Immediately after Chapter 482, and not long before Chapter 483…
Ami's eyes glowed with the promise of a Leaf remade in her own image—the image of utter chaos, bent to purposes no sane man dared to imagine. Even Hazō hesitated to try. Fortunately, he strongly suspected that incoming revelations would distract her, just as they had distracted Orochimaru. Unfortunately, said revelations involved turning a powerful and unpredictable entity into a threat to a member of his own family, just as they had with Orochimaru. More unfortunately still, he had no choice. Kei
might be objective in her narration, but given her track record of violent emotional reactions when hurt, it seemed like a bad idea to gamble Mari's safety on it. No, as Mari herself had taught Hazō, there were few more important tools in a politician's arsenal than the ability to anticipate and control the narrative.
"Actually," Hazō said, "before you transmute or destroy the foundations of my reality, could you do me a favour?"
The glow of doom faded a little. "A favour?" Ami asked. "That's certainly something, given how you're already so deep in debt with me that you can barely see the ancestors in the abyss far above you. Never set foot in a loan shark's office, Hazō."
"I think," Hazō said with perfect sincerity, "that you're far more dangerous than any loan shark I could find."
The glow faded a little further. Ami's lips stretched in what looked like an involuntary smile.
"For someone whose cause of death will be saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time, Hazō, every now and again you do manage to roll a critical hit. Not that, on reflection, you have anything to fear from loan sharks—at least not while you have Haru."
"That's over," Hazō said definitively. "The Gōketsu do
not harm civilians just because it's easy. Don't get the wrong idea, Ami—I hate that it happened, and if it ever happens again, then it'll be because I failed to enforce clan values, and I will take proper responsibility."
"I know," Ami said. "Akane has so much faith in you it's frankly unhealthy, and you should be doing something about it before she ends up like Kei."
"You've been talking to Akane?" Hazō asked, mentally filing away the most disturbing idea he'd heard since—actually, he'd just heard about Ami planning to unleash her full creativity on Leaf. Never mind.
Ami nodded. "We have tea together from time to time. Her worldview is so weird and alien that it has value to me, like most weird and alien things, and unlike Rock Lee, she can explain it in a coherent fashion.
"But forget people who accidentally let slip all sorts of interesting information about the Gōketsu because lying is counter to the very core of their identity. What's this favour you want from me?"
Hazō would have to have a serious conversation with Akane at some point. Two serious conversations, in fact. No, three, since he still didn't know her position on the Mari-Kei issue and the last thing he wanted was the rift in the family to grow wider still.
Assuming she was alive.
"I'd like you to help me optimise a sensitive conversation which could have some very bad outcomes unless it's handled just right."
"Ooh." Ami grinned. "A challenge. The Frozen Skein
sucks at optimising social, so this is going to come down to me and my personal awesomeness. Which, of course, will be reflected in the cost. Who's the lucky target?"
Hazō breathed in slowly, then out again. This was the first of the pivoting points that might decide Mari's fate.
"One Mori Ami," he said as casually as he could without giving away the fact that he wasn't feeling casual at all. "I need a means of persuasion so good that it will work on her even though she was the one to help optimise it. Do you think you can handle it?"
Ami's grin stretched to extraordinary proportions. "I knew there was a reason why I didn't warp your cognition and leave you a hollow puppet subordinate to my will the first time we met. What's the lucky topic?"
"Something that might make Ami very angry and generally trigger an impulse to do counterproductive things that I really don't want her to do."
Hazō pulled out his last remaining favour token, Hidden Sand green, and offered it to her.
Ami accepted it, studied it from several angles like a jeweller might study a flawless diamond handed to her by a grimy ne'er-do-well, then snapped it in two with a tap of her thumb.
"A pittance to offer for manipulating
the Mori Ami. On the other hand, I've just gone from being perched on the verge of execution to being functionally untouchable in two villages, so I'm generally in a good mood. Also, you've shown a rare understanding of the insanity that defines my worldview, and I've dated people for less. Hit me."
First hurdle, cleared. Even if things only went downhill from here, Hazō was officially a genius of the highest order. He was willing to bet that there was no one else in Leaf, or possibly the world, who would have not only come up with this plan but dared to attempt it. He'd have to make sure to give her a post-interaction survey form as well.
"The first approach I'd like you to consider," he said, "is the raw emotional approach. First, we explain the emotional truth of the situation to Ami. Specifically, we tell her that Kei feels Mari sacrificed her for my sake, and that this was a betrayal beyond what she could endure."
The grin evaporated, leaving a chill mist that blurred Ami's feelings into unreadability.
"
Did she."
"The important part," Hazō hurried on, "is that this is an accurate
emotional portrayal from Kei's perspective. Presenting its impact up front would allow Ami to prepare, and then process it constructively as I add further factual details. The portrayal would also prominently include the fact that Kei has already applied appropriate sanctions for Mari's behaviour. Keeping that in mind over the course of the conversation would help Ami accept the final conclusion that the matter is already settled.
"And the sanctions?"
