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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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somnolentSlumber said:
What about stuff that never existed and we will never have to worry about but is treated as having been grue'd by Kagome? As in, we have never encountered it in-story and the QMs have never mentioned it or treated it as real, but Kagome makes offhand remarks about random stuff that only he remembers?
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I suppose I should have specified that it's only a grue if it's eating something that was actually shown onscreen. Things that we designed as part of the backstory don't count as grues.
 
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@Veedrac @Cariyaga Is this what you were looking for? I added the follow-up conversation just in case.
Velorien said:
"Hazō, how can you stand to surrender control of your body to others with such extraordinary frequency? How does physical contact not engender in you a reflexive instinct to escape or to defend yourself?

"I am told that my mother would hold me as a small child, before I displayed my lack of value and my parents lost interest in me. And Ami, my sister, holds—held a unique position of trust which can never be replicated by another person, in addition to being able to read my mood and judge my degree of approachability to a degree far beyond even Mari-sensei's abilities. But for as long as I can remember, I have had a clear sense of personal boundaries, and I do not understand how other people do not."

"What about taijutsu?" Hazō asked curiously. "We've done full-contact sparring plenty of times."

"The purpose of taijutsu is to establish control over the engagement. To master taijutsu is to permit physical contact precisely and exclusively in the manner of one's own choosing, and terminate it as quickly as is practical. Even then, I chose to specialise in ranged combat as soon as circumstances permitted.

"Yet others surrender their bodies to each other freely and casually, with no sense of danger, and worse, they expect me to do the same."

Keiko looked down at the grass again. "It is not an issue I can afford to ignore forever. Not with a marriage to come, and… other concerns. I was wondering whether you had any insight to offer into how the majority of people can willingly lower their most essential defences so completely as to not merely tolerate another's touch but to enjoy it."

Hazō had known, vaguely in the back of his head, that Keiko didn't like being touched, but he'd never really thought about the how and why of it. It was just one of those strange things, like how some people were afraid of spiders or loud noises.
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Velorien said:
For once, it was Kei's turn to track down Hazō. At this time of day, he would likely be conducting that phase of theoretical research which involved staring gormlessly into the distance while his brain innocently offered up apocalyptic seal designs one after another. It was best to approach him now, before Kagome's screaming marked the start of the discussion phase.

Watching him ponder yet another way to tie space-time into a knot for the sake of moderately improved combat performance, Kei felt a wave of humiliation at their previous encounter. Not only had she grievously misinterpreted his words (she hoped), but she had spontaneously lost all her facility with language, plummeting head-first into the abyssal depths of accidental innuendo that had hitherto been Hazō's sole domain.

"Hazō," she bowed awkwardly, "I must apologise for my behaviour yesterday. After extensive reflection, I have concluded that your comment was referring purely to the physical sense of touch, and not to any… personal activities that shall never be discussed again in any way, sort, shape or form."

She looked up warily. "That is what you were referring to, isn't it?"

As best as she could tell, Hazō seemed amused.

"Yes, Keiko. I don't even see how… the other thing… could've followed from what we were talking about."

That should have been obvious.

"Given that you began to enquire about my experience of touch, and that there are various forms of touch which produce different—"

Kei stopped abruptly.

"Never mind."

Next time she saw Mari-sensei, she would have to ask her about Truth Lost in the Fog. Or about subcontracting the Yamanaka to erase Hazō's memories. Blunt force trauma was also a tempting option, but not one Mari-sensei was likely to approve of. Kei made a note to catalogue the possibilities later using the Frozen Skein.

"More importantly," she hurried on, "have you given any thought to my question?"

"Actually, I have," Hazō mercifully accepted the change of subject. "Keiko, do you like the Clear Communication Technique?"

Ah, now they returned to safer ground, namely Hazō's inane questions that assumed she possessed the brain of a typical jellyfish.

"It is a means of communication that you and I developed together in order to overcome what we perceive as flaws in ordinary human interaction. You may as well ask Akane whether she enjoys using her ridiculously-named taijutsu style."

"All right," Hazō agreed. "So why exactly do you like it?"

Better. A question that was not only inoffensive, but might provide him with useful new information. Kei would have to offer a considered response.

"Clarity," she said simply. "As per the name—though I must admit I have no recollection of who gave it that name, or when. Certainly, I was not consulted, or I would have suggested something less ambiguous and more immediately informative.

"Regardless. Typical human communication relies excessively on non-verbal cues and subtext. These features are only amplified when the subject of communication is in some way complex or sensitive. As I have great difficulty noticing them, much less interpreting them correctly, such conversations lead me to feel as if I am crossing one of Kagome's defensive arrays. A single misstep could be crippling or fatal, and yet everyone else seems to possess a mental map that allows them to step over the traps and read the warning signs I find opaque. Even then, I notice frequent instances of miscommunication, sometimes followed by violent explosions.

"The Clear Communication Technique renders non-verbal cues verbal, and transforms subtext into text. It allows actual communication to take place, instead of the usual exchange of cyphers and layered hidden signals that would be considered excessive even for an infiltration mission.

"Does this make sense?"

"Yeah, I guess it does," Hazō said, but his voice did not contain the confidence Kei expected after such a helpful description. She began to wonder if he had planned this discussion in the form of a list, and she had somehow gone off-script.

"The way it facilitates trust is an advantage as well, isn't it?" he asked. "When using the technique, you know you're in a high-trust, high-cooperation environment, because if someone is dishonest while using it, or believed to be so, then the whole thing falls apart. So if someone is using the Clear Communication Technique, it's a sign that they trust you and that you can trust them. I know that matters a lot to me."

"I suppose. But I fail to see how this differs from any other form of interaction. Speaking with someone presupposes a degree of trust, because if you begin from a position of expecting deception, you are no longer communicating but engaging in social combat. To converse is to grant your interlocutor the benefit of the doubt, not necessarily in all things but in a general desire to exchange true information and seek mutual benefit. Such trust is what makes civilised society possible to begin with."

Hazō frowned.

"You have to agree, though," he argued, "that the Clear Communication Technique involves more trust than just talking to someone. Using it is like making a formal statement that you're not going to hold back any relevant information, and that you're going to offer it as clearly and accurately as you can. Also, because you're being honest about your feelings, in a sense you're laying yourself bare to the other person, the way you did just now when you admitted how you have trouble reading social cues. You can't do that if you think the other person might hurt you while you're vulnerable."

"Again," Kei responded patiently, "it is acknowledged within our society that, assuming a neutral context, lies by omission are unethical, as is providing true information in a misleading fashion. Any act of communication assumes that neither party will knowingly conceal relevant information, and that each will pursue the objective of making the other understand it correctly.

"I am more prepared to grant your point regarding emotional vulnerability. Nevertheless, I am given to understand that this is a general feature of human relationships as well. Uncomfortable admissions are not restricted to the Clear Communication Technique, nor are the risks they entail.

"Hazō, why are you attempting to ascribe the Clear Communication Technique virtues beyond those in its design specification?"

"I was just trying to make a point," Hazō muttered.

Kei decided to relent slightly. It was a tendency of Hazō's to oversell his inventions, and she could not blame him for being proud of their joint creation. Even without being some magnum opus that would revolutionise human communication across the continent, it was a tool of great value that would transform the world for the better were it more broadly adopted.

"Let us grant, purely for the purposes of argument, that the technique truly does elevate conversations to some new unprecedented level of trust. What am I to conclude from this?"

Hazō gave Kei a grateful smile.

"What I wanted to say is that often, the loss of control that comes with touch is the whole point, because it's an expression of trust."

Kei could see how this might be true. Vulnerability generated trust, and trust permitted vulnerability. Mari-sensei had explained it to her. Repeatedly.

"So you are saying that people allow themselves to be touched in order to build trust with each other?"

"Among other things. If you touch someone, you're expressing trust that they won't react badly. If you let someone touch you, you're expressing trust that they're not going to hurt you. It's a two-way street."

Was this so? Kei had never flinched away from Ami's touch. Yet that touch itself had nothing to do with building trust. Rather, it was possible because the trust was already there, already absolute. It was inconceivable for Ami to wish to hurt her. And even if she had… she was Ami. There was nothing Kei would not have given her if she asked.

Nevertheless, the example was inapplicable. There was no creation of trust involved in those acts of touch. They were purely expressions of affection.

Kei understood the use of touch in expressing affection. It was nigh-universal. Doubtless, any partner she acquired in the future would expect it of her as well, and would lose trust in her when she was unable to comply.

Suppose Kei's inability to do so was due to a lack of trust. Presumably, it was theoretically possible for her to trust another human being sufficiently to permit herself a surrender of control in their presence. It would, of course, not happen. Kei still remembered being hugged by Mari-sensei, once, on their final day in Hidden Swamp. This woman had just pulled her back from the brink of annihilation, glimpsed Kei's darkest depths and brought light to them, and yet all Kei could feel at her touch was the helpless terror of the small fish as the shark's maw closed around it.

Conversely, there was another who had earned trust, rapidly and in significant volume, precisely by refraining from touch, by wordlessly communicating a deep understanding of personal space as safety. Kei hoped that she would forgive her for being unable to offer whatever fulfilment touch was supposed to offer. Not that Kei harboured any such feelings towards her. Or that her feelings would be returned even if she were, given Kei's lack of appeal as a person generally and as a woman specifically. To say nothing of the implications of the upcoming marriage.

Enough of that subject.

On further reflection, Kei was unconvinced. She trusted Mari-sensei. She trusted Hazō and Noburi and Akane. In principle, she trusted Kagome—on a peculiar level, he was a kindred spirit to her, another person with essential parts missing, incompetently attempting to navigate a world designed by normal people for normal people. Even to someone of her social skills, Kagome was predictable and therefore unthreatening, at least when he wasn't threatening the survival of her team, her clan and her village by unilaterally attempting to murder her team leader. But such incidents were hardly exceptional within her team as a whole, and in the end she found that she would trust all of them with her life nevertheless.

Yet she would never let any of them touch her.

Furthermore, those relationships of trust had not been built on any touch whatsoever. Indeed, her teammates had earned her trust in part by respecting her personal boundaries instead of treating her as "that weird Mori girl who freaks out when you grab her". For that matter, with the exception of Akane's insistence on hugging people, and Mari-sensei's subtle techniques of manipulation and control, her team had built their other bonds of trust without much touching at all. Certainly, one did not see Hazō and Noburi prancing around hand in hand, and indeed now she visualised it, the image was pure comedy gold.

"I do not believe your description adequately accounts for the use of touch as I have observed it," Kei concluded. "I have witnessed bonds of trust being formed through dialogue and through action, but those who touch each other only tend to do so after such bonds have been established, as opposed to using touch as a tool for building them. Perhaps matters are different in romantic relationships—it would be consistent with the way you and Akane insist on holding hands at every conceivable opportunity, as if such physical contact were all that prevented you from being dispersed to the opposite ends of the continent by some S-rank Wind technique.

"However, in ordinary relationships where such intense emotional bonds have not already been formed, it makes no sense that people should choose to surrender control to others at the point of minimal trust, as a way of acquiring more. Conversely, once a reasonable degree of trust has been established, there are plenty of means of furthering it that do not require one to train oneself to suppress the feelings of danger that regularly ensure a shinobi's survival.

"Is that the extent of the insight you have to offer on the subject?"

It came out harsher than she had intended. But she was disappointed. Part of her had hoped that Hazō would have an answer, some means of bridging the gap between her and the rest of humanity. After years on the road, Kei was about to be once again immersed in ninja village society, and she had to perform more competently as a human being than she had in Mist. She couldn't return to that way of life.

"Sorry, Keiko," Hazō dashed her hopes. "I'll let you know if I come up with anything else.

"But I do want to say one thing. We do all know you trust us, touch or no touch. The Clear Communication Technique wouldn't work if you didn't. And I don't think you have to force yourself to learn to touch people if you don't want to. You're a paranoid shinobi—in the Kagome meaning of the word—and if people think it's strange that you flinch away from touch, then just play up your background. You're a hardcore ex-missing-nin who's survived dangers those poor village ninja can't imagine, and if they think it's weird how you don't want to be touched, then they should try camping out in a forest full of dropbears sometime.

