Chapter 560: Students
- Location
- USA
The maid set down the tray laden with tea and snacks. Hazō smiled at her. "Thank you, Kanae," he said, stuffing down an irrational distaste at having to pour tea from a mug emblazoned with the Hagoromo clan crest. The girl bowed and retreated to a corner, while Hazō faced Harumitsu again.
"Sensei, I d-don't understand your note on th-th-this page of m-my work. The theory books say that I should be using a Rafu s-selector here, so why should I be using this new c-c-component you made?"
Hazō shrugged. "I'm not sure if that's exactly what you should be using, but studying your seals so far, there's quirks in your chakra that suggest that the standard components for aetheric channel diversion won't work for you. Every sealmaster's chakra is different, and that doesn't just change the way we put the standard components together; it sometimes also changes the components we use. Sometimes you can use pieces from the standard libraries and scribing the seal is incredibly easy. Other times, you need to design components from scratch that will match your chakra's elemental affinity and prismatic alignment and everything else, and then scribing it gets complicated."
Harumitsu nodded. "Okay sensei, but why d-d-did you shape this stroke convex?"
"Well, show me your blank for the storage seal," Hazō said. Harumitsu pulled it out, and Hazō pointed at the lower third. "Here, in the primary dimensional channel, you can see…"
Once they'd finished the day's theoretical discussion, Hazō and Harumitsu repacked their things and started off for the Gōketsu seal research facilities. As they walked out of the Hagoromo main building and through the compound, Hazō smiled and nodded at the servants and civilians he'd met during his infrequent visits, while exchanging only cold glares with the few ninja who crossed his path. He'd met a couple Hagoromo genin too. Mostly, they had no interest in interacting with him and didn't adequately hide their distaste for Hazō. Still, a handful talked with him or were even friendly.
It was strange, Hazō considered, how much variety a clan could hold. There were honest, good souls like Harumitsu, and then there was…
"Gōketsu."
"Hagoromo."
Hazō slowed his stride naturally, letting Harumitsu stop by his side. He met 'Lord' Hagoromo's stare and held it.
"You've finally returned to your Hokage-assigned duties, then? I'm surprised you didn't find a way to spurn Harumitsu for longer," Hagoromo said.
"I'll note that we are more than a year beyond when the Hokage instructed me to take an apprentice," Hazō responded coolly. "I have fulfilled my duty."
Hagoromo's eyes narrowed. "You were teaching him for barely a month before you left for another month to further your own power as a summoner. You taught him well during the war, I'll confess, though that power as a summoner failed to materialize. Then, no sooner than the war ended, you went off gallivanting to parts unknown. I am aware that when you returned from your first trip, the Hokage instructed you to return to instructing Harumitsu, and you immediately left for months more."
Impressively, Hagoromo had learned to suppress that permanent sneer that formerly graced his features, but his tone was no less derisive. "Tell me, Lord Gōketsu," he said (and wasn't it testament to the man's incredible depth of character that he could fit so much contempt into two words otherwise meant to be respectful?), "is this your first time instructing Harumitsu since your return from your journey two, maybe three months ago?"
"I have been busy with missions and clan affairs, Hagoromo," Hazō said. "Harumitsu was instructed by Aburame Manjiro, Sarutobi Fumi, Nara Shikamippei, and my own uncle, Leaf's premier sealmaster after Orochimaru himself, all instruction paid for with my clan's resources. If you have an objection about Harumitsu being trained by a half-dozen world-class sealmasters instead of just one, do feel free to express it."
"Ah, how foolish of me," Hagoromo said, voice flat and dead. "I forgot the wisdom of whiplashing students between multiple teachers with distinct styles, none of whom know the student personally or who are particularly invested in their success. I will be certain to explain to the Lord Hokage that you have a new idea on how to structure teams in Hidden Leaf based not upon long-term mentorship from a skilled master, but instead on haphazard and variable teaching from a dozen people with different skills and specialties. I am certain he will be eager to discuss with you why your proposal will be better than the long years of instruction that let the Third cultivate the Sannin, or that let Lord Jiraiya nurture the Fourth into the man he was."
"What is your point, Hagoromo?" Hazō asked. Sage, was he sick of this cretinous man.
Hagoromo turned to Harumitsu and his cold expression softened by a hair. "Harumitsu, has Gōketsu satisficed his duties as a teacher? Do you believe you are well on the route to becoming a successful sealmaster?"
Harumitsu, who had been staring at the ground for most of the exchange, jumped slightly as he was addressed. He looked up to meet his clan head's gaze, then looked back down. "Yes, my lord," he said.
Hagoromo nodded, then faced Hazō again. "I trust Harumitsu's evaluation, because despite your neglect, I have watched him study and grow in his skills. He struggled honestly and fairly to extract wisdom from the different teachers you saddled him with, and he has found ways to learn on his own when there was no one to help him, even as an immature apprentice. That he has these skills are a testament to his ability and dedication, not yours."
Any hints of pride that had made their way into his voice dripped out, leaving only dull loathing. "Do not think that you have fulfilled the Hokage's instructions, Gōketsu. You've merely found the least you could do that does not invite further punishment." Hagoromo stepped aside and gestured to the grand double-gates of the Hagoromo clan compound. "But if you have found it in your heart to return to your apprentice after so long, please, do not let me stop you. Enjoy your afternoon of sealing."
Hazō looked Hagoromo again in the eyes, feeling the icy cold of hatred spreading through his body, then turned and walked out of the Hagoromo compound. Harumitsu jumped again at his sensei's sudden movements, but bowed to his clan lord with a muttered apology and followed soon after.
