Pre-Chapter A/N:This one's a whole day late. Got my portfolio assessment tomorrow (think of it like a halfway test in my country's law school to decide if we're eligible to take the bar) so wish me luck. The next one might be a day or two late as well. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
I hadn't actually seen this coming, I thought to myself as I stared down at the letter that had arrived from Kumo. They were bowing out of the war, it seems. And even if their surrender left a lot to be desired. Not least because it did not use the word "surrender" even once, or even the phrase "Greater Military Force," when referring to Konoha. Simply settling for calling us a "Great Military Power."
"Are we going to take it?" Shika asked from her position across from me. This wasn't a full council meeting, just one of my inner circle so I could make a decision I would be proud of.
"I think we should take it. They don't offer any reparations or anything, but we're overflowing with gold from what we took from Iwa, essentially doubling our treasury. And then there is the fact that even though they offer us nothing except a cessation of hostilities and a return of the prisoners they took in Frost, they don't dare expect to get the same right out of the gate. They expect to negotiate a ransom per shinobi," I said.
"I thought you said the money doesn't matter," Uzume said.
"The money always matters, to be fair, but yes. We won't be taking it. We have a better use for the Iwa shinobi here in Konoha proper. We will accept the return of our prisoners and tell them we have none of theirs. The lives they give us for our use shall be their reparations," I said.
"Works for me," Uzume shot in.
"I do not disagree, but I must add that you sound very disturbing, cousin. I do not know what you intend to do with the prisoners, but I am beginning to suspect that I do not actually want to know," Uraume said.
"Concerns noted. I'll endeavor to sound less like a mad scientist in the future," I said.
"That is all I can ask for, Cousin."
"Now, moving on, is that all? Just a quiet acquiescence?" I asked.
"As the winning party, we can either elect to have them send one of theirs here to sign a treaty, or we can go to their village to do it there. Do you have a preference?" Shika asked. Considering when Kumo came into the village in canon, they had tried to kidnap the Hyuga heiress, it was probably a good idea not to have them anywhere close to here. But then on the other hand, having them make the journey would make them the supplicants—which they were.
If I made the journey over there, then it seemed like I was overly desperate for the deal. But then again, that would mean they would have me in their village. With how the hiraishin worked, the second I was inside their village, Kumo was basically never going to be a threat again, now that I could just teleport to the middle of their village on a whim once I managed to place enough seals around. Of course, it was customary to send a Jounin or whatever, but there were no rules against sending a Kage, and thanks to hiraishin, I could be there and back in a day or two.
The decision was made then.
"I'll have us make the journey," I said. Uraume lifted an eyebrow, while Shika just nodded, not even questioning it. I guess I did enough strange things that she could just ignore this one as a quirk of me being me.
"Alright then. Now to the matter of…"
—
"So what do you want me to find out?" Inoken asked. We stood before the unconscious prisoner, deep in the bowels of T&I, and I was finally getting the free time necessary to look into the ex-Tsuchikage's mind and whatnot.
"I'm mostly just interested in finding out how the Tsuchikage's lightweight boulder jutsu worked," I said.
"That is awfully specific."
"Should that not mean you have an easier time?" I asked.
"The mind walk is far from perfect. Even after breaking down most of her defenses, she still has an impressive level of natural resistance," he said.
"But you can manage it?"
"But I can probably manage it," he agreed, stepping forward and running through a long set of hand seals before placing his hands on either side of her head and then placing his own forehead against hers.
I turned to the side, seeing the crowd of fresh-faced Yamanaka kids watching us. Apparently, this was a rite of passage in the clan. Because it was definitely a good idea to indoctrinate children by showing them how their powers could be used to breach the privacy of others. And somehow, no one in the clan felt like having them in the bowels of T&I was a tad bit too much. Beyond enemy shinobi, there were dangers here I wouldn't want any child of mine seeing. But these weren't mine. And beyond being their Kage, I had little to do with any of them. They weren't my business. And if this was the same program that had birthed Inoken, then who was I to question it.
I tried to avoid tapping my foot against the ground or showing any sign of impatience as the minutes ticked on and on. And then the children who had been whispering to themselves while watching the mind walk seemed to turn to me as one. One of the lot, just as blonde and blue-eyed as the rest and near impossible to tell apart from any of the children next to him, walked forward.
"Hokage-sama," he said with a bow that was far better than what any child his age should be managing. Of course, shinobi training meant that the natural clumsiness of childhood was beaten out of them, and beaten out early. Sometimes, even literally. It had never happened to me, but I'd heard what the trainers in the Hyuga did to children who lagged behind in learning the gentle fist. It wasn't pretty by any means.
