​

“Welcome to Kitagawa’s Completely Reliable Goods!”

The suspiciously jolly fat man behind the counter beckoned them in with a big smile on his face.

“What can I do for you today, honourable ninja?”

Keiko reluctantly stepped forward to take the lead. “We have 350 steelback spines and approximately one ton of steelback meat to sell.”

Surprise flickered across the man’s face, but only briefly. “Is that so? How delightful. I’m afraid I don’t know of anybody working with steelback spines at the moment, so I can’t help you there. As for steelback meat, it is something of an acquired taste and will be hard to shift. I would not be able to offer you much to recompense you for your commendable work slaying the beasts.”

He tapped a finger against his double chin as if pondering.

“But on the other hand, it behoves any sensible man in these fraught times to show gratitude and respect to our ninja protectors. Yes, it may contract my profit margins somewhat, but to support our troops I can take the meat off your hands for 60,000 ryō. No, I may even be able to go as high as 65,000. What say you, honourable ninja?”

Keiko: Deal-Making vs Kitagawa: Deal-Making said: Class B Success

“By no means,” Keiko said seriously. “It would bring shame upon my clan were I to exploit my position as a shinobi for personal gain. That is the very opposite of what the Gōketsu stand for.”

The man frowned, as if trying to remember where he’d heard the name.

Keiko bowed.

“We shall carry these items back to our father the Hokage, and tell him how you, Master Kitagawa, opened our eyes to their true worthlessness. I am certain he will appreciate both your candour and your loyalty.”

The man’s eyes bulged as if attempting to escape their sockets and start new lives far away under assumed names.

“O—Oh, steelbacks. I thought you said ‘squealbats’. Pathetic creatures, the squealbats. No value to anyone at all. No indeed. But steelbacks, those are highly nutritious. Completely different deal. I would be delighted to offer you 100,000 ryō for this steelback meat, Your Highness.”

“’My lady’ will do,” Keiko said primly. “On behalf of the Gōketsu Clan, I accept your offer.”

“Here you are, my lady,” the sweating Kitagawa offered her a pouch of ryō. “And please, I am a humble man. There is no need to describe this transaction to the Hokage. None at all.”

-o-

​ “I think it’s time we addressed the chakra mammoth in the room,” Mari-sensei announced.

She, Hazō, Keiko and Noburi had gathered in one of the mansion’s cozier living rooms (i.e. one which contained furniture). Unfortunately, thanks to the clan’s financial situation, they were still in the middle of getting the splatters of mysterious purple fluid off the walls, but on the plus side the salesman had assured them that no one had gone missing in the area for years, and anything that seemed suspicious was just ordinary decor reflecting the previous owner’s unusual tastes.

“Which chakra mammoth is that?” Hazō asked.

“Take your pick,” Mari-sensei said wryly. “Having a bunch of very important things that you refuse to talk about is all part and parcel of adult life, kids. This one, though, needs talking about now.

“Your families are in Mist. Just like we did that training to make sure you aren’t caught off guard by psychological warfare, we need to make sure you’re not going to be left an emotional wreck by seeing your family.”

“Do you still have family in Mist, Mari-sensei?” Keiko asked.

“Depends on if my elderly mother survived the shame of her only daughter turning missing-nin,” Mari-sensei said with a cheerfulness that sounded flawlessly genuine. “Not that it matters. I’m not going to Mist.”

“What?!”

“Duh, Hazō. Somebody’s got to hold the fort here while our glorious leader’s gallivanting off to parts unknown. If we all go, who’s going to stop the Hyūga from trying to pull the carpet out from under the Gōketsu, or make sure Nara Shikaku doesn’t get too big for his boots? And then there’s Kagome. Hands up if you think taking Kagome into a diplomatically sensitive hostile environment is a good idea. Or if you think leaving him on his own in Leaf is a great improvement.

