Pre-Chapter A/N:Another chapter on time? Guess my lock-in is going pretty well. If you haven't already, I recommend turning on notifications for my stuff so you can see when new stuff drops right as it drops. Next four chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
XXXXX- SHORIRAMA SENJU
"You said you had something for me," I said as I walked into the secret chamber that marked the entrance to one of the most secretive areas in the entire village. The walls were lined with anti-byakugan seals to block the wandering eyes of my mother's clan from peering into what lay beneath their feet. The complex lay underneath the sewers. No Inuzuka nose could tell either apart from the other, and on the walls and doors lay seals that would kill any insect that came within. The only ones who could ever intuit the secrets that lay here were the Yamanaka, and that would only be from plucking the knowledge straight out of my head— or Kagame's. All the others who worked here had had their lives on the top-side ended. They would know only this complex for the rest of their days.
"Come, Rin. Come show the Hokage what you can do," she called, turning to one of the children that milled about the entrance hall.
I looked down at her, recognising her origins near instantly. She was one of the orphans who survived the Hanzo treatment. We had their DNA— as much of it as we could— replaced by the Salamander's in a risky procedure that had wrought more deaths than successes.
The girl was shy, but with some coaxing from Kagame— who knew the Nara woman could ever be so gentle— she eventually spread her hands in front of me. With a flex of will, the world dulled into a monochrome reality. The only colour this world accepted was the blue of chakra.
And I watched hers as it flowed from her core and transformed. Water and wind. And together— ice.
Mist flowed from her hands, hardening to form a thin tendril of ice that she shaped into a misshapen blob. Was that supposed to be a flower?
"A rose," she said, looking up at me, and handing it over.
"A rose indeed. Thank you, Rin," I said, accepting the ice sculpture that could indeed be mistaken for a rose by a blind man in the dead of night with no sense of touch.
She nodded, and then raced away again.
"Ice release?" I whispered. That hadn't been expected. Not even in the slightest.
"Beyond the pale. My theory is that the girl had a natural wind release affinity and then when added with Hanzo's strong water affinity, you know the rest," she said.
"Run whatever tests you need. Figure out what happened and how we can replicate it. You have a year before she turns five, yes?" I asked.
"Yes."
"She will be seeded into the academy by then. Be done with your tests before then," I ordered. She nodded, turning to leave.
"Kagame?" I called after her.
"Yes, brat?" she said, turning back.
"Good job," I said.
"Of course it is. I'm me," she said with a smirk that made the wrinkles on her face ever more pronounced. She hid the limps, the small hesitations she had with each step she took, the aches that prevented her from moving overmuch on certain days, but those were not the only signs of age. I would lose her soon, I knew that. But was I ready to replace her? Could I even replace her?
XXXXXX- THE THIEF
The Temple of the Land of Earth burned before his eyes. He never even made it inside before the Butcher's instruments struck. Where in Lightning they had used stealth to infiltrate, here the Uchiha woman had walked in like she owned the place. He could hear the murmurs even from the line at the gate as she demanded the bell.
And he could see the shift in her expression as she was refused. The Monks came in their dozens. She cut them down. It must have been a scene straight out of the Battle of Iwa. A butcher had come to the Land of Earth once more, but where the original had killed with such beauty and grace that the few survivors had likened it to a dance where each partner of his died in beats, this one was a more savage, primal beauty. Where the Butcher was finesse, this woman was pure overwhelming power.
Her punches crunched through guards and into the bodies of the men she aimed at. Her fire release burned people in their dozens, and all the while her red eyes spun, daring all who would dare to look into them. The civilians that had formed the line had fled in their numbers, forgetting whatever solace they sought at the temple once the signs of the incoming conflict became undeniable.
Perhaps it said something about him that he did not flee with them. His meisaigakure no jutsu was the best in the world, and with the addition of the old man's enhancements, he knew that it would hide him even from those eyes. Those damn sharingan. He excused his curiosity on the ground that if he got an opportunity, he would steal the bell for himself.
Of course, he had spotted the shadows out of the corner of his eyes as the woman had made her move. A classic tactic. One person to draw all the attention from the outside while others went on within to commit the theft. It was the kind of thing he had used when he was younger. Much, much younger. Back before he learned that the only value that existed in this world was what you could take for yourself. Things like camaraderie and partnership belonged only in one place: the mouths of men too weak to go at it alone.
There was a hush as the head Abbot approached. He was a thin wisp of a man. He looked like a strong wind could and would blow him away any second now. But the Monks still parted to give him space. They still gave him obeisance. The Head Abbots are as strong as Kage, he remembered. And this one was treated as one.
