“Ezo, you better be sober because you’re scheduled to speak with the generals in an hour!”
Mayonaka Arashi banged on the door to the Tsuchikage’s office twice before letting herself in. Ezo hadn’t come home last night, so she figured he must have spent the night working. As a result of spending most of the days slacking off and avoiding work, he sometimes was forced to stay up all night catching up on things that he needed to take care of. He hated wasting good days inside.
The office was empty, the window open, and papers were blowing off of the desk to cover the floor. That stupid man was MIA again. Setting down the stack of paperwork she had brought and closing the window, May screamed a stream of curses at the top of her lungs. Those working in the floors below either laughed or rolled their eyes, it not being at all unusual for the Tsuchikage to do something to earn his daughter’s frustration. Once she got that out of her system, May sat down and began forging her father’s signature, again. “I swear I’m going to kill him. One of these days, he’s just going to disappear and not show up perfectly fine hours later, and I’m going to have killed him. It’s that simple. Either I’m going to kill him, or he’s going to kill me.” She ranted under her breath about the various ways she could do it for exactly fifty-five minutes, at which time she contacted the generals and informed them that the kage was dead. – They took it far better than she had hoped. This was after all only the ninety-fourth time she had told them of his passing. – That done, she resumed working her way through the stack of papers on the desk, and then on the floor, and then on the wall, and then on the papers that had slipped under the door, and then on those that had blown out the window. By the end of the day, May Arashi had come up with the perfect way to kill the kage.
Looking up from her work, May was surprised to see how late it had gotten. Ezo did like to let his paperwork pile up. Leaving the completed forms to be collected, she opened the window, closed the door, and left the office exactly as it had been when she’d arrived, minus the layer of papers covering the floor.
Ezo was nowhere near Iwagakure that morning, waking up laying in a grassy field many miles southwest of the city. He stood and stretched, and then he sat and waited. Fenrir’s silhouette appeared atop the nearby mountain ridge about an hour later, and soon after the great wolf loped through the waving grasses towards Ezo.
“You’re awake,” the wolf said, its mouth somehow forming the words as easily as any human’s would.
Ezo pulled himself up to sit on the top of Fenrir’s paw. “Yeah, I’m awake. Where were you just now?”
The wolf walked through the grasses that didn’t even come up to the top of its foot, great slow strides covering distance deceptively fast. It didn’t answer, ignoring the asking entirely.
“We going back to the city now?”
The wolf just kept walking, in a direction that was decidedly not towards Iwagakure.
“See you then,” the kage said, hopping off of the wolf’s paw, touching the ground for a second, and blurring as he took off for the city at blinding speed, the grasses pulling towards him as he ran. He would just count this as his morning exercise. He stopped and turned suddenly. “Hey, there was something I wanted to ask you!” He was too late though, the wolf’s tail was already disappearing over the distant mountains. “I know you can still hear me,” he whispered under his breath, something the wolf would still pick up. Fenrir could pick up Ezo’s voice easily over vast distances and over louder sounds. He just wasn’t nice enough to turn around for a chat.
Ezo made good time back to Iwagakure, covering the distance before the sun had risen to its height in the sky. He checked in on the office first, peering through the window at May. She was pacing around the room, apparently speaking to someone. She was speaking to… Sh-something. Ezo for the life of him couldn’t remember the name of the young blonde girl his daughter was speaking to, though he himself has spoken to her on multiple occasions. He hadn’t spoken to her informally, but he’d spoken to her as she had relayed his words to the sensor ninja at each of the general’s locations. He was really disappointed in himself for not remembering her name. It wasn’t often he got to spend hours alone with a pretty young thing like her. May turned to look out the window, as if somehow sensing his train of thought. She resumed her speaking to the sensory ninja.
“- and that is why I have come to the conclusion that he can only be dead.”
Ezo furrowed his brow in confusion, still pressed against the side of the building from dodging her gaze. Who was dead? The blonde girl told May that the people on the other side of the communication were laughing. Damn it, she was telling the generals he was dead again. Did she have to do that every single time he was late for the update meeting?
From the size of the stack of papers on his desk, Ezo figured May would be bust for at least another three hours. Might as well see what the town was up to. The kage took a gulp from his silver flask and dropped down onto the street below, waving back at the people working inside the lower level of the large building. They would be used to seeing him drop down from above, either fleeing may or avoiding work as usual.
“Hey Koroshi,” Ezo greeted the large man who ran the best open bar in Iwagakure. “I’ll take the usual.”
“Ezo, aren’t you supposed to be working right now?” the man boomed back. The two shared a laugh at that. Ezo had gotten to know Koroshi quite well since coming to Iwagakure, even before becoming Tsuchikage, and he was a good friend. The two sat and talked for a while, not really about anything important, just talked, as Ezo drank his bowl of ramen dry, filled the bowl of just noodles with beer, and then ate it. That was “the usual” for him, and even after years of pestering Ezo couldn’t get his friend to add beer ramen to the menu.
Ezo got up to leave, hurling his empty bowl at the bar owner’s turned head. Koroshi caught it with one thick hand, and then yelled at Ezo, “Hey you know the rules, I don’t accept your money here! It’s no good anyway!” Sure enough, the money the kage had left on the table vanished as he walked away. “Damn wolf,” he said. Setting the thrown bowl down, Koroshi was surprised to see that it was filled with money, though how Ezo had managed that he hadn’t the slightest idea. Usually he just paid later, when he managed to pry some of his money from his daughter’s hands. “Damn wolf.”
