Sen had just stepped over the battered threshold of the Hokage Building.
The blazing white sun outside made him squint for all he was worth.
He stretched, let out a huge yawn, and rummaged in his pockets with both hands.
He pulled out half a damp cigarette and casually held it between his cracked lips.
Before he could fish out a match to light it, the shabby conference room behind him, just off the corridor,
erupted again like a pot of water boiling over.
The Raikage's cracked-gong voice carried straight through the drafty wooden wallboards and drilled into Sen's ears.
"Kakashi! Sen Senju's gone. Now let's get down to business!"
"No matter how strong he is, he can't make decisions for Konoha!"
"You reduced the Land of Lightning to a heap of ruins! We're settling the exact amount of that massive compensation payment today!"
"If it's a penny short, I'm not leaving this damn Hokage Building!"
Ōnoki's phlegmy old voice joined in, coughing and shouting.
His cane thumped against the wooden floor hard enough to make it shake.
"That's only fair! Brothers in battle, separate accounts when the fighting's done!"
"More than half the Land of Earth's elite troops died, and Iwagakure doesn't have so much as a single tree left for a windbreak."
"Even if Konoha won't cede land, you'll have to hand over those lucrative trade routes in the northwest of the Land of Fire. That's my bottom line!"
Sen stopped, the half-smoked damp cigarette bobbing between his lips.
He spat out a mouthful of dirt-laced saliva in utter disgust.
The spit smacked straight into a moss-choked crack between the stone steps.
"Well, isn't that something. These old foxes turn on a dime-ten times faster than you can flip through a tattered book."
"I'd barely stepped outside before