Chapter 15: Council

The next day, Eio managed to wake on time due to the sound of his parent's room's door opening at the dawn of the day. Rubbing his eyes, Eio got up from his bed and slowly walked towards his door, gently rotating the knob and opening a tiny slit, peering into the hallway as he gazed at Ryu walking towards the doors.

Not finding anything strange as Ryu would always get up to pick up the newspaper early in the morning, Eio went back to his bed and entered the meditative stance. Ignoring his Ki, which could only be trained by getting physically stronger, or so he knew, Eio focused on the gentle energy that always soothed his insides whenever he tried to meditate.

Feeling the gentle, spiritual energy, or in the terms of the village, Chakra, Eio could easily distinguish his chakra moving in a 'circular' fashion in the sense of coiling around his navel before reaching the upper chest of his body before thinning out. Of course, while Eio could feel that he had enough energy coiling at the source, he still wished to practice the motions his father taught yesterday by slowly experiencing the whole concept using small amounts of his chakra. This practice in return, made the whole experience even more novel.

While Eio still failed to grasp a complete control on the sliver of chakra moving through his lower body, especially his joints and his crotch, Eio understood better than most that the benefit of this training is to slowly gain the mastery over his own chakra. Though, in the back of his mind, he still felt curious as to how he would fare when compared to the heirs of other clans or those boisterous Sasuke and Naruto.

If this Chakra was purely a form of energy stemming from his soul, Eio reckoned that increasing the quality and amount of energy itself would prove to be challenging besides the use of meditation. But from yesterday's lecture, he was made to understand that this spiritual force came from the mixture of his spiritual awareness and in the words of Ryu— the quality of his physical vessel.

Although, Eio felt that Ryu used such advanced terms in front of a kid deliberately to make him refrain from going overboard with the physical exercise and that was also the reason Ryu specifically demonstrated quite easy forms of stretching to slowly warm up the body every day.

Meditating, the boy concentrated on his chakra and kept on moving his chakra through the circuit already present in his body. But something didn't feel right to him. The motivation of every training, no matter how minor, is to exhaust a certain ability and then repeat the steps until the ability has upgraded or training can be made with a thought of refining an ability and condensing the essence of an ability to get stronger.

At least, this is how Eio has been training as Gohan in his previous life. But right now, Eio couldn't understand the true motive of this particular training.

Sure, he could slowly gain mastery over controlling sliver of chakra before moving onto thick strands of chakra and then easily manipulate the chakra within his body. Of anything, he was extremely impressed by the fact that natives of this world placed extreme importance on controlling the chakra present inside his body.

But why wasn't he feeling exhausted? Ryu clearly stated that he wasn't to continue this training for more than half an hour, but Eio couldn't help but become curious. By all the secret conversations he had heard, Eio understood that his parents were quite strong, if not fearsome. This led him to believe that Ryu's deduction about his own training method might be more accurate.

He frowned and thought for a while. Did dad make a mistake? Did he fail to gauge my chakra correctly or did he have other motives? While these thoughts and questions seemed even more ludicrous since he was keenly aware of his father's strength, of course, through Ryu's words. But sometimes, Eio did feel curious if his father was simply bragging about the accomplishments that he may have not done.

Leaving his troubled thoughts aside, Eio made an independent decision and continued with the novel training. Of course, Eio finally stopped after sitting cross-legged for an hour and still failing to expend all of his chakra.

'Maybe this training isn't meant for exhausting chakra at all.'

He concluded and started to stretch slowly, warming his stiff body that had been meditating for an hour straight, quite an achievement when Eio's current age was considered.

***

The sudden call for the Village Council left Minato quite frustrated. While it is true that the Sandaime did him a favour by removing most of the members that simply argued on baseless objectives, in a sense, the old man also complicated his work as the remaining members of the council were simply a group of hungry wolves. But if Minato stopped and thought for a second, he would understand that he wasn't much better when it came to diplomacy.

If you show any weakness, you are sure to be crushed. That was even more prominent in his case as Yondaime.

Entering the council chambers, he saw the representatives of the clans and other guilds stand up and perform a bow before assuming their seats once again. Minato, for once, really liked this particular tradition as he could enjoy the twitches on the corner of Danzo's eyes as he had to bow to the hokage, too.

"This meeting is called in regards to the arrival of the delegate from the other four villages to set up an official peace treaty." One of the men with long, black hair stood up as his pale white, pupilless eyes started at Minato before speaking out.

