I was right in believing that the ceasefire would have been respected, I just didn't expect for Kumo to not be the cause behind the attack that I was reported to. It's been just a day after my spar with Madara, and I wasn't that happy of being brought out of my tent with the news I had received.
Not when it was clear that someone in Kumo decided to make things funny and hire mercenaries to harass a few spots of the frontline while we waited for the treaty to be signed. I huffed at the upsetting circumstance and the fact I had to bring Yoshiko with me for the occasion. The redhead was… 'excited'. Not really into the kind of action that I knew I was going to take her to see, but more invested into the ass-whooping portion, the one that lacked bloody details and gritty gore. I didn't want to be there to be the one to introduce her to this horror at her age but… there wasn't much to do. Asking for her to stay behind would be foolish, especially when she didn't have the rank to be my substitute. She was my assistant and that's all. Instead of lamenting too much in this circumstance, I just dropped for a smart idea and gave her some pep talk and preparation. She was disgusted by the words I was using, but I was surprised when she managed to hold her breakfast within her belly. A fair achievement I was quite sure she wasn't going to keep until red was being spilled by some morons.
Right in that moment the situation was far from pretty: a trio of high-ranking mercenaries had managed to stir quite some trouble by the area that I had assigned Hirotada's group to patrol. It was an upsetting development, but even more concerning one when it came to how the request had come in the form of a Shadow Clone from Hirotada himself. The urgency was clear, and it pumped me full of adrenaline to know we were about to face some troublesome bastards I wasn't possibly prepared to face. Eventually we caught up to our destination, and I felt annoyance building up to the fact it wasn't within the coverage offered by the trees. The small section the group had engaged with the mercenaries looked was right in front of one of the many unnamed temples that existed in the area. It was fairly old, but way smaller compared to the one where I found Matatabi.
Yet, as soon as I gained sight of my former teammates, I felt my heart clench at the scene I was looking at. Everyone was mostly out of commission. Standing up with some wounds Tessai and Hiroko were managing to stand up with just a few bruises, holding well just like Hirotada himself was. The rest of the group was… partly out of commission. Utamara could barely stand, with his principal objective right now covering Wakiko as she tried to help Seitaro as medically as possible. I spared a look at the blue-haired young man. His left arm reached his right one- or rather the stump where once his right arm had been. But I could tell that this wasn't the worst case scenario, my eyes moving to the little spot near Hirotada, where a panicking Reira tried to defend the barely-moving Kagami while Kosuke did his best to stabilize this situation. The boy was on the ground, the only visible movement in his body being his breathing, now irregular due to the pain and the state of unconsciousness he seemed to be.
Finally I turned to the pricks that had decided to put me in that terrible mood, two guys and a woman, and I realized something grim and unpleasant. Their eyes were glowing a bright red, similar to the Sharingan but… different at the same time. The pupil was shaped differently, with it being red while the iris being a dark black with a small red line in the middle. Despite the tiny difference, I was quite certain that this unplanned Doujutsu was similar to the Sharingan from the way the rest of the defenders were trying to keep their eyes away from gazing upon the attackers. Matatabi, now perched in my right shoulder, was tense and upset at the sight she was presented with.
"This isn't… an eye I'm familiar with," She whispered with some surprise and frustration. "Be careful."
Her words matched with my line of action, as I knew that being too exposed without a good and deadly plan would have just left me open for whatever had happened to the rest of the team. It was clear that the doujutsu was no joke from the way everyone had been left on. So, I had to be creative and brutal. As I'm usually when it comes up a situation like the one we were in.
"I aim to," I whispered back while preparing two senbon from the ones I brought with myself. "Shiko-chan?"
The girl perked at my quiet call. "Yes?"
"I want you to… find a good spot where to hold the man on the left with your chains, while I take out the guy on the center."
The redhead slowly nodded, but asked one last question before moving. "What about the remaining one?"
"She is a prisoner," I curtly replied, hiding away what I had in store for the guy himself. I waited for the Uzumaki girl to be in position before starting the little show myself. I waited for the situation to be just fine for me to get the proper precision I was seeking and… I was blessed with a lucky hit. Or two. The central figure, the one I was aiming my projectile at, was caught dead the instant the two senbon pierced through his eye sockets and deprived him of sight and life. His body tensed up out of instinct before leaning and tumbling down backward. As soon as the situation sunk in the combatants' mind, Yoshiko was already incapacitating the guy and offering Hirotada the chance to rush in and finish the bastard off with a quick strike at his brain.
