Chapter 38- Reunion

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The next week flew past Yama as he hardly registered it.

Yama would show up in training ground 14 before any of his genin, and he would stay there long after everyone had left.

The first few days, some of the genin wouldn't take their training very seriously, but around day 5 there was a subtle shift in Konoha.

The drums of war started to fade into simple background noise, and all the reverie and novelty wore off as reality set in.

Konoha was going to war. People would die.

Yama didn't even need to threaten his ninja into training past that point. Whether it be from spontaneous crowd wide realization, or simple peer pressure, training ground 14 was full of motivated and disciplined ninja for the vast of the day.

Heguri stopped by to evaluate for a short time later in the week, and while he wasn't happy with the results, he would never be unless each genin magically became chuunin level overnight, Heguri was instead somewhat satisfied at the morale and progress of the Operations Division.

It seemed, to Heguri at least, that Yama was doing a fine job, whatever he was doing, and that the combat vet didn't need much supervision.

As the week progressed and the 450 genin took their training more and more seriously. Yama found himself with less and less to do.

Which was a terrible thing.

Yama was stuck in his thoughts all day and all night, sleep eluding him no matter how tight he grasped at it. His thoughts would simply never abate, and the expected call of night never visited him.

His body was rejecting the very notion of rest. Instead, Yama meditated each night, but found it harder and harder to slip into simple silence as the thoughts piled up and up.

  What exactly is happening?

  Why is it happening?

  What did I do?

  What can I do to stop it?

  Where is Kurama?

Kurama, the small silver fox that was called Ginou in public due to his childish dislike of sharing his name with strangers, was nowhere to be found.

Each night, as Yama meditated in the peaceful zen of the Hatake Courtyard, underneath the willow tree next to the koi pond, Yama would wait for Ginou.

Yama was left alone with his thoughts, and he needed to talk to someone, anyone and get some help.

Yama had experienced much, and he knew quite a bit, but one thing that was certain in his mind was that he was not a smart man.

The heavy thinking was often left to others, and what was left to him was the simple things, like fighting.

So 7 days after his assignment as the Captain of the Operations Division of the Genin Corps, Yama was quite relieved to be interrupted in his fitful meditation by the exact two people he was looking for.

It was early in the night, but the sun had set at least an hour ago, and with the sun hidden beyond the horizon, and a cloudy sky blocking out the moon, the darkness seemed to encroach on everything.

Yama opened his eyes and smiled at the two in front of him.

Both Ginou and Shijin were there, and Yama sighed in relief like the heaviest burden in the world had disappeared from his shoulders.

Shijin, emotionless as always, broke the silence.

  "I have heard much about what you have done in my absence. May we speak inside?"

Yama couldn't help but grin, happy that his two best friends were with him once again.

  "Kakashi said Ginou wasn't allowed in the house. However, I'll set something up on the patio."

Yama quickly stood up and hurried about, grabbing a table and three cushions from inside the house and setting them up.

He pulled a hot tea kettle from somewhere, and he put two of the cushions on the ground and another on top of the table.

Without much ado, Yama and Shijin took their seats as Ginou hopped onto the cushion placed on top the table.

As Yama was pouring three cups of tea, Shijin once again spoke.

  "Ginou here was telling me about something called the Great Freedom Sutra.

  You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?""

Yama was chagrined. and he smiled as he scratched the back of his head.

  "It was something I created back before we came here.

  I was thinking about where everything went wrong, and I figured that sealing up Ginou and his siblings was it.

  Think about it. If they couldn't be sealed, not even into the Gedo Mazo, then we wouldn't have to fight Kaguya, Tobi, or Madara.

  If they couldn't be sealed, then we wouldn't have to fight wars over jinchuuriki."

Shijin simply stared at Yama, his face betraying nothing.

  "Why didn't you tell me about this plan of yours when we discussing how to fight Kaguya?"

Yama quirked his head with a confused look on his face.

  "Well, I was gonna bring it up, but then I had to go save the Fourth as soon as we got here.

  And then, we realized we lost our connections to Indra and Asura, and the plan morphed into how do we train Naruto and Sasuke to fight Kaguya.

  So, it kinda slipped my mind to bring it up at that point.

  Besides, the plan had changed so much by that moment.

  I decided it was good to take some preemptive measures.

  We'll train Naruto and Sasuke, but it would be best if they never even have to fight her, right? This way our main plan is more like a contingency.

  Ninja always think ahead like that.

  It's a no brainer, dattebayo!"

Shijin's face, normally impassive stone, twitched as some very, very old memories brushed the edge of his awareness.

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Shijin, in all his planning and preparations, had forgotten one extremely crucial detail about Yama.

Yama was extremely experienced, having lived through untold horrors and coming out stronger, but Alas.

Yama was an idiot.

Ginou looked up from his cushion, where he had been curled up and pretending to sleep.

He opened his eyes and took in the confident and shining face of Yama, and Ginou began to chuckle.

