บท 14: Chapter 14
Pre-Chapter AN: Hey, thanks for reading this. It's literally my favourite thing to write these days. Enjoy the chapter, and let me know how it sticks if you enjoy it.
After reading this, you can either wait till next week for the next chapter or read the next two on pa-treon right now and keep reading as I write. For the pa-treon, you can remove the hyphen between pa and treon and google it then search for my username- Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting in your address bar.
Have fun with this- Also, in case you haven't checked out my other story (Gamer of the Desert) yet, then please do so. It's also set in the Naruto universe. It's an SI into Gaara with some gamer elements. I can guarantee you'll love it. It's also much farther along than this one so gives you something to really sink your teeth into.
UZUME UCHIHA- SEVEN YEARS BEFORE THE SECOND GREAT SHINOBI WORLD WAR
She could not think of a time that she had ever seen her Sensei so furious. He was a Jounin and was marvellous at hiding his emotions, but there were small tells that he let loose. The silence, the stiffness in his posture, the way he'd sharply signed at them to return to the village instead of investigating the Chunin's disappearance like they'd originally planned, but she figured the presence of an Iwa kill squad was enough of an answer for that. Most damning of all was the fact that since he had Shorirama had left the forest together, he had not looked in the genin's direction even once. It was impressive, considering how often Sensei looked over at both her and Toshiro. Almost like he was assessing them and trying to spot something he had missed in them. Interesting, she noted, but did not pursue. Needless pursuit of idle curiosities was far more Shorirama's cup of tea than hers.
That was what led the idiot to use an experimental seal on a Jinchuriki of all things. It was probably the same thing that had made him add fire release to the tornado that the Iwa shinobi had made. He spent all his time wondering if he could, that he never dedicated a second to asking himself if she should. Another one of the million things that irritated her about his presence. That, and the fact that he'd suddenly developed a Byakugan out of nowhere. She hoped he was not dumb enough to think that the sunglasses he wore did any work to hide a doujutsu that made itself visible with bulging veins that ran all the way down to his ears. She hoped so. But the fact that he'd started wearing them after getting the doujutsu was not a good sign as to his mental fortitude.
They travelled to Konoha quickly, not bothering to stop or even make camp for any means. Sensei's displeasure hung over them like a cloud. She could see how Toshiro ached to speak to Shorirama. To ask about the Byakugan, or even the sudden increase in his skills, or one of the million thins the boys whispered about when they were too far away from her to hear what they said. The desire would go unfulfilled for a while, however, as they were forced to travel in silence until they arrived at the village's gate. At that point, Sensei finally turned around to regard them. His gaze softened when it panned over to Toshiro and her, but hardened again when it fell on Shorirama.
"Uzume, Toshiro, please feel free to excuse us and get some rest. Your pay will be sent to your accounts" he told them in a tone that brokered no disagreement. She was reminded of the first persona he wore at their genin test — the one that had determined whether they would be under his team in the first place. The only difference was that now, he was deathly serious where he had only pretended to be earlier. She left, moving with Toshiro for a bit before splitting up to head towards her clan compound. Their run had tasked her body to its limit, so the chance to rest could not be understated. Toshiro had been close to heaving at the end of it.
XXXXXXX- SENJU SHORIRAMA
Well, he had fucked up. It was clear that he had fucked up from the moment Sakumo had appeared pissed. The only issue was that he found it difficult to see just what he had done that was wrong. Sakumo had killed Iwabe in much the dame way Shorirama was going to. What was the difference in the fact that Shori decided to try learning something unique while he did so? What did it matter? Iwabe was an enemy, wasn't he? He had killed a Konoha Chunin. What did it matter if the man felt a bit of pain before he died? Then the other question - the one he would never dare ask out loud, what did it matter if Shori enjoyed the pain that he inflicted? None of it mattered. The man was the enemy. His people would flood the Lands of Rain and Grass in their fight against Konoha in only a short few years and Shori would have to become as strong as he could to deal with them ahead of then.
Still, it had clearly rubbed his sensei the wrong way. The man hadn't even been able to look him in the eye since he'd come across him in the forest. Instead, he'd asked Shori to follow him and then ran all the way to the village. Shori would have been fine if that was the end of it, but he knew he would never be so lucky. Furthermore, Sakumo was never one to avoid confrontation. One didn't become Jounin without the power to speak their mind being a key part of their personality. Either way, there was nothing he could do as his Sensei sent away both of his teammates and began to march him up to his Granduncle's office.
He knew what this trick was. His Grandmother had raised him in his last life with the lack of parents around so he had had more than one teacher walk him home as an excuse to lay into him for his behaviour in his Grandma's presence. They hoped she'd back them up and that would lead to a more sustainable change in his behaviour. He'd made sure to get even worse in the few times events like that had happened. He did not appreciate being ganged up on. It seemed that Sakumo would be the next to learn that lesson.
