__________ POV Narration__________
The Hokage took another huff of his long tobacco pipe. His tired gaze washed over the large and expansive Leaf Village as he stood at the window with one hand behind his back.
Many weeks had passed by, yet he still felt restless. Somehow he felt that the Village Elders were breathing down his neck more and more after Danzo had been disposed of.
Hiruzen truly disliked having to kill his old comrade, but at the same time not killing Danzo would have brought more and more issues to the Leaf.
After all, he had bared his fangs against Ken and the Dark Brotherhood, and that in itself had the potential to bring about the end of the Leaf Village.
It was clear that it wasn’t just the Dark Brotherhood they would’ve been up against, but the Cloud and the Land of Iron as well. The Leaf was strong, the strongest hidden village even, but their walls were not strong enough to stop such rising tides.
It was tragic in the Hokage’s eyes, but at the end of the day, the Leaf took priority over any personal relationship.
And that was why Hiruzen joined the Three Corner Alliance. Joining hands with the people that would’ve otherwise been a danger to the Leaf.
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The Hokage still needed quite a bit of time to come to terms with losing his friend, but the world had to continue moving on...
"Lord Hokage!" As the candlelight flickered on the Hokage’s desk, a figure rose from the faint shadow it created.
An Anbu with spiky white hair, a wolf mask, with his body mostly covered in a long coat, hiding his features.
"Sakumo... Are they here already?" The Hokage glanced back at his Anbu Captain, the man who was now in charge of management for the current first phase of the chunin exams.
The White Fang was certainly overqualified for the job, but as they were currently in times of peace they could afford to give him such a task.
There was also the fact that this was the first joint exam of the Alliance, and the Leaf had to make sure that everything went as smoothly as possible.
"Yes, Lord Hokage... The Leaders of the Alliance are also here, Lord Ken has also been located and interacted with our Jinchuriki earlier this week..."
Sakumo had already received all the reports necessary. After the last debacle, Kushina was constantly under surveillance by several Anbu.
And while they didn’t recognize Ken at first, Minato and Kushina calling him by name was enough for them to realize who they were looking at.
One of the Anbu reported that Ken had turned his head towards one of them and nodded, so it was safe to assume that the Dark Brotherhood Leader was announcing his arrival as well.
"Well, it’s concerning that he’s managed to infiltrate so easily... I wonder if it’s Space-Time Ninjutsu..." Hiruzen immediately speculated, his hand moving from his back to his beard, stroking it in contemplation.
He didn’t even bother to worry about their prized Jinchuriki being near Ken since they were allies, and Ken had already saved her in the past. If anything, she was 10 times safer with him around.
But it was concerning that the assassin could come and go wherever he pleased.
"It’s possible that he is using Space-Time Ninjutsu of some sort... It is better to ask him in person since it could be an exploitable hole within our defences as well..."
Sakumo seemed to be quite curious as well, but his curiosity was laced with a bit of concern.
"We will ask him soon... Call the leaders for a meeting, and make sure everything is perfect with the following stages of the exam as well." The Hokage waved off the Anbu Captain’s concern and sent him forward to continue his mission.
Sakumo nodded and vanished to continue his job.
They could not afford to skimp on any expenses, they needed everything to be perfect.
Of course, although the Hokage called it the ’First Phase’ of the Chunin Exams, the other two were going to be a lot more straightforward and simple to plan.
One would be a written examination questioning the shinobi on their general knowledge of the world, and the other would be a tournament, deciding the three Genin that were to be promoted to Chunin.
Of course, the top three were going to be promoted in the tournament, but those who had distinguished themselves properly were also going to get a chance to get promoted through missions afterwards.
That was the arrangement that the villages had come up with. After all, the war had drained them all quite a bit and they needed to get thier forces back on track.
The Chunin Exams needed to no longer be the only way for Genin to be promoted. From that point onwards, it all needed to be dependent on performance.
A village like the Leaf needed to have at least around 1000 shinobi over the level of Genin constantly doing C-rank and B-rank missions in order to sustain itself.
The Leaf had a total of around 2700 Shinobi, ranging from Genin to Anbu.
Most Anbu were out on a mission for the village, so they were not really generating revenue as they were generating security.
Aside from Anbu, Chunin squads were also constantly patrolling the village streets and keeping the peace.
This left the active shinobi going out of the village on missions to be a bit under 2000, over half of which were not even Chunin.
The ranks of Genin varied in strength, of course, but each year dozens upon dozens of children graduated from the academy, which contributed to the number of shinobi in the village.
But only a few chunin were promoted each year, which was where the discrepancy in numbers came along.
It didn’t help that there were quite a lot of people who simply didn’t have the talent to rise above the rank of Genin.
Overall, to run a large village like the Leaf consistently without war, they needed to rely on something more than just missions...
Which was the subject of the current meeting between the Leaders of the Three Corner Alliance.
The Hokage strode forward confidently, walking through the long and winded hallways of the Hokage Building. He eventually reached a wooden double door, which he opened up with both hands, smoking pipe still in his mouth.
Inside was a rather large and well-lit meeting room, with the leaders of the Three Corner Alliance all already waiting at the table.
The Land of Iron was represented by Mifune, the Dark Brotherhood of course by Ken, the Raikage had personally come as well, and Yorihikko was in the village specifically to be there for his daughter, but he also attended the meeting.
All of the people present were dressed in formal clothing, each Kage wearing the attire showcasing their status, hats included.
