December 25, noon.
The first thing that occurred to Hazō as he scanned the area was that Yukizome's Experimental Cuisine was located in a two-floor building, which suggested that either Yukizome was very rich or its original builder had had to sell it on the cheap to avoid going bankrupt (and Yukizome was good at seizing opportunities). It wasn't the kind of thing he'd normally consider, but he was trying to gather as much information as he could as he walked down the street, mainly in an effort to avoid thinking about what he'd got himself into.
No footprints in the snow leading up to the restaurant. Had Ami arrived so much earlier that the faint snowfall had had time to cover them, or did she decide to arrive in a way that didn't leave footprints? Both had discomforting implications.
Door. No more time for procrastination.
The first thing he noticed was that the restaurant was completely empty, with the exception of Ami herself. No staff, no manager, no customers. The absence of witnesses, while in principle good in terms of privacy, still made Hazō semi-consciously wish he'd brought his weapons.
Which was stupid. This had been his idea to begin with, and he'd planned out every step. He needed to get it together and be the smooth-talking diplomat he'd been in front of the mirror this morning.
He went in.
Tall? Check. Black trousers and a white blouse with a ruffled collar, both items fashionable enough that even Hazō knew it? Check. Relaxed in front of a stranger? Check? Inexplicably broad smile? Check.
This woman did not share the same blood as Keiko.
"There you are!" Ami exclaimed. "Welcome to Yukizome's Experimental Cuisine! Or so I'd like to say, but we all know you're not here for the food." She glanced upwards at some unseen point for a second.
"All?" Hazō queried.
"Sure. You, me, and Shinjirō. It's technically his day off, but who wouldn't come out and do a little counter-espionage when asked by a beautiful woman? He's the main reason this place is secure right now, so whatever you do, don't go out there and thank him. It would hit his reputation like a hammer blow."
Hazō gave the place a second look around, but either Shinjirō was working outside (on the roof, based on Ami's glance), or he was very, very good at stealth.
"Did you book out the entire restaurant?" he asked. Maybe he shouldn't have got her a mere wooden stamp after all.
Ami rolled her eyes. "'course not. I don't spend money on things if I can help it. Builds bad habits."
"Then…?"
"Glad you asked," Ami said. "The Yukizome have always run this neat traditional-style joint called Byakuren's Cookbook—until a few years ago Yukizome Yoshio decided he didn't want to inherit the family business, and got disowned before you can say 'family values'. It was a massive shock—sent ripples across the entire district. We had to rerun a whole bunch of numbers. As for Yukizome Junior, turns out the reason he broke with the family was because he's a heretic who actually wants to invent
new recipes through experimentation. Can you imagine the arrogance of it?
"Fast-forward to now. Business isn't exactly booming, because experimental cuisine sounds a lot like foreign cuisine sounds a lot like being a foreign sympathiser. You don't want that in your dossier. Meanwhile, Byakuren's Cookbook is getting a little too
much business. Little Minori's just come back from her first A-rank with no missing limbs, so naturally her whole social circle wants to throw a great big party. They just need a good venue, and the sooner the better.
"Someone happens to tell them Byakuren's Cookbook is perfect for their needs. Now, poor old Yukizome Senior is way too understaffed to handle a booking that big on one day's notice, but he's not going to say no to a bunch of ninja either. That's his reputation on the line. Maybe worse, depending how offended the ninja are feeling.
"But wait! Fate intervenes once again! Someone passes a little tip to Yukizome Junior, and suddenly the prodigal son rides in at the head of his own staff team, saving the day and incidentally showing up his father something awful. Oh, and getting compensated for a full day's worth of business, which isn't nothing given how few customers he normally gets."
"And that entire domino effect... That was all you?"
"Mmm. After all that, Yukizome Junior couldn't
not let me use the place, especially seeing how it's empty anyway. But the part you need to remember, the part that makes this better than just booking the place out is—apart from being much more fun—that now Minori owes me a favour, Yukizome Senior owes me a favour, and Yukizome Junior owes me a favour.