"Kei cut ties with her completely." It was still hard to believe even as Hazō said it. Irrationally, he himself felt a little betrayed, not by either of the two, but by a universe that had refused to give them the chance to heal and rebuild that they both deserved. With all the suffering already present in the world, with all the horror of an interested Orochimaru, was it really necessary to add more drama still?
"As far as she is concerned, they're strangers now, not even connected by a bond of revenge. In other words, to Kei, it's over. Also, there's no longer a bond of trust to break, so Mari isn't able to betray Kei again in the future.
"I'm hoping that this approach will persuade Ami that, even though Kei was hurt, the incident is concluded, so there's no need for her to involve herself in a destructive fashion."
"I see."
"I'm aware of the obvious possibility for failure," Hazō went on. "Presenting the most impactful part first—Kei being hurt badly enough to cut ties—might cause Ami to view the matter in the most negative possible light instead, and then it'll be a lot harder to recover the situation than it would be otherwise."
Ami gave a thoughtful nod. "Yeah, that's a nice stab at how things might go wrong—if you're an optimist who makes Akane look like Kei. You're drawing Ami's attention to Kei being hurt and Mari getting proper consequences. Obviously, Ami's going to ask if the consequences did the job. Is Kei actually protected? Is Mari actually punished enough? You're gambling that she'll reach the same conclusions as you, yet your analysis is too shallow to serve as a secure foundation."
Ami's voice cooled—not in an aggressive way, but in a way that cut off the warm emotional connection with which they'd started the conversation. Her footsteps grew more regular as they approached the compound gates, then walked past them into the forest. Hazō had no choice but to follow.
"I would say that first, Ami would challenge the connection between cutting ties and the impossibility of future betrayal. In Ami's model of Kei, Kei
claiming that she no longer has an emotional connection with Mari does not mean she would be able to follow through at a core level, at least not without a great deal of time. Lovers terminating a relationship constantly assert, to both each other and themselves, that it is 'over' in the most final way possible. As ways to cope with the pain of parting go, it is one of the least effective. Ami has been the object of many lingering attachments, and is aware that special means are needed to sever them swiftly and efficiently. Kei lacks this expertise, and as long as interaction with Mari continues, in any form, it is possible for Mari to reopen the wound with further betrayals.
"By the same token, Mari's continued presence in Kei's life, the reminder of the lost bond, would likely be the greatest risk factor for continuing pain, more than mourning her death. As an experienced shinobi, Ami is aware that the intensity of mourning is attenuated both by time and by the development of coping mechanisms that make the difference between one's own life and death. She would thus conclude that her natural instinct to destroy Mari in vengeance was supported by straightforward practical concerns. Conversely, in the unlikely event that the loss of emotional connection was genuine, Ami would no longer need to concern herself with Kei's reaction to Mari's death or total excoriation, and could give herself over fully to the desire to inflict punishment based on her own preferences.
"On the whole, this approach is very unreliable for the purpose of achieving your goal, which I presume is to protect Mari from excruciating destruction at Ami's hands."
She paused.
"Your concern that it would cause Ami to view the matter in the most negative light implies that there is more, which Ami could potentially consider to be even worse than the emotional betrayal. Obviously, my optimisation will be flawed if I am lacking information which Ami is likely to learn or be influenced by in her ultimate response."
"True," Hazō agreed, a little shaken by his success so far. "But my second approach will deal with that. I'd do things in the opposite order: start at the beginning and go through events chronologically,
culminating in the sanctions, vividly described. Following the arc would let Ami conclude with a feeling of righteous justice, and finally catharsis, and a feeling that the issue was resolved.
"Of course, the danger is that Ami might reach the end, and the emotional high, only to feel the sanctions were insufficient, and then you have an Ami still filled with righteous justice and you've run out of narrative. It would be hard to recover from something like that."
"So what are the events chronologically?" Ami asked. "I can hardly model without."
Hazō gulped. This was the point where, if Ami snapped out of helpful mode, it was over.
"You know how I ran a summoner gaming night after the Battle of Five Clans? I told Noburi to invite
all the summoners, and, unbelievably, Orochimaru turned up—though I think he would have done anyway because he needed to bring the Snake champion. Anyway, I decided that letting him interact with my family and their Bloodline Limits was a terrible idea, so I tried to draw him off into a private one-on-one conversation. My first few openers didn't break the ice, and eventually I hit on the idea of talking about the Great Seal. It's been my hope for a while to get him interested in helping with the Great Seal, though less so now when avoiding his attention is a massive priority.
"Anyway, in the process of telling him about the Great Seal, I accidentally hinted at a clan secret that drew his attention, and it looked like he was about to take me home and vivisect me, or something equally awful, in order to find out more. Mari turned up at the last second, and managed to lie her head off and convince him the clan secret was something boring and not worth his time. Unfortunately, it was starting to look like it wasn't enough, and he might take me away on principle."
He could tell Ami knew where this was going by the way the winter was suddenly a lot more wintry. After all, he'd mentioned sacrifice at the start.
