"What does Shikaku have to say?" Sarutobi Kou lay sprawled on the sofa in the newly established Security Force, staring up at the ceiling and puffing tiny flames from her mouth.
The position of chief, where she was supposed to be sitting, was now occupied by Shikaru Nara, who was stamping one document after another.
Two hands weren't enough. A black shadow stretched out beneath her feet and reached all the way to the desk, gripping a pen and constantly writing and drawing.
"The Clan Head doesn't have any good ideas. And even if he did, do you think you could use them?"
Shikaru Nara didn't stop working. She raised her head to look at her former teacher, now her chief. Her hand flicked the stamp aside, and the shadow put down the pen.
"Come on, my dear chief. Can't you do some work too?" she complained.
"But little Lu Yu is so capable—and you like doing this sort of thing, don't you?"
Sarutobi Kou turned her head, a smile at the corners of her mouth, and offered her defense:
"I didn't really want to come here in the first place. One reason was that the elders in my clan insisted I come. The other was to give you, little Lu Yu, a place to put your talents to use."
"Ugh, I have only myself to blame." With a sigh, Lu Yu picked up the stamp again.
She really did like doing this sort of thing: you waved your hand, and others would rush forward one after another; you waved your hand, and many people's lives would change. But what she liked more was making things better, preventing certain things from happening.
At least, making some changes.
When she was little, she had always liked exploring the meaning behind everything, wondering why people lived. People couldn't be too foolish, or they'd be easily deceived. But if they were too clever, they could fall into another trap, imagining they had already seen through everything in the world.
But after she became a ninja, the world had slapped her hard across the face—loudly and painfully. "And you like doing this sort of thing, don't you?"
"So there really isn't a solution?" After the room had been quiet for a short while, Sarutobi Kou asked again.
"This is the third time you've asked this morning. Honestly, there's no perfect solution."
Lu Yu's voice held a hint of impatience.
"An Uchiha Clan is gone, and now we've got a whole bunch more Uchiha Clan members."
"I've suddenly realized that arrogance and bullying the weak aren't exclusive to the Uchiha Clan. It's just that, before, they were the reason everyone else didn't have the chance to act like that."
"I know that." Sarutobi Kou sighed and spread her hands. "I want to do something about it too, but I can't."
"Do you know how many people are in my clan? Far more than in the Uchiha Clan. And our people's strength isn't all that different from one another. There are all sorts of factions and elders, and everyone has their own ideas."
"I understand now why so many people were so eager to put me in this position."
"Couldn't you ask Lord Hokage?"
"Do you think the Hokage can manage it?" Sarutobi Kou gave a snort of laughter.
"The thing he's worst at is family relationships. He can't even manage his own son, and you expect him to manage that whole crowd in the clan?"
"If you ask me, Jie shouldn't have taken Hyuga Hinata away. At least then Hyuga would still be Konoha's foremost ninja clan on the surface."
"Lord Hiashi wouldn't bully the weak."
Without a knock, the door to the chief's office swung open, and Hyuga Yue walked in, her voice cool and distant.
"That's because he's useless to begin with."
Sarutobi Kou rolled over on the sofa, ending up face-down, but Hyuga Yue simply sat down on top of her.
"Ugh, that hurts."
Sarutobi Kou struggled, but it did no good. All she could do was sink deeper into the sofa, then reach out and poke Hyuga Yue's bandaged abdomen.
The sword wound at Hyuga Yue's waist had mostly healed. She merely shot Sarutobi Kou a glare, making no move to get up.
"Would you look at that—he still remembers to write to me?"
A pitch-black shadow suddenly rose up, extending another tendril in front of Shikaru Nara. It caught the scroll Hyuga Yue tossed over, then respectfully set it down in front of its owner.
It was a letter from Uchiha Jie.
Seeing this, Sarutobi Kou reached out with her wicked hands again, hoping to tease Hyuga Yue and make her take out the scroll Uchiha Jie had sent her.
Before she could do anything, though, a huge scroll smacked her in the face.
By the time she had laboriously unrolled it, Shikaru Nara had already finished reading her own small scroll.
"Yue, have you read it?" she asked, looking at Yue, who was still sitting on Sarutobi Kou.
"Not yet."
"There's something in it that concerns you. You should read it."
Hyuga Yue finally stood up and walked over to Lu Yu. The two leaned their heads together. Lu Yu pointed things out on the scroll as she lowered her voice and asked,
"What do you think?"
"I don't think you need my advice on this." Hyuga Yue replied coolly. "You and I don't want the same things. As long as you don't get in my way, I won't object."
"One thing affects everything else. When we had Jie take Hinata away, who could have guessed that Hyuga Hiashi would be so irrational?" Lu Yu's little hand was restless too, stealthily poking at the waist of her former teammate.
"Although what Jie's going to do has nothing to do with the Hyuga Clan, there's no way to separate what happens in Konoha from the various ninja clans."
"And this time, we're joining forces to deal with our dear chief." She leaned close to Hyuga Yue's ear, a mischievous grin on her face as she whispered.
"Hey, hey, hey! I heard every word! You're plotting against me, aren't you?" Sarutobi Kou put the large scroll on the sofa, leaped to her feet, and pounced on her good pupil, grabbing her head and shaking it back and forth.
"Spill it! What schemes and tricks are you up to now?"
"Schemes and tricks?"
"Yes, schemes and tricks." Uchiha Jie looked at Hyuga Hinata, who was sitting upright in front of the desk.
"When you can't defeat your enemy head-on, of course you have to use a few schemes and tricks."
"For example, if you fought me now, there's no way you could beat me. But if you secretly poisoned the food you gave me, and I got poisoned, you'd only have to lift a finger and I'd fall over."
"If you want to become a true ninja, the first thing you have to learn is schemes and tricks. Even if you don't use them, you still need to know how to guard against them."
"Even if you become the leader of a village, schemes and tricks are still useful and effective. But schemes and tricks alone are nowhere near enough to make you the leader of a village."
"Do I really have to become Hokage?" Hinata asked quietly.
"Hinata, sometimes even the Hokage can't protect his clan and friends. Do you think your ideal is something you can achieve easily?"