening the elastic at the base yet again, as she continued. “I’d just hate to see you put in all this time and work only for something to, you know, happen.” She said that word, happen, as if it was a curse. As if it was taboo, hunching her shoulders and making a motion with her hands like she was imitating the creeper in a horror tale.

               “Excuse you!” Rei shouted, furrowing her brows and slapping Sekkachi hard on the arm. “Nothing is going to happen!”

               “I never said anything would!” Sekkachi countered, raising her hands in surrender. She recoiled in an attempt to avoid another hit. Though she was tiny, Rei could hit hard when she wanted to. And right now, god did she want to. “I’m only saying that it could, and maybe you should consider the impact of that. After all, you’re an ANBU captain now. You’re in just as much danger as Kakashi, if not more.”

               Rei smiled sourly, squinting and nodding. “Oh, yeah, okay, thanks for the reassurance” she hissed. She whipped around and violently punched her code into the keypad at the front door. The lock clicked with a high-pitched buzz, ushering Rei inside. “I’ll see you later, alright?”

               Spreading her arms out, Sekkachi strolled backward and shouted, “If you wanted me to be realistic, then let me be realistic, Rei!” After all, wasn’t that what Rei had wanted? Someone who was not going to sugarcoat things for her? Isn’t that what she had signed up for? Either way, Sekkachi was not sorry. These were the crushing realities that Rei truly had to consider. The unfortunate hazard of being a shinobi. Your personal life is forced to become an afterthought.

               As soon as Rei was certain Sekkachi was gone, she sucked in a deep breath and peered around the lobby. Only once she was certain that she was completely alone, she released a deep, violent groan from deep within her chest and slammed her forehead against the wall of mailboxes. A heavy clang rang through the open space from the impact but Rei would be lying if she said it had hurt. It hadn’t. She idled there for a moment longer, reveling in the sting of her forehead, before sucking in a sharp breath and fishing around her back pouch for her mailbox key. At this point, she wasn’t sure she even wanted to know.

               Every day, she obsessively peered into their little unit in hopes of finding that coveted acceptance letter. And every day that it was not there, Rei felt herself spiral a little further into her own insanity. It had already been a month. How much longer were they going to have to wait? When she left the house that morning, the mailman had yet to come by. The suspense was eating her alive.

               She turned the key in the lock with a sharp flick of her wrist, impatient. A stack of envelopes was shoved haphazardly inside, crumpled corners and bowed-in middles begging for her attention. She yanked them out all at once and slammed the mailbox door shut, shuffling through each letter as she slowly ascended the stairs. She expected only the usual: a too-high electric bill (she really had to stop leaving the lights on), some ad about life insurance, something addressed to a former tenant. And then she saw it: the pristine white envelope with the little cellophane window and government seal. The letter.

               Rei froze on the staircase as she ripped it open without a second thought. Kakashi didn’t need to be here for this. For all she knew, he may not even be home yet. Guy could have very well taken the afternoon off in order to celebrate. The thought of him skipping out on training was unlikely but for the right reasons, she was sure he would. The whole village likely knew of his promotion by now. If she listened closely enough, she swore she could hear his emphatic voice still shouting it from rooftops and in the face of every unsuspecting passerby. Kakashi would surely have his hands full. No, she would let him know the verdict of their application when he returned.

               Rei’s anxiety had mounted so quickly, she could hardly even concentrate on the words in front of her. Much of it was authoritarian garbage anyway, per usual with government-issued documents. Who even wrote these things, anyway? They had to have moonlit as thriller novelists because their ability to arouse suspense was alarming. For a split-second, Rei had a fleeting thought about drastically reforming the technical writing department should she ever find her way into the hokage’s seat. She chuckled under her breath at the absurdity of it, as well as the inappropriateness. Now was not the time to think of such pointless things. She forced her eyes to refocus on the page, scanned the document for a gut-twisting “we regret to inform you…” but kept coming up empty.

               Rather than feel relieved, she was overwhelmed by an even greater anxiety. Maybe she wasn’t reading hard enough. Maybe she was just plain dumb and kept missing it. Really, the only way she would be able to make any sense of this was if she just sat and read the whole thing word for word. Waded through the thick, sticky government jargon to fish out the barebones meaning. Dejected, Rei made her way up the last half of the stairs and turned the corner to her apartment.

               “Welcome home” a voice called as the door creaked open. Rei startled, the stack of envelopes nearly fluttering out of her hands. She locked eyes with Kakashi lounging on the couch, his unmasked face obstructed by his copy of Icha Icha Violence. Toshio stirred in his sleep on the floor beside him. Seeming amused by her shock, Kakashi chuckled “Someone’s jumpy.”

               “No, I’m not” Rei muttered. She dropped her eyes to the floor with a subtle pout as she set the mail on the kitchen table. “I just didn’t expect you to be back so soon.”

               “Oh?” Kakashi asked. He cocked a brow in curiosity and tilted his book down. “Would you rather I leave?” he joked.

               “No” Rei insisted, shooting him a sharp, almost offended glare. Kakashi blinked, dumbfounded, and it was then that Rei realized perhaps she had been a little too harsh. Sighing, she skirted around the kitchen table and settled onto the floor beside Toshio. As if he could sense her distress, he shifted to rest his heavy head on her lap with a tired huff. “How long have you been home?” Rei asked, stroking the dog’s silky ears. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Kakashi now. He would see right through her, immediately suspicious of her quick, sharp tone.

               “Only an hour or so” he replied. He set his book aside and rose to his feet, stretching his arms up over his head. The hem of his shirt tugged upward and Rei’s eyes locked on his bare skin, his pants sitting low on his hips to reveal the slightest hint of pale hair trailing upward. “How did things go with Sekkachi?” he asked, straightening out.

               “It went…fine” Rei replied slowly, cautiously. “She accepted the offer.”

               “That’s good” Kakashi nodded. He ruffled her hair as he scooted past her into the kitchen, swinging the fridge open and gathering up various vegetables in his arms. The late afternoon sun filtered through the large living room windows, bathing the scene in a warm glow. “Guy agreed, as well.”

               “That’s the surprise of the century” Rei replied with an airy, strained laugh. “I hope he wasn’t bothered that Sekkachi skipped out on the rest of their training.” Amid such big news, forgoing their afternoon sparring seemed like an afterthought until now. Sekkachi didn’t seem too concerned, at least, and if anyone knew Guy well enough to skimp out on him safely, it would be her.

               Kakashi spread the vegetables across the counter, fished a cutting board from under the sink. “Not at all” he assured her. “He was too busy parading me around the village spreading the good news.”

               “Oh no” Rei groaned, tilting her head back against the couch cushions. “I bet all of Konoha knows about this now.”

               “He insists that this will be the wedding of the century” Kakashi continued. “Apparently he thought it needed the publicity to match.”

               Rei shook her head, sighed, turned her gaze toward the window. She watched the streets below, studying the passerby and wondering about their own little individual lives and troubles. “Well, we have to plan the wedding first” she muttered sourly.

               Kakashi hummed, whipping a large knife from their cutlery block. Even with his back turned, Rei could sense his face fall at the mention. She sucked in a deep breath, tried not to overthink it. Instead, she focused on the sound of his chopping, the way he methodically, almost even rhythmically, worked. She concentrated on the crunch of the vegetables, the cold steel of the blade, the juice staining the cutting board. Toshio huffed.

               “Was there anything in the mail?” Kakashi asked. He could feel the electricity pulsing in the pit of his chest, luring him to take a peek at the kitchen table. He, too, was anxious for results on their application. He tried his best not to show it for Rei’s benefit, though. Revealing his own apprehension would only make Rei’s ten times worse. If only her sensory capabilities were even just a little bit duller.

               Anxious hands idled on the tips of Toshio’s ears as Rei tried to organize how to best explain this to him. “We, uh…we got some feedback” she murmured quietly, almost hoping Kakashi wouldn’t hear her.

               Kakashi immediately whipped around, eyes wide and eager. “Well?” he asked, unable to hide his anticipation now. “Did you open it?”

               “I tried to” Rei replied, hoisting herself to her feet, “but I’m too nervous. I can’t focus.” She approached the kitchen table and shuffled through the rest of their mail before pulling out that government-issued message. She ran a fingertip over the envelope’s torn upper edge, chewed her lower lip. Kakashi watched her sharply, breath bated, before she shoved the envelope into his chest. “I can’t do it, you read it.”

               Kakashi’s eyes trailed down to her palm pressed against his chest and the wad of paper between them. Skeptically, he set the knife down on the counter and turned the envelope over in his hands. He wasn’t totally sure if he could read it, either. He considered his sharingan for a moment and decided that in the event that he, too, was unable to concentrate, he would have no choice but to let that searing red eye do the work for him.

               Rei’s nails dug into the palms of her hands as she watched Kakashi with wide, anxious eyes. He slid the letter out slowly, unfolded it cautiously so as to avoid tearing it. His eyes scanned the page, line by line. His expression shifted.

               “What is it?” she asked frantically. “What does it say? Are we fucked?”

               Kakashi slowly lifted his gaze from the page, a small smile tugging at the corners of his unmasked lips. “Very” he replied.

               Gasping, Rei lunged forward and snatched the paper away from him herself. Where her anxiety had before left her cross-eyed and dizzy, it now had surpassed the point of disillusion and traversed instead into sharp, panicked focus. Her eyes raced through each paragraph, her heart beating faster and faster until finally she reached it. The moment of truth.

               We are pleased to inform you that your request for a marriage license has been accepted.

               Rei blinked, her mind not quite comprehending what she had read just yet. Her brain had to piece together each word individually, decipher the collective meaning, register the overarching phrase. “We’ve…been approved…” she murmured in disbelief. Her eyes slowly skated up to Kakashi’s, full of happiness and relief. “We’ve been approved?!” Rei repeated, her voice now louder and shriller.

               A massive grin spread across Kakashi’s face as he held her waist and pulled her close. “We’ve been approved!” he affirmed. Rei buried her face in his chest, giggled as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Kakashi buried her face in her fluffy autumn hair, planting tiny kisses along her temple and cheekbones and jaw. “I guess it’s official now” he sighed happily, cupping her cheek and tilting her head up to look at her. “We can really move forward with planning our wedding now.”

               Rei grinned up at him but as he spoke, the delight that tethered the corners of her lips quickly turned into stressed panic. Grinning transformed into gritted teeth, forced smile. She buried her face in his chest once again in hopes of hiding her dejection, murmured, “Let’s not think about that right now.”

               Kakashi was far too overjoyed to really notice her sudden uncertainty. After all, this was what he had been anticipating for the past month, the greatest hurdle they’d face in their pursuit of marriage. From this point onward, it should be smooth sailing. The sky was the limit. “You’re right” he said, petting Rei’s hair affectionately. “We still have lots of time to worry about the details. For now, let’s just spend the night celebrating.” He kissed her forehead before turning back to the vegetables on the counter and somehow his chopping almost seemed happier? Rei wasn’t sure how that was but the rhythm of his slices, the precision, all seemed to move at an entirely different beat. She couldn’t bring herself to tarnish his newfound joy.

               Dinner was quiet—dangerously so. Kakashi watched from across the table as Rei stirred her sauteed vegetables around in her bowl of rice.

               “You’re idling” Kakashi hummed, taking a bite of his own food.

               “What?!” Rei’s head snapped up, panicked. “N-No, I’m not.”

               Kakashi arched an eyebrow and looked at her suspiciously. “What’s wrong? Do you not like dinner?”                “No, it’s not that at all” Rei shook her head, raising her hands in surrender. “I’m just…not very hungry.”

               Unconvinced, Kakashi’s gaze hardened. “You seem to not be hungry a lot lately” he commented. “Is something the matter?”

                “No, not really, I just—” Rei started, but she knew she couldn’t get away with this for much longer. By now, the smartest course of action was to just be honest. “I’ve just been thinking a lot” she started.

               “Is it about the wedding?” Kakashi asked. “I thought you said you didn’t want to think about it.”

               “I know” Rei groaned, burying her face in her hands. “And I don’t, but that doesn’t make it any easier to stop. I thought I’d feel relieved when we got that approval letter, but instead I just feel…I don’t know.”

