Pre-Chapter A/N: Here we go with another chapter. Here on time! Next four chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Also started a new story (SI into Bill Weasley in the HP Universe) so go check that out. As we do when we have new stories, there's a cheeky little discount until midnight on July 9th (GMT+1). Code: THEFIRSTSON
XXXXX- OROCHIMARU
His Sensei's house was silent as he walked in. Biwako smiled at him as he passed through the door and he did his best to return it as she walked away, leaving him to find his way to the study. The exhibition had been yesterday. He had won. Matched against the Namikaze brat instead of the Uchiha like he had predicted. A disappointing turn of events in the beginning but then he saw her walk up to face the Fumikage with magnet release. But once she had called upon the famed perfect Susano'o, the tool that Madara was said to have used to reshape landscapes with only swings of his blade, he had accepted that there would have been nothing he could have done in the face of that.
Still, he had expected to perform better. Sensei had surely expected him to perform better. He did not need to knock. Sensei's body might not be what it once was, but his chakra sensing was potent as ever. He slid the door to the study open. Sensei sat in the middle of the room in the seiza position. In his hand a brush, and before him a massive canvas. One of his famous landscapes again.
"Welcome, Orochimaru."
"Good day, Sensei," he said, walking forward and taking a seat.
"What did you think of your performance yesterday?" Sensei began, not wasting any time to get to the point.
"I won," he said, but that was all he said.
"Indeed. Young Namikaze proved to be your match, did he not?" Sensei pushed.
"I won," Orochimaru hissed, hands fighting the urge to clench.
"I heard you the first time, Orochimaru. I also watched the match. The display screens were available all over the village. I watched you be held in a back and forth match," he said.
Orochimaru remained silent at that.
"Perhaps Shorirama Senju is a greater sensei than I," Sensei said next.
"No. Never."
"Then he must have been working with better raw materials. Is that the case?"
"No," Orochimaru hissed in a lower tone now. He did not know if he truly believed that. He had to. But he had felt Namikaze's strength. As a teenager, he would have lost to him. What caused that difference? Different starting points or different instruction.
"Hm. Namikaze Minato, Uzumaki Kushina, Uchiha Mikoto. Team Senju. You watched them, no? Saw each of them fight?" Sensei asked. He did this often. Pushed in one direction before abandoning it in favour of another.
"Yes."
"Could you beat all three of them at the same time?" Sensei asked.
"The Uzumaki girl is a Jinchuriki," he practically spat the word out.
"That was not my question," Sensei replied, not even looking up from his painting. He hadn't looked up from his painting since Orochimaru had walked in.
"No," he admitted with no shame. The girl was able to call upon the chakra of the Eight Tails at will. There was no shame to lose to one with borrowed power.
"Shorirama Senju is able to fight all three of them at the same time and win." Before Orochimaru could speak, his sensei continued.
"Without using the chakra of the Kyuubi no Kitsune. My friends in the anbu tell me he does it regularly," Sensei said.
Orochimaru said nothing there. There was no point in voicing his doubts. He had seen what Shorirama Senju was capable of. There were a list of dead Kage in his past, and it was clear that he had not rested on his laurels since then. The man that had killed the Third Raikage and Third Tsuchikage, two men that were considered his Sensei's equal at the height of their powers. That was the man that he was expected to better. And not just slightly.
"My friends are making progress in their search for the Ryuchi cave. The archives have whispers and mentions of it and when we can finally verify the location, you will be expected to make the journey on your own," Sensei said, changing the topic again. Orochimaru nodded. This was not something new to him. So much of Shorirama Senju's strength came from his mastery of sage mode. Only a sage could beat another sage so it only made sense for Orochimaru to seek the same advantage for himself.
That fight against Namikaze only made his need for it even more obvious.
"Until we find it, however, we must return to the basics," Sensei said. Orochimaru nodded again. He had seen this coming.
"Rise. Follow me," Sensei said and they were off.
XXXX- TOSHIRO TAKEHADA
Toshiro Takehada languished in bed. Yesterday had been the match he had been looking forward to for so long.
He was disappointed. There was no other way to put it. He was disappointed and not just that, he felt hard done by. That match. Being paired against Kushina-san. It had been an impossible battle from the very beginning. He had seen what a tailed beast was capable of, and even without using the full power of her beast, there was nothing he could do to take her down. Perhaps a match against someone fully human would have been more fair.
But who would that have been? Uzume? That Susano'o squashed any hope he had of one day catching up to his teammates. The Shinobi world was not a fair one, and that was a reality he had thought he had fully come to terms with. It turned out that he had not. Uraume would have been a closer match, but the Byakugan would deny him all his genjutsu, and she was a better taijutsu user than he was. His kenjutsu would only have fared him so well. That chakra cannon? His only option would have been getting out of the way. And his teammate's other students, Mikoto and Minato, were dangerous in their own ways.
