Chapter 10: Snape's Energising Brew
Walking out in his sleep-lounge robes to pick up the morning newspaper, he had opened the front door only to be greeted with the sight of a group of shinobi waiting patiently outside his front gate.
And it looked like they had been standing there for quite some time.
"Good morning Snape-san, we're here to deliver the logs as requested," calls out one of the many ninjas in greeting.
It's barely eight and Severus curses the fact that shinobi have a tendency to be early risers.
He squints and tries to figure out if he recognizes any of the dark-haired and slouching shinobi in the group only to realise that he does, and many of them have even been frequenting his tea shop of late.
He sighs internally. Thanks to some pesky deers, he now has more stalkers dogging his footsteps.
As if the Uchiha clan wasn't enough.
"Kuro-sensei! Who's that at the door?" Naruto questions him loudly from the kitchen and soon comes barreling down the hallway with footsteps so loud Severus could have heard him coming from a mile away. The blond child promptly launches himself to throw his arms around his sensei and peeks curiously out the door from behind the wizard.
"Brat, it's too early for this, let go," the dour-looking man admonishes and tries to pry the blond leech from his legs but the child only latches on tighter. Naruto glances mischievously up at him and sticks out his tongue.
With a sigh, Severus decides to ignore the brat and calls out to the waiting Nara shinobi outside with a languid wave of his hand, "The gate's unlocked, come in."
The Nara call out token greetings of 'good morning' and 'sorry for disturbing' before hauling in piles and piles of dark red Dawn Wood.
Severus watches them carry around the thick wooden logs as though they were carrying styrofoam instead of solid wood and once again admires the shinobi of this world for their physical strength. He could probably do the same if he had ingested a strength-increasing potion before attempting to lift the logs but he doubts he could lift even one on his own without a bit of magical help.
He was as weak as a baby bunny in comparison to this world's shinobi in that aspect.
What is it that Washi keeps telling him?
Oh yes, he had better leave the fighting to those with chakra and keep his bonny backside away from shinobi battles.
'You can just throw me at them and curse them from afar while I'm punching them to smithereens,' Washi had joked.
Severus, having witnessed Washi's feats of easily splitting the ground into multiple chunks, had decidedly agreed that he wasn't ever going to get into a fight with these shinobi muscle-heads if he could help it.
"Hey sensei! Are these the logs for the vanquishing cabinet you're going to build?" Naruto calls out to him and Severus breaks away from his thoughts.
"It's 'vanishing' cabinet, " he reminds the blond and immediately thinks that it'd be a pity to use all of this high-quality Dawn Wood just for a prank cabinet.
A thought strikes him and he decides that he'd be experimenting with runes again tonight.
If he could achieve what he was thinking of doing, then it'd save him the hassle of constantly drawing out runes for traveling, especially between pocket dimensions and long distances. Apparating to another country takes a lot of magical energy, after all.
"We'll just leave these here if that's alright with you, Snape-san," one of the Nara tells him as they plop down all the logs in a triangular pile next to his garden wall.
"Thank you," he says to them and offers to brew them some tea for their efforts.
The moment the words, '...some tea', leaves his lips he sees a couple of other Nara shinobi shushin right into his front yard. Among them is the Nara clan head, Shikaku, who scratches the back of his neck lazily and thanks him for his generous offer with a smile.
Severus is speechless for a while before deciding that it was too much to argue with the clan of sneaky ninjas this early in the morning.
"Naruto, could you lead them to the patio out in the back garden?" he instructs the blond child, already feeling like he wants the day to end.
"Sure sensei!" the brat calls out and rushes off to play co-host with the Naras.
"This way!" he hears the blond calling out loudly, "I think sensei has the best garden in all of the village! Even the peacocks from Suzuno-san's garden next door like to come over, not that we like them but still…." he hears the kid chattering on and on to the Naras who suddenly look like they might be thinking twice about staying for tea.
Snape smirks.
That was what they got for disturbing him at this god-forsaken hour.
'I think I might just increase the brat's wages,' he decides.
He closes the front door, walks back down the hallway to the kitchen to brew more tea for some pesky stalkers.
As Severus walks out back to his garden patio, he hears the brat's loud voice chattering away about his schoolwork and how some of the teachers at the academy are marking him down, "I'm sure of it!"
He observes how the Nara shinobi have very bored-looking expressions on their faces as they lounge around the patio, some sitting on the chairs and some slouching against the wooden pillars.
Shikaku, whom Naruto is mainly loudly talking to, had a very distinct pinched expression on his face that Severus knows indicates a migraine of epic proportions. He's seen a similar expression on Sarutobi's face when he walks into his tea shop after a long day of looking through paperwork and dealing with troublemaking shinobi, the usual Hokage duties in short.