"Incidentally, the owner may be an ass, but the Byakuren's Cookbook stuff is actually pretty good—that's a happy coincidence that makes Minori owe me slightly more, but do name-drop me if you're ever in there if you want the regulars-only menu.
"Ahh," she sighed, "that was great. I hardly ever get to show off to people who've never met me before."
"That was very impressive," Hazō conceded. "It almost makes me feel bad that I only got you this."
He proffered a lacquered wooden box. Luckily, those weren't hard to find in the right size if you were prepared to spend whizz around the right shops at ninja speed at unreasonable hours of the morning.
"Ooh, a present!" Ami beamed. "I don't get enough of those either. Just bribes from people wanting to earn my favour. Not that I mind as long as they're shiny."
She carefully opened the box. "Is this what I think it is?"
She turned the custom stamp over a few times before her eyes came to rest on the ^_^ seal, if it could be called that, on the bottom.
"Oh, yesss… This is going to be
such a great way to mess with people!"
She stepped towards him. "Hug?"
This woman
was an elite jōnin who ran circles around Kage and probably did nothing without at least three purposes, right?
He was in so much trouble.
Also, there was every possibility that she could use some kind of undetectable uber-manipulation technique through physical contact. Hadn't Tsunade done something like that?
Hazō channelled his inner Noburi. "Not on the first date," he said jokingly.
"Touché." Ami paused briefly. "Except the opposite of that.
"But we've only just met, and already it turns out you
get me. First names?"
Within what, five minutes of meeting her? Part of Hazō was already warming to her offbeat manner, but the last thing he wanted to do was get sucked into her lightning-speed pace. Besides, first names were personal. Intimate. Not something you gave away to a stranger at the drop of a forehead protector. What kind of person did that make Ami?
More immediately, would moving to first names count as one of those commitments you couldn't reverse?
"No?" she asked plaintively.
Abruptly, all trace of levity was gone from her expression. Her spine went ramrod straight, and her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. It made the bouncy, carefree Ami from before seem like a shallow façade.
"You do not require the comfort of arbitrary patterns of interaction? If so, we may continue much more efficiently by relying on a properly structured system. Branching linear structures surpass unconstrained spontaneity for our purpose, and the advantages in terms of managing uncertain power dynamics and adversarial information exchange are too obvious to state.
"Now, time is limited. Shall we proceed?"
The whiplash was making Hazō forget what he was going to say.
"I…"
"Didn't think so," Ami said with a smirk, reverting instantly to the woman he'd met when he walked through the door. "I know I can misread people, but not by
that much. Well, unless you're a master of deception, in which case this is going to be great fun."
She gave him puppy-dog eyes. "Please be a master of deception."
Elite jōnin
and clinically insane.
"So," he said, changing the subject smoothly, "what are we going to do about lunch? I can't help noticing a distinct lack of chefs. Should I have brought sandwiches?"
"Way ahead of you," Ami said, heading for the kitchen. "I got Yukizome to leave us some food that just needs heating up. I mean, I
could cook for you, but I've run the numbers and you're worth more to me alive than dead."
"That's reassuring," Hazō said, deciding to treat it as a joke. "Say, if I can ask a personal question, is that something you think people should do? Is it OK to kill people based on simple calculation if it makes enough of a difference?"
"You mean the way we take missions that involve killing people for money, or the way our leaders order us to die to fulfil strategic objectives?" Ami asked absently, still fiddling with the oven exactly the way somebody fundamentally incapable of cooking would.
That gave Hazō pause.
"But if you're asking me if I
like the system… of course not."
Hazō relaxed a little. Maybe his Uplift ideas might go over better than he'd hoped.
"It's way too inefficient." Ami rose from behind the oven. Hazō could hear the crackling of a fire.
Ah.
