Illimitable - The Child of the Sannin

by TwoChimpsWithoutOne

From man he was made, possessing nearly all bloodlines in the known world, and a soul stolen from the world beyond. Raised by the greatest trio to have ever lived, this child of uncharted power will change the world, for better and for worse, unraveling secrets kept buried for thousands of years, and rewriting the history of events past and to come. Sapere aude; Dare to know.

102. Endwar - Prelude

Chapter 101

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Thirty six hours ago, when Minato Namikaze woke up, the most interesting thing he thought he'd see would be his best friend's wife's student's next fantastically ridiculous challenge to his own student. Waking up with the redheaded love of his life, he actually remembered thinking that the day probably wouldn't be too exciting, that maybe he could talk to Hibiki about running off to the abandoned parts of the world so the two of them could have their fight - after the few months he'd spent precariously balancing one of the Hibiki-style shadow clones, alongside his own Alpha at Mount Myobokuzan, he thought he was ready, or at least close enough to ready that he could throw down, figure out how Hibiki would react to some of his newer tricks, and then be ready to win the one after that.

At the very least, he was ready to see the look on Hibiki's face once he finally started pulling from his bag of tricks. It was just about the time that considering how to most surreptitiously word, 'hey, let's teleport to the parts of the world where there are no people and fight all out!' that he saw the giant metal speartip in the sky.

The speed at which the entire world turned upside down after that was enough to give even the Yellow Flash whiplash. One second the village is under attack, the next the Hokage is admitting he'd had an idea that this was coming, and that Amegakure was forcing the entire world to end its war on their terms, or they would end said war, then he was being told he would be one of three chosen champions to represent Konoha, and then in rapid succession he was sent home to think about it, and - oh! Nope! There actually won't be time to think, we need a decision right now because the giant 'airships' would mysteriously run out of fuel right around the time that everyone in Konoha would regain their balance and be able to think things through, logically.

Then he was flying, something he'd only ever seen birds, Hibiki, and Hibiki's birds, ever do.

He got a few hours to catch his breath after that, fortunately, but then, of course, as though Kami himself just wanted to stoke the fire, Katsuo the Monster was suddenly alive again! And the one person he would have expected to immediately start the fight, had the exact opposite reaction, and now Minato and Noboru were standing in the rain - fortunately being protected at least somewhat by local rain gear - in the cold, early morning, being held under guard - several of which had Hibiki's guns, which they'd thought didn't exist anymore outside of their hands! - just inside the village, barely past the giant moat that separated the place from the rest of the continent.

Hibiki had once told him that now that Katsuo was gone, he expected things to calm down.

If this was his definition of calm, Minato genuinely worried about what his definition of crazy would be.

If it weren't for two decades of Shinobi life backing him up, as well as the general insanity of his and Hibiki's lives thus far helping to desensitize him somewhat, Minato actually wondered how different his reactions would be.

It felt like no time at all passed between he and Noboru's backs being put to the moat, with guards eyeing them down maliciously, and Hibiki returning with one of Ame's Shadow Guard tailing him. Once they confirmed that the wildcard, and the potential threat, had passed, the assembled shinobi and Civilian Guard dispersed, and once they were as alone as they ever would be, the Yellow Flash rounded on his oldest friend.

"Hibiki, what the hell was that?!" Blurted out of his mouth before he could even try to stop it.

"That looked remarkably like Katsuo, but I saw you put a hole in his head." Said Noboru, agreeing with the sentiment, but filtering it through his Hyuga countenance, "Anbu was even dispatched to burn the body, Dante-sensei confirmed that to me." Said the deep-voiced Hyuga, whose words cut through the light, early-morning rain like a whip-crack.

Hibiki groaned, actually looking sheepish, his ever-present nervous tic, running his hand through his hair, making its appearance right up until the edge of his hand hit the edge of his poncho, and he realized he'd just soak himself if he kept going. "There's some S-ranked secrets tied up in him." Said Hibiki, giving Minato a brief glance as he said, causing the Namikaze to blink, it dawning on him what he meant. "Some even you don't know..." He said, the words directed right at him and confirming his assumptions. "The easiest way to explain it would just be to say that he's Katsuo's older brother." He said, giving them each a look from underneath the drawn hood of his poncho, "I ran into him after Iwa. It wasn't a pretty encounter, but I figured out pretty fast that he and his brother were polar opposites. Katsuo wanted to spark a war so he could find and control the Tailed Beasts... Tarzan just wants to see the world." He explained, "there are a lot of folks out there that don't like Katsuo, and might take it out on Tarzan, so I never told anyone."

His two allies regarded him a few moments, Noboru studying him and digesting his words, as stoic as he usually was, Minato realizing from that brief shared moment that this had as much to do with Hibiki's old life, as it did the shadowy specter of how he'd returned to this world, and accepted it well enough. He was more focused on the fact that Katsuo had a brother! Was that just Hibiki over simplifying it, or was he doing his usual thing where he lied by telling the truth?

Wow... Minato scoffed, Oh man... If that guy has a baby, if he starts a... Monster... Bloodline... Oh man, that's scary. He said, the thought making him frown toothily.

Once Noboru made his peace with Hibiki's explanation, and, Minato suspected, the knowledge that not only would he not get much else out of Hibiki due to the nature of the secrets, but also that there might not be much left to give, he accepted it as well, and, with that behind them, the trio officially entered Ame, Hibiki at the head of their group.

There was a weird look to the village, all of the buildings were fitted with pipes and gutters that funneled the constant rainfall into the lake that surrounded it. That alone wasn't what set Minato on edge, but rather the way some buildings looked compared to others. Some were great, skeletal, looming metal and brick towers, while others were small and concrete, built low to the ground and with sloping roofs. The towers looked old, like they'd been there for decades, whereas the concrete huts looked newer - they still had the bright, pale shade that freshly laid concrete carried with it. Looked at a certain way, it almost looked like the scars Minato had seen on some of the Undead, and some Shinobi in Konoha - deep, sometimes pale grooves on otherwise flat skin.

What he noticed even above that, however, was, "that's kind of a... Weird... Building placement." Minato opined, pointing at some of the towers, "you'll have whole clusters of towers, and then with no rhyme or reason, the smaller rock huts." But he already had a suspicion, he wanted to hear the others talk before he said something. Had something happened here? Recently? Or, rather, recently enough that Ame had been able to mostly fix it?

Noboru, however, said, "Ame, and Rain country as a whole, was used often as a battlefield during the previous two wars. Truly, if Iwa were still here, it likely would have been again."

Minato guessed he could accept that, but there was still the nagging doubt that this just looked a little too recent. It looked to him like something had happened within the last ten years, give or take - such a thing could explain why Ame had gone even more silent than usual some time ago, and also why the notoriously isolationist country would seek help: They would want resources and trade coming through to assist in the rebuilding.

But how do we go from that, to wanting to step up to the Great Four - eh... He shook his head, Three... And stopping the war? He asked himself, frowning underneath the hood of his poncho. "Hibiki?" He prodded.

Hibiki shrugged, "I'm with Noboru, on this one. Place has seen a lot of action over the last few generations... It's not too far fetched to think that eventually they just quit building those towers." He opined.

Minato decided to let it drop, there wasn't much point to speculating too much. Instead he asked, "so, who do we think 'Teague-sama' is?" As they reached the building that had been marked for foreign shinobi inhabitance, one of the towers that, now that they were up close, Minato saw that despite being an apartment building, the entire inside was completely sealed off. There were no balconies or open-air walkways, everything was sealed away from the rain, everything was inside, under cover, and as dry as possible - contrast Kushina's old apartment and Hibiki's current one, where a lot of the stairwells and walkways were exposed to the open air. A determined shinobi could jump from the top floor to the bottom, from their front door. Different cultures, different areas, he supposed. "I thought Hanzo was the village head, here?"

