Chapter 181: Caught in the Web

​

“Fabulous. So, to clarify, if we want them, we have to break in?” Noburi asked.

The veins around Hyūga’s forehead began to subside, and he reached up to massage his temples. “For once, Gōketsu, we appear to be on the same page.”

Hazō raised his hand in a stopping motion. “I don’t think I’m even reading the same book. That’s a full-scale infiltration you’re talking about.”

Hyūga raised an eyebrow condescendingly. “You’re pulling out now, Gōketsu? I thought this plan seemed too bold for the man who spent one event cowering behind thick walls and another running to safety as soon as his minimal objective was fulfilled.”

Hazō was about to call Hyūga out on his hypocrisy, but before he could open his mouth, the master took his appointed seat.

“You may be right, Hyūga,” Noburi said with an innocent smile. “We hardly took any risks, and we willingly gave up a lot of opportunities to earn extra points. In which case the fact that we beat your score by miles anyway must say a lot more about you than it does about us.”

While Neji gritted his teeth, Rock Lee just laughed.

“It’s a shame,” he said. “What could possibly be more youthful than a joint adventure with our eternal rivals?”

“Not getting caught and disqualified, for a start,” Hazō said. “We’re not talking a clever attempt to leverage our unique advantages anymore. We’re talking infiltrating a heavily-guarded secure site, with proctors doing actual work that makes their movements unpredictable. For all we know, they expect somebody to try a trick exactly like this. Not to mention that the scroll could easily be a decoy, or simply a random storage scroll that has nothing to do with the next event. It’s a big and unnecessary risk, with the potential to be disqualified, cause an international crisis or who knows what else, all for information that there are plenty of other ways to get.”

Keiko and Tenten nodded simultaneously, then caught each other’s eyes.

Noburi winced. “Way to stop us having any fun ever, Hazō. But I take your point. This whole idea was based on swallowing our pride, and our good taste, and our sense of smell, all in order to borrow Hyūga’s powers and cheat the system.

"No offence to you, Rock Lee, Tenten. You guys are cool.

“But Hazō makes a decent case, and anything that’s got Keiko’s seal of approval is worth taking seriously. So yeah, I guess we’re stepping down, and frankly, maybe you should think about doing the same.”

“The last thing I need from you is your concern, Gōketsu,” Hyūga sneered. “Maybe cowardice was a valuable survival trait while you were a missing-nin cowering at shadows in the night, but don’t you think it’s past time you started learning how to act like a real Leaf ninja?”

“You mean you’re going ahead with this?” Hazō asked. “Even on your own?”

“That’s none of your concern at this point.”

Then Hyūga frowned as if briefly wrestling with himself. “I concede that your original plan had its merits, and you were wise to come to us with it," he said tensely.

"But now," he relaxed again, at least insofar as Hyūga ever relaxed, "we’re done cooperating. Next time we face each other, it will be as rivals.”

Rock Lee beamed. “Finally! Neji, I knew sooner or later you’d stop abstaining and allow yourself to be penetrated by the Power of Youth!”

Hyūga gave him a despairing look.

“Allow me to rephrase,” he said. “Next time we face each other, it will be as opponents in a competitive examination. A member of the Hyūga Clan has no rivals.

“Especially not the likes of you,” he added, looking pointedly at Noburi.

“Don’t worry, Hyūga,” Noburi said. “I know the genin-chūnin gap can feel big, but I promise I’ll still accept your challenges after I get promoted, and it’s not like you won’t catch up eventually.”

There was a shared four-person eye roll, and then Hazō dragged Noburi away before those two could get into full flow.

-o-​

“The Oyabun will see you now.”

Contrary to expectations, the Oyabun’s office was not in the darkest, most sinister part of the village—it was in a well-kept but otherwise unremarkable building next to the Artisans’ Guild headquarters. Its entrance was not guarded by towering, scar-faced guards with wooden clubs big enough to invite compensation jokes, but by a receptionist who scanned them with a Byakugan-tier piercing gaze before allowing them past the waiting area. Rather than screams from distant dungeons, the background noise was mostly the rustling of parchment, and once a fragment of overheard conversation about market trends in shipwrighting. Keiko speculated that the Oyabun had different offices for receiving different kinds of people, and the fact that they had been invited to this one was in itself a pre-emptive indication of the level on which he intended to deal with them.

Unlike the building, the actual office was nothing short of luxurious. The walls were panelled with a rich, dark wood, the carpet was an exotic patterned thing from some distant country, and while a chunky carved desk stood by one of the room’s two windows, the Oyabun himself was lounging back on the far one of the two facing sofas that occupied the centre. He stood up as they entered.

