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. Next five chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
XXXXX — KUSHINA UZUMAKI
"What do you think the most important teaching of the Sage is?" Ryu asked as their first lesson began. They both sat seiza in his office. Each of the Abbots had one, she knew. And this was the first time she entered one. Something told her they were not usually like this, but then again anything was possible. The portraits of naked women and men that lined the walls didn't seem all that standard, but stranger things had happened and quite a few of the Abbots had stared at her rack when they thought she wasn't looking so who knew what they had in their offices.
"Patience?" She finally tried after seconds of silence. That had been what today's lecture had been about. The unimpressed look Ryu gave her told her that he did not find her attempt as charming or comedic as she did.
"Unfortunately not. Read this," he said, handing her a few sheets of paper.
She took them and recognised her much modified writing instantly. He had kept her papers? What happened to destroying them? Part of her wanted to ask, but the rest of her knew she would get nothing useful out of this man. So she read the passage obediently.
She remembered it now. It was about a war in the land of the whistling trees— wherever the fuck that was. A war between one clan and the other. They fought because one of the clans stood farther upriver than the other and when their people passed waste into the river, it led to the people in the other clan getting sick when they used the water.
The war was described as a brutal cacophony of violence. Men killed men over and over again. So many died in the war that they waged because some people shat in a river.
"What did you learn?" He asked.
"That people shouldn't shit in flowing rivers," she said.
"Yes, that is true. But that is not the Sage's most important lesson," he said.
"You didn't include the pages where the Sage resolved the conflict," she said. If he wanted her to understand what he taught then would it not have made some sense to show her what he taught.
"You should remember what he did to resolve it," he said with a look.
"I know he used some sort of technique to reverse the flow of the river," she said.
"Indeed. And why do you think he did that?" Ryu asked.
"So the indiscriminate shitters could get some taste of their own medicine?" She tried.
"It might shock you to find out that that was not the Sage's goal," Ryu said, voice dripping with sarcasm. She shrugged. She'd done her best there.
"Understanding. He did it because he wanted both sides to understand the other. And when they did, the war came to an end. All conflicts are caused by lack of understanding," Ryu said. She considered disagreeing, but decided better. A debate with a man so set in his answer was not going to be a good time, for sure.
"People do not understand each other, and because they do not understand each other they fight, cheat, steal from, and kill one another. The Sage's goal was to close this gap between one man and his fellows. To create a world where everyone understood everyone else. Think about that. Real lasting peace. The bandits that attacked your village so many times would never have done so. The shinobi whose war put the Land of Frost in the mess it is in would never have fought in their war. Peace," he said, and his passion was palpable. It hung in the air like a present physical force in the room they were in. Charisma… or maybe not considering what he'd told her yesterday.
She didn't believe it though. To her it excused the worst aspects of human nature and tried to tie them up in a tidy little bow. It wasn't all about understanding. Some people… some people were just assholes and they'd do whatever they thought they could get away with simply because they could. Things like understanding didn't matter.
"That is the foundation of the oldest art the Temple practices, and the centre of all our study, Ninshu," he said.
"Ninshu?" She asked. She had heard of it before, of course. It was mentioned a few times in the book of the Sage and she had heard it from a few other places as well. Shori-nii had mentioned it when he had been training her to learn to bond with Gyuki, but in the end she and Gyuki had figured out their own system.
"Yes. Ninshu uses chakra to create true understanding between people. That is the art that we monks practice," he said.
"So why isn't there peace then? You could just teach everyone else and then everything would be solved," she said.
"If only that was the case. Ninshu is incomplete. The Sage never got the chance to perfect the art before he passed. As things stand now, if we spread Ninshu all through the world the only thing we would achieve is even more war, more suffering, more death."
"I thought you said understanding was going to lead to peace," she pointed out.
"It would. But Ninshu does not provide true understanding as things stand. The person you use it with must take an extra step. That is why only the most enlightened of us are taught the specifics of the art."
"Should I be learning this then? I'm just an acolyte."
"You aren't learning Ninshu. You're learning about Ninshu. Two different things, trust me. And now back to your question. It's better to say that Ninshu as it presently stands provides knowledge and then the user must be of the right disposition and temperament to turn that into true understanding. Training at the temple is the only consistent way we have found to bridge that gap," he said.
