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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Lysbeth Succubus said:
Colour-blind, can't even see the difference, sorry
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Thus perish are mildly to moderately inconvenienced all those who seek to use the forbidden colour.

Edit: The next time you stub your toe in the dark or accidentally drop a piece of tasty food on the floor, you may safely assume that it is the power of inescapable karmic vengeance striking you down.
 
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Chapter 564: Akane's Betrayal
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    • The Gōketsu compound, with its ever-more-decorated yet inescapably blocky buildings and its constant susurrus of civilian voices, loomed over Kei as was its wont. Atomu, at the gates, apparently still attached to a duty which no one asked of him and which was utterly pointless without a second guard to react to his sudden death, greeted her, but seemed to sense from her demeanour that small talk was not called for today (not that it was ever, but sometimes Kei or Snowflake was in a more tolerant mood).

    It was a strange irony that Kei and Snowflake were the Gōketsu to spend by far the least time within the compound walls, yet soon they would be the only ones to do so at all. She wondered if Atomu, no longer privy to KEI information, was aware of the details.

    Kei walked carefully, keeping her peripheral vision open. It would be best to settle today's business quickly and efficiently, without any untimely encounters with—

    Untimely encounter identified. Of course. The most troublesome of Kei's male relatives stood before a massive stone statue of Jiraiya that had not been there on Kei's previous visit, his hand placed on its thigh holster as he gazed up at it in deep contemplation.

    This was her chance to stealthily bypass him. Kei did not wish to interact with Hazō at this moment. What could she say to him? "I can conceive of a dozen ways in which I could have prevented or at least mitigated this disaster, had you but trusted me"? "Am I, your veteran optimiser and error-checker, so much less valuable to you than having one less mouth capable of spilling secrets?" "How have I fallen so far below Shikamaru in your estimation?" It was too late for such. Hazō had already made his choices, and acting like a petulant child would do nothing to increase the odds that he would allow her a chance to save her family next time. She wished she knew what could.

    "Snowflake! I mean Kei! Probably! It's good to see you!"

    She had dithered too long. If she was careless and allowed him to control the flow of conversation, he would soon ask for the purpose of her visit, and she was now bound by her own OPSEC concerns (for which he had only himself to blame). Fortunate that her younger brother-wrangling skills were by now so well-developed.

    "Hazō," she said coolly. "While I have long tolerated your unhealthy level of adoration of Jiraiya, I believe that crafting a statue of the man for public fondling purposes crosses a line into the clinically pathological. I confess myself at a loss for an appropriate response—Tsunade is the only professional qualified to handle deviance on such a scale, yet the specific issue may incline her less to medicine than to murder."

    "What?! No!" Hazō took a hurried step away from the statue, as planned. "I was just trying to figure out what was wrong with it."

    "I can provide you with a comprehensive alphabetical list, Hazō," Kei said, "from addictive behaviour to workplace conduct violation."

    "I meant what was wrong with the statue!" Hazō exclaimed.

    "You mean other than its very existence?" Kei asked. She studied the ridiculous monument. In theory, it captured Jiraiya's likeness remarkably well, certainly for an object crafted from two-year-old memory. It was almost as if Hazō had conjured up Jiraiya's image from the Naraka Path (where any man who did not return her shuriken belonged) for use as a reminder. However, she could sense a subtle wrongness to it, a deviation not grotesque but nevertheless sufficient to bring mild distress.

    "I believe I see the issue," she told him. "You were drawing on Mist aesthetic traditions in shaping this tool for activities I dare not name, were you not?"

    Hazō stared, first at her than at the statue. She could see him identify the points where Jiraiya's smug confidence became grim resolve, where his comfortable step became a purposeful stride, and where his relaxed expression was eroded by lines and edges intended to inspire and intimidate. This was Yagura architecture, which raised up heroes for the common man to follow, but only down the path permitted them and only ever to one destination.

    "Hashirama's fearsome ferns, I think you're right," he said. "I was practising for the new compound, trying to figure out how to add a personal touch without making it glaringly obvious that I neither know nor care about Fire Country artistic standards, but I guess it's not as easy as it sounds."

    Kei nodded. "Perhaps you should consult Snowflake. She has been experimenting with sketching of late, and her portfolio features a number of prominent pieces of Leaf architecture from various angles."

    "Sketching, you say?" Hazō repeated speculatively.

    "Primarily still life, as she lacks the confidence for living subjects," Kei said. "It is... a complicated choice of hobby for us. As a Mori, if I were to draw on the full power of my Bloodline Limit, I could present you with diagrams that would make you weep. She, obviously, does not have access to this power, but in exchange, her sketches are artistic. They are evocative. They possess meaning. It forces me to wonder... would I have been like her, had I been born a normal child without the Frozen Skein? Would I have been able to inspire, to create, instead of merely serving as the administrator of others' accomplishments?"

