Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest (STORY ONLY)

OliWhail · Jan 2, 2017

BEHOLD, I HAVE GLIMPSED BEYOND THE VEIL OF MAYA, WHERE NO MORTAL EYE WAS MEANT TO SEE, NOR MORTAL FOOT TO STEP, NOR MORTAL HAND TO TOUCH. I HAVE BECOME SOMETHING… MORE.

Chapter 94.1: Sealing Recovery

"--AZOOUUUUUUUUUU!" Kagome was shrieking, held back by Inoue-sensei and the cat-masked ANBU. Everyone else had leapt away, leaving Hazou kneeling alone in the middle of the training ground. "LET GO OF ME YOU STINKERS, WE MIGHT STILL BE ABLE TO SAVE HIM! PLEASE!"

Slowly, very slowly, Hazou put down the un-infused seal, one tiny bit of it smudged to the side by an errant flutter of chakra. "Kai," he murmured under his breath. Nothing changed.

"I think I'm okay!" he called out, and then promptly turned to one side and threw up. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he noted idly that there wasn't any blood mixed in with the bile, so most of his organs were probably still intact.

Suddenly Jiraiya was there. "Look at me," he ordered, one hand on Hazou's shoulder. "You look fine on the outside. Gotta check for mental damage. What's your name?"

"Wha-- Kurosawa Hazou."

"Who's the Mizukage?"

"Yagura."

"What city are you in?"

"Hidden Leaf."

"What month is it?"

"April."

"How many dimensions do sealing failures cascade in?"

"Eleven, or thirteen for three or four linked nodes."

"Okay. Let's have our resident medic check you out. Noburi! Come over here and let's see what Hashimoto and Dr. Yakushi have managed to drill into you."

"GET AWAY FROM HIM YOU STINKING TOAD STINKER! THIS IS YOUR FAULT!"

Jiraiya looked briefly heavenward before apparently deciding to let the paranoid sealmaster keep screaming, as Noburi jogged up and began running medical chakra over Hazou.

"Not feeling any internal damage. Hazou, how are you feeling? Besides nauseous, apparently," the other boy inquired.

"No pain or numbness. Actually…." Hazou bit down on his tongue. "Ow! Yep, can still feel pain. Colors look the same, no other weird sensations. No glaring motor issues," he said, wiggling around.

"I will not calm down!" Kagome insisted, still loudly but much more calmly. Hazou looked over to see Inoue-sensei was looking into his eyes for what was presumably another application of the Sunny Day genjutsu. "This is serious! Hazou was at the middle of a failed infusion!"

"Sensei! Sensei, I'm fine. I don't know how or why, but I'm fine. I saw some weird stuff, but I am okay," Hazou called reassuringly.

There was a small *pop* from off to the side of the group as Keiko reappeared in a puff of smoke, holding several storage seals. She looked over to Kagome and his captors, then to Hazou, then to Noburi's glowing green palms. She raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Very minor infusion failure," Jiraiya explained, standing and starting to walk over to her. "Just doing our due diligence to make sure he's okay. Everything seems fine."

"No such thing as a minor sealing failure, you stupid stinker! Okay, well, technically there can be, but mostly not!"

"Thank you for the lecture, oh wise and learned sealmaster," Jiraiya responded, deadpan.

"Paralytic," Keiko said, waving one of the seals before tucking it into a pocket, "which I assume Inoue-sensei will want to negotiate with you about later, so I'll go ahead and hold onto it for now."

Jiraiya threw his hands into the air dramatically. "Augh! What higher power did I offend that I deserve dealing with the women on this team?!"

Keiko didn't smile. "Notes on experiments with the paralytic, along with Hazou's notes," she continued, handing him one of the remaining tags. "Tower lifter parts," holding up the third. "We'll construct it now, if Kagome is done with the tags?"

Drawing a seal to replace the one that didn't infuse: No roll, Iron Nerve

Seal Infusion, TN: ?

Hazou, Sealing:
13d100: 646
13d100: 674
13d100: 793
13d100: 604
13d100: 549
13d100: 494
13d100: 581

While Kagome watched him like an overprotective mother horror-gull and the rest of the team took out and assembled the tower lifter, Hazou infused the remaining seals without any issue and handed them off to Jiraiya, who had gotten back to looking like a kid whose mother had just told him he could get an extra-large cinnamon roll.

"We have got to talk more about this later," Jiraiya was saying gleefully, looking over the notes he had pulled from the storage scroll. "Inverting the Yuina matrix and then adding a tertiary node to control the stress distribution? Very elegant. Suffice it to say I'm excited to see what else you and your sensei can come up with, young man."

Hazou was pretty sure he felt himself blushing as Inoue-sensei waved the two of them over.

"Hazou, if you wouldn't mind showing off?" she asked playfully.

"Huh? Oh, um, right. It's all there in the notes, but basically, since the Five-Seal Barrier is volume-limited, and also has distance requirements, you need something long, flexible, and thin if you want to get a set of tags all on the same object. Hence, ninja wire. Akane and Kagome-sensei designed and built the pieces of the frame so they could be disassembled for easy use, and since we needed a way to move the wire as a stable whole. Once it's up--" he nodded for Keiko and Inoue-sensei to raise the frame "-- you can trigger the central seal, and then lower the frame."

Eyes practically shining, Jiraiya reached up and touched a finger to the central tag. The frame was lowered, and the Toad Sage leapt up onto the wire frame. "It works! Sweet kami, it really works! Ha-HA!"

"Sounds like you're pretty happy with your purchases, eh, old man?" Inoue-sensei teased.

"Hush, girl, I will not let your bargain-driving ways ruin this for me. Get another wire in that frame!"

Several minutes later, when Jiraiya had had his fill of looking over the treetops to the other training grounds, he finally clambered down.

"Right, so! I think your note also said something about rewards," he stated with an emphatic clap. "Who wants to go first?" He turned to Inoue-sensei with wiggling eyebrows.

She snorted. "After you short changed us that hard on the seals, I think I'll take round two as a bonus, thanks."

"If I remember right, it'd be more like round--" Jiraiya began, before the remaining ANBU coughed loudly. "Fine, I'll deal with you later. Kids?"

"I'd planned on asking about continued medical training," Noburi said, stepping forward, "but since I'm studying under Yakushi-sensei, I feel the best thing for me to ask for would be water jutsu that Inoue-sensei doesn't already know."

Jiraiya nodded. "Done. I think I know just the tutor to put you in touch with." He turned to Keiko. "Miss Mori?"

"I too have a request for jutsu training, prioritizing Wind techniques that enhance mobility, or alternatively those that enhance the use of ranged bukijutsu," Keiko stated simply.

"Goodness, at this rate you guys are going to get your hands on every technique Leaf has!" Jiraiya chuckled. "Which reminds me. Hazou, when I left you lot in Iron, I told you I would find an Earth teacher. I intend to honor that commitment, so don't worry about requesting continued training, since that's where this seems to be going. What else is on your list?" he finished with a grin.

"Well, sir, I'd like to check if it's okay to talk about what kinds of things are on the table first?"

Jiraiya nodded.

Hazou took a deep breath to steel himself. "Okay," he began, "with the understanding that this is a long shot, and that I don't know anything about how to go about extracting a foreign jounin... I want to see my mom again." He pointedly ignored Yamanaka's sharp inhalation, immediately regretting not having asked to do this more privately. "We have some ideas, the least risky one being to monitor when she would be away from Kiri, then contacting her with a message she would know was from me to organize a future extraction. You're the spymaster - is that possible? If not now, then eventually?"

Jiriaya's eyebrows had risen fractionally. "Getting new assets in place would be tricky, and obviously I can neither confirm nor deny that I already have any such assets. And stealing a jounin related to a missing nin out from under Yagura's nose would almost certainly mean war if he found out. Why should I risk that?"

Hazou frowned, but he was ready for this one. "If it'll mean a war, it's obviously not worth it. I don't want anyone else to have to lose the people they love so I can see mine again. But if it could be done, we're talking about a jounin with extremely compelling reasons to become your asset, and Leaf's by extension. You would be strengthening a team of assets that has already shown itself to be valuable."

Jiraiya let out a small sigh. "Kid, I can understand wanting to see your mother. I can also see the merit in adding what I assume would be a stabilizing influence to your team. But, without getting too far into classified information, the situation right now means I can't make that offer, and honestly I probably wouldn't be willing to under better circumstances just in exchange for the Arikada mission. We might -- might -- be able to get her a VERY discreet message, if your team can propose a solid plan for doing so."

Forcing himself not to grimace, Hazou nodded. "Alright let me think about that. Next question, does any kind of pass to cross Fire borders come packaged with Akane's reinstatement and our continued loyalty?"

"Absolutely not," Jiraiya responded immediately. "Nor would that be a viable reward. Despite your willingness to cooperate, and your teammate's change in status, you are still deniable assets, and if you were captured any such information could be taken from you, enabling major enemy action."

Hazou shrugged. "I figured it couldn't hurt to ask. I have a few more general questions, if that's okay?" He was sure he was imagining the sound of Noburi's eyes rolling.

Jiraiya just nodded. "Go ahead."

"To what extent are seal designs on the table? Either several low-to-medium tier utility seals that you think will contribute most to our effectiveness, or a deeper dive into a particular area, like modified storage seals?"

One of the Toad Sage's bushy eyebrows shot up. "You survive an infusion failure and then immediately ask about doing more sealing? Gutsy. When you say utility seals, what are you thinking of?"

Hazou began counting off on his fingers. "Communication at range. Sensory enhancements like night vision. Alarms. Stealth enhancements, like sound muffling. Something that lets us breathe when there is no clean, breathable air around. Protection from bright lights and loud noise, or extreme temperatures, or skin-contact toxins, or--"

Jiraiya held up a hand. "I'm beginning to see how you might have hit upon the watchtowers and the, ah, macerator," he said wryly. "I think the world's premier sealmaster could reasonably provide you with a selection of seals like that, or with an in-depth study. What else?"

"Will we have the chance to buy new essentials?"

"Of course."

"Are we allowed to access a Leaf bingo book?"

"Sure, I'll have one sent to your quarters. And I won't even count that as part of your favor."

"Thank you, sir, we appreciate it. Another question, if I could: jutsu development. Is training a possibility?"

Jiriaya blinked a couple of times before scratching his head. "Kid, are you trying to acquire as many ways to blow yourself up as possible? I mean, yeah, that's probably doable, particularly since you'll already be working with a jutsu instructor."

"If I can ask, sir, how useful do you think it would be for our team?"

Jiraiya's mouth quirked into a small smile. "Now that, I would count toward your favor."

"Uh. Never mind, then. Last thing, are there missions you have planned for us that you can tell us about before we make our decision? And how long do you anticipate us remaining here?"

"That was two last things, no, and until you've finished the training your favors get you. Leaf administration isn't happy about having deniable assets on-site, and I've had to fight them to let you stay even this long for Ishihara's sake. After that, as far as I'm concerned, our previous deal still stands.

"Now, Hazou, I have a question for you, which I think is fair, after all yours. When we met last time you made a particularly impassioned speech, and I asked you why Fire didn't already look like the world you wanted to build. I'm curious whether you've given that any thought."

"I have," Hazou answered carefully. This was a second chance at getting an incredibly powerful ally on his side, on the side of the world he knew could be a reality, and he was not going to mess it up. "To be frank, the answer to why that hasn't spread to all of Fire was pretty clear in retrospect. You said yourself that none of the major players can trust each other, and that each of them consider only their own people to have any moral weight. What was your phrase? You would 'sleep well' after killing a foreign citizen to save a Leaf one? Not that you would spend so much as a second of thought on how to avoid having to do it again in the future? And you said all your counterparts in other villages feel the same way.

"Everyone being willing to backstab one another the instant there's any advantage to it encourages distrusting and not caring about others, leading to a downward spiral of indifference and hate. Spend long enough trapped in that spiral, and your neighbor's prosperity just looks like a threat. So even if Fire wanted to build itself up into a paradise -- and we've seen that people have used Leaf's surpluses to make life better -- it can't, because you're not as strong as everyone else all at once."

Some of the fire and steel he had felt the last time he stared Jiraiya down was coming back into Hazou's voice now, matching the steel in the Toad Sage's unwavering gaze. "You can't build up, because you would get crushed under the fist of an angry, terrified war god. You can't work with other nations to break out of the status quo, because you won't be trusted, and won't trust them, since you both know that trust would be exploited. So Leaf has to help perpetuate a broken system that's slowly breaking humanity, even if you guys are better about it than others.

"No matter what, we want to help you keep the peace. But in the end, that's just forestalling the inevitable, and something has to change, or everything is going to crumble into dust, and everyone is going to die - everyone in Leaf, every single one of us, and everyone we've ever cared about. A war goes down, everyone loses that much sooner. So we have no choice but to build a world where everyone wins, because we refuse to allow the alternative. Now, one more time, I'm asking you: will you help us?"

Hazou ignored the stares of Team Asuma. Jiraiya was silent for several long seconds. "It sure sounds like if I say no, you're going to try and do it without me," he said finally.

Hazou met the old man's gaze unflinchingly. Just like the last time, he felt like his soul was being laid bare. Eventually Jiraiya snorted, and the spell was broken. "Iron Nerve indeed. Alright, suppose I get on board with this plan. What do you propose to do?"

"We don't know yet, sir," Hazou admitted frankly, deflating a little. "That's part of why we want so badly to have you on our side - you have more experience at this kind of thing than pretty much anyone."

"Ha! Flattery will get you everywhere, kid, keep it up. I maintain what I said last time: Leaf is my absolute number one priority. However, I promise to give what you've said due consideration. I'll admit, it's... nice, to think about living in that kind of world."

For several long seconds Jiraiya stared off pensively into the treeline, before composing himself and putting on a warm smile. "Now, your reward?" he asked invitingly.

What do you do now? Voting will end at noon, London time on Wednesday, January 4th.

XP for this plan was awarded last chapter, but as I now have access to nigh-infinite cosmic power, I hereby grant +1 XP for @Cariyaga being the first person I saw to correctly guess that I had been recruited to the QM team.

To clarify what has happened behind the scenes: some time ago I was approached about the possibility of taking on QM duties, especially answering player questions, keeping docs up to date, and covering for times when meatspace issues catch up to either @eaglejarl or @Velorien. At the time, I was even busier than I am now due to school and moving across the country. Many of those RL issues have been resolved, and so we deemed the new year an appropriate time to make the transition. We would have simply made the transition out of character, but an opportunity cropped up in-story that was too good to pass up.

So, I will still be around and in the thread, and will probably still post occasional omake. I want to make it totally clear that until the previous chapter posted, I had no access to additional information. Any posts I have made after that chapter should be regarded with the typical level of scrutiny and skepticism for QM posts.

Now that I have seen the worldbuilding docs, though... oh boy. You guys are in for a ride!

Mechanics Announcement:

Yesterday @eaglejarl posted about a proposed mechanic where practice with infusing a seal decreased the difficulty. We've hashed that out in QM chat, and the provisional mechanic is that each successful infusion drops the TN by one, starting at the research TN for that seal. Each failed infusion drops the TN by 5, since you tend to learn more from failure.

Note that you got close enough with that 494 roll that I almost got excited to write another sealing failure scene. That would have been fun!

Velorien · Jan 5, 2017

Chapter 95: Carefully-Chosen Rewards and Carelessly-Chosen Words
by @Velorien

"So," Jiraiya said as he lounged back in his armchair, "how was working with the old bat?"

"Sir," Sarutobi said uncomfortably, glancing from side to side, "are you sure you want to be saying that out loud? You know the stories."

"Point taken."

Jiraiya raised his voice.

"That was a term of affection!"

"I, uh, it wasn't that bad," Hazō said. "She was patient enough to correct all my mistakes, and she brewed me some tea—very bitter tea—during my break. Actually, I was going to ask: what does 'sheep-swiving' mean? And 'addle-cove'? And 'fumble-fingered jackanapes?'"

"What a woman," Jiraiya sighed wistfully. "If she were sixty years younger…"

"Sir?"

"Ahem. I guess you're not here to talk about the various merits of women. Which is a pity, kid—there's a whole lot I could teach you. You should think about making that your next favour."

Jiraiya lifted a pouch from beside the chair, and fished a few scrolls out of it.

"Here, as promised. Now, I felt like picking you a theme. See, when I was young and foolish, I thought it was acceptable for an elite shinobi to master less than all five basic elements, so I tried to make up for my lack of Wind with air-type seals. And that's what you're getting, complete with a few design notes I managed to scrounge up."

He began to hand Hazō scrolls one by one.

"This first one's the Tunneller's Friend. We happened to coincidentally complete the research on it right after a Hidden Rock infiltration team disappeared in Fire territory. It's got two active modes: absorption and release. The first stores up air from the environment. The second gradually releases it. The more active you are, the faster you use it up. Rock burrowers like to stick it inside airtight masks, but you and I both know restricting it to that is just tunnel vision. What? Don't give me that look. I swear, some of my best material…

"Next up is Usamatsu's Glorious Life-Saving Purifier. Usamatsu was an ass, and he didn't realise until the end of his days that everyone else treated the name as a joke, but when it came to sealing, he really knew his stuff. One end of the seal sucks gas into a storage space in sharp bursts. All gas. In parallel, the other end pumps out air. Just air, no matter what else it sucked in. So if there was poison gas in it, that stays in the storage space forever. Except if the seal is destroyed and all that concentrated poison rushes out at once, which is how Usamatsu got himself killed."

"Can't you just jump out of the poison gas cloud?" Hazō asked.

"Sure you can. And gas users know that. So they'll pin you down first. Or catch you in an enclosed space. Or use gas that instantly sticks to your skin, or melts it. Or whatever. Always assume that the enemy is as smart as you are, kid.

"Next up, this is an alarm seal so basic it doesn't even have a name. Normally I wouldn't bother handing these out, because in Leaf even a beginner in sealcrafting knows a dozen variations of something so primitive."

Kagome-sensei flinched.

"Set it up with your standard trap systems. When the enemy trips it, it wails at moderate shouting volume for two seconds and then shuts off. Twelve-hour duration or until triggered.

"Now, let's move on to something a little more interesting. This one's a toy of my very own creation, back when I had the time to invent seals as a hobby. Check this out!"

He held up a seal.

Hazō and Kagome-sensei both peered at it. To Hazō, it just seemed like another seal, but Kagome-sensei leaned in for a closer look.

"Where's the tertiary nexus?"

Jiraiya grinned. "There isn't one."

"Bullshit," Kagome-sensei spat. "I can see the dispersers from here. You've got to have a tertiary nexus, or the whole thing will blow up as soon as you infuse it."

Jiraiya grinned some more. "Oh, it works. Trust me. I soloed the entire Sōon Clan with a bagful of these. Well, that and a toad the size of the Hokage's Office. Best part? Without a tertiary nexus, there's room for a modulator that lets you set the intensity at creation time."

"That's very impressive," Hazō agreed on general principle, "but what does it do?"

"Sound dampener," Jiraiya said as if it was obvious. "Low-range, but stick a couple of them next to your ears—I used some earmuffs a fangirl from Snow had sent me—and they stop you hearing any sound above the volume you've set. Version B, which you'll find in the bag as well, cuts sound out altogether. You'll be deaf, but that also means immunity to sound-based genjutsu and other fun things."

"What's its name?" Kagome-sensei asked as Hazō collected the design notes. "Can't invent an original seal without giving it a name. Disrespectful."

Jiraiya gave a solemn nod. "This is the Banshee Slayer."

He took in the looks from everybody in Teams Inoue and Sarutobi.

"Hey, I was a teenager, OK? I thought it was the coolest name ever. And then it made Tsunade laugh her head off, and after that changing it would have been backing down."

He slumped in his armchair.

"Ah, to hell with all of you. Take the last seal and be done with it."

"What's this one called?" Hazō asked, trying to suppress a smile.

"The Silence Mine," Jiraiya said in a low, listless voice. "And before you ask, no, it is not a mine, and strictly speaking it doesn't silence either. We've all made mistakes in our youth.

"It's a wide-area version of the Banshee Slayer. Turn it on, and it softens sounds—not as effectively, but well enough to make sneaking around easier. Have your stealthiest scout go ahead and put a few of these down, and then your lumbering ox taijutsu expert might not give you away as the rest of the team catches up.

"And then there was this one time Uchiha Satomi infiltrated the mint posing as an inspector, and stuck Silence Mines where nobody would see them. Once night fell, all we had to do was trigger them one by one and the rest of the mission was a cakewalk."

Jiraiya looked into the distance, somewhere far beyond the solid walls of his office. "She was a special woman, was Satomi. She deserved better than what she got."

"Sir?"

Jiraiya's eyes refocused. "That's five excellent seals. More than I normally give out to a team of your standing. Now, Sarutobi and his team know where your ninjutsu instructors are. So you know, the instructors aren't cleared for your identities, so no names, backgrounds or all the other info you guys love to hand out like a new cult with a basket of pamphlets."

Inoue-sensei nodded. "Kids, Kagome and I are going to do some shopping while you're busy. Don't worry, I've got all your requests written down."

She turned to Jiraiya.

"Oh, no hard feelings about yesterday's bargaining, right?"

Jiraiya chuckled, a little of his customary good cheer coming back. "Perish the thought."

-o-

"Welcome, my child," Hazō's teacher smiled beatifically. "My name is Tsuchimikado Nana, but you can call me Mother Nana."

"I, uh, yes," Hazō said uneasily. "Nice to meet you."

Mother Nana (not that he had any intention of calling her that if he could help it) was a brunette of indeterminate age dressed in thick green and brown leather armour, complete with a strategically-slitted long skirt. She never stopped smiling, which in its own way was as disturbing as an aura of killing intent.

"Now, what are you here to learn?"

"I was hoping for a tunnelling technique, or something to let me sense vibrations through the ground."

"Vibrations?" Mother Nana said. "Yes, everyone should learn to sense vibrations. Be happy, my child, for I shall teach you the Living Roots Technique."

"That sounds great. Thank you!" Hazō felt a wave of relief. Something definitely didn't feel right about the woman, but that didn't matter as long as she was prepared to teach him what he needed. He hoped.

"Now," Mother Nana said, "let me demonstrate. First, you breathe in all the love and joy of the universe."

She opened her arms wide, then slowly closed them into seal-making position.

"Next, you mould your chakra and send it through your feet to make deep roots in the earth, and up through your head to receive heavenly wisdom.

"Earth Element: Living Roots Technique…" she said gently as she formed the seals.

"Now, you reach out and feel the profound peace of nature extending all around you. Sense the tremors from the feet of others as they disturb that peace." She smiled serenely. "Extend spikes of rock from the ground and rend the flesh from their bones, turning their viscera into a rain of meat and blood that feeds and nourishes the soil. Oh, but the rock spikes are a separate technique, my child, and I'm only contracted to teach you the one."

She beckoned to Hazō. "Now, you try it with me. Breathe in all the love and joy of the universe…"

-o-

"Hey, there," the young woman, tall and slim with pink highlights in her black hair, waved at Kei. "So you're Master Jiraiya's latest protégée, huh? Wow, you're so young! I'm Aoba Minori, but my friends call me Minorin, and I just know you and I are about to become the best of friends!"

Kei was less convinced.

"Thank you for agreeing to tutor me in Wind mobility ninjutsu," she bowed deeply. "I will endeavour to live up to your expectations."

Aoba-sensei's eyes widened. "Ohmykamikamikamiyouaresoincrediblycute!" she squealed, bouncing on the spot.

Kei looked up in alarm.

"Eek!"

She barely managed to dive out of the way as Aoba-sensei leapt towards her, arms open.

"Hey, where are you going? I just want to give you a great big hug!"

"I would really appreciate it if you stayed away from me!" Kei shrieked with her last shreds of composure as she picked up speed.

Behind her, Aoba-sensei was in hot pursuit.

"Come back, there's no need to be shy!"

-o-

"So you're the latest maggot Jiraiya needs whipping into shape, are you?" Noburi's new teacher barked.

Noburi wasn't sure whether he was facing a human being. Towering over him, at least seven feet tall and with biceps each bigger than Noburi's head, every exposed inch of the man's flesh was covered with scars, some deep enough to surely have been fatal.

"I am Captain Miyamoto. You will address me solely and exclusively as 'Captain Miyamoto'. I will address you as whatever you deserve, which right now is 'maggot'. Anything else, you earn. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir!"

"That's 'yes, Captain Miyamoto,' maggot! Get it wrong again and you'll be running laps around the Training Grounds for the rest of the day. Am I clear?"

"Yes, Captain Miyamoto!"

"Good," the living mountain of muscle nodded. "Now, what kind of ninjutsu are you here for?"

Noburi had taken some time to think about this. He'd really wanted something flashy, something to make him stand out the way he ought to, but after the Arikada mission…

"Do you have anything that'll let me cover my back? I got hit with a surprise attack last time I fought, and it knocked me out of the battle completely."

"Ha!" Captain Miyamoto barked. "A good shinobi always watches his back. Looks like you're not a good shinobi yet, maggot. But don't worry. By the time I'm done with you, you'll be faster than Hyūga Hiashi, smarter than Hatake Kakashi and tougher than Maito Gai.

"Now, the technique you're looking for is called Hōzuki's Mantle."

He paused.

"Hold that thought. No way would a brat like you have the chakra reserves."

"Oh, I really wouldn't worry about that, Captain Miyamoto," Noburi said. "Say, is that 'Hōzuki' like the Hōzuki Clan?"

"Huh," Captain Miyamoto sounded a little taken aback. "You're not completely empty-headed after all, maggot. That's right. My team was on the eastern front during the war. One of those elite Mist all-clan squads thought they could end us, but we showed the bastards what Leaf training is good for. Oh, we showed them. And then after a little time in T&I, one of them coughed up this little gem. We decided to keep the name, so every time we use the technique, we're spitting in Mist's eye for being too weak to protect their secrets.

"What're you squirming for, maggot? You're not feeling sorry for those Mist scum, are you?"

"N-No, Captain Miyamoto!"

"Good," Captain Miyamoto smirked. "Here, want to hear my favourite joke? How many Mist-nin does it take to refill an oil lamp?"

"I-I don't know, Captain Miyamoto."

"None! They'd rather cower in the dark like the cowards they are than risk facing the Will of Fire! Bwahahahaha!

"Here's another one. Why should you never fuck a Mist-nin?"

It was going to be a very, very long afternoon.

-o-

"Hi, Akane," Hazō staggered into the room, collapsing on the nearest chair.

"Hazō-sensei? Are you all right?"

"I am filled with the love and joy of the universe. Also nausea. How about you?"

"I'm… fine, thanks."

The two looked at each other.

Suddenly, a sense of absolute awkwardness descended on Hazō. He knew, intuitively, without a shadow of a doubt, that whatever he said next would be the wrong thing to say, and would embarrass him in front of her and make her reconsider her feelings. He knew that this would be true irrespective of what he said.

In the back of his mind there was the awareness that Akane was still Akane, and nothing had actually changed between them except the admission of things which had been true all along, but for some reason this didn't help.

Time passed in silence, until at least Akane seemed to screw up her courage.

"I think this is normal, Hazō-sensei. Changing your relationship sort of… resets things. Not literally, just in terms of… what this feels like. It's supposed to get better eventually."

Hazō nodded gratefully.

Akane put a finger to her lip thoughtfully. Akane's lips were another part of her Hazō had never considered. Now he was considering them, and he could feel himself starting to blush again. He wondered if Inoue-sensei knew any techniques for not doing that all the time.

"Is there anything purely factual we can talk about?" Akane asked. "Something where you don't have to wonder if you're saying the right thing?"

Hazō smiled. "Now you mention it, I think I can do one better. I got up extra-early in the morning to do this—which, now I think of it, might help account for the nausea—but here, listen."

He pulled out his flute. Akane gasped softly.

Hazō raised it to his mouth and began to play the Senju and the Uchiha's first meeting. The deep, heavy swings of his glaive served as a counterpoint to the quick, playful stabs of her shortswords, starting out discordant but gradually falling into a perfect steady rhythm.

Akane leaned back against her pillow, rested the back of her head on her hands, and closed her eyes.

-o-

With one last breath, the low tones of the Senju's passion interwove with the sudden, high, agonised joy of the Uchiha. The music pulsed with the Uchiha's final heartbeat, crescendoed as their lips pressed against one another's—and then the song cut off with the finality of death.

Akane wiped the tears away from her eyes.

"That was… that was perfect, Hazō-sensei. How could you learn it so well so quickly?"

Hazō gave a modest shrug. "I told you—I had a lot of opportunity to get good at the flute while I was home alone all those years."

"Any more hidden talents I should know about?" Akane teased.

"Hmm," Hazō feigned intense thought. "Well, I'm not sure I should be admitting this to you this early in our relationship…"

Akane leaned forward attentively.

"… but I happen to be very good at making lists."

Akane burst out laughing. It was a sound he could listen to forever.

"Speaking of keeping things hidden," Hazō said, "do you think we should tell the others about us? I mean, it's fine if you don't, I don't want to be insensitive to your feelings, not that I'm saying it takes sensitivity to accept how you feel, I mean, assuming you don't want to tell them, whereas—"

"Hazō-sensei," Akane interrupted.

"Sorry."

"You should tell them. I do wish I could be there, and see all their faces. But there's no way Dr Yakushi would let us have an all-team meeting here, and I think it would be too long to wait until I'm discharged."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I think it will make them happy."

-o-

The day was over. Kagome-sensei was gazing at his Akimichi Lore cookbook as if it were his own child, Inoue-sensei was fiddling with her hair, Noburi was in the yard outside performing some very violent taijutsu exercises, and Keiko was practising moulding chakra.

"Noburi, Keiko," Hazō called them over, "could you come in here? There's something I want to talk to everyone about."

Noburi nodded mutely. Now Keiko was coming closer, Hazō could hear that she was muttering something under her breath over and over.

"Keiko, are you OK?"

She gave him a hollow stare. "I must master the Vacuum Step faster. My running speed is insufficient. I must master the Vacuum Step faster. My running speed is insufficient. I must master the Vacuum Step faster. My running speed is insufficient."

Hazō gulped.

"A-After you."

Once everyone was gathered, Hazō began.

"Guys, there's something I would like to tell you all. The truth is, Akane and I… have started dating. I think."

Inoue-sensei beamed. Noburi laughed. Kagome-sensei looked bewildered. And the light returned to Keiko's eyes.

"Before we congratulate you," Keiko said in a level voice, "or commence appropriate celebrations, there are formalities that must be completed. First, which of you confessed your feelings to the other?"

"I did," Hazō said, confused by the sudden serious atmosphere. "Though it was close to simultaneous."

"Second, did any member of the team present you with unsolicited romantic advice?"

"No, they didn't. Why would they?"

"Third, did any member of the team present you with solicited romantic advice which encouraged you to be the one to confess, or proposed a time frame for such confession?"

Did Inoue-sensei's advice count?

"Inoue-sensei didn't say it outright, but I'm pretty sure her advice led me to confess to Akane sooner rather than later."

Inoue-sensei winced as Noburi and Keiko gave her very cold looks. "I regret nothing."

"Finally," Keiko continued, "have you acquired a breeding license from Jiraiya?"

"A what?" Hazō goggled.

"I will interpret that as a 'no'.

"To summarise, Hazō confessed his feelings first, before leaving Leaf. However, Inoue-sensei has been disqualified for cheating, and Pandā's presumption that Hazō would need to acquire a breeding license before confessing has been proven incorrect. In other words, nobody wins the bet.

"How tragic," she added in a deadpan monotone.

"Now, with my role as administrator fulfilled, Hazō, I would like to formally congratulate you on this long-overdue development. It is my hope that the two of you will enjoy a stable and fulfilling relationship."

"What she said," Noburi agreed. "Can't believe you of all people managed to overtake me in the dating game. Teach me your secrets, O 'Hazō-sensei'!"

Hazō laughed.

The inevitable hair-ruffle descended on him while he was distracted.

"Nice going, little Hazō! I knew you wouldn't screw this up! Tonight, Kagome will be making your favourite dish, Mountain-style spiced noodle soup!"

"Inoue-sensei, that's your favourite dish."

"Details, details," Inoue-sensei flicked her hand in the air. "The important thing is that everybody's happy, right, Kagome?"

But Kagome-sensei's mouth was still opening and closing like that of a fish. "Y-You and Akane? Are you serious? How did this happen?"

Hazō's friends' laughter lit up the room better than any lamp.

-o-

After a while, the merriment had quietened down, and Inoue-sensei had subtly nudged Noburi in Keiko's direction. With the two engaged in conversation, and Kagome poring through his supplies in search of spices, Inoue-sensei was on her own. It was a good time to talk.

Hazō studied his target, readied his weapon, took a deep breath and engaged.

"Uh, Inoue-sensei, I just wanted to tell you that your new hair... style looks superb. It, uh, frames your face... accurately, and, well, it draws my eye down your left side, which I assume is the side where you don't keep your weapons, thereby unconsciously making me less likely to notice your weapons. Oh... but maybe your weapons are on this side, because now I am searching your right side for the weapons and don't see them at all! So, that's a great double blind... unless you aren't carrying weapons at all, and this was all to make me spend precious time on looking for weapons when, really, your greatest strength is your genjutsu."

He risked a look at Inoue-sensei's face, on which an unreadable smile was dancing.

"Anyway, is that a good way to do a sincere compliment? Not that I just said that because I want to practice for Akane, although that is an ulterior motive, but it in no way, I assure you, detracts from the fact that your new haircut really is nice. And somehow very puzzling in terms of what it means for you being armed."

Inoue-sensei giggled. "Yep, full points for sincerity. Now you just need to work on every other part of what it means to give a compliment.

"Listen up, Hazō. First off, a compliment needs to be elegant. If you can't fit it in one or two sentences, then it had better be both mindblowing and emotionally context-appropriate, which are both likely to be outside your reach right now. Give me a two-sentence compliment."

"Inoue-sensei, your eyes are very attractive, whatever colour they may be at any given moment. They are vivid and have a nice shape."

"Hmm," Inoue-sensei considered. "Progress. Draw attention to a general feature, then elaborate on what makes it good. Next you need to learn to refine your compliments. Distracting your listener with ambiguity or unnecessary words dilutes the effect.

"Also, what do you mean, whatever colour my eyes may be? People's eyes don't change colour, unless you're an Uchiha or something."

Hazō stopped dead in his tracks. "Inoue-sensei… what colour are your eyes right now?"

Inoue-sensei gave him a disapproving look. "Green. They've always been green, Hazō. I'm a little insulted that you never noticed.

"Now, give me a focused compliment, with no waffling."

"I—I, uh, think you have excellent taste in clothing. It always balances attractiveness and functionality."

"Mmm. Now we're getting somewhere. Give me some more compliments, and let's see if we can't turn you into a proper ladykiller before the hour's out."

-o-

"And that, Inoue-sensei," Hazō said in his best heartfelt-but-not-trying-too-hard voice, "is why I think the oval of your face provides a perfect frame for features that together rend the heart like a blade of unbearable beauty." Yes, he was internally mortified, but he would see this trial through to its terrible end. It was for Akane.

"H-Hazō?!" Keiko stuttered, coming in at the worst possible moment.

Crap.

For an instant, everything balanced on a knife edge.

"ComplimentpracticewithInoue-senseieverythingisforAkanedidn'treallymeanawordofit!" Hazō explained in his best emergency rapid-fire, praying that Keiko's brain the size of a continent could disentangle the syllables before she ran off.

Keiko relaxed. "Would it have been so complicated to warn me in advance that you were planning to perform training exercises? Ah, not that it is of any personal relevance to me what you two do together. I only ask for the sake of practicality."

"Well, now you know," Inoue-sensei said wearily. "And Hazō, 'didn't really mean a word of it'?"

"I was in a hurry and not thinking straight, Inoue-sensei. Of course those were all sincere compliments. Except insofar as me complimenting you makes Keiko uncomfortable, in which case they were all blatant lies."

Now Keiko was looking as weary as Inoue-sensei. "Thank you for your subtle and sensitively-expressed display of concern for my feelings, Hazō. I am going to go help Kagome with cooking now."

"On a completely unrelated note," Hazō hastily changed the subject as Keiko left, "I wanted to ask you about talking to Jiraiya about Dr Yakushi."

"Oh?"

"Well, while I still think we owe Dr Yakushi for saving Akane's life, so we shouldn't rush to any conclusions, it does seem like he's putting a lot of effort into learning as much as he can about us. And if you're right, he's extremely good at it. I remember what you said about the possibility that he's using Akane as a hostage to ensure our good behaviour, and even if the risk to her is small, that's still unacceptable.

"It's possible that he's following orders from above, in which case we have no recourse. But if he's doing it on his own, then telling Jiraiya might increase scrutiny of Dr Yakushi—which is fine if he's innocent—or otherwise help keep Akane safe. I think we need to make it clear to Jiraiya that Akane is extremely important to us and we won't let her be put in danger. Given she's now a Leaf ninja, I'm sure he'll feel the same way. What do you think?"

"I think it's a good move," Inoue-sensei agreed. Hazō let out a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding in.

"If Yakushi is acting on official orders," she went on, "then Jiraiya might give us the cold shoulder, but that's still information. If Yakushi isn't, then going through the proper channels is the most effective way of dealing with him from our position. Of course, if Jiraiya doesn't take us seriously, that might hurt our standing with him, but at the very least it'll plant the seeds of doubt in his mind.

"Let's go find ourselves an escort."

-o-

"So as you can see," Inoue-sensei finished her description, "we have every reason to be worried. You know my background, so you can appreciate that I know what I'm talking about when I say that Dr Yakushi is trying to manipulate us, to unknown and possibly hostile ends."

Jiraiya clicked his tongue. "Inoue, did you really drag me away from my long-awaited evening saké for this? 'Help, Big Bad Dr Yakushi is being too nice to us, with his cunning diabolical scheme that I spotted the very first time we talked'?

"Yakushi Kabuto is a trusted Leaf shinobi, vetted at the highest levels. He's got clearance rankings you aren't even allowed to know exist. If he's indulging his academic interests in a way that makes him of more value to Leaf, more power to him.

"And if he's trying to be clever about it, well, of course he is. He's a ninja. In case you're forgetting, so are you.

"Now unless you have actual proof that the doctor who saved your comrade's life is out to get you, kindly find something better to do with your time."

Hazō gritted his teeth. This was as far from the response he wanted as it was possible to get. "If you trust Dr Yakushi, sir, then that's fine. Like you say, you've had much more opportunity to test him than we have. But if that trust means you're not even going to check whether what we're saying is right, and Dr Yakushi turns out to be a threat—even if it's only to us, and only in this one case—then you're putting Akane in danger. And you need to understand something. Akane is precious to me—to us—and we are willing to go pretty damn far to keep her safe."

A flicker of something (disappointment?) passed across Jiraiya's face. He made a hand signal over his head.

Six masked ninja appeared around him out of nowhere.

At the edge of Hazō's vision, Inoue-sensei was turning pale.

"Kingfisher," Jiraiya said mildly, "remind me of the ANBU protocol for dealing with a credible threat to a senior Leaf official from an unaffiliated party?"

"Sir! Immediately disable all targets and relocate them to a secure detention facility. If disabling is impractical or risky, eliminate as many as necessary."

Jiraiya nodded as if listening to a report on the weather, then said a single word.

"Proceed."

"Wait!" Inoue-sensei screamed.

Slowly, with her arms out and away from possible weapons, she sank into a dogeza bow. After a second's hesitation, Hazō decided that this was definitely a time to do as Inoue-sensei did.

"Please forgive my absolute idiot of an apprentice, and please forgive me for not teaching him better than this. He and Akane started dating yesterday, and she is his first love, and it is only his adolescent hormones that are driving him to be suicidally protective of her. He doesn't really know what he's saying, and I and the rest of the team would never let him step out of line."

Jiraiya's expression softened a little.

"Proceed," he repeated.

"Lion, Salamander, Hawk: rendezvous with the guards at the guest quarters and retrieve the rest. Be careful with the sealmaster—let his teammates persuade him to come quietly."

A pair of handcuffs clicked into place around Hazō's wrists as he was led away.

-o-

You have restocked on basic supplies.

You have purchased the following books:

Working the Hundred Woods of the Fire Country
Why Did It Fall Down Again?!: A Handbook of Architectural Do's and Don'ts
Three Akimichi Lore cookbooks (Inoue-sensei didn't have the heart to say no)
Common Medicinal Plants and Their Uses
Assorted manga volumes
Matsumoto's Modern Mathematics
Three different Konaya and Tamamono books
The Merchant's Gazetteer, which among other things lists the best and worst countries to do business in this year (and why)
Yumehara's History of the Elemental Nations

You have spent 両60,000.

You were unable to find time to socialise with Team Sarutobi or train with Team Gai.

You have begun training in your new ninjutsu, but they are not yet combat-ready.

-o-

Seal details:

Tunneller's Friend
Accumulates up to 300 air points over the course of an hour in Mode A. Releases up to 300 air points in Mode B. One person at rest uses up 1 air point per minute. Light exercise (e.g. walking) uses up 5 air points per minute. Moderate exercise (e.g. hiking) uses up 20. Combat uses up 50.

Usamatsu's Glorious Life-Saving Purifier
Repeatedly absorbs all gas within a 60-degree 3-metre cone in rapid bursts of suction. The gas goes into a storage space. Airlike gas is simultaneously expelled from the storage space via a separate identical cone. Anything not needed to produce the airlike gas (e.g. poison) remains trapped in the space.

Note that this seal merely removes substances from air. It does not add, so if your breathing has converted all the oxygen into CO2, the seal is not going to save you. Note also that Usamatsu had no idea about the proper chemical makeup of air, and just went with something that didn't kill lab animals when they breathed it (in the short-term).

Bog-standard Alarm Seal
When activated, lasts for 12 hours or until triggered. When triggered (separate triggering system required), it produces a high-pitched noise at moderate shouting volume for 2 seconds, then deactivates.

Banshee Slayer
Version A: Select a volume at creation. Any noise above that volume is negated within the seal's area of effect (3 cm radius).

Version B: As above, but negate all noise. This effectively deafens the user, with all attendant advantages and disadvantages.

Silence Mine
Anyone within 10 metres of the seal while it is active gains +3 dice to Stealth rolls as the sound of their movements is dampened. The seal cannot be moved after activation without terminating the effect.

-o-

Technique details:

Earth Element: Living Roots Technique
This technique requires that the user be in physical contact with the ground. It renders the user able to sense and interpret vibrations, such as those made by walking, allowing the user to make an Awareness roll even where a target is unavailable to conventional senses. The target must also be touching the ground, and must be moving. If successful, the user learns (and can thence keep track of) the target's position.

While motionless, the technique grants a flat bonus to Awareness of (level x 100)/(distance to target in metres/5). While moving, it grants the smaller bonus of (level x 100)/(distance/3).

Note that if you are unaware of a target and it is outside the reach of your conventional senses (e.g. silent and in a different room), you will receive the bonus when rolling to detect it, but not the benefit of your normal Awareness dice.

Chakra cost: 10 CP/5 minutes
Requirements: Wits * 3, Control * 3

Wind Element: Vacuum Step
This technique generates a wave of vacuum a few inches in front of the user, which rapidly moves the user towards a pre-selected destination in an uncontrolled manner, reversing direction as the user approaches the end so as to leave them at the same velocity as when they started. The wave does not bypass obstacles, and if the user encounters an obstacle, they will crash into it at high speed and the technique will terminate.

Vacuum Step has unlimited range and will always bring you to your destination if the path is unobstructed. However, when using the technique the user must make a roll to aim correctly and retain control. The roll uses the technique level against a TN of (horizontal distance travelled in metres + 150) x (vertical distance travelled in metres, min 1). On a failure, the user suffers harm during the journey as they are slammed into the surrounding environment while the vacuum tears the air from their lungs etc., taking damage as if they had failed a combat roll with the same numbers.

Chakra cost: 15 CP
Requirements: Control x 3, Dexterity x 3

Water Element: Hōzuki's Mantle
This technique creates a 270-degree dome of water in a 2-metre radius centred on the user's centre of gravity, with the open section facing directly forwards. The dome has deflecting properties, and tendrils of water lash out from it randomly, making it difficult to attack the user from anywhere but the front. The user reduces enemy multiple combatant bonuses by 1 die per level, and gains +1 die per 3 levels to any close-combat skill.

However, the dome is fully opaque, and the user and anyone on the other side have 0 Awareness with respect to each other. In addition, the dome is slow to move or rotate, imposing a Tactical Movement penalty of 15 – (level x ½) on the user.

Chakra cost: 50 CP/minute

Requirements: Resolve x 3, Stamina x 3, Control x 3

-o-

You have gained 7 XP.

-o-

Your team is in a Leaf detention facility, sharing a large cell. You have been stripped of your possessions, but nobody has been harmed or mistreated. The guards claim they have not yet received instructions on what to do with you.

Inoue-sensei isn't talking to you, except to tell you not to make things worse by trying to break out and getting everyone killed.

What do you do?

Voting closes on Saturday 7th of January, 9 am New York time.

eaglejarl · Jan 7, 2017

Chapter 96: Having The Stomach For It

The sound of the cell door slamming shut behind them had not faded before the entire team turned their backs on Hazō and moved away from him.

Hazō watched helplessly as his closest friends—his only friends—froze him out. Noburi and Keiko moved to the left-hand wall and started talking quietly. Kagome-sensei ran to the right-hand corner farthest from the door and dropped to his knees with his face to the wall, retching violently. Inoue-sensei knelt beside him, rubbing his back and murmuring soothing words, but he waved her off angrily without looking up. She considered him for a moment, then moved away, sitting down with her back to the wall opposite the door. Her head tilted back against the stone; she sighed and allowed her eyes to fall closed.

Hazō watched the byplay for a moment, then moved to join Noburi and Keiko. "Guys," he began awkwardly. "I'm really sorry about this."

Neither genin reacted at all, continuing to talk quietly without acknowledging his presence.

"I quite enjoyed the barbeque with Team Sarutobi," Keiko said. "It was pleasant to have a sense of camaraderie with other ninja again. Which is not to denigrate my feelings for the team—"

"No, it's cool," Noburi said, shaking his head. "I get it. It's nice to see new faces, and even better that they're ninja and we have something in common. Civilians don't really get us, and for this last year the only ninja we've met have been trying to kill us."

"Yes, exactly," Keiko said, brightening.

"Guys—"

"I mean, sure, dealing with some of the civilians have been pretty cool—I really liked doctoring for that lake town—but you can't really talk to them the same way we talk to one another."

"Indeed. There is always—"

"Guys, please, I'm trying to—"

"—a distance between us and them. They cannot understand what drives us and we cannot truly appreciate their lives. Still, I will admit that I have enjoyed our interactions with civilians. If we aren't executed in the morning I think I would find it pleasant to seek out another small town to help."

"Right there with you. With everything I've learned from Doctor Yakushi—"

Hazō moved off, deciding to try his luck elsewhere. With hesitant steps he moved to his fire-haired teacher and crouched down in front of her.

"Inoue-sensei, I—"

"Piss off." She never opened her eyes or moved anything but her lips.

Hazō flinched and backed away, taking a moment to survey his surroundings instead.

The room was large for a cell, perhaps three meters wide and five deep, built of stone so massive it was like being inside a mountain. Dim light came a pair of small candles in sconces on each wall. The only entry was through a pair of heavy doors, the space between them so small that it could only hold one person at a time. Each door was a full thumb-length thick, made of multiple crosswise plies of solid oak, and heavily reinforced with iron; Lady Tsunade herself wasn't going to punch through those. A small window in the innermost door allowed for a jailer to look inside without opening the door. Aside from that the room was completely bare.

