Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. If by Christmas morning I don't get the contract that I need to sign for Kishimoto to hand the rights to Naruto over to me... I'm afraid I'll have to admit at last that Santa Claus really doesn't exist.
...Which means next year I'll have to enlist the services of the Krampus to make Kishimoto suffer.
...
Happy Holidays Kishimoto. Happy Holidays.
Chapter 16: Pandora's Box
Despite the calm demeanor that showed on his face and in his gait as he walked through the forest that was the stomping ground of the enemy, Uchiha Itachi felt his adrenaline pulsing.
It was suicide for any member of the Uchiha Clan to venture any farther into the Great Woods of Hi no Kuni without at least four more people with them, one to look out in every direction and one to keep their eyes to the treetops above. The Inuzuka were a frightening clan to find as your enemies, even before you took into account that the current conflict was occurring on their terrain. The lands they knew like the backs of their hands.
This was something that Itachi felt he had to do though. He was no fan of spilling blood, even more so when he saw it as needless. If it took him putting himself out on a limb to preserve as many lives as he could, he would. That was also why he came alone, as well as because of the fact that putting himself at a disadvantage would present a better chance of a peaceful talk.
He stopped and turned when a branch broke. The creature that caused the disturbance made no effort to hide its presence. Slowly stalking out on four large paws, a wolf-like dog the size of Itachi himself with black fur, one eye, and one ear stepped toward him.
Of all things, the growling canine began to talk through the deep rumble in the back of his throat, "You've got some nerve coming here alone Uchiha. Either that, or you're a fool."
Itachi didn't draw a weapon or even prepare to fight in lieu of the insult and the threat. He merely inclined his head at the sight of the intelligent animal, "Kuromaru-san," He said in greeting, "I assume Tsume-dono is nearby," With that, he turned his back on Kuromaru and found a woman leaning against a tree not too far away.
She had an animalistic look common to her clan, with long, spiky, untamed brown hair, vertical slit-like pupils, clan fang markings on her cheeks, red eye-shadow, and purple lipstick. She wore a leather vest covered with fur, black leggings, and sandals with fur covering her legs traveling up to just below her knees. Around her right bicep she wore a band decorated with sharp teeth.
Itachi started to turn around when the woman's rough voice stopped him in his tracks, "Nope. Not so fast. Keep your eyes to the ground," She said, prompting him to turn around slowly, his eyes locked on her feet and no higher, "Just needed ol' Kuromaru to keep you from lookin' over here and trappin' me in a genjutsu. You all seem to be good at that."
It was understandable. Keeping his eyes away from hers wouldn't necessarily put her at an advantage. He could still tell if she made a move to attack. If it made her feel secure about talking and kept a battle from breaking out, it was fine.
"I'm surprised, and grateful, that you didn't bring an entire squad with you to ambush me," Itachi told her, bowing to her to initiate the conversation, but of course he kept his eyes on what he could of her as he did. It was simply common combat sense, to always keep your eyes on your enemy, even when you bow, "You've done me a great honor. The head of the Inuzuka Clan's most influential pack, hearing me out today."
That almost made her laugh. Inuzuka didn't put much stock in titles. Everyone had to work, do their share, and earn their keep; fighting, doing missions, hunting, scavenging, selling goods, and on it went. Being leader simply meant that you did the most out of anyone and you were the best at it.
The aforementioned Inuzuka simply fixed Itachi with a toothy grin in response, showing him her sharp canines even under the dark canopy of the forest, "Well it isn't such a big thing getting me out here. You made it so obvious that you were coming through the forest. And I figured if I just brought the house and turned this into a fight, more of my guys would have died than I could've stomached for it. Of course, to kill you, some would say it would've been worth it."
Tsume wasn't ceremonial in the least when it came to anything that she did. The way her people operated, formality just wasted time and kept people from speaking their minds and their hearts. Honestly, she wasn't so influential either. Her pack was the strongest, which from the outside had people looking at her as the leader. That mistake was made more than one would have thought.
The Inuzuka Clan didn't operate under one uniform system. Control was broken into numerous packs consisting of a few dozen people each, all with various lands throughout the unsettled woodland and grasslands of Hi no Kuni. The leaders of each pack came together to form something of a weighted confederation, with power leaning toward those who had more people to take care of, and land under their control.
All of this made the process of wartime defeat quite messy. While there were some who wished to surrender to the Uchiha Clan and adhere to their concessions in order to keep what they could from being ravaged in battle, as the Uchiha putting boots to the ground to fight cared nothing for the lands the Inuzuka lived off of and cherished, there were other packs willing to fight tooth and nail to the bitter end.
Sometimes there were both sides in great numbers in single packs, and that had a propensity to tear families apart.
"Still, you have my appreciation," Itachi said, remaining in his bow. He had chosen to go to her for a reason, "Any of the remaining packs still fighting against us would have attacked me instead of hearing me out."
"Well we ain't all barbarians the way everyone seems to think," Tsume replied matter-of-factly, "We're just a little... spirited, and we just want our land. S'not like we could fit in and get along anywhere else."
"That in of itself is something I can admit I do not understand," Itachi said, "Where this outlook on your clan comes from."
They weren't violent berserkers, or foolish barbarians set in backwards ways. They simply lived close to the land and the creatures within it. It was just another of those unexplainable things, of how or why certain clans evoked certain responses and received particular stigmas from the rest of the ninja world.
"It figures. You lot really don't care about the past at all unless it involves your parts in it," Tsume stated firmly, "Your clan's just a thread in history's web. Same as everybody else's."
Itachi wanted to understand. The only thing clan-wise he had been fed by his own ilk was that the Uchiha were extremely powerful and descended from the Rikudou Sennin, and the Senju were the worst of the worst.
Trying to learn about the other clan cultures from them didn't exactly go very well when he was pitted against most of them in battle, and they were the only ones that could give their side.
"It was your clan's predecessors, and the Senju's predecessors that cast us out of the original Shinobi Sect," Tsume said, kicking at the dirt on the ground, "…Thought the way we used chakra to commune with animals as familiars was an abomination, or something. Now look around, a mark of strength is a connection with animal familiars."
All of the clans that splintered away from the original unified Shinobi Sect that had formed underneath the teachings of chakra via the Rikudou Sennin had generally never broken away of their own accord. It often happened over time, either because of conflicts with other aspects of the sect or various other methods.
The reasons that fragments scattered to the winds and became the separate clans that they were today were as various as the methods that shinobi could take chakra and use for themselves.
