It's Time

[Mount Myoboko]

The sky shattered, as if heaven is falling to Earth. A thousand eyes; each of them with white iris and black schlera covered the sky. Screams and pleas were heard.

Great Toad Sage is sweating profusely, his toad hearts are beating fast as he dreamed of a nightmare. And he cannot wake up from it as it feels as if his soul is forced to watch everything unfolds.

It cannot be described as nothing other than the end of the world.

But a light appears at the other end of the darkness, giving a chance for the world.

All the thousand evil eyes turned its iris in anger towards it. One by one, each of them bleeds with dark blood as the light is devoured by the darkness.

"I am sorry...".

A whisper is heard, filled with regret and anguish. The darkness engulfed everything completely causing Great Toad Sage to wakes up.

Ha.... Ha... Ha...

"Great Toad Sage! What's the matter!". Gamabunta hurriedly went to see his great ancestor sensing the natural energy going out of control.

"What happened Great Toad Sage? What did you see?".

'Eyes... Many eyes... The world is in danger'.

Gamabunta is just confused hearing it. He don't understand what he is saying at all.

'What danger?'.

"Is the child of prophecy related to this...? What was it sorry for?".

'Old man. Tell us clearly what did you dream about'.

"...".

"Zzzz... Zzz...". The old toad fell asleep.

'Old man!!!'.

"Oh?... Gamabunta. What is it?".

'Haih. You have gone senile at this important moment. You said something about many eyes'.

"Hmm? I did? Let me think... Zzz...".

Gamabunta slapped his own face.

Anyways, he heard and remembers what this old man said previously. Many eyes? He doesn't understand. He would have to update Jiraiya about it still. Perhaps it's related to the Child of Prophecy as well.

***

Returning to Kirigakure, they reported to Mei about how Hiruzen replied to her requests.

"I see. At least he agreed to cooperate. But to think it might be the same person who attack Konoha years ago... He's even more dangerous than I thought".

"I have other matter to handle now. Good job all of you. Shou, Haku, you may leave. Sigh. Chojuro, I am going to meet the Daimyo next weel to discuss about something I had in mind. Also...".

While Mei was busy giving Chojuro some brief talk the siblings had left the building.

On the surface, Kirigakure didn't change much. After all, to change something that has been caused by its deep bloody culture is very difficult. And Kirigakure is only a small part of Land of Water; but the whole country has already branded them as the Bloody Mist for years. It's a very difficult endeavour to fix what Yagura what had done.

Anyways, Shou kinda missed Zabuza for some reason. It's been a while since he last seen him. He rejoined the ANBU and he's not sure what was he doing nowadays, it's just that he really never seen him in the village. He is involved is tracking and convincing the missing nins to come back to the village so he's out of the village most of the times.

The siblings went to the mission centre to see what mission to take after another few days rest from travelling for days.

In Kirigakure there is no such thing as Chunin exam or Special Jonin or Jonin class lable given by the higher up. Rather it's a merit system where a ninja is evaluated based on their missions completion, the degree of perfection in the mission, the skill showcased, the amount of missions they take and the amount of failures they had - in which they then would be allowed for access of higher ranked missions.

For B rank and above the higher ups will personally review based on the previous missions completion to allow them access to that particular mission rank.

With the siblings contribution when fighting Sanbi, and the intel gathered from fighting Obito, finally they are allowed to take A rank missions despite being a relatively newcomer to the village.

There's a mission the provider urgently requests Shou to take a look at.

"A rank. A sea beast destroying boats and terrorizing the village. Urgent request. Issued by the feudal lord of Horseshoe island. The mission has failed twice before due to its ability to run away in the water, hard shell, and strong attack".

"The villagers need help quick it seems". Haku also reads the details.

'Yeah. Let's take this mission. We should be able to do it'.

Given the urgency, they travelled to the island by boat right after packing some stuffs. Travelling between few islands the whole day

they went to see the island lord first thing first. It's unfortunate that they don't encounter the beast on the way to the island since Shou want to kill it fast.

"The beast have drowned and killed tens of people... Someone that witness it says it's as large as few houses even. The previous Shinobi sent by your village failed. Are you sure you two can handle it?". The lord spoke with skepticism seeing them being so young.

