Chapter 18

The good news is that the chunin vest was less oversized on me now than it was two years ago. The bad news? It would probably still be quite large on me until I was well into my teens. Neither Rasa nor the Third Kazekage had been particularly large individuals, but I was still a child. I'd be a child (in body, at least) for quite a while.

"Gaara of the Desert?" The burly Jounin asked, and I just nodded, walking past him to take my place with the team tasked with escorting me.

That wasn't to be as the idiot grabbed hold of my shoulder and spoke to me in a low tone with menace in his voice. "I don't know what Baki taught you, but in Suna, we address our superiors. Now, are you Gaara of the Desert?" He asked again, pressing down on my shoulder even harder.

I knew the right thing to do. It was obvious. Swallow my pride, answer him, and move on. What did he matter? Of course, knowing the right thing to do didn't mean anything in the face of a complete unwillingness to be subjected to another Baki. I hadn't seen the bastard since I returned from Kusa, and I wasn't so keen to replace him. Especially not with an idiot weaker than me.

Sand poured out from my inventory, looking for all the world like it had appeared out of my shoulder and snaked around his wrist. He didn't move. He was daring me, testing to see if I'd commit gross insubordination to assert my independence. He swallowed a grunt as I cleanly snapped the wrist bone and caught his hand in my grip before he could pull it back.

Was this doing my reputation any favors? No. Could it end very badly for me? Not reasonably. Gaara had gotten away with a lot of shit in canon, and it was becoming obvious that I'd enjoy similar invincibility in terms of punishment. Besides, this jounin was a nobody. I never heard about him in canon, and his brown hair and brown eyes marked him as the most NP NPC to ever NPC. With his hand in my grip, I began to squeeze while applying healing chakra to the breakage. He hissed but let me do my work and waved away his genin as they moved to involve themselves. Good. He knew they wouldn't be a match for me.

"I trust this will not be happening again," I said, and he nodded before I let go of his hand, fully healed. "Let's go," I said to them and took off, not waiting for them to get their bearings as they scrambled to take off.

I moved at a comparatively leisurely pace as we made our way to the capital. The genin still struggled to keep up, but that was their fault, not mine. Not even theirs, I thought to myself, as I looked at the pathetic excuse for a jounin that served as their sensei. I knew I'd gotten stronger, but the me from two years ago would probably have beaten him with ease if I didn't bother with holding back on my sand use. It really struck home then just how weak Suna was. Weakest of the Great Five, and I could see it. We were pretty much a jacked-up minor village at this point. Sure, we were stronger than the minor villages, but against any of the other five, I gave us negative odds in war. Even with me at the helm. The other villages, with the exception of Konoha, had their own powerful jinchuriki. They all had two apiece, and I had faith in myself, but not so much as to think I'd be beating two fully trained Jinchuriki anytime soon. Even Konoha, without a jinchuriki prepped for war, had their S-rank monsters. Kakashi, Gai, Jiraiya, and Tsunade. Each one of them would beat the living shit out of me. Against all that, I was Suna's best weapon. In a year, the only ninja stronger than me in the village would be Rasa. Yup. Suna was fucked. Extremely fucked unless someone with good sense and an understanding of what it took to get stronger was at the helm. That was my manifesto.

XXXXXX

Two of the Daimyo's guardian ninja waited for me at the capital's gate, and I was quick to fall in step with them, not bothering to say goodbye to the clowns from Suna. They led me in without a word, and we body flickered to the palace. They moved with no warning and expected me to follow suit and track them. Not a minute here, and they were already testing me. I did my best to not fail, and when we arrived at the capital, I was given a room to wait in. Apparently, the Daimyo wasn't interested in meeting me until tomorrow when we would set off.

I took up the lotus position and meditated for a few hours until I managed to gain a level in the skill, and then I made my way out of the room, the palace, and into the capital. It was a sprawling metropolis, and I spent my time getting used to the place and just enjoying the atmosphere.

The first store I was even vaguely interested in was a silk merchant's. He called me in with aplomb, "Young Shinobi, I have just what you need," he said, and I let him pull me in, taking a look around the place.

"The best Aburame silk, right here," he said, waving to a few lines of silk. I felt them to be sure and nodded. I'd read a few books on the economies of the ninja villages, and one of Konoha's major luxury exports was Aburame silk. It was expensive as hell, but it resisted most wear and tear and was very breathable, ensuring it was favored by nobles in all the hotter parts of the world.

