Pre-Chapter A/N:Another chapter on time? Guess my lock-in is going pretty well. If you haven't already, I recommend turning on notifications for my stuff so you can see when new stuff drops right as it drops. Next four chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Discount on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) until tomorrow so do check that out.
XXXXX- TWO MONTHS LATER (SHORIRAMA SENJU)
"Have you been able to figure out the amended seating chart with my Grandmother's requests?" I asked with a sigh.
"Yes, Hokage-sama," she said. I nodded, pleased but slightly filled with trepidation that something was about to go wrong. Too many things for this monster of a wedding were going well at this point for me to find anything even close to peace. Because the last time there weren't any fires to put out, the whole plan had crumbled in on itself and it was the skeleton of that they were still trying to put back together right now.
They had figured out the venues— one for the ceremony and the other for the reception, and the feeding. The Akimichi kitchens had been more than happy to make provisions for the expansive guest list that had ended up coming together. Security was another matter that needed to be considered. The Fire Daimyo had said the Wind Daimyo would be coming as well and they would have to make sure that having so many important people in their city wouldn't turn into a security nightmare.
If I was in the place of any of the other Kage, this would be the perfect time to plan an attack and blame it on another village. Get Konoha to spend itself on a war that we could not avoid waging while at the same time removing another threat from the board in the terms of the village we would be fighting in that situation. Far too tempting by half, so we had to make sure that no one was going to get the chance to pull something of that sort.
"Alright then. What else remains?" I asked.
"Drinks. Eating restrictions from the Wind Daimyo and his court— each of them has a different allergy we must take note of and take into account— decorations, and then music. The Fire Daimyo insists that we use the musical band from his court while your Grandmother insists that the band that played for her own wedding and your parents' after be used," she said.
"The same band? Shouldn't they be dead?" I asked with a sigh.
"I thought so as well. It turns out that they are exceptionally long-lived. All four of them remain alive," she said.
"And they still make music?" I asked.
"They retired three decades ago, but your Grandmother was able to spur them out of retirement to perform for your parents and I assume she feels she will be able to do the same in this case," she said.
"Send her our apologies. We'll go with the Daimyo's music troupe. However good Grandmother's band was, I can't imagine they are especially competent after thirty years of not playing in a professional capacity," I said.
"I should do that?" she asked.
"You were the one she told. Were you not? Worry not. She doesn't bite, I promise. She just threatens to— loudly and often," I consoled.
"Hokage-sama, I don't think—"
"Now what were you saying about eating restrictions?" I asked, changing the subject and ignoring whatever objections she thought she had. She would deal with Grandmother and I was sure that after she did, Grandmother would come to me with her objections and I would offer my apologies but tell her it was already too late to say no to the Daimyo. This was not my first time playing this particular game.
Retsu sighed, and then started laying them out.
XXXXXXX- MINATO NAMIKAZE
In years living here, he had never even received a single visitor other than the tax man— he had been very apologetic when he found that the man he wanted to audit was not just a shinobi but the Hokage's student. Minato had, of course, allowed him to do his job and even encouraged him to probe when he was being hesitant. It was his duty to set a good example for everyone else as Sensei's student, after all. Now in the last six months he had already received two visitors and now there was someone else at his door.
"Coming," he said, checking the seals to see there were two people at the door. One of the chakra networks he was quite familiar with. Mikoto's. Who had she come with, he wondered? They had a lot of chakra for sure.
With that hint, he was pretty certain of who it was as he opened the door and he was slightly disappointed to be proven right. For some reason, Sensei's crazy fiancée had decided to come knocking at his door with her niece in tow. He already had the feeling that he was not going to like whatever it was that brought her here.
"Uzume-san, Mikoto, what brings you here?" he asked, feeling his trepidation rise even further as a smile cut her face in two.
"You," she said.
"Me?"
"You're the leader of this team of yours, right? And you were the ones given the duty of assembling the tools of the Sage of Six Paths that Shorirama has decided are more deserving of his attention than anything else these days," she said. Minato chanced a glance over at Mikoto, wondering where any of this was going.
She just shrugged at him, conveying that she was just as confused by all this as he was.
"Yes, I am," he said when his Sensei's fiancée made it clear with her stare that she expected some sort of answer from him. Their mission was classified, but he knew that Uzume-san had a level of authorisation that went beyond just what basically anyone other than Sensei did. There were very few secrets in the village that she was not privy to— not like Minato would know any of them in that case. And since she knew what they were looking for, he doubted there was any information he could give her that she did not already possess.
