"Welcome back, Keiko!" Noburi looked up from the campfire. "I saved some unidentifiable medium-sized rodent just for you. Just like old times."
Keiko fixed him with an unimpressed stare. Slowly, she brought her thumb up to the corner of her mouth. "Waiter, there is a Noburi in my pangolin."
Noburi waved his hands in mock panic. "Just kidding. Your baked sea bream is in that storage scroll over there.
"Also, aren't pangolins insectivorous?" he added belatedly as Keiko extracted her dinner.
"Many of the larger breeds favour insects that are similar to you in size, as well as estimated nutritional value and intellect. I suggest you bear this in mind for the future."
"Nice burn," Noburi grinned. "Don't suppose you'd consider giving Hyūga lessons?"
The thing that made its way onto Keiko's face could only be called a smile in the same way as slowly amputating somebody's fingers one by one with a blunt scalpel could be called medical malpractice.
"Rest assured, Noburi, that if I feel Hyūga to be in need of additional lessons, they shall be provided."
Noburi shuddered.
"Speaking of completely unrelated topics, Keiko, how did your work on the Seventh Path go?"
Keiko's expression turned a worrying kind of neutral.
"The pangolins' 'integration' of the condors proceeds apace. According to High Command, investigation of the Condor Clan archives has revealed a greater conspiracy between the Condor Clan and the Hyena Clan, with the aim of conquering Pangolin Clan lands and enslaving their inhabitants. Public outrage has provoked a surge in volunteers joining the army. The Hyena Clan is naturally denying everything. High Command is also doing nothing to quash rumours that other clans were implicated in the conspiracy but their identities are being kept secret for now for purposes of national security."
"Right," Hazō said uncomfortably. "And about the summoners?"
"The pangolins are keen to secure an alliance with the Mara Clan. Apparently, the maras were once close allies of the capybaras, but split two generations ago over unknown ideological differences. Where the capybaras are specialist spies and infiltrators, the maras are masters of temptation, subversion and misdirection, and their support would greatly complement the pangolins' pure martial skills, as well as helping counter any aggression from their former allies."
"And what do we know about the Mara Summoner?"
"The current Mara Summoner is a woman named Grandmaster F. Though nominally belonging to Hidden Cloud, she is said to spend the majority of her time travelling outside the village. According to pangolin sources, she inherited the Mara Summoning Scroll through tradition, and has rarely used it for summoning in recent years. As a corollary, she does little to further the clan's objectives on the Human Path, and the Mara would not be unhappy to transfer the scroll to a more cooperative summoner."
"Neat," Noburi said. "Temptation, subversion and misdirection. We can totally work with that. Anything else we've got on this Grandmaster F? Abilities? Weaknesses? Last known location?"
Keiko shook her head. "She is constantly travelling, and both her abilities and motivations are unclear to the Mara Clan due to the lack of contact between them. Perhaps Jiraiya's network might offer clues."
"If she really has that little use for the scroll," Hazō said, "maybe we could buy it from her?"
"Maybe," Noburi said. "It would take a crazy person to sell a summoning scroll, though. Even if she doesn't use it much, presumably she's still got
some contracts, and if Keiko's anything to go by, that much firepower would likely save your life in an emergency."
"Any others?" Hazō asked.
"The crows, Uchiha Itachi's summons. There is a lack of information on crow affairs due to their isolationism, but it is understood that there is a deep rift within their society that has some relationship to their summoner's active involvement in their affairs. It is not inconceivable that this rift could be exploited."
"Right," Noburi said. "Maybe leave messing with Uchiha Itachi for Plan B? The last thing I want is having the guy who one-shotted Uzumaki Naruto coming after me."
"It might be that
we have to go after
him," Hazō said grimly.
"I'm sorry," Noburi said. "I don't think that's how you pronounce 'leave dealing with the crazy superpowered mass-murderer who goes through jōnin like rice crackers to the Kage'."
Hazō didn't say anything.
"How about the capybara and condor scrolls?" he asked.
Keiko shrugged. "The Condor Summoner is spending a great deal of time assisting the Resistance. Why they would do this instead of sensibly fleeing a sinking ship, I cannot say. As to the rest, the pangolins have made it clear that it is
our responsibility to deal with their enemies on the Human Path."
"Helpful," Noburi grumbled.
"Helpful," Keiko echoed, but with a more distant intonation. A strangely cold silence followed her words.
Finally, she spoke. "Are we part of the problem?"
"What do you mean?"