               Kakashi watched her cautiously and a sudden sinking feeling filled his chest. What if she had changed her mind? What if she had decided this wasn’t what she wanted after all? What if she had decided that somehow he wasn’t what she wanted? He didn’t think he could bear it. He couldn’t stand the thought of a life without her, of the promise of a marriage slipping through their fingers. He was desperate for her. Kakashi reached out across the table to gently grasp her wrist, pulling her hand away from her face so he could hold it in his own. He toyed with the ring on her finger, dropped his gaze. “Are you…?” he started and the look on his face shattered Rei’s heart.

               “K-Kakashi!” she gasped, her voice catching in her throat. She lifted her hand up to cup his cheek. “Of course not! I would never” she assured him. She tilted his chin up, forcing him to meet her gaze, and her eyes were soft and sullen. “I love you more than anything” she whispered. Sober relief washed over him and she cursed herself for having ever made him think otherwise. “I’ve just…I’ve had a lot on my mind” Rei sighed. “This afternoon gave me a lot to think about it.”

               “Oh?” Kakashi asked. “Like what?”

               “Well, Sekkachi and I were talking things over this afternoon—”

               “That’s never a good sign” Kakashi muttered. He knew the effect that Sekkachi often had on her. Kakashi would be lying if he said he approved of the way Sekkachi handled herself. He wasn’t entirely pleased with how easily she could manipulate Rei’s mental stability by sheer, unfiltered honesty. Not that Kakashi was one to sugarcoat the truth, but he also did not consider himself one to be so harsh with his words. Or at least not as far as Rei was concerned.

               “She was just asking all of these questions about our plans and stuff, which was fine, whatever, but then she said something that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about” Rei continued. “It was about…it was about our wedding date.”

               “What about it?” Kakashi asked. He massaged Rei’s palm in his hand, a sign of comfort, an encouragement.

               Rei sunk deeper into her chair and raked her fingers through her bangs. “Apparently she thinks it’s too far away, that we’re giving ourselves more time than we need” she explained.

               “Well, who cares what Sekkachi thinks?” Kakashi replied. “What does she even know about planning a wedding in the first place? We agreed we wanted to take our time, and that’s what we’re doing. What other people think of it doesn’t matter.”

               “I know” Rei sighed. She dropped her eyes to the ground, feeling her throat tighten. “I was feeling so confident in our decision, too, but…she unfortunately brought up a really strong counterargument.” Rei shuddered, her hand tensing in Kakashi’s grasp. Kakashi squeezed her hand ever so slightly, his own anxiety mounting.

               “Which was…?” he asked.

               Rei couldn’t stand to look at him. She slid her hand down to scratch Toshio behind the ear, debating whether she ought to give an answer at all. But she had already started on the topic, it was too late for her to back out now. “She was saying stuff along the lines of how dangerous our jobs are, and how there’s danger in waiting too long…” she started. A moment of silence passed as Rei waited for Kakashi to speak. When he did not, she felt the expectation in his grip and knew that she could not get away with being so vague. Rei sucked in a shaky breath as she elaborated, “I know she meant well, but she just didn’t want us to go to all of this trouble only for, um…for something to happen…to one of us.” Rei pursed her lips and glanced at Kakashi, her gaze stony with fear.

               Kakashi’s eyes widened as he began to understand what she meant, then narrowed in offense at the thought. “Rei, look at me” Kakashi said, desperate. He reached across the table, gently rested a hand upon her jawline to tilt her head upward. “Nothing is going to happen. I promise. I’m not going to let anything happen to me, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you, either. We’ll be fine.”

                “You think so?” Rei asked. The softness in her expression, the vulnerability like a scared little child, nearly broke Kakashi’s heart. Her genuine fear was almost palpable.

               Brushing the bangs out of her face, Kakashi leaned forward to sweetly kiss the tip of her nose. “I know so” he whispered. “I promise. You already know I’ll protect you with my life. I refuse to let anything get in the way of our future together.”

               A soft smile touched Rei’s lips as she brought her hand up to rest atop Kakashi’s and kissed his inner wrist. “I know” she whispered. Then, with a bittersweet laugh, she added, “This wedding shit really is turning out to be a lot more trouble than it’s worth.”

               Kakashi frowned. “I don’t think so” he replied. He slowly removed his hand from her face and settled back into his seat, picking his chopsticks back up again. “I know this has been a lot, but I think it will all be worth it in the end. After all, we deserve something truly special, don’t you think?”

               Rei leaned back in her seat, nodded slowly. “You’re right” she sighed.

               “The further along we get, the easier it’ll become” Kakashi assured, smiling as he took another bite of his food. “I promise. And you know how I am with promises.” He winked at her playfully and Rei couldn’t help but laugh. “Just one thing at a time” he added. “Everything will be just fine.”

               Forcing a smile, Rei gave a single nod and hoped to heaven that he was right.

               Despite Kakashi’s reassurances, Rei couldn’t bring herself to relax. She held Kakashi close as they settled into bed, her breathing heavy and her fingers going numb. Every time she closed her eyes, she envisioned lavish wedding ceremonies and crippling debt and a sea of white chiffon that strangled her as it consumed her completely. By sunrise, she was sore and sleep-deprived and manic. Anxiety rose up into her throat, jolted her heart, sent her reeling. It took all of her strength to swallow it back down and wait just a little bit longer. She lasted a mere ten minutes before the pulsing energy in the pit of her chest became too much to bear.

               “Kakashi…Kakashi, wake up” she whispered, nudging his shoulder. He furrowed his brows and grunted softly, shifting in his sleep. “Kakashi, this is important. I need to talk to you.”

               “It’s so early for talking…” Kakashi groaned, swatting her hand away. “Five more minutes.”

               “No, not five more minutes. Now” Rei insisted.

               Sighing, Kakashi forced his tired eyes open and squinted at her quizzically. “What’s going on?”

               “Kakashi, I’ve changed my mind” she said and suddenly Kakashi wasn’t so tired anymore.

               “W-what do you mean?” he asked, voice groggy, as he forced himself upright. He searched her face for some semblance of a clue, his mind warping back to those unfounded fears from the night before.

               “I don’t want a wedding ceremony” she said. Kakashi’s heart sank, his hands growing shaky. He cleared his throat and tried to remain composed.

               “Y-you don’t…?” he asked. So she was backing out on him. His worst fear was coming true. He didn’t think he could stomach the reality of it.

               Rei shook her head and for a moment, Kakashi swore her eyes were brimming with tears. “It’s too much, this is just causing me way too much stress, I can’t do this” she lamented. Kakashi reached out and took her hands in his, squeezing them gently, pleadingly. “I just…fuck it” Rei groaned. She locked her frantic, bloodshot eyes on him and there was a certain manic confidence that almost scared Kakashi. She licked her lips, deliberated, before finally saying it. “Let’s just go and get this over with.”

               Kakashi blinked, dumbfounded. “What do you mean?”

               “Let’s just trash the whole fucking ceremony and elope” Rei replied. “We can just walk right into the registrar’s office and have him marry us right then and there. No fancy dresses or expensive dinners or people we don’t want to deal with. Just you and me and a handful of witnesses. Quick and painless.”

               Kakashi wasn’t quite sure what to think. On one hand, the thought of them getting married today was horrifically exciting. To think, he could wake up tomorrow morning with Rei Natsuki—no, Hatake—his official wife. At the same time, however, something didn’t feel quite right about this. Had she really thought this through? Thoroughly and completely? Was this really what she wanted? Or was she just acting on impulse? Everything about this felt so rushed.

               “A-are you sure?” was all Kakashi could manage to choke out as his mind swirled with these conflicting thoughts.

               Rei gave a single, definitive nod. “Positive.”

               In her eyes, he caught not a single hint of uncertainty. Perhaps this truly was what she wanted after all. He wasn’t sure if it was from sleep-deprivation or her convincing confidence but as he sat here now, the more he tried to imagine a traditional ceremony, he found he couldn’t. Rather, all he could envision was something so intimate and immediate. Of her being his wife by nightfall. And to be fair, he knew deep down that for himself, the glamour of it all didn’t matter much to him to begin with. So long as he was with her, and they were professing their love and committing to one another, they could get married in a stable for all he cared.

               “O-okay…” Kakashi started slowly, nodding as he made his final decision. A grin then crept onto his face as he exclaimed, “Okay!” He chuckled and held Rei’s face in his hands, the excitement of this acceptance now overflowing. “Let’s go get married.”

               The overwhelming joy and relief that touched Rei’s face in that moment made everything else worth it. It wiped away his previous concerns and convinced him completely that this was going to be fine, that this was the best option for her sanity if nothing else. At the end of the day, Rei’s wellbeing was all that mattered to him. If this would benefit her morale, then so be it. Today would be the day they get married.

               “I’ve gotta go call Sekkachi and let her know” Rei replied, leaping to her feet, but Kakashi reached out and quickly grabbed her wrist before she could rush to the phone. She met his gaze in confusion as he tugged her back into bed, wrapping his arms and legs around her possessively and murmuring into her hair, “Five more minutes. We have all day.” Presented like this, it was an offer Rei couldn’t stand to refuse.

               It was nearly 10am when Kakashi and Rei finally managed to crawl out of bed. Smoothing her hair back out of her face, Rei smirked at him over her shoulder and asked in an almost teasing tone, “Are you well-rested now?”

               Kakashi grinned at her with as much innocence as he could muster as he asked back, “Are you?”

               Rei shook her head, her playfulness faltering. She rested a hand atop Toshio’s head and turned toward the window, watching the morning passerby trudge through the streets. “I don’t think I’ll be well-rested until we get this over with” she replied, peppering in a strained laugh in hopes of lightening her suddenly dour mood. Kakashi frowned as he watched her force herself up out of bed. The way she phrased that—until we get this over with—made it sound like she suddenly treated this like a chore. He tried to let it roll off his back, tried not to overthink it. “I have to go call Sekkachi and let her know what’s going on” Rei said, glancing over her shoulder as she tugged her sleep shirt down over her thighs. “Do you need to call Guy, too?”

               Kakashi shook his head as he tugged his shirt on over his head. “No, I actually have some errands to run so I’ll tell him while I’m out” he replied. He grabbed his mask and followed his fiancée out of their room.

               “Errands?” Rei cocked a brow. She hated to admit that the thought of him leaving her alone right now made her apprehensive. She needed him. Left to her own devices, she feared she would all too quickly spiral into her own insanity. After all, she was getting married today.

               “Don’t worry, I’ll be back before you know it” Kakashi assured her, kissing her forehead before tugging his mask up. “Besides, you’ll have Toshio to keep you company.”

               Toshio lumbered out of the bedroom, sleepy but satisfied, yawning widely at the mention of his name. He instinctively made his way to Rei’s side, nudging her hand with his wet nose and licking at her fingers with his lopping tongue. A soft smile touched Rei’s lips as she scratched under his neck. “Very true.”

               Rei lingered for only a moment as she watched Kakashi depart. In the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was really making the best decision. If this truly was what she wanted. She shuddered at the thought of having made a grave mistake and quickly did her best to shove all of those doubtful thoughts out of her mind. With a single, definitive nod, Rei turned on her heels and reached for the phone.

               Sekkachi sounded groggy on the other line. She barely even said hello. “You should know better than to call me this early in the morning” she groaned. “Someone better be dead.”

               “Sekkachi, it’s only ten o’clock” Rei countered.

               “Not in my time zone, it’s not” Sekkachi snarked back.

               “Oh really?” Rei smirked, voice filled with sassy incredulity. “You have your own time zone?” She twirled the phone cord around her index finger as she leaned against the kitchen counter, anticipating Sekkachi’s next excuse.

               “Yeah, it’s called WMT” Sekkachi replied.

               “WMT?” Rei asked. “What the fuck does that stand for?”

               “Wasting My Time zone” Sekkachi snarked and Rei could tell she was grinning at her own dumb joke through the phone.

               “Well, hop on a plane and fly into the Give a Fuck time zone because I need you for something” Rei demanded.

               “This early in the morning?” Sekkachi asked. “Why can’t Kakashi just help you out?”

               Rei sucked in a deep breath. “That’s the thing, it’s kind of a both of us situation.”

               “Oh god, he didn’t get his dick stuck in you, did he?” Sekkachi groaned.

               “God, no!” Rei shouted. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Get your mind out of the gutter.”

               “Hey, it’s a valid assumption!” Sekkachi replied.

               “In what universe?” Rei replied.

               “Listen, kid, I’ve seen some shit, okay?” Sekkachi chuckled.

