In which shinobi do their best to understand protesting and unions, Lee knows that the other gods are out there laughing at her, and a terrible bargain is struck.
Lee had never in her life tried to see the hokage.
For better or worse, usually, it was the hokage who came to her. Well, usually Lee would be told by Jiraiya, Sakumo, or somebody that she was going to speak to the hokage now, it was already late, and that whatever bullshit she'd gotten up to was about to have the label S-ranked secret stamped on it and she'd never be able to talk about it ever again.
Theoretically, Lee knew the hokage was a very busy man. While he was not in charge of all aspects of the village he was the deciding factors in all major and sometimes even minor decisions. Genin team assignments were finalized by him, the academy curriculum finalized by him, all war decisions discussed with and finalized by him, overarching mission rates, shinobi sent on highly ranked and important missions, you name it he had a hand in it.
Personally, Lee thought that he could probably delegate half of it but figured that when Senju Tobirama had been hokage he'd both built and then done it all himself like an insane person, never daring to let the incompetence of others get in his way, and the sandaime hokage was just trying to follow what was now seen as tradition.
Regardless, Lee had forgotten that you can't just demand a meeting with the hokage. She'd also forgotten that waiting for the hokage himself to have a moment available to chat would mean sitting in his waiting room for hours.
Fifteen minutes in and Lee had already started rethinking her latest and greatest scheme.
Really, this probably wasn't a problem the hokage should have to deal with. That said, as Lee sat in the hall trying not to stare at the hokage's unimpressed secretary, she had no idea whose problem it should be. Everyone she'd already gone to was all aboard the career suicide express and while this felt like it should be a small matter it felt like it should also be huge.
As far as Lee knew, Konoha had never had a protest before, the elemental nations had never had a protest before. Unions, especially unions of shinobi, were not a concept. The closest equivalent was the idea of clans, and they didn't so much lobby for the rights of shinobi as a whole so much as demand their needs as a family were met and said to hell with everyone else. Konoha treated its shinobi pretty well, but that was mostly due to the fact that they were only three hokages in and the village had been built by Hashirama and then Tobirama who very much believed in the rights and well-being of their shinobi population.
But for the shinobi themselves under a hokage to create a mass demonstration and then to refuse work until their demands were met? It had never happened, Lee didn't think it could ever happen, what would happen instead was that they'd all be jailed or killed or something and Minato was an idiot.
If Lee thought it could be solved this easily then she would have done it for Sakumo in a heartbeat.
Regardless, given the lack of precedence, somebody had to take this all the way to the top. And if Sakumo-shishou, Senju Tobirama and Hashirama, and even Jiraiya weren't going to do it then either Lee had to convince Orochimaru to both a) hate her enough to bail and b) be responsible enough to tell the hokage or else go to the hokage herself.
So here she was, with option b, wondering how it had ever come to this.
More than that, wondering if somehow, given her luck today, if just by stepping into his office she'd somehow convince him that this was a great idea. Well, if that happened, maybe she could just tell him to cut to the chase and give them what they wanted before it got out of hand. Lee supposed that was an acceptable if underhanded solution.
Funny, wasn't it, a few days ago her largest problems had involved integrating with civilians and fighting off dragons for their entertainment on a mission where it seemed decreasingly likely that she'd get paid. Lee couldn't believe she was starting to miss that and was thinking it might be a good idea to return, lay low, and let the war start without her and many of the others.
And as the minutes ticked by into hours this felt like the worst decision she'd ever made that she had no choice but to make.
Finally, though, long after the afternoon had faded away into the night, the secretary nodded her in. Lee nodded her head in recognition, took a deep breath, walked through, and promptly forgot everything she was going to say.
She'd always thought the hokage hat looked utterly ridiculous. It was large, gaudy, and while ceremonial looking would never actually be worn in combat. Somehow though, staring at the hokage now it was the most intimidating hat she'd ever seen in her life.
She'd been here before, stood in this very spot, and yet she couldn't seem to think of anything let alone recall what she had come here to say.
"Lee?" the hokage asked slowly, an eyebrow raising, "I assume you had some reason to wait over five hours to see me."
