Anko's hands curled into fists of frustration. "Sir, I don't know how! I've tried everything. You need someone else, someone older."
Jiraiya looked at her, his face utterly blank. "Jōnin Mitarashi. First of all, there are no female ninja of the appropriate age and security clearance, and we are not about to trust a job like this to a civilian agent. Second, I find your unwillingness contemptible, especially now. Put on your big girl panties and get it done. Things are happening out in the world, and I do not need an existential threat here in the village while I'm trying to put out six different fires abroad."
Anko swallowed nervously. "Bad?"
Jiraiya paused, thinking, then nodded. "Yes, it's bad. Mist has their toe-hold on the continent, and they're spreading out from there like water from a broken pitcher. Yagura is a psychotic little bastard, but he listens to his Beast and that makes him damn good at intelligence work. Sand and Rock are having high-level talks and one of my agents just reported a shipment being sent from Earth into Fang. Half a ton of high-quality steel and three tons of marshweed."
Anko winced. Marshweed was foul, but it was nutritionally complete, shelf-stable for months, and insanely calorie-dense. Civilians wouldn't need that sort of quantity; a civilian, with no chakra to speak of, could subsist on a small amount of the stuff per day regardless of how much work they were doing. Ninja, however....
"Training camp?"
Jiraiya nodded. "It's the assumption. I'm trying to find out if there have been more shipments like this so that I can get an estimate of how many ninja they're feeding. Either way, Fang doesn't have that many, so it sounds like Sand and Rock have set up a joint task force."
"That's...bad, sir. We need to do something."
Jiraiya snorted. "Teach your grandmother to suck eggs, why don't you? I'm trying to get agents in place to intercept future supplies, but this one was already gone by the time I heard about it." He sighed, looking tired. "I honestly don't know whether or not I want there to be more shipments. On the one hand, if this is the only shipment then they were setting up a significant stockpile in order to maintain OPSEC and there aren't many ninja at the base...but I don't have the opportunity to track the shipments or poison them. On the other hand, if they're sending a shipment every month then it means there's a large force."
There was only one reason why Leaf's two main enemies would be putting aside decades of mistrust to train their people together, and devoting a significant number of their precious ninja to the effort. A force like that didn't sit around for years, unused.
"Regardless," Jiraiya said, "that's not your problem. The other two are reasonably contained, but I need Earl locked down. He's a sealmaster, Anko. An incredibly good one—maybe even better than me. And he's got zero experience at seal research. He created a self-replicating seal, on purpose, and it ate some of the First's trees. Do you have any idea how tough those things are?"
Anko swallowed nervously. She actually didn't know, but based on the stories they had to be pretty damn tough indeed. "Maybe we should just kill him?"
Jiraiya shook his head. "No. He's careless and naïve, but he's not stupid. If he doesn't have a deadman switch set up then I'll eat Gai's jockstrap. And even if he didn't, it would destroy our relationship with the other two. We can't afford that...Val's knowledge of jutsu is unbelievable, and we're pretty sure it includes the Hiraishin. He isn't revealing that one yet, but he's happy to hand out lesser ones that are still useful. The intelligence department is getting them copied down as fast as they can, but there's a limit to how fast we can push him—he's not willing to spend more than two or three hours a day at it, and he insists on at least two days off per week." He leaned back in his chair, lips quirking into a wry smile. "And then there's Oli. It looks like he really can do what he said he could do. Yūta has gone from a washout to the single most brilliant prodigy I've ever seen. He's so good it's terrifying; he learns jutsu in minutes that take most kids months, and he has a reasonable degree of mastery within weeks. We need to keep Oli's cooperation, no matter what. Killing his friends is a no-go."
"But why me, sir?" she demanded, hating herself for the whine that she couldn't suppress. "Earl hates me."
"Don't be stupid. He doesn't hate you. He's too soft to really hate anyone. He's annoyed, that's all."
"Can you at least give me some direction, sir? I'm combat, not infiltration. I don't even know why I was tapped for this job."
Jiraiya chuckled. "You know these three are writers, yes?"
"Yes, sir...?"
"Apparently, before he wrote this 'Chosen for the Grave' quest, he wrote something else. A story about you leading a team consisting of Naruto, Hyūga Hinata, and Aburame Shino."
Anko frowned. "That doesn't even make sense. Why would I be tapped as Uzumaki's sensei? Nakamura was the only real choice."
The Sannin shrugged. "Don't ask me. I spent an entire evening drinking with Oli while he enthused at me about this 'Team Anko' story, and another one called 'Shining Down the Dimness' that Valerian wrote. The 'Team Anko' one sounded like utter twaddle to me, but you were a main character. He depicted you as a bisexual badass who was living together with Ibiki and a female civilian."
The frown was joined by a blink. "Wait, what? I was living with a civilian?"
"And Ibiki, yes. Apparently the three of you were quite happy together."
"We're talking about Morino Ibiki, yes? The head of T&I? Wears the headscarf over his scars?"
"And a civilian."
"..."
"Anyway, he clearly finds your history engaging, and I know he finds you attractive."
"That's not the sense I've gotten, sir."
The Leaf spymaster snorted. "He's heterosexual, male, and not dead. Yes, he finds you attractive. He's just got some strange ideas about sex and morality."
"Yeah, what's up with that, anyway? He's just so...weird. Two days ago, we watched some of the kids training in the park. Hyūga Hanabi was working on Forest Kami Plucks the Rose. He thought she was dancing."
"No idea," Jiraiya said. "I think it's just an utter lack of experience with violence. Apparently, in their world they don't even let you join the military until you're eighteen."
"What?!"
He shrugged helplessly. "At this point I've decided just to believe what they say. They are either impossibly good liars, utterly insane, or exactly what they say they are. That last option sounds utterly impossible, I know, but their stories always jibe with each other. I've had half a dozen soft-style interrogators work on them without their knowledge, pulling out random minor details of their lives and then crosschecking their stories. Not once have we ever found an inconsistency. I literally cannot imagine building a cover so deep that it could withstand this level of investigation. I've hit them with everything aside from hard man and Yamanaka jutsu, and it's always consistent, even up to the point of having believable memory lapses and gaps in their knowledge. As far as I can tell, the three of them really do come from a world where soldiers don't join the military until they're eighteen, most people go their entire lives without even touching a weapon, and it's normal for someone to go to school until they're your age."
"That's...how...what? How could you even have a country like that? The chakra beasts would wipe you out in a week."
Jiraiya's snort was a complicated thing that contained multitudes...amusement, rage, disbelief, and was that perhaps a tiny hint of contempt? "Get this: In their world, people spend money to protect wild animals. They keep them in cages inside city limits and people pay to look at them. They make laws saying that it's illegal to hunt them. They even have this category called 'endangered species'—it's when there's only a handful of the things left, so they send people out to help them breed in order to prevent the species from going extinct."
"Going ext.... Why would you go out and help something breed after you'd gone to all the trouble of wiping it out?" She paused. "Do they have a clan with a beast-control bloodline, and one of their enemies is doing the hunting?"
"Nope. Apparently, most 'endangered species' aren't endangered because of deliberate hunting. Apparently the people in their world are wiping species out by accident."
She laughed. "Okay, you got me. I swallowed that one hook, line, and sinker. I guess I need to go to T&I for a refresher on anti-recruitment training."
Jiraiya shook his head. "I'm not joking, Anko. As far as I can tell, they aren't either. On their world, their people are so powerful that they are destroying entire species without even realizing it."
Anko could feel the blood draining from her face. "Do we know when the assault will come? Or when these three are expected to report back?"
"I don't think they are, and I don't think there's an attack coming. They're adamant about the fact that there is no chakra in their world. No ninja—although they're very careful to say 'none like you, anyway'. Apparently there's some combat training schools that call themselves ninjutsu, but they don't appear to teach anything aside from taijutsu."
"But...why...what?! That's not what ninjutsu means! Why would they call it ninjutsu if it's taijutsu?"
He shrugged. "No idea. They're all crazier than bed bugs if you ask me." Jiraiya paused. "Well...no. Not crazy. They are oriented to reality, have coherent mental states, and seem to lack irrational maladaptive behaviors. They even sleep well at night. Every night."
Anko couldn't remember the last time she'd had a serene night's sleep. Too many faces, too many memories.
"Oh, and get this: Valerian comes from a country called 'The United Kingdom'. It's a little larger than Wind country. Guess how many people live there."
"I dunno, how many?"
"Guess. Guess high."
"Five hundred thousand." That was half again the population of Fire; impressive, although if they had no chakra their military wouldn't be much of an issue.
"Try again. Go way up."
"Eight hundred thousand?"
"Sixty-five million people. And they're small. Oli and Earl come from 'The United States of America', which has three hundred and twenty million. There are other countries that are five or six times bigger even than that."
Anko frowned. Three hundred and twenty million...that was obviously a lot, but how much exactly? It had been a while since she'd done her numbers courses in the Academy.
Jiraiya must have seen her confusion. "America has about a thousand times more people than Fire. And it's physically larger than the entire Elemental Nations. Roughly speaking, it's half again as wide as the distance from Bear to Demon and half again as tall as from the top of Snow to the bottom of Sea."
"Sir...that's not possible. They're playing us."
"I don't think so. They don't have chakra, but they have evolved mechanismics to a level we never dreamed of. It seems like they've found some way to generate lightning and tame it. They use it to create light brighter than my lantern seals, smelt steel, pump water across thousands of miles. Even their poorer citizens own 'cars', which are some sort of self-propelled wagon that can travel faster than a ninja."
"Bullshit. You're putting me on."
"I'm really not. There are hundreds of different kinds of these 'cars', and all three of our visitors were very consistent in the descriptions. They recognized type names, they were able to name the various parts and who manufactures them. They described the process of driving in great detail. That's not the best part, though: They have wagons that fly. They call them 'planes'."
Anko gave him the same look that her mother used to give her when she got caught with a mouth stuffed with cookies after bedtime. "Sir, stop. It was funny in the beginning, but it's getting old."
"I swear on the Monument that I am telling you the absolute truth as far as I understand it. Also, all of this is classified so high that we've actually invented a new code word for how classified it is. I'm reading you in because this information might be useful to your mission, but you do not talk about it with anyone aside from me and the Hokage. Not even Earl. Use the information to steer conversation so that you can 'discover' it all for yourself, but do not admit to knowing it in advance. And remember: We need to keep Oli cooperative no matter what, so you need to get on Earl's good side. Get his trust so he'll talk to you. Get in his bed at a minimum. If you can, make him love you. Valerian is more suspicious than the other two and we can't stop him from talking to Oli about his suspicions, so we need Earl to be putting positive things in Oli's head as a counterweight."
Fifth Event Grounds, Nov. 15 (Round 1, Day 1), ~11pm
"I do apologize, Summoner, but I must report myself temporarily unfit for duty," said Panashe.
Keiko and Hazō both turned in surprise at Panashe's unexpected and rather alarming admission.
"What is the issue?" Keiko asked.
"I fear I'm running extremely low on chakra," the pangolin said. "I shall be unable to finish the tunnels for this facility as things stand. I'll need a recharge."
"Ah. One moment," Keiko said. She made a handseal and Panashe disappeared, vanishing back to the Seventh Path in a puff of orange smoke. "Pangolin Summoning Technique: Panashe!"
The spec ops pangolin reformed in front of them, chakra reserves newly refilled from her summoning, and breathed a sigh of relief. "Ahhh, much better. Thank you, Summoner. I shall resume my assignment. It should be done in about forty minutes."
The pangolin dove back into the ground and resumed creating a set of tunnels and traps under Facility #1. If Team Uplift was assigned to Facility #1 in the second round, those tunnels and traps should suffice to stop any attackers who came from below, as well as providing good ways to come up behind above-ground enemies. Of course, if Team Uplift wasn't assigned to Facility #1 then the effort would all be wasted.
Fortunately, there were eighteen hours left in the round and dozens of unconscious chakra batteries (aka 'defeated Red Team members') lying around, which meant there was no reason not to do the prep on all four facilities.
"We should probably hold off on the lumbering until she's done," Hazō said. "Looks like the proctor is still chasing around after Noburi, but he's sure to come running as soon as we set off the charges."
"Very well," Keiko said. "Pankurashun, we will need a series of shallow trenches here, here, and there in which to set goo traps next round. Could you and the others please roll across those areas for us? The way that you tear up the ground should be perfect."
"Of course, Summoner." The grizzled Lochagos turned to his subordinates. "Tessera! Form up and roll out!"
o-o-o-o
The rest day was shatteringly boring and nervewrackingly tense all at the same time. Conversations in the barracks were either had in whispers or in shouts, since Team Uplift had made it a point to blow out the eardrums of their captives. They had also made neat, albeit deep, cuts in the prisoner's heels, making it painful to walk. Both things were calculated to provide advantage during the next round, when Uplift would be defending a static location; the deafness would make it harder for the enemy to coordinate amongst themselves, as well as making it easier to ambush them. The heel-cuts would make it harder for them to move and fight.
Both things were perfectly within the letter (albeit not the spirit) of the Exam rules. On the other hand, it didn't do much to endear Team Uplift to the rest of the contestants. It was also far more ruthless than Hazō, Noburi, or Keiko were completely comfortable with, but they needed every advantage they could get. Ninja combat heavily favored the attacker and the political consequences of anything aside from absolutely crushing the next round were too high to take any chances.
Some quick patch-work by the medic-nin had been enough to ensure that no one's injuries became infected. (Noburi had been offended by that, having already taken care of the isssue himself.) They had also managed to give most people back enough aural functionality to hear loud shouts or explosions. Beyond that, there wasn't much anyone could do for the injuries aside from wait for them to heal.
The other thing that the medics had done was get a group of Wakahisa in to provide chakra infusions. Being drained to chakra exhaustion tended to knock people out for twenty-four hours, so Noburi had made a point of re-draining most of the enemy a few minutes before the end of the round. The hope had been that most of the contestants would either not be awake for the next round or would wake up just a few hours before it started, giving them no time to prepare. The Mist medics had put paid to that and, from the looks of it, had even gone so far as to refill all of the Wakahisa contestants. It wasn't entirely unexpected, but it was aggravating.
Of course, most of the Exam contestants had been eliminated before the fifth event, and therefore had not been drained or deafened. Those people, plus those who had been on Red Team One or Shikamaru's team during the event, were chattering like magpies. It was all in whispers and angry glances, but Hazō and his siblings were careful not to ever be alone during the day. They had tried a few times to catch up with Ino-Shika-Chō but been rebuffed; upon seeing this, they had retreated to their room, where Hazō had spent the day making mountains of explosives while Noburi and Keiko alternated sleeping, snacking, and checking their gear. It was a companionable silence.
Finally, the evening meal came. By virtue of being at the mess hall an hour before the meal was called, Team Uplift had managed to snag a corner table. They wolfed their food and then waited, watching the room and counting heads to check that the last stragglers had arrived.
"Now?" Hazō asked quietly.
"Now," Noburi said, putting down the fork he'd been absently fiddling with.
"Indeed," Keiko replied, pushing her chair back.
Moving with the same synchronized grace that had killed more steelbacks, bloodrats, and dropbears than any of them could count, the younger generation of the Gōketsu clan stepped up on their chairs and from there onto the table.
"Oy!" shouted some random ninja in a Rock headband as Hazō kicked a plate of something green and sticky out of the way.
"Listen up!"
Silence fell across the room and more than one hand reached for a weapon. Hundreds of sullen and angry faces turned to the table in the corner.
"It has come to our attention that some of you might be considering teaming up against us in the next round," Hazō said coldly, taking care to project his voice so that the deafened ninja would hopefully be able to hear.
"Now, as much fun as that might be," Noburi said, "we want to suggest you think twice about it."
"We have enough points to reach the tournament," Keiko said. "After the escort mission we led the Exams. Many of you went to a great deal of trouble to sink our score during the fourth event. We responded by destroying you in the first round of the fifth, thereby restoring the balance."
They paused, heads turning in perfect sync as they surveyed the room. It had taken an hour of practice to get the motion precisely right, but the thoroughly creeped-out faces of the other ninja suggested that it had been worth it.
"You," Keiko said, pointing to a group of Rock ninja two tables away. "You tried to ambush us from underground. We dropped you in a pit and you woke up in a cell."
"You," Hazō said, pointing across the room at Touma, one of the Blue-Team ninja from the previous round. "Your lightning aura has made you lazy. Your taijutsu is pathetic. Your fundamentals are weak, your footwork is sloppy, and you telegraph your kicks. Which is why I put you on the floor in under ten seconds."
"You," Noburi said, gesturing with his chin towards a chosen victim. "You're slow. You didn't even start to dodge before I slammed you into my Mantle and beat you like a rented drum."
"You," Keiko said, pointing at her own target. "You failed to notice me at all, and I took you down with a single throw. The only challenging part was deciding if your thick head meant that I needed to throw harder."
"And after we destroyed you, I made sure that you could barely hear," Hazō said.
"I made sure that you could barely walk."
"And my pangolins made you eat dirt."
Again the pause, again the calm surveillance of their audience.
"Some among you may not know our history," Keiko began. "This is an error on your part."
"We were born in Mist," Hazō said.
"We left and repatriated ourselves to Leaf," Noburi continued.
"We lived two years in the wilderness before Leaf was able to publicly accept us," said Keiko. "More than five hundred nights in the wild. We have killed more chakra beasts than any of you have ever heard of. In total, we have faced off against three to four dozen enemy nin, including several jōnin."
"Most of those nin are now bones in the dirt." Hazō's voice was cold as Snow Country.
Noburi's laugh held nothing of humor. "Most of the chakra beasts and several of the ninja died on our camp's defenses while we sipped tea and took bets on when the next blast would come."
"Our Hokage was very clear about the fact that we are not allowed to kill you," Keiko said. "I found this irritating." She crossed her arms over her chest and looked put upon. "It is tremendously much easier to defend a position when allowed to use traps that cut an attacker's head in half, or blow them across the field in a shower of bloody meat."
"Still," Hazō said. "We've put some thought in. Even if we can't use our favorites, we've got plenty of fun toys for you to come tiptoeing through in the next round."
"Don't worry," Noburi said. "There's good news. The Hokage told us that injuring you further would complicate his political goals slightly. He said that we should try not to injure anyone too much more."
"This is inconvenient. I had wanted to send my pangolins into the forest to crush all the red teams and bring them back to our cells. It would have given us a ridiculous margin of victory." Keiko's lip crinkled as though she'd smelled something rotten. "However, given his request, I will keep them at our base."
"So that's what you're facing," Noburi said. "A base built by a trio of former missing-nin who made the wilderness their bitch for two straight years."
"Reinforced by a sealmaster," Hazō added.
"And surrounded by monsters from beyond time and space, who tossed you around like children's toys last time."
"Face it," Hazō said. "None of you are good enough to beat us. If you're too cowardly to face that truth, feel free to come at us again. We've got plenty of tea, and the sound of idiots running into the perimeter is very relaxing."
The room was utterly silent as Clan Gōketsu sauntered the length of the table, jumped down, and left the room.
o-o-o-o
The start of the second round was a frantic scramble of preparation. Unsurprisingly, Team Uplift was Blue Team One, Squad One, and was called before anyone else. Their proctor led them away from the other contestants quickly enough, but after that he dawdled on the way to their assigned facility. Hazō and the others had chafed, eager to get to their preparations. They had chafed even harder when the proctor issued a 'no talking' policy, ensuring that Team Uplift could not get to know their assigned teammates.
"Awright, we're here," the proctor grunted, gesturing at the newly-rebuilt form of Facility #3. "You've got two hours." The man slouched over and dropped to the ground, leaning back against one of the many tree stumps that had been left over after Team Uplift's logging efforts during the first round.
"What the heck happened here?" murmured Tachibana, a pink-haired kunoichi that Hazō had seen around the barracks but never spoken to.
"Hazō, you're up," Noburi said, stepping aside with Keiko and slinging his barrel off his back so that he could dip out a canteen of water. The girl had already cut her thumb and was summoning Pankurashun even before Noburi had the water ready. Hazō watched her slam it back and move on to summon Pangaya, then turned to his newly-assigned teammates.
"Look," he said, "I know you're pissed at us for injuring you in the last round. That's fine, I get it. Here's the thing: Team Asuma has been pushing to form a coalition of all the Red Teams to come attack us, and—"
"What?" shouted one of the Rock Ninja that Panashe had peeled off the floor of her pit last round. Apparently the medic-nin had been able to do less for his hearing than they had for most everyone else.
"I said that I know you're pissed at us!" Hazō shouted. "I get it! But we think there's a teamup of all the Red Teams this round! They'll attack all at once and beat us into the ground! Will you work with us to set up defenses?"
"Why would all the red teams join up?" demanded the Rock nin.
"Because Team Asuma has been goading them into it," Hazō said loudly. "My team isn't as much of a lock for the tournament as we let on. Team Asuma is going to motivate all the other Red Teams to attack us so that we can get lots of prisoners."
Nakajima, a Wind Country ninja, was surveying the area around them with an expression that fell somewhere between 'impressed' and 'dismayed'.
"Did you guys do this?" he asked.
Hazō looked around. Between Team Uplift's explosives and the pangolins' strength and jutsu, they had managed to rough-clear a hundred-meter killzone around the bunker. There were chunks of wood and small bushes everywhere, rendering the footing treacherous. There were trenches scattered around, as well as a multitude of craters where some inconveniently-placed stump or bush had been blown to shreds. The Multiple Earth Wall jutsu had raised red granite barriers at various strategic points around the facility. Pangaya and Panjandrum were dragging the tops of several trees into position as abattises. (The rotund pangolin was complaining constantly as he did so and shirking his share of the work until Pankurashun snapped at him.)
"Pretty much," Hazō said. "They've patched up some of it, but yeah. This is mostly us."
Tachibana's eyebrows went up at the suggestion that the area had been repaired in any degree, but she said nothing.
"Look," Hazō said. "There's probably going to be a mob coming for our blood in a couple hours. They're probably not going to be too picky about collateral damage. How about you guys help us set up defenses?"
"We could just leave," noted Shimizu, a taijutsu type from Mist. "I'm not in the running for the tournament, and I bet most of the rest of us aren't either. If we leave, you get the thousand-point penalty for not properly simulating a T&I facility."
All expression fell off of Hazō's face. "No. If you leave, we send the pangolins to catch you, beat you unconscious, and drag you back here by your ankles. At which point you get to have a long conversation with my brother, the medic-nin, about all the things that can be done to the human body without counting as severe injury."
He studied them for a moment, giving them a moment for the threat to sink in. "You're free to go into the bunker and sit this one out," he said at last. "Or you can pitch in and set up defenses. Anything else would be a bad idea."
"I'm in!" Tachibana said quickly. Five more expressions of agreement followed in hasty order as the other ninja hurried to express their lack of interest in being experimented on.
Hazō smiled and pulled out the defense plan, turning it so the rest of them could see it. "Okay, here's what we're thinking...."
o-o-o-o
Finally, the time was up. The last traps were built, the last sniper nests constructed, and there was nothing left to do but wait for the expected horde of Red Team members to descend upon them.
And wait.
And wait.
"This could be a problem," Noburi said, offering Keiko another drink to replenish her dwindling chakra supplies. "If they just sit around long enough we won't have enough chakra to sustain the pangolins."
"Indeed."
Hazō looked for something useful to contribute to that line of thinking and found nothing. There had been discussion of sending some of the pangolins out to scout, but the final consensus was that it was better to keep them close and wait for the attack.
So they waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And wa—
"Ahoy the fort!" Akimichi called, sauntering out of the woods with a trio of ninja slung over his shoulders. He was using his family's size-shifting jutsu, meaning he was currently three meters tall and muscled like a troll, so the weight didn't seem to bother him. It may have enhanced his voice as well, since he was loud enough that his words were comprehensible across the hundred meters of cratered ground between the edge of the woods and the fort that Blue Team One was expected to defend. "We've got prisoners for you!"
Blue Team One exchanged nervous glances. Eventually, Hazō stood up and waved 'Come ahead' to the other team before ducking down again.
It took almost ten minutes for Ino-Shika-Chō to wend their way down the marked 'safe' path through the traps. Inside the bunker, the tension wound higher and higher as the team waited.
"Maybe they're here to demand our surrender?"
"No, they aren't interested in surrender, they want blood. Maybe these guys are defecting?"
"No, Nara was very clear that he wouldn't explicitly betray anyone."
"They're obviously just scouting the defenses. We should take them out now!"
"Wait for it. Let's hear what they have to say."
Eventually, Team Asuma arrived in front of the building and looked up to where their counterparts were peering down from the roof, weapons in hand.
"This was your Red Team," Yamanaka said, gesturing to the bodies draped over Akimichi's massive shoulders. "We're here to pick up seals and pangolins so that we can go take out everyone else."
Hazō and Noburi exchanged looks. "What happened to organizing the massive assault?" Noburi asked.
"Much too troublesome," Nara sighed. "We only discussed it in front of your teammates to ensure that it wouldn't happen. And to ensure that everyone would be too paranoid to work together, even on their own teams. Now, the pangolins, please? We need to go capture the rest of your prisoners."
The Oyabun appeared to be in a singularly good mood, if the unnerving predatory edge to his smile was any clue.
"Welcome, conquering heroes," he purred. "Congratulations on what I understand to have been an exceptional exam performance. Please, take a seat. I have prepared my special chocolate selection for today."
"Thank you, sir," Hazō said, wondering how to get through the meeting without touching the chocolate, and without the Oyabun noticing that he wasn't touching the chocolate. "I take it the rumours are already flowing?"
"A trickle," the Oyabun said. "I am given to understand that the Gōketsu are cowards who were only able to triumph by cowering behind the backs of their summons and throwing seals from a safe distance, and by the second round had all but given up on exposing themselves to danger. Any success they had was thanks to the generous gifts Leaf had given them."
That was about what Hazō had expected. Not many of the other genin were likely to openly admit the brilliance behind their defeat, especially while they were still both injured and humiliated.
The Oyabun gave a wry smile. "The Fourth's propaganda corps were not selected for their subtlety. It seems the Fifth has not yet found the time to replace them."
Hazō exchanged glances with the others at the implication, but the Oyabun continued before he could speak.
"Impressed as I am with your tour de force, I have naturally sown my own seeds on your behalf. Already, there are whispers in taverns that Leaf's power is so great that it can transform even the lowliest genin into a world-class warrior with equipment and resources alone."
Hazō frowned. "No offence, sir, but that doesn't sound like the best way to improve our reputation. I appreciate that it'll help Leaf's position, but I don't think it should be at the expense of our own. Shouldn't we be emphasising the strength of the Gōketsu, and therefore Leaf's by implication?"
The Oyabun chuckled.
"A beginner's mistake, I fear. One does not oppose a rumour with its opposite. The existing rumour has the benefit of momentum, and realistically the best that one can hope for is a stalemate where the populace's opinion remains divided. No, far be it from me to lecture a talented shinobi on the nature of the martial arts, but what one must do is turn the opponent's momentum against them."
"I get it," Noburi said suddenly. "You want to take control of the narrative by absorbing what's already there into a story of your own."
"Indeed," the Oyabun smiled. "Rather than pit flattery against contempt, let the contempt be subsumed by fear. The three of you are, despite your stellar accomplishments, largely unknown to the people of the Water Country. Names without faces, and even the name 'Gōketsu' is unfamiliar and abstract to many ears. Leaf, however, has been a source of fear and intimidation for my countrymen for as long as it has existed, a deadly threat lurking on the horizon. The rumour that Leaf is growing in power and extending its reach will be accepted without question. What do the personalities of its warriors matter, if even Leaf's weakness is stronger than other villages' strength?
"It is only a matter of time until the full details of the fifth event become widely known. At that point, with the foundations laid, it will take but a nudge to shift public discourse towards 'If the Hokage's clan obliterated the opposition using Leaf's shared resources alone, what incredible personal abilities must they be holding back for the tournament?' Fear transmutes into fascination, fascination gives rise to speculation, and at that point none can turn back the tsunami.
"As an aside," he added with a touch of mischief, "tournament gambling could reach heights unseen since the year Uchiha Itachi broke the old scoring system. The Chivalrous Organisation will, naturally, perform its public duty by supervising the process."
Hazō's smile had turned just as predatory as the Oyabun's. "That sounds perfect, sir."
He pulled an envelope out of his pack. "As a gesture of gratitude, please accept these seals—"
But the Oyabun held up a hand. "Please. There is no need. If you wish to express your gratitude, perhaps you could do so with a small favour to me and mine?"
He produced a scroll from a sleeve and slid it across the table.
Hazō picked it up cautiously. "What is this?"
"The future," the Oyabun said. "With its position in negotiations enhanced as it has been by your success throughout this exam, Leaf is in an unparalleled position to lift some of the tiresome trade barriers that have so choked commerce between our two great nations since before the village era. The finest minds of the Chivalrous Organisation have produced a proposal which will greatly enhance the international flow of goods, and of course of information, while also imposing certain new restrictions to prevent unsavoury individuals and groups from exploiting this new status quo. It would give me unalloyed pleasure if you were to pass this on to the Hokage together with my congratulations."
-o-
Time and spoons (but mostly spoons) are not on my side, so the rest of the plan shall be @eaglejarl's, to do with as he will. He shall also award rewards and impose doom as appropriate. There shall be no voting.
The progress of time was slower than the progress of the chakra leech that was slowly wriggling its way across the lawn in a stealthy attempt to latch on to Reo's ankle and suck the life out of him through its inappropriately massive and ridiculously serrated gums. Seriously, what had the Sage been thinking when he created those things? They were only two inches long but fully half of that was the mouth hole. This particular one must be especially adventurous for its kind; it was far from water and had wriggled out of the waist-high hedge that separated the Mori estate's property line from the surrounding street. It had spent three hours crossing the twenty feet of grass between the hedge and the actual wall. It would have made better time if it had come up the slate pathway that led to the gate where Reo and Saburō stood guard, but staying in the grass offered better concealment. It was only six feet away by now, meaning that it would be ready to attack him about ten minutes after his shift ended and he had left for dinner.
His brain, so desperately bored that it was seeking any diversion in preference to clawing its way out of his skull and going to find anything more interesting to do than stand at ceremonial attention beside the gate, latched on to the puzzle of what to do with the leech. Should he kill it before he turned the watch over to his replacement, or should he let it be? Should he tell the replacement that it was there? On the one hand, it would be polite. On the other hand, the leech would give his replacement something to look at in order to alleviate the boredom. Eh, probably better to kill it.
Well, that was settled. And no longer worth anything as a distraction.
Bored, bored, bo— Ooh, someone was coming up the path!
"Halt! Who goes there?"
"Gōketsu Jiraiya, Hokage of Leaf," grunted the broad-shouldered man. "I'm here to see Mori Ami."
Reo swallowed nervously. He'd never seen Jiraiya and there were a number of descriptions circulated about him. Still, "fifty-ish + formal haori + red stripes on his cheeks + spikey white hair + built like a brick shithouse" was a pretty common one. And besides, how many people would claim to be Kage of a foreign nation if they weren't? Especially when that Kage was actually in town?
Reo glanced at his counterpart, Mori Saburō. The junior guard was barely old enough to need a razor; his eyes were wide in shock and there was clearly going to be no advice coming from that front. Not that Reo had expected any.
"Sir, Ms. Ami is not taking visitors at the moment," Reo said carefully. "I can pass you in to the house steward if you like, but he'll tell you the same. I apologize for not being able to help you...could I set something up for tomorrow?"
Jiraiya—if that was who this was—studied Reo for a long second, then smiled affably and clapped him on the shoulder with a strength that probably wouldn't have meant much to a ninja but nearly sent Reo to his knees.
"Look, son," the ninja said, "I realize that this sort of visit is usually set up in advance through intermediaries so as not to waste anyone's time, but there's been a scheduling slip. Rasa—you know, the Kazekage—sent someone to tell the rest of us that he's going to need an extra hour to deal with his latest batch of dispatches, so I'm currently at loose ends. There's a couple things I need to discuss with 'Ms. Ami', and they're fairly important to me. How about you take me inside and have someone fetch the house steward so that he can explain to a visiting head of state how Ami can't spend a few minutes having a cup of tea with her sister's stepfather. Sound good?"
Reo swallowed. "Yessir. Please come with me, sir." Protocol said that it was Saburō, the junior guard, who should carry the message inside, and that the visitor should only be brought in once a ninja escort had arrived. Still, if this really was Jiraiya then the consequences to the House of keeping him waiting could be severe. It was broad daylight with lots of traffic on the street, meaning an unlikely time for a thief or assassin to conduct an attack. All in all, the risk/reward analysis suggested that taking him right in would be the better option.
"Saburō, you have the watch," Reo said. Then he turned and led this man who might possibly be one of the most powerful ninja in the world into the heart of House Mori.
o-o-o-o
The house steward was a retired ninja in his sixties and a very sensible man; he had no problem breaking through Ami's request for privacy when the Hokage came knocking. Seven minutes after Jiraiya walked into the house, he was seated in a lounge with Ami, both of them having tea cups in hand.
"How may I help you, sir?" Ami asked, smiling in a completely friendly and welcoming way. She held the tea delicately, long fingers elegant and perfectly still.
Of course she did.
"Two things, actually," Jiraiya said. "On a personal note, the first round of the Fifth Event ends at sundown. I intend to take my kids out to celebrate their victory, and I had been meaning to invite you." He waited until Ami started to open her mouth to reply, then cut her off. "At least, I had meant to, until I heard about this apparent separation between you and Keiko. I wanted to ask you what caused it." The last words were polite, but they were not a question.
Ami seemed puzzled. "I'm not sure what you mean, sir?"
Jiraiya studied her for a moment, then took a polite sip of tea and set the cup down gently.
"Ami," he said, using the familiar to drive home the 'elder and superior speaking to junior and inferior'. "I know there's a lot of stories about me, and you've probably heard some of them. What do you know about my parents, or my siblings?"
Ami blinked. "...Nothing?"
Jiraiya nodded. "That's right. I never had any blood family. I grew up alone, and after I signed the Toad Scroll I spent a lot of time on the Seventh Path with no other humans around." He smiled slightly, a brief hint of teeth showing. "A bit feral, if you will. When I was your age, my team and I were the best ninja in Leaf, which is to say that we were the best in the world. Sunny and Oro meant everything to me...and then they both decided to leave me. Hiruzen-Sensei was the closest I ever had to a father, and Minato the closest to a son.
"Now? Now I have an actual family. A wife. Two sons. A daughter. A batshit crazy cousin who is still a great ninja despite his somewhat tentative contact with reality."
He paused, looking down at his interlaced hands and chuckling. "Three kids. Never saw that one coming." He shrugged and looked back at Ami. "Given what I told you about how I grew up, I hope you will recognize that this sudden plethora of family bonds means a great deal to me, and that I care a lot about doing a good job at being a father. Yes?"
Ami nodded. Her face, friendly and open, might or might have been a mask over the awareness of where the conversation was going.
"Good. There are two particular fatherly duties that I'm given to understand are important. Do you know what those are?"
"Being a good role model and providing good training?"
Jiraiya snorted. "Good role model? Have you heard any of the stories about me?" He shook his head. "No, the duties that I was speaking about are, first, to scare the crap out of any boy who comes sniffing around my daughter and, second, to take an active interest in anyone who hurts her. Keiko went directly from you to the second event; she did not know that I was there, but I was. I was displeased to discover that, when she arrived, she was wearing an expression that I have not seen since the war. I find myself very curious to know what happened."
Ami's expression was just as perfectly controlled as That Woman's. "I'm not sure, sir? I thought our conversation was quite pleasant. We talked about how much we'd missed each other, I asked if she would like a meal or a tour of the compound, she said no, and then she left."
Jiraiya studied her calmly. "You offered your sister, who grew up in this house, a tour of it?"
"She'd been away for a long time, sir."
Silence.
"Uh-huh. Fine. Did she talk to anyone else? Her parents, perhaps?"
Ami shook her head. "Unfortunately, no. Our parents were very keen to speak with her, to hear about all her adventures and her plans for the future, perhaps to offer some parental suggestions, but father was busy with paperwork and she left before he was available."
"I see."
Silence.
"All right. Moving on, let's talk politics...."
o-o-o-o
November 16, 7:12pm
"What's wrong, kid?" Jiraiya shouted, the words barely audible over the pounding of the music. What the band lacked in musical skill they made up for in sheer volume. Said volume was truly insane, given that they consisted of three drummers and someone playing a a bastardized nightmare of an instrument that looked like a xylophone tried to swallow a steel-stringed harp, choked, and puked it back up.
The youngest girl...Fukai, that was her name, gulped, wrenching her eyes away from the dancer gyrating on the stage. "Nothing, sir. Fit and ready, sir!"
Hana watched Jiraiya chuckle in a way that actually probably was mostly as natural and relaxed as it seemed. And, of course, he raised a cup of sake.
"Can't be having that, now can we? It's a party! Health!" cried the Toad Sage.
"Health!" the nine genin and one jōnin dutifully echoed before slamming back their sake in time with Jiraiya. He'd been very clear about the fact that it was rude not to answer a toast, insulting not to drink, and that only sissies failed to empty their cup. Keiko, the one with the lowest bodymass in the group, was starting to look a bit bleary around the edges. Noburi's rather more robust frame had thus far insulated him from any effects, and Hana could tell that Hazō was leaning hard on the Iron Nerve to keep his motions smooth. (Although it seemed like it was starting to require a bit of focus to do so.) Hana, of course, was having no issues; she had built up an embarrassing degree of tolerance over the last two years, and it was slow to fade. The cravings were still there, but she had refused to indulge them for months and they were getting quieter. Now that her cricket was back, the bottle held no appeal for her mind. Her mind commanded her will, and her will commanded her body. She would match Jiraiya drink for drink tonight but she would never again become what she had been.
Gomi, however, was definitely under the influence. He was leaning both elbows on the stage, chin on hands and goofy grin on face, staring up at the lingerie-clad woman who was currently spinning around the pole.
Hana, on the other hand, was less amused. "Lord Hokage, why did you bring us here?"
"What?"
"I said, why are we here?! It's loud, and lewd!"
"What?! I can't hear you over the music!"
Hana administered the Unamused Look of Doom.
Jiraiya chuckled and leaned closer to Hana so that he could speak at a reasonable volume. "Relax. Your son and his team just beat the shit out of everyone else in the Exam, and, based on how easily they did it, anyone with a brain is going to assume that they'll do it again next round. Then they'll go on to sweep the tournament and leave every other village looking like a bunch of slack-jawed wannabes. I'll eat my extremely ugly hat if there aren't at least half a dozen conversations going on right now about how to keep them out of the second half, and out of the tournament. A place like this, it's easy to spot a tail; anyone who isn't drinking or looking at the stage stands out, and we can have fairly private conversations."
Hana's Kurosawa façade cracked; for a moment she actually looked surprised. "Do we need to arrange protection for them?"
"Nah. The only viable windows of opportunity are tonight and tomorrow night, after the next round ends. No one is going to take a swing at them in broad daylight when there's a ton of witnesses around. We'll stick around here until closing time, drink a bit so as to blend in, and then you and I will walk them all back to my quarters. Chances are they'll be asleep in another half hour or so regardless of how loud it is."
Hana glanced at her son, her bloodline effortlessly suppressing the desire to show how concerned she was about the threat that the Hokage described.
Hazō's current appearance was a reminder of how many threats he had already faced down, and how much they had changed him. She had hardly spent any time with him as yet—she'd forced herself to keep her distance so as not to distract him from the Exams, although she'd been almost literally beating status reports out of the proctors multiple times a day—but now that they were finally together and relaxing, she could see the signs. He would be smiling and animated one moment, but then something would move in his peripheral vision and his eyes would flick towards it. His body would tense just slightly, the Iron Nerve responding to his heightened alertness by reaching for combat patterns.
And then he would see that it was just a waiter, or a drunk being escorted out, or a plant swaying in the breeze, and he would relax. Relax, and go back to being the far-too-tall young man that her little boy had turned into. The one who was so much more serious than she remembered. The wide-eyed and innocent wonder that he had had in his early childhood had been beaten out of him by that Sage-damned Academy, replaced with inquisitiveness and cunning, but the time that he'd been gone from her side had sunk the final nails in that coffin. Her little boy was gone for good.
He'd developed in other ways too; his voice was now exactly like his father's, although she had been careful not to tell him. If she closed her eyes and just listened, she could imagine that it was Shinji talking to her. All it would have needed was for him to call her 'waterlily' and the illusion would have been complete.
She reached deep into the Iron Nerve to keep the smile on her face even as the scars on her heart tore themselves open a little more. Fortunately, she had an entire library of carefully-practiced motions to conceal the act of wiping tears from her eyes.
Right now, Hazō was leaning close to Noburi so that the two of them could discuss something in low voices and many excited hand gestures. The possibilities for what that conversation might be covering both boggled and terrified her. An apprentice medic-nin and a sealmaster-in-training who, in their adopted father's words, was 'frighteningly creative'. Both of them teenage boys with eyes that had too much of the wilderness in them. From anyone else she would have been worrying about existential threats, but she knew that Hazō's nature was fundamentally good, and she was fairly confident that Noburi's was as well. They would only destroy the world by accident.
"Sounds like a good plan," she said to the Hokage. "You will not object if I stay as well."
The Hokage's eyes crinkled up. "Object to an attractive widow sleeping in my rooms? Of course not!"
Hana's gaze hardened.
He raised both hands, palms out in apology. "Sorry." He let his hands drop, then studied her for a moment, assessing what had been behind the sudden mood shift. "I'm guessing that he looks like his father?"
She nodded. "More every day. And he sounds just like him."
The Toad Sage glanced around to be sure no one was paying attention, then leaned in close so that he was speaking almost directly into her ear. "I know that I cannot replace Shinji, but I will do my best to be a good father-figure for Hazō, and I definitely want you to be there too. You guys raised a great kid, and I consider myself lucky to have him in my clan." He started to pull away, his words finished, but then thought of something else. "By the way: If you want to become a Gōketsu, it can be arranged."
Hana raised an eyebrow, leaning back enough so that she could see his expression. He seemed serious. How could he possibly be serious about that? Changing villages wasn't a casual thing that could be offered on a whim. Bloodline theft had literally started wars in the past.
Still.
This was the man who had brought missing-nin in from the cold and rehabilitated them. Something that had never been done before, something utterly unthinkable, was suddenly thinkable. It would change the face of the Elemental Nations; once the word got out, missing-nin would be discreetly contacting Leaf, probing to find the possibility of acceptance. There weren't a huge number of missing-nin in the Nations, but there were enough to notice. No one would want the strongest village to suddenly grow even stronger; they would either need to go to war immediately so as to very visibly punish Leaf's transgression against the natural order...or they would need to start doing it themselves. And, of course, if you were willing to accept missing-nin then that meant that moving from one village to another was but a polite fiction away.
Mist was the village that pulled grieving mothers into dark rooms to be interrogated. Mist was the village of secret police and whisper campaigns intended to clear the next spot up the rank ladder in one's career. Suppose ninja could simply...leave? Suppose they could decide they didn't want to be interrogated, threatened, killed, and that they would rather go to Leaf instead? Or Cloud, or Sand? If villages had to compete for ninja like tradesmen for wheat contracts, would the world break? Any political system would allow only so much change, and only so fast. To go too far, or too fast, would be disastrous.
Less so with Ren in charge, though; she lacked Yagura's power, and his psychosis.
"I'll think about it," Hana said, smiling.
XP AWARD: 1
This was effectively just an interlude and so wouldn't normally get XP, but I'm in a good mood.
FP AWARD: 0
There will be no voting. There's still one afterparty and half a plan to do.
The two boys stood on opposite sides of the corridor, facing each other head-on. Kei was unable to read the subtleties of their body language (she doubted any but a Kurosawa could), but, being boys, she was confident that they were posturing in a fashion that would mortify any adult shinobi. Noburi, off to the side, provided an apposite counter-example, his expression of wry amusement signifying at least an attempt to rise above the situation.
Opposite him, the other Wakahisa looked more curious than anything else, while Anna… Anna was clearly as comfortable in her presence as Kei was in hers. The sooner this confrontation(?) was over, the better.
Kurosawa broke the silence first.
"Congratulations."
"I'm sorry?"
Hazō, whose silver tongue made women facepalm.
"Congratulations," Kurosawa repeated. "What you pulled back there was frankly impressive. I honestly thought you didn't have that kind of brutality in you. I know everyone's saying that you only did it by relying on Nara's brains, the Pangolin Clan's brawn and the Hokage's resources, and that's obviously true, but you and I both know they're missing the point. Even if you've betrayed the clan, you've still got the blood of master diplomats flowing in your veins. Turning other people's power into our own is what we do."
"What do you mean, Nara's brains?" Hazō demanded, focusing on entirely the wrong part of the statement.
Kurosawa rolled his eyes. "The smart people have already figured out that you were just following Nara Shikamaru's plan. It's not like you've tried to hide how closely you've been cooperating. My guess is that you've been taking your cues from him this whole exam, but I won't ask since I know you'd deny it either way.
"Again, this isn't an accusation. You were using him for his specialisation, and he was using you for yours. That's how it has to be if you're going to accomplish any of those crazy goals you were raving about.
"Man," he added, "I'd love to know what it's like to have a Nara and a Mori working together. It might be worth backing your village alliance idea just for that."
"You can believe what you want," Hazō said calmly after a second. "It doesn't change the fact that we won."
"Spectacularly," Kurosawa agreed. "I knew I was right to let you keep your word half."
Hazō's calm disappeared. "So it was you!"
"It didn't expect it work out how I expected, to say the least," Kurosawa mused, ignoring him, "but this way has its advantages. Getting into the tournament is a shot at worldwide glory, but it can also end your career if you embarrass your village badly enough in front of the entire world. Or get mangled by an over-eager opponent. On the other hand, after what you did to the Fifth Event, Command is sure to discount that whole clusterfuck for internal purposes, leaving us with a massive score and a guaranteed risk-free promotion. There are worse things in this world."
Hazō stared at him, understandably uncertain how to respond. "You're welcome… I guess?"
Kurosawa nodded. "Oh, and don't think we've stopped being rivals just because you defeated us in combat."
"We prefer the term 'viciously obliterated'," Noburi said.
Wakahisa snorted.
"That," Kurosawa agreed smoothly. "Only a fool fights the same battle twice. And if we can't win like Byakuren, for now we'll just lose like Kurohige."
With that, he turned to leave.
"Hey, Noburi," Wakahisa said idly, pushing herself off the wall she was leaning against. "You given my invitation any thought?"
"I thought about it," Noburi said with a friendly smile, "but then I realised I had standards."
Wakahisa grinned. "Hey Shin, I know he's a filthy traitor, but can we keep him? Pleeeease? I sense so much untapped potential…"
"No, Kiri. I've seen how you look after your pet koi."
"Hey," Noburi said, "I've got nothing against a smart, talented and attractive girl wanting to tap my 'potential'."
He paused briefly.
"Shame the only one around is my sister."
Wakahisa began to say something, but Kurosawa interrupted her with a groan.
"No, Kiri. Have your verbal slugging matches on your own time." He looked pointedly towards Anna.
"Eh," Wakahisa shrugged. "There's always next time. I'll be expecting you to bring your A-game when you come back for the tournament, Noburi."
"I think my D-game will be enough for you."
Everyone waited for the other shoe to drop.
"Sorry, Kiri," Noburi said. "That'll be a lot funnier once you learn the alphabet."
Fortunately, Kurosawa left, dragging Wakahisa with him, before the situation could deteriorate further.
Anna did not follow.
After a couple of seconds of silence, Noburi took Hazō's shoulder and pulled him away with a great display of tact and subtlety, leaving the two girls alone.
Kei had nothing to say to her former nemesis. What could there be? There was no longer any kind of connection between them. They would not see each other in the tournament. They were—her experience with Ami had made it agonisingly clear—no longer even part of the same clan.
You hurt me first.
It was irrelevant. Trivial. No justification for anything. An incident that transpired between two young girls whom time had surely since transformed beyond recognition. A fragment of her past that Kei could discard without effort, indeed had already discarded.
Anna's mouth opened. For a long moment, no words emerged.
"Keiko," she said finally, hesitantly. "Do you… think we could—"
"No," Kei said abruptly. They could not. It was far, far too late.
She turned to walk away, not wanting to see—not interested in Anna's reaction.
You hurt me first.
Why did it matter? Anna was no one special, merely another friend that Kei's incompetence had cost her. Just as her lack of talent had cost her her parents' love. Just as her gullibility had cost her her home. Just as her disloyalty had cost her Ami. Just as her inability to model others' behaviour had nearly cost her Tenten. It was a trend that had no reason to end, and things once lost could never be regained.
But perhaps they could be replaced. Kei thought of her new friends. Of her new home. Of two people who had offered to be her parents. A second chance for a girl who had so comprehensively failed with her first.
Would she lose this too?
A spark of defiance lit up somewhere inside her. How many more times must she lose? How many more times must she wait passively for her weakness to take away the things she loves? Had she not already fought to keep Mari-sensei, Hazō, Noburi and Kagome in the face of both mortal danger and her own inadequacy? Had she not fought for Tenten?
She spun around to face Anna.
"I have a tournament to train for," she said in a voice that invited no response. "Afterwards… we can talk."
It was not a commitment of any sort. She was not offering to alter the status quo, to attempt empathy with her former bully or to share anything about her own life. She could, if she so chose, attend only long enough to make some brief comment on the weather. Nevertheless, she had taken control.
Likely, nothing would come of this. Miraculous reconciliations of sworn enemies, such as could be found in the poorly-written early novels of certain popular writers, were not known to occur in the wild. Nevertheless, the nature of Kei's relationship with Anna was hers to decide, not for a malevolent fate to arbitrarily determine. And if this much proved to be within her power, then one day, perhaps…
Kei quickly disengaged from the rest of that thought, as if it were a butterfly too fragile to survive careless contact. Instead, she took one final look at Anna, failed abjectly to interpret her expression, and left to find Hazō and Noburi. Anna's behaviour was probably not an act designed to separate those two from the team's voice of common sense, but a barracks full of over a hundred vengeful limping ninja was no place to take that risk.
-o-
Apologies for the late update. Awards will be bestowed whenever it is that we finally complete this plan.
Flashback: Sunset, End of Round 2 of the Fifth Event of the Chūnin Exams
The smugness that had been coiled in Jiraiya's belly rose up as the kids made their extra-showy entrance. The nine of them arrived on pangolinback, three kids on each of the three giant pangolins. Clan Gōketsu rode the lead (and largest) one, the others in wedge formation behind them.
They snapped to a halt a decent twenty feet from the proctors' tables. Hazō, Noburi, and Keiko moved as one body, catapulting forward and turning neat flips; they stuck the landing and braced to attention. The other six genin, lacking the experience at riding on extradimensional steeds and also at working together, scrambled down and took up position on either side.
"Blue Team One, reporting mission success!" Hazō parade-grounded.
Keiko rolled her eyes.
Noburi made zero effort to hide his shit-eating grin.
Jiraiya allowed the smug to rise up and pour forth from his body in an aura so powerful it could be felt all the way back in Leaf.
The head proctor sighed. "Yes, I know. Junko reported in on you lot twenty minutes ago."
"Eighteen prisoners, eh? Not bad, huh?" Jiraiya said, nudging the Mizukage with his elbow. "No one even dared attack them."
"That simply means that they did not show any particular skill of their own," the Kazekage grumbled. "That other Leaf team did all the work."
"Oh, so you're saying that two of the Leaf teams were able to kick your kids' asses?" Jiraiya asked, his grin threatening to split his face.
Rasa glowered. "Just because you gave them a bunch of seals—"
"Oh, you mean the seals that they stopped using partway through the round, because they thought it would be more impressive if they punched your brats out manually?"
"Do not be smug, Jiraiya," the Mizukage said, stepping slightly away from Jiraiya's overly-enthusiastic elbow. "It is unbecoming in a Kage."
"Don't care. My kids rolled your kids like bread dough. Soft and squishy bread dough."
The Kazekage, Raikage, and Tsuchikage all glared murderously at Jiraiya. The Mizukage unbent enough to roll her eyes.
"Stop being a brat, Jiraiya."
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," Jiraiya said, chastened. "You're right, I should act like a grownup now that I'm Hokage." He paused and tipped his head in thought before turning back to the genin. "In fact...kids, I know that you're better fighters than anyone here at the Exams and that you wanted to show that off, but you went too far. I mean, sure, it's nice that more than half of the slots in the tournament will belong to Leaf, but you made my life harder when you ensured that not one single Mist-nin will be fighting. That was rude and may have political consequences. You should have been gracious and permitted one of them to get in, just for good manners."
"Sir, yes sir!"
"And don't even try to protest that it wasn't in your control, either. No one made it in to the tournament except you and people smart enough to ally with you. The politically savvy thing to have done would be to make sure that at least one person from each of the major villages got in, instead of completely locking out Mist, Cloud, and Rock in favor of one Sand team and a couple minor villages. If you're going to be chūnin then you need to learn to think about the big picture, okay?"
"Sir, yes sir!"
Ren's Iron Nerve was probably the only thing that kept her from exploding Jiraiya with her brain.
"Okay, that's dealt with," Jiraiya said, nodding in satisfaction before turning to the glowering Kazekage. "Oh, hey, Rasa, you can manage to get your trade goods together in two weeks, right? Because I can have the first lumber shipment at your doorstep in that time, and I'm sure that you remember the terms of our new trade deal—you know, the part that says my people won't have to wait more than forty-eight hours to collect their payment and depart. Ōnoki, same for you."
"Yes, I can make that happen," the Kazekage said, through gritted teeth. The Tsuchikage echoed him a moment later, the words grinding against each other on the way between his teeth.
"Awesome, thanks." Jiraiya turned back to the genin. "So, kids, who wants to party with the Toad Sage?"
Flashback: Immediately after the end of the Fifth Event of the Chūnin Exams
"Sir," Hazō murmured as soon as they were into the city and surrounded by the hustle and bustle of nighttime shoppers, drinkers, and partiers. "I've had an idea. It probably won't work but if it does then it would be extremely important. It relates to that meeting the night the clan was formed."
Jiraiya looked down at his adoptive son, one eyebrow upraised. "Seriously?" he said, his voice pitched low so as not to carry. Keiko and Noburi had, by sheerest happenstance, bracketed around their clan brother and clan head. The other six genin were limping along beside them, quietly fenced off so that they hopefully couldn't overhear too easily.
"Yes, sir. Again, probably won't work, but if it does it would be extremely helpful."
"Right. Wait two minutes, then meet in that alley." He smiled and looked around before drawing to a halt. "Okay, kids, listen up!" He waited until he had nine attentive genin facing him like children at story hour, then waved around at the night market they were passing through. "The club's about five minutes that way, but I need me some dango and funnel cake! Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take this money and use it to buy yourselves any delicious, fattening, bad-for-you foods and drinks that you want, then meet back here in fifteen minutes. Who's in?" He held out a heaping double-handful of ryō that he'd conjured from somewhere.
The genin were trained soldiers and, under the right circumstances, brutal killers. They were also teenagers with the sweet teeth to prove it. The money vanished from Jiraiya's hands and the children scattered like pigeons, descending on the purveyors of treats and beverages like the heralds of the apocalypse. Keiko and Noburi paused, waiting for a discreet head-tilt from Jiraiya before following the others. Hazō was last off the mark, taking his share of the money and heading for a stall that sold candied nuts, a favorite childhood treat. He bargained with the vendor for the sake of appearances, but his heart wasn't in it and he ended up paying half again what he could have gotten the man down to. The nuts were just as good as he remembered, though.
Jiraia was waiting for him in the alley, two Tunneler's Friend seals in hand. Wordlessly, he passed Hazō one of the seals, then flicked out a Hiding Like a Mole jutsu and vanished into the earth.
Hazō hurriedly made the signs for the jutsu himself, pressed the air-giving seal to his face, and went after the older ninja. He was barely below the surface when a hand gripped the fabric of his uniform's shoulder and tugged him along.
They went down to what Hazō considered a secure depth and then continued going down, Jiraiya's hand on his shoulder guiding him along. There were occasional pauses, presumably to allow Jiraiya to breathe from his seal, but the Toad Sage was clearly taking no chances, because they continued descending through the blackness of earth and stone until Hazō could feel the weight of a mountain pressing down on him. He knew that the temperature wasn't actually rising but he couldn't help but imagine that it was.
Finally, Jiraiya let go and Hazō came to a halt. A moment later the earth pulled back, leaving a spherical hollow around them. Light blossomed from a seal in Jiraiya's hand.
"Hold onto the roof."
Hazō reached up and chakra-adhered himself to the top of the hollow so that his feet were hanging free. He took mental notes as Jiraiya suspended a pair of upside-down Air Dome seals from wires sticking into the walls, then activated them to line the bottom half of the hollow with a bowl of frozen (and, more importantly, soundproof) air. He gestured Hazō down into the bowl, then set up another Air Dome on top of the first, enclosing them in a completely spherical soundproof barrier.
"Not yet," Jiraiya said, cutting off what Hazō had been about to say. He set up another series of seals around the inside perimeter of the Air Domes; these were familiar, being the anti-Hyūga seals that Jiraiya had installed in the Gōketsu clan compound. This was followed by more seals and a trio of jutsu—one Earth, one Air, and one Lightning, all said quietly enough that Hazō didn't catch the names. By the end of it, Hazō was caught somewhere between bemusement and appreciation for the lengths to which OPSEC could be taken.
"Talk to me," Jiraiya said at last.
"I was thinking about summoning contracts," Hazō said. "When Keiko signed the Pangolin contract, Pandā appeared without her explicitly summoning him, and he was able to boost her back to the Seventh Path. Does it work that way with all summons?"
"As far as I know," Jiraiya said. "It's how it went with the Toads, anyway."
"Is it possible to sign for someone else? If so, and if we could somehow find a sample of Naruto's blood and chakra, then maybe we could sign the Toad contract with his name, making him temporarily the Toad Summoner? A toad would appear wherever he is and could take him back to the Seventh Path. Keiko could meet up with him, find out where he came from on the Human Path and who was guarding him. Then you sign the Toad contract again, replacing him as summoner, and we go mount a rescue effort while he stays safe on the Seventh Path."
Jiraiya looked thoughtful. "Huh. Interesting idea." He pondered it for a minute. "So far as I know, no one has ever tried that. I can't say for sure what would happen, but I'm reasonably sure it wouldn't work. Summoning contracts are essentially very elaborate, very powerful seals. Intent and identity matter when you're doing sealing, so I'd be very surprised if you could sign for someone else. Aside from that, I don't know where we'd get a sample of his blood and chakra. Still, good thought. And good job on the OPSEC."
Hazō straightened a little, pleased at the praise. He was learning!
Jiraiya took note and snorted in amusement. "Speaking of good jobs, great job with the Exams. You guys crushed it like a bug. The other Kage were sure you couldn't make it, so I bet some trade contracts with Rasa and Ōnoki; you making the tournament means that Leaf gets some very favorable terms on the lumber trade. I'm going to make political hay on this back home." He shook his head, ruefulness offset by the grin that split his face. "Although I really shouldn't have made fun of the other Kage. It's never a good idea to taunt people that you need to get along with." He paused, memory clearly sparked. "Well, almost never. Anyway, I shouldn't have done it, but I just couldn't help myself. They were all being so snotty about how there was no way that you kids would make the tournament."
"Frankly, we weren't sure we would either," Hazō admitted. "They really tanked us in the fourth event, and the crew we were put with in the fifth was no great shakes."
"Eh." Jiraiya waved dismissively. "I never had any doubts, and neither did Mari. For your age, you guys are insanely powerful. We'll get you some tricks during the break so you can absolutely blow out the tournament. If you all make it to the semis then...well, I won't say that my grip on the hat is assured, but it'll be a lot more solid. No pressure, though."
Hazō looked at him in dismay. "But...I mean, we already crushed it in the third and fifth events. And like you said, the tournament brackets are pretty much just us and the people who worked with us."
Jiraiya shrugged. "You know it and I know it. Hyūga is going to argue that you only did so well because of my Goo Bomb seals and because Nara carried you. It's horseshit, but he'll convince some people. On the other hand, if you completely rock the tournament then there won't be any doubt. It'll prove that I showed good judgement by taking you in, and if you add that to the good trade deals, and some other things I've already done, then it'll be obvious that I'm a good choice to lead Leaf." He saw Hazō's appalled face and hurried to add, "Don't worry about it, though. It would be nice if you could pull it off, but it's only one of multiple ways that I can win."
