"Even if it were a clan secret," Kei noted, "we are missing-nin. It would technically belong to Jin and the others, with ourselves being clanless thieves to be eliminated in order to protect it.
Hazō paced back and forth anxiously between the weird psychedelic mushroom trees of the Toad forest. Noburi had missed his check-in. Noburi was dead. They never made it out of Leaf. Mari missed the message and Akatsuki made their move early. Akatsuki intercepted the message and interrogated her. Naruto decided he wasn't letting Noburi go and seized him as soon as he came back from the Seventh Path. Itachi had been watching the compound and intercepted them. Leaf's hunter-nin had pursuit capabilities they didn't publicise and caught up with the team. Mari had seen the message, weighed her options, and decided to cut ties rather than leave.
"Hazō."
Hazō spun around. "Noburi! You're all right!"
Noburi looked exhausted, shoulders drooping and bags under his eyes. His expression on seeing Hazō was not relieved but grim.
"We set fire to our lives and walked away," Noburi said. "Nobody's all right."
"You're safe," Hazō amended. "Where are you right now?"
"Tea," Noburi said. "There's no sign of pursuit, so we're on a direct path to join you, fast as we can."
Ah.
"Noburi," Hazō said tentatively, "where do you think I am?"
"Somewhere near Crimson State Island, right?"
"...No," Hazō said. "That was a lie for Akatsuki's benefit."
Noburi facepalmed. "And it didn't occur to you to mention that before?"
"You know I couldn't give you my location while you were still in Leaf," Hazō said. "Akatsuki could have questioned you at any time. It's the same reason I went out of my way not to talk about it in our check-ins. I couldn't put it in the note because we don't have a code for 'western Gaikotsu Bay', and in any case I had to think about the worst-case scenario. If you failed to get away and Akatsuki found out our location, it would be game over for everyone."
"Gaikotsu Bay?" Noburi repeated. "You have got to be kidding me. If we have to go around Fire, that's going to take forever."
"Well, if you're near the southern islands where Akatsuki will be looking for me, then I can't be the one to come to you," Hazō pointed out.
"Whatever," Noburi said. "It's not a big deal."
He slid off his barrel and sat down, slumping against the stalk of a vividly purple mushroom tree.
"This sucks," he said with feeling. "Yuno's miserable. Last time she went missing, she didn't have anything–anyone–to lose. This time she had friends, students, even a future she was working towards, and she gave it all up to follow me. I feel like a total bastard, and it wasn't even my order.
"And me? I had a career. I was helping people. I was trusted. I'd just got private tutoring from Tsunade–sort of–which was going to take me to the next level. Now I'm back in the woods and it's like my life never happened.
"Mari's gone quiet. She's not talking any more than she has to, and I'm kind of afraid to push given the state she's in. So it's down to you to explain. What the hell, Hazō?"
Hazō sat down next to him.
"I've been doing runic weapons research to kill Akatsuki, on Naruto's orders. Everything else was just a cover. The message you gave me last time was a contingency trigger to go missing because he couldn't stall them any further."
Noburi silently absorbed this.
"I guess that tracks. The others–Kei, Snowflake, Kagome–did they know when they signed up?"
Hazō shrugged. "I'm pretty sure Kei figured it out because she's Kei, but I couldn't tell anyone. I certainly couldn't tell anyone the Hokage had ordered me to go missing if things went badly.
"I'm sorry for uprooting you all, I really am. But I couldn't come back and have Akatsuki find out I was directly working against them, and once they figured out I'd gone missing, they were bound to go after my family."
"Dammit." Noburi slammed his fist against the stalk beside him, leaving a deep impression. "This was always going to happen, wasn't it?"
"Kind of," Hazō agreed. "I couldn't give up fighting Akatsuki, not with the world at stake, and they weren't going to stop monitoring me. I had to get away, and I had to go missing once they forced Naruto to order me back.
"But maybe I could have avoided it. If I'd just been smarter, better at research, maybe I could have come up with a superweapon by now, and we could be back in Leaf killing Akatsuki instead of… this."
