"I have an announcement."
Breakfast was mostly over; people were down to picking at their food, sipping tea, and being lost in their up-too-early-not-entirely-awake thoughts. More than one of them were probably thinking of going back to bed for a nap; Asuma's contest-conclusion gathering had required everyone be up well before the crack of dawn.
"Hmm?" Mari asked, yawning.
Hazō placed the Dog Summoning Scroll on the table. Suddenly, he had everyone's attention.
"I was confident that we would win the contest," he said. "Therefore, over the last two months I put a lot of thought into which prize to claim. The Scroll was the obvious choice, but that left me to decide who should receive it."
Haru snorted. Noburi rolled his eyes.
"Hazō, obviously you're keeping the Scroll for yourself," Mari said impatiently. "Was there something else? I'm sleepy, and also horny. Debating whether I'd rather go back to bed or wander over to the diplomatic quarters and fuck Wakahisa's brains out again." She cocked her head in thought. "I suppose I could just polish my own kunai, but it was a lot of fun watching that kid's Oh face. His feet curl up, his eyes cross, and—"
"
Thank you, Mari, that's enough detail. Yes, I decided to keep it for myself but I wanted to make the reasoning clear. I considered each of you." He nodded to the disgruntled boy at the other end of the table, seated to Mari's right. "Haru, I considered you."
"...You what?"
Hazō nodded. "You're part of the clan. Honestly, I'd been strongly considering you for the Porcupine Scroll, since I think you would probably have gotten along great with them." He didn't make the obvious 'you are both prickly' joke, but it hung in the air. "Unfortunately, after Itachi mindwhammied me I needed to turn it in to the contest in order to make clear that the Gōketsu were a loyal and valuable clan. I considered you for the Dog Scroll but you're new to the Gōketsu and I didn't want the others to feel that they'd been unreasonably passed by."
"Obviously I was out," Noburi said. "I'm almost done studying for the Toad Scroll. Can't be the Summoner for two Clans."
"Hm. Actually, are we sure about that?" Hazō asked, his speech disrupted by sudden curiosity. "It seems like something that people have always assumed, but is there an actual—"
"Yes," Noburi said firmly. "Not only would it not be acceptable to the Seventh Path Clans, it is literally impossible. You'll understand after you do the training."
"Hrmph. Fine. Anyway, yes. You were out. Mari, I considered you but you've been very clear that you want to retire from field missions. Asuma has been equally clear that the Dog Summoner will be forward deployed on a regular basis, as a show of Leaf's power.
"Kagome-sensei, it was the same for you—you don't want to do field missions and, honestly, you're too valuable to risk in the field. As a sealmaster you contribute far more on the home front."
Kagome-sensei nodded, although there was a trace of wistfulness to it. He looked down, focused on Fifi who had curled up in his lap and was rumbling her satisfaction at his slow, steady petting.
"Akane, you were my top choice for quite a while," Hazō continued. He ignored her rising eyebrows. "You have large chakra reserves and you're a front-line combatant who will be jōnin soon enough. You are definitely going to be spending time in the field, and the extra combat power would be helpful to you. Plus, your personality would make you good at befriending members of the Dog Clan in order to form contracts."
She nodded, accepting the truth of his words without embarrassment. "But?"
"But, your task for the immediate future is helping Kagome-sensei with decoding Jiraiya's notes and Summoner training is too time-intensive for you to be helping him at the same time. Shadow Clone is the optimal choice for that job, which means Asuma will teach it to you in order for you to better perform the duty...but he
wouldn't if you were spending time on the Summoner training instead. It only gets taught to people with a high security clearance who actually have a specific need for it and I'm not sure when I would be able to get it for you in the future if you didn't get it now."
Her eyebrows went up, but she didn't ask the obvious question: Why was Shadow Clone, an admittedly useful but not overpowered jutsu, more important than the epic skill of Summoning?
Hazō debated whether or not to say more. "Incidentally," he said, looking around the table, "I would like all of you to start putting in some extra meditation time. Focus on concentration and resistance to distraction."
Noburi chuckled. "Very mysterious, Mewey. Going to explain that one?"
"Nope. Anyway, going back to what I was saying: Akane, I prioritized your ability to help Kagome-sensei over giving you the Scroll."
