Kakashi was silent for a long time before he finally spoke, his voice rough and dry.
"So Iwagakure can only… swallow this?"
"Over a thousand men just died for nothing?"
"Not necessarily for nothing." Shikaku shook his head. "Ōnoki will do everything he can to get his payback."
"He might trip Sunagakure up in other areas. He might hire a third-party force through the black market to retaliate…"
"But a large-scale, public military reprisal is impossible now."
He paused, his voice dropping lower.
"That Kazekage, Teizawa, forced the door shut on any chance Iwagakure had to take revenge through war."
"And…" Shikaku lifted his head, his gaze complicated. "Dragging Konoha into this wasn't just about borrowing our presence to deter Iwagakure. He's testing us, too."
"Testing?" Tsunade's voice hardened.
"Testing Konoha's attitude toward Sunagakure." Shikaku nodded. "That request-for-aid letter is a question on an exam."
"He's using it to gauge Konoha's tolerance, to gauge how much weight we place on Suna…"
He stopped again and lowered his voice.
"Honestly, I suspect that before he wiped out the Iwa shinobi in that canyon, he'd already calculated that Konoha would have no choice. We'd have to play along with his show."
Shizune finally couldn't hold it in anymore. Her voice was as small as a mosquito.
"H-how can someone's mind be that deep…?"
No one answered her.
Tsunade stood and walked to the window, looking down at the room behind her.
Sunlight traced the graceful line of her back, but her expression was impossible to read.
"Shikaku," she said at last, very softly. "Do you think all of this… is just coincidence?"
Shikaku stayed silent for a long time.
So long that Shizune thought he wouldn't answer at all, before he finally spoke, slowly.
"I only hope…" Shikaku said. "That it's coincidence."
He paused, then raised his eyes to Tsunade's back.
"If it isn't…"
"If it isn't, then what?" Kakashi pressed.
"If it isn't…" Nara Shikaku's voice was quiet.
"Then with this one move, he's placed the three great villages of the shinobi world… Sunagakure, Iwagakure, Konoha… and even Kumogakure…"
"All of it, on his board."
"Everyone's stance, interests, hidden cards, concerns, and the choices they can't avoid…"
"He'd already run the entire simulation before he ever set a stone down."
He turned his head. For the first time, true wariness surfaced in those usually lazy eyes.
"And I've heard…"
He hesitated, then said it anyway.
"He's not even twenty."
"…That's not 'clever.' That's monstrous."
"If I had to sum it up…"
"One word."
"Monster."
Silence.
So quiet in the Hokage's office you could hear a pin drop.
At some point, Tsunade's hand had tightened around the window frame.
Kakashi's half-lidded right eye opened fully.
In his pupil, Shikaku's heavy profile reflected like a shadow.
Shizune bit down on her lower lip, almost forgetting to breathe.
The man known as Konoha's strategist, the head of the Nara clan, the one who had found a path through the worst dead-ends time and again…
Had just given that evaluation of a young Kazekage who'd been in office less than a month.
A monster?
Not a genius. Not troublesome.
Not even a dangerous opponent to watch carefully.
A monster.
That label alone made the whole thing feel unreal.
Tsunade slowly loosened her grip on the window frame.
She turned back into the room.
"Send orders."
Her voice carried a new weight.
"Collect everything. Full-spectrum investigation into Teizawa's life history."
"Every scrap of information on him, a complete analysis of the canyon incident, all of it. Seal it and rush it at top priority to the two elders, Koharu and Homura."
She paused, her gaze distant.
"Also, in my name, reply to Sunagakure. Konoha is willing to provide aid."
"And more than that, Konoha will dispatch a genin exchange team. Officially, it's to deepen our mutual training and jutsu exchange…"
"Unofficially, we'll plant people in Suna to gather critical intelligence on Teizawa himself."
Shikaku lifted his eyes to Tsunade.
No surprise. No objections.
Because…
When you're facing a "monster," the smartest move is never to stand across the board from him.
…
Just as Konoha decided to send a squad to Sunagakure for "exchange training," Sunagakure didn't panic at Iwagakure's threat.
Instead…
One piece of news sent the entire village into an uproar.
The day the word got out, Sunagakure went up like someone had tossed a torch into dry tinder.
At first it was just a clerk on duty in the Kazekage's office, mentioning it offhand to a shinobi they knew.
That shinobi told a teammate.
The teammate went home and told their wife and kids.
The wife repeated it at the market the next morning as gossip to a fishmonger.
The fishmonger turned around and told the potter next door…
And then…
In less than half a day, the entire village knew.
"Hey, did you hear? Kazekage-sama is going to hold some kind of… shinobi representative… assembly?"
"Isn't it supposed to be a high-level meeting? Why does that have anything to do with us?"
"No idea. I heard they're picking people from genin and chūnin, and even civilians!"
"Civilians? What would civilians know about war and running a village? Isn't that just making a mess…"
There were doubts, sure.
For decades, every major decision in Sunagakure had been hammered out inside the Kazekage's office by the Kazekage and the council of elders.
Then jonin would pass it down layer by layer until it became orders to execute.
Civilians?
Genin?
They only needed to follow commands, pay taxes, and pray for peace.
When had they ever had the right to speak up?
But beyond the doubt, there was something stronger.
Curiosity.
Outside the Kazekage's office, the normally solemn plaza had been unusually lively these past two days.
People "happened" to pass by again and again, craning their necks toward the tightly shut windows, as if staring hard enough might let them glimpse some secret.
Tea stalls around the square saw their business jump by thirty percent.
Everyone was talking about the so-called Representative Assembly, not yet held, but already stirring the whole village.
"What do you think Kazekage-sama is trying to do?"
…
In the corner of one tea stall, a middle-aged potter set down his rough clay cup and lowered his voice as he asked the others at his table.
He wore an apron smeared with pottery clay, hands cracked and callused.
A textbook Suna civilian.
His family had made pottery for generations.
He'd never been more than three ri beyond the village in his entire life.
"Win hearts," said the young chūnin across from him, fresh off patrol, his forehead protector hanging loosely at his neck. "New boss takes office, he's got to light a few fires. The previous Kazekage, Gaara-sama, was strong, sure, but he always felt… distant from the village."
"This new Kazekage's different. First thing he does, he drags back two hundred-plus billion. Now he wants to hold an assembly."
"He just wants everyone thinking the new Kazekage is amazing, right?"
"Not necessarily." The elder beside them spoke slowly, his hair already gone gray.
He was a retired genin.
His left leg had been ruined on a mission long ago.
Now he ran a little general store at the edge of the village.
"I've lived sixty years. I've seen four Kazekage."
"Rasa-sama was powerful, but cold. The Fifth Kazekage, Gaara-sama… he was like a block of wood."
"And this one…"
He paused, and something complicated flickered in his cloudy eyes.
"Whether it's winning hearts or not, at least he's willing to talk to us."
"That alone is more than the others ever did."
The potter nodded, half understanding, then shook his head.
He couldn't read. He didn't understand politics or schemes.
He only knew his family of five lived in the west district.
Their roof had leaked wind and sand for two years.
He'd filed report after report.
Not once had anyone responded.
If that "shinobi representative assembly" really meant ordinary people could finally speak…
He lowered his gaze to his rough, cracked palms.
And for some reason, his chest felt hot.
(End of Chapter)
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