The remaining doujutsu-user shivered in dread at the sudden passing of her companions, and it was clear from her shivering and her hesitance to engage in combat in that moment that she was neither confident in handling this disadvantage nor even winning her life out of it. So, thinking pragmatically and ignoring for a moment what had to have been the demise of part of her family, she swiftly dropped a smoke bomb to try and cover her retreat. A smart choice since I had planned to incapacitate her with some of my shurikens, something that forced me to stop with that early plan and try to intercept her through the smoke. Just as I was exposed and away from my hideout, I barely had the time to stand in front of the white curtain that the very moment I was chasing was suddenly pushed towards us. Her body landed on the cold ground, rolling just once as she barely tried to stand up. A kick from me stunned her out of her attempt and put her to sleep… leaving me to face what had just happened as someone else had intervened in that very moment.
I turned back to the smoke wall, expecting a possible new opponent to come out of it and… I was pleasantly surprised when instead I was greeted with a monk. A simple-looking monk with a bland look on his face. The man was mostly bald, apart from a long mohawk of black hair that was tied in a ponytail that reached his lower-back, his large black eyes lacking any visible emotions. He donned a flowing white robe with black vertical lines on the sleeves and coattails and his personal crest on the back, loosely fastened at the waist with a tasselled belt. An unfamiliar figure, but one that didn't seem that threatening at first glance. Still, something about his gaze just felt… unpleasant. I didn't ease down my guarded stance as I stared at him and he just… bowed down.
"Apologies for the lack of intervention before your arrival, young man," His loud voice ruptured through the tense silence, almost uncaring of the current predicament we were in. That left him exposed for any attacks but… he didn't seem to care from a quick look at it. "I just didn't think that my presence would have mattered due to the advantage these… fools had over your friends."
Sudden apology coming from a creepy guy? I didn't feel any better at hearing this but… my attention was unable to remain on him for long due to how relaxed and calm he appeared to be. If he was a threat, he wasn't going to act against us if we didn't attack him or his 'turf' first. At least, that's what it looked like at first glance, and how I wanted it to be so I could handle the trouble at hand. As I turned to check on the others, Reira called for my name with such a terrified voice, I was confused, thinking that maybe she had seen something scary about Kagami and thus worrying too much about him. He had looked just unconscious from where I first noticed him. I thought that Seitaro was dealing with the worst, but I was proven wrong when I checked on my childhood friend after Hiruzen.
My face paled the moment Kosuke was helped by Reira in turning the boy around and… showed me the full extent of the wound he was suffering because. My breath was caught in my throat as soon as I spotted the large red gash that spread from his left shoulder down in a diagonal pattern to the beginning of his right leg. Blood was still pouring despite Kosuke's best efforts to heal that wound up. With that situation unfolding, I called Hirotada, the Hyuuga heir crouching down and joining us in using green chakra to fix up the damage the unconscious boy had suffered. He was shaking, feeling the 'cold' death hanging over him as we fought the best we could to bring him into a more stable condition. Not an easy task due to the fact I was the only one with full chakra and the two other boys were too drained to give that much of a contribution.
I felt desperate. For the first time ever, I actually felt like I was losing someone I cared a lot for. Kagami had been there from the beginning, the lazy brat that still cared. That cared when I was being too dumb about a plan, or exaggerating with another… I felt mortality graze at my life again, and I was upset by it. I wasn't ready to accept this, and I pushed myself beyond what I could usually do by drawing as much energy as my reserves could. I was silent, I didn't care of the glances I was getting… until I saw slightly smaller hands joining ours as a certain redhead, fighting off the bile forming at the sight she was 'blessed' with, decided to join the situation. I was half tempted to tell her to not join, that her chakra would have been too dense to control with ease and… then I was reminded of the fact she had trained a lot over her chakra control. Since her reserves were fairly big for someone her age, what time other kids would just spend expanding their chakra was used by Yoshiko as a means to gain more control over her chakra. A slow process, but one that had given steady results due to how determined she was into making the difference and… standing up next to me.
In the span of having her around for a full year… I kind of forgot that she had 'matured' a little bit. Not enough to happily take on this situation without some physical upset by the sickly look she had on her face as she forced herself into the task, but rather into knowing how to not be too bratty in certain situations. She was still a pest at times but she was also easy to keep in check and keep her happy with small concessions I could leave her take. And right now, proving her worth within this war by trying to be part of this, reminded me that I was sticking too much into lulling her out of danger when there wasn't that kind of choice within the settings we were in.
