Chapter 177 – Suspicious Invitations
Zina senses the presence of the Elders rising in the room. Unlike before, when she had been intentionally pressured to lose her breath, this time, she feels the pressure pile upon her soul. It’s a deeply uncomfortable smothering sensation that doesn’t affect her physical body or health, instead slowing down her thoughts and paralyzing her with fear.
The golden-eyed Elder mutters chidingly, “Savor it briefly, Nangong Ping! It is not yours.”
The soul pressure recedes as the short hunchbacked Elder coughs and says, “Apologies, Xia Xiuying. I got carried away.”
“That is why we have each other, is it not?” the muscular old lady adds.
Xia Xiuying replies, “That’s right, Li Mei. We watch each other so we do not stray. See that, lass? Even an Elder can slip up on her Self-discipline, but as long as the Village is behind her, we can bring her back on the right path.”
Zina nods dumbly, but she’s not paying attention. She’s covering her body and wondering why the names of these old crones sound just as ancient as this place is. Thankfully, Xia Xiuying, the tall and spindly Elder with golden eyes, doesn’t notice.
All three Elders turn towards her naked body and truly size her up for the first time. Her hair is at chest length, soft red in hue. There are feathers of the same color on her forearms and shins, younger feathers starting to grow in at the thighs and upper arm, and two strips of feathers on her back from her shoulder blades all the way down to her lower back.
Xia Xiuying places a hand on Zina’s shoulder and says with an edge of excitement, “I, Xiuying of the ancient Xia lineage, welcome you to Phoenix Village, Zina. During your stay here, ask us anything and we will either provide or explain why we cannot provide.”
She snaps her fingers and a nearby table flips open to reveal a thick book within it. “Read the Book of Rules at your leisure. Maids will bring you food and drink. You must finish and have a good grasp on the book’s contents before you leave, even if it takes you a few days. In the meantime, we will prepare a ceremony to induct you into our ranks. Any questions?”
Zina timidly asks, “My clothes?”
“Oh yes, go ahead and put them back on. Once the ceremony is concluded, I can answer all of your questions on any topic.” says the Elder in a congenial tone. Her former snippiness seems to have been washed away by her sudden good mood and Zina takes the opportunity to quickly slip back into her clothes. The other Elders happily welcome her as well before deactivating the privacy settings and exiting the room.
Zina relaxes upon being left alone and hearing the sound of the wind outside again. Now that they aren’t around, she can finally review her thoughts without feeling stifled. All the old crones had looked like regular humans, at least from what she could tell. She couldn’t get a good look at their skin to check for similarities between them and her.
Their reaction to inhaling her burning feathers had been clearly unnatural. It terrifies her to imagine that they would imprison her to harvest her feathers as some sort of euphoric drug. And ironic for her, someone with a side hobby of beating up Triad drug dealers and saving addicted kids off the Republic City streets, to become a new source of drugs elsewhere.
‘No, those are my worst case scenario speculations. They are genuinely interested in bringing me into their Village as one of their own. It all comes down to adopting those values Xia Xiuying listed: Balance, Order, Obedience, Breeding, Integrity, Excellence, and Self-discipline. Heh.. the only reason I still remember all those is because together they spell out BOOBIES. There had to have been people who realized it but kept quiet to maintain the prank.’
‘She hasn’t explained anything about her plans, but I’m sure that my value to Phoenix Village is high, despite my strength being much weaker. If I can blend in sufficiently, maybe I can earn some freedoms, figure out some secrets, and bail. Oh, I can’t forget to get Rio punished! That bastard.’
Zina picks up the thick book, titled “Book of Rules” and turns to the first page. On the first page is a picture of a bulbous mushroom growing sideways and upwards into a vaguely mouth-shaped hole in a tree with the words “Volume One - Oral History” in big letters. She slams the book shut and has to cover her mouth with both hands to stop from bursting into laughter. ‘What reason could there be to make such random things pointlessly perverted?!’
Well regardless of the reason, they have earned her attention. She opens the book again to the next page, but this time she is ready. She snickers silently upon seeing each core value listed vertically and the first letter written in an extremely decorated manner so that BOOBIES is impossible to miss. The Bs and the Os are even decorated with dots to resemble nipples.
She herself is not an especially perverted person, but she can respect the sheer effort the author put into his work to ensure that his immaturity is immortalized. As far as her own sex ed goes, her mother Azula had told her about it in strictly clinical terms and P’Li explained basically everything else, including how to masturbate. Later, she tried touching herself once, but got scared off. Solely remembering it makes her face burn.