    But that seemed like the opening to a conversation she did not wish to have with Hazō at this time.

    "Forgive me," she said, looking back to the statue. "We were discussing your crippling psychological deficiencies, not mine. Speaking of which, where is Akane?"

    Hazō gave her a confused frown. "Is that a Youth joke?"

    Would that it were. Not that Kei would admit it at kunai-point, but she missed her verbal sparring matches with Akane over that philosophy, which had been laughable on the surface but so devastatingly pernicious at its heart. Perhaps if Kei had been able to cure her in time, instead of allowing herself to merely enjoy the repartee...

    "Yes, Hazō. It was a Youth joke. Answer, please."

    The wisdom of Ami taught many ways to keep someone like Hazō off-balance and disinclined to ask sensible questions, and making a slightly off-colour comment that there was no clear angle to challenge was one of her favourites (if usually delivered with more subtlety than Kei would ever manage).

    "Oh," Hazō said uncertainly. "She's in her room. She didn't feel like tending to the garden this morning, so she asked Mari to take over."

    Through long acquaintance, Kei was able to recognise the suppressed wince as Hazō realised he had unnecessarily mentioned Mari to her. The kindness on his part was appreciated, if less necessary than he believed. Kei was accustomed, now, to suffering through Snowflake's happy memories of time spent with Mari, accepting it as an eerily precise counterpart to Snowflake suffering through her happy memories of time spent with Ami.

    Now, she had gained the information she needed. Just one prerequisite remained.

    "Excellent," she said. "I would appreciate it if you ensured that she does not leave the compound before I am ready to speak with her."

    Hazō gave a broad smile in the predictable, naive misunderstanding of one whose faith in fundamental human nature had inexplicably not yet been crushed by reality.

    "Of course, Kei," he said. "I'm so glad you're finally willing to try."

    Kei chose to allow him the happiness of his delusion while she could.

    -o-​

    Kei did indeed find Akane in her room, gazing with a hollow gaze at the sublime work of fiction that Leaf's laypeople called a world map. If she was seeking answers, Kei suspected she would only find despair. To one with an interest in the survival of civilisation, counting population centres rarely brought anything else. It was a mercy that they were not in Kei's old room, where some of the remaining maps were annotated with demographic details.

    "Kei!" Akane's gaze snapped away guiltily. "I didn't know you were visiting today."

    "Desperate times call for desperate measures."

    Kei closed and locked the door behind her. For good measure, she affixed a Nara privacy seal to the wall, of the kind she was absolutely forbidden to remove from the compound. Desperate times.

    "I'm sorry, Kei," Akane said. "I know you must have questions. I wish I could answer them, but I can't. I can't tell you anything at all."

    Ami always spoke of how useful it was to be underestimated (only to boast about her exceptional skills and accomplishments in the very next breath). Kei, who had little with which to surprise a sceptic, usually did not find it so. Occasionally, however...

    "Nor do I require you to," she said. "It has gone conveniently unnoticed that I am the only person in Leaf other than yourself and Hazō to have access to a certain combination of facts. I am aware of where you two were at the time of the event, courtesy of Kagome's admission before the Hokage and the sealmasters, which was immediately conveyed to the Nara. I know the specifics of your abilities, just as you know mine. I am aware that Hazō would not dream of leaving Kagome so thoroughly ignorant of an important piece of sealing research, especially if some feature of it called for additional safety measures. He would certainly not choose you as his sole confidante instead, for several independently compelling reasons. I was present when Hazō chose to consult Shikamaru in the immediate aftermath, on a matter so sensitive that even the person Shikamaru trusts most in the world may not hear of it. The final confirmatory fact is that you have attained all-new levels of trauma, as expected by myself as soon as the pieces began to come together, affirmed when Ino appealed to me for insight on a source of great pain of which you would not speak, and now settled by your present appearance. I have lived alongside you in your Swamp of Death since the war, Akane. I know the depths of your resilience, and I know what it takes to truly hurt you."

    Akane just stared at her. Eventually, a quiet, satisfying "Huh" emerged.

    "As a corollary to the latter," Kei added, "Akane, you must have a plausible justification ready when asked. Say that a loved one has succumbed to a life-threatening illness. Say that a close friend has turned against you and you fear you have lost them forever. Say that you have discovered evidence that Maito Gai was not as youthful as you believed. This is basic OPSEC, and Mari would have attended to it in seconds were she not, I imagine, restraining herself for the sake of plausible deniability."

    "...thanks, Kei," Akane said quietly. "I'll come up with something. But if you're here to try to help, I honestly don't know what you can do. This isn't just about me and my identity anymore. It's about... everything."

    "Indeed," Kei said. The next part was the most difficult to say. It was the opposite of what she wanted. It was abhorrent in any number of ways and on any number of levels. It would, if she succeeded in convincing Akane, probably cost her sleepless nights. Nevertheless, it was necessary.

