Apparently, Jiraiya had not had time to take his mountain of Icha Icha novels with him when he moved out, or more likely had left them for the edification of the next batch of occupants, namely us. Oli was busy leafing through them as he luxuriated in the comfort of the master bedroom, which he'd claimed first, while Earl was out investigating the hot spring. I, of course, was down in the Basement (the reason I convinced Earl to—very indirectly—bribe the Gōketsu with rare seals to get them to move out so we could move in), discovering the many joys of the mad scientist lifestyle. The best way to learn is to teach, as they say.
"Val, is everything all right in there?" came Earl's worried voice at some point during the following few days (this was before I was forcibly made to have a sense of time through daily meals with the group). "We've been hearing screams of unbearable agony for a while. Orochimaru hasn't changed his mind about dissecting you, has he?"
"Oh, no," I shook my head, forgetting Earl couldn't see me from the safety of the stairs, which were as far into the Basement as he was prepared to venture. "Those were Orochimaru's."
"…"
"He asked me to teach him Tsukuyomi. I didn't want to give him any incentive to go after Uchiha eyeballs—I have my own plans for those—so I decided to show him a different way to use genjutsu to tear someone's psyche to shreds over what feels like an eternity."
"What did you do?" Earl asked warily.
"I showed him the filler arc with the ostriches."
An appalled gasp came from the direction of the stairs. "You monster!"
"It's all for his own good," I said. "If I want him at my side as my Sith apprentice as I take over the world, there need to be ground rules. 'No implanting body parts for power' needs to be one of them."
"You had me worried for a second there, Val," Earl admitted. "Actually, no, I'm still worried. What are you planning?"
"There are so few Bloodline Limit organs to go round," I continued. "We should cultivate them to make sure we have enough for future use. Remember how canon Danzō used that uber-ninjutsu that rewrote reality by burning through Uchiha eyeballs faster than Kagome runs from undefined behaviour? If we want to have consistent access to ultimate cosmic power, we need to plan ahead. Maybe some kind of Uchiha breeding programme?"
The world shuddered around me, and I could hear an impossible scraping sound, as of something that did not belong attempting to claw its way into a reality full of delicious prey. I wanted to press myself against the wall so I could at least have something at my back, but my mind conjured images of the thing reaching through solid matter, its unnatural squishiness moderated by razor-sharp hunger.
Then it was over. The immanent fabric of That Which Is decided it was feeling merciful today.
"Will you please watch what you say?" Earl demanded. "We've already been eviscerated once for going too meta."
"We have?" I asked. "When was that?"
"When we were going to meet Hazō and the others," Earl said brusquely. "Let's never talk about it under any circumstances whatsoever, just in case."
"Got it," I said. "Now, if there's nothing else, I need to go back and see if Orochimaru's recovered from his mental encounter with Condor the Ostrich.
"I hope he doesn't think I'm being too cruel in my experiments."
-o-
It happened the next morning at breakfast, over a delicious meal of spiced porridge based on a recipe Kagome had left behind in gratitude for Earl's Delayed Blast Fireball seal. Orochimaru was just getting up from the table, when…
"Oli and I have been talking about this, and I'm afraid we need to have an intervention," Earl said seriously.
"What is this drivel?" Orochimaru demanded, eyes narrowing.
"Remember," I said under my breath, "killing your minions means having to do all the work yourself."
Orochimaru relaxed slightly. "Leave Valerian-sensei be so we can go downstairs and resume our work on developing a Snake Element."
"Actually," Earl said, "this is an intervention for you. Orochimaru, we're concerned that Val is being a bad influence on you."
"Preposterous," Orochimaru snapped.
"Oli and I have noticed that since you started spending a lot of time with Val, you've become much more interested in the world outside the lab. We've seen you studying maps of the continent with some villages circled in red, and lists of their Bloodline Limits."
"Yes," Orochimaru said impatiently. "I'd been studying Bloodline Limits long before I encountered Sensei. What of it?"
"These have names, with specific locations, and necessary ninjutsu to counter individual abilities. I note Kotsuzui Kenji's home address."
"It was for Revenant, Part 2," I explained. "If I'd known unpublished notes would carry across, I would have added more buried treasure. Or women who have a thing for isekai'd QMs."
"Sensei, are you sure we cannot just kill these fools and get back to work?" Orochimaru asked.
"They're friends, Orochimaru," I said. "I was going to cover the concept later, under 'combination arts'.
"Look, how about we compromise? We'll suspend hunting for interesting Bloodline Limits until Leaf attacks those villages anyway, in its bid for world domination which we are apparently fuelling. Does that work for you?"
Oli and Earl exchanged dubious glances.
"Agreed?" I asked before they could object to my completely ethically sound offer (see? I wasn't a corrupting influence on anyone). "Great. Come, my apprentice. There are so many techniques we have yet to try adding snakes to!"
-o-
Voting remains closed as we put the finishing touches (hopefully) to the combat simulator.
Never, not even in the headmaster's office after the Black Book Incident, had I felt so much trepidation upon uttering those words.
The Hokage's office didn't look any different from normal, from the heavy, elaborately-carved wooden desk, to the inevitable stacks of paperwork, to the giant window serving as blatant assassin bait. The Hokage himself seemed the same as usual, with his air of thoughtfulness and grandfatherly calm. The only difference was the intensity of his presence, strong enough that taking that final step through the door felt like wading through treacle. Whatever was about to happen, it would be nothing good.
"Thank you for coming, Valerian," the Hokage said to me. "I assume you know why you're here."
If ever it had crossed my mind to underestimate Sarutobi Hiruzen (which it hadn't), this would have been a reminder of why not. I could tell the truth, about which I had grim suspicions, and thereby make a confession without knowing how much the Hokage already knew. Or I could bluff, in the knowledge that if he already knew everything, I would be lying to his face.
"How can I help you, sir?" I hedged.
"Tell me," he asked mildly, "have you been suborned by a Leaf missing-nin, whom you are now secretly sheltering in your home?"
I suddenly became aware of the unusually high number of ANBU in the room. The fact that I only became aware of them now, and not, say, when I first looked around, was indicative of how outclassed I would be in any fight. All the ninjutsu in the world wouldn't mean much without a decent Alertness stat reflexes honed over years of ninja training. I made a note to consult Oli if I got out of this alive.
"Speaking purely hypothetically," I hedged some more, "what would happen if I said yes to that question?"
"I would have to execute you and your comrades for treason," the Hokage said without any particular threat in his voice.
On reflection, maybe I should have talked to the ruthless dictator before inviting a particularly hated enemy of the state to hang out in my basement.
"Still hypothetically, what if I told you that I had suborned him, for purposes which were likely to be to Leaf's benefit?"
"Then I would definitely have to execute you and your comrades for treason," the Hokage said, "as it would imply that you were working with an enemy of Leaf in secret on your own initiative."
I had to think very, very fast. I was still alive and conscious and not in T&I discovering the finer points of 12th century metallurgy, so clearly there was still room for me to somehow get myself out of this predicament. What could I say about Orochimaru that didn't make me come across as a being of unspeakable evil for willingly associating with him? (I filed the question of whether I was a being of unspeakable evil for willingly associating with him away for another time.)
Of course! When I thought back to his canon introduction, and given we weren't in the habit of taking away canon abilities unless they wrecked simulationism…
"Again, hypothetically," I said, "what if I had no idea what you were talking about because clearly a legendary missing-nin famous for his mastery of disguise would find it effortless to sneak in without alerting any of us?"
"That sounds eminently plausible," the Hokage agreed after a few seconds' thought. "Even a skilled ninja might struggle under those circumstances, and you are only civilians, despite your continuing, significant contributions to Leaf."
I didn't miss the message.
"I find myself feeling a sudden desire to visit your compound," the Hokage said. "I trust there will be no objections?"
"None whatsoever, Lord Hokage, sir."
The Hokage's signal must have been subtle enough that I didn't catch it, but the half-dozen ANBU turned to follow us in perfect silence.
-o-
"Orochimaru."
"Sarutobi-sensei."
The two men faced each other coldly across the living room, the exquisite tension undermined only by the broadsheet Earl had left on the coffee table now between them, and its headline of "Merchants' Guild Approves Exotic Pet Imports".
"Valerian-sensei," Orochimaru said icily, "what is the meaning of this?"
Silence reigned supreme. Earl and Oli, who had been on the sofa discussing worldbuilding derailment, were sensibly frozen stiff. I, unfortunately, did not have that luxury, as bad things would happen if I didn't maintain a mask of complete and utter innocence.
The Hokage's expression, for just a second, was as bewildered as if he'd just heard Jiraiya swear an oath of monogamy before the Will of Fire, as conjured by a bonfire of Icha Icha books and personal sealing notes.
"Yes, Valerian-sensei," he finally agreed, icily, "what is the meaning of this?"
I could already see Morino Ibiki's face looming over me with an egg whisk (which was what my visual mind supplied for "cruel and unusual implement of torture").
Just as I was on the verge of doing something unwise with the Swamp of the Underworld Technique, Oli, fortunately behind the Hokage and his ANBU, mouthed, "He studied the notes!"
"He studied the notes!" I exclaimed. "My notes. Which I made on his work in the Basement. Which he infiltrated completely without our knowledge, and is now here in the open for the first time to our utter shock. Isn't that right, Orochimaru?"
"Yes," Orochimaru said impatiently. "That is the exact course of events. I studied Valerian-sensei's notes, and was so impressed that I decided to treat him as my master despite a complete lack of personal acquaintance. Can we return to our research now?"
One of the ANBU coughed politely.
"Oh, yes," Orochimaru said. "Leaf traditionally settles its disagreements over medical ethics with battles that completely flatten the surrounding area while nevertheless failing to kill me. How could I forget."
The Hokage did not comment. He gazed at Orochimaru contemplatively. "What kind of research?"
Orochimaru's expression turned slightly less impassive than usual. "Valerian-sensei, would you like to, or shall I?"
"I'll demonstrate," I decided, figuring that the less deadly weaponry the missing-nin showed off in front of the Hokage, the better.
"Snake Element: Rasengan!"
The Hokage watched the swirling blue sphere for a few long seconds.
"Snake Element?" he inquired.
"It's an improvement on the original Rasengan," I said proudly. "This one is a very very sharp blue snake, slithering around itself at extreme speed. It has a lower chakra cost, you can choose from a selection of aesthetically-pleasing snakes at casting time, and, as an added bonus, it is extremely venomous. We were thinking of giving it to Jiraiya as a birthday present."
"A very. Sharp. Snake." I could feel the Hokage revising his opinion of my intellect radically downwards.
However, I was unfazed, for I had recently discovered one of the core universal truths of the Narutoverse, and the ultimate secret of Kishimotium. It had been staring me in the face ever since I watched the first episode, but only now, after developing my own original ninjutsu according to Narutoverse laws, did I finally understand. The ultimate source of shinobi ability, the Power of Cool, could only be drawn upon by discarding any and all sense of shame. In this it resembled the Power of Youth.
