Interlude: Preparing for the Future
Hazō and Ino often drew stares in the streets of Leaf. Actually, that wasn't quite right. Ninja drew stares in the streets of Leaf. For all that Leaf was a ninja village, the civilians still paid careful attention to the ninja when they bothered to walk normally instead of running on the rooftops (roofers always had plenty of work to do in the city).
Hazō and Ino were a pair of senior ninja – or what passed for senior ninja after the Triple Disaster – clan heads, and relatively famous public figures in the biggest city in the world. If they weren't careful, they would draw crowds.
Today, they were being careful. Neither of them wore the full regalia of a clan head with all its layered silks and jewels, instead opting for ordinary clothes -- not field-ready ninja gear, but finely made clothes with subtle and tasteful hints at their respective clan colors (and when Hazō had returned Jiraiya to the mortal realm, he would make the Gōketsu patriarch apologize to the innumerable tailors harmed by the dual instructions of "use primarily red and green" and "be tasteful"). Even so, heads turned and business stopped as they passed.
"Just be nice," Ino said. "It's a happy occasion. Just smile a lot and keep it light. No one's going to bring Jashin up unless you do first."
"Seems like a lot of trouble," Hazō said. "Maybe it'd just be easier to wait for a couple weeks, do some sealing research while people calm down and internalize the stuff I talked about at that speech, and only then get back into the swing of Leaf politics."
"No!" Ino said. "Are you crazy? Getting invited to small private events with the Hokage is great for your rep, but disappearing off to who-knows-where to worship who-knows-what is awful! Sure, you probably aren't committing secret blood rituals in your research facilities, but you're definitely not doing it when right in front of the living incarnation of the Will of Fire. Plus, the other people here are ones with a lot of good rep too, so it'll rub off on you that you're associating with them."
Ino, of course, had been trying her best to coach Hazō through navigating the reputational minefield of his own creation. She'd been angry at him at first, and he couldn't even blame her. Her father hadn't been
personally killed by Hidan, but many people she'd looked up to – senior ninja, uncles, older cousins – had been.
Luckily, like with the rest of his family, she didn't try too hard to probe his Jashinism, and instead easily assumed that he
didn't have a maybe-ill-advised relationship with a dark god (and he certainly didn't want to correct her). Instead, after some… minor yelling, she'd sighed and gotten to work.
"And my bad rep won't rub off on them?"
"Eh. You're like the dirty hands of someone who just spent a day in the field, they're like clean, pristine towels, and I'm here trying to get the hands clean. The towels will get washed anyway."
"I'll let everyone at the party know you called them towels."
"Don't you dare," Ino said, fixing him with a joking glare that melted into a smile.
They entered the Sarutobi compound and quickly found their way to the clan's main building, where Ino left Hazō's side to race over and tackle-hug the Hokage out of a conversation he was having with a pair of Sarutobi civilians.
"Asuma-sensei!" she said. "Congratulations on the new baby! When did you find out? Have the healers told you if it's going to be a boy or a girl yet? Have you started thinking about names? You're going to name the baby after me, right?"
Asuma accepted the hug for a couple seconds, but started trying to peel Ino away halfway into her endless stream of questions. "Ino, you can't just attack me like this in public, it's unseemly."
Ino refused to be pulled away. "Questions were asked, sensei. Answer them first."
"But you asked so many!"
Ino looked up at him and pouted.
"Fine. We had our suspicions back in December, but the healers only confirmed it for us last month. That was right before the Chūnin Exams, so we decided to wait and see. We haven't yet asked a Hyūga about whether the baby's a boy or a girl, and Kurenai asked Hinata not to say anything yet. We've thought about names, yes, but your name is not in the running."
Ino released him. "Bad taste. Everyone knows my name is the best name."
Asuma raised an eyebrow. "Is there anyone who would say that?"
"Hazō!" Ino said, turning to face her boyfriend. "What's the best name?"
"I think 'Ino' has to be up there, sir," Hazō said to Asuma, keeping his face straight. "The world would be a better place with more Inos."
