Family meetings were a drag. Even family pre-meetings were a drag.
Haru, Hazō, Akane, and Akane's parents had arrived in the living room promptly on schedule for the Gōketsu-only pre-meeting that came before the later meeting of the Gōketsu ninja et al. Noburi and Mari, of course, came in a few minutes late to the pre-meeting.
"What's on your brain, Mr. MEW?" Noburi asked, flopping onto the couch and bouncing his feet up onto the coffee table. He had a bottle of warm sake in his hand which he gestured broadly with before taking a sip and sighing in exaggerated satisfaction.
Mari sat down with more decorum and raised a scarlet eyebrow at Noburi. "Sake at noon?"
"Hey," Noburi said, grinning. "It's five o'clock somewhere, right? Beside, the J-man never had a problem with a bit of day drinking now and again, right?"
"You are not Jiraiya," Haru said coldly.
Noburi's grin got wider. "I mean...not
yet. Totally on the way, and that's worthy of celebration. Toad Summoner, limitless chakra courtesy of these new koi that we've got on the way and the fact that Asuma is onboard with it. Shoot, I bet he's going to be throwing training and jutsu and stuff at me! Great cosmic power is within my grasp! Muahaha!"
"You have the worst maniacal laugh I have ever heard," Mari told him, shaking her head. "Even the first-years at infiltration school could laugh better than that."
Noburi glared at her and turned to his brother. "So...Hazō. What's on your brain, bro? And why are we having this whole meeting-before-the-meeting thing?"
Hazō smiled slightly, leaning back in his armchair with his fingers steepled. "I spoke to Asuma today. Kagome-sensei, he was a little put off when I told him how much of Jiraiya's notes there are to decode, and he wants to speed things up, so—hold on! Put your rings away, there's no need for that. Thanks. Anyway, he's uncomfortable having you learn Shadow Clone because your skill as a sealmaster already makes you a desirable target for kidnap attempts and knowing Shadow Clone on top of that would just be putting a bullseye on you." And also because it wasn't a great idea to give important state secrets to the world's worst liar and arguably worst secret-keeper. "Fortunately, he
is willing to let Akane learn it so that she can help you. You crack the ciphers, give her the key and the codetext, she and her clones can take care of the mechanical work of decoding and transcribing while you focus on breaking the next cipher."
Akane gaped. "Hazō...what?! The Shadow Clone is one of Leaf's greatest secrets! Why would the Hokage give it to a genin?"
Hazō chuckled. "About that..." He stood up, then reached into his robe and produced a gold-limned scroll case. "On your feet, genin!"
Akane surged up and snapped to attention.
Hazō paced over and offered the scroll case with a bow. "Read it."
Akane frowned but tugged the endcap free and tipped the scroll out. She read through it, seeming more confused as she read.
"It's my promotion to chūnin but...it's not signed?"
Hazō chuckled. "Yup. See, Asuma knows full well that you earned your promotion long before you went to the latest Exams. Shoot, you're a better fighter than most of the Academy instructors, and skillwise you're not far off from a special-jōnin promotion. Right now he's unsure which he wants to do more—give you the promotion that you deserve so he can start testing your readiness for special-jōnin status and therefore his ability to use you on those missions, or give you some intense training in non-combat skills and then send you to the next Exams and have you utterly crush the opposition beneath your heel."
Akane was entirely too flummoxed to speak.
"He asked me which I thought would be better. I didn't know, so I just said 'why not let her pick?' He thought that was a great idea, so he wrote that out and gave it to me to deliver to you. If you want what you have already earned, you go over there whenever you like and he'll sign it and invest you on the spot. If you'd rather go to the Exams and get your promotion on the winner's step, go to his office tomorrow and he'll work with you to set up a training plan that will fill some of the areas you haven't had time to work on until now—you're already a better fighter than most of the people likely to show up at the Exams, so he figures you can take care of that on your own."
"But...I thought he was angry with us...?"
"He's angry with
me," Hazō said, chuckling. "He likes
you."
"But...why?"
Hazō smacked the heel of his hand to his forehead. "Because you're nice! And funny, and a good person who has the Will of Fire oozing out her every pore, you dingbat!"
"Take the win, Akane," Mari advised her. "It's only going to get more embarrassing from here."
Akane blushed and ducked her head. "Thank you, Hazō."
"You are very welcome," Hazō said, beaming. Yay! Unambiguously good thing accomplished for...someone who was his sister and subordinate and therefore not someone to think about in any other way right now until he'd had time to sort out his feelings.