"Which conveniently leaves you," Haru said, his tone dust dry.
"Yes. Which leaves me. In my opinion as Clan Head, me having the Scroll will contribute the most to the good of our clan and also to Leaf as a whole. I have ideas for several non-combat uses of the Seventh Path that will be worth far more than one more person out in the field punching bad guys."
"He's not wrong," Noburi said to Haru. "I know what he's thinking about and it really will make us valuable. To Leaf as a whole."
Haru nodded in polite acceptance, his face a blank mask.
"Anyway," Hazō said. "I wanted to let you all know why I was making the choice that I did. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to set a meeting with the Hokage so I can start training." He stood up and gave them all a wave before heading for the door.
"Try not to do a treason!" Noburi called after him.
o-o-o-o
"Thank you for agreeing to see me, Lady Tsunade," Hazō said, bowing deeply. He found himself once again wishing that Akane and Noburi had not wimped out on him. After his conversation with Asuma, Hazō had invited his siblings to the meeting because he thought it might be interesting for them and also because Tsunade liked them and that might make things go more smoothly. Akane had politely declined, citing other obligations. Noburi, of course, had been more blunt:
Dude, she's vaguely positively inclined towards me. Why would I mess that up by getting your social ick on me?
"You've got five minutes."
"Right. First of all, I wanted to donate this money to your work anonymously but I couldn't find a way to do that." He lay a storage scroll containing a million ryō on the table.
She studied the scroll without touching it, then looked back at him. "Never saw a reason to set up for anonymous donations. Who's going to put money in without getting something for it?"
Hazō had nothing to say to that, so he ignored it. "Well, you would know better than I would. Moving on. I'm sure you heard about the speech I made at the Chūnin Exams?"
"What, all that twaddle?" She snorted. "Yeah, I heard about it. Probably the third stupidest thing I've ever heard or heard about anyone saying. Think you're going to get Kage to waste their people's chakra on civilians? You must be a fucking idiot. The only reason I've got resources for my medical practice is because I yell louder and punch harder than anyone else, so everyone wants to keep me happy. Sensei was the smartest man who ever fucking lived and even he thought that giving medical texts to other nations was borderline treasonous.
It isn't jutsu but it's still a Leaf advantage, he would say." She sniffed derisively. "Only stupid thing I ever heard from him. He just
would not get it through his head that plagues don't respect lines on a map."
"Well, I
do get that," Hazō said, leaning forward earnestly and folding his hands on the table. "I call it Uplift—the idea that ninja can use their abilities to make the world better. Not just for each other, but for civilians as well."
She sat back, folding her arms across her chest with a sour expression. "Fine. Assume for a moment that I believe your bullshit. What does that have to do with me?"
"The Gōketsu are already doing till'n'fill missions and posting bounties for other ninja to do them. We're going to continue doing that—well, I should say that we have no plans to stop doing that." He shrugged. "The future is always uncertain and I don't want to make a specific commitment. Still, I have the money and I don't plan to stop spending it on making things better. I'd like to coordinate with your efforts, and I don't know how best to do that. What would you suggest? I can arrange for teachers, or provide money for training ninja medics. I can teach other Earth-natured ninja Multiple Earth Wall so that they can go put walls around villages—you mentioned at one point that walls were one of the most useful things."
"You don't think I thought of that? There aren't many Earth-natured ninja born in the Land of Fire—that's why it's called the Land of
Fire—and basically no one learns other chakra natures before they hit jōnin rank. At that point they're too valuable to be wasted on civilian wall-building missions." She sniffed. "Plus, it's incredibly chakra intensive and takes too long."
"Okay, suppose I hired a jutsu hacker to create a specialized version of MEW? Something that's more chakra-efficient but less flexible. It always produces the same shape and amount of granite and it doesn't appear at combat-significant speeds or offer the ability to change the angle. It would be a construction jutsu, not a defensive one."
"Yeah, good luck with that. Not many jutsu hackers around and they mostly spend their time on better ways to kill people. After all, that's the cool part. And also where the money is."
Hazō smiled. "I can definitely change the 'where the money is' part. The Gōketsu might be a small clan but we're not poor, and we're growing our income fast."
