Chapter Text
Acceleration
[Konohagakure-no-Sato, 1221-Chūō, December 5th, Year 62 of the Shinchu-Jidai]
Shimura Danzō briskly walked through the Hokage Tower, only limited in speed by his façade of being old and infirm. He had only received the news a few minutes ago and had his messenger sent away to receive twenty-five lashes once they finished reporting.
Hiruzen was making alterations to the Chūnin exams, and neither he nor the council were consulted.
Danzō finally made it to the small lounge Hiruzen was taking his lunch in and walked in without knocking.
“Hiruzen.”
Sarutobi Hiruzen was taking a sip of tea when Danzō stormed in, but waved him in and nodded in acknowledgement as he put down his tea.
“Danzō, my old friend, how are you doing today?”
Danzō scowled.
“Don’t give me that Hiruzen, what are you doing to the Chūnin exams?”
Hiruzen smiled.
“Ah, the rumors have spread then. Unfortunate. As for what I’m doing, nothing so dramatic as ‘changing’ them. I was actually thinking about expanding the finals.”
Danzō sat down.
“Expanding them?”
Hiruzen nodded.
“As it stood, the Final Round of the exams were going to be a single elimination tournament with maybe nine or ten fights, likely over before a little in the afternoon. While this was fine before, I felt we could make the event larger.”
“Larger?”
Hiruzen nodded again.
“The coming graduating class is a little heavier on exceptional talent than in a few years past. I would not put it past their Jōnin Senseis to nominate them after only a few months. They potentially would not be serious bids, but we could see some unexpected development, especially with regards to Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto.”
Danzō sneered.
“Putting a lot of faith in that Hatake brat to teach them then? Despite his lack of experience?”
Hiruzen nodded.
“Like I said, I don’t expect spectacular results, but at least some competition to show Konoha’s might to those in attendance.”
Danzō was quiet for a moment, but the old man gave a grin at the prospect.
“This is not that bad of an idea. How large were you planning on expanding the finals?”
“I was thinking about doubling the finals in size; fifteen fights in total. We would open with eight fights running between the late morning and noon. The quarter finals would pick up after that, followed by the semi-finals and a dramatic final fight. Not only would this keep the visitors and contestants in the villagers longer, but we could rake in double the revenue on the betting on the fights.”
“I see. Well, excuse me for my haste in accusing you Hiruzen. This sounds like a splendid decision on your part. I will inform Koharu and Homura about the suggested alterations. To get ahead of the rumors of course.”
“Of course. Have a good day, old friend.”
Danzō stood up from the table and walked out of the room, taking the new information into account. While everything Hiruzen said was true, it would also not develop entirely in his favor.
When everything went as planned, Hiruzen would not live past the Chūnin exams and Danzō will take his rightful place as the Godaime. Orochimaru will attack the village with the support of a foreign threat, and while Hiruzen will die in a blaze of dramatic irony, Danzō will have culled an enemy village, avenged his ‘old friend’ by eliminating his greatest mistake, and righting the village’s path to maintaining its hegemony.
Of course, the greatest variance in this upcoming plan was the Snake Sannin. Danzō’s methods of coercion were not as... refined, as they were now, and so the level of control Danzō could manage over Orochimaru was more tantamount to bribes, psychological as well as material. Kinoe and the development of Danzō’s form of Jūinjutsu had so far been the only benefits of Orochimaru’s recruitment to Konoha, and his continued existence was only becoming more costly.
It had taken years to reach this point, and Danzō was almost as excited as when he first became a shinobi under Senju Tobirama. He may have failed to answer the call in his naïve youth, allowing Hiruzen to take the hat. He would not fail here.
He had everything to gain now, and that fire illuminated his darkness as well as the niceties and lies Hiruzen deluded himself with.
[Amegakure-no-Sato, 1547-Seiyō, January 4th, Year 63 of the Shinchu-Jidai]
Standing at the threshold atop the tallest tower in Amegakure was a blue-haired woman pensive in thought. Only minutes ago, one of her clones retrieved the mail for her organization. Held tightly in her hands was an invitation to a hosted Chūnin Exams in Konoha.
While the news itself was not unusual, Ame receiving and ignoring many over the last several years, this year’s invitation brought her pause. For the first time since the Akatsuki took over Ame and finally took their revenge on Hanzō three years ago, the letter was not addressed to him.