Once the walls of the Hagoromo compound had faded from sight, Hazō sighed. "Madara's treasonous member, what a prick."
Harumitsu didn't respond. After a couple of minutes of walking through the streets had brought them out of Leaf proper, Hazō asked, "Harumitsu, how is life in the Hagoromo clan? Have you found more friends?"
Harumitsu nodded. "The g-g-glasses the Aburame m-made for me, they're great. I c-c-c-can't play all the games that the other genin p-play, but I can do some. And I think I f-f-finally did a good service to my c-clan, like a normal ninja."
"Oh," Hazō asked. "Is that related to the heating seal you were working on?"
"Yes, sensei," Harumitsu said. "It was a c-cooling seal, not a heating one. It d-d-didn't work very well, but I just m-made lots. Lots of p-people came to me and asked me to m-make s-some cooling seals for them when it was hot in July and ah-August."
Hazō raised an eyebrow. "And you think they were accepting you, rather than just using you for the seals you could make?"
Harumitsu shook his head. "N-n-no, sensei. People d-didn't like me because I was d-doing nothing for the clan. Now that I can show I'm n-not a free-l-loader and that I always c-cared for the clan. People appreciate that I was just in the wrong specialty t-to contribute, before. I know I'll n-n-never be a normal ninja, sensei. I'm just happy to b-be accepted for the help I can give."
Hazō kept quiet. He had a bad feeling that the kindness the Hagoromo were showing his young apprentice was not any true acceptance. They'd already shown that they didn't care for him as a person or see him as family by neglecting him when he didn't have skills worth mentioning. If they were nice to him now, it was only because they wanted more of his seals. Still, saying this would only hurt Harumitsu.
"Huh," Hazō said as the pair arrived at the Gōketsu Research Facility #4. Hazō looked at the yellow-painted tablet that hung on the outer wall. "It's occupied? I don't remember anyone having it scheduled this morning."
Green meant theoretical research work, yellow meant infusion prep, and red meant live seal infusions. Technically speaking, Kagome's safety regulation said never to interrupt a sealmaster involved with yellow-level work (and to sprint away from any sealmaster involved in red-level work), but Kagome's safety regulation also said to register which facilities you were using ahead of time, and the facility hadn't been booked.
"Harumitsu, wait here for a moment," Hazō said as he crept over the wall. As soon as he peeked his head over the wall, he heard a male yelp from within the confined field of the research facility, followed by a female scream that quickly cut itself short. Hazō shook his head and walked back down to Harumitsu.
"What is it, s-s-sensei?"
"It's just Jinno," Hazō said, "and a… friend of his. They must not have known we were coming. Let's give them a moment to clear out."
A minute later, a flushed young blonde woman stepped out of the research facility gates and made the impressively coordinated maneuver of bowing twice to Hazō and Harumitsu while running away. "MyapologiesmylordsIwillnotdisturbyouanylongergoodday!" she said as she fled.
Jinno stepped up to the open gate and leaned casually against its side with his hair still ruffled and shirt half-unbuttoned. His face was flushed too, but unlike the embarrassed woman, he was grinning broadly. "Lord Gōketsu and his young apprentice. My deepest apologies, I hadn't realized you would be using this place today. I certainly don't want to get in your way."
"Yes, we need the space," Hazō said. "At the end of the day, it's meant for sealing research, not for," Hazō glanced at Harumitsu, "getting to know your friends better. And, Jinno, don't call me 'Lord'. Just 'Hazō' is fine."
Jinno bowed in apology, but Jinno's grin made it clear he was just messing with Hazō. "I don't know if I could be so familiar to you when I am but a humble clanless ninja and you are a Lord upon the Clan Council. Perhaps I can manage with Lord Hazō, instead."
Hazō sighed. "I'm working on getting more adoption tickets for you, I promise. KEI has been having 'production issues', whatever that means. You, Fuyuki, and Sugiyama are next on the list to be adopted though, no matter what."
Jinno smiled at that. "Excellent to hear, Lord Hazō."
"I am glad to be of service, Mister Yūdai," Hazō replied. "Before you go, one question." Hazō gestured at the civilian woman still fleeing towards the walls of Leaf. "Who is that? I swear I've seen you with a dozen different girls in the Gōketsu estate alone, and I don't think I've seen her before."
Jinno clutched a hand to his chest. "Ah, Lord Hazō, you wound me. A dozen different girls? You must be mistaken. Please do keep your voice down, as I wouldn't want my lovelies to be getting the wrong idea. For all the wonderful women that make their lives on your estate, I do try to be respectful of their time. I don't think I've had the chance to make the acquaintance of more than five or six. And I don't want to be rude to any of them, or make them believe they're not worth my time. Mikiko is the only one I've been seeing recently in the estate. She's moved in recently, you know? She's the daughter of a miller."
"Ah, I think I remember something like that." Hazō said. "So she's your only girlfriend living in the Gōketsu estate. How many girlfriends do you have inside of Leaf?"
"Ah," Jinno said. "You know how to ask questions that get to the heart of a man. I promise to you that I'm being modest. Only three more." He thought for a moment. "Maybe four."
"And how many in Tanzaku Gai?"
"...perhaps three more?"
"And in Otafuku Gai?"
"I've only had the chance to meet a single lovely lady there. Perhaps I need to visit again."
"And in Keishi?"
"Ah," Jinno's eyes lit up. "I haven't visited there yet. I ought to put it on the list."
