Chapter 268 .2 : Bureaucracy and Bylaws
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- The Deep Blue Sea
Chapter 268.2 : Bureaucracy and Bylaws
Mr. Hayashi Yūta the miller and Ms. Katō Yūka the furnisher were waiting for her by the gate an hour before noon. Mari wondered briefly if the similarity in their names had helped their relationship - Kenta (no longer Ishihara Kenta, now, but rather Gōketsu Kenta) had told her the two were on good terms and had worked together in the past, and had both worked with his own shop as well. She raised her voice. "Oh, good morning gentlemen! Hayashi, I'm afraid I didn't expect you so early - not that it isn't a pleasure to see you again, but I may be distracted for a bit while these two get sorted out..." Always good to layer a bit of a guilt trip.
"Don't worry, Lady Gouketsu," Kenta asserted. "I believe Katō and I can do just fine examining the gate and some of the outbuildings. We should have a list of what kinds of wood and how much need to start working on repairing and furnishing them by the time you get back."
"Oh, wonderful!" Mari responded, clapping her hands together for dramatic effect. "In that case, Hayashi, could I ask you to escort me to the Tower? If I can drop these seals off a little early and we can discuss business on the way, I should have some time this afternoon to stop by the Yamanaka flower shop!"
She had of course already sent a message to keep Lady Yamanaka updated via a flower-order which would neither need to be arranged nor picked up, but that was neither here nor there.
"I'm happy to see you and Katō getting along well. I would hate to have to choose only one of your businesses to invest in!" Mari said as she and Hayashi headed out into the city.
"Oh, yes, of course! She is a very trustworthy customer."
"Ah, I'm glad to hear it. Ishihara had good things to say about both of you, after all. So tell me, do you suppose that a closer relationship between the three of you might be helpful? I'm no tradeswoman, so I am only speculating, but I would hope..." Speculating. As if she hadn't been over the numbers once with Keiko and twice with Ishihara.
By the time they arrived at the Tower, Hayahsi was practically salivating at the idea of Gōketsu-mediated cooperation among his lumberers and millworkers, Ishihara's carpentry, and Katō's furniture and repair shop. He was only too happy to agree to an initial cooperative project - having Noburi and Akane to escort his lumber crew outside the city to obtain what Ishihara and Katō needed to get to work on the estate outbuildings. ("Let's try out a more traditional first venture, hm? I don't think Lord Gōketsu will be available to help though... my poor son Hazou is so busy these days with his new duties after the death of my husband. You know, the Hokage?")
A mission which, as it turns out, Mari was only too happy to pay for, handing over a pouch of coin as they approached the building. "Hayashi, why don't you go to the mission desk and sort that out? I need to speak with the seal requisition desk and lighten my load a little", Mari suggested with a disarming smile. "Gamma, would you be a dear and update everyone on the plan for this afternoon?"
"You got it Aunty Red!" the cheerful Naruto accompanying her replied with a sloppy salute. He formed a single handseal, almost simultaneously creating and dismissing a copy of himself. A moment later he said, "Yup, Prime let Buff Sis and Barrel Bro know!"
After briefly chatting with the scarred boy handling seal exchanges today ("Here is Clan Gōketsu's seal tax for the month, and also several seals which we are presenting for first-refusal. What's that, your budget for the month is still near-full and you want to buy all of them? Lovely."), Mari sauntered to the mission desk to catch up with Hayashi.
By sheer coincidence, a mission she thought her kids would be interested in had just been posted! "Ah, excellent, Gōketsu will be happy to take that! The kids need to get out of the house, they're driving me absolutely batty staying around the estate. Hayashi, if you want to ask the Tower about buying seals you should go down that hallway here and then take a right. See you soon!"
-o-
"Now, Noburi, Akane, it's very important that you understand you are assisting, not replacing, and that these men are lumberers, not carpenters. Protect them from whatever plants and animals are around, and it's fine if you help top the tree, remove the branches, cut it into easily-portable sections, help put it in the carts or even into storage seals, but you are not to do anything they would not normally do."
Mari waited for their nods before continuing. "Excellent. Akane, dearest, would you help me prepare some ice and chilled tea to send along with the boys? We don't want those poor softfoots overexerting themselves. And Noburi, actually, if you could bug Hazou about how to make a makeshift Force Wall saw the lumberjacks can use themselves, that might be even better from the Merchant Council's perspective. Just in case."
