"Well," Ami said as she gazed at the crumbling ruins Hazō's work had left behind, "this isn't quite what I expected when you said you were interested in finishing off the Hagoromo."
The scene of unmitigated devastation stretched out before them. Hazō was forced to admit that, for all the acts of destruction he had performed in his life, this was the grandest and most comprehensive. He pushed down the feelings of regret—there was no doubt in his mind that his basic approach had been correct. Sometimes, things were just more fragile than you expected.
"I may have used too many explosives," Hazō admitted. "I mean, we weren't going to get anywhere until we did a thorough purging, but the plan had always been to preserve the main structure. Now, if we wanted to salvage the situation, we'd have to have to get a bunch of civilians to work from zero, and there'd be all the threats to eliminate on the ninja side… in the end, we decided it would be easier to just call it an unfortunate accident and walk away."
"We had intended to cleanse the vermin and then restore what remained," Keiko said, "but on reflection, that may have been a pipe dream all along. Some things are simply not worth the effort of saving."
Ami contemplated the rubble for a few seconds. "Don't worry. I can fix this. A Mori always has a Plan B." She fished around in her bag for a few seconds, then pulled out a diagram. "Hazō, build me one of these. Chop chop."
Hazō studied the diagram, paying special attention to the seal placements. "Are you serious?" he asked incredulously.
"I'm always serious." She grinned. "Just make sure you maintain alignment all the way up. Now get a move on. If you want to preserve OPSEC, this thing needs to be fully armed and operational before any witnesses turn up."
-o-
The scale of the destruction was even more clearly visible from the heights of Heaven's Cradle, as Ami had unilaterally named the structure. The hollow space within the two almost-touching air domes sat sixteen metres above the ground, the maximum height a Multiple Earth Wall could reach if he reduced each of its other two dimensions to a quarter of a metre each. The twin pillars of granite between them rose vertically from the ground ten metres apart, the air domes attached to them preventing them from falling over forwards or backwards (Ami, having worn skywalkers during the Battle of the Heavens, thought the idea of using a rotated air dome to support its own seals was nothing short of brilliant).
The commanding (and depressing) view of the terrain meant even a Hyūga couldn't sneak within spying range of them, and in concession to the vastly unlikely possibility that somebody in Leaf might have a telescope, Ami had swished a few stripes of blue paint across the bottom half of the Leaf-facing dome to foil lip-readers. (Since she could only paint one of the two domes from the outside before the complete Cradle sealed her in, the other half remained clear. When it was time to replace the seals, she would naturally paint the other side instead, so as to bring any enterprising spy who'd decided to take the long way round the obstacle to tears). The sight of the tall, slender woman playfully swiping paint across the invisible surface of an air dome made Hazō's heart stop for a second before he remembered where and when he was.
Of course, none of this would have been necessary if Ami's obscure abandoned mine hadn't turned out to be the one bought by the Gōketsu.
"Just to be clear," Hazō asked, "how likely are we to plummet to our deaths here?"
"Not
too likely," Ami said casually. "That's why we set the domes five minutes apart. Beyond that, Keiko has Vacuum Step, you have Hiding Like a Mole, and I can take care of myself. Nobody should go splat as long as your timing is perfect."
"Wait. Why do you know that I have Hiding Like a Mole?" Hazō asked.
"I know everything about your Chūnin Exam performance, including the things you don't," Ami said. "I wasn't going to head to Leaf without a bit of research, followed by Keiko telling me everything about her life that wasn't a clan secret. I also know that you like grilled eel, you think those three-bladed kunai are incredibly cool even though they're so impractical—which, I know, right?—and you enjoy wearing women's underwear."
Keiko's head snapped round. "I knew it! Oh, you may have blamed the Panty Mountain Incident on Fifi being in a nesting mood—"
Hazō groaned. "Keiko, don't listen to her. Ami, we've been over this. I don't have any special interest in Leaf's hundred sexiest lingerie brands. It was just a reference to Mari's laundry."