"Yes, little one?" I asked, looking down at him. And then realizing what the height disparity was, I bent down at my knees so we could see somewhat eye to eye, even if his eyes were more at my chest level than anything else.
"Inoken-sensei says you were classmates when he was younger," he said.
"Yes. Yes, we were. We were in the same class at the academy and became genin together," I confirmed. The boy turned back to his group of fellow children, and then they began giggling among themselves. I had to wonder if they were simply that good at non-verbal communications or if they had some mental bond or whatnot going on. They didn't look to be over six or seven each, but with shinobi children, you never knew.
"Can you tell us about him?" the boy asked when he turned back to me.
"About him?"
"What he was like when he was our age. He never talks about back then," he said.
"Alright then. You can call the rest of your friends over then," I said.
"No need, Hokage-sama. I have them all here," he said, pointing at his head. Then I looked back over to the crowd of children. Cue even more giggling. Of course, Yamanaka children would be creepy as fuck. It made perfect sense. They tended to make for creepy adults as well.
"Regardless, I would be more comfortable if I was speaking to them face to face rather than through a mind link," I pressed.
"Yes, Hokage-sama," he said, and without saying anything else, the children began to stream into the room, coming through the door. There were about seven of them altogether. Each one blonde, blue-eyed, and sporting the same smile I didn't know what to do about. I silently decided to look into the rates of incest in the Yamanaka clan. Because come to think of it, I couldn't, for the life of me, remember any of Inoken's family members who had married into the clan. Even worse than that was just how similar they all looked. Surely there had to be something unnatural going on here.
"Okay, so Inoken as a child was a natural prankster," I started, watching them all fall into rapt attention. The giggling, the sidelong looks, all of it disappeared, and then they were giving me their full attention.
"When I started at the academy, I was bored because I already knew what they were going to be teaching for the most part, so I began to play pranks. I drew a fake explosion seal on my table on my very first day and almost gave our sensei a heart attack. While most of my class took that as a sign that I was somewhat bad news, Inoken was very different. He came to me the very next morning and demanded I teach him the trick. Since that day, you can say we've been partners in—"
"How the hell did you lot get inside again?" I heard my friend's irate voice cut into my speech.
"It's fine, I waved them on in," I said, taking the blame.
"No, no. They shouldn't have been able to get inside at all. There's a lock seal on the door," he said. I looked over at the door, and lo and behold, there was a seal tag on it that should have kept the door locked, but someone had scribbled a few kanji over it. I wasn't all that familiar with the sealing language—it was probably the Konoha basic—but I could see that the seal had bypassed the lock by confusing the matrix and turning it back on itself. How interesting.
"Again, Rukia?" he asked, turning his attention straight to one of the girls in the crowd.
"Sorry, Inoken-sensei. We just wanted to talk to Hokage-sama," she said, kicking her feet against themselves while looking straight at the ground. Her lips were set into a pout not quite hidden by her hair falling over her face.
Inoken just sighed, placing his hand on his nose. "It's—it's fine. Just be careful, please. The fact that these prisoners are unconscious doesn't mean they can never be dangerous. We try to keep a good schedule of poisons and other means and methods to keep them docile and complacent, but there is every chance that something goes wrong, and when it does, we wouldn't want any of you to be in range for something to go wrong," he said.
"I think we can give them a pass this time, Inoken. I am here, after all. There was no safer place for them in this village than in this very room with me," I said, and where I would have cringed at the brag before, now I just accepted it as the truth it was. Saying the truth wasn't bragging. Not when I could back up all my words with actions when the time came.
"What I really want to talk about is this," I said, pointing to the seal.
He looked over at it as well, and then a look appeared on his face I wasn't quite able to decipher.
"Oh, that? We train them in some basic fuinjutsu as part of the program. Why do you think I was so curious about the explosion seal you made that first day in class?"
"Of course, I was never good enough to really achieve all that much. But Rukia is something of a genius with the seals," he said.
"How interesting," I said, a feeling building in my stomach.
"She can show you how good she is, if you want," he said.
"She can, indeed. Can I borrow her tomorrow for an assessment?" I asked.
"Sure. I'll move things in the schedule. But back to what you wanted."
"Were you able to find it?"
"Even better. I was able to find the jutsu, yes, and how it works, but I was also able to find an interesting piece of information that I'm sure you're going to find utterly fascinating."
"Don't keep me waiting then. Spit it out," I prompted when he didn't immediately get to talking about the information.
"She's the daughter of Mu," he said.
"The Null Man?"
