Chapter I

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Tachi flicked his head to one side, sending beads of sweat flying from the ends of his hair. Some of them fell on the red-hot iron he was currently beating the snot out of, and they sizzled away into nothing almost instantly. With a deft twist of his wrist, he spun the burning metal within the grip of his tongs and expertly caught it again. The hammer in his hand rose and fell with short, powerful blows, shaping the metal however he wished. In the middle of an upswing, he paused and cast a critical eye at the metal. It wasn't hot enough.

The blacksmith dropped the hammer, sped through several seals before ending on 'half-horse', and called out:

"Katon: Hirenmen!" With that, a steady stream of fire fell from his lips onto the cooling metal, swiftly turning it from dull- to bright-red again. The glow it gave off lent the blacksmith's face a hellish hue as his right foot caught the falling hammer and effortlessly flipped it back into his waiting palm. He hammered a few more times before his ears caught the sound of bells jingling.

It was his front door.

"I'll be up in a minute!" he called. He dunked the metal bar into a barrel of water, sending gouts of steam billowing into the air of the forge. When it had cooled enough (a rather quick process), he pulled it out and laid it across a rack with similar bars. Grabbing a towel, Imura Tachi roughly wiped his face and went out to his storefront to greet his customer.

He grinned lazily as he recognized her. "Morning, Tanaka-san," he drawled. "How are those gates holding up?"

"Well enough, thank you, Tachi-kun," the older woman said pleasantly. "Very well, indeed." Her greying hair shimmered in the early morning sunlight as she cast her eye around the small smithy. "Well, that's new," she said in mild surprise, pointing out a pair of gleaming utilitarian field-knives.

"Oh, you like them?"

"Not at all. Things of that sort make me nervous," the older woman said flatly, and Tachi laughed at her candor as he pushed his chin-length hair out of his eyes.

"I love the way you say what you mean, lady Tanaka," he admitted cheerfully, "it's a lovely way of talking from a lovely lady." The old woman blushed.

"Oh, Imura-san," she said demurely, "I'm a married woman! What would my husband think if he heard you?"

Tachi put a finger to his lips in mock contemplation. A wicked gleam sparkled in his eyes as he guessed, "...'If he takes her, I'll finally have some peace'?" The woman let out a shriek of playful indignation and swatted the blacksmith, her fingers coming away stained with soot.

"Shame on you, you naughty boy!" She teased. Imura grinned insincerely as he apologized, then leaned on his counter with one arm as his grin relaxed into casual indifference.

"So, am I to assume that there are issues with my shipment?"

"Ah, and on to business so inelegantly," the woman sighed. Imura chewed thoughtfully on his right thumbnail before pointing out that he was, after all, a humble blacksmith. The remark garnered a bark of laughter from the grey-haired woman.

"Humble blacksmith, indeed! You're humble in neither skill nor deed." Her face, lined with many years, tightened. "To the point, though; we are having difficulties moving the quantities of raw steel and charcoal that you require."

Imura's lips curved down in mild annoyance. "That," he pointed out, "wasn't an issue last month. What the hell is Kusa's problem now?"

Tanaka smiled thinly but said nothing. Imura's face grew red in irritation.

"The tariffs?! They're getting pissy about that again?!"

"Once again," The woman nodded, "your intuition is impressive. They want twenty-five percent now." In a violent gesture, the blacksmith threw his hands up in disgust.

"Merciful gods," he swore, "I'm already paying fifteen percent on those damned imports, which is out-and-out extortion, and those little pipe-sniffing shitwits want more? Fuck 'em!" He hawked and spat off to the side. The merchant surreptitiously wrinkled her nose in mild disgust at the crude action.

Tanaka was well-acquainted with the coarseness of the metalworker, but she still winced as he muttered a particularly nasty epithet regarding the Grass Lord's personal hygiene, sexual orientation, and the likelihood of common farm animals being in his immediate ancestry.

"So," she said, "what would you have me do?"