'"So you have somewhere between eight and infinite girlfriends running around in at least three cities, and of all the places you could be, you're holding up the clan's seal research facility? It's not exactly a romantic destination. It must have taken you nearly an hour to walk here!"
"If we walked," Jinno agreed. "But there's a joy in clutching a woman to your breast as you race around the world with her. And getting princess carried around at speeds she's never experienced by a strong, handsome ninja often gets her in the mood for a little ravishing, you know?"
"Exc-c-cuse me," Harumitsu said. "Isn't it wrong t-to be dating so many women? You can't marry th-them all."
"Not at all," Jinno said with another roguishly handsome grin. "Each flower is unique and delicate and beautiful in its own way, with lovely smells and colors, yet we still have florists to mix them into bouquets. I adore each of my lovelies for who they are, with their charming smiles and perfect personalities. But each flower is made more beautiful by the bouquet, and regrettably, there are few men who know how to craft a beautiful bouquet, even with the most beautiful of flowers.
"But Lord Hazō, haven't you taught your apprentice the way, yet?" Jinno said, facing Hazō. "You can't exactly question my girlfriends when your bouquet is so full as well."
Hazō raised an eyebrow. "My 'bouquet' isn't full. It's just fine, I think."
"How can you say it isn't full?" Jinno asked. "After all, you've got Lady Yamanaka and Lady Akane," Hazō nodded, "and Amori Yukiko-"
"No, I don't-"
"And Toyoki Munakano-"
"Never heard the name."
"And Akimichi Choko-"
"Still a no-"
"And Kei Anko-"
"Hell no-"
"And, now, Uchiha Minori!"
"Absolutely not! Where do you people even come up with this?" Hazō said, throwing his hands in the air.
"Perhaps you should try listening to the rumors, Lord Hazō. I hear Lady Yamanaka knows her way around them."
Hazō shook the thoughts out of his head. Ino would not be pleased if there were really rumors going around about him dating a dozen different women.
"Jinno, I can assure you that my bouquet contains only two flowers. My girlfriends are intelligent, strong, good-hearted, beautiful, and more, but they number only two."
"Twice as many as an ordinary man, yet still a loss for the women of the world," Jinno said, looking dejected. After a moment, he perked up. "More opportunities for me I suppose. I'll keep your words in the front of my mind, Lord Hazō. Hopefully they'll make their way back to your mindreader girlfriend."
Hazō shook his head. "Enough of that, Jinno. I do want to teach Harumitsu something before the sun sets."
"Right," Jinno said, facing Harumitsu. "What exactly are you working on? Is it related to that cooling seal you were working on earlier?"
Harumitsu nodded. "Yes. It'll b-be winter s-soon, so I'm making a seal that'll keep rooms warm instead."
Jinno's eyes went wide. "That's a great idea, Harumitsu! There are thousands of families that live in one-room houses, and even then they struggle to keep their houses warm in the winter. If we could sell them a single seal that keeps their house warm cheaper than buying firewood, and if it were safer than going out and cutting it themselves, we could probably save a couple dozen people from dying to the cold each year, and that's only in Leaf!"
"B-but won't most ninja be able to easily afford firewood?" Harumitsu asked. "Or even c-cutting it down shouldn't b-be dangerous."
"I didn't say ninja," Jinno said, looking at Harumitsu. Harumitsu seemed confused, so Jinno turned to Hazō with a raised eyebrow. Hazō shook his head. Not the time.
"Anyway," Jinno continued, "we should compare notes sometime! I've worked with heat triggers before, so I understand a bit about how to represent heat and cold in sealing language. We could probably figure out something good together."
Jinno turned to Hazō. "Speaking of which, Lord Hazō, I wanted to run an idea by you. I've checked it with Kagome-sensei and he's given it a checkmark, which means it should be doable from the sealing angle, but I don't know if it would be useful. I want to make heat-triggered storage seals. I think if we set the activation threshold correctly, civilians should be able to trigger the storage seals themselves by pressing a hand to the trigger element for long enough. If we had that, we could hire civilians to staff the storage seal bank and expand it a ton. We could provide way more food security to Leaf."
Hazō blinked. "More than that, Jinno. We could just give the seals to civilian families to take home. They could store whatever food they needed. Their vegetables would never go bad and their meals would never go cold. They wouldn't need to make an arduous journey to the Gōketsu estate through snow and slush or wait on a ninja to look up and find their seals – they'd have the power to do it all themselves!"
Jinno beamed. "I'm glad to hear you think it's a good idea, Lord Hazō! I'll get started on it right away. Hopefully, I can have it ready before the first snowfall."
Hazō smiled back and placed a hand on the taller genin's shoulder. "I'll look forward to it. If that's all…?"
"Best of luck, Harumitsu, Lord Hazō," Jinno said with a smile as he stepped aside. "I should go catch up to Mikiko and make sure she's okay."
Hazō gestured to Harumitsu, and the master and apprentice walked into the sealing facility.
o-o-o
Hazō turned the stone over in his palm, eyes closed. He focused on the sensation of his chakra flowing through the rock. Within it, he could feel shapes, vague and hazy. He'd learned to understand them from long hours examining various stones with his Earthshaping technique, then splitting them open by hand to examine their interiors. He could map the shapes he felt with his chakra to concrete features of the stone. Internal fractures, changes in color, or rough edges where the internal structure of the stone changed direction – he could see them all with the strange new sense the Earthshaping technique gave him.
So why did the technique make him feel like there was something more? As he'd developed his skill with the technique and heightened his sense of how the chakra was interlacing itself through the stone, he'd gotten the strange impression that his chakra had sunk more deeply into the stone than he was able to understand.
