_________ POV Narration _________ 

The Months rolled by, and everything moved swiftly enough.

The Dark Brotherhood compound was already well on its way to being rebuilt. 

Ken's 14th birthday had also come and gone, with little reaction as no one in the brotherhood knew when his birthday was.

The Father's age was a bit of an awkward subject for some of the children.

Even if he took the role of a father and all of them saw him as such, knowing his age was likely breaking the illusion in some way to some of the children.

At least Ken thought so, which was why he kept his birthday on the down low. 

Thankfully, the Brotherhood no longer had any urgent matters to attend to.

For the most part, the compound was rebuilt, at least to the point where the children gleefully moved back into more permanent residences.

Construction crews were still working on a few buildings, like the library or the leader's office, which was now designed to be a completely separate building from Ken's and the Blade's sleeping arrangements.

It was decidedly that way, as Tosho saw it fit to structure the compound a bit differently.

Other than that, the children that had been injured had also recovered. The situation had made Ken realize that the Brotherhood was still lacking dearly in something quite crucial... A healing division. 

But he was going to have to iron out the details of that at some other point. 

For the most part, all operations were successfully restarted. 

Uzunaki Kazue, Kushina's brother and Yorihihiko's oldest son, had also returned. He was understandably quite disappointed to have missed out on the war, but it couldn't have been helped.

No one had bothered to inform him, and he was too preoccupied with spending quality time and getting to know his sister.

But now that he was back with the Brotherhood, he started his lectures once more, continuing to teach the younger members more about Fuinjutsu.

Jiraiya, the Toad Sannin, had also returned. Just in time for Ken's Senjutsu classes to start once more. 

 Ken did consider kicking him out at one point, as he was technically no longer needed as a 'spy' within the Leaf Village.

But he did hear from the Hokage about the Sannin's assistance on the Leaf helping the Brotherhood, so he decided to just teach him Senjutsu earnestly for the time being. 

In the end, Jiraiya's progress was still admittedly slow.

Meanwhile, the most talented of Ken's pupils in Senjutsu was still Ume, the little girl was already a more perfect sage than Jiraiya, she had achieved that in under two months in fact.

The Toad Sage was understandably very disappointed in himself when he noticed that Ume had overtaken him, but in the end, it only motivated him to put more work into his training.

Overall, he was now upgraded from a forest dweller residing outside of the Brotherhood to having a dormitory within the compound. 

His contribution in convincing the Hokage to help the brotherhood and subsequently join the alliance was something that Ken's lack of eyes clearly recognized. 

Of course, Jiraiya's residence within the Brotherhood came with a rather heavy set of rules.

Including, but not limited to, not having any access or line of sight towards the bathhouse during the girl/female bathing hours, and not being allowed near them during training in general. 

Jiraiya was quite offended at the insinuation that he'd creep on little girls, but he didn't argue as he understood that the first impression he had left on Ken was not going to vanish easily. 

Thanks to Sage Mode, Ume had managed to reach a level that was slightly above most of the other children, easily raising her to the upper top 10 of all recruits in the brotherhood. 

But people like Morita(Nr.2) and even Yue(now Nr.3) could still dispatch her quite easily due to a difference of skill. 

Tatsukio, the one-legged devil, was still the Nr.1 among the recruits, and Ken was already considering that it was time for him to be promoted to a Blade...

'Well, simply promoting him won't do... I guess we should do another ranking tournament... With the winner being promoted. This way everyone feels like they have a chance.' 

In truth, Ken did have high expectations of the others as well.

He knew that many, especially Morita and Yue, would try to find some creative strategies to take down Tatsukio. He was looking forward to 'seeing' their skills on display. 

Still, it was going to have to wait for a bit. 

First off, it was finally time for things to settle down in the shinobi world. The Three Corners Alliance was going to make itself known to the world, and they were to put an end to bloodshed.

Ken knew that he was entering a different warfare now, a political one. But he had already prepared all of the weapons and the smoking guns needed to put the world at a standstill. 

Now, prolonging that standstill was the actual goal, but the Blind Assassin knew that he'd have to take things one step at a time. 

And now was the start of the first step. 

Ken slowly dug his index finger's nail into his thumb, made a few quick hand signs and slowly placed his hand on the table. 

"Summoning Jutsu..." He whispered as a cloud of smoke appeared in front of him.

From that cloud of smoke emerged a larger-than-average bat, its eyes flickered a bit as it slowly shook its entire body and got used to the natural energy-filled air around it.

"Hmm~ Lord Ken, thank you for calling upon us, it has been a while." 

