We know there was a leak in the Tower. Akane's attackers had advance notice of her route and when she would be taking it. It's very improbable that they could set that up from when she was assigned that mission. Which means it was leaked before it was assigned to her. From what it sounds like, the system is currently, that means Ruka is very likely the leaker herself.
I agree that it seems like something's afoot and I think we need to raise this with Asuma.
I'm very interested as to how a Shikamaru-run check with Naruto manpower could have missed something like that - it's possible they simply weren't looking for it and failed on those grounds.
I'm looking forward to Vel's update wherein we go through everything we've missed with Shikamaru.
It seems like Mari's Truth Lost In Fog combined with Yamanaka mindwalking could allow Ruka to be mindscanned without violating clan secrets. (Mari activates TLiF on ANBU White(or whoever), ANBU White scans Ruka and states relevant results aloud, Mari ends TLiF.) we did a similar thing with Cannibal!Naruto in Orochimaru's basement.
"I just want to take her home and put her on a shelf," Ino confided. "But my shelves aren't big enough to carry teenage girls—though I'm keeping the option open—so I guess Shika's bed is the next best thing."
She stopped to process her own words. The fork clattered onto the plate.
"Unthink, brain, unthink! Ahh, that's better. Hashirama's enormous wood, it's great to be a Yamanaka."
You know that Yamanaka can self-delete their memories, especially their immediate ones, pretty easily, right?
A clanned ANBU's ultimate loyalty is supposed to be to their Hokage, but their's always a lingering doubt for the Hokage that they'll quietly obey orders from their Clan Head over him. However, if both Asuma and Ino order Agent White to do something?
The solution is simple. Asuma commands Agent White to mindscan Ruka, verbally state any found reverent facts, and then forget about what the last X minutes. Ino orders him to do the same, which she would never normally do but her girlfriend was just murdered in extremely suspicious circumstances that strongly imply active cooperation from someone inside the Tower.
I have another idea that doesn't require Mari losing a chunk of her soul.
You know that Yamanaka can self-delete their memories, especially their immediate ones, pretty easily, right?
A clanned ANBU's ultimate loyalty is supposed to be to their Hokage, but their's always a lingering doubt for the Hokage that they'll quietly obey orders from their Clan Head over him. However, if both Asuma and Ino order Agent White to do something?
The solution is simple. Asuma commands Agent White to mindscan Ruka, verbally state any found reverent facts, and then forget about what the last X minutes. Ino orders him to do the same, which she would never normally do but her girlfriend was just murdered in extremely suspicious circumstances that strongly imply active cooperation from someone inside the Tower.
Decent possibility that this happened, but the timeline still requires the enemy to have a ninja in Leaf to hear this, run for the border at full speed, and notify a team waiting at the border or very near to it. Which seems concerning, unless it's already accepted that Leaf will inevitably be penetrated by enemy ninja, and that we can't really detect them.
You know that Yamanaka can self-delete their memories, especially their immediate ones, pretty easily, right?
A clanned ANBU's ultimate loyalty is supposed to be to their Hokage, but their's always a lingering doubt for the Hokage that they'll quietly obey orders from their Clan Head over him. However, if both Asuma and Ino order Agent White to do something?
The solution is simple. Asuma commands Agent White to mindscan Ruka, verbally state any found reverent facts, and then forget about what the last X minutes. Ino orders him to do the same, which she would never normally do but her girlfriend was just murdered in extremely suspicious circumstances that strongly imply active cooperation from someone inside the Tower.
It's definitely worth asking. dunno if Yamanaka actually can do that, or if Asuma would find that acceptable, but I see no reason not to propose this first.
Decent possibility that this happened, but the timeline still requires the enemy to have a ninja in Leaf to hear this, run for the border at full speed, and notify a team waiting at the border or very near to it. Which seems concerning, unless it's already accepted that Leaf will inevitably be penetrated by enemy ninja, and that we can't really detect them.
Jan 5, noon: Akane is assigned the mission. She notifies Gaku as Hazō is on the Seventh Path.
Jan 6, morning: Team Akane leaves the gates of Leaf.
Jan 6, (unknown time): Attackers enter Fire and find Team Akane's tracks.
Jan 6-7, (unknown time): Attackers engage Team Akane and leave the Fire Country.
Jan 8, night: Expected completion date for the mission.
Jan 10, night: Mission can now be marked late and escalated.
Jan 11, night: Mission must be marked late and escalated.
Jan 14, morning: Hazō discovers that Akane's mission is critically late.
Attacker times are unknown because Canvass cannot smell the hour of the day off of them. She's confident they attacked before sunrise of Jan 7, because there was only one meal's worth of scents at the clearing.
Either some other village had a summon instant-communication network and had a summoner in Leaf to take the intel directly to their Seventh Path ninja contact, who reports the intel straight to the village, who then plans an extremely risky mission in the heart of Leaf using important military assets, who then make it to the border and enter Fire literally the next day…OR this was planned in advance.
Genin team do not normally get sent out of the village this early. Akane was specifically given this mission by someone implanted in the Tower so that she would be out of the village and vulnerable to this pre-planned assassination.
I know it's in the plans in the second Isan visit. And she laments about not going to the big Akatsuki battle because she could've helped by putting multiple people in said genjutsu.
Asuma is one of the prime suspects of Akane's murder, given his stated intent to restrict the proliferation of the EM nuke. I absolutely trust him to investigate her disappearance and find no solid evidence of his own involvement.
What would the appropriate reaction be if we discover that the Tower had her killed?
Asuma is one of the prime suspects of Akane's murder, given his stated intent to restrict the proliferation of the EM nuke. I absolutely trust him to investigate her disappearance and find no solid evidence of his own involvement.
What would the appropriate reaction be if we discover that the Tower had her killed?
Yeah this timing doesn't work. The ninja would have needed to travel for 14 hours in one day to get to another village. And then the attack squad would have had to leave that night. It's not really possible.
Akane accepted the mission, told her genin who at least one of publicly spoke about it in enough detail and often enough that a civilian spy was able to hear that Akane would be leaving the village and where in Leaf her mission would be, repeated it to a ninja, who then ran-cross country (at 20 mph for a max of eight hours) without getting caught, hopped a border, informed a ready-and-waiting strike team of at least one jōnin and two chūnin (who have been NOT been doing other missions for the past several months), who then crossed the border themselves, ran cross country (again at 20 mph for a max of 8 hours) without getting caught to Akane's mission location, found their tracks, and then followed them to the team, bypassed their perimeter seals, and killed Team Akane?
