Gōketsu Hazō had betrayed the trust his clan had placed in him. No, he had not plunged Leaf into a famine out of a surfeit of ambition. Nor had he forced one of the purest, kindest people in the world to devise the cruellest possible torture for her long-standing friend and cousin. Not this week. Instead, he had failed in a duty that was his and his alone: to protect the Gōketsu board game collection.
He had no way of knowing how long this heinous crime would have remained undiscovered but for Ami, whom he had intended to introduce to one of his favourite games that he had been banned from playing, only to discover with mere hours to go that Fifi had eaten the entire thing, box and all. Now, having scoured Leaf's shops without success, there was only one thing to do. Hazō stood at the gates of the Nara compound, and prayed that Kei had her own copy.
Unusually, Kei chose to come out to greet him. Typically, one would send a ninja of the clan to guide a visiting clan head; Hazō got high-ranking Nara civilians, allowing him to demonstrate his respect for the civilian population under circumstances where nobody would take it as losing face (after all, surely Lord and Lady Nara would be the last people to want to insult him, and besides, which Nara could be bothered to make a big deal out of it?).
"Hazō." Kei gave a small but warm smile. "Perfect timing. I had planned to visit you myself, for I have news."
"What news is that?" he asked, smiling in return.
"That can wait," she said, turning to indicate that he should follow. "First things first. How stand matters with Akane?"
"Surprisingly well, actually," Hazō said as they walked towards the main building. "She came back yesterday, and if anything, she's sticking closer to me than she did before. I wonder if she's feeling guilty."
Kei allowed herself a look of satisfaction. "Just as planned."
Wait, what? Hazō silently prayed that Ami hadn't decided to introduce Kei to the art of subtle manipulation "for their own good". One Ami was already beyond him.
"Are you saying you gave her love advice?"
Kei gave a disbelieving laugh. "Hazō, Akane may have an unhealthily low sense of self-preservation, but that is not the same as the hunger for self-destruction that alone could motivate a human being to rely on my romantic expertise. No, I merely offered my observations based on the information I already possessed."
"Which were…?'
Kei looked around to make sure they were alone in the corridor. "That it is not the first incident marked by out-of-character pragmatism, callousness, and inability to model others' reactions."
In other words, Out contamination. With Hazō having recently absorbed
another of the Sage's seals with the Iron Nerve, there was no way to deny the possibility. He suppressed a shiver. Had his reaction been provoked by Out influence rather than (or in addition to, or provoked by an excess of) accumulated stress? It certainly made sense than him having, as Akane had put it, a lever in his head that turned his morality on and off.
No wonder Akane was keeping such a close eye on him. Last time, it had been her responsibility to serve as his better judgement until the passage of time proved that he
probably wasn't possessed by interdimensional nightmares. He would have to be on his best behaviour, especially in terms of moral decisions—not that this wasn't already true, given the circumstances.
"Do you think it's a realistic possibility?" Hazō asked, mindful of the need to choose his words carefully even in an empty corridor that its owner apparently considered temporarily safe.
"Not the only one," Kei said, "but the likeliest, to my mind. Please take care, Hazō. You know what is at stake."
With the word "caldera" hanging silently in the air, Kei led him to the Nara gaming room without further ado.
The Nara gaming room was really more of a repurposed dining room, with a large central table and a rack of board games against one wall—the Nara were not yet enlightened enough a clan to possess a dedicated gaming space (unlike the Gōketsu, whose gaming hall might have been the first building of its kind in existence). As he entered, Snowflake (with a blood-red ribbon in her hair), a second Snowflake (with a silver hair comb in hers), and Tenten (with hers experimentally loose, because apparently a trend was being born within Hazō's extended family) waved synchronously and nodded to him respectively before returning their concentration to the board.
It seemed Snowflake was the Mastermind today, and Kei, Snowflake, and Tenten were on their third time loop. Hazō didn't recognise the expansion. The Empress and the Adjutant were obvious reskins of the Analyst and the Apprentice respectively, and he'd bought the expansion with the Markswoman not long after they got adopted into Leaf and replaced their battered Kagome-crafted set with an official one. However, the Doppelganger and the Blood Knight were completely new, and came with unfamiliar tokens of their own. Without knowing the scenario, Hazō had no idea how close Snowflake was to destroying the world, but he had an inexplicable bad feeling about the Sealmaster being alone with the Kitsune.
"Playing board games in the middle of the day?" Hazō asked with a deliberate jovialness to dispel the chill around his heart. "Be careful, Kei. You're a step away from becoming one of those villainous dissolute nobles from the Icha Icha books. If you ever feel an impulse to lock innocent young girls in the Nara dungeons, seek help."
There was a very awkward silence. On reflection, perhaps that hadn't been the best choice of topic, especially given how adamant Kei was about refusing to read any of Jiraiya's more salacious works.
"Speaking of completely unrelated subjects," Kei exclaimed hastily after a second, "Tenten, I believe that you had something you wished to say to Hazō?"
Tenten rose from her seat. "Lord Hazō," she began.
"Tenten," Hazō said, "you're family. You can just call me Hazō. Surely this must have come up a thousand gaming nights ago?"
