Chapter 70.3- One Thousand Hands

“So you want me to try to take advantage of the fact that she might have been sweet on my Granduncle to get her to examine her sitting Kage and release that report for me?” I asked.

“Precisely. You’ve got the plan more or less figured out then” She said. I narrowed my eyes even as the door swung open, admitting Uzume.

“Should I be worried?” She asked.

“About?” Had she heard Uraume’s and I’s discussion from the hallway.

“My niece. Why are she and the rest of your tam for that mater attempting to scale the Hokage monument with only their left hands and legs respectively?” She said, I turned in that directing, activating my byakugan to help me see across the distance even better. Lo and behold, all three of them were struggling to push themselves up the mountain with only half their limbs.

“Training. They felt they were each ready to learn a brand new jutsu so I’ll teach the first to make it up the mountain. I said, knowing that I would end up teaching all three of them the same jutsu in the end. Maybe I’d add something bespoke for the winner but that was more dependent on my mood than anything else.

“I see” She said, good. She didn’t have any ground to stand on to criticize my teaching of my students when she spent her time forcing her students to spar with a clone of her over and over again for hours. If they weren’t getting so much stronger from it, I would have stepped in to stop it already.

“So….”

“So?” I asked.

“Kumo. I assume we have to go after them next, huh” She said.

“Yeah. Their position in Frost isn’t something I’m very comfortable about allowing to continue. We have to drive them out sooner or later, and sooner would definitely be easier than later”

“So why aren’t we out there doing it?” She asked. She wasn’t; the only one with the question. Just letting Kumo train more shinobi was stupid and almost guaranteed to bite us in the arse, but I couldn’t move for obvious reasons.

“We just need to clean things up a bit here, and then we can make our move.”

“Clean what?” She asked, and it hit me then that Uzume hadn’t been privy to a lot of my more recent scheming. In my difference, she wasn’t really all that interested in talking politics or anything that didn’t leave her the opportunity to punch something at the end.

“I want to be Hokage, ‘Zume” I said, remembering the nickname she’d tried to take an ear off for back in the academy. She remembered it as well, eyes narrowing in my direction before she sighed.

“Yeah, we know, Shori. Everyone knows” She said.

“Well, I want to be Hokage before we fight Kumo” I specified.

“We going to kill Sarutobi?” Her voice lowered now as she stepped closer to us, plopping down on the chair before my desk. I gave her a look through narrowed eyes and sighed. Why was everyone in this world so murder happy?

“No. No we aren’t.”

“We’re going to Coup him instead” Uraume finished for me and I sighed again.

Uzume looked at the two of us like she wasn’t quite certain if we were insane or not.

“You guys do know he’s in the hospital right? Bedridden? Only four anbu guarding him? I can knife him for you if you want” She said, and to her credit, it was actually a genuine offer. One that I refused out of hand though. Killing the previous Kage wasn’t a good way to secure the Seat, and even if I got away with it, there was too much risk.