Your admiration really is timely

Amamiya Maki took the envelope containing the copied letter and gave it a quantum speed-read.

Three seconds to finish, five seconds to summarize-the letter's central message came down to three lines: the Land of Whirlpools and Konoha had been friends for generations.

We just sent you a promising young Jinchūriki candidate.

So send money. Send support.

The wording was quite polite, though.

It opened with a reminiscence about the glorious days when the First Hokage and the Uzumaki Clan leader had fought side by side.

The middle covered the current situation: warships from Kumogakure and Kirigakure were already prowling the waters off the Land of Whirlpools. Could Konoha send a few squads?

At the end was Takehaya Uzumaki's signature, written in a neat hand.

Clearly, Konoha had ultimately sent a grand total of zero troops.

That was how it went in the original story.

When Kirigakure launched its surprise attack on Uzushio Village, Konoha hadn't sent a single soldier.

It wasn't that they hadn't known. They had known and chosen not to go.

No one knew how many years this plea for help had spent gathering dust in a drawer in the Hokage's Office.

In any case, the Land of Whirlpools had been destroyed, most of its Sealing Jutsu had been lost, and only a handful of orphaned survivors of the Uzumaki Clan remained scattered abroad.

"Finished?" Orochimaru leaned beside the window, the moonlight casting his face in a ghostly pallor.

"Finished."

"What do you think?"

"The Third probably won't send support." Amamiya Maki set the letter back on the desk.

"He can simply keep this letter from being circulated. As long as Konoha never received a plea for help, it never betrayed an ally."

"And as long as it never betrayed an ally, it won't have to bow its head when dealing with the other great nations."

Orochimaru nodded slightly.

"No wonder people say you've admired Lord Hokage for so long. Your admiration really is timely."

Even Orochimaru would have needed a moment to turn that approach over in his head.

Not because the approach itself was complicated, but because it required a particular way of thinking.

Namely, looking at things from the Hokage's position and weighing human lives on a political ledger.

What would the Third think? What would the Advisory Council think? What would the other ninja villages think?

After weighing everything, he would arrive at the least bad choice.

Amamiya Maki had held the letter for only a few seconds before jumping straight to the final answer.

The kid understood the old man better than he did.

"Still, blood ties with the Uzumaki Clan aren't so easily severed."

Orochimaru's voice returned to its usual cool, even tone. "The specifics will depend on Lady Mito's wishes."

The wife of Hashirama Senju, the First Hokage.

The most senior member of the Uzumaki Clan still living in Konoha.

Her stance carried more weight than the Third's decision.

The Third could weigh political considerations. Mito only needed to consider her surname.

She was an Uzumaki. There was no getting around her involvement.

Amamiya Maki said nothing.

He looked at the plea for help on the desk, running a different calculation in his head.

The Land of Whirlpools, the birthplace of Sealing Jutsu and the ancestral homeland of the Uzumaki Clan.

Adamantine Sealing Chains, the Reaper Death Seal, the Four Symbols Seal-all top-tier sealing systems rated S-rank at a minimum.

If Uzushio Village was destroyed, those things would sink to the bottom of the sea along with it.

Of course, that was only his guess.

Orochimaru didn't pursue the subject.

"On to business."

He drew a mission briefing from his sleeve, a single thin sheet bearing the Third's Hokage seal.

"The old man doesn't want to send support, but he can't easily justify that to Lady Mito. So the compromise is to have me gather intelligence."

Amamiya Maki took the briefing.

Mission objective: proceed to the border of the Land of Whirlpools, confirm Kumogakure and Kirigakure troop deployments, and assess Uzushio Village's defensive capabilities.

The mission was provisionally rated B-rank.

Three team members.

He paused when he saw the roster.

Amamiya Maki, Senju Nawaki, Kushina Uzumaki.

Three names.

An orphan, the younger brother of a direct descendant of the Hokage, and a Jinchūriki candidate.

No matter how he looked at it, this lineup seemed hastily cobbled together.

But he quickly caught on. It wasn't cobbled together. It had been arranged.

He and Nawaki would gather intelligence. Kushina would visit her relatives.

The latter task was incidental, but it was also the condition for Mito's approval.

No wonder Orochimaru had mentioned blood ties. Mito's position was clear: Konoha could refuse to send troops to support the Land of Whirlpools, but a child from the Land of Whirlpools had to be allowed to go back and see it.

Even a single visit would mean Konoha hadn't completely fed those family ties into a paper shredder.

"Jiraiya was the one who secured this mission for you."

Orochimaru added, "He heard you were learning the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique and decided that what you need now isn't a scroll, but actual combat."

Amamiya Maki rolled his eyes inwardly.

He appreciated Jiraiya's good intentions, but throwing three kids onto the Land of Whirlpools' border to face the main forces of Kumogakure and Kirigakure-was that fucking supposed to be actual combat?

What, did he think I was Bear Grylls?!

"I had a hand in it, too. If Nawaki had your brains, I wouldn't have to worry about him every day."

"The Land of Rain hasn't officially launched an attack yet, so this operation should be safe enough."

Orochimaru's words were blunt, but they were true.

Nawaki really did give him headaches.

Hashirama had also overwhelmed his enemies head-on when he was young, but he'd had Wood Release to fall back on. Nawaki had nothing.

"So you want me to keep an eye on him?"

"Not keep an eye on him."

Orochimaru turned and walked toward the window. The clone formed through Hidden Shadow Snake Hands had already begun to dissipate.

"Bring him back alive. Do whatever you want, but don't let him die in the Land of Whirlpools. I don't want to have to explain it to Tsunade."

With those final words, his entire body dissolved into wisps of white smoke that scattered in the moonlight.

The little snake coiled on the desk also slipped into a crack in the wall and vanished.

Only Amamiya Maki and the plea for help on the desk remained in the room.

When Maki came looking for Nawaki, all he heard was Tsunade leaving in a stream of curses.

Nawaki crouched on the stone steps outside the Senju Clan Compound, rubbing the swollen back of his head. He looked like a Shiba Inu whose owner had just kicked him.

Tsunade had been lecturing Nawaki when Maki arrived.

The lecture included, but was not limited to: "You've been out of the hospital for less than three days, and you already want a mission? Are you tired of living?"

"Do you even know what a B-rank mission means? It means blood will be spilled."

"Look at Maki. At least he knows to learn the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique to keep himself alive. What about you? You haven't even mastered a decent defensive Ninjutsu."

By the end, Tsunade had worked herself into such a fury that her eyes were red. Before leaving, she threw out one last line:

"If you dare die in the Land of Whirlpools, I'll bring you back with Medical Ninjutsu and beat you to death all over again."

Rubbing the back of his head, Nawaki watched Tsunade walk away. After struggling for a long while, he finally managed, "Does she want me alive or dead?"

"Quantum superposition." Amamiya Maki sat down beside him.

"Alive and dead at the same time. It depends on whether you make it back."

"What position?"

"Your current position."

Nawaki rubbed his head a couple more times and fell silent for a moment. Then he suddenly asked, "Maki, do you think I'm really cut out to be a ninja?"

After being flattened by the Rasengan, he had spent half a month in the hospital.

His flesh wounds had healed quickly-two days of the Mystical Palm Technique had taken care of them-but Tsunade had insisted on keeping him there for more than ten extra days.

With nothing else to do during those extra days, he had lain in his hospital bed staring at the ceiling every day.