All this would have to happen between noon January 5th and sunrise January 7.
And then they would have to clean up and then tree-jump (with some sky-hopping thrown in there), which is very much not optimal conditions for nonLeaf ninja, all the way to the border, and then do a crossing before the end of day?
BTW, they would also need to have enough chakra left after their initial border hop, their cross-country journey to Team Akane, their fight with the team, and the ninjutsu they used to clean up the fight to still do a lengthy treehop back to the border and then a border crossing.
@eaglejarl@Velorien@Paperclipped, how far away was the spot the assassins picked up Team Akane's trail from their entry point? How far from Leaf? Did Team Akane happen to have been assigned a mission in the direction closest to the border the assassins entered/exited from?
We do nothing, of course, but we start thinking about how we want to approach the Tower going forward. Are we sharing future nukes? No. Are we going to kill Asuma one day? Yes. Are we cutting them in on resurrection? No. Etc.
Asuma is one of the prime suspects of Akane's murder, given his stated intent to restrict the proliferation of the EM nuke. I absolutely trust him to investigate her disappearance and find no solid evidence of his own involvement.
IFF Asuma uncovers evidence implicating the Colour Cowls, I trust him to tell us.
IFF Asuma is behind it, I expect him to make excuses about mindwalking being politically unfeasible, or to say the mind walk turned up nothing. if we see these behaviors, we should consider doing our own mindscan.
I plan to res Leaf randos eventually either way, but if Asuma ordered Akane's death we don't tell them about it in advance and coordinate with them to leverage resurrection into complete political dominance for Leaf over the EN.
Instead we rez Jiraiya on our own and have him oust Asuma (and possibly kill him) then go from there once we have a friendlier Kage in place.
Yuno, Satsuko, and Noburi lay in bed together, her arm nestled under his shoulders while her other hand held Satsuko close to her chest. Normally, Noburi objected to letting Satsuko into bed with them, complaining about how she left the bedclothes full of tears and was always on the verge of drawing his blood, but tonight, by unspoken agreement, the three of them sought comfort together.
"What do you mean, Yuno?"
"How do I deal with this ache in my chest that I've had ever since I found out about Akane?" she asked, hoping he wouldn't make another joke about unfortunate axe-idents, because she wasn't in the mood. "Is there some medicine I'm supposed to take, or a meditation technique? I asked Yūma, and he just gave me this weird, uncomfortable look. I asked Fujisawa, and she didn't write anything and just hugged me for a while, which was nice, but it didn't really help. I don't want to bother any of the others, because they're all so busy, but you can do medicine, and you know words that heal people's hearts. What am I supposed to do, Noburi?"
Now Noburi was giving her a strange, uncomfortable look, and it was a lot worse than it had been coming from Yūma.
"I'm being serious!" she exclaimed, pulling her arm away from under him. "I know I didn't get injured on the tracking mission, because I'd have noticed, and if there was a psychic chakra beast attacking from somewhere out of sight, then Neji or Lady Canvass would have sensed it. I don't know what this is, and it hurts, and I want it to stop. Is there something wrong with asking my medic-nin husband to help?"
"Yuno," Noburi said very carefully, as if she was an urn that might get knocked off the mantlepiece by the wrong words, "are you sure that's not just… grief?"
"Of course not," Yuno said. "I know what grief looks like. People who are feeling grief cry–if they're men or young girls, I mean, otherwise they just anoint themselves with a mixture of oak tree sap and tapir tears–and then they dress in the Garment of Valediction and do the offerings to Ui and the Three Proper Rituals, and then there's a funeral and they're not grieving anymore. They would have said if it hurt. Besides, I don't know how to sew the Garment of Valediction, and I don't know the third of the Three Proper Rituals, the one you only use when someone's dead, and where am I supposed to get tapir tears in the middle of Fire? It had better not be grieving, otherwise I'll be stuck like this forever."
Noburi looked at her. He looked at Satsuko, which was a waste of time because of course Satsuko had been the first person she'd asked. He looked at her again.
"Yuno, I am really, really sorry for bringing this up, and I'll drop it the second you want me to, but don't you remember grieving when your parents died?"
Yuno shifted to be on her side, because looking at a confused Noburi was better than looking at the uncaring ceiling. She was careful to hold Satsuko so she wouldn't cut the bedsheets.
"Mummy died when I was very little," Yuno said. "I don't really remember what it was like. Daddy… You know the story of how Daddy died. I wasn't really me for a long time after that, and I had all sorts of other things to feel because everything was changing so fast and I didn't understand any of it, and anyway, I can't have done any grieving, otherwise I'd know the third ritual and all that."
Noburi was silent after that. Yuno hoped he wasn't pitying her again. She loved him, but that was the one thing she refused to let him do (that didn't involve other girls, anyway). Pity was for people who'd given up fighting. It was a way of saying you didn't think the other person was a warrior anymore.
Satsuko offered to remind him before he got any ideas, but Yuno shushed her. There were times for armed violence, many times, in fact, but she'd learned early on in their marriage that in bed usually wasn't one of them.
"Yuno," Noburi said gently just as she was considering giving up and going to sleep, and hoping the ache would be gone in the morning, "it's normal for it to hurt when you lose someone. When you love someone, you set aside a place for them in your heart. When you lose them, that part of your heart goes with them, and it hurts because you're not whole anymore. That feeling is grief. The thing everybody else was doing, with the rituals and stuff? That's mourning. One's on the inside, the other's on the outside."
"So what?" Yuno demanded. "Are you saying everyone was feeling like this, every time somebody died, and nobody ever told me?"
Actually… It wasn't that unbelievable when she thought about it. The Kannagi taught her weaponmastery because she was talented and it made the clan stronger, and other people taught her things like baking and bee divination because she paid them from her savings and because making sure useful skills were spread across the whole village was one of Akio's most important teachings, but nobody taught her about feelings. Maybe real grieving was one of those inner secrets you had to be initiated into, like tapir soulbonding and beekeeping.
