Welcome back to the Smoke and Mirrors AU.
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Over the next week, the entire Yanmaru clan was almost entirely focused on wall waking. From day to night, Hattori oversaw their training. He had gotten a decent grasp on it within the first day or two, as had most of the other A and S rank talents.
Currently, Hanae, Mitaro, Amani, and Izumi were still working on being able to do it one hundred percent of the time. Sasori was still struggling to maintain concentration in combat; in other words, Hattori threw knives at him while he tried to run away while sticking to the sides of trees.
Sukuna and Miwa were adamant about learning this too. They thought it would be fun. Hattori’s lips twitched at the thought of Sukuna blasting off the tree. Hanae had actually done it pretty fast. For some reason, the boy had pretty terrible control over his Chakra.
It might have something to do with the frankly absurdly large aura he had in comparison to Miwa’s. With a shrug, he turned his attention back to his current focus.
Since Yuta had already somewhat learned water walking, he and Hattori had swapped places. Hattori tip toed carefully onto the surface of the water. His Chakra seeped underneath his feet, carefully adjusting with each small, unnoticeable shift of the water.
He managed about ten seconds of slow, careful walking before his feet began to sink. With a frustrated grunt, he moved back to the shoreline.
The Tawa River that encircled their Clan Territory was quite beautiful. It was filled with fish, and the water was clear enough to see them.
Another week passed quickly.
It was in the morning when Hattori called a Clan Meeting. Several seconds passed before almost the entire Clan gathered. Obviously, Yuki was still away, but since she had not traveled back it was unlikely there would be any massive delays. She should be back soon with the group of construction workers.
He looked around, only Asahiro was not here. He was still working on Chakra Suppression. It was a much more difficult form of Chakra Control than even water walking.
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“We have all, by now, somewhat mastered wall walking. Many of us have moved on to water walking, and some of us have even mastered it.” Hattori carefully avoided the fact he still lost concentration sometimes during combat scenarios. He wasn’t as talented as the S-Ranks in his clan.
“Sometime soon, Yuki will return with a crew of civilians to help our compound grow. They will stay, and we will turn this area into a town.” He maintained a stoic look on his face as his Clan all looked around.
“This is an effort to bolster our Clan forces, but also maintain a way to gather funds. It’s also a great way to cover up our ANBU group.”
Hattori waited for a few seconds, indicating that they could ask questions.
“I don’t understand. How does this cover up ANBU?” Hattori smiled.
“Once Asahiro manages to copy the Earth Clone Technique, if anyone is on a mission, we can keep a clone of them here. Or, we can even send the Clone on missions.”
The Earth Clones were fairly durable. However, any attack that would sever part of the clone like a finger being cut off, would result in the rest of the clone crumbling into dirt. Simple stabs wouldn’t do much except lower the stability of the clone. Fatal stabs would drop the stability to zero immediately, but it was still a decent way to lower death rates.
“I see.”
“How does this bolster our Clan forces?”
“We will be able to, eventually, incorporate our bloodline into the descendants of the civilians. Immediately, we can recruit some of the civilians for training, using them as part of our disclosed forces with the Land of Fire’s daimyo. These are the forces we will be able to use to defend our clan, or attack others.”
“The ANBU group must be kept in absolute secrecy, so even techniques that our ANBU team uses, we cannot use.” The obvious exceptions were ignored: The five basic techniques, one for each element. These were all leaked techniques as they had used them in public. Even if they didn’t think anyone saw them, it was better to be safe.
The good thing about them was that these were very public and widespread Ninjutsu, so even if they were uncovered, it wouldn’t lead to the Yanmaru.
“Ah. That… makes sense. Thank you, Clan Leader.”
“How does it help gathering funds?”
Hattori hummed in thought, pretending to mull it over. In reality, there were a lot of ways it would help. He just wanted to figure out exactly how to say it.
“Taxes, for protection. Missions, for those we recruit. Rent, for housing. All three of these will be long term sources of income. Moreover, hopefully this will bring trade to us, rather than having to travel days to other cities.”
The confusion he had seen in everyone’s face had dissipated entirely now. He smiled. This was good.
With a wave of his hand, they were dismissed, and the official meeting ended. Everyone went back to their regular morning routine. One team went out to patrol, and the rest began their physical conditioning. Some went to the river to train water walking, and some went to finish mastering wall walking.
Like that, another five days passed before Hattori’s Bochigan saw over a dozen auras on the horizon. It was hard to tell exactly how many there were. Civilian auras tended to blend together more than the auras of Shinobi. One of them was definitely Yuki, and a smile was on his face almost immediately.
This should be the construction crew.