章 44: Schemes within Schemes

When Ren walked into the Hokages office he knew the mission had begun. He was briefed on the looks of Kirigakures emissary. The guy seemed like the analyzing type. Probably the type to find a scheme within a scheme even where there is none. I wouldn't be surprised if he already reasoned most of this out and found some plausibility to all the crazy bullshit.

To my knowledge Danzo and Hiruzen were already planting evidence of Prince Zukos existence. The land of water probably paid through the nose and ran circles for a set of bullshit intel. The part that felt really weird is Tsunades new identity: Mai Shimura. She was now Danzos niece and I was his in law. Did I mention this was weird?

The weird play that happened in the Hokages office also didn't help. The Fire Daimyo established I was secretly entrusted to Danzo to be protected. Apparently Danzo graciously took me in and taught me ninjutsu alongside his niece. We happened to fall in love and here we are. Recently I was given knowledge of my lineage as a prince etc etc.

This was all to explain why Danzo stepped forward with knowledge on the previously unknown exiled prince. After we got over the wildly elaborate backstory set up for Tsunade and I. We got into some weird negotiations the main point being this:

The Daimyo will immediately establish my name as his heir after the Mizukage and Water Daimyo agree to an alliance.

The emissary agreed immediately but demanded I be sent to the Hozuki clan or no deal. Naturally I would only agree if Mai aka Tsunade came with me so on and so forth. I just realized why ninja always tried to assume an identity instead of create one. It was a freaking nightmare of logistics and information manipulation to do so properly.

The novelty of being James Bond quickly wore off and I was starting to regret my life decisions. Wouldn't it be easier to just off everyone and declare myself world emperor. Well minus the third raikage being around, an old asshole with bullshit eye powers, a demon fox lady, you know what… bad plan bad plan. At least for now. Eyes on the prize let's just wait to get Kamui then win at life. I can get out of this place safely and justly so let's just take advantage of that.

Eventually terms were agreed to. After a good nights rest we were at the village gates being sent off by a group of people I hardly know. Only Team Sakumo that was officially disbanded was present. We were then escorted by a procession of four Shimura guards. In actuality it's four Root operatives but I wasn't going to sell them out so soon. Why?

Well last nights enemy was this mornings friend. Danzo had provided a scroll with information on a lot of things. Especially highlights of where to find specific clans who hold kekkei genkai. The information also came along with an invitation to his own medical lab. Also I apparently now had full command of the four Root operatives that came along.

Even an idiot could tell the guy didn't want me dead anymore. The political reasons seemed easily apparent but any other motives eluded me. Particularly I had a problem with the invitation to visit his medical lab. Danzo likely wanted me to help in the kekkei genkai research Root conducted. It wasn't just Kumogakure who robbed and kidnapped in the name of research after all.

It's an open secret that all villages keep enemy corpses for information extraction. The actual secret was how they would go out of their way to research kekkei genkai. Not one of the villages were saints. All the self righteous crap about peace and morals Konoha spewed was nonsense.

The only difference between the other villages and Konoha was their ability to hide behind the villain named Danzo. Root kept all of Konohas evil pretty hush. Especially the ridiculous wood release research Konoha conducted. It doesn't change the fact Hiruzen was aware and supported the research. The question was why include me in the medical team?

Too many schemes within schemes today I'd rather just focus on the current situation. Tsunade and I are sitting in a horse drawn carriage. Luckily it's a closed carriage so deploying my Byakugan was acceptable. I've been keeping my eyes on the surroundings the second I knew no one could see me. It wasn't due to my slight paranoia…not entirely. These damn schemers are starting to get to me.

The bingo book entry is why I'm really on edge. A hundred million! A freaking hundred million! If it wasn't for the fact turning over my own corpse would be stupid, I really might make a clone of myself to cash it in.

Bounty hunter-nin were not the easiest of enemies to deal with. The profession itself requires a certain level of confidence in combatting the targets after all. What moron would target an S level target if they couldn't kill them. The problem was I knew one S level bounty hunter.

Kakuzu.

Ironically one of my side goals now that I was outside the village was stealing the Earth Grudge Fear jutsu. Ideally I would avoid the psychopath and go straight to Takigakure to pull this off. Now however I had a giant bullseye painted on my back. If the money grubber didn't come my way one of you can eat your own hat. I'm trying to avoid beings who have the ability to kill me instantly. Now one was on his way.

What kind of shit luck was this?…Maybe I should stop making jokes?

The entire trip to Konohas borders had me on full alert. Tsunade wasn't much better after seeing the bingo book. We let our usual carefree and idiotic talks for another day. Over the length of the trip we slept in shifts. Even if we were covered by a set of Roots elite our confidence wasn't at an all time high.

Soon we had passed the border and were beginning our trip at sea. I was far more confident in this terrain. The ship we were sailing was large enough to carry the carriage and ourselves. Luxurious as the arranged ship was I find it hard to accept it was seemingly set up by Danzo. Nonetheless the trip continued without a single attack.

The Root operatives were clearly uncomfortable with this turn of events. Before their departure from the village Lord Danzo specifically stated this would be an extremely dangerous mission. Their prime directive was to buy time for Rens escape. Lady Tsunade could die but Ren could only do so if the four of them were already dead.

They tried to hide their ever growing anxiety after leaving the border but I knew what feared look like. Root operatives did go out of their way to kill off their emotions but these men looked tense. Tense enough to make me change my initial blueprint regarding leaving Konoha.

In my boredom I'd conveniently forgotten that I could only be bored if I was completely safe. It wasn't that bad to be an eternal genin it turns out. However it's too late to back out now. Revealing the ruse would have obvious consequences.

This brings us to the first stop on our little trip:

The land of waves.

The fact this was the location for Narutos first adventure. It made me think about Grandma Mito and her talks on fate. Is the land of waves special somehow?

It can't just be a coincidence that we would both have the fight of our lives in the same place.

In front of the carriage stood a shirtless man with several stitches covering his naked torso. His facemask and headband combination was reminiscent of Kakashi who isn't born yet.

As the man approached the carriage I was able to identify him perfectly.

Kakuzu had arrived.

This wouldn't be easy.