A match against Mikoto though. She hadn't been pushed too far by Fugaku so she definitely had hidden depths to her. But he still felt like in a match like that one, there was more he could do than he had been able to do against Kushina. He could not have performed any worse, that was for sure.
"Are you just going to lie there all day?" The voice came from within his room. How?
He was blurring forwards before fully thinking. He did not have his sword, so he sent his chakra to his hand, shaping it like a knife and body flickering at the chakra source that he just began sensing.
One hand on his wrist, the other on his chest. He froze as he met those white eyes. The byakugan. The face around it came to sharp focus.
"Uraume," he said.
Her well manicured eyebrows lifted and she visibly directed her head downwards.
"Someone's happy to see me," she said.
"Don't flatter yourself. It gets like that every morning," he groused back before disengaging and heading to his chair to pick up the bathrobe he'd tossed on it after his bath last night.
"How'd you get in?" he asked. I took your key away, he added mentally.
"You live in a hotel. Do you think they'd refuse the Anbu commander access to your room?"
"Noted. I'll head somewhere with more discretion then."
"No point. As long as you live within Konoha, you'll have the same problem. Well, unless you choose to go and do the adult thing and get an actual apartment," she said. He scoffed.
"As if." He had a good deal here. Hotels were more expensive, sure. But he could afford it. Say what you would about Shorirama, but the man took good care of his friends. Toshiro had nearly lost consciousness when he checked his bank balance and saw the inflow. Payment for the mission to Rivers, he had called it. As if they all hadn't received an S-rank mission fee for it already. He wanted to give them money, and since he had more of it than god, Toshiro wasn't going to complain.
"What brings you here?" he asked, putting the robe on and contemplating tying it shut. No. If she was going to ignore the concept of boundaries completely, then he would not make things easier for her. He left it to hang open and turned to her. Her raised eyebrow was the only reaction before she pinned her eyes to his face and did not seem to move them. Of course, with the byakugan, it was impossible to truly tell.
"A mission," she said.
"I'm off the active list," he said. And he was busy besides it. The academy won't run itself.
"You're back on. Your display yesterday was only going to end one way. Surely you knew this," she said.
"I didn't get the promotion," he said.
"No, but you reminded Shori of how powerful you are, and we need powerful shinobi," she said.
"I'm uninterested," he said. Shinobi did have the right to refuse missions, after all. Few exercised it, but the right did exist.
"You haven't even heard the details."
"I know how your cousin thinks. If he's tapped me for something, I know I won't enjoy it so what's the point?" he said. She sighed before stepping closer to him. Her eyes seemed to burn from this close.
"You want the promotion? Want this vest? Well, you have to earn it. Succeed in this mission and there will be one waiting for you afterwards."
Now that. That caught his interest.
"What does he want?"
A puff of smoke and a flick of her wrist had him catching a brown envelope. It was thin. Opening it and taking out the first sheet of paper, he was met with a face. A child's face.
"Yagura Karatachi," he read out the name.
"Kiri captured the three tails and made a jinchuriki," she said. A jinchuriki, he tossed the word over in his head. Just like Kushina Uzumaki and Shorirama. Well, more like Kushina. No one was like Shorirama. But younger. The boy could not be in his teens yet. A child by every definition of the word, but that did not matter in this world of theirs. The rank next to his name was Genin. He wore no headband, but Konoha intelligence did not oft get things wrong. A combination of the woman across from him and whatever it was that Shiba was actually doing for Shori made certain of that.
"And what does our Hokage want done? He wants me to find this kid and put him to the sword?" Toshiro joked. Uraume did not laugh though. In fact, she was still. Too still.
"No," he said, dropping the folder, surprised that she would dare.
"Death or capture. If you are unable to capture him then you must kill him," she said.
"No. He's a child."
"He's a shinobi. This world of ours does not give us the luxury of mercy. Kiri needs to be destabilised. Your mission achieves that," she said.
"He's a child. What does he do to contribute to Kiri's stability?" he shot back.
"His sensei, Suiren Hozuki, is the heir to the Hozuki clan and wielder of the executioner's blade. Kill him and bring the blade back with you as well," she said.
"This makes no sense. We're Konoha. We don't do things like this. We don't kill children," he said.
"We are shinobi. We do whatever is required. Rest assured that Shori, Shika, and I are in full agreement on this. The boy must die. Konoha's interests command it," she said.
"I can refuse the mission," he said, but the words rang hollow.
"This is a full-fledged shinobi. He has killed chunin-level shinobi before according to our intelligence. He is nothing like that boy," she said.
"You have no right to bring that up," he scowled, turning away from her and tying up the robe. She didn't deserve the view.