"That said, being chained by your fears sucks. I mean, obviously nothing bad actually happens when people touch each other, so it would be a lot better for you to overcome your fear of touch so you can do it too."

"I am not afraid of touch!" Kei snapped almost without thinking. "I have strong personal boundaries. That is not the same as cowardice, and I resent the implication."

This was a lie. Of course Kei was a coward. There were so many aspects of her life that she surely could have changed by now, had she only the courage, and this was but one of them. Everyone else was capable of touching others—even Kagome was merely uncomfortable with hugs—yet to her the very idea was paralysing. What was this, if not the most contemptible cowardice?

"Of course not," Hazō said, placating her like a small child, which she supposed her outburst had earned. "I didn't mean to offend you.

"There was one more thing I wanted to ask you about, if that's OK. It sounds like, apart from your sister, your family didn't take much of an interest in you. I can't exactly imagine what that must have been like, given how close I was with my mother—though I guess you could argue that the entire rest of my clan pretending I didn't exist might count—but if you want to talk about it, maybe that might resolve the underlying problem."

"What underlying problem?" Kei asked. "At the age when Mori children commence aptitude testing, it was demonstrated that I was mediocre at best. My parents, who had been hoping for another prodigy like Ami, were gravely disappointed, and judged me to neither require nor deserve attention beyond what was necessary in order to raise me as a productive member of the clan. It was a rational decision that allowed them to allocate their time and resources more efficiently. I fail to see what there is to discuss, unless you are merely expressing curiosity concerning my background."

"I'm just wondering," Hazō explained, "whether that situation has something to do with your fea—dislike of touch now. I mean, if you didn't experience much affection through touch as a young child, maybe that would make sense of why you're not comfortable with the idea now."

"It seems unlikely," Kei said. "Mist, like every village, contains many orphans who may have lost their parents at a young age and thus been deprived of parental affection. Yet they do not demonstrate an aversion to touch as I do. Equally, there exist many strict households where casual physical intimacy surely does not occur. Indeed, I was even so fortunate as to receive affection from Ami, my sister, where other children in an analogous position might find themselves in total isolation."

Hazō gave her a strange look. "Keiko, I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure it's not normal for parents to abandon their children just because they don't live up to their expectations."

"What are you talking about? Of course it's normal. It's a matter of rational optimisation. Parents are no different to other shinobi in that they have limited resources with which to serve their clan and their village, and must allocate them as effectively as possible. In cases such as mine, when it is apparent that extensive investment in a child's upbringing will not generate sufficient return, it is sensible to perform only the necessary minimum and spend the rest of one's time and energy elsewhere.

"If anything," Kei felt herself growing irritated, "my parents were generous. They not only permitted but expected my presence at family mealtimes. They tolerated Ami's decision to spend time with me, despite the fact that any other activity on her part would have been of greater benefit to the clan. They held me to the family's high standards despite my demonstrated ineptitude. They even expressed occasional interest in my activities at the Academy, a topic of no relevance to the lives of adult shinobi like themselves. It is not as if I were an unwanted civilian child, knowing I would be the one to starve to death should a lean year bring insufficient food to sustain the entire family."

Hazō seemed taken aback, which was only appropriate. Who was he to pass judgement on her family? To imply that she had somehow been systematically mistreated, simply because her relationship with her parents was different to his? Did he expect her to be jealous that his mother had, for lack of any other options, apparently invested such a vast amount of herself in a bond with her son? That he was so close to her that, two years on, he was prepared to risk his life in order to be with her again and believed she would do the same?

It was insulting. Ridiculous. Kei was a provisional chūnin. Practically an adult. There was somebody out there who wanted her hand in marriage. She was not some child to be led astray by fanciful imaginings of a life that could not and should not exist.

She needed to be alone.

"I have other matters to attend to, Hazō. I will see you at dinner."

She left quickly. It would have been dangerous to wait for him to respond.
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Sorry for the lateness and limited scope of the chapter. I hoped this week would be different from the last, but apparently it wasn't. XP allocation once again reserved for @eaglejarl so I don't end up grading a single conversation.​
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Cariyaga said:
@faflec No, the thing to which I am referring was in reference to Tenten.
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Ah...is this the thing you're looking for?
Velorien said:
Finally exhausted, they'd returned to the same spot as before, possibly one of Tenten's favourites—lying down in the gaps between the twisting roots of a great oak, seeing glimpses of the sun through shifting gaps in the canopy.

Kei didn't fall asleep this time. It would have been a waste. Instead, she lay still, unable to see Tenten but keenly aware of the proximity of her presence, just the other side of a root separating their lines of sight.

It was peaceful. Peaceful in a way that another person's company shouldn't have been. Did Tenten feel the same? She suspected so, somehow, but there was no way she could possibly tell. It wasn't that they were unable to understand each other. It was more that Kei did not understand what she understood, or how she understood it. Like magically speaking a foreign language she did not know, the words becoming incomprehensible to her the second they left her mouth. It was irrational, and confusing, and it should have had her paralysed with anxiety. And still there was that sense of peace.

Would words make it better or worse, she wondered. Tenten avoided speaking, that much was obvious. To someone like Kei, who could only make sense of the world by trapping the unknown within a cage of words, it was an unimaginable way of life. How could Tenten live this way? And why?

"Poor verbal skills."

Tenten's voice. Neutral, detached, somehow ethereal.

"My conversations don't work. People get frustrated. They reject me."

A brief pause.

"It's too much."

It was not difficult to imagine that anyone spending a significant amount of time in Tenten's presence would ask the question. But Kei could not begin to guess how Tenten knew that she was asking it now.

"The silence changed," Tenten said as a seeming afterthought, an explanation that did not explain anything.

Keiko stayed still, her gaze still semi-consciously seeking the sun behind the leaves. Her heart was beating fast. She knew Tenten would have her own question, and that this was the time to answer it, but she was afraid—inexplicably afraid—of how Tenten might react.

"When someone touches me, I feel as if they are taking control of my body," she said to the leaves. "I panic."

Silence. Minutes and minutes of silence.

Tenten's voice.

"If you are ever ready."

Only that and nothing more.

Minutes.

Kei also had only one thing she could say. Only one thing she wanted to say.

"You too. If you are ever ready."

The words hung between them, intertwined. Like a promise. Like a pact.

For some reason, Kei's heart slowed to a peaceful pace again.
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Cariyaga said:
Yeah. There were a few other chapters with scenes like that, but that's the kinda thing I was talking about, thanks.
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I'm not entirely sure there are that many more scenes after this one. There was the one where Keiko and Tenten announced their relationship (to each other) in one of the hiatus interludes, another after Tenten was released from Mist T&I, and the final was the date in Tanzaku Gai...but I'm not sure those have the information you're referring to. Still.
Velorien said:
Kei was crossing the exact middle of the fort to see if Hazō had a better whetstone she could borrow when the most troublesome of troublesome men, as Shikamaru would doubtless have it, intercepted her like a green anaconda intercepting a tapir.​
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"You know, Gōketsu," Rock Lee addressed her out of nowhere, "I've taken far too long to congratulate you."

"Congratulate me?" Kei repeated uncertainly. "On what?"

"Why, you and Tenten, of course!" he beamed.

An icy hand of horror began to close around Kei's heart. "Wh—What about me and Tenten?"

"I want to congratulate you on the development of your relationship!"

Behind Lee, Tenten had frozen in place, like an animal not knowing whether the rustling in the bushes was predator or prey.

Their relationship? Kei did not even know if it could be called that. They had not put a name to it, the ephemeral bond weaving itself into place between them. It could come to nothing. It could dissolve itself into simple friendship. It could plunge further into uncharted waters. It was unlike anything Kei had experienced before. She did not even know how much of it existed and how much was her imagination. She and Tenten were dancing, magically synchronised so far, but neither of them knew what would happen when the music stopped.

Around them, everybody else was watching, silent, staggered at the revelation. Hanging onto Rock Lee's every word. It was known, after all, that Lee's more questionable antics were directed solely against fellow men, and that gave his words a perverse kind of credibility here.

"I could tell the potential for it was there the first time we all trained together," Rock Lee went on, each word another tongue of flame in her cremation. "It was in the way you stood, in the way you two looked at each other. I am so happy that you ended up following your instincts in this most youthful direction!"

She could deny it. It would be the easiest thing in the world. Her word against Rock Lee's. She was the serious, level-headed one. He was the hyperactive clown. A few well-chosen words, and this incident would dissipate into eye-rolling and friendly exasperation.

It was the most sensible course of action. She was not ready to bare it to the world, this connection she did not understand herself. Not ready to come under scrutiny, or be bombarded with the weight of other people's expectations.

She could not even predict how they might react. Two girls. It was something you could laugh about. Inappropriate pairings were a common source of humour at their age. But actually outing oneself as deviant to the entirety of Leaf?

Someone like Mari-sensei could be casual about her preferences, with her force of personality and her gift for navigating the swirling chaos of the social world. Indeed, that kind of flexibility was only a boon to a seduction expert, and many sexual adventures could be dismissed by the public as her simply keeping her hand in.

Neither Kei nor Tenten were Mari-sensei. They would be judged by the standards of their peers, which a social invalid like Kei could grasp nebulously at best. What if they faced contempt? Bewilderment? Revulsion? They might lose friends, and the ability to make any more.

But then she looked at Tenten, whose stony, emotionless expression she could somehow recognise as concealed panic. What would a denial do to her? If Kei rejected her, even temporarily, even as a lie, how much damage might be done that she could not undo? How much might she hurt her? How deeply might she cut? Kei, herself pitifully fragile, knew that some words remained like stingray barbs embedded in your mind. They were beyond the reach of apology or forgiveness. There were words that could not be forgotten, could not lose their venom, as long as even a tiny part of you believed that they were true.

So she made her choice. She walked past Rock Lee, walked to Tenten, chose a position at her side. She crossed her arms.

"Any matters between Tenten and myself are our private business, and I will thank you to keep your unsolicited speculations to yourself," she said with a fierce glare, telling him that if he pushed further it would be open war. Kei did not know what she was protecting, did not truly know that there was anything there to protect, but with Tenten weaponless in the social arena, it was Kei's responsibility to fight for them both.

Rock Lee did not back down.

"There's no need to be embarrassed," he said cheerfully. "I know this might all be new to you, but as your seniors we would love nothing more than to guide you."

Kei blinked.

"Why, Gai-sensei has decades of experience which he has kindly shared with me. And Neji and I were in a similar relationship for years before our interests took us in different directions."

"Lee," Hyūga said wearily, "I've told you time after time that I dislike that phrasing."

By now everyone was goggling at Rock Lee except Hyūga and Tenten (who had a look of dawning understanding).

Lee looked at Hazō. "You and I must step up our pace, Gōketsu. At this rate, we will be the ones left behind while the others revel in the Springtime of Youth!"

Hazō choked as the stunned gazes shifted to him.

"This is a better outcome than I could have hoped for when we first met," Lee concluded. "Now every member of Team Gai has a true rival in Team Gōketsu!"

You could have heard a pin drop.

One… two… three…

"Sage damn it, Lee!"

"I can't believe I wasted precious energy listening to that."

"Dude, what is wrong with you?"

Yamanaka, not bothering with words, simply strode over and smacked Lee upside the head before returning to the rest of her team.

Kei, meanwhile, interpreted the situation as a shinobi would. Rock Lee had to be eliminated. He knew too little.

She was turning away with deliberate nonchalance, ready to resume her duties, when Tenten moved so as to be within her line of sight.

In Tenten's eyes, she saw a primal thunderstorm of disparate emotions, compacted down to a single message for her.

Yes.

The world stopped spinning on its axis as she understood.

Kei had just gone and made it real.
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Velorien said:
A chilling winter night had long since fallen on the barracks rooftop, but Kei could see a single figure on a bench, staring into the distance as if attempting to pursue the vanished sun. Kei approached, taking care to keep her footsteps audible.