With Yoshiko's help, the wound seemed to finally close up as it should and I could tell from a quick check on Kagami's conditions that he was stable. I breathed in relief at that development, feeling like we just barely got through that entire mess. But the situation wasn't over as I told Hirotada to go and help Hiroka in fixing Seitaro while we finished setting Kagami in a better position to be taken back to camp. Just as the Hyuuga boy moved out of the way, I felt a familiar shadow set beside me.
"An interesting take on existence, young man. Saving the life of your friend and subordinate," The monk of before muttered, catching me off-guard by how suddenly he moved so close to us. "Many officers like you would have left him, considering him a goner."
"I'm not 'many officers'," I replied curtly, feeling rather unwilling to give any more word to the guy. The feeling wasn't mutual from what he said next.
"Indeed, Shimura Danzou."
I tensed up at his response, catching on the element that really made that reply quite awkward. "I didn't introduce myself."
The monk merely bowed his head. "I've heard those that you've killed mention your name. Saying that they were there to 'get you in the open'."
"You're quite honest for a simple man," Matatabi pointed out placidly, surprising me as she thought his words were truthful. "I suppose your faith urges you to be blunt about reality."
A nod. "That would be the case, Nibi-sama. I'm Jigen, a humble monk of this abandoned temple."
"Nice to meet you… Jigen."
He merely nodded again, turning around and leaving. "I believe I've taken too much time from you. Apologies for this conversation but… I found your presence inspiring for more prayers today."
…
I call bullshit on this guy.
But as I kept a guarded approach around the man, I couldn't help that there was actually something serious about him that I just failed to grasp at. My head felt hurting a little, a clear sign that I might have overused my chakra when it came to help Kagami and, without wasting further time, I called for a proper retreat back to base. But before that, Yoshiko finally had the chance to discharge her breakfast on solid ground through her mouth as she was done fixing the stump that once was Seitaro's right arm. She was fine, but she really felt 'annoyed' that war was worse than she imagined. It wasn't a whine, it was a sense of personal regret everyone here had shared at least once when they started to work at the front in Iwa. The walk was quiet, and the headache was small enough to handle through the rest of the 'homework' for today. The prisoner was retrieved too, and we made sure to apply a blindfold to avoid any surprise before sending her to our mind specialists. I wanted a name or two about those that paid the mercs and what kind of special eye they had.
Kagami was sent to be checked by other medics, same for Seitaro with the young man definitely going to be discharged with honor due to the wound. He was going to hate this, but I gave him the order to suck his pride and take the bitter pill. There was no chance for him to make the difference and that he should be lucky he was alive to tell how ugly of a situation we had to face. He was still annoyed… but I couldn't do much about it. Not without making a bad impression on behaviors to keep people with that kind of injury in the battlefield. With the paperwork ordeal defeated once again after a gruesome session with Yoshiko, that night became a must for me to sleep as I needed to burn the stress away. Once I was through with dinner, my head was just exploding due to how stressed I felt, and surprisingly enough I found rest very quickly.
Way too quickly from the way it happened…
Instead of my usual dreams, I was bestowed with something I was quite familiar with. Not for nicety, of course, but for… nightmarish settings. The massive white palace I woke up into was the same as back then, and the throne room was designed to be as troubling as I remembered. I looked at the main chair, right where the core of my current issue was calmly sitting by.
Kaguya's eyes were upon me, and yet the rabbit Goddess was hardly paying me any major attention compared to last time. She was still intrigued by my presence, fascinated by the unusual phenomenon, but clearly thoughtful of the fact that happened back then. I held myself from gulping nervously and offered her reason to be amused by the fact the 'little mouse', at least compared to her own power in this domain. The woman didn't move to chase me, instead waiting, knowing that I was going to approach her… because I planned to.
This kind of dream had left me particularly perplexed last time it happened. It was something that had remained on me for long, something that made me wonder why this was happening and why I could access her seal so readily. Was it tied to how I got there? Was it Hagoromo or Hamura behind this kind of madness? Another Ootsutsuki? I was so unsure of it all for once and I didn't know how to dwell in this subject… without asking the only one that was as clueless as I was. Brainstorming was nice, but not when you couldn't trust the scary woman with a mommy complex for her sons and whoever was their descendants.