“I’m not exactly over the moon about leaving you kids to your own devices either, but this is just how it is when you're Hokage. The First had Tobirama, the future Second, to watch his back while he was away for the Five Kage Summit and so on. The Second could be wherever he wanted whenever he wanted. The Third had his clan look out for his interests while he was away. The Fourth could count on the Third. Jiraiya’s the first Hokage to be this socially isolated—he barely even spent time in Leaf until he got the hat, and it’s coming back to haunt him.”

“What about the Nara?” Keiko asked. “They have invested significant resources in Jiraiya’s regime. It would be foolish of them to undermine it in his absence.”

“And I’m sure that’s fine if Jiraiya wants to come back to find he’s become a puppet ruler with Nara Shikaku standing behind the throne with a big stick. Don’t forget, Shikaku is an ally, not a friend. He’s going to do what’s best for the Nara, then what’s best for Leaf, then what’s best for the Ino-Shika-Chō, and then maybe if he has the time and energy left he might consider helping out the Gōketsu.

“Also, plans within plans. I’ve been in Leaf for a matter of weeks, and I can already tell you not to assume the Nara aren’t going to do something just because it seems stupid or counter-productive to an outsider. They trade short-term losses for long-term gains like the Inuzuka trade personal hygiene for power.

“But enough about our impending doom in Leaf. Let’s talk about our impending doom in Mist. Hazō, you’re up first. Do you think the Kurosawa are going to want to see you?”

“I’m not sure,” Hazō admitted. “On the one hand, I guess they must have taken quite the reputational hit from me turning missing-nin. On the other hand, I’m the Hokage’s son now, and it would be strange if they couldn’t find an opportunity in that.

“Aunt Ren came to see me once, right after I passed the Academy entrance exam. She told me that the Kurosawa weren’t going to blame me for my mother’s sins, and that if I ever wanted to leave her and be accepted as a member of the main family, I would be welcomed with open arms. I was so stunned I didn’t even yell at her, which in retrospect was probably a good thing.”

“I’m going to guess you’re not a fan of the clan, then.”

“You know I’m not," Hazō said bitterly. "Everything my mum and I have had to suffer through in our lives is their fault. We had to grow up poor and alone because they were too proud to accept my dad. Because they cast out their own daughter. We were supposed to be family, and they treated us like yesterday’s garbage. You’d think I’d have some loyalty to my bloodline, deep down, but I don’t. I really really don’t.”

Mari-sensei nodded sympathetically. “Thing is, you’re going to have to play nice with them anyway. They might not want to meet you—there’s no Mizukage right now, and if the Kurosawa are manoeuvring to grab the hat, it’s possible that they’ll try to appeal to the hardliners by distancing themselves from pro-Leaf elements like you. But if they go the other way, which I personally think would be smarter, then they’ll want to start making amends so they can use you as their in to Leaf politics. Also, then they get to pump you for information, including how many bloodline secrets you’ve given away.”

“Won’t I get an escort? I’m assuming that’ll stop them from talking about anything that sensitive.”

Mari-sensei shook her head. “I wouldn’t bet on it. Not for those meetings. They’ll claim it’s clan business. We can argue it isn’t, because you’re adopted into another clan now, but if they force the issue, that’s a diplomatic incident at the worst possible time. Jiraiya might talk a big game, but dealing with a bunch of separate clans instead of one strong leader has its costs as well. Namely, if you piss off individual clan leaders, they’re going to pay you back with interest during negotiations, whereas the Mizukage wouldn’t care about the clans’ pride except insofar as it impacted on him or on the village as a whole.

“They’re not going to kidnap or murder you or anything. That’s not the danger. But you need to be ready to face them if you have to… because nothing is harder than defying the people who brought you up.” For a second, Mari-sensei seemed small, and very far away.

“Sorry. Moving on. The one place where there will definitely be escorts, from Mist if nothing else, is if you go talk to your mother, Hazō. They’re not stupid.”