The team had been stripped of all their equipment. Their clothes had been taken and replaced with shapeless things made of flimsy cloth. None of it fit and there were no buttons, drawstrings, or other usable parts. It was almost certainly by design that the pants were so baggy everyone had to dedicate one hand to holding them up. There had especially not been anything of a size for a woman as short as Inoue-sensei; she had had no choice but to roll up the sleeves and legs multiple times. She looked like a little girl playing dressup in her mother's clothes.

The flicker of a candle made the light shift across the wall, drawing Hazō's attention to a fine line. He frowned and stepped closer to the wall, fingers reaching out to trace over the designs without quite touching: seals. Walls, floor, ceiling—now that Hazō knew what to look for he could see that every inch of the stone was covered in what were almost certainly explosive seals. This wasn't a jail cell, it was a killbox; presumably there was a switch outside that would allow any jailer to trigger the seals and reduce anyone inside to meatpaste.

With a sigh he settled against the wall opposite Keiko and Noburi, hands dangling hopelessly between drawn-up knees. He banged his head gently against the wall behind him, replaying over and over the careless words that had gotten them all thrown in here. This was worse than Keiko's confession of love; after that the rest of the team had at least been willing to speak to her...well, except for Noburi for a day or so.

Still, maybe that was a hopeful sign? The team had weathered that stumble and restored their dynamic. Presumably they could do the same this time.

"The prisoners will face the walls and kneel with hands behind their backs."

Hazō blinked, looking towards the door. The jailer's voice was muffled but the words were clear.

"The prisoners will face the walls and kneel with hands behind their backs," the voice said again. "Failure to comply will result in death."

Hazō quickly scrambled to his kness, turning to face the wall and putting his hands behind him.

"Prisoner Kagome, you will toss the explosive seals over your shoulder towards the door, then return to kneeling with your hands behind your back."

Hazō heard a sotto voce snarl from the far corner, but a moment later there was a wet thwap on the floor behind Hazō. He risked a glance back to see something that looked like a thin sausage with a long string tied around one end.

Straining his ears, Hazō barely managed to hear a mutter from the other side of the door, although he couldn't make out the words.

"Prisoner Kagome, you will retrieve the other bladder of explosive seals from your stomach and throw them behind you towards the door. You will then resume kneeling, facing the wall, with your hands behind you."

"Stinking cheating godsdamned bullshit stinker eyeballs," Kagome-sensei muttered. Hazō blinked; he'd never actually heard Kagome-sensei swear.

There followed a few more seconds of retching, then another wet thwap behind Hazō.

"Prisoners will not move while the guard is in the room. Failure to comply will result in death."

Hazō waited, silent and immobile, as the inner door swung open. Footsteps came into the room, moving swiftly, and were gone a moment later.

"Prisoners may move freely again," the voice said. Hazō remained motionless anyway until the sound of the outer door opening and closing marked them once again alone.

Inoue-sensei pushed herself to her feet like a woman lifting a massive weight and trudged over to where Kagome-sensei was pressing himself back into the corner like a cornered rat. His eyes were wide, flicking rapidly from side to side, and his lips were locked back in a rictus of anger and fear.

Inoue-sensei's words were too soft for Hazō to hear, but they made Kagome-sensei relax very slightly. She sat down beside him and cuddled into his chest; Hazō watched the sealmaster's arms float helplessly for long, awkward seconds before folding protectively around her. Kagome-sensei stayed perfectly still, except for his right hand which stroked Inoue-sensei's long hair slowly as she dropped off to sleep. The slow rhythm of her breathing slowly soothed the anger and terror from his face, leaving only the fierce protectiveness of a father shielding his daughter from nightmares.

Hazō wasn't about to disturb that scene; he considered making another try at apologizing to Keiko and Noburi but eventually gave it up as a bad job. Instead, he stretched out on the hard stone floor and composed himself for sleep. No matter what happened he'd need to be at the top of his game tomorrow.

o-o-o-o

Hazō started awake as the inner door swung open. The faint candlelight was drowned out by the humming ball of raiton energy that an unsmiling Jiraiya held in his left hand.

"So," he said calmly, ignoring the way that Inoue-sensei was physically blocking Kagome-sensei from leaping to his feet. "Let's talk." The words dropped to the floor like lead shot, every syllable clattering with threat.

"Sir—" Inoue-sensei began, her voice pleading. "We—"

"Not you," Jiraiya said, his voice imbued with the finality of a headsman's axe. "Kurosawa Hazō: you threatened a senior physician and Leaf ninja. How do you plead?"

XP AWARD: 1

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, January 11, 2016, at 12pm London time.

PS: Check it out, I figured out how to type macrons! Jōnin, chūnin, Hazō, Hyūga -- I've got all the best macrons. They're terrific, everybody says so.

Velorien · Jan 11, 2017

Chapter 97: Endings
by @Velorien

Hazō could feel Jiraiya's killing intent as a physical presence in the room. The massive weight hung over his head, and a single wrong move would bring it down to crush him. It wasn't hurting him—not yet—but it made Hazō feel as if Jiraiya was capable of killing him without doing anything, just by letting his anger break its chains. Hazō had been in mortal danger before, but this time it didn't feel like danger. It felt like certainty.

Hazō took a deep breath, knowing it might be his last.

"My words were ill-considered and rude, and I humbly apologize for them. But they did not convey any underlying ill intentions, because none exist. My poor wording was a result of passion clouding my speech; I did not intend to imply the possible use of force or other hostile actions against Dr Yakushi, nor against yourself or other Leaf personnel."

"Is that so?" Jiraiya asked, that sense of terrible foreboding still there in his voice. "Then how exactly were you planning to go 'pretty damn far' in dealing with Dr Yakushi?"

"That was an appallingly stupid choice of words, sir. I wasn't thinking clearly, and what I believed I was doing was explaining how Akane's health was very important to me, and how high a priority it occupied in my actions. Had I thought before speaking, instead of letting my emotions take over my tongue, that is what I would have tried to express in a polite and rational fashion.

"My 'pretty damn far', if you'll forgive my repeated rudeness, would have described how much of my own effort and resources I was prepared to expend to support Akane in a productive way, such as the goodwill I hope I've accumulated over my stay in Leaf, or favours which I was prepared to owe you and other Leaf citizens.

"At no time did the idea of harming any of those citizens occur to me in any way. That would be a betrayal of my team's relationship with Leaf, as well as of the village I believe to be the closest place in the world to the utopia I wish to someday build. To say nothing of the fact that such a betrayal would be extremely unlikely to improve the situation for either party. It is because I never considered harming Leaf or its people that I was able to say something so foolish and, in retrospect, suicidal, to you in person.

"Sir, I would also like to emphasise that the mistake was my own, and my team would never condone the statement I inadvertently made. Like me, they haven't the slightest intention of doing any harm to Leaf or its personnel."

Jiraiya looked pointedly in Kagome-sensei's direction.

Crap.

Hazō hurriedly bowed, in the hope that the sudden movement would pull back Jiraiya's attention without getting him killed on reflex.

"Sir, I am prepared to accept any punishment you deem appropriate for my failure, but please understand that you will be punishing me for my carelessness and stupidity, not for being a potential threat to your village."

The mass of deadly energy in Jiraiya's hand flickered as if hungry to lash out. He sighed.

"Inoue."

"Yes, sir!"

"The kid still doesn't get what he's done. Explain it to him."

Hazō turned to look at Inoue-sensei, whose face was a featureless mask of ice.

"Jiraiya brought missing-nin into Leaf on his own authority, probably bending Leaf law to breaking point in the process. That already made his life difficult, because Leaf will be full of people who hate missing-nin and want us dead—or worse—for all kinds of reasons. We have no legal rights whatsoever, so our survival depends on trusting Jiraiya to protect us.

"Then you publicly threaten a senior Leaf official. It doesn't matter what you thought you were doing. That's what ANBU, and any other observers with those crazy senses they have, heard you do. You made Jiraiya look like he made a huge error of judgement in trusting you, and like that error put Dr Yakushi in danger.

"Jiraiya may have lost a lot of face in Leaf. To diplomats like us, reputation is more valuable than chakra, and harder to get back. His enemies will be all over this, and his allies will be wondering if they're taking a risk in continuing to support him. Even as a master negotiator and manipulator like Jiraiya, there's only so far you can soften a blow like that.

"And as the cherry on top of the cake, you threatened Dr Yakushi to Jiraiya's face. In other words, you, his subordinate with no formal position or legal standing, publicly disrespected him. Jiraiya may be uniquely open-minded about relating to us as people rather than tools, but even then I only go as far as I do with the back-and-forth because I have a lifetime's experience in seeing the invisible lines I must not cross. If your subordinates don't respect you, you can't trust them. If they insult you in public, you have to be seen to punish them or you look weak.

"So even if he accepts that you meant no harm, Jiraiya still has to weigh whether he needs to kill us to prove that he's strong and decisive, and ready to make up for his mistakes and protect the village, at the cost of having to sacrifice all the value we represent and everything he's already invested in us."

She looked questioningly at Jiraiya.

He nodded.

He slowly raised the orb in his hand, still buzzing with the raw essence of instant death, and seemed to study it contemplatively.

"Please, sir…. may I speak?"

All heads turned to Keiko.

Keiko had backed into the furthest corner from Jiraiya, leaning heavily against the wall. Her breathing was rough, and her eyes were locked on Jiraiya's orb. Gradually, she pulled her gaze up to his face.

"Be brief."

Keiko closed her eyes, then opened them again.

"Sir. Inoue-sensei has enumerated the disadvantages of permitting us to live. Please allow me to do likewise for the advantages."

Her voice was cool, neutral, almost emotionless.

"As you are already aware, our team has three Bloodline Limits you cannot obtain elsewhere, as well as a sealmaster who performs research and has lived to advanced age, and a jōnin with a rare and extensive skillset. In addition, while Akane is not technically a member of our team, her ability to function as a Leaf ninja is strongly connected to us. Most notably, we hold to an ideology which is closely aligned with yours in a way that is not the case for most ninja. The latter gives you strong reason to trust our motivations, and to believe that we will pursue compatible objectives not only at your direction but also with our own time and resources.

"As Hazō has explained, the present situation does not represent an issue of trust, but rather an issue of competence. Our competence will only increase with the passage of time as we gain skill and experience, and if you so desire, you are able to accelerate this process at your discretion by investing in us further. In other words, we are an asset with unlimited growth potential. On the other hand, by… eliminating us, you will receive only a flat… reputational gain, mitigating existing losses instead of… generating new opportunities.

"Finally… I wish to… apologise for my… failure to prevent… this scenario... It is my responsibility… to pre-emptively identify… errors in Hazō's plans… and there was surely… something… I could have done…

"Please don't kill us."

Time passed.

Jiraiya lifted his hand.

The Lightning Element chakra surged…

And blinked out in a flash of light.

"You need to understand," Jiraiya said with an unyielding but no longer terrifying sternness, "that you're out of second chances. If this was anywhere but Leaf, or if you were dealing with anyone but me, you would already be dead. That option is still on the table, and it will stay on the table until you tip your scales back from 'liability' to 'asset'."

He took a step back, out of the cell.

"You have to leave Leaf," he said in a more normal voice. "I'm giving you three days to finish up your ninjutsu training, then you're out, ready or not."

There was a series of soft thuds as various people slumped against walls and the floor in palpable relief.

"Thank you, sir!" Hazō, Inoue-sensei and Noburi said at once.

"I'm choosing to trust that your earlier actions were an honest mistake. But mistakes need to have consequences if you're going to learn from them. That means I'm revoking your guest privileges. I want to see you on the training field or not at all."

"Sir," Hazō said hesitantly.

"Yes?"

"What about Akane? It'll be bad for her if I can't visit, and she shouldn't have to suffer for my mistakes."

Jiraiya moved his head around in a circular gesture of exasperation. "Kid, I get that you care about your girlfriend to the point of temporary insanity. But it hasn't been twenty-four hours since you threatened Dr Yakushi in front of everyone, and now you're asking me to send you to his workplace. I'd like to have a political career left over after this, if you don't mind."

He motioned to the guard. "They're being released under Protocol Hogo-4. Give them their gear and send them back to their quarters, heavy escort."

The team's stares followed Jiraiya's back, then transferred themselves to Hazō. But nobody said a word.

-o-

The rooms were suddenly claustrophobic, the pink wallpaper garish and inescapable while the windows mocked Hazō with views just out of reach.

He bowed to his friends in deep apology.

"I'm sorry. I put your lives in danger due to my stupidity. Again. Please believe me when I say I appreciate exactly how badly I messed up, and how you have every right to be angry with me."

"I'm ashamed of you, Hazō," Inoue-sensei said bitterly. "I'm ashamed of myself. What kind of fucking awful teacher am I that my genin can make threats in the face of one of the most powerful men in the world by accident?"

"Seriously, Hazō," Noburi added, "what the fuck? I knew you had your doubts about Yakushi-sensei, but how'd you go from 'there might be something not quite right with this guy' to 'rah, rah, he's going to kill my girlfriend, I'd better make an ass of myself in front of Jiraiya until he chucks us all in prison'? Now you've gone and ruined everything. My apprenticeship is over, we won't be allowed to see the Leaf teams again… Keiko's locked herself in the bedroom and won't talk to anyone… Maybe next time you'll think about the rest of us before you go running off to shout conspiracy theories at people who can wipe us out with their little finger. Maybe you'll even talk to us first."

"It's my fault," Inoue-sensei muttered. "He thought checking with me was going to be enough. Turns out it wasn't.

"I should have done all the talking. I shouldn't have assumed that Hazō would learn not to threaten powerful Leaf ninja just because he nearly got us killed in the library."

"I am sorry," Hazō repeated, with a touch of desperation. "I don't know what else I can say or do."

He cast a cautious glance at Kagome-sensei, but Kagome-sensei was twisted up in his armchair, somewhere between sleep and catatonia. He thought it might be Inoue-sensei's doing.

"If you never open your mouth again, I'll be happy forever," Noburi said, but he didn't put as much malice in it as he could have. "Or at least sew it shut until we're out of the Fire Country."

Had Hazō known a way to eat without using his mouth, he might have given it serious consideration.

-o-

They weren't allowed to leave their quarters except once a day for training. No visitors came, or perhaps the guards turned them away before they got close. Inoue-sensei had gone from furious to melancholy. Noburi hardly spoke to Hazō except to make the occasional scathing comment. Keiko unlocked the bedroom door eventually, but she had withdrawn into herself and no longer spoke to anyone. And Kagome-sensei… in his more lucid moments, Kagome-sensei periodically opened his mouth to say something to Hazō, only to close it again as if unable to find the words.

Then, on the second day, it happened.

Hazō was practising imbibing the transcendent wisdom of the spirit world when he heard a familiar voice.

"Good morning, Mother Nana," Dr Yakushi greeted his instructor. "How is my aura looking today?"

"Crystal clear," Mother Nana beamed. "As always."

"Do you mind if I speak with the young man in private for a minute?"

"Please, feel free."

As Mother Nana retreated, Hazō looked at Dr Yakushi in puzzlement. "Dr Yakushi? I didn't think I was allowed to be anywhere near you."

"Jiraiya can forbid you to see me, but he cannot forbid me to see you. And I needed to know. Why would you threaten my life, Kurosawa?" Dr Yakushi asked mournfully. "Were we not comrades after our own fashion? What could I possibly have done to offend you so?"

Hazō felt a wave of guilt. Looking at Dr Yakushi's expression of hurt innocence, he realised that he and Inoue-sensei had acknowledged how there were multiple possible interpretations of the doctor's behaviour, but then gone ahead and picked the very worst one without hesitation. He'd never meant to make a threat against Dr Yakushi, but he'd still treated him as an enemy before Jiraiya. He'd accused the man who saved Akane's life.

"It was all a misunderstanding!" Hazō said quickly. "I never meant to threaten anybody! I just chose the wrong words, and Jiraiya couldn't take the risk. Please believe me—I never meant you any harm!"

Dr Yakushi gave a soft smile. "I want to believe you, Kurosawa. You never struck me as the kind of young man who would take against others without good reason, much less threaten them. If you say it was all a mistake, then I will take a leap of faith and trust you one more time.

"As things stand, it is not my welfare I need to be concerned about but Ishihara's. If you disappear from her life so abruptly, it will be highly detrimental to her health. I will issue a formal statement of forgiveness, and pull such strings as are available to me, and perhaps I will be able to secure you a visit before you leave.

"Now if you will excuse me, I must find Noburi. I may be unable to serve as his master for the time being, but I can still offer him reassurance, and perhaps some advice for his independent training in the future."

-o-

"Hazō-sensei! You've been gone so long. Did something happen?" Akane seemed torn between bouncing in her bed and leaning forward with worry.

"I, uh, kind of," Hazō squirmed. "I may have gone to Jiraiya because I was worried about your safety, and accidentally made him think I was threatening Dr Yakushi in order to protect you."

Akane's face turned ashen as she processed the implications.

"You did what?!"

"I didn't mean to," Hazō said plaintively. "I wasn't thinking straight."

"Hazō-sensei, you absolute idiot!" Akane screeched. "How many times are you going to keep risking your life for me? I am not worth dying for!"

She burst into tears.

Hazō stood there, at a complete loss for what to say or do.

"Is it over?" Akane forced out. "Is this you saying goodbye before they execute you?"

"No! No, he already threw us in prison and nearly killed us. But we managed to talk our way out of it. Or possibly he decided to forgive us on his own. Or there was complex political stuff going on and I will never know what really happened. But either way, he let us go."

"Is everyone else all right?"

"Uh. Jiraiya didn't hurt anybody, if that's what you're asking," Hazō hedged.

"Hazō-sensei, you idiot," Akane repeated. "My safety doesn't matter! You not getting killed does. Promise me you'll never do that again!"

"Your safety does matter," Hazō snapped. "Stop saying it doesn't. You are precious to me, and I don't intend to take stupid risks for any reason, but if I have to put my life on the line to protect you in the future, I'll do it without hesitation."

But this only made Akane cry harder.

Hazō mentally kicked himself. Maybe there could have been a better way of phrasing that.

"Akane," he said gently, "I'm sorry. That came out wrong. I don't want to put myself in danger. That's crazy. Nobody wants to put themselves in danger. But some things are important enough that I will do it anyway if I have to, and you are one of those things."

Then he stood and waited awkwardly until Akane's tears slowed down.

"What happens now?" Akane asked. "Is Jiraiya going to punish you? Is he going to exile you from Leaf? Am I going to lose you?"

Hazō shook his head emphatically. "We're being kicked out of Leaf, but he didn't say it was permanent. He gave us three days to finish up our ninjutsu training, but we've been under house arrest apart from that. Luckily, Dr Yakushi spoke up on our behalf, so I got to see you and explain things before we leave tomorrow."

"He really is a sweetheart. How did you manage to threaten someone like that, even by accident?"

"Reasons," Hazō said uneasily. In addition to still feeling guilty for how he'd treated Dr Yakushi, he also felt that the doctor's own hospital was not the best case to air any concerns about him. "Let's talk about that another time."

"But there will be another time, right?" Akane looked into his eyes searchingly.

"Of course there will! Akane, you are the most important person in the world to me—well, setting aside my mother, and I guess I shouldn't downplay the importance of the rest of the team either, but it's you who takes priority, though that's not to say I'm placing special expectations on you, unless you feel that special expectations would be appropriate as a reflection of your importance…"

Akane gave him a look of wry resignation. Hazō had a distinct sense that he was probably saying something wrong.

So for once, Hazō thought about it until he figured out how to say something right.

"Akane, no matter how much I may care about other people, none of them are the world's best apprentice, and never will be. I won't let it end like this. I will earn my way back into Jiraiya and Leaf's good graces, and I will come back to you. No matter what."

Akane gave a bittersweet smile. "Hazō-sensei, will you play me Tears of Red one more time?"

-o-

It was, though Hazō felt it shouldn't have been, a bright and sunny day. Jiraiya stood facing the team on the other side of the gate. In front of them lay the Village Hidden in the Leaves, abalone shells on the rooftops dancing with sunlight. A place of new beginnings suddenly ended, a chapter in Hazō's life cut short. Behind them lay the thick shadows of the forest, ready to welcome the missing-nin back.

"This is Team Aomori," Jiraiya said, indicating the four Leaf ninja giving Hazō's team cold, suspicious looks. "They will escort you safely to a Fire Country border of your choice. I'll be in touch via the usual means when I have a mission for you. Inoue, use those codes I gave you if you need to reach me in an emergency, and only in an emergency.

"Kids," he gave a weary smile, "contrary to appearances, I really do like you. That's why I get pissed off when you do something that nearly makes me have to kill you. For Sage's sake, think before you act from now on. And be safe out there."

-o-

You have earned 9 XP.

-o-

All of your gear has been returned to you, including weapons etc. taken into storage when you first entered Leaf.

You did not have any opportunities to go shopping, or interact with anybody except as described above. However, you were permitted to purchase a week's worth of Leaf military rations to add to your existing food supply for両2000. They are simple, but nevertheless blow Mist military rations out of the water.

Your ninjutsu training regime was utterly brutal. Hazō clung to Mother Nana's every word in order to sift actual practical advice from them, and now feels philosophically disoriented and spiritually unclean. Noburi was perpetually on the edge of chakra exhaustion (though, really, that went for all three), and memorised every Mist-nin joke in Captain Miyamoto's collection in order to make the man shut up and focus on teaching. Keiko's aura of impenetrable gloom only made Aoba-sensei keener to "turn that frown upside down" with displays of physical affection, driving Keiko's escape to new levels of urgency.

As a result, all three are mentally and physically exhausted, and have sworn never to go through that again, but have been able to put 1 XP each into their new ninjutsu.

-o-

You have the opportunity to offer Jiraiya some last words, or request that he pass on messages for you. How will you use it, if at all?

And where do you go from here?

Voting closes on Saturday 14th of January, 9 am New York time.

eaglejarl · Jan 15, 2017

Chapter 98: New Beginnings

"Thank you, Aomori," Mari said with a polite bow. "We appreciate the time you've taken to escort us."

Aomori grunted. "Whatever." He looked pointedly at the border. "Dunno when the next patrol is coming by. You sure you don't want to just take the trade road?"

The look Aomori gave Mari, and the dead stare that the grouchy Leaf ninja's teammates gave Team Uplift, made Yū's fingers itch for his ringboxes. Amazingly enough they had been returned to him when Jiraiya kicked the team out of Konoha. It would be so easy to slip them on, raise his hand—

But he didn't. Jiraiya had assigned Aomori to escort them; Yū was pretty sure that the Leaf ninja wasn't really going to attack, no matter what it looked like and no matter how rude he was. He actually felt a small glow of pride for figuring that out—maybe this people stuff wasn't so hard after all!

"We'd prefer to be a little more discreet," Mari said, dimpling. "Your point about the patrols is well-taken, though. We'll get out of your hair. Come on, folks. Time's a-wastin'." She turned her back on the Leaf team (!!) and loped off across the border into Waterfalls, headed for the town of Hiratawa a few miles to the north of the border. The kids followed along silently; Yū glowered at Aomori and his team before trailing after, and he made sure to keep one hand up so that he could see them in the mirror he'd palmed. Sure, they'd been told to let the team go, but that didn't necessarily mean they would.

In the actual event, they did. Five minutes later Fire was a fading memory behind them and there was no sign of pursuit, so Yū tucked the mirror away and gave his full attention to the area around them.

Mari had started bending their course north and east the minute they were out of sight of the Fire team. Going to Hiratawa made sense—it was a good place to resupply, there would be work available, and there would be plenty of informational resources available for anyone who wanted to learn how the rest of the world was acting or plan what their next move would be. That had been the team's consensus during the discussion over the last few days.

Everyone involved had known perfectly well that they weren't going there. Those conversations were purely for the benefit of the stinking watchers that were almost certainly keeping a stinking cheating eye and an ear on the team. And, of course, the watchers probably knew that it was a lie. Yū had wondered how many layers deep Mari would play; would she say she was leading them to Hiratawa in order to throw the watchers off the scent, then lead them somewhere else? Would she say she was leading them to Hiratawa in order to throw the watchers off the scent, then actually go to Hiratawa because the watchers were expecting that be the only place the team wouldn't go? Would she...well, there were a lot of potential levels.

No, she was leading them back to Iron.

Chance of a border patrol being in the neighborhood during Fire -> Waterfalls crossing:
TN: ?
Roll: ?

Team Uplift (Stealth 11) vs Border Patrol (if any), Awareness (?): Class ? success

Chance of a border patrol being in the neighborhood during Waterfalls -> Iron crossing:
TN: ?
Roll: ?

Team Uplift (Stealth 11) vs Border Patrol (if any), Awareness (?): Class ? success

The team made it through to Iron undisturbed; perhaps the kami were feeling merciful or perhaps it was a combination of luck, skill, and careful application of Hazō's Border Crossing SOP list. A list that Yū heartily approved of.

Mari was clearly in a hurry to get gone; she drove the team hard, letting them stop only briefly to rest and refill their chakra from Noburi's barrel. They had left the gates of Konoha when the sun was barely above the horizon and they didn't stop until after it got too dark to see.

"Cold camp," she said quietly. "Do your business, eat a ration pack, go to sleep. We've got things to talk about, but I want to be somewhere reasonably safe before we do. Two watches; Kagome, you're first. Wake me at midnight and I'll watch until dawn."

"But—"

"No arguments. I'll be a little short on sleep but I can manage fine for a day or two."

Yū glared at her but he obeyed. Well, mostly. He might have waited until a couple hours after midnight.

o-o-o-o

Even with nigh-unlimited chakra to keep themselves going, it was a tired and footsore group that broke out of the treeline on the eastern coast of Iron late the following afternoon.

Mari looked around, hands on hips, and nodded. "Seems good to me. Kagome, any objections?"

Yū surveyed the area thoughtfully. The beach was grey sand, but nice and fine; it would be dense and hard to tunnel through for any dirt sharks that might come along. They were at the center of a small, U-shaped cove with reefs farther out, so there shouldn't be too many critters in the water. The terrain was lumpy enough that there were plenty of small dells back in the forest to pitch camp in. Ordinarily that would be an invitation to camping in a puddle, but with Hazō's Multiple Earth Wall to create a dry platform they'd be okay, and they could roof the dell over into an artificial cave like they had before. The underbrush would provide plenty of places to set traps...yes, this was good. Oh, and there was a stream nearby that would make a decent source of drinking water. That was a nice bonus.

"Not awful," he said. He'd been trying to confine himself to the fewest possible words; the team's issues hung suspended over them all like thunderclouds about to burst open and he didn't want to be the one who triggered the storm.

Mari nodded. "Done. Noburi and Hazō, spam clones. Kagome, you and Hazō are going to find us a spot no more than a hundred yards back in the woods; make a cave, then start setting up defenses. The rest of us and the clones will gather up dirt to cover the cave over and see about transplanting a couple of bushes to hide the entrance. Let's move, people." A quick series of handseals later and seven Inoue Maris were traipsing into the woods, carefully scooping a handful of dirt from here and a handful from there into leather bags.

Yū turned back to the woods, his doofus apprentice silently falling into step beside him. They would talk later; for now, there were defenses to create. He smiled slightly as they went, making a mental bet with himself that Mari would work them into the ground and then once again have them make a cold camp and go to bed with no talking.

o-o-o-o

In the actual event, Yū lost his mental bet: Mari allowed them to have a fire in the purpose-built firepit inside their artificial cave. It was small, but it was cheery and served to make the place feel more like a home than a temporary camp in the wilderness. She did work them into the ground, though, and allowed no talking beyond 'pass the salt.'

o-o-o-o

Hazō awoke to find sun streaming in the narrow entrance of their new camp. Inoue-sensei was sitting against the wall by the entryway, arms wrapped around tucked-up knees as she stared thoughtfully out past the invisible Force Wall that was angled across the opening at waist height.

He sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and looking around. It was late for a ninja start to the day; easily ten o'clock by the light. Four hundred miles and a hard day's labor had left him, and probably the rest of the team, tired and sore. Also, starving; he felt like an animal was trying to claw its way out of his belly.

He looked around carefully; aside from himself and Inoue-sensei everyone was still asleep, although Kagome-sensei seemed to be more dozing than sleeping.

Carefully, he opened up the pack that he'd been using as a pillow and rummaged around until he found one of the ration packs that they'd bought in Konoha. He was about to bite in when a quiet hiss from the doorway stopped him. Inoue-sensei was shaking her head and waving him over.

With a sigh he rewrapped the food and set it on his bedroll, stealthing to the doorway and crouching down by Inoue-sensei.

"I want us all to eat together, hot breakfast," she murmured. "Go out and gather firewood, set up a fire down on the beach. We'll eat there. You can deactivate the Force Wall."

He made himself nod briskly, carefully keeping the disappointment off his face. He was ravenous, but given how badly he had screwed up back in Konoha this was not the time to do anything other than follow orders efficiently and cheerfully.

He wasn't sure how much firewood they would need so he just kept gathering more and more, wrapping it in a blanket so that he could throw the whole mass into one or another of his storage scrolls. Once he judged he had enough he took it down to the beach and unsealed it all. It turned out he'd gathered more than intended, as he had the better part of a cord of wood. Shrugging, he dug a firepit in the sand, only to find that water filled his hole almost immediately. He raised a MEW platform instead, as well as raising a few more small MEWs around the perimeter to serve as seats. Cycling a log in and out of one of the macerator seals gave him a pile of sawdust and splinters that made good tinder. The fire started with no effort and stayed relatively smokeless as he took pains to feed it with small bits that would burn clean and fast.

"Not bad," Inoue-sensei said, giving him an approving look as she ghosted out of the woods with the rest of the team behind her. Hazō nodded his thanks, but didn't say anything. Sensei was out of ways to stall, which meant The Conversation was about to happen. The one he'd been dreading. The one about just how badly he had fouled up.

He was sure that it wouldn't end up with him dead; that was what would have happened back in Mist, but the rules were different here. Given that Inoue-sensei had allowed him to tag along with the group as they traveled it probably wouldn't mean his banishment either. That still left a wide array of awful possibilites.

Noburi opened his mouth to say something, but Inoue-sensei raised a hand. "Eat first. We'll talk after everyone is full."

Unfortunately, it didn't take long for everyone to stuff themselves full of hot food from Kagome-sensei's storage scrolls. Hazō forced himself to start on the bowl of stew he'd been handed, but set it aside half-empty. As hungry as he had been, his stomach felt like a rope that had been knotted and then soaked in water until it shrank into an impregnable ball. The looks that the rest of the team kept shooting his way just made it worse.

Inoue-sensei looked around the fire to see that everyone had either scraped their bowls clean (Keiko, efficiently; Kagome, wolfishly), or was only poking at the remaining food while glaring sourly at Hazō. With a carefully-masked sigh she kicked it off.

"Hazō: attention to orders," she commanded. The genin snapped to his feet with the reflexive obedience beaten into every Academy recruit, standing with feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped behind his back, and eyes locked on the horizon.

"Back in Leaf you demonstrated critically bad judgement," she said calmly. "For the next two weeks you will be doing all chores around the camp. In addition to cooking and cleanup you make repairs to everyone's clothing and gear. You will ensure that there is always plenty of fresh water and firewood. You will need to do most of that after dark, however, since during the day you will be acting as personal servant to the rest of the team.

"More immediately, however, your teammates are going to take turns explaining your error and their feelings about you. You will make respectful eye contact with whomever is speaking. You will remain silent while they are talking. You will not, I say again not, defend yourself against physical attacks. Are we clear?"

"Clear, sensei!" He had to force the words out through a throat that was suddenly dryer than Suna.

"Good." She turned to the rest of the group. "Hazō's stupid mistake nearly killed us all. He cost us the best situation we could possibly have asked for—assets to Jiraiya and guests of Leaf. We were under the protection of the most powerful village in the world. We had access to their supplies, their books, their jutsu trainers, and so much more. All of that: gone. The friendships we were starting to make with clan hairs and elite jōnin: gone. The medic training that Noburi was receiving from one of the best med-nin in the world: gone. Our access to Akane and the chance to see her get better: gone. All because Hazō threatened a Konoha doctor and disrespected our benefactor—who, by the way, was a Sannin and one of the most powerful ninja alive—to his face.

"All of you have done an excellent job of putting your feelings on hold and focusing on the mission until we could get to safety, but now is your chance to express yourself. Say everything that you want to say, curse as much as you like. Feel free to spit on him or punch him. No maiming, no weapons, no jutsu, but you can put the boot in as much as you want. No time limit, take as long as you like."

Hazō watched, wide-eyed and on the edge of panic as his teacher surveyed the rest of the team before finally nodding to Keiko. "Keiko, you start."

Keiko considered the jōnin for a moment, then rose and moved to stand in front of Hazō, studying him without speaking. Hazō struggled to maintain eye contact as he'd been ordered and forced himself not to shrink away from the utterly expressionless mask that was his teammate's face.

Seconds dragged by as she studied him silently. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. A minute. Finally she spoke.

"For the past two days I have been very angry with you, but Inoue-sensei has said most of what I feel." She paused, considering him again. "However, when I set my emotions aside and examine the situation logically I notice something of importance: I do not believe that you consciously rehearsed those words. I believe that they were said in the heat of the moment when you were stressed and afraid, and that you spoke without thinking. I did the same back in Hot Springs, and then I fled the group for over a week. When I returned, you forgave me immediately and were glad to see me, although I am still not completely certain why. Your mistake had larger consequences than mine; I endangered my own standing in the team and my relationships with the five of you, whereas you came very close to getting all of us killed and, as Inoue-sensei stated, you did cut us off from enormous resources."

Hazō's mouth tried to open and spill out all of the apologies that were backed up in his guts and struggling to get out, but he forced himself to stay silent. Inoue-sensei had been clear that he wasn't to speak until the other person was completely finished.

"A moment ago," Keiko continued, "I said that I was not completely certain why you were so quick to forgive me when I returned from the Summon Realm. I spoke imprecisely. Emotionally I have trouble accepting your forgiveness, but intellectually I know that it was due in large part to the fact that we are teammates and friends.

"I am not accustomed to having friends. I got along with most of the other students in the Academy, but we were not close. I was close with my sister, but friends must be peers and I was never her peer. The members of this team are the first friends I have ever had. You have stood beside me in combat. You have helped me grow as a ninja and as a person. You have forgiven me time and again for my social awkwardness, and you forgave me for my stupidity in Hot Springs. Your lapse in judgement was of epic proportions, but I am not willing to lose you as a friend. I choose to forgive you."

One of the many, many knots in Hazō's stomach untied itself. "Thank you, Keiko."

"I am still angry with you, though."

Hazō blinked and cocked his head, studying her face minutely. Was that a tiny trace of a smile on the corner of her lips? Was she serious, or was she...no...maybe? Was she actually teasing him? No, definitely not. She was definitely serious.

"I can understand that," he said. "Please let me know if there's anything I can do to make things better between us."

"Don't insult any more Sannin." If there had been hint of a smile before it was gone now.

"I won't."

Keiko eyed him for another moment, then turned and sat down again.

"Noburi, your turn," Inoue-sensei said, not looking up from the small branches that she was carefully feeding into the fire.

Noburi stood up, brushing the sand off the seat of his pants and glowering at Hazō.

"Inoue-sensei said it, but I'll say it again: you are an idiot. We had it all—we were becoming friends with important people, I was studying under a doctor who may have been as good as Lady Tsunade herself, we were safe from Mist and random hunters and everything. We were sleeping in warm beds with running water and hot tubs. We had Jiraiya as a patron, you moron! Jiraiya! Of the Sannin! What kind of a stupid, incompetent, ridiculous, thoughtless, idiotic moron screws that up? How stupid do you have to be to threaten a Leaf doctor in front of the Leaf spymaster and a bunch of ANBU? What were you thinking?!"

Hazō flinched away from the anger in his friend's voice. (Were they still friends? Would Noburi forgive him for ruining his apprenticeship?) He forced himself to stay silent; it was obvious that Noburi wasn't done.

Noburi scrubbed both hands across his face as though to drive out the aggravation. He sighed, deflating. "I know you didn't do it deliberately, man, but seriously...do you have any idea just how badly you fucked this up for me? Everything's so fucking easy for you, you've gotten basically everything you wanted since we left the swamp. You convinced us all to get behind this insane plan of yours to make the world bright and happy for all the little boys and girls and butterflies. You talked Kagome into teaching you sealing. You just keep getting better and better at taijutsu with that fucking cheating bloodline of yours. Inoue-sensei lets you do most of the planning for the team, and your plans are usually good. Why did you have to pick this particular time to screw the pooch? My med-nin training is the one thing I have that's really mine and not just because of my bloodline. I got a few dribs and drabs of training from Hashimoto-sensei between rounds of her telling me I was useless and incompetent because I couldn't remember all the alternate names for aconite, or all the symptoms of blood fever. Doctor Yakushi was a better medic and a better teacher. The hospital in Leaf had equipment I didn't even know existed, all the supplies you could want, fresh corpses to dissect, and probably every medical book that's ever been written. Being a medic is the one thing that I really, really want and I had it. It was right there, and you totally screwed me out of it because you couldn't keep your fucking mouth closed, you jackass."

Noburi glared at him, then looked down at the ground and kicked grouchily at the sand.

"You want to know the worst part?" the former medical student said. "I am so unbelievably fucking pissed with you that I cannot even find the words for it, but the worst part is: so what? So what that I'm pissed, what am I going to do about it? We've already lost Akane; we can't afford to lose anyone else, so I'm stuck with you. We're going to be sleeping in the same damn cave and eating around the same damn fire. I'm going to have to look at your stupid face every single day, and every time I do I'm going to remember what you cost me. And I can either stay pissed off and let it poison everything, or I can cope and deal and let it go."

Hazō swallowed nervously, forcing himself to meet Noburi's angry-yet-tired eyes.

Noburi sighed. "And yeah, Inoue-sensei says I can beat on you if I want to, and I know you'll stand there and take it because you're Kurosawa motherfucking Hazō, the great and stoic ninja. What would that accomplish, though? Would it make you not have fucked everything sideways? Nope. That's already happened. Would it make me feel better? ...Probably. The kids in the Academy used to insult me and beat on me just to make themselves feel better, and it seemed to work for them. I hated those kids, though, and I don't want to be one of them." He seemed to see something in Hazō's expression because he hastened to add, "Oh, don't get me wrong—I would just love to smack you a few times. The Leaf anatomy books had colored sections to show the perfect targets for taijutsu or weapon, and when I look at you I keep thinking 'oooh, mandibular condyle, yeah.'"

Hazō took a breath and braced himself.

Noburi rolled his eys. "Oh, relax your sphincter, Mr. MEW. I'm not going to hit you." He sighed. "I mean sure, it's tempting. It wouldn't really do any good, would it? I already know you're sorry and that you recognize what a fucking idiot you were, and that blah blah blah. Punching you might make me feel better for a little while, but then I'd have to remember that I'd actually chosen to be one of those kids and I'm...not quite ready to do that.

"So, yeah. Fine. I forgive you or whatever." He turned and slouched back to his place by the fire, not giving Hazō a chance to reply. He didn't so much 'sit' as 'drop dejectedly to the sand', and immediately grabbed a stick with which to poke the logs just so he could see the shower of sparks go up as he very pointedly ignored Hazō.

"Kagome," Inoue-sensei said, tipping her head towards Hazō.

Kagome didn't move from where he lounged by the fire. Lips pursed in thought, he studied Hazō for even longer than Keiko had. By the time his teacher finally spoke Hazō was bathed in sweat.

"Before I met you, I was pretty happy in the woods," Kagome-sensei said. "Mostly, anyway. Been there fifteen years, hadn't seen any really serious danger in fourteen. Pretty lonely, but no stinking ninja had put me in a cell lined with explosive seals, or threatened to shove a raiton ball through my face. So, yeah. Lonely, but safe." He shrugged one shoulder dismissively. "Then you lot show up." His voice rose into a parody of Hazō's. "'I want to learn sealing, Kagome-sensei.' 'I brought you some mushroom soup and gyoza and chocolate, Kagome-sensei.' 'Show me how to make explosives, Kagome-sensei.' 'The villagers actually like you, Kagome-sensei.'" He snorted. "You even talked me into leaving my nice safe woods. You didn't really know much about how the world works...hadn't even heard of the scorch squads." He paused, lips pursed in sour thought. "When I heard about 'em the thought made me sick. When you heard about 'em, you decided to fix the world."

Hazō kept his eyes on his teacher's as Kagome's unfocused, wandering back into memory for long seconds.

"Not even thirteen, but you were looking out for the team. Making suggestions about where we should go, what people should train that they would like and would be good for the team. Some really stupid ideas, but some good ones. You listen when we tell you that you're being an idiot, and you usually don't do the same stupid thing twice." He sniffed. "Usually. Still can't remember that letting a tertiary node come within three resonance modes of a five-spoke converter with a left-handed—"

Inoue-sensei coughed and the sealmaster cut himself off.

"Um...yeah. I was...um...oh, right. Anyway. You usually don't make the same mistake twice.

"You were the one who brought Akane into the group, too. Good kid, Akane. Best of us. Bright, cheerful, smart. World needs more like her, and she thought you were worth following." His eyes went wide and he shook his head. "Dating, though?! Dating?! How did you even— I mean, that's just—"

Inoue-sensei coughed and the sealmaster cut himself off.

"Right. Anyway. Yeah, Akane. And Leaf. And that stinker Jiraiya."

"Not your fault that the stinker blackmailed us into going after Arikada. Not Akane's fault that she got hit with that worm. After that, what were we going to do, not go to the stinking home of the stinking cheating Leaf stinkers?" He sniffed derisively. "And once we're there, what else did we think was going to happen? Of course they were going to find something to get pissed off about, just so they could put lupchanz in our ears and still keep their squeaky-clean image."

He nodded approvingly to Keiko. "Good job convincing His Stinkiness not to put lupchanz in our ears, or even just kill us," he said. "You always find the right words. Wish I could do that."

Keiko blinked, mouth gaping open in shock. "I don't...what...but...?"

Kagome gave her a shrug. "Alley in Rice, made two separate groups of stinkers back down. Sounded pretty right to me. Jiraiya of the Three Stinkers, made him let us go. Sounds pretty right to me. All that clear communication stuff you do. Can't do that. Never find the right words. You do, though."

Kagome left a gobsmacked Keiko and turned his attention back to Hazō. "So, yeah. Good kid. Kinda young, kinda stupid sometimes. Not most times, just some." His hands rubbing back and forth as he unconsciously fondled the explosive ringboxes that he had apparently donned without anyone, including himself, noticing.

"Real bad time to be stupid. Real bad. Still, the Big Stinker could have decided to let it go, chose not to. Politics, schmolitics; he's strong enough that if anyone stopped liking him he could just squish them. Still a stupid thing to say to him, but I doubt you'll do it again."

He paused long enough that Hazō began to open his mouth to say thank you—although for what he wasn't quite sure, since Kagome-sensei's ramble hadn't seemed to move towards, much less reach, any sort of definitive point.

"So, yeah," Kagome-sensei suddenly resumed. "Pretty much entirely your fault, but also Jiraiya's fault. Really stupid of you. Don't do it again." He paused, clearly thinking, then nodded to himself. "So, s'there any more of that honeybread?" He sat up and swiped his hand around the inside of the stone pot which had earlier contained a small honeyloaf, then leaned back in the sand, happily licking the goopy sweet off his fingers.

Inoue-sensei chuckled. "Relax, Hazō," she said. "I left some tea on my bedroll in the cave; go fetch it and make me some."

"Yeah!" Noburi said, his eyes lighting up. "And hop on one foot the whole way!"

Hazō sighed and hopped off to the cave. It was going to be a long two weeks.

XP AWARD: 6

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, January 18, 2017, at 12pm London time.

eaglejarl · Jan 15, 2017

The Great Rebalancing: Why and How

When we started Marked for Death we had absolutely no idea how to gauge the skill levels that NPCs should have. We arbitrarily pegged them at "teens for chūnin, twenties for jōnin". After 56 weeks of steady 2-updates-a-week and equally steady XP awards we paused to look at where this got us and realized we had some problems:

With a skill range that narrow, there wasn't a lot of room for differentiation between people, which meant there wasn't a lot of room to make specialized builds. This made most ninja pretty similar.
Given the multi-combatant rules we'd set up, the team would have been able to crush senior jōnin, even without Mari's or Kagome's help.
We'd been generous with the XP and the team was already moving through the arbitrarily-chosen chūnin ranks (crowding into the equally-arbitrarily-chosen jōnin ranks in Keiko's case) after only 1 year in game. Did every ninja progress this quickly? Mari has been a ninja for [mumble, mumble, none of your business how old I am] ...um, a few years now. Surely, if Keiko could make it to Weapons 20 in only 1 year then Mari should have made it quite a bit higher after [I swear I'll hit you if you type that number] a few years?

We looked at various options, like cutting XP awards to basically nothing in order to stem the rush of advancement, but we decided that a better approach was to calculate an actual curve for ninja development and then apply it to everyone. This solved both problems -- we had an actual yardstick that would keep things stable going forward, and there were a lot more XP available to NPCs so that there could be a wider range of skills and more room for specialization.

We understand that this might be disheartening, especially compared to recent experiences in which the genin were fairly badass and able to hold their own against pretty much anyone if they worked together with Mari and Kagome. Unfortunately, it didn't make any sense in the context of rational worldbuilding to declare that in fact Mari managed to grab three once-in-several-generations geniuses from the genin that Yagura allowed to be picked for a risky invasion mission, when any sensible leader would have been keeping such a team at home and nurturing them like the future power-balance-shifting badasses they were shaping up to be.

So that's the Why. Let's talk How.

The ineffable @OliWhail put together not one but many spreadsheets detailing what the power of the ninja population would look like using different assumptions of growth rate distributions, as well as making sample character sheets for Mari, Kagome, Jiraiya, "mook chūnin #14", and his brother "redshirt jōnin #29". Much debate happened, liters of blood were spilled in pointed debate. Mathematics was bent and tortured until it cried. Finally, we chose.

We now have a set of equations that combines raw talent with experience to tell us how many XP a given ninja should be built on. It also gives us a yardstick for estimating how many XP should be given out per update, so that should even things out a bit.

Things you should be aware of:

Despite the above comments about Yagura not letting super-talented kids out on conquest missions, we decided that since we were hitting you with a heavy nerfbat we were at least going to have the team be well above median in terms of raw talent. (i.e., how many XP they average per month) You aren't the bullshit Itachi "I was ANBU commander by the time I could walk or whatever" Uchiha from canon, but you will crush most of your peers in a fight.
Just like in the real world, experience dominates over raw talent. Someone who has been ninja-ing longer than you is almost certainly going to have a lot more XP in their build, even if they are lower talent. Walk soft around any ninja with 5 or 10 years on their service record, even if they are a complete klutz by nature.
The hivemind's choices are becoming even more important. Since we now have an explicit XP-gain curve, it is possible for you to be far above that curve if we feel that your plans are significantly better than what a normal ninja of Hazou's talent, experience, and access to resources would come up with. You have the opportunity to leverage the apparently-superhuman computational power of your collective brains for Hazou's good, and we encourage you to do so.
We are not going to give out specifics of the equations or their results. In addition, going forward we will only be showing the final result of the skill check formula, not the actual rolls that went into it.
Sadly, Keiko is no longer special-jōnin level in Weapons. Jiraiya's comment to that effect will be retconned away.
Also, back in Let the Bodies Hit the Floor, the kids hunting you from the Liberator camp weren't chūnin. This will not affect the Badass Boast that Keiko made back in Rice.