"He was." Said Noboru, a brief pulse of his Byakugan preceding his telling Hibiki what floor their apartment was.

"Maybe there was trouble in paradise?" Hibiki suggested, "when was the last time we heard of anything coming out of here?" They found their apartment and, after pushing the key inside, they entered to find a spartan apartment, immediately being visible being a simple common area with two chairs, a table, and a couch, a kitchen and equipment, three plain doors likely leading to small bedrooms, and a bathroom around the corner. "My mother and her squad fought Hanzo decades ago. That's a long time." He pointed out, the three of them entering the apartment and shedding their provided rain gear.

Minato felt more sure of his 'scars' theory now.

"Perhaps Hanzo leads the village, but Teague is in charge of foreign relations?" Noboru proposed, "I doubt someone powerful enough to kill the man who fought off all three Sannin, and named them no less, could be taken down by a lone individual. Someone that strong couldn't pass by unnoticed for so long."

"Katsuo did." Minato pointed out, "Tarzan is." Someone ostensibly on, or near, Katsuo's strength, and this had been the first time Minato had ever even heard about him. He wondered if Dante knew?

"Fair enough." Noboru said, as he lowered himself into a chair, he not needing to physically search the apartment like Hibiki and Minato began doing.

"So how are we going to kill time until tomorrow?" Minato asked, as he turned the corner and opened up the bathroom, finding it clear and just as minimalist as what he'd seen so far.

"Sleep?" He heard Hibiki call out, as he left the bathroom, saw Hibiki inspecting one room, and went to inspect the second of the three. It was tiny, just a small cube with a bed and a nightstand, and when he checked the third room, he found that it was the same - the whole apartment was of a uniform, minimalist design. Thinking on it further, Minato realized that considering how isolationist Ame was up until now, they wouldn't have ever created designated foreign-shinobi-housing, like other villages would for Chunin exams, so that meant this had to be a recent build!

"We're all but in enemy territory, Katsuo the Monster's good-twin brother just finished making them all very mad at us, and your reaction is to just sleep the night away?" Minato sniped, exiting the room and inspecting the kitchen, but finding it barren save for dishes and cutlery.

"Dude... Consider the events of the last thirty-odd hours." Hibiki responded, his voice becoming clearer as he exited his room, and came to a halt halfway between Minato and Noboru, "yesterday it was business as usual, the only strange thing being the fact that all four of us were in the village at the same time. Then, fast enough to give a civilian whiplash, a giant airship just waltzes in and comes to a stop over Konoha, shrugs off a couple ninjutsu, and Dante admits that the absurdity of the intel that he'd gotten that this might happen had made him drop the fucking ball. And now we're here to fight a tournament to decide what is functionally the fate of the world. This whole thing has gone so far past ridiculous it just bypassed absurdity and landed in being surreal, so at this point I'm in it for the ride."

Noboru piped in with, "sometimes that is all we can do. Just let ourselves get swept up in the current." He said, with Minato noticing his Byakugan was active.

With the whole apartment cleared and confirmed to be empty, Minato stood up straighter and nodded to Noboru, "what're you doing?"

"My due diligence." He said, "just because I share Hibiki's opinion does not mean I am not curious as to our current situation... I have not encountered an Amegakure shinobi since my first Chunin exams, and they are notoriously isolationist to begin with... So being given an intimate look into the village's appearance and overall state is a unique opportunity." He grinned slyly, "and with my bloodline, I am able to observe some of it without drawing suspicion."

"Shit, don't say that too loud. Their totally-not-Anbu may get worried." Hibiki chuckled, finding his own chair in the living room and falling into it with a grunt.

"See anything interesting?" Minato asked, finding his own seat.

"Nothing noteworthy in the village." Said Noboru, "stone buildings built low to the ground, pipes running the water to the moat surrounding the village, people in heavy rain gear... But in our building I see many foreign shinobi..." He tilted his head, frowning. "Interesting... There are some wearing Iwa headbands, and more wearing Yuga headbands."

Hibiki and Minato did a double take, with the former going, "say that again?"

"I see three Iwa shinobi... One very large man, in heavy plate armor... One woman in a simple flak jacket... And one we may recognize." He turned to Hibiki, "Don Shiro, he yet lives."

Hibiki stared at him blankly, while Minato switched his gaze between the two. "Okay?" Hibiki said, after Noboru didn't continue. "Who's that?"

Noboru closed his eyes, sighing. "Don't make me say it, Hibiki. You've fought him three times."

Hibiki tilted his head, "I've fought a lot of people a lot of times. The only names I remember... That are alive, at least, off the top of my head are Ay and Bee. Are they here?"

Noboru nodded, "you called him Sparky-"

"Oh!" Hibiki leaned back, "Sparky-Sparky-Boom Lad!" He said, a wide grin on his face, "he's here? I thought he would've been put up as breeding stock in Kumo."

Noboru blinked, "why Kumo specifically?"

"Couple times I've met Killer Bee, he's let slip that most of Iwa's survivors were granted asylum there. Sparky-Sparky-Boom Lad's bloodline probably played a role in that. In exchange for him breeding the Explosion Release into Kumo's populace, and Iwa's shinobi adding to their numbers, they take in their survivors."

Minato added, "that... Oh man, do you think that's a play on Kumo's part?" Everyone turned to him, "if they have Iwa's survivors, they could get them to put on their old hitai-ate and enter the tournament as Iwa shinobi... The same thing with the ones wearing Yuga headbands... They're getting around the three man rule by sending in their shinobi flying the flags of destroyed villages."

"Is that allowed?" Hibiki asked.

Minato shrugged, "we don't really know how 'Teague-sama' thinks... He may allow it just because of the guts it takes to try, he may allow it because it entertains him, he may not even know about Iwa and not think twice." He said, "what about the Yuga-nin?"

"Three more... One giant, burly man, as big as Chouza Akimichi, but appearing to be more muscle than fat, a skinnier one, about your build -" He nodded to Hibiki, "and a third one... A squat individual, wearing naught but a kimono and a straw hat, covering most of his flesh... I believe his kimono is covered in fuinjutsu, because all I see beneath it is darkness."

Minato and Hibiki regarded Noboru with shocked expressions, as he described them, and after the silence was allowed to fester for a few seconds, Hibiki broke it with, "that fucking village has issues." He shuddered.

"Who'd Kumo bring?"

"Ay, Bee, and... Someone I don't recognize." Noboru admitted, "a blonde woman... I don't think I've ever seen her before on the battlefield."

Hibiki grunted, "surprised Kumo sent Ay and Bee. Include Sparky-Sparky -"

"Don Shiro, Hibiki." Noboru urged, politely.

"- Boom Lad, I wonder if they hedged their bets on this, or if Ay, Bee, and Shiro are the only real heavy hitters? 'cause if they brought nine of their strongest -" With one of them being an S-ranked shinobi and the other being an actual Jinchuriki "- how many folks did they leave behind to man the walls? They can't have trusted Ame that much."

Minato shrugged, "they knew how to nullify the Hiraishin I put on your back, and have something that blocks the Byakugan... Maybe they have an exit strategy?" He suggested. "Maybe the kimono guy is that strategy, if they blocked the Byakugan?"

"Ay is bullet-proof, as I recall, and you have described Bee as having become the same." Noboru added, "and with Shiro's bloodline and the time he's had to mature it, it is likely they would use him to cover their escape in the event that Ame becomes hostile... And if Ame isn't, then nine of their strongest are here to provide them the best chance at winning Teague-sama's tournament."

