There should have been singing and dancing, Hazō felt, or at least triumphant background music. For perhaps the first time in its existence, Team Uplift had accomplished an operation swiftly, smoothly and according to plan, without incurring collateral damage. This day needed to go down in the history books. Yumehara needed to commence his fifth volume with a detailed account, emphasising the flawlessness of Hazō's plan and the ninja-like competence with which his team had carried it out.
Instead, the mood seemed oddly subdued. Minami was frowning as if in thought. Keiko was staring into the middle distance with the expression of a Mori modelling and discarding scenario after scenario. Kagome-sensei was silently glaring daggers at Minami, and in Mari-sensei's absence it probably fell to Hazō to be the designated Kagome-sensei wrangler and find out what Minami had done to offend him this time. And then there was Noburi, who seemed to be quietly simmering in a depressingly familiar fashion. What had Hazō done this time, other than placing Noburi and his skills in the spotlight the way his teammate had always wanted? Couldn't Noburi grow up a little?
At least the World's Best Girlfriend was a ray of sunshine in the gathering darkness. She flitted from teammate to teammate, joking and encouraging and diplomatically refraining from comparisons with past performance. Hazō had missed her so much.
With the unqualified success of Hazō's last plan, he felt optimistic about its successor. They had got off to a rocky start with Minami as leader, and he accepted partial responsibility for that, but tonight he was going to do everything in his power to nip the potential conflict in the bud. Hazō was Mari-sensei's true heir, after all. He would use the skills she'd taught him to harmonise the team's relations just as she would have done.
"You know," he said casually to Keiko, but pitched loud enough for Minami to hear, "now that Minami is team leader, we should probably introduce her to our other member."
"There's another member?" Minami asked. "This is everyone Jira—the Hokage briefed me on. Is this some kind of riddle?"
"You will observe," Keiko said tonelessly, "that there is nothing up my sleeve except the obligatory backup shuriken."
She slammed her hand on the floor, making the seals look like a natural part of the same single movement.
"Summoning Technique!"
The responding voice was deep and intimidating, only not.
"I heed thy call, O mighty Summ—we're in the air! Help! Why are we in the air?!"
Pandā spun on the spot in a blind panic, observed by a bemused Minami, before settling down and hunching over awkwardly.
"Oh, right, it's just one of the Pantokrator's Eyes. I knew that. I was just… analysing the strategic implications of the situation. Yeah.
"So what's up, Keiko?"
"Pandā," Keiko said gravely, "meet Minami Nikkō, assigned to lead our team by Hidden Leaf."
"Nice to meet you, Pandā," Minami smiled, her eyes tracing Pandā's diminutive stature. "You must be a Pangolin genin?"
"Genin? That's what you guys are, right? The bottom rank? Well, no, I'm not! I am a military liaison to the Pangolin Clan Summoner, and a full-fledged warrior of the Pangolin Clan! Underestimate me at your peril!"
"Oh, I didn't mean any disrespect," Minami said lightly. "Everyone talks about how incredibly strong summons are, so I figured even if you were a genin, you'd still be a huge badass by human standards."
"Well, uh…" Pandā studied the floor briefly, then looked up. "…Yes. Yes, I am."
"So Keiko," he quickly turned away from Minami, "what's up with this new team leader? What happened to Inoue?"
He raised his claws suddenly. "Wait, tell me she didn't get herself chopped up by a jōnin. Or splorched by a crazy sealmistress. Or caught in a scary sealing accident."
"No, Pandā," Keiko said, her wry tone suggesting her opinion of Pandā's subtlety. "I suppose I should enlighten you as to recent events. Jiraiya, the Toad Summoner, is currently acting as Hokage. He has married Mari-sensei, and they have adopted Hazō, Noburi, Kagome and myself into a new clan of which Jiraiya is the patriarch. We are thus now formally Leaf shinobi.
"Mari-sensei has retired from active duty, and Jiraiya has assigned us a new team leader and an urgent courier mission, which we are presently carrying out."
"Waaait…" Pandā narrowed his eyes. "Are you saying the Pangolin Summoner is now the Toad Summoner's daughter? Oh, this is so going to throw a wasp nest into our political affairs. It's lucky we're nearly done subjugating the Condors, or the higher-ups would go bonkers.
