In a tall tower among numerous mountain peaks, stood a tall, muscular, brown-skinned man with blond hair, impassively watching as a thunderstorm swept through his village, covering it in a blanket of darkness only interrupted by an occasional lightning strike hitting the rocky ground.
"What's the response from Kiri?" He asked as he saw his secretary, Mabui, enter his office in the window's reflection.
"It's not good, Lord Raikage." Mabui put some documents down on his table and slightly shook her head, "The Kiri was conquered by the rebels, and they celebrate their previous Kage's death instead of trying to hunt everybody involved down. They are not going to go along with our suggestion."
"Fools." A loudly muttered, glaring at the storm in front of him. The Kirigakure's scum had as always no sense of loyalty. "What about Onoki?"
"Better." Mabui nodded, "Turning people into stone pissed Iwa off."
A grinned at that. It was yet another utterly stupid thing. Iwa was always jealous of Konoha's Wood Release. Even now, when it no longer exists.
Kumo actually had several Senju breeding stocks ever since the first Ninja War. But nothing substantial ever came out of it. The project was a failure, and it was pretty much still sustaining itself on Hashirama's hype. But even A's father, two decades ago, already knew it was going nowhere and turned his attention to the Hyuga clan instead.
Iwa, however, hated Konoha deeply. They saw the ability to petrify somebody as something that should belong to them. Just like the ability to make trees became Konoha's signature of sorts.
They hated the fact that such an ability, which could represent their identity as Iwa ninjas and boost their village's reputation, was used by a Konoha ninja.
'Heh. What a load of bullshit.' A thought. But he knew Onoki could be petty little shit and A wasn't above using it against Konoha and the man who killed Darui.
"So, they will watch out for him. Good." A nodded in satisfaction.
If it were the Konoha before, he would just send envoys and directly ask for Ren's head. There was a non-zero chance that Saruboit would just comply back then. Like he did during the Hyuga incident.
Which was hilarious.
But ever since the academy reforms, Konoha seemed to regain its thunder, and with every year, they were just getting stronger. The Shitflinger seemed more motivated than ever, and Konoha's movements showed it.
Sadly, the direct and arrogant route of demanding compensation was a no-go because of this.
"Onoki is not stupid, Lord Raikage. He understood what we were trying to do by calling him that nickname." Mabui cautioned, subtly pointing out the possible diplomatic fallout from that decision.
But A was resolute.
"It does not matter." He grunted, "Darui is dead. We can't let that slide. And besides, even if Onoki understood our intentions, what of it?" A chuckled. "He has to do something. His elite ninjas would be dissatisfied otherwise."
And while A could not send a multitude of assassins to Konoha in order to claim Darui's killer's head like he wanted to do, he could ensure the boy would be hunted all over the world outside of Konoha for the rest of his life.
A glanced at Mabui, who was waiting for further instructions. "Notify me the second this Ren enters our country. I will hunt him down myself."
God help the boy if he gets the bright idea to enter the Land of Lightning ever again. Nobody would be able to save him then.
A dearly hoped the boy would be that stupid!
...
It was the day when Hinata and Ino would graduate from the academy, and Ren was in the Capital of the Land of Lightning, leisurely picking up a graduation gift for Ino.
They had some of the best swordsmiths in this country.
Noticing the time, he cursed under his breath. He was a bit late for a meeting. Quickly teleporting to the Capital of the Land of Fire, he walked out of his house, on his way to meet Ren, the merchant, who was doing business with him.
Entering the man's company under henge, Ren was quickly led to his office, where Ren, the merchant, greeted him, and soon enough, the two were seated behind a table.
Ren didn't have much time, so he didn't bother with pleasantries and got instantly to the point.
"I heard the Mikawa Trading Company is causing you trouble, my friend."
Ren, the merchant, frowned, "... Yes? It is nothing important and should not affect our busi-" He started to ramble, only for Ren to interject.
"You misunderstand." He said with a small smile and unsealed a few documents before putting them on the table. "I am sure you have some friends in high places who are interested in dishing out a bit of justice." He gestured toward the documents.
