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.
I said nothing even as Ishiguri continued to speak. The only question in my mind was how. He couldn't read minds. There was no way. And Zetsu had been nowhere near. My senses were sharp enough, and if not, then I knew the Byakugan was able to pick him out, so how? Thinking of the Byakugan made me think of those eyes of his, and it finally clicked in my mind. Of course he knew.
If he could see what was happening all the way on the Otsutsuki planet, then there was no way he couldn't see things going on in the Leaf. And that meant he knew everything. He knew about our experiments with the Otsutsuki body, about our super ninja serum, and a million other things. I felt naked.
"It is a seal capable of hiding the civilians in a pocket dimension separate from this one that will keep them away from all dangers that might come from an invasion. I am sure that in the spirit of this partnership, he will be willing to share that capability with the rest of this alliance," he said, and then all gazes turned to me.
"It is not so simple, I fear. The seal requires a lot of chakra to power the pocket dimension, and the one that I have made gets to maximum capacity with just the Konoha evacuees, I fear," I said, trying to pretend to be sad at that. The more of their civilians that died, the poorer they would be after the invasion was over, the more they would have to recover, and the more vulnerable they would be when my conquest came.
"If power is the issue, then I can handle that," he said, waving the concern away.
"No, I fear I am not being clear enough here. A whole tailed beast is being used to power the Konoha seal. When I say chakra-intensive, I do mean it," I said, not missing the way several gazes around the table sharpened at the mention of the tailed beast. I wouldn't say which one, of course. If they thought it was one of Konoha's tailed beasts being put out of commission for this, then all the better.
"That is a lot of chakra, but fear not. The clan has had batteries to store chakra in since we moved to the moon. We have a few that have generations' worth of chakra stored away. If it is necessary to seal this alliance, then we are open to sacrificing them," he said, and I resisted the urge to show just how much that casual admission had shocked me. Enough chakra to compare with a tailed beast, and he was just willing to give it away.
Well, if he was going to give them the means to power it and the work was already being done, then I wouldn't lose anything giving it to them. I just wouldn't gain as much from the war.
"Then I will be happy to share the seal," I said, and Ishiguri smiled. A brilliant, dazzling one that split his face in two and showed pearly whites that seemed to reflect the sun even though the room we were in had no windows.
"Thank you, Hokage-dono. Now, are there any other concerns?" he asked.
"You cannot expect us to trust a seal made by the Butcher. He might as well hold our civilians hostage or even just kill the lot of them in that seal of his," A said, and perhaps unsurprisingly, there were quite a few nods around the table. Even the minor village leaders seemed to broadly be in agreement.
"Surely you cannot be insinuating that he would do such a thing to non-combatants," Ishiguri began, only to be interrupted by an unlikely source.
"Ishiguri-san, you are new here, but all our villages have lived in a world with this man for the better part of two decades now, and in that time, he has proven that there is no depth too low for him to reach. The things he did to Iwa, to Suna, to the prisoners of Kumo. He has a reputation for a reason, Ishiguri-san. And sat there in those robes, he might look like a civilised man capable of humanity, but I assure you that beneath these impeccable manners and neat appearance, there lies a monster the calibre of which even this shinobi world of violence has seldom seen. You ask if he would kill civilians with his seal as if it were a distant concept. I assure you it is not. He has done it before. My own body bears the marks of the last time the Butcher's fuinjutsu was turned against the dunes, and I have no desire to see it happen again," Bunpuku said, and I found myself shocked at the sheer vitriol in his voice. For a second, I'd thought he was the only one here who was willing to look past the wars and focus on the future coming for all of us, but now it was clear that that had just been a thin veneer that hid the hate he had for me. And it was real hate.
Shared hate, even as those who nodded outnumbered those who remained still by some margin. Of course, it was only the summit that gave them all the audacity to do so. If we met in any other forum, these same minor village leaders who were so willing to stand with my slanderers would fall at my feet. I sighed, but this did bring things back in hand.
"I think it best that those who want to make use of my seal do so and those who would rather not, don't. We might be in alliance, but we remain independent villages who can pursue whatever outcome we deem fit for our people," I said, not even bothering to answer the accusation that I would kill or hold their civilians hostage. I wouldn't. Hadn't even thought about it. But there was nothing I could say that would make them believe anything other than the absolute worst about me, so I didn't bother.