“Not if,” Hazō said firmly. “When. Of course I’m going to see her. And if they refuse, they can have all the diplomatic incident they want.”

Mari-sensei sighed. “Yeah, saw that coming. They’re not going to refuse. They’ll have seen this encounter coming from the moment they heard you were joining Leaf, and they’ll have planned for it. But that’s not the real issue.

“You’ve probably realised by now, but your mother became a security risk the moment she heard you were alive. And combat power isn’t the real reason jōnin are dangerous to lose. They have clearance. They have operational know-how. They have endless experience of how things work in Mist on every level, more than any deep cover agent could gather. If there’s a risk of a jōnin turning missing-nin, and if they decide that risk’s gotten too high… I’m sorry, Hazō, but your mother might no longer be alive.”

Hazō shut his eyes tight against the tears. Yes, he knew. Of course he knew. All this time he’d been running around on pointless missions instead of trying to rescue her. If he’d failed to save her… If she’d died because of him…

“We don’t know,” Mari-sensei said gently. “We don’t know. Losing a jōnin is a big hit at the best of times, and executing one pre-emptively is dangerous for morale. Even if they couldn’t let her out of the village, they could still put her in an advanced instructor position or something, so they could free up somebody trustworthy for the As and Bs. The Mizukage never trusted anybody, so he had a very… pragmatic view of how to allocate his resources. We don’t know.

“It’s the worst-case scenario, and that means you have to be ready for it. Not because we really think it’s what will happen, but because being ready for the worst-case scenario is how you survive as a ninja. If it wasn’t Yamanaka Day, Kagome would be here telling you the same thing.

“So take some time to think about that over the next couple of weeks, but also think about what’ll happen if you can see her. How will she react?”

“She’ll be happy,” Hazō said immediately. “She knows me. She’d never believe I was really a traitor.”

He stopped dead at those words.

“Except, from her perspective,” he said slowly, “I am a traitor. Maybe not when I ran away, but now… I’m responsible for Mist losing the war. I joined their worst enemies and used my talents to give them a decisive advantage, knowing how it would be used. And I can’t tell her that because I can’t talk about skywalkers. I… I guess that’s for the best. If she thought I was a traitor, after everything…”

He fell silent. There was nothing he could add to that. He’d never thought of his actions in those terms before. He didn’t especially care what the people in Mist thought of him, not now he’d been outside long enough to realise how screwed up the place was. Except now he realised he did care. His mother was a loyal Mist ninja, had always been a loyal Mist ninja. How many of her friends had died in that fateful battle? How did she feel about watching her village plummet from superpower to the brink of annihilation? How would she feel if she knew that her son was responsible for everything?

Keiko stirred next to him. “It is easy, but unwise, to allow your negative emotions to force you into tunnel vision. I believe there is an angle you are ignoring.

“Your mother was almost single-handedly responsible for your upbringing, correct?”

“Yes.” Single-handedly responsible for raising a traitor. How would she feel about that, when she eventually found out?

“Then would it be fair to say that she is largely responsible for your value system and general outlook?”

“I… suppose,” Hazō said slowly. Was Keiko deliberately making him feel worse?

“By logical extension, is she not also partially responsible for your Uplift ideals, or the values that ultimately gave rise to them?”

“You could say that.” The idea of Uplift hadn’t crystallised until his missing-nin travels. He’d had to see the wider world around him, in all its brokenness and injustice and incredible untapped potential, before he could realise what he wanted to do with his life. It wasn’t something he could ever have conceived of as a Mist genin. It wasn’t the kind of thought that could exist in Mist.

And yet… even in Mist, he must have had something inside him that made his mind fertile soil for such ideas. Otherwise why would his journey transform him the way it hadn’t transformed other missing-nin, his team included?

