"Thanks for coming, Shikamaru."
"My wife is in danger, as is my brother-in-law who is the head of a clan that the Nara consider an ally. Why would I not come?" He paused. "Oh, and also Leaf might literally be destroyed as its component clans leave and return to the wilds. That deserves my attention as well."
"'Its component clans leave and return to the wilds'?" Hazō asked, surprised. "I get that the precedent 'Orochimaru can kidnap Clan Heads' is a major problem, but are people likely to care that much if it's just me, the upstart from Mist that they don't like because of all his wacky status-quo-threatening ideas? Especially now, in the middle of a World War?"
Shikamaru studied Hazō for several long seconds, then turned to his wife and cocked his head in inquiry.
"Yes, Hazō," Kei said patiently. "You or I being kidnapped and dissected would be bad. We should not let that happen."
"Cool. I'm for it. So, first question: Do we loop Ami in on this conversation?"
"Regrettably, she has already departed for Mist." An outsider would have thought that Kei's voice was calm and her face blank but, as someone who had spent two years in the wilderness with her, Hazō recognized her expression as that of a puppy left behind when the people went for a walk.
On the one hand, Kei was unhappy. On the other, Ami wasn't here to introduce her particular brand of chaos. Hazō found himself conflicted on the good/bad status of this news.
"Pity. Well, between you and Shikamaru we have roughly 20% of the Elemental Nations' brainpower in the room, so I'd say we're fine."
"Your estimate, while flattering, is exceptionally inaccurate," Shikamaru said. "Kei accounts for 18% on her own merits and I would like to believe I offer more than 2%."
Hazō snorted. "Kei, you should check his ears."
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow.
"I will explain later," Kei told him. "In brief: lupchanzen."
"Ah, yes. Those imaginary bugaboos of your mad-bomber uncle."
Snowflake glowered. "There is no reason to believe that Kagome is—"
"Moving back to the topic," Hazō said. No way was he getting drawn into that discussion. "Allow me to preface this with an important disclaimer: Our situation sucks and we're at risk no matter what we do. I have a plan, I'm going to explain it, it involves risk. This does not represent a lack of concern on my part, nor—"
"I stipulated to this concern earlier," Kei reminded him.
"Right, okay. Thank you. So, here's what I'm thinking we should do..."
o-o-o-o
"Ai tells me I need to give you little brats fifteen minutes because you promised to throw money at the hospital if I did. She also nagged me about eating something, so I guess it works. Talk fast." Tsunade dropped into her heavy wooden chair with a widely-aimed glower and started spooning up the steaming udon soup that had been left on her desk as part of a heavily laden food tray.
"Thank you, Lady Tsunade," Hazō said, bowing deeply. "I'm sure you recall telling me that the best way to deal with Orochimaru was to not be interesting. Sadly, I failed at this task."
Tsunade snorted.
"Through a series of events that I can explain if you like—"
"Nope," Tsunade said around a mouthful of noodles, not looking at Hazō.
"Right, uh...well, anyway, he's interested in my bloodline and in the fact that Kei's Shadow Clones are cognitively independent of her. And when I say 'interested', I mean 'I am confident he intends to kidnap and vivisect us.'"
"Why?" Tsunade demanded. She finished slurping up the noodles and picked up the bowl so she could glug down the broth before pushing the bowl aside and tearing into a platter of sushi and sashimi. "He's got all those Final Gift ninja, plus the Rock ninja he collected on that Scroll-hunting trip of yours."
"Lady Tsunade," Shikamaru said sharply. "I am paying a significant amount of money for fifteen minutes of your attention. I would be very grateful if you would
give us your attention."
Tsunade's chopsticks paused, and then she set them down and shifted her chair around to face the three chūnin. "All right, Nara. You have my attention. Now, what scrap of evidence do you have that my former brother-in-arms is intending to kidnap these two?"
"He was in the process of successfully pressuring details of my bloodline out of me when Mari walked in," Hazō explained, struggling not to show his utter shock at the absence of a Shikamaru-shaped hole in the wall. "In an attempt to divert him she stated that I had been urgently summoned by the Hokage. He refused to let me leave."
Tsunade frowned. "He what?"
"Mari told him that the Hokage had summoned me to an immediate meeting. His response was 'The boy can wait'."
She shook her head in tired annoyance and muttered, "Oro, what the fuck?" Hazō dared to hope.