Imura turned towards the merchant. "Tell Grass that they'll have twenty-five percent of nothing; from now on, I want you to ignore all their offers no matter how low. I'm not doing business with them. EVER." He snorted. "They really think it'll bother me to buy from Fire Country just because it's farther away? Let 'em rot. I want you to get me an immediate shipment from Konoha, and for every three days you cut off in transit before the end of next week, you'll earn an extra percentage point."

Tanaka's black eyes glittered with greed at the prospect, before Imura noticed and shut her down.

"And absolutely NO ninja, or you can consider our contract terminated."

The grey-haired woman shrugged, disappointed but hardly surprised. The blacksmith was well-known throughout Nami no Kuni for his unusually strong contempt for the shadow warriors, and had on two separate occasions thrown customers out for arguing with him on the point. And Wave was still growing, still expanding, and the citizens could ill-afford to alienate their newest and best blacksmith.

"Very well," Tanaka huffed. "But I still don't understand why you're so adamant about that, especially when a team of Genin could have you your supplies in half a week."

The blacksmith shrugged. "Hey, I got my reasons. One of which," he grinned, "is to not have to pay you any more than I have to." They both laughed. "Now, is there anything else I can do for you, or can I go back to beating the shit out of big pieces of metal?"

"Ah, beat away, beat away," Tanaka chortled. "I have errands to run – the grandkids are coming over later today – and I need all the time I can get. I'll contact you when the shipment is en route."

Imura nodded politely. "Alright, then. Back to work...or maybe not," he concluded wryly as the bells on his door jingled again. He sighed in mock-exasperation. "Gods help me!"

Senjuu Tsunade, Godaime Hokage was a fifty-seven year-old woman who, thanks to what was probably the world's greatest genjutsu, went through life every day looking, acting, and feeling less than half her true age.

The illusion worked on an impressive number of levels, one of which was that her body even thought that it was young...to a degree that some might consider unpleasant.

Ergo, menstruation.

And while Tsunade's fame was based primarily on her 'Legendary Sucker' moniker, her Sannin status, and her beauty (in that order), equally well-known (and feared) was her temper. Mercurial at best, bipolar at worst, Tsunade's mood swings were a psychologist's worst nightmares.

Adding an actual, functional menstrual cycle on top of her already fearsome personality...

Well, at least she hadn't killed any subordinates. Yet. But she was aching, tired, cranky, out of saké, and then this gets thrown at her...! Suffice to say, the Fifth Kage of Konoha only slightly below 'homicidal' at the moment.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't have you both arrested and publicly executed for this blatantly mutinous act." Amber eyes were narrowed and the full burning fury behind them aimed directly at her deceased teacher's team-mates.

Koharu coughed delicately into her fist. "Hokage-sama," she said soothingly, "I realize that on the surface, our actions seem to be, shall we say...'challenging'...of your authority."

"'On the surface'...? 'Challenging'?" Tsunade mocked. "Utatane, not just the surface, but as far down as I dig this seems to be nothing less than an attempt to completely undermine the authority of Hokage." Her hands were clasped in front of her face, and only the whiteness of her knuckles spoke of the sheer effort she was putting forth to not slaughter the two advisors.

"Then you have not dug deeply enough," Homura said calmly, "or more likely, you have overlooked something."

"Shut it," Tsunade snapped fiercely, and the older man fell silent. The younger woman took several deep calming breaths through her nose, exhaling slowly. "The two of you conspired to send one of my ninja, a chuunin, and an academy instructor on permanent furlough from active duty, no less, after the single most DANGEROUS nukenin from our country." Placing her hands, trembling with barely-restrained rage, flat on the top of her desk, the Hokage slowly rose to her feet.

"And to top it all off," she hissed venomously, "you did it all without consulting me."

"Ah, but Hokage-sa-"

"If you so much as utter another word without my permission, I will have your heads rolled through the center of Konoha," Tsunade said grimly.

Instant silence.

