CH10: Dragons and Treasure

Smoke filled the room as Hiruzen Sarutobi took off his hat and placed it on a nearby stand. His old mind ran the political calculus as he tried to decide if taking in what could potentially become a new clan of Konoha was worth snubbing their allies Taki and Suna. Wind country had already humiliated their own hidden village by giving out formerly sand village-only missions to outside villages. Konoha was still recovering over a decade after the Kyubi attack and needed the funds, adding to the friction between Wind and Suna. Suna couldn't strike out against the hand that fed them, making the villages who accepted Wind's missions competition. Taking in a potential clan that could strengthen Taki, the border village between Suna and Konoha, wasn't prudent. The other villages would see it as Konoha once again overreaching and dominating the landscape.

"We aren't so well off that we can afford to discard promising talent. A born-perfect sage mode could potentially rival Jinchuraki in value. If we don't take her, then Kumo or Iwa will. Who else but Konoha can hope to train a bloodline with such potential." Danzo said.

"We should send a chunin team and withdraw Anko to give a proper report. There are variables to this situation that could prove volatile." Shikaku said.

"No, we should show Taki and the world that Konoha treats their allies well and give them a clan that could breathe new life into their dying village. Furthermore, such a bold move would prove to the other minor hidden villages that Konoha cares for its allies." Homura said.

Hiruzen turned to his final advisor. She was stern and, at times, almost as militant as Danzo but always had the village's best interests at heart.

"Farmers say a snake in the grass is impossible to find, but if we take them in, we will know where it will strike. This is a chance for us to strengthen ourselves and tie up a loose end. If we handle this carefully, other nations will think twice before attacking us." Koharu said.

A frown marred the old Hokage's features at his friend's words. 2 out of 4 of his advisors agree for different reasons that they should add this group to their village as a potential new clan. Once news of this Niko reached his student, the snake Sanin's actions would become more predictable. Shikaku's wait-and-retrieve-more-information approach could double as an escort if he decided to forward adding them to the village. Giving them to Taki wouldn't work; his student would pluck who he desired and slay or scatter the rest. The only permanent option was to take them in and prepare a trap while preparing the village to ambush his student.

"The boy who offered this deal to the girl. A Genin doesn't have the power to give such an offer; not even a Jonin can invite a group to the village. That power remains in the hands of the shinobi council and, ultimately, the Hokage. He must be reprimanded, or others will see this as the relaxation of the rules or worse, favoritism." Danzo said.

Did his eyes deceive him, or did his old rival look distasteful at having to punish a Genin? That was interesting. Danzo was normally a stickler for the rules, even as he used them to position Konoha to screw over other villages. It's why he had Danzo on the council Hiruzen needed to know the views of the most extreme of his shinobi.

"By all rights, he has done a great service for the village and provides more wealth than many Chunin; he should remain within the ranks of shinobi," Homura said.

Hiruzen sighed and pulled heavily from his pipe. By all accounts, Nico's mother requires water to thrive and can no longer survive on land. The boy was becoming a skilled welder, and there was a jutsu to produce glass from sand if he wasn't mistaken. It was initially a prototype jutsu designed to counter the Ichibi Jinchuriki to a disastrous effect. By his recollection, the Uchiha who invented the glass blower jutsu was cut apart by the glass he created when the Jinchuriki's sand was mixed with the glass. While it was an old and rather obscure jutsu, Hurizen could rework it for the boy to allow greater control over the glass created. Purchasing sand from Suna would be a start to repairing their relationship; he would add that stipulation to the punishment.

"We'll have him build the aquarium needed to house the girl's mother out of his pocket as punishment. His reward will be the excuse to spend more time with the girl Niko." Hiruzen said with a smirk.

"The boy's mysterious bloodline could become even stronger when mixed with the body of perfect sage mode. Truly the next generation will be more formidable than the last." Koharu said.

…

When the monkey handed him a letter from the Hokage, he didn't know what to expect. Maybe he had overstepped his authority as a wet-behind-the-ears Genin when he invited a group of mutants to the village. But, in his defense, he was staring down natural perfect sage mode with a naturally perfect ass begging to be slapped.

Perhaps he should have sent a message to the Hokage instead of telling Anko what he did. However, she did send the letter to the Hokage in a hurry yelling dumb brat the entire time. Anko interrogated him while she wrote the letter, practically squeezing him dry of information. She was damn good at her job and wrung out every detail he could remember, including Niko's very sexy ears and her mother's problems.

When he opened the letter, he was given the order to build an aquarium by the Hokage. He unsealed a scroll containing the glass blower jutsu. It was another fire-style technique that fit him just fine, but he wasn't a utility ninja. So why did he keep getting jutsu to build stuff?

