Casino Royal

Chapter 24: Casino Royal

-well into the one month break in the Chunin Exams-

"WAR!" Evil Jin screamed as he crested the earth release generated hill holding a hefty tree trunk over his head. 

Rivulets of sweat coursed down his teen bod, the vest plastered full of resistance seals on his chest making his every move ten times harder. Behind him the genin of Kirigakure struggled with just a seal or two holding them down as they continued Lord Fifth's brutal assigned strength and conditioning training. The rest of them longed for the hour a day in which one of the assembled jonin would unseal another clone of the exalted teacher to pass on more lessons on the path of the chunin. They yearned for the brief respite from hard training. Evil Jin wanted more weight.

Lord Fifth denied teaching him the Eight Gates when he asked the first of the unsealed clones, not denying his knowledge of the technique, just Evil Jin's place as a direct disciple of the master. Lacking that patronage, Evil Jin despaired not, and embarked on new personal mission to uphold his nindo: to surpass his former rival's physical performance with his raw basic strength. Evil Jin didn't need the Eight Gates, he just needed more weight. 

Having taken a moment to admire the view from the top, Evil Jin ran down the other side of the hill, lapping another of the genin again who simply held a small boulder over her head, just twenty six centimeters in diameter. 

"WAR!" he screamed as he passed her, Evil Jin's encouragement to not flag under the adversity, but to rejoice. 

Rejoice in the simple and fundamental quest for more weight.

-meanwhile at Kakashi's apartment- 

"Thank you for coming." Jiraiya greeted from the couch when Shikaku Nara quietly entered the apartment. 

"I find this clandestine meeting slightly treasonous." Shikaku responded as he slowly advanced to Kakashi's lounge chair and took it without even bothering to cast a glance at the silent host who leaned a shoulder against a wall and unsurprisingly had his masked nose stuffed into a cherished copy of a pornographic book. 

"You came anyway." Jiraiya dismissed his concern. 

The Jonin Commander sucked his teeth, "I am… slightly concerned about the recent shift in our deployments." 

"Its all wonderful to see the old man with the fight back in him…" Jiraiya began then tilted his head back allowing his long spiky ponytail to hand down the back of the couch to the wood floor, "He hasn't had an edge like this since the Third Great War… but his mind is making connections I'm just not seeing." 

"Why is that exactly?" Kakashi asked his first house guest, turning away from his porn for only a moment.

"Hmmmm…" Jiraiya exhaled slowly, "I don't blame him for missing it, sensei never bothered us about our romantic lives unless we chose to share them with him. For a guy with a magic ball that lets him peep anywhere in Konoha, he's remarkably respectful of people's personal lives so long as they aren't affecting work." a wistful smile played out on the man's face as he reminisced about his sensei's finer traits, "It's gracious, but leaves him with big blindspots into the true character of the people around him." 

"So you know something he doesn't, why set this up instead of talking to him about it?" Kakashi wondered aloud. 

"The old man has a fire burning in him again." Jiraiya frowned, "Even if I think it's aimed in the wrong direction, I won't stamp that out. Plus, with him taking this threat more seriously than he was when we suspected just Sound and Sand, Konoha's security will be harder to break. That's a win for everyone." 

"What exactly do you know that Lord Third doesn't." Shikaku cut through the practical sentimentality. 

"Remember in the meeting, how many times I brought up the whole, Zabuza fucks…a lot?" Jiraiya led and Shikaku nodded, "That wasn't just one super pervert's interest in how the guy brings the thunder, it's an important character trait. Especially so when you're talking about the guy being Orochimaru in a beefy skinsuit. Anyway, Zabuza fucks at least three times a day, often with three different partners in the same day. And those sessions almost invariably take advantage of how the guy just doesn't seem to need to reload, guy is seriously multi-orgasmic. The amount of jealousy I feel can flood the entire village." 

"Get to the point!" Shikaku shouted abruptly, "I could be napping right now." 

"Fine, do the same thing the old man did, throw vital characterization right out the window." Jiraiya mumbled, "It's important because Orochimaru has never in his entire life looked at another human being and felt any desire to fuck. The only time he gets up in someone's guts is on the battlefield or on the surgery table. Whatever fascination with anatomy the guy has begins at academics and ends at human augmentation." 

Kakashi lowered his book and cast his lone uncovered eye at the sanin on his couch, "You mean to tell me that despite the vast overlap in their MOs, and the man's knowledge of Konoha's forbidden techniques, you don't trust Lord Third's assessment because the man fucks?

Jiraiya nodded earnestly.

