1pm, February 19, 1069 AS
Mari didn't even have time to pour herself tea before Tanaka Kiyomoto came rushing out of his office.
"Lady Gōketsu! Thank you for gracing my miserable office! Your presence is a blessing!" Tanaka bowed over and over, forehead almost touching his knees.
Mari rose gracefully to her feet, crossed the space between them with two quick steps and stopped his bowing with a hand laid softly on his arm. "Kiyomoto, please," she purred, standing just inside his personal space and looking up at him with a velvet smile and bedroom eyes. "There's no need for such formality. I've been looking forward to meeting you."
Kiyomoto gulped. "Th-thank you, Your Ladyship. It is a great pleasure to meet you as well. How has your day been?"
She smiled again, ladling on the promise. "Lovely, thank you. Please, may we continue in your office?" She took his arm and allowed him to escort her into the back room that was the formal office of the Master of Chambers for Leaf's Merchant Council.
The office was carefully staged to intimidate. On a dais against the wall opposite the door crouched a heavy desk, stained dark, with gold inlaid into the carved scrollwork. Behind it stood an enormous bookcase filled with incredibly expensive leatherbound books and a bust of each of the Hokage from Senju to Gōketsu. Flanking the desk were two flagstaffs with the banner of Leaf hanging from each.
Anyone entering needed to cross twenty feet of carpet to find themselves in front of that behemoth desk. The chair that had been placed there for supplicants was a straight-backed wooden thing with token padding and legs an inch shorter than a normal chair so that most adults would be left hunched and bent-kneed. Even without the shorter legs, the chair was not on the dais and therefore the supplicant's head would be half a foot below Kiyomoto's.
The secretary who had raced to fetch Kiyomoto upon Mari's arrival had been frantically rearranging furniture while Kiyomoto had been trying unsuccessfully to stall Mari in the outer room. The secretary had wrestled the massive chair from behind the desk down to where the visitor's chair sat, turning the visitor's chair to face it, adding a footstool in front of the grand chair, and emplacing a folding sidetable with tea set in easy reach of both chairs. He was just finishing getting things into place when Mari and Kiyomoto entered.
Mari surveyed the room and looked up at Kiyomoto with her patented 'impressed' face. "How lovely! Kiyomoto, your taste is excellent." She met his gaze and let the tip of her tongue briefly touch her upper lip.
Kiyomoto swallowed nervously. "Thank you, My Lady."
She paced forward to take the throne-like chair that had been prepared for her. The footstool was a nice touch; she was short enough that between the height of the chair and the cushion on its seat she would have needed to hop up in an undignified way. The secretary, an unprepossessing young man of perhaps twenty, hovered nervously nearby, unsure whether he should offer an arm for her to balance on as she stepped up on the stool; she ignored it.
She settled herself with a slight wriggle and a deep breath that she knew did interesting things to her low-cut top; she was both pleased and amused to note that the secretary's eyes nearly popped out of his head. Kiyomoto started to sweat and suddenly developed a slight twitch as he tried to subtly signal the secretary out of the room before his visitor noticed she was being ogled and decided to (hopefully metaphorically) blow up the building.
The secretary wasn't catching the hint, so Kiyomoto got obvious. "That will be all, Akio. Make sure we aren't disturbed."
"Uh—yes sir!" Akio vanished through the double doors, pulling them closed behind him.
Kiyomoto took the visitor's chair, which put his eyes at the level of Mari's clavicle. He locked his gaze on her face and struggled not to sweat.
"Would you care for some tea, My Lady?" He extended the pot hopefully.
Mari shook her head. "No, thank you, Kiyomoto. It's very kind of you, but I'm fine."
Kiyomoto set the teapot back on the table with a clear flash of regret that made Mari smile internally. Careful spy work had revealed that he was one of those people who always had something in their hands to twirl, twist, or squeeze while talking. Since he wasn't behind his desk, none of his usual fidget toys were available; he couldn't even use the teacup, since it would have been gauche of him to have tea when she wasn't. The fact that he would be in his formal office today, hearing complaints and petitions, was the entire reason she had come; in his private workaday office, she couldn't have so easily put him off-balance by isolating him from his habits.
