Author's Note: Attention all ye about to read this fic. This is a side story to "The Tale of Ren" and if you aren't drowning in the spin off pond and have no idea what that means you will be very confused.
Sometimes, Lee thought to herself, she considered Grindelwald Gellert as a sort of anti-Minato. Before the man had showed up on the doorstep of Konoha's make-shift embassy out of nowhere like some too ambitious and hardworking salesman or religious zealot Lee would have given that title, if she'd been inclined to give at all, to the honorable Orochimaru.
Orochimaru was dark and pale where Minato was golden haired and tanned, Minato was good cheer and easy smiles while Orochimaru only seemed to have the default setting of excessive brooding and rage, Minato had lots of friends while Orochimaru had giant snakes, and Minato was highly likable while Orochimaru seemed to be at best tolerated. They really only shared a few odd features in common like ambition, a sort of refined intelligence, fondness for fuinjutsu, and dedication to their art.
Both were classic examples of what Konoha called a genius. Lee, on the other hand, fitting more of the mold of the eccentric genius that drove classical geniuses like Senju Tobirama up the wall.
However, needless to say, that young and naïve Lee had yet to come across anyone quite like Grindelwald Gellert. A man who looked, in his own way, what a suave and adult European Minato might. Of course, if Minato had had no village to his name, no sense of shame whatsoever, and had instead turned his ambition and ingenuity to the entire continent. In other words, he had the odd trappings of similarity to Namikaze Minato, in his looks as well as his reputed genius, but when you got down to it was anything but similar.
He also, Lee thought to herself as she once again found herself trapped in one of Durmstang's small tutoring classrooms with the man, was unbelievably tactless. Which, for Lee to point that out, meant he was really laying it on thick. Oh, he thought he was quite clever and full of subtle charm, and maybe he was to civilians, but to anyone who had even slept through a lecture on classic seduction it was painfully clear what the man wanted.
Clear and cringeworthy as each of these sessions became that much awkward, exasperating, and painful than the last. Every time she stepped into this room, that simple plain longing for Konoha, to see Minato and the village again, grew that much stronger.
"You know, Lee, wandless magic is considered…" Grindelwald trailed off, golden eyes looking her up and down in a cross between amusement, admiration, and a hint of a subtle desire. This was a rather familiar look from him, there was always that edge of something untamed in his expression somewhere. A reminder, Lee thought, not only of his competence, his raw power along with his sophistication, but his history with what England considered dark and dangerous techniques.
She couldn't quite tell if this was a tell of his or if this was something meant to entice. In the end, she'd settled on him being a little too blatant not to mean it and thus trying for the tried and true bad boy appeal. It was just too bad for Grindelwald that if Lee had wanted brooding bad boys she would have been hunting down the Uchiha men along with the rest of her academy classmates.
Lee, having easily performed this latest and greatest jutsu for his weekly entertainment, slumped in her seat with her legs kicked up on the desk wondering if it was beneath her jonin ranking to just walk out the door already.
Especially since, Lee thought to herself in exasperation and growing resignation, he was just now reaching the opening gambit.
This was how it usually went in a typical Grindelwald tutoring session. Lee would walk in the door, offer the man a slight bow in her wrinkled gray Durmstang uniform as he smiled slyly across at her. He'd politely ask how she was progressing in her studies, Lee would give the typical understatement that she was doing quite well, thank you very much while more than aware that he knew exactly how well she was or wasn't doing. He'd then ask if she'd studied the jutsu he'd given her the week before. Lee would then lie and say that yes, of course she had, spent hours and hours dedicated to this one jutsu. Lee would then demonstrate whatever it was he'd assigned her, typically sans jutsu stick, he would applaud her genius, and then Grindelwald would begin bringing up very odd turns in conversation to fill up the time that should have been spent teaching Lee something useful.
Ren, at least, seemed to be getting an eerie amount of these things. Granted, Lee was damn sure that Grindelwald was toying with him as well, but at the same time his tutoring sessions seemed to be filled with more, well, tutoring.
Hers were just a bloody farce.
"Is considered?" Lee prompted, no longer even having the will power to pretend she respected his professional opinion. As always, this seemed to amuse him more than anything else, as if Lee was showing her surly teenage roots and reminding him of his own wild youth.
He'd even said as much at one point. Lee, naturally, had been rather dubious that she and the dropout Grindelwald had had anything in common.
"Well, it is considered utterly impossible for any true feats of magic. Best for little more than parlor tricks of a powerful wizard. That your people's hand seals alone can produce so much is astounding, but you…"
"I am very good at what I do, Mr. Grindelwald," Lee cut in, noting to herself that she should remind Ren to lay off the displays of ninjutsu with foreigners. Particularly foreigners like Grindelwald Gellert.
Sometimes, recently, she wondered if Ren hadn't been promoted a tad too early. He had the skill, certainly, but sometimes when he got carried away Lee suspected he lacked all the necessary common sense. It was plain that for all he had earned that vest he was a very green chunin.
