Interlude: Shadow versus Shadow
"Come in."
With trepidation, Snowflake placed her hand on the door of the lion's den. The ANBU guards standing either side gave her impatient looks, as to a little girl who had the temerity to request some of the Hokage's valuable time, yet not the confidence to so much as enter his office, thereby wasting more of his time by forcing him to wait.
Social pressure accomplished what courage could not.
The Hokage was, for a change, not sitting at his desk framed by stacks of papers. Rather, he stood by what was colloquially known as the "assassin bait" window of the Hokage's office, a most peculiar long pipe at his lips. Snowflake watched with fascination as a glistening bubble the size of her fist slowly emerged from the pipe's opening and drifted gently towards one of the bookshelves.
"That pipe…" she commented without thinking. "It is decorated with Mist's Guardian Dragons of the Depths."
"A gift from the Mizukage," Asuma said. "Kurenai's been bugging me to quit for years, and this is what happens when she gets fed up and enlists a certain busybody with connections to help. I don't even know exactly what's in this stuff, except that a panel of experts swear up and down it's not dangerous, and even though it's not addictive, it takes the edge off the cravings just enough that I'm going to have to keep importing more. This is the new age of warfare right here.
"Now," he said after a lengthy puff which produced a bigger bubble still, "what can I do for you?"
Snowflake marshalled her thoughts. She had spent days workshopping this conversation with Kei, both individually in their heads and through structured practice. There were clear, detailed steps to be taken in the correct order, for she would likely only have one chance.
"Lord Hokage, I would like to formally introduce myself to you," she said after as many seconds to calm herself as she guessed social propriety might allow. "My name is Gōketsu Snowflake, Companion and divergent shadow clone of Nara Kei."
The Hokage slid his pipe into a drawer of his desk. He took a seat and made a show of shuffling out of the way some paperwork which was obviously much more important than she was in order to be able to see her more clearly.
"Ah, yes," he said. "Kei's social experiment. How quickly she adjusts herself to Nara traditions."
Snowflake felt a flicker of anger. Ever dismissed as a whim, or at best a curiosity. Ever judged by her appearance, the one facet of herself she was helpless to change. Ever denied her personhood, even to her face when she attempted to assert it. She shuddered at the thought of how she might be treated if she were not at least a clone of Nara Kei, capable of repaying open rudeness a hundredfold.
Yes, this feeling was much more productive than fear when confronting a man with absolute power over everyone and everything she loved.
"On the contrary, sir," she said. "I am a fully independent individual possessing unique cognition and agency."
"So I've heard it said," the Hokage told her. "I think it would be a good start to this conversation to point out that the ANBU miss nothing—including that little confrontation you helped bait the Hagoromo into. I'll grant that Lord Hagoromo jumped headfirst into the grave you'd dug for him, but I didn't give you permission for those ceremonies of yours so you could turn around and use them to dance around the prohibition on Gōketsu-Hagoromo warfare."
"I apologise, sir," Snowflake said, regretting not one second of it.
"Now," the Hokage said, leaning forward slightly, "let's be very clear about one thing, 'Snowflake'. You and I both know that there are certain unspoken freedoms allowed the Nara by the Hokage, some agreed upon the village's foundation, and others earned over decades of service above and beyond a shinobi's basic duty to Leaf. One dating from my father's time is that the Hokage does not involve himself with Nara social experiments, and the Nara never conduct social experiments that might force the Hokage to involve himself.
"It's conceivable that a young Nara, perhaps one not brought up in the clan and unclear on where the lines are, might one day go too far in her experiments for the sake of her social agenda. As long as she knows when to stop, a patient and generous Hokage, mindful of the Nara's vast assistance with Leaf's recent panoply of crises, might be prepared to leave it at that.
"On the other hand, a Nara who keeps going to the point of trying to deceive the Hokage is crossing a line, and on the other side of that line lies the loss of freedoms earned through the effort of generations of Nara ancestors.
"So with that in mind, I'm going to ask you exactly once, 'Snowflake': are you a Nara social experiment?"
Feeling the pressure coming from across that desk, feeling the Hokage's will bearing down on her, Snowflake felt a sudden irrational impulse to say yes, to placate the Hokage with what he wanted to hear and avoid bringing down his wrath. Did Hazō truly sit down in front of this man and aggravate him with wild abandon, then willingly return to do the same mere days or weeks later?
But Snowflake was not any old Shadow-based sapient chakra construct. She was a shadow clone of Nara Kei, the Dauntless, who had withstood the killing intent of more different S-rankers and summon bosses than most women living. If Snowflake allowed herself to fold before mere pressure like this, she might as well be the divergent self of a damselfish.
