Pre-Chapter A/N:Another chapter on time? Guess my lock-in is going pretty well. If you haven't already, I recommend turning on notifications for my stuff so you can see when new stuff drops right as it drops. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Since I just started a new story, there's a cheeky discount on said patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) page for anyone interested.
XXXXX- KUSHINA UZUMAKI
"It's been a while since it's just been the three of us, hasn't it?" she said as she met the both of them at the gate.
"It has," Minato said with a smile. Mikoto remained silent but nodded as well.
"So, how are we feeling about this one?" Kushina asked.
"I think it's a prank, honestly," Minato said. She chuckled; yeah, that was a possibility.
"It's billed as a classified S-rank mission," Mikoto said as they began walking out of the village gate together. Her eyes scanned their surroundings, making sure no one was following or paying much attention to them.
"He has the money for it," Minato countered.
"Can't argue with that one. But that's going to be a very expensive prank, don't you think?" Kushina asked.
"Everything about this mission stinks. He's asked us to make the journey halfway across the Land of Fire to deliver a Flying Raijin tag to a monk, of all people. For one, he could have just used a messenger hawk for that. Or a team of Genin even. There aren't even any bandits in the Land of Fire anymore," Minato said.
"Kushina being here is a point against it being a prank, though. She's the guardian of Konoha, isn't she? I doubt he'd get away with just sending her out of the village on a frivolous mission," Mikoto countered.
"He's the Hokage. I love Shori-nii, but he's not really the kind of person to let things like common sense or what is reasonable get in the way of something if he thinks it's going to be funny," she said. Mikoto just sighed next.
"So this might all be a prank."
"Yup."
"Well, at least it's going to be a well-paying prank, Minato," she said.
"What?" Minato asked.
"Yeah, extra money for you, you know?" she said.
"What would he need extra money for?" Mikoto asked.
"He's living in some slum. He needs to get a new place," she said.
"Kushina, I can afford a new place if I want one," Minato said.
"Then why do you live there? I thought it was because you didn't have the money for something better."
"No. I genuinely like where I live," he said.
"He's just being shy. He lives in that slum because he donates all his mission pay to the orphanage he grew up in," Mikoto said between chuckles.
"Wait. What?" she asked.
"How do you know that?" Minato asked.
"I know everything," Mikoto said smugly. Kushina looked over at Minato to see a red flush building on his face. So it was true then. He was giving away his mission pay to the orphanage. That was just so…
"Cuteeeee!" she screamed, jumping over and hugging him.
— — —
"We're at the right place?" she asked, looking at the grand building in front of her. It was a gleaming red. The walls were so high that she could only see the higher levels of the building. The gate was a gleaming gold. And from that gate came a long line of civilians. The line stretched as far as she could see. This was going to be a lot of waiting, she thought with a sigh.
"Of course we are," Mikoto said, stepping in front of her and leading them to the front of the line.
"Uhhh. I don't think this is a good idea," she whispered to her teammates as she noticed the glares coming from those in the line.
"Ignore them," Mikoto said, continuing to pull them across. Kushina tried to give the civilians apologetic looks to make it clear that none of this was her doing, but that did little to dissuade their rage. She just hoped none of them did anything stupid in their rage. She noticed how most of them had come with one sick family member—in some cases more than one even. The temple was clearly their last hope and the closer they got to the front of the line, the longer the people they passed had been waiting for, and the looks were all the harsher for it.
She turned away from them when she got a glimpse of a woman who looked genuinely about to die. It was just too much for her, and there was nothing she could do about it. She didn't have the chakra control for medical ninjutsu herself and she knew that both Minato and Mikoto would refuse. They were on a mission and no matter what they thought of the mission itself, it went against all their training to abandon the mission to help some civilians. And if they helped one person, they'd be expected to help all the others. They'd cause a riot if they weren't careful and neither of her teammates would risk it. Not with a mission pending at the very least.
She kept her gaze focused forwards, ignoring the glares that stabbed through the side of her head until they reached the gate.
"Hey, no skipping the line," one of the monks said, walking forwards to stop them before the man next to him grabbed him and pulled him backwards.
"Look at those headbands and vests. These are shinobi," the other one said.
"I did not take shinobi for religious fellows," the third one said.
Mikoto ignored all three of them, leading them past the gate and then up to one who was dressed slightly different from the others. They all had bald heads and orange robes but this one seemed just a tad more put together than the rest.
"We are shinobi of Konohagakure. Here to speak to the Head Abbot," she said.
"The Head Abbot? What business do you have with him?"
"Shinobi business," Mikoto said.