"It's fine," Noburi said after a second. "I mean, it's not fine, this whole thing is a steaming pile of bullshit and I hate everything about it, but if I was going to complain about you being dumb, I'd have been doing it way before now."
"Noburi, you complain about me being dumb all the time. Just the other day, you told me how much of an idiot I was for forgetting to write to Ino, and how lucky I was to have a brother with a gift for plausible excuses."
"I'm pretty sure she didn't buy it, for the record," Noburi said. "You're really going to have to make it up to her when…"
He winced.
"We're not coming back, are we?"
"We are," Hazō insisted. "We're going to kill Akatsuki and be welcomed back as heroes. If you think skywalkers were worth adopting a pack of missing-nin over, wait till you see what Naruto's prepared to do for Akatsuki-killing runes, not to mention all the other craziness I'm working on."
"I guess we'll see," Noburi said. "You'll forgive me if I'm not at my most optimistic right now."
He levered himself to his feet.
"I'd better get back. I can't leave Yuno alone right now. You said western Gaikotsu Bay?"
"Actually, no," Hazō said. "I mean yes, but if you have to make it all the way from Tea, then it would be better to meet up in northern Iron. That's our first rendezvous point with Tenten and Fujisawa, assuming they take Kei's warning seriously and come join us."
Noburi froze. "Fujisawa's coming?"
"We hope so," Hazō said. "She's on the list of people we expect Akatsuki to take hostage sooner or later. Why, is there a problem?"
"No," Noburi said quickly, his eyes wide. "It's fine. No problem at all."
Hazō stood up. "Noburi, I'm your brother and your clan head. Talk to me."
"You're not my clan head anymore," Noburi said, without hostility. "I doubt there's even going to be a Gōketsu Clan by the end of the week, between the treason and Mari taking or torching the good stuff."
"Fine, whatever," Hazō said, shoving that thought in a deep vault and throwing away the key. "I'm still your brother. If there's something wrong, I want to help."
Noburi looked away.
"It's nothing," he said. "I just think… she's cute. Fujisawa, I mean. Easily five stars."
"I guess?" Hazō said. "Assuming you're into girls who can't smile."
"I had a crush on Kei, didn't I?"
Hazō laughed.
"I don't mean I have a crush on Fujisawa or anything," Noburi clarified. "I don't really know her, and I've been going out of my way not to know her, just in case, even though she's my wife's best friend and if she's noticed, she probably thinks I hate her. But if we're going to be missing-nin together for however long…"
Hazō nodded.
"I'm not saying I'd cheat on Yuno!" Noburi exclaimed without provocation. "I'm not that kind of guy. But Yuno has razor-sharp intuition for this stuff. If she picks up on her husband being attracted to her best friend… well, there's no scenario that doesn't end in a bloodbath, is there?"
Hazō and Noburi shared an ominous silence.
"We'll figure something out," Hazō said, without confidence. "We still have at least a week before everyone's together. In the meantime, you guys should head for Nuken'in Temple in northern Iron."
"Never heard of it."
"It's not far from the Liberator's fortress," Hazō said. "I'll have the map copied–I mean, I'll copy the map out for you by next check-in.
"Noburi…" he said as Noburi strapped on his barrel. "Tell everyone I'm sorry."
"...Yeah."
-o-
Kei was moving the instant Snowflake signalled "clear", leaving Hazō and Kagome far behind in her haste to be in that clearing even a second sooner. She needed to know. Needed to see. Nothing else mattered.
Tenten, with her perfect understanding of Kei, was already braced, and did not collapse beneath the sudden impact of her embrace (on skywalkers, there was no need to touch down first before proceeding to her destination). She was… she was here. Alive. Safe. Hers. Holding her, confirming Tenten's existence with her own hands, instantly dispelled a week of nightmares.
However, even for Tenten, Kei's stamina was not infinite. Finally, reluctantly, she disengaged, allowing Snowflake to take her turn.
With her field of view regrettably no longer fully occupied by Tenten, Kei looked around the clearing, a sense of wrongness steadily rising through her body and beginning to curl around her heart.
"Tenten," she asked anxiously, "where is Miyuki?"