The visual impact of the man was stunning, mostly thanks to his red-and-gold kimono, decorated with a full-size pattern of a tiger wrestling with a dragon, seeming to merge seamlessly with the tattoos visible on his collar and wrists, and all but shimmering as he moved. A dense black ponytail and oddly pale eyes formed a disorienting contrast to the panoply of colours.

Mari-sensei had drilled them on this, though ever so long ago. The guest introduced themselves before the host as an expression of respect.

“My name is Gōketsu Hazō. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“Gōketsu Noburi. Thank you very much for agreeing to meet with us.”

“Gōketsu Keiko. A pleasure.”

The Oyabun gave a smile, revealing unusually white teeth. “My name is Asahi Teuchi. As you are, of course, aware, I serve as the present leader of the Kuronuma Group. I assure you that the pleasure is all mine. I would not have expected to meet the illustrious heirs of the Hokage face to face even if I were to live for a hundred years.”

“I would like to thank you for your time,” Hazō said, proffering the pangolin gift before anything else. “It is only a little thing, but I hope that it is to your liking.”

The Oyabun took the item with an expression of growing curiosity. He examined it closely from all angles, turning it around in his hands several times in the fashion of an apprentice craftsman trying to analyse his master’s work.

“It seems deceptively familiar at first, but looking closely, the material had a touch of the alien about it from the beginning, and was shaped in ways that greatly expanded the effect of that originally subtle difference. The result seems like any piece until observed from the correct angle, at which point a profound uniqueness reveals itself. Is this what I think it is?”

“The renowned pangolin wood carver Pandara crafted this statuette during the latter days of the Condor War,” Keiko explained. “It portrays Strategos Pangasu tearing out the throat of Conea, guardian of the Condor POW camp, with his famously sharp claws. I believe it is the only item of its kind on the Human Path.”

It was an inspired choice, Hazō had to admit. In addition to its rarity value (and the fact that it had been comparatively cheap to buy since Pandara had mass-produced the things to take advantage of overwhelming public demand for patriotic symbols), it was also a salient reminder that this was the kind of firepower Keiko could call upon whenever she chose.

“A gift worthy of a Kage,” the Oyabun said, placing the statuette on a prominent shelf. “But where are my manners? May I offer you wine?”

Ah. This was a problem. Alcohol of any sort was a terrible idea for this kind of meeting. Not that Hazō intended on drinking enough to get drunk in the first place, but he wasn’t terribly good at holding his liquor (like most ninja his age), and if he accepted, there was every chance the Oyabun would find some way of getting him drink more and more in order to put him at a disadvantage. Mari-sensei considered it a classic negotiation strategy.

At the same time, Hazō realised as he registered the Oyabun watching him carefully, refusing the offer would be a clear insult, the one thing Hazō couldn’t afford to do. It was a test. It had to be a test. And the Oyabun was still watching. Was leaving this long before replying an insult in itself, like he was weighing the odds of the Oyabun poisoning him or something?

Right as he was about to open his mouth to say something, anything, the Oyabun spoke.

“If you consider wine to be too much for a first meeting, perhaps I might instead offer you some chocolate?”

“That would be very kind of you, sir,” Hazō said, trying not to show any sign of the tidal wave of relief sweeping through him.

The Oyabun moved over to a cabinet to his side. His movements were smooth, flowing, almost serpent-like. Hazō got such a sense of elegance concealing raw physical power that he found it hard to believe the man wasn’t a ninja.

The Oyabun placed a carved wooden box of chocolate on the small table between the two sofas, and sat down. The team followed suit.

Following the Oyabun’s example, Hazō tried some of the chocolate. It was the strangest thing he’d eaten for some time. Who put spices in chocolate? It did peculiar things to the entirety of his mouth, never quite drowning out the basic bitter sweetness of the chocolate, but overlaying it with a layer of complexity his taste buds couldn’t quite decipher.

“An acquired taste for some, of course,” the Oyabun said as he took one for himself, briefly holding it up almost as if to inhale its fragrance. “People will avoid exposing their palate to such things for the longest time out of some misguided wariness, then after a few times, they wonder why they ever denied themselves such unalloyed pleasure. It is a tale I hear often.”

“Delicious,” Hazō lied.

“You flatter me. Perhaps this would be a good opportunity to thank you for your own gifts for my subordinates. I am certain that the shinobi of Mist will find them of great value. May I take it that they were made by yourself?”

Hazō nodded. If the Oyabun was asking, it was because he already knew.

“Were I born with chakra reserves,” the Oyabun said contemplatively, “I think I should have liked to be a sealmaster. All shinobi have great powers, of course, but deep understanding of the underlying patterns of the world can achieve so much that pure imposition of one’s will upon it can’t.

“Of course, one of the paradoxes of power is that the more one gains, the more dangerous it becomes to exercise it. Something you and I have in common, don’t you think?”