"I see," Itachi said to the woman, "I am asking you Inuzuka-dono, look beyond what your clan has now. You can read the climate just as well as anyone else in your position. Things are going to change soon, and I can't say whether or not they'll ever go back to being the same again."
"You don't seem to get it," Tsume said, "Even if living like this wasn't our choice at first, it's our way of life now. And coughing up our lands, the only place we can go without bein' seen as second-class shinobi, to you is going to help us… how exactly?"
Itachi closed his eyes and tried to think of some way to eloquently place what he wanted to say, "In the face of a maelstrom, you cannot fight it," He eventually said, "You can merely prepare as best as you can and endure."
Certain things sounded like threats. After being around for as long as Tsume had been as a shinobi, most things fit the requirements to sound like one, "Would that make the Uchiha Clan the storm?"
Itachi frowned and shook his head, deflating her significantly as she had been expecting an underlying threat where there was none, "…No," Itachi said after a moment of thought, "This conflict is not what I was referring to."
And like that, his body vanished in a flock of crows, surprising both Tsume and Kuromaru with the sudden Shunshin.
After confirming that Itachi was departing, Tsume's longtime ninken partner turned to her and spoke up again. He had held his tongue in exchange for keeping a wary eye on Itachi, "He didn't say anything about the attack on the bioweapon convoy."
Tsume knew, and that bothered her. It could have been because the attack had been successful; they had lost their trump for killing off everything that moved in the woods and Itachi didn't want to show how much that turn of events stung their war effort.
Of course, it could have also meant something awful as well. The group that had waged the attack had begun to return after scattering afterwards, those that had survived anyway. The ones who had come back thus far had told her that her children Kiba and Hana managed to make off with the device containing the virus.
They were amongst the few who had yet to return.
Itachi could have simply not brought this up because her children were dead. Such a thought made her bite her lip hard enough to draw blood.
No. Her kids were good. They had shown themselves to be more than talented enough to entrust with something like that, which meant she had to trust that they were also talented enough to come back.
God, she hoped they would come back.
XxX
(Southern Coast of Hi no Kuni/Kawa no Kuni – Outskirts of Seaside Village)
Apparently the Uchiha could learn through more ways than just staring at someone else performing a jutsu. They could learn lessons that would have them change their tactics. After the first small squad that had attacked the ragtag group of Naruto, Tenten, and Hana had failed, they stuck to keeping their distance.
Close enough to pursue, but far away enough that they didn't find themselves within range of the overwhelming response they would get for straying too near. Sure, they figured they would more than likely win that fight due to sheer numbers, but the losses they would receive in return made them question if it would be worth it, if they could even win at all.
One of their enemies was a jinchuuriki after all. The fact that they hadn't sent him on a distressed, biju-based rampage yet was a stroke of luck as far as they were concerned.
So their decision was to simply follow. They would get reinforcements. Then it wouldn't matter.
It was the most boring chase that Naruto could say he had ever been in. Aside from Tenten trying to randomly pick off someone who strayed far enough from the amassed squad that she figured she could hit them, there was no more fighting. And they couldn't find a way to lose them. Naruto didn't have a sleight of hand way to shake them as long as they had their Sharingan on, which they all did.
Farther ahead, the group with the stolen canister containing a crippling bioweapon were trying to brainstorm a solution to their problem as well.
"Why are we running?" Hana asked, still wanting a couple of pounds of flesh for her brother's sake, her own injuries be damned, "We can handle them. We just did, so what's the point of trying to get away when we can just take them on?"
Naruto and Tenten both gave the Inuzuka girl an incredulous look. She couldn't have been serious. None of them had pegged her for the battle-hungry type from the amount of interaction they'd had with her since she had woken up.
Never one shy to share his outlook, Naruto quickly informed her of the reasons why, "First of all, I hate fighting inside of towns. Second of all, I hate fighting Uchiha, period," One in particular more than others, but Naruto could only hope that he wasn't there. It had been a year since he'd run into Sasuke and he'd have liked to keep it that way, "Third of all, I'm carrying my friggin' sister! I can keep going if you want!"
Hana had the presence of mind to look sufficiently embarrassed at forgetting that Naruto was carrying Kanako. To his credit, he had done a great job of tucking her against his chest and keeping little girl protected and out of sight with his arms.
For about a half-second, Tenten grinned at the fact that Naruto hadn't brought up the biggest reason. He was a prime target for a genjutsu. He was awful at them, and at breaking them. And when faced with anyone who could throw one on him with just eye contact, he didn't exactly want a piece of them.
Still, the situation was serious. Not a time to pick on Naruto. She could do that later.
"At least Sasuke isn't here," Tenten said, trying to look at a silver-lining in the current set of events, "…I hate it when we have to fight that guy."
"Who's we?" Naruto asked, "I always end up fighting him. I let you do it once and he almost killed you. Shino lost half of his hive keeping you from getting cooked."
Tenten didn't like being reminded of her more crushing defeats. She had been prepared to jab back with a timely, 'You never beat him either,' but seeing a new figure make a beeline for the enemy pursuers put an end to any banter she was ready to dish out, "Uh-oh."
Naruto turned his head back to see what she was referring to and frowned after catching sight of it, or better yet 'him', "Oh man. Speak of the devil."
Hana caught sight of the young man approaching the rest of the Uchiha at a faster speed than they had seen out of the rest of the clan. She immediately flashed back to the one person that had obliterated her and her brother the last time she had been conscious, "That's Sasuke? That's the one who got me into this mess! He killed my brother!"
Her claws were bared and her teeth were out. It was murder time. Or at least it would have been, if Tenten hadn't immediately dropped back to keep her from breaking rank and heading off to take them on.
"Are you out of your mind?" Tenten barked at her, feeling a tad stabby at Hana almost costing them all just to get some (un)timely revenge. Revenge that she probably wouldn't have gotten close to obtaining, "There are twenty of them at least! Calm down!"
Twenty that they would not be fighting themselves, as shortly after Sasuke joined with his clan brethren, they broke off from the chase and simply left. Naruto and company came to an immediate stop after reaching the woods at the outskirts of town, thoroughly confused. They hadn't even started tree-hopping in earnest.
"That's right!" Kurama bellowed from within the seal he was locked behind inside of Naruto's body. No one could hear a word but Naruto, yet Kurama shouted as though its voice would echo for miles, causing Naruto to wince, "Run you filthy, lowly Uchiha! Count yourselves fortunate you were wise enough to flee, or else you'd have been devoured by my awesome might!"