"And that's why you should teach me Shadow Clone," Ino said to her sensei, with a sweet face.
Asuma laughed. "Later, Ino. Get inside and give your congratulations to Kurenai too."
o-o-o
"He's gonna be such a good dad!"
"I know, right?"
"I mean, I never much liked it when he did the whole 'sit you down and wait as long as he wants until you tell him what you did and then explain why it was wrong and why it won't happen again' thing, but I think it'll be really good for the kid!"
"You mean, you didn't like it when he did it to you, but you want him to do it to the baby?" Kurenai asked Ino.
Ino shrugged. "Well, isn't your baby going to have a rebellious phase? Teenagers do that. And you know he's gonna do his very best to raise an amazing young man or woman."
"Yeah," Kurenai said, tapping a finger to her cheek, "but if you know why he did what he did, why are you still annoyed by his… style?"
"Oh, that?" Ino said, batting the question away with a hand. "I was already right pretty much all the time, and I got amazing pretty fast. But hey, maybe your baby will be able to hold a candle to my greatness one day, right?"
Kurenai laughed. "Of course, Ino."
"But how have you been feeling? Have you had morning sickness?"
"Oh, I felt pretty sick for a while," Kurenai said, nodding along with a smile. "But that was before I knew I was pregnant. Lately, I feel like I've been
glowing. It's been good!"
"No… headaches, with all the AMITY business?" Ino said, leaning in conspiratorially and tapping the side of her head.
Kurenai laughed. "No, the minx has been well behaved for once in her life. Still weird, but she's always had a really bad case of jōnin. Actually, Ami came over for a nice dinner the other evening. She seemed to hit it off with one of Asuma's cousins."
"Ooh, another budding romance?" Ino asked.
"A seduction specialist falling in love?" Kurenai said with a wry grin. "Less likely than a freeze in July. I think she's just making an excuse to come over to the estate a couple more times before she presents us some weirdly optimized restructuring of the buildings that we can't really deny since it would improve defensibility, but would also require us to hire a construction company of her choice and tie us into some nasty web of complicated obligations."
"Sounds annoying," Ino said, nodding along with a smile. "Anyway, are you
excited!?"
Yes, I'm very excited! The healers say the baby will probably come in June. Actually, speaking of which, there she is right now. If you'll excuse me."
Kurenai left her conversation with Ino and walked over to an arriving Sarutobi midwife, an older woman with streaks of gray in her auburn hair and paper-thin skin over bony hands that looked like they could crush steel in their grip. He looked away, not wanting to intrude, and stepped up to Ino, who was watching Kurenai go with a faint smile. As he approached, she switched to her 'conspiracy' face and gestured him close.
"Did you see?" Ino said, moving one in a faint arc above her belly. "I think she's starting to show. Not much, but there's definitely a little more there than there used to be. What do you think?"
Hazō hazarded another glance at Kurenai, who was laughing with the midwife and laying a hand gently on her own belly. "I don't know," he said. "I never watched her closely enough to tell."
Ino sighed. "You're supposed to say yes. Maybe you don't see it with your eyes, but you can feel it in the mood. The excitement? It's not about what's actually there, it's about the
potential, y'know?"
Hazō raised an eyebrow. Kurenai didn't normally talk the way she had with Ino, so excited and exuberant. If Hazō had noticed Kurenai playing along, Ino definitely had as well. "So… this is all performative?"
"No," Ino said with a sigh, resting her chin on her hand on the side of the fireplace. "It's like… okay, at the base level, there's not much to say. 'Oh you're pregnant? Great, good luck, see you in eight months.' But it's a really good thing that you want to celebrate. So you build up levels of structure around it to enjoy the good feeling and spread it around. Sure, Kurenai could have put out a bulletin and stopped at that, but instead she gets to ride out the high and we get to enjoy
her enjoyment and we also get to think about the babies we'll maybe have one day and then… well, there's a lot there, but it's basically all good, right? So is anything but the most efficient way to communicate information a performance? Or, after the core communication is done, does everything else become something else?"