The Uchiha stopped her slaughter, allowing those closest to her to dart backwards. She watched the approaching Monk like a bird of prey would watch a worm as it crawled from the ground.
"So you are the leader of this lot," she said with a sniff. Her high cheekbones and sharp nose should have made her an attractive woman by any metric. But that expression of disdain upon her face seemed to have been painted on. It never slipped.
"Begone from this place, Shinobi," the Monk said.
"Make me, boy," she said before suddenly tilting her head backwards. The monk's fingers just barely missed where they would have plucked one of the eyes from her skull. So fast, he thought to himself, while the Uchiha did not seem surprised in the slightest.
She twisted and tried to stab him through with a kunai. He weaved around the attack, leg coming around from behind her to smash into her skull. She followed through with the motion, bending to allow his kick to hit nothing but air.
He planted his feet back on the ground and jumped backwards as she restraightened herself.
"You have taken the bell," he said.
She just smirked.
"Tell Shorirama Senju that he plays with things beyond his ken. Tell him that the temples will not stand by as he wakes things best left asleep," he said.
"Oh, are you going to be the one to stop us then?" she asked.
"Uzume Uchiha would be too much for me on even the best of days. On one where she is assisted by Mikoto Uchiha and Minato Namikaze, I would stand no chance," the man said and then just turned around.
"You're not even going to try to get your bell back?" she asked.
"Will you give it back to me?" he asked without turning around.
"No."
"Exactly. So there is no point," he said, continuing his retreat. He directed the other Monks to begin to gather the bodies of the dead and dying as they left the Uchiha woman unmolested. Watching from the side, the thief could not help but wonder if she would choose to attack instead.
Uzume Uchiha was well known for her lack of patience and brutality. Where the Butcher of Iwa was cruel and cold, his loyal red-eyed shadow was passionate and insane. Her fury was the stuff of legend. But she showed none of it as she just turned to leave. From the shadows appeared the two others she had come with. The Butcher's students.
The blonde had the bell held in his grip. The bell of a million truths gleamed silver and was the size of a full-grown man.
"Put that thing in a storage seal. You look stupid lugging it about," the Uchiha said.
"Won't go into a seal. Doesn't even register," the blonde replied.
XXXXX- SHORIRAMA SENJU
"Where's Uzume? Thought she'd want to be around for something like this?" Shika asked as we sat down in her office at the centre of the military district.
"Land of Earth," I said with a shrug.
"What?"
"She left the village with Mikoto and Minato a week ago. Thought she was being clever about it and everything," I said with a shrug.
"The Anbu spotted her?" Shika asked, turning her head to Uraume who shook hers.
"Minato wrote to me. He's my student, after all. So let's just say they're on sanctioned leave without pay for the time being. Besides, she doesn't much care for this kind of stuff," I said.
"Fair enough. But if she feels left out, it's on you," Shika said.
"Leave my wife to me," I shrugged. Then I waved them on to begin the planning.
"The efforts in Kusagakure have been successful for the most part. The New Stone is crushed and routed in full. There are no remaining organised holdouts and we are interrogating those we captured now. Ame is ripe for the taking. The chaos we planted after removing Hanzo has metastasised to the point where there are now three warlords who each claim dominance over the territory," Shika explained.
"And the Daimyo? No claimants there?" I asked. Hanzo had killed the last man who had claimed to be the Daimyo of the Land of Rain, and while he lived, none of the man's children or siblings had dared claim the title.
"The last man to dare was found strung up by his testicles. Needless to say, if there are any with the old Daimyo's blood in their veins, they have the good sense to not raise too much of a stink about it," she said. Good. The Daimyos were an annoying lot at the best of times, and could be problematic barriers to getting things done at the worst. The Fire Daimyo had come along to my plan because it entailed me putting him above his fellows when the time came. I wondered if he knew that I would put him down as well when his use wore out. Perhaps he suspected it. It wasn't like Shinobi were well known for being a trustworthy and reliable sort, after all.
"We know all this already. What is the plan?" Shiba asked with a look that I struggled to place the meaning of. Even on the best of days, it was near impossible to tell what he was thinking.
"Pardon me for giving reminders to our Kage who definitely reads all the reports we send him," she said. I just nodded, completely unashamed. I had assigned a clone to do it but then the clone for the last week of reports was yet to pop and give me all that information so there wasn't really anything I could do about it.
"We have two options. We can either support one of the claimants to the position on the condition that they submit Ame to Konoha upon victory or we could come in and sweep through the country, conquering it and removing all claimants," she said.
"What is your preference?" I asked.
"The first. It avoids the risk of all three claimants uniting against us and opposing us from the beginning. It also saves manpower and resources that could be deployed in other ways," she said.