"Good. Now can you tell me why you are here in the village instead of getting him the things he so clearly wants?" she said.
"We're doing research. Planning a way into the Earth Temple as well as trying to figure out where the Lightning Rod went after the battle between the Raikage and the Iwa contingent," he said.
"Useless. Get dressed and follow me," she ordered.
"Uhh, follow you where?" he asked.
"To get my husband-to-be his newest toys, of course. I tire of the dillydallying and I daresay they will make a fitting wedding present," she said.
"We've been trawling the merchant district all morning and afternoon and she can't find a single thing she thinks he'll like for the exchanging of gifts," Mikoto said and then it clicked in Minato's head. So this was what she wanted.
"Alright then," he said. It wasn't like they weren't going to have to get the tools either way. And having someone as strong as Uzume with them was going to be nothing less than a boon for their cause. She should make it easier to deal with the Temple at least. Their infiltration trick was unlikely to work this time as well. Chances were that the Lightning Temple would have warned all the others about just how they had gotten the compass from them and they would need to come up with something else for dealing with this one.
"Let me just go get dressed then we can go see Kushina," he said.
"No Kushina," Uzume-san refused immediately.
"What?"
"Shorirama dotes on her incessantly. If she is outside the village even for an hour, he will know. And this is supposed to be a surprise, you know?" she said.
"I don't know. I don't mind you coming along or anything but Kushina was assigned to this mission as well," he said.
"How much is Shorirama paying you for each tool?" Uzume-san asked with a sigh.
"It's not about the—"
"Triple the base fee for an S-ranked mission," Mikoto cut him off before he could finish. It was all he could do to avoid giving her a look at the obvious lie.
"Triple?" she asked in shock.
"That man is just terrible with money. Fine. I'll give the three of you the same for every one we find on the condition that you maintain the secrecy of this mission and you don't bring Kushina along," she said with a sigh after a few seconds of silence.
"Quadruple," Mikoto returned.
"I'll be coming on the mission with you. I doubt the two of you are going to do any of the work. And Kushina is getting paid for doing absolutely nothing. Take the good deal or I'll just go find Shika and go with her. I have no doubts that she knows as much of what you are working on as you yourselves do," she said.
"Deal. We'll take your deal," Minato decided for the three of them. The orphanage would finally be able to replace its heating with that much money. The heating system they had now was functional, but getting them something that would allow the children to play around during the coming winter without having to wear layers even while indoors would be a massive win.
"Good. Now go get dressed. We'll be waiting," she said, pushing past him and into his apartment.
"Why the hell do you live in such a dump, by the way?" she asked, looking around the place.
"Aunty, I told you already. Be polite," Mikoto whispered but not quietly enough that he could not pick up on it.
"Oh, you're the idiot. I'll tell you the same thing I told that Sensei of yours when he got that hat. You take care of yourself first. You're no use to them if you're suffering," she said.
"I'm not. I quite like this apartment, I'll have you know," he said.
"How many times has Shorirama hit him in the head with a Rasengan?" he heard behind him as he stepped into the bathroom.
XXXXXX- THE THIEF
He was going to quit. That was his decision. Because this had just been some fun with good pay before. Gather some trinkets for the old eccentric man, but it had stopped being fun months ago. Firstly, the old bastard had turned out to be some sort of monster that threatened his life way too often. And unlike most people out there, he knew the old man could back up those threats with action.
Like that wasn't enough, it had turned out that the trinkets he was gathering had other people after them. The fucking Butcher was after them and he had sent his students all the way to Kaminari no Kuni to get one of them for him. He had watched them on their arrival, the little monsters thinking they were stealthy.
He had even worked with the Uzumaki a few times at the copy station and had watched as she practically displayed a signpost over her head that said she didn't belong there. He had suspected they were only in the Temple to use it as a staging ground. They were surely going to use it to launch some sort of mission within the Hidden Cloud itself. Perhaps they were going to try to kill the Raikage. It wouldn't be the first Raikage that the Butcher was seeing to the death of, in fact. He seemed to have some sort of vendetta against them. Well, they weren't the nicest of people, to be sure.
Once he had guessed their mission— what he thought their mission to be— he had accelerated his own timeline. The sedative in the Head Abbot's tea had been quietly placed. He had taken the place of the woman who would have taken it up to him. He knew by then what exactly the Head Abbot liked to do with the female acolytes who brought him his tea and so knew they would not be disturbed while he put the man to sleep and stole the compass from around his neck before escaping the Temple shortly after.
