Chapter 59
OROCHIMARU-The Snake Sanin
Orochimaru stood in the cave with the Gedo Mazo once more after escaping the clutches of his once teammate in Ame. Seeing Jiraiya in Amegakure had been a surprise, yet it had barely affected his plans. He had been following the three young Ame nin for days now and was acutely aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and so when he had struck, he had known exactly how to tackle each and every one of them.
Madara's will had already warned him of the secrets and powers that the redhead may possess, and so when the fight had begun, he had been his first target. A simple seal to stop him from molding chakra had been enough to make him practically powerless, and dealing with the other two was relatively simple.
They were good specially for their age, yet were not a massive threat to him as they were. In a few years, he could not say. Things just might be different.
Yet that all could change, and it could change very easily, given what he held in his hand.
The Rinnegan.
It had taken him some time to track down the lore surrounding these eyes and reason out what made them so special. And what he had found out had surprised him: a doujutsu that went beyond the Rinnegan and Byakugan, one possessed by none other than the Sage of the Six Paths himself. No wonder Madara Uchiha had sought them for himself.
"It must be tempting," he heard a whisper and felt his heartbeat quicken despite the feebleness and fragility evident in that tone.
He turned to his side and saw a pair of red Sharingan focused entirely on his form.
The feeble form of Madara Uchiha looked down at him impassively as if watching a child, his gaze going through him as if looking at his very soul, aware of his every thought.
"Given your curiosity, you must be aware of what you hold in your hands," he stated as Orochimaru gulped.
"The power and the history of those eyes, of what they represent and what they can do. It must be tempting to take such power for yourself," the man asked, no anger or accusation in his tone.
"I would ne..."
"There is no need to lie," he cut in, and his lips thinned. How could he know his thoughts and desires? He was a Sanin. He had worked with Danzo and many other shinobi, yet even all of them had never looked at him like that, read him as the geriatric old man barely alive was doing now.
"And what if I am tempted?" He decided to end the facade, looked the man in the eye, and smiled. He was old, barely alive, a Sanin in his prime, a student of a Hokage.
Could he stop him?
"You can be tempted. Power tempts everyone. It does not bother me. But if you do decide to act on such temptations..." And then he felt the air in the cave shift, as those eyes glew, the tomoe in them spinning as he spoke a bit strongly.
"...then that could be a bit of a problem," he finished, and Orochimaru scoffed as he picked up the container with those prized eyes.
"And what would you do? You can barely even stand. You are but a relic of times, long gone while I am the Snake Sanin. What could you even do to stop me?" he scoffed as he smirked and released his own chakra. He ordered the snakes that roamed around the cavern to bind the man.
He smirked as he saw them slither up the old man's legs.
"Come on, show me what you would do, old man?" he smirked as three snakes bound him in whole. Yet, despite being bound by his summons, all three of them were ready to bite him at his one command. He was impassive, looking down at them as if at a child.
"You think too highly of yourself!" and then he felt his vision shift, as all the color from the world vanished as he felt a sharp pain from his neck. As he tried to look at it, he felt his body stiffen, refusing to follow his own commands as he felt his heart get wrung in fear and anxiety as he saw Madara Uchiha appear right infront of him.
"You forget who I am," he said, and Orochimaru finally turned his eyes and saw that the kunai that had struck his neck was wielded by his own body, his own hand, and arm, which had a black shadowy creature covering it.
"I am Madara Uchiha. Know your place, you pesky little snake!"
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JIRAIYA-The Toad Sage
The news of the attack by Iwa and Kumo on the parlay between the daimyo's had filled him with a sense of hopelessness. It had not even been a year since the Third Ninja War had come to a close, many of them were still just beginning to recover from that disaster, and now they were to set to begin another war, one that would not resolve easily.
Despite being victors of the last war, Konoha and their daimyo had leveled softer terms on Iwa, showing mercy when they did not have to, only in hopes that such future conflicts could be avoided. Yet Iwa had thrown their generosity in their face and had made fun of them through this attack, and he doubted that such terms would be on the table again.
"So, you are leaving," Hanzo the Salamander asked as Jiraiya stood opposite to him in his solar.
"Yes, the aid my country promised to Ame may have some delays, but I have been assured that it will continue to arrive. Another liaison will be sent to oversee its distribution, but I am afraid I must leave and do my duty to the village," he added, having received missives from both the capital, the village, and Tsunade.
Hanzo the Salamander seemed surprised by that.
"And what am I to offer as recompense for that aid, perhaps my village, after all Ame offers the shortest routes to your enemies villages," he asked with a scoff and Jraiya shook his head.
"No, we demand or ask for no such thing. We will stand by the terms of our agreement, this is not Ame's war, and Konoha and its allies will not make it into one. No shinobi from our side shall enter into your lands without your explicit permission. We will respect the sanctity of Ame's borders," and it was a big gamble. Very big gamble.