"Ah, so I am not your sole target!" Keiko exclaimed. "Oddly, this comes as a relief, although I note that your interests now appear to extend to every woman of the household except your actual girlfriend. Or does Akane knowingly enable your dubious pursuits with that unhealthy open-mindedness of hers?"
"What about Yuno?" Ami asked innocently.
"Do you think any sane panty thief is going to go within a mile of Yuno's unmentionables?" Hazō asked, and regretted it instantly.
"Your intimacy with the criminal's mindset is as good as a confession," Keiko said grimly. "Time to move to sentencing."
It was at this point that Hazō became acutely aware that he was trapped in narrow quarters of nigh-indestructible solid air, high above the ground, with a ninja prone to homicidally overreacting to perceived offences and her certifiably insane, overprotective jōnin sister.
Sometimes, Hazō hated his life.
"Gōketsu Hazō…" Ami said slowly, stretching out the words with delectation, "by the authority vested in me by Almighty Chaos, progenitor of all, I hereby sentence you… to a hug."
What?
"Sentence to be carried out"—a blur of motion—"immediately."
"Ami?" he asked dazedly as she trapped him in his arms.
Keiko burst out laughing.
"I no longer have any idea what is going on," Hazō stated for the record as Ami disengaged.
"I could hardly hug you myself," Keiko said matter-of-factly, "and gratitude is due. Thank you, Hazō. I needed that. Recent times have almost led me to miss the relaxing, carefree days of desperate flight from murderous hunter-nin."
"I'm happy that my pointless suffering makes you feel better, dear sister," Hazō grumbled.
"Always."
Ami gave him a probably insincere sympathetic smile. "All right. Let's play a game we can
all enjoy. I call it 'Hazō tells us how he's going to destroy the Hagoromo'."
Hazō nodded gratefully. "I want to challenge them to a duel. Only duels are illegal, so call it a friendly spar in which Keiko, Noburi, and I pound their best champions into the dirt in front of the world and ideally claim some kind of enormous forfeit. After the actual work is done and they're already ruined beyond recovery, of course. I guess it doesn't have to be us, either, or even Mari, as long as it's Gōketsu obliterating Hagoromo, as the Sage meant it to be."
"Huh. Relentless overkill against a downed foe to make sure they never rise again. I can sense Grandpa Ryūgamine giving you the thumbs up—or, well, one of his enigmatic smiles—from all the way over here."
Ami stroked an invisible, perfectly-groomed goatee, such as a clan consort in his middle years might wear. "It is the crippling weak point of genius to assume universal folly of those with lesser capacity. It takes little intellect to perceive that a foe does not issue a challenge in mid-conflict unless they have already stacked the deck to ensure victory, or positioned themselves to ensure your own will be catastrophically pyrrhic.
"The surest path to survival, if not victory, is to refuse combat. The Hagoromo can effect this with the aid of the one resource you cannot assail, their religious authority. 'The Will of Fire is above the petty insults of lesser men', perhaps, or 'The Will of Fire forbids violence between fellow ninja in pursuit of earthly goals'. Correctly presented, it could even be an opening for a counterattack. Who would reduce a far-reaching moral dispute to a base contest of fists but a foreigner unfit for Leaf society?
"However, no problem is so complicated that it does not have a simple solution. If the enemy is strong on the defence, compel them to attack. In other words, seduce Hagoromo's daughter. The younger one, I mean. She's pretty cute. You're not her type, but if between me and Mari we can't turn you into the second coming of Jiraiya, I'll buy and eat a hat, and you
know I don't buy stuff. Seduce her, dump her, boast about it in public. Bonus points, talk about what a bad lay she was—probably is; with a dad like that, I'll bet anything she's a virgin—whether you bedded her or not.
"That's off the top of my head. Point is, make it personal. Make them so hopping mad, they want you broken more than they want to protect what little they've got left. Make it public so they don't have the option to swallow their pride and let it go. Make
them challenge
you.
