Taking the stethoscope, I placed it against Kushina's belly to listen to how the baby was doing inside her.
"Everything sounds perfect," I explained, removing the device and writing it down in the report.
"Are you sure everything is alright?" Kushina asked, sounding a little anxious.
"Yes, if anything were wrong, I would have told you. Your baby and Minato's are healthy, and speaking of him, why didn't he come with you?" I remarked, setting the documents aside.
"Well, you know he's busy with his duties as Hokage," she replied, trying to defend her husband.
"Your excuse isn't very good; I should have been there too, but instead I sent a shadow clone and another one to look after Yami," I countered.
"Well, my dream and his has always been to be Hokage, and the fact that one of us is achieving it fills me with pride. I just imagine that if it were the other way around, I wouldn't have thought to send a clone either. I'll scold him later at home, but changing the subject, how have Yami and the other baby been?" she asked.
"You want to see her; after all, she's your daughter too," I suggested, to which she nodded.
...
In my personal laboratory, it was just Kushina and me.
In a test tube filled with liquid, a creature was slowly growing; this was the two-month-old fetus resulting from the fusion of Kushina's and my DNA, and unlike Yami, this one was female.
"How do you know it's a girl? Did you do it on purpose?" she asked.
"When fertilization occurs, there's a chromosome that determines the baby's sex; this is the X and the Y, but only the man contributes the Y chromosome, so this baby will necessarily have only the X, and the fusion of two XX chromosomes results in female sex. Yami being male was pure luck," I explained, but as soon as I finished speaking, I saw Kushina practically steaming.
"But we didn't have sex," she said, looking confused.
"But we didn't have sex." "It was for the explanation; there was only one X chromosome between us, so it was definitely going to be a girl," she said, sounding a little annoyed, as I sat down to review the rest of the information I needed to check on the baby's condition.
Kushina moved closer to examine the creature in the tube closely.
"And to think there's only a month's difference between her and the baby I have in my womb," she remarked, stroking her belly. "When they're born, I could pass them off as twins."
"I think it would be more convincing if they were fraternal twins, since that creature won't be the same as the one you have in your womb," I said.
"Hmm, I don't like calling this baby a 'creature,'" she added, leaning closer.
"Do you want to name it?" I asked, and she nodded. "Well, I'll give you the honors."
"Hmm," Kushina began to ponder a name. "Oh, I know, since her brother's name is Yami, which means darkness, then she'll be the opposite, so we'll call her Hikari."
"That sounds good to me," I said simply, returning to my report.
"Boo, more excitement," Kushina complained, starting to shake me uncontrollably.
I could only suppress my urge to hit her, since I was pregnant and couldn't do anything right now.
...
"So this is your idea?" Minato asked, looking at the document I handed him.
"Yes," I said curtly.
"I don't know, I feel like you're trying to scam me and everyone else with this," he said, looking at the contents of my proposal.
"No, how could I dare do that? I care about the younger generations and growing the village; there are plenty of ninjas, and the rest of the people are left behind. This gives the younger ones a chance to rise in life and be more than just a worker in a small shop," I began my speech.
"Or grow the village's economy, which you completely control for some reason, and make more money yourself," he added.
And to be honest, I'm not going to deny it, but I'm not going to confirm it either.
Minato passed the document back so the old monkey could read it, helping him get used to power.
"So your idea is to create a common curriculum that, after age nine, splits into two sections: one focused on the life of a shinobi while the other focuses on academic learning and later specialization," Minato concluded, explaining his idea.
The proposal, in simple terms, was a regular school with a technical specialization that could later become a professional one.
For the first three years of schooling, everything would be the same for everyone, but at age six, the courses would divide into two tracks: one for the shinobi track and the other for the regular track.
The shinobi track would remain the same, but the regular track would cover subjects beyond ninja training, such as science, politics, mathematics, and language, just like a regular school.
At age twelve, everyone would graduate, but instead of working, those in the regular track would pursue a specialization, studying for four years before choosing whether to pursue a professional career.
It's as if they take an advanced technical course for four years, and then, if they want, they can choose to study for a few more years to get a university degree.
"This takes a lot of time, not to mention that he wants to make it a public, tuition-free school, like the shinobi academy. How do you expect us to get money to help future generations?" the old monkey retorted.
"Well, there are several ways; one of them is retiring your advisors, who do nothing but steal money from public funds. If this weren't happening, there wouldn't be much need to privatize the academy. Minato doesn't need advisors, and technically, neither do you; it was just a position to help your colleagues, but all they did was cripple the village," he argued, to which Hiruzen remained silent, staring at the ground with a frown.
We can discuss how the council was what caused Hiruzen to question his actions as the village's leader, since he needs the approval of his peers. On the other hand, we can discuss how those three manipulated him into what he is now, since those old men felt they had the same or even more authority than the Hokage, which wasn't the case.
"There's some truth to that. I don't need them, and if I did need a little help, I wouldn't go for your opinion. I'd go to you, or Miyu, or Shikaku, or even Jiraiya-sensei," Mianto said, agreeing with what had been said, looking at the old monkey.
He could only sigh.
"And regarding making it public, that would be until age 12. Once that's over, if they want to specialize, they'll have to pay, but we'll provide facilitators who can afford it, since we need civilians to become specialists. One of these options could be working directly for the Hokage for a certain amount of time without being able to quit or paying in installments," I explained.
"Your idea isn't bad, but it affects the village's structure so much that I feel taking it lightly isn't prudent. I'd like to hold a shinobi council so everyone can give their opinion and see what others say; there won't be a vote, since the decision to implement it will be entirely mine," Minato decided, looking at me, to which I nodded.