Hazō nodded. "Maybe like a play. The playwright could go on stage and summarize the key plot points, but then no one would go to plays. Or maybe they would, but it would be more like a poetry thing instead of the playwrights trying to make a story that takes you to a different world."
"Yeah," Ino said. "Kinda that. Kinda not. We're in the play, but we're also getting to enjoy it. Also, it's real. Anyway, want to go tease Asuma-sensei?"
Before Hazō could respond, she bounded over to where the Hokage had just walked in, having a conversation with Chōji and a couple of the Sarutobi elders.
"Asuma-sensei!" Ino said, cutting through their conversation. "I heard the baby's coming in June. That's only four months away! Why are you so
cruelly continuing to send her out on missions?"
Chōji gaped. "Wait, we have a due date?"
"
We?" Asuma said, glancing at Chōji. After a second, Asuma chuckled, raising his hands. "It's just a guess, nothing official. And Ino – do you think I could stop her from giving her best for the village? She knows her limits. We've discussed it and she'll be leaving active duty in a month or so. Maybe less, maybe more, but I trust that she can make a good decision. She'll probably still be out and about in the village for a while longer than that, though. She's too tough to spend her whole pregnancy on her back." Asuma glanced at Kurenai from across the room and gave a small, tender smile that Hazō had never seen before.
"And you're not going to be so
cruel as to put her back in the field as soon as the baby's born, right?"
"Of course not, Ino," Asuma said. "She'll be taking a few months to just be a mother. Why are you painting me as heartless? I'll also spend as much time as I can with Kurenai and the baby."
"But you're not going to stop at one kid, right Asuma-sensei?" Chōji asked innocently.
"Probably not," Asuma said, frowning. "I had four siblings, and Kurenai had… seven, I think. My memories with my siblings are some of my most cherished. We both want a big family."
"So…" Ino said. "Maybe while you're spending all that time with the baby, you'll end up… y'know. Making another."
"Ino!" Asuma said, flushing slightly.
"Oh, you lied, Asuma-sensei!" Chōji said. "You said Kurenai was too tough to let
pregnancy keep her on her back. But that's not the reason why she's never going to return to the field, is it?"
"Chōji!" Asuma said, turning to the young Akimichi heir. One of the Sarutobi elders looked offended and disgusted, the other was keeling over trying not to laugh at Asuma's frustration. Ino nudged Hazō. He looked over and she inclined her head towards one of the exits.
Let's go, she mouthed, suppressing her laughter.
"What do you think you're saying, young man?" Asuma said angrily, leaning in close to Akimichi. "I know we're in a private space, but I am the Hokage, and you
cannot be saying things like that!
"Plus," he said, lowering his voice to a still-raging whisper, "Kurenai's in the room. If she hears you talking like that, she'll flay you thrice over – and me too, for letting you say it."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Chōji said, putting his hands up as he laughed. "It wasn't my idea! Ino put me up to it!"
Hazō and Ino had made it to one of the doors, and Ino had just enough time to belt out "I did
not!" before she tugged on Hazō's hand and pulled him away from the fuming Hokage and his amused audience.
o-o-o
After making the rounds, Hazō collapsed into an armchair in a room far removed from the party. His head was agonizing. With Akane's disappearance, he'd accelerated his pace of sealing research, spending far more time in the distant, confusing universe of his shattered memories of the Pangolin Summoning Scroll. It had been paying dividends – but it came at a price. More than once, Gaku had walked in on him staring blankly at a wall, unable to summon the mental wherewithal to free himself from the Scroll's psychic pull.
Of course, the problem was exacerbated by the fact that he was spending almost every single hour not dedicated to necromancy focusing on the Great Seal. With his access to a material that, as best as he could tell, mimicked the chakra-conductive properties of the Great Seal, he was finally able to start developing a real theory of three-dimensional sealing. Still, spending at
least forty-eight hours per day (and thank Tobirama for the Shadow Clone Technique) in deep focus to recreate ancient sealing theory wasn't helping his condition.
