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.
XXXX- SHORIRAMA SENJU
"How barbaric you shinobi tend to be, to assume that every problem can be solved with one's fists. I have given my terms. I have no need to exchange fists with you to see my will done. If you want my information, you will return and safeguard the pot," she said. I stared her down, allowing my killing intent to leak, but it did nothing to her. The ceramic teapot and cups began to shake, but she did not seem to even be feeling it. Interesting. I tamped it down.
"There has to be something else you want," I said.
"I am a monk of the Fire Temple. I do not have wants. I am an instrument of the balance, and the balance demands that the rivers be returned to the land to which they had given a name. And you will do it," she said.
'Kurama, did the name of the tools not ring any bells in you? Tell me you remember something. Please. I really don't want to have to give in to this woman,' I begged internally.
'I told you already. The tools were made while the Sage traveled the world. That was when he was the host to the Ten-Tails. He removed the Ten-Tails from his body and used the Creation of All Things to make the nine of us. We did not exist until then. We have no memories of our time as the Ten-Tails. It's impossible. The only tools I saw were the Shakujo and the prayer beads. He destroyed both before he died so his sons could not fight over them—dumb brats.'
'Fuck,' I cursed internally, staring down the woman. Still nothing. If one didn't know better, it would look like she was having a pleasant conversation about the weather.
'You don't use the pot. Just return it,' Kurama said.
'I can't believe you are the one preaching reasonableness in this case,' I said.
'Unless you want to fight her here, destroy the temple, and then capture her for your friend with the yellow hair to read her mind,' he said. And that was actually a possibility now that I thought about it.
'I was not making a suggestion, you human. Just do what she wants. It will annoy you for now, but it is better than the alternative.'
"Fine. I'll do it," I accepted. There was nothing stopping me from just going back and getting the pot, after all. It wasn't like I needed it urgently.
"Of course, you would understand that I find myself hesitant to just take your word for it. I will require a bound oath from you accepting my terms," she said.
"Yeah sure, I swear to follow your terms," I said, waving her on.
"No, no. Nothing so simple, I fear," she said with a chuckle. She stood up and then walked backward to the wall behind her. She pushed on it, and the false wall gave way. It fell outward, and she caught it, lifting the section of the wooden wall up and to the side. There, behind where the wall had been, was a single set of shackles. Silver, pristine, and seeming to glow in the dim light of the attic.
"Do you know what this is?" she asked as she picked up the set of shackles from the wall.
"I assume it's not a tool for strange sex stuff," I joked.
'Careful, Shorirama. Those feel strange. There is a power to them I cannot clearly sense,' Kurama warned from within.
"Indeed, not a tool for strange sex stuff. I mentioned the Oathkeeping Chain. This is it," she said.
"Those are shackles, not a chain," I pointed out first, before the significance of what she had said sunk in. Those were another of the hallowed tools. She had one. And the fact that she had one meant that her claims about having information on the others were all the more believable.
"The chain between them is the important bit. The shackles were welded to them afterward to make it easier to take the oaths. I'll attach one end to you and the other to me, then you will swear the oath to keep your word to me. If you ever break your word—or even decide to—the oath will take your life," she said.
"My life? And how is it going to do that?"
"I don't know. The exact mechanics of the Oathkeeping Chain are lost to time—if the Sage had ever even divulged them to anyone other than himself in the first place, which is doubtful. He was never known to be one who told the secrets of his creations to many. However, the fact remains that every single person who has made an oath with this chain and broken it has died upon doing so," she said.
"Died as in just fallen dead immediately, or died as in due to something seemingly unrelated?" I asked.
"Died as in just fallen dead immediately," she confirmed with little mirth.
"Okay fine, I guess," I said, while already wondering about possible workarounds. It would probably be based on what the words of the oath themselves were. If there was one thing I could be reasonably certain of, it was outwitting some monk in terms of wording things.
She walked towards me and then sat seiza right in front of me.
"Your right hand, please," she said. I offered it to her, and then she clasped the shackle shut around my wrist. She did the same with her own right hand, and I felt something settle over my chakra.
"Do you, Shorirama Senju, make oath and swear to return the Pot of Endless Waters to where you initially found it, and to take your best reasonable efforts to ensure that the pot is undisturbed once you have done so?" she asked.
