Hazō knocked on the door tentatively, unsure whether he was going to get a warm welcome or an ANBU guard to the face.

“Dr Yakushi, may I come in?”

Dr Yakushi was in his usual place, looking mournfully at a scroll which spilled across the entire desk and was covered in writing too small and illegible for any mortal to decipher. A little off-centre from where Dr Yakushi was looking, a complicated seal was surrounded by annotations added in what was probably his hand.

“Kurosawa!” Dr Yakushi looked up, simultaneously rolling up the scroll with a single urgent movement. “Or should I say ‘Gōketsu’? Congratulations on your ascension, young man.”

He gave a gentle smile. “I trust you will treasure them. Very few who lose their family are ever given a second chance.”

“Y—Yes, sir.”

“I must admit I wasn’t sure I would see you again after the events of your previous visit to Leaf. But I am delighted that you came. I do look forward to conducting bloodline research with your help, just like old times.”

That had been nowhere near Hazō’s mind when he was thinking about this visit, but looking at the expression of childlike excitement on Dr Yakushi’s face, he found himself entirely unable to say so.

“I, um, actually, Dr Yakushi, I was hoping to run a couple of my own research ideas past you.”

Dr Yakushi nodded. “Of course. You help me with my research, I help you with yours. What kind of man would I be if I sought your cooperation in a scientific endeavour without offering my own assistance in return?”

It felt like a dangerously double-edged remark. The thought of that mysterious duality between Dr Yakushi the paragon of helpfulness and Dr Yakushi the ruthless manipulator floated to the surface of Hazō’s mind, but as usual, he had no way of figuring out which he was dealing with.

“I was wondering if there had been any experiments done on quantifying chakra.”

Dr Yakushi’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Pray elaborate.”

Hazō's heart beat a little faster. Dr Yakushi wasn't dismissing the idea the way Jiraiya did virtually everything Hazō ever suggested. Was he... being taken seriously? By a professional?

“I’ve been thinking how there seems to be a lot of consistency to how much chakra it takes to use a given ninjutsu between people with similar skill and reserves. Suppose that in reality, it always takes the same amount of chakra to achieve the same effect, and that it costs one arbitrary unit of chakra to use the Water Whip Technique. If Noburi can use ten Water Whips before he gets exhausted… actually, Noburi’s the worst possible example, but never mind. Anyway, in that case, we can say that his chakra reserves are ten units large. If we then teach him, say, the Water Bullet Technique, and he can use it five times before getting exhausted, then we know it costs two units of chakra. By accumulating a catalogue of ninjutsu costs for common techniques, we can eventually deduce any given ninja’s reserve size. We might even be able to monitor how those reserves grow, and develop scientifically-proven optimal training methods.”

Hazō could feel himself getting more animated as he recalled more possibilities.

“We could identify the most efficient techniques for a given task and discard the rest, and make sure new techniques we developed were as efficient as possible. We could find patterns between the costs needed to create different effects, and draw conclusions about the fundamental workings of chakra. We could find the exact threshold between ninja and civilian, and see what can be done to cross it.”

“Magnificent,” Dr Yakushi said. “This is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that our discipline needs in order to advance. Not merely new objects of study, but new approaches to the structure of scientific study itself. Subjectivity, Gōketsu, is the bane of our work. ‘How much chakra does it cost to activate your Bloodline Limit?’ ‘Oh, a fair bit.’ ‘How much do these Akimichi pills accelerate your chakra regeneration?’ ‘Uh, quite a lot?’ ‘Do you have enough chakra to complete this extremely sensitive experiment?’ ‘Durr, probably?’”

The gormless idiocy Dr Yakushi put into the answering voices—with remarkable acting skill—convinced Hazō of the strength of his feelings better than any amount of descriptive language.

“To the best of my knowledge, there are no hidden village researchers who have accomplished the task you describe. The difficulties, which I suspect you underestimate, are great, while the rewards are not intuitively obvious to the laypeople on whom we rely for funding. And of course, it takes an exceptional individual to so much as imagine imposing a coherent cognitive structure on the apparent chaos of the physical world, never mind apply the rigor and dedication necessary to force that mental map to accurately correspond to an uncooperative territory.

“If you wish to take on this herculean task, Gōketsu, I will happily support it. Provide me with a research proposal, offer a course of experimentation, and I shall ensure that it reaches the right eyes with my endorsement.”