"No, Lord Hokage," Snowflake said, keeping the hands balled into fists below his line of sight. "I am a cognitively-independent being acting on my own agency."
The Hokage met her gaze, looking into the very depths of the soul Snowflake did not possess. Had there still been a floating bubble between them, it would have sat perfectly still, because even the air did not dare move in that long, drawn-out moment of perfect tension.
The Hokage relaxed. It was as if the pressure on Snowflake's skin had never been.
"Good," he said. "Pleased to meet you, Snowflake. Now, run me through this whole cognitively-independent business again."
Snowflake instructed her fists to unfold. They refused. She hoped the Hokage could not see.
Now, as they had rehearsed…
"You are aware," Snowflake began, "that the Mori are bearers of the Frozen Skein Bloodline Limit. In return for its powers of calculation and analysis, it strips them of the powers of initiative and associated creativity that others take for granted. They learn mental techniques and workarounds to mitigate this impact from birth, since without them some Mori children would likely be unable even to study at the Academy alongside their peers, and the clan as a whole would certainly be unable to compete with its rivals, much less enjoy its modern-day position of pre-eminence. Superior Mori, one might say those with chūnin and especially jōnin potential, come to develop their own approaches to better suit their unique cognitive structures. Nevertheless, these are compensatory measures. They do not restore the missing functionality of a Mori mind."
The Hokage nodded. "All of this is in the briefing Kei provided to my father as one of his conditions for joining Leaf."
Kei had provided far less information than she could have, mindful of Ami's continued membership of the clan, but also motivated by lingering loyalty—not to any specific individual, but to the Mori Clan as an ideal, which could not be imperilled merely for the sake of her own prosperity. In retrospect, the likes of Sarutobi Hiruzen must surely have recognised any lie by omission from the likes of Mori Keiko, but if he had intended to extract more information later at his leisure, the Shinigami took no account of his plans.
Perhaps it was best not to even contemplate this in the Hokage's presence.
"The Shadow Clone Technique," Snowflake went on, "creates a perfect copy of the user's mind, with certain restrictions added, and without any Bloodline Limits. However, when Kei uses the technique, the mind created without the Frozen Skein cannot possibly be a perfect copy of hers, nor even a close one. It does not possess capabilities as second-nature to a Mori as breathing, but in their stead can access the full range of natural human ability. The experiences of such a mind, its memories, are only partially legible to Kei, just as a Yamanaka might struggle to process the memories of a being with additional senses for which humans have no analogue."
Actually,
could a Yamanaka read a non-human mind? Was it possible to learn how Jūchi Yosamu perceived the world, to have his thoughts and feelings transformed into words Snowflake could understand? This required immediate—well, almost immediate—investigation.
"Thus, whenever she uses the Shadow Clone Technique, Kei is subsequently left with a single, internally-coherent set of memories which are only partially legible to her, yet fully legible to any shadow clone she creates in the future, and likewise said shadow clone will be limited in its ability to process hers. Every time, her shadow clone inherits the same unique set of memories, plus updates from the previous shadow clone's lifetime. It is my experience and my contention that a sapient being possessing a unique, coherent, and continuous if not contiguous set of memories meets the qualifications for independent personhood."
The Hokage nodded thoughtfully. At some point, the pipe had made a reappearance. Whatever mysterious substance generated the bubbles, it lacked the foul pungency of tobacco, or indeed any scent except perhaps the faintest touch of lavender.
"If I ever find myself arguing philosophy of identity with a Nara," he said, "I'll know I'm in a genjutsu, because no Hokage could ever have that kind of time in real life. I don't have a monkey at this banquet, Snowflake—if you're convinced you're a real girl, and it doesn't threaten Leaf's safety or stability or interfere with Kei's ability to carry out missions, more power to you.
"I won't claim I haven't considered banning Kei from using shadow clones in public," he added, sending a shiver down Snowflake's spine, "but as long as you keep the OPSEC angle covered and don't push your luck any further, I'm prepared to reward you with a modicum of trust for learning your lesson and working with me rather than around me."
He had said it. The Kage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, its absolute authority and dictator, had acknowledged, if in a half-hearted and patronising way, that Snowflake was an independent individual rather than a temporary Kei copy with delusions of personhood. She had been given irrevocable permission to exist.
"In that case," she dared push her luck further, for this was the true objective of today's meeting, "I would like to apply to join the armed forces of the Fire Country and become a Leaf shinobi."