"Yessir." Hazō paused. "Speaking of winning, is there any chance that we could turn some of the basement space into a sealing lab? There's a lot of things I'd like to work on, but it's not the kind of stuff we want anyone else knowing about."
"And doesn't it just fill me with dread that there are things you consider too risky to share," Jiraiya replied, amused. "It's something we can look into when we get home. I'm not thrilled at the idea of working underground—it restricts escape routes and raises the possibility of being trapped or having the roof come down on you—but we can talk about it. For now, we need to get aboveground and rejoin the others before they notice we're gone."
A quick swipe of the hand removed the various seals that were ensuring their privacy; he tucked them into a pocket, recast Hiding Like a Mole, and swam upwards with Hazō following.
o-o-o-o
Mid-morning the next day, after sleeping off a night of Toad-Sage-led debauchery...
The knocking on his door was probably actually more along the lines of pounding, but that would be necessary until his ears healed. Ryōichi pushed himself up with a sigh and slouched over to the door; all he wanted was a chance to lie down and nap in this absolutely enormous dorm room that he was sharing with no one, instead of his much smaller room at home that he shared with five brothers (four of them older than him and all of them resentful that he was a ninja and they weren't) and three baby sisters who had far too much fun climbing on him while shrieking in joy. He loved the little nibblets, but it was nice to have some space and some quiet for a change.
He opened the door to find the Gōketsu kids standing outside.
"We owe you an apology," Hazō said seriously. "Could we talk for a minute?"
Ryōichi sighed internally but opened the door. There went his nap. Still, you didn't say no if a clan kid wanted to talk. Especially when they were the Hokage's clan. Hopefully it wouldn't take them long to make their pro-forma apology and go off feeling good about themselves again so that he could get back to the important business of snoozing.
The other three filed in and settled; Hazō and Noburi sat on the bunk opposite Ryōichi's and Keiko leaned on the wall, arms crossed.
"We hurt you, and we're sorry," Hazō said. "There was a lot of politics going on and you got unfairly caught in the crossfire. I don't know how you're feeling about this—probably not too charitable, I'd imagine—and I don't know if it's something we can make right, but we'd like to try. At the same time, I know that there's a lot of power imbalance and justified resentment between the clans and the clanless, and I don't want to give offense by coming off as...." He hesitated, looking for the word. "Patronizing? Condescending? I'm sorry, I don't know exactly how to say it. How can I approach this so that I don't stick my foot in my mouth?"
Ryōichi blinked. He had literally never once heard a clan kid make a sincere apology to a clanless for anything at all, let alone something as important as the Chūnin Exams. He thought about that for a moment, then focused in on the important part.
"You're saying that the Hokage knows about me?" It was the only reason they would be making the effort.
Noburi nodded. "Of course; you're in the Chūnin Exams. He didn't give us any operational details because we aren't need-to-know, but he said that you've got a very high mission-success rate and excellent reviews from everyone you've worked with."
Ryōichi thought about that.
"Huh."
"You didn't know?" Hazō asked, seeming amused.
Ryōichi shrugged. "I try to get along, but there's always something, right?"
All three of them nodded in complete understanding; it was a little creepy.
"Look, we can't promise you promotion," Hazō said. "That's up to Jiraiya, the jōnin commander, and whoever else they rope in. I think it's likely that you'll get it—anyone who made it to the fifth event certainly earned it—but that's not under our control. If you would like us to put in a good word for you then we'd be happy to, but I don't think you need it. If there's something else you'd like, tell us and we'll see what we can do. Aside from that, I'd like to invite you to the next Gōketsu-family games night."
"...Games night?"
"Yeah," Noburi said. "Board games, role-playing games, that kind of thing. It's usually a lot of fun"—he glared daggers at his brother—"except when someone gets hold of the expansion rules and makes a totally OP character."
This conversation was getting more and more surreal. "Role-playing games?" he asked hesitantly. "Like...sex stuff?" Visions of compelled depravity loomed up behind his eyes. The Hokage had always been known as a pervert, but he wouldn't really force Leaf ninja to do...that. Right?
"No!" Keiko said, voice dripping with appalled revulsion. "Never!"
"It's like shared storytelling," Noburi said. "Everyone imagines themself as a character in the story and we go on adventures as a group. There's dice and a few things, but mostly it all happens in your head. Absolutely no sex stuff."
Ryōichi digested that. "Oh."
"Your attendance is not compulsory, if that is your concern," Keiko said carefully. "Although I believe we would all enjoy it if you came."
"Huh." Ryōichi considered that, and then mentally grabbed himself by the scruff of the neck and gave himself a good shake. He was being offered the chance to rub elbows with the Hokage and his family! How stupid would he have to be to refuse?
"I mean, yes, thank you," he said quickly. "It sounds like a lot of fun. I appreciate the offer. Just tell me when to be there." He hesistated. "Um...is there a dress code? Oh, and what should I bring?" He would need to start saving for the hostess gift. The clans usually grabbed the bulk of the C-ranks and above, but there were always plenty of D-ranks; the clans considered themselves above such things. If he was promoted then he'd probably be the only chūnin doing them, and it would earn him some ribbing, but it would be worth it.
The other three genin exchanged looks. "We don't actually know the protocol around bringing stuff," Hazō admitted. "I'll ask, but I bet that Mari-sensei will say you don't need to bring anything. She's not very formal. As to a dress code...yes, clothes are mandatory." He grinned.
Ryōichi laughed. They really were trying, clearly. It was even possible that they meant it when they said the event was casual, since they certainly didn't dress like clan kids. Their uniforms were standard issue, not tailored, and there was no extra decoration. Keiko's weapon holsters were ordinary and thoroughly broken-in leather, frayed around the edges and with no tooling. Hazō's gauntlets were unusual and obviously expensive, suggesting that he was a little more pretentious than the other two, but the rest of his clothes didn't match that image. The hem of his right pant leg was fraying apart, and the dye on his shirt was the normal slightly blotchy job that a clanless ninja might wear, instead of the perfectly even (and therefore very expensive) version that your average clan kid wore.
Still, there was no way in all the worlds ever dreamed of by the Sage that Ryōichi would show up at the Hokage's house in anything other than a brand new and spotlessly clean outfit. He'd have to see if he could sweet-talk the quartermaster out of giving him a fresh issue. If not, the family would undoubtedly be willing to pool their money so that he could buy some cloth that Mom could tailor up. Getting the attention of the Hokage could easily lead to more and better missions, meaning more and better food and clothes for the family. Sage's grace, maybe even some better medicine for Wakana's damp-lung. The honey tisane that the apothecary had been selling them barely helped at all.
"Thank you," he said, surprised at how easily the sincerity came. "I would enjoy coming to games night."
XP AWARD: 4
FP AWARD: 0
The Exams are now completely over until the tournament a month from now. You have been dispatched back to Leaf with Kakashi, Gai, and a flock of ANBU and jōnin to watch over you. Jiraiya will be following later, and Hana is expected to join you in the not too distant future.
Note: There was discussion in the thread of swinging by Isan on the way home. You can pitch this idea to Jiraiya if you want, although he may or may not go for it. It's a safe bet that Kakashi et al are not going to want to take any side trips, and Jiraiya is not going to want you wandering off into possible harm's way, so you're not going to be able to do random side things on the way home unless you can convince Jiraiya that there is significant value to be had. Isan might qualify, depending on how you pitch it.
Unless you come up with something that convinces Jiraiya to let you go off on a side quest, the next update will start with you in Leaf.
Time for a vote! What do you do next?
Voting ends on Wednesday, September 5, 2018, at 12pm London time.
EDIT:
Point of information: The 'absolutely enormous' dorm rooms in the Mist Academy are about 12' x 12'.
Noburi considered it and then decided he didn't want to deal with Kiri so he stayed away.
Hazō had breakfast with Hana. They carefully talked about light and fluffy stuff, nothing even slightly OPSEC related. He chickened out on asking about Akane.
"Welcome back, Keiko!" Noburi looked up from the campfire. "I saved some unidentifiable medium-sized rodent just for you. Just like old times."
Keiko fixed him with an unimpressed stare. Slowly, she brought her thumb up to the corner of her mouth. "Waiter, there is a Noburi in my pangolin."
Noburi waved his hands in mock panic. "Just kidding. Your baked sea bream is in that storage scroll over there.
"Also, aren't pangolins insectivorous?" he added belatedly as Keiko extracted her dinner.
"Many of the larger breeds favour insects that are similar to you in size, as well as estimated nutritional value and intellect. I suggest you bear this in mind for the future."
The thing that made its way onto Keiko's face could only be called a smile in the same way as slowly amputating somebody's fingers one by one with a blunt scalpel could be called medical malpractice.
"Rest assured, Noburi, that if I feel Hyūga to be in need of additional lessons, they shall be provided."
Noburi shuddered.
"Speaking of completely unrelated topics, Keiko, how did your work on the Seventh Path go?"
Keiko's expression turned a worrying kind of neutral.
"The pangolins' 'integration' of the condors proceeds apace. According to High Command, investigation of the Condor Clan archives has revealed a greater conspiracy between the Condor Clan and the Hyena Clan, with the aim of conquering Pangolin Clan lands and enslaving their inhabitants. Public outrage has provoked a surge in volunteers joining the army. The Hyena Clan is naturally denying everything. High Command is also doing nothing to quash rumours that other clans were implicated in the conspiracy but their identities are being kept secret for now for purposes of national security."
"Right," Hazō said uncomfortably. "And about the summoners?"
"The pangolins are keen to secure an alliance with the Mara Clan. Apparently, the maras were once close allies of the capybaras, but split two generations ago over unknown ideological differences. Where the capybaras are specialist spies and infiltrators, the maras are masters of temptation, subversion and misdirection, and their support would greatly complement the pangolins' pure martial skills, as well as helping counter any aggression from their former allies."
"And what do we know about the Mara Summoner?"
"The current Mara Summoner is a woman named Grandmaster F. Though nominally belonging to Hidden Cloud, she is said to spend the majority of her time travelling outside the village. According to pangolin sources, she inherited the Mara Summoning Scroll through tradition, and has rarely used it for summoning in recent years. As a corollary, she does little to further the clan's objectives on the Human Path, and the Mara would not be unhappy to transfer the scroll to a more cooperative summoner."
"Neat," Noburi said. "Temptation, subversion and misdirection. We can totally work with that. Anything else we've got on this Grandmaster F? Abilities? Weaknesses? Last known location?"
Keiko shook her head. "She is constantly travelling, and both her abilities and motivations are unclear to the Mara Clan due to the lack of contact between them. Perhaps Jiraiya's network might offer clues."
"If she really has that little use for the scroll," Hazō said, "maybe we could buy it from her?"
"Maybe," Noburi said. "It would take a crazy person to sell a summoning scroll, though. Even if she doesn't use it much, presumably she's still got some contracts, and if Keiko's anything to go by, that much firepower would likely save your life in an emergency."
"Any others?" Hazō asked.
"The crows, Uchiha Itachi's summons. There is a lack of information on crow affairs due to their isolationism, but it is understood that there is a deep rift within their society that has some relationship to their summoner's active involvement in their affairs. It is not inconceivable that this rift could be exploited."
"Right," Noburi said. "Maybe leave messing with Uchiha Itachi for Plan B? The last thing I want is having the guy who one-shotted Uzumaki Naruto coming after me."
"It might be that we have to go after him," Hazō said grimly.
"I'm sorry," Noburi said. "I don't think that's how you pronounce 'leave dealing with the crazy superpowered mass-murderer who goes through jōnin like rice crackers to the Kage'."
Hazō didn't say anything.
"How about the capybara and condor scrolls?" he asked.
Keiko shrugged. "The Condor Summoner is spending a great deal of time assisting the Resistance. Why they would do this instead of sensibly fleeing a sinking ship, I cannot say. As to the rest, the pangolins have made it clear that it is our responsibility to deal with their enemies on the Human Path."
"Helpful," Noburi grumbled.
"Helpful," Keiko echoed, but with a more distant intonation. A strangely cold silence followed her words.
Finally, she spoke. "Are we part of the problem?"
"What do you mean?"
"Our long-term objective as Team Uplift is to end war and create an age of peaceful cooperation and prosperity. We are accomplishing this by becoming arms merchants fuelling a genocidal war that will surely continue until either the pangolins dominate the Seventh Path or their surviving neighbours finally set aside their differences and unite to annihilate them. We have already been responsible for the extinction of an entire culture.
"There was a parade in my honour. I chose tonight to make my visit to the Seventh Path because Pankurashun had informed me of the timing. The pangolins have elected to use me as a symbol of the Pangolin Clan's supremacy in both worlds: the Pantokrator has used me to raise the pangolins above all enemy clans on the Seventh Path just as He has recently used me to raise the pangolins above all enemy ninja on the Human Path."
She breathed in slowly.
"They marched a series of condor prisoners in front of me, with wings bound and guards prodding them on with ritual spears so as not to pollute their claws. I consider myself fortunate that I find it difficult to read human body language, much less that of an alien species that lacks humanoid facial features. I was informed that these were captured rebels who had risen up against the Holy Pangolin Empire, and that I was being offered the opportunity to execute them with my own claws. It would have strengthened my position in the pangolin public consciousness, and potentially brought us significant advantages in further bargaining.
"I declined."
"Keiko…" Noburi whispered as he realised where this was going.
"The Pangolin Clan's assistance has been invaluable," Keiko said in a very even voice. "Their gold has kept this clan afloat and aided us in our activities during the Chūnin Exam. Their military power has, without question, been responsible for our success and, in turn, for the strengthening of the Gōketsu Clan's precarious position. This will continue to apply during the tournament, and then indefinitely as the presence of multiple summoners inflates the Gōketsu's prestige. On a personal level, it is my primary if not only justification for being allowed on the front lines, as opposed to the logistical support role I had originally been groomed for.
"I have no illusions as to the nature of this world. Given the structure and ideology of pangolin society, a war such as this was inevitable as soon as they gained any significant military advantage over their neighbours. Or in a counterfactual universe, it is entirely plausible that another clan could have decided that the militaristic pangolins were too much of a threat and pre-emptively destroyed them—perhaps the condors, and who could say they would be unjustified in that belief?
"Leaf is, at its core, no different. Less genocidal, yes, but its ultimate objective is peace by overwriting all other cultures with its own. The Leaf-Mist alliance presently being considered is a pragmatic measure, necessitated by force majeure that foiled the original intent of a bloody war ending in one side's total domination.
"We are not responsible for any of this. I am not responsible for any of this. All I can do is protect my loved ones and my own survival while being carried along by the tides of history. That is the attitude necessary to live in a world such as ours.
"It is an attitude I have held for a very long time," Keiko continued, "aided by the fact that I had no loved ones I was capable of protecting, and was not particularly concerned with my own survival. You—all of you, not only Hazō—have taken that away from me. You have forced me to abandon my apathy and engage with this world."
There was a rhythm, an uncompromising inexorable rhythm to Keiko's words. Noburi wanted to intervene, to stop her talking with some sort of brilliant counter, but he couldn't find an opening to interrupt that building momentum.
"I find that now I, Mori Keiko who possesses agency and personal morality, am the one who sells weapons and triggers wars in exchange for power—on two different worlds. I am the one who sinks ships full of civilians in the name of concealing kidnapping and murder. I am the one who claims villages' sacred artefacts and then leaves, never to return. I am the one who pre-emptively cripples others physically and psychologically to ensure that they bow to my will, and sometimes I enjoy it.
"The Fourth Mizukage spread suffering and caused atrocities because he believed that his actions were the expression of a natural flow of history that would ultimately lead to utopia. I, who believe that the natural flow of history leads only to tragedy, have no such excuse. Yet instead of fighting the tide, I clothe myself in borrowed good intentions and willingly take my turn at making the world a darker place.
"They say when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. I wonder if perhaps I should."
It felt less like a rhetorical conclusion and more like slamming into a wall.
"Keiko…" Hazō eventually said. "How long have you been feeling this way?"
"Who knows?" Keiko asked in a tone that could be mistaken for amusement. "If I have elevated any skill to jōnin tier, it is that of denying my true feelings."
She turned away from the campfire as if to leave.
"Keiko, wait!"
Noburi had no idea what one should say to somebody who'd just said all… that, but if it had hurt that much just to hear it, what must it be like from the inside?
"I need time to process," Keiko said without turning around. "Fear not. I will not travel beyond the perimeter.
"After all… in the darkness, I cannot see the traps."
-o-
Rest of the plan to be bestowed upon my esteemed colleague. Vote if you wish, in which case I draw your attention to the fact that your plan somehow involves talking to Hana well after leaving Mist.
Voting, if any, closes on Saturday 8th of September, 9 am New York Time.
"Knock, knock! It's us! Hazō, Keiko, and Noburi!" Hazō called, coming through the door cautiously. It was never a good idea to surprise Kagome-sensei, and always a good idea to check carefully on how the defenses might have changed. Still, it was Hazō's house too, so he wasn't going to stand on the threshold and wait for someone to let him in.
"How come I always get named last?" Noburi mock-grumbled. "Honestly. I'm the best-looking, the best with people, the best with OPSEC—"
"Kiri," Keiko said calmly.
"—the best at OPSEC, regardless of how low that bar may be, the best medic—"
"The worst at sealing, the worst at summoning..." Hazō replied.
"Hey, I'm tied for second on both of those!"
The banter was cut off at the sound of scrambling and distinctly non-human footsteps. Hazō, having turned slightly to look over his shoulder at his siblings, spun around to face front just in time to get a faceful of mangy white chakra beast that was leaping at him claws-first. His stance didn't lend itself to dodging, but combat reflexes dropped him on his back, letting the monster leap over him and trusting in the others to deal with the thing.
The others, reaction times dulled by being in what their hindbrains interpreted as a safe space, were a little slow. Noburi's Water Whip was only half-formed and Keiko's hand had just touched her kunai when the monster's hind claws dug into Hazō's mid-air chest. The thing used him as a springboard to leap over the other two and vanish out the still-open door.
"Fifi! No! Bad girl! Come back!" shouted Kagome, running past them with a mumbled, "Hi, welcome home, one sec gotta catch Fifi!"
Keiko and Noburi exchanged glances, then looked down at Hazō, who was still lying on the floor, too stunned to move.
"What just happened?" Noburi asked.
"Apparently, Kagome has acquired a..."
"Cat?" Noburi speculated.
"Too big," Hazō mumbled, pushing himself to his feet. "And I'm fine, thanks."
"Dog?" Keiko said, trying the idea on for size.
"Claws were too sharp," Hazō said, taking off his flak jacket so he could review its semi-shredded state. "Tore right through and got me good."
"Let me see," Noburi said, slipping into the role of team medic.
"I see you met Fifi," Mari-sensei said, doing that disconcerting appearing trick that she loved so much. "Psychotic little thing, isn't she?"
"Yes, and pointy on five ends," Hazō grumbled. "I'm going to need a new jacket, and she shredded half of my remaining storage seals." He reviewed the damaged papers mournfully. "Just lucky they didn't do anything weird when they failed, but looks like I'm not getting the good pots and pans back."
"Well, at least I've got you back," Mari-sensei said, smiling and hugging him. "How did the Exams go?"
"We kicked ass," Noburi said with a grin that got only wider when he got his very own Mari-sensei hug. "Not too bad in the first event—"
"You mean the second event," Keiko said. "Our first event score was double that of the next highest team."
Noburi rolled his eyes. "Fine. Crushed the first event, not bad in the second event, top of the list in the third, and, uh, rocked it in the fifth."
Mari-sensei raised an eyebrow. "One event appears to have been missed."
"Through a confluence of events that were probably within the letter of the rules, we scored negative two hundred and twenty-three in the fourth event." Pause. "However, the fifth event was a combat event. We defeated literally every other team aside from Ino-Shika-Chō, whom we chose not to engage in preference for mutually-beneficial collusion." Longer pause, sour tone. "They ended up with twice our score in the fifth event while doing no work, because we helped them in the first round and loaned them our pangolins and seals in the second round."
Mari-sensei shook her head ruefully. "Yeah, that sounds like Ino-Shika-Chō. There's a reason those three work together. Anyway, you guys just got in and you've got a lot of road dust on you. Bath, then food and stories?"
"Are you cooking?" Hazō asked carefully.
Impish grin. "I'll be good, I promise. No congee. Now, go get cleaned up. You all smell like road."
"I call solo tub!" Noburi said, dashing off toward the bathing rooms.
"Hey, no fair!" Hazō scrambled after him.
"It is good to see you again, Mari-sensei," Keiko said. "I missed having you to talk to."
Mari smiled, but eyed her adopted daughter carefully. "Good to see you again, too. Sounds like there's some things you want to talk about. Let's get you cleaned up and stuffed full of something hot and delicious and then we'll sit in the garden and catch up, okay?"
"Thank you."
o-o-o-o
November 21, 2pm
"And I'f be' te'fing thif kid," Kagome-sensei said, spraying bits of rice everywhere and gesturing wildy with a drumstick. Mari-sensei cleared her throat and the sealmaster blushed, gulped his mouthful down, and continued more clearly. "Honoka. Cute as a button, hard worker, and plenty smart. Those stinking idiots at the Academy thought she couldn't hack it. Ha! Idiots. They just can't teach." He ripped some flesh off the drumstick and masticated happily, bits of meat dribbling out the side of his smile.
"Wow," Hazō said. "That's great, sensei. I was actually thinking about that on the way home."
"Despite the horripilation of terror I am currently experiencing, I shall ask the question. Thinking about what, Hazō?"
Hazō shot his sister a sour glare and then turned back to the older man. "I was thinking about the divisions between civilians, clanless ninja, and clan ninja. I don't know what the school system is like here, but I'm willing to bet that it's better for clan ninja than for the others, and so the others probably don't pass as often. What if we set up tutoring for at-risk kids?"
"I see," Keiko said thoughtfully. "You seek to recruit the next generation of both ninja and civilians so that they will be more amenable to your control."
"No! Well, yes, I suppose, although I wouldn't put it like that. Amenable to my ideals, I'd say. I mean, if we really want to pull off this uplift idea then we need to get other people onboard or it will never go anywhere. But mostly I just wanted to help. We've been talking about this sort of thing but we're finally in a position where we can do something about it. Until now we lacked the money, the time, or the contacts to do anything. That's changed now."
Keiko's face wasn't as blank as that of the Mori Voice, but it was close. "Yes. The pangolins' gold does give us options that we lacked."
Hazō tried not to sigh. "The pangolin gold was seed money. It paid off the estate—"
"Ehhhh," Mari-sensei said, see-sawing her hand back and forth.
"Whatever. It kept the creditors at bay, fixed the roof, and put food on the table, but we're not dependent on it forever. Once our licenses from the Merchant Council come through, Kagome-sensei and I can bring in a lot of cash. And we don't have to do the work ourselves. I'm thinking that we go in with some civilian merchants; stake them to start their own businesses and then we take a cut of the profits. If the Council allows it then we could sell them some seals or subsidize some D- or even C-rank missions to build infrastructure for them, give them a competitive advantage. We can use some of that money to pay for uplift C-ranks where we send ninja out to build walls, exterminate chakra beasts, and provide medical care to civilians."
"Yes, that seems entirely workable. I see no way in which the Merchant Council would object to us using ninja abilities to give one merchant an advantage over another. Or in which the medical corps would mind what they will doubtlessly consider wasting their time on civilians."
Hazō is Compelled: Open Mouth, Insert Foot!
Compel refused! -1 Fate Point
"Keiko...." Hazō paused, reconsidering the biting words that had been about to fall from his lips. "We've never been in a position to make the world better before. Now we are."
"That's not—"
"Yes it is," Hazō said, quickly cutting off the objection that Keiko was clearly about to make. "Growing up in Mist we were kids, and unadmired for reasons that weren't our fault. Everything I said to that proctor was true: You and Noburi are brilliant ninja and brilliant people. Your families were dumb as rocks for not realizing that, but they didn't.
"In the Swamp, we were very junior members of a group that had to stay hidden. On the run in Iron we did some good here and there; yes, we could have done more but we at least did some and we resolved to do more. In Isan we were practically under lock and key. Then came Hot Springs, which was my fault—"
"No," Mari-sensei said. "I was in charge. Whatever we did, I was the one responsible."
Hazō looked at her sourly. "I was the one who pushed us to do the mission at all, and I was the one who wouldn't let it go when things started getting complicated. The rest of you went along to make sure I didn't screw up, but it's still my fault.
"Anyway, on our first visit to Leaf we weren't trusted enough to effect change and I, uh, kinda bollixed things up so we got kicked out. After we came back we weren't here a week when we got sent out on mail delivery. We get back, and a month later we go to the Chūnin Exams.
"We'll be chūnin in a month—"
"Probably," Noburi cautioned.
Hazō waved dismissively. "Don't even. Except for the fourth event we absolutely dominated the Exams. Every single person in the tournament is there because of us—ISC because they allied with us and everyone else because they were either our allies or ISC's allies in the first round." He laughed, a trace of petty mockery in the sound. "For that matter, look at Downfall. They were tenth, eleventh, and twelfth in the Exams at the end of the fourth event. After we got done with them they weren't even in the top half."
"They were. With seventy-two candidates, the bottom half means positions thirty-seven and down. They were in thirty-four through thirty-six."
Hazō rolled his eyes dismissively. "Fine, be a pedant."
"I believe you mean 'accurate'."
"Whatever. The point is, we completely undid the Exams. All of the progress that everyone had made, we erased it except for the people we allowed to stay in. In particular, we completely dominated Team Downfall. For that matter, ISC did so well mostly because of us. They scored well in the third event on their own, they got the fourth one only because the proctors didn't disqualify them for bodyjacking a proctor—"
"Ninja."
"That's probably why they added the 'no using jutsu on a proctor' rule in the fifth event," Noburi mused.
"—whatever. Point is, we were beating them handily up through the third event. We went down in the fourth basically because Mist screwed us on our roles and painted a target on us at the eliminations. ISC did well in the fifth event solely because we gave them all the prisoners in the first round and then gave them the pangolins and the Goo Bombs in the second."
"Results, not reasons."
"Argh! Fine, yes, they significantly outscored us overall. The point is, we are absolutely worth promoting. And do you seriously have any doubt that we're going to demolish the tournament? If they hadn't stacked the brackets to make us fight each other early then there's a good chance we would have taken first, second, and third."
"The brackets were—"
"Seeded based on score, fine, whatever. My point still stands, despite that quibble."
"You mispronounced 'quibble'," Keiko said, a very slight smile on her lips. "The correct pronunciation is 'fact that disproves your false statement'."
"Stop picking on him," Kagome-sensei said. "He's right. The three of you did great, and you're going to be promoted. And yeah, I like the idea of tutoring more, maybe even starting a better school. Honoka's coming along pretty well, and I've been looking more at the stupid curriculum that those stinking idiots over at the Academy use. Ha! Half of everything they teach is just wrong, the other half is propaganda, and none of them can teach better than a dried-out turd."
Noburi cocked his head, frowning. "How can math be wrong, or propaganda?"
"Well...the way they teach it is wrong. Stupid. No wonder kids don't learn it. Giant tables of stuff with no explanations. How are you supposed to use that stuff, huh? Huh? Tell me that, Mr. Smart Guy!"
"Let's not get off track," Hazō said. "Kagome-sensei, I'm glad you're in for starting a school. What would you need?"
The older man sat back, drumstick forgotten in his hand and lips pursed in thought. "Students, obviously. A time when they don't have other commitments. A place to meet. Writing materials. A chalkboard would help, not critical though. Some time to figure out what I'd be teaching, put a curriculum together. Math and writing are easy, need to figure out what else."
"How about, instead of teaching students, you teach teachers?"
"What?"
"You said it yourself, the teachers here are lousy. You're not, so teach them how to be better. On your own you could handle...what? Maybe two dozen kids a year? If you make the teachers better then you could help thousands."
Kagome's excitement curdled like spoiled milk. "Stinkers aren't going to want to learn from me. Or from anyone. They all think that their system is soooo amazing. Idiots."
"We could make it a contest," Noburi suggested.
"Huh?"
"Let's find a teacher who's willing to make a bet and two civilian kids who are just starting school. You teach one of the kids, he teaches the other. At the end of a month we give both kids a test on what they've learned. If his student wins, we pay the teacher three month's wages. If yours wins, he has to publicly acknowledge, in front of all the students, teachers, and administrators at the Academy, that you are a superior teacher and your methods are better."
"Huh."
"Add to that group the Hokage and several clan heads," Keiko added.
"Just imagine it, sensei," Hazō said. "There he is, up on stage with everyone looking at him, and he has to say 'I am a stupid idiot for doubting Mr. Gōketsu. His teachings are better than mine. I was prideful and stupid to doubt him and I acknowledge that, as an honorable man, I have an obligation to Leaf to provide my students with the best education I can. I have failed in that duty and I will seek to improve. Mr. Gōketsu, I humbly ask—no, beg!—you to teach me your secret arts of instruction so that I may actually start meeting my duty."
"No, better," Noburi said. "'...so that I may stop being an arrogant knowitall dumbass and actually become a decent teacher.' And then he actually has to sit and learn from you. And call you Mr. Gōketsu."
"And bring cookies to all his study sessions with you," Hazō suggested.
Kagome-sensei's cackling and eager rubbing of hands suggested that he approved of this plan.
o-o-o-o
November 21, 4pm
Honoka was up from her chair the instant the big stupidhead teacher dismissed them, her schoolbooks having already been neatly stacked so they dropped smoothly into her bag. She was out the door before anyone else had even finished standing up, hair trailing behind her with the speed of her run, not stopping when teacher-stinker shouted something about slowing down.
She burst out the doors of the stupid stinking school to find Kagome-sensei waiting for her at the gate. She practically flew to him, slamming into him with her arms wrapped around his waist in a tight hug. By now he had learned to brace himself when she arrived, and he barely eeped at all.
"Hi, sensei!"
"Hi, squirt," he said, ruffling her hair and carefully prying her off. He took her hand and started leading her home. "I've got something special for you today."
"Oooh, what, what? Are we doing fractions again?"
"Nope. Counting."
She stopped, pulling him to a halt while foot traffic whirled by them. "Sensei, I know how to count!"
"Do not," he said, that insufferable look on his face that said he was starting something new that she'd never heard of yet.
"Do too!"
"Do not!"
"Do too!
"Prove it!"
"One, two, three, four—"
"Hah! See, you got it wrong. It's 'one, two, zub, four'."
"No it's not! It's three!"
"Not today. Today it's zub. And the number after seven is glorp."
"No it isn't! It's eight!"
"Nope. Today it's glorp."
She glared at him with all the fury a three-and-a-half foot girl could muster. "It's eight."
"Well, that depends." He tapped the storage scroll on his right arm. "If I've got glorp cookies in here then you can have zub of them. If I've got eight then you can't have any. So. How many cookies?"
"Glorp!"
"Thought so," he said smugly.
"I want my cookies!"
"How many cookies do you want?"
"Zub!"
"You'll spoil your dinner."
"Will not!"
"Will too!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Okay, tell you what: If you can get two questions right then you can have one cookie now and two after the lesson." He frowned. "I think. One cookie plus two cookies...is that zub cookies?"
"Yes, silly! Because zub is three, and one plus two is three."
He glowered. "What's this 'three' nonsense? I've never heard of 'three'. What's one plus two?"
"Zub!"
"Hm." He looked up at the sky, counting on his fingers. "One, two, zub...yep! You're right. Okay, two questions and then you can have the first cookie."
He knelt down and swiped his hand through the dirt of the road, flattening it out so that he could draw on it. A one, then a plus sign, then a weird shape she'd never seen before, then an equals, and then a four.
"Is this right?" he asked, pointing at the weird equation.
She frowned. "What's that thing in the middle?"
"That's zub, of course."
"Oh." She shook her head. Kagome-sensei was weird. "Okay. One plus zub equals four."
"Is it true?"
"Well..." She had to think about that. One plus three was four, so that was true. But...well, if zub meant the same thing as three then.... "I think so?"
He raised an eyebrow. "You think so, or yes?"
"Yes. One plus zub is four."
He smiled. "Good. One more." He wiped the equation away and drew another one. Ten, a minus sign, two, equals, and a weird squiggle. She stared blankly at it.
"Is it true?" he asked.
How should she know? She had never seen the squiggly bit before! It wasn't zub, and the equation would have been wrong if it was. Whatever the squiggle was, it wasn't any number she knew. It might not even be a number.
Hm. Hang on. It wasn't a number she knew, and it wasn't zub, but Kagome-sensei had made up two nonsense words. Today, she was supposed to say 'glorp' instead of 'eight'. Ten minus two was eight, but if she was saying glorp today....
"Yes! It's right! That's glorp, isn't it? It is, it is, I got it right, I get a cookie!"
He grinned and stood up, reaching into his breast pocket and pulling out a folded-up napkin from which he produced a slightly crumbled cookie.
o-o-o-o
"Mommmm! We're home!"
Aoi bustled out of the kitchen, wiping the flour off her hands. "Welcome back, sweetie. Kagome-sensei, I made marshberry pie. Would you like some?"
The man's eyes lit up and he nodded so hard his head should have fallen off. "Yes!" He paused, then clearly remembered something. "I mean, yes, please. I love your marshberry pie."
Aoi smiled warmly. The man was such a dear. Manners obviously came hard to him—not surprising, given that he'd grown up in a place as uncivilized as Mist—but he tried so hard and was so earnest.
"Coming right up," she said, starting to turn back to the kitchen.
"Um...would you...uh..."
She turned back, surprised to find him stammering and blushing.
"What would you like?" she asked, taking care to make her tone as understanding as possible.
"I...was wondering if, um, if you would make some creaky chicken with spinach? Please?" He slid one of his incredible storage scrolls out of a bandolier on his arm and held it out. "It's chicken with a sweet coating, nice and crispy. I brought the recipe, and all the stuff, if it's okay. I mean, you can have it regardless, but I thought if I brought the stuff then maybe it wouldn't be too much to ask...but maybe it is. I just, uh, really like creaky chicken but Mari used to like it but hasn't been in the mood for it lately so we never have it anymore and she suggested that I could ask you to make it if I was polite, and, um...."
She took the scroll from him with a smile. "I'd be delighted. You'll need to open the scroll for me, though."
"Oh, right! Come on!" He grabbed the scroll out of her hands and strode into the kitchen. She trailed along behind him, Honoka following in turn. The girl loved watching Kagome-sensei seal and unseal things, sometimes asking for it as a treat when she did well in her lessons.
Kagome-sensei set the scroll on the counter, unrolled it...and then paused. "Come here, squirt."
Honoka padded over to him. "Yes, sensei?"
"Put your finger here," he said, gesturing to the seal in the middle of the scroll.
The girl's eyes widened, but she did as instructed. Aoi's breath caught in her throat, images of ninja magic gone wrong dancing in her mind.
"Close your eyes," Kagome-sensei said.
Honoka obeyed.
"Now, breathe, slow and even. Good. Relax your face or it'll freeze like that. Stop giggling, it happens! Good. Now, breathe."
The man's breathing slowed and steadied, becoming a series of gentle waves lapping on the shore. After a few moments, Honoka's breathing matched his.
"Good," he said quietly. "Now, think about your finger. Think how warm it is, how the ridges of your fingerprint swirl and crinkle. How the fingernail is shaped, with that little ragged nick on the side of the white part where you nibbled it. Feel the pattern of the paper under it. What does it feel like?"
Honoka's breathing was steady and even, her voice quiet. "Soft. Smooth."
"Feel the ridges where the ink is."
Honoka's brow creased into a slight frown. She shifted her finger slightly, paused, then shifted it again. "There's no...wait. There are?" Her eyes came open and she looked in confusion at where her finger touched the scroll. The completely flat scroll with nary a ridge in sight.
"Close your eyes. Just feel them, don't look for them. Slide your finger around, trace the ridges."
Aoi watched, a swirl of unrecognizable emotions inside her as her baby daughter traced out the patterns of the seal with perfect accuracy, despite her eyes being closed. Her face had smoothed out again and her breathing was deeper and slower, still matching Kagome-sensei's.
"Good. Now, feel how cool those ridges are? Like touching a coin that's been sitting on the table. Feel that?"
"Uh-huh." The girl's voice was dreamy and far away.
"Coins warm up if you hold them, and so will those ridges. Run your finger over them again, slowly. Think about how warm your fingers are, and let that warmth spread out into the ridges. Nice, warm fingers. Poor ridges, they want to warm up. Let them have some of the heat in your fingers so the ridges can be nice and toasty."
There was a faint pop! and Kagome-sensei pulled Honoka's hand back so that the suddenly-appearing enormous bag of groceries didn't land on it.
Honoka's eyes snapped open and her mouth gaped. "Did I just...?" She blinked, swaying slightly as a wave of dizziness passed over her.
Kagome-sensei steadied her with a hand on her shoulder, smiling fit to split his face. "Uh-huh. You opened my storage scroll."
"Is she all right?" Aoi asked nervously.
Kagome-sensei nodded, giving the child a soft look before meeting Aoi's eyes. "She's fine, I promise. A little lightheaded, but it'll pass in a moment, especially if she eats something sweet."
From a pocket he produced a napkin-wrapped object that proved to be a lump of oats stuck together with enough honey to choke a horse. He pressed it into the little girl's hand "Eat this, Honoka."
The girl nibbled on the treat automatically, hardly seeming to notice what she was doing.
"Thank you so much," Aoi said, bowing so deep her back was parallel to the floor. When she straightened up, it was to find Kagome-sensei blushing and looking down, nibbling on his lip in embarrassment.
"Um, you're welcome? I mean, it's not really that much...she's talented, that's all. Good focus for a kid her age, and I thought maybe.... I'm sorry I scared you. Didn't mean to." He fidgeted nervously, although his left hand stayed on Honoka's shoulder.
He looked up hopefully, only just meeting her eyes. "Um...even though I scared you, will you still make creaky chicken for me? There should be enough for all four of us, if you want to try it yourself? I hope you will, 'cause I think it's great and it would be nice if you liked it too because then you wouldn't mind having to make it and I don't want to be a bother, but—"
She chuckled and set a hand on his arm. "It's fine," she said. "I'm happy to make anything you want. And I'm sure there's enough for all of us." In point of fact, it looked like there was enough for all of them the better part of a week.
"Oh good," he said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand as he looked from the groceries back to Aoi. "I wasn't really sure how much to bring, and Mari put the bag together but there was still room in the scroll so I thought maybe I'd toss some stuff in for a salad and some side dishes and, um, maybe there'd be leftovers? And I could have some of them tomorrow?"
She laughed and nodded. "Absolutely. And I'll make creaky chicken for you anytime you want."
o-o-o-o
November 21, 4:30pm
The door banged open and Jiraiya strode in, arms spreading wide in triumph. "FOOD! SAKE! The conquering hero demands sake and dango! And teriyaki chicken! And footrubs! Also praise! Lots of praise!"
"Congratulations, dear, that's incredible and I'm terribly impressed," Mari-sensei said, setting her book face-down on the arm of the chair to keep her place. Keiko winced at the sight, but the redhead seemed not to notice as she met her husband and hugged him tight for a moment before stepping back and looking up to meet his eyes. "Now, what am I praising you for?"
"Can't say, it's classified," Jiraiya said, slipping a hand behind her neck and another to the small of her back so he could pull her into a very thorough kiss. Mari-sensei stiffened in surprise, then melted into it. She growled in frustration when Jiraiya let go a moment later and started striding up and down the room, arms waving as though drawing connections in the air. The trickle of blood from his sandals left a trail of red dots behind him.
"We cracked this thing wide open! I know it! Finally got a thread to pull on, and we're going to unravel it like an Earth-country sweater! Yes, yes, yes!" Fists pumped in time with the words.
Mari-sensei caught Keiko's eye and tipped her head towards the kitchen, mouthing the word 'food'. Keiko gratefully removed herself from the tiring aura of excitement flooding from her clan leader.
"Honey, do you want to sit down and tell us about it?"
"Sit? Sit?! Haha, no way! How could I sit at a time like this?! Things to do, people to torture, you know? I mean, not that there's really any torture—not effective—but that's the name. Scares the targets, makes it easier to read them. And these guys? Total bunch of idiots. Not a lick of OPSEC between them, apparently." He clapped his hands together, rubbing them and grinning in glee. "Oh, yes, this is going to be great. Inoichi will peel them like grapes and we can finally start making some progress."
"Sweetie, when did you leave Mist?"
"Hm? What? Oh...hmmm..about two days ago. I think. Had to go east half a day though, so we had to go back past it. Not sure how to count that. Sounds about right. Had some stuff to take care of. Why?"
"So, you traveled nearly five hundred miles in under two days?"
"Yeah, so?" He seemed honestly puzzled for a moment, then started moving again, cackling and tapping his fingertips together like a Kabuki evil mastermind. "Finally! Two weeks, maybe? Shikaku can probably hold them off that long."
"Were you using the Akimichi stimulants, hon?"
"Yes, of course. Where's my dango? I wanted dango!" He struck a pose, hopping from one foot to the other. "The Mighty Sage Jiraiya, Lover of Women, Toad Sage, Fifth Hokage, Master of the Bedroom Arts, Author of the Most Popular Series Ever, Spymaster, Lovemaster, Wooer of Women, demands dango!"
"How many of the stimulants did you take?"
Jiraiya glanced at her in grumbly disbelief. "Seriously, woman? This is my moment of victory, and you're worrying about silly things like stimulants?"
Mari-sensei put her hands on her hips and gave him a quelling look. "How many, Jiraiya?"
"I dunno...eight, maybe nine? Yesterday. Only two today. Dango! Where—oh, thank you, Keiko." He grabbed a handful of the sweet dumplings off the plate that Keiko had just brought in, then demonstrated the finest Kagome-sensei manners by shoving all of them in his mouth at once. And promptly spat them out into his hand. "Ow, ow, ow! Hothothot!"
Silently, Keiko held out the glass of cool water she held in her other hand. Jiraiya gratefully took a gulp and gargled it to cool his burned mouth.
"Thanks, kid, you're astonimazing and amazashing!" Jiraiya grabbed a few skewers of chicken in the hand that already held six lightly-chewed dango.
"Man, you guys were great," Jiraiya said, striding up and down the room, alternating sips of the water and bites of the chicken and/or dango, tossing each skewer aside as he finished it. "Blew out the Exams, made all the other villages look like crap, got me some amazing trade deals, got me a lead. Can't say anything of course—classified, have to kill you before I told you and then kill myself afterwards! But still, it's a lead. A lead!!! And, with my usual brilliance and perceptiveness, not to mention my incredible prowess in all things martial, I have—"
"Give me that," Mari-sensei said, firmly taking the mostly-empty glass of water from Jiraiya's hand and setting it down. "Come with me."
"What? I haven't finished telling you how awesome I am! There's more!"
"Right now you're going to take me to bed and show me how awesome you are. Then, in about ten minutes, the stimulants are going to finish wearing off and you're going to fall unconscious. Now come along."
"But, but...my awesome! I am so awesome, and you need to hear it!"
Mari-sensei was too short to kiss him if he didn't choose to bend, so she jumped up and wrapped her legs around his hips and arms around his neck. She kissed him hard, then whispered something in his ear.
Jiraiya's eyes got very wide and he pulled her against him with both arms. "Right! Time for bed! Kids, I'm totally awesome and I'll tell you all about it later!"
His adopted children watched as he disappeared out of the room. They stared after him for several seconds, then exchanged looks.
"So, that happened."
"Yep." Beat. "Sounded like good news."
"Indeed." Keiko offered the plate and the remains of its contents around. "Dango?"
o-o-o-o
November 22, 11am
Jiraiya limped into the kitchen clutching his head.
"Good morning," Hazō said carefully.
"Not so loud," Jiraiya mumbled, collapsing into a chair and staring at the table, both hands clutching his head. "My hair hurts."
"Are you all right?" Hazō whispered, as softly as he could.
"No. Tea."
Hazō unsealed a piping-hot teapot and cups, filled one, and slid it across the table to his clan leader. Jiraiya wrapped a grateful hand around the warmth of the cup and tried to lift it, but his hand was shaking so badly that he spilled some of it on his hand. With a hiss of pain he set the cup down and grabbed a napkin to wipe the hot liquid off his skin.
"What happened?" Hazō asked, meanwhile rummaging through his backpack for the scroll labeled 'For Sick Days'. He found it down at the bottom and unsealed a box containing three bowls of hot and lightly-salted soup, some soft bread, four empty glasses, and a jug of tepid water with half a ginger root floating in it. He slid one of the bowls and the bread across the table, poured all four glasses full, and then sealed the rest up again.
"Akimichi stimulants," Jiraiya mumbled, dunking some of the bread in the soup and bringing it to his lips. Soup spattered but he managed to get some of it down. "They let you keep going, but they're hell on the body. Ran my feet bloody and my chakra so low I almost died, but I didn't realize it until after they wore off. Didn't help that I was carrying someone the whole time."
"Can I get you anything?"
The white-maned head shook back and forth fractionally, immediately followed by Jiraiya dropping the uneaten part of the bread and clutching his temples again with a hiss of pain.
"I'll be fine," the Toad Sage whispered. "Nothing to do except get through it. Mari already had a medic in."
Hazō nodded, despite knowing that Jiraiya wasn't looking at him. "Anything you can tell me about?"
"Not yet," Jiraiya mumbled, fumbling another piece of bread out of the basket and dunking it. "Things are looking up, though."
XP AWARD: 15
XP AWARD for Chapter 208: 1 (It covered about 5 minutes)
Bonus XP: 3 (Concise plan)
FP AWARD: 1
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on Wednesday, September 12, 2018, at 12pm London time.
Offscreen:
You left Mist first thing in the morning on the 19th. (Kakashi wasn't even late—either Jiraiya threatened him into promptness or he was really eager to get out of Mist.) The run home was leisurely, so you didn't arrive until the afternoon of the 21st.
You talked to Kakashi and Gai (separately) about training. Kakashi mumbled something about being unable to train anyone because he needed to spend the next week baking cookies. Gai was fine having you show up for his normal practice; he did a lot of shouting about how youthful it would be for his youthful students to have the flames of their youth fanned through competition with their eternal rivals.
The state of your license is currently pending on @Velorien and @OliWhail having the time to review a proposed version. The Merchant Council has at least made a decision, though.
You are intending to start on casino seals today and Kagome-sensei is happy to help.
Hana has not arrived yet.
You will give Jiraiya all the seals you know, and ask him about Shadow Clones, as soon as he doesn't look like he's at death's door.
Author's Notes:
This was a good plan. Concise, clear, and lots of good plot hooks without overly specifying things. It was a little too much to put into one chapter, but many of the scenes could be off-screened. Well done, @Oneiros.
Hazō hesitated outside the firmly-closed door to Keiko's room. Keiko did not forbid her family from entering per se, as long as she was present, but unsolicited visits rarely met with a warm reception (Noburi, by contrast, left his door various degrees of open to indicate how welcome visitors were at any given time). On the plus side, this made her room ideal for having one-on-one conversations without risk of interruption, and that was what Hazō was going for today.
Appropriately to Keiko's preferences, the door was a mighty thing of thick wood and metal which couldn't possibly be opened without alerting anyone inside. Keiko had also insisted on keeping the "Cognitive Hazard Containment" sign on the front (any actual hazards had long since been removed or destroyed by ANBU specialists, and when Hazō asked what a cognitive hazard was, Kagome-sensei simply said, "You don't want to know").
"Keiko? It's me, Hazō. Can I come in?"
"Proceed."
It was a teaching of Mari-sensei's that a person's private space was a guide to their hidden self, but Hazō was never quite sure what that said about Keiko. Her bedroom was painted a light blue that shaded darker as it approached the ceiling, which was taken up by an enormous star chart in silver and midnight blue. Keiko had never once spoken of being homesick, yet Hazō couldn't help noticing that the constellations were painted as if seen from Mist.
Two walls were taken up by enormous bookshelves stuffed with books, scrolls and the occasional board game, as well as a wardrobe, a desk and an equipment chest. The oak furniture was standard across the compound—Mari-sensei had applied her powers to get a bulk deal from a helpless carpenter, and promised to get something more personalised once finances allowed.
A third wall bore an Intelligence Department world map which Keiko had wrangled out of Jiraiya, covered with illegible annotations and pinned scraps of parchment. Finally, hanging directly over Keiko's bed, between more bookshelves, was a huge cork board on a hook, always hung facing the wall. Hazō had no idea what was pinned to it, and didn't put it past Keiko to have trapped it to make sure it stayed that way.
Which naturally brought his gaze to Keiko herself, lying on the bed reading a book with a cover depicting... a young woman artfully bound in red silk rope.
"Oh," Hazō stammered. "I'm sorry, I-I didn't realise you were busy. I'll come back—"
"Not at all," Keiko said. "As it happens, I was just wondering whether to seek your help practising the material in this book."
Hazō froze in mid-escape. "I, uh, Keiko, I think you're a great girl and everything, but I have a girlfriend, and besides, there's the whole adopted siblings thing, and you're engaged, and—"
"I fail to see how any of that is relevant," Keiko said. "I merely intended to ask you to tie me up in an elaborate fashion, ideally in the privacy of my bedroom—or yours—so as to avoid potential interference from the rest of our family."
At this point, the combination of confusion, panic and inevitable visualisation overloaded Hazō's brain.
"Hazō? Is something the matter?" Keiko got up from the bed, book still in hand. "Have you been experimenting with strange seals without supervision again? Should I call Kagome? Or a Yamanaka expert?"
But by the time she got close enough to check his eyes for dilation, he could finally read the title of the book: Caught in a Bind: Escapology for Beginners.
"Oh! No, nothing is wrong, Keiko, nothing at all! Sorry to make you worry! Forget I said anything. At all. Ever."
Keiko gave him a sceptical look.
"So, uh, anyway, why are you reading about escapology?"
"Mari-sensei's recommendation. After I told her about a certain unfortunate night-time incident in the barracks, she explained to me, in her words, that 'a woman should be tied up only when she is in the mood, and only for as long as she is in the mood'."
"That seems strangely emphatic."
"She herself decided to learn the art after an incident involving a lover on an urgent mission to purchase more honey syrup from across the road, a door left carelessly unlocked, and some officials from the Mizukage's Office seeking a secondary debriefing. Enough said, I trust."
Apparently this was a morning for fascinating mental images.
Hazō shook his head to clear them away before Keiko could read his mind.
"Can we set tying you up aside for a moment? I actually had something specific to talk to you about."
"Oh?"
"The pangolins."
Keiko's expression shut down as completely if she'd placed a Multiple Earth Wall between them. "I do not believe I presently have anything to add on the subject."
"I do."
Keiko didn't say anything.
"Keiko, I think you're right."
"Is that so?" she asked warily.
"Yeah," Hazō said. "Back when we started this thing, I had no idea it was going to get so bad. But right now, that's just an excuse, and it doesn't matter. The fact is, I got us into this mess when I proposed the skytower plan, and now it's my responsibility to take the lead on fixing it."
"On the contrary," Keiko said coldly. "I am the Pangolin Summoner. It is my responsibility to know and understand the summon clans, not yours. It is my responsibility to mediate between the two worlds and preserve their balance. Your plan was implemented only as a result of my full approval, and only I was in a position to directly observe its effects and make necessary adjustments. I do not mean to downplay your role—neither conception nor execution would have been possible without you—but in the final reckoning, whatever the manufacturer's business plan may be, it is the dealer who chooses to place the weapons in unworthy hands.
"In any case, I am aware that I may be overreacting. I owe no loyalty to the Condor Clan, nor is it my duty to manage the politics of alien races. A true shinobi places her own mission above all else, especially one as important as Team Uplift's, and feels only pride at the efficient elimination of a shared foe. What do I know of the condors that I should care that the blood of their entire species is on my hands, or of their culture that I should care that I have single-handedly stolen it from them?"
She sat down heavily on the bed. There was still no expression on her face, but Hazō knew her well enough to see the tell-tale signs of how much effort that was taking. Any moment now, she'd find an excuse to retreat into the Frozen Skein and he'd lose his chance to support the part of her that needed it most.
Hazō is Compelled: Open Mouth, Insert Foot!
"Keiko," he said hurriedly, not thinking so much about the detail of the words as about the need to keep her emotionally present, "there is nothing wrong with caring about strangers. The whole point of Uplift is caring about strangers. I… I know it hurts. The people on the Sunset Racer were strangers too, and I still haven't forgotten that feeling of anger and helplessness and guilt after we failed to…" He bit his tongue, but it was too late.
Keiko didn't respond. Her stance shifted and her eyes lost focus. Hazō, feeling entirely new helplessness and guilt, waited, because this was not something that was safe to interrupt.
"I apologise," Keiko said tonelessly after a while. "I was allowing my emotions to interfere with my judgement. Having established that you are amenable to cooperation, I will consider the situation in more depth and attempt to evaluate our options."
"Keiko, you don't have to—"
She cut him off. "The need to prevent further harm on the Seventh Path is much more immediate than any personal concerns of mine, and must take priority over them."
Hazō sighed. "All right. I guess we can talk about it some more tonight, once Jiraiya is free. He must have a lot of experience handling diplomacy with the clans, and he was great that one time we asked him for help."
Keiko nodded.
"And Keiko… I'm here for you. If you want to talk about it, if you want help processing, or another perspective on your problems, or just a friendly shoulder to lean on from a safe distance, I'm always here."
"Noted."
His options exhausted, Hazō made his retreat. The door swung shut behind him, once more isolating Keiko from the rest of the world.
-o-
For maybe the first time in his life, Noburi was glad to be training with Team Gai. Not so much because it would let him get back to his sacred duty of reminding Hyūga of his place in the world, but because Tenten would be there, and with any luck hanging out with her would dispel the impenetrable aura of gloom that had been radiating from Keiko ever since Hazō tried to talk to her about the pangolin thing. Hazō's original comment wasn't wrong—depending on how bad Keiko was feeling, both of them coming to talk to her at once might have felt like an intervention. But Noburi should have insisted on leaving it to the professionals (i.e. himself), precisely to avoid this kind of scenario.
Keiko and Tenten, though... looking back, he really should have figured it out a lot earlier. They had this weird in-sync thing going where they were practically finishing each other's sentences like a married couple, minus the sentences part. But more than that, he couldn't remember the last time Keiko had complained about joint training with their so-called rivals (only so called by Lee, but Noburi tacitly encouraged it because Hazō's expression never stopped being hilarious). Keiko, who was allergic to the Spirit of Youth like Mari-sensei was allergic to monogamy.
Mari-sensei was obviously in on it. Seriously, how had Noburi never questioned "She's out seeing a friend" when, as far as he knew, Keiko didn't have any friends outside the Gōketsu? Of the rest, Akane had picked up on it around the same time Noburi did, Hazō was probably oblivious, Jiraiya didn't know her well enough, and Kagome was Kagome. On the whole, Keiko was playing the OPSEC game pretty well. If it hadn't been for that one incident of Hyūga-induced temporary insanity (weird how those words seemed to fit together so naturally), most of them still wouldn't have a clue.
Well, whatever. It wasn't like it made any difference to Noburi, who had totally gotten over his crush and wasn't starting to feel down just thinking about Keiko being in a relationship with someone else. Where was Hyūga, anyway?
"Where is Hyūga, anyway?"
"He won't be joining us today," Gai said. "But don't worry about the numbers being off—instead we've got a surprise guest appearance from Ishihara Akane!"
Nice. He hadn't had a chance to talk to Akane for a while thanks to the exams. Plus, assuming Hazō had used up his foot-in-mouth quota for the day, maybe those two could take the opportunity to make up.
"I don't see her. Is she late?"
"Not at all. Why, she's right over there!" Gai pointed to the shadow of the trees at the edge of the Training Grounds, where Tenten was receiving some kind of nondescript bag from Akane while bowing repeatedly. Curious.
As if sensing the attention, Akane turned towards them, then went still.
"You… didn't tell her we'd be training with you too, did you?"
"I decided to make it a pleasant surprise," Gai said warmly. "It seems her lack of success at the exams has left her feeling less than youthful, and what could be more brimming with Youth than a passionate physical encounter with one's lover?"
Oh, boy.
Hazō, coming up behind them, followed the line of Gai's pointed finger, then gave a probably-unconscious anxious smile. Noburi silently wished him luck. A lot of luck. "Beat a Hyūga at hide-and-seek" levels of luck.
"Gōketsu! My true rival! How I have waited to get my hands on your body and wrestle you to the ground!"
That could be a problem. Was Noburi really prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of his friend and brother's love? Was he, in his heart of hearts, a man who could selflessly spend several hours with Rock Lee for the greater good?
"Lee," Noburi said as he gripped him firmly by the shoulder and steered him towards another part of the grounds, "you're partnering up with me today."
"Splendid!" Lee exclaimed. "We will finally find out if you can drown me in your fluids before my Hard Fist penetrates the depths of your barrel!"
Screw selflessness. Hazō was going to be paying him back for this till the day he died.
-o-
"…"
"…"
Hazō's training with Akane was not going as well as expected.
"You're still upset, aren't you?" Hazō stated the obvious for lack of options. It wasn't a start that would win him any diplomacy awards, but he was trying to tread lightly. This was his chance to redeem himself for his failure this morning.
"It doesn't matter," Akane said heavily. "What's done is done. No matter how we feel, it doesn't change the fact that the right thing to do is to move on."
"I'm so glad to hear that!" Hazō beamed with massive relief. He'd been afraid that this would be a reprise of their last conversation, wherein a pained Akane would try to explain her feelings in her usual simple, clear way, and he would find himself misunderstanding what she meant and thereby failing to address the problem until it was too late.
"You… are?"
"Of course. I was afraid that what I did might have put some kind of rift between us, but I'm willing to move on if you are."
Akane nodded. "Yeah. I know it might take time to… sort out our feelings, but eventually…" She started again. "I don't want to lose you as a friend, Hazō. That would be the worst thing of all."
"You won't," Hazō said confidently. "If that's what you were worried about, I guarantee it's not going to happen."
At this, Akane finally smiled. Only a faint smile, but to Hazō it was still a ray of sunlight. "I'm glad."
"So… with that sorted out, do you want to get on with the training?"
"I guess we should," Akane said. "No matter what's happening in our personal lives, Leaf needs us to be able to work together as professionals."
"You're absolutely right," Hazō said. "I was worried about how things would turn out at first, but I'm glad we're on the same page."
-o-
There was only one thing better than intense physical exercise for taking one's mind off being a genocidal monster by proxy. That thing was intense physical exercise with one's beloved.
For these precious few hours, everything was perfect. Tenten was perfect—in every step, in every throw, every unspoken word and every concise instruction. The weather was perfect—sunny, brisk and with the promise of rain later in the day when she would be able to watch it meditatively through a window. Even Kei herself, though immeasurably distant from perfection, was at least in her element, a fish gliding smoothly through the sea of battle.
Her happiness was not without cost. The instant her attention slipped, she felt a spike of pain as a shuriken severed her right shoulder muscles. Then before she could regain her balance, two more sliced behind her knees. Tenten's aim was perfect like everything else.
Tenten looked questioningly at her as she slowly found her feet. Again?
Kei raised her hand in a motion of denial. Her muscles were making it quite clear that if she continued training without a break, they would commit ritual suicide and leave her to seduce Tenten while sprawled pitifully on the ground like a beached jellyfish.
Not that she intended to seduce Tenten. Not that she had any idea how to seduce Tenten, circumstances being what they were. In fact, she was not even sure why the thought had come into her mind.
She looked at Tenten again. The sweat glistening on her face. The chest moved by heavy breathing. The supple limbs and the expression of calm exhilaration. Question retracted.
Did Tenten ever look at her like this? Kei did not have a clear image of her body as it was seen by others. She had been told a number of times in her youth that she resembled Ami, mostly by their parents while they still hoped she would follow in her sister's footsteps. She had internalised this enough that the school bullies' accusations of ugliness had failed to move her (unlike most of the other, valid, criticisms), but in reality, she suspected she was quite plain, as she always was next to Ami. Beyond which, she had little skill with body language, no particular dress sense, and zero expertise in feminine arts such as makeup (which had never mattered before and now suddenly did).
