The trip through the tunnels was as uneventful as it was short. Well, if you count twin G having an almost reflexive control over the earth element as a normal everyday occurrence, which for Mentoli and twin B it was. For the genin from Konoha it was rather eventful because of that, if not because of the scale of the tunnels.
When they heard about the tunnel system the genin were expecting to see short squat and confined spaces. That wasn't what they saw. They saw normal hallways and rooms with no confined spaces in sight, the only difference the tunnels had from a normal building was the lack of any windows. The native genin just laughed at the "foreigner's" reactions and waited until they were ready to continue on down the hallway/tunnel.
With twin G's control over the earth the travel time was cut down to just a day, rather than the two to five days the usual trip would take. When asked why the tunnels weren't the straight shot that they were taking at the moment the ninja from Shiogakure replied that not all visitors were considered trustworthy enough to let them in without evaluating them first. The case would be the same here if it weren't for the threefold approval by the Hokage and the Shiokage as well as the presence of the future Godaime Hokage as one of the jonin they brought with them.
Frankly the sheer unlikelihood that three jonin could be overpowered and replaced would have been enough for the genin but their jonin-sensei - one Subarashii Yūjin- who joined them as soon as they were confirmed as themselves, was a bit more suspicious of so many high powered ninja in one place. Once he saw their classified orders he allowed the deviation from the escort routine, if only to get the time sensitive intelligence to the shiokage and begin their war preparations as soon as possible.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Mitarashi Aiko, the Nidaime Shiokage, was a driven woman who had lost her oldest daughter Anko to the machinations of Orochimaru, she knew that her daughter was alive and in the service of konoha, but sadly couldn't contact her because Anko was only a special jonin and the meddling civilian council wouldn't let her move any higher in rank.
The problem was, every time the ninja council tried to grant her the rank of jonin and all priviledges associated with that rank, the civilian council and their bribed votes on the ninja council were able to block it. There are only so many times that the Hokage can step in to curb the civilian council's power before they decide to try to seize more power yet again, and most of those times were used to keep them away from Naruto.
The civilians didn't know it but their power over the ninja council was about to end, with the renewed retirement of the Hokage the Sarutobi clan was about to emerge from their forced place as a provisional member of the council, and take their rightful place as a full voting member, successfully tipping the balance of power back to the side of the ninja clans, as it was supposed to be from the beginning. Maybe then Aiko would be able to see her daughter again.
Such problems were the reasons behind Aiko's transfer of her family to shiogakure, first as second in command of the building force and then after the death of the shodaime shiokage she took over as the nidaime shiokage after a vote by all of the residents of the new village. Her husband was supportive of her through all of it, he knew that she could never be happy in Konoha as long as her daughter was missing. They were informed of their possible assignment to the forces being moved before their daughter's disappearance so this just solidified their resolve to go with them.
The kyuubi attack which decimated konoha's forces and killed the yondaime hokage provided the perfect cover for the drain on the village's forces created by Shiogakure's creation. Since the plan was created and championed by the Fourth Hokage the attack had the added benefit of causing all detractors and interested foreign and domestic parties who could cause problems for the fledgling village to simply assume that the new village died with the fourth.
Such an attitude was a great assistance to the Third Hokage who knew about the plan and was one of the main planners of the exodus. He sent the forces allocated to the venture out of konoha and on to the final location they had selected the day after the attack happened so that the missing ninja were assumed killed by the Kyuubi rather than have certain people (namely Danzo the dastardly dee-dee) searching for the cause of so many sudden disappearances.
Hidden tunnels were used to get halfway to the final location and filled in behind the last person to preclude their being followed by Danzo's root or one of Orochimaru's spies, of which there were none present in the new village, of that they were sure since all participants were cleared by ANBU counter-intelligence. The deception worked so well that not even Orochimaru knew about Shiogakure's connection to Konoha, and he prided himself on knowing everything. This was ensured by not telling any of the sannin before it was absolutely necessary, since none of them believed in Orochimaru's guilt until faced with absolute evidence of it. With the new villagers were two of the greatest seal masters konoha had ever known, other than the fourth or jiraiya, trained by the Yondaime himself to create the special buildings necessary for the creation of the villages ultimate camouflage and defense.
Their ultimate camouflage and defense was so complete that there was only one way to access the village and no components of the village were visible within sight of land. It was as simple as it was complicated, the entire village was located either underwater or under ground, but all of it was located out in the middle of the bay. All above ground portions of the village were housed in seal-strengthened domes the largest of which most people wouldn't be able to see all the way across. All of the domes, no matter how large were made transparent by additional seals added to the mix by cabin-fever conscious seal masters to provide for the changes of scenery required to stave off such problems. The only above ground/water portions of the village was the series of training grounds located on a chain of volcanic islands that were added on to by earth-jutsu using ninjas, located slightly out at sea that were absolutely perfect for such a use, guarded by powerful genjutsus of course.