"Okay, fine, that was off the trail," she continued. "He shouldn't have done that and I'll have a couple words with him. Still, it's a long way from there to 'intends to vivisect me'."
"After he refused to let me depart, he ordered me to continue disclosing clan secrets. It was not a simple request; I could feel a psychic pressure backing it up, and it caused me to begin divulging.
"Mari"—he pretended not to notice the irritated tightening of Kei's lips in his peripheral vision—"attempted to sidetrack him by claiming that my ability was nothing more than to memorize surrounding terrain. He seemed to lose interest for a moment but then he changed his mind and began to follow up. Mari distracted again by pointing out that Kei—" He broke off, a horrific thought crashing through his mind: He had never actually seen Tsunade use the Shadow Clone.
"Ma'am," he said, "I need to ask...are you familiar with the details of the Shadow Clone jutsu?" Shit, shit,
shit, when he first came in he had already spilled the beans about Kei and Snowflake being independent! Holy burning shitballs, if she didn't know then he had leaked a major secret of Leaf! Or at least a major hint to it. Ohcrapohcraphohcrap.
"Of course I'm familiar with it, you nitwit," Tsunade said impatiently. "My Uncle Tobi invented it."
"Right, sorry. Anyway...Kei? You want to take this?"
"My bloodline, the Frozen Skein, interferes with my cognition. The Mori think differently than others—in some ways better, in some ways worse."
"And because bloodlines aren't copied to your clones, the clones think like normal people," Tsunade said, nodding. "Interesting. Did you tell Oro that?"
"I did not have the opportunity. Mari offered up the fact of our differing mentation in an effort to distract Orochimaru from Hazō. She then led Orochimaru on a fool's errand around the estate 'looking for me' while actually dispatching Hazō to extract me."
Tsunade snorted. "Bet that went over well."
"He blasted her psychically."
"Wait, he did?" Hazō asked. "She didn't tell me that part."
"He did. You did not notice how jumpy she was?"
"I—" Hazō cut himself off as the Slug Princess snapped her fingers at him impatiently.
"Oy. You're running short on your fifteen minutes. What's all this got to do with me?"
Kei looked back to Hazō.
"We're going to go talk to Orochimaru," he said carefully. "We're hoping to talk him down from kidnapping and experimenting on us. It would be a huge help if you would go with us."
"You want me to babysit you."
"They are asking you to help rein in the destructive impulses of your former comrade in arms," Shikamaru said. "At the risk of stating the obvious, what do you suppose the outcome would be were he to
actually kidnap a Clan Head for medical experimentation?"
"He wouldn't do that."
"With respect, Lady Tsunade, I believe it to be more probable than not. I say this based on a minimized-bias examination of the evidence available to me and I say it with the full weight of my office as Clan Head of the Nara. I also state, for the record, that if Orochimaru does this thing, or if I become convinced that he has done this thing, then the Nara Clan will depart from Leaf forever, as is our right under the Founding Charter. Before leaving, I will inform all of the other Clan Heads of the reasons for the Nara's departure. I will not advise them on what course of action to take, but I am essentially certain that the Yamanaka and the Akimichi will go with us. I am confident that at least the Aburame and Inuzuka will go as well. If you would like me to perform a full analysis of the probable actions of the other founding clans then I will need twelve hours."
Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "Orochimaru expresses interest in your wife and you're going to destroy Leaf."
"No, ma'am. He may express whatever interest he wishes, provided it is done in a polite and prosocial manner. What he may
not do is cause her to feel threatened, either for her own safety or that of her loved ones."
Hazō could see the muscle in Tsunade's jaw jumping as her teeth ground together. He thanked his lucky stars that Shikamaru had vetoed the idea of telling Tsunade about Noburi's threat to stop providing chakra-transfer support, or Kei's threat to disrupt the Seventh Path embassy. The Nara's far deeper political credit and reputation gave Shikamaru more room to maneuver without getting crushed.
"I will note," Shikamaru continued, "that I have left contingency orders at the Nara estate. These orders will be opened four hours from now unless I have returned to the Nara estate with Kei and Hazō beside me, and all three of us have passed a battery of tests intended to demonstrate that we are mentally competent and not under duress. If any of us do not appear or do not pass the tests, those orders will be opened and the Nara clan will be gone from Leaf within the week."