"I can't speak for Isan," Noburi said. "One of the things being a missing-nin's taught me is that customs can be incredibly different between villages. In Mist, mourning is quiet and sad. You can't really celebrate someone being sent to the ancestors because you don't know how the ancestors will judge them, and proper survivors are supposed to master their pain instead of making a fuss about it. In Leaf, mourning is a bit sad because the village has lost a hero, but there's also this weird exalted, almost happy element to it because they're going to be one with the Will of Fire which is the best reward anybody can receive, and because dying for Leaf means they're setting an inspirational example that it's wrong to be too sad over. I'm still not used to that attitude, though I suppose it's not like I've had much experience of losing people in Leaf. Maybe Isan is different again, and you're not supposed to admit you're hurting, or maybe the rituals are how you admit it and nobody gave you the key to decipher them. I don't know.
"Anyway, that's mourning. The grieving, the pain? I'm pretty sure that's universal. I don't know how any custom could make you shrug off having part of your heart torn away and keep going. Frankly, if there was, I think that would be a thousand times more blasphemous than the worst parts of the Will of Fire."
"So what?" Yuno asked, subdued. "This is normal and I've lost the Akane part of my heart and I'm just supposed to keep hurting like this? Forever?"
"I don't know," Noburi said. "Not really. I wasn't even close to my brother, but after all these years, I can still feel him missing. Losing Akane's on a whole other level. For me. For you. For everyone."
"I–I don't want this." Yuno clung tight to Satsuko, not even minding the cuts, which would heal. "I don't want to lose a piece of my heart every time somebody I care about dies. With how many people I care about now, there'll be nothing left of me.
"I should never have left Isan," she whispered, but quietly, so that nobody but Satsuko heard.
-o-
Kei had, for some reason, believed herself stronger than this.
She had endured the loss of the Tachibanas. She had endured the loss of Shion, of Yumiko, of Karin, of Shika, of Shigehiro, of Rumi, of Mikako, of Yamato… her instructors in the Nara arts, her students in Mori ones, her councillors and assistants and genin who scoured the library for scrolls she needed and then traded their laboriously-earned Kei hours to shuriken specialists who wanted to learn her rumoured techniques of non-lethal incapacitation. They and more might have survived their missions, might have survived the war, if she had only been more competent, more industrious, a worthier second-in-command.
She had endured the loss of KEI shinobi by the dozen, most unknown to her beyond the dossiers she had memorised, but others familiar faces that would never again greet her as she arrived in her office in the morning, never again ask inconvenient questions at KEI meetings or bring wildly unrealistic proposals which nevertheless brought a secret smile to her face for the sheer hope they represented. All of this was standard, the cost of business when one was familiar with too many shinobi. She had believed herself inured.
It was a revelation obvious only in retrospect: none of them had been Akane.
Akane had been her light. Not quite the safety and warmth of Tenten. Not the playful shimmer on the water's surface of Fujisawa. Not Snowflake or Mari or Ino or Ruri or… or… or any of the others she had yet to lose. Akane had been the light in the distance to reach towards, the promise of someday being not this, her pillar and her foil and her guide. Such clumsy, inaccurate words for someone with a vocabulary maintained like a samurai's armour.
Kei should have sought time to be with the other Gōketsu, making feeble attempts at consolation in the absence of any notion of what to offer fellow mourners (she was too unempathic to offer a moving speech at a Nara funeral as Hazō would, too busy to attend the majority of the KEI's). Hazō, Noburi, Mari, Yuno, Kagome (even to compile that list without Akane's name on it was unnatural)–all possessed their own unique bonds with Akane. Even the others, the extended family Kei shamefully neglected, surely mourned her, for Akane left no life untouched.
She could not be with them. She had failed to protect Akane–she, who first realised the danger, had done nothing. She had merely transferred responsibility to Mari and Hazō, then washed her hands of it. She had not sought a way to appeal to the Hokage, to maximise Akane's utility or impose unacceptable consequences for her murder. She had not risked sharing her concerns with Shikamaru and accepting the potential price of accusing his beloved teacher of treacherous intent. She had not even monitored them to ensure that they provided Akane with the necessary training, despite her awareness that Akane would obey any training directions from Hazō without question, and that Hazō could not always be trusted to prioritise.
Kei could not even apologise, for most of her family were unaware of the reality of the situation. Only Hazō and Mari did, and they… they were no less culpable than she.
Or perhaps Mari was correct. Only a fool would trust their own objectivity when in so much pain. Her thoughts displayed every sign of a Kei failure mode: to assume the worst-case scenario on no direct evidence, to immediately assign herself responsibility, to isolate herself from her loved ones out of guilt and fear of condemnation… even blaming Hazō was an easily-recognisable pattern, for all that unlike the others, that one was usually justified even in retrospect (even if Akane's death was unrelated to Elemental Mastery, it had been a monstrous act to transform her into a weapon of mass destruction).
Perhaps Mari was correct. There were other explanations, some more plausible than others, all less dangerous to her loved ones than suspecting the Hokage of betrayal. Mari had reminded her that Akane's way of life had been to trust, to hope, to ever seek the path to a brighter future. More, that Akane had believed Kei to be capable of joining her at those heights. Kei did not dare to agree, but surely she at least possessed enough determination not to instantly retreat into the familiar darkness?
"Thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice, Shikamaru. I think I have an idea of how busy you must be right now."
Kei, lost in herself, had missed the moment of Hazō and Mari's arrival. Hazō's appearance was… well, appalling. He was in no state to leave his chambers, much less display himself to the masses and meet with the head of another clan. Kei's capacity to read body language would shame the most perceptive slug, but even she could recognise the knots of tension in his furrowed brow, the way his mouth was tight in rigid self-control lest his emotions drive him to speak words that could not be unspoken, and the spine kept upright by pure willpower in the face of ravaging exhaustion (this last was more familiar to her than she cared to admit–for as long as there were, inexplicably, those who considered her a role model, her example could not be to bend beneath her burdens).
Mari, naturally, was without flaw. Every emotion that required concealing was concealed, whether by makeup or by over a decade of seduction expertise, while every emotion that was appropriate to display was displayed in the correct degree. Perhaps that itself was indicative of the state she had been reduced to, for even Kei understood that, unless one was Ami, true perfection was unnatural.