Then again, on reflection, it was entirely possible that Tenten had gone a thousand gaming nights without ever addressing him by name.
"Hazō," Tenten corrected herself. "I want to thank you," she said, speaking slowly and deliberately, "for protecting Kei during the mission." She paused. "Your love for her is precious to me."
She stepped over and, unexpectedly, gave him a hug.
It wasn't quite as good as an Akane hug, but only because nothing could be as good as an Akane hug. It was still exactly right: neither too tight nor too loose, the hug of someone who wanted to express deep, platonic affection and knew exactly how to do it. Hazō could have stayed like that for a long time if he didn't think Kei might get the wrong idea and murder him.
"Any time," Hazō said.
"I don't know you well," Tenten said. "I'm not good… at talking. When I speak slowly… people hate it. When I choose words faster… they are simple. People think I'm stupid. I am not.
"I'm not good at talking. But Kei and Snowflake have been… so brave. I want to be brave as well. I hope… we can talk more… eventually."
Hazō smiled. "I look forward to it."
Tenten sat back down.
"In response to your shocking and unfounded allegations," the be-ribboned Snowflake said, "we are warming up for an instance of several individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship.
"More specifically," the other Snowflake added, "Akane suggested that two particular individuals might be suffering from an unhealthy and staggeringly delusional case of hero worship, and should thus be given opportunities to observe us in our natural environment where our ordinariness will quickly become apparent. Personally, I suspect that having them observe our natural behaviour will only cause them to flee in terror and not come back, but then I have been assigned pessimism today."
Hazō gave her a bewildered look. "No offence, but why would you want to add
more pessimism to your collective life?"
"Division of labour," the be-ribboned Snowflake replied. "Another of Akane's suggestions—as Scalpel can be trusted to express the proper amount of pessimism on our behalf in any situation, the rest of us are to forbear completely for the duration of the experiment. This is also why we are limiting ourselves to cooperative games, or, in this case, a hidden information game in which one side cannot risk providing clues by being openly pessimistic."
"You know," Hazō said thoughtfully, "I've been trying to work on delegating key responsibilities. I wonder if I could delegate stress over the clan's future to Noburi. He's had too much energy recently anyway, now he's made up with Yuno, and it would free up so much of my time."
"I advise against it," Snowflake said. "Noburi's talents do not lie in the field of anxiety. Our arrangement works solely because Scalpel is our clone, and thus she will by definition treat any situation with the pessimism we believe it deserves. We would not entrust such a vital duty to an amateur."
"I suppose so," Hazō said regretfully. "Speaking of games, though, the reason I'm here is actually to ask to borrow one of yours. Do you have Tower of Inescapable Doom?"
"Yes," Kei said, "but I know for a fact that the Gōketsu main collection has one as well. You served me enough defeats with the Iron Nerve before we realised and began to randomise the starting structure. Why would you need mine?"
"Fifi," Hazō said by way of explanation.
"Shiori has ours," Scalpel said. "I will have a servant retrieve it."
"Now I think of it," Hazō said, "she wasn't at the last gaming night. Is she OK?"
The girls exchanged uneasy glances.
"I have no reason to believe otherwise," Kei said. "More importantly, on to our news."
Hazō decided not to ask further. Kei had been doing remarkably well at talking about personal issues lately, and he didn't want to push too far and send her back to the days when invasion of privacy equalled attempted homicide—at least not without knowing whose side the Snowflakes would take.
"First," Kei said, handing him a piece of paper, "behold this."
The Nara Future Foundation is now recruiting experts in education, agriculture, animal husbandry, smithing, woodcarving, and architecture! Stable employment at competitive rates guaranteed for those keen to pass on their skills to the next generation. All NFF instructors receive a comprehensive benefits package, including housing, priority medical care for themselves and their immediate family, and, for the best of the best, potential adoption into the Nara Clan.
All applicants must pass a literacy and numeracy test, except those who have completed the free course offered by the Gōketsu Education Department, as well as a competency test.
"Expect to see this notice in next week's broadsheet, and an adapted version with the village criers. It is finally happening, Hazō."
"The Nara Future Foundation," Hazō said. "This was your project to educate civilians in essential skills at master level and then send them out to pass them on in the Fire villages to raise the level of civilisation, right? Eventually promoting the construction of new trade hubs, stimulating merchant investment in village infrastructure, and generally creating an entire non-Leaf-centric economy which happens to be under the Nara's indirect control."
Kei nodded. "These are the earliest of early days. We do not even have permanent premises yet, much less a curriculum. I had intended to commence work much earlier, but then came the Hagoromo… suffice it to say that, at the time, I was in no state to supervise the project, nor would it have been wise to taint it by association with myself at a time when my acceptance among the general population was at its nadir.
"But time has passed, and with the termination of the Gōketsu-Hagoromo conflict, the magpie mind of the general public has already moved on to new sources of excitement. You love life is now of far greater interest to the rumour mill than mine. Meanwhile, with Snowflake and myself learning to cooperate ever more efficiently, and Shikamaru lured in by the siren song of long-term dividends, I am tentatively optimistic about the project's future."