"Now lead us to him please," she pressed. And then they started making the journey. The monk didn't seem to be all that bothered about any rudeness in Mikoto's chosen approach. Instead of asking them about what they had come for, he engaged them in conversation about the temple. When it had been built, what it did, how its mission had evolved with time, especially with the ascension of this Head Abbot who he clearly was a big fan of.
They walked through the temple, past civilians on the lowest floor and then past orange-robed monks on all the higher floors who bowed to the monk that escorted them as they passed. He returned every bow with one of his own, but no other words or signs were exchanged. It seemed the other monks couldn't even care less who they were—so focused they were on whatever thought it was that captured their attention at all times.
They ascended multiple flights of stairs until they were at what she knew to be the highest floor. But that was not where they stopped. They walked forward, entering a room with little identifying markers of any sort. And then when they entered, the room was empty with mats on the floor. Their escort then dragged a ladder from one end of the room before opening it up in the middle. He began to climb and when he reached the top, he pushed against the ceiling and a latch came loose that he pushed upwards, creating an opening.
"Head Abbot Kisuke," he said in greeting.
"Yes, Abbot Isagi?" a voice called back. A shockingly feminine voice. Kushina felt an eyebrow raise.
"Shinobi from Konoha are here to see you," he said.
"Oh splendid. Send them up and you can return to your penance," the voice replied.
"Yes, Head Abbot." And then his head lowered back from the ceiling.
"The Head Abbot will see you now," he said.
"In there?" Kushina confirmed, pointing at the ceiling.
"Yes," he said.
"Well, let's get to it," Minato said, and he led the way. Mikoto followed. And Kushina was the last to push herself up to the ceiling. The surprisingly clean and spacious ceiling room. There were mats on the floor for meditation and then there was a small stool in front of the Head Abbot who was the greatest shock of them all. It was a woman. Her head was shaved just as surely as any other monk's, but those growths on her chest could be little else.
"Welcome, Konoha shinobi. Please sit," she said, and her voice had a hypnotic quality to it, almost like she was singing to them.
"Greetings, Head Abbot Kisuke," Minato said, taking the lead once they had done so. She nodded, and said nothing more so he continued.
"We were sent by the Hokage to give you this," he said, taking out the kunai with the Flying Raijin seal. He stretched his hand out, but then the distance between them meant he had to stand up to give it to her. She waved him off, and then flicked her wrist. The kunai shot from Minato's grasp into hers. She stared at the kunai, looking at it and seemingly analyzing every trace of the seal.
"Yes, yes. Your Hokage is a very smart man," she said, and then she tossed the kunai at them. Mikoto's hand on her lap prevented her from reacting to the sudden movement. The blade passed them by before burying itself in a wooden beam behind them. And then there was a shift in the air as Shori-nii appeared.
"Oh brilliant. I was beginning to wonder if you lot had gotten lost or something," he said, stepping past them and towards the monk.
"Head Abbot Kisuke, I presume. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," he continued, offering her a bow. She felt both Mikoto and Minato take sharp breaths behind her. The Hokage bowed to no one.
"Hokage Shorirama Senju," she said his name testingly before offering a bow of her own.
"May I?" he asked next, and then plopped down a second before she nodded. Okay, the Shori-nii she knew was still somewhere in there despite the odd display of respect.
"Our correspondence had led me to make the assumption that you were a man. Abbot Sae referred to you as his brother when he said you would be able to answer my questions," he said.
"Of course he did. We are a brotherhood, are we not? He would have referred to me as his sister if we were a sisterhood," she said, and Shori-nii chuckled at what was a terrible joke, assuming it was even meant to be taken as one.
"Our physical gender is meaningless when it comes to the service we offer the temple. For all that my physical traits are different, I am a brother just as any other," she said.
"However, I doubt that questions of such nature are what brought you here. Abbot Sae said you wanted to know about the Sage. Are you here to find religion, Shorirama Senju?" she asked.
"Nothing of the sort, I fear. I want to know about the Sage not from a religious point of view but from a historical one. We know that a man existed who wielded chakra with an ease and to a degree that makes even masters of the art like us look like toddlers painting with our fingers compared to the pure artistry he could perform. Seas made with a wave of one hand, mountains formed with another, and most importantly, tools made by casting his intention into regular objects to create effects greater than any fūinjutsu master would be able to create even with decades of work and study," he said.
"You seek information on the Sacred Tools," she said.
"Yes."
"Many have gone down this path, few have managed to return from it. Even fewer have managed to find anything of use," she said, turning her head to the side.
Shori-nii clapped his hands together and a clay pot appeared in his hands.
"So you were the one to find it then," the woman said, not looking all that surprised.