"When an alliance is made between shinobi, the first to betray the other is the one who wins. Are we going to betray them first?" Shiba asked.
"No. I propose an honest partnership, albeit not one of equals, but one grounded and based in mutual respect and understanding rather than in deceit," she said.
"So they will betray us first then. Noted," he accepted with a nod. I just chuckled.
"I assume you have found someone who would be unlikely to betray us," I said, turning to her. She herself ended up turning to Uraume who took up the mantle to speak.
"The three claimants to the position of head of Ame— Amekage as it is called in those parts— are Hakari the Bloodborne, Yaga the Beheader, and Gakuganji the Noble," she said.
"I assume we'll be partnering with the noble one." She just chuckled again.
"Gakuganji the Noble is a veteran of two wars. He fought under Hanzo for a time, and now solidifies his claim by removing the tongues of any who claim otherwise. He gained the epithet the Noble by killing all who would call him otherwise. The other two can be reasoned with. This man is insane and I fear has no intent to actually rule Ame. He only enjoys the killing," she said. So not him then.
"Hakari the Bloodborne is rumoured to be the daughter of Hanzo himself. There is no evidence either way, and it is not something she has expressly claimed either. But then she has not tried all that hard to suppress the rumours either." Shika just scoffed. Because of course she was.
"The Bloodborne has a penchant for killing her enemies with poisons that cause their blood to boil or freeze, or even sometimes to begin to turn acidic while in their bodies." I whistled at that. It sure did sound impressive at the very least.
"Don't get hard thinking about it," Shika scoffed.
"So I take it we will not be allying with the middle option. Neither the poisoner nor tongue plucker will be getting anything from us," I said.
"Yaga is the fairest of the lot. He gets his epithet from his refusal to have any other handle his executions than himself, and he shortened a hundred men by a head for going too far in the aftermath of a battle where they had gone too far," she said.
"Tell me more about him," I asked, intrigued.
"He is a former samurai. Learned in the Land of Iron from all indications, but we cannot tell how he made it to Rain in that case. Iron is quite protective of their talents. And he is definitely one such talent. Our best sources place him at definitely the level of an S-rank shinobi," Uraume said. Oh how interesting. While there were some similarities between Samurai and Shinobi in that we both used chakra and trained recruits from a young age to become deadly killers, that was where the similarities ended. Shockingly enough, most samurai were stronger than most shinobi. The average one was as strong as a strong chunin when it came to straight combat. But that was where their advantage ended. While the shinobi strength graph kept going up, most Samurai just weren't capable of reaching that level.
S-rank shinobi, while not plentiful by any means, were not all that rare. At present, Konoha had four within her walls: me, Uzume, Kushina, and Orochimaru. Minato and Uraume were strong A-ranks who, while lacking the cataclysmic strength that defined the S-rank, probably stood a very good chance of killing one in the right circumstances. I could only think of a single Samurai who could lay claim to such an honour. To think there was another in the Land of Rain.
"How does he fight? Just like a samurai?"
"As far as we can tell, he has taken chakra reinforcement to a level where most opponents are just patently unable to keep up with his speed and strength," she said. I nodded. Interesting.
"And if we back him, what would that entail?" I asked.
"We would have to negotiate of course. Start by offering the lowest level of support with the highest level of reward on our part. He'll counter. And then we will end up somewhere in the middle. Resources— medicine, food, weapons, and shinobi tools that his men do not have access to. If he is as shrewd a negotiator as he is a warrior, he might be able to get us to commit a small detachment of troops to his war effort. Thirty Jounin would be a force capable of running complex operations within Rain and hobbling the capabilities of the other claimants," Shika took over from there.
"Okay, that sounds good. Reach out to him. The most we will be willing to offer is resources and fifteen Jounin. Do not budge on the expectation of total fealty to the Leaf. If he refuses, I'll take his head and then the heads of the other two. We leave Rain to fall into more chaos and then we swoop in in a year. The people would welcome us with open hands," I said, making my decision. I couldn't afford to lose even more Jounin after the losses we'd incurred to the Anbu in the taking of the New Stone.
"Next, how are things progressing in Rivers? The return of the water should have alleviated some of the pain, yes?" I asked.
"The fish died en masse with the drying of the rivers. While the rivers flow again, the population is still heavily shrunk. The villagers will fish their waters empty in a matter of months if we stop aid," Shika said, giving me a look that said she thought there was only one good answer I could give in this situation.
"Continue to render aid. Now on to Frost?" I asked, continuing the meeting as we laid the groundwork for Konoha's eventual world domination.
A/N: And that's the chappy, boys and girls.. Next four chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.