               Rei grimaced, shaking her head. “I don’t even want to know” she muttered, rubbing her temples. It was genuinely too early for this. “Just come over here as soon as possible, okay? There’s been a change of plans. Kakashi and I have decided to get married today.”

               Sekkachi must have been chugging water on the other end of the call as Rei spoke because she immediately spluttered into the receiver and croaked out a strained, “I’m sorry, what?”

               “You heard me” Rei replied.

               “Please don’t tell me this is because of what I said yesterday” Sekkachi groaned. “You really need to stop taking everything so fucking literally.”

               “No, you were right” Rei replied. For once, she mentally added. “If something were to happen between now and next March, I’d never be able to live with myself. It’s not like my wedding needs to be this big, fancy event anyways. It’s not worth all of the stress. This is for the best, believe me. Besides, we’ve already made up our minds. This is happening.”

               “Alright” Sekkachi sighed, scratching the back of her neck. “So when do you want me to come over?”

               “As soon as possible” Rei replied. “Kakashi went out for…something, I don’t know what, but I don’t know when he’ll be back or when we’re going to the registar’s office or anything.”

               “He left you alone?” Sekkachi asked. Truthfully, she didn’t think Rei was at all in the right headspace to be left unsupervised right now. Sekkachi wasn’t even fully convinced Rei was sane.

               “It’s fine, I’m sure he just had to go pick up a few things for this afternoon” Rei replied. She tried to remain cool and casual but Sekakchi knew Rei all too well. It was obvious that underneath that fake façade, she was panicked.

               “Okay, I’ll be over in a few” Sekkachi replied and promptly hung up. She shook her head as she tugged her sandals on, tightened her ponytail, and swiped a messy tote bag off her desk chair as she departed. Of all the reasons to get woken up on a Tuesday morning, this was without a doubt the most bizarre.

               Sekkachi idled outside Rei’s door for a moment, mentally preparing herself for what she was about to walk into. Sure, this very well may have eliminated all of Rei’s planning stress but now she was likely consumed by a brand new, far more terrifying anxiety. She sucked in a deep breath before rapping rhythmically against the door. Rei called from inside for her to come in, that it was unlocked, and Sekkachi obliged.

               The apartment was unnervingly quiet. Something didn’t feel quite right—there was a buzz in the air, a static electricity in the floorboards. Rei sat on the living room floor, eyeshadow compacts and tubes of lipstick sprawled across the coffee table. She tilted her head back to grin at Sekkachi in greeting but her eyes immediately landed on the bag slung over her friend’s shoulder. “What is that?” she asked.

               Sekkachi held the bag up and grinned devilishly. “Supplies” she replied. “After all, we need to properly prepare for battle.”

               Rei watched in confusion as Sekkachi dropped the bag onto the floor with a heavy thud. She swiped Rei’s makeup across the table to make room before rooting around in her bag. Rei pursed her lips, gathering her own makeup into her little carrying container as Sekkachi set out her own weapons: a jar of face cream, half-empty bottles of nail polish, and CDs of their favorite metalcore music. The sight of it all warped Rei straight back to teenage all-nighters with Naru and Sekkachi, of mattress concerts and midnight snack runs. The nostalgia of it all nearly made her cry. She searched Sekkachi’s face for any hint of malice or teasing but instead found nothing but rare ingenuity. Her unexpected support was sweeter than Rei could’ve ever imagined.

               By the time Kakashi returned, the girls had usurped the couch for their own pampering purposes. Exfoliating creams painted their faces stark white like corpse paint, their hair pinned and pulled out of the way, as they hunched over to paint their toenails. Every so often, Toshio scooted nearer in an attempt to lick the sweet-smelling lotion off their cheeks and every time, Rei struggled to catch her breath as she laughingly shoved him away.

               “You two seem to be getting along” Kakashi greeted over the blare of their music, shutting the front door with his foot. In both arms, he cradled a large brown paper bag. Clipped between his fingers was a smaller, white paper bag with an all-too-familiar logo stamped on the front.

               Sekkachi smirked in greeting, looking up from her messy nail polish work. “Damn, Kakashi, what did you do? Raid the entire Konoha-mart?”

               Kakashi set the bags on the kitchen table before strolling forward and dropping the white paper bag onto an open space on the coffee table. “No” he replied, “but I did bring breakfast.” Rei grinned, her heart swelling, as she leaned forward to reach into the bag but paused right as her fingers hovered over the opening. Her nails were still wet and she couldn’t stand to ruin them. At the sight of her frown, Kakashi almost instinctively skirted around the table to reach inside for a pastry. He knelt down in front of Rei and held it out to her so she could graciously take a bite. “I had to pick up some appropriate clothing for the occasion, anyway” he continued.

               “Did you rent out a tux or something?” Rei asked, mouth full.

               Shaking his head, Kakashi replied, “Not exactly.” He pulled a napkin out of the bag and set the pastry down before returning to his wares. From inside one of the bags he pulled out a small black bowtie on a stiff white collar with a clasp in the back. “We can’t have the ninja hounds running around underdressed, can we?” he mused. Toshio rose to his feet, leaping and barking in wild approval. Kakashi patted his thigh to beckon the dog nearer, snapping the paper packaging off the collar as he crouched down. “I only hope they’ll all fit” he continued. Toshio’s neck was, unfortunately, rather thick.

               “How many of those did you buy?” Sekkachi asked.

               “Ten” Kakashi replied casually. He unfastened the clasp and struggled to wrap it around Toshio’s neck not because of his size but rather because he refused to sit still. “One for each of my ninken and two different sizes for Toshio just to be safe.”

               “Good thinking” Rei replied. Luckily, the extra collar was unnecessary as this one fit perfectly fine. As soon as Kakashi finished straightening it around the dog’s neck, Toshio spun and leapt happily before rushing over to Rei as if to proudly show off his new outfit. “What a handsome boy!” Rei laughed.

               “He certainly seems to be enjoying it” Kakashi chuckled. “Now to just get all the other dogs ready.” Pulling a kunai from his holster, he pricked his thumb and pressed it to the ground. In a cloud of smoke, Kakashi’s eight ninja hounds materialized in their living room.

               “Hey, Kakashi” Pakkun greeted from his trademark spot atop Bull’s head. “What’s up?”

               “I need to ask a favor of you all” Kakashi grinned. He held up the collection of bowties and explained, “Seems today is the day I get married, and I need you all looking your best for the occasion.”

               “So soon?” Pakkun asked but did not complain. Kakashi strode forward and slipped the little henohenomoheji vest off the dog, replacing it instead with the little black bowtie.

               “There’s been a slight change of plans” Kakashi explained. “I hope you don’t mind that I want you all in attendance.”

               “Not at all” Pakkun smiled. “Wouldn’t want it any other way, boss.”

               Rei couldn’t help but smile at the exchange. She turned to Sekkachi then and said, “I guess we better get ready, too.” Nodding, Sekkachi rose to her feet and stretched her arms out in front of her before scooping up her bag and heading back to the bedroom.

               “I’ll clean everything up later” she called over her shoulder.

               As she followed, Rei stopped to plant a sloppy kiss on Kakashi’s cheek, staining his mask with powdered sugar. He smiled and swiped the sugar off her bottom lip with his thumb and whispered, “I’ll be waiting.”

               “I’ll try not to take too long” Rei replied before slipping into the bedroom herself. His heart swelled as he lingered on the thought of her for a moment and god, he was so weak.

               Over the course of the next hour, Sekkachi displayed a certain tenderness that Rei was unsure she had ever seen in her before. She gave honest opinons about each outfit that Rei presented and even suggested pairing the top of one ensemble with the skirt of another. Ultimately, they decided on a simple white dress: sleeveless, short, with white eyelet lace. Rei pulled a floral haori from her closet to accompany it. She knew how chilly government buildings could often be, especially when the weather was warming up like it was.

               Rei smoothed her outfit out on the bed and something in her shifted. There was something so plain, so homely about an eyelet lace dress. Sekkachi rested a gentle hand on her shoulder and guided Rei into the bathroom, seating her squarely on the edge of the tub. Before she could protest, Sekkachi soaked a washcloth in the sink and began to gently scrub away the exfoliating cream on her face.

               “I think you should keep your bangs pinned back” Sekkachi commented as she worked. “I bet Kakashi would hate to get a mouthful of hair when he kisses you.”

               “As if I won’t get a mouthful of mask” Rei jested. A part of her hoped that Kakashi would remove it when the time came to kiss her, but she also was not going to get her hopes up. “Besides, my bangs help cover that nasty scar” Rei added just as Sekkachi’s cloth grazed the bridge of her nose. Sekkachi wondered if it hurt, if the aftereffect of her past still stung from the touch.

               Pursing her lips, Sekkachi muttered, “Fuck your scar.” Rei blinked, dumbfounded. “If Kakashi cared, he wouldn’t be marrying you.” Sekkachi turned to soak the washcloth in the sink, wringing out the water before doing one more quick swipe across Rei’s face. Once finished, she tossed the washcloth into the dirty clothes pile in the corner and guided her back into the bedroom. The front door creaked open as they went and Might Guy’s booming voice echoed through the apartment.

               Rei slumped down at her little vanity in the corner and surveyed her makeup. Sticking out of the little jar that held her makeup brushes as Grandma Teiko’s kanzashi. “Do you think you’ll wear that?” Sekkachi asked, motioning toward the hairpin.

               “Probably” Rei replied and a sharp pain suddenly struck her in the heart. She knew she should’ve called her parents, told them the news, but she didn’t want to face the consequences of their disapproval. Getting married was perhaps the only traditional thing Rei would ever do in her life. To mess that up for them, as well, would be dishonorable at best.

               Her parents’ absence didn’t even bother her that much, to be honest. She could do without her mother’s wailing and her father’s permanent scowl. Grandma Teiko, however, was a different story. Omitting her felt wrong, like the way you know something is amiss the minute you consume food that is expired or poisonous. It’s the gurgling in the pit of your stomach, the cold sweat, the realization that you have just made a terrible, terrible mistake. Rei clenched her jaw as she leaned closer to the mirror, smearing foundation haphazardly on her face to try and block out the negative thoughts like large pores. She did not need this added stress today. No, she was getting married and that was final.

               Sekkachi watched with pursed lips and it was obvious to her that Rei was spiralling. Her eyes darted back to the kanzashi and a tinkling sense of knowing struck in the back of her mind. She knew that Rei was being hasty, that she was making a huge mistake. And deep down, Rei knew it, too. It was only a matter of time before her mask cracked and she faltered. Her hand shook as she hovered over her eye with the unforgiving tip of a liquid eyeliner brush.

               “Here” Sekkachi said, pulling a kunai from her holster. “Let me help you.” She took the brush in one hand and gently pressed the blade of her knife against Rei’s cheekbone. It created a perfect straight line with which to guide the liner. “Naru taught me this way back when” Sekkachi mused. “I think it was for one of our Tomiko Trio gigs. Not that I ever used it much, but it came in handy for her.”

               “She never could leave the house without makeup on” Rei laughed. “I swear, she had to have had lip gloss in every color imaginable.”

               “I bet that’s why she always kept her hair so short” Sekkachi replied. “So that it wouldn’t get plastered to her lips all the time.”

               “She wore it well, though” Rei smiled softly. She gazed across the bed to the haori sprawled across the comforter. “She bought me that, you know.”

               Sekkachi glanced over and fought the sad smile creeping onto her face. “It looks like something she’d pick.”

               “Mmhmm” Rei affirmed. “It was for my first date with Kakashi.” It was strange to think of how far they had come. To remember the anxiety she felt that night they went to dinner, of how desperately she wanted to impress him. And now here she was, preparing to become his wife. “She had a great sense of style. Wearing it today just feels right.”

               “Like she’s somehow here with us” Sekkachi replied softly.

               “Exactly” Rei said, a bittersweet smile touching her lips.

               Sekkachi ran her fingers along the soft silk and for a moment, Rei thought she was going to cry. “I wish she was” she murmured, voice low and hoarse.

               Rei pursed her lips, tried not to ruin her makeup. “I do, too.”

               By mid-afternoon, all the preparations had been made. Sekkachi adjusted the kanzashi at the base of Rei’s bun as the bride surveyed herself in the mirror. She tried to comprehend that this was it, that she was getting married today, but even then it still didn’t feel real to her. She saw herself and did not think of herself as a bride. Sekkachi fed her a small, polite smile and whispered, “You look great.”