He could control the stone all the way to its core. He focused, and the stone started to melt and reshape itself. A minute later, a perfect octahedron rested in his hand. He focused again, and the stone melted again, forming itself into a spiraling bracelet around his wrist. He focused again and returned the stone to a lump in his palm. Each transformation was the matter of mere minutes, and completely changed its shape. There was no part of the stone that was beyond his control. So why did the technique's chakra feedback make him feel like his chakra was permeating the stone in a way he couldn't yet feel, much less control?
After a few minutes more, he pushed the stone back into the wall he'd scooped it out of and flattened it out, leaving one more distortion in the blank granite expanse behind his desk. He knew he wouldn't make any breakthroughs today, but his ability to sense and control stone with the technique improved with every day of focused practice, and he could tell he was getting close. Just a few days more…
"Morning, Hazō. Daydreaming or inventing new weapons of mass destruction?"
Hazō blinked away the Iron Nerve-summoned memory of the Great Seal to look at Mari as she entered the office. She wore an oversized fluffy bathrobe and a pair of remarkably un-ninjalike fleece slippers with long, floppy ears and hopefully-fake acid glands that made them look like little bunnies. She dropped a stack of papers on the desk, then raised an eyebrow. She leaned forward and placed a finger on a sheet of paper by Hazō's side.
"Are you planning another Uplift trip?" she asked. "Sadly, the hot springs there aren't nearly as good as the country, and we can't exactly go back there."
"What?"
Mari frowned. "Isn't this a map of northeastern Fire? It looks like the area around Fudami." She grabbed the paper off his desk to examine it.
"That's the pattern of my footsteps, from when I danced with Ami," Hazō said. "Are you saying it's a map?"
Mari tossed the paper back on Hazō's desk and shrugged. "It looked more similar at a distance, less so close up. I'm probably going nuts from staring at maps. Speaking of going nuts, enjoy this," she said, tapping the stack of papers she'd dropped off. "You don't need to read it in detail, of course, but it's a report on Fire's projected tax revenue this year, comparing normal villages against the villages that the Ministry walled up. There's a few summaries and my planned Clan Council presentation at the top though."
"Got it," Hazō said, staring grimly at the dozen other reports that had driven him to Earthshaping-fueled procrastination. "I'll deal with it eventually."
"One of the villages that the Ministry walled up was Bakuchioka," Mari said softly. "They're doing well. They never saw trouble during the war. I thought you'd want to know."
Hazō grit his teeth as the memories flashed before his mind's eye.
Hidan didn't even bother to get up after the roll. He just flicked his wrist, and a woman's head fell to the ground. Her body slumped sideways, onto the lap of the person next to her, who miraculously suppressed a scream.
…
"Looks like we're gonna need a new dealer," Hidan said casually as he threw the elder's body in a random direction, sending blood spraying everywhere.
…
Hidan roared with laughter as he eviscerated the last civilian. "Fine. Ya got me."
He forced himself to release his breath and unclench his fists. Inhale calm and peace, exhale pain and tension. "Thanks," he said, "I'll make sure to look."
"About your other request," she said, "you got it in one. KEI's intentionally stalling us on the adoption tickets."
"Really," Hazō asked. "Why?"
Mari shrugged. "Look at the new chūnin we adopted. Each of them learned ninjutsu from the KEI's exchange program, and they were good ninjutsu. Not amazing ninjutsu, like I'm sure the Uchiha and the Sarutobi have up their sleeves, but better than the average clanless ninja gets access to. Because of KEI's size, there's almost certainly way more opportunity to pick ninjutsu that suit your fighting style, enhance your strengths, or cover your weaknesses in a way that clanless ninja used to just roll the dice on. They learned these ninjutsu on the condition that they wouldn't share it, enforced by the various sanctions that KEI dreamed up after the case of Fu Kōhei.
"Those conditions and sanctions don't apply anymore. KEI has no more power over our chūnin than the Hagoromo do, which means that any ninja that shared ninjutsu with our adoptees now have to deal with those ninjutsu no longer being secret. It's not just that our chūnin can freely teach it to others in the clan. The ninjutsu are fully ours now – we could trade them to other clans, sell them to the Tower, or anything else we wanted. Worse, if the ninja that taught our adoptees their ninjutsu died before teaching it to anyone else, the ninjutsu could end up our clan secret. Sure, the teacher's dead and rotting either way, but it's a gross insult to everything the KEI stands for if the cooperation and sacrifices of their members ends up enriching clan coffers.
"Worse, KEI can't plug the hole. Adoption tickets aren't assigned on a ninja-by-ninja basis, so any adoption ticket they print could adopt any ninja, and even if they refuse to print extra ones, they still need to give out two per year to the clans. The ninja that benefit the most from the exchange will end up with strong mission records, so they'll be the ones the clans try to adopt. Sure, some will have KEI pride and refuse, but others will be salivating over the chance to get access to the secret techniques of the Akimichi or the Motoyoshi or the Yamanaka that have been perfected over a hundred generations."
Mari sighed. "I've put them between a rock and a hard place. It's become their responsibility to issue tickets, yet the tickets might end up killing their ninjutsu exchange and a ton of their internal trust and cohesion. I'm wracking my brain for a solution and I'm sure the coordinators are trying to pull something off, but I don't see an easy way out of it. Asuma won't ban or even limit clan adoptions because the point of the ticket system was to make the clans share their secrets more and make Leaf stronger. Most of all, he definitely wants the strongest KEI ninja to join the strongest clans, because advantages compound and he'd rather have a couple star jōnin, like yours truly, than dozens of chūnin with adequate skills.