I had to do it. It was something that I just couldn't ignore due to how important it could be. For me, the rest of the world and what kind of trouble I might not be aware about. I didn't watch Boruto enough to know of any serious threat but… I doubted Kishimoto would have just gone through slow tier pricks after Momoshiki. There was just no sense if it was just that even though it kind of messed up with the rest of the lore I knew about. In some aspects, that is.
My approach to the main area of the throne was slow. It was clear that I wasn't happy about this, and I really couldn't hide it away due to how troubling this headache was in making my capacity to mask as crappy as it could get in that matter. Kaguya stared, silently and judging, and soon I was standing right in front of her. I didn't bow, this was no queen or goddess of mine. Instead, I bowed my head respectfully.
"My name is Shimura Danzou. I seek answers for our questions."
At first there was more silence, something that got me thinking that perhaps me expecting Kaguya to reply to my query was one touch too far in what I could tell she was doing. A mistaken thought I would soon realize as she slowly tilted her head on the side, showing incredible curiosity to… my sudden appearance rather than anything else.
"You appear to be… older than last time."
I blinked. "It's… been a little more than a year now since we last met."
The woman blinked back, contemplating about my response before doing something more than just gazing. I tensed up as I saw her lift herself off her chair and take soft steps towards me. She didn't approach me too close, keeping a modest distance and merely standing still. She looked down, the height difference more accentuated due to her standing position, which made my awkwardness a little heightened by such circumstance.
"You look… healthy. But tired."
A shiver went down my spine at those words.
"I was dealing with a war," I curtly answered, unsure how I was supposed to exactly word it out without sounding like a moron. "I was part... of it."
And not having fun.
"Is that so? Was it… the one that saw you kill my Zetsu?"
Her quiet words just felt incredibly sugary despite the subject she brought up was far from anything light. It was clear she wasn't sparing any bluntness to her 'calm' demeanor and I… wasn't in the mood to do anything to change that. In fact, I felt compelled to return fire with a fiery inferno as I gave her a nod and spoke up again.
"Yes. I killed him. Horribly. I exploded him."
"You did," Kaguya muttered with a hint of displeasure finally latching on her voice. "And yet you come here and ask for… answers. From me."
"That would be the case, yes."
…
"Why?" She asked. "Why do you think I would provide you with any answer, child? Why would I willingly help my enemy with such a request?"
I knew I was in a really precarious situation. One where diplomacy was key to avoid any unflattering escalation of events that would turn against me really quickly. So I knew my words had to be precise, quick, and without any hint of doubt laced in them… and I struck her with a simple response.
"Because I'm not your enemy."
…
"Elaborate," She demanded coldly, and I merely complied.
"Your return would have coincided with the highest points of your children's reincarnations. Had you come back to the time you were planning, with the interest of controlling this world, you would have found yourself fighting two individuals that wouldn't have given up fighting you. And you would have been defeated for good this time around. No 'try again' option that this little situation gives you," I replied flatly, her eyes searingly staring back at me. She was almost confused by my honesty and, despite the outlandish claim, she still allowed me to continue. "And that's not what you seek right? Complete destruction?"
"How is isolation any better?" Kaguya asked quietly.
"You live," I remarked dryly. "I don't know if it was an act of love from your children, or you were at the time just so powerful that you couldn't be killed and they thought this was the best alternative… but you're still alive and that should matter somehow."
She scoffed at me, turning back and taking a few steps away and… stopping.
"Tell me the truth, Child. Would you live a life such as the one I'm cursed with? Without a soul to speak with, without a family to be proud of… without children of mine or theirs to know my legacy lives forth?"
It was a big question, but I knew it was also a trick one. If I said yes, I would be a terrible liar because that's the liar of the perfect and most miserable prisoner. If I said no, I would make it clear she was several steps ahead of me and that I was wrong in considering her imprisonment a correct situation for her survival. So, I knew the truth wasn't in either a yes or no. Rather, it was linked to another question, this one more correct to her plight.
"Are you asking me this... while also considering what you did, or without reason?"
She slowly turned, a surprised look on her face at that question.
"What?"
"You are asking me if this is a life I would live without hesitation, and I asked you a simple question: is it within a context or not? Would I deserve such a life or not?" I further added. "Once again, if I had backstabbed a few people I care about, crapped on their dreams and then tried to take over the whole planet because 'I got the power', I'm quite sure my enemies have the right to go for that option."
My pressure built up, she knew I wasn't playing around and I knew well enough to see which route to take against her. Diplomacy was my strength right now, and she was foolishly trampling onto the matter. She underestimated me, and this was her own undoing.