Tenten glanced over her shoulder briefly, and in that instant Kei saw first recognition, and then a terrible uncertainty that she did not understand. Nevertheless, she continued walking towards the bench.

She glanced at Tenten for permission. Without meeting her eyes, Tenten gave a barely perceptible nod. Kei sat down next to her.

She had no idea what to do next.

Up close, it did not take her long to recognise the clues. The slight trembling. The tightly clenched hands. The heartbreakingly hollow look in Tenten's eyes. Something had gone very wrong.

What was the correct thing to do here? Should she ask? Or would forcing Tenten to talk about it only make it worse? Should she leave and allow Tenten her privacy, or would that be abandoning her to face her problems without support? Mari-sensei would have identified the issue with a single look, Kei knew, and within the space of a breath determined how to address it with both sensitivity and insight. Why couldn't Kei be Mari-sensei? (The eternal question.)

Finally, she compromised on simply remaining where she was, potentially the worst of both worlds, yet somehow feeling more intuitive than either.

As time passed, Kei held to her chosen course, providing silent company, wishing to seek understanding or offer reassurance but damned by ignorance of what to say.

"They wouldn't stop asking questions," Tenten suddenly whispered, still staring straight ahead. "Ever since they took me… only questions."

Kei's mind immediately conjured the image. Tenten, alone and helpless, versus the interrogators of the world's most dreaded T&I division. Them using every tool in their peacetime toolbox to provoke her into making some statement damaging to the Hokage. Her not knowing whether her death warrant was already signed, and aware that any attempt to protest her innocence or appease her captors would only sound terse and uncooperative.

Kei had to forcefully remind herself that wiping Mist T&I from the face of the earth would not be any better an idea now than it had been yesterday. (In hindsight, her reaction could have been more nuanced.)

Her pent-up outrage sought other targets. Leaf could have anticipated this. Tenten was theirs to understand and to protect. Why had they not provided her with anti-interrogation training?

But an old memory surfaced to provide the answer.

Kei had gone to the Mist Academy librarian (who, as a fellow bookworm, held her in less contempt than most instructors) to ask about that very thing, in the vague hope that it might offer transferrable skills. The librarian had told her that the Academy did not provide anti-interrogation training, and that it had never provided anti-interrogation training. Kei, too young at the time to understand the meaning of the special voice, had asked why not. The librarian had made certain that they were alone and then, still without offering any explanation, asked Kei some questions. What would it take, she asked, to make a child capable of enduring the intensity of torture that a T&I division habitually wielded? What would such conditioning do to the children too weak to complete it? What, she asked in an even lower voice, would it do to the ones who did? Then she told Kei to never bring the subject up again with anyone.

A motion by Kei's side pulled her back from the latest realisation of her own powerlessness.

With the answer to Kei's unspoken question given, Tenten seemed to crumple as if some knot of tension had become undone, allowing her head to fall into her hands.

Kei moved closer to her, as close as she dared, wishing that she had the mental fortitude to put her arm around Tenten's shoulders or whatever it was normal people did at times like these.

Kei could hear the soft sounds coming from between Tenten's cupped hands, and it instinctively made her want to turn away. Kei had not earned the kind of trust it would take for someone to be able to cry in front of her. For the same reason, she knew that Tenten's next whisper was not meant for her.

"I was supposed to be strong…"

The raw pain in that voice, the too-familiar self-loathing, tore through Kei like a jagged knife. She could not allow Tenten to proceed any further down that path, not ever, even if she risked saying things that she had not yet earned the right to say.

"Tenten," she said, mustering her courage. "Mist T&I is the best in the world. No, the worst in the world. Inflicting suffering is their job, their privilege and their pride. They have refined their arts sufficiently to break veteran jōnin, the people you and I revere as heroes."

The words rang false. She could not reason Tenten out of the darkness shrouding her. Her structured intellect, the only part of her that was of value, had no power here. Did she truly have nothing else to offer?

No, there was one more thing. Untried. Untrained. Often opaque even to herself and, charitably put, a mess. Still, it had to be good for something.

Kei cast away control and spoke from her heart.

"I do not know what you are feeling. I cannot know what you are feeling. But you are not broken. You have survived. You will heal. I know this because…"

An unnameable fear swelled up inside her. She had never felt anything like it before, not even when the Mori Voice was at its loudest. It promised failure. It promised the end of all hope. It promised final rejection and an endless fall into the abyss of loneliness.

It was also standing between her and doing the right thing for the girl she loved.

"…because you were strong enough to come back to me."

For the first time that night, Tenten turned to look at her. Through the tears, she forced out a single word.

"Always."

Eventually, they watched the sun rise together.
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Velorien said:
November 27, 11 a.m.

Tanzaku Gai had been a centre of civilisation long before the founding of Leaf, ever since a courageous would-be daimyo successfully bargained for permission to build his castle within the territory of the dreaded Aburame Clan, swearing to oversee the peasants of the land on the Aburame's behalf in return for their protection. Though, with the ebb and flow of both shinobi and civilian fortunes, the seat of power had long since been moved from Tanzaku Castle, the castle town's reputation for safety and trading opportunities meant it never stopped growing. Until the village era, it had been the greatest city of the eastern mainland, and it remained the setting for over half of all stories set in the Fire Country.

Today's story was as yet untold, its very genre undetermined. Kei prayed for romance, and would even settle for romantic comedy—some days, her life seemed to consist of little else—if it meant that her incompetence did not plunge the day into melodrama or worse. For this, at Tenten's invitation and with Shiori's unplanned facilitation, would be Kei's first date.

With Mari-sensei unavailable, Kei had spent the morning in frantic sugar-fuelled research on how such affairs were conducted, made perilous by the fact that she had lent all her more sensible books to Akane. The uncanny timing almost led her to suspect conspiracy, but for the fact that Akane could not possibly know Kei had a girlfriend.

Still, if Kei could not trust the wisdom of Icha Icha 30: Diaries of Haraguro the Harem Lord now, when could she?

By mutual agreement, she and Tenten had arrived at Tanzaku Gai separately, taking advantage of ninja speed to minimise the amount of the day spent on travel, then changing into date-worthy traditional women's clothes that would struggle to survive a quick walking pace.

The result was worth it. Granted, all Kei had was an unimaginative midnight blue kimono which Mari-sensei claimed enhanced her feminine mystique. Kei, painfully aware that she had feminine mystique the way Yagura had moral compunctions, believed it merely made her look funereal. Even so, it was the most attractive winter clothing she had on hand that did not scream "missing-nin survivalist expecting Zabuza around every corner".

Tenten, on the other hand… Kei was aware by now that Tenten did not spend her money on anything not eminently practical, meaning she owned a set of masterwork weapons that would give a collector pause, but lived in an apartment even the poorest ostracised orphan would not be caught dead in. With that knowledge in mind, seeing Tenten come to their first date in a red cheongsam made of winter wool that must have been specially imported from Lightning Country, with customs duties in Frost and Hot Springs raised by the recent tensions, assuming average costs for ninja escorts across the full distance and of course factoring in the cost of dyes and craftsmanship, as well as the influence of the season on profit margins… Suffice it to say that sometimes egregious luxury spending could speak louder than words.

So could ogling, apparently. Kei had not realised she was doing it until she noticed Tenten, already rosy-cheeked from the cold weather, turning a uniform shade of pink. She immediately snapped her eyes up from Tenten's exquisitely figure-hugging clothes and to her face. Meanwhile, Tenten, with her superior social graces, restrained herself to an appreciative smile.

Now, as to the issue of what to do… While still somewhat new to the experience of someone wishing to spend time with her without being Ami, being compelled by political concerns, or having mutual bonds forged in blood and fire, Kei was at least capable of discarding a few of the literature's less helpful suggestions. Dance halls of any kind were out of the question. Kei did not dance, and besides, physical contact. So were hot springs. Kei would not be able to handle a naked Tenten, figuratively or literally. Drinking together was out, both because it was not Kei's objective to entice Tenten into a state of inebriation and take advantage of her (according to ladies' erotica writers, the natural outcome of joint alcohol consumption was either that or "mistakes") and because she herself was perpetually teetering on the edge of some social disaster even sober. For all the world's sins, it did not deserve a drunken Kei.

Having discarded this suggestion and a few that were worse (she was beginning to see why Jiraiya's relationships never lasted), Kei found herself at something of a loss. There were still too many options remaining, and how was she to weigh the merits of, say, dining at a BBQ or watching a civilian sports game versus a poetry recital or a famous market? All of these were apparently prime seduction locations—not that she wanted to seduce Tenten—not that she wanted to seduce Tenten today—and yet she needed to choose. Without Mari-sensei's help.

Kei prayed that this first date would not be the last.

-o-​
Also November 27, 11 a.m.

"This way, Shikamaru!"

It was here! It was finally here! Shiori's first date, even if it was formally "an immersive tour of spots in Tanzaku Gai particularly suited to an instance of two individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship". (Shiori didn't know how, she didn't know when, but Gōketsu was going to suffer for introducing Shikamaru to this calamity of a term.)

Soon, she would be repaid for all her effort. In the space of a single morning, she'd found a traveller's journal describing Tanzaku Gai in the Nara Library. She'd bought a replacement for her favourite green kimono, which she had stained in the process of practising for the tea ceremony she would one day host for Shikamaru. And while she'd been unable to get the man himself to budge from his "all-purpose" grey and black, she'd at least been able to persuade him to change into a haori and hakama that rounded out his stick-thin figure into something a shade more manly. No Nara crest, of course, for the same reason they were not in Leaf. It was imperative that nobody recognise them, realise that they were blatantly on a date, and start asking awkward questions. Her excuse for doing all this was fragile enough anyway, and protected thus far mainly by the fact that Shikamaru didn't care. Yet.

"Must you be so… enthusiastic about this, Shiori? Recall that we are simulating two particularly level-headed individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship. The simulation will not be accurate if you persist in bouncing around like a chimpanzee on Akimichi stimulants."

"What did you just compare me to, Shikamaru?"

"An intelligent and helpful young woman whom I am glad to have assisting with my social affairs."

"And don't you forget it. Now get moving. Apparently the fountains at the Nishūrasen Gardens are out of this world."

"Fountains?" Shikamaru livened up just a little while Shiori mentally awarded herself a gold star. "I suppose there are more tiresome ways to spend a morning."

-o-​
Kei could not deny that the Nishūrasen Gardens were beautiful. It had been an inspired choice by Tenten, and now Kei considered the matter, it occurred to her that she had read about their value as a date spot in Typical Classroom, the slice-of-life novel about a class of Academy students with an idealised jinchūriki teacher, which she had only recently lent to Akane. What a curious coincidence.

Their original interest had been in the Gardens' famous fountains, shaped into the likenesses of the guardian kami whose heretical worship had been banned at the beginning of the village era following the revelation of the Will of Fire, and which had fortunately been preserved as historical works of art after unrelated generous donations to the Hokage's Office. However, the space around the fountains was already crowded, and neither Kei nor Tenten considered them worth the inevitable jostling and cacophonous chatter. Happily, there were other options.

Kei's previous experience of a hedge maze had involved desperately attempting to convince passers-by that her two adopted brothers were in the process of having sex behind the bushes. The bar was not set high. She and Tenten made a game of their exploration, attempting to navigate the unfamiliar maze while simultaneously competing in a deadly game of Spy vs Spy, handicapped by clothing which was not designed to offer any mobility whatsoever and must not be soiled in any way, the unavailability of weapons, a natural ban on physical contact, and the injunction not to distress the other visitors… too much. Eventually, Kei won through the cunning expedient of using Tobikomi's candy (which she had absent-mindedly transferred to her kimono sleeve) as a concealed missile weapon. Perhaps she had been too harsh on the man.

-o-​
"Hey, babes. How 'bout you and us ditch this lousy joint and go have a good time?"

Ah, the incompetent pick-up artists preying on young women in cafés. A cliché so pervasive that Kei had almost been excited to experience it for herself. The reality did not fail to disappoint.

