Azula, not knowing the outrageous but somehow realistic thoughts of Mito, just placed her hand around Tsunade's shoulder, comforting the latter.
"Cheer up, Tsuna," Azula said, her voice composed. "Murasaki has made his choice. He chose to protect what he believes is worth it, so you should just give him some respect."
After all, Tsunade wasn't some fragile little girl having lost some people; she was… used to it, at least she thought so.
The moment was broken by Tajima, who strode over, his Sharingan deactivated and his posture screaming understanding.
A man from the "kill first, don't ask questions later" Warring States era, he gestured with a thumb over his shoulder at the huddled masses of surrendered Kiri ninja and terrified civilians.
"The fight part's over," Tajima stated, his tone suggesting he found administrative clean-up only marginally more appealing than stepping on a rusty kunai. "Now comes the headache. What's the plan for them? In my day, we'd have wrapped this up by sunset. Now I'm confused."
He wasn't wrong. In the clan warfare days, victory was often a grim, final census, with the losers having their clan completely annihilated unless the winners wanted some slaves.
But this wasn't a clan; it was a village, a bloated, damp, dysfunctional metropolis of thousands.
The inconvenient volume of villagers made wholesale slaughter not just monstrous, but a logistical nightmare even Tajima's hardened soul couldn't stomach.
He glanced at Azula, whose idea of diplomacy was a well-aimed lightning bolt, and then at Mito, whose idea of conflict resolution was to seal your aggression into a teapot.
"It's giving me a migraine," Tsunade grumbled, cracking her knuckles. "We can't just leave, and we can't exactly adopt them."
Mito, the voice of terrifying reason, chimed in. "Isolation is the core issue. Iwa or Suna would have to march through the Land of Fire or go the long way around, inviting Konoha's… attention. But Kumo…" She didn't finish the thought.
The Land of Lightning had a direct sea route.
And with over forty percent of Kiri's forces on missions today—including the powerful, absent Yuki clan—leaving Kiri undefended was an invitation for the Third Raikage to come shopping for new territory and bloodline limits.
Azula, who had been mentally rehearsing the precise shade of fear she wanted to see in Hiruzen Sarutobi's eyes upon her return, felt her glorious homecoming fantasy evaporate like mist under a fireball.
A genuinely aggrieved sigh escaped her.
"Fine," she conceded, the word tasting like ash. "I will… grace this puddle of a country with my presence for one month."
The declaration had the effect of a minor explosion.
Tajima's eyebrows vanished into his hairline. Mito's serene smile gained a hint of victorious glee. Asami, who had been quietly wondering how to cook, was taken aback.
Tsunade, seeing an opportunity to delay her return to Konoha, slapped Azula's back with enough force to stagger a lesser woman.
"I'll stay too! Someone's gotta keep you from burning down all the infrastructure. And, you know, ensure the medical transition is… smooth." It had absolutely nothing to do with the three-day-long bender she'd planned in Kiri's less-destroyed bars.
But Mito shook her head. "No, Tsunade. You and Tajima-sama, along with the clan members, will return to Konoha. Azula and I are more than sufficient to handle any… residual trouble here."
She held up a hand to forestall the impending protest. "Skirmishes are flaring up across the continents. A true war is just a matter of time. But Konoha cannot afford to have both its founding pillars absent. The void left by the combined absence of the Uchiha and Senju is not a power gap; it's a chasm our enemies would love to see."
Tajima, after a moment's grudging calculation, nodded.
He pictured his daughter and the Uzumaki women alone in Kumo, and a savage, proud grin touched his lips. The Raikage would probably end up sealed inside his own favorite weapon and used as a paperweight.
"Mito-sama is correct. Our strength is needed at home. With those two here," he jerked his chin at Azula and Mito, "Kiri will be quieter than the Naka River at midnight. Sooner, if Azula gets bored."
Definitely not because he wanted to join the excitement happening in the Ninja World instead of being stuck in some isolated village.
With the three most formidable people in the immediate vicinity aligned against her, Tsunade could only cross her arms and deploy a legendary, world-class pout.
She could only stomp away, muttering about ungrateful relatives and the critical lack of sake in strategic planning. She had to admit, if only to herself, that the big picture was secure.
...
...
...
"Hokage-sama, they're back! The Uchiha and the Senju just passed the eastern gate!"
The ANBU who'd all but materialized in the middle of Hiruzen Sarutobi's office was practically vibrating.
Despite the mask, the excitement in his voice was as subtle as a flashbang in a library.
Hiruzen paused mid-signature, setting down his brush with the weary grace of a man who'd just finished auditing the annual explosive tag budget.
Normally, such a blatant display of unchecked emotion would earn the operative a week of poetic, roundabout critiques about the importance of stoicism—delivered via parable, of course, probably involving a particularly emotionally constipated badger.
