Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Magnolia.
June 30, x786.
While Erza, Mirajane, and Sun were packing for the two month long trip to Blue Pegasus, Alfonzo and the other girls decided to make a trip to the guild hall to hang out. While Elicia and the other girls were just going to spend time with their friends, Alfonzo was going to say goodbye to everyone for the third time this year.
"*Sigh* I can't wait until all this shit with building stuff for other guilds is over." Alfonzo said while shaking his head as he walked towards the guild hall with Elicia, Cana, Ultear, Marin, and Lucy. "I'm tired of being away from home for so long at a time."
"Yeah, at least this is the last one though, right?" Lucy said with a smile. "Then, you can get back to doing what a wizard is supposed to do."
"If only it were that simple." Alfonzo replied.
"Who else do you have to build for?" Cana asked curiously while pulling a bottle of vodka out of her storage card.
"The Village Hidden in the Leaves." Alfonzo replied, sounding tired as he spoke.
"You sound tired just thinking about it." Ultear said as she wrapped her arms around Alfonzo's right arm. "Is the job really going to be that bad?"
"From what Master Tsunade said, it probably will." Alfonzo replied. "Not only do they want me to build training chambers, but they want me to modify all their existing training grounds, too."
Hearing that, Elicia opened her eyes wide. Luckily no one was paying attention to her when that happened. Otherwise, she would have given away that she knew more than she was supposed to.
Meanwhile, the other girls looked at Alfonzo in confusion.
"I know what you're thinking." Alfonzo said while smiling wryly. "That doesn't seem so bad, right?"
In response, all the girls nodded.
"But from what Master Tsunade said, these training grounds are massive." Alfonzo continued. "They're supposed to mimic any kind of terrain the shinobi of the village might come across while on a mission."
Hearing that, like Elicia, the other girls also opened their eyes wide.
"And there are more than forty five of them, too." Alfonzo said, concluding his explanation.
With that, the group fell into silence. The silence did not last too long, however, as it was broken by a question.
"Just how long will something like that take?" Lucy asked curiously. "I mean, you'll basically be changing the entire landscape, right?"
"More or less." Alfonzo replied. "And to be honest, I'm not sure how long it will take. But I'll have to work out the details with their Hokage.. Oh, that's the title for their leader."
"That sounds weird." Cana said while rolling the title around in her head.
"That's what I said, too." Alfonzo said with a smile. "But different cultures and all that."
"I guess." Cana replied before taking a swig from her bottle of vodka.
Like that, the group kept chatting as they made their way to the guild hall. Eventually, they came across Brandish, who once again was reading a book with a book cover surrounding it.
Seeing Brandish, Marin's eyes lit up, as she felt she was reading something she might be interested in. So, she jogged over to greet the green-haired young woman.
"Hey, Brandish." Marin said excitedly while approaching Brandish. "Whatcha readin'?"
"Oh, hi, Marin." Brandish replied as she looked up from her book. "I'm reading this."
With a slight blush, Brandish waited for Marin to get closer. Then, she put a book mark on her current page before flipping to the title page. Clearly, she was too embarrassed to verbally answer Marin's question in public.
After seeing the title of Brandish's book, Marin quickly sat down next to her. Then, she began animatedly discussing the book. Meanwhile, Brandish looked around cautiously to make sure that no one could overhear their conversation.
AT the same time, Alfonzo, Elicia, Cana, Ultear, and Lucy only watched in amusement.
"I wanna call Marin the source of corruption." Ultear said while elegantly covering her smile with her right hand. "But Brandish was reading books like that the first time we saw her. So, if anything Marin is only speeding the process along."
"I'd rather she just let herself be corrupted than trying to kill me like she did back then." Lucy replied awkwardly.
"At least the misunderstanding was settled, right?" Elicia asked as she held Lucy's hand with a smile. "She won't try to kill you any more, either."
"Yeah, I guess." Lucy replied, maintaining her awkward smile. "But I can tell that she wants to fight me. Probably to beat the person that beat the person that killed her mother."
"Well, if it ever comes to that, just fight her." Cana said with a shrug. "As long as she doesn't go too far, it will only be a spar."
"Yeah, but I really don't wanna fight someone I know I can't beat." Lucy said, her awkward smile turning wry in an instant. "I mean, I'm not like Darkness. I don't' like getting beat up."
At the same time, a certain blonde-haired, blue-eyed knight sneezed before she started blushing and shuddering in pleasure.