"Yeah, well, I'll believe it when I see it. Still, couldn't hurt. You'll probably bankrupt yourself trying to find someone, and even if you can it'll be a year or five from now before we have anything, and then we'll need to throw even more money at it. But, fine. Go for it."
"Cool." Hazō's smile turned into an outright grin. "I'll get on that. Okay, going back to the civilians...I know you have civilian auxiliaries in the hospital here. Medic-nin are always going to be better healers but there's a lot more civilians than ninja and—"
"I'm getting a little tired of being told things I know, kid." The annoyance in her voice sent a shiver down Hazō's spine. The glaring eyes sent it back up and out through his limbs.
"Right. Sorry. I didn't mean to waste your time, I just...uh...I was trying to—"
Tsunade's face pinched into disgust. "Yeah, we're done here." She pushed her chair back and stood up, turning for the door of her office.
"Wait, please!"
She stopped, the door open and ready to usher her visitor through it. "What?" she glowered.
Hazō took a breath and forced himself to calm down. "Last question: I have a clinic on the Gōketsu land. Right now it caters to the clan, but I'd like your permission to open it to the general public so that we can handle the civilian overflow from the hospital. I'd also like whatever suggestions you have on how to organize it, what practices to put in place...basically, any advice you would be willing to give."
She studied him for several of the longest seconds of Hazō's life.
"I'll send Kon Ai over," she said at last. "Now fuck off and let me get back to my patients."
o-o-o-o
"How'd it go?" Mari asked, looking up from her book. She was curled up on the couch in the living room, the fireplace going full blast and a Lantern seal next to her so that she could read Jiraiya's thirty-second book:
Icha-Icha: Love Palace of Adventure. (She had repeatedly stated that the Toad Sage had started running out of good titles around book twenty-three.)
Hazō groaned and flopped down on the armchair across to her. He gratefully accepted the mug of hot chocolate she unsealed and handed to him.
"Thanks." He took a sip and inhaled the aroma, feeling the warmth and spice and chocolate spread through his body and relax his muscles. He sighed and let his eyes fall closed. "She's terrifying, even when she's relatively calm."
Mari snickered. "Tell me about it. Did she do that 'squash you with my brain' thing?"
He shook his head without opening his eyes, then took another sip. "No, but she probably would have if I hadn't gotten out of there when I did. She rattled me enough that I lost my place, started stammering."
"Ooh, yeah. She hates that." There was a sound of whispering silk robes as Mari sat up, then a faint
thump as she closed her book and set it aside. "Did she agree to help with the clinic?"
"She's sending someone over. Didn't say when."
"Well, that's something." She paused. "You've had quite a day, haven't you? How it go with Asuma?"
"I start training at dawn the day after tomorrow. He's giving me the extra day to get things sorted out because apparently I'm not going to have enough time to be a Clan Head for the next few months." He sipped the chocolate again. "Also, apparently Lady Tsunade is going to do a lot of my training."
"Ouch."
He nodded, then sighed and opened his eyes, allowing the sheltering darkness to fall away. "Speaking of summoning, and therefore things outside our reality, I've been meaning to get your take on something."
"The way that you tend to fall out of touch with reality and start talking like a crazy person?"
"No."
"The way you keep ripping holes open to other realities through which come horrific nightmares?"
"No."
"In that case, I give up."
He gave her a squinty-eyed glare and let out a calming breath. "The Five that Pain mentioned back at Nagi Island. Remember, he was talking about 'after a thousand years the Five are still sealed'?"
"Sure. What about it?"
"What are they? Five what? If they've been around for a thousand years then it's not the villages, or the nations."
She shrugged. "Maybe five beasts, aside from the Nine?"
"Maybe. I think it's five
bloodlines. Specifically, the Mori, the Nara, the Tama and those other two intelligence-based clans. Or, at least, it's related to them."
"Huh." She cocked her head in thought. "Okay. Why?"
"The Frozen Skein isn't something innate that just makes Keiko smarter. It's something she
reaches out to. She talks about 'going deeper' when she has a harder problem or needs to look farther ahead. She's using this other...thing to do her analysis, setting goals for it and guiding its thoughts, then bringing the results back to our world. It's not just Keiko, either; Ami said that she wouldn't 'surrender to it' just because it's 'more real' than she is. Her words, not mine."
