Chapter 3: The Power of the Empath

Vocab:

Enpashigan: Empathic eye

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, if I did, Sakura wouldn't have cared about Sasuke

They ate their meal quickly, well, Hiranor and Sakura did. Gaara took his sweet time eating his food. So they were forced to wait for him to finish 'til he was finished. When he was done, they yanked him from his seat and exited the Kage Mansion, headed toward the Council Meeting Hall. They stopped along the way to order ninjas to gather the advisors at the Hall. The party burst through the doors of the building, and made their way to the back of the auditorium, where the Kazankage's seat was, as well as the seats for Gaara and Sakura.

When the doors to the room opened, the 15 councilmen walked in, herded into their seats by the ninjas sent to get them. They were cursing the ninjas for waking them up this early in the morning: they were old and liked to sleep in. When they were all seated, Hiranor Tagerasu called for silence, and when the old men kept complaining, a vein burst on his forehead and he yelled, "SILENCE!" That got their attention, and they quickly shut their mouths for fear of making him even angrier.

Hiranor smirked, truth be told, he loved to yell at the councilmen, but he rarely had a good reason to, luckily this provided the perfect opportunity. The head advisor stood up, "My lord Yōyūkage, I really must protest. This meeting was not scheduled, and by the look of things, I am going to guess it has something to do with the two intruders. We have already come to a decision about them and…" Hiranor cut him off.

"Already come to a decision? Since when did you get to make decisions, Minoru? You are the advisor, so I suggest you change your answer. And though I would love to continue this little chat, I will tell you all why I have gathered you here." The councilmen looked at each other uneasily; the look he was giving them wasn't exactly friendly.

"Yes, please do explain why you have us up at this ungodly hour," a councilman bellowed.

Hiranor's gaze shifted toward the speaker, who immediately started to sweat. "The reason I have called you all here is because I have reason to believe that you are trying to usurp my powers as Kazankage and leave me in the dark on important affairs- the Chuunin Exams for example."

Minoru stood up quickly, "My lord, I assure you that whatever these…ruffians have told you is false."

Hiranor closed his eyes, "You know, Minoru, I thought you were smarter than that."

Just then, Minoru remembered why it was bad to lie to the Kazankage.

Hiranor snapped his eyes open, "Enpashigan!" His eyes started to spiral, forming a heart in each eye, and true to his word, he let Sakura see it. Hiranor looked out at the councilmen with his eyes; he saw some were genuinely tired, he saw some were greatly angered, and when he looked at Minoru, he saw that he was lying; the emotion was quite overpowering. And to top it off, anxiety was practically flowing off him in waves.

Hiranor smirked, "Now, Minoru, I now know for a fact that you are lying, that fact is basically stamped throughout your entire aura. Now sit down before I have you removed," the action was quickly carried out. "Now, where was I? Oh, that's right, I was saying that I believe you are attempting a coup," the other councilman started yelling, but were quickly silenced when he looked at them.

"What reason could you possibly have that would make you think we are trying to take over?" a daring councilman asked.

"I'm glad you asked. You see these two people beside me?" he motioned to Sakura and Gaara, "Well, you see they aren't from around here, in fact, they aren't even from the same village as each other. And they have told me some disturbing things, like how there are five other Kages out there, and that no one has ever spotted a headband from our village," he narrowed his eyes, "You are all tried for attempting a coup against the reigning Kazankage. As of now you are all stripped of your ranks as advisors and all benefits that go with it. And," his eyes glowed with amusement, "in light of the information given me by our guests," he paused to let the weight of that last word settle, "I am going to prepare our village for a trip to the outside world."

Everyone's eyes widened, except for Gaara's of course, and a spluttering of things like "You can't do that" and "You're out of your mind" came out and before too long a vein popped on Hiranor's forehead.

"Will you all shut up? I have had it with your constant complaining. That is all you have ever done since I became the Kazankage. Besides, your reactions only confirmed my suspicions. Now, guards, send these conspirators to the pit, I believe they have some vacancies that need to be filled."

The ninjas that stood guard at the doors grinned at each other, "With pleasure lord Kazankage." And they set out rounding up the former councilmen, and pushed them out of the Hall.

Once they were all gone, Hiranor turned back to face Gaara and Sakura, his eyes were still active. Without saying a word, he read their emotions, and what he saw there caused him to smile.

Sakura saw him smile and thought that he must be relieved that the others were gone, while Gaara didn't care enough to notice.

Sakura spoke up, "What is that eye of yours called again?"

"Enpashigan. It is also known as the Empathic Eye, as it has the power to read the emotions of others. It is my clan's Kekke Genkai."