Severus almost grins at the sight.
He approaches the patio and notices that none of the Naras turn to look at him. 'Shinobi hearing, they probably heard me walking towards them the moment I left from the backdoor,' he decides.
When he sets down the tray laden with a glass teapot and some teacups onto the patio table, Shikaku glances up to him with a very put-upon expression that says something along the lines of , 'I am seconds away from either strangling the kid or myself.'
Severus, deciding to have mercy on a tortured soul, places his hand gently on Naruto's head and ruffles his messy hair. "Don't you have to get to the academy soon ? Why don't you start getting ready?" he says to the brat.
Naruto's eyes widen in realisation and he almost shrieks, "I have to get there early today or Mizuki-sensei will punish me for being late again!" and promptly dashes off towards the direction of the house.
Severus just shakes his head in amusement and seats himself next to the Nara clan head.
He lifts the glass teapot and reaches out to pour the steaming tea into the small teacups. But before he even tips the teapot, a hand reaches out to stop him from proceeding.
He throws a questioning glance at Shikaku.
"Perhaps we should adjourn to somewhere with a little more privacy?" the dark-haired shinobi suggests, eyeing the open garden around them where any number of eyes could be watching.
Severus smirks and tells him, "I've covered the entirety of my property with magic that forbids any sort of spying or uninvited entry. If anyone is trying to look in on us from any buildings or trees outside the demarcated area, all they will notice is an empty garden. So it wouldn't be wrong to say that you are currently in one of the most secure places in the whole of Konoha."
'Or even perhaps the whole of the Shinobi continent,' he thinks to himself, recalling all the painstaking effort he had put in to ensure that his house was akin to a bonafide magical fortress.
"Oh?" Shikaku asks with raised eyebrows. "But we managed to walk into your house earlier with no obstructions."
"You were invited in when I gave permission to the rest of your clan to haul in the logs," he explains. "Would you like to confirm it for yourself?"
Shikaku nods and gestures at two of the Nara shinobi to his right who immediately sprint outside the garden fence. The moment they step foot outside, the two seem to look confused as they try to look towards the gathering of people in the patio but only see an empty garden instead.
After a moment, Shikaku calls out for them to come back in but the two act as if they do not hear him and merely linger outside the property, trying to get back in but unable to even lift a foot forward past the fence.
"They have to be invited in," Severus mentions smoothly and with a flick of his wrist, the two suddenly seem to be able to jump over the waist high fence again and rejoin the group in the patio.
"Fascinating," Shikaku remarks. 'This wizard has more power than I expected. I'm sure that he has even more powerful magic up his sleeve,' the Jounin commander mulls over.
"Tea?" the wizard asks, pushing a filled teacup closer.
"Thank you," he politely replies. He lifts his teacup to his nose and takes a sniff. The minty scent he inhales suddenly fills his nostrils and flows down into his lungs. For a moment, he feels rather rejuvenated and energised.
He turns to look at the wizard with a question on his lips when the other man replies, "My version of an energising tea brew."
"I've noticed that the Nara in general have a tendency to look rather exhausted most of the time, I thought this might help," the wizard says with a shrug.
Shikaku inhales more of the minty tea-scent and then takes a small sip from the teacup. Almost immediately he feels not only energised but also at ease, as if he had just taken a long undisturbed nap and is now feeling the glorious effects of it.
'Now I think I know why Hokage-sama's office is often littered with take-away cups of migraine-relief brew from Snape's teashop,' Shikaku remarks to himself and then continues sipping the very effective tea brew.
Snape offers the rest of the teacups to the other Nara scattered around the large patio and pours himself a cup as well.
"The Nara often suffer from symptoms of mild fatigue," Shikaku comments almost nonchalantly, "A tradeoff for the ways in which our clan functions due to our increased intellect and the copious use of yin chakra for our shadow techniques. It is a weakness we hide by portraying it simply as laziness to outsiders of the clan."
"Should you be telling me this?" the wizard asks, eyebrow raised.
"Isn't this why you've served us this tea brew?" the Nara clan leader questions calmly.
"You're mistaken," Severus denies, "I usually brew this tea in the mornings for when the brat is staying over on a weekday and is usually only half-awake when I prod him to get up. It helps wake him up and keeps him energised for the rest of the school day."
Shikaku ponders over that statement for a while before he chortles.
"Well, then I guess you now know more about the Naras than you did before. Don't you feel much closer to our clan already?" Shikaku grins.
"Not particularly," Severus huffs out.
The Nara around him smile in amusement and then go back to enjoying their tea brew. Severus even spots a few younger Naras downing their teacups in one big gulp and helping themselves to more of the brew from the glass teapot on the table.