"A thousand years, and we're still going in circles, killing each other in the same ways for the same reasons. Don't get me wrong, killing can be fun, but at some point you have to ask, why are we even doing this? If we, as in Mist, are trying to win, why aren't we pouring all our resources into actually winning? If we, as in the Elemental Nations, are trying to achieve the pinnacle of warfare, or the ultimate ninja or whatever, why aren't we systematising our conflicts? If we, as in everyone, are trying to wipe out the human race, why are we taking so long about it? I know we have the technology."
"So…" Hazō said slowly, sensing the potential lead-in he was looking for, "what would
you do with humanity?"
"I dunno."
Ami brought over a couple of plates with some mysterious sushi-like things on top of them while Hazō was still reeling.
"What do you mean?"
Ami took a bite of one of the things. Her entire body shuddered.
"This stuff is
vile. But now I feel all sophisticated! You try some."
Hazō obediently tried some. It tasted like having all his teeth pulled at once. It tasted like a parasite infesting his tongue. It tasted like death by leprosy.
His entire body shuddered.
"You said I was worth more to you alive than dead, right?" he asked just to be sure.
"Mmm. Your death would generate a lot of chaos, and all kinds of opportunities, but I'd rather not test whether I can weasel my way out of being eviscerated by an angry Hokage. Besides, you seem interesting. And you did give me that cool stamp."
Just like that, with a cheerful smile on her face.
"It's a good exercise," she added. "Go through the people in your life and calculate the pros and cons of leaving them alive. You learn a lot about yourself. But don't actually kill them just because it would be a net positive. You might not like the person you'll become."
"Going back to a less scary topic," Hazō said with an attempt at his own smile, "what did you mean by saying you didn't know what you'd do with humanity?"
"Can you imagine the kind of society we'd have if everyone stopped fighting? Me neither. What would people do with themselves? What would they do with all the resources? What would it mean to live in a world that didn't need ninja?"
She shook her head. "If peace happened in our generation, our grandkids would be aliens to us. It would be crazy arrogant to assume we can know what they'd want. Unless they want war again, because nobody alive knows how to build a world that
stays peaceful either."
"But do you actually want it?" Hazō asked. "The kind of world I talked about during my match?"
Ami blinked. "Hell no."
"I'm sorry?"
"You're trying to stop people fighting by offering them power and resources. Bigger, stronger clans. More money pouring in from civilians. What's a society that's never known anything but war going to
do with all that stuff?
"Also, more money going around? Bigger, stronger merchant class. The big guilds are already walking the razor edge of accumulating power without provoking the ninja. When the tipping point comes, the streets are going to flow red with blood, because we ninja don't know any other way of handling a direct challenge to our power. It's why even someone as stunningly ambitious as Teuchi knows never to overstep.
"But enough about that. You'll work it out or you won't. What I've been wanting to ask you is what your cover story is for the explosion thing. Not what really happened—that's obvious—but what you've been going around telling people. It would be good to hear it from you instead of from the rumour mill."
The OPSEC alarm rang in Hazō's mind.
"I don't know what you mean," he said calmly. "I just used my opponent as a meatshield. Anyone could have done it. Plus he had a Bloodline Limit construct up which absorbed most of the blast."
Ami nodded. "It'll do. Close enough to Kotsuzui's account, which is what matters.
"Just lucky that you didn't try to claim that it was the Iron Nerve that let you tank explosions," she said with an amused smile. "Can you imagine the implications if a quote unquote Leaf turncoat revealed a secret Kurosawa technique in public? The Mizukage would have completely imperceptible conniptions."
"Yes," Hazō said. "That would be terrible.
"Sorry, but I do want to go back to that earlier topic. You don't think I should go ahead with the plans I talked about during the match because they'd just result in more war, but do you think there's
some way to bring about lasting peace? You've had Mori training—you must know what world wars mean for humanity."
"Mmm. Wars are
expensive. They suck up all the villages' resources, and the cost in population and materiel can be felt for generations afterwards. We're the ones who end up being pushed twice as hard so the village can recover from our grandparents' choices. Which is ridiculously inefficient. Trained ninja are too valuable a resource to be spent on missions with a poor risk/reward ratio just because you need income
now.