Pein did not announce the change in leadership to the world, and Ame did not open up after they took over for the protection of their own people, so no one should have known Hanzō was dead. Should have, being the operating word.
Either there was a spy in their midst or someone was leaking information.
Spies were a nuisance, especially with something as sensitive as the framework and plans of the Akatsuki. On the other hand... It was entirely possible this was a ploy by Madara. The man’s appearance had been an omen all those years ago, and Konan remained wary of when he would show up and what he would order. While the Akatsuki was by all understandings a means to an end for peace, Konan would always be wary of the man behind the orange mask.
The door opened followed by heavy footfalls. Konan did not turn around, but could assume it was her best friend, traipsing around in her other best friend’s body.
“Konan.”
With a sigh, Konan turned to look at the Deva Path.
“We should talk in private. I will come to you.”
In a whirling wisp of paper, Konan’s body tore apart in small sheets of paper, spreading out across the room before disappearing from view entirely. The Deva Path, unflinching and stoic, simply took position where Konan once stood, watching over the city.
In the lower reaches of the tower, sheets of paper once again coalesced into the form of Konan. On the opposite end of the room, harnessed into an otherworldly mechanical device, was an emaciated red-haired young man with ringed purple eyes.
“Nagato.”
“Konan, why did you need to speak here? Is something so urgent?”
Konan fidgeted little when she crossed the room to come closer to her best friend.
“We received a letter from Konoha for this year’s Invitational Chūnin Exams. It was not addressed to Hanzō.”
Eyebrow raised, the maroon-haired man tilted his head appraisingly.
“Are you worried about a spy?”
“Potentially, but I was more worried about potential leaks or other machinations.”
Nagato was silent for a moment.
“I doubt Madara did this.”
Konan was about to retort but stopped as Nagato looked back at her.
“It would not do to assume we have been discovered so quickly, and I doubt there has been a spy talented enough to breach Ame. It is far more likely Konoha is assuming Hanzō has died or is trying to rile him up by not addressing him. Or perhaps Hidan has been as... indiscreet as usual.”
Nagato pulled one of his arms from his machine and shakily extended it towards Konan. Konan reluctantly held out the letter and let the man take it from her. Nagato read silently for a few minutes before looking back at Konan.
“Sasori reported a while ago that there was reason to believe Sunagakure and Konohagakure were plotting to trap Orochimaru at the coming Chūnin Exams. I believe this would be an excellent opportunity to handle multiple matters at once.”
Konan eyes opened a little in confusion.
“What do you mean, Nagato?”
A rare smile crossed Nagato’s face.
“Konoha is suspicious that Ame has remained guarded as long as it has. Suspicious enough to believe Hanzō might be gone. That dead tyrant would not stand to be believed dead or weak, so he would send genin to compete, if only a few of them.”
“We will take the opportunity to infiltrate Konoha as part of the exams and identify their Jinchūriki, as well as handle the traitor Orochimaru. If Ame conducts itself well enough, Konoha won’t even suspect that we will strike and take the Jinchūriki later.”
Konan nodded. The logic was sound, and the opportunity was too good to pass up.
“Are we leaving it to the village or were you planning on sending one of the pairs to handle the higher order matters?”
Nagato sat in thought for a moment.
“This plan hinges on the success of our genin to get into the finals, since Orochimaru will likely strike then as opposed to earlier in the Exams. He will also likely be going after leadership rather than causing general chaos, so we would need someone there prepared to deal with him the moment he decided to attack.”
“One of the Akatsuki will need to stand in as the leader of Ame, a task only you and I are suitable for.”
Konan looked at Nagato wide-eyed.
“You can’t honestly reveal yourself now!”
“I wasn’t planning to. I would like you to go in my stead and represent the village.”
Konan balked.
“But... why me? I promised to be by your side after... after everything that happened.”
Nagato nodded.
“You are the only person I can trust for this assignment. The fact that Hanzō is dead will come out, but we can control the narrative of who leads the village. Zetsu, Kisame, and I would be too inconspicuous. Sasori, Itachi, Deidara, and Kakuzu are too infamous to not be attacked on sight.”
Making a wide-eyed and shocked face, Nagato continued.
“Hidan is utterly incapable of representing the village or causing chaos.”