EDIT: There was a Part 2 and Part 3 to this in the main thread.

Velorien · Jan 19, 2017

Interlude: The Backup Heir
by @Velorien

Mist's Special Envoy had chosen her clothing carefully, just as she chose everything carefully. The lavender kimono, undecorated save for her clan crest, conjured a sense of subtlety and gentleness, while the four ninja behind her (all bearing fine weapons, though only two were weaponmasters) backed it with silent strength. The preposterously expensive hairpins rounded off the effect as a reminder of her station.

She had already judged the impact on the Hot Springs ninja present in the conference chamber. The man seated at the head of the table would be the senior adviser, while the other two were there mainly to listen and offer second opinions later, during private discussion. The senior adviser and the man on the left spoke her visual language well, and were even now trying to guess her game. The man on the right seemed more entranced by her beauty, which was pleasant but irrelevant to the mission. How long had it been since she'd had time for bedroom games?

None of these thoughts showed on her face, of course, which matched the rest of the body language for Attitude Twenty: Humility from a Position of Power. Out of the corner of her eye, the Special Envoy saw the eyes of the third Hot Springs bodyguard narrow fractionally, and over the next few seconds she swapped a few muscles into positions of greater respect. That woman was the real decision-maker, she was sure, and thus her true target.

Bow Fifteen executed, she met the senior adviser's gaze just long enough to convey sincerity. "Thank you for giving up your valuable time to see me. My name is Kurosawa Ren, head of the Kurosawa Clan and Special Diplomatic Envoy of the Village Hidden in the Mist."

"The pleasure is ours," said the adviser, a middle-aged man with streaks of silver in his black hair and his headband at an angle (perhaps to hide a scar?). He gave a deep nod, but did not stand to bow. "I am Mugiwara Ryōichi, Councilman and Personal Adviser to the Lord of the Burning Waters. Please, be seated."

He did not introduce the other two, thereby emphasising his own importance (and further drawing attention away from the observer at the back).

Ren raised her hand in a careful wave to one of her bodyguards. It was one of her own, Modified Beckon Twenty-Three: I am a Small Woman in Command of Towering Giants.

Mitsumori responded to her signal and passed her the rosewood case, which she handed to Mugiwara. Attitude Twenty already had a good set of motions for gift-giving, so she didn't adjust anything and instead focused on the reactions. How wary would they be of receiving an unknown item from a Mist-nin?

"Please accept this gift as my thanks for granting me this audience. It is but a little thing, but I hope that it will please you."

The Mizukage, being the kind of man he was, had suggested offering a weapon. Ren had chosen a pipe. It was a symbol of peace, relaxation and luxury. The gold decorations evoked prosperity, something on the mind of every Hot Springs ninja right now, while the carvings of the Guardian Dragons of the Depths echoed a legend known to every child from Frost to Water. "We defend our own." The juxtaposition would invite curiosity, and sit in the receivers' minds for when the time came for the relevant part of her speech.

It was a thing of perfection, like every tool optimised for its purpose.

"I thank you, Lady Kurosawa. This is a beautiful item." Mugiwara replaced the pipe in its case and set it aside.

"May I ask why you have graced us with your presence?"

Straight to business? Excellent. Ren smirked on the inside, while her face shifted to Expression Sixty-One: Warm but Professional.

"The Mizukage feels that it is time to renew the historic bonds between our two nations, and that the beginning of that renewal must be an apology for the inconvenience we have caused you."

The bodyguard's surprise was barely a flicker. Oh, to play with this woman one-on-one, matching wits without these tiresome intermediaries. But perhaps the time would still come.

"Of what inconvenience do you speak?" Mugiwara asked.

"You have suffered greatly at the hands of the so-called 'Cold Stone Killers', and while you must be aware by now that they are Mist missing-nin, I believe you have the right to hear the full story of how they came to be.

"Some time ago, Mist dispatched a peacekeeping force to the Country of Noodles, seeking to prevent Hidden Leaf's steady erosion of that country's independence by means both indirect and military. As I'm sure you are aware, Noodle's neutrality is a key element in maintaining harmony within our region, and for it to become another of Leaf's puppet states would have been disastrous.

"Unfortunately, we were betrayed. We have no proof of who was responsible for sabotaging our mission to protect Noodle from Leaf, though of course we may guess. This third party subverted one of our best jōnin, an expert in deception and manipulation named Inoue Mari. Inoue placed traitors among the peacekeeping force, then massacred those who remained loyal, and fled to seek shelter in the Fire Country."

Shikigami had been too popular, and besides, who knew how many other traitors he'd left in Mist? Better to leave them thinking they were safe for now. Nor would Kanna, the non-entity, have sufficed. Whereas with Inoue's profile and specialisation, it had been natural for her to take the fall. Not that Ren minded. If it were not for the stupid bitch, her nephew might have been saved. He'd still been young enough for "re-education", and Ren would have made it happen, even if it cost her. If he'd only been allowed to surrender…

"Naturally," Ren continued with Attitude Twenty as her flawless mask, "we were not willing to violate another nation's sovereign borders in our pursuit, and despite our misgivings we elected to cooperate with Leaf authorities in hunting down the missing-nin. Unfortunately, when we tracked them down, Inoue fled with a core of particularly powerful minions while our forces were engaging the main body. Leaf's finest sensory specialists were allegedly unable to detect this group as it escaped through their home ground.

"We continued our hunt, but without success. Inoue's team seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth—until they surfaced here, in Hot Springs, and assassinated an important guest. Again, we cannot say at whose behest they violated the demilitarised zone, though I note that they once again fled into the Fire Country once their treachery was complete. Please rest assured that our finest hunter-nin are constantly on the lookout for these murderers so as to punish them in full for the harm they have done you and us."

Was her mission today going to be the final straw that lead to Hazō's death? Mist and Hot Springs both stood to regain so much face by killing her nephew and his team, and here she was brokering an alliance between them. Would Hana forgive her if she knew? Had Hana ever forgiven her?

Was she still in Resolved Commitment? That should be long enough. Time to shift to Number Sixteen: Patient Alertness, and let them give her the next opening.

"This is all very edifying, Lady Kurosawa, but surely the Mizukage didn't send his Special Envoy merely to speak of past mistakes?"

He was starting to move into a position of dominance. Good. If Hot Springs believed they had the upper hand in negotiations, then the bargaining tomorrow would go much more smoothly.

"Indeed. We of Mist are not unmindful of the impact of the Cold Stone Killers' actions. The elite guests of Hot Springs have gravely overreacted to the incident, and many have withdrawn their patronage out of fear for their safety. I believe it is no exaggeration to say that this country is on the verge of an economic crisis."

The tension in the room was palpable. She was walking on the knife edge of insulting them, but at the same time their attention was totally focused on her. They had to know what their country's weakness meant to Mist.

"I am here to offer aid."

The bodyguard wasn't looking at her anymore. Her gaze was unfocused—calculating, predicting, evaluating—while everybody else was hanging onto Ren's every word. Yes. This was how it should be done.

Ren loosened her shoulders as she selected Attitude Thirty-Four: Confident Magnanimity.

"Rightly or wrongly, the shinobi of Mist have earned a reputation for ruthless efficiency. We wish to place that ruthless efficiency at your service by allowing you to hire our special forces for additional protection of your hot spring resorts. Needless to say, we do not believe that our assistance is truly necessary on a practical level—the Cold Stone Killers incident is a unique blip in an otherwise unquestioned history of secure hospitality—but by adding our reputation to yours, we are confident that we can restore your customers' faith and bring them back to you."

Several seconds of silence.

Mugiwara stirred. "That is a very generous offer, Lady Kurosawa. But what would such unprecedented generosity cost us?"

They didn't reject the offer outright. But then, she knew from the moment she'd walked into the room that they weren't going to. Now the fish was on the hook, and the rest was detail.

"Nothing more than a fixed percentage of your tourist income," Ren said lightly (Diplomat Voice Sixty Modified: This Is Me Trying to Slip Something Past You, So Focus on What I Just Said and Ignore the Real Trap Coming Up). "If our assistance is insufficient to restore your fortunes, then you will only be paying a pittance. Or if wealth is flowing into your coffers anew, we will claim a predictable, reasonable fraction.

"We will also shoulder the full setup costs for this project, including any necessary training, the construction of the logistics and coordination centre, and materiel transportation to the mainland."

The bodyguard's posture turned slightly more hostile. Naturally. But Ren was ready to forestall the objection.

"This is a unique opportunity for us as well. While a less stable nation might balk at inviting allied troops onto its soil, Hot Springs is a demilitarised zone secured by international treaty. Even were we to disregard our long history of common culture and aligned interests, we would be unable to conduct military action against you without inviting immediate, overwhelming retaliation from the rest of the continent. It is this layer of security that enables us to deal as equals.

"I am not here to do battle with you over diplomatic advantages and fine print," she lied. "Only to offer a mutually beneficial arrangement that you will be free to terminate at any time you desire."

If you're prepared to tell your patrons that you are withdrawing the protection they've come to rely on.

Mugiwara stood.

"Thank you very much for your proposal, Lady Kurosawa. Please permit us to retire for the day while we discuss. Our servants shall show you to the guest chambers, and to various traditional entertainments prepared for a person of your stature."

As he rose from his bow, he gave her a roguish wink that came off surprisingly well from a man his age. "I hope you enjoy hot springs, because they make up about three quarters of them."

Ren thought Attitude Fourteen: Relaxed and Uninhibited would be best while she bathed.

How would Hana have handled this mission? Ren's mood sank as the eternal question reminded her of her nephew's fate. She decided to add some motions from Carefree into the mix.

eaglejarl · Jan 22, 2017

Chapter 99: Risings

"Good muffins," Gamaheu said. The tattooed Toad was lounging comfortably on a cushion in Panairu's living room, snacking on one of the pangolin's newest batch of banana/watercress baked goods.

The Toad agent paused to look at the muffin and shook his head, croaking a chuckle. "You, baking. Takes me by surprise every time. You've gotten awfully domestic since the war, old friend. What happened to the Scaled Terror that I remember?" He took another bite, eyes rolling back in gustatory delight.

Panairu gave a Gallic shrug. "He got old," he said philosophically. "What, I can't be a fighter and a baker?"

Gamaheu raised a webbed palm in surrender. "Hey, I'm not stopping you. Although, funny you should mention fighters...."

Panairu's massive claws had been busy crumbling a muffin into small enough segments that he could swallow them without choking; at his friend's words they stilled. He looked up, leaning slightly forward so that he could get a clearer look at the tattooed toad. Given that he was the better part of eight feet tall and Gamaheu was only five this left the pangolin more or less looking at the top of his friend's head.

"I'm not going to like this, am I?" he asked, resignation heavy in his tone.

"Probably not. Nine days ago our scouts spotted a squad of Condors trying to sneak by on the southern border. The leader wore green stripes. Three left, two under."

Panairu sighed. "Lovely."

Green was reserved for the Condor military. Three left-facing chevrons signified an Undercommander, leader of a company. Two underbars meant Logistics branch. If the Condor army had grown to the level of needing entire companies of logistics troops...well, you generally didn't need that big a supply train if you were staying home. And if they were sneaking around on the Toads' southern border....

"The scouts followed as far as they could, but you know how it is—they fly, we don't," Gamaheu said with another shrug. He absently tossed the rest of the muffin into his mouth to free his hands so he could rummage around in his beltpouch. "I brought the scout leader's report, though."

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Panairu chided reflexively. It was an old joke between them. "It's disgusting."

Gamaheu gaped his mouth open to reveal the half-chewed muffin mash, bactrian eyes twinkling. Panairu rolled his before taking the proffered scroll and unrolling it. He pulled it almost against his eyes so he could skim through the details, and immediately cursed at what he saw.

"I'll take this straight to the Polemarch," he said, pushing himself to his feet. "Thanks. You must have run your feet off to get this here so fast."

Gamaheu shrugged casually. "Nothing that couldn't be done by any dashingly handsome demigod. Have to admit that I wouldn't mind sitting and having another few muffins before I need to go walking again. Polemarch won't be offended if I don't come, will he? I don't really have anything to add to the report."

Panairu shook his head. "Nah, he'll be fine. Probably want to talk to you tomorrow just as a courtesy, but I doubt he'll begrudge you a night's sleep. There's a tub in the back and more muffins on the counter. Make yourself at home."

Gamaheu smiled. "Thanks. And, if you don't mind me saying it, I really hope you get to stay a baker."

Panairu nodded without speaking as he turned for the door. Personally, he'd rather stay a baker too. Still, if the Condors were gearing up...well, he was old, but his claws were still sharp. The Condors might just need a reminder of what it meant to face the Scaled Terror.

o-o-o-o

"Reporting for service, Polemarch!"

"Be at peace, Strike Leader," said the Polemarch's massive voice, the faintest hint of amusement hiding somewhere in its depths.

Strike Leader Pankurashun, Senior Combat Instructor for the First Army of the Pangolin Clan, did not do 'at peace', ever. At his Polemarch's command he unbent enough to allow his tail to touch the floor in the 'rest' posture. Even this was an enormous concession.

"The Condors are mobilizing again, Strike Leader." The amusement was gone, granite will grinding it away.

Pankurashun snorted. "After the pounding we gave those beakfaces the last time you'd think they would have learned their lesson."

"Indeed. Which intrigues me. We and the Toads and the Otters monitor their trade closely; their imports have remained constant, so there has been neither famine to make them desperate nor population boom to make them bold. Their neighbors maintain the same operational readiness levels that they have had for decades—nothing to offer fresh provocation or imply weakness."

Not having been asked a question, Pankurashun remained silent.

The amusement was back. "Come, Strike Leader. No speculation?"

"With all respect, Polemarch, I am not paid to speculate on the strategic implications of grain shipments. I am paid to kick ass and shred beak."

The amusement was stronger this time. "Too true, Strike Leader. More recently, however, you are paid to train the next generation. I gather you met with the Summoner recently."

Centuries of military service was all that kept Pankurashun from blinking in confusion. He was a Senior Combat Instructor, not an officer or a High Circle official. He'd been utterly baffled when a Speaker had come running into the training hall and pulled him right out of a class, telling him to report to the Polemarch 'at his earliest convenience.' Which, in the Pangolin army, was the polite way of saying "right the hell now and don't bother stopping to wash off the dirt first."

"Sir, yes, sir," he said, taking refuge in protocol. Was this because he'd taught that human punk the basic training jutsu? If he'd been called in by the Base Commander he would assume he was going to get a reaming and some punishment detail. If he was in front of the Polemarch himself...oh, Pantokrator this could be bad.

"Tell me your impressions, Senior Combat Instructor," the Polemarch said, no trace of reproach in his voice.

Pankurashun did not allow himself to sag in relief, but he did pause for a moment to get himself under control and organize his thoughts. "Sir. Please note that my personal contact with the Summoner is limited to one extensive conversation, a short evaluation on the training field after that conversation, and a brief interaction with her and her squad on the Human Path.

"Physical assessment: Her war skills are above average for a human of her age, above most of our fresh intake. Her strength and endurance are adequate for a human child. Her speed is above average, becoming quite impressive when she uses her 'chakra boost' ability. As with all humans her nose is utterly hopeless but her vision mostly makes up for it. Morale: She lacks confidence in herself, although in her encounter with the Naraka Rollers she was decisive and effective. She—"

"I didn't realize you were friends with the Naraka Rollers, Strike Leader. Such unplumbed depths behind that gruff exterior."

Pankurashun's tongue slapped at the air for just a moment. "I'm not sure they would describe me as a friend, Polemarch. Despite that, they were willing to explain the circumstances of Mori's visit when I asked politely."

"'Politely', hm?" The undercurrent of the Polemarch's voice had moved from 'amused' to 'suppressed laughter'. "I do hope that your polite conversation was not interrupted by the demolition of their headquarters."

"No sir, we were not disturbed, sir. I thank you for your concern, sir." For Pantokrator's sake, you throw one little scrub through a wall and they call it 'demolition'. There was just no justice. If he'd wanted to demolish the place it would have been a proper crater.

"Indeed. I interrupted you—you were saying?"

"Sir, continuing with my report on morale. The Summoner demonstrates admirable loyalty to her squadmates. She had interpersonal difficulties with one of them, Ishihara Akane. The Summoner was self-aware enough to recognize these issues and went far out of her way to mend them. According to my conversations with her liaision, Second Specialist Pandā, the effort was successful and the two of them are more functional.

"Mental: The Summoner is well educated and clearly intelligent, although poorly socialized. Our interaction was brief, but my impression is that she lacks imagination and self-direction. Report ends."

"Hmmm," the Polemarch mused, his far-off tail tapping thoughtfully. "Yes, that makes sense. It would also explain why she has had the contract for four months yet made so few contracts. Tell me, Senior Combat Instructor, what impact would it have on the Summoner were we to bring her here and line up some qualified summons for her?"

"Sir, I believe it would be an error, sir," Pankurashun said, snapping back to full attention. "The Summoner's largest weakness is her lack of self-confidence. It would be better to mark the trail than to show her the log."

"Hm."

Pankurashun waited at rigid attention. There were two kinds of officers; the ones who got angry if you were too direct in your speech and the kind who got angry if you weren't. He'd never before spoken with the Polemarch, or even with anyone who had spoken to the Polemarch, and he sincerely hoped that his ultimate commander was in the 'you should be direct' group.

"Be at rest, Senior Combat Instructor," the Polemarch said, seeming to finally notice Pankurashun's stiff posture. "Tell me, what are your personal feelings towards the Summoner?"

Pankurashun smothered a grimace. Asking a Senior Combat Instructor to express feelings?! That was just unfair. He hoped word of this never got back to the base. Still, orders were orders and anything the Polemarch said was an order.

"Sir, she's a good kid. Young, inexperienced, with all the flaws I mentioned, yet she's trying. Her clan should have their snouts cut off for choosing a Summoner who can't protect herself yet, but she's on the right track. Give her a decade or so and she'll be a Summoner to be proud of. Better than Ui by a mile."

"I see. Tell me, Senior Combat Instructor, what would you say if I told you that she had no clan? That she was, in fact, on her own except for those squadmates you met?"

Pankurashun blanched. On her own? A Summoner that young and she had nothing between herself and the world other than that tiny little squad? How in the name of the Pantokrator's suppurating snout did that happen?

"Sir...if the Condors are moving again and the Summoner is that young and has no clan, she's in a lot of trouble."

"I agree. I believe we shall need to mark that trail quite quickly. See to it, Senior Combat Instructor. You are excused from any duty that would conflict with this tasking. I'll expect a plan on my desk first thing tomorrow."

"Your will, Polemarch." He spun on his heel, tail snapping through the turn with drill-ground precision, and trotted away. This was going to require some thought.

o-o-o-o

The chores were done, Inoue-sensei had finally gotten tired of Noburi making Hazō sing the 'I Am A Doofy Doofus' song and told him to knock it off, and Hazō was able to sit by the fire and eat in peace.

He was surprised to notice how generally happy he was. Twelve days of chores and hazing had greatly reduced the tension within the team. Inoue-sensei had been careful to ensure that the hazing was kept within strict limits but, in truth, none of the team had really been interested in pushing it even remotely close to what routinely happened during Hell Week at the Academy. It had been more along the lines of "Minion! Fetch me a beverage, minion!" and "You call that polished, minion?! Run fifty laps along the beach shouting 'I am a lazy doofus!'" instead of anything involving bugs or knotted leather. Really, it had only been bad for the first two days. After that even Noburi had mostly gotten it out of his system and was just having fun with it. And the thing with the fruit hat really had been funny.

Of course, there were also downsides to relaxing. Being kept constantly on the run had been nice, in a way, since it left him no time to think. Now that things were settling down he had the chance to really ponder on his mistakes and how bad things could get.

Staring into a fire after dark was a bad habit; it ruined your night vision and left you at a disadvantage if attacked. Still, it was comforting and relaxing on a primal level and if there was one place on earth where he was unlikely to be attacked it was here, in the middle of bloody nowhere with a jōnin sitting next to him and four concentric rings of traps set by a para—extremely thorough explosives expert.

The fire, of course, reminded him of Fire and the mess they'd left behind. Jiraiya hadn't killed them, or cut them off from his network, but it had been a monumental loss of resources. Definitely something to avoid the next time they had to interact with Jiraiya or one of his peers. Which they would have to, eventually; as the Sage had said, "A man may choose to leave the world behind, but the world may choose not to be left." The Elemental Nations weren't that big, and Jiraiya had already demonstrated the ability to summon them through the pangolins. Eventually he'd have another mission for them, another Arikada to deal with, and the team would be at risk again.

One of the logs popped and a shower of sparks whirled up into the night sky like tiny festival lanterns, burning hot and bright for an instant and then fading into blackness.

Hazō snorted softly, an ironic smile tugging at his lips. 'Burning hot and bright, then fading into blackness.' Wasn't that just a perfect metaphor for ninja life? Theoretically, the power to set the world ablaze but in practice far more likely to wink out in moments. Long periods of unrelieved tedium interspersed with moments of pants-wetting terror. Even simple things like traveling—hours and hours of struggling to keep your mind undulled by the pounding rhythm of your feet, occasionally interrupted by a few seconds of life-threatening explosions and flying steel when you ran into a border patrol or a chakra beast.

The chakra beast problem was pretty well solved for the moment; nothing non-sapient was getting through the myriad layers of Kagome-sensei's defenses. No, the real problem was that eventually they were going to need to go back to civilization and interact with other ninja again.

They'd actually been quite lucky with their ninja interactions so far. Things in Isan had been mostly calm...well, with a couple of notable exceptions. Their time in Konoha had been calm, with a couple of notable exceptions. Hot Springs....

Okay, maybe they hadn't been that lucky. Still, they were alive after more than a year on their own and that said something.

Eight years. That was what Akane's teachers had told her was the average lifespan for a ninja. Granted, that average was heavily skewed; on the one end you had people like the Hokage and Jiraiya who made it to advanced age. On the other end you had the massive numbers of genin who died in their first handful of missions. The ones who survived typically spent years being escorted around by jōnin or senior chūnin as the children gained in skill and power so that they could in turn escort the next generation of wet-behind-the-ears puppies.

The team didn't have that advantage. Sure, Inoue-sensei and Kagome-sensei were here to keep them safe, but most village ninja only went on missions every so often and they spent the rest of their time training with a vast array of expert teachers. The team was in the field constantly and although Inoue-sensei and Kagome-sensei were brilliant they could not compare for breadth of skill with the resources of a village. As a simple example, neither of them had an Earth nature so they couldn't teach jutsu that Hazō could use.

He frowned. Actually, what was Kagome-sensei's element? It had never come up.

Shrugging, he waved the issue off and finished polishing off the last of his stir fry while thinking. Where had he been? Right, vulnerabilities. The team lacked the training opportunities that a village could afford them. They lacked the easy access to supplies and weapons. They lacked the free passage through various nations that would be afforded to village ninja. They could build a secure base—certainly Kagome-sensei had done his best—but no static defense could protect against a serious assault by skilled hunter ninja.

He finished the last bite and set his bowl aside, chewing slowly on a piece of candied fruit from one of the Leaf ration packs. (They really did beat Mist's trail food all hollow.) His train of thought should have been depressing, but it actually wasn't. Sure, there were threats and yes, the team's growth was disadvantaged compared to that of village ninja. Still, that wasn't a death sentence, that was a challenge.

Well, challenge motherfucking accepted.

The fire crackled and popped as Hazō turned ideas over in his head for how he would protect his team. His team, who were busy enjoying the moment instead of dwelling on how dark their future could be and how to brighten it up. Keiko and Inoue-sensei were using long green sticks to toast slices of apple over the fire; Keiko held hers in both hands, apple slice down near the embers and a look of careful focus on her face. Inoue-sensei lounged back, arms folded behind her head and stick clasped between her toes as she lazily wafted her apple slice back and forth through the flames, clearly more interested in playing with her food than cooking it. Noburi was lounging against a log to one side, hands folded on his stomach and eyes drifting closed as he gazed sleepily at the stars. Kagome-sensei....

A quiet bang followed by a cackled "Ha!" announced that Kagome-sensei was busy cutting up logs for the fire. Hazō grinned; Sensei had started fiddling with the parameters of his shaped-charge seal lately—or perhaps had finally been comfortable demonstrating years-old variations, Hazō wasn't sure. By forming the angle of the blast into a very narrow 'cone' and cranking the intensity way down he'd created something that was basically a force axe. Chopping firewood was supposed to be Hazō's job but Kagome-sensei enjoyed it so much that no one had the heart to stop him as long as he agreed not to say, "See?! Explosions solve everything!" every time he brought in a new load.

The fire popped again, shooting more sparks into the sky along with several flakes of grey ash. Hazō's eyes automatically tracked them, a smile spreading across his face as the sight reminded him of his long-ago leap to the Mizukage's tower. The heat from Amatetsu's Thousand Yams Furnace had buoyed him up, letting him make the crossing from the ledge to the Tower that had seemed so impossible at the time, yet proven simple in the end. If only border crossings were as ea—

He sat bolt upright, mouth agape, as the answer appeared full-blown in his mind.

XP AWARD: 1

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, January 25, 2017, at 12pm London time.

Velorien · Jan 27, 2017

Chapter 100: Alternative Perspectives Part 1
by @Velorien

It was the most beautiful of all cold, windy, overcast spring days. Today, Hazō's indentured servitude was finally over. No more being forced to give scouting reports in trochaic octameter. No more following people around with a flute as their personal background theme. No more digging latrines, or copying recipes out of Kagome-sensei's book by hand so he didn't have to risk the original while cooking, or polishing Pandā's scales until they gleamed in the firelight—which didn't even make sense as a task, given the effect wouldn't carry over to Pandā's real body. No, today, Hazō was a free man.

"So, Hazō, what are you going to do now?" Inoue-sensei asked coolly. "Apart from grinning like an idiot."

"Um," Hazō stopped grinning. Something about Inoue-sensei had been off for the last couple of weeks. She hadn't been… frustrating? Hyper? A constant threat to his hair? Mischievous. Let's go with mischievous. If anything, she'd been acting a lot like Hazō's old team leader, and it was unnerving.

"Inoue-sensei, are you still upset with me?"

Inoue-sensei paused, then gave a wry smile that had no relationship to humour. "It's complicated and I don't feel like talking about it right now.

"The important thing is that everybody else is calming down. Noburi's studying the notes Dr Yakushi left him instead of staring at them like a dead lover's keepsake, Keiko's steadily approaching her normal level of… Keiko, and it's done Kagome a world of good to be able to secure the perimeter. So as a special reward for your hard work, I'm going to let you do what you've always wanted… and make a list. We're long overdue for an after-action report."

Hazō's grin returned. He fished around in his note-taking pouch, and produced a scroll, which he unfurled with a flourish. "Way ahead of you, Inoue-sensei."

Inoue-sensei just sighed.

-o-

"OK, everyone," Hazō began. Today really was a glorious day. Not only was he freed from his torment, but he was about to start fulfilling one of his traditional duties as team sort-of-leader. A few more steps, and hopefully he'd be able to regain the trust he'd lost by nearly getting his team horribly killed. "I think this would be a good time to go over the mistakes we've all made in the recent past, and figure out some ways to do better in the future. Any objections to me taking the lead?"

Noburi shrugged. "Better you than me."

"I would not gainsay your superior expertise in this matter," Keiko agreed.

Neither of the adults commented, though Kagome was only half-listening and half- working on some new piece of carving (either a deer statuette or a backscratcher—Hazō couldn't quite tell).

"Good," Hazō said. "As you can see from this list"—Noburi gave an exaggerated groan—"I've organized the main points by subject, then chronologically. So first things first, OPSEC.

"I think it's fair to say that we've all been terrible at keeping our secrets, especially from Leaf, but we weren't doing so well in Sarubetsu either. Remember when all of us but Inoue-sensei got caught by two ninja patrols at the same time?"

"That wasn't OPSEC," Noburi objected. "That was stealth."

"Yes," Hazō said, "but do you remember the part where we threatened them with all the abilities we actually possess?"

Keiko squirmed.

"Hey," Noburi said, "I think we got out of that one just fine. If anything, muddying the waters with that crazy sealmistress story was a stroke of genius."

"That's one word for it," Inoue-sensei muttered.

"Ahem," Hazō hurried on, "there was also that Irie trader who identified all three of our bloodlines in one conversation."

"That was insane," Noburi agreed. "I don't think any of us could've seen that coming."

"It brings up an important point, though," Inoue-sensei said. "You kids have got to learn how to act like normal people. Take a look at me. Do I look like a badass genjutsu mistress, pro infiltrator and winner of the Mist Women's CQC Tournament three years running?"

Hazō shook his head.

"What do I look like?"

Hazō hesitated. That sounded like a question with a lot of wrong answers, but also an opportunity to score badly-needed points.

He took what he knew was a few seconds too long to find a good formulation, but finally came out with:

"A woman remarkable only for her beauty and poise."

Everyone else was now giving him very odd looks, but Inoue-sensei gave a light smile.

"Eight out of ten. Maybe not all of my training has gone to waste.

"More to the point, ordinary kids don't make a beeline for every seal they see. Ordinary civilian kids aren't even literate, but that time you were being a ninja so it wasn't such a big deal. Ordinary kids also don't move like they're used to wrestling bears in their spare time.

"Ordinary kids don't perform miracles of analysis either. Smart is one thing. Smart and educated is another. Mori-level educated is something completely different, and other smart and educated people will notice.

"Noburi… you're doing good. We just need to figure out how to deal with that barrel."

"Thanks, Inoue-sensei," Hazō said. "On to Leaf. Noburi and I both messed up with Dr Yakushi. If Inoue-sensei's right, then he was being very manipulative, and neither of us noticed."

"It is not so much that I noticed," Keiko added, "as that I am disinclined to trust strangers to begin with, and so his communication style explicitly demanded something I was unwilling to give. It is entirely possible that, had he chosen an approach specifically tailored to my personality, I would have been as vulnerable as anyone else."

Hazō looked questioningly at Kagome-sensei.

"You really think he was being more manipulative than all the other Leaf stinkers?" Kagome-sensei asked. "They were all doing it. Lying bastards, the lot of them. It's just he didn't have extra leverage over us the way the others did, so he had to work harder.

"Oh, wait, he had Akane, didn't he? Never mind."

"Regardless," Hazō said, "we need to get better at noticing manipulation, and that means paying attention to what people might want, and how their actions are helping them get it. We knew Dr Yakushi was interested in our bloodlines, and we should've picked up faster on how all the great things he was offering us were going to get him what he wanted."

Noburi frowned. "I've said it before, but Yakushi-sensei was also acting exactly the way someone in his position would act if he was just a really nice guy. As opposed to an enemy we had to threaten to Jiraiya's face."

"You know I didn't mean to—"Hazō cut himself off. After two weeks of hard work, he was not going to start an argument over this. "It's not that I disagree, Noburi. He saved Akane's life, and I'm ashamed I let myself forget that. But people in our position can't afford to relax just because someone seems trustworthy. I mean, Jiraiya likes us too, and on the whole he's been really good to us, but I don't think at this point any of us doubt that he'd throw us under a rampaging chakra bison if he thought it would advance Leaf's interests.

"Speaking of Jiraiya, we don't need to go over what a disaster that was again, but it wasn't the only one either. I interrupted the Hokage when I asked whether Akane was OK. Luckily, he's apparently very kind as Kage go, so he forgave me, but that whole 'disrespecting Jiraiya' thing really brought home to me how careless I'd been. If that had been the Mizukage, he might have just torn my soul from my body there and then."

"The Mizukage doesn't tear out souls," Inoue-sensei said quietly. "He crushes them. Never look him in the eye."

Hazō shivered.

"Uh, moving on, there's also the Library Incident. Again, that's all me, but I think as an example of what not to do, it's useful for everyone. I blurted out a bunch of secrets and I assaulted Captain Sarutobi. In retrospect, it's amazing we survived that as painlessly as we did.

"The fact is, we need training. We need to be ready so that when we speak with people who could wipe us out by sneezing in our general direction, we've got the proper attitudes and body language ready to go. That goes double for me, since with my bloodline once I learn the perfect poker face, I should be able to use it anytime."

"You're also the one who needs it most if we're going to stay alive," Noburi added helpfully.

"Thank you, Noburi. So. Training. Serious training. Can you help us with that, Inoue-sensei?"

Inoue-sensei gave him an unreadable look. "I can try."

"Good. Now, let's move on to manipulation."

"Weren't we already talking about manipulation?" Noburi interjected.

"Well, technically, yes, but this is where we start talking about manipulation according to my list," Hazō explained, pointing to the relevant sub-heading.

Inoue-sensei gave a forlorn sigh.

"I've been thinking about this a lot while we've been in Iron," Hazō said. "From the moment we entered Leaf, we had the Hokage with his grandfatherly aura. By the way, Inoue-sensei, is that some kind of Kage ability, or does he just have incredible body language?"

"It's a jōnin thing," Inoue-sensei said. "I'll tell you about it another time."

"Right. Then there was Dr Yakushi. He never stopped being… the way he was. Looking back, the last time I saw him it was still impossible to tell whether he was being nice or manipulating me for all he was worth. And again, it was really hard to notice at the time, because he acts so naturally.

"Let's not forget the minders. Jiraiya just happened to assign us people our age, whom we just happened to get on with really well. I think we can all agree that after spending a week with them, we approve of Leaf more than we would have otherwise. Speaking for myself, I really don't like the idea of fighting against Leaf if it would mean fighting Teams Sarutobi or Gai. Uh, not that I would anyway, because Akane is there and because Leaf is incredibly powerful and we're a small group of missing-nin, but you know what I mean.

"It's almost eerie how well things went. Speaking for myself, I successfully befriended Nara, and discovered common interests, as well as getting him potentially interested in our ideals. I, uh, bonded with Lee. Despite my lack of experience, I was able to flirt with Yamanaka. I—"

"Hold up," Noburi said sharply. "You mean you were flirting with her? While your girlfriend was in hospital? It wasn't just my imagination? Or an accident because you're so socially inept?"

"Not an accident, no." Hazō said. Why was this relevant?

"Did Akane know?"

"Eventually. But we weren't dating when it started."

"Uh-huh," Noburi nodded. "But you were planning to, didn't you? You visited her every day. You made her feel special. You confessed your feelings for her. All while going after another girl?"

Hazō looked to Inoue-sensei for support, but there was no help coming from that quarter.

Keiko's face showed only dawning realisation.

Kagome-sensei was focused completely on his carving, almost suspiciously so.

"It wasn't like that," Hazō insisted. "Obviously, Akane would always come first!"

"So you were just leading Yamanaka on, then?" Noburi asked. "It wasn't enough for you to have one girl who worships the ground you tread on, but you had to be the one to get Yamanaka as well? And you weren't even taking it seriously?"

"It wasn't like that," Hazō repeated. "I asked Akane. She said she was OK with sharing. Potentially."

Noburi gave him a look of mixed pity and disgust. "Hazō, Akane was trapped, alone and in danger of losing the boy she loved to another girl. Don't you think she'd say anything if it meant preserving your relationship?"

"Akane wouldn't lie to me," Hazō said uncertainly.

"Never underestimate what a desperate person will do for love," Keiko said in a heavy voice.

"You were unfair to Akane, and you were unfair to Yamanaka," Noburi said bitingly. "I liked Yamanaka. She was cool, and funny, and hot, and I wouldn't have minded getting to know her better. But then you swoop in, and that's that, and now it turns out you were doing it deliberately? As a way of keeping your options open? Dammit, Hazō."

He stood up and walked away.

"You should have spoken to us," Keiko said. "While I may not have been able to offer you helpful romantic advice, I could have at least commented on the implications of attempted seduction by the heir of an information-gathering and mind-reading clan."

Kagome-sensei just shook his head and muttered something about undefined behaviour.

-o-

Kei lounged back on her favourite tree branch, thinking. Had Hazō truly believed that Yamanaka was interested in him romantically? The heir of a world-famous clan, in a relationship with a missing-nin? Or had he believed that equality of age would somehow justify that kind of interaction? People did not automatically forge bonds of friendship with their peers. If they had, Kei's Academy years would have been very different.

It had been obvious to her from the beginning that the Leaf teams had been placed not only to escort but to extract information in one way or another, and that when Nara and Akimichi's relaxed approach was seen to bear insufficient fruit, the Powers That Be had dispatched Team Gai to provide a sharper, more intense stimulus. All the questions, the games, the tests of ability… And then one girl who asked Kei nothing about herself, but simply understood.

Kei might never see her again.

"Keiko, can I talk to you?"

And there was the culprit. Not that there was any meaning to blaming him. She had, gradually, made her peace. They were all incompetent in their own ways (with the exception of Mari-sensei), and Kei especially so. It would have been hypocritical of her to dwell overlong on Hazō's folly alone.

"What is it, Hazō?"

"I was thinking about you and pangolins," Hazō explained. "More specifically, it has become apparent to me that our team's overall combat potential is still very limited, and that it will take time to rectify this through training and sealcrafting research. I was wondering what you thought of the idea of contracting a pangolin military combat team? Naturally, I want to help you in any way I can, such as by gathering tribute to offer them. Not that I know what pangolins like—ants? Artworks? Weapons? Seals?—but if you tell me, I will figure out some way of finding these things. Likewise, Panchipāma has proven herself as a powerful ally, and making a full pact with her would greatly improve our firepower."

"Thank you, Hazō," Kei hopped down from her branch. "While I believe that making a pact with a combat team would indeed be valuable, more research is necessary as to the viability of such an option. Considerations include chakra limitations, the number of pacts I can maintain at any one time, and the question of whether military combat teams can be hired by a summoner. Bear in mind that pangolin society is permanently on a war footing, and as such they may be reluctant to commit valuable assets that they might need to use in battle at any time. Nevertheless, I will look into the matter, and I am grateful for your offer of assistance.

"As for Panchipāma, I have been considering this. The problem is that we failed to provide her with the entertainment she expected last time, instead involving her into an ordinary battle against a dangerous opponent. I suspect that when I next travel to the Summon Realm, she will also express considerable displeasure at being forced to battle a biomedical sealing specialist head-on, since she may—not unreasonably—be concerned about what damage such an enemy could inflict even upon a summon."

"That's good to know," Hazō said. "Oh, while I'm here, I never thanked you for persuading Jiraiya. Out of all of us, you did the most to save our lives back there."

Kei shook her head. "You are mistaken. I failed. Miserably."

Hazō looked at her in inexplicable confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"I failed," she repeated, as if speaking to a particularly inattentive student. "I failed as a Mori. I used the Frozen Skein in order to achieve the equanimity needed to face Jiraiya. I attempted to speak to him while remaining in the depths of the altered state, and then it broke. My cowardice was profound enough to overwhelm the full power of a Bloodline Limit."

"Keiko, no—"

"Please don't."

She didn't want to hear it. Hazō, who had never truly belonged to a clan, could never understand what it was to draw on the fullness of your training, on the very core of what made you who you were, and find it so lacking that in the moment of your greatest need you were reduced to a helpless, pathetic child.

"Keiko, you were the only one of us who made a difference!"

She froze. Ironically.

Hazō went on. "I failed to understand what Jiraiya wanted from me. Inoue-sensei never found a way to influence him. Noburi didn't do anything. And Kagome-sensei failed to blow anyone up, though that was probably for the best. It was all you! To the extent that Jiraiya hadn't already decided what to do with us, you're the one who saved all our lives."

Kei's brain attempted to process this assertion and returned an error.

"You did better in mortal danger than any of the rest of us," Hazō said again. "Now it's getting dark and I still have a couple of barricades to mend, so I'll see you later."

Still dazed, Kei returned to her branch.

-o-

This is the first half of the update. The second half will be written by the inimitable @eaglejarl. Since it is he who will decide where the update ends chronologically, he'll be the one to award XP for that time period.

eaglejarl · Jan 29, 2017

Chapter 100: Alternative Perspectives, Part 2

Being locked in a killbox had not been good for Kagome-sensei's nerves. It made sense that he would be a little more cautious than usual when doing seal research. Indulging him was the best way to help him relax and get past the trauma. It was fine, really.

Those thoughts became Hazō's mantra, repeated over and over during the days of his punishment detail as Kagome-sensei made him build a veritable Doom Fortress of Five-Seal-Barriered MEW, Force Wall containment barriers, foxholes, kawarimi targets, and traps with which to 'boom, squish' any horrible monstrosities that might come forth from the nether realms to consume the faces of incautious seal researchers.

Eventually, however, even Kagome-sensei was...well, maybe not satisfied, but at least in recognition that lillies could only be gilded so many times.

"So, I was thinking of doing some seal research tomorrow," Hazō said casually, not looking up as he poked at the embers of the fire with a stick.

"And with these words did the End Times begin," Noburi intoned, stretching his feet towards the fire a bit more. He was wearing his slippers, as his shoes had gotten soaked playing ocean tag earlier and were now drying on logs near the flames. "What do you think, Keiko? Is that the most terrifying phrase you've ever heard?"

Keiko frowned, giving the issue serious thought while carefully turning toasting her third chakra-squirrel kebab. "No," she said at last, "I believe 'hey, everyone, watch this' surpasses it."

"Me, I'm going with 'here, hold my drink'," Inoue-sensei said, sipping from a skin of sake she'd produced from somewhere. "You would not believe some of the stupid stuff I've seen jōnin get up to after saying those four words."

"I hate you all," Hazō grumbled.

"You're all wrong," Kagome-sensei said with regal certainty. "None of those are terrifying at all when compared to the true Phrase of Doom."

"Oh?" Inoue-sensei said, looking over in curiosity. The firelight sparkled and danced in her hair, throwing her face into chiaroscuro relief. "What is the Phrase of Doom, then?"

"'What's the worst that could happen?'" Kagome-sensei said calmly.

"Oooooh," said Inoue-sensei, Keiko, and Noburi simultaneosly.

"Yep, you win," Noburi said, tipping an imaginary hat to the sealmaster. "Still, you have to admit that Hazō's is pretty good too."

"You mock me," Hazō said, his voice low and mock-dire. "You all mock me, but I'll show you! I'll show you all! Mwahahaha!" He waved both fists in the air.

Inoue-sensei looked lazily up into the tree canopy above them. "Really just isn't the same without a proper bit of lightning and thunder." She shrugged and took another sip of her sake before waving the skin at him. "Also, the laugh needs work. Try again. Remember, more from the diaphragm...like this. Muahahaha!"

Hazō took a breath and scowled, shaking both fists. "Mwahahaha!"

She waved a hand in casual dismissal. "No, no. That was terrible. No more maniacal laughing over dinner until you can do it properly. Now, you were saying something about research?"

"Yeah," Hazō said. "We've got a lot of seals that we've picked up along the way that we haven't had a chance to research. I'd like to start on them tomorrow, and I was wondering about timing. How long did we plan on staying here?" He carefully didn't look at Noburi.

Inoue-sensei shrugged and shifted slightly so she could plump up the pile of leaves that she'd jammed under her bedroll as a cushion. "I'm not in any hurry to leave." She turned to look over at Noburi. "Noburi, part of the reason I brought us here was because I thought it would be a good place for us all to decompress, but also so that you could continue your training with Hashimoto if that was something you wanted to do. Is it?"

Noburi pondered that one, feeling the insides of his mostly-dry sandals as he did. "Not just yet," he said finally. "She's a total pain in the neck, and she's already done what she promised Jiraiya she would do as far as teaching me. I'm going to need to figure out how to bribe her or charm her before she'll teach me anything else and, to be honest, I just can't bring myself to give a damn right now. I just want to lie on the beach for a while longer before I worry about it."

"I as well," Keiko said, nibbling on her squirrel kebab. "Although I really should go back to the Summon Realm soon; it is well past time for me to seek out Panchipāma and attempt to mend our relationship." She sighed. "I was thinking of going in the morning?"

Inoue-sensei smiled at her. "We won't stop you as long as you promise to come back quickly."

Keiko ducked her head so that her bangs fell forward around her face. "Yes, sensei," she said. The darkness and firelight hid what was almost certainly a blush. "I promise."

A moment's embarrassed silence hung in the air, which Hazō hurried to jump into. "So! How about that seal research? I was hoping you guys might have some suggestions on what to work on first—want to hear what I've got?" He pulled a thick sheaf of paper out of his shirt pocket and held them up hopefully.

Keiko studied the papers thoughtfully. Noburi groaned at the sight of how thick the stack was. Inoue-sensei flopped dramatically backwards, arms out to the sides in a gesture of despair. Kagome snatched the papers from Hazō's hands and tilted them to the firelight so that he could read them as long as he practically shoved his beaky nose against them.

"Macerator version two, of course we do that first," he muttered, casting the first sheet aside and forcing Hazō to scramble for it. "Have to finish what you start. Unknown seals from the casino? Hah!" More pages went flying. "Unknown stuff from those Isan stinkers? Harumph!" Throw, toss, hurl. "Confusion seals? Bah. How are you supposed to squish someone with those? If you're throwing seals at him you should be killing him. Clusterbombs? Hmph." Without looking away from the papers he reached inside his jacket and tossed something to Hazō.

Hazō caught the object carefully. It had come from Kagome-sensei, which probably meant that it exploded, cut people in half, or did some other form of grievous bodily harm if misused. (Or properly used, come to think of it.)

It was about the size of his fist and consisted of a series of small wooden tubes and bits of metal haphazardly stuck together with clay. Inside each was another blob of clay with a small twist of paper sticking out. With a start, Hazō remembered watching his teacher make the pieces back in Isan, what seemed like a lifetime ago but was really only a few months.

"Grapeseed bomb," Kagome-sensei grunted, continuing to look through the papers. "Center tag is small, just enough to throw the rest in all directions. Outer ones are bigger, get the job done." He tapped his finger on Hazō's clusterbomb design. "I like this. Complicated, though. Bigger than a grapeseed bomb, couldn't carry as many. Got a few issues, like the ninja wire. Too strong, means the trajectories of the parts are unpredictable. Use cord, maybe? Something that'll break easily when the blast hits. Maybe just twine. Yeah...." He stared off into the darkness, wearing a smile that fit somewhere in the space between 'dreamy' and 'creepy'.

"So, how about those other ideas?" Hazō said desperately, after it became clear that Kagome was thoroughly lost in his obviously-murderous musings and was not coming back any time soon. "How about the Skyhopper?"

"Huh, what?"

"Skyhopper seal?" Hazō said, gesturing to the array of papers stick clenched tightly in the man's ink-stained fingers. "It should be next on the stack."

"Huh." Kagome leaned a little closer to the fire for better light and gave the paper a furrowed-brow scan. "Huh."

"I am quite certain I will eventually regret this," Inoue-sensei said drily, "but what is a Skyhopper seal?"

"Hrmph," Kagome said, waving the paper around as though it offended him. "Bouncing on air? Really?"

"Pretty sweet, huh?" Hazō said, grinning widely. "Just think—we could be our own air force! If we wanted to get away from people we just bounce up into the sky!"

Kagome frowned, fingers twiddling in the air as he mapped things out to himself. "Good idea. Useful. Wouldn't work, though."

Hazō's face fell. "Why not? I thought the Air Dome was immovable, and strong enough to support us? If it isn't—"

Kagome waved a hand impatiently, flicking the details of the Skyhopper aside in favor of the next sheet. "No, it's plenty strong. Not the issue. Timing, that's the issue. You can jump while you're standing on the dome, but then you have to leave the seal behind you. No way you could reliably jump and deactivate the seals at exactly the right moment to avoid tearing the seals and plunging to your horrible screaming doom."