And then he started to laugh, and then he started to laugh harder and harder until he could barely choke any words out, mirth exuding from his presence.

  "AHAHAHAHAHAH NO BRAINER HE SAYS

  AHAHAHA IM GONNA DIE

  HES, OH MY GOD I CANT BELIEVE IT

  HES REALLY THAT STUPID

  I CANT BREATHe

  AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

  HAHAHAHA

  I EVEN TOLD HIM AND HE DOESN'T GET IT

  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

Yama jumped up to his feet burning with indignity and hastily grabbed the fox by the scruff of his neck.

  "What's your problem you little furball?

  I'll punt you into the moon you runt!"

The fox didn't even notice, still laughing. Shijin sat, looking at the tea cup in his hand.

He didn't know where the thought came from, but something deep inside him wished that something other than tea was in his cup right now.

The fox, slowly calmed down, laughing becoming interspersed with deep breaths as he tried to calm himself.

Slowly the laugh broke into smaller and smaller fragments, before Ginou finally subsided to infrequent giggles.

Yama was still deathstaring at the fox, but he was also confused at what was going on.

  Had he said something that funny? Why was Kurama calling him an idiot?

  To be fair though, it was very nostalgic though.

Shijin pushed all errant thoughts aside and spoke again.

  "Why don't you sit back down, Yama? I think I can answer a lot of your questions."

Yama hesitantly put the chuckling fox back onto his cushion, and sat down on his own before turning his attention back to Shijin.

Yama waited patiently, and Shijin collected his thoughts before finally sharing them.

  "I have been free from house arrest for the past few days, and I have been gathering as much information as I can to our current situation.

  Honestly, it was all for naught, as I should have come straight here because I knew that you would be at the center of this.

  I happened to speak with Ginou here earlier and he caught me up to speed, and I am at a loss for words.

  I cannot even begin to explain how foolish your actions were.

  As much as Ginou is pleased that he and his siblings are free, I am equally displeased..."

Ginou's eyes snapped open and a deep growl unfitting of his size started to rumble as his eyes turned red. Shijin continued

  "... that they were freed at this very moment without any forewarning or planning.

  I agree that your plan is perhaps effective in stopping Kaguya, but we now have other issues to handle.

  Namely, you started a war."

Yama frowned and opened his mouth, but Shijin held his hand up to stop him from interrupting and asked a question.

  "What are jinchuuriki?"

Yama answered quickly.

  "Maltreated weapons in the hand of the shinobi villages."

  "And you removed the village's weapons?"

  "Yes."

  "What does that cause?"

  "They wouldn't attack each other since they're unarmed."

  "You can't be serious, Yama!

  Think for a moment.

  What would you do if you ran out of kunai in the field?"

  "Use ninjutsu and taijutsu."

  "No chakra left either."

  "Taijutsu only then, or run and hide if the situation permits."

  "Would you feel vulnerable if you lost all your kunai?"

  "Not really since I have lots on ninjutsu and my taijutsu is super strong."

  "For pete's sake,... okay.

  What if you ran out of kunai back when we were genin right out of the academy?"

  "Then yeah, I probably wouldn't want to run out of kunai."

  "Your first action after using all your kunai and shuriken?

  "Hide."

  "And then?"

  "Retreat or ambush the target if possible. Retrieve weapons if situation permits."

  "Exactly, Yama.

  "Where are you going with this, Shijin, we're talking about the villages here."

Shijin breathed in deeply and exhaled. It wasn't a sigh, it wasn't that emotive.

Shijin started talking again.

  "Since you have disarmed the villages of their jinchuuriki, they are reacting exactly like you would if you lost all your weapons.

  They are feeling vulnerable, and they are hiding within their borders, ending all international communication.

  What comes next is they either retrieve their weapons, but we know they can't do that.

  So what does that leave us with?

  They can either retreat or ambush the targets.

  Tell me, how does an entire village or nation retreat. Where do they go?"

Yama didn't have a good answer. Shijin continued.

  "They don't retreat because they can't. A monk can hide but not the temple.

  Their only option is to ambush, Yama!

  Don't you get it?

  You cornered them, they are going to lash out, and its only a matter of time."

Yama's face was slowly turning to grim realization.

Shijin didn't say anything more, and let Yama come to terms on his own.

Yama was an idiot, but he wasn't stupid. He would overlook things, but if you explained things to him, he would understand.

Yama's eyes turned serious and his unflinching gaze met the unfeeling gaze of Shijin's.

Yama broke the tense and short silence.

  "Okay, I messed up.

  What's next? How do we stop this?"

Shijin gestured to the fox on the table.

  "That's where Ginou and his siblings come in."

Ginou opened a single eyes and snarled out.

  "I agreed to none of this."

Yama spoke.

  "Explain it to me, Shijin."

  "It's a simple solution.

  Your removal of the Bijuu has destabilized the world.

  You shook up international politics, and their needs to either be a restructuring or a return to normal.