"So you know about it."
"The Land of Rivers will lose its name in a generation," she said.
"And the guardians?"
"Dead."
"I shall say a prayer for them. But if you already have one, what business do you have searching out the others?"
"Let's say I have an obsession with completion. I want a complete set." Kushina could hear the determination in Shori-nii's voice as he spoke.
"What even is a complete set? No one knows for true how many of his tools he left behind by the time he died. We know from contemporaneous accounts that he had personally destroyed a few before he died. His shakujō being perhaps the most famous of them. If your goal is completion then you might as well set another goal to own the moon itself," she said with a chuckle that would have sounded mocking coming from anyone else. Shori-nii seemed to appreciate the difference at least as he nodded at her words.
"Information like that is what brings me here. I am aware of the Pot of Endless Waters as I have it in my possession. I also have good reason to suspect that the Sword of Nunobuko is somewhere out there as well. So just how many tools did he make and where can I find them now?" he asked.
"If only it were so simple. The only known locations for the Sage's tools are the museum of Kumogakure where a few of them are displayed and your hands now. And in the case of the tools the Kumo-shinobi show off, those are mere trinkets compared to what you have and what I suspect you seek for truth," she said.
"What does that mean? My granduncle said something similar but I don't recall him ever saying why."
"While there is no outright evidence to prove this, examination of accounts of those who were with him at the time, as well as the tools themselves, tell us that they were more like experiments than anything else. They were proof of concept. They showed him that he could imbue traits onto objects using his chakra. And while they are valuable for being made by the Sage, they are not equivalent to the tools that would change the world like the Pot of Endless Waters or the Sword of Nunobuko," she said.
"So what are the others like the Sword and the Pot?"
"There are many tools referenced in the accounts. It is difficult to say which tools the Sage truly blessed and made and the ones who were said to merely have been to increase their values as they were eventually sold by charlatans and opportunists. And even in the cases where the intention was not purely to deceive, there are exaggerations around those accounts that could see an ordinary tool enlarged to hallowed status simply because of how they are described."
"So what are you trying to say? That you don't have any truly useful information for me?"
"Quite the opposite. I have an embarrassment of information on the matter. I am just warning you that very little of it might turn out to be true, and even less than that would be useful," she said.
"Lay it on me."
"The tools of the Sage of Six Paths which he created after he had come to the fruition of his power are often known as the Hallowed Tools, and of them there are thirteen which are widely believed to have existed at some point or the other; the present existence of any of them is contested and doubted. Of course, the Pot of Endless Waters in your possession was known by a select few to be the source of the Land of Rivers' waters. The others are the Sword of Nunobuko, the Heavenly Jewelled Spear, the Indomitable Bracelets, the Eternal Lightning Rod, the Unceasing Torch, the Chalice of Healing, the Bell of a Million Truths, the Oathkeeping Chain, the All-Revealing Mirror, the Compass of Finding, the Shakujō of the Sage, and the Prayer Beads of the Sage. We know for sure that the Sage's shakujō was destroyed by him before his death as part of a final ceremony," she said.
"Is that all you have? Names? I could have figured all that out by reading some books. Tell me something real," Shori-nii pressed.
"Yes, you are correct. I have given you no information that you would not have been able to find on your own with a bit of studying or even by asking any monk past a certain stage in their learning. If you want anything more from me, I will have a request of my own that you must fulfill," she said.
"What do you want?" Shori-nii asked, seeming guarded all of a sudden.
"You will return the Pot of Endless Waters to the Land of Rivers and you will use your best endeavors to ensure that it is undisturbed for at least as many generations as passed before you carelessly slaughtered those who held the duty of guarding it," she said. Kushina felt her hackles rise, and she could feel Mikoto and Minato react much the same. This was not going to end well. There was no chance it was going to end well after what she had just said. Shori-nii did not take orders.
"I will, will I?" he asked, and she could already hear the murderous intent in his tone.
"Yes, you will."
"And you presume to give me orders because?" he asked.
"If you want the information I have, then you will do as I say. I will not see the Hallowed Tools fall into the hands of one with no capacity for understanding the greater good. You have nothing you use the Pot for—I would have known if you had placed it into serious use. Return the pot, and let the rivers in the Land of Rivers flow again, and I will give you the information you need," she said.
"I have a better idea: fight me for it. Beat me and I'll return the pot. Don't and I'll keep the pot and your knowledge." He said, and there it was. The trap.
A/N: Shorirama Chapter next. Hope you liked the Kushina insight. Next five up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early. Started a new story, so there's a discount for the rest of the month on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga): feel free to check that out as well.