I shrugged. "You know how we've spent the last few weeks living atop a dungeon, I mean laboratory, constructed over decades by the world's leading specialist in creative biology? That one is on the tame side, in multiple senses.
"Here's another one. Snake Element: Multiple—"
"Sorry to interrupt—gaah!"
All of us pivoted around to see a random chūnin staring at Orochimaru in absolute terror, either of the missing-nin or of the fact that he was seeing something way above his clearance level while surrounded by ANBU.
"What is it, Kuroda?" the Hokage asked in a remarkably unthreatening tone of voice.
"M-Message for the three civilians, sir," the man stuttered.
"Go ahead," the Hokage said, showing no interest in our privacy.
The messenger tilted his head back and unleashed a bloodcurdling scream.
Immediately, two ANBU grabbed the man by the arms, securely restraining him.
"Move aside," I said quickly. "I'll start scanning with medical ninjutsu while you get someone from the hospital. Orochimaru, can you bring out the dissection toolkit?"
The messenger glanced back and forth between us.
"No, I'm fine!" he screeched.
"Then why were you screaming?" the Hokage asked as his day grew only more confusing. "And what about the message?"
"That was the message," the messenger said. "The gentleman was quite clear."
"Services start in five minutes! Come one, come all! Services starting in five minutes! Beds and meals available afterwards! Come one, come all!"
Valerian smiled and crossed the street to be out of the way of the horde of people scrambling for the entrance of this particular Church of Youth. He had created the Church, in those long-ago days before Phil the shadow demon brought them here. He had created it as a lark, because it was funny. The idea that the arrogant, bombastic, aristocratic Hyūga Hiashi should have to burn his fortune funding something so boisterous and so thoroughly oriented at the lower classes. It had been hilarious at the time. Now, seeing the incredible poverty that the congregation of the Church lived in, Valerian was conflicted. On the one hand, he had done real, tangible good. He had created something that gave people warmth in the winter, food and drink all year round, and a sense of community and hope. Of the three of them, Val had probably done the most to actually uplift society before coming here.
Still. Everything in this world was their fault. Valerian's. Earl's. Oli's. Every death, every sorrow, every wound, every illness. They had created all of it for the sake of entertainment.
Heinlein had had a concept of 'fictons', the idea that every story was true somewhere, that every time a new story was written a new universe would spring into existence to embody it. If there really were ficton universes, if writing really could create them, then literacy should be abolished. It would save the lives of...more people than he could think of a number to describe. Of course, if literacy were to be banned then people would simply start creating and passing on the stories verbally. Stories had a life of their own, and they fought for survival just as much as any animal did. They burrowed into the minds of young children and ancient elders, reproducing every time they were told to a new ear. When chased in an attempt to stamp them out, they hid deep in the quiet whispers and the anonymous pamphlets.
Stories were powerful. Stories had changed the world. The story of Equality was one that had been told down through the ages and fully matured back in the twentieth century with the advent of radio and television. The story had spread across the land, gliding on the electromagnetic winds as it passed lightly through every ear and every eye. Even those who hated the story had sheltered it. They had passed on corrupted versions of it, adding hatred and poison to the amniotic fluid of the mind so that when the new generation of Equality was born it had been twisted into something antithetical to its parents. Those corrupted children still existed but the true story, the shining story that everyone knew was true regardless of how much they hated that fact, that story was slowly winning the long war against its tortured offspring.
There were other stories. The story of Religion had been around far longer than Equality and had touched more hearts. It had made more promises and been twisted to more ends. Its family tree was deeper and wider and held far more branches than its many-generations-younger cousin. Many of those branches shone purest gold...and many of them dripped poison.
The story of Chosen for the Grave was a tiny story, very young and very weak. It had been heard by a few handfuls of people. Yet still it existed and lived and breathed in their hearts, whispering its promises of adventure and excitement and relief from the boredom and stress of everyday life. It told of great heroes, mythic figures, fearsome monsters. It told of daring escapes, tragedies both quiet and loud, of the power for one person, or a few people, to change society through sheer force of will.
Chosen for the Grave lived and breathed in its own ficton, and so now did its creators. Its authors had become trapped in their own story, no longer above the fearful events and deadly dangers, no long safely sheltered behind the fourth wall. Valerian, Earl, and Oli had found a tentative welcome conditional on their continued usefulness. There was no shortage of ways to be useful, that was certain. Valerian had hundreds, perhaps thousands of jutsu that he could trade. He knew parts of the worldbuilding that the others didn't...Earl because his brain was cheese and he tended to forget things, Oli because there were things created before he joined the team and some of those things never happened to come up thereafter. Sometimes it was neither. There were notes that Valerian had kept stocked away for a rainy day, little doodles and scribbles that had never been run past the others yet had still made it into this world regardless. The painter who lived at 7 Senju Way, 3rd Floor and worked on the mural across the street on his lunch hour. The young couple who lived above the bakery just off Namikaze Park and revelled in the joy that was their new daughter, no matter how sickly she was. The telescope merchant, cursed to never speak with the one person most desperate to buy his wares. Valerian had used his jutsu, mostly the Telescope Technique, to check on these and a hundred other daydreams and half-baked ideas. Every single one of them was here. He was responsible for all of them.
He hadn't mentioned this to Earl or Oli. As far as he could tell, neither of the others had put it together that even the parts they hadn't agreed on were real, and they certainly hadn't spent much time thinking about the implications of creating a universe. Oli because he was too optimistic, too focused on helping the people in front of him. Earl because...well, because he was too wrapped up in his seal research and, honestly, a little oblivious. Valerian hoped that his friend clung tight to that lack of self-examination.
Here it was. The green door with the faded blue trim, the trim that had been put there years ago by a newly-married and apple-cheeked young woman with hope for the future.
He stared at the door for a moment, thinking about creation and destruction and the importance of authorial choices. And then he knocked.
There was a rustling from inside. A moment later, the door opened to reveal an older woman, her skin leathered by decades of working at the tannery. There were tear tracks on her face.
"Mrs Tanaka?" said Valerian, struggling to get the words out. "My name is Valerian. I'm very sorry for your loss. May I come in?"
The self-named Honeypot Honeys (more properly known as the three senior operatives of Leaf's Infiltration and Seduction department) had a standing meeting for drinks and darts on Thursdays down at the Soggy Tag, so long as all three of them were in town. The Tag's owner had long since noticed that whenever the Honeys were meeting the bar was packed to the rafters, mostly by male genin who were too distracted to count how many drinks they had or remember that they hadn't ordered the platter of gyoza that was now on their table and on their bill. His gratitude knew few bounds and the Honeys always drank free. He had also roped off a section of the bar so that they could have some empty space around themselves. Sometimes they gratefully accepted, sometimes they took the rope down and played prestige games between themselves, scoring points based on the eyelines of the audience. Tonight was a 'rope very much up' night; all three of them were frustrated and looking to relax in the company of their peers instead of slumming it with normies.
"He's cute, but sometimes I want to stab him," Arisa said.
"Drink, drink, drink!" Sachie and Kaya chanted.
"Oh, come on! I didn't say I wanted to kill him! Stabbing isn't the same as killing!"
Kaya turned to Sachie, a serious expression on her face and formality in her tone. "Judge, how do you rule?"
"Hm..." Sachie, the eldest of the three, made a show of thinking carefully. While she did she pulled her honey-blonde hair over one shoulder and combed her fingers through it. She still had some bed-head and that wasn't the image she wanted to project right now.
"After careful consideration, the court rules that the accused is required to drink," she pompously announced.
Arisa grumbled but she selected one of the identical cups of sake from the center of the table, slammed it back, and put the cup on the table upside down in front of herself. It joined the two others that had already taken up residence from earlier in the conversation.
"Why stabbing?" Sachie asked, nibbling on her fifth dumpling. She had a metabolism like a blast furnace (a nifty simile that she had gotten from her target friend Val) and needed to eat almost constantly to prevent grouchiness. "Oli seems like a nice enough guy."
"Oh, he is. Total peach."
"Then what's the problem? He won't share?"
Arisa snorted. "No, that's the problem! He shares. Sage, does he share. He's so open and earnest it all comes pouring right out. Absolute gold, too—medical information, technology, economics. The man's a treasure trove. Except he won't slow down! I drop one leading word and this torrent of helpfulness comes pouring out, faster than I can get it all straight. By the time I manage to circle back and clarify one thing, three others have gotten lost. It's infuriating."
The other two laughed and, with the ease of long experience, did not acknowledge the way the dozen closest heads snapped around to see what might have been the source of their amusement.
Being aware of the attention of others without acknowledging it had been one of the harder parts of the training for Sachie. I&S was a demanding field that other ninja tended to dismiss as straightforward—after all, how hard could it be to put on some nice clothes and make doe eyes? Any pretty woman should be able to do I&S, right? Or handsome man, for that matter. It was an easy billet if you didn't want to suffer the risk of the field.
What people failed to notice was that being attractive could be a disadvantage during the Infiltration part of the mission. People tended to pay attention to attractive people, which was a problem when you were trying to sneak in somewhere you weren't allowed to be. Also, the Seduction part of the name did not in fact mean 'getting someone to sleep with you.' (A task which itself was far more challenging than most gave credit for!) That part of the job was called Seduction because your fellow ninja liked working with Seduction experts and did not like working with Manipulation experts, no matter that the name would have been more appropriate for the job. In truth I&S was the single most complicated and challenging discipline a ninja could go into short of sealing or (maybe) technique hacking.
On top of that, the life expectancy of field ninja meant that they tended to have a 'party it up and live for the moment' attitude when they weren't in the field. Attractive female ninja got propositioned at exhausting rates and declining needed to be done carefully since you didn't know who your backup was going to be on your next mission. Getting sussed out by your target made it a bad day, but if the person tasked with helping you escape after the target sussed you out was a jilted anger bomb...well, that was a recipe for a really bad day.
All of which meant that I&S ninja calculated their every move and every reaction, all the time, and were constantly aware of the quantity and quality of the attention they were receiving from those around them. Boisterous laughter attracted notice; being seen to notice that you had been noticed was a good way to draw someone to approach you. The Honeys weren't looking to be approached right now—that was for after the drinks and commiserations—so all three of them were enforcing their solitude through a mixture of focused eye contact (with each other), gestural emblems (to the audience), and personal spacing. (They had agreed during one of the earliest meetups that the use of auras to attract or dismiss attention was cheating, even if they were used at such a low level that the audience didn't consciously notice. This, of course, opened up a new competition between the three of them to see who could slip a bit of aura application past the other two.)
"What about you, Sachie?" Arisa asked. "How are things with Val?"
The blonde snorted. Her hair was now untangled so she tossed it over her shoulder and started plaiting it into a 'French braid', a style she had become quite fond of that was one more reason to appreciate the presence of the outworlders.