The village's greatest achievement to date was the rescue and continuing survival of many of the bloodline clans from Kirigakure, at the moment many of them only have one or two wielders, but some have up to ten. All depending on how many were able to escape the carnage and make it to the hidden safe houses created by Shiogakure.
The only catch to Shiogakure's allowing the continued survival of the bloodlines was the willingness to add more genetic diversity to their lines, in order to avoid the problems facing the Uchihas and soon to be facing the Hyūgas as well. Not much in the Face of everything else that was happening, so most agreed to it. It was from the first of these pairings that twin G and twin B were born.
It amazed the bloodline clans to see how a bloodline can change for the better with new genetic material. Their mother was an ice wielder of the Hyoton bloodline and their father was a master of earth style ninjutsu, from the simple change of adding the possibility of earth natured chakra came twins, one who wields earth as if his bloodline was earth wielding rather than ice wielding, and one who wields ice and water like it was merely an extension of her body, she had the strongest manifestation of their bloodline to be seen in generations. After they were born even the strongest detractors to the new arrangement were silenced when faced with proof that inbreeding weakens the bloodlines over time, rather than strengthening them as was thought before.
This concentration of bloodlines had never happened before in the history of the ninja world and soon would serve to make Konoha and Shiogakure into the strongest ninja villages in fact as well as name, rather than the present situation where it was only in name.
The Shiokage had known for some time that if dastardly dee-dee knew about the strength of her village then he would seek to gain such strength for his own personal use, preferably (in his mind) before Konoha's regular ninja force could be strengthened by ninja sent over from Shiogakure as was intended from the very beginning in the case of a sudden weakening of the main village which was sure to happen soon if certain sources were to be believed.
Recently shiogakure had discovered a sudden influx of spies attempting to infiltrate the village, what she didn't know was identity of the man behind the spies. Thankfully their seal masters had disabled all of the dead man seals and anti interrogation seals on the operatives. Their efforts were rewarded with the spy tactics and codes necessary to keep the controller in the dark, but no identity was forthcoming.
She had given the order to keep the spies transmissions on the air with the right codes to keep the fact of their discovery from being known. She knew that in all likelihood there were more spies that had been caught, but she could hopefully keep the wool over their eyes just long enough to allow the requested help enough time to travel from Konoha. If the controller was one of the two men she thought it was, then she and her village had bigger problems than the message from sand asking for an alliance against Konoha she had just received. Hopefully this little situation would be resolved soon so that she could warn Konoha of this treachery before the situation with the sand village played out in it's entirety.
Right now the very best genin team she had was escorting the assistance that she had requested, and they should be arriving soon, she knew Mentoli very well, he was her best friend's son after all, and that boy knew exactly when he was supposed to be as fast as possible, and this was one of those times.
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Right then the genin she sent out to escort the leaf ninja arrived back at the Shiokage tower, located in the center of the largest underwater dome. The tower stretched all the way to the top of the dome and doubled as the central support keeping the dome from collapsing in on itself. It was quite an impressive sight, and was sure to awe the Konoha teams who had never before seen construction like this on such a large scale before.
"welcome to Shiogakure!" she said to the newcomers in what she hoped was a welcoming fashion. "I trust your trip was uneventful?"
"I could have done without swimming through a flooded cave to get here, it was just so troublesome." One of them said, only to receive a slap to the back of his head from the blond girl on his team.
"Oh come on Shikamaru, swimming through the cave was rather fun, especially when the sharks came after us!" A blond haired boy said excitedly.
"Now naru-kun you know that there were no sharks chasing us. Don't exaggerate so much, it's misleading and impolite." The dark haired girl next to him reprimanded gently.
"I'm sorry Hina-hime, my imagination ran away with me again." The blond one then turned to Aiko and bowed slightly. "I apologize for exaggerationg the ending of our trip Shiokage-sama, I will try not to let it happen again."
"That's alright young man, I'll let it slide this time." Aiko said lightly. "Now why don't we get this briefing over with?" She sat back down at her desk after sending out teams eight and ten and activating the privacy seals around her office.
"Well? What did you come up with Itachi? Is it who I think it is?" She asked urgently.
Itachi looked sad, "No, it's worse. Our best sources indicate that Orochimaru is busy with something else at the moment, the scale of which seems to be of epic proportions. While we can't confirm what that is, we can say with certainty that he hasn't discovered your existence yet, though your making the mist bloodlines disappear has pissed him off quite a bit."
"Well if it isn't Orochimaru then who could it..."Aiko gasped, "He wouldn't...How could he? Would Danzo really stoop to attacking fellow Konoha ninja?"