               She had since changed, herself, into a pair of pale blue pants and a white button down, sleeves dutifully rolled up. The idea of Sekkachi in a dress was blasphemous but Rei was not going to complain. She looked good, she was comfortable and confident. Sekkachi creaked the bedroom door open and idled in the threshold, clearing her throat to capture Kakashi and Guy’s attention.

               While the girls prepared, Kakashi had since snuck into he bathroom to change into a simple button down with a plain tie. A gray suit jacket was slung over the back of his chair. Might Guy had, similarly, come well-dressed. Or, perhaps in this case, overdressed. In true Might Guy fashion, he had arrived in a rather loud bright green suit with a ruffled shirt underneath. Kakashi had never been more grateful for his mask before as he tried to hide a smiel of secondhand embarrassment upon first seeing him. As they waited, Guy settled at the kitchen table and passed the time begging for an arm-wrestling match. Ultimately, Kakashi was no longer in a place to refuse. The ninken napped peacefully in a pile on the floor, Toshio’s feet twitching as he whined in his sleep.

               The moment the door creaked open, Guy and Kakashi paused and rose to their feet. Kakashi’s heart began pounding in his chest, his eyes wide and eager. A small smile touched Sekkachi’s lips as she recognized his anticipation. “She’s ready” she said, and stepped aside to allow Rei’s entrance.

               Rei kept her head subtly bowed as she stepped into the light, tucking a stray strand of hair back behind her ear. All Kakashi could manage was a soft wow. He could hardly fight the smile sneaking onto his face as he instinctively stepped forward and took her hands in his. “You look beautiful” he murmured, cupping her cheek and tilting her head up to look at him. There was so much love, so much happiness, in his gaze that Rei could’ve cried. He caressed her cheek and leaned down to kiss her softly before a gasp broke past his masked lips and he quickly turned to the kitchen. “I almost forgot” he said, motioning frantically to Guy.

               Guy immediately leapt into action, reaching across the kitchen counter to pull a small bouquet of pink roses and baby’s breath which he dutifully handed off to Kakashi. “You can’t get married without flowers!” he grinned.

               Kakashi blushed softly as he handed Rei the bouquet. “I thought they might be nice to carry” he grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “After all, don’t all brides have flowers?” Deep down, he hoped she would appreciate the gesture. He didn’t know nearly as much about flowers as Rei did and he would’ve hated to make a misstep in the meaning but he figured a failed attempt was better than no attempt at all. Or at least he hoped so. Rei smiled and hugged the bouquet to her chest, thanking him softly.

               In the background, Guy could hardly restrain his tears. “What passion! What romance! You two are truly an image of love!” he enthused, clenching his fists in enthusiasm. His vigor, evidently, woke the dogs, Bull’s ears perking up as his eyes lazily blinked open.

               Sekkachi peered around to check the clock and pursed her lips. “We better get going” she said. “We’re running out of time.” It was already 3:30 in the afternoon, and the registrar’s office closed at five. There was no telling how long this was going to take, or how long they were going to have to wait. The thought of multiple couples anxiously awaiting their own civil service further mounted Rei’s anxiety.

               Kakashi gave a single, definitive nod before taking Rei’s hand in his. He turned to her and asked softly, “Are you ready?”

               Rei squeezed his hand lightly, pursed her lips, hesitated. “Yes.”

               The registrar’s office seemed so much bigger than Rei remembered. Fax machines beeped and printers whirred down the hallway in the Konoha Social Affairs and Labor Division, where just a month ago she and Kakashi sat filing their license application. Kakashi clutched the approval letter, neatly folded, in his hand as they approached the reception desk.

               Kakashi cleared his throat lightly and a stuffy receptionist peered up from her book with immediate distaste. Rei recognized the cover as some housewife murder-mystery-romance novel that all of the book club moms were obsessed with. “Something tells me you all are here to get married” the woman droned in a nasally tone.

               “How could you tell?” Sekkachi called from behind.

               The receptionist, clearly unamused, surveyed Rei’s white ensemble and Kakashi’s button-down and tie. “Just a hunch” she said with a sour smile. “Has your marriage license been approved?”

               “As a matter of fact, it has” Kakashi replied, sliding the paper across her desk.

               The receptionist studied it over, smirking as she commented, “This was just sent out on Friday. Pretty eager, huh?” Her eyes darted to Rei’s stomach for a moment, as if to insinuate that their rapid wedding was in response to something, and suddenly Rei felt very much like she was going to be sick. She pressed a hand to her stomach and sucked in a deep breath, fighting to remain composed. “I’m going to need to see forms of identification to make sure you’re both who you say you are” the woman then said.

               Kakashi fished around in his back pocket for his ninja registration card, having taken Rei’s as well knowing full well that she had nothing to carry it in. He placed them both on the counter and smiled. The receptionist did not smile back as she took the cards and studied them closely. Then, lifting her gaze to Kakashi, she replied, “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to take off your mask.”

               “I…w-what?” Kakashi stammered, his face growing red. “I don’t see why that’s really necessary.”

               The receptionist narrowed her eyes in displeasure as she explained, “All masks and face coverings are prohibited so we can ensure that the identities of every party involved are clear and identifiable.” She tapped her manicured nails against the desk in impatience and added, “The last thing we need is something infiltrating the building and getting access to all of our records just because they lied about who they are.”

               Sekkachi smirked from the background. “That’s oddly specific” she snarked. “Does this happen often?”

               The receptionist shot her a fierce glare. “Your jokes are not amusing” she snapped. “We take national security very seriously here.”

               Kakashi blinked as he tried to organize his thoughts on this new obstacle. He understood why the protocol existed and in any other case, he would agree, but he refused to take off his mask. Sighing, Kakashi rubbed the back of his neck and replied, “You know, I didn’t want to have to do this but I guess I have no choice.” Opening his left eye, he revealed the sharp, hypnotic red of his sharingan. The receoptionist immediately went stiff, eyes wide and mouth agape, before shuffling behind her desk.

               “A-access granted!” she stammered. “Just turn the corner and the woman in the pink sweater will get your marriage license situated and guide you through the process!”

               Kakashi grinned innocently behind his mask. “Thank you!” he chimed. He tugged Rei’s hand lightly as he guided her along, the others following dutifully behind. Sekkachi shot the receptionist a cold-blooded smile as she passed. Meanwhile Guy raised an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

               The receptionist, clearly still flustered, nodded along before calling after them “C-Congratulations!” Never in a million years had she expected to one day be face to face with the searing sharingan of the renowned Kakashi Hatake. Now that she had, she was certain that the fear rooted in the pit of her stomach now was one she would never forget.

               Another, far more cheery-looking woman ushered them forward as they turned the corner. Above her head hung a sign that read Marriage and Business Licenses, the sight of which suddenly ripped a strange, suppressed memory out of Rei’s mind. She was six and her father’s business license for the bookshop was nearing expiration, so he unwillingly dragged his daughter along with him to apply for a renewal. For a moment, Rei was certain the woman facing them now was the same one she had met that day but then thought better of it. There was no way she could look exactly the same as she had twenty years ago. As she greeted them, Rei thought of her father’s inevitable disappointment. She willed herself forward.

               “I see we’re here to get married today!” the woman chirped. “Let me just get the paperwork all sorted for you and I’ll have the registrar come get you in about fifteen minutes for the service.”

               “Fifteen minutes?” Sekkachi asked in disbelief. “Damn, you guys really are quick.”

               Rei laughed nervously, considering whether or not to apologize for her friend’s abrupt outspokenness. The office printer whirred and hissed, spitting out a few pages that the woman divided in half and slapped onto two clipboards, then handed over to Kakashi and Rei.

               “You can just take a seat right over there until we call for you!” she grinned. Behind them was a long bench backed up against a wall. Rei slumped down, setting her bouquet beside her as she settled her clipboard onto her lap. She watched as Kakashi filled out his own forms beside her, the pen skating across the page as he filled out each question so effortlessly. Meanwhile, Rei could barely even concentrate on a single word. Much like the day before, none of this was making any sense to her. The whole page was nothing but foreign shapes with no meaning. She clicked her pen rapidly as she begged her mind to calm but instead, all she got were chaotic fragments of thought about what her parents would think, the impending service, and what they were going to do after all of this was finished. She envisioned her mother clapping her hands over her mouth and wailing about having missed her daughter’s rapidfire wedding. Her father would blame it all on Kakashi, refusing to accept their marriage as legitimate, and perhaps even disowning Rei altogether. She didn’t even want to consider Grandma Teiko. Her throat tightened at her inevitable disappointment, the somber look on her face as she accepted what had come to pass. Her unwavering support of both Rei’s feelings and her dreams in general had been instrumental. Marrying Kakashi behind her back was like a punch in the gut. Rei squeezed her eyes shut tight and sucked in a sharp breath.

               “You’re not getting cold feet, are you?” Sekkachi jested, nudging Rei’s elbow.

               Rei shook her head frantically. “No, I just…I think I need some fresh air” she replied weakly. Her stomach jolted and she was immediately certain she was going to be sick. With hand clapped over her mouth, Rei leapt to her feet and rushed down the hallway for the nearest bathroom.

               “R-Rei!” Kakashi called after her but it was no use. He stood, prepared to chase after her, but Sekkachi rested a gentle hand on his shoulder.

               “Let me handle this” she said and though Kakashi was desperate, he silently sank back down on the bench and obliged. He watched in defeat as Sekkachi raced down the hallway and disappeared the corner, hoping upon all hope that everything would be alright. Toshio followed close behind. Guy, sensing his rival’s anxiety, clapped him hard on the back and grinned.

               “I’m sure everything is going to be just fine” Guy assured. “They’ll be back in no time!”

               “I sure hope you’re right” Kakashi sighed.

               The narrow hallway began to constrict and sway as Rei searched for a way out. Even the signs in the building looked foreign and the longer it took to find the bathroom, the sicker she felt. She turned another corner and the only sign she could comprehend was EXIT. Her legs felt like jelly as she shoved herself forward, bursting out into the street and immediately keeling over, hands on her knees, gasping for breath. “Fuck!”

               A few moments passed and the door creaked open slowly behind her. Oh god, Rei thought, choking on her insurmountable anxiety. She heard the steady trotting and panting of a familiar friend, however, and was delighted to find Toshio lumber up beside her. He nudged her hand with his snout and licked at her fingers in comfort. Somehow he always seemed to know when she was spiralling.

               Truhfully, she would’ve been grateful if he was the only one to come searching for her but knowing her luck, she’d be cursed with a parade. Mere seconds later, a blunt voice called from behind “You lose your way to the bathroom or something?”

               “Fuck, Sekkachi, now is not the time” Rei groaned, digging the heels of her hands into her eye sockets.

               “You okay?” she asked, moving nearer. She knew it was a risky move, but she placed a gentle hand on Rei’s shoulder anyway. “You look fucking awful.”

               “Thanks, that’s a great thing to say to someone on their wedding day” Rei snapped.

               Sekkachi narrowed her eyes, sucked in a sharp breath. “Rei, you and I both know that this isn’t your wedding day. Not really.”

               Rei shook her head. “No, that’s not true” she countered. “I’m going to go back in there and get married, I just…I just need a minute.”

               “You need a lot more than just a minute” Sekkachi argued. “Face it, kid, you jumped the gun. This isn’t what you really want and you know that. Listen, I’m sorry if whatever I said yesterday fucked you up in the head but you’re taking this too far.” Rei squeezed her eyes shut and tightly wrapped her arms around her stomach, restraining a sob. She could feel the hot tears rushing from behind her eyes, threatening to spill down her cheeks. Why did she always get herself into these messes? Why did she always get so ahead of herself? And why did everything constantly feel so out of control? “Come here” Sekkachi murmured and drew Rei into her strong arms. “Rei, listen to me” she said softly. “If there was anyone in the entire world who deserved a nice, big, beautiful wedding, it would be you. You and I both know you don’t really want to do this. Let’s just all go back home and put this behind us.”

               Sniffling Rei nodded and rubbed her face. God, she was so damn tired. “But what about Kakashi and Guy? God, they’re going to be so fucking mad at me” she whined. Her heart jumped into her throat, choking on a sob, as she gasped, “Kakashi is going to hate me.”

