Kakashi, as usual, showed up late - perfectly timed, though, as the first skewers were coming off the grill. They eyed the sliced onions sprinkled with vinegar suspiciously, then tried them anyway and Chōza declared he'd add that as a staple side at his grill bar. Kakashi made no move to bare his face, he sat, one ear on conversation, one eye flicking through draft chapters of Akira's new book.
"Still, kunoichi from the Mist are more interesting - I'd say unusual," Inoichi opined, sticking with a lively topic.
"'Unusual' is generous. I'd say a touch unhinged. Women from Kumogakure though… There's something there, I can't quite name it…"
"Exotic temperament," Akira supplied, tossing out the phrase that popped into his head.
"Exactly!" Chōza nodded. "Shikaku's easy to read - he likes the calm ones. On the Third War, he kept sneaking looks at women from Suna," he added, selling his friend down the river.
"Hey! I did not." He glanced around as if his wife might be listening from the bushes, then lowered his voice. "Though that's true."
"And you, Guy? When will you settle down?"
"Haha!" The taijutsu master laughed - for what reason, no one knew. "First I'll teach my student everything I know - then we'll see. But if I meet a woman who's a master of martial arts, then - let it be what it will."
"No point asking Akira," Homuri announced as he returned from the restroom, just as Chōza was detailing his aesthetics in women.
Over beer, "Mr." and honorifics drop - as they should.
They all nodded, Kakashi included as he finished the first chapter.
Akira's face said he wasn't entirely sure where this was going.
"It's no secret you're on very good terms with Kushina-san and Mikoto-san," Inoichi explained. Except for Guy, everyone seemed to treat this as well-known.
"Well, of course. This is Konoha - a ninja village. Not only farts - the idea of a fart gets around. I told them it wouldn't stay secret long," Akira grumbled internally.
"Don't tease him. He's a decent guy. He likes good food - so I'm sure he'll take responsibility," Chōza "defended" him with his own logic.
"In that case, my respects," Shikaku bowed playfully.
"Sooner or later, I won't let them be wronged," Akira agreed - which admitted he'd marry them someday and also signaled he'd like to change the subject.
Half an hour later, Homuri decided he'd had enough and, thanking them for the evening, left. Shinobi metabolized alcohol far better than ordinary people; the feeling of "that's enough" hadn't come for the rest.
Kakashi, now in better spirits after five chapters, joined the table. And then Akira made the first mistake of the night: deciding they needed something stronger than beer. The beer hardly touched anyone - it just took the edge off thirst and made a gentle warmth in the gut.
He didn't mess with sketchy moonshine; instead he'd laid in shōchū - a spirit distilled from rice, barley, and sweet potato. Not just any shōchū, either, but otsurui shōchū at 45% ABV.
Things got livelier. They didn't quite reach the "you respect me?" stage, but they barreled toward it at speed.
The Ino–Shika–Chō trio had no trouble committing to get drunk - they were used to it, and occasions didn't come often. The mood was right, the company good. Getting Guy on board wasn't hard either. All it took was, "This tempers your liver and strengthens your vestibular system." Inoichi added the clincher: "For the power of Youth, alcohol must not become a barrier."
Convincing Kakashi was harder, but Akira sealed it by promising five new chapters by next week if he joined.
The higher the BAC, the simpler the topics.
"Apparently I'm gaslighting her," Inoichi lamented, with Shikaku nodding along.
"The youthful beast of Konoha… will not be defeated tonight!" Guy bellowed at no one in particular, downing shots and knocking out push-ups between them.
Akira and Kakashi kicked around deliciously unwholesome story scenarios. Kakashi, like an impressed schoolboy, nodded with starry eyes at the depth of Akira's depravity.
"No, no, my friend, you don't see what I'm driving at. The sister isn't there to explore domestic dynamics - well, that too - but the focus is the accidental peeks, stray touches, the slow-blooming heat between them… And that's not all! The foster daughter isn't there for nothing either!"