Kurama did not like Uchiha Clan, more than a lot of other people with legitimate gripes against them disliked them. After years with the biju, Naruto had deduced it had something to do with the Sharingan, but every time he brought it up, it just turned into a rant about how he could have, should have, would have devoured the Sage of Six Path's eldest child when he had the chance and how that would have fixed so many problems.
Naruto didn't have the patience or the background information necessary to try and begin to piece those ramblings together.
"They're leaving?" Naruto asked, shifting Kanako in his arms as he watched the overwhelming force in numbers vacate the area, "Why the fuck are they leaving? Sasuke always wants to try and take a few chunks out of me," He sounded disappointed.
"I thought you said you didn't like fighting in towns or fighting Uchiha," Tenten pointed out, keeping a close eye on Hana and her growling pack of ninken, lest she go off and try to do something foolish.
"I don't, but this is different," The blond jinchuuriki seemed honestly confused as Kanako reached over and pinched her brother's whisker-marked cheek for previously cursing, "He never runs from me, no matter how stupid the rumors get or how much ass I'm kicking at whatever time he shows up. What spooked him?"
What indeed? Sasuke was one of the people that put absolutely no stock in Naruto housing a biju inside of his body, having come across Naruto and lived/thrived in battle against him once before with few ill effects. There could only be a handful of things out there that could make him retreat without trying to go after what the others saw as his objective.
Kanako finally pulled her face out of Naruto's chest with a bright, joyous demeanor, "Mama!" She knew she was on the way before anyone else ever even saw her.
"Well-well!" Kushina's voice rang out as she landed on the ground in front of her children, their friend, and their temporary tagalong, dusting off her legs as she stood straight up from her rush to return to the youngsters, "Our guests are clearing out. I guess I don't have to crack any skulls today after all."
Naruto and Tenten leveled deadpan looks at each other and spoke simultaneously, "That explains that."
Kushina had fought against Sasuke. Enough said.
No wonder he didn't spare them a second glance. With that red-headed devil on his tail, getting as far away from her as humanly possible made sense, especially if Kanako was potentially in the crossfire. Numbers didn't really matter against Kushina unless those numbers were crushing in size, or each individual had enough force to deal with her on their own to a degree.
"Mom," Naruto greeted in earnest, putting Kanako down as the two Uzumaki siblings walked over to their matriarch, "Did Sasuke make you lose the old lady clothes?" He was promptly greeted with a rap on the head, "Ow."
Kushina had liked those clothes, but they weren't what you wore to a fight, "Don't be a smartass," She said, tying her hair back into a ponytail before taking Kanako's hand, "So no trouble here? Everyone's alright?"
Tenten pursed her lips, remembering the bit of trouble they had run across because of the damned canister, "We had to fight a little bit, but they didn't get any shots in on any of us. If Naruto's right about the seal on this thing, they can keep coming for us though," She said, presenting the item she spoke of.
Kushina looked over at Naruto for more on the subject, which he succinctly gave, "Tracking seal."
"Mmm," The eldest Uzumaki present winced at the information. Tracking seals were a nasty bit of business, "Well that's annoying. What's in it?"
"Uchiha bioweapon. And we can't really open it or destroy it."
Kushina let out a mighty sigh, shaking her head. She couldn't just give it back or let Hana go off on her own with it, could she? She'd be killed and looted within six hours, "So we have to keep a big flashing beacon with us that would wipe out another clan if we let them have it. We can't hide it, because they can find it, and we can't open it and risk letting it out somewhere safe."
Naruto raised a hand for her attention, sitting down on a log for a short break, "If dad was here he could just give it to the toads and have them stash it on Mt. Myoboku, but..."
"Not an option," Kushina finished for her son, listing off options on her fingertips, "If we throw it away into the ocean, they can still find it. Does anyone know where the nearest volcano is?" She joked.
Hana didn't find the situation particularly funny, "Just taking care of this canister won't matter. They can afford to have more made for them," She said, glaring in the direction that she could still smell the Uchiha Clan members moving away in, "Our mission was to take this just to keep them from using this particular batch to kill off my clan. We should just go and get rid of the Uchiha that are here, so they can't track us any longer."
She wasn't speaking to shinobi her own age. She was speaking to an experienced, and apparently feared kunoichi. She would have to be the sort who was aggressive enough to take the initiative and crush her enemies.
…Not really.
Kushina stared at the girl, mouth slightly open and eyes halfway closed as she absorbed just what it was Hana wanted to go and do, "...First of all, don't ever tell me what to do," She stated flatly, "…Second of all, no. Third of all, my daughter is five feet away. Would you suggest we go into battle with her? Or do you have a plan for that?"
She was what one could consider an aggressive ninja by nature. But she wasn't one for fighting with nothing at risk. She had been around far too long to be okay with such a thing One girl's revenge was not enough of a reason to chase down a numerically superior force.
Only two of the four minors nearby belonged to her by blood, but Shino and Tenten were extremely close to her children and were fully her responsibility as well. Tenten especially had been around enough in close enough proximity to basically be her daughter by default, more or less.
The red-haired matron walked over to Tenten and took the canister away from her before holding it out to Hana, "If I know Naruto, he's going to try and help you figure out how to get rid of this to give your clan a fighting chance, and I'm not going to stop him. He's old enough to do what he wants. But if you want to go and throw your life away, be my guest. Just take this with you when you do."
Blunt as always, "Mom…" Naruto said, if only to chide her for being a bit harsh. It wasn't as if any of them were actually going to agree to go on an Uchiha death hunt. They were more careful than that, and had no personal reason to do anything so hare-brained.
"My son and these kids aren't risking their lives on someone else's mission," Kushina continued, getting up close to Hana as she pushed the canister back into her hands, "Not when that person is willing to go off and get killed instead of seeing it through themselves."
Hana glared at Kushina. She didn't care if she was killed trying to get to Sasuke, just as long as she could make the effort, but if she did she would be handing them the simplest method to exterminating mass amounts of her clan. Even if she ran off to do it herself, she didn't put it past the woman in front of her to simply drop the canister where she stood and leave it there to be found.
Kushina stared at Hana as she held her hand up to her mouth and bit into it deep enough to draw blood, breathing deeply as she tried to swallow her rage along with the iron taste on her tongue. Kiba didn't die fighting in some foolish rage just because he was angry at the Uchiha Clan. He died fighting to make sure that they kept a weapon that could end their way of life from being put into play.
