The flock flies well over the clouds in the night sky. Zina looks over to her sides and sees tiny flames flake off the long wings to either side of her. They disperse slowly and fade away into the starry backdrop. ‘Beautiful.. will I be able to do this someday? Soar higher than an air bison ever could?’

For a moment, she is tempted to let go and stretch her own arms out. To abandon herself to the freedom of the skies. Perhaps sensing that her grip is slipping, the leader reminds her, “Hold on tight.”

With the roar of the air reduced, Zina could hear his deep voice clearly. She thinks, ‘Now is as good a time as any to get some information.’

She tightens her grip and asks, “What’s your name?”

“Rio.”

“Where are we going?”

“You already know.”

“No I don’t! All you said was that I’d meet my people.”

He sarcastically quips, “It’s called Phoenix Village.”

Returning to a deadpan, Zina feels like hitting this guy again. That tells her nothing new! Then again, he speaks with a husky voice that she secretly has a soft spot for, especially after establishing that they aren’t enemies, so she lets it slide. As her patience returns, she continues, “Can you give me some information on what I can expect there?”

“Hmm. There’s rules.”

“Okay.. and what are those rules?”

“Too many to say.”

Blood rushes to Zina’s face. ‘Rio..! For someone with such a pretty name and voice, you.. You are.. infuriating!’ is what she wants to say to him, but as much as she’s treating this like a vacation, she’s still aware of her status as a hostage of some sort.

She composes herself and changes tack, “Fine. Who was Zaheer working for? He kept mentioning elders.”

Abandoning his usual reticence, Rio explains this topic thoroughly, “In ancient times, more than 20,000 years ago, there were four Divine Beasts: the Vermillion Bird ruling over Fire, the Azure Dragon ruling over water, the White Tiger ruling over Air, and the Black Tortoise ruling over Earth. The only records we have of these times are the drawings of cavemen and what we can piece together from the oral history.”

“The mythos claims a powerful Outside Enemy heralded the end of these Divine Beasts. In any case, they disappeared abruptly, and human civilization has grown in their absence. We of the four ancestral villages have a trickle of the Divine blood in our bodies. Some have more than others. Zaheer is from Tiger Village.. and he has a negligible amount. We know of no one in Tiger Village to have any signs of atavism. A foreboding sign.”

Zina’s breath hitches as she listens. She has so many questions. ‘Don’t dragons control fire? Why would turtles control earth? What is this Outside Enemy? Did the Divine Beasts sacrifice themselves to kill the Outside Enemy? Why did my mothers only know their history starting from 10,000 years ago, the time of Avatar Wan? Is Tiger Village in trouble? Why didn’t Zaheer ask for our help?’

All she has are more and more questions, but she senses that these four ancestral villages are shrouded in secrecy. How is she to respond when the normally silent Rio tells her all of these secrets freely? On one hand, she feels herself drawn with curiosity and passion to discover all the mysteries of the past. On the other hand, all she wants to do is to learn about the people similar to her and then go back home to her friends once she’s satisfied.

‘I’m not one of you yet! I still have a choice! .. Don’t I?’

With these discomforting thoughts, Zina sinks into silence. An hour passes. In the boredom of the silence, she falls into a state of half-sleep, still gripping the poles, but also not quite conscious of time.

Rio’s voice rouses her awake. He speaks loudly, intended for the ears of his subordinates. 

“Ready?”

They arrange themselves on either side of him in a tighter V-formation and reply, “Yes, Boss.”

“Whuz happenin’?” Zina tries to shake away her drowsiness. The horizon’s conditions indicate that the night has passed. It is just prior to sunrise.

Rio says in his usual deep timbre, “Wrap your arms around me. We are diving soon.”

“Huh? Dive?” She recalls their difficult entry into the air and immediately does as he says. ‘Well shit. That sounds.. scary! Can’t this guy stop sounding so serious all the time and save his actual serious voice for times like this?!’

The flock leans downward and starts to pick up speed as they slowly stop opposing gravity. Zina locks her hands together around Rio’s chest and blushes. She has hugged male friends before, but this moment is far too extended to be passed off as a normal hug.

She gets a good sense of her captor’s body too. Rio is much less bulky in musculature than her boorish brother. Admittedly, she’s into tall and lean men. Putting her daydreams aside, her uneasiness increases with their speed.

They enter a vertical freefall. The drag force and winds are too strong, so Zina closes her eyes. Rio’s wings furl back together, shielding Zina’s face and reducing their combined surface area. Like a conical missile, he careens downward, along with his subordinates close behind him. Flame spits out of his wings, accelerating them even further, until *voosh* a sonic boom resounds as the sun’s first light peeks out of the horizon and the whole group vanishes.

A minute later, when they slow down and steady themselves, Rio says, “We’re here.”

Zina can hear the pride in his voice. She opens her eyes. Far in the distance, she spots four massive land masses full of greenery in the clouds. “Woah! You live on floating islands?”

Solemnly, he replies, “No, we shelter upon Lion Turtles.”

~ ~ ~

“Lady Tsunade, I have returned.” A serious-faced lady in medic ninja garb directly enters the Hokage’s office.

Tsunade stirs drowsily atop her desk, “Meh.. wha? Shizune? Let me sleep.” She drops her head back onto the desk.