Tenten, either oblivious to Kei's attention or too polite to comment, had moved ahead of her on their way to their favourite oak. This, too, raised questions. Was Kei crossing a line of how much it was permitted to stare at a person? Was she merely being excessively self-conscious as she often was? Was she permitted to spend more time staring at Tenten now that they were girlfriends? Were they girlfriends? That one night had felt like a confession, but it did not match any of the protocols described in the literature. Why was her love life so confusing compared to Hazō and Akane's?
Tenten stopped short of their familiar place between the oak's huge roots. She turned around, and there was a tension in her expression that Kei had not seen since that awful night when Rock Lee had decided to make them victims of his hideous tomfoolery. There was a piece of parchment in her hand.
Kei took it.
The brushwork was simple, elegant, precise, exactly as Kei would have expected. The content was like an arrow to the heart.
I'm sorry I cannot say this to you like a normal person. This is my limit. You have been trying to speak my language. No one else ever has. That is why there is something that I need to say in yours.
I know I seem stupid to you. I am not.
I think in images. Some are slow and detailed. Some are sequences almost too fast to track. Some are feelings, or made of feelings. My thoughts are as deep and complicated as other people's. But I don't know how to put them into words. I was alone for a long time, and I never learned. Trying to translate is hard, and slow, and I make mistakes. Writing this was hard, and slow, and I kept having to start over. I listen, and I read, and I understand everything. But the words I need don't come to mind when I need them. I will never speak the way you do. Please understand that I am not stupid.
Please understand.
Tenten was watching her as if her reaction was a matter of life and death. Kei could feel her heart begin to ache.
If Kei was a normal person, she could reach out and touch her. Hug her, hold her, show her acceptance and affection the way normal people did. Kei was not a normal person.
Kei could say something. She did not know what—but with the endless arsenal of words at her disposal, surely some of them had to be right.
Then, in a moment of crystal clarity that the Mori Voice would have envied, she understood. Tenten had spoken to her in her language. Now Kei would speak to her in hers.
Kei gathered all of her courage. She looked straight at Tenten. Then, with the other girl watching, she closed her eyes and slowly pressed the letter to her slightly-open lips.
Their gazes were still locked as her eyes opened. She took a backwards step. Another to leave the shelter of the canopy.
She tore the letter in two.
Four.
Eight.
Sixteen for good measure.
She cast the pieces upwards, and the wind snatched them away.
She broke eye contact, having said everything she meant to say. She made her way over to her place among the tree roots, lay down, and closed her eyes to make it clear that no response was needed. She could not hear Tenten's footsteps over the pounding of her own heartbeat, but through closed eyelids she could see the silhouette come, stand over her for a few long seconds, then lie down next to her—as ever, one tree root away.
Today they'd reached over one barrier to touch each other. Someday, this one too.
-o-
Rest of the plan to be left until the Sunday update. No voting unless @eaglejarl decrees otherwise. In the meantime, though, lest it be forgotten, +1 FP for accepting a Compel.
"You know, Akane," Keiko said, "a more sceptical person than myself might, upon being plied with my favourite cake and then lured to the most secluded gazebo in Hashirama Memorial Park after dark, begin to suspect an ulterior motive."
Expensive cake at that. Akane could see how the Hokage's adopted daughter might not notice, but given that Akane's personal funds currently amounted to a modest Chūnin Exam stipend minus the money she'd had to spend in Mist, right now, luxuries had to be just that. But she'd made a promise. Besides, it was money spent on helping a friend (two friends, in fact), which was about the best use money could have.
"I need your help," Akane said without preamble. She wasn't sure what kind of ulterior motives Keiko was imagining, and she didn't want to take an indirect approach in case she found out.
"I assumed as much," Keiko said. "However, if you require some manner of intercession with Hazō, then I must refuse. For a person of my romantic aptitude to interfere in another's love life could lead only to unbounded devastation such as would cause Kagome himself to flinch away in horror."
"No," Akane said. "This isn't about Hazō." It was far too late for that. There was a reason she'd invited Keiko out instead of coming to see her at the compound, even though it was less practical for what she wanted.
"I was hoping that I could borrow a certain kind of novel from you. For a friend."
Keiko shot up. "I do not read or possess any such items, and I am insulted at the implication. If you have called me here solely to impugn my—"
"Keiko," Akane said quickly. "I'm not impugning anything. I just thought that, given you live in the same home as Jiraiya of the Three, you might have easy access to some of his works." Not really a lie. More of a half-truth. A three-quarters truth, even. Practically fact.
The blazing fury in Keiko's eyes simmered down. "Oh. Right. I see. Yes, as you have correctly inferred, Jiraiya is the kind of man to surround himself with reminders of his own talent. Which particular volumes are you interested in?"
"I was hoping you could recommend something, actually," Akane said. "For my friend. It isn't something I can figure out on my own." Akane wasn't fond of manipulating her friends, even for a worthy cause, but Keiko's sensitivity on the subject ruled out a direct approach, and the fact that Keiko considered herself more intelligent than Akane made this easier than it should have been.
"You understand that I have never read any of these works myself," Keiko said. "Anything I could tell you would be pure speculation based on aggregated second-hand knowledge." There was a touch of animation in her voice that, based on past experience, typically preceded Keiko waxing lyrical on the virtues of Mari-sensei—obviously not so frequent now—or mercilessly crushing someone's spirit. Now Akane thought about it, it was worrying that those were Keiko's two biggest expressions of enthusiasm.
Akane nodded.
Keiko sat down again. Her fingers drummed a brief, thoughtful pattern on the table. "In that case… I am given to understand that you should not concern yourself with Jiraiya's early experimental period. It is stylistically clumsy and the real-life inspirations are sometimes excessively transparent, although it does possess a certain naïve sincerity that is missing from his later works. You would do better to explore his Konaya and Tamamono years, when his growing popularity led him to sign on with a professional publisher and benefit from their ruthless editors, but before he became such a household name that he chose to return to self-publishing. His later novels can be self-indulgent, and some are by-the-numbers work plainly weakened by the spy network's demands on his time. In the worst cases, this occurs partway through, and quality takes a sharp dip just as one has become emotionally invested.
"Upon further consideration, while individual items from Jiraiya's extensive bibliography are justly considered classics whose popularity has led the genre to such prominence—notably Sealing: A Tsundere Story, Love Scroll, and of course the seminal Snake Oil: The Untold Story of the Leaf Three—you may benefit more from shifting your focus to the broader Konaya and Tamamono range."
"So what would you recommend?"
"That depends," Keiko said, her speech growing slightly faster. "What kind of story is 'your friend' interested in? Romantic comedy can be surprisingly soothing in times of stress, while thrillers are a very reliable form of self-distraction. Drama can be used to borrow others' emotions when one's own are unavailable, though injudicious choice of subject can backfire drastically. I would recommend avoiding historical fiction as it is rife with inaccuracies, and adventure stories tend to lack impact for one who has lived a missing-nin lifestyle—which is not to deny their virtues purely as a form of escapism. And of course, speculative fiction is the hidden Kage of the genre."
"Speculative fiction?"
Akane thought she knew what the term meant. She suddenly found herself wondering if she was wrong. Very, very wrong.
Keiko's eyes lit up.
"Supernatural and otherworldly encounters. Imaginary advanced technology in utopian or dystopian futures. Myths and legends come to life. A relatively new art form that challenges the limits of existing literature, deconstructing staid romantic tropes and tapping into the raw depths of the female psyche to stimulate the imagination from extraordinary new angles."
Akane had a feeling that Tenten might explode if forced to go from zero to tapping into the raw depths of the female psyche.
"Do you have anything… simpler? Maybe an ordinary love story that shows healthy romantic relationships between reasonable people?"
Keiko stared at her as if she'd grown a second head. "In popular fiction?"
"Anything?" Akane asked plaintively. "You're the only one I can count on for this, Keiko."
This wasn't technically true—Sakura was also a self-confessed fan of ladies' erotica—but the whole point of the exercise was to give Tenten an idea of what Keiko considered normal and healthy romance.
Was she meddling? She was totally meddling. But knowing those two, there was no way they were going to sit down and have a mature conversation about expectations any time soon. Getting them on the same page in terms of cultural assumptions was about as much as Akane could do right now without openly interfering.
"Healthy romantic relationships between reasonable people," Keiko repeated. "Is this about Hazō?"
Akane felt a flicker of annoyance. "Not everything in my life is about Hazō."
"Apologies," Keiko said. "Such lack of tact is but one of the many reasons why you should not rely on me in romantic matters."
If she was honest, Akane had never even considered it.
Not that she had any romantic matters to seek help with anymore.
"You have presented me with a worthy challenge," Keiko said. "I shall see what I can locate for you. Expect a pangolin messenger sometime tomorrow morning."
"A pangolin messenger?" Akane asked. "Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but wouldn't it be more discreet if you brought it over yourself?"
"I have important business tomorrow morning which, knowing my life, cannot brook delay. Fear not. I shall tell Pandā that it is a secret mission only he can be trusted with. He will not look at the contents of the package, nor allow another to do so. As an additional benefit, being visibly in communication with the Pangolin Summoner can only enhance your social standing."
So about that lack of tact…
"Thank you, Keiko," Akane said, already envisioning the worst-case scenario of having to explain to her parents why a talking armoured insectivore was bringing adult fiction to her in her home. "I knew I could count on you."
"I cannot imagine why," Keiko said. "I must remind you that I have no personal knowledge of such matters, and that to insinuate otherwise, before myself or others, would be a grave insult best answered with a pangolin from the upper reaches of the atmosphere."
"Wouldn't dream of it," Akane said.
She hesitated.
"Actually, can you throw in a little of this speculative fiction? Only for a friend, of course."
Jiraiya was starting to recover from his stimulant hangover by the time lunch rolled around. Hazō still waited for the Sannin to have a bowl of dumplings and a couple mugs of water inside him before pulling out the envelope and handing it over.
"What's this?" Jiraiya asked, taking the envelope and opening it.
"A blank for every seal I've ever seen with the Iron Nerve," Hazō said. "I haven't researched and practiced them, so I can't guarantee that I drew them precisely correctly, but they should be good enough to help with research and analysis. I've written notes on the back of each one about where I saw them and any other context that I have. I don't know what a lot of them do, but I've written down the ones I know. I thought you should have them...maybe put them in the Leaf seal archives, if there is such a thing? Maybe just for clan use. Whatever you think best."
Jiraiya flipped through the sheaf of blanks, glancing at the seal design and then at the notes on the back. His eyebrows went up and stayed up as he went.
"Impressive," he said, tidying the stack and setting it aside. "I'm not sure when I'll have time to do any real research, but I can probably find a few hours here and there, and I'd sure love to have something fun to do. Maybe the three of us can work on them together?" He glanced at Hazō and Kagome-sensei inquiringly.
Hazō's face lit up. "Yes, sir! That would be great."
Kagome-sensei stiffened, then very pointedly relaxed. He jabbed his chopsticks at his rice, not looking up. "Sure. That would be okay, I guess," he mumbled. "I mean, if you want to work together, I suppose I could."
"Hey, you don't have—"
"No, no, it's fine," Kagome-sensei said quickly. "We can work together. I don't mind."
Jiraiya smiled. "Good to know. I'm not sure when I'll have a chance, but maybe in a couple of days?"
"Sure," Kagome-sensei mumbled, stabbing at his rice some more. "Whenever. It's fine. Wouldn't want to drag you away from your Hokageing."
Awkward silence hovered in the air for a moment.
"Soooo...speaking of how you're the Hokage," Noburi said. "Me and Keiko and Hazō were talking about the tournament, and we wanted to ask you about that."
"We have some requests for things it would be useful for us to learn before the tournament."
"Me personally, I'm all about that Mega Water Dragon Bullet Spike of Doom! Pzow! Schloop!"
Jiraiya raise an eyebrow. "'Mega Water Dragon Bullet Spike of Doom'? Is that a thing?"
Noburi grinned. "Nah, but it totally should be. And it lightened the mood, yeah?"
Jiraiya snorted. "Fair enough. Anyway, yes. I can arrange for you guys to get some good stuff, and I'll have Ebisu train you. He's far from the most powerful ninja Leaf has, but no one anywhere is a better teacher. Keiko, we should get you a defensive technique that will keep face-punchers off of you. Noburi...maybe a mobility jutsu? You've got good range on that Water Whip, but someone like Keiko could give you a hard time."
"Sir, those are great suggestions, but we actually wanted to ask about Shadow Clone," Hazō said carefully. "Everyone knows that it's Naruto's signature move, and we were there in the conference room when you told the other clan heads about the battle. You mentioned that Uchiha genjutsued one of the clones and then they all popped and the real Naruto went down. That suggests that they have some sort of hivemind ability, or perhaps memory transference. If that's so, it seems like it could really speed up training time."
"...You scare me sometimes, kid."
"Um...sorry?"
"Yes, the Shadow Clone works like that. It's different from elemental clone techniques; elemental clones are dumb and not as good as you at anything. Shadow clones are perfect copies of you, with all your skills and memories. They can think independently, come up with plans—"
"Do they receive our bloodlines?" Keiko demanded, sitting bolt-upright and cutting across Jiraiya's words without a thought.
The Hokage frowned. "I'm actually not sure. I'm not aware of anyone with a bloodline who is also a Shadow Clone user. Kakashi's Shadow Clones don't have his Sharingan, but that's a transplant and not original equipment. My guess would be that no, Shadow Clones do not copy the user's bloodline. They're chakra constructs, not actual physical beings, so they probably lack the internal structures necessary for a bloodline. That's purely a guess, though."
"So you mean that my Shadow Clone might not have the Frozen Skein?"
A moment of silence fell across the table and eyes widened in realization.
"Keiko..." Jiraiya said carefully. "I...I really don't know. If Sensei were still around, he probably would, but he's dead. I don't know anyone who would know the answer."
Keiko leaned forward, her voice low and intense. "I must learn this technique immediately."
Jiraiya paused, blowing out a long breath in thought. "I have no problem teaching it to you as soon as you can learn it, but I don't think any of you can."
"What? / Huh? / WHAT?!"
He raised both hands, gesturing for the genin to calm down. "Hang on, let me do the rundown. First of all, Shadow Clone is a top-secret jutsu of Leaf. Sure, people outside the village know that it exists, but I'm not sure any not-Leaf people know that the clones are fully intelligent, or that they transfer memories. Even inside the village, we keep that information pretty tight. You are not to talk about it with anyone aside from the people in this room and Shikaku. Even if they have a written document with my signature on it saying that it's okay to talk to them, you do not talk to anyone about Shadow Clone except for this family and Shikaku. Clear?"
A chorus of acknowledgement went around the table.
"Kagome," Jiraiya said, "this is important. You're a great sealmaster, but you're literally the worst liar I've ever seen. If the subject of Shadow Clone comes up with anyone except us and Shikaku, you do not say one word. Literally, not one. Do not open your mouth. Do not say that you can't talk about it, do not say that it's a secret, do not try to misdirect. You. Say. Nothing. Leave immediately and come find me, Shikaku, or Mari. Understood?"
Kagome-sensei nodded, looking hurt. "You don't have to spell it out so hard. I'm not stupid."
"No, but I need to know that I've driven the point home. Say it back to me."
"It's okay to talk about Shadow Clones with the family and with Shikaku. If anyone else is around, or if someone else wants to talk to me about it, I don't say a single word. I leave, and I come find Mari, you, or Shikaku."
"Not the order I specified, but good enough." He took a sip of his water (sake having been banned by Mari until he was completely over the stimulant poisoning), and looked around the table.
"Okay, where was I...? Oh, right, the memories. That's the important part. You'll recover a clone's memories when it pops, just as though they happened to you. The problem is that the human brain isn't designed to experience multiple timestreams at once—"
Kagome-sensei shifted uncomfortably.
"—and trying to do so can cause paranoia, delusions, and memory issues. It's worst if the clone was popped in combat—you'll remember being killed, and that can be pretty traumatic. Even in the best case, where they choose to pop themselves in a careful way, it can hit pretty hard. More memories coming at you makes it worse, so having multiple clones out at once and having them out for a long time can be dangerous. 'Clone sickness', we call it. It can put you in a coma or kill you.
"Most of Leaf's top jōnin use it, including me. Helps enormously with the paperwork, although even with two of me on it, the stuff is usually still bad enough that I want to drown myself in order to end the pain. It's also the reason that our jōnin tend to be so powerful; they can fit more training into a day than most people.
"That said, you'll notice that Leaf jōnin are incrementally more powerful than those of other nations, not overwhelmingly so. That's because of the downsides of the technique: First, it is insanely chakra-intensive. There's a huge startup cost just to get the jutsu running, and then you have to push more chakra for every clone you're making. I very much doubt that any of you have the chakra to use Shadow Clone."
"What about me?" Noburi asked. "I've got more chakra than two jōnin."
"In your barrel, sure," Jiraiya said. "But you don't have any in your internal chakra system, right?"
"Well...no. Not as such."
"Before I'll let you try it we'll need to have Yakushi check you over and figure out what the interactions would be between the jutsu and your bloodline."
"How big would we need to get our chakra reserves before we could use it?" Hazō asked.
Jiraiya shrugged helplessly. "How do you measure chakra? It takes a lot. At least as much as summoning a high-end summon. Keiko, I know that you can summon some heavy hitters, but my impression is that doing so leaves you almost dry. I'm not letting you use Shadow Clones until you can pull in two of your biggest pangolins and still keep fighting without needing to tank up from Noburi. The rest of you, you'd have to have high-jōnin-level reserves before I'd let you try. If you don't have enough chakra to make it work, the jutsu will suck you dry and you'll be dead before you hit the floor."
The genin digested that.
"Let's assume we all practice until we have enough chakra," Hazō said.
"Because we all know you're going to," Mari-sensei said with a snort. "I know that look, Hazō. You're on this like butter on bread, chasing the shiny thing."
Hazō looked at her, befuddled. "It's not a 'shiny thing'. It's a technique that helps you learn faster. What could possibly be better to learn early?"
"Indeed," Keiko said, nodding in solidarity with her adopted brother.
"Anyway," Hazō continued, "I was thinking that once we have the technique, we'll want to farm it. Noburi, if we set up a chakra-beast zoo here at the compound so that you had plenty of things to drain, could you keep us tanked up while we train? With a big enough set of drain targets, we could all have an arbitrary number of clones out and could learn arbitrarily quickly. We'd need to do some experimenting to find out what the safe numbers are, but—"
"Okay, I'm going to stop you right there," Jiraiya said. "First, do not go casually handwaving 'find out what the safe numbers are'. I am not letting any of you fry yourselves in the quest for power. We will work to figure out what a safe number and duration of clones is for each of you, but it will be a very slow and methodical process. Second, I am not doing the paperwork necessary to keep chakra-enhanced livestock inside the city. That is strongly discouraged for very good reasons that should be obvious, and even though I'm the Hokage I'm not above that law. We could set one up outside the walls, though."
"Or we could go train in the Swamp of Death," Hazō replied. "That place was full of chakra beasts."
Awkward silence fell. Noburi, Keiko, and Mari-sensei all looked pensive at the name of the place where their journey had started, and so many friendships had ended.
"How was the place left, anyway?" Mari-sensei asked. "I mean...the bodies. And the caves."
Jiraiya hesitated, clearly looking for the right words. "The caves were destroyed in the fighting. The bodies were...recovered to Mist."
Mari-sensei met his eyes and her tone was sharp. "You mean their heads were cut off and their bodies were hacked into conveniently-sized pieces, don't you?"
"...Yes."
Her face worked and she swallowed hard. "Dan was a good man. That shouldn't have happened to him."
Jiraiya reached out and covered her hand with his own. "Dan?"
"Shikigami. His real name was Gorō Dan." She snorted, blinking hard and wiping at her eyes. "He was a complete prick sometimes, but he cared a lot under that gruff exterior. Part of the whole 'Village Hidden in the Swamp' thing was that he wanted power, but he mostly wanted that power so that he could build something better than Mist." She glanced over at Hazō, her smile a bit watery. "You'd have liked him, I think, if you'd met as equals. He didn't care about civilians as much as you do and his sphere of concern was smaller than yours—mostly because he was a very practical guy. Still, he wanted to make life better for others. He was fiercely loyal to those he cared about, and an absolute terror if you hurt his friends or family."
Jiraiya nodded but said nothing. There was nothing to say.
"How about me?" Kagome-sensei demanded, the words awkward and rushed.
"What about you?" Jiraiya asked.
"The kids are getting cool stuff. I want cool stuff."
"Uh...okay," Jiraiya said. "Makes sense. We really should get all of you as powerful as possible, just in case things go sideways. What did you have in mind?"
Kagome-sensei blinked. It was plain as could be that he hadn't considered the question at all. "Um...jutsu, I guess? Or...maybe some of those seals that Arikada had."
Jiraiya's eyebrows ascended like climbers on a mountain. "You want Arikada's stuff? You know she was so batshit crazy that she was doing bioseal research, right?"
"Hey, I can—" Kagome-sensei broke off, head cocked to the side as an idea obviously struck him. "Forget the bioseals. I want Ebisu."
"Um...what?"
"Kagome," Mari-sensei began carefully, "when you say you 'want' Ebisu, what exactly do you mean by that?"
"He's a teacher, right? Everyone respects him as a teacher?"
"Yeah...? He's the best. People fight to get time with him."
Kagome-sensei nodded decisively. "I want him to watch me teach Honoka, and to see the progress she's made. If he thinks my methods are good, I want him to tell those stinkers at the Academy that they're doing it wrong and they should do what I tell them. Leaf's education system sucks goat snot. Need to fix that."
Jiraiya gave Mari-sensei an inquiring look. She nodded in return.
"The progress she's made has been incredible," said the redhead. "She's a firstie, and he's already got her doing addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and they've started on fractions. Plus, he taught her to open a storage scroll."
"You what?!"
Kagome-sensei waved dismissively and served himself some more rice and vegetables. "Relax, it went fine."
"Kagome, you can't teach firsties chakra manipulation!"
"Why not?"
"Because...because they're too young! What if it damaged their chakra systems?"
"Pfft. Never happen."
"How could you possibly know that? It's a risk! Everyone knows that! Kids that young can barely feel their chakra, let alone manipulate it."
"Honoka can."
"Okay, fine, so you happened to get some freakish prodigy, but—"
Kagome-sensei rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. She's not a prodigy. Your stinking teachers are idiots, that's all. Making them meditate for years before you actually let them do anything. Hah! Do you teach them to play music by making them learn how to write the notes and the bars? No! No, you do not. Not unless you're a stinking idiot."
Jiraiya seemed lost. "But...I mean, how else would you teach a child music?"
Kagome dropped his chopsticks in shock and stared across the table at the Sannin.
"Were you dropped on your head a lot as a kid?" he asked.
"Kagome!" Mari-sensei gasped. "That's not polite."
"What? I didn't mean him."
Mari-sensei relaxed. "Oh, good, because—"
"I meant everyone in Leaf." He paused. "Well, all the teachers, anyway. I suppose some of the people here must have functioning brains. Funny how the dumb ones ended up in charge, though."
"Kagome!"
The former missing-nin shrugged. "What? They did. Well, mostly. Nara's pretty smart. And Jiraiya's not usually this stupid. Then again, you did let all your stupid people teach the kids, so maybe I should think about it some more." He took another bite of the rice and vegetables. "Anyway, Honoka's already sealed and unsealed stuff with my scroll a dozen times."
Jiraiya rubbed his head as though trying to push away a physical object. "Okay," he said. "Honoka is going into the hospital for a complete checkup. I'll get a Hyūga in to look over her chakra system and make sure she hasn't damaged it. In the meantime, stop having her do chakra manipulations." He reached for the pitcher and refilled his glass.
"No."
Jiraiya's head came up and he looked across the table, all playfulness gone from his expression. "What did you say?"
Kagome looked back, not flinching at all. "I said no. She's my student and she's doing fine. I'm not going to let you cripple her future just because you're too scared and superstitious to see what's right in front of you."
Jiraiya's eyes narrowed. "Are you disobeying a lawful order from your Clan Head and Hokage?"
"I am if you're going to be stupid. Kids do not need to spend two years meditating and looking at candles in order to know that they have chakra. They don't have the reserves to learn jutsu, or even treewalking, and I sure as anything wouldn't teach them how to make seals, but using them is fine. Honoka can open and close a storage seal with no difficulty. She was a little dizzy the first few times, but we took it slow and I had sweets ready to replenish her energy. Her reserves have already grown to the point where she can open and close the seal half a dozen times in a row before she gets tired. If she keeps going at this rate and those stinking idiots at the Academy keep wasting time then by graduation she'll have the biggest reserves in her class by a mile, and better chakra control too."
Jiraiya placed both hands on the table, very carefully, and leaned forward on his elbows. Hazō could have sworn that the air temperature dropped three degrees as he watched.
"Kagome. You will not damage the next generation of Leaf ninja with your crackpot theories and lack of concern. You are done as that girl's teacher. You stay away from her from now on. If I see you within two blocks of her, I will throw you in a cell. Understand?"
"You're an idiot."
Jiraiya stood up, expression positively thunderous. He opened his mouth...and stopped as Mari-sensei rested a hand on his arm.
"Jiraiya," she said calmly, "take a breath. Kagome comes from a different tradition with different beliefs and knowledge, but have you ever known him to be reckless?"
That made Jiraiya pause.
"He let Hazō work on the skywalker seal before he was ready."
Kagome was on his feet in a flash, face red with rage. "There's a difference between making seals and activating them, you stinking idiot! You think I would let a six-year-old do anything vaguely related to making seals? You think I would even let her look at the cover of my theory books? What kind of stinking idiot are you?!"
"Kagome, so help me—"
Before Hazō could blink, Mari-sensei was out of her seat and kneeling on the table, one hand on each man's chest. "Stop it, both of you!"
Both men blinked, vision refocusing on the woman instead of on each other.
"Kagome, sit down," Mari-sensei said firmly. The older man resisted for a moment, but her level stare eventually broke him. He sank down into his chair, grumbling under his breath.
Mari-sensei's head swiveled to lock on her husband's. "Jiraiya, you sit down too."
The Sannin eyed her for a moment, then sat back down, a vaguely bemused expression on his face.
"That's better. Now, do you two think that you can talk about this like civilized people, or are you going to keep thumping your chests and yelling like a thickhorn at mating season?"
"What's a thickhorn?" Jiraiya asked.
She bapped him on the head. "Stop trying to distract us. You know perfectly well what a thickhorn is."
"I don't," Kagome said. "What is it?"
She glowered at him. "Don't you start." She turned back to Jiraiya. "Honoka has made incredible progress under Kagome. It makes perfect sense to get her checked out, but he's demonstrated that he's an excellent teacher. Hazō is fourteen years old and you said yourself that he's a good sealsmith. Not just for his age, a good sealsmith."
"He did?" Hazō asked, surprised.
Mari-sensei shot him a Look. "Yes, he did. Now hush while I keep our 'adult' clan members from acting like idiots." She turned back to Jiraiya. "Hazō is a good sealsmith at fourteen because he studied under Kagome—"
"Cheating bloodline cheater, oughta..." Kagome's grumbles didn't stop, but they trailed off into nigh-inaudibility.
"—a good sealsmith, at the age of fourteen, because he studied with Kagome. Honoka went from failing out of the Academy to ahead of what she's learning in her class. As to the chakra manipulations, I've seen her open and close the scroll myself, and there's no sign of any problems. Honestly, I agree with Kagome; Leaf's chakra education is overly conservative. In Mist we started kids on chakra manipulation much earlier than Leaf does—"
Jiraiya snorted. "Yeah, well, maybe you're willing to have a quarter of your candidates end up as burned-out husks, but here in Leaf—"
"Quiet. I am talking."
Jiraiya looked startled, but then he chuckled and sat back with a 'go on' gesture.
"Leaf is an amazing place. You have a level of creature comforts that I have seen nowhere else. Your people are, for the most part, happy and healthy. Your politics usually doesn't involve assassination. Still, are you honestly willing to say that Leaf is perfect on every front, that there is no possible way it could be improved?"
"Thank you. Are you willing to say that your educational system is absolutely perfect? That there is nothing that could possibly be improved?"
The pause was longer this time. "Look, I see where you're going, but—"
"Answer the question. Do you believe that the Leaf educational system is perfect and beyond improvement?"
The Sannin crossed his arms over his chest, face souring. "No. I suppose not."
"Okay, good. Now. When she studied under the Academy teachers, Honoka was at risk of failing out. When she studied under Kagome, she not only caught up but raced ahead of her class. What does that tell you?"
"Look, just because she's a—"
"I swear by my little blue nightie, if the next word out of your mouth is 'prodigy', I will put spiders in your socks."
Jiraiya's mouth clopped shut.
"The word 'prodigy' is useless. It doesn't tell you anything, and it gives you an excuse to be lazy. When you see a kid who is way ahead of the curve, you should be figuring out why they're ahead and how to replicate that success with the other students. Right?"
"Well...."
"Right?"
"Okay, yes. Fine. So he took this kid and got her back on track with her math. That doesn't have anything to do with whether or not six-year-olds can use chakra without injuring themselves."
"No, but it does suggest that Leaf's educators don't know everything. That their methods leave room for improvement. You have good, honest teachers here; they want to do the best they can, and they believe that they are. They're using what they honestly think is the best possible method to teach math, but Kagome's success with Honoka's shows that they're wrong. Their way isn't the best. Isn't it possible that they're also wrong about chakra manipulation training?"
Jiraiya's expression got even more sour. Mari-sensei waited, letting him stew for as long as it took. The rest of the family looked on, hardly breathing.
"Fine."
"Fine?"
"Fine. I'll have her checked out by the medics and a Hyūga. If she's okay, then Kagome can keep working with her, but I'll want her to get daily checkups for the first two weeks. If there's no sign of damage in that time we can slow it down to one checkup per week, but at the first sign of anything wrong, I am pulling her. I am not letting some little girl get fried just because she's working with a...just because she pushed herself harder than she should have trying to please the teacher who has clearly done well by her."
Mari-sensei looked over her shoulder at Kagome, who was sitting with arms crossed and an expression just as sour as Jiraiya's.
"Kagome? Are you willing to work with Jiraiya on this?"
The pause stretched long and loud.
"...Fine."
"Fine?"
"Fine. I suppose he's just worried about her in his own stupid way, and I shouldn't be upset just because he thinks I'm an idiot who can't teach and that I would—"
"Kagome."
Long pause.
"...Fine."
"Now that that's settled, I've still got one question," Jiraiya said.
Mari-sensei climbed off the table and resumed her seat, scooting it forward so that she could reach the table conveniently. "Yes?"
"What's a thickhorn?"
She shrugged. "Dunno."
"What? What do you mean you don't know?"
"I made it up to distract you two from being idiots."
Kagome and Jiraiya shared an embarrassed and slightly horrified look and immediately dug back into their food.
"Good rice," Kagome-sensei mumbled.
"The best," Jiraiya said, eyes locked on his bowl.
o-o-o-o
Hazō was very anxious to not have another squabble like the one at lunch, or to get castigated the way he had when he asked about the Merchant Council. Before he said anything, he took care to look around the dinner table and carefully gauge everyone's mood.
Jiraiya was not back to complete health after his stimulant overdose, but he seemed functional and not in any pain. More importantly, he seemed to have gotten over the argument with Kagome-sensei at lunch. Mari-sensei was her normal smiling self. Noburi was in a good mood, Keiko and Kagome-sensei...were Keiko and Kagome-sensei. Probably not going to get a better chance.
"Would this be an okay time for me to bring up a difficult conversation?" he asked carefully. "There's something bothering me, and I'd like to get everyone's impression and advice."
"Girl troubles, eh?" Jiraiya asked, grinning. "Oh, man, it's about time you...asked me about my past history with women all over the Elemental Nations as I gathered research materials for Icha Icha." Jiraiya was smooth, but even he couldn't manage to start talking, observe Noburi's frantic 'no, stop' gesture, and redirect a sentence from (undoubtedly raunchy) father-son advice to personal bragging without a little bit of a hitch in the middle.
"Would it be okay?" Hazō asked, manfully ignoring Jiraiya's antics.
"Hazō..." Keiko said warningly.
"It's important, Keiko. Let us help."
She held his gaze for a moment, then nodded in defeat and made a 'go ahead' gesture before turning back to her soup.
"Okay, this sounds like something that is not at all going to ruin a lovely evening," Jiraiya said. "Whatcha got, kid?"
"It's the pangolins, sir," Hazō began. "They're using the Skytowers to conquer the Seventh Path. They've already destroyed the Condor Clan—it sounds like they killed most of them, enslaved the rest, and they're completely destroying Condor culture. Now they're moving on to the Hyenas. Who knows where it will stop?"
Jiraiya considered that for a moment, exchanged raised eyebrows and a tilted head with Mari, and then said, "Okay. What are you proposing?"
"Sir, I do not agree with the pangolins' behavior. What they are doing is wrong. Slavery and genocide are wrong. Leaving aside the moral question, it's not in our interests. If the pangolins keep spreading then other Clans will ally against them in self defense. There's a good chance that those other Clans will send their Summoners to kill Keiko, so as to cut the pangolins off from the resources of the Human Path. Furthermore, it will shatter OPSEC on the skytowers, if it hasn't already. The allied Clans will need to tell their Summoners what's going on and why they're losing. The Summoners will tell their people on the Human Path and word will spread. The other Summoners must know that the summons can't create seals, so they'll figure out that Keiko is the one supplying the Skytowers—it will be presumed that they're your invention and being manufactured in Leaf, and that we could use them just as easily as the pangolins are. They'll see that they need to attack Leaf immediately, before we have a chance to build up too much of a stockpile."
"Hmm."
"It would be another World War," Hazō said, fear rising inside him at Jiraiya's noncommittal response. "Leaf's allies would demand that we share the secret with them in exchange for their support. We'd either have to not give them up, in which case our allies become our enemies, or give them up and lose our advantage and render the political situation even more unstable."
Jiraiya rubbed his face, good mood vanishing. "Kid...." He broke off, thinking. "Okay, I get it, those are viable outcomes. I'm not sure I agree that they are likely outcomes, but I can't afford to ignore them. Here's the thing: We can't do everything, and we definitely can't do everything at once. Want a list of what we, by which I mean our clan specifically, are dealing with right now? Here you go:
"Number one: My missing godson, who will be adopted into this clan the minute he returns and will therefore be your brother. Right now he's being held captive by a bunch of psycho S-rankers, including a guy who can put you through three days of torture every second just by looking at you. I don't know—yet!—why Akatsuki wants Naruto. Maybe they can brainwash him into being their soldier? Naruto is an insanely powerful ninja; I could probably beat him, especially if I got to prep the terrain, but I wouldn't want to try. More importantly, he was being groomed to be either Hokage or Jōnin Commander when he got older. He had top secret clearance; he knows a lot about Leaf politics, defenses, seals and jutsu, and the personalities and psychological weaknesses of key personnel. I literally cannot think of a greater threat that Leaf could possibly face that having Naruto turn on us. Akatsuki alone we maybe could deal with, albeit with heavy losses. Naruto fighting alongside them? Leaf is utterly fucked.
"Number two: If I lose the hat, the people at this table are utterly fucked. The only viable candidates after me are Shikaku and Hyūga...well, maybe Sunny, if she cashed in all her markers and took her seat as sole survivor of, and therefore head of, the Senju clan. Unfortunately, Shikaku wouldn't take the job if you put a knife to his throat, Sunny probably wouldn't take the seat and probably couldn't win the hat, so Hyūga's in. His clan has all but declared a vendetta against me, and by extension against all of you. With the power of the Hokage linked to his clan's economic and political strength, we'll be destitute in minutes and dead within a year. He'll put all of you on mission after mission, back to back with not enough recuperation time, until you're killed. Me, Hazō, and Kagome will be drafted into the sealing corps and assigned riskier and riskier projects until something kills us."
"They won't get me!" Kagome-sensei said, leaping to his feet with wide and panicked eyes. "I'm not going into any sealing factory! I'll blow this whole town to—"
"I am not going to let them do that to you," Jiraiya said. "I will kill anyone who tries to force that on you, or on Hazō. Hyūga knows that and he wouldn't do it by force. He would bring enough political pressure that our only options would be to do it or go missing."
"Missing isn't actually that bad," Noburi said carefully. "I'm not saying I'd be super excited about the idea, but it beats what you're describing."
"That's fine for you lot," Jiraiya said grimly. "You know what happens when someone of my power level goes missing? Someone who knows all the things I know? Wave after wave of hunters. Sure, as a group we can carve any regular attacker like soft cheese, but can we deal with Byakugan-equipped ninja on skywalkers dropping rocks on us while we sleep? If we ever come out of the woods, can we always be sure that our food isn't poisoned? For that matter, Akatsuki does mercenary work. If I went missing, it would be trivial for Hyūga to mobilize the full resources of Leaf to pay their rates. On my own I could probably survive and escape from an assault of that magnitude, but I couldn't protect the rest of you at the same time.
"Moving on from that, let's look at major disaster number three: A World War is almost inevitable at this point. Mist has control of Hot Springs, meaning that they have a stranglehold on trade for Cloud and Frost. Those two can either do all their trade by ship—risky, since the winds and currents along their shores are unpredictable and full of nasties—or they can pay whatever tariffs Mist chooses to set. Back when Mist had Yagura, Zabuza, and Mei to back them up, it was too risky for anyone to go for a military solution against them. Unfortunately, Naruto broke Zabuza's neck, I punched a hole through Mei's chest, and Yagura got taken who knows where.
"Now, Mist isn't stupid, and That Woman is a hell of a diplomat. Hard to say exactly what she's doing, but in her shoes I'd be cementing alliances with the minor nations on the eastern continent, starting off as a first-among-equals alliance and eventually absorbing them. That will give Mist all the farmland and resources they need to become self-sufficient, which means all their money goes into spies and economic warfare. I'd also be working closely with Cloud, probably securing an alliance by providing favorable terms on travel through Hot Springs and trade with the eastern bloc. Combine the ninja power of Lightning with the resources from the other continent and you've got a juggernaut. They'd be able to pull Rock in without too much trouble; both Lightning and Earth are desolate places that need to trade for most of their food. With control of the eastern continent, Mist would have no problem feeding both of them. Much of Leaf's power derives from a combination of two things: our central location on the continent, which allows us to control trade, and the fact that we're the breadbasket of the entire western continent. Being central to the continent is great for trade but it makes us vulnerable to attacks from all sides. If Mist can replace us as food supplier we'd be in a real bind.
"And, just to make matters worse, the Mizukage has much tighter control over Water than I have over Fire, and Ren is ruthless enough to start a ninja breeding program."
Mari-sensei blinked. "A what now?"
"You heard me. A ninja breeding program. It's been tried before—all female ninja and any civilian woman whose family has produced a ninja in the last two generations get put in a harem and all the male ninja take turns. Fast forward seven years, you've got a new crop of genin candidates showing up to school. Keep the harems running constantly, women pumping out babies until they die in childbirth, and you could grow the largest military force in the Elemental Nations in twenty years. It might be possible to use medical ninjutsu to make twins more likely, or to induce puberty early so that you can put ten-year-olds in the harem. The thing speeds up as it goes."
Mari-sensei's face somehow managed to be pale and puke-green at the same time. "You have got to be kidding."
"I wish," Jiraiya said grimly. "The reason it's not a standard thing is because kunoichi don't want to be reduced to broodmares, and their families don't want to see it happen either, so trying it can cause a revolt. Not only that, but none of the nations want to see the balance of power change that much and trying it would cause a war.
"That might be fixable, though. If Ren can make that alliance with Cloud and Rock, and if she promises them each a tithe of the babies then there's a very real chance they'd go for it."
"That is completely insane," Noburi whispered. "No way could that possibly work."
Jiraiya shrugged. "It would be a huge gamble, but Mist is in enough danger right now that they might try it. After all, if the loan man is coming to take the house tomorrow, it's perfectly sensible to take your last hundred ryō to the casino and hope to get lucky. They need to get a few S-rankers to balance the scales, and there aren't many of those around. Shoot, it wouldn't surprise me if she reached out to Akatsuki and tried to convince them to immigrate. Almost certainly wouldn't work, but it's unlikely to hurt either."
"It could work," Mari-sensei said, her eyes far off and her face pale. "The breeding program, I mean. The Mizukage has always had a tight grip on Mist, and the mechanisms of that control are still in place. She could tell everyone that it was their patriotic duty and have the ANBU suppress any dissent. Oh, Sage protect us." She got up and ran out of the room, gagging. A moment later there was the sound of violent puking from the bathroom.
Jiraiya pushed himself upright. "Excuse me, I need to go hold her hair. Keiko, would you please get some water? Hazō, quick answer: I'll tell the Toads to put pressure on the Pangolins to shift into a consolidation phase, so at least we can slow down the war. Beyond that, we simply don't have the resources to address this issue. And, before you ask, we can't afford to cut down on Skytower sales. All that would do is put us on the outs with the Pangolin and possibly the Toad Clans, cut Keiko's combat power immensely, and strip us of the funds that we desperately need right now. I'm sorry." He turned and headed towards where the sounds of Mari-sensei's vomiting could still clearly be heard.
NOTE: The QMs are taking suggestions for what training and/or jutsu/seals the kids are going to get from Jiraiya and Ebisu. Jiraiya is going to bust out the good stuff for you, but not the absolute top-tier; he wants you to win, but he's not going to give you anything that he would need to worry about OPSEC on. That still leaves a lot available.
Other Note: You asked Mari-sensei about the clan's financial situation. The answer is that, as long as the pangolin gold keeps flowing in, you're set. The bills are being paid, the estate is being fixed up, a generous clan war chest is being accumulated, and a lot of the money is being funnelled into the search for Naruto, supplemental to the Leaf budget. More relevantly, however, all of you have a 30,000 ryō / month allowance. That's about $3,000 USD (~2300 GBP or ~2500 euro), and it's pure disposable income. You have no rent, there's always food in the house, and no one in Leaf has to pay for internet service. (Because there isn't any, obviously.) That $3k can be spent on hot chocolate, meals out, clothes, starting businesses, whatever. Just don't get yourselves in trouble with the Merchant Council. If you need more than your allowance, you can probably get it but you'll need to check with Jiraiya and/or Mari.
XP AWARD: 5
FP AWARD: 0
It is now 9pm on November 22nd.
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on Wednesday, September 9, 2018, at 12pm London time.
It was not a good night at the Gōketsu compound. Mari-sensei was, to put it mildly, out of sorts. Jiraiya was busy trying to restore her faith in humanity, something Hazō hadn't managed over two years with his best lists and inspirational speeches. Kagome-sensei was locked up in his room, poring over stacks of notes while muttering something about "showing that condescending stinker what an educator can really do". Keiko had the Sheet up outside her door, meaning she had officially retired for the night. (The Sheet wasn't anything as banal as a keep out sign. Rather, it was a slowly-growing list of muscles, ligaments and other body parts which could be severed or broken without doing long-term damage.)
Meanwhile Noburi was downstairs on washing-up duty. Technically, the rota was organised into pairs, in part because six people's worth of dishes was a lot, and in part because the adults in the family were all terrible at it. Jiraiya had spent fifty years living a bachelor lifestyle, Kagome-sensei had gone fifteen without proper crockery, and Mari-sensei was bizarrely incompetent for someone who must have regularly disguised herself as a maid over the course of her career. Tonight should have been Noburi and Mari-sensei, but for obvious reasons that wasn't happening, and as the only other person at a loose end, it was inevitable for Hazō to get tagged in.
"So," Noburi said casually with his hands up to his elbows in the sink (the space they'd repurposed for the kitchen had amazing sinks, even the small ones being perfectly sized to contain a person). "You had a chance to talk to Akane earlier, for which incidentally you owe me all of your earnings in perpetuity."
"Wait, what? Why do I owe you anything?"
"Turns out the Wakahisa's natural enemy isn't hydrokinesis bloodlines," Noburi said grimly. "It's Rock Lee. Thanks to him, I now can't help thinking of my weapon of choice as a long, thick, wet implement held firmly in my hand."
Now Hazō had heard it, he couldn't unhear it either. He suddenly had a flash of insight as to what a cognitive hazard might be.
"I'm so sorry, Noburi. And you went through that just in order to let me talk to Akane?"
Noburi nodded. Apparently still thinking about Rock Lee, he suddenly squeezed the sponge in his hand so hard that water sprayed everywhere. Hazō carefully didn't comment as he reached for a dry towel.
"Well, your sacrifice wasn't in vain," Hazō said. "We got everything sorted out straight away. It was pretty amazing."
"Oh, really?" Noburi said cautiously. "What happened?"
"You remember how I told you about our fight, and you said some weird stuff about breakups? Turns out you were scaring me for nothing. As soon as we started talking, she said up front that the right thing for us to do was move on. After that, the only thing she needed to hear was reassurance that we'd always be friends, which I obviously gave."
A stock pot slipped out of Noburi's hands and sank out of sight.
"Blood in the water, Hazō. Did she… say anything else?"
"She said that no matter what was happening in our personal lives, Leaf needed us to be able to work together as professionals. After that we gave the talking a rest and got on with the training. She really is mature, isn't she?
"Why are you staring at me like that?"
"Hazō…" Noburi said slowly. "If breakups were hunter-nin, this wouldn't be you looking for warning signs of their approach. This would be you waking up to find Captain Zabuza standing over your bedroll with a raised sword and a shit-eating grin under his mask. My romantic experience can be summed up as 'Gasai Yuno', which I think actually puts me in the negative, and I can tell how screwed you are."
"Why are you talking about breakups again?" Hazō demanded.
"C'mon, Hazō," Noburi groaned. "Haven't you ever been turned down by a girl before?"
"Not once." The girls at the Academy had been split into two clear categories: those who wanted nothing to do with a troublemaker like him, and those who found troublemakers like him exciting. The former weren't even worth trying to ask out, and his mother had emphatically warned him away from the latter.
"Ugh. Well, when a girl turns you down and she doesn't hate your guts, she'll always say something like 'but we can always be friends'. Usually it's a lie and she'll never speak to you again, but I guess it's nicer than just being told to shove off. Do you see the parallel here?"
"These situations are completely different!" Hazō insisted. "Akane and I were already friends before we started dating. What's wrong with making sure that keeps going?"
"When you're dating, you stop being friends."
"You what."
"All right, that came out wrong. It's like, when you go from friends to dating, you're being promoted from genin to chūnin in their eyes. You're more valuable and you get extra privileges. And higher expectations, I guess. But you're not a genin anymore. If Command, which is to say Akane, starts treating you like one again, that means you've been demoted.
"But that doesn't mean she wants you to turn missing-nin."
Noburi stopped.
"OK, that went to a place I wasn't expecting. Well, whatever. She still values you, maybe even more now that you've spent time as chūnin, but you're probably pissed at being demoted. She's afraid that you'll cut off all contact and go live in the woods like Kagome and she'll never see you again. So she asks for reassurance that you'll always be her genin.
"Wow, that sounds mercenary. You know what, I'm dropping the metaphor now.
"Point is, of course she wants to stay friends. That's not the same as staying boyfriend and girlfriend. Ditto moving on. Moving on is the thing you do when you've lost a big emotional attachment. It took me time to get over Yuno even though I didn't really know her that well. And I have a big enough family that I've heard sulking young people get told to 'move on' as a synonym for 'get over your ex'. Besides, Akane isn't the kind of girl who'd want to 'move on' from a big fight without sorting out the issues first, is she?"
It might take time to sort out our feelings…
No. It didn't make sense. Not Akane. They were happy together. They were going to get married eventually. It didn't make sense. And besides, if she was going to break up with him, wouldn't she just say so instead of dropping these vague ambiguous hints?
"You're wrong," Hazō said. "Sure, there may be a few words here and there that could be interpreted badly, but Akane and I weren't like that. She wouldn't break up with me out of nowhere. It's not her style."
"Noburi gave a long, drawn-out sigh. "Out of nowhere, you say? I remember you talking about the fight itself, back in Mist. You think all that stuff about you treating people like tools was spontaneous and not, say, something she'd been thinking for a while but for whatever reason never managed to bring up?
"Akane's only human, Hazō. I bet she has stuff she finds hard to talk about like anybody else. Or maybe she did try to talk about it and you didn't notice, just like you didn't notice the breakup until I pointed it out to you."
"I told Keiko too," Hazō objected. "She seemed confident that everything was all right."
Noburi just gave him a look. "You're citing Keiko's expertise with love to prove your case. Maybe next you should ask Tenten to give me a speech about it."
Hazō winced. "Fine. Point taken. But I still think you're jumping at shadows. Akane just wouldn't do that, and I don't appreciate you saying things that could potentially undermine our relationship."
"Is that right?" Noburi snapped. "Fine, then. I'll stop wasting my time and just stay out of it, and you can enjoy Akane realising what an oblivious idiot you are on top everything else."
Hazō hadn't meant to make Noburi upset at all. He was just getting a little fed up with having to justify himself.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Look… why don't we compromise? We've got Mari-sensei and the self-professed master of the romantic arts beneath this roof. If we get their confirmation that everything's all right, will that satisfy you?"
"All right. But don't say I didn't warn you."
They went back to washing the dishes in tense silence.
-o-
The day passed in a flash. Maybe Hazō was just too tired from the training, or maybe meeting Ebisu-sensei had just been too traumatic, but right now he found himself barely able to remember anything that happened.
Dinner was great, though. Kagome-sensei was on top form—the whole tutoring thing really was doing wonders for his mood. Mari-sensei was either over her trauma or successfully repressing it (one never could tell). Jiraiya was in an unexpectedly good mood, though apparently the reasons were classified, and even Fifi wasn't pursuing her (its?) new hobby of trying to eat Hazo's—and only Hazō's—sandals, occasionally while he was still wearing them. It was the perfect time to bring up his laundry list of important topics.
"Say, Jiraiya…"
"Sense of impending doom tingling," Jiraiya said, but with a wry smile on his face.
"There is no escape," Mari-sensei said sympathetically. "Resistance is futile. Better get it over with before the food goes cold, dear."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Hazō said coolly. "I was just going to run a few ideas past you. Like scroll-based trade caravans."
"Isn't that an… what's the word I'm looking for?" Jiraiya put a finger to his lips. "Not oxymoron… not paradox… Never mind, it'll come to me."
Hazō ignored him. "Suppose we create ninja convoys, with each ninja carrying a ton of ninja scrolls to transport trade goods and similar. You've got far higher speed than any civilian caravan can muster and security because they're all ninja and can outfight or outrun any chakra predator. It'll be a popular service within a mission structure that will get the village lots of income because speed of travel and not losing caravans in the wilderness are two massive advantages any merchant will want. Plus, even if those already exist and I just haven't heard of them, we have three sealmasters, so it shouldn't be too hard to research higher-volume storage seals to give us an edge over the competition."
Jiraiya nodded thoughtfully. "Well, points for effort, but—"
"But wait," Hazō exclaimed, "there's more! The Merchant Council will love us for making their lives easier. And hopefully it might deal with some of the trade issues we were talking about yesterday. It's a simple technique that covers a lot of bases."
"So simple, in fact," Keiko said, "that it is a wonder that the logisticians of the world have not yet invented it. How delighted the Nara will be to learn of this gap in their arsenal, and how desperate the Mori will be to unravel its secrets that they may imitate it."
"Keiko," Mari-sensei said gently.
Keiko looked down at her plate. "Apologies. Training was… trying… and the notion of more to come does little for my stress levels. The sarcasm was mostly uncalled for."
"The point's valid, though," Jiraiya said. "Everybody knows about storage scrolls and everybody knows about ninja speed. The reason nobody does it is, as ever, that there's no demand. People just don't trade goods in the kind of volumes that would need a whole convoy of ninja, and the profit margins aren't going to be so big that you want to hire more than a standard team. And the kind of goods you'd want to carry in a lot of separate storage scrolls are mostly luxury furniture and such that people buy locally anyway.
"Sadly, much the same goes for those asses in the Merchant Council. They've had decades to come up with the right number of storage seals and a stable system for replacing them. Getting them to budge from a happy status quo is a fool's errand at the best of times."
Mari-sensei gave a meaningful cough.
"Oh, right, positive reinforcement. The idea itself isn't bad, kid, long as you ignore the eternal problem of 'Why hasn't anyone done it yet?' It's simple, easy to implement, and has a bunch of good consequences. Keep it up."
"Great," Hazō said. "Then I'll move on to my next idea."
"Just to be clear, how many of those am I going to have to suffe— listen to tonight?"
Kagome-sensei snorted, but said nothing.
"Two or three," Hazō shrugged. "The big one I've been thinking about is the end of your trial period. It's coming up, right?"
"Joy of joys," Jiraiya said. "I really should have pressed them to give me a longer term—you know, enough to actually get anything done—but on the other hand that meeting was already two steps from a bloodbath. Thank the Will of Fire for Nara Shikaku, arrogant, manipulative SOB that he is."
Keiko's hand paused over her dinner.
"If we could please avoid dangerously inflammatory descriptions of my imminent father-in-law, who has shown this clan no personal hostility and consistently acted in a fashion worthy of my respect?"
Jiraiya raised an eyebrow. "Now hold on here. This is my house, and I can say—"
Mari-sensei put a hand on his arm, which stopped him long enough for her to whisper something in his ear.
"So how's that whole thing getting on, anyway?" he changed the subject awkwardly. "Has he confirmed whom he wants as your groom?"
"Nary a syllable," Keiko said, some of the tension draining from her stance. "I believe that our Chūnin Exam performance has improved my odds of marrying Shikamaru rather than some lesser cousin, but it would be foolhardy of them to make a final judgement before observing the results of the tournament, the one instance in which I will be able to display my value—such as it is—independently of my team. Success there will be a priority if I wish to secure my future."
"You're OK with marrying Nara, then?" Noburi asked.
"If by 'OK' you mean 'resigned to as the least of an unknown number of appalling evils', then yes, I am OK with it. Over the course of a number of instances of two individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship, I have concluded that his presence is mostly tolerable, and, importantly, that he shares my attitude to the coming marriage. I do not believe that he will excessively interfere with my lifestyle, just as I intend to avoid involving myself in his where possible."
Mari-sensei and Noburi both nodded sagely, making Hazō wonder if he was missing some kind of subtext. The feeling was only increased when he noticed Mari-sensei give Noburi the brief, well-concealed look of surprise commonly reserved for when Hazō surpassed her expectations at doing the social thing. On the other hand, Jiraiya was merely playing the paternal role of listening to his child talk about things she thought were important (there was a special expression which Hazō didn't think Jiraiya knew he was making), and Kagome-sensei's gaze was somewhere far away.
"Back on topic," Hazō said, not at all begrudging the fact that he was seemingly being left out of part of the conversation, "I was thinking about the clan votes and whether there's anything we can do to improve your odds. Tsunade is technically Lady Senju, right? It came up when we were researching her for Noburi's birthday present. She must have a seat on the council even if she never uses it. Could she vote in your favour?"
"Don't think I haven't thought about it," Jiraiya said. "Trouble is, she's a sensible woman, meaning she won't touch politics with an eleven-foot pole. There's a reason nobody's mentioned her as a possible Hokage even though she's crazy strong, has major resources to bring to the table and is as noble-blooded as they come."
Hazō had an answer to that, but Noburi pre-empted him. "How about promising to invest in medical research once you've secured the hat? Yakushi-sensei is always talking about budget limitations, and how they're the biggest constraint on both Leaf's and Tsunade's medical work. Well, that and lack of intact bodies. It's not even really bribery, since Leaf medicine badly needs expansion anyway."
Jiraiya smirked. "Oh, it's bribery sure enough. Hoping Sunny doesn't see through bullshit is like hoping Akatsuki's leader will have a sudden change of heart and start resurrecting people instead of killing them—sit down, Hazō, it was a turn of phrase and resurrection techniques still don't exist.
"Investing in medicine is going to be a tough sell as far as the clans are concerned, though. Right now our biggest weakness, with the losses from that fight, is having ninja to dispatch in the first place, not keeping them alive once we do. Then too, any military doctrine based around skywalkers, which is our long-term goal, is going to deprioritize medic-nin. I'm sure I don't need to explain why.
"It's an option. I'm not saying it isn't. But whatever we do is going to need careful handling, like Sunny herself. She's got a vote, but she's also got zero political capital in Leaf, and the demerit for her in involving herself with Leaf politics is that it could ripple back across her medic-nin activities as a whole. I don't need to tell you what her losing her veneer of neutrality would do to her international work."
As far as Hazō was concerned, it would be worthwhile even then. Damage done to worldwide medical efforts would be a horrible thing to risk, but… Jiraiya was the only leader remotely open to Uplift. They needed him as Hokage. The world needed him as Hokage. With his support, there was a chance that Hazō could finally start acting on his ambitions. A chance to change everything—forever. The alternative was Hyūga Hiashi, a Byakugan user without vision, and the cycle of hatred and war continuing until there was nothing left.
"We need to talk to her," he said urgently. "Even if it doesn't work. We need to throw the kitchen sink at this issue, and our kitchen sinks could knock over the Hokage Tower. I know you're used to dealing with her on your own, but we can help. Noburi's the face of the next generation of Leaf medicine. He can tug at her heartstrings. Keiko can figure out how much we can afford to commit to better research funding if you give her enough data. Kagome-sensei can tell her in all sincerity that we're experimenting with better approaches to education, and medical ninjutsu sounds perfect for people with skill but low chakra capacity. Mari-sensei can…" Tsunade was apparently good at seeing through bullshit. That made manipulation dangerous.
"Don't you worry about me," Mari-sensei said. "I'm looking forward to handling her next time she's in Leaf."
"I'll, uh, take your word for that. As for me… I'll talk to her. Getting through to people is my speciality. I know the stakes are high, but the stakes are always high when your objective is to change the world. If I can get her to see it through my eyes, just for a moment—if I can get her to believe that what I'm aiming for is possible—then I know she'll agree to help us. She's a medic-nin. She already understands that helping others is the most important thing there is."
Jiraiya chuckled. "Man I'd love to see you try and work your magic on Sunny. Whether she crushes you like a bug or joins the starry-eyed optimist brigade, it'll be some much-needed entertainment in these stressful days. I'll make sure you get your chance."
Hazō tried not to imagine one of the world's greatest taijutsu masters, with more offensive medical ninjutsu up her sleeve than there were hairs on his head, attempting to crush him like a bug.
"Speaking of people who aren't going to crush me like a bug, no matter what anyone says, what about the Uchiha? There's an Uchiha Sasuke, isn't there? Is he the clan head?"
"Kinda sorta?" Jiraiya wobbled his hand horizontally. "He's too young to be acknowledged as clan head, so for now he has a regent representing him at council meetings and the like. A civilian, if you'll believe it, the best they could scrape up from Itachi's leavings. Not a bad man, as civilians go, but he's clearly out of his depth being surrounded by some of the world's top ninja, so he mostly abstains."
"Hmm…" Hazō rolled this information around in his head. "If we can get Uchiha on our side, can he tell the regent to vote for us? The Uchiha are supposed to be big rivals of the Hyūga, and so are we, so maybe we can take advantage of that?"
"Depends," Jiraiya said. "It's technically possible, but realistically, the clan isn't in a position to play in the big leagues right now. Sasuke isn't going to throw down with the Hyūga if he wants his clan to have any chance of revival."
"Then I'm out of ideas for now," Hazō said.
Just as Jiraiya was starting to relax, he spoke again. "Wait, just one more."
"Go on, kid."
"There's a Great Library on the Seventh Path, right? Have you been there? Could you take Keiko? Whatever knowledge there is in there, it can only help us deal with our pangolin issues."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Keiko stiffen. But they couldn't just not talk about the pangolins ever again, could they?
"I haven't been," Jiraiya said. "Nor has anyone else I know. The toads reckon it's probably a myth, meant to inflate the reputations of certain clans. I don't know for sure. Summon civilisation isn't exactly advanced, and I find it hard to imagine enough clans working together for long enough to create a bastion of learning, but I've been wrong before. If a place like that exists, I'd love to see it, if only to find out what kind of compromise they came up with for writing as a medium."
"I see," Hazō said. "I wonder if the pangolins have an actual location they could share with us. They were supposed to have been cut off from it by the condors, so now the condors are gone—"
"Hey, Hazō," Noburi exclaimed, "weren't you going to get love advice from the experts tonight?"
"Love advice?" Keiko asked. "From whom? She Who Sees Only Entertainment in Our Flailing? The author of those novels? Myself? Or perhaps Kagome will be your guide to romantic success?"
"Huh? Whah?" Kagome-sensei came down to earth with a startled look. "Double the amount of explosives."