"Would it matter? A life without people-"
"Is one you created for yourself by doing what you did," I lamented sternly. "You had them enslaved to you and you really think this is any worse than back then? One fake construct here is the same as a meat puppet a millenium ago."
"Of course that would be different!" Kaguya exclaimed furiously. "I could try to speak with a human, even granting them a miser amount of intelligence so they would reply to me-"
"You can do the same with dolls as far as I'm concerned," I replied with a snort, unfazed by that remark as I knew it was all a cover. "You had power, and you lost it. All because you decided to be greedy about it and be the monster."
Her eyes narrowed at me. "I'm a Goddess, little mortal."
"A god wouldn't be lamenting like a brat at the first hint that their little kingdom has fallen. A god wouldn't care if their subject is an enslaved human or a doll, and… a God wouldn't care about family," I remarked dryly, catching her off-guard with that last comment. "You think that having that much power would turn you into one? You might be immortal and have some amazing powers, but you don't have the mind and soul of a deity. You don't have the indifference no matter how much you try. A god? You're just someone that gained power through unpleasant means. Your sons saw this, and saw how you, a good person, was actually so cruel with others for fear of losing control."
She merely stared, livid and furious, but unwilling to throw the first stone from the looks of it. I slowly turned around and started to walk away, fed up with this entire shitty situation as it was clear that she was just pulling my leg and just wasting my time.
"W-Where are you going?"
"Home, away- somewhere that isn't here." I wasn't sure how I was supposed to leave this dream, but I was incredibly creative and I would have found an exit one way or another. As I replied with this, I felt a strong hand quickly pull at my left one from behind.
"You're not leaving," Kaguya demanded and I pulled my palm away from hers with a single pull, my eyes now narrowed at her as I felt all the pent-up stress concentrating in a single hideous behavior. I was pissed, tired, confused, worried and modestly angry. The cocktail that was the closest to the psychological version of the mentos and cola combo. Only ten times worse.
"You think just because you are stronger than me that you have the goddamn right to say whenever I'm leaving or not?!" The woman was surprised by this outburst, but I was far from done.
"I've been dealing with a fucking war all because you dipshit of a minion decided to posses some big player and cause this blasted conflict that took hundreds of lives. My hands are now full of blood, some of my enemy, a few inches from my own friends and a lot of mine- all because you just couldn't understand that, regardless of what you try to do here, now, and in the future, you are still a terrible person," I lashed out ferociously. "You never thought that being a ruthless control-maniac of a 'deity' could have led to disasters? That rebellion wouldn't have happened. You had sons that believed in peace as you did, but they were honest enough to understand that a tight leash doesn't turn humans into good people. It makes them puppets, no better than dolls."
"I was only trying to-"
"To what? To protect us? From ourselves?" I angrily interjected, feeling an unusual amount of wrath surging at this predicament. Here I was, standing in front of the one entity that pretty much caused a fair part of messes that happened in the real world, directly and indirectly. "The only thing you did was to crush the things that made us humans. Free will, the capacity to know what to do rather than being led around by a fierce and frightened woman with too much power in her own hands."
"ENOUGH!" She roared, chakra raging from her body as I felt the pure duress exerted by her own fury at my words. "You have misspoken long enough, you foolish child. You think there is no repercussion for your words? That you will be pardoned for being honest?!"
I shook my head, my own glare clashing with hers. "If you think I didn't think this through, then you're wrong. I know what I'm fighting for, I know that I will have to keep bleeding more for it. But I will bring an end to this maddening series of conflicts and bring peace to this blasted world you left so broken!"
I saw her move and I knew I couldn't dodge or block such a move. I braced, but I knew it was too late as I was suddenly lifted up by the armpits and… brought up to look closer at her face. Kaguya spared me a serious look, her eyes wide open as she tried to decipher something that seemed to resonate strongly within her.
"You seek peace, child?"
…
"Yes."
…
"Your name… is Shimura Danzou," She tilted her head to the side, almost looking confused by this matter. "Right?"
…
"Y-Yes?"
"...Perhaps… there is a chance."
I was baffled by that development, but as this happened, I felt her hold vanish as I felt down and back to… my bed.
I blinked, shaking myself awake as I realized I was now out of that situation. Away from Kaguya… but not from those haunting eyes. For I saw something familiar in those eyes that left me so shaken and so frightened that for some reason I couldn't just look in a mirror for a long while.
Something in my own reflection matched with that stare. Something that was lost in her face and mind… and soul, but that persisted within me.
Hope.