Ryu made his way towards the ninja academy as the building accommodated the Hokage's office. On his way, passed the shops that cooked breakfast for merchants and other civilians who came to assign their missions to the village.
Looking at such a prosperous environment, Ryu couldn't help but sigh. Besides the obvious defects, the fourth hokage had managed to change the village in a few years and made Konohagakure economically stable, something that other villages still are not able to accomplish.
The Village Council not only held the representatives of ancestral clans, but the hokage also included the say of guilds formed by various merchants to create a scenario where the power of shinobis will have to co-operate with the weak, yet, smart traders that may change the situation of the village by simply adding more products that may not be available in other villages.
While gratified at the progress of the development of his newfound home, the shinobi capable of handling multiple S-Rank Shinobis felt troubled by the obvious problems he had found out.
"I am Ryu Hozai. I wish to report to the Yondaime."
The chuunin guards at the entrance of the office visibly frowned as one of them asked the nature of the information. Of course, Ry simply shook his head and replied with a hand sign that meant confidentiality. Even though the Chuunin guards were suspicious, they couldn't say much. One of them went up to the office area and reported back to Yondaime before getting his approval, leading Ryu to the office.
Walking inside, Ryu performed a simple ceremony of respecting the Hokage as Minato looked at Ryu impassively, waiting for him to open up.
Standing, the black-haired shinobi's pupils moved around the office as he smiled respectfully and mouthed.
'Alone.'
Now, if it would have been somebody else, Minato would simply direct the ANBU members hidden in the room to attack Ryu before interrogating his intentions. But Minato was also aware that he needed to have this conversation.
It was a long overdue.
Nodding, Yondaime stood up as his white uniform became apparent. Even though Minato did not like wearing this uniform all the time, he did respect his position enough to slide into the oversized robes once or twice a month.
"Hina, Kita, Baku. Leave this area for a few minutes."
The distinct sound of the Body Flicker Jutsu was heard as Ryu silently observed the room before taking a seat and finally breathing out loud. His exasperated sigh made Minato understand that this matter would not be as formal... and difficult as imagined. Taking his own seat, he removed the top hat threaded from white and red fabric as his spiky blonde hair finally saw the light of the day.
"It might sound brash... considering that Yondaime himself saved me and my pregnant wife. But can you please reassign the five ANBU members observing our house?", He asked with a visible annoyance flashing past his face while Minato nodded thoughtfully.
Not speaking of any sensitive information, Minato continued with a smooth expression that was betrayed by the sudden tap of his finger on her desk. A habit he needed to take caution of.
"Ryu-san, how long have you known? About my knowledge of certain things."
"From the moment I was allowed to provide service for Konohagakure." Ryu spoke before pausing for a bit, wanting to measure Minato's expression, "I am sure that a skilled hokage such as Yondaime would definitely check if my clan is exterminated before actually allowing me to provide service. After all, a shinobi with a big... foreign clan might be considered a spy. Even if he is an exiled one."
"That is correct." Minato noted before sighing and taking a deep look at the image of his family set on the table. At this moment, hs had a choice. A choice that will turn Konohagakure no different from the likes of Iwagakure or finally set Minato free from his moral complications and fully invest into the village that he desperately wanted to grow. Taking a deep breath and calming his rising anxiousness, credit to the newly formed Kyubi, Minato exhaled, completing the most basic exercise of calming a body and then smiled.
"Ryu-san. As a... Being used to the political and diplomatical matters that people of our status have to deal with, I am sure that you understand that removing the ANBU from your family completely may not be possible.
And I am sure that you understand... at least, more than anybody how the ANBU have become a protective shield towards your family. There are people out there who already have formed their opinions about you."
Minato's words didn't serve any sort of reminder as these circumstances pushed Ryu to finally reveal his hand. Unlike Asuka, who simply happened to be a loving mother and training maniac, Ryu has already dipped his hand into the dirty pool named politics. Nodding, Ryu took a moment before reorganizing Minato's words in his mind before speaking out.
"Loyalty can always be questioned, especially at the times of... let's say, covert operations. I understand your concerns and also understand the measures needed to be taken to achieve a good... clean result. But those actions need a way out. The world needs to know of a way to vent their losses on.
Disregarding that topic, I am not here as the S-Rank Bingo marked shinobi, but I come forward as a friend who wishes to clear his debt."
Minato's eyebrows contracted ever so lightly, but his expression couldn't help but turn brighter at Ryu's words.
"I propose a gift... a trade that my ancestor presented to your ancestor in exchange for a guarantee that my offsprings shall be kept safe... at least in the borders of the village. I understand that my clan failed to keep up its end of the bargain, but this trade will be different." Ryu took a deep breath before finally making his mind.
"This benefit will extend only to you, not your successors. And for that, you will keep an eye out for my family for their best interest. At least, you will have to keep them away from the dark side of the village. You keep my family safe, I assist you and help you acquire that particular technique which helped the Shodai defeat the Uchiha Head.
But I need to make myself clear that I prefer to keep my hands... my image clean whenever I act. Failing to comply with such a regulation would immediately end our cooperation."
