Troubled eyes were running over a short message. One that came right after the other one, it had reached its reader from a nearby corner of the world where the first one was sent from. The content of the two messages couldn't have been more different from one another. Even the technical level of encryption of the message used on both messages was like day and night different from each other. One came from one of Konohagakure's Sannin – Chestnut Hanasaku, the other one was from the Kage Summit and signed by all three remaining Kage. The first one was informing that all was going well, the other one informed of an event that changed everything, as the young folk often put events like this – "shit went down".
The reason for such a specific expression of words was selected for the reader of the messages to form the general image in his mind because the message from Hanasaku literally had that combination of words in it, which was in no way at all surprising having in mind the person who sent the message. Despite the fact that Hanasaku was a woman whose external image displayed great maturity as she reminded of a matured middle aged woman of great stature and presence, her behavior was that of a child and her intellect was literally that of a chestnut upon which her nickname was aptly chosen. That cover of the color of her hair being the reason must've just been what her friends told the silly minded Sannin.
The content of the message displayed a clear image that the woman was proceeding with her mission together with her squad of some of the village's most potent and experienced genin. Somehow the woman managed to so far avoid noticing the fact that Kirigakure's patrol forces increased tenfold and avoiding suspicion and being noticed had literally become impossible, somehow she had managed to avoid the fact that she may have been wanted with a bounty on her head for a while, she even managed to avoid the knowledge of the Kage Summit or the events that transpired there. That devilish woman just tore through everything in her sight, every single Kirigakure ninja, unable to destroy the bunker with the secret information before it was teleported to Kirigakure by a trap seal the woman just sunk the entire island. Such obvious denial of ninja tradition of subtlety and secrecy would've without a doubt invited an international scandal if one wouldn't have transpired right after, one to dwarf the other in its entirety.
The man reading the letter rubbed his tired eyes, the assistant of the man leaned up to receive instructions for his further course of actions. "Chestnut Hanasaku has informed us that she had destroyed the bunker and retrieved the information she needs and is returning home, one of her genin was severely injured and she admitted that she did not dare attempt treatment instead leaving it to her pupils." The chubby little man spoke to his assistant. The butler-like looking gentleman fixed his vest and cleared his throat.
"Perhaps lady Hanasaku is growing in wisdom? I'd assume knowing her impatient and… Highly destructive personality in mind it'd be very bad for her to attempt and perform basic first aid."
The chubby little man slapped his own bald forehead and moved his palm down accidentally striking his grey hair bun and then covered his mouth, then proceeded to rub his beard. "She's the only viable candidate for Kage at the moment, sadly we don't have any Jounin that are on the level of competence to just skip her. She may be an utter pain to manage but we'll have to put her on that chair if we want the village to be safe. Order the message to be sent to her informing her to accelerate her return and do it safely. Her return to the village is now another A-Rank mission for both her and her students. Those genin of hers will need to suffer her no longer, unbeknownst to them they have a future Kage in their care. Let's just hope she doesn't kill herself in her imbecile rampage."
The assistant wrote everything down, it proved slightly more difficult as the illumination was severely lacking, having to do everything under candlelight was quite difficult but the man was very skilled in the craft of simple butler work. Once the order was recorded the man's eyes lifted to the fancy dressed councilman again. "Anything else?" he asked the man.
"I'm afraid so, Assistant, I wouldn't have moved you from Kirigakure to Konoha if I didn't intend to use your skills. I'd like you to contact all the councilmembers and hold a meeting tomorrow evening, if possible we'll appoint Hanasaku as the new leader of our village as fast as possible. Some serious political balance shifting is about to take place and we have no luxury to be picky or to wait until Dorimi or Shibari reach the appropriate level of strength." The councilman rubbed his tired eyes continuously, he then stood up and moved to the door, leaving the room in a hurry. Assistant just appeared right beside him as if he had moved in an instant.
"Are you quite sure about your decision, Sir? You are aware of the technical level of Hanasaku-sama's letter?"