Yes, she'd had a very good reason. She just couldn't remember what it was for the life of her.
She could feel him getting ready to dismiss her, ready to return home to the family he barely saw, and just before she could it came falling out of her mouth, "I don't know if you've heard but Namikaze Minato, the former hokages, and even Jiraiya are planning to protest my probation."
He was looking at her like she'd just sprouted a second head.
Lee decided to clarify, "You see, a protest is… Well, they're probably going to get a bunch of people to stand outside the hokage tower with signs and chant obnoxious mottos until you reinstate me or something."
He was looking at her as if she'd now sprouted a third head.
"They'll stand outside with… signs?" he asked slowly.
"Probably," Lee said, "Some might refuse to work for a while."
At his utterly confused look she clarified, "It's a tried and true technique in England. It works there sometimes."
He still looked as if he wasn't quite grasping what she was saying. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, "I'm sorry, Lee, are you saying that they're going to instigate a coup on your behalf?"
"No! No coup, just… stand around with signs and make everyone look very silly," Lee said, "They are most definitely not attempting to replace the current government in any way shape or form."
At least, not that Lee knew of, Minato was being stupid but he wasn't typically that stupid. Plus, it would be a little difficult for him to become hokage if he insisted on usurping the position as a fourteen-year-old chunin.
The hokage looked as if he was about to ask again what the power of signs could possibly accomplish so Lee decided to cut to the chase.
"Look, I just wanted to warn you this was happening so that when you see a whole crowd of people who somehow decided this was a great idea, ANBU doesn't kill the ever-loving shit out of them. Just let them do their chanting thing until they get tired of it and go home."
"Or, if they don't go home," Lee amended as if she had any idea what she was talking about, "I guess you could just give them what they want. I mean, that is, you could just promote me already and put me back on the roster before any of this happens."
Lee hadn't wanted to say it but saying it out loud felt even worse. It felt not so much like she was trying to prevent it from spiraling out of control but like she was gunning for the promotion she swore she didn't want.
Ah yes, there was that look that she'd, despite all expectations, sprouted a fourth head.
She felt like she should say something more. However, even Lee knew that anything she added now would just be that much worse. Better to just let the words marinate and hope they didn't sound so ridiculous five seconds later.
However, judging by his new worn sigh, Lee was guessing it did not in fact sound less ridiculous. Slowly he took off his hat, giving her a frank look that Lee supposed meant that he was talking to her now shinobi to shinobi rather than hokage to subordinate.
"Lee, you may not believe this, especially given my treatment of you since the mission, but I do not blame you for where we are today."
"You're young, inexperienced both in ANBU and leading elite teams, and frankly never should have been on that kind of a mission in the first place no matter your talents. That you were approved to lead such a mission, in fact, is deeply disturbing to me and has prompted an extensive review of ANBU. Not to mention that the stakes of the mission's failure speaks enough to how close we've been to war for years."
He steepled his hands together, letting out another sigh, before he said, "However, the village will not stand for what happened and the decisions you chose to make. If part of preparing for war means letting a single chunin shoulder the blame, if this is what the council demands to appease not only our civilian but shinobi populations, then that is what the village will do."
"Now is not the time to distract ourselves with internal strife. We must focus on the immediate future."
Yes, Lee had expected as much, accepted as much. It was far easier for her to play the fall man, for Hatake Sakumo to play it, than to do nothing and have both civilians and shinobi rioting over favoritism.
The trouble was that Namikaze Minato had not accepted that fate and he was convincing several others to do anything but accept it.
"I don't have to actually be on the roster," Lee said, "I mean, just stick me on there and promote me, but then send me off to England where no one ever sees me and tell everyone who's upset that I'm reenlisted that I'm still effectively on probation and everyone upset that I'm on probation that I'm technically not on probation."
The way Lee saw it, it was an effective compromise for all parties involved, in that nobody won.
He was looking at her like that was the dumbest thing she'd said in her life. And Lee had admittedly said many dumb things in her life.
Finally, he said, "I cannot respond to actions that haven't been taken."
"Come again?"
"Unless this… protest of yours happen, I can't bend to its pressure. Who knows, if it does happen and your friend does manage to get enough representation then perhaps I'll have no choice but to give into their demands."