"Fantastic." Hibiki grunted, running his hand through his hair. "Give 'em credit, at least. If they get away with it, it's a clever idea."

Minato agreed, "so... Are we really just going to stay here tonight?" He asked, " 'cause I'd take the time to make seals if we are." He watched Hibiki and Noboru exchange a glance, and silently converse, before Noboru shrugged, and Hibiki turned back to him with a nod. "Alright... I'll -

There was a knock on the door, freezing the three of them.

Out of reflex, Minato touched the nearest wall and planted a Hiraishin, as his and Hibiki's heads snapped to the door, the latter with an exasperated sigh, the former with instinctual readiness, while Noboru's dojutsu flared back to life. "Two people... Men. Shinobi builds, red hair..." He frowned, "and... The symbol of the whirlpool on their backs." He tilted his head, his eyes fading back to normalcy.

This made Hibiki and Minato exchange glances, and after a shrug, Hibiki volunteered himself to open the door, and Minato moved his hand closer to his weapons pouch, ready to fight.

What he witnessed next passed by in the blink of an eye - Hibiki opened the door, the apartment was filled with a wail, "ohKamiitreallyisyou!" Then the door slammed shut.

A bemused Minato blinked, seeing Hibiki pressed up against against the door, holding it shut with his back, the same crazed expression on his face when he dealt with their mutual red-headed friend back home.

"It's fucking genetic!" Hibiki whisper-yelled to his blonde friend.

"Hibiki!" Said a scandalized Noboru, who was the only one in the room who was of the opinion that Hibiki shouldn't have shut the door at the sight of them, as Minato, was growing a similarly crazed, bordering-on-frightened, look as Hibiki.

"Was that Kushina?" He asked, dumbly. The speed of speech, the volume of the voice, if it hadn't been certifiably male, he would have said it had all sounded almost exactly like her.

Then the shoe dropped, the details Noboru had provided got added onto what he'd just heard and what Hibiki had just said, and Minato blinked.

"Holy crap!" Minato gasped, digging his hands into his spiky hair, "was that - that was really - Hibiki open the door!" He spat out, leaping to his feet and pointing at said entryway.

Hibiki did so, and the confused expressions of the two beyond it melted to ones of unbridled delight in time with the light from inside the room washed over the two redheads' faces. They looked at Hibiki specifically, mouths hanging open in wide, toothy smiles, while Hibiki looked wide-eyed and in shock at them. Minato exchanged a glance with Noboru, who was getting to his feet as the pieces began falling together, his expression his own unique, Hyuga brand of shock: A frown and pursed lips masking widened eyes and the slightest inclination of his head.

Instead of circling the door, however, Noboru approached Minato, and with his back to the door and their visitors, briefly arrested Minato's advance with a hand on his flak jacket. His voice barely above a whisper, he said, "I recognize what this may be... But temper your expectations. We are, after all, surrounded by enemies."

Minato blinked, and did just that - his glee slowly being eroded under the realization that Noboru had one hell of a point. In almost fifteen years since the destruction of Uzushiogakure, not a single Uzumaki had ever resurfaced, and now two just show up, out of the blue, barely an hour after Hibiki Senju enters a village that had just gotten away with threatening the world?

Minato wanted to believe it, but it felt too good to be true.

His expression melted to a mixture of his earlier surprise, and his newfound caution, as he nodded, and Noboru turned, the two waiting a small distance behind Hibiki, as the two redheads beyond the door tried greeting again.

"It really is you!" Said the man Hibiki had interrupted earlier who - now that he knew what to expect - took his chance and lunged at the Senju, arms held open wide. To Hibiki's credit, he appeared to have a mind on a somewhat similar path of thought as his teammate, as he took a large step back, raising his left hand and rearing his left - and both Minato and Noboru, who had fought with the Senju for most of their lives, recognized the inward curve to Hibiki's right hand, how his fingers just barely brushed his wrist - he was a literal flick away from drawing his thunder technique.

"Uh, me it is." He said, casting a brief glance over his shoulder as he cleared his throat, his blood red eyes making contact with both of his allies, who each nodded back to him before he turned back forward. "You'll... Forgive me, but I've had an interesting few days, and if this is what I think it is it's... Frankly, a fucking miracle." He bowed his head slightly in an apology, "and the two Uzumaki I've met in my entire life are certainly not you... So how do you know who I am?"

The blinked blinked his big, blue eyes, confusion - and a small amount of hurt - flashing through them, before comprehension dawned, he gasped, and brought both of his hands in front of his face, eyes going wide as he realized how this must look. "OhkamiI'msosorry!" He screeched.

Then his companion got into it, one giant hand covering his thick, bushy red beard as he picked up, speaking just as fast and just as loud as his friend, "wejustgotsoexcitedafterwesawyouintheofficethismorningyousee-"

"Wejustreallywantedtocomeseeyoutoseeifitreallywasyouyouknow-"

"Wehaventseenanyfamilyinsolongyouknow-"

"WHOA!" Hibiki shouted, his reared right hand now pressing against his ear, as he finally interrupted the two as they started talking rapid-fire, right over each other, and only growing louder the longer they spoke.

Kami, it is genetic! Minato dug a finger into one of his ringing ears. If they're fakes, they're doing a real good job! Minato was a man who, like Hibiki, regularly fought and trained with firearms, and yet the only thing that had ever managed to make his ears ring that bad was his own Uzumaki.

"Okay!" Hibiki grunted, "one at a time!" His shoulders slumped, the tension melting out of his muscles, "and why don't we do our best Mito Uzumaki impressions, yeah?" He asked, hoping that invoking the name of the one and only Uzumaki he'd ever known that had appeared to not only mastered her verbal tic, but also the art of quieting down, would inspire these two to do the same.

It had the opposite effect, as they both descended into shouting at the same time, with Minato barely able to make out anything beyond a general idea of the two being stupefied at the idea that Hibiki personally knew the 'Honorable, Legendary Lady Mito' and flooding him with questions of how she was like, how she was doing, if she was alive, could they see her.

Even Noboru didn't say anything when Hibiki slammed the door shut again.

There were a few moments of silence, where nobody moved, not even Hibiki, before he slowly twisted the door knob and pulled the door back open. The two Uzumaki had at least backed up a step, and though they clearly looked like they could keep going, their words appeared caught in their throats.

"Okay..." Hibiki said, his voice low. "Let's try that again. Let's stay quiet, talk slooooooow..." He drawled, raising an open hand and slowly lowering it, "I want to pick your brains as much as you do, mine, but you two keep trying to out-shout each other, I'll close the door again... Deal?"

They exchanged glances, then turned back to him, nodding.

"Okay..." Hibiki stepped back, "come in, that way we're not all crowding the hallway."

They entered the room, the speaker with his hands clasped in front of his sternum, his rotund friend with his own hands wrapped underneath his protruding gut. At first glance, Minato didn't agree with Noboru's assessment of 'Shinobi builds,' but when he looked just a little closer, he realized that the Hyuga had been rather insightful in his diagnosis. The one who had done most of the speaking, who Hibiki had slammed the door on, despite being thin as a rail, had a deceptively dense build hidden under big, baggy clothes, the man's blood red hair was short and close-cropped, his forearms had a plethora of scars that reminded Minato of the ones he himself had acquired over a long and sordid career experimenting with fuinjutsu, his hands were made rough from a lifetime of using them in intensive work, and he had a step so soft that Minato had to strain to hear him walking and he was right in front of him. His eyes were soft, but they held an edge underneath them, and he caught the man survey the entire apartment with one sweep, quickly examining both him and Noboru before, so fast that he almost missed it, he masked any of his more lethal, defensive thoughts, with an easy smile so wide, friendly, and warm, that Minato was, appropriately, of his wife.