Hazō didn’t think. Doing anything seal-related was insanely dangerous according to the Kagome school, but why would it be dangerous to use the power of the yakuza?

“You mean because if you exercise too much power you come into conflict with the ninja?” he gave his best guess.

“Just so,” the Oyabun nodded. “The resulting conflict is ruinous to all parties, even those not directly involved. The case of the Earth Country demonstrates why the exercise of power must be collaborative—when each side acts on the other’s behalf, imbalance is avoided and the seeds of conflict go unwatered.”

Should he ask? Admitting ignorance was never good, but, thinking about it, the Nara Shikaku scenario was worse. The last thing he wanted was for the conversation to move on and leave him behind, only to be humiliated when his lack of understanding was discovered later.

“You are referring to the economic conundrum of Earth’s fluctuating export levels?” Keiko asked before he could embarrass himself. “I have not heard of the Chivalrous Organisation’s involvement being proposed as an explanation.”

The Oyabun chuckled. “Please feel free to refer to us as the yakuza. Only a fool expects others to suspend universal patterns of thought for him alone. To speak of ourselves as the Chivalrous Organisation is something more personal, a microcosmic creed intended to remind those of us engaged in morally complex work that our power exists for more than mere survival, control or accumulation.

“In answer to your question, our former sister organisation, the Yamane Group, held strong influence over Earth mining since before the village era. Unwisely strong, perhaps, but there is no value in speculating at this late stage. Either way, the First Tsuchikage considered them to be nothing but parasites, and wished to exert total control over Earth’s extraordinary mineral resources. To that end, he declared war on the Yamane.

“Needless to say, the Yamane were unprepared for the power of the united clans, and Hidden Rock eliminated them to the last man. Unfortunately, rarely has history seen a more Pyrrhic victory.”

Keiko nodded. “He created a power vacuum.”

“Just so. Every ambitious individual in Earth sought to rise up to take the Yamane Group’s place, from the smaller rival groups it had been suppressing, to petty local hoodlums and even opportunistic foreign organisations. Every night, the Tsuchikage’s forces would assassinate a hundred would-be princes of the underworld, and every day, two hundred more would rise to claim their emptied seats.

“How many shinobi could the Tsuchikage commit to keeping the peace while remaining ever on guard against credible military threats? When those shinobi’s eyes were inevitably drawn away, which of a dozen competing factions could the miners rely on for protection from the rest? Whom could they trust to represent their interests in the face of greater legal and economic powers, when their chosen champion might not live to see the morrow? Of those who would claim the right to regulate the shadow markets, who had the competence and rational self-interest needed to succeed, and who would only drive them deeper into the ground?

“I’m sure I do not need to belabour the point. Rock should by rights be the wealthiest of the great hidden villages, but instead it is the poorest after Sand, and its foreign policy reflects its vulnerability. It took the Third Tsuchikage, known as Ōnoki of Both Scales for his dedication to balance in all things, to set aside his predecessors’ preoccupation with shinobi being obeyed and apply his prodigious intellect to the problem from a new angle. While Earth Country politics are somewhat outside my sphere of expertise, I am given to understand that his primary obstacle at this stage is not the condition of the underworld but the conservatism of the Hidden Rock clans, who feel that allowing civilians to maintain their own public order would represent a catastrophic loss of face.

“You see therefore,” the Oyabun smiled, “why it brings me unalloyed pleasure to meet with representatives of a ruling clan in the spirit of cooperation and mutual respect.”

“Your assistance so far has been invaluable,” Hazō said honestly. “I hope we can continue this relationship in the future.”

“Likewise.”

The Oyabun leaned forward a little.

“Indulge my curiosity, if you would. This tale of ideological rebels and the Will of Fire that has defined your destiny. What truly lies behind it?”

What was the right answer to that? Obviously, Hazō couldn’t promote the official story here. At the same time, his earlier idea of off-the-cuff emotionally-focused explanations didn’t seem like a good idea when dealing with someone like the Oyabun, who had access to unknown amounts of information and probably got a lot of practice seeing through lies and half-truths. But telling him the actual truth wasn’t a winning plan either from the long-overdue perspective of operational security. Who knew what a man like him would use it for?

“We would love to,” Noburi stepped in, “but information is power, and no matter what the three of us might personally feel, I think it would be disrespectful to the Hokage to give away bits of our clan’s power without his permission.”

The Oyabun gave Noburi a slight nod, like a chess player acknowledging a good move. “We like to say that information is currency. My predecessor in fact liked to say that everything was currency, from love to ideology to trust.”

He paused.

"Though if so, he should have paid greater attention to exchange rates."

“Information on each Chūnin Exam event is progressively more difficult to obtain—not only for you but also for us, which has fascinating implications for the calibre of our opponent. I have anticipated your needs and obtained some knowledge of the Fourth Event, and I could certainly investigate the rest if that is your desire.”

