Jiraiya rubbed his temples.
He'd tagged along with Nagato and the others for exactly one reason: to work out what Natsuki intended to do with the shinobi world.
The Shinobi Village Alliance was, on its face, a genuine step toward peace. He'd give it that much.
What he didn't understand was what the Alliance was actually for.
Because none of it was work shinobi were supposed to be doing. And more than that, it looked destined to collide head-on with the Daimyo — everything outside of combat had always been their domain.
Jiraiya turned it over and decided to wait. He'd see whether it worked before passing judgment.
"That's enough on the first matter for now." Natsuki spoke over the assembly's private calculations. "The finer rules will come once implementation begins."
Scrolls were rolled up and put away.
Because this was only item one, and Ohnoki in particular didn't believe for a second that Natsuki was so generous. The first item benefited every village present. The rest almost certainly wouldn't.
"Second matter." Natsuki's smile stayed exactly where it was. "The Hidden Leaf will be reclaiming all of the Tailed Beasts."
"What?"
Ohnoki's head came up.
Their predictions had landed — and then gone further than any of them had let themselves imagine.
Ever since the Five Nations and Five Villages system was founded, jinchuriki and Tailed Beasts had functioned as strategic weapons. A single one could tilt an entire war. That was precisely why every village treated theirs as its ace in the hole.
The beasts had been distributed by Hashirama in the first place, yes. But that was generations ago, and by now every village considered its own to be its own.
"I object!" Ohnoki was on his feet.
He turned to the other three — Mei, Pakura, Mabui — and waited.
Not one of them said a word.
Mei's face flickered with hesitation.
Pakura and Mabui showed nothing at all. The former didn't care. The latter had no reason to object, given that both of the Cloud's Tailed Beasts were already in Leaf hands.
Behind them, Chiyo and the rest wore open resistance. They understood exactly how devastating surrendering a Tailed Beast would be.
"Konan," Natsuki said, almost idly.
Konan nodded and slipped away. She returned a short while later with Nii Yugito.
"Yugito!" Mabui was out of her chair instantly.
"I extracted the Two-Tails from her some time ago," Natsuki said. "As you can see, she survived it."
The implication landed on Ohnoki and the others like a dropped stone.
The Leaf had developed a method of removing a Tailed Beast without killing the host.
Which meant Natsuki had been planning to reclaim all of them for a very long time.
"I'm not asking your opinion." The warmth went out of Natsuki's voice entirely. "If the Tailed Beasts have not arrived in the Hidden Leaf within one month, I'll come collect them myself."
The threat wasn't dressed up in anything at all, and the chill of it went straight through them.
Every mind in that field went back to the mountain — to a single swing of a sword and the plain they were currently standing on — and every one of them sobered up fast.
There had never been a choice. Not really.
Ohnoki sank back into his chair.
"Mabui. Take her home." Natsuki waved a hand.
Without the Two-Tails, Nii Yugito was a talented young woman and nothing more. There was no value in keeping her.
"Yes, Lord Hokage." Mabui let out a long breath, stepped forward, and took Yugito's hand.
The two of them had grown up alongside Samui — three girls, one childhood. The bond spoke for itself.
"Any objections?" Natsuki's gaze swept the assembly.
Silence answered him.
Once the shock wore off, Tsunade, Nawaki, and Minato all found the same thought surfacing: maybe peace was actually coming.
Stripped of their Tailed Beasts, every other village would drop several rungs in raw power. The Leaf, holding all nine, would sit alone at the summit.
In theory, if those nine were wielded with any sense at all, no village would ever dare start a war again.
Yahiko and Nagato exchanged a look, and each found the same spark in the other's eyes. They'd gotten there too.
Jiraiya, on the other hand, was more confused than ever.
Natsuki had done all this, and he still wasn't the Child of Prophecy?
He decided he needed to go back to Mount Myoboku and put the question to the Great Toad Sage directly.
"No objections. Then the second matter is settled." Natsuki nodded.
In the original story, there had been no shortage of proposed roads to peace. Madara's Infinite Tsukuyomi. Jiraiya's Child of Prophecy. Obito's new world.
But in Natsuki's assessment, the shinobi with the most realistic shot at it had always been Nagato.
Because Nagato's plan had teeth. Gather every Tailed Beast, forge a superweapon, and then make the entire world feel the true cost of war until nobody was willing to pay it again.
Natsuki's approach ran along the same lines: his own strength, backed by the deterrent weight of all nine beasts.
In a world that worshipped power, he considered that the only method that would hold. Words alone had never ended a single war.
The method had exactly one flaw.
He could never die, and he could never lose.
Die, and the world would do what it did after Hashirama died — tear itself open again. Lose, and the effect was much the same. The instant people believed he could be beaten, ambition would start sprouting everywhere at once.
As things stood, immortality was already handled.
So long as he stayed undefeated, the peace could hold indefinitely.
And on that front, with the system behind him, he was confident. The greatest threat in the original story had been the Otsutsuki. Unlock every template he currently held, and he'd stand on their level without flinching.
"Third matter. Every future change of Kage requires my approval," Natsuki said, expression flat.
The color drained out of Ohnoki's face, and out of half the field with him.
A Kage was the village. If even the succession required Natsuki's signature, then in every way that mattered, they had become his subordinates. Every other village would sit one rung beneath the Leaf, permanently.
And yet nobody spoke.
Because the second matter had already demonstrated, beyond argument, that speaking would achieve nothing.
Refusal meant death. They could still count that high.
