.

The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism

of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by

material force; but theory also becomes a material force as

soon as it has gripped the masses.

Akari does write out her essay on labour laws. Another on unionization follows because she's never seen a group of people more deserving of a union than ninja, honestly, especially jinchuuriki. She even gets going on gender equality and passive sexism because as it turns out, traditional pseudo-Japanese values aren't ideal to making any gender happy, but it's such a big undertaking that she ends up tabling it for after the war is done, when she'll be able to give it the attention it deserves.

That leaves her with two polished essays that Ay looks at for all of about two seconds, sighs, and says, "You know this shit isn't going to fly, right?"

She shrugs and moves on. She lets the bourgeoisie think they have control over her.

The next time she's sent out of the village for a mission, she mails it off to the capital.

"Great. Thank you both for coming today."

B grins at her. "Thanks for inviting me. I don't know what this is, but I can't wait to see."

"Uh, yeah," Yugito says, frowning. "Thanks. I think."

"You're welcome!" Akari says.

Yugito glances around the empty library, her lightly painted lips pursed. "What… exactly are we doing here, anyways?"

"I have a proposition for the two of you."

"Great!" B says. "Can't wait."

Akari pats him on the hand. "Thanks, sweetie."

Yugito skews her gaze between the two of them.

"Now, I would like to introduce the two of you to the concept of unionization."

"Union… as in, like. A kind of uniting?" Yugito asks.

"Yes! Unionization describes the process of a group of people—generally workers, but jinchuuriki in this case—coming together to form a singular unit with similar goals. It allows you to throw around more weight when it comes to negotiating with employers, or for you guys, the villages."

"Negotiate?" Yugito asks, eyes wide. "That's… not how this works."

"Well, why not?"

"It's just not. Like, the entire concept of a Kage is somebody with complete and total control over the population of their village. We've got the councils, and stuff, but like, it's really only the Raikage that has say. And their will is absolute. They tell us to jump, we say how high—we don't argue that instead of jumping four feet we should only jump two."

Akari hums. "Are you happy with your situation, Yugito?"

Yugito knits her eyebrows together.

She's so young, really. Two years younger than Akari, but without the age of another life. Fifteen. A baby. A child. And people insist on treating her like she's some kind of monster.

B, at least, is both older and equipped with a skull thick enough to stop a freight train. She knows that while it's no walk in the park for him, the treatment from the villagers doesn't get to him as bad, especially not with Ay and the Third standing behind him like they do. Yugito is on her own.

When Yugito doesn't answer, Akari says, "Well? Are you?"

"I…" Yugito looks down at her lap. "I don't know."

Akari folds her hands. "Then let's find out, shall we?"

She pushes a pamphlet across the table to Yugito. She doesn't need to give B one—he already has a copy of it. He reads all of her pamphlets.

"Frankly, I think the ideal in this situation is for all of the currently living jinchuuriki to kill themselves and free their beasts—"

Yugito chokes.

"—but I guess we can do this, for now."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"This? For right now, you guys can—"

"Uh, no. Rewind to that 'jinchuuriki should kill themselves' bit."

"This whole thing is whack," B says to her. "The tailed beasts got stuck in us against their will, so us dying to set them free is us paying them back."

"And you're okay with that?" Yugito asks.

"No. But I recognize the privilege I have over my beast, yo," B says. "Something has to change. We owe the beasts some kind of exchange."

Akari coughs into her hand and says, "Death."

B rolls his eyes. "She's taking it too far, but I think the idea is solid if we lower the bar."

"Okay," Yugito says, dragging it out. "What's… this 'lowered bar' idea."

"If you want to be weaklings about it and take the bitch baby way out, here's what I guess you can do, too. But I don't completely approve of it, and I still think that at the end of the day you owe it to your beasts to set them free."

At Yugito's bemused look, Akari sighs.

"Fine. So, basically, it involves all of the world's jinchuuriki coming together to create a basic set of principles and guidelines that both they and the villages must follow in regards to the treatment of the sealed beasts and the jinchuuriki they're sealed in. We're talking communication with your beasts, an open dialogue with the Kages, and cultural sensitivity training for civilians and ninja…"

"Marx Gramsci."

"Sir, I'm really not sure this is funny."

The Third smirks, leaning back in his chair. "I'm an old man, Ay. My time is nearly up with this position. I'm afraid for me at this point, it is, in fact, rather funny."

"I told her this was too radical. A direct call for labour rights? That's not just hitting the ninja population, that's impacting our civilians, too. She's directly gone against our agreement."

The Third tilts his head. "Has she?"

Ay slams his hand down on the pages of the essay. "Yes, she has! I told her that I couldn't publish them—"

"But you didn't, and neither did she, technically," the Third points out. "Marx Gramsci did."

Ay's face grows shocked and more than a little indignant at this, his eyes wide and his mouth agape. "She needs to understand that she can't get away with this. She's like a child who's never been…" And the Third can see as the realization dawns on him.

"Never been punished," the Third finishes. "Do you want to know why I've never punished her?"

Ay doesn't answer, other than to scowl at the ceiling, as if that's what's wronged him, and clench his hands into fists.

"Akari isn't one to respond to punishment. If you punish her, you prove her right, because—"

"'If you have to devolve to hitting your kid, that's a mark of having already lost the fight because it shows that you can't reason your way out of the argument'," Ay quotes, remembering the conversation from almost a year ago, now.

"Indeed. Death doesn't seem to scare her, at all. We can't intimidate her that way. Even if we were to kill her, then what? And how bad does it look on us, as a village, to have to kill a jonin dissenter during wartime?"

"Looks like we can't even keep our own in line."

"Yes." He sighs. "And all that aside, her message is out there, and anybody who heard it—which is more than you might imagine, even before she pulled this stunt—will see her death as our capitulation. As she so kindly put it to you, you'll 'martyr' her."

