Aggressive Negotiations

Nariko arrived at the village hidden in the frost within a timely enough manner. This place was cold and unforgiving, but Nariko was pretty well bundled up, her clothes, armor and cloak doing well enough to keep her protected from the sheer cutting cold. It wasn't too bad, and Nariko was already a person of decent constitution.

The gates were decently guarded, and as she approached, many of the guards moved to intercept her. There was a noticeable hesitation, as her Kage uniform was on full display, marking Nariko as the Raikage. She was alone, however, and approached without so much as a sign of violence.

See, Lei Inazuma had come previously, attempting to make an alliance between Kumogakure and Shimogakure, but he had not acquired Nariko's blessing to do so, so the alliance had not been formed at that time. Given that Nariko had been quite busy at the time, she had been unable to go and complete any terms of an alliance.

Now that the Blood Prison was destroyed, and the other nations were acquiring Minor nations, and Major nations in the case of Konoha, Nariko felt it would be not only in Kumogakure's best interests to gain a new nation under their banner, but would be a matter of neglect if she failed to do so at this point. They needed to show that Kumogakure's power wasn't something to laugh at. To be fair, Kumogakure's naval fleet and shinobi forces were still currently unrivaled in strength, but that could changes very quickly.

After a while of waiting with the guards, Nariko was approached by a few additional guards and the elder council. She immediately noticed that she wasn't being invited inside the village, and took offense to that. Something about this meeting was setting her on edge, but she was going to still do her best. First she would try diplomacy. Then she would offer money should that fail. If it came down to it, she would fight, but that was a last resort, and she'd rather not have to do that. However, given the overwhelming amount of guards that were present, close to 50, by Nariko's count, it didn't appear that the Village was thrilled with the prospect of an alliance for some reason. Or at least, they were on edge.

Nariko approached the head of the elders, and bowed first. "Greetings. I am Nariko Mizushima, the 3rd Raikage of Kumogakure. I'm here to facilitate negotiations of an alliance between our two great nations. I seek to bring your lands under the protection of my own, and to share my resources with your village, in return for your nation keeping a watch on the borders, for any possible invaders."

She was quick to bring her purpose to light, as she didn't really like to waste time with unnecessary pleasantries. It was a waster of all of their time.

One elder man, the chosen speaker it appeared, answered quickly. They had all obviously convened before and come to decisions, as there was no dissent to his words when he spoke. "Yes, well, Nariko Mizushima, the 3rd Raikage of Kumogakure, you shall not be receiving any such alliance with our nation. We know of your evil ways, and we shant allow your Jashinism to spread to our lands. So go, begone!"

Nariko frowned, her face hidden behind the cowl of her Kage hat. Ah, that was the purpose of the guards. They thought she was a Jashinist supporter. It made sense, she supposed. She had made the decision to legalize the religion, and that was not a popular move by any fashion. Now it was coming back to bite her.

Nariko, despite their order to begone, did not budge however. Instead, she extended a hand out of her cloak, a scroll in her hand. Her armor was slightly exposed, but she wasn't holding any weapons, and armor itself was just smart to wear. The people in front of her flinched away at the movement, although quickly realized it was not an attack. Nariko spoke up once again. "I thought you might not want to negotiate a mutual alliance, so I brought up a second offer. If you don't want to join me as equals, I instead will give you a sum just over 4 million ryo. In exchange, your lands will be annexed into Kumogakure's, and you will stay out of my business. I will still protect your people, but you will have no say in how I run things."

Nariko spoke coldly. She didn't like these elders, and they already didn't like her. She skipped over any attempt to negotiate and just went down to brass tacks. She would simply buy the land out from under them, and be done with it. The council member was taken aback by her boldness, and he and several others convened an emergency meeting then and there, pulling back to discuss.

Nariko's hearing was superb. She heard every bit of their whispered conversation. "That's decent money, we could retire rich." "Indeed, but what if we took it and captured her instead? We have the numbers." "Ah, you're right, and everyone would thank us as well, apprehending this Jashinist. We'd be doing the world a service."

It was more of the same after that, although they tried to pull it together. Nariko's face was one of bewilderment as they actually thought to take her money and capture her. Did they really think it was that easy to take on a Kage? The man who had been speaking for them stepped forward, and grabbed the scroll from her hand. "Ah, yes, well, we accept your proposal to buy our land." the man lied, stepping back and handing the scroll off.

"And now that you've bought our land, allow us to show you to your dungeons. Shinobi, take in your 'new leader'! Arrest this Jashinist scum!"

Nariko had, obviously, no intention of allowing herself to be captured, and had more or less allowed them to take the scroll from her. She was ready for a fight for sure. Several of the guards had body flickered behind her, while the ones ahead of her began to circle, placing Nariko purely in the center of a large circle, dozens of shinobi trying to intimidate her into submission.

Oh, how wrong they were about how this would turn out. Nariko hadn't wanted to do this violently, but now that there seemed to be no other option, she would have to. It wasn't too big of a deal though. She chuckled as the elders watched on. "Oh, you old fools. I'm no Jashinist, but you'll be gaining nothing from our deal anymore."