Hazō thought about his mum. He thought about her strength and her kindness. He thought about his drive to optimise that had gotten him in so much trouble at the Academy. She’d been exasperated at his inability to keep his mouth shut, but she’d never condemned him. She’d never told him to stick to the traditional ways. Instead, she’d been quietly proud of him, and when he came up with a new way of doing something at home, or during their private training, she’d test it a few times herself, and then either add it to her arsenal of moves or explain to him why it wouldn’t work.

Would she have wanted him to apply that mindset to the world at large? He couldn’t say for sure. His mum had not been the type to go out and look for opportunities to do good. When she saw incompetence or iniquity around her, she would reflexively take charge and make sure things were done right, but for the most part, she kept to herself and expected the rest of the world to do the same.

She’d been important in the clan, Hazō had gathered by reading between the lines over the years. Perhaps back then, this fire had been going inside her all the time, whereas now it was only a spark that the right wind could temporarily fan. But when it was fanned, nothing could put it out. Hazō wasn’t like that—he didn’t take one look at a situation and decide how he wanted it to develop and promptly come up with a plan of action and… um.

Maybe she would understand. He wanted to optimise the world. It was quite simple when you looked at it like that. He wanted to take a thing that wasn’t working the way it was supposed to, and mess with it until it worked as well as possible. It was just that the thing happened to be human society, and it working happened to involve world peace and universal happiness and prosperity.

His mum might not have given him that drive, but she had encouraged him to embrace it. When she looked at what he had done, at what he had become, he dared to believe that she would recognise her son for who he was. That she would recognise whatever harm he’d done not as betrayal but as an imperfect human being trying to do his best.

“Thank you, Keiko,” he said simply. “That was the right question.”

“Keiko’s the best,” Mari-sensei agreed. “Also the cutest. I’d say I want to take her home with me, but hey, mission already accomplished.

“More seriously, Hazō, you’re overthinking this. If I were a mother, it would be enough for me to know that my kids were alive, and healthy, and strong enough to face whatever the world had to throw at them.”

She looked slowly between Hazō, Keiko and Noburi. Her mouth opened slightly, then closed again.

“I… Moving on. There are going to be things you can’t talk about with her, not while Mist is listening in. You get that.”

“Yeah,” Hazō said. “No skywalkers. No Leaf politics. Nothing about the Hokage or Akatsuki or anything else Jiraiya would want to be the one to break to Mist.”

“Yep. Basically, you don’t want to tell them anything about Leaf that they might find useful. Not right now. You can talk about high standards of living, and libraries, and the printing press isn’t a secret either. But if you think back to what you knew about Leaf when you lived in Mist, that’s a good guideline. I know you want to tell your mother absolutely everything, but that has to wait until the diplomatic situation changes. A lot. Remember that if she’s still alive, Mist certainly isn’t going to harm a hair on her head while she has a blood tie to the Hokage’s clan.

“One other thing that might not be obvious: OPSEC covers our pre-Leaf experiences as well. The Liberator fiasco, Cold Stone Killers, Hidden Mountain—Sage’s balls, definitely Hidden Mountain—you don’t want to give Mist anything that can harm your reputation, and remember that the guys running Mist propaganda are hardcore. As my old counter-interrogation mentor used to say, 'If in doubt, leave it out'. And that goes for all of you.

“OK, I think we pretty much have Hazō covered. Keiko, you’re next.”

“I do not expect my family to contact me,” Keiko said neutrally. “I have always been a disappointment to them, and recent events have not changed this. For obvious reasons, the Mori are not Mizukage candidates, nor do I expect them to use me for diplomatic purposes without a Mizukage to direct their efforts. I do not possess any secret clan arts that cannot be matched by the expertise of the Nara, and my knowledge of the Frozen Skein is not so in-depth that they should fear its revelation.”

“And if they do? Invite you to see them, I mean?”

“Then I shall attend. But there are no real grounds for conversation between us. It has been a long time since my parents and I had anything to talk about, and I do not expect this to change. They are practically-minded individuals, and unlikely to wish to be regaled with tales of missing-nin adventures. Nor do I anticipate them to be significant sources of psychological pressure. They have had little emotional involvement in my upbringing for years, and whatever hunger for their approval I may feel has been dulled by time—and by positive bonding experiences for which I have you to thank.”

