Pre-Chapter A/N: Here we go with another chapter, coming in right on time. Next three chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
First, let me set the scene. We sat around the table. To my left was the leader of the land of Waterfall, Saru Ishikari, and to my right the leader of Hot Water, Miya Katsura. Next to her was Bunpuku, and next to him was Muko Aikawa from Sky. And after that sat Ishiguri. On Ishiguri's other side sat the leader of Frost, Sho Sagami, who had Madara on his other side. Madara was next to Kin Katsugami from Poison, and Ay had the Poison leader on one side with the leader of the village of rocks, Muruyama Kakehashi, on his other side. The circle made it so none of the great villages were sat next to each other, with the leaders of the minor villages between us to act as a buffer just as they did in reality. There were no seats for Grass, Rain, or Iwa. Grass was now part of Konoha, Rain was a mess, and Iwa was...well, Iwa.
Several of Ishiguri's puppets were flitting around the table, bringing in food and taking orders. No gazes stayed still as everyone watched the others for signs of betrayal. Madara sported his Rinnegan belligerently, and so I had my Byakugan active as well. And that bit of tension just added more hay to the camel's back. I wouldn't provide the final straw, I thought, both as an assertion of fact and a reminder to myself that I did not come here to pick a fight. If one came, I would accept it, of course.
"I hope the meal is to everyone's liking," Ishiguri said, his third such attempt to break the awkward and tense silence. This time, I chose to toss him a bone. We were cousins, after all (if he was going to insist on it, then I might as well).
"The fish is lovely. Well seasoned," I said, picking apart my meal with my chopsticks.
"It is, isn't it? We never had this back at the moon. Madara-san, what about you? I know you lead the water village now, so what do you think about the fish?" he asked.
"Mist Village," Madara said.
"Sorry?"
"I lead the Hidden Mist Village. Not the Hidden Water Village. It would be a bit difficult to hide in the water, no?" he asked, and it took me a second to realise that that was a joke. A poor one, but Ishiguri clearly wanted this to work out, as he began laughing. I contributed a chuckle to the effort.
"I tire of this." Ay rose, pushing his chair back. Unruly as ever, it seemed.
"Sorry? Is the food not to your liking?" Ishiguri asked with deceptive calm.
"I will not share a meal with the man that killed my father. I will not. Either you will kill me now, Butcher, or I will kill you. But this pretence of civility, it sickens me," he said, voice thick with emotion. I just turned to him and quirked a brow. Our gazes met, and he held mine even though the Byakugan was probably unnerving to stare at. I broke the staring contest and returned to eating my fish like he had not spoken.
His rage boiled over at that, and I wondered if my body had gotten the memo from my brain about not making this a total and complete disaster. A's chakra spiked and his lightning cloak appeared around him with a snap and crackle, hissing to life and making everyone's hair stand on end. Even just with this much, I could tell that his father would have been proud. In the first stage of the lightning armour, A the father had never shown this kind of potency. He would have made for a good fight. His show of aggression had the rest of the room reacting.
The guards' table exploded as they all rose, each one hurrying for their Kage. Both Ishikari and Katsura to my sides rose, more likely trying to get out of the way of the pissed-off Raikage than to come to my defence. Bunpuku's sand began to stir in that giant gourd at the back of his chair. It lifted out, but did nothing more. The other minor village leaders took to their feet, and only three people were still sitting with no reaction after a few seconds—Ishiguri, Madara, and I.
Only when things were about to boil over did Ishiguri act. A finger raised from the hand that held on to his fork made the room begin to shake as his chakra fell down on all of us like we were the metal between a blacksmith's hammer and his anvil. I noted the guards falling to their knees, only about a quarter of them managing to keep their feet under them, and even those ones looked like they wanted to be anywhere but here.
The minor leaders shook like leaves in a storm. A, the one who took the real brunt of this show of force, looked like he had just seen god. And Unruly A, who would never be cowed by another man, was cowed by a single finger from this one. His lightning armour died out with a whimper. I took another bite of my fish.
"Now, we are all here for dinner, so I think it is best we get back to that. Any attempt to derail this will not be looked upon kindly. Not by me," he said, and then he dropped the finger. The minor village leaders took their seats once more. Bunpuku's sand slithered back to his gourd. Another table was brought out of somewhere by the puppets. Unsealed from something, it seemed, and they cleared the remnants of the old guard table and then plopped that one in its place. All the guards took their seats. I nodded at Uraume and Shika to keep calm. A was the last to take his seat.
He didn't touch his food, and the conversation across the table had been stilted before. Now it was just non-existent. I flipped my fish over to get to the other side. This was a terrible start, but maybe the tension would die down by tomorrow.