"That's fantastic," Hazō said. "We should definitely talk education at some point. The GED's got over most of its teething troubles, and you know I'm not one to rest on my laurels."
Tenten gave him a puzzled look.
"What? What did I say?"
"Hazō," Kei said, "in Leaf parlance, to rest on one's laurels is a form of suicide by exsanguination, typically associated with lovers unable to be together due to social taboo. There is a reason why it is a crime to plant bay laurels anywhere on village territory."
"Right," Hazō said. Of course. Kei was a world authority on means of suicide. "To rephrase, then, I'm not one to let the grass grow around my feet."
"Suicide by gradual petrification. Said to be surprisingly painless and even mildly euphoric; favoured by poets. Patches of bulbous barley are to be incinerated from a distance."
"I'm not one to beat around the bush?"
"Suicide by camouflaged chakra sheep. Best avoided."
"Fine," Hazō said. "I'm not one to stick my head into an orca's mouth."
"To blind oneself to opportunity, especially out of conceit," Scalpel explained to Tenten. "A common Mist idiom."
"Anyway," Hazō said. "Congratulations. I'm excited to see where this goes."
"But that is the least of the good news," Kei said.
"Oh?"
She passed him another piece of paper, this one of much finer quality, with a message in gold ink.
Gōketsu Hazō,
You are hereby cordially invited to attend the Commitment Ceremony of Nara Keiko and Tenten at the Five Flowers Hall in the Village Hidden in the Leaves on January 27, 1070 AS. Partners and additional guests only by individual arrangement.
"Does this mean what I think it means?"
"It means more than you think it means," Kei replied proudly. "The Isan alliance negotiations commenced last week, and there is a report on the Hokage's desk co-written by Noburi and myself as team leaders, detailing my superlative performance in securing them and omitting certain entirely personal and irrelevant details of intra-team dynamics. Completely unrelatedly, the Hokage has now consented to accept the Clan Council's will and pass the Concubine Laws, subject to a number of tiresome additional provisions doubtless intended as a reminder not to overreach. This achieved, Snowflake suggested that it might be desirable to anchor concubine status with a ritual, by analogy with other change-of-relationship rituals that serve to embed the participating individuals more firmly into the social and ideological framework of Leaf while ensuring that the subtler powers of this world do not take offence at a major life decision being implemented without their approval.
"The Hagoromo promptly washed their hands of the matter, declaring that there was no possible precedent in the canonical texts for them to work from, and so it would be a violation of their integrity to develop a suitable ceremony from whole cloth, or officiate at such. However, while they are adept scholars by all accounts—if more biased than the average Chūnin Exam proctor—they are a poor challenger for the Nara when it comes to strategy, to say nothing of Ami. Tell me, Hazō, are you familiar with any precedent for a fundamentally secular bonding ritual that derives its authority directly from the head of the village, with its religious elements chosen purely for the instrumental purpose of appeasing various spiritual influences rather than as absolute prerequisites for the ritual's legitimacy?"
Hazō grinned, both at the beauty of it and at anything that got one over on the Hagoromo. "Are you referring to the standard Mist wedding, dear sister?"
"I am indeed, dear brother." Three of the four girls in the room smiled gleefully. "After stripping certain key elements from the ritual we are familiar with—notably, the shark—we have developed the Concubine Commitment Ceremony, an optional ritual which omits references to the Will of Fire and culminates in the presentation of a legally notarised certificate bearing the Hokage's seal. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Hokage declined to officiate at every single ceremony, and after hours of tedious negotiations with Shikamaru, he consented to grant the Nara the right of investiture in the time-honoured overworked Kage spirit of 'You made this mess, you sort it out'. At present, there are five clerics with the right to convey the Hokage's blessing on a happy couple—myself, two other Nara, Kei Anko (who demands that the ceremony be expanded to fit an arbitrary number of people, and social mores be damned), and Taguchi Rin, a staunch KEI loyalist in a highly inappropriate but now legally-confirmed relationship with an Amori elder."
"So let me get this straight," Hazō said, the grin staying in place, "you've set the precedent for a legitimate pseudo-religious pseudo-wedding ceremony at which anyone can officiate
except the Hagoromo, and you've put the Nara in control of the whole thing."
"Were it not the Nara, it would have been the KEI, which in fact was one of Shikamaru's arguments in the negotiations," Kei noted. "You will recall that the majority of clan shinobi in positions of authority within the Tower perished in the Great Collapse, leaving an opening for KEI replacements to flood the Hokage's bureaucracy. Officiants chosen from within the Tower's cadres would likely have been drawn from that pool.
"Regardless, the foundations are now in place for legal recognition of both homosexual and polyamorous relationships. All that remains is to find a way to prevent Leaf at large from rising up in arms against the happiness of others when this is understood, which is why our own ceremony will be small and private."
"Nice work," Hazō said. "So who will be officiating?"
"As a Kei-KEI union, Kei, of course," Kei said with a perfectly straight face.
"I'm sorry," Hazō said, "would you mind making that a little more confusing? I found it too easy to follow."
"We are not to blame for certain other individuals' twisted senses of humour," Snowflake fired back. "It simply made more sense for a Nara-KEI ceremony to be overseen by someone who was not a member of either group, and we are not on first-name terms with Kei Anko."