She nodded, accepting it but not caring much either way. If it wasn't something she'd be able to use, why should she care about it? Of course there was the chance that she could find some way to use it in combat but Shori-nii already knew about it and if he wasn't using it in combat then there wasn't a way to do it. She knew her big brother better than anyone else. If it had a combat application, he'd have found it already.
"So you must wonder why we are here?" He asked.
"Yes, Abbot Ryu," she said.
"You will learn about the Sage from me, and at the end, your faith will be like a cliffside in the face of the raging sea— unyielding, unbreaking," he said. She nodded while silently hoping that Minato and Mikoto were making more progress in their goal.
XXXXXXX — MINATO NAMIKAZE
He pretended to flinch in pain and scream as he 'accidentally' touched the tray from the oven with his bare hands.
"Lee? You again?" The Head Chef shouted in annoyance.
"I'm sorry, Abbot Jin. I'm just too clumsy sometimes. Don't worry, I can keep going," he said.
"No no no," she said, marching forwards and grabbing a hold of his hand and lifting it up to her face.
"This is a bad burn. Go bind it at the infirmary and then go get some rest. I don't want to see you again until tomorrow," she said, and he nodded, playing the part of a clumsy and shy former apprentice.
He turned and left the kitchens while hoping that both Mikoto and Kushina were ready to move. The kitchens had ended up being the best place to be situated for gathering gossip. The other cooks and chefs could not keep their mouths shut for the life of them— bad for the overall saliva content of the food being served, but good for his information gathering efforts. That was how he had found out that the Head Abbot had a compass that he wore around his neck— a strange bit of jewellery choice to most so they could not help but comment on it.
They speculated that in his previous life, he had been a sailor of some sort. Well, a few of them said sailor. More than a few said he had been a pirate and that explained his general demeanour for some reason. And then he'd also been able to find out that the Head Abbot took three hours in the afternoon— precisely around this time— to meditate in his private room. Rukia, the acolyte who was tasked with delivering him lunch when he wasn't fasting, had giggled that he was actually taking a nap during those hours, and so Minato had seen his window of opportunity.
He could finally bring this insufferable mission to an end. Hopefully, the others were having a better time of it but he doubted they were.
He walked towards the medical bay first, and then when he was in the right hallway, he took a left instead of the right that would have led straight to the doors. He was sure now that he was not being followed.
He took the long route around once he got to the topmost floor. The Lightning Temple was several stories tall and just like with the Fire Temple, the higher ranked Abbots took the higher floors. It gave them more of a daily burden but there was some rationale that it apparently encouraged humility. That was not something Minato could agree with. He chanced a look out the window and was met with a view of perfect unstained white canopy that stretched as far as the eye could see.
How could a man not feel like the king of the world with this kind of daily view? The monks seemed to find some sort of way as they all seemed to be fairly humble. They had their sins, of course, but pride did not seem to be one of them. For Jin, it was rage. Her treatment of those who failed in her kitchens was legendary. He hadn't even needed to introduce himself as a baker's apprentice to get assigned to the kitchens, it seemed. They were always in need of replacements as she either sent someone out or had someone quit every other day.
He turned his mind away from that as he reached the door to the Head Abbot's prayer room. He deactivated the seal tag on his stomach with a flex of his will and breathed a sigh of relief as he could finally feel his chakra again. He imbued it into the door to allow him to slide it open without a squeak. It opened and there was the Head Abbot. He was a burly unit of a man with biceps so large Minato wondered if he could squash his head like a watermelon by squeezing. He was tall as well. Easily the tallest person Minato had ever met. The man sat seiza facing the door, but there was no reaction to him opening it. His eyes, shut and near buried by thick bushy eyebrows, did not even flinch at his entry.
Sending some chakra to his ears to focus his hearing, he heard the steady breathing of a man asleep. Rukia had been right. The compass sat in a locket he wore and moved with the in and out motion of his chest. He tiptoed forwards, each step silent while imbuing the floorboards with chakra to deaden the sounds that came from the flexing of the wood that his weight landed atop. He crossed the distance between himself and the man and then squatted in front of him. He weaved a genjutsu to keep the man asleep as he reached for the compass.
He felt a jolt travel through him as his genjutsu snapped like a rubber band plied with too much tension and then there was a thick hand wrapped around his forearm.
"Ryu bet that you would be patient enough to wait at least a month," the man said.
What?