The silence, like all Tenten's silences, said everything that needed to be said.
"No…" Kei whispered.
"She trusts you," Tenten said firmly. "But she doesn't trust the Mad Clan Lord.
"Her words," she added apologetically, looking at Hazō.
Hazō nodded absently.
"I should have known," Kei said as the magnitude of her failure began to become apparent. "I should have factored Hazō's reputation into my persuasion. I should have anticipated that she would distrust claims of a grand, Leaf-saving mission from the treasonous megalomaniac–"
"No offence," Snowflake supplemented.
"–and overemphasise the irrationality of my loyalty to same. Of course she would assume that I permitted my love to blind me to the realities of the situation. Perhaps she even believes, not unfairly, that the need to protect you has led me to follow you beyond the point of reason. I should have been clearer. I should have been more convincing. I should have–"
"This was her agency," Tenten said. "Only hers."
The images washed over Kei, the nightmares returned to consume reality. The T&I catalogue available on request from the main office, come to life in Uchiha Itachi's hands. The blazing fire of the Sharingan that even Naruto had been unable to endure. The bloodthirsty madness of Hidan and the cold cruelty of the sealmaster who hollowed out shinobi to use as his puppets.
"It was my responsibility!" Kei exclaimed. "Were it not for me, she would be nothing to Akatsuki! She would be safe!"
Tenten shook her head.
"We chose not to be safe."
Kei's thoughts ground to a halt. "I beg your pardon?"
"Politics. Homophobia. Akatsuki. The un-Uplifted world," Tenten listed. "I knew your enemies. I knew being with you made them my enemies too. So did Miyuki."
She stepped closer to Kei.
"We could have chosen safer lives. No enemies. No lovers. Just us, alone, until we died."
"So it truly is my fault," Kei concluded. "I drew you into an entire world of danger where you did not belong, all out of my own selfishness."
"We chose," Tenten repeated. "Just like you chose to follow Hazō. I am here because of my own choices. Miyuki isn't, because of hers."
Kei stood silent. At least Tenten was safe. Miyuki would be abducted, likely tortured, possibly killed, but at least Tenten was safe. In the back of her mind, a vile, hideous voice whispered relief that at least it had not been the other way around. Kei quashed it as best she could.
"Can anything be done?" she asked Hazō, pleading. If there was ever a moment for his genius to save them…
"I'm sorry," he said. "With Tenten gone missing right after the others, there's no chance of Fujisawa getting away too if she hasn't already. Even Mari couldn't extract her from under that much surveillance."
"We don't know Akatsuki will kidnap and torture your girlfriend," Kagome said with an edge of desperation. "It's not like they know who she is. I barely know who she is. And they're all crazy lunatics with maybe a tenth of a brain between them. I'm sure they'll just overlook her."
"Do not comfort me like a child!" Kei snapped. "This was the entire reason for the envelope system. They were supposed to flee or stay together, because if one left, it guaranteed that the other would immediately come to Akatsuki's attention. Except apparently I failed even at that."
She closed her eyes. She did not wish to see the pity on their faces. Miyuki. Beautiful, indomitable, inventive, innocent Miyuki. Even if Hazō's staggering optimism was validated and they one day returned to Leaf as heroes, it would be too late.
"Please tell me about the mission," Tenten said eventually.
Of course. Kei had failed even to explain what she had asked them to risk everything for.
"Hazō has created a new sealing discipline," Kei began.
"Kei!" Hazō exclaimed.
Kei whirled around. "Hazō, if you believe that after everything that Tenten has sacrificed, I will allow her to be–"
"Excuse me," Snowflake interrupted. "I believe what Kei is attempting to say is that runecrafting is not a clan secret due to Orochimaru's possession of same"–without even knowing what runecrafting was capable of, Tenten gave her a look of utter horror–"nor is Tenten in any position to disclose it to anyone until its existence is in any case revealed by its large-scale deployment against Akatsuki."
"Even if it were a clan secret," Kei noted, "we are missing-nin. It would technically belong to Jin and the others, with ourselves being clanless thieves to be eliminated in order to protect it.