But no. The fucking Butcher's students decided to kill the man and take the compass from his corpse. And then fucking Cloud inquisitors and Anbu had fallen upon the Temple like a tsunami on a coastal town during storm weather. It had taken him all that he had to manage an escape and even then he hadn't managed to do it as cleanly as he would have preferred. He had to burn an identity or two in the end and hadn't been able to clean up after himself as thoroughly as he would normally have preferred. But no cover was worth his life. No mark was worth his life either.
"You have failed me," the old man's voice boomed from the darkness as he walked into the cave that served as their meeting place.
"Na na. I'm done," he said, not even asking how the man knew he did not have the compass in his possession. The geezer just knew things. That was how he worked.
"Done?" the geezer hissed, the threat in his voice easily audible.
"Yes. I quit. You said I was the only one looking for them. Only for me to find that the Butcher of Iwa of all people wanted the compass as well."
"Oh, so he was the one who took it then," the geezer said, sounding curious now more than anything else.
"It would make sense that he would look for them as well. Considering his blood and lineage."
"Yeah, you have fun with that. I'm done," he said, not even caring enough to ask what he meant by that statement. His curiosity was dead and buried. He prided himself on being the best thief in the world, but rule one of being great at what he did was knowing who not to steal from. The Butcher of Iwa was at the top of that list as far as he was concerned.
"You are done when I say you are done, boy. Surely you do not need me to give you another reminder?"
"Do whatever you want. I'm out of here," he said, turning to leave only for his chest to begin to burn. No, not his chest. His heart. He tried to leave the cave, figuring that it was just a matter of distance.
He put one foot in front of the other first and then fell to a knee as the pain became unbearable.
"No matter where you are in the world, I can bring an end to your life with just a single flex of my will. So tell me now, boy. Are you done with me?" The geezer's voice was just as amused as ever.
"No. Of course not. Why would I be?" The words stumbled as they raced from his mouth.
"Of course. That there is another out there who seeks these tools should be no great surprise. You just do your job and steal what I tell you to steal and you will find that not even Shorirama Senju will get in your way," the geezer said. Of course he couldn't just be cruel. He had to be cruel and mad as well. How had he found himself here— in the employ of a total madman? He remembered it of course. The promise of gold had drawn him in. Gold that he was unlikely to ever get the chance to spend. Either it would be the Butcher that did him in, or the geezer. At least the Butcher was known to be quick about things.
"Now the Bell of a Million Truths is within the Earth Temple. Steal it and bring it to me," he said.
"And if I find the Butcher already there? Or his students?" he asked.
"I said steal it. Do whatever is necessary. Shorirama Senju will not leave his precious village to steal a trinket, no matter the value of it. He would have sent his children for it. And with the gifts I have given you, are you not more than a match for a few children?" the geezer asked, beginning to laugh.
XXXXXXXX- THE NOT-SO OLD MONKEY
"Again," he barked, as he watched the last of his students weave seals at rapid pace. He could still feel his chakra within him. It ached to be let loose, to show Orochimaru just what the fire release could do in the hands of a true master, but he held it on its leash.
His single remaining lung could not contain the air necessary for the first stage of the jutsu. He watched as his student executed it near-perfectly. Air into the mouth, swelling the lungs, and then out as fire hot enough to warp the air it passed through.
He timed it internally. Two point six two seconds. One point six two seconds too long.
"Again," he barked.
"I can't," his student rasped, voice parched from the lack of water.
"You have the chakra, boy. I can sense your reserves," he refuted.
"Not that, I mean," he said.
"I mean I can't get it any faster while maintaining the efficacy. Fire is far from my natural affinity," he said.
"Only the weak and incompetent care for affinities. Do you think Shorirama Senju cannot boil a lake with his fire release? Do you think he cannot rend the sky asunder with his lightning? What are his natural affinities?" Orochimaru remained silent.
"I asked you a question, boy."
"Earth, Water, Wind," he said, rasp beginning to clear up as he took in air and turned it to moisture in his throat. A master-level trick, but not enough. Not even close. Not when he sought to dance in the realm of gods. The realm that Hiruzen himself had once belonged to.
"Good. Now again."
"Yes, Sensei," he said, and weaved the seals once more.
Two point two five seconds. Quicker by a hair, but not quick enough.
Never enough.
A/N: We do some other POVs to round out the chapter or whatever. We catch up with the thief who we know is also looking for the tools, and then take a look at what Orochimaru and his sensei are up to. Next four chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early. Had my birthday last week and got another year older (boo), so there's a discount on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) until tomorrow for anyone interested in that (yay)