"That is the promise of our daimyo, and Konoha and its allies shall honor his word," he added and saw Hanzo's eyes narrow.
"And you, what do you think of your daimyo's command? After all, you must understand that it could end up costing you and your village much in this new war that has been thrust upon us," he asked, and Jiraiya shrugged.
"It is naive," he responded truthfully. And it was indeed. The daimyo could have easily strong-armed Ame into giving them those routes, and he did not believe that such a thing would have been difficult to achieve. But in the end, he was choosing to trust in Ame, choosing his own principles, and that was naive—honorable, but naive nonetheless.
"Many people called Hashirama the same thing," Hanzo began as his eyes glowed.
"But he was not naive. He was better than us, and now we live in an era of his creation, an era that I believe is coming to an end," he said as he stood up.
"Go, Jiraiya of the Sanin. Do your duty by your village, and give your leaders my word that as long as you keep to your word no shinobi from Iwa and Kumo shall threaten your borders from Ame's territory," and the declaration was good news for them.
Because he was sure that as they sat here, Kumo and Iwa nin would be trying to enter Ame to attack Konoha, and now that was no longer their problem. as for Ame's ability to deal with these threats, well, Hanzo Hattori was not one to break his word. He had given them his word, and that was enough.
"I shall convey your words," he said as he stood up and began to walk out of his solar.
"I have heard that your daimyo was attacked. How is he, the young daimyo?" the man asked as he was about to step out of the solar.
"He will live." and the man smiled.
"I know he will."
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FUSHIO SUZUKI
A week or so had passed since the beginning of open hostilities between the Konoha-Kiri-Suna alliance and the Iwa-Kumo alliance, and this war was proving itself to be as deadly as all the previous one.
Konoha's initial gambit had payed off, and they had been able to land a crippling blow to Iwa and Kumo, whose forces had been bogged down by the Amegakure's forces, as they tried to traverse through Ame to attack Konoha.
They had believed that much like the previous wars, using a mix of bribes, threats, and subterfuge they would be able to do as they had done so for years, and cut across Ame to hit on Konoha, or face Konoha nin in Ame.
Yet this Amegakure was different; it was united under a single banner and had the support of the Fire, Water, and Wind country, which were trading with it in food, and arms on equal footing. ending its dependence on Kumo and Iwa, rendering them powerless to exploit the rainy nation.
Yet the nature of this war was quite different than the previous ones, for Kumo and Iwa had attacked the daimyos, who were a political entity, rather than a military one. An act which would not have been possible without the acceptance of their own daimyo's for if they were against such an act they would have admonished their villages by now.
But no such action had happened, and this had changed everything.
As was evident by the letter from his half-brother, Akihito, who had suffered the most grievous of injuries from that attack.
"Fire country has long held an imbalanced alliance with the Wind country. Their whole economy and food supply depend on us, and the Wind Daimyo understood that and has already given his support to this," his half-sister spoke as she sat there opposite to him, pained and distraught, yet her back was straight as she cut the figure of am Imperial Goddess.
"This is unprecedented. Not in a hundred years has such a thing been called," he pointed out, and she nodded.
"But Kumo and Iwa have overreached," another voice cut in, sitting beside Miyuki was Lady Chiba, Akihito's sole concubine and the infamous Oracle.
"They attacked Akihito with no cause when he had only ever been benevolent towards them. Our lord husband has every right to do now as he may wish, for his enemies have acted without honor. They deserve no mercy, and now they shall get none," she said the last words scathingly, and oftentimes, the relationship between the main wife and the concubines would be filled with strife. He himself was to wed four women in the name of alliances.
Akihito had always been cautious of this. He had never really liked the idea of multiple causing it the root cause of political strife. Yet despite having a concubine of his own, from the rumors, Lady Chiba and Miyuki had a rather good relationship.
"Will Water Country stand behind us in this?" Miyuki asked again.
And he thinks over the proposal and what it would mean for himself and his country.
"Akihito once told me, that you and him believed in leaving the world a better place, believed in a peace that would last more than a decade," Miyuki spoke softly, looking much more like the girl she had when she had lost her mother.
And they did; it was one thing that had brought them together, for they saw the world as it was from the eyes of a common man whose life and family were razed by the devastation of war. And they wished to change that.
"We did," he replied, and she smiled forlornly.
"Akihito hates war as well. He detests it. It was what drove him to be so lenient towards his enemies, yet our enemies tried to kill him. They tried to kill the very man who had shown them mercy no other lord on this land ever would, and yet now he is fair. And so implore you, elder brother," she said as she looked him in the eye.
"Believe in him once more," she said, and after a minute of thinking, he finally nodded his head as he picked up his brush.
"Then I stand behind him, and you in this," he said as he signed his name on the document, one that would change the very face of the continent.
"Water country stands behind its allies. Our enemies have indeed overreached. And now this goes beyond war...."
"...And so, as the water daimyo, I call for it as well, Crim...."
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