In need of a brief chat.

Draconis was mad, though his rage was dying down a little. His first mission as a jounin and he had goofed it up. Worse yet, there was literally no way he could have succeeded in this mission either, so he was going to have to talk to my Hokage man about how to deal with this, what Jason wanted him to do, since there are a lot of ways to go about this and not all of them were nice ways to go.

Kozai Yuki... he possessed an annoyingly powerful defense that Draconis was not able to access yet, he did not even have the DNA of the same clan unlocked yet, which did not make him any more cheerful. To obtain that same raw power... a lot of training was in order apparently.

He had sent a letter to the Hokage, requesting a meeting time, now, he sat in the waiting room, waiting for his turn. Looks like the recent incidents had brought about a lot of people to see the Hokage, and Draconis just hoped that he would not have to wait the entire day for his turn.

When it was his turn, the young jounin would walk up to the Hokage's door, knock, and say "Draconis Hyuuga, jounin, requesting an audience."

Jason was sitting at his desk. The office had become messier than it used to be. There were papers scattered everywhere, water bottles littered the floor and crumpled half finished notes and letters surrounded the trash bin next to the desk. Jason was at his wits end. He had suffered a big blow to his ego in the fight with Coco, the Chuunin from Kumogakure. She was very skilled and managed to knock Jason out in the fight. That on top of the new alliance with Hoshigakure and the sudden death of one of his newest ninja was weighing on him. The loss of Stein meant the loss of Shigure, Dante and Alucard as well. He didn't know the other two very well but he had come to like Shigure and missed her presence. Now Jason sat in the dimly lit office thinking about what he should do next.

He knew he needed to write to Denkiteki and Akihana of Hoshigakure like Maku had said but he was afraid of how he would appear if the news of his loss to Coco had spread that far. And if it hadn't he was sure it would be only fair for him to let them know of it. He also needed to get some things from Stein's corpse, wherever that may be now. Jason had heard a rumor that Touken was currently in possession of the body. If that were true then Jason would have to pay his friend a visit. Jason knew that Stein was in possession of two pairs of sharingan eyes taken from two Uchiha boys and he wanted to get a hold of them so he could either return them to their proper owners or hold onto them for safe keeping until the boys were ready to have them back. 

A knock on the door and a request for an audience snapped the disheveled Jason out of it. He would merely say "enter" as he lazily pushed his messy black hair out of his face. Bags were clearly visible under Jason's eyes, a sign of how little he had been sleeping the past few days. He pushed those thoughts of Stein and Hoshi out of the forefront of his mind as he waited for Draconis to enter the office.

Draconis walked in and was a little taken aback. Dude, the Hokage looked as wasted as some frat boyz. And by that, he meant really wasted, emotionally and maybe physically as well. Nah, the Hokage was a kewl dude, he probs was not doing any wierd stuff like that, they probably had required drug testing for those angling for the position of "Hokage". Perhaps, the Hokage needed something besides a jounin asking for advice, it seemed he might be mentally unstable. Draconis hoped he did not have a knife on hand, cause he might snap at any moment, you know?

And then there was the state of the office. Trash, discarded and half written notes, and other assorted papers spanned the width of the room, the length as well. In fact, it looked like the Hokage was the only potentially "clean" spot and he was in bad shape as well. Dayum.

And yes, before anyone asks, Draconis knows that good little teenagers don't swear.

And because Draconis was a vague manip-ing little piece of crap, Jason was sitting in his Mr Hokage Man chair, in a decidedly unhappy manner.

Resisting the urge to call the Hokage by just "Yo, Boss!" Draconis opened his big fat trap to speak: "Lord Hokage... I was gonna ask you about something but it looks like other issues are taking a bit of priority. Umm... what seems to be the problem? My stuff can wait a bit."

Draconis watched carefully the Lord Hokage mister person, because he looked kind of sick and unhappy. Hopefully there were not too many issues going on but you never know, the Hokage could have been in the middle of a raging hangover and Draconis had chosen the wrong time to come in.

(Draconis keeps secrets, though admittedly he is not the best therapist)

Jason let a small smile creep across his face as the Jounin in front of him asked what was on Jason's mind. He mentioned asking Jason about something as well but, if Jason were to guess, it seemed the state of the office and Jason himself changed Draconis' mind and made him a bit concerned about his Hokage. That made Jason feel a little better. At least not everyone would abandon him after his embarrassing loss to Coco. He thought for a minute on whether or not he should share his issues with the Hyuuga boy in front of him. Deciding it couldn't hurt to get some of this off his chest he spoke.

     "The stress of being Hokage is getting to me. I've lost a good friend and with that the eyes of two Uchiha boys. I need to find those eyes so I can return them. On top of that I need to write some letters to the village of Hoshigakure to secure this alliance. I'm afraid of how I must look after losing that fight with the Kumo Chuunin. Speaking of Kumo, I have to make it known that Konoha is not to affiliate itself with anyone from Kumo anymore as a condition of the alliance with Hoshi. I feel as if I haven't made many good decisions since I've become Kage. I've been rash and greedy. I made you fight Kozai Yuki when I should have been the one to do it and get him out of the village. In fact I never should have allowed him to stay in the village in the first place. I'm truly sorry for that." Jason would pause at this point. His eyes were looking straight through Draconis as he was drawn back into his thoughts. How could he get stronger so that nothing like his fight with Coco would happen again? What should he do next about the village. 