"More to the point, you will note that Tenten has chosen to be here, aligned with Akatsuki's primary target, and not, say, on the eastern continent where she could live in relative safety until our victory or defeat. She is a member of Operation Twilight now, and entitled to full disclosure."
"I concur," Snowflake said. "That said, if you believe that it is both desirable and physically possible to conceal runecrafting from Tenten for however many months while you are conducting regular prototype infusions in her immediate vicinity, and while Kagome, aware of every detail of your research, is also within her immediate vicinity, we can–"
"Fine," Hazō said, holding up his hands, "you win. Tenten, we're out here researching runes, which are three-dimensional seals with vastly more potential power than ordinary paper seals, with the specific goal of killing Akatsuki, on Naruto's orders."
Tenten nodded. "To prevent them from opening the rift?"
Hazō looked at Kei.
"Nothing about the rift race is classified," Kei said impatiently. "The existence of the rift is known to the senior members of all council clans, and doubtless to anyone they gossip with. All of the pieces have been not only available but in plain sight ever since Itachi blurted out Akatsuki's interest in dimensionalism research in front of the entire Clan Council and it emerged that you were the only person conducting same."
Hazō sighed. "That's right. They're planning to open the rift and bring back Pain from the afterlife, which would allow them to conquer the world. Considering Pain's the kind of man who called Hidan a friend and enabled his massacring tendencies, I don't intend to find out what he'd be like as a global dictator. We're going to wipe out Akatsuki, open the rift ourselves, and then rescue Akane, Jiraiya, and as many of Leaf's heroes as we can. Hopefully, all of that will be enough justification for Naruto to accept us as Leaf ninja again."
Tenten nodded again. "How can I help?"
After a pause that made it clear Hazō had no idea, Kei spoke in his place.
"We are missing-nin now. We will be hunted, not only by Akatsuki, but also by lesser threats, such as the hunter-nin of every village in the world aware that the creator of skywalkers is now fair game. We must be ready to hide, flee, or defend ourselves as necessary, above all protecting Hazō while he conducts his research. Kagome, please brief Tenten on bystander sealing safety at the earliest opportunity."
"I can do that," Kagome said enthusiastically. A younger Kei might have taken it for delight at acquiring a new target to inflict his obsessions on, as opposed to relief at finally having some way to engage with the complex and awkward situation he found himself in (and also delight at acquiring a new target to inflict his obsessions on).
"We should get going," Hazō said. "This is probably the last place in the world where anyone would cooperate with hunter-nin, but we can't say for certain that nobody saw us come down. We can figure out further logistics once Mari and the others join us tomorrow."
As Hazō handed Tenten a fresh set of skywalker seals, Kei took one last look back, towards Leaf and the girl she would never finish falling in love with.
Makes sense. Just wanted to make sure, since XP relative to passage of time is a premium right now, and that was multiple days and chapters.
Edit: we have a day while we wait for Mari et al. Is it worth it to do the capacitor rune in one day just to get it done? I doubt we're setting up here long term, and Rune destruction is an issue, but wasting a day feels unacceptable, so something longer like TR X or force dome seems not best either.
What I'm hearing is that we are not missing-nin at this moment and long term won't have been considered to be such at this moment.
I happen to really like Gōketsu power-building and want this to be addressed as well as possible.
@eaglejarl, by the way, is there any chance we can get an extension to tomorrow afternoon for voting? This seems like a plan that's going to need to address leadership issues (with Kei and Noburi seeming to want to push the bounds) and that seems like it's going to take a bit of time to write.
@eaglejarl@Velorien@Paperclipped
When you have the time, could you please summarize Konoha's clan secret laws in as much detail as is practical?
They've been a great source of confusion to me for a long time, and despite spending over an hour quote searching on multiple occasions (and even asking faflec for help!) they still remain a nebulous cloud of ominous importance in my mind. Having a summary (even if many parts of it are PONWOG and subject to change) would be extremely useful for me, especially for the next update.
Did no time pass while we were doing this or can we vote in retroactive sealing research? I am going to upset if we wasted a week of XP and research time because we had no agency about the escape from Leaf and wanted answers.
