"…Hah."
Hiruzen finally gave up trying to light his pipe. He tapped it against the desk with a dull clunk.
"Koharu, Homura, you two can leave. Go handle your duties." His voice was edged with command. Some things were not meant for the elders' ears.
The two advisors were shrewd enough not to protest. Since the Third had issued the dismissal, they bowed out quickly.
"Good. You're here at the right time."
Hiruzen's eyes, heavy with authority, scanned Ryo like a searchlight, then shifted, reluctantly, to Kushina and Mikoto. His voice tried to stay calm, but the gunpowder tension underneath could not be hidden.
"You three are grouped together. The documents already bear the seal. Tsunade herself requested this team."
He rifled through the mess of papers on his desk until he dragged out a scroll stamped with a crimson seal, the official list for Squad Eight. He set it on the desk between them like evidence.
Kushina let out a small cheer before Mikoto discreetly tugged her sleeve, silencing her.
"Tsunade…" Hiruzen leaned back in his chair, looking as if he had burned through his last bit of strength. One hand rubbed his temple. The pipe in his palm was nearly snapped in two from his grip. "She's on the Ame front. I've already summoned her back. By rights, her team should be led by her in person."
He exhaled through his nose, voice thick with fatigue. "The reason I called you here was to explain the situation. For now, you're free to use your time as you wish. When Tsunade returns, she will take over."
But in truth, his real purpose was Ryo. The past few days' events, the psychic quake that shook the whole of Konoha, had to be addressed face to face.
Mikoto was also part of this meeting to ease tensions after her clan had been scapegoated. She was meant to carry Hiruzen's intent back to the Uchiha.
Kushina was here more as a gesture. To show her face, to reassure, to smooth over anxieties about the Nine-Tails.
"Kushina, Mikoto, if you have no other business, you may leave. I have matters to discuss with Ryo." His tone was kindly, but firm.
"Hey, old man, don't you dare bully Ryo!" Kushina immediately bristled, puffing up like a small lioness, baring her fangs at the Hokage.
"Don't worry, I won't bully your little boyfriend," Hiruzen teased back with a smile.
"…Kushina, it's fine," Ryo cut in, voice edged with weariness. "I'll be fine. Go."
"Hmph." Kushina was not one to throw a tantrum without reason. She knew Ryo had serious business to handle. Still, she gave Hiruzen one last dagger-like glare before tugging Mikoto out the door.
Clack.
The heavy door shut behind them, sealing the office in silence.
Their footsteps faded down the corridor.
The room grew still. Oppressively so, like cotton stuffed into every corner.
Smoke coiled lazily from Hiruzen's pipe, catching the overhead light. His gaze, sharp and weighted, pressed down on Ryo's shoulders, stripping away the last trace of youthful aura the boy might have carried.
Outside, sunlight burned harsh white across the jagged Hokage Rock.
Time stretched.
Finally, Hiruzen drew a deep pull from his pipe, the embers crackling. He let the smoke sit in his lungs before exhaling slow and heavy. His voice came with it, gravel-edged from tobacco and age.
"…The psychic shockwave that blanketed half of Konoha the other day, was that you?"
No detours. Straight to the point.
Ryo's eyelids lowered for a beat, then he raised his eyes and met Hiruzen's stare head-on. No flinch. No panic.
"Yeah." The word dropped into the silence like a stone into deep water.
Hiruzen's grip on his pipe tightened, knuckles whitening. Smoke veiled his expression, but his eyes narrowed. He waited.
Ryo's voice cut through, steady.
"It was the awakening of a kekkei genkai. My emotions spiked, I lost control. It was instinct, breaking out of its cage."
No excuses. No lies. Just fact.
"Kekkei genkai…" Hiruzen rolled the word on his tongue. A flicker crossed his eyes, part light, part shadow. A new bloodline in Konoha was a gain. But if it could not be inherited, then it was also a dead end.
That thought was gone in an instant, buried under deeper calculations.
Silence stretched longer this time.
Finally, Hiruzen knocked his pipe against the ashtray, the sound sharp and dull at once.
"Details. Control, conditions of activation?" His words were shuriken, one after another. This was not something he could afford to leave vague.
He would never allow a repeat of that disaster.
"Currently controllable," Ryo replied just as bluntly. "But that time was an accident. Emotional surge past the threshold triggered it."
He tapped his temple with a finger. "My body itself resisted the awakening. A form of self-protection."
Hiruzen's eyes sharpened. "Self-protection?"
"Power too great. Vessel too weak," Ryo said flatly. "If I force it, it will kill me. So my instincts sealed it back. I can't call it out at will. To reach the point where I can, I'll need…"
His eyes gleamed. "The battlefield. Only real battle can push it out. I'll need pressure. And…" His voice lowered on the last word, sharp as a knife dipped in blood. "…nutrients."
Hiruzen chuckled once, short and bitter. "You don't hold back, do you? The boy demands Konoha feed him." He leaned forward, eyes narrowing to blades. "And the price?"
Ryo's lips curved faintly, though it wasn't a smile. "Anything but my life. Or, does Konoha want that too?"
The office froze over again.
Hiruzen sucked hard on his pipe, smoke burning his throat.
This boy, his composure, his raw, transactional bluntness, it was nothing like a twelve-year-old. He was a cub, yes, but already growing fangs, already measuring the weight of power like a predator.
"Your life?" Hiruzen exhaled, eyes cutting through smoke. "You just saved the Nine-Tails' future jinchūriki. You've earned a great merit. Konoha won't throw away its roots over this." His hand rapped the desk with a dull thud. "The chaos you caused, I'll shoulder that with the council. I'll suppress their whispers."
He leaned forward again, his voice turning like steel. "But the damages are real. Homes smashed. Facilities wrecked. Medical costs surging. Even the bathhouse incident, all of it stirred panic. And the bill is astronomical."
His eyes hardened. "That debt, you'll repay it."
The smoke twisted between them.
"When Tsunade returns, you'll go to the front. Every mission, every kill, every reward, it all goes toward paying your debt. That is your price, Ryo."
His voice cracked like a hammer. "Konoha gives you the battlefield. Konoha gives you the ladder to grow. Konoha shields you. And you, repay with your blade, with your blood, with your commission. Then we're even."
Ryo didn't blink. Only the faintest glimmer flashed in his crimson eyes.
"Battlefield missions as repayment?" His tone stayed flat, but there was an edge there, something primal.
"Bounty counted by head?" he asked, each syllable a weight dropped onto a scale.
His mind already conjured images of the Ame front, the chaos, the enemies hidden in the storm. A hunting ground, ripe and bloody.
The raw, unmasked calculation in his words made even Hiruzen twitch at the corner of his eye.
This child, was he treating war like a slaughterhouse assembly line?
He shoved down the absurd thought, face darkening. "Konoha doesn't put price tags on corpses," he snapped. "Mission pay is fixed by rank. An S-rank pays highly, but only if you live to take it."
His eyes bore into Ryo's. "All rewards are settled after war. Every merit weighed and balanced into resources, or ryo. After deductions, the rest is yours."
Ryo nodded once. "Understood."
War was the whetstone he needed.
(To be continued.)
◇◇◇
◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)