Thankfully, he didn't need the Pangolin Scroll memories at all in order to make progress. The mental focus needed to study the Great Seal was exhausting in only the normal ways, not the ones that made it feel like people from beyond the veil were trying to claw their way out of his skull. In fact, for all its help in
analogizing the Great Seal to his conventional sealing knowledge, Hazō had found that eldritch insight to be occasionally counter to the reality of three-dimensional seals. He was now sure that, had his confidence convinced him to infuse that single-stroke seal on the day when he'd discovered the crystal's potential, he would have caused a sealing failure of unknowable proportions. This ancient style of sealing was unimaginably different from ordinary sealing. It made him feel like he'd barely scratched the surface.
He opened his eyes, briefly. The room's curtains were drawn, but he could tell that the sun had lowered in the sky. Shikamaru had joined him in the room at some point, collapsing into another armchair in companionable silence. One part of Hazō's ninja training cursed at his unawareness, but the rest of him gave into the pain again. He closed his eyes.
For all Kei's warnings about offering connections into his mind to forces beyond his comprehension, exploiting his attempted download of the Pangolin Scroll still hadn't caused him any substantial problems. He may not have escaped with the Scroll's design stored into his bloodline, but he had gained a far greater insight into sealcraft. And for all Ami's advice about defending against beings that would manipulate his senses or emotions, he'd noticed nothing of the sort trying to intrude upon his world.
He didn't know why, but there was something different about the Summoning Scrolls. They were inviolable – but the Great Seal was too (well, almost), and he could easily summon his memory of the Great Seal for all that it had overloaded his bloodline at first. Perhaps it was something about how they made
new matter inviolable. Ink and blood applied by a summoner would never fade. There was something to the Summoning Scrolls, something that made them
more than everything else, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
He cracked his eyes again. Asuma had arrived at some point, creeping away from the rest of the party to find a quiet point. The Hokage glanced at Hazō, then back at the game of shogi he'd started with Shikamaru. The quiet clicks of the tiles against the lacquered board were pleasant, their irregularity a mild balm against his fractured thoughts.
He knew what he needed. Anchors to remind him of the physical realm. He focused on his strongest sense-memories of the world. Running through the treetops, legs burning and the wind blowing in his face. Getting dunked underwater by the Mist Academy teachers and held there until he almost choked. The time he'd spent with Akane, feeling the strength of her body and the softness of her hair.
As he recalled, he felt himself returning to his body, becoming the master of his own ship again. His head still hurt, but it was just pain. It wasn't even particularly hard. He just needed to retain an ironclad focus on his physical body if he didn't want to slip. With the few minutes of rest he'd taken, he could make it till nightfall.
He pulled himself out of the armchair, stretching his limbs lightly, and paced over to the shogi board. Unexpectedly, the Hokage was winning.
Shikamaru must have read Hazō's surprise, and said, "Odds game. I started without the gold generals."
Asuma sighed. "I remember when you only had to give me a lance. Or even just one general."
"You never go easy on him?" Hazō asked.
"No," Shikamaru said, raising a knight and setting it down with a soft
clack.
Asuma winced, then glanced at Hazō with a restrained moroseness. The Hokage quickly selected his move and pieces flew back and forth on the board. When every piece had been taken, Shikamaru's diminished army now equaled Asuma's.
Asuma sighed. "I was hoping you wouldn't see that. Well, we're even now. That gives me a fifty percent chance to win, right?"
Shikamaru selected his piece and shifted it sideways on the board, already preparing a new attack. "Lower, Asuma-sensei. Much, much lower."
o-o-o
The party had been a small event. Asuma and Kurenai had invited only family members and what few friends they had as senior jōnin. To no surprise, Kei hadn't come (claiming business with "contingency planning", a fully general excuse on par with the Gōketsu's "explosives testing"). As people started to leave the party, Hazō spotted Kurenai talking with another woman, one of the recently promoted jōnin. The other woman looked to be in her late twenties, but Hazō couldn't place her name. KEI, probably.