"Also,"—her voice fell a little—"you never get used to watching your friends die. If a person says otherwise, they're broken inside. Try to forgive them.
"More to the point," she turned perky again, "I never said you shouldn't go ahead with your plans. That is so not me."
"No?"
"Of course not! If you can make this thing of yours happen even a little, it'll mean global chaos. The whole system is going to be thrown out of alignment. If my projections are anywhere near accurate… well, I can
totally work with this."
"Good?" Hazō asked tentatively.
"You bet. Ami's rule of plotting number three: no plot happens in a vacuum. Everything you do advances somebody's agenda and hinders somebody else's. Unless you're a very boring person. Don't be a very boring person."
She took another bite of the experimental cuisine, then shuddered even more violently. "Oh, right. Death in a seaweed wrapper. I forgot.
"Anyway, Kenji, Mayumi and Miki are common-borns with family in a swamp village, a river village, and a forest village respectively. They owe me bigtime, especially Kenji, so they're going to be following my scheme to optimise those villages following a set rotation. In six months, if we're all still alive, I'll run the numbers again, and either your scheme makes enough of an impact to take to Lady Biwako or it doesn't.
"Just so we're clear, you now owe me the mother of all favours."
"I don't think I asked for the mother of all favours," Hazō said cautiously. That sounded awfully like one of those things he had specifically precommitted against.
"They haven't set out yet. I can still cancel the whole thing if you like."
Damn.
"Can I think about it and get back to you?"
"Sure," Ami said, "but don't take too long. They're heading out in a couple of days, and I'm not so invested in this project that I'll burn all those favours for free."
The idea
was appealing. If he could get a woman who apparently played at Kage level on board with Uplift, taking him seriously in a way Jiraiya still didn't…
Speaking of Jiraiya, how would his clan head react if Hazō came back to report that he'd sold Ami his soul in exchange for his heart's desire?
Better to divert Ami's attention before she could re-evaluate the value of his soul upwards and start making him offers he couldn't refuse.
"You say you're not invested," he commented, "but have you thought about the other, non-military angle? Civilian lives aren't just resources. If they keep dying, to preventable things like chakra beasts and disease, the population is going to keep spiralling downwards. Civilisation as a whole could die out and our leaders wouldn't notice until it was too late. In a way, that's a lot more important than uplifting the civilian world so we can have stronger villages."
Ami's smile shifted to something more melancholy, more ironic.
"Of course the world is dying. It's not like the numbers are
hidden or anything. It's been dying ever since… well, you don't need to know. But you're not going to save it by trying to bribe the power holders into throwing away the status quo they're giving their lives to maintain. You're not going to do it by appealing to their consciences either. When your every choice means life or death for a thousand loyal ninja, conscience is the first thing to go out the window. Which I don't have a problem with
as such, but when you're spending people's lives, you have a responsibility to be efficient about it. Those things are valuable."
"So how would you save the world, then?"
"Would I?" Ami asked. "I'll be long dead by the time humanity dies out, same as those people you're asking to think about the long term. Heck, I could, and probably will, die within the month. Maybe I'm just playing with hypotheticals because I need variety in how I mess with people's heads. How many of the things I've said today are lies?"
Hazō really didn't have any way of telling. Suddenly, he started to wonder if it had been a good idea to come here at all.
Then again, he was here now. If he stood up and left, he might not get a second chance. If he always refused to talk to people like Ami because of the risks, he'd never learn how to be the leader Uplift needed.
When he came out of that second of reflection, Ami's eyes had a cold clarity to them, and she wasn't smiling anymore. Her right hand had dropped out of sight, beneath the table. Had the air always been so cold?
"Do you think this is a game?" she said in a low, intense voice. "Do you think you can dive into the real world on a whim without getting eaten by the sharks?
"Do you think deciding whether you're worth more dead or alive is a joke?" she hissed. "Do you think people who spend lives like coins
joke? Do you have the survival instinct to know when I change my mind about you?"