She was in no condition to fight awful odds like that anyway. Her condition was downright deplorable and she would have been lucky to last even ninety seconds against any passable shinobi.
Putting the Uchiha within arm's reach of it, just to take a swipe at her brother's killer… it wasn't worth it. Getting rid of the bioweapon would hurt or at least slow down the progression of the enemy. They would have to continue fighting a conventional war (at least as conventional as a ninja war could be) until they could get more bioweapon made.
Finally cooling her jets, Hana let out a sigh and licked away the blood from around her lips before calmly receiving the canister from Kushina, nodding in understanding at her stark advice. Kushina held no ill will and gave her as much of a comforting, understanding smile as she could, mouthing 'I understand' to her, giving her a pat on the shoulder before going back to Kanako.
That done, Hana walked up to the seated Naruto. He had been the one to help her in the first place, and seemed to be the ringleader… except for Kushina, but she didn't feel like pushing the frank woman any further than she had already, "Okay, I know you have nothing to do with this, but I need your help."
She didn't even get the chance to bow after making her declaration, let alone ask properly, before Naruto pushed himself up off of the log he sat upon, bringing him inches away from the girl with the wild appearance, "Okay, I'm in."
Hana blinked at both the close proximity and the immediate nature of the answer, "Really?"
"Yeah, totally," Naruto confirmed with a big grin, stepping back out of Hana's personal space.
Hana couldn't help but ask, "…Why?" As no sane or intelligent person would have been okay with such a thing without at least a little thought first.
This time, Naruto took a second to think and give the Inuzuka lass an honest, thoughtful answer, "Because what I've heard about that bioweapon is nasty. I don't want anyone to get hit with that," It was more humane just to massacre people by hand than sic the virus inside of the container on them, "Plus, it'll probably piss off Sasuke if he can't stop me from doing something about it," He felt Kanako glaring at him and took that moment to address his little sister, "That wasn't a curse word Kana. Technically."
Kanako didn't know what 'technically' meant. She just knew that bad words were bad.
Naruto punched into his palm as he began bouncing on his toes, "Yeah. We find the guy who made it, hold him at kunai-point, and get him to hand over an antidote."
Hana just stared at Naruto for several seconds until she realized that it hadn't dawned on Naruto the seriousness of what he had just said, "Our intelligence says that Orochimaru made this," She eventually said, prompting Tenten to let out a soft gasp at such a name being dropped.
As a something of an engineer of ninja tools, a creator in her own right, she had a healthy respect and fear of what the man was allegedly capable of.
Naruto's reaction was markedly less spectacular, "...What's your point?"
"What could Inuzuka-san mean you wonder?" Shino said, appearing from nowhere and scaring the daylights out of everyone other than Kanako who didn't seem surprised in the least, "It's simple Naruto-san. You plan on seeking out the greatest scientific mind in the Elemental Nations, a man who also doubles as one of the most dangerous shinobi of all time, with the objective of coaxing him into giving you the antidote."
Kushina put a hand to her chest and took a breath before pointing accusatorily at Shino, "Oi, Shino-kun, where did you scurry in from? I almost threw Naruto at you, 'ttebane! Be more careful."
"Did I startle everyone?" Shino asked earnestly, despite how rhetorical that question should have seemed judging from the reactions of the others, "My apologies. I have been standing here for the last five minutes," And no one noticed.
Naruto looked at Shino and then at Kushina, slowly gauging that he was separated from her grasp by at least twelve feet before bringing that to her attention, "Uh, I'm all the way over here Mom," She couldn't really throw him, not without her Chakra Chains.
"I know! Stand closer to your mother!" She told him, "I need my weapon of opportunity within arm's reach," It wasn't her fault that he had inherited Minato's hair. With the hardness of his head to boot, Naruto was like a walking mace, "I'm surprised Tenten's never swung you at anything."
"I've thought about it," Tenten chimed in under her breath, off-handedly.
"You are just the best mom in the universe. Did ya know that?" Naruto said sarcastically, "I should get you a mug that says so."
"Love you too, baby."
Tenten rolled her eyes at the usual display between mother and son as she spoke to Hana, "If Naruto's going, I guess I am too. Someone has to let him know how dangerous the people we end up running into are," Because God knew that Naruto's survival instincts had been broken ever since they ran into Shukaku years ago,
"I know who Orochimaru is," Naruto argued with his closest female friend in turn, "I just barely care about it. When's he come up before now?"
In many cases there was a thin line between not knowing, and not caring.
"Well apparently he made that marvelous virus that wiped out the Fuuma Clan," Tenten muttered, "So now we have to go and find his operation. I'm pretty sure that's not gonna be easy."
"I don't think that'll be too much of a problem," Hana said, pointing at her own nose to indicate her clan's powerful sense of smell, "...Once this heals up enough. And I still have my ninken. They should be enough to distinguish the scents of the people who have come into contact with it."
None of which were Uchiha. When Hana and Kiba had gotten to it, the canister had been in an isolated container. They were the first people to so much as touch the canister itself since it had been given to the Uchiha Clan. So whatever scent they wound up getting would more than likely get them where they wanted to go. Even if it didn't lead to Orochimaru, it would take them to someone who was connected to the man. Of course, from there the problems truly began, but that would have to be something that they would deal with when the time came.
Tenten brightened up a bit at Hana's assurance, "Oh! Well, alright. I guess we're on then," Thinking about what they were going to do made her stomach do flips.
Even if he was extremely dangerous, Orochimaru was something to look up to in a way, at least as far as she knew. He was a man with no shinobi clan, who through his own force of will, intellect, and ingenuity revolutionized several fields of practice for ninjas. A person like that made her think that she wasn't so out of her league living as a ninja. That she wouldn't die before she reached thirty.
Hell, no one knew how old he was, but it was assumed that he was far past the age of thirty, because he'd had a reputation twenty years prior.
Kushina pulled Naruto aside momentarily while his friends conversed with Hana over how things would be expected to go and how long this temporary partnership would last. Making sure she brought him in close, she lowered her voice to keep the conversation between just them.
"Naruto," She said, her serious nature a stark departure from the Kushina who normally took great joy in teasing her son.
It showed all over her face, and Naruto knew that when Kushina was done making light of things, it was time to shut his mouth and open his ears. She was the only person who could make him sober up on command, "Yeah mom?"