Oh no.
"You must be joking," Lee said, feeling panic begin to crawl its way in her stomach, "This… I don't really know the council, but I think I know the council, and they will not be pleased. And that's not even getting into the potentially refusing work business."
"No, they will not be pleased," the hokage said, but it was in that 'what can you do' sort of tone as if he was now bracing himself for impact because there was nothing to stop it.
"You're the hokage!" Lee said, "You must be able to do something."
"Would you like me to arrest your friends on charges of conspiracy?" he asked with raised eyebrows. When Lee didn't answer he just nodded and said, "That's what I thought."
"I'm sure you know this already," the hokage said slowly, "But while I appreciate the warning you're more likely to get what you want if you talk to your friends directly rather than from behind the hokage's hat."
Lee didn't want to admit that she'd already tried that, failed miserably, and desperately come to the hokage hoping he could produce a hokage miracle for Christmas.
Lee opened her mouth, closed it, and finally asked, "Are you sure you want to just go ahead and let this happen?"
He finally smiled back at her, "Well, I'm sure at the very least, you'll make it entertaining."
(Minato – 7, Lee – 0)
The sky wasn't the clear, easy, blue of a summer day but slightly less overcast than one would expect from early winter. The air, too, was a little less biting than it'd been the day before and if Haru had to pick a day to be forced to stand outside until he was arrested it might as well be today.
For a moment when he'd received the written piece of parchment under his door telling him to stand outside the hokage tower at eight the next morning he considered a world in which he did what Lee told him for once and didn't show up. True, that Haru was going along with Lee's ridiculous schemes that involved placing a genjutsu over the entire village if not the entire continent, but that Haru was also much less likely to end up in jail.
It was a nice dream.
Unfortunately, even more than the prospect of getting beaten up by Minato there was the simple fact of the matter that Haru didn't want to go along with Lee's plans. Playing some role in her self-engineered martyrdom and demotion left a sour taste in his mouth. Maybe it was because while he knew she asked for it he also knew she didn't deserve it, maybe it was because he was being used like everyone else, maybe it was because he felt that for perhaps the first time in her life Lee shouldn't get what she wanted, or maybe it was the fact that even though she often treated him like garbage he didn't want to watch Lee destroy herself.
And apparently, more people than Haru ever would have guessed felt the same way.
Minato and Kushina were obvious, he supposed he shouldn't be surprised by the former hokages or their unwanted house guest, but it wasn't just them. Minato had managed to talk both Jiraiya and Senju Tsunade into attendance, Ino, Shika, and Cho, Hatake Sakumo and Kakashi, Uchiha Mikoto, and what had to be not only most of the Uchiha clan including several children who looked young enough to just be starting their careers in the academy.
This, of course, was not mentioning the dozens of befuddled onlookers who were watching Minato and Kushina pass out homemade signs and try to decide what, exactly, they would be chanting at the hokage tower today.
And, of course, Lee herself standing in the back looking as if she just wanted someone to gut her already.
Haru, deciding he'd rather face her head on, made his way over to her, "I'm sure you realize that Minato promised to hospitalize me too."
Lee spared him an unimpressed look but only sighed, "There seems to be no helping it, this is my destiny."
"This?" Haru asked, glancing about them. There were a lot of words he could probably use for this situation, but Lee's destiny wasn't one of them.
"I tried everything I could think of," Lee said, "But either Minato beat me to it or somehow I ended up talking each and every one of them into it."
Lee then motioned over towards the Uchiha, "I mean, my god, even they showed up! You leave your clones to babysit them one, two, maybe a few times and they somehow manage to convince the Uchiha council to let them attend whatever the hell this is."
"Yeah, why are they—"
"Mikoto said something about clan politics," Lee said with a sigh, "Apparently, they're not exactly happy about the status quo and if this thing actually works out then they'll gleefully hold their own protest to finally get out of running the police force single handedly as well as get some damn respect already. That, and when the kids heard about it, well apparently some of them have strong feelings regarding my suspension and once they found out about this there was no stopping them."