"As for you, new squad leader, it's nice to meet you. You're very lucky to have Keiko on your team. In fact, why didn't Keiko get made leader? I mean, these guys have been fighting together since forever, and Keiko's the smartest, and now Inoue's gone she's the strongest too, so it's a bit weird for Jiraiya to assign some newbie to head the team instead. Is this a way of snubbing the Pangolin Clan just because our summoner now officially answers to him?"
"Pandā," Keiko warned, "I recognise Minami's authority as my commander, and will expect you to treat her with all the respect due such a position."
"If you say so, Keiko."
Hazō awarded Keiko a point in his head. Now it was his turn to follow through.
"Since you're here, Pandā," he reinserted himself into the conversation, "why don't we all introduce Minami to one of our proudest team traditions? Minami, do you like board games?"
"Board games?" Minami tilted her head sideways. "Do you mean like Serpents and Shortcuts? I guess I used to play that with my kid sister sometimes when she was little."
"Oh, no," Hazō gave an anticipatory smirk, "we're talking about something a lot more fun."
"That reminds me," Akane joined in, "did you guys have any cool games while you were away? I told you about The Lava Pits of Screaming Death before you… left. Did you try it out?"
Hazō and Keiko exchanged glances.
"Boy, did we try out The Lava Pits of Screaming Death," Hazō began to recount, turning slightly to make it clear Minami was part of the audience. "It all began when I decided to invite Nara Shikamaru to play with us one night…"
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"I… can't… believe…" Akane choked out through the laughter, "…you let the head… of the Nara Clan… have a Candle… of Invocation…"
"The rules said it was a one-use item for boosting your spell power," Noburi muttered. "How was I to know?"
"Typical," Hazō gave a mock sigh. "Noburi never lets me have any fun when he's GMing, but as soon as the second most powerful man in Leaf gets behind the gaming table, it's all 'Have a non-pregenerated character sheet, Lord Nara', and 'Here are the third-party supplements, Lord Nara'. And what do I get? Benihime the Flower Princess. I wasn't even allowed to roll for my starting gold!"
"So," Minami hesitated, "it's like a tactical warfare simulation, but lighter on the command structure and heavier on the demon lords?"
"That's right," Noburi said icily. "Great fun until some idiot decides to ruin it for everyone by showing off how clever he is."
That was uncalled for. What was Noburi's problem tonight?
"Perhaps we should offer Akane the role of Game Master in honour of her return to the group," Keiko said, shooting Noburi a meaningful look Hazō couldn't decipher. "Minami, would you be interested in playing?"
"Sure," Minami beamed. "I'd love to take part."
-o-
They were including her! They were including her! Her invented-on-the-spot leadership strategy was working! They were introducing her to the team's unique bonding rituals, and acknowledging her authority in front of third parties, and also Pandā was the most adorable thing ever!
Nikkō had to restrain herself from physically bouncing, because she didn't think it would do much for her still-developing aura of authority. Also, it was late and an excess of energy might disturb her teammates as they prepared for sleep. They'd taken the entire evening to explain the basic rules to her and help her make a character sheet, which was embarrassing but inevitable. Structured learning wasn't Nikkō's strong point. Still, she liked to think she made up for it with her tenacity. If tomorrow was as uneventful as she hoped, she intended to finish studying the rulebook Kurosawa had lent her, so she could join in the "adventuring party" without making mistakes or slowing them down.
"Minami?"
Nikkō looked up from her bedroll to see Kurosawa standing a polite distance away, yet close enough that they wouldn't be overheard by others.
"What is it, Kurosawa?"
"I was hoping I could ask for your advice."
He wanted her advice! He trusted her wisdom and experience! This was officially the best day ever.
"Sure. Shoot."
"It's about being a leader."
Hold that thought. When it came to leadership, Nikkō was largely making it up as she went along, inspired only by the examples of her own past leaders, good and bad. If she wasn't careful here, she could easily get caught out—or worse, give bad advice to somebody who was counting on her.
"I'll help if I can," she said neutrally. "What's on your mind?"
"As a Leaf chūnin, you must have lots of experience leading different teams, right? But I was more or less a fresh genin when we left, and I only have real experience with this one team. I know them well, but I'm less good when it comes to dealing with everyone else. I have… well, a history of making a mess of things when I'm in charge."
"Like how?"
Kurosawa considered.
