The mediocre opponent asks what my next move is. The skilled opponent asks what level I am playing at. The worthwhile opponent asks what game I am playing.
—Mori Ryūgamine, the Angel Without Mercy
"Well," Mori purred, "this is a lot more romantic than I expected for a second date. Thinking of skipping steps?
"Word to the wise," she said, looking down at the bay's water as she tapped it with a toe, "won't work. More dexterous men than you have tried. Also, freezing cold."
What was she…? Hazō blushed furiously as the implication hit him.
"That's not at all what I'm here for," he said. "I have some things I want to talk to you about.
"I should probably mention," he added, "that there's a Leaf ANBU watching from the shore."
"Ah, so instead of skipping steps, you've brought a chaperone?" Mori asked. "Duly noted.
"Here," she said, fishing out a scroll case from her handbag. "I got you this as thanks for that awesome stamp."
"What is it?" Hazō asked, taking the scroll.
"A series of love letters."
Hazō felt a wave of horror. Was she going to keep playing that game here? Now? Given the… overwhelming… nature of the first letter, he honestly wasn't sure what he'd do if she went into lovestruck mode in person—or worse, for real. Reminder: jōnin were insane.
"Written by Karasu Goemon during the late Warring Clans period and considered to be fine examples of period poetry."
Hazō relaxed. It was just a joking allusion in literary form.
"Addressed to a young sealmaster."
She had to be doing this deliberately, right? Hazō shivered at the idea that this might be the Mori equivalent of flirting.
"And said to conceal the Karasu Clan's unique sealing arts in encoded form, the code to which has yet to be cracked."
Forget the older girl with a gorgeous body and a bouncy attitude. The idea of deciphering an ancient sealmaster's secret notes was nothing short of intoxicating.
"And to symbolise Karasu's desire to be bound together forever with said sealmaster."
Oh, right, Mori was still here. He'd probably need to do something about that before he started working on the code.
She was still here and possibly still flirting. Was he supposed to be flirting back? Emphatically
not flirting back? Violently trying to shut down this entire line of conversation? He was increasingly suspecting that there was a right answer, and that he would get into trouble if he couldn't find it fast.
"In the sense of an alliance between their two clans, with an exchange of sealing secrets as proof of loyalty."
Sense of headache: increasing. But talking about sealing secrets to
him at least made it sound like a normal gift again, rather than the many things it had been over the last few seconds.
"Followed by a marriage alliance, of course."
Hazō couldn't take it any longer. "I humbly thank you for your gift, Ami, and I'll make sure to research its history in my own time."
Mori laughed. "So did you get me anything shiny? No obligation, of course. That would make it one of those social reciprocation gifts, and those suck."
Hazō wasn't sure what she meant by that, so he just proffered the wooden case with the ornamental kunai. Mori opened it.
In one smooth motion, she spun around and cast the kunai at full speed in the direction of the sea, even as she released her chakra repulsion and plunged beneath the surface of the water.
Hazō leapt back reflexively, but didn't run. She could have easily thrust that kunai through his heart instead of throwing it away. Instead, a nasty suspicion flashed through his mind.
Mori climbed out onto the surface. "Did I mention: freezing cold? Poor show, Hazō."
"What did
I do?" Hazō asked incredulously.
"Pro tip: sealmasters known for their use of explosives, possibly at melee range, even, shouldn't hand people weapons with unfamiliar symbols on them.
"Now," she said, "I'm going to get changed. Because, let me say it one more time, freezing cold."
Hazō, still trying to figure out if what he'd just seen was crazy jōnin paranoia or a survival instinct that would make Kagome-sensei weep, didn't immediately register that she was undoing the fastenings on her coat.
She was going to get changed
in front of him.
Hazō stood hypnotised. He knew for a fact that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a blessing from the Sage himself that would never come again. He knew that he would no longer qualify as a man if he failed to take advantage of it. He knew that the methodical, business-like way she was taking off her clothes piece by piece should have been dull, yet somehow it reversed itself into a source of absolute fascination.
