Chapter 283: Terumi Mei
After the Hidden Mist delegation had rested briefly and settled into their accommodations, Yuji led Yagura and the others on a formal tour of the Sand Village.
During this time, he noticed that Terumi Mei had been quietly and repeatedly stealing glances at him as she walked behind the group, a distinctly girlish flush visible on her face.
That expression of bashful embarrassment told the story at a glance. Young love stirring.
Yuji had not expected someone this young to already be showing her famously affectionate side.
By contrast, Hoshigaki Kisame walking with the group looked unusual in appearance but otherwise behaved entirely normally. As for Zabuza, his expression remained cold throughout.
"Lord Kazekage. My name is Terumi Mei. I look forward to your guidance."
When Yuji and Yagura's conversation turned to the exchange gathering's competitors and Mei's name came up, the young woman stepped forward and offered a very polite and proper greeting.
"A pleasure," Yuji said pleasantly, shaking her hand.
To be straightforward about it, even at this young age Terumi Mei already showed the beginnings of a striking appearance. Her future as something of a femme fatale was not difficult to imagine.
"This is your Hidden Mist Village's prodigy then. Possessing Wind, Earth, and Fire chakra natures, capable of deploying both Lava Release and Boil Release bloodline limits. Actually quite similar to our own Pakura," Yuji said with a smile.
The Hidden Mist group had essentially all set foot on the Third Great Ninja War's battlefields to some degree, and while none of them had yet made a name for themselves widely, they had shown at least the beginnings of their talent. And simply surviving the Great Ninja War, even without involvement in the most intense frontline combat, meant their strength was considerably above any ordinary ninja.
"Thank you for the encouragement, Lord Kazekage," Terumi Mei said, biting her lip slightly, clearly very pleased.
Terumi Mei was at present, outside of Yuji himself, the only remaining ninja in the ninja world known to possess two separate bloodline limit abilities.
Yuji's two bloodline limits were viewed from the outside as Blood Release and his eye technique.
So the appearance of a talent like Terumi Mei within the Hidden Mist Village naturally drew attention.
By comparison, fighters like Hoshigaki Kisame, one of the Hidden Mist's elite operatives, and Zabuza, a member of the second generation of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, were extraordinarily important talent reserves from the Hidden Mist Village's internal perspective. But measured against the entire ninja world, they had not yet established particularly significant standing.
At minimum, looking purely at the two bloodline limit question, Terumi Mei's ceiling appeared to exceed both of theirs.
Of course, this was from an ordinary observer's standpoint. Yuji understood clearly that Hoshigaki Kisame would eventually grow into a Kage-level fighter. As for Zabuza, the single impression that stood out most in Yuji's memory was that at nine years old, upon graduation, he had killed every other student in his class, forcing the Hidden Mist Village to reform its graduation requirements.
"Lord Kazekage, I wonder if I might have the honor of receiving a personal portrait from you?" Terumi Mei suddenly asked.
"A portrait?" Yuji blinked.
"I was thinking I would hang it in my bedroom."
"I am afraid I do not have one of those," Yuji replied after a brief pause.
"Then perhaps I could draw one myself?"
"Ah."
Yuji narrowed his eyes slightly.
Was this young woman really being this bold and direct?
"Terumi Mei," Yagura said, his brow furrowing slightly.
"Very well," Terumi Mei said, reading her Mizukage's expression and retreating with visible disappointment.
"You did not read the situation at all. And asking the Kazekage for a personal portrait right in front of the Mizukage, what were you thinking?" Zabuza said with a cold snort from the side.
"That has nothing to do with you. Keep out of it."
The young woman who had been playing the role of the bashful admirer just a second earlier immediately switched expressions entirely upon hearing this, her face going sharp and cold as though she had become a different person altogether, addressing Zabuza without any courtesy whatsoever.
The two of them crackled with a palpable mutual irritation.
This caused even Yagura some visible difficulty in maintaining his composure.
"Ha ha. Your Hidden Mist Village's geniuses certainly have character," Yuji said immediately, stepping in to smooth things over.
Every village had its own culture.
Even with Yagura's reforms and management adjustments to the Hidden Mist Village, the scars left behind from the Third Mizukage's era of governance were clearly still running deep and influencing an entire generation.
The Hidden Mist personnel present showed no particular surprise at the friction between Terumi Mei and Zabuza.
The Sand Village's younger fighters watching, however, found it genuinely entertaining.
Two people from the same village giving off the energy of sworn enemies.
"Both of you settle down. This is not the Hidden Mist Village," Yagura said simply, offering nothing more than a brief warning rather than dwelling on the issue.
Then he turned and continued walking alongside Yuji.
"Kazekage, our Hidden Mist Village has also been arranging some renovation and reconstruction recently. I was wondering whether you might be able to introduce and temporarily loan us some of the craftsmen your Sand Village previously hired. The Hidden Mist Village would of course pay an appropriate fee," Yagura said.
The transformation of the Sand Village's appearance during this tour had genuinely moved him. He clearly wanted the Hidden Mist Village to be able to achieve something similar.
Even if it could not reach the Sand Village's standard, having half of it would be more than satisfying.
With the Hidden Mist Village's situation having stabilized, and with both governance and power structures now settled, the natural next step was rehabilitating and developing the village itself.
He had heard Konoha was also in the middle of large-scale construction.
Yuji heard this and did not answer immediately.
At this moment, Yagura's eyes drifted to a passerby not far away.
From the person's clothing it was clear they still maintained characteristics of the Hidden Mist Village's Kaguya clan styling, though after settling in the Sand Village they had adjusted their attire somewhat due to the climate. But the hairstyle remained the Kaguya clan's distinctive mark.
This person paid no particular deference to the fact that his Mizukage was standing nearby, simply walking past with an air of complete self-possession. His expression was somewhat flat and dry.
Walking alongside this Kaguya clan man was a woman, carrying a child of two or three years old.
The Sand Village's absorption of outside bloodlines was not limited to Konoha's Hyuga and Uchiha clans. It also included lineages from the Land of Water.
The difference was that the two villages had reached a mutual understanding on this matter without letting it escalate to the level of unresolvable friction that had occurred between the Sand Village and Konoha.
In the past, the Kaguya clan had been viewed by the Hidden Mist Village's government not as a usable force but as a source of instability within the Land of Water. After Yagura took power, one of his moves had been to bring the Kaguya clan in, granting them relatively elevated status and standing within the village.
But in practical terms, this had also been connected to a previous cooperative arrangement Yuji had used to request bloodline-related access to Kaguya clan members.
The Kaguya clan appearing within the Sand Village was something the Hidden Mist Village had naturally become aware of over time. That they had not used it as a pretext for conflict meant both sides had reached a quiet mutual understanding on the matter.
Yagura believed that if the Fourth Kazekage had taken an interest in the Kaguya clan, there were naturally good qualities in the clan worth noting. It also gave him an opportunity to look at this clan's strength through fresh eyes.
"This clan has genuinely put down roots in your Sand Village," Yagura said with pointed meaning.
Yuji caught the implication and smiled knowingly.
"Introducing craftsmen on your behalf is not a problem in principle. But those craftsmen are not Sand Village people. We were able to bring them here previously by leveraging pharmaceutical resource agreements and cooperation deals with other nations. Whether they would be willing to help the Hidden Mist Village is not something I can decide on their behalf."
"With your standing as Kazekage, I imagine the moment you open your mouth the matter would be settled," Yagura said.
"You think too highly of me," Yuji replied with a light laugh.
With Yuji's implicit agreement, Yagura said nothing further on the subject.
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STONES 💎
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