"The Hokage's seal will be verified by the masters among my people. He will turn over control to me, and if any attempt is made to take advantage of this position he will be given, I will personally step in to prevent it. However, I understand if that is not enough for some of you. But that will be a decision for you to take, and it will not disadvantage this alliance. We will all be here to deal with the Otsutsuki threat. Wherever you leave your non-combatants if you choose not to use the seal is up to you. But your refusal to use the seal cannot be permitted to be the grounds for you to pull back from your obligations to this alliance," he said.
"And so the alliance reveals itself to be a vassalship in the end," Kakehashi said.
"Is it any surprise?" Katsura added.
"It always does start with the offer of protection from some great external threat." Ishikari was the one who spoke now.
"Then they start giving orders, throwing their weight around, and an alliance of equals turns into what it always was in truth." Katsugami ended the speech there, the minor villages showing some decent teamwork in their criticism.
"Enough." Ishiguri did not yell, but his chakra crashed down upon all of us once more. The room was silent.
"I apologise. I think things are becoming too heated. I feel it best if we take a break for the time being. Half an hour to clear our heads, perhaps," Ishiguri said, and the room let out the breath it had been holding. The feeling of Ishiguri's chakra weighing down on me was far from pleasant, and I knew it was much worse for basically everyone else here who wasn't Bunpuku or Madara.
Speaking of Madara, he was the first to rise and leave the room, and that gave the others the cue to begin to rise as well. I went towards the snack table, not even surprised as Ishiguri made a beeline for me. I wasn't surprised either that the room quietened down just a bit as he did so, as even if they didn't all turn to face us or something obvious like that, it was clear that all the attention was on us.
"Later," I mouthed to him as he reached me, and he must have gotten the message, because instead of speaking about what had just happened, he started asking questions about my seal. How many people it could contain, how time passed for them there since it was a pocket dimension, what they did while they were there, things like that. I answered them all as I snacked and began to plan how to make this work. Assuming Ishiguri would be able to handle this had been a mistake.
When the meeting started again, it dragged on with circular arguments. We skipped the issue of the civilians, and then it became an issue about whose army would be sent where when the minor villages were concerned, and then it became who would feed, water, and heal those armies, and then a question of who would pay for all this with the villages unable to take missions with most of their workforce gone off fighting a war. On and on the issues came, and I watched Ishiguri's face harden more and more with each argument that was brought up.
It was visible to all of us how his smile froze on his face and just stayed there frozen like it was a relic of a past time—this morning—that had outlived its usefulness, and now it just stayed there because removing it would be more trouble than it was worth. Mercifully—for him—the meeting ended after only a few more hours. The minor village leaders left like cats that caught the canary. Madara, who had watched it all with a bored expression, rose and was gone with his guards in a second. Ay grunted his way up, and Bunpuku at least managed to converse with Ishiguri for a few minutes.
I retreated to my room, waiting for the leader of this so-called alliance.
Ishiguri appeared with nary a whisper. One second he was not, and the next he was. His form was ethereal, almost see-through, and just made of pure chakra. A projection. So many interesting jutsu this man had up his sleeve.
"Why do they do this? Surely they see that the Otsutsuki are a problem for us all?" he asked. Oh, to be so naive.
"Everyone's problem is no one's problem. If they don't see a clear threat to themselves in particular, other than the standard 'we are all going to die' stuff, then they won't stop playing games," I said.
"Why?"
"We are shinobi. It is what we do. And for the minor village leaders, it is even more acute. They are what you might call the downtrodden of the ninja world. We great villages step on them with impunity. If any of the Kage had called this meeting, none of them would even have been considered. They survive at our mercy; they feed off the droppings from our plates. They are pests—prey when we want them to be, and parasites when we permit it," I said, hissing the words. Ishiguri looked shocked at my phrasing. Or maybe it was my tone.
"But that does not mean they serve no use. You can use them here to create a wave, but the first domino to fall must not be one of them. None of the great villages will care if Poison or Waterfall suddenly start backing this alliance. It has to be one of the four," I said.
"Bunpuku-san is the reasonable sort. I am sure that if I talk to him, he can speak up more to support—" he began.
"No. Not him. Before he was Kage, he was a monk. And he is Jinchuriki besides—"
"But you are a Jinchuriki as well."
"I killed my first Kage before the nine tails found a home with me. None have even seen me pull on my tailed beast's power. None that have survived, at least," I said.
"To the rest of our world, his power is unearned. They don't respect him. They never will. The Raikage is the one you must bend. If unruly Ay bends to your side, the minor villages will see where the wind is blowing, and they will bend before they are broken," I continued. He nodded grudgingly before asking.