But then her motion caused ripples in the water, and his missing-nin instincts alerted him to the movement in his peripheral vision. Suddenly, reflected in the water, he saw Jiraiya, demolishing a wall while swearing that, forget carte blanche, Hazō was never going anywhere with or without anyone ever again. He saw Noburi, giving him a high five on principle, but burning with fully-justified jealous resentment for the rest of time. He saw Keiko.
In other words, Hazō finally remembered that there were implications to seeing Mori naked, and that none of them were good. In the meantime, she'd stripped down to her
what?!
Hazō spun around urgently, tempted to dunk his face in the water (which, he was given to understand, was freezing cold) because his face was on fire.
"Done now," the announcement came an improbably small handful of seconds later.
Hazō turned back to find Mori, in a different outfit, downing a shot glass of something that almost certainly wasn't hot chocolate.
"That Nara kid is going to go far if Keiko doesn't kill him first," she said, drying her hair with a towel.
"But you just…"
"Waterproof handbag. I don't know why anyone would ever use anything else.
"Should there be any doubt remaining in your mind," she added in what Hazō now thought of as the Mori voice, "yes, you
were on a timer. Yes, it was divided into discrete segments, each with its own implications. It would have been inappropriate of me to sacrifice such a unique data-gathering opportunity. I will leave the conclusions to your imagination so as to avoid biasing further experiments, but suggest that any further experimentation of this kind take place indoors in a more hospitable environment.
"'sides, I kinda owed you one for bringing an elite killer to an innocent date. That's like a two-in-one insult. You don't trust me not to murder you, and you think I'll be so bad at it that there'll be time for someone to save you. Oh, in case you're wondering, I kept you interposed between her and me. I don't let people trick me into taking off my clothes—which, well done, by the way, points for originality—in front of just anyone."
Hazō's imagination was still in overdrive from everything he'd almost seen, but he forcibly reminded himself that he was here for hard diplomatic reasons.
Serious diplomatic reasons. Serious ones.
"Ami," he said, "forgetting everything that just happened for a second—"
"As if you could."
"—there are things I want to talk to you about. As clan heir, I'm prepared to push for the Gōketsu to ally with you if that's what you want, for both political and personal reasons. You put marriage on the table, and that's an option too. But I have to know whether you want to join forces with us, and I have to know now. This isn't something you can play games with."
"Well," Mori said thoughtfully, "that came out of nowhere. What's a girl to do?"
"Please take this seriously, Ami. I can assure you that we are. You've been strangely forward, and strangely rushed, and we think you might be looking to ally with us because you're in some kind of danger here in Mist. We're ready to help you, but you need to cooperate with us. That means honest, clear communication."
Mori looked at him quietly for a couple of seconds. Then she burst out laughing.
"That's amazing! Wonderful! Do you know how long it's been since I was treated like a damsel in distress? I need to add this date to my diary so I can celebrate it every year!"
"No need to be rude," Hazō muttered. "That was a genuine offer of help."
"That's what makes it so gloriously offensive!" Mori said through the laughter. "We've been on one date, I've sent you two notes, and from all that you've concluded that I need saving? By outsiders? On
your initiative? Oh, you people are going to be so much more fun than I thought!"
"I take it the offer of marriage wasn't genuine either?" Hazō asked, struggling to remain calm.
"No," she said seriously, her expression evening out into something focused and slightly melancholy. "I'm not the kind of woman to sell my body and mind to the highest bidder."
"What do you mean?" Hazō asked uncertainly.
"We live in a society where clans sell their children in return for diplomatic considerations. Ideally, they will sleep with their new masters' children so as to seal the deal with mixed-blood descendants. By contrast, even the ladies of the night give their consent and set their own fees.