"Wow, so it's kinda like the Sharingan."

Hiranor cocked his head, confused, "What is this 'Sharingan' of which you speak?"

Sakura's eyes widened in surprise, but then they went back to normal after she remembered that they have been isolated since before the Uchiha clan was founded sixty years ago. She puts her finger on her chin, "Well, it allows the ninja to copy any jutsu that they see their opponent use, allows them though Genjutsus, and see Chakra flow. The only people I know of that can use it are the Uchiha clan and my sensei Kakashi Hatake."

"Well, it sounds like an interesting technique; I will have to look it up when we visit your hometown," he turned to face Gaara, "and what about you lord Gaara? What does your village have, besides the jinjuriki of course?"

Gaara's eyes widened, he hadn't expected this stranger who had been isolated his whole life to know about him. "How do you know about me?" he asked roughly.

Hiranor shrugged his shoulders, "That was easy, all I had to do was look at you with my Enpashigan and I felt the anger flowing out of you. Anger, and loneliness. You must lead a hard life my friend."

At that moment Gaara realized that he hadn't felt pressured by Shukaku to spill blood ever since he got here. "What have you done to Shukaku?" Sakura looked at him confused for a second before she remembered that the sand spirit had blood lust and looked at the Kazankage with the same look of confusion.

Hiranor leaned back in his seat, hands behind his head, "Hmph, I didn't do anything."

Gaara's confusion heightened, "What do you mean you didn't do anything?"

A small smile came across Hiranor's face, "Well, you see Gaara, this volcano has a… sleep effect demons that come within. In short, any demon that comes here falls unconscious and doesn't wake up 'til they leave. It is one of the reasons why my ancestors chose this location for the village."

"So Shukaku is sleeping?"

"To put it mildly, yes."

Gaara's face turned relieved, "Does this mean I can sleep?" he asked hopefully. As soon as the words left his mouth he wished he could take them back. He sounded like a little kid, which was totally unlike him.

Hiranor smiled, "Yes, you can sleep. I guess that being an insomniac can be quite trying. Well, don't worry, as long as you are within these walls you can sleep soundly because there is no way for the demon to wake up."

Sakura was being quiet, which was unlike her, so she decided to say something, "Lord Kazankage, when can we go home?"

The Kyudaime's face turned thoughtful for a moment. Then he spoke, "I am sorry to say that there will be a delay in your return to your home." Sakura's face fell. Hiranor quickly waved his hands, trying to reassure her, "We need time to prepare for the journey. The preparations will probably take well over a year. So in that time I hope you accept our humble apologies and our finest rooms during your stay." He motioned to the guards that had just returned, "Men, I would like you to escort these two back to my mansion," they both look at him with a glare that sent shivers down his spine, "Now don't look at me like that, I just have a few things I have to do before I let you roam freely, after all, the villagers don't know anything about you, and I have a few things I have to do before I introduce you," he got up out of his seat and started to walk toward the door, he talked over his shoulder, "so in the meantime why don't you two just relax and get to know each other better." He said the last part just as he was leaving the Hall. So they had no way to ask him why he thought they would even want to know each other.

_A Fiery Passion_

Minoru was fuming; he still couldn't believe the nerve of that little brat. When they gave him the title of Kazankage, that was all it was supposed to be, but nooooo, he just had to take the job seriously. And then he went and ruined their plans to take over Kazan (yes they really were trying to take over). Luckily for them it would take a long time before they would be even close to being ready to go out into the real world. And even if he wanted to do something, he couldn't, because he was in the high security prison known as the Pit.

Naturally the Pit is located inside a pit. The founders of the village long ago had decided that they needed a place to put all the murderers and rapists and assassins that kept popping up over the years, so they used Earth Jutsus to dig a very big hole, and made many smaller holes in the sides for the cells. It was quite ingenious; in fact, they used it to scare people off from doing bad things, and it worked.

Naturally, Minoru was put in a cell about two-thirds of the way down from the top, as he was considered to be the ring leader of the coup de' tat that never seemed to get off the ground. Right now he was regretting approving Hiranor as Kazankage, a choice that would haunt him the rest of his life. Every time he tried to give the advisors more power in his subtle ways Hiranor always said, "You have everything that men would ever want, why would you want more?"

He spat, the Tagerasu pup would pay for ruining his plans. But just as he thought his day couldn't get any worse, someone passed gas. Now, being underground, when the air rises and you are above the origination of said air, well, let's just say that the nose loses all ability to smell for a few days.

He grabbed his nose, his eyes bloodshot, "My mouth was open and everything!"

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