"You and we," Kei said coldly. "A man incapable of distinguishing between subject and object pronouns has no business attempting to seduce me."

"Huuuh?"

"Allow me to elaborate," Kei said. "Were I in the market for a romantic partner, which I most emphatically am not, you would first be required to pass an elementary proficiency test including the ability to count on your fingers, fasten your sandals unassisted, and pronounce words of three or more syllables without pausing for a break or requesting clues. Thus, I believe you and I have nothing more to say to each other."

Tenten snorted.

The lacklustre specimen of a pick-up artist scratched his head.

"Are you makin' fun of me?"

"One does not pour buckets of water into the ocean. Now, would you like to leave, or should I move to more direct means of communication, such as using one spare pair of chopsticks to emasculate you while I insert another into an orifice not intended for the purpose? It should be an interesting exercise in manual dexterity for me, and a life-changing experience for you."

The man stared at her blankly as she reached for the chopstick box.

His accomplice, apparently blessed with more intelligence than an amoeba, leaned over and whispered something in his ear.

The first man looked down at Kei. She split the first pair of chopsticks with a crack.

"Screw this, I'm outta here!"

The accomplice, possessed of a superior vocabulary but inferior survival instinct, sidled over to Tenten. Before he could open his mouth, she gave him a look of undiluted acidic contempt, as reserved for miserable worms alive only because the act of crushing them was marginally more disgusting than their continued existence. What elevated the act from instrumental to artistic was the fractional tightening of the eyes that indicated that this state of affairs was unstable, and at any moment she might change her mind and deign to reduce him to two-dimensional paste. Kei found herself falling in love all over again.

If anything, this one fled faster than Kei's. Perhaps another time, she and Tenten could make a competition of it.

Strange how the literature had led her to believe that such an encounter would be filled with intimidation. In the event, it had been positively delicious. "Check, please!"

-o-​
"Well, that was weird," Shiori remarked, watching two grown men pelting down the street as if all the ravenous ghosts of the Preta Path were after them.

"The world is weird in ways we cannot imagine," Shikamaru said mournfully, "and worse, in some that we can. I would pay it no mind."

"Speaking of paying," Shiori said, "I've just realised that we're missing something very important. Everyone knows that on a da—instance of two individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship, the male individual has to treat the female individual to lunch!"

"I suppose I will have to take your word for it. That café down the street promotes itself to my attention, as I believe we just witnessed the expulsion of any disruptive elements that might otherwise interfere with our meal."

But the Mendoi Café was not purified so easily.

"Looks like you were too optimistic, Shikamaru," Shiori said under her breath, then realised she'd said three words in a row that were logically incapable of being in the same sentence. To a Nara, it was like touching amber that had been rubbed with a cloth.

"Hey, hot stuff," the yakuza small fry drawled at her, "how about you drop the dork over here and come play with some real men?"

He started to reach for her shoulder.

Three of them. Civilians, no visible combat training. Grab the wrist and elbow, twist, follow the motion of the body, one strike to incapacitate or kill. The other two will be stunned long enough for Shikamaru to finish his hand seals before they can try to run or call for help. But how to get that first strike in without causing a scene or risking tearing her kimono?

"Assistant," Shikamaru said in a voice even more lifeless than usual, "are any of these bodies suitable for human experimentation?"

The yakuza's hand stopped in mid-air.

Shiori blinked, then made a show of looking them up and down. "The middle one, sir. The other two will have to be recycled for parts. Would you like me to terminate them here, or should I allow them to take me to a place with no witnesses first?"

The men exchanged glances.

"Excuse me. I've just remembered that I need to cook my uncle."

"That was fun!" Shiori said, watching their rapidly retreating backs. "Can we find some more sexual predators and do it again? I'm starting to get all sorts of ideas!"

Shikamaru gave her a sideways look. "Item 47 of the Sensible Nara List."

"'If the activity you are considering is something only Mitarashi Anko would do, get a senior Nara's permission before doing it'," Shiori recited.

"But you're not really a senior Nara right now. We're acting as boyf—two individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship. We're supposed to be equal." You are allowing yourself to be restricted by rules for the sake of rules, her hands signed as she spoke.

Shikamaru was unmoved by either level of communication. "Item 48."

"'If the activity you are considering is something only Mitarashi Anko does, keep it that way'.

"Wait, for real?"

"We have a list of her favourite bars. Clansmen are forbidden from conducting social experiments in them—for their own safety."

"…Spoilsport."

His mouth being full of chicken, Shikamaru instead signed, The principle being cited is a natural law. It can be reinterpreted, but never denied.

-o-​
The "Lost Weapons of the World" exhibition housed in the Shikiri Museum's west wing was fascinating. It featured ancient weapons that were no longer in use by real shinobi, typically due to being obsolete or too difficult to handle, as well as rare weapons only used by the minor villages of distant lands. The entrance fee was steep—to prevent the riff-raff from inconveniencing higher-status visitors such as herself, Kei assumed—but in a wonderful new experience, she was capable of paying for both herself and Tenten with only pocket money. She could get used to this, and hopefully would.

Tenten, displeased at being paid for, compensated by offering her services as Kei's guide. She knew the proper use of a remarkable number of the weapons, and happily mimed stances and techniques for disabling and/or killing one's enemies with maximum efficiency. Most of the other visitors fled within minutes, but perhaps a quarter remained to watch, applauding at appropriate intervals. By the time she had exhausted the contents of the exhibition, Tenten was practically glowing from the unfamiliar sense of being appreciated, and it rendered Kei's struggle to placate the security staff all worthwhile.

-o-​
While Shiori technically had discretionary funds to draw on as Shikamaru's assistant, any significant dip into them would have to be accounted for, and the last thing she wanted was official scrutiny of the events of the day. That made the Shikiri Museum a very convenient choice, since a few quiet words in the right ears were all it took to secure free entry for the heir of the museum's biggest sponsor.

The east wing's "Achievements in Natural Philosophy" exhibition was well worth the price of admission that they hadn't paid. Admittedly, Shikamaru was sceptical that the stuffed chakra beasts were anything more than "an embarrassing gallimaufry of unimaginatively-sewn-together animal parts", and felt enough of a sense of responsibility as a sponsor to want to complain to the manager (luckily, Shiori was able to delay him long enough for him to run out of motivation). But more importantly, he was taken with Nara Shikiri's own annotated sketches of plant and animal physiology. There were also a few interesting curios like a hollow replica of the Kiko Mechanism, a centuries-old device that could predict the movement of the moon and the stars through nothing but the interaction of physical parts, and whose principles of operation were not understood to this day (naturally, the original was safely ensconced in the depths of the Nara Vaults).

The exhibition proved surprisingly popular, Shiori reflected, as there had been a veritable tide of incoming visitors early on in their visit. It might have been worth their while to explore the west wing as well, but it was getting late and they couldn't afford to dally too long if they wanted to get the top floor seats at the famous Night Ship Restaurant.

-o-​
Kei and Tenten's preference for avoiding crowds continued to serve them well. While the unwashed masses fought over the luxurious upstairs seats, the two girls sat together in a quiet area downstairs, gazing through the window at the Lightning-style meditation garden outside the Night Ship during those rare moments when they were not gazing at each other. This place was another recommendation of Tenten's, though Kei knew it from Thrilling Scrollkeepers, a pleasant and insightful exploration of human relationships (which she had also recently lent to Akane). Another coincidence. Or perhaps, Kei wondered briefly before rejecting the blasphemy, she had simply read too many novels?

-o-​
Kei and Tenten's final destination was unlike the others. Here, Tanaka and Ōta pledged their love after six long volumes of ship-teasing. Here, Mikako and Noboru reunited after the sealing failure that had separated them across space and time. Here, Minori finally defeated Akatsuki in order to win Shiroe's love. To ignorant mortals, this place was just the prosaically-named Lovers' Hill. To the initiated, it was a holy site where passion and determination (and sometimes concealed trap arrays) would forever triumph over the machinations of a sadistic fate.

It was a very dangerous place for two girls who did not wish their relationship to be discovered. Couples came here to watch the sunset together; friends did not. Kei knew this. She also knew that her reason for braving the danger was questionable at best. What kind of public declaration could one make in secrecy and solitude, surrounded by privacy-providing trees, dozens of miles from the home where it could mean anything to anyone? Even so, for Kei and Tenten, this was an act with meaning. Ascending Lovers' Hill together was a statement, delivered in a whisper but nevertheless a statement, that in defiance of a hostile and uncomprehending world, their love was as real as any other.

Which was not to say that they were entirely blinded by their feelings. Tenten had suggested, and Kei had optimised. If necessary, Kei had come here suspecting infidelity on the part of her fiancé, with Tenten joining her for emotional support in case of a potential confrontation. A paper-thin excuse, and one which would cause problems of its own should anyone aware of her engagement to Shikamaru recognise her, but it might confound a stranger long enough for the pair to make a dignified escape.

They could not embrace, of course, despite clear instructions from the literature. Nor could they sit together, not with the grass still damp from recent rain. Still, they stood side by side, as close as Kei's inescapable fear would allow, and waited for the sun to set.

-o-​
Lovers' Hill. The very name struck a chord within Shiori's heart. The perfect capstone to a perfect day. Even Shikamaru wouldn't be able to resist the sheer magic of it. They would watch the sunset together, and it would finally light a spark within him that she could gradually fan into a potent flame. Surely no apathy could withstand the power of love in such concentrated form.

"Come on, Shikamaru, we're going to miss the sunset!" Shiori exclaimed, tugging him uphill by the hand (yes, he'd allowed her to take his hand, though she wasn't completely certain that this was approval rather than him being too tired to make the effort to object).

"I assure you, Shiori, that, with a few meteorological exceptions, sunsets are more or less the same everywhere. Soothing brushwork and good use of colour, but repetitive and clearly made with mass market appeal in mind. I would rather have a good book."

"Have you no sense of romance in your soul?"

"It must have been misfiled at birth, and replaced with an additional dose of rationality. Such are the perils of alphabetical reference systems."

This was why she loved him. Even when he was being a wet blanket, which was to say quite often, he couldn't help doing it with flair.

Despite his grumbling, he did not protest as she pulled him to the top of the hill—only to see two silhouettes in what the journal described as the ideal place.

"Already occupied, huh? I guess we'll just have to find another spot."

She glanced back one last time before they left. You know, one of those figures looked kind of familiar. Should she go over there and check just in case? Or should she prioritise their right to canoodle undisturbed?

"Lack of curiosity killed the cat", went the traditional Nara saying. She climbed the last few steps, and Shikamaru followed.

Gōketsu and Tenten turned around at the noise.

For several shocked seconds, she and her rival simply stared at each other. Then, their unfiltered reactions came in unison.

"Are you on a date?!"

Revelations cascaded through Shiori's mind. The polite disinterest. The seemingly irrational decisions. The… The everything. You are having the experience of foundational premises crumbling. It is far too rare, so I will suspend my end of the discussion while you savour it.

Meanwhile, Gōketsu stared at her in horror. She opened her mouth, as if to offer some kind of explanation or excuse, but then she looked at Shikamaru again, and her expression turned into what Shiori could only describe as begging the universe for instant death.

What was this? Shiori couldn't get her head around it. She'd thought at first that Gōketsu was the ultimate sexual deviant. Then, after the orgy that wasn't, she found herself asking if she'd been drawing too many conclusions from limited data. Mere seconds ago, she'd realised that maybe she'd been wrong all along. But the truth that this realisation left behind…

"But you're both girls! How? Why? How? What do you even—how can you—why?!"

Gōketsu seemed taken aback. But before she could provide anything approaching an answer…

"Shiori. Are we on a date?"

Oh, crap.

Three people were all staring at her. Gōketsu had an expression of dawning realization. Tenten was unreadable. Shikamaru… she had never seen him so alert.

