-two years later
I rest my hand on the railing of the palace's balcony. A large part of the village is easily visible from here. Sakuragakure has grown a lot since we first founded the village two years ago. The village has transformed from a collection of earthen houses into a bustling town. Merchants and civilians have started moving in not too long ago, attracted by the prospect of profit from offering services to wealthy mercenaries.
The outer walls have been built. Since all of our forces are enhanced almost every single one of them is capable of using Wood Release, leading to the current architecture. The houses are made out of trees, shaped as the contractors desired. The central palace has also received somewhat of a makeover, with Wood Release being used to make it truly spectacular and even making it appear somewhat otherworldly.
I sense Sakura coming from behind me. "There you are! I know the village looks amazing and all but dinner is ready, so come join us"
All of us have grown and changed in the past two years. Sakura and Hinata are both sixteen now, as will I in about two weeks. Despite the closeness between the three of us nothing has happened. The two of them are probably afraid of upsetting our relationship. On the other hand I'm not touching this powder keg even with a ten foot pole, hopefully they'll resolve it between themselves.
I give the village a final glance before looking into Sakura's blazing sharingan "Alright, lets go."
—
We made a decent apartment inside of the palace, I honestly don't understand people who have their private residence as what is essentially public property.
Entering the living room we find Hinata laying on the couch, reading. She has kept her hair short, which honestly looks better than her cannon long hair. Once we enter she turns towards us. "You are finally here, what took you so long?"
Sakura sheepishly rubs her head. "Sorry, we took the long route"
Hinata shrugs and we all go to the table and begin eating dinner in relative silence. I say relative because at one point Hinata lightly kicked Sakura under the table, with Sakura shaking her head in response. I honestly don't know why that interaction made Hirogi start giggling, or why the sisters seem to be trying and failing to ignore us.
Things have somewhat changed between us and them. Before there was a certain distance between Hirogi and the sisters and the three of us, what with them essentially being slaves and all. Over time we've gotten somewhat closer, mostly with the sisters since Hirogi was already more used to her situation. I'm honestly pretty glad we implanted them as well, that should help them in case anything happens.
Sakura takes a sip of tea. "You know, I'm glad we decided to form the village. Ever since we had my research has been improving by leaps and bounds, not to mention how useful the sharingan is."
Sakura has been training genjutsu religiously, by now she has easily left me in the dust. She can use ocular genjutsu for mind control without causing brain damage. Looking into her eyes will instantly turn any enemy shinobi or target into our most fervent supporters and allies.
Hinata nods "Having an entire shinobi village at our beck and call will also prove itself useful in the future, especially once The Land of Earth finally declares war."
Tensions have risen between The Land of Earth and The Land of Flowers, with us militarizing as fast as we have having caused some issues between the two countries. The earth daimyo has yet to officially declare war, but he has been increasing both his shinobi and samurai forces.
I take a bite out of some pie "Iwagakure does not have anyone capable of tackling us and the samurai are the equivalent of genin conscripts, with a small amount of chunin officers mixed in. Meanwhile we're sitting on four thousand genin, most of whom are able to take on a chunin, five hundred chunin and forty jonin, of whom one is borderline S-Rank."
Hinata shrugs "Iwagakure is almost certainly arguing against the war. Unlike their daimyo, Kurotsuchi is aware they cannot face three S-Rank shinobi after the damage they received against the Akatsuki."
Sakura eats a biscuit "Konoha is probably in the best position to take over the other villages right now. Since Tsunade became Hokage they have one S-Rank while all the others have none."
I take another pie "Ironically we are in the same situation that Konoha was in during the war with Kumo. We lack boots on the ground but have ample elites."
Hinata finishes her pie "That will be solved in time. Once the current batch of recruits completes their training we will have doubled our forces."
Sakura nods "Yep. Let's just play some card games until it's time to sleep. There's this new one a merchant started selling in our village."
-next day
Kurari enters our apartment with a letter in her hand. She gives it to me. Inspecting it reveals the Flowers daimyo seal is stamped on it. When I give her a questioning look Kurari shrugs "I don't know what's written inside. A runner came inside of the palace looking very panicked and told the guards to hand it to you. They met with me by accident on the way and I took it from them."
I open the letter.
'The Earth daimyo has declared war. Iwagakure will join him'
It was about time, I'd started thinking he gave up on trying to invade entirely. Looks like the time has come to make ourselves useful.
I burn the letter with a casual use of Amaterasu. "The Land of Earth has declared war. Let's make ourselves useful."
Kurari gulps nervously "Will Hirogi, Karari and I be joining you? You did enhance us and begin training us in the past year."
I nod "We will leave half of our jonin and some of the chunin in the village for defense. Stationing them combined with the defenses we have prepared in the past years will take care of our defense. Having you join us does not hurt anything. It's not like you can even think of betraying us with the seals Sakura's got tattoo'd on you. Please go and get Sakura and Hinata here, don't forget to bring Hirogi and your sister as well."
She nods and goes to get everyone assembled. Meanwhile I unseal a map of the elemental nations and begin thinking, trying to form some form of a plan.
—
Everyone has arrived. Sakura and Hinata have joined me around the map while Hirogi and the sisters are paying attention to our discussion. Hinata comes with the first proposal.
She puts her finger on the map, on Iwagakure. "We can begin the war by attacking Iwagakure. They have no one capable of stopping us. If we leave most of our elites and some shadow clones inside our village we can somewhat guarantee its safety as well."
I nod "That's what I've also been thinking. They have no counter to the three of us just storming their gates. After Iwagakure we can attack the Land of Earth's capital directly and force their daimyo into a peace treaty. I'm honestly surprised Iwagakure ended up joining the war."
Sakura shrugs "The daimyo probably has some nasty dirt on them and strong-armed them into joining. Doesn't mean it's not a really bad decision."
I palm my first "Alright. Our role in the war is settled. What about our troops? Where do we deploy our forces?"
Hinata points at the capital of The Land of Flowers "We can station a portion of them in the capital. Thankfully The Land of Flowers is a rather small nation, meaning there's not much ground we need to cover. With our current forces we will be able to defend all the large population centers. Once the current batch of recruits finishes their training we can reinforce the border with them, preventing Iwagakure's entry."
I sigh "Iwagakure still has much more shinobi compared to us. We have forty something jonin compared to their hundreds. We will need to end the war immediately. Otherwise we will slowly begin losing. Iwagakure is almost certainly aware of this as well, meaning they'll have some countermeasures prepared."
Hinata nods "Then our plan is settled, correct?"
Sakura and I both nod. Our plan for the war having been decided. I take a deep breath "The shadow clones we leave here will decide on the minutiae of the deployments. The three of us are leaving now. The more time we waste the worse the war will get for us."