"Plunging to your horrible screaming doom sounds bad," Inoue-sensei agreed. "Also, jumping on top of an invisible dome and not sliding off sounds risky. Can you use chakra adhesion on air?"

"Sure," Kagome grunted distractedly. "Besides, just put it upside down. Easy to stand on the bottom of a dome. It's flat, after all. Like standing on a log. Except the log is flat, so not really I guess. Can still adhere, though. Have to, in fact. Move too much and you'd disrupt the seal, which would— What kind of stupidheaded insanity is this?!" He turned and waved the next two sheets at Hazō.

"Um," said the novice sealmaster. In the poor light he couldn't tell which sheet Kagome-sensei was waving at him.

"Sky Walking seals?" Kagome-sensei said, shaking the paper clutched in his right hand at Hazō. "You want to modify the Five Seal Barrier to use only one seal? And you want to modify my Lesser Barrier Formation?! Madness! It's obviously madness and craziness and—" He paused, head cocked in thought. "Well...I mean...hm. You could dampen the harmonic on the...no, that wouldn't work. Maybe if you deconvolved the...no, no, no, that might just turn your brain inside out. Ooh, you could...no, that would be stupid. Hm." He pulled a bit of charcoal out of the fire, flipped Hazō's notes over, and started scribbling on the back in complete obliviousness of the genin's horrified look.

The entire group stayed silent, watching with a wary amusement as Kagome scribbled on the paper for several minutes.

"Ha!" he said finally, sounding thoroughly satisfied. "I was right: it's obviously madness. Not going to happen." He waved the sheet at Hazō dramatically. "This? This crazy idea on how you can get rid of four of the seals by decohering the resonances through the fifth and twelfth dimensions? Ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous! Don't you think people have thought of this? Of course they have, and most of them got turned into goo, or eaten by tentacular horrors from beyond space and time, or both! People have wanted a one-seal variant on the Five Seal Barrier since forever! If it was as simple as decohering the resonance on two dimensions, don't you think someone would have thought of it? It's obviously wrong! Obviously!"

Keiko coughed, interrupting Kagome's tirade and making him glance over at her in surprise. "I will note, sir, that it took you four minutes to determine that this was obvious."

"Hrmph," he said, glaring at her before turning back to Hazō. "Still bonkers. Besides, why do you want to mess around with the Five Seal Barrier for this? Just use the Air Dome. Put that on your shoes, then—"

"Third sheet," Hazō said.

"Huh? What?"

"Third sheet down," Hazō repeated. "Assuming I kept track of where you are in the stack, anyway."

Kagome flipped two sheets aside and skimmed quickly over what was written on the next. "'Put Air Dome seals on shoes, upside down, modified to be activated by chakra adhesion. Activate them in turn while running, using the chakra adhesion to stick to the Dome so the seals do not become misaligned.' Hrmph." He glowered at his student and hrmped again.

For just a moment, every dictionary in the Elemental Nations rewrote itself to say: "smug; adjective. See 'Kurosawa Hazō'".

o-o-o-o

"Doitagain, doitagain!" Kagome-sensei urged, clapping his hands and staring gleefully at the badly torn up trees downrange.

Shrugging, Hazō scooped up a fist-sized chunk of granite from the ground—the detritus left when sufficient numbers of explosive tags were applied to a MEW—and tossed it into his newest seal. It was absorbed with a noise that was entirely too much like chewing for Hazō's comfort, followed by what was all too clearly a burp.

Carefully, he held the paper up, seal facing away from himself and Kagome-sensei and fingers carefully out of the way. A brief pulse of chakra activated the seal and an instant later pebbles the size of his thumbnail shot out, slamming into the trees and knocking divots of wood flying.

"Yesyesyesyesyes!"

For just a moment, every dictionary in the Elemental Nations rewrote itself to say: "manic: adjective. See 'Kagome'"

o-o-o-o

"Agggghhh! It's aliiiivvvveeee!"

o-o-o-o

"Ugh. So close."

"Don't touch it."

"Wasn't planning on it."

o-o-o-o

KABOOM!

"You're not dead, right?"

"No, sensei."

"You sure?"

"Yes, sensei."

"Really, really sure?"

"Yes, sensei."

"And I'm not dead either, right?"

Sigh. "No, sensei."

"Just checking. Let's go rebuild the testing area."

o-o-o-o

Mari was lounging on a raft that she'd had Hazō put together during his unendingly amusing punishment period. She was wearing her red swimsuit and had her sunhat pulled low over her eyes. The sun was warm, the waves were rocking her gently, she had a waterskin next to her that had been half-filled with ice before going into the storage seal...life was good.

The light changed suddenly and she pulled the hat back to make sure that it was just a cloud and not a stooping chakra hawk...only to find that it was neither.

"What are you two doing up there?" she asked calmly. Her most promising yet troublesome student stood forty feet above her, his sealmaster teacher standing beside him and both of them wearing insufferable grins.

"Giving us the option to escape from any pursuer ever?" Hazō asked brightly.

"Giving us tactical positioning so we can squish the stinkers!" Kagome said, smacking right fist into left palm.

"Revolutionizing warfare for the next century?"

"Letting us see the sunrise and sunset better?"

One delicate eyebrow rose; that was a substantially more poetic answer than she'd expected from Kagome.

"...so that we have a better angle to spot anyone trying to come at us with the sun behind them!"

Ah, there we go. All was right with the world again.

"Okay, I admit that that is seriously impressive," she said. "But, and I hate to say this, you both look a little ridiculous." Laughter bubbled in her voice; troublesome they might be, but her boys were still adorable. Their respective grand dreams and cheerfully psychotic pragmatism combined to make something greater than the sum of its parts.

And it was true that they looked ridiculous. They stood with feet spread wide as though straddling a barrel, and paper seals covered in bright red and light purple inks had been carefully glued to the bottoms of their sandals. The colors stood out starkly against the otherwise drab shades of a ninja's standard uniform.

"It's a work in progress," Hazō said blithely. "This is just the prototype."

"Uh-huh. Let's see you come down."

Hazō looked uncomfortable for a moment, but he squatted down and reached under his feet so he could touch the seals. Carefully putting all his weight on his left foot he lowered his right a few inches, then shifted his weight and repeated the process on the other side. Very, very slowly he duck-walked down out of the sky, nearly falling over twice when he didn't manage a transition quite right. Eventually, however, he stood only a few feet above the surface of the waves near her raft.

"Okay, there is no way that I'm using those," Mari said, laughing outright. "I refuse to waddle my way to safety."

"It's a prototype," Hazō grumbled.

XP AWARD: 44

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, February 1, 2017, at 12pm London time.

Things that happened offscreen / general GM notes:

You copied out all the seal-related notes that both you and Kagome-sensei have.

You asked Inoue-sensei if it's at all likely hunter-nin are in Yuni and/or if they're looking for you given your history with Iron. She said that probably not in Yuni since Jiraiya's network will have muddied the waters and yes, there probably are hunter-nin looking for you, but it's doubtful that it's a full-court press.

Because Noburi wasn't planning on going to Hashimoto for training there was no immediate pressure to have the "how to hide your barrel" conversation. Noburi has mostly gotten over his anger but is still a little prickly towards you, so you decided to put the issue off for a while.

You spent 2 days finishing your research on Macerator v2.0. It exerts up to 50 MPa of force, can generate particles as small as 50 micrometers, and can eject them at a speed of up to 20m/s (~45 mph). See @Jello_Raptor's examples for what that means. Thanks, JR!

You spent an additional 7 days researching the basic Air Dome seal.

Kagome researched alongside you and learned both seals. Once he knew them he was able to help you with the research and things went much faster.

Putting the Air Dome on your shoes lets you air-walk, but only very slowly. The basic version is (de)activated with a pulse of chakra that requires too much precision to be emitted from anywhere other than your hands, meaning that you need to squat down and touch the seals with your fingers in order to turn them on and off. You will need to separately research a modified version of Air Dome that activates in the presence of chakra adhesion and deactivates in its absence. I chose to not have you do that in this update because you have about 3 weeks left before Keiko's birthday and I wanted to leave you time to deal with that.

You tried casting MEW underwater. Here are the results:

Cast on the surface of the water / submerged but not touching the bottom: No. Can only be cast on a solid surface.
Cast on the bottom of the ocean/river/whatever: Yes. It is real granite.
Cast on a board that you are holding submerged, either in contact with the bottom or not: Yes. You get a chakra construct. Also, the wall is fixed to the board, so if you are holding it submerged but not in contact with the bottom then the weight will tear it out of your hands. In either case it will almost immediately topple over and very nearly crush you.
Cast on a rock that you are holding underwater but not in contact with the ground: Yes. You get a chakra construct. See above about not being rooted to anything except the rock and therefore falling over.

Out of character, I didn't deal with the zeppelins in this update because I was tired and short on time. In character, I'm going to justify this with "Hazō decided that the idea was so important that he wanted to do a separate presentation on it, after he had already had a few successes on other things to show to the team."

Note that the XP award for this update is along the lines you should expect for an 11-day update (2 for part 1, 9 for part 2) in which you have a better-than-average plan. (NB: You did not get XP for the 2 weeks of punishment duty, since you were doing nothing useful during that time.) Plans that are "wow, that's amazing!" could earn more, a plan that we feel is merely average will earn slightly less and horrible plans will earn little or nothing.

What made this plan better-than-average: well thought out, clearly sectioned into parts that were easy to write for, there were only 3-4 major scenes in it. (Of which I only had to write one.) Plus, the scene I had to write was something I was excited by. And, frankly, because I'm trying to be charitable in order to compensate for the fact that I'm grouchy right now.

Velorien · Feb 3, 2017

Chapter 101: Temptation
by @Velorien

"You are being menaced by ants?" Kei repeated carefully.

"'Menaced' doesn't begin to cover it!" Pandā exclaimed. "We're talking driver ants here! The exclusion zone covers half our western border!"

"The only dangerous ants I am familiar with are the fire ants native to the Country of Noodles," Kei mused. "They are approximately as long as my arm, and can heat their shells to the point that contact is crippling or lethal. Fortunately, they cannot tolerate those shells being rapidly cooled, and so are highly vulnerable to Water ninjutsu."

Pandā flicked his tongue in and out nervously. "Driver ants would come up to your human waist, and their mandibles can shear through the toughest pangolin armour. Oh, they have venomous stingers too, but usually you're too dead to appreciate that. And did I mention that they travel in huge armies? Their projected route shouldn't go anywhere near our settlements, but just in case, no one is allowed to go near them in case you get followed back."

Pandā must have noted her expression.

"Are you saying humans don't get natural disasters where a horde of animals nearly overruns entire cities?"

"Settled areas are cleared of the more threatening chakra beasts," Kei said, visualising the Mori safety map of the Water Country. "Danger increases proportionally to distance from centres of civilisation, as the risk of losing ninja in extermination missions progressively outweighs the reward of protecting civilian settlements. This is one reason why even missing-nin do not choose to settle in the more remote corners of the world.

"I am surprised to hear you referring to the driver ants as animals when you do not do so even for the condors," she added. "Is their clan particularly hostile to your own?"

Pandā's tail shook from side to side nervously. "No. It's nothing like that." He hesitated, then ducked his head down towards his chest as if about to roll up.

"They're kvthsss," he confided.

Kei frowned. "That doesn't translate. You will need to explain."

Pandā squirmed. "Legend says that when the Pantokrator saw how horribly evil they were, he gave them the ultimate punishment. He… he made them not a clan."

Kei raised her eyebrows.

"Only clans have the Pantokrator's blessing," Pandā explained uncomfortably, as if to a child asking a reasonable but highly improper question in public because she was too young to know better. "Losing the blessing is losing who you are. It's like having your mind eaten. Like being one of those pitiful creatures the Pantokrator made so humans wouldn't forget the Seventh Path.

"In the old days, when the Pangolin Clan was at its peak of strength before the Great Betrayal, we'd eat driver ants as a great delicacy, because killing kvthsss is a mercy. That's why we say things like 'delicious as a fresh driver ant'. But now we just have to roll up and wait for them to go away."

"Delicious as a fresh driver ant…" Kei echoed. "Does that imply that they would make an effective apology gift?"

"No," Pandā said quickly. "Nonononono. Don't even think about it."

He was too late.

-o-

Shlick!

Another ant collapsed as Kei's kunai nonlethally severed the last of its legs from its body. The basic outline of the plan had been very reluctantly offered by Pandā, but it was Kei who saw the unique training opportunity. If only Tenten could see her now… the thought was bittersweet.

But distraction was not acceptable. While the ants were unable to reach her, or indeed properly comprehend her presence on the floating watchtower above them (Hazō, still feeling understandable guilt over his recent actions, had not hesitated to craft the materials for her), Kei's time was not unlimited. Pandā had impressed upon her that Pangolin High Command had no intention of allowing her to wander the broader territory of the clan unsupervised, and that he could be in trouble were her presence here noted. Of course, nor could she bring him, with his lack of rapid movement or trail-concealing abilities, anywhere near the ants.

Her latest target twitched, no longer capable of making an escape. Helpless. Pathetic. Worthless without the support of its allies.

In a sudden flash of anger, she sent her next kunai straight through its head.

She regretted it immediately as the spurting of its internal fluids rendered it unfit for her purposes. But Kei was never going to run out of enemies, and the killing zone was wide.

-o-

The Naraka Rollers muttered angrily in the background, disparaging comments interspersed with hissing that was either non-verbal or untranslatable. Hearing the girls' cruel whispers behind her back, knowing that she lacked the subtlety to respond in kind and that they would deflect any attempt at direct confrontation… it was as if Kei had never left the Academy.

Then again, she and her ego had come a long way. She could not have imagined in those days that the people whose disapproval she feared would be friends, nor that the threats to her personal safety would come from the likes of Jiraiya of the Three. In that context, the idea that the Summoner of the Pangolin Clan should be vulnerable before a pack of incompetent delinquents was preposterous.

"Ya dare show yer face before the Panchipāma, ya little traitor?!"

Of course, there were always exceptions.

The whispers fell silent as Panchipāma somehow towered over Kei despite being at the other end of the hall, arms raised and claws on prominent display.

"Ya promised me adventure, and instead summoned me into a fight fulla crazy seals ya didn't warn me about? I did ya a huge favour, and this is how ya repay it?"

The background noise rose to a new height.

"I apologise," Kei bowed deeply. "Our plan was overtaken by unforeseen circumstances, and I trusted in your power to save us, but it was disrespectful of me to do so without first seeking your permission."

Panchipāma made a snuffling noise that Kei assumed indicated some kind of indignation.

"Ya betrayed the trust of the Panchipāma, Summoner. Ya owe me."

Kei bowed again. "I am aware. I will do my utmost to repay you. In the meantime, please accept this gift as thanks for your invaluable support in our battle."

She pulled out her storage scrolls with a flourish she had practised repeatedly during those hours of rehearsal with Pandā, and unsealed them in the middle of the hall.

Panchipāma's eyes must have doubled in diameter. "Are those…?"

"Fresh, virtually undamaged driver ant bodies, timelessly sealed at the moment of death."

Panchipāma's tongue flicked out to its full length involuntarily, and she hurriedly pulled it back.

"A—Apology accepted. Pantorī, take these to the kitchen at once!"

She looked back up from the pile of ants.

"We'll talk about this again another time. For now, the Naraka Rollers have, uh, urgent business to take care of. Panku, show the Summoner and her pet out!"

-o-

Hazō ducked as the water whip flew over his head, then pre-emptively sprang sideways as it twisted back against itself in the second part of Noburi's combo.

Noburi scowled.

"No fair. How do you keep doing that?" he demanded as his combo went through several more stages.

Hazō whipped out a practice kunai, aiming for Noburi's thigh where the water whip wouldn't reach in time. "When you've been sparring with someone for long enough, you get to know their moves. With the Iron Nerve, you also build up a library of tailor-made counters."

He was feeling proud of himself for getting to a point where he could maintain an unbroked flow of sparring while talking, even though each sentence had a background of several strikes and counterstrikes.

"You always have a special advantage, don't you?" Noburi grumbled, his whip snaking beneath the surface of the water where Hazō couldn't track its motion. "It's always a competition and you always have to win."

"Is this about Yamanaka?" Hazō asked, his fist swinging towards Noburi's chest at close range. "I'm sorry. If I'd reali—gluurble!"

He thought he'd evaded Noburi's surprise attack! Hazō urgently scissored his legs to break the water whip's hold, then pushed off the ground with his arms and sprang backwards into safety.

"Urgh. Nice one. As I was saying," he went on, retreating to medium range and reaching for his shuriken pouch, "I didn't know you were interested in her as well.

"I never meant to hurt you," he insisted as one of his shuriken slammed into the middle of Noburi's face.

"Ow, by dose! Point to you," Noburi conceded. They returned to starting positions.

"I should have been more sensitive," Hazō said, making the seals for the Living Roots Technique in a moment of inspiration. "It was unfair of me not to take your feelings into account."

"When you say it like that, it's hard to be properly pissed off," Noburi complained as his left hook missed Hazō's forehead by millimetres.

"Sorry," Hazō said, his sheepish smile unseen as he ducked forward for a headbutt.

The attack missed and Noburi dodged back just far enough to bring a hammer fist down on Hazō's neck.

"Point," Hazō called out once his face was out of the water and the pain subsided to something bearable.

"It was just flirting, though," he said. His course of action was becoming clear. "I don't know Yamanaka well enough to know if I want anything more, and if she means something to you, I'm prepared to back off."

Noburi sighed. "Not the point. It's not like I know her well either. But I mean, you already have Akane, don't you? Why would you risk messing that up?"

Hazō stood still, ready in a defensive stance. "That's not what I'm doing, and you shouldn't make assumptions about my relationship with Akane. I'm sure she and I can figure out how to communicate what she really feels."

Noburi was moving forward to close the distance with a simple taijutsu attack. "What do you need two girls for anyway? Isn't the thing you have going with Akane special enough for you?"

Hazō dodged sideways, keeping his centre of balance neutral. "Noburi, are you honestly telling me the idea of a harem of hot ninja girls doesn't appeal to you on any level?"

Noburi hesitated. "When you put it like that…"

Hazō's senses tingled with the awareness of a connection being made. He stamped down hard as the water whip's underwater vibrations approached his left foot.

"I promise," he added as he converted the momentum into a twist of the hips, "next time something like this comes up, I will come talk to you about it." The powerful straight punch got Noburi, still reeling from the failure of his stealth strike, right in the chest.

Noburi whimpered with pain and checked himself for cracked ribs.

"That reminds me," Hazō said, "if you decide to get more medical training, let me know. I have some ideas that might help.

"Shall we go another round?"

-o-

"Inoue-sensei," Hazō said tentatively. "Would this be a good time for the political training I asked you about earlier?"

Inoue-sensei gave him a serious look that could have meant anything from "I'm glad you're finally ready to take this seriously" to "Where should I bury the body?"

"Fine," she finally said. "Come with me. You won't want any of the others to witness this."

Hazō gulped.

Keiko nodded solemnly at him. "Hazō, your courage shall forever be recorded in the annals of this team, specifically under 'cautionary tales'."

"If you die, can I keep your stuff?" Noburi added encouragingly.

Kagome-sensei merely grunted, but it was one of his "I'm trusting you not to get yourself killed while I'm not supervising you" grunts.

"Oh," Inoue-sensei said as an afterthought, "can I borrow Pandā for this?"

"Why?" Keiko asked.

"Trade secret. I'll teach you when you're older."

-o-

"Why did you want Pandā for this, Inoue-sensei?" Hazō asked, looking warily around the remote beachside cave.

"We need to talk about Keiko's birthday," Inoue-sensei said, "and we can't have her star summon messing up."

"Star summon? Me?" Pandā's tail bounced against the floor so fast it sent pebbles scattering across the ground. "I mean, yes, of course, me. Military liaison, tactical genius and anthropologist extraordinaire at your service!

"Um, what's a birthday?"

Inoue-sensei seemed prepared for this. "It's a celebration of somebody's birth, which we hold once a year on its anniversary."

Pandā's eyes scrunched up. "Why would you celebrate somebody's birth? As far as I can tell, it's a traumatic experience for everyone involved. And besides, being born doesn't mean anything. It's not something you achieve, it's something that happens to you."

"So pangolins don't celebrate birthdays?" Hazō asked.

"No. The whole idea's weird. Why would you celebrate the same thing every year, anyway? You can celebrate Shell-Hardening. You can celebrate Graduation Day. You can celebrate First Blood. Things like that. But if you're going to celebrate things over and over, it should be something that matters to the whole clan, like Vengeance Day or Homeland Defenders' Day—things we mustn't forget no matter how many generations pass."

"Right," Inoue-sensei said. "But Keiko isn't a pangolin, though I'll admit there are some similarities. So if you want to be nice to her, then when the day comes, you'll wish her a happy birthday as soon as you see her, and you'll give her something she likes as a present."

"'Happy birthday', 'something she likes'… got it."

"Good," Inoue-sensei said coolly. "You can go now. Remember to keep your present a secret until you give it to her."

"Inoue-sensei," Hazō said as Pandā disappeared, "before we get into training, I'd like to talk to you about Keiko's present as well. I have a few ideas I wanted to run by you."

"Go on."

"I was thinking of ways to show her how valuable she is to the team, and as a friend. So the first one I call a 'bazooka'. It's a long-range area-of- effect weapon. If we modify Kagome-sensei's unidirectional explosive seals, she can use it to propel missiles across a great distance, and if we make the missiles explosive as well, it could do a lot of damage without endangering the user. I also have some ideas on how to refine the design using Five-Seal Barriers."

Inoue-sensei nodded sceptically. Hazō moved on quickly.

"Or we could miniaturise it. I have a similar idea for something I call a 'gun', which would be easily portable and deal less collateral damage, which still being much deadlier than shuriken or kunai, with lots of penetrating power."

"Hazō, your naming sense is appalling. Do you think anybody could ever take a weapon called a 'bazooka' seriously? And 'gun' is just plain ugly. There's a reason our weapon names are polysyllables that roll off the tongue, you know."

"They're only provisional," Hazō muttered awkwardly. "It's the sound I imagine they'll make when they trigger."

Inoue-sensei sighed. "What else have you got?"

"I could combine the Poor Man's Yellow Flash with macerators to create multi-purpose ranged explosives. I have an idea for large-scale weapon delivery at range to saturate the battlefield. And I thought you might have some ideas for where we can get specialised weaponry—just because Keiko never got round to using the kusari-gama doesn't mean we can't find something else."

"Uh-huh," Inoue-sensei said, giving him a pitying look. "Tell me, Hazō, how does expanding Keiko's arsenal make it clear how much you value her as a friend rather than just a combat asset?"

That brought Hazō up short. "I'm investing time and effort in designing something just for her?"

"And these are ideas which are obviously meant for her and not just ones you think would be useful for the team as a whole, and are giving to her because she's our best ranged fighter?"

Hazō had imagined the entire team using the gu—the Poor Man's Water Bullet Technique.

"Hazō, Keiko is still struggling with the idea of being accepted for who she is, personality quirks and flaws and all. Are you sure you want to feed her belief that she's only important to the team because she's useful on a strategic level?"

"I could make her some carvings of pangolins?" Hazō suggested helplessly.

"And you can learn to carve in a few weeks, without her noticing?

"Besides, I hate to say it, but as a team we've set a pretty high standard for birthday gifts. If you don't come up with something really special, Keiko is just the kind of person who'll assume it's because she's not good enough compared to me or Akane or Kagome, and worst of all, she'll think it's justified."

Hazō groaned. "Can't you at least give me any tips, Inoue-sensei?"

She shook her head. "It has to come from you. That's what makes it special. If you want it to be a present she remembers every time she starts questioning what she means to you, it has to express how you see her, the way your present to me did."

She gave a wan smile. "I still mist up sometimes when I think of that."

"Thank you, Inoue-sensei. I'll keep thinking. In the meantime, I guess we should start on that training."

"Right." Inoue-sensei crossed her arms in front of her. "Hazō, there's a different reason I wanted to speak to you in private."

"What's that?"

Inoue-sensei was silent for a few long, uncomfortable seconds.

"I realised something in those days after Jiraiya let us live. It was a mistake for me to act as your teacher. I've never been an instructor or a team leader. It's not something I'm suited to. I'm an infiltrator. A manipulator. An assassin. Looking back, I think all of us would have been in much less danger if I'd stuck to my role instead of trying to change.

"I've been blaming you for the Jiraiya incident, but we both know that it was really my fault. It would never have happened if I'd been a proper mentor. I spent a year thinking I was teaching you, and then you failed so badly in my primary area of expertise, the thing I've been doing all my life. That tells you everything you need to know.

"What it comes down to, in the end, is that I had a—"

She stopped.

"It doesn't matter. What I wanted to tell you is this: there is a solution. Thanks to you and your amazing new skywalker seals. If we go to Jiraiya, we can easily bargain Leaf citizenship out of him with those, and with the promise of more great designs to come. We'll be safe without the need to marry anybody.

"You'll have everything you need for your research. You'll be able to be with Akane, and you'll give Leaf very strong reason to rescue your mother. You'll live a life of comfort, protected by Leaf as a top priority, with the influence to guide Leaf to create the better world you dream of. The rest of us will have the same privileges extended to us because they'll want you kept happy. The Yamanaka might even be able to help Keiko and Kagome. Noburi could become a great medic-nin without ever having to put himself in danger by leaving Leaf. I'll retire. None of you will need me anymore.

"It has to be your decision, because while there might be some leeway for the rest of us, you'll be too valuable to ever be allowed out of Leaf again. It's not much of a price to pay for everything you'd gain—everything we'd gain—but it's something you have to agree to before we bring it before the rest of the team.

"What do you say, Hazō?"

-o-

You have earned 30 XP.

-o-

I'm out of time due to RL stuff. Information on your research progress will come separately.

-o-

What do you do?

eaglejarl · Feb 6, 2017

Chapter 102: Unmoored and Adrift

"If we go to Jiraiya," Inoue-sensei said, "we can easily bargain Leaf citizenship out of him with those skywalker seals of yours, and with the promise of more great designs to come. We'll be safe without the need to marry anybody.

"You'll have everything you need for your research. You'll be able to be with Akane, and you'll give Leaf very strong reason to rescue your mother. You'll live a life of comfort, protected by Leaf as a top priority, with the influence to guide Leaf to create the better world you dream of. The rest of us will have the same privileges extended to us because they'll want you kept happy. The Yamanaka might even be able to help Keiko and Kagome. Noburi could become a great medic-nin without ever having to put himself in danger by leaving Leaf. I'll retire. None of you will need me anymore.

"It has to be your decision, because while there might be some leeway for the rest of us, you'll be too valuable to ever be allowed out of Leaf again. It's not much of a price to pay for everything you'd gain—everything we'd gain—but it's something you have to agree to before we bring it before the rest of the team.

"What do you say, Hazō?"

Hazō stared in shock at his teacher for one...two...three...five long seconds before lunging forward and catching her in a massive hug that squeezed all the air out of her.

"Are you crazy?" he demanded at last, pushing her back to arm's length. "Sensei, what do you mean we won't need you? We'll always need you! You're the only thing that's been keeping us together for a year now!"

She looked away.

Hazō shook her gently. "Keiko is alive because of you! Back in the swamp she was about ready to kill herself, and you pulled her out of it. And you've kept her together ever since—who else could have talked her down when she decided that none of us cared about her? You think Noburi could have done it, who still hasn't completely gotten over that crush or lost those insecurities? No! Kagome-sensei, who can barely stand to be around people? No! Me?" He laughed, sharp and bitter. "No! She would have decided she was worthless and left, and probably ended up dead."

It wasn't working; she was still looking away, still not swatting his hands off. Panic gaped beneath his feet as he scrambled for more words.

"Who kept Kagome-sensei sane in Leaf—and everywhere, for that matter? You think I haven't noticed that you're always the one to wake him up, and that you always sit between us and him when he's feeling especially nervous? Yes! I have noticed, and you know why? Because you taught me to notice things like that!

"Who kept the team from splintering after I screwed up with Jiraiya? You! You gave people a chance to say what they needed, you let them have a couple weeks of hazing to work out their mad, you kept it all structured and safe, and now everyone is pretty much okay with me again. You did that!"

She pushed his hands off and stepped back slightly. "Hazō, stop being dramatic. This isn't about me, it's about you and your decision. Now, I think—"

"It is exactly about you," he said, relief as she finally asserted herself again morphing almost immediately into frustration. "Sensei...." He took a deep breath nerving himself up; he could almost feel the world shift around him, clicking into a new pattern. "Mari-sensei, we would be lost without you."

She looked at him in surprise and he hurried to continue before she interrupted. "Mari-sensei, everything this team is, we are because of you. For one example, my Roki style is the only reason I survived against Bōsatsu; Roki is entirely based on the training you gave me in body language and microexpressions. Without your training we'd all be dead."

"Ah, good. A fighting style based around lying. At least I'm consistent." She grimaced. "We wouldn't have been in that situation at all if I hadn't killed Ko back in the fortress."

"What else were you supposed to do?" Hazō demanded. "He knew your real name and he was a creepy stalker who would have been trailing around behind us all the time, probably revealing our names and secrets to everyone. It was a forced move and you made the right choice."

She sighed. "It wasn't a choice, Hazō. I didn't stop to think about it, I just killed him. Stupid. Thoughtless, just like always. I should have had a plan."

Why was she being so ridiculous? "Oh, yes," he said sarcastically, "because 'hey, what if a random stalker who was perving on me back when we were in the Academy and still perfectly remembers my disguises after twenty years—"

"Twenty?" Arched eyebrow of sharpness.

Raised hands of placation. "Sorry. Still, over a decade. How in the world were you supposed to account for that in your planning?"

Sigh. "I shouldn't have reused the henge."

Now that was just ridiculous. She was doing this on purpose, wasn't she? "Why not? You told us yourself: 'Having a preestablished disguise that you've practiced is useful. It makes it easy to get all the details exactly right each time you assume the form, so that you don't end up with size seven feet one time and size eight the next, or a mole that isn't in quite the same place.' There was absolutely no reason to expect that it wasn't safe."

"But—"

"But nothing. Stop looking for reasons to doubt yourself. That's Keiko's routine, and you're not allowed to steal her act." Memories of his firey sensei's words over the last year, in the moments when she'd been most herself, surged to mind. "You are Inoue Mari, our teacher, our guide, our team mom. You are the living flame, dancing from battle to bar with song in your heart and mischief in your eye! You kick ass and take names and addresses for later! You go where you want, do what you want, seduce Sannin, charm people, break hearts and take hearts depending on your mood."

Raised eyebrow of amusement. "Throwing my own brags back at me? Remind me to talk to you when I need my memoir ghostwritten. Also, 'team mom'?"

He shrugged and smiled unrepentantly. "What? It fits. You look after us, you keep us from hurting ourselves, you help us grow up into good people. Look at what you've accomplished: Noburi and I get along, because of your training—"

"You did that on your own, I didn't—"

"All I did was ask myself 'What would Mari-sensei do?' and the answer was obvious: she'd charm him, open up and be vulnerable to him so that it shifted from a confrontation to a conversation."

Narrow-eyed stare. "I don't think I had taught you that back when you first did it. I think you're justifying things after the fact to make me feel better."

"Isn't that how you would have handled it?"

"Well...."

Hah! "There, see! And look at the team dynamics. Noburi and I grew to be friends, rough edges and brotherly competition and all. Keiko is slowly coming out of her shell—"

Unladylike snort. "Very slowly."

"So you admit she's getting better?"

"Well..."

"So is Kagome-sensei. You've kept him mostly calm for a year now—"

"He hasn't even been with us for a year, and besides—"

It was working! She was reduced to nitpicking now. "Months, then. You've kept him from running off or accidentally killing any of us, kept him from blowing everything up when we met Jiraiya in Rice, kept him from killing Arikada out of hand so that we could get the reward, kept him from killing anyone while we were in Leaf—and don't think I didn't see how hard that was!—and you did almost all of it with just words. Sure, you had to genjutsu him once or twice when things got really hairy, but that's on him. For the most part you've kept him centered and relatively calm just with words even when we were in a killbox. Do you think Jiraiya could have done that? No!"

Mari-sensei snorted. "Yes, well, Jiraiya doesn't wield the mighty power of tits. I doubt Kagome would have responded well to having the Toad Sage cuddle up to him."

"You did it, and it worked," he said firmly. "That's all that matters. No one else in that room could have kept him sane through that." Her mouth opened and he hurried on. "And don't you dare say that it was your fault that we were there. That was on me. I didn't think, I just shot my mouth off. The one time that I didn't pay attention to what you've been teaching me all this time, and I had to do it in front of Jiraiya of the Three. That's not you failing at teaching, that's me failing at having a brain."

She sighed, looking away again. Hazō studied her in suprise—her normally mobile face, the face that had eye-twinkles and smiles the way most people had skin, was utterly slack in an expression of sheer hopelessness.

"Hazō...." She shook her head and sat down, sitting crosslegged with elbows leaning on knees. "Hazō, I don't know if I can do this anymore. You're sweet to say all those things but we both know that you're cherrypicking the good and glossing over the bad. You've built me up to be this paragon of skill and human kindness, but that's just not me. I'm a liar, a manipulator. I'm not really good with people, I'm just good at making them do what I want. And I'm sure as shit not worth all the trust you seem to have in me." Her fingers plucked at the grass like ravens idly picking at a corpse. Her hair fell in front of her face, hiding her from sight.

He knelt seiza in front of her and reached out to brush her hair aside so he could see her face, only to find his wrist caught in a steely grip and pushed aside.

"Don't," she said. "Just don't. Leave me alone, Hazō."

He put his hands in his lap and kept his voice soft. "Why?"

She sat silent for long seconds before finally looking up at him. "For one thing, you literally wouldn't be sitting here if it weren't for me. You'd be home, safe, with your mother. So would Keiko and Noburi. Mori Ami wouldn't be crying her eyes out about her missing sister. Kurosawa Hana wouldn't be drowning in the loss of her son.

"Shikigami was the one who thought up the idea of defecting, but he brought it to me and I figured out the details. I forged the papers he 'found' in the Commander's tent that convinced everyone it was a suicide mission and made it okay to defect—after all, if our leaders had betrayed us we surely had no obligation to them, right?

"That wasn't all, either. All the propaganda that he used, all the little psychological tricks? Those were mine. I wrote that big inspiring speech that he made back in the cave. He had great delivery and presence, but I was way better at getting the words right. And I was his shill when he got everyone laughing about Captain Zabuza's boxers. We planned that so that whenever people found themselves thinking about hunter-nin they would think about Captain Zabuza's underwear. Something ridiculous enough to distract them from the very serious threat. And, of course, we used that speech to cut off the chance that the Captain or anyone else could talk anyone into taking amnesty."

...

...

She what?!

Anger surged through him as the memories of momma sobbing into poppa's shirt after his death clamored for attention. Was she doing the same now, her face buried in one of Hazō's old shirts? She'd needed to be strong for him; who was she being strong for now? What did Mari-sensei mean 'drowning'? What did she know? For that matter, how did she know? She was just guessing, right?

"Oh." Everything crashing inside him prevented anything more meaningful from escaping.

She nodded. "Yeah. 'Oh.'"

He thought about that carefully, doing everything he could to set aside his emotional reaction and consider the matter honestly.

"Why?" he asked eventually.

She looked at the grass and offered a one-shouldered shrug. "Because I could. Because the Mizukage scared me. Because I knew that someday he'd kill me. Because I didn't like the way that Mist ran, and I thought we could do better.

"It was supposed to be easy. Recruit ninja that we knew would be willing to go with us, ninja who would plausibly defect but wouldn't be so important to Mist that they would make it a drop-everything priority to hunt us down. We'd set up a village in the Swamp, build something solid for six months to a year, then reveal ourselves to Leaf. We'd try for client state status and bargain down to citizenship if we had to. Leaf would have taken us; we would have been too valuable not to. Then that patrol dogged us on the way in, which blew our cover sooner than expected. Then I heard Jiraiya was sniffing around, and I knew the game was up."

She fell silent again, fingers trailing limply through the grass. "Do you know," she said without looking up, the curtain of her hair hiding her away from the world, "we had a conversation like this once before?"

Hazō frowned. "We did? I'm pretty sure I'd remember if you had confessed to orchestrating our departure from Mist before today."

She shook her head, setting her hair swaying like a curtain. "Not the subject matter. That's new this time. No, we had a conversation where I found myself feeling like I do now. Weak. Exposed."

She looked up and gestured vaguely around them. "It was back in Tea, after game night. I was up on the hill watching the stars and you came up that way, looking to be alone and not knowing that I was there."

She shifted uncomfortably, looking back at where her fingers were idly shredding a blade of grass. "You were feeling cut off from the others. We talked for a while, and I told you what it was like from my side. How I didn't know what to do. How I'm not this elite jōnin that the rest of you see me as, I'm just the gawky teenager from a few years ago who's somehow tricked everyone into believing she's a grownup. That I don't have some great plan for how to keep us alive and make the world better, I'm just making it up as I go along and I'm dropping the ball more and more."

Chills danced along Hazō's spine. "I don't remember this conversation," he said carefully.

Her laugh was grim. "Nope. Truth Lost in the Fog...all the catharsis of personal conversations, none of the ongoing vulnerability. I wasn't willing to look weak in front of my team, so I killed you."

Hazō's eyebrows shot up. "I'm pretty sure I'd remember that." He poked his thigh experimentally. "Still alive, as far as I can tell." The sheer insanity of the topic was good; it build a wall between himself and the emotions.

"This Hazō is, sure," she said, lips twisting in self-disgust. "The Hazō I told my secrets to? Dead. I ripped his mind out and he died."

Hazō blinked, thinking that through. "So...you're saying that taking a few minutes of memories from me is equivalent to killing me?"

"Isn't it? What are we if not our thoughts and memories?" She shifted, looking at him intensely. "That's what I do, little Hazō. I warp people's understanding of reality, whether with genjutsu or with words. I change the things that make them who they are so that they become someone more convenient for me."

He studied her, carefully holding his face still until it finally split open in laughter. The sound bordered on hysterical as the anger and confusion and everything else transmuted into laughter.

He managed to choke the laugh back after his face began to hurt. The pain felt good, the laughter felt good. Clean, scouring away everything that had been so close to overwhelming him. "Mari-sensei, you are so full of crap."

"Excuse me?!"

"Sensei, we all try to make other people into something more convenient. Shoot, I'm doing it right now—I'm trying to warp your understanding of reality so that you'll stop beating yourself up about things that aren't your fault and will recognize just how amazing you are."

"Damnit, Hazō! This is not funny! I have lied to you, betrayed you, killed you even, and I keep dropping the ball when it matters. You are stupid to trust me. How can you be so incredibly stupidly stubborn not to see that?"

He shrugged, face splitting open in a grin as the laughter threatened to bubble forth again. "Hey, what can I say, I had—"

"—a good teacher, yes, of course you'd say that." She clenched her fists in frustration. "Hazō...seriously, you need to stop being so trusting. I just told you that I've betrayed you, and you're trying to make excuses. You're cherrypicking, spinning things, choosing just the bits that make me look good—"

"So you admit there are things that make you look good? Progress!" He pumped his fist in the air in over-the-top silliness, hilarity buoying him up.

"Stop it! What is wrong with you?"

"My sensei is full of crap?" he asked, eyes innocently wide. "The elite jōnin who taught me way more about being a ninja than the Academy ever did is being stupid? The woman who taught me almost as much about being a good person as my momma did is feeling like a failure because she's focused on the one time that she couldn't magically anticipate that her student would say something dumb, instead of on the hundreds of times her training prevented him saying something dumb?" He laughed. "You want cherrypicking, sensei? How's that for cherrypicking—you're calling out the tiny handful of things you've done wrong instead of all the many, many things that you've done right?"

He leaned in close, peering at her forehead with an intense frown. She watched him distrustfully.

"What are you doing?"

He rubbed his chin in thought. "I'm trying to figure out how you fit all that ego into such a tiny little head." It really was tiny too; funny how he tended to forget just how small Mari-sensei was. Probably something about being repeatedly dumped on his head during sparring.

"Hey!"

He leaned back, more laughter escaping. "Honestly, sensei, expecting yourself to be flawlessly perfect every single time? You don't think that's a little arrogant? Seriously, if Noburi said 'I am always flawlessly perfect', you'd think he was being egotistical, right?"

"Noburi, huh? Because of course you would never say such a thing," she said drily.

Hazō shrugged modestly. "Of course not. I'm far too perfect to be egotistical. And because I'm perfect I am right about the fact that my Mari-sensei is completely full of shit and needs to get over herself. Sure, you aren't some Sage-like perfect vision of perfect perfection all the time, but you're the only thing that's stood between this team and an early grave. The only thing that's kept us all working together instead of breaking down into squabbles. The only thing that's helped Keiko come out of her depression, if only a little bit, and helped Kagome get more socialized, if only a little bit. The only thing—"

"All right, all right," she said, waving him to silence with an uncomfortable look. "Stop singing my praises."

"Not until you say it."

She looked at him, narrow-eyed. "Say what?"

"Not until you say 'I, Inoue Mari, am not perfect but I'm pretty damn cool.'"

"I am not saying that."

"The only thing that's kept us all growing stronger and stronger when we could have just lain around feeling sorry for ourselves. The only thing—"

"Stop it, Hazō."

"Say it."

"I am not saying that."

"Saaaayyyy eeett!"

"No."

"I'll tell Kagome-sensei that you said you found sealing theory fascinating and would love it if he'd tell you every last detail about—"

"IInoueMariamnotperfectbutI'mprettydamncool!"

He laughed. "See, was that so hard?"

She tried to glare at him but couldn't keep it up. "I suppose." She sighed. "I'll think about it, anyway. Now, we were talking about you and Leaf."

Hazō eyed her for a moment. "Don't think I don't see what you're doing, Mari-sensei. You're deflecting, projecting reluctant agreement while shifting the topic so it will seem that I've convinced you. You know how I know that?"

She glared at him, sour-faced. "Because I taught you?" she grated.

"Because you taught me."

Inoue Mari was talented enough at emotional projection that even her grunts could contain multitudes: exasperation, irritation, depression, and a really powerful desire to be doing anything except having this conversation.

"Yes, well, maybe I'm deflecting, but it's important," she said at last. "What are you going to do about Leaf?"

Hazō nodded, forcing the smile off his face and taking three deep breath as he centered himself. This was no time for hysterical laughter. It really was an important question. "That's a tough one." He paused. "I think I really need to talk to the rest of the team about it. You're right about all the things you mentioned—except you retiring because we won't need you anymore, because we totally will—but there's a lot of issues, too. Kagome-sensei being the most immediate."

She nodded. "Yep. That's a bit of a sticking point. He would not want to go back."

Raised eyebrow. "'Would not want to go back'? Congratulations, Mari-sensei, I think you just won the award for Understatement of the Decade."

She stuck out her tongue. "Would you prefer 'would be strongly opposed to going back'?"

"I think the words 'catastrophic explosions' need to fit in there somewhere," Hazō said. "He'd probably think we'd all been taken over by lupchanzen."

Her sigh was more of frustration and amusement than the despair that had filled it minutes earlier. "Probably, yes. Still. I'm fairly sure I could handle it."

"Really?" A wealth of skepticism, all jammed into one word.

She grimaced. "Yeah. The only thing stronger than his paranoia is his dedication to this team. I could play on that, convince him that he has to go along to keep the rest of us safe." She shrugged one shoulder. "Easiest way would be to tell him that it was all your idea and that I thought you were insane but I couldn't change your mind, so I was reluctantly going along to keep an eye on you. I'd tell him that I had no right to ask him to stick his head in the lion's mouth but that I really needed his help and would he please not hate me for asking him to come along? I'd look at him hopefully, flash a microexpression of fear, and he'd start throwing gear in his pack while muttering about stinking ninja stinkers."

She paused, smiling sadly. "You know, it's funny...he's probably the most honest person I've ever met. Before we met him I had actually forgotten how many masks I wore. Since then I've started noticing it again. Noticing how I calculate my tone and my words, my expressions, my gestures. How I instinctively choose exactly the right angle of the head to inspire whatever emotion I want in m...." She stopped, lips curling in dismay and disgust. "I started to say 'in my target'. Patterns of years aren't lost in months, I guess." She shrugged. "I'm not sure if I'm losing my masks or becoming them."

Hazō floundered, adrift. The conversation had seemed to be moving in a better direction, and suddenly it was in deep water again.

"How do you mean, 'becoming them'?" he asked cautiously.

She shifted, turning to face him a little more squarely. "Remember back when we found Isan and I was interrogating that kid?"

"Yes...?"

"Remember how I said I was tired of killing people, of lying and seducing and hurting? 'I don't need to kill you and I don't want to kill you', I said. Very dramatic, very inspiring. Moment of real vulnerability, right?" She snorted. "It was total bullshit. I had no problem killing him, I just knew that the vulnerable act would be more effective. Torture is usually slow and not good at getting information. On the other hand, take a strapping young ninja who's young and dumb and full of cum, make him feel sorry for the poor, tiny, helpless, sexy woman and he'll start talking. Get him talking and he'll spill whatever secrets you want." A half-smile, sad and twisted, flickered across her full lips before vanishing like a soap bubble. "And I made sure to mention in passing that we had a med-nin. Seemed pretty good odds that they wouldn't have one.

"Funny thing though: masks can become truth. I really have gotten tired of killing people, and since Kagome joined us I've gotten tired of lying and seducing, and everything else I've built my life on." Her eyes drifted off into the distance and she snorted in frustrated amusement. "The man is infuriating. Social skills worse than a wet cat and he's got me feeling like I should be more like him."

She stopped, perhaps thinking or perhaps losing her train of thought. Hazō waited to see if she would continue; after a minute of silence he started to say something just to fill the gap, only to cut himself off when she spoke again.

"That woman and her son in Hot Springs," she said absently. "I keep having dreams about them. Not like the others; they're never staring at me or accusing me. Usually they're having a picnic, in the buttercup meadow near where I grew up. Just sitting on a blanket, talking and eating. Laughing." Her cheek flickered and she swallowed. "And I'm standing right there but they don't see me. I'm not even casting a shadow." She laughed. "That's it, that's the whole dream. Me, standing still and silent and looking down at these people that I didn't even kill. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and they got caught in the middle of one more of my screw ups. And they're happy."

Hazō licked his lips nervously. "Sensei, you're doing it again," he said. "It wasn't your fault."

"Really? Whose fault was it, if not the jōnin commander of a squad of genin?"

"That is not a fair—"

She cut him off with a disissive wave. "I really can't discuss it right now, Hazō," she said, her voice a mire of exhaustion. "Please let it go?"

He wavered. Sincerity or manipulation? Still...perhaps it would be best to back off for a bit, give her some time to stabilize? Or would that be exactly the wrong thing? Should he make her talk about it, or give her a chance to gain some distance?

"Okay," he said reluctantly. "We can talk about it later. But don't think I'm forgetting."

She shook her head. "Of course not, that would make my life easy. You can nag me about it later but right now give me some space, okay? I think I'd like to be alone for a while."

Hazō hesitated. This did not feel right. Leaving her alone when her mood was wandering around so wildly....

