Pre-Chapter A/N:Another chapter on time? Guess my lock-in is going pretty well. If you haven't already, I recommend turning on notifications for my stuff so you can see when new stuff drops right as it drops. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
"How does it feel?" I asked, staring at the hand as she began to work and move it about. The seals were set to work and interface with the signals being sent down by her brain to her arm. So even though it was an artificial prosthetic, she could move it with just as much ease as she could move her completely natural hand.
"It feels unreal. How did you even get it to transmit sensations back to my brain? I can feel this," she said, using her newly added hand to feel down on her table. She pushed down and then the table began to creak.
"The answer to that question is seals. And you should be careful with that arm. You're a good deal stronger than you remember being with that on," I said.
"How much stronger?" she asked.
"You'd probably manage to punch through that wall without chakra enhancement," I said.
"Speaking of… how?" she asked. Her gaze had left mine and shifted to the arm. Her Byakugan was narrowed as she was clearly trying to understand just what she was looking at. "A completely artificial chakra network?"
"But how? This… none of this should be possible."
"A lot of seals and a ton of work. Now tell me, how do you feel about the new arm?" I asked.
"I don't know yet," she said. I tried not to visibly slump in disappointment.
"But you can help me find out. A spar would be good right about now," she said.
"Lovely," I said, smacking my hands together in a clap. I moved over to her and tapped her shoulder to teleport us both to the private training ground.
"So what are the rules?" I asked.
She was clenching and unclenching the fist of her latest addition.
"None. I want to see if this thing can keep up," she said.
"Sure, let's just hope that you do manage not to get left behind yourself," I said with a shrug.
"It's that good?" she asked doubtfully.
"Let's find out," I said and then pushed against the ground. As I did so, I lightened myself to the weight of a hair and sailed backwards until I was a good distance, and then I hit the ground like an anvil tossed into the ocean.
"We begin when this kunai hits the ground," she said, and then she tossed the kunai into the air with her new hand. It went up, and up, and up, and kept going up.
She looked back down at me.
"I might have overdone things a small bit," I said. The force amplification seals were working overtime, it seemed.
"A bit?" she asked. "Can we just start now?" She sighed. I nodded and then I watched as she gathered chakra at her legs and pushed off the ground.
The ground itself was undisturbed even as she shot at me faster than a bullet could have—a sign of masterful chakra control. She led the attack with her left hand. It was clenched for a punch. Guess she wanted to see how hard it could hit.
Well, far be it from me to deny her. I let the floodgates open as I unlocked my pseudo-Strength of a Hundred Seal. There was the sound of wood smacking into flesh as I caught her punch straight up. The ground around us shattered as a shockwave travelled out from the point of impact.
"That was terribly telegraphed. Don't fight how you think the arm should work best. Fight as you would and let the arm help you do that," I said and then pushed her arm away before twisting into a kick. The kick hit nothing but air as she juked to the side.
Her fingers danced out, aiming for my midsection. I turned the twist into a flip that took me out of her range. I landed on my left hand and she kept coming, steps assured but light and fingers aiming to cause maximum damage.
"It's been a minute," I told her as I pushed off with my hand and landed on my feet a few metres away. I took my own Gentle Fist stance, silently daring her to approach.
"Has it? No wonder the elders wonder if you have forgotten which clan birthed you," she said as she ate the ground with long strides.
"Those old fogies won't be satisfied till I announce the Hyuga as the supreme clan of the village and tell the Uchiha to bow before them, will they?" I scoffed as I slapped her testing palm to the side and retaliated with one of my own.
The Gentle Fist was the first ninja art I ever learned. Even before Grandmother Mito ever put a brush in my hand, the Hyuga had sent someone to cover the basics of the Gentle Fist with me. I'd been learning since I was able to walk.
Some things just never left you. In much the same way, Uraume had been weaned on the Gentle Fist. From her caretaker's teat to the training ground it had been for her. We danced around each other with perfect footwork as we slapped our palms together at various angles.
There was a wide smile on my face, one that she matched with a tiny quirk of her lips as we fought. "Seventh form," I called out loud. She chuckled but still shifted into the required stance for the kata. The Gentle Fist had evolved to become a dance as much as it was a fighting style.
She stepped to the left and I did the same to the right. The sound of flesh slapping wood echoed about the chamber as our hands met. We moved backwards, again. And again and again.
"Ninth form," she said next, and I moved to comply. This had quickly turned from a spar into something else. In the beginning, there had been something lacking in Uraume's Gentle Fist. Technically perfect, yes, but there had been a hesitance there. It was only truly visible now that it was absent. She was adapting to the new arm and she was doing it quickly.