His friend was no different, also hiding a shinobi's build underneath a deceptive appearance - despite a rotund look that may, to a casual observer, suggest an above-average fondness for food and drink, the man was built like a brick house, with huge, thick, hairy arms, heavy legs and a generally stocky build. His bald head was what clued Minato in to look at him a second time - with a plethora of scars crisscrossing all over his scalp, down the back of his head and to his neck. His big eyes had a steel to them, and they framed a thick, bushy red beard and an easy smile that reminded Minato of kind old grandfathers just happy to be alive. Whereas his companion had surveyed the entire room, this man's steely blue eyes had zeroed in right on Noboru and Minato, but where his companion had had the briefest flash of obviously deciding how much of a threat they were, this man exuded an entirely different kind of air - one that left Minato feeling not unlike he did when out in public with his sensei: Of an overbearing, genuine kindness, that mixed perfectly with a plethora of unspoken threats, and complete confidence in his ability to absolutely wreck anything and everyone in the room with him if he had to. The kind of warmth created by someone who knew power, but also trauma, and hid it all underneath a genuine desire to hide that reality from anyone who hadn't.

They really are! Minato breathed, letting a smile crease his face once the two Uzumaki had entered the room. "Uh, hi!" He greeted, wondering if Kushina had known these two. "I'm Minato Namikaze." He approached them and offered his hand to the woman.

"Noboru." Said the Hyuga, who did the same, offering his hand to the man. "Noboru Hyuga."

The woman accepted his hand and shook it with the same kind of excessive energy that he'd grown used to in his wife, "I'm Had." He said, with a smile so real that it practically wrinkled his entire, thin face, "Had Uzumaki."

"My name is Po." Said the man, in a voice so deep that Minato wondered if his throat wasn't all adam's apple. "and ah, clearly I'm a Senju!" He said, before putting his hands on his back, leaning back and letting out a quick, deep, belly laugh.

"It seems you already know who I am." Hibiki greeted, as he too shook the hands of the two Uzumaki, before pointing them to their kitchen table.

"I apologize for the state of our assigned quarters." Noboru, ever the noble, began, "we quite literally only just arrived... We've had little time to clean." He said, as they all sat down.

"Nonsense!" Said Po, "the place looks better than our home, you know!" Another deep, rumbling laugh.

Minato wasn't sure if that was a jab at Uzushio, or their actual living arrangements.

"So -" Hibiki cleared his throat, as he fell into his own cheap folding chair. "How did you two recognize me?" He asked, leaning forward and resting his arms on the table. "Like I said, I've barely even met a handful of your people."

"Then clearly they haven't taught you well, you know?" Had's smile lent well to the easy laugh that followed his words, "what was their name?"

Minato didn't see the brief twitch to Noboru's brow, as he'd turned to Hibiki, willing to take his cue from him on this one, and the Senju Head appeared to still be a bit more on the defensive side, as he said, "let's get back to that... I'd rather some of our questions get answered first."

Despite his earlier words, or perhaps to appear the 'good shinobi' to Hibiki's 'bad shinobi,' Noboru gave a light admonishment by saying, "please forgive my teammate, many of the things he has seen has lent to a lack of deftness when interacting with those outside of our village. We would be willing to answer your questions, but please do at least acknowledge the peculiar convenience of your appearing so soon after we arrived at your village, that itself happening as unexpected and quickly as it had."

"I'm sorry, you know?" Had tilted his head, a nervous smile on his small face, "I - there isn't an Uzumaki alive who would forget a face, Hibiki." He said to answer him. "We were sent a picture of you when you were this big!" He pinched two thin fingers together.

Hibiki arced an eyebrow, "and you recognized me?" He asked, "my picture was sent to Uzu... What, when I was six?" He asked, "I found one of the family scrolls, its picture of me was when I was six." He stressed, before indicating his face, "that was fourteen years ago."

"I knew you guys valued family a lot, but wow." Minato leaned back in his chair, a lot of Kushina's habits making more and more sense the more he spoke to these two. "I found my Genin ID a few weeks ago and I do not look the same."

"We never forget a face, Minato." Po reiterated, his voice like that of an ever-patient teacher, "back when Whirlpool was still around, it wasn't uncommon for folks who hadn't seen each other for decades to recognize each other on the spot." He leaned back, eyes glazing over as he recounted a story, "why, I remember hearing once about these two who had only seen each other once when they were six. Didn't meet up again until they were in their eighties, knew each other immediately!"

Had blinked once, let an amused frown paint his face as his head tilted to the side, "wasn't that your grandpa?"

"Still heard the story!" Po shot back, his teeth showing from behind his upwardly curved beard.

"So, are you two related?" Minato asked, pointing back and forth. "You act like you've known each other a long time."

"Oh, long time, long time." Had nodded, a sigh passing out from his nostalgic smile. "We didn't share our parents though, if that's what you're asking."

"He had the unfortunate honor of marrying my sister." Said Po, his own smile not budging an inch from underneath his beard.

Minato noticed Hibiki leaning back, a curious frown stretching his lips as he cupped his chin, "and what was her name?"

"Hana." Had grunted, his smile turning, for the briefest of moments, mournful, his eyes momentarily losing their shine as he slipped into old pains and older memories, before he blinked, and it was all gone, the energy returned, the happiness back. "You know who I am." He said, closing his eyes and nodding.

Minato blinked, both he and Noboru turning to Hibiki.

"That explains why you two came here so fast." Hibiki said, a knowing smile appearing while he nodded, as though he'd just solved a puzzle.

Po slid his chair forward, leaning onto the table, meaty hands clasped together, "we were the ones who inspected your Fuinjutsu in the office, Hibiki. Even if they hadn't given us your name, even if we hadn't recognized your face, we would've seen our people's influence in your work." He said, "when we realized it was you, when we saw that, we knew that you had to have learned it from one of us. We wanted to meet you for ourselves - we'd always wanted to, even before Uzu fell - but now... Well..." He nodded to the side.

"Hibiki?" Noboru voiced, his eyes wide underneath a furrowed brow, a mixture of suspicion and confusion inside the pale orbs.

Minato, however, was putting the pieces together, and he was leaning back in his chair, hand coming up to cover his slackened jaw, eyes as wide as dinner plates.

"Is she okay?" Had asked, eyes locked right onto Hibiki's own, as the latter's Sharingan faded away. "Is she safe?"

Hibiki nodded, "loud as sin, but okay." He assured them - and Minato got to watch as they both completely deflated, each with loud breaths of air, as though years of tension just vanished in a heartbeat - Po even appeared to age a few years in the span of a few moments! "Pretty pissed that she won't be hitting Jonin, but..." He nodded to the side. "You know." And both of the Uzumaki nodded. "She's doing great, otherwise. Got herself a tight circle of friends, I'm basically her brother - oh, and she married this idiot." Hibiki tilted his head in Minato's direction.

Minato suddenly had the undivided attention of two sealsmasters, who had the strangest mixtures of unbridled glee and protectiveness on their faces as they examined him.

"Hibiki, who are these two?"

Hibiki indicated Had, "this is Kushina's father." He said, and then Po, "her uncle."

"Oh." The suspicion largely vanished from Noboru's eyes, but a flicker still remained - likely never to go, for as much as they were doing to prove themselves, Minato knew enough about the Hyuga clan to know that Noboru was probably a firm subscriber to their ancient maxim: If two out of three people suspect nothing, the third must suspect everything. He was merely being prepared, just in case these two weren't being genuine.

