Chapter 8: Talking things through, Getting back at them
Inside a small teahouse close to their current location, Bunta and Hana entered and sat at a small corner out of sight of others due to a wall separating their seats from the rest of the shop.
The three ninken lay outside under a tree waiting patiently, clearly having sensed Hana's distress in her emotions when she meant 'to talk about a few things'.
While Hana took a seat, Bunta soon arrived with tea and some light snacks on a plate.
"Alright, I've never seen you being this tense before, not even during the chunin exams back in Suna. So speak your mind and have no worry, no one here will talk. This shop is my mother's pride besides her Tea plants." Bunta said, sitting down
He could clearly see Hana being rather tense and her eyes darting around, either not knowing how to begin or trying to find a way out.
Bunta poured some tea into a cup and placed it in front of Hana with a plate of some snacks, then did the same for himself and just sat quietly waiting for her to start while taking small sips from the tea.
Hana sighed heavily, took the teacup, and took small sips as well. Before long, both cups were empty, and she finally started talking.
"Your mother came to visit today, and my mother started yelling things I never thought I would hear." Hana began speaking, seeing Bunta pour some more tea for them both.
"She… talked about marriage…" Hana said, watching Bunta sigh in turn, not at all surprised.
"*Sigh* Indeed, after the debacle with my two-week coma, she has gone into rush mode for that. She has been trying for years now, and I feel I am no longer able to talk her out of things." Bunta said with a heavy sigh in defeat.
Hana's eyes went wide in shock, hearing the clear defeat in his voice.
"You mean… wait, how long?" Hana asked in surprise
"Ever since all the past events, the war, the extermination, and then the attack that cost us the fourth Hokage, only a few remain of our mothers' time that they grew up with from their academy days. She's worried, and I feel now I'm losing my grip on keeping her in check. Specifically, now due to the coma and me trying for Jonin." Bunta explained clearly to the shocked Hana
"... My mom is worse, though, ever since I became a Chunin… the council has been trying many ways for her to get me married as well. It is why I quit doing missions besides those with clan members of our own or allied clans, and stopped going to the hospital, only focusing on being a veterinarian, a doctor for pets." Hana began talking about her own side as well.
"On missions, random men would try to flirt or do something reckless to look good, and in the hospital, it was way worse, so much worse… to the point I almost castrated someone and walked away, quitting both missions and being a doctor for people, and just focused on taking care of people's pets." Hana spoke up, looking and sounding downcast.
Both of them sat in silence for a while, drinking another cup of tea.
"That is rough, and could explain why Tsume, your mother, is so rough in everything she does… for me, while women don't act like that to me, it is rather bad in the civilian situation due to the council having too much say about them, at least clan women act normal, thank the heavens." Bunta said, pouring some more tea
"How bad?" Hana asked, curious about how badly women would degrade themselves on command from the council
"Sleazily clothes, acting like gold-digging red-light girls, and even those aren't that bad in behaviour, laughing about things I said or did, sounding more creepy than anything… just to name a few things." Bunta explained in a tired voice
Just when he put his now-empty cup down, he saw Hana's shining eyes and big grin plastered on her face.
"Don't tell me…" Bunta looked at her in exasperation, facepalming even, and Hana's next words confirmed it for him
"How about we get back at all of them? A trial by fire, if you will, it will get your mom to calm down before going extreme, and it gets the council to back the f*** off as well. I mean, see it as a pact or something, something we can end at will and all that." Hana quickly explained
'Typical Inuzuka, they think of something and go all in gleefully… it does sound appealing though, and Hana is not too bad at all either, in all aspects.' Bunta thought about it, soon giving his answer.
"Alright then, we can do this pact… However, do know that once others know, there might be no way out for either of us, specifically my mom, who likely will rush the marriage thing, or worse, people going mad and extreme…" Bunta explained in a stern tone, both knowing what he meant by people and extreme.
"No need to worry, the council will not dare anything extreme since both of us are part of clans, and both clans can react rather dangerously when clan members are targeted or endangered." Hana said with a feral grin, reminding Bunta of her mother, Tsume
"Then we are in accord on this, just be sure you do not end up regretting things." Bunta said with a small smile
"Ha! As if, I would not bring this up if I didn't like you or even hated you to begin with." Hana scoffed
"I see, so I guess I was blind to that then. See you soon, partner." Bunta said, walking away with a boisterous laugh, watching Hana slightly blush after knowing what she had said
When Bunta was away, Hana got up and left with a small smile and a shake of her head, and continued her shopping, followed by her three ninken
— — — — —
While the Bunta and Hana talked things over, back in the Inuzuka compound, things were a lot more tense.