"But for that to work, there's a price. You act like an asshole and people will think you're an asshole. There's no escaping that. Also, you're setting up a duel. Let's not kid ourselves. Good news: the Hagoromo will want to pretend it's all above board as much as you will. You'll be partners in the crime of murdering each other. Bad news: remember what I just said? The Hokage's not dumb either. If you want to pretend that two clans can have a friendly spar while one's choking the other to death, pretend
hard. A single broken bone that doesn't look like a total accident? You're sabotaging Leaf's military strength in an illegal duel. Right after crippling one of its most loyal clans with epic overkill. In
this geopolitical environment. With an opening like that, the conservatives will eat your liver while the general public cheers and waves Leaf flags. Hell, you
want the Hagoromo hopping mad just so they don't go kamikaze in order to make that happen.
"All that said, those guys hurt Keiko."
Heaven's Cradle grew dark as a cloud blotted out the sun… and kept getting darker. Hazō shivered as the cold began to cut into him.
"They do not deserve the illusion of mercy," Ami said, evenly, hollowly. "There are levers. Weaknesses. Options. A pedestal flipped so that the people take to the streets baying for blood. Fanatics made into hunting dogs. A KEI core chosen to avenge their lady. The more hatred, the less evidence needed for treason. Mob justice is simple, and Leaf lacks jōnin to enforce order. A village where everything is built of wood. Begin with a martyr—"
"Ami," Keiko said quietly.
"The most practical advice I can offer in the immediate term," Ami said, "is to compile a shortlist of optimal partners for sparring practice, chosen for skill such that you will not present the appearance of excessive strength to observers, and from a broad variety of clans. Ino-Shika-Chō are certain to have viable candidates, as are clans such as the Inuzuka, and the Amori, who of late have suffered from difficulties with unmanageable youths. This will prime the Hagoromo for the concept of challenging you to a match, and will also provide some plausible deniability when the time comes for the Hokage to evaluate your motives."
"As I told you earlier," Keiko added, "my own feelings in this matter are conflicted. In an ideal scenario, I would be able to take a page from Yuno's book and slit their throats one by one for the suffering they have caused Tenten, to say nothing of myself, or of the impact their very existence has upon the world minute by minute. Having Panjandrum tear them to shreds in the arena would also be acceptable, compensating for the less personal touch with greater agony.
"However, that is not vengeance for the Mori or the Nara. Proper, honourable vengeance is to bind them and force them to watch the destruction, or, better, the corruption of all their works, all of their accomplishments made dust while the resources their ancestors entrusted to them go to fuel the antithesis of everything they are. To us, mere annihilation is a child's idea of vengeance. No, we have conferred, and decided on a punishment that better fits the crime. Punishment born of opportunity.
"We will
invert the Hagoromo. They will preach freedom, tolerance, and equality with tears in their eyes, at whatever pace this warped society can accept, and they will either be reshaped in our image or, more likely, will abandon their coopted clan as their hatred becomes more precious to them than all other loyalties. Either way, it is by their own hands that the Hagoromo as we know them will be unmade."
Ami whistled. "Not bad. Not bad at all. You're growing, runt. Both of you are. Just make sure the Hokage doesn't freak out and come down on you like a ton of bricks. Even the Fourth would have got pissed if you destroyed another clan without written permission."
"Ah, but that is the beauty of it," Keiko said. "The Hagoromo will continue to serve their purpose within society. They will conduct rituals. They will sell tapestries, though they may have to find new subject matter. They will contribute to the defence of Leaf. They may even be permitted to exercise their vote, though I fear their change of heart on a variety of issues may extend there as well. We are loyal Leaf citizens, after all, and we will make of the Hagoromo a reliable and efficient tool—with all the free will that the word implies.
"And yet, should you succeed in bringing them to the arena, you may expect me by your side. Some temptations are not made to be resisted." Keiko's fingers flexed a little, like pangolin claws slowly tearing someone apart.
