What was killing a Daimyo supposed to solve?
If someone really wanted to change the balance of power, taking out the Mizukage would have made far more sense.
Just look at Mei Terumi. The moment she realized the Fourth Mizukage was wrong, she acted. That was what finally dragged Kirigakure out of the swamp it had sunk into.
Which only proved one thing: the radicals among the Twelve Guardian Ninja had all been lunatics chasing a fantasy.
The real problem was that Asuma had once been one of them.
And he was the Third Hokage's own son.
Aside from Asuma, the others had either come from different villages or from the Fire Temple itself, and every last one of them had been elite jonin.
That said a lot about the Land of Fire's depth. Konoha was not the only place producing monsters. There were powerful fighters outside the village system too.
"If those dead radicals have been brought back by some method," Akira said evenly, "then they'll just be killing machines driven by revenge."
That was what worried Tsunade most.
She rose from her chair and moved to the window, standing shoulder to shoulder with him.
"The warrior monks at the Fire Temple spend their days praying and living quietly," she said in a low voice, "but when they fight, their taijutsu is terrifying. Their foundation is every bit as solid as a small hidden village."
Her eyes darkened.
"So who exactly could walk right past all of them and steal those bodies clean?"
A faintly amused smile tugged at Akira's lips.
"The kind of people who stole them are all jonin-level killers themselves."
And behind them was one real schemer who had been setting this up for years: Kazuma.
A trap laid with patience, careful timing, and overwhelming force. If the monks at the Fire Temple had actually managed to stop them, that would have been the shocking part.
Still, Akira himself was completely unbothered.
No matter how many came, they would still be fodder. He could deal with them with one hand.
The only reason this annoyed him at all was because it was tiresome, like a swarm of flies that refused to go away.
"Maybe they've been saving their big move for a long time," Akira said casually.
Just then, the office door swung open.
Shizune rushed in with a file clutched in her hand, her face tight with worry.
"Tsunade-hime, we've received an emergency request for aid from Sunagakure!"
Akira blinked and raised a brow.
"Sunagakure? What now?"
As far as he remembered, things there were supposed to be fairly quiet around this point.
Shizune hurried forward and handed the file to Tsunade, then turned to Akira to explain.
"They've had an S-rank rogue-nin defect."
The moment he heard that, Akira lost interest and curled his lip.
"That's it? They're calling for help over one missing-nin? Are they seriously that short-handed?"
He honestly thought Sunagakure was making too much noise over it.
Then again, once he thought about it, Sunagakure really was in rough shape right now.
In terms of top-tier fighters, the only real Kage-level name they still had was Gaara, and even that came with a discount.
Temari and Kankuro were strong, but at best they were brushing up against elite jonin. Maybe not even that yet.
Baki was a legitimate elite jonin, but that was where it ended.
As for Gaara, among actual Kage-level fighters he was still closer to the gatekeeper than the summit. Akira would have called him quasi-Kage at best.
That was only talking about their top end, of course.
If it came down to raw numbers, Sunagakure was still one of the Five Great Villages. A few thousand ninja still made for a serious force.
Dozens of jonin, hundreds of chunin, and waves of genin. The skeleton of power was still there.
The embarrassing part was that they had nobody for high-level fights.
Konoha, on the other hand, still had more to work with. Besides Akira himself, there was Jiraiya and Tsunade. Even Danzō, scheming old vulture that he was, still counted as half a Kage-level threat.
Kakashi had one foot in the quasi-Kage bracket now, and if Guy ever opened the Eight Gates, that was an instant ticket past Kage level altogether.
Even Kirigakure, arguably in the worst shape of the Five, still had Mei Terumi, and her two kekkei genkai were no joke.
If Obito had not driven the Bloody Mist policies hard enough to wipe out half their own talent pool, Kirigakure would probably have had several times more high-level fighters than it did now.
Tsunade scanned the file quickly, and her expression darkened.
"This time," she said, "it might actually be serious. Akira, take a look."
He accepted the document and read through it in seconds.
By the time he finished, his brows had drawn together and his eyes had sharpened.
"What exactly has Sunagakure been doing? How did they let someone this dangerous get loose?"
"This bastard... is trying to rewrite fate by going into the past?"
The file gave the rogue-nin's name in plain black ink:
Mukade.
A genius from Sunagakure's puppet corps. His skill was second only to Chiyo's, and miles beyond Kankuro's.
But he was also insane.
His target was the Dragon Vein beneath the ancient kingdom of Roran.
Akira knew exactly what that meant.
An endless chakra power source, complete with the ability to distort time and space.
If Mukade really succeeded in going back and rewriting history, Akira himself might disappear on the spot.
If Mukade killed his parents before he was ever born, then that was the end of the story.
That kind of threat crossed a line Akira would never tolerate.
He slapped the file down on the desk and spoke in a tone that left no room for argument.
"I'm taking this one. I'll handle it myself."
Tsunade looked genuinely surprised, her eyes widening slightly.
"Isn't that overkill? Couldn't we just send a jonin squad?"
Usually this was exactly the kind of thing Akira avoided if he could. Since when had he started volunteering?
Akira shook his head, his expression firm.
"No. Nobody else can deal with this. I have to go."
Seeing how serious he was, Tsunade stopped questioning it and nodded.
"All right. Do you want a team?"
"No. They'd just slow me down."
The refusal came without even a second of hesitation.
Shizune stood there in stunned silence. Akira-sama was personally going after a rogue-nin?
Sure, Mukade was powerful and his puppet jutsu was exceptional, but did that really require Konoha's strongest card?
Akira looked at Tsunade and finally explained.
"I've read the reports on the Dragon Vein. It's a massive chakra reservoir, bigger than most people can even imagine. More importantly, it can bend time and space."
"I'm not worried about Mukade himself. I'm worried about what happens if he actually gets into the past and scrambles the timeline. If that happens, the world we're standing in now could be affected."
The moment Tsunade heard the words bend time and space, her whole expression changed.
Now she understood why Akira was taking it so seriously.
This was no longer just a matter of capturing a rogue-nin.
This was about keeping history itself intact.
"I understand," she said sharply. "Then I'm leaving it to you. Stop him, no matter what."
Akira gave a small nod. "He won't get far."
After a few quick formalities, his figure flickered and vanished from the Hokage's office.
At first Tsunade had intended to classify the mission as A-rank. After hearing Akira's explanation, she picked up her brush and, without a moment's hesitation, marked a bold red S across the scroll.
...
The Land of Wind was all dust and heat.
The air was so dry it felt like it could ignite if someone struck a match.
Using the Flying Raijin Jutsu, Akira crossed an enormous distance almost instantly and appeared on the outskirts of Sunagakure.
After showing his mission orders, he was waved through without delay and headed straight for the Kazekage's building.
When he pushed open the office door, Gaara was buried in a mountain of paperwork.
The moment he saw Akira's face, the young Kazekage froze, and the pen in his hand nearly slipped from his fingers.
"Our request for help only went out a little while ago, didn't it?"
The speed of that response was frankly absurd.