"So, may I ask why you've decided to stop by for tea at my house today instead of the tea shop?" Severus inquires once everyone has gotten their fill of tea.
"The Nara have come to formally offer you an alliance with the clan," Shikaku replies with a smile.
The wizard pinches the edge of his nose in annoyance and contemplates moving back to Lone Moon Forest with the rest of the ravens. At least there, there would be no more pesky humans to vex him.
"And what would this alliance entail?" Severus asks.
"The Nara would pledge to offer assistance when you need it and you would do the same for us," Shikaku informs him. "I assume the Uchihas have similarly pledged the same?"
Severus raises an eyebrow and asks the crafty Jounin commander, "And how would you know about what the Uchiha have pledged?"
Shikaku smiles and tells him, "They've been your security detail for the past few weeks, it's obvious enough to anyone who has eyes and a brain to make this conjecture."
"If I'm not mistaken, the sudden increase in Uchihas who have been almost, shall I say, 'magically' healed from their sharingan-caused blindness are all thanks to you," the shinobi says. "It would make sense that they would want to put priority in your safety if you're the sole reason for this sudden cure."
"They've also begun making small movements among the rest of the shinobi forces," one of the older Naras sitting across the table interjects.
"As for their purpose, we had once believed that they might be plotting a rebellion but as of late they seem to be trying to 'root' out certain forces," Shikaku smoothly continues.
Severus eyes the relaxed-looking Nara around him and wonders how much they actually know.
"It would be evident to conclude that their recent actions have something to do with you, Snape-san, as the timing coincides with the emergence of the increased security around you," the jounin commander points out.
"And you're asking me to tell you what I know now?" Severus questions.
"That would be helpful but no, not so much," Shikaku says. "We're here to, as we talked about earlier, ask for an alliance."
"When we enter into an alliance with you, we assume then that that would put us firmly on the same side as the Uchiha clan as we would be working towards both your goals, whatever they may be. Coordinating with the Uchiha would be the next logical step and surely you would then need to inform us of your plans for that to happen," he goes on to say.
"You assume that whatever the Uchiha are planning would align with your own goals? How sure are you that both the Uchiha clan and I are not thinking of rebelling against the village?" the wizard asks.
"By pledging to an alliance you would be agreeing to do something you aren't even quite sure of," Severus smiles sharply at the Nara head.
Shikaku nods pleasantly.
"We trust our allies, Snape-san. And the Nara deer-summons have been our allies for centuries," he reveals. "If they have urged us to ally with you, something they have not done to any individual or clan in all the centuries before, we know then that this must be an imperative request."
Severus heaves a sigh.
"If I agree to this alliance will you at least go bug the Uchiha instead of me?" he asks exasperatedly. "If anything, I'm at most a consultant in this scenario."
Shikaku smiles and tells him almost non-committedly, "Of course. We will only look for Snape-san if we need to."
Severus studies the smiling face of the Nara and thinks the Nara will probably find all kinds of excuses to bug him anyway, knowing these sneaky ninjas.
"Fine," he grouches out. He probably wouldn't be getting rid of them anyway without agreeing to an alliance, based on what they've surmised so far.
He holds out his hand reluctantly and Shikaku grasps it.
"I, Severus Snape, agree to the alliance with the Nara clan and we shall both assist each other whenever there is need of it and bring no harm to the other," he says a simple oath and the magic around him flows between himself and the Nara around him, sealing the pledge between the two parties.
"If the pledge is broken between either party, the other will be notified via magic," Severus informs the Nara around him. "Be prepared to get a migraine if that is the case."
"Oh? Do we not pledge on all our lives?" one of the elders asks.
"No, there are too many of you in the clan. A mistake of one should not be the mistake of the rest. I've sat down with the Uchiha clan elders to talk about the oaths and this is the exact one which I've bound both your clans with," he answers. "In any case, if any of us should be betrayed, magic will inform us of the incident and of whom who has carried out the betrayal."
"How would that happen? Do we get a note?" a younger Nara pipes up. The Nara closest to him whacks him on the head and tells him to 'shush'.
Severus laughs at that. "Like I said, be prepared for a migraine," he tells them and leaves it at that.
He had been researching frantically about the dark marks and magical pacts back when the Dark Lord had first fallen with the purpose of getting rid of the mark that bound him to the Death Eaters. Although his research did not lead him to the answers he wanted, he did however discover many methods of magical binding and had thoroughly employed them when he made magical pledges with the shinobi clans.
He's about to tell them to go away and pester the Uchiha instead of him when he hears a familiar voice call out, "Ohayo gozaimasu, shisho."
