The Senju Flag · End of Volume One

The black mission plaque remained in his pocket, its corners tapping against his forehead protector with each step. By the time Chiba returned to the clan grounds, the sun had already sunk behind Hokage Rock.

The eastern wall had been repaired, the main house had new beams, and the old wooden pillars on both sides of the gatehouse had been recoated with preservative oil. Only a flagpole was still missing from the very top.

Bai Ye stood in the courtyard, the bone sword from his right arm protruding beside his ribs. Its tip curved around three wooden posts before stopping before a hanging clay jar.

The clay jar remained intact, but the thin cord tied around its mouth fell to the ground.

"Too slow."

"I was already a breath faster than yesterday."

"Your third step was too wide. If you faced Asuma, Flying Swallow would cut open your leg first."

Bai Ye retracted his bone sword and nudged the fallen cord aside with his toe.

"Then I'll grow bones straight out of my chest."

"He'll dodge."

"Then I'll grow them out of my back."

"First, try seeing his back."

Bai Ye circled the wooden posts twice, then returned to his starting position.

"You graduated today?"

Chiba took out his forehead protector. Rather than tying it around his head, he merely wiped the dust from its metal plate.

"Yeah."

"Genin?"

"Genin."

"Doesn't sound impressive."

"You've never even been a genin."

"The Kaguya clan doesn't need exams. If you can crawl out of a corpse pit, you count as a ninja."

Bai Ye put away his bone sword, his gaze falling on the new ties at the back of the forehead protector.

"Where are you going to put it?"

"The ancestral hall."

The ancestral hall's hinges had just been replaced, but the door still caught once when he pushed it open. Chiba raised a hand to support the door panel, keeping it from striking the offering table before the First Hokage's statue.

An old wooden nail remained beside the statue. It had once held the Senju genealogy, but only half the genealogy remained now, and the nail was mostly rusted through.

Metal Wood grew from the nail hole, forming a new hanging rod. The forehead protector's ties wrapped around it twice, and the Konoha emblem came to rest on the right side of the First Hokage's statue.

"Step one, complete."

Bai Ye leaned against the doorway.

"What's step two?"

"Fill this place with people again."

"Anyone who moves in counts as Senju?"

"Anyone willing to follow this place's rules can stay."

"My surname is Kaguya."

"No one asked you to change it."

"Then what am I?"

Chiba straightened the crooked incense burner on the offering table, then took a long box wrapped in oilcloth from beneath the cabinet.

"For now, you're the gatekeeper."

"Can a gatekeeper kill people?"

"Break the legs of anyone climbing the wall first. Bring anyone with official documents to me. Anyone who wants to tear down the clan grounds can be killed."

"That works."

Once the oilcloth was unwrapped, it revealed an old flag that had been folded many times. Seven patches of new cloth had been sewn onto its corners, each with differently colored stitching.

A golden spiral pattern spread outward from the bottom of the flag. More than half of the emerald-green tree crown at its center had once been missing, and even after repair, the scorch marks left by old flames remained visible.

Bai Ye reached out and touched the edge of the flag.

"Where did you find this?"

"Under the main house, buried beneath a broken beam."

"You found it ages ago. Why only take it out today?"

"The flagpole wasn't fixed. It would have fallen if we hung it up."

"Then hang it again if it falls."

"The Senju flag can't fall the first time it rises again."

The two carried the long box beneath the gatehouse. The flag rope had already been threaded through the pulley at the top, but halfway up, it caught on a rusted bearing.

Bai Ye tugged twice, but the rope only rose half a foot.

"Didn't you have this repaired?"

"The people who repaired the gatehouse said it could still be used."

"How much did they charge?"

"Thirty thousand ryo."

"Make them refund it tomorrow."

Bai Ye pulled a thin bone from his wrist, climbed the gatehouse along the wooden pillar, and forced the rusted iron axle outward by half an inch.

When the pulley began turning again, a corner of the flag caught on an old nail that had not been fully removed. Two threads in the freshly repaired stitching came loose again.

Chiba stepped up on Metal Wood roots to reach the gatehouse. Pressing his palm over the tear, he sent thin vines through the cloth's gaps and fastened the corner shut once more.

"Using wood to patch cloth—what happens when you wash it?"

"I won't wash it."

"What if it gets dirty?"

"Then it stays up."

One above and one below, they pulled the flag rope together. The old flag rose over the gatehouse roof. The golden spiral unfurled first, followed by the full emerald-green tree crown.

The evening wind swept through the entrance to the clan grounds. The flag snapped twice against the pole, the sound carrying over the newly repaired eastern wall and toward more distant rooftops.

Bai Ye jumped down from the gatehouse and looked up for a moment.

"With this thing hanging up, Root will come faster."

"They never hung a flag, and Root still came."

"What will the villagers think?"

"Anyone who wants to look can look."

"Aren't you going to say anything?"

Chiba stood in the center of the gatehouse. He was not wearing his forehead protector, and there was no clan crest on the back of his coat. Only that old flag stretched above his head.

"From today onward, this place will once again be called the Senju Clan Grounds."

"It was called that before."

"Before, no one guarded it."

Bai Ye slid his bone sword back into his arm and bent down to pick up the old nail blown to his feet by the wind.

"Now there are two."

Chiba looked up at the flag as the World Tree unfolded in his vision. Four complete leaves were spread along its trunk, with poisonous markings, bones, and Metal Wood branches already intertwined.

A fifth gray leaf floated higher above. Its outline was clearer than it had been last night, but its veins remained unlit.

[Conditions for the next stage of evolution.]

[Defeat a jōnin-level target.]

[Current evolution points: 0.]

Chiba closed the panel.

"Bai Ye."

"What?"

"Guard the flag."

"Where are you going?"

"I have a mission tomorrow morning. I'm sleeping tonight."

"What if someone comes to pull it down?"

"Leave their hands behind."

High in a tree outside the clan grounds, the Anbu agent assigned to surveillance lowered his binoculars and recorded the time the Senju Clan Flag had appeared in a confidential report.

Less than half an hour later, the intelligence reached the Hokage's Office. Hiruzen's pen paused over a mission approval form.

"What does the flag look like?"

"A golden spiral pattern and an emerald-green tree crown. It is an old item that has been repaired. The registry confirms that it is the main flag of the Senju clan."

"Has anyone gathered nearby?"

"No. At present, there is only Chiba, along with the Kaguya boy in the western cave."

Hiruzen turned the report over and added the final Hokage seal to the mission approval for the Special Operations Squad.

"Move the surveillance back two hundred zhang. Do not enter the clan grounds, and do not touch that flag."

The same news soon reached Root. After Danzo finished reading the report, he held one corner of the paper to the candle flame and burned it.

When the flames reached the words "emerald-green tree crown," he chuckled.

"Let him hang it. The higher the flag rises, the more people will see it when it falls."