"So, in short, yeah, they're not going to give us any tickets till the new year. We can try to buy from the other clans when that happens, but the price is definitely going up. Some of the clans will be idiot traditionalists and assume that their techniques are better than anything the clanless could come up with, but any jōnin with half a brain knows that more techniques equals more chances for synergies and more potential counters to an enemy's trump card. Honestly, even some of the most bigoted clans will be looking for chances to pick up fresh new bundles of ninjutsu. So what if it comes with a filthy mudfoot attached? They'll probably die in a couple years anyway, and the ninjutsu will be in the clan forever."
"I see," Hazō said. "No new tickets because the KEI doesn't want their exchanged ninjutsu spreading, and even when Asuma forces them to issue new ones, the potential new techniques are blood in the water for the other clans, so demand will be way higher as well."
"Exactly."
Hazō rubbed his forehead. "Sounds tough. If I ever have a spare moment to think that's not occupied by splitting headaches, I'll spend some time thinking of a solution."
Mari curtsied, an otherwise elegant maneuver completely engulfed by the fluffy bathrobe that easily doubled her volume. "I'll leave you to it," she said.
"Wait," Hazō called as she turned to the door. "Before you go, Mari, I wanted to ask you something. How are you feeling about taking a team of genin?"
Mari shrugged as she paced across the room and sunk herself into Hazō's armchair. Hazō made a mental note to apologize to whatever maid would have to clean the bits of loose fluff that would inevitably shed off into the fabric. "Do I have to feel any way about it? It was basically an order for me, and despite your alternatives, there's no way that ANBU, the organization of absolute loyalty to the Hokage and the Will of Fire, takes a Mist-trained infiltration-spec jōnin in."
"Whether you do it or not is separate from how you feel about it," Hazō said. "Even if I ordered Noburi to do something he didn't like, I wouldn't order him to feel a certain way about it, even if he could. Honestly, I'd ask him to tell me what he doesn't like. It could maybe fix a flaw in the plan, or let me make an alternative that he liked more."
Mari raised an eyebrow. "If he doesn't like it, then he might subconsciously feel reluctant to do it, impairing his performance. Or, if you're too empathetic, it might prevent you from assigning him on missions like that one, so as to spare his feelings. He doesn't need to feel angry at you to evaluate whether his skills are good for a mission and give you feedback that maximizes mission success – only the most idiot commander doesn't listen when his subordinates are pointing out a flaw in the plan."
Hazō laughed. "Then I met a lot of idiot commanders in Mist."
Mari smiled. "Well, that's what happens when you assign problem genin under problem chūnin. Those guys didn't exactly get promoted for punching smart."
"Don't think I can't tell when you're dodging questions," Hazō said. "Seriously, how do you feel about taking genin?"
"I feel fine. I-"
Mari cut herself off and looked away. She inhaled, then exhaled, then faced him again.
"I don't feel great about it, honestly," she said, her voice considerably quieter. "For all my virtues, I don't think being a sensei is one of them. I only ended up in charge of you three because I led you into the Swamp, and I think Kei's said enough about how terrible a choice that was. I said we ought to abandon Akane, and your kindness is the reason she's tending the garden upstairs rather than curled up in a storage scroll in one of Leaf's missing-nin bounty offices.
"Worse, I didn't even teach you enough. Sure, I shared a couple Wind ninjutsu with Kei and a couple Water ninjutsu with Noburi. We figured out your Roki style, and I think there'll always be a handful of moves in your arsenal that were really meant for a shorter-than-average woman. But that's not what I'm good at. I lied my way into and out of almost every major city on the continent. I turned men and women of untold strength and willpower into mere puppets that threw away their lives at my word. I made genjutsu that would shame any clan's oldest and most learned masters. I didn't teach you four any of that. I kept my best ninjutsu and my best techniques secret from you, even though I knew it might help you survive."
"Mari," Hazō said, "I wouldn't blame you at all for keeping our clan's ninjutsu and seals secret from your genin students, even if it would help them survive."
"That's not the same at all!" Mari said, her voice raising. She continued, quieter. "You, I can understand sharing your clan secrets, and Kei never really opened up about hers, but Noburi gladly shared every detail of his bloodline with us despite generations of training and years of indoctrination. I didn't have any clan to be responsible to. Every secret I had was either my creation, or someone trusting me enough and caring about my survival enough to entrust me with it. I was too selfish to entrust those secrets to you. My genin students sacrificed more to ensure my survival than I sacrificed to ensure theirs. I can't live up to that."
Hazō raised a finger. "What was your reasoning? I can't exactly imagine you twirling a mustache and muttering to yourself, 'I, evil as I am, will refuse to teach them the Truth Lost in the Fog technique next. That will surely see them to the grave!'"
Mari glared at him. "I had excuses and justifications. One of you might have leaked something unintentionally, or if you were captured and interrogated, it would reduce my ability to protect the rest of you. But mostly, it was the same as I've always done. I just didn't think about it. I ignored my responsibility."
"You didn't do it with malicious intent," Hazō said. "You knew that giving away secrets has a real cost and came down on the side of keeping secrets. It's hard to shake off years of training telling you to keep secrets, and Mist drilled that into you for years, while we only got a couple months of D ranks and the bare basics from our clan heritages. Was it a bad choice? Maybe. We'll never know, as all your students ended up alive."
"I'm telling you that it was a bad choice, Hazō. I've thought about it, and I was wrong."
"Out of curiosity," Hazō asked. "How many sensei in the Elemental Nations have had their first three students end up as summoners?"