"I shouldn't need to elaborate. If the Hokage orders you to marry, your personal preferences will be of no interest. Existing relationships must be considered casual at best, to be discarded upon call. If he tells you to become a Yamanaka, you will become a Yamanaka. You will live with them, you will obey their clan head as if he were your own father, and you will place a wall between yourself and your old clan in order to avoid divided loyalties.
"Or perhaps the Yamanaka girl will marry in. It is more common for women to be sold than men, so that the buyer will own the resulting children. But in practice, the cost-benefit calculation tends to be more complex, and the Hokage is under no formal obligation to seek your input on it.
"I have made sacrifices in order to remain outside this system. If I have to, I will make more."
Hazō stood there, dazed, and not just by her cynicism. He couldn't
refute anything she'd just said. He'd always known that clans as an institution were deeply flawed—hidebound, bigoted, greedy and egotistic—and when she described the inter-clan marriage system as a form of non-consensual prostitution… well, it shouldn't have fit as well as it did. Wasn't it just yesterday that he'd been thinking about how cold calculation could drive a clan to discard its own? He wanted to say no, that family bonds were sacred and so it made perfect sense to imitate them as the foundation of diplomacy. He wanted to say that there was no better way to prevent war between clans than by bringing them together as one family.
But Keiko had never been given a choice. What if she'd turned out to be incompatible with Shikamaru the way she was with Akane? What if instead, she'd been married off to one of those unspecified cousins, and he disliked her as a person? What if he resented her for being a wife forced upon him rather than some hypothetical wife he might want later (or indeed a girl he wanted now)? What if he demanded the regular performance of marital duties from a girl who couldn't bear to be touched? Maybe Lord Nara would make his choices with a view to her welfare. Maybe he wouldn't. Keiko would have no influence on the matter.
Akane wouldn't have been given a choice either. Jiraiya only had two children left to marry off. As soon as he picked a wife for Hazō, Akane would have lost her place as a girlfriend. At best, she would have become his mistress, a strain on their relationship and a humiliation she did not deserve. He'd tried to pretend the truth away—commoners
could marry into the clan if they were worthy—but at least there was no point now. Unless he fell in love with another commoner.
"But then… why?" he asked, feeling like the ground was shifting beneath his feet. He didn't need to specify.
"For my own nefarious purposes, duh." Mori grinned. "People don't generally like killing, but our whole society's built on murder. Then once you've got everyone seeing assassins around every corner, they've built up expectations that you can manipulate. It's the same here. Also, you have no idea whether I believe any of what I just said, which is how it should be."
"Look," Hazō said, "I appreciate the insight, I think, but it's not why I'm here. If you can't be honest and direct about just a few simple things, then I'm just going to have to leave and we can pick this up another time—or not."
"Sure," Mori said. "Let's play."
"Did I not just say—"
"I have assented to your terms," Mori said. "In the spirit of which, and with the acknowledgement that any act of communication must of necessity involve compromise if it is to be successful, I consider it necessary to establish clear mutual understanding before we focus on the central topics. This is not intended as an act of deception or misdirection, but rather a relevant observation.
"Honesty," she snapped, "is the ultimate game. Honesty is an illusion. It's a convenient tool when it's not a chain with which you bind yourself."
The ice crept up from the already freezing cold water, feet to ankles to knees and not stopping. He wanted to open his mouth, to remind her that he was done playing games, but he couldn't.
"When you say you're honest, that's already a lie. Honesty means telling people what you think and what you believe. It means you're pretending to know. If you say you're perfectly honest, you're saying you know your true self."
She took a step forward. He couldn't take a step back.
"Are you willing to say that to my face?"
The ice kept creeping upwards. Hazō
knew his true self. He dreamt of Uplift and gave spontaneous impassioned speeches about it. He loved his family and would do anything to protect them. He was patient up to a point, but then all his frustration would come out in one big burst. He was smooth and silver-tongued when he had time to prepare a plan, but his natural awkwardness came out when he was put on the spot. He was—
"All you have is stories. Stories you tell yourself about yourself. Countless stories with nothing at the core. No true self, because there never was. Is that the honesty you're offering me?