               Sekkachi couldn’t help but laugh. “Rei, I don’t think there is anything you could ever do to make Kakashi genuinely hate you” she assured her. She brushed the long bangs back out of Rei’s face and poked her cheek in a sisterly manner. “Believe me, no one is going to be mad at you for walking back in there and calling this whole thing off. I think it’s safe to say we all kind of feel the same way about this whole situation. We’re not going to fault you for getting your head on straight. If anything, I’m actually kind of grateful.”

               “You’re such an asshole” Rei chuckled tiredly, shoving Sekkachi lightly away from her. She smoothed her hair back, shakily inhaled. “But you’re right. I guess there’s only one thing left to do now.” Toshio nuzzled her hand affectionately as Sekkachi wrapped an arm around Rei and guided her back inside.

               Kakashi immediately rose to his feet the moment the three of them turned the corner. The registrar was already waiting for them, a curious and mildly impatient look on his face. “Are you okay?” Kakashi asked, rushing to Rei’s side. He placed his hands on her shoulders and searched her face for panic, distress, sickness.

               Wiping her nose with the back of her hand, Rei sniffled and replied, “Yeah, yeah I’m alright.” God, how was she supposed to do this? She glanced at Sekkachi over her shoulder but she had already skirted around the group to stand beside Guy.

               “See, I told you everything would be a-okay!” Guy shouted happily, grinning from ear to ear. Then, turning to Sekkachi, he wrapped an around her amicably and announced, “Come on, Sekkachi, we better go get some good seats! I want to sit right up front!” Before Sekkachi could protest, Guy dragged her into the little chapel and pulled her next to him in the front row. The ninken followed close behind—all but Toshio, who refused to leave Rei’s side.

               The registrar looked to the young couple as he skirted into the chapel himself, muttering, “Now moving right along…” He held a clipboard to his chest and his eyes were squinty and small behind his wire-frame glasses.

               “W-wait a second—” Rei called, reaching out for the man. He turned to her in disgust and she knew immediately that this was going to be much harder than she expected. Her mouth opened and shut once, twice, three times as she tried to force the words up out of her throat. “I didn’t finish filling out my paperwork” she finally croaked.

               Rolling his eyes, the registrar reached across the bench and shoved the little bouquet into Rei’s hands. “Well, we are on a very tight schedule” he snapped. “You can finish it after the ceremony.” He turned on his heels then and waltzed inside, waiting at the wooden podium in the center of the room. There was no way out. Rei was done for.

               Classical music crackled from the ancient speakers overhead, droning and screeching through the static. Kakashi pursed his lips, eyes straight ahead. The chapel itself was nothing special. It barely even qualified as a chapel, with oatmeal colored walls and crunchy brown carpet. Panels on the guest benches were loose and squeaked with movement. The whole place smelled like mildew. Clearly civil ceremonies were not a priority in the government’s budget.

               “Are you ready?” Kakashi asked, glancing down at his future wife. She stood stock-still, back stiff and eyes wide.

               “K-Kakashi, I…” she choked, squeezing his hand tightly. Kakashi eyed her curiously, his heart beating fast as he anticipated her words. Finally, she whipped around to face him and lamented, “Kakashi, I can’t do this.”

               Rather than panic, Kakashi appeared almost…relieved. The look on his face, the soft sigh and the drop of his shoulders, were not at all what Rei was expecting. Rei’s face faltered, her eyes watering before a sob broke past her lips, and Kakashi immediately pulled her into a tight embrace. Her bouquet fell to the floor.

               “Rei, shh, it’s okay” Kakashi whispered, petting her hair and rubbing her lower back. Her body heaved and her hands shook around his waist. “It’s okay, we don’t have to do this.”

               “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Fuck, I’m so sorry!” she cried, burying her face in his chest. She didn’t even care that her makeup was running, that she was likely smearing inky black eyeliner all over his crisp white shirt. “I just…I can’t do this. Not like this.”

               “Shh, I know” Kakashi whispered, trying to calm her down. Guy and Sekkachi peered through the doorway, glancing to each other, as the registrar huffed and tapped his foot.

               “So are we getting married or not?” the man called from the podium. “Come on, I’m not going to wait all day!”

               Sekkachi whipped around to glare at the man, snarling. “Can you shut the fuck up for five goddamn seconds?” she snapped. “Do you do this to everyone? Hmm? Ruin the happiest day of their life with your constant complaining? If I wasn’t so fucking sore from kicking Guy’s ass all day yesterday, I’d shove my foot so far up your—”

               “Sekkachi!” Guy interrupted, placing his hands on her shoulders and reeling her in. “He’s not worth your effort.”

               Grumbling, Sekkachi shoved Guy off of her and sunk down in her seat, arms crossed and a scowl sitting deep on her face. The registrar’s face paled and he shook his head in disdain. “I really hate shinobi” he muttered under his breath.

               Rei turned her head and dropped her eyes to the floor, unable to so much as look at Kakashi. She could only imagine how upset he must have been with her. After all, she had made such a big fuss about this, had seemed so confident this morning, and now she was backing out on him. “I don’t want to get married someplace that smells like mold and looks like a classroom” she wept. “I don’t want to wear something out of my closet, and I don’t want to do this without my family. I-I want a nice wedding…I want us to have a real wedding. I don’t want to marry you like this, I just—I’m so sorry, Kakashi! I’m so fucking sorry…”

               Kakashi’s heart broke hearing her hysterical explanations. He cupped her cheek, forced her to look at him. “Rei, it’s alright, I promise” he assured her. He pressed his forehead against hers, caressed her cheek, ran his fingers through her hair. “I know this isn’t what you really want. There’s still time. We can turn around and go right back home, and plan a real wedding. We don’t need to do it like this, I promise. It’s okay. Everything is okay.”

               Rei sniffled, closed her eyes. A few more tears rolled down her cheeks. “A-are you sure?” she asked, voice hoarse. “And you’re sure you’re not mad at me?”

               “Positive” Kakashi replied, planting a quick little masked kiss on her lips. “Come on, let’s go home.”

               Guy glanced to Sekkachi as he watched the couple reconcile in the doorway. “I can’t hear anything, what are they saying? What did they decide?” he asked.

               Sekkachi swatted at the air. “How am I supposed to know if you keep talking in my ear?!” she whined.

               The registrar pursed his lips, slammed the clipboard down impatiently on the podium. “Well? I’m waiting!” he shouted.

               Kakashi held Rei close as he turned to the man and replied, “The wedding is off. Looks like we won’t be getting married today after all.” He grinned innocently, fully prepared to take the brunt of this man’s wrath. It was the least he could do. There was no way he was going to shove his hysterical fiancée into the line of fire.

               The registrar gritted his teeth, violently shoving his clipboard under his arm and pushing past them out the doorway. Under his breath, he muttered something along the lines of kids these days don’t know how to make a goddamn commitment and a repeat of his hatred for shinobi.

               Rei watched him depart like a small child recently saved from bullies on the playground. “Are you sure you’re not mad at me?” she whispered to Kakashi.

               Kakashi smiled down at her softly, sweetly. “Positive” he said once again. He leaned down then to pick her bouquet up off the ground, then scooped her up in his arms, bridal style. “Come on” he then said. “Let’s go home.”

               It felt so strange crossing the threshold of their apartment in Kakashi’s arms like that, knowing full well that they did not, in fact, get married. He set her down gently on the couch, removed her shoes for her, then pulled his shuriken-print blanket from their bed and covered her sweetly. Sekkachi, Guy, and all of the ninja hounds followed them inside.

               “So what now?” Rei asked, drawing her knees up to her chest.

               Kakashi kicked his shoes off and settled into the seat beside her. “Well,” he started, wrapping his arms around her. She instantly settled against his chest, humming comfortably. “I suppose we just go right back to where we were yesterday. We take things one step at a time and plan a real wedding.”

               Sekkachi fell back into the nearest chair, folding her arms behind her head. “So long as you still want to get married in the first place” she commented, only half-joking. Guy shot her a fierce glare as he settled onto the armrest of her chair.

               Blinking, a new fear filled the pit of Kakashi’s chest. He looked down at Rei quizzically, asked, “You do still want to get married, right?” The thought of never taking her for his wife terrified him, and the rejection of a wedding meant that a rejection of their relationship at large would likely not be far behind. But if she no longer felt that marriage was appropriate for them, he would honor that—sad as he may be.

               “Of course” Rei assured him, reaching up to rest her hand upon his jaw. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life as anything other than your wife, Kakashi. I don’t want to imagine a life without you in it.”

               She said those words and Kakashi knew instantly that his fears were completely unfounded. Of course she still loved him. Of course she still wanted to be with him. He was dumb to ever think otherwise.

               “Well, while we’re at it” Sekkachi started, “We might as well just order something to eat and hang out the rest of the night. A little celebratory dinner.”

               Rei couldn’t help scoff. “What the fuck are we even celebrating?” she snarked.

               Sekkachi twirled a lock of her blue hair around her index finger, replied casually, “Oh, you know, the avoidance of bad choices. Coming to our senses at the last minute. Finally accepting what you know you deserve—a real wedding.”  

               Guy grinned and shouted in agreement, “There is nothing more celebratory than making the right choice!”

               “I guess you’re right” Rei shook her head, but she didn’t seem entirely convinced.

               “Are you hungry?” Kakashi asked, rubbing her forearm. “We can get food from that place that you like.”

               Guy’s eyes lit up at the mention of Chukaryori Inn. “It looks like I have a rematch with a pupu platter!” he announced. “Sekkachi and I will go pick up the food, you two just stay here and relax!”

               Before she could protest otherwise, Guy was lifting Sekkachi up out of her chair and dragging her out the front door. She groaned, throwing her head back, complaining as they went, “Why do you always rope me into errands, Guy? Can’t you just do it yourself?”

               “Because boring stuff is always more fun with a friend” Guy insisted. “Besides, don’t you think Kakashi and Rei deserve a little alone time?” He arched a bushy brow as he said this, and Sekkachi suddenly began to comprehend his aim. Or at least her interpretation of it, which was likely far more inappropriate than he truly intended. Either way, it didn’t matter much. They went on their way, takeout menu in hand (complete with Rei and Kakashi’s usuals circled for easy ordering), and the young, not-yet-wed couple were finally alone.

               Toshio invited himself up onto the couch, making himself comfortable at Rei’s feet. She chuckled softly as she leaned down to remove his bowtie. “I guess you won’t be needing this for a while now” she muttered but as her hand took hold of the clasp, Toshio whipped around and growled at her in defense. Rei raised her hands in surrender and leaned back, not wanting to anger him.

               “I think he likes it a little too much” Kakashi joked, reaching out to scratch Toshio behind the ear.

               “He does look especially handsome” Rei laughed, settling back against Kakashi’s chest. She toyed with the hem of his blanket wistfully, thinking through all the chaos of the day. Had she really made the right choice in backing out? Or would they have been better off just getting married right then and there? But she couldn’t shake the thought of her family’s reactions. They deserved to be there, regardless of how insufferable her mother’s blubbering would be and how sharp and disdainful her father’s gaze. Wasn’t that what weddings were all about, anyway? Gathering up all the most important people in your life only to have them spend the next few hours judging you and your life decisions? She supposed the dull, sufferable aspects were all a part of the package deal.

               “Are you alright?” Kakashi asked, stroking her hair as he watched her fidget.

               “Yeah, I’m fine” she sighed. “I just…want to make sure I did the right thing. I want to make sure that you’re not upset with me.”

               Pakkun trotted forward, his fat little body hopping up into Rei’s lap. He circled once, twice, three times before finally settling. “I think you did the right thing” the dog replied. “I knew you were rushing into things the moment Kakashi brought us here.”

               Kakashi shrugged. “He’s not wrong” he said to Rei. “I think you did the right thing, too. We both got caught up in our own impatience.”

               “God, I’ll say” Rei replied. A soft sigh broke past her lips as she reached up to take his hand in hers. “I just…don’t want anything to happen to us. I don’t want anything to come between us and our future. I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

               Kakashi massaged her palm with his thumb, brought her hand up to kiss along her knuckles. “You know I won’t let anything happen” he whispered. “Our future together means more to me than anything. It’s what I live for—the promise of spending the rest of my life with you. Come hell or high water, I am going to fight every day to make that a reality.”

               “Yeah?” Rei smiled, tilting her head back to better view him.

               “Of course” Kakashi grinned.

               “And what kind of future do you see for us, anyway?” she asked.