She could lie. She should lie. She wasn't ready to confess her feelings. There was supposed to be more groundwork. She was going to earn Shikamaru's love, or at least enough of it to ensure some kind of positive response. She was going to investigate the practicalities on the clan side, and see what the criteria were and how far she could push them if she had to. She was going to prove herself to Lord Shikaku, and more importantly Lady Yoshino. This wasn't quite the worst-case scenario (as far as she knew, no one was dead), but it was close enough.

But she was standing on Lovers' Hill. Her beloved, her ultimate rival, and her beloved (seriously, WTF?) were all waiting for her response. Whatever she said here, there would be no going back.

"Shikamaru… I'm in love with you."

Shikamaru took a dazed step back.

"Troublesome," he said in the emotionless voice of a man responding on reflex while his higher brain functions rebooted.

"I always have been," Shiori went on, not so much feeling emboldened as aware that if she didn't get it all out now, she never would, in part because the world was coming to an end. "Not just because you're brilliant—I take that as a given—but because you're kind and gentle, and even though you like to keep to yourself, you care about other people when you don't have to. You're Lord Shikaku's son, so you're as Nara as they get, but you still care about so many things, even if you hide it behind laziness and that amazing dry wit. You complain and you make a fuss, in your low-key way, but in the end you always do the right thing, whether anyone is there to see it or not. You've accepted me as family despite the fact that I'm a lowly branch family member who tends to get excited about things in your vicinity. You're rational about everything except recognising how special you are, in ways that have nothing to do with our bloodline."

Shikamaru closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again.

"Your turn, Gōketsu," he said. "I can tell you're about to spring something on me that will make this day even more troublesome."

"Very well." Gōketsu drew herself up to her unimpressive full height. "Tenten and I are in a romantic relationship, and any marriage between you and me, or indeed with any of your clansmen, will be conditional on you committing to respect that relationship and to take no action to impede it."

Shikamaru groaned.

Gōketsu was formally, officially, avowedly not in love with Shikamaru. Praise be to the Will of Fire. Now Shiori only had her personal apocalypse to worry about.

"You know what?" Shikamaru said after a pause. "That is in no way my problem. I will provide you with the clan policy documents and appropriate forms after the wedding, and beyond that I don't care what you do as long as you leave our chambers in the condition in which you found them."

Gōketsu's eyes flickered to Tenten. Tenten nodded.

"…Acceptable."

"Shiori," Shikamaru said. "I know I should be flattered, or moved or some such, but in all honesty I cannot comprehend your feelings, much less reciprocate them. I have spent fourteen years successfully evading romance, and this has left me ill-equipped against a direct strike. I appreciate the effort your confession must have taken, though less so the fact that it involved luring me on a date without my knowledge or consent, and I believe the appropriate response under the circumstances is to thank you for the former and overlook the latter on a one-off basis.

"The point, however, is moot. I am due to marry Gōketsu, awaiting confirmation to take place after the Chūnin Exam tournament. You have repeatedly mentioned to me, in what I now understand to have been a subtle hint, that you would not accept a position as a concubine, but only as a lawfully wedded wife."

Shiori had thought about it, of course. It would be by far the easier path… but only for other women. She couldn't imagine being a secondary member of the household, forever under the thumb of another woman who enjoyed all the fruits of marriage while throwing Shiori scraps under the table. It was much of the reason why she'd hated Gōketsu so, for that demeaning original message in which she'd assumed, without ever meeting her, that Shiori was good for nothing more than sex. Why even now, having discovered that Gōketsu might not have had any ill intent, there was no place in her heart for the usurper. Assuming there would be enough of her heart left for it to matter by the time Shikamaru was done rejecting her.

"Are you in fact eligible for such?" Gōketsu inquired as if it was in some way relevant to her.

"I'm a branch family half-blood," Shiori said distantly as her world continued to crumble around her. "My father was a common-born sealmaster adopted into the clan. There are no theoretical objections. It's just that I'm worthless. No special talent or political value."

"Shiori," Shikamaru said, "with considerable regret, I must ask you to tender your resignation as my personal assistant due to conflict of interest. I will endeavour to have you reassigned to a valuable role elsewhere."

World done crumbling. Nothing left.

"Wait, Nara," said someone's voice. "There is no need for such haste."

Shiori must have misheard. Her senses were all whiting out anyway.

"Now that the status quo between the two of you has changed significantly, is it not possible that your feelings for Shiori will change also? It is not as if it is unknown for friends to become lovers with sufficient exposure."

Gōketsu. What.

"I suppose… it's not technically impossible," Shikamaru said slowly. "If marriages of convenience have been known to become marriages of love, then it is plausible for the same principle to apply to unmarried individuals."

"Then, assuming a certain foundation of affection for her and respect for her agency, is there any reason not allow her an attempt to win your heart on an experimental basis?"

No, seriously. What.

I got nothing.

"More determined women than her have made the attempt."

"No," Shiori found her voice. "No, they really haven't."

"Again, however," Shikamaru said, "I am all but betrothed to Gōketsu. Given your preferences, mutual romantic feelings between us would only make matters worse."

"Nara," Gōketsu said softly to Shikamaru, "I am prepared to amend the betrothal."

Shiori was running out of "what".

"You are a good friend in a world of misery and chaos. If it would bring you greater happiness, I could settle for a lesser Nara. I trust Lord Shikaku to accommodate my needs where possible, and I am confident that I can convince Jiraiya should he object, with the aid of unrelated concessions if need be."

Shiori was out of "what", but she could be flexible in an emergency.

"Gōketsu, why?"

Gōketsu turned to face her head-on. Her eyes locked onto Shiori's with the perfect focus of a genjutsu master.

"Because I desire whatever is best for him. And because I refuse to accept lack of talent or political value as reasons why someone should be denied happiness."

Shiori did not understand this woman. Not even slightly. Not one bit. She was pretty sure even her trusty "why"s weren't going to fix that.

But Shiori recognised the ever-so-skilfully-concealed fondness in Shikamaru's voice whenever he referred to his and Gōketsu's not-dates, for the same reason that a ninja could recognise the barely-audible sound of a kunai flying at her. And despite Gōketsu's invariably low-affect tones, Shiori could no longer find it in herself to believe that she was facing a cold-hearted, selfish manipulator. Not after those words.

"Marry him," Shiori heard herself say. The seeds of something new sprouted from the ashes of a dead world. "If you're the kind of person who can sacrifice your own happiness for his sake, then I think I might be able to tolerate you."

"The feeling," Gōketsu said wryly, "is entirely mutual."

Shikamaru cleared his throat pointedly. "May I remind the two of you that I also have a say in my own future?"

The three girls all looked at him and simultaneously shook their heads.

He sighed. "This is only going to get more troublesome, isn't it?"

Tenten gave him a sympathetic nod.

"One more matter," Gōketsu said. "Since we are all entangled in this preposterous mess together, could we move to first names? It would be tiresome to constantly address both of you as 'Nara'. And for myself, as one who socialised rarely and with great reluctance during my Mist years, being constantly treated as interchangeable with five other people grows a little grating. Please call me Keiko."

Tenten gave… Keiko… a look laden with profound meaning, the kind that two girls really had no business giving each other.

Keiko rolled her eyes affectionately. "Yes, that. Hopefully, the fact that we are standing atop Lovers' Hill will mitigate the abominable romantic timing."

Shikamaru choked. "We're standing atop what?!"

Tenten stepped forward. She laid a hand on Shiori and Shikamaru's shoulders. The warmth and weight of it somehow conveyed a feeling of welcoming acceptance. Then, she gently turned them to face west.

As the four of them were caressed by the last rays of the setting sun, Shiori found she didn't mind the mass market appeal at all.
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You know, this is almost worrying. I find myself thinking "Oh, Great Cthulhu, what if I made some kind of characterisation mistake 73 chapters ago and it is about to come to light through the dread power of @faflec?"
 
Veedrac said:
Thanks @faflec.

What about this makes you think she changed? I agree that this is an example of her opening up, but I don't see the evidence that that pre-MfD Keiko was much different.
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Keiko knew Tenten for... what, a month and a half total at that point?

How long did it take her to open up to Hazou?

(Granted there are, of course, different feelings involved, but the point remains.)
 
MMKII said:
We might want to actually do this. It could be helpful for Keiko.
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We already did do this.
Velorien said:
The team stared wordlessly at the proctor. The proctor stared wordlessly at the team.

Hazō, half-naked with vivid scratches on his back from when Noburi's Water Whip made Keiko lose her balance.

Noburi, equally half-naked, caught in the middle of gathering scattered scrolls, a macerator half-open in his hand with the kanji for "wood" clearly visible.

And contextualising both, Keiko, not half-naked by virtue of being a girl, but scantily clad and securely tied and gagged on top of the middle bed. Her expression at this point was not one of fear or anger, but more of a resigned "not again".

"What the hell," the proctor finally said. "It's not against the rules."
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faflec said:
We already did do this.
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Cariyaga said:
You mean having Hazou tied up, right? It could work to get her used to touching people in the context of being in a position of power, at least.
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Keiko has asked her to tie us up since then, right before we botched That Pangolin Conversation in Chapter... 210? Right?

It might be helpful, if her main objection to being touched is that it makes her feel like she surrenders control of her body, or something like that, to practice getting tied up.

Velorien said:
"Oh," Hazō stammered. "I'm sorry, I-I didn't realise you were busy. I'll come back—"

"Not at all," Keiko said. "As it happens, I was just wondering whether to seek your help practising the material in this book."

Hazō froze in mid-escape. "I, uh, Keiko, I think you're a great girl and everything, but I have a girlfriend, and besides, there's the whole adopted siblings thing, and you're engaged, and—"

"I fail to see how any of that is relevant," Keiko said. "I merely intended to ask you to tie me up in an elaborate fashion, ideally in the privacy of my bedroom—or yours—so as to avoid potential interference from the rest of our family."
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"Caught in a Bind: Escapology for Beginners."

I mean, it might help?
 
You know, it's hard to imagine a population of forty thousand people producing such a wide range of books ranging from escapology guide to fricking manga.
 
Veedrac said:
I attribute this mostly to Hazō being Hazō and Tenten being Tenten.
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To be clear:

Your stance is that Keiko's character growth has not affected her... issues regarding touch at all? Because that's what I'm arguing against here, and I think it would be better to clarify to make sure that I'm not arguing against the wrong thing.
 
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Chapter 220: Be Careful What You Wish For
  • Threadmarks

    • There was a rotation, and tonight was not his night.

    Mari-sensei could no longer be trusted to eat on her own. Or to be around sharp objects or poisons. Or just to be alone. So there was a rotation; Noburi, Keiko, and Hazō had arranged among themselves that one of them would take dinner to Mari-sensei's room each night, ensure that she ate it, empty her chamber pot, and ensure that she took minimal care of herself. The next person in the rota would be on standby in case of need.

    Truth to tell, Hazō was getting worried. Mari-sensei had visibly lost weight and muscle tone and her hair, once a carefully-tended and artfully-arranged sunset river, was reduced to a greasy, reddish mudhole. The entire family had attempted to bully her into a bath, but she had simply rolled over to face the wall and pulled the blankets over her head.

    Kagome had wanted to be part of the rotation, but he virtually melted in embarrassment and a sense of personal inadequacy whenever he tried. He had settled for making all of Mari's favorite foods and hovering anxiously.

    Tonight, however, Hazō was not on the rotation. Tonight he had a much more difficult task: Convince his own mother to change.

    Taking a deep breath, he knocked. The door opened in seconds; Hana was wearing a casual 'around-the-house' robe, slippers, and an expression of surprise that rapidly transformed into delight when she saw that it was not an official messenger but was instead her son.

    "Cricket!" She grabbed him in a tight hug and then pulled him inside. "I wasn't expecting to see you tonight. Come in, come in! I have plenty of cookies, and I can make us some tea."

    "Hi, Momma." He hopped up onto one of the stools that stood next to the half-wall separating the kitchen nook from the main quarters.

    She paused, looking over her shoulder from where she'd been crouched by the stove stoking the fire. "Uh-oh. I know that voice. What's wrong?"

    "It's Mari-sensei, Momma. She's broken."