"Will do," Hazō said. "But that's actually the less important part of what I wanted to talk to you about today, Ami. I have a proposal for you."
"Whoa," Ami said. "And right in front of Keiko? You really have grown bold."
Hazō rolled his eyes despairingly. "Not that kind of proposal. Listen, Ami, by this point you pretty much know what we, as in Uplift, are about. People tell me I wear my heart on my sleeve, and maybe that's not as true as it used to be, what with having Mari as a mentor, but I still think it's a virtue rather than a sin. We're going to bring the world equality. Proper equality, not just for clan and clanless, or ninja and civilians, but an equality where no social group gets condemned just for being who they are. We're going to fix this hopelessly, desperately broken world. Enough war. Enough pointless murder of people for living on the wrong bit of the planet. Enough of the strong exploiting the weak, and people dying in droves for no better reason than that nobody can be bothered to save them. Enough of the smartest species in the world being terrorised by chakra beasts because we're too selfish to work together. Enough plagues that could be easily, trivially cured by modern medicine if we just started treating people
before it became our village's problem. And for goodness' sake, enough discrimination against people who are like us in all but a single way. How does which gender you love outweigh the ninety-nine percent of stuff we have in common?
"That's the endgame, broadly put. There's more to it, like the fact that we will eventually end death—I've seen the afterlife; we could walk in and out again if we just knew how. And yes, if I remember you wanting me to resurrect Urutaru. Get her back from Orochimaru first, then we'll talk. And through all of that, we're not going to forget to protect our family. Saving the world means saving everyone.
"How? We have plans for that too. This'll shock you, but I'm working on becoming the greatest sealmaster ever. Sealing is the language of the universe itself. Once I learn to speak it well enough, I will tell the universe what to do, and it will
listen. But that's just the beginning. I'm prepared to cheat any way I can to beat the odds. Technique hacking. Biosealing. Maybe medical ninjutsu. If there's a way to get round our human limitations, we will find it.
"Then there are all the unsolved mysteries of this world. There is so much lost lore, and so many sources of power just sitting there, waiting to be tapped. What happened to Whirlpool? So much power. So much knowledge. You can't tell me that just went away forever, leaving no trace behind. How about Pain's ritual? Surely he can't be the only person in the history of chakra to have come up with a way to use sealing arrays to do the impossible. Where does chakra come from anyway? What is it? If we can find out, maybe we can go beyond the very concept of ninjutsu, and create something better."
Ami held up her hand, cutting him off in mid-speech.
"Hazō," she said, with no smile to be found, "here be dragons. Please believe me that there are some powers in this world that can
only destroy. There is some knowledge that has no use except to endanger. There is no amount of good you can do for the world that would outweigh the consequences of breaking the wrong seal."
Keiko glanced at Ami. Ami shook her head slightly.
Hazō sat silently, overwhelmed by the sudden grave atmosphere. The Mori secret. Just how serious was it, for
Ami to advise against being reckless?
"That doesn't mean I can just close my eyes," he finally said. "I only have one human lifetime. Even if I learn to cheat death, I'm just one person. We're just one family. No matter how many people I gather, ambitions as big as ours mean the odds against us are impossible. We
need force multipliers. If we do nothing because the risks are too high, then we doom the world for certain. You've run the numbers. You know that humanity is dying. You know that something must be done, and it must be done now."
"Must it?" Ami asked distantly. "None of this happened by accident. We've chosen to destroy ourselves, over and over and over. People talk about life and love and hope, but the numbers don't lie. What if what humanity wants is an ending?"
Hazō opened his mouth to refute her, but Keiko beat him to it.
"It does not," she said in a voice with no room for debate. "The will of the individual is a helpless, pitiful thing in the face of the will of society. For all our personal desires, we are moved by currents so vast we may not even register them, much less conceive of the possibility of resistance. This is the truth of statistics, as taught to every Mori. Everything we consider meaningful as individuals dissolves into the will of the aggregate. It is mindless, and so has no agency. We are helpless before it, and so neither do we.
