SFF: 069 - A Bargain with the Devil (Patreon)

KONOHA

War.

War has always been fickle. Ever-changing. Yet paradoxically the same. Unchanging. It has, for the longest time, been the dark mirror of progress: A period during which some of the greatest advancements had been spawned into existence. A period when humanity's capacity and propensity for violence could further the advancement of the species as a whole.

War has always been an ancient teacher. Like a stern tutor, it imparts the wisdom of resilience, as well as the folly of pride in a curriculum written with the blood and tears of the vanquished. Biased, it favours the most powerful, most influential, and most informed of the lot at the expense of the rest; weaklings destined to be bullied into a state of absolute subservience ... until, once again, idealism, ambition, or some other inane human quirk, reignites the conflict and starts the cycle anew.

In the theatre of war, the mask of civilization almost always falls away to reveal humanity's true, ugly nature. Its main act? A paradoxical quest for peace, where the pursuit of harmony is accomplished only via a judicious application of violence.

War was once again on the horizon. Scratch that, it was already here. At Konoha's doorstep. We had always known our pursuits would eventually result in this: the seeds long sown in the aftermath of the Uchiha massacre; the roots of conflict irreversibly entrenched decades before even that.

Morbid as it might be, it amused us to watch the leaf flounder as it suddenly found itself in the eye of a storm of its own making. The winds of war were blowing, fierce and frigid. Konoha's will of fire trembled in its wake, flickering like a feeble flame in the evening breeze.

As we leisurely navigated the now-ravined, war-torn village, walking along a massive trunk extending from the extensive network of trees and foilage crisscrossing high up between the many towering canyons and gullies that now filled Konoha's walls, we hummed a trilling folk song. The artificial forest suspended in the air served as the foundations of the new village of treehouses, keeping it well out of the gloomy depths below and adding a sombre verticality that was previously distinctly alien to the Leaf.

A stiff breeze howled through the gully as we continued our search for a weasel we had been informed recently returned to its den among the leaves. Villagers trudged along, slowly rebuilding their homes. Most paid us no heed, too self-absorbed and engrossed in their own tasks. It was...

Pitiful.

...It was also petty of us, but we had little trouble admitting that there was something deeply satisfying to our human ego seeing the despair on the faces of many of the peasant folk who had, many years past, once looked down upon us in gloating schadenfreude. The faces we had once committed to memory now looked pale and sunken.

Still, navigating the ruins of the village brought a new perspective to the result of our actions. Many innocents had suffered as a result of our machinations, that much was obvious. Some of whom we even looked upon favourably. Ichiraku, an establishment that we had always appreciated for keeping Naruto preoccupied and out of our hair, was now indistinguishable from the rest of the wreckage in the gully below, previously flattened under the corpse of a great toad.

The tailor shop that made our favourite garments was still buried under a pile of sand, possibly as a result of the Tanuki's rampage. The district that housed the stall of the kindly old villager who once sold us groceries had been upended by Fuen's terrain transformation technique. Even if the owners of these establishments survived the battle, their means of livelihood had been erased, and there was no guarantee they might even survive the conflict to come.

Sadly, this is the way of war. No one thought to give the innocents among the Uchiha a chance because of fear of retaliation from future generations, so why should we extend such courtesy and risk jeopardising the future of our own spawn?

Our impatience continued to swell. The swarm of shinobi loitering just at the edge of our perception continued to ripple in place hesitantly. Our disguise had been crafted to not be as impenetrable as would be expected from a shinobi of our stature. It was by design that anyone above chunin should have little trouble seeing past it for who we truly were.

After all, we had no intention of startling the now trigger-happy Konoha-nin into attacking on sight. Knowledge about our arrival should lessen their panic.

Hopefully.

We found a ledge on the side of one canyon and made ourself comfortable. The Konoha-nin continued to roil at the edge of our perception, laying traps and performing summons in what they imagined was an encirclement. It wasn't until seven minutes later that Hashirama finally deigned to approach, Mito and Tobirama in his wake.