    Hana's face became still. "Yes, she certainly is."

    Hazō sighed. "Momma...please help."

    An eyebrow rose. "You want me to help her?"

    Hazō nodded.

    Hana tossed a final shake of wood into the stove's firebox and set a pot of tea on top to boil. She turned back to Hazō and took a seat across from him.

    "If that woman was on fire, I wouldn't spit on her to put it out."

    "Momma...please. It's important. Just listen, okay?"

    Hana studied him for a moment, then straightened up on her stool. The concerned mother fell away, transformed as though by S-rank ninjutsu into the icy diplomat from the Village Hidden in the Mist. "Fine. I'm listening."

    "Okay," Hazō said, gathering up his carefully-prepared and Keiko-approved arguments. "Let's start with the practical: You're a diplomat from Mist and you broke the Hokage's wife right before he and most of the rest of his clan are due to leave for the Chūnin Exams tournament. Hyūga and some of his cronies will do anything to undermine Jiraiya; they've already tried several times, and Mari-sensei was the one that stopped them. She's too busy being broken to do that now. If Jiraiya lost the hat it would most likely go to Hyūga; he's a racial purist who despises foreigners. Would Mist be better off with him as Hokage, or with Jiraiya?"

    The diplomat's face did not alter, but nor did she counter his argument.

    "If Hyūga got the hat, he could make a case that you engaged in psychological warfare against the Hokage's wife in an effort to give yourself an advantage during negotiations. That would represent a breach of faith as an ambassador and would provide an excuse to deny you access to Leaf in the future, meaning I wouldn't be able to see you here in Leaf again."

    "You could always come back to Mist with me, cricket."

    He nodded. "I know. And I would. I love you, Momma, and if it means giving up everything I have here then I will. But...I would be sad if I had to. Keiko is my sister now. Noburi is my brother. Kagome is my sensei, and my crazy uncle who would stick his hands in a bonfire if it meant keeping me safe. Mari-sensei...she's not you, Momma. I don't know what you would call us; she's not my mother...maybe more like a big sister? She teases me and she messes up my hair and gives me noogies, but she really has done her best to look out for us."

    "No."

    "Yes, Momma, she has." He started to continue, then shook his head. "Let's come back to that. Leave her out of the picture; I would be sad to lose everyone else. And, if I'm being practical, I would be sad to lose access to the Hokage's resources. I really feel like I can make a difference here, Momma. I am making a difference here. Ever since I met him, I've been talking to Jiraiya about making the world better for everyone—civilians, clanless ninja, everyone. I—"

    "Civilians?" she interjected. The diplomat allowed a tiny hint of puzzlement to crease her brow. "Why do you care about civilians? Clanless ninja, certainly—Gōketsu is a small clan, it makes sense to weld the unaligned to your crest, maybe even grant them branch family status so as to increase your numbers, but we could do that back in Mist. You'd have access to Ren, so you'd still have the resources of a Kage. My legal status with the clan is a bit hazy right now, but I'm sure I could convince Ren to reinstate me. You'd be the son of the Hokage and we could set up the same legal fiction that we have here—that you're a special envoy from Leaf. Well, a special-envoy-in-training. Jiraiya could send someone more senior along to do the actual work while you assist. It would be an incredible opportunity to learn the levers of power, which you'll need if you want to achieve these dreams of yours."

    "Civilians are people too, Momma," Hazō said, focusing on what he considered the important part and carefully ignoring the rest. "They need help just like anyone."

    "Cricket...." The words trailed off and finally she shrugged. "All right. If you want to help civilians, I'll help you do it. What do you need?"

    "They need lots of things, Momma. Food, medicine, protection. With one jutsu I can put strong stone walls around their settlements in a few minutes, making everyone inside safer. Apprentice med-nin could heal diseases and do simple surgeries to keep people from dying of minor injuries. When we were wandering, Noburi fixed a kid's gapmouth. You should have seen them—the kid's life was transformed, and I'm not sure that Noburi had ever been prouder or happier about anything."

    "So you want to pay to send medic-nin into the field to fix gapmouth and fever among the civilians?"

    Hazō nodded. "I've talked about this with Jiraiya since I first met him, and once he got the hat he created a new category of missions. They call them till'n'fill—ninja go out and build walls, burn off fields, that sort of thing."

    "So, basically, D-ranks that are outside the village?"

    "Ye—No! They help people."

    "How much do they pay?"

    "Well...not a lot."

    "So, you go outside the village, you do minor tasks that require no particular skill and could be done by civilians if necessary, and then you get paid a pittance. How is that not a D-rank outside the village?"

    Hazō groped for a reply and found nothing. "Okay, maybe they are. The point is that this is important, something that actually makes the world a better place, and something I really care about, and it happened because I was able to convince Jiraiya. And I was only able to convince Jiraiya because I'm here, in Leaf, and important to him."

    "So. You want me to not just tolerate that...liar, that cheat, that manipulator. Not just be nice to her. You want me to humble myself to her, to tell her that everything is okay and to help her feel better, so that you can continue to be the son of the Hokage and wield that influence to help civilians."

    "Momma, no!" Hazō said, jumping off the stool and around the counter so he could hug her tight. "That's not what I meant! Jiraiya is not Poppa and Mari-sensei is not you. You're my Momma, and you always will be. If you want us to go back to Mist right now, I'll go. I've only just got you back, I'm not going to lose you again."

    She returned the hug, tipping her head so she could lay her cheek against the back of his head where he clung to her. It was an awkward position; he was so tall now that he needed to stoop to hug her where she sat on the stool. She felt tears in her eyes at the thought of how much time had passed, how much he had changed, how much she had missed. She took care to wipe the tears away under the guise of stroking his hair, then swallow twice so that her voice wouldn't tremble.

    "I'm so glad, cricket," she whispered.

    His only reply was to hug her tighter.

    She held the hug until she felt like she was going to burst, then slowly opened her arms and leaned back so she could see him.

    "So," she said. "I should help her because not doing so would endanger Jiraiya's grip on the hat, risk putting Hyūga in power, and because our argument and her subsequent weepy manipulations could be spun as espionage. Why shouldn't I simply take you and go home?"

    Hazō leaned back slightly, but did not fully release her. "Could you really do that, Momma? Leaf and Mist are on the edge of an alliance. Mist has been hammered over the last two years, and they need the alliance. Leaf has been hit hard as well; not as badly as Mist, but they could use support. Leaf is allies with Sand already, and a Mist/Leaf/Sand alliance would control half the Elemental Nations and all of the long-distance trade routes. Between the three of them they have access to every critical resource; with favored-nation trading status among the three of them and tariffs against the other nations they'd become an economic powerhouse. It would buy Mist time to recruit or train new jōnin and S-rankers to replace their military power. None of that is possible if Jiraiya loses the hat, or if you leave Leaf."

    She eyed him flatly. "Was it Inoue who gave you these arguments?"

    Hazō stepped back, one hand still on hers but adding distance between them. "No, Momma. Noburi, Keiko, and me hashed it out."

    "Noburi, Keiko, and I."

    Hazō gave her a puzzled look. "Pretty sure you weren't there, Momma. It was Noburi, Keiko, and me."

    She laughed and bopped his nose. "Noisy cricket. You were saying?"

    "I was saying that Mari-sensei's barely come out of her room for a week. She doesn't want to talk to anyone, and when we force her to she just tells us how awful she is and to leave before she makes it worse."

    Hana snorted. "The best lie is the truth, told so that it is not believed. I guess little Ms. Roundheels really does know her trade after all."

    "Momma!"

    "She doesn't need help. She's just playing you, cricket. The sad broken bird, so pitiable and in need of protection and comfort. Everyone must stop everything and flutter about to make her life better. Look at that terrible Hana woman—how cruel was she to say mean things to our poor, sensitive Lady Gōketsu!" She clasped both hands to her face in simulated and overblown horror.

    "Listen, cricket. Either Inoue's too weak to be useful or she's tough enough to stand on her own two feet. Stop giving her the attention she craves and she'll be back to turning her old tricks soon enough."

    "Jiraiya doesn't think so. He told us to get all the sharp objects away from her and watch out for her."

    "Clever; by playing along with her strategem he gains political leverage against the Mist envoy, and he forces you to choose between me and him."

    "Momma, that is not what's happening."

    Hana's lips pursed and eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Fine," she said. "Let's say that she's exactly as wounded and broken and miserable and pathetic as she's absolutely pretending to be. She deserves every moment of it. Do you understand what she did? People are dead because of her treason, cricket. Friends of mine are dead. She took you away from me, took Noburi and Keiko away from their families, stripped Mist of a noticeable chunk of its military power. Then she led you into causing an international incident that came very close to starting a war. Then—"

    "Um...actually, Momma, that was me."

    Hana stopped mid-sentence. "What?"

    The question of the Cold Stone Killers had been the center of twenty minutes of the Hazō/Noburi/Keiko discussion that had led him here. The boundaries of OPSEC had been weighed with precision, the tradeoffs between effectiveness and secrecy counted to the last grain. The words of confession had been polished with a gusto that had caused Noburi far too much joy and Hazō far too much embarrassment. It had been a basic assumption among the three of them that Hana already knew much of it, since Ren had doubtlessly briefed her with all the necessary ammunition before arrival. As such, there was nothing to do but wield the truth like a blade no matter how much it seared his hand.

    "I was the one who talked everyone into going on that mission, Momma. It was supposed to be a simple information retrieval thing, but then it kept getting more complicated. The bodyguard turned out to be a jōnin, there was another person involved that we hadn't expected, the information was tattoos instead of a scroll...we could have bailed early—should have, even, but I kept pushing it because I didn't want to lose, and I talked everyone else into going along."

    Hana shook her head tiredly. "Oh, cricket...look what she's done to you. She's even convinced you to take the blame for her mistakes. She was the jōnin, the team leader, the infiltration specialist. You were a genin with no training and no other sources of guidance but she's convinced you that it was your fault? I'm so sorry, cricket."

    Hazō glared. "Stop it, Momma! I'm not a stupid kid. I'm a grown ninja, and I can take responsibility for my own actions. You are devaluing my agency and my intelligence, and I do not appreciate it."

    Hana leaned back, blinking in surprise. "Cricket...I didn't mean—"

    "Yes, Momma. You did. That is exactly what you meant. You think I'm too young, too inexperienced, and too stupid to see through Mari-sensei's games? Sure, I know I can't spot every time she gets fancy, but I can spot some of it. She did not want to go on that mission. I convinced Kagome and the others and together we convinced Mari-sensei. When things started getting complicated they had already agreed to follow my lead on the mission, so they didn't protest. It went from 'complicated' to 'utterly screwed up' in the space of a minute, so none of us knew exactly how bad things were going to go."

    "Cricket, as much as she disgusts me, she's very good at what she does—"

    "Momma. I have been at her side almost constantly for two years, and I know her. I have spotted her lies several times, when it was not to her advantage for me to spot them. Yes, I'm sure she can fool me if she tries, but not constantly and not for a week straight. She's losing weight and muscle tone and she hasn't taken a bath or washed her hair in five days. That is not something she would do. She's a little vain, especially about her hair; when we were camping in the woods she kept it clean and neat even when water was hard to get. When she was wounded, she was doing kata as soon as she could stand, just so that she wouldn't get too stiff or lose too much muscle. She is miserable to the point where I'm sincerely worried she's going to kill herself, and you are the only one who can fix her. Please, Momma. Please help."

    Hana sat in silence for long seconds.

    "Fine," she said at last, standing up. "Wait here." She was in motion, vanishing through the bedroom door, before Hazō knew what was happening.

    "Momma?"

    Seconds later, Hana was back. She wore full field uniform, although her holsters and sheathes were conspicuously empty. She brushed past him, headed for the front door of her quarters.

    "Come along, Hazō," she called over her shoulder. "No dawdling."

    Hazō gaped for a moment, then scrambled along in her wake. A feeling of dread shook his bones.

    o-o-o-o​

    The moment they were inside the door of the Gōketsu manor, Hazō called out, "Everyone, I'm back! And Momma's with me! Everything's okay! Kagome-sensei, no need for explosions!"