"I refuse to allow this to be true.
"I have the experience of agency. I have defied the currents countless times, whether of necessity or of choice. I will not accept anything that denies my agency, be it the will of society, or humanity, or the world itself. I will not accept an ending chosen for me by something greater. There is no ending desired by all of humanity—not for as long as I am part of it."
"There you have it," Hazō said with a proud smile. "When it comes down to it, we don't particularly
care what humanity wants. We're not under any obligation to listen to it just because it's feeling self-destructive. Uplift is about what humanity needs, and we've decided that it needs the same things any given human needs: agency, equal opportunity, and, in the end, happiness."
"Control, freedom, and fun," Ami muttered.
"As I said last time," Hazō said, "your goals are still mostly a mystery to me, but there is one big, obvious goal which you and I have in common, which is to protect Keiko."
"I should perhaps remind you," Keiko cut in, "that I am a Chūnin Exam champion, a summoner, and the most politically powerful person here. I am not in need of protecting."
"You're my little sister," Ami said. "It is my right, my duty, and my privilege to protect you. Try to weasel out of it, and I may have to get creative."
"You're family," Hazō agreed. "I could have two broken legs, my seal pouch on fire, and be
out of lists, and I'd still fight to protect you. That's how the Gōketsu roll."
Keiko sighed. "Utterly hopeless, the both of you. Except you, Ami. You are as perfect as ever."
But she was unable to fully hide the little smile.
"So that's one goal we have in common," Hazō said. "I strongly suspect there are others we'd be happy to actively work towards."
Ami smirked. "You're already doing it for at least one."
"We are?"
"Chaos," she said gleefully. "Oh, yes. Your idealism is going to burn down the world, and it's going to be fantastic. Better than dating identical twin sisters who live with their parents without either finding out about the other."
Hazō goggled. "You did what?"
"I&S training can get a little crazy. Advice from the best in the business can get a little crazy, considering who she became in order to get those skills. My own training style can get a little crazy. When all of that comes together… fun times. Except for them, in the end. But I left them with a stronger sibling bond than when they started, so I reckon we're even.
"Anyway, you're going to plunge the world into madness and chaos, and I'm going to be in the thick of it, and it's going to be great. Nothing is impossible if there's enough chaos."
"I'm not sure I'm thrilled by the framing," Hazō said, "but I guess you can't make an omelette without breaking all of the world's biggest egos, most of its major social conventions, and the entire moral and ethical framework on which shinobi society rests. If you're up for that in a way that minimises damage to actual people, then I think we have a common goal."
"Burning down the world. Minimising damage," Ami said sceptically. "Does it count as a common goal if I think it's physically impossible and therefore am only going along with it for my own personal amusement?"
"…eh, close enough," Hazō said after a second. "With all of the above in mind, I would like to enter a mutually beneficial relationship with the Ami."
For the barest instant, Hazō thought Ami looked taken aback, though it could have just been his imagination.
"See?" Ami said to Keiko. "He
gets me!
"All right." She drew herself up to her full height (the key design features of Heaven's Cradle, she had commented, were a high ceiling and air circulation, the two things that she found air domes to be most wanting).
"In the name of protecting Keiko, throwing the world into chaos, and various other stuff we'll probably figure out as we go along, the Ami hereby accepts your proposal. Hug?"
Hazō smiled. "Beat me to it."
-o-
Hazō did not suffer from a fear of heights, and even if he ever had done, he was a skywalker veteran who had seen the ground from heights most mortals could never imagine. However, there was a difference between those extraordinary experiences and sitting in his ordinary sandals in the high-OPSEC version of Heaven's Cradle, sixty-four metres above the ground and likely to send them all to the ancestors the second a single one of the secondary air dome seals keeping the whole thing in place decided it didn't like the humidity in the atmosphere.