"You can do whatever you want, like I said," She told him, breaking any possible thoughts he may have had on her potentially advising him to turn Hana down, "You're growing up, and I want you to do what you think is right, make your own choices."
"I know," Naruto said with a small smile.
It was times like these where Naruto knew why he listened to Kushina's direction easier than he did to anything Minato told him. It wasn't out of any sort of malice, it was just how he felt the two handled him.
While Naruto knew Minato saw him as his son first and loved him dearly, Naruto was also aware that Minato also saw him as a piece on the shogi board as whatever one would class a jinchuuriki as. It wasn't long into Naruto's time with his father after going off to train with Jiraiya for those months that he realized just where he stood. He realized it, but that didn't make it any easier to endure.
That was the mound of crap that oftentimes came with politics.
Kushina on the other hand made sure at all times that Naruto knew he was a boy first. He was her baby, even if he was growing up, and if and when everything village-wise came to fruition, Naruto would have a very important position as the son of the person who put it together. No political tool would be able to say or perform in such a role. It would take a man, not a fabricated monster.
"You can do as you like," Kushina continued, reaching out a hand and stroking Naruto's cheek, "...But please, please, please... don't pick a fight with Orochimaru if you find him. You can't win."
It was the first time in a while that Naruto had been told straight-up that he couldn't overcome a potential opponent. He wasn't used to hearing such a thing, "What?" He said in disbelief, "But you know I can-."
"I know what you can do baby. It doesn't matter," She warned him. If even half of what was said about him was true, Orochimaru was not the kind of person that could be overpowered. If he was, someone else, another clan, would have done it a long time ago. There was a reason he was still around, doing what he had been doing so long undisturbed for the most part, "Even if you could defeat Orochimaru, he isn't the kind of man that you can force to do anything. But he is a businessman."
Naruto squinted his eyes as he frowned, picking up what Kushina was more or less telling him. The first solution to the problem would be to try and purchase as much of the antidote to the virus as the Inuzuka Clan would need if an outbreak occurred. It wasn't as if they didn't have the money to afford it, but as far as they knew, they weren't being compensated for this.
It was the right thing to do, yes, which had been part of his motivation in offering Hana his help, but they were mercenaries, and the world was a cold, hard place. Paying for an entire clan's cure, even with the deep coffers they had for the village project, was very inconvenient.
Bah, fuck it. Naruto had been the one to put his neck on the line taking all of it in the first place when he'd been a little boy. If he wanted to use some of it to help keep an entire clan from being eradicated by the ninja version of the plague, it was his business. He'd never used any of it that he hadn't earned as mission pay before, so he was due.
XxX
(Meanwhile – With Minato)
Minato's hand shot to the inside of his pocket, clutching at his wallet tightly for no apparent reason. It wasn't as if they were in a city rife with thieves. They were in a quiet, rural town with friendly people, not cutthroats. And any civilian willing to try and boost from one of them had to know that they were basically volunteering for suicide-by-shinobi.
"You alright?" Anko asked after seeing Minato's actions and his subsequent confusion at just what he himself was doing, "You look kind of... off."
"It's nothing," Minato assured the curious young woman with a carefree wave, before his gaze hardened and he looked in the direction of the south, "...I just have a feeling that Naruto's going to try and spend a lot of our money."
A lot of their money? As in money for the plan? That was a laugh. The sheer amount of riches that had been pilfered from Kakuzu's money pit could have funded a full-scale clan war ten times over, and they still did missions to continue bringing in funds to boot. Unless Naruto planned on buying a diamond-studded codpiece for every day of the decade, they weren't running out of money easily at all.
Fuu observed her boss before leaning over to Anko to whisper, "Minato-sama is a cheapskate," It was poorly done however, as Minato heard her and twitched in response.
The older kunoichi could have told her green-haired comrade that much from the way their periodic pay periods were set up for their terrain scouting mission, "He's got the wrong dream in mind if he's not good with spending money. Just wait until those clans joining up want a piece. Hoo-boy."
"I can hear everything you two are saying by the way," Minato pointed out before Anko got too far along in her conversation with Fuu.
"Good, maybe you can take some of this to heart then."
"If I ever get real subordinates, will they be as disrespectful as you are?"
"Only if you let them get to know you like we do."
XxX
(Southern Hi no Kuni)
Cooler heads had to prevail, even if the entirety of Sasuke's brigade wanted to tangle with the group that was currently in possession of their clan's property.
He wasn't the only one either.
"Sasuke, we have them outnumbered!" One of his fellow clansmen said, a man in his mid-twenties with long black hair, "If we head back, we can take them on now. There's no need to fall back."
The Uchiha did not like to lose, or even accept the implication of anything other than victory. They had a strong drive to succeed simply because of that nature alone. Thus, it was a bitter pill to swallow that they were turned back.
As appealing as the thought was, Sasuke couldn't bring himself to agree, "Numbers won't matter, or don't you know anything about Uzumaki Naruto? I don't even want to start with Kushina either."
Uzumaki Kushina was anything but just a housewife. On the point of going up against her, the others had to concede that giving her space was the best option for them all.
Sasuke felt that his approach had to be responsible, even if every fiber of him wanted to go back and feed 'Naruto of the Nine Tails' all nine of those figurative tails of his, the way he knew he could. Kushina was the bigger problem and the more relevant threat at the moment. Fortunately for whatever reason she didn't feel the need to try her hand at turning a retreat into a route.
He had to look past the immediate setback and think about what would have been. As prideful as he was and as much as it burned him to admit it, fighting that woman would not have had a preferable ending.
"You wouldn't have been able to take it before Kushina got to them as backup," Sasuke said, shaking his head at the thought of tangling with that woman. She hadn't even resorted to any of her signatures and she had him on his heels, "We can find and get the canister back whenever."
That fact put the other members of his clan at ease, and it was a better approach than simply pressuring the very powerful black sheep kunoichi of the Uzumaki Clan.
They could at least spare the time to come up with a plan of action. As long as the Uchiha sitting and waiting just outside of the Inuzuka Clan forest lands knew that the bioweapon was coming, Itachi wouldn't order any attacks or expeditions into the dangerous area to further the campaign, so they wouldn't be costing any lives.
"Yashima, Inabi, Hikaku," Sasuke said, picking out three of his nearby clansmen for a request, "I need you to go back and update Itachi on the situation," He frowned, preferring not to be in a situation where he had to give his brother any kind of status report other than one of his returning success, "They should pull back a bit, but sit tight at the line. We'll be back soon enough and can go ahead with the attack then."