"As a founding member, she is technically entitled to the appellation of Lady Anko," Scalpel noted, "could any of us but say it with a straight face."
Hazō nodded sympathetically. He hadn't forgotten the orgy that wasn't. "Can we rewind to the part where you're having Kei Anko officiate at your not-wedding?"
"As will I at hers," Kei confirmed as if oblivious to the horrific doom in store, "should one ever occur. The woman is like an anti-Ami, retaining all the gleeful chaos but with the opposite of the perfection that gives it context. Nevertheless, as a Leaf polyamorous bisexual, she is my responsibility, and besides, it is a path to closer relations with the Kei, something I require for the future. Ami is already hard at work preparing the script so that her inevitable deviation from it will be in an acceptable direction."
Hazō shook his head. "And meanwhile I'm just saving the world from certain destruction. So, any other exploding tags to detonate while I'm here?"
"Oh, yes." Kei's smile broadened to un-Kei-like proportions. "I have saved the most dramatic news till last."
"Don't tell me," Hazō said. "The people of Isan have cast down Takahashi and elected you their Bakukage."
"Not to the best of my knowledge."
"The Nara have discovered how to create the Philosopher's Stone."
"Can neither confirm nor deny."
"Rock Lee and Hyūga have joined the Keikosphere."
In perfect unison, three girls made a noise like a strangled parakeet, then fixed him with a combined death glare that might have incinerated him on the spot had Tenten not ruined the effect by slumping over with a mutter of "Ino, please".
"No, Hazō," Snowflake said venomously. "Setting aside the fact that there is no such thing as the Keikosphere, or that if there were, it would obviously be called the Snowflakesphere since I outnumber her, those two will join it over my dead body—an achievement I believe they will find most difficult.
"There is currently only one man in the Snowflakesphere—"
"Too long," Scalpel interjected. "I suggest Snow Globe, in anticipation of its final state should projected growth trends continue despite our best efforts.
"We are
not calling it that," Kei snapped. "If you insist, we can raise the issue at the next general meeting."
"Fine," Snowflake and Scalpel pouted in mirrored motions.
"As I was saying," Snowflake said, "there is only one man in the entity which will be named the Snowflakesphere after the next general meeting, and even he is only participating under protest. I would sooner have you be the second, or even Noburi, than contemplate including that pair of nincompoops in our affections. No offence, Tenten."
Tenten nodded peaceably.
"I will remind you," Kei said, "of the 'one identity, one vote' policy established at the previous meeting. Now, if you do not mind, my news.
"Hazō," she said in the tones of a woman proclaiming the final, rapturous success of Uplift, "in the last month, I have grown by six millimetres!"
"That's… nice?" Hazō gave her a blank look.
"Do you not understand?" Kei demanded. "I am finally having my growth spurt! No longer must I fear failing to live up to my sister's legacy even in this! No longer will your dominion over the heavens go unchallenged! The Maris of this world will weep in jealousy at my feet as I successfully reach documents my inconsiderate beanpole of a husband has yet again placed on the top shelf!"
"Yes," Hazō said. "That's very impressive. Well done, Kei."
Kei raised an eyebrow. "Hazō, are you mocking me and my years of ever-growing anxiety, suffering, and tribulation?"
The room began to cool at three times its usual speed. Kei and the Snowflakes had the same very cold look in their eyes, and Tenten wasn't moving to help.
Hazō suddenly became acutely aware that he was on crutches, and in no state to outrun any murderous siblings.
His salvation came just as he was weighing whether his body would survive diving out of the window.
"Your board game, milady," the elderly Nara servant stated from the doorway in the tones of slightly pitying respect that a civilian might use on seeing his mistress playing games with two shadow clones because she didn't have enough friends to make up the numbers.
"Perfect," Hazō exclaimed. He glanced at the window. "Say, is that the time? I've just remembered that I have a pressing appointment on the Seventh Path, and my scroll is back at the compound. What a shame that I have to leave immediately. Good luck corrupting your two individuals!"
"I have no such intentions!/Thank you!/We will need it."
With that, Hazō snatched the box and hobbled away as fast as his crutches would carry him.
-o-
Ami scanned Hazō's private chambers with fascination, her gaze skipping over the sealing supplies, the stack of Jiraiya's notes and journals next to the bed, and his map of potential summoning scroll locations (rolled up tight, because he wasn't an idiot), and coming to rest on the pinboard holding some of his most beloved lists.
"'Research pathways for raising the dead'. 'Present ideas for Kagome-sensei'. 'Things I now know count as treason, with extrapolations'. 'Gōketsu Hazō post-interaction survey form, girlfriend version (prototype)'.
Awesome.
"You know, Hazō," she said, "it's taken you way too long to get round to this. Even if you follow the Midorima exegesis of
My Vision, and assume that Chapter 20 is meant to refer to the fifth date rather than the third date, aren't we well past that by now?"
Hazō gave her a confused look. "Ami, what do Yagura's views on the role of the state in citizens' sexuality have to do with anything?"