"I apologise, Head Abbot. I came to ask you a question and I just wanted to check to see if you were awake," he lied smoothly.
"Oh really? Is that the best you can come up with, Minato Namikaze?" He froze. The Head Abbot smiled at his shock.
"While your disguise was initially good enough to pass muster, Ryu noticed your teammate the day before yesterday and was able to confirm her identity yesterday. From there, figuring out the other two of you was easy," he said.
Minato dragged his hand back, but the Head Abbot's grip did not budge. He held him still.
"Worry not. We have not warned the Hidden Cloud of your presence here. Leave now and you will do so with your lives," he said, still holding on.
"You see, there's a problem there," he said.
"And what is that problem?"
"We aren't leaving without that compass, you see?" He said with a smile.
"Then you will not leave at all," he thundered, his own chakra rising to the point where Minato felt some apprehension. But he was a shinobi of Konohagakure. He was a student of Shorirama Senju. He did not fail his missions.
He wielded his chakra like a weapon, releasing some of it from the tenketsu in his arm and converting it to lightning release instantly. The Head Abbot released him as he was shocked something nasty. Minato reached for the compass once his hand was free, but was forced to abandon the attempt as a massive hand made for his chest. He dodged away from the attack, jumping backwards as the Head Abbot rose.
"My name is Igaguri, Head Abbot of the Lightning Temple. This shall be your tomb, Minato Namikaze," he thundered and then he shot at Minato with speed that belied his sheer size. Minato twisted out of the way of a punch that would have made him see stars if it had landed. He lashed out with his fingers, trying to close the man's tenketsu but he had to abandon the attack to dodge out of the way of a kick that threatened to cave his chest in. He rolled backwards again, reaching the door with that motion. He formed a seal and spat out several wind bullets.
The Head Abbot's chakra rose and formed a physical shroud of gold around him. The wind bullets hit the shroud and dissipated. It was a chakra cloak. Was the Head Abbot a jinchuriki? He wondered but abandoned the thought. The chakra felt too light, too clean. There was none of that heaviness and sludge that marked Tailed Beast chakra.
XXXXXX — KUSHINA UZUMAKI
Her lesson had been progressing as normal when Ryu suddenly went still.
"Your teammate has made his move," he said, addressing the words to her and making her freeze.
"What?" She tried. Chakra sealed and suppressed, she never saw the punch that sent her flying out the door of the prayer room. Her back slammed against the cold wall of the temple and she felt herself see stars in her eyes as her ears picked up on Ryu's footsteps— calm and self-assured.
"Don't worry, Kushina Uzumaki. This will be quick," he said, lifting her by her neck with a strength that belied his lithe frame.
Chakra built within his hand as he thrust it at her. She burned the seal on her stomach with a flex of her will, and then caught his thrusting hand with her own.
"No it won't," she snarled, feeling Gyuki's chakra flow into her system. She twisted, trying to snap the hand she held in two only for it to stay taut.
He punched her again, and this time, she flew through the wall and down into the courtyard below. She reinforced her chakra and twisted to land with her feet instead. There was a burst of snow as it shot out everywhere. She looked up and saw a kick coming her way. She lifted her hand and blocked the kick as the force of it travelled through her body and into the ground.
He twisted and then kicked out at her with his other leg. She blocked it as well.
"How did you know?" She asked.
"Do you know why everyone here respects me no matter what I do or how I act?" He asked in turn.
"No," she said as he flipped away from her and landed on his own feet. He barely made it before she was upon him. She aimed a knife hand at his head that he was forced to slap out of the way.
"I was born with the unique ability to see souls. When I look at you, I see one powerful young soul, and one that has existed since the beginning of chakra itself. Once I saw the tailed beast, the holes in your story became apparent, Mai," he said the fake name that Minato had given her with a sneer.
He tried to counter with a punch, but her Sensei was Shorirama Senju. Taijutsu was one art she would never be beaten in. She tilted her upper body backwards even as her other hand grabbed on to the hand he attempted to attack her with. She pressed onto his wrist, shutting the tenketsu there with an application of the gentle fist. The shock on his face allowed her to sweep his feet out from under him. She gathered chakra in her hand as he hit the ground and shoved the rasengan into his chest only for it to be blocked by a golden chakra cloak that formed around his body.
A/N: Were they ever going to make it out of the Land of Lightning without fighting a Monk or two? Of course not. 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.