War Preparations

Only three people remained in the senior conference room.

After Minato Namikaze left,

Hiruzen Sarutobi slowly took off the red hat emblazoned with the character for "Fire."

The hat was a symbol of his time as the Third Hokage.

Now, after his long, dusty journey,

its pure white sections were visibly caked with dust.

He sat down wearily across the long table,

facing Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu.

Mitokado Homura asked impatiently, "How did it go?"

Hiruzen Sarutobi didn't answer right away.

The energy he'd shown in front of Minato had vanished.

In its place was a weariness and solemnity unlike anything he'd felt before.

Hiruzen Sarutobi set down his pipe,

and through the swirling smoke, his face looked especially aged.

"It went badly..."

He sighed deeply, his voice heavy with helplessness.

Worse than I imagined.

Utatane Koharu's heart tightened. "What did the Daimyo say?"

"The village..."

Hiruzen Sarutobi paused before continuing, "I'm afraid we'll have to prepare for war."

At the words "prepare for war,"

Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu both felt a jolt of alarm.

After handing over the Hokage Position in the village,

Hiruzen Sarutobi had been summoned by the Daimyo of the Land of Fire.

He had just finished meeting with him and hurried straight back to the village.

Yet in the short time Hiruzen Sarutobi had been away, this had happened.

He hadn't even had a chance to rest

before he'd had to rush to deal with the conflict between Danzo and the Fourth Hokage.

Only now had he managed to sit down and catch his breath.

Feeling the weariness in his body,

Hiruzen Sarutobi silently lowered his pipe,

and had no choice but to admit the truth.

He really was old.

Hiruzen Sarutobi gave a bitter smile. "The Daimyo isn't just refusing to disband the Guardian Shinobi. He intends to expand them, too. He summoned me to announce it."

The Land of Fire wanted to expand the Guardian Shinobi.

The Guardian Shinobi were elite ninja selected from across the Land of Fire, independent of the village.

On the surface, they were responsible for protecting the Daimyo,

but in reality, they were a private force directly under his command,

and his own personal armed forces.

The village's exceptional position,

after all, stemmed from Konoha being the Land of Fire's sole ninja village.

As the only source of ninja within the Land of Fire,

it shouldered the country's defenses and served as the Daimyo's security adviser.

Yet the Daimyo maintained this private force called the Guardian Shinobi,

and now he was even willing to divert the military budget that had originally been paid to the village

in order to expand them.

This would deprive Konoha of its unique position in the Land of Fire.

It would also set the village and the Guardian Shinobi on a natural collision course.

The Guardian Shinobi had originally been established

during the power vacuum between the Second and the Third Hokage.

Back then, the Second, Senju Tobirama, had fallen in battle,

and the Kinkaku and Ginkaku Rebellion had left the village without its supreme leader.

Hiruzen Sarutobi had been thrust into the role in a crisis, but at the time, he hadn't earned the full support of the village's great clans.

Even worse, powerful enemies like Cloud Village and Iwagakure were watching from outside.

To stabilize the situation, Hiruzen Sarutobi had been forced to strike a few political bargains with the Daimyo.

The Daimyo recognized his right to succeed to the Hokage Position and provided financial support to the village.

In exchange, the Daimyo gained the right to form the Guardian Shinobi,

and any future Hokage appointments would also require the Daimyo's approval.

The village retained only the right to recommend Hokage candidates.

That was how the Guardian Shinobi came into being:

the result of a blatant political deal.

"Expand?" Mitokado Homura shot to his feet. "Has the Daimyo gone mad?"

Utatane Koharu trembled. "Th-this can't be!"

"If the Daimyo expands the Guardian Shinobi, what will happen to the village?"

Mitokado Homura's face turned ashen. "This is an open provocation against the village's authority!"

In recent years, as Konoha had grown increasingly stable,

the village had begun discussing the disbandment of the Guardian Shinobi with the Daimyo.

But they hadn't expected the Daimyo of the Land of Fire not only to refuse to disband them,

but to plan their expansion as well.

Hiruzen Sarutobi wearily closed his eyes,

the Daimyo's smug, self-satisfied words echoing in his mind.

"Hiruzen," Utatane Koharu asked tremulously, "what should we do now?"

If they allowed the Guardian Shinobi to expand without resistance,

they might one day replace the village.

It was an extremely serious matter,

far more urgent than the minor squabble between Minato and Danzo.

"We should notify the village's other great clans."

Hiruzen Sarutobi opened his eyes again.

"If negotiations with the Daimyo fall apart, the village needs to be prepared for the worst."

After saying goodbye to Gota and the others,

Yatsuhashi asked around the village.

That was when he learned that all ninja in the village,

whether they wanted to study B-rank ninjutsu or something even more advanced, like A-rank techniques,

had to apply to the Hokage

and get approval before they could study at the Core Secret Archives.

Everyone in the village knew that,

but Yatsuhashi hadn't been aware of it.

That was mainly because his talent had been too poor before,

and his chakra reserves hadn't even been sufficient to support his ninjutsu training.

As a result, he'd never applied to the village to study ninjutsu,

so naturally, he hadn't known about the process.

As the sun set, Uchiha Yatsuhashi stood in the Hokage Office and submitted his request to Minato Namikaze.

"Lord Hokage, I'd like to apply to study ninjutsu."

Minato was reviewing documents.

At that, he looked up and regarded Yatsuhashi warmly.