Mari glared again. "That's not a fair comparison."
"What's the answer, Mari?"
She turned her gaze down. "Sarutobi Hiruzen and myself," she said, clearly irritated.
"And would you say Sarutobi Hiruzen was a bad sensei?"
"This is a bullshit argument and you know it, Hazō," Mari said, suddenly incensed. "Kei's Pangolin Scroll is a result of her favor with Jiraiya and connection with Takahashi-"
"And you noticing the Isan ninja's tracks and dancing circles around all their people of power."
"Noburi's Toad Scroll is only thanks to joining Leaf by selling them the skywalkers you invented-"
"For which you negotiated the sale and built the connections with Jiraiya that made negotiations possible at all."
"And your Dog Scroll is only because of your choice to give up Jiraiya's sealing textbook to the Contest!"
"And we wouldn't have been able to do that if you hadn't done the political groundwork to convince Asuma to let us decode Jiraiya's notes in-house."
They stared at each other for a second, then Mari leaned back in the chair with another puff of loose fluff around her.
"Fine," she said. "Thanks to sheer dumb luck and your own genius, we managed to worm ourselves into positions of power and influence in Leaf. At a distant third cause, it couldn't have happened without my own efforts because, yes, I didn't actually want you all to die even if I was stupid enough to act like it sometimes."
"So… Is it maybe possible that you'll be a good sensei to these genin?" Hazō asked.
Mari shook her head. "No, Hazō. Maybe I was a good teacher to you. Sage knows a little more social training would do all four of you good, but when we were missing-nin, it made more sense to make you more lethal. Most of our problems didn't want to manipulate or cheat us, they just wanted to kill us. Maybe it was the right idea to forgo teaching you in my specialties. And I'm not stupid. I can make a guess at what these genin will need to achieve their goals, and try to give them that. Maybe I could be a good teacher to them too.
"But a good sensei? I don't think I could ever do that, Hazō. A sensei teaches, yes, but a sensei is also wise. A sensei is supposed to guide her students in things beyond the skills they need to excel in the field. A sensei teaches her students the right way to live life, to walk the line between human and tool, to deal with the pain of having so much useless power in a world with so much suffering.
Mari looked away. "I had many sensei of my own. I never wanted to be one because I knew I would pass on the lessons they had taught me, and I think there was some part of me, even then, that didn't want to be responsible for that. But when I became the leader of our little team, I resigned myself to it. Then came that winter day, up in the mountains of Tea," she said. "We were in the shelter you built. You remember that, right?"
Hazō nodded.
"Well… I was going to say that it was a pivotal point, but to be honest, I mostly thought you were a naive idiot that needed some loving yet firm guidance about the realities of ninja life, guidance that would land the hardest after your first real failure. Yet, time after time, you proved yourself to be wiser and kinder than me. Still naive and kind of an idiot, I'm not trying to inflate your ego, but you had a clearer understanding of what life should be than I think I ever had. You showed me that even as a ninja trying to survive, I could try to do the right thing. Not the right thing for myself or for my team, but just the right thing.
"Sure, it was mostly ineffective at first, and we mostly skated on the edge of death over it. There were probably a dozen ways we could have managed the Hot Springs mission better if we cared less about collateral damage, but instead we tried and failed to take the correct path. And little by little, we started to actually make a difference. Now, even I…" she waved at the pile of papers on the desk. "You screwed up a lot and learned from your mistakes, but you never broke under the pressure. You always knew what was right. I can't quite recall when, but there was a point when I understood why Akane called you Hazō-sensei."
She waved again, this time at the clan compound. "Noburi loved medical ninjutsu since he figured out the bare basics, but the person that made him realize how much good he did to the world by healing? That was you. Kei always had a mind for precise optimization, but the person that made the good of all humanity her optimization target? There's a reason she came to you first to share her success with the Nara Future Foundation. Hell, you even managed to get Kagome to care about the lives of the hundreds of people on this estate. That's something I could never do."
"Why not?" Hazō asked. "You know Uplift as well as I do. You've sat through all my speeches. Depending on what's in this stack," he said, tapping on the paperwork she'd left on his desk, "you might even have done more good to the world than I have. What's stopping you from guiding your students the way you want to?"
Mari laughed bitterly. "That's not the person I am, Hazō. I'm not your mother, and I'm not your sensei. Kei's made that clear enough to me. I'm just a person who taught the four of you some useful tricks in the woods and managed to keep you safe in the end. That's enough for me."
Her voice took on a calm, clinical cadence. "I know what I am, Hazō. If I was ever lying to myself about that, Hana taught me the better of it. When I was a free jōnin in Mist, I only caused destruction. I hurt myself by drinking or smoking or sleeping with anything I could get my hands on. I hurt others by taking them apart. I made a game of ruining people and getting away with it. Could I make a man obsess over me until he tried to rape me, then put him in the hospital over it? Could I make a woman come out to her family, only to leave her once she was expelled from the clan? Could I break a man's heart so thoroughly that he signed up for a suicide mission? I'm pretty sure I even enjoyed it. The only time when I wasn't serving myself was when I was on a mission, because Yagura made his jōnin into tools.
"I am a tool, Hazō. For you and the Gōketsu. The most damn useful tool that any clan in the village has, but just that. A good tool can act on her own, so I founded the Ministry and went over your head to overpower Ami when she disrespected us. A good tool makes the decisions her leader would prefer, even if he wouldn't make them, so when push came to shove, I chose to risk Kei's life to save yours from certain Orochimaru-induced death. By the Abyss, the rift between Kei and I started because I tried to maximize our odds of success in the Isan mission. Or maybe it was when I tried to manipulate her into preserving the Pangolin deal for the ryō we so desperately needed. It's hard to tell.