"What may I do for you, My Lady?"
"I was hoping...well, it's a minor matter and I'm sorry to inconvenience you."
"You could never offer inconvenience, My Lady! To serve one of the Great Clans is a tremendous privilege, and I am honored at your presence. Please, tell me how I may help."
She smiled and cast her eyes down in pleased embarrassment. "Oh, stop! You're such a flatterer." She reached forward and bapped him on the arm playfully. "It's my nephew, Hazō. He was speaking to Kuwahara about some potential business ventures that the Gōketsu would like licenses for. I've been informed that before they can be debated before the Council they will need to be placed on the agenda, and that you are the man who controls the agenda. I was hoping it might be possible to expedite that." She gave him a smokey smile and leaned forward, elbows on both knees so that her cleavage was compressed and enhanced. "I'd be very grateful." She licked her lips.
Kuwahara gulped, visions of his wife almost visibly dancing in his mind. "Ah, well...I'm afraid that the agenda is already set for the next two weeks, My Lady."
"Really? There's no flexibility whatsoever? I was under the impression that, as Master of Chambers, you had the authority to modify it."
"Well, um..."
She stood up, stepped forward, and straddled his lap. When she had been with Jiraiya she'd gotten used to fucking on a regular basis and it had been too long since he kicked the bucket. She was horny, and the fact that she could combine business with pleasure just added spice to the mix. The fact that the source of that pleasure was a good-looking and, more importantly, happily married man desperate to keep his reputation for integrity and fidelity? That was icing on the cake made from the mix.
Oh, and of course this misstep would make him a perfect subject for perpetual blackmail. From now on she owned him; he would put whatever she wanted on the Council's agenda, and scratch her itch whenever she was in the mood.
"I'm sure we can work something out," she murmured, pressing her lips to his and cupping his cheek with one hand. His entire body froze for a moment and then his arms clutched tight around her, his breath coming thick and fast as he lost himself in her scent and the heat of her body.
o-o-o-o
At approximately the same time, on the Gōketsu (née Shimura) estate...
"You sent for us, My Lord?"
Hazō looked up from his paperwork to see the boys who had just entered what was now widely known as the Command Tent. It was, in truth, just the Gōketsu's living space with a sheet hung to block off sight of the rumpled bedding and not-folded shirts and pants. Hazō sat at a table in the free space at the front of the tent, stacks of paper around him.
"Kazunori, Teruo," he said with a smile. The boys were brothers, both blond and tall for their age—they were technically genin, but they had been out of the Academy less than a year before The Collapse had claimed family and home. Like so many others, they'd been running themselves ragged trying to stay busy so they didn't have to deal with their loss, and it showed in the form of dark circles under their eyes.
"I have jobs for you two," Hazō said, lifting a bag up from the ground beside his chair and dropping it on the table with a heavy
clink! "Our people have been living in tents for too long while we got organized. Part of that was because all the ninja in the city were so busy with rescue work that there was no one available to hire. It's been long enough for that to ease up, especially since the Rock ninja are taking some of the load.
"We're going to be paying a lot of money for things, and carrying that many ryō around is a drag. We could use storage seals, but civilians can't operate those. Instead, I've created tokens that people can bring here, to the Command Tent, and exchange for ryō. Blue is worth ten thousand ryō, green is five thousand, yellow is one thousand, red is five hundred, and black are one hundred.
"Kazunori, go into the city and hire a Leaf ninja—
only a Leaf ninja, not a Rock ninja—who knows the Multiple Earth Wall jutsu. Be sure they understand that it's not urgent; we don't want to interfere with their assigned duties or their family responsibilities. There's plenty of work to do and it will be here when they have time." He untied the bag to reveal that it contained a set of smaller bags, each one a square of leather with the corners folded together and tied with a bit of blue twine.
"Yes, My Lord," Kazunori said sharply.