As a newly appointed member of the Hokage's personal Anbu, Yatsuhashi was indeed entitled to apply to him to study ninjutsu.

Minato took an ordinary blue Ninjutsu Scroll from his desk drawer

and casually asked, "What kind of ninjutsu do you want to learn?"

Yatsuhashi hesitated for a moment. "I want to learn Sealing Technique."

"Oh?"

Minato raised an eyebrow slightly, a flicker of surprise in his eyes.

Sealing Technique was abstruse and difficult, and demanded exceptional chakra control and talent. It wasn't something just anyone could learn.

But Yatsuhashi stood before him looking utterly confident,

and Minato didn't want to discourage his enthusiasm.

So the corners of Minato's mouth lifted slightly.

He opened the drawer, and beneath the pile of ordinary blue Ninjutsu Scrolls

were even more advanced purple and gold ones.

After a moment's hesitation, he still reached for a gold Ninjutsu Scroll that shimmered with a flowing light.

After all, Sealing Technique was classified as a secret in the village.

Only the highest-grade gold Ninjutsu Scroll

could grant access to the application process.

Normally, a ninja could apply for only one Ninjutsu Scroll at a time.

But considering how difficult Sealing Technique was to learn, Minato didn't want Yatsuhashi to make the trip for nothing.

So this time, he made an exception and gave him two.

"If you want to learn it, go ahead and give it a try."

He picked up his pen and signed his and Yatsuhashi's names

on the blue and gold Ninjutsu Scrolls.

"It's approved. Go find Inuzuka Yuka; she'll take you to the archives."

At the entrance to the Core Secret Archives beneath the Hokage Building,

cold air drifted constantly from the shadowy passage, carrying the musty smell of old scrolls.

"You're Yatsuhashi?"

Her voice was cool, with a hint of wildness that seemed almost inhuman.

Yatsuhashi looked up and saw a woman standing on the steps, dressed in a white lab coat.

She wore frameless glasses and had a composed, distant air.

But what drew the eye most

were the fluffy dog ears atop her head

and the white tail swishing behind her.

This was Inuzuka Yuka.

When she was young, she'd failed to merge with her ninja dog, Sumaru, while practicing the Inuzuka Style: Human-Beast Hybrid Transformation.

Though she'd kept her human appearance, she'd been left permanently with animal ears and a tail.

That failure had driven her to devote herself to research,

in hopes of undoing the human-beast fusion and reclaiming her former self.

"Follow me."

After confirming Yatsuhashi's identity, Yuka turned and led the way.

Her white tail swished from side to side behind her,

in stark contrast to her aloof voice.

The archive's entrance was built from several layers of heavy alloy,

and two Anbu stood guard at the doorway.

"The Barrier Team set up seven layers of sealing barriers here,"

Yuka explained without turning around. "And with the Anbu rotating shifts, no one—not even a fly—could sneak in unnoticed."

She motioned for Yatsuhashi to place the Ninjutsu Scrolls in the recess in the door.

The two scrolls were not only passes, but also keys to open the door.

When the gold Ninjutsu Scroll was placed in the scanner slot, Inuzuka Yuka clearly froze.

"Gold...? That's the highest-level advanced Ninjutsu Scroll?"

She hadn't seen authorization of this level in a long time.

You had to understand that the Ninjutsu Scrolls had a strict hierarchy:

Common (blue): Regular ninjutsu of B rank and below.

Advanced (purple): Advanced A-rank ninjutsu.

Elite (gold): S-rank forbidden techniques.

With a gold Ninjutsu Scroll,

Uchiha Yatsuhashi would be eligible to learn every S-rank ninjutsu or forbidden technique it contained.

"Creak—"

After another round of strict identity checks inside the gate,

the heavy alloy doors finally began to open slowly.

The moment Yatsuhashi stepped through, he felt as though he were passing through a viscous film of water.

This had to be the Seven-Layer Barrier Inuzuka Yuka had mentioned.

Beyond the gate was not the densely packed rows of bookshelves Yatsuhashi had imagined, but merely a long, narrow corridor.

On either side of the corridor were three platforms of different colors,

corresponding to blue, purple, and gold—the three ranks of ninjutsu.

"Choose," Yuka said, leading Yatsuhashi to the gold platform first.

Yatsuhashi's gaze skimmed quickly over the scroll catalog, finally stopping on one name.

"Four Symbols Seal," Yatsuhashi read aloud.

Yuka pushed up her glasses, and even the swishing of her tail paused for a moment.

"Four Symbols Seal? You know that Sealing Techniques are very difficult to learn without a foundation."

"Are you sure you want to choose this?" she asked again.

Yatsuhashi nodded.

Seeing this, Yuka didn't waste any more words.

She wrote "Four Symbols Seal" and the other technique Yatsuhashi had chosen, "Summoning Technique," on gold and blue Ninjutsu Scrolls, respectively,

then quoted the prices: "The rental fee for Four Symbols Seal is five million ryō per use. For Summoning Technique, it's two hundred thousand ryō per use."

"..."

The air suddenly grew frighteningly still.

Yatsuhashi stood frozen in place, his expression stiff.

He had already spent all his money renting land and settling the Iburi Clan.

At that moment, he didn't have a single coin to his name.

"...I don't have any money."

Yatsuhashi said honestly.

"No money?" Inuzuka Yuka stared at him in disbelief,

and even her tail, which had been swishing constantly,

now stood straight up like a stick.

"No money? Then what did you come here to learn ninjutsu for?!"