"Hazō, get lost." The tone was firm and angry for only a second and then she looked away, shoulders slumping again. "Just...go. I want to just be Mari for a little while. If I can even remember who that is." She shrugged one shoulder angrily. "Whatever, I can't be her with you here having feelings at me and causing me to instinctively mirror your body language and anticipate the flow of conversation and analyze the impact of my tone and...just go, okay?"

This felt wrong; leaving seemed like exactly the wrong thing to do, but he had no idea what the right thing was. He leaned forward, arms reaching to hug her again, only to be stopped by two fingers on his forehead.

"Don't." The voice was full of warning, the eyes full of simmering anger that had no valid target and would clearly love to find one.

He paused, then levered himself to his feet, anger and hurt making his eyes darken. "We love you, Mari-sensei," he said, the words measured and sharp. True words, but delivered in anger at her stupidity and self-pity, not in compassion at her pain. "You can stay here and wallow if you need to, but the truth is that that's what you're doing. You're tired and sad and scared, and you're seeing everything in the worst possible light. You're taking blame for things that aren't your fault and not giving yourself credit for things you did right. Your team sees how amazing you are even if you don't; we'll be here when you want us."

He turned and walked off without giving her a chance to respond.

XP AWARD: 10

This is the first third of the plan; @Velorien will continue it in his chapter. As always, you are free to vote in changes.

Voting ends on Wednesday, February 8, 2017, at 12pm London time.

Notes:

First, there were two more sections to this plan that I did not have a chance to get to. It's 1am right now and I want to push this out the door and fall into bed. I considered going forward through at least the next section, in which Hazō was going to be doing seal research. Earlier today, however, @Rihaku posted some very cogent statistical analysis on the implications of failures during seal research and offered the suggestion that to determine the intensity of a failure we should use the skill outcome instead of the random selection method that we've been using. He's got some good points and I haven't had a chance to talk to the other QMs about it, so I'm going to defer writing that section until I have, because if I did it now and rolled a seal failure then I would have to deal with it.

Second, I was a little fuzzy on how to award XP for this chapter since (a) I didn't get through most of the plan and (b) the chapter overlapped heavily with the previous one. I'm assigning the value above somewhat arbitrarily; it's probably a little high for how much was covered, but I feel comfortable with it. In any case, it shouldn't be taken as commentary on the plan one way or the other.

Velorien · Feb 9, 2017

Chapter 103: Despair and Delight

Hazō's last Substitution took him behind the cover of the safety wall, and he watched anxiously as his clone reached for the scroll, channelled its chakra… and nothing happened.

One…

Two…

Three…

Damn. He was so sure he'd had something this time.

As Hazō peeked out from behind the wall, a gust of wind brought a strange smell to his nostrils—acrid, metallic, with maybe a hint of sulphur…

"Kagome-sensei, do you think—"

The explosion knocked them clean off their feet.

-o-

"Hey," Hazō began. "I wanted to talk to you two about this idea that M—"

He stopped. What was he supposed to call her now? If he called her "Mari-sensei" in front of the others, they'd probably make the switch too, as well as raising questions of what had prompted it. After all, she'd long since given them permission. Really, calling her "Inoue-sensei" was little more than a bit of petty vengeance that had gone on incredibly long.

But on the other hand, that would leave Kagome-sensei as the only person on a last-name basis with her (Hazō was pretty sure Kagome-sensei's relationship with Mari-sensei wasn't that close), and also as the only person the rest of the group was on last-name terms with. Would that make him feel uncomfortable? Isolated? Kagome-sensei already instinctively kept to the periphery of the group, and emphasising that might undo months of bonding.

But on the other hand, it would make Mari-sensei feel closer to the team at a time when she was trying to emotionally distance herself from them. Was that more important?

Maybe he could call her "Mari-sensei" in private for now? But that felt weird, like they were secret lovers or something. And somebody would inevitably overhear and have uncomfortable questions.

Argh.

"Hazō," Keiko said, "you appear to have had a fascinating sealcrafting idea in mid-conversation again. Does Inoue-sensei need to have another talk with you about basic social expectations?"

Noburi snerked. "Hazō, Keiko is telling you off for your lack of social skills. I think this moment needs to go down in history. Keiko, did you ever start writing that 'cautionary tale' list?"

Keiko shook her head. "Please avoid the topic of lists, Noburi. It will only encourage him."

Hazō groaned. "Guys, I was being serious. There's something I want to talk to you about while… while our senseis are off doing whatever it is they're doing together."

Smooth, Hazō. Maybe he could just avoid using Mari-sensei's name until he came up with a solution.

"All right, Hazō," Noburi said. "What's up?"

"Well," Hazō began, "the idea has recently been brought up that my new seals, especially the skywalker seals—stop smirking, Noburi, I think it's a cool name and as the creator, it's my opinion that counts—could be a real game-changer in the Elemental Nations, and that makes them valuable. It's possible that we could sell them to Jiraiya in exchange for more than just money. Maybe we could buy Leaf citizenship with them."

He paused to allow the idea to sink in.

"If I can promise them more seals of that level of quality—and I really do think I can—then I'll be valuable to them, and you as my close friends will be too. We'll be safe, and we'll be well-treated. We'll get Akane back. Noburi, you'll get your master classes in medicine. Keiko… well, I've been thinking about it, and…" Hazō stopped.

"Keiko, I am aware that your usual mental state and your self-perception are particularly negative, disproportionately to your virtues and capabilities as an individual. I have also observed that this has changed little over time, despite a huge improvement in your circumstances since I first met you in the Swamp of Death. It is my belief that you could benefit greatly from specialised tools to help you improve your mental condition, or at least that you should have the option of doing so. Access to the Yamanaka, with their expertise on matters of the mind, is the best source for this that I can think of."

"Thank you, Hazō," Keiko said unevenly. "I—I apologise for expressing my psychological flaws in so overt a fashion. I did not sufficiently consider their… their impact on your daily life. I will… endeavour to—"

"Nonono!" Hazō waved his hands urgently at her. "I'm perfectly OK with the way you are. Well, apart from how it makes you unhappy, not that you don't have the right to be unhappy if that's what you want, oh, but if you—"

"Hazō, you're being dumb," Noburi cut him off. "Of course nobody wants to be unhappy. Keiko, just filter out the stupid bits from what he says—I mean, that is your speciality—and focus on the part where he wants good things to happen to you."

"Th-Thank you," Keiko said quietly. "I apologise for sidetracking the discussion. Hazō, please continue."

"Er. Right. I'm less sure about Kagome-sensei. He could unquestionably benefit from specialist help, but can't guarantee he won't blow them up first. Given how he only ever talks about us 'escaping' Leaf, he might not cope well with the idea of going back to stay.

"The other obvious catch to all this is that, if I join Leaf as a sealmaster, I'll be too valuable for them to ever let me leave again. But obviously, there'll be consequences for all of us. So I wanted to know, without committing to anything, what you guys think of the idea."

"Hmm." Noburi mulled it over. "Getting to study under Yakushi-sensei would be pretty great. Thing is, I'm not saying I want to keep waking up every morning wondering whether this is the day Captain Zabuza ambushes me in the latrine, but… I kinda liked our original plan. 'Team Wakahisa saves the world!', y'know? I don't want to go back to being somebody else's minion, standing in the back row handing out flasks of chakra water."

"Team Wakahisa?" Keiko raised an eyebrow.

"Hey, I haven't shown you guys my true powers yet!" Noburi grinned. "Sure, Inoue-sensei may be top dog right now, but give me a few years and I'll have the Mizukage weeping salty, salty tears that he let somebody with my potential get away!"

Hazō didn't dignify this with a response. "Keiko, what's your opinion?"

"I have achieved a new level of respect for Inoue-sensei after seeing how much her diplomacy training has improved Noburi's sense of humour."

Hazō rolled his eyes as Noburi visibly deflated. "I meant about joining Leaf."

"I do not disagree with Noburi's assessment. Of the situation, that is, not of his supplanting Inoue-sensei as our leader, which remains as probable as Kagome defeating an S-rank enemy through seduction."

Hazō wasn't sure whether the stifled choking noises coming from Noburi's direction were at the statement, the fact that it was Keiko saying it, or the sheer imagery of the thing. The first S-rank ninja he could think of was Jiraiya.

"To expand," Keiko ignored the reeling boys, "while our chances of survival would increase astronomically—indeed, it would become possible for us to survive the coming year—our odds of accomplishing our ultimate goal might in fact decrease. Granted, not being murdered by hunter-nin is an essential prerequisite for any long-term plan, but given the loss of autonomy, we would likely be at Leaf's mercy in terms of whether their agenda for us would coincide with our own desires. As Leaf citizens, we would also be Leaf soldiers, and would not have the luxury of refusing orders the way we at least theoretically can now. If Leaf chose to use Hazō's seals to turn the world into a smoking wasteland, we would have no recourse short of suicide.

"With that said, Leaf does seem to be the most promising ally for our cause. The difference of its propaganda to Mist's is staggering, and with Inoue-sensei's support and training, it is possible that we could gain an edge in Leaf's politics by leveraging our collective value, from Hazō's seals to our bloodlines to Inoue-sensei's everything. It would, of course, be necessary in the process not to offer mortal insult to anyone capable of ending us with a cough.

"On which subject, joining Leaf would almost certainly precipitate the next war. It is doubtful that Leaf would be able to keep our recruitment secret forever—I cannot imagine that Mist has no spies here, and as a combination of new recruits we are quite distinctive—and they will certainly go to war if only to solidly close off the possibility of others poaching ninja from them in the same way. Nor can I imagine that handing Leaf new and potent weapons will lead to an improved balance of power, especially in light of its existing lead in military force."

Noburi frowned. "I know this sounds really harsh, but is that such a bad thing? I mean, we all know war is coming anyway, and at least this way we'll be on the right side and we won't be caught off guard. Heck, maybe if Leaf wins hard enough, it'll bring about a long enough period of peace that we can get our thing done."

"Your family would die," Keiko said emotionlessly. "My family would die. Hazō's mother might be rescued first, but the rest of his clan would die. Everyone we ever knew back in Mist would die. The friends we have made in Leaf would die."

"A-Aren't you exaggerating?" Hazō said uneasily, feeling a cold sensation creeping through his body.

"Only in terms of degree," Keiko said. "We do not know whether the next war will be a series of skirmishes or total annihilation. It may be that Leaf's victory will be swift and overwhelming, and so minimise casualties. It may be that its enemies will fight to the last woman to prevent its absolute dominance. Think of any person you know, and roll the dice on their survival. Then roll for everyone else, and continue rolling until enough people on one side are dead. That is war."

She gave them a look that was too calm for the words she was saying.

"I am Mori. I have been trained to know the numbers. Those who do not know the numbers have no right to think of war as a tool."

Then the cold, hard light went out of her eyes.

"But I understand. War is coming. It is not within our power to save our friends or loved ones, and so it is rational to focus our efforts on seeking opportunities within the disaster. And for ourselves, joining a side and ensuring its victory would extend our influence in a way that seeking to hide ourselves within the shadows of a world on fire would not."

"Is that your conclusion?" Hazō asked numbly. "We should join Leaf because it's the lesser evil?"

"That is one way of putting it," Keiko said. "I have reservations, severe reservations, about becoming a Leaf shinobi, but I cannot perceive a superior alternative."

"Well, I don't like it," Noburi said. "Are we really just going to throw away everything we've done, and sign up to be good little soldiers again, and hope that they order us to do what we want to instead of, say, sending us on a suicide mission?

"I know, I know, we'd be too valuable, and Jiraiya says he doesn't do suicide missions anyway. But look how far we've come! Look what we've already achieved! Now that it finally looks like we're getting the edge we need to make our own place in the world, like we'll be able to tell Captain Zabuza just where he can shove his magic sword, we're going to give it all away? To someone who's admitted he sees us as pawns on a shogi board?

"I know you two are the master strategists, and if Inoue-sensei also thinks this is the best thing for us, then I've got your back. No question. But even though Leaf has Yakushi-sensei, and Yamanaka and Hyūga and the other guys… my gut's telling me it's not the place for us. Security's not worth it if we have to trade in our freedom and our dreams."

Hazō sighed heavily. "Thanks, you two. I still don't know what I want myself, but hearing your thoughts helps. Now I think I can hear Kagome-sensei ranting about the sky squid, so it's probably time to go save our leader and get on with the sealing research in our new facility."

-o-

One…

Two…

Three…

No explosion. So far, so good. No strange smells either. Could this be the one?

There was a buzzing noise, just at the edge of hearing. Hazō froze as he was about to step out of cover.

Buzzing noises just at the edge of hearing were one of the bad signs.

Something unfolded in the air next to the clone, a sheet of what looked like dark yet shimmering metal. The clone stared at it quizzically.

The sheet of metal bulged, as if something irregularly-shaped was pressing on it from the other side. A shape began to take form, flat planes interlocking at awkward angles, moving and rotating around itself. It leaned forward, out, then fell onto the grass, the sheet retracting as if nothing had happened.

Something unnatural slowly rose to a standing position.

It could generously be described as humanoid—two arms, two legs, and something in the position of a head. In fact, in terms of size and proportions, it was a perfect match for Hazō's clone. But it most certainly did not look human.

The thing was made of blades, a complex, intersecting arrangement of blades that looked like it should cut itself to pieces on moving, much less manage any sort of coordinated activity like standing up. The arrangement at the top, in the head position, was pointed forward, in a fashion uncomfortably reminiscent of a bird's skull.

While Hazō was still watching, fascinated, Kagome-sensei reacted instantly.

"Fuck me, it's a rift!" he yelled, detonating the first of his explosive traps.

Coming from directly beneath the creature, the explosion shattered it to pieces. Blades flew in every direction. Several blew chunks out of the protective MEW wall.

"I wouldn't do that again, Kagome-sensei," Hazō said warily.

In front of them, the sheet was bulging again.

"Oh, no."

This time, several creatures fell out at once, and when they rose, they began to look around, their bird skull heads turning eerily back and forth while the bodies stayed still.

Kagome-sensei gritted his teeth. "Those things look dangerous as hell. Rift Protocol Three."

The two sealmasters charged.

-o-

Hazō ducked beneath a decapitating arm-wing, taking care not to bring his head near the whirring assemblage at the creature's core, then blocked another scissor-pincer with a chunk of granite.

An enemy which could not be punched, kicked, cut or exploded—a ninja's worst nightmare. The main thing keeping Hazō and Kagome-sensei alive right now was that the creatures seemed to have no comprehension of human body language, and struggled to read their opponents. If they were opponents. For all Hazō knew, to them physical contact was an essential means of peaceful communication, the fact that it would cut Hazō to ribbons notwithstanding.

If they could just run and get the others, with their offensive and disabling ninjutsu… but no. Unless they followed Rift Protocol Three immediately, there was no telling what kind of catastrophe they might unleash.

"Two more coming out!" he shouted a warning.

"Nearly there," Kagome-sensei grunted. "I'll keep them—aargh!—I'll keep them off you! Just make sure to leave no gaps!"

Kagome-sensei leapt back from what would have been a lethal grappling move, then aimed his finger boxes—not at the enemy, but in front of its "feet", releasing a blast of earth that threw it backwards, at another behind it.

Hazō expected the two to go down in a hopeless tangle of blades like a poorly-managed cutlery drawer, but to his shock the two smoothly interwove, metal interlocking with metal, circling round, and then separating as if one had spun the other round in a dance move.

The motion was entrancing, enough so that Hazō nearly missed a lunge for his stomach. Hurriedly slamming his chunk of granite down on the advancing limb, he twisted sideways and sprinted for the rift.

The metal plate was already bulging with yet more reinforcements, but Hazō didn't hesitate. This was what Rift Protocol Three was designed for.

"Earth Element: Multiple Earth Wall!"

Twin towers of granite rose on either side of the rift, shattering whatever abomination was in the process of being born and forming a nearly airtight seal. Hazō used the technique several times more, closing off every gap, then painstakingly constructed a heavy granite lid to cover the top.

It was probably a good idea to move camp after this. Would Fang be too close?

-o-

Kei's birthday had passed uneventfully. After a morning which had contained perfunctory birthday wishes, Mari-sensei had summarily dispatched her to the Summon Realm to conduct research on pangolin mercenary networks. Pandā, who to her surprise had also wished her a happy birthday, while looking strangely furtive, had run her ragged for the entire afternoon, and though she did not feel she had accomplished anything, the process had nevertheless been a helpful distraction from the feeling of gnawing emptiness.

It was, of course, unreasonable of her to be surprised. If one were to perceive presents and celebrations as investments in interpersonal bonds, then it was entirely reasonable that someone like her, who consistently failed to give those bonds the energy and attention they deserved, should receive minimal investment in return. Kei stomped down on the flickering flame of anger inside the emptiness. True, she had made the effort during their birthdays, and from some perspective it was unfair for them not to reciprocate. But then, why should she expect parity between them, when she consistently took far more than she gave, time after time receiving inexplicable affection and reassurance, even after her failures, when she had none to give herself?

"What time is it on the Human Path?" Pandā's voice broke into her thoughts.

"What? Oh, early evening, I suppose. The sun must be setting soon."

"Then you should go back," Pandā said with an uncharacteristic firmness. "And make sure to summon me when you get there."

"What? Why?"

"Just do it, you beakface!"

Kei gave a confused nod and dispelled the Summoning Technique.

There was a sudden blast of noise a second after she returned.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

Kei gazed around herself in shock. Mari-sensei, Hazō, Noburi and Kagome were all standing around her, bright smiles on their faces (an awkward and slightly lopsided one on Kagome's, as if he were uncertain what he was doing). They all appeared to be happy to see her.

"What is the meaning of this?" she asked dazedly.

"It's a surprise birthday party, duh!" Noburi exclaimed. "Didn't you ever have any of these when you were a kid?"

"No, I did not," Kei made an effort to rally herself. "I did not attend many birthday parties, nor were my own particularly noteworthy affairs.

"Does this mean you sent me away deliberately?"

"That's right," Mari-sensei smiled. "Kagome needed time to prepare. Kagome!"

Kei turned around to see that Kagome was holding a wide, flat, roughly cylindrical object on a wooden plate. It was dark brown, and it did not look like any sealcrafting mechanism that she was aware of.

"Is this… a present?"

"Sort of," Kagome said. "I made you a ratberry pie."

"You'd be surprised how long it took us to build the right kind of oven out of granite blocks, but we figured it out eventually," Hazō added proudly.

Kei was unable to help herself. "Ratberry?"

"Back where I was living up north, the tree rats used to love these things," Kagome explained. "They'd gnaw on them all day long. Turns out they have this sweet, acidic flavour, and if you cook them right, the acid fades and you're left with a great dessert. Lot of exploded tree rats in that forest after I figured that out.

"The pie's a modified Akimichi Lore recipe, except of course the stinkers never heard of ratberries. I'm the only one who knows about the ratberries. And you now, I guess."

Kagome hesitated. "Would you like to try some?"

Kei gave her best smile, and on this occasion it wasn't even difficult. "I would be delighted."

-o-

The pie was sweeter than she would have preferred, and some of the crust was burnt, and one of the ingredients apparently smelled the way she imagined a tree rat would. It was, nevertheless, the most delicious thing in the world, superior even to carrot cake. Kei was a fool, an incredible fool, for ever having doubted them.

"We're not done yet," Mari-sensei said, tapping Pandā on the snout lightly to draw his attention away from the meal (he had a separate slice best described as "termites in ratberry sauce") and back to the celebration.

"Kagome, you're the man of the hour. You go first."

Kagome squirmed. He retreated into the shadows of the cave, and came back carrying a peculiarly-shaped wooden object, which he thrust awkwardly into her hands and backed away in a hurry.

"It's OK if you don't like it," he said. "I spent a while working on it, but it's been ages since I carved anything that complicated, and my tools aren't too great, so if you hate it, you can just throw it away. I won't mind."

Kei studied the mysterious artefact from all angles, holding it up so that the firelight would illuminate it as fully as possible.

She gasped.

What she was holding was an elaborate statuette. A pangolin was wrestling with some unclear animal foe of similar size, and appeared to be gaining the upper claw. On its back, a proportionally small figure, which Kei recognised as a remarkably careful carving of herself, stood upright at an angle. Stylised waves at her feet implied that she was holding herself in place through chakra adhesion despite the chaos of the melee. In her left hand, mini-Kei held a book, which she was perusing with interest, while her right hand was open in a casual flick, lines of wooden ninja wire trailing behind a series of kunai aimed flawlessly at the enemy creature's eyes.

No term came to mind other than "badass".

"Kagome," Kei said breathlessly, "this is incredible. How long did it take you to make?"

Kagome shrugged uncomfortably. "I've been working on it on and off since we got here. I figured I know how to work the wood around these parts pretty well, so why not?

"You really like it?"

"Yes," Keiko said firmly. "It is wonderful, and should I ever be in possession of a mantelpiece, this statuette will occupy pride of place upon it."

"My turn next," Noburi stepped forward into the circle of firelight as Kagome retreated. He opened a small wooden box, in which something glinted.

At his nod, Kei reached in, and drew out… a pair of earrings.

The pale blue steel was forged into the shape of snowflakes, and a small red gem glimmered at the heart of each one. They were magnificent.

"The gem's meant to symbolise fire," Noburi explained, for some reason looking as uneasy as Kagome had. "Because of how, y'know, you're so cool on the outside, and passionate on the inside, and you manage to be both of those things without one smothering or melting the other and, and I got it back in Leaf andIreallyhopeyoulikeit!"

He looked at Kei anxiously.

"They are lovely," Kei judged. "It is a touching gesture and I will be certain to wear them at appropriate social occasions. Thank you, Noburi."

"About that," Noburi said. "I asked the smith, and he said the metal's weapons-grade. They unhook if you tug them, and if you want, you can sharpen them and use them as hidden weapons. They're too small to be proper shuriken, but I reckon if anyone's got the aim to make use of them, it's you."

"That's very thoughtful of you," Kei said. She smiled again, experimentally, and found that this time also received a positive reception. "I believe I shall do so."

"And that's where I come in!" Hazō announced, nearly shoving Noburi out of the way. He held forth a broad rectangle of pale grey stone.

Kei tentatively took it from his hand.

By size, shape, material and context, it was probably a whetstone. However, its surface, instead of being smooth, bore some kind of complex inscription. Was it an unfamiliar alphabet? A symbolic abstract design? Perhaps it was intended as a piece of advanced sealwork?

"You've got it upside down," Hazō said.

It was a group of people seated around a table!

The design was remarkably fine. The people were arranged in pairs. One had a clearly male-female pair, the man with sculpted, enormous muscles and an unhealthily-wide grin, while the woman had long hair and was leaning in against him. One had a figure with a sticking-up ponytail lounging back and another leaning forward in concentration. The next had a small barrel by its side, and the one next to it had exaggeratedly wide eyes, shaking its fist at the heavens.

A ponytailed figure shrank back from another, smaller mass of grinning muscle as the man stood up, hands proudly on hips. A rounded figure reached for a bowl of something while its partner seemed to be slumped, head in hands. And at the centre, larger than the rest, there was a figure with hair in two buns and horizontal fastenings across its clothes, and another with a pair of dice flying from its hand surrounded by flames.

"This way, every time you use it, you'll remember how awesome you are, and how handily you thrashed some of the world's greatest ninja gamers," Hazō said cheerfully. "And as you keep using it, you'll start making room for new memories, and they'll be awesome as well."

Every time she used it, she'd look at that image of herself triumphant. And every time she used it, her eyes would be drawn to the figure of Tenten next to it. Hazō's gift was both beautiful and double-edged, no less so than Noburi's.

"Oh," Hazō said impatiently, "turn it over."

Kei did. The back had a carving as well. This one was much rougher than the other, and appeared to depict… a nest of giant spiders which had had Kagome's sealing paper supply upended over it. The entire thing bore a diagonal slash across it, as if to signify the artist's commitment to protecting the paper stash from such a terrible fate—or possibly the spiders.

"It's very… symbolic," she said uncertainly.

"It's a flowchart," Hazō explained. "If it looks terrible, that's because I carved it myself. I used up a mountain's worth of stone in the process—there's a storage scroll full of failed attempts that I couldn't just throw away in case you came across them—because I decided from the start that I wasn't going to use the Iron Nerve."

Kei frowned. "Why would you do something so clearly suboptimal?"

"Because the Iron Nerve doesn't create meaning," Hazō said. "To a Kurosawa, replicating something is like breathing. It's casual, superficial, forgettable. But something genuine, something made with will and intent that flows straight from the heart? There's nothing more precious to us than that.

"You are right that it's symbolic. And the main thing that it's symbolic of is how I feel about you. You're a Mori, with all your Mori skills, and that's amazing and something to be proud of. But above and beyond whatever pragmatic value you bring to the group, you're my friend. You're someone I can respect and trust and be myself with. I don't feel like I need conversational flowcharts with you."

Keiko blinked. "And so much of the preceding months is finally explained."

Noburi burst out laughing, quickly followed by Mari-sensei.

Pandā stared at them for a second. "Oh. Oh, I get it! Because she thinks he does need conversational flowcharts!"

At this, Kagome looked between Hazō and Kei a few times, and then snorted with laughter as well.

"I apologise," Kei said sheepishly. "I was unable to resist. It is an excellent gift, and your feelings mean a great deal to me. I look forward to making use of it in the times to come."

"Last but hopefully not least," Mari-sensei said, drawing Kei's instant attention, "I have this for you."

The dress was black, apart from the parts that sparkled. It was long, and judging from its appearance, figure-hugging, and when Kei reached out to touch it, the fabric was softer than anything she'd ever worn. Did she deserve to wear something like this?

"There's no man—or woman—alive who'll be able to resist you in this," Mari-sensei smiled. "When you finally pick a target, this'll turn your natural beauty into the kunai that pierces them straight through the heart.

"Leaf didn't have it in your size, but adjusting clothing is one of the thousand skills of the seductress. Seriously, there's a manual and everything."

"Wait…" a horrific thought occurred to Kei, "does this mean you know my exact measurements?"

"Of course I do," Mari-sensei said. "Come on, I'm Inoue Mari. After nearly a year together, I know everybody's measurements. Give me a little more time, and I'll figure out Pandā's too."

Kei could feel the blush spread through every inch of her body. She had no doubt that she was currently a brighter red than Makiko's awful crab constructs.

"Mari-sensei," Noburi said mischievously, "in that case can I have a word with you in private?"

"Ooh! Ooh!" Pandā mercifully distracted him. "I haven't given her my present yet!"

Mari-sensei fished around in her pack, and produced a hexagonal piece of cloth.

"I couldn't find the original in the archives, even though I tried really really hard," Pandā said. "But we have some engravings which show what it's supposed to look like, so Inoue kindly made me a new copy."

"But what is it?"

Mari-sensei held up the cloth. The bottom half was a design of hexagons overlapping like pangolin scales, and the top was a set of claws thrusting out from beneath them.

"It's a patch to sew onto your clothing," Pandā explained, tail bouncing. "Back when Ui was the Pangolin Summoner, the Polemarch had it made for him to wear on official diplomatic occasions. It's a symbol for how the pangolins serve as the summoner's armour and claws, and you put it over your heart to show your love and loyalty for the clan in return."

Love and loyalty… Yes, tonight Kei felt these things in abundance. More mysterious still, yet impossible to deny, was that she was surrounded by people who also felt love and loyalty for her.

-o-

You have earned 100 XP.

-o-

After the two sealing failures, Hazō has concluded that the project is too advanced for him. Kagome has taken over, and is very smug about the fact that he's gone nearly a month without so much as a fizzle.

-o-

What now?

Voting closes on Saturday 11th of February, 9 am New York Time.

eaglejarl · Feb 12, 2017

Chapter 104: Campfire Sharing

The night was warm, soft and quiet around them. A myriad stars danced and sparkled in the sky, bright as jewels in the darkness of the new moon. The firelight cast a rosy glow over the faces of his adopted family as Hazō pondered the last year and the changes it had brought.

Noburi had hung a kettle full of flower petals over the flames and was keeping it from boiling by watching it intently.

Mari-sensei was looking into the fire, body relaxed but face pensive. Beside her but a carefully appropriate distance away, Keiko lounged against a log, cradling Kagome-sensei's carving in one hand and absently stroking its polished base with the other. For a wonder her expression was open and...could it be?...quietly happy? instead of its usual cold reserve. Pandā was semi-curled against her side, looking around the fire curiously but respecting the moment by keeping his boundless curiosity to himself.

Kagome-sensei was, of course, drawing seal blanks and stacking them in neat piles next to himself.

"This is nice," Hazō said quietly. "I'm glad I can be here with all of you."

For just a moment Mari-sensei's smile happened on only one side of her mouth, but then it firmed up and she nodded agreement. "It is."

"Thanks for summoning me!" Pandā blurted. "It's great being here!"

Keiko looked down at her summon, a fond expression momentarily brightening her face, but said nothing.

Kagome-sensei looked up, his hands going still as he looked around the fire. His headed nodded jerkily, although his long face looked nervous at the same time. "Me too," he mumbled, before focusing very intently on his seals again.

"It's been a weird year," Hazō said meditatively, looking back at the fire. "Scary and exciting, like the whole Arikada mess. Embarrassing—for me at least." He shot an abashed smile around the fire and a nod that said 'I really do not have to offer examples, right?' Quirked lips and quiet snorts responded 'No, you really do not.'

"Still," he continued, speech accelerating as thought trying to jump past the words, "it's been an honor to serve with all of you." He waited nervously, wondering if the others would mock.

Considering silence hung in the air for a moment before Noburi nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Not exactly 'serving', really, but it has been." He looked around at the others. "You guys are the best team I could have hoped for. When you look at me you don't just see the barrel."

"Why would they?" Pandā asked, confused. "Usually it's on your back, so you're between them and it. Do you have some sort of invisibility technique?"

Noburi laughed.

"The barrel is the means by which Noburi transfers chakra to others," Keiko reminded her summon. "Many ninja are foolish enough to believe that the only value a Wakahisa offers is this ability. Noburi is saying that we acknowledge him as a person, and as a teammate, who has more to offer than solely his ability to supply chakra."

"Same for you, Keiko," Noburi said. "It's like you said to me that time—our families are support, so no one looks twice. You offer a lot more than just your bloodline."

Keiko shrugged uncomfortably. "I suppose. My summoning contract is very usef—ow! What was that for?!"

Hazō flicked another woodchip at her; this time she casually batted it aside. "For someone who is so incredibly smart, you can be dumb as a box of rocks," he laughed. "We don't just value you for your contract, or your bloodline, or your ability to shoot flies out of the air at fifty paces, or your understanding of logistics, or your ability to talk us out of backalley situations with, admittedly, opsec almost as bad as mine. We value you for you, you twit." He flicked another woodchip across the fire.

Keiko glowered at him and started to say something.

"He's right," Kagome said, not looking up from his brushwork. "You're an idiot."

Keiko looked at him in shock. "What?"

"You're an idiot," Kagome said, putting the finishing touches on a final blank and setting it aside before looking up. "Someone as smart as you who thinks she's worthless? Total idiot. Really set-your-face-on-fire stupid. Pants on head kind of thing."

Keiko's mouth worked but no sound came out. Her expression made Noburi break down in giggles.

"Ahem," Mari-sensei said. "Perhaps not the most tactful way to put it, but not entirely wrong. Keiko, your self-image is wildly inaccurate. You don't give yourself nearly enough credit for all the things you're good at."

Hazō clamped down very firmly on his traitorous tongue before it could make any reference to pots or kettles.

At Mari-sensei's words Keiko's face went instantly blank. "Thank you, sensei," she said, offering the best bow that one can make while reclining. "You are very kind. Ow! Hazō, stop that!" She fired back, bouncing the woodchip she'd caught earlier off his forehead before scrabbling in the grass next to her for small twigs.

"Then stop being a twit," Hazō said, laughing and hiding behind upraised hands as she attacked. It did precisely no good, as Keiko's initial triple salvo slipped past his guard to bounce off both earlobes and his wristbone.

Keiko probably didn't stop being a twit and she definitely didn't stop glowering, but at least she stopped flinging things at him in favor of spreading her grumpy-faced look around at her companions, all of whom were laughing.

"Be nice, children," Mari-sensei admonished, smiling. "Honestly, I can't take you lot anywhere. I look away for two seconds and you're throwing things at each other." She shook her head in mock-dismay.

"This was not my fault!" Keiko yelped. "He starte—" Her teeth clopped shut as she realized just how childish that was going to make her sound.

"Yeah!" Pandā said. "No throwing things at my summoner, you dang dirty beakface!" He waved his claws threateningly at Hazō, only to promptly ruin the effect by looking up at Keiko and whispering hopefully, "Did I say that right?"

Hazō and Noburi promptly broke down laughing. Mari-sensei chuckled quietly. Kagome-sensei looked confused.

"Yes," Keiko said. "You said that just right."

Pandā nodded happily. "Thought so. I'm totally getting the hang of this human slang."

"Hey, Pandā, what's up with the 'beakface' thing?" Noburi asked. "I've heard you say it before."

"Oh, well, it's the Condors, right?" Pandā said with a manidaean shrug. "After the Great Betrayal and the First Condor War it became sort of a catchall insult."

"'Great Betrayal'?" Mari-sensei asked. "What was that?"

Pandā sat up as straight as his bodyplan allowed, wriggling slightly as he settled into what he clearly thought was an authoritative pose. "Long ago the Condors and the Pangolins were two of the Seven Great Clans. Trade was common, pangolins still walked the halls of the Great Academy, knowledge and art flourished. Then the Condors betrayed us; they led a swarm of driver ants to one of our key trade outposts. Highfort sat in the middle of the only pass across the Blue Mountains that the Pangolin clan had access to. The next nearest past was three clan territories away. The pass was our link to huge trade routes across the mountains, as well as the only way we could access the Great Academy.

"Anyway, the Condors led the ants to us and Highfort was destroyed. The swarm set up a nest in the ruins, cutting us off from the trade routes across the mountains, meaning that the Condors could control the trade and make us pay whatever they wanted. And, of course, we no longer had access to the Great Academy.

"We sent a delegation to demand that the Condors help us re-open the pass, but the dang beakfaces threw our people off the mountain. They all died, except for Panyāru, one of the junior guardsman accompanying the delegation. He made it home, badly hurt, and explained how the delegation had been attacked."

Pandā gave a studiously casual shrug of scaled shoulders. "Well, of course, there was nothing to do except beat those Condor twits into a ball. Unfortunately, when they realized they were going to lose they set off an avalanche that buried the pass. Still, they've kept their stupid beaks down ever since, too scared of the power of the Pangolin Clan to make so much as a peep!"

"Good for you!" Kagome said. "Stinkers deserved it." He nodded decisively. "Stupid traitors, pretending they like you just so they can convince you to go into an unholy doom fortress."

"What's an unholy doom fortress?" Mari-sensei asked in apparent confusion.

"Oh, you know," Kagome said. "Big stone fort, seals all over it. Massive central workroom with half a dozen desks, safes, cabinets and cabinets of stuff"—he waved dismissively—"and absolutely everything covered in the most horrific seals you've ever seen. Faces melting into bleeding walls, gibbering horrors that wouldn't stop sniggering from thin air for weeks no matter how many times you squished their stupid stinking faces in your dreams." He hunched in on himself, eyes shifting to the sides as both hands reflexively plucked seal blanks off the piles. Hazō's trained gaze didn't miss the tiny little foxfire flicker of infusion that danced for a split second across the surface of each paper. Kagome-sensei's breathing had accelerated, getting shallower as his shoulders tensed. Hazō shifted, readying himself to do...something, he wasn't sure.

Kagome-sensei blinked, his breath catching for just an instant before he obviously forced it to become regular again. He looked down at the seal blanks in his hands as though surprised to find them there. With careful precision he smoothed out the slight rumpling of the papers and set them back on the appropriate piles.

For three long seconds the night hung, silent and suspended among thousands of possibilities, as Kagome-sensei stared silently at the piles of seal blanks. No one moved or spoke as the explosives master mastered himself.

"They brought me in to figure what it all was," he said, his reedy tenor calmer and more connected than usual. "Me and three squads." He sniffed derisively. "Stinking idiots, every one. First they said I was bringing too many seals and too much paper which was obviously stupid. It was only one wagonload of actives and a few dozen scrolls of blanks and paper! Then they said I was crazy the way I mined the perimeter before going into the fort. I mean, it wasn't like we were short on seals, and I didn't even spend that long on it—not more than nine or ten hours! That's not unreasonble, is it?"

"Hey, you're here and they're not," Noburi said with a shrug. "Seems to have been pretty reasonable to me."

"Thank you!" Kagome shook his head like a horse chasing off a fly. "Anyway. We went inside, and those stupid stinking idiots blundered ahead down the hall until Satoshi's right side melted into Michiko's left and tentacles exploded everywhere with acid spraying off of them. Once we put the thing out of our misery the others finally started listening. We explored the place carefully and only lost four more of them before I started to get a handle on the patterns a couple days later."

The sudden grin showed teeth. "That's about when the perimeter started going off. Guess the owners wanted their precious little hellhole back. Everyone went running outside because of course they did and there was this giant mess of bodyparts where the first wave of stinkers had found my traps." He giggled manically. "One of 'em ran into a Force Wall I had set up at an angle like this, aimed to catch you in the chest. He was really short, though, so it caught him right under the chin. The body was jammed up against the underside of the wall, still upright. You could see inside his neck and I couldn't help thinking...you know how people always say 'I'm gonna rip your head off and spit in your neck'? Well, I mean, I could have walked over there and done it."

Hazō found himself caught between horror and laughter, so he settled for asking, "Did you?"

"Nah. Too busy dodging all the pointy things and explosions." Kagome shifted slightly, forcing himself to breathe. "Pretty bad fight. Stinkers were there in force, and over the last few days most of my idiot bodyguards had already gotten themselves turned inside out, or blown up, or had their eyeballs eaten with that really nasty schlorp noise you get before the thing crawls in through the socket and starts melting your brain out through your nose." He looked angry. "Stinking idiot. I told him not to touch that, but did he listen? 'You're just paranoid, Kagome.' Well, who's paranoid now, you stinker?"

"What happened then?" Pandā asked, eyes wide.

Kagome looked uncomfortable. "I, uh, I left."

"What? You left?" Pandā demanded. "I wanted to hear how they finally learned to listen to you."

Kagome shrugged. "By that time there were only two of them left and still two dozen of the attackers. I wasn't sticking around. It's not like Ayako cared, and she was dead anyway so I didn't have much to go back to. I went to Iron, camped out for a while until you guys showed up." He ducked his head. "I'm uh, sorry I tried to blow you up when we first met. I'm glad you didn't hold it against me. I've...I've really liked having a team."

"We have enjoyed having you as a teammate," Keiko said. An instant later she hurried to add, "And not just for your skills and the safety they bring us. Speaking with you is refreshingly straightforward."

"She's right," Mari-sensei said. "Life has been better since you joined us." She gave him an approving smile that made him blush all the way down his neck.

"Seconded," Noburi said. "Spies and Shadows would be so much less interesting without you." He grinned.

"What's Spies and Shadows?" Pandā stage-whispered to Keiko.

"A board game," Keiko answered. "It's about sneaking through a fortress filled with traps to achieve objectives such as 'steal the intelligence' or 'free the prisoner'. One team designs the fortress, the other tries to break through the defenses. The expected tactic is to avoid the guards and the traps, but Kagome realized that it was possible to use the guards to set off certain traps in a way that, through some very dubious rule interpretations"—she shot him a disapproving look—"destroyed most of the internal walls and gave the Intruder team a clear path to their objective."

"Ninja," Kagome said, completely unrepentantly. His tone set Noburi laughing.

"They're right," Hazō said, once Noburi calmed down. "Nothing would be the same without you, sensei." He nerved himself up. "You know, people don't often tell each other how much they value them, because it can be embarrassing. I want you to know, though: I'm so glad you joined us. We wouldn't be alive without you, but even if we had somehow managed to survive I wouldn't be the same person. Your seal training has changed how I look at the world, how I understand things. I have all those dreams and hopes that, frankly, are pretty unrealistic—convincing everyone to find peace? Using jutsu to help civilians, and then convincing other ninja to do the same? It should be crazy. A team our size, changing the world? Impossible. And yet, the things you've taught me make it maybe possible. The things you've taught me are the only reason that I believe I might be able to reach my dreams. Thank you, sensei."

He offered a full dogeza bow, holding it for two long seconds before sitting up and waiting fearfully for the reaction. Being physically naked would have been so much more comfortable than being this emotionally naked. Kagome-sensei wasn't good with people; how would he respond? Would he doubt Hazō's words? Would he laugh?

Kagome did neither of those things. He swallowed, and looked incredibly nervous, but managed not to stammer as he said, "Thanks. I, um...I'm glad too. I wasn't really happy before. And I was pretty lonely. Not so much fun talking to the tree rats, you know? You guys are way more fun." He ducked his head and hunched in on himself.

"Sensei...." Hazō hesitated. Asking this was awfully forward, straining against the bounds of propriety. It wasn't like when he'd asked Wakahisa and Mori to become Noburi and Keiko; they were peers. Asking one's sensei.... Still, it felt like the right thing to do. Kagome-sensei needed closer bonds, needed to feel part of a family again. And, plus, there was the whole issue of 'Mari-sensei'. Calling her that in public would cause issues with the other genin (mostly Keiko, though), but not calling her that in public after having used it in private would make it seem that he was pushing her away. If he did call her that, though, then Kagome-sensei would be left isolated.

"Sensei, we've all been through a lot together," Hazō said hesitantly. "Do you think, maybe.... I mean.... Would it be okay if we used your first name?"

Kagome stiffened. "What? First name? I don't have a first name!"

"That's weird," Pandā said. "I thought all humans had a first name? It's just that you only use it with close friends, right?" He looked at Keiko. "I thought I finally had a handle on this, but now it turns out that some of you really don't have them? Humans are weird." He turned back to Kagome. "How come you don't have a first name? Did your mother forget to give you one?"

"Uh...well, she probably didn't," Kagome said, fingers plucking nervously at his sleeve. "I guess I lost it in a sealing accident." He nodded happily. "Yes, that's it. Sealing accident. Very bad one. Ate my name. Anyway, it's bad luck to call a sealmaster by his first name. It makes seals go wrong."

"But you call the others by their first names all the time," Pandā said, his scales crinkling in a frown. "Wouldn't that make Hazō's seals go wrong?"

"I do?" Kagome said. "Oh...uh, well, see! That proves it!"

"It's all right, Kagome," Mari-sensei said. "Whatever that seal did to you to take your name away, maybe it will wear off eventually. If you do remember what it is, just let us know." She smiled at her genin. "And, on the subject of first names, I told you kids before that you're allowed to call me Mari-sensei if you want."

Hazō held his breath, watching Keiko while trying not to be obvious.

Keiko sat silent for a long second, then nodded. "Thank you, Mari-sensei," she said quietly. "I believe I would like that."

XP AWARD: 3

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, February 15, 2017, at 12pm London time.

OliWhail · Feb 20, 2017

Chapter 105: Hot Air

Hazou decided to break the comfortable silence that followed Keiko's acknowledgement. "So, while we're all sharing, I've had another idea."

"Scariest words I've ever heard," Noburi grumbled good-naturedly.

Hazou stoically ignored him, and picked up a dried leaf from the ground and tossed it out over the campfire. The group's eyes tracked its winding ascent. "Hot air lifts things. It happens to leaves over fires, it happens to sky-lanterns during festivals. Could we use that to make something that can carry people through the air?"

"People weigh a lot more than leaves, Hazou," Mari-sensei objected.

"Sure, but that probably just means you need a lot more hot air," Hazou countered. "It's worked for me in the past, getting lifted up by the furnace exhaust of Amatetsu's yam shop, jumping to the Mizukage's tower."

"Hmm. I choose to remain dubious," she replied as she leaned back and closed her eyes.

"I share Inou... Mari-sensei's hesitation," said Keiko haltingly, "but I can see that this would be another significant contribution to warfare. The ability to carry large amounts of supplies alongside personnel would be an enormous tactical advantage, increasing utility of both watchtowers and skywalkers. Knowing you, I suppose you are envisioning a seal-based solution to providing heat?"

Hazou nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly! Either a seal that just heats air around it, or macerators to pulp wood to burn quickly. Also, can you imagine what it would mean for civilian trade if we could get it working without active chakra manipulation? None of the ground-based chakra beasts could get to them!"

"Still gotta deal with sky squid," Kagome grumbled, poking the fire absent-mindedly.

"Right, of course, but even accounting for those, and all the various kinds of birds and bugs and bats, it's still got to be safer overall."

"You're assuming the Hidden Villages would ever let civilians have access to these things," Noburi pointed out. "Why in the world would they? Your civilians would get captured faster than you can say 'kunai', and now your enemies have sky-wagons, or whatever other dumb name you're going to give these things!"

"Huh, I might keep that one. Thank you for the suggestion," Hazou said thoughtfully.

Noburi brought one hand to his forehead. "Oh, for the love of--"

"I take your point, though. Until we fix the system, nobody's going to be happy sharing this kind of thing. If we sell it to Leaf, they'll keep it for themselves. If we keep it for ourselves and use it for border crossings, we're doing the same thing on a smaller scale," Hazou said, frowning. "And that's assuming we even get them working - there are going to be a lot of technical details to address."

"Use storage seals to change the weight of the thing," Kagome cut in, looking off into the middle distance. "Steering, you could do with wind jutsu, or seals that do the same stuff, or maybe explosive seals."

Hazou grinned. "I had a couple thoughts on that, actually…."

-o-

Over dinner, Hazou decided it was time for an extra team meeting. "Guys, on top of what we discussed last night, I was hoping I could talk to you all about some other stuff."

Noburi turned to Keiko with a long-suffering expression. "You'll help me beat him up if he's come up with another world-shaking military innovation, right?"

Keiko nodded gravely. "A truce might be the only way to stop him."

"Wait, we were at war?" Noburi asked.

She flicked a pebble at him, bouncing it off his arm.

"Ow!"

"We are now. Truce?"

"Kids," Mari-sensei growled over her tea.

"Thank you," said Hazou, relieved. "So, I've been considering the fact that we have a lot of options for how to move forward as a group, and I'm really not sure what the best option is from a standpoint of wanting to improve the world. We have, thanks to Keiko, a way to influence both Hidden Mountain and the Pangolin Clan. Despite my screw-up, it seems like we still have something of an in on Hidden Leaf in the form of Jiraiya, and potentially in the clan heirs we interacted with while there. A connection to Jiraiya and the Pangolins means a connection to the Toads. Any or all of these groups could benefit from having access to the skytowers, skywalkers, or skywagons. I would very much appreciate all your inputs on who, if anyone, we should share them with, when we should do so, and in exchange for what."

"The Pangolins would certainly benefit from the ability to fight against the Condors on more even footing," Keiko mused. "However, it would only be logical for them to share the innovation with the Toads for the purposes of joint operations. And what the Toads have, Jiraiya and Leaf also have."

"Hazou, you're counting chickens before they've hatched. You've only got one of the three things you're proposing to trade away," said Noburi.

"One and a half!" Hazou objected.

"Is the same as one," Noburi insisted.

"I'm still confused why you would ever want to talk to those Leaf stinkers again, never mind helping them kill people better," Kagome interrupted.

"Realistically, it's not going to be possible to keep secrets from Jiraiya indefinitely, Kagome-sensei. I think it's better to choose the time and place the secret gets out, and bargain some reward out of it."