Teeth were bared in anger as the Hokage spoke through jaws tightly clenched.

"The first I knew of this was when I received a coded message from Iruka," she said, plucking the paper from her desk and waving the incriminating evidence around, "giving a quarterly progress report on his mission, in which he apologizes for being 'presently unsuccessful' in his 'aspirations to eliminate the threat of Uchiha Itachi to Konoha and Hi no Kuni'. Imagine the surprise I felt," she continued, crushing the paper in her fist, "when I read this for the first time. I thought it was a prank, at first. I thought that someone simply had a sick sense of humor. Because I knew that I had never assigned anyone, let alone a fucking schoolteacher, the mission of killing an S-class missing-nin."

She crossed her arms and sat on the edge of her desk, glaring down at the older council members. "I'm sure you can also imagine my surprise when I went through the mission catalogues and discovered an assignment for just such a mission. And what else did I see? I saw that it had been issued with 'Imperative' status. Iruka couldn't refuse it, could he?"

Tsunade tapped her forefinger to her lips in mock-contemplation. "Now, when I saw this, I was a little confused. Surely my two trusted advisors wouldn't be stupid enough to send a mere chuunin after the youngest ANBU in our history. Even on paper, there was no chance of success. No, there had to be something more, something I was missing. Iruka's only 'failing' is being a student of Orochimaru. But he's been forgiven by the village, and is pretty well respected. So some sort of punishment for his past isn't the answer. And then," she said coldly, "it struck me. You see, I may be a drunk and the worst gambler in history, but I'm not stupid. I do my homework. Do you know the thought that came into my mind?" The two older shinobi shook their heads, and the blonde Hokage laughed bitterly as she spread her arms wide. "It wasn't about Iruka at all, was it? I wasn't looking at his pros and cons through idiot-colored glasses, was I?"

Koharu and Homura shared a glance of honest confusion before returning their attention to the irate Hokage before them.

Tsunade sneered. "No, it's not about Iruka...it's about Naruto." She spat off to the side, the saliva beading on the carpet of her office. "Every single damn day, the utter stupidity of this village makes me wonder why I even bother to protect it. Iruka is precious to Naruto, so by giving him a suicide mission, you're hurting Naruto." She leaned forward menacingly. "And frankly, the only reason you two are still alive is because Iruka's 'failure' to find Itachi means that he is still alive. So now that I'm done, I wonder what the two of you could possibly say to cause me to let you live to see tomorrow."

Eyes widened in understanding.

"As you say, Hokage-sama," Homura grunted, "you are not stupid. What you are, however, is somewhat ill-informed. Or rather," he hastened to explain, taking note of the Hokage's rapidly darkening expression, "I should say that you are missing some key pieces of information."

"Enlighten me, then."

"Firstly, you are incorrect in your assumption regarding our attitudes towards the Kyuubi's gaoler," Koharu said gently. "Really; while neither of us particularly like the boy, we are wholly confident in the Yondaime's sealing skills."

"The boy is neither the Nine-Tails nor is he particularly influenced by it," Homura added, as if stating a blatantly obvious fact. "He is, however, annoying as fuck."

Despite her anger, Tsunade couldn't silence the amused snort that broke free, and a great deal of tension evaporated with it.

Homura shifted in his chair, disliking the way the wood lay against his aged spine. "Iruka is also far more competent a ninja than he might appear at first glance...or even after several. You know that he was a student of Orochimaru's. Are you also aware of his Curse Seal?"

"The Shinkai, or 'Deep-Sea' Seal," Tsunade muttered. "According to Iruka's medical reports, it's a failed prototype seal; one that reacts to the adrenaline and chakra found in combat, and not to the will. It's single-stage, unsuppressible either by the sealer or the victim, and causes immense pain and temporary, though very real, mental instability that gets progressively worse as long as the seal is active, though the effects vanish as soon as the seal recedes." Tsunade shook her head. "It's a complete failure."