Volume One starts with the legend of the four divine beasts that Rio had told her about from 20,000 years ago. It is written in vague, flowery, and obsolete prose that she has a hard time wading through.
After that mess comes “Volume Two - The Rules”, the meat of the book. It spans a full 100 pages in tiny font. All rules on how to behave in a given situation, getting as specific as what to do when your sibling steals your toy. For Zina, this section is so dry that it is impossible to memorize, so she tries to gleam the overall concepts behind the rules and basically just wing it later. By now, the little innuendos and obscenities littering the text are becoming annoying.
Volume Three is a hypothetical family genealogy of how several major families in Phoenix Village are descended directly from several historical figures that survived a cataclysmic war 10,000 years ago. The family trees span 20 pages and the epics that relate the stories of the figures from that period span 30 pages, summaries only. The actual epics are much longer. From the summaries, Zina can tell they are interesting, but she cannot be sure how much of it is embellished. The Book is 150 pages long, but the pages are thick, so it looks and feels larger than it is.
Zina figures she should read through Volume Two several more times. There’s a lot to remember for more common situations, like how to apologize for small slights and what gestures to make when greeting an Elder in a formal setting. She’ll be tripping over herself for a while to get the hang of it. To stave off her boredom and assist in her studying task, she leisurely looks for a way to screw Rio over via the Rules.
A young adult girl enters her room wearing a similar outfit as the Elders, which she now recognizes due to the Rules. It is called a sari and it is meant to be worn as casualwear by all women following their first menstruation. Before that, they must wear the same uniform as boys.
“Hi, I’m Zina.”
The girl puts down the tray of food and water, places her hand on her chest, and bows deeply. Without speaking, she leaves.
Zina’s eye twitches in befuddlement. She flips through the Rules again to the greeting section. Turns out the girl had given her the second highest form of respect, typically reserved for Elders and the graves of ancestors. The question is.. why?
She knows that the Elder have some plan for her, but she really doesn’t want to stick around long. It’s grating on her nerves that there are so many restrictions on individuality here. After seeing Rio’s behavior, receiving the Elders’ lectures, and thoroughly reading the Rules, it’s obvious this Village is a freakshow. And if their capital B’s and O’s are any indication, the authors of the Book of Rules are half-insane too. Zina suspects whoever wrote this was forced into it and they riddled it with perversion as a big ‘fuck you’ to the whole place.
‘I might need to stay in this room for a few days to train myself to mask my distaste towards the culture. Oh! At least the food is good. That’s a plus.’
~ ~ ~
‘I wonder why escort missions for merchant caravans are necessary all of a sudden?’ wonders Azula as she sits atop a truck. Several other shinobi of similar strength as her are scattered throughout the line of trucks. Normally, if a merchant runs into trouble, few would pay it any mind. There are so many of them and so few bandits or deserters that some small losses can be written off. Tsunade had personally ordered this precaution to be taken and for Azula to make sure that Kiri sends these trucks back with living and happy merchants.
Azula doesn’t know the full extent of economic or political intricacies at play here, but she knows that Konoha isn’t happy with Kiri’s price gouging. Nevertheless, she cannot imagine going to war over a minor issue like this when more serious threats are out there.
Unlike her Fire Nation, where there are people who would do anything for more and more money, even placing their own lives at risk rather than allow their business empires to stop growing, Konoha’s aristocrats are much more mellow. An individual’s martial power is more important than money here. If a commoner owns too much money without deserving it and has no shinobi guards to protect him, death or forfeiture of that money are their only options. Most commoners prefer the safety and prestige of working for shinobi clans.
In between the monotony of bouncing her Phoenix fire on her fingers and adjusting her goggles, Azula senses something in the treeline - a baleful aura. She stands up and faces it, but finds that none of the others have sensed it. ‘Am I imagining things?’
She cleanses her brain with chakra, but nothing happens. It’s still there. Then, it retreats. Azula narrows her eyes. She knows this is probably a bad idea.. but she jumps off the truck and chases after it. To her comrades, she shouts, “I felt something suspicious!”
One or two will follow her to back her up. The rest will stay in case this is a diversion.