The chamber they had gathered in after Hazō sent a message requesting privacy was not a place one might select to mourn the dead, nor to offer consolation to the living. Braziers stood in the corners of the room, their glow bright and clear, casting few shadows (once Kei was disturbed by how the shadows of the Nara compound never quite matched the light source; now, it was comforting in a way she could not articulate). The enormous square table in the middle had not been crafted to hold calming green tea or artefacts of the deceased to honour. It had been crafted to hold a map of the Elemental Nations that most clans would kill for, and the lamp of unique design suspended over it—a remarkable feat of wrought metal and glass that illuminated down instead of up—had the sole purpose of leaving Leaf's enemies nowhere to hide.
Not a room of mourning. Not a room of consolation. Shikamaru, with insight Kei would not equal if she lived to be a thousand, had brought Hazō to a room of action, where sorrow could be set aside while rage, leashed and purposeful, could restore life to those whose hearts were being eroded by grief.
"It is what it is," Shikamaru replied with a nod of acknowledgement. "The Nara clan head awaits the next report, until which time your brother-in-law is grateful for the opportunity to be of use."
The rest of them exchanged their own greetings, muted as they were. If Hazō and Mari were bitter at her absence from the compound, they gave no indication.
Shikamaru led them to be seated on the imposing, high-backed chairs that were designed less to provide comfort over long hours of work and more to bear the weight of grim decisions.
"As I said before, though at the time you were not receptive to condolences, "Shikamaru said, "I am sorry for your loss. I am given to understand that this is your first experience losing family, aside from the very distant past. If there is any support I can offer to you as your brother-in-law at this time, you need only ask."
"Thank you, Shikamaru," Hazō said, "but there's only one kind of support I care about right now. Have you found Akane's killers yet?"
Shikamaru leaned over the map. He placed his fingertip over the Wakare Woods, where a minute metal disc with two crossed kunai on it indicated Akane's camp. He traced a path to the location where they had lost the trail, with a disc bearing a question mark.
"Our current investigation is focused on the three northern countries easily accessible from this point. Rock is very much a secondary possibility, considering a direct crossing would scream 'AMITY violation'. Which is not to say it can be ruled out. Hatake Kakashi was, per shinobi legend, capable of locating any enemy without fail, even in the deepest cave or at the highest peak. However, until now, you had yet to display any sign that you were approaching his prowess as a summoner, and so our targets may well have underestimated Canvass's abilities."
Shikamaru tapped three discs in turn, each bearing the image of a hound caught mid-growl. Kei never ceased to marvel at the three-dimensionality of the Nara artistic tradition: who would believe that simple iron could so convey the texture of animal fur, or the angular hostility of a bared fang?
"A fool could see that the best move would be to flee into Iron, Waterfall, or Rice, nations and populations far from sanguine about Leaf activity within their borders—and our targets have shown no sign of incompetence."
"As you may or may not be aware," Kei said sardonically, "the Iron Country is something of a haven for those wishing to escape village pursuit. The terrain is uncooperative and poorly-mapped, and the population is actively hostile to hunter-nin and their equivalents, especially towards those of Leaf–one of the aftershocks of the Liberator incident. On the positive side, we could dispatch an army into the Iron Country and our neighbours would not blink an eye so long as they believed their borders to remain secure, and an army is what we have sent, at least in tracking terms. Those hoping for Leaf to fulfil their target location needs in the immediate future must resign themselves to disappointment."
It was where they had invaded Akane's life, plunged her into danger, and forced her to flee with them or die. It was known that some missing-nin had survived the purge–would Akane have been among them, were it not for Team Uplift's intervention? Would she be alive even now?
"Thank you, dear wife," Shikamaru said. "Matters are typically less smooth with Waterfall, a notoriously isolationist state to which Leaf's loss of a genin team training within half a day of the village is practically an anecdote, much less a problem worth allowing foreign shinobi into their territory."
Hazō scowled.
"Leaf is the shadow of conquest forever hanging over its neighbours, Hazō," Shikamaru said with a slight edge of sympathy in his voice. "Diplomacy requires that we understand their mindset.
"Regardless, with the Hokage hastening to return to Leaf with utmost speed, negotiations with Waterfall were left to Sarutobi Kurenai and Mori Ami. Through the expenditure of truly prodigious amounts of capital, they have been able not only to purchase immediate access to Waterfall by a single Leaf team, but also the assignment of Waterfall's own trackers to assist in pursuit. If our targets have taken shelter on Waterfall territory, prospects are optimistic—existing handicaps notwithstanding."
There was no optimism to be found here. Akane was gone. The only prize to be gained was the retrieval of Gōketsu seals–far from meaningless, if what remained of her family was to be protected, but Kei could not find it in herself this evening to celebrate mere disaster mitigation.
"What about Rice?" Mari asked. "I'm guessing they're the toughest nut to crack."
Shikamaru sighed. "Less of a nut and more of a nugget of sky iron. Just as the AMITY meeting was a major boon in dealing with Waterfall, allowing us to negotiate face to face with zero delay, it has been a nightmare for dealing with Rice."
"Specifically," Kei explained, "Rice is in the process of negotiating for accession to AMITY."
Another step towards world peace, courtesy of Ami's brilliance. Would that it had been taken at any other time.
"That doesn't make sense. Shouldn't that make them more keen to cooperate?" Hazō asked, his eyes tracing the country's borders as if seeking puzzles woven into the map which might contain answers within their twists and turns.
"Not exactly," Kei said. "Had we dispatched our trackers into Rice prior to the AMITY meeting, it would have been a common-or-garden act of shinobi hostility, on its own insufficient to trigger a war, and irrelevant to the issue of AMITY violation. Were the negotiations complete, we would be able to secure access as we have with Waterfall, through egregious bribery, involvement of sympathetic third parties, et cetera et cetera. However, this is the point when Rice is maximally paranoid, aware that this is the final chance for its enemies, or indeed opportunistic neutral parties, to attack with impunity. Should Leaf seize a portion of Rice territory now, at the literal present moment, or pillage a city, or steal precious secrets, and then negotiations successfully conclude like a trap springing shut, Rice would be without recourse."