It was also useful for ninjas, but most didn't bother with the luxury. It was poor armor, not comparable to the multiple layers of cloth ninjas preferred to have their own outfits made out of. You could do the same thing with silk, but that was just a senseless level of luxury. So if he knew I was a ninja, why the hell was he calling me in here?

I lifted an eyebrow at him as he showed me all the colors he had, talking up the utility of the silk, and I cut in before he could talk himself hoarse. "Ninjas don't wear silk," I said, and he looked back at me before coughing.

"That was the older silk. This is much thicker," he said, showing me the material, and I hummed appreciatively.

"Still not as thick as ninja cloth," I said, and he nodded before countering, "Much more comfortable, though." A good point from him. I wanted it, but I was slowed down by the thought that I'd be buying clothing for the second time in as many days. I could probably afford it, but this wouldn't qualify as a reasonable expenditure to anyone with an ounce of business sense.

"Maybe next time. Thank you," I said, ignoring his disappointment and making my way from the store. I was serious with my statement, though. I'd return to the capital in a year, and by then I'd be in need of new clothes.

After his store, I moved on deeper into the market, and now that I was aware of it, I noticed just how many imported goods were for sale in the capital. I could only spot two stores selling entirely indigenous products. The rest of them had some foreign attraction or another. Not a bad thing by itself, but the entire thing was beginning to rub me the wrong way. It was almost like the entire land of Wind was similarly in a perilous situation as the rest of Suna. Why did I say so? The stores were filled with products, but apart from the odd noble, very few people were actually buying non-essentials. I'd never claim to be a master of economics, but that couldn't be a good sign.

With curiosity burning in my belly, I moved through the market and continued to explore the capital. I passed through the first set of inner walls and found myself in a drastically different area. When the Guardians had led me to the palace, we'd been moving too quickly for me to get a good look, so now that I could, it wasn't good. Not even a kilometer out of the inner city, and I was already beginning to see residences that looked on the verge of becoming slums. The streets were clean but also dirty at the same time, almost like no matter what the street cleaners did, there was just a persistent layer of grime on these streets. I walked past homes that looked rundown and homes that would never be mistaken for homes if one couldn't see the signs of habitation. It was bad. Looking at this, it was clear Suna had it easy. We didn't have poverty like this. Sure, we had poor people, but no one was forced to sleep in the streets without a roof over their heads. As I kept walking deeper into the city, I wondered how this had been allowed to happen.

The nobility wasn't poor. My account balance could say that. I received more from my noble grandfather in a month than the average chunin made in a year. Trust me, I'd done the math. I received enough for sixty average-paying C-ranked missions every month, and I wasn't even a member of the main line. If the nobles were that rich and were clearly only getting richer, then how could things be so bad for the rest of the city? I mean, I knew how things could get so bad, but wasn't this the kind of shit that sparked revolution? Where was the revolution? When three playing children ran into me before running away, I resisted the urge to laugh as I watched them turn the corner only to realize they hadn't gotten anything and I'd instead taken their own money.

I looked through the purse containing their loot and sighed before appearing in their midst. "Sorry, Mr. Shinobi, Sir," one of them shouted in fear, and the remaining two looked like they were about to shit themselves.

I just chuckled before throwing their money purse at them. When they opened it, I was already gone. I'd filled it with all the money I had on me, probably enough for them to survive for a while if they were wise about it. If they weren't, I'd done my part to help their situation.

I turned around, having seen more than enough to satisfy whatever curiosity I had about the situation in the capital. The poverty was sad. It was terrible, but it wasn't my business in reality. What was my business was that I had to reevaluate my plans on how I was going to get Suna out of the funk it found itself in. My former plan had involved essentially renegotiating whatever deals Rasa had with the Daimyo, with the knowledge that I would do whatever it took to get a better deal. I'd thought it was just a matter of the Daimyo having some beef with Rasa, but now it was beginning to look like whatever I did to fix Suna would have to originate entirely from within. The fact that it would be harder to fix things actually made me more excited to take the throne. An enemy I couldn't just punch to oblivion. The challenge would be interesting, at the very least.