Such as, "Thou must not show thy hand to foreign bastards no matter how nicely they ask or how pretty they look"
"I, Lee, am good at what I do," Grindelwald answered, smile growing on his lips and giving her that charming debonair look once again with the beast just prowling beneath his yellow eyes, "You, my dear, are something else altogether."
Yes, Lee thought, but that wasn't exactly news either. Lee had always been a step apart in that respect as well as sheer power even as early as six years old. That Grindelwald thought his saying this would mean anything to her was at once exasperating and almost cute. Lee was well aware that she was the best shinobi of her generation, even including the likes of Namikaze Minato.
"Thank you, Mr. Grindelwald," Lee instead said rather curtly, tapping her fingers now against the wooden surface of the desk and wondering when he'd hand her the next assignment and dismiss her already. She'd like to think he had better things to do, knew he did, but for whatever reason he saw enough potential in these little sessions of theirs to keep coming back.
She wondered what sign, exactly, she was giving him that gave him so much faith.
"Please, Gellert, Lee, there is no need to refer to me so formally," he said, oozing that off-brand charisma and leaning ever so slightly over the desk and towards her. Not close enough to touch by any means, but close enough to have Lee's fingers twitching for kunai.
"We hardly know each other, Mr. Grindelwald, it would be considered quite rude if I dared to be so informal," Lee responded rather curtly, once again having that odd feeling in the back of her head that she and Grindelwald Gellert were once more descending into the kind of witty banter that one would expect from an Austen Jane novel.
Only adding to this was his nearly cheeky grin, stepping closer to her and conjured a chair to sit side by side with her, stating, "I won't tell."
And to think, Lee thought to herself, Ren genuinely liked this man. Suddenly, not for the first time, Lee was struck by the terrible thought that if left unchecked Ren would probably fashion himself into some sort of miniature version of this in his teenage years. She could almost see him now, tall dark and handsome, a white toothed excessively charming smile for anyone and everyone who looked in his direction as he preferred his martinis shaken, not stirred…
Lee hoped, if and when that terrible day came, Ren got the absolute shit kicked out of him by everyone.
"I'm curious though," Grindelwald said as he settled into his seat, still observing her with an expression that contained a little too much calculation to be something as benign as he no doubt intended, "Where does your future go from here, Lee, in your home country?"
Ah, so that was the topic du jour.
In the beginning, these sessions had been about the gathering of intelligence. Confirming Lee's age, asking what home life was like, her family, friends, training, how a pretty young thing like her had ended up in Konohagakure's militia, and anything and everything in between. Lee hadn't given him much, mostly paltry answers and raised eyebrows at his sheer nerve, a few terse explanations on what exactly it meant to be a jonin but not much beyond that.
Ren, however, must have been a goddamn fountain of information and appeared to have told the man more than enough to put quite a few things together. Even rather personal details he had no business knowing, like Namikaze Minato's name as well as Lee's somewhat unorthodox living arrangements.
(Ren had shown no regret for doing this, had just flushed, stammered, huffed a little and then said it hardly mattered. As if it was somehow Lee's problem and paranoia that she considered each and every tidbit of information they handed Grindelwald Gellert anything but inconsequential.
Whenever she had a spare moment, in class or during training in the mornings, a larger and larger part of her was becoming steadily concerned about Ren and his decision making. It wasn't genjutsu, she knew that much but all the same… It was almost a thrall of a kind, made purely of charisma and flattery, that Grindelwald seemed to have cast over the chunin.)
Later then, after Grindelwald had been given enough base facts about the lives of Lee and Ren to work with, the topics changed. He started asking how Lee felt about her current life, her work, her prospects. How she liked Norway or even England, what Konoha decided to do from here and what this war Lee might be pulled back into would look like. Lee's civilian past and her relatives, English politics and their failings, and how specifically Lee felt about each. All with the hint that Lee Eru, perhaps, did not have to stay and die young in Konoha but could instead have a far more glamorous position in Grindelwald's budding empire.
"War, most likely," Lee confessed easily, perhaps too easily for Grindelwald's comfort, "Beyond that, perhaps teaching if the hokage sees fit."
Lee doubted the sandaime would see fit and she could hardly blame him. Sure, Lee was certainly deemed responsible and reasonable enough to lead missions and take the title of jonin but that didn't mean the man wanted to throw children at her either. Not when there were still a fair number of jonins older and more experienced than Lee and Minato's age group to tap for that kind of position. Lee suspected, when it came to encouraging and influencing the children, she'd be the hokage's last resort.
"You say it so simply," Grindelwald said, voice oddly quiet and almost awed, perhaps laced with a touch of pity.
"War, at its heart, is perhaps a simple if horrible thing," Lee said, though in truth she could hardly say she knew much about it. The second war she had narrowly avoided in the academy, instead she'd lived in its wake and the shadow of this third shinobi war. A shadow that had edged closer and closer it had seemed to linger in every doorway and settle into Lee's bones.