"Naturally," Shikamaru said, "matters are not necessarily so simple, but nor is it within Rice's interests to allow potentially hostile forces past its borders now, when in a matter of days it will sign the treaty under whatever conditions and receive guaranteed protection against abuse of its hospitality.
"It may, of course, be complete coincidence. Still, if our targets planned their attack to coincide with this narrow slice of time when the international situation is at its most sensitive, we must upgrade their or their backers' threat rating significantly."
"I don't care about the details," Hazō said impatiently. "Can we get into Rice or not, by hook or by crook? We need Akane back, and those bastards need to pay. I shouldn't need to tell you that, Shikamaru."
"We are doing everything in our power, Hazō," Shikamaru said. "Rice is on maximum alert for intrusion, but that is not to say we do not have sensory teams probing for access even as we speak, in a sense justifying the country's fears by attempting to accomplish our goal within the remaining handful of days before it receives AMITY protection. Meanwhile, our aforementioned formidable team of diplomats is applying tools you and I cannot even conceive of to bribe, cajole, persuade, and threaten Rice into granting us this tiny favour that will be repaid a thousandfold, somehow all without admitting that Akane is worth more to us than the average chūnin, even deceased."
"Ami will succeed," Kei reassured Hazō. "That is not in question."
It was a mistake.
"I don't need your sister worship right now, Kei!" Hazō snapped, his eyes igniting with a sudden dark flame. "I need your actual help, not wishful thinking!"
Kei reeled.
How dare he? Did he imagine her like himself, gallivanting about, satisfying his emotional needs through spontaneous philanthropy and humiliating them all by dramatically delivering then sheepishly retracting threats against insects? How many people did he imagine were aware of the secret he had inflicted upon them, and were therefore qualified to, were therefore obliged to, assist Shikamaru because no one else could grasp the importance of the situation?
Or was it that he believed he possessed the exclusive right to lash out because he was her lover, because his pain was greater than that of mere platonic siblings? Was he so special that her feelings need not receive consideration? No, there were lines, and they would be drawn here and now–
The instant before the volcano erupted, Mari, the mother she had chosen, caught her eye, and in her eyes was not an instruction, not a request, but a question. An undefined question, to which Kei's memory granted definition.
What do you want your Youth to be, Kei?
Kei had never given an answer. The first time Akane asked, her response had been an uncrossable abyss of pure disbelief. The second time, a look withering enough to undo all of Senju Hashirama's creation. The third, when Akane proved undeterred, a sweeping tirade explaining in exhaustive detail the sheer absurdity of the notion.
Akane would never receive Kei's answer now, even if one was possible.
"Hazō," Shikamaru began coldly, "I will not–"
Kei thrust out her arm in front of him, interposing. Shikamaru shrank back in shocked silence.
Before she could allow herself to think, because Kei's thoughts ruined everything, she stood, stepped over to Hazō, pulled him to his feet, and embraced him.
She could not keep from trembling. Any second now, he might place his arms around her. Trapping her. Leaving her helpless. At his mercy. She was not ready. Vulnerable. Fragile. In danger. She should flee. Escape. Hide.
She stayed.
Slowly, she could feel something within Hazō melt away.
"I–I'm so sorry," he said, stumbling over the words, after the initial shock faded (for him). "You didn't deserve that. I'm just so… tired."
"It does not matter," Kei said so softly it might have been inaudible. "It does not matter."
Kei would never be Akane. She was not even a candle next to the sun, for candles shone with their own light. Yet in the impossible event that Hazō's preposterous project functioned as advertised, or if Kei followed Akane into the afterlife sooner than anticipated, perhaps she could at least speak to her of lessons learned.
Kei disengaged. She returned to her seat, with its reassuring solidity, and waited for the trembling to subside.
"Right," Shikamaru said uncertainly. "Well. To… to clarify the statement, perhaps you should consider what Ami, an intelligent woman, will infer when the Hokage gives her carte blanche with limited supervision at a meeting of the most powerful people in the world. I suspect she is aware that the stakes are dire beyond what she is cleared to know, and that this is the time to draw on whatever resources and points of leverage she has been preserving as trump cards in case of personal need. If you consider Ami when she feels the situation requires her full creativity, backed by the Hokage's every resource… I think you will agree that not all is yet lost. Which is not to say that potential side effects of her success will not include Hot Springs being on fire, undergoing a cultural revolution, being placed on the DO NOT GO TO list alongside Bear, or declaring Ami their new Onsenkage."
Ami. Every day she was absent was a day too long. That was true by default, of course, but here and now… it would mean the world for Kei to be with her sister. The Gōketsu were already suffering sufficiently without Kei inflicting her emotional fragility on them, whereas Ami was at least invincible.
"Should we get her involved?" Hazō asked. "Without treason, I mean, getting permission and everything. Do you think she'd be able to help with this situation beyond just being a member of Leaf's diplomatic team?"
Shikamaru gave a wry smile. "Hazō, what exactly do you take Ami's position to be, from the Hokage's perspective?"
Hazō considered. "A very useful nuisance?"
"Hazō!"
"An understatement," Shikamaru said. "Ordinarily, Hazō, a shinobi's growth in power is parallel to the growth of the Hokage's trust in them. The Hokage pays special attention to promising shinobi, and the higher they rise, the better acquainted with them he takes care to become. By the time a Leaf shinobi is promoted to jōnin, they are either fully trusted or… well, matters become complicated.
"Ami appeared out of nowhere, with a jōnin's power, trained in traditions of which the Hokage has little knowledge. She then seized so much temporal power that the Hokage must distrust her simply as a matter of policy, regardless of her personal virtues, lest by lowering his guard he imperil Leaf's political stability. Then she joined Leaf.
"She does not possess a jōnin's trust, earned over a lifetime of being a Leaf shinobi. She does not possess a clan head's trust, ordinarily earned in the same fashion, despite having influence exceeding one. Yet after the Triple Catastrophe, she is one of our most experienced jōnin, and the Hokage simply cannot afford not to treat her as such, despite the fact that she is completely lacking in the Will of Fire and her loyalty to Leaf is fundamentally instrumental.
"Some secrets are unambiguously necessary for Ami to be able to serve Leaf effectively. Others, like the Shadow Clone Technique, are not necessary but highly beneficial. This secret the Hokage has the luxury of keeping from Ami without at all hindering her performance, and I believe he will continue to do so unless the situation grows truly desperate."
