The Way Through Stone Village (Naruto)

28: Tsunade

[OP: "Bitter Water"--The Oh Hellos]

Tsunade listened to Onoki's account of Gaara's story with a very somber expression.

Granted, she knew that it was probably not quite as troubling as he made it sound, since she knew Gaara.

This put her in an awkward position. Gaara had helped Leaf Village immensely--even after Pain had devastated it and it was no longer a military threat--and in the war also, and she couldn't just ignore that.

But she was no longer Hokage, and it wasn't an act of war to disagree with him to the Tsuchikage. And she could make things worse by supporting him if she made it seem as if Leaf Village was also giving in to the madness of this new doctrine, which is what Onoki called it.

Also Tsunade had her personal reservations about the group to consider. She'd never liked Shine, she knew nothing about Wally, and she thought the others were naive children following two very strange people who were too cocky for their own good. (She didn't see how funny it was for her to care about people being overly confident.)

Plus, Sakura, her own mentee, was here with them. Though she didn't believe that Sakura really supported them that much, but she didn't want to get her in trouble.

So she thought to herself that the best thing would be to disagree with the DJs themselves but make it clear that shinobi were only victims here in their quest to...do whatever it was they did.

"Well," she said, when Onoki had given her time to answer, "I have met those radicals who are with them a few times. The first time was years ago, so they've known them for a while now. They did mention a god then but didn't go into a lot of detail. I didn't know how much Gaara had been swayed by them, but I do know that they are highly resistant to genjutsu. My protegee Sakura has told me as much."

Sakura had told Tsunade what about them that she could remember after their previous encounter, but Sakura had not known that much either.

"Gaara mentioned that they couldn't be taken in by it," Onoki said.

"Yes, but as you know, the most highly resistant to genjutsu often are the strongest casters of it. They are incredibly persuasive people. You remember that they even got Madara to redirect his energy for a time during the war. I heard they also stood up to the reanimated Itachi Uchiha."

Kurotsuchi raised an eyebrow.

"If they could resist that," Tsunade said, "they're strong. But they have their vulnerabilities too. And they do not involve themselves too directly. Apparently, they ask for permission from their shinobi allies to do things. It's part of some code that they have. They're honor-bound to keep it, or I think they lose their powers."

Sakura had not fully understood, perhaps, when she made that guess, but Tsunade had believed that to be the gist of it.

"That's strange," Onoki said.

"Cults often are strange," Tsunade said. "Whether it's true or not, I don't know, but if they believe it, then they will of course follow that rule. I believe you should try to find out what constitutes a violation of that code. If there is a way to end this peacefully, it's better for the alliance."

"I wasn't asking you how to fix it," Onoki said, a bit crossly. "Just if they were dangerous."

"I don't know much about their actual teachings," Tsunade said. "But I know that Lord Gaara embraced them in his Village. A lot of his new policies about mercy and treating would-be-assassins with kindness probably is from them."

"But that's dangerous," Onoki said. "That can't actually have been agreed to by his Village."

"I don't know how many of them agreed to it, but it seems he was attacked by people and he did not kill them," Tsunade said. "I heard that they killed themselves, but it's hard to prove anything. Of course these people can travel using some kind of inter-dimensional ability, like that one woman from Cloud Village could... Do you remember her? In the Intelligence Division? She could transport items by teleporting them."