----
The opposite was the case. The room was silent as a graveyard when the summit officially began. We sat in a circle in the same arrangement as we had eaten dinner in, with the main difference being that instead of a table for the guards, they now each stood on either side of their Kage. The only ones really worthy of note were Sasori and Rasa, who stood behind Bunpuku, and, more importantly, Nagato, who stood behind Madara with another Mist nin by his side. They both wore Anbu masks, but I would never fail to recognise that chakra.
Ishiguri sat still for a while, working his gaze from person to person. He was thinking about his plan, undoubtedly. Perhaps all he had done before now was hear about the animosity between the villages, but yesterday he had gotten to see it. And worst of all, that was not the worst of the animosity. The worst bits he would have to deal with were the ones that existed under the veil of calm and politeness.
He would have to get Frost to cooperate with A and me when our villages had razed the majority of his countryside and A had even come close to fully annexing his village in the aftermath of the Second War. He would have to convince A to work with me even though I had killed his father, and get Madara to do the same even though I would kill him the second I got the chance, and get Bunpuku to cooperate even though I had killed close to half their combat-capable shinobi. Thinking about it now, perhaps I was the problem. One could count on one hand the number of people around this table that I hadn't directly made life much harder for. If we included indirect means, then the answer turned out to be no one.
For a treasonous second, my mind wondered if Ishiguri would use me to bring them all together. Toss me to the dogs to get unity. Could I fight my way out of here? My gaze flicked over to him, and our eyes met. He smiled like he knew just what I was thinking about, and then his eyes moved on. He'd be the main problem, but I had tricks I could leverage to keep everyone busy. Get the whales to reverse-summon me, if that could even work. Flying Raijin didn't work properly within the village. I'd tested it already. The barrier prevented me from using it to teleport out of its range. Using it within its range was just fine, and I'd left markers aplenty in the hotel just in case.
"If there are no preliminary matters, then we must begin," Ishiguri said. Of course there weren't any preliminary matters. He decided the agenda.
"I have spoken to each and every one of you about the threat that comes our way. Some of you required more evidence than others, but you have all been convinced. That is not the point of this meeting. The purpose of this meeting is for us to discuss how we can work together for the collective defence of this planet. Now, if anyone has any suggestions for what must be done, then I invite you to speak. Here, you all have equal voices, no matter what village you lead," he said.
No one spoke for a few seconds, each person eyeing the others to see who would take the first plunge. Of course, I had come with a plan to propose, and so when no one stepped up, I decided to do it, if for no other reason than to get the discussion actually started.
"I think the best thing is for everyone to pool resources like intelligence, training plans, and strategies together, but that the defence of each individual village be left in the hands of the villages themselves, so each person takes charge of their own destiny. If the Otsutsuki mean to conquer the planet, then they will know that they have to destroy the hidden villages to accomplish that much. This way, we force them to split their army across multiple targets," I said, knowing full well what would be the obvious objection. If I had everyone too busy fighting against a fake plan, then they wouldn't notice as I slithered my true plan into their own as I accepted their objections.
"And what if the full force of the Otsutsuki lands upon any single village? They might choose to take us one at a time, which I assume is what this alliance was envisaged to prevent," Kakehashi, the leader from Rock, spoke.
"You are right there, Ishikari-san. Bringing together the armies of the planet is just one of the goals of this alliance, but it might as well be the most important one, considering how things might go if we fail to achieve it," Ishiguri said.
"The Butcher's plan is shit from a dog, which is fitting, considering what we have all heard about their Inuzuka clan," A said. I managed not to laugh out loud, but it was a close thing. So his plan now was to what? Piss me off so I demanded the fight myself? So I attacked him and gave him the fight he was looking for?
"Oh? What is that, Raikage-san?" I asked, turning to look at him with the most curious expression I could muster. For a second, he was taken aback by my response, but he found his groove quickly enough. His lips curled into a sneer, and then he spat his next words.
"That they breed with their dogs. I'm sure you have some Inuzuka in you, Butcher," he said. Both of those next to me had begun scooting their chairs away. Same with those close to A, to the point where Ishikari and Kakehashi were almost touching. Their guards, similarly, had all tensed up. Uraume and Shika were calm, standing behind me. Very calm. Their stillness said a single thing: don't rise to the bait. I wondered who they took me for.
"Funny enough, no. My father was a Senju, as you know, and my mother a Hyuga, explaining the Byakugan. My father's father was Hashirama, and his wife was Mito Uzumaki. My mother's father was the head of the main branch of the Hyuga, and his wife was his second cousin from another of the main branches. My father's father's father was Butsuma Senju, and his wife was—"
"Hokage-dono. I think we get the point," Ishiguri called out, bringing my recitation of my genealogy to a pause.