My mind was already brimming with ideas. Bounty hunting? I remembered that lots of ninjas had really high bounties on them in canon, and that would be fun. Most of them belonged to villages, but that could be worked around. Even good old-fashioned warmongering was always said to be profitable. That would be fun. Just say "fuck you" to canon for shits and giggles.

Two whole months. Two months on the road, and we still hadn't even reached the first of the noble settlements. Civilians moved slowly. I'd always known this. A genin could cover in less than a day what would take a merchant caravan a week. I knew this, but I still never saw this level of slowness coming. As it stood now, we were to merchant caravans what merchant caravans were to genin. To put it simply, we were fucking slow.

The Daimyo had packed up the entire court with him. His wife, her ladies-in-waiting, all his children bar one, and all the lords and hangers-on that stayed in the capital. With an entire court with him, he settled with behaving like he was just back at the Wind Palace. He'd stop our travels at random moments for random reasons. He didn't like the way the carriage felt, or he wanted to eat, or he wanted to use the privy, or his children were bored, or one of the couple hundred reasons that made it so we covered less and less time as the days went on. As it stood now, I honestly doubted this entire mission could even be wrapped up in a year.

And perhaps most disturbingly was the situation with my stats. Barely any of them had seen any improvement over the period of the last two months, and I looked forward to staring daggers into the back of the head of the reason why. I could remember the conversation after the journey began. I'd just made two clones to go off and practice my taijutsu when one of the Kazekage's guardians appeared before me in a shunshin.

"What did you just do?" she hissed.

"What?"

"Your chakra. It just went down by three-fourths. Fix it," she said, her tone not lightening up.

"I made a clone to do some training," I said.

"Then dispel it. You are redundant for the Daimyo's protection, but now that you have been demanded, you must be at your best at all times," she said, not budging for a second.

I'd done my best to convince her or any of the others otherwise, but they were adamant. I had to remain at 100% for the entirety of the mission. They didn't understand. I could see it in all of them. They were as strong as they'd ever be. They had no need to train. But for me, this was a whole year without improvement. Sure, I managed to spend hours meditating when I could and practicing katas when I could find some time to myself, but that was nothing. Only one level in taijutsu and five in meditation for two months of work, and nothing in any of my other skills or abilities. I wasn't allowed to do any training with chakra, so I couldn't even improve on my elemental affinities.

I was frustrated by the entire thing, but I bore it all with a grin. With no training to take my time, I spent it reading instead. And reading at as slow a pace as I could stomach. Buying a library of books seemed to have been the right choice. Now, I was working through a fictional series about an immortal samurai who traveled the five nations in search of the reincarnation of his lover. Don't judge me. I never said the books were particularly good. They were entertaining, and that was all that mattered for the meantime.

I moved to the left as a child ran through the space I once occupied. Noble children were little brats, and away from the capital, they seemed keen on exploring every inch of their newfound freedom. I jumped away and picked a different area of the camp to watch from.

Yes, the camp. Remember how I said the Daimyo had come with the entirety of the court? Well, they needed a fuckton of guards. It was almost like I was marching with an actual army at this point. The Daimyo alone had a retinue of a thousand samurai with him. Some nobles had as high as half that number. Where we moved, bore deep signs of our passing. The camp was essentially a mobile village. That was another thing that pissed me off. The Daimyo had thousands of trained samurai and a dozen well-trained jounin-level ninja. He didn't need me here for any reason. He hadn't even bothered to grace me with his presence for longer than a few minutes, which was the period of time it had taken for me to be introduced to him and for the journey to begin.

His wife, on the other hand. While the Daimyo had no interest in seeing me, his wife seemed to delight in my presence for some reason. I suspected it was just the joy of being around someone who did not owe absolute loyalty to the Daimyo. All ninja were sworn to their Kage, and the Kage, in turn, swore to the Daimyo. That degree of separation was important for some sociopolitical reason I couldn't care less about. I'm sure you're curious about why the Daimyo's wife, of all people, would feel comfortable in the presence of someone who wasn't totally sworn to obey her husband. Well, it probably came from the fact that she was the Daimyo's seventh wife in just as many years.

The six before her had perished in gruesome but purely accidental circumstances. She must have felt like her time was coming, but why she might believe I'd have any interest or ability to keep her safe from the Daimyo of all people escaped me nearly entirely. Surely she didn't believe I'd hesitate to step aside if the Daimyo asked me to.