Hazō shook his head at Kagome-sensei's attempt to guess the question.
"I'm vetoing that seal idea right now," Kagome-sensei tried.
Hazō shook his head again.
"Fifi didn't mean it. She was only playing!"
Mari-sensei took pity on him. "Nobody was asking you a question, Kagome."
"Oh. I knew that. I was just… joking."
"So," Jiraiya grinned. "Love advice. Lay it on me, kid. Time for you to see the Great Sage Jiraiya's true power."
"Well…" Reluctantly, painfully, Hazō summed up the series of events leading to this conversation.
"Kid," Jiraiya said with no ambiguity in his voice, "your ass has been dumped."
"But—"
"What my beloved and ever-so-tactful husband is trying to say," Mari-sensei said, "is that Noburi's right. I know it hurts to hear this, but there's really no other way to interpret how she's been behaving. You two have parted ways."
"That doesn't make any sense," Hazō said. "Our relationship's rock solid. She can't just break up with me overnight, because of one fight."
"It happens," Jiraiya said. "Take it from me, nobody really knows what's going on inside a woman's mind. Often, not even the woman."
Mari-sensei subtly elbowed him.
"I stand by that statement," Jiraiya said as he dodged successfully. "Men have the opposite problem. There are only a few things going through the typical man's mind when it comes to women, and believe me, none of them are helpful.
"What you wanted from Akane was simple, right? Love, attention, and, at your age, a certain amount of—will you stop elbowing me, woman?"
"Let's not get bogged down in details," Mari-sensei said smoothly. "What Jiraiya is trying to say is that just because your needs are simple doesn't mean everybody else's are. Without reducing people to their gender, about which we are going to have words later, Akane clearly wanted some very specific things from you, and she maybe didn't explain that as well as she could have. Maybe she didn't realise herself until something served as a trigger."
"What? But that's completely unfair! How was I supposed to fix things if she wouldn't tell me about them until it was too late?!"
"Making a relationship work isn't about 'fair', Hazō." Mari-sensei gave a sad smile. "It's about making sure everybody gets what they need. I've been in a lot of relationships where somebody demanded perfect equality in everything, even though the people involved were very different in what they needed and what they had to give."
"What happened?" Hazō asked despite himself.
"One of us left. Usually me. I had a good sense for when to flee a sinking ship, and yeah, sometimes I behaved like a rat. Being able to talk things through like an adult takes a lot of trust, which I didn't have."
Jiraiya was giving Mari-sensei a melancholy look.
"Well," he said with forced cheer, "at least it's not just you, kid. Communication's a skill that takes a lifetime to learn. Half the reason my novels are so true to life is that they're full of characters failing to tell each other what they really think."
"There are some who would call this lazy writing," Keiko said neutrally.
"Critics," Jiraiya nodded. "Screw them.
"Where were we? Shit happens. On one level, both of you were responsible for failing to communicate. But on another, on the level that counts, it's nobody's fault. Like I say, communication's a skill that takes a lifetime to learn. And worst of all, even though it's absolutely vital for being a decent adult, nobody ever bothers to teach it.
"Hey, Kagome, think you can put that on your curriculum?"
"Me?"
"Focus, dear, focus," Mari-sensei said. "The fact is, every relationship has these fracture lines, big or small. Yours had them too, even if you didn't realise it. Not just the treating people as tools thing, which I think we should talk about more later. There's also the status gap. The people on top don't always realise what it's like for those on the bottom. I was born a civilian. My mother's an innkeeper. But it only took a little while to start thinking of myself as a ninja, and start seeing all the little ways in which civilians are different, and then the big ways. It's not just about chakra and training. It's so much deeper than that. Right now, I can't even remember what it was like being one of them. Not that I'd want to remember those days anyway.
"It's the same here. You know what it's like to live as a clanless ninja and look up at those above you. Can you imagine Akane feeling like that right now? How you used to be the same as her and now you're like Leaf's Hoshigaki?"
Hazō shook his head. He hadn't thought it mattered. They were both Team Uplift. They were in love. What else did they need?
"Well, believe me, it makes a difference. You can change her life with a few words. She barely has a say in her own future. I can tell you now that she never forgot it for a second, just like she never forgot that she would always be something like seventh best when it came to wife candidates."
"But… she never said anything about any of this!"
"Did you ever ask?"
How was he supposed to ask when he didn't know there was anything to ask about?
"Don't worry about it too much," Jiraiya said. "So you screwed up. As someone who's spent fifty years screwing up, I can tell you that the best thing you can do is learn from your mistakes. At least Akane is still here and still wants to be your friend. She's not telling your future girlfriends that you're secretly a gay gerontophile, or buying special anti-you poison from a close friend with a complicated sense of humour, or sabotaging your seals to destroy you just like you destroyed her heart. So you're not lovers anymore. In time, you'll be friends again, and it'll be a deeper friendship for everything you learned about each other while you were dating. When it works, it works."
"This is all assuming you're right," Hazō said desperately. "What if It's just a misunderstanding?"
"It isn't," Mari-sensei said simply. "One or two things could be poor phrasing, but Hazō… it was literally in every single thing she said. I'm sorry."
Hazō could feel his eyes starting to well up with tears, and he was not going to cry in front of his entire family.
"Then why didn't she just tell me?"
"I'm sure she thinks she did," Jiraiya said. "Breaking up with people is tough. It's hard to want to hurt someone like that, especially if you cared about them to start with. Your instinct is to be indirect to minimise the damage. It's a stupid instinct. I once didn't know my girlfriend had broken up with me for two months—I thought she still hadn't come back from a long-term mission, and I only found out when I saw her kissing another guy in a bar."
"Great," Hazō said bitterly. "So what am I supposed to do? Get the Yamanaka to teach me how to read minds?"
"You learn to talk early," Mari-sensei said. "Every relationship is deep and complicated, because every person is deep and complicated. No matter what it looks like on the surface. You might not want to acknowledge that those depths exist, or you might be too scared to explore them in case you end up destroying what you already have. But if you learn to face them together, you'll have a stronger relationship, and you'll be able to deal with issues before circumstances drag them up full-strength like your OPSEC breach did."
Keiko's voice was the last thing any of them expected.
"Sometimes, you have to reach out and touch someone," Keiko said distantly. "Even if the gap seems unbridgeable and you have no means of navigation… I think you have to enter that space of uncertainty in order to learn that you are capable of something more."
In the dead silence, everybody stared at her.
"I apologise," she said, looking down. "I spoke out of turn."
"No," Hazō said. "No, that's…" He trailed off, not sure what he wanted to say.
He could feel it starting to sink in now. The depth of his failure. All these vital skills that he didn't know and nobody had bothered to tell him about. The fact that Akane… wasn't his Akane anymore, and he didn't know what she was instead.
"What do I do now?" he asked, trying to keep the notes of pleading out of his voice.
"You've been wounded," Mari-sensei said. "You have to give it time to heal, and not put any pressure on it in the meantime. I'm not saying don't see Akane, but don't seek her out. Wounds heal, or at least they heal enough that you can go back to active duty. There'll be plenty of time for you two to reaffirm your friendship then.
"As someone who's been dumped more times than there are stars in the sky," Jiraiya said, "I know every trick in the book for dealing with a broken heart. To begin with, you and I are going drink—seriously, woman, what is with the elbowing? If you crack my ribs, who'll be left to yell at Hiashi?"
"Hazō is not going drinking unless a mission demands it," Mari-sensei said flatly. "He is a young man with a growing organism, and besides, I will not be having him get used to alcohol as a coping mechanism."
Hazō barely caught himself before a reflexive "But Mum!", which was shocking in its own right.
"Nonsense!" Jiraiya said. "Nights out drinking are a perfectly normal, nay, essential pastime for any teenager. Why, when I threw that afterparty in Mist, he was drunk to the gills, and that didn't have any negative effects whatsoever."
That was somewhere between an exaggeration and a dirty great lie. Hazō could hold his drink as well as anyone, based on the parts of the evening he could remember. And finding an escape from his feelings inside more of that blurry sensation certainly sounded good right about now.
"What's that, beloved husband?" Mari-sensei said with an innocent sweetness that sent chills down the backs of everyone in the room. "You made our fourteen-year-old children drink with you and didn't monitor their alcohol intake?"
The two locked gazes.
Jiraiya broke first.
"Plan B. Kagome, do we have any hot chocolate?"
Kagome-sensei watched Hazō wipe his sleeve across his eyes.
"We have all the hot chocolate," he said softly. "All of it."
-o-
You have earned 2 + 1 XP and 0 FP.
-o-
All of the plan has been carried out except for the Ebisu part (which will have to be done retroactively) and the last three items.
-o-
What do you do?
Voting closes on Saturday 22nd of September, 9 am New York Time.
In theory, Kagome and Hazō were researching the seals that Hazō had seen back in the casino so very long ago, in what seemed like another lifetime. And, in truth, some of that was happening.
There were, however, frequent breaks. The news about Akane dumping him had left Hazō shaken and his mood kept wobbling from calm and focused to emotional and distracted.
Most of the emotion was anger, and some of that anger was for Akane—she was supposed to be the mature and socially adept one in the relationship, so would it have killed her to just say what was bothering her and give him a chance to improve? No, instead she kept it private and then ended things with no warning. How was he supposed to fix a problem he didn't know existed?!
Of course, that wasn't fair and he knew it wasn't fair. He had been the one in the wrong, the one that made Akane feel like she didn't matter, the one too blind to even know that he was doing it. The one too prideful and too stupid to recognize that he was making her miserable.
Well, maybe not miserable. That wasn't fair to himself; even Mari-sensei didn't think that he had ever made Akane miserable. Her estimates, and she took care to emphasize that they were only estimates, said that his former apprentice had simply been unhappy, realized that it was only going to get worse, and been wise enough to end it before it got really bad for either of them. Honestly, Mari-sensei told him in a tone that was clearly intended to be gentle but felt more like blunt claws in his chest, Akane had probably done the right thing. The two of them would both need time to stabilize, but afterwards they would be friends again, and probably friends for life. That had its own joys, Mari-sensei assured him in a completely unhelpful way.
He hoped they would be friends again. Akane was his inspiration, and he would be lost if she cut him out of her life. Her cheer and insight always dragged him out of his head, her social graces had slowly been rubbing off on him and helping him to improve. His OPSEC skills (such as they were), his ability to relate to others...some of it was from hard-earned experience, some was from Mari-sensei's patient training, but much of it was the result of trying to live up to Akane's example.
Possibly the worst part of the morning was that Kagome-sensei was being a pain in the ass. All Hazō wanted to do was research those fucking seals that he'd been carrying around in his brain for nigh-on two years, but his twitchy teacher kept insisting that they take breaks and play games. Granted, all of those games were Kagome-sensei-flavored (meaning 'involved copious amounts of explosives') and some of those were a lot of fun. "Who can be first to blow up all the training dummies that some unknown person has dressed up to look like cheating-eyeball Hyūga cheaters" and "What happens if we stuff an explosive tag in a thing?" (For values of 'thing' that ranged from fruit to an origami paper box with a Five-Seal-Barrier on it to a freshly-killed squirrel carcass. (Hazō had briefly speculated, with a certain dark and sullen intensity, about trying it with a live squirrel, but decided that Akane wouldn't have approved and that FutureHazō probably wouldn't either.)) Given that they had the explosives out it seemed worthwhile to do something useful, so they also blew the everloving crap out of several large trees, exploded them into useful-size chunks, and stocked up on the resulting firewood and tinder.
Keiko, Noburi, and Mari-sensei had been keeping them company, staying off to one side of the training field and doing their own thing while the sealmasters did their experiments, both seal-related and explosive.
The sun was only halfway up the sky when Jiraiya arrived. The Hokage wasn't sprinting, but he wasn't dawdling either.
"Everyone go get your skywalkers," he said with no preamble. "I need all of them. Kagome, don't screw around. I'll help you make more, but I need everything you've got. Noburi, you stay."
Hazō glanced at his brother in surprise. Noburi shrugged back.
"Move!" Jiraiya snapped.
The clan moved.
o-o-o-o
It took ten minutes to get back to the family compound and no more than five for everyone to dig out their skywalkers, including the secret stashes that all of them had hidden in various places throughout the house.
Noburi and Jiraiya arrived just as the others were about to head back to the training field with seals in hand. Noburi said not a word as he went to his room and grabbed his field pack (the full-size one, not just the smaller go-bag). A simple "Gotta go" and a quick round of hugs later, he and Jiraiya were gone. The Sannin tossed a brief "Don't hold dinner" over his shoulder just before the door closed behind them.
"Before any of you ask, I don't know what that was about," Mari-sensei said. "There's a reasonable chance we never will, either, so try not to get too tied up in speculation. You'll just make yourself crazy."
Hazō glared after his Clan Head and adopted brother. Wasn't it just typical that no one bothered to tell him anything? It wasn't like he hadn't proven himself to have useful ideas. He was the one who had invented skywalkers and skytowers, thereby transforming warfare forever. (Sure, Kagome-sensei had done the research, but that was trivial; it was the idea that mattered, not the grunt work.) He was the one who had initiated the plan to bring them to Leaf and therefore gotten Jiraiya the hat. He was the one who had made the plans that demolished the Exams, thereby getting Leaf half the slots in the tournament and amazing trade deals that would give Jiraiya a good chance of holding onto the Hokageship. (Sure, Keiko had helped refine the plans, but that was trivial; they were Hazō's ideas and none of the team's success would have happened without him.)
All that, and he clearly still wasn't trusted. Whatever Jiraiya was up to, he should have asked Hazō to help.
He sighed and shook his head to dislodge the resentful thoughts. They weren't reasonable, and he knew that weren't. Jiraiya was a competent adult and spymaster; whatever he was off to do, it was clearly highly sensitive and it made sense that no one who didn't absolutely need to know should be told. Also, Kagome-sensei and Keiko deserved some credit for their contributions to the skywalkers and the Exams.
"Giving up all our skywalkers," Kagome-sensei grumbled. "Stinker darn well better help me make more."
"Fine," Hazō said. "Mari-sensei says we shouldn't think about it, so let's go do something else. I have a list of all the things to do. Oh, and also?" He leaped upwards, flipping around to stick his feet to the ceiling with chakra. "From now on, the floor is lava—we all need to get some training on three-dimensional movement in case they put trees or something in the tournament arena."
Keiko and Mari-sensei exchanged looks, long-suffering and concerned/amused respectively. "Hazō..." Mari-sensei began.
"Look, we can have fun and train, right?"
"I...suppose."
"Good. I'm gonna go punch some jōnin." He dashed across the ceiling, down the wall to where he could reach the latch of the door, opened it, and vanished into the late-morning sun.
Keiko and Hazō's two sensei stood, staring after him in wordless bemusement.
"I guess he doesn't want to finish blowing up the watermelons," Kagome-sensei said sadly.
o-o-o-o
November 24, 2pm
"...Thanks, but I'm a little busy right now," Asuma said calmly. "Yūhi and I were just going over training schedules for a combined team exercise next week."
Gōketsu clearly didn't buy it for a second. He fought to keep the skepticism off his face, although he did pointedly look around at the garden patio of the café where Asuma and Kurenai were having their totally-not-a-date. It was an upscale place with carefully tended plants and small trees in artistically-arranged planters. The food was elegant, expensive, and not sharing tablespace with any papers or records of any sort. There were some of those in Asuma's bag, mostly intended as cover, but he hadn't bothered bringing them out yet. He hadn't expected a manic teenager to come bouncing over the roof of the restaurant and down into the garden, where he chakra-adhered to the tree next to them, standing parallel to the ground in a distracting way that made it hard to focus on the conversation.
"Maybe next week?" the kid asked hopefully.
Asuma took a deep breath in an effort to draw patience directly from the air into his body, but he took care that his friendly smile never slipped. "Sure. Let's say Tuesday at three. I'll come to your compound and we can spar."
"Great! Thanks!"
Asuma waited several seconds. "So...was there anything else?" he asked, a slight hint of pointedness creeping into his tone.
"Oh, yeah: Games night! We're having Gōketsu-family dinner and games night the day after tomorrow, and we'd like you guys to come. You can bring your teams if you want. It starts at sundown and Mari-sensei said that no one was to bring anything because she needs to get rid of the leftovers and if anyone brings stuff then something of hers won't get eaten."
Asuma and Kurenai exchanged looks. "Sure," she said. "Sounds like a good time. We'll see you at sundown."
"Great!" The teenager raced off, avoiding touching the ground as though it were made of lava.
"Is it just me or is that kid a little weird?"
"It's not just you," Kurenai assured him. "Has he been training with Gai's kids?"
Asuma shrugged helplessly. "Dunno. Still, he's hanging out with Jiraiya and that redhead, and making seals with that crazy explosives guy. I guess we shouldn't be too surprised."
"Eh," she said. "Still better than that Lee kid." She took a sip of her tea. "Or Kakashi."
Asuma shuddered. "Oh, god, don't remind me. I'm so glad he's out of town."
"He still mooching your beer?"
He nodded. "I'll wake up at two in the morning and he's draped over my couch with a beer and that smutty book of his. And he likes to sit upside down, with his feet on the back of the couch and his head hanging off the front. I mean, seriously?"
"Have you thought about not buying beer?"
He shot her an overly exaggerated dirty look. "Be silent, foul woman."
She snorted and rubbed her foot on his under the table.
o-o-o-o
November 25, 7am
Hazō grunted as his face met the turf at high speed.
"That was a most youthful feint, young Gōketsu! Was that not youthful, Lee?"
"Indeed, sensei! Most youthful!"
"I thank you, my most youthful opponent, for granting me the opportunity to spar with you! I am quite enjoying it! Come, let us try again!"
o-o-o-o
Hazō grunted as he hit the ground on his back, all the wind knocked out of him.
"Your taijutsu is exceptional, and very youthful indeed! Please, grant me another round!"
o-o-o-o
Hazō hissed in pain as he crashed back into the trunk of the tree, his head bouncing painfully off a burl.
"Wonderful! Your youth flows like a river! Please, show me that hook punch deceit again that I may learn it better!"
o-o-o-o
Hazō slid twenty feet across the grass before he managed to arrest his momentum. Then he lay there, trying to make the world stop spinning so that he could figure out which way was down. Standing up was difficult if you tried to stand on the sky.
"Wonderful! Again!"
o-o-o-o
Ooof.
"Your youth is amazing!"
o-o-o-o
Ow.
"So youthful!"
o-o-o-o
Owowowowow.
"Youth!"
o-o-o-o
November 25, 5pm
"Excuse me," Hazō said. "Mrs. Yamanaka?"
Yamanaka Neira would have looked positively grandmotherly if she'd been wearing an apron and baking cookies instead of sitting at an office in the slightly-restricted-but-okay-because-you're-the-Hokage's-kid part of the T&I department. In this gray stone room, with the stacks of papers arranged with brutal perfection in front of her, 'grandmotherly' did not seem like the best descriptor.
"I did say that you could call me Neira if you wanted to. What can I do for you?"
"I...I was wondering if maybe you had some time to talk with me? I know you've been working on Kagome-sensei's therapy, and I could really use some help about now. See, my girlfriend just dumped me and I don't know why, and—"
"Young man," she said firmly. "Your teacher is an interesting case study in neurosis and psychological damage. I'm learning a lot about how to render damaged ninja useful again, either as soldiers or as interrogation targets. As to you and I? I doubt that there is much either of us could learn from the other."
Hazō blinked in surprise. "But, I thought you helped people?"
"I am working with your uncle as a favor to Jiraiya, but this does not mean that my schedule isn't full—for example, dear Ibiki decided to bring me in for a consult on a particularly interesting case and that has been tying up most of my time. I wish you all the success with getting over your teenage crush, but there's very little I can do there."
"She wasn't just my crush! We loved each other!"
"Yes, well, I've met a lot of young men who felt the same way. They usually get over it quite quickly when the next pretty girl comes along. Every teenager thinks that their first love is their last and they're never willing to hear otherwise. I assure you, you'll fall in love again and this girl will become a pleasant or perhaps bittersweet memory. In the meantime, if you are in need of comfort, I suggest the red-light district."
Hazō glared at her. "You're saying I'm just a kid who doesn't know any better."
She returned his look with unruffled equanimity. "I would choose the word 'inexperienced', but yes. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some transcripts I need to analyze."
"I'm not, you know. I'm...well, not completely grown, but I'm still an adult in every way that matters. I kept my team together out in the wilds, I got us through the Exams, and I'll do whatever's necessary to protect them, and Leaf, going forward. I just...wanted some advice, is all."
She sighed in annoyance. "Young man, my advice is this: Leave the girl completely alone and tend to yourself. Go to a bar, or a brothel, or a party. Drink yourself unconscious for a night or ten. Bed anything that you desire and will have you, whether it be girls, boys, or sheep. Bemoan the unfairness of the world, punch trees, write horrible and poorly-scanned poetry about the abyss within your soul. Go stand atop Hokage Monument at sundown and scream your pain into the void. After a week or two you'll start to feel silly about it all, and a month after that you'll be mostly over her. Six months later, you'll either have a new girl or be getting over one. Now, if you'll excuse me?"
o-o-o-o
November 25, 6:30pm
The Gōketsu clan were sitting around the table, nomming on tasty fried rice and fish while carefully not noticing the amazing collection of bruises Hazō was sporting. Word had gotten around that he'd challenged Gai to a spar first thing in the morning and kept going for half a day. In fact, "word had gotten around" was the polite way to describe a popcorn-munching crowd.
"So, did you find everyone you wanted to invite to games night?" Mari-sensei asked, looking for a safe topic.
"Yeah," Hazō grunted. "All except for Kakashi. No idea where he was. Gai gave me a bunch of suggestions on where to look, but he wasn't in any of them."
"With anyone else, I'd say he was on a mission, but he's such a well-known kook that he might just be snoozing in some randomly-chosen civilian's attic without their knowledge."
"In regards to missions, has there been any word regarding Noburi or Jiraiya?" Keiko asked.
"Jiraiya's back," said Mari-sensei. "He got in around midday, stopped here very briefly to get the road dust off and get some clean clothes, then vanished into the Tower. Said not to hold dinner again. Noburi is still out, and Jiraiya wouldn't even give me an estimate on when he'd be back."
"What was Jiraiya's mental state?"
"Remember the Stimulants Incident? He was about twice that, and he hadn't been taking any stimulants."
Keiko raised an eyebrow. "That would suggest good news."
"I wonder if he—"
Hazō cut off mid-sentence when someone began pounding at the door and shouting. The door was too far away and too thick to make out the words, but it was a safe bet that they were something along the lines of "Let me in!"
"Either of you expecting anyone?" he asked.
Keiko shook her head.
"I could totally imagine Anko doing that," Mari-sensei said. "Oh, by the way, I invited her to games night. Anyway, I can't see why she'd be here now. Unless she's confused about today's date."
Hazō stood up and slipped his gauntlets on before padding down the hallway on the ceiling. (The floor, after all, was lava.) Keiko and Mari-sensei followed behind, walking on the floor like boring plebs. Keiko at least had a kunai in each hand.
Whoever was outside the door, they were excited or upset about something, because they kept pounding and calling out. Halfway down the hall, Hazō's eyes went wide and he raced forward at maximum chakra boost, leaping off the ceiling and flinging the door open before throwing himself at the woman on the threshold and grabbing her in a crushing grip.
"Momma!"
XP AWARD: 6
BONUS XP: 1 (concise plan)
FP AWARD: 0
As shown by the timestamps, this plan covered two days (24th and 25th), ending at sundown / dinner time. (By the way: No, you never landed a single hit on Gai.) Games night is scheduled for tomorrow and you have invited the following people, all of whom are currently expected to attend:
Nakano Ryōichi and his genin squad
Lee/Neji/Tenten/Gai
Shikamaru/Ino/Chōji/Asuma
Hinata/Shino/Kiba/Kurenai
Anko
You spent a total of a day (half on the 24th, half on the 25th) researching the casino seals. You're not there yet, but you made some progress. You do not have a good sense yet of how much remains to do.
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on Wednesday, 26 September, 2018, at 12pm London time.
Hazō thought he was holding her tight, but Kurosawa Hana's hug was stronger than Kuroda-sensei's Secret Mist Taijutsu Art: Infernal Rib-Breaker, a grappling move he claimed he'd once used to slay a chakra bear (which, according to Hazō's fellow students, was a confession of fratricide). He could feel himself starting to get dizzy from lack of air, and the pressure on all his new bruises wasn't ideal either, but just now he found that he didn't particularly mind.
In the background, there was a hissing sound like a pair of kunai being slid back into their sheaths.
Finally, Mum disengaged. She reached out and closed the door behind her.
"I'm really here, cricket," she said, stroking his head.
A few seconds later, she finally began to look up.
"I apologise for my precipitous behaviour—" she stopped sharply. Her stance changed to a Kurosawa form Hazō didn't know.
"Not at all," Mari-sensei smiled. "Jiraiya told me this might happen."
"Is Lord Hokage here?" Mum asked.
"Still working. But if you'd like to join us for dinner…"
"No," Mum said stiffly to Mari, "I have inconvenienced you enough. I will locate my lodgings and contact Lord Hokage to arrange a meeting on a different occasion."
"Please, Mum…" Hazō didn't know or care about the formal implications of the situation. She was here, finally here. He couldn't bear to let her go for anything in the world.
She looked down at him. A little warmth returned to her eyes.
"Please," Keiko added. "I have greatly anticipated meeting you." She hadn't mentioned anything of the sort to Hazō, but he was grateful for the unexpected support.
"Well," Mum said uncertainly, "I suppose if you insist on my staying—"
"I'm here!" came a scream from down the hallway. "Everyone get down, I'm going to blast those stinkers to—"
In a flash, Mari-sensei was at Kagome-sensei's side, gently pushing down his tag-filled hands. "Just an unexpected guest, Kagome. Nothing to worry about."
"But she was screaming and breaking down the door!"
Mum, in full diplomat mode, managed not to look embarrassed at this.
"You must be Kagome?" she asked. "The sealmaster? I saw your trap array outside. Very fine work."
Kagome-sensei eyed her suspiciously. "How'd you get through, huh? I know for a fact the safe route to our front door isn't lit up tonight."
"It was a trap array," Mum repeated with a touch of puzzlement. "You just have to pay attention. It did, however, contribute to my loss of composure, for which, again, I apologise."
"Who're you supposed to be, anyway?" Kagome-sensei asked.
"Kurosawa Hana," Mum gave Bow Four: Proud But Non-Threatening. "Hazō's mother and special envoy of the Village Hidden in the Mist."
"Huh." Kagome-sensei awkwardly shuffled his explosive tags out of sight. "Kagome. Gōketsu Kagome. Sorry about the trying-to-kill-you thing."
"This is normal for a first-contact negotiator in the diplomatic corps. Please pay it no mind."
Keiko stepped forward uneasily. "My name is Keiko. Pleased to meet you."
"A pleasure. Thank you for always looking out for my son."
"I'm Mari—"
"I know who you are."
A chill wind blew through the room.
"Of course you do," Mari-sensei said lightly. "Please come inside. Tonight's dish is grilled wrasse with Akimichi-style five-flavoured rice."
Hazō looked up at Mum pleadingly.
"Thank you for your hospitality," Mum said as she allowed herself to be led into the dining room.
She took a seat next to Hazō, placing everyone between her and Mari-sensei.
"There are fewer people here than I expected," she remarked.
"Jiraiya is up late working," Mari-sensei explained, "and Noburi is otherwise engaged. That means a full third of our clan is away."
Mum nodded as if acknowledging some unseen implication.
Her gaze shifted to Hazō, then to Mari-sensei again.
"May I ask why my son has been subjected to excessive violence?" The tone was calm, but with a certain "before the storm" quality about it.
"It's not her fault, Mum," Hazō interceded quickly. "I just decided to spend today challenging jōnin to fights."
Mum's eyebrows crept upwards.
"Why did you decide to spend today challenging jōnin to fights?"
"It seemed like a good idea at the—training. It was all for training."
"Do you… often spend the day challenging jōnin to fights?"
Hazō shook his head. "No, this was purely spur of the moment."
Mum gave Mari-sensei a piercing look, as if to say, "And you let him do this kind of thing?"
Which annoyed Hazō a little. He was a grown man now, nearly a chūnin. He could make his own decisions about when to get beaten up by jōnin.
"Please do not be concerned," Keiko said. "Hazō commits bizarre and irrational acts on a daily basis, and they seldom have lasting consequences."
"That isn't as reassuring as you may think, dear."
"Apologies. My standards for what constitutes a crisis may have been warped over long-term exposure to this family."
"I'm sorry to hear that. I would, however, be delighted to hear more about these bizarre and irrational acts you speak of."
"Of course, ma'am."
"Please, Keiko, call me Hana."
"I will endeavour to. As to the matter of Hazō's daily life, only recently—"
"So, Mum," Hazō interrupted. "How was your journey? Did you encounter any interesting objects and/or individuals?"
-o-
The dinner had been a nerve-wracking affair. Mum had quickly taken to Keiko, and was plainly planning to mine her for every last embarrassing detail of Hazō's recent life. She had made it mortifyingly clear that she was prepared to let the exchange of information flow both ways, and Hazō had no idea how to prevent the looming double disaster.
Kagome-sensei had been predictably shy around strangers, though Mum tried to engage him in conversation a few times, and even made a little headway by praising his cooking and asking for advice on how to better secure her diplomatic quarters (conflict of interest? What conflict of interest?).
Mum and Mari-sensei had said little to each other beyond asking to pass the salt and a minimal number of purely factual statements. The flawless coordination with which they failed to communicate, and the care with which they phrased anything addressed to Hazō, made him wonder if he'd already missed some kind of silent exchange. He had a very bad feeling about this, made worse by the uncertain sense that every time he spoke to either Mum or Mari-sensei, he was shifting some kind of sophisticated balance to potentially disastrous effect. It wasn't difficult to imagine what could be happening between his mother and the woman partly responsible for him becoming a missing-nin, even if the mechanics were going completely over his head, and he had no idea what to do about it. The meal's only saving grace was that Keiko was available as neutral ground for both women to speak to without implications, though being the target of so much focused socialising was visibly draining her will to live. Why had Jiraiya and Noburi chosen this night of all nights to be away?
At least it was all done now. Keiko had beaten a swift retreat as soon as the meal was over, and Mari-sensei had made her own excuses, followed by leading away a confused Kagome-sensei.
"So, cricket," Mum said, finally taking off her diplomat mask (one of those dual masks, with amiable courtesy on one side and dispassionate subjugation on the other) now that they were alone, "want to go catch up in your room?"
"Actually, do you think we could bake cookies instead?"
Mum gave him a puzzled look.
"Not that I don't like to hear that you've spent two years waiting to taste my cooking again, but I think using someone's oven to bake on your very first visit to their home might be a bit much. Tell me you haven't done that to any major clans."
Hazō saw the opportunity. If he could just help Mum see Mari-sensei as he saw her, affectionate and playful rather than Shikigami's faceless fellow traitor…
"Weeeeelllll…" he said, "not exactly, but there was this one time Mari-sensei tricked me into delivering a confession bouquet to the Yamanaka heir…"
"Did she now."
"Yeah," Hazō said, leading Mum up the stairs. "In fact, now I think of it, that was also the night she first told me her plan to marry Jiraiya and get us adopted, months before we'd even decided to bargain for Leaf citizenship, and managed to completely convince me it was a joke. Huh. But let me tell you the story in order…"
-o-
Mum was the perfect audience. She laughed at his friends' antics, gasped at the "plot twists" of his life, and held him close whenever he had to stop because some memories hurt to touch. It was far from the first time he'd narrated some version of his adventures, but the first time he felt like he could freely talk about what they meant to him.
The factual details were harder to handle. Mum was still a Mist ninja. On a legal and political level, she and Hazō were a single step away from war. There was so much he had to omit from his account. He couldn't boast about skywalkers. He couldn't talk about all those civilian sailors' blood on his hands, or about Minami's death at the hands of the vengeful yakuza. He didn't even mention their pangolin issues because that might count as information of strategic importance (at least as far as summoners were concerned). It was so, so hard, compartmentalising everything away from the person he trusted most, double-checking every word before he said it, but tonight of all nights, he couldn't afford to let OPSEC slip. If Mum learned anything she was obliged to report to Mist, the divided loyalties would hurt her far more than the wall Hazō was forced to put up between them.
He didn't talk to her about the breakup. He wanted to—he wanted to bury himself in her arms and finally let himself cry, even if it meant admitting how much of an idiot he'd been to the person whose opinion mattered most—but he held back. She was tired, and as emotionally exhausted as him after the narration of his life post-Mist, and it was too much to throw at her. Maybe another time. Maybe tomorrow. Because he would see her again tomorrow, if only to confirm that tonight hadn't been a dream.
There was plenty else they didn't talk about. Not how, by his village's law, he was another mother's child. Not how Mum was here—here in Leaf, and here in this house—only on the Hokage's sufferance, with no legal standing except what he had chosen to accord her, easy to get rid of if she overstepped. Not how she'd had to leave her entire life behind in order to get even that much. So many wounds healed and so many new ones opened.
He talked to her about Uplift, though. That one belief transcended village barriers by definition. That one part of him, latent during their years together, was something that he had to share with her no matter what. He talked to her, and she tried to understand like nobody else had tried.
She understood the gap between clans and common ninja better than anyone. She didn't understand why civilians' lives were so important, but because she could see how much it mattered to him, she tried to see the world through his eyes. And she was horrified, properly horrified, at the idea of scorch squads, which told him once and for all that she was not complicit and, until now, not even aware of the problem. She said, eventually, that they had to stop for now because she needed time to think, but in the meantime… she was proud of him. She was proud of him.
Eventually, they ran out of words, and for the rest of their bittersweet reunion, she simply stroked his head as it lay in her lap.
-o-
Hana came down later than expected, but Mari had been prepared to wait. They needed to have this conversation before things went any further. She didn't want to think what it would mean for Hazō if he had to keep watching the two mother figures in his life at each other's throats, especially not now when he so badly needed them as sources of support. Besides, she'd always known that she'd have to pay the price for her sins someday. Might as well get it over with.
"I'm sorry to keep you up when you probably haven't had a chance to unpack," she said, "but I was hoping to have a word with you before you left—to clear the air between us." She beckoned to the bloodletting chamber they'd repurposed into a conference room.
Hana followed. There was no Kurosawa diplomacy to her body language this time, or at least no technique that Mari could detect. Hana was a predator with claws unsheathed.
"Yes, Inoue, let's clear the air." Hana's eyes locked onto hers. "You took my son from me. If you were anything other than the Hokage's wife, you would be dead where you stand."
Mari reeled on the inside. She had plans for hostility. Hatred. Even threats. This… this was pure killing intent. It was a threat only in the same way that an incoming fireball was a threat.
Part of her mind naturally engaged in survival mode. Mari was the Hokage's wife, legal minutiae notwithstanding. Hana acknowledged this. Would she stay rational? Mari, who was barely starting to grasp the kind of family bonds that were natural to Hana, already knew that she herself would defend her family to the death. If Hana saw her as a genuine threat to her son, rightly or wrongly, Mari had no doubt she'd be engaged in a life-or-death battle. It was still possible right now, if unlikely—a jōnin of Hana's calibre would hardly attack immediately after giving warning, rather than waiting for Mari to lower her guard again.
It was an unfavourable matchup—Mari could hold her own at CQC against most women, but Hana was a swordswoman with superior natural reach and she was ready for genjutsu. She'd be vulnerable in the moment she went for her swords, which could be in a storage scroll somewhere on her person, but she would have accounted for that. A Kurosawa always had the right move ready.
Most important of all, Hana was a combat specialist who had lived to her thirties. Unless the mission specified otherwise, Mist's standard doctrine was to sacrifice one team member so that the rest could get away.
"Make a move, Inoue."
Oh, yes, the Kurosawa were a diplomat clan as well, trained to read body language since birth using generations of clan secrets, versus Mari's standard Mist training followed by learning from experience. A reminder of that eternal gap between commoners and clan ninja.
"Please," Hana said, a cruel smile finding its way onto her face, "make this self-defence. I've spent two years waiting."
Mari had to defuse the situation. She was better than this. Getting into trouble and then talking her way out of it had been her way of life for as long as she could remember.
"Please, Hana, I know it was a—"
"I did not give you permission to use my given name."
"I made one mistake," Mari said, "and I've spent all this time trying to make up for it. I'm not asking for forgiveness, but please judge me on all of the facts."
"I know all of the facts," Kurosawa said, "and not just the ones in the Mist dossiers. You think I don't remember you, Inoue? Caring about nothing but your own pleasure, sleeping around and living in drug dens and doing other things I won't dirty my mouth with, leaving a trail of broken hearts and corrupted innocents in your wake? Kanna was weak-willed. Shikigami was a fallen idealist. But you… you didn't have anywhere further left to fall."
That condemnation was a heavier blow than Kurosawa knew, and not just because every single word of it was true. Jōnin were the village's heroes, beloved and feared all at once. Even Captain Zabuza, who'd cared about nothing but his work, couldn't escape his own legend. Kurosawa Hana was no exception. How could Mari not have known about her, the woman who'd mastered combat and diplomacy both, turning enemies into loyal allies or destroying them as the mission demanded—all without ever sacrificing her dignity or her integrity?
Even after she abandoned the Kurosawa Clan in order to be true to herself, and the clans' smear campaign portrayed her as a selfish traitor lest others follow her example, she didn't compromise. Even after the Kurosawa elders convinced the Mizukage that it was inappropriate for her to represent Mist in top-level negotiations and her income plummeted, she didn't compromise. Even after her husband died and she was left to take care of her child on her own in relative poverty, she didn't compromise.
She was everything Mari could never be.
It was pure chance that led Mari to be friends with Hazō's instructor, long after she had herself become a jōnin and ceased to need or want role models. Pure chance that had promoted him to her attention. Then, the bright child with a valuable bloodline was a natural candidate for Shikigami's list. And yet… Kurosawa Shin ticked the exact same boxes, but with clan training and a better record. Why had Mari chosen Hana's son? Had she been trying to step out of or into her shadow?
Pure chance struck again. Hazō had been among those Mari rescued. His presence both constantly whispered that she could be more and constantly reminded her that she was less. Still, at least he was not his mother.
Then Kurosawa Hana had returned, unchanged, charging into the dragon's den at the first opportunity purely because it was the right thing to do. Made a direct part of Mari's life, perhaps forever.
But Mari was an adult now. They should have been equals. They should have been strangers. It shouldn't hurt that the woman she'd admired so long ago had nothing but contempt for her, had never had anything but contempt for her.
"Everything you've said is true," Mari said, steeling herself. "I'm self-aware enough to know that. But everything Hazō must have said is true as well. I made a choice. I took them with me. I put their welfare ahead of my own. They were a second chance I did not deserve, but however much you hate me, Kurosawa, you must admit that I took that second chance."
Kurosawa shook her head, rejecting the appeal.
"You took my son away for your own use, and then you took him again. You didn't know him, Inoue, or those other poor children. You picked them up at the last second because you ran into them by coincidence and you recognised an opportunity. Tickets to redemption. Convenient tools to make up for a lifetime of callous selfishness. Or are you going to look me in the eye and claim that you cared about their individual welfare before, while they were dying one by one in the swamp?"
Keiko.
Noburi and Hazō had been tag-alongs at first, it was true, but Keiko… Keiko had been her miracle. The right person at the right time, her apathy towards life and death calling to Mari as a reminder of the darkest days of her own childhood. For the first time, somebody she could help with her toolkit meant for psychological destruction. For the first time, somebody she wanted to.
Would Kurosawa believe that, or would it sound like Mari was grasping at straws? Worse, would telling her that her precious son had been an afterthought only fan her anger?
No, Mari decided, she wouldn't bring Keiko into this. Her daughter—yes, her daughter, who did not have a better mother to turn up and demand her back—was finally finding her own happiness. Mari would not drag into her into somebody else's fight.
"Maybe you're right," she said instead. "Or maybe changing who you are is slow, and sometimes you have to use tainted tools because they're all you have. But this isn't about me at all, is it, Kurosawa? What you want to hear, what you want to know, is whether I have Hazō's best interests at heart. I do. It doesn't matter how it happened. It doesn't matter whether I'm a saint or a monster. I want Hazō to be happy and safe, and that isn't going to change."
"Very good," Kurosawa said, her words dripping with venom. "Simple, clear statements, nothing too provocative, a natural progression to the exact thing I want to hear. Professional. I can see how you kept Shikigami dancing to your tune."
Her? Making Shikigami dance? He was the one who—no, not the time, not the point.
"We all know the basics," she went on. "If you want to know who's behind a plot, ask who benefits. If you want to know whether to believe someone, ask how they benefit. You are a career manipulator saying the exact things that will benefit you the most. That is all you are, in the end."
It was an unwinnable scenario. As a fellow practitioner, Kurosawa would be aware that she had no way of knowing what level Mari was playing at. Mari could be exactly this skilled and being honest, or she could be better than Kurosawa and successfully faking both this level of skill and her honesty. One of the rare times when being an acknowledged expert was the worst thing in the world. Worse still because Kurosawa had successfully called out part of Mari's strategy, while being diametrically wrong about her intent.
"You can lie, Inoue, but you can't hide the facts. Hazō isn't just an implement for your redemption. He's your meal ticket as well. Do you think I don't know my own son well enough to hear the personal pride in his voice when he tells me that you bargained your way into Leaf? You exploited his talent, which he considers to be more valuable to Leaf than a jōnin clearance's worth of Mist secrets. You even managed to twist a quid-pro-quo negotiation into a successful seduction, which is nothing less than I'd expect of a woman with so much talent and so little self-respect.
"So yes. I do believe that you want Hazō healthy and happy and loyal. He's both a valuable resource and a tool for you to convince yourself that you're no longer the degenerate failure of a human being that you've been for your entire life."
Kurosawa lowered her voice. It was almost gentle.
"But that isn't love, Inoue. It isn't even responsibility. The longer you spend convincing yourself that someone like you is capable of being a parent, the less of you will survive when you finally look into a mirror. If you really think you care about Hazō, you won't let him be there when it happens."
Mari hadn't taken advantage of Hazō. She hadn't. She'd poured so much of herself into protecting him and the others, into keeping them safe and helping them grow. The happiness she'd found in those years, even amidst all the pain and fear, hadn't been a lie.
But what did it mean to say that her happiness wasn't a lie? Her pleasure in her Mist years hadn't been a lie either. She'd used person after person, treating them as tools in ways that Hazō with his innocent worries couldn't even imagine. What was the difference between pleasure and happiness? How could you ever know that you'd stopped treating people as tools, rather than just getting so good at it that you could make them happy too and then use that as another source of pleasure? How could you ever, ever know that you'd stopped lying to yourself?
She'd thought she was changing, but pieces of disproof were flocking over her like vultures brought by Kurosawa's words. Mari had made Keiko fall in love with her, then avoided dealing with the mess even if it doomed Keiko to the agony of spending every day with a woman she could never have. In the Liberator's village, she, the mistress of manipulation, had murdered a young man for being inconvenient even as he was busy giving her the keys to his heart. She had encouraged Hazō to take up the ninja discipline with the highest beginner fatality rate, and hadn't that paid off nicely?
She'd used her forbidden technique to wipe Hazō's memory just so she could avoid a real emotional connection. She, a socially adept jōnin, had made a deeply troubled little girl take on the responsibility of dealing with an entire alien race. She'd broken her word to the rest of the team and prompted Hazō and Akane to pursue the path she wanted for them, then forgot about them until they blundered into a disaster she might have been able to prevent. She'd dragged her genin into a family arrangement they never asked for, selling one off in the process and abandoning another. Then, having got what she wanted, she retired, the jōnin leaving the genin to do traumatic and near-fatal missions on their own.
How many incidents could she remember? How many others felt so natural that they just blended into the background fabric of daily life? How could she prove she'd changed when the opposing narrative was such a perfect fit?
She couldn't tell anymore whether Kurosawa was right or wrong. She reached out into the void, but she couldn't grasp objectivity, or maybe there was no objectivity there to be grasped. But if she left it down to faith, then at the end of this battle which she hadn't meant to be a battle, she simply couldn't believe in the new Mari more strongly than Kurosawa believed in the old.
There was only one conviction that her unstable self could accept with certainty. When she thought of what it meant to be a parent, all she could remember was the man who'd acted as her father, a smiling abuser she'd executed with her own hands, and her mother, who'd chosen to sever their bond of trust rather than disrupt her comfortable life in order to protect her daughter. So if a woman who had spent every day of twelve years showering her son with love and fighting for his sake—a woman who'd raised someone as impossibly pure as Hazō in the hellhole that was Hidden Mist—told her that she was unfit to be a parent, then Mari was unfit to be a parent. She'd always known, in her heart of hearts, but thought that if she pretended hard enough, maybe it would come true.
"You and I will be civil to each other in public because we're both professionals," she vaguely heard Kurosawa say. "But don't forget for a second, Inoue, because I won't…"
For an instant, Mari glimpsed the deep pain behind Kurosawa's eyes, feeding the anger like an unending magma stream feeding a volcano.
"You took my son away from me, and I can never have him back."
-o-
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-o-
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Another beautiful afternoon of training. Never had being pelted with metallic projectiles intended to painfully incapacitate her felt so good. In truth, Kei had errands she should have been running this afternoon, and would in any case see Tenten at the gaming night, but after the trauma of yesterday's dinner, she needed to recharge before facing all those people. And, in some bizarre way that made no sense whatsoever, being with Tenten was no more socially draining than being alone. Thus, Kei spent the hours immersing herself in exhausting, violent relaxation. Praise be to Tenten for accommodating her whims.
It was, as ever, painful to part with her girlfriend(?), even in the knowledge that they would meet again a matter of hours hence. On impulse, instead of her usual goodbye nod, she pressed two fingers to her lips. An echo of their previous encounter, more intimate and less vulgar than a blown kiss, and the closest they could get to a real one.
Tenten's eyes shone as she returned the gesture. Then, before Kei could turn around and leave, she spoke hesitantly.
"Are you… free tomorrow?"
Kei reluctantly shook her head. "I have been scheduled for an instance of two individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship." It practically rolled off the tongue at this point.
Tenten stared. "A date?!"
Kei waved her hands in front of her as if to ward off the horror. "No! Why does everyone keep assuming that? I will merely be spending time with my presumptive fiancé."
Her brain caught up with her mouth. Had she ever actually… told Tenten?
In answer, the blood drained out of Tenten's face.
"I—I'm sorry," Tenten whispered. "I misunderstood."
"No, I—"
But Tenten was a blur, disappearing faster than Kei's pathetically slow brain could find appropriate words of reassurance. Faster than she could comprehend what she had just destroyed.
-o-
"Kagome, where is she?"
Desperate times called for desperate measures, and no time had ever been more desperate. Only the prodigious power of Mari-sensei had any chance of finding a way to undo what Kei had done, even if it meant admitting the nature of her relationship with Tenten to another living being.
"Where is she?" Kei demanded again when Kagome failed to offer an instantaneous reply.
Kagome shrugged as if this wasn't an emergency. "Dunno. Haven't seen her all day. She wasn't at breakfast, so I reckon maybe last night's dinner disagreed with her. Hey, where are you—"
-o-
It was fortunate that Mari-sensei was so beautiful and so distinctive. There was no shortage of people in the streets who remembered seeing her, hurrying on her way to some unknown destination. A destination that, when Kei finally reached it, would almost have been better off remaining unknown.
"What a delight to see our most frequent customer, Lady Gōketsu. Welcome back to the Yabai Café!"
The waiter bowed unctuously.
"I regret to inform you, however, that your mother has already booked out our establishment for the day, and also left a warning that anyone who so much as approaches the function room while she is working will meet with instant death."
Despite the urgency of her mission, Kei could not help raising an eyebrow.
"A discounted full-scale booking is a service we are happy to provide during less busy periods."
"Not that. You have a function room?"
"I never said it saw frequent use," the waiter said with a touch of petulance.
"I am wasting time," Kei said. "I assume the function room is upstairs?"
"My most humble apologies," the waiter bowed again, "but your mother's instructions were very specific."
"Stand aside," Kei hissed.
"I have no wish to offend, Lady Gōketsu, but—"
"That was not a request." She met the waiter's eyes. "You are aware of my status as the Hokage's daughter, and as a Leaf shinobi in good standing with the full backing of the government. You may be aware that I am the Pangolin Summoner. Rest assured that I, the fourteen-year-old girl in front of you, require none of those things to make you wish that you were never born."
"R-Right this way."
Contrary to the warnings, Kei did not meet with instant death as she walked through the door. No, what she encountered was much more terrifying.
In a room with closed curtains and no lighting, in one corner, Mari-sensei sobbed.
"Mari-sensei?!"
Mari-sensei looked up. "Keiko, no! You mustn't be here…"
Kei immediately dropped any possibility of explaining the reasons for her presence. What meaning could her personal disaster have in the face of this?
"Go away, Keiko. Please."
"Mari-sensei, what's wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong," Mari-sensei said hoarsely. "Everything's finally in its place. She made me admit the truth. I was just lying to myself. To everyone…"
"What are you talking about?"
"Go away. I don't deserve someone like you."
"That is a lie. You deserve…" Different kinds of love, both current and remembered, stirred within Kei's breast. "You deserve all that is best in the world."
Mari-sensei looked up with what could have been anger, if anger were a limp and lifeless thing. "Don't you understand, Keiko? I've been lying to you. I've been using you all this time."
"I do not understand at all."
"Keiko…" Mari-sensei drew in a ragged breath. "I was never the woman you took me for. I am the one who chose you. All of you. I am the one who put you on Shikigami's list and took away your lives. It was all me."
Despite the gravity of the situation, Kei couldn't help rolling her eyes.
"Well, obviously."
"...What?" The shock was powerful enough to silence Mari-sensei's sobs.
"Was I to believe that Shikigami, who needed to identify candidates with backgrounds that fit his suicide mission cover story, would take the risk of recruiting an extra jōnin into his conspiracy and then not use her speciality of gathering information in a social context? That the only man who knew enough about the Swamp of Death to plan travel, logistics and long-term strategy would not delegate human resources work to a loyal expert? You even told us, so very long ago, that you had researched every one of us in order to prepare blackmail material. As if the petty secrets of young genin merited that level of effort."
"Then… you always knew?"
"I never knew. Eventually, I suspected." As with Minami, the distinction was important. Vitally important.
Mari-sensei collapsed in on herself. "Then you understand. This is the kind of woman I've been all along."
"I always knew you were in some way complicit, Mari-sensei. That does not negate your actions afterward. Nor the bonds we've forged. I cannot claim to fully understand the kind of woman you have been all along—I cannot claim to fully understand anyone—but I believe she is too complex to be reduced to a single point of failure."
"She really isn't," Mari-sensei said bitterly. "Did you know I used to be friends with Hazō's jōnin instructor? My habit of ruffling his hair came from those days. It didn't stop me signing him up to die. Me saving you kids? Keeping you alive? Bonding with you? All lies. When she said it, I had nothing to say back. I was lying to everyone, even myself. Exploiting you for my own benefit. From the beginning and until the end.
"Please go, Keiko. For your own good. It's not too late for you to walk away."
"No."
Mari-sensei gave her a wild-eyed look. "Don't you understand? Ever since we met, I have been using you as a tool!"
"Well, obviously."
Mari-sensei couldn't even speak.
"You saved my life, Mari-sensei. It belonged to you after that. Besides, it wasn't as if I had a better use for it.
"Nor any expectations. Mori are tools. That is what we are, what it means to have no initiative of our own. My inadequacy as a tool was the beginning of the cataclysmic chain reaction that made me the self-loathing creature I am now. For me to be genuinely useful to someone like you was above my aspirations. You taught me. You guided me. You made me better. You have even, at times, encouraged me to express my preferences and develop my agency, for all that my attempts at independence have only added misery to the world.
"The scale of your accomplishments cannot be denied. Look how far we have come from our starting point. Look how far I have come from who I was when you first saw me at the edge of the water. And no matter what you may believe, treating someone as a tool is not incompatible with a familial bond—this, too, is something that I learned from my Mori family.
"I trust you, Mari-sensei. I… I love you. I have never had any regrets about being your tool. If you, one of the people I love most, can truly use me to find happiness, and if I can continue to grow through your use of me, is that not as much of a parent-child relationship as anyone can ask for?"
Would those words be enough? Kei, lacking Mari-sensei's talent for healing others, had nothing more to offer than her own feelings.
Mari-sensei stared at her like a woman seeing the end of the world. "What have I done?" she whispered. "What have I done?"
Kei felt a terrible fear snaking through her. "I don't understand."
But Mari-sensei said nothing more.
Kei was helpless, unable to so much as guess at what was happening. Even her best attempts to help had somehow made things worse. What could she possibly do if everything she touched turned to ash?
No. There was one thing.
The timing made it plain. "'She made me admit the truth', you said. Mari-sensei, did you speak with Hana again after the rest of us were gone?"
A fractional nod was all she needed.
"I love you, Mari-sensei," she repeated. "I will never abandon you." It needed to be said, because the very next thing Kei did was march out of the room with murder in her eyes.
"You." She caught a waiter—the same luckless waiter—on her way out. "Mari-sensei's business here is private. If you permit a single person within hearing range of that room, or if you confirm her presence in this building to a single soul, then after she is done killing those directly responsible, I will return and call forth giant summon beasts to wipe this café and everyone involved with it off the face of the earth."
The waiter bowed silently, and had not unbowed by the time she left.
-o-
Kei strode through the crowds. She had no illusions of being anything but a young teenager desperately waiting for her next growth spurt, but this afternoon, none who beheld her dared to impede her progress. Which was just as well, since if she slowed down, she might remember that she intended to face Kurosawa Hana without a plan, and that it was not possible for her to create any such plan, and then she would be paralysed.
Mari-sensei's confession—the first confession, which she had forced herself to set aside—ran like venom through her veins. She drew on that fury, redirected it. Her feelings might be in flux, but her loyalties were not.
"I am here to speak with the special envoy," she said at the door to the guest quarters. Her lack of plan extended to the guards, who were unlikely to be as easily intimidated as some hapless civilian. Fortunately, they did not attempt to bar her path.
One last thought caught her as she was about to enter. What if Hazō was inside, working to rebuild his relationship with his mother? What if Keiko, with her legendary gift for subtlety, was a sledgehammer about to descend upon that uncertain bond?
The question slowed her, but it did not stop her. Hazō had his battles to fight. She had hers.
"Keiko?" Hazō asked in puzzlement as she entered. "I didn't realise you were coming."
"Do come in," Hana said pleasantly. "We've just finished another batch of cookies."
Kei was about to bring the day of wrath to a long-separated mother and child baking cookies together. Thank you, universe.
"Wait, Keiko?" Hazō asked with an expression of dawning horror. "No. Nonononono."
He turned to Hana. "Mum, whatever she's going to tell you about my past, it's lies. All lies. Especially the bit about tying her up in the middle of the night in the Mist barracks."
He turned back to Kei. "Keiko, whatever she's going to tell you about my past, it's lies. All lies. Especially the bit about my first crush and the haiku."
"Hazō," Hana said gently. "I think we're done baking for today. Why don't you go home and start setting up for the gaming night? I'll bring the cookies with me."
She began to usher him out.
"But Mum!" he cried desperately, looking at Kei and Hana as if watching somebody carry a lit torch into a coal mine saturated with firedamp. He could well be right, if for the wrong reasons.
"Later, cricket." Hana watched until she was certain he was gone, then closed the door.
"Now," she said to Kei, "I would guess that you're here for a reason."
"Whatever it is you did to Mari-sensei," Kei said without preamble, "undo it. Now."
"What happens between me and that woman is our own private business," Hana said, not unkindly. "It is not something for third parties to stumble into."
"Privacy is irrelevant when one's loved ones are under threat," Kei snapped. "Or would you hesitate to invade mine if you judged me dangerous to Hazō?"
"Not for an instant," Hana agreed. "But if you're willing to go that far, you must believe that you can do a better job of handling that relationship than either of us. Do you think you can understand my feelings better than an experienced, specially-trained adult? Or hers?"
Kei's conviction wavered. How was she supposed to prevail against Hana if Mari-sensei could not?
But to retreat would be to leave Mari-sensei in that dark room.
"I made no such claim," she said, holding tightly onto that image. If she could not have courage, she could at least have the strength of a cornered animal. "But my capabilities are irrelevant. You are hurting someone I love. Whatever 'truth' you've told her, I do not believe it, and I will not allow a liar into my home."
Hana's eyebrows rose.
"Do you know what she is, Keiko? How much has she told you? Do you know that she caused all this? The woman who chose to take my son from me, and who chose to take Mori Ami—yes, Ren gave me the dossier—from you?"
The venom burned inside Kei. "I know. And now that I know, there will be a reckoning. But it will be when both she and I are ready, not when an outsider attempts to intervene. You want me to respect your relationship with Mari-sensei? Then respect hers and mine."
Hana smiled.
"I like you, Keiko. And I do respect you, especially now you've shown me how far you will go to protect your loved ones. I'm not here to turn you against her, however much she might deserve it. I'm here to restore a family, not to break one. But some things cannot be forgiven. I understand that, and so does she, and someday so will you."
"I do not care whether you forgive her," Kei said bluntly. "That much is your own business. Your feelings are opaque to me, and I do not care to guess at the depth of pain you felt when you lost the only person you loved in the world. Mine is quite enough for me."
She kept imagining Mari-sensei in the dark room. It was the way she could sustain herself in the face of a woman who felt both stronger and wiser than her, and the purity of whose motivations she could not deny. The only way she could withstand any Kurosawa powers Hana might be using, which she could not recognise, and certainly not repel.
"But that pain is no justification to lash out blindly," Kei said. "You could not spend one night in Leaf without discarding tolerance in favour of hostility. Is that how we are supposed to live now? Must we be at war because you do not have the self-control to avoid turning your feelings into action?"
"You do make this difficult, child," Hana said regretfully. "She forced the confrontation. I did not ask for it. She presented me with self-serving lies and I could not go so far against my nature as to accept them. But I came here to be with my son. I didn't ask her to throw herself against me when she was fragile and I wasn't, and she knew full well what I'd been trying to hold back all night.
"Do you feel better now that you've succeeded in invading our private business? Now that you realise the extent to which she did this to herself? You can't fix her, Keiko. I couldn't even if I wanted to. And even if our relationship starts to become more positive in spite of my every expectation, there is no place for you in that process. I didn't want to throw your powerlessness in your face, but there it is.
"Focus on Hazō. He's going to need a friend with your courage when it hits him how hard it is to make the world he wants. Let the adults sort out their own mess."
It was compelling. So painfully compelling. Kei finally understood the terror of the diplomat clan. Hana was presenting a reasonable narrative, one in which everything that happened was both natural and inevitable, and yet that somehow led to "Mari-sensei brought it on herself" and "There is nothing you can do".
What was Kei's narrative? She did not have one. She did not even have a plan. All she had was her anger, and a naïve desire to protect.
She hated this, how her supposedly great intellect invariably failed her in times of crisis, forcing her to grope blindly in the dark against overwhelming odds. Hated herself for being so weak. That narrative was eternal and unchanging.
Kei should just surrender. She had overreached. She had thrown a tantrum and an adult had patiently explained why she was wrong. She had somehow allowed herself to believe that throwing down the gauntlet was the only thing necessary to succeed, after having learned no more than the mere basics of the art of intimidation. She had failed Mari-sensei, both as a pupil and as a rescuer. She would focus on Hazō and let the adults sort out their own mess.
Hana's narrative was the only narrative. She had no choice to accept it. But, the thought came to her like one sudden beam of light through the storm clouds, did that necessarily mean defeat?
"Are you focusing on Hazō, Hana?"
Hana blinked. "Of course I am. He's all that matters."
"And Mari-sensei is…" it took Kei a second to make herself say it, "a terrible human being unworthy to be called his parent for innumerable reasons."
"Charitably put, yes."
"Then why are you in competition with her?"
Hana's eyes flared. It was the shattering of a mask that Kei had not even realised was there. "I am not in competition with that woman! I am his mother!"
"I," Kei said, "spent the entirety of last night being a DMZ because you two could not share Hazō, an experience I assure you I am not eager to repeat. When I, who have the social perceptiveness of a myopic trout, am able to recognise a concealed power struggle, you know you have reached the limits of your vaunted adulthood."