Azula activates her Gates and shoots off in the direction of the aura. It should be something she can handle on her own since she feels it is slightly weaker than her. She chases across the woods and up a mountain before the source slows down. Closing the distance cautiously. She prepares herself for an ambush, but all she can spot is a figure in black with a white mask calmly standing and looking right back at her from several kilometers away.
Her eyes widen, ‘He can sense me the same as I sense him!’ At this distance, it should be impossible for her own senses to reach.
She watches him take a piece of paper out of his robes and bury it next to him, after which he dashes away at a much faster speed than he had traveled before. Faster than she can chase. Once again, she’s shocked, ‘He’s stronger than me in the aspects of Gates, chakra, or both.. but why does it feel like his aura is weaker? He could have attacked me and I would have had no choice but to run or stall and wait for reinforcements. Hold on, I get it! He was looking right at me when he buried that paper. All of this was to lure me away and deliver a message for my eyes alone!’
Azula knows that her comrades are coming up on her position shortly. She dashes forward as fast as she can to where the masked man had buried the message, performs a few rudimentary checks for whether it is a trap, but as expected, it isn’t. She pulls it out of its burial spot and stuffs it in her robes before turning back around and running back.
Two pretty ladies her age that she gets along well with, Anko and Kurenai, are on guard when they intercept each other. They both breathe out a sigh of relief that she’s fine and the three of them head back to the caravan together. The whole Kiri situation has them a little on edge. Anko touches her body to check that she’s still Azula and not a skilled imitation. Then she keeps touching her seductively, after which Azula has to push her hands off.
Azula explains herself and soon they catch up to the caravan. Later, when the caravan stops for a rest, Azula pretends to go pee so she can read the secret message in private.
------
Hello Azula,
I cordially invite you to join the Akatsuki. We are a conglomerate of high level shinobi that operate outside the bindings and constraints of the current five city-states. We provide a venue for which you may participate in tailed beast subjugations, assassinations, ruin exploration, trading of research results, and anything else you can think of.. all under the table. Personal precautions are highly recommended and byakugan-blocking masks are provided for free to all who accept entry.
If you do choose to join, fold this letter in half four times and it will transform permanently into a byakugan-blocking mask with a communication seal that only receives signals. If you choose to refuse, destroy this letter. Either way, when your mask receives a communication for the next Akatsuki meet-up and you arrive there, I will not know who is who nor will I know whether you have accepted or rejected. Our impromptu meetings are attended by well over 40 high-level shinobi on average. Rest assured, your confidentiality is our highest priority.
Sincerely, Tobi.
------
Azula thinks, ‘Woah.. this is shady. I cannot even begin to imagine how shady this shit is.’ Despite these thoughts, her whole body shakes with excitement. The simple fact of the past few years is that Lo, Li, and Tsunade have been babying her. They train her hard, sure, but she’s never had to face real danger like when she had fought Combustion Man or Lord Zata. Plus, the concept of watching powerful juggernauts actually manage to subjugate a tailed beast is hard to resist. She can learn so many combat techniques from only watching!
Her gains in Gates and chakra utilization have been quick and her combat power has improved greatly, but she knows that her soul and Dao will take many years to improve if she keeps up on the current path. Both of the latter act as bottlenecks to further improvement in Gates and chakra and require moments of enlightenment or slow, natural growth. Explosive growth of the soul is only possible by riding on the wheels of fate and risking her life for further moments of enlightenment.
Obviously, there is extreme risk involved with placing herself in a situation where there are people who can kill her in a single blow, but she has one thing she absolutely needs to do. Her Dao is hungry! She needs to kill some villains, ideally those that are stronger than her, like Danzo, but preferably those that are only slightly higher soul tier than her for minimal risk and maximal gain. Weak bandits won’t do. None of these masks or seals can hide from her Phoenix Dao. She cannot imagine a more easy way to hunt people her Dao hates than by joining a loosely-tied criminal organization that allows her to maintain her anonymity and whittle away at their ranks.
Eventually, she folds the letter once and puts it back in her robe. Azula has thought it through. She plans to have Kushina check the seals on the mask for tracking devices or other traps. Her relationship with her fellow redhead is strong enough that she doesn’t think Kushina would snitch about the item to anyone. After that, she just has to brush up on her stealth jutsus and check out an Akatsuki gathering. Nuwa would absolutely forbid it.. but if Azula is to improve her strength within the next two years to an adequate level, this is what she decides she has to do.
(A/N: ლ(´ڡ`ლ) This is Anko.)