Really who said the Uchiha were a bunch of hotheads that burned everything down. The glass-blowing jutsu was something he had never seen before, and it was beautiful. All he needed was sand and chakra to make anything with glass, by the jutsu's description. Why weren't the Uchiha making windows instead of policing? Good windows were expensive, and not all Uchiha could awaken the Sharingan. Add a few seals into the mix, and glass could become nearly unbreakable and reparable. His plans with the resin might move to glass since it was about to become extremely cheap. He needed a seal to heat and cool certain parts of glass when it registered movement to keep it from shattering. That would give the glass flexibility it normally didn't have, making it incredibly versatile. Unfortunately, there was a fly in his soup.

He had to buy his sand, not from the land of wind but from the sand village itself. There was sand on the river's edge that he could have used if not for the stipulation. All he needed was a storage scroll, and he could get all the sand he wanted, but no. At least for the aquarium, he needed to buy from Suna, which meant he had a letter to write that may not get beyond the woods thanks to the cannibal mutants depending on if they had a cease-fire or not thanks to Niko, his cute little Dratini.

There was only one part of the new mission he didn't understand. He saw a word he didn't understand called F.R.E.E. L.A.B.O.R. that he didn't get. It sounded like cuck Nico's father with her milf of a mother if she's hot to cause more trouble for the Hokage.

The political realities of Konoha were catching up with him. By the letter's wording, he had greatly overstepped his authority as a Genin of the Leaf. Sure, the Leaf would still accept the group. If they integrated well, they would eventually integrate them as a clan. Adding Niko's blood to the Leaf would strengthen future generations; he couldn't imagine being born with perfect sage mode and trained as a shinobi. The sheer advantages of shinobi training combined with perpetual perfect sage mode would be unbelievable. Niko managed to tank his blows even if he wasn't going full power with no ninja training.

Silas was still trying to get over his little Dratini's talent. It was amazing, and he wanted sage mode even more after seeing it. The second she made it to Konoha and went through a fast-paced shinobi program, her power would skyrocket. He couldn't imagine her not surpassing Tsunade in strength as Niko evolved into a proud Dragonite.

After he practiced the hand signs for the glass-blowing jutsu, he returned to his tree walking. In two days, he hadn't moved on to water walking. So, he practiced the hand signs, kept his leaf stuck to his head, and walked upside down under a tree branch.

Leverage was a game changer and something he planned to use in perpetuity. It brought his full strength and chakra into battle like nothing he had learned before. Clearly, the leaf-sticking exercise was to teach his chakra how to stick to things for tree walking. But it was more than that; he felt like he wasn't ready to take the next jump to water walking yet. He had a whole 4 days left and didn't want to miss out on anything.

The tree walking exercise had already doubled his chakra reserves twice. It continued to rise as he increased his training. He wasn't sticking to the branch anymore; he learned to spread his chakra through the tree and its roots over two days to grip the ground. A hurricane couldn't uproot the tree he walked on, and it felt like he was grasping for a concept just out of reach. The feeling of being incomplete stopped him from moving on, like there was a part of the lesson he failed to get.

The frustration kept him stubbornly gambling away his time after a concept he might not grasp for weeks, much less a few days. Shadow clones would probably help, but he didn't have the jutsu or the chakra to use it. It was a kinjutsu for a reason, and he wouldn't bother trying to get it until he had more than enough chakra to use it.

Silas sighed and jumped down.

He pulled out his ridiculous helmet and looked at his current chakra capacity.

Chakra Pool 7

Chakra Control Amp 10%

Power Level 230

Silas whistled in admiration at his growing power. Chakra control increased the effectiveness of Silas's power level by about 10% for every point in his chakra pool. Leverage multiplied his effectiveness by a solid 10 on any solid surface. Once he mastered water walking, he was sure to get an even more significant jump in chakra control, then probably stagnate without any better chakra control techniques unless there was a fanon air walking exercise or waterfall walking might be a thing.

Fortunately, tree walking still gave him a 1% bump to chakra control every day he practiced it. So besides the initial gain from learning the technique training, it still granted benefits.

Chakra control detection wasn't that hard to parse out; unfortunately, he had to add more to his helmet. Instead of adding more height to the beehive of a helmet, he welded on two hollow horns that curved on the ends like antennae. The helmet was much heavier due to being made of cheap iron, so he added a thick leather chin strap to keep it on his head.

"You look funny," Nico said as she stepped through the trees.

Silas was surprised to see her after only two days. He unbuckled the chinstrap and took off his ugly creation. "If you knew what it did, you'd want one," Silas said.

"No," Nico said.

"It's a work in progress," Silas said and glared at the girl.

"What did your father say? The Leaf agreed already on my end." Silas said.

Nico pulled at the brown dress she wore and tore into the bark of a tree with a clawed digit. She slowly wrote the kanji for her name before stopping. He wasn't feeling very patient with her interruption. Nico was cute, and her dress helped show off her small breasts while it hid her perfectly firm round bottom. The blue scales on her skin made her look even more exotic as she brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Father will only join if you defeat him in combat and take me as your wife; blood must seal our union with the Leaf," Nico said.

"Oh, is that all. Well, it will have to wait until I pull the barge out of the riverbed. So, give me four days, and I'll take care of this and fight your father. Where does he want to fight." Silas said.