She rolled her eyes. "No need to be coy. There's only one reason why you could have invited me, the sexiest woman you know with the arguable exception of Mari, to be alone with you in your room at night, at a time when Kei is confirmed to be busy a long way from here, with a vague message about playing with your tower.
"Now get to the seducing. As an expert, I will be awarding you points on subtlety, enthusiasm, flair, and innuendo, as well as a secret fifth category. You will need a combined score of 70 in order to pass."
"Actually..." Hazō said. He cleared his throat. "Mori Ami, I summoned you here in order to fulfil an ancient and dire prophecy, made within these very halls many months ago."
"Ooh." Ami perked up. "That's a great start. None of the other boys ever invoked an ancient and dire prophecy. The best I got was Kani Kyōsuke telling me he'd been guided to me by the ancestors themselves—which, unfortunately for him, just meant he couldn't refuse when I sent him off on a quest. So what's your ancient and dire prophecy?"
"Ami," Hazō raised his voice dramatically, "we are going to stay up all night braiding each other's hair and talking about boys!"
Ami's shocked gasp alone made the entire evening worthwhile.
-o-
"Stay still," Ami muttered as Hazō reclined on one of the floor cushions he'd brought over from the gaming hall. "Your hair still isn't that long, and I don't have much practice. Kei hated braids, and then she decided to cut her hair short—a hilarious family story she will kill me if I even breathe a word of—and I never managed to persuade her to change her mind.
"So," she asked as her hands continued to flick through his hair—the sensation unfamiliar, but pleasant, and oddly intimate—"is this the part where you ask me whether I have a boy I like?"
"Pretty much," Hazō said. "I hear you went on a date with Naruto. How did that go?"
"Excuse me," Ami exclaimed haughtily, "I did no such thing. I went on 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. The plausible deniability makes it strictly superior.
"Case in point: all I did was ask him, as a Leaf native, to show me around some famous places in the area, like the Leaf Grand Theatre, and the Spinning Shuriken Casino, and the Shikiri Museum in Tanzaku Gai."
"Ami," Hazō said sceptically, "you've been here for nearly a year. I refuse to believe that you haven't already been everywhere within a day's travel of Leaf that you thought sounded remotely interesting."
"See?" Ami beamed. "You
get me! Naruto's great fun, but he's got a way to go. But that's what made it such a fun 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. I already knew everything he had to tell me, so I could devote my full attention to studying
how he was telling me it, and also to making sure he was having a good time because I'm a kind and friendly young woman with no ulterior motives."
"You're playing with fire, Ami," Hazō said. "Dating Naruto could go wrong for you in so many ways, I can't even imagine, and I'm good at making the dating thing go wrong."
"I can state with confidence," Ami said, the movement of her hands growing slow and very regular, "that your database of romantic failure modes is trivial next to what I have witnessed, arranged, and been subject to over the last decade—whether as a professional manipulator, a whimsical meddler, or a girl who once possessed unrealistic expectations. Your advice in this matter, though well-meant, is of little practical value to me.
"Besides, as I have explained, it was 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. That I should derive enjoyment from time spent in his company, and in the process strengthen our connection and highlight those qualities of mine that he finds most attractive, is in no way analogous to any commitment to a romantic relationship.
"Now, I believe it is your turn to share unimportant but potentially useful information. Have
you identified any males you wish to add to your relationship with Akane, Ino, and the Arachnid Empress?"
"I don't wish to—" On second thought, no, Hazō wasn't going there. With Ami, there was no possible comment he could make on the Kumokōgō issue that she wouldn't turn into an opportunity to tease him. Frankly, it was a shame Ami wasn't a summoner, because the two would have a lot to talk about when it came to spinning webs for the unobservant.
Now he thought of it, giving Ami a summoning scroll (after she defected and it stopped being treasonous) would be a guaranteed way of getting rid of that life debt she still had hanging over his head, as well as giving her incentive to optimise the Trade Network and whatever other Seventh Path plans he came up with in the fullness of time.
Now he thought about it again, the fact that right now he couldn't
see how it would end in disaster—really, it was hard to feel properly suspicious with the way her hands were running through his hair—didn't mean he could ignore the fact that it would definitely end in disaster, probably the kind that had Ami ruling the Seventh Path in a matter of years and having the authority to give orders to him and every other summoner on the planet.
Or would that really be such a disaster? Ami was, after all, nominally on his side where Uplift was concerned…
Wow. This hair-braiding thing was a lot more dangerous than he'd given it credit for.
"No males," he said, pulling his attention back to the conversation. "I know I gave that speech at the party, but I haven't come across a single boy I might like. To be fair, have you seen what I have to work with?"
"Leaf is on a track to destruction," Ami agreed. "The recent disasters have wreaked havoc on the jōnin pool. So many persons of potential interest are now simply gone, and the fresh ones the Hokage is beginning to promote have talent, but no experience of playing at my level. If I, a technical ally, am struggling to find worthy challengers, what will happen when enemies of Leaf arrive and cannot find them either? Have you wondered how many hostile infiltrators have entered Leaf since the Collapse, undetected because ANBU, too, has been stripped of its top members? Have you wondered whether it is in Mist's interest, or mine at this time, that I inform you of any I identify?