"Well, you are the man who would know best in this." Kakashi easily accepted the point, "My doubts began with the obvious interest in Sasuke Uchiha, something Zabuza showed no sign of in our brief encounter."

"Was this before or after he hit a second puberty?" Jiraiya asked as he threw an arm up over the backrest. 

"After." Kakashi confirmed. 

"I wonder what the hell that's about?" Jiraiya mused, "Has to be some kind of jutsu, maybe medical. His before and after are just ridiculous."

"Do I have to be here for any of this?" Shukaku interrupted the man's musing about mass. 

"Yeah." Jiraiya nodded, "I need you making the right choices when positioning our people around the Kirigakure crowd. No hot heads, it's gotta be calm and reasonable people who prefer surviving battles to winning glory. It's not a guarantee, but if Kira and Orochimaru aren't working together, we don't want some clout hound charging in and making a bad situation worse. We also need to be on the lookout for infiltrators, people in our uniform willing to run a suicidal false flag to drag Kiri into the fight against us. We already have enough on our plate with Sand and Sound making a play." 

Between Sensors and the Hyuga, it didn't take much effort to notice Sand moving a small army across the border, and they are the competent shinobi force arrayed against them. Sound's forces might as well march like samurai raising banners and banging drums. Konoha could crush them both with ease in the field, but with Orochimaru in charge they only can go so far with their idiocy. A substantial number of their shinobi, both Sand and Sound, are moving with clients towards Konoha for the Chunin Exams Finals, and stopping them cold ran the risk of driving off clients and tipping their hand. Orochimaru could call it off and leave Konoha looking like the bad guy. 

As much as he wanted to say 'Screw it' Jiraiya understood the need for a constant stream of satisfied clients. Konoha's economic diversity increased since the Sanin's childhood, but by and large this village made its bones in military and security contracting. Sunagakure's current waning state shows what happens when the clients dry up. Without the Fourth Kazekage, Rasa, exporting enough gold to risk the collapse of its value his village would have long since become a ghost town, and even now hovered just over the point of losing its status as one of the Five Great Hidden Villages, possibly even devolving back into the nomadic desert tribes that formed it. 

Jiraiya felt that Orochimaru and Rasa working together posed a significant threat, but neither man had any other known ringers in his corner, no shinobi of strategic importance. Zabuza Momochi and Ringo Ameyuri both poses a similar threat intensity, but also came with the rest of the swordsmen, and while none of them were considered strategic grade while alive, together they were known for holding up entire warfronts. 

"I just wish we had more elite manpower." Jiraiya sighed and looked down at the floor, "We've lost so many great shinobi in the prime of their lives. What I'd give to have Minato back." 

"Anything." Kakashi sighed as well.

"I'd actually prefer it if Tsunade never left." Shikaku joined in on the misery, "It's not just the big names we've lost. If she could have seen through her reforms, the Third Shinobi War wouldn't have been such a meat grinder, and the Nine Tails attack less of a disaster." 

"Yeah." Jiraiya agreed, "She's the what if that leaves the most bitter taste in my mouth." 

-meanwhile in a casino on the coast-

"Five hundred on red!" Tsunade Senju placed her bet loudly, with all the confidence of a sake bender behind her. 

"Max bet on black!" Hirohito and I shouted as we placed ours, our grins ear to ear as we continued to monetize the power of the Legendary Sucker. 

The woman with honey blonde hair and tits for days almost brought a tear to my eye. Its a rare woman that looks that good, and makes you fat stacks. Usually lookers like her drain your dosh faster than you drain your balls beating off after she dined and dashed your ass to get back to her situationship with some NBA reject. Hehehe. I miss modern dating. Nothing put the wind in my sails like the never ending trainwrecks of the singles world. 

"Please no!" screamed the manager of this casino, a made man of the local mob. 

His crime family ran this high end gambling den, as well as many other enterprises best summarized as cancerous to the social wellbeing of the city. 

"B-black…" the croupier anxiously announced. 

"Easy money." I crooned around my cigar as the gangster's despair rose even higher. 

Hirohito fanned himself with fat stacks of ryo, "Lady Senju, you have our thanks. I pray for your long life and continued luck." 

The pair of us laughed in her pissed off face. 

"Why I oughta!" she growled and we placed our bets again, once more doubling our max bet on the wheel. 

"How exploitative!" Hirohito declared in glee, "How immoral! Good thing we are a politician and a warlord, otherwise we might feel some qualms about this fabulous evening." 

I stared down the manager as his fearful sweat stained his clothes and puddled on the floor. 