"It was a compromise! Would you rather we'd fought in front of my child?"
"That is exactly what you did," Kei said. "And I cannot imagine how hurt he must have been at the idea that you might force him to make a choice."
There was silence for a few seconds.
"There could never be a choice," Hana said quietly. "I am his mother. After what she's done, she has no right to call herself his anything."
"He disagrees."
"Then he's wrong. It's that simple."
It was remarkable how much easier Hana was to deal with without the mask.
"Why should that matter?" Kei asked. "Hazō is regularly wrong, often in spectacular and unforgettable ways. None of us are exempt from living with the consequences of his errors. Why should you be any different?"
"Are you telling me to tolerate her, Keiko? To let that viper keep poisoning my child's mind just because he doesn't know any better?"
Use Hana's narrative. Draw on its strength since you have none of your own.
"Is Mari-sensei's influence over him greater than yours? You with the truth on your side and her with self-serving lies?"
Hana looked as if she had bitten into an acerbic tomato.
"And how would that be different from the power struggle you claim we're in?"
"Because you would not be lashing out against each other," Kei said simply. "Because you would not be attempting to force Hazō to sever ties with somebody he loves. You should not be threatened by a person you consider incapable of being his mother. On her part, Mari-sensei, or your vision of her, should know that tools can be shared as well as fought over.
"If I have learned anything over two years of bonding with strange people in the wilderness, it is that in a tight-knit group, each member is constantly influencing the personalities of the others. If you wish to join our tight-knit group, then you must accept that you will not be the only influence on Hazō, and that you will be influenced in return."
"Yes," Hana muttered to herself. "Please beat the career diplomat with arguments from human social behaviour."
She reached for a cookie and consumed it in three huge bites. Then another. Something about her relaxed, though of course Kei lacked the competence to determine what.
"You call that woman your sensei, right?"
"…Yes?"
"Then by the power that would be vested in me by the Mizukage if I really insisted, I hereby retroactively pronounce you a social-spec in training. I refuse to be out-argued by an amateur."
After Kei was done choking, she forced out, "That cannot possibly be valid by Leaf law."
"If I have the measure of the Hokage after that afterparty, he'll ratify it because he thinks it's funny."
Damn.
"Now shoo. I have a great deal of thinking to do thanks to you, and I have to prepare for tonight, and I am expected to defend the honour of the Kurosawa at the gaming table—not that the bastards deserve it, and you never heard me say that—despite having only just heard of this Strategic Dominance. And I have to somehow not eat all the cookies despite craving sugar after that trial of a conversation."
Suddenly, despite being prepared to murder her an hour earlier, Kei felt as if she and Hana could become friends after all—or what passed for friends when one person was thrice the other's age and very indirectly their stepmother, while the other was so incompetent at friendship that post-Uplift scholars would doubtless write entire treatises analysing it.
The younger Lady Gōketsu allowed herself to be shooed, though not before pilfering a cookie for herself.
Nothing was over. She still could not begin to imagine how to lift Mari-sensei from the abyss Hana had plunged her into, nor how to reconcile that unforgivable act with the sympathetic humanity Hana had revealed. Kei had radically intervened in Hazō's life in a fashion that would result in a massacre were anyone to even dream of doing it to her own, and she did not have a moral code sufficiently developed to process the hypocrisy. She had allowed her anger to cast her into a confrontation that could have ended in countless different flavours of disaster, both for herself and for her loved ones, and on some level it frightened her that this destructive instinct was becoming her default response to social conflict.
But for all that, in this place, at this time, she had won. She had defeated a social-spec stronger than Mari-sensei, on her home ground and without a plan. She did not know how long this wave of euphoria would last before she returned to drowning in familiar darkness, but she intended to savour every drop of it while it did.
And there was one more matter to address, while she still felt as if she could do anything. A young woman needed to know that she would always be Kei's partner, at gaming nights and everywhere else.
"I apologise," the guard said gruffly, looking down at Kei like an unimpressed elite chūnin looking down at an impertinent genin girl, "but the Hokage is in a meeting right now and can't be disturbed. Please come back later."
Kei pondered her options. It seemed… unwise to attempt to intimidate the veteran guards of the Hokage Tower, and besides, after this afternoon, she was wary of over-reliance on that particular tool. Stealth was equally unlikely to succeed. She did not know how many shinobi before her had attempted to infiltrate the Hokage's office, nor how many of them had survived long enough to take their one-way journey to T&I. Perhaps she should simply wait, and gamble that the meeting would finish early enough for Jiraiya to bring Mari-sensei home without encountering gaming night guests.
Her high was already fading, leaving her only with darker thoughts of Mari-sensei, her own general incompetence (by what miracle had she been able to convince Hana of anything?) and an uncertain future for all concerned. And, of course, she remained a Mori, substituting the final dregs of her anger for an initiative she did not possess. There did not appear to have been any dire mental consequences to her presumption, but on the other hand this could be because she had essentially spent the day blundering aimlessly from destination to destination, taking whatever action seemed obvious at the time. In retrospect, she should be ashamed of herself.
QM Compel: "Just Follow the Plan".
Keiko spends 1 FP to refuse.
It would be vastly more natural and less dangerous for her to follow tradition and wallow in self-loathing. The furious animation that had permitted her to come this far was gone, and without it she was once again useless as an independent agent. Yet just this once, Kei would defy her limits for one simple reason: Mari-sensei was still waiting for her.
"Allow me to present the matter to you from a different angle," Kei said. "You know the Hokage's policies better than I. Which would be worse, the consequences for allowing his daughter to interrupt his work, or the consequences for preventing his daughter from delivering urgent news pertaining to a noble clan?"
The guards exchanged glances.
"You know, you could have led with the 'urgent news' part."
"Noted."
Jiraiya was indeed in a meeting, his visitor a lanky man wearing a traveller's pack and ranting enthusiastically about the merits of some luxury item or other. Apparently, among other uses it was perfect for hot springs. Insofar as Jiraiya was Jiraiya, this had alarming implications.
"Ah," Jiraiya said on seeing her, lightly and without displaying surprise. "Tobikomi, meet my daughter Keiko."
The man turned to face her.
The traditional response from a civilian would have been a bow, or at least a respectful nod to acknowledge her superior station—internalising that she was the princess of a noble clan, rather than the lesser daughter not spoken of lest it detract from the prestige brought by Ami, was still a work in progress, but Kei had no complaints. What Kei was not prepared for was the enormous grin.
"Why, what a perfectly adorable little girl! And so tall for only ten years old. You must really be packing away your greens!"
"Ten years old?" Jiraiya inquired curiously from behind him as Kei stood frozen with shock.
"My best guess. You forget, Lord Hokage: I've had the delight of meeting your beautiful young wife in person. She must have given birth to little Keiko at a very early age."
Mari-sensei? Give birth to her? Kei's brain decided to suspend operations rather than process either the image or its implications.
"Here, little girl, no need to be shy. Uncle Jibura always has a treat for his customers' children. With your permission, Lord Hokage?"
"Go ahead," Jiraiya replied, taking advantage of his position out of the man's line of sight to allow himself to shake with silent laughter.
He would pay. They would all pay.
The appalling man pulled a small, paper-wrapped package from his pack. "I've got some special eastern candy just for you, little Keiko. Would you like some?"
He held the package out to her. Both men watched her, with paternal affection in one case and difficulty breathing in the other.
Kei did not trust herself to open her mouth to refuse. She had a premonition that her first words would be "Summoning Technique", and it would all go downhill from there. She should just take the damned candy and conclude this encounter while she still had some modicum of self-control.
Except the appalling man had it in a slightly cupped hand. She would have to risk touching him. The alternative would be to use non-verbal signals and reinforce Tobikomi's impressions of her childishness, as well as potentially hinting to Jiraiya that her issues went deeper than a mere distaste for physical affection (and that was none of his business).
Kei silently prayed for a lack of panic attack as she took one step towards Tobikomi. A second. An increasingly apprehensive third. Then, with the courage of a chūnin throwing herself at the Yellow Flash to gain her squad a few extra seconds to flee, her hand darted out, snatched the candy with an absolute minimum of physical contact, and instantly retracted as if burned. She retreated swiftly, not trusting herself to remain in melee range of the man while her kunai were within easy reach.
She suspected that from the outside she resembled a feral animal being coaxed to accept a treat.
"Aren't you the sweetest thing," Tobikomi beamed. "Don't worry, I'm sure you won't be so scared of strangers once you grow up.
"Well, then, Lord Hokage, please allow me to take my leave. I have a long journey ahead of me to collect those samples I promised, and I intend to set out at once."
"Good evening to you, Tobikomi," Jiraiya said, the world's greatest spymaster visibly struggling to maintain a straight face.
"And of course," Tobikomi said as he left, "I will be sure to spread the word about the loveliness of the Hokage's little girl wherever I go. No extra charge."
His escape was mostly facilitated by Kei having to wait until she recovered the power of speech. "May I eviscerate him in an agonising fashion and suspend his desecrated remains from a gibbet as a warning to the rest of his misbegotten ilk, sir?"
"No, little Keiko, you may not."
Must not murder the Hokage. Nara Shikaku has refused the job. Must not murder the Hokage. Nara Shikaku has refused the job. Must not murder the Hokage. Nara Shikaku has refused the job.
"Please?" she assayed diplomacy. "You could make it my birthday present."
"Why can't you just ask for a chakra pony like a normal little girl?"
Nara might change his mind if Hyūga Hiashi were the only other candidate left alive. And she would be the Hokage's daughter-in-law, which was still acceptable.
That said, a tame chakra pony would make a formidable weapon, more than capable of mitigating her vulnerability at close range without the chakra expenditure or political strings of a summon. And if anyone had the resources to arrange such a thing, it would be the Hokage, between the sheer firepower required to capture the creature unharmed and the favours to have clan experts subjugate it to a human master.
She could learn to touch it. Perhaps even to ride it. She would find it a name expressive of both majesty and subtle elegance, and custom barding to compensate for the gaps in its natural armour. Snowflake patterns? No, too obvious. Stars and astronomical symbols? Too fairy-tale. Classic black and red? Easy to coordinate with—even Kei knew that much—but it would feel too much like a missed opportunity. Clearly, the matter would require extensive consideration.
"Done."
"I beg your pardon?"
"A chakra pony in exchange for sparing that man's life."
Jiraiya's mouth dropped open. "I wasn't serious! Do you have any idea what one of those things can do?"
"I was unaware that the Hokage was weak, or a man who did not honour his word."
"Oh, is that how it's going to be? I guess I'd better break the news to the rest of the clan about how my adorable ten-year-old daughter wants a pony after shyly accepting candy from a civilian."
"You wouldn't dare."
"Try me."
The two locked gazes.
A few seconds later, Kei heard the door behind her fly open.
She did not break eye contact with Jiraiya. If an assailant capable of reaching the Hokage's office was close enough to strike, she was dead in any case.
"Lord Hokage, we sensed a spike of killing intent!"
"Return to your posts." Jiraiya waved the guards away, also without breaking eye contact. "I will deal with this one myself."
Kei heard the door close.
She was aware that her opponent was holding back. No genin, however determined, could actually hope to defeat Jiraiya of the Three in a battle of wills. But they were also both aware that he could not simply crush her with his full power the way he would crush an enemy, not if he wanted to ever earn her love and respect as his daughter. Some might consider exploiting that weakness cynical, but Kei was Mari-sensei's pupil and a social cripple. There was no advantage she would not seize to win.
As the Hokage, Jiraiya was all but invincible. As an inexperienced parent facing a wilful teenage daughter… she would break him.
"It seems we're at an impasse," Jiraiya said slowly, eventually.
"Why, so we are."
"I suppose you think you can keep this up indefinitely."
"Only long enough to receive what I am owed."
"I don't owe you anything. It was a hypothetical."
"I followed your instruction, which was to request a chakra pony in preference to my original desire. For you to then deny the request would be duplicitous at the very least."
"Nobody gets a chakra pony for their birthday. That's basic common sense."
"Ah, so you manipulated me, with malice aforethought, into trading something for nothing. That certainly improves your moral stance."
"I don't need a moral stance. I'm the Hokage."
Kei raised an eyebrow.
"I mean that as the Hokage, I can just order you not to kill civilians. You do get that, right?"
"So you are exploiting the authority inherent in your office to retroactively justify reneging on a fairly made deal?"
Jiraiya gave a weary sigh. "You know what, it's late and I don't have the energy to deal with this. Keiko, if you keep it up with this chakra pony crap, I'm going to make sure the entire clan hears the ten-year-old-girl story in full detail. They will tease you forever, and you can say goodbye to that death glare you use to keep the boys under control. There, cards on the table."
"Mutually assured destruction, is it? Then I will tell them how their patriarch knowingly made his daughter a promise he could not keep, then attempted to blackmail her into silence. I will do this immediately after you have described to them, 'in full detail', the traumatic experience I was forced to endure while you did nothing but watch and laugh."
"It's always the quiet ones," Jiraiya muttered.
His eyes narrowed. "You're not getting a chakra pony. Leaf doesn't have the manpower to spare and you know exactly how full my plate is right now. Behave yourself and I promise I'll find you a birthday present you'll like just as much."
"Chakra raptor."
"That's worse! You can have a normal pet, like a cat or a dog. A smart one, like the Inuzuka have."
"Normal pets are for normal people. Chakra unicorn."
"Those don't exist. At least not at your clearance level. How about one of the minor chakra beasts? You know, something every kid will envy but not extermination mission material.
"Except whatever Fifi is," he added as an afterthought. "That thing must never breed."
"You raise an excellent point. Kagome is permitted a pet, and you have never inquired into its species."
"Fine. A chakra collie, and I'll throw in some free books of your choice."
"One is enough, thank you, and you are already overdue on providing the clan with a well-stocked library. Chakra chameleon, if you please, and a set of custom shuriken seals as used by Tenten."
"Sorry, didn't quite catch that."
"I said I wanted a"—Kei blinked—"chakra ostrich and a set of custom shuriken seals as used by Tenten."
"That's what I thought. Those things are proprietary. You want some, you ask her yourself."
"And the chakra ostrich?"
"Over my dead body."
Kei sensed that she was reaching the limits of Jiraiya's patience. Given that he had the power to unilaterally terminate negotiations, she would have to skip to the end and hope she had laid enough groundwork.
"What about a juvenile chakra pony?"
Jiraiya took a full minute to consider this.
"…Early nymph stage tops. You have to take care of it, you're responsible for all costs, including compensation if it eats a civilian, and you're not to take it out on missions until it's an adult and it's been cleared by the Inuzuka Beastmaster."
"WehaveadealJiraiyaHokagesir."
"Finally. This should be a good one for Team Asuma. They're a capture squad, and more importantly it'll teach him not to be an ass about mission fees. Whatever he's saving up for is not my problem."
Jiraiya took a few seconds to emerge from his fantasies of revenge.
"What's that you're holding?"
"Hastily-written legal contract awaiting your seal, sir."
Jiraiya studied the contract thoughtfully.
"I wonder if I could ship you to the Nara early and bump up the dowry to compensate. Would Shikaku consider tonight too soon?"
He stamped the contract with his seal. Kei's heart soared.
"All right, enough tomfoolery for one evening. Did you have a reason to come here other than extorting an overworked old man?"
Kei's heart plummeted back into the depths where it belonged. She had been focusing on her own trauma and her own selfish desires while Mari-sensei was still there, in that dark room, weeping.
She explained this to Jiraiya, omitting Hana's involvement for the time being. She suspected that having the Hokage murder the Mizukage's sister would not improve the situation any.
"Fuck," Jiraiya eloquently summarised. "And this is the night when half of Leaf is going to be crammed inside the Gōketsu compound."
He rose from his chair and violently stuffed the stack of papers in front of him into a drawer visibly too small to contain them. It was a credit to Nara-optimised paper that a few of them survived unharmed.
"I'm going to go to the café and extract her. You go home and get everyone to run interference. Which is to say, pretend everything's normal, keep the guests busy, and under no circumstances let any of them go upstairs, or into the west wing, because I'll be using the west entrance to bring her back."
"There is no west entrance."
"There will be."
-o-
The gaming night had yet to truly begin, and the Gōketsu vixen was already looking harried. Doubtless she was only now realising that she'd bitten off more than she could chew as a hostess. A woman like that could never be Shikamaru's Lady Yoshino. Here is hard evidence for a previously untested claim.
Not that Shiori was the gloating type. She was simply stating the obvious. To herself. Repeatedly. While smiling.
The setup was perfect. If Gōketsu was already off-balance, it would make her that much more vulnerable during their long-awaited confrontation.
"Gōketsu, may I have a word in private?"
The so-called noble gave her a blank look. "Of course. Please follow me to an empty room."
Shiori followed, but stopped when she saw the sign over the door.
"G-Gōketsu, I didn't mean that kind of private!"
Gōketsu looked up at the sign, which read, "Flesh Combination Chamber".
"Please pay it no mind. We inherited this compound from a previous owner, and many of the rooms now serve a purpose he did not intend."
Oh, right. Sexually deviant libertine.
Gōketsu gestured for her to sit. Shiori looked down uneasily.
"This is an ordinary chair, right?"
"Of course. Forgive me if it does not meet expectations—we have not had time to furnish secondary rooms such as this with our preferred kinds of furniture."
Shiori didn't dare to ask.
"Gōketsu Keiko. I do not believe we've met."
She didn't know who she was. This vile seductress, the woman plotting to take away her Shikamaru, hadn't even bothered to investigate her rival. Or was this just another calculated insult?
"Nara Shiori," she said through gritted teeth. "Shikamaru's personal assistant. He is unwell and asked me to come in his stead." It wasn't an ordinary part of her duties—she didn't have the social training to represent the clan at an event for the nobility—but when she remembered the adult game Gōketsu had sent her, and the note that came with it, Shiori had agreed without a second thought.
"Ah, yes," Gōketsu said, pretending to finally remember. "You were responsible for that… memorable itinerary."
A reminder of Gōketsu's victory in the face of Shiori's best efforts, casually thrown in her face. Well, Shiori refused to be put on the defensive so easily.
"Not as memorable as what you sent me afterwards."
Gōketsu must have sensed the hostility in her voice. "Was it too blunt? If so, apologies. I am sometimes insensitive to such subtleties."
The image of certain implements featured in Gōketsu's gift floated to the top of Shiori's mind. She was worried they were too blunt? When they were unpacking the game, Shiori thought they felt pleasantly rounded—and she was going to cut off that thought right there. But for Gōketsu to just openly discuss her sensitivity to such things with a stranger? What was wrong with her?
Or… what if Shiori's worst suspicions were correct and Gōketsu was already treating her as part of her planned ménage a trois? Was she about to ask for Shiori's most intimate secrets in return? Was Shiori supposed to have those? What if she needed some for tonight's games?
"I, um, can't comment on any of that. We didn't end up playing in the end." So smooth, Shiori. No wonder Gōketsu was already talking rings around her.
"Oh, yes. Now I recall, Nara said something about there being 'no game'. I do apologise. I suppose they must have given you the wrong package at the shop. However, please be reassured that you will not require prior experience for the version we will be playing tonight. It offers a wide variety of different tools and approaches, in many cases more elaborate than those of the two-player game, and in some ways it is better that you will be approaching it with a more open mind. Although, with fifteen other guests, I cannot guarantee you a place in a Strategic Dominance game."
"F-Fifteen guests?"
"Fear not. We have a sufficient variety of other games as well. If you are naturally suited to roleplaying, for example, perhaps Hazō will fulfil a desire you did not know you possessed. Strictly speaking, it was Noburi who crafted 'The Witch King's Chains', but in his absence Hazō should have no difficulties guiding a beginner through the adventure."
"Ch-Chains?"
"No? Well, there is always Sealing Failure. I understand it can be an acquired taste—people can be strangely uncomfortable playing with portals to forbidden realms, constant tentacle assaults and unnatural eldritch abominations—but I personally have grown to rather enjoy it. If that sounds intimidating, I can confirm that, since total cooperation on the human side is required for survival, it is reasonably beginner-friendly. However, take care to accept guidance from more experienced players in order to minimise sanity loss."
Shiori found herself feeling faint. She had never even considered the implications of… experimentation… with the Gōketsu sealmasters. Was it too late to run for her life?
No. She was here as Shikamaru's representative. He believed in her. In fact, if he'd sent her, maybe he meant for her to acquire new skills and experiences so she could one day be a better lover for him. It all sounded… frankly blood-chilling, but if it was for him, she could try to expose herself to whatever the gaming night had to offer.
Her head still spinning from all the obscenity into which she was expected to throw herself (fifteen strangers!), she suddenly remembered that she had called Gōketsu out for a reason. Tonight, yes, tonight would see her formal declaration of war.
"There is something I want to say to you, Gōketsu." Shiori steeled herself.
"Oh?"
"I know you think you hold all the cards. I know you think all the pieces are already in place and I don't stand a chance against your underhanded tactics. But I promise you: I will not go down easily." Aaargh, worst possible choice of words ever!
"This game is only just beginning," Shiori hurried on before Gōketsu took that last part as a challenge, "and if you think it's all going to go your way, then you know nothing about real Nara. I know the odds. I know them all too well. But I also know that you can't predict the outcome until the final throw of the dice. I'm willing to stake everything I have on this battle. Are you?"
"Gambling is not a social activity to which I am accustomed," Gōketsu said after a second to take in the passion behind Shiori's declaration, "and it would seem unfair to compete in such given the clear gap in skill between us at this time."
Oh, that utter bitch. The restraint it took for Shiori not to simply slap her and take the consequences…
"Then again, if you believe you have the requisite natural talent, I would be happy to test it in a game of Strategic Dominance. As to the stakes…
"Ah, perfect. Tomorrow, I am due for an instance of two individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship."
"You mean a date?"
"No! Why does everyone keep assuming that? I will merely be socialising with Nara, as befits his presumptive fiancée."
It took all of Shiori's self-control not to growl as Gōketsu gleefully punched her in the gut with reality. On an objective level, she envied the woman's deft mastery of social skills, which allowed her to casually drop massive insults into the conversation in ways that would make Shiori sound unreasonable if she called them out. You lack the foundations necessary to proceed with your argument and should backtrack while you have the chance. She did not and would not. Screw you, inner Nara.
"Regardless," Gōketsu went on, "this arrangement, once unproblematic, now interferes with other potential plans for the day. As Nara's assistant, it would not be difficult for you to invent a pretext to replace me and spend the day with him instead."
Shiori gasped. What was this? Was she being toyed with? Was this a peace offering? Or part of some incredibly subtle game? She refused to give up—ever—but she had to admit that Gōketsu's sophisticated noble wiles were making her feel increasingly outclassed.
"I accept," she said quickly. "And what if you win?"
"That is if I win."
No, never mind. Shiori gave up.
"I admit, however, that I am at a loss as to what to offer you if you win. The direct reversal, after all, would to be for you to spend the day with me instead."
That jolted Shiori right back into consciousness. It was all starting to become clear to her. Gōketsu was placing her in a situation where she could only lose. If she wanted to be with Shikamaru tomorrow, Shiori had to accept a humiliating public defeat on her first gaming night, right after claiming to be a worthy challenger to Gōketsu. But if she won, then she was honour-bound to spend a whole day in that woman's clutches with no hope of escape. She couldn't deny that the deviousness of it was exquisite.
And it was a trap. It had to be a trap. Even Gōketsu couldn't possibly want to go on a real date with another girl. Especially Gōketsu, who was so focused on stealing Shikamaru's heart.
"With that said," Gōketsu mused, "I doubt I could be of much value to you as a conversationalist…"
Damn straight. The very idea of learning what was truly on her mind made Shiori sick.
"…so perhaps we should confine ourselves to physical activity, which I have found to be as valid a way to spend a day with a person of one's interest as any other."
Shiori's heart stopped. She would never, ever tempt fate again, not even in the private confines of her mind.
"Unless, of course, you have a superior suggestion?"
Mercy! Bliss! Salvation from on high! (Actually, Gōketsu was shorter than her, being only fourteen, but right now Shiori would take whatever she could get.) Her tormentor was offering her an out! Even if it was a setup for an even deadlier trap, right now Shiori had no choice but to take it. All she had to do was un-knot her tongue so she could use it to take advantage of the opening Gōketsu had presented to her—and she was going to strike that sentence from the record and then set the record on fire.
She might never get a chance like this again. Right here, right now, she would put everything she had on the line and throw down the gauntlet in a way that allowed for no misinterpretation. She might not be able to do anything about the arranged marriage—not yet—but she could at least stymie that vixen's brazen efforts to seduce Shiori's beloved.
"If I win," she said boldly, "then you will swear never to lay hands on Shikamaru!"
Finally, Gōketsu looked completely blindsided.
"Why would I… oh, are you concerned that I may harm him during close contact? But our styles are both based around maintaining distance."
Thank goodness. She wasn't too late. Gōketsu's seduction attempts had yet to overcome Shikamaru's natural reserve, and she thought the way to do it was to mirror his low emotional engagement. A woman motivated only by cold self-interest could never understand that it was closeness that lowered people's barriers.
Even so, Shiori didn't dare underestimate her.
"I've made my decision," Shiori said resolutely, "and you will not be able to talk me out of it. I'll see you on the battlefield, Gōketsu."
"Third room on the left," Gōketsu said. "You may need to bring an extra chair."
-o-
It was, unfortunately, no surprise that Neji hadn't been able to make it to the gaming night. Hazō hoped he was OK, or at least being treated fairly (which, he had to admit when he thought about the Proctor HQ fiasco, were not necessarily the same thing). This was not to say, however, that the Hyūga Clan was above lobbing them other curveballs.
"My name is Hyūga Hanabi," the girl of about nine said with adult seriousness. She bowed, her hands folded humbly in front of her. "Father chose to give me Cousin Neji's invitation so that I could meet the heirs and important genin of the other clans. I am sorry for any unintended insult, and for being late.
"Can I play with you?"
"Welcome aboard, Hyūga," Hazō said. They were of more or less equal status and she was a child, but Hazō still didn't have a clear sense of how these things worked for clan ninja, so he was sticking to her family name.
"Please call me Hanabi. You are all my highly respected seniors whom I one day hope to imitate."
Wow.
"Oh, except you two." Hanabi looked at Genda and Sugiyama, Nakano's teammates. "You have to use my clan name. I'm sorry, but before I left, Father commanded me to avoid undue familiarity with the low-born."
The temperature in the room fell by several degrees.
"So," Hazō said after a second with as much false cheer as he could muster, "now that we're done with the introductions"—they weren't—"why don't I explain to you how this game is going to work…"
-o-
"Ha ha ha," Genda laughed, his booming voice causing the players next to him to briefly lean away. "That plate mail getting too heavy for you, Puissance? I count five new notches on my blade. Did you even kill three?"
"Four," Rock Lee retorted, "and they all died much more youthfully than yours."
"Now, boys," Sugiyama said, "this is no time for a dic"—she glanced at Hanabi—"beard-measuring contest. We need to hurry if we're going to reach the village before nightfall."
"Quite right," Akimichi said. "All that matters is that they are dead and we are rich. Or richer. We should try to be ambushed by a better class of bandit in the future."
"Fine. I collect my throwing axes and set off."
"Just a moment," Hanabi said. "Gamesmaster, is the bandit chief still alive?"
"He is," Hazō said. "You explicitly said that you were pulling your final blow."
"What?!" Genda snarled. "What're we supposed to do with a stinkin' priso—"
Hanabi calmly held up her hand. Despite the fact that she was a small child and Genda was a taijutsu fighter built like a brick outhouse, the aura of gravity around her completely shut down his objection. Hazō had to introduce this girl to Keiko and see what happened.
"In that case," Hanabi said in her high-pitched, squeaky voice, "I walk over to him and use my ceremonial kris to cut out his still-beating heart, squeeze it in a sweeping motion so that the blood forms a circle around my feet, and then consume it whole as is only proper."
Dead silence.
"Hanabi," Akimichi said tentatively, "weren't you supposed to be playing a paladin?"
"That's right. I am a massacre maiden of Lord Jashin, sworn to his service since birth and fated to drown this world in blood and darkness in His name—once we're done saving it from the Witch King, of course. I also took levels of barbarian so that I can enter a blood rage whenever my master chooses to channel His endless hunger through me."
The silence did not get any less dead.
"I've been listening to my sister's Chūnin Exam stories!" Hanabi said brightly.
-o-
So far, the party was a roaring success. People were mingling, Nakano's team wasn't meeting with any more overt discrimination, Rock Lee was too into a game of Civilian Burger to be Rock Lee at anyone, and everybody loved both Mum's cookies (though she'd brought fewer than he expected) and Kagome-sensei's masterwork snacks.
The pair themselves were ensconced in the apocalypse-proof armoured bunker that Kagome-sensei called his room, he having decided that he'd had enough of crowds for the night, and she having found a keen audience for her recollections of what it was like to be a mother putting a child through the Academy, and how in her opinion the place would be better off burned to the ground and rebuilt by competent people who actually cared about children and also didn't take drugs on the job.
Hazō's only complaint was how incredibly exhausting it all was. Jiraiya and Mari-sensei were upstairs and not coming down, Noburi was absent, Kagome-sensei had been of dubious help even when he was here, and Keiko, while certainly a reliable gamesmistress, had eventually bowed out to pursue her own interests (whatever that meant). Even after Hanabi went home early, citing a strict curfew, Hazō was left managing fifteen people (and a dog) on his own.
There was one thing, though, that he had to do before he collapsed in the kitchen over a revitalising mug of hot chocolate.
"Everyone, once you're done with your current game, please come through to the Greater Lounge."
The Greater Lounge, originally a specimen containment area, was the biggest room on the ground floor. The Gōketsu were low on furniture right now relative to the massive size of the compound, so on Mari-sensei's pre-breakdown advice, Hazō had provided large, colourful cushions in a variety of sizes, which gave the place a cosy, intimate feel despite its size. In accordance with the same advice, the cushions were separated into clusters, which would allow people to break up into smaller groups without having their conversations interfere with each other.
"Tonight, we are going to play Yakuza, a classic, some would say the classic party game!"
"Never heard of it," Inuzuka said.
"It used to have another name," Hazō said, "but that information is classified." The name was Mist Infiltration Group, and Jiraiya had permitted its revival only on condition of a re-theming which in no way associated ninja authority with mass voting.
"All right. First off, we need a setting. Somewhere you can have a group of civilians without any strangers turning up."
"What about a ship?" Nara suggested. "I mean if this is the part of the evening where we, um, you know, and we have to pretend to be somewhere, I think a ship would be nice. I'm sorry. I'll shut up now."
"No, no, I like it, Shiori," Akimichi said.
"Yeah, that makes sense."
"Let's go with a ship."
"A ship it is," Hazō said mournfully. "All of you are sailors on a ship carrying valuable cargo. Except five of you who are secretly yakuza. You want the cargo, but you can't handle all the real sailors, so you will be killing them off one by one every night. Then, during the day, everyone—including you—will be voting on who they think is a yakuza. Once there's a consensus, that person gets thrown overboard and you find out their role. Then it's night again and the whole thing repeats. The innocents win if they manage to throw all the yakuza overboard. The yakuza win if they outnumber the innocents… for obvious reasons. If you die, you're a ghost. You can stay awake at night, but you aren't allowed to communicate in any way.
"Oh, and remember, you're all civilians. No using any kind of ninja powers. Inuzuka, Akamaru counts as a ninja power."
"Damn."
"Now, I'm going to hand out the cards. Red means you're innocent; black means you're a yakuza. Never show anyone your card."
So far, so good.
"Now that you all know your roles, it's night-time. All players, close your eyes. Yakuza, open your eyes. Yakuza, point at the person you want to kill."
The yakuza began to point, gradually converging on a single target.
"No, choosing a newcomer first would be most unyouthful!"
Hazō facepalmed. "Hand in your cards. We're starting again."
-o-
"Of course you're a yakuza, Kiba," Yamanaka said. "I heard you moving during the night phase. It was like a chakra behemoth barrelling through the room, only without the fine motor control."
"You so did not! Nobody can hear me when I'm being stealthy unless I let them!"
"Well," Yamanaka smirked, "I think that counts as a confession. Hope you can do the doggy paddle, Kiba, 'cause you're about to walk the plank."
-o-
"I'm completely innocent," Hyūga said sweetly. "If I was a yakuza, would I have accused Shino, who turned out to be a yakuza, last round?"
"Fair point," Akimichi said. "I take back my accusation. So who do you think it is?"
"I can't be sure," Hyūga said, "but I have this impression that Shino and Mitarashi were giving each other meaningful looks earlier. Did anyone else notice that?"
"Huh," said Sugiyama. "Now that you mention it… Yeah, I'll second that accusation."
In the background, unnoticed by any but Hazō, Aburame's ghost gazed at Hyūga and Sugiyama in mute betrayal.
-o-
"Only six left," Yamanaka said. "Come on, people, we're nearly there."
"It has to be Yuriko, right?" Hyūga asked, indicating Sugiyama. "She voted against executing Kiba at the start."
"So did Lee," Akimichi said. "I don't think it's that strange for someone to make a mistake during the first round."
"Fair enough," Hyūga said. "Not Yuriko, then. Kurenai-sensei, do you have an alibi?"
"I haven't made a single wrong vote yet," Kurenai said. "I must be the worst yakuza ever."
"You also abstained quite a lot."
"Because I wouldn't want to condemn someone without evidence. Would you, Hinata?"
Hyūga smiled. "Touché. Rock Lee?"
"I would never be so unyouthful as to kill somebody, or to keep secrets from my trusted allies."
"Same as before, I think," Kurenai said. "Lee is either a master of deception or a raving lunatic, and either way it doesn't give us any information."
"I bet it's Chōji and Hinata," Yamanaka said unexpectedly. "Chōji's spent half the game backing Hinata up on everything, and she was pretty fierce arguing for him that round he got accused."
"We can only vote on one of them," Sugiyama pointed out. "If we have to pick one, I'd say Chōji's more suspicious. Hinata's been talking constantly, while Chōji's mostly sitting back and listening. It's like he's been hiding in her shadow."
"I see what you mean," Yamanaka said. "Hinata might be a yakuza, but at least she's been giving us all plenty of opportunities to watch her body language and tone of voice and stuff for hints. Chōji's been doing the opposite. I'm convinced."
"That's two votes for Akimichi," Hazō said.
"Three votes," Hyūga said. "Sorry, Chōji, but it's you or me."
"I can't believe I didn't see it earlier," Akimichi said. "It's Hinata. She's been building up to this all along."
"Don't look at me," Yamanaka said. "As far as I'm concerned, you're both guilty as heck. But sometimes in life, a woman has to make a choice."
She looked to the remaining two. "If you think Hinata's a yakuza—which she blatantly is—then we have to execute Chōji first. Then she kills one of us, the remaining three vote for her, and Team Innocent wins. What do you say, Lee, Kurenai-sensei?"
Neither of them said anything.
The silence grew tenser and tenser until—
"I abstain," Kurenai said heavily.
"Majority vote for Akimichi," Hazō said. "Akimichi is thrown overboard and eaten by ravenous chakra sharks. Unfortunately… he was innocent. The yakuza win."
"Damn," Kurenai spat. "I knew it!"
"Wait…" Hyūga said. "Hazō, are you sure you didn't make a mistake somewhere?"
"Yeah," Sugiyama said. "There are still three innocents left."
"No," Yamanaka said, her smile slowly stretching into a cruel grin. "No, there aren't."
"What?!" Hyūga and Sugiyama screamed.
"The rules say a yakuza has to point at the person they want to kill. They don't say you have to want to kill someone."
"I didn't misremember the intro," Hyūga said in a hollow voice. "You were the fifth yakuza."
"It's terribly dangerous, being a yakuza," Yamanaka said innocently. "You never know when your own allies might give you away in order to divert attention from themselves. Or by accident, for that matter. Did you know Shino kept glancing at you two from behind his sunglasses?"
"Tell me about it," Hyūga agreed. "He had to go."
In the background, Aburame's ghost squirmed.
-o-
The evening was growing late, and Shiori's tension was only building. After completely obliterating her at Strategic Dominance (and then, because she was an enormous bitch, apologising for not holding back enough), Gōketsu had requested that she abide by the terms of the bet and go on a date with Shikamaru. Shiori was torn between light-headed joy and a miserable awareness that all this was part of Gōketsu's plan. Until she could figure out what that twisted fiend had in store for her, she would be stuck waiting for the other shoe to drop.
She'd considered screwing up her courage and just demanding answers, but a single glance had dissuaded her from the notion. The sheer venomous condescension in Gōketsu's every motion as she played with Tenten made Shiori realise that her earlier insincere politeness had been a form of mercy. But Tenten lived up to her reputation even with her opponent's true nature bared. Her uncompromising concentration, rarely taking her eyes off Gōketsu's face for more than a second, was a dragonslayer's blade waiting for that single perfect strike, even as she defied Gōketsu's corrosive emotional subversion with nothing but purity of intent. So this was true high-level play.
Shiori was going nowhere near it.
And speaking of dropping shoes, she'd been here for hours and she was still conscious, sane and relatively innocent. Something was very wrong.
No, on second thought, it made perfect sense. Shiori was far from the only beginner present, and with Gōketsu Keiko as one of the gaming night's organisers, it was entirely logical for her to first lure them in with innocent versions of the games and undeservedly earn their trust. That was how she operated. Once the beginners relaxed and let down their guard, it would be much easier to inveigle them into true perversion before they knew it.
So why hadn't anyone inveigled her into true perversion yet? Did they think it was fun constantly oscillating between fearful anticipation and bemused relief?
"Excuse me," she addressed Nakano. "When are we having the… you-know-what?"
"The what now?"
"You know. The, um, orgy."
Nakano goggled. "These gaming night things have orgies? Is that the reason the Gōketsu invited my team out of nowhere?"
"I-I don't know. It's my first time too."
"It has to be some kind of joke," Nakano said. "I know noble clans are different, but still… Hey, Aburame, is there really going to be an orgy?"
"I am unaware of any such," Shino said, "but then this is also my first gaming night. It should be an easy matter to settle, however. Why? Because Miss Mitarashi is here, and she has a… reputation which would imply detailed knowledge of such."
"G-Good point," Shiori said. "I guess I'll go ask her and let you know."
She crossed the room, carefully stepping around her… potential partners.
"M-Miss Mitarashi, is there going to be an orgy tonight?" she asked in a whisper.
Mitarashi's eyes lit up. "An orgy? Aw, hell yeah! Can't say I care for all the unripe fruit, but I reckon I'll have my hands oh so full finally teaching Kurenai to apply her skills to something useful!"
Half of Shiori was trembling with terror, while the other half was evaluating and ranking the boys based on several interrelated criteria derived from practical heuristics. If she was going to plummet into depravity, she would at least do so as a Nara.
-o-
"Hey, Ino," Kiba said anxiously. "Did you hear? There's going to be an orgy. Like, what are we supposed to do?"
Ino looked down at her feet, her face bright red. "None of the other heirs are leaving, so it would m-make the clan look bad if I was the only one, right?"
"Smart," Kiba nodded. "Sorry, Akamaru, but you heard her. Go take a walk. I love you, bro, but not in that way."
-o-
"Is this for real, Hinata?" Chōji asked. "Nobody told me anything in advance."
"Is it really such a big deal?" Hinata replied. "It's just sex. You see it all over the place."
She tapped her finger to her lips as if remembering something. "Well, I suppose you don't. You should take advantage of this opportunity to educate yourself."
"That's very… uninhibited of you."
"I really wouldn't stress over it. Look, Ino and that Shiori girl aren't going anywhere either."
"Good point. I can't be the only one letting the side down."
-o-
"Hey, Lee," Kiba said. "Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea? Like, what are you going to do if you end up paired with another dude?"
Lee spun around to face him, fire in his eyes. Kiba took an involuntary step back.
"That's hardly the issue here!" Lee exclaimed. "Nobody's been able to tell me whether orgies are youthful or not, and I'm running out of time!"
-o-
The rest of the room did not exist for Kei. This was her long-awaited reward for an afternoon of thankless toil and madness. She gazed across the game board at Tenten, who met her eyes with an enraptured look before playing her soldier card, placing the yakuza pawn so that it completely erased Kei's grain supply. Then she "randomly" selected one of Kei's cards, stealing the last of Kei's precious grain with unerring precision and locking her in a cycle of resource starvation unless she accepted trade at ruinous rates. Kei smiled fondly at her as she sorted her remaining hand, with its excessive number of sheep, and reached for the road token that would win her the Longest Road award and demolish Tenten's expansion plan, transforming her brick and lumber cards into so much coloured paper. Nothing could distract her from this moment of bliss.
"Hey, Gōketsu, when are we going to start the orgy?"
Kei dropped her sheep.
Tenten's eyes widened into saucers and her mouth opened slightly as she stared at Kei. Her face flickered through a dozen different emotions.
It took Kei only a second to analyse the situation and draw the inevitable conclusion. "Hazō…" she growled as she stormed out of the room.
-o-
Hazō, pale and shaken from the unprovoked wrath of Keiko, still exhausted, and with a rapidly-cooling mug of hot chocolate in his hand, loudly cleared his throat. Every eye in the room turned on him.
"It seems there has somehow been a misunderstanding. Gaming nights do not, I repeat, do not feature orgies."
"Oh, hey," Mitarashi grinned. "You mean this one is a special occasion? And you thought of little old me? Good call, kid. This shindig got twice as sexy the moment I walked in the front door."
"That's not why we invited you! We weren't planning any kind of orgy to begin with!"
"Spontaneous is good too," Mitarashi allowed. "Not like I've never been struck by divine inspiration halfway through a social before."
"Divine inspiration?" The concept was more than intriguing, but Hazō quickly remembered himself. "No, that's not the point. The Gōketsu Clan does not host orgies!"
"Oh, I getcha."
Hazō relaxed.
"Noble clans are all classy and shit," Mitarashi went on. "So this is what, a debauch? An adult revel? Ooh, maybe a bacchanalia?"
"What even is—"
"But enough talk... Have at you!"
Mitarashi reached up and began to pull off her top. Hazō was struck dumb by the most incredible pair of breasts he'd ever seen.
He was snapped out of his stupor several seconds later by the realisation that Mitarashi was now working on her belt, and that other people in the room were beginning to stir. The orgy was now in progress, despite his objections, and he had time for maybe a single sentence if he wanted to stop tonight from going down in history.
Hazō took a deep breath…
QM Compel: "Open Mouth, Insert Foot".
-o-
It had been, without question, the most awkward night of Ino's life. She wished she could just lock the memory away in the deepest recesses of her mind and never think of it again (there was probably clan ninjutsu for that), but she knew better than anyone how fast rumours spread. Better if Dad found out from her. At least this way she could restrain his overprotective father mode enough that he didn't go burn down the Gōketsu residence or something. It would be hard to make this situation even worse than it was, but she had faith in his ability to do so.
Of course, that meant all his anger would be turned on her instead. But surely he'd understand that she hadn't instigated anything—she'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and then had to make a judgement call under pressure. Everybody made mistakes.
Ah, who was she kidding? She was grounded for life.
And what would Akane say when she heard? No, Ino wasn't even going to think about that. At least if she was forced to spend the rest of her life locked up in her room, she'd probably never find out.
About her only source of consolation was that she'd been right to be pissed off with that loser Gōketsu. For a clan heir, even an inexperienced one, he'd taken far too long to firm up, and his technique could be described as rough at best. Frankly, if he'd just been more dominant from the very start, he could have spared them all a lot of embarrassment. Not that she was blameless—if she'd only paid attention to what he was trying to do instead of getting caught up in her own imagination, she could have taken matters into her own hands and done a much better job.
Instead, when he finally stopped vacillating and took the plunge…
-o-
"The orgy is cancelled!" Hazō bellowed.
Mitarashi took her hands off her belt. Everyone else stopped whatever they were doing.
"Whaaat? C'mon, Gōketsu, you can't promise and then not deliver. I'm not gonna get on your case for getting cold feet at the last second, so just sit this one out while the rest of us—"
"Mari-sensei is sick and needs her rest," Hazō said with a belated smoothness. "She won't be able to sleep if you start making noise this late."
"Aw. Fine," Mitarashi pouted. "You heard him, boys and girls. Get your stuff and start heading home, all quiet-like."
She reluctantly hopped onto the ceiling (teaching Hazō some fascinating things about gravity) and retrieved her top from the light fixture. People began to breathe sighs of relief, and in some cases possibly disappointment.
"Don't get me wrong, Gōketsu, I had a good time and all, but you still owe me an orgy. Don't think I'll forget it. Regards to Mari and the big guy."
And that was the point at which Hazō realised that he was going to be the one to explain all of this to Jiraiya.
-o-
You have earned 1 + 1 XP and 1 FP. Keiko has lost 1 FP.
Hazō knocked, then pushed Keiko's door open and leaned in.
"Keiko, have you seen the big teapot? Kagome-sensei and I—"
Keiko was sitting on her bed, staring at him with slightly widened eyes. Her nightstand was populated by the usual run of books—a few more than usual, in fact, with the spines facing the wall—and the massive one-gallon teapot that Hazō had been looking for, along with one of the largest mugs and a large pot of honey. More importantly, the blanket was in the process of settling over several more books that had been spread out in front of her.
"What?!" she snapped.
"Uh...is everything okay?"
"Yes, everything is fine! I was just—" She looked around the room slightly frantically. "Thinking. Yes. I was attempting to consider how we might...work on your Uplift plans. Yes, that is absolutely what I was thinking about. Not reading. Just thinking."
Hazō considered that one for a moment. "Right. You know what, I'll catch you later. Enjoy your...thinking."
o-o-o-o
November 27, 7:15am
Jiraiya was at the Tower, Mari-sensei was in her room and not coming out, Noburi was on a mission, and neither Kagome-sensei nor Keiko were good sources of wisdom for the issue at hand. There were times when a man had to stand on his own, face his own problems head-on. Grab the chakra buffalo by the horns. When he had no team, no one to watch his back.
There were also times when a man could go to his mom.
The walk from the Gōketsu compound to the ambassadorial quarters at Hokage Tower was just long enough to give Hazō a chance to organize his scattered thoughts. He wanted to have the whole thing laid out in his mind before he got there so that he wouldn't be stumbling blindly around with 'um's and 'er's. It needed to sound like a professional offering a well-considered report and requesting help on a difficult situation, not like panicked teenage fumbling.
The attack came when Hazō was halfway to the Tower, just passing through one of Leaf's larger market squares.
His assailant was a blur, streaking towards him at fully chakra-boosted speed with a weapon in hand; Hazō spun aside and dropped into a combat crouch...
...only to straighten up, blinking, as his 'attacker' went right on by and screeched to a halt at a clothing stall. The 'weapon' was in fact a heavy moneypouch, gripped tight in one white-knuckled hand.
"Green!" Nara Shiori shouted at the merchant, brandishing said moneypouch in one hand and a snatched-up garment in the other. "It needs to be green!"
"Uh...yes, ma'am. Would this be more—"
"Forest green, not sea foam!"
One of the most important bits of strategic advice taught in ninja school is "Pick your battles." Hazō decided he did not need to pick this one. Instead, he turned on his heel and hurried his steps away from whatever disaster was in the process of unfolding.
o-o-o-o
"An orgy?" Hana said, obviously struggling not to laugh. Which, given that the Iron Nerve allowed for perfect facial control, was the Kurosawa equivalent of teasing.
"Momma," Hazō said reprovingly, trying not to whine, "it's not funny."
"It's a little funny, cricket."
He glowered at her.
The laughter escaped, but she restricted it to just a few moments and then made herself sober up. "Okay, cricket, okay. I don't see this being a big deal in the long run. You'll get teased a lot. Your clan will get a reputation as a bunch of libertines, and you personally might get a reputation as a stick-in-the-mud, but I doubt it will go further than that."
"But I don't want a bad reputation as a whatever you said, or as a stick-in-the-mud!"
"Libertine, cricket. It means a person with no morals, especially related to sex."
"But...but...I'm not a libertine! And Keiko doesn't even like being touched!"
Hana shrugged. "Your clan head is Jiraiya, literally the most famous skirt-chaser in the entire world. Your clan matriarch is a tramp who—"
"Mom."
She raised a hand placatingly. "Fine. Your clan matriarch is a seduction specialist with a reputation for getting around. You lot were always going to be talked about with a nudge and a wink."
Hazō looked at his mother suspiciously. "How does anyone know about Mari-sensei's reputation?"
Hana shrugged. "No idea, but I can make some guesses. She's beautiful and important, which always gets a woman a reputation. She's been out with Mitarashi, dancing in...mature ways. T&I here undoubtedly knows at least some of her history—every Village's intelligence department has a dossier on all known jōnin, and she's no exception. Maybe some of them leaked, or maybe some traders from Mist have gossiped about her history.
"Regardless, with those two at the helm you guys were always going to have a reputation. This isn't so bad as an establishing moment; the key detail is that nothing actually happened." She chuckled. "Although that might get lost in the retelling. Before the week is over there will probably be stories about how half the village was swinging from the rafters."
Hazō buried his head in his hands.
"Don't worry, cricket. Jiraiya's reputation is way worse than that and it doesn't cause him any real trouble."
"He's an S-rank ninja who terrifies clan heads," Hazō muttered resentfully through the screen of his fingers.
She laughed again and took his hand, pulling it gently away from his face as she stood up. "Well then we'll just need to get you to S-rank as soon as possible. Come on, young man. Time to train."
o-o-o-o
November 27, 12pm
Okay, he could do this.
It was time. No more stalling, time to go.
Yep. No more reasons to delay. He was freshly bathed, the sweat and dirt of training washed away. His clothes looked good, his hair was combed and Mari-sensei was not around to alter that fact. He'd chewed enough mint to leave his breath unobjectionable. All of Momma's advice on appropriate words and expressions was at his fingertips. Yep. Time to go.
Hazō stared into the vaguely reflective surface of the koi pond a moment longer, desperately hoping that there would be a screamed alert as the armies of Akatsuki descended upon Leaf with fire and kunai. Or a massive explosion from the clan armory. Or, really, anything that would mean that he didn't have to go invite Yamanaka to lunch.
Sadly, no such alert happened.
With a sigh, he stepped out of the compound gates, pushing them closed behind himself, and nodded to the ANBU standing guard.
"Good afternoon, sir," the guard said. "If Lord Hokage needs you, may I say where you'll be?"
"I'm going to ask Yamanaka Ino out for lunch," Hazō said dejectedly.
The ANBU agent's mask denied her expressions to the world, but the slight shift in her stance bespoke amusement. "May I suggest, sir, that a girl generally prefers her suitor to seem a bit more enthusiastic and a bit less 'on the way to the gallows'?"
"I'm not a suitor!" Hazō protested. "I'm just asking her out for lunch so that we can talk."
"Oooh," the guard said. "That's never good. 'We need to talk', the four scariest words aside from 'S-rank babysitting mission'."
Hazō frowned at her. "That's only three words."
She shrugged. "S-rank is two words. Don't let the hyphen fool you."
Hazō is compelled: Open Mouth, Insert Foot!
Nature of compel: Say something that will add to your pervy reputation!
Compel refused! -1 FP
Hazō rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine. Anyway, I just need to get some advice about fitting in with the other clan heirs, and she's the best social type I know who's my age."
"Of course, sir," the ANBU said. "Enjoy your lunch."
With a nod of thanks, Hazō strode across the strip of grass that separated the gates from the street and leaped to the nearest roof. He would take the ninja road instead of walking through the streets with the civilians and getting dust on his finery.
The distance from the Gōketsu compound to the Yamanaka compound was much shorter than he would have liked. Why couldn't it have been farther...like, say, at the north end of the Land of Snow? Sadly, it was not. Yamanaka didn't even have the decency to live all the way on the other side of town.
"Good afternoon, sir," said the senior gate guard politely. Unlike the Gōketsu clan, the Yamanaka actually had enough people that they could have two family members stand at the gate to guard it. "May I help you?"
"Yes, I'm Gōketsu Hazō, looking for Yamanaka Ino," Hazō said. "Could you tell her I'm here, please?"
"Of course, sir. One moment." He glanced over at his junior partner and jerked his head; the junior guard ran inside.
"Nice weather," Hazō said after a moment.
"It really is," the guard replied. "We don't usually get such warm temperatures this far into winter. Enjoy it while we've got it, because it'll be back to being miserable in another few days."
Hazō nodded; the topic exhausted, he fell silent. The guard seemed content to stand in silence as well. Brain-itching, uncomfortable silence.
"So...have you seen any good plays lately?"
"Yes, sir. I went to The Tale of Lady Soong two nights ago. Marvelous play, although I think the music didn't do it justice. Have you seen it, sir?"
"Uh, no."
"Ah. Well, I'd recommend it."
"Great, thanks."
Silence.
Silentness.
Silence, silence, silence.
Siiiiileeeeence.
"So, the play. What's it about?"
o-o-o-o
November 29, 10am
"An orgy? An orgy?" Jiraiya looked shocked for a moment, then dissolved into helpless laughter.
"It's not that funny," Hazō grumbled, already regretting having invited Jiraiya to do research today. It had seemed like a good idea at the time; this morning had been the first time he'd seen the Hokage aside from momentarily passing in the kitchen the prior day, and making a plan to spend a few hours on research had sounded great. Hazō would make progress on his research, Jiraiya would decompress a bit...everyone would win.
What a terrible, terrible idea that had been.
Jiraiya continued his desperate efforts to suck in a breath of air through his laughter. The Toad Sage was bent over, hands on his knees, shaking as hilarity wracked his body.
"It wasn't my fault!"
"Probably just a distraction," Kagome-sensei said, glaring suspiciously around at the completely-empty-except-for-them Training Ground #4, also known as 'Gōketsu Seal Experimentation Lab #1'. "Schmucks probably just wanted to steal something...probably our research notes." He paused, storm clouds lowering on his brow as the next thought occurred. "Or maybe they wanted to leave something. We should check the house for traps. And lupchanzen. I can totally see them wanting to control me, or Mari." He paused. "Probably you too, Jiraiya." He shook his head. "I knew I shouldn't have left you lot alone with those schmucks."
Jiraiya was starting to get his laughter under control. "Schmucks?" he asked, wiping his eyes. "That's new."
"Mari said I should change up my language patterns," Kagome-sensei said, looking away in embarrassment. "Says it's too much of an identifying trait and that it could be used to recognize me if I needed to be in disguise. She told me I'm not allowed to say the 'S' word for a week."
"The 'S' word?"
"You know. The 'S' word." Kagome-sense gestured uncomfortably and uncommunicatively.
Jiraiya shrugged. "I have no idea what you're talking about? What's the 'S' word?"
"You know...it's what you call someone."
"Smart?"
"No, not that."
"Sexy?"
"No! Someone you don't like."
"Silly?"
"No!"
"Stentorious?"
"No! The 'S' word! You know what I mean. It starts S-t-i-n."
"Stringy?"
"There's no 'R'! None! I even spelled it for you!"
Jiraiya scratched his head.
"S-t-i-n...s-t-i-n...Stingy?"
"NO!"
"He means 'stinker', Jiraiya," Hazō said tiredly. "Stop making fun."
"Hmph," Jiraiya glowered. "Oh, speaking of fun, how was your lunch with Ino yesterday?"
"It didn't happen. I went to the gates but she wasn't available. Said I should come back tomorrow."
Jiraiya sucked in a commiserating breath. "Oooh, the old 'come back later', huh? Always a good sign—she's interested, but playing hard to get. Sounds like you melted her heart."
"I'm not trying to melt her heart, I just wanted to have lunch!"
"Heh. Last time I 'just had lunch' with a pretty girl she ended up walking b...she ended up very happy. As did I. A mutual sort of happiness, one might say. Anyway, good for you. Need to put in the effort if you're going to get her to the next orgy."
"THERE WAS NO ORGY!"
"Sure, sure! Whatever you say, kid!" The Sannin backed away, hands raised placatingly and eyes wide in simulated fear. "I understand. Cancelling it was probably a good move, because—"
"I didn't cancel it! There was never supposed to be an orgy!"
"You don't listen very well, do you, schmuck?" Kagome-sensei peered at Jiraiya curiously. "Maybe you should try cleaning your ears. I've got some good cleaning fluid in one of my scrolls if you want. Put it in, let it sit for a while, then pour warm water in. Does the trick. Just don't leave it in too long or it'll melt your brain."
Jiraiya's renewed laughter rapidly devolved into coughing.
"Could we please focus on the research?" Hazō grumbled. "I really want to try making another prototype today."
"Sure, sure, kid. Relax, we'll—"
"Stop right there, you stinke—!" Kagome slapped both hands over his mouth, eyes going wide in horror at his slip. He did not, however, look away from the messenger ninja who had just arrived. The man wore the armband of a courier and moved with the speed of a ninja in a hurry; he had left a roostertail of dust behind him as he came up the dirt track that led to the training ground, and the cloud was settling only slowly. Sunlight glimmered through the red dust, flashing off traces of reflective mica to turn the cloud into a thing of unnoticed beauty, since everyone was too busy looking at the new arrival.
The new arrival, not being an idiot, had frozen in place when the famously paranoid (and famously not-terribly-sane) Gōketsu explosives master shouted at him.
"Lord Hokage, urgent message for you, sir," he said, his voice struggling to be both calm and loud enough to be heard from a dozen yards away.
Jiraiya straightened up, all traces of laughter gone as he hurried over to the messenger. Hazō instinctively trailed along behind, Kagome-sensei on his heels with explosives ready to go.
The messenger glanced over Jiraiya's shoulder to take in the trailing entourage, then dropped his voice low. Jiraiya bent close, listening intently for several seconds, then jerked back, an exasperated look on his face.
"Did Shikaku send you with this?" he demanded. "I already apologized to him. The extra paperwork he dumped on me should have been enough."
The messenger glanced over Jiraiya's shoulder again, then back at his Hokage. The man was clearly nervous and Hazō couldn't be sure if it was at the sight of a possibly-angry-soon Hokage or a paranoid-and-armed-right-now Kagome-sensei.
"Sir, this doesn't come from Lord Nara. I was there. I was given code phrase 'Lily Orchid Seventeen'."
Jiraiya blinked. "Holy shit."
He spun to face Hazō and Kagome. "I need to go. Don't blow yourselves up, destroy the world, or hold dinner. Summoning Technique: Gamazō!" He jabbed his finger on the needle embedded in his belt for exactly that purpose, then slapped his hand to the ground. There was a loud pamf and Hazō was knocked back by the sudden appearance of a toad the size of a small oliphant. Before he had even caught his balance, Jiraiya was on the thing's back and they were gone, the toad's massive leaps carrying it over the treetops in a straight-line path that was faster than running back along the track would have been.
"I'll, uh, I'll just be going," the messenger said. "Um...was he serious about you destroying the world?"
"Of course not," Hazō said. "We'd never do that. We couldn't do that."
Kagome-sensei frowned in confusion. "Sure we could. All it would need is a retrotemporal rift that detonated at the Kamimoot where they decided to create the world." He looked up, ticking thoughts off on his fingers. "Oh, or a seal that drew resources from the surroundings to reproduce itself. If you're willing to settle for 'killing all humans but the planet is still physically here' then another one of those blade-monster rifts would do it, as long as they're able to cut through stone this time...speaking of which, we should probably send someone to check on that first one and make sure they haven't escaped and started spreading across the landscape like an unstoppable hellplague. Hm...some sort of contagious air-borne chakra disease contaminating us so that we unknowingly carry it around and infect everyone so their brains dissolve into meat paste and then they spread it further. Oh, or—"
"Right, uh, thank you, I need to be going, please excuse me, sirs," the messenger said, looking green. He bowed politely, then turned and ran off at far more than the standard 'returning from message delivery' pace.
o-o-o-o
November 30, 2pm
The weather had turned sour again, lowering gray clouds and heavy snow, but Hazō was in a great mood. The thing he'd been dreading, the lunch with Yamanaka, was over and done with. In fact, there were no significant commitments remaining. Seal research was cancelled due to weather. Momma had said she'd be busy today until dinner time with some sort of ambassadorial work, the details of which she'd left vague. Noburi still wasn't back in town, and Keiko...well, suffice to say that Keiko-Hazō interaction wasn't looking too likely in the immediate future.
No, there was nothing still on his plate except to sit here on the bench seat of the kitchen's window nook, look at the snow outside the window, and sip on his nice hot tea. Later on he'd read, or play his flute, or....
"Mrrrooooowwwww."