"You're... She got married?" Had asked, the strength washing away from his voice, as Po patted him on the back, a big smile curling his beard.

"To the Yellow Flash, no less!" Po declared, pride radiating out of his deep voice.

"You treating her right, son?" Had asked, voice wavering, as he rubbed one of his eyes with his palm.

Minato gulped, and nodded. "Yeah." He said, "I was a, uh, little slow on the uptake, but... Yeah."

"If I may ask..." Noboru began, "I apologize for the nature of this question, but... Uzushiogakure and Konohagakure were perhaps the closest of allies in all of the Elemental Nations, and Kushina-san wouldn't have been sent to Konoha without her direct family knowing." He nodded to Had, "when the village fell... Why did you not come to us? We would have offered you haven."

What Minato noticed was that Po gave Had a look at this, one that said to Minato that Po agreed with Noboru's sentiments, and left him with the feeling that the Hyuga had just stumbled into a long-running argument with the two.

"The reason she was sent there... The reason Uzu was destroyed..." Had shook his head. "A great deal of our people were hunted down after that, to the point that the once massive group of survivors had to split into -" He indicated himself and Po, "small packs, fewer greater than two or three. If we'd gone to Konoha... I couldn't bring that attention to her." He shook his head again, this time more emphatically, one of his fists clenched.

Oh! Minato kept his expression under control. Noboru didn't know Kushina was a Jinchuriki, and from the look Po had given Had, he hadn't either. Had had been avoiding Kushina all this time because of the immense danger she would have been put in if he'd gone back. Since people had, back then, apparently been going so far as to hunt down Uzumaki survivors, the more Uzumaki that were in Konoha, the higher chance it would have been that anyone out for Uzumaki blood would kill Kushina - which itself would release her bijuu, and kill ever more. The only way to keep her safe was to force her to remain the only Uzumaki in the entire village - and thus making it that killing her would cost them more than it would benefit them. Had had allowed his daughter to think him dead, and kept the reason why a secret even from his brother in law, to protect her!

Wow. Minato looked at Had with new eyes, unable to stop the smile from creeping up one side of his face.

"That... Seems like a stretch. Just three Uzumaki?" Noboru questioned, only to be silenced by a hand from Hibiki.

"Trust me." He said, "they're legit, and their reason makes sense." He gave Noboru a single, solid nod, and after another moment of eye contact, Noboru relented, with an apologetic nod of his own.

"Is that... Still a problem?" Minato couldn't help but ask, as for as much as he understood the reasoning, the prospect of seeing her smile and reuniting her with her Dad and her Uncle was something Minato was willing to give a lot for. "I can't imagine how happy she'd be to see you two again!"

This made the smiles return to Had and Po, and the latter declared, "well that's why we're here, isn't it?!"

"Teague-sama found us, some... Six or seven years ago." Said Had, "said he had a plan. Said if it worked, it wouldn't just be safe for the Uzumaki survivors, scattered about, to reunite... But it may even be safe for us to see her again." He rubbed his hands together, "he just needed Fuinjutsu."

Minato cleared his throat, "who is he?" He asked, "they mentioned him when they picked us up, but didn't really say much."

Po and Had exchanged a look, and after the former nodded, they turned back to the three of them, "Teague-sama is something else." Po breathed, shaking his head. "Would've thought he was a Senju, if... Well." He shrugged, "he wasn't a Hast."

Noboru frowned, but let them keep speaking.

"Apparently, ten or so years ago, something happened here that wrecked the village." Had explained, "Hanzo went mad trying to keep it a secret, sent out all their shinobi and worked them to the bone to keep things looking business as usual... But that meant he wasn't doing much to fix things up here." He shrugged, "we can't really say much to it, we only came after Teague killed him."

Noboru blinked, "excuse me?"

"The Salamander's dead?" Hibiki repeated, "holy shit." He leaned back.

"Language, boy." Po reached over to flick Hibiki on the head.

Recoiling from the blow, Hibiki laughed, "I'm a grown ass man!"

"Yeah, and we've got a little girl right here!" Po pointed to Had, and then burst out laughing, loud enough to shake the walls.

Had jabbed at Po in the gut, cutting his laughter off short, even as he himself appeared to be holding it in. "Anyways... A year passes after Teague takes over, and then he runs all over the continent looking for Fuinjutsu masters. I thought he was going to kill us at first, but he just asks if he can buy some moisture seals. Water repellent stuff - he was fixing up Ame. After we built a rapport with him, he invited us to live here. Told us what he was up to. Showed us how he was changing things. He was standardizing education across the board - prospective shinobi, civilian, adult, young, everyone. He's been teaching people to think, enabling people to learn, to value knowledge and creativity - he was the one who came up with the idea to have our fuinjutsu power Yuki's airships! Even today he's showing us things we've never seen before. "

"Like thunder techniques, in the hands of civilians?" Noboru inquired.

Had blinked, "thunder techniques?" He tilted his head.

In response, Hibiki produced his pistol and placed it on the table, "thunder techniques." He said.

Minato eyed it for a moment, noting that it looked different from what he remembered. The metals were darker, the gun was sleeker, the grip wasn't plastic anymore, and it hummed with something - leaving Minato with that same feeling that always raised the hair on his neck, the feeling of chakra.

"You had that in your wrist?!" Po practically screeched, "by Kami, boy!"

Had, though surprised at where Hibiki had produced it from, didn't appear nearly as surprised to the fact that Hibiki had one, as evidenced by his shrug. "Teague-sama said they were elsewhere in the wild... That you specifically were known for using one - may I?"

Hibiki sucked in breath between his teeth, and then shook his head. "Ooh... No, no, I probably couldn't excuse that." He said, sealing the gun back up. "So - why do civilians have guns and not shinobi?"

"Protection." Had responded, "equalize the balance of power between Shinobi and Civilians, humble the former, let the latter feel like they might be able to protect themselves, and make Ame even more of a sleeping tiger than Uzu was."

Hibiki exchanged a glance with Noboru, "place is a death trap." He deadpanned, a shocked expression on his face.

"I'm not sure if it's better or worse than Earth Country." Minato said, an expression of confusion and shock on his face, as he comprehended the sheer danger that not only would he be in at any given moment on the streets of this village, but also that the village itself represented, that Dante was right and Ame had, unbeknownst to the entire world, turned itself into a superpower in the shadows, and that was before one added Iron and Yuki to the equation.

What he noticed, however, was that Hibiki and Noboru were exchanging more and more frequent looks the more they talked to these two, and after a moment, he recognized the look in their eyes - hidden as well as it was - and realized what they could be suspicious about: As genuine as their intentions may have been, and may still be, was their coming here duplicitous on Teague's part? This was sounding remarkably like borderline propaganda, was Teague trying to sell them on the idea of his version of Ame, through the ruse of two lost Uzumaki reuniting with a distant cousin? Furthermore, did he know in the first place that they were related to a full-blooded Uzumaki in their very village? Was Teague really the kind, honest man these two were portraying him as? Or was he hiding a terrible cunning underneath it?

Minato didn't necessarily want to believe it, but thinking on it, such a prospect made a little too much sense. Teague had to have been able to predict that Konoha would send Hibiki Senju as one of their fighters, and thanks to how much Uzumaki valued family, he had to know that they would have reacted wondrously to seeing him, and would have sought him out as soon as they could. From there, they would have espoused the village that had veritably saved them, and from there would have painted Ame in a much more positive light to one of Konoha's most influential shinobi. What little Minato knew of Teague painted two remarkably contrasting pictures - one was of the philanthrope, who had sought to fix his village and bring it out of the downward spiral of whatever had happened to it in the first place, and one was of the shrewd politician, able to create a military and economic alliance with the Elemental Nations' most disparate and isolationist countries. Could this be another step in his plan? Was he trying to pull Konohagakure into his alliance? To legitimize it even more than the Samurai already had, without revealing his stockpile of thunder techniques?

