OH GODS YES i was just rereading the whole verse again bc its awesome but anyway Could we have a lil more info about sarutobi clan? Like, they used to be monster hunters. How shikana, inoko and chouga reacted to the clan with the monster culling axes joininv the village?
Goku volunteered and his brother asked him if he was insane.
“Someone has to take the first step,” Goku said, “and it can’t be them.”
“Why not?” Gentaro asked, incredulous.
Goku watched his brother with steady eyes. “If I have to explain it to you,” he said, “then you won’t understand.”
Gentaro muttered and growled and did his best but the Sarutobi Elder council, by and large, didn’t care what Goku did; they just wanted the matter settled.
Easy for them to say, or so Goku thought.
They had so little to lose.
Goku remembered vividly the first hunt he was allowed to go on.
There had been an oni sighted in a northern village- a juvenile, by the size of their horns, untried for they had let their illusions slip enough to be identified. Of course where one oni went, others followed, but the Sarutobi fought fight with fire, and a pack with a pack.
They caught the monster, of course, and as his uncle and aunts held the thing with the chakra-infused chains Goku watched his father bring forth the axe.
Sarutobi Hatsuo had always preferred the axe with its broader cutting blade, suited to the immense strength of his arms. Hatsuo had once wrestled a full grown oni to the ground and wrenched its head off.
So Gentaro said. Goku wasn’t certain he believed him.
The arms went first and then the axe had to be sharpened because even a blessed chakra edge dulled on skin that repelled all other blades. The creature screamed and writhed and nearly got loose before Hatsuo got to the legs, and finally the head.
The head was delivered as evidence. The horns were kept and brought to the camp, and then to the Compound to join others hanging on the wall.
Someday, Goku knew, he would lead a hunt, and whether claw or paw, horn or wing, whatever the prize he would proudly hang.
That’s what he told himself, anyway.
It didn’t keep the nightmares or the memories at bay- of the man-eating monster sobbing like a lost child, terrified.
Goku’s father insisted it had simply been enraged.
Goku knew in his heart of hearts, as his father knew, that it had been crying for its mother.
When the Senju and the Uchiha approached the Sarutobi, it took exactly six months for Hatsuo to even consider agreeing to speak with them.
He claimed he could smell the monster on them when they walked through the compound gate.
The arguments went back and forth, tempers rising and falling. It seemed to surprise Uchiha Madara as much as it surprised Sarutobi Hatsuo when he rose to the defense of the Triad.
“Agreements have been put in place,” Hashirama said, and Hatsuo replied, “Demons do not abide by the laws of men.”
Goku and Gentaro had cornered Hashirama.
“Why do you trust them?” Gentaro demanded which was rude considering who he was speaking to, but Hashirama didn’t seem to mind. He thought for a moment and said, “Do you know what peace is?”
Gentaro snorted. Goku said, “No.”
“Peace,” Hashirama said, “is trusting that the people with knives to your back will not let you fall on them.”
Negotiations dragged until Hatsuo’s death.
Sudden and unexpected, a drowning.
Unfortunate, painful. His wife sequestered herself and Gentaro took the diadem with teeth clenched so tight Goku wasn’t sure his brother would ever speak again.
“We cannot afford to delay any longer,” Gentaro said to the Elder Council, and they agreed.
When Goku first met one of the Akimichi, she was out with her children- a chubby cheeked little boy and two girls, who were holding her hands and talking a mile a minute.
She smiled down at them fondly, called her son back to her side and rubbed a streak of dirt from his cheek.
Then she’d looked up, and seen Goku.
“Mama?” One of her daughters inquired.
The oni woman had lifted both of her daughters into her arms, snapped her fingers for her son, and turned.
There was no subtlty to her movements, no casual steps.
She saw a Sarutobi, and she ran from a monster.
Gentaro was more than willing to work with the other clans that gathered to form Hidden Leaf, but he drew the line at interaction with the Triad.
“They are dangerous,” he said, “and they will always be dangerous, and someday they will turn on us.”