"Fine. He isn't ready for a move-in yet but he spends most of every day in the library and he's nearly always up to chat." She smiled. "For that matter, all I have to do is pester him for more stories about his girlfriends and he'll talk for hours. He gets this look when he remembers them—slightly goofy-in-love, slightly wistful that they aren't here."
"Is it a 61-A or a 61-B look?" Sachie asked.
"Not even. More of a 60-C with nasalis engagement."
"Oooh," the other two said, sipping at their fruit drinks.
"I love it when guys get that look," Arisa said, fiddling absent-mindedly with the little paper umbrella in hers, spinning it between thumb and forefinger. The umbrellas and the drinks they went in ('virgin daiquiris') were yet another Outsider invention. "So many options."
"I know, right?" Kaya sighed. "I wish to the Sage that Earl had someone he was 60-C'ing over. Or that he would get over this ageist bullshit. He won't take me to bed because I'm 'too young', and he doesn't have a romantic connection to tap. I'm actually having to learn his stupid sword forms to engage with him."
"Oh, yuck," Sachie said, pausing in the braiding to offer a consoling touch on the hand. "Seriously? Swords?" Taijutsu was a good investment for an I&S specialist; it kept the body fit and supple and gave you a chance to fight your way out of an engagement when you had been literally stripped of all equipment. Knives were a reasonable alternative, since they were easy to conceal and it usually wasn't too hard to put your hands on something sharp. Swords? Too long and heavy to conceal under clothing and only the best could stand up to ninja combat in the first place. Every moment spent studying swords was a moment not spent studying something useful.
"I know, right?" Kaya slurped her daiquiri a little too quickly and made a moue when the brain freeze hit. "I'll give him this: He's really good at it. If he ever manages to get into shape he'll be able to survive combat for long enough that his escort could get to him."
"I still can't believe how fat they are," Sachie complained.
"Criticizing the targets!" Arisa said triumphantly. "Drink! Drink! Drink!" Kaya joined in on the second beat.
"That wasn't criticizing! It was a statement of f—oh, fine. Whatever." Sachie took a sake and slammed it, plomping the upside down cup on the table in front of herself. The night was yet young and there was only one other to keep it company.
"They aren't actually fat," Arisa said. "Not for their world, anyway. Remember what Lord Jiraiya said: In their world they don't let anyone join the—"
"—military until the age of eighteen, and therefore it is important that operatives not assume the existence of personality traits that would typically be associated with an indolent body type," the others chorused.
"Talking down, drink!" Kaya said, grinning at her compatriot. I&S ninja prided themselves on their memories and ability to synthesize facts. Telling one of them something she already knew was a crime worthy of being forced to imbibe.
Arisa stuck her tongue out at them but slammed a drink.
"Best intel?" Kaya asked. "Losers drink." She slurped on her daiquiri.
"A jutsu that controls bats," Sachie said. "And another one that gets them to cast a genjutsu. Both non-elemental."
"No way!" Kaya objected. "Bats can't cast genjutsu."
"They can with this jutsu," Sachie smirked. "It's called 'Bat Controlling: Ultrasonic Mind Waves'. Apparently it makes the bats squeak at such a high pitch that people can't hear it, but it messes with the target's head."
"Pfah," Kaya said, waving in grand dismissal. "Take your bogus jutsu and step off to the low-rent district. I got Earl to start working on a seal-based 'computer', which is a machine that thinks for you. It's like having your own Nara in a box that you carry around all the time."
Arisa frowned. "A machine that thinks for you? What does that even mean?"
Kaya paused, considering, and then shook her head. "I'm can-of-worms-ing that. There's too much behind it. Suffice it to say that when Lord Jiraiya heard about it he cleared his schedule so that he could work with Earl on it. For three solid days now."
Sachie and Arisa oooohed. Without protest they both picked up a cup of sake; Sachie slammed hers too quickly to stop when Arisa did. The younger woman smirked at her senior for having tricked her into drinking unnecessarily.
"I've got you both beat," Arisa said.
"Oh, puh-leeze!" Kaya objected. "What could you possibly have that would beat Lord Jiraiya dropping everything to investigate it?"
"Something that made Lady Tsunade drop everything."
Blink. "No friggin' way. You are so full of crap."
"Swear to the Sage. Not only herself but she's got the hospital on a skeleton crew so that every available doctor can study this. See, Oli claims that diseases are actually caused by animals so tiny you can't see them, and you can prevent sickness by killing the animals before they get into a person."
"That can't be right," Sachie said. "Maybe in their world, but everyone knows that it's spirits in this one."
Arisa shrugged. "Lady Tsunade is over the moon about it."
Sachie and Kaya both nodded in a 'that settles that' way. They each slammed a drink and put the fallen soldier facedown in front of themselves.
"Enough of this!" Sachie said, pushing herself to her feet. "Enough boozing and nattering! Time for dancing!"
Author's Note: Voting remains closed.
This is in Threadmarks for now so it's easy for people to find. It will move to Sidestory later.
Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 23: New Visitors, Part 1
Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 23: New Visitors, Part 1(1)
I was having a lovely dream when the end-of-the-world siren went off, which I thought was very unfair on the world's part.
Just for clarity, I meant that it was unfair that the world needed to start ending during my dream, not that it was unfair that the world had given me a lovely dream. Which is actually a pretty nonsensical statement when you think about it...'give' is an agenty word. If there is a gift then there must be a giver, a painting a painter, etc etc insert argumentum imperito ab creatio here. Regardless, the world isn't an agent, secret or otherwise. (Although I would watch the hell out of Secret Agent Earth, a sci-fi show where all the actors are sapient astronomical phenomena. Aldebaran, leader of the Taurus Cabal, a secret underground organization that makes its money by selling probiotics to planets that have found themselves unable to stop being sterile. Messier87, the robotic black hole who rules the Virgo Cluster with a gravitic fist. (What's a robotic black hole? No idea, that's for the scriptwriters to figure out. Also their problem: How does an astronomical phenomenon emote / speak dialogue / etc?))
Anyway, the end-of-the-world siren was a thing that Leaf originally set up to warn about infusion failures, attacks by foreign nations or rampaging chakra golems, etc etc, but since those weren't as much of an issue these days the siren got taken over by the Church of Youth, who used it to call the faithful to prayer whenever the pews sat empty for too long. The court case "Most of the Population of Leaf vs Sonic Terrorists Who Want People to Attend Their Ceremonies" was still ongoing.
I yawned and stretched and bathed and ate and brushed and did the other normal morning things. I didn't bother exercising; I didn't need that since I'd figured out how to take proper advantage of my reality-warping spreadsheet powers. They had started off with showing a set of numbers like 'Chakra Reserves', 'Taijutsu', and so on, but I eventually talked the powers (or my subconscious, or the GM, or the author, or whomever made them work) into providing more detail. Now I also saw weight, percent body fat, and a few more things. As with the other entries on the spreadsheets, those things could be tweaked with just a few quick taps on the ol' arrow buttons. Anytime I noticed a bit of a deskpilot donut around my middle I would downarrow my body fat percentage, thereby forcing fat to instantaneously convert into a denser form (i.e. muscle or bone) in order to keep my weight constant. I'd always had trouble actually gaining weight (a fact that made Earl grumble whenever I mentioned it) but this was working like a charm and so I was eating all the sweets and fats I could stuff in. I'd gained twelve pounds and a six-pack since we came here three months ago and Earl's head was about to explode. It was kept unexploded solely due to the fact that I'd offered the same service to him and Val. I was working on convincing the spreadsheets to show age as well; I figured that Earl wouldn't mind rolling the odometer back a few years. I would have to discuss with the others whether to do the same for Hiruzen and/or Jiraiya. (I sure was glad that Jiraiya was alive and not a smoldering heap of ashes somewhere! Boy he was a lot of fun to interact with. Every time he was around things were more fun. Yup. Sure was glad.)
Tower Square was currently occupied by a giant mob that had gathered to listen in horrified fascination to the screaming argument debate between Toadists and Youthers, the commencement of which had been the occasion for the world-ending siren. Each side of the incipient riot debate was represented by a pair of preachers. Intriguingly, it was the younger member of each that was doing the arguing debating while his senior yelled from the sidelines.
"Nope," I said, turning my steps elsewhere. The siren had finally stopped, my curiosity was sated, and I felt no need to partake of the madness.
"Hey! Mr Oli! Mr Oli! I make you bao, Mr Oli! Nice hot bao, just for you!"
I smiled and hurried to where Ms Tanaka was waving frantically from behind her food cart. The long-widowed old woman operated a roadside cart in which was a tiny but efficient kitchen ruthlessly optimized for the production of doughy goodness—vat of boiling oil, vat of dough, jars of pastes and oils and meats and other items suitable for filling. The woman in question had a shriveled-apple face, two remaining teeth, and a permanent smile. One of her greatgranddaughters had been born sickly and I had uparrowed her Physique to get her back to par. It had required that she spend half a day riding piggyback on me through the Forest of Death while I fought off various monsters so that she could earn enough XP that my powers had something to work with, but it all came out well in the end. As a result there was no escaping Ms Tanaka: If I did not seek her out for at least one bao per day she would track me down and force them on me. It wasn't a hard sell; her food was delicious and she was delightful.
"Hello, Mama T," I said, taking the bao from her with a smile. They were each a third the size of my fist, pale and fluffy dough wrapped around a central filling, and depending on what was in there one could legitimately debate whether they should be considered pastries or donuts. "How are the smols?"
"They're doing well, thank you, Mr Oli," she said, the wattage on the smile increasing until the air around her shimmered with pure joy. "Little Kaya started at the Academy yesterday thanks to you. They say she has a big chakra system and will make a powerful ninja!"
"I'm so glad." I had bumped her Chakra Reserves at the same time as I was doing her Physique; there were a few spare XP lying around and it seemed like a good use. I started to tear open one of the bao to see what was in it but Ms Tanaka waved a scolding finger at me. I laughed and bit in with appropriate adventurousness.
"Wow," I mumbled around a mouthful of creamy coconut paste and fluffy dough, "that is amazing."
"Thank you, Mr Oli. The ninja, they went to the southern islands like you told them and they came back with more delicious things, plus this time they brought seeds. There should be plenty soon."
"That's wonderful!" Two weeks ago a ninja had come back from a mission to O'uzo Island and had brought some coconuts, pineapples, bananas, and other exotic foodstuffs with her. I had multiplied the plenty by picking up bags containing one of each item so that it appeared on the Inventory tab of my spreadsheet, then uparrowing the quantity of each individual item until the bag overflowed. It was a time-consuming process and I was glad that I wouldn't need to do it anymore.
"Yah. I'm just happy that they let me be one of the test cooks to see if the things are useful. You come to dinner tonight, right? Little Tomiko will be there...!"
'Little' Tomiko was only a year younger than I was and Ms Tanaka had been not-so-subtly trying to fix us up for weeks.
