Naruto: The Blind Swordsman

Chapter 194: Wedding Morning, Meeting and Tensions

_________ POV Narration _________

Ken smiled as he took one last sip of his drink.

The night had come and went.

Plenty of presents were open and tears of happiness were shed.

It truly was a joyous evening.

Morita had managed to keep Akira in check for most of the night, though the third blade did end up decapitating himself whilst dancing just to pull off some weird dance move.

Being immortal gave one strange ideas at times. Ken didn't judge him regardless, but it had scared plenty of the guests present.

The only ones to laugh it off instantly were the bride and groom, being far too happy to get scared at that moment in their lives.

The Third Blade was already a rather infamous insane immortal anyway. The only odd thing there was the fact that he had even been invited to the wedding.

Regardless, no one really dared to call into question any of Ken's plus ones.

Tatsukio had shown everyone that he could dance even if he literally only had one left foot. Though his dance mostly involved his hands and hopping about, it was impressive.

The Forth Blade had a monstrous amount of dexterity and was beyond accustomed to his 'lack' of balance, which made the feat of dancing to the beat rather easy for him.

His balance was something that they could fix. Saburo had already made prosthetics for a lot of the children at Ken's request. They were fully working wooden prosthetics controlled by the children's chakra, concepts similar to puppetry.

But Tatsukio never really wanted a prosthetic, he saw his current state as normal. He didn't see the need to fix it. It was, in a way, similar to Ken's lack of vision.

He may have been able to look further into ways of repairing his vision, but he never really cared as he felt that he was stronger without it.

Giving Ken vision was like giving him another way to overload his senses even further. Even if he managed to find a way to have eyes, he would likely keep them covered at all times just due to how much of a liability they could become.

He'd suddenly become more susceptible to ocular Genjutsu, his other senses would also likely weaken slightly, which would affect his reaction time among other things... It was just not worth it.

The only thing the eye could have been useful for was for Ken to be able to also 'see' colours. But even without colour, the Blind Assassin could see even better than all of the people around him anyway.

Even if he couldn't see the colour of Kushina's wedding dress, he still knew that she was wearing one, and he could still appreciate its beauty in silence.

It was the same for Minato's heartwarming smile. He could not see his young face wrinkling as he smiled as widely as possible in the most sincere way possible... But he could still feel it.

More importantly, he could feel the love between the two of them. It was almost tangible during that special night.

Even when Minato ended up getting drunk after losing a drinking game with Ken. Kushina's love was unwavering.

Even when he was running around tagging and teleporting people around while laughing like an idiot, she still loved him, even though she almost caved his skull in with a punch.

As it turned out, the Flying Thunder God Jutsu was a lot stronger than Ken expected. He had instinctively avoided getting tagged, but Akira hadn't.

And even someone of the Third Blade's caliber was teleported around. Minato could also seemingly reach him in an instant, from every distance.

What was even creepier was the fact that Ken, a Fuinjutsu Master in his own right, couldn't conceive a way to get rid of that mark. Rather, it was made to only be removable and easy to detect to the one that had placed it.

Minato had grown into a proper monster already.

Had the war still been ongoing, Ken was sure that the Blonde Man would have had a 'Do-Not-Engage' order against him within his first few skirmishes.

Ken doubted that there was anyone among the Kage that could touch Minato.

Well, it seemed he couldn't teleport someone like Akira around more than once or twice without running out of chakra.

It couldn't be helped. Minato had a pretty impressive chakra pool, but he was no Uzumaki.

Thankfully he was having a kid with one though, so Ken had a rather interesting seedling to look forward to.

'A child with Minato's talent and jutsu, coupled with the Uzumaki's insane chakra levels, durability and maybe even Bloodline Limit... They really are going to be raising a monster.'

But the Blind Monster was going to have to wait quite a bit to meet their child.

For now, even though the wedding was just over and his Blades had gone off to sleep, he still had matters to attend to.

The Hokage's office was already full despite it being only morning.

Every notable figure within the Alliance was present, with the obvious exception of Mifune, or the Daimyo of the Land of Iron, who were not able to make it on such short notice.

The Raikage sat down at the very centre of the room, seats were arranged surrounding the Hokage's desk, where he sat.

Sakumo, the White Fang, was behind him at that time. He was still the acting Anbu Captain, and he seemed to prefer that position over that of Kage as well, which worked out great for Minato.

Aside from Sakumo, there was also Fugaku Uchiha, the Wicked Eye.

The current leader of the Uchiha clan, and a man who was also a possible contender for future Hokage.

Yorihikko was sat off on the left side of the room, whilst Ken came in last and sat down quietly on the right seat, crossing his legs and leaning backwards into that comfortable chair.

"Sakumo, Fugaku! It's been a while, you were both mostly in the shadows at the wedding, so we didn't get to speak much." The Blind Assassin's attention was first directed towards the Anbu Captain, who nodded in greeting to him.

"I was merely carrying out my duties and making sure everything was running smoothly." Sakumo was always a humble man, he handled a lot of matters related to the internal security of the village, and that influx of people coming in likely gave him a lot of extra work.

