The door to the Hokage's office swung open with a soft, well-oiled sigh. Nara Shiba stepped through, his usual languid posture masking a mind that was already whirring, processing the unusual urgency of the summon.
The scene that greeted him was far from the typical late-afternoon administrative lull. The air was thick with pipe smoke and a tension so palpable it felt like a physical barrier.
Hiruzen sat behind his desk, his face etched with lines of worry that seemed deeper than usual.
And leaning against the bookcases and scrolls, his massive frame casting a long shadow in the dimming light, was Jiraiya. His arms were crossed, and his customary leer was absent, replaced by a grim focus that immediately set off every alarm in Shiba's strategic mind.
Shiba let the door click shut and attempted to inject some levity into the funereal atmosphere.
"Well, this looks cheerful. Did the war begin again without telling me?"
The joke landed with a thud, swallowed by the oppressive quiet. Hiruzen didn't smile. Jiraiya merely grunted, his gaze fixed on the Hokage. In that instant, Shiba's casual demeanour evaporated.
The relaxed slouch straightened into the posture of a commander, and his dark eyes sharpened, all traces of laziness gone. This was severe.
After the ANBU delivered that scroll, Hiruzen decided Shiba's analytical mind alone wasn't enough. He needed Jiraiya. The presence of the Sannin meant this was not an internal Konoha matter. This was a crisis, still warm and bubbling from the forge.
Hiruzen didn't speak. Instead, he picked up the scroll and held it out. Shiba crossed the room, took it, and unrolled it with efficient movements. His eyes scanned the coded script, his brow, already furrowed, deepened into a trench of concentration. When he finished, he let the scroll roll shut with a faint crackle.
His voice was low, "…Yagura Karatachi???"
"What do we know about him?" Hiruzen's question was swift, a commander demanding a situational report.
Shiba's response was immediate, his mind pulling the relevant file from his mental archives. "Before the war escalated to its final stages, he was abruptly appointed Jonin Commander of Kirigakure. A matter of months before the start of the Great War." He paused, letting the significance of the title hang in the air. "It was an unusual appointment. Politically volatile. The Jonin Commander in Kiri holds immense sway over their forces' deployment and internal security. For someone to rise to that position so quickly, and so recently, suggests a profound power shift was already underway."
Hiruzen's eyes narrowed. "And before that? His history?"
Shiba sighed, a sound of professional frustration. "Almost nothing. Kiri's internal security is a black hole. They purge their own records almost as efficiently as they eliminate their enemies. He just appeared on the radar with that appointment."
It was then that Jiraiya pushed himself off the bookcase, his voice a low rumble. "My networks have heard of whispers of him. Faint, but persistent. Before he was Jonin Commander, he was seen in the company of the Kaguya clan."
The revelation landed like a concussive blast in the quiet office. Both Hiruzen and Shiba visibly stiffened. The Kaguya were a byword for feral, mindless violence, a clan of bone-wielding berserkers who attacked their own village as often as they did their enemies. They were chaos incarnate.
"The Kaguya?" Shiba repeated, his analytical mind struggling to reconcile the pieces.
"That makes no tactical sense. They're rabid dogs, not political players. Aligning with them is like building a house on a bed of lit explosives."
Hiruzen steepled his fingers again, his gaze distant. "A Kaguya faction… could they have infiltrated Kiri's ranks to such a degree? Placed their own puppet in the seat of power?"
Shiba's mind, the famed Nara intellect, began connecting the dots, forming a chilling new picture. "Perhaps it's not infiltration, but collaboration. A faction inside Kiri, seeking to overthrow Mizukage Hiroshi, made a pact with the Kaguya. Use their brute force as the hammer for the coup."
Hiruzen gave a slow, grim nod. "The enemy of my enemy... A dangerous, desperate gambit."
Jiraiya cut in, his tone pragmatic. "But why sacrifice their own jinchuriki? The Three-Tails was lost in that deliberately triggered rampage. That's not just a political move; it's the loss of a strategic WMD."
"To distract Hiroshi," Hiruzen explained, his voice cold. "He was known to favour that particular jinchuriki. Its loss would be a personal and strategic blow, diverting his attention, crippling his morale. It weakened him at a critical moment."
Shiba picked up the thread, his words painting the brutal strategy. "And it wasn't just internal. The rampage inflicted significant collateral damage on Kumo, creating chaos on another front. A masterstroke of misdirection. While Hiroshi was reeling from the loss and Kumo was scrambling to contain the beast, the coup against him was launched in the shadows."
A heavy silence fell. Shiba looked from Hiruzen to Jiraiya, his voice barely a whisper as he asked the inevitable, grim question. "What of Mizukage Hiroshi?"
Jiraiya met his gaze, his expression unflinching. "Well, what do you think?"
The answer was obvious. There was no retirement for a Kage overthrown by a faction allied with the Kaguya clan.
Hiruzen leaned forward, the wood of his desk creaking under his weight. "The post-war concession summit is in a few weeks. Will Yagura attend? Can we even negotiate with a man who came to power on such a tide of blood and betrayal?"
He answered his own question, his voice taking on the finality of a headstone being carved.
"This has moved beyond shinobi authority. The Daimyos must be informed."
====
The fading evening light painted the streets of Konoha in long, melancholy shadows, a stark contrast to the tense office Renjiro had just left. He walked with a measured pace, his path unwavering, but his mind was a cauldron of boiling anxiety. The jar containing Hashirama's cells was still cradled in the crook of his arm, its smooth ceramic surface feeling less like a gift and more like the shell of a dormant plague.
Every step away from the Hokage building amplified his suspicions. The old man's feigned ignorance, the deliberate vagueness, the refusal to offer even a thread of guidance—it was a masterclass in political manipulation.
He was holding a key, but he had been given no hint as to which lock it fit, or if it would simply break off and trap him inside. The euphoria of receiving such a powerful thing had curdled into a sour, churning dread.
"I finally got it," he murmured to the empty street, his clouded eyes seeing nothing of the familiar surroundings. "The one thing that might give me a chance to become stronger. And all it's done is wrap me in a deeper darkness. The frustration is… exquisite."
He ran through his options, each one fraught with peril. The Uchiha elders? They would see him as a vessel for clan power. Tsunade? A dead end, she had already decided to leave the village after the war; this was something Jiraiya had confided to him back in the valley of the end.
Renjiro needed someone outside the traditional power structures, someone with immense personal power and a unique understanding of complex chakra, but without a political agenda that involved him.
A name surfaced in the chaos of his thoughts: Kushina.
If anyone could help him analyse the terrifying vitality of the First Hokage's cells, help him devise a seal to safely contain or integrate them, it would be her.
'This thing…' he thought, his knuckles white where they gripped the jar.
'It might be the key to my future. Or my end.'
=====
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