Ezo visited the academy next, making it just in time to join the youngsters as they practiced their clones. He snuck up behind one boy that was having particular trouble. He remembered when he was like that, though he had been quite a bit older when he had entered the academy, so maybe not quite like that. He grabbed the boy’s shoulder, making him jump.
The boy’s eyes grew wide when he saw who it was. “Hello Mr. Ezo Kage sir,” he said. Ezo almost gagged at the formality coming off the child.
“Ezo. Ezo is fine. Now come on, try your clone again.” Ezo knelt behind the boy as he concentrated on making another dud clone. He truly was terrible at it. The boy seemed frustrated, and nervous, but mostly frustrated. “Come on, try again. This time let me guide you through it. First, close your eyes. When you’re just beginning it helps you concentrate on what you want it to look like.” The boy shut his eyes tight. “Now, imagine a mirror, and look into it at yourself. Remember what you look like, down to the smallest details. When you have the image in your mind, focus your chakra into filling that image, like you’re pouring water into a jar shaped like you. Then all you have to do is make it appear. Easy enough? You can open your eyes now.”
The boy opened his eyes, and was shocked to see himself standing next to himself. He waved at the clone, and it waved back, and then it disappeared in a poof. The boy jumped up and down, all his frustration and nervousness gone. “Thank you mister Ezo sir! It worked! It worked!”
Ezo had to pry the boy away. “Very good, very good. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with that from now on.” The boy thanked him a few more times as the kage walked away from the academy.
Ezo was stopped by the instructor, a young man with unnervingly bright green eyes that seemed to glow in the mid-day shade. “You know, that doesn’t always work.”
Ezo pointed at the boy he’d helped, now creating and maintaining his clone on his own, doing just as well as the rest of the class. “But it did in this case. He has the skill down, just not the mindset. All I did was give him confidence.”
The instructor stared the Tsuchikage down with his unnerving eyes, and then he walked back towards his students, seeming to disappear from where he was and reappear where he was going. That man was an odd one, that was for sure. Also among one of the most skilled ninja in Iwagakure. But damned if his eyes didn’t put Ezo on edge.
When May got home, she found Ezo already there, turning a whale of a fish over a roaring bonfire. “Where were you today?” she asked, completely calm.
“Fishing.” It wasn't a lie; he'd seen something big in the river and had shot it with his crossbow. That was kind of like fishing. Ezo didn't recognize the type of fish he'd caught. It was probably still good for eating.
“I can see that,” she retorted as she poured two cups of tea. One she handed to Ezo and drank the other herself. “I’ve reconsidered the event of your death.”
Ezo downed the cup of tea in one go, having sat beside a roaring fire for the past two hours without moving. “Oh?”
“Yes. I’ve changed how I am going to kill you from burying you alive to poisoning.”
Ezo raised an eyebrow at that. “I’d wondered when you would. I mean, do you really think a prison of earth would work on the kage of the Land of Earth? Refill please.” He held out his cup for more tea, which she poured.
“Oh, and don’t worry, I poisoned the beer, not the tea.”
Ezo sighed, continuing to turn the fish. The clone that appeared in front of him voiced his real feelings.
“WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!” The clone vanished.
May continued, ignoring the clone outburst. “Did you read the report from the Wind Farm? The new outlook puts the Land of Wind producing surplus in five year’s time. That’s three years ahead of schedule from the last outlook.”
Ezo leaned back in his seat, a small smile on his face. “That’s good. Maybe those freedom protesters will quiet down if I show them that.” He sighed, an unusual exhaustion falling around him. “Can’t they see that they aren’t yet strong enough for independence?” He brushed aside the negative airs with a shake of his head. “And what of our neighbor?”
“The sensors’ reports indicate that the Sankage is currently outside of the nation’s borders. Whether she's in meeting with Yamagakure or the Land of Water is unknown. Regardless of which one, that could be dangerous. Even the Land of Earth would have a difficult time defending from a joint effort of Kyokujitsu no Tochi and Yamagakure. And if it's the Land of Water... um...”
"Go on, what if it is the Land of Water?"
"If it's the Land of Water, then I'm not sure how that would effect the Land of Earth and Wind. I mean, would it?"
"Alliances always send ripples out, but you've hit the nail on the head this time. There is no feasible way for the Land of Water to attack us, and even if they cut off all trade with us, we would survive perfectly well. The only reason the Sankage would ally with the Land of Water would be trade... assuming she wouldn't dare attack Yamagakure." He seemed to stop at the thought. May could see his mind building up the dominoes that such an action would send toppling. His mind wasn't good with the small issues it was presented with, but this, this was what it understood perfectly. "It’s likely nothing to worry about,” Ezo said. “The fish are too busy trying to outmaneuver the others to even think of the possibility.”
“It would be a perfect time to make a move on Amegakure,” May commented.
“Now you’re contradicting yourself. If the Sankage got news of a play on my part to take land from her nation while she’s meeting with the leaders of Yamagakure of the Land of Water, that would almost guarantee an alliance between the two.”
This quieted May. He was right, again. “I’m going inside,” she said, standing to go. The fish wouldn’t be done for another hour or so.
“Can you toss be a beer?”
She did, closing the door behind her so as not to be disturbed if he started thrashing. May sat down in her room and began filling her ledger with the day’s work. Some girls wrote down their thoughts at the end of the day. She did too, but her thoughts kept a country running. May heard her father yelling something from outside. “What was that?” she yelled out a window.
“I said, what poison did you use? This stuff tastes great!”