Just then Chōza came back from the woods where he'd slipped off to "unburden himself."
"Lads, look what treasure I found - truffles!" he cried, staggering cheerfully up to the group.
Where Chōza found truffles - and why they were so light in color - and all other common-sense questions… no one asked. Which was a shame. It turned out to be the second mistake of the night. Later tests would show the "truffles" were a rare mushroom called Joumindhi.
Not poisonous - quite edible if properly prepared. If you didn't boil Joumindhi for two hours and then ate it, you were signing up for a three-hour psychedelic trip. A high BAC exacerbated the effect.
No one in their right mind would eat unknown mushrooms - especially shinobi. But the most "sensible" in that moment was Akira, who didn't question Chōza's mushroom expertise. He should have.
Joumindhi dulled critical thinking and could induce occasional hallucinations. It also produced the "floating floor" effect - the ground spinning underfoot - but alcohol had already pushed them there.
Feeling awful after the mushrooms, Chōza decided to pop special battle pills from his clan. Seeing him perk up instantly, the others asked for a portion too. That was the final mistake of the evening.
****
"Stop!" Morino interrupted. "We're talking about pills that restore chakra, correct?"
"Yes. And they trigger a hefty adrenaline dump," Akira nodded.
"Alcohol, Joumindhi mushrooms, and battle pills… Now it makes sense. Continue, Akira-san."
****
Guy went first. He decided to show a cool move. He showed it… and Akira swore nonstop for a full minute looking at the hole in his house. Not the whole wall gone - just a hole the size of a boulder. It collapsed later when a panicking Guy tried to patch it.
Then Shikaku, as the village's best mind and strategist, proposed a simple solution: call Yamato to fix it. The idea met unanimous approval and… they proceeded to break into the ANBU base.
No one could handle Guy alone and his Drunken Fist - so a groggy Yamato, wearing only his underwear, was yanked out of bed and marched toward the district. Halfway there, they ran into ANBU reinforcements - wall sentries and nearby scouts - led by the ANBU captain: Uchiha Itachi.
No matter how strong and quick she was, she couldn't overcome the coordinated, even drunk, teamwork of Ino–Shika–Chō. The rest of the reinforcements fared no better against Guy and Kakashi. Akira himself approached the immobilized Itachi and proclaimed the victory of the forces of good:
"Young lady, don't be upset about losing. As compensation for moral damage, I hereby declare you… my bagel fiancée."
****
"Bagel?" Morino blinked.
"I remember saying it, I don't remember why," Akira shrugged. Both of them turned to Itachi.
She flushed slightly under the sudden attention, though the mask hid it. Without a word she held up her left hand. On the ring finger was a tiny bagel.
"I couldn't take it off," she answered the unasked question right away. Afraid they wouldn't believe, she extended the hand. Fūin were clearly inscribed on the bagel. "And I couldn't break it either," she added a beat later, pulling her hand back to the clipboard.
"Soak it in water and the fūin will wash away," Akira offered, mind drifting back to last night.
"When did I even find bagels and inscribe one of them?"
****
Leaving the battered ANBU behind - and the bagel fiancée - the company completely forgot why they needed Yamato and decided to wet their throats at the nearest bar. Naturally, they dragged Yamato along.
Akira had no idea which bar they staggered into, but he did know they ran into trouble there too. Only after they made Yamato down three bottles of hard liqueur as a penalty. All agreed he'd brought shame on shinobi by strolling through Konoha in nothing but underwear. The drunk, slightly deranged band was deaf to his protests:
"But you're the ones who hauled me out like this!"
"Don't care. You aren't leaving until you drink. Come on - for Konoha!"
Hearing two Inuzuka laugh at Yamato didn't sit well with Kakashi - or, to be honest, with Guy. Inoichi, just short of the brawl, remembered it was forbidden for shinobi to fight outside of training - especially in public. Akira, the slyest of the lot, suggested an alternate battleground:
"All right. No one said dogs can't fight! Fifty thousand on Guy's summoning turtle - even though she isn't a dog." No one in the bar matched the bet, but everyone witnessed the fight of the century: two Inuzuka ninken versus Kakashi's giant summon bulldog and Guy's turtle. For the record, the turtle won. First she thumped the two dogs with turtle taijutsu, then she beat up Guy - for summoning her for something so stupid.