"No, it is not," Homura countered. "Do not misunderstand; all of those effects are quite true, and it is a very real danger. But the medical reports are somewhat...selectively inaccurate. Did you not find it strange that the medical report made no mention of the benefits?"

Tsunade blinked, interested in spite of herself. "I had assumed that there were little to none, considering it was a prototype..."

Koharu chuckled dryly. "Oh, there are benefits, Tsunade-chan. Benefits both great and terrible. Are you also aware that the chakra it grants puts Iruka very nearly on the level of a Tailed Beast himself?"

Amber eyes widened. "That's simply impossible," Tsunade countered. "That much raw chakra would kill him instantly!"

"Ah, but don't you already know a ninja who has more chakra than what might be considered safe?"

"Naruto is a special case, as you well know," Tsunade said dismissively. "Besides, the Kyuubi was sealed into him as a baby. His chakra coils had more than enough time..." Her voice trailed off, and her eyes grew wider.

Epiphany.

"The younger a child is, the more malleable their chakra coils," Koharu finished. "Iruka was given the seal when he was eleven, just months before his coils had 'solidified', to put it in layman's terms."

"Which is why the seal is so often fatal," Tsunade breathed. "But he can't control it?"

"Only to a certain extent," Homura acknowledged. "Enough to keep it inactive, but not enough to bend it to his will." The man sighed. "Which is truly unfortunate."

Tsunade frowned. "I'm still not understanding why you seem to be confident in Iruka's ability to complete this mission."

"Iruka," the old man said, "is an ex-Hunter-nin." This revelation surprised Tsunade.

"Him?"

"Indeed."

"There are nothing in his records-" Tsunade cut herself off, cursing her own foolishness. "Of course, there never are, are there?"

The older woman smiled ingratiatingly. "Of course not."

Tsunade motioned for silence as she silently contemplated this newest tidbit. It was several moments before she spoke again, and when she did, it was with none of the fury that she had begun the evening with. "Dare I ask what his combat skills rate?"

Homura coughed in amusement. "Hokage-sama," he said dryly, "if it were between you and him, even without the seal I would go so far as to call you 'hopelessly outclassed'."

Tsunade sighed in amazement. "By the gods. And he's a chuunin why?"

Homura shrugged. "Mediocre strategy skills. He's not a leader, he's a weapon. Aim him at whatever needs to die, and it'll die."

"So, on one end," Tsunade mused, "we have a Sannin-level Nukenin who slaughtered his whole family, and on the other is an unstable Sannin-stomping Hunter-nin."

"Crudely put, but still accurate."

Tsunade crossed her legs as she sat back on her desk. "I think I understand a lot more now," she admitted, "and I'm especially glad that this wasn't done out of hatred towards Naruto. But there's still one thing that's bothering me."

Homura arched an eyebrow as his female counterpart did the same. "Oh?" Koharu asked mildly. "And what would that be, Hokage-sama?"

"Why did you subvert my authority on this matter? That," Tsunade stated bluntly, "is a very real act of mutiny."

This time, it was the old man who spoke. "Because you didn't have access to all the facts, and you still don't."

"And what facts, pray tell, am I missing that would make your insubordination seem reasonable?"

Homura sighed. "It is the duty of the Council's to issue Nukenin classifications and warrants, is it not?"

"They have that power, yes," Tsunade agreed. "But Itachi has been a declared missing-nin for over a decade."

"No, he has not."

Tsunade cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes in confusion. "You're not going senile on me, are you, old man??" she asked doubtfully. "He's been in the Bingo Book for almost twelve years."

"While we are both old, Hokage-sama," Koharu chuckled as her team-mate huffed in irritation, "You'll find that we are quite 'with it', mentally if not exactly physically." Grey eyebrows arched in mild amusement. "You'll also do well to remember that not everything is as it seems. Itachi has indeed been in the Bingo Book for many years, and yet there hasn't been a single Hunter-nin assigned to eliminate him until now." The older woman leaned forward. "Why do you think that is?"