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The Raikage now wore a rather sizable golden cuff on his only wrist. He wore a very simple vest and a pair of loose black pants and sandals underneath his white Kage coat.
The Uzukage’s attire was similar to that of a regular shinobi, with the large symbol of the Whirlpool on his back, covered only by the two large blades that were sheathed on his back.
Mifune, the Samurai General, wore his armour, with the symbol of the Land of Iron proudly placed on his chest. He didn’t wear any hat, he only wore a bandana with the Land of Iron’s Symbol. His regular-looking Katana was resting on his belt, like usual.
And Ken wore his usual attire as well, a mask with a large red dot in the middle. He was quietly sitting in a corner, playing with some strings.
"Gentlemen, I thank you all for agreeing to meet at such a late hour..." The Hokage eyed everyone present with an appreciative gaze.
"It is my pleasure, my daughter spoke fondly of her time in the village, so I am quite pleased with the situation up to this point." Yorihhiko, the Uzumaki Leader nodded with a wide smile on his face.
Ken and Mifune both nodded, greeting the Hokage formally as well.
"No need for the posturing, Lord Hokage. We are all allies at this time, of course, we’d show up." The Raikage was still not on the best of terms with either the Leaf or the Whirlpool.
He didn’t like acting all friendly with either of them, but they were still allies at the end of the day.
"No need to put it quite as rudely... We all share a common goal here, and are working together to achieve and maintain it." Ken immediately made sure to put him back in his place.
The Raikage was not quite prone to clapping back at the Red Dot, so he ended up just grumbling and looking to the side.
The Hokage gave Ken an appreciative gaze before deciding to get to the meat of the issue.
"As some of you may have noticed... Missions have been getting less and less frequent.
There are still quite a few present, and not quite enough appropriately ranked shinobi to do them, but their number seems to be on a downward trend."
The Hokage immediately pointed out the biggest issue, one that they all expected going into their alliance.
’Foreign Noble Houses and even the Nobility from our Lands are more reluctant to give us work now that we’ve essentially unionized, huh?’
Ken sighed as he found the situation quite funny. No matter what world he was in, it always seemed to work out in similar ways.
"We do need to fully stabilize our economic situations, we need to continue building the infrastructure between our Lands and establish proper trade routes..." Yorihhiko crossed his arms and spat out his piece, already knowing that their only real choice was to work harder to establish the trade routes faster.
"I mean, at some point, the smaller villages around us will be too slumped with work that they can’t even achieve, so the nobles will be forced to direct some business our way." The Raikage huffed for a second, quite annoyed at the station at hand.
"That will take a while and would certainly drain our resources further.
The Land of Iron can provide, but we also rely on experts. Thankfully the other Lands are dependent on us for the most part when it comes to metals, so they can’t afford to cut us off.
But missions within our Land are mostly handled by the Dark Brotherhood, and there are barely any traces of outlaws left.
We can help with establishing trade routes, I will speak to the Daymio to try and expedite the process in any way." Mifune stroked his short pointed beard while speaking in a rather long-winded way, although he did have a lot to say in general.
During such meetings, he was the only representative for the entire Land of Iron, their exports and imports, and their expertise and missions were all his to talk about.
When it came to work for the other villages within the alliance, there really was little that Mifune and the Land of Iron could help with.
"... Well, our people won’t starve at least, and peaceful times will allow our agriculture to flourish. The Nobles won’t deny us trade and commerce with our own nation at least..." The Hokage sighed, a bit disappointed, but also somewhat expecting to hear that from Mifune.
The Daymio of the Land of Fire was not exactly pleased by the Three Corners Alliance and the War ending either, but at the very least his Land was being defended, so he was willing to at least continue giving some support to their hidden villages.
This was the same for the Whirlpool and Lightning as well.
It was hard for thier pride to accept that they now had a lot less control over the Hidden Villages within their Lands though.
"Well, at least the ones with good land for agriculture won’t starve..." The Raikage sighed as well, even more disappointed. The Hokage was right in saying that his people won’t starve anytime soon.
If anything they had reserves for the following years and were not likely to run out of food.
But the Land of Lightning was vastly different. There were very few things that could grow on their hard and rocky soil, and the few areas that could be used for agriculture were usually at the border of their land, where the battlefields once were.
So it would take a lot longer for the Cloud Village to fully recover and become more self-sufficient.
Thankfully, they were in an alliance, so as long as the others had resources, the Cloud was not going to run out either.
"I believe there’s no reason for us to worry about resources. But the decrease in missions is a bit more concerning to me." The Uzumaki leader blinked a few times and looked around the table, most seemed to agree with him.
"... Peace could also be a factor for the decrease in missions, it’s hard to tell at this stage honestly. I can’t quite see that far... Well, not that I can see much in general."
The Raikage snorted loudly for a second, Ken had managed to break the heavy atmosphere with a rather good point, accompanied by a joke as well.
"Heh, I’d give you a hand with that, but I’m kinda missing one myself!" The Raikage immediately joined in the fun, not quite bothered by his disability either.
The other leaders present could only smile for a few seconds.
’Well, Everything will be alright, I guess...’ Mifune sighed internally before slowly shaking his head.
Before he even noticed, the conversation moved forward to the next topic... The Chunin Exams.
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Hope you liked the chapter! It was fun enough to write ;) Still have to finish uploading now, then sleep again, or go play Beatsaber or smth. Anyway, hope everyone has a great night/day!
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