"A genin gets one bag, a chūnin three, and a jōnin gets all ten. There's a thousand ryō and a blue token in each bag; they can exchange the token after they do the job. No haggling; they take the offer or they don't. Exact details of what we need built will be provided when they show up, but it should be manageable in half a day or so."
Kazunori's eyes went wide. He glanced at Hazō for a moment before involuntarily looking back at the money.
"Um...that's...that's a very high price for a till'n'fill. My Lord."
Hazō shrugged. "We've got the money, and I expect to be making more soon. People are busy right now, and they aren't going to be super interested in doing something like this. I don't want you to have to haggle, so it's easier to just make the payment high enough that you don't need to. Just make sure you write down the name of everyone who takes the money. Can you do that for me?"
The young genin swallowed convulsively and then met Hazō's eyes again. "Yes, M'Lord."
"Good lad." Hazō dropped the bag of coins into a blue-dotted storage seal and pushed it across to the older brother. "Now, once you've found someone with MEW, see how many ninja you can find that are willing to donate some chakra. Pay attention, because this will be a little complicated and you need to be able to explain it to each of them. Ready?"
"Yes, My Lord!"
Hazō smothered a chuckle at the earnestness of the younger ninja. Hazō and Kazunori were nearly the same age but the difference in their experience and maturity could not be overstated.
"The way this works is that they come to the estate so that Noburi can evaluate them. If they have enough chakra to be worth bothering with then he'll drain
half of what they have available. No one gets drained more than halfway, so they'll still be able to fight.
"We're using me as a metric, since we don't have anything better. In order to be hired they need to have
available chakra equal to at least half of my total reserves. If, after being drained, they still have enough chakra available to qualify then we'll hire them again to buy half of what's left, same price. If we drain chakra roughly equal to my reserves, that's worth ten thousand. Half my reserves, five thousand. Less than that, one thousand. Got all that?"
Kazunori saluted. "Yes, My Lord!" He repeated it back almost word for word.
"Good. Now, each of them gets five hundred ryō just to show up and get evaluated. That's to prove that we're serious." He produced a stack of a dozen storage seals, each with a red dot on it.
He grinned. "Also, here's all of that information again, written down." He passed over the storage seals and an orders sheet, then tried not to show his amusement at the unamused look of the genin who had clearly been frantically rehearsing the instructions in his head for fear of forgetting any detail.
Hazō pulled another orders sheet and an identical stack of seals, these with green dots, out of his jacket and pushed it towards Teruo. "Teruo, I want you to get us some medical personnel. Part of what I'm going to have built is a clinic, and we'll need people to man it. Go find Noburi and relate the assignment I'm about to give you to him; if he has changes, additions, or deletions, do them. If he objects to the whole plan, cancel it and come back here for reassignment. Understood?" It was unlikely that Noburi would have changes, since Kagome-sensei and Akane had already okayed everything.
"Yes, My Lord!"
"Good. Your basic orders, subject to Noburi's approval, are to go to Leaf General Hospital and talk to the medic-nin. Again, stress that we do
not want to interfere with their other duties. I want them to come to our clinic when they have time and treat whoever needs them. Emphasize that the patients will be mostly civilians; I've noticed that some of the medics are snooty about that, and the last thing we need is to have them show up, then get pissed off and leave."
"Yes, My Lord."
"The bags in these seals each represent two thousand ryō—five hundred cash, one yellow token, one red token. Those go to the medic-nin. Explain that they get the two thousand just for walking through the door of our clinic. After that, they get paid cash per hour that they work. Genin medic-nin, if there is such a thing, get three hundred ryō per hour. Chūnin get a thousand, jōnin get three thousand. The first hour will be just giving us an evaluation of the facilities and a list of equipment to purchase. They get paid the full amount even if it doesn't take an hour."
"M'Lord, won't some of them keep the money in the bag and not show up, or show up just to get the initial payment and then leave immediately without doing anything? Or do that evaluation thing but do a half-as...do a sloppy job, just to get the extra money?"