"I'm afraid I've already got plans tonight, Ms Tanaka," I said. "Thank you for the bao, though!" I reached into my pocket for some ryō only to get bapped with her long-handled wooden tongs.
"What do you think you're doing, offering me money? Your money is no good here! You know this!" She swooped two more of the bao out of her cart and onto a scrap of clean cloth, then shoved them into my hands. "Here! You take more. You're too skinny!"
I accepted the bao with thanks and hurried off before she could make another stab at either feeding me or matchmaking me.
I didn't have anywhere to be until the afternoon, at which point I was supposed to go to the Academy and uparrow the talent on the newest intake of students. Jiraiya hadn't been sure when that could get done so he'd told me not to worry about it; the ANBU would bring me once everyone was available. I chose not to think about whether his casual "Don't worry, the ANBU can find you," should be taken to have underlying meaning.
"News sheet! News sheet! Hear all about it! Oh, hey Mr Oli!"
"Hi Namio. How're you doing today?" Namio was nine and the son of Leaf's first newspaper editor. He and his brothers were the distribution part of the business. He had a smudge of soot on his nose today and the cloth bag that he kept the newspapers in was still half full, so sales had probably been mediocre.
"Good! Lots of news! A new visitor, two new seal failures, a new tax, and the crime section. Forty ryō for all of it."
"Forty?! Are you trying to impoverish me?! I'll give you thirty!" The first time I'd met Namio I'd made the mistake of simply paying the asking price; he'd looked so disappointed that now I was careful to haggle at least a bit.
He looked at me like I was a doofus, then glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention. No one was, so he leaned in close. "Mr Oli, you can't open thirty. You open ten."
"Right, sorry," I whispered. "In fact, forget thirty!" I said loudly. "Your newspaper isn't worth thirty. I'll give you ten, you scoundrel!"
"Scoundrel? Who's a scoundrel? I've got top-rate important news here and it's worth twice the price! If Da weren't so generous we could be eating like the Hokage every night, and you're complaining about a few ryō? I'll give it to you for thirty-five, you skinflint!"
"Skinflint! Listen to these insults! I wouldn't pay a ryō over twen—fifteen!" The hasty switch was the result of a scolding glare from my tiny haggling instructor.
"Fifteen? You greedy rich people are all the same, always gouging us poor little guys. You want me to go hungry, Mr Oli? You want me to starve to death, my last rattling breath a curse upon your family name for not paying the extra couple of ryō that would have let me buy food? Thirty-two, no less!"
I clutched my bosom histrionically, hamming it up for the cheap seats to see. "In the name of the Sage! You manipulative little urchin, I wouldn't pay more than thirty if you gave me a golden crown with it!"
"Okay, thirty!" He grinned and pushed a rolled-up newspaper into my hands, gladly accepting the string of coins I passed him in exchange. "You're getting better, Mr Oli, but you still shouldn't jump that far."
"Thanks, Namio. Have you been eating your fruits like I told you?"
"Yes, Mr Oli. Mouth is all nice and solid now. That scurvy stuff's not for me." He puffed himself up and hooked a thumb at his chest.
"Glad to hear it. So, what's going on?" I waved the newspaper in clarification.
"Two new seal failures that people are sure about. One of them happened outside the city—everything turned into tiny little cubes and there was a giant windstorm that blew the cubes up into the air. Some of them fell on the city."
"Huh. What do they look like?"
He grinned. "I thought you'd be curious, so I got a couple for you. You do the trick?"
"Sure. Got a ryō?" I held out my left hand, palm up.
He produced a five-ryō coin and laid it exactly in the center of my palm. I left it there in plain sight while I used my right hand to turn my hip pocket inside out, demonstrating very clearly that it was empty. Namio, a bit weak on the 'personal space' rules, pushed his nose almost against the fabric in an effort to find any sort of gimmick. There was, of course, no gimmick. You didn't need gimmicked pockets when you had a spreadsheet that tracked, and influenced, the exact counts of what you were carrying.
"Ahem," I said, pushing him gently back. I turned the pocket rightside in, then plucked the coin off my palm between finger and thumb and took care to make sure that it was completely visible the entire time until it dropped into the pocket. Namio stared, his eyes burning a hole in my apparel in a futile effort to figure out how I was doing it.
I uparrowed my spreadsheet a few times, conjuring a dozen more coins into existence, then reached into my pocket and brought them all out concealed in my fist.
Namio knew his part and his hands were already cupped in front of him. I dropped one of the coins into his fingers and then another after it, taking care that the second landed on the first to get that satisfying clinking sound.
He looked at the coins and then at me, eyes wide. "How—" He broke off and looked down when I dropped another. And another. And another. And then I let my hand open and dropped the rest of the coins in a ringing shower.
"How do you do that? You didn't make any handseals!"
I tapped my nose knowingly. "A magician never reveals his secrets, Namio. Now, let's see these cubes that were produced by a sealing failure."
Author's Note: @Velorien has been very busy lately so there's been no time to do the necessary planning before the big battle can be written, nor will he have time before Thursday. Ergo, another interlude today and Thursday. The current plan is that he'll write the Thursday one; if he does then it means that the Spoon Lord has smiled upon him and allowed him to complete his current efforts to the delight of those who shall benefit from his works. I will let him decide if he wants to talk about what he's been working on this month and where you could observe the results, thereby driving eyeballs to the relevant site and marginally increasing the ad revenues of the people who are paying Velorien and thereby increasing the likelihood that they will remain in business and continue to fund him but hey no pressure man you don't have to reveal that stuff if you don't want. ;>
(1) Given the surfeit of ':' punctuation marks in this title I considered doubling down and calling it: Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 23: New Visitors: The Colonic Assault but that seemed a bit puerile and like it might make the story go in unpleasant directions. The 'Part 1' got added when I realized that Friday's accidental all-nighter was catching up with me and I needed to wrap it up. Oh, and, speaking of puerile, given the context of its initial use I hope that people will not look too askance at me for using the word 'bao' instead of translating it to a more idiomatic 'bun'.
Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 24: Send in the Clown
Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 24: Send in the Clown
It was a pleasant morning at the Suspicious Foreigner Estate. For the sake of Orochimaru's resocialisation, I'd grudgingly accepted having meals with Earl and Oli instead of having extra time to pursue the deeper arcana of the Snake Element or recreate the Bloodline Limit transplant technology we'd unfortunately refused to carry over to the CftGverse. Oli had just finished regaling us with his exploits at the Leaf General Hospital (where he was busy annoying Tsunade with his attempts to move neurology past "brain disorders are caused by evil spirits partying it up inside your skull") when we heard the familiar ominous sound of a messenger calling from the main gate.
Orochimaru perked up. "Ah, finally, more raw materials. Now we can finish fine-tuning the Snake-Infested Swamp of the Underworld Technique."
"Remember, Orochimaru," I replied, "we do not kidnap people who might be missed, by which I mean anyone at all and suggestions to the contrary are blatant slander, so stop looking at me like that, you two. I'll go see what they want from us."
The message this time was neither a terrifying summons from the Hokage nor a a high-pitched scream that only we in all the world could decipher. Instead, it was a hand-drawn map, together with a calling card.
I rolled the map out across the coffee table, and the four of us leaned over to study it.
"This is near the Iron border, I think," Earl commented eventually. "I've heard rumours about villages disappearing in that area lately—more frequently than usual, I mean."
Oli and I winced, while Orochimaru nodded as if Earl had said, "It's likely to rain tomorrow" or "A lunatic like Hidan would never use his powers to help set up world peace".
"There's a cross-shaped mark there," Oli said, tapping an open area next to a forest (one of the two types of Fire Country terrain) with his finger. "Do you think it's an invitation to meet someone at that spot?"
We turned as one to the card. I flipped it over.
"Flufflec dot query," Orochimaru read out, taking a little longer to sound out the unfamiliar name. "Is this some kind of code?"
In a sense, I supposed it was.
"I have no idea," I said. "I don't think I've seen a flufflec.query before. That said, if it really is an invitation… there can only be one flufflec.response."
-o-
Flufflec, the Loremaster of Chosen for the Grave, was simultaneously exactly like and nothing like I had imagined him. On the one hand, here in the flesh, he looked like a maniacal clown in heavy makeup—you know the one I mean. On the other hand, here in the flesh, he looked like a maniacal clown in heavy makeup. At first, I was honestly lost for words.
"Not what you expected?" Flufflec gave a theatrical bow. "Ah, but wouldn't the alternative be dull? No, with all those years of entertainment to repay, my dear Valerian, I had to start by putting on my game face."
Suddenly, he shook his head violently, like a bull trying to shrug off a fly. "Ugh. I'm sorry about that. It's been like this ever since I got isekai'd, and I have no idea why. I mean, I assume you haven't been turning into your avatar, going around gathering morally dubious allies and exploiting overpowered supernatural abilities to prepare a bid for world domination and so forth."
"Eheheh." I gave an uneasy laugh. "No, that's certainly not something that would ever happen to me."
"Listen," Flufflec went on, his voice developing a trace of urgency, "I need you to stop me before it gets any worse. I swear to you, I'm not actually a homicidal sociopath with a twisted sense of humour, but given what I've already done, and the fact that my powers let me—"
He cut off abruptly, only to wiggle a finger admonishingly in his own face. "Ah ah ah. Spoilers in spoiler tags only, if you please. I am ever so sorry about my more boring half, my dear Valerian. Don't worry. I'll be sure to keep him under lock and key while we play our game.
"Speaking of games, I don't mind an audience, but I really was hoping for more of a show of courage from Team QM. And a protagonist actually being in possession of a telescope? It's like I don't even know you anymore."
It was my idea that the others hang back and watch from a safe distance. Anime had taught me that the essence of manliness was to charge into encounters headfirst, figuring out the enemy's abilities as and when they hit you in the face. However, better anime had taught me that against somebody with completely unknown powers which might well be the equal of our own (if not worse—he was a player, and they were the ones who typically got the cheat abilities), it made more sense for one person to provoke him into tipping his hand while the others watched and analysed, finding weaknesses to exploit in Round 2. Besides, if things went badly, which they probably would, I had the ultimate escape card ready while my friends did not.
"Then again," Flufflec drawled, "nothing makes the heart beat faster than a private show."
He snapped his fingers. Nothing seemed to happen.
"Much better."
"What did you do?" I asked warily.
"I had one of my happy little friends use seals to cut this area off from the rest of the world," Flufflec said. "My powers don't let me use chakra like you, but they make it ever so easy to gather those little yellow circles, and the people who live and die for them. That's why—"
He snapped his fingers again in mid-sentence, and a razor-sharp kunai hit the middle of my chest.
-o-
As it happened, I did not possess the aforementioned essence of manliness. I was well aware that, from a ninja perspective, I made wet tissue paper look like solid rock. As such, I'd come in wearing enough long-duration buffs that to an Uchiha I would light up like a Christmas tree made of lasers. The kunai, despite its scary precision, merely took off my level 94 Pangolin Conditioning Technique (and also scared the bejeezus out of me even though we'd figured I would be walking into some sort of ambush).