"Reward? Is that what you think you're gonna get, huh?! I'll tell you what you're gonna get when that stinking Toad stinker hears about all this. Locked up and only fed on days when you come up with new ideas, that's what you're gonna get!" Kagome exclaimed, gesticulating frantically. His eyes had grown wide, and were occasionally darting back and forth across the tree line instead of meeting Hazou's. "Is that what you want, huh?"

"Of course not, sensei," Hazou answered, keeping his voice calm and quiet.

"...good," Kagome stated emphatically, clearly not sure where to carry the conversation. "I... was starting to worry."

"So, that sounds like one vote against Leaf, and one vote for the Pangolins," said Mari-sensei. "I would be concerned about giving Hazou's innovations to Mountain alone. For all their political trickiness, they don't have the raw body count or individual S-class firepower to prevent one of the larger villages from coming in and just taking whatever we give them. The only way to prevent that would involve us engineering the situation such that they were allied with Leaf from the start -- which we could do, in theory, but might be destabilizing in and of itself."

"Plus, if we gave them to Mountain and not Leaf, Leaf would be pissed," added Noburi. "Which we would really like to avoid, since it would sour that alliance right off the bat and have us on the shit list by extension. So it's sounding like if we don't want Leaf to get them, we can't give them to anyone."

Hazou nodded. "There's the extra option of keeping one or two of them to ourselves, but I expect that will just lead to a repeat of the Hokage asking us how we did so-and-so during a mission."

"Yeah, let's not do that again," Mari-sensei said, grimacing and beginning to rise and move toward the fort. "Whatever we do, let's make it deliberate. Let's all sleep on it, okay? Hazou, for making us all do homework, you're on first watch."

Offscreen Events: (I'm sorry I didn't have the time/spoons to put these in scenes, but better to make sure y'all have the information.)

Kagome was only too happy to oblige Hazou's newfound level of sealing safety paranoia - the two of them have added extra layers of kawarimi targets around the back side of the new infusion bunker, picked positions for clones to actively substitute with Hazou in case anything went wrong, and recruited Noburi to be on medical standby just in case. Noburi agreed, on the condition that the two sealmasters help him with catching and performing experiments on chakra beasts once he'd figured out exactly what he wanted to research.

Some of the sealing contingency/safety ideas in the plan were not implemented by reason of not wanting to put infused seals in the vicinity of a potential sealing failure. Also, you can't cut a hole in an Earth Dome without dispelling it, and MEW can't make domes (it can make little bunker things with straight walls, one of which Hazou has now constructed at the center of the Sealing Pseudo-Safety Structure).

Re: invisible ink, Kagome and Mari are both familiar with its use, and Kagome knows a couple of plants in the region that can be used to make a crude version. He is, to put it mildly, very dubious about the prospect, but is willing to let Hazou try. Once.

Re: Spider Yoyos, Kagome points out that it'd be a hell of a time trying to throw the yoyo so that it was oriented correctly at the time of activation, and questions how Hazou intends to keep the surface the seals are stuck on from sliding off the air dome, and how to make sure the rope isn't intersecting the area the dome will form (thus preventing activation.)

Re: Natural Philosopher Hazou, as a first step, Hazou is currently making a point of starting to work through Yumehara's History.

Due to spending an extra-long time on constructing the sealing lab and devoting time to reading, Hazou did not get any training done today. The other genin got some training time in, but not enough to have leveled their skills.

XP Award: 3, for a solid but fairly passive plan.

What do you do now?
Voting is currently scheduled to end at 12 noon London time, Wednesday, February 22.

eaglejarl · Feb 26, 2017

Chapter 106: In Which Our Heroes Murder Woodland Creatures For Fun

"Hey guys," Hazō said. "I feel like I've been in a bit of a rut lately. How about tomorrow we have a little friendly competition to spice up training?"

Keiko looked over in interest. "What did you have in mind?"

"I'm thinking hunting. There's plenty of chakra monsters around here. We'll take turns killing or incapacitating them in specified ways to test our mastery of various skills. Killing without making a sound is for stealth, killing as many as possible within a minute is mass combat, killing one member of a pack without the others noticing is stealth and situational awareness, that kind of thing." He grinned. "And we could get a little silly too, just for fun. Use only one hand or one leg, that kind of thing."

Mari-sensei's eyes lit up. "Ooooh, I bet I can—"

"You have to be the judge, sensei."

Weapons-grade puppy-dog eyes. "Awww." Sigh. "Fine, but then I get to make the challenges."

"Uh...okay?" That gleeful look on her face wasn't even remotely disturbing.

o-o-o-o

"Aaaagggh! Killitkillitkillit!!!!" Off-balance series of hops into trees.

snap! snarl! firey woosh!

"Why aren't you killing it?!"

"Are you sure? I mean, you said—"

"Forget what I—yikes!—said, just kill it!"

"All right." thwock

Urk!

"That one didn't count! I would have had him fine if the stupid fruit hat hadn't fallen over my eyes!"

"Keep telling yourself that. Next!"

o-o-o-o

Urk! Nigh-silent impact of massive furred body on forest loam.

Raised eyebrow. "I thought we were not going to use any seals in this round?"

"We were not going to activate any seals. I set that one up last night before proposing this contest."

"Hm."

o-o-o-o

"That's it...that's it, one more step little monster horror thing. Come on, you're almost there, just— YAAAAGGGHHHHHH!!!! KILLITKILLITKILLITKILLIT!"

thwock!

Urk!

"Stupid fruit hat."

o-o-o-o

"Yaa!"

thwock!

Urk!

"Okay, you're right. The fruit hat sucks."

"I know!"

o-o-o-o

"But...."

"You...."

Facial expression that is absolutely not at all smug. "Yes."

"All of them?!"

"Yes."

"But...you only used one kunai."

"Yes."

"How...? I mean, I saw it but...how...?"

Her father would never forgive her if she allowed that flicker of inward glee to actually show on her face. Must...keep...control!

o-o-o-o

The games continued until both boys grudgingly admitted that Keiko was the winner.

"Seriously, Keiko?" Hazō grumbled while he pulled a clean set of clothes out of his scroll as preface to a much-needed bath. (Mari-sensei lesson #217(a): 'Remember, kids: your enemies have noses! Stinky ninja are dead ninja!') "How the hell do you hit something that size between the eyes when you're only allowed to use one eye yourself?"

"Slightly left of center."

Luckily for Keiko, Hazō still had not mastered the Kill You With My Brain no Jutsu.

o-o-o-o

"So...what do you guys think about Mountain?" Hazō asked, carefully waiting until everyone was finished eating. "They're going to be opening up in a few months."

Mari-sensei frowned in puzzlement. "Opening up?"

"Yeah," Hazō said. "Remember what Takahashi said about us not coming back for a year?"

Mari-sensei shook her head. "He didn't want us coming back for a year so that he could consolidate power in the village without us messing things up. He didn't say anything about opening up to the world at the end of that time."

"But—"

An upraised hand cut him off. "Yes, when he gave me that bizarre ants metaphor he was talking about changing their society. That didn't say anything about interacting with the outside world, though." She paused, then nodded in thought. "Still, Yoshida wanted to open up and she and Takahashi were allies. They probably will at some point, but I don't know when—could be tomorrow for all we know."

"Oh." Hazō stopped to consider that. "Well, anyway, I've been thinking about them. Keiko, as the Pangolin summoner you've got a lot of political clout with them. They're an entire ninja village—"

"Ninja hamlet," Noburi said, not looking up from where he was scooping barley-ish soup out of the dinner pot for seconds.

"—ninja village with no ties to the outside and almost no one is aware of them yet. They could make a good powerbase for us, or a good hidey hole."

"Jiraiya-stinker knows about 'em," Kagome said, glowering at the piece of wood that was rapidly forming into a delicate sea creature under the careful ministrations of his carving knife. "He'll move in at some point."

"Right," Hazō said. "So if we got there first, we could be the interface, guide how the interaction went. There'd be some issues to plan for, though. Noburi, you'd see Yuno again. How would you feel about that?"

Noburi grimaced. "It's complicated? I've thought about her a few times. I was never in love with her, and sometimes she freaked me out a little but...I really liked her. She was honest, and straightforward, and a good person. Fake-dating her was incredibly uncomfortable and embarrassing, but it was also really nice. She deserved better than what happened—with me and with the village in general."

"Were you to see her again the interactions could be complicated," Keiko said. "She was unpredictable at the best of times. Do you think she would attack you?"

"No!" Noburi said. "No, she wouldn't do that."

"Would you want to see her again?" Hazō asked carefully.

Noburi studied his soup with the same intensity with which a seer studies a crystal ball. "I wouldn't want us to go there just for me," he said finally. "I think that yes, I would like to see her again, but I'm not willing to put the team at risk."

Hazō looked across the flickering campfire to his teachers. "Mari-sensei, Kagome-sensei, what do you think?"

"Stinkers tried to kill us before," Kagome grumbled. "You want to go back? Are you crazy?"

Mari-sensei waffled her hand side-to-side. "I can see some advantages, but a lot of risks," she said. "We really threw an explosive tag in their politics, and we don't know where the pieces landed. The Inoue and the Aida were the ones who attacked us—loremasters and religious leaders, so hardly surprising they were the xenophobic ones. Their political star was on the wane after we left and by now Takahashi probably put a muzzle on them, but there's no way to know for sure. Just as one example, they might have managed to come out even stronger than before if they whipped up some populist fervor around the idea that their teachings had been shown to be true and obviously the foreigners would be coming to take away the lives of decent hardworking Mountain-folk everywhere."

"Would we be safe if we went back?" Hazō asked.

Kagome-sensei snorted. "Safe? Safe?! Don't talk to me about safe. All those stupid rules you guys gave me... 'No setting off landslides to destroy the entire village so we can pick through the rubble at our leisure, Kagome.' 'No putting explosives on the houses, Kagome.' 'No putting explosives on the tapir pens, Kagome.' 'No putting explosives on the tapirs, Kagome.' 'No putting explosives on anything more than one hundred feet from the cave, Kagome.' 'No putting lethal traps in the outer perimeter, Kagome.'" He spat to one side. "Stupid rules. Don't talk to me about safe." He pointed his knife at Hazō like a lance. "I know how this goes. You're going to talk about how great it would be if we went back and used Mountain as a power base to uplift the world and make everything better for everyone so we can squish all those Headquarters stinkers and then dance on their exploded corpses. It'll sound crazy and then you'll talk some more and maybe it won't seem completely crazy, and then you'll talk some more and everyone will decide that they're crazy too so they'll go along with it. Well, don't come crying to me when it all goes horribly, horribly wrong. And I'll tell you what, this time I'm going to put explosives wherever I feel like it! Got that?!"

What did you even say to that? "Yes, sensei?"

"Good." The grumpy sealmaster bent over his carving once more, angrily brushing a strand of his thinning hair out of the way as he focused on the wooden dolphin leaping out of the wooden ocean in his hand.

o-o-o-o

XP AWARD: 6

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, March 1, 2017, at 12pm London time.

NB: Today really got away from me and this ended up both short and incomplete. I didn't get to the part where Keiko goes to the Pangolins to trade the skytower seal concept, so @Velorien will need to cover that. Keiko definitely did go—that part is locked in. I'll need to talk to the other QMs about how long she was there, though.

Velorien · Mar 2, 2017

Chapter 107: Earning One's Place
by @Velorien

The pangolin hulked over the giant tree stump, his (Kei was learning to tell) arms and shoulders bulging with muscle as he moved carved tokens across a carved relief map. A tight formation of hexagons probably represented pangolin forces, but Kei was at a loss as to the significance of the triangles, trapezoids and other shapes. Around them, smaller pangolins rushed back and forth, some adding tokens to the map, a few moving or removing them, and the rest etching notes into tablets or carrying materials.

"Sir," Pandā gave a polite hiss, "the Summoner is here to see you."

The pangolin whirled around with unexpected speed, the flail-like red and blue patterns of paint on his scales seeming to wave threateningly with the movement. "Summoner?"

His eyes narrowed as he studied her. "What do you want? Be brief. The skies over the Rat Clan are already growing pale."

"I am here with an offer for the Pangolin Armed Forces. My team has recently developed new, cutting-edge technology which I believe you will find highly valuable."

"Is that so?" the pangolin rested his claws on the relief map, eclipsing a small mountain. "No offence, but what can human technology possibly do that the Pangolin Clan can't?"

"Build indestructible observation towers at any height in under an hour," Kei said casually.

There was a crunch. Kei couldn't help noticing several new valleys on the map.

"Summoner," the pangolin faced her directly, "I am Pantokikku, Taxiarch of Aerial Defence, and you may have finally given me something worth tearing myself away from all this damn strategising. Stay here, and I'll get a meeting together."

He raised his voice.

"Somebody get the Summoner a log!"

-o-

Kei had chosen a location outdoors that would provide plenty of room for her demonstration. Pandā cowered at her side, perhaps uncomfortable with the focused attention of a number of towering military superiors.

In addition to Pantokikku's imposing form, there were three new pangolins. One, with a flat snout and streams of blue and yellow markings swirling around his body, watched her with tiny eyes. Another, a tall, thin pangolin with brown and grey camouflage patterns, was hunched forward as if ready to run. The third was short and squat, with small amounts of green paint, and odd flecks of darker colour, as if something else had been incompletely removed. She gazed at Kei balefully.

"This is Mori Keiko, the Summoner," Pantokikku explained. "Summoner, these are Commissar Panteon," he indicated the blue and yellow-marked pangolin, "Syntagmatarch Panoptikon of the Elite Scouting Unit," the camouflaged pangolin, "and, ah, Pansofi of Logistics & Supply. They are here to—"

Pansofi cut him off with an upraised claw. "Hold it. How do we know this really the Pangolin Summoner? Have any of you verified her identity?"

"We have not," Pantokikku rumbled, "but how else could a human be here? The Liaison could hardly summon somebody else."

Pansofi rolled her eyes derisively. "How do you know he did? Did it happen in front of you? Did you even check that it really is him, and not a condor in disguise?"

Pantokikku gave a deep sigh. "Are you proposing that a condor infiltrated our forces, summoned the Condor Summoner here, at the heart of our power, and is now trying to present advanced weaponry before some of our best officers?"

"You wouldn't see it coming at all, would you?" Pansofi concluded triumphantly. "We must apprehend the human now, before she unleashes some terrible shinobi weapon under the guise of her demonstration."

Kei felt anger bubbling up within her. She had not come with what she considered a very generous offer, only to be—

Kei: Awareness vs Panoptikon: Tactical Movement said:
Class C failure

The impact bowled both her and Pandā off their feet. Kei sprang up, ready to defend herself, but no further attack came.

"My bad, my bad," Panoptikon grinned. "But now we know they're not under any sort of ninjutsu disguise, right? And those sure weren't the reflexes of somebody ready for trouble."

Kei glared. "I will tolerate your assault in the spirit it was intended on this occasion, but I strongly advise you not to attempt it again, for your own safety."

Panoptikon gave a hissing laugh. "No hard feelings, Summoner. Had to shut up Pansofi somehow. Don't need a diplomatic incident, do we?"

"Panoptikon." It was just one word from Panteon, delivered in a neutral intonation, but the scout moved back in line with the other pangolins instantly, and with no further commentary.

"She could be using hypnotic techniques against us," Pansofi muttered. "It would be just like the condors to choose one of those human genjutsu mistresses as their summoner, treacherous bastards that they are. We could all be inside an illusion right now."

"Why's she here again?" Panoptikon asked helpfully.

"Department's understaffed," Pansofi said. "You should be counting your blessings that I happened to be the one here to deal with this security breach."

"I believe we should move on," Panteon said mildly. "Summoner, the demonstration?"

Kei had practised this part. Repeatedly. At Noburi. His feedback had been flippant but ultimately useful.

"Through sophisticated sealcrafting research," she said in her most assertive voice, "we have been able to create towers that do not require structural support, can be built at any height given sufficient time, and are virtually impossible to move or damage with material force. I will now demonstrate how quickly such a tower can be constructed, and how effective it is subsequently."

She reached for the first storage scroll.

-o-

Kei looked down. Panoptikon's tail was tapping excitedly on the ground. Pansofi was on tiptoe, as if preparing to flee from bombardment. Pantokikku's eyes were intent, and he was leaning forwards. Only Panteon seemed entirely unperturbed.

"They'd need to be modified for scale," Pantokikku said half to himself, "and easier climbing access. If those seals on the ground are vital to the structure, they'd need to be guarded as the weak point…"

"You could hide them," Panoptikon interrupted. "The condors get their tongues in a knot if they have to pinpoint static objects, and the seals are pretty small."

Pantokikku nodded. "Combine them with a few ranged strikers… no, what am I thinking? Polemarch's Claw Technique. Skimming Pebble Technique. Deep Impact Technique. You wouldn't need spotters or rollers..."

Panoptikon's tongue flicked in and out. "Clear lines of sight for miles... it's beautiful. We could take the condors' scouting advantage and stick it straight down their throats. By the Naraka Path, if you factor in comms, and get these things mass-produced, we could take the whole region!"

"If you are quite finished," Panteon said, and the two fell silent instantly. "Summoner, who else has access to this technology?"

"Hidden Leaf on the Human Path," Kei admitted, "which means the Toad Clan is likely to gain it at some point. However, we have no intention of sharing it with anyone else at present, and we would expect the same of you."

"The Pantokrator made the Pangolin Clan to rule over the ground," Panteon mused, "and to cast ourselves into the heavens might be considered heretical. After all, is it not taught that the freedom to fly has made the condors forget the concepts of loyalty and duty? And to manufacture seals would violate the Pantokrator's ancient prohibition on sealcrafting on the Seventh Path…"

Kei had a strong sense that she was finally listening to the decision-maker of the group, and that he was much more dangerous than the other three.

"With that said," Panteon continued, "I will admit that your invention is not without potential. With some effort, I might conceivably be able to persuade my peers that the Pantokrator's injunction to be merciless to those who betray us, and our duty to the ancient ways of the clan, outweighs the risks of heresy, and that the pangolins' inherent moral superiority over the condors would protect us. Then, too, if the Toad Clan already has this technology, then it is our responsibility as stewards of the Seventh Path to master it first, so that we may set the proper example of its use. Were you to produce more seals for us, we would not be trespassing on the Pantokrator's domain...

"But can I in good conscience invite a moral risk to the clan, knowing that it would also mean shouldering a material burden at a time when every resource is needed?"

Kei inwardly winced. The pangolin was clearly laying the groundwork to drive a hard bargain, and for all her respect for the clan, she was determined not to go home empty-handed. She was a ninja who contributed to the team, who earned at least a fraction of the impossible loyalty and generosity she had been shown.

Panteon spoke again. "The rest of you, any more... measured comments?"

Pantokikku tapped his claws on his thigh uneasily. "One problem occurs to me. We would be terribly exposed and vulnerable on those heights. Once the condors got used to the idea, they would simply knock us off."

The objection was reasonable. Even humans required some means of emergency descent from the towers, and pangolins had much more mass and less aerial mobility. It was a weakness a flying enemy would have no difficulty in exploiting.

But Kei would not give up here. The team had faith in her. Mari-sensei had faith in her. If she failed now, what need did they have for a summoner at all?

The transaction had been Hazō's plan. There was, clearly, an error in it. But it was a plan, and thus, she had the power to optimise it.

She hoped it would not be his last.

-o-

Earlier that morning…

"Just a little longer," Hazō wheezed. "I'm nearly done working on a plan which should cover all our activities for the next few weeks, and by that time I'll be able to use the knowledge we gain to make an even better one."

"Hazō, did you sleep at all last night?" Noburi asked. "I didn't hear you come back to your bedroll."

"I'm fine," Hazō said, the fatigue seeping through despite his best efforts. "And anyway, it needed doing. We don't know how long we've got before some new crisis turns up, and we need to use this time efficiently to strengthen ourselves. Now please, let me get back to the training schedules—"

Mari-sensei snatched the stack of paper out of his hands and flipped through it.

"All right, let's take a look. Keiko's negotiations, yeah, I see, fine… Now what's this 'fugue' part?"

"Gaah!" Hazō urgently grabbed the sheet of paper out of her hands. When no other options presented themselves to his hazy mind, he promptly rolled it up in a ball and ate it.

"What? Why are you all staring at me? That part of the plan wasn't ready!"

The silence lasted for nearly a minute, the rest of the team exchanging worried glances, before Keiko finally broke it.

"Hazō," she took a deep breath, "as I mentioned to you in Leaf, I believe your propensity for list-making has moved beyond the realm of adaptive caution and foresight, and grown into an maladaptive coping mechanism which provides addictive—and false—reassurance through the appearance of control over your situation. You—you're scaring us, Hazō."

What was she talking about? He'd always made lists for the team. And it always… nearly always… usually worked. It was his thing. Why was she getting worried about it now?

"I don't know what you're talking about, Keiko," he said firmly, then yawned. "My lists aren't some sort of coping mechanism. They're what we need in order to have control over our situation—OK, fine, those are the exact words you used, but that doesn't make them wrong! Our resources are limited, and if we don't use them optimally, we don't stand a chance in this increasingly chaotic world!

"And optimal plans are long-term plans. If we can get as much use out of the next few weeks as possible, then our survival chances go way up. How is that not obvious? Now, please, give me back my draft and let me get back to it. I still need to outline the rest of my suggestions for Keiko's training regimen."

Keiko looked helplessly to the people around her. Unexpectedly, it was Kagome-sensei who supported her.

"Hazō, there's this thing that happens sometimes to sealmasters who're under too much stress. It's called Saviour Syndrome, and we don't like to talk about it much. It tends to happen to sealmasters who lose too much too fast, or get stuck in a really bad situation with no way out for too long. They decide that if they can just invent the perfect seal, or perfect combination of seals, they'll be able to make everything all right. So they lock themselves in the lab. They don't eat. They don't sleep. They just research and test. Research and test."

Kagome-sensei gave Hazō a long, sad look.

"And it only ever ends one way."

"Kagome-sensei!" Hazō sputtered. "Don't tell me you're buying into all this. I'm not pretending I can save the world just by creating the right seals."

He stopped.

"I mean, that is my ultimate goal.

"But I'm not trying to accomplish it right now!" he hurriedly added on seeing the team's faces. "It's just that I finally have an opportunity to make a really good plan, a plan that'll cover a lot of time and achieve a lot of things with it, and make everything better for us. We need to do this right while we have the time!"

"This is my fault," Mari-sensei said quietly. "I should have caught this much, much earlier. Hazō, there's nothing wrong with having coping mechanisms. Life sucks, and if you don't find a way of shoving the suffering aside for a little while when you can't take any more, then you go crazy and get yourself killed. That's just how it is. Even the Kage have their vices.

"But some coping mechanisms only make things worse. I've been through a hell of a lot of those, so I know where you're coming from, and I'm sorry I didn't notice in time.

"This," she hefted his incomplete masterwork, "this isn't how healthy people relate to the world around them. Even the Mizukage doesn't plan out his every action for the next month, as far as I know. It's not saké, and it's not mindless sex or drugs or self-mutilation or any of the other traditional means of hurting yourself in order to avoid pain, and I guess we should be grateful for that. But it's still dangerous, and I can't believe I didn't realise it sooner."

Hazō didn't like where this was going.

"Please. Please just let me finish this one list. It'll keep us going for the month, and we won't need any more until we've got through it. Just one more list, and then I'll stop."

"I'm sorry, Hazō," Mari-sensei shook her head. "I'm cutting you off. Kagome, I'll need you to collect all the paper and writing implements in the camp."

"You can't do this!" Hazō insisted. "I'm fine! And we need those lists. We need someone to do the detailed planning, so that we have a core structure around which we can discuss and make decisions! We need a means of turning ideas into practical steps towards our goals! We need my lists!"

"No, Hazō," Mari-sensei said. "Not as much as we need you. From now on, and until you're over this, until you find better coping strategies, no writing without supervision. I'm still your team leader, despite everything, and I won't let you destroy your health—physical or mental."

"Don't do this," Hazō begged. "Planning is what I do. It's my place on the team. Without my plans, I might as well not be here…"

"You really are an idiot, Hazō," Noburi said with wry affection. "Who cares about your plans? Are you going to say that I might as well not be here without my endless charm and my ninjutsu? Or that Keiko might as well not be here without her brain the size of a planet?

"I can't believe I'm saying this because it's so sappy, but we're your friends because of who you are, not because of what you do.

"Besides, you have like a zillion ways to contribute to the team. You may have noticed that the rest of us get by when we're not using our specialisations. Scouting. Cooking. Freaking moral support. Clearly you don't have a brain the size of a planet, because apparently you've forgotten that you're a person first and a ninja second.

"And a planner something like tenth," Noburi added almost as an afterthought, "because let's face it, some of those plans…"

"Hazō," Keiko said, "you mistake our purpose if you believe we wish to prevent you from pursuing your particular brand of intellectual activity. Nobody is asking you not to think. That would be preposterous. But your use of lists has outgrown its original purpose as a convenient tool and transformed into a dangerous addiction. We are asking you to cease using lists, and thus create plans that are more sensibly limited in scale, so that you may recalibrate your sense of control over the world around you, and find healthier means of managing it."

"I still think you're wrong," Hazō said after a while. "It feels fine to me, and always has. I hope you realise how ridiculous this is sooner rather than later. And besides, do you realise how inconvenient it's going to be if I can't note down my thoughts in list form?"

"I'm sorry," Mari-sensei said. "But this is for the best."

-o-

Kei shook off the painful memory. She had never been on the giving side of an intervention before. It felt uncomfortable, and wrong, and presumptuous on a scale that beggared belief. Who was she to preach to anyone about dependence?

Setting those thoughts aside, she looked down at the pangolins, and beckoned.

With a grunt, Pantokikku picked up an enormous boulder, perhaps half his own size, and lobbed it straight at her. The speed and size of the approaching missile were terrifying, but Kei was able not to flinch. She had been expecting something of the sort—and she had faced down worse.

With an eerie lack of sound, the boulder bounced off the air dome around her. So did the next. And the one after it. And the ones launched against the rest of the tower for good measure.

When Pantokikku was finally satisfied, the pangolins came together in a huddle, clearly taking advantage of the distance and the air dome's sound-blocking properties to speak without being overheard.

"Mori Keiko," Panteon said when she finished climbing down, "in exchange for ten of your towers, and your word that they will not be offered to any other clan, we are prepared to grant you a new summoning contract."

"And the air dome seals with which I protected myself?"

The pangolins exchanged glances.

"Those will be included in the deal."

Kei gave him a skeptical look. "The towers and the air domes have independent value, and should be assessed independently. In addition to the summoning contract, you will provide me with three pangolin ninjutsu suitable for my use."

Panteon gave her an unreadable look. "The pangolins cannot afford to make excessive sacrifices at a time of war. One ninjutsu."

"The pangolins are always at war," Kei said, trying to keep the amusement out of her voice. "And if I am reading between the lines correctly, the Condor Clan is mobilising, and may even have a summoner at last, in which case it is in your interest to empower your own summoner as much as possible. One ninjutsu, and the contract will be with a ranking military officer."

Kei: Deal-Making vs Panteon: Deal-Making said:
Class B success

Panteon tapped his claws together. "Done. And your argument is compelling. I will recommend that the Office of Morale approve further trades with you automatically."

"You don't smell right," Pansofi hissed as the other three pangolins returned to their duties. "I'll be watching you, 'Summoner'."

What was an irrational incompetent like this doing profaning the noble profession of logistician?

Kei looked sideways at Pandā. "Are all officers of Pangolin Logistics & Supply like this?"

"No," Pandā said. "Pansofi used to be a high-up in Intelligence, but then there was a scandal, and, well…"

"Lies!" Pansofi shrieked. "All lies concocted by enemy infiltrators like you! I never hsshthled with anyone, never mind that Panmikusia! You say it again, and I'll throw you to the driver ants myself!"

She stormed off, tail flailing.

-o-

"I'm sorry," Pandā whimpered. "When they said they were going to have you make a pact with a ranking military officer, I didn't realise they meant him…"

The pangolin in front of her was enormous, even compared to the four she'd met earlier, and extremely round in a way that looked like it had little to do with muscle.

"Ahh," he rumbled, "finally the Summoner comes to pay tribute to Panjandrum, no?"

"Actually," Kei said, "you have been assigned to form a pact with me. I have been instructed to tell you that this is your swiftest path both back into the action and into your superiors' good graces."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Panjandrum gave a deep, long hiss that she thought indicated a belly laugh. "I'm just enjoying some well-earned time off. Only a fool pays attention to rumours and slander, no?"

"Indeed," Kei said, warming to the pangolin slightly. She'd had enough of both at the Academy. "So what exactly are your abilities?"

"Why, have you not heard?" Panjandrum goggled. "I am a master of every military art, from combat to scouting to negotiation. You should feel honoured to be assigned to be my partner."

"Nobody is perfectly well-rounded," Kei said. "Surely you must have some sort of specialisation. What part of the military do you belong to?"

"Trivial details," Panjandrum said quickly. "Not important for true warriors such as you and me, no? Hurry and make the pact with me, and you will not regret it."

Kei had a very bad feeling about this.

-o-

"So," the twitchy, long-clawed pangolin demanded as she examined Kei from every angle with no concern for her personal space, "how many elements you got, Summoner?"

Kei used the power of her will to lock down the squirming. "One."

The pangolin staggered back in exaggerated shock. "A summoner with only one element?!"

Then she recovered. "Ahh, you must have of those Bloodline Limits. What is it? The Storm Element? The Blood Element? The Star Element?"

"It's… Wind," Kei said hesitantly.

"Ahh," the pangolin said. "Ahh, you poor thing. I'm so sorry."

The desire to squirm intensified.

"But don't you worry," the pangolin rallied, "They did the right thing sending you to me. Panpaipu, pleased to meet you. Don't worry, I know lots of Wind ninjutsu, and I'll find a way to make you a great fighter even with your… condition."

"It's perfectly ordinary for a human ninja to only have one element," Kei scowled.

"Yes, dear, I'm sure it is," Panpaipu nodded sympathetically. "Don't worry, it's nothing to be ashamed of. None of us can help the way we're made."

"Do you have any ninjutsu you can teach me or not?"

"Hmm…" Panpaipu paced around Kei a few times. "I have just the Wind technique for a scrawny thing like you. It's great for bringing things to you from long range."

"I can already do that," Kei said exasperatedly. "Zephyr's Reach Technique!"

She reached out and carefully picked up a small rock from among the roots of a nearby tree, then levitated it towards herself until it was in the palm of her hand.

"Ahh, you poor thing," Panpaipu clucked. "Here's how you're supposed to do it. Pangolin's Reach Technique!"

A barely visible line of chakra whipped out from her mouth, wrapped itself around a considerably larger rock, and pulled it into Panpaipu's claws before Kei could take a breath.

"No need to look so surprised. Humans are dexterous but feeble, so it's no wonder your technique is the same. Whereas pangolins are mighty and direct. Your enemy can be the most dexterous in the world, but what's going to happen to her when you take away the weapons and tools she was counting on?"

Yes, Kei wondered. What did happen to somebody when you took away the tools they were counting on?

-o-

Everyone but Keiko has earned 3 XP.

Keiko has earned 3.5 XP.

-o-

Because Hazō was unable to articulate his plan, it has not been carried out except as described above. However, only one day has elapsed.

Stats for the Pangolin's Reach Technique are under development.

The players' OOC planning abilities are not restricted by Hazō's IC circumstances.

-o-

What do you do?

Voting ends on Saturday 4th of March, 9 am New York Time.

eaglejarl · Mar 5, 2017

Chapter 108: Never Split the Party

"Huh," Kozu said.

Marusa Shunichi didn't bother looking up from the issue of Icha Icha that he was reading purely for research purposes into the mind of Leaf's spymaster. "Whatcha got?"

"Some kid just walked into Hashimoto's and asked for med-nin training."

Marusa looked up, one eyebrow raised. He swung his feet off the desk and allowed his chair to come upright from where it had been leaned back on the rear two legs. "What's a med-nin student doing going to Hashimoto's?"

Kozu shook his head, the missing eye and ear giving the motion a macabre lopsidedness. The Kozu bloodline ability to detach their body parts and use them from a distance made the clan second only to the Hyūga when it came to intelligence gathering. Hide an eye and an ear in someone's shop and it was as good as standing there.

"Got me," he said. "Sounds like he studied with her before, and she wasn't real happy about it. She agreed to take him, though. Hand me the kit, I want to get a sketch of these two before they leave."

Marusa snagged the box of writing materials off the desk and tossed it gently to his counterpart. "Two of 'em, huh? Who's the other one?"

Kozu shrugged, his eye and eyesocket locked on the paper as he sketched quickly. "Dunno. Woman, about forty, mole under her left eye. If the kid's a ninja then it's likely she is too, so it's probably a he—" He cut himself off, laughing. "Well, the kid was henged, anyway. Hashimoto just stabbed him with a scalpel and then told him 'stop whining, you needed something to practice on.'" He peeled off the sheet on which he'd finished drawing a fortyish woman and started sketching the image of a short, heavyset boy who was still multiple years from needing to shave. Beside him was an oversized and clearly heavy backpack.

Marusa pushed himself to his feet with a groan, stretching hugely. "Do you think they're affiliated or freelancers?"

"How should I know?" Kozu asked. "They didn't exactly walk in with a big label on them that said 'undercover operative from put-village-name-here'."

"Yeah, yeah, you don't have to be sarcastic. What do you think, flash it back to Mother or wait for more intel?"

"Wait," Kozu said. "The next pickup is in a few days and it's pretty clear the kid is here for weeks. Even if his teacher leaves him, they'll meet up again. Right now we've got pretty much nothing."

"You're the boss. I'm gonna get some noodles. You want anything?"

"Nah, I'm good." He laughed. "Oh, man, she is salty."

Marusa chuckled before letting himself out. Stakeouts were so much easier when you were partnered with a Kozu and could do the watching from three blocks away. For one thing, you didn't need to worry about being spotted when you went out to get lunch.

o-o-o-o

The man known to his agents as 'Mother' sighed as he shuffled through the latest stack of Priority dispatches. The work that he did at this desk was more important than anything he'd done in the field back in his long-gone active service days—he knew, because he told himself that in the mirror every morning. Shuffling papers, tracking the output of mines and lumber mills, the shipments of that output, the amount of food imported into civilian towns and ninja villages, all the tiny details that made up the ebb and flow of the Elemental Nations. That was what actually made a difference, not the assassination or retrieval missions handed out to a then-chūnin who was brilliant at analysis and strategy but only middling at taijutsu, as clearly proven by the kunai wound in his knee that had put him behind the desk permanently.

Field work had been so much more satisfying, though. It was simple, focused, with clear criteria for measuring success. Paperwork...wasn't.

The Priority messages were a prime example of that. Most of them had to do with his ongoing efforts to penetrate the intelligence networks of the other villages, especially Jiraiya's. Counterintelligence was the least simple, least focused, and least clear of all the things 'Mother' dealt with. Jiraiya's network was wide, deep, and mostly focused on minor assets. He recruited chambermaids and acolytes, not nobles or senior priests. Each of his agents had only scraps of information, which meant that compromising any one of them was rarely of significance. Worse, with Hyūga, Nara, and Yamanaka at his disposal the Leaf spymaster could easily vet any agent that he thought might have been turned. Bastard.

Of course, there were a few high-value targets. Targets like Hashimoto, the retired med-nin in Yuni who had finally been positively connected to Jiraiya. She was an arms-length asset, not a true spy—she patched up his agents and reported on any patients who might show up with suspiciously ninja-like injuries, but wasn't called on to do anything outside her own shop. She was carefully firewalled from the rest of Jiraiya's network—she didn't know who any of the people were that she doctored or anything else that Jiraiya had going on, so observing her was far more valuable than attempting to turn her. She also wasn't a frequently-tapped resource and she lived in the middle of a big city, so watching her was something of a plum assignment that could be used as a reward for good work or as a rest for stressed-out or overworked agents.

Unfortunately, anything coming in from stakeouts on an HVT was automatically classified Priority, so every week Mother had to wade through a pile of useless lists of how many people went in and out, how many of those people had been there before, how many traders came by, and on and on. All minutiae, with the occasional nugget of—

His thoughts froze as he got to the picture of Wakahisa Noburi. He quickly skimmed back through the summary before reading the full debrief, making a point to note the name of the stakeout team leader who had made the decision to send this with the regular dispatches instead of as a Flash Priority. Four days delay before the information was dispatched, six more for the civilian caravan to take it through Rice to the relay in Hot Springs, a day to run it to the coast, and then a bad storm that delayed the courier ship for twenty-four precious extra hours. And it would take at least two days, probably three, to get a response team back there even if they left this minute.

"Is Zabuza back yet?" he demanded.

"No, sir," his secretary told him. "He's due in day after tomorrow."

Mother sighed. Clearly, the kami were bored and had decided to take it out on him. Catching the Cold Stone Killers and bringing them in for a nice public trial would cement Mist's presence in Hot Springs and give them the moral high ground. Even better, if they could 'find' evidence that the team had been working for Jiraiya when they caused the incident it would put Fire on the back foot and force them to spend their energy mending fences instead of making progress on whatever their current goals were. That all hinged on being able to mount a response before the targets vanished, though.

Still, if Wakahisa was applying for training he would probably be onsite for several weeks. And it would take a few days for the Document and Supplies team to forge the necessary evidence, so it didn't really matter that Zabuza wasn't available immediately. Speaking of which, he'd need to send a good minder with Zabuza—the swordsman was a great attack dog, but not as good at patience or intelligence-gathering. Catching the kid wasn't enough, they needed the whole team to get the proper effect.

He grabbed a brush and started scribbling notes, humming happily to himself as he worked. There were times when paperwork was way more satisfying than fieldwork.

o-o-o-o

"Thank you for having me," Kei said politely, forcing herself to smile. It was harder than usual; the dish that Pandā had just put in her hands was filled with fried cockroaches that had been split in half lengthwise, scooped out, and then refilled with some kind of mashed-up paste. It was too dark inside Pandā's...house?...burrow?...to tell exactly what the paste might have been made from. The only light came filtering down the entrance tunnel that slanted up to the surface.

"No trouble!" Pandā said, scooping some of the insect dish out of the pan and into his own bowl. He carefully moved the pan off the cookfire before slurping up a tongueful of the cockroaches. "Nice to have you," he said, the words somewhat indistinct because he was still occupied swallowing.

"So..." Kei said, forcing herself to keep a calm expression as she picked up one of the cockroaches. She'd had to eat worse things during the Academy's Hell Week. She bit in and chewed. No, she had not had to eat worse things, ever.

"It's very spicy," she said, trying not to drop the bowl in her haste to grab her drinking gourd and drain it dry.

"Oh, that's not spice," Pandā said helpfully. "That's the ant blood from the formic paste." He sucked on his tongue thoughtfully for a moment, savoring the flavor. "A little weak, actually. Sorry about that; I'll use fresher ones next time, but I've been spending so much time with you guys on the Human Path that I haven't been able to go shopping for a few days."

"It's fine," Kei croaked. She cleared her throat before setting her bowl aside as unobtrusively as possible and wiping her streaming eyes. "Actually, as long as we're here I've been wanting to ask you a few questions about the Seventh Path."

"Sure! What did you want to know?"

"Panteon mentioned that the Pantokrator forbade sealing on the Seventh Path. Why was that?"

"Oh, well, seals are corruptions of the Pantokrator's work, of course," Pandā said. "They distort the fundamental reality that was the Pantokrator's creation and so making them is an abomination in his eyes. Not like jutsu, which work within his creation by reshaping natural energies. Um, not that you guys are abominations or anything."

Kei waved the thought away. "Who is the Pantokrator?"

Pandā blinked. "The creator of the Paths and all that live on them?" he said. "He made the Human Realm and humans first, molding them according to his physical form. Not satisfied with that he went on to create the next five Paths. Finally, he used all that he had learned to make the Seventh Path as his most perfect work, and made the Clans to live there. He made us according to his soul, and of the Clans he made the Pangolin Clan the greatest so that they could act as stewards of the Seventh Path once he departed."

"Wait...the Pantokrator made chakra?" Kei asked. "The Sage of Six Paths gave chakra to the world."

Pandā shrugged. "Sage, Pantokrator...the Duck Clan calls him the Ahiru Master, but it's the Pangolin clan that really preserves his truth, and his true title is Pantokrator."

Kei thought about that. "The Sage lived a thousand years ago," she said carefully.

Pandā nodded. "Yep. My grandfather used to tell me stories about him. Apparently he was a really funny guy when he wanted to be."

Kei thought some more. "Your grandfather...knew the Sage of Six Paths?" she asked carefully.

Pandā puffed out his chest. "Yep! They used to play hshthk-stones every week." He looked sad. "Mom told me that there were sketches of Grandad and the Pantokrator in the archive at the Great Academy. I wish I'd been able to see them."

"You mentioned the Great Academy before. What is it?"

"It's the Great Academy," Pandā said, as though that explained anything. "The greatest center of learning on the Seventh Path, built by the Pantokrator himself and given to all the Clans equally. His works were archived there along with the greatest book collection anywhere. The wisest and most learned of all the Clans taught there, and inter-Clan disputes were arbitrated in its College of Justice. Before the Condors cut us off from it, of course." He fiddled angrily with the dinner pan. "Stupid beakfaces."

"Why would they do that?"

"Their power to soar the skies made them arrogant and conceited, so they forgot the teachings of the Pantokrator," Pandā said. "They attacked the Pangolins because they could not bear to see the ascension of the Pantokrator's true heirs."

"I see," Kei said carefully. These were clearly deep waters and, given the un-examined fervor of Pandā's answers, it seemed wise to change the topic. She scrambled around for something to change it to; her mind stayed stubbornly blank for long seconds before finally coughing up an option. "What about the Tapirs? They are enemies of the Pangolin as well, are they not?"

Pandā nodded. "Yep. They were allies of us and the Condors before the Great Betrayal. When the beakfaces stabbed us in the belly we appealed to the Tapirs for aid, but they chose to stay neutral."

"They didn't actually do anything to harm the Pangolin Clan, then?" Kei asked.

Pandā's mouth gaped open and his tongue flickered in and out. "They stayed neutral," he said. "They were called to honor their commitments to an ally who had been betrayed and they just stood by. That's worse than doing something to us!"

"I see," Kei said. The waters were getting yet deeper, and Pandā was getting more upset. "Um...who are the Clan's allies, then?"

"The Toads," Pandā said. "We have been for a long time now."

Kei wasn't terribly good with people but she also wasn't Hazō so she managed not to say 'Just the Toads? No one else?' Instead, she decided to fall back to something safer. Well, conversationally safer anyway.

She grabbed a firey-pain-hot stuffed cockroach and gulped it down, trying not to chew too much. "These are quite impressive," she said, fighting not to gag. "Did you make them yourself?"

It was about the least smooth topic change in the history of the Seven Paths, but at least it got them away from the subject of religion.

XP AWARD: 80

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, March 8, 2017, at 12pm London time.

Offscreen events:

This update covers 16 days. Tomorrow will be June 23; Hazō's birthday is June 26.

Kagome: Spent the whole time researching Skywalker seals, aka Air Dome that is (de)activated by chakra adhesion. He is not finished, but feels like he's getting closer.

Hazō: Spent the first 7 days training, the next 2 successfully researching the Alarm seal, and the final 7 successfully researching the Tunneler's Friend.

Noburi: Trained his Medical Knowledge up to 10 as well as training Water Clone and Hozuki's Mantle. No, this is not the plan you voted on. He disagreed with your suggestions.

Mari: Scouted around the market, discreetly interviewed a dozen merchants of various kinds. There needs to be more QM discussion about exactly what's available, which is why I'm not showing it onscreen. Suffice to say that you have the information you'll need and there's some interesting options.

Velorien · Mar 9, 2017

Chapter 109: Edge of Destruction
by @Velorien

"What happened to you, Hazō?" Noburi asked, staring aghast at Hazō's weary, staggering form. "You look like you got jumped by ten Zabuzas in the latrine."

"I let Keiko explore my anatomy," Hazō wheezed. "She was very… thorough."

Noburi's eyes narrowed. "You know, if this was a year ago, those would have been your last words."

"I don't know what you mean," Hazō said. "I already feel half-dead after all the time she spent targeting my ligaments with practice shuriken. She wanted me to go through every form of evasion I know so she could test which ones were easiest to go for under which conditions."

"Yeah," Noburi sighed. "I figured it was something like that. I'm starting to get why Akane saw Rock Lee in you."

"Anyway," Hazō chose not to take offence at that inexplicable insult, "Come back to the cave—Kagome-sensei's making dinner, and there's something I want to talk to everyone about."

-o-

"Thank you for the soup, Kagome-sensei," Hazō smiled. "I'm not going to ask what was in it, but it was very good."

"Just something I dug up. It's a kind of many-legged, spiny, maggoty—"

"I'm not going to ask what was in it," Hazō repeated.

"Oh. Sorry."

"But while everyone's here," Hazō swallowed, "there's something I want to talk to you all about."

"I'm sorry, Hazō, but I don't think you're ready to make written lists again," Mari-sensei said. "Not so soon after the Wall Painting Incident."

Hazō winced. One little sequential enumeration, and everyone acted like he was trying to design a city-killer seal.

"No, not that. I think we should leave Iron."

"Leave Iron?" Noburi repeated. "Why? We've got a good setup going here. The camp's comfy, you've got your fancy research facility, Kagome's got his Three Circles of Hell around the perimeter—"

"Three and a Half Circles as of this afternoon," Kagome-sensei chipped in smugly.

"Right. It's a nice site, we've put time and effort into it, we're miles from the nearest terrifying rift into unspeakable hell dimensions full of things wanting to chop us into salad… what's not to like?"

"That's all true," Hazō conceded. "But it's not worth being in Iron for. I mean, there's nothing especially safe about Iron. Back when we first came to Iron," on the trip when they met Akane, "this was an excellent place to be a missing-nin because none of the villages cared what happened here. Now, after the Liberator incident, I'm sure they have to be monitoring it to make sure there isn't any further trouble from any survivors. The only benefit of being here is the reason we came—your training—and it sounds like you've got the important part down now."

Noburi nodded. "Hashimoto may be a whole tribe of oni compressed into one tiny ferocious hag, but she's at least taught me the core principles of research. If I had the time and the materials, I could keep going on my own. Besides, I think she and I are getting on each other's last nerve. She's started making noises about how she wants me to go to the woods and bring her back some black hunter eggs in exchange for advanced training."

"Right!" Hazō said. "There's nothing keeping us here now. And let's face it, we've been to Yuni several times recently. Given that it's one of the biggest towns in the south, every visit risks drawing attention. Even with all our precautions, all it takes is one Mist sensory specialist dropping by, and Captain Zabuza will be knocking on our door the next morning.

"There are plenty of smaller, more remote countries where we can pursue our current plans without being next door to the Elemental Nations. It gives us control over our circumstances, with less risk of being caught in others' crossfire."

Mari-sensei leaned back, her height conveniently just right to avoid bumping her head on the sloping cave wall.

"I suppose it's not the worst idea in the world. I hear the southern islands are heaven this time of year. Warm, sunny, great food, you can swim all you like…"

"Um. Actually, I was thinking Snow."

Mari-sensei sat straight up. "Snow?"

"Now hear me out. It's a very long way from Mist, and from everywhere else people might be looking for us. If you were the Mizukage, would you think of looking for us in Snow? How many ninja would you commit to do it if you did?"

"And what exactly are we going to do in," Mari-sensei shuddered, "Snow? I've just done a bunch of information gathering in Iron. It took time and effort and some classic Inoue Mari ingenuity, and you're telling me you want to throw it all away just so we can go to Snow?"

