Chapter 57: The First Ripples Spreads
In the Land of Lightning, Kumogakure, dark clouds hung low above the mountain peaks as if pressing down upon the village itself while streams of white mist drifted between the high stone paths and steel bridges connecting different parts of the village. From time to time distant thunder rolled across the skies, not as a storm but almost like the land itself breathing. Even by shinobi village standards Kumogakure always carried a rough militaristic atmosphere as if the entire village was constantly preparing for war.
In the Raikage's office, the Fourth Raikage A sat sitting on his heavy stone-backed seat as usual, his large frame giving off an almost oppressive presence even while still. One thick arm rested against the desk while the other turned over intelligence reports one after another with visible impatience. Beside him stood his secretary Mabui who was also looking through part of the reports, her expression calm though her eyes had gradually grown more serious the further she read. The air was quiet in the Raikage office broken only by the sounds of pages turning rhythmically.
However the quiet did not last long as two ANBU suddenly appeared before the Raikage's desk and knelt immediately. One of them lowered his head and spoke of urgent intelligence from Fire Country involving a missing nin from Konoha, an Uchiha clan member.
At those words the atmosphere in the room visibly changed. Even Mabui stopped working for a moment.
As for A he said nothing, but his hand slowly tightened against the desk. An Uchiha outside Konoha's control… such a thing by itself was already enough to attract the interest of every major village, but what truly made the matter troubling was not the boy himself but the fact this information had been allowed to spread. Mabui was the first to speak, quietly pointing out what was obvious to anyone with political sense, that this was no ordinary leak and had most likely been released deliberately.
A naturally understood what that implied.
Either Konoha was moving first or Konoha had already lost control of the situation.
Neither possibility was good for them.
Time passed slowly as A's eyes kept narrowing. On the other hand Mabui remained completely silent, not disturbing his thinking. After a while a faint cold laugh escaped him. So the old monkey has started playing games again, he thought internally, though whether the game was directed at the Uchiha, foreign villages, or something else entirely was still unclear, without proper intelligence making hasty decisions would only backfire.
Mabui then quietly raised another point.
"If this information has reached us this quickly, it has likely reached Iwa as well… perhaps Kiri too."
A's expression did not change, but he naturally understood the meaning.
If other villages began moving under the assumption a free Uchiha could be captured, then this was no longer merely Konoha's internal matter.
It could become a contest.
Or worse.
A trap where those who moved first became the ones exposed first.
Another thought surfaced in his mind.
If Konoha truly wanted to conceal this, they would have concealed it.
That they did not…
Meant the spread itself may be part of the move.
The more he thought about it, the less this looked like simple instability.
It looked arranged.
And arrangements usually had layers.
And so orders were quickly issued to dispatch intelligence teams and increase surveillance on Fire Country movements, but more importantly to quietly gather everything possible concerning the missing Uchiha. Because what interested A was no longer merely the possibility of obtaining an Uchiha, but understanding why Konoha had allowed this in the first place.
That question in itself might be worth more than any bloodline.
Of course that didn't mean he wasn't interested in the Uchiha bloodline, far from it, in fact he was very interested, but that didn't mean he would move recklessly. A was far from stupid, in fact Kumogakure was one of the villages that had always moved more strategically than outsiders believed. Their aggressive behavior towards the outside was often nothing more than a facade for the other villages.
—
Far away, deep within the forests of the Land of Rain, while major villages had already begun reacting one after another, the person at the center of all this remained seated cross-legged upon the cold muddy ground like a motionless stone. Small insects and fallen leaves had crawled up or settled upon his clothes, yet his posture remained razor sharp without the slightest movement. Uchiha Kenzo. His breathing so slow and controlled it was almost nonexistent.
To the outside world his name had already begun moving through the shinobi world like a hidden current, yet Kenzo himself remained blissfully unaware for now.
His mind was entirely occupied by something else. Growth, power and the next step towards his goal.
Hours passed as Kenzo remained deep in meditation and finally he opened his eyes, quietly taking in everything around him for a brief moment before his head moved toward the sky where the morning sun had already risen high, gradually approaching noon.
"Surprisingly, looks like almost twelve hours had passed while I was in meditation," Kenzo thought internally.
Yet what surprised him more was not the time.
But the result.
During that meditation he had gradually understood the source of the fatigue in his eyes before.
It was not physical exhaustion.His body had long been trained to endure worse.It was a disturbance of thought.
A subtle contradiction between constant movement and internal stillness.
He had been moving forward without pause for so long that even his mind had begun following movement itself as a habit.
And habit without awareness was a flaw.
Now that flaw seemed weaker.
Or at the very least… Visible.
And what is visible can be corrected.This alone made the meditation worthwhile.
He got up, dusted the dirt and leaves off his clothes and looked at the small puddle again which was still almost unchanged, this was after all the Land of Rain it was only natural the water would evaporate slowly.
Kenzo slowly kneeled beside the puddle once more and looked at his reflection.
In the puddle his face made itself clear again, but this time there was no fatigue in his eyes, instead they looked unusually calm, almost as if the restlessness from before had completely settled.
He looked at that reflection for a few moments before a small smile grazed his face behind the oni mask.
"That's good, looks like my psyche isn't disturbed anymore."
And without a flicker of hesitation he rose from his kneeling position.
It was time to move towards his next destination.
But just then a red flare suddenly appeared in the sky, streaking upward and blooming high above, dyeing part of the sky in faint crimson.
Kenzo's gaze darkened instantly.
He recognized this flare.It had been given to one of his subordinates and would only be triggered in an emergency.
Which meant something had happened.