Three missing-nin appeared around me, spaced so that whichever way I turned, at least one would be outside my line of sight. Before anything else, I had to reposition.
"Substitution Tech—"
Oh, crap.
Forget convenient boulders or the classic log, the area around me was bereft of so much as a stray pebble. I made a mental note to avoid, in my next life, walking into ambushes set by people with a brain.
I went straight to Plan B.
"Earth Element: Shadow Clone Technique!"
Early canon was wonderful in some ways, and one of those ways was having shadow clones that not only didn't pop when hit, but could actually regenerate from fatal damage. Hiruzen's ability to solo two unkillable Kage and one only slightly less unkillable S-ranker at once made a lot more sense when you realised that Kishimoto had not yet grasped the concept of ninjutsu power levels.
I was just about to relax after securely concealing myself in a squad of earth shadow clones when Flufflec waved a hand casually in my direction.
"My dears, your dance partner for this beautiful evening is number seven from the right."
"Substitution Technique!"
"Number three from the left."
"Substitution Technique!"
"The one in the middle. Are you even trying now?"
It seemed increasingly certain that Flufflec's power was what I thought it was, I decided as I used the Body Flicker Technique to evade kunai after kunai while praying that the universe didn't get confused by a ninjutsu that couldn't exist and decide to grue me. I'd have to take him out fast and hope that his missing-nin lackeys didn't stick around once he was no longer in a state to pay them.
I needed something that worked fast, before the melee missing-nin could get through my wall of clones.
"Water Element: Water Gun Technique!"
Bizarrely, I'd found through experimentation that the Hōzuki ability to transform into water was actually a ninjutsu rather than a Bloodline Limit, meaning the usual restrictions on my ability to use Kishimoto's most absurdly OP powers did not apply. Research in the Basement was a lot safer for me these days, given that every room already had a convenient drain for all the blood.
Oddly, Flufflec didn't appear intimidated as I formed my fingers into a finger gun and pointed it at him dramatically. Nor did he react as a super-fast projectile possibly made from part of my finger (Kishimoto was unaware of the concept of biomass) began to zoom towards him.
Instead, at the last second, a random gust of wind caught the deadly but also tiny sphere of water, shifting its trajectory just enough that it slammed into the tree behind him.
"I know what you're thinking," Flufflec said sympathetically. "'If only my balls were bigger.'"
I felt a flicker of annoyance. Well, if that was the way he wanted to play it…
"Fire Element: Great Fireball Technique!"
I actually had to downcast this one, as a Great Fireball at full level 94 power would have left me well within its blast radius (as well as quite possibly half the Fire Country—at higher levels, the scaling on some of these techniques broke down harder than Sasuke's characterisation between the original and Shippūden).
Watching the humongous, vaguely-spherical inferno flying towards him with little more than academic interest, Flufflec snapped his fingers one more time.
"Water Element," came a shout from the missing-nin nearest him, "Water Formation Pillar!"
The curved watery barricade couldn't entirely cancel out the fireball—luckily, we'd never finalised an elemental advantage mechanic—but it lasted long enough for Flufflec, already in position, to get out of the way without even getting his purple suit singed.
There was no way Flufflec had different ways of snapping his fingers to indicate different contingencies. My worst suspicions were confirmed. If Flufflec had briefed his minions in advance on exactly how to counter my attacks, then he knew my battle plan better than I did. He really did have some kind of omniscience-related power.
Establishing that alone made this battle worth it. Now, there was just one thing I needed to confirm before I made my escape. Did Flufflec have any way to fight that didn't rely on his minions?
"Chidori!"
Ordinarily, it would have been a terrible idea for a non-Uchiha to use Chidori—if you didn't have the Sharingan's pseudo-precognition, its speed boost was so big you became unable to track potential counterattacks. That was how Kakashi had lost his eye. However, in this instance, closing the gap to Flufflec really fast was the only way to make sure his minions couldn't use a ninjutsu to intercept again, and the technique's notorious one-hit-kill potential should be enough to force him to reveal any trump cards of his own.
So of course Flufflec sidestepped very slightly, and, lacking the ninja reflexes for course correction, I ploughed face-first into the tree behind him.
"Witness the power… of the Uchiha…" I slurred as I learned firsthand why ninja wore forehead protectors.
I regained awareness of my surroundings just in time to see Flufflec fish an extremely evil-looking, jagged steel knife out of a jacket pocket and saunter up to my prone body.
"Why so serious, Valerian?" Flufflec simpered. "I think somebody needs a second smile."
I didn't waste time trying to get to my feet.
"Flying Thunder God Technique!"
Nothing happened.
Flufflec tsked disapprovingly. "I did say this area was sealed off. And now you're stuck with terrible last words."
The knife plunged unstoppably towards my throat.
-o-
"…And that's how I single-handedly defeated Flufflec and his three killer missing-nin without a scratch on me, the tree thing notwithstanding."
My three housemates exchanged strange looks as I sank triumphantly into the sofa after a long journey home.
"Val," Earl said slowly, "are you sure you didn't get any kind of concussion from the tree thing?"
"Fairly, why?"
"You realise you haven't actually told us anything? You just came in, said, 'And that's how I single-handedly defeated Flufflec' et cetera, and then sat down as if that was the end of the conversation."
"Right," I agreed. "That was key to my plan."
Those strange looks didn't get any less strange.
"If I told you how I beat him in-update," I explained impatiently, "he'd be able to read it in advance like he read everything else that happened in our fight. Timeskipping the finale and the explanation was the only way to take him by surprise."
"It's worse than I thought," Earl said after a second. "Come on, Val, we're taking you to the hospital for a proper check-up."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded. I'd just had a very exhausting battle and a very exhausting journey back, and there was absolutely no way these three were dragging me all the way across Leaf. "I'm perfectly fine!"
"There is no need to waste Valerian-sensei's time with a hospital visit," Orochimaru agreed.
"Exactly! Listen to Orochimaru!"
"I have my scalpel and gag right here," Orochimaru went on as he reached into his labcoat. "We can begin the examination immediately."
In the end, I decided it was safest to stay overnight for observation.
-o-
What do you do?
Voting ends on
.
Last edited:
Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 25: Realization
Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 25: Realization
"How was your walk, Mr Earl?" Komako called as I came in. She was in the other room and I could hear the water running, so she was probably doing dishes. A brilliant deduction that was well supported by the sound of water gushing from the kitchen seal.
"Really good," I called back. "Perfect weather, flowers are coming up. It made me feel good. Not great, but not bad or nothing. Hadn't realized I'd missed that."
Hang on...that was probably bad, right?
"Excellent!" she called, making me smile slightly. It had taken me four years to convince her that she didn't need to be kneeling seiza at the door when I came in. The fact that now she was shouting from the next room was an odd little delight.
The running water sound from the kitchen shut off and Komako came in with a smile on her face and a plate in her hands.
Komako was an older woman, maybe sixty or sixty five. She had a smiling dumpling of a face and a stout body that I knew packed a surprising amount of muscle under the padding. One time, on her day off, I'd happened to see her carrying a bundle of sticks bigger than herself through the streets. I'd run after her to ask what she was doing and if she needed help. She looked at me like she couldn't believe the question and told me that it was for the fire at her home, so she could cook and keep warm, and no, I couldn't help because she had it. I immediately went home and researched a heat-emitting seal with a pressure-activation trigger so that she and other civilians could use it.
"What's this?" I asked, gesturing to the plate.
"Is lasagna!" she said proudly. "You always say you miss lasagna, so I made you some. Is it right?"
I looked at the contents of the pan. Wide noodles, check. Moist, crumbly cheese that was the closest thing to ricotta that could be found in the markets of Leaf. No red sauce, because tomatoes didn't exist here. Vegetables, none of them anything that belonged in an Italian flavor palette. Strips of beef teriyaki in between the noodles. It was almost, but not completely, unlike lasagna and I didn't care.
"It's wonderful," I said, smiling and taking the plate. "Thank you, Komako."
"You are welcome! And look! Fork!" She held out a carved wooden bident the length of my hand.
I took the fork and stabbed it into the not-lasagna, managing to chop a bite out with the side of the device and get it into my mouth without too much splatter. Weird and unlasagna-like it may have been, but it was delicious.
"Thank you again," I said twenty seconds later, after shoveling the whole slice into my face. "That was amazing."
"You are welcome! Now, you take a quick bath and then meet your friends, yes?"
"That sounds like a good plan," I said, nodding firmly. "I've got it from here. You can take the rest of the day off."
"I have not beaten the rugs yet," she objected. "They are very dirty!"
"They're brand new," I told her, rolling my eyes. "Like, literally. I bought them last week." I waved my hands in a shooing gesture. "Go on. Go home. Go fuss over your kids instead of me."
"It is not fussing!" she said. "I am your housekeeper. What would people think if they came into your house and saw dirty rugs? They would think I was lazy! No one would hire me."
I pressed a thumb into my forehead for a moment. "Komako," I said patiently, "I know for a fact that you have more than five million ryō in the bank. Do you know why I know this?"
"Because you are a nosy man who sticks his big beaky nose into other people's business?"
A laugh burst out of me. This from the overly proper, constantly bowing, nigh-mute woman I had met just over four years ago?
"No, Komako. I know that you have this money because, first, I am the president of the bank and I do periodic audits of all accounts to ensure that the staff have been accurate, that there's been no embezzlement, and that we have sufficient reserves on hand to pay any withdrawals."
She sniffed. "See? Nosy."
"Second, I know this because I gave you one million of it when you first started working for me and the rest of it is the wages I've paid you since then. Of which, apparently, you have never spent a dime."
"What's a dime, Mister Earl?"
"A ryō, whatever." A spike of homesickness hit me and my stomach cramped up as I thought about all the work I hadn't been doing on the go-home seal. Val was going to catch me out on that at some point.
"Well of course I don't spend your money, Mister Earl. It is your money!"
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Komako. You needing money to live on is why I pay you. You know, wages? You use them to buy food?"
"Ohhh, psh," she said, waving dismissively. "You pay me with all your seals! I have running water! Me!" She pointed at her face. "In my enormous palace of an apartment, water comes out when I want it to, no need to go to the pump! Hot or cold, whichever I like. I keep my food in storage seals so it is always good. The neighborhood boys, they never get fresh with Eriko or pick on Hidemi."
Guilt made a cameo at the back of my mind. When I first heard about the 'neighborhood boys' (a euphemism for a gang of teen- and twenty-something young men) hassling Komako's family, I hadn't taken it well. I went down there to tell them to lay off, thinking that my notoriety would be enough, that I could stop the harassment simply by stating that I had extended the aegis of my protection over the victims.
As if that mattered.
