Chapter 379: Tolerance and Toleration
"Actually," Hazō said, raising a hand to halt Ami before she could pre-emptively deactivate the air dome seals. "I had one thought that I wanted to run by you guys."
"
Now?" Ami asked impatiently as her hand hovered over controlled definitely-not-plummeting-to-certain-death for a party of three. "Fine. You know what to do. Go replace the seals on this masterpiece of design which, by the way, is now under strict OPSEC in case I come up with some clever use for it later. Nothing like too many cards up your sleeve when you're planning to bribe your way into a village whose greatest heroes have been busy murdering and being murdered by your village's greatest heroes since time immemorial. Didn't we kill your Kage after you set up a trap to kill our Kage? Man, I'm glad the Mizukage left me on treason watch in the village that day. No, don't confirm or deny, I'd rather not be the next Captain Zabuza." Her speech turned increasingly rapid-fire. Keiko narrowed her eyes. "I mean,
obviously the unstoppable hunter-nin who nearly spilled a secret inconvenient to both Mist and Leaf promptly died to a bunch of missing-nin in a battle which only had Mist and Leaf survivors. Amazing man. Purity of focus. Abs of steel. Went out into a desolate wasteland of nothing but yaks and came back with an apprentice slash little sister slash eventual lover that won me over in five seconds flat. Dead to the same people who massacred my friends at Shuraba Valley, and I don't mean Akatsuki. As if they'd reveal themselves to the world for the sake of fighting an army of jōnin who
hadn't already massacred each other. Was it the skywalkers that made Leaf decide to turn the cold war hot? Did you ever—"
"Ami," Keiko said quietly.
"I was getting a headache," Ami said to her in an apologetic tone of voice. "Come on, Hazō. Seals. Chop chop. We're past the
third safety margin now. I can hear the ground whispering how much it misses us."
Hazō doubted even the Yellow Flash could have distributed a series of seals with the same manic speed and flawless precision. Say one thing for apprenticing under Kagome-sensei, it taught you to act fast in a sealing emergency.
"All right," Ami said, "what's your thought? Fair warning, I'm expected for dinner at Haruka's to talk KEI image management strategy and flirt ruthlessly with Anko."
How did one flirt ruthlessly?
Never mind. Mitarashi was involved. Hazō didn't want to know.
"KEI image management strategy?" he asked before his mind could begin to dwell on the possibilities.
"Mmm. Bigoted KEI ninja are still KEI ninja, and we can't afford a schism while I'm out of commission and Keiko's already got the Nara-Hagoromo situation to deal with. So if you make me late, I expect you to treat me to the finest three-course meal the Yabai Café can offer in recompense. I order, you eat."
Hazō suppressed a profound shudder.
"Bigoted KEI ninja are still KEI ninja?" he asked sceptically. "You don't find anything hypocritical about that, given what we're doing right now?"
Ami rolled her eyes. "Setting aside the question of whether hypocrisy's a real thing,
everybody's bigoted, Hazō. Why, just the other day I met a nice young man willing to burn a whole clan to the ground for voicing a belief he didn't agree with. Tragic."
"They challenged the Gōketsu," Hazō said coldly. "They didn't just insult Keiko. They thought they could make us submit."
"Sure," Ami said. "It was a hostile move. But you don't destroy someone for making a single hostile move. There'd be no clans
left. You destroy them because you think they need destroying, and the Hagoromo just happened to promote themselves to your attention by loudly voicing a belief which most of Leaf shares.
"You want to make this into a world without anyone who hates lesbians? I'm down with that. It'll make Keiko happy, and it'll help make her safe, and if all it takes is leaving half of it in ruins, well, what's the world done for me lately anyway?
"But you, Hazō, still have a soul to protect, don't you? You don't want to join us down here where might makes right and the judgement of how good a person you are is how many people will be left over when you're done killing your enemies. If you declare that your beliefs are objectively correct and that gives you the right to crush those who disagree… I guess Mist
is missing its Yagura."
"So what's the alternative?" Hazō demanded. "Live and let live for those who refuse to let others do the same? Tolerating intolerance? Isn't that how we ended up where we are now? There must be other people out there who think it's fine for Keiko to be who she is. No, I know there are. Would the Hagoromo still be spouting their crap with their heads held high if all of those people just stood up together and told them they were wrong?"