"Really? I could have sworn that A-san wanted to know all about my breeding. I assure him I wasn't crossbred with dogs, so perhaps he can find another object for his affections. One that has all his requirements," I said, and the room was silent. Then Madara guffawed. It was a loud, provoking thing that I knew came out of no real sense of mirth. He just wanted a fight to start, and from the way we could all hear A's fist clench, I wondered if this would be the time we would get it.
"I think that is enough now, Hokage-dono, Raikage-dono. If we could all return to the topic at hand, then it would be more appreciated," Ishiguri said. I nodded at him, and A held his gaze for a few seconds before doing the same.
"Does anyone else have a plan?" he asked next.
"Waiting to defend is stupid. We take the fight to them. On their planet. We go there, we fight, and if we die, so be it," Madara said, and there it was, that battlelust. Looking at him made it difficult to believe he never had children. He looked so much like Uzume right now that it was uncanny. But then, the only people more inbred than the Uchiha were the Hyuga. Well, maybe the Otsutsuki had them beat in that regard, I thought, looking over at Ishiguri. They were all descendants of Hamura up on that moon, no?
"The Empress will end us all with a single gaze. The second her eyes turn to us, we are dead. All of us. Our best hope lies in what Kaguya did, I assure you. We defend, and then we cleave the paths that they use to transport across the universe shut." Ishiguri wasted no time in shutting this one down, not even letting the idea take root.
Everyone other than Madara was quick to nod along to that. Fighting an offensive campaign on another planet would be a nightmare and a half. They had increased gravity for sure, and would fight all the harder to defend their homeland.
"If we must defend, why not do it in the obvious way? A single unified army waiting for them far out of the range of civilians or bystanders," Bunpuku suggested.
"They could bypass us and slaughter our people wholesale. It would only take a few of them to overwhelm whatever reserves are left behind," I said, pointing out the flaw in that particular plan.
The Monk, to his credit, accepted it with a nod.
"So, if we cannot attack them because we will lose, and when we defend, we can neither bring the armies together for fear of being stepped around, nor can we keep them separate for fear of being overrun, what can we do?" Katsura from Hot Water asked from my side.
"There's that billion-ryo question, innit?" I asked with a smirk, waiting for Ishiguri to take the cue and give us what his own plan was. And when he did, I'd have to prod it in the direction that most favoured me.
"Around this planet is a barrier of sorts. Not a true barrier like how you would imagine it. Think of it more like a field of interference set up by Kaguya millennia ago. It prevents us from being found, but it will be breached before this time next year, and then they will attack with impunity. What we can do, however, is let down that barrier, but only in a way that favours us. We create five openings. One in front of each of the hidden villages, and then one right here," he said.
"Never have I heard a more obvious trap. They will see through it," Kakehashi said, and I found myself nodding along.
"They will. But they consider us little more than monkeys. They will either take the chance to attack us on our terms, or they will wait another half a year for their own seers and scouts to divine a way through the field. They will do the former. They might be functionally immortal, but that has done nothing for their impatience and petulance. They will attack. They have to," he said, and that kind of confidence was hard to argue against. It also played well into what I wanted. Very well, actually. Was he doing this on purpose?
"So, each Kage will handle the defence of their village, and you will handle the Hidden Rain?" I asked.
"No. The plan is for the lower-ranking generals and their armies to be drawn towards the villages while the royals and those of consequence come here. If we want to do that, we need to create a large enough gathering of powerful chakra signatures here. Whichever royal does come must be killed on first time of asking. If one of them manages to return to their planet, with their powerful chakra, they will always be able to open rifts to Earth, no matter what we do. If we create a tempting enough target here, they will come. So, I ask for you four to join me here. Your villages will be left in the hands of your subordinates as well as our allies here," he said. I looked around the table, seeing most of them nodding. Madara was in favour already—bastard probably just wanted to be where the best fight was, and the minor village leaders were clearly pleased that their villages weren't going to be used as bait.
"What about our civilians and our young?" Bunpuku asked, brow furrowed. He clearly wasn't a fan of leaving the Sand.
"For that, Hokage-dono has a seal that can help," he said, turning those blue eyes to me, and I tried not to freeze like a deer in headlights.
A/N: And so we go on and up. Reminder that there is a Hidden Rocks village in the anime. They aren't Iwa. Next chapter comes on here by Sunday night. Next three chapters up on patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)(same username as here and link in bio), you can support me there and read them early.