"Sasuke," Hashirama greeted. His tone was curt, betraying nothing of his thoughts.

We inclined our head. "Hashirama," we replied before turning to the pair in the rear. "Mito. Tobirama."

"You are a bold one," Mito quipped, her demeanour frosty. Tobirama stayed silent, his eyes narrowed in hostility.

"Why are you here?" Hashirama said, yanking back the reins of the conversation.

"I am looking for a weasel," we replied, shooting a stern gaze in the direction of the shinobi trying to sneak up on us when he thought we were distracted. Hashirama huffed in annoyance and the fellow quietly slinked away. Whether he was annoyed the fellow had failed in his ambush or even attempted it at all, we were not sure.

"Weasel?" the First Hokage said as his eyes flickered back to us.

"Itachi," we replied. "I have it on good authority he was within these walls just weeks ago."

The Hokage fell silent, his brows creasing into a frown. Our gaze flickered to regard Tobirama who remained expressionless still. The younger Senju's gaze burned with hate. We shot him a friendly smile, wordlessly mocking him for his impotence. For as long as we stood in the heart of the village they would dare not escalate matters to the point of outright conflict. Not after how horribly it turned out last time.

"...And why should we give you that information?" the Hokage asked.

We turned to face him, one brow raised in askance. "I am sure you are aware I am the reason the Land of Fire hasn't boiled over in a tumultuous war yet. Kiri lurks on your eastern borders, Suna stalks the east, and Oto prowls the North. The others are less likely to defile your lands until one of these three makes the first push. I am the only thing holding their leash and preserving the stalemate."

"...Would giving you this information guarantee the war would be called off?" the Hokage retorted calmly.

We smiled. "Of course not, but I can afford to stretch the impasse out for another week. While I doubt even a week of extra preparations would significantly increase Konoha's chances of survival, I don't see any instance in which you would refuse to get another week of relative peace."

Hashirama fell silent for a long moment before speaking again. "...What would it cost for you to lose interest in Konoha completely?" he asked. "You have already gotten your revenge, have you not?"

We chuckled in response, much to the trio's increasing annoyance. "I have little interest in Konoha," we replied. "Had you given me the compensation I asked for then, I would have not needed to stage such a complicated scheme to get vengeance for my clan. The ones I desire to see dead, whom you protected at the cost of the entire village, would be selectively hunted down over the course of this war, their legacies erased from the face of the earth. Konoha would be consumed by the greed of its neighbours and all that would remain of it would be a warning to all those who seek to cross the Uchiha. In fact, at the moment, my attention is the only thing still preserving your peace. Should I look away and let go of the hounds' leashes..."

We clicked our tongue as we shook our head.

Tobirama's tightly repressed chakra leaked for a moment and his brother's head whipped around to stare him down. The younger Senju growled as he reined his roiling chakra back under control.

Mito exhaled a long breath. Her husband turned to regard her, and she shot him a stiff nod.  The Hokage turned around to once again regard us. He retrieved a scroll from a pouch by his waist, staring at it for a long while before tossing it at us.

A shadow clone emerged from the earth to snatch it from the air before using Hiraishin to teleport to some secluded patch of desert in the Land of Sands where the sealed flames of Amaterasu within were allowed to rage and consume the clone that seized it.

"Itachi left that behind with instructions that it should be handed to you should you come to Konoha looking for him," Hashirama said, his expression unchanging despite the failed assassination. A token effort, it seemed.

"Thank you for your cooperation," we said as we rose to leave. "And enjoy the week; I won't be so generous next time."

Hiraishin teleported us into a pre-fabricated barrier jutsu that stabilized the fabric of spacetime following our arrival and stopped Tobirama's attempt to follow us in its tracks. We created another clone and sent it to retrieve the bobby-trapped scroll while we went to make preparations for the coming hunt.

"You can only run for so long, Itachi," we mused, as we tamped down the cruel anticipation bubbling in our chest.