As long as there wasn't a vote, it was fine, since votes could easily be bought, like the votes I would buy, but I feel that many shinobi, especially civilians with families, will accept this idea, since most have lived through the war, and turning their families into ninjas is something no parent wants.
Sending them to a specialization, whether it's engineering, medicine, education, science, administration, or something else, is a better option than sending them to a possible death.
"That said, this might cause us to lose potential future shinobi, so we'll have to create a counterbalance if that happens," Minato commented.
"You'll have to decide that as a military leader, but giving achievements or rewards for completing certain tasks or being promoted could be a good way," I suggested.
"I'll keep that in mind. Do you need anything else?" Minato concluded.
"Hmm, now that I think about it, Orochimaru was very close to Danzo, and everyone knows what a bad person that old man is, not to mention he's been missing; it would be a good idea to go check out what he's been up to," I commented.
With that said, I left, leaving a palpable sense of unease in the air.
...
Two days had passed since I spoke about Orochimaru, and right now I'm not far from the base where, supposedly, the pedophile snake is located.
I saw several ANBU, along with Hiruzen himself, heading to the laboratory to meet with his disciple.
Yesterday, a secret meeting was held with a few people, including me, in which evidence was found that Pedumaru was doing very bad things, such as using Leaf Village citizens for his experiments, paid for by Danzo, though Danzo himself wasn't mentioned.
Finally, it was decided to go ambush him where he was, to capture him and see what he was doing—basically, to verify if the suspicions were valid.
The idea was suggested that I go and check it out, but the old monkey, begging to be his disciple, asked me to go instead, which was accepted for some reason I don't understand.
Knowing what was going to happen, I knew I wouldn't stand idly by, so I used the Transparent Escape Jutsu and hid, hoping everything would unfold as expected.
After a few minutes, Pedumaru was seen calmly walking out of the blood-soaked laboratory.
The ANBU surrounded and attacked him, but demonstrating why he's considered one of the Leaf Village's strongest shinobi, he dispatched them all with just three simple jutsu.
Once he'd accomplished his mission, he left using a Body Flicker Technique, and I immediately followed him.
...
After several meters, Pedumaru stopped.
"I didn't think you'd chase me all the way here; if you haven't attacked me, it's for a reason, isn't it, little Miyu?" he said in his sinister voice.
"You concealed my presence well enough that I didn't recognize you; I'm curious to know, how did you know it was me?" I asked, appearing as I dispelled my jutsu.
"By process of elimination, Minato would have tried to kill me outright, Jiraiya wouldn't have hidden, Tsunade wouldn't have bothered to come, and therefore, no one else would have been able to follow, or at least not without knowing who I was," he explained, sticking out his long, disgusting tongue.
"I see, I can imagine why I came here, right?" I asked.
"I have an idea," he replied simply.
"I have an idea." "Just one thing: why did you use villagers for your experiments? You could have used rogue ninjas, deserters, or anyone else; if I hadn't done that, you wouldn't have needed to desert," I said, my curiosity piqued.
"I could tell you I was running out of the test subjects you mentioned, but that wouldn't be the whole truth. As someone with a scientific mind and thoughts similar to mine, I'll tell you the answer: I despise those civilians who think they're superior," he said with an angry expression.
"Believing those rumors, even looking down on those who don't become Hokage—first it was Sakumo, who committed suicide; next, who's next? It could be me. With the things you said, public opinion of me is already at rock bottom, but even doing that would still make me hate the village, the place that holds me back, the place where I have to restrain myself, and the place where I'm supposed to be moral, to care for those who despise me. I couldn't take it anymore," he finished.
"I see, in that sense you're very similar to that emo avenger," I commented aloud about the events that should happen in the future.
"Emo avenger?" Pedumaru asked, confused.
"Nothing important, just so you know, he did that mostly because I don't like you. The fact that others did it proves it's not my problem, but that you're a truly hateful person, and if they don't hate you here, they'll hate you somewhere else, but I didn't come here to talk about how I'm always right and you're trash," I said, pulling a kunai from my ninja pouch. "I came because the trash that escaped has something inside him; "It's important for the village, and especially for me."
"Hahahaha," he began to laugh maniacally upon hearing this. "You insult me, then you damage my reputation, you interfere with my research, you make my progress end up in your hands, you suggest I'm a potential traitor, you plant seeds of doubt in my mind, and now you want to steal everything I have." "Fine, try it, but you'll have to kill me in the process," he roared maniacally as he spat out a peculiar sword and assumed a fighting stance.
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Hey everyone, I hope you're all doing well. I'm here because I'm at a crossroads.
I don't know whether to kill Orochimaru now or let him live, for several reasons, mainly because I can't see Miyu letting Pedumaru live.
Orochimaru is the main villain of the first part of Naruto; killing him now would mean that certain events wouldn't happen, such as the Sound and Suna attacks on Konoha or Sasuke's defection.
Orochimaru's importance is significant for future events, and eliminating him now would mean not doing these things or having to find a way to do something similar, not the same thing, which is more complicated. I can try, but it's always easier to change something that already works.
That's why I'd like you to comment on what ideas you think are best. It won't be a Vote, tell me. If you repeat something the most times you want, I'll do it. If you want him to die, give your reasons, and if you want him to live, give them your reasons too. If I see good reasons or if you're right, I might go with that. If nothing convinces me, I'll go with my original idea, which I won't reveal.
That's all; I hope you liked the chapter. See you.