Ami shrugged. "It's why I personally think morality's a waste of time. Try to be consistent for consistency's sake, and you'll hit a brick wall of paradox in one place or another. If you want to talk hypocrisy, what's more hypocritical than pretending that it makes you virtuous to follow rules picked by a self you know was younger and dumber than you?
"If you want to draw a line of tolerance and drown everyone who doesn't toe it in the Hanguri Gulf, more power to you. At the end of the day, the one person who needs to survive is already safe, and adjusting my master plan to the rise of Dark Lord Hazō is going to be fun enough to distract me from the screaming. Gurgling. Whatever. I believe you had a thought?"
Hazō weighed his options, and decided that engaging in a philosophical debate with Ami was not worth it if it risked a three-course Yabai Café meal.
"Setting aside the part where you're wrong about absolutely everything," he said, "what I wanted to talk about was Asuma. He's going to have thoughts about the Hagoromo situation, and he's certainly going to have thoughts by the time we're done with them, and we need to have a plan in place to handle him, or I have a feeling I'll be renewing my acquaintance with the killbox in short order."
"There are certain species of wasp," Keiko said after a short pause, "which invade ant nests. They have no interest in the ants that govern and manage the nest, but rather in a particular kind of parasitic larva that can sometimes be found inside. Once they find one, they lay their eggs in it, then make their escape by some mysterious means that causes the ants to perceive it as one of their own, and ignore it in favour of other foes.
"What elevates the process from elegant to fascinating is the fact that subsequent to the wasp's departure, neither the ants nor the larva sense anything amiss. All is peaceful and quiet within the nest, even as the wasp eggs hatch and the juveniles devour their host from the inside out, leaving only an empty husk."
"I love the Nara," Ami commented. "They're one of my favourite clans."
"So you're saying," Hazō concluded, deciding that tonight he wasn't going to have any dinner at all, Yabai or otherwise, "that your plan is for Asuma not to notice anything in the first place?"
"Not at all," Keiko said. "As Ami observed earlier, our Hokage is not a drooling imbecile. That a campaign of warfare is underway will not have escaped him. However, the Nara have ever had the good of the village at heart, and have shown rational judgement when settling past conflicts. Thus, if at the end of this campaign Asuma observes a healthy and functioning Hagoromo Clan, providing its ordinary contribution to Leaf and preserving—for the moment—the familiar status quo, he will have no reason to look deep enough to discover that it has been hollowed out and its innards consumed to feed the Nara's long-term goals. And if this revelation should strike him at some later date? Why, if enough time has passed, he may find the clean, dry husk preferable to the vile parasitic flesh."
Keiko smiled, and the darkness in her eyes reminded Hazō that, for all her social awkwardness and sometimes crippling stack of insecurities, his sister could be terrifying.
Ami completely ruined the effect by seizing Keiko and pulling her into a hug. "You have learned well, runt. Now I have no worries about leaving you in charge of this place when I transcend to a higher plane of existence."
"When you do
what?" Hazō and Keiko asked in unison.
"Actually," Ami mused, "this place is going to be incredibly boring once I'm gone. Maybe it would be better to leave it to Hazō."
"Quite," Keiko said, "especially since I will naturally follow you wherever you go."
"What if my chosen higher plane of existence is an infinite harem populated exclusively by sexy male demigods?"
Keiko blinked twice, slowly. "I… could adjust."
"What about Ten—"
Ami hurriedly waved him into silence.
While Keiko struggled with the complexities of her possible future, Ami grabbed Hazō in a non-lethal headlock and pulled him to the other side of the Cradle.
"Don't go there," she whispered. "Trying to choose between me and Tenten makes her lock up."
"Perhaps you would care to share with the rest of the class?" Keiko asked with a pointed stare as she recovered from the horrors Ami had inflicted on her psyche.
"Just telling Hazō how proud I am of how far you've come," Ami said.
"Hazō, expect a thorough interrogation later. Ami, expect to be bribed with sweets."
"
Moving on," Hazō said, making a note to lock his door tonight. "Keiko, do you have any thoughts on how the Gōketsu can handle this situation? We don't have the Nara's reputational credit to draw on."