"..." Tsume growled, in displeasure and annoyance
"..." Kyo sat quietly, after knowing Hana overheard everything, she kept quiet, not knowing what to say now
This kept going for a while, until Tsume finally sighed heavily.
"Darn it all, I never hoped her to hear how much I hated the fact of her marriage and all that, it is just…" Tsume began grumbling
"Is it the council's right? Have they been that obnoxious and pester you for Hana, and if so, who did they say she had to marry anyway?" Kyo asked, taking this lifeline clearly thrown out by Tsume, in annoyance or because the silence was getting to her, did not matter at this point.
"The council and those old fossil elders tend to be rather pushy, and with Lord Hokage being old team mates and friends with the fossils and allowing the civilian council to run rampant, not much I can do besides refusing and stalling, also they never spoke about who they wanted her to marry anyway." Tsume said, when the eyes of Kyo started to sparkle, shocking Tsume to the bone
"No! Absolutely not! Kyo! Did you not hear me?!" a paling Tsume quickly said, watching her old friend Kyo starting to smile mischievously and giggle in glee, even rubbing her hands.
"How about we get back at them? They want her to marry, right? Never said who to right? Then what about my son and her? Perfect, don't you think?" Kyo gleefully started to speak
"Oh, this will be glorious! They will not be able to sit still, and those bastards who targeted my son will definitely make a move! Then with two clans they will be ripped apart!" Kyo continued and finished with a fist on the table, making it clearly turn into a pile of sawdust
"... you really are stuck on them, huh…" Tsume looked pale at what her table, now turned to a pile of dust, had become
'Darmit, she's kept in shape and became even stronger, that control of chakra and power to deal with my table like this without much noise… I fear I won't get a piece of anyone trying to mess with her or either of our pups.' Tsume thought, looking pale and flabbergasted at her table turned dust.
"Yes, it will be perfect if they become a pair, our clans can work more together, meaning you guys in our clan compound and us here both to help and secretly assist in guarding. Then whoever tries anything will be snuffed out and crushed into broken bodies or ripped apart bodies, depending on which of our clans gets to them first." Kyo started explaining
"Best thing will even be that they cant even put a rebellion on our heads because if they did it would also have to be on the Yamanaka and Nara clans who are with my Akimichi in an ancient alliance, and since we support Lord Hokage and have good relations with the Sarutobi and man smaller clans it would mean the village would basically fall apart if they stupidly tried it." Kyo continued saying
"You are scaring me more and more, Kyo, the more years pass. You are basically saying with such a lineup if they did, we would not even end up like the Bloody Mist but win basically outright… that is dangerous to say, Kyo, even to hint about." Tsume tried to calm her old friend down before things got out of control
"Bah! No fun, but yes, those two are perfect together, even if they themselves likely never see it like that. Meaning we would get back at them forever, trying something like this ever again, and best of all, I can make my Bunta boy accept things easily." Kya smiled and put a certain scroll on the ground, standing straight up, being held up by one hand
"You're crazy, wanting to use the family summoning scroll for that… but fine, I will accept this thing… but know this, Kyo… If that brat ever harms my pup…" Tsume stood before Kyo and lowered her face to growl the last part of her sentence, even showing her teeth
"He will never do so; it is 'them' that should worry more than anything, if he loses his smile, Tsume, and he no longer has a need to hold back against traitors… the bloody mist will look like a holiday resort." Kyo resealed the summoning scroll and grimly stated before walking outside
"Try to talk to her about things. I will do the same with him, next time we should normally catch up, I still have that spar you promised at that time." Kyo said, disappearing in a shunshin
"That crazy fool, guess I am worried about nothing, guess my girls' little crush can be cashed in after all." Tsume turned around, walking back inside, laughing boisterously
"She's gonna hate you for going back on your words, said earlier that made her run away, Tsume. Better get ready for a harsh clash of words or even hands." Kuromaru said, walking outside to lie down in the sun.
These words made Tsume growl and facepalm.
"Right, she's my pup and has my stubbornness for sure." Tsume grumbled
— — — — —
After leaving the teahouse and trying to figure out how and why things went today in such a weird manner, I decided to walk around the village for a while before it got dark, and then get back home to plan some more for the next two weeks and some food and shut-eye.
Today had been rather chaotic and messy since I woke up from the two-week coma.
While walking, I already spotted some slight divergences around. The hard, muddy roads everywhere I looked had stone tiles with small gullies next to them with small rosters in them to let through any rainwater and keep the roads from flooding.