"Which will cause exactly what she wants," Ay says. "Internal dissent."

The Third nods, his hands rested on the war table they're stood at.

"She pushes boundaries because she knows that there's nothing we can do," Ay says. "She knows that we're in a corner, and no matter what we do, we lose. Our hands are tied."

With a distinctly sarcastic flourish, the Third waves a hand. "Thus, the war of ideologies wages on. Much as I might have ordered you and your brother to keep that idiot under control, I think part of me always knew there was no controlling her. Only slowing her down." He smirks. "I suppose that's why I find this funny, now. Her mess won't be mine to clean up by the time she fully breaks free."

And then comes the horror. It drips from Ay's voice like tar as he says, "It'll be mine."

"It'll be yours."

"What… do I do?"

"You let your beliefs stand on their own," the Third says. "There are ways to combat it other than to sit back and watch her wreak havoc. Why do you think I've thrown myself so heavily into keeping up morale and the war effort?"

Ay nods. Slowly, he asks, "Are we winning?"

"For now. But I think with the end of the Third War, the tides might turn. If we win, then we've led them to victory under the merit of our ideas," the Third says. "And if we lose, then all of a sudden the alternative she offers is that much more appealing. If our way failed once, it might fail again. So why not try something new?"

Ay pales further. "And you're… planning on retiring, when the war ends."

With an almost sadistic glee, the Third says, "After negotiations have been fully worked out, yes."

He lets Ay stew on that for a minute.

"However, I'm not entirely out of tricks," the Third says. "I've got one more thing to do with her, to get her out of our hair for a few months. And it might prove to slow her down, depending on how it turns out."

"What?"

"It seems that Kirigakure has decided to turn on us."

"What?"

"From what our information says, they're hedging their bet against us. And taking the chance to get in an early hit, or two."

"But we're—"

The Third holds up a hand, and Ay falls silent.

"I'm aware. They're just a group of bloodthirsty assholes, I think. To their own detriment—they've opened themselves to attacks from two fronts, now." The Third traces his hand down map they're standing above, stretched out on a long, oval shaped table. His finger moves along Lightning's southern border, the coastline of the Kaizoku Sea. "Regardless, they've turned on three separate teams of ours. Which is more than enough to call for retaliation."

"You want to send her to the southern front?"

"No," the Third says. "I mean to send her into Kirigakure." He shrugs. "If she dies, then she dies—it's no clear suicide mission, no way for it to be seen as an intentional death on our part. But if she lives?"

And finally, at this, the Third sees the first hint of a smile break over Ay's face. "The Kirigakure's leadership is unstable, at the best of times. And entirely against everything she stands for."

The Third nods. He sits down at the head of the table, a satisfied smile on his face. "Exactly. If she wants to create chaos, let her create chaos. If she loses, she's out of our hair. And if she wins, then there goes our enemy. Either way, knowing her, she'll be enough of a shit disturber to distract Kirigakure and allow us to focus on energies on defeating Konoha."

And Ay is torn because on the one hand, he wants her out of the way. As a new Raikage, still getting his bearings, she sounds like a nightmare to deal with because he knows she'll go for the throat when he's not prepared for her. But on the other.

Ay realizes that he doesn't want to see her dead.

Though, he knows that doesn't matter; it's not his call to make. Not now. It's Lord Third's, and Ay will respect whatever choice his Raikage makes.

"When are you planning on sending her?" he asks.

"Within the week," the Third says.

Ay nods. "I'll pass word onto her, sir."

"Good."

.

.

"Gonna burn me at the stake? Knock my head off? Poison me?"

"No. We're not killing you."

"Really?" she asks. "You sound ready to. And I'm down—the sweet, cold embrace of death welcomes all comrades."

Ay exhales.

He wants to punch her, but he knows he shouldn't. Lord Third told him that the most valuable thing he could learn in anticipation of taking the hat was how to be levelheaded. Being levelheaded doesn't include punching his subordinates when they piss him off.

So, Ay keeps his hands firmly in his pockets. "You're not being punished."

She makes a small 'huh' sound. "Yeah? Then what're you gonna do with me, bougie scum, if you aren't gonna spank the baby?"

"We're giving you the chance to cause chaos," he says. "How much do you know about Kirigakure?"

The smile that unfurls over her face, small and devious and pointed, turns Ay's gut cold. It's the smile of somebody who's seen victory before ever stepping foot on the battlefield.

"Enough," she says. "When do I leave?"

"End of the week."

"I'll do you one better—I'll leave tomorrow."

At that, Ay shakes his head. "Whatever. Do whatever you want—you do anyways."

She pats him on the head, and Ay kicks his leg out at her, a halfhearted retribution attempt—he feels justified in this one. She started it. Plus, he didn't try and punch her. He tried to kick her. It's different.

Akari nimbly hops over it.

"The bougie scum learns," she croons. "How cute!"

Fuck being levelheaded.

Before more than that singular thought can resonate through his mind, Ay has his leg cocked.

This time he doesn't hold back. His foot sinks into her gut and sends her all the way into the wall across the room. From beneath the crater she made in the wall, on the ground, covered in plaster and flecks of paint, Akari cackles.

Lord Third was right, as he always is.

Hit the baby, and then what? Watch as she laughs at you from the ground, through her broken ribs.

Ay walks away with her voice ringing in his ears and a headache.

A/N: Thank you guys for all the support on this fic!

So this chapter was originally really long, so I decided to chop it in two because this is just a better endpoint than it was originally. Because of how short this chunk ended up being, though, I decided I'm going to update next week instead of in two weeks.
Update schedule: Chapter 4 = Feb 29th, Chapter 5 = Mar 7th, Chapter 6 = March 21st