"My clan feel quite offended by allowing external parties that do not even belong to the village, much less our clan, attend our virtuous ceremony."

The man named Hiashi Hyuuga, the head of the Hyuuga Clan spoke with visible impatience.

Minato and others nodded lightly. When it came to the external sources of worries, almost everyone would draw their swords towards the enemy instead of each other... no, the privilege of sword drawing at allies was only reserved for petty accounts and daily necessities.

"Hyuuga-dono's words seems logical. What do other members feel about this request?"

Minato asked with a calm demeanor while others frowned in their own thoughts.

"If I may." A young man with short hair and a business suit, quite rare in this last of the country, spoke with a polite smile. "While we understand Hyuuga-dono's concerns, I think that allowing the delegates to witness such an important ceremony would be our way of showing sincerity.

Without even lifting our fingers, we would already be pressurising the delegates to show their sincerity."

Being the representative of the information guild that controlled constituted of all the information center such as media and newspaper companies in the village, the youth was competent enough to add the village cause and effectively hid his own personal purpose.

Of course, Hiashi still managed to see through the facade and snorted coldly.

"You simply wish for something big to occur, for your own media, right? I would like to refocus our attention to these organisations that are putting their own private goals above the village's security."

Hiashi's cold words sent a shiver down the youth as his expression soured.

"I apologise to the council if I wasn't able to express my intentions... accurately. By showing our sincerity through showing the ritual, we stand to gain more. The other four villages have quite the resources they are willing to trade but the constant wars have completely disrupted the trade.

If this alliance is a success, there is at least a possibility to re-establish the broken routes and exchange... peculiar resources only cultivated in the shinobi villages like the trade of prisoners."

The moment the youth completed his sentence, a cold glare immediately locked onto his body as Minato's presence immediately overpowered each and every member sitting at the council table. Though shocked, Danzo chose to keep his silence while he couldn't help but inwardly curse at Minato's speed of growth and his arrogant ally.

"If there is a mention of slave trading one more time... the representative of that guild would be executed and all the members of the guild will go through a round in torture and interrogation department.

Is that understood?"

It was at moments like this that the other members understood that while the village still gave the representatives a right to suggest the Hokage in decision making, the true power still lay in Hokage's hand. While most of them felt disturbed that the old peace-loving Sandaime was replaced by such an overbearing personality, they still remembered how the whole village celebrated when it was decided that Minato, the war hero would become the Yondaime.

Looking at Hiashi, Minato thought deeply about the situation before nodding.

"Hyuuga-san is correct in this matter. The clan rituals are a completely private affair. If the Hyuuga clan is unwilling to expose their matters to the external villages, it is probably for the best.

As for the delegates arriving, no business organisation is permitted to have a private contact with them. Not until the peace treaty is signed."

Of course, no merchant guild was stupid enough to commit such a crime and they simultaneously nodded. But to Minato's dismay, when one issue was resolved, others immediately came knocking to his door in the form of a vicious Danzo Shimura.

"Hokage-sama, if I may suggest some... revisions regarding the recent changes in border patrol." He started calmly as the left side exposed showed no ripple in his expression.

"I think that the village itself does not require too much attention. With all the ANBU and Root members gathered in the village, it is advisable to spread the Jounin teams in border patrol."

As he finished, his logical explanation did garner a lot of approving nods from the civilians representing the commercial section of the village. Meanwhile, the shinobi side of the council had slight inklings of Danzo's... certain actions which left a distaste in their mouth. Even Hiashi, the most active ally of the bandaged man felt demeaning to support Danzo in certain actions.

Minato took a deep breath and placed his hand on the desk, looking completely solemn.

"While it is admirable that you still think of the village's... safety." His words caused Danzo to visibly frown at the accusation without showing any hard evidence, he took a breath to calm down as Minato continued.

"Your concerns regarding my decisions are duly noted. But there have been strange occurrences near the village. I will be continuing the assignments as I see fit."

"I see." was the only response Danzo uttered. Next, many minor issues were raised until the representative of the Inuzuka Clan spoke up with a rough grunt.

"Am I the only one rude enough to point out that Nilan Uchiha failed to grace us with his noble presence to represent the Uchihas?" His voice laced with sarcasm as his sharp canines were bared for all to witness.

This time, unexpectedly, Minato's and Danzo's gaze darkened almost simultaneously.