"Fourth matter. The Alliance's administrative headquarters will be established in the Hidden Leaf. Each village will select shinobi to be permanently stationed there." Natsuki considered a moment, then added it.
After the first two items, this one was painless. Ohnoki and the others agreed on the spot.
"Any other questions?"
"I have one." Ohnoki thought about it, then went ahead. "What do the Daimyo make of all this?"
"I notified them in advance. Not one of them raised an objection." Natsuki was smiling again. "If you doubt me, ask the Earth Daimyo yourself when you get home."
Something lurched in Ohnoki's chest.
By any sane reckoning, the Earth Daimyo would never have signed off on any of this.
Unless he was already under Natsuki's control.
And with Natsuki's strength, taking the Daimyo would have been trivially easy.
Ohnoki didn't dare say so out loud. He said nothing at all.
"Then this summit is concluded." Natsuki waited a beat for further questions that didn't come. "After the New Year, each village will send its people to the Hidden Leaf to formally establish the Alliance."
It was late December. Less than a week out.
Even now, he could be considerate about the timing of things.
"Yes, Lord Hokage."
The assembly rose and began to disperse.
Pakura considered lingering, then thought better of it. She'd wanted a private word — but there was no real need. Natsuki turned up in the Hidden Sand often enough on his own.
In the end, only the Leaf and the Hidden Rain remained.
"Coming back to Konoha with us?" Natsuki looked over the Rain delegation. "Stay through the New Year. Once the Alliance is up and running, you can head home."
Yahiko and Nagato nodded immediately. Their hopes for the Alliance ran high.
"You lot go on ahead. I need to make a trip to Mount Myoboku." Jiraiya vanished from where he stood before anyone could respond.
Natsuki raised a hand and opened a doorway in the air.
"Finally." Nawaki sounded thoroughly relieved.
A week of wandering the Hidden Cloud had exhausted the novelty completely. He just wanted to sleep in his own bed.
Tsunade, Mikoto, and Kushina were of much the same mind.
The group stepped through and came out in the Hokage's building in the Hidden Leaf.
"Konan, get the Rain shinobi settled." Then Natsuki turned to the rest. "None of you are working today. Go home and rest."
"What about you?" Kushina asked.
"I'll look in on the office. If nothing's on fire, I'll head home too."
Kushina let it go at that and left with Tsunade and Nawaki. Minato and the others said their goodbyes and followed.
Natsuki turned toward the Hokage's building.
[Congratulations! Host has unlocked Saint Imu Nerona's Template Ability 3: Sovereign Weapons.]
Information on twenty distinct weapons poured into his mind all at once.
His thoughts went, oddly, to Otsutsuki Kinshiki.
Every Otsutsuki carried a formidable spread of abilities, drawn from the Byakugan, the Rinnegan, or the Rinne Sharingan. Kinshiki had been one of the clansmen dispatched to hunt down Kaguya, and his gift — Takemikazuchi-no-Kami — had let him manifest an arsenal of devastating weapons.
The Sovereign Weapons struck Natsuki as a close cousin to that technique.
And in terms of raw destructive output, they gave up nothing to it.
He stroked his chin.
With the war over and the Alliance underway, his next priority was clear: unlock template abilities.
Three templates mattered most to him right now — Gojo Satoru, Emiya Shirou, and Imu.
Of Gojo's three abilities, Reverse Cursed Technique and Domain Expansion: Unlimited Void were the obvious first targets. Their conditions were to invert a ninjutsu's effect and to master the Six Red Yang Formation.
The Emiya Shirou template had four locked abilities, of which Rule Breaker and Rho Aias were the low-hanging fruit — kill a traitor, and block thrown weapons from a Kage-class opponent seven times.
For the first, Natsuki intended to find a rogue ninja and see whether that satisfied the condition.
For the second, the Leaf was hardly short on Kage-class shinobi. And the Kage-class shinobi most fond of thrown weapons was Namikaze Minato without contest, given that the Flying Thunder God technique ran on kunai and shuriken.
He'd arrange a sparring session when he had a free afternoon.
He stepped into the Hokage's office and stopped.
Someone had followed him in.
"You're not going home to rest?" Natsuki glanced back at Uchiha Mikoto.
"I'm not tired." She came forward, her voice soft. "I'll stay. If there's anything you need done, I can do it."
"Change out of that." Natsuki looked her over.
She'd worn a Jonin flak jacket for the summit.
Mikoto nodded, closed the door behind her, and changed — trading the jacket for a white blouse, a fitted pencil skirt, and a tailored jacket over the top.
"Much better," Natsuki said.
Mikoto smiled at that. She'd learned his preferences well enough by now.
He reached over and tugged the jacket a fraction off her shoulder, and the sight of her — gentle, faintly embarrassed, and not moving away — was worth lingering on.
"Let me get through the paperwork first."
He turned toward the desk and sat down.
He hadn't been back in the village in some time, and the documents had stacked up accordingly. Nothing in the pile was serious, thankfully.
Then again, after a world war, it was hard for anything to qualify as serious.
Natsuki worked through them and set the last one down with a breath.
Mikoto glanced up, saw that he'd finished, and rose.
"I'll take you home."
He stood and opened a doorway in the air.
"Thank you."
"It's a little early for that."
Natsuki bent and scooped her up. Mikoto's body settled against his chest, and with nothing under her feet and open space beneath the doorway, she had no choice but to hold on tightly — her face burning the entire way through.
He saw her home, stayed another half hour, and then went back to the Senju compound.
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