The air in the Tsuchikage's office hung thick with the weight of stone dust and heavier secrets. Sunlight, filtered through high, narrow windows cut into the mountain rock, slashed across the polished obsidian floor, illuminating swirling motes. Onoki's gaze, sharp as flint was fixed on the kunoichi standing rigidly before him: his daughter, Gani.
"So," Onoki's voice rasped, breaking the tense silence like a pickaxe striking rock.
"That is how the Kazekage reacted?"
Gani, clad in the standard Iwa flak jacket but carrying an air of weary travel, met her father's gaze. Her eyes, usually sharp and assessing, held a fraction less certainty than usual.
She dipped her head in a shallow, formal bow, a gesture more of protocol than filial respect. "yes, Tsuchikage-sama," she affirmed, her voice carefully neutral, devoid of inflexion.
"Ambivalence veiled in the sand. He acknowledged the… complexity of the situation. Offered platitudes about Suna's resilience. But made no concrete commitments. He listened, but his eyes… they were calculating the desert winds, not our proposals."
For the past hour, the air had been thick with Gani's recounting. She had described her mission to the Kazekage. She detailed the Kazekage's non-answers, his probing questions about Kumo's losses and Konoha's unexpected resilience, the way he'd skillfully deflected her attempts to pin down Suna's military intentions.
It was a report of masterful political evasion on both sides.
At least Gani thought it was.
A heavy silence descended again, filled only by the distant rumble of construction deep within the mountain and the faint sigh of wind through the high windows.
Onoki's eyes, like chips of obsidian, didn't waver from Gani's face. He seemed to be weighing not just her words, but the subtle tension in her shoulders, the almost imperceptible tremor in her clasped hands behind her back.
Gani broke the silence, her voice low, laced with a daughter's hesitant concern rather than a subordinate's query. "Father… Tsuchikage-sama… why? Why play this game? Kumo demands our alliance against Konoha. Suna probes for weakness. We court both, anger both. It feels…" she searched for the word,
"...treacherous."
Onoki didn't react with anger. Instead, a slow, grim smile touched his lips, devoid of humour. He pushed himself off the desk, his short stature belying the immense presence that filled the room as he paced a few steps towards the window overlooking the sprawling, terraced village of Iwagakure, carved into the mountainside like a stone hive.
"Treacherous?" he echoed, the word tasting dry. "No, Gani. This is not betrayal. This is deterrence." He stopped, turning back to her, his gaze piercing. "Think. If both Kumo and Suna believe they need Iwagakure… that our weight can tip the scales in their favour…" He raised a hand, fingers slowly closing into a fist. "...then neither dares turn on us first. Attacking the hand that might feed you victory? Foolish. Risky. They watch each other, they watch us, trapped in a stalemate of their own ambition." He lowered his fist.
"Abstaining cost us trust, yes. It made us look weak, and hesitant. But now?" The grim smile returned. "Now, the power is ours. The great war rages, blood soaks the earth, and Iwa… Iwa holds the balance. We are the stone upon which victory or defeat may break. We decide who wins. When the time is right."
Gani absorbed this, the cold pragmatism of it settling like stone dust in her lungs. "Who do you want to win, Father?" The question slipped out, less formal, driven by a genuine desire to understand the mind behind the mountain.
Onoki's smile vanished, replaced by impenetrable calculation. He waved a dismissive hand, the gesture final. "Too soon, Gani. Far too soon. The board is still shifting. Konoha reveals unexpected fangs. Kumo bleeds more than expected. Kiri stirs like a shark in bloody water. We watch. We wait. We let the fires burn a little longer, reveal the true strength beneath the ash." He turned fully towards the window, his back to her, a clear dismissal.
"That is all. You are dismissed. Get some rest. Your report… is noted."
Gani hesitated for a fraction of a second, a flicker of something unreadable, relief? Frustration? Crossing her face before she schooled it back to impassive professionalism. She bowed again, deeper this time. "Yes, Tsuchikage-sama." The heavy stone door groaned open under her touch and then thudded shut behind her, sealing the office in silence once more.