    The sound of pounding feet rapidly approaching did nothing to slow Hana's progress. She pushed Hazō ahead of herself, demanding directions through the maze of passages that led to the master bedroom, and barged through the door of Mari-sensei's room without knocking.

    At the sound of the door, Mari-sensei's head came up in surprise. She was burrowed into the blankets and had been crying again; her eyes were red and her nose was running. Her hair hung in limp, greasy strands around her face—which did nothing to deter Hana from grabbing said hair at the roots and pulling Mari-sensei to her feet.

    "Up," Hana hissed, turning for the door with her hand—and therefore Mari-sensei's head—fixed firmly to her hip. The Lady of the Gōketsu clan was forced to scramble along the outside of the turn, bent over and struggling to keep her footing. Hana took advantage of her victim's discombobulation to capture Mari-sensei's inside wrist in a wicked nikkyo grip, extending Mari-sensei's arm straight up. As Hana dragged her victim out the door and down the hall she used the arm as a lever to shift her prisoner to one side or the other whenever the other woman started to catch her balance and get to a position where she could fight back.

    For a fleeting moment, Hazō considered trying to interefere, but common sense told him that it was far more important to interfere with Kagome-sensei's inevitable reaction. The man himself was coming down the hall at a dead run, hands raised and blast-rings extended. Hazō threw himself into the line of fire and stayed there when Kagome-sensei shifted to the side to get a clean shot. He closed on his teacher quickly, pushing his arms upwards with a crossed-hand block that allowed him to trap both of Kagome-sensei's wrists and keep them directed away from anything squishy, like people. Hazō turned a hip to block the frantic knee to his groin and then chakra-adhered his back foot to the ground so he could drive forward with all his strength, pushing Kagome-sensei into the wall and keeping him pinned there, one shoulder against the man's chest.

    "Let me go!" Kagome-sensei cried, thrashing as hard as he could. He sent a burst of chakra repulsion surging through his feet, trying to throw himself up and clear of Hazō's grip, but the younger ninja pushed him to the side and off-balance before adhering his own feet tightly to the floor.

    "Sensei, it's all right!" he said desperately. "Momma's not going to hurt her, I promise!" Well, that wasn't true. Momma hadn't been this angry since the Tablecloth Incident when Hazō was nine; Mari-sensei was definitely going to have bruises, but there wouldn't be any serious damage. He hoped.

    "Let go of me! She's going to kill her!" Kagome-sensei was desperate, pushing as hard as he could, striking at Hazō with his knees and stomping down in an attempt to break his feet. Hazō shifted and turned, soaking the knee strikes on his thighs and hips and deflecting the stomps to the side until Momma had dragged Mari-sensei out of sight around the corner.

    "Sensei, I promise, it's all right!" Hazō said, releasing his teacher and slowly stepping back. "Momma agreed to help pull Mari-sensei out of this funk. She's probably the only one who can do it—Mari-sensei always looked up to Momma, and she'll listen." He hoped that was true, anyway. Momma had been a jōnin long before Mari-sensei had, and there weren't that many female jōnin, especially not ones who specialized in close combat. It would make sense for Mari-sensei to have admired her, perhaps treated her as a role model. It would also explain why Momma's words, whatever they had been, had hit so hard.

    "But she was hurting her!" Kagome-sensei's eyes were wide and his manner frantic, but there were reassuring traces of uncertainty as well.

    Hazō cleared his throat, embarrassed. "Momma can be a little...direct, when she thinks someone needs to man up," he said, rubbing his backside without realizing he was doing it. "She's a good leader. I have a feeling that pretty soon Mari-sensei is going to be too tired to feel miserable."

    Kagome-sensei calmed slowly, his face shifting from panic to disgusted anger. "You're just going to let that woman treat Mari like that? Just because she's your mother? Mari is part of our team!"

    "Kagome-sensei," Hazō said tiredly, "yes, Mari-sensei is part of our team. She's also miserable to the point where she's not even getting out of bed except to pee. I'm doing everything I can to take care of her, and the best way I know to do that is to get Momma."

    Kagome-sensei digested that for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was low and trembled slightly with suppressed rage. "You didn't tell me."

    Hazō froze. "What?"

    "You could have told me that's what you were planning," Kagome-sensei said, his voice icy. "The idea of including me is so bizarre to you that when I point it out you can't even make a response. What, you think I'm too stupid to help?"

    "No, but...."

    "Yes, that is exactly what you think. I know I'm not good with people and yes, I'm nervous around threats and yes, I react by destroying them immediately. You don't think maybe that would have been a good reason to let me know what to expect? Or am I just that crazy old hermit you picked up in the woods, good for seal lessons and making skywalker blanks and traps, but not for anything actually important?"

    "No, sensei! No, we just—"

    "I don't want to hear it. I am going after them and watching to make sure that your mother is effective and safe. If she endangers Mari, I will kill your mother. If she's not getting the job done, I will tell her to leave. If she does not and continues to harrass Mari, I will kill your mother. If she is both effective and safe then I won't interfere. For now, don't talk to me."

    Hazō watched helplessly as his teacher and (former?) friend turned and jogged away. After a few seconds, Hazō went after him.

    o-o-o-o​

    Hana dragged Mari out the front door of the house, across the snow-covered lawn, and into the ice-rimed koi pond. Hand still tight in Mari's hair, she shoved the other woman's head under the surface and held her there while she attacked said hair with a bar of harsh soap that she'd slipped into a pocket of her flak vest before leaving her quarters. She ignored Mari's struggles, yanking the other woman's head around to keep her off balance, deflecting the occasional flailing hand with a forearm or shoulder, and chakra-adhering her feet to the bottom of the thigh-deep pond to prevent a leg grab from being turned into a throw. Periodically she would turn in place, dragging Mari around the outside of the circle so as to leave her scrambling and unable to fight back.

    After nearly a minute she pulled a choking Mari up just long enough to let her splutter out the water and inhale, then shoved her down again and went back to scouring her hair. By now there was an audience: all three genin and the crazy explosives master. Hazō was busy, talking to the man with an intense, pleading tone that seemed to be bouncing off. Kagome was completely ignoring him, counting quietly to himself with his eyes fixed firmly on Hana and an expression on his face that promised doom.

    Fifty-three seconds; time for air again, and the hair was clean enough for now. She yanked Mari up and dragged her out of the pond, going to one knee as she shoved Mari face-down in the frozen mud at the edge. Kagome's head jerked, his mouth tightened, and his hand started to rise, pausing after only a few inches and then going back to his side. The look he gave her could have melted Kōzuna steel; she made sure not to react, but also to keep one eye on him in her peripheral vision.

    "It's all right, Kagome," Mari choked out. "Stand down. I deserve it."

    "Yes, you do, you little shit," Hana hissed, bending low so that the others wouldn't be able to catch her precise words She put one knee on Mari's neck and a hand on her forearm so that the smaller woman was completely immobilized. "You're a traitor, a manipulator, and the world would be better off without you, but—"

    "I know," Mari sobbed. "I know. I'm sorry. Everything I touch is destroyed. I wanted to help, I wanted to be better, but I'm—"

    "Be silent!" Hana hissed. "Have some self-respect. I am not going to let you add 'self-pitying skinwaste' to your extensive list of failings. Hazō wants you functional and he makes some good arguments, so I'm going to help him. Understand: I do not forgive you. I will never forgive you. There is nothing good about you, you lack all integrity and honor, and I sincerely hope that I get to spit on your grave. But! Hazō pointed out that you can be useful, and claims that you want to change. Fine. Prove it. Keep the Hyūga and the other clans out of power. Make life better for my son and his friends. Do not ever try to come between us. And for Sage's sake, clean yourself up! Wallowing in your own stench because you refuse to even get out of bed—what kind of ninja does that?"

    "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry..." Mari sobbed.

    "Don't waste my time. I know perfectly well that this broken-bird act of yours is just an act. You disgust me and I want nothing to do with you, but I am not willing to let your fake tears drive a wedge any farther between me and Hazō. I will help you 'recover from your misery' and 'redeem yourself'. We both know you aren't actually going to change—you aren't capable of it. But, you can be useful to my son, so I will bend just enough to help you. I'll be coming here every day from now on. When I arrive you will be out of bed, bathed, fed, and exercising. You will act like a human being to the rest of your family. If I see any more of this poor-me act then first I'll bring you out here for another wash and afterwards I'll get creative. Understood?"

    "Yes! Yes, I'm sorry. I will, I promise, I—"

    "Stop whining," Hana said, standing up and stepping back. "Get on your feet. You want to be a better person? Act like it! Show me that you're sincere about wanting to change. And go wash that mud off!" She turned and strode away, not sparing so much as a glance at the young genin who watched her in shock or the older man who had tried to kill her twice in the last few minutes.

    o-o-o-o​

    The skinwaste wasn't manning the desk this time. Today there was a grizzled veteran with chūnin flashes on his vest and a huge bandage across the left side of his neck and down his shoulder that suggested he was on convalescent duty.

    "What can I do for you, sir?" he asked as Hazō walked through the door.

    "Good morning," Hazō said, nodding politely. "I was hoping you had a till'n'fill?"

    The man seemed surprised, but he scanned down the mission list for a moment.

    "Yeah, I've got one," he said. "Bunch of suckvines encroaching on a farm about an hour out. The farmers could handle it, but it's a rough job for softfoots. The pay is absolute shit, though. I can't even believe they posted it. Seriously, five hundred ryō?"

    Hazō shrugged. "I just want to be useful," he said. "It's not really about the money."

    The older man snorted. "Yeah, I suppose not. Well, if you're nutty enough to want it, it's yours. You've got the capacity, yeah?"

    "Yes sir. Couple of options, I'll need to see the lay of the land first. Multiple Earth Wall up under it to rip them loose, a taijutsu-enhancing jutsu to destroy them physically, or maybe just throw some tags in."

    "Tags? But—oh, right. You're the clan that throws tags around like popcorn at a kid's birthday." He chuckled and marked the job off, passing the sheet over as he did. "We heard the stories about the Chūnin Exams. Did you really level all four of their shoot houses?"

    "Not...completely," Hazō said. "About three quarters on the first two, but after that we realized we needed to be more restrained so that there would still be cells to put the prisoners in. We saved most of the third one and only put a few minor holes in the fourth."

    The man laughed. "My man." He hesitated, then leaned forward conspiratorially. "Look, I'm sorry, but I really have to ask: Is it true that you stopped on the fourth one because that Yamanaka girl made your brother strip to his underwear and dance the wiggyjiggy?"

    "No!" Hazō said. "No, that wasn't it. We made a deal with them in advance. Smashed up their bunker a little so it looked like we fought and we passed the word around that we lost because Yamanaka grabbed Noburi and held him hostage. Didn't really happen, though."

    "Uh-huh." The man seemed disbelieving. "Well, thanks for the story. You should drop by the Soggy Tag some time after the tournament. Wednesday is Tall Tales night, and every new crop of chūnin, whether from the Exams or not, have to play." He winked. "There might be a bit of booze involved, too."

    Hazō grinned, somewhere between nervously and gratefully. "Sounds like fun, I'll be there. Thanks."

    "Thanks for making all the other villages look like a bunch of wet noodles," the chūnin grunted. "I particularly love hearing any story about those Cloud bastards getting it."

    o-o-o-o​

    Things were going well. Mari-sensei's cure was in progress; Momma's harsh motivational session last night meant that Mari-sensei had been out of bed at dawn, bathing, making breakfast for everyone, eating breakfast (without a word, head hanging down, spoon periodically going still in her oatmeal before she remembered to eat again), and then practicing katas. It wasn't much, but it was progress.

    He'd done a till'n'fill in the morning, giving him a feeling of satisfaction and comportment with his goals.

    He'd spent four hours training with Ebisu-sensei. The man had been infuriated when Hazō tried to leave after two hours; his teaching methods had gotten both harder and weirder, something that Hazō would not have thought possible. Still, it had been useful.

