Chaptr 59.2- Gamer of the Desert

But that was only if the worst happened. This meeting could easily be as much an opportunity as it was a danger, and that was what I had to work with. I had to work with the hope that this could turn into the best case scenario. Peace in my time. I could not deny the temptation that came with a prospect like that. So much had been wasted in War. So much more would be wasted if thing continued as they had. Sure, Konoha was basically tapped out with most of their village in ruins, but Kiri had a strong-ish army. The same was true for both Kumo and Iwa. There were threats to the North, South, East, and West. This summit gave me the chance to rebuild a lot of the bridges that I’d personally torn down. If I could go back in time, I’d do well to slap my younger self over the head a few times. I had no idea if it was Gamer’s mind at work, but he really had the belief that every problemm could only be solved with indiscriminate amounts of violence and escalation. There was no reason to actively order my shinobi to seek out shinobi of the other nations whenever they could and either kill or capture them for my study.

Sure, it had given me information on the training practices of the other nations. Information that I’d used to take Suna’s academy to the very next level. We had the same nutrition schedules that Kumo used to make their shinobi so physically powerful, the training secrets Kiri used to increase lung capacity, Iwa’s peerless endurance training, and the cocktail of drugs that Danzo used to make his root shinobi so bloody dangerous. All of it brought together and enhanced by my fuinjutsu, wet tinkering, and Chiyo’s nearly peerless genius when it came to the human body. Hopefully, in a year or two, we’d be pumping out Chunin level shinobi with consistency after only three years at the academy. And then we’d go even further with time.

Time. That was what I needed and didn’t have. I could take on the world in a decade and win. I just needed everyone to wait a fucking decade. We cut through the air with virtually no resistance. Something as simple as shaping the air in front of me to reduce our wind resistance, drag, and still allow us to keep warm throughout the flight was easy to me. Peerless chakra control matched with a shit ton of chakra.

When we entered the Land of Iron, there was a noticeable shift in the atmosphere. The ground that sped in front of us was white instead of green. I’d chosen to set off on the day off the summit because we could make the travel so quickly. The downside of that was that as we zoomed towards the Three Lions, I could spot signs that all the other Kage had arrived. Not a problem since we still had an hour or two until the meeting proper was supposed to start, but I could only hope that the others hadn’t made any deals to cut me out of things since I was basically a common enemy. The only ones I’d done nothing to piss off were Kumo, and Iron. And chances were that my shinobi had done a good enough job in my stead.

When we arrived at the building that had been set aside for the meeting, I did my best to set us down on an out of the way spot before we stood and made our way to the entrance itself. It was an impressive structure, carved into the sides of the mountain itself. Made even more impressive once one considered the fact that the Samurai of the Land of Iron did not use ninjutsu. They could work chakra for sure, but the fact that this was not the product of earth release but man made ingenuity made it all the more impressive. It would have been par for the course in my own world, but something about this world seemed to reduce my standards.

“Kazekage-dono. Welcome. The other Kage are waiting in the waiting room. You can join them or move to the rooms set aside for your use” A reedy man with long black hair hastened to greet me once I arrived and began reeling out options as his companions made to collect identification from my ‘guards’.

“Please escort me to my fellow Kage…” I let the statement hang, asking for his name.

“Hiroshi, Kazekage-dono”

“Then escort me to my fellows, Hiroshi-san”

“It is this ones pleasure” He replied as he began to walk into the giant hall. From there, we took a multitude of turns until we came to a set of double doors.

The mountain’s stone did a good job of muting the signatures of those within the building but now in front of the door, I could feel them clear as day. Strong, powerful signatures. Not as strong as they should have been, as I expected. This was probably going to go down in history as one of the weakest crop of Kage in history, but that was fine by me.

I commanded a gust of wind to push the doors to the side as I strolled in. My presence cut through the conversation as there was a rush of silence that went through the gathering. I took note of all of them. Tsunade in the red robes of Konoha, Orochimaru and Jiraiya by her side with glasses in their hands as they stood in a circle; Mei in her blue, looking resplendent as ever with a familiar swordsman at her side, and another that I could not quite recognise; For Iwa, there was Kurotsuchi who met my gaze with eyes that looked like burning coals- the rage was strong in that one- and she had two Iwa jounin I didn’t recognise by her sides; Kumo was the real surprise, was that Darui? Seeing him in the room made me freeze in my steps.

A/N; Having a job is one hell of a creativity blocker