'Don't worry. We may seems young but we can definitely do it. The villagers safety is also our concern'.

"Alright. I will trust you. The monster always appear from the South usually and try to drown the boats. But at times it appears at othersides of the island as well. For now the monster does not act... since all the villagers stayed inside. You could wait until morning to try to catch it"

The siblings nods.

Upon further question the lord says there's no such attack before and it's the first time the island face such a creature.

They slept for day until morning comes.

Yosh.

The siblings walk to the other end of the island, finally seeing the real shape of the beach.

Now he knows why it's called horshoes island. The island forms a semi-circular beach around the sea water. It's sand are close to white colour with aquamarine clear ocean. Little fishes are seen around the shallow part of the water. It's really beautiful. The air is also great and give one a zen effect.

To deal with the beast, they simply planned to get on a boat and go out there attracting it. With ice release Shou also made few ice boats to accompany them just to attract it further.

They waited for tens of minutes while he concentrate his chakra to search for the beast.

The sound of the ocean waves hitting the boat softly makes it feel like they are just fishing here or something.

Shou sensed something after some time and opened his eyes. This chakra... He would say it's a tenth of Sanbi!

"Haku, I sensed it. It's up front... Heading to the ice boat there first. Get ready to freeze the water once it comes out. We can use ice prison to prevent it from escaping".

Haku nods as they ready themselves. Shou is curious of the appearance of the beast.

The wave suddenly grow larger as a shadow appears from underneath.

Splash!!!

A huge... Tongue(?) snatched the ice boat from inside the water, completely sinking it.

"Now!".

Ice Release: Great Ice Prison!

They both slammed their hands onto the water, chains of ice formed, forming a net of ice entrapment below the beast.

With another wave of chakra, the net of ice freezes the water around it causing a sheet of thick ice platform to form!

The monster try to dive but the ice is simply too thick to break through completely, however it manage to crack it.

As the ice platform floats due to density, the beast form is revealed.

A giant clam?!

It's only half size of Sanbi but that's still huge!

They both confronted the beast head on seeing it opened its mouth and reveal its powerful and thick toungue.

Ice Release: Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystal.

Ice mirrors appears surrounding the beast. It's mostly for positioning and dodging, distances apart.

The beast is enraged and slammed it's tounge onto one of the mirror, quickly smashing it apart. Each time it moves the ice floor beneath cracks here and there.

Moving into the mirror nearby, they both released Great Frost Breath to it.

The clam stupidly try to attack them while tanking the frost breath; with quick movement they dodge easily while causing the toungue of the clam to be frozen stiff.

With another wave of Frost Breath directly to its body, the clam gets less and less active due to being cold blooded. Eventually layer of Frost covered it's entire shell and it stopped moving completely.

"Is it dead?", Haku ask a rhetorical question.

'I don't think so... Its inactive because of the cold I think. Let's go closer and attack its inner part from that small opening'.

Haku nods. Thankfully the toungue is out, frozen, and left an opening to its inside. The shell by itself is really hard and can really deflect their weapons and attack. No wonder the previous Shinobi failed.

It's just unfortunate it met Ice Release users that could immobilise them through sheer cold.

Ice Release: Demonic Ice Spikes!

Sharp spikes of ice formed from the frozen water directly piercing the inside of the clam from the small opening.

The clam moved a little, as if struggling but it cannot do anything.

Blood stained the ice around it, finally killing it for good.

"Whew... That took so much chakra".

'Yeah...'.

Just using the ice prison earlier spent half of their chakra as they want to get the beast to show itself and prevent it from running.

"Do you think it's edible".

'What...?'.

***

The village held a little party of sort. After dragging the corpse back to the village with some help, they waited till night time fell to have a bon-fire party. The frozen clam is kept fresh through the ice around it.

They pried it open using lever mechanism after slicing off its tendons holding the clam shut.

"This is?!". The villagers are astonished seeing what they are seeing.

Many huge pearls are inside of it! All of it has a bright luster, some are cream, few have pinkish colour. There's also bluer shades of it. Each of the pearl are at least a palm size.

