“Give my best regards to the Lord Raikage as well.”
The vast ocean was veiled in white mist. Not particularly good for visibility, but the women were accustomed to fog; they could see quite well, even in these conditions.
Enclosed on all four sides by the ocean, The Land of Water, one of the lands known as the five great ninja nations, was also home to the village of Kirigakure. The days when Kirigakure was known as the Village of the Bloody Mist and the origin of Akatsuki were in the distant past. Yagura, the fourth Mizukage, had dirtied his hands with all sorts of evil, but the genjutsu cast on him had been released by the late Ao’s byakugan, and with Terumi Mei’s assumption of the office of Fifth Mizukage, the situation in Kirigakure was steadily improving.
And then, the Fourth Great Ninja War changed the world completely. The constantly quarrelling five great ninja lands had joined hands and come through the terrible battles together, becoming war comrades. Even after the Great War, they had worked together to overcome the difficulties that arose to shake the world. Many lives had been sacrificed in the war, and those who survived lived with great sadness, but the things gained were also great.
“Please be thorough in your duties in the joint training between Kirigakure and Kumogakure!” Chojuro—carrying the large twinsword Hiramekarei that was proof that he was one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen—called to the ninja preparing to sail away.
The surf pounded against the port. A ship large enough to carry a hundred people was currently moored there, in this critical location for the Land of Water, surrounded by the sea as the country was.
Some people had kicked up a fuss when the decision was made to train together with another village, but still the feeling of friendship was actually quite strong. The fact that they had exchanges like this with other lands was due in large part to Uzumaki Naruto and the many incredible things he had accomplished during the Fourth Great Ninja War. His hope was that ninja would come together to create a world without war.
“These sorts of experiences will also be good for the future of Kirigakure,” the Mizukage remarked to the squad leader in charge of the joint training group.
“Yes, ma’am! We will be bold. Made for this mission, we will build a basis for friendship with other nations!” The squad leader responded sincerely to this hope of the Mizukage.
But she reacted with a gasp. Old maid?!
Utterly ignorant of the Mizukage’s state of upset, Chojuro said to the squad leader, “The Lord Raikage is hard on both self and others at times. But he is a firm and brave man. He gives his all to everything he does. Also, this time of year, powerful typhoons often form around the islands neighboring the Land of Water, so please do not act rashly. Keep an eye out for them.”
“Ha ha! So now you worry about other people now, hm, Chojuro? Better off herding cats.”
Old maid, hard on both self and others at times … Trash her?!
As Chojuro and the others chatted cheerfully, the look on the Mizukage’s face grew grim, and an ominous aura rose up around her.
Noticing her silence, Chojuro cocked his head curiously to one side and looked at her. “Lady Mizukage, is something the matter?”
She exhaled a long breath and collected her scattered nerves. “I just remembered things with Ao … If he were here …”
“Oh, Ao … I wish he could see me now too.” Chojuro had apparently taken her statement to mean she wanted to show off the now-grown Chojuro to Ao.
Rather than correcting him, the Mizukage smiled, and brought their conversations together with a “Truly.”
“All right, then! We’ll be off!” a ninja on the ship called, now that all members were aboard; the ship slowly left the port.
“The five great nations hated each other so much, and now we can join hands like this,” Chojuro murmured, deeply moved, as they watched it sail off in a mist of sea spray. “It’s simply incredible, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it really is.” The Mizukage felt something more than this, than how Chojuro felt the transformation of this changing world in his own way. She was one of the shinobi who had lived through the dark days of Kirigakure. She had fought, drenched in the blood of others, in her own blood, for the sake of the village.
Back then, if a ninja was determined to be a burden, they were simply thrown to the wolves. It had indeed been a time when everything was suspect, when they had lost sight of what they were living for, what they believed in, as if they had been in a thick fog. That environment had produced, among others, Momochi Zabuza, feared as a demon; Haku of the Yuki clan, toyed with by the sad destiny of kekkei genkai; and Hoshigaki Kisame, who bore the darkness of Kirigakure alone—so-called “evil” ninja. As a ninja from the same village, from the same era, however, the Mizukage secretly had complicated feelings about calling them evil.
With the tensions among the five great nations easing, and thus, fewer and fewer battles, this world, formerly centered around fighting, was now changing from its foundations. Which meant that both ninja and average citizens also needed to change to adapt to these new times. But not everyone could accept this. There were inevitably going to be people who rejected and despised the idea of this change, who would try to destroy this new world.
In her struggle to undo the negative inheritance left by the former Mizukage and Kirigakure’s own history, the current Mizukage, Mei, was coming up against all kinds of difficulties, so she knew. Change was no simple matter.
The ship bound for the Land of Lightning had become a shadow in the distance in the blink of an eye. The Mizukage strained her eyes to follow the hazy ship disappearing into the white mist.
“It got cloudy all of a sudden.”