Sakumo-shishou, as tensions had risen further and further, had often spoken to Lee quietly over tea about the horrors of the second shinobi war as well as its predecessor and the clan wars. Quietly, he'd said one night, "Take a look at the village, Lee, remember all the faces and all the clans. They'll start to dwindle and disappear one by one until only one or two of a clan remain. If, that is, any remain at all. This war, Lee, could easily be the end of the Hatake clan."
Should Sakumo or Kakashi fall in battle…
"And yet it is something you are more than willing to return for?" Gellert asked, "For a country where you are only an immigrant?"
"Many in Konoha, Mr. Grindelwald, are immigrants," Lee reminded him, wondering if Ren had divulged that much concerning Namikaze Minato, that his parents had been civilian merchants from wind country. That he was easily what the wizards would label and dismiss as muggleborn.
"All the same," Grindelwald said with an airy, elegant, hand motion to sweep this aside.
"All the same one does not simply defect," Lee said, with far more levity and humor than the idea of becoming a missing nin deserved, "More, I have no reason or intention to."
"You are a young woman who is about to be thrown into a war," Grindelwald scoffed, hand moving to settle over hers and squeeze it with reassurance, "Lee, you have every reason to."
She wondered if he truly thought this could convince her, that he believed that with words like this he was somehow making ground between them rather than creating an uncrossable crevasse.
"It does not have to be defection, you know. Diplomacy is an option I'm sure your people will recognize. Stay, become an ambassador between your people and mine and…"
"That's not my decision to make," Lee said shortly, not even bothering to elaborate that Lee was hardly a diplomat on the best of occasions. That she had been sent here at all had been something Minato had found both worrying and a touch hilarious.
No, the battlefield was in her future as much as it was Minato's or anyone else's.
"That's a rather defeatist attitude," Grindelwald remarked drily, "I can talk to your superiors, you know, certainly your immediate superior and I'm sure…"
Finally, Lee decided it was time to let some hint of her opinion slip. She looked towards him, raised eyebrows, and stated clearly and bluntly, "That you think, Grindelwald, that you would have that much sway over the nidaime hokage, let alone the sandaime hokage and the jonin commander, is the most patently ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life."
Well, some of the garbage that came out of Ren's mouth was a close second, but Grindelwald Gellert somehow took the cake every time as far as grandiose ambitions and egos flying wildly out of control could be concerned.
He even had the gall to laugh, like it was some sort of a joke when Lee meant every goddamn word. If he was a little better at this, Lee thought, she'd have to go straight to T&I with some major counterintelligence concerns. As it was, his attempts were almost insulting and made Lee wish she was back home already.
"If you give up now, Lee, surely there's no hope at all," he said.
"It's not about hope," Lee said with a sigh, rubbing at her temples, "It's not even about what I want. It's about… Something I suppose you would never understand."
That was the crux of it, really, there was no village for Grindelwald Gellert. This place, this academy and country, were places he had invaded himself like a subtle poison spreading slowly through a body. There were no hidden villages in this world and they were reaping the consequences of that in a man like Grindelwald who was tied to nothing and could not comprehend a world where Lee, hardly eager for war, would still go and do what was necessary not only for her comrades but for this idea of the village itself.
For a dream that Senju Hashirama had once had and beyond all comprehension made into a reality.
Even if the war was a senseless continuation of the previous which in turn had developed from the aftermath of the first war between the newly formed hidden villages. Even if Lee highly suspected that when the third ended there would be a fourth just on the horizon somewhere, she would not question it or the endless cycle of violence too closely. She would simply do what needed to be done.
"You would be surprised, Lee, what I can understand and what I…"
Lee didn't have the patience to allow him to finish that sentence, "Do you have a new spell for me, Mr. Grindelwald?"
He paused, considered her yet again, and then smiled softly, looking at her with a peculiar undeserved fondness, "One day, Lee, you will realize that you are not as trapped as you believe yourself to be. More, that I am more than willing and able to help you."
"I'm afraid today is not that day," Lee responded as she removed her feet from the desk, shifting into an upright sitting position.
"No, not today," he agreed, before, a quick quirk of the lips and adding with that fond confidence, "But someday."
He truly believed that, Lee thought, that someday she would realize the error of her ways and would run into his arms and gleefully serve in his own military at the expense of her own. Perhaps, even, that she would become his paramour of sorts to take to all the glittering galas he would so often describe to her in these little sessions of theirs.
What a small, strange, glittering world, he had made for himself.
Author's Note: Commissioned by lihaneenies on tumblr who asked for a story where we see what goes on in those meetings between Lee and Grindelwald that our protagonist Ren was not privy to. And we learn that a) Lee was unimpressed and b) Grindelwald is still creepy as hell.
Thanks for reading, reviews are much appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Naruto