The Hokage took a long puff of his pipe. A perfectly round bubble the size of a vulture egg ascended lazily towards the ceiling.
Then it popped.
"No."
The Hokage's voice was still soft, but even Snowflake did not miss the hint of iron.
"Why not?!" she demanded without thinking.
"…sir," she added sheepishly as the Hokage raised an eyebrow at her tone.
"Because you are a shadow clone," the Hokage said patiently. "You cannot leave Leaf unless Kei does."
As if such a trivial objection could have gone overlooked by their meticulous hours of preparation.
"There are disabled shinobi who are likewise unable to leave Leaf," Snowflake said. "They contribute with activities such as guard duty, wall duty, teaching, or handling classified documents inappropriate for civilian eyes."
"Your will is not your own," the Hokage said. "As a shadow clone, you have to obey your creator's orders absolutely, even if they would conflict with your Kage's."
"This is no less true of any clan shinobi," Snowflake said. "You cannot know in advance that a shinobi will choose to obey your orders where they conflict with their clan head's, which are in theory also absolute. You choose to trust them. You have already chosen to trust Kei, or she would not be able to serve as a Leaf shinobi. If you trust that she will not take actions that violate your orders, you must also trust that she will not command me to take them."
"You're more fragile than a child," the Hokage said. "You can't possibly be relied on to fight for the village as an independent ninja."
"An attack that dispels me is an attack that does not harm the Leaf shinobi who would otherwise have been in my place, and I can return to duty as soon as Kei recovers or receives the necessary chakra."
The Hokage took two bubbles' worth of time to think.
"You haven't graduated from the Leaf Academy," he finally said.
He could not be serious.
"As Kei's shadow clone, I possess the full skill set of a tournament-winning chūnin, since expanded with extensive training. Are you questioning my basic competence, and by extension hers?"
The Hokage shook his head.
"I should have expected this from a Mist ninja—or, I suppose, somebody who only remembers being a Mist ninja. Snowflake, the Academy doesn't just exist to train children to kill. It takes fertile young minds and nourishes them, through daily instruction over a period of years, with the wisdom necessary to understand the Will of Fire and Leaf's way of the ninja on an instinctive level. I'm not going to cast aspersions on your understanding of or faith in the Will of Fire—this is, after all, the first time we've spoken—but the fact is that it can never be bone-deep in you the way it is in a ninja who was born in the Will of Fire, raised every day in the Will of Fire, and graduated through the guidance of the Will of Fire."
"This is ridiculous!" Snowflake burst out.
The Hokage's eyes turned cold.
"Excuse my phrasing," Snowflake said, unable to restrain herself, "but it
is. I am only here, I only exist, because you accepted Kei as a Leaf shinobi with no concern for her upbringing or the ideology of her childhood."
"My father accepted Kei and the others," the Hokage said, "as a special exception to a rule that exists for excellent reason. He did this because he judged that your team's value to Leaf outweighed the various risks and disadvantages. Skywalkers were a major part of that value, probably the critical part. Time has proven his wisdom in accepting you again and again, but even then, I have had endless occasion to lament that your brother—if that's what he is to you—wasn't raised with a love of the Will of Fire in his heart and the commandment to respect and obey his Hokage engraved on his soul. Even Kei, with Shikamaru's influence to guide her towards the Will of Fire, tried that inane trick with the Concubine Laws as if I were a wall in her way rather than her lawful leader who may or may not disagree with her, and can be expected to have good reasons if he does.
"If the Gōketsu or the Nara are prepared to offer the Tower exclusivity on some weapon of skywalker-like value which they have had very good reason for keeping secret from me until now,
then it will be time to talk of making new exceptions like my father did."
"But what about Ami?" Snowflake demanded desperately.
"Ami's value to Leaf also outweighs the various risks and disadvantages," the Hokage said, though he seemed a little less confident this time. "After Nagi Island and the Collapse took a hammer to our institutional knowledge, and then the war scythed down nearly all our remaining elites, we desperately need experienced jōnin who can back up the newly-promoted through those lethal first years. That goes double for diplomacy and infiltration, which are going to be worth much more than conventional combat skills for as long as this peace holds. Frankly, the fact that the Mizukage gave her up so easily makes me worry about what he's got left up his sleeve. As for the other reasons, I'll leave you to work them out for yourself, but it's fair to say they don't apply to you."
"But…"
The resignation struck all at once, like a great wave. Snowflake sensed, despite her social skills that shone brighter than the most radiant squid ink, that if she continued to dig, then beyond the soil of the Hokage's dubious arguments, she would eventually strike the unbreakable bedrock of simple "no". She did not know why.