"Yes, I do," I said.
"Now my turn?" I asked. She nodded.
"Do you, Head Abbot Kisuke, make oath and swear to divulge all relevant information you have about the Hallowed Tools of the Sage of Six Paths and to answer any questions I have on that subject with complete honesty?" I returned, after spending a few seconds thinking about the best way to frame things.
"Yes, I do," she said.
"So we can get talking now?" I asked as she began unclasping the shackles.
"I assume you don't mind your students being here to hear this?"
"Why would I? There's a reason I sent them on this mission in the first place. They'll be the ones doing the legwork to chase down these tools while I am busy," I said with a shrug. She nodded and then moved the chain back to where she had gotten it from.
"The first thing you should know is that each of the great temples keeps one of the hallowed tools. As you have just seen, I keep and hold the Oathkeeping Chain here in the Fire Temple. The Water Temple keeps the Unceasing Torch, Wind keeps the Chalice of Healing, Earth keeps the Bell of a Million Truths, and Lightning keeps the Compass of Finding. The other tools are more or less lost to time. Some are more lost than others. Give up on finding either the Sword of Nunobuko or the Heavenly Jeweled Spear. The former was used by the Sage in reshaping the world after his battle against the Rabbit Goddess ravaged it. The latter was also used in the recovery; it allowed precise control of all physical objects. The consensus is that both were either destroyed or sealed away by him, but there is no evidence in support of either, other than the fact that neither of them has been seen since he made use of them. The Indomitable Bracelets were made by the Sage and granted to the woman he fell in love with who gave him both his sons. She wore the bracelets until the Sage's death and then is said to have passed them on to her younger brother, who passed them down from son to son for generations. Assuming they are still being passed around in the same family, you should look for records of a set of gold bangles worn as a set—one on each hand—with the wearer showing resistance to all external physical forces. The only way to take them off is to convince the wearer to do that of their own free will—"
"And if the wearer is dead?" I asked, feeling a sinking feeling. She tilted her head at me before she spoke.
"In that case, there would be no way to get them off that I can think of. The body will not decay, as it will be resistant to the forces that normally ought to act upon it. And the bracelets themselves will resist any attempt to damage them to get them off. That would be an interesting showpiece in the unlikely event that happened," she said with a chuckle. Of fucking course. Just my luck. I allowed none of my frustration or realization to show on my face at her words, though.
"The Eternal Lightning Rod and All-Revealing Mirror are unique in that there are more recent accounts of their usage. The Eternal Lightning Rod, we know, was used by the First Raikage when he defeated all other clans in the Land of Lightning and brought them together to form a village of his own. In the First War, however, when he was killed in action, the rod was lost. He died in combat against the Land of Earth, so if the tool persists, it would be somewhere there. The All-Revealing Mirror was briefly the property of a Daimyo in the Land of Water. It was stolen. We were able to confirm it in the possession of a warlord from the Land of Rain. Said warlord died when Hanzo the Salamander unified the Land of Rain under his rule. Since you yourself were responsible for Hanzo's death, I'm sure you'll find a way to get your hands on it," she said.
'Kurama?' I asked.
'If she's lied, then she would be better at it than anyone you've ever met. Not a single sign of it,' he said. I nodded. That worked for me. At least I had the information I needed to find a few of them; now I just needed to take some steps to find the rest. Because that sword and that spear still existed. I could feel it in my bones. They would be the hardest to find, though. Because if anyone had used them in recent times, there was no chance the monks wouldn't have gotten word of it. The fact that they knew so much about the others made it clear they had a sophisticated information-gathering network.
"Thank you for the information. As a gesture of goodwill, I will allow you to keep the Oathkeeping Chain," I said, rising to my feet.
"Allow me? The tools held by the temples are part of our duty to the Sage and his legacy. You have no right to them, and will not be having any of them," she said.
"I am sure you believe that," I said, shaking my head. "However, when the reports reach you, do remember that your temple stands by my mercy as much as it does by your will. The other temples, if they prove stubborn, will not find themselves so lucky."
"You would not dare," she said, but I had already tuned her out. I stretched out my hands, and my students took them when it became clear what I wanted. In a flash, we were gone.