"That is what I have to work with. The options you have at your age range are no improvement. Shikamaru is too cautious—a trait you need in an ally, but not in a boyfriend—and already has his quota of unwanted love interests anyway. Chōji's in no position to experiment. Noburi's taken, and I think if you two were compatible, you'd know by now. You'd have trouble prying open Shino's heart. Kiba would never explore the possibility. Rock Lee might, but I don't think you can cross the communication gap. Haru and Hyūga are hard passes, as is Naruto for now. There are enough potential candidates elsewhere, but I don't think you want a catalogue of strangers to search through for gay romance's own sake. Embrace the luck you have until it, too, runs out."
"Wait," Hazō said after a second, "you left out Sasuke."
"Sasuke is a valid candidate," Ami agreed reluctantly. "He'd be open to a connection if somebody could get past his barriers, you two have the potential for simultaneous sympathy and rivalry to launch a thousand ships, and while I make no promises as to his sexuality, he rejects romantic interest from attractive women on a daily basis."
"So why didn't you recommend him?"
"Because you've found fleeting happiness," Ami said, "and it would not be the act of a friend to accelerate its demise, insofar as it would cause the most beautiful chaos, so on second thought go right ahead and add him in! Your four-way relationship is pretty spicy as far as this village is concerned, and as they say, the spice must grow. And speaking of growing, I think I'm out of things I can do with your hair at this length. Go have a look."
Hazō stood up, reluctantly letting Ami's hands slide out of his hair, and stepped in front of the full-length mirror placed against the wall by order of Mari (who, as the clan stylist, would allegedly die of shame if her clan head stepped out of the main building as anything less than the teenage avatar of hotness).
The fruit of Ami's efforts was eerie to see on his own head, but not unattractive, with a wavy pattern going from the front to the back of his head, and culminating in several braids trailing down the back of his neck into which Ami had, at some point, woven little silver decorations.
"This may come as a shock to you, given the whole braiding each other's hair and talking about boys thing, but you are in fact male, so I couldn't just do what I've always wanted to do to Kei and call it a day. Luckily, I saw some cool hairstyles back when I was on a training journey to Todoroki, and I'm secretly the kami of improvisation—don't tell anyone, or I'll do something really terrible to you that I haven't thought of yet—so you are now the proud owner of the world's only Ami-style multicultural braid. Come, roar your joy to the heavens!"
"Not at this time of night," Hazō said. "Thanks, Ami. This is pretty cool. So does this mean it's my turn?"
"Mmm. Can't wait. Also, you've discovered the secret fifth category. Go you."
Fortunately, Hazō had received a crash course in hair-braiding from Yuno specifically for this purpose. Less fortunately, Yuno had never braided the hair of another human being, so he was going to have to improvise.
Fortunately again, Ami's hair was excellent—a smooth, lustrous black probably cared for using secret seduction-spec lore, because the difference between her and Mari's hair and that of the other girls he spent time physically close to stood out even to his inexperienced eyes. To the extent that Hazō wasn't already doomed as an amateur trying to impress an expert, he could work with this.
"By the way," he said, as he began to an approving "mmm" from Ami, "I wanted to thank you again for the Karasu letters. I'm not done with them yet because my brain is still more scrambled than an egg at an Akimichi cooking tournament, but I've been finding them a fun puzzle."
"Oh," Ami said quietly. "Awkward."
"Ami?"
"Hazō, seeing how long it took you to solve them was a test. Well, a bunch of tests, 'cause that's how I roll. You've already failed most of those, including the one that determines if you get the reward. That's expired now."
"What do you mean, expired?" Hazō demanded.
"Ow! Easy with the hair. If you knew how much work it takes to get it this good, you'd give up wanting to be a girl sharpish."
"I don't want to be a girl," Hazō objected.
"Uh-huh." Hazō couldn't see her expression, but he was sure she was giving him a dubious look. "Between this and Leaf's hundred sexiest lingerie brands..."
"You're using flawed logic," Hazō said. "You don't have to want to be a girl to wear—"
BAD IDEA DON'T GO THERE ABORT ABORT ABORT
"Ami, what do you mean, it's expired?" Hazō
urgently swerved sideways. "You told me they were ancient sealing secrets."
"I told you they were
said to be ancient sealing secrets," Ami corrected him. "Specifically, said by me. C'mon, Hazō, that was one of the easiest tests. Did you think I'd
actually hand the Hokage's son sealing secrets, in the middle of Mist and more or less in public?"
Ouch. Gōketsu Hazō had made a mistake by thinking it was OK for someone to do something which, on reflection, would have been blatant treason. He praised the ancestors, the Will of Fire, and the Sage of Six Paths and all his many brothers that he hadn't told Asuma about the letters when discussing potential solutions to the Dragon problem.
"In my defence," Hazō said, taking advantage of his position to speak softly into her ear because in a world of secret ninjutsu and Bloodline Limits, expressing anger with your boss was one thing, but there were some things you did not say out loud without OPSEC in place, "you're not exactly loyal to Mist when it's weighed against your personal ambitions."