Konan could barely suppress her giggle at Nagato’s incredulous face.
“Only you, Konan, have the ability to blend in and bring the power to handle the traitor when the time comes. It will also do you some good to work a little more with our genin.”
Confused, Konan looked up at Nagato.
“What do you mean?”
“I want you to train the genin teams that go to this exam. Along with their senseis of course. I... have made myself unapproachable, these last few years. You can bridge the gap of the next generation. I have faith in you.”
Konan was reluctant, and didn’t want to agree, but the small smile and the look in Nagato’s Rinnegan were insurmountable.
“It will be done.”
Mercenary Work Ethic
[Sunagakure-no-Sato, 1723-Seiyō, February 1st, Year 63 of the Shinchu-Jidai]
“Seiko! Dinner is ready!”
“Give me a second, Kā-san!”
Sitting at a workbench in her room, Nakahara Seiko was slowly adjusting the tension on a set of roller bearings mounted to a glass column wrapped in seal-script. The whole assembly was roughly twenty-three by seventy-six centimeters already, and it would only get wider once she got a large enough roll of seal cloth to go around the central apparatus.
The girl was working on something spectacular; a combination sealing scroll, ink reservoir, and mechanical scroll roller. The inspiration came to her after the last two years of her genin-hood, utilizing and editing her sealing hand-rolls, as well as taking an interest in utilizing larger scrolls, like Jiraiya or Naruto.
So far, she was almost finished with the main internal mechanisms that would hold the ink and the balanced outer-roll that would distribute the weight of the larger cloth around the glass rather than on it. Reinforcing seals, as well as temperature control and preservation of stored fluids, were also present all over the glass, but Seiko wanted to be as careful as possible in building this thing to be strong.
The actual reservoir was open on both ends, where Seiko would install Chakra-activated taps to release ink coded to a particular pair of personal single-handed Mudra. This way, instead of having to unravel the larger scroll, she could just pull the ink with her Suiton, encode it with chakra for a particular stretch of the scroll (such as a particular slot where a puppet was sealed) and throw the summoning matrix away and presto! Seiko could summon any of her puppets without having to either have the handrolls already in hand or reach into her clothes to grab the one she was looking for.
[Yume on point!]
{What, now?!}
With her immediate work finished, Seiko stood up and flashed through her still shaky single-handed Mudra.
Ne / Uma.
I / Mi.
Mi / Inu.
Tori / Saru.
Ne / Mi.
Ushi / Tatsu.
Mi / U.
Ne / Ushi.
Tatsu / Mi.
Mi / Hitsuji.
[Kuchiyose: Tasogare no Kagami, Kūkyo no Aika!]
Seiko walked towards her door as her near-twin sister materialized where she was once standing.
“I gotta go eat dinner before Mom has a cow, so if you could work on the scroll some more, that would be awesome.”
Rolling her eyes, Yume sat down at the workstation.
“Yeah, yeah. Bring me something to drink and some food if there is still some left.”
With Seiko gone to join her parents for dinner, Yume looked over the reservoir mount and noting that it was finished, reached to the side of the workbench and picked up the pieces for the outer assembly. Six curved panels of wood about three centimeters thick would be dovetailed together into a cylinder to run on the bearings attached to the internal mount.
On each end of the roll were the mounting brackets for the outer cylinder, hexagonal in shape and mounted with spring-locks and a torsion spring that would automatically roll back the scroll when they did not need to work on anything inside of it anymore. There was a guide arm that would be attached to one or both sides of the whole assembly once finished to make sure the scroll was tensioned and rolled up correctly, but other than that the work was almost finished and ready for testing with the team.
But, this was all more Seiko’s thing.
Yume stood up once she was finished looking over Seiko’s nearly finished mechanical scroll and walked over to their wardrobe. She had started clamoring for a change to their usual uniform a few months ago. Not that the Garo ensemble was bad, but it did obscure their senses being fully covered all the time, which would be a disaster if there was any shinobi more subtle than any they had already encountered.
The baseline was to be something closer to what they had already been wearing before graduation; a black sleeveless halter-neck with stone-grey shorts. Underneath the halter-neck would be a mesh-armor undershirt that went all the way down to the wrists. Above the torso, replacing their larger Garo poncho, was a beige off-the-shoulder petticoat that wrapped over to the right and zipped together to stay closed.