"Because I'm cool with playing that game," Mori smirked. "I'll pretend if you do."
"It's not a game," Hazō wheezed as he regained control of his body. "Still… not a game…"
"Victory conditions. Rules. Challenge. It's a game.
"So what is it you want to ask that makes it worth putting up with my shenanigans?"
"What do you actually want?" Hazō asked. Finally. "If it's not an alliance or a marriage."
"Nothing much," Mori said. "I don't need anything from you right now. I was hoping for more chaos, but you didn't cause that much, and it was mostly the wrong kind anyway. Your rant during your match, now that was good. I've run the numbers, and the long-term repercussions look delicious. I might even give the pot a stir myself.
"But other than the chaos, eh. Long-term cordial relations would be nice, as would not having the Hokage give me death glares every time he sees me—though I suspect that was always a lost cause—but you just don't have the influence in Mist to be useful to me, and my plans for Leaf are still on the back burner.
"That should do for now," she concluded.
"Wait," Hazō said, "you've been doing all this in hope of
cordial relations?"
"Nefarious purposes, remember? Plus, no matter how you feel about me right now, you're sure as heck not going to forget me. Everything else is a matter of detail."
Hazō drew on his still-burgeoning diplomatic skills in order not to facepalm. It was hard.
"Also favours. You can never have too many of those. Hit me up if you need anything done around here, from recommending a decent restaurant to bullying the Mizukage.
"My turn." She studied him closely. "What did you sell Jiraiya for him to risk starting a war by adopting you?"
Hazō reeled back from the unexpected full frontal assault. This was not the dancing-around-the-edges Mori he'd got used to.
"No comment," he said in what he hoped was a calm and measured voice.
Mori shook her head. "All right, I'll give you an easier question. Are you a Cold Stone Killer?"
Yes, she was doing this deliberately. Hazō was having to re-evaluate whether this woman ever did anything non-deliberately. On the plus side, he could make himself sound more collected now.
"No comment."
"Shame," she grinned. "You guys—I mean a bunch of anonymous individuals—are practically heroes around here. A mere handful of people handed over an entire country to Mist without being asked.
"All right, final try. What did you
really do during the Kotsuzui fight? And no lying, 'cause I'll know."
Now that one he was prepared for. "No comment."
"Three strikes and you're out," Mori said cheerfully.
"That's hardly fair!" Hazō objected. "You're asking me all these questions which I either can't or shouldn't answer, while I'm being completely straightforward. If this is how you intend to keep going—"
"Chill, Hazō. What would
you do if some random cute kid started asking for your deepest secrets out of nowhere? Well, maybe not deepest secrets, but there are people who'd kill for me to be straight with them about my goals.
"I'll say it again. Not your enemy, not your friend, could turn into either, open to working together under the right conditions, and having fun going on dates. Just remember what I told you about honesty, unless I was lying about that as well. Also, give me more cool stuff that doesn't blow me up."
Hazō nodded. "Thank you."
"Turnabout's fair play, though. Tell me how the Gōketsu really feel about me."
How
did they feel about her? And how much could he say without Jiraiya having to pay the innkeeper compensation for the wall? (Clearly, Jiraiya was a bad influence on Keiko, or possibly the other way around.)
"We want to know what you're doing," Hazō said. "You might think keeping us off-balance is fun,"—Mori nodded fervently—"but it's very frustrating on our end, especially when you keep sending us letters that contradict each other. Honestly, I think I've covered the main scope of it with my questions today. We've been wanting to know if you're friend or foe, whether you're serious about marrying into the clan, and generally what your objectives are. Also…"
This was his opening. Did he dare go for it?
If Ami wishes to hurt me, she may hurt me…
"… Keiko thinks you hate her. She's convinced of it. And you're not the kind of person to make her think that by accident."
"How do you know what kind of person I am, Hazō?"