'That is a rather big switch-up, in the stories, the roads always were hard mud, and in the center, they had a stone road through the center of the village, but here even the small alleyways got stone.' I thought looking at the well-maintained roads.
I kept walking with a smile, looking around at everything and everyone, spotting surprised faces, seeing a giant on a leisurely walk always made me feel good. I can't explain why, but it tended to do so.
While walking, some shops dealing in arms and blacksmithing were partially made of stone or hard clay instead of just wood, like most buildings, with some type of paint or a thin clay layer plastered on them
The smaller chances I noted were more in the way people dressed, things looked easy to ware and not to thick due to the humid nature of Konoha and the land of Fire in general, but people looked more like they a mixture again, colors that are darker and brighter in many cases, like the aprons on waiters being a bright white like Might Guy's teeth. Almost making me feel they will start to sparkle like that man tends to do when he smiles.
Let alone the uniforms on some of the shinobi, the green flak jackets being darker green in color, and the black shoes and black shinobi pants being way darker, almost as black as ink.
It is a curious situation, both intriguing and nerving me out at the same time, what is the same as in either manga, anime, or otherwise novel and fan-fiction, and what is a mixture of them?
At least Hana looked the same, even though I feel as if her attitude is already a big change from canon, but then again, Bunta was never in any of the stories at all, meaning if I had been, I would already be dead or soon to be dead.
Then again, I did take over due to a failed attempt with seals, so who knows, I did exist but died, and such never was part of canon.
I will never know, but this again is fine, it allows me a large amount of freedom in doing things without having to worry about my own canon events, meaning I can keep focusing on training and my Jonin exam, which will continue in a few weeks after the forced recovery from the coma.
While walking, I saw many prices in passing, making me cringe inside. How greedy can civilians be? Normal Bread, the size of a normal loaf, enough for two people to eat a week. This is already 500 Ryo, from what I know from the stories and all that, 500 Ryo is around ten times less than the amount in Japanese Yen, where it would be 5000 Yen.
Not sure what Japan or Yen are, since besides the truck hitting me, I can't really remember anything else, but in fan-fictions that I have in my head, at least these two are mentioned a few times.
Same with some other bits and pieces. I have no idea what they mean, but since things are ten times more expensive, I can only say the civilians here are greedy to drain your wallet.
Then again, from what my memory of Bunta has given me, missions alone will barely give you enough to live off of with just doing D-Rank odd jobs, and that is mainly for orphans who also get a slight stipend from the village… not sure on that since I'm an Akimichi, wonder what they get in this world, in most of the stories around 2k to 5 k, at least those numbers tend to be the most consistent in use, often they are way lower due to some bad type of stories making things worse for Naruto.
D-Ranks are around the 5000 to 50k in terms of rewards, depending on the type of job and the skill level of the Genin teams required. Newer teams tend to get lower pay due to the first few being more orientation-focused and likely to see if they can work together.
Still, I doubt most Genin will be able to last long with such a salary, due to being orphans having to buy everything alone, including new furniture and paying rent. I doubt many will have much left at all for food or ninja supplies.
I would have to somehow figure out the numbers on that without sounding suspicious or sounding weird in case these things are common knowledge… can't really say I focused on any of this after waking up, being acclimating and training, then the exams, the coma till now.
Oh… great, here we go again, civilian and civilian shinobi women, waiting up ahead, being a giant does have its advantages.
I quickly used shunshin to move away from my current spot and rushed in a random direction
Before, I had no trouble after waking up, due to training in random training fields all the time, even entering Training Grounds 44, or sparring with Might Guy, who, with his antics, weirds out many of the female population.
But way before I woke up as Bunta, he did have many run-ins like this and enjoyed the game of seeing how far some were willing to go, just because he was unable to say no or outright refuse them.
That is what I thought, but looking back at those memories and finding his thoughts included at those times, Bunta used them before as some sort of relaxation time and just used Sunshin's to run away if things got too much or out of hand.
Well, whatever the case, I'm not willing to play along. If they had been Hana Inuzuka, Kurenai Yuhi, Yugao Uzuki, Anko Mitarashi, or some of the other lesser-known good female Kunoichi, then fine.
But these hordes of civilians, and civilian council-controlled gold-digging harpies? No, thank you, at least Bunta never slept around, thank the heavens for small mercies.
.I saw more of these groups around deciding to cut today's late afternoon investigation off and return home.
'Tomorrow, new day, new attempt to figure everything out, the more I know, the better I can plan for the future canon.' I thought, entering my home