    "Akane, I am not here to help you heal."

    "What do you mean?"

    Necessary and difficult. Kei, with her social skills to shame the most gregarious platypus, would now need to persuade a woman of strong, if faltering, convictions of an unacceptable truth, with the stakes too high to fail.

    "Do you recall Captain Minami?" Kei asked.

    "Of course I do," Akane said. "She was a good person, and she did her best under really difficult circumstances. Whenever I think of her, I remember the hard decisions she made, and all our progress towards a real reconciliation... and how she just disappeared, and suddenly none of it mattered. I think she was the first teammate I ever lost."

    Kei was once again reminded of how cold and unfeeling she was, unable to summon half of Akane's depth of feeling for a near-stranger. Then again, perhaps it was for the best. She doubted a person with her awareness of the sheer darkness of the world could survive feeling its pain as Akane did, while here and now, her task was too important to be disrupted by selfish emotion.

    "Do you recall how she died?" Kei asked.

    "I remember what Hazō and Noburi said. It was an ambush at the destination. The contact turned out to be a yakuza assassin, probably a jōnin, getting revenge for Goda's death. Captain Minami engaged her immediately, while Hazō and Noburi realised they were outmatched and hid under an air dome to escape her and her poison gas. Then, after the assassin killed Captain Minami, she left a message on the wall in blood, and walked away after failing to break through the air dome."

    Kei nodded. "Afterwards, driven by the Mori instinct to rearrange the world until the puzzle pieces fit together, combined with profound scepticism of authority figures and convenient coincidences, I came to analyse that series of events anew. Once I did, I found that my conclusions not only could not be shared, but could not even be thought of, lest the veteran spymaster deduce the realisation from my behaviour and of necessity send me to join Minami."

    "Veteran spymaster?" Akane asked. "Do you mean Jiraiya? I don't think I follow."

    "In his absence," Kei said, "and given that I am in any case here to discuss matters that will surely doom me if conveyed to the Hokage, allow me to present a slightly different perspective on those events. First, Minami inadvertently became privy to a major Gōketsu clan secret, the kind a clan might kill to protect. Then, a yakuza assassin, one of the world's mere handful of missing-nin jōnin, was hired by a minor nation's civilian criminal organisation to seek revenge on the forces of the world's most powerful ninja village. This assassin appeared at the secret address of Jiraiya's equally secret spy contact with the correct timing and preparations to ambush the Minami team, and the knowledge necessary to initially impersonate such a spy. Having assassinated Minami, she ignored the other members of the team instead of destroying the dome with jōnin powers or simply waiting for it to expire. Finally, she left a message to inform the survivors of whom to blame, and thus who was to be the target of Leaf's inevitable and devastating reprisal—a reprisal which, I may add, never took place to the best of my knowledge."

    Akane opened and closed her mouth, but, initially at least, no words came out.

    "Kei, you can't be serious. Jiraiya explained all of that. His eastern network had been compromised. And there was all that money he lost to the Minami afterwards. He wouldn't have done that to the clan deliberately. And... and... Jiraiya was a hero, Kei! He dedicated his life to serving Leaf. He died for Leaf. He wasn't somebody who'd murder a fellow Leaf ninja just to keep a secret."

    "I admit I have no proof," Kei said. "An expert of Jiraiya's level would hardly leave such a thing where the likes of me could find it, nor would I still be among the living if I had. Nevertheless, my conviction is firm. Jiraiya was most certainly a man who would murder for Leaf's benefit. Perhaps not lightly, but I was never in any doubt during our time together that my survival was conditional on never being an excessive liability to Leaf. That I was finally able to make the choice to trust him nonetheless, and that he betrayed that choice..."

    The sudden stab of emotion took Kei off-guard. She blinked rapidly to clear her eyes.

    "Excuse me. My point is that Jiraiya possessed the personal capacity, and both the motivation and the resources where the yakuza categorically did not. If you refuse to believe me out of nothing but unquestioning trust in him, I am helpless to advance the argument further, but you must concede that, to an objective mind, his explanation for Minami's death is a joke."

    "He wouldn't..." Akane muttered uncertainly.

    "He would," Kei said. "However, that is nothing but a prelude to the true issue at hand. Akane, what you now possess is more than a mere clan secret. You are capable of single-handedly ending Leaf. Even Rock at its most focused could do no more than plunge a few intelligently–chosen structures into oblivion, and Nara analysts believe that the act required detailed intel guiding the work of multiple teams of skilled ninja over a period of days or weeks. You could do it alone in seconds.

    "If I am mistaken in terms of the specifications," Kei added quickly, "please do not correct me. The Hokage may or may not hold an educated guess against me if he learns of it, but an actual OPSEC leak would imperil both you and me without question.