               “Well, to start, we’ll be married” Kakashi chuckled, twisting the ring on her finger. “We’ll move into a nice house, one with a big enough yard for all the dogs.” At this, Toshio and all the other ninken barked and howled in enthusiastic approval. Kakashi’s hand slid down to rest atop Rei’s stomach, whispering in her ear, “And anyone else who may come along.”

               The sound of his voice and the proximity of his lips tickled Rei’s ear, and she squirmed and laughed as she rested a hand atop Kakashi’s. “I hope you’re right” she whispered back. Her eyes were beginning to grow heavy, the lack of sleep finally catching up to her. “I hope we have a big, happy family” she sighed, settling in against his chest.

               “How big?” Kakashi asked.

               Yawning, Rei whispered, “Lots and lots of babies. Maybe…six…”

               Kakashi chuckled, shook his head. “Maybe let’s just focus on getting married first” he jested. He brushed the hair back out of her face, craned his neck so he could kiss her cheek.

               “Mhmm…” Rei hummed softly. “First comes love…then comes marriage…” she muttered, but she had seemingly already fallen asleep before she could finish the third part.

               By the time Sekkachi and Guy returned with dinner, Rei was already dead asleep. Sekkachi’s face fell at the sight of her—to think, they went to all of that trouble only for her to pass out on them. Kakashi said they could just put her food in the fridge and she could eat it later—he knew she needed her sleep and he did not want to infringe on that, especially now that she was calm enough to sleep in the first place. Sekkachi and Guy did not overstay their welcome, but they kept the copy ninja company for at least a little while. The three of them spoke in hushed tones as they ate their dinner, freezing whenever Rei stirred in her sleep. It was nightfall by the time they quietly departed, telling Kakashi to take good care of Rei and let her know that they cared very deeply about her. He lifted her up, blanket and all, and transported her into bed and as she laid there, curled up and peaceful, his heart swelled. He couldn’t wait to start his future with her, to see what the future held for them, but he could stand to wait to do things right. After all, it was what they truly deserved: an appropriate celebration to the beginning of the rest of their lives. It would all be well worth the wait.  

#this ended up being so damn long help lmfao #kakashi hatake #rei natsuki #kakashi x oc #the scarecrow and the bell #naruto #naruto oc #fanfiction #ramblings

[kyogre-blue]

Naruto Shippuden, ep 484-488

This filler is about Sasuke... in theory. It doesn’t really show that much about him and I wouldn’t say he develops in any way. It’s fairly dull. 

It’s also incredibly annoying. There are two issues, both with the filler characters. The first is their powers. Fuushin’s unspecified kekkei genkai seems to be related to wind, but he is also able to make exploding knives. That’s... whatever, fine. But the Chinoike are just ridiculous. They’re first introduced as having a doujutsu, the Ketsuryugan, which allows them to use strong genjutsu. The Uchiha were hired specifically to deal with that. But ACTUALLY their power is over blood, which is far more versatile and notable, and has jackall to do with their doujustu. It’s all insanely annoying. 

The second issue is Chino’s massive hypocrisy. You can view it as more “this villain might have a point, so we better make them super evil to make sure the audience doesn’t think too hard.” Alternatively, she’s pretty obviously clinging to ridiculous justifications for herself. 

In either case, Chino presents the idea that, to the person suffering, the perpetrators and those who stand aside doing nothing as both cruel. She calls them equally bad, but either way, the point is that if you see something wrong and don’t act, you’re also in the wrong. That’s pretty interesting! And very applicable for shinobi, who don’t do anything if there isn’t money or their own village involved. 

But Chino herself then kills dozens of completely unrelated bystanders and wants to kill all of Konoha (???) for no particular reason except that I guess it would make her feel connected to her ancestors. She also doesn’t bother targeting Oyashiro (who is still free at the end), or Kiri who actually killed half her gang, or the nasty as hell daimyos, or anyone actually doing evil that she is perfectly aware of. She picks the most unnecessary and ridiculous target. 

And of course, this entire message is totally ridiculous when Orochimaru is right there. 

484: 

Aun Gate is how the subs render the gate name. 

Former Anbu Tadaichi, a regular at Ino’s shop. 

Chouji can now grow wings on one bag of potato chips. 

Chino and Nowaki claim to be former shinobi who are now performers. Old man Iou and his daughter Amino. Fuushin and the Lighting Gang (Raikou-dan), who acted as robin hood types. 

Sasuke can use his Sharingan to look into people’s memories. 

485: 

Orochimaru is just traveling around, doing whatever. Yamato is tailing him but... 

En Oyashiro, an arms trader. We find out later that he’s been buying child slaves with kekkei genkai and training them to be shinobi. For... probably two decades and counting. 

An unmarked island for the rich, with a Coliseum where their pet shinobi fight. Makibi Corporation, Himeyuri Company, Kusabi Real Estate Group, if you need some buddies for Gatou. (Although Gatou was apparently a small-fry, messing around with hired samurai thugs and missing nin. Raising your own child soldiers is where it’s at.) 

486: 

Sasuke already has eyebags around age 19 or so. 

Fuushin was born in Mizu, but the villagers (including his own parents??) sold him for having a kekkei genkai. They blamed him for causing a typhoon. 

Chinoike clan, with the Ketsuryugan. Their actual power is over blood. Previously from Lightning, they had a daughter marry the daimyo. When he died, another concubine framed her, so the entire clan was exiled to Hell Valley in Hot Spring. The Uchiha were hired to do so due to their Sharingan. This was before Konoha’s founding. 

Orochimaru makes smart remarks about the oppressed Uchiha clan once oppressing others, but that’s... quite different.....

Sasuke wonders if Itachi knew. Probably not! Have you seen Konoha keep proper records of anything? Also, Itachi wiped out a clan of innocent people, he can deal with it. 

To return to his real form, Fuushin slashes his wrists and momentarily swells up like the exploding people. I guess Chino injected some of her blood into him to transform him? 

487: 

Fighting the Ketsuryugan makes Sasuke’s Sharingan bleed. He also needs to use Mangekyou. So blood powers and also OP genjutsu, makes lots of sense...

Chino says the clan decided to stay in Hell Valley since they were tired of fighting. This sounds weird on multiple levels, but ok

Chino’s Ketsuryugan also bleeds when used. 

The old man at the start actually asked for their help, so him turning on the Lightning Gang is especially nasty. 

The gang were hired by Kiri to attack the Mizu daimyou (during Yagura’s era), but Kiri were actually setting them up. They could get rid of a free faction while also cozying up with the daimyo. 

Their cloaks had lightning bolts on them, how cute. 

488: 

Chino, Fuushin and their buddy are taken to a Konoha prison. Unlike Orochimaru!

The Mizukage wants to take charge of them. Mei wants to work with them, given Kiri’s past betrayal. 

Kakashi tells them they must atone for the rest of their lives. Unlike Orochimaru!!

Sasuke does go back to the Coliseum to free all the shinobi there according their rules. I’m not sure why he does this, since the entire gambling ring is broken up by A because the island is close to Kumo. He says that this is thus Kumo’s problem to deal with... but WHY. Shinobi are not law enforcers? Where and how does he have authority to take all these rich assholes into custody? Or shut down their business? It’s not even explained which part is illegal. 

Final twist: Oyashiro is from the Chinoike. After his wife died, he killed his entire clan. Chino is his daughter, so her issues are especially something in retrospect. Orochimaru has the guts to call him a “doting parent” despite him messing her up so much that she ripped a kid’s ear off with her teeth in training. He, an arms dealer and a slave trader, is free to do whatever he wants at the end :) 

SS continues to be... bad. 

#now playing #watching naruto

[untamedtempest]

GOD I AM SO SORRY FOR THIS

Name: Shinobi Shaw, (former) Black King of the Hellfire Club and Black Bishop of the Hellfire Trading Company and former owner and CEO of Shaw Industries who is really really sexy Age: Yours Do you like to cuddle?: I like writing around in a mass of naked oiled up bodies, that’s kind of the same right? Can we make-out?: Take my muzzle off and my mouth is all yours! A night in or dinner out?: “I’d woo you by buying the finest five star restaurant for the night. Just you and me in the entire place. And then they’d deliver dessert to my penthouse so it’d be waiting for us when we got there.” Ice cream or chocolate covered strawberries?: “Ice cream topped with crowned with Italian truffles and rare ambrosial Iranian saffron, with a sprinkling of gold flakes. The fruit will get involved later.” What makes you a good Valentine?: “Haven you SEEN me? And my father’s bank account?” Would you cook for me?: “I’d serve up MYSELF” Would you let me cook for you?: “If you… want? But what I really want to eat is–“ ALRIGHT IM CUTTING HIM OFF

valentine’s day application / @shinobixshaw​

*Stuff in trash and promptly sets on fire by way of lightning.*

#shinobishaw #(ah hard pass #but BAHA! #this is perfection <3 #b: answered prayers (asks) #b: when i was girl the sky called me home (queue) #submission

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: Five Fabulous Naruto Filler Arcs and Where to Find Them

  When an anime adaptation out-paces the production of the manga that serves as its source, the dreaded “filler episode” and “filler arc” raise their ugly heads. “Filler” is so named because it's designed to fill time and space, diverting from the main story-lines until there's enough new material to adapt, but as a result, filler episodes generally can't advance the narrative or develop the characters in meaningful ways.

  There are 89 pure filler episodes in the 2002-2007 Naruto TV anime, comprising about 40 percent of the series. And while some filler tries to reproduce the same emotional and narrative beats of earlier, non-filler episodes, other filler — the finer filler, if you will — does its own thing and manages to be entertaining despite not having a canonical manga chapter to adapt.

  With that in mind, I present to you an unofficial list of the Five Best Naruto Filler Arcs and Episodes, as chosen by me.

    "Episode 97 - Kidnapped! Naruto's Hot Spring Adventure!”

  When the going gets tough, the animators head to the onsen for a hot springs episode. Aside from being the second pure filler episode in the series (after “Episode 26 - Special Report: Live from the Forest of Death!”), this one-shot story is notable for having Jiraiya behave like a complete perv and for Tsunade's crippling gambling addiction as the true antagonist of the tale. Naruto tries to help the debt-collectors, while Shizune disguises herself to try to spare Tsunade's reputation. It's a truly rocky start for the newly crowned Fifth Hokage.

    “Episode 148 - The Search for the Rare Bikochu Beetle” to “Episode 151 - Blaze Away, Byakugan! This Is My Ninja Way!”

  A bug-themed arc in which Naruto and the ninja of Team 8 (Kiba, Akamaru, Shino, and Hinata) search for an extremely rare beetle with the intent of using it to track Sasuke by scent, this arc is notable because it introduces the rival Kamizuru clan, a group of ninja that are all abuzz about wielding bees as weapons. It also gives Hinata a moment to shine when she rescues herself from mortal peril and protects the group with an awesome application of her Gentle Fist technique. It's an otherwise cool story-line that is hampered by having a fart joke for a conclusion.

    “Episode 169 - Remembrance: The Lost Page” to “Episode 173 - Battle at Sea: The Power Unleashed!”

  Something's fishy in the Land of the Sea and Anko Mitarashi, Naruto, Shino, and Ino are dispatched to stop a rampaging sea monster that turns out to be a sympathetic survivor of Orochimaru's hideous human experiments. This filler arc is notable because it delves deep into Anko's back-story as Orochimaru's former pupil, and it ends on a positive note with Anko overcoming the trauma of her past and helping to rescue a friendly fish-girl in the process.

    “Episode 186 - Laughing Shino”

  Filler doesn't have to be deep to be entertaining, and there's an undeniable appeal in watching Naruto and Shino being forced to participate in the Ninja World equivalent of “you laugh, you lose.” After Shino is hit with a poison that causes uncontrollable laughter, Naruto must tough it out in order to help determine who becomes the rightful heir to the Fugetsu family fortune, with the sole provision being that the candidates (and their hired body-guards) can't crack up during the funeral. It's fun to witness Naruto trying desperately not to chuckle when confronted with a gauntlet of goofy jokes, and it's also a rare chance to see a lighter side of the normally sullen and taciturn Shino Aburame.

    “Episode 197 - Crisis: The Hidden Leaf 11 Gather!” to “Episode 201 - Multiple Traps! Countdown to Destruction”

  One of my favorite arcs in all of Naruto — this filler arc features Naruto befriending an elderly and unassuming carpenter named Genno ... who turns out to be a master ninja infiltrator with a deadly grudge against Hidden Leaf Village. Genno blames the Leaf for the destruction of his home during the previous Great Ninja War, and he's had decades to secretly plant bombs throughout the entire town. It takes the combined efforts of three generations of Leaf ninja to foil Genno's schemes, and although the status quo is ultimately restored, this filler arc is great at conveying a nail-biting atmosphere of ticking clock tension and shinobi suspense.