"The most striking example has to be a mission we took in Hot Springs. To begin with, we shouldn't have taken it to begin with. We were hiding out in Tea at the time, and we weren't completely broke—there was no real reason for us to accept a mission from a shady man willing to hire missing-nin, especially when there were unknown factors like the identity of the target."
Another reminder that they had, until recently, been missing-nin. Nikkō still didn't understand. These kids were, with one literally glaring exception, pretty nice. They didn't seem particularly dishonourable, or murderous, or evil. Kurosawa had even tried to persuade the client to let that scumbag Shirakawa live when Nikkō couldn't see any good reason to do so. And yet they were missing-nin. The worst of the worst. Irredeemable sinners who deserved nothing but to be hunted down and killed like vermin.
And then they'd got redeemed. Jira—the Hokage himself had not only pardoned them—pardoned missing-nin—but adopted them as his very own children. She wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't heard it from the man himself.
How was it possible to earn redemption for the kind of crime that turned a person into a missing-nin? How did they convince the Hokage that they'd been reformed? The skywalkers must have been part of it, but no Hokage could ever be bribed to accept the impure into the ranks of Hidden Leaf. Right?
There had been a lot of gaps in last night's extended briefing. Kurosawa had cited operational security and the fact that it should be the Hokage's decision to release information which could potentially make his clan look bad. Nikkō could respect that. It wasn't like the Minami Clan didn't have some uncomfortable episodes in its history, mostly involving those Hyūga bastards. But it also left her unable to reconcile the abyssal gap between this team of weird but likeable kids and the blood-soaked, diabolical madness conjured by the term "missing-nin".
"It was a simple information retrieval mission," Kurosawa went on. "All we had to do was go to a particular resort in Hot Springs, wait for our target to arrive, steal some records, and get away. But my planning let everyone down again. Instead of a carefully-timed stealthy infiltration, in and out with no one the wiser, we ended up killing the target and bringing down half the inn."
Something about that sounded oddly familiar. Hot Springs. A resort. People getting killed and a building being demolished…
"You're the Cold Stone Killers!"
Oh, Sage's blood. It was them. She was surrounded by the Cold Stone Killers. The infamous pack of ruthless missing-nin who had violated a demilitarised zone, targeted a civilian leisure site and murdered a jōnin, not caring how many people got caught in the crossfire. The villains who had all but delivered Hot Springs into Mist's hands.
And now her unthinking outburst had drawn everyone's attention. The Cold Stone Killers were all looking at her. They had her surrounded. Were they going to kill her for finding out their secret?
"It was an accident," Kurosawa said softly. "Nobody was supposed to get hurt."
Kurosawa's tone was, as far as Nikkō could tell, genuinely regretful. Her panic stepped down a notch. Obviously, them being the Cold Stone Killers wasn't a big, terrible secret. Kurosawa wouldn't have spilled something like that by accident. And the Hokage must have known when he adopted them, mustn't he?
It was still too much for her. The Hokage had adopted the Cold Stone Killers. He'd made them part of the Will of Fire. And then… he'd put her in charge of them. She felt unsteady, like one false step would send her plummeting into darkness—and not just because she was standing on a few planks of wood hovering absurdly high in the air.
"Nobody was supposed to get hurt," Kurosawa repeated. "I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong idea. We're not killers—or no more so than ninja in general. And we're not evil the way everyone thinks we are. We just made some big mistakes."
It was too much. She didn't know what to do. She felt lost, vulnerable, betrayed. But at the same time, if there was one thing Minami Nikkō knew, it was that she couldn't show weakness. Not as a team leader, and not to them.
"Kurosawa… let's end it here for the night. I have last watch, so I should get some sleep now."
They weren't going to kill her in her sleep. The Hokage had known when he'd assigned her to the team, and if she hadn't been meant to know, Kurosawa wouldn't have told her. They weren't going to get rid of her to protect their secret. In the morning, when everyone was calm and well-rested, she could ask them all the questions she needed, and hopefully whatever it was that had convinced the Hokage would convince her too. In the end, Minami Nikkō had not made it this far in life by not believing in people.
-o-
They were under attack.