"I wonder how the girls are getting on," Ami mused. "Maybe next time I ought to add one of these as a bonus layer."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, Kana went out of the east gate disguised as me and looking shifty, and Mari—not our Mari—went to a concealed location in Leaf with a better disguise as the me from whom Kana was meant to distract spies. Next time, I'm thinking I should have a third girl with a crazy construct like this from whom Mari is supposed to be a distraction.
"So, is this where you propose to marry me as you were going to all along but were afraid to in case Leaf spies were watching after all and it turned out to be treason?"
"Ami," Keiko said coolly, "you are not marrying Hazō."
"And why not?"
"Because he already has a one true love whom he is doomed, excuse me, fated to marry," Keiko said.
"I
do?"
"Of course," Keiko said. "Your romance is fairy-tale in its purity to a degree that would be sickening were I not blessed with same, and I cannot conceive of you finding another who could equal, much less exceed, her irrational devotion to you. For you to marry another in this benighted age where polygamy has not yet been implemented would be an act of iniquity such as would have kami of judgement flock to you like sharks to a foreign sympathiser."
"Oh, you two are back together?" Ami asked.
"That we are."
"Called it," Ami said. "Glad it was her. Sweet girl. Let me know if you want any professional tips for next time."
It took Hazō several seconds to process the meaning of the words, during which time his face was set on fire, his hair burned off, and his eyeballs melted out of their sockets with raw embarrassment.
Keiko stared at him blankly. "What are you… oh."
"SoaboutthismasterplanIwantedtotalktoyouaboutAmiItisanexcellentplanguaranteedtovastlyboostthepowerofeveryoneinvolvedwhichmaysoundlikeanexaggeration butIhavetalkedtoKeikoaboutit andshethinksitshouldwork andIcan'texactly tellyou about it for treason reasons, but I'm happy to keep you posted as appropriate. The key point is this." He took a deep breath. "If you can become a Leaf ninja, you'll be eligible to take part, assuming you accept some reasonable conditions we can get into nearer the time."
"Just what kind of power are we talking here?" Ami asked cautiously.
"Personal power," he said. "The kind that should stop you having to worry about Aunt Ren. That's the reason Keiko wanted me to cut you in."
"Ambiguous but interesting," Ami said. "Oh, well, Mari Teaching Number Sixty-One: all power is interchangeable. Still, personal power, huh? I think I… give me a sec."
"Oh, no," Hazō said as Ami sank down into a meditation position. "Nonono. Not again."
"I assure you, if not now, Ami will analyse this conversation with the Frozen Skein as soon as she returns home," Keiko said. "Allowing her do so here grants you the opportunity to respond to the results."
"So," Ami said a tense couple of minutes later, "my main question is whether the Wakahisa expert actually disappeared, or whether you're keeping her prisoner in a cellar somewhere because she knows too much."
"How do you even know about the Wakahisa expert?" Hazō asked resignedly.
"Still technically embassy staff, duh. Who do you think Wataru went to when he found out? And getting the full story out of Yasuji? Child's play. Poor dolt came to me himself, saying I owed him a debt for getting me off the hook with the Mizukage. Was I ever that young and stupid?"
"No," Keiko said. "You were brilliance itself at least since the age of six, and presumably also before. Also, I believe he is older than you."
"Details, details. Anyway, I wouldn't have been able to fit the pieces together if I didn't know how shadow clones really work."
Hazō's blood ran cold.
"Keiko, what did you tell her?"
"Nothing," Keiko snapped. "I resent the implication. I have been duly keeping all manner of secrets from my own sister for the sake of this village even as it steadily eradicates whatever basic goodwill I had been developing towards it."
"Not her fault," Ami said. "Remember the day Snowflake went to hang out with me on her own?"
Keiko's face darkened. "I remember."
"Yeah. I could tell when I talked to you that you knew what happened, even though you wouldn't have had the chakra to summon her again. It made everything click into place. Snowflake, get Keiko to give you remedial OPSEC training. If I hadn't been an idiot, I could have figured it out from what you were saying at the birthday party."