"That information's still valuable," Hazō said. "If we go to Snow, we'll be able to use our ever-growing combat skills to get plenty of animal furs and skins that you can't get elsewhere, and use those as capital to invest in building relationships with traders.

"I know it's something of a change of pace, but let's face it—every time we've tried to take on a conventional ninja mission, it's ended in disaster, from that yakuza who wanted an escort to the Hot Springs infiltration. I think at this point we can conclude that acting like village ninja isn't going to get us far."

"It's true," Mari-sensei agreed. "Proper ninja missions require leadership and coordination. Those aren't things you can fake just because the situation demands it."

"Still, Snow?" Noburi asked. "I don't even know if my powers will work in Snow, because no Wakahisa has ever been stupid enough to go there. I could be unstoppable over there, or I could be flat-out useless with no unfrozen water to work with. And, I mean, Snow."

"Actually," Kagome-sensei said, "I like it. It's quiet, remote, good for camouflage, easy to hide traps in… not like all the exposed terrain around here."

He looked away. "They say it's very peaceful in Snow…"

"There's a reason for that," Mari-sensei cut in. "It's because nobody sane goes to Snow. It's a brutal, freezing wasteland unfit for human habitation. It's got the only hidden village that's still a true hidden village—because tracking down its location would mean spending time in Snow."

She looked around. "Don't tell me the rest of you are seriously thinking about this."

Hazō turned to Keiko, who had a strange, distant expression on her face.

"They say it is always silent in Snow," she said quietly. "No people. No conflict. There are great mountains of pure ice, perfectly clear, perfectly still, vast beyond imagination. When the wind is still and the snowfall pauses, you can see miles of endless white…"

"Let's do it," Noburi said suddenly a few seconds later. "What the hell, it'll be an adventure."

Hazō's inner Mari-sensei told him it was time to go in for the kill, plotting her physical counterpart's downfall in a twisted act of self-destruction.

"I know we have some projects on the go right now," he said, looking at her, "but my birthday is coming up too, and… I don't like the idea of being too busy to enjoy it. Besides, there's something to be said in exploring new scenery, isn't there? In making new memories instead of… retreading old ones?"

"… Fine," Mari-sensei said curtly. "But when we all die of exposure and my soul gets dragged into the Abyss, I am totally pulling you down with me so I can spend my millennia of torment ruffling your hair."

"Great," Hazō beamed while reflexively tucking his head in. "Then let's see if we can get the camp dismantled tonight so we can make an early start tomorrow."

Kagome-sensei gave him an incredulous look. "Early start tomorrow? Do you realise how long it's going to take me to dismantle my Three and a Half Circles? Never mind breaking down the research fort so the stinkers can't steal our safety protocols."

"We could just leave them," Noburi suggested.

"What, for civilians to stumble into?" Hazō snapped. "No, thank you. I feel bad enough about that rift, and at least that's supposed to go away eventually. I don't want to imagine what would happen to any hunting party that tripped one of Kagome-sensei's arrays."

"Boom! Splat!" Kagome-sensei whispered happily as he put away his soup bowl.

"I guess it doesn't matter," Hazō concluded. "And we'll need to spend a while gathering wood anyway. It's not like we're in any particular hurry."

-o-

The wary hunter-nin stood on the brink of hell and looked a while, pondering his voyage.

It hadn't taken long to track down Inoue's camp for one simple reason: the site was ringed by a concentric aura of utter devastation. Not one single inch within the broad ring had been spared, as if some furious deity of fire had chosen this place to begin its campaign of human extinction. The smell of smoke still hung in the air.

Nothing shocked him anymore, but he was certainly impressed. The sealmaster who had crafted the escape route in Hot Springs was both competent and thorough, and, it seemed, healthily paranoid about having his capabilities revealed.

The demolished structure at the edge of the camp doubtless belonged to the sealmaster as well. It was fortunate that his targets had already revealed their ability to create permanent stone, else he might not have thought to search for the tell-tale shards of granite.

There were few reasons to place such a thing so far from the main site, and given the presence of a skilled sealmaster, a sealcrafting research facility was the most obvious. A facility of stone, established even at a temporary wilderness camp. That a sealmaster of such calibre was performing research for Inoue's force would doubtless bump them up on the Mizukage's priority list.

But the true puzzle, and the one he had yet to solve, was the extraordinary obliteration of the campsite proper. Gaping craters had wiped any and all evidence from the face of the earth, as if Inoue had managed to find the legendary ninjutsu scroll of Madara's Minute Meteors. But assuming that she had not learned how to magically make rocks rain down from the heavens, only to disappear without a trace… The mysterious sealmaster's threat rating rose another notch.

The Cold Stone Killers had a skilled sealmaster creating new seals for them. They had the means to completely obliterate a wide area, and the cunning to do so as a means of information control. And even though his hunter's intuition was certain they had only just departed, their powers of concealment were so great that they had seemingly left no tracks at all upon the soil. If it hadn't been for the conspicuous recent deforestation in the surrounding area, he'd have been left with no clues at all.

The Demon of the Hidden Mist gave a broad, toothy smile. This was going to be even more fun than he had anticipated.

-o-

You have earned 18 XP.

-o-

All unlisted parts of points 1-4 have been successfully completed offscreen.

You have made it to the Snow coast unspotted (as far as you can tell). It is freezing. Mari-sensei is miserable and short-tempered, Noburi won't stop whining, Kagome is being quietly stoic and Keiko is gazing around her in endless wonder, but also shivering quite badly. Nobody has the survival skills needed to navigate this environment.

You are cold, hungry, tired and looking for a suitable place to set up camp in unknown territory before you freeze to death.

A variety of interesting counters have started ticking down.

Hazō's birthday is tomorrow, and he is starting to question whether he'll live to see it.

-o-

What do you do?

Voting closes on Saturday 11th of March, 9 am New York Time.

OliWhail · Mar 12, 2017

Chapter 110: Six Feet Under

"Next time I start agreeing with a Hazou who's been on list withdrawal for weeks," Noburi said in between blowing on his hands, "someone should just put me out of my misery."

"N't 'at b'd," came a muffled reply from the direction of Kagome. The team turned to see a much-bundled version of the sealmaster, suddenly dressed in thick white furs. He reached up to move his scarf down from his face. "What? 'S not that bad. But it'll get worse if we keep standing around on the shore. Gotta get camped up before it gets dark. Don't wanna have to keep henging all night and have your brain melt in the morning."

"Huh," Noburi commented mildly as he applied a cold-weather henge of his own. "Wouldn't have thought of that."

-o-

Mari was worried. Also somewhat annoyed, but she pushed that to the side and tried to focus on feeling worried.

The group had, while occasionally carrying one another to obscure their numbers and laying numerous clone-based false trails at Hazou's insistence, searched their way inland for half an hour. They had ended up between two reasonably sized hills a mile in from the coast, at which point Hazou had asked them to stop so he could explain his idea for a temporary base.

"...and then we can put an extra layer of force walls a little further out on the logs to trap a layer of air if they aren't good enough insulators by themselves, and push smaller logs or bits of wood onto the corners to help stop them up, or maybe furs would work better, and..."

She wasn't sure he'd actually stopped to breathe for a minute or so now. "Hazou," she said gently.

"...yes, Mari-sensei?" he asked, stopping his tirade and looking over at her.

Mari forced herself to take a second to formulate her thoughts into Hazou-speak. "Hazou, while I can't think of any reason your idea won't work in principle, it is much more complicated than it needs to be, it sounds labor-intensive to set up, and it probably has failure modes that aren't obvious, like animals outside the base messing up the support tags or something. What objections do you have to just using MEW?"

"It wouldn't be untraceable," he replied.

"We've had this discussion before, Hazou," Mari replied wearily. "If someone stumbles across our camp while we're there, it doesn't matter if it's traceless, and in any case having things like support tags outside the base makes us more vulnerable. If they find it after we leave, that only tells them we were there. Now that we can pretty much vanish into thin air, they get even less information than they would have before. Unless you already know someone's hunting you, it's almost never worth the extra effort."

"But people are hunting us, Mari-sensei!" Hazou insisted, a note of desperation creeping into his voice. "Zabuza, Yagura, those Hot Spring nin -- there are thousands of people who would kill us without a second thought! We have to be careful! I-- I don't wanna lose anybody else."

Everyone was temporarily stunned by the outburst of emotion. Noburi broke the spell by stepping up and pulling Hazou into a rough hug, ignoring his squwak of protest.

"You haven't lost Akane," Noburi said steadily. "With any luck, you haven't lost your mom either. And you couldn't get rid of the rest of us if you wanted to… though kami knows sometimes it seems like you do!"

Hazou couldn't manage to say anything, and simply returned the embrace. Kagome mumbled something about Savior Syndrome from behind his scarf.

Mari blew out a long sigh. "Okay. Next step. Simple, easily concealed base - we don't have trees to hide behind here. I'm thinking a big, low room that'll get covered with snow quickly."

"I had a different idea for a more permanent shelter, if I could try to explain it...?" Hazou asked hesitantly. When Mari merely quirked an eyebrow, Hazou turned to Keiko. "Would you mind calling up Pandaa?"

…

Scrch. Scrch scrch tck.

"Hrrrrm."

"That doesn't sound positive," commented Keiko.

"It isn't," Pandaa agreed. "I could manage it if you gave me a couple days, but I don't think that's what you guys are going for."

"Admittedly, that wouldn't be ideal," Keiko said, grimacing. "But if you can't do it…"

…

"No. Absolutely not. The great Panjandrum is not a manual laborer," the hulking pangolin said emphatically, crossing his enormous arms and pointing his snout into the air to emphasize the point.

Keiko resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "You can either refuse to help, and have me report to your superiors that you failed a cold-weather survival team exercise, or help, and get some of the cake Kagome is making tomorrow on top of a positive report," she stated flatly.

"...cake?"

Gotcha. Asking around among Pandaa's military buddies had eventually revealed what branch of the military Panjandrum was currently stationed with - the cooks. Apparently, food was the only thing to which he felt motivated to devote his substantial talent. Outwardly, she simply nodded. "I understand it's a recipe he personally modified from the ancient lore of Hidden Leaf's Akimichi clan."

"Pfah. Human recipes. I'd bet you anything it needs a Pangolin's sophisticated touch to be anything special."

"...do you want to help with the baking?"

"Oh well alright, if you insist," Panjandrum answered, and before Keiko could respond he had driven one gigantic claw into the side of the hill and scooped out a mound of icy earth as large as her.

-o-

Near the end of his watch, Hazou heard Mari-sensei getting up to take her turn. He turned away from the entryway to greet her, only to find her already making her way over. She sat down beside him and together they watched for a few quiet minutes as the snow fell gently outside, hiding their tracks.

Without warning, she wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into her side.

"Mari-sensei?"

She glanced back at the others' sleeping forms before focusing on him. "You don't have to prove anything to us."

"Wh-- huh?"

"It's okay, Hazou. You don't have to be intimidated by Noburi graduating his medic apprenticeship, or by Keiko's success with the Pangolins. You're a brilliant young man, and you'll probably end up making more of a difference than any of us. I understand feeling like you need to show the team you can still contribute even when you aren't able to use your lists, but your planning isn't why we want you around. You don't need to drag us to the far-flung corners of the earth to show us how good you are at coming up with ideas. And you certainly don't need to do it to try to convince me I've been a better teacher than I really have. Okay? We already believe in you. I promise."

"Mari-sensei, you've got it all wrong, I wasn--"

"Shh, shh, shh. I'm not mad. I realize some of it is my fault for forcing you to go cold turkey and then leaving you alone with Keiko and Kagome of all people for company. Just know that we all care about you even when you aren't planning out our activities weeks in advance. Now get some sleep."

"...yes, sensei," Hazou acquiesced, his head reeling as he tucked himself into his bedroll and turned his back to the low flames in the center of the chamber. How was he supposed to respond to that?

-o-

The next afternoon, it was discovered that Panjandrum and Kagome-sensei had irreconcilably different ideas about what constituted an excellent -- or even sane -- cake recipe, and after nearly ten minutes of bickering Mari had decreed that Hazou would just have to get two birthday cakes and decide the winner by trying each one himself.

"Rigged!" Panjandrum insisted from the corner where he had positioned himself with the majority of his 'Panjandrum Extra Special Pastry', which he insisted 'had still come in second'. "The judge was biased! Your weird cultural traditions have clearly corrupted him. And I had terrible ingredients to work with!"

"Don't you blame my ingredients, you scaly stinker, you were the one who put flame peppers in a cake!" Kagome nearly yelled.

"And they burned deliciously!" Pandaa countered, coming to his clansman's defense around a mouth full of his slice of spicy confection.

"This discussion seems to be getting back to being rather... heated," Keiko interrupted quietly, prompting a groans from around the room.

-o-

"Present time!" Mari-sensei chirped once everyone had finished eating and Panjandrum had excused himself from the remainder of this 'full-contact anthropology'. She withdrew a small wooden box from a storage seal and tossed it to Hazou. "That one's from Noburi and I."

Hazou examined the box. The lid was cut to resemble a woven basket. The kanji for 'iron' was carved at the very center, surrounded by the shape of a raindrop. The ascending tip of the droplet met the descending tip of the heart shape it was inscribed inside of. In the lobes of the heart rested a stylized sun and snowflake.

Gingerly, Hazou slid the lid off to find a set of gorgeous brushes with polished bamboo handles, laying in velvet next to a pair of inkstones.

"They're beautiful, you guys," he said and then looked up at Mari hopefully.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, fine, I suppose you can use them to make lists. But only with supervision!"

"Score!"

"Tug on the last section of one of the brushes," Noburi suggested, pointing to the handles.

Hazou pulled. The wood came off to reveal a razor-thin blade.

"You made it easier to murder anyone who tries to take his lists away again?" Keiko asked in feigned shock, as she stepped forward with a much larger box.

"Don't pretend he wouldn't use that box as a bludgeon. Let alone whatever's in it," Noburi objected.

Ignoring Noburi, Keiko knelt down next to Hazou. "Pandaa and I worked together on this, so it's from him too."

This box was outwardly simple. Hazou opened the clasps and found his eyebrows climbing up his forehead. Inside were a pair of metal gauntlets cut with a pattern like Pangolin scales. Each had a single solid segment with straps to go around his forearm. The segments for covering the backs of his hands bore kanji reading 'protect' and 'resolve', as well as a series of wickedly curved blades extending out over each knuckle like a Pangolin's claws.

"Ah-he-he-hmmm," Pandaa intoned, standing up. "These are replicas of weapons favored by the previous Pangolin Summoner, Ui Isas. His said 'rip' and 'tear' - we figured these might be somewhat more appropriate for someone as loyal and determined as you." His formal manner deflated somewhat, and he began tapping his claws together. "Um. And happy birthday, Hazou. You're a really cool guy."

"Thank you very much Pandaa. And you too, Keiko. Where did you get them?"

She inclined her head. "You're very welcome Hazou. Pandaa knows several other Pangolins interested in historic recreation and anthropology. They were quite determined to get them done once I insinuated they might not be up to it, like Mari-sensei recommended."

By unspoken agreement, the room settled into a comfortable silence to avoid pressuring a clearly uncomfortable Kagome, who looked to be working himself up to say something.

Eventually, he reached over and made as if to hand a scroll he'd pulled from his pack to Hazou, then reflexively pulled it back, looking down."This. I. Um," he stuttered. Mari laid one hand gently on his shoulder. He took a steadying breath. "I still don't know how you guys found me outside that little village," he began again. "You're still crazy for having wanted to learn Sealing. But if you hadn't convinced me to come with you, I woulda probably been caught up in when the whole country got turned upside down by all those village stinkers. It's… it's been the greatest year of my life, having teammates I can count on to watch my back and not worry whether they're gonna stick a kunai in it. Having people who… who remember my birthday, and want to celebrate it. It's been… a long time, since someone did that. Even longer since it was somebody who did it because they wanted to, and not because they were ordered to be nice to keep a leash on me, or because they were obligated to. And if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have any of this. Thank you, Hazou."

Kagome handed over the scroll. Hazou pulled off the rings keeping the ends rolled up, and noticed they had slots for seals. He nodded at Kagome in silent acknowledgement before unrolling the scroll.

On it was an ink-wash painting of a man and a boy sitting together on a hill under an open sky, the man gesticulating, the boy taking notes. Below the sun was written 'belonging'.

The team has a 4mx4mx3m main chamber dug into the southern side of a hill with a MEW lining, a stockpile of Tunneler's Friends in case of a snow-in or collapse, and furs and sleeping rolls spread everywhere. The entrance, which ended up being larger than Hazou had hoped in order to allow Panjandrum to enter and dig it all out, has been blocked off from the elements by a Force Wall. Your working copy of Usumatsu's Glorious Life-Saving Purifier is attached to the roof, as having Tunneler's Friends constantly active to catch smoke made things much colder. Kagome has made some noises to the effect that he wants to research the Purifier before this one gets full, but that you probably have a little while before that happens.

You spotted a herd of large deer creatures a few miles off on your way in from the coast, and Noburi swears he saw a bear walk by when he was on watch, but you have not gone hunting yet. Hazou spent most of the day reading and got roped into talking over potential research projects with Noburi, as did Keiko. He seems very excited about the idea of examining the effects of repeated exposure to chakra water on smaller creatures and plants.

XP Award: 6

What do you do now? Voting closes Wednesday, March 15, at noon London time.

Velorien · Mar 17, 2017

Chapter 111: What Goes Round…
by @Velorien

Slowly, the smoke cleared. Kei reflexively shifted into defensive stance as she beheld the full scale of the creature. It loomed over her like a living, predatory fortress, its eyes aglow with merciless attention and claws the size of her forearms ready to decapitate her with a single swipe.

Its maw, easily large enough to consume her head, opened wide.

"Why hast thou dared summon the great Panjandrum, puny mortal?"

Kei sighed, sheathed her kunai, and fixed the pangolin with a piercing stare honed to perfection over a year of reining in Hazō and Noburi's shenanigans.

Panjandrum lowered his claws sheepishly.

"Sorry, Summoner. I couldn't resist. Ui didn't appreciate it either."

"You knew Ui?"

Panjandrum's tail awkwardly swept some snow back and forth.

"A trivial matter, of no interest to anybody. So! Summoner! You've called because you finally have a challenge worthy of the great Panjandrum, no? Perhaps this time I can teach your inept minion how to make a hearty salad?"

"Another time, I think," Kei said diplomatically. "As it happens, I was merely curious about your past in the pangolin military. Do you think you could tell me where you served?"

"Where haven't I served?" Panjandrum boomed proudly. "Why, I was a founding member of Panchari's Angels!"

"'Angels'?"

"Legendary unstoppable war machines of the Deva Path," Panjandrum said offhandedly. "Almost as impressive as pangolins."

Kei nodded sceptically. "And what activities did these 'Panchari's Angels' pursue?"

"We were the elite of the elite!" Panjandrum said. "A top secret unit under my command, responsible for most of the great unacknowledged feats of Pangolin Clan derring-do! It was we who stopped the Bear incursion at Big Rock. It was we who negotiated a settlement with the Rat Clan, and who made the Jackal Clan's spymaster weep like a little cub! Yes, those were the days!"

"If they were a top secret unit, how is it that you are telling me of them now?"

Panjandrum's tongue flicked in and out. "Oh, they were disbanded. In the end, none of others could keep up with me, so I was made a solo operative. But at the time, their secrecy was absolute, so if you ask most people now, they will have no idea what you are talking about."

"Hmm," Kei said slowly. "And how did your career path take you from 'the elite of the elite' to being a cook?"

"A cook?" Panjandrum demanded. "Say rather a master chef. As for how, it is the usual story, no? Jealous subordinates, superiors afraid for their positions, lies, rumours and false accusations… so fall all heroes who rise too high.

"But there is no need to look into my recent past too closely," he added quickly. "There is nothing of interest there to a summoner like yourself. Rather, why don't you tell me of your own exploits?"

"I graduated from the Ninja Academy of the Village Hidden in the Mist a year ago," Kei said plainly. "A few months after my graduation I was assigned to a large-scale mission, betrayed by my superiors and forced to flee across the continent after Mist unfairly branded us traitors. We have spent the past year evading hunter-nin while seeking a means of survival."

"A year after graduation?" Panjandrum said. "That doesn't sound like very long at all. How old are you, Summoner?"

"Fourteen years old," Kei said. "I celebrated my birthday earlier this month."

"Fourteen years…" Panjandrum repeated thoughtfully. "Multiply that… round down… carry the four… you mean to say you are a young child?!"

"I am a fully qualified shinobi of Hidden Mist!" Kei snapped. "Or I was. My age is irrelevant to my abilities or accomplishments."

"But… fourteen human years?" Panjandrum said incredulously. "No wonder you are so small. I just thought you weren't eating enough, and that's why they assigned you a pangolin of my culinary talents!"

"My diet is entirely satisfactory," Kei growled. "My height and weight are within acceptable bounds for my age, and my… proportions… are none of your concern!"

"Of course they're not," Panjandrum attempted to placate her after his highly offensive implications. "But still… you mean to say that as a fourteen-year-old child, no, even younger than that, you were cast out of your clan and forced to flee the hunters of your own military?"

"Yes," Kei said testily. "Yes, that is an accurate summary."

Panjandrum fell silent.

"You know," he said eventually, "this weather is very refreshing, but it must be tiring wading through this snow on those small legs of yours, no?"

Kei's eyes narrowed, but Panjandrum's next words took her completely off guard.

"Keiko, would you like me to give you a ride?"

"A… ride?"

"A ride! Come, climb on my back and I'll show you why they call me Iron-Legs Panjandrum!"

Kei looked at him, and at his large, broad shoulders. There were few riding animals in the Water Country, by virtue of its terrain, and in any case such frivolities were inappropriate for shinobi who could run much more swiftly and efficiently than any tame animal.

Besides, this was not Ami giving her a piggy-back ride. This was a virtual stranger, inviting physical contact.

Panjandrum gave her an amused look. "Come on, Keiko, you won't hurt me. Why, I'll hardly notice that tiny body of yours—and even if you use every last bit of your strength, which you will once you see the kind of speed I can reach, I'll barely feel it through my invincible scales. Just pretend you're riding a wheeled supply platform!"

The near-spherical pangolin turned around and leaned low to give her easier access.

After twelve seconds of internal conflict, Kei tentatively touched one of Panjandrum's scales. She instantly flinched back, but Panjandrum didn't appear to so much as notice the contact. She laid a hand on the same scale, waited a little to see if anything happened, then placed her other hand on a different one. Gradually, step by step, she climbed onto Panjandrum's back.

The second she was on top, he accelerated like a kunai being thrown, forcing her to apply urgent chakra adhesion to stay in place. Whatever the truth of his other boasts, Panjandrum's speed had not been exaggerated.

The wind buffeted her face and sent the loose parts of her furs billowing behind her as she clung on for dear life. This… this resembled a piggy-back ride much as a megalodon resembled a goldfish.

"Faster! Go faster!" she shouted over the howling of the arctic gale.

"I thought you'd never ask!" Panjandrum bellowed, snow flying left and right as the ceaseless motion of his claws cleared it from their path. "No mere elements can slow the great Panjandrum! Ho ho ho!"

-o-

"All right, kids," Mari-sensei said grimly, "I've put this off long enough. Do you want the bad news, or the really bad news?"

"What about Keiko?" Hazō asked. "Shouldn't she be here for a team meeting?"

"We can fill her in later," Mari-sensei said. "I just want this over with."

"Sure," Noburi shrugged. "So what's the bad news?"

"According to the merchants in Yuni, Hot Springs has been hiring Mist mercenaries on a large scale for peacekeeping and guard duties to try to restore its reputation after the Cold Stone Killers incident. In other words, Hot Springs is swarming with Mist troops who have local support and no reason to leave. Ever. We've single-handedly given the Mizukage a major new income stream, a solid military foothold on the continent, and the ability to freely deploy troops anywhere north and east of Fire."

In his mind's eye, Hazō saw the straight lines of the Mizukage's will slicing through the entire world, a network of power for those who obeyed and an inescapable net for all traitors. "One day, we will claim the riches of the mainland that have been denied us by the treachery of our ancient foes, and teach the primitives that now inhabit them the joy of perfect, unbending order." And the Mizukage always, always kept his promises.

"Well, crap," Noburi said. "That cancels out all the losses he got from when we ran away and ruined the invasion of Noodle for him, huh."

"And then some," Mari-sensei said. "You remember how rich Hot Springs was. All of that is going to be pouring into Mist's pockets. And once they have bases on the mainland, it's going to take another war to kick them out again. Which we'll probably get soon enough, because the Mizukage holds onto grudges like nobody's business, and now he's got Leaf, Cloud and a bunch of neutral states within arm's reach.

"Plus, now he has double the incentive to hunt us down because restoring Hot Springs's reputation translates directly into more money for Mist's coffers, and deploying hunter-nin to the continent just got a hell of a lot easier. Frankly, at this point we'd better hope the next war rolls round soon so he can have something else to focus on."

Hazō gulped. "So what's the really bad news?"

Mari-sensei glowered.

"We're still in fucking Snow."

-o-

"Hey, Noburi," Hazō said, climbing down into the latest addition to the camp's cave system. "How are you finding your new place?"

Noburi grinned. "It's fantastic. You know, I used to think that you and Kagome were weird for getting excited over your 'sealcrafting research facility' like it was your newborn baby. And don't get me wrong, I still do think you're a pair of weirdos, but I love having my own science lab."

Hazō grinned back. "I know, right? Have you started putting up signs yet?"

"Sure have!" Noburi pointed to a piece of paper stuck on the wall which read Advanced Scientific Laboratory: Trained Medical Professionals Only, and another below it which said No Girls Allowed.

"I'm thinking of getting a couple of those alarm seals to put in here too—not so I can have them switched on, but just because a proper lab needs security systems to protect its top-secret research, y'know?"

Hazō understood completely. "You should get some specialised equipment, too. Like a protective mask, and storage scrolls with hazard symbols on them. I can show you the system Kagome-sensei and I have worked out—we have signs for everything. I don't even know what a memetic hazard is, and Kagome-sensei refuses to explain, but we have a symbol for it anyway.

"Oh, and get some weapons stacked up in the corner, in case your mad science experiments go terribly, terribly wrong and you have to single-handedly save the world from the horrors you've unleashed."

"Gotcha. Hey, this is good stuff."

"Of course it is," said Hazō to his bright-eyed junior in forbidden research. "I've been learning from the best, and now you are too.

"So how are your experiments coming along? Created any new chakra beasts yet?"

Noburi's smile disappeared. "Nothing going." He gestured to a stone slab splattered liberally with blood and viscera. "I've been trying to analyse the chakra coils in those rabbits we caught—gotta say, things went a lot easier once Keiko suggested getting me and a bunch of misterators involved—but not being able to see chakra sucks. I wish I could just borrow Hyūga's eyeballs for this. Hey, maybe I should try and be the guy who finally cracks Bloodline Limit transplantation."

"That sounds… dangerous."

"Yeah. I dread to think of all the things that could go wrong if I tried to stick bits of Hyūga deep inside my body."

Hazō just looked at him.

"I, uh, you know what I meant. It could be dangerous to have Hyūga's fluids intermixing with mine and I'll shut up now and we shall never speak of this again."

Hazō smirked. It was satisfying to watch Noburi be the one tripped up by his own tongue for once. However, after a few seconds of watching Noburi try to get the images out of his head by means of concussion, Hazō took mercy on him.

"How about those chakra water experiments?" he asked, gesturing to the cages in the corner, where a pack of Snow rabbits bared their fangs in terror at his gaze.

"I've been upping the dosage, but they're not responding at all," Noburi happily changed the subject. "I can't tell yet whether this is a dead end, or whether I have to wear down some kind of chakra resistance. Besides, there's not much detail I can get out of their primitive organs. I wish I had some more humanlike animals to work on."

Hazō raised his eyebrows.

"I've been thinking about this hypothetical scenario Yakushi-sensei brought up once," Noburi explained. "He gave me an imaginary ninja with a Bloodline Limit that protected him against disease, so you could save hundreds of lives if you studied him and figured out how it worked. Suppose he was an enemy ninja. Would it be worth sending ten, twenty ninja to capture him if you knew most of them might die in the process?"

Hazō didn't take long to consider. "Of course. You'd be giving up a few lives to help everyone."

"Right. That's what I said too. A no-brainer. We sacrifice dozens of lives for the sake of our villages all the time. But then he asked: what if this Bloodline Limit ninja was one of our own as well? Would it be OK to kill him to find out how his Bloodline Limit worked? And what if you had to kill those other two dozen ninja as part of your research? Would it still be the same?"

Hazō took a little longer to think about this one. "I think… if you're prepared to end entire villages to save the world, then it would be hypocritical to balk at killing a few people to save hundreds."

Noburi blinked. "End the entire what now?"

"Oh, sorry," Hazō said. "I've just been thinking through seal ideas. Uh, don't tell Kagome-sensei. He'd overreact, and it's not like I've tried to prototype anything yet."

Noburi eyed him uneasily. "Riiiight. Anyway, he explained to me how the Hokage refused outright to follow that line of thinking, and how when his most brilliant researcher, Orochimaru of the Three, stood up for human experimentation, the Hokage immediately tried to have him killed."

"Huh," Hazō said. "So Orochimaru became a missing-nin because Leaf turned on him first?"

"Apparently," Noburi said. "Yakushi-sensei told me that, in Leaf, only the properly chosen leader had the right to order their ninja to die, and how it was wrong for Orochimaru to usurp that authority just because he thought advancing human knowledge was more important than protecting the village. He was very clear about how that kind of respect for human life made Leaf the best of all the hidden villages, and how that mattered more than, say, Cloud's huge advancements in understanding how the brain gives orders to the body. But I have to admit... for once I'm not sure Yakushi-sensei was right."

"You realise that in a world where experimenting on Bloodline Limit ninja was OK, you and I would be first on the dissection table?"

"Yeah," Noburi gave a wry smile. "I'm still trying to figure that one out. I mean, we kill people all the time. That's what being a ninja is. Experimenting on them is different. And it's not like you can know in advance that an experiment is going to be worth doing. Imagine effectively torturing somebody, only to find at the end that it was all for nothing."

"I can see that." Then again, when you assassinated people, you didn't know in advance whether it would have the effect you wanted either, and Hazō was under no illusions that it would take a lot of bloodshed to reach his vision of a better world. For every diplomatic idea he could come up with, a dozen weapon designs competed for space in his head.

"I wonder what Mari-sensei would think," Noburi mused.

"You mean Mari-sensei who talks about how horribly cruel she's always been to her targets, and can't seem to decide whether she's proud or ashamed of it?"

Noburi's eyes widened. "I always forget that one time in a million you actually manage to notice something about other people.

"Anyway, point. This is probably one of those things I have to work out for myself. But do me a favour and don't blow up the world until I've had time to come up with an answer, OK?"

Hazō smiled. "No promises. Sealing failures are still a thing, you know.

"But let's forget about ethics for a bit. I've had a bunch of great ideas about weaponising sound that I wanted to run past you…"

-o-

It had been worth every second, Kei decided. Even after Kagome had caught them and spent two hours lecturing them on operational security while forcing them to layer fresh snow to cover the signs of their passage. At least he had not disassembled the snowmen, though he'd insisted that they be moved into the cover of the cave. And after all the exertion, nothing could have been more satisfying than Panjandrum's modification of a traditional pangolin dessert to produce "shaved ice".

Overall, the "ride" had been an excellent training exercise, and one she hoped she would have the opportunity to repeat in some more OPSEC-friendly form. Yes, a training exercise. It would be unreasonable to suggest otherwise. And if Noburi claimed she was bouncing, well, that was only his immature interpretation of her body's natural response to a surfeit of stimulation. And if Hazō agreed with him, that only confirmed her opinions on the perceptual deficiencies of teenage boys.

Regardless, the physical training had left her in good spirits, and also successfully dispelled much of the lethargy she had been feeling since arriving in Snow. The Mori Voice could be heard much more clearly here, and it had been growing more difficult to resist its seductive suggestions regarding comforting blankets of snow, and how easy and pleasant it would be to fall asleep and never wake…

But not today. Today she was feeling energised, and it was time to report to Mari-sensei for her negotiations training. She did not regret her pact with Panjandrum, but next time she faced the pangolins, she would have the expertise to compel a much more even trade.

Mari-sensei, unfortunately, was in a less positive mood.

"Snow!" she exclaimed, stomping back and forth across the cave. "A real leader would have vetoed the idea on the spot! Snow!"

"Mari-sensei?"

Mari-sensei spun around to face her.

"What is it, Keiko?" she demanded.

"We were scheduled for training?" Keiko asked cautiously.

"Yes," Mari-sensei said. "Training. Why don't you go talk to Noburi? He's the only one of us who hasn't had a catastrophic screwup—let him train you!"

Kei shivered. She didn't think she'd ever seen Mari-sensei like this.

"Mari-sensei, is something wrong?"

Mari-sensei spun to face her. "Is something wrong? We're in a frozen deathtrap that makes Iron look comfy and hospitable, and you're asking if something's wrong? I can't step outside without getting snow in my hair, and my mouth, and my eyes, and all sorts of places where snow really, really doesn't belong. And even if I suck it up and try to get some fresh air anyway, I can't take a step without leaving tracks for every ninja in the fucking country to follow! And I let all this happen, when I could've put my foot down and made sure we were relaxing on some sunny tropical beach right now!"

She reached for her kunai pouch, and in one sharp movement threw a kunai at the opposite wall of the cave. It took a chip out of the stone before rebounding to the floor.

"Mari-sensei?" Kei said, now a little frightened.

"I'm sorry, Keiko," Mari-sensei said through gritted teeth. "I'm sorry for getting us all into this."

"You were the one who objected," Kei observed. "It was Hazō's plan, which the rest of us supported."

"That doesn't matter! It's my responsibility to make sure this team does the right thing. I'm the one who has to filter out the dumb suggestions from the good ones, and stop something like this from happening. He thinks all the good decisions cancel out all the bad ones, but look at us. We're going to die here, in this lifeless hellhole, because a leader only has to make one bad decision to get everybody killed. That's why leaders are appointed—out of the best of the best—instead of randomly being chucked in because they're in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Mari-sensei…" Kei repeated for lack of anything better to say.

"Go on, go talk to Noburi. Maybe he should be team leader. Sage knows he's got a better record of good decisions than I do."

It might not have occurred to Kei at any other time. It still felt like blasphemy, like a violation of the fundamental laws that governed this world. But in her present frame of mind, she was able to recognise the thought, to accommodate it and even to accept it as true.

She was seeing Mari-sensei as a child… throwing a tantrum.

It felt like reality itself had twisted around her, like a Mori training cube reconfiguring itself into a new form beneath her fingers, a final, solid click confirming that she'd found the solution. Everything about Mari-sensei recontextualised itself in her mind as, for what may have been the first time in her entire life, Kei understood another human being.

"Mari-sensei," she said with such gentleness as she knew how to put into her voice, "do you remember how we first met?"

Mari-sensei stopped pacing around. "Of course I do. I saw you sitting on the overhang by the edge of the water. Your feet were dangling over it like you didn't care if something came up from the depths and bit them off. I leaned over to tell you to be careful, but when I saw your eyes… it was like there was nothing behind them.

"Why are you…" Mari-sensei winced. "I'm not suicidal, Keiko. I'm sorry if I scared you. I'm just… very, very stressed."

Kei shook her head.

"Mari-sensei, when I learned that I had been sent on a suicide mission, part of me was… relieved. I had spent my life as a drain on the Mori Clan's finite resources—on the village's finite resources—without any value to contribute in return. This assignment was a final statement of the clan's readiness to discard me, and a release from the impossible struggle to satisfy those around me.

"Instead Shikigami-sensei brought me to the Swamp of Death with the others. That group had vastly inferior resources, whereas my value had not changed at all. Arguably, it had even decreased, since I could no longer serve as a member of Sumie-sensei's logistics unit. However, lacking initiative, my only option was to wait patiently until Shikigami-sensei also found the time to discard me, or alternatively until I was killed by a predator.

"Then you saved me. For reasons I could not begin to imagine, you devoted great time, effort and ingenuity to intervening in the spiral of despair in which I had found myself. You persuaded me that there may still have been something in the world that only I could do, and that it would be remiss of me to die without first making a good faith effort to discover it. You showed me hope."

Kei took a deep, slow breath.

"You were perfection itself. The pinnacle of power, insight, and compassion. My guiding star. I fell instantly, deeply, hopelessly in love with you.

"And for that, I apologise."

Mari-sensei looked at her in confusion.

"You… do?"

"Yes," Kei assayed a smile. "Because you never were any of those things, were you?"

"…" Mari-sensei said dazedly.

"I am aware that you have adult issues and circumstances which I in all probability will not live long enough to experience for myself. I do not mean to diminish their significance. However…

"There is a part of you which is like me," Kei went on, half-disbelieving the words even as she said them. "Had I been able to see you clearly, I might have understood this from the beginning, when you quite literally told us that you were in despair and could see no way out except to abandon everything and escape. You accepted the mantle of leader, yet you left it to others—primarily Hazō—to make proposals and develop plans. Exposed to the same conditions as the rest of us, you must have suffered from your own emotional difficulties, yet you have never confided in anyone as far as I know. And as I observed during the Jiraiya incident, and again now, you are quicker than anyone to punish yourself for your perceived mistakes.

"Mari-sensei, did you save me because you saw yourself in me?"

The question struck Mari-sensei like a sledgehammer. She slumped to the floor, opposite the mark she had made on the wall.

"You were supposed to be my absolution," Mari-sensei said so softly it was almost a whisper. "I looked at you and I saw my own twelve-year-old self, and I thought if I could save you the way she hadn't been able to save herself… then maybe I could stop being the person she'd become.

"Spoiler alert: it didn't work. I thought this journey with you kids was my chance to reinvent myself, to stop being the Heartbreaker and become… I don't know what I wanted to become. A responsible adult? Somebody who could look after others? A big sister, or maybe a mother?"

She turned her hands inwards to point at herself.

"But no. I'm still me. You've grown so much, and I haven't. And now," she said bitterly, "you're so grown up that you can see me for what I really am."

Kei sat down next to Mari-sensei, as close as she dared.

"Mari-sensei, I am not condemning you for being like me. I am me, and I have nothing but sympathy for anyone forced to endure the same experience. So if I may… I would like to suggest a coping strategy that has shown itself to be highly efficacious for people who are me."

Mari-sensei raised her head. "What's that?"

"Friends," Kei said simply.

"You should never have had to be our leader, Mari-sensei. It was a mistaken act of kindness on your part, and an unreasonable imposition on ours. Our group does not need a leader. Each of us has an equal part in decisions because each of us equally suffers the consequences. If you can contribute the skills and experience of a jōnin, that is no different to Kagome contributing his extraordinary dedication to security, or Hazō contributing his ability to form a plan of action in the blink of an eye. You are one of us, and you should be able to derive the full benefits of a non-hierarchical relationship with the people who love you, as I have.

"If, now or ever, you need space to be a flailing, helpless girl whose ineptitude and poor decision-making skills cause endless trouble for all around her, I assure you there is a niche set aside in this group for that exact purpose, and that I am willing to share it for as long as you require."

"Keiko…"

"In other words," Kei said with a trace of mischief, "I am grateful for your feelings, Mari-sensei… but I think we should just be friends."

-o-

You have earned 110 XP.

-o-

The team has listened to Hazō's ideas for a skybase with some incredulity, but less so now that they've seen the skytowers in operation. Kagome has ruled that the idea is crazy, unworkable for a hundred blindingly obvious reasons, and in fact the stupidest thing he's heard since the "seal-based mathematical engine" ("But even with the textbook, algebra is hard!"). He then secluded himself in a corner with a stack of paper and an ink brush. Occasionally, you can hear mutters of "Extend the barrier at an oblique angle…" and cackles of "See how you deal with a pit trap three hundred feet up, you stinkers!"

The additional motivation has driven Kagome to complete the airwalker research in record time (coming within 2 points of a sealing failure in his haste).

He has also grudgingly taken the time to finish Usamatsu's Glorious Life-Saving Purifier, and replaced the one in your cave.

Hazō has completed research on the Silence Mine, the Banshee Slayer and the Earbuster. The Earbuster functions at 150 dB. You have produced Banshee Slayer earrings. They are huge and ridiculous because the Banshee Slayer was designed for earmuff size, and you have not yet equipped them because you (the players) need to decide what dB level they need to be set at.

The Silence Mines are of little help at this volume level, and while they do muffle sounds, the overall effect is not powerful enough for significant camp concealment (and too much air goes around them anyway).

Noburi is trying to come up with ideas for weaponised sound experiments as a distraction from his lack of success with his other studies.

The pangolins are busy researching seal activation, as their chakra systems are very different to human ones, and are not interested in further seal trade until they can train soldiers capable of actually using the things.

All training plans have, eventually, been successfully carried out, except that Noburi lacks the Resolve to get to Medical Ninjutsu 13 after the failure of his first independent experiments.

Keiko: Deal-Making vs Pangolin Junior Logistics Rep: Deal-Making said:
47 = Class B victory

With the aid of her recent training and the blessing of the Office of Morale, Keiko has been able to secure a new deal with the pangolins. In exchange for a weekly supply of one ton of ice, you have been given permission to make a pact with Paneru the Military Engineer as soon as she completes her current (classified) project.

-o-

Additional note: I (Velorien) have just set up a Patreon here. If you enjoy my writing, please feel free to check it out, and if you have any suggestions for improvement, I would greatly welcome them.

-o-

A month has passed since the last update.

What do you do?

Voting closes on Saturday 18th of March, 9 am New York Time.

eaglejarl · Mar 20, 2017

Chapter 112: Who's Paranoid NOW, huh?!

"So..." Hazō said, stirring his soup carefully. "Kagome-sensei finished the airwalker seals and I'm done with my projects. I was wondering if, uh, maybe we should—"

"YES!" Mari-sensei shouted, leaping to her feet with fists upraised. "FREEDOM! Escape from this godsawful fucking hellhole!" She paused, looking at him in concern. "That was what you were going to say, right? 'I was wondering if maybe we should all take off and go somewhere civilized that isn't fucking Snow'? Right?"

"...yes?"

"Pack your bags, kids! We are out of here!" The jōnin vanished behind the curtain around her sleeping area; Hazō was pretty sure that he was only imagining the sound of a small implosion as air rushed into the space where his teacher had been.

"Actually, sensei? I was thinking—"

"Less thinking, more packing!" came the shouted reply.

"I think Noburi should get to decide where we go!" Hazō called.

"I should?" the stout genin said, blinking. "Yes! You're right, I totally should." His eyes flicked side-to-side nervously as he tried to figure out why he should get to choose.

The curtain to Mari-sensei's sleeping area flipped back and their teacher's head appeared. "Noburi, repeat after me," she told him in a voice the sweetness of which utterly failed to disguise the underlying threat. "'The southern isles sound lovely.'"

"Uh...."

"No, no. 'The southern isles sound lovely.'"

"The southern isles sound lovely?"

"'We should go there right now.'"

"We should go there right now."

"Great idea! Start packing, everyone!" The curtain was released to sway back into place, concealing her from sight again but doing nothing to muffle the sounds of clothes and equipment being slurped into storage scrolls one after another.

"Sensei, it's not that simple!" Hazō called, a frantic note edging into his voice. "It's not safe!"

There was a pause and then Mari-sensei came out from behind the curtain to stand over Hazō, doing a credible job of looming despite her lack of stature.

"Explain. Quickly."

Hazō gulped. "Well, if we're going anywhere we should use the skywalker seals so that we don't leave tracks, but we really should do some serious stress-testing on them before using them for a long trip, so—"

Hazō stumbled to a halt in mid-word as Mari-sensei spun away to loom over Kagome-sensei. "I thought you said you were done?" Despite the thorough weatherproofing on the team's shelter the chill of winter suddenly hung in the air.

"I am!" Kagome-sensei said quickly, eyes wide. "I mean, I can produce them every time and infuse them safely enough and they probably won't blow up or melt down or rip the fabric of—"

"Then what's the problem?"

"Well, I mean...um...."

"Sensei, we haven't done any stress-testing," Hazō said. "We should test if they have a limited number of activations, or if they stop working after a certain amount of time, or whatever. And when they fail do they fail all at once and drop you straight down, or do they lose strength or what. How high up do we have to be to be invisible from the ground? How—"

"Fine, I get it," Mari-sensei grumbled. "Yes, being dumped in the freezing ocean from a gajillion feet up would be even worse than being stuck in fucking Snow for another day." Pause. "Well, probably. Go do your testing."

Hazō looked down the ramp to where the moonlight was trickling in through the snow-swirls that butted up against the Force Wall in the entrance. "Now?"

"Y—" Mari-sensei looked down the ramp and grimaced. "Fine, in the morning. I'm going to bed." She turned and in no way stomped into her sleeping area.

Silence hung in the air for a moment before Noburi cautiously asked, "Is this actually a good idea? If these seals are so new, is it really wise to be taking them on a long trip right out of the gate? I mean, the southern isles are...what? A thousand miles away?"

"More like seven to eight hundred," Keiko said pedantically. "As the chakra eagle flies, anyway."

"Excuse me, Keiko, I think you mean 'as the Team Uplift ninja runs'," Hazō said mock-seriously.

"Hey, we're Team Wakahisa, remember?" Noburi said with a grin. "If I'm choosing where we're going then I think it's only fair that my leadership position be properly recognized."

"I'm sure you do," Hazō said dryly.

"In seriousness," Noburi said, lowering his voice and glancing nervously towards Mari-sensei's sleeping area. "Do we really want to do this? I mean, Hazō and Kagome have their sealing lab, I've got my med lab, Keiko has room to...practice enhanced tactical maneuvering with her oversized pangolin friend, and we're about as safe as we've ever been. Would sticking around be such a bad idea?"

"Of course it would! It's fucking Snow!" Mari-sensei called from behind her curtain. Noburi and Hazō both jumped and cast guilty looks in her direction. Keiko merely snorted in quiet amusement.

"We can rebuild," Kagome-sensei said, not looking up from the tiny seal that he was carefully inscribing with a fine-point brush. "We'll break down the defenses before we go, have that stuck-up faker collapse the shelter and tear up the earth berms. Next decent blizzard will bury all of it and we'll be golden. If anyone comes along before then all they'll see is that the ground is torn up. The granite from all the MEWs doesn't fit the local geology so if they happen to be familiar with the jutsu then they can figure out that someone who knew it was here. That's not so bad." He paused to dip the brush, turning the seal slightly to better catch the lantern's light.

"Good," Hazō said. "In that case—"

"Worst case is that they after they figure out someone with MEW was here they connect it to the mess in Hot Springs and decide it was the Cold Stone Killers," Kagome continued, running obliviously over Hazō. "Then someone reports us being in the islands and they match the timelines together, notice that there were no border-crossing events or traces and figure out that we have something that allows us to fly, which is probably a seal because we have two sealsmiths in the group. Then they'll ask themselves what it might be and they'll realize that we came up with it just a couple months after Jiraiya-stinker gave us those seals, so they'll realize that it's probably based off the Air Dome seal. Then they'll realize that hey, Air Domes are immobile and solid so if you made one really small and put it upside down under your shoes and made it so you could activate it with chakra adhesion then you could have a platform to stand on in mid-air, or a series of them to walk on. And then they'll reverse engineer it and decide that it's such an effective first-strike weapon that they kick off World War Four before the secret gets out. They'll use high-altitude bombing to wipe out whichever of the major villages is their biggest enemy but they'll get caught doing it and the other majors will jump in. They'll try to crush whoever kicked it off, so they'll need to pull out their jinchūriki, so the others will too, as well as deploying the lupchanzen-ninja hordes. The minors won't want to get caught in the mess so they'll try some distraction hit-and-runs, blowing up high-value soft targets like production centers so that the majors have to stop fighting each other to defend their back lines."