"Mari had to come up with an idea in a matter of seconds while under enormous pressure. The idea she came up with was to point him at Snowflake as a cognitively-independent shadow clone, because he would love to have cognitively independent shadow clones to generate ideas, and therefore at Kei. She figured that, with Kei not being literally in the room and about to be taken, and with her having all her political allies and assets to protect her, she had much better chances of survival than I did."
Ami nodded, but didn't say anything.
"She told Orochimaru that Kei was in one of the far outbuildings, and led him there, when she was actually in the central room, thereby buying us time to get away at massive risk to her own life. We went to take shelter with the Nara and plan our next move, and then in the morning we got the news about Cloud. With Hinata's help, we managed to persuade Asuma to send Orochimaru out of the village on a mission, and then we persuaded Tsunade to come down on him before he left, and he promised not to kidnap anyone. I don't know what that's worth, but it's something. More importantly, we told him he couldn't have his own cognitively-independent shadow clones because he wasn't a Mori, and apparently that was good enough, so Kei should be in the clear." Assuming he didn't suspect a lie, given that Mari had only just lied to him the previous day.
"Why did the Hokage not deal with Orochimaru personally?" Ami interrupted.
"That's not relevant to the optimisation," Hazō said carefully. "What's relevant is that after it was all over, Kei told Mari that, even though it had been a rationally correct decision, Mari's willingness to sacrifice her to save me also meant she could never trust Mari again, and that they weren't family anymore—or anything else. It was devastating for Mari"—probably; Mari had avoided showing her true feelings on the subject to anyone—"and it was made even worse when they saw each other again at a party, and Mari tried to apologise, and both Kei and Snowflake completely rejected her. On top of that, Yuno's taken Kei's side and thinks Mari and I acted immorally, which I kind of get given Yuno's background, but it's another thing for Mari to have to live with every day. Honestly, I suspect the only reason Yuno hasn't murdered her is that I gave her direct orders and she respects the command structure.
"So do you think structuring it that way would work on Ami?"
Ami was silent for a long time. In the stillness of the snowy forest, it felt like forever.
"I believe you have missed an essential point," she said. "You have described circumstances under which Mari actively threatened Kei's life, and acted according to a rationale which is unaltered by her loss of connection to Kei. If anything, if Mari accepts Kei's decision, she is more likely to sacrifice her in the future, since her value to Mari will have decreased while yours and that of others will not.
"This leaves Ami with a problem to solve, and two choices of how to solve it. First, she could alter Mari's calculations such that Kei is more valuable than anyone she might be sacrificed to protect. However, Mari is too powerful for Ami to brainwash. Orochimaru or Tsunade might be capable of it, but persuading them to do so would be prohibitively difficult. Nor is it possible to blackmail Mari—clearly, the obvious thought of Ami's vengeance did not stop her in the original event. Persuasion would certainly be a fool's task, since Ami would have no control over whether Mari changed her mind when a new sacrificing opportunity arose. That means the only way is to eliminate everyone who might conceivably be more valuable to Mari than Kei, beginning with yourself.
"Alternatively, Mari must be eliminated, or disabled in a way that would prevent her from exercising her agency against Kei—in other words, made physically incapable of violence or communication in a way beyond Tsunade's ability to restore.
"Of these options, eliminating Mari is easiest, most reliable, and least problematic for Ami's future plans, although the torture element of incapacitation holds emotional appeal.
"With all this in mind, it is
irrelevant whether Ami considers Kei's sanctions against Mari to be sufficient. To Ami, Kei's safety overrides any concerns of justice."
The cold seeping through Hazō (probably) had nothing to do with Ami's jōnin aura. If you took protecting Kei as your absolute priority with which you could take no risks, and if you thought that nothing you could do, nothing
Mori Ami could do, posed enough of a deterrent… he could see how murder would begin to look appealing.
"All right," Hazō said. "I'm guessing that also rules out the next approach I was going to suggest, which was reciting the events in a completely neutral fashion and trusting in Ami's sense of fairness to reach a constructive conclusion."
"Indeed," Ami agreed. "The notion of fairness is orthogonal to protecting Kei from future sacrifice. For that matter, Ami respects Mari's powers of deception, and would not be able to completely trust that any display of suffering or contrition would be genuine, in nature or in extent. This is one reason why I&S specialists do not make genuine emotional bonds with each other."
Like sister, like sister.
"So arguing that Ami's desires have already been satisfied is a no-go," Hazō concluded. "That's fine. We can still switch tracks completely and go for an empathetic approach. There are distinct parallels between Mari's actions and some of Ami's actions, and highlighting those might help Ami understand Mari's standpoint and look for a less destructive solution, or become aware that her intent to hurt Mari would be hypocritical. Of course, Ami might not see it that way, or she might not care about being a hypocrite, but it's worth a try."
"What parallels are these?" Ami asked neutrally.
"First, I could propose to Ami that Mari sees me the way that Ami sees Kei. If Ami believes that her actions with regard to protecting Kei are justified, even at risk to others' lives, then surely she can feel compassion for Mari's decision to do the same thing.