He must have noticed Hazō’s brief flash of surprise.

“I see,” he said. “Well, consider it another taste of chocolate. In the meantime, however, the best use of power is collaborative, and do you not feel that it would strengthen the bond of trust between us if I were to request a favour in return?”

“Of course,” Hazō said. “We’d be happy to help you as best we can, though we don’t have the authority to offer any greater clan resources without the Hokage’s approval.”

“Entirely acceptable,” the Oyabun said. “This favour is so trivial for a man with the Hokage’s resources that it would be extraordinary if he gave it more than a second’s thought.”

He moved back to an upright position, his warm, playful tone turning serious. His hands came together in a semicircle.

“There is a man named Goda Haruto. He is, shall we say, a prominent accountant working for our Noodle counterparts. On the 19th of September, he left Ise on a vessel named the Sunset Racer. He was headed for Ijima, where he would assess the condition of certain joint operations. The Sunset Racer never arrived, in Ijima or anywhere else.

“For obvious reasons, we have been unable to purchase a Mist investigation mission. The Nettō Association’s own search also has yet to bear fruit. On the other hand, the Hokage’s information network is a thing of legend, and of course in this case there is no conflict of interest involved. It should be a trivial task to locate Goda and eliminate his kidnappers, or at minimum provide their identities and locations. If he has been murdered, we would like his body retrieved, together with the ledger that he always carries on his person. The details are in this scroll.” He drew a scroll out of a sleeve and handed it to Hazō.

Hazō couldn’t let his voice shake. The Oyabun would notice.

“If his ship disappeared, what makes you think it wasn’t a chakra monster attack?” Noburi asked in an admirably casual tone.

“His bodyguards,” the Oyabun explained. “They were two fine Noodle shinobi, with the skill and equipment to eliminate any ordinary sea monster or to carry Goda—a small man—to safety if the situation called for it. Besides, for obvious reasons the Sunset Racer was travelling a known safe route.”

Hazō had to abort this meeting now. The longer they spent in the Oyabun’s presence, the more likely he was to notice what the mention of Goda had done to their mood. This was almost certainly the kind of meeting where they should wait for the Oyabun to dismiss them, but that level of rudeness was a small sacrifice relative to what could happen to them otherwise.

“We’ll be certain to take your request directly to the Hokage, sir. And I would like to thank you very much for your hospitality.”

“And the chocolate,” Noburi said, mercifully shifting attention from Hazō before he began to sweat. “And the history lesson. We’d love to stay longer if we could, but it’s going to be time for our daily check-in soon, and if we’re late, the Hokage is going to start thinking we’ve been assassinated again.”

“I wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing the Hokage,” the Oyabun agreed. “Thank you for gracing me with your company.”

He pushed the chocolate box across the table. “Please feel free to take it with you. As acquired tastes go, I believe this one is well worth developing.”

-o-​

She places the last tag. The line from five to six draws itself into place. She watches it grow thicker, brighter, clearer in sequence with the rest. Each one its own timer.

She steps back, erased by the shadows.

Neji is diagonally across. His hemisphere both includes and ignores her. If he signals now, it will already be too late.

Why are they here?

Gōketsu had been warning them. All structure, no social. Information for its own sake. She preferred him like this. Also, he was right.

Keiko had agreed, her certainty a firm candle flame. (On that one night, for that one moment, it had been brighter than the sun.) She trusts Keiko’s certainty, except about herself.

Why are they here?

There are only ever the same reasons. Neji thinks his pride is a shard of ice when it is a starving fire. Lee is Lee (she’s given up on other words). She can’t make other people see her world. Team Gai will never break its pattern.

First line solid, bright, snapping into place.

Detonation. Line erased.

Too late for regrets.

Causality running down the lines like fire. Second tag, third.

Fourth tag is Lee, wearing sound like camouflage. Proctor’s office window. Neji's world, where perfect planning equals victory.

Fifth tag, sixth. The last line disappears. Shouting.

Stops abruptly.

The silence of professionals.

Proctors out. Arrows in flight. Known vectors, predictable trajectories. A second’s peace.

The dissonance is like being shaken awake.

She watches the arrows curve past their targets.

Grains of horror pour down the hourglass.

In the plan, they move like guards looking for intruders. Arrows to explosion sites, block across the entrance.

In the world, they draw a circle. Points flicker to the rooftops for line of sight. The only words she can hear are code.

Neji is gone, saved by the hemisphere. She stays erased, because the lines of sight are a beautiful, perfect web.

A point makes a line of connection to the Mizukage’s Office, ending everything.

She smiles a broken smile as she learns that Hidden Mist has no code for “green spandex”.​