Ch249-Dedicated Bias
I stamped my seal over the wax, it spread a bit more than I’d like but hardened quickly over Owl Mask’s recall order.
“Be quick.” I said, handing it to the fresh recruit. He took it with a bow and adjusted his mask as he left.
I sunk a bit in my chair. Vital as her mission was, Owl Masks operation hadn’t brought forward any tangible results save rumours that may just as well be Obito messing with me. For someone with an ability like his it would be literal child's play to avoid her detection if he knew we were coming.
And I had a strong feeling he did. Elusiveness aside, there was the benefit of ensuring he wasn’t where we looked but the state of the village couldn’t afford it. Owl mask’s operation ran through three Great Nations and two minor nations with peripheral aid from Raiga on his own mission in Tanigakure.
ANBU were, unlike regular shinobi, specially sponsored by the village. Usually that meant high irrevocable salaries and special privilege to the village’s resources in training and for missions. A mission of that scale and duration had put a not so insignificant dent in our surplus.
But money was hardly the problem. Raiga was a bit rough with it but lining the right pockets and slitting the right throats bought us a partial ownership of the land around the mine without the notice of Tanigakure. The mine was still being built and iron was all that was in sight so far but Raiga assured me the gold would be unearthed and in the meantime he made a neat profit selling the iron back to the local governments he’d suppressed.
The village had its coffers slowly overflowing too, from missions and from the egregious amount Kumo provided. No. Money was the least of my problems now. The trouble I had on my hands was something no Hidden Village wanted to go through, even post-war period.
It’d only been two years or there about since the Third War ended and in that time, excluding the rare death on missions, Kirigakure’s manpower had taken a major blow from the cumulative incidents it’d gone through. The Kaguya incident was one, the Daimyo’s war was another even though casualties in that war were minimal but taking the cake was the recent Arrogance Purge.
The deaths of promising shinobi from all sorts of clans are documented at least in the hundreds. A heavy cost for cohesion no matter what the aftermath would bring— the names of those who died for their clans to learn the value of themselves and others would forever stay with me and the Village.
Which brings me to the greatest potential loss in manpower— Rogue-nin, imprisoned shinobi and perhaps an all time low in civilian-shinobi conversion.
For the moment and on paper, the village’s manpower problems were a fart in the wind, easily rectified over the course of five or more years as the clans absorbed under both Funato, Hozuki and Karatachi, grew to serve Kiri. The Kaguya clan already had a fair dozen of young ones ready to be trained as shinobi, the Nettou clan weren’t too far behind either according to reports.
But the truth was that Kiri’s shinobi were scattered across the country and world running missions with so few left behind to actually protect the village. It was most glaring in the ANBU such that one of the first things I did with the organization was lower the recruitment requirements and increase training fund.
I’d noticed the gash in the ANBU’s personal manpower not too long after I became Mizukage— around fifty ANBU operatives, each well above Chuunin either in rank or skill had simply been killed in action around the tail end of the war.
It was easy to recognize why and even easier to confirm once I had a look at the classified mission failure report Owl Mask signed to the Third Mizukage then. Those fifty plus ANBU were in charge of ensuring Rin Nohara returned to Konoha and blew it up, Owl Mask took responsibility for the colossal failure, unable to tell what monster had massacred the platoon but I knew. Obito killed them all.
I’d better have Owl Mask return before he does it again.
A short knocking wrapped on the door. I sighed and ran my hands down my face to pull away the pessimism, “Come in.”
Minako came walking in with a light bounce in her step and two scrolls in her hand. I managed a smile up at her as she greeted me with a bow. “Mizukage-sama.”
“Minako, it seems you have another exciting report for me.” I said, eying the scrolls. “Or two?”
She looked down at it as though realizing it was clutched in her hand and gasped. “Oh right, this is from Ao.” she said, placing the scroll in my hand as she took a seat.
I unfurled the scroll and read through three short sentences. “Team Kirigakure has made it to Fukasa.”
“Team Kirigakure?” Minako asked, fiddling with her own report.
“Genin teams taking the Chuunin exams in Suna.” I explained, setting the report aside. “Only three more days before the exams begin, Ao and the teams should be well settled in Suna by now.”
“Oh, to be young.” She said, sighing dramatically.
I smiled at her. Minako was four years older than I and very much counted as a youth herself, but I knew that argument held little water when I sat as Kage and she couldn’t even take up her headband outside the village.
“Let me have that.” I said, beckoning for her report. She seemed hesitant all of a sudden but delivered it to me all the same.
“There are a couple obvious ones but that last one…I had a little trouble and I’m not sure…” She sighed and shut up while I read the report.
Minako had her work cut out for her since her appointment as the Court of Unity’s first and so far only Mediator. Ao stuck around long enough to be useful to her investigations but once I’d sent him off to Suna, she more or less played both roles. Having to use her intuition, wisdom and in many cases the threat of prison, execution or exile to rile the truth out of the clan idiots who thought they could keep the purge going.
That wasn’t always the case, of course, only at the very beginning of her activities. By now the clans had heard of the Court of Unity being built and the authority of those already working within it. This week alone she’d been approached by three Funato clan members with bones to pick with their Yuki neighbours.