Akane pounced him with a short yet lung-collapsing hug, then dropped back onto the sofa between her parents, her face flaming red. Kenta and Yukari leaned in to offer hugs and whispered congratulations. Meanwhile, Hazō forced himself to stay on his feet until he managed to get a lungful of air, then resumed his own seat on the armchair.
"Anyway," he said, "this is the pre-meeting before Yuno and Keiko get here. I want to deal with any day-to-day stuff before we get into the main meeting. Anybody got anything?"
"Did Gaku catch up to you?" Mari asked. "He needed you to sign off on recruiting another round of civilian guards for the aqueduct surveying job. The first batch got killed by tree rats. And I think he also needed approval for—"
"—another funding allocation so that we can keep matching the bounties for till'n'fill missions, yes. I signed all that, and reviewed the latest results from the toilet team." He shuddered. "Apparently they were thinking of making a latrine with a storage scroll at the bottom of it. Every week or so a ninja would come along and seal up all the waste. I explained that wasn't going to work, so they're going back to the start."
"Kunihiko's dad came by while I was at Command dropping some papers off," Akane said. "He wanted to talk about the educational requirements; he said that they were interfering with his team's schedule to the point where progress slowed to a crawl."
"Don't care," Hazō said. "Everyone is getting educated whether they like it or not. Did he mention where they are on it?"
"Apparently they have a series of small 'sliders, about an arm long, that they've been throwing off the Hokage Monument. The sky spirits either hate them or love them, it's hard to tell—they tend to carry them in big loops and swirls then smash them into the ground really hard. The team has made a couple designs that the spirits were more interested in carrying along for a little ways, but they always get bored and start throwing them around after a couple dozen yards at most."
Hazō sighed. "Well, I suppose that's progress of a sort."
"Also, after I carried the skyslider team's report back to Gaku, he mentioned that he wanted your approval for another round of trade missions. The fact that you're willing to donate essentially unlimited numbers of storage scrolls to these trips is really making a big difference. The first chocolate caravan got back yesterday, and they brought a huge cargo. He thinks we're going to make a fortune."
Hazō's eyebrows shot up. "Wow."
"That's understating it," Mari said. "Our factor bought up every last scrap of chocolate that was available, so for the next nine or so months we own the entire supply of chocolate in the Elemental Nations except what's already on store shelves."
"What."
"Don't be too excited," she warned. "He didn't have the cash on hand so he wrote letters of credit against the clan treasury and had his ninja escort leave her entire supply of explosive tags as a good-faith payment."
"WHAT?!" Kagome-sensei shrieked, leaping to his feet. "HAZŌ, YOU LET ONE OF OUR PEOPLE GO OUT IN THE WOODS UNARMED?!"
"Sensei, I didn't know anything about it! This is the first I'm hearing of it."
"Apparently she didn't leave her
entire supply," Akane added. "She kept thirty tags back."
"THIRTY?!"
"They made it back, Kagome," Mari said calmly, resting a hand on his wrist and tugging him gently back to the couch. "We can talk to them about it."
"Also, the amount of credit that our factor promised is...rather large," Akane said, suddenly looking uncomfortable. "I'm not sure the clan actually has that much money."
"Rai is a sociopathic compulsive gambler," Mari said. "It makes him an excellent merchant most of the time. Before he left I explained to him what the budget limits were and what I would do if he exceeded them." She sighed, shaking her head. "Well, I suppose now I get to find out if human skin makes good slippers."
Hazō's eyes went wide. "Excuse me?"
"Hm? Oh, I told him that if he exceeded the limits I set, I would flay the skin off his feet and make slippers out of it." She shrugged. "He's got really big feet, so if I put enough fleece in it I think they'll fit me pretty well and be super toasty warm." She looked around the room at the horrified expressions. "What?"
"Mari, we do not skin people in this clan," Hazō explained patiently.
"But...but Hazō! I
promised! You wouldn't make me go back on a promise, would you?" she demanded, giving him doe eyes. "Besides, I'm not skinning anyone in the clan because he's not in the clan. He's one of the civilians who lives on the grounds."
"That is not what I m—"
"Oh, and he's a spy for the Hyūga. Hiashi installed him shortly before the Collapse."