“Thank you, sir!” Hazō exclaimed. “That’s great.

“I was also thinking about disease immunity. I think it’s quite well-known that there are some diseases a person never catches twice, isn’t it? I’ve been wondering about it quite a while, back from Noburi started treating civilians in the villages we passed during our travels.”

“’Quite well-known’ might be overstating it,” Dr Yakushi said thoughtfully. “There are many diseases that plague the civilian population—no pun intended—but rarely if ever affect ninja due to our superior constitutions. Likewise, civilians behind hidden village walls suffer from a much lower rate of disease than those beyond them. Thus, hidden village medic-nin suffer from a lack of data on broad trends in the population.

“With that said, more advanced practitioners are aware of the tendency. But Leaf medic-nin cannot account for it. Perhaps exposure to disease leaves one with some form of latent resistance. Perhaps survivors change their behaviour in ways that reduce their odds of reinfection. Or perhaps those that survive are simply more fit to begin with, and if they are strong enough to survive the disease as children, then they will be strong enough to simply shrug it off as adults. A thousand possibilities, Gōketsu, limited only by one’s imagination, and no means of distinguishing between them. The curse of all scientific endeavour.

“Again, Gōketsu, if you have any concrete suggestions for investigating the matter, I would be happy to pass them on as appropriate. My own time, I fear, must be used on matters requiring more specialised expertise.”

That was fair. Hazō only knew Dr Yakushi because the man happened to be a specialist capable of treating Akane’s extremely rare injury, not because the man was an all-purpose port of call for medical matters. Not that Hazō didn’t intend to leverage the connection for all it was worth anyway. He had a world to uplift, and at the moment only one lifetime to do it in.

Which reminded him…

“One more thing, Dr Yakushi. About Arikada…”

“Yes?”

“When we fought her, she used something called the Edo Tensei Technique to raise the dead to fight against us. Can you tell me anything about how that would work? Is it something I could learn with a high enough clearance?”

Dr Yakushi stared at him blankly.

Seconds passed.

Hazō began to worry that he’d just asked a Question Not to Be Asked, and that ANBU were already on their way to disappear him.

Then Dr Yakushi burst out laughing. “Oh, Gōketsu. Oh, that’s wonderful. You mean to say you took her seriously? Oh, I haven’t heard anything like this in years!”

Hazō felt a sense of impending humiliation. “Dr Yakushi?”

Dr Yakushi straightened up and adjusted his glasses. “I apologise, Gōketsu. With the intellect you display, I sometimes forget that you are both very young and from a village with a vastly inferior standard of education.

“The Edo Tensei Technique is a myth. It is a piece of disinformation created by the Second Hokage in wartime. He claimed that he had developed a technique which used human sacrifice to resurrect powerful ninja with all of their knowledge and abilities intact, and beyond death since they had already transcended its boundary. Due to his well-earned reputation as a ninjutsu creator, and various leaked details such as ‘sacrifice volunteer lists’, the other villages fell into panic, believing that Leaf had entered a new stage in the global arms race. In addition to grossly overestimating Leaf’s military might—which is not to say that the Second wasn’t a monster in the field to begin with—they threw vast resources into attempting to replicate Edo Tensei, including the waste of significant human resources, and the consequent unrest among their general populations.

“It is this myth that Arikada sought to capitalise on with her multi-layered deception. Even so, I fear she is not a kunoichi of legend who has mastered death and opened the gates to immortality.”

Dr Yakushi’s gaze grew sympathetic.

“I suppose you were enjoying visions of setting the dead to work the fields and guard the walls of civilian settlements, ushering in a new age of peace and productivity? Do not look so surprised. Noburi often speaks admiringly of your unique ideals. But I fear your ambition will not be so easily granted. Arikada’s so-called body slaves are little more than corpses forced into motion. They lack anything you would recognise as a mind or a will, indeed anything beyond the barest animal instinct, and as for the limits of their duration…

“But forgive me. You have no need to hear classified details. Suffice it to say that there is a reason that Arikada uses them only as a last resort, and it would not be worth your effort to attempt to reproduce them.”

For a second, Hazō wondered. What would happen if he told Dr Yakushi the truth? What would Dr Yakushi think if he knew that Hazō’s true desire wasn’t necromancy but immortality? Would he laugh at Hazō again, or would he be a potential ally in the quest? If the latter, how much further could Hazō advance with a master of biotechnology at his side?