Ironically enough, Seiko ran into Temari at one of the tailors’ looking at a lavender one just like it and it took the combination of Yume and Temari arguing with Seiko to get the girl to settle with the beige one.
Rather than staying bare legged in their shorts, Yume felt it would be prudent to get mesh armor leggings as well, cut off at the ankles with stirrups to keep them in place while moving. Moving on from her original pair of shinobi sandals, Yume convinced Seiko to buy the boot variants for their next pair. The boots were black and reached up to midcalf, making sure every part of the outfit was snug, but still highly mobile.
The final issue was dealing with their Hitai-ate. Seiko had worn it as a belt for the longest time, since wearing it over her forehead would get complicated with masks. Carving Suna’s symbol into her masks was a no-brainer, so Yume felt tying the Hitai-ate around their arm or thigh would probably be easy enough. This left their neck and collar to be covered by their old shemagh, which would double as easy protection against the elements, aerosols, and fluids in the event Seiko or Yume lost a mask in combat.
Yume was brought out of her outfit setup with Seiko marching back into the room, a tall glass of fruit juice in one hand and a plate of bread and hummus with the other.
“Got your food Imōto. Let’s get this finished so we will be ready for tomorrow.”
Out on a dusty flat in the afternoon sun stood two teenage boys across from one another, bodies rigid, yet relaxed, ready to launch at one another.
The boy closest to the passing road, Koizumi Akio, had grown a little taller and filled out in the last year, only switching out his green sweatshirt for a patterned square poncho that went down to his waist, keeping his arms unencumbered to access his Nagamaki strapped on a harness strapped underneath. The rest of his outfit consisted of armor-mesh leggings and full sleeved undershirt with baggy black shorts, ending with black shinobi sandals.
Akio had just turned sixteen back in December and was beginning to feel the pressure of finding a girlfriend to help take care of his younger sister, Katsumi. The girl was soon to start her third grade at the shinobi academy soon and while Akio was generally less broody than he used to be, he was still deathly serious when it came to his younger sister.
Opposite of Akio, with his back to the trees, was the imposing form of Yamagishi Kentarō. The boy was tall, dark, and well-built from his constant Taijutsu exercises, tight blue shirt doing little to obscure the soon-to-be-sixteen-year old’s musculature. The boy had switched to bundled slate grey pants that were tied off with cloth at the calfs before giving way to his black shinobi sandals. He left his Hitai-ate, ghutrah, yumi, and beige cloak in the shade of a nearby tree, since they were less useful in this kind of spar, despite being part of his typical uniform.
In that same shade stood Seiko and an older woman, the group’s sensei. Yūtori Junko still maintained her traditional risqué outfit of near-transparent mesh-weave bloomers, thin shinobi pumps, and a crossed red halter top over her mesh armor undershirt that did nothing to hide her bright red and white sleeve tattoos. Her antics and tendency to speak in innuendo had done wonders to desensitize the whole team towards the more provocative aspects of their puberty. Seiko, the youngest of the team at almost fourteen, was leaning against the one of the trees in her new outfit, bi-colored strands of hair framing her Keeta mask’s skeletal appearance.
Clearing her throat, Junko called out to the teenagers ready to spar.
“Alright, boys, you know the rules. Be careful with your hits and nothing too lethal, or else I will batter the two of you with my Gumbai.”
Both boys looked at her and nodded.
“Hai, Junko-Sensei.
“Alright, let’s see it! Hajime!”
In a flash, the two teenagers launched themselves at one another, Akio jumping up and flying down with a leading kick while Kentarō ran forward, arms ready to grab at the other boy’s exposed legs. Akio Kawarimi’d with a leaf off to the side, quickly flanking the taller boy as Kentarō spun, feet planted on the ground and kicking up dust. Before Akio could close the distance, blinding light passed through the cloud of dust.
“Raiton: Denkō Noroshi!”
Akio dropped to the ground as the bolt whizzed by his head and into a nearby wall. Junko rolled her eyes.
“Oi, Kentarō, keep it down with blind-firing Ninjutsu in village.”
“Sorry, Junko-Sensei!”
Momentarily distracted, Kentarō turned back to find Akio within his guard, Nagamaki drawn and positioned about ten centimeters from his neck. Akio smirked as he took in Kentarō’s crestfallen face.