The councilman nodded "Yes, I know that Chestnut probably doesn't even know how to cypher the letter, she most likely gave it for her students to properly cypher, that's why it has several mistakes and was so tough to decode. Those kids had grown quite strong and competent having to put up with that woman's silliness."
Assistant's shadowy figure disappeared in a turn of a corridor, the councilman knew that the man would do his job. He'd be damned if the Assistant was not the best lapdog to bark orders at. An order from Kirigakure, custom bred and trained to follow orders and be the perfect assistants, that Kirigakure loyal elitist culture of their central districts really spoiled themselves but that trip to the Mist and the enormous pay to keep the Assistant around was worth it just for one of those guys all by itself… As the door leading the councilman to the outside of the Administration building opened up the man looked at the red sky and the departing signs of the setting Sun.
"The day we all have been afraid of, the day no one thought was possible had come… Chestnut Hanasaku will be in charge of us all, the era of the Star of Hope is over. Truly the end of days must be upon us. Still, we need a leader to call our shots for some parts of Kirigakure's autonomy, we need to establish connections, gain valuable intelligence on the village's deepest secrets. For that opportunity even handing HER the hat is worth the potential gain… I hope." The councilman pondered to himself thinking if he had just doomed everyone or just did the only reasonable thing to do.
A large foot of a middle aged man was set on the Land of Fire soil. Konohagakure was just about one day of travelling away, since the man did not intend to sleep the night but keep moving instead he'll be reaching it by early tomorrow morning. The man had been waiting for this trip for quite some time, recently he was spending a lot of time in various countries and so it had been a while since he visited his country of origin. The man's dark brown eyebrow raised curiously as he observed the newly built pathways and new erected vendors selling snacks and some emergency supplies any traveler might need having just crossed the country borders.
His presence without a doubt had been picked up by the ninja surveilling the area. His iconic monk outfit, his powerful build and status as a legendary ninja makes even the newbies recognize the man instantly. Upon picking up as much as a sight of the man's intricate and youthful bald head and his rock hard muscles the ninja would've dashed back to the village at the best of their ability. The man's eyes closed and the area around his eyes dyed in purple, he sensed so many youthful chakra, burning vibrantly, firing up in excitement and moving around like rabbits being disturbed by a passing by bear.
In his youth, and even now it'd be only a matter of time for him to catch up to those younglings. He may not have exactly felt like in his prime and he had abandoned the life of a ninja, that is to say the life of fighting, violence and murder, but Guru Ayushi still felt like he could keep up with the young ones. It was true that the current generation has bred some amazing ninja, just one sniff of Kaguya Yaban's chakra or that of Samaya Imasu of Kumogakure and even the peaceful Guru remembered the youthful days of excitement when faced against an overwhelming opponent on a battlefield. Finally the ninja monk's eyes had opened back up and all supernatural signs around them disappeared just as mysteriously as they've appeared.
A pigeon started slowly landing by the ninja making the man who was well familiar with the ninja equipment notice that he was carrying a message for him. It was quite strange, only the most important figures in the world dared contact him by pigeons, most ordinary people just waited for Gury Ayushi's arrival to their village, there were few ordinary villager pigeons that reached him but those were the exception and a rare one at that. For someone to use the ninja method of communication this must've been important, after all Guru Ayushi thought he'd made it clear that the topic of his days as a ninja was something he had left behind and only liked to reminisce in moderation. He had become an icon of peace now, he would not trouble himself with matters of ninja normally.
Guru picked up the message and read it, he placed two of his fingers on the sheet of paper and they lit up with his chakra, leaving a sign on the paper which was soon put back on the pigeon's leg and the bird was let free to return to his master. The request made by the Tsuchikage was something the great Guru couldn't deny, it didn't really deal with the life of ninja, it was a desire for a man's final will to be delivered to his pupils. Man's final words must never be lost, especially not those of a man like Red Dog Tanshu. Even the usually detached of all earthly matters heart of Ayushi was moved by the death of the young boy he had witnessed in his last visit in the Leaf. That young soul that was so tortured throughout his life and was quite fitting to become a wandering monk sharing his knowledge upon his retirement just like Ayushi, those that transcend all others in their generation often either follow Ayushi's path or continue doing their thing until they grow old and face against promising younglings passing on their status as the strongest as their bodies are left in their final battlefield.