Tsunade's face was absolutely blank and unimaginable tons of granite shimmered on the edge of visibility, a mountain range lowering its enormous weight closer by the moment.
"Are you threatening my birthright, boy? Are you seriously threatening, to my face, the destruction of the village founded by my grandfather?"
Shikamaru was sweating and hunching as the unseen force of Tsunade's incipient anger crushed him like an ant beneath a boot.
"I am not," he gasped. "I am ensuring that you are aware of the seriousness of the situation."
"Ma'am, please," Hazō said, struggling for breath. "Please, are we wrong? Tell me that Orochimaru would never do something like this in pursuit of research he found sufficiently interesting."
The mountain shuddered uncertainly and then faded gradually away. Tsunade said nothing, sitting motionless with lips pursed as though biting a sour fruit.
"Honestly, I want to work with him on this," Hazō said, leaning hard on the Iron Nerve to keep his tone even and prevent himself from gasping in heaving breaths of relief. "I
want to know more about my bloodline and how it works. I'm happy to submit to examinations if they can be done in a safe way and if we can work out an OPSEC protocol that doesn't leak Gōketsu clan secrets everywhere. If he's willing to work with us in a reasonable way then we can all win. But, like Shikamaru said, we aren't willing to be intimidated."
"And you want me to loom in the background so that he doesn't get pissy."
"I wouldn't have said it quite like that," Hazō said with a smile. "But, yes."
She sat back in her chair, studying him with an alarming intensity while drumming her fingers on her knee. Hazō started to sweat.
"Fine," she said at last. "Come on." She stood up and pushed past them to get to the door...and then paused and turned back to Shikamaru.
"I admire your balls, kid, but you'd best be very careful about when you play that card with me, and even more so with Asuma. It's dancing right on the line of treason."
"With respect, Lady Tsunade, it is not. Leaf's founders were dubious about the experiment and were very careful to write the Charter such that founding clans have the option to depart. Were I to advise other founding clans to leave,
that might be considered treason, but leading the Nara out of the village is my right. As to informing the other clans of the reason for our departure without explicitly advising them to follow...that is a legal gray area, but there is textual support for the position that it is in fact a requirement of triggering the departure clause."
"And you think you could pull that off? Just pick up stakes and leave? You honestly believe the other clans would let that happen."
"Lady Tsunade, I say this with the greatest respect for you and for the other clans of Leaf: Who do you think is going to stop us? All we would need to do is explain why we were leaving and the people attempting to bar our way would join the exodus."
"Leaf cannot be held together by force of arms, ma'am," Hazō said quietly. "Only by the Will of Fire. Jiraiya taught me that."
Tsunade harumphed. "That old skirt-chaser was giving advice on governance and political theory? We'd best keep an eye out for flying pigs." She yanked the door open and stomped out, bellowing for Kon Ai.
o-o-o-o
It took twenty minutes for Tsunade to arrange things such that she could leave the hospital without endangering patients. Once outside she jumped for the roofs and took off on a beeline for Orochimaru's estate, the three chūnin (and one Shadow Clone whose official rank was a legal grey area) struggling to keep up.
Tsunade stopped only when they stood atop the wall surrounding Orochimaru's estate. She pulled a handful of small, paper-wrapped pellets from her pocket and hurled them up along the path that led to the front door. An instant later the paper wrappings revealed their true nature as they detonated in a rolling shockwave that sent gravel flying everywhere and broke many of the paving stones.
"I'm not fucking around with whatever bullshit he might have set up," she said to Hazō's surprised look.
They followed her up to the heavily-reinforced door of the main house and then through it after she kicked it off its hinges without breaking stride.
"Oro! Get your snakey ass out here!"
Orochimaru did not instantly materialize from thin air, so Tsunade picked up the broken door, ripped it the rest of the way apart, and hurled the top half up the corridor towards the living room. Within ten feet it passed through some unseen grille that effortlessly diced it into thumb-sized splinters.
"For fuck's sake, Oro! Don't make me tear through this shit! I'm already pissed, you don't want to test my patience!"
The owner of the house sauntered around the corner and leaned one shoulder on the wall, arms folded over his chest. He was wearing a blue robe with a white haori over it, the jacket tied casually closed with a simple loop of rope. On his face he wore an expression of insouciance that made Hazō's heart sink.
"How lovely to see you, Sunny."
She hurled the second half of the door at his head and he slapped it away with a flick of an eight-foot tongue. Forty pounds of iron-reinforced oak embedded itself in the wall, hung there limply for a moment, and then thumped to the ground.