The sound came from right beside his head, the only warning having been the slight tap-tap of paws landing on the back of the bench seat an instant before the noise reached his ear. Hazō started to spin around but froze when a paw draped itself over his head and onto the bridge of his nose. The claws were only slightly extended, just enough to be seen with a cross-eyed glance, but the threat was still very real.
The paw withdrew slightly as its owner climbed up and settled herself on Hazō's head, her sheathed-claw paws tucked under her and her tail wrapped all the way around his throat like a collar.
"Puuuuuuurrrrrrrrrr."
The cat(?)'s purring vibrated weirdly on Hazō's scalp. It wasn't unpleasant, exactly...in fact, quite relaxing. A bit threatening, but relaxing.
"Fifi," Hazō said quietly.
The beast shifted slightly and the tip of her tail flicked, the fluff at the end tickling his cheek as she did.
"Fifi, you can't sleep there."
"Mrowph." The sound was grumpy, and the tail-flick hit like a mild thwap from a riding crop.
"Fifi—ow!" This time the thwap stung and claws jabbed into him.
Hazō considered his options. He could attempt to fling the cat(?) away, but her tail was wound tight around his neck and she'd probably do a good job of taking his scalp and/or face with her. He couldn't Substitute—the way she was wound around him meant that she would just come along. If he had some sort of shapeshifting jutsu then maybe he could make himself thinner, or smaller, or something. Note to self: Invent shapeshifting jutsu. Even if it only let you turn into humans it would be amazing.
Actually, better yet, pay someone to invent it. That sounded much better.
The cat(?) shifted slightly and Hazō's train of thought vanished like a popped soap bubble, instantly forgotten as the tips of spikey little claws tickled his head. He looked up as best he could without moving his head and was able to see nothing but a puff of fur.
"Puuuuurrrrrrrr....."
The feline(?) body heat, the sound, and the vibration were like a warm glass of milk at bedtime; Hazō's eyes drifted slightly closed without him meaning to. He blinked them open...and then paused. He didn't have anything else to do right now. A nap wouldn't be so bad.
"Okay, let me just get settled," he murmured, shifting on the bench seat. He put one hand up to hold Fifi in place and very slowly lay down so his head was resting on one of the decorative pillows that Mari-sensei had chosen. The beast took the careful motion in good part, not stabbing him at all and somehow ending up spraddled bonelessly across a good chunk of his torso with her tail still wrapped around his neck.
"Thanks, Fifi. This's a good idea," Hazō mumbled, feeling himself drifting off to sleep at the behest of Fifi's steady, rumbling purr.
o-o-o-o
December 1, 3pm
The snow had stopped falling, but there was almost two feet of it on the ground. Civilian teams were shoveling paths down the streets and shopkeepers were offering hot tea in order to lure customers. Hazō had treated himself to a sleep-in morning, then had eaten a self-indulgent breakfast that involved stuffing himself to the gills with delicious things. He had resolutely not allowed himself to think about Akane, or the tournament, or the orgy-related reputation that the Gōketsu had in fact acquired, or what Akane might think about that reputation, or—
Thwap!
"Ow! Okay, okay!"
"Murrrrr...."
Fifi had decided that Hazō made a delightful napping spot. Mostly his head, but if that wasn't convenient for her then his back, chest, or face would do just fine. (Waking up with a nose full of cat(?) had been a frightening and mildly traumatizing experience.) His lap was singularly uninteresting, but occasionally she would graciously deign to be moved there if he had been good—i.e., completely immobile and offering precisely the right amount of petting. Not so little as to suggest that she was not the most important thing in his universe, but not so much as to seem sycophantic and therefore deserving of a savage claw-rake. Juuuust enough.
'Just enough' turned out to be seven to nine seconds of relaxed stroking (with both hands, thank you!), then a pause of forty-one to forty-nine seconds, then repeat. And the petting needed to be fresh, not Iron Nerve. She disliked the perfect repetition of the Iron Nerve and would punish her napping post for its use. Repetition in general was to be avoided, hence the need to vary the duration of petting and the timespan between petting sessions.
By now, Hazō had it down to a science. Although he couldn't use the Iron Nerve for the petting, he could use it to keep his torso perfectly erect and motionless while his hands drew seals. When the time came he would set down his brush, offer up the appropriate amount of reverence, and then go back to work. He'd tried using one hand to pet Fifi and the other to continue drawing; that had gone down poorly. A pile of forty-six blanks had been ruined in the process of learning that lesson.
He reached the end of the current seal he was drawing with four seconds left in his grace period. He set the brush down hastily, paid the tithe to his feline(?) overlady, and went back to work. He was working through the explosives right now; the team had expended almost their entire stock during the Exams and he was busy replacing it. Explosives had gotten so easy he didn't even need to think about it when he drew them, and he figured that cat(?)-on-head was a good time to be stick with simple, safe things like bunker busters, as opposed to some of his more esoteric options.
Behind him, there was the slight scuff of a foot that was the ninja equivalent of knocking when entering a common space. "Hazō, why are you drawing seals with Fifi on your head?" Keiko asked.
"Because I needed to draw seals and she's on my head, obviously."
"Allow me to rephrase. Why are you choosing to draw seals when there is a chakra monster sleeping on your head?"
"Well, I chose to draw them when she wasn't there, but now she is."
Pause. "Very well. I hope both of you are very happy together. Excuse me."
o-o-o-o
December 3, 2pm
Hazō walked into the shop at the same moment that another customer walked out; ninja reflexes turned both of them to the side so they didn't actually crash into each other, but it was a close thing.
"Sorry," Hazō said. The other person was probably male (hard to tell given the heavy, hooded coats that everyone was wearing, and the scarf that this person had wrapped around their face), and roughly Hazō's height so probably his age. Hard-style taijutsu fighter based on his weight distribution. He had been in the process of sliding a thick stack of books into his coat as he walked out.
"Grrrrrrrrr," growled the other boy's hood—or, rather, something that was clearly hiding inside it.
"Hush!" the other boy hissed. Another growl. "I don't care what you smell, hush!"
"Inuzuka?" Hazō asked. "Is everything okay?"
"Huh? Oh...uh, yeah. No, everything's great."
"What are you reading?" Hazō asked, gesturing down to where the books were making an inside pocket of the coat bulge out.
"Nothing! No, just...uh...they're for a friend. I mean, a cousin. One of the cousins. Yeah. I'm just picking them up for him. They aren't for me."
"Oy!" called the shopkeeper. "In or out, but close the door! You're letting the cold in!"
"Gottagobye!" Two steps, a leap, and Inuzuka was gone, racing across the ninja highway towards his family's compound.
Hazō looked after him for a moment, then shook his head and allowed the door to swing closed behind him. He stomped the snow off his boots and brushed more off his coat before stepping off the entryway carpet and over to the counter where the owner waited.
"What may I do for yo—Mr. Gōketsu! Sir, a pleasure! I'm honored to have you in my shop! Please forgive my rudeness a moment ago, I didn't recognize you. Feel free to stand in the door for as long as you want!"
Lovely, the shopkeeper was panicking. "It's fine," Hazō said. "You were entirely reasonable. I'm just looking for something to read."
"Well, you've come to the right place, sir! Anything you want, I've got it! Deep discounts for Lord Hokage's family, of course!"
"Great! I'd like a copy of Akatsuki's book, please."
The shopkeeper froze and became, if possible, even paler. "Akatsuki's book, sir?"
"Yes, please. I'm curious what someone would write about a group of S-rank ninja. Is it stories, history, or what?"
"Um...sir...I don't have that, I'm afraid. I know I said anything, but I didn't think...um...I've very sorry sir, please don't be angry, I didn't mean to deceive you or—"
Hazō sighed. "It's fine, don't worry about it. How about something else...maybe some math or philosophy?"
"Math, sir?"
"Yes...? Is there a problem?"
The shopkeeper gestured somewhat helplessly. "I mean...they have textbooks down at the Academy, I suppose." Sudden realization dawned. "Oh, of course, you grew up in Mist so you never learned...um...right. Yes, of course, sir. Those are specialty items, sir. I can get some for you and have them delivered, if that would be all right?" He glanced around and then leaned forward. "If I may say, sir, I think it's really admirable that you're trying to catch up now that you're here in Leaf. Few people really try to better themselves."
"I know how to do Academy math!" Hazō snapped. The shopkeeper flinched back and Hazō forced himself to take a deep breath. "I know how to do basic math," he said again. "I was hoping you had something more advanced."
"More advanced, sir? I mean...the Academy teaches all of it. At least, here in Leaf they do."
Hazō rubbed his head for a moment, focusing on his breathing and on the political inadvisability of yelling at a civilian shopkeeper.
"Let's try something easier. Do you have any of Jiraiya's books?"
A sly grin spread across the shopkeeper's face. "Jiraiya's books, eh sir? Yes, sir, that I've got. How far into the Icha Icha series are you, sir? I've got books one through forty-six in stock—there was a run on the Icha Icha: Chains of Heart arc, but I'll be getting more in the day after tomorrow, and I'd be happy to set some aside for you. I particularly recommend fifty-four, Purest Soul. See, Jun meets Kumori at an onsen, except that he's in disguise as a girl at the time because Lady Serpenta is chasing him after he tried to seduce her as part of his efforts to infiltrate the Yakuza so that he could steal—"
"Actually, I wasn't really looking for those," Hazō said quickly. "He's got some non-smut stuff, right?"
The shopkeeper stopped talking and simply blinked in shock. "You don't want the more mature books, sir? But...aren't you...."
"Aren't I what?"
"Never mind, sir. None of my business! Non-smut stuff from Jiraiya...let me see...ah, yes, I've got just the thing. This way please, sir."
The shopkeeper ducked around the counter and bustled off to one of the aisles of shelves. Hazō trailed along, trying to ignore the feeling that he might possibly be acquiring that reputation that Momma had warned him about.
XP AWARD: 26
FP AWARD: 0
Hazō is -1 FP due to refusing the compel.
There will be no voting.
Author's Note: The written language of the Elemental Nations is, of course, kanji and not the Latin alphabet. All of MfD is, of course, a translation from the original, and that's always a tricky process, especially when it comes to humor. Jiraiya's teasing of Kagome was one such example, so I chose to render the spirit of the joke instead of the letter. (Pun intended.)
Tanzaku Gai had been a centre of civilisation long before the founding of Leaf, ever since a courageous would-be daimyo successfully bargained for permission to build his castle within the territory of the dreaded Aburame Clan, swearing to oversee the peasants of the land on the Aburame's behalf in return for their protection. Though, with the ebb and flow of both shinobi and civilian fortunes, the seat of power had long since been moved from Tanzaku Castle, the castle town's reputation for safety and trading opportunities meant it never stopped growing. Until the village era, it had been the greatest city of the eastern mainland, and it remained the setting for over half of all stories set in the Fire Country.
Today's story was as yet untold, its very genre undetermined. Kei prayed for romance, and would even settle for romantic comedy—some days, her life seemed to consist of little else—if it meant that her incompetence did not plunge the day into melodrama or worse. For this, at Tenten's invitation and with Shiori's unplanned facilitation, would be Kei's first date.
With Mari-sensei unavailable, Kei had spent the morning in frantic sugar-fuelled research on how such affairs were conducted, made perilous by the fact that she had lent all her more sensible books to Akane. The uncanny timing almost led her to suspect conspiracy, but for the fact that Akane could not possibly know Kei had a girlfriend.
Still, if Kei could not trust the wisdom of Icha Icha 30: Diaries of Haraguro the Harem Lord now, when could she?
By mutual agreement, she and Tenten had arrived at Tanzaku Gai separately, taking advantage of ninja speed to minimise the amount of the day spent on travel, then changing into date-worthy traditional women's clothes that would struggle to survive a quick walking pace.
The result was worth it. Granted, all Kei had was an unimaginative midnight blue kimono which Mari-sensei claimed enhanced her feminine mystique. Kei, painfully aware that she had feminine mystique the way Yagura had moral compunctions, believed it merely made her look funereal. Even so, it was the most attractive winter clothing she had on hand that did not scream "missing-nin survivalist expecting Captain Zabuza around every corner".
Tenten, on the other hand… Kei was aware by now that Tenten did not spend her money on anything not eminently practical, meaning she owned a set of masterwork weapons that would give a collector pause, but lived in an apartment even the poorest ostracised orphan would not be caught dead in. With that knowledge in mind, seeing Tenten come to their first date in a red cheongsam made of winter wool that must have been specially imported from Lightning Country, with customs duties in Frost and Hot Springs raised by the recent tensions, assuming average costs for ninja escorts across the full distance and of course factoring in the cost of dyes and craftsmanship, as well as the influence of the season on profit margins… Suffice it to say that sometimes egregious luxury spending could speak louder than words.
So could ogling, apparently. Kei had not realised she was doing it until she noticed Tenten, already rosy-cheeked from the cold weather, turning a uniform shade of pink. She immediately snapped her eyes up from Tenten's exquisitely figure-hugging clothes and to her face. Meanwhile, Tenten, with her superior social graces, restrained herself to an appreciative smile.
Now, as to the issue of what to do… While still somewhat new to the experience of someone wishing to spend time with her without being Ami, being compelled by political concerns, or having mutual bonds forged in blood and fire, Kei was at least capable of discarding a few of the literature's less helpful suggestions. Dance halls of any kind were out of the question. Kei did not dance, and besides, physical contact. So were hot springs. Kei would not be able to handle a naked Tenten, figuratively or literally. Drinking together was out, both because it was not Kei's objective to entice Tenten into a state of inebriation and take advantage of her (according to ladies' erotica writers, the natural outcome of joint alcohol consumption was either that or "mistakes") and because she herself was perpetually teetering on the edge of some social disaster even sober. For all the world's sins, it did not deserve a drunken Kei.
Having discarded this suggestion and a few that were worse (she was beginning to see why Jiraiya's relationships never lasted), Kei found herself at something of a loss. There were still too many options remaining, and how was she to weigh the merits of, say, dining at a BBQ or watching a civilian sports game versus a poetry recital or a famous market? All of these were apparently prime seduction locations—not that she wanted to seduce Tenten—not that she wanted to seduce Tenten today—and yet she needed to choose. Without Mari-sensei's help.
Kei prayed that this first date would not be the last.
-o-
Also November 27, 11 a.m.
"This way, Shikamaru!"
It was here! It was finally here! Shiori's first date, even if it was formally "an immersive tour of spots in Tanzaku Gai particularly suited to an instance of two individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship". (Shiori didn't know how, she didn't know when, but Gōketsu was going to suffer for introducing Shikamaru to this calamity of a term.)
Soon, she would be repaid for all her effort. In the space of a single morning, she'd found a traveller's journal describing Tanzaku Gai in the Nara Library. She'd bought a replacement for her favourite green kimono, which she had stained in the process of practising for the tea ceremony she would one day host for Shikamaru. And while she'd been unable to get the man himself to budge from his "all-purpose" grey and black, she'd at least been able to persuade him to change into a haori and hakama that rounded out his stick-thin figure into something a shade more manly. No Nara crest, of course, for the same reason they were not in Leaf. It was imperative that nobody recognise them, realise that they were blatantly on a date, and start asking awkward questions. Her excuse for doing all this was fragile enough anyway, and protected thus far mainly by the fact that Shikamaru didn't care. Yet.
"Must you be so… enthusiastic about this, Shiori? Recall that we are simulating two particularly level-headed individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship. The simulation will not be accurate if you persist in bouncing around like a chimpanzee on Akimichi stimulants."
"What did you just compare me to, Shikamaru?"
"An intelligent and helpful young woman whom I am glad to have assisting with my social affairs."
"And don't you forget it. Now get moving. Apparently the fountains at the Nishūrasen Gardens are out of this world."
"Fountains?" Shikamaru livened up just a little while Shiori mentally awarded herself a gold star. "I suppose there are more tiresome ways to spend a morning."
-o-
Kei could not deny that the Nishūrasen Gardens were beautiful. It had been an inspired choice by Tenten, and now Kei considered the matter, it occurred to her that she had read about their value as a date spot in Typical Classroom, the slice-of-life novel about a class of Academy students with an idealised jinchūriki teacher, which she had only recently lent to Akane. What a curious coincidence.
Their original interest had been in the Gardens' famous fountains, shaped into the likenesses of the guardian kami whose heretical worship had been banned at the beginning of the village era following the revelation of the Will of Fire, and which had fortunately been preserved as historical works of art after unrelated generous donations to the Hokage's Office. However, the space around the fountains was already crowded, and neither Kei nor Tenten considered them worth the inevitable jostling and cacophonous chatter. Happily, there were other options.
Kei's previous experience of a hedge maze had involved desperately attempting to convince passers-by that her two adopted brothers were in the process of having sex behind the bushes. The bar was not set high. She and Tenten made a game of their exploration, attempting to navigate the unfamiliar maze while simultaneously competing in a deadly game of Spy vs Spy, handicapped by clothing which was not designed to offer any mobility whatsoever and must not be soiled in any way, the unavailability of weapons, a natural ban on physical contact, and the injunction not to distress the other visitors… too much. Eventually, Kei won through the cunning expedient of using Tobikomi's candy (which she had absent-mindedly transferred to her kimono sleeve) as a concealed missile weapon. Perhaps she had been too harsh on the man.
-o-
"Hey, babes. How 'bout you and us ditch this lousy joint and go have a good time?"
Ah, the incompetent pick-up artists preying on young women in cafés. A cliché so pervasive that Kei had almost been excited to experience it for herself. The reality did not fail to disappoint.
"You and we," Kei said coldly. "A man incapable of distinguishing between subject and object pronouns has no business attempting to seduce me."
"Huuuh?"
"Allow me to elaborate," Kei said. "Were I in the market for a romantic partner, which I most emphatically am not, you would first be required to pass an elementary proficiency test including the ability to count on your fingers, fasten your sandals unassisted, and pronounce words of three or more syllables without pausing for a break or requesting clues. Thus, I believe you and I have nothing more to say to each other."
Tenten snorted.
The lacklustre specimen of a pick-up artist scratched his head.
"Are you makin' fun of me?"
"One does not pour buckets of water into the ocean. Now, would you like to leave, or should I move to more direct means of communication, such as using one spare pair of chopsticks to emasculate you while I insert another into an orifice not intended for the purpose? It should be an interesting exercise in manual dexterity for me, and a life-changing experience for you."
The man stared at her blankly as she reached for the chopstick box.
His accomplice, apparently blessed with more intelligence than an amoeba, leaned over and whispered something in his ear.
The first man looked down at Kei. She split the first pair of chopsticks with a crack.
"Screw this, I'm outta here!"
The accomplice, possessed of a superior vocabulary but inferior survival instinct, sidled over to Tenten. Before he could open his mouth, she gave him a look of undiluted acidic contempt, as reserved for miserable worms alive only because the act of crushing them was marginally more disgusting than their continued existence. What elevated the act from instrumental to artistic was the fractional tightening of the eyes that indicated that this state of affairs was unstable, and at any moment she might change her mind and deign to reduce him to two-dimensional paste. Kei found herself falling in love all over again.
If anything, this one fled faster than Kei's. Perhaps another time, she and Tenten could make a competition of it.
Strange how the literature had led her to believe that such an encounter would be filled with intimidation. In the event, it had been positively delicious. "Check, please!"
-o-
"Well, that was weird," Shiori remarked, watching two grown men pelting down the street as if all the ravenous ghosts of the Preta Path were after them.
"The world is weird in ways we cannot imagine," Shikamaru said mournfully, "and worse, in some that we can. I would pay it no mind."
"Speaking of paying," Shiori said, "I've just realised that we're missing something very important. Everyone knows that on a da—instance of two individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship, the male individual has to treat the female individual to lunch!"
"I suppose I will have to take your word for it. That café down the street promotes itself to my attention, as I believe we just witnessed the expulsion of any disruptive elements that might otherwise interfere with our meal."
But the Mendoi Café was not purified so easily.
"Looks like you were too optimistic, Shikamaru," Shiori said under her breath, then realised she'd said three words in a row that were logically incapable of being in the same sentence. To a Nara, it was like touching amber that had been rubbed with a cloth.
"Hey, hot stuff," the yakuza small fry drawled at her, "how about you drop the dork over here and come play with some real men?"
He started to reach for her shoulder.
Three of them. Civilians, no visible combat training. Grab the wrist and elbow, twist, follow the motion of the body, one strike to incapacitate or kill. The other two will be stunned long enough for Shikamaru to finish his hand seals before they can try to run or call for help. But how to get that first strike in without causing a scene or risking tearing her kimono?
"Assistant," Shikamaru said in a voice even more lifeless than usual, "are any of these bodies suitable for human experimentation?"
The yakuza's hand stopped in mid-air.
Shiori blinked, then made a show of looking them up and down. "The middle one, sir. The other two will have to be recycled for parts. Would you like me to terminate them here, or should I allow them to take me to a place with no witnesses first?"
The men exchanged glances.
"Excuse me. I've just remembered that I need to cook my uncle."
"That was fun!" Shiori said, watching their rapidly retreating backs. "Can we find some more sexual predators and do it again? I'm starting to get all sorts of ideas!"
Shikamaru gave her a sideways look. "Item 47 of the Sensible Nara List."
"'If the activity you are considering is something only Mitarashi Anko would do, get a senior Nara's permission before doing it'," Shiori recited.
"But you're not really a senior Nara right now. We're acting as boyf—two individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship. We're supposed to be equal." You are allowing yourself to be restricted by rules for the sake of rules, her hands signed as she spoke.
Shikamaru was unmoved by either level of communication. "Item 48."
"'If the activity you are considering is something only Mitarashi Anko does, keep it that way'.
"Wait, for real?"
"We have a list of her favourite bars. Clansmen are forbidden from conducting social experiments in them—for their own safety."
"…Spoilsport."
His mouth being full of chicken, Shikamaru instead signed, The principle being cited is a natural law. It can be reinterpreted, but never denied.
-o-
The "Lost Weapons of the World" exhibition housed in the Shikiri Museum's west wing was fascinating. It featured ancient weapons that were no longer in use by real shinobi, typically due to being obsolete or too difficult to handle, as well as rare weapons only used by the minor villages of distant lands. The entrance fee was steep—to prevent the riff-raff from inconveniencing higher-status visitors such as herself, Kei assumed—but in a wonderful new experience, she was capable of paying for both herself and Tenten with only pocket money. She could get used to this, and hopefully would.
Tenten, displeased at being paid for, compensated by offering her services as Kei's guide. She knew the proper use of a remarkable number of the weapons, and happily mimed stances and techniques for disabling and/or killing one's enemies with maximum efficiency. Most of the other visitors fled within minutes, but perhaps a quarter remained to watch, applauding at appropriate intervals. By the time she had exhausted the contents of the exhibition, Tenten was practically glowing from the unfamiliar sense of being appreciated, and it rendered Kei's struggle to placate the security staff all worthwhile.
-o-
While Shiori technically had discretionary funds to draw on as Shikamaru's assistant, any significant dip into them would have to be accounted for, and the last thing she wanted was official scrutiny of the events of the day. That made the Shikiri Museum a very convenient choice, since a few quiet words in the right ears were all it took to secure free entry for the heir of the museum's biggest sponsor.
The east wing's "Achievements in Natural Philosophy" exhibition was well worth the price of admission that they hadn't paid. Admittedly, Shikamaru was sceptical that the stuffed chakra beasts were anything more than "an embarrassing gallimaufry of unimaginatively-sewn-together animal parts", and felt enough of a sense of responsibility as a sponsor to want to complain to the manager (luckily, Shiori was able to delay him long enough for him to run out of motivation). But more importantly, he was taken with Nara Shikiri's own annotated sketches of plant and animal physiology. There were also a few interesting curios like a hollow replica of the Kiko Mechanism, a centuries-old device that could predict the movement of the moon and the stars through nothing but the interaction of physical parts, and whose principles of operation were not understood to this day (naturally, the original was safely ensconced in the depths of the Nara Vaults).
The exhibition proved surprisingly popular, Shiori reflected, as there had been a veritable tide of incoming visitors early on in their visit. It might have been worth their while to explore the west wing as well, but it was getting late and they couldn't afford to dally too long if they wanted to get the top floor seats at the famous Night Ship Restaurant.
-o-
Kei and Tenten's preference for avoiding crowds continued to serve them well. While the unwashed masses fought over the luxurious upstairs seats, the two girls sat together in a quiet area downstairs, gazing through the window at the Lightning-style meditation garden outside the Night Ship during those rare moments when they were not gazing at each other. This place was another recommendation of Tenten's, though Kei knew it from Thrilling Scrollkeepers, a pleasant and insightful exploration of human relationships (which she had also recently lent to Akane). Another coincidence. Or perhaps, Kei wondered briefly before rejecting the blasphemy, she had simply read too many novels?
-o-
Kei and Tenten's final destination was unlike the others. Here, Tanaka and Ōta pledged their love after six long volumes of ship-teasing. Here, Mikako and Noboru reunited after the sealing failure that had separated them across space and time. Here, Minori finally defeated Akatsuki in order to win Shiroe's love. To ignorant mortals, this place was just the prosaically-named Lovers' Hill. To the initiated, it was a holy site where passion and determination (and sometimes concealed trap arrays) would forever triumph over the machinations of a sadistic fate.
It was a very dangerous place for two girls who did not wish their relationship to be discovered. Couples came here to watch the sunset together; friends did not. Kei knew this. She also knew that her reason for braving the danger was questionable at best. What kind of public declaration could one make in secrecy and solitude, surrounded by privacy-providing trees, dozens of miles from the home where it could mean anything to anyone? Even so, for Kei and Tenten, this was an act with meaning. Ascending Lovers' Hill together was a statement, delivered in a whisper but nevertheless a statement, that in defiance of a hostile and uncomprehending world, their love was as real as any other.
Which was not to say that they were entirely blinded by their feelings. Tenten had suggested, and Kei had optimised. If necessary, Kei had come here suspecting infidelity on the part of her fiancé, with Tenten joining her for emotional support in case of a potential confrontation. A paper-thin excuse, and one which would cause problems of its own should anyone aware of her engagement to Shikamaru recognise her, but it might confound a stranger long enough for the pair to make a dignified escape.
They could not embrace, of course, despite clear instructions from the literature. Nor could they sit together, not with the grass still damp from recent rain. Still, they stood side by side, as close as Kei's inescapable fear would allow, and waited for the sun to set.
-o-
Lovers' Hill. The very name struck a chord within Shiori's heart. The perfect capstone to a perfect day. Even Shikamaru wouldn't be able to resist the sheer magic of it. They would watch the sunset together, and it would finally light a spark within him that she could gradually fan into a potent flame. Surely no apathy could withstand the power of love in such concentrated form.
"Come on, Shikamaru, we're going to miss the sunset!" Shiori exclaimed, tugging him uphill by the hand (yes, he'd allowed her to take his hand, though she wasn't completely certain that this was approval rather than him being too tired to make the effort to object).
"I assure you, Shiori, that, with a few meteorological exceptions, sunsets are more or less the same everywhere. Soothing brushwork and good use of colour, but repetitive and clearly made with mass market appeal in mind. I would rather have a good book."
"Have you no sense of romance in your soul?"
"It must have been misfiled at birth, and replaced with an additional dose of rationality. Such are the perils of alphabetical reference systems."
This was why she loved him. Even when he was being a wet blanket, which was to say quite often, he couldn't help doing it with flair.
Despite his grumbling, he did not protest as she pulled him to the top of the hill—only to see two silhouettes in what the journal described as the ideal place.
"Already occupied, huh? I guess we'll just have to find another spot."
She glanced back one last time before they left. You know, one of those figures looked kind of familiar. Should she go over there and check just in case? Or should she prioritise their right to canoodle undisturbed?
"Lack of curiosity killed the cat", went the traditional Nara saying. She climbed the last few steps, and Shikamaru followed.
Gōketsu and Tenten turned around at the noise.
For several shocked seconds, she and her rival simply stared at each other. Then, their unfiltered reactions came in unison.
"Are you on a date?!"
Revelations cascaded through Shiori's mind. The polite disinterest. The seemingly irrational decisions. The… The everything. You are having the experience of foundational premises crumbling. It is far too rare, so I will suspend my end of the discussion while you savour it.
Meanwhile, Gōketsu stared at her in horror. She opened her mouth, as if to offer some kind of explanation or excuse, but then she looked at Shikamaru again, and her expression turned into what Shiori could only describe as begging the universe for instant death.
What was this? Shiori couldn't get her head around it. She'd thought at first that Gōketsu was the ultimate sexual deviant. Then, after the orgy that wasn't, she found herself asking if she'd been drawing too many conclusions from limited data. Mere seconds ago, she'd realised that maybe she'd been wrong all along. But the truth that this realisation left behind…
"But you're both girls! How? Why? How? What do you even—how can you—why?!"
Gōketsu seemed taken aback. But before she could provide anything approaching an answer…
"Shiori. Are we on a date?"
Oh, crap.
Three people were all staring at her. Gōketsu had an expression of dawning realization. Tenten was unreadable. Shikamaru… she had never seen him so alert.
She could lie. She should lie. She wasn't ready to confess her feelings. There was supposed to be more groundwork. She was going to earn Shikamaru's love, or at least enough of it to ensure some kind of positive response. She was going to investigate the practicalities on the clan side, and see what the criteria were and how far she could push them if she had to. She was going to prove herself to Lord Shikaku, and more importantly Lady Yoshino. This wasn't quite the worst-case scenario (as far as she knew, no one was dead), but it was close enough.
But she was standing on Lovers' Hill. Her beloved, her ultimate rival, and her beloved (seriously, WTF?) were all waiting for her response. Whatever she said here, there would be no going back.
"Shikamaru… I'm in love with you."
Shikamaru took a dazed step back.
"Troublesome," he said in the emotionless voice of a man responding on reflex while his higher brain functions rebooted.
"I always have been," Shiori went on, not so much feeling emboldened as aware that if she didn't get it all out now, she never would, in part because the world was coming to an end. "Not just because you're brilliant—I take that as a given—but because you're kind and gentle, and even though you like to keep to yourself, you care about other people when you don't have to. You're Lord Shikaku's son, so you're as Nara as they get, but you still care about so many things, even if you hide it behind laziness and that amazing dry wit. You complain and you make a fuss, in your low-key way, but in the end you always do the right thing, whether anyone is there to see it or not. You've accepted me as family despite the fact that I'm a lowly branch family member who tends to get excited about things in your vicinity. You're rational about everything except recognising how special you are, in ways that have nothing to do with our bloodline."
Shikamaru closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again.
"Your turn, Gōketsu," he said. "I can tell you're about to spring something on me that will make this day even more troublesome."
"Very well." Gōketsu drew herself up to her unimpressive full height. "Tenten and I are in a romantic relationship, and any marriage between you and me, or indeed with any of your clansmen, will be conditional on you committing to respect that relationship and to take no action to impede it."
Shikamaru groaned.
Gōketsu was formally, officially, avowedly not in love with Shikamaru. Praise be to the Will of Fire. Now Shiori only had her personal apocalypse to worry about.
"You know what?" Shikamaru said after a pause. "That is in no way my problem. I will provide you with the clan policy documents and appropriate forms after the wedding, and beyond that I don't care what you do as long as you leave our chambers in the condition in which you found them."
Gōketsu's eyes flickered to Tenten. Tenten nodded.
"…Acceptable."
"Shiori," Shikamaru said. "I know I should be flattered, or moved or some such, but in all honesty I cannot comprehend your feelings, much less reciprocate them. I have spent fourteen years successfully evading romance, and this has left me ill-equipped against a direct strike. I appreciate the effort your confession must have taken, though less so the fact that it involved luring me on a date without my knowledge or consent, and I believe the appropriate response under the circumstances is to thank you for the former and overlook the latter on a one-off basis.
"The point, however, is moot. I am due to marry Gōketsu, awaiting confirmation to take place after the Chūnin Exam tournament. You have repeatedly mentioned to me, in what I now understand to have been a subtle hint, that you would not accept a position as a concubine, but only as a lawfully wedded wife."
Shiori had thought about it, of course. It would be by far the easier path… but only for other women. She couldn't imagine being a secondary member of the household, forever under the thumb of another woman who enjoyed all the fruits of marriage while throwing Shiori scraps under the table. It was much of the reason why she'd hated Gōketsu so, for that demeaning original message in which she'd assumed, without ever meeting her, that Shiori was good for nothing more than sex. Why even now, having discovered that Gōketsu might not have had any ill intent, there was no place in her heart for the usurper. Assuming there would be enough of her heart left for it to matter by the time Shikamaru was done rejecting her.
"Are you in fact eligible for such?" Gōketsu inquired as if it was in some way relevant to her.
"I'm a branch family half-blood," Shiori said distantly as her world continued to crumble around her. "My father was a common-born sealmaster adopted into the clan. There are no theoretical objections. It's just that I'm worthless. No special talent or political value."
"Shiori," Shikamaru said, "with considerable regret, I must ask you to tender your resignation as my personal assistant due to conflict of interest. I will endeavour to have you reassigned to a valuable role elsewhere."
World done crumbling. Nothing left.
"Wait, Nara," said someone's voice. "There is no need for such haste."
Shiori must have misheard. Her senses were all whiting out anyway.
"Now that the status quo between the two of you has changed significantly, is it not possible that your feelings for Shiori will change also? It is not as if it is unknown for friends to become lovers with sufficient exposure."
Gōketsu. What.
"I suppose… it's not technically impossible," Shikamaru said slowly. "If marriages of convenience have been known to become marriages of love, then it is plausible for the same principle to apply to unmarried individuals."
"Then, assuming a certain foundation of affection for her and respect for her agency, is there any reason not allow her an attempt to win your heart on an experimental basis?"
No, seriously. What.
I got nothing.
"More determined women than her have made the attempt."
"No," Shiori found her voice. "No, they really haven't."
"Again, however," Shikamaru said, "I am all but betrothed to Gōketsu. Given your preferences, mutual romantic feelings between us would only make matters worse."
"Nara," Gōketsu said softly to Shikamaru, "I am prepared to amend the betrothal."
Shiori was running out of "what".
"You are a good friend in a world of misery and chaos. If it would bring you greater happiness, I could settle for a lesser Nara. I trust Lord Shikaku to accommodate my needs where possible, and I am confident that I can convince Jiraiya should he object, with the aid of unrelated concessions if need be."
Shiori was out of "what", but she could be flexible in an emergency.
"Gōketsu, why?"
Gōketsu turned to face her head-on. Her eyes locked onto Shiori's with the perfect focus of a genjutsu master.
"Because I desire whatever is best for him. And because I refuse to accept lack of talent or political value as reasons why someone should be denied happiness."
Shiori did not understand this woman. Not even slightly. Not one bit. She was pretty sure even her trusty "why"s weren't going to fix that.
But Shiori recognised the ever-so-skilfully-concealed fondness in Shikamaru's voice whenever he referred to his and Gōketsu's not-dates, for the same reason that a ninja could recognise the barely-audible sound of a kunai flying at her. And despite Gōketsu's invariably low-affect tones, Shiori could no longer find it in herself to believe that she was facing a cold-hearted, selfish manipulator. Not after those words.
"Marry him," Shiori heard herself say. The seeds of something new sprouted from the ashes of a dead world. "If you're the kind of person who can sacrifice your own happiness for his sake, then I think I might be able to tolerate you."
"The feeling," Gōketsu said wryly, "is entirely mutual."
Shikamaru cleared his throat pointedly. "May I remind the two of you that I also have a say in my own future?"
The three girls all looked at him and simultaneously shook their heads.
He sighed. "This is only going to get more troublesome, isn't it?"
Tenten gave him a sympathetic nod.
"One more matter," Gōketsu said. "Since we are all entangled in this preposterous mess together, could we move to first names? It would be tiresome to constantly address both of you as 'Nara'. And for myself, as one who socialised rarely and with great reluctance during my Mist years, being constantly treated as interchangeable with five other people grows a little grating. Please call me Keiko."
Tenten gave… Keiko… a look laden with profound meaning, the kind that two girls really had no business giving each other.
Keiko rolled her eyes affectionately. "Yes, that. Hopefully, the fact that we are standing atop Lovers' Hill will mitigate the abominable romantic timing."
Shikamaru choked. "We're standing atop what?!"
Tenten stepped forward. She laid a hand on Shiori and Shikamaru's shoulders. The warmth and weight of it somehow conveyed a feeling of welcoming acceptance. Then, she gently turned them to face west.
As the four of them were caressed by the last rays of the setting sun, Shiori found she didn't mind the mass market appeal at all.
-o-
November 29, 5 p.m.
Training with Ebisu-sensei had been exhausting. The only thing more unbelievable than the man's personality was his teaching methods. It almost made Hazō long for the simple, predictable madness of Rock Lee. (Almost, but not quite—there was only so much he was prepared to hear about the things Lee intended to do with his performance spike.)
A pair of familiar faces passed him on his way home.
"Hazō," Keiko acknowledged him, pausing her conversation with Nara only long enough to fulfil the barest demands of etiquette.
"Keiko."
"Gōketsu."
"Nara."
Apparently, those two were having another instance of two individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship. Hazō smiled to himself. That they'd arranged another meeting so soon after the last was a sure sign that they were growing closer. In fact, maybe Shikamaru was the mysterious "friend" that Keiko kept going out to train with. Finally, somebody in his family had a source of simple, uncomplicated happiness.
All three moved on. Hazō could hear the others arguing good-naturedly as they walked away.
"The superiority of qualitative research should be self-evident at this point, Shikamaru. Body language serves as an excellent example of in-depth individual case studies compensating for a lack of patterns in broader data."
"Trivially dismissed, Keiko, and not just because your analogy is flawed. Without quantitative research, how do you propose to ever expand the scope of your analysis to encompass a statistically significant sample of the population?"
Hazō's smile widened as he heard the names. Really, it was strange how he hadn't seen it coming, what with all the time those two had been spending together. After the whole Mari-sensei thing, somehow it had never occurred to him that Keiko might eventually get a boyfriend.
-o-
November 29, 7 p.m.
"You wanted to see us, sir?"
What little was available of the Gōketsu Clan stood in front of Jiraiya in his office. There were enough papers on his desk that he'd had to redistribute some from the middle stack to make sure at least his face was visible. Hazō was tempted to peek at some of the titles, but he was pretty sure it would get him court-martialled if Jiraiya noticed, and he had sealing ideas he wanted to work on tonight.
"Let's make this short and sweet," Jiraiya said wearily. "Mari's going through hell, I have no idea why, I have no idea what to do about it, and I'm not going to be home for a while.
"That means she's your responsibility until further notice. Fix her if you can. Make sure she gets enough food and sleep if you can't. Take any sharp objects out of her room, including the ones concealed on her, and the ones that those are a distraction from. And whatever you do, don't let anyone else near the building. Clear?"
"I'll double the trap layers," Kagome-sensei said. "No… schmuck… is going to get within a mile of our Mari. I'll figure out some special meals too. Keep her strength up while she's fighting… whatever she's fighting."
"I will attempt to address the root cause," Keiko said nervously, "though I fear I may have already accomplished as much as I can on that front."
"I'll…" What could Hazō possibly do? He could try to talk to Mari-sensei and make her feel better. After all, it wasn't like anything he said could make things worse.
Who was he kidding, of course it could. If even Keiko, who was probably closer to Mari-sensei than any of them, couldn't pull it off… No, they needed Noburi. They needed him like never before.
But there was something else that needed to be done, and neither Keiko nor Kagome-sensei could do it.
"I'll be the point of contact for the clan while you're busy and she's 'sick'," Hazō said. "Everyone can direct their queries to me and I'll give them excuses for why their urgent business needs to wait just a little longer. Keiko can help me make a list."
"Kid, I don't know if that's such a good idea."
Hazō set his features into an expression of determination that he'd once spent hours practising with Mari-sensei.
"Sir, if we're going to be the foundations of your clan, you need to give us a chance to earn your trust."
Jiraiya gave him a measuring look.
"If I come back to find the compound on fire or full of chakra gerbils, I'll feed you to Hiashi myself."
"I won't let you down."
Or so Hazō hoped from the bottom of his heart.
-o-
November 29, 11 p.m.
Having seen some of the looks people were giving him outside, and heard some of the whispers, it was increasingly becoming apparent to Hazō that he needed to educate himself, maybe not on orgies (not that he wasn't curious, but he absolutely could not get caught reading something like that right now), but at least on whatever it was Jiraiya wrote that made people so willing to believe that his home would host them. Purely for academic reasons, of course.
But if Jiraiya's novels were available somewhere in the Gōketsu compound (and he'd bet all of Noburi's money that they were), he had no idea where to find them. At least unless they were in the master bedroom currently occupied by Mari-sensei, which was not a place he dared venture lightly. The obvious next step, then, was to consult Keiko, who would surely be able to provide an encyclopaedic knowledge of Jiraiya's novels just as she did everything else. All he had to do was ask politely.
Mindful of the late hour, Hazō knocked softly on her door.
No response.
He knocked slightly harder.
No response.
He didn't want to go even louder in case she was asleep and he woke her, or indeed somebody else further down the corridor. Instead, he carefully eased the armoured titan of a door open and peeked inside.
Keiko was indeed awake, and at her desk, contemplating some small object held in her hands. Looking more closely, Hazō thought it was some kind of tiny bladed chain, the kind of souvenir a rich civilian who knew nothing about ninja might buy as a paperweight. Keiko seemed hypnotised by it, apparently to the point where she hadn't heard him knock or open the door.
"Keiko?"
She whirled around with lightning speed, simultaneously whisking the paperweight out of sight.
Realising the ridiculousness of standing on the threshold looking in, like some sort of peeping tom, Hazō stepped inside. "Sorry about that. I didn't know if you were asleep, and there was something I was going to ask you."
"You saw, didn't you?" Keiko said mildly.
Hazō's brain kept just ahead of his mouth. "Saw what? I didn't see anything.
"Not that there was anything to see," he added for good measure, "or that I would have seen it if there was."
Keiko rose from her seat. She walked smoothly over to the door, closed it before Hazō could make a move, then locked it with a key.
"Keiko, I'm not sure what you're thinking, but it's definitely not a good idea!"
"Fear not. I take care to keep the Sheet fresh in my memory so I will not need to physically retrieve it. I also have some unlisted ideas which I keep in reserve so as to avoid complete predictability."
"Keiko, please open the door."
Keiko walked over to her equipment chest at a leisurely pace.
"Keiko, please open the door."
"Did you know," she asked lightly as she unlocked the chest, "that T&I catalogues are available on request from the main office?"
Without hesitation, Hazō dove through the window, breaking through the wooden shutters in the process.
"Come back!" Keiko called out to him as he landed in a forward roll through the snow. "We have so much testing to do!"
On the plus side, Hazō was no stranger to hiding outdoors in the freezing cold while a merciless enemy might or might not be hunting for him. In the early hours of the morning, after watching Fifi drive off an albino chakra fox scavenging for infused seals in the outdoor lab, he decided that the animals' uninhibited behaviour probably meant the compound's apex predator was asleep, and snuck back inside.
At the start of the round, Hazō uses maximum chakra boost. He spends 25 CP to gain +5 to all combat skills.
Keiko
Keiko uses her Standard action to Block Hazō with Athletics.
Keiko: Athletics 38 + 6 = 44
Keiko uses one Supplemental action to open the chest.
Keiko uses one Supplemental action to interact with the contents. Hazō cannot see what she is doing as her body is blocking his line of sight.
Hazō
Hazō uses his Standard action to Attack the shutters.
Hazō: Taijutsu 43 + 5 + 3 = 51 vs Block 44
Hazō beats Keiko's Block.
Hazō: Taijutsu 51 vs TN 30
Hazō generates 7 shifts and deals 3 stress to the shutters.
Hazō breaks the shutters.
The zone Border is now 0.
Hazō uses one Supplemental action to move.
Hazō: Athletics 40 + 5 - 3 = 42 vs Block 44
Hazō spends 1 FP to reroll.
Hazō: Athletics 40 + 5 + 3 = 48 vs Block 44
Hazō beats Keiko's Block.
Hazō generates 1 shift of movement.
Hazō leaves the zone.
Hazō uses one Supplemental action to keep running.
-o-
November 30, 12 p.m.
It had taken Hazō three days, three nerve-wracking days, to reach Step 1 of his orgy damage control plan: have lunch with Yamanaka. One day, she was unavailable. The next, she was washing her hair. The one after that, washing her hair again. There was probably meant to be a subtle hint in there somewhere, but Hazō had chosen to ignore it. Today, Yamanaka had finally either changed her mind about him or given up, because he'd got a very curt pre-emptive message in the morning inviting him to the most expensive café he was aware of. Hazō was getting plenty of practice ignoring hints lately.
Hazō joined Yamanaka at an outdoor table, suppressing an enormous yawn in case the vain heiress took it as a personal offence. A glance at the menu showed a number of zeroes that he did not know a word for.
"Hi, Yamanaka."
"Gōketsu."
Yamanaka was radiating such levels of iciness that for a moment Hazō wondered if he was facing an angry Keiko who had spontaneously learned genjutsu in order to catch him off guard. It took him until they were both done ordering lunch before Hazō could gather up the courage to talk to her.
"Yamanaka…" Hazō began tentatively, "I just wanted to say I'm sorry about the orgy misunderstanding. I have no idea how anyone could possibly have thought I wanted an orgy. I mean, come on, I invited Rock Lee. Would you invite Rock Lee to an orgy?"
"Yuck. Quit it, Gōketsu, some of us are trying to eat."
"Sorry about that. You're right, nobody needs that mental image."
The conversation stalled there. What would Noburi do? He'd be suave and charming, and get Yamanaka to talk about herself, a subject dear to any teenage girl's heart.
"So anyway, moving quickly past that, what have you been up to this week? Tournament training going OK? Ready to wipe the floor with the world's finest?"
"Like I'm going to give you that kind of tactical info. I just hope I get to take you down in the finals, assuming you make it that far."
"Yamanaka," Hazō said carefully. "I apologised for the orgy thing. It wasn't my fault, I couldn't have seen it coming, and I stopped it as soon as I could. Is there still an issue?"
Yamanaka put down her chopsticks. "The issue is you being a loser, Gōketsu. You broke the heart of the sweetest, purest, kindest girl I've ever met, a girl worth a thousand of you, and you expect me not to care?"
"That's what you're angry with me about? But you even came to my gaming night!"
"Yes," Yamanaka explained with exaggerated patience, "because when someone throws a party for all the clan heirs, you go. Even if your host is some lecherous old man who likes 'em young—or worse, an Inuzuka—if everyone else is going, you go. That's how making connections and maintaining them works. That's how politics works. How do you plan to survive in the big leagues if you don't even know that much?"
Mum had told him that Yamanaka might be mad with him after the lack-of-orgy, regardless of whose fault it was. She'd be feeling humiliated that she ever thought of going along with it, and at her most irrational, she might well lay the blame for her bad decisions at his feet. Now, apparently, she was laying the blame for other people's bad decisions at his feet as well.
"She broke up with me, not the other way around. If I had my way, we'd still be in a happy relationship together."
"Are you kidding, Gōketsu? After the way you fucked up? And all the other crap you must have pulled before to get her to that point? She's in a world of pain because of you right now!"
Hazō had to control his anger, while simultaneously filing away the "world of pain" comment so he could beat himself up about it later. Mum had been very specific about reacting to provocation. Even if he felt falsely accused, Yamanaka would be a girl accustomed to getting her way. Straight-out telling her she was wrong would put him in a direct confrontation with a more experienced opponent.
"Did Akane put you up to this?" he asked instead, already knowing the answer.
"She didn't need to! Looking out for your BFF is just what you do. If some loser screws her over because he can't—"
No head-on confrontations. But Hazō felt like he couldn't let this pass either. His intentions were good. His intentions were always good, even if he had trouble putting them into practice. He could accept people faulting him for the latter—he knew his stack of good things to do in the future was much taller than his stack of good things done so far—but he didn't want to be misread as somebody who didn't care to begin with. Especially not by an outsider who was judging him without having put in the effort to get to know him.
He interrupted her.
"Other people's relationships are not your business, Yamanaka."
"What?!" Yamanaka looked as if he'd just told her that Jiraiya was away infiltrating Rain without a disguise kit. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Akane and I can talk to each other without your help," Hazō said with deliberate evenness. "If she wants to tell me how angry she is, or how sad, or how hurt, she can. And it's not like you can read her mind."
He frowned.
"OK, maybe you can read her mind. But that still doesn't give you the right to say things on her behalf that she's chosen not to. No matter how messy or complicated it might get, it's a relationship between her and me. You have no place in it."
Yamanaka flinched.
When she next spoke, her words were more subdued. "So what? Are you saying I should just stand by and do nothing while some loser robs my best friend of everything she ever wanted?"
What was he saying? He was well outside the territory of his mother's advice or his paltry imitation of Noburi.
Hazō studied Yamanaka's face as he took another bite of he-didn't-even-care-what to give him time to think before speaking. What did he want Yamanaka to do? What did he want Yamanaka to be? It might have been a selfish question, but it wasn't like he could answer it from any perspective but his own.
"I want you to deal with me as Gōketsu Hazō," he decided. "Not as Akane's ex. If Akane needs you to mediate, or to act on her behalf, you know she'll ask for it. She's that kind of person. Until then, I'd rather you got to know me as me. If you have any complaints after that, I'll listen."
"Oh, right," Yamanaka muttered to herself. "That was why."
"Huh?"
"Never mind. Fine, you have a stay of execution. For now. But only because Akane's the unascended goddess of compassion and you're about to buy me the most overpriced dessert in the history of the Elemental Nations. And you're still an insensitive, loose-tongued, clumsy failure of a human being until proven innocent."
Hazō sagged with relief. "I can live with that."
"I assume you didn't really come here to apologise," Yamanaka said while studying the menu with a cruel expression that did not bode well for Hazō's wallet. "I'd have heard if you'd bothered apologising to any of the other guests. So are you here to ask for my help with damage control on the rumours?"
Huh. Hazō had somehow completely forgotten about that.
"Well, whatever, she said. "I should probably just leave you to suffer, but in the spirit of temporary and easily-cancelled mercy, I'll help you as a special favour—of the very expensive kind."
Ino pulled out some writing implements. "You won't be able to stop the rumour spreading across the entire Fire Country," she said in a brisk, professional voice. "That ship has sailed. But if you want to soften the long-term impact, at least here in Leaf, which is the only place worth caring about, you'll want to leverage Mitarashi and the Hokage's histories for all they're worth. Here's a list of people to ask about Mitarashi. And here's a list of questions to ask the Hokage about his sexual history. Get as much detail as you can; it'll be important later. Once you've got that info, what you'll want to do is this…"
-o-
December 3, 2:15 p.m.
"Now, sir, is that everything I can help you with?" the bookshop owner asked, sliding books into a cloth bag one by one in a way that suggested nearly religious respect for the craft of selling literature.
"Sure," Hazō said, handing over the money. "Say, what's that on the floor?"
The shopkeeper snatched up the book as if it was a summoning scroll about to roll into a crevasse. He clicked his tongue. "The previous customer must have dropped it in his… hurry."
The cover read FUBAR and You: When and How to Get Out Of Awkward Situations.
Hazō felt a sudden wave of sympathy for Inuzuka.
"Actually," he said after a little thought, "can I get that one as well?"
The shopkeeper drew a fractionally larger bag out from behind the counter. "But of course."
He hesitated. "I do not mean to offend, Mr Gōketsu, but would you mind satisfying my curiosity about something?"
"Depends," the temporary official representative of the Gōketsu Clan said warily.
"It's just… What is she like?"
"Who?"
"Your little sister, of course."
"My… little sister?" Keiko was three weeks older than him.
On the other hand, given Jiraiya's… history, it wouldn't be surprising if he were drowning in bastard children.
But if he'd acknowledged one, somebody else would have said something by now. Or if it was so classified that even Hazō hadn't known, he wouldn't be finding out about it from a random civilian.
"Gōketsu Keiko," the shopkeeper clarified. "Nobody in the fan club has had a chance to speak to her in person yet, you see."
Hazō nearly dropped his books. "The what?"
"The Official Gōketsu Keiko Fan Club. We've been running for less than a week, but we're very dedicated."
Hazō looked out of the window to make sure a delayed sealing failure hadn't shifted him into a divergent timeline. Unfortunately, the shop's shutters were closed to keep the cold out, avenging their fallen brethren by denying him potentially vital information.
"How can there possibly be an Official Gōketsu Keiko Fan Club?" If they'd been running for less than a week, that should be a safe question even if he was in a possible timeline where Keiko was the Omnikage and questioning her divinity was grounds for summary execution.
"Well, sir," the shopkeeper's voice took on an ardent quality, "at first it was just another rumour about a salesman meeting the Hokage's daughter, and how she was an adorable little angel unlike anything he'd ever seen. But then some of us started looking out for her in the streets, just out of curiosity, and we saw that every word was true! She's cute as a button, but with a quiet dignity, and very tall for only ten years old. A few bold people tried talking to her, but of course she left as quickly as she could, being scared of strangers and all. We're hoping that once our numbers are higher, we can provide an escort to keep idiots like that away.
"Not that I'm saying she needs help to defend herself or anything, of course, being an honourable ninja in training," the shopkeeper added quickly. "We just don't want a sensitive young girl to feel uncomfortable walking through the village."
Hazō listened open-mouthed. Would this timeline have a Kagome-sensei capable of sending him back?
"Now, we don't have any merchandise yet, but our secretary's cousin is a carpenter, and my brother-in-law is the most talented manuscript illuminator, and I'm sure we could do a lot more once both membership and demand are a little higher. Obviously, we're prepared to pay a cut directly to Miss Gōketsu, as thanks for being our inspiration."
"This is definitely Keiko we're talking about? Former missing-nin-but-not-really, Pangolin Summoner, jōnin-level-death-glare Keiko?"
The shopkeeper gave a benevolent smile. "You must be so proud."
If all those facts checked out, then maybe he was in his original timeline after all, and it was just a lot less sane than he'd ever realised. For a moment, Hazō considered dispelling the man's illusions. This fan club thing could not possibly end well, and Keiko's reaction when she heard about it…
Then a memory flashed through his mind, of spending the night shivering outside while constantly looking for the glint of sharp metal beneath the moonlight. And then a slightly earlier one, of being verbally eviscerated for no reason whatsoever while he was just trying to have a quiet mug of hot chocolate.
"You understand this didn't come from me," he said, leaning in towards the shopkeeper.
"Why, sir, I have forgotten your visit already."
Hazō wavered for a second, but finally gave in to the dark side. What was one more droplet of insanity in a world already spiralling into the abyss?
Hazō lowered his voice as if passing classified information to a fellow infiltrator.
"Her favourite stuffed toy is a black kitten named Mr Cuddles."
-o-
December 3, 6 p.m.
Hazō was running as fast as he could. Chakra boost and everything. He came close to having to make athletic rolls to avoid crashing into anyone in the street, but he didn't care. Not after the message he'd received.
Noburi was back. And in hospital.
"Where is he?" Hazō demanded of the clerk at the entrance.
"Could you please specify whom you are—"
Hazō seized the man by the collar. "Where is he?"
"Who?"
"Noburi," Hazō snarled. "Where is Gōketsu Noburi?"
"Th-Third door on your left, sir!"
Hazō charged through the door.
"Whoa. Dude, are you trying to kill me?"
Hazō skidded to a halt before he could crash into Noburi—healthy, grinning Noburi. Well, healthy except for all the slashes across his body, including three cuts in an oddly straight line across his chest that would eventually make for an amazing battle scar.
Noburi noticed Hazō examining his body. "Before you get any ideas, just because I've still got my jacket off doesn't mean I'm suddenly into that sort of thing. You do you, which is to say tying up Keiko, and I'll do me, which is to say assembling a harem of all the hottest girls in the village."
"You're back!" Hazō beamed, ignoring the dig. "And I don't see any missing limbs!"
"Yeah, well," Noburi's grin faded a little. "I got lucky—morons jumped us over open water. Also, Captain Kakashi's a beast. I reckon that guy could go toe to toe with freaking Captain Zabuza."
"Are you sure you should be telling me this?"
"Me?" Noburi winked. "Break OPSEC? Pfft, never gonna happen. Captain Kakashi's been home baking cookies all week. I was probably just delirious with pain and you mistakenly thought you'd got something coherent out of my rambling."
"But… you're not in pain."
"Wanna bet?" Noburi grimaced. "I'm on enough willow bark to develop my own Wood Element, and for once that's not a euphemism. They're all shallow wounds, though, and besides, we had Leaf's rising star of medical ninjutsu on hand. I'll be back in top form well before the tournament, or [classified] is going to get a damn Water Whip up his [classified] before Jiraiya can so much as [classified]."
"What was that weird thing you did with your mouth just then?"
"Dude, still not into that. Now help me get my stuff so I can go join the debriefing."
"Don't take too long. We're going to need you to save the world."
-o-
You have received no additional XP. Hazō has spent 1 FP and gained 1 FP for winning a conflict with meaningful stakes.
-o-
You are done with the casino seals. There were no sealing failures beyond the sealing lab's power to safely contain. They have a six-foot range, and set off an alarm if they detect active chakra emission within it. Casting ninjutsu counts; already-active ninjutsu and chakra boosting (which is purely internal) do not. The Iron Nerve, Frozen Skein and Vampiric Dew are also not based on chakra emission and therefore do not trigger them.
Other training and scroll scribing proceeds apace.
Hana is prepared to provide you with non-Kurosawa social training. You may therefore train social skills even while Mari is unavailable.
Information on Kashiwagi is very unavailable. Information on the Sand-nin is also unavailable, but at least in their case that makes it likely that they don't have Bloodline Limits or family powers notable enough to be known in Leaf.
-o-
What do you do?
Voting closes on Saturday 13th of October, 9 a.m. New York Time.
"Keiko, got a minute?" Hazō asked, rapping carefully on his sister's door.
Very carefully. It wasn't yet a week since Keiko had, possibly, maybe even probably, tried to kill him.
"What do you want, Hazō?"
"I'm worried about Mari-sensei. She hasn't been coming out of her room."
Keiko studied him calmly. "Indeed."
"Uh...Well, there's some things that I think you and Noburi should both know. I thought you probably already knew, but—"
"I feel certain that if Mari-sensei wanted us to know these things, she would have told us herself."
"I...don't think that's true, actually. Or, at least, I think that these things are...let's say surprising, and that it's important we all learn them under controlled conditions so they don't come out at a bad time."
Keiko digested that one. "I suppose this makes sense. Very well. I assume that this is about our mutual history?"
Hazō nodded. "Specifically, the whole 'suicide mission' thing. I really think we should talk about this somewhere more secure."
"Very well. Let us collect Noburi."
That proved easy enough, since Hazō had checked that Noburi was in the house before approaching Keiko. The other boy wasn't terribly sanguine about getting up from his nap, mumbling about how he was still tired from his exciting mission that he really couldn't talk about but oh boy it had been amazing. And important. Probably one of the most important missions anyone had gone on in the last few weeks and he really wished he could tell Hazō all about it, but Hazō just didn't have the clearance that his slightly-younger brother did. So sorry.
Unless you had access to Jiriaya's various tunneling jutsu there simply was no spot in Leaf that could be trusted as truly secure, and Hazō was not about to risk Mari-sensei's secrets on half measures. Accordingly, the three teens headed out the Konoha gates long before the sun was high, intending to find a quiet patch of wilderness for their long-overdue conversation.
"Morning," the guard captain said, stepping away from the fire that he and his squad had going in a large metal firebox in order to keep back the biting cold. "Headed out?"
"Yes sir," Hazō said politely. "We'll be back in a couple hours."
The guard captain raised an eyebrow. "Short mission, huh? What, message delivery to one of the villages?"
"Uh, no sir. Just need to have a private talk."
The guard captain looked at him as though Hazō had spontaneously grown a second head. "Yeah, no. Nobody leaves without a mission stamp."
Keiko cocked her head in surprise. "Does this mean that civilian merchants require a mission stamp in order to take their goods to market outside the city?"
The 'brand new second head' look was transferred to Hazō's sister. "Who cares where civilians go? Ninja don't leave without a stamp."
The three Gōketsu exchanged looks.
"We shall return shortly."
o-o-o-o
"Good morning, sirs and ma'am," said the genin manning the mission desk. He was in his early twenties and lacked his chūnin vest. There were no significant visible scars or missing limbs, meaning his failure to be promoted was not due to medical incapacitation but, presumably, some catastrophic personal failure—perhaps he lacked the will to train hard enough, or was simply too stupid to be trusted on solo missions.