-o-
Akane was practically bouncing with excitement. "So Mr. Head Lumberjack, which trees were you planning to cut up? I need to check them for anything dangerous. Allowing our charges to be harmed in anyway would be deeply unyouthful, after all!"
The large woodcutter, roughly three times as large around as Akane, bowed respectfully and indicated with a nod. "That one there, miss honorable ninja ma'am. That's the right type and size for what the request Mr. Miller got."
"Interesting! Out of curiosity, how exactly would one go about cutting such a tree?"
"Um, well. We'd make one cut straight in on the side we want it to fall toward, and then one cut down at an angle like so," the man answered, showing with one horizontal hand and the other coming down onto it, "opening up an angled space in the wood. Then we drive a wedge into the opposite side to slowly push the trunk toward that space."
"Superb! Stand back while I look for anything dangerous." Akane approached nonchalantly and placed a palm against the trunk, then frowned a little. She stepped back briefly, and then called out, "Everyone cover your ears! 3, 2, 1... Katon - Forceful Fire Bullet!"
As the dust cleared, she smiled back at the crew. "I thought there might be some dangerous bugs buried in the trunk there. If they were there, then they're dead now. Incidentally, how similar is that hole to the cuts you were planning?"
-o-
"Sure, we wouldn't say no to help, but if you guys get hurt that's pretty bad, whereas clones... just kind of aren't important," Noburi explained with a shrug to the inquisitive crew sitting in the shade as he passed out cool water from his pack of storage seals. His clones were hard at work driving loop-ended nails into the trunk so it could be looped into the pulleys the lumberjacks had brought along and raised up so a Force Wall could be set under it.
"Ah, um, I see, thank you for indulging my foolish question honorable mister ninja, sir," the crewmember who'd spoken up responded. "Forgive me, I've never seen such a thing up close."
"Don't be thanking me just yet, those guys only last a little while. All of us are going to need to get in there and sweat before the day's out. In the meantime, can I interest you in some of my mother's chilled mint tea?"
-o-
"Hayashi, Katō, thank you both so much for helping us out today. Could I impose on you to stay for dinner? I know it's only been a couple days, but I believe we really should speak with my son about starting to make some of these arrangements official. He's the clan head, you know, so he has final say over our budget...
"What's that? Oh, no, I would never have gone behind his back for the initial payment, that was just my personal spending money. The head of the family has authority over any big purchases." (After accounting for the fact that we got a big chunk of it back since we took the mission we funded, but who's keeping track?) "Won't you please stay? My brother is making a stew with some of the shrimp the kids brought back from the tournament in Hidden Mist. You know, the one my daughter, Lady Nara, won? She had to light her poor brother on fire to do it, but don't remind Hazou- I mean, Lord Gouketsu of that. He might still be a bit touchy about it - promise me that we'll keep it between us, yes?
"By the way, how did your request to buy the seal equipment from the Tower go, Hayashi? What? The Merchant Council doesn't even want the Tower to sell useful tools to Leaf's loyal craftsmen? That is to say... I'm not one to question the decisions of merchants in the realm of merchant-ing, but I can't say that makes all that much sense to me. I could understand if the Council was merely against ninja selling directly, but surely they wouldn't accuse the Tower of competing with or being unfair to civilians, right? That would be practically seditious! I do hope they'll come to their senses soon. Ah, here we are. Kagome! It's Mari! Seven seven bluefin! I hope you made plenty, because I'm bringing a couple of guests!"
According to Mari, current Merchant Council rules would prevent you from selling or renting such a thing to civilians because, no matter what, you're competing with or disadvantaging someone.Rather than selling a Force Wall seal (thus requiring you to go through the Tower's right of first refusal), can you rent a device that includes a Force Wall seal to a carpenter or mason?
If not, could the carpenter's guild hire you for a mission and pay out a combination of cash now + a bonus calculated as a percentage of (revenue generated or costs reduced) by the ninja's efforts?
Consider an example in which Alvin makes saws and Bill uses them.
- If you sell to Alvin but not Bill then you are disadvantaging Bill, because he cannot buy something that he wants to buy and that someone else can buy. Alvin could go into business competing against him, or Bill would have to buy the seals from Alvin at an inflated price. (i.e., not the same price that Alvin paid)
- If you sell to Bill, or even sell to both, then you are competing with Alvin.
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