Part 1
Rain pours down harshly in a gloomy, dark gray sky.
"It just keeps raining."
Under the moonlight sits cold, metal industrial city buildings and streets.
"Everyone has their ups and downs, but here in the Village Hidden in Rain, it has mostly been a long series of downs."
A shadowy figure in a hooded poncho walks in the street towards a pair of homeless kids crouching under an awning. They see him appoach and run out into the rain away from him.
"The God of Amegakure is dead. The Fourth Great Shinobi World War is over. The rest of the world seems to be healing... But not here."
The hooded man walks past the awning and cuts into an alley. He casts a long shadow as he lurks.
"We've been under strong leadership for as long as even the eldest of us can remember; Hanzo of the Salamander, then Pain. This village is now running around like a chicken with its head cut off."
A cat jumps out from behind a trash can. The cloaked man reacts by drawing a senbon needle. The cat hisses before running away, out the direction the man came from.
"Industry is dying. The crime rates are skyrocketing. Even with the threat of war not imminent for the first time in most of our lives... We tear ourselves apart."
The man puts away his weapon. Above the alleyway, a figure with wings flies overhead. It flashes diagonally across the alley and out of sight.
"The Angel of Amegakure... Maybe I'm finally losing my mind, but I swear I still see her sometimes. She still gives me hope."
The shadowy figure runs out of the other side of the alleyway, looking up. He regains sight of the flying figure, paper trails comming off of the wings. The moon illuminates her as she flies into a high tower.
The man runs toward the the tower. He leaps into the air, landing on the metal fire escape on the side of the building. His footsteps slap loudly in the rain as he makes his way up.
At the top of the fire escape, the scaffolding ends. But the tower rises far above that. The man pulls up his sleave, revealing a bulky apparatus around his left wrist. He winds his arm back and thrusts it upward. A metal chain with little needles jutting out like barbed-wire shoots from the wrist mechanism. Up at the top of the tower, the end of the spiked-chain head wraps around a pillar. He pulls it taught and places his foot against the wall. Slowly and carefully, he walks horizontally up the metal tower in the rain.
He gets to the top and climbs over the ledge. The chain unwravels from the pillar and falls to the ground. His wrist apparatus clanks and the chain pulls back up into the man's sleeve.
Multiple paper butterflies flutter towards him and land on him.
A female voice cuts through sound of rain, "There is enough explosive force in one of my paper bombs to turn your entire body into a mist of blood. There are five attatched to you right now. Choose your next words wisely."
"I know who you are." The man slowly turns towards her.
A young woman steps out of the shadows with a paper rose in her black hair, many piercings in her ears, and one piercing through the septum of her nose. She has fear in her eyes. Her arm extended, ready to detonate the paper butterfly bombs at the sight of any false move.
He kneels down and bows his head. "You're Lady Konan."
Her fear quickly turns to surprise. She then lets out a laugh, "Ha ha. I'm afraid not."
The man in the hooded poncho slowly lifts his head to look up at her.
"Unfortunately for us all, the Angel of Amegakure died just before the Fourth Shinobi War even kicked off." She explains.
"You're her sister, then? Or daughter?" He asks.
"Neither. No relation." She retorts.
He slowly gets up off of his knee. "But you knew her? You use her paper jutsu." He pulls his hood down, revealing a Rain forehead protector, medium-length, wavey brown hair, and a gas mask hanging around his neck.
"I knew her." She said quietly. Her arm slowly drops as she realizes this man is no threat. The two lock eyes and remain silent for a long moment.
He looks down at the Rain forehead protector attatched to her belt and then back up at her eyes. "You're her successor. You lead the village from the shadows now, don't you?"
She stays silent.
He continues on, "You can't stay in the shadows. The people need you. The people need hope."
She stammers, "I... I'm just an average Jonin. I'm not a leader. I'm not strong enough to live up to her legacy."
He mutters under his breath, "A Jonin? This can still work..." She can see the gears turning in his head as he thinks. He then says loudly to her, "That doesn't matter! You're a symbol nonetheless." He then reaches into his poncho.
She lifts her arm again in a panic, ready to blow him to bits if he pulls a weapon.
He slowly pulls out a small book, "This is my manifesto. I've spent my whole life dreaming of ways to pull my homeland out of this eternal downpour... The only path foreward now is with the Five Great Nations recognition. We must get an Amekage seated at their table."
The woman looks shocked. "An Amekage?"
He continues, "As the heir of Lady Konan, I believe there is no better candidate than you." He steps foreward to hand her the book, and kneels down oncemore.
She hesitates, but eventually takes the book.
He stays knelt down with his head bowed. "Please, let me help you. I believe that together we can achieve great things for this village!"