Noboru decided to act on this, clearing his throat and saying, "we've a long day tomorrow... Likely to be fraught with combat. I believe it best if we depart for the night."

Had and Po appeared despondent for a moment, but at least perked up when Hibiki said, "I'll do some looking into it when we get home. See if the Hokage will allow you to see her... If that's what you want."

"Absolutely!" Po interjected, as Had hesitated, the thinner man's blue eyes piercing Hibiki's onyx orbs, trying to silently ask him if he knew the broader possible effects of what he was asking them, even as his hesitance also hid within it a clear agreement with his brother-in-law's words.

"Such a thing would naturally rely on Teague-sama being as... Forthright as you claim him to be." Noboru added, coolly.

"And Kushina verifying you are who you say you are." Minato added, even as he regretted treating them with suspicion.

They accepted the terms given to them, and soon were escorted out by Hibiki who, after he closed and locked the door, turned back to them.

"So is Teague trying to get us to defect, grow soft on him, or make us scared of Ame?" Hibiki asked the room.

"I am glad you caught that too." Noboru said, staring off into space as he fell deep into thought. "A village of shinobi... Its civilians armed with your thunder techniques... Allied with the Samurai... With access to Snow's marvels... And two living Uzumaki, likely bringing with them not just their skills, but also passing them on." He grimaced, "this tournament may very well be an attempt to broadcast Ame's power just as it is to end the war."

"Uh... Play devil's advocate for a second... But it might be possible that he's genuine?" Minato posited, "if he was a Hast, that probably means he'd likely been hiding out somewhere up until now. His zeal may just be naivete in playing the world stage showing."

Hibiki, falling back into his seat at the table, conceded Minato's point, but added, "keep in mind this is the same guy who demonstrably managed to open dialogue and secure some kind of agreement not just with the Land of Snow, but the Land of Iron."

Minato nodded, "yeah, but he also could have entered the war if he wanted. With where Yuki and Tetsu are located, plus Ame, he might have been able to land a decapitating blow on most of the minor villages and pinned the great villages down. We know how good those thunder techniques are." He added as an aside.

Even Noboru conceded that, "I would disagree with the idea that he is as philanthropic as he is made out to be... But we live in the same world that birthed Hashirama Senju, and you." He nodded in Minato's direction.

Minato blinked, "wait - me?"

"You're ninja Superman, Minato." Hibiki chuckled, lining up with Noboru's train of thought. "You literally just proved you prefer to think the better of people. See the bright side." Noboru nodded as he spoke, slowly pulling himself out of his thoughts and turning to face his allies.

"Maybe you and Teague would do well to speak, sometime." Noboru grinned. "Trade notes."

Minato rolled his eyes, "you two done?"

"I mean, I could keep going." Hibiki chuckled.

"But -" Noboru cut in, "I wasn't lying when I said we should get our rest. We do not know what to expect, tomorrow."

---

Minato didn't get much sleep that night, but then again he suspected the same rang true for his two allies, and perhaps also all of the shinobi being housed in the apartment building. They had been all but dragged away from their homes under threat of violence, picked up by gigantic metal monsters that flew through the air like birds, and dropped off in what had once been the world's battlegrounds, and had after that and until now been a question mark on the map thanks to its extreme isolationism. No one felt safe enough to sleep - except, Minato noticed as he prepared a ration for breakfast, his friend and rival, Hibiki. Of the three of them in their assigned apartment, when Hibiki awoke, he was the only one to rub sleep out of his eyes, was the only one who appeared to have fallen completely and fully into the coma that every person experienced each night.

Minato looked at him agog, as the Senju Head dropped into his chair and accepted a ration from his Hyuga teammate, "Hibiki - how did you sleep?" He asked, an incredulous grin on his face.

Hibiki shrugged as he broke open the heating element inside, poured the water affixed to the bag, and started stirring. "Rain's some pretty good white noise, Minato." He grunted, yawning. "Did they say when we should head out?"

"Just 'in the morning'." Said Noboru, "I inspected the maps before we slept yesterday, and scouted the path to the coliseum they have chosen for us... It appears this will not be a public affair."

Minato, having finished his bag before Hibiki had even woken up, balled it up and prepared himself mentally for the less pleasant part of eating a field ration, "makes sense, I suppose..." He stuffed the edible bag into his mouth and swallowed it whole, grimacing as he felt it slide down his throat, and then shuddering once it finally passed and settled in to where it belonged. "Would have a lot of folks claiming spies would be watching them, otherwise." He understood 'leave no evidence,' and the fact that the bag itself could provide some calories, but that never made it any more pleasant to go down.

Hibiki grunted, "gonna have a lot of folks instead claiming it's a trap." Hibiki pointed out, "all of us together in one enclosed building?" He cracked apart his chop sticks and, once the rice inside was sufficiently cooked, started wolfing through it. "Some of them are probably getting ready for 'Teague-Sama' to gas us."

"I think I saw him, actually." Noboru added, "this morning, I checked the coliseum again. There were people there, readying it, and they were being directed by a man with a shinobi's build. Noteworthy due to the coat he wore... It had Ame's village symbol on its back."

Minato tilted his head to the side, eyes flicking to Hibiki's own coat, draped over the back of his chair, where did everyone get those? "What'd he look like?" He turned back to Noboru.

"Thin, but sturdy. Like he was built for long-distance running. Gray hair, steely blue eyes, dense muscles." Noboru responded, finishing his own bag, the two now waiting for Hibiki to finish his. "I would say he looked like a Hast, but I have never seen one myself, and Sensei's stories typically revolved around how they fought, not how they looked. What interested me more than him, however, was the fact that I saw only one of their Anbu 'Shadow Guard' near him. He appeared to be protected primarily by civilians wearing some kind of... Strange armor, with a yin-yang symbol upon it." He shrugged, "but I assume such a thing is due in part to how many of their shinobi they lost in the destructive event the Uzumaki told us of, and perhaps indeed a show of faith in his people just as his shinobi. In addition, I checked our apartment building again... The rest of us have arrived, and it appears the villages have done what he requested - they sent their best. Not a single one of the people here today are below an A-rank in the Bingo Book."

Minato ran his hands over his face, "oh... This is going to be a long day." He grunted.

"Surprised they did it." Hibiki opined, in between mouthfuls of rice, vegetables, and beef strips. "Actually sent their strongest... What did no one think it was a trap?" Hibiki asked, eyeing his two allies for their opinion.

"Consider that beyond Iwa and our own village, very few even know what thunder techniques are." Noboru pointed out. "Kumo may have an idea from their stock of Iwa survivors, and Kiri may remember your rampage through their village, but past them?" He shook his head, "they may not truly realize the threat posed, and are instead operating in fear of how this man corralled the Samurai in on his alliance."

"Or they think that if Ame betrays them, Ame will betray everyone, so it will be every village's A and S-ranked shinobi working together to escape." Minato posited, "Ay and Bee alone could do some damage... But with that, uh -" He rolled his hand, "Sparky-thing -" He noticed Noboru wince, and cover his face as he sighed, whilst Hibiki grinned smugly. "And then you two, and me... All of us together could do a lot to keep each other safe while we got out. Add in Kage or sub-Kage-level shinobi from every other village?" He shrugged, "maybe even some Jinchuriki? It might be that they think that if Teague does betray us, we'll make him pay for it before he can really do some damage." He noticed Hibiki look down into his bag in thought when he'd mentioned the Jinchuriki, but the Senju didn't say anything, instead finishing his food and then consuming the bag.