"Because he's Kage-level," theorized Tsunade, "with that damned doujutsu of his."

"A true statement, but not the reason," Kohura corrected. "Uchiha Itachi is well-known as a missing-nin; oddly enough, until a few months ago, his name was not on the list of available targets for the Hunters."

"I still don't-" A sharp gesture from Homura interrupted her.

"Itachi has been undercover for the last twelve years," the old man said tersely. Koharu threw her companion a look of mild disapproval, unhappy that her game had been spoiled. "On the orders of Sandaime Hokage, he infiltrated the terrorist organization known as 'Akatsuki', where he has remained until recently."

"Bullshit!"

"Not at all."

"You really mean to tell me that the extermination of the Uchiha clan was just so the old man could put a spy in the ranks of Akatsuki?" The younger woman glowered at the two shinobi in front of her. "Sarutobi would never have sacrificed so many people so cavalierly!"

"Of course not," Koharu reassured the irate Hokage. "That wasn't the reason at all. It was, if I may put it crudely, a 'nice side-effect'."

"The Uchiha clan," the grey-haired man said roughly, "had grown arrogant. They were routinely proclaiming themselves as the 'strongest of the leaf', and their actions had been causing some concern for some time. Clan meetings took place with unsettling regularity, and the Miltary Police, almost entirely Uchiha, had started making questionable arrests, and Uchiha started having suspiciously good fortune in civil trials. Something was clearly going on, but according to Village Law, the Uchiha clan meetings were closed sessions. We had to get someone inside. Then Itachi, who was almost infamous at the time for his apathy to the 'clan mentality' of the Uchiha, entered ANBU." A dark smirk split the craggy, bewhiskered features of the octogenarian.

"We had our insider. As a new ANBU, Itachi would be considered to be in a prime location for relations with the village, and would be allowed to attend the Clan meetings as a representative. The next week, Itachi brought this terrible news before the Hokage: 'The Uchiha are planning to eliminate the Hokage and the Council', he said, 'in order to assume power themselves'. We were immediately summoned, and Itachi repeated these statements before us."

"A coup..." Tsunade whispered, and the pair nodded grimly.

"Naturally, we couldn't bring this before the council; the Uchiha were well-regarded at the time, and any accusations would fall flat for lack of conclusive evidence. But suddenly, their actions made a disturbing kind of sense. Everything fell into place, and for the first time in Konoha history, we had a very large, very real internal crisis on our hands. Even worse, we learned that we had mere days before the first domino was to fall. Of course, not every Uchiha was guilty, but we couldn't take the chance at letting one slip through the net."

"Thus the elimination of the Uchiha clan," the blonde breathed. "A panicked, genocidal move to ensure the stability of the village. It was overkill. And Sasuke was the only one who Itachi was utterly convinced of innocence, and he was spared." Homura nodded.

"Quite. Of course, without an official investigation and an overwhelming amount of proof, Sarutobi would have had a full-scale uprising on his hands..."

"...so Itachi took the burden of blame on himself and fled under the stigma of a murdering psychopath. Wheels within wheels within wheels." Feeling drained, Tsunade put her hand to her forehead. "Gods above. Jiraiya always claimed to have a contact within the Akatsuki's inner circle, but to have it be Itachi...!"

"Three months ago," Homura stated, winding down, "we received a message by a crow summon; Itachi's forte, if you'll recall. On it were seven words: 'I'm retiring. Sorry, and good luck. Itachi'. In all of our planning, in every strategy, we never accounted for such a bizarre action. And despite being out of the village for more than a decade, he still has knowledge that, for the good of Konoha, we cannot allow even the possibility of dissemination."

"For the safety of this country," Koharu interjected, "Itachi must die."

Tsunade closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. After a tense few minutes, she nodded.

"Itachi must die."

Author's Note: You would not believe how many times I rewrote this chapter. Blame Halo 2, Ocarina of Time: Master Quest, and 25-year-old MacAllan scotch for the rest.