"I've never even seen you before... Is that headband even legetimate? Are you really a Rain shinobi? Who is your sensei?" She questions him.
He answers, "I'm nobody, really. I graduated from the Academy a few years ago. I was never assigned to an official team. I never recieved a sensei. I think I'm still technically a genin... I keep putting in requests and inqueries to the shinobi offices, but to no avail. I've just fallen through the cracks of a broken system, I guess."
"I see." She shakes her head in frustration.
"I'm not exactly the most talented ninja... But if you read my manifesto you will understand how that is of little importance! What I bring to the table is a plan for economic growth, infrastructure, and policy." He pleads. "But these plans don't work without a face that people can believe in. I need you."
"I will read your manifesto." She says as a paper butterfly flutters up to the woman. She pulls out a pen and writes directly on the butterfly. "Meet me at this address tomorrow morning." It flutters over to him.
The paper bombs attatched to him finally flutter off. He takes the one with writting and puts it away in his pocket. "I do apolagize for following you here by the way. I've been trying to get in contact with the powers that be for so long, but I could never find anyone in charge... I see your paper wings in the sky sometimes." His eyes twinkle admiring the paper butterflies. "I just knew you were the one who could get me off of the sidelines and into the game." He turns his back to leave.
"I didn't get your name." She says.
He stops, "I'm Makoto of the Rain."
"Of the Rain?" She smiles.
"Yeah. I'm an orphan. I've never known a family name... Amegakure is my only family." He says with a somber voice.
She nods, "I like that. In that case, I'm Keiko of the Rain."
Makoto stands there for a moment. "Right." He lifts one foot onto the ledge to go back down the tower.
Keiko says, "One last thing... If you ever climb this tower again, I will kill you on sight. No hesitation."
"Understood." He drops off of the building, falling out of her view.
Keiko looks down at the book he gave her and inspects it. "What the hell just happened?" She wonders out loud.
Part 2
The morning sun rises. The sunlight cuts through a light drizzle. Makoto's hands hold the paper butterfly note very delicately as he admires the craftsmanship. He then heads to the address, walking through the streets of the Hidden Rain Village.
"That was a risk to put it all on the line last night. But you have to take risks to get where I'm going. I hope her dedication is to the people of this village. If not, this could end up being a major setback."
Makoto wanders up a set of stairs in front of a large building. There are suddenly no people around in this part of town. Except a young boy with an umbrella standing at the door. "You must be Makoto!" The boy yells to him. The young boy holds open the door and they head inside.
In the lobby, the boy closes his umbrella. "My name is Tobiki, I am a student of Keiko."
Makoto takes off his poncho, revealing metal armor plates covering his chest, shins, and right forearm. The much bulkier left forearm has a bigger curved plate over the chain mechanism. He has a square pouch full of senbon attatched to his right hip.
"The Jonin Council has been talking about you all morning, you're manifesto has really stirred up the place." The boy takes his poncho from him and hangs it. "I'll take you to the Council Chambers now. Right this way."
Makoto follows the boy and thinks to himself, "Jonin council? Is this how the Rain shinobi are led now?"
Tobiki opens a pair of large double-wide doors into a room with a horseshoe shape of high-sitting tables. "Makoto of the Rain." He announces and gestures for Makoto to step foreward.
Makoto scouts them. "Seven seats... Are there only seven Jonin left in all of Amegakure?!" He thinks in his head. "Things may be worse than I realized... No, surely there are more jonin than this, right?"
"Let's first talk about you, Makoto." The left-most of the council members grumbles. "We've pulled your file. An academy graduate with no genin missions on record."
A second, more passionate jonin chimes in, "The page is basically blank! Not even your age is listed, let alone your skills."
"I'm 17." Makoto responds. "My skills... I'm pretty average at most ninja skills. My genjutsu is subpar. My taijutsu is okay. I'm good with ninja tools. My water ninjutsu is probably the bright spot, but my chakra pool limits me from specializing in that. But most importantly, I'm a strategist."
The jonin with his file starts furiously writting.
Makoto observes that the jonin seem to be seated in order of age, the older ones more to the left. Keiko is in the far right seat. "She must not have much pull here..." He ponders to himself.
The third seat says, "Alright, alright. Let's get to the real stuff. Explain this manifesto. What are your goals here, really? What are you after?"
"My goals?" Makoto says. "All I care about is the success and prosperity of the Village Hidden in Rain and all of its people. I have no alterior motives or desire for personal gain, if that's what you're implying."
The second seat asks, "Your proposal for this prosperity, the end goal of sending an Amekage to the Great Nations' summit... Have you heard this plan from anywhere else?" He has a paranoid look on his face.