    "Akane, a sane Hokage should be terrified of his most trusted, most loyal shinobi having access to such power. A truly sane Hokage should be scarcely less terrified of having it himself, but I have seen too much to expect miracles of the universe. If Jiraiya of the Three was prepared, for the sake of a clan secret, to eliminate the shinobi to whose leadership he was prepared to entrust his children, what do you suppose Sarutobi Asuma, a Hokage of less confidence and inferior skill, will do to protect Leaf from a shinobi rendered unreliable by emotional trauma, manifestly hesitant to obey orders that conflict with her personal morality, and possibly more loyal to her treason-happy boyfriend than to him?"

    Akane's eyes turned cold. Had Kei not expected such a reaction, from someone like Akane it would have had the force of a blow.

    "I'm sorry, Kei," Akane said, "but I can't believe it. Even if you're right and it was true of Jiraiya before he took up the mantle, it can't be true of Lord Hokage. Even if I don't understand the Hokage's decisions, even if to me they might seem"—she almost choked out the next word, with visible effort—"wrong, the Hokage is the Will of Fire made flesh. I understand why you wouldn't get that kind of faith, being from Hidden Mist, but to me it's real, as real as anything else."

    Kei would have given a wry smile if she had felt like smiling. "In this you are mistaken."

    "Oh?"

    "Mist had faith," Kei said. "Perhaps not as vague and all-encompassing as yours, but equally real, to those raised in its grip. I was an ordinary Academy student in at least a few ways, Akane. I received the same indoctrination as everyone else. I was taught that the highest good was to obey my lawfully-appointed superiors unconditionally, to follow the rules to the absolute best to my ability, to dedicate all of myself to serving the village and the Mizukage who embodied and expressed its will, and to hate spies and traitors with all my heart and seek their undoing wherever I discovered them. Obviously, I did not discover any at the Academy, where questioning the instructors' moral purity was inconceivable, even the headmaster's, but I pursued the rest to the best of my immature understanding and ability. I learned the rules until I could recite them from memory. I listened to the teachers dedicatedly, and was disdained for it by my peers. I performed my assigned tasks to the full extent of my capacity, not that a proper Mori could do any less. I concede that my faith did not extend into adulthood as yours has, but while it lasted, it was real."

    "What happened?"

    "Inexplicably," Kei said, "my dutifulness was ineffective. The other children did not cease to torment me. The teachers made no greater effort to protect me. New accommodations were not made for personal deficiencies I was unable to overcome. Clarity as to my place and purpose failed utterly to descend. It was incomprehensible. Even Ami, struggling with her own, more adult problems of faith, could not guide me.

    "I do not recall the inciting incident, but one day, understanding finally dawned. It was not the world that was broken. It was Mori Keiko. That one revelation accounted for everything. It explained why my parents had lost interest in me. It explained why I struggled to master simple skills like casual conversation that to others were not skills at all. It explained why it was necessary for me to learn one by one an endless list of social rules that were intuitive to children with a fraction of my intelligence. It explained why my diligence went unrewarded—it was not because I was making some specific error, but because I was incapable of satisfying the requirements a priori.

    "The realisation was... well, reflecting on it now, it was a core contributor to the self-loathing that consumes me to this day, but at the time it was deeply liberating. It freed me from the pressure to strive ever harder in the hope that perhaps this time my virtue would be recognised and my life would change. As for the teachings I had been inculcated with, they might not have been proven false, but they had been rendered irrelevant to me. Over time they would fade away, leaving the outsider's realist perspective that has clashed with yours so many times.

    "But I digress. Akane, the Will of Fire, on the dubious assumption that such a thing exists, does not protect its chosen from making correct decisions. Were I the Hokage with a duty to protect my people as my raison d'être, and you a martially promising but even slightly unreliable shinobi whose elimination would be the complete elimination of an existential threat, there would scarcely be a choice. Even as Nara Kei, I leave the world in your hands only because you have opened your heart to me and convinced me beyond doubt that you can be trusted. Were it another, such as one of the new Gōketsu adoptees, I would already be pondering my options.

    "Tell me, Akane, do you believe that the Hokage would do less than me if Leaf's survival was at stake?"

    Akane looked away. "Kei... you're asking me to believe that my lawful and spiritual leader, the avatar of all that is good in the world, is someone who would murder his own people out of nothing but distrust. Doesn't that sound like the Kage you grew up with, not the ones I did? Now you want me to believe they're all the same? I... I can't. I'm sorry. I don't know what would be left of me if I could."

    Was this it? The opening Kei needed? She prayed it was. She was nearly out of ideas, and she could not fail.

    "Akane," she said as patiently as she could, "if the Hokage orders you eliminated, it will not be because he is a failure as a leader. It will be because he is a good one. How many more people would have lived if the Third had acted on his suspicions of Orochimaru early, instead of deciding to trust in his apprentice's moral fibre for just a little longer? If he had recognised Itachi's insanity in time? Or imagine if Hashirama had accepted that his best friend was preparing to betray him, and struck first. How much longer might he have lived? What might he have made of this village, of the world?