"Welp, on that note -" Hibiki grunted, "if anything happens -" He nodded to Noboru, "I've got a Hiraishin on your back -" He nodded to Minato, "you've one on my back. So I go to him, you go to me, we go home, no fuss no muss. Good?" They nodded, and soon after, were on their feet, in their combat attire, and with thick ponchos hanging from their shoulders.

Noboru guided them through the awakening village, and now within it, Minato got a closer look at its people and its architecture. What astounded him was how remarkably like home this felt - he saw people walking about with smiles on their faces, albeit hidden by ponchos or obscured by umbrellas, friendly chit-chats, eager purchases being bartered over, but the similarities ended when they made eye contact with the Konoha shinobi. What Minato found strange was the conflict he saw in some of these people - in their eyes he could see their tendency to fear foreigners fighting with something he couldn't quite identify, but almost looked like a young kid trying to work up the courage to ask their crush on a date. His thoughts and attention were stolen when he saw a Civilian walking around in a the armor that Noboru had mentioned, which consisted only of a few plates connected by thin wires on their limbs and chest, and a pistol on her hip.

These must be the 'civilian guard...' Minato examined the woman as they passed, she seemed friendly enough, not nearly as physically developed as a shinobi, but the piece on her hip did its job at bridging that gap, and the wiry armor must be some means of protecting them. What he noticed above all were the friendly waves and warm greetings she got from the very same Ame civilians who shied away from the Konoha shinobi, a far cry between the dichotomy of the Shinobi and Military Police back home - where the latter would be avoided out of caution, and the former approached and greeted with warmth.

Beyond Ame's surprisingly upbeat, but weirdly conflicted people, the buildings, up close, looked just as conflicted as Minato had thought they were from far away. The tall towers had the aged, rustic look of metal that had been exposed rain - with some plates on the buildings recently replaced, some older and orange - whereas the smaller, concrete buildings, were built with less imposing sensibilities. More than that, when Minato looked at them closely, he realized that the construction of the stone buildings was remarkably simple - almost all of them had uniform appearances, differing only slightly in dimension and design based on their function, but for the most part they looked like they had just been copied and pasted all over the village.

Compounded with what Had and Po had told them yesterday, Minato was beginning to get a sense of just how bad the event had been that had set up Hanzo's downfall and Teague's rise. It almost looked like a tailed beast had rampaged through here, but who could have? Hibiki had mentioned once that Katsuo had only ever caught two - the Ichibi and the Yonbi, and of the two they had never determined the fate of the former, so maybe? But the timelines didn't really match up to what Minato knew, so what had happened? Had one of the Undead attacked?

He shook his head, heart going out for the people of Ame, and finding a deep respect for how hearty they were, to weather being the world's battlegrounds for two wars, and then a disaster of that magnitude on top of that, and still able to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and soldier on.

They soon made it to a small coliseum near the center of the village, near the central tower. Minato could see other foreign shinobi already trickling inside, and as he and his friend and ally did the same, they were guided around the main arena and up to a series of segmented bleachers - one of which had Konoha's leaf painted above it. They sat down, and Minato took the opportunity to look at the shinobi the world had sent to respond to Teague's summons. He saw a lot of flags and a lot of shinobi, and interestingly, it seemed that only a scant few of the minor villages had refused him! All of the four Great villages had sent representatives, and the ones allied with each other - Konoha, Suna, and Kiri - were all next to each other, while Kumo and the allies it had inherited from Katsuo and the Undead made up the rest of the seating areas. Most of the shinobi present were ones that Minato couldn't recognize, with the only ones that he could being Kumo's Ay and Bee tagteam, the sight of them bringing back memories of when they'd abducted Hibiki.

Minato leaned over, "do you think that they're the reason Kumo even responded?" He asked, nodding to them.

Hibiki glanced their direction, after having gazed with a small frown at the Yuga shinobi, "probably." He shrugged, "Bee was going on about how there's some kind of big divide between the old and young, there... I've even heard rumors that Ay's gonna fight for the Raikage's hat. Might be that they used what weight they had to force Kumo to Teague's table."

Noboru tilted his head, turning to Hibiki, "where'd you hear that?"

"Bee."

Minato grinned, leaning back up and finding his eyes landing on the three seats at the front end of the arena - where was draped flags embroidered with Yuki, Tetsu, and Ame's regalia. Each of the seats were empty, but the section itself was not, as he could see two Samurai, two heavily dressed Yuki shinobi, and two poncho-clad Ame-nin, standing behind their respective village's chairs, but otherwise remaining silent.

The coliseum continued in a light din of hushed conversation and the sound of rain pattering on its roof, until the conversations died off when three individuals walked out into the center of the main arena, many dozen meters below them. One was clearly a samurai, given his martial bearing, the katana fastened to his hip, and the formal hakama he had draped over his shoulders. He was growing in age, appearing to be in his early fifties, and had clearly seen his fair share of battles, with his scalp wrapped in a set of expertly applied bandages that he appeared completely comfortable in wearing, and framing his face was a long, well-kept mustache and goatee. On the other side of the trio was a shorter man who appeared his exact opposite - lacking the martial bearing, the powerful build, and the iron eyes. This man wore the typical attire of a Daimyo, and had an easy smile underneath a pair of round glasses and dark eyes, with a thinning head of hair framing a square head and a wide chin. The man in the center of the group was what took Minato's focus, and likely became the focus of everyone in the coliseum, shorter and thinner than the two flanking him, hand passing through gray hair, with a coat bearing Ame's village symbol on his back. His expression was a mixture of his comrades, with a wide smile hiding above it a pair of steely blue eyes that scanned the entire coliseum in an instant, identifying and analyzing threats.

So this is Teague Hast... Minato frowned, noticing that of the three of them, Teague actually looked wet - like he'd been walking around in the rain without any kind of protection.

He clapped his hands, and whatever speaking still had been going on stopped on a dime, leaving only the sound of the rain hitting the coliseum.

"The word 'Sonder'..." He called out, his voice not quite what Minato had expected considering his supposed bloodline - his tone low and his cadence a slow drawl, as though he had all the time in the world. "Is the realization that everyone - absolutely everyone - one sees has a life just as long, complex, and vivid as their own. Every single person here today, just as every single person in the villages and lands they fight for, has lived a life just as deep and colorful as your own, and every single one of them has as much potential as the person next to them, without exception... But in warfare, we suppress this idea. In warfare, your enemy becomes a thing. An other. Something not Human, and less than yourself. They have no life, they have no family, they have no dreams or goals, all they have and all they are is the state of being between you and what it is you were ordered to do, and in this it becomes easier to end that life... And that is a crime." He urged.

"All of you here today are shinobi... Every one of you have been trained since childhood to become desensitized to the very idea of killing another human being. To care only for what is behind you, and never for what is before you. To be able to ignore your opponent's humanity and to even switch yours off at a moment's notice... But what so many of you - perhaps even all of you - fail to realize is that there is no such thing as a timeless enemy. There is no such thing, and there never has been, and this is because these enemies are people, just as deep and as flawed as you or I. All throughout history disparate men and women, enemy clans, and even enemy villages, would unite, be it voluntarily, in the face of greater foes, or because of a visionary seeking to change the status quo. Those who you call enemy today, may be your allies tomorrow, just as those who were your allies yesterday, could very well be your enemies today. War is impermanent. Enemies, are impermanent. Even the very villages and lands for which you fight, are themselves impermanent.