He'd felt this kind of ice before, and it scared him then. But this? This
cut into him. It cut into his veins and froze his blood before it could flow out.
He needed countermeasures while he could still think clearly. Ami was a jōnin, but she surely had to be a social spec. If he moved fast, he might be able to make it through the door before she locked him down. Then there'd be witnesses.
"Playfulness is a tool," Ami went on mercilessly. "Fickleness is a tool. Humour is a tool. Does the Hokage's protection make you feel invincible? Do you think I didn't calculate every possible way to outmanoeuvre him after you die? Or maybe I am telling you all this, maybe I've been teaching you all along, because now I will
take control, and when you go back to the Hokage, it will be as another of my tools."
Forget the door. Suicide was an option.
"I'm sorry," Ami said kindly. "I can go a bit too far sometimes. It's not your fault if you hit a nerve."
What?
She leaned forwards a little, resting her head on her hands.
"I realise I've ruined the mood," she said, meeting his gaze, "right when you were sharing the things that matter to you. Every jōnin has their quirks, and I don't think the topic helped either, but I know that's no excuse."
"That's fine," Hazō said awkwardly. He didn't know if it was. Seconds ago, he'd been trapped in something that made Keiko's aura of doom seem like being tickled. But now, the room was being flooded with subjective warmth as the original temperature restored itself. Ami was not merely unthreatening, but actively calming, the way a charismatic leader's presence alone could make people trust that everything was handled, fine, under control. The sheer cognitive dissonance pushed against his mind, demanding that he pick one reality and stick to it, and there was no doubt in his mind which one it should be.
"Thank you, Hazō.
"Listen," Ami said gently. "I know we're both here to play a game, and if I'm honest—well, that's the problem, isn't it? You'll never be able to trust that I'm honest because you know what I can do, but you don't know when or why. I've been sensing it ever since you walked through the door. I
can trust that you're honest, but you can't help coming here with an agenda I have to guess. We wouldn't be here, connecting, if you didn't have a reason to reach out to me."
She illustrated her statement by reaching out to him physically, tapping him on the arm as if to affirm that sense of connection. Her touch was unexpected, but pleasant.
Hazō nodded. After all that dizzying bouncing back and forth, and the erratic switches between wackiness and political philosophy, Ami's directness was disarming. Whatever her reasons for saying it, what she was saying physically could not be a lie.
"It's frustrating," Ami said. "It's hard work, and you always feel like you're walking on eggshells, and a lot of the time you have to fight your own instincts in order to act the way you think you have to. All while trying to read the other person's mind. And you can't ever let your guard down because you don't know if the other person has your best interests at heart. It's draining, it's a terrible way to communicate, but each one of us is forced to do it all the time because the alternative is leaving yourself defenceless."
That seemed like an exact summary of every politically-relevant conversation he'd had in his entire life. He caught himself smiling sympathetically.
It was also the perfect opening to talk about the Clear Communication Technique. He opened his mouth—
She softly pressed two fingers against his lips, silencing him.
"But there are other ways to learn about each other," she said. "Other ways to bond that don't leave room for lies. It isn't magic, and it isn't for everyone, but, here and now, between you and me…"
She took her fingers away.
Hazō was Mari-sensei's student. He understood everything that was happening without any degree of ambiguity. He also understood that he needed to shut down this line of conversation right now.
"I'm not trying to
pressure you into anything," Ami said quickly. "The decision is in your hands. Just… think it over? If you say no on reflex, then I've put myself on the line for nothing. It's OK, I'll wait as long as it takes."
Think it over. In other words, go over Mari-sensei's teachings in his head a few more times until his resolve to say no was rock solid. He could do that.
Ami watched him, a nervous smile playing briefly across her lips. When Hazō thought about it, the putting-herself-on-the-line thing was also entirely honest. If someone with her skills tried and failed to seduce an innocent genin… that would just be embarrassing. Which, honestly, was not a great feeling for her to walk out of this meeting with, but better her feeling embarrassed than him feeling… whatever it was a successful seduction was meant to make him feel.