Hazō forced himself to breathe and most especially to not look at Akane's parents and also to not think about what their response would be to the idea of Mari skinning a civilian. "Mari, as your Clan Head I am ordering you: Under no circumstances are you ever to skin a human being. No exceptions."
"Would it help if I didn't make slippers out of the skin?"
"NO! No skinning people!"
"But—!" Mari's protest was cut off as laughter broke through her control and doubled her over. The rest of the family watched, nonplussed, as the redhead clutched her belly.
"Oh, Sage," she said, wiping streaming eyes. "Oh, you should have seen your faces. Oh, wow." She dabbed at her eyes with a silk handkerchief and then tucked it back into her robe. "Don't worry, I never actually threatened to skin him. We don't need the reputational hit; I'm fully aware of how people give you the side-eye when you skin someone and I learned my lesson last time."
Hazō had long since learned not to lose track of the main point by chasing after conversational bait. "What
did you threaten to do?"
"Hm? Why would I do anything to him? He followed orders perfectly."
Everyone blinked.
"What?" she asked, her confusion more than a bit overacted. "Gaku ordered him to buy up the entire supply of chocolate no matter what it took. It's why his escort was carrying so many explosive tags. Sure, civilians can't use them but there aren't a lot of ninja around Taro, and none of them are sealmasters. Tags go for sky-high prices. Akane, did you hear what he ended up promising?"
"It's a couple dozen different contracts, but it adds up to over a billion ryō," Akane said gravely.
The room fell silent.
"We don't have that," Hazō said calmly. "Not even close."
"Not in ryō," Mari said, smiling happily. "Doesn't matter, though. The contracts that Rai wrote all specified that the debts would be paid in 'Leaf currency'—apparently they like to specify, since the Leaf ryō is worth more than some other countries' ryō. Anyway, these days our scrip is considered as good as ryō in Leaf, so we can legitimately say that it's a Leaf currency. We'll just make more of it to cover the debt."
"That doesn't fix the problem, Mari! If they try to exchange that much scrip, we won't have the cash on hand to cover it! Our reputation will be ruined and no one else will be willing to use the scrip for anything."
She shrugged. "Eh. Keep in mind, they're first going to need to come here in order to pick up the scrip. We'll be notified as soon as they come through the gates and I'll make a point of taking them around the city, showing them all the expensive places that use the scrip, etc etc. Soon enough they'll realize that it's just as valid as ryō and a lot lighter. Easier to carry."
"Will they, now?" Hazō said sourly. "This seems like a major,
major risk to take in exchange for some chocolate. Explain to me why this is worthwhile."
"Thought you'd never ask! Okay, first: Chocolate is made from a bean called cocoa. It has two growing seasons, the main crop and the mid-crop. The main crop is harvested between March and June and and is about three-quarters of the entire production. Early April is a good time to go chocolate buying; harvest is well underway, the stocks are relatively high, and there's plenty more in the fields so people are focused mostly on selling stock in order to make room for the next batch. Sadly, those unfortunate and completely accidental floods that happened to destroy the main fields shortly after our factor departed mean that there isn't going to be any more supply available until the mid-crop comes out in the December-to-January harvest."
Hazō eyed her suspiciously. "When you say 'accidental'..."
"Yes, absolutely. The rockslide that redirected that river to flood the main fields was a terribly unfortunate accident. I mean, if there was a rockslide. Could have been something else, I suppose. Maybe river spirits." She nodded. "Yes, it was undoubtedly the river spirits having a headache and wanting chocolate. Chocolate cures headaches—even river spirits know that."
Hazō rubbed his face with both hands and peeked at Haru through the slits of his fingers. The other boy was glowering. Hazō couldn't think of a specific reason that he
should be, since Mari wasn't talking about anything that obviously harmed other Leaf citizens...right?
"Don't worry, Hazō," Mari said, smiling. "It's not like we've done anything illegal. There are no laws about benefiting from happy coincidences in the market."
"Mari, you can't just..." He trailed off. Even he wasn't sure where he had intended to go with that.
"Hey,
I didn't do anything!" Mari protested. "This was all Gaku."
"...Excuse me?"
"You know, Shinoda Gaku? Your secretary? About yay high, lots of gray in the hair, big bald spot, pot belly—"
"I know who Gaku is, Mari. What did you mean that this was him?"