Hazō shrugged. "Maybe? It's not enough money to worry about, and it will let us know who can and can't be trusted. Anyone who does that will never work for the Gōketsu again."
Kazuo snorted in involuntary amusement; clearly, the words 'not enough money to worry about' did not match up with the amounts he was being instructed to deliver. A moment later his eyes widened in panic at what he'd done and he snapped to rigid attention, fist on heart in formal salute. "I will not fail you, My Lord!"
Hazō chuckled. "At ease, genin. No harm done. Just remember to write down the names. Anyway, once you've spoken with the medics, find us some midwives. I've got twelve women waddling around who are about to pop, and I have no clue what to do if that happens. I want at least one competent midwife on the estate at all times until the babies have all come." He laid a stack of yellow-dotted seals on the table. "The bags have two hundred ryō and a red token. Again, the red tokens gets them five hundred ryō, and that's just for showing up and taking a skills exam. Assuming they pass, I'll pay them each ten thousand ryō per day to live here on the estate. They can come and go whenever they want, but they don't get paid for any day where they're not in the compound the whole time. They're welcome to bring their families with them, if they have any. We can probably find jobs for the families too, although they probably won't pay as much."
"Yes, My Lord!"
"Good lad. See if you can get us four or five midwives. Now,
this seal has a bag of red tokens in it. Those go to herbalists, civilian nurses—anyone you can think of who knows anything about wounds or sickness. Again, they get the money just for showing up and taking a skills test. If they demonstrate skill then they'll get paid a hundred ryō per hour worked."
"Yes, My Lord!"
"Good lads. Off you go."
o-o-o-o
Hazō and Kagome were doing the rounds, meeting all the people who lived on their land in an effort to connect with them and boost morale. Their latest visit was a tent filled with six women who were scrubbing clothes, each with a vat of water and a washboard. They were kneeling in a circle around a massive pile of shirts, pants, and unmentionables, each with a scrap of something tied to it—a pebble with a strangely-shaped blob of paint, a scrap of paper with the name 'Hashimoto Kōji', a bit of wood with a charcoaled bit of scribble, and so on. The air inside the tent was warm and toasty, courtesy of Akane's Elemental Mastery jutsu, but the water in the tubs was still cold. The women were having to take periodic breaks to warm their hands up.
"Hey," Kagome-sensei said, fidgeting nervously. "You. Uh...Kimura, yeah. I'm...I'm sorry about your loss. You know—your whole family getting killed in the cave-in. That was unfair. Shouldn't have happened."
Hazō struggled not to facepalm as the woman in question looked up at them in surprise. She seemed to have no words.
"I wasn't spying or anything," Kagome-sensei hurried to add. "It's just that you live in the tent next to us, and we can hear—"
"What Kagome-sensei means is that we understand your loss," Hazō said quickly. "We understand your grief, at least a little—we've lost our own people before this." He looked around at the other women and offered them a smile. "Right now we're making an effort to meet everyone in the camp, find out what you all need, and make sure it's provided. Part of that is food and shelter, but I also want to look out for everyone's happiness. I'm organizing discussion groups to help people who lost loved ones. It's an opportunity to talk about the memories, share what you're feeling, and get support from others who are going through the same thing."
Kimura looked at the woman next to her with a bewildered expression, then smoothed it away and looked back to Hazō. She smiled and bowed. "Thank you, Lord Gōketsu, that's very thoughtful of you. May I ask what group I'm assigned to?"
Hazō shook his head quickly. "No, no—it's a purely voluntary thing. It's there if you want it, but you don't have to go." He struggled for a moment, trying to organize his thoughts.
"Look," he said at last. "There's a real world out there, but we don't see it. Everything your eyes tell you is a lie, a layer of paint over reality. In this world there is no way to truly
know that the people around you are real. You could be stuck in a genjutsu and never know it."