    Like a nine-tailed fox sealed inside of an ambitious adolescent ninja, filler episodes in Naruto are a tricky beast. Sometimes you get cool stories and character moments, sometimes you get substitute Sasukes, knock-off Narutos, and Rock Lee turning into a Muppet while the animators scramble to evoke the same emotional highs as the Zabuza/Haku story-line. If you're willing to dig, though, there's gold to be found amidst the rubble, and the above list can help you in your excavations.

  If you'd like to see the Crunchyroll features team experience all of Naruto, filler included, be sure to check out THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL REWATCH. Naruto is currently streaming on Crunchyroll, and if you prefer your ninja shenanigans filler-free, English language versions of the original Naruto manga are available from Viz Media.

  Did your favorite filler episodes make the list? Do you prefer to skip the filler, or do you welcome the challenge? Let us know in the comments section below!

      Paul Chapman is the host of The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast and GME! Anime Fun Time.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

[kiyoitsukikage]

Naruto Shinden - characters and prologue

Hiya guys, my novels finally arrived.

As some of you pointed out, there are already translations of Shikamaru Shinden (by the awesome @shadlay) and Sasuke Shinden (by the gorgeous OrganicDinosaur).

Of Naruto Shinden, on the other hand, I could only find excerpts, so I'm gonna pick up the translation myself.

Same rules as before: don't copy, don't repost. I'll keep the translation online just for a short while, but if you miss some parts I'll send them privately. Aaaand: support the official release (it's important).

(One last thing: I'm translating as fast as I can, but I probably won't be able to complete the novel before leaving for a two-week trip where I won't be able to translate, so I can't fix a schedule of posting or whatever).

Naruto Shinden – oyako no hi

Naruto’s true story – parent and child day

Masashi Kishimoto, Mirei Miyamoto

(Sorry if I'm not posting photos this time, but there's really nothing interesting to show you~)

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1: Father and daughter, dashing through Konoha

Chapter 2: Father and daughter, the form of happiness

Chapter 3: Father and daughter, a lonesome dining table

Chapter 4: Father and daughter, cold flames and boiling fire

Epilogue

 Shino’s interlude

Interlude 1: With Shino-sensei! Lunch!

Interlude 2: With Shino-sensei! Gemaki!*

Interlude 3: With Shino-sensei! Parent and child!

Interlude 4: With Shino-sensei! Helicopter Parent?

 *Short for Geki Shinobi Emaki, ‘extreme ninja picture scrolls’, the new Boruto card game featured in the anime and Ikemoto’s spin off.

CHARACTERS

Uzumaki Naruto       Seventh Hokage. Hero of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Former member of Team 7.

Uzumaki Hinata      Byakugan user from the Hyūga family. Former member of Team 8.

Uzumaki Boruto       Genin of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. His hobby is the Gemaki (tcg*).

Uzumaki Himawari  Boruto’s younger sister. She inherited the Byakugan.

Hyūga Hiashi            Head of the Hyūga family and Hinata’s father. Byakugan Master.

Uchiha Sasuke          Naruto’s friend, as well as rival. Former member of Team 7.

Uchiha Sakura          Sasuke’s wife as well as master of medical ninjutsu. Former member of Team 7.

Uchiha Sarada          Genin of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Boruto’s classmate.

Akimichi Chōji         Master of the Baika no Jutsu. Former member of Team 10, as well as one of the Inoshikachō.

Akimichi Karui        Chōji’s wife. Former ninja of the Village Hidden in the Clouds.

Akimichi Chōchō     Genin of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. She loves food.

Nara Shikamaru      Hokage counsellor. Former member of Team 10, as well as one of the Inoshikachō.

Nara Temari             Older sister of the Fifth Kazekage, Gaara. Shikamaru’s wife.

Nara Shikadai          Genin of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Boruto’s best friend.

Yamanaka Sai          Master of the Chōjū-giga. Fromer Anbu.

Yamanaka Ino           Daughter of the Yamanaka Flower Shop. Former member of Team 10, as well as one of the Inoshikachō.

Yamanaka Inojin      Sai and Ino’s son. He inherited the Chōjū-giga.

Rock Lee                    Konoha’s number one genius of hard work. Former member of Team 3.

Metal Lee                  Rock Lee’s son. He’s hard-working but he’s weak at performing in public.

Tenten                       Owner of the ninja tool shop “Ninja Tools roll roll roll**”. Former member of Team 3.

Hatake Kakashi        Sixth Hokage. He was the teacher of Naruto and the others of team 7.

Inuzuka Kiba            He’s a ninja dog user, and has Akamaru as a partner. Former member of Team 8.

Aburame Shino        Teacher of the Ninja Academy. Former member of Team 8.

  *Trading card game.

**This is too fun to let it pass: the name of her shop is “忍具転転転”, and it’s pronounced ningu tententen. Tenten is the onomatopoeia for rolling about/things being passed around.

Prologue

«Parent and Child Day?»

The voice of the Seventh Hokage, Uzumaki Naruto, resounded in the Hokage’s office, which was a mess of scrolls and half-opened cardboard boxes.

He placed the document he had read out loud on the desk with a thud, and raised his head. On the direction he had turned his bewildered eyes to, there was the figure of the man who worked as the Hokage’s counsellor — Nara Shikamaru.

«Yeah. Name the new holiday. That’s a request from our colleagues of the new town.»

Even if he had heard Shikamaru’s additional explanation, Naruto repeated his question, without understanding.

«A name for the holiday… what does it mean dattebayo?»

«Come on. It’s like the way of calling a festival. In the first place, the nuance of ‘holiday’ varies from those guys and us.»

«Hmm…»

With a vague reply, Naruto gazed at the door of the Hokage’s office.

As if he was staring at the towering Hokage Rock in that direction, and the new town that spread beyond that.

 More than a decade before, the Village Hidden in the Leaves had literally turned into an empty wasteland because of Pain’s attack, the first one to be done in the Fourth Shinobi World War. A vast land hollowed out, with houses squashed flat. The village had been thoroughly blown up from the basis.

However, there was also something that had remained without having been wiped out. It was the Hokage Rock.

Where there was the Hokage Rock, there was Konoha. It was unthinkable for the villagers to revive Konoha in a new plot of land, turning their back to the successive generations of Hokage that had been watching over them for long years.

They would surely revive it again in that very place!

This feeling was connected with the reconstruction of the village, and its miraculous growth.

The general stores that had kept running their business since the foundation of the village changed into around-the-clock, jack-of-all-trades stores, and they never lowered their doorway curtains to close.

Inside and outside the village steel rails had been laid out, and long and narrow iron cars called Thunder Cars had began running above them. Also the cultural exchange with the other villages, which needed several days in order to keep in touch, had become much easier thanks to that.

High buildings had been made one after the other behind the Hokage Rock, and from the huge monitors installed on their walls the news not only of the Land of Fire, but of every country as well, were transmitted. “Something like buildings looking down to the Hokage Rock is execrable” — that’s how the elders of the Honourable Council had opposed it, but the convenience was hard to be cast aside, and also their voices had gradually become quieter.

The large apartments that were to be used as the residence of several hundreds of people called even more immigrants into the village, and nowadays it could be said that the population of the village consisted of more people that weren’t shinobi rather than the other way around. It was an epoch in which even in the Academy Naruto had attended the ninjutsu courses did not reach their quota, and they were forced to establish some general courses. Even that could be called a proof that they were at peace though.

Now the Village Hidden in the Leaves had stopped hiding, and had become one of the metropolises of the Land of Fire.

 Naruto and the others called the surface where the skyscrapers were standing in a row ‘new town’.

Of course, they just named it like that for convenience, there was no qualitative difference such as new and old in Konoha. Even if most of the people who lived in the new town weren’t shinobi, all the villagers were like a family for Naruto.

Although one difference between the shinobi and those who weren’t shinobi appeared in their cycle of life, after all.

That only thing was free time.

The shinobi world was instable, and yet absurd. It’s not that their time of duty was set, and it was hard to have a particular day-off. Because of that, days-off became “the days when casually there’s not a mission” for shinobi. There were few shinobi that looked forward to holidays they didn’t even know when they’d arrive.

However, for those who weren’t shinobi holidays were “days of relaxation that arrive at fixed intervals”. They had demanded to add a day-off once a week, and if some memorial days wouldn’t become holidays. Also the matter of this time was related to that.

«Well, turning red a date of the calendar by itself is sad.»

Naruto fetched the Hokage seal, «The name doesn’t matter, right? There’s no reason to oppose it ‘ttebayo.» and applied the seal on the document in his hands with a plop.

«It’s decided.»

The document was promptly tossed into the “approved box” by Shikamaru’s hand.

Thus, the holiday “Parent and Child Day” was created in the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

«…however, the Parent and Child Day… what kind of day is it, exactly?»

«According to the written application, apparently it’s a day in which you deepen your parent-child bond. The title is not very much, but essentially it means that parents and children have fun together while going shopping or in a trip and so forth.»

«Parent-child bond… huh?»

A shadow fell on Naruto’s expression. The thing that was on his mind were his two children. Boruto and Himawari. He wondered when the heck he’d finally spend some father-children time with them.

«Well, what if we do some family support service as well?»

Maybe because he had guessed that, Shikamaru’s voice turned intentionally cheerful.

«Take it easy at home once in a while. At any rate, even if you go back home you’ll just sleep, and you can’t talk enough with your brats, right? ‘Cause I’ll also help to arrange the schedule.»

«Shikamaru… Hehe, thank you.»

Naruto and Shikamaru exchanged a bright smile, but their two gazes slowly lowered to the floor.

There, a mountain of documents had fallen from the desk, and had scattered so much that it could be mistaken for the pattern of the floor.

«…we’ll arrange it, you know?»

There was something empty mixed in Shikamaru’s voice.

«Yeah.»

Naruto’s reply was strong.

«The Parent and Child Day… isn’t it nice. I’ll absolutely go back home ‘ttebayo!»

That's all, for the time being.

...okay, that's not all. To be honest, I've translated chapter 1 already. BUT! It needs a heavy revision, so I can't post it yet.

And I'll tell you the truth (long live honesty): I hate the way Mirei Miyamoto writes. So, this translation may contain some mistakes (that is, more than usual), but I'll eventually tell you when and where my translation is uncertain.

#translations #naruto #naruto shinden #naruto shinden translation #naruto novels #boruto #Naruto Uzumaki #naruto shinden prologue

[bopeepwritingsheep]

Lone Wolf - Chiyojo 2

Chiyojo had known from the moment her Uncle put on the hat that any potential in a career outside the academy was completely and utterly tanked. The blatantly covered up and ignored attempt on her life just a few weeks after his ascension pretty much clinched that deal given her ankles would never be fit for the wear and tear of field work anymore. She was lucky her vocal folds had only been damaged and not fully destroyed, she could still give her kids one hell of a lecture when she wanted to, provided she had a few sips of water intersped--but she just chalked up to proper hydration, none of her current students knew how close to death their sensei had come to within the supposed safety of their village walls.

To be honest, she’d rather keep it that way, let them be children while they were still in the academy. They had their genin careers to learn about the harsh realities of the leaf village they would one day inherit.

Still, she wasn’t exactly a career climber, but she knew that given her particular situation looking towards opportunities within the academy system was really her only option nowadays. So she’d worked hard and in spite of her young age, she’d climbed that ladder as high as she could for the time being, which was what brought her to her current task, processing the applications of injured field ninja for transfer to the academy. It was a mostly thankless job, but it got her brownie points for doing it without complaint and she was saving up every single favor she could.

Her and Suzume were stable enough for now, but they had plans to move out of their little one bedroom apartment into a larger one, or even a rental home if they could find one. Maybe near the Inuzuka district, they were so much more relaxed about couples like them and Suzume’s genin teammate was an Inuzuka who she was certain would be able to talk to someone for them. Any kind of extra hours she could work right now were a bonus, every ryo carefully counted and added to their moving fund.