Mari looked thoughtfully into the fire. "It does explain some things..."
"I know, right? Anyway, if there's one bloodline that allows you to borrow the thoughts of some...sealed horror, then why can't there be more? There are five mind-related clans and Pain referred to 'the Five' being sealed. That's what those are: Horrors from beyond our reality, and those ninja clans are using them to optimize battle plans."
"That...sounds bad."
"Right. If nothing else, think about the impression that it gives of us to those beings. Assuming they think, but let's assume the worst and be pleasantly surprised if it's not the outcome. If those things think and they ever make it into our reality, they're going to assume that all human are murderous warmongers focused solely on killing each other."
Mari's lips twitched. "I mean...they wouldn't be wrong."
"C'mon, Mari. Be serious."
"I am serious...well, I suppose 'killing' is too far. Dominating? Enforcing our will upon? Power. That's the only thing that anyone really cares about, Hazō. Ninja or civilian, clan or not, everything is about power."
"...Mari."
She looked over at him, her eyes serious. "Think about it, Hazō. Why does a baby cry? Because it wants to force its parents to provide something—food, warmth, cleaning. It wants to impose its will on the world. Why do merchants haggle? Because they want to exert power over the customer by forcing him to give up more money. Why do ninja kill each other? Because murder is the penultimate form of power. Jiraiya was the perfect example: Everyone did what he told them to because he could kill them. He had power, they didn't."
Hazō sat back in his chair, trying to figure out which part of that gigantic mess of untruth and misperception to untangle first.
"I don't agree with those examples, particularly not the baby, but let's skip that for now," he said. "The core premise is flawed. People care about other things too. Friendship. Love. Sex. Good food."
Mari chuckled. "Oh, Hazō. My sweet summer child. You think sex isn't about power? Sex is the
ultimate form of power. Were you not paying attention when I made Wakahisa shoot every one of his secrets right out his dick?"
Hazō winced; Mari chuckled at his discomfiture.
"You've read some of Jiraiya's books, right?" she asked.
Hazō could feel the blush climbing up his face. "Maybe?"
"How many times did you read things like 'Jun fisted his hand in her hair and pulled her head back so he could press a burning kiss to her eager lips'? How is that not about power? He is physically controlling her, moving her body the way he wants, controlling the terms of engagement. Did you notice how many servant girls Jun bones? He's a ninja, they are civilians; they cannot resist him even if they want to. And usually they aren't much more than walking keys to a lock he needs to get through."
"He makes love to kunoichi, too," Hazō mumbled.
Mari laughed. "Hazō, Hazō, Hazō. No one 'makes love'. They might think that's what they're doing, they might
say that's what they're doing, but it's still about power. The act itself is always about power—one partner is in control, choosing the position and the time and the location. If they're generous, or if they want to be able to use that target again, then they'll make sure the other person enjoys it. Maybe they'll even make that person think they had a say in what happened and how it happened. Sex is never an equal thing, and as a Clan Head you need to know that. Anyone you fuck is going to be less powerful than you are and part of them will be thinking about what you might do to them if they don't please you." She paused, then hurried to add, "Well, unless they're a ninja of equal power to you and also a Clan Head. In that case part of them will be thinking about what this will mean for their own people. They may care about you, they may want good things for you, they might have chosen to be in your bed, they might enjoy the act, but something in the back of their mind is still thinking about power and its implications."
"It doesn't have to be that way," Hazō protested. "It can be mutual. People can choose each other, choose to build a life together. They can make each other stronger."
"Yes, by joining their collective power and turning it against the outside world. Think about it—I married...I was
supposed to marry Jiraiya for the power we would gain by becoming a Leaf clan. Keiko married Shikamaru for the power we would gain from having the Nara as allies. If Noburi marries Yuno, a large part of it will be because it gives them both power within their individual villages."
"What about Kenta and Yukari? They married for love."