"I know you said that they hate you, so they might not like to see us closely aligned, but what about Madara-san?" he said.
"Madara doesn't care about any of this. Convincing Ay to speak in your support is going to be easier than getting Madara to do anything other than amuse himself," I said, not blind to the parallels between the Uchiha ghost and myself. I had enough self-awareness to see that the direction I was taking the village in was more aligned with Madara's ideals than Hashirama's. But just because we agreed on some things didn't mean I'd allow him to have what he wanted. But then what did he want, actually? Zetsu was with Ishiguri. But Madara still had the Rinnegan. What was his goal, then? It couldn't be the Eye of the Moon plan, because Zetsu was the one who manipulated him to seek the Infinite Tsukuyomi in the first place.
"Thank you, Cousin. But one final question. Ay was the hardest to convince to come; I had to defeat him in combat and threaten him and his village. I mislike having to do that to get him to support me in this. And part of me fears it might not even work this time," he said.
"Offer him my head," I said with a shrug. I was somewhat surprised he hadn't thought of it earlier. But then, he might have, and this was him getting my permission.
"After the war?" he asked.
"Indeed. Offer him the chance for his revenge. After the war. He and I can duke it out in Ame here, if he wants. Or anywhere else he wants. I'd walk into his own village and remove his head if he wants it that badly," I said. Because Ay was perhaps the silliest of the lot. His father was dead. This desire for revenge he held was going to do nothing other than get him to join his father even faster than the life of a shinobi ordinarily did. And it wasn't like his father was a farmer or a robber I'd killed in a robbery or something like that. His father was a shinobi who in that same war had killed hundreds of fathers with his own hands, and thousands through his orders. Did they all mean less because they were not his?
Ishiguri nodded, and then his attention turned to something I could not see. And then he was gone.
By the time dinner came around, he was all smiles. He openly conversed with Bunpuku about the Sage of Six Paths, answering all the questions that the monk had about the man who had shaped most of their religion, and whom Ishiguri had better knowledge of than basically everyone alive on this planet. While he did so, he looped Madara into the conversation more often than not, and to my surprise, the ghost of the Uchiha did manage to get coaxed into saying a few things here and there. The rest of the table watched the conversation more than they spoke among themselves. Ishikari, who was next to me, and Kakehashi, who was next to A, whispered between themselves, and I finally tried to strike up a conversation as I noticed similar things happen across the table.
"I did not know Hot Water had chosen a new leader," I said to Miya Katsura, who sat next to me.
"A ship without a captain goes nowhere," she said in response. And then we were silent.
"Tell me, Butcher, how does it feel to be you?" she asked.
"Right now, being me feels hungry," I said, taking a bite of fish and putting it in my mouth. She didn't laugh, just watched me with those blue eyes that seemed to contain nothing but curiosity.
"I mean, how does it feel to know that the world hates you? That the day you die, none will miss or mourn you? To be succinct, I mean, how does it feel to be the monster under the bed?" she said.
"To your people, and most of theirs..." I said, waving my hand to refer to the rest of the table.
"To them, I am the monster. To my people, I am the one who kills monsters. The one who keeps them away. And that is all I care about. I am Kage of Konoha, and Konoha alone. In truth, I barely even think about what the other villages think. So the answer to your question is that it feels like nothing at all," I said.
"I don't believe you," she said, giving me the first smile I ever saw her form.
"Oh, really? Tell me what you know about me that I don't."
"Perhaps you deny it. But I see people. My village seeks for the world to move beyond wars. This alliance could be a good thing for the world. But it cannot happen as long as you live. Because a man like you, Butcher. A man like you delights in the slaughter. You tell yourself that you do it for your village, that you care not for what we think of you, but I saw your face when the Raikage challenged you, and when the Kazekage expressed his doubts. You were amused. Because you enjoyed it. You enjoyed what you did to them, and you enjoy that it still hurts them. So the answer to how it feels to be you is that I suspect you love every second of it. But how lonely you must feel, how broken you must be," she said.
"You forget yourself," I said to her, turning back to my food. What the fuck?
"If Ishiguri-san has any sense, he will kill you himself. But he is weak. And this alliance will fail because you'd rather bite your neighbour than live in peace." Her words found my ears even though I tried not to pay any attention to her.
A/N: Katsura, of course, can't see inside Shori's mind and only knows what is publicly known about him and what he's gotten up to, and looking from that lens, he looks like Danzo on steroids. Less shady, but infinitely more violent. Next chapter comes on here by Wednesday 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.