Of course, thinking of the devil had summoned her. The woman, who could most generously be referred to as big-boned, swept into my presence with all the grace of a bull in a china shop. "Gaara of the Desert. I've been looking for you. Come, come. Our game awaits." I nodded and followed her, unable to really say no. And despite all the complaining I did, I wasn't all too bummed about spending time with the woman if I was being honest. She was sharp enough in wit, and I was bored enough in condition. A match made in hell if there ever was one.

XXXXXXX

I trooped in with the rest of the Daimyo's entourage. This was the sixth lord we were visiting, so I was more than used to all the pomp and pageantry, or I would be if the man who kneeled to the Daimyo didn't immediately turn to me after the greetings were finished. "Grandson. I hope you are well," the old man greeted, and as I stared at him, I realized just where the procession had landed.

This was the castle my mother had grown up in. I returned the man's shallow bow and spoke, "I am well... Grandfather. I thank you for your many gifts," I said, not sure about what exactly to say to the man. It wasn't like we had much to say to each other.

"I am glad you have found the allowance useful. I would not leave you on your own the way mine own father forced me to leave your mother," he said, and I bowed my thanks.

There was a story there. A story I was not sure I even wanted to know about. Karura was not my mother. No, she was Gaara's. What business did I have with her, and then that's when the game had to rear its meddlesome head in the matter.

Quest Alert!

Objective: Find out about Karura and her origins.

Rewards: ?, ?, 500 XP, Rare loot roll.

Well, with an incentive like that, I was more than happy to nod my head to the noble's request to seek him out to learn more about the woman that had birthed this body. A rare loot roll was the kind of thing that didn't come up often. It's in the name, after all. To be honest, I'd have done it for the XP alone. I was close to leveling up at this point, so I might as well take as much as I could get from wherever I could.

The Daimyo announced that we'd be spending three weeks at this particular castle. I mean, it was to be expected considering this was one of the more important and wealthy nobles in all of Kaze no Kuni.

"My Great-Uncle has decided to entertain us all with a feast for every day we remain here!" the Daimyo announced to rapturous applause from his hangers-on. I was shocked at the apparent generosity from my mother's side of the family, but as I kept an eye on both of them, I realized there was no generosity at all.

My grandfather was just as shocked as the rest of us at the Daimyo's announcement. He covered up the reaction quickly, but even a few seconds was an eternity to a skilled enough ninja. The anger he thought he was hiding was clear for those with the right eyes and perception. I was actually surprised I didn't have a separate stat for that, but I quickly rationalized that much like Wisdom, it was folded into my intelligence. Since that was completely maxed, then there should be few things beyond my ability to notice, and yet it felt like there were dimensions to what was happening between the Daimyo and my grandfather I wasn't noticing.

Even beyond that, the fact that this was the first castle where he was recognizing his blood relationship to the lord was also something worth noticing. It was a sign of something I couldn't just see.

Still, the day was over, and we were all quickly shown to our rooms. Where in other residences I was placed in sparse quarters in the same wing as the guardian ninja, this time I was quickly separated from them and led to the wing the servant, Lee, was quick to point out as the family wing. Lord Nayohara, my grandfather, had given me a room that was most handsome. It was large. Easily as large as the entire living area in the home I'd grown up in.

And it wasn't just the space. There was luxury visible in every corner, and when I curiously picked up one of the books that discussed the nobility of the Land of Wind while I enjoyed myself in the hot bath that had been prepared for me, I realized that I'd grossly understated the power of my mother's half of the family. They weren't just one of the wealthier and more influential lords. They were essentially the Lannisters, but instead of gold, they controlled something that was arguably even more valuable in the desert we lived in.

They controlled the oases. Apparently, half of the total oases in the Land of Wind were within the lands controlled by Lord Nayohara. I should have noticed with how much vegetation was in the area around the castle. They controlled the water, and that made them unimaginably wealthy. So wealthy, in fact, that theirs was the family that married into the Daimyoship most often. Seven marriages in the last two centuries, the book claimed.

It was actually impressive and made me look at everything with new eyes. The other castles we'd stayed at had been luxurious, don't get me wrong. Their inhabitants weren't lacking for currency by any stretch of the imagination, but this was clearly one step above in all respects. The castle was larger. There were probably more staff here than in the others, and we'd been received inside the castle itself, which was looking more and more like a power play.

Fuck. I'm a Lannister.