Nariko would have toyed around with them, but she wanted to end this quickly, and get back to Kumo before things went poorly there. She was always worried to leave the village, as Nariko cared for her village as a mother would her children. Of course they would be fine, but there was always a bit of worry.

Nariko removed her Raikage's hat and the cloak in one quick movement, and threw them into the air as high as she could. As she let go of the clothes, Nariko's body became enveloped in intense Raiton Chakra, her hair spiking in the ponytail and covered in a golden sheen. As the clothes started to fall, Nariko would make her move.

LRA Level 2, 20 Activation
Ninjutsu: Raiton reduction

Strength: C -> B
Constitution: B -> A
Stamina: A
Speed: B -> S
Coordination: B -> S
Intelligence: B
Perception: A

Nariko was fast. Too fast for any of them to even deal with her. The Chuunin couldn't even see her, and the Jounin barely even saw a blur of her movement. While Nariko didn't quite reach the speed that Shimiko had reached during her fight, she was incredibly close at her heightened level of LRA being used. Plenty fast enough that she was impossible to deal with by most of these people.

In a matter of mere moments, Nariko had gone around and knocked out all of the forces who surrounded her, quick strikes to their throats and temples taking them out of the fight immediately. The land of Frost didn't have a single person who could stand up to Nariko in a fight, even temporarily.

She had a mental flashback to a mission that had almost resulted in her entire squad's death when she was younger. Frost ninja had seemed to be so powerful, so scary back then. Now there was nothing they had that could scare her at all.

Coming to a stop back where she started, the aura around her disappeared, and Nariko caught her hat and cloak as they nearly hit the ground, having taken out Frost's troops in the time it took for her Kage's uniform to hit the ground. Placing the hat back on her head, Nariko draped the cloak over her shoulder, walking up to the Elder who had her scroll. Taking it from them, Nariko pocketed the scroll.

Moving through several seals, Nariko let out a fireball jutsu, burning the Elder council in one go. She had some stuff to do and didn't want them to leave. They'd sealed their fate, but she wasn't going to kill the shinobi who just were following orders. If they caused trouble for her again, then they would die. For now, she had to set up a school to train up new shinobi to guard the borders here. With this money back in her hands, she could absolutely put it towards the infrastructure of Shimogakure.

Nariko made her way to the administration area of Shimogakure, now completely unopposed. She needed to find the village's information, infrastructure reports, and all that, and then go over it so she had an idea of what the village needed. After a few hours of time, Nariko found herself sitting amongst several scrolls of information about the village. Nobody interrupted her at all, which was good.

She'd found that the land of Frost had a clan of interest, the Kurama clan, who possessed a powerful Genjutsu based Kekkai Genkai. It was nice to know, but ultimately wasn't super important, as nobody currently in the clan had developed their Kekkai genkai to the point that they were of note to the village. Seeing as Nariko had taken down most of the military that Shimogakure had with no effort, she needed to train them up.

Someone came up to speak to her, a wimpy looking clerk that didn't appear to want to cause any issue. "Uhm... so, I suppose you're in charge now. I don't want to cause you any issues, but the Jounin you'd knocked out at the entrance of the village? They all left."

Nariko nodded. "I won't leave Shimogakure defenseless. I'm going over all the information I can find so that I know how best to utilize the resources of the country. Don't worry. The Land of Frost is definitely under Kumogakure's protection. I want us, and any further additions, to be equals and all benefit from each other. No more 'us and them', or minor nations and major nations. We are all equal. I intend to treat us as such."

The clerk's expression went from anxious to relieved, as he had been expecting to have earned her wrath. There had been stories that Kumo's Raikage was a blood thirsty Jashinist who killed anyone and everyone who crossed her path, but she hadn't bothered to kill the shinobi, merely knocking them out. Even though she killed the Elder Council, she obviously couldn't leave them in charge of the village, there wasn't a lot of choice there. The clerk had made a decision based off the hope that maybe the stories were a lie, and hearing how Nariko spoke, he was glad to see that he was right.

Nariko stood up, collecting some scrolls for her records. She'd been writing on them so she could easily remember which decisions she had made. "Look, I'm going to head back to Kumogakure soon. It should only take a few days or so for me to get some new forces down here. Also, I'll be giving the village some additional money, so that there are new jobs here during the reconstruction process, and everyone can get paid to do stuff."

She smiled and set to work with the clerk ironing out the details of her plans with him, so it could be chronicled. She wanted to be sure that the village knew without a doubt that she was here to help and not to just pillage and enslave the people. Anyone who wanted to leave would have the option, but Nariko was confident that they would stay. Most people would learn that Nariko wasn't super pro-Jashinist, she had just been the one to legalize it.

Still, Nariko had the information she needed, and everything had been ironed out as far as the finances were concerned. Frost would help defend Kumogakure on the land, while also increasing Kumogakure's Empire's total land, army, and funds. Things were going well. Next on Nariko's agenda would be the land of Snow.

-Travel back to Kumo