    "It hurts to act on that uncertainty, Akane. It hurts to seek to live life as a moral person, only to be forced to steep one's hands in evil for the sake of preventing a greater evil, knowing that the greater evil might never come to pass and you might be taking innocent lives for nothing. It hurts to know that one day you may be forced to betray your friends or family to prevent a disaster that might exist only in your imagination. How much easier to instead let the chips fall where they may and enjoy blissful innocence until they land, accepting responsibility only in the event of failure, and then only if you are still alive. If the Hokage is a good man, he is feeling the pain of uncertainty even now, and if he is a worthy Kage, it will not prevent him from doing what he must."

    Akane shook her head, but weakly. Kei should have known that, despite Akane's core of unflappable common sense, it would be arguments from the heart that struck home, not from logic.

    "Please, Akane. I am not asking you to condemn your divinity as immoral. I am asking you to understand that he has been placed before a choice with no morally acceptable options, and that of the options before him, he will choose the one that protects the most people with the most certainty. It is the correct decision from every perspective, save that we understand the situation better than he does and know that you could never cause the catastrophe he fears."

    She was almost there. She could feel it. She would push, and a piece of Akane's heart would break forever, and then there would be hope.

    But she had expended the last of her arguments. She cursed Leaf from the bottom of her heart. In Yagura's Mist, anyone whose loved ones had been taken from them in the middle of the night would be prepared to at least entertain the idea that the Mizukage was fallible (even if they would not say it aloud for fear of being next). Leaf's Kage had instead been a succession of reasonable men, and apparently that was enough for the unthinking masses to accept their claims of godhood. Kei was no holy sage with the power to force open the eyes of the wilfully blind, but she would be damned before she allowed Akane, her ridiculous, precious Akane, to die of manufactured loyalty to a village that did not deserve her.

    There were two times when shinobi were known to briefly unleash heights of power that they would take years to reclaim on a more permanent basis. One was when they finally unlocked a new ability, like a Kani achieving a new tier of crab or, per Leaf tales of valour, an Uchiha awakening a new tomoe of their Sharingan. The other was at times of utter desperation, when merely pushing oneself to one's limits would not be sufficient to prevent certain death. Kei was increasingly confident that this was one of the latter—and as a general rule, the key was to attempt something simultaneously ambitious and incredibly stupid.

    Kei stepped forward. Akane was sitting on the bed, forcing Kei to go on one knee to achieve eye level (even dogeza would have been acceptable if she believed the cheap gesture would have any effect). She took both of Akane's hands in hers, weathering the immediate jolt of panic. They were her muscles and they would do what she demanded, and she would process the horror (Akane was in a position to hold her hands back) after she burned through her willpower and finished speaking.

    "Akane, I am as serious as I have ever been. I sincerely believe that if you do not take immediate, concrete action, you will be killed. This is not merely Kei the pessimist speaking. It is what I would do in the Hokage's place, and he is not measurably more incompetent, irresponsible, or sentimental than I. I cannot say this and you cannot repeat it, but he is the man who refused to intervene to save my life lest it risk a final confrontation with Orochimaru. Akane, I beg you, even if you do not believe me, even if our bond and all our time together do not outweigh your faith in Sarutobi Asuma, then do this for me as the favour of a lifetime. Spend a few months living in my world where your life is in danger, and I will do anything for you in return—anything that does not harm the people in my care. I am aware that, if you survive, there will be no evidence with which to restore your trust in me. Nevertheless, I do not hesitate to ask this of you. Akane, please."

    A second later, her willpower was exhausted.

    She backed away before she knew it. This was Akane. Akane was safe. Kei was not in danger. The fear was a lie. Kei was not in danger. The fear was a lie.

    Not enough.


    It took minutes in the bathroom before Kei was composed enough to return (a record in itself, relative to the circumstances). It had truly been a desperation move, and she had hoped, foolishly, that she would retain enough self-control to remain and hear Akane's answer. Still, there was nothing greater she could have done to prove her determination. If that was still insufficient, then all was lost.

    "Apologies," she said awkwardly after re-locking Akane's door (she was a little proud that she had been able to operate a lock in that condition).

    "Don't worry."

    Akane also seemed composed, and at any rate not about to banish Kei from her presence for blasphemy, which was a promising start. However, the exam parchment had already been handed in. There was no more time for clarifying notes in the margins. All Kei could do was await her grade.

    "Your thoughts?"

    Akane smiled. "I don't know what you think of me, but I'm not somebody who can simply ignore everything you said and did just because it clashes with the beliefs I hold dear. I know there was a long time when we were each convinced that the other one was wrong about everything, but we've been past that for a while, right?"

    Kei nodded. "Everything", she had learned after the two of them began to become friends for real, was perhaps an exaggeration. Until the moment the word "youth", or a derivative, left Akane's mouth, she was as capable of being stunningly insightful as she was of being stunningly naïve. Now, sadly, even that circumstance did not arise.