"View the world from that high - as I know you all did." He pointed to the the ceiling of their arena, being pounded by rain that was only barely audible over the volume his chakra-enhanced voice, and indicated the airships that had brought them all here. "And you wouldn't see a single border. A single nation. You would have seen only land, the land of our earth, the world upon which we all live. One day everyone will have that perspective... One day everyone will understand this. That we all live on this world, that the lines we've driven exist only on paper and in the minds of the people that drew them. That one day we can, as Hashirama Senju once did, and now I myself have dreamed, live, united in that knowledge. A world without villages or elemental nations, a world without division entrenched upon the minds of every child to grow up in it. That's the world Hashirama Senju wanted to see, and by Kami, that's the dream I want to see through to its end... But to do that, to make that first step, to unite us all as human beings, we must end the war you all are fighting today."

"Everyone in here, is at war with everyone else. I don't care why this war started, who started it, or what your definitions of victory are. I care about the people dying in it, the unbridled potential of every man and woman whose life is being lost, and the sorrow of their friends and families when they learn that their mother, father, son, daughter, husband, wife, or friend, isn't comin' back. The hatred that engenders and the cycles of anger, bigotry, division, death, and destruction it creates.

"If you're here today..." He continued, slowly revolving on his feet, managing to make eye contact with every shinobi that had been sent. "Your village decided you were their absolute best. Indeed, every face in here is a face we three have seen in the bingo book." He indicated his two allies, the Samurai nodding firmly as he too observed the people around them, his frown unreadable, his eyes burning faces into mind and cataloging the names he knew and the threats they represented, and the Daimyo nodding to the side, as though it may not be proper to admit, but he would anyways, as he - unlike the Samurai - looked at the shinobi assembled around him with a sense of awe and wonder. "No one here is under an A rank. Many of you have an S-rank... Some of you will likely go on to lead your villages when we're done here today, but for the moment, the most important fact is that you are your village's peak. Battles are won and lost based on your presence alone... And if we allow this war, between all of you -" He indicated Kumo and the minor villages, "and them -" He indicated the remaining three Great Villages, "- to continue, it will be you yourselves that will be the deciding factors in how, where, and when, it ends...

"My problem is that I know shinobi wars." He continued, "this one... Is in its infancy at its worst, and its childhood at its best. It will last a long time, and while those of you present may for the most part live to see its end... Those below you in rank, in skill, even - and perhaps most importantly - in age, will not." He stopped, "and that won't stand. We as a species have come far since the days of the Warring States... But we have not come far enough. We have grown, but not enough. This - this war? This is not us at our best, it is us at our worst." He said, face briefly contorting into a grimace, before he shook his head and wiped it away. "The entire Hidden Village system was created as a means of ending the legacy of endless conflict brought on by the Warring States, but all it did was make the wars worse." He indicated the section flying Iwa's flag, "and if we allow it to continue, that will be our fate."

The Samurai now spoke up, "of all of us here today, only two lands are known for holding even a semblance of peace." His voice was deeper, and more gravelly, and his tone more blunt. "Mine, and Snow's." He nodded to the Daimyo, who inclined his head, breaking eye contact, humbly. "And this is only because of a combination of strength and isolationism... A mistake." He declared, teeth gritted and hand white-knuckling his katana. "And one we intend to rectify, here, today. To spread our peace to the world beyond!"

The Snow Daimyo then continued, "Hashirama Senju said we had a duty to end wars, or else wars would end us. That the inheritance we would give to our children would be one of fear and hatred, instead of hope and love. We can learn to be better, we can learn to grow, but it must start somewhere, it must start somewhen." His voice was the most even-keel of the three, calm and cool but with power and confidence, a result of his job and title.

Teague picked up, indicating the Snow Daimyo, "this man's lands are proof that we can be better. That through knowledge, we can transcend all limits and reach the realm of dreams... This man's lands -" He indicated the Samurai, "are proof that peace can not only be achieved, but it can last. This is the legacy I wish to leave for our future generations... Not one of dying in fire, and fear, but of knowledge and cooperation. I went to them at first out of sheer pragmatism - Iron to protect us, Snow to fund us, but what I saw in their lands made me realize we can be better. The things witnessed there are unimaginable, and I wish I could impart those visions to you... But to do so, to inspire you as they have inspired me, your wars must end.

"When we finish today, I will call for a neutral grounds, either here, in Ame, in the center of all Elemental Nations, or there -" He indicated the Samurai, "in Iron, where has long been the source of neutrality, or in Snow, separated from all the world and distant from its problems and issues. There we will create a forum, a round table consisting of all nations and all villages to speak in peace, to avoid that which has plagued us since time immemorial..." He took in a deep breath, and then finished with, "as you are your village's strongest shinobi... As the war will end on your shoulders, at the ends of your blades, by the strength of your wills, you are who your villages have chosen to answer our summons. The war will end. How, is this tournament. Where, is here. When, is now."

The Samurai spoke up again, "this tournament is open. Peace comes through understanding, so you will watch these battles. You will intimately know your opponents and realize the havoc they can wreak in anger, so you can better understand why it must be avoided. There will be only two rules - we will go, without break, until the fighting is over, and the violence will be contained to you and your opponent. The watchers, your allies and even your enemies, are neutral... Whosoever breaks this rule will be disqualified, and at the end of today's proceedings, their village will be considered to not have come at all." He explained, "past that, anything goes. This is your chance to work out your anger, to settle your differences, and to end the violence."

"This does include killing." The Snow Daimyo picked up in a pleasant tone, framed behind a stiff expression that told Minato he was trying to hide his distaste for the idea, "but keep in mind that the war will be over today. Every life you take in what is a neutral battlefield, says as much as every life you spare, to your allies, to your enemies, and even to us, who are neutral. Today will not be forgotten, for better and for worse." He bowed, before about-facing and leaving the arena.

"Fight hard, do not break the rules, and understand why we are here today - to bring an end to things." The Samurai finished, before he too left the arena.

"Today, we are at war. Tomorrow, we will begin an era of hope and reason, bought by peace and understanding." Teague proclaimed, before he flashed a handsign.

There were more than a dozen pops and bangs, more than a dozen plumes of smoke, and in front of all of the assembled shinobi appeared large scrolls. Minato unrolled his and saw a blank tournament bracket, but what was more was that he sensed chakra in the ink - the scrolls containing fuinjutsu like only Ame's Uzumaki could write.

"The beginning battles..." Teague pulled out his own scroll, drew blood from a cut he sliced into his thumb, and then wiped it across the scroll. "Shall be chosen randomly." And before their eyes, names began expanding on the scrolls the assembled shinobi had been given, all of their names fitting into a single spot in the center of the scroll, before shooting out to each of the brackets, before the whole roster was filled out.

"How the hell did they do that?" Minato looked at it in astonishment.

Even Hibiki appeared surprised, "I knew they could do something similar thanks to that family scroll I looted, but this... This is magic!"

"Perhaps..." Noboru posited, using what little he knew from exposure to Hibiki. "Teague's scroll is a master, and what he does to it, happens to these?"

Hibiki shrugged, "maybe?"

"And the first battle!" Teague called out, amplified voice reverberating off of the walls of the coliseum, "shall be..." He pushed a small pulse of chakra into his scroll, and two names at the top left side of the tournament bracket expanded, zooming in until they took up the entire scroll.

"Oh shit." Hibiki leaned back.

"You reap what you sow, Hibiki." Said Noboru, even though a worried expression settled onto his face.

"Oh... Wow." Minato grunted, not necessarily aware of all of the history behind what was about to happen, but knowledgeable enough to know that it wasn't good, staring at the name Hibiki Senju (Konohagakure) on one bracket, and Don Shiro (Iwagakure) on the other.