No, he decided. Not today. It was a great idea, but it was also something to be approached carefully, not blurted out on impulse. (See? He was learning! Stop snickering, Inner Mari-sensei!)

Dr Yakushi glanced at the window.

“Ah. It seems I have allowed myself to be caught up in your intriguing ideas and lost track of time. There were certain experiments I intended to run before the hour grew so late. On the other hand, with your assistance perhaps I can salvage the afternoon after all. Would you accompany me to my underground laboratory, Gōketsu? I assure you it will not take long, and perhaps we can further discuss your thoughts on chakra quantification while we run the tests?”

Even if Hazō could see a good reason to refuse the man who was doing his best to help him, he would probably have felt too awkward to do so.

“Yes, Dr Yakushi. I’d be happy to help.”

-o-​

The Fifth Hokage, Jiraiya of the Three, single-handed destroyer of the Sōon Clan, tamer of the unstoppable Mao Shogun, the only man ever to successfully seduce Saeko the Snow Queen, bestselling author and legendary sealmaster, strongest of summoners and greatest of sages, etc. etc. had finally met his match. His will to live drained faster with every second, while his opponent seemed to grow in size before his very eyes without using any sort of ninjutsu. He felt himself reaching for the Fire Element, his enemy’s only weakness, but even that possibility was denied him. He would have to finish his paperwork the old-fashioned way.

The worst part of it was that there seemed to be half again as much paperwork today as there had been yesterday. Oh, it was all unconnected materials from a hundred different sources, from sealcrafting experiment reports to proposals to amend taxation policy, but in the back of his mind was the uneasy awareness that yesterday afternoon he had slighted Nara Shikaku.

The knock on his door was a hymn of salvation.

“Enter,” he said, putting on his indefatigable Hokage face.

“Good afternoon, Lord Hokage.”

“Akane. What brings you to my humble forest?”

To her credit, it took Akane barely a second to glance at the stacks of paper and make the appropriate inference.

“If you’re too busy, sir, I can—“

“No,” Jiraiya said immediately. “It’s fine. What can I do for you today?”

Akane drew herself up to her full height, looking him in the eye for all the world as if they were equals.

“I would like to ask your permission to marry Hazō.”

Jiraiya carefully put down his brush.

“Is that so? Then why isn’t he here with you?”

“I haven’t spoken to him about it yet,” Akane admitted.

Jiraiya raised his eyebrows.

“Sir,” Akane’s voice softened, “I am aware that using Hazō in a political marriage could be very valuable for you. As a commoner, I can’t offer your clan that kind of advantage. So if you’re going to reject me, if I can’t be Hazō’s wife, I’d prefer to know sooner rather than later so I can learn to… manage my expectations.”

Jiraiya studied the girl. Her bearing… it wasn’t noble as such, but it was dignified, in a way he wouldn’t necessarily expect from a carpenter’s daughter. He could determine the rest of her life here, with a couple of words, and she knew it, and yet she still stood straight.

“All right, Akane. Make your case. Why should I choose you over the rich and powerful of this world?”

Akane breathed in slowly, then out. Then in again.

“Sir. Hazō is gifted. He’s a visionary. He’s the most youthful person I know. He’s probably going to be head of the clan someday. If he keeps pursuing his ambition, which he will, he’ll become Hokage as a stepping stone. Hazō is important, and I’m not just saying that because I love him.

“He needs someone who is completely, perfectly loyal to him. A political marriage can’t offer him that, not with the way clan loyalties work. But I can. I can support him without holding back and without manipulation.”

“Hmm,” was Jiraiya’s only comment.

“I also believe I will make a good partner for him. Hazō is brilliant. He’s driven, creative and compassionate. But if there’s one thing that holds him back…” Akane hesitated. “It’s his lack of common sense.”

Jiraiya was nodding in agreement before he even realised he was doing it.

“That’s something I can offer him,” Akane said. “I may not be intelligent like Keiko or silver-tongued like Noburi or powerful like Kagome, but I’m… stable. I can keep him grounded and I can spot things that he’s too clever to notice. I can always be there for him because I don’t get hurt easily and I rarely get lost in my own head.