"You are nevertheless entirely welcome to partake in the Nara strategy," Keiko said. "At this time, you have plausible deniability, as the visible blows against the Hagoromo have been struck in the Nara's name. Granted, Mari was involved with the Merchant Council, but I doubt her pathetic catspaw, excuse me, personal contact will feel any urgency in offering her name if asked. You will, of course, need to preserve a certain level of anonymity without sacrificing effectiveness."
"Massive bribery is also good," Ami said. "Keep your eye on the prize, Hazō: your objective at the end of all this isn't forgiveness for what you do to the Hagoromo. It's a happy Hokage who tolerates your wacky antics. As long as you're in the Seventh's good books,
no matter how you get there, you win. Obviously, there are lines you don't want to cross, because a Kage's only got so much free will, but those lines are mostly public. That thing with the first killbox incident? It's like Mari said at the time. He didn't throw you in because you said something stupid. He threw you in because you said something stupid where other people could hear. All you have to do is keep up appearances enough that the Hokage is able to handwave all the carnage as business as usual
if he wants to. Then you have to make him want to. I hear good things about summoning scrolls, but if I'm honest, I reckon that ship has sailed. If Mist and Sand didn't send every spare ninja scroll-hunting as soon as they dared, I'll eat that hat I said I wouldn't buy earlier. If Rock and Cloud just sat back and let them do it uncontested, I'll eat two. You could fix a major flaw in Leaf society practically overnight in a way that makes the village visibly stronger… no, beat you there. You could turn one of the Hokage's biggest headaches into a solution to a serious social problem… no, done that too. Eh, I'm sure you'll come up with something.
"'course, if you make it plain you're bribing him, he'll come down on you twice as hard for trying to manipulate him. The Nara are on thin ice there, which is why I'm guessing you're not using it as a backup strategy, Keiko. But if the Gōketsu just happen to look very valuable at a time when the Hagoromo are starting to look like a liability—that's something for the KEI; Lord Hagoromo can learn the hard way that turning my people against each other has optics—the Hokage might be inclined to turn a blind eye to a little more than usual. If he's smart, he might even use it as a way to teach the other clans a lesson in why his favour's worth having.
"Of course, that just might make the other clans want to wipe you out so he can't use you as a stick to hold over them, but that's a risk for you, not for him."
"So what I'm hearing," Hazō said, "is 'play it safe and hide behind the Nara' from Keiko and 'go all in and make Asuma like you enough to forgive potential treason' from Ami. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were doing this deliberately."
"Me?" Ami said, clasping her hand to her heart. "Would I ever present an extreme opposite viewpoint just to leave you stuck with an entire spectrum of possibilities so that you are left even more troubled and confused than before by what is technically good advice?"
"Perish the thought," Keiko said drily. "I suddenly recall why I stopped asking you for help with my infiltration homework."
"It is the job of any good educator to foster open-mindedness and imagination in one's young charges," Ami said pompously. "Unless you run a ninja academy, in which case your job is to make sure the little brats do what they're told without asking questions or, ancestors forbid, trying to experiment."
"You didn't have a good time at the Academy, did you?" Hazō asked.
"Sure did," Ami said with a grin. "The more rules there are, the easier it is to bend, twist, warp, and abuse them. I mean, the actual learning was bleh—I was a genius from the optimisation clan; how much was I going to get from learning at the class's pace that I couldn't get from devouring the clan library?—but finding endless new ways to mess about while still looking like a model student
and getting my homework done on time
and maintaining a complex web of social relationships
and leaving enough time for Keiko? It just about kept me on my toes.
"And speaking of keeping people on their toes," she added, "we should pack up before we find out if I'm catlike enough to land on mine. And before I miss Sadao's seven-spice soup."
She glanced out in Leaf's direction, then drew a ^_^ in the condensation on the surface of the air dome, presumably as a thank-you to anyone who had spent hours stuck outside watching fruitlessly. As Hazō reached over to remove the first row of air dome seals, he could see her adding whiskers.
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No extra XP is awarded for today, since the player plan ended up being replaced by a continuation of the 6 XP scene.
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9 days remain until Asuma's deadline.
What do you do?
Voting closes on Saturday 10th of October, 1 p.m. New York time.
