Chapter 95.2- One Thousand Hands

“Blindspots?” I asked.

“The other villages: Suna, Kusa, Ame, Kiri, Kumo, Taki. With some preliminary training, they will be able to act as competent spies. Some will begin lives as civilians while others will seek to enroll as shinobi. In a matter of years, we could have deeply embedded spies into each enemy village, just waiting to be used when the time comes” he explained. I nodded at his words.

He had a good plan at least. One that addressed a pressing need the village itself had— the need for information both about what its allies were up to, and what its enemies were cooking up. Both perspectives were invaluable for their future planning.

“So tell me what exactly this training plan of yours would entail?” I asked, knowing full well that I had made my choice already. I would make it up to Toshiro later on.

“The training would be focused on—“ He was interrupted by the door swinging open.

“Ma’am, I said Hokage-sama is busy with a meeting—“ Retsu’s voice followed the intruder as she marched in.

“Don’t worry, Retsu. Let her in” I said, looking at my Grandmother with all the exasperation I felt showing in my gaze. She just shrugged, showing me a scroll.

“I completed it” She said, pride oozing from her very being.

“I’m sorry, Shiba, but we’ll have to reschedule”

XXXXX- TWO MONTHS AFTER THE ATTACK ON KONOHA- BUNPUKU THE MONK

Shamon’s gambit had failed, Bunpuku knew. Even iff he lacked any means of telling the time from within here, he could still count in his mind. And if his counting was accurate— which it almost definitely was— then it had been one thousand four hundred and sixty nine hours since his friend had last seen him. Two months.

His friend had not returned in two months, and now was going to be the time he looked to figure out what exactly had happened. It was not enough for him to just know that Shamon’s gambit had failed. He needed to know what had become of his friend. Had the Kage-killer killed him? Was it Chiyo who got him with her abomination to the concept of ninjutsu? Was it neither of them? Could it be that something else had happened to him?

And so Bunpuku begged his only other friend for some of his power to use.

“Do as you will” Shukaku had grunted before returning to his nap. And so Bunpuku had pulled at the chakra of his companion, using it to turn one of his fingers into sand. That sand he snuck through the teapot’s seal, allowing it to escape. He closed his eyes, turning the sand into a third eye that he used to naviage his way around the village.

He ignored the sights that would have given him pause on a normal day as he kept a slow march down the streets, heading from where his teapot was stored towards the Kazekage’s tower. As he walked past the streets, he began to notice something as he did so. It was the people. The people of Sunagakure looked worse than he had ever seen them. Several of them were coughing their way down the streets. Others were slumped against the walls, some had even fallen to the floor entirely. He did not know when he abandoned his journey to the Kazekage tower in favour of looking around the village proper. And the story was much the same. The civilians form the most part seemed unaffected, but there were shinobi who had lost consciousness right outside their homes, struggling to make their ways inside. Some had fallen over each other, forming small piles of sick.

They coughed, moaned in pain, and in some cases even vomited on themselves. There was a plague spreading around his village, the place he had known as home for so long, and nothing about it felt right. Even where the civilians were in close contact with sick shinobi they seemed unbothered by the disease. Not a single sick civilian while near every shinobi looked to be near death. There was nothing natural about that.