Chapter Four: The Recurring Man

Trust, is a four alphabet word that has eluded the shinobi kind for centuries. Hiruzen could spell it, speak it, but could he practice it? Especially if it was so often betrayed and misplaced. Years ago, he placed his trust in one man named Danzo. A decision that haunts him to this day.

Now, years later, he faced the same choice. Trust Danzo and send more men to spy on Hidden Cloud village or risk a surprise attack on Konoha's border. Both choices meant death for his people.

He sighed and chose to trust again. After all, trust was the foundation of peace. As the leader of a village, it was his responsibility to trust its members. Even the rotten ones.

"Dispatch twenty platoons to the border, and ten cells for espionage."

The ANBU bowing near Hiruzen's table disappeared in a puff of smoke. Now only Shikaku, the head of the jonin council, was left in the room with Hiruzen.

"Can we spare such a force when chunin exams are upon us, Lord Third?"

"We have little to doubt Danzo about this. Despite his callous nature, he would not endanger the village."

"Not outright."

"Yes, not outright," Hiruzen said. "That is not his way."

"He's grown insistent on growing his forces."

"Did he approach you for new prospects?" Hiruzen asked, a little anger in his voice.

"No, it's the Aburame this time again."

"They fit his way perfectly."

"Can we not do something about this, Lord Third?"

"Not unless we want civil unrest. He has the undying loyalty of his people and they're more attached to Danzo than the village. Then there are some elders and old members of the hawk faction. We cannot remove him entirely."

"How troublesome. I'd rather face enemy plots than doubt our shadow." Shikaku said. "Oh, on the topic of enemies, Ibiki is done interrogating the recent guests."

"Go on. What did he find?"

"Hori Sato gave into the lure of lust. He could not endure the charm of a young woman like Inagae Reizuka. Her charm made him do her dirty work."

"Rumours say something similar about Renzo Reizuka. He is quite enamoured with his stepmother."

"Yes, the foundation is sure to exploit that, now that they have found the lady."

"Shikaku, was there something about the chamber and geisha?"

"Surprisingly yes, Inagae was selling young girls to the organisation in return for monetary favours. Which she invested in the hidden sound village. Do they pick your interest, sir, the chamber and the geishas.?"

Hiruzen sighed and produced a picture from the drawer of his table. In the photograph, a young man was standing with two women.

The women were dressed meticulously, with colourful kimonos, gold thread and precious stone woven in their hair. Their beautiful face was painted with heavy makeup. Hiding every crease of human emotion on it.

"Tell me Shikaku, what do you see?"

"A young man, standing beside two women… with heavy makeup."

"Describe the young man to me again, please."

"A young man, standing with two women…...... with heavy-"

"So, you've caught on to the genjutsu. However much you try, you'll always see the women and note the man as a young man. Your brain will ignore every other feature."

"Lord Third, who is he…?"

Hiruzen produced another picture from his drawer. This one was a hand-drawn portrait of a young man. He was tall, with a face that seemed ageless. His smile was thin and mischievous, and somehow it felt cold and creepy.

"It took monkey king Enma three years to break the genjutsu, and still he could only draw his face."

"Do you know him, Lord Third?"

"His name in our records should've been Kumajiro Tsuchisaru. He married my niece and disappeared right after their marriage. She bore his child three years after his disappearance." Hiruzen said. "She was my blind spot, the only surviving girl of her generation. And somehow she got pregnant with the child of this man three years after he disappeared."

"Did she by chance…"

"No affairs. She loved the man fiercely. When he left her, all she could do was repeat his name over and over. Until she bore Aki Tsuchisaru. She disappeared six years ago. Asuma and his brother did search for her, but we got nothing."

"This sounds… troublesome, but with so much time passed…. is this even relevant?"

"Open Inagae Reizuka's file. Refer to photograph three."

"Yes, sir," Shikaku said, opening the file and carefully studying the picture. "It's from her childhood. She's with her mother and a young man standing with-"

A look of horror washed over the jonin. It was the same man. Kumajiro Tsuchisaru.

"My lord, this is… NO-"

Shikaku disappeared from the office abruptly, returning minutes later with a thick album. He presented a photograph to Hiruzen.

"It's from your clan woods. I remember your father, not a shinobi, but a fierce mind. He is standing with you and-"

"Yes, the same man in our family picture. He was married to my aunt."

This was bigger trouble than Hiruzen thought it to be. To think that someone tricked two families in Konoha to marry their daughter to him.