Ami shook her head almost immediately. "Ami would never accept the premise. First, she possesses a strong irrational belief that her love for Kei is unique and incomparable, just as Kei is unique and incomparable. Second, she would draw on the more reasonable argument that Ami has loved Kei since the age of four, that love only being strengthened through its endurance of changes in both of their personalities and their relationship over fifteen years, and having become a core constituent element of their personalities. You would not be able to persuade Ami that a fully-developed twenty-[REDACTED] adult could achieve the same with your teenage self over two years of acquaintance. The attempt would risk offending her, which would impact further dialogue, as well as reducing her faith in your emotional intelligence."
"OK," Hazō said, "should've seen that coming. What about the Final Gift Programme?"
Ami gave him a quizzical look. "Is that relevant?"
"I think so," Hazō said. "Mari took a risk with Kei's life as a way for me to escape the threat posed by Orochimaru. Ami knows that threat full well, because she made the much greater, ongoing sacrifice of numerous KEI ninja for the same purpose. I also recently met Kichi Gai, who told me that Ami permits him to manipulate people into sacrificing themselves even when they otherwise wouldn't, still for the same purpose."
"Wow," Ami said. "That sure would be a great way to shut down dialogue fast. Hazō, I don't think you get what the Final Gift Programme is. When Ami created it, in what she considers a burst of genius to be proud of given the extreme constraints she was under—she created a single solution to a whole bunch of problems. Ami survives, starving families get saved, Orochimaru stops kidnapping innocents, and the Hokage stops losing face and having his authority undermined because he can't stop Orochimaru kidnapping innocents. For every ninja enjoying Orochimaru's hospitality right now, there's a family that's not going to starve or do any of the vile things that poor people are forced to do in order not to starve."
"Ami could have persuaded the Hokage to pay the families of crippled ninja anyway, without any of the torture and death," Hazō countered.
"Mm-hmm," Ami said. "Ami would not be impressed by that argument. First, it's a moot point because if she hadn't offered Orochimaru something really good, she wouldn't have made it out of the compound alive, and nobody would've got anything. Failing to follow through once she was out? Probably even worse. Second, seven Hokage in a row haven't given a toss about crippled ninja. Nor have any other Kage, to the best of my knowledge. It's not like they're hidden in some underground catacomb, you know—every Hokage sees mission reports saying 'X lost her legs and is no longer fit for duty', makes a note, then moves on to the next. No, it took getting a concrete reward—chaining the monster in the Basement—before the Seventh signed up to throwing money at people who couldn't give him anything in return. Ami is a cynic, with very little time for the notion of altruism from those in power.
"But that's not the big one, because Ami is very confident in her abilities. If you asked her whether she really couldn't manipulate a Hokage into throwing money away with no reward, her pride wouldn't let her claim surrender. The big one's the kidnappings. In Ami's mind, putting an end to the kidnappings—something the Hokage himself couldn't do—is a major gift to the KEI, not only in terms of ninja lives saved (and also civilian lives, but she doesn't care about those so much), but also in terms of the peace of mind that every ninja has from knowing the boogeyman isn't going to turn up and kidnap and murder them or their loved ones. Going on a mission while knowing your loved ones are back in Mist and might be in danger and you aren't there to protect them is a genuine risk factor for mission failure; Ami would have no problem running the numbers for you.
"Also, Kichi Gai's a sadistic, power-tripping asshole whose continued survival is an unfortunate consequence of the KEI Master Database: crippled ninja who lift their families out of poverty through ninjutsu trade et cetera aren't going to sacrifice themselves, meaning Orochimaru gets fewer sacrifices, meaning he gets less happy, meaning there's an increasing risk of the Programme shutting down, at which point we go back to regular kidnappings. Also people with less to trade, like taijutsu specs, who incidentally happen to be the most at risk from crippling injury, go back to watching their families starve to death. That means there has to be some mechanism to make sure enough people keep signing up, even as the community's fortunes improve overall.
"I think Ami would be very pissed at you for describing her imperfect solution to four different problems—five if you include power maximisation—as a purely selfish act of mass murder. In theory, she could even argue that her survival is of more net benefit to the KEI and Leaf and the AMI and Mist than the lives of those crippled ninja, but I don't think she would because she's too self-centred to weigh her life against anyone else's (except Kei's, which weighs more).
"The other thing is, with you framing this issue in terms of hypocrisy, Ami would immediately point out that you never did anything for crippled ninja yourself, despite being keenly aware of their issues. In principle, you could even have gone to the Hokage yourself and persuaded him that they deserved payment without having to sacrifice themselves. Now, that's not specifically a counter to your approach, since it doesn't affect her actions as weighed against
Mari's, but you have to consider how seriously Ami will take your judgement if she decides you're a hypocrite accusing her of being a hypocrite.