After collecting everything, they quickly cut the oyster meat apart and grilled them.

"Thanks to you both! I don't think it contain this huge pearls! Hahaha! I heard they are expensive commodity outside this country. But its unfortunate our land don't do much export".

'Lord Tsuji, I think soon enough you could sell those pearls eventually. Our current Mizukage prefers diplomacy and are quite opposite of 3rd Mizukage style. I am sure she would urge the Daimyo to also make some changes'.

"Ahaha. You are quite smart and know this land well for a shinobi. I thought you guys were just brutes".

'Not all of us are just brutes Tsuji-sama. I want to see the country better aswell. Oh right. I think having a resort here would be nice. The beach here is really beautiful. A nice spot for a date too'.

"Haha. You jester. What resort?! Who would be coming here. Sure the beach is beautiful. But that's all there is here".

'Yes. Exactly. Theres only this beach. I think many would pay to stay here and have a nice vacation. And that oyster pearls if we count on it. Maybe it have children somewhere too'.

The lord actually thought about it. That does make sense. But the people in Land of Water themselves are poor so it's really only the richer people who could come here for a vacation and foreigners from outside.

Anyways, when thinking about economics of Kirigakure, like all Shinobi villages, they depends on clients paying Shinobis to do jobs for them. The Daimyo also give a portion of money to Kiri as they are soldiers that would maintain peace and security of the land. The money flowed from clients to them. The clients, mostly from the citizens of Land of Water, are poor and therefore most people that wanted to hire Shinobi from them cannot afford it. Instead they rather hire a mercenary Shinobi to do it for cheaper prices. As for clients from outside the country, most of them does not look at Kirigakure due to their reputation and therefore the money flow was not good compared to Konoha or Kumogakure.

Land of Water lacks a lot of resources like minerals and irons need to be imported. Some islands in Land of Water even lacks freshwater source.

If anything, to improve economics of Kiri, Land of Water economy also needs to be revitalised and therefore Mei need to force the Daimyo to cooperate with her ideas to open up the country.

Starting with business exports of products, and eventually into tourism industry, really the only thing that could revitalise Land of Water since they need money to flow into their resource lacking lands.

If someone knows how extreme Mei idea is, they would think she's being absurd. The first part is fine. But the Land of Water, where the bloody mist is, being a vacation spot??

Most Shinobi would felt their brain spinning 180° to comprehend such an absurd sounding thing. Therefore the plan is to open up to other countries, and solve previous grievances especially with Konoha first thing first.

The only resources Land of Water had, aside from fishes from the ocean, are the beautiful beaches and clear water around the small islands.

And this Horseshoes Island is one of those islands. Heck there's even one island with bioluminescence microbes in the water around the beach. Another island which have a nice sunset view. You could go scuba diving and see the colourful world underwater. If it's the modern peaceful world, 5 star hotel would be built here and the hotels would be fully booked. And yet this country is closed off that it just won't happen anytime soon. There's also the fact that there's still grievances from the previous wars despite the current peaceful times.

Coming back to reality...

"Shou, I think there's a reason the beast suddenly appears. Should we check?". Haku heard the sentence about it having children and thought that makes sense.

'We don't have any jutsu to dive underwater though'. Shou shook his shoulders.

"We have diving equipment used to harvest certain things. The villagers can lend them to you". Lord Tsuji spoke.

'Oh!'. Shou forgets technology exists sometimes.

They continued their little chat while grilling sweet giant oyster meat. The taste is sweet and somewhat earthy, a unique taste you could say. Quite nice to have once in a while.

The next morning the siblings went on a dive near the water where the oyster beast come out from. The small cute fishes swimming around colourful corals, now this is a nice trip.

They searched the sea bed and sees something strange floating. And looking further down, there's a bunch of it.

There is a cluster of oysters here too. All of it are two palms sizes at least. The floating things should be it's larvae just recently formed. Maybe the oyster mom just wants to take care of its children. He sensed all of it have slighter higher concentration of chakra compared to normal sea creatures, but far from the giant oyster. Perhaps it's a mutation? He needs to write a report on this and need to inform the villagers to monitor this place to prevent such a large creature to grow again.