Ren, the merchant, lifted his eyebrow at him. "Do you have a problem with them, too?" He asked as he took the documents into his hands and started reading.
But Ren only noncommittally shrugged. No. He didn't care about them.
"Human trafficking!?" Ren, the merchant, exclaimed in bewilderment. Slavery was illegal in the Land of Fire. If the documents were real, then this could destroy the Mikawa Trading Company.
The person Ren had problems with was Danzo, who had way too many friends. And since killing the man was not an option because of his future plans, Ren decided to work on curbing his influence outside of Konoha for the time being.
It just so happened that the path of least resistance for removing the Mikawa Trading Company, which dealt regularly with Danzo and his ROOT under the table, was to simply hand over the evidence he discovered during his investigations to Ren, the merchant.
The man also had trouble with them. Ren didn't think these documents would 'vanish' or that the man would give them to a corrupt official. The merchant was far too competent for that, and he had his own connections.
Not to mention, this was the kind of thing that could make or break careers for high officials. They would jump at it like hungry vultures smelling blood once they verified the evidence.
"As you can see, your opponents are very naughty." Ren chuckled, "I just came to give you a way to deal with them. Now, if you excuse me."
With that, Ren stood and used henge to disguise himself again before he body-flickered away, leaving through the window.
It was a tad bit rude of him. But Ren, the merchant, would surely forgive him, no? After all, he did just solve a big headache for the man.
But Ren was not done for today.
Channeling his transportation seal, Ren teleported to a dark room where his clone was sitting on the ground, using the detection seal for scouting.
"How is it going?" Ren asked, crouching next to the clone.
"The rebellion is starting in an hour or so." The clone said and then opened his eyes, a small smirk appearing on his lips as the original Ren sighed.
He felt a bit bad for all the normal people who would die because of his actions. But at the same time, the Lord of Kurawa prefecture in the Land of Fire was connected to the Mikawa Trading Company and Danzo.
He was very discreet about it, but he did have people kidnapped and was selling them to the Land of Earth, where slavery was not only legal but was actually booming right now.
Giving that intel to the peasants and riling them up enough for them to rebel was not hard. Not after quite a few of them were given proof that their mothers, sisters, daughters, brothers, fathers, and whatnot else were sold either to mines or brothels and everything in between all over the Land of Earth.
The hard part was ensuring that their little rebellion would not be squashed before it could even start.
"Then we should move, too." Ren said, and the clone nodded before they disappeared from the room.
Infiltrating the castle of the lord who presided over this prefecture, Ren's clone went to check on the water supply he had poisoned this morning. He was then going to support the rebels from the shadows while staying hidden.
No way were peasants winning against trained samurai without the samurai involuntarily crapping all over themselves in their armor and being barely able to stand due to sudden bout of exhaustion.
Ren, on the other hand, entered the castle's basement. He ignored the cages full of people and quickly walked toward the door on the other side of the room. Entering, he saw a brown-haired man sitting behind a table, doing some paperwork.
Hearing the door open, the man raised his head... only for a kunai to almost nail him to the forehead, but he was quick enough to throw himself to the left, dodging the attack.
The man scrambled to grab his tanto from the table, and a second later, he was ready for the fight...
Only for his sight to blur as he fell to his knees, gasping for air with wide eyes full of panic. He started choking and grabbed at his neck in disbelief when the second kunai Ren threw ended his life.
Witnessing it, Ren wryly shook his head. The man was clearly a high chunin, maybe even a jonin, yet he died so easily.
Seriously, he should probably stop giving Ino ideas...
He had one of her Yin Clones in his mind. The clone created another Yin Clone in the mind of his opponent right the moment he was distracted because of Ren's first kunai. The new Yin Clone then gave the man a mental illusion of being poisoned with a specific poison Ren didn't recognize, creating a perfect opportunity for Ren to end the fight.
His blonde girl was becoming quite terrifying with her Yamanaka techniques.
Stepping over the dead body of the man who was most likely a ROOT ninja, Ren looked at all the documents on the table and sighed.
Well... now it was time for the troublesome part.
Framing Konoha of working with the slavery ring.
---
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