Chapter 41: The Negotiation Table
"You certainly kept me waiting, Lord Raikage," the Third Hokage said with a smile, though his words carried a subtle jab at the Raikage's late arrival. "The scenery in the Land of Iron is lovely, but I've grown a bit tired of it these past few days."
The Third Raikage, however, was not one for such games. "An impatient man has no time to wait. It wasn't the Cloud's men who were captured. I was in no hurry."
Hiruzen's face fell. Such a brute, he thought. He's a Kage, and he still doesn't know how to play the game. Why be so blunt?
His gaze then shifted to the small boy standing obediently behind the Raikage. This must be the child who had started it all, the Raikage's second son. According to Jiraiya's report, at the end of the battle, the boy had displayed an incredible speed that even a taijutsu master like Tsunade couldn't handle. He was a constant hindrance. He likely possessed a brand-new Kekkei Genkai.
A new prodigy for the Hidden Cloud.
That was all Hiruzen knew. The ones with more information were currently guests of the Cloud. If he knew that Danzo and Sakumo's capture also had Dana's fingerprints all over it, he would have taken the boy much more seriously.
"Your Konoha ninja trespassed into the Cloud's sphere of influence and attacked my son," the Raikage's voice boomed. "And I was just in time to save him. Then, you pretended to negotiate while plotting a sneak attack. It is a disgrace. I am only giving you face by agreeing to this meeting. How does Konoha plan to resolve this?"
"The attack was a misunderstanding, a result of a mission conflict," Hiruzen countered, trying to maintain a semblance of control. "And we only entered the Land of Hot Water, not the Land of Lightning. As for what happened later, Elder Danzo was simply anxious to rescue his comrades and misjudged the situation." Though Konoha had lost both the battle and the moral high ground, he still had to put up a verbal fight.
To Dana's surprise, the pineapple-headed Nara clan member, whom he had expected to play a key role, remained silent throughout the exchange, his eyes fixed on the floor, as if the verbal sparring had nothing to do with him.
After a moment of thought, Dana guessed that the situation had escalated to the point where the other Konoha clans were no longer willing to take the fall for the Hokage's faction. The ones who had started the trouble were from the Hokage's faction. The ones who had been captured were from the Hokage's faction. If they got involved now, they would likely be forced to share the cost. The relationship between the clans and the Hokage was a complex one. Even his staunchest supporters had to weigh the costs and benefits.
Dana inwardly sneered at Konoha's political climate. This Nara ninja was probably only here out of respect for Choza Akimichi. He might offer Hiruzen advice in private, but in public, he was determined to be a ghost.
The Third Raikage and the Third Hokage were old acquaintances. The initial verbal jousting was just for show, a way to apply and deflect pressure. Both of them knew that the real negotiation would be about the division of spoils.
"Your people are in my hands," the Raikage said bluntly. "It's simple. Konoha must compensate the Cloud for our losses to get them back." He handed Hiruzen a list.
"Everything on this list can be used as compensation. Each item has a corresponding point value. The Cloud is demanding a total of 1000 points. Pay up, and you get your people back. It's that simple." The Third Raikage leaned back, a smug look on his face. He silently gave Dana a thumbs-up.
This point-based system was also Dana's idea, though the values had been determined by a group. Using points instead of money was a way to account for the fact that many of the items on the list, such as secret jutsu, were not things that could be bought and sold.
They would only begin to release prisoners once 500 points had been paid. The most important ones—Tsunade, Danzo, and Sakumo—would only be released once the full 1000 points had been paid. This method prevented the Cloud from being swindled on items with ambiguous value and turned a one-time transaction into a long-term process. It gave Konoha time to scrape together the necessary compensation, and it gave the Cloud ample time to verify the authenticity and value of what they received.
And what was "value"? Whatever the Cloud said it was.
Hiruzen unrolled the list. Even with his years of experience, he could barely contain his shock.
Every conceivable resource a hidden village could need was on the list. Explosive tags, soldier pills, kunai, shuriken—each had a different point value, but all of them were ridiculously low. 5000 explosive tags for a mere 10 points. Do you have any idea how much explosive tags cost?
Various secret jutsu were also on the list. The Second Hokage's techniques, for example, were not listed by name—because no one but Hiruzen knew how many he had left behind. They were simply listed as a category, with the note that the Cloud would verify the value of whatever Konoha offered. If there was a disagreement on the value, the deal was off. This put the ball squarely in Konoha's court. They had to prove the value of what they were offering.
Then there was the "special" category.
A summoning contract with Ryuchi Cave, Mount Myoboku, or Shikkotsu Forest: 100 points each.
A summoning contract with the Sarutobi clan (Monkey King Enma): 150 points.
A declaration to no longer accept missions in the Land of Frost, the Land of Hot Water, the Land of Sound, etc.: 100 points per country.
Hiruzen knew that Ryuchi Cave, Mount Myoboku, and Shikkotsu Forest were the summoning locations of his three disciples. They had only recently signed their contracts and couldn't even use them in combat yet. He was surprised the Cloud knew about them. While Shikkotsu Forest was the summoning place of the First Hokage and therefore of great importance, Hiruzen didn't know much about the other two, only that Jiraiya and Orochimaru had stumbled upon them and signed the contracts themselves. Both places were said to possess considerable combat strength. But the Cloud was known to be lacking in the summoning department, so the demand was not entirely unexpected. And he found it perfectly normal that his own Sarutobi clan's summoning contract was valued higher than the others.
Overall, the list transformed a simple one-time payment into a complex, negotiable process, and it put the burden of proof on the losing side. No matter how much it annoyed him, Hiruzen decided that if the need ever arose, Konoha would use this method in their own negotiations.
As it stood, if Konoha wanted to pay with money or resources, it would be a devastating blow to their economy and treasury. If not, they would have to give up some of their most valuable secrets.
"They'll definitely choose a combination of both," Dana had told his father the day before. "They might even try to add new items to the list and argue about the value of others. We can negotiate. We can compromise. But our two core objectives are a summoning contract with one of the three great sage regions and the Uzumaki clan's sealing jutsu. All other compromises are just a means to that end. I even inflated the value of the Sarutobi contract to mislead them. The same goes for the Second Hokage's secret jutsu. That's Konoha's lifeblood. They'll never give us anything good. But the Uzumaki's sealing jutsu? They might not care as much about that."
"I understand the sealing jutsu," A had said, "but why are you so fixated on these three summoning contracts?"
Dana had to be vague. "I read about them in a book," he said. "They're called the Three Great Sage Regions. They hold many of the ninja world's secrets. And they're not just one or two summoned beasts, but entire clans. The benefits are immense. And the Cloud doesn't have a decent summoning contract. It's a definite win."
Dana's real objective was a ticket to learning senjutsu, but that was a concept that even Jiraiya, who had just signed the contract, probably didn't understand yet. So, it wasn't the right time to bring it up.