Severus startles and turns his head to spot his dark-haired student standing a few paces away from the garden patio.
The Nara had probably heard him coming because none of them were startled at the young man's greeting.
Severus notices the young Uchiha eyeing the many Nara around him with an admittedly blank expression. "Shisho, were you expecting guests?" the dark-haired boy asks steadily.
The Nara around him suddenly tense at his tone and start eyeing him in return.
'Ahh, the scent of killing intent early in the morning,' Kurma comments from his coat pocket. The fox had a rather perplexing habit of snugly sitting inside his coat pockets these days. He would have thought that with years of imprisonment the kyuubi would have taken the opportunity to explore around Konoha but it had instead chosen to follow him around.
Severus clears his throat deliberately and tells him, " Yes, the Nara were kind enough to bring over the Dawn Wood earlier this morning."
"Did they need so many Nara to be here to carry in the logs?" the Uchiha evenly questions.
The Nara shinobi continue to eye the Uchiha tensely.
"Ah Itachi-kun, I see you got back early from your mission?" Shikaku speaks up.
Itachi simply nods.
"Great! Just in time too! I was just going to see your father," Shikaku expresses calmly with a smile.
Itachi looks towards Severus and the wizard nods at him.
"Father should be at the compound at this time," Itachi tells him and finally relaxes his stance.
The Nara, seeing him do so, answered in kind by relaxing their own stances.
Shikaku then stands up to indicate that it was time to go. The rest of the clan shinobi are also soon saying their farewells and 'thank you's' for the tea.
When the last of the Nara shushin away, Severus finally sighs in relief and beckons Itachi closer. He throws a light medical-spell the young shinobi's way to check for injuries but luckily detects none.
"Shisho, you have made an alliance with the Nara?" Itachi questions him as he sits himself next to the wizard.
Severus nods at that and grouches out, "Like they gave me a choice."
"It was either agreeing to an alliance or facing more pestering from them," he laments with a wave of his hand.
"You are too kind-hearted, Shisho. They will surely require more help than you yourself need," the Uchiha replies. 'Like the Uchiha,' he thinks to himself.
"One of the deer summons came to see me last night and wouldn't stop licking my head till I agreed to consider the alliance," he gripes.
Itachi smiles at him and pours more tea into the wizard's teacup. He thinks that it's probably time to quit the ANBU and spend more time in the village to guard his shisho.
The wizard could be too trusting at times.
'There are already too many eyes watching and waiting to swoop in for the kill,' he grimly ponders.
Sitting at his desk in ROOT headquarters, Shimura Danzo looks through the relatively short file on the owner of Snape's Tea and Brew.
"05," he calls out.
A shinobi in an ANBU mask of a chameleon soon pops into the room in a puff of smoke.
"Increase monitoring of this Snape Severus," he instructs.
The ANBU answers with an 'affirmative' and quickly disappears the same way she got into the room.
Close by, an inconspicuous crow sits on a branch hidden in the trees and watches the shinobi going in and out the tunnels built under a large Konoha tree.
That night, after sending the brat off home and convincing Itachi to go home to get some rest after his mission instead of 'guarding' him, Severus decides it's time he puts the Red Dawn wood to use.
He coaxes the many red logs up into the room he calls' The Experimental Magic Room' and starts using magic to cut and hammer the logs into an adult-height shiny new cupboard.
He then proceeds to spend the wee hours in the night drawing rune after rune before he finally stumbles onto the correct one.
Kazu and Kurama watch him sleepily from a corner or the room before giving up and deciding to catch some shut eye.
When he finally exclaims, "Ahah!", the bird and the fox startle awake for a bit before wondering what had made the wizard grin so maniacally when they turn to look at him.
"You're looking at Snape's new and improved teleportation cupboard," he tells them in pure triumph, gesturing towards the red-wood cupboard.
The two look at him quizzically before he decides to just show them what his latest magical invention does.
"So, you just hold on to the knob, mention where you want to go and then push open the door when the runes light up," he tells them.
He then grabs onto the knob, says "Poison Valley Villa, Tea Country" and swiftly pushes open the door.
In an instant, the door swings open and they are treated to the sight of a thin green-haired man who is lounging in a cosy-looking kitchen in his polka-dotted pajamas whilst holding a steaming pot of tea.
The young man startles at the sound of a door squeaking open and turns around to suddenly witness the sight of the kitchen cupboard standing wide open to reveal a familiar dark-haired wizard.
The two stare at each other in surprise for a while before the younger man asks in a deadpan manner, "Would you like some tea?"
*Snape's Energising Brew*
Sun-dried white mint leaves (30g)
Roasted oolong tea (20g)
Orange dessert grass (5 g)