"That's a hell of a thing to say, Hazō," Ami said, turning to look him in the eye, forcing him to pause the braiding. Her expression was… Hazō didn't know what it was, but like every Mist genin, he'd stood over the Shinri Abyss during the Mizukage's lecture on the meaning of sacrifice, and looking at Ami suddenly made him remember its fathomless, watery depths.
"You know my feelings about Lady Kurosawa. But Mist? Hazō, you have no idea what being a village ninja means. None at all. You don't know what it means, to have more than one mission a month, sometimes more than one mission a week, expecting your comrades to die—expecting yourself to die—because you've already seen it happen so many times, or because you are a Mori and you've run the numbers. You don't know what it means to watch them die, just like the numbers say, and know that this is your life, week in, week out, until it's your turn.
"You don't know what it's like to be alone in places where you will die the instant somebody realises who you are. You don't know what it's like to be a toy for cruel men because they'll never let their guard down in front of someone they see as human. You don't know what it's like to spend time becoming someone's friend or lover, knowing every second that you're doing it to destroy or end their life. Week in, week out.
"I didn't make jōnin by having Kei to come home to. Kei was gone. I didn't make it because I loved Yagura's Mist. Nobody with a soul loved Yagura's Mist. I made it because I wanted to believe in the Mist behind Yagura's Mist, the place Grandpa Ryūgamine talked about—the Mist that had been born from the belief that freedom was worth fighting for, worth dying for. The Mist that believed in people, and their potential to challenge anything in the world, even nature itself. The Mist where ninja fought not only to protect, but to make each other stronger.
"That Mist probably never existed. It probably never will. Lady Kurosawa's not an idealist, and she won't make big changes because the conservatives will eat her alive, and Yagura's status quo is just so convenient for any Mizukage. But anything can be born from enough chaos, and the AMI
are idealists, by and large, and to them the conservatives are the people who let Yagura's Mist happen, and they've had a lifetime of being crushed by the status quo.
"You don't need to know any more of that story," Ami said. "Control, freedom, and fun. You've never been where I have, Hazō. You don't know where that philosophy comes from, or what its depths are, or, in the end, what it means. Don't assume you know who I am."
For a little while, Hazō just braided her hair in silence.
-o-
"Sweet!" Ami pirouetted in front of the mirror in delight, watching her triple double Isanese braid following her through the air. "That secret fifth category's your friend tonight, Hazō!"
Hazō had chosen this particular braid for two reasons: first, it was simple by Isan standards. Second, like everything in Isan, it had a special meaning, and in this case the meaning was "I am an unmarried woman between 18 and 26 who was born under the star of chaos, and will give myself only to a man who can overwhelm me in a duel of wits". It was rare for Hazō to get to be the prankster in their relationship, and the fact that there was no possible way Ami could find out (he'd already had a word with Yuno) only made the private joke sweeter.
"I am totally wearing this to tomorrow's KEI assembly," Ami decided. "People can ask me, and I can tell them that Lord Gōketsu braided my hair for me, and when they go WTF, I can act all enigmatic and mysterious, and make your legend grow in new and weird directions."
So this was what instant karma felt like.
"Now," Ami said, "that was fun and all, but is this the part of the evening where I get to play with your tower?"
"My Tower of Inescapable Doom, yes," Hazō said as he brought out the box. "Here, take this blindfold."
Ami accepted the blindfold with a smirk. "Oh, good. For a second, I was afraid this was going to be too vanilla."
"Vanilla? What are you…" Hazō broke off, blushing to the very depths of his soul. "Nonono, this is to make the game more interesting."
"I bet it is."
"I
mean," Hazō said, "if we're going to play the game by ninja rules, which is the only way to play it, we need the blindfolds to add tactical options. It's very hard to cheat without getting caught when everything's in plain sight."
"Can't have everything in plain sight," Ami agreed. "Definitely too vanilla."
Hazō sighed and began to assemble the tower of blocks. "The rules are simple," he said. "On your turn, take one block from any level except an incomplete top level, and put it on the top level. You're allowed to touch blocks to see if they're loose, but you can't move them. You can only use one hand at a time. If you make a block or the tower fall, you lose. And, of course… no cheating.
"Oh, and for the ninja version, no taking off the blindfolds except by mutual consent."
"Mmm…" Ami said slowly, "mutual consent…"
Hazō sighed again. "I swear, you can be as bad as Mari."
"Mmm… Mari…"
Hazō looked up, startled. Ami stuck her tongue out at him.
He shook his head despairingly. "Blindfolds on three. Remember, they're not completely opaque, so I'll see if you're not wearing yours."
"Hold up," Ami said. "What are you offering as a forfeit?"
"A forfeit?"
"Sure," she said as if it was obvious. "It's not proper ninja rules without a forfeit. What do you want from me if I lose? Not that I can't guess from the theme of the evening."
What did he want from Ami? This was a game he felt he had a good chance of winning. He was the more experienced player, and there was very little she could do with her jōnin powers here, with both throwing and social manipulation of little use, whereas he was physically prepared and also in a room with all sorts of handy objects whose location only he knew.
Time to be audacious. There really was no other way with her.
"If you lose, you'll help me fix the Gōketsu Clan finances so we're prosperous again, without making it a favour."