"If you're so afraid, just release Zodiac." Alfonzo replied. "If you do, you'd be more or less on par with her, right?"
"Yeah, but you told us not to release the [Soul Armaments] in front of them, right?" Lucy asked in confusion.
"That's true, but I'd rather you not get beat up for no reason." Alfonzo replied as he started combing his fingers through Lucy's hair. "But that should only be a last resort. Like if she challenges you and won't take no for an answer."
"'Kay~~~." Lucy replied while melting under the feeling of Alfonzo's fingertips brushing against her scalp.
With that, Alfonzo and the girls continued to walk, leaving Marin and Brandish behind to talk about the book Brandish was reading.
"Hey, they left you behind." Brandish said as she noticed the others leave. "Don't you need to catch up with them?"
Brandish's question was more to get Marin to stop talking about the book in a public place. But it also gauged how important their trip away from home was. If it really was important, Brandish would report it to Irene when she returned to the hotel.
"Oh, don't worry about it." Marin replied with a smile. "They're only heading to the guild hall. Fonzie wanted to say bye before he left for a job."
Judging that Irene and Brandish would know when Alfonzo left, Marin felt no harm in telling Brandish that little bit of information.
At the same time, Brandish became a bit more attentive. And had Marin not been on guard against Irene and Brandish from the beginning, she would have never noticed. However, now that she had, she would definitely tell Alfonzo about it when they got home.
Until then, however, Marin continued to chat with Brandish, who got more uncomfortable with the conversation topic as time passed.
Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Village Hidden in the Leaves.
At the same time, in a large village hidden in a forest near Karakura Town, Hidden Leaf Ravine, and the Valley of the End, three elderly men and an elderly woman were meeting in the office of the highest ranking man in the village to discuss the potential deal to have their training grounds overhauled.
"Hiruzen, are you really planning to allow an outsider into the village to change our training grounds?" An elderly man with shaggy black hair, black eyes, an X-shaped scar on his chin, and his left eye and right arm covered in bandages wearing a black robe that covered everything from his ankles to his left shoulder, asked angrily.
"We've been over this before, Danzō." Hiruzen, or rather, Hiruzen Sarutobi, replied in an exasperated tone as he took a toke from his pipe. "Tsunade told me about this. And from what she has seen, they could increase the strength of our shinobi several fold in the years to come."
Hiruzen Sarutobi, the current Hokage of the Village Hidden in the leaves was a man of below average stature with wrinkles and liver spots befitting his age, a bald head with grey hair on the sides and back of his head, and a beard of matching color wearing a red and white robe with the word "Third" stitched on its back and a large brimmed red and white hat with the word "Fire" stitched on its front.
*Bang!*
"And what if he's a spy?" the elderly black-haired man, Danzō, or rather Danzō Shimura, asked while slamming his right fist onto Hiruzen's desk. "Giving an outsider that much access to the village could spell the end of the Hidden Leaf."
"*Sigh* I understand your concerns, Danzō." Hiruzen said in an annoyed tone after exhaling a cloud of smoke. "But I trust Tsunade. And I will not change my decision."
Instead of responding, Danzō only shot a dirty look at Hiruzen. Then, he stood from his seat, turned around, and left the office.
Meanwhile, the other two people in the office, a grey-haired elderly woman and a bespectacled elderly man with spiky grey hair and beard exchanged glances. However, they could tell that Hiruzen had gotten fed up with their old team mate.
"Calm down, Hiruzen." The elderly woman, Koharu Utatane, said in a soothing tone. "You know he only wants what's best for the village."
"Besides, once he sees the utility of the new training equipment, I'm sure he'll come around." The elderly man, Homura Mitokado, added.
"Yes, I know that." Hiruzen replied after taking a deep breath to calm down. "But he doesn't have to act like he can't trust the words of my disciple like that."
Once again, Koharu and Homura exchanged glances. And from the look in the other's eyes, they could tell they were both thinking the same thing.
'Well, one of your three disciples is Orochimaru, the village's worst traitor in history.' The two elders thought simultaneously. 'Then, there's Jiraiya, a notorious pervert. And lastly, the one who gave us the information about this young man, Alfonzo Marcus, is a terrible gambling addict and alcoholic. So, your disciples don't exactly have the best track records.'
Naturally, the two elders were intelligent enough to not say that out loud. Especially since they had the same concerns as Danzō. Though, they could understand the utility of having such training spaces, as well.
"Anyway, now that this is done, you two can go back." Hiruzen replied. "I still have work to do."