The moment the latch fell, Onoki's posture changed. The imposing Kage seemed to shrink fractionally, not with weariness, but with a coiled tension that hadn't been present before.
His hands, now clasped tightly behind his back, knuckles white. The warm sunlight streaming through the window suddenly felt cold, and clinical.
His eyes, narrowed to slits, fixed on the spot where Gani had stood. 'Inconsistencies…' The thought was a cold shard of ice in his mind.
'Minor, almost imperceptible. A hesitation when describing the Kazekage's reaction to Kumo's Jinchuriki setback. A phrasing about Konoha's defences that echoed Kumo's intelligence reports too closely, not Suna's usual dismissiveness. Gani has opinions. Strong ones. Especially about threats.'
He hadn't sensed foreign chakra during her report. No overt signs of coercion. But Onoki had lived through too many deceptions, orchestrated too many himself, to dismiss the gnawing unease. The possibility wasn't just treason; it was something more insidious.
'Genjutsu.' The word echoed in the silent room.
'A subtle one. Masterful. Layered not to control, but to… influence. To nudge perceptions.'
If a kunoichi of Gani's calibre, his own daughter, could be infiltrated so subtly… the implications were terrifying. It wasn't just about Gani potentially betraying Iwa.
It meant an enemy possessed a level of genjutsu mastery that bypassed even his vigilance. An enemy capable of planting seeds of misinformation directly into the heart of Iwa's command structure.
His jaw clenched, the muscles standing out like cords of stone. 'If this is true…'
He stared out at his village, the neat tiers of stone houses, the bustling training grounds far below, the ever-present dust cloud from the quarries. 'If they can reach Gani… they can reach anyone. Advisors. Commanders.' The war he'd hoped to manipulate from a position of strength suddenly felt like a quicksand pit filled with invisible snakes.
It wouldn't be swift. It wouldn't be clean. It would be a war of shadows and whispers, of eroded trust and poisoned information, dragging on far longer than any clash of armies.
'Longer… and infinitely more dangerous.'
He didn't move, didn't call out. He simply focused his will, a silent command rippling through his potent chakra, directed towards the deepest shadows pooled in the corner of his office, behind a massive, uncut geode.
"Get Inugami," he muttered, the words low, venomous, barely more than a vibration in the air. "Have him scan her chakra flow. Track her. Now. Report everything. Subtlety paramount."
From the seemingly solid darkness, a patch detached itself. It didn't nod, didn't speak. It simply flowed, silent as smoke, slipping through the minute gap under the heavy stone door with an unnerving absence of sound.
Alone again, Onoki's face hardened into a mask of flint. The initial unease crystallized into a cold, furious resolve. He walked slowly to the large window overlooking Iwagakure.
He crossed his arms behind his back, a small, immovable figure silhouetted against the vast panorama of his stone village and the rugged mountains beyond. The afternoon sun gilded the peaks but left deep crevasses in shadow, mirroring the hidden threats he now perceived.
Below, the village lived, worked, and trained – unaware of the stakes potentially brewing within its very heart.
Onoki's gaze swept over it all – the quarries, the academy, the homes. The legacy he had fought so brutally to preserve. He saw not just stone and people, but the fragile equilibrium he maintained through sheer will and ruthless pragmatism.
A balance now threatened not by an army at the gates, but by an invisible rot.
His lips barely moved, the words a low growl that resonated with the mountain itself, carrying the weight of decades of conflict and sacrifice: "I fought through two wars to keep this village from falling to deception…" His knuckles, pressed against the small of his back, turned white.
The memory of past betrayals, of shadows that had once nearly consumed Iwa, flashed behind his eyes – Madara's machinations, Hanzo's poison, the whispers that turned brother against brother.
"…I won't let the third destroy it from the inside."