"I can't be allowed to act as I prefer, because what I prefer is to be the Heartbreaker. You experienced that yourself. When you gave me even a little leeway to do what I wanted, I tortured you with my genjutsu. I don't regret the things I've done. I don't regret the people I hurt in Mist, or the people I sent to their dooms in the Swamp of Death. That apathy to the pain and suffering I've caused… it's irredeemable. I know I'm too corrupted to act on my own, so I become a tool. I know that you always pursue the right thing to do, so I do as I think you would want me to. I can't guide others when I'm just a tool to be guided."
Something clicked inside Hazō's mind. "Mari, after the air dome sealing failure, hundreds of people were going to die of starvation or exposure after their houses were destroyed. Hundreds more would have died in the aftermath of the Collapse, for similar reasons. Because I was there with the resources to save them and the will to do so when no one else would, they lived instead. Was that a good thing that I did?"
Mari frowned. "Hazō, are you going to explain how this is even remotely related, or are you suffering a mental breakdown from cramming too much sealing theory into that fragile skull?"
"Just answer the question."
Mari leaned her head to one side, and a crimson wave cascaded over her shoulder. "Yes, that was a good thing to do. Not the optimal thing along many axes, nor something I would have picked myself."
"Because I saved the lives of so many people, am I now incorruptibly good? Is there now nothing that I can do that would possibly sully my soul?"
Mari shook her head. "I see what you're trying to say, but it's different."
"Is it? I made a good choice, but that doesn't mean that I can't still do evil things. There's no amount of good that I can do that would forever make my actions good. If I do something evil, then that's evil. So why is there any amount of evil that you could have done that would forever taint your actions in the future?"
"Because the things you do change who you are, Hazō. Between the efforts of myself, Yagura, and damn near everyone else in Mist, the part of me that does good things is long, long dead. I'm doing the right thing the only way I can now."
"That's not true, Mari," Hazō said insistently. "You're looking at all the mistakes that you've made in the past and telling yourself that it's all because you're evil or because you were a tool to others. But the wrong choices you've made in the past don't change the moral weight of the choices you make now. Your sins don't mean you have to sin again, and they don't stop you from doing honestly, purely, genuinely good things."
"The good things I do, they're only because of people guiding me in the right directions," Mari said weakly.
"I don't believe that, Mari. You can tell when something is wrong. How else would you know to label the things you did in Mist as evil? You can at least tell when others are doing the right thing, since I convinced you that Uplift was the only way we could turn our power as ninja into something good. You have the capacity to tell the difference.
"Hashirama's wood, I've been reading the reports you've been giving me about the Ministry! You walled up dozens of towns to keep hundreds or thousands of people from chakra beasts. You went back to them and talked to them and realized they needed water too, so you started having the missions include digging out a new well with Tunnel Excavation. And you didn't even give up then! When they started getting sick, you talked with Lady Tsunade and then went back to all those villages again to tell them how to dispose of waste and bodies to keep their water clean. Every single thing you've done for the Ministry has been unquestionably good.
"I didn't do all of that," Mari said. "I just told others to do it. And I was only doing what I thought you'd want."
"The people whose lives you protected and improved don't care why you did it. They care that you did it at all. We already talked about this, didn't we? Mari, I don't want you to be a tool. I don't want you to ignore who you really are. I know there's parts of you that like to hurt others, or that like to control them and twist them around your fingers. Yes, there's a selfish part of you, but there's also a part of you that's incredibly, recklessly selfless – don't think I forget the way you almost threw your life away in Hot Springs. There's another part of you that knows how to kill her emotions and do what she needs to do. Yagura may have made her, but she's a part of you nonetheless, and it's thanks to that part of her that Akane is tending the garden upstairs rather than eaten through by Arikada's maggots. And with the Ministry you made, I'm sure there's a part of you that truly cares about Uplift more than just being a good tool for its completion.
"And yes, there's the Heartbreaker. She, you, killed her uncle. She ruined her own life and the lives of as many as she could manage in Mist, and she regrets none of it. That was who you were, for a long time. You know you can't ignore it, and you know you can't just say 'it was the Heartbreaker' and absolve yourself of responsibility, because at every juncture you were the one making the choices.
"But, Mari, you've grown since then. I've seen you change and learn and find new parts of yourself that weren't there before. Could the Heartbreaker have ever thought to sacrifice her life for a handful of politically-irrelevant genin fated to die in a swamp in the middle of nowhere? I think it's only because you changed that you feel so much pain at the things that you did in Mist. You kept on doing what you did in Mist because the Heartbreaker didn't feel regrets. And now, you can see what you were doing as evil because you're not just the Heartbreaker anymore."
Mari closed her eyes, gripping lightly at the arms of the armchair, but Hazō pressed on.
"But you can't call yourself irredeemable, because there's no such thing. You know what right and wrong are, and you know that the sins you committed as the Heartbreaker were absolutely, incontrovertibly wrong. The past is fixed, and you can no more undo the things you've done than I can take back my suggestion to sell seals to the Pangolins. There's only one thing we can do about the past."
He let the silence hang for a long moment until Mari opened her eyes again. She kept her gaze in her lap. "What?" she whispered.