Hazō couldn't hear. The ringing was too loud. He could see Akane. She was wearing her knuckledusters. Noburi had his whip. Where were the others? He spun around. Keiko was fine. Kagome-sensei was grinning, and that was wrong, but he was fine. Minami was…
He registered the pink mist. The air was full of pink mist, held in by the air dome. Hazō's blood ran cold.
"…what… do?"
His hearing was coming back. Five-Seal Barrier intact. Air dome still up. Where had the attack come from?
Still no sign of Minami. Kagome-sensei was grinning.
No.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
Before Hazō could move, before Hazō could speak, Akane flickered into motion. She grabbed Kagome-sensei by the front of his jacket. The light in her eyes was too close to hatred.
"I had to do it." Kagome-sensei, too calm. "Couldn't let Dumbbutt walk away with one of our big clan secrets."
"You… you murdered her." Noburi, disbelieving.
"Imbecile." Keiko, cold. "That was the last resort."
Akane turned her head. Still holding Kagome-sensei.
"Keiko. You knew."
"I merely expected him to propose it," Keiko said wearily. "I trusted him to trust us. My mistake."
"But… why?" Hazō pleaded. "Why would he propose killing our team leader?"
"That one's all on you," Noburi said bitterly. "You and your big mouth."
Akane pushed Kagome-sensei away from her. "Somebody explain to me what is going on."
After a second's silence, Keiko took the responsibility.
"Noburi's ability to sense and drain chakra through Mist is a Wakahisa trump card, a secret Bloodline Limit technique of the kind that clans legitimately kill to protect. The Mori have such techniques as well. All strong clans do. Now that our own clan holds the Wakahisa bloodline, it is our clan's trump card as well, in the same way as Hazō's perfect seal-scribing."
"And Hazō gave it away," Noburi said heavily. "Just like that, to the first chūnin that came along, without even thinking to ask me first. And Minami was a clan ninja. He gave her clan a great big bargaining chip right while we're still trying to find our feet."
"As a secondary concern," Keiko added, "this kind of secret ability typically serves as the cornerstone for an eventual jōnin career, much like Zabuza's Silent Killing or Uzumaki's shadow clones. Uzumaki was famous for his use of shadow clones, but the full properties of this Leaf forbidden technique remained a mystery. By all accounts, Uzumaki was considered unstoppable—until he was defeated instantly by a former Leaf prodigy who would have had access to the same knowledge.
"Thus, after having Noburi's mist abilities explained to her, and observing them in action together with the misterators, Minami became capable of greatly endangering him were she ever to be captured and interrogated."
Hazō was struck dumb. All he'd done was share useful tactical information with his leader. And it had resulted in a perfect plan!
But he couldn't articulate it. The pink mist swallowed it up as a meaningless excuse.
"And you couldn't think of a better solution than murdering a fellow Leaf ninja?" Akane demanded. Hazō could hear the fury roiling beneath the surface. It was terrifyingly alien to the Akane he knew.
"In a few days, Minami was due to independently journey to Hidden Sand," Keiko answered. "It was my intention to use this opportunity to speak privately to the others, and then hold a group intervention where we would decide on the appropriate response to Hazō's actions. At that time, we would discuss our options for resolving the Minami issue, and reach a consensus on the optimal course of action. I personally believe we should have approached Minami by means of negotiation, only opting for elimination if all less drastic measures had already failed."
Silence fell. Akane closed her eyes.
There was no sound, and the only movement was the slow, gentle descent of the pink mist.
An eternity later, Akane opened her eyes again.
Her voice was perfectly even, like glowing iron hammered flat by pressure. "As the senior Leaf ninja present, I am assuming command of this mission. Any objections?"
Akane looked at Keiko. Keiko nodded after only a moment's pause.
Akane looked at Noburi. Noburi held her gaze for several seconds. "Makes sense," he finally said, with less reluctance than Hazō had expected.
Akane looked at Hazō. It was not a questioning look.
"Hazō, I'm not part of your clan. It's not up to me to deal with you giving away clan secrets. But… I can't ignore your bad choices. You nearly got the team killed by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time before, and now a teammate is dead because of you. I thought… I really thought you'd learned."
She paused.
"I know you meant to be Minami's second-in-command, but I don't think you can be mine. I'm demoting you relative to the rest of the team. You follow their orders, and you don't act on your own initiative unless someone else has approved it. We can't take any more chances."
She took a deep breath.
"Kagome."