"You're the kind of person who isn't supposed to hurt Keiko," Hazō said fiercely. "I know how she feels about you. I know how she's felt about you for the last two years. You're not supposed to be the kind of person who hates her.
Do you? Why?"
"Why would I ever hate her, Hazō?" Mori said lightly. "I can arrange a guest room for her at the Mori compound any time she wants. I even offered her a tour when she visited."
"You offered your own sister… a tour."
"Sure. She might have wanted to see how the place had changed over the last two years. I wouldn't want to be rude to her when she dropped by after so long. It's a shame if she took it badly, but I trust her family to look out for her when she's not well."
"What about your letter, then?" Hazō insisted. "The marriage proposal. That wasn't just a tour. You knew it would hurt her. Why would you send something like that? Do you really not care about Keiko's feelings?"
"It would hurt her, you say?" An edge of irritation entered Mori's voice. "You think you have the right to blame me for that?"
"What do you mean?"
"Shall I reconstruct the series of events for you? Give you my credentials to see the blindingly obvious?"
Hazō sensed the volcanic eruption the second before it hit.
"Let's work backwards. That simmering rage she showed at the Finals wasn't just from Nara. Her reflex is to turn her anger inwards, not outwards, and she can't sustain that much outwards that long. Nara made a contribution, given how she switched moods before and after his little stunt. But when she went into the arena, she wasn't angry-hurting. She was miserable-hurting. When did she have time to get that way? You'd have spent the morning analysing the letter. You needed to be ready for damage control. So you're right. The letter was the trigger.
"Here's the catch. I
know my sister. It should have made her pissed off. Not miserable. Up, not down. At me, not the world. It shouldn't have made her unstable. She could have handled Nara. Violently, but she could. Instead, something primed her to explode. Something between our date and the letter? What did you do, Gōketsu? What did you
not do?"
"You're only guessing," Hazō stammered. Was that the end of the rain of lava?
"Yes, I am," Mori said with a brutal finality. "Correct me."
Hazō couldn't. For the first time since he'd known her, Mori didn't look in control. It was probably deliberate, because everything about this woman was deliberate. It was also completely terrifying.
"No? Then we're done."
She was already facing the shore, and she brushed past him as she began to walk away.
"Ami, wait!" he called out without thinking about his choice of words.
She turned around.
"Now what, Hazō? I'm telling you up front, hell hath no fury like a woman dunked in freezing cold water, but whatever revenge I get for that will be a picnic compared what I'll do if you keep interfering with people's relationships. Believe me, there's plenty of wiggle room when it comes to non-lethal things that the Hokage can't or won't protect you from."
"Ami, please…"
She rolled her eyes. "Make it quick. Some of us have borderline illegal means of de-stressing to use."
"It doesn't matter who did what or why," Hazō appealed. "The fact is that she's slowly breaking. We're trying what we can, doing what we can, but we can't change the fact that you're still the centre of her life. She will never let us take your place. Even after what you did—or, fine, what she thinks you did—she still needs you."
"You're her family," Mori said. "Wasn't that the objective of the exercise? When she's alone, you embrace her. When she falls, you pick her up. When she feels lost, you understand her. When she's weak, you give her strength.
"If you don't know how to do it,
learn. Don't ask a stranger to fix it for you."
"Didn't you hear what I just said?" Hazō exclaimed. "We can't take your place! It doesn't matter if we're the best family she could have or the worst! Even the best mortal ever can't replace a goddess!"
"A goddess?" Mori said ironically. "I'll put that in my diary next to Damsel-in-Distress Day. It's going to take quite a lot of effort to figure out one celebration for both."
"Ami!"
"Still here, Hazō. Despite my better judgement."
"When I came here, all I wanted was to ask you how you felt about Keiko so that I could establish whether we could work together—and to have something to tell her. I still haven't done either."
"And your agenda is my problem because…?"