Even now, with all that head start and all of the incredible speed of those Special Jounin watching the borders granted to their mastery over chakra augmenting their natural abilities Ayushi could catch them. But if that was the case he should've answered positively to the request of that young girl to kill Daikon back when he visited Kirigakure many years ago. What people failed to understand was that he moved on, left his old life behind. Helping ninja on one side would've made the other angry, violence upon one side does not eliminate the problem. Tyranny and conflict was like a static wheel, when a force like Guru Ayushi pushed the wheel by crushing the tyrant the wheel did not dissolve, it just turned again and again, it kept on turning, dropping off many pieces off of it until it settled down again. It might have settled down on another side, it might have settled on the same one but in the end – what difference did it make if the wheel remained the same.
Just like that if Ayushi would've chosen to interfere with any of those problems he was constantly begged to magically solve, another problem, with the added horror of angry vengeance for what happened to the first, would take over. From what little had Ayushi heard of the Kage Summit he was right – Daikon was just replaced by another tyrant, strangest part was that Ayushi had never seen the side of a tyrant in the young lady with the long curly blond hair he had seen in Kirigakure. It just showed him how little still he understood about this world despite wandering it for about a hundred years even after retiring his life as a ninja. Guru's sharp eyes pierced through the thick cover of the forest, he was moving to Konohagakure and while he was sorry for the events that took place in the Kage Summit, in one way such tragedy only made his presence more needed. He had to rid the people of their impure thoughts of revenge and war.
War was Shirona's agenda, if after Howoku's passing and stop of Shirona's plan his village would have only devolved into war anyways that would've completely ruined that man's peaceful and noble sacrifice. Even more, it'd have crushed the final will of the Red Dog as well. Ayushi's powerful bare feet continued to step over the hot gravel of the newly made pathway through the forest. He travelled the world giving lectures and teaching people, however it was during special times like this – after great battles or wars or political assassinations most heinous that he was needed the most. Guru observed the figure of the pigeon fly off into the sky above the forest, oh that wonderful illusion of the bird's freedom. Free to soar the sky, free to breathe the mystical air above but still being burdened by the duty to deliver the vital messages…
Mana moaned rising from bed. She had to grip tightly into the crutches to even stand straight. She was officially the dumbest girl ever – no one in the history of the world had ever trained so hard that they literally tore their body apart. Desperate to become stronger, to strengthen her body, her resolve and invent her own martial art based on kicking to keep her opponents at a distance Mana made her leg muscles ache so much that she couldn't walk for the whole week. It's only been a couple of months since the night when she and her team confronted the agent of Kirigakure who only identified himself as "the Demon". She only heard bits and pieces from his interrogation, just as much as all ninja in the village were allowed to know. Besides babble of his "Oni-sensei" and how he had failed him and brags of how his escape will be grand the youth offered few words.
Part of why Mana pushed herself so was because she was ashamed of herself, she felt bad that she was taken out so easily fighting him, that she'd have died and never had a shot at changing the world back then. That "Demon" boy from Kirigakure was just slightly older than she was as it turned out but he managed to resist torture from even the village's Yoruma ninja. The Yoruma clan was a nasty group of expert assassins, apart from slitting throats they also knew the human anatomy quite well and some of them were decent military strategists. Their knowledge of anatomy and sadistic nature made them unparalleled at the art of torture, they were so good in fact that the village purposefully kept them away from it usually. This time even their efforts proved to be vain – the young Demon resisted it all. What sort of training bred warriors like that?!