"Is she alive, Shikaku, your aunt?"

"No, she disappeared during a trip to the capital. We thought she died, but now I'm not sure anymore."

"Gather old photographs from the village. Have every family search their archive for odd pictures like this."

"Yes, sir."

Shikaku left the Hokage's office in a hurry. Leaving Hiruzen slumped in his chair. Tired and tensed, he started smoking, then with a jolt of realisation, he opened a file from the piles nearby.

This file had records of all three men's cells in the village. He leafed through them until he found team 5. Aki's team. In the group photo, a young Aki was blushing heavily as two identical girls hugged his arms.

Behind the genins was a young woman dressed in jonin attire. Her face, though untainted with any makeup, resembled the woman in the photographs of Kumajiro Tsuchisaru.

Blood froze in Hiruzen's vein when he saw that.

He placed the record down, failing to notice the twitch that moved through four pictures when they were together. In the photo, the ladies around Kumajiro Tsuchisaru smiled. The smile was wide and thin, as if drawn with a pencil.

Hiruzen's eyes hazed, and the pictures on the table disappeared, resettling back to their original position. When his eyes regained focus and vigour back, he had already forgotten what had happened in the room for good. Just like Shikaku Nara.

------------------------x---------------------------------x---------------------------------x------------------------

In a corner of the training ground forty-four, Aki lay panting on the ground. Exhausted from three hours of training, even if the training consisted of climbing trees only.

In Aki's defence, he had to use the chakra passed from Dan to climb the tree. That was like controlling a wild, agitated bull to water a flower bed.

The goal of such simple yet difficult training was to gain control over the foreign chakra passed to him by Dan. In three hours, all he did was climb half a tree.

That was pathetic, considering he managed to walk on trees in his Academy days. Something so familiar should not feel so hard.

"You've to realise one thing, gozaru. Even though we are bound in soul, the chakra we share with you is not your own."

Dan's voice came from the long rectangular earring on Aki's left ear. The pitch black earring had the relief of a crescent eye shaped like a moon cut on it. This was the heraldry form of Dan, in which he could pass his yin nature chakra to Aki.

"I get that, Dan… that is why I find it so hard to control."

"I don't think you ‌get it. You're trying to use a hand as though it is yours, when you don't have the nerves to control it. Silly, don't you think?"

"Huh?"

That rang a bell in the boy's head. Yes, that was a good analogy. He was trying to use an organ that didn't belong to him. He had no nerves in that organ to manipulate it properly. But there were ways around it too!

"Puppets!"

"Close, Aki, you can try that and see if it is really the answer."

------------------------x---------------------------------x---------------------------------x------------------------

Gin sat in the forge of Aki's house, playing with his shades. With utmost care, he popped the right round black lens out of its gold frame. Then he tossed the frame with only the left lens on an apparatus.

Apparatus was rather a fancy term for the contraption Gin had cobbled together. It was a makeshift projector with different lenses and coloured films. At the end of the contraption was a clamp to hold shades.

Gin turned the makeshift projector on, and light raced through its different lenses, getting filtered by a coloured film and meeting the clamped shade. Words appeared on the white cloth hanging on the wall of the dark forge.

"Flora of Al-I-Ra. No, that's not it." Gin said, changing the blue-coloured filter with the yellow one.

"Fauna of Al-I-Ra. Not this one either."

Gin fiddled with some coloured filters before finally installing the red one.

"Metals of Al-I-Ra. Yes, exactly what I was looking for."

Gin's left shade had practical knowledge of the Al-I-Ra. For every unique colour of the spectrum, the lens corresponds with a different set of knowledge. It projects them as a book which the user can turn by applying chakra.

It was one of the clever schemes devised by the wise ones of the Al-I-Ra to keep the culture of a dead land alive. Gin marvelled for a few moments before he started reading and copying the projected book.

On Al-I-Ra, metalworking was one of the faster ways to train in the yang nature chakra. And right now, their situation demanded absolute haste.

Gin could feel the burden of the debt on his and Aki's bond. If they remain unpaid for a few more months, they risk shattering the bonds. That would not only harm him, it would kill the boy, setting his plan back forever.

He could not risk that happening. After years and years of long wait, Aki was the first genuine contact of the boundless lands with the outside world. If Gin lost that, he would lose every hope of mending the words. That would be the true death of Al-I-Ra.

In the coming six months, Aki would have to perform; Exalted-Art-Recompense.