"Our long-term objective as Team Uplift is to end war and create an age of peaceful cooperation and prosperity. We are accomplishing this by becoming arms merchants fuelling a genocidal war that will surely continue until either the pangolins dominate the Seventh Path or their surviving neighbours finally set aside their differences and unite to annihilate them. We have already been responsible for the extinction of an entire culture.
"There was a parade in my honour. I chose tonight to make my visit to the Seventh Path because Pankurashun had informed me of the timing. The pangolins have elected to use me as a symbol of the Pangolin Clan's supremacy in both worlds: the Pantokrator has used me to raise the pangolins above all enemy clans on the Seventh Path just as He has recently used me to raise the pangolins above all enemy ninja on the Human Path."
She breathed in slowly.
"They marched a series of condor prisoners in front of me, with wings bound and guards prodding them on with ritual spears so as not to pollute their claws. I consider myself fortunate that I find it difficult to read human body language, much less that of an alien species that lacks humanoid facial features. I was informed that these were captured rebels who had risen up against the Holy Pangolin Empire, and that I was being offered the opportunity to execute them with my own claws. It would have strengthened my position in the pangolin public consciousness, and potentially brought us significant advantages in further bargaining.
"I declined."
"Keiko…" Noburi whispered as he realised where this was going.
"The Pangolin Clan's assistance has been invaluable," Keiko said in a very even voice. "Their gold has kept this clan afloat and aided us in our activities during the Chūnin Exam. Their military power has, without question, been responsible for our success and, in turn, for the strengthening of the Gōketsu Clan's precarious position. This will continue to apply during the tournament, and then indefinitely as the presence of multiple summoners inflates the Gōketsu's prestige. On a personal level, it is my primary if not only justification for being allowed on the front lines, as opposed to the logistical support role I had originally been groomed for.
"I have no illusions as to the nature of this world. Given the structure and ideology of pangolin society, a war such as this was inevitable as soon as they gained any significant military advantage over their neighbours. Or in a counterfactual universe, it is entirely plausible that another clan could have decided that the militaristic pangolins were too much of a threat and pre-emptively destroyed them—perhaps the condors, and who could say they would be unjustified in that belief?
"Leaf is, at its core, no different. Less genocidal, yes, but its ultimate objective is peace by overwriting all other cultures with its own. The Leaf-Mist alliance presently being considered is a pragmatic measure, necessitated by force majeure that foiled the original intent of a bloody war ending in one side's total domination.
"We are not responsible for any of this. I am not responsible for any of this. All I can do is protect my loved ones and my own survival while being carried along by the tides of history. That is the attitude necessary to live in a world such as ours.
"It is an attitude I have held for a very long time," Keiko continued, "aided by the fact that I had no loved ones I was capable of protecting, and was not particularly concerned with my own survival. You—all of you, not only Hazō—have taken that away from me. You have forced me to abandon my apathy and engage with this world."
There was a rhythm, an uncompromising inexorable rhythm to Keiko's words. Noburi wanted to intervene, to stop her talking with some sort of brilliant counter, but he couldn't find an opening to interrupt that building momentum.
"I find that now I, Mori Keiko who possesses agency and personal morality, am the one who sells weapons and triggers wars in exchange for power—on two different worlds. I am the one who sinks ships full of civilians in the name of concealing kidnapping and murder. I am the one who claims villages' sacred artefacts and then leaves, never to return. I am the one who pre-emptively cripples others physically and psychologically to ensure that they bow to my will, and sometimes I enjoy it.
"The Fourth Mizukage spread suffering and caused atrocities because he believed that his actions were the expression of a natural flow of history that would ultimately lead to utopia. I, who believe that the natural flow of history leads only to tragedy, have no such excuse. Yet instead of fighting the tide, I clothe myself in borrowed good intentions and willingly take my turn at making the world a darker place.
"They say when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. I wonder if perhaps I should."
It felt less like a rhetorical conclusion and more like slamming into a wall.
"Keiko…" Hazō eventually said. "How long have you been feeling this way?"
"Who knows?" Keiko asked in a tone that could be mistaken for amusement. "If I have elevated any skill to jōnin tier, it is that of denying my true feelings."
She turned away from the campfire as if to leave.
"Keiko, wait!"
Noburi had no idea what one should say to somebody who'd just said all…
that, but if it had hurt that much just to hear it, what must it be like from the inside?
"I need time to process," Keiko said without turning around. "Fear not. I will not travel beyond the perimeter.
"After all… in the darkness, I cannot see the traps."
-o-
Rest of the plan to be bestowed upon my esteemed colleague. Vote if you wish, in which case I draw your attention to the fact that your plan somehow involves talking to Hana well after leaving Mist.
Voting, if any, closes on Saturday 8th of September, 9 am New York Time.
