A Delicate Situation...

[Munashii Hissori]

Henshin Resibei paced his office, as he had been for the past two hours. The damage here was unacceptable. Over a hundred villagers, dead. Before anyone could even lift a finger to defend them. The arrogance of the act infuriated him. The pure sickness that had driven the culprit to do this made him shudder in revulsion.

The power behind such an attack was beyond reason. To kill so many people, single handed, in a matter of moments? It beggared belief. His scouts had explained what some of the survivors saw. Two men, attacking an entire village, without back up, gone before the village could react. Reports of some victims being cannibalised sickened Henshin to his stomach. But even that was not as disturbing as what one of the two men had said before the slaughter.

An alliance of all the other major Villages against Kumogakure. Konoha, Kiri, Suna and Iwa. Such a destruction of the peace that had existed between them, and over what? A claim that they were a blemish on the ninja world? It made no sense. No Kage in there right mind would risk war over such a ridiculas reason. None of the current Kages were warmongers.

Were they?

He had to admit, he did not know any of the Kages well enough to make that claim with any certainty. He had just assumed that over the year and a half that he had been Raikage that the others in his position would not do anything to jeopardise the peace, the safety of their homes or the lives of their people. Attacking another Village was a blatant move to start a war, which could rip the land to shreds.

He knew that there were those in his ranks that chafed under the current conditions of peace. After all, they were ninja, and their purpose was battle and war. No matter how much good peace did, there were always those that did what they could to undermine it, just so they could feel like they could have a purpose again. Henshin would do whatever he could to destroy these pathetic beings. There was no excuse to justify sacrificing peace to bring forth war.

Still, he could not act rashly. He had many ninja crying for blood, but against an alliance that consisted of so many powerful nations, Kumo would stand no chance in all out war. That thought caused him to stop pacing. An alliance that size would have no trouble wiping Kumogakure from the map.

So why did they not just do it?

Why would they just kill a few and give them a chance to strike back? Small as Kumo was in comparison to their combined might, they would know that Kumo would retaliate and most likely cause large damage before they was destroyed. So why bother with just attacking villagers? Why not their ninja? Why not him, the Raikage? The move gave no strategic advantage. So what was it?

Then it hit him. No-one said anything about how the attackers looked, what weapons they bore, what headbands the presented. Hell, if Henshin had the right headband and identification, he could pass himself off as a ninja from any village he wanted. Thinking on this, Henshin got out some paper and a pen, and began to write a letter of inquiry to each of the Kages, asking about this event. If they gave no reply, or there was a large scale assault on Kumo, then he would at least not have acted rashly. Sighing as he wrote, he sincerely wished that Yoshimo Izoto had stayed as Raikage.

He found the job very irksome. Too many ifs and buts.