The walk to Granduncle's office was marred by the awkward silence that persisted between them. Shori wondered how the man would react. He could not say for sure, but he did know that Sakumo would not be getting what he expected. Tobirama Senju was not his brother. He was a much colder man. And he'd done his fair share of experimentation in his time. After all, how else would he have invented a jutsu like Edo Tensei?
"Go on in" The Secretary said upon spotting just who exactly was waiting to see the Hokage. Jounin had priority access to their Kage, and Shorirama was the man's Grandnephew.
Tobirama Senju was a stern man. This was not a realisation by any means. A single look at his face showed that for all the world to see. But what most people did not realise was that that attitude disappeared at the door when it came to family. It was part of the reason why I was so certain that I wouldn't be in any trouble at the end of the day. I even doubted he would care about some experiments. And I was right. He listened to Sakumo with a keen ear and then asked the man to excuse us so he could have a conversation with me in private.
"It was sloppy to get caught doing something like that in the field. What would have happened if there was a fifth Jounin hidden in the darkness. It's stupid to play with your enemies" was all he said on the matter. And then his attention turned to something else.
"Do you want to be Hokage one day?" He asked me out of nowhere.
"I have never really thought about it, Granduncle" I lied through my teeth. The position was a death sentence. I needed to be strong enough to survive the war that I knew was coming, and all the things that could come after that, but I didn't want to be Kage. It came with too much attention. The wrong kind of attention, as well. Strength invited challenge, and there was no position that showed as much strength at that of the Leader of The Hidden Leaf Village, the Hokage.
"You should. It is my legacy. The village my brother and I built will one day fall to you to inherit" He said plainly. There was no hesitation in his voice. There was no room for uncertainty. That was how Tobirama Senju spoke. He said a thing, and that thing was. He expressed no doubts, brokered no disagreement, and tolerated no variance from his words. A simple, but severe man in most respects.
"Yes, Granduncle" I replied. It was what marked most of our conversations. 'Yes Granduncle.' Shorirama do this. Shorirama do that. Shorirama not that way, this way. 'Yes Granduncle' in reply to all that it was simple, if a bit tiring. Always agreeing.
"Good. Now come and let us discuss" He said, pointing at the seat in front of him. I took the seat, settling into the familiar position. I'd been here often. More often than any other person, I would wager.
"Iwa is angry." He started. I said nothing. Such conversations were not new. Tobirama needed a sounding board often, and if there was one thing a past life as a lawyer had given me, it was good listening skills.
"The kill squad you encountered is the fifth of its kind that have been caught operating within our borders." He dropped the bombshell with a cold tone. I sat ramrod straight in my seat. No. It wasn't possible. I still had seven years before the war could happen.
"So why haven't we declared war?" I asked, not doing much to hide my shock-even if the cause was not what Tobirama would expect.
"Because peace was my brother's dream. They are angry, and I am tolerant of their anger for the time being. I killed the most promising Jinchuriki their village has ever seen. Even sealing the tailed beast away and allowing them take it to seal into a new jinchuriki did little to assuage their anger. They tried to demand a life for a life, and it was only my brother's voice in my ear that prevented me from removing the fence sitter's tongue from his impetuous skull" He said.
"They wanted to kill me?" I asked, shocked.
"I doubt they believed the suggestion would go anywhere. Every Shinobi in this village would see Iwa burn a million times before letting them touch a single hair on your head. No. You are the legacy of Hashirama. You are Konoha's future. I gave them concessions. Gold, money, trade, missions. I gave them all that, and still they remain angry."
"So what are we going to do?"
"About their anger? Nothing. I believe in my brother's dream, but I am not him. I can not offer more than I already have. I will not. Instead, we must prepare for war"
"How are we going to do that?" I asked.
"The academy is already on a wartime curriculum. All Jounin-sensei are training their students on a fast tracked course to get them to the level of being able to operate on their own as three man cells capable of causing havoc to our enemies. Even more, our barrier team is being overhauled and the same is happening at the hospital." He said, leafing through files on his desk.
"But there is one thing that I have the feeling we will need for the war to come"
"What?" I asked.
"Iwa will not come alone. Onoki might be an idiot, but he is not reckless. They will come with the aid of Kumo, and maybe even Suna and Kiri. None of the other villages like us very much right now. Even sharing the profits from the Genin Exhibition was insufficient to make up for the fact that only Konoha nin ended up making it to the last two stages", He glossed over the fact that he'd killed an Iwa genin, and I'd apparently killed one from Kumo.
"So what can we do? Make allies with the minor villages?", he scoffed at the suggestion.
"Nothing so foolish. There is nothing the minor villages could offer us. Do you remember your Great-grandfather?"
"Butsuma Senju? He was dead when I was born, so there's nothing to remember"
"I was asking if you remembered your lessons about him, but that matters little. I doubt this would have come up in any of your lessons. My father had an obsession with the Sage of Six Paths. The legends go that he fathered both our clans, the Uzumaki clan, and the Uchiha clan. Beyond that, most people only know that he was the founder of ninjutsu and had the mythical Rinnegan. But my father was not satisfied with that information. He found writings on a set of tools that the Sage had made himself. Creations of unbelievable power. He believed that even one of those would allow a D-ranked shinobi to fight on the level of S-ranked one."