"Do you think he's right?" Hazō asked.
"Are you asking whether my sister can be trusted not to destroy the world?" Kei clarified as calmly as she was able.
"As it happens, I believe she can," Shikamaru said. "I would not care to speculate as to her long-term goals, or, frankly, even her short-term goals, but she and I have had occasion to speak of the duty of the Mori. The preservation of civilisation comes first, however radical our disagreements on its preferred form."
"And you don't think she's likely to change her mind?" Hazō asked. "Even though she's… well, the most mercurial person I've met in my life?"
"Ami's core values are immutable," Kei stated with no room for disagreement. "That much must be obvious by now."
"It must?"
"Yes," Kei said. "I was the first of them. Does it appear to you as if Ami has reconsidered over the sixteen years since?"
Hazō and Shikamaru exchanged a meaningful look Kei could not decipher.
"Regardless," Shikamaru said, "I do not believe it is within your means, or mine, to persuade the Hokage to invite Ami into the non-proliferation conspiracy. Prove me wrong if you will, but appreciate that the price of failure is loss of trust from a Hokage who must already deem the close association between Leaf's two most dangerous wildcards to be a source of concern."
"Leave that for Plan B, then," Hazō said. "I do have another idea about someone we could get involved. Bear with me here, because I realise how weird this is going to sound… but we could ask for help from Hidan. He claims he can track people if he has their blood, and he likes me enough that I'm sure he'll be willing to do me a favour."
Shikamaru stared.
"Hazō," he said patiently, as if to a small child, "the fact that, on one occasion, Hidan chose to threaten your life with a, shall we say, level-appropriate challenge instead of murdering you himself is not proof of such affection that you should expect interacting with him to be safe to you or your allies, much less actively beneficial."
"I'm not stupid," Hazō said. "I've had other positive interactions with Hidan since. Not deliberately, I mean, but he came knocking and I was able to earn his favour instead of getting killed. Asuma is aware."
Hazō's gaze turned back to the map of Fire. His expression was hollow in a way Kei could not define.
"Some of the things I said about Uplift when we met got his interest, so he came back to test… if I had Jashin's favour. He made me gamble, with the lives of an entire village as the stakes. I won, but… but it wasn't a perfect victory."
"So Jashin's high priest has concluded that you have his deity's favour," Shikamaru concluded. "A useful asset, I concede. I assume you exploited your Bloodline Limit and challenged him to a game of dice?"
Hazō shook his head. "I did, and I managed to win most of those. But since it was obvious I was cheating–and the only way to hide it would have been to lose deliberately and let people die–he stopped after a while and challenged me to Chō-Han instead. I did pretty well even then. I won around two thirds of thirty games before he'd had enough. In the end, I challenged him to a game of cards for the rest. Best of three, winner takes all. It was the best performance of my life, and I still couldn't save everyone."
Thirty games. Fifty-fifty odds. Two out of three. Kei frowned.
"Hazō," Shikamaru said warily, "do you recall anything else about that game of Chō-Han? Anything unusual, anything noteworthy? Perhaps the dealer was able to cheat in your favour?"
"I don't think so," Hazō said. "There was no way for a civilian to get one over on a veteran ninja who was watching like a hawk. I remember getting a streak of twelve wins at one point, which had never happened to me before, but other than that, it was just an ordinary game… except for the part where someone died whenever I lost."
Kei looked at Shikamaru. Shikamaru looked at Kei.
"Please stand by."
Before an utterly perplexed-looking Hazō, Kei closed her eyes and reached for the crystalline clarity lurking beneath the depths of the world he knew. Whispers wrested at the edge of her consciousness, whispers she absolutely could not allow herself to hear in her present state. Clearly, she still lacked a true Mori's resolve–but in this instance, with a loved one potentially in danger, the facsimile would have to suffice.
Fortunately, she had been practising, using Nara lore and clan secrets of the Leaf Mori to compensate for her natural mediocrity. The ice was a refined substrate for thought, conducting it with the same consummate ease as water conducted Lightning Element ninjutsu, and Kei was learning to optimise her use of it, enough that mere mathematical calculations did not require diving dangerously deep. Ami believed that with sufficient mental discipline, this light touch would even deliver her the secret Mori birthright that Kei had once believed to be borderline myth, the ability to draw upon the Frozen Skein in combat.
The numbers slotted into place. The laws of mathematics were rigid. They permitted no escape from the correct solution, no breathing room of subjectivity, no luxury of argument. Every Mori genin learned this the day they learned the numbers, because to shy away from the truths they represented was to abandon the blind majority of humanity to its fate.
"Hazō," Kei said, "the probability of a streak of twelve wins in thirty games of Chō-Han is approximately three percent. You rolled a winning streak with three percent odds in a game designed to test whether you possessed the favour of a deity implicitly able to influence random rolls. That is–"
"Has Jashin communicated with you in any way?" Shikamaru interrupted. "Words spoken in your mind, meaningful dreams, objects in your path rearranging themselves to spell out a message?"
"No," Hazō said. "Nothing like that."
"Has it granted you any other boons that you've noticed? Have you requested any such boons, even in jest?"
"No," Hazō said. "I'd never do something so obviously dangerous and heretical. Give me some credit, Shikamaru."
"It is essential that you avoid all contact with both Jashin and Hidan," Shikamaru told him. "I cannot overstate the danger you–and, indirectly, all of us–have been exposed to. I do not wish to be unnecessarily alarmist, but in the event that Jashin is real and not merely a charismatic madman's obsession, it is far more dangerous than you know. All beings of that order are, and none of those remaining consider humanity's welfare to be relevant to their considerations unless it is in the active negative. The notion that the Blood God, patron of one of the guarantors of the present world order, deity of the cultists who took my father's life, is real and possesses tangible power over causality…"
Shikamaru trailed off, as if unable to imagine a conclusion worthy of that introduction.
"Moving on," Hazō said hastily, "what about… seals? Kei, what are the implications for us, and for Leaf, if the Gōketsu seal loadout has been compromised?"
Kei blinked. "Hazō, are you proposing to discuss the details of our clan secret seals with Shikamaru?"
Hazō fell silent for a moment.