To avoid enmity, they bought the losers drinks. The dogs were fine, so the handlers agreed.
New drinking partners meant, at least once, the conversation had to turn to politics.
"Those Sunans are bastards. We almost finished the job, and the bastards confiscated our employer's caravan. Technically, it wasn't on us - the merchant had some paperwork issues - but they jumped on it the second they saw us. Refused his bribe, too, and everyone knows contraband flows into the Land of Wind," grumbled one of the Inuzuka, who introduced himself as Hanma.
Word by word, everyone in the bar, civilians included, chewed over Suna's sins.
No one knows who suggested it first, but at some point someone shouted they should go kick Suna's ass. Nara, the authority in strategy, stopped them on the cliff's edge of stupidity:
"Where are you even going? We need a plan first."
"Slip in quiet, hit them while they're asleep, bail when the alarm goes up," Akira offered what felt like a masterstroke. After "refining" the plan it was deemed ideal - by adding two points: take out the sentries in advance and use clones for coverage.
The hit came from where they didn't expect. The drunken band of shinobi and civilians on a righteous mission was stopped by their own. Realizing three elite and three very experienced jonin wouldn't be stopped by ANBU alone (usually geared for spying, recon, and assassination), the village mustered two dozen jonin and two chunin on top.
Akira sized it up fast. They'd get ground down by sheer numbers. He made a tactical retreat and tried to find a solo way out of the village. Thanks to the chaos that suddenly popped up near the center, he slipped out of Konoha unnoticed and ran toward where he guessed Suna lay.
****
"Even at full chakra, it takes at least a day and a half to reach Suna," Morino noted a discrepancy.
"I never made it there - thankfully," Akira smirked. "I knew I needed to run west, but in the forest I drifted a little off course and ended up in the Hidden Grass. By the way, who's the genius who named shinobi villages 'hidden'? They're all right there as plain as day."
"To reach us through the forests is difficult. And once you do, you quickly realize fighting where the enemy knows every twig is a bad idea," Morino explained.
"Fair. Anyway, I reached their village and…" For the first time since he began, Akira ducked his head, faintly embarrassed. "To put it briefly, I started a revolution."
"I want every detail," Morino said, suddenly serious. Itachi went taut, not expecting that at all.
****
"Comrades! Comrades! Hear my voice!" Bribed past the gate with a handsome "fee," Akira had barely set foot inside when he watched a starving old man get thrown out of the village's one bar. Righteous indignation swelled - and he wanted to share it with the drowsy and the ones he was about to wake up. "Come closer! Open your souls - and your sulfurous ears. Hear truth from a man who has seen much."
With curses muttered from windows where lights were blinking on, Akira began on a small square.
"The world order we live under is wrong!" By then fifteen people had drifted out to the square. Another thirty or forty peered from windows. They took him for a fool waking people up to rant about nothing and were ready to beat him for it - but his next words froze them.
"WAR! Every twenty years, countries plunge into endless bloodletting where our grandfathers, fathers, brothers, children die. O honest, innocent folk - do you know why these wars begin?"
"Hatred?" ventured a drunk.
"NONSENSE!" Akira answered with heat. "Hatred doesn't stack mountains of corpses. Open your minds to the truth I'll tell you. All conflicts and wars in this world happen for one reason - resources! The economic system we live under is called, simply, capitalism. The few exploit the many for their own gain. I see grain fields along your village - tell me, who owns them? All of you? Or specific people you work for?"
"The fields aren't ours. We work them for half the yield."