Lee glared across at the grinning Uchiha children, "Maybe their adorable faces and impressionable ages will stop us from getting shanked."
That would be nice.
He and Lee stood in awkward silence, watching as Minato finished up handing out signs.
"You know, it might not end that badly," Haru said only for Lee to just give him a look.
"I'm serious," Haru said, "Look at us. No one would mistake this for anything dangerous."
Not just dangerous, but effective, they looked ridiculous. It was clear that not one of them had any idea what they were really doing here and were each idly milling about waiting for some clear instruction from somebody. They weren't even blocking the doors to the hokage tower, shinobi efficiently past them on their way in, sparing them extremely dubious glances before disappearing inside.
If anything, this would all probably just be some embarrassing memory.
"Let's hear you say that when Minato demands I take him to England so he can bail on missions," Lee said.
Yes, that… That was a little different.
Lee sighed, seeming to lose interest in the bleak future, and asked, "You ready for round three of the chunin exams?"
"No," Haru scoffed, "I'll be older than everyone competing, I'm not even competing with the same team I was last year, one of them passed the exam the first time around. Even in an internal exam it's not going to be pretty."
"Well, at least you're realistic," Lee said.
"I've been through this song and dance twice already; I know there's some people who just never make chunin."
Usually, they gave up long before Haru had. Either they didn't make a genin team in the first place and were drafted straight into the genin corps or gave up after their second attempt at the chunin exams. It was embarrassing but the fact was that most of Konoha's shinobi population consisted of genin.
Most were genin, then chunin, very few were specialized jonin, and an extreme few then made the rank of jonin. Minato and Lee, living in their own strange bubble of blood limits and talent, hadn't internalized this fact quite the way Haru had.
The trouble was, with the rinnegan in his head and the second hokage as a master and Jiraiya of the sannin as a jonin instructor, Haru really should have no excuse to at least make chunin.
"Oh, I don't know about that," Lee said, "I suspect with the war on it'll suddenly become much easier to make genin and chunin. The trouble is if you can then survive being a chunin in war time."
She waved a hand towards the Uchiha children, "Mark my word, in only a few years, half of those brats will be graduated the academy by the age of ten."
That wasn't a bet Haru was going to take, it was already happening. While he'd been slightly older than most graduating when he did, these days he'd have been the oldest by a mile and a half. Graduating at ten was now the average.
"Well, then at least I'll die a chunin," Haru said with a small smile. Tobirama would be so proud, or, at least he'd be mildly pleased with Haru's progress.
"Not if we're all killed today," Lee corrected, "Then you'll die a genin."
Haru was about to blithely note that if he was dying a genin then she was dying an absurdly overpowered chunin that would have been a jonin ages ago if she had any natural leadership ability but it seemed like something was finally happening.
Kushina tore a megaphone from Minato's hands and leapt up onto the steps of the hokage tower so that she was standing above even the tallest members of the audience, "Alright people, we're all hear today because Eru Lee's probation and eternal demotion is stupid. So, we're going to loudly let the administration, the academy, and the entire village know just how stupid it is and we're going to keep it up until they change their minds!"
The nidaime walked up to Kushina, whacked her across the back of her head, and stole the megaphone, "What Uzumaki Kushina means to say is that we are forming a shinobi worker's union, one that will see our needs met by the council and hokage, and represent the causes and rights of shinobi regardless of clan affiliation."
He then pointed up to the tower, "Our first course of action is not simply on behalf of the chunin Eru Lee, but on behalf of all clanless shinobi who find themselves persecuted as fall men in times of conflict. We are henceforth not only protesting until she is reinstated and permitted to take the jonin exams but on strike!"
Haru spared a glance towards Lee but it looked as if she was drowning in despair. Whatever this strike was, apparently it was the last thing Lee had wanted to hear.
Haru was about to ask what, exactly, a strike was but Tobirama clarified, "We stand here to show our public protestation of the council's decision and accept no missions until the council rescinds its decisions!"
Right, that would explain the look on Lee's face.
"What do we want?" Uzumaki shouted into the megaphone.
Her captive audience of protestors each screamed back a dozen different unintelligible responses as they lifted their many signs into the air.