“That might not sound like much to the greatest ninja in the world, but I think it’s what Hazō needs, more than another genius or a spiderweb of political connections. He won’t have any trouble finding those if he puts his mind to it, but he won’t find anyone else able to unconditionally support him the way I can.”

“Hmm,” Jiraiya repeated. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Akane, but aren’t those things you’re going to offer him anyway? Whether I let you marry him or not?”

There was a pause.

“Yes, sir,” Akane said in a small voice. “Of course I am.”

“Do you think he’s ready?” Jiraiya mercifully shifted the subject. “After all, you haven’t even talked to him yet.”

“I don’t want us to rush into anything, sir,” Akane said firmly. “That isn’t why I’m here.

“But at the same time,” she added more quietly, “he’s an experimenting sealcrafter and I’m a close combat specialist. There’s no way of knowing how much longer we have together.”

Jiraiya nodded without comment.

“Kids?” he asked.

Akane didn’t blush. Jiraiya wondered if she’d got all that out of the way while preparing for this conversation.

“I don’t want us to rush into anything,” Akane repeated. “And if I live long enough…”

Her voice turned a little shy. “I think I would like our children to be born into the new world Hazō is trying to create. I’d like them to be the ones to build on the foundations we’re laying.”

“Is that right?” Jiraiya said neutrally. “I’m not going to make a decision on the spot, Akane. I’ve got nothing against you, but the world is being sucked into a whirlpool of chaos, not least thanks to you guys, and it doesn’t look like it’ll be smooth sailing again anytime soon. Until this clan is on solid footing, until Leaf is on solid footing, Hazō’s hand in marriage might turn out to be a trump card we can’t afford not to play. You with me?”

“Yes, sir,” Akane said clearly.

“Anything else?”

“Sir…” Akane looked at him again. “If you decide that I’m not an acceptable partner, may I suggest Yamanaka Ino? I know you sort of already have the Yamanaka via the Nara, but Hazō and Ino have compatible personalities, and he could benefit a lot from her social skills. Also, Hazō has a habit of trying to turn everything he comes across into a tool, and I think he could come up with some great new uses for the Yamanaka arts.”

“I’ll bear it in mind.”

Jiraiya studied her face, taking notes until he was satisfied. She waited motionlessly.

“Dismissed.”

Jiraiya listened to Akane’s steps speed up as she walked down the corridor outside. He did like the girl, he decided. After all, he’d only ever known one other ninja whose heart was such an open book.

​ -o-

​ “Kids,” Jiraiya said in the middle of family dinner, “I’ve got an invitation for you.”

“Aww,” Mari-sensei cooed, “are you by any chance going to invite them to our enormous grandiose wedding ceremony which by the way we still haven’t had?”

“Get off my back, woman,” Jiraiya grumbled good-naturedly. The bags under his eyes were as dark as ever, but it seemed to Hazō that there was a spark of the old bouncy Jiraiya present today that he hadn’t seen in weeks. “We couldn’t very well have it before the big announcement, could we? And right now we don’t have the money to throw a Gōketsu wedding party worthy of my beloved wife.”

Mari-sensei grinned. “Not very subtle, but I’ll let you off this once because I’m feeling generous and Kagome’s fish soup is amazing. No wonder he turned out to be from Hidden Mist all along.”

Kagome muttered something nigh-inaudible about stinking stinkers rewriting history to suit their whims and who did they think they were anyway, the Sage of Six Paths, and it was this kind of rubbish that filled the world with crazy conspiracy theories that distracted people from the true machinations of the sinister powers behind the scenes and he was trying some new spices from the south of the Fire Country and did she really think it was that good?

“Aaanyway,” Noburi said over Kagome’s very quiet tirade, “thrilling as I find the idea of standing around for half a day while some old sage drones on about the blessings of the Will of Fire, what’s this about an invitation?”

“So,” Jiraiya said cheerfully, “who wants to go on a relaxing trip to Hidden Mist?”

Several things happened at once.

Kagome lunged for his exploding tags, screaming something about lupchanzen. Mari’s hand whipped out with the speed of lightning to stop him. Noburi dropped his spoon, splashing himself with hot soup. Hazō leapt to his feet, ready to finally present the lists he’d made for Operation Save My Mother. And Keiko…

Keiko calmly took a bite out of her bread and goat’s cheese roll. “Is it that time of year already?”