Well, the mission is over. The mission letter is signed by the local lord, prompting the mission success.

They returned back to Kiri the next day, wrote and submit a report and have a few weeks rest. The pay for A rank is good enough to let them have free time. Unless you are an ANBU or a member of other agencies; they work as a freelancer, sort of, it's just that you aren't allowed to go out the village without authorisation. Only the Mizukage, her assistant and the high council could move them individually to do missions. But they could push you to join the agencies under them though.

Mei had initially wanted to absorb both of the siblings into the ANBU given they are tutored by Zabuza, but Zabuza does not take the suggestion well.

What did he say again? Something about them being too weak and don't have enough darkness in them. Mei can only relent, since he knows them better than she is. She plans to absorb Haku into the Medical Department though. They severely lack medical nin due to lack of focus on that department during Yagura reign.

Time passed by quickly while they are taking a break.

During the break Shou summoned Fukurochi, wanting to know his abilities.

"I can share my vision with you while I was flying. But you will have some headache to get used to it". Fukurochi flies up and share his vision.

Its as if his vision is layered up and it really makes his brain a little hurt.

Closing his eyes, he could see what Fukurochi is seeing completely.

This is really nice for scouting. It's like a mini Yamanaka clan power.

Fukurochi flied down after flying for minutes.

"Fukurochi-san, I am wondering. Can other people other than Yuki clan get contract with your clan?".

'If they could climb the Basan Peak, we would consider them a worthy partner. Very few had been able to do it without dying though'.

"Can I introduce your clan to someone?". Shou wanted to monitor Naruto somehow, since he is too far away from Konoha it's just impossible to know what's up.

Not knowing what's happening is really anxiety inducing. He wants to know for certain things are going well over there.

'I can ask chief about it. But what kind of person do you want to introduce?'.

"He's a nice kid alright. Quite a spirited person. I am sure your clan would like him. Oh he should have a contract with the toads as well".

'You mean, those from Mount Myoboko? Sounds like a worthy kid'.

"Oh. You know them? Is there any more of animals like you".

'Of course there are a lot of animals like us. Though, much like you humans, we don't interact much due to our distances. My clan only know some others exist but we don't interact with them'.

"Does your chief have prophetic ability, like seeing the future?".

'I am not sure. He never say any prophecy-like thing'. The owl shook his shoulders.

"Oo...".

After a short chat, Shou wants to know his abilities more and so they played around for awhile. Thankfully Fukurochi has free time and is actually a nice guy if he's not disturbed during his private times.

What birds do usually anyways...ತ⁠_⁠ತ Are they all like Fukurochi? His time being busy is something else. Shou kept that question in his heart.

The bird can use Wind Release and shoot sharp or powerful wind by flapping his wings. The wind contains senjutsu chakra and they figured it could enhance Shou's some ice release techniques, like increasing the area of Frost Breath. A fire release should be more effective in terms of enhancement though, it's just that Shou don't train on fire nature, or other nature transformation really.

He already has his hands full with just training his Ice Release; refining it to be more efficient with chakra, stronger, faster, reducing the hand signs and practice single handed signs; most ninjas take specialisation route as it's the most effective.

"Thank you Fukurochi-san. Oh and take these fishes back. I prepared them for you".

'Oh my! They look so fat! My girlfriend would love these. Much thanks'.

Poof! He's back to Basan Range.

He also practiced making ice spikes from body of water without any hand seals - it's a good chakra transformation and shaping practice. He felt like he becomes a water bender like in Avatar. For now he move the water and freezes it as it envelop the target and form ice spike from the water to pierce them. It's just inefficient and waste a lot of chakra.

Shou is planning to rectify the chakra problem soon. He had put out a request for 1 month vacation to 'travel and see new things'. Mei of course wanted to keep as much ninjas inside Kiri for its protection and security. The request would have to wait for a long time before approved. Thankfully Shou wasn't in any specific department otherwise it would even be more difficult to get an out pass.

Months passes by just like that. In that time they had taken multiple missions from clients like escorting a ship carrying weapons and ores - even fighting a pirate Shinobi group.