"Deal," Ami said. "And if you lose… you'll date me in the name of my master plan to create the ultimate polycule."
"I-I'm sorry?"
"You heard me." Ami grinned.
"But I don't want to date you, Ami!" Hazō exclaimed. It wasn't that the idea didn't have its points of appeal, but a world tour with Hidan would probably be better for his sanity than a week of dating Ami.
"You think you'll lose, then?" she asked.
"Of course not. But… besides, Akane will kill me!"
"Will she, though?" Ami asked.
"Well, no. But she'll be very upset that I made a decision like that without talking to her first. And so will Ino. And Kei will
definitely kill me."
"All right," Ami said. "I'm already making you choose between two amazing things that are really good for you, but I'll sweeten the deal. You'll date me, subject to Akane and Ino's approval, which you will do your absolute best to get, and Kei's approval, which I will get."
This was definitely a bad idea. A terrible idea. There was no possible way this would end well.
On the other hand, those bison meat sales weren't going to last forever—Hazō doubted Asuma was really prepared to spend the Tower's budget on feeding people for free in perpetuity—and the weight off his shoulders and the time freed up would be enormous. And really, all he had to do was win. Worst came to worst, Ami had neglected to specify how
long they'd have to keep dating.
"Deal," Hazō said heavily. "Now, blindfolds on three.
"One!
"Two!
"Three! Ladies first."
Hazō strained his hearing and his extremely limited vision to the limit. Would Ami cheat on the first move, or would she lull him into a false sense of security with a standard play?
"Your turn," Ami said after a very faintly audible click.
He lined his fingers up with where he was pretty sure the tower was just
so, picked a block, then activated the Iron Nerve for a perfect block extraction with no risk of pushing against anything. He was surprised—but not too surprised—when at the very last instant he felt an irregular surface on top of the tower. Moving his fingers across it gently, he discovered a folded piece of paper creating a slope. Had he put the block down on top of it, it would promptly have slid down and off the tower.
Instead, he picked up the piece of paper with two fingers, and flicked it at Ami's face. As she leaned out of the way, he silently rotated the tower forty-five degrees with another precision move that was only possible with the Iron Nerve (there was a reason he'd been banned from playing it with the other Gōketsu), ensuring that when Ami reached out, she'd hit a corner and inevitably push the whole thing over.
"By the way," he said to mask any noise from the movement, "I wanted to update you on the Dragon situation…"
-o-
"Actually," Ami said, deftly unwinding the loops of ninja wire he'd strung around the tower, "it sounds like the bosses have it all sewn up. Frankly, I'd have been disappointed if beings with a total age longer than one of Mizuma-sensei's lectures, working together, couldn't improve on a plan I came up with in a few minutes."
"Oh, you had Mizuma-sensei as well?" Hazō asked in surprise. "Then again, I suppose the man
was old."
There was no movement from Ami that he could see through the blindfold, but an instant later, his reflexes screamed at him to dodge. He didn't make it before a small blunt object slammed into his forehead and rolled away.
"Oh, my," Ami said in a deadpan voice, "the wind really does blow in the strangest things. You shouldn't leave your window open at night if you're going to be casting aspersions on a young lady's age."
"Fine," Hazō said, "that was a faux pas. But physical assault is blatantly cheating."
"It's not cheating if you don't get caught. Did you see me move?"
Muttering curses against the entire ranged weapons specialisation, Hazō prepared his next trick. It just so happened that, by sheer coincidence, he had a storage scroll on him with a wooden pillar with the same dimensions as the increasingly rickety tower. Concealing the noise with conversation for the nth time, he placed it between Ami and the real tower, where her touch as she reached out would knock it onto the latter.
"I did want to ask you about one other problem," Hazō said. "We're going to have to move Crusaders through uncooperative territory—definitely Cat lands, but we don't know how many other clans might cause trouble as well. What are your thoughts?"
"No-brainer," Ami said. "Assemble the full force on the border, bosses and everything, then send a messenger in with tribute as thanks to the Cat Boss for allowing and ensuring safe passage through their territory. No single clan is going to go up against several bosses when there's a face-saving alternative.
"That's odd," she added, "there's some strange object here, but I can't seem to find the Tower of Inescapable Doom. I wonder what could have happened to it."
A second later, to his utter horror, Hazō felt Ami's hand, groping blindly, settle on his chest.
"Hmm, no, that's not it."
Her face was close enough to kiss. "Maybe if I searched in more—"
Without thinking, Hazō pushed Ami away. There was the sound of falling blocks.
"Oh, dear," Ami said. "Looks like I knocked over the tower. Then again, you made me do it, so I guess it cancels out to a draw."
Hazō pulled off his blindfold to see a completely unharmed Ami sitting amidst the scattered blocks of the tower. He could also see, in the mirror, that his forehead bore the words "I was rude to Ami" in bright red ink, as if placed there by a stamp.
"Ami…"
"Not against the rules," Ami said in a sing-song voice. "You knew my ninja speciality when you challenged me to the ninja-rules game."
"Tell me, Ami," Hazō said as he began to pick up the blocks, "did you ever actually intend to date me?"
Ami gave a pure, innocent smile. "You will never know."
-o-
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-o-
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