"Hm," Orochimaru said, eyeing the fallen missile. "Not even hard enough to stick firmly? You're slipping, dear sister."
"Don't fuck with me, Oro. I'm not in the mood."
"You are never in the mood. It was the cause of much of Jiraiya's sadness."
"Piss off." She grabbed Hazō's shoulder and pulled him forward. "Say your piece, kid."
"Uh...hello, sir. Lord Orochimaru."
"Hm."
Hazō took a breath and flipped back through his Iron Nerve library. He had practiced this speech in front of the others, back in a place of safety where he could focus. All that was necessary now was for his lips and tongue to shape the words as they had then while his body maintained the same calm and relaxed appearance it had worn.
"At the party you coerced me into disclosing clan secrets to you. You psychically attacked Mari. You made myself and Kei believe that you intended to kidnap and vivisect us as part of your research. It is possible that this is not and never was your intention, but it is what you conveyed to us.
"I find myself confused. You are more than intelligent enough to realize that the consequences for such an action would be catastrophic. No clan can abide a precedent that you are allowed to force the disclosure of clan secrets, much less kidnap Clan Heads and clan consorts for your research. Leaf would devote its full resources to arresting and eliminating you as a threat. Perhaps you feel that this is impossible. Perhaps you feel that no one in Leaf is a threat to you."
"Nah, he's not that stupid," Tsunade growled, her eyes locked on those of her former brother in arms, who was ignoring her in favor of staring at Hazō.
Hazō was too rattled by the Snake Sannin's gaze to adjust the replay of his speech, so he ended up wincing internally as he overtalked Tsunade. "From my viewpoint you would need to either fight all of Leaf or go missing-nin again, neither of which seem like things you would want. I need to ask you, sir: Do you believe that you could evade all consequences for forcing me to divulge clan secrets or for kidnapping myself or Kei? Alternatively, do you believe that I have misjudged the consequences?"
"I have no idea what you are talking about," Orochimaru said with a smirk. "The way I remember it is that you brought up the topic of the Great Seal and boasted that you had memorized the entire thing in seconds. I asked how you had done so and you began to tell me before we were interrupted."
"You pressured me!" He couldn't help that the words came out as an indignant yelp. "I even started off by saying that it was a secret ability!"
One pale shoulder shrugged. "You are far from the first to attempt to impress the Snake Sannin by offering private information, or jutsu, or money, or so on. Honestly, it's quite banal. Much rarer that someone then tries to cry coercion...I suppose your goal is to get me in front of the Hokage, histrionically detail your version of what happened, and then demand that the Hokage force me to pay reparations of some kind?" He cocked his head and looked at Tsunade. "We worked that scam a few times, didn't we, sister? What was it called...?"
"The badger game, and don't be an ass."
He very visibly craned his neck to look at her posterior. "Speaking of which, have you been working your glutes enough? They aren't quite as firm as I remember them."
"Look, Ooh-boo-hoo, I'm having a shitty day. I've had two patients die on me, I've had to amputate four limbs, and this one"—she jerked a thumb at Shikamaru—"threatened to take the Nara's ball and go not-home unless I put a muzzle on your spike-nosed face."
"'Go not-home'? What might that mean?"
"It means, sir, that if I become convinced that you have harmed my wife, anyone she cares about, or any other Leaf ninja, then I will invoke the Right of Departure held by all founding clans under the Leaf Charter. The Nara will depart from Leaf forever. I will—" Shikamaru's voice, already shaking as he struggled to get the words out, failed him completely when Orochimaru's face went blank and the air became heavy with the silent screams of tortured souls.
"Cut it out, Oro." The mountain was present again, more perceptibly than it had been, but this time it was a shield around their souls and a pillar beneath their feet instead of a promise of destruction poised above their heads.
Orochimaru didn't move anything except his eyes. They drifted lazily from Shikamaru back to Tsunade and lingered there for several seconds. Finally, the murk cleared away and the world was once more home only to the sounds of nearby pounding hearts and far-off chirping birds.
No one spoke as the Snake Sannin and the Slug Princess continued their staredown.
Hazō needed to do something, say something, somehow prevent the situation from escalating, but his brain was a jangled, shrieking mess of fear. He opened his mouth and out came words.