It wouldn't take too terribly long, and Sasuke was sure that the combat-weary clan members situated near the territory of the Inuzuka clan would be appreciative of a short reprieve from all of the fighting. It would be a quick trip back to the battlefront after they wrested the canister out of that Inuzuka girl's hands.
XxX
(Some Time Later – Northern Hi no Kuni)
Kushina had taken Kanako away from her big brother to head north and meet up with Minato, and it was just as well. Being with Naruto was no place for Kanako whatsoever.
Anything involving the Inuzuka-Uchiha conflict was Naruto's thing to take care of, and even if it wasn't, she couldn't just run around with a little girl who couldn't do anything to defend herself. If this went the way it was supposed to there wouldn't be any fighting done anyway, so her presence wouldn't have contributed enough to justify the risk it would have presented.
That left the younger portion of the village enactment group to take care of their own business… which was Inuzuka business. But Naruto had stuck his nose into it, what with being strictly anti-genocide and all, thus bringing his friends into the fray as well.
After taking off and traveling for two days they had stopped for a little bit of comfort at a roadside tea house. Just a quick break before continuing their run. Shino and Naruto took it upon themselves to check back and make sure there was no one coming their way any time soon.
Tenten and Hana waited for the two of them to return, with one of her ninken, as she had lent the other two to Naruto and Shino for both security and assistance in scouting for foes.
The two girls shared a pot of tea, sitting outside of the small building. If something was going to attack, they weren't going to find themselves caught inside of a small, easily collapsible shelter. Not by choice at least.
Keeping an eye on the travelers that passed by or went inside to rest up for a spell as well, Tenten eyed her small cup before downing what was left of it, letting her tea burn for a quick moment as it went down her throat, "Do you think we can see to this quickly enough to be of any real help?" She asked Hana, "I really hope so."
Tenten wasn't an Inuzuka, and didn't really have any dog in the fight between them and the Uchiha Clan so to speak, but having an entire clan wiped out wasn't anything that she wanted to see. Apparently she was like Naruto in that regard.
"This is something my ninken can definitely handle," Hana said with a proud smile on her face. The canister had been kept somewhere safe on her person when she had fallen in the water, so the scents on it beforehand were still there, and there had only been one other until she had touched it.
It had only rained in the south of the country recently, near the sea, so if they went far enough north, there was a very good chance that the powerful noses of her three dogs would pick up a trail and take them right to the source.
Yes, Hana was absolutely certain. She would have staked her life on it, "The only scents on the canister are yours, Uzumaki-san's, his mother's, mine, and..." Hana said, some tension in her voice at bringing up her late sibling, "...And my brother's... a-aside from the person who first placed it inside of the original isolation container we found it in."
Tenten couldn't help but feel a sense of empathy for what Hana was feeling. It had been around ten years since her parents had been killed during the course of the last massive conflict between the Senju and Uchiha, but thinking about it still left a bit of a raw pain in her chest, even if it was fading with the time she spent around her friends.
Hana wiped at her eyes and swallowed down her sadness before trying to change the subject, "Anyway, I'm guessing that with who you are and what your leader is aiming for, you want something that would help your unified village idea, right?"
"Well, I'm pretty sure Naruto hadn't even thought of that when he agreed to help," Tenten told her with a grin, "But if you could swing a meeting with your clan head, it would be nice if we could at least get someone to hear us out."
It was nice when they didn't have to fight off people radically opposed to it. It was also nice when they didn't have to jump through hoops to get a meeting either, but after years at work, none of them were beneath performing tasks to show that they had value in of themselves, instead of being people looking for the strength of clan-based shinobi as buffers or protectorates to make life easier.
"Namikaze Minato already tried to bring his aim to our clan's attention. I remember," The injured Inuzuka girl remembered, thinking of years past, before the stupid war with the Uchiha Clan, "Some of our clan liked the sound of it, others didn't. But we don't have a uniform leader to make any sort of call for all of us, and some joining with others staying in place would have split up our entire clan, something that we would never let happen."
Tenten pursed her lips thinking of a question that sprang to mind, "If there's no real leader, how does your clan work?"
Hana knew the Inuzuka system like the back of her hand, explaining it easily for "The Inuzuka Clan's leadership is broken up into packs. Members of the clan attract followers that could be friends, family, lovers, whatever. They could begin amassing pack members while already belonging to one and then breaking away later to make it official, or they could try and challenge the head of their own pack leader to take over."
Tenten tried to process that information, and when placed alongside what she knew about most other clans it contrasted sharply, "That sounds complicated," How did they ever agree on anything as a single unit? Or did they? Did they wind up fighting wars amongst themselves? Perhaps that was why they remained isolated more than any other shinobi clan.
"It can be," Hana admitted with a shrug, "With us, clan politics basically boil down to might makes right. If you think your idea is for the better of the clan as a whole and you want to enforce it, you'd better be strong enough to beat up anyone that disagrees," She emphasized with a punch at the air.
The cute way Hana illustrated her point got Tenten to giggle a bit, as it went against much of what she'd formed in her mind about her temporary ally until that point, "It sounds like it has a simple charm to it, I admit."
Hana nodded with a tiny smile, "Above all else, my clan values loyalty. If I make it out of this alive, I won't ever forget what you did for me, and I'll repay you. I definitely will," Hana explained, looking away while she scratched the ears of one of her dogs, "I can't promise anything in regards to your village, but I can promise that I will make sure that you always have a friend in the Inuzuka."
Well that was a start. Even if it didn't really grant them anything, being friendly with someone, even if they didn't want any part of the village was better than having them declare openly hostile intentions against it.
It was then that Naruto and Shino returned, with two of Hana's ninken moving with them. Both dogs happily ran up to her, panting and whining as they rubbed their heads against her legs, prompting her to laugh at the contact. Tenten hoped that it was earnest, and more than her putting on a brave face instead of grieving in the wake of an emergency.
Shino stood off to the side, despite the empty space on the bench that he could have taken a seat on. Naruto and Tenten were more than used to his quirks by now. He valued friendship, but he had a thing for seemingly being left alone even amongst people he liked. It was strange.
Naruto on the other hand, had no qualms parking himself on one of the ends of the wooden seat, next to Tenten, who bumped him with her hip as he sat, "So, any tails?" She asked.