"You've told me how you feel about working together
in and of itself. But as for Keiko…"
Hazō summoned up whatever strength he had remaining after the inevitable whirlwind that was meeting with Mori. It wasn't much, but he intended to make it count.
"You agreed to play the honesty game with me. Nobody said we'd stopped."
"You're learning," Mori said approvingly. "And I haven't said a single untrue thing since we started."
"Then let's do it one more time. Ami, look at me and tell me honestly how you feel about Keiko."
Mori looked at him for several very long seconds.
"No comment."
"What?!"
"You set the precedent yourself, Hazō."
He gave her an appalled look.
"A game is made of victory conditions, rules and challenges. Never assume that your opponent is playing the same game as you just because they've signed up to one out of three."
"That's not in the spirit of the game!" Hazō exclaimed as he threw up his hands. Self-control was dipping in favour of frustration at Mori and at a burst of courage wasted.
"Mmm. Nor is a non sequitur ambush with emotional blackmail while we're talking politics. One thing you should know about me before you next try to seduce me, Hazō. I can
always play rougher than you.
"Also: ninja."
Good point. Hazō made a note to never use "the spirit of the game" as an argument against anyone ever, except maybe Gai and Rock Lee.
Thinking of Gai and Rock Lee, Hazō realised that he had one final hand to play. Sometimes you just had to throw your feelings at the other person without consideration for time or place.
"She's in pain, Ami. More pain than I've ever felt, even when I lost the one person at the centre of my world too. I'm not sure you understand how much you mean to her. You
are her goddess. She acts like she's living in this dark low-key hell punctuated by brief flashes of happiness, and then she talks about you like you're the sun. Losing you was her only regret about leaving Mist, and when she found out she might be able to see you again, it meant so much to her she didn't even dare to hope. You aren't just her sister. She has said, in her own words, that you are everything to her, even now.
"Now, she blames herself for failing you. She hates herself for not being good enough for you. She's had nightmares she won't talk about since she saw you, and everything she does is tainted with the knowledge that she could lose anything, at any time, without any way to see it coming. Dealing with her has become like walking through a trap array, because thoughts of you can be triggered by anything, and then she's down for the rest of the day.
"I don't know how she gets up in the morning. She already thought the world was a terrible place and she was already fragile
before her heart got ripped out by the person she trusted most. I've always tried not to think about what it's like to be her because the truth is, I have no idea what I could possibly do to make it better. But you do.
"You can play all the word games you like with me, Ami, but it won't change the fact that you've left her with a wound that will never heal and an obsession that will never fade. It won't change the fact that only you can give back what you took away.
"If that isn't enough to convince you, then it isn't. I've done all I can."
Mori held up her hand for silence, then put it down again. She closed her eyes.
Hazō recognised the signs. He waited.
After a while, he stopped being able to see or hear her breathing. Her body was still enough that there were no ripples on the water. He might have started worrying whether she was alive, except her eyes were moving rapidly beneath her eyelids. Keiko's had never done that.
Hazō kept waiting. He wondered if it would be rude to pull out that poetry collection and start reading.
Then, gradually, he started hearing Mori's breathing again. Very slowly, she opened her eyes.
She reached into her handbag with a smooth, flowing movement, and pulled out some ink paste and a seal—not the smiley seal, but one made of unfamiliar green stone. She wrote something quickly on a piece of parchment, then sealed it and held it out.
"Give her this," she said. Her voice had a strange, alien reverb, as if several people were speaking slightly out of sync.
"We have work to do."
-o-
You have received 3 - 1 XP.
-o-
You were too creeped out to stay with Ami, and she probably meant for you to leave at once anyway.
You did not have an opportunity to offer her Ichiraku ramen, but you did stuff a post-interaction survey into her hands before you ran. You didn't have time to observe her reaction. The "small talk" part of the plan unfortunately did not happen. Clearly, a third
date meeting will be necessary.
-o-
The award ceremony is in a few hours. What do you do?
Voting ends on Saturday 9th of March, 9 a.m. New York Time.