"Do better next time. You can tell right from wrong, and you know what you did as the Heartbreaker was wrong. Why don't you feel any regret? Are you just refusing to think about it? And before you let yourself drown in self-hatred, you can't destroy yourself over your past if you want to do better next time. If the parts of you that know right from wrong are filling themselves with regret and hate at the things you've done, then the only person that you're hurting is yourself. Your regrets will not bring any justice to the people you've hurt. The condors made at least that much clear to me this week. The only thing you have control over, the only way you can influence the world, is the present. Every choice you make is between right and wrong.
"I've learned and grown and as I did, I found new regrets and mistakes. I should have switched my bets in Hidan's Chō-Han game to whichever side had come up more. I should have realized how wrong Haru's actions were sooner. I should have thought about the stakes I was playing with when I made the scrip, and how ordinary people would starve if I let it collapse. Each regret is a chance to learn and adapt. If I don't do that and I don't make better choices in the future, then the mistake I made was a waste, and the pain I caused myself beating myself up over it was a waste. If I ignore it, then I'll just keep making the same mistakes and keep screwing up. The only right thing for me to do is to learn from my mistakes, then let them go."
Mari looked up to meet his eyes. Were her eyes getting misty? "How can you say that? I know you, Hazō. I know how much pain you still carry from the Sunset Racer, and now from the Condor genocide."
Hazō shrugged, smiling wryly, then stood and started to walk around his desk. "It's really hard. I've thought about it a million times and tried to imagine ways I could have done things differently with the information and the tools and, for the Sunset Racer, the amount of time to think that I had available. I don't think learning from regrets can happen in an instant, and I don't think letting go of them is easy. The Sunset Racer will always be a tragedy for the world and for each of the sixty people aboard it. Still, maybe one day I'll have learned all I can from it. I'll have accepted what I did, and I'll have decided what I can do in the future to keep myself from ever having that same regret again. On that day, maybe I'll see it as just what it is, a tragedy rather than a well of all my mistakes and flaws.
He came to a stop in front of where Mari slumped in her chair. "Please, Mari. You don't need to be just a tool. You can be a person with a dark past and a bright future. Someone who has made incredible mistakes and is trying to do the right thing despite them, no, because of them. You can feel pain at the things you did, and you can learn from them. You don't need to let that pain destroy you, because you can instead use it to make yourself stronger, and more honest, and more good.
"Most of all, you can do the right thing, Mari. You can use all the parts of yourself to look at a situation and take the action that you honestly think is best. I'm not saying you should never hurt anyone; I'm saying that you shouldn't hurt someone just because you would have hurt them in the past, because you're more than just the Heartbreaker. You don't need to help people because you care about Uplift; you can help because it's the right thing to do. If you can feel pain at your mistakes, you can feel happiness at your successes. You can look at your family with joy, you can take pride in the people growing old and fat and happy thanks to your work, and you can still smile at outmaneuvering a rival or trapping an enemy, or maybe even a friend, in a genjutsu.
"I don't want you to suppress or hide any part of your personality, because I know you, and I trust you fully, Mari. If you accept everything you've done and everything you've become, and bring it all together when you're faced with tough choices, I know you'll do the right thing."
Mari broke eye contact, looking to the unlit fireplace. "Okay, Hazō. I'll… I'll try."
Hazō extended his arms. "Now that I've said that, is there any part of you that wants a hug?"
Mari snorted. "As if. I…"
She slowly pulled herself to her feet. Hazō slowly, gingerly, stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. After a long moment, she did the same.
Hazō had to squeeze her to meet his hands comfortably behind the back of the massive puffball of a bathrobe that enveloped her. She took the cue and hugged him back tightly. Hazō closed his eyes, noting the warmth of her hands, the floral scent of her hair, the soft pressure all along his body.
He stiffened as he felt her hands moving up his back. He realized a moment too late to react as she brought one hand up to gently cradle the side of his head and used the other to tousle the long hair on top.
Mari laughed with a stutter. "I hate how much taller than me you've gotten," she said, voice muffled with her face pressed between his chest and her bathrobe.
A thought came to Hazō as he rested his chin on top of her head. He could still have revenge. Her hair spilled loosely across her back, and with the thickness of her robe, she'd never notice him moving his hands. He started to inch them upwards.
"Mess with my hair and I'll break your spine," Mari said, in the same soft, muffled tone. He slowly lowered his hands back down to her mid back.
After a minute, Mari pulled away. Somehow, despite the sounds Hazō had half-thought he'd heard, her eyes were dry. He looked down and noted a rough wet patch on his shirt.
Mari smiled at him. "There's a part of me that is screaming at me that I should never let anyone see me cry, especially not the guy in charge of me. I've elected to listen to this wisdom. Please leave."
Hazō raised an eyebrow. "Mari, this is my office."
"Oh it is?" she asked. "I hadn't noticed. Well, I'm going to be crying in your office for a couple hours, so lock the doors on your way out and leave a Silence Mine if you have one. Jōnin's orders."
Hazō sighed, grabbed the stack of papers she'd dropped off, and made his escape.
Timeline for this update:
- 2 days, recovering from SSA headache (Training Harumitsu)
- 8 days, researching chakdar
- 2 days, recovering from SSA headache (Mari conversation)
- 2 days, paying this month's skywalker tax
- 8 days, researching chakdar
- 2 days, recovering from SSA headache
XP Award: 99 + 10 (brevity) XP
GM-fun Award: 2 XP (Mari unexpectedly had a moment, sorry for the late update. Thanks for adding in the bit about asking the Gōketsu about their potential students (+1). The Harumitsu scene turned out more fun than I expected, but I think that's because of the side characters (Lord Hagoromo, Jinno) (+1). I think Harumitsu alone could get tiring for me.)
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on
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