"I need to ask you, sir: Do you believe that you could evade all consequences for forcing me to divulge clan secrets or for kidnapping myself or Kei? Alternatively, do you believe that I have misjudged the consequences?" Too late he realized that he had replayed the end of his earlier script and it had come out with all the duplicated precision of the Iron Nerve. Was there any chance that Orochimaru would miss that fact?
No, he had not missed it. The interest was clear in his eyes. Damnit.
"Those are very impertinent questions, boy."
"Answer him, Oro. Do you think you're too good for Leaf? Think carefully, because I already said I'm in a bad mood."
"As Jiraiya used to say: 'Unwad your panties, Sunny.' The question is moot, since I would never force anyone to divulge clan secrets. I am shocked,
shocked, that you would believe otherwise."
That was a lot less sincere than Hazō had been hoping for.
"If I may offer a point of information," Snowflake said nervously. "While it is true that I am cognitively independent of my progenitor, that is solely because the Mori bloodline renders them incapable of agency. Since bloodlines are not copied by the Shadow Clone jutsu, my mentation is of a more baseline-human style. In short, our independence would not be useful to anyone who lacked a mind-crippling bloodline."
Orochimaru studied her carefully and then grimaced sourly. "How unfortunate."
"Oro, you were a slippery snake long before you got that scroll, so I'm not letting you slide on this one. Promise me that you will never extract clan secrets from a Leaf ninja without their full consent."
Orochimaru studied her.
"See this? What is this?" Tsunade said, pointing at her own face.
Orochimaru sighed. "It's your 'not kidding' face," he said in the same tone with which schoolchildren recited the Pledge of the Waters.
"What does it mean when I've got my not kidding face on?"
"Yes, yes. I remember, Tsunade."
"What does it mean, Oro?"
"It means that we should be serious and focus on the mission or you will make us wish we had." The words were purely rote. "You know, you never did clarify what exactly that meant...?"
The mountain returned, overlapped with the six of them and so reality-adjacent that Hazō could barely breathe around the sensation of stone in his lungs. The almost-tangible rocks trembled, the power of an earthquake restrained on a leash made of thread.
"Do you want to find out?" Tsunade asked, her voice perfectly calm.
Orochimaru thought about that for a very brief moment, then waved at the sprawling manor around them. "Not particularly. Rebuilding this place in the winter would be annoying. Hard to get work crews onsite when it's cold."
"Good. Then repeat after me: I, Orochimaru of the Sannin, promise that I will never extract clan secrets from a Leaf ninja without their consent or against their wishes."
Orochimaru sighed, long and drawn out. "Very well. I, Orochimaru of the Sannin, promise that I will never extract clan secrets from a Leaf ninja without their consent or against their wishes."
"I, Orochimaru of the Sannin, promise that I will never kidnap a Leaf ninja, nor cause a Leaf ninja harm for reasons the Hokage would disapprove of."
"Really, Tsunade? A bit underspecified, don't you—yes, yes, fine. I, Orochimaru of the Sannin, promise that I will never kidnap a Leaf ninja, nor cause a Leaf ninja harm for reasons the Hokage would disapprove of. Are we done here?"
"Yup."
"I'll send you a bill for the door. Oh, and for the driveway. Those were your path bangers I heard, yes? They tend to be hard on the slates."
"Send me a bill and I'll make you fucking eat it."
"Ah, lovely to be back to our normal pleasant banter. Good day, dear sister."
He turned and walked back into the house.
Author's Note: Senju Tobirama was Tsunade's granduncle, not her uncle. The fact that she refers to him as 'Uncle Tobi' is a familiarity left over from her childhood.
You sent a letter to Asuma in which you suggested the Summon Army as a defensive tactic. (The tactic is: If Leaf is attacked, Noburi gives chakra water to a summoner, probably Asuma, in order to let them call in all of their summons at once. This is distinct from the offensive Zoo Rush, which is where summoners go out in the field and send in waves of summons to destroy a target, returning to the Seventh Path to recharge from Noburi as needed.)
XP AWARD: 3
Brevity XP: 0
"GM had fun" XP: 1
- +1 for scene: Orochimaru vs Tsunade. The original version of the plan had Hazō show up and give Orochimaru a 'reasons you suck' speech. That probably would have been worth +10 QM Fun XP but this version wasn't completely awful.
It is now about 4pm.
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on Wednesday, November 17, 2021, at 12pm London time.