Mari gaped at him for a moment and then started laughing so hard she choked. "Oh, Hazō," she said, wiping her eyes and doing her best to stop snickering. "Civilian marriages are
all about power. Civilian women's only chance at a decent life is to find a man who is a good provider and then fuck him enough to keep him around. Men choose a wife for various reasons...because she is beautiful and therefore owning her will give him reputation—which is a form of power—among his friends. Because she'll give him sons who can work in his shop and daughters who can be strategically married off the way we married off Keiko. Because it means he can get his rocks off without having to pay for it. Lots of reasons, but they're all about power."
She shrugged. "Sure, Kenta and Yukari seem happy enough, but that doesn't mean it's not about power. She still gets him to do what she wants the same way every civilian woman does: Seduction. Smiles and gentle touches that make him feel manly and reinforce his desire to keep her happy so she'll do that again. Cosmetics and pretty clothes, because it makes him feel powerful to have a wife that other men desire. Polite requests accompanied by flattery, often phrased so that he thinks they're his idea. Lies that make him feel important and strong."
"That is not how they are! Just because you want to touch someone, or pay them a compliment, it doesn't mean you're trying to manipulate them. Just because a woman dresses nicely, it doesn't mean she's trying to manipulate her husband. Maybe she just likes to look nice."
"Sure. Which is a form of power, because beautiful people get treated better. Remember when we were still missing and we would stop at a village or town to resupply? I always got great prices at the market, right?"
"Yes?"
"I went to those market with this eye-catching hair loose around my shoulders." She twirled a fire-red strand demonstratively. "I put liner under my eyes to bring out the green. I painted my lips red and wore a bra that had my tits about to spill out. Do you think I would have gotten the same prices if I covered up and bound my tits flat? Beauty is about power, just like sex."
This conversation had gone so far off the trail, Hazō wasn't even sure that he was on the same map. What he was certain of was that he didn't want to be having it anymore.
"Going back to the original topic," he said firmly. "I was saying that I think 'the Five' are otherworldly entities that those bloodlines can tap into and use to enhance their thinking in various ways. The question becomes: Why? And why was Keiko so adamant about keeping that information from us when Yuno started to spill it? Do the clans have a...a
purpose to keep the entities sealed? Are the entities malevolent, beneficent, or uncaring? Who knows about it?"
Mari eyed him for a moment, her smirk all but shouting her awareness of the fact that he had retreated in disarray from their prior topic. Fortunately, after a moment she decided to let it go. "Probably the rest of the Ino-Shika-Chō block. Likewise, allies of the other clans, if there are any."
Hazō shook his head. "I don't think the Akimichi or Yamanaka know. Ino seemed surprised when Jiraiya warned her not to go into Keiko's head." He flipped one hand, tossing a metaphorical admission aside. "Granted, she might've just lacked clearance."
"Okay. Say you're right. So what?"
"It's all tied up in what I've been worrying about with reality being in danger. If those entities were to break out of whatever prisons they're currently in, how much damage could they do? They could destroy everything."
Mari chuckled and stood up, collecting her book from the table. "They won't."
"How do you know?"
"Because you'll stop them." She smiled and rested her hand on his shoulder for a moment. "Good night, Hazō."
She walked away, leaving him alone with his thoughts in front of the fire.
XP AWARD: 4
Brevity XP: 1
Creative training XP: 0 You spent the day attempting to move only by Substitution. You found that you do not have enough chakra for that, and that probably no one aside from Naruto does.
It is now about 10pm.
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on Wednesday, June 24, 2020, at 12pm London time.
Author's Notes:
Hazō did not ask Tsunade about the Hyūga deal because he didn't know there was such a thing.
Hazō considered various ideas for creative training and rejected several of them for a variety of reasons:
- Might make people suspicious, which should be avoided for the foreseeable future:
- Manipulate three people into starting arguments with others in a way that doesn't get traced back to you.
- Try to get another ninja to stalk you without them realizing that you want them to.
- Stalk people (civilians/genin/chūnin/jōnin). If discovered, attempt to make a positive impression despite the bad start.
- Cross the city via sequential stalking. You can only change targets when your current target interacts with the potential new target.
- Exceptionally bad plan that would cause Kagome-sensei to violently freak out:
- Draw explosive seal blanks with one hand while sparring with the other.
- Pretty sure you did this one, or almost identical:
- Spar with Lee while upside down on the ceiling/on a tree/underwater/running.