"Twelfth form," I called out when we finished that one. This kata began by us taking a few steps away. And then we covered the distance to each other in a matter of seconds. My palm was slapped over her shoulder. She spun around my other shoulder. I spun as well and our palms clashed, chakra spreading in the air around us in blue wisps. My eyes met hers. She was smiling now. I hadn't noticed when it happened but now I could feel my lips stretched backwards in a smile.
We kept going. Our palms flashed through the air as they hit each other over and over again. The twelfth form was one of the most confrontational of the sixteen forms of the Gentle Fist. It featured a lot of straightforward attacks and thrusts. The only form with a higher attack volume was the sixteenth form. Well, that and the seventeenth, but the seventeenth didn't technically exist so it also didn't technically count for this purpose.
The final thrust ended with both of us in the middle of a tiny crater of our own making.
"Sixteenth form," Uraume said next and I lifted an eyebrow but still took the stance. I squatted down slightly and placed one hand, palm facing downward, parallel with my foot. The other was raised higher, behind me parallel to my other foot but a few feet higher. The sixteenth form was special because it was made of three different katas. Well, you could describe them as three parts of the same kata. It was divided to make them easier to learn.
"Thirty-two palms?" I asked. She nodded and then we began.
Fingers lashed out over and over. We aimed for the first and most essential thirty-two chakra points and since we were trained in exactly the same way, our fingers clashed against each other over and over. Each clash creating a splash of visible blue wisps of chakra that remained in the air even as we kept going.
The sequence ended with the two of us back in the same stance. "Sixty-four palms," she called and I followed. We began again. The same thirty-two motions as the first time, but then we went for thirty more chakra points. Sixty-four times we clashed and neither of us made a single mistake and so we remained there dead even.
"One hundred and twenty-eight palms," I said this time and we began again. Now our feet had worked to deepen the crater we were in to make it so there was barely enough distance between us for us to execute the movements the kata required to perfection. So close together we were that it would have been impossible for any of us to dodge if we got hit, and so that was why I was surprised when after we executed all one hundred and twenty-eight, Uraume kept it going.
"Two hundred and fifty-six palms," she said. The first sixty-four palms told me all I needed to know. By the time we were up to one hundred and twenty-eight again, she had begun to flag quite visibly. In the end she made it one hundred and ninety-two palms before she fell. I completed the sequence, hitting naught but air before I came to a stop.
Looking down, I could see her struggling to push herself up to a sitting position.
"You pushed yourself too hard. Especially for someone who hasn't done any real training in a while," I said.
"You haven't done much Gentle Fist practice and you still made it," she groused back.
"You know better than to use me as a measuring stick. It's a lesson you learned early enough," I scolded.
"Still doesn't mean it's fair that the gap grows. The arm is good though. You outdid yourself," she said.
"Did I?"
"It feels like I never lost it in the first place. I want to move, and it just does that. You need to make this more widely available. The number of shinobi we could bring back to active duty with something like this..."
"The chakra system in that hand is pure chakra steel engraved with dozens of seals. Mass producing prosthetics like yours is literally impossible. Of course, some of the breakthroughs I made in making that will make their way to the general health system, but most of them just are not at the point where they can be effectively mass-produced. Not for a while. Maybe if we make some progress with the seal printer, we can say we have something," I said. She nodded before stretching out a hand. I helped her up.
"I thought you were going to be showing me the ring you got Uzume when you walked in," she said.
"Who told you I got Uzume a ring?" I asked.
"You go everywhere with a contingent of Anbu guards," she said with a raised brow.
"So your Anbu spy on me now?" I challenged.
"They report their days. You are the most important person in this village. Everything you do is recorded and catalogued. Every person you interact with is thoroughly investigated. The chance that you could be assassinated, while not particularly high, is much too high for anyone in Anbu to be getting a full night's rest," she said.
"You should be getting more sleep. You and your people. Trust me, the Damned Fox won't let anyone put me down," I said.
'If you keep calling me that, I will let someone kill you, cut you to pieces, and then piss on your remains,' he growled in my head. I allowed the words to wash over me as they did little to change my smile.
'We both know you'd miss me too much for that,' I shot back. As a sign that I'd won, he retreated back to his domain, shutting the metaphorical door behind him.
XXXXX- BUNPUKU THE MONK
"What do they want now?" he asked with a sigh as he looked up from the crowd of children he had been entertaining with his sand. Mina had just walked into the room and he knew that when she did so with that look on her face, it was because his peace was going to be disturbed again.