Shizune is Daiki’s niece, and the only remaining family member of Tsunade’s former lover. She has been under Tsunade’s wing for many years. Shizune starts cleaning up the room and smuggling away the remaining alcohol before Tsunade regains full consciousness. Sensing the ill intent a moment too late, Tsunade shoots her head up only to see Shizune smiling innocently in a bare room.

“Humph, fine.” Tsunade has an inkling of what happened, but no evidence. This is not the first time Shizune has taken up the responsibility of mothering her. Wiping the drool off her face, Tsunade says, “I’m awake. What’s the news?”

Shizune hides a victorious smile and delivers her debrief, “The strange thing about Kirigakure and the rest of the Land of Water to our east is that there is no news. No drops in the prices of seafood, pearls, or salt, and no sign of any smugglers.”

“So..” Tsunade mutters, “..Do you reckon Danzo is right?”

Shizune narrows her eyes and solemnly states, “The possibility is high. He claims that he lost all his spies in a three day period two months ago and that Kiri has ensured all their prices remain artificially high ever since. As he projected, a huge move towards a police state is most likely the case. There’s no other explanation for why the free market is so disrupted. Competing merchants aren't suicidal enough to collude together to drive up prices on their own. When I spoke to a merchant representative, she would not budge on her price and seemed scared the entire time.”

Tsunade taps on her desk and mutters, “Terumi.. what the hell are you doing?”

An inconspicuous red light at the underside of Tsunade’s desk starts flashing. She glances down and tells Shizune, “Kage Summit. Please watch over me.” Before Shizune can reply, Tsunade exits the mortal realm and her body falls limp onto her desk again. Shizune sighs and sets up some additional security measures. At worst, she can wake Tsunade up. Her teacher is strong enough to notice disturbances to her mortal body from the spirit realm.

Tsunade appears in a random jungle in the Spirit Realm, raises her guard, and teleports to the agreed upon meeting spot. It’s a shady grove and there’s two men there already. One is a shrunken old geezer and the other is a blonde-haired black man a little bit older than herself. They all nod to each other, politely.

She walks in the direction of the hulking black man and passes him. He follows her. She teleports away and appears near a river. Taking a few steps forward, she dips her bare feet in the flowing water, splashes some on her face, and rapidly brushes her teeth before standing up again. From behind her, an arm wraps around her waist and another hand cups her heavy breast. A smile rises involuntarily to her lips at the successful lure. She teases, “You have a bad habit of greeting my chest before you greet me, A.”

A is a mountain of a man and towers more than a foot (30cm) over Tsunade. His manner of speech is that of confident rumble, "Can you blame me?” He gropes playfully enough to threaten to release her tits from her haori.

Tsunade rubs his girthy bulge between her asscheek and her hand. “Well.. I suppose not.” She leans her head back onto his chest and he pulls her chin to the side to claim an overhead kiss. Returning it, her whole body flushes red with arousal.

In some sick twist of fate, her body is infatuated with this man. The only time this hadn’t been the case was when she was in love with Daiki. This imposing hunk is the Raikage, the leader of Kumogakure, which is located in the Land of Lightning to the northeast of Konoha. He is a man that she, as the Hokage, can never allow herself to love. To each of them, Tsunade and A, their responsibility to their people and loyalty to their nation overshadows their.. more primitive desires.

Lightning flashes rhythmically on his fingers, which have encroached over the crotch section of her black tights, and Tsunade experiences a familiar growing tide of small ecstasies. She pulls back from his overly passionate kiss and pushes his zappy hand away from her slit. Attempting not to betraying the depths of her arousal and how much she wants him to fuck her silly (as only he can), she tries to pry some secrets out of him, “W-who called the Summit?”

He responds automatically, “I did.” and starts pinching her erect nipples with one hand and kneading her ass with the other. “Girl.. you are so thicc..”

Tsunade shudders, starts to raise her guard, and tries to keep focus. In a harder voice, she asks, “Why?”

“You know why.”

She has to admit she does know why. All that shit with Naruto yesterday in public.

He continues with a tender smile, “I’m doing this for you. You should have been the one to call the summit to stay ahead of this. Let me guess, Shizune was away?”

Tsunade pushes A off her body and fumes silently. ‘Why does he insist on ruining the moment by bringing up my family, acting like he cares for my well-being, and treating this as more than what it is? We’re only occasional fuckbuddies..’

She raises his eyes to him and gives him a stern look. “Thank you, Lord Raikage.. but I know all of you want to know exactly what happened from my own words. It’s not your place or priority to worry about me.”

A’s shoulders drop slightly in nearly imperceptible disappointment. Someone of Tsunade’s calibur can tell though and a small stab of guilt pokes at her conscience. He says professionally, “Of course, Lady Hokage. We shouldn’t keep the others waiting.”

“Yeah.. but hold your horses there, stud.” She points out the fact that he’s still sporting a huge boner. They don’t want to overtly make a fool of themselves to the other Kages, even though anyone with a brain can pick up on the smoldering sexual tension between the two.

A chuckles and thanks her. They forcefully suppress both of their bodies' reactions within half a minute and make their way back to the Summit. The seats are filled. Everyone is present.