"Sure. Nine of 'em," Naruto said, not missing a beat, "Oh, you meant people following us?"
As blasé as Tenten's initial reaction was, it had been a quick return time for Naruto's wit. As far as stupid jokes went, for him it was sort of impressive, "Really? You went there?" The weapons specialist responded.
"Blame Kurama. He said it first," Naruto reasoned, though the smirk on his face showed that he didn't have any problems with it, "But seriously, not yet. Shino's bugs never gave him anything and Hana's dogs couldn't pick up anything that smelled like an Uchiha nearby, so I think we're fine for now."
Shino chose that moment to interject, "With that out of the way, we have an important question of our own," He prefaced, getting Hana and Tenten's attention before he spoke further, "..Did you get us anything?"
Tenten almost fell forward out of her seat, 'Really Shino?' Another trait of their at times enigmatic friend, he could be somewhat petty about the little things. Fortunately, she had foreseen this, "Yes, we ordered for you guys too. Just dango so we can eat and run, and no Naruto, there's no ramen here, so you'll have to go without this time around."
Naruto huffed and looked away in embarrassment at her bringing up one of his chief vices, "It's not that big of a deal. I don't always eat ramen, you know."
"Tenten-san may have a point," Shino said matter-of-factly, "Why you ask? I'm certain that ramen is a good sixty percent of your diet, at least."
Tenten pointed at Shino for backing her up, "See?"
Naruto leaned forward to look over at Hana, explaining his banter with his friends and how it was directed against him as though he were doing commentary, "It's a group thing to pick on me. They think if they tell me I'm as awesome as I already know I am, it'll jinx me."
"No, we just think that if we did that, your head would swell up from all of the hot air and carry you away."
"And then I could fly, which would make me even more awesome!"
This was just another thing that came with dealing with Naruto, the calculated ego trips. Fortunately, they had all just recently been given a weapon to battle back against it, "Give me two," Tenten said, pointing at the ground.
"Two what?" Naruto seemed confused for a moment before realizing what she had been referring to; the throwaway bet they had made the other day, "Oh! Wait, really? Here?"
Tenten didn't want to seem as though she were too terribly pleased with herself, but it was very hard not to, "Yep."
"I thought you said it was dumb."
"It is. But you still lost, and the wager was twenty pushups that I can make you do whenever I want, so hop to it."
Naruto sighed before shooting a look at Shino, as if to say, 'Why couldn't you have lied and said you went ahead to clear a path?' Either way, he dropped down and banged out two pushups, popping back up and squinting at Tenten harshly, "You happy now?"
He had severely underestimated how mortifying that concept would have been in practice when he'd made the bet. His only saving grace was that there had been no one outside of their immediate circle that had seen him do pushups on command.
"Yeah actually," Tenten said, with a markedly easy demeanor, "That was way more satisfying than I thought it would be," Next time she had to make sure that she saved a few so she could make him do that in front of people. A lot of people. That would probably humble him a bit more.
Hana laughed a bit. She hadn't had many enjoyable interactions with shinobi outside of the Inuzuka Clan that hadn't been about something business-related. These were three completely different people that she found herself traveling with for days, and aside from one minor dust-up begun by passion, rage, and adrenaline, there had been no major fallout between them.
The separate points of view, backgrounds, approaches to the ninja arts. Was this the kind of thing that everyone involved would get to experience with the endgoal of the unified village idea achieved? Because if so, it seemed... pleasant. As if there were more to it than just the amassing of the most powerful skills available in the ninja world.
She was broken from her musings when she felt the push of one of her ninken's muzzles against her leg. Looking down, she noticed the other two, both standing ramrod straight, their nostrils flaring as though they had picked something up.
The one against Hana's leg let out a low snort and a quick rumble of a growl from the back of its throat. Hana pursed her lips in thought after interpreting the noise. Apparently the good times, the safe thoughts, they couldn't last.
'It was nice to think about though,' Hana thought to herself before capturing Naruto's attention. She knew Hi no Kuni like the back of her hand, but they were straying close to the limits of her clan's geographical knowledge, "Is there a town within eight hours of here? North?"
"Hold on," Naruto pulled out the map of the countryside. They were near the northern border with Ta no Kuni, and while there were plenty of closer towns, Hana had been rather specific and particular in her query, "...Uh. Seven-to-ten hours actually. Nowhere is an eight hour trip exactly from here, but heading north, that one's the closest to that time frame. What's the matter?"
Hana stood up and smoothed out her battle dress as she stared north, "My triplets have a scent."
The scent. The scent of the last person to lay hands on the bioweapon canister before it had been contained and handed over to the Uchiha Clan. They would have to eat while on the go. Fortunately dango was a fairly portable snack.
XxX
Even if the whole of the Elemental Nations was a wartorn feudal system, when you stood at the top and those fighting wanted nothing of yours, the view was still marvelous.
For those who did stand at the top, the daimyo, those in control of the nations that covered the continent, the system worked.
Shinobi posed them no threat. They did not desire control of the countries. All they wanted was money. Money that the daimyos were willing to provide in exchange for their services in battle, as rare as it was for the countries themselves to ever go to war. Thus, the ninja would not kill lucrative sources of income.
They would kill each other to make sure that they wound up being the ones hired, but once again, this was of no concern to the nobles.
The Senju, the Uchiha, or whomever, they could have it out as much as they wished. It didn't matter in the end, and it never affected his bottom line. Taxes still came in from those he'd put in charge in certain areas of the country, and he could still mount an army from drafted citizens any time he saw fit. Life went on… for him and other nobles at least.
It was just that rebuilding after some of their battles was quite annoying, but the responsibility of leadership had its share of burdens like anything else.
None of that was a pressing matter however. It was a family excursion for the Fire Daimyo, on a wonderful eastern tour of his realm.
He and his guard were merely waiting on his wife to return with the multitude of purchases that she had ordered made while they had been in the area. That woman did love her keepsakes, even if she would completely forget what she had gotten and where she had put them within the span of a week.
Dressed in his elaborate robes, with his traditional headdress on his head, emblazoned with a fan marked by a fire emblem, the Fire Daimyo chortled lightly to himself inside of his carriage, "That woman…" He said lightly, fanning himself until after one particular wave of the object he realized that he wasn't alone.
A bandaged old man with shaggy brown hair and a black robe covering a white kimono top sat directly across from him, staring with the one good eye that he had left.