Itachi shook his head, "In his mind you aren't Konoha ninja anymore, you ceased to be Konoha ninja the day you went beyond his sphere of influence. It doesn't help that you have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams in terms of creating a powerful backup force of ninja. As soon as he found out about that, he decided that he had to have you. And since you don't officially exist, he doesn't have to worry about backlash. The only question is how he found out in the first place."
"If I remember right then his spy network is pretty extensive, he probably found out when the seals on the black scroll were being altered to accept your blood and he swiped it for a few hours, it was the perfect opportunity to learn a few things he wasn't supposed to." Aiko said thoughtfully, "but never mind how he found out, now the question is: what is he going to do about it?"
Aiko looked thoughtful for a moment before answering her own question. "He probably had one of his agents placed at the entry point to monitor all comings and goings so we have to assume he knows you're here. Which means as soon as he finds out he'll probably order his men to begin the takeover, whether they're ready or not. When he's being flashy about his strength he really likes to go all out so he'll probably bring in all of his root forces. So give the message three days to arrive and a further five days for him to get here if he pushes his troops (which he will). That gives us a tentative preparation period of eight days. What are we going to do?"
Itachi stood up. "We came prepared, everyone we could sneak past danzo's people are already in the other room. We have a capture/interrogation team with a resident tactician, a heavy combat team with the capacity to surpass the sannin, and four jonin. We can't get any more troops without tipping our hand to Danzo and possibly losing any advantage we could possibly gain."
Aiko sighed, "Alright i'll use them. Lets bring them in and get everyone on the same page."
As Itachi turned to retrieve the teams Aiko made one last parting shot. "These genin better be as good as you say, otherwise we're up a creek without a paddle, heck the way things are set up we don't even have a boat!"
Itachi just kept walking on his way out. "Don't worry, they are." He said as he left.
Oooooooooooooooooooooo
Itachi found all six genin at the only ramen stand in the village, he appeared right behind them and announced himself. The genin of team ten jumped six feet in the air while team eight simply turned around calmly. "Nezumi noticed your scent a block away, and we noticed you not long after that." Hinata said in explanation.
"Fine, but you six are wanted in the tower, it's time to end the charades and get down to work." Itachi said before disappearing in a flash of lightning.
"Showoff!" Naruto muttered before following in the direction his Sensei had gone.
ooooooooooo
"Alright, what's this about charades ending and reasons we're here?" Ino asked loudly as soon as she entered the Shiokage's office.
"Isn't Naruto supposed the loud and obnoxious one Ino? This whole thing is just so troublesome I can't even begin to describe it." Shikamaru said.
Aiko sighed. "Sadly Shikamaru is correct. This situation is incredibly troublesome, and if it isn't handled right then it could spell doom for both shiogakure and konoha. Here's what we know so far..."
she explained the entire situation, classification be damned. By the end of it all team ten knew everything, the true purpose and identity of shiogakure, danzo's manipulations in konoha, and his attempts at staging a takeover of shiogakure. To say they were astonished would be an understatement.
They were horrified, to think that one man could do all of the things Danzo had done or was suspected of doing and not get caught, it would have been extremely impressive if it weren't so frightening. The man who had done those things was coming for Shiogakure, and they were the only thing really standing in the way. Well, them and an army of shinobi made up of genin, academy students and the founding ninja of the village, along with whatever remnants were leftover from the Mist bloodline purges. Not a bad force all things considered. Shikamaru could see some possibilities for their situation.
"Alright," he said, "Here's what I think we should do..."
Sooo, I hope you liked my further in depth look at Shiogakure. My favorite part is of course it's location. (Physics? I don't need no stinkin Physics!) the rest was just a result of me having too much time on my hands and wanting the whole thing to actually be at least semi-plausible in the Naruto world.
- I need ideas for some bloodlines to give some characters from Shiogakure. I have a few ideas, but not nearly enough to fill out an entire village of bloodlines rescued from kirigakure. As far as i know, They were supposed to be one of the most bloodline intensive villages before the bloodline purge. And from the way they talk about them there were more then just a few present when it happened so the floor is open. No idea yet as to how many the village actually rescued so i don't know how many i'll actually use.
But if you can think of any from canon or just have something you'd like to see turned into a bloodline let me know, I'll give credit where credit's due, just like with the ideas for the summoning contracts. If you can think of a name to go along with the bloodline that would help out alot.
Just so you know, there is a rather large possibility of the bloodlines and the characters wielding them appearing further on down the road as side characters, I already have tentative plans to send mentoli and his team to the chunin exams when they come around.
a short characterization is now posted on my profile for mentoli and his team. mostly it's just Mentoli since i didn't want to spoil the surprise on his teammates names (fine, i haven't thought of them yet! happy now?) I wrote this chapter while i was on vacation in an area with a distinct lack of internet, and i like my character names to at least have some meaning. i just hope that Mentoli's name doesn't end up meaning something bad. i didn't check his, i just thought it sounded cool.