"When do we want it?" Uzumaki shouted back.
This time, the answer was unanimous, "Now!"
This, of course, was after having been coached that they were supposed to do this ridiculous chanting back and forth in the first place. That had taken several minutes to work out. So, you couldn't really hold it against them that they seemed to have no idea how these chants were supposed to work.
They were trying, in fact, they were all trying. As in all of them were still here when they should have left hours ago.
Why were they all still here?
Lee had expected most to leave as soon as Tobirama decided to put the pedal to the metal and announced that a simple protest wasn't enough. True, while many had looked at each other as if asking whether they really wanted to stay, they'd each stayed. Every one of them had stayed.
She'd expected the Uchiha, Ino, Chika, and Sho at least to have some sense of self-preservation. But no, nope, they were still here and by some miracle they all hadn't somehow been arrested yet. Instead ANBU had taken to openly watching them from nearby rooftops, standing there alongside the Uchiha police force members who happened to be on duty.
They were clearly just waiting for the order to come down from the top to shut this whole thing down already. Lee was sure they would have shut it down ages ago if only the council could figure out what the hell it even was.
It was probably thanks to their presence that the earlier civilian heckling had come to a stop. No one wanted to be accidentally caught in the crossfire when it all went down. That, or the civilians had realized that heckling shinobi, even an unpopular one, was a very dangerous thing to do and after a few attempts they suddenly valued their lives.
One of the adorable Uchiha brats waived up at relatives in recognition, attempting to hold his sign and frantically move his arm at the same time with a beaming grin.
This was hell, Lee was officially in hell.
"You know, I missed out on Woodstock," a cultured English and very unwelcome voice sounded next to Lee's ear, "A little too American and muggle for me, but I always wondered what it was like."
Lee slowly turned her head to see Ren, Voldemort, the English nin in the flesh standing with his own painted sign and a smirk on his face. "Make Love, Not War" his sign read along with the character for peace painted in wobbly strokes beneath it.
Lee was sure that there wasn't one member of the strike or village who understood what the hell his sign even meant let alone what it was referencing.
Lee decided she had no time for English, or rather, wouldn't let ANBU use her slipping back into her native tongue as an excuse to start eating them alive, "How the hell did you get roped into this?"
"My keepers insisted," he said as he let his sign drop down to his side, "Every once in a while, they see fit to remind me that I am not a tolerated house guest but instead an unwilling prisoner. That, and if they manage to pull this off, perhaps I can protest my own sentence."
"Good luck with that one," Lee scoffed, but he wasn't cowed, if anything he looked a little smug.
"I don't see why not," he responded, "You must admit that I was sentenced without trial, jury, or even a just cause."
"You tried to murder me when I was an infant," Lee said, "Then lied about it and your status as a missing nin to T&I."
"And yet, here I honestly had no intentions of infiltrating this village or causing it any harm. More, even after all these years, I still don't. The only thing I want is a chance to head back to Britain."
"That would go over well," Lee could see it now, Wizarding Britain's mass panic at not only having You Know Who returned to them alive but also the fact that the shinobi were pawning them off onto them after having imprisoned him for infiltration rather than any of his many crimes against them.
"A man can dream," he said, as if his status didn't bother him in the least. Lee looked over at him, she couldn't tell exactly what he was thinking, but staring at him now she wondered if he didn't think that'd really happen.
With a war on nobody would have time to babysit him anymore. He'd either be thrown back into T&I for what little information they could possibly give him, killed and thrown in a pit, or he'd be shipped off to England where he could do what he like and never return to the elemental nations. Now that everyone had a better idea of just how far England was, and that without Lee around it really was a one-way ticket they might put him back.
Worse, they might use him as a spy of sorts, or at least an ally within England's borders. Someone they'd spent years learning how to deal with when the English government was proving very uncooperative.
The terrible thing was that Lee didn't think he was wrong to believe this. In many ways, it was the cleanest and easiest solution, just not for England.
"Why the long face?" he asked, "You should be flattered. It took me years of hard work and dedication to make a cult, and even then, no one ever volunteered to publicly defend me when I was slandered."
"This is not a cult," Lee spat back. If it was a cult, they'd have listened to what she said and not done all this in the first place.