Makoto realizes this part was probably already apart of the jonin council's plans. "No, I've not heard it. It is just obvious. Someone needs to elevated to Kage level eventually for our nation to succeed on a global scale... But the plan that I'm proposing gives room for all good candidates to grow naturally alongside our economy. My plan is to kill two birds with one stone. We can grow the strength of our top shinobi at the same time as turning our village into a thriving market."
The sixth seat starts flipping through the manifesto book. "Where is that part?"
Makoto continues, "Geographically, the Rain is in the center of the Great Nations. This has been the cause of so much suffereing during war times. But now, in a new era of peace, it will be what saves us. We can set ourselves up to be the central trade hub between all nations. If we target the shinobi market wisely, we can acquire the knowledge and tools of every nation for ourselves in the process, strengthening our own shinobi teachings."
The fifth seat boistrously shouts, "Iron sharpens iron! As we all improve, may the best candidate rise to the Amekage seat!"
The eldest jonin in the first seat bellows, "That's enough! Are we seriously going to let some late bloomer genin come in here and run the show?! We can't actually be considering this. This is madness!"
Keiko slams the table and stands up, "With all due respect, a good idea is a good idea. Who care's where it comes from? This is the first cohesive plan that any of us have seen that doesn't involve war profiteering. Let us not put our fragile egos in the way of progress!"
The sixth seat agrees, "None of us have been able to come up with anything half as good as this. We've been floundering, frankly."
The second seat sasses back, "I'm still not hearing the specifics. We can sit here and yap about how good it would be, but if we can't make it happen then it's just a pipe dream! How do you plan on getting the major nations to buy in to this central market?"
Makoto responds, "The five great nations have their doors open now more than ever. We propose a visit and exchange of culture, product, and knowledge as a way to strengthen our global bonds. They will see it as a public relations opportunity; to look kind to the little nation they've been ravaging for years. They will not refuse."
"So we send people to each nation? We don't have that kind of manpower!" The fourth seat critisizes.
"Just a small team, one nation at a time. My analysis indicates that the Mist would be the most prosperus comeup for us. They'd also be the most inclined to get involved in a market that gives them better access to the rest of the world, since they're the most sepersted giographically. The big areas we can relate with are water-style ninjutsu and swordsmanship. There is a mutual benefit for both the Rain and the Mist to share knowlege of water jutsu. We can not only expand our arsenal, but then also have a collection of water scrolls that we can reproduce and sell to other nations. Who of the other nations wouldn't want to learn water-style from a unified Mist and Rain scroll?" Makoto pauses to gage the room. Everyone seems to be keeping up, so he continues, "The Rain is also one of the most industrially advanced villages when it comes to metal working. We can send our blacksmiths and craftsman to learn from the land who crafted the Seven Legendary Swords. Our weapons market will grow exponentially. And again, we learn sword techiques and bring back scrolls for sale. We could potentially open dojos of different sword styles here in the Hidden Rain too."
The fifth seat hollars, "Rinse and repeat a few times and we'll have the greatest collection of jutsu from around the world and the most diverse collection of craftsman!"
"Exactly." Makoto smirks. "This is the new age of global economy."
Keiko joins in, "Alright! Third seat jonin Junichi, you are the most skilled water-style user on the council. And fifth seat Ryuu, you are the best swordsman. I know two jonin is a lot to send out of the village together, but this seems well worth it. Aside from the smiths, scrollmakers, and other various craftsmen, is there anyone else you two would request?"
The fifth seat, Ryuu, yells, "I will handle all of the kenjutsu knowledge on my own! No need to burden anyone else."
The third seat, Junichi, states, "I would just request one genin as an aid, somone with proficency in water-style jutsu obviously."
Keiko moves forward, "Alright vote yay or nay on this proposed team."
The two oldest men vote against. The remaining council passes the mission into action.
Junichi says, "Makoto, you're my choice to be my aid in this journey to the Hidden Mist."
"What?! Really? You want my first mission as a genin to be this? It is far too important." Makoto protests.
Junichi insists, "I'm not letting you miss this, it is your mission. Go pack your bags."
Makoto is in the lobby, getting his poncho on.
Keiko comes over. "Hey. Good job in there!"
"Thanks. You too." He replies.
"I just wanted to wish you good luck in the Mist village." She puts her hand on his shoulder.
Makoto leans in and talks quietly, "Hey, I know I sort of threw the Amekage seat up as an open race in there... but I want you to know I still beleive that it has to be you, the new Angel of Amegakure. Your very existence inspires hope. This plan... We are going to have some growing pains. The people need a symbol to get behind and buy in. Hold it down while we are gone, okay?"
"I'll give it my all." She says with determination.
Makoto leaves the building and walks down the stairs outside. "And just like that, I've planted the seed."