"I think I've made a sufficient case for why the empathetic approach as you've presented it would backfire disastrously, but there's one last issue to consider. Ami's model of you says that her actions as you've presented them—causing the torturous deaths of dozens of innocents for her personal benefit—should be monstrous and unacceptable in your eyes. However, the model also says that you would intervene if you saw someone you care about performing monstrous acts. Yet you have never attempted to persuade her to stop, or to seek more moral alternatives. To Ami, who is constantly looking for additional data points with which to navigate the ambiguity of your relationship, that you should not confront her until you need a tool to use in an argument tilts that ambiguity heavily away from 'family' and towards 'outsider'. It is best not to dwell on the emotional implications at this time, except to advise you not to follow up such an argument with any appeal to the relationship between Ami and the Gōketsu."
"Got it," Hazō said.
That was… no, he had to keep his mind on his objective. Everything took second place to making sure they got out of this without a conflict between Mari and Ami.
"Let's go the other way," he said. "Not empathy, but pragmatism. Suppose we focus on the reasons why Ami's initial desires, with regard to inflicting harm on Mari, would be counterproductive. There's any number of reasons for that. Mari is a jōnin and necessary in wartime, so Ami would be endangering Leaf and angering the Hokage, who might execute her, or imprison her, or banish her from Leaf, and in any of those scenarios she wouldn't be able to protect Kei or see her again at all. The Gōketsu would be forced to protect her, and then Ami would have to hurt us as well, and that would hurt Kei emotionally, even if she didn't care about Mari herself. It would risk undermining the Leaf-Mist alliance, and then Mist might not help us against Rock and it would put Leaf and Kei in danger. And so on.
"If Ami takes this reasoning seriously, that gives us an opportunity to pivot to discussing constructive responses to the situation, at which point the fundamental problem is solved and we can just apply our intelligence to figuring out which alternative is best."
Ami considered. "Better. I'm sorry to say that your emotional appeals don't show a very good model of Ami's personality—which isn't a big deal, since there's only one person in the world with a good model of Ami's personality—but pragmatism is equally effective coming from anyone.
"Your problem is the aforementioned threat to Kei's life. For as long as inflicting harm on Mari is necessary to protect Kei, the consequences don't matter. Ami will sacrifice anything and everything, including herself, for that purpose.
"More broadly, Ami doesn't think in terms of insuperable barriers. If it's necessary to eliminate Mari without angering the Hokage, she will find a way to eliminate Mari without angering the Hokage. If eliminating Mari would hurt Kei, she would find a way to minimise that hurt, though I would say that Ami is unlikely to consider that a
major issue when Kei's life is at stake. If it's necessary to eliminate Mari without undermining the Leaf-Mist alliance, then she would have to make sure the alliance was sufficiently solid, or that Mari's death would not have a strong impact on it, or she could simply wait until the war was over, though this is undesirable because it could leave plenty of time for Mari to attempt to sacrifice Kei again.
"You cannot propose an obstacle which Ami would feel herself abjectly unable to overcome, and while ordinarily, some obstacles would be too expensive to be worth bothering with, this does not apply where Kei is concerned. Her only issue would be settling matters before Kei is in danger of sacrifice again."
"In other words," Hazō said, "we won't get anywhere unless we can persuade Ami that Kei's life isn't in any further danger."
"I would say not."
"That actually fits my next suggested approach," Hazō said, "which is try to convince Ami to accept my best-light interpretation of the situation. Mari objectively did her best to save everyone, which is to say that she not only chose the highest-probability gamble, but she also put her life on the line by lying to Orochimaru—and he did hurt her as a result—and she was right in thinking that, thanks to both of us getting out of the building and then getting help from Kei's allies, we'd be able to get through the situation without anyone being kidnapped by Orochimaru, now or in the future.
"Besides, it averted the worst-case scenario where Orochimaru found out about Snowflake at some random later date, and kidnapped Kei at a time when we
weren't ready to marshal all our resources to save her.
"In other words, everyone did their best and everything worked out for the best. Following that up by hurting Mari would only ruin the success."
"The Snowflake point is an interesting one," Ami said thoughtfully, "and might give Ami pause. What concerns me is that you are approaching the incident solely from the perspective of consequences. As a logistician by blood, Ami is inclined to consider probabilities, and the more she considers the issue, the more she will identify points where, but for a greater or lesser amount of luck, everything would have ended in ruin. Ami can not only generate many scenarios of failure, but also estimate their probabilities to her own satisfaction.
"Recall that Ami's concern is Mari's initial act of sacrifice. It does not help your case for Ami to think, 'Mari was prepared to risk Kei's life with only a 70% probability that she would die'. Nor 50%. Nor 30%. There is no plausible number that Ami would consider acceptable, insofar as it is only through deliberate mental discipline that she accepts Kei's right to risk her
own life by serving as a ninja. Nor is it permissible for Mari to believe that there is such a number.
"Furthermore, even if Ami were to approve entirely of Mari's handling of the situation in general terms, which I believe to be entirely possible, general terms do not apply to Kei. As far as Ami is concerned, Kei is exceptional in every way, and any situation involving her must be analysed on its own terms.
"Moving back to the perspective of consequences, to Ami, hurting Mari would also be a natural part of the consequences of endangering Kei, no less so than Kei severing ties with Mari. Indeed, it would have been much more predictable than the other elements of the outcome, as Ami is extremely predictable when it comes to Kei."