  Restructuring means war, and we want to avoid that.

  So we have to return things to normal."

Yama frowned intensely.

  'The Bijuu are free for now and forever. Even I can't break the Great Freedom Sutra.

Shijin didn't quite believe what Yama was saying, but didn't disagree, and instead went on a different line.

  "I didn't say we would reseal the bijuu.

  Instead, we need to convince them to become guardian deities of sorts for each of the nations.

  If a nation invaded another, then both bijuu would punish the aggressor.

  We could then slowly allow politics to change as the bijuu faded into the background.

  As long as the change isn't too fast, it wouldn't result in violence."

Yama turned directly to Ginou.

  "But he said he didn't agree."

The fox added in.

  "And I still don't. I want no part in this plan of yours."

Yama looked back at Shijin, who replied.

  "So Yama, you need to convince him in this plan. Its the best we got for now."

Yama didn't even try though, he simply responded.

  "He said 'No' Shijin. I'm not gonna convince him. He's got his mind made up."

Ginou humphed in the background.

  "At least one of you has any sense."

Shijin rebutted.

  "You didn't even try?"

  "I'm sure he had a good reason."

  "You didn't even ask for his reason."

Yama sighed and turned back to Ginou.

  "So why do you say 'No?"

Ginou huffed again and started speaking.

  "It all comes down to me and my brethren 'punishing the aggressor' as you say.

  What would you have us do? We can do nothing to change the minds of men, and even if we could, I am loath to kill the free will of another.

  I would remind you that I was just in a similar position, and I will do nothing to be the progenitor of such a crime against existence."

Yama cocked his head.

  "Can't you just stop them with an overwhelming display of power?

  I'm sure it would be easy."

  "What happens if that doesn't work? What then?"

  "I'm sure it wouldn't get to that."

  "Hah, wrong."

  "What do you mean 'wrong', Ginou?"

  "You're wrong. It will get to that point. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually we will be forced to act."

  "How would you know?"

  "BECAUSE IT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED YOU FOOLS!"

Yama and Shijin said nothing after Ginou's outburst. Ginou had mentally shouted at them, full of tangled up emotion, hints of despair, regret, but largely guilt.

So the human duo simply said nothing and let silence rule the night.

After a few more minutes, Ginou finally continued with a heavy voice, laden with burden.

  "Father wanted us to watch the humans. He told us to.

  I have lived for over a thousand years, and I have seen more than either of you.

  I will live another thousand years long after you are naught but dust in the wind.

  We Bijuu are not idiots, and when we were young, naive, we had the same ideas as you.

  We could simply stop war with our power. We could force the humans to listen to us.

  Eventually, someone called our bluff. They didn't back down in front of our displays.

  They were fanatics, willing to die for their goals and false god, and we could do nothing to convince them.

  The only way to stop them was to kill them."

The silence came back, and Yama offered a continuation.

  "So the Bijuu killed them?"

Ginou whipped his head at Yama, stare burning.

  "NO! I KILLED THEM! I HARDENED MY HEART.

  I DID WHAT HAD TO BE DONE! I CARRY THAT WEIGHT!"

Ginou continued in a smaller voice.

  "And I regret it to this day."

Yama spoke again.

  "But it worked. They were stopped, and no one would ever doubt you again?"

Ginou laughed bitterly.

  "But it didn't. Not for long, anyway.

  You forget the short memory of you humans.

  It was a short century later that I was faced with the exact same decision, and I realized the error of my ways."

  "But it worked for a century..."

Ginou growled.

  "Then you do it. Why don't you destroy a nation every 100 years?

  It's simple enough, and I know you have the power to do it.

  It's only a nation. Maybe it'll even be less than 20 million men, women, and children?

  Why don't you eradicate them? Burn them and their monstrous ideology to cinders?

  You can witness the fires.

  You can breathe the ashes.

  You can carry the dead.

  Neither I nor my siblings will be a part of this.

  We will protect the humans from eradicating themselves, but until them, the world is as horrible as they make it."

Ginou stood up from the cushion on the table and looked into the distance.

  "I tire of this discussion."

And the small, silver fox disappeared.

Yama looked over at Shijin, and said with a wry grin.

  "See, I knew he had a good reason."

Shijin didn't reply.

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Yama and Shijin talked long into the night, brainstorming any and all ideas that could help them avoid the upcoming war.

The main problem was that neither had very much control over their power right now, so any plan involving personal power was pretty much out from the get go.

Yama still had little to no life energy, and abysmal chakra control.

Shijin was still recuperating, and his eyes and chakra were still in their unawoken states.

As the sun closed in on the horizon, and the east slowly turned to lighter gray, Yama ended the discussion and got up.

  "Sorry Shijin, we can continue this later. I got to go perform my duties as the Captain of the Operations Division."

Shijin got up too.

  "No matter. I'll just follow you then."

  "Will that be okay?"

  "I'm sure it will be, I was assigned to be your assistant after all."