    Now it was time for the next item on his checklist: enacting Yamanaka Ino's how-not-to-get-blamed-for-the-orgy advice.

    There had been two pieces to the advice: Question the Hokage about his sexual history, which was not happening because Jiraiya was barely home ever, and question a list of people about the sexual history of one Mitarashi Anko. Yamanaka had been struggling not to cackle as she gave him this advice, but had given no hint of what was so funny.

    "Here you are, dear," said Granny Tsukuda, handing him another potato. Everyone in the neighborhood called the old store owner Granny, and she and her store had been there longer than anyone could remember. She was wizened and stooped, almost as old as Auntie the librarian. She didn't see well anymore so she had to squint to count Hazō's change after he bought the various groceries that had been his pretext for coming in.

    "Thank you, Granny," he said, taking the sack from her. "Not too busy right now, I see."

    "No, right after lunch is always slow, except on Sundays. The rush will come through tonight."

    "Makes sense. I was noticing a lot of footprints on your roof—do you get many ninja in here?"

    "Oh, yes! Lots and lots. There's sweet little Sho, and Katashi, and Anko, and—"

    "Anko? Mitarashi Anko, that purple-haired woman?"

    "Yes, that's her. Sweetest thing, even if she is a bit of a twist. A little wild, perhaps, but she's still got time to settle down. In a real relationship, I mean. Not that Ibiki isn't a fine man, but he's too old for her, and what kind of father would he be? Can you imagine the next generation of ninja being raised by him? Poor wee ones!"

    Hazō frowned, trying to place the name. "Hang on. Morino Ibiki, the head of Torture and Interrogation? That Ibiki?"

    "Yes! Who did you think I was talking about?"

    "I, uh, I just...didn't...." He stumbled to a halt until his brain finished restarting. "Wow. Okay, it took me a minute. So Mitarashi is dating Morino?"

    The dried-apple face with its permanent smile nodded gleefully. "Yes, although she's leading him on a bit if you ask me. She's been stepping out with that waitress girl from Moritake's...Ueda something?"

    Something had to be wrong with his ears. "Mitarashi Anko is dating two people. One of them is the head of Torture and Interrogation. The other one is a civilian waitress?" Hazō laid it out like a report because he needed the world to start making sense again.

    "Exactly! Scandalous, isn't it?" She held out something in a twist of waxed paper. "Sucking candy?"

    "Thanks," Hazō said, unwrapping the paper and popping the crystallized honey in his mouth. Granny only had two teeth left but somehow she still managed to make her own candy click against them.

    "The most incredible part is that I think Ibiki knows about the other girl," Granny whispered, leaning in close with a naughty smile. "I bet the three of them get up to wild things together. Oh, I remember what it was like being that age...I used to be quite the looker, you know. Had the boys on a string for a while. Of course, I never got silly with other girls. Decent woman, you know? I imagine the boys today are just as excited about the idea of two girls at once as they used to be. Tell me, is it true that you ninja can change shape and make your willies two feet long?"

    "What? No! No, we can't change shape."

    The old woman cackled, which quickly turned into a hacking cough. She fumbled a small green bottle out from behind the counter and took a swig. "Too bad. Never know what you ninjas can get up to. You can make copies of yourselves, right?"

    "Some of us can, yeah. Why?"

    Painted-dark eyebrows waggled salaciously. "You've never thought about the possibilities? I'm sure Ibiki is a strapping man but still...if you want to please two girls at once it's easier to have two men, right?"

    "Uh...excuse me, I have a thing I need to do."

    o-o-o-o​

    "Ueda? Yeah, she's a good kid. Hard worker, doesn't make trouble. Why?"

    It had taken Hazō several hours to track Koizumi Shōhei down to his favorite pub, where the Moritaki dishwasher was enjoying a lunch consisting of a sandwich the size of his head and a mug of dark beer. Hazō had gone in in disguise, meaning that he'd removed his ninja headband and put on clothes suitable to a civilian apprentice scribe. It wasn't complicated—a moderately-upscale robe, some inkstains on his fingers, and he was good to go. Koizumi had been perfectly happy to have a stranger sit down and start talking to him so long as the stranger in question brought beer.

    "I...I was wondering, um, if she's, well...."

    Koizumi started laughing and reached across the table to clap Hazō on the shoulder, utterly failing to notice the way Hazō overrode his own reflexes so as not to block the blow with bone-snapping ninja strength. "Got yourself a bit of a crush there, kid? She's a little old for you, isn't she?"

    Hazō looked up from where he'd been staring at his nervously-twisting fingers. He deliberately made his eyes soulful. "The heart wants what the heart wants, sir. I've been working on a poem for her. I'm sure if I can just get her to listen once, she'll understand that we're meant to be together."

    Koizumi laughed hard enough that he started choking and had to pound on his own chest and take a deep swig of beer in order to stop.

    "You seem like a nice kid, Rikuto," he said kindly. "It's not happening, though. Even if she weren't too old for you, she's taken."

    "Taken?" Hazō managed to pack an ocean of crushed dreams into the single word.

    "Yeah, sorry. If it's any comfort, she wouldn't go for you anyway. She's a twist, right? Only does girls. And just in case you thought you still had a shot, the chick she's banging is a ninja. Crazy one, too. Purple hair, dresses like a total slut but you better never say that to her face. She was at the bar yesterday, some guy grabbed her ass from behind where he couldn't see her headband. She grabbed his hand without looking and broke three of his fingers. Then she turned around, stabbed him in the neck with a sword and tossed him out into the street."

    Hazō blinked. "She what?"

    "Yeah, she whacked him right in the common room. I was in the back, of course, so I didn't see it myself. Still, I heard about it from Reo who was working the floor at the time. He said he was in the porch section but he caught the tail end of it as she was throwing the guy through the door, and he heard the rest from Kaito, who was behind the bar and so he had a front-row seat."

    To the best of Hazō's knowledge, Mitarashi was not a weapon user, so whatever she'd stuck the guy with—if anything—had definitely not been a sword. Kunai was the obvious choice, grown in the telling. Needles were more probable, though; Mitarashi was known for their use and for poison. Poisons were an unusual tool for ninja—they generally didn't take effect fast enough to matter in a ninja battle and they had a number of challenges such as drying out and thereby losing efficacy, or accidentally sticking yourself. Still, they were a good fit for terrorizing civilians, especially if what you had was embarrassing but not dangerous. For example, an emetic.

    On the other hand, even if she hadn't "stabbed him in the neck with a sword", she'd clearly done something to the guy. Given the 'no harming civilians' rules....

    "I thought ninja weren't allowed to hurt civilians?"

    Koizumi snorted. "Where have you been, kid? Ninja hurt civilians all the time."

    "They do?"

    "Sure. My gran was in the market two weeks ago, buying persimmons. Accidentally bumped into a ninja at the fruit stall. She apologized, but the guy used some of his ninja magic on her. She had the runs real bad for three straight days."

    Hazō was not the Professor, master of every ninjutsu, but he was still pretty confident that there was no such thing as Diarrhea no Jutsu. Most likely the old woman had eaten too many persimmons and blamed it on the ninja.

    "'Course, she got off easy. One time, my uncle Noritaka was minding his own business when a bar fight started around him. He spills his beer and some of it splashes on this big ninja dude. Next thing my uncle knows, everyone in the room has two broken legs and a broken arm.

    "Anyway, that Ueda chick...yeah, crying shame she's a twist. I wouldn't mind taking a run at her myself, you know? Those long legs, great rack—yeah, man! Got all her teeth and skin's good, so she's probably healthy. And the way she moves, I bet she'd make the mattress bounce right up to the ceiling!"

    "Hah! Good one," Hazō said, painting a smile on his face and refusing to show his revulsion at the man's boorish behavior. "Hang on, purple-haired female ninja...I know that one. She was in my master's shop the other day. Mi...Mit...Mitarashi, that was it. Mitarashi Anko. Does she come into Moritaki's often?"

    Koizumi brayed a laugh. "Now that one is definitely out of your league, kid! Yeah, she's in a bunch. Smoking hot, you know? The two of them together, man, that must practically light the place up, am I right?"

    "Absolutely," Hazō said, nodding and taking a small sip from his own mug of beer, bought solely as a pretense. "Still, I thought Mitarashi was dating that guy from Torture and Interrogation? Morino?"

    "He the old guy, wears the bandana on his head under his headband? Yeah, he and Mitarashi were in the other day. Had dinner, then walked Ueda home. They thought they were being slick—the two of them went out first and waited in the alley for Ueda to get off her shift. I was cracking eggs by the back door—for the cake batter, y'know?—and I saw them get down to some serious macking until Ueda come out. They only stopped when she got there. The guy hugs her, Mitarashi starts to kiss her like she's about to tear Ueda's clothes off, but then she stops and keeps it a little calmer. Too bad; I thought I was gonna get a free show.

    "Anyway, the three of 'em walk off, arms around each other with Ueda in the middle. Total bunch of pervs but hey. Ninja got a hard life, if they need to pick up some tail, who am I to complain? Seemed like Ueda was happy enough to go with them, so she's probably getting paid enough to make it worth her while. Good for her—tough world, you gotta have some hustle, am I right?"

    "Sure," Hazō said, standing up. "Thanks for the talk."

    There was an end to how much boorishness Hazō was willing to tolerate.

    o-o-o-o​

    "Excuse me, sir?"

    "What can I do for you, son?" Chūza asked. The old apothecary was rail-thin and must have felt the cold keenly, because he was bundled up in heavy wool robes with a fur wrapped around his shoulders in a room that was practically sweltering from the coal in the firebox.

    Hazō shrugged out of his own heavy winter coat. He was still wearing his "scribe apprentice" getup underneath, figuring that it seemed to have worked well once so he might as well continue.

    "Good afternoon, sir," he said. "My mom sent me to get some things, and I was hoping you could help me?" He pulled a slip of paper out and passed it to the shop owner.

    "Hm...Sage's foil, bridesleaf, and tansy?" He raised an eyebrow at Hazō. "What exactly are her symptoms, young man?"

    Hazō shifted nervously, allowing his eyes to dart away from those of the apothecary. "She...uh...she's got a real upset stomach."

    "Hence the bridesleaf. Sage's foil is for bruises."

    Hazō swallowed nervously. "She walked into a door the other night."

    "I see. Did this door happen to make her pregnant so that she needs tansy?"

    "Look, her friend Ueda said that you were the guy to go to. I've got money, and mom really needs the herbs. Can we just do this?"

    The old man frowned. "Ueda told her this? Ueda Reizo, Morino's girlfriend?"

    "I guess," Hazō said, shrugging. "Pretty girl, uh, busty...has all her teeth? I remember that. She...works near my mom."

    The apothecary's frown deepened, becoming even more confused. "Works near...." The frown disappeared and his face suffused with an unnameable emotion that was somewhere between anger and fear. "You need to leave, young man."

    "What? But...my herbs!"

    "Ueda Reizo is a wonderful young woman and a valued customer. There is nothing wrong with her or her friends! Nothing! Now, get out!"

    Hazō barely had time to get his coat back on before he was pushed outside the shop and the door closed behind him. He stood in the street, considering the door and thinking.

    As he'd thought, Ueda was no prostitute. Which left...what? Granny and Koizumi said that Mitarashi was dating Morino and 'stepping out' with Ueda on the side. How that even worked, he had no idea—were there people who wanted both men and women? Regardless, leave that aside. Chūza said Ueda was dating Morino, made no mention of Mitarashi, and had been frightened to even discuss the subject.

    Who in the names of every nightmare were these people?!




    XP AWARD: 4

    This update covers about 36 hours, ending just before sundown. (~6pm)

    Vote time! What to do now?

    Voting ends on Wednesday, October 24, 2018, at 12pm London time.
     
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    • Incidentally: The Hokage Tower requires that sealmasters turn in a set of their research notes and blanks in order to get a license to sell a particular seal. You went to the Tower and asked to see these, only to be told that they are not available without direct orders from the Hokage.
     
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