Applications for injured chuunin and jounin weren’t terribly common, most shinobi held out hope that they’d recover from their injuries so they’d wait until they had no other options. It wasn’t really a reasoning that Chiyojo personally approved of for becoming a teacher, given that she’d chosen the task all the way back in her genin days but retired field ninja could be good teachers if the right ones were hired. That’s where the annoying part of the whole process came in, and the reason most people pushed the task onto those desperate for extra hours, background checks and interviews.

The man, Mizuki, had no possibility of returning to the field according to the medical details in his transfer request--And Chiyojo couldn’t help but wince in sympathy when she’d read that, she’d spent a good while in a wheelchair herself, and his recovery process looked grim. Even if he recovered the use of his legs, he’d probably be permanently bound to crutches. Chiyojo’d had her age to thank for her recovery process, the ‘accident’ had apparently stunted her growth a bit, but in a few more years she wouldn’t even need her cane to walk with on good days.

So here she was, waiting in an unused classroom because someone had made an inquiry about the application of said injured chuunin. It wasn’t uncommon, usually concerned friends or teammates wanting to come to give character testimonials about the applicant to help support their transfer case. Chiyojo hadn’t personally met Maito Gai before, though she knew of him from the village grapevine, and as far as she could tell, that was what this meeting would be about. The two had been on the same mission when Mizuki’s injury occurred, according to their paperwork and everything the teacher had heard about Gai led her to the conclusion that he’d be supportive of a teammates career change.

In her time as an academy teacher, Chiyojo’s experience with jounin were usually confined to determining genin teams and handing over academy files and assessments to said genin sensei. She knew well enough the eccentricities of some jounin, it was something of a joke among career chuunin, that you never quite did enough to get promoted in order to preserve your own sanity. Most everyone knew of Maito Gai’s bombastic reputation even if they hadn’t met him--So to see the man walk in with calm even steps and a frown threw Chiyojo a bit off her game.

“Shimura-san, I am Honored that you would see me on such short notice in regards to my teammates' application for a teaching position at the academy.” His voice boomed through the empty room. He certainly had the lungs of an orator, Chiyojo noted as she gestured for him to take a seat on the other side of her desk.

“It’s just Chiyojo, thank you. It’s nice to see a Jounin showing support for his injured subordinate. Mizuki’s application is still processing but as far as I’ve heard his background check has cleared,” She smiled warmly, it really was nice, and so was Gai from all the second-hand information she’d heard about him. It seemed like some of it was exaggerated, not the fashion sense but as an identical twin Chiyojo could appreciate the need to stand out in a sea of konoha blues.

It wasn’t an awkward or nervous movement per se as Gai settled in across from her. It was a stilted motion as if in any other situation it would have been accompanied by some sort of grander gesture but for now, he held himself back. It did nothing but raise Chiyojo’s hackles in concern, but she did not interrupt to demand an explanation, instead of letting the jounin speak at his own pace. “Ah, I appreciate your compliment but I am afraid that isn’t quite the reason that I’m here. It is regarding Mizuki’s application, but rather the fact that I have several concerns over his possible employment.”

Chiyjo’s smile dropped instantly and one hand busied itself pulling out Mizuki’s records and paperwork while the other snatched a red grading pen from behind her ear, “Please tell me any concerns you have, and be thorough; while I trust the chuunin in charge of these background checks there’s always room for human error and if we’ve made one then it needs to be fixed before it can affect our children.”

Finally, the smile she had been expecting the entire encounter burst onto his face--and she had to admit it was rather endearing in a way that reminded her of one of her students, “Absolutely! I Knew that The Nurturing Garden of Our Village Youth would take my concerns seriously. Thank You, Chiyojo-san!”

Well, her assessment of his oddities being over exaggerated was falling apart a bit, but he appeared to have his heart in the right place. Furthermore, given the fact that a jounin who certainly had better things to do than come to the academy on a weekday to report a concern he could have done through written means only furthered her positive opinion of him. “I take any and all concerns about those we allow to teach our children in Konoha. Please, don’t hold anything back, Gai-san.”

To say she had been expecting any of the information that Gai had to provide was an understatement. She knew he’d received his injuries from the ally of a missing-nin, and given her Uncle’s fixation and Gai’s presence in the mission she had been able to guess exactly which one. Young shinobi could be hardened enough but the idea that something he had said was provoking enough that the girl had crippled him while leaving his teammates virtually unharmed didn’t sit well with the jounin--And as she tore through seemingly minor complaints from former teammates in Mizuki’s files which had been previously brushed off in lieu of his otherwise spotless record, Chiyojo’s eyes narrowed.

Like hell she was going to let this man into Her academy, she’d break his legs a second time if he even looked too hard at the building. With the flourish that only a part-time desk ninja could accomplish Chiyojo notated and underlined every overlooked flaw and red flag within Mizuki’s application. The very end of his resume her eye caught one particular recommendation which she was almost certain was the reason for so many incidents lacking further investigation.

Dearest Darlingest Uncle Danzo.

The flash of killing intent for the briefest of moments was unintentional but the way the jounin before her immediately stiffened he’d noticed it. “Chiyojo-san?! I Fervently Apologize for Upsetting you with this information. Is it worse than I had anticipated?” And bless him, he actually did seem worried. Gods, some of the jounin running around these days were jokes, promoted toadies of her uncle’s but this man had heart and he’d spoken up in a village where that was an increasingly discouraged endeavor. Chiyojo would have to keep an eye out for Maito Gai, he was a good man.

“There’s nothing for you to apologize for, Gai-san. You have no idea how much I appreciate you coming to me, you’ve saved us a lot of grief by stopping this trainwreck of a human being from shoving his garbage pile of interpersonal complaints onto our staff.”

Like hell, she was going to make it easy for Uncle to shove some damned plant to keep an eye on her, or Hashirama forbid scout for his creepy little child soldier program that chewed up and spat out her broken mess of a sister. She couldn’t do anything immediately, she’d have to pull a few strings first, put her paperwork skills to use and dig up any records of Mizuki and see whether they were all scrubbed clean. If she could just get the names of his accusers then she could track them down and order some proper character interviews.

If her smile was a little sharper as she finally set her pen back down on her desk and steepled her fingers to lean her chin against them and get a better look at Gai, it wasn’t directed at him. The Shimura were a dour clan, and Chiyojo had always been the antithesis to the whole lot, but at that moment her smile could have matched her Uncle’s in the pure predatory glee of a hunter assured that its prey was walking directly into its trap and they only had to wait.

“On an unrelated note, Gai-san, have you ever considered signing up to become a jounin instructor?”

#lone wolf verse #shimura chiyojo. #maito gai.

[fineillsignup]

I'm one of those readers that aren't mad about the ships,honestly they're a low standard.What I am fucking mad about is that kishi inserted the concept of peace into the story.How would the story work if that happened?What conflict would there be for a story?Making an effort for peace, but are the shinobi really suited for such a task?Doesn't their economy thrive on conflict?Missions focus on assassinations,information retrieval,politicians one upping each other? That sort of thing?

I’m really glad you asked that anon because that’s become one of the driving forces behind my story Your Most Important Person.

I don’t know why I can’t write simple id-scratching trope fiction, but for some reason I seem to be incapable of it. So much like Heart Under a Blade quickly became “can an ABO fic treat female characters better than canon?”, YMIP has somehow become “can a soulmates AU have more coherent and satisfying worldbuilding and societal development than canon?”

And the big question is, suppose Kishimoto didn’t rely on aliens to supply external conflict in a supposedly peaceful society? What would be a logical next big obstacle for Naruto & friends? Suppose Kishimoto didn’t ignore that the Konoha shinobi forces have been cut by at least 75% in five years and that hardly any shinobi have kids? How would they handle that challenge? Suppose Kishimoto didn’t only remember that the shinobi economy is based on war and unrest when he can use it to mock a female character (Tenten’s failing shop and Sakura’s mortgage)? How would the shinobi world adjust? Suppose Kishimoto didn’t sacrifice the other characters’ principles, hopes, dreams, and motivations in order to let Orochimaru continue to experiment on children? What would that open up?

These questions all have more than one possible answer of course. Some possible answers (spoilers for YMIP) under the “read more”.

1. Just because there isn’t war, doesn’t mean that petty conflict goes away. By petty I mean gangs, illicit trade, murders, kidnappings, etc. Even in canon, we see plenty of missions that aren’t war-derived. So I think that the downturn in business is exaggerated, especially when we get to point two.

2. Kishimoto loves to tell the reader that lots of ninja die in this or that conflict, but it never makes any impact because the dead ninja don’t have any connection to any named character and very little impact on the story outside of it being the supplied reason why Shikamaru has to scramble together genin to get back Sasuke. If the drop in personnel were realistic, the problem wouldn’t be that there wasn’t enough business, the problem would be that there weren’t enough shinobi to complete business.

3. Orochimaru being allowed to basically do what he wants post-699 is some bullshit let me tell you. Not only isn’t he remorseful for anything he’s done, he doesn’t show any sign of having decided to amend his behaviour in the future, other than a vague statement that he wants to observe. Surprise! As of Boruto, he’s still performing involuntary medical experiments on human beings! Team Taka and Yamato also have to atrophy and languish for this. 

Giving second chances and redeeming villains is a noble idea, but redeeming has to involve actual redemption. A supposed redemption where an abuser is happy and his former victims are all not only extremely unhappy but also watching him abuse new victims is not a redemption. I can’t believe I have to point that out, but there it is.

But given that canon says that Orochimaru is basically contained within every curse seal, and given the number of curse seal victims we saw spilling out of Orochimaru’s prisons, eliminating Orochimaru from the world would be a big challenge... gosh, you might say that it’s the kind of long-term, potentially episodic monster-of-the-week challenge that suits a series like Naruto down to the ground.

Some other plotlines this opens up:1. Suigetsu’s quest for the swords2. Actual control of Juugo’s curse, which is a plot hole in Boruto. If only Sasuke can control him and Sasuke buggers off to “atone”, what the hell kind of agony has Juugo been going through?! Because you know Orochimaru doesn’t give a fuck about Juugo or anyone Juugo might kill in his rages.3. KARIN DESERVES TO LIVE HER OWN LIFE DAMMIT and I want to see Naruto and Karin connect too4. Yamato just wants to belong and be acknowledged and included oh my goodness protect this precious wooden baby

4. Ninja world demographic collapse. Yes hello this is my pet peeve but really. REALLY. You cannot just apply a birth rate less than that of modern Singapore to a high death rate society like Naruto’s and expect everything to be hunky dory. I feel like a lot of people choose to willfully suspend disbelief on this one because they also aren’t interested in large families but it really bothers me let me tell you. Especially because can you get a more pro-natalist philosophy than everyone chattering about unborn children as the “kings” of Konoha?! It’s just so contradictory that it drives me absolutely bazonkers.

A lot of anti-ending people repeat the line that “everyone gets hetero paired off” in Naruto 700 but this just doesn’t match the facts. Kishimoto doesn’t pair off anyone he can get away with not pairing off in order to produce a kid for the Boruto cast, with the one exception of Kiba, whom he pairs with the cat girl for the laughs. Everyone has one kid, at the exact same time. Naruto, as the old main character, gets rewarded with a bonus younger sibling for the new main character. The teacher generation? No new couples. No new kids. Not to mention that in Naruto’s generation, everyone is either an only child or has one sibling max.

In a world where people genetically inherit superpowers and clan identity is strong, this kind of reproductive pattern just makes no sense.

A more coherent Naruto ending would have to deal with this issue, especially coupled with the 75%+ reduction in shinobi in five years.

5. It’s not like shinobi powers only have deadly applications!!!! Medical ninjutsu is obvious, but almost all the powers have peaceful applications if you think about it. Aburame could use insects to pollinate plants effectively. Inuzuka animals are the best search and rescue. Yamanaka as psychologists, healing minds. Genjutsu entered into consensually for entertainment. Yamato’s Wood Release’s practical applications we all know already; presumably Lava Release and similar could do similar things in stone and other mediums. There’s nothing stopping people from developing more and more peaceful jutsu.

6. The daimyo power structure has outlived its agency. In a more logical post-699, I would foresee the Hidden Villages taking over their nations outright.

I’ll leave it there, but there is soooooo much potential for new plot, exciting plot, in a war-free Naruto. Not to mention stuff like tournaments. I’ve barely scratched the surface here.

#i should have a tag for asks #worldbuilding #ask me about ninja birth rates #pet peeves #i can turn any question into a question about my pet peeves #lazy writing #anti-naruto ending #naruto