Her eyes went wide. "My Lord—"
"No, you're missing my point. What you
see is not real, but what you experience
is. Time isn't what you think it is...it doesn't really exist, it's just an artifact of our limited perception. The truth is that everything is eternal, and our perception of past and future as distinct things is a limit of our own minds." He paused for a moment and then started over. "A person exists apart from time. They are whole things, spanning four dimensions and stretching into the future and the past. What we see in the present is no more the person than a slice taken out of the middle of a carrot is the carrot. Except there isn't really a 'present'. A human mind takes time to perceive things, and therefore what you see always lags behind what's actually out there. You don't interact with people as they
are, you interact with them as they
were. You aren't actually hearing what I say as I say it, you're remembering what I said a moment ago. Your family are exactly what they always were: The memories you have of them. Every moment of joy at your son's accomplishments, every argument and flash of love for your husband, every good meal that he cooked...all of those things are exactly as real as they were before the cave-in, because you remember them. The only thing that has really changed is that you will not be able to make more memories of them. That's a tragedy, and it's entirely reasonable for you to grieve at that...but your people haven't actually changed in any real way. They still exist in the true reality just as they always have, and they aren't completely gone from this reality as long as someone remembers them. If you share the memories with other people then they are strengthened. Your family will continue to exist in reality because they aren't part of time, and they will continue to exist in our world so long as someone remembers them. If we all share what we have lost then our loved ones continue to exist, exactly as they always did. And if I tell you my memories and you share them with someone else, my loved ones will live on when you and I are not here to remember them."
He paused, studying them and gauging their reactions. "You don't have to come," he said carefully, "but please consider it. I don't want to lose my people; I want to share the warmth and wonder that was my time with Jiraiya, and the little that I knew of Minami Nikkō, and what I remember of my father before he died." He extended a hand and made eye contact with each of the women in turn. "Please, help me keep them alive?"
The women all blinked and looked at him with fresh eyes, mouths slightly open in surprise.
"Thank you, My Lord," Kimura said, a true smile spreading across her face. "I will."
The other women nodded in turn, smiling for perhaps the first time in days.
o-o-o-o
As they walked away, Kagome-sensei's fidgeting got worse.
"That...that was good," he said at last. "You did good. Made her feel better."
"Thank you," Hazō said. Pushing the words out was...not
difficult, but something that he had to remember to do. Discussing the nature of reality, the paint-thin coating that was the world around them, had reminded him of what lay beneath that paint. It left his mind shifted...still attached to the meat that made sounds but not entirely within it.
It was, in truth, pleasant. The grief of those around him had brought to the surface his grief for Jiraiya, and for his birth father, Shinji. The constant hurry to provide for hundreds of refugees had left him frazzled. The fear of his possible contamination by the Out had nagged at him. All of that was still there, but it was separate from his awareness. He could consider those feelings dispassionately even as they weighed on him. The relief was almost tangible.
"Yeah," Kagome-sensei said, watching Hazō from the corner of his eye. "I...I don't think I did so well with her."
Hazō considered that. Kagome-sensei was important to him, and it was apparent that the man was emotionally vulnerable right now. The nature of future memories of him was, at every not-really-a-moment, subject to change based on the instructions generated by Hazō's will and enacted by Hazō's body. Eye contact, weight shifts, face shape, pauses, 'time' of day and 'distance' from home, word choice and intonation...anything and everything came together to shape the so-called future. What would shape
Kagome-sensei's 'future' along the path preferable to both the man himself and the 'rest of the world'?
"It's hard," Hazō said after a moment. "There's no good way to approach grief and no easy fix. These people are new to us, people that we are still in the process of forging bonds with. Our future memories of them, and the nature of the bonds we forge, is entirely up to us. It's especially difficult with the civilians; as ninja, and as Lords of the clan that owns this land, we have tremendous power over them. They can't afford to offend us in any way, for fear that we will kick them out or even kill them. That makes them afraid, and that makes it harder to connect. The only thing we can do is be open and honest. You're good at that."
Kagome-sensei blushed and looked at the ground for a moment. "I don't think I was good at it with her. She didn't say anything when I talked to her."