His mere presence alone was startling enough. The fact that he had obviously infiltrated his guard detail and made it inside of his carriage with nary a sound only compounded upon this.
"And you are?"
"You may call me Danzo, Daimyo-sama," Danzo greeted, bending forward slightly in the makings of a bow, "There is no need to be so tense."
An airy scoff of anger came from the Fire Daimyo to mask his fear, "Well unfortunately, I cannot say that I am accustomed to having uninvited guests in my personal transport," He snapped.
The old, grizzled traditionalist had expected nothing less than complete mistrust, and even a touch of outrage. It was why he had snuck in to begin with, "I did not come here to cause you harm, otherwise you would never have known that I was here, and I have far more subtle methods of sending a message without exposing myself were my aim to threaten you."
"Then what is it that you want?" The Daimyo asked, wishing he hadn't foregone his guard captain's constant advice to keep some kind of small arm handy. Even a little dagger. But no, it was too unsightly for a noble with his own forces to carry something so unbecoming, "I would have ventured that it is to offer your mercenary services, but I have no pressing issues that require the skills of your kind."
"I want nothing from you, other than five minutes of your time that would otherwise only be spent sitting within this carriage doing nothing," "I simply wish for you to hear me out, and once you do I will be on my way."
The intrusion was not one that endeared Danzo to the Fire Daimyo, and the last thing he wanted to do was reward such behavior with lending Danzo an ear. Of course, on the other hand yelling for guards at that moment would likely wind up with him getting his throat opened before he even finished uttering the one-syllable cry for help.
"Very well then," The Fire Daimyo said carefully, eyeing Danzo as though he were a poisonous serpent, "Speak shinobi."
A man had to prioritize after all.
"I will not lie to you," Danzo said, resting his weight forward on his cane, causing the Fire Daimyo to unconsciously draw himself backwards, "I do have my own reasons for bringing something this alarming to your attention. A village comprised of allied shinobi does neither of us any good. Think about what could become of it."
It didn't take him long to put together just what disadvantages such an arrangement would present him with. What the word shinobi meant to him brought clear and concise images of just what it would mean if they banded together.
If the best ninja clans in the country were all unified under one banner, prices for work would rise. Cost for shinobi work had steadily been dropping over the decades, with the constant warfare and the need to attract work away from clans to cripple their earning ability, other clans would discount their own prices to entire clients.
If there was a unification of these clans, prices would begin to increase to their former costs, and then beyond, because there would be no other supply. On top of that, if the best came together as one, there would be no better quality either.
"I see that you have a point in this matter," The Daimyo said, honestly considering everything that he was hearing, "You wouldn't happen to have an inkling of just which clans would be interested in this… shall we say, revolutionary idea?"
If Danzo were more of an emotive man, he would have smirked at that exact moment. The man was paranoid of losing his power, his prestige, his control over all his soldiers surveyed.
There was nothing he had at his disposal better than the truth itself that would feed that paranoia so completely.
"The Hyuuga, the Aburame, the Sarutobi, even shinobi outside of this country's borders are interested, namely the Sand Nomads of Kaze no Kuni,"With every clan name that Danzo dropped, he could see the Daimyo's eyes slowly growing larger and larger, "Those are only the more prominent parties. If this came to fruition, there would be no military power that could match its might."
'Including yours' was the unsaid implication that Danzo wanted to make sure he could drive home.
Still, a lifetime dealing with politics and the constant threat of warfare tearing at the stability of his realm left the Daimyo of Hi no Kuni with a very well-defined poker face, "And you are making sure that this has been brought to my attention, why exactly? Not that I'm ungrateful for knowledge on just how far along this measure truly is."
He honestly hadn't known how much had already been poured into the idea. He had heard rumblings, but never anything solid enough to really make anything of it. The people who spoke about it in the open didn't know enough about how far along it was, and the people who knew about how far along it was didn't speak about it in the open.
"I'm old, Daimyo-sama," Danzo stated bluntly, "My time on this planet is short. When I go, I would like to rest with the knowledge that the system I grew up in, the system that we've held, that has worked for centuries, does not die off soon after I do."
They were supposed to fight. It was competition. They were supposed to stay to themselves and wage war between each other to propagate the lifestyle.
Anything else, and in Danzo's mind it simply would not and could not work out. When peace and corroboration between the clans became a viable option, everything would start to change, and the outcome of such a drastic shift would not guarantee the survival of the ninja system in the least.
That simply could not stand.
"A ninja village will be the beginning of the end," Danzo said gravely, the timbres of his voice affected by the thought of it, "It will slowly strangle everything that I have ever known until nothing is left but the withered husk. I will not allow that to happen as long as there is breath in my body to prevent it from being so."
With that, Danzo stood, once again scaring the Fire Daimyo back farther into his cushiony seat. Danzo spared him half a glance before turning and opening the door, ducking his head to make his exit.
"Thank you for your time," Danzo told him, "I hope I've given you something to think about. There is much to lose for those of us that would rather things remain as they are."
Wondering why there was no response from the multitude of armed followers he knew he had surrounding his horse and carriage, the Daimyo leaned over to peer out of the open door.
He let out a gasp at finding his entire guard detail standing dead still, staring at nothing, stupefied. Not a one of them noticed Danzo's departure, as the old man left and rejoined a small contingent of black-clad shinobi that surrounded him and led him away.
Stupefied, the Fire Daimyo plopped back down in his seat, entirely undignified. This… Danzo wasn't even from a notable clan according to his own words. Certainly none that he had ever heard from before. He was an old man, maimed and possibly crippled from years of battle, and still his skills were terrifying.
If name shinobi of notable strength and skill, from clans world-renowned banded together for the sake of their own interests… what would that do to the carefully positioned balance of power?
Without his control over the situation, it could not be allowed. As the ruler of Hi no Kuni, a force rivaling or surpassing what he could amass himself could not be permitted to take hold.
Nothing good could come of this. Not for him. Not for any noble in his position. Something needed to be done, and soon.
Alright, and that's the chapter. Merry X-mas jerks. Or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or whatever wintertime holiday dominates ninety percent of your preparation for December, if one even does.
I'm going to go spread more mirth and merriment elsewhere, because in my own humble opinion I would like to think that that's my thing... when I'm not spreading pain and vision-reddening anger to the masses at least. There's a fine line there, or so I've come to learn.
Anyway, that's that ladies and gentlemen. It's all I've got for you this time out, so I hope you enjoyed.
Kenchi out.