Major clans weren’t the only ones lining up with complaints either. Civilians, families of them because according to Minako, that’s the only way they feel they’ll be heard. A single civilian slighted brings his entire extended family for back up, to ensure there are witnesses when his complaints are laid out.
I read through her work this week and unlike Ao’s report this one made good use of the scroll's length. Minako was as ever detail oriented, reading through her report was easy as she sectioned each part of her encounters like a table of contents; Interview with the accused, with victim, dialogue, investigation, second dialogue tabling demands and finally judgement pending approval.
That last part was for me and through the sixteen cases listed here I saw no issue with the judgement passed and would sign off on them, save the last one. I scrutinized the case a little more while she tried and failed to get comfortable in her seat.
A fisherman and his family were accusing one of the minor clans of major damages to their ‘enterprise’. The fisherman claimed the minor clan was manipulating the waters around the canal, disrupting their net placements and destroying the dock that enabled much of their business to function.
Minako’s interview with the minor clan had the culprit— a Genin— confessing that he had been practicing out there at night at the strict orders of his Jounin but denied having destroyed the dock. His clan argued repeatedly that the dock was damaged when they moved into the property the Funato sold to them at a cheap price.
Minako’s research showed the fisherman’s family were also tenants of sorts to the Funato and had been there working for them. Their income had taken a considerable dip since the majority of the Funato left for Yureisen, those orange-haired fuckers loved their fish and were their number one source of income even after they left. The fisherman continued to sell to the public but without the dock and with continued interference from the minor clan’s Genin training, hope of making a profit this month was bleak.
There was a breakdown of the fisherman’s income the past week and it was a strong red line of debt. Minako had done her due diligence on the minor clan as well, spoken with the Genin’s Jounin sensei and confirmed the training order.
I hummed as I read through her suggested form of judgement for the case. No one was fully at fault in a manner that required punishment but restitution at the very least was needed. Except, the minor clan was just that, minor.
The culprit Genin in question was just among their third generation, his clan was not in any position to offer restitution in full and weren’t exactly willing to since the dock was properly damaged long before they moved in the neighbourhood— a fact Minako confirmed from passerbys, neighbours and even structural engineers in charge of ensuring Kirigakure’s buildings didn’t crumble while people were still in it.
I raised my gaze to Minako, finding her still squirming in her seat. Her judgment for this matter was a simple one; since the Genin was at least guilty of destroying the dock, whether or not it was damaged before then didn’t matter, he would be given an unpaid D-rank mission to help reconstruct it. At the same time the fisherman’s restitution could come up in part payments that stopped once the new dock was complete.
That all sounded fine and doable but there was one last line to her judgement and it was more of a suggestion to me than anything. I read it aloud for both of us.
“The use of chakra in civil zones can be flagrant and destructive in ways shinobi don’t think about. It is one thing to skip across rooftops but another to blow apart life sustaining structures in the name of training. A new reform challenging shinobi to restrain themselves or seek approval from their civil counterparts to ensure a peaceful living is needed.”
She looked everywhere but at me. “If I’m reading this right, you want me to tell shinobi not to use chakra in the village?”
Minako sat up instantly at my deliberate misunderstanding. “What? No, I just think…I’ve seen civilians back off the moment they realize they’re up against a shinobi, even if they were hurt or had their things damaged because of them. I understand that shinobi are the protectors and to an extent the providers of the village, but we can’t be its abusers as well.”
I nodded and she sighed, an urgent need to be understood underlining her voice as she said, “I want our shinobi to know that chakra is as much a responsibility as it is a privilege.”
She had a good point. There weren’t any laws telling shinobi they couldn’t blow up buildings, they just didn’t as common sense was common enough. But in cases where negligent children in training were the culprits, simply sweeping the problem under the rug with a slap on the wrist might not be enough to satiate the aggrieved.
“Alright, put out a statement then, make it known there will be a fine for any destruction of property via chakra. Have the Court mandate training field usage for all ranks.” I said, stamping the report with my seal and shelving it in my drawer as I stood. “I’d love to chat more about this, truly, but I have to be somewhere.”
Minako spawned a grin and shot up to her feet. “Mei again?”
I tried not to meet her eyes or smile but I was obvious in that and Minako giggled mischievously. “I love this look on you, Yagura.”
I rolled my eyes as a defiant smile creeped on my lips. “Aoto said the same thing. Are we that obvious?”
Minako laughed, wiping an actual tear. “Yes, you’ve forgotten what Mei’s like with anyone else, haven’t you?”
I stared at my fingers drumming on the desk. “Ha, maybe.” I sensed Minako’s mood shift and found her eyes had steeled. “I know.”
Her eyes widened slightly before narrowing to an edge. “I hope so. A romance with her sends signals. To everyone and I mean everyone, even your own clan.”
“Uncle wants this.”
Minako scoffed. “I said everyone. And this early after the…latest incident, people will have strong opinions about it.”
I breathed a deep, hot sigh as my chest burdened with an exhaustion. I shook my head at Minako and started to leave. “I’ve thought of this, I’m still thinking but I can’t talk about it right now. Goodnight, I’ll see you next week.”