God, maybe she could unwind today, try again to prevent it from happening. Except she'd already done that once which was why she was in this mess in the first place. For better or worse she was stuck here along with everyone else.
"Nonetheless, I am impressed," the man said, then, eyeing her speculatively he asked, "Have you thought about what I asked you the other day?"
"Are you serious?" Lee asked in turn, "No, of course not."
Because this protest, this strike, whatever the hell they were doing was one thing but actually deserting the village was something else entirely. And for what, for England, to make nice with the English nin?
And even if she were to hypothetically desert why the hell did he think she'd help him? Hypothetical Lee was just as likely to become Eleanor Lily Potter just like everyone else wanted and then where would he be? He should be glad that she had absolutely no intention of going back.
That meant that, whatever he decided to do to those people, Lee would be far too busy to stop him from doing it. Just as she had no intention of stopping his other copies, whatever the hell they were, from doing what they were doing.
All that hope for a girl who lived and look where it got them.
Uzumaki was gearing herself for another chant, apparently tired of "when do we want it" but in a desperate attempt to adlib had wandered back into her usual domain of "believe it".
Yes, Lee was having the time of her life.
And what if this didn't end today? What if this was just the first day of the rest of Lee's life? What if every day now started and ended outside this tower with these signs and this chanting waiting for somebody to cave first?
Or, at least, until somebody stopped being confused and started doing something. Which, Lee noted with dull horror, appeared to be now as the ANBU agents on the roof started shifting into a fighting stance. Preparing to somehow subdue Lee, a jinchuuriki, a renowned ANBU captain, two former hokages, two-thirds of the sannin, and a whole lot of Uchiha.
And the jinchuuriki, renowned ANBU captain, former hokages, two-thirds of the sannin, whole lot of Uchiha, and then some not being idiots were preparing themselves right back and looking as if they finally knew exactly what they were doing.
Oh dear god, Lee had to do something now.
She turned to her companion and hissed, "Distract them!"
"What?" he asked but Lee had no time for that.
"Go stand up there and distract them!" Lee conjured a guitar out of thin air along with a flower crown, "You wanted to be at Woodstock? Congratulations, now's your chance to be at Woodstock. I suggest 'Turn, Turn, Turn' or 'The Age of Aquarius'."
"I don't know how to play guitar!" he said and promptly shoved it back into her hands.
"Figure it out!" Lee said, shoving it back, but he just pushed it back in her hands.
And oh, dear god, they were out of time already. By the look of everyone, she had maybe a second to do this. Cursing all the gods that ever lived, Lee teleported herself to the steps of the hokage tower, her new stage. Casting the genjutsu to create a spotlight and garner attention was easy, shockingly easy as all eyes turned towards her and her guitar. Figuring out how she was going to keep that attention was harder.
Lee grinned out at them, as if it was perfectly natural for her to be standing here wearing a flower crown, "I just want to dedicate this song to Namikaze Minato, without whom, none of us would be here today."
She gave Minato a pointed look which he flatly returned, apparently more than willing to get into a tussle with ANBU over this. Lee cleared her throat, summoned the required music, and strummed her fingers on the air above the strings as if she had any idea what she was doing.
Translating poorly as she went along, Lee belted out, "To everything (turn, turn turn), there is a season (turn, turn turn), and a time for every purpose under heaven"
And it said so much about something that this was working. Not only were the protesters staring at her in slack jawed amazement but so were ANBU, the Uchiha police force, and the English nin. Strike that last bit, the English nin looked as if he wanted to fall to the ground in hysterical laughter.
He wanted Woodstock, Lee would show him goddamn Woodstock.
Ignore them, Lily told herself, just fake strum your guitar, follow along to the music, and pretend that none of them exist, "A time to be born, a time to die. A time to plant, a time to reap. A time to kill, a time to heal. A time to laugh, a time to weep"
Even Minato looked as if he had no idea what he was even staring at.
"To everything (turn, turn, turn) there is a season (turn, turn turn) and a time for every purpose under heaven"
Lee kept playing. She played through the whole damn song, all of the verses, and when she finished she could still hear the last chords ringing out. For a moment, they all just stood there in the silence, apparently not sure what to do with themselves.