Now he thought about it, he really wasn't making a good case for not being seduced.
Without looking, Ami reached down and took another of the sushi(?) slices of death. She began to open her mouth, then froze for a second, stunned at what she was about to do. She put the foodstuff down as if she was handling a flask of highly flammable oil.
It occurred to Hazō that, while Mari-sensei had been very clear on the use of seduction as a tool, she hadn't actually ever said it was a bad idea, not more than misusing any ninja tool was a bad idea. In fact, her advice to Hazō personally could be summed up as "it's going to happen sooner or later, so just make sure it's an informed decision when it does." The woman was a font of helpfulness.
He was still keeping Ami waiting. He wasn't sure whether that was good or bad. An attractive woman like her (which she was, he just didn't hadn't had time to think about it during that whirlwind of a conversation) was probably used to people being much more enthusiastic about her advances. On the other hand, as Ami said, it was his decision. Making it in his own time was a badly-needed way of asserting control over the situation.
Ami, held his gaze for a few seconds before dropping it, as she'd done a couple of times, then raised her right arm to brush her hair away (hadn't it been in a ponytail at some point?). All else aside, Hazō couldn't deny that Ami had beautiful hair, and his eyes naturally tracked the movement of her hand (vivid blue nail polish) as it slowly came back down across her front.
He was still in an analytical frame of mind, and that was probably why he found himself thinking about how they weren't in the same league as Mari-sensei's (nothing was), and in fact not that large at all from a comparative perspective, but the perfect shape, and the firmness emphasised by the well-tailored blouse—
Sage of Six Paths and all his many brothers, what was he
doing?!
Hazō felt a stab of panic.
Akane. He had to think about Akane. It worked last time. In fact, it worked too well. He needed to reset his brain so he could figure out the intelligent, diplomatic way out of this.
It didn't work. All he could think about was
Akane's body, forged into something strong and supple by years of daily training and he wasn't allowed to think about her in this way for the rest of his life because that was another thing he'd lost now that they were 'just friends'. All it did was fill him with a sense of longing for something he could never have again. Could never want again.
Ami was watching him. Her attention was intense enough to drown in. He thought he could feel her body heat all the way across the table.
She was right there, waiting for him to want her. Warm. Welcoming. Willing.
Less than a second before Things Went Wrong, his heart gave him one last saving throw.
Keiko curled up in a corner, holding her knees to her chest, sobbing quietly. Keiko, expressionless, systematically flaying him inch by inch as a pangolin held him down. And between those two poles of disaster, a single moment of clarity. He remembered his power, a power born for this exact situation.
Hazō snapped into his polite rejection stance so hard it hurt. He poured every scrap of lucidity into staying there.
Gradually, familiar Hazōness returned. Matter over mind. He was
Gōketsu fu—He was
Gōketsu Hazō, and not even a jōnin got to mess with his feelings. Ignoring Ami, because right now it was both necessary and deserved, he took the time to breathe and recover his composure.
Meanwhile, she had pulled back, and was watching him with dispassionate curiosity, like Keiko watching Kagome-sensei cook when she was bored.
"Pupil dilation two millimetres above projected. Breathing rate thirty-seven breaths per minute, estimated. Muscle tension readings suspended due to risk of Iron Nerve contamination. Response patterns match… hm. Conditioned resistance. Noted for investigation."
"That was out of line, Mori," Hazō said as calmly as he could manage. He'd decided at the outset that he was going maintain mental balance come hell or high water, above all other priorities and concerns, and even if Ami was going to bat him around like a damned cat playing with a mouse, he could at least recover with grace.
"What you did," he said, "was like using genjutsu without permission. It's not something you do to an ally."