"I'm running low on ideas here," Hazō admitted. "There's still the adversarial approach, which I really don't want to turn to, but needs listing because right now I'll take anything. Suppose we bribed or threatened Ami?"
Ami gave him an incredulous look. "What with?"
"In terms of bribing, there's nothing one can bribe Ami with except a favour, is there?" Hazō asked. "Favours are convertible into any other kind of good or service."
Ami nodded. "That is certainly Ami's perspective. However, given your existing debt to Ami, and the fact that the issue concerns Kei's safety, it seems unlikely that a favour from you would carry meaningful weight. What about threats? What could you threaten Ami with?"
"The Gōketsu are a powerful clan," Hazō said. "We have options. We could refuse to cooperate with Ami on future projects. We could actively obstruct her or even damage her general position in Leaf. In an adversarial scenario, Mari would have no reason not to go all out, and we'd have no reason not to go all out to protect her. There's also that one thing she's hoping for from us which we could withhold if we had to."
Ami chuckled. "Hazō, Ami is fresh from having brought down a Kage. She is in no mental state to submit to intimidation, and she certainly considers her position in Leaf to be stronger than the Gōketsu's, insofar as both have made disproportionate contributions to Leaf and both hold the promise of many more, but only one has a track record of risking the village's very survival. Moving the conflict from an Ami versus Mari to an Ami versus Gōketsu footing would not improve your situation. As for the other thing, you are not the only one in Leaf with the capability. Ami has plenty of contacts who would happily help her to fill in the blanks if you refused to share.
"It is probably worth mentioning, since it hasn't come up and I can't be sure you'll figure it out for yourself, that all manner of interesting things will happen if I die while certain conditions are met. Making Kei sad would be the least of the perpetrator's problems.
"Anyway. Threatening Ami. Terrible idea. Either she doesn't consider you a credible threat and will laugh in your face, or she does consider you a credible threat and will act the way any jōnin does when faced with a credible threat."
"Then that just leaves one thing," Hazō said wearily. "I could stage a crisis big enough to distract Ami from the whole thing."
Ami gave this one some thought.
"No. My model of Ami says that in a crisis big enough to distract her from her sister's welfare, she'd eliminate Mari first to make sure she didn't do anything stupid while Ami was elsewhere. Especially if it's any crisis that could theoretically be mitigated by throwing Kei under the cart."
"All right," Hazō said. "I've presented a bunch of options, and none of them sound very good. Now you know what they are, what approach would
you take to reach an optimal outcome with Ami?"
"What indeed," Ami mused. "This is a tough one. If I'd known, I'd have charged you more."
After a few minutes of silently walking through the snow, Ami turned to Hazō.
"I think you'll want to start with the second approach. Describe the situation accurately, then build up to the full extent of Mari's punishment thus far. That will indicate to Ami that you have
some awareness of the gravity of the situation, but you have to shift to the pragmatic approach fast, before she can decide that you've missed the safety implications and she has to do the rest on her own.
"The pragmatic approach is the lynchpin of your argument. You have no chance unless you can present a convincing constructive proposal to ensure that Mari will not risk Kei's life again, with 100% certainty. Unfortunately, there is information known to Ami but not to you which predisposes Ami to be sceptical of Mari's capacity for consistency. Since you have proved that you cannot prevent Mari from making decisions which place Kei in danger, you must instead persuade Ami that you can create a situation in which Mari is permanently unable or unwilling to harm Kei. Ami is likely to have her own thoughts on the subject.
"With this accomplished, you will want the best-light approach, as your task will now be to convince Ami that Mari should not receive additional punishment or elimination for hurting Kei yet again. The Snowflake point is a good one, and you should definitely use it, but your priority is Kei's feelings in the aftermath, so you will want a certain element of the first approach in there as well.
"Be sure to finish off with an apology, reflecting your culpability as Mari's superior, but also personal guilt as Kei's brother. If there isn't an element of genuine contrition in there, then Ami will think you've done all this purely to bargain for Mari's life—which is true, but she doesn't need to know that.
"Is that all clear?"
"Yeah," Hazō said, a little dizzy at everything that had just happened and was about to happen. "Thank you, Ami."
"This is no weather for dress rehearsals," Ami said, "so let's get started. Good luck."
-o-
"Ami," Hazō began, "there's an incident you need to know about that happened right before you left."
Ami perked up. "The good kind of incident, like Anko's clothes falling off because Tsuchiko put stitch-eater worms in her box in the changing rooms? The bad kind of incident, like when Hyūga Dōshi got caught wandering around the Red Light District and was forced to pay the voyeur fee to every brothel at once? Or the weird kind of incident, like a hail of perfectly regular cubes falling on Leaf right as I'm standing outside a metalworker's trying to pick a good chopping knife?"
"The bad kind of incident," Hazō said. "I invited Orochimaru to the summon gaming night on the assumption that he wouldn't want to come, though I think he'd have had to come anyway to bring the Snake champion. In the process of distracting him from my family and their Bloodline Limits, I ended up talking to him about the Great Seal, and accidentally hinted at a clan secret which he found the vivisection kind of interesting. Then Mari came in at the last second and persuaded him it was nothing important after all. Unfortunately, then he started getting interested in me again, and Mari, under enormous pressure and with only seconds to think, ended up pointing him at Kei."