At least, until ANBU turned to look back at their quarry again.
Lee quickly cried out, "And now, an encore!"
"When the moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars. Then peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars. This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius—"
Yes, Lee had the feeling that this might just end up being the longest day of her life.
Minato was sure that some ungodly amount of genjutsu must have been involved but he was also sure that it was less than it should have been and that, as soon as Lee bolted to the front lines, ANBU had been told to hold back and figure out just what the hell she was up to.
Eight hours later after what was apparently an entire decade's worth of foreign music and neither Minato nor anyone else could answer that question. Except that it had been very distracting, which he was sure was what Lee had intended.
It was just such a… Lee tactic. He didn't even know why he was surprised, in fact, he didn't know why he hadn't expected something like this to start with. She'd spent so long moodily hanging in the back, doing everything to disrupt him, but when push came to shove there she was.
Making it all look so effortless.
And by the time she finished up her last chorus prompting the audience to 'not fear the reaper' all the energy had drained out of both the protesters (who'd received no sign of reaction from the hokage tower aside from ANBU's presence) and their ANBU watchers.
With a single word of dismissal from their unofficial leader Senju Tobirama they all drifted away, back to their own homes and lives for the moment, while Minato just wandered up to Lee who was now downing a glass of conjured water and sitting despondent on the steps.
"You know," Minato said, "We're planning on coming back tomorrow."
"Like hell you are," Lee said, giving him her best attempt at a death glare.
He couldn't help but smile as he sat down next to her, "Tomorrow, the day after that, and the day after that. As long as it takes Lee, I'll be here."
Lee looked at him in dull horror, "I don't think I know that many songs."
"You don't have to protect us," he said slowly, "We know what we're getting into. It's worth the risk."
Lee didn't believe him, he could tell by the look on her face, but she didn't have to. They both knew he'd do it anyway. Just as Lee had felt the need to damn herself and rewrite a village for Hatake Sakumo, he couldn't do any less than risk jail for her.
"Even Jiraiya showed up," he mused, and that had been a welcome surprise. It hadn't taken away all of the sting of betrayal, not entirely, but at least the man showed up eventually. Minato's faith in him, in everyone, wasn't entirely unwarranted.
Sometimes they just needed a little reminding of the important things in life.
"And what if they say no," Lee said, "What if you don't get what you want."
"Then we keep at it until they say yes," Minato responded, as if it was somehow that simple.
"If you had any less power than you do, Lee," Minato reminded her, "Then you would have done the same exact thing."
She knew she would have, he could see it written all over her face, she just didn't want to admit it. For the mortals who couldn't bend time and memory, they did what they could. And if that meant Minato's name was on a short list, well, he supposed that was fine with him.
"Why do you think they didn't arrest us?" Lee asked suddenly, "I mean, sure, the first song was distracting but I gave them hours."
Minato just looked at her, "I assumed you put them under a genjutsu."
Lee just shook her head slowly, "Nothing they couldn't break out of themselves."
"Then perhaps they wanted to see what you'd do," Minato said slowly, "After all, it was in your honor and before then you were simply watching. Perhaps someone wanted to see exactly what you thought of all this."
He held his hand out to her and helped her to her feet, "Come on, let's go home."
She just sighed, gave him a look, and then noted, "Tomorrow, you get to sing."
Lee imagined that Danzo had been waiting for her for some time now.
Perhaps it'd only been for the past day, maybe for the past few, maybe the past month, or maybe he really had been waiting since she was twelve years old and had just proven exactly how much untapped power she had.
Danzo had probably thought it was always coming to this.
Lee just hadn't realized it was coming to this until this afternoon when neither the police nor ANBU arrested them. Waiting to see just what Lee would do to stall her movement on its own. There was only one person Lee knew who both had that much pull and would take that action.
When Minato said what he said, it all came together. That person she'd been looking for yesterday, the one who could and would make this go away, it wasn't the hokage. It wasn't a member of the village council or even the clan council.
Instead it was the man who Lee had been studiously avoiding since before she made chunin.