"I did nothing wrong," Kagome-sensei said in a slow, reasonable voice, as if explaining something to a small child. "The team needed protecting, so I went ahead and did what needed doing. If I'd talked to you first, you'd have said no, and then Dumbbutt would have had you wrapped around her little finger because you're all too soft-hearted and she had blackmail material. When someone threatens your team, you kill them. I've said it many times."
"You have," Akane acknowledged. "We should have listened. We've been walking a tightrope over disaster ever since you joined, and now we've finally fallen off. All of us deserve a share of the blame for keeping our eyes closed.
"But," her voice briefly vibrated with suppressed emotion, "you murdered a teammate. You murdered a Leaf ninja who'd done nothing wrong.
"The law says I have to take you prisoner and bring you back to Leaf to stand trial. There's only one way that can end."
"If you think—"
"Kagome, shut up," Akane snapped. "I'm not finished."
Miraculously, Kagome-sensei shut up.
"It's the right thing to do," Akane said. "It's the proper thing to do. And it would cost us a friend, and ruin your new clan, and accomplish nothing.
"So," she asked, addressing the question to nobody in particular, "whom do I betray?"
They all looked at each other. There was nothing anyone could say.
"Exile presents itself as a further option," Keiko broke the silence. "If we wish to preserve Kagome's life and the clan's reputation, we can report that both Minami and Kagome were killed in action. Even if Jiraiya doubts us, he will be forced to accept such a report at face value for political reasons, and it is well within Kagome's abilities to avoid coming to Leaf's attention in the future."
"E-Exile?" Kagome-sensei repeated in a choked voice. "You're saying I should leave the team? Everything I did was to protect you!"
"Yes." Hazō could hear some of the anger in Akane's voice being quenched, leaving behind cool sorrow. "You're an unrepentant killer, and you're one of the most loyal friends I've ever known.
"But I can't trust you not to kill more people in order to protect us, and I can't let you protect us at the cost of more innocent lives."
"Please don't do this," Kagome-sensei begged, tears shimmering in his eyes. "Please. I'll do anything. I swear I'll find a way to make this better. But please don't make me leave. This is the only place where I belong."
Akane's gaze took in the entire team. "I've taken responsibility now. I have to choose whether I'm betraying my village or my friend. But he's your friend too, so please… talk to me."
"Kagome's loss would be a tragedy for the team," Keiko said, a distant, emotionless quality in her voice hinting at what depths of the Frozen Skein she must have retreated into. "However, if the risk of death incurred repeatedly by Hazō's choices is unacceptable, then that incurred by Kagome is much more so. It is impossible for a person to change their fundamental nature, and Kagome's is unquestionably destructive to those around him. I have long since lost track of the number of times when only our intervention prevented large-scale death and destruction, often including our own, and we have just received an object lesson in what happens if we fail to make that intervention even once.
"In addition, were we to conceal the truth and return to Leaf with Kagome as an active member, it is inconceivable that he would be able to keep the secret indefinitely given his pathological inability to deceive. Eventually, the murder and our collaboration would become known, doing inestimable damage to the clan and leading to our imprisonment as criminals.
"In terms of solutions, attempting to capture him for trial in Leaf, or to execute him here, would doubtless result in additional casualties, only compounding this catastrophe. Thus I am inclined to advocate exile as the most viable option."
"This is wrong," Noburi said in a low voice. "We've forgiven Hazō for his incredible fuck-ups before. We can give Kagome another chance. You can't… you can't take away a person's only home just like that, for a single mistake. We know that better than anyone.
"I'm not saying I can forgive Minami's death. She was a person, a nice person, snuffed out in an instant like she didn't matter. But killing Kagome, or driving him away, isn't the answer. He's one of us. He's earned that much. If he needs to change, then we should be there to help him. If we can make him understand why what he did was wrong, then we won't have to worry about what he might do in the future, and we don't have to turn on a teammate."
Finally, Akane walked over to Hazō. "He's your master. You're closer to him than any of us. So your opinion should have weight in this, one last time."
Hazō looked at Kagome-sensei, now kneeling on the ground, his begging reduced to incoherent blubbering. He looked at the settling remnants of the pink mist that had once been Minami Nikkō.
There was no right answer here. There was only Hazō's answer, and his eloquence in expressing it might determine this man's fate, and who knew how many others.
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