"Exactly!" Akira pointed to the elderly man. "The earth is given by nature itself - it belonged to no one at first. How is it someone decides who gets a piece of land and who does not? Why do those who labor, bleeding and sweating from dawn to dusk, live on a few crusts and thin porridge, while someone else dines nightly on hot meat dishes with a glass of expensive liquor - poured in golden cups, no doubt? Tell me, O honest, hard-working people - is that just?"
"No-o-o," a few voices groaned.
"Is it just that a hundred people, for their work, receive in total several times less than a single man who didn't lift a finger? And resources? Your country has mines of coal and iron. Why does only the bourgeoisie get money from them? Ah, I see the confusion. Bourgeois - let's call them that - are the ruling class. Those who decided for some reason they have the right by blood to treat ordinary people like cattle. Are you cattle?"
"No!"
"NO, WE ARE PEOPLE!"
Drawn by the noise, the not-yet-asleep and the rudely awakened drifted toward the square. With each question and answer, emotions heated in the crowd.
"In a world where the few divide the resources, war is forever. And who suffers most? Not shinobi, not daimyo - the ordinary people who want nothing but to live honestly and care for their own."
Naturally the noise drew village shinobi. They began asking folk what was going on.
Jōnin Dzeitaro Nikashimi - one of the strongest shinobi of the village - walked up to a random villager.
"What's happening? This young man speaks truth. The bourgeois and lords oppress us - the common folk. Our country's economy is wrong. Haven't you heard? We must move toward socialism."
"What kind of beast - may a bijū take it - is 'socialism'?" the shinobi blinked.
"Well… I didn't fully get his explanation, but under socialism, everyone gets equal opportunity, everyone can study, every person receives a free plot of land. The profits of production are divided among all the workers - not pocketed by one man."
****
"And then their shinobi detained you, and in the morning released you for a hefty ransom. Right?" Morino guessed, rubbing his brow at the mountain of intel he was hearing.
Akira grimaced. "If only. Kusagakure shinobi were too weak. Their 'jonin' are barely chunin level. Their strongest techniques top out at C-rank. With one 'jonin' and three 'chunin,' I managed with some effort using clones. Then their Kage finally arrived on the noise - and he was a real threat."
"And how, Akira-san, did you defeat him?" Morino snorted, his trust wobbling.
"He was a close-combat type, so it was easy," Akira said, lifting his left hand. Lightning danced along his fingers.
"With fūin. After I dropped their Kage in a single move, I had their hearts. Other shinobi showed up - more than forty - but when they saw a crowd of eight hundred and heard their Kage fell to one technique, they held off. I reinforced the message while I was at it, tossed in ideas to appeal to shinobi too. A dash of patriotism, a sprinkle of hope for a bright future - and soon the excited crowd agreed to everything I said. Oh - and by the way. They elected me Daimyo and Kage." To prove it, Akira unsealed a triangular white hat with the Grass symbol on a green field.
Morino's jaw fell open, and Akira couldn't help laughing. Itachi wasn't far behind. You don't often hear how a man invents a new economic order and, in a single night, takes a whole country.
"Now, now - it wasn't that dramatic. The popular election was necessary to push reforms. I founded a ruling party from ordinary villagers, reorganized the village's military structure, and apparently I was ready to keep going as the new leader - until I got to the economy reports. Even in that unhinged state, I realized I wanted nothing to do with their debt. To bring that country up would take at least fifteen years of my focused rule - and I had zero interest in that. So I dissolved the old system, set up a new one, then dumped my powers on a quick-witted old man who appealed to me with his open character."
"Heh. The elected party secretary is - what a coincidence - a cobbler by trade," Akira thought, then went on.
"So in the Land of Grass, de facto there's still a daimyo and a Kage - for now. But not for long. Power has moved into the hands of ordinary people and shinobi who are very invested in supporting the new policy. At dawn I brought a woman in urgent need of good iryōnin care - and her daughter. Hired a driver and came back to Konoha."
Then it dawned on Morino:
*Wait… If this is true - and it'll be easy to verify - then he did all this while drunk out of his mind? What could he do sober?* That question would nag at Morino - and at everyone who read the report Itachi would file - for a long time to come.