I had found the gang leader and some of his 'boys' in the market, shaking down a fruit vendor. I had, stupidly, marched up to the leader with my soul filled with righteous fury and my mouth filled with righteous words as I told him to stand down. I forgot to leave him an out, a way to save face. He cursed at me, pulled a knife, and was immediately killed by six ANBU agents who melted out of the shadows. None of us had realized they were there; when I asked Hiruzen about it later he simply raised one grey eyebrow and said that yes, obviously I had a bodyguard following me at all times.
"Komako," I said, striving for patience. "It is your account. I set that account up specifically so that you would have money. I put the money in that account every week for you to use. It's your money."
"It's your money, Mister Earl."
"It's my money until I give it to you," I said, my teeth starting to grit. This wasn't the first time we'd had this conversation. "And then I give it to you, as wages, because you cook me lasagna and do my dishes and my laundry and all that. It's your money, Komako. You should be using it."
"Psh. It's your money, Mister Earl."
I pressed on my forehead again. "Okay, I get that bank accounts are unfamiliar. What about the money that I sent to your house? It was a literal bag of ryō. Nice, solid, familiar coins. The messenger told me that he put it in your hands and explicitly told you that it was your wages from me. Is that somehow my money too?"
"Oh, you mean that young man who was so confused that he went to the wrong house? I got him straightened out and had him bring your money here."
I took a breath and let it out slowly. We had done this dance before and I didn't have any new steps to try. If I gave her physical ryō, they got 'accidentally' left on the table when she went home. If I sent it to her house, she acted confused and sent it back. For whatever reason, she had decided to be my housekeeper without accepting coin in payment. She was okay with accepting seals and other in-kind payment from me (weird), so I had gotten a better apartment in a nicer neighborhood for her, her daughter, granddaughter, grandson-in-law, and two great-grandkids. I had fully upgraded the place with water-producing seals, an indoor shower, mild heating seals for warmth and intense ones for cooking, plus various other things necessary to bring it to something close to a twenty-first-century lifestyle.
"Fine," I said. "I'm going to grab that bath, then head out. You should head out, but I'm not going to twist your arm."
She looked down at her arms, then looked at mine. "Twiggy arms like that, Mister Earl? You had better not try!"
Author's Note: There was supposed to be another scene after this, one in which Val and Earl and Oli all have lunch to commemorate the sixth anniversary of Phil not showing up. I'm running short on time and energy so I'm going to post this now and call it good. It's a bit of a nothingburger but at least it's a thing.
I see that my April Fool's of 'closing' voting after @Velorien said it was open until Wednesday didn't work because people didn't keep voting. In retrospect, it was poorly executed; I should have made the 'voting is closed' declaration different somehow. Eh, whatevs. Next year I'll do something better.
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on Wednesday,
.
Last edited:
Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 26: The Clown, the Self-Aggrandizement, and the Metawankery
Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 26: The Clown, the Self-Aggrandizement, and the Metawankery
"Hello, Earl."
I turned to find him leaning on the side of the nearest barrier, wearing the purple suit and clown makeup that Valerian had warned me of. His lips were stretched even wider than his slopped-on whiteface and crimson-smeared clown mouth and he was cleaning his nails with a scalpel. Without looking. And without slicing his fingers open, which suggested some disturbing things.
"Hello, Flufflec," I said as calmly as I could. I stood and turned to face him. "It's good to see you."
"Why, Earl," he said, pushing himself upright with his shoulder and sauntering closer to where I sat at the center of the Eagle's Nest. (Yes, okay, it was a crap name for a sealing research facility that was planted firmly on terra firma. Whatever, I thought it sounded cool when I first named it and the fact that Oli and Val went to such efforts to convince me that it was not cool doesn't need to be discussed.)
"You never call, you never write," he continued, ignoring my parenthetical mental ramble despite my sense of certainty that he knew exactly what it had been. "And I do mean never. Write."
I smiled slightly and shrugged one shoulder. "The internet connection from this world is garbage and the roaming charges for transdimensional phone calls are off the hook. What brings you here?"
"My essential nature, bird duke. I've never concealed my goal."
"Still pushing the Armageddon Initiative, huh?"
"Someone has to."
"Out of curiosity, are you voting that as a joke or are you serious?" My eyes twinkled, lips quirking as I handed him the opening.
His head tipped, getting it. "What else can I say but..."
"Flufflec.response," we said together.
He stopped about ten feet away, eyeing me and cleaning his nails again.
I gestured to the scalpel. "Is that practice xor are you actually omniscient like Val thought?"
"Ah ah," he said, wagging a finger. "No cheating."
"Fine. Which of the following options are you using in order to clean your nails like that without hurting yourself: total omniscience, limited omniscience, a bloodline ability or other physical boost, extensive yet mundane practice, or something else?" I asked. "Please specify all that apply."
"My, my, my," the evil clown said. "So serious...why? Whyever would I share that key piece of information, bird duke? I'm not a comic book villain."
"Sure, but you also didn't put your plan into play thirty-five minutes ago," I said. "On account of we're still here. I figured it was worth a shot. Seriously though, why are you here?"
"I considered the best way to motivate you to resume writing."
"Wait...you want me to continue writing? Like, writing Chosen for the Grave back on EnoughSpeed?"
"I am not so self-referential, dear bird duke. No, I wish you to finish all the tales you have left incomplete over the years. The Tinker's Daughter, Dungeon Crawler You!, The Patchwork Realms, that tale about the corpsicle who was forcibly uploaded, dropped into a half-ogre death knight character on an MMO, and used as gold farmer on pain of deletion. A more satisfying conclusion to Team Anko instead of that drivel you forced upon us. All of it."
"Uh, well, sure. I mean, they aren't all dead-dead. I plan on continuing DCY, definitely. And I wouldn't mind getting back to Patchwork Realms. I even went back and re-read it to get the groove back." I winced. "Holy crap it was shit. It had—"
"Tch." He snapped his fingers together in a 'close your mouth' gesture. The other hand was holding a scalpel at the ready so I shut my mouth.
"Readers have disagreed. Regardless, intentions are lovely, updates are what matters," he said, gesturing with the scalpel.
"I'd love to get back to those but I didn't stop by choice. I ran into a wall on all of them. They were either too derivative or just didn't go anywhere. I couldn't keep going."
"I suspect you will reacquire the ability if given...sufficient motivation."
That wasn't ominous at all.
"I considered what might constitute proper motivation," Flufflec continued. "It took some time, but I have finally acquired inspiration."
This was very not good. What would someone who used a psychotic murderclown as their avatar consider good motivation? Torture? No, I couldn't write if I was too busy screaming in pain.
Blackmail? My mind flashed through all the things that would make valid blackmail information on me. There wasn't much...some intrusive thoughts that I had never acted on or shared with anyone and would never act on because they were repellant to my conscious self. Besides, those were deniable. Various personal failings that would be cringe-inducing if put in front of others but they wouldn't be disastrous.
Bribery? An offer to bring me home would honestly need consideration instead of being an immediate yes the way it would have a decade ago when we first got here. A way to communicate with our former world would be good but it was integral to the thing he was bribing me to do, so it wouldn't count as the bribe. Money? Riches? I was doing pretty well for myself in this world... I didn't need money and the people I cared about were well taken care of. Helping people I cared about back in the real...back in the other world, that might be a good line.
"What did you have in mind?" I asked carefully.
The murderclown grinned at me, a fully psychotic Heath-Ledger-esque expression that chilled me to the bones. "Allow me to introduce a new friend." He gestured widely and space and time were slit open.
A man stepped through. At least, he looked like a man. Sort of. Parts of his face kept unattaching, drifting out a bit, and then being sucked back into place. He had dark hair and chestnut brown eyes. Three eyes, not two, arranged in a downward-pointing triangle. His hands were vague and fuzzy, as though I were suffering double vision several times over. I couldn't tell how many fingers there were and I think the number might have been changing.
He was wearing a bright yellow poncho, made of no material that I recognized, with edges and folds that didn't quite fit into this reality. They cut at spacetime with every movement, leaving tiny screams and bleeding papercuts in the tapestry of the world every time the 'man' shifted. Which, fortunately, he didn't do very much. He was statue still, face blank, like a doll.
His head turned. Well, no, it didn't turn. It did a jump-cut; one moment he was facing me, then he had turned his head a hundred degrees to look at Flufflec. The rest of his body hadn't moved at all, making it look as though his neck had broken.
"Meet Josh," the clown said.
"5CrEEeec<h|-|HH—" The man stopped when I collapsed to the ground, clutching my bleeding ears and vomiting.
He coughed and tried again. "Testing, testing, one, e, pi...is this better?" The voice was angles and screwdrivers stabbed through eyes.
I was too busy dry heaving to respond.
"Some," Flufflec said. "Less eldritch reverb, if you please." His ears were also bleeding, as were his eyes, but he didn't seem to care.
"Hmmmm... red muscle fiber, yellow eyeballs, red muscle fiber, yellow eyeballs, red muscle fiber, yellow eyeballs. Yes, that seems better."
I retched out the last little bit of my spleen, used a quick water jutsu to clear my mouth, and pushed myself up to a seated position, leaning hard on one arm.
"Josh?" I asked.
His face split into the wrong smile. "Yes! That's me. Josh In Time." He frowned. "Wait. In or Out? I'm In right now, so I'm Josh In Time, but if I go Out then I would be Josh Out of Time. Would I still be me?" He pondered for a moment, then shrugged and smiled brightly. "Oh well! Anyway, just call me Josh!"
"Riiight. Okay, what can I do for you, Josh?"
"Well, see, Flufflec here summoned me and we got to talking and I'll be goshdarned if he didn't start making a whole lot of sense! He told me about all of you and your stories and they just sounded so gosh-darned wonderful that I needed to see them for myself. And I checked and they gosh golly whillikers sure were great! Hey, can I take your name away from you?"
"What?"
"You don't take the name itself, Josh," Flufflec corrected. "You ask him to write it on something and you take that instance of the name. He keeps the name afterwards, you only get the one instance of it."
"Oh, really? Huh." Ponder. "What do you do with the instance?"
"Put it on a wall, or in a drawer. Obviously, you would need to make a wall or a drawer, first."
"Hm. I suppose that could be fun. Interesting challenge, keeping a thing from dissolving. That would give it some real bragging rights, you know? Okay, what do I have him write it on?"
"Paper is typical. Or a book, or sometimes a body part." He paused and then added. "Preferably your own." Another pause. "While still attached."
"OOOH!" He was suddenly right in my face, leaning in so close that 'eye contact' was about to take on a whole new meaning. "Can you sign my throat?"
The top of his head flipped back to reveal that he did not mean sign the outside of his throat.
"Uhhh—" I was cut off by Flufflec's pen dropping right into my hand, thrown with omniscient precision.
"We'?" Josh demanded, pointing at his throat with both hands. "Si' i'!"
I took the pen and signed the not-a-man's throat. What else was I to do?