“I think I win this one.”
Kentarō closed his eyes and broke a wide smile.
“Man, you' lucky I got yelled at. I was about to be on you like a half-starved Hyena. Good moving on the speed though, I wasn’t expecting you to be up that fast.”
The two formed their respective seals of reconciliation as Junko turned to Seiko.
“Ready for a spar, mask girl?”
Nodding, Seiko pushed herself off of the tree and walked into the field. Kentarō nodded as he walked past her.
“Kick his ass, Seik’.”
Seiko laughed as she gathered her chakra into her right hand. Pressing in the release button for the ink valve, Seiko first closed her hand, leaving her fingers pointing up and her thumb pulled in before moving her hand to the right.
~Ge~.
Moving her hand back to her starting position, she then curled all her fingers into a fist save the index finger, which she then traced down and then up to the right.
~N~.
A set amount of ink squirt from the scroll’s endcap and collected in a tightly controlled bubble just short of Seiko’s hand. The bubbling mass then spread itself out in Seiko’s now stretched out hand, quickly forming a square inlaid with text, lines, and other objects. Through it all, a single phrase became apparent as Junko prepared to start the spar.
Zōkibayashi-no-Genzō.
“Hajime!”
With the flick of Seiko’s wrist, the summoning matrix flew forward and exploded into smoke on contact with the ground. Akio stood still, Nagamaki held firm as the smoke was suddenly bisected by a wide-arced trident, blades shimmering in the sunlight. Standing in front of Seiko was a large black-armored samurai, face covered by the same Keeta mask she herself was wearing. Without delay, the samurai rushed forward, trident swinging as it closed the distance with Akio.
Despite the longer reach with the trident, Akio was holding up well enough with his Nagamaki, steadily dodging the attacks he could and parrying those he could not dodge. Pressing his advantage in speed, Akio ducked under and attack and was about to charge towards Seiko when a smoke bomb exploded in front of him. Whirling around to shake away the smoke, Akio charged at Seiko once he found her again. Coming to a halt with his sword like he did with Kentarō, Akio smirked at his assured victory.
Seiko then grabbed the sword by the blade and threw it out of his hands.
“What?!”
Before he could react, Seiko lunged forward wrapped her arms around his throat as they fell to the ground. Before his eyes, ‘Seiko’s’ form gave way to the Samurai before, as the girl called out from a few meters away.
“You gotta watch out for the Kugutsu-Bunshin, Akio. There was a reason I threw the smoke bomb, you know.”
Akio frowned for a moment before nodding his head.
“Yeah, yeah, I got cocky. You win this time.”
Seiko walked over and quickly formed the Hitsuji seal.
“Gyaku-Kuchiyose!”
Genzō poofed away in a cloud of smoke, relieving Akio of the weight of the heavy puppet. Seiko reached out and grabbed his hand, helping Akio lift himself off the ground.
“Great work you too, but I’d like to see a bit more. We’ve seen good taijutsu and bukijutsu, but Seiko you haven’t brought out any Genjutsu. Akio, I know its powerful and hard, but you will need to work on your Shakuton somewhere, and believe me, in an actual fight is not the best time to learn.”
The group nodded and waited for Junko to keep going but the woman stopped suddenly, twisting her head as her left hear moved a little in the wind. She turned around and started walking to the edge of the training field, genin quickly giving chase when she didn’t immediately respond. Right before the whole group got to the entrance, an ANBU shunshin’d down in front of Junko.
“Yūtori-san, the Kazekage has summoned Shi-Butai; you have a mission.”
Junko appraised the man carefully.
"What kind of mission?"
The Noh-masked ANBU shrugged.
"Wetwork, I would imagine. Something about some inconsistencies regarding some requests coming out of Nami-no-Kuni."
Junko tilted her head.
"Mercenary work, huh?"
The man gestured so-so.
"The Kazekage only gave me so much information. The rest is on a set of mission scrolls at the office. He is expecting you soon though, so don't keep him waiting."
With that, the man jumped away and left Shi-Butai at the side of the road. Junko turned back to the group.
"Alright kiddos, we have work to do. Let's head out."
A drop of water falls in the desert
growing, stretching, the sand reaches
from the waves of destitution to the rich hinterlands
ensnaring the Hawk and Snake in a Snapdragon's bloom