Mari-sensei gave her a piercing look. “Remember what I said about chakra mammoths in the room?”

Keiko was silent for several seconds.

“Ami,” she said heavily.

“Ami,” Mari-sensei agreed. “Talk to me, Keiko.”

“She must hate me,” Keiko said, her voice trembling. “I promised her I would return. I promised her. She will refuse to see me, so as to symbolically sever the link between us once and for all. She does not need a sister like me. I do not deserve a sister like her.”

“Keiko, you know that’s not true,” Noburi said urgently. “There is nothing wrong with you. You’ve made the best choices you could, just like the rest of us. Don’t beat yourself up over them now.”

“My best choices were not good enough.” Keiko said. “If Ami were in my place, she would have found solutions. She would not have been deceived by Shikigami, nor would she have found herself wandering aimlessly across the continent, wasting her skills and allowing herself to be lost in self-pity. She would certainly not have indulged herself in the most foolish, childish infatuation in the history of shinobi romance.

“Ami always believed in me. No matter how many times I demonstrated my mediocrity, she somehow always managed to find something in me to love. She made me feel that I could be of value to another person. If you believe that my feelings for Mari-sensei were intense, please believe me when I say that they were as nothing compared to what I felt—what I feel—for Ami.”

Hazō and Noburi exchanged startled glances.

“Not like that!” Keiko snapped. She rolled her eyes to the heavens, her morose mood broken for a moment, and muttered, “Boys.”

“Keiko,” Mari-sensei said carefully, “supposing she did want to see you. Supposing she offered to forgive you if you came back to the clan. It’s not a probable scenario, but it is a possible one.

“What would you do?”

Keiko stared at her expressionlessly.

Hazō waited for her response, but none came.

He kept waiting. This was not a time to interrupt, and the other two seemed to get that as well.

“I’m sorry,” came the eventual whisper. “I cannot answer that question.”

“You don’t have to,” Mari-sensei said. “That’s not the point of this talk. It’s not about sorting out our issues overnight. We’re talking about these things now so you can start thinking about them. That way, you won’t be blindsided when the time comes. And if any of you want more help, I can offer that. We have time. You’re not alone, OK?”

They all nodded.

“Great. That brings us smoothly to Noburi.”

Noburi shrugged. “Don’t really know what to say here. I don’t think I have any exciting problems to offer up. My parents don’t think much of me, same as Keiko’s. It’s not really a big deal. They can ask me about bloodline secrets, and I can tell them that I haven’t told you anything special—which is mostly true, since there aren’t that many secrets you need to know to be a Wakahisa genin. I know our secret seals, which are totally useless to anyone without a Wakahisa body, and I don’t know any special weaknesses we have except for that damn barrel. You don’t need to tell me to keep the mist drain secret, or the misterators, or general OPSEC. Seriously not the one you should be worrying about on that front.

“They might suck up to me now that I’m the Hokage’s adopted son, but I don’t think either they or I are going to take that seriously. We all know I’ve shamed the clan bigtime, and that they’re going to have to pretend I haven’t if they want to make diplomatic use of me. That’s all there is to it.

“And unlike the other two, I’ve got no beloved family members to worry about. I actually got on OK with my family, at least compared to Keiko, and I’m not looking forward to facing them now I’ve lost that, but I’ve had two years to get used to the idea, you know?

“Hazō, Keiko, you have anything else you want to talk about?” he asked in the same casual voice. “Or are we done here?”

Mari-sensei frowned, but apparently decided not to press him.

“Let’s leave it at that for now. We can work on more practical steps later.

“Any of you want to talk to me, come find me anytime. Just like usual. And don’t bottle stuff up, or I’ll come find you, and believe me, I will make sure it’s embarrassing.”

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