"The tools of the Sage of Six Paths?" I replied, running over each word slowly. What sort of hare brained scheme was I about to get let in on. Those tools were stupid as fuck. Word soul? Taking out a person because they say the word they say most often? Sure, it made for a very interesting fight scene in the anime as we watched Darui and the Kumo contingent try to figure out how the weapons worked, but it was just too unrealistic in this universe. Very few shinobi spoke in combat. Even worse, very few fights lasted long enough for any of that to be a factor. The truth of the matter was that a fight was only likely to last long if both combatants were somewhat relative in strength.
That rarely happened, being honest. More often than not, a fight would last a minute or two at best, and then end with one of the participants either dead or worse. There was simply no value to be gained from the tools in combat. Even worse, they only affected single targets or small groups at the same time. What use would that be in a war where you could find yourself in skirmishes involving dozens? Those weapons had little chance of being any help, and I had to be the one to deliver the bad news to him.
"Yes, the delightful tools of the Sage. Are you aware of them?" he asked, looking eager to delve into the topic.
"Yes. Hyuga Kimora ran me through on several artefacts within the Elemental Nations and their significance to the villages in question. I remember there being something about the treasured tools coming up, but I can't remember what exactly what that was, beyond the fact that they are in the custody of the Hidden Cloud, there's nothing really of note about them. Well, there was a fan that allows one other draw on any of the five elemental nations, but it is nothing that can not be matched with the proper training"
"Oh. Those." He looked disappointed almost instantly.
"Those aren't the tools I speak of. The Sage of Six Paths made several tools in his lifetime. Of them, the five in the possession of the Hidden Cloud are the lesser ones among them. Powerful and complex tools, to be sure, but nothing like what the Sage made earlier in his life. The writings tell of tools like the Sword of Nunubuko which had the power to cleave the earth in two with a single swing. Weapons like the Heavily Jewelled Spear which the sage used to lift the lands from beneath the water and expand the continent massively. Tools like the Kanju-manju, a set of links in the Sage's necklace that could grant whoever wielded them complete control over the tides. They say he used them to fight the waters back as he created the Land of Iron from nothing. Those are the tools we need. Legends speak of dozens of them. Some with complex histories and notes as to their use and importance, while others are mere footnotes in the annals of history as the accounts that spoke of them find themselves lost in the sands of time." There was audibly passion in his voice as he spoke of them.
"Whatever we make, whatever we create, is nothing but a shallow rendition of a song so beautiful that it echoes across the ages. We need those tools here. To level the playing field. None in the Land of Earth would dare stand against me with the sword of nunubuko in my hands. With the Kanju-manju, you could drown the Hidden mist village at will. With the heavily jewelled spear, you could crush the mountains Kumo calls home with a mere application of your will. This is the way to keep Konoha safe. To fulfil my brother's dream in spite of those who would see it ruined." Almost against my will, I began to feel caught up in the images he weaved. I could see it now, a necklace with two beads around my neck as I commanded the water to rise and obey me with nothing but my will. It was like being a water bender on steroids. Next, I imagined a spear that gave me power over the entire world as I tossed shinobi around this way and that way as I willed.
There was an undeniable allure to it. To what he described. So undeniable that I could not even tell from where to begin opposing it.
"So how do you intend to find these, Granduncle? I doubt it could be that easy" I said, giving the most obvious problem to this plan of his. If these tools had indeed existed and were so powerful, I doubted that we would be the first to go looking for them.
"The Kanju-manju will be somewhere in the Land of Iron. I know that for a fact. All accounts are equally in agreement on this. When the Sage went to create the Land to protect the continental mainland from tsunami's, he had twelve jewels around his neck. He returned with ten. That means two of them are somewhere there." The Land of Iron?
"You would create another enemy in the search for weapons to defeat the ones we already have?" I asked, leaving unsaid the fact that I thought it was a bran dead plan. The sharp look he gave me told me that whatever I did not say was still heard loud and clear by him.
"No. The Kanju-manju can be saved for later. What we should be seeking is the infinite pouring pot".
"The what?"
"An infinite source of water. A pot of water that constantly pours out water and never runs dry".
"And how are we going to find that one?"
"Where do you think the Rivers in the Land of Rivers find their source?" His smile was as sharp as ever. A smile I found myself returning. This was the kind of mission I could get behind. Rivers had no notable military apparatus. We wouldn't be making any powerful enemies there. Sure, they were allied with Suna, but those guys already hated us.
A/N: Chappy finished here because I can. And I want to move on with the plot on a new page so here ya go. As I said earlier, the next chapter comes up next week or skip the wait and read the next three along with daily uploads on pa-treon. For the pa-treon, you can remove the hyphen between pa and treon and google it then search for my username- Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting in your address bar.
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