"I do. You have allowed yourself to be weighed down by that for so long. But that boy was a civilian. This one is a shinobi. They could not be farther away from each other. You made a mistake. That boy had presented no real danger to you, but he startled you and you had no control of what happened afterwards. In this case, this one will kill you if you let your guard down."
"I'd rather die than kill an innocent. What is there to live for with that kind of blood on my hands?" he asked. Her nostrils flared. She wasn't pleased with that response.
"He has killed before. There is no innocence behind those eyes for you to value or protect. This boy is a threat to Konoha. He will be a greater one if allowed to grow. Either you kill him or in a few years, he will kill many of our comrades. You must choose the blood that you are comfortable living with on your hands. But rest assured, there will be blood there no matter what," she said, and turned around to leave.
"You're a bitch, you know that, right?" he asked humourlessly.
"I am a shinobi of Konoha. You must be the same. You are expected at the Hokage's office in two hours to receive the formal assignment with the rest of your team," she said, and then she was gone.
XXXXX- SHORIRAMA SENJU
I couldn't help but smile at them. My students. My team. The ones I had raised from being children to becoming some of the most dangerous shinobi in the world. Hiruzen had sent his students into the Land of Rain in canon and that was where their legend had been built. I was aiming to do the same here. But it would not be defeat that my students gained their legend from. It would be victory. It would come from taking a stalemated war by the horns and making it their own. They would succeed. There was no other option.
"How are you?" I asked, addressing their knelt forms.
"Sensei?" Minato asked, confused.
"You may rise. I want to talk to the three of you first. I have a mission for you but it has been too long since we spoke, Sensei to Students," I said.
"You are the Hokage," Mikoto pointed out.
"And I am your Sensei as well. I decided to take you on as my team when I knew fully well that I would be the Hokage moving forward. It didn't dissuade me for one bit because I felt I could fulfil both roles satisfactorily. Have I failed in that?" I asked.
"No. Of course not. Mikoto is just trying to say that it is understandable that we have not spoken as much this month. Your clones have been available for all our needs as well so you haven't left us adrift," Minato said.
"You do more for us than most Sensei do for their students after they stop being genin, Shori-nii," she said.
"Good. Because I will ask more of you than most Sensei ask of their students. I apologise. I never gave any of you a choice in this. In many ways your fates were sealed the second I decided to take you on as my students," I said.
"Wouldn't have it any other way," Minato said.
"Are you okay, Shori-nii?" Kushina asked. Such a sweetheart.
"Yes, yes. It's just hitting me now how much all of you have grown. And yet I will need you to grow more," I said. Their faces were all displaying confusion.
"War, kids. I will be sending you to war. The situation in Ame has stalled. The three of you will be going in as a unit and will be expected to break the deadlock there," I said.
"There's a situation in Ame?" Kushina asked with more shock than expected. I just quirked a brow. Surely she had been reading the reports. I gave them all such high levels of clearance for a reason.
"Our alliance with Yaga the Beheader and our efforts to secure Ame for him," I reminded her.
"Who's that?" she asked. Never mind.
I just turned to Minato and gave him a nod. Better to have him do the explaining.
"He's one of the Warlords contesting for control of Amegakure after we took out Hanzo the Salamander. Konoha has reached an agreement with him to help him defeat the other warlords and take over the nation in exchange for him ceding sovereignty to the Hokage after he does so," he said. Good. That was most of the story and anything else would be told to her during transit.
"Got that?" I asked.
She looked like she wanted to ask a question or for more information but seemed to think better of it and just nodded instead.
"So the three of you will face off against an alliance of the other warlords. Expect to also meet resistance in the form of an unknown third party who has managed to bring the both of them together. Present suspicions are that it is Kumogakure making the intervention but the identity of the third party matters little. Break the deadlock. Kill the warlords. Annihilate whatever glue is keeping the alliance together. Secure Ame for Konoha. That is your mission. Understood?" I asked.
I received brief nods from all three of them.
"Minato is in charge for this one. Dismissed," I said, feeling a burst of chakra from the door. It was time for my next appointment. I would have to leave getting time to catch up with my students for after they returned.
All three of them nodded in unison before filing out of the door. Kushina sprang up and gave me a hug before she did so and I enjoyed the brief moment of contact.
"Stay safe," I whispered, receiving another nod pressed against my chest in return.
"You too," she said back and then left.
I tapped a seal directing Retsu to send the next group in.
This one came in dressed in the green that marked them as regular jounin and not the grey that the newly promoted Special Jounin donned. There were also five of them rather than three as with my team.
Fugaku Uchiha, Toshiro Takehada, Isagi Akimichi, Kageru Fumikage, and Takeshi Uzumaki.
A/N: Here we go with another one in. Time for the next arc to begin. Two missions to monitor: Team Shori in Ame, and Team Toshiro in Kiri. As well as some interesting things in Konoha herself. 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. Don't forget to check out the new story or redeem the discount before thursday.