But today, Hiruzen found he couldn't muster the hypocrisy. A slow, relieved smile crept across his face, smoothing wrinkles that had been carved deeper by the latest lightning-release jutsu scroll from the Land of Lightning.
Finally. An end to the passive-aggressive scrolls from Kumo. I'll just… nudge them in Azula's general direction. She has that special way of making guests wish they'd never found her in the house.
"Well noted," Hiruzen said, his voice the picture of grandfatherly calm. "Maintain distant surveillance. Do not approach them."
The ANBU snapped a sharp bow, his jubilation barely contained. "Yes, Hokage-sama!"
He disappeared in a swirl of leaves, though Hiruzen fancied he could still hear a faint, gleeful squeak echoing down the hall.
The Hokage allowed himself exactly three seconds of peace, savoring the mental image of the Kumo envoy's face when informed their 'discussions' would now be handled by a woman who treated diplomacy like a combat sport.
Fate, however, as if offended by his moment of respite, sent its next calamity through the door.
Not a calamity of nature, but something far more predictable and tedious: a council of his people.
Danzō Shimura entered first, with an air of dramatic urgency that suggested the village was actively collapsing behind him.
He was flanked, as always, by his ideological bookends, Homura and Koharu, whose expressions had been permanently set to 'mild disapproval' since a while ago.
"Hiruzen!" Danzō announced, with an intensity usually reserved for discovering a new, darker shade of black for his ops. "The Uchiha have returned."
There was a strange, almost tremulous quality to his voice—a fervor that made Hiruzen pause. Homura and Koharu exchanged a glance that spoke volumes.
It was the same look they'd give if they found Danzō meticulously polishing Madara Uchiha's old armor.
Why, Hiruzen pondered, does he sound like a man who just spotted his notoriously dangerous, long-lost ex-wife shopping for reunion tour outfits?
To his credit, Danzō felt the weight of their silent, bewildered scrutiny. He cleared his throat, the moment of unvarnished zeal passing as he rebuilt his façade of grim pragmatism.
A lesser man might have blushed; Danzō simply pretended the last five seconds had been a collective hallucination.
"Hiruzen," Homura picked up the thread. "Now that they have deigned to return, what is your intended course of action? Their desertion cannot be overlooked."
They'd been humming this chorus since the first day, itching to discuss sanctions and symbolic wrist-slaps for the audacity of leaving.
Hiruzen had stalled them, insisting any judgement required the accused to be present. Now, the calculus had changed dramatically.
The self-styled 'Konoha Exodus,' now bolstered by Uzumaki, hadn't just survived. They'd reportedly annihilated an army of ten thousand.
And the latest, unconfirmed intelligence humming through his networks spoke of something even more absurd: a visit to Kirigakure that had less in common with a diplomatic tour and more with a natural disaster that selectively targeted bureaucrats.
This, of course, was the real reason for the elders' urgent meeting. They saw powerful assets that had acted without their permission, and it itched like a wool uniform. But they weren't complete fools.
They preferred Hiruzen to wield the heavy, politically risky blade while they stood behind him, offering 'supportive' commentary on his swing technique.
It was precisely this transparent scheming that made Hiruzen wish, not for the first time, that the Hokage Tower had a secret trapdoor behind his desk.
"Sit," he said, the warmth leaving his voice. He reached into a drawer and produced a single, crisp scroll. "Before we discuss punishments for our wayward clans, review this. It arrived by falcon a few hours ago. From three independent sources in the Land of Water."
He slid the scroll across the polished wood. Danzō snatched it up, his eyes scanning the encoded text.
Homura and Koharu leaned in, their stern faces tightening with each line. The report detailed not an attack, but a surgical decapitation: the Mizukage's tower breached, Kiri's army neutralized, the village's defensive grid made a mockery of, and all executed with zero casualties on the part of the invaders. A perfect, terrifying spectacle.
Danzō finished reading. A profound silence filled the office, broken only by the distant sound of a merchant arguing about daikon prices.
Then, the scroll trembled in Danzō's hand. A vein throbbed at his temple.
"This… is a fabrication!" he hissed, his voice climbing towards a register Hiruzen hadn't heard since the last time they'd debated funding for the Konoha Puppet Theater. "It is impossible! A handful of about three thousand ninja, no matter their lineage, could not accomplish this! Kiri is one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages!"
His eye was wide, bloodshot. For a fleeting, hysterical moment, Hiruzen wondered if the sheer force of Danzō's denial could spontaneously awaken a Mangekyō Sharingan in a man with no Uchiha blood.
Danzō's mind was racing, comparing this obscene feat to the shadowy power he'd been cultivating in Root, to the delicate, expanding web of influence he'd been weaving beyond the Land of Fire.
This report didn't just describe a military action; it shattered his entire understanding of the possible.
(END OF THE CHAPTER)
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