Signing squishy throat flesh shouldn't have worked, but Flufflec's pen wrote perfectly. I carefully did not think about that. Instead, I handed the pen back, holding it with the tips of my fingers so as not to risk getting any Josh-goop on me.
Josh zipped back a few feet, stood erect, and his head flipped around into normal human position again. He worked his jaw back and forth, licked both ears (really got inside them too, like he was checking for ear gold, ew), and smiled.
"Thanks! That'll be fun to show around."
"Welcome?" I said, somewhat weakly. Honestly, what did you say to this? "So...where are we?"
"Josh got his autograph and now is going to help motivate you to resume writing."
"Okay, look, I don't want—"
Josh spun in a circle, pinched his nose, blew out his cheeks, and crossed his eyes. A window opened in front of me and I looked through into a Starbucks cafe, logo visible and everything.
I looked through the window at one specific person. One very familiar person.
The window had opened directly in front of him, less than arm's reach away. He was looking down, probably at a laptop, but it was below the bottom of the window.
"Josh, as you must know, is able to manipulate probabilities and causation," Flufflec said. "Here's the deal: you write one hundred words for one of your unfinished stories, he steps on a Lego." He gestured towards the person in the window.
I looked at Flufflec in disbelief. Then at Josh. Then at the window. Then back at Flufflec. I asked the only thing that mattered.
I was twenty-seven thousand, four hundred and eighty-nine words into the continuation of The Patchwork Realms, a number that gave me indescribably great delight, when the transdimensional doorway opened once more.
I put Flufflec's pen (still wrote perfectly, still had apparently unlimited ink) down and stood up eagerly. It was undoubtedly Josh, come to pay me for the latest two thousand words. We were doing them in batches so that he wasn't constantly shuttling back and forth to the Out—time was a novel concept to him that he apparently enjoyed dipping in and out of, but it was better for my focus if I could do long blocks of writing uninterrupted by joy-bringing Lego-stepping observation.
"Hey, Josh, good to oh my god, Moni?"
It was indeed not Josh In Time come to provide me with vengeful payment. It was instead Monique, more commonly known to me and a few select friends by her diminutive sobriquet, 'Moni'.
The love of my life, left behind in the other world these long ten years.
She smiled that wicked smile that made my heart light up and then we were in each other's arms again.
She was warm, and curvy in just the right places, and she fit against my body just as well as I remembered. She was an inch or two too tall for me to rest my chin on the top of her head but if I tipped up a little bit I could feel her heat against my throat. My hands slipped automatically to their familiar positions at the back of her head and the small of her back, cradling her close and pressing us together as though to meld us into one flesh. Her long hair had its usual flyaways which tickled my nose in exactly the way I remembered. The scent of it was a long-buried, longed-for memory that sent a host of images and experiences and emotions tumbling through my mind.
She was pressing into me just as much as I was pressing into her, clinging tight and making adorable little noises in the back of her throat that signalled a rightness with the world that had been too long absent and was now banished to the nothingness it deserved.
We separated just enough that she could look up and I could look down and we could lock eyes. She was almost as I remembered her but with ten years more smile lines and a touch more silver among the rich mahogany of her lustrous mane that was floofing out behind her in the crisp fall breeze. She wore a new (to me, at least) example of one of her favorite styles: a scoop-neck cream top leading into a wrap skirt in brilliant oranges and reds with brown ankle boots that had been laced in the, shall we say, quirky and idiosyncratic way I remembered.
There was no time for speech because our lips were locked together. Our mouths opened, tongues touching lightly in remembrance and assent. She tasted the way I remembered: heavy cream with hickory smoke was the closest image I had ever managed to bring to mind, yet still utterly inaccurate. All my words, all my skills and experience as a writer, and I could find only lightning bugs instead of lightning to illuminate the heady flavor of her mouth. It made my head go quiet for the first time in ages, everything else falling away as, for a few blissful moments, she became the only thing in my world.
"What are you doing here?" I asked when we eventually separated. My voice was a husky whisper, too lost in her to speak normally.
She smiled, the lines around her eyes crinkling the way I remembered. "I met a demon," she said. "Phil-something. He offered to send me here and I couldn't say no."
I blinked, running numbers. "It's been ten years here...is it the same back home?"
She nodded. "Mm-hm."
"Tobe is...twenty?"
"Just turned twenty-one," she agreed. "Senior at UT, majoring in graphic arts with a focus in video game design."
"They have a major for video game design?" I asked, pulling back slightly in surprise so that I could see her better. I still kept my hands looped at the small of her back; I think part of me was afraid that if I let go then she would disappear.
"It's a focus within the overall graphic arts major," she said. "He's graduating in a few months and he's already got two job offers. Good offers."
"He's got good genes," I said with a grin.
She wrinkled her nose at me. "And he works hard."
"And he works hard. So Phil offered you a trip to here and you said yes?"
She tucked her head back against my chest and squeezed tight. "Mm-hm."
"He offered you a trip to a horrible death world full of murderous ninja where even the food crops are able and eager to kill you. And you said yes."
She looked up at me, not releasing her grip. "Of course."
I couldn't stop my goofy smile, nor did I try. "Did he offer you superpowers in the bargain? We got superpowers."
"Yup. And he let me choose."
"He let you choose?! We didn't get to choose! He didn't even tell us what we were getting, we had to figure it out. How come you're special—wait, never mind, dumb question. Let me count the ways you are special." I leaned down for another brain-quieting kiss, then leaned back again so neither of us was craning our neck. "What did you get?"
"The ability to talk to anything through music."
I blinked. "That's...interesting." The word 'anything' jolted something loose and I looked around, decade-long reflexes making me check for monsters that might be sneaking up on me. Nothing. My perimeter was still secure. Which, in fairness, wasn't that surprising—I am, after all, the best gorram sealmaster in the world and I had prepared this ground when I came out here to write this morning.
"What are you looking for?"
"Nothing, just checking for critters. Why don't we get you back to Leaf and get you a check-up? When I first got here I got crazy sick. Chakra-enhanced germs are no joke. I had to go on this whole stupid quest to get this stupid rock and have it implanted in me to give me a super regeneration ability. It messed with my head something fierce."
She smiled and nodded, then laced her arm through mine and fell in beside me as I set off. Long habit had our steps in sync so that her right hip and my left stayed together the whole time. (Neither of our hips was lying.)
"You don't want to pack your stuff?" she asked, gesturing to the lawn chair and lap desk and sidetable and hot cocoa and and and...
"It'll be fine. I want to get you to Tsunade ASAP."
She smiled and hummed quietly to herself as she followed along.
o-o-o-o
"I don't know why you had to waste my time," the Slug Princess complained. "She's fine. If everyone were this healthy I'd be out of a job. But no, you had to go be an ass, cut into my rounds. I have real patients, you know."
"Shut it, Sunny. I know what you have in the hospital right now. She's important to me, and she's more at risk then any of the boo-boos and bruises you need to kiss and make better."
It had taken years before Tsunade and I had developed our relationship to the point where I felt comfortable talking to her so bluntly and she felt comfortable not punching me through a wall when I did. It was a mix of things that allowed it—had she tried, my reactive armor seals would have blasted her into orbit unless she was making a truly serious effort to kill me by using medical chakra spikes to slip between the firing arcs. (I was still working, on and off, to eliminate that small weakness.) On the other side of the coin, my seals had completely revolutionized medicine in Leaf and saved thousands of lives per year. Byakugan-reproduction seals that allowed any doctor to see their patient in the same detail as a trained Hyūga (that one had nearly gotten me assassinated twice by angry clan members), sleep seals that could safely and instantly knock out a patient, chakra-battery seals that could help ninja keep going in a critical situation without burning their chakra coils through overdraw. The list went on and on and it gave me the privilege of lipping off under certain limited circumstances.
"Yeah, yeah," the grumpy doctor said. She flicked her fingers and the green chakra she had been running across Moni's chest poofed away. "You're fine, girl. Don't gargle mud and you won't have any issues. Honestly, you've got the cleanest bill of health I've ever seen. Most people have at least a little bit of sickness trying to get a foothold in them at any given moment. Not you."
Moni smiled her urchin grin, the one that only came out at playful moments, but all she said was "Thank you." She hummed happily to herself as she reached out and squeezed Tsunade's shoulder in gratitude. "You're very kind."
Touching a ninja, especially a ninja of the Sannin's age and prior mission portfolio, was generally the kind of thing that got you murderized. I tensed up, ready to dive forward and put myself and the aforementioned reactive armor seals between my love and the angry doctor.
Amazingly, Tsunade didn't react with sudden and overwhelming violence. She merely looked at Moni's hand, raised an eyebrow, and looked back at my beloved's face with a thoughtful "Hmmm."
"I'm glad to hear things are good," I said, inserting myself as much between them as I could manage. Moni dropped her hand and Tsunade stepped back to allow me in. "We'll come back if anything changes, okay?"
Tsunade rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Get out of here and stop wasting my time. Honestly." She stumped out of the room, muttering to herself about over-demanding, over-dramatic sealmasters and what a damn nuisance they were.
"So, what would you like to do first?" I asked.
"Picnic?" Moni asked hopefully. "I need to eat pretty soon."
"Sounds good," I said after a moment to think where a safe area might be. "Mama Tanaka sells pre-made baskets. We can pick one up on our way to the city gate."
o-o-o-o
We were halfway to our destination when Moni pulled up short.
"Let's eat here," she said, looking around at the bucolic scene.
It was a beautiful spot. The trees were silver-barked and spaced wide enough that the afternoon sun trickled happily down through their leaves to bring warmth and light. Lush green grass swept like a welcoming carpet down a slight slope to a flowing creek perhaps six feet wide. Birds were singing somewhere in the trees. There were a few holes that were probably home to roly-poly little gophers.
Of course, the trees were silverbarks, the favorite nesting ground for carnivorous acid ants. The trees and the ants lived in symbiosis; the trees' leaves were razor-sharp and the tree could fling them like shuriken at anything that got too close. The carcass would then be devoured by the ants and the ant poop would fertilize the tree.
The lush grass was mostly just grass but there was a large patch of vampire grass mixed in. The stuff would happily grow into you and drain you dry if you sat too long. Its sap had a soporific and anaesthetic effect that would prevent you from noticing the touch of the plant until it was too late. By the time you were aware of your blood being sucked out you were already unconscious.
The birdsong identified them as eyestealers, natural masters of genjutsu that would keep you unaware of the singers until they had come close enough to pluck the eyeballs from your skull.
The gophers were, of course, fire-breathing carnivores.
"Yeah, this isn't the safest spot," I said. I pointed at each of the threats and explained it.
"Oh," she said, looking surprised. "Okay." She began to sing, the way she often did when she was happy. Her repertoire was vast and I usually didn't recognize what she was singing, but I did this time: Mr Rogers' Neighborhood.
I swear to fucking god, the vampire grass fucking pulled itself out of the ground and marched up the slope to our left, leaving a rich carpet of actually safe grass near the creek. The birdsong stopped for a moment, then resumed. The trees swayed, their leaves rustling, and then went still.