“What time of year?” several people demanded at once.

“What time of year?” Jiraiya said dramatically, clearly enjoying everyone’s reactions. “Why, the time of year for the Chūnin Exams!”

“You want us to go to the Chūnin Exams,” Noburi clarified. “In Mist. Where everybody and their killer octopus wants us dead with extreme prejudice. Both Leaf ninja generally and us specifically. With all due respect, sir, are you insane?”

“It’s finally happened,” Kagome crowed. “I told you Jiraiya-stinker would betray us, but you were all ‘Nooo, Kagome, we can trust family, they won’t try to get us killed or brainwashed or tell girls we have a crush on them in front of the whole Academy’. Well, this is what trusting people gets you!”

“Kagome,” Jiraiya said, “shut up for a second. Nobody is going to get killed in Mist. The Accords guarantee non-violence during the period of the Exams, or nobody would go. Mist attacks us while we’re visiting, the other villages have to come down on them as a matter of treaty. That and if one of the Hokage’s clan dies on their territory, even if it looks like an accident, that’s casus belli. Right now, Mist would rather have a Spontaneous Chakra Combustion Disease epidemic than a war with Leaf.”

“So you’re saying this is a chance for us to go to Mist safely?” Hazō couldn’t contain his excitement. “We can exfiltrate my mum?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, kid,” Jiraiya said. “Remember what I said about non-violence? Kidnapping counts as violence, and you can bet your lucky socks Mist would spin it as a kidnapping.”

“Oh.”

“But. There are plans. Shikaku and I have been working on something a lot bigger than you or your mother. Hell, it's bigger than Hyūga Hiashi's ego. It's too soon to talk about the details, but step one is attending the Chūnin Exams. See, the exams start in three weeks, and we’ve only just got confirmation today that Mist will be hosting. I don’t need to tell you what that means.”

Hazō looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“Keiko?” Jiraiya asked with a touch of resignation.

“Three weeks is the shortest possible notice,” Keiko explained. “In other words, the Mist authorities have been delaying until the last second, likely in hopes of finding a new Mizukage to represent them. The timing implies that they have failed to elect one, their political situation is still unstable, and they have agreed to host purely because they cannot afford the show of weakness that would come from defaulting on their responsibilities. The lack of a leader will make them extremely vulnerable during any negotiations that Jiraiya conducts during his visit, and his physical presence will make them unable to evade the issue.”

“Girl’s a treasure,” Jiraiya grinned. “I’m going to bleed Shikaku dry with the bride price, or my name’s not Gōketsu Jiraiya.”

He paused. “That's got a nice ring to it. Don’t get me wrong, ‘Jiraiya of the Three’ has history, but constantly having to share your glory with a team that split up decades ago can really get to you.

“Anyway, Keiko’s got it in one. In three weeks’ time, Gōketsu Jiraiya is going to waltz into a meeting with a bunch of squabbling clan heads and cram the Pax Konoha down their throats. It’s a pity it’ll be a closed meeting, because their faces are going to be hilarious.”

“What about money?” Hazō asked. “If we’re on thin ice financially, can we really afford to spend that much time away from Leaf?”

Jiraiya shrugged. “Think about it. You think the villages want their candidates spending the exams worrying about their families starving to death from all the missed missions? There’s a stipend that comes out of the treasury—not huge, but we’re not going to die of starvation either.

”Besides, we can’t afford not to go. If the Hokage’s new clan, which happens to be fifty percent provisional chūnin, doesn’t attend the Chūnin Exams, that’s a show of weakness too. Mist’s turtles might value the ceasefire we’ve sort of got going right now, but if the sharks can stir up trouble for us without going toe to toe, you know they will.”

“Sharks don’t have toes, dear.”

“Cram it, beloved wife. You know what I’m trying to say.”

“We’ve got to go,” Noburi summarised, “so we may as well make the most of it.”

“Not quite,” Jiraiya said happily. “I’m saying we’ve got to go, and Mist won’t know what hit it. And for you kids, this is a chance to a) get closure with your families, if that’s a thing you want to do, and b) show Mist the true power of those three kids they dismissed as worthless way back when.

“And while I’m wrecking Mist’s top clan heads like a Great Fireball Technique going through a stack of paper… you kids are going to rock the Chūnin Exams.”