"She did what." Ami's glare was worryingly authentic, and liable to burn a hole in Hazō if he didn't hurry on.
"She told him about cognitively-independent shadow clones, which she rightly guessed were very interesting to him, and then, once he was no longer focused on kidnapping and vivisecting me, she led him away to the other end of the compound while I ran away with Kei. We ended up taking shelter with the Nara. Then, in the morning, there was a Clan Council meeting about the Cloud invasion, and we managed to get Orochimaru sent on a mission with Hinata's help. Finally, we persuaded Tsunade to come down on Orochimaru and make him promise to stop kidnapping people. We also explained that he couldn't have his own Snowflake without being a Mori, and he seemed to accept that."
"Why didn't the Hokage come down on Orochimaru himself?" Ami asked.
"No comment," Hazō said, grateful for the rehearsal. "Anyway, after it was all over, Kei told Mari that even though she thought she'd done the rational thing, it also meant she could never trust Mari again, and things were over between them. Now Mari's miserable, and to make things worse, Yuno's taken Kei's side, and the only reason Mari hasn't been murdered is that I gave Yuno explicit clan head orders. Oh, and also Orochimaru did something vicious to her after she lied to him, and she's only recently recovered. Mari's paid an enormous price for what she's done, and I'm sure she's"—probably—"wracked with guilt as well."
"I see," Ami said. "Where is Mari right now?"
"Out on a mission," Hazō said quickly. "But before you worry about that, I want to promise you that Mari will never do anything like that again. I'm happy to work with you to come up with a way to make you confident of that."
"Oh?" Ami asked sceptically. "What makes you sure you can stop her when you couldn't last time? Or that you can stop her from doing it when she's out of your sight? What guarantee can you possibly offer me that's better for Kei's safety than utterly destroying the woman who
deliberately risked my sister's life?"
This was the sticking point. What could Hazō actually do? Was there any order he could give Mari that would convince Ami that she would never risk Kei's life again? Was there any order he could give Mari to convince
her? Given that, ethics aside, Mari's actions had been objectively optimal for the goal of saving everyone, could he sincerely tell her to do the wrong thing next time and let him or someone else die, as long as Kei lived? Would she listen? He somehow doubted that clan head orders would override her desire to protect them. She'd brought Orochimaru's anger down on herself for them; she'd risk punishment for disobeying.
"A contract." The idea struck the Dog Summoner out of nowhere.
Ami looked intrigued. "A contract?"
"A contract," Hazō affirmed. "We can promise that if Mari tries to sacrifice Kei again, the consequences will be so terrible that it'll be worse than whatever Mari stands to get out of it. More terrible than letting me die, for example. Since I don't think Mari intends to ever sacrifice Kei, even without a contract, I'm comfortable giving terms you'd feel confident with in return for you not hurting Mari now."
"And what can you offer me?" Ami asked. "What's so awful that it is 100% guaranteed to override Mari's instincts to protect her family at the cost of mine?"
Hazō hesitated. "I don't know yet. Pretty much by definition, I'd have to pledge something big enough that it would be irresponsible to pledge it without consulting with my clan first."
"Mmm," Ami said. "A good example would be a legal precommitment to hand over all Gōketsu assets to the Hyūga in the event that a clan member makes a deliberate choice to endanger Kei's life without her consent, including severe risk to her health, or a deliberate choice to allow such endangerment, as judged by Mori Ami, or, should she be unavailable, by her named representatives."
"That's… extreme," Hazō said slowly.
"Hazō," Ami said with icy patience, "the only guarantee for Mari not to sacrifice Kei to save you is if the consequences for
everyone would be far worse than your death. Now, it's a good suggestion, and I'm open to negotiation, but bear in mind that this time, you're responsible, not just Mari. If she or anyone else sacrifices Kei because you didn't do enough to stop them, I will take everything I have, without exception, and use it to utterly annihilate you, them, and the Gōketsu. It is in your
interest to give the clan compelling motivation never to think of doing it, and based on Mari's actions, fear of me isn't good enough for that.
"You have a week to come up with something, during which I'll be busy laying down contingencies in case you renege."
Hazō shivered at the implacability in her voice. This was definitely not the Ami he'd been optimising with.
"I'll see what I can do."
"Great," Ami said. "That just leaves the issue of how to handle the fact that Mari hurt Kei, even worse this time, after I let her off exclusively because Kei wanted me to. Mercy is cute, but sooner or later, you have to face reality."
"Ami," Hazō said, remembering his briefing, "please remember that, whatever choices were made, everything ended well. I'm safe. Kei's safe, and now she doesn't have to worry about Orochimaru randomly finding out about Snowflake and kidnapping her without us knowing." What had she said? Kei's feelings? "Kei drew a line herself. She did probably the worst thing she could do to Mari."