In a way Mana was jealous of that youth's skill, he was powerful enough to be on the level of a Chuunin, folding relatively easily only to Jounin taking him on. Also he had the skill to infiltrate another village and operate within it, he was not a man but a true shinobi, someone she was not. A real shinobi was not the person that they were, they were a tool, they didn't think of what to eat, where to sleep while in another village – they thought of whom they needed to talk to if they wanted this or that, they thought where they needed to poke to kill this person or that so that no one even noticed. Mana hated that concept but that one young man who followed it was so incredibly strong – one would say that the girl was intrigued by that strength and wanted an audience with him. Obviously such a thing was impossible, the young man was locked down in the Police Force headquarters…
The young magician crept downstairs and grabbed a couple of gyoza dumplings stuffing them into her mouth and then washing her hands. "You're leaving your hat at home?" father asked reading the paper. Mana sighed, "If that thing falls off again I'll never pick it up, not until my legs feel better…" the girl expressed her worry over her current state. She's been out of order for quite a long time and the village apparently needed the aid of Team Oak even with her impaired and… Sensei…
So far the village had no idea of what was going on. At least the ordinary villagers and the lower ranking ninja didn't. As far as Mana could've known the village may have known and have been discussing the results of that Summit behind everyone's backs. That vacation actually took a bit longer than Mana had predicted, it may take a week or so to travel to the location of the Summit if one moved really slowly, why would it have just went silent like that? Everyone felt a bit uneasy about that, everyone felt like there had been something that was going on and being hidden behind everyone's backs. The magician just sighed and kissed her father in the forehead slowly moving towards the door.
"Be careful, although I'm pretty sure the Administration has your health record, they wouldn't send you out in action. It's probably something you can do while sitting or just something simple…" father shared his worries. Or at least what Mana took as his worries, after his injury on the field he had trouble expressing his feelings, pain made people angry but over time both father started to better coping with the pain and Mana and mother learned to deal with his pain outrages. Maybe as time passes all will be alright… Maybe…
This would've finally been the day when Mana would've tried to instead of being totally locked down by her crutches moving with a cane. So far it seemed to work, her muscles still hurt with each step so she had to take it a bit slow but at least she wasn't completely off her feet. With a shamefully loud clacking of her steel cane the magician left out to the streets of her village. Her injury made her postpone countless magic shows, strangely enough the villagers treated her just the same – they came up to her with worried faces and kept asking her what happened. She lied to them. Mana didn't like to nor was she too good at it but… She didn't want to hear all those same morals all over again: "Don't overstretch yourself now!", "Be careful next time", "Well I suppose the art of knowing how to train comes with experience. Don't worry you'll get it soon!" Mana kept telling everyone she fell and got hurt like that. She had no bandages or anything like that so everyone must've known she was hiding something – her wounds were internal. Her muscles were burning up from being exhausted to the point where using them felt like being set on fire below the waist. It was getting better with every day but the process of recovery was slow, especially with Mana doing mental training while her physical body was injured…
Ironically enough she advanced much further in mental arts than she had in the physical. Mana started grasping the basic concept of her own martial art made of kicks, long reaching and stretched out ones to keep her opponent's at distance where she could dictate the terms of battle using ninjutsu and genjutsu… However after her injury made it quite impossible to train she started working on her chakra capacity and making advancement in her understanding of the human brain which helped her start working on improving her genjutsu. New concepts of new rough drafts of powerful techniques started appearing in the girl's mind but nothing specific was mastered yet. It was all just sharp blades that still needed hilts to be used properly…
Why was she so much weaker than everyone else? Even Shimo put up a fight, at least so she heard from all the official stories of the events. After she passed out the Demon proceeded to kill her but Shimo interrupted him and fought him valiantly, they were quite even as father's higher ranking ninja friends recounted. Why was she dispatched off so quickly and easily? She worked hard, she had a goal that kept her fighting, why was she neither on the league of Sugemi or Shimo nor the league of that Demon from Kirigakure? Mana desperately wanted to talk to that young man from the Mist in the darkest corners of her heart, know how true strength like his is acquired – strength to protect her friends and change the world.
Tanshu-sensei will hate her even more than he always did when he comes back knowing she went down so easily back then…
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