The word 'skinwaste' flickered through Hazō's mind, but he pushed it away and refused to allow his face to respond to the thought. It was a Mist word and had no place in Leaf.
"Good morning," Keiko said. "We would like a short C-rank. Do you have any messenger missions?"
The man smiled. "Itchy feet, huh?"
"Something like that. Missions?"
The man consulted the mission book, lips moving slightly as he ran his finger slowly down the page. "Let's see, messenger, messenger...I've got a caravan escort mission going to Lightning."
"Pass," Noburi said.
"Bodyguard for—"
"Pass."
"Till'n'fill?"
Hazō frowned. "I don't know that term."
"Till'n'fill is when you go out and help some civilians with infrastructure issues. Usually it's farmers, and it's things like setting some explosive tags to clear out tree stumps, using Earth jutsu to build walls or Fire jutsu to burn off fields, that kind of thing."
The floor tilted under Hazō and the firmament shook above him. This was his own concept of Uplift, already being implemented. How had he not known about this?
"I've never heard of such a thing," he said, almost stumbling over the words. "How...I mean, what...I mean...."
The genin chuckled. "Yeah, weird, huh? I mean, ninja doing farm work? Bizarre. Anyway, it's a new mission category. Lord Hokage directed that everyone should suggest it to any village they pass through. It's catching on; farmers like it and it's easy money. Not a lot of money, but it's light work. Good for people who are convalescing, or for anyone who wants to pick up a little extra pocket change."
"How many of these are there?"
The genin looked down at the mission book again, his finger sliding slowly down the page, lips moving as he silently counted. Seconds dragged by as the man worked his way through the kanji, until all three Gōketsu were struggling to conceal their impatience.
"Six," the skinwaste finally said. "One burnoff, three wall jobs, one plowing, and a land clearance thing."
"We'll take one of the wall jobs," Hazō said excitedly. "I've got Multiple Earth Wall."
"Don't you want to know how much it—"
"Don't care," Hazō said. "We'll take it."
The man's eyebrows went up but he shrugged. "Your call, sir. Here you go." He shuffled through the pile of papers in front of him, extracted one, and handed it over. "And what would you two like?" he asked, looking at Keiko and Noburi.
"Hang on, I said 'we' would take it," Hazō said.
"Sorry sir, it's a one-person job. Can't be wasting multiple ninja on something this trivial, after all."
"I will take the plowing," Keiko said. "My pangolins will make short work of it."
The man frowned. "Pangolins, ma'am? I'm not familiar with that jutsu. Is it long-ranged? The ground is frozen solid and full of sickweed spores. It needs to be turned over so that the starlight can kill the spores. You don't want to be in the middle of it when the spores get kicked up."
"She's the Pangolin Summoner," Hazō said impatiently. "You know, big scaly things with huge claws? Really good at digging? Totally immune to poison?"
"Oh," the skinwaste said. "Huh. Okay, well, I guess that's fine. Here you go." He made another mark in the mission book, tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth in concentration, then shuffled through the papers with frustrating slowness before passing the relevant sheet to Keiko.
"I'll take the land clearance," Noburi said quickly. "It's that one." He pointed to the relevant sheet where it sat half-exposed in the stack.
The skinwaste shot a surprised glance at Noburi, then picked up the sheet and read through it slowly. "Wow, you've got good eyes, sir. What do you have for the job, sir?"
"Excuse me?"
"Policy is that I can't give these to people who can't do the job. Unprofessional, sir."
Noburi sighed in aggravation. "They need some land cleared, right? Trees knocked down, rocks moved, that kind of thing?"
The stupid idiot desk minion bent over the sheet again. "Let's see...there's brush and, um, threehorn dens and...grappler oak—" Waiting for him to puzzle through the kanji nearly drove Hazō to scream.
"Yeah, whatever," Noburi broke in. "Look, I'm carrying about a hundred and fifty explosive tags on me right now, so I doubt there's anything there that'll be an issue."
Three heads turned to Noburi in shock.
"A hundred and fifty?" Hazō asked.
Noburi shifted in mild embarrassment. "Yeah, I realized on the way over that I forgot to restock after the mission."
"You forgot to restock?" the skinwaste said faintly. "A hundred and fifty tags and you forgot to restock?"
"I know, right?" Hazō muttered. "Idiot." He ruffled through a belt pouch and passed over a wad of seals. "Here, this should cover you for a short thing like this."
Noburi collected the pack from Hazō and the one that Keiko offered, the edge barely clasped between her fingertips.
"Thanks," Noburi said. He turned to the desk minion and held out an expectant hand. "Mission page, please?"
"Uh, sir," the skinwaste said, holding onto the page. "You know that you won't be comped for the tags, right? It's going to lose you money if you use more than one or two."
"Just give me the damn mission, okay?"
"Yes sir. Here you go." He passed the sheet over and bent to make the relevant mark in the mission book.
The Gōketsu were out the door before his brush touched ink.
o-o-o-o
Mission stamps in hand, there was no trouble leaving the city. Unfortunately, this left some logistical issues. Hazō's job was in a town an hour to the northwest of Leaf and Keiko's about forty miles east of it. Noburi's unfortunately, was three hours to the south of Leaf. Noburi grumbled all the way out the gate, both at needing to spend most of a day out in the freezing cold and about having to do it solo. Still, he went along gamely enough.
The three teens traveled west for half an hour before stopping to talk. They found the stump of a fallen tree and brushed the snow off so that Hazō could unseal a firebox much like the ones the gate guards had been using. They put up a sound-blocking Air Dome over themselves, pointed a Purifier at the smoke from the fire, and crouched around the flames, hands extended to the welcome heat. Both boys made sure to keep their hands well away from Keiko's.
"Okay, what's so important that you had to drag me out into this miserable weather?"
"Mari-sensei was the one who chose all of us for the Swamp mission," Hazō said bluntly.
Noburi jerked, eyes going wide.
"I figured you should know because I didn't want it coming out at a bad time," Hazō said. "And because she's been miserable lately, and I think the three of us should go talk to her, try to cheer her up."
Noburi paused to consider, then looked over at Keiko. "You don't seem surprised."
Their sister shrugged. "I suspected, and she confirmed it the other day."
"Why am I always the last to know everything?" Noburi complained. "I mean, seriously. What is this? And, back on topic, why did she pick us? And why did the mission happen in the first place? And...argh!" The frustrated noise suggested that the number of questions piling up in his throat had been more than could be efficiently managed.
"As she mentioned previously, Shikigami wanted to found a village," Keiko said. "He wanted power, but wanted to use that power to build something better than Mist. He was responsible for logistics, destination, and defense plans, but he wasn't a social spec. He outsourced member selection to Mari-sensei. Hence why she had researched us—not only to obtain blackmail material, but also to locate appropriate candidates."
"And by 'appropriate candidates'," Hazō interjected, "she means young ninja with significant potential who weren't receiving the training they needed to fulfill that potential. She chose us because she saw diamonds in the rough."
Noburi shifted, shrugging his shoulders slightly to settle the weight of his barrel more comfortably as he thought. Keiko and Hazō waited, watching him in silence.
"Huh."
"'Huh'?" Hazō asked carefully. "What does that mean?"
"Well...if I look at it honestly, it's worked out pretty well. She lied to me and took me away from my family, and I think I would have been pretty pissed about that before the Exams, but now.... Well, after the Chūnin Exams it's clear that Water and Fire are going to be getting closer, so I can go back and visit the Wakahisa whenever I want. And I've got a new family now. Keiko, Jiraiya, Kagome, Mari-sensei...even Fifi is pretty cool."
"Ahem."
Noburi grinned. "Yeah, okay, you're not bad either, Mr. Mew. Not cool, but not bad."
Hazō gave his brother a disgruntled look.
"Like you said before, I was always second choice back in Mist, even after my brother died. I feel like I've really grown since we left. I've gotten better training, I'm way stronger, and I'm actually appreciated. I've been selected for the Chūnin Exams, although I grant that was partly political. Still, we kicked so much ass that we probably got an entry in the bingo books. I've been chosen for really, really important missions that I sure wish I could tell you about, Mr. Mew, but you just aren't ready for such amazing info. We're the kids of the Hokage and it's even possible that one of us could end up wearing the hat.
"Honestly, I'm not sure what there is to be mad about. Like I said, I'm sure Jiraiya will let me go back to Mist to visit the family if I really want, and I'm not even sure I want to. Cousin Kiri is a raging bitch that I'm finally over. My parents...well, I don't want to break ties completely, but if I'm being honest I think that Mari-sensei has done a better job."
"Wow," Hazō said, "I was really worried that you were going to be all pissy the way you were af—the way you have been in the past."
Keiko's cheeks, already rosy from the cold, reddened further.
"Smooth, Mr. Mew. Anyway, no. I'm cool. And yes, we should talk to Mari-sensei." He paused, frowning in thought. "I'm not sure about going all three of us at once, though. On the one hand, it shows that we're all onboard with the forgiveness. On the other hand, it might seem a little intimidating."
"I leave it to the two of you to decide on issues of social interactions," Keiko said. "However, in the spirit of sharing things that could otherwise come out at inopportune times: Hazō, the reason that Mari-sensei is so miserable is because Kurosawa Hana tore her down. I do not know what she said, but it was sufficient to leave Mari-sensei crying for hours, possibly days."
Hazō blinked. "What."
"Your birth mother said or did something that destroyed Mari-sensei."
Several seconds dragged by as Hazō struggled to integrate that fact into the world around himself. "I'll talk to her," he said at last. "I'm sure it was some sort of misunderstanding."
"It was not," said Keiko, utter finality in her voice. "I spoke to her. I do not know the precise words that were exchanged, but what I infer is that Mari-sensei attempted to claim she had done her best to take care of us and then Kurosawa said something to the effect that Mari-sensei had merely used us throughout, that we had been nothing but tools to her. Mari-sensei told me that she 'had nothing to say in reply' and was left desolate. She was crying when I found her."
Hazō and Noburi exchanged worried looks. The idea of their confident, laughing sensei in tears seemed as impossible as fish hopping up the front lawn and asking for tea.
"Okay, I will definitely talk to Momma," Hazō said, his voice grim. "The only question I have is how we do this—talk to Mari-sensei, I mean. We could go in one by one, or the three of us could go, or we could bring Kagome and Jiraiya along so it's the whole family. Either of you have thoughts?"
Silence fell.
"I don't think we should do the five-on-one thing," Noburi said at last. "If it were me, I think I would feel ganged up on. I'm inclined to say that the three of us go in as a group so that it's clear we're all in the know and in agreement. We say our piece, then one of us stays while the other two leave. Not sure, though. Thoughts?"
Hazō and Keiko exchanged looks and then shrugged. "I don't have a better plan," Hazō admitted.
"Nor do I," Keiko said. "And the Frozen Skein is not reliable for optimizing social situations, so I cannot check our plans the way I normally would. I trust your judgement, Noburi."
The other boy snorted and shook his head, smiling. "See, there's a thing that no one would be saying to me if Mari-sensei hadn't chosen us to be marked for death in the hellswamp."
Keiko's eyebrow arched. "A poetic turn of phrase."
"I'm a poetic kinda guy. Unless there's anything else, I'm freezing my butt off out here. Let's go do these stupid missions so that we can get home where it's warm. Oh, and one more thing: With the travel time on this plus the time to set all the charges they'll probably need, I'm not going to be home until late. We can talk to her tomorrow."
"Works for me," Hazō said. "Oh, one more thing—Keiko, I want to talk to Jiraiya about the Pangolin situation. Are you okay if I go ahead with that when I get back to Leaf, or should I wait for you to be there?"
"I find myself delighted at the knowledge that I shall be dozens of miles away when you have that conversation."
"So...that's a no on waiting for you to get back?"
o-o-o-o
Hazō's mission was trivially easy—an hour out, ten minutes to find the village head and ask where they needed the walls, two minutes to create the walls, an hour back. Keiko and Noburi wouldn't be home for hours, so it was time to check off the next item on today's task list.
"The Hokage is busy, sir," the ANBU guard said. "Unless this is another case of urgent news?"
"Huh?" Hazō asked.
"Never mind, sir. He's busy right now."
Hazō digested that. "When was the last time he ate?"
"Some tea was brought in about two hours ago. There were rice cakes with it."
Hazō nodded. "He's got a habit of forgetting to eat when he gets focused. I'll bring him something." He rummaged in his pouches until he found the relevant storage scroll, then unsealed a heaping bento box and a piping hot pot of tea.
The guard considered the casual use of storage seals—and, more relevantly, the sheer number of them that had been revealed as Hazō rummaged.
"He didn't want to be disturbed..." the man said dubiously.
Hazō shrugged. "Look, I've got one quick question to ask him, and he needs the food. I'll drop the tray off and be out of there within two minutes."
The guard glanced at the closed door of the Hokage's office, then back at Hazō. His mask concealed whatever expression he might have had, but his body language was uncertain. After a few moments, a tiny nod indicated a decision made.
"Please set the tray down and show me your hands, sir."
Hazō frowned in confusion but did as he was told. The guard grabbed Hazō's hand and stabbed him in the thumb with a pin that Hazō had not realized he was holding.
"YOW!" the boy said, shaking his hand out before putting pressure on the injury. "What was that for?!"
The guard shrugged unrepentantly. "Standard procedure, sir. No idea why—probably something like a traitor would react faster because he'd be more nervous. Anyway, you pass. Mind that you don't take too long. Two minutes, you said."
Hazō picked the tray up and shot the ANBU a dark and promissory look, grumbling under his breath about how Keiko hadn't mentioned this happening to her so it couldn't be that standard. Painful experience, however, kept him from saying anything out loud that might even vaguely sound like a threat of dire and horrific vengeance. Instead, he rapped on the door and pushed it slightly open.
"Jiraiya? I mean, Lord Hokage? I've got some tea and food for you."
"Come in," growled the Toad Sage.
Hazō stepped inside, allowing the door to close behind him.
Jiraiya labored at the Hokage's desk like a man chained to the wheel at a mill. Stacks of paper were piled around him, the stack on his left twice the height of the one on his right. There had been a few small changes since the Fifth took over from the Third: Several lantern seals on the desk and the ceiling lit the room brightly, and the bookcases that bracketed the desk had changed their contents substantially, although Hazō couldn't make out the titles from where he was standing. The Third's lightly-immolated hat was in a shadow box on the wall by the door, right where Jiraiya would see it every time he looked up. Aside from that, the room was identical to the way it had been when the God of Shinobi had met them so long ago.
"Set it here," Jiraiya rumbled, pointing at the one empty part of the desk in front of him. "What do you want, Hazō? I doubt you came just to bring tea."
Hazō set the tray down and then, mindful of Jiraiya's imperfect mood and the ANBU's time limit, straightened to attention. His pre-rehearsed speech reduced his stress marginally, but only marginally.
"Sir, I won't take much of your time," he said. "I understand that we can't do anything to curtail the Pangolin activities at the moment, and I won't do anything without your say-so. I just wanted to ask one question: What would need to be different before you would be comfortable allowing us to take concrete action?"
Jiraiya set his brush down with a sigh and rubbed his face. "Look, I get it," he said tiredly. "It obviously bothers you a lot, and I sympathize. To answer your question: Messing with the Pangolin Clan could destabilize their relations with the Toads. It would almost certainly lose us their financial support, and it might even cause them to break the Summoning contract with Keiko, drastically reducing her combat power and therefore safety. If things did get sour between the Clans then the Toads would get me and Keiko involved as intermediaries, which would require a lot of time that I can't spare right now. The Clan Council is going to be voting on my ownership of the hat the day after tomorrow. I've spoken with Shikaku and he's going to get the vote tabled until after the Chūnin Exams tournament, on the grounds that we would look weak if we changed Hokage before then. That will buy me a little more time before the vote, but only a little. So far I've done an okay job—I've secured Leaf some great trade deals. I've created a new mission category that's bringing in more income, although only a little. I've settled three diplomatic incidents before they became serious and without giving away too much. What I haven't done is find Naruto.
"The absolute minimum that would be required before I would be willing to act against the Pangolin would be that our clan had income equal to what we're currently getting from them, we would need to have Naruto back or conclusive proof that he was dead, and the clan would need to have a reasonable degree of physical security. In practice, 'physical security' probably means that I would need to have a secure grip on the hat, because if I get ousted then I can't predict what would happen and I'm not willing to risk Keiko losing her biggest combat asset in such conditions. Finally, we would need to have a plan that had a real chance of working."
Hope surged in Hazō's eyes and Jiraiya raised a warning finger. "That's at a minimum. I'm sympathetic to your concerns, but our family comes first. I'm not promising that it would be enough, but it's what I can think of off the top of my head while tired and hungry. Speaking of which, thanks for the food. You're a lifesaver." He reached out and grabbed a sandwich off the tray in his left hand, a winter apple in his right, and started wolfing both down with alternating bites.
"Thank you, sir," Hazō said, bowing deeply and backing out of the room. "You won't regret it."
Jiraiya's mouth was stuffed full of three-quarters of a sandwich, so he forebore to comment.
Author's Note: I'm sorry for cutting this update where I did; in particular, I was really excited to write the scene with Sasuke, although slightly dreading the one with Mari. Sadly, both of those scenes are long, it's almost 4:30pm, and I'm tired, so I will leave them for my better-at-social-scenes-anyway co-author.
@Velorien will take care of XP and/or FP awards. There will be no voting.
Hazō was starting to wish he and Fifi hadn't reached an understanding. It was already hard enough for him to get to sleep these days. As soon as his brain recognised that the day had ended, it would decide that he was now free for all the thoughts of Akane he'd previously managed to avoid. Then, once he did fall asleep, being awakened by a possibly feline monstrosity demanding scritches behind the ear—or else—was not doing anything for his mental state.
Thus, he was already up and in the middle of making breakfast when a yawning Keiko descended the stairs.
"'morning, Keiko."
"Good morning, Hazō."
Keiko walked over to the sink and poured herself a cup of water.
"Hazō," she began after a fortifying drink, "it has been made clear to me that I owe you an apology."
Things weren't so bad, then. He must have gone back to sleep after placating Fifi, and for once it was a nice dream.
"An apology?" he asked, intrigued where such a fantastical experience was going to go next.
"Indeed. I should not have allowed myself to crush your fragile spirit in an outpouring of righteous fury without first establishing the degree to which you were responsible for the orgy."
"You mean not at all?"
"That is what the preliminary investigation has concluded," Keiko admitted. "Although it increasingly appears that the truth will forever be lost in the fog."
"You think Mari-sensei arranged it?" Hazō asked, aghast. "But she couldn't have—no, wait. It fits her sense of humour perfectly, and she's the one who invited Anko... Are you implying a pre-arranged conspiracy, from before Mari-sensei... got sick?"
"Mari-sensei would probably never do such a thing!" Keiko snapped." I merely appreciate the elegance of the expression.
"Regardless, I did not have sufficient evidence to justify my actions, and for that I apologise." Keiko bowed deeply, if not for long.
Hazō wished he had more such dreams, instead of charred corpses floating on the water or him hiding behind an air dome while Minami's blood painted it red.
"Apology accepted, Keiko." Then, looking at the obvious tension in her posture, it hit him. "Wait, did Noburi put you up to this?"
"Is it so implausible that I should reflect on my actions and recognise my own failings unassisted?"
Hazō's inner paranoid missing-nin screamed at him that this was no time for honesty.
Hazō's outer, slightly less paranoid ex-missing-nin cast about for a distraction.
"So while you're on a roll, what about that time you tried to kill me the other night?"
"What other night?" Keiko asked innocently. "I do not recall any flagrant violation of my privacy, such as would require an as-yet-uninflicted torturous death in order to both preserve the security of any information gained and prevent similar incidents in the future."
"Huh," Hazō said. He recalled the last time he'd been careless with his denials. "That's funny, neither do I. I'm pretty sure I went straight to bed that night—not that we're talking about any night in particular—and that's exactly what I'd tell anyone if the subject happened to come up in conversation.
"Not that it would," he added, "it being just another ordinary night with no reason to draw anyone's attention."
"He learns," Keiko said approvingly. "It is fortunate that I was not forced to defend my privacy, and will not have to do so in the future."
"Y-Yes, ma'am."
At this point, and mercifully none earlier, Kagome-sensei came down the stairs, one hand unsuccessfully trying to reshape his greasy morning hair in an effort to internalise Mari-sensei's teachings. "Did none of you hear the bell? Someone's at the front gate."
"I'll get it!" Hazō leapt from his seat.
"This is for you, Keiko." After reluctantly returning to the main building, he held out a plain but well-made wooden box, a cube maybe two feet per side.
"How curious," Keiko said, starting to open the box. "I was not expecting a delivery."
Suddenly, Kagome-sensei's hands landed on top of hers, pushing the lid down again.
With a startled cry, Keiko leapt back several metres, landing in a defensive crouch. Wide eyes flickered between Kagome-sensei and Hazō, as if watching to see which one attacked first.
"Oh," Kagome-sensei said, looking stricken. "I'm so sorry, Keiko. I moved on instinct. Are you all right?"
Keiko straightened up slowly. Her hands remained clenched. The panic faded from her eyes, replaced by bitter hatred.
"You were supposed to be family", she spat, then stormed off before Hazō or Kagome-sensei could say a word.
"What in the abyss were you thinking, Kagome-sensei?" Hazō asked after they were done staring after her. "You know how she feels about being touched."
"I didn't—it wasn't—she was about to open the box! What kind of idiot opens a strange box when they don't know where it came from?"
"Oh." When he put it that way, it made perfect sense. One of the first things Hazō had learned from Kagome-sensei was to trust a gift no more than you trusted the giver, and usually less. Back when the "treacherous stinkers" in the villages near his forest called him the Black Hunter, sometimes they left offerings for him. Obviously, they were poisoned and/or traps, and Kagome-sensei knew better than to go near a single one.
Hazō was confident that this particular gift was safe, but of course there was no way he could say that.
"Kagome-sensei, I think you should go apologise to Keiko. I'll check the box for traps."
Kagome-sensei swallowed as if he was about to enter a chakra rabbit's den without a gorget, and headed for the stairs. "Don't forget to Dispel in case of genjutsu seals," he said absently.
"There are genjutsu seals?!"
"Not anymore," Kagome-sensei muttered as he left.
Hazō frowned. Why would Kagome-sensei bother to remind him about something as obvious as checking for poison needles?
He'd just finished giving the box the most cursory of checks when Kagome-sensei returned.
"No good. She's locked up in her room and won't talk to me." He gritted his teeth. "Stupid idiot of a sealmaster. Wasn't long ago if anyone tried to grab my hands out of nowhere, they'd be ashes before I knew what was happening. Stupid, stupid!
"I should wait here until she comes back," Kagome-sensei said after a pained silence. "Got to tell her I'm sorry."
"I'll wait with you," Hazō decided. It wasn't what he had planned for the morning, but if he'd read the situation right, then a still-recovering Noburi had taken the time and effort to fix a family conflict that had nothing to do with him. If Hazō wanted to someday be able to protect the emotional health of the clan in Noburi's absence, he could start by paying it forward.
"Thanks, Hazō. You're a good kid."
Without Jiraiya, Mari-sensei or Noburi (the latter having spent the night in hospital to make sure a recurring ache wasn't delayed-effect poison), it was a very quiet morning. Hazō and Kagome-sensei had tried talking seals, but the mood just wasn't there.
A few hours later, Keiko finally emerged, eyes red. Her hands were clasped behind her back, the way she sometimes held them while deep in thought, but her arms were tense.
"I—I apologise for overreacting," she said. "I know you meant no harm by it. I know I should have more control over my… responses. Over everything. I should not keep inconveniencing people with my own unnatural failings."
"No, I'm sorry, Keiko!" Kagome-sensei exclaimed. "I wasn't thinking, and I should have known better, and I never, never meant to hurt you."
"I know," Keiko said. "I know that."
She took a slow, deep breath. "But please understand, Kagome… this cannot happen again, not even by error. This house is a safe space for me. A space where, at least in Jiraiya's absence, I can be myself without fear. If you destroy that, then no matter your intentions… no matter my intentions… I will no longer be able to trust you as family."
Kagome-sensei could not have been paler if he'd just emerged from a nap on vampire grass. "I would never—I swear, Keiko, I'd rather die than—"
"That is enough," Keiko said wearily. "I believe we have both said everything we have to say.
"Hazō, have you the box?"
Hazō dropped the box into her hands from a safe vertical distance. She opened it.
Inside, packaged in straw, was an omen of doom to come.
"What in the name of the Mizukage's neatly arranged if uninspired haircut is this?!"
It took Hazō the full power of the Iron Nerve, combined with all of Mari-sensei's training, to keep his face straight. "It's a soft toy. Looks like a black kitten."
"Exquisite craftsmanship," Keiko said. "But why? Hazō, who delivered it?"
"It was anonymous," Hazō lied. "Probably just a random present you can put on your shelf and forget about."
Keiko gave him a disparaging look. "Nobody randomly sends the virtually-adult princess of Leaf's ruling clan, the Pangolin Summoner, the woman who survived two years in the wilderness and only recently crushed the Chūnin Exam, a toy kitten. The very idea is preposterous. No, this is some sort of message."
She began to pace back and forth across the kitchen, holding the kitten out at chest height with her eyes locked on its. Hazō had a distinct feeling that it was absorbing her attention to the point where he and Kagome-sensei had ceased to exist.
"The material is all too fragile. The body could contain a missive to be retrieved with the assistance of a blade. But one cannot be certain that this would occur to the recipient without some prior arrangement. Especially given the remarkable quality of the work, which makes wanton destruction unappealing if not repulsive. Thus, the message must be symbolic.
"How would Lord Shikaku analyse such an object?" she mused. "The cat, especially the black cat, is a deadly predator that strikes from the shadows and slays its prey with a single bite. This is a threat, a declaration of war.
"But no, it is a kitten. The carefully-judged proportions and the deep blue eyes make it plain. A juvenile, immature and unready for combat. It is an implied parallel to myself, a profound insult that begs to be repaid in blood. Perhaps it is the opening blow in an ill-conceived campaign of psychological warfare—by one unaware that I have experienced nightmares such as would make jōnin weep. Still, a soft toy as a tool of intimidation?"
"It is far more plausible as… a seduction attempt. Oh, no.
"But wait. I have not indicated any interest in soft toys, nor generally in feminine goods. A secret admirer, then, who fails to respect my preferences? Troublesome indeed.
"No, how could I be such a fool? Ami gave me just such a toy for my seventh birthday. She was my faithful companion, and I called her Mewramasa, Devourer of Unworthy Souls. We were inseparable until… until that fateful day. Given the dearth of black kitten toys in this impoverished world, much less reasons to send any to me, probability dictates a connection."
Hazō suppressed his aura as hard as he could lest Keiko recall his existence. His adopted sister had an… unfortunate… response to realising that somebody had learned her embarrassing secrets, and Kagome-sensei, still consumed with guilt, might take her side.
Fortunately, she remained lost in her own recollections.
"No matter how much Ami may... hate me now, she would not send me a message to remind me of that darkest of days. She could not conceive of such cruelty. In that case, who? Who else knew? Masamewne's master, of course, and our respective seconds. The older girl with the knife. But only a truly petty and pathetic soul would remember such an event across half their lifetime. Who else? My parents might. Others in the clan?"
None of Hazō's fears stopped him from mentally filling away "Mewramasa, Devourer of Unworthy Souls" for future use. If Mum had really told Keiko about his first crush and the haiku, he was going to need all the trump cards he could get.
"If so," Keiko went on, "what is the message? They would not bypass Ami if their desire was to seek reconciliation. What else could they have to say to me? An injunction, perhaps, not to reveal their secrets? A hidden threat?"
She paused. "Kagome, how proceeds the Master Plan?"
"Phase Two complete," Kagome grunted, colour gradually returning to his face as Keiko continued to spend time in his presence without breaking into tears or snarling words of contempt. "But I'd want more research time before Phase Three."
"Acceptable. Please do not strain yourself, but I would appreciate a progress report before the end of the week."
"The Master Plan?" Hazō asked with a sudden feeling of dread.
"Nothing that need concern you," Keiko brushed the question away. "Or rather, it is too late for you to interfere. You will be notified when the plan is complete, like everyone else."
"Kagome-sensei?" Hazō appealed.
"You ought to know better than to ask."
"Now, where was I?" Keiko said. "One does not simply bring toy kittens into Leaf. All goods and visitors undergo thorough inspection, and packages as suspicious as this one doubly so. There is no guarantee that this message would arrive safely rather than being disassembled or destroyed by the security forces. It would be necessary for an internal source to procure and deliver the item on the Mori's behalf.
"With whom in Leaf might the Mori communicate unmonitored? The Nara, of course. A Nara faction, then, one inclined to ferry a message opaque to themselves on the Mori's behalf? But that is not the Nara's way. The Akimichi, perhaps, might accept a simple trade in favours, but the Nara would never allow themselves to be a blind piece in another's game.
"What am I missing? Should I consult the Nara, or is there a risk of becoming entangled in whatever complex relationship the two clans possess, and finding myself made such a blind piece myself?"
"Keiko," Hazō interrupted, "have you considered the possibility that it might just be a soft toy?"
"Do not be so naïve, Hazō. A shinobi must always see the hidden side of the hidden side. Had I but understood this in time, perhaps I could have perceived and avoided Shikigami's trap. I will not make the same mistake twice.
"However, it is true that my deliberations can proceed no further with the information I have available. I shall keep her in my room for the time being, and consider my options."
"Her?"
"It. I shall keep it in my room. Stop looking at me like that."
Hazō was going to die. It was a certainty now. He was going to die, and it was going to be grisly, and creative, and everyone around him would agree that he'd brought it on himself. But it was already too late to turn back—and besides, she'd refused to apologise for the other night.
-o-
"Wait," Noburi grabbed Hazō's hand as Hazō reached for the doorknob. "Keiko, you go in first. Make sure she's decent."
Keiko blushed. Hazō opened the door for her, as she was presently keeping her hands in her pockets.
"Please come in," she said shortly after entering.
"No. Go away. Please."
Hazō ignored Mari-sensei and followed Keiko. Noburi brought up the rear.
Hazō couldn't hold back the gasp. Curled up in a ball on the too-large bed was the three-time Mist CQC champion, genjutsu mistress, seduction expert elite jōnin, the Heartbreaker, and she was only five feet tall. Mari-sensei had never been five feet tall, even asleep. Her sense of presence, calm, confident, and in control, had made her no smaller than the hulking, lantern-jawed Shikigami. Hazō knew her physical height from her Bingo Book entry, but he had no idea when he first outgrew her because, at the time, it simply hadn't registered.
Now, for the first time in his cognition, she was a small woman and he was a medium-sized young man. He felt like the floor had given way under his feet.
"Please. Go away," came a quiet voice from the ball in the middle of the bed.
"Mari-sensei," Keiko said, "there is something we wish to say to you."
"These guys filled me in on the swamp thing," Noburi said, "and how you were the one who picked us."
Mari-sensei sat up. Hazō vaguely noticed that she was still in her nightwear.
"I know what you did wasn't cool, Mari-sensei," Noburi said. "I'm not going to pretend it wasn't. But looking at it from the results point of view? I have a great life here. My new family actually values me for who I am, I get to live in a ruthless dictatorship that likes me rather than a ruthless dictatorship that hates me, I get top-notch training in general badassery and medical ninjutsu, which I wouldn't even know I had a gift for back in Mist, I get to go on super special missions which Hazō isn't important enough to hear about… hell, I have a realistic shot at being Hokage one day. Even after all this time, it's a little scary to say this out loud but… but if you'd told me that going missing-nin was going to turn out like this? I might have signed up with you of my own free will. So yeah, I forgive you."
In the twilight of the shuttered room, Mari-sensei stared at him in bewilderment.
"You already know I've forgiven you," Hazō said. "I told you a while ago. So if you've been carrying that guilt on your shoulders this whole time, you can put it down now. It's OK."
Hazō and Noburi looked at Keiko.
"I love you, Mari-sensei," she said. "I believe in your ability to become a better person."
The words she hadn't said were louder than a shout.
"It doesn't matter," Mari-sensei said. "Just a drop in the ocean. Please go. Hazō, Noburi, it's still not too late for you. And please, help Keiko get better. She doesn't deserve what I've done to her."
Hazō and Noburi turned to look at Keiko.
"What?" she asked. "You expect me know what she is talking about?"
"I didn't just turn you into a tool, Keiko. I made you happy to be a tool. I twisted you. I made you a willing victim. How can there be anything more disgusting? Anything more unforgivable?"
"Why should I not be happy to be a tool? Mari-sensei, you continue to treat this as some grave sin when it is nothing of the sort!"
"Uh, Keiko," Noburi said. "She's actually right on this one. Wanting to be a tool isn't healthy."
"No," Mari-sensei agreed. "Only somebody like Yagura would ever want other people to be his willing tools. Yagura… and me."
"Would you excuse us for a second?" Hazō asked, dragging Noburi out of the room with him almost by force. After what happened earlier in the day, he'd sooner cut off his own hand than grab Keiko in the same way, but fortunately she followed of her own accord.
"Keiko, what the hell?" he exploded once out of Mari-sensei's hearing range. "What do you mean, you're happy to be a tool?"
"Exactly what I say," Keiko said. "I had been brought up in a tradition of service, only to prove unfit for same, and then abducted to a place where I was of even less use to anyone. Mari-sensei saved my life. This is simple fact. Then she accepted said life, which had gained no worth through its salvation, and used it in a way that benefited us all. I am a better person as a result of the use she has made of me. I have been able to contribute to all of our lives, and to participate in the process that brought us from the edge of death in the swamp to the lap of luxury as children of the most powerful man in the world.
"As I explained to Mari-sensei during our previous conversation, it is in the nature of a parent-child relationship for the child to be a tool to fulfil the parent's specific long-term goals. Why else have children at all? In a healthy relationship, that use is inextricably tied to nurture of the child, and its healthy growth both as an organism and as an individual. All of the concepts inherent to child-rearing—parental responsibility, filial duty, punishment and reward, developmental targets and so forth—naturally stem from proper understanding of this system.
"With this in mind, my relationship with Mari-sensei, in which she consistently derives happiness from her use of me, and I consistently grow as a person through same, is a model parent-child relationship, and the kind of improvement on my relationship with my birth parents which I could never have dared hope for. It alarms and confuses me that Mari-sensei does not feel the same way."
Hazō and Noburi exchanged glances.
"Keiko…" Noburi said slowly, "that is fucked up."
"Seconded," Hazō said. "That is the most disturbing thing I've heard in…" he paused. "Actually, I've just realised that I hear so many things of varying levels of disturbingness around here that I don't know how to finish that sentence. Let me rephrase. What you just said is disturbing and wrong and it kind of scares me that you sound like you really believe it."
"Your opinion is noted," Keiko said coolly. "Can we return to our original business?"
"No," Noburi said. "This is a thing we actually need to talk about. Keiko, that thing you just said isn't a parent-child relationship. Parents are supposed to love their children because they're their children. They're supposed to help their child grow up healthy and strong because that's what you do for someone you love. The tool thing? Doesn't enter into it."
Keiko arched an eyebrow.
"In other words, one gives birth to a child in order to satisfy one's desire to love. Satisfying that desire effectively requires suitable nurture of the child. This in no way challenges my perspective, save that I find the idea of elevating selfless love to the status of a moral good, and then creating a sentient being purely to serve as a tool for the expression of that love, to be deeply hypocritical. Hypocritical and immoral, as you are taking love—a natural byproduct of healthy familial relationships—and attempting to artificially force it into existence through the sacrifice of a human life. A life that has now been denied purpose, or the ability to repay its creators.
"Can you imagine what it must be like to learn that you were born for the sake of a feeling? Not even a special, irreplaceable feeling, but a feeling that would have come into being anyway as your life progressed? Can you imagine what it must be like to learn that, regardless of your personal qualities, literally any other child born to your parents would have served just as well, and in some cases already does? Can you imagine what it must be like to learn that there is nothing you can do to earn your parents' love, and that your value to them rests exclusively on whether they feel a certain emotion at any given time?
"You are proposing that it is normal, healthy and proper to take a child, strip it of all that gives its life a purpose in this world, remove its agency within the most important relationship it will ever have, teach it that its value depends entirely on how other people feel about it, and call all of this 'love'—and you call my worldview 'fucked up'?"
For ten full seconds, Hazō and Noburi stared at each other helplessly.
"We're going to need a bigger brain."
"OK, you know what, let's put the pants-wetting terror of what's happening inside Keiko's mind aside for a moment," Noburi said.
"I, too, will suspend judgement on the ill-considered, dangerous delusions that characterise your approach to parenthood."
"Great. Glad to know we're on the same page."
"We need to focus on Mari-sensei," Hazō agreed. "Keiko, am I right in understanding that you've believed this… stuff… all along, and you believing it has nothing to do with Mari-sensei?"
"Correct. I would consider it self-evident to any suitably developed mind."
"Yeah, no," Noburi said. "But point is, you can just go back in there and tell her that, and then we can get back to the not-intervention and save your issues for another day."
Keiko nodded. "I must say, if Mari-sensei shares your delusions, then the nature of her predicament becomes clearer. If I can make her understand…"
"No," Hazō said firmly. "No making her understand. I'd really like us to be value-neutral when we go in there, at least in the sense of not arguing with each other. She thinks she's been treating us as tools when she hasn't, and she thinks she's made you want to be a tool when she didn't. Let's stick to refuting the things she says that are obviously wrong to all of us."
"Reasonable."
"One more thing, Keiko," Noburi said. "What was with that silence back there? I thought you'd forgiven Mari-sensei for the Swamp of Death?"
"Whatever gave you that idea?"
Hazō replayed their earlier conversation in his head. "…Huh.
"Are you saying you don't forgive her? You yourself said you'd benefited from her decision the same way we did."
"I have. I have also lost more than either of you."
"But you've made it clear that you hated it back in Mist. Noburi's family weren't great to him, and I had Mum, but the way your family… oh."
"Yes," Keiko said tensely. "Noburi can visit his family through the mere expedient of Jiraiya's and the Mizukage's permission. Your mother is here, and I am honestly happy on your behalf, but… I have lost Ami. Forever. No matter how many new people I may come to love, no matter how many people may come to return that love, the gaping void in my heart will last the rest of my life. And every time it tears at me, I will inevitably remember that it was Mari-sensei's work.
"Hazō, I may be at odds with your mother, but as I reflected on our conversation, I came to realise that there is precious little difference in how we feel. Mari-sensei robbed us of the person we treasured most, for purely selfish reasons, and never once raised a finger to undo the harm she had so wrought. In fact, acts of self-centred self-flagellation aside, she has never even apologised, for what little such a gesture would be worth."
"Keiko…" Hazō whispered.
"There is a difference between Hana and myself. I love Mari-sensei. I always have and I always will. I desire what is best for her, and I am deeply grateful for the use she has made of me.
"But there is also another difference. For all the political and other barriers between you, Hana has had her loved one restored to her. Your bond has been reaffirmed, and will only continue to grow. Mari-sensei has destroyed mine forever, and that is something I cannot forgive.
"I do not yet know how these two convictions will be reconciled, nor do I require external input on the subject. For now, Mari-sensei must be restored to health and happiness. After that… I make no predictions."
Hazō shivered. He could see many possible futures stretching out from this conversation, and nearly all of them were grim. If Mari-sensei and Keiko came into serious conflict, would he be expected to take a side? How would he choose when he didn't want anyone to get hurt? Would it end in house-shaking fights? Permanent alienation? Or worse? Hazō knew that Keiko was prepared to go pretty damn far in the name of the things she believed in, and for all that her explanation had been delivered in her usual dispassionate style, he had glimpsed something nameless in her eyes that hadn't been there even in her darkest moments.
"Well," Noburi said, "philosophical differences aside, I think we can at least all agree that this family is seriously fucked up."
"Yeah."
"Without question."
"Great," Noburi said, but without feeling. "Common ground at last. Now let's talk Mari-sensei strategy before we go back in there."
-o-
A six-sided die has been rescued from certain destruction at Fifi's fangs. (Yes, she can bite through dice.)
1-2 = Hazō
3-4 = Keiko
5-6 = Noburi
1d6 = 1
"Mari-sensei," Hazō said, "we talked it over and we decided it would be best for just one of us to talk to you on behalf of everyone. We all care about you equally, so I got picked to do it by a fair and impartial process."
"Don't," Mari-sensei said, no longer in a ball but instead leaning back against the cushions as if enervated. "Don't do this to yourself. It's not safe for you to be near me."
They'd all conferred, and everyone had their own contributions to make to the final version of what the group wanted to say.
Keiko. "Mari-sensei, you're not a corrupting influence the way you think. Keiko was… the way she was… long before she met you. It wasn't anything you did. And she was very lucky that she did meet you. Can you imagine what somebody else might have done with all that influence over her? Back when she felt like she had no agency or value, and was just waiting for someone to tell her what to be?"
Hazō had slightly edited the original version, compensating for the way that while Keiko had value coming out of her ears, and definitely more agency than when he'd first met her, her self-image was still a long way from catching up.
"The fact that it could've been even worse doesn't make what I did OK. You three still don't understand what I've done to you."
Himself. "Keiko said you were using us as tools. But I don't feel used, and nor does Noburi, and I don't think Keiko means quite the same thing by being used as you do. All along, we've made our own choices, and everything you've done has only made us happier and safer."
"Of course you don't feel used! That's the point. I'm that good at using people. That's why I can't be around you—because I manipulate you without giving you a chance to resist. Please, Hazō, just go, before I make things worse."
Noburi. "I'm not going anywhere, Mari-sensei. None of us are. We love you, and we're sticking around no matter what. If you're not the avatar of all evil—which you aren't—then you need to fix the way you see yourself until it's right, and we've got your back every step of the way. If you are the avatar of all evil—which you still aren't—then you need to quit it, and we've got your back every step of the way for that as well."
"Why can't you understand?!" Mari-sensei threw up her hands. "I'm not somebody who gets to change. I'm a monster. You 'having my back' is just another way of letting me use you. Do you remember how I got you to take up sealing, even though it's the most dangerous ninja discipline and your only teacher was a half-crazed hermit? Or how I made Keiko fall in love with me and then didn't do anything about it even though I knew how much she was hurting? Or how I basically ignored Noburi just because he wasn't much use to me compared to you two? That's all you'll get from me, no matter what you do."
"Mari-sensei, you didn't get me to take up sealing. That was my own choice as well."
"Of course you think it was. That's what I am. That's what I do. You don't have the training or the experience or the talent to see how cleverly, how heartlessly I've used you."
This was getting nowhere. It was like Mari-sensei was taking everything being her fault as a premise. He couldn't come up with a counterexample because then she'd just say she'd made him think or do it. In its own way, it was staggeringly arrogant.
"I'm not somebody who can think of others," Mari-sensei said. "You think I'm just claiming credit for things you'd have done anyway. Well, I'm not. I spent a lifetime using people in ways that didn't leave them feeling they were better off. What you're feeling now about Akane? Not even a shadow of what I let people feel about me when I abandoned them. I destroyed people's relationships. I corrupted them. I took away the futures they should have had. If you knew, if you really understood what you were dealing with? You'd have taken your chances with Captain Zabuza."
Keiko. "You can't just keep telling us that you using us is proof that you're an awful person, and you being an awful person is proof that you must have been using us. It's a circular argument."
"This isn't an argument at all! You can't logic away something that's true!"
Mari-sensei slid off the bed and stood in front of him. It felt like she was supposed to be intimidating, but somehow she couldn't manage it, and that was frightening in and of itself.
"I don't need proof that I'm an awful person. You think you can argue me out of this? You with your naïve belief in the goodness of human nature?"
Her eyes locked onto his. She waited, as if gathering strength. Then she was a dark mirror to herself, masterful and razor-sharp, but without a shred of playfulness.
"I murdered my uncle, Hazō. He was a helpless civilian and I tortured him to death. Could you do that? Any of you?"
Keiko. No words came. Noburi. Nothing. Himself. He was lost.
"I don't regret it for a moment. After what he'd done, he deserved worse. But I didn't do it for justice. I did it because I hated him and I wanted to. If I wanted justice, I'd have gone to the Mizukage. A ninja's word against a civilian's? I doubt there'd have even been a trial. Then the Mizukage would have done the exact same thing, only legally and in public, and every man who'd ever thought of abusing a child would have that sight burned into their memory for the rest of their lives. The world would be a better place.
"It took years before I even realised that had been an option. And years before I thought about what it had meant for my mother. She'd lost her old life when she moved to Mist for my sake. She'd lost me. Her brother was all she had left. I was old enough to be safe from him, and I never asked—never cared—whether he'd ever be a danger to anyone else. I could have let him be. Instead, just like that, I left her alone in the world.
"I was your age when I did it. Could you do the same, right now? Could you torture the man you once saw as a father to death, and destroy your mother's life, just to make yourself feel better about your past? Could you do it without ever once feeling a shred of remorse, for the rest of your life, because the hatred when you think of him doesn't leave room for anything else?"
Hazō tried to imagine what it would take for him to—no, he couldn't imagine hurting Mum like that, much less killing her, no matter what she'd done. His mind didn't work that way. Even in the worst case, if she'd somehow done something that meant he couldn't think of her as his mother anymore… he'd leave. He'd just leave. He couldn't take revenge on what she was to him.
Mari-sensei had.
He'd never understood her implications about the life she'd led in Mist. Abstract hints at seducing people she shouldn't have, or introducing people to vices, or hurting people by being a selfish girlfriend, or whatever it was that she meant by using people… it was like the backstory of a roleplaying character, irrelevant unless something happened that specifically invoked it. Sir Such-and-Such had once been a nobleman until oni sacked his castle, and still had connections with the nobility that he could occasionally draw on. Mari-sensei had once been a bad person, and still had a sadistic, manipulative streak that showed up every once in a while.
But destroying her own family… Murdering and abandoning the people who'd given her life and shaped the core of who she was… Knowing how wrong it was and choosing not to care…
Had he ever truly known who she was?
"Go, Hazō," Mari-sensei said softly. "You don't belong in the same world as me."
Hazō went.
-o-
You have received 5 XP.
-o-
You have suddenly remembered that Jiraiya made it clear that any dinner with Sasuke should take place at the compound so it can be supervised by him and/or Mari.
-o-
With Keiko's aid, you have ordered the crafting of a custom portfolio book from Takane Books, an old-style bookseller accustomed to serving the strange whims of the nobility. Well-known sketch artist Rō Fea has agreed to provide a drawing of Hazō once it is complete, with a small discount for the older brother of the Gōketsu Keiko. You've had no difficulty finding a selection of quality mugs and reliable engravers. Being a nobleman is awesome.
You have some Mist cuisine you bought earlier, along with ingredients and cookbooks. Finding quality cuisine was easy for three Mist natives. You hope that your cooking skills have been sufficient to identify cookbooks that Kagome will actually like, and ingredients of sufficient quality.
-o-
Thanks to Hazō diving obsessively into his research to repress the conversation he'd just had (which he did not share with Keiko and Noburi beyond a vague "Didn't work"), you have completed the Vibrator Seal ahead of schedule.
You've also observed some secondary effects you may not have originally thought of. Namely, it gets triggered every time anyone within its range emits chakra, including the user, and it is also triggered by any tree or water walking commenced after the seal activates.
Keiko has suggested that you could partially compensate for these secondary effects by improving the seal to respond differently to different intensities of detected chakra emission. This would allow you to make educated guesses as to what abilities your enemies were using (as well as recognise and filter out familiar reactions to your own), and avoid distraction from low-level effects like tree walking without missing them altogether.
-o-
What do you do?
Voting ends on Saturday 20th of October, 9 a.m. New York Time.
There was a rotation, and tonight was not his night.
Mari-sensei could no longer be trusted to eat on her own. Or to be around sharp objects or poisons. Or just to be alone. So there was a rotation; Noburi, Keiko, and Hazō had arranged among themselves that one of them would take dinner to Mari-sensei's room each night, ensure that she ate it, empty her chamber pot, and ensure that she took minimal care of herself. The next person in the rota would be on standby in case of need.
Truth to tell, Hazō was getting worried. Mari-sensei had visibly lost weight and muscle tone and her hair, once a carefully-tended and artfully-arranged sunset river, was reduced to a greasy, reddish mudhole. The entire family had attempted to bully her into a bath, but she had simply rolled over to face the wall and pulled the blankets over her head.
Kagome had wanted to be part of the rotation, but he virtually melted in embarrassment and a sense of personal inadequacy whenever he tried. He had settled for making all of Mari's favorite foods and hovering anxiously.
Tonight, however, Hazō was not on the rotation. Tonight he had a much more difficult task: Convince his own mother to change.
Taking a deep breath, he knocked. The door opened in seconds; Hana was wearing a casual 'around-the-house' robe, slippers, and an expression of surprise that rapidly transformed into delight when she saw that it was not an official messenger but was instead her son.
"Cricket!" She grabbed him in a tight hug and then pulled him inside. "I wasn't expecting to see you tonight. Come in, come in! I have plenty of cookies, and I can make us some tea."
"Hi, Momma." He hopped up onto one of the stools that stood next to the half-wall separating the kitchen nook from the main quarters.
She paused, looking over her shoulder from where she'd been crouched by the stove stoking the fire. "Uh-oh. I know that voice. What's wrong?"
"It's Mari-sensei, Momma. She's broken."
Hana's face became still. "Yes, she certainly is."
Hazō sighed. "Momma...please help."
An eyebrow rose. "You want me to help her?"
Hazō nodded.
Hana tossed a final shake of wood into the stove's firebox and set a pot of tea on top to boil. She turned back to Hazō and took a seat across from him.
"If that woman was on fire, I wouldn't spit on her to put it out."
"Momma...please. It's important. Just listen, okay?"
Hana studied him for a moment, then straightened up on her stool. The concerned mother fell away, transformed as though by S-rank ninjutsu into the icy diplomat from the Village Hidden in the Mist. "Fine. I'm listening."
"Okay," Hazō said, gathering up his carefully-prepared and Keiko-approved arguments. "Let's start with the practical: You're a diplomat from Mist and you broke the Hokage's wife right before he and most of the rest of his clan are due to leave for the Chūnin Exams tournament. Hyūga and some of his cronies will do anything to undermine Jiraiya; they've already tried several times, and Mari-sensei was the one that stopped them. She's too busy being broken to do that now. If Jiraiya lost the hat it would most likely go to Hyūga; he's a racial purist who despises foreigners. Would Mist be better off with him as Hokage, or with Jiraiya?"
The diplomat's face did not alter, but nor did she counter his argument.
"If Hyūga got the hat, he could make a case that you engaged in psychological warfare against the Hokage's wife in an effort to give yourself an advantage during negotiations. That would represent a breach of faith as an ambassador and would provide an excuse to deny you access to Leaf in the future, meaning I wouldn't be able to see you here in Leaf again."
"You could always come back to Mist with me, cricket."
He nodded. "I know. And I would. I love you, Momma, and if it means giving up everything I have here then I will. But...I would be sad if I had to. Keiko is my sister now. Noburi is my brother. Kagome is my sensei, and my crazy uncle who would stick his hands in a bonfire if it meant keeping me safe. Mari-sensei...she's not you, Momma. I don't know what you would call us; she's not my mother...maybe more like a big sister? She teases me and she messes up my hair and gives me noogies, but she really has done her best to look out for us."
"No."
"Yes, Momma, she has." He started to continue, then shook his head. "Let's come back to that. Leave her out of the picture; I would be sad to lose everyone else. And, if I'm being practical, I would be sad to lose access to the Hokage's resources. I really feel like I can make a difference here, Momma. I am making a difference here. Ever since I met him, I've been talking to Jiraiya about making the world better for everyone—civilians, clanless ninja, everyone. I—"
"Civilians?" she interjected. The diplomat allowed a tiny hint of puzzlement to crease her brow. "Why do you care about civilians? Clanless ninja, certainly—Gōketsu is a small clan, it makes sense to weld the unaligned to your crest, maybe even grant them branch family status so as to increase your numbers, but we could do that back in Mist. You'd have access to Ren, so you'd still have the resources of a Kage. My legal status with the clan is a bit hazy right now, but I'm sure I could convince Ren to reinstate me. You'd be the son of the Hokage and we could set up the same legal fiction that we have here—that you're a special envoy from Leaf. Well, a special-envoy-in-training. Jiraiya could send someone more senior along to do the actual work while you assist. It would be an incredible opportunity to learn the levers of power, which you'll need if you want to achieve these dreams of yours."
"Civilians are people too, Momma," Hazō said, focusing on what he considered the important part and carefully ignoring the rest. "They need help just like anyone."
"Cricket...." The words trailed off and finally she shrugged. "All right. If you want to help civilians, I'll help you do it. What do you need?"
"They need lots of things, Momma. Food, medicine, protection. With one jutsu I can put strong stone walls around their settlements in a few minutes, making everyone inside safer. Apprentice med-nin could heal diseases and do simple surgeries to keep people from dying of minor injuries. When we were wandering, Noburi fixed a kid's gapmouth. You should have seen them—the kid's life was transformed, and I'm not sure that Noburi had ever been prouder or happier about anything."
"So you want to pay to send medic-nin into the field to fix gapmouth and fever among the civilians?"
Hazō nodded. "I've talked about this with Jiraiya since I first met him, and once he got the hat he created a new category of missions. They call them till'n'fill—ninja go out and build walls, burn off fields, that sort of thing."
"So, basically, D-ranks that are outside the village?"
"Ye—No! They help people."
"How much do they pay?"
"Well...not a lot."
"So, you go outside the village, you do minor tasks that require no particular skill and could be done by civilians if necessary, and then you get paid a pittance. How is that not a D-rank outside the village?"
Hazō groped for a reply and found nothing. "Okay, maybe they are. The point is that this is important, something that actually makes the world a better place, and something I really care about, and it happened because I was able to convince Jiraiya. And I was only able to convince Jiraiya because I'm here, in Leaf, and important to him."
"So. You want me to not just tolerate that...liar, that cheat, that manipulator. Not just be nice to her. You want me to humble myself to her, to tell her that everything is okay and to help her feel better, so that you can continue to be the son of the Hokage and wield that influence to help civilians."
"Momma, no!" Hazō said, jumping off the stool and around the counter so he could hug her tight. "That's not what I meant! Jiraiya is not Poppa and Mari-sensei is not you. You're my Momma, and you always will be. If you want us to go back to Mist right now, I'll go. I've only just got you back, I'm not going to lose you again."
She returned the hug, tipping her head so she could lay her cheek against the back of his head where he clung to her. It was an awkward position; he was so tall now that he needed to stoop to hug her where she sat on the stool. She felt tears in her eyes at the thought of how much time had passed, how much he had changed, how much she had missed. She took care to wipe the tears away under the guise of stroking his hair, then swallow twice so that her voice wouldn't tremble.
"I'm so glad, cricket," she whispered.
His only reply was to hug her tighter.
She held the hug until she felt like she was going to burst, then slowly opened her arms and leaned back so she could see him.
"So," she said. "I should help her because not doing so would endanger Jiraiya's grip on the hat, risk putting Hyūga in power, and because our argument and her subsequent weepy manipulations could be spun as espionage. Why shouldn't I simply take you and go home?"
Hazō leaned back slightly, but did not fully release her. "Could you really do that, Momma? Leaf and Mist are on the edge of an alliance. Mist has been hammered over the last two years, and they need the alliance. Leaf has been hit hard as well; not as badly as Mist, but they could use support. Leaf is allies with Sand already, and a Mist/Leaf/Sand alliance would control half the Elemental Nations and all of the long-distance trade routes. Between the three of them they have access to every critical resource; with favored-nation trading status among the three of them and tariffs against the other nations they'd become an economic powerhouse. It would buy Mist time to recruit or train new jōnin and S-rankers to replace their military power. None of that is possible if Jiraiya loses the hat, or if you leave Leaf."
She eyed him flatly. "Was it Inoue who gave you these arguments?"
Hazō stepped back, one hand still on hers but adding distance between them. "No, Momma. Noburi, Keiko, and me hashed it out."
"Noburi, Keiko, and I."
Hazō gave her a puzzled look. "Pretty sure you weren't there, Momma. It was Noburi, Keiko, and me."
She laughed and bopped his nose. "Noisy cricket. You were saying?"
"I was saying that Mari-sensei's barely come out of her room for a week. She doesn't want to talk to anyone, and when we force her to she just tells us how awful she is and to leave before she makes it worse."
Hana snorted. "The best lie is the truth, told so that it is not believed. I guess little Ms. Roundheels really does know her trade after all."
"Momma!"
"She doesn't need help. She's just playing you, cricket. The sad broken bird, so pitiable and in need of protection and comfort. Everyone must stop everything and flutter about to make her life better. Look at that terrible Hana woman—how cruel was she to say mean things to our poor, sensitive Lady Gōketsu!" She clasped both hands to her face in simulated and overblown horror.
"Listen, cricket. Either Inoue's too weak to be useful or she's tough enough to stand on her own two feet. Stop giving her the attention she craves and she'll be back to turning her old tricks soon enough."
"Jiraiya doesn't think so. He told us to get all the sharp objects away from her and watch out for her."
"Clever; by playing along with her strategem he gains political leverage against the Mist envoy, and he forces you to choose between me and him."
"Momma, that is not what's happening."
Hana's lips pursed and eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Fine," she said. "Let's say that she's exactly as wounded and broken and miserable and pathetic as she's absolutely pretending to be. She deserves every moment of it. Do you understand what she did? People are dead because of her treason, cricket. Friends of mine are dead. She took you away from me, took Noburi and Keiko away from their families, stripped Mist of a noticeable chunk of its military power. Then she led you into causing an international incident that came very close to starting a war. Then—"
"Um...actually, Momma, that was me."
Hana stopped mid-sentence. "What?"
The question of the Cold Stone Killers had been the center of twenty minutes of the Hazō/Noburi/Keiko discussion that had led him here. The boundaries of OPSEC had been weighed with precision, the tradeoffs between effectiveness and secrecy counted to the last grain. The words of confession had been polished with a gusto that had caused Noburi far too much joy and Hazō far too much embarrassment. It had been a basic assumption among the three of them that Hana already knew much of it, since Ren had doubtlessly briefed her with all the necessary ammunition before arrival. As such, there was nothing to do but wield the truth like a blade no matter how much it seared his hand.
"I was the one who talked everyone into going on that mission, Momma. It was supposed to be a simple information retrieval thing, but then it kept getting more complicated. The bodyguard turned out to be a jōnin, there was another person involved that we hadn't expected, the information was tattoos instead of a scroll...we could have bailed early—should have, even, but I kept pushing it because I didn't want to lose, and I talked everyone else into going along."
Hana shook her head tiredly. "Oh, cricket...look what she's done to you. She's even convinced you to take the blame for her mistakes. She was the jōnin, the team leader, the infiltration specialist. You were a genin with no training and no other sources of guidance but she's convinced you that it was your fault? I'm so sorry, cricket."
Hazō glared. "Stop it, Momma! I'm not a stupid kid. I'm a grown ninja, and I can take responsibility for my own actions. You are devaluing my agency and my intelligence, and I do not appreciate it."
Hana leaned back, blinking in surprise. "Cricket...I didn't mean—"
"Yes, Momma. You did. That is exactly what you meant. You think I'm too young, too inexperienced, and too stupid to see through Mari-sensei's games? Sure, I know I can't spot every time she gets fancy, but I can spot some of it. She did not want to go on that mission. I convinced Kagome and the others and together we convinced Mari-sensei. When things started getting complicated they had already agreed to follow my lead on the mission, so they didn't protest. It went from 'complicated' to 'utterly screwed up' in the space of a minute, so none of us knew exactly how bad things were going to go."
"Cricket, as much as she disgusts me, she's very good at what she does—"
"Momma. I have been at her side almost constantly for two years, and I know her. I have spotted her lies several times, when it was not to her advantage for me to spot them. Yes, I'm sure she can fool me if she tries, but not constantly and not for a week straight. She's losing weight and muscle tone and she hasn't taken a bath or washed her hair in five days. That is not something she would do. She's a little vain, especially about her hair; when we were camping in the woods she kept it clean and neat even when water was hard to get. When she was wounded, she was doing kata as soon as she could stand, just so that she wouldn't get too stiff or lose too much muscle. She is miserable to the point where I'm sincerely worried she's going to kill herself, and you are the only one who can fix her. Please, Momma. Please help."