     Coming back after only a few seconds, Jason would speak again. If Draconis had said anything in the brief pause then Jason would respond in kind. If he didn't speak then Jason would continue. "Anyway enough about my issues. What has brought you here today? I'll do what I can to help you with whatever it is."

A chuunin from Kumo huh?





“I had heard rumours of a Kumo Chuunin coming to challenge the Konoha Chuunin but I did not know anything else had happened.”





Draconis was a little surprised though to hear that the Hokage was beat by a chuunin. Ok, more than a ltitle surprised. “Did you manage to catch any of her fighting style? Perhaps, Kumogakure has a good way of training their ninjas that we could emulate.”





He was definitely taken aback by the forthrightness of the Hokage though this was to be expected a little bit given Jason’s attitude before.





“So, Mister Boss Hokage Man, what was…” Draconis’ voice trailed off as he realized he had spoken what he was literally thinking. “Actually, my mistake, but what do you want me to refer to you by? I don't believe I asked you last time we met.”





He had a lot of questions, more now that some random Kumo chuunin had beat the Hokage in some kind of fight. “In any case you should have a nap or something, at some point, you look like you need a bit of rest.”

"Lord Hokage or Lord Sixth is fine. Don't worry, I'll get some rest later. It's just been a rough couple of weeks. Anyway what brought you here Draconis? I haven't seen you in my office in a while." 

It was true. Jason hadn't seen Draconis since he promoted him to Jounin. Jason knew Draconis had fought with Kozai a while back before Jason managed to convince Kozai to leave the village. It wasn't often that he saw the Jounin so of course with everything else going on Jason was curious as to the reason for the visit.

(sorry its short, i do better with more to work with XD)

(ooc: I'm hoping for a bit of a protracted conversation, then we can spam wc xD)

Draconis' previously unspecified expression was as serious as he was wont to be, for no particular reason for once.

"Lord Hokage..." Draconis paused, he had not truly collected his thoughts for some time. Bending down, the jounin began to collect up the trash that littered the room, a few moments would pass in a semi awkward silence, before he would speak up again.

"So far it looks like our village is not going to get a lot of respect, no offense intended, a lot of us have come out the losers recently. I was the only one of the ninjas present who bothered trying to fight Kozai Yuki but I'm afraid that was for naught."

He paused, several different trains of thought jostling for attention.

“There are some policy decisions I wish to inquire about with you, but perhaps a more important topic would first be that our ninja seem to be relatively inexperienced compared to others. I suspect it is partially a matter of not enough ninjas having useful amounts of combat, and partially that many do not know very many techniques.”

Draconis paused, to take advantage of his large (for a civilian, small for a ninja’s) musculature, to compact some of the trash he had collected, before cramming it into the wastebasket.

“Perhaps, for the first, we could have in-village tournaments among the different levels of ninjas, possibly some joint training with any villages. Speaking of other villages, did you say Hoshigakure was potentially friendly? Do you think perchance that training exercises with their ninja might be useful?”

He collected more trash. Draconis had contemplated making shadow clones to help pick up, but this he figured was something he should do by himself, so that it took longer, so he could collect more of his thoughts. “For the second, I wonder, we have a reasonable number of ninjas, but they are not very organized, would it work to form more specialized groups? Then they can train the same techniques together and compare notes, and so on.”

Jason listened as the Jounin spoke. What he spoke of Jason already knew. He took no offense to the words of the man before him. It was true that Konoha had been disgraced, and by Jason's own fault both directly and indirectly. It was wrong of him to order his ninja to take on a foe he knew they couldn't beat. The anger and self loathing that Jason was feeling was immense. However it could not compare to the feelings of determination and hope that still resided within him. His eyes, glossed over from lack of sleep, burned brightly with the Will of Fire behind them. 

He continued to listen as Draconis made his way around the office picking up the trash and papers that Jason had let litter the floor. He had not asked Draconis to clean up his mess but he was glad for it anyway. He thought of it as a bit of a metaphor for what was happening. Draconis was trying to clean up Jason's mess, not only in the office, but also in the village. He spoke of training exercises with Hoshigakure as well as tournaments and other useful training activities for the village ninja. These were certainly good ideas. Jason would need help organizing and planning. The first thing he would need to do is send those letters to Akihana and Denkiteki of Hoshigakure. It had been a while since Jason's meeting with Maku and he still hadn't made an attempt to contact them. Something had to be done about that. 