It was a good thing that he still had the Uchiha to assist, their Police Force was very beneficial to the safety of the village.

Fugaku didn't outright respond verbally, he merely nodded to Ken in greeting, keeping a rather cold facade in the meantime.

"I heard your kids are doing quite well... Sakumo's seems quite talented, Kakashi was it? I think I 'saw' him at the wedding briefly."

The Blind Assassin didn't seem to care about the atmosphere in the room as he continued to ask about the Anbu Captain's private life.

"Indeed. He has already graduated from the academy for a while now. He's actually in Minato's team. A rather nice twist of fate."

The White Fang smiled with quite a bit of warmth when talking about his son.

"Excuse me, but I believe we have more important matters to discuss..." The Raikage was the one to bring Ken back to the subject of their meeting.

"Well, I wouldn't say the matters we'll be discussing are more important than our future generations." Ken yawned as he slowly reached for his mask and took it off, placing it in his lap as he stretched a bit.

"Hmph, you say that, yet my Cloud Village has been a rather important member of the Three Corners Alliance.

I doubt you will be so cavalier when I decide to retreat from our alliance..." The Raikage's words seemed to have a bit of pride and spite contained within them, but Ken didn't react much.

"You were certainly important for the foundation of the Alliance, that much I cannot argue against... But we have grown enough to the point where I won't fight you if you decide to leave." Yorihhiko drank some tea as he spoke out from the side.

He had not liked the Raikage from the get-go, so he certainly was not going to be against him leaving.

"The Alliance certainly won't fall apart without the Raikage, but we would still lose quite a bit of influence on the World Stage...

All of a sudden we won't be as unreachable a force as before, now would we?" The Hokage, like always, huffed from his pipe first thing in the morning whilst debating the matter.

After all, the Cloud Village was a rather strong establishment.

It was likely the second strongest village right behind the Leaf Village.

They were holders of two powerful Tailed Beasts, as well as a Shinobi of the Raikage's calibre, someone truly capable of shifting the tides of war on his own.

Of course, their Alliance was still filled with powerful people, but they would lose some standing if the Cloud left the alliance.

Trust in the strength of their alliance would also dwindle in the eyes of the noble clans, which was not that great.

But Ken still didn't seem to be phased by the discourse around him.

Despite his mask being off, his sharp features were still unmoving, his demeanour cold as ice. It was as if his own face was also nothing more than a porcelain mask.

"I have already grown strong enough to uphold this peace on my own. This Alliance has done its job already. Right now it only exists to benefit your Hidden Villages. If the Raikage wishes to back out, I do not care."

Despite speaking about someone who was once his friend, he didn't display any emotions whilst mentioning him.

Ken had truly seen the Raikage as a friend, but he knew he had done something unforgivable. So he had already distanced himself from the man emotionally.

The Raikage, as well as everyone else present, seemed to be quite taken aback by Ken's words.

"You think you're strong enough to maintain peace on your own?!? Are you delusional?" The Raikage got up and walked up to Ken in a flurry of emotions.

Ken didn't get up, he just relaxed his head and turned his face towards the Raikage.

"I was only 15 when the two of us fought in front of the world, I was stronger than you back then... Right now, I stand in front of you near my physical prime. A fully grown monster."

The Blind Assassin slowly sat up, his entire muscle and bone structure shifting, to the point where, when standing up fully, he was a head taller than even the Raikage.

"I have already reached it. The strength of the First Hokage. This era will be one of peace, purely because I say so.

I do not care for the games that the nobles want to play, they will learn this the hard way."

Ken's voice was about as intimidating as his aura. His sharp features seemed to grow even sharper as he flexed every muscle in his body, including his jaw.

The Raikage took a step back, a bead of sweat rising on his forehead as the assassin's bloodthirsty aura washed over him.

"Hmm... I guess I should have expected this." The Hokage smiled, looking at Ken with admiration. He was the first one in the room to fully and instantly believe Ken.

And as soon as he did, Sakumo and Fugaku seemed to also accept that fact.

Even the Raikage couldn't bring himself to refute it, no matter how much he wanted to.

It was only logical. Ken had not reached his physical peak yet, but he proved himself to be able to beat the Raikage without even sustaining any significant injuries back then.

Now? Now he was likely even more monstrous than before.

"... But the First Hokage didn't just have his strength. If I remember correctly, he also had every Tailed Beast subjugated under him."

That was the only retort that the Raikage could come up with in front of Ken.

"How hard do you think it would be for me to kidnap all of the Tailed Beasts? The only real question here is if it would take me a full week or a month to pull off, and we know that..."

Ken scowled slightly at the Raikage's weak retort.

The Tailed Beasts didn't matter in the First Hokage's era. He had literally treated them as household pets.

All that mattered was that his overwhelming strength was enough to keep everyone else at bay.

He gave the Tailed Beasts to the other villages, but it would have been just as easy for him to take them back and even destroy the other villages in the process.

The world really was lucky that Hashirama had been a pacifist at heart.

Now it was Ken's turn on that throne though.

"So, what is it going to be, A? Do you wish to remain within the Alliance and just benefit from it quietly? Or do you want to leave?"

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