"Yup. The Second Tsuchikage himself. She was the one supposed to be in the running to become the third. But then one day, her father sees a young Onoki perfectly executing his jutsu. You see, Onoki had initially been far from the running for the position. Sure, Ishikawa was his Grandfather, but Ishikawa had very much fully intended Mu to be his legacy. Ishikawa had been able to use the jutsu from what I could tell, but nowhere near the same level as Mu, and he didn't have the particle release either. So it was basically a life of mediocrity for Onoki. Then he spied on some lessons, showed he was better than the person actually being taught and, credit where it is due, the Null Man didn't waste the potential that he could see right in front of his eyes," Inoken said.
"Interesting. So I'm guessing you're telling me this because the lessons Onoki spied on were the ones on the lightweight jutsu?"
"Exactly. You're a good guesser, Shori. You should find a job that lets you do a lot of that," he said, somewhat sarcastically.
"Of course. But then I wonder how looking for information on the technique led to finding this out," I said, watching as Inoken flushed, his head turning to the side as he refused to meet my gaze. He'd clearly diverted from the mission I'd sent him on, and he wasn't even guilty. I sighed. What an army I had at my disposal. Taking that as his cue to attempt a defense, he began.
"But it's so interesting. No one even has any record of the Null Man ever having children. To think that one was hiding right under our noses all this while, pretending to be the civilian wife of the Kage. It makes you wonder… just what other secrets could the other villages have lurking beneath their surfaces?"
"Well, that's all well and good, but can you explain the jutsu to me now? You know, the thing I actually asked you to find out?" I asked. I wasn't all that bothered by his curiosity, but it was best to try to get any inclination for disobeying orders out of him sooner rather than later.
"Sure, I can." I waved him on.
"As you probably know, the technique is actually two different jutsu. One is the Light Weight Rock Technique and the other is the Added Weight Rock Technique," he started.
I waved him on to continue, because sure, they were two separate jutsu, but they worked on more or less the exact same underlying principle, and that was what I wanted to know about.
"So the Added Weight Rock Technique is an earth release jutsu that basically pumps the target full with earth release chakra to simulate additional weight on them and increased gravity, whatnot."
"Just earth release chakra?" I asked, finding that difficult to imagine.
"Very precisely. Mu says you'd need better chakra control than a medical ninja to even attempt using the technique at its lower levels," he said, and that at least explained why Iwagakure wasn't smashing the rest of the world to pieces with legions of flying shinobi.
Okay, that was workable. I had pretty good chakra control, and thanks to my Byakugan, I could make it even better if I was focusing on what I was doing. I would just train it with full attention until I could use it by rote.
"But what about the lightweight boulder jutsu? It can't work on the opposite principle, can it?" I couldn't even imagine what taking away earth release chakra from someone would look like. It wouldn't make any sense for it to work that way. In fact, I was pretty certain it wouldn't work that way.
"It works basically exactly like the Added Weight Rock Jutsu. You're applying a massive amount of earth release chakra very precisely to lighten a target rather than to increase the weight of it."
"How is any of this even possible with earth release chakra?"
"How Mu taught it was that it was best to imagine the earth itself as one giant rock. Nothing else to it, except the fact that this rock has the power to attract other rocks to it."
"Gravity, I surmised."
"Exactly."
"Earth release is all about manipulating the earth, isn't it? The added weight and the lightweight jutsu work by affecting the relationship a target has with the attractive forces of the earth."
"So it's true gravity manipulation then?"
"As close as you can get, yeah. And localized to a single target. But how are you going to learn it, though? I doubt an explanation is enough for something that precise."
"There are two choices. One, I could try trial and error with my chakra until I figured it out. With enough clones, I'm pretty much guaranteed to strike gold at some point. On the other hand, I could take a shortcut."
"Which you aren't doing already because?" he asked.
"It would be risky in some ways. Not all that risky, all things considered, but most definitely more cruel than just trying it myself over and over again."
"And you've been scared of being cruel since when, exactly?"
"Good enough point," I conceded with a chuckle. Because he was right. Cruelty had never been an issue for me. We were interrupted by the sound of one of the children yawning.
"Oh, I guess I've got to get them in for nap time. Mother will kill me if I get them too exhausted before night practice," he said, indirectly asking to be excused.
"You can go, Inoken," I said, turning to watch the unconscious earth nin. It was not until Inoken had sent out the last of the children and was the last one in the room that I turned to him again.
"And Inoken?"
"Yes, Shori?"
"Next time you want me to take a member of your clan under my wing, you can just ask instead of staging something so elaborate," I said, testing the theory that had been niggling at me. Instead of shame at being caught, my old academy classmate let out a hearty laugh.
"Yeah, Shika said I should just ask as well," he said, not a shred of remorse in his voice as he left and closed the door behind him.
A/N: We get to spend some time with the Yamanaka clan, even as Shori gets a look at the direction he'll be developing in. Next six up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)(same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.