Nodding in response, Koharu and Homura stood up and left the room.
As soon as Hiruzen was alone in his office, he took another toke from his pipe as he leaned back in his chair.
"I just hope you don't try to do anything to that boy, Danzō." Hiruzen said in a tired tone. "He's one of the strongest members of Fairy Tail, the strongest of the Legal Guilds in the kingdom. We're not ready to face an enemy like that. Not after the rampage of the Nine-Tailed Fox. On top of that, we hadn't even fully recovered from the Third Great Ninja War when that happened."
Hiruzen then took another toke from his pipe. Then, after exhaling, he continued talking to himself.
"Anyway, I guess I'll have Kakashi be his guide an dkeep an eye on him while he's in the village." Hiruzen murmured to himself as she reached under his desk for a button that would summon a messenger.
At the same time, Danzō, who had just exited the Hokage Tower, the central administrative building in the Village Hidden in the Leaves, could not help but twitch the corner of his lips.
'Good, once that outsider finishes doing all the upgrades, I think I'll bring him into my Root.' Danzō thought to himself while covering the left side of his face with his left hand. 'Then, my rise to Hokage will be unstoppable. The only thing in the way will be you, my old friend, Hiruzen.'
Earth Land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Outskirts of Crocus.
"Who are you and why did you break us out of prison?" A pale-skinned man with yellow eyes and snake like features asked warily.
"Because I've heard a little about the two of you, Orochimaru and Mayuri Kurotsuchi." A young blonde woman with an exaggerated hourglass figure replied in a cheerful tone. "It's because the two of you bring despair to those around you. And I like that."
As she spoke of despair, the blonde woman, Junko Enoshima began writhing in pleasure. Meanwhile, the two men she just broke out of prison, Orochimaru and Mayuri Kurotsuchi, only looked at her in bewilderment.
"Anyway, my friend will be here with your subordinates soon." Junko replied after she got herself under control.
"And what do you want from us after breaking us out?" Mayuri asked skeptically.
"Nothing." Junko replied. "I just want you to bring despair to the world like you've always done. Experiment on the so called innocent. Make whole villages disappear in the name of science. Genocide an entire race to find out their secrets. I don't care. Just keep doing whatever you have been doing."
By the end of her speech, Junko had her arms raised and spread in a grand fashion as she looked at Orochimaru and Mayuri as if they were her idols. A moment later, however, her expression turned into one filled with disdain.
"But please don't tell me going to prison once was enough to make you turn over a new leaf." Junko continued, her tone making her sound like she was totally disgusted by the thought. "Otherwise, I'll kill you myself."
Feeling the aura Junko released, Orochimaru and Mayuri both took some distance while raising their guard. Luckily, it did not come to a fight. Instead, Junko put on a smile as she looked in a certain direction.
Following Junko's gaze, Orochimaru and Mayuri saw a young, blonde woman with cat like features leading a bespectacled, grey-haired young man and a black-haired young woman towards their position from a different side of the capital.
"Himiko, welcome back!" Junko shouted as she vigorously waved her arm in the three newcomers' direction.
"Junko, I did like you asked." The blonde with cat-like features, Himiko Toga, replied as she ran towards Junko. A few moments later, she stopped next to Junko with a smile on her face. "So, can we go and cover that sexy Alfonzo Marcus in his own blood now?"
"It's not quite the time yet." Junko replied with a smile as she started patting Himiko on the head. "But it will be soon, I promise."
"*Sigh* Okay." Himiko replied in a disappointed tone. "I'll believe in you, Junko."
Meanwhile, the other two, Kabuto Yakushi and Nemu Kurotsuchi, approached the men they served.
"Good, now that we're out, let's go, Kabuto." Orochimaru said. "We won't be working with Kurotsuchi any more, it's too conspicuous."
"Then what's our next move, Lord Orochimaru?" Kabuto asked.
"Well, since no one knows we've escaped prison, let's plan to destroy the old village." Orochimaru replied as he licked his lips with his abnormally long tongue. "After that, we can plot our revenge on the one responsible for us spending almost two years in prison."
"As you command, Lord Orochimaru." Kabuto replied while bowing his head politely.
Meanwhile, Mayuri had already walked away.
"Let us return home, Nemu." Mayuri said without looking back. "I believe we've collected enough data to finish the Captain Commander's assignment."
"Yes, Master." Nemu replied as she and Mayuri disappeared into the darkness.