He paused, head cocked in thought (and brush carefully held away from the paper) for several long seconds before nodding in satisfaction. "Yeah, I doubt there'll be more than twenty, maybe twenty-five percent casualties. Should be able to rebuild just fine." He bent back to his seal.

"..." said everyone.

"Well...uh...in that case—" Hazō began.

"Oh! Unless all the dead bodies attract plague," Kagome interrupted. "That would probably bump the total up to fifty, maybe sixty percent dead. That'd probably be the end of civilization for a few hundred years."

"Uh...."

Kagome looked up at the stunned expressions around him. "Don't worry," he said reassuringly, "I'm sure there'll be a blizzard along in a couple days."

o-o-o-o

"Sensei, I think this is probably enough," Hazō panted, starting on his four hundred and thirty-seventh skywalker-testing lap around their test field. He'd been running the same quarter-mile circle, the same two feet above the snow, for almost six hours now without a pause except when his seals cut out and dumped him in the snow. Periodically Noburi would hand him a cup of chakra water or some dried jerky; this had pros and cons. On the one hand, the chakra infusion let him keep the pace. On the other hand, he had to pee so bad. Still, he wasn't dumb enough to slow down; the last time he'd tried, one pale arm had emerged from the massive pile of furs under which Mari-sensei laired and hurled a kunai at his head.

"Yeah, you're right," Mari-sensei said.

"Oh, thank the kami," Hazō said, dropping from a lope to a walk and preparing to step down to ground level.

"Yep, no reason to keep doing this low-altitude testing," Mari-sensei said cheerfully. "Up you go! Five hundred feet should be good."

o-o-o-o

After two days of merciless testing, Hazō and Kagome both agreed that they knew as much about the parameters of the skywalker seals as they were going to absent real field use. The results weren't all that they would have liked, but they were vastly better than nothing.

The progenitor Air Dome seals lasted twenty minutes. Their progeny, the skywalkers, lasted about fifteen, with a sharp emphasis on 'about'. They had tested one set that lasted twenty-four minutes and one that lasted eleven. Fortunately, the seal could be drawn small enough that it was possible to fit two pairs on the bottom of a sandal and there was a momentary stutter right before the seal failed that gave just enough time to activate the other pair. Hazō had spent a lot of time digging himself out of snowbanks before they worked out the two-seal solution.

The first day of traveling by skywalker had been...challenging. They had roped themselves together and run up into the sky, leaving the flattened wreckage of their base behind. Mari-sensei had demanded that they keep going up until they were above the (fortunately, low-lying) cloud layer. She had insisted that it was for operational security, but Hazō noticed that her breathing got a lot smoother and her face got some color back once the far-off ground was out of sight behind a layer of fluffy white.

Things were progressing well when Keiko's left-foot seals cut out, instantly and without warning, just as she was stepping on them. Fortunately, Hazō and Noburi, her rope-buddies, caught her before she'd dropped more than a couple feet. The group immediately paused and deployed a skytower to rest on. With a solid platform under them and an Air Dome over them the team was able to sit and figure out what had happened.

The skywalker seals were, like almost all seals, drawn on paper. The paper was glued to the bottom of their shoes, and two hours of running through the upper layer of a cloud had moistened the paper enough that it crinkled and spoiled the seal. Everyone immediately flipped their own shoes up to find that their seals were also showing signs of water damage; Keiko's had simply failed first.

Shaken, Mari-sensei had declared an end to the day's travels, so they ate and bedded down for the night. (Everyone did their best to ignore Kagome's cackling cries of 'Bombs away!' when he visited the duty plank.) They took care to tie themselves to the tower's superstructure just in case.

o-o-o-o

Hazō was snuggled deep in his bedroll, warm except for the chilled spot on his face where his nose stuck out. In his dream he was back at home, at the breakfast table with momma and poppa. Poppa had just thrown a grape at momma; she had caught it in her teeth and spat it back and him and both of them were laughing. He was just opening his mouth to tell them how much he loved them and missed them when the dream was torn apart by explosions.

He surged out of the bedroll, flipping the rope off and spinning into a crouch as he scanned for the threat.

"Die, die, die and die some more and take your stinking lupchanzen with you!" Kagome-sensei screamed, hurling explosive-tagged wooden disks into the clouds with both hands. Hazō followed the line of the attacks just in time to see something long, sleek, be-tentacled, and the size of an oxcart vanish into the cloud.

He blinked and knuckled his eyes. "Was that a...." He trailed off; the idea was too preposterous.

"Sky squid, yeah," Kagome-sensei said. "Just a little one, though. And it didn't drop any lupchanzen, so we should be okay."

"'Run through the skies', he said," Mari-sensei grumbled, climbing back into her bedroll. "'We'll be safe above the clouds', he said. 'Nothing to worry about', he said. It is too early for this." She flipped the blankets over her head and within moments her breathing had dropped back into the steady rhythm of sleep.

XP AWARD: 12

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, March 22, 2017, at 12pm London time.

Author's Notes and Other Stuff:

Hazō has no reason to believe that ultrasonic sound is a thing, much less know that it would cut. You need to find a justification before he will work on vibroscalpels.
You talked to the team about making a plan to make plans to make a deal while understanding that the plan you were planning might need some revisions before it became a final plan. The rest of the team responded. There wasn't time in my day to write this, but I'll get you a summary tomorrow after the QMs figure out what was said.
This update covers a period of 4 days. The XP award is as low as it is because the bulk of the plan was (a) 'make a plan to make a plan' and (b) involved asking the rest of the team a bunch of things that have already been discussed. It's as high as it is because the plan was well thought out and would have been a major driver for the plot.
You are currently halfway between the southern tip of Snow and the 'i' in 'Aisu Bay'.

OliWhail · Mar 24, 2017

Chapter 113: What Goes Up Must Come Down

Despite Mari-sensei's casual approach to the situation, Hazou couldn't bring himself to just go back to sleep. "...sensei, don't take this the wrong way, but exactly how close did that thing get?" He asked cautiously.

"Hmm?" Kagome responded absentmindedly, refilling his pouches with explosive discs.

Steeling himself, Hazou pressed on. "Sensei, how can we check whether one of us got… lupchanzed… before you drove that thing off?" Horror dawned at the back of his mind as he realized what it would mean if Kagome were to have been infected.

The older man whirled on him instantly, eyes wide. Before Hazou could react, Kagome started shouting excitedly. "Finally! Finally, someone who doesn't tell me I'm crazy and takes things seriously! You'd look in my orifices, of course. See if there's any slime, or chew marks, or blood pouring out of the hole as it ate its way to my brain to puppet me like a stinking meat suit. Or you could just notice how I haven't started running or blown you up or attacked you with my poison stink-breath for asking that. Well, I mean, I suppose if it was a SMART lupchanz it might be saying this to keep you off-balance. But it isn't. Because there isn't one in me." He nodded in satisfaction.

"The next person to say a single damned word gets to find out how easy it is to use skywalkers without legs," came a growl from Mari-sensei's bedroll.

-o-

"Hazou? Hazou!"

"Mmmr. Grm. Agh. Whaaaat? G'way squid, don' wan' none lupchanzen…." he grumbled, trying to roll over.

"Shh." It was Keiko. "Just... just look."

Hazou pried one eye open. She was gesturing off to the east. He looked. The clouds lining the bottom of the sky were painted a ferocious red, and as they watched, a wave of light swept over the land below them as the sun crept just above the horizon.

"It's so-- so--" Keiko stopped, completely lost for words.

"Yeah," Hazou agreed, "I understand completely." They shared a few more seconds of reverent silence before he gestured at the still-sleeping forms of the rest of the team. "Think they'd want to see?"

-o-

They had set up sky-camp at sunset on their third day out of Snow, and Kagome-sensei had finally lost it.

"Hehe. Heheheee hehehehe. HeeeeehehehehehehahaaaaAAA!"

"Kagome, stop that, you're scaring the young folks," Mari-sensei admonished. "Which, for the record, includes me. You sound like Hazou during a sealing idea brainstorm. What's up?"

"That's Leaf!" he answered, gesticulating off to one side of the platform. In the distance, Hazou could just barely make out what looked like a candlelight against the darkness of the forest. "We could go spit on 'em if we wanted, and they'd be none the wiser!"

"None the wiser? I'd let Yagura set me up on a blind date before I'd bet against Jiraiya having skytowers set up over Leaf 24/7 at this point. I'm honestly a little relieved we didn't see any of them coming over the border."

"Probably trying to keep 'em as quiet as he can, that sneaky stinker. Try to steal my apprentice's seals, huh? Look how far that got you, Toad-stinker! Kurosawa of the Ten-Thousand Face-On-Fire-Stupid Seal Ideas kicked your swampy butt!" Kagome yelled into the wind.

"Speaking of skytowers, sensei," interjected Keiko. "It might be prudent to avoid being within line of sight once it's light."

Mari-sensei sighed. "Right as usual. Unfortunately. Okay, that means no third watch. Hazou and Kagome, you're on first and second for that racket last night."

Hazou felt oddly fine with that. He didn't think he'd have been able to get to sleep quickly regardless, busy as he was wondering whether any of the light from below was coming out of Akane's window.

-o-

?, Awareness: ?d100 = ?

Team, Stealth Circumstances (you're in midair, better hope they don't look up): ?d100 = ?

-o-

Four days post-squid, the team finally decided they were far enough south of the Wind-Tea-Sea shipping lanes that they could afford to descend and take up residence on one of the hundreds of nameless islands that dotted the Nanmen Sea.

If he was being honest, Hazou found it a little bit nerve wracking to only be able to see for a couple miles at most in any given direction, but everybody was eager to spend an evening beside a fire again. Not to mention the opportunity for proper baths, the lack of which had been increasingly problematic as the trip wore on and the genin rotated between running along and being carried.

Once Kagome had just finished putting up preliminary defenses around their humble fortress and everyone had freshened up, Mari-sensei called everyone out onto the beach in front of a roaring bonfire.

"A year ago today," she began, "we were running for our lives, beat to shit and dragging a Leaf-missing nin we weren't totally sure we could trust along with us."

"I was sure!" Hazou interjected.

"Love is blind," she said, waving him off absentmindedly. "Point is, we were pretty bad off, and to get fixed up, we got dragged to a petty, sadistic, snaggle-toothed hag who hasn't so much as giggled for longer than all of us have been on this earth combined. And tonight, we are celebrating the man whose skills mean that we will never have to speak to that deeply unpleasant woman ever again!"

Noburi stood and gave several overdramatic bows while the team cheered and clapped.

"Noburi," Mari-sensei continued, "I thought, now that you've graduated your apprenticeship and are therefore officially a man, it would be only fitting to pass on to you the wisdom of one of the greats."

She handed him what was clearly a book, wrapped in decorative paper Hazou remembered from Leaf's bookstore. Noburi unwrapped it with gusto. By the firelight, Hazou could make out the title: "The Great Sage Jiraiya's 101 Seduction 'Just the Tips'".

Noburi looked askance at Mari-sensei. "I hope you haven't disqualified yourself from any more betting pools."

"Who, me? Never," she said, grinning.

Noburi glanced suspiciously back at the book and froze. "...with detailed annotations on anatomical plausibility, pro tips, useful guidelines etc. by Inoue Mari?"

Hazou and Mari-sensei promptly lost their composure entirely. Keiko was staring at the tome in horrified fascination, and Kagome was busily looking at everything except the book.

"Op- op- open it ahahahaha," Mari-sensei managed to get out.

Obediently, Noburi opened the front cover and then visibly restrained himself from throwing his first birthday gift into the sand. He turned it so everyone could see. "She made it into a box. It's a scalpel kit. A damn nice one from the look of it, but I'm not sure if I should be relieved or disappointed."

"Disappointed, for sure," Mari-sensei said, wiping away a tear before making a lightning-fast dash behind Noburi to wrap him up in a reverse bear-hug. "Don't worry, I promise to get you a copy to make up for it next time we're in Leaf."

"Still don't see why anybody'd want to hang around those sneaking cheating stinkers any longer than they had to," Kagome grumbled. "Speaking of sneaking, I've got something too." From behind his log he pulled a thin, single-strap, almost tube-shaped leather pack with a double set of strings at its neck. "Waterproof, double layered for padding. Extra ties at the top? Close, tie, fold over, tie again, nothing getting out." He pointed to the back. "Extra pocket, already got a bunch of misterators in there for replenishing the supply. Next time you need to go sneaking through some stinking clan-nin's territory, you fill it with water, slip it under your shirt, don't need to carry the barrel and get recognized." He waved a finger admonishingly. "Only half full. Squishy, so you can roll if you need to, eh?"

Noburi took it and marvelled at the craftsmanship for a moment before raising a skeptical eyebrow at Kagome for a long second.

"Oh, and the strap is lined with directional explosives on the inside," the sealmaster added as an afterthought.

"Thaaat's what I was waiting for," Noburi said, laughing. "For a second I was worried a lupchanz really had gotten you!"

Thankfully, before that remark could sink in, Keiko stepped up, with another book. This one was smaller, and roughly bound in leather similar to Kagome's water pouch.

"Noburi, I understand that, at least before finishing your training with Hashimoto, your research efforts were stymied by unfamiliarity with the methods involved. In an attempt to remedy that, I have assembled a summary of certain advanced mathematics known to the Mori which deal with methods of estimating the impact of interventions and new practices. Despite my best efforts, I can think of no way that sharing it with you might plausibly lead to the destruction of the Mori, and so I hope it will serve as readily as a research aid as it did in managing economic enterprises."

"So what you're saying is, I'm forbidden from teaching any of this to Hazou?" Noburi asked.

"That is precisely what I'm saying."

"Hey!" objected Hazou. "I'm not so sure I want to give you my gift now!"

"Wait, you have one?" Noburi asked. "I kind of assumed you were just going to do dogeza and apologize for having been so busy with trivialities like revolutionizing ninja combat and giving us the power of flight."

"Hey, who did all the real work for that, huh?" Kagome butted in. "Unappreciative stinkers. Think you don't have to respect your elders anymore just because you're fourteen whole years old?"

"You're right of course, sensei," Hazou admitted, "but you're right too, Noburi, I have been kind of obsessed with my own projects. Which kind of makes this an even better fit, symbolically, as a to try to express how much I appreciate you, as a teammate and a friend. And so..." He produced a roll of paper with a flourish, and handed it over.

"Is this just going to be a list of reasons I'm awesome?" Noburi asked, unrolling it, before beginning to read off the beautiful calligraphy. "This certificate hereby confers upon Wakahisa Noburi the titles of Chief Medic-Nin and Chief Mad Scientist of Team Uplift, and entitles him to the direction over a sealing research project of his personal choice and interest, conducted by the soon-to-be legendary sealmaster Kurosawa Hazou, subject to the veto of the hopefully-never-famous-for-opsec-reasons sealmaster Kagome. So mote it be." He looked up at Hazou. "I get a sealing minion?"

"You get a sealing minion, Chief Scientist Wakahisa."

"That's Chief Mad Scientist to you, minion!" Noburi cackled.

"And now that you've all had your birthdays," chimed Mari-sensei "I can finally justify bringing out this!"

Somehow, she had managed to unseal and fill a quintet of sake saucers without anyone noticing.

"Noburi, a toast?" Mari-sensei urged, handing them out.

He chewed his lip contemplatively before looking over to Hazou and raising his. "To a world where everyone gets to see the sunrise."

XP Award: 15

Tomorrow in-story is August 6.

You have established a small fort on an island so small it does not even show up on the map, a little bit north of the second N in Namen Ocean on the map.

It was determined that the genin will need significantly better skill with henge to be able to pull off mullti-person henge-carrying over any kind of distance.

The life-saving purifier does not remove water vapor from the atmosphere.

Statistics information:

Hazou's Pangolin Claws grant him +3 dice in Taijutsu.
Skywalkers grant you the following bonuses:
- +20 dice to TacMov for disengaging, +5 for closing distance.
- +15 dice to Stealth if using them at ground level
- Immunity to tracking except by watching you every step of the way. You can still be spotted by someone with line of sight to you at a given moment, but distance, cover, darkness, luck, etc. can help you avoid this.

Numerical bonus cannot exceed your current level in a skill (e.g. if you had TacMov 15, skywalkers would give you only +15 to disengage).

What do you do now? Voting ends tomorrow at midnight New York time, in around 21 hours.

(AN: So, after already having written a bunch stuff, I looked at the map, and looked at the timeline, and realized you guys were only barely going to arrive in time for Noburi's birthday, and had to figure out how to adapt. Sorry it took so long.)

OliWhail · Mar 27, 2017

Chapter 114: Resolution

"Mari-sensei, when I talked to you about this before, you thought we might be able to get Leaf citizenship. What about taking it a step farther, and founding a clan?" Hazou asked. "Like you talked about when you pranked me back in Leaf, only serious this time? The innovations and discoveries we make could be protected as clan secrets."

Hoping to finally settle the matter, he had very carefully broached the subject only after everyone was stuffed with Kagome-sensei's spicy seafood stew, and would therefore be disinclined to flee.

It was Noburi who answered. "Leaf's current clans would probably fight tooth and nail against having outsiders added to them, especially a group that isn't actually related by blood. At least, that's what I expect my family would do if a group showed up in Mist requesting clanship."

Keiko nodded in agreement. "That fits my own model of the situation. I expect this is something you were not really exposed to because of your separation from the Kurosawa at large, Hazou, but anything that risked permitting the power of the clans to influence the Kage to be diluted would be viciously opposed."

Hazou grimaced. "You're probably right, but if we can't argue for keeping our secrets in a way that makes it politically inconvenient to take them from us… they probably will be taken."

Mari-sensei shook her head. "Protections for non-clan nin are weaker since you can't just wiggle your fingers and say 'clan secrets, ooooooh', but nobody will be happy with their village trampling on people they've promised to protect."

"What about temporary clanship, until we can, er, get our own established?"

"That would just dilute the idea of 'clanship' even further," pointed out Noburi.

"Point," Hazou admitted dejectedly. "Okay, so citizenship probably on the table, clanship almost definitely not. I want my mom out of Mist as part of the deal. Ideally before any kind of war breaks out, but maybe once it does Jiraiya will be less reluctant, and there may be opportunities to extract her from field ops. What would you guys want from the deal?"

"How much weight is on our side of the scale to begin with? What are we bargaining with?" asked Keiko.

Hazou began enumerating items on his fingers. "Skywalkers, eventual bloodlines, another summoning scroll, three near-chuunin, a medic, a logistics expert, an infiltration expert, two sealmasters, upgraded macerators, banshees--"

"If you don't think the Toad-stinker has louder versions of that alarm seal, I don't know that anything I've been trying to cram into that head of yours this whole year has made it through," interjected Kagome, his sudden break from silence catching everyone off-guard. "He said he fought a whole clan of sound-stinkers, and you don't think he thought of sound-based weapons?" He looked up from his carving -- some kind of flower, Hazou thought. "That'd be a million times dumber than not thinking of skywalkers or skytowers."

Hazou sighed. "That's probably a fair point. Okay, drop banshees. Add future innovations, obviously. That'll probably be a big part of the draw of getting us on-board. Add our ability to influence Isan, combining Mari-sensei's understanding of their politics with Keiko's status as the Pangolin Summoner."

"We still have no idea how significant our influence on Isan will be," pointed out Mari-sensei. "For all we know there's been a conservative coup and we'll be attacked on sight to try to steal the scroll back. I'd hold off on listing that in either column until we get more information somehow."

Mentally, Hazou crossed off the suggestion to officially join Isan and work to take control of its politics.

"In any case," Mari-sensei continued, "add a little bit of outdated tactical and security information from an ex-jounin of Mist, though I'd feel pretty awful about increasing the chances that all my former comrades will end up dead."

"Speaking of people we like dying, regardless of whether we decide on being Leaf citizens, I would really like to try to find a way to keep my immediate family out of Leaf's bullseye if war does break out," Noburi said, "but I have no idea how to even begin bargaining for that."

"I feel similarly," added Keiko. "The closest thing that comes to mind is helping swing the scales toward a swift and overwhelming Leaf victory rather than a protracted war, and thereby reducing the chance that our loved ones become casualties."

"I don't wanna add jack to the deal. I don't want any deal with stinkin' murderin' cheating Leaf stinkers," Kagome spat, cutting a particularly vicious wedge of wood from his creation. "At least not until we start running low on paper and want to go clean them out again. Give them some tiny improvement to the macerator in exchange, keep all the good stuff for ourselves."

"Keep them for ourselves? How?" Keiko asked. "Unless we feel like sending Mari-sensei into the village by herself to negotiate, the rest of us are inevitably going to give away information. Unless we completely break from Leaf, the truth will eventually come out."

Kagome's face soured. "Then let's do that. Disappear into the wilderness until we can emerge and tell all the village stinkers to stop being idiots. Maybe pick some towns to protect, if you're feeling especially do-goody."

"I don't know if I'd be okay with doing that," said Noburi. "As appealing as the idea of just living on a beach training to be super-badasses sounds, it means we can't affect anything if a war comes. And it probably loses us a lot of goodwill with Leaf and the Pangolins, plus whatever influence we might have had over what happens with Isan. Whatever we do, I think it needs to be active."

"What would it look like to be active without fully joining Leaf, though?" asked Hazou. "Being deployed as deniable assets by Jiraiya? Swooping in to try and protect random civilian settlements?"

Noburi grimaced. "Yeah, neither of those sound especially appealing. Especially since we might end up in combat with people we know."

"Joining Leaf as citizens would not avoid front-line deployment," Keiko stated, "and as I said last time, we would be unable to refuse those orders. They would likely keep Hazou and Kagome under heavy guard to ensure they could continue to perform research, but the rest of us…."

"Surely that depends on what exactly we manage to negotiate from them, right?" Hazou asked. "If they value Kagome and me staying reasonably happy and stable, they'll need to keep you guys safe."

Mari-sensei sighed. "I don't know if our side of the scales is heavy enough for that, Hazou."

"Well then let's make it heavier! Show them how to make long-term sky bases and offer to set one up and man it as neutral ground, maybe?"

Noburi raised a deeply skeptical eyebrow. "Neutral ground?"

"Yeah. It's an idea I've been toying with for a while. Hidden Heaven, a village in the sky. A trading post, or maybe a meeting ground for diplomatic negotiations. Put it over the Hanguri Gulf, so it's between Leaf, Sand, and Isan, who will presumably all be allied."

"Wait, then how will any of the foreign dignitaries get there? And the merchants? Are you thinking we should just hand out skywalkers willy-nilly? Are you nuts?"

"I was thinking airships, actually."

"Oh, just airships that can carry hundreds of storage seals full of high-altitude bombing payload, that's a much better thing to leak."

"You'll have to change the name," said Mari-sensei. "Big-wigs won't want anything that even sounds like a rival village. On top of that, no village leaders are going to acknowledge any diplomatic power that they aren't forced to by some pressure, whether it's military or economic, which is really just two ways of saying military. You want to make this happen, you need the raw power to back it up. A Leaf empowered by aerial seal technology and whatever insanity you dream up tomorrow might be enough to cow them into coming to the negotiating table, but in that case Leaf will want it to be at the heart of Fire, not on neutral ground. There's very little space between Leaf being unable to coerce the other villages at all, and Leaf being so overwhelmingly able to coerce the other villages that the Hokage can just unilaterally decide where negotiations will occur."

"In any case, physically, a sky base is just a skytower writ large," added Keiko, slipping into a lecture-like voice that wasn't quite the monotone of the Frozen Skein. "As a large, permanent, populated structure it has logistical issues that a more basic skytower lacks, but we have solved none of those issues and cannot share them. We have already shared skytower technology, so we have nothing more to offer here. Until we have, there is no point in mentioning it."

"I have to agree," added Mari-sensei. "A sky base is good for two things: a sheltered location for people to live in, and a staging ground for military strikes by a side that has skywalker technology or an equivalent. It isn't essential for that role; there's no reason the base couldn't be on the ground except convenience. Developing it as a pure living space will be a major undertaking with limited payoff for anyone who doesn't share our uplift goals, so Leaf is unlikely to care, at least for now. If we gave them skywalkers as part of a package with the sky base concept and all necessary supporting technologies, that would be more likely to catch their attention.

"As to whether giving Leaf skywalkers and sky bases is a good idea...on balance I'm going to say yes. If we can figure out how to make a real base and solve the logistics issues that Keiko mentioned, then giving all that and skywalkers to Leaf would be my vote. Mist is obviously pushing for another war someday soon, and their takeover of Hot Springs both pushes up the timetable on that and gives them a solid base from which to deploy hunter-nin. Giving Leaf a military advantage -- especially one that isn't as massively destructive as some of the things I've heard from you -- sounds like a great idea. If Mist finds out about it, maybe it will make them slow down a bit. "

Keiko cut in. "Sensei, I think you underestimate the potential that accompanies sky towers when you say they aren't massively destructive. They open up the possibility for high-altitude bombing of villages and production centers, from altitudes so great that no reply is possible."

Mari-sensei shrugged. "Yes, but there's a safety/accuracy tradeoff: drop from high up, which means you're inaccurate, or from low down where you do less damage and can be shot at with long-range jutsu. Either way, you won't get everyone in the first salvo. The majority of jōnin and, in fact, the majority of ninja as a whole, will survive the attack and E&E out of the area. Once you finish they will gather up and go attack your village as a retaliation strike. High altitude bombing is mostly going to kill civilians and destroy property. If I'm being really cold about it, that doesn't matter to a nation's war-making capacity."

"But that is only at the current state of the art. New techniques will be developed--" Keiko insisted, before being interrupted by Kagome.

"Who cares? Sure, give 'em sky bases. Not like we're going anywhere near stinking Leaf and their stinking cheating cheater eyeballs, so doesn't matter for us. Absolutely not skywalkers, though. Need to be able to get away from their stinking hunter teams before they stuff lupchanz in our ears. And if it makes 'em go to war and kill each other off then huzzah! Less of the stinkers for us to worry about."

"Kagome-sensei," Hazou said steadily, "I completely understand why you are opposed to a closer relationship to Leaf. Could I ask you what kinds of commitments they would have to make to us to make you feel the idea was slightly less dangerous?"

"Huh? Why would I believe anything one of those lying stinkers said?"

"That's a good point sensei, actions would speak a lot louder than words," Haozu answered patiently. "What would Leaf need to do to convince you they did not have malicious intentions toward our team, after accounting for the fact that we know they would be doing those things with the intent of convincing you?"

"I… Uh. Hmmm," Kagome-sensei responded, his brow furrowing. He set his carving to one side, withdrew a blank sheet and a brush set from his pack, and started working out the interactions that question entailed. "Gimme a second. This is worse than one of Noburi's tricky cheaty deals in Strategic Domination."

"Take your time, sensei. In the meantime, Noburi, maybe we can talk about a concern you brought up previously, regarding our loss of agency as Village ninja. Perhaps we can come up with ways to mitigate that worry?"

Noburi frowned. "Like what? We'd be right back to the cycle of taking missions and following orders that we all loved oh so much in Mist."

"Not necessarily. Even if we can't secure a promise not to deploy members of the team at all, we might be able to influence the kinds of missions we get handed. All of us have skills that are better leveraged off the front line. Medicine, logistics, interrogation, sealing…."

"They have Yamanaka for interrogation, and I'm a jounin," Mari-sensei said. "At some point, I'm getting deployed, but hopefully it'll at least be with a purpose-built team. Maybe we can even convince them not to send me against Mist directly."

Noburi absently tossed another hunk of wood on the fire. "That kind of assumes there will definitely be a war, Mari-sensei. Which, at this point, I can't see a way for us to prevent, but I really wish that weren't the case."

Hazou nodded grimly. "If I'm honest, it's sounding like our biggest opportunity for minimizing suffering and death in the near future is coming up with some way to ensure Leaf immediately crushes everyone, and then hope that they act merciful and don't provoke any desperate, last-ditch resistance." He sighed. "What's wrong with me that it's so much easier to picture ways to win wars than ways to stop them?"

Mari-sensei leaned over to ruffle his head sympathetically. "Breaking things is usually the easier option, little Hazou. Of the things that are wrong with you, that isn't one of them."

"That's why I like explosive seals," said Kagome-sensei. "Easy. Boom. Squish. No hassle. Except cleanup, sometimes." He checked his paper one more time, then nodded. "I figured out your tricky question. For Jiraiya-stinker to convince me he didn't want to chain us up in a secret sealing slavery facility and threaten to send us body parts from the rest of the team unless we came up with a new seal every day, he'd have to tell us how that meeting room was blocked from those cheating Hyuuga, let us build a base that was shielded, let me set up as much security as I wanted, and give us notes on whatever kinds of seals we ask for to help make it double-extra-secure."

"That's… a lot more straightforward than I was expecting, if I'm being honest," Hazou admitted. "I thought you'd want to be allowed to blow up their lupchanz farms or something."

"What? Nah, don't be ridiculous. I'd have no way of knowing I'd gotten all of them, and then their lupchanzed zombie slaves would just make more. Totally wasted effort on my part. Oh! And none of us ever get mindscanned. That's another thing. And we get a Leaf genin who tastes random samples of the food we buy. Maybe that Akimichi kid, he wasn't as sneaky as the rest of them. And--"

"So, we've established some basics for what joining Leaf might look like, at least initially," summarized Hazou. "What about longer-term? We'd be positioned… maybe not well, but not terribly for influencing the course of the village's future. We have an in with Jiraiya, we'd be supplying valuable skills, we have at least a start on good relationships with several members of major clans--"

"They were assigned to build good relationships with us," Noburi pointed out. "We've talked about this."

"Maybe, but that doesn't mean the foundations aren't there," Hazou insisted.

"Speaking of relationships, there's a factor I notice you haven't brought up yet," Mari-sensei prodded.

"Yeah, getting to be with Akane again would be… nice," Hazou replied. "I'd like to think that isn't biasing me too much, but that's why I'm asking all of you! Am I just seeing this all in too positive a light?"

"Could be," Noburi said, shrugging.

"Helpful, Noburi, very helpful."

"What? As much as I don't want to admit it, at this point I don't think that changes the final result. The idea of Team Uplift galavanting around the world delivering the miracles of sealing, medicine, and badass Pangolins is a spectacular one, but the more we talk about it, the more it seems like gambling that we'll come up with enough amazing ideas to fundamentally change civilization before we slip up one too many times. Frankly, I'm willing to take that bet. It sounds like Kagome is too. But Keiko and Mari-sensei seem to think Leaf is the best of a lot of non-ideal options. Ultimately, it comes down to your decision. It always has - your ideas are the chips we're bargaining with, and you need to be wholeheartedly behind whatever option the team goes with. Whatever you choose, we've all gotta stick together, and we've all got your back."

"I… wow, Noburi, that was remarkably insightful. Thank you," Hazou responded.

"You're not the only one who's allowed to make speeches out of nowhere," the other boy replied with a grin.

The team was quiet for a long minute.

"Well Hazou?" Mari-sensei prompted. "What do you think?"

"I think… I think we have to go with the course of action that has the best likely outcome, that maximizes the impact that we'll probably have, instead of maximizing the impact we could have. On balance, I'm not even sure that staying missing-nin satisfies that second condition -- having access to more sealing resources and the potential to influence a superpower might mean that joining Leaf raises the ceiling on how much we can do more than having to take orders lowers that ceiling -- but I'm almost positive that joining Leaf fulfills the first condition. So." He drew a deep breath. "I guess that means our path forward is pretty clear. We spend some time making ourselves as attractive a package as possible, and then… we go see about making Leaf our home."

Background events and info

Testing reveals that neither kawarimi nor MEW work while standing on skywalkers.

You have 70 storage seals of ice (7 tons). Pandaa reports that the military engineer Pangolin mentioned earlier should be returning from her classified project tomorrow, so if you wish to begin shipping ice over, Keiko can start the contract then.

You have not found any obvious deposits of gold, diamonds, or other valuable materials on the island. The neighboring island is very similar to your own in geography and flora/fauna, except that it appears to have more trees and be slightly smaller.

There are abundant fish in the local shallows, as well as occasional flocks of gulls which land on the island, and small mammals are scattered throughout the brush. In particular, there is a small population of vampiric shrew which Noburi is interested in comparing to the non-vampiric shrews which also inhabit the island. Nothing that poses a particular danger to the party has been seen on the land (which Kagome insists just means the dangerous ones are even more dangerous, since they're so stealthy). Nobody is especially keen to go checking for chakra sharks or tentacle monsters offshore. There are occasional berry bushes or fruiting trees scattered across the island.

Hazou and Kagome have set up a new sealing lab and area ready to start research tomorrow. Kagome agrees that polishing the skywalkers should be a priority, things that temperature control seals should be eminently doable. He expects if you put an implosion seal inside an airtight container, you'd probably implode the container, but he's never tried it. Kagome is not enamored of the idea of using stone for a sealing substrate - it doesn't absorb regular ink, meaning you would need to figure out some new substance, which might require modifications of the blank-drawing processes for your seals. When you suggested propelling skyships via directional force seals, he got very excited before insisting the two of you should finish one project before moving on to the next.

At one point Noburi started making a list of sealing ideas for his present, realized what he was doing, burnt it in horror, and went to work on his tan for the rest of the afternoon. As a result, he has not decided what to ask for yet.

XP Award: 5

Tomorrow in-story is August 7. What do you do next? Voting ends Wednesday, March 29, at noon London time.

I decided to have you only spend a single day in-game in case the discussion influenced things like training plans and choices of things to research.

When outlining the chapter, I initially had Hazou thinking things over as he drifted off to sleep, and then Mari insisted very loudly that she wanted some actual commitment out of him instead of letting him bring this same conversation up in a couple weeks.

I know a couple of the players have expressed concerns that, as the QM who has been the most vocally excited about the possibility of the team joining Leaf, I would be biased toward having Hazou decide to do so. Having just written him doing just that, I feel like I should try to get ahead of that worry, and ask that you guys trust me that this is my genuine best attempt at modeling Hazou.

Velorien · Mar 31, 2017

Chapter 115: Too Many Pangolins
by @Velorien

The sky was not as Kei remembered it.

The miasma of soul-oppressing brown over the Pangolin Clan's territory had expanded outwards like midwinter fog, swallowing swathes of what had once been other colours. Despite her best efforts to be loyal to her summons, at times Kei wished her visits would instead take place beneath the even grey of the neighbouring Rat Clan, or better yet, the almost-familiar blues of the coastal clans visible far to the east.

"Keiko! Keiko! You're back!"

If there was one thing she could count on Pandā for, it was to lighten even the most depressing mood.

"Hello, Pandā."

Pandā's tail tapped excitedly on the ground a few times, then he seemed to recall something.

"Hssthl. I, uh, mean, greetings, O Summoner. What is the nature of your business on the Seventh Path today?"

Kei gave him an amused look.

"Yes, well, you can't blame me for trying to act more mature now I'm being promoted!"

"Congratulations!" Kei was still uncertain as to what passed for a smile among the pangolins, and whether it was any more straightforward than the human equivalent, so instead she gave him an approving nod.

"Thanks, Keiko! It's all because of you and the Pantokrator's Eyes!"

"The Pantokrator's Eyes?"

"You know, the Pantokrator's Judging Eyes, the ones that watch from the heavens, unmovable and untouchable, and mete out judgement to our sinful foes!"

Ah. "Do you mean the skytowers?"

"Probably," Pandā conceded. "But that's a lame name. No offence to you, Keiko, but you humans have terrible naming sense. I mean, you have to have a whole extra name before people can tell what clan you're from. How ridiculous is that?"

Kei felt she should be offended by this remark, but could not quite pin down why. The pangolin way was distinctly more efficient from an information management perspective, insofar as it combined twice the information in one data point. With that said, she could see deficiencies to the approach—for example, in the unlikely event that one changed clans (obviously, something that summons did not have to worry about), one would have to change one's name entirely. Not an unknown practice, admittedly, but also not a common one, and a great headache for the Mori and the lesser specialists.

"Do all clans use clan-specific names, then?" she asked, intrigued. "How do you handle the restricted naming pool this must result in?"

"Restricted?" Pandā repeated. "What a weird way of looking at it. It just means that, say, when I introduce myself to a pangolin I've never met before, they'll instantly know I was named after Pandā the Chirurgeon, the only pangolin ever to earn the right to bear both black and white markings. In my case, my father was hoping that I would enter the Medical Corps and bring great prestige to the family, maybe even study under Panasea herself. He was… less than impressed when I got stung by the cultural anthropology ant."

Pandā looked down and scratched at the plating on his hip. The atmosphere began to grow awkward.

Kei recalled that she was, in fact, here for a purpose, and decided that the admittedly fascinating issues of clan naming and data management could be left for another time.

"Pandā, I would like to solicit your opinion on a hypothetical scenario."

"You want my opinion?" Pandā's spine straightened sharply. "I won't disappoint you, Keiko!"

"Supposing the Pangolin Clan were faced with the opportunity to acquire the power to fly. How do you think your decision-makers would react, given the religious prohibitions against flight?"

"What religious prohibitions? You might as well forbid us to turn back time, or create new Paths, or get Chief Quartermaster Panopurī to sign off on a form less than three days after you hand it in! The Pantokrator wouldn't do something so pointless," Pandā said confidently. Then his expression changed.

"Uh, unless an officer who outranks me says different, in which case you should ignore everything I just said. Especially if it's somebody from the Office of Morale. I don't want any attention from the Office of Morale.

"Why," Pandā asked, "have you come up with a way to let pangolins fly?"

"Recall that we are dealing with a purely hypothetical scenario," Kei reminded him. "It is a common pastime among my team to invent such. Indeed, when on summer evenings we share horror stories around a campfire, Hazō's contribution traditionally consists of his latest research ideas."

"Right," Pandā said uncertainly. "Well, I reckon after seeing the Pantokrator's Eyes in action, the high-ups would do anything to expand on that power. I mean, we're already halfway into Hyena Clan territory, and that's while we're still tunnel-squeezed by the number of technicians who've been trained how to use seals. But supposing pangolins could fly for real…

"For a start, that would take away the beakfaces' only advantage. They're weaker and stupider than pangolins in every possible way. We would finally end them and reclaim our ancestral home. After that, you wouldn't even need to hunt down the Condor scroll, because it would just be a piece of paper. 'The Condor Summoner used the Summoning Technique against Mori Keiko… but nobody came.' Hilarious, right?

"As for the Hyena Clan and the Leopard Clan and such, I guess we could just enslave them. I mean, they're our sworn enemies, but because they've always been our sworn enemies, at least they've never betrayed us. Once we wipe out their military, I'm sure we'll be able to find a benevolent use for the civilians.

"Oh, but if we're not careful, then other enemies might band together against us, like what happened to the Raptor Clan. But I'm sure our strategists will figure it out. Maybe we can settle for ruling the region for now."

Kei nodded slowly. "Useful information. Thank you. So then the military would pay dearly for such an advantage?"

"You could pretty much name your price."

"Good. Of course, this is all a completely theoretical discussion, and you would only be wasting your superiors' time if you were to report something so irrelevant to them in the context of any debriefing session."

"I, uh, see," Pandā said carefully. "It's only a hypothetical. Not important at all. Let's talk about something else now."

"Very well. The next item on my agenda is paying the Naraka Rollers a visit."

"So about those flying pangolins…"

-o-

The Naraka Rollers' lair was unaccountably empty, only a few females lurking in various dark corners and paying Kei little mind. Panchipāma herself was alone in the main meeting hall, hunched over on her dais looking strangely melancholy.

"Good day," Kei greeted her, bowing to a suitable depth.

"Summoner," Panchipāma acknowledged. "And the runt."

Pandā endeavoured to make himself seem even smaller in response.

"Where is everyone?" Kei asked.

"Haven't you heard? There's a lull while the hyenas are negotiating an armistice, and the top junior officers from that campaign are receiving their breeding licenses today."

"What does that… oh." Kei hoped that since pangolins did not blush, Panchipāma would be unable to read her reaction.

"Yet I note that you are still here," she observed.

Panchipāma gave her an inexplicably hostile look. "That's none of your business, Summoner."

"I apologise." Apologies were a very reliable conflict resolution technique, at least as long as the offended party did not ask Kei what she was apologising for. Often, she had no idea what she had done to cause offence, but asking would only inflame the other person's anger. People were so unreasonable at times.

"Hmph," Panchipāma snorted. "I'll let that one go. You earned a fair bit of goodwill with your display last time. You showed proper respect, and you apologised according to our traditions. I've heard that a lot of summoners don't make that kind of effort.

"I'm prepared to give you another chance. Prove to me that you're strong enough to be a member of the Naraka Rollers, and show me a good blood-boiling shell-hammering time worthy of The Panchipāma, and you might just have yourself a contract. But no Pantokrator-damned abominations. Never again."

"An impressive battle in which I can demonstrate my true abilities? Yes, I believe something can be arranged," Kei said, thinking of the war to come, and the rivers of blood due to flood the continent as her team stood in the heavens, calmly handing out weapons while keeping their own feet dry.

-o-

Paneru was late. Half an hour had elapsed since their appointed meeting time, with no trace of the pangolin anywhere. Was punctuality truly so difficult a concept to grasp? At the Mori compound it had been taken for granted not merely that students attend lessons on time (that much was a given even at the Academy, at least for those who did not enjoy corporal punishment), but that they be able to measure their progress at solving puzzles in minutes and seconds, without the aid of a clock. Granted, it was unreasonable to judge an outsider by Mori standards, but surely military personnel should at least be capable of minimal timekeeping competence?

"My apologies, Summoner," the pangolin, short and stout with dark green patterns of paint swirling across her body, said quietly. "I was at prayer."

Kei bit back her retort, concerning the prioritisation of personal religious practices over one's practical duties.

"I did not realise pangolins followed religious practices," she instead observed neutrally.

Paneru seemed incredulous. "Why wouldn't we? Every tiniest fragment of ourselves and of the Seventh Path bears the symbol? Indication? The stamp of the Pantokrator's will. Look what's happening to our enemies because they don't have the Pantokrator's blessing. Granted, most of our clan aren't quite as devoted as I am, but we all serve the Pantokrator in our own ways.

"On that note, I'm told you were the instrument of his will in delivering the Pantokrator's Judging Eyes to us. Thank you, Summoner. They are truly a marvel of design."

"Not at all," Kei said. "The actual concept belongs to one of my teammates. I merely negotiated trading it with the Clan.

"Regarding which," it occurred to her, "I am told that on the Human Path it is considered the height of poor taste to rename another sealmaster's seal. Could I prevail on you to use the original name of 'skytowers'?"

"Skytowers," Paneru said. "What nonsense. They are quite clearly not towers by any stretch of the imagination, and the pangolins would not use them if they were. Do we look like the Cathedral Termite Clan to you?"

Kei was already developing a dislike for her new summon.

"Trust me," Paneru went on proudly, "I'm the creator of the Enemy-Killing Threefold Bunker, and I was on the design team for the Devastating Pointy Barricade. I know a thing or two about naming."

Kei made a private note to have Paneru present when the team sold their various inventions to Jiraiya.

"Anyway, it can't be helped if you have no naming sense. You are, after all, a human, the Pantokrator's penultimate flawed creation. I mean, look at you, unstable? Frangible? Frail to the point where one good claw swipe and we're stuck without a summoner again. Really, it's lucky you have the Pantokrator's greatest work on your side to compensate for all your weaknesses."

"I assure you," Kei hissed, "I am more than—"

"Then again…" Paneru spoke over her, causing Kei to grit her teeth, "you did come up with the Pantokrator's Judging Eyes, so maybe I shouldn't question his wisdom in creating you too much. Certainly, my superiors like you—they told me that after seeing the Eyes' performance in the field, they've decided to waive the weekly fee for my contract."

"That is very generous of them," Kei agreed.

"Of course," Paneru said, "I still have my own expectations out of a pact with you. I want to see human construction with my own eyes. If you can figure out the Eyes, maybe humanity isn't quite as technologically backward as I've been led to believe."

"I suppose something can be arranged," Kei said reluctantly.

"Oh, and I understand you have a special bloodline rare even among humans?"

"Yes," Kei nodded, "the—"

"I've been specifically instructed," Paneru did it again, "not to ask you about your bloodline. Bear that in mind."

"I will."

"Good. Now, are we done here? Because Pangramu from Cryptology needs to see you urgently."

This was a fact Kei would have preferred to know at the beginning of the meeting. But then, what could one expect from somebody who couldn't even arrive on time?

-o-

"Finally," a jittery, stick-thin pangolin who could only be Pangramu waved his claws at her. "What took you so long? Every second counts!"

"What is the matter?"

"We intercepted a Condor Clan message, and I've been instructed to pass it on to you immediately. Do you understand what that means? It means without delay!"

Then perhaps Pangramu could deliver it instead of complaining about his inability to do so? Clearly this was not Kei's day for sensible pangolins.

"I'm listening," she said pointedly.

"You know how the Capybara Summoner disappeared a few weeks ago? Well, it turns out the humans who have the scroll now are on the other side of that big conflict you've got going on, and the Condor Summoner is going to negotiate for it so she can give it to her allies. Obviously, that would be a disaster. If the Capybara Clan and its elite infiltrators throw in with the condors… I don't even want to think about it. The trouble with being the most honourable of the clans is, well… our counter-intelligence isn't everything it could be, and this is coming from an expert. That's where you come in."

Kei processed this calmly.

"You wish for me to prevent the deal, assassinate the Condor Summoner and retrieve the Capybara scroll."

"That's right. We already have a potential summoner in mind."

"Where and when is the negotiation?"

"We… don't actually know."

Kei was speechless.

Pangramu threw up his claws placatingly. "All we have is '6 September, Hinago Medical Facility, tip of the northwest border'. It could be anywhere!

"But you're the only one who can act on the Human Path for us. Even if it's like looking for a larva in a mudpool, you have to try. The fate of the entire war effort could rest on it.

"If I have my human calendar right, the meeting's in only two weeks. Well, what are you waiting for? Go, go, go!"

-o-

You have received 50 XP.

-o-

Hazō has not yet learned the skywalker seal, but Kagome reckons he's more than two-thirds of the way there.

Kagome was able to refine the air dome seal's timing mechanism, and it now has a more reliable duration of 14-19 minutes.

Kagome's research on airship technology stalled after some time experimenting with paper lanterns, when he realised that you are on a small island in the middle of nowhere and do not have access to fabrics suitable for making anything more sophisticated.

Noburi is in the process of cataloguing the various species of the island, after which he expects Hazō to capture live samples for him. When asked why he didn't try to capture any himself, he looked at Hazō as if he's gone crazy.

-o-

A rules issue has arisen. While Hazō benefits from the 2/3 discount towards researching the skywalker seal thanks to the original creator's assistance, that's a research discount—it doesn't apply to using the seal once he knows it. In other words, Hazō will use the same infusion TN as Kagome, which is effectively impossible for him to beat. (The alternative would be that he infuses the seal three times as easily as its original creator.)

-o-

It is the 20th of August. What do you do?

Voting ends on Saturday 1st of April, 9 am New York Time.

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest (STORY ONLY)

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