Another time capturing a group of Shinobi who take control of an island for its mines.

Captured a thief who stole a secret jutsu from a certain clan. That thief had a kekkei genkai that strangely make his chakra signature undetectable by sensor, and he coupled it with a jutsu using mist to reflect light giving optical camouflage making him almost invincible completely. Thankfully Shou can sense him with a Water Release Sensing technique taught by Zabuza's one time partner. They even escorted the Daimyo back to his place after a meeting with the council and Mizukage.

Doing escort missions to other lands. Capture bandit group. Retrieve stolen item. Track and stop illegal ships in their waterways.

There's a bunch of stuffs they did.

After a whole year, finally Shou's 1 month vacation is approved! Haku however had to stay since Mei does not approve of it. 1 month is too long and if both of them are out she would feel insecure about Obito coming again. Only 2 of them are fast enough to deal with him. At least with one of them she feels a little secure.

Now his plan to get a chakra source can be proceed. That is, to get the Light Dragon.

From memory, he remembered that it should be the most safest chakra source for him. And the dragon is also an unknown being, only told as a myth and a legend; until those survivor of the Ryu clan somehow unsealed it and caused much uproar in the whole continent.

So he planned to get his hands on the dragon while hiding the fact it exist and sealing it into himself.

Before that, he wanted to see how Naruto is doing first though. Has they fought at the valley of the end? Or has he went to travel with Jiraiya? He's not sure of the timeline much.

Shou had to ask a letter from Chojuro because really, if you visit a military village of another country unannounced, without any authorisation, you would be suspected of being a spy or having bad intentions and would just be kicked out.

Shou is honest about wanting to visit a friend so Chojuro just agree with it and give it an approval stamp from himself, basically taking responsibility over his visit. As for whether Konoha would let him in, that's up to them. Their countries have only started to be an official trade partner due to Mei and Daimyo effort but they can't be said to be friendly enough for such visits. But Shou can try.

Standing at the gates of Kirigakure, Haku sees Shou off. Haku is informed on the real purpose since Shou trusted him. As for what Mei thought, she knows something is quite weird with how Shou still went with his 'vacation' despite Haku not going with him. But he respects his privacy and every Shinobi has a secret. And Haku is in Kirigakure as well and she knows Haku and even Zabuza is important to him, so Shou won't do anything that implicate them. This guarantee is what makes Mei turned a blind eye on him.

She also had a thought he might just be visiting a friend truly. Chojuro tells her Shou was quite close to a certain kid in Konoha. The same kid he met at the Land of Waves. And what, that kid was crying when they left? Why Shou make friend with a crybaby? She laughed a little when Chojuro tells her about it.

As for what Haku thought, he really thinks Shou is being really unreasonable and argued with him to stop his crazy plan.

'Its too reckless... There's no reason to do something so big. Why would you need power for? You are plenty strong already... We both are strong already. And don't the owls say we can try senjutsu after few years. Those are safer. And what if they know what you are trying to do? They might use you as a weapon if you succeed, or they might even kill you if they think you are a threat. And that if you succeed in the first place... what if something goes wrong?'. Haku can't understand why would anyone try to be a jinchuriki of an unknown creature. He's really worried for his little brother. His imagination is big but now it gets out control. He feels mad for the first time in his life towards his little brother.

"Nii-san... The village is not completely safe. And this world too is not safe either. There's a large threat out there and no amount of training can get us completely safe. I know I might sound crazy... I promise I will tell you about the reasons someday. There's a reason I can't tell you why for now. But don't worry, I will definitely stay safe alright? I know what I am doing".

After some times, Haku had to accept it since Shou cannot change his mind.

"Stay safe... Update me through your summon every few days alright?".

'Mm! No worry!'.

With a heavy heart, Haku watches as his little brother leaves. He never thought he's that crazy...

Maybe he don't know his little brother as much as he thought. But still, he wished him success. Even if, he becomes the enemy of Kiri for what he's trying to do, he would stay by his side regardless. Shou trusts him to tell his true purpose, and so, he should trust in Shou as well.