    Akane patted the empty space on the bed next to her. After a second's hesitation, Kei sat down, taking care to leave plenty of room between them because she was in no state to experience that again.

    "I'm just… lost and confused, Kei. The Hokage is moral goodness itself. That's what I've always been taught, and it's what I've seen with my own eyes, time and time again. The First invented peace, and the Second made it last. The Third built the world as I know it. The Fourth saved us all at the cost of his life, and so did the Fifth. The Sixth… maybe never really got the chance to absorb the full wisdom of the Will of Fire, but the Seventh has seen us through crisis after crisis despite inheriting a village falling apart.

    "Only then… it was the Hokage who ordered me to burn that town. I'm the one who chose to do it, but that doesn't mean I can pretend away where the orders came from. How many orders like that did he give? I don't dare ask, even though deep down I already know it'll be a number that hurts to hear. The Hokage's much wiser than I am, and the choices he makes are the best choices anyone could make in his place because the Will of Fire guides him. So where does that leave me if my heart says those choices are wrong?

    "I know I shouldn't be questioning him. Questioning your orders is disloyal. The chain of command can make mistakes, and if that happens, the team leader has to adapt to the situation on the ground, and that could be you. But once you start thinking you know better than the people the Hokage appointed to lead you, everything falls apart and you can't protect anything. That's not the Will of Fire.

    "But what if I can't keep doing this? I know that using it again is wrong, Kei. I know it with a certainty that I don't really have for most things anymore. I can't use it to save the village from Akatsuki because it's too big, and I can't use it against the Dragons because I don't have a Summoning Scroll—and I don't want a Summoning Scroll if getting it means hurting more innocent people just for power. Not after I killed several hundred farmers inventing a weapon no one should have. Maybe Hazō could think of a clever use—but Hazō was the one who thought of this clever use, and if I'm not smart enough to stop him making mistakes, maybe I at least shouldn't be helping him make them."

    Kei would have been smart enough, if he had only trusted her.

    "The Hokage didn't look like this was a secret he wanted wiped off the face of the earth. If that had been the promise, that he'd make sure no one could ever do this again, maybe I could stand being assassinated—except that Hazō would have to be assassinated as well, and the world needs him too much for that. But he's going to use it, or order me to use it. It's such an effective way of burning down towns. And he'll be doing the right thing, because he's the Will of Fire incarnate… and I can't stand it. I can't stand the thought of it. Am I a traitor to the Will of Fire?"

    Kei offered no comment. In fact, she did not move a muscle, because she was in no way capable of giving an answer to that question, and any attempt was guaranteed to make matters infinitely worse.

    "Once I start thinking that way, it's not that implausible that the Hokage would want me gone. A ninja who's betrayed the Will of Fire, even in her heart, doesn't belong in Leaf. But I can't just roll over and die. You told me that, Kei: while the world needs Uplift, there are still things even a mass murderer like me can do. If I die, even if it's fair, all of that gets wasted. Right now, Uplift needs every helper it can get.

    "So if you're right, and the Hokage's decided I no longer belong within the Will of Fire, what am I supposed to do to survive, Kei? What do I do in your world?"

    Kei let out an explosive breath of relief, undignified though it was. She had passed the test, or at least the first part that qualified her to do anything at all about the actual problem.

    "Thank you, Akane. In all sincerity. I am honoured by your trust."

    Akane's smile became a little less withdrawn, a little more real.

    "As to practical steps," Kei continued, "my advice to you is to do the exact opposite of what you should be doing in order to heal your pain and grow beyond it, undermining if not reversing all of the genuine progress you have made."

    "What? But why?"

    "Because as far as the Hokage and every eye that could conceivably report to the Hokage or influence another's reporting to him is concerned, you need to be a paragon of loyalty and stability. You must not indicate any discomfort with the atrocities you have committed or the atrocities you may yet be ordered to commit, and given your appalling acting skills, that means you must endeavour not to feel it. You must be the very image of faith in the Hokage and willingness to accept his every instruction, without question and without thought, in direct denial of the independent judgement you are finally developing. You must be happy, or at least hovering around the average happiness level of a typical traumatised chūnin, and you must act accordingly. Were it not too blatant a swerve, I might even have recommended a return to Youth. Finally, you must find a way to indicate that Hazō's influence over you is limited, and has no potential to compete with your duty to the Hokage. I advise some manner of lasting rift, over a concrete issue that will make the sudden change in attitude plausible. Recall how you felt when you originally terminated your relationship, or in the aftermath of his failure to punish Haru. One could argue that transforming you into a living weapon of mass destruction might qualify, but I suppose that would clash with the 'embracing atrocities' angle."

    "I… I see," Akane said, visibly struggling to take all this in. Kei could not blame her. This was as far from her area of expertise as Yuno was from polyamory, another duty accepted not because she was in any way competent or qualified but because there was no one else.