"Yes I have begun an alliance with the village of Hoshigakure. I must send letters to two of their leaders. I plan on having a joint Chuunin exam with their village sometime in the near future. I like the idea of having joint exercises with them. Perhaps I will bring it up in my letters. What would you suggest for the training of our ninja currently? A tournament of sorts? And how would you organize the teams you suggested? Please, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. Also, thank you for cleaning up my mess." Jason would say as he watched Draconis continue to tidy up the office.

Draconis was a little surprised how cranky the Hokage looked and how this contrasted with his words. The Mister Hokage Boss Man was apparently in the mood for change, and for the better most likely unless there was some internal corruption stuff from power going on which was hopefully not the case even if that was a stereotypical thing to happen to leaders newly in their seats of power, though in this case it sounded like Jason Senju had been pretty well schooled in the arts of fighting.

"I wonder, to cement the alliance with Hoshigakure, the star village, perhaps it would work to have envoys going back and forth, training with the other village to build tolerance and such. I don't know about everyone else, but I was approached by a couple of people, who looked to be of jounin rank, who were looking for help in clearing out some bandits."

Draconis paused, a few ideas circulating still just because that meant this conversation would be taking longer. "I don't know what happened to them, though admittedly I have been rather busy and unable to make much ado of their request, though now seems a convenient time to bring that up. Considering that is the first I have heard of them, and they are dealing with bandits, perhaps they were an obscure land before, and were invaded. Or, perhaps, they are a new settlement and there are still... pests...."

The last few words of his sentence sounded by no means friendly.

"They seemed like pretty nice guys though. They might be willing to do envoys and such, as the two they sent, that I saw, came in peace and tried to spar with me and such. Well, one of them anyway."

He paused, a thought occuring to him. "I don't know how much they know of our village yet, but they might think we are weak, if we send people over in our current state. Perhaps we need to train our own group up a bit first, before we start sending people over to them and vice versa."

He finished another load of compacted trash, this time asking "Mind if I light this stuff up real quick? The trash can, metal though it may be, is in serious danger of exploding soon if I keep stuffing more into there."

Then he continued his annoyingly long monologue. "For training purposes, we might want to categorize some of our rising ninjas, the ones who show the most promise, and sort them based on what kinds of jutsu they specialize in. So, for instance, anyone who is better at the art of taijutsu, physical stuff, should focus on that if possible, and train with others, so that together, they have a better peer group. Some will be able to train multiple areas, those ones may as well enter multiple groups. However, the majority will likely focus on single areas of the ninja arts, and splitting their attention will likely not end well, if they are not competent enough in any one area to prove of use."

He took a breath. He hoped this kind of thing would help his wind and fire jutsu a bit, he was breathing so much. "So, everyone who specializes in Fuinjutsu, the art of sealing, they could go and train together, perhaps make collaboration techniques, or at least find good uses for the sealing jutsu. Ninjutsu is the least likely to need work, given that so many focus on this to begin with, even those with taijutsu traits."

And by the latter, Draconis included himself in the group.

And about the trash? "No problem Bos- err, Lord Hokage." Oops, he did it again.

Jason hadn't heard of any ninja from other villages coming to ask for aid with bandit attacks. Perhaps that was because he was so preoccupied himself to realize what was going around him. Even if that weren't the case it was very unsettling that things were happening in and around the village that Jason was unaware of. Being the leader of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Jason needed to be aware of everything that went on in and around the village. It had been some time since he had left his office and walked among the village to see how the state of things were. He contemplated doing so today, after he showered and took a small nap of course. 

As for the training of their ninja before sending envoys to Hoshigakure or anywhere else....That was a brilliant idea. Only Jason was sure it sounded much easier than it actually was. He would need updated records of all the ninja in the village. He needed to know each of their ranks, specialties, any hidden ninjutsu or kekkei genkai that they had. Usually this would be readily available to Jason. The problem with it now was that with the death of Stein he had lost his assistant and let things get so...out of hand.....that he had no idea whether the records had been updated or not. He would need help with this task. Most likely from Jounin level ninja within the village to help organize and supervise these teams. Luckily there was one such Jounin standing right in front of him.

Jason smiled as he decided his net move. Nodding at Draconis to do away with the trash however he pleased he would begin to speak again. "I haven't heard anything about ninja from other villages coming to ask for aid. This is unsettling since I should be aware of everything going on in and around the village as Hokage. I'll have to look into a way of doing so. For now let's focus on organizing the ninja into these different factions, or teams rather, and getting them training with individuals that can help strengthen each other and work together. Draconis. I have a few tasks for you. You seem to have a good mind for this and are certainly willing to help. If this is the case then I would ask you to be my adviser from here on out. If you accept, well even if you don't accept, here is your first task." Jason paused for a moment to catch his breath and gather his thoughts before continuing. 

"I need for you to get me the most recent information you can on all the ninja in the village. This is classified information so be careful with it. I'm going to need names and ranks of each ninja along with their specialties and any information you can gather about their hidden ninjutsu and any type of kekkei genkai they may have. Once you have gathered this information I want you to bring it back to me so that together you and I may organize them into specific tactical teams."