Keiko winced. "Do not judge her too harshly. She will be furious with me for sharing this with you, but she was simply… desperate to be understood, and terrified that it was impossible due to her unique nature. This cannot be wholly unfamiliar to the two people who know me best."
Ami wordlessly swept her up into a hug which was probably at least half for Snowflake.
"Anyway," she said, reluctantly putting Keiko down, "with Noburi and the koi, you guys clear every Naruto condition. You have shadow clones, all the chakra you can drink, and the Fifth Hokage's secrets—which I'm guessing are how Naruto gets around those headaches and stuff Keiko sometimes gets after Snowflake gets reintegrated. If more clones means worse side-effects, it would explain why you never see people other than him with a lot of shadow clones, even when they're like the Hokage with his summoner chakra reserves.
"So I take it the reason you want me to sign up with Leaf is so I can get the Shadow Clone Technique. Frankly, I can't think of another reason—you know it won't change who I am, or make me more or less Uplift-aligned. I guess you could have some other massive state secret that you're dying to share with me, but as Mori Fumihiro wrote, you shouldn't invent more entities than you need to solve a problem."
"You two are estranged from your parents, right?" Hazō asked through the building headache.
"They are not my parents," Ami said coldly. "Their choice was to be
ours or not at all."
"Ami," Keiko said, "while I do understand your perspective, it was an entirely rational—"
"No," Ami cut her off, "it wasn't. We can talk about it later.
"Hazō?"
"Sorry," Hazō said, "didn't mean to cross a tripwire. But if you are, then I am declaring a Mori embargo. No more Mori into this village. This was supposed to be a top secret plan beyond the power of anyone in Leaf to guess without knowledge only the Gōketsu have."
"What if Grandpa Ryūgamine wants to pop in for a visit?"
That… was actually a pretty difficult question. Hazō only knew of Mori Ryūgamine by reputation, plus a few scraps of information gathered from the sisters, but he sounded like a man Hazō would love to meet.
"He would not be permitted to enter," Keiko said, "much for the same reasons that I imagine Naruto would be unwelcome within the walls of Hidden Mist."
"Fair point," Ami said. "The Hokage's just seen what happens when you let one fresh Mist jōnin into Leaf. He's not going to be thrilled about doing the same for my second biggest formative influence."
"Second? Who was the first?"
Ami inclined her head to indicate Keiko. Obviously.
That said, Hazō could not imagine in any way how having Keiko as a younger sister might cause someone to grow up into Ami. It would be like Yuno teaching someone the virtues of pacifism.
"All right," Ami said. "Interesting times are in store. I'll get to work on the Hokage. I already have a plan on how to square things with Mist."
"Oh?"
"I'll take one last trip back to bring the Mizukage some fake juicy info or something. Really, I just want to check in with the boys in the AMI. They can start spreading rumours that I'm going on a deep cover mission to Leaf. See, the Fourth was such a larger-than-life character that the Fifth has been having to work overtime to prove she can be an even better leader despite being weak and short-sighted and not worthy to lick a real professional's sandals. One of her tactics—as I found out when I was back because she recalled me, and boy is it nice to have that backfire on her some more—has been to milk the fact that his rule sucked so much people didn't just jump ship but actively joined the other side. That's you guys.
"So when the Mizukage finds herself with a choice to either eat clan-boss-size crow and be forced to pick a fight with her new ally or tacitly encourage the rumours and pretend she's in control, which do you think she's going to do?
"Of course," she added, "me coming back to Mist without an invitation might also push the Mizukage over the edge, in which case you won't be seeing me again and nor will anyone else, so I hope your reasonable conditions are worth risking my life for.
"Speaking of, ninety seconds before we reach the first safety margin for the secondary seals. I suggest we get moving before we find out whether love really gives you wings."
-o-
You have received 4 + 1 + 1 = 6 XP.
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-o-
Ten days remain until Asuma's deadline.
What do you do?
Voting closes on Saturday 3rd of October, 1 p.m. New York time.