Which was why she imagined finding his doorstep and then being ushered inside in the middle of the night was surprisingly simple.
It was an old, traditional, living room not unlike the Hatake compound's. It lacked some of the innate wealth of an established clan, but the furniture was far finer than anything she or Minato could have afforded. Unspoken status, power, radiated from every inch in the room and when Danzo himself made an appearance he looked as if he was right where he belonged.
"Eru Lee," he greeted with a smile as he sat down across from her, "What a pleasant surprise."
Lee didn't smile back. Instead she leaned forward in her seat with eyes burning and said, "Let's not waste time on pleasantries. You know exactly why I'm here."
His expression didn't change, instead, with a growing smile he asked, "Why don't you tell me why you're here?"
"You've always wanted something from me," Lee said, "Me being under your thumb in ANBU I imagine. First, I turned you down, then Hatake Sakumo thwarted you when I was thirteen and he's been a thorn in your side ever since. Congratulations, there is now something I desperately want from you."
Lee didn't wait for him to prompt her this time, there was no point haggling, either he met her demands or he didn't. The trouble was, Lee was certain that he would more than meet her demands for what he would get in return.
"Reinstate me tomorrow and field promote me to jonin before the protesters can regather," Lee said, "Let them think it was a success, let them peacefully disband, let them even go to England for a few months if they want to, and remove their names from any internal lists and allow their careers to naturally progress. Namikaze Minato, Uzumaki Kushina, Uchiha Mikoto, and anyone else there are allowed to take their exams and become jonin. Hatake Kakashi is allowed to graduate and take his chunin exams. They're all permitted to have genin students when qualified to have them. And, if the time comes and he's qualified, then Namikaze Minato is allowed to become hokage."
His face gave no indication of his thoughts and neither did his chakra for that matter. He looked at her with those cold, dark, eyes and Lee felt as if she'd been pinned to a butterfly tray.
"And what if they cause trouble beyond this?"
"Then that's on them," Lee said, "But they won't. You and I both know why most of them are here. If the Uchiha clan has demands beyond this morning, well, that's on their own time."
Minato though, he'd get what he wanted, and as soon as he did, he'd be a regular law-abiding shinobi once again.
Then, giving him a pointed look, she said, "We don't have time for a riot or imprisoning the most promising chunin and upcoming jonin in the village. We are at war."
"You imagine it's that easy to reinstate you, to simply give into your friends' demands without the village looking weak," Danzo asked, eyebrow raised at her gall, as if he were anyone less than who he was, "The village demands its dues for what you did."
"For you, yes, I imagine it's that easy," Lee said, "The question is what you want in return."
He waited for a moment, letting Lee think on exactly what he might want, and for a moment she wondered if he wanted her to say it for him.
Her conversations with this man were always so surreal. She'd only ever had the one before, on her hospital bed, but it had always stuck with her like a half-remembered dream. His chakra crawled in a room, clung to her skin like cobwebs.
Finally, he said, "As soon as you return from your home country you are to enter directly into ANBU and your apprenticeship with Hatake completed per your promotion to jonin. You will answer to me before all others, including Hatake."
Her apprenticeship completed. Yes, she'd known that, that was what automatically happened when you became a jonin. All apprenticeships and formal tutelage ended and you were officially qualified to take your own formal students. That would have happened whether Danzo demanded it or not.
ANBU likely would have happened as well.
However, had it been under her own terms, she likely would have transferred directly into Hatake Sakumo's team.
Still, she was getting off much easier than she ever could have expected. Really, she should have come to Danzo the day before when she'd wasted so much time talking to everyone else. And yet, somehow, it still felt like a decision she never wanted to make.
Sakumo had worked so hard to prevent this from ever happening.
Minato, if he knew, would be devastated.
But there were lines in the village you didn't cross, and in the end, she couldn't justify what would happen to them just so that the village might rescind the decisions it made.
Lee held a hand out to Danzo, "You have yourself a deal."
Author's Note: Because Danzo always gets what he wants, eventually. Next up, the aftermath of what looks like a shockingly successful protest, updated plans on dealing with England, and the ultimate decision of what to do with the English nin.
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Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Naruto