"What was that about, Sensei?" Minato was the first to speak.
"Surely you have working ears. It shouldn't be hard to figure out," I said with a smirk.
"Did we just declare war on the temples?" Kushina wondered. I smiled and reached out, rubbing her hair before heading to my seat.
"We did not. If the temples have any sense, when I ask them for their tools, they will give them over," I said.
"What do we even need those tools for?" Minato asked.
"Well, not all of them would present much use. Something like the Oathkeeping Chain has no use to a ninja village like ours. If we need to make binding oaths with anyone, it would be better to just kill them and not risk it. The Chalice of Healing, though? A potent healing device capable of repairing all wounds, both internal and external? Imagine how efficient the hospital would be if we could go from near-death to perfect health with a drink from a glass. I am curious about the Unceasing Torch, so we'll grab that as well. The Bell of a Million Truths would be useful to a village without a clan of mind readers, so they can keep that. The compass is probably going to end up being the most important—with it, we would be able to find the ones lost to us," I said with a shrug.
"Something tells me that the temples will not just stand aside and give us these tools if they've kept them safe for so long. What would happen to the village's reputation if we did something like assaulting a place of worship?" Mikoto wondered.
"Foreign places of worship. The Fire Temple will stay out of things because Kisuke has a brain between her ears. The conflict would be entirely abroad. Ideally, we'd manage to steal the things without much fanfare, but more likely, we'll have to kill a few monks here and there. The other villages can afford war even less than we can. They'll raise a stink if they must, but they won't retaliate. An attack abroad projects strength, which is exactly what you must do in times of peace," I said.
"But what I still don't understand is why. What are these hallowed tools going to add to the village that we were not well on the way to achieving already? This feels like a risk we don't need to take—like there are better ways to go about this—like you are being motivated by something that you don't want to tell us about," he said, and I avoided showing any reaction.
If they knew this was all because of a dream, they'd worry about my sanity. But I knew what I had felt, and I knew what Kurama had felt as well. If those tools would play any role in this village getting ready for what was to come, then I would see to it that we had them. Because when that boy came again, I was going to remove his head from his shoulders and drink wine from his skull. I just had to make sure the village was ready to survive witnessing that fight.
"If I had any other motivations and didn't tell you about them, it would be my prerogative as your Kage, would it not?" I asked with a smirk.
"Yes, Sensei," he said.
"Then that is enough of that. The compass should be the first one we acquire. Use the library and the intel reports. Come up with a strategy. I want that compass in my hand by the end of the month," I said.
The three of them nodded and headed off. I turned back to the work on my desk. Anything it took to keep my attention away from what I would have to do tonight. I had procrastinated for so long. First, it had been waiting for the time to be right in terms of the village and the civilians being ready to handle an event of this magnitude. Then there was waiting to get the chakra metal. Then waiting for one of my clones to come up with a design I was fine with and then adding the seal matrices that I would need to implement in the finished product. And then we had to wait for the jeweler to approve of the final design—everything brought together—which had taken a long period of time, especially with the numerous debates we'd had around gem choices. Then there was the mess that had been getting the approval of Grandmother and the rest of the Uzumaki elders. I was tempted to bypass them entirely, but this was a world and culture that thrived on doing things properly, and that was the proper way to do things.
Kage or not, I was still the Head of the Uzumaki clan, and the clan had a say in who birthed their next generation of heirs. While there was no guarantee that my children would lead the clan after me, it was still a consideration that they had. In the end, it was Uzume's strength rather than her personality or clan standing that clinched it. To be honest, the latter two things were probably more likely to work against her than for her in this case. I filed the last of the papers that had been placed in the urgent and important stack, and turned to the important but not urgent stack. Chunin Exams. I still needed to make a decision regarding both that and academy graduations. Then there was…
The alarm rang to tell me it was 5 PM, and I breathed a long sigh. You've got this. What are the chances you fuck this up, Shorirama? I asked myself as I rose from my seat. The answer I got wasn't one I liked, so I ignored it. I'd done everything on my end. I just had to bring this one home.
A/N: Another one bites the dust. Next chapter should continue the Shori POV and show us more of the village. 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.