They seemed to be enjoying themselves. Hazō didn't understand. He'd seen the figures for new jōnin promotion survival rates. Sure, in the aftermath of the war and the advent of AMITY, there would be fewer risky missions for jōnin to take. But still, the woman would likely be dead within a year or two. And Kurenai just accepted it and smiled and laughed, and didn't
do anything about it.
Asuma stepped behind Kurenai and drew his arms around her. Hazō looked away before he could stare for too long, and searched out Ino.
"Did you talk with Hinata?" Ino asked as Hazō found her. She laced his fingers through his as they walked.
"No, I didn't," Hazō said. "Nothing more than greeting them when they came in."
"Yeah, I saw you do the bro-nod with Shino!" Ino said. "Since when were you bros? Anyway, apparently Hinata accidentally overheard a conversation, and Asuma and Kurenai already picked out a name. It's gotta be gender neutral if they really don't know if the baby's a boy or a girl. What do you think it could be?"
"I honestly have no clue," Hazō said.
"He's just head-over-heels for her," Ino said, after a couple minutes of walking. "Most male ninja, most clan heads even, don't mind having a woman or three on the side, but as far as I can tell, Asuma-sensei only has eyes for Kurenai. It's too cute."
"You know," Hazō said. "To many, you or Akane was the woman on the side."
"That's not the same, Hazō," Ino said crossly. "It's about loyalty. Dedication. Love. The kinds of things that the average ninja that makes it to that age doesn't have anymore. I guess after your first five lovers die, you start asking what's the point?"
They walked for a couple steps more before she leaned her head onto his shoulder. "I miss Akane," she said.
Ino knew about his necromantic ambitions, of course. She'd been the first one he'd felt out after Kagome-sensei, even before anyone else in the clan, and Naruto would have reminded her that Hazō was still working on it just a couple months ago. Still, after Akane's death, he hadn't wanted to say anything about it to her. Ino had already been strung so thin between the various deaths in her life, and Hazō couldn't be sure that extending her a line of hope only for it to be snatched away by a sealing failure or Akatsuki or who-knew-what wouldn't break her.
Even in the dark, empty streets, he couldn't say anything about the necromancy project aloud. Still, he considered saying something, anything to comfort her.
He didn't find anything.
"I miss her too," he said, squeezing her hand. She squeezed his back.
They walked in silence for a few minutes.
They eventually reached the crossway where they'd need to split. Over the bridge to the Gōketsu compound, towards the mountain for the Yamanaka one.
Ino leaned in for a kiss.
"Thank you," she said. "For coming out and socializing. For getting out of your sealing lab."
"Thank
you for inviting me," Hazō said.
Ino smiled, then sighed. "Asuma-sensei and Kurenai are going to build a great family. Maybe in a couple years, Naruto will be ready to be Hokage, and Asuma-sensei can focus on being a great dad. And he really will be, you know? That part wasn't performance at all."
Hazō remembered Asuma, grappling with the moral weight of the decision, but electing to kill Isan anyway. Five hundred lives, ended within seconds by his ninjutsu. Asuma had been a ninja for two decades before that moment, and five hundred likely hadn't even been a tenth of the deaths he'd caused over his career. And now, for all that, he would bring one more life into this world. A happy life, perhaps, though the child would no doubt grow up to be a killer themselves.
"Yeah," Hazō said, uncertain. "I'm sure he will."
"And maybe one day…" she said, eyeing him thoughtfully.
"Yes?"
"Nothing," she said. "We can ask Asuma to babysit, maybe."
"Ah," Hazō said. "I don't know if I'll have time…"
"Babies are cute, Hazō! You can find the time."
"We'll see."
"I suppose it's the best I'll get from a sealmaster," Ino said with a small sigh. "So be it. Good night, Hazō."
"Good night, Ino."