Mina gave a nod towards the crowd of children. Of course, they could not discuss around the toddlers.
"Time to fly, little ones," he said to near-unanimous giggles and cheers. The only one who wasn't giggling and cheering was young Kota who could do neither.
He weaved his chakra into the sand on the ground, creating platforms under each child that then began to float into the air, heading as high as he could dare with such precious cargo aboard.
"Splendid, Kazekage-sama," she said.
"As I have told you countless times, Mina, you can still call me Abbot Bunpuku, or just Bunpuku," he said in response.
"As I have told you each time you have told me, Kazekage-sama, it would be highly improper for me to do so," she said. He sighed and went back to the subject of her presence.
"What do the elders have for me this time?" he asked.
"They want you to stop barring Rasa from taking missions outside the village," she said.
"I am not barring him from doing so. Rasa's development is key to my retirement either way, so trust that I am doing the best I can to see him kept safe and ready for the future that awaits him. With his schedule so occupied, there is little room for missions that are anything other than the highest priority and nothing they have brought to my desk so far seems to be important enough," he said back.
"Well, they would beg to differ. They think you want to turn him into a monk," she said. He chuckled in response.
"Rasa would make a terrible monk. He is too much fire and too little stillness, I fear."
"And yet they fear you would do it regardless."
"Need I remind you or them that I was begged into taking this position? I did not want it. Now they fear that I will not let it go? How shortsighted. Should they not have confirmed my priorities before placing me in charge of their village?" he asked.
"That's an issue you have to take up with them. I've just been tasked with passing a message," she said.
"And that message is what?"
"The Council has used their veto power. Rasa will be sent to the Land of Rivers on the mission as requested despite your refusal," she said.
"How foolish of them. Konoha is a sleeping giant that ought not be woken," he said with a scowl. He turned his gaze towards the children in the sky as they enjoyed their journey.
"They feel that Konoha has taken steps back, beyond the resources they give to Rivers. Resources that we here in Suna need desperately," she said.
"Need them, yes. Need them so desperately that we would risk war once again, I doubt," he said. And it was true. He was not a blind man. He could see the sunken cheeks and the lightless eyes of the children he played with, but they were alive. His efforts had seen that no children had been lost to starvation in over a year now. There would be a special place in Naraka for Shorirama Senju when that time came, but Bunpuku was not so stupid as to attempt to hasten that journey with his own hands. He had seen the reports, the estimates… the man was a god of death given human form. Wherever he went, thousands fell.
His kindness so far had seemed only to exist in the boundaries of Konoha's walls until a year and change ago he began to send resources and palliatives to the Land of Rivers as their land began to desertify. The Elders had feared it preparation for an invasion of Suna—bribing Rivers to give his men free access and support—but Bunpuku had never seen it as such. Shorirama Senju was a creature accustomed to taking. If he wanted to invade Suna, he would just do it. He would march his men straight through the heart of Rivers and dare the locals to get in his way. The locals, like the rest of the world, had learned not to do so.
He had told the Elders as much, and they had not seemed to believe him. But now they were going to attempt to steal those very resources he had sent in. Either they believed him that no invasion was forthcoming, or they had decided that the invasion was an inevitability and were planning for a siege. He sighed.
"If Rasa is killed..." he said with an exhale.
"He is a powerful shinobi in the company of other powerful shinobi. You yourself said that he would be too much for most Jonin to handle," she said.
"If his actions are traced back to Suna…" And once again he was interrupted.
"He has been instructed to disguise himself as a Shinobi of the New Stone. They have been carrying out guerrilla attacks against Konoha forces in Kusa already. It is not impossible to believe that they would have extended their range of targets to include Rivers as well. They are also starving for resources just like we are," she said.
"Isn't everyone?" he scoffed, looking out.
"Not Konoha," she said.
"Not Konoha," he agreed. Because while Bunpuku was struggling to make sure none of his died from starvation, Konoha had enough to give out with no seeming expectation of direct payment—a manifestly unfair outcome considering they were the ones to have started this whole thing in the first place.
A/N: And so we get a POV from outside of Konoha to end things. We see how some aspects of Bunpuku's thinking and personality have been hardened during the timeskip. For context, Shori didn't just stop at the cursed seal that aimed to wipe out most of Suna. He also fucked with their food and water. The resulting famine killed even more people than his seal did. Suna is still struggling with the aftershocks. Next five up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.