    "Kei, I'm not sure I can do this. I mean, even if I can act out this role perfectly, which I can't begin to imagine how to do, right now I'm a wreck. How do I transition from that to being the ideal ninja without making it obvious that I'm faking it to convince the Hokage?"

    "Ah, yes. That." Kei steeled herself for the less enjoyable part of the day. "Come with me, and all will be made plain."

    She did remember to retrieve the seal and prevent the inevitable clan war that would result after Hazō memorised it, researched it, and carelessly proceeded to use it in a Nara's presence.

    -o-​

    It was not painful to see Mari again as they ascended to the rooftop garden. Why would it have been? Kei saw her often enough, laughing and enjoying herself in Snowflake's memories. Their own bond was cleanly severed, with no ragged, bleeding edges. She neither required nor missed Mari's warmth, her playful affection, or the gentle glow of her approval. At this point, she barely remembered such things.

    It was a relief that Mari clearly felt the same, as after a moment's shock when she realised she was not facing Snowflake, her expression settled into calm neutrality.

    "Hello, Kei," she said, casually batting away the hyphae of the saprophagous amanita sneaking over her shoulder as it reacted to the presence of three or more prey animals in close proximity. "How can I help you?"

    "Might Akane and I speak with you in private?"

    -o-​

    Mari's bedroom, too, was still familiar from Snowflake's recent memories. Despite the unseasonable cold (which Kei was uncertain whether to blame on Hazō), the clothes scattered in a highly disorganised fashion were flimsy, with heating predominantly entrusted to braziers and a heavy quilt. Typical of Mari not to take proper care of her body when there was no one to remind her. Was she at least receiving sufficient nutrition, with no one to monitor her diet and suggest optimisations according to season and activity level? Kei made a mental note for Snowflake to remember to investigate the matter.

    To clarify, Mari's welfare was in no way Kei's concern. She merely disapproved of inefficiency.

    Kei decided to forgo small talk and lead-ins. The less time spent here the better.

    "Mari, Akane requires your assistance as a matter of absolute priority."

    "Of course," Mari said. "What can I do for you?"

    "For reasons I am not at liberty to divulge, it is urgent that she be made to appear to the world as a healthy, mentally and emotionally stable shinobi with no inclination to question Leaf doctrine or her orders, past or future. As an expert in feeling no guilt for the atrocities you have committed, there is no question that you are the woman to assist her."

    Mari blinked.

    "Kei," Akane interrupted, "that was uncalled for."

    "At this point," Kei said, "I have extensive experience feeling guilt for atrocities, observing those who feel such guilt, and observing those who do not. I have full confidence in my statement.

    "However, I have not come to retread old ground. Mari, can you train Akane in the role I have just described, to a degree sufficient to satisfy the most sceptical observer and with a transition natural enough to arouse no suspicion?"

    Mari looked Akane up and down.

    "And here I was just thinking I was in need of a challenge."

    Her expression sobered.

    "Is this as bad as I think it is?"

    "It is worse," Kei told her. "This will need to be your primary project, waking and sleeping. I do not know how many grains of sand were ever in the hourglass."

    "I'll do what I can," Mari said, "but Kei…"

    "Excuses are meaningless," Kei snapped. "I am not the one you must convince. I am here only because, having taken responsibility, I feel I must see the project through to the end. You may call freely on my assistance, as long as you appreciate that no one but the people in this room can know—and Hazō, I suppose, though I will not weep if Akane decides it would be preferable to exclude him for the sake of OPSEC.

    "Akane, please remember that I have no formal involvement with your situation, and everything I have said to you is baseless private speculation unworthy of being shared with anyone. Beyond that, I trust Mari's ability to read between the lines, and you know the boundaries of what may and may not be explicitly shared better than I."

    "This is all Hazō's fault somehow, isn't it?" Mari asked.

    "Most of this clan's tribulations are, if one digs deep enough," Kei said noncommittally as she stepped towards the door.

    At the last moment, Kei looked back.

    "She is in your hands, Mari. Save her."

    -o-​

    You have received 4 + 1 (Brevity) x 3 = 15 XP.

    -o-​

    Kei has rejected the training plan. While she does not inherently disapprove of the contents, she is finally close to completing her long-delayed Nara [REDACTED] training, which will cost 500 XP and leave her ready to learn Nara ninjutsu.

    -o-​

    Your tour of prominent Leaf compounds proceeds apace. The clans seem mostly gratified by the show of respect for them and Leaf culture, and Hazō's reluctant reining in of his natural curiosity has left them only mildly suspicious that you are actually sniffing around for clan secrets (or scouting in preparation for sniffing around for clan secrets).