The dragon girl froze at her words before glaring at him. "Do you even care about how I feel about this?" Nico asked.

"If you want to fight it out, I'm busy. But don't worry, after we're married, you can fight me anytime you want." Silas said.

The dragon girl opened her mouth and closed it. "There is someone else." He paused at that.

All the good mood he had after gaining progress in the tree walking exercise vanished instantly. "He's a boy from the town, and we've been friends since I can remember, but he likes someone else. I know I'm better than that smooth-skinned girl, but he is too concerned by what his parents think." Nico said.

That was the most cliche excuse Silas had ever heard. But, of course, he couldn't refute it because it was a cliché for a reason.

Silas nodded. "You're having cold feet; I get it; you're a dragon; it's normal. I don't know why you need to make up a story about some random love triangle in this dock town." Silas said.

Over the tree line, the barge hung overhead like the sword of Damocles. He wouldn't just need to repair the whole but lift the barge itself, and he didn't know if he could. The welding jutsu, water walking, and tree walking exercise needed to work seamlessly to make this mission work. Anko already gave him a rebreather, and he had practiced using it for a few hours the night before. The pressure from that had been difficult, but Nico had someone else she fancied, and he had to fight her father. Not to mention the space-time ticking time bomb Naruto kept around his neck that no one seemed to care about, and he had to build an aquarium for Nico's mother on his own dime. It was enough to drive him to murder if she mentioned the name of her apparent lover. Silas didn't know what he would do. So, he decided to choose a different route.

He pushed her against a tree and felt it shatter as he drove his body close to hers. Nico's eyes widened as he leaned in 90 degrees. "There is a girl I like too who likes someone else. Life isn't fair, and we can only live it as best we can." He grabbed her firm booty under her dress and felt the tree crack and splinter as they leaned further into it. Nico's face looked a lot like Shippuden Sakura's, with her shoulder-length hair and large sea-green eyes. Only her fin-like ears and dragon horns were anything but human. The tiny scales on her skin were invisible to the casual observer, just small manifestations of sage chakra appearing and vanishing along alabaster skin.

Nico turned her head to the side, and he let her pull away, ripping apart the collapsing tree in the process. A heavy blush appeared on her face, and he grew hard from her arousal. Clearly, they weren't incompatible.

"I need to report back. How did you deal with your problem?" Nico asked.

"I discredited my rivals as gay for each other to instill that possibility in my love interest's mind. But as it turns out, they were attracted to each other anyway. So at this point, I will wish their relationship the best of luck and fuel the fire." Silas said.

Nico's mouth opened and closed. "You're evil."

"I will add your interest to my rival's man harem to get him out of the way," Silas said.

Nico opened her mouth, closed it, and smiled. "You have my attention, and I have so many questions, but I need to get back." She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, much to his surprise. He reached under her dress and felt up between her thighs. The soft folds beneath her panties nearly drove him to take her on the spot.

"Who knew dragons loved playing with fire?" Silas said and pulled her body against him. Nico was a sturdy bitch, and he was ready to do some plowing. But instead, she smiled again, revealing a mouth full of fangs while backing away. Sometimes she looked more dragon-like than human, shifting between almost purely human and dragon with her mood.

"I also like to sew my own clothes, but my fabric has been lacking. So buy some richer colors for me, and maybe I'll visit you before you fight my father. I also like jewelry and makeup." Nico said with a fang-filled smile as her skin morphed into blue scales.

Silas couldn't help but wonder if she had been teasing him to see how he would react. "Have you ever been to Kiso Docks?" Silas asked.

"Never, but now, I know something important about you," Nico said.

"What's that?" Silas asked.

"You fight for what you want and aren't afraid to play dirty. Remember, I want rich fabrics, jewelry, and makeup; if you could pick up a certain set of books I heard about, I wouldn't mind. They are called Icha Icha paradise." Nico said.

As it turned out, after getting some confirmation of his personality, she immediately wanted him to buy her things. "If you think you're getting these things without doing something in return, you're kidding yourself," Silas said.

She shook her rear at him and glanced back with expectant eyes. "I wouldn't dream of taking advantage of you," Nico said as she made her way deeper into the woods before circling around and diving into the river heading down it at an incredible speed.

He caught the tiger, in this case, dragon, by the tail; maybe he should have expected this outcome. Clearly, by her words, she wanted the stuff her father wouldn't let her have. Nico didn't bother making up a name for her pretend boyfriend.

Silas stared at the coal-filled slow flowing river. And took a shovel out of his scroll. It was typical for shinobi, who knew a bit of sealing, to keep some scrolls filled with items they might need. Silas had one filled with spools of ninja wire, camping supplies, and tools he might need in the field. The plan for the shovel was simple enough. A current, even a small one, would make learning water walking more difficult. So he dug a hole, filled it with river water, and then blocked off the river. It would give him a stagnant pool to train on and get the hang of water walking.