He was determined to be ready for that. Despite an oath to lay down the arms that were designed for monster hunting there were still axes and kunai, spell tags and short swords, moon-forged katana and silver flails. There were the great iron stakes that could be used to pin a shiki before the unforgiving sun and the blessed crushing weights to throw around a yurei’s chest.
There were plenty of chakra chains to draw and quarter an oni.
Goku sat by the river and watched the other side.
He sat there, the King Oni, the Patriarch of the Akimichi; and he left his genjutsu off.
Here I am, he seemed to say. Come and get me, if you dare.
Goku never went armed to the river.
Hashirama sat beside him and said, “My brother has a hairbrained idea and I think you could help.”
It certainly sounded odd; a school. An academy, where all the children would learn together, fight together because peace was the end goal but peace was not there yet.
“We talked about three man teams, after a period of study. Mixed, of course, but..”
“You won’t mix them, will you?” Goku asked.
“Not yet,” Hashirama said with that sheepish little grin, “they aren’t ready.”
“They might never be.” Goku said.
“The clan heads,” Hashirama said, “have children about the right age. They tend to form groups as it is.”
Goku saw how Hashirama’s thoughts wended.
What he wanted to say was, “Are you insane?”
What he did say was, “They’ll never trust me.”
“You might be surprised.” Hashirama said. “Will you at least try?”
“Is that an order from my Hokage?” Goku asked.
“Would you do it if it was?”
Goku finished his drink. “Maybe.”
Nara Shikana watched Sarutobi Goku from the shade of the trees, one hand on the neck of the biggest buck in her herd.
“You’re joking,” she said.
“It will never work,” she said, and Goku asked, “Why not?”
Her smile showed fangs longer than the ones once mounted on the Sarutobi walls. “Do you think we would ever trust you?”
She gazed down at Goku from the roof of her main house. Through the doors Goku could see the shifting shadows of her brothers, her sister, her maiden aunt.
“How many of us have you crushed, Saru?” She asked, rolling the syllables of his name like sweet honey. “How many have you watched suffocate?”
“None,” Goku said and it was an honest answer. He had never been on a yurei hunt.
“Then what makes you think I’ll give you a chance?” Inoko asked.
At the edge of the river, Akimichi Chouga watched their reflections and said nothing for a long time.
When he finally spoke, he said, “Your clan doesn’t like this, do they?”
“My brother might have insinuated I was lacking in mental facilities.” Goku agreed.
“Why did you agree?” Chouga asked.
“I’ve never been a very good hunter.” Goku said. “I thought maybe I’d make a better teacher.”
Chouga did something Goku didn’t expect, then.
They were named Chosua, Inokan, and Shikani.
“Mom says if you twitch towards a chain I’m supposed to bite your leg off to give Ino an’ Shika time to run,” Chosua said.
“Well,” Goku said, “I’ll try not to do that, then.”
“Dad, where are we going?” Chouji asked, newly graduated from the Academy and more than ready for bed.
“Somewhere special.” Chouza told his son, and as the sun dipped lower Chouza led Chouji deeper into Sarutobi land.
They were joined shortly after the sun’s disappearance by Shikaku and Shikamaru, oozing out of a nearby shadow. A whisper of tree branches heralded the arrival of Inoichi and Ino. The three friends looked from their fathers to one another but didn’t say a word.
Soon after they joined up, the fathers and children came to a grave.
It was simple and well tended and a man was there, praying. The children had seen him before, but he’d never spoken to them.
He finished praying and stood, turning to look at them.
He smiled broadly and said around the filter of an unlit cigarette, “Are these my monsters?”
“HEY!” Ino shouted, and Inoichi shushed her.
“Rude,” she muttered, and Shikamaru groaned. Chouji sighed and bowed and said, “Nice to meet you, Sensei.”
Sarutobi Asuma stepped off of Sarutobi Goku’s protected, cherished grave and said, “Nice to meet you too.”