"No, sorry, you're right. I don't know what I was thinking. No offence, Shikamaru."
"None taken," Shikamaru said. "Were there any non-secret seals in Akane's possession that might nevertheless prove problematic if leaked to other nations?"
"Skywalkers, obviously," Hazō said. "But considering we think the attackers had their own, that's probably not something we need to worry about that much."
Kei cycled through the list. MARS, macerators, chakdar, Banshees and their derivatives, directional explosives, Rocket Boots, Goo Bombs…
"Skytowers," she said. "Akane's seal pouch would include skytowers, in their disassembled state. Obviously, the concept of suspending the towers in the air using Five-Seal Barriers is unknown to foreign states, or they would already possess their own, but our skytowers are optimised for swift and easy construction, with interlocking parts and various secondary amenities such as harnesses for safe sleep. It cannot be guaranteed that an intelligent investigator will fail to combine skytower platforms, skytower wire, and Five-Seal Barriers, all stored contiguously, and deduce their function, especially if they are aware of the skytower as a concept–or indeed, attempting to develop their own, as any nation that witnessed their use during the war surely would."
"I will alert the Hokage," Shikamaru said. "Can you think of anything else of note?"
"Actually," Hazō said, "this isn't seal-related, or I mean, it technically is, but I'm worried about Orochimaru."
"As are we all," Shikamaru agreed. "What specifically?"
"I may have told him that one of the strange objects in Pain's cave on Nagi Island looked like a 3D seal. Aunt Ren was there at the time, and now I think Orochimaru's gone off to the Chūnin Exams to kidnap her so he has a second sample to study. I sent a report to the Hokage, but I don't actually know that he's read it or what he's doing about it, so I wanted to make sure you know as well."
Was Hazō…? No, surely not. The notion was ridiculous.
"I do not understand," Shikamaru said. "Your aunt saw it only briefly, two years ago, and she is not a sealmaster, nor was she even aware that she was seeing a seal. Why would Orochimaru possibly expect her testimony to have practical use?"
"Because the Iron Nerve can–"
"HAZŌ."
Kei rose urgently from her seat. "Hazō, you are clearly too exhausted to strain yourself with further discussion. Mari, please deliver him home forthwith and ensure he rests well."
"Of course," Mari said. "Shikamaru, thank you for your time, and sorry for leaving so abruptly.
"Come on, Hazō," she added in a voice laced with steel.
"Not at all," Shikamaru said. "The fault is mine for failing to realise how much you were overexerting yourselves. I will have a servant escort you home."
-o-
Noburi looked at his beloved, clutching the cold metal of her only immortal friend for comfort, and cursed everything there ever was.
How was he, Gōketsu Noburi, Leaf's rising star and the Gōketsu Clan's master of support, so mindmeltingly powerless?
Was this all his fault? Was it because he didn't pick up the slack when Akane, the clan's pillar of sanity, began to crack? Because he was too busy with medicine, finally on the verge of reconciling the him that wasn't the barrel with the him that was? If he'd only been able to help Akane put herself back together, would she still be alive?
Noburi knew that was an unhealthy way to think. If he heard one of his family say something like that, he'd request a mission on the coast just so he could find a fresh herring to thwap them with. Death was nobody's fault. Even Akane getting killed by foreign ninja was, in the end, purely the shinobi world's fault for being so broken. That was basic Uplift (though neither Noburi nor Hazō were saintly enough for that to keep them from brutal revenge if they got the chance). Blaming himself just meant he'd have less strength to lend the people who counted on him.
Not that grief was so rational.
Right now, Yuno was in front of him, in pain she didn't know how to handle. Off thataway, Hazō was in his office, pretending to himself that he was doing clan head work but really cycling through a thousand different action plans in his head, knowing all the while that none of them would distract him from Akane being gone. In his bedroom, Kagome was poring over his sealing notes until his head was splitting, sure that he'd be able to save her if he just found the right theory. In the kitchen, Mari was silently drinking hot chocolate, her thoughts darker than her drink, darker than she was willing to share. Somewhere else, Kei was beating herself up with mastery of the art that made Noburi's guilt look like a tadpole to her Gamabunta.
Why couldn't he do anything for any of them?
Couldn't he?
Slowly, with the utmost caution, Noburi put her hand on Yuno's wrist as she lay curled in the foetal position, holding Satsuko tight. Satsuko never let Noburi carry her, but she did let him guide Yuno's hands to lay her down in her crib next to the bed.
With Yuno partially uncurled, Noburi held her and thought hard.
Hours passed.
He couldn't fix this. He couldn't fix any of this. Even Akane couldn't have done that. But she'd also never have let that stop her–and with Akane gone, somebody had to take up the mantle.
"Yuno?"
Yuno didn't reply, except to burrow into him a little further.
"I think I know what material you use to repair a heart."
-o-
Hazō has been to thank Naruto and apologise to Rock Lee. Naruto left a clone with him when he got back to work, and Hazō and Naruto SnaketySnake spent a pleasant half-hour brainstorming the most creatively vile, horrifying, and straight-up unholy punishments they would inflict on Akane's killers when they caught them. It was unexpectedly cathartic.
Rock Lee waved Hazō's apology off as unnecessary and instead told him he'd be presenting a special sermon in Akane's honour at the Central Church of Youth, entitled "The Spirit of Youth: Eternal and Undying". He emphatically encouraged the Gōketsu to attend, promising they would have difficulty walking away once they experienced the hard truths of Youth filling them up from bottom to top, followed by the sweet release of understanding. Hazō told him he'd think about it.
-o-
Noburi has declared that the next gaming night, a week from now, will be replaced by an Akane night. Everyone who knew Akane even by name is invited to come and share their memories of her over tea and cake. GED students will be writing everything down verbatim (with permission), and the finished collection will be edited for legibility and shared with everyone who wants a copy.
-o-
The letter was passed on to Kei by Minami Aika at the last check-in, and to Hazō as he left the Nara compound.
Informed. Will accelerate A-Day preparations here; assume you are doing likewise. However, finding both Akane and special guest narrows time horizons considerably. Review operation on return?
^_^
P. S. Paper condolences unsatisfactory. Expect in person.
-o-
You have received 10 + 2 (Brevity) + 1 (Velorien Fun-to-Write) - 4 (EagleJarl plan length penalty) = 9 XP.