Though understandable, Minato couldn't help but look slightly grim at the sudden reversal of attitude. He saved Ryu and Asuka. It was a hard fact that isn't capable of being altered. In that manner, Ryu definitely owes him a favour, which is also a hard fact incapable of being altered. But some behaviour... and attitude can be altered, if applied enough pressure... literal pressure.
A sliver of Kyubi's aura was masterfully expelled out of his body as the whole office was immediately covered in a pressure belonging to a feral beast that wanted to break free from its cage and rampage wildly. Considering Minato's calm visage when giving off such a bloodthirsty aura would shake anyone, including Sandaime, Danzo and other prominent figures of the war.
It was almost a pity that Ryu wasn't one of the beings Minato thought he would be. Although Ryu's countenance turned grim as if he had realised something, Minato was sure he saw a new emotion in Ryu's eyes... prestige and dignity. What almost felt like a guttural roar, Ryu barked at Minato. But when he heard his words, he understood that Ryu did not direct his words towards him, but the entity residing within him. The Kyubi.
"Next time you bark... I'll skin you, mutt."
No matter how patient Minato was, he would immediately jump up and slice the throat of the speaker before he could even complete his sentence. Given his own speed, Minato was also quite sure in his success even when he was facing one of the vilest, yet, most respected shinobi hidden from the annals of history. But his words remained stuck in his throat, akin to a lump while his whole body shuddered in fear. Fear of facing a higher entity... more dignified entity.
A savage aura far greater and wilder than Kyubi's erupted from Ryu's body as his eyes flashed violet. Feeling the aura, Minato could feel Kyubi's fear as the demonic entity residing within him retreated on its own accord, scampering with its nine-tails covering its crimson butt.
"I... didn't know that you were a jinchuriki... Ryu-san."
Minato spoke, albeit milder. Strength received respect. While Minato feared the implications he may face if Ryu happens to covet his own village, Minato also understood that his fear was completely baseless, simply stemming from the fear of unknown. After all, just a minute ago, Minato considered his future partner in crime as Ryu— The Savage Seer, but now, he was forced to revaluate his assessment on Ryu.
Maybe, there are things that he didn't understand, even after memorising all the records stashed in the hidden library of the Hokage office. But while Minato considered the possibility of Ryu being a threat, he also considered him as an asset that may very well assist in his endeavours and bring the most favourable result.
But of course, there was one thing that needed to be cleared out before it stunk the whole room.
"Why don't you kill me then? You may not have the ambition, but you certainly know that I see you as a threat effectively from this point forward."
Ryu did not need much explanation to understand Minato's point of view before he stopped and finally decided to open up.
"Just like you have your fears, it is unfortunate that I am riddled with my own fears, too, Hokage-dono. If you need my assistance, I am always here to complete some B-Rank missions to earn my pay.
Of course, an informative document regarding the past actions of all the clans would be appreciated before a good layout and plan could be constructed as we consider and extrapolate the future actions of the clans that may undermine the whole village."
Ryu stood and made the same respective bow before speaking something that eased Minato's heart.
"From now on, the Hozai Clan will have Konohagakure's best interest in its mind."
***
"Another failure..."
Orochimaru had to accept that he had crossed the line the moment he even thought of using the kids orphaned in the war as the materially for the experiments and progress his own obsession and obvious pervertedness towards the concept of immortality.
At one point, he even admitted in front of a mirror that he himself was a deeply flawed person... creature. No immortal can be bound by the morals of the mortal society and the most surprising part that shook his heart was that how easily his previous self accepted all those restrictions unconsciously placed on his mind, continuously draining his creativity.
With a scalpel tearing open a chest of malnourished boy broke those very restrictions and made him free of the burden he despised by the name of morality. Even now, he was fairly aware that many characters of the village have already become aware of his... tendencies and they are definitely aware of his actions. They only thing that bound them is their morality.
Although, he did find Danzo Shimura quite interesting as a specimen. Of course, Orochimaru was merely curious towards his psychology and not his old and rotting body that already required his maintenance to keep up with the current generation. A knock on his door broke him out of his reverie as he stared at the rotting body impassively, without turning back, he calmly asked out.
"What is it, Danzo-sama?"
His tone holding a sarcasm that was directed at the syllables of Danzo's name while the middle-aged man behind Orochimaru scowled visibly.
"Is there any result?"
It was Orochimaru's turn to scowl as he replied the answer with a cold silence while Danzo snorted derisively.
"You'll be doing your experiments with the materials you possess. Yondaime has unexpectedly turned the guard around the village tighter, which is a concerning matter of its own. Even though he may suspect... you, there is no reason to believe that he will act solely on his emotions."
Danzo spoke coldly before walking away, but this time, he didn't hide his footsteps and walked away grandly... with the support of a cane. As Danzo's presence couldn't be sensed anymore, Orochimaru's eyes widened with pure rage as he immediately poured a vial of liquid on the already rotting body of the boy while the boy, who was already numbed to the extreme torture inflicted, shouted out loud until his tongue and throat melted away, killing him effectively.
"This is not over...."
His pupils comparable to a snake glowed brightly as he looked borderline maniacal.
***
A/N: The next few chapters won't be all about Eio and other future characters. There will be many events before Eio's story begins as these, altered background will become the factors of the change in personality of the future naruto characters.
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.
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