"I understand," Snowflake said faintly.
The Hokage looked up, contemplating the rise of a particularly impressive bubble just long enough for Snowflake to gather herself.
There was still one battle which she might not lose, Snowflake reminded herself. At the very least, if she did not fight it, Kei would be disappointed in her.
"In that case," she said, "I would like at least to apply to become a citizen of the Fire Country. I was born here, have lived in Leaf for multiple years as a law-abiding townsperson, have fought for it in my capacity as a shadow clone, and can provide character references from citizens in good standing. I am not presently contributing to the economy through gainful employment, though I am as a consumer, but I will do so if you stipulate it as a requirement for citizenship."
The Hokage gave her a puzzled stare. "I can understand the impulse to serve the Will of Fire on the front lines from those who can fight, or a civilian lusting after the pay and privileges that come with ninja rank in this country, but why would somebody with Kei's influence and wealth behind her care about the technicality of being a citizen?"
Why indeed. What argument could possibly convey Snowflake's feelings to someone who could open the door and walk out into a street full of people who acknowledged his expressed identity without question? Who never needed to take concrete, real-world steps to assert who and what he was, because in his case they had all already been taken by the moment of his birth? Who never opened his eyes in the darkness and asked himself if it was all a mistake and he really was deluding himself about his personhood as nearly every other person in the world believed?
Drop by drop, as Snowflake pondered her approach, the realisation coalesced. If the bedrock beneath this conversation was "no", then any argument she presented would meet the fate of her other arguments. All of them would be waves shattering against a cliff, which cared not about the source or content of the water.
And if that was the case, if the fundamental core of the approach she and Kei had prepared was doomed…
Inspiration struck, and Snowflake did something she would never have ordinarily considered in the process of pursuing Fire Country citizenship. In fact, she was uncertain if a Gōketsu was permitted to do it at all.
She decided to trust her Hokage.
"Because real people have citizenships," she said. "I am a foreign legal entity with no 'foreign' to be from, an outsider to
everywhere. I am a shared fiction: a small number of kind people believe that I exist, and others who trust them follow their cues with unknown degrees of sincerity. I do not have a place in this world other than what they give me. To be a citizen of somewhere, to be
from somewhere, grounds you in something more than a set of individuals. It grounds you in a place, and in the idea of a place, both things that can change or be changed, but never disappear or be destroyed."
Technically, she could no longer put it past Hazō to physically destroy the entirety of the Fire Country. Still, the idea would endure, and being a citizen of a ruined or vanished country was a very different thing from not being a citizen at all.
"Citizenship is also a shorthand for personhood. I can reason, create, and make moral judgements like any educated adult, yet I cannot own real estate or territory, I am technically prohibited to bear arms within city limits, I may be refused employment without cause, I cannot be a member of various institutions and a governing member of most, I am unable to pay taxes, and so on and so forth. I can understand the reasoning for imposing various such limitations on, say, Earth citizens visiting the Fire Country, but everybody has an adult's legal rights
somewhere unless they have taken action to forfeit them as missing-nin do. Please remember that I have never been a missing-nin.
"I was born in and dwell in Fire. Through my support of Kei, I strive for the benefit of Fire. I believe in the ideals of Fire as I understand them. All I ask for is the degree of reality that the Land of Fire grants all the others who do the same."
Four bubbles had time to come into existence, take shape, attempt to ascend, and then vanish with no evidence that they ever existed as the Hokage pondered.
"…Don't make me regret this."
It was like being struck by lightning.
"Sir?" she asked just in case.
"Consider yourself on indefinite probation," the Hokage said. "The second I get a complaint from the Merchant Council about a chakra-capable non-ninja threatening civilian business, or someone sues for injury because Kei dispels you and you end up dropping a heavy weight on someone's foot, or an ANBU has to use your name and 'Shadow Clone OPSEC' in the same sentence, or I learn you've exploited a loophole in a law meant for humans, or there is
any edge case whatsoever that draws attention and makes people ask what a ninjutsu effect is doing walking around with person rights, you can expect the privilege of Fire citizenship to be withdrawn before you can say, 'Nara social experiment', together with whatever other freedoms I deem necessary."
Snowflake swallowed. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
The Hokage waved her away. "Have Shikamaru bring the forms when he comes for tonight's consultation."
Snowflake rose, and bowed deeply.
"I promise you will not regret this, Lord Hokage."
As she left, she could swear she heard a faint mutter through the closing door.
"Why is it always the Gōketsu?"