-o-
What do you do? Reminder that you need to respond to Asuma's request for suggestions RE the Hagoromo, otherwise you'll lose your chance and he'll go with his default option.
Well under wordcount. Hopefully we can get something fun in here.
[X] Action Plan: Compassion
Asuma
Ruka
If her punishment is mostly for Akane, indefinite exile seems harsh. It's effectively a death sentence.
The hate has to stop somewhere. We're asking, as a clan head and aggrieved party, for you to exercise leniency. Five years is enough.
Maybe supplement it with mandatory work (till n' fills?) alongside KEI ninja? Like you said, hatred/contempt rarely survive prolonged exposure.
The Hagoromo
If some of the aggrieved can't be found (dead/no next of kin) may their fines be paid to the seal bank?
The Tower could keep the cash and donate seals. More seals in more hands, Tower's ready cash increases, benefits the aggrieved (overwhelmingly clanless genin, the bank's users).
Reconciliation
The Hagoromo are a big clan. Are there factions/individuals we'd find more amicable?
Mixing Hagoromo and Goketsu civilians seems wise. Where could GED graduates help?
Alternative/supplement:
Private, civilized ideological debates between Hazou and Ritsuo. Asuma sets topics, moderates, and has the final word.
Right now there's just hate without understanding. We need to understand the other's beliefs, what we can/can't compromise on before moving forward.
We both want what's best for the village.
We could test any testable (e.g., clanless vs. clan ninja) disagreements.
We'd need the aforementioned tutoring on being a clan head etc.
Canvass' timelines imply ambushers were deployed before Akane left/they knew her route. Could intel have been leaked? Could she have been deliberately dispatched to the ambushers?
What do we do about Orochimaru/Ren? How do we prepare for his return?
Sealing Research (offscreen?)
If Kagome approves (Hazo's mental state etc.) research Directional Explosives, the next Minato seal.
Eschew prep, use SSA, reroll -9/-12 on Sealing/Calligraphy rolls.
Well under wordcount. Hopefully we can get something fun in here.
[X] Action Plan: Compassion
Asuma
Ruka
Clarification: is her punishment for her various missteps, or mostly Akane?
If it's mostly Akane...indefinite exile seems harsh. It's effectively a death sentence.
The hate has to stop somewhere. We are asking, as a clan head and one of the aggrieved parties, for you to exercise leniency. Five years would be enough.
Feel free to let Ritsuo know why her sentence changed, if it does.
Tower bureaucracy
The timelines here imply a leak. It's implausible this was a sheer coincidence. Ambushes require intelligence.
Did Shikamaru investigate from that perspective? Can we get Kagome access?
The Hagoromo
Can some of the fines paid be made available to the seal bank?
The Tower could donate explosives instead of cash - that gets more tags into more hands (good), increases the Tower's ready cash (good), and effectively pays the aggrieved parties (overwhelmingly clanless genin, the bank's target users).
Reconciliation
There's an anti-Hazo faction within the Goketsu. (Don't worry about it.) Are there Hagoromo factions we might find easier to work with?
Reo's a technique hacker. He could collaborate with Hagoromo hackers on techniques to be made available to both clans/Leaf at large?
Mixing Hagoromo and Goketsu civilians seems like a good idea. (Implication: mixing our shinobi does...not.) Do they have programs which could benefit from GED graduates?
Remove the part about an Anti-Hazou faction, and include something about researching Mianto's seals, and I'll vote.
I would also reccomend something other than 5 years of solitary confinement. Like mandatory till'n'fills, overseen by a pro-Uplift Ninja (KEI?), and without thr Goketsu supplementing her pay. It's restitution to the Village that her incompetence hurt.
Jan 5, noon: Akane is assigned the mission. She notifies Gaku as Hazō is on the Seventh Path.
Jan 6, morning: Team Akane leaves the gates of Leaf.
Jan 6, (unknown time): Attackers enter Fire and find Team Akane's tracks.
Jan 6-7, (unknown time): Attackers engage Team Akane and leave the Fire Country.
Jan 8, night: Expected completion date for the mission.
Jan 10, night: Mission can now be marked late and escalated.
Jan 11, night: Mission must be marked late and escalated.
Jan 14, morning: Hazō discovers that Akane's mission is critically late.
Attacker times are unknown because Canvass cannot smell the hour of the day off of them. She's confident they attacked before sunrise of Jan 7, because there was only one meal's worth of scents at the clearing.
Either some other village had a summon instant-communication network and had a summoner in Leaf to take the intel directly to their Seventh Path ninja contact, who reports the intel straight to the village, who then plans an extremely risky mission in the heart of Leaf using important military assets, who then make it to the border and enter Fire literally the next day…OR this was planned in advance.
Genin team do not normally get sent out of the village this early. Akane was specifically given this mission by someone implanted in the Tower so that she would be out of the village and vulnerable to this pre-planned assassination.
Akane accepted the mission, told her genin who at least one of publicly spoke about it in enough detail and often enough that a civilian spy was able to hear that Akane would be leaving the village and where in Leaf her mission would be, repeated it to a ninja, who then ran-cross country (at 20 mph for a max of eight hours) without getting caught, hopped a border, informed a ready-and-waiting strike team of at least one jōnin and two chūnin (who have been NOT been doing other missions for the past several months), who then crossed the border themselves, ran cross country (again at 20 mph for a max of 8 hours) without getting caught to Akane's mission location, found their tracks, and then followed them to the team, bypassed their perimeter seals, and killed Team Akane?
All this would have to happen between noon January 5th and sunrise January 7.
And then they would have to clean up and then tree-jump (with some sky-hopping thrown in there), which is very much not optimal conditions for nonLeaf ninja, all the way to the border, and then do a crossing before the end of day?
BTW, they would also need to have enough chakra left after their initial border hop, their cross-country journey to Team Akane, their fight with the team, and the ninjutsu they used to clean up the fight to still do a lengthy treehop back to the border and then a border crossing.
@eaglejarl@Velorien@Paperclipped, how far away was the spot the assassins picked up Team Akane's trail from their entry point? How far from Leaf? Did Team Akane happen to have been assigned a mission in the direction closest to the border the assassins entered/exited from?