Hazō stopped walked and turned to his teacher, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You didn't frighten her, you surprised her. You showed her that she was a person, that she was worthy of consideration, and that you were sorry for her pain. That is far more than any non-Gōketsu ninja has ever done for her, and it left her confused.
"People in general are complicated, and these people in particular have had fear bred into them for generations. It will be hard to bring them into the clan, but we will.
You will, sensei. As Jiraiya once said, you are honest to a fault. Everyone can tell that from the moment they meet you, and so they know where they stand with you. They're a lot less afraid of you than they are of...well, probably any other ninja."
Kagome-sensei blinked. "Really?"
Hazō moved his head up and down. "Yes. Did you see how she looked when I mentioned the counseling sessions? She felt...confusion, distaste? Something. And then she promptly covered it up, smiled, and bowed, because she was afraid of what I might do if she expressed those feelings. She didn't do that with you."
Kagome-sensei looked at him in surprise for a moment, and then his facial labial folds curved upwards. He ducked his head shyly and turned away, continuing their progress towards the tents where waited the next group of civilians they intended to visit.
"I decoded some more of Jiraiya-stinker's notes," he said.
Hazō perked up. "Oh? What do they say?"
"I started with the most recent papers and I've been working backwards. I figured that all his best work would be the most recent stuff, after he got good. A lot of it is weird, but it's very thorough and consistent. Each entry has the name and a detailed description of the seal and what it does, then an even more detailed description of the experience that gave him the idea, then a whole section of relevant theory, then safety warnings, then dimensional and geometric analysis, then a chakra flow map, then the actual blank and infusion instructions, and finally the safety warnings again. Each seal has its own folio and even when two seals use some of the same theory, it's always repeated." He grinned. "That's been a big help, actually! Stupid stinker! Having known plaintext in a predictable location makes it way easier to crack a code." He frowned again. "Although he changes codes often.
"Anyway, his most recent seal is one of the shorter ones, and it's ten pages. The thing that gave him the idea was that time where we sold him the skywalkers. Remember how we initially told him that you had to say 'Pretty Pink Pony no Jutsu' when you activated the seal? He cursed a lot about that one, but he had four entire pages of theory on how to implement vocal triggers." He cleared his throat. "It was...okay, I guess. The workmanship wasn't too bad, and the math didn't have any actual errors in it. If Fuyuki turned something like that in for his homework I suppose maybe I would give it a passing grade." He sniffed dubiously. "Maybe. Anyway, this latest seal is named 'Epic Seal of Awesomeness With A Really Awesome Name That You Have To Say All Of Every Time Or It Won't Work And Also I'll Punch You In The Face, This Means You, Hazō'. The description says that it's a sound-based genjutsu that inspires fear in everyone within a few yards of the person activating it. There was a section of safety instructions that mostly talked about friendly fire risks, the fact that Banshee Slayers likely would not work as protection, and that there was a theoretical possibility the seal might inspire anger instead of fear in some individuals."
"Huh." Hazō walked on for a moment in silence. "What did you think of the blank?"
Kagome-sensei looked away. "Yeah. It, uh, it was a little...ornate. I mean, I totally understood it and everything, but—" He broke off, took a deep breath and started over. "I recognized all the parts of it—they're all pretty simple—but they're hooked together in weird ways. I swear that some of them are loops that don't connect to anything else, and some of them draw power in and then immediately dump it out again. Some wrap through others in seven-space without actually connecting to them; I
think the point is to use harmonic interactions between the channels to produce alterations in the chakra flow that are smaller than could be managed with direct connection. I just don't know
why." His fists clenched. "It doesn't make any
sense! Jiraiya-stinker was good at sealing, so why was he doing stuff in such a stupid, stinking, overornate way? Even with all the fiddly bits, this seal isn't
hard; you or even Fuyuki could probably learn to infuse the blank in a few minutes, except that he can't because he hasn't learned enough to be allowed to infuse anything and you can't because you are totally banned from even thinking about drawing or infusing because you might still be being puppeted around by a monster from beyond time and space. No offense."