"All that tells me," Ami said, "is that Kei lacked options. Mari used her as a tool knowing she could die. Never wanting to see her again is a given; it's not punishment. Nor is it prevention of further crimes."
"Kei chose her own way to deal with the situation." Hazō had a sense that he needed to tread lightly. If he got too confrontational, Ami might argue with him, or she might just lose interest and leave to do whatever terrible things she intended to do. "I don't know if she could have hurt Mari worse, but she didn't try. She decided this was what was best. If you ruin that for her, if you decide to take revenge for her when she didn't take revenge for herself, will that be the right thing to do?"
Ami didn't answer straight away.
"Yes," she said, but her voice wasn't quite as rigid. "Kei is too gentle. Too kind. She doesn't value herself as much as she deserves, and she lets people hurt her and get away with it. I've had enough."
"This is the ending Kei wanted," Hazō reiterated. "Don't you think you'll hurt her worse if you change it without her consent, and violate her agency, and then she's stuck living with the consequences?"
"And what about me?!" Ami demanded. "Should I stand by for the rest of my life, watching her get hurt, watching her suffer, and pretending it's OK because she still hasn't learned to fight back? You give big speeches about how the Gōketsu protect their own, but you want me to do nothing while the Heartbreaker does what she does best to my only sister? You nearly ended a clan for being rude to her, but I'm supposed to brush off Mari abusing and destroying her trust?"
Maybe the stress and the accumulated tiredness of the day had left Hazō's brain in a slightly stranger place than its normal strangeness, maybe his mind just happened to be in the right shape at the right time, but something enormous went click in his head at her words, just like that.
"Ami," he asked, "why didn't you do anything about the kids bullying Kei?"
Ami froze. Completely. Perfectly. Silently.
Hazō waited.
"Because she asked me not to," Ami said quietly.
"Why?"
"Because she said she could endure anything as long as I was there to greet her with a smile at the end of the day, but if I became someone who went around hurting people who hurt her… I might not be able to smile like that anymore."
Hazō stood there for a while, soaking that in. He'd found his path to victory.
"Has that really changed?"
"She has other people's smiles to sustain her now," Ami said. Her voice trembled a little. "I'm allowed to protect her for my own sake."
Ah. Hazō's path to victory had turned out to lead him off a cliff, and also well away from helpful-Ami's conversation plan.
"Even at the cost of her agency?" he tried.
"People's agencies come into conflict all the time," Ami said, voice growing stronger. "Doing something she'd disapprove of isn't the same as violating her agency."
Hazō had a sharp, urgent feeling that he was running out of time. He needed something more potent.
"Even if it betrays her trust?"
"I never promised her not to hurt Mari for my own sake." Ami turned around, back towards Leaf.
"Would she want you to?"
"Mari is nobody to her now," Ami said. "She gets no protection."
No. He was doing it wrong. He'd been on the right track with Ami's plan, but now that he was off the map, clinging to it wasn't going to save him.
"Will hurting her make you happy?" he asked.
"Won't know until I try."
Gah.
"Ami, can you—"
"Twenty questions is over, Hazō." She cut him off. "You've lost."
He'd lost. He'd failed to protect Mari after she'd risked everything to protect him. Kei was the only piece of leverage he'd ever had against Ami, and when Ami was unchained from Kei, it turned out Hazō had no backup options.
Now, something disastrous was going to happen. Probably not lethal—that was what the contract was for—but Hazō honestly had no idea what Ami would and wouldn't do to hurt somebody she felt needed hurting. The last two people she decided to hurt were in jail for treason and being hunted as a missing-nin.
He wouldn't give up. There had to be something he could do for the woman who'd put her life in Orochimaru's hands for him. If he couldn't win against Ami...
It wasn't about winning against Ami.
The last time he'd fought to protect someone, he hadn't been able to win against Ami either. That time, he'd been fighting for Kei. And the thing that had saved her, after Hazō's intellect had failed him…
The Gōketsu went pretty damn far. Hazō sank into dogeza. In the snow.
"Ami."
She turned around.
"If you're doing this for yourself, then that means you can stop. Please stop. Mari is precious to us. To me, to Noburi, to Akane, to Kagome… She's like a mother, or a sister, or an aunt, or something else we don't have words for. She is to us what she was to Kei before Kei cut her off. If you hurt her, you'll hurt all of us, deeply. If you kill her, you'll leave a hole in our hearts that won't heal. I'm not asking you for Kei's sake. I'm not asking you for Mari's sake. I'm asking you for ours."
Then, he waited, because Ami didn't respond.
He waited some more, without being able to see her expression because that was how dogeza worked.
An unexpected sensation of touch.
Before he knew it, Ami had pulled him up to his feet.
"Thanks, Hazō," Ami said. "I think Ami must have got a lot out of that."
Then she pushed him, just enough to make him take a couple of steps back, not enough to make him lose his balance.
"But the meta's over now," she added. "So are… other things. Go home, Hazō."
Hazō went home. Ami went in the opposite direction, deeper into the forest.
-o-
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-o-
This update is dedicated to
@faflec, his final, and the success of both.
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