Hana sat in silence for long seconds.
"Fine," she said at last, standing up. "Wait here." She was in motion, vanishing through the bedroom door, before Hazō knew what was happening.
"Momma?"
Seconds later, Hana was back. She wore full field uniform, although her holsters and sheathes were conspicuously empty. She brushed past him, headed for the front door of her quarters.
"Come along, Hazō," she called over her shoulder. "No dawdling."
Hazō gaped for a moment, then scrambled along in her wake. A feeling of dread shook his bones.
o-o-o-o
The moment they were inside the door of the Gōketsu manor, Hazō called out, "Everyone, I'm back! And Momma's with me! Everything's okay! Kagome-sensei, no need for explosions!"
The sound of pounding feet rapidly approaching did nothing to slow Hana's progress. She pushed Hazō ahead of herself, demanding directions through the maze of passages that led to the master bedroom, and barged through the door of Mari-sensei's room without knocking.
At the sound of the door, Mari-sensei's head came up in surprise. She was burrowed into the blankets and had been crying again; her eyes were red and her nose was running. Her hair hung in limp, greasy strands around her face—which did nothing to deter Hana from grabbing said hair at the roots and pulling Mari-sensei to her feet.
"Up," Hana hissed, turning for the door with her hand—and therefore Mari-sensei's head—fixed firmly to her hip. The Lady of the Gōketsu clan was forced to scramble along the outside of the turn, bent over and struggling to keep her footing. Hana took advantage of her victim's discombobulation to capture Mari-sensei's inside wrist in a wicked nikkyo grip, extending Mari-sensei's arm straight up. As Hana dragged her victim out the door and down the hall she used the arm as a lever to shift her prisoner to one side or the other whenever the other woman started to catch her balance and get to a position where she could fight back.
For a fleeting moment, Hazō considered trying to interefere, but common sense told him that it was far more important to interfere with Kagome-sensei's inevitable reaction. The man himself was coming down the hall at a dead run, hands raised and blast-rings extended. Hazō threw himself into the line of fire and stayed there when Kagome-sensei shifted to the side to get a clean shot. He closed on his teacher quickly, pushing his arms upwards with a crossed-hand block that allowed him to trap both of Kagome-sensei's wrists and keep them directed away from anything squishy, like people. Hazō turned a hip to block the frantic knee to his groin and then chakra-adhered his back foot to the ground so he could drive forward with all his strength, pushing Kagome-sensei into the wall and keeping him pinned there, one shoulder against the man's chest.
"Let me go!" Kagome-sensei cried, thrashing as hard as he could. He sent a burst of chakra repulsion surging through his feet, trying to throw himself up and clear of Hazō's grip, but the younger ninja pushed him to the side and off-balance before adhering his own feet tightly to the floor.
"Sensei, it's all right!" he said desperately. "Momma's not going to hurt her, I promise!" Well, that wasn't true. Momma hadn't been this angry since the Tablecloth Incident when Hazō was nine; Mari-sensei was definitely going to have bruises, but there wouldn't be any serious damage. He hoped.
"Let go of me! She's going to kill her!" Kagome-sensei was desperate, pushing as hard as he could, striking at Hazō with his knees and stomping down in an attempt to break his feet. Hazō shifted and turned, soaking the knee strikes on his thighs and hips and deflecting the stomps to the side until Momma had dragged Mari-sensei out of sight around the corner.
"Sensei, I promise, it's all right!" Hazō said, releasing his teacher and slowly stepping back. "Momma agreed to help pull Mari-sensei out of this funk. She's probably the only one who can do it—Mari-sensei always looked up to Momma, and she'll listen." He hoped that was true, anyway. Momma had been a jōnin long before Mari-sensei had, and there weren't that many female jōnin, especially not ones who specialized in close combat. It would make sense for Mari-sensei to have admired her, perhaps treated her as a role model. It would also explain why Momma's words, whatever they had been, had hit so hard.
"But she was hurting her!" Kagome-sensei's eyes were wide and his manner frantic, but there were reassuring traces of uncertainty as well.
Hazō cleared his throat, embarrassed. "Momma can be a little...direct, when she thinks someone needs to man up," he said, rubbing his backside without realizing he was doing it. "She's a good leader. I have a feeling that pretty soon Mari-sensei is going to be too tired to feel miserable."
Kagome-sensei calmed slowly, his face shifting from panic to disgusted anger. "You're just going to let that woman treat Mari like that? Just because she's your mother? Mari is part of our team!"
"Kagome-sensei," Hazō said tiredly, "yes, Mari-sensei is part of our team. She's also miserable to the point where she's not even getting out of bed except to pee. I'm doing everything I can to take care of her, and the best way I know to do that is to get Momma."
Kagome-sensei digested that for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was low and trembled slightly with suppressed rage. "You didn't tell me."
Hazō froze. "What?"
"You could have told me that's what you were planning," Kagome-sensei said, his voice icy. "The idea of including me is so bizarre to you that when I point it out you can't even make a response. What, you think I'm too stupid to help?"
"No, but...."
"Yes, that is exactly what you think. I know I'm not good with people and yes, I'm nervous around threats and yes, I react by destroying them immediately. You don't think maybe that would have been a good reason to let me know what to expect? Or am I just that crazy old hermit you picked up in the woods, good for seal lessons and making skywalker blanks and traps, but not for anything actually important?"
"No, sensei! No, we just—"
"I don't want to hear it. I am going after them and watching to make sure that your mother is effective and safe. If she endangers Mari, I will kill your mother. If she's not getting the job done, I will tell her to leave. If she does not and continues to harrass Mari, I will kill your mother. If she is both effective and safe then I won't interfere. For now, don't talk to me."
Hazō watched helplessly as his teacher and (former?) friend turned and jogged away. After a few seconds, Hazō went after him.
o-o-o-o
Hana dragged Mari out the front door of the house, across the snow-covered lawn, and into the ice-rimed koi pond. Hand still tight in Mari's hair, she shoved the other woman's head under the surface and held her there while she attacked said hair with a bar of harsh soap that she'd slipped into a pocket of her flak vest before leaving her quarters. She ignored Mari's struggles, yanking the other woman's head around to keep her off balance, deflecting the occasional flailing hand with a forearm or shoulder, and chakra-adhering her feet to the bottom of the thigh-deep pond to prevent a leg grab from being turned into a throw. Periodically she would turn in place, dragging Mari around the outside of the circle so as to leave her scrambling and unable to fight back.
After nearly a minute she pulled a choking Mari up just long enough to let her splutter out the water and inhale, then shoved her down again and went back to scouring her hair. By now there was an audience: all three genin and the crazy explosives master. Hazō was busy, talking to the man with an intense, pleading tone that seemed to be bouncing off. Kagome was completely ignoring him, counting quietly to himself with his eyes fixed firmly on Hana and an expression on his face that promised doom.
Fifty-three seconds; time for air again, and the hair was clean enough for now. She yanked Mari up and dragged her out of the pond, going to one knee as she shoved Mari face-down in the frozen mud at the edge. Kagome's head jerked, his mouth tightened, and his hand started to rise, pausing after only a few inches and then going back to his side. The look he gave her could have melted Kōzuna steel; she made sure not to react, but also to keep one eye on him in her peripheral vision.
"It's all right, Kagome," Mari choked out. "Stand down. I deserve it."
"Yes, you do, you little shit," Hana hissed, bending low so that the others wouldn't be able to catch her precise words She put one knee on Mari's neck and a hand on her forearm so that the smaller woman was completely immobilized. "You're a traitor, a manipulator, and the world would be better off without you, but—"
"I know," Mari sobbed. "I know. I'm sorry. Everything I touch is destroyed. I wanted to help, I wanted to be better, but I'm—"
"Be silent!" Hana hissed. "Have some self-respect. I am not going to let you add 'self-pitying skinwaste' to your extensive list of failings. Hazō wants you functional and he makes some good arguments, so I'm going to help him. Understand: I do not forgive you. I will never forgive you. There is nothing good about you, you lack all integrity and honor, and I sincerely hope that I get to spit on your grave. But! Hazō pointed out that you can be useful, and claims that you want to change. Fine. Prove it. Keep the Hyūga and the other clans out of power. Make life better for my son and his friends. Do not ever try to come between us. And for Sage's sake, clean yourself up! Wallowing in your own stench because you refuse to even get out of bed—what kind of ninja does that?"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry..." Mari sobbed.
"Don't waste my time. I know perfectly well that this broken-bird act of yours is just an act. You disgust me and I want nothing to do with you, but I am not willing to let your fake tears drive a wedge any farther between me and Hazō. I will help you 'recover from your misery' and 'redeem yourself'. We both know you aren't actually going to change—you aren't capable of it. But, you can be useful to my son, so I will bend just enough to help you. I'll be coming here every day from now on. When I arrive you will be out of bed, bathed, fed, and exercising. You will act like a human being to the rest of your family. If I see any more of this poor-me act then first I'll bring you out here for another wash and afterwards I'll get creative. Understood?"
"Yes! Yes, I'm sorry. I will, I promise, I—"
"Stop whining," Hana said, standing up and stepping back. "Get on your feet. You want to be a better person? Act like it! Show me that you're sincere about wanting to change. And go wash that mud off!" She turned and strode away, not sparing so much as a glance at the young genin who watched her in shock or the older man who had tried to kill her twice in the last few minutes.
o-o-o-o
The skinwaste wasn't manning the desk this time. Today there was a grizzled veteran with chūnin flashes on his vest and a huge bandage across the left side of his neck and down his shoulder that suggested he was on convalescent duty.
"What can I do for you, sir?" he asked as Hazō walked through the door.
"Good morning," Hazō said, nodding politely. "I was hoping you had a till'n'fill?"
The man seemed surprised, but he scanned down the mission list for a moment.
"Yeah, I've got one," he said. "Bunch of suckvines encroaching on a farm about an hour out. The farmers could handle it, but it's a rough job for softfoots. The pay is absolute shit, though. I can't even believe they posted it. Seriously, five hundred ryō?"
Hazō shrugged. "I just want to be useful," he said. "It's not really about the money."
The older man snorted. "Yeah, I suppose not. Well, if you're nutty enough to want it, it's yours. You've got the capacity, yeah?"
"Yes sir. Couple of options, I'll need to see the lay of the land first. Multiple Earth Wall up under it to rip them loose, a taijutsu-enhancing jutsu to destroy them physically, or maybe just throw some tags in."
"Tags? But—oh, right. You're the clan that throws tags around like popcorn at a kid's birthday." He chuckled and marked the job off, passing the sheet over as he did. "We heard the stories about the Chūnin Exams. Did you really level all four of their shoot houses?"
"Not...completely," Hazō said. "About three quarters on the first two, but after that we realized we needed to be more restrained so that there would still be cells to put the prisoners in. We saved most of the third one and only put a few minor holes in the fourth."
The man laughed. "My man." He hesitated, then leaned forward conspiratorially. "Look, I'm sorry, but I really have to ask: Is it true that you stopped on the fourth one because that Yamanaka girl made your brother strip to his underwear and dance the wiggyjiggy?"
"No!" Hazō said. "No, that wasn't it. We made a deal with them in advance. Smashed up their bunker a little so it looked like we fought and we passed the word around that we lost because Yamanaka grabbed Noburi and held him hostage. Didn't really happen, though."
"Uh-huh." The man seemed disbelieving. "Well, thanks for the story. You should drop by the Soggy Tag some time after the tournament. Wednesday is Tall Tales night, and every new crop of chūnin, whether from the Exams or not, have to play." He winked. "There might be a bit of booze involved, too."
Hazō grinned, somewhere between nervously and gratefully. "Sounds like fun, I'll be there. Thanks."
"Thanks for making all the other villages look like a bunch of wet noodles," the chūnin grunted. "I particularly love hearing any story about those Cloud bastards getting it."
o-o-o-o
Things were going well. Mari-sensei's cure was in progress; Momma's harsh motivational session last night meant that Mari-sensei had been out of bed at dawn, bathing, making breakfast for everyone, eating breakfast (without a word, head hanging down, spoon periodically going still in her oatmeal before she remembered to eat again), and then practicing katas. It wasn't much, but it was progress.
He'd done a till'n'fill in the morning, giving him a feeling of satisfaction and comportment with his goals.
He'd spent four hours training with Ebisu-sensei. The man had been infuriated when Hazō tried to leave after two hours; his teaching methods had gotten both harder and weirder, something that Hazō would not have thought possible. Still, it had been useful.
Now it was time for the next item on his checklist: enacting Yamanaka Ino's how-not-to-get-blamed-for-the-orgy advice.
There had been two pieces to the advice: Question the Hokage about his sexual history, which was not happening because Jiraiya was barely home ever, and question a list of people about the sexual history of one Mitarashi Anko. Yamanaka had been struggling not to cackle as she gave him this advice, but had given no hint of what was so funny.
"Here you are, dear," said Granny Tsukuda, handing him another potato. Everyone in the neighborhood called the old store owner Granny, and she and her store had been there longer than anyone could remember. She was wizened and stooped, almost as old as Auntie the librarian. She didn't see well anymore so she had to squint to count Hazō's change after he bought the various groceries that had been his pretext for coming in.
"Thank you, Granny," he said, taking the sack from her. "Not too busy right now, I see."
"No, right after lunch is always slow, except on Sundays. The rush will come through tonight."
"Makes sense. I was noticing a lot of footprints on your roof—do you get many ninja in here?"
"Oh, yes! Lots and lots. There's sweet little Sho, and Katashi, and Anko, and—"
"Anko? Mitarashi Anko, that purple-haired woman?"
"Yes, that's her. Sweetest thing, even if she is a bit of a twist. A little wild, perhaps, but she's still got time to settle down. In a real relationship, I mean. Not that Ibiki isn't a fine man, but he's too old for her, and what kind of father would he be? Can you imagine the next generation of ninja being raised by him? Poor wee ones!"
Hazō frowned, trying to place the name. "Hang on. Morino Ibiki, the head of Torture and Interrogation? That Ibiki?"
"Yes! Who did you think I was talking about?"
"I, uh, I just...didn't...." He stumbled to a halt until his brain finished restarting. "Wow. Okay, it took me a minute. So Mitarashi is dating Morino?"
The dried-apple face with its permanent smile nodded gleefully. "Yes, although she's leading him on a bit if you ask me. She's been stepping out with that waitress girl from Moritake's...Ueda something?"
Something had to be wrong with his ears. "Mitarashi Anko is dating two people. One of them is the head of Torture and Interrogation. The other one is a civilian waitress?" Hazō laid it out like a report because he needed the world to start making sense again.
"Exactly! Scandalous, isn't it?" She held out something in a twist of waxed paper. "Sucking candy?"
"Thanks," Hazō said, unwrapping the paper and popping the crystallized honey in his mouth. Granny only had two teeth left but somehow she still managed to make her own candy click against them.
"The most incredible part is that I think Ibiki knows about the other girl," Granny whispered, leaning in close with a naughty smile. "I bet the three of them get up to wild things together. Oh, I remember what it was like being that age...I used to be quite the looker, you know. Had the boys on a string for a while. Of course, I never got silly with other girls. Decent woman, you know? I imagine the boys today are just as excited about the idea of two girls at once as they used to be. Tell me, is it true that you ninja can change shape and make your willies two feet long?"
"What? No! No, we can't change shape."
The old woman cackled, which quickly turned into a hacking cough. She fumbled a small green bottle out from behind the counter and took a swig. "Too bad. Never know what you ninjas can get up to. You can make copies of yourselves, right?"
"Some of us can, yeah. Why?"
Painted-dark eyebrows waggled salaciously. "You've never thought about the possibilities? I'm sure Ibiki is a strapping man but still...if you want to please two girls at once it's easier to have two men, right?"
"Uh...excuse me, I have a thing I need to do."
o-o-o-o
"Ueda? Yeah, she's a good kid. Hard worker, doesn't make trouble. Why?"
It had taken Hazō several hours to track Koizumi Shōhei down to his favorite pub, where the Moritaki dishwasher was enjoying a lunch consisting of a sandwich the size of his head and a mug of dark beer. Hazō had gone in in disguise, meaning that he'd removed his ninja headband and put on clothes suitable to a civilian apprentice scribe. It wasn't complicated—a moderately-upscale robe, some inkstains on his fingers, and he was good to go. Koizumi had been perfectly happy to have a stranger sit down and start talking to him so long as the stranger in question brought beer.
"I...I was wondering, um, if she's, well...."
Koizumi started laughing and reached across the table to clap Hazō on the shoulder, utterly failing to notice the way Hazō overrode his own reflexes so as not to block the blow with bone-snapping ninja strength. "Got yourself a bit of a crush there, kid? She's a little old for you, isn't she?"
Hazō looked up from where he'd been staring at his nervously-twisting fingers. He deliberately made his eyes soulful. "The heart wants what the heart wants, sir. I've been working on a poem for her. I'm sure if I can just get her to listen once, she'll understand that we're meant to be together."
Koizumi laughed hard enough that he started choking and had to pound on his own chest and take a deep swig of beer in order to stop.
"You seem like a nice kid, Rikuto," he said kindly. "It's not happening, though. Even if she weren't too old for you, she's taken."
"Taken?" Hazō managed to pack an ocean of crushed dreams into the single word.
"Yeah, sorry. If it's any comfort, she wouldn't go for you anyway. She's a twist, right? Only does girls. And just in case you thought you still had a shot, the chick she's banging is a ninja. Crazy one, too. Purple hair, dresses like a total slut but you better never say that to her face. She was at the bar yesterday, some guy grabbed her ass from behind where he couldn't see her headband. She grabbed his hand without looking and broke three of his fingers. Then she turned around, stabbed him in the neck with a sword and tossed him out into the street."
Hazō blinked. "She what?"
"Yeah, she whacked him right in the common room. I was in the back, of course, so I didn't see it myself. Still, I heard about it from Reo who was working the floor at the time. He said he was in the porch section but he caught the tail end of it as she was throwing the guy through the door, and he heard the rest from Kaito, who was behind the bar and so he had a front-row seat."
To the best of Hazō's knowledge, Mitarashi was not a weapon user, so whatever she'd stuck the guy with—if anything—had definitely not been a sword. Kunai was the obvious choice, grown in the telling. Needles were more probable, though; Mitarashi was known for their use and for poison. Poisons were an unusual tool for ninja—they generally didn't take effect fast enough to matter in a ninja battle and they had a number of challenges such as drying out and thereby losing efficacy, or accidentally sticking yourself. Still, they were a good fit for terrorizing civilians, especially if what you had was embarrassing but not dangerous. For example, an emetic.
On the other hand, even if she hadn't "stabbed him in the neck with a sword", she'd clearly done something to the guy. Given the 'no harming civilians' rules....
"I thought ninja weren't allowed to hurt civilians?"
Koizumi snorted. "Where have you been, kid? Ninja hurt civilians all the time."
"They do?"
"Sure. My gran was in the market two weeks ago, buying persimmons. Accidentally bumped into a ninja at the fruit stall. She apologized, but the guy used some of his ninja magic on her. She had the runs real bad for three straight days."
Hazō was not the Professor, master of every ninjutsu, but he was still pretty confident that there was no such thing as Diarrhea no Jutsu. Most likely the old woman had eaten too many persimmons and blamed it on the ninja.
"'Course, she got off easy. One time, my uncle Noritaka was minding his own business when a bar fight started around him. He spills his beer and some of it splashes on this big ninja dude. Next thing my uncle knows, everyone in the room has two broken legs and a broken arm.
"Anyway, that Ueda chick...yeah, crying shame she's a twist. I wouldn't mind taking a run at her myself, you know? Those long legs, great rack—yeah, man! Got all her teeth and skin's good, so she's probably healthy. And the way she moves, I bet she'd make the mattress bounce right up to the ceiling!"
"Hah! Good one," Hazō said, painting a smile on his face and refusing to show his revulsion at the man's boorish behavior. "Hang on, purple-haired female ninja...I know that one. She was in my master's shop the other day. Mi...Mit...Mitarashi, that was it. Mitarashi Anko. Does she come into Moritaki's often?"
Koizumi brayed a laugh. "Now that one is definitely out of your league, kid! Yeah, she's in a bunch. Smoking hot, you know? The two of them together, man, that must practically light the place up, am I right?"
"Absolutely," Hazō said, nodding and taking a small sip from his own mug of beer, bought solely as a pretense. "Still, I thought Mitarashi was dating that guy from Torture and Interrogation? Morino?"
"He the old guy, wears the bandana on his head under his headband? Yeah, he and Mitarashi were in the other day. Had dinner, then walked Ueda home. They thought they were being slick—the two of them went out first and waited in the alley for Ueda to get off her shift. I was cracking eggs by the back door—for the cake batter, y'know?—and I saw them get down to some serious macking until Ueda come out. They only stopped when she got there. The guy hugs her, Mitarashi starts to kiss her like she's about to tear Ueda's clothes off, but then she stops and keeps it a little calmer. Too bad; I thought I was gonna get a free show.
"Anyway, the three of 'em walk off, arms around each other with Ueda in the middle. Total bunch of pervs but hey. Ninja got a hard life, if they need to pick up some tail, who am I to complain? Seemed like Ueda was happy enough to go with them, so she's probably getting paid enough to make it worth her while. Good for her—tough world, you gotta have some hustle, am I right?"
"Sure," Hazō said, standing up. "Thanks for the talk."
There was an end to how much boorishness Hazō was willing to tolerate.
o-o-o-o
"Excuse me, sir?"
"What can I do for you, son?" Chūza asked. The old apothecary was rail-thin and must have felt the cold keenly, because he was bundled up in heavy wool robes with a fur wrapped around his shoulders in a room that was practically sweltering from the coal in the firebox.
Hazō shrugged out of his own heavy winter coat. He was still wearing his "scribe apprentice" getup underneath, figuring that it seemed to have worked well once so he might as well continue.
"Good afternoon, sir," he said. "My mom sent me to get some things, and I was hoping you could help me?" He pulled a slip of paper out and passed it to the shop owner.
"Hm...Sage's foil, bridesleaf, and tansy?" He raised an eyebrow at Hazō. "What exactly are her symptoms, young man?"
Hazō shifted nervously, allowing his eyes to dart away from those of the apothecary. "She...uh...she's got a real upset stomach."
"Hence the bridesleaf. Sage's foil is for bruises."
Hazō swallowed nervously. "She walked into a door the other night."
"I see. Did this door happen to make her pregnant so that she needs tansy?"
"Look, her friend Ueda said that you were the guy to go to. I've got money, and mom really needs the herbs. Can we just do this?"
The old man frowned. "Ueda told her this? Ueda Reizo, Morino's girlfriend?"
"I guess," Hazō said, shrugging. "Pretty girl, uh, busty...has all her teeth? I remember that. She...works near my mom."
The apothecary's frown deepened, becoming even more confused. "Works near...." The frown disappeared and his face suffused with an unnameable emotion that was somewhere between anger and fear. "You need to leave, young man."
"What? But...my herbs!"
"Ueda Reizo is a wonderful young woman and a valued customer. There is nothing wrong with her or her friends! Nothing! Now, get out!"
Hazō barely had time to get his coat back on before he was pushed outside the shop and the door closed behind him. He stood in the street, considering the door and thinking.
As he'd thought, Ueda was no prostitute. Which left...what? Granny and Koizumi said that Mitarashi was dating Morino and 'stepping out' with Ueda on the side. How that even worked, he had no idea—were there people who wanted both men and women? Regardless, leave that aside. Chūza said Ueda was dating Morino, made no mention of Mitarashi, and had been frightened to even discuss the subject.
Who in the names of every nightmare were these people?!
XP AWARD: 4
This update covers about 36 hours, ending just before sundown. (~6pm)
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on Wednesday, October 24, 2018, at 12pm London time.
It was a grim morning at the Gōketsu compound. Mari-sensei had, to give her credit, shambled downstairs in time for breakfast, and could be charitably described as presentable. She had not said a word to anyone, and was now gazing into her bowl of porridge as if wishing it was deep enough to drown herself in.
Keiko was eating her porridge with regular, mechanical precision, one spoonful every eight seconds, while staring into the distance. Noburi was shovelling his down with a minor sense of urgency. And Kagome-sensei was mirroring Mari-sensei, looking as if he was wondering what kind of seal it would take to make his porridge overflow and drown the world, returning him to the quiet, peaceful life of a hermit.
Hazō swallowed. What he was going to do could so easily end badly, but he couldn't stand seeing his family like this a second longer. He'd tried to plan ahead, but when there was so much emotion bound up in your words, sometimes you just had to take the bull by the horns and pray it didn't throw you off and proceed to gore you before you were done.
He stood up. "Everyone, can I please have your attention?"
Mari-sensei and Kagome-sensei suspended their lamentations. Noburi warily lowered his spoon. Keiko withdrew from whatever alien dimension her mind had been occupying. Hazō could only pray that he hadn't miscalculated how they'd react.
He took the plunge.
"Keiko, congratulations on your new relationship!"
All eyes swivelled to Keiko. Mari-sensei in appalled shock, probably struggling to figure out how this was her fault. Kagome-sensei with the same expression of "Why would you do that to yourself?" that he'd displayed when Hazō had announced that he was dating Akane. Noburi with... less surprise than he'd expected. Huh.
Keiko herself made a noise like a strangled parakeet.
"I was always worried that you two might end up just spending time together because it was expected of you. I'm so glad I was wrong. Things couldn't have worked out better." Hazō beamed with a combination of genuine happiness and fear of imminent evisceration. "So yeah, congratulations. I hope your love lasts far into the future."
Keiko ran out of parakeet.
"Wh-What evidence do you have that I am in any sort of relationship?"
"I saw you and Shikamaru together the other day, remember? You were acting less emotionle— reserved towards each other than usual, and you were using each other's first names."
Keiko spent a couple of seconds taking this in.
"I fail to see how you could possibly leap to that conclusion!" she snapped. "Our use of first names was merely to reflect our relationship ascending to a new level of intimacy, such that social mores which once enforced a natural level of distance have come to serve as barriers to interaction."
A number of looks were exchanged.
"Sure, Keiko. And I suppose you're going to tell me that it means nothing that you went out with him even though neither Jiraiya nor Mari-sensei could have scheduled an instance of two individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship?"
"Precisely. We have merely decided that our relationship has progressed to such a stage that it is no longer necessary or appropriate for others to be thus involved in our enjoyment of each other's company, and that we should be open to more flexible forms of interaction. I fail to see how there is any room for ambiguity.
"Now if you will excuse me, I have a liaison to attend. Hazō, kindly cease to be Rock Lee before my return."
Hazō watched her go, still not sure what he'd done wrong. Mari-sensei returned to her scheduled self-loathing, Kagome-sensei's expression had not changed in any way whatsoever, and Noburi was cracking up with laughter for reasons known only to himself.
None of this boded well.
-o-
It was late in the morning, but this was Shiori's day off, and at least for a little while, she intended to indulge herself by staying in bed and thinking about Keiko.
She just couldn't make herself like her former rival. Keiko had attempted, without hesitation, to forever sacrifice her own happiness for Shikamaru's sake. Shiori had forever sacrificed some of her own happiness in return. A thousand sworn oaths of friendship couldn't have made a truer bond, whether Shiori liked it or not.
And she didn't. She had a grudging respect for Keiko—it was impossible not to, after what they'd shared—but that girl made no sense. On the face of it, she was all that was wrong with the world. She didn't have a drop of passion in her veins. She was a cunning socialite who trapped the innocent in her complex webs of intrigue even when it turned out she didn't want anything from them. She'd played with Shiori like a toy, alternately exciting and terrifying her, in the full knowledge that no orgy was planned, nor would ever be. She was noble clan malevolence incarnate.
And at the same time, this avatar of evil had championed the cause of some random half-blood who'd just told her she had nothing to offer. She had been ready to abandon her rise to power in the Nara Clan for the sake of love, and love of a common-born at that. That night, she'd talked completely straight, even if Shiori hadn't entirely understood what she was saying, and she'd offered them all intimacy as if it was no big deal.
What the hell was wrong with that girl?
The image of Keiko watching the sunset next to her was stuck in her head, going round and round, a real-life paradox she could not resolve. Oh, yes, Tenten was there as well, because Keiko was still a sexually deviant libertine.
The orgy part had somehow turned out to be a big misunderstanding. The Shikamaru-seducing part even more so. Would it have killed Keiko to go for a hat trick of normality?
Instead… two girls. How would they even… Why would they even… What did they even do together?
Not that she was interested as such. The idea of Shiori falling for another girl the way they did was literally unimaginable. It was just another way in which everything about Keiko made her head spin.
Come to think of it, Keiko had been explicit about only having platonic feelings for Shikamaru, but she hadn't never actually denied having designs on Shiori's body. Shiori would have to clear that up, and wouldn't that be the most awkward conversation ever. Still, Shikamaru had now told her about the illusion of transparency, and she could clearly remember the clusterfu—the fiasco that it had caused last time.
"Shiori!" came a call from downstairs. "Gōketsu Keiko wants you!"
WTF.
Oh, right.
Shiori quickly slipped on her clothes, made sure her bed was made according to exacting specifications (it was a nice thing to come home to at the end of the day), and virtually ran downstairs.
"Good morning, Shiori," Keiko gave a shallow bow. "May I speak with you in private?"
"Sure," Shiori said, cursing the world for the next words to come out of her mouth, "why don't we go up to my room?"
Keiko's gaze swept around Shiori's room, stopping on the bookshelves (why hadn't Shiori turned the spines inwards?!), the shuriken scattered in the corner (which Shiori swore she had been going to polish once she was done thinking about Keiko) and the wall painting (would Keiko consider starlit skies too kitschy?), before finally coming to rest on the bed with a faint look of approval.
Shiori suppressed… OK, she wasn't sure exactly what she was suppressing, but she definitely suppressed the hell out of it.
"How can I help you, Keiko?"
Keiko firmly closed the door behind her, which didn't help the vibe any.
"I spoke to Tenten earlier," she said, "and she suggested that we might benefit from an instance of two individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship."
Shiori goggled. "You're asking me on a date?!"
"No! Why does everyone keep assuming that?
"I misspoke," Keiko said more calmly. "The phrase simply rolls off the tongue so easily. I meant an instance of four individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship."
"A double date?!"
Keiko groaned. "Why am I surrounded by perverts who see infatuation and lechery in every word and action, no matter how innocent? No offence."
Shiori really wished she could deny it, but with their history…
"I meant," Keiko said, "or rather Tenten meant, that given our strange entanglement, we could all benefit from deepening our mutual acquaintance, as opposed to leaving the further development of our relations to the vagaries of a sadistic fate."
"Oh. So what did you have in mind?"
"What else? 2v2 combat!"
Shiori's eyes lit up. Fighting Shikamaru would be good. They didn't do enough of that these days, what with him being involved in mysterious high-level clan projects that even his left-hand woman wasn't cleared for. Fighting Tenten would be interesting as well. She rather liked Tenten after the events of Lovers' Hill, and was looking forward to seeing her in action. And Keiko… being able to strip off the layers of Keiko's arrogance one by one while Shikamaru watched would do her a world of good, and unresolved feelings be damned.
-o-
Kei smiled with relief on the inside, where her limited skill with facial expressions would not risk misleading Shiori. She had been concerned, at first, that the aftermath of Lovers' Hill might result in a complex relationship with Shiori that she lacked the social insight to navigate (especially without Mari-sensei's help). Fortunately, Shiori seemed to have retained the straightforwardly amiable if slightly over-enthusiastic personality she had displayed at the gaming night.
"Keiko…" Shiori said with a curious edge of anxiety as Kei reached for the door handle.
"Yes?"
"Just wondering… please don't take this the wrong way, but do you have any designs on my body?"
For a moment, the question took Kei so off guard that her mind flashed to the literal meaning of "designs", and by extension nude modelling. She found herself blushing before she knew it. However, Kei lacked artistic skill, and more importantly, relationship complexities notwithstanding, there was no possible way Shiori would make such a request when they barely knew each other.
Hence designs in the pragmatic sense. Of course. They were, after all, about to go training together.
Kei studied Shiori's body in detail. It would have been mortifyingly inappropriate in an ordinary social context, but here she was doing it at Shiori's explicit request. Slightly taller than an average sixteen-year-old. Supple. Surprisingly good musculature for a Nara. Little excess weight, which, given the typical Nara lifestyle, suggested not only exercise but dieting. Pleasingly endowed, but not so much so as to inhibit combat performance. Mind out of the gutter, Kei. She could always revisit the matter later if necessary.
She spent several minutes examining an increasingly crimson and curiously silent Shiori from all angles, mindful of the need to live up to her expectations and provide a well-founded answer.
Yes, she decided, she approved of what she saw. Shiori's hourglass figure was sufficiently different to Tenten's straight build that Kei would need to adjust her aiming angles in order to achieve maximum accuracy on the desired body parts, especially given expected variations in stance. She was also keen to see how the larger bust (and corresponding variation in armour type) would alter Shiori's silhouette and weight distribution while in motion.
"I believe your body will serve my purposes very well, Shiori, and likely Tenten's as well. I eagerly anticipate making extensive use of it, in a number of different ways.
"Thank you for being so uninhibited about this," she added. "You truly live up to the Nara reputation for open-mindedness."
With that, Kei left the room to allow Shiori to change into combat gear, quietly relieved at Shiori's continued tendency for open, direct communication.
-o-
Shiori gritted her teeth as another training kunai came within centimetres of severing an elbow tendon before being deflected. Just a few seconds more…
Keiko and Tenten's movement was perfect, a criss-crossing pattern of retreat in which each blurred the other's form even as they fired kunai past each other, inexplicably avoiding friendly fire. Shiori envied their effortless synchronisation compared to her and Shikamaru's need for sometimes detailed hand signals. Someday, she pledged, the two of them would be just as perfectly in sync.
Against any other combo, the tactics being used by the two girls would have been devastating. But right now, they were dealing with not one but two Nara. Shiori and Shikamaru had independently seen through the pattern, and if Shiori could just keep drawing fire for a few seconds longer, Shikamaru would be in position to hit the nearest girl with Shadow Imitation. At that range, with the two defenceless against each other, and Shiori ready to throw the second their perfect guard was broken… could you say "flawless victory"?
The explosion threw Shikamaru off his feet.
"Time out!" Shiori yelled as she rushed over to him. "Shikamaru, are you all right? What happened?"
Shikamaru grunted with pain. "Own fault. Forgot I was dealing with the worst combo ever. Tenten levels of combat experience, plus Mori plan execution."
"Tenten levels?"
"I'll tell you later," Shikamaru said, holding out a hand. "Help me up, will you?"
"What happened?" Shiori repeated as she pulled him to his feet.
"A kunai I cast during one of Tenten's barrages was not a miss," Keiko explained as she walked up to them. "I had attached a training tag to it before leaving it in the obvious position."
The obvious position? Oh, that girl just had a gift for making Shiori mad.
"You brought training tags to an informal spar?" Shiori demanded. "Are you so desperate to beat us that you have to throw away expendable equipment?"
"I admit, it is not part of our preferred strategy," Keiko said. "It sacrifices too much precision and control. But as you can see, it has its merits.
"I do apologise, however, for neglecting the unfair competitive advantage. This being a spur-of-the-moment arrangement, I neglected to properly restock in advance, but I should be able to spare a couple of dozen if you want them."
"A couple of dozen?!"
"Just roll with it," Shikamaru said sympathetically. "If you engage emotionally with every instance of Gōketsu madness, your will to live is unlikely to last the day."
"Shiori," Keiko said. "As it would be unreasonable to expect you to handle both Tenten and myself simultaneously without adequate physical or mental preparation, may I suggest that we transition to a one-on-one contest? And if so, which of us would you prefer to spar with?"
"You," Shiori said determinedly. "I want you."
She'd been waiting for this all day.
-o-
It was a very different kind of game now they were alone. Without having to worry about other fighters, Shiori could focus exclusively on Keiko, setting aside every unrelated thought in favour of obliterating her nemesis. Twice now, Shiori had almost cornered Keiko, and twice Keiko had just barely managed to slip out of her clutches, both times with Shikamaru observing their relative prowess from the sidelines. But third time paid for all.
With a few of those wonderful, wonderful training tags, Shiori managed to push Keiko back into the treeline, knowing that the other girl wouldn't be able to resist the opportunity to exploit the height advantage.
And indeed she hadn't. Bouncing between trees to gain height as if through a series of wall jumps, Keiko continued to fire kunai at Shiori's shoulders—a deadly move insofar as a left shoulder wound would render her incapable of throwing anything back. Fortunately, it was all part of Shiori's master plan.
Shiori performed a series of quick throws to embed some kunai in the tree trunks. Keiko, having run out of height and anticipating the use of training tags to flush her out, jumped back down to the ground. Her focus was on not getting too close to the trees, where Shiori's kunai might hold timed-delay explosives.
As Keiko landed, Shiori plunged the second kunai set into the ground next to her, as deep as she could, then ran straight for Keiko.
Keiko moved urgently to open up distance between both them and the trees—and ran straight into the ninja wire strung between the two sets of kunai. That trick never stopped being fun.
Rather than abort her motion or bother with ninjutsu at extreme close range, Shiori covered the remaining few steps between them in a single motion, and threw the other girl down to the ground. Before Keiko could react, Shiori went down on top of her, using her superior mass to pin Keiko down. She savoured the sudden look of panic in those brown eyes as she reached for the kunai holster on her left leg. With Keiko immobilised, even the lightest touch would count as victory.
At the last second, with a desperate strength Shiori wouldn't have imagined Keiko had, her nemesis shoved her off sideways, then leapt away with chakra speed as if a giant toad was about to land on top of her.
Out of the corner of her eye, Shiori registered Shikamaru watching the fight with a sharp interest that made her heart beat even faster. Tenten, meanwhile, was giving her and Keiko the oddest look.
"I was unaware…" Keiko panted… "that the Nara made use of grappling… in their arsenal."
"Unlike certain clan heirs I won't name," Shiori said, "I'm ready to admit that a lot of people will want to get up close and personal with me once they've figured out my preferences, so I've at least got the basics down."
"You certainly took me by surprise," Keiko admitted. "What kind of paint do you use to prevent the ninja wire from glinting in the light?"
"It's a Nara special," Shiori said. "I'll teach you how to use it once we're married."
Shikamaru opened his mouth, but apparently decided it was too troublesome to say whatever he was thinking.
Shiori gave an adrenaline-fuelled predatory grin. "Let's get back to it. This time you'll be mine for sure."
-o-
Much though it pained Kei to admit it, both she and Shikamaru were well aware of the one place in Leaf where the group's privacy would be absolutely guaranteed.
"Your function room, if you please," she said to an ashen-faced Yabai Café waiter. "Terms and conditions apply."
"Terms and conditions?" Shiori asked.
"The usual," Kei said casually. "Should I be given the most insignificant reason to suspect eavesdropping, summoned giant pangolins will eradicate everyone in any way affiliated with this establishment while wiping its physical structure from the face of the earth."
"A reasonable response to civilians spying on great clan heirs," Shikamaru agreed. "I should add that any survivors will find the full weight of the law brought down upon them by the Nara Clan, and can expect a lengthy stay at the Torture and Interrogation Department while Leaf's finest interrogators attempt to establish which hostile power they serve."
"Of course, sir," the waiter said with admirable smoothness. "Would you like to hear about the dish of the day?"
-o-
"I must admit this place is beginning to grow on me," Shikamaru said, "rather like this mysterious fungus occupying half my plate."
"Oh, yes," Kei said, "you ordered chicken. If it is any consolation, that species of fungus is wholly edible, and an entirely viable option when the alternative is death by starvation in the wilderness."
"So, Keiko," Shiori said cheerfully, "how does it feel to be handed an overwhelming defeat?"
"I would hardly call four in six overwhelming," Kei observed. "If you wanted an impressive ratio, you should have accepted victory while you were ahead, instead of demanding rematch after rematch. I will admit, however, that your use of ninja wire to bind me head to toe was rather inspired."
"Yeah. I can't believe you got out of that before I could lay hands on you."
"I practice every day," Kei said wryly.
"Why are you all giving me those looks?
"In any case," she hurried on, "it was a remarkable performance against a chūnin candidate."
Shiori's eyes flashed. "I am a chūnin candidate."
"You… are?"
"This was going to be my year," Shiori glowered. "I'd finally hit the minimum mission count. I'd learned techniques I'm not allowed to tell you about yet. I was ready in every possible way. And then politics happened and all the elite genin teams got sent off instead and somebody had to stay behind and manage Shikamaru's projects for him. So don't you dare imply that you're better than me just because you were allowed to go and I wasn't."
Kei flinched. "I—I apologise. I had no idea."
"Shiori," Shikamaru said placatingly, "you know I would much rather have stayed at home while you travelled to Mist and suffered through all the tedious posturing and pointless arbitrary challenges in my place. And you know I couldn't have had the time to train another assistant to your level of capability during the brief interval between announcement and departure. It is only as a result of your efforts that Gamma through Epsilon remained on track without issues, and Mother didn't find out about Zeta."
Kei could not begin to imagine why Shiori was looking at her with an expression of triumph.
"Perhaps you are unaware," Shikamaru continued, "that I have been forced to endure any number of applications for your post. Shirayuki alone has made at least six, many of them with additional information sheets explaining in detail why you were unfit for it."
"Shirayuki," Shiori said definitively, "is a raging bitch who spends most of her time out with her friends because her ego won't fit within the compound."
"Is that so?" Shikamaru asked neutrally.
Shiori blinked. "Wait. If you didn't know she was a raging bitch, why did you pick me instead of her? I know she scored higher than me in the graduation tests, for obvious reasons."
"Obvious reasons?" Kei asked.
"I'm a half-blood," Shiori said impatiently.
"You also said this on Lovers' Hill. Why is it so important? In my former clan, half-bloods are considered useful for a variety of tasks which would be less appropriate for an ordinary Mori."
From Shiori's expression, Kei had spoken with her usual diplomatic skill.
"Less appropriate for an ordinary Mori," Shiori said. "Yes, it's exactly like that. I don't have the genius of a real Nara, and I don't have whatever it is ordinary people get instead. I… I'm happy being Shikamaru's assistant, but with my ability, that's as far as I could ever get. Someone like you would never understand."
Her gaze drifted down to her plate, and she half-heartedly stabbed through the core of the wild cabbage, just as Kei had taught her, before it could escape.
"People think being a half-blood means the two halves add together," Shiori said, still looking down. "They don't. They cancel out."
In the melancholy silence, Kei, who lacked skill through her own failure rather than being doomed to it from birth, had no idea what to say. She understood what it meant to have no agency, but as a Mori at least that was expected of her. If anything, it was a reason to be accepted by her family and peers (if one cancelled out by absolutely everything else).
Shiori said nothing more.
Then, in a motion that startled everyone in the room, Tenten placed her hand over Shiori's. As Shiori looked up at her uncertainly, Tenten spoke softly.
"I watched you grow."
The words transformed the atmosphere of the room. After a few seconds to comprehend, Shiori, with glistening eyes, placed her other hand on top of Tenten's.
Kei, who should have been—and was—touched by the warmth of the moment, found herself feeling a stab of jealousy as well. That Tenten should so easily touch hands with another girl, a gift denied to Kei being freely given to another…
Tenten, with that damnable perceptiveness she had honed in lieu of self-expression, noticed at once. So did Shiori, following her gaze.
Tenten placed her other hand lightly, briefly, on Shiori's, as if it was a parting word, then disengaged completely.
Kei was a selfish idiot who had disrupted the normal communion of normal people with her pathetic insecurity, stealing something meaningful from those she was supposed to care about. Her very presence here was a disruption, which she should have understood from the beginning yet had chosen to ignore. She should leave at once so they could begin to repair the damage.
Kei rose from her seat.
As she turned away, she registered a rapidly changing series of expressions on Shiori's face. Kei should leave swiftly, before Shiori settled on whatever she considered the most effective form of condemnation.
"Please don't go."
Kei stopped warily. It was not the traditional way to begin a litany of contempt.
"I'm sorry," Shiori said. "I should have realised you'd feel jealous. I mean, you remember how I was so jealous of you and Shikamaru that I challenged you to battle over it."
Kei turned back around. "You were jealous?" she asked bemusedly. "When did this happen?"
Shiori's jaw dropped.
Tenten looked between them helplessly.
Shikamaru sighed. "Everybody who no longer has any idea what's going on, please raise your hand."
Three hands simultaneously rose to join his own.
"You know what," Shikamaru said, "If I am to be a protagonist in one of the Hokage's novels, I require much more sugar in my bloodstream. Somebody kindly slay my side dish while I go to retrieve the dessert menu."
-o-
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-o-
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Voting ends on Saturday 27th of October, 9 a.m. New York Time.
Kagome was acting off today. He practically stomped through the door (to the degree that any ninja stomped, of course), his grunted greetings were perfunctory at best, and he did not allow Honoka to linger on her glomp of welcome. He then produced a paper and thrust it into her hands with a surly "Here, do this."
Honoka stared helplessly at the paper.
"Sensei? What is this?" she asked timidly.
"Today's problem set," Kagome-sensei growled. "It's just addition and subtraction, and just one-digit numbers. You've done this before."
"But..."
Aoi craned her neck to see over Honoka's shoulder, then blinked in surprise. She completely understood her daughter's reaction. There was nothing sensible on the page, and most of it wasn't even numbers!
"You've done this before," Kagome snapped. "You can do it."
"Kagome-sensei, could you help me in the kitchen for a moment?" Aoi asked with a smile. "Honoka, look it over, all right? We'll be right back."
"What?" Kagome demanded, the moment he and Aoi were behind the closed kitchen door.
"I wanted to make some hot chocolate but I can't operate the scroll," Aoi said. She opened the cabinet and pulled out a wooden box. She opened the box and retrieved the storage scroll that he had left with her weeks earlier, once he had decided that Honoka could operate the seal without supervision as long as she waited at least an hour between times.
Grumpily, Kagome took the scroll and opened it, popping out a crate stuffed with groceries, including a block of chocolate the size of his fist. At the sight of the chocolate his face grew even more thunderous.
"You haven't had any of the chocolate," he accused. "Why not?"
Aoi smiled and pulled one of the stools out from under the kitchen island, getting Kagome settled and fussing over him a bit to buy herself time. The actual reason, which would have been obvious to any normal person, was that the chocolate was his. Yes, he had said he was giving it to them and that they should feel free to eat it, but that was silly. What would happen if he asked for hot chocolate one day and there was none to be had because the family had given in to gluttony? There was no way that she could afford to buy more to replace it, either. Still, Kagome's reaction suggested that he really had expected her to eat it and he was now treating this as a sign of his gift being rejected.
"I found that it tastes even better when I share it with you," she said, smiling. She got a pot from the cabinet and one of the milk bottles from the crate that had been in the scroll—and wasn't that a miracle! She'd bought the milk a month ago, when one of the local farmers had had an excess and therefore was willing to sell it very cheaply if she bought two gallons. It was still just as fresh as when she'd bought it. Even winter milk would not keep so long, especially not a winter with as many unseasonably warm days as this one. She added a careful measure of milk to the pot and a gracious amount of chocolate, then set it on the stove and stood over it, stirring lazily with the long-handled wooden spoon.
"Hmph," Kagome grunted.
"Will you keep me company while it cooks?" she asked, not turning.
"I suppose," he mumbled.
Several seconds went by.
"Thank you for making me hot chocolate."
She glanced over her shoulder, giving him a smile and a quiet "You're welcome" before going back to mothering the pot. Under no circumstances would she allow this to burn, or to bubble over.
"Thank you for coming today," she said. "The weather is miserable, and Honoka and I would have completely understood if you'd stayed home."
Kagome grunted. "Squirt still needs her lessons, even if it's a little wet out."
'A little wet' was not the term she would have used for freezing rain and howling wind, but whatever.
"How are things at home?"
"Fine."
"And your research? Any luck fixing the chirality bleed on your Air Dome seals?" She had written that phrase down after he left from a lesson two weeks ago and made herself practice saying it over and over so that she would be able to pronounce it correctly when asking him about it.
"No."
Hmm.
She lifted the pot off the stove and swirled it lightly, tipping it to check if all the chocolate was fully melted. She made sure to turn slightly as she did, ensuring that he'd see the pot and hopefully smell some of the chocolate.
"Did your nephew get back from his mission?"
"Yes."
Hmph.
The chocolate was melted enough, so she poured a splash into one mug and the rest of the pot into another and handed him the full one. She took a seat across the island from him with her mug between her hands, being careful to keep the mug high so he wouldn't be able to see how scant her portion was.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
Kagome suddenly seemed to find the bottom of his mug endlessly fascinating.
"Nothing. Everything's fine." He took an angry sip.
"Mm-hm."
"It is!"
"Hm."
"Just because Hazō doesn't think I'm trustworthy or smart or whatever doesn't mean anything's wrong! I'm totally fine!"
"Oh, Kagome." She reached out, slowly, and placed a hand on his arm. It was more familiar than she would normally be with anyone, especially a ninja, and especially a male ninja with whom she was alone, but he clearly needed the comfort and she doubted he would take advantage. "Why do you feel that? What did he say?"
"He didn't talk to me when—" Kagome's mouth clopped shut. "Nothing. Nothing happened. There's no problems. Everything's fine with the clan. I was joking about that thing with Hazō. Totally not true. We all love each other and there's no problems that any of those clan stinkers could get their fingers into and cause problems."
"I see," Aoi said. She took a sip of her hot chocolate to buy herself a moment to think.
"There was this time," she mused, "just after Kaori and I got married, he went and found us an apartment without talking to me. I was so angry with him. Yes, it was a place of our own, and in a decent neighborhood near a well. That was back before his parents died, when there were still plenty of hands in the shop and lots of business, so we could afford to live on our own.
"He didn't talk to me about it—I came home from the market to find that he was packing our things." She chuckled. "Oh, we had a proper row that time. I threw crockery and screamed like a fishwife. I'm embarrassed just remembering it."
"You threw crockery?" Kagome asked incredulously.
Aoi chuckled. "What, you thought I was always a meek and obedient wife?"
"Well...um...I mean...."
She patted his hand, then touched the hot chocolate to her lips, striving to make it look as though she were taking a larger draught than she was. "It's all right. Manners are important, especially when you have a child. How is Honoka going to learn how to behave if her mother is an ill-tempered shrew? It doesn't come naturally, but I make the effort."
"Um...."
"Anyway, once we got settled in I learned that the windows were drafty, there were creaky floorboards everywhere, and I imagined that the water from that well didn't taste as good as the one we'd been drinking from.
"I didn't talk to him for two weeks. He got steadily more frantic to make it up to me; at first it was annoying, but eventually I realized he was sincere. Yes, he should have talked to me first, but not talking to me didn't mean that he thought I was stupid or irrelevant. He was trying to take care of me, and he thought that we had already agreed on it. We'd discussed moving out—I'd mentioned that living with his parents was difficult—but we hadn't actually agreed. At least, I didn't think we had. He was thoughtless and there was some miscommunication, but no actual ill will."
She shook her head, smiling ruefully at the memory. "Not the only time that's happened. He's a good man and we love each other, but we do manage to hurt each other accidentally."
"He hurts you?" Kagome said darkly, his eyes becoming suddenly more focused.
"Not like that!" she said quickly, her heart fluttering at the idea of what she might have provoked. "No, he's never hit me. He's a good husband, and a good man. He treats me better than I deserve."
"You deserve to be treated well! You're nice, people should treat you well! Anyone who doesn't, you just tell me and—"
"Kagome." She waited for him to stop gesticulating and calm down. "Kaori is everything to me. We love each other dearly. That doesn't mean that we don't occasionally say something stupid to each other, or forget to say something we should have said. I forgot our anniversary last year; he said it didn't bother him, but it did. We made up and he forgave me, because that's what families do."
Kagome studied her through narrowed eyes. "You're saying that Hazō didn't mean to be a stupid thoughtless selfish schmuck and that he doesn't really think I'm useless and maybe he really does care about me. That's what that whole story was about."
"A little, yes. As to your nephew...I only met him the once, and I didn't get to talk to him very much, but he seems like a nice young man, and the sense I got was that he really looks up to you. Teenagers can be thoughtless, but it doesn't mean they don't love you. The important thing is to talk to them and find out why they did whatever they did. And to forgive them for it if you can."
"Hmph." He took a grumpy sip of his hot chocolate.
o-o-o-o
"Do you think I'm a useless hermit that's only good for seal lessons?"
Hazō's head came up in shock. He'd been at his desk, making lists about how to talk to Kagome-sensei, and here was the man himself. No knock, no greeting, just appear in the doorway with words that hit harder than explosives.
"No! Sensei, no!" he cried, jumping to his feet and circling the desk so he could hug his teacher.
Kagome-sensei flinched back and Hazō paused, concerned.
"Sorry, sensei. No, I don't think you're useless. You're my uncle, and my friend, and my teacher. I care about you, and you're incredibly valuable—to me, to the rest of the clan, to lots of people. I'm so sorry that I hurt you; I should have spoken to you before I went to Momma. I'll try not to do it again."
Kagome-sensei eyed him carefully, the same uncertain look in his eyes that he always gave a new seal prototype right before the infusion test. "Really?"
"Really."
"...Okay."
Well, that had been easier than expected. Easy enough that he didn't even for a moment believe that it was done. Still, best not to have the rest of the conversation in the doorway.
"Would you like to come in?" He stepped to the side, gesturing into the room.
Kagome-sensei came in slowly, perching on the desk with his legs folded under him. Hazō sat on the edge of the bed.
"Sensei, I'm sorry I didn't talk to you," Hazō said again. "It wasn't because I don't value you. Mari-sensei's problem has roots in the time that she, Noburi, Keiko, and I spent back in Swamp. It's very private, and I felt like it wasn't my place to tell anyone else. That's why I talked to Noburi and Keiko but not you or Jiraiya. Then I went to talk to Momma, and that didn't go anything like I expected. I didn't think she would act on it so quickly, or that she would do anything like she did. All I was expecting was that she would talk to Mari-sensei."
"Your mother sucks dead snake butts," Kagome-sensei growled.
"S-sensei?"
"I hope she falls in a dungheap with her mouth open. Whatever she said to Mari that caused all this, she had no business saying it. She certainly had no business doing what she did the other night. I'm letting it slide because it seems to have been slightly helpful, but if she keeps this behavior up and it stops being effective then I'm going to splash her across half of Leaf. Nobody does that to my family unless it helps."
Hazō swallowed nervously. Kagome-sensei's relationship with making threats was complicated to say the least, but everything in his voice and his body language said that this was not a threat. It was a promise.
"Sensei...." He paused, taking stock. What arguments would be useful here? 'She is a jōnin and not easy to assassinate'? Sage's mercy, no. Kagome-sensei would laugh and point out that he had access to enough explosives to vaporize Hokage's Tower, much less the diplomatic quarters. There were at least three ANBU that Hazō knew of who thought that the ground Mari-sensei walked on became hallowed at her step. All the explosives master would need to do would be wait until one of those three was on guard duty and then explain what Momma had done to Mari-sensei. The ANBU wouldn't just let him in, they would help plant the charges. Or, alternatively, Kagome-sensei could just spend some research time coming up with an appropriate assassination seal. The possibilities boggled the imagination, and Kagome-sensei was a disturbingly creative fellow when he put his mind to it.
How about 'She is an ambassador from Mist'? No. Kagome-sensei either wouldn't care or would simply point out that Mist needed the alliance more than they needed the ambassador. Ditto for 'She is the sister of the Mizukage'.
Then again, Kagome-sensei had been very clear. He would tolerate whatever Momma did, so long as it was effective at making Mari-sensei better. That was...actually pretty fair. Disturbing, frightening, and with shattering levels of political fallout balanced atop it, but fair. And this probably wasn't the best moment to have this discussion, with the other issue so freshly stitched.
"Thank you for explaining that, sensei. I think I understand how you feel, and I appreciate you being restrained."
Kagome-sensei snorted. "It's not restrained, it's practical. Restraint is for sissies."
And wasn't that just Kagome-sensei in a nutshell.
"That's something I think all of us should talk about, actually. Restraint, I mean."
"Mm?" The grunt was dubious and suspicious.
"When we first became a clan, Noburi and I nearly killed this kid in the market. She was really little, and excited to see us. Shrieked just like a chakra harpy as she ran up to Noburi and hugged him. He had his Water Whip up and I nearly gutted the kid with my gauntlet, just by reflex.
"When we were out in the wilderness, that was absolutely the right thing to do. Hit first, hit hard, take no chances. Here in Leaf, things are more complicated. We're safer from physical threats but the potential risks are much higher if we do the wrong thing—for one example, we can't fight off the entire ANBU if they try to arrest us."
"Hmph. I'd like to see those schmucks try to breach my perimeter."
Hazō gave his teacher an old-fashioned look. "Sensei. You know they could. You were the one who told me that no defense is perfect. They would eventually find a way—if nothing else, they could just keep throwing explosives into the yard until all the traps were destroyed. 'Explosives solve all problems' cuts both ways, right?"
A very sour Kagome-sensei made no response.
"Anyway, it makes me nervous. I feel like my reflexes are wrong for this environment, and it's hard to change them. I was walking in the market when Nara Shiori went racing by me to get to a merchant; she was moving so fast that I thought it was an attack, and I almost went on the offensive."
"So avoid the stin—the dumb market."
"Sure, but it's not just the market. It's the people. I mean, sure, most of the civilians know to be careful how they act around ninja; apparently there are classes for it in the civilian schools, but—"
"There are what?"
"Classes. You know, things like 'move slowly, keep your gestures small, do not make eye contact when you're angry or upset because it could be seen as threatening'. You didn't know this?"
"No! How do you know this?"
"I went book shopping and ended up speaking with the proprietor for a while." The Iron Nerve prevented his lips from twitching at the memory of the Gōketsu Keiko Fan Club and Mewramasa, Devourer of Unworthy Souls.
"Anyway, I think we all need to make a conscious effort to re-tune our reactions. Attack shouldn't be our first resort."
Kagome-sensei eyed him. "You're doing that social stuff that Mari does. Telling me to do something while pretending that it's about you so it won't be offensive."
A split second to decide on the response, knowing that the wrong choice would undo all the progress they had made....
Hazō gave his teacher a rueful grin and spread his arms. "Is it working?"
Kagome snorted in grudging amusement. "Hmph."
"In seriousness, sensei, I meant all of it—Noburi and I really did almost kill a kid, and he and I really do need to fix our reflexes. Think what it means that civilians are actually taught, in school as part of the sanctioned curriculum, how not to get accidentally murdered by ninja. I don't want to be one of the reasons why those classes exist."
Kagome-sensei looked away guiltily. "Yeah," he muttered. "Maybe I have some room for improvement there."
Hazō nodded, shifting trains of thought now that the point seemed to have gone home. "Speaking of room for improvement, what do you think we should be doing here in Leaf once the tournament is over?"
"Huh?"
"You're still onboard with the idea of Uplift, right? Where do you think we should be spending our time and energy? I mean, there's the till'n'fill missions, and the clanless ninja, and the schools, and so many other things. I really don't know where to start. What do you think would be the most effective thing we could do in the short term?"
"Give every civilian family a storage scroll, pay Academy students and genin to go around and operate the seals at specific times. Keeps food and drinks from going bad, keeps medicine from spoiling. Makes the grocery money go farther because you can plan ahead more and don't have to worry about spoilage."
Hazō blinked. That was...brilliant.
"Granted, it might cause a civil war. Still, it would be the most effective thing."
Wait, what?
"A civil war?" Hazō asked weakly.
"Sure. If the grocery money goes farther that comes out of the pockets of the merchants. They don't like that, so they call an embargo. Lots of political scrambling, someone gets hired to assassinate us, Jiraiya goes bananas and kills everybody until they somehow get lucky and pull him down. No one left to find Uzumaki, so Akatsuki does whatever it is they want with him. Probably mind-control everyone everywhere. Or maybe strip chakra away from everyone so that we all die and leave the place for the lupchanzen. One or the other."
Conversations with Kagome-sensei were many things, but dull was rarely among them.
XP AWARD: 1
BONUS XP AWARD: 1 (plan brevity)
It is up to @Velorien whether he wants to do the rest of this plan or whether we simply assume that it all happened offscreen and move on to a new plan. @Velorien, is voting open?