"M-my lords," the man pleaded as he kept his head bowed, "Please consider the special show our theater will be playing now. The tickets for you and your retinue are on the house." 

Hirohito quietly glared at the man for trying to derail our evening, but I sought out a different form of enjoyment. 

"Beg." I commanded, one arm resting on Kubikiribocho as the other took the cigar from my mouth and I used my chakra to bombard the man with a stream of smoke that left his eyes watering and his countenance ashy. 

"Beg your pardon?" the nervous man asked.

"Beg us to stop taking your money." I explained, my eyes locked on the man. 

"Please, lords, stop taking our money." the man bowed lower.

I let out another gout of smoke that knocked him on his ass.

"You call that begging?" I snarled, "Do it like you see it when someone owes you too much money, and now you're going to take it out of their hide."

"Is that doing it for you?" Tsunade interrupted, her face flushed red with liquor, but she could purge that in a moment if needed, "Does bullying these civilians make you feel like a big man."

"Sure does." I quipped back, "Feels good." 

"What a disgrace." she muttered her delicate dynamite hands pressed on the thin band of polished wood wrapped around the red, black, and green roulette table. 

"You'd know best." I smirked around my cigar, readily reloading to continue tormenting the goon in charge of this classy joint. 

"What did you just say?" she demanded, not yet purging the full load of her sake, but noticeably sharper than a moment ago. 

Noticeably more pissed too.

"Said it louder than you did." I grinned then blasted the goon again. 

He dropped to his hands and knees coughing roughly as tears leaked out of his bloodshot eyes. Once he puts his head on the tile floor he'll finally be bowing low enough to show us the proper respect. It's like they don't teach people manners in this part of the world. I obviously had too high an opinion of the Land of Fire before this. These people both lack the sincerity of the country and the refinement of urban life. Pigs, the lot of them. 

"What's your problem?" Tsunade Senju growled, the notoriously violent woman showing admirable restraint due to our present company. 

If she started swinging in the presence of Hirohito, her Hiruzen granted privileges would get rescinded in a heartbeat. No one gets away with taking a shot at the Daimyos. They represent civil authority and legitimacy. Maybe she could get away with bullying one of the rulers from the lesser lands, but no one gets away with endangering one of the big five. Those who do are branded as criminals internationally, their own safety one of the few things the Daimyos all agree on. 

"Too many to count." I answered her question, and then turned to the gasping gangster, "Lower." 

"Yeah, you sound like a full blown basket case." she called me out, her light brown eyes blazing with intensity. 

What a stupid line. I almost felt so moved thinking it that I stopped imagining her face glazed with my nut from her chin to that purple diamond on her forehead. Almost. 

The gangster at last postured in the traditional dogeza, "Please, stop taking our money. Show mercy!" 

"Mercy, huh." I snickered, "If we were in the Land of Water, I'd throw you and everyone you know in cages, deep underground. None of you'd see the light of day again until I finished teaching you filthy lowdown animals how to behave like proper people." I took the cigar out of my mouth and tapped the ashes out onto the back of his head, "You and everyone like you are a cancer festering within humanity."

"You're not in the Land of Water." Tsunade interceded now fully sober.

"Mhm." I agreed easily, "And I sure am grateful. None of you people deserve to live under our rule." 

The people of the Land of Water don't either, but they get to anyways. That makes them a chosen people. I should start working that into the propaganda.

"They got strippers and whores at this theater show you guys got going on?" I asked the recovering casino manager. 

"All the strippers…" he wheezed, "All the whores." 

"What about chicken? How much chicken can a man eat at this show?" I inquired as he tried to put on a cheerful face. 

"All the chicken he can eat." he waived one of his men away. 

Likely to run out and get all the chicken, strippers, and whores in the city. At least, he better be getting them. These shmucks do not want to find out what I get like when I move from mild schadenfreude to full on disappointment. 

"What the hell are we waiting around here for?" I grinned as I stood up, "Take me to the titty meat! Nom nom, motherfuckers!" 

I tilted my head right then left, letting out two thunderous snaps before I began striding to the show, calling over my shoulder, "Later, losers." 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My mind has been beset by story ideas lately. I fought against them trying to focus on this, but it was futile. As soon as I wrote them all out, they left me in peace and I returned to my work. This story has really made me happy recently, or maybe I'm happy and so I can write. I watched JJK recently, and it inspired me to give anime another shot. I stopped watching years ago. I'm going to try out the new Bleach stuff next. I hear its pretty dope, something I haven't felt about Bleach since Hueco Mundo snatched the fun right out the show for me.