Hazō chuckled. "None taken."
"Anyway, it's not hard, it's just overly ornate. It seems like it could be simplified a lot, and simple is something you want in a seal. And the name is too long to use in combat, so what's the point?!"
Hazō shrugged. "No idea, but put it aside for now. Anything else of interest?"
Kagome-sensei perked up. "Yeah! There's a whole box of stuff about his spies, and another about safehouses and resource caches that he set up everywhere, and, um...people that he knew. Female people. That he knew very well. And described. Thoroughly. Usually including pictures."
Hazō glanced over and was unsurprised to see that his teacher was blushing bright red. He considered teasing the man, but decided to take mercy.
"Safehouses and resource caches?"
"Yeah." Kagome-sensei seemed relieved at the choice of topic. "I've only managed to crack nine of them, but it looks like he's got them all over the world. Some of them are in cities or towns, some are out in the boonies—those can be in pretty wild places too. There's even one in the Swamp of Death!" He snorted. "Anyway, they vary. Of the ones I cracked, the first is a hidden sub-basement of a house in Tanzaku Gai, the second is a concealed back room at a bar in Rock, the third is a mansion in Degarashi Port that he secretly owns and has a patsy living in, the fourth and fifth are apartments here in Leaf that are rented under fake names, the sixth is an underground bunker in the desert twenty miles from Hidden Sand, the seventh is a bunker in the Swamp of Death, and the eighth and ninth are tree forts out in the woods of the Land of Demon and the Land of Valley. With each safehouse he keeps a record of the dates he visited it. He made a note that he hasn't been to Demon or Valley for three years, the tree forts probably haven't survived without maintenance, and so the supplies cached there might be unavailable."
Hazō's eyebrows went up. "That's...impressive."
"You haven't heard the good part yet. He's got storage scrolls cached all over the place, some in each of the safehouses but also just in random places around the world. They're full of ryō, identity documents, disguise gear, blackmail materials...all kinds of stuff. It's generally a
lot of ryō too. Twenty thousand or more, and always in the currency of the country the scroll is hidden in. I've got a map to some of them, and it also marks what he claims is a secret gold mine near where the borders of Earth, Mountain, and Fang meet." Kagome-sensei laughed. "There's ten pages of description about the mission where he found that. It's all about infiltrating Haze, being chased by their Commander and three elite jōnin, then subduing a chakra wolf-boar-thing thirty feet tall at the shoulder so that he could ride it to escape. Then he hid out in a widow's farmhouse and seduced her and her daughter so that they lied to the Haze Commander when he showed up. Jiraiya-stinker was such a joker!"
It was true that Jiraiya had been a joker, but Hazō found himself wondering what sort of mentality would lie about past events when recording them in a private, encrypted journal hidden away from the world in a place that no one except the owner even knew about until it was revealed in his will.
XP AWARD: 5
Brevity XP: 1
It is now 7am on February 20.
Hazō spent the rest of Feb 19 meeting and greeting as many of the people on the Gōketsu estate as possible and got through about a third of them. A chūnin with MEW showed up and, at Hazō's direction and with chakra supplied by various hired ninja, was able to build the first of a set of modular buildings that will provide four sets of comfortable two-room apartments, each room large enough that you could house four people in it if you used bunk beds and didn't mind being crowded. Each building is done in a hollow square; in the center of the square is a shared kitchen and dining area.
There was enough chakra left over that Noburi is full up again. (Remember that he does not naturally regenerate chakra. He's been draining the clan and the ninja who live on the property each night in order to tank himself up, but his reserves are large enough that even that can be problematic since he's not willing to drain anyone too much.)
Ten genin and five chūnin have taken a steady gig to come by each day and sell chakra so that Noburi can charge up. This should provide something like 200-500CP per day, depending on how much chakra the contractors have had to burn during the day.
Vote time! What to do now? (NB: I'm not up for including a list of options this time.)
Voting ends on Wednesday, December 4, 2019, at 12pm London time.