    Of note:

    The Amori compound is expansive, with arching ceilings and cloisters decorated with mosaics depicting famous scenes from the clan's history. The gardens are laid out with a care and precision that is almost mathematical, while the statuary that lines the approach to the main building must have taken untold years to assemble. The clan's famous private chapel, dedicated to Hashirama and the teachings attributed to him personally, is a masterwork of carved stone in a city of wood, but Hazō was not invited inside. However, it feels as if there are too few people for the space, and the upkeep is proper rather than pristine. Overall, the compound's faded splendour speaks of an Amori Clan that was not merely voting but grand when it moved into Leaf, before changes unknown to Hazō reduced it to size and clout comparable to the Hagoromo's.

    The Aburame favour clean, straight lines, unobtrusive colours, and large windows, with a sense of uncluttered space that almost invites one to imagine oneself as an insect soaring freely where it wills. They have fewer statues and other depictions of clan heroes than other compounds Hazō has seen, but arguably, the ubiquitous insect-motif art serves a similar purpose. Their hives are not within the areas of the compound accessible to visitors, but Hazō can hear the buzzing and practically feel the pressure of millions of lives against him wherever he goes. It is as if the compound itself is organic and living its own life, with Hazō's vision stopping at its skin.

    The Minami compound is... "fortified" may be the best word for it. Roofs are difficult to climb and studded with abalone shells, which reflect sunlight into the eyes of anyone attempting to spy on the compound from range. Walls are tall and thick, lines of sight are open, and the Minami are not subtle about having broad areas where visitors should not step unguided if they don't want to die (Hazō envies them—the Gōketsu have too many civilian children running around to deploy kill zones to his or Kagome-sensei's satisfaction). Garden benches are comfortably padded, but also heavy enough to serve as reliable cover against ranged attacks. The Minami colour is white—in this they did not break from the Hyūga—but no white space is without some abstract colour motif that could be decorative or defiant. Only once all these layers of defence are bypassed does one reach a peaceful inner citadel where orderly structure takes a back seat to a seemingly haphazard, wilfully chaotic sprawl of buildings, sculptures (largely abstract, since the Minami have few heroic ancestors they are willing to acknowledge) and other works of art by talented clan civilians (some adopted into the clan for that specific purpose).

    Notably, all the compounds Hazō has visited are replete with greenery, clustered into gardens and brightening constructed spaces with the occasional copse or family of shrubs. His hosts all claim that this unity with nature is the First Hokage's greatest philosophical legacy after the Will of Fire, and that respecting and contemplating it is a core part of becoming a true Leaf ninja. A clan's choice of plants speaks volumes to those who take the time to learn the language. (Privately, Hazō observes that this is also yet another line deliberately dividing clan ninja from the clanless, who can seldom afford to dedicate living space to the purely decorative).

    Hazō has yet to visit the Hyūga and the Uchiha, having left them for last for a variety of reasons.

    With the move yet to come, the housewarming celebrations are still in the planning stages. Hazō has yet to make it public outside the clan. In practice, this means it is mostly the other clans which are in the dark or working off uncertain information, since Shimura has no reason to keep their stroke of fortune secret from the KEI.

    -o-​

    What do you do?

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    • I am once again bummed that we did not go the Hidden Heaven route. Granted, the Akatsuki would likely have won at that point, but the feeling remains.

    Speaking of Akatsuki, in the worst case scenario, Akane could join them. They are already the guillotine hanging over the heads of other villages. She would fit right in.
     
    Velorien said:
    Enough time for Hazō to visit three compounds and Akane to return from her mission. I don't want to skip the timeline too far forward, lest we leave timed events like the arrival of Noburi's sisters behind.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    It was one of my first thought when the update pop up, actually.

    We should go prepare for meeting Noburi's blood sisters.
     
    I really really really want Jiraiya back. I just feel like he could...if not fix this then stem the bleeding.

    Also, interesting to learn that Kei will be acquiring a stunt that lets her use Nara jutsu.
     
    [x] Action Plan: Jiraiya, Please Work With Us Here
    • Continue work on Minato-chain/rift seal as long as EJ is comfortable.
    • Start looking for civilian hunters willing to take part in a mission at a later date, in which we suspect too much chakra-use may be inadvisable.
      • Further, ask for tips on survival without chakra.
    • Make preparations for what you will need to do to find the scar again after dying.
      • Optimal non-sealed loadouts for equipment/rations.
      • Extra survival/navigation training.
      • Learn to make seal-quality supplies for if you lose access to paper/ink on the other side.
      • Anti-memetics protocols:
        • Notes/cartography on spare paper/own skin.
        • IN dictation (may cost chakra — inadvisable?)
        • Create landmarks/physical-geographical reminders.
    • Communicate to Kei:
      • We understand she's angry, and want to discuss this soon, at her convenience, once she's calmer [read: Vel's update].
      • She has a history off bottling things up until she explodes, harming herself and others.
      • She is family, we value her and, independently, her judgement. We had sensible reasons for the decision we made.
     
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