And a fucking gopher popped out of its hole and gave us a gorram thumbs up before diving back underground.
"What."
"What?" she said, cocking her head. "I asked them to be friendly and not bother us."
"You...asked them to be friendly and not bother us."
"Mm-hm. Did I see vegetarian spring rolls in that basket?"
Author's Note: Eagle-eyed readers might draw the conclusion that I have a guest in town this weekend and thus could not write an actual update. Said readers are brilliant and perspicacious.
XP AWARD: 0 It's an interlude.
Voting is closed.
Last edited:
Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 28: A Quick Visit Home
Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 28: A Quick Visit Home
"Hm...probably want a thermobaric," I muttered to myself, jotting a note. "Coordinates, coordinates..." I pondered, then snapped my fingers. "Pinhole viewing rifts! Yes!" I pumped my fist, then promptly frowned. "Hm. What about the beach?" I frowned harder, tapping my pencil furiously. (Quills and brushes suuuucked. I had finally gotten around to making a seal that ground up wood and coal and spat out pencils.)
A delicate hand slid onto my shoulder and a sweet young voice said, "Hey there, Uncle Earl."
I yelped and triggered my jump harness, flinging me out of the chair and away. I bounced clumsily off the ceiling, smacking my head hard in the process, and collapsed to the ground.
My sweet little thirteen-year-old 'niece' Honoka lost the charming smile she'd been wearing and put her fists on her hips, glaring at me. "What was that all about?"
Laughter pealed through the room and we both looked over to find Mari standing in the door, laughing her ass off.
"What?! I did it right!" Honoka demanded. "I was careful! I didn't do the sexy thing and I didn't try to intimidate him or anything!"
Mari managed to collect herself enough that she could come over and help me to my feet, running a quick medical jutsu over my aching head. A sense of cool numbness washed away the metaphorical stabbing icepick that had buried itself in my skull.
"There you go," she said, smiling warmly at me. "That should numb the pain a bit until you can get a real doctor to look at you. I don't think it's anything serious." She turned to Honoka. "Now, what did you do wrong?"
"Nothing! I just said hello!"
"Yes, but you did it by making physical contact without previously alerting him. You could have simply knocked."
"You said that he's touch-oriented and easier to control with moderate and appropriate amounts of physical affection!"
I opened my mouth to say something, closed it, and glared at Mari.
The redhead sighed and gave Honoka a speaking look. "Honoka, that's not what I said at all. We don't 'control' our relatives. It's rude. Yes, Earl is touch-oriented and appreciates a hug or pat on the hand. I mentioned that as an example of one type of person, and opposed it to Kei, who has gotten a lot better over the years but will still be made uncomfortable by contact. Also, again: you could have simply knocked instead of startling him."
"But—"
"Leaving aside this whole concept of how you're receiving lessons in manipulating me," I began tartly, "why are you here?"
Honoka glowered. "Never mind. Once the social context has been disrupted there's no point in asking favors. I need to withdraw as smoothly as possible and make a better attempt later, ideally using a display of embarrassment and an apology as a way in."
I turned to face Mari and gave her a very speaking look. "Mari, are you training Honoka as a social spec infiltrator?"
She looked shocked and placed a hand on her chest in exaggerated innocence. "Would I do such a thing?"
"In a heartbeat."
"Well, all right, perhaps. She was interested, I figured I'd explain a few little things. Mostly to help with normal social interactions, actually. She's still...a bit of an outlier in that area. And no, we're not going to do the 'S' part of I&S. As you would say: all the ick."
I tried to figure out what to say to that and came up with absolutely nothing.
"Yeah, okay, whatever," I said at last. "Honoka, just tell me what it was you wanted."
Honoka looked to Mari, received a nod, sighed, and turned back to me with a sudden and winning smile. She clasped her hands in front of herself, looked shy, and said, "I...I was hoping to ask if I could come with you on Thursday?"
"Nope."
"Please?" Her eyes got very big and soulful.
I couldn't help myself; I laughed. The soulful eyes narrowed in irritation, the smile disappeared, the hands unclasped, and she glared at me.
"It's not funny!"
"It's a little funny. You seriously tried to run an I&S mission to get me to take you back to Earth? Really?"
She had the grace to look uncomfortable. "Well...Aunty Mari said it would be a good low-stakes exercise. That you were unlikely to get mad and it was a goal I could attempt multiple times until I got it right."
Mari took a deep breath and let it out slowly, clearly reaching for calm. "Honoka."
"What?" said the girl in question. "You told me that it was important to be known for honesty and openness!"
Mari rubbed her forehead. "Yes, sweetie. That doesn't mean you need to volunteer everything. Being open about certain information can cause its own issues."
"Like how now I'm now aware that she's trying to run game on me and I'll be on my guard from now on?"
"Yes, exactly."
"And also that I now know you're teaching her how to run game on me and thus the thought that I should be more on my guard around you might come to mind?"
"Even more yes. And no, I have never used my training to manipulate you, Earl. Family doesn't do that." She hesitated. "Well, I've never used any of the intentional techniques. Depends on how broadly you interpret 'my training', I guess. A lot of who I am is a result of the training and I can't turn that part off." She gave me a Gallic 'what can you do' shrug.
"Sure. Honoka, there is no way I am ever taking you to Earth."
o-o-o-o
I sighed as we stepped through the portal to Earth.
"Remember," I said, "you promised that you would stick by my side and do what I tell you. Right?"
She looked up at me, her face sunny and excited as she nodded. "Absolutely!"
"Do you remember why you need to do what I tell you?"
"Because Earth is dangerous in ways that I won't immediately recognize and if I cause too much trouble you won't be able to come back here yourself much less bring me with you again in the future and that you like your apartment and really don't want to have to move and it would be very hard to explain to your family why you moved without lying to them which is something you don't want to do?"
"You could have just said yes, but at least I know you were listening. So you're going to do it, right?"
"Oh, absolutely!"
Thus unreassured, I set off down the street to my apartment. I was going to stop there briefly, pick up the mail, give Honoka a bowl of ice cream from my freezer (there had been a suggestion of going for ice cream which I had instantly nixed because I wasn't letting Honoka stay on Earth for more than ten minutes if it could possibly be avoided and damn I wished I could find a rift that opened directly into my apartment instead of into an alley two blocks away), and then we were going home to Leaf. I had learned my lesson on not picking up the mail for a few days; if your mailbox got full, the post office would decide you didn't live there anymore, take everything out, hold it for ten days, and then send it all back to the sender. Given that I had an apartment-building-sized mail box (i.e., one barely big enough for a mouse) and got the usual amount of junk mail, it was important to pick up the mail at least every other day.
Honoka bounced along at my side, head on a swivel as she gulped down the excitement that was a New York City street. It was Chelsea so the sidewalks weren't as packed as they would be in Chinatown or parts of the East Village, but it was still unlike anything she had seen before. The cars whizzing past were a constant fascination for her, one that was only partially stymied by the fact that I was insisting on walking on the inside, between her and the curb. Last thing I needed was her darting out into traffic. Granted, that was more of a Golden Retriever thing than a teenage ninja thing, but grumble grumble it was Honoka grumble grumble.
She stopped all of a sudden, staring in the window of the building we were walking past.
"What's that?" she asked, moving closer until her nose was pressed against the glass, hands cupped around her eyes to cut out the glare.
'Rock New York' the sign said. Through the giant sheet of glass (smoother and clearer and vastly larger than any she had seen before), we could see a bunch of people climbing up walls, some of them with harnesses and belay ropes. A couple hundred people were packed onto one of the nearer bouldering mats, waiting their turn.
"It's a rock climbing gym," I explained. "They make plastic holds which they bolt to the wall in various ways that we call 'routes'. People go there for exercise and try to climb the routes."
Honoka looked at me as though I'd said the sun was green. "What?"
"The routesetters bolt plastic holds to the wall, people try to climb them."
"But...why?"
"For fun and exercise. Look, my place is on the next block. Let's—"
"Wait, isn't five thousand dollars a lot of money?" she asked, pointing at a sign in the window.
'Rock New York comp! $5,000 prize!' it said.
I suddenly got a very bad feeling and reached for Honoka's arm. "Yes, it is. Now, the apartment is just down here, so let's— Oh hell."
She had, of course, dodged away from my hand and darted inside.
It really should not have been possible for her to get inside, get signed up for the competition, and get to the bouldering wall in the time it took me to open the door and chase after her. Really shouldn't have been. But, of course, it somehow was.
I went to jump on the mat to grab her, but a guy with a staff badge stepped in front of me.
"Sorry, sir," he said with a customer service smile. "I'm afraid it's competitors only on the main-room mats today. If you'd like to go to one of the side rooms, those are open. Or you can sign up...?"
"I'm just grabbing my niece," I said, pointing to where Honoka was currently using chakra adhesion to run up a V10 competition boulder. "We've got an appointment in ten minutes and we're going to be late."
Honoka dropped off the wall and sprinted (at, of course, ninja speeds) to the next boulder down the line. This one was a silly little easy-peasy warm-up boulder with big easy holds and even I could have climbed it the civilian way. She didn't bother using her feet, preferring instead to swing from one hold to the next like an obnoxious little gibbon. The crowd was oohing and aahing and clapping. Dozens of phones were pointed at her.
Honoka, knowing how to play to a crowd, reached the top of the boulder, put her feet on the wall, and launched herself out and away. I tensed up, breath catching in fear that she was definitely going to land on someone in the crowd, but no. She turned a neat flip in midair and latched onto the top of one of the boulders across the way. It was another one of the difficult ones, meaning that it ended on a tiny little two-handed crimp which she, obviously, nailed. Then she downclimbed the entire route and went back up it the correct direction, much to the delighted shock of the judge standing there with his clipboard.
I sighed and rubbed my head. I was going to have to move.
Recently, there's been a discovery on how to generate wackadoodle amounts of chakra for the upcoming battle, and also a debate that there shouldn't be a battle and instead simply an instant wipe of Akatsuki and all their little minions too. (An argument that I personally am not yet convinced of but definitely can't dismiss out of hand.) In short, y'all have thrown everything into chaos and invalidated all our prep work again (sigh, dramatic gestures, sigh, wagging finger, shame, shame) and therefore you're getting an interlude today and Sunday so that we poor benighted QMs can have time to redo everything.
Voting will remain open until the usual time next week (Wednesday,
. At that point, assuming y'all can stop causing chaos and destruction, er, coming up with new ideas, we'll do the work and try to have an actual chapter by Sunday the 25th. That will be a short session so hopefully we won't have to do an interlude then as well but brace yourself for the possibility.
Sidebar: my apartment-dwelling friends should take Earl's little adventure with the mail to heart. It's embarrassing to go down to the local postal distribution center and tell them that you're a doofus who didn't think to check his mail for a few days and could they please start delivering again?