"Apologies," Ami said neutrally. "Experiments designed with the aid of the Frozen Skein do not always properly account for the sensitivity of internal experiences. Though technically, the level of stimulus was quite low compared to focused seduction. Nothing more than a few basic body language techniques. Most of the work was done on the subject side, with myself in a passive role as a facilitator. I appreciate, however, that subjectively it may feel invasive."
"But why would you do something like that?" Hazō asked insistently. "What would you have done if I'd given in?"
"I would have terminated the experiment and proceeded to do exactly what I am doing now," Ami said. "This was an analysis of physical and cognitive rather than sexual performance, and I have no interest in triggering the social implications of the latter at this time."
"You still haven't told me why."
"The embarrassment is temporary," Ami told him. "In the context of a process of cooperation over time, it will ultimately become an amusing shared memory, an anecdote even. As to the data, I have taken care to provide stimuli over the course of the conversation that directly generate information on the one hand, and allow for iterative improvement of the testing procedure itself on the other. The final objective, which I believe you will appreciate, is to develop a persona better optimised for interaction with you than those you experienced today. In this way, we will become more efficient at exchanging information and assisting each other with our mutual goals, without neglecting the human element that is necessary for compatibility on an emotional level. The process of calibration will, naturally, be ongoing, but I am prepared to moderate the pace if you find experiences such as those of today excessively stressful."
"You're telling me… this entire conversation has been an exercise in gathering data?" Hazō asked incredulously.
"Kinda sorta." Ami flopped back in her chair, balancing it at a dangerous angle. "But how many different times have I told you that today? Besides, any interaction with anything can be called gathering data if you're pretentious enough, down to your own thoughts and feelings.
"Mostly, though, this was me making a point. Well, several points. Well, a lot of points. But seeing as I actually like you, and I was kind of mean to you just then, and you got me that awesome stamp, I'll make them freebies. Let me know how many you figure out."
Hazō stared, his newly-regained composure already challenged. "You're acting like you did me a favour."
"Mmm. The emotional-level impact's fading away already—face it, that was all pretty tame compared to the daily grind of leaving friends to die because Intel fucked up and the combat zone was next to a chakra wasp nest—but the good stuff will still be there in the morning.
"Think of it as training from an asshole instructor, if you like. You know, the kind that jumps you in the middle of the night with a big stick because you're not practising constant vigilance.
"Irony being," she added, "Old Tsukamoto got killed fighting a Light Element user. You know, the guys who go invisible."
"I'm sure I'll feel grateful eventually," Hazō said grudgingly. "But before the… before, you didn't actually tell me what it was you wanted. You know my ambition. Do you have one yourself?"
"World domination," Ami said matter-of-factly. "I don't know why anyone would ever settle for less."
"I'm sorry?" Hazō stuttered.
"Yeah," Ami said. "Me too, 'cause we're out of time. You head out the back, I'll head out the front, all subtle-like. Might as well let any observers think they've won their little game."
She bowed. Like a normal person.
"Thank you for a fun date. Let's do this again sometime."
"Date?!"
She flashed him a smile. "You said it, not me!"
When did he—Hazō gave himself an enormous mental facepalm.
Ami turned around and headed for the door, a spring in her step.
Watching her go, Hazō realised that there was one question still spinning around in his head, and that this might be his only chance to ask it.
"Ami!"
She half-turned.
"In the end, which one of them are you?"
She gave him a look he couldn't decipher.
"Yes."
-o-
You have earned 10 XP.
2 XP for a great plan * half a day, -1 XP for plan length, + 1 XP not yet assigned for @Tua's omake, +8 XP for honouring an ancient compact and making a QM's dream come true.
-o-
It is the early afternoon. You spent yesterday recovering from your burns under the watchful eye of a medic-nin from the Tsunade school of "disturb my patients and you'll need to get medical treatment in Cloud because that's where you'll land". You spent this morning preparing for the
date meeting with Ami. You are as yet ignorant of everything that happened after your match.
-o-
-o-
What do you do?
-o-
Voting closes on Saturday 2nd of February, 9 a.m. New York Time.