The bat had an aged voice, upon closer inspection, it was also rather wrinkly and had a thick beard, larger than its entire body. 

An elder bat that went by the name Koromaru, his wrinkly body was quite fat which led to it just being called the great round one by the others. 

Ken smiled as soon as he sensed the bat land on his desk. 

"It hasn't been that long, but I want you to send that message to the others as well."

"Oh? Things are finally moving along then?" Koromaru gasped for a bit before giving Ken a sharp-toothed smile. 

He didn't need to be told exactly what message to deliver, as it had been drafted beforehand.

It was simply announcing to the other members of the alliance that they were going public. All of the members were going to be taking very specific actions right upon the announcement.

It was all to put pressure on the Noble Families of the Elemental Nations. 

Yuichi, the Land of Iron's Daymio had already agreed to personally help with the alliance. It seemed that Mifune had the power to convince him as he had said.

Either that or his interests and desires aligned with Ken's goal as well, which was why he was very much on board with it. 

The very first thing that would happen was the Land of Iron breaking its renowned neutrality and getting personally involved in ending all of the conflicts in the areas surrounding its territory and sphere of influence. 

Yuichi was also going to send a delegation to each elemental nation declaring that the war was to come to an end at the behest of the alliance, he was going to be the Alliance's representative to all of the Noble families. 

"Naturally. It was only a matter of time and preparedness." 

Ken smiled a bit as he knew that everyone was ready and itching to end the war properly. Their alliance was already starting to become prosperous for everyone involved, which helped improve relations between the Cloud, Uzumaki and Leaf as well.

They were a long shot from being on friendly terms, but at least they were not at each other's throats. 

"Understood~ Other than that, there is something else that needs your attention." The elderly bat spoke in a relaxed voice, but Ken could tell from its tone that the situation was quite serious.

With a slight smirk, he decided to do his best and guess at what that information may be. 

"Let me guess... Hanzo the Salamander is growing more and more uncomfortable with the Dark Brotherhood-funded Akatsuki within his midst, right?" 

The Bat smirked, leading Ken to realise that he had hit it square on the money.

It wasn't long before Kaya, the bat he had left with the Akatsuki, had reported that Hanzo's forces were scouting out the group of orphans with rather unfriendly eyes. 

Not long after the war, Ken did good on his promise and started supplying the Akatsuki properly, with both money and necessities. 

The problem came due to the fact that Hanzo was not quite appreciative of what was essentially an insurgency of rogue shinobi. 

It was a lot worse when, upon observing the Akatsuki for a while, he concluded that they were receiving funding from an outsider. That always spelt trouble. 

 Hanzo would normally have simply attacked them preemptively. Nipping the problem in the bud and killing all the Akatsuki including its leaders.

But not long after he found out about the Akatsuki having a sponsor, he received a letter from none other than Ken, explaining the situation.

It had claimed him down a bit, at least made him hold off on taking them out just yet. Especially since Ken had described the Akatsuki as just a group of War Orphans building a home for themselves, and not an Insurgency.

Now the validity of Ken's words was still up for debate in Hanzo's eyes, but at least he could rest easy for a while.

After all, what kind of scheme would it have been if the 'secret supporter' of the Akatsuki contacted him directly? 

The support for the Akatsuki kept rolling in and the group continued to grow bigger and bigger.

Ken, out of respect for Hanzo, explicitly held back in supplying the Akatsuki with weapons and techniques, but the Akatsuki was seemingly still growing stronger even without that. 

Now that they didn't have to worry about food and basic needs, they had all the time in the world to acquire techniques themselves and grow stronger.

A few months was all that was needed for them to become a force significant enough to make Hanzo want to once again get rid of them it seemed.

Or at least that was what Kaya's latest report that Ken was hearing currently was saying. 

'I guess I will have to pay the Land of Rain a personal visit once more while the wheels are turning and the Three Corner Alliance is being announced.' 

Ken then dismissed Koromaru, the old bat, and slowly stood up.

He slipped his mask back on and slowly walked out of the door of his office, running directly into Tosho, who was currently wearing a more casual attire. 

His face was uncovered, but the Samehada was still on his back. 

"Master, are you going for a walk?" The First Blade quickly saluted Ken and bowed slightly. 

The Blind Assassin simply nodded and shrugged.

"Something like that. Going for a short stroll in the Land of Rain, Hanzo needs a talking to before he does something he'll regret..." 

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Heya! Hope you liked the chapter! 

Finally managed to write a chapter, took me a while but I am both busy and struggling with inspiration tbh. Hoping to get my shit together soon tho :)) 

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