"Oh, he's been working on the clan finances. We eat enough chocolate that it's been a line item unto itself, so he started looking into the details of the market to see if there was a way to save money. Pretty soon he had this great idea for how we could own the entire Elemental Nations chocolate market and expand our holdings from there. He knew that the Merchant Council would be a problem, and also that I'd been working with them a lot, so he came to me for advice. We discussed it, I checked with you and then I told him that you had signed off on a billion and a half ryō for the mission—"
"I did no such thing! You never mentioned it to me!"
"You didn't? Huh. I
meant to ask you...guess it slipped my mind. Anyway, we now own the chocolate market. We're going to drive all the Leaf purveyors to the edge of bankruptcy and then buy them up as controlling silent partners before restocking their shelves."
"Isn't Otaka's Delectation Parlor owned by the Hyūga?" Noburi asked. "Wouldn't they go to them first?"
"Of
course they aren't owned by the Hyūga, Noburi! It would be against the Merchant Council rules for a ninja clan to be a controlling partner in a civilian business." She shrugged. "It's possible that Otaka has massive outstanding debts to the Hyūga that would bankrupt him and land him in debtor's prison within weeks if the loans were ever called. And it's possible that buying Otaka out from under those loans on terms that are more advantageous to him would be something he'd be absolutely good with and is already primed to expect since that low-born trampy Lady Gōketsu is so utterly besotted with him. Oh, and it might happen that Otaka's nephew is one of the key swing votes on the Merchant Council and that I already control the Master of Chambers plus three other votes of the nine, so if I owned Otaka's nephew then I would own the Merchant Council entirely."
The expressions of the Gōketsu clan varied between appalled and angry (Haru), horrified (Akane's parents), hilarious amusement (Noburi),
uncertain amusement (Akane), and exhausted resignation (Hazō).
"Anyway," the redhead continued brightly, "I think you'll find that once we buy out all three of Leaf's chocolate shops we can use the leftover supply to establish heavy inroads with the top Hot Springs resorts using the preliminary market data that I for some reason seem to have on my desk already. We'll do that with Asuma's approval, of course. Turn it into a spy network that we place under
his control, not ours. Get him to assign the controllers from his own people. It'll be a good contest submission and also a good way to show ourselves as loyal Leaf ninja who should absolutely be trusted and not executed." She shrugged. "And, of course, once the current groundswell of approval for the 'eliminate the Merchant Council' goes through, he'll have one less headache. No more silly tribunals to sign off on."
"The groundswell of what now?"
She looked at Hazō with wide, innocent eyes. "Oh, you haven't heard? There's a lot of merchants talking about the idea that till'n'fills are really useful but the supply is sharply curtailed by the interference from the Merchant Council. If only the Council weren't there getting in the way with all its red tape then everyone could be so much richer!"
"The Gōketsu are the only clan that voluntarily and regularly accepts till'n'fills," Akane noted. "Also, non-Gōketsu clan ninja almost never take them except when the Gōketsu add significant bonuses on top of the regular pay. If the Merchant Council ceased to exist..."
"Then basically every civilian business would be clamoring for ninja support, and the only ninja interested in doing it would be us and the KEI," Mari said. "Except that we are going to stop posting bonuses on them—"
"Are we now?" Hazō asked, his tone a little frosty.
"Well, that's the recommendation of your secretary-slash-treasurer and your spymistress but it's absolutely up to you, My Lord." She mocked a curtsy without getting up. "You, after all, have all the power here."
Hazō rubbed his face. "Continue, Mari."
"Right, so, after we stop posting the additional bounties the till'n'fills will get much less desirable to KEI ninja. Also, after Asuma's contest ends in a few weeks, the KEI ninja are going to have access to training and equipment which will let them take far more lucrative missions and they won't need to worry about till'n'fills. Which means that the unfortunate, low-born ragamuffin clan that all the others look down on will be the ones causing most of the economic activity in Leaf. And if they so happen to offer service discounts and even profit-sharing retainership deals to some of the more significant businesses...well, that's hardly a concern, is it?"
"Mari," Hazō said carefully. "Are you planning to take control of Leaf's entire economy?"
"Hazō! I would never take control of the
entire economy! That would be bad. Baishō's Tannery will remain independent."
"Weren't you the one saying that we shouldn't give Asuma any reason to distrust us?"
"How would this make him distrust us? He'll be taking in far more tax income and getting better intelligence because we'll have details on trade and conditions from every corner of the nation coming in on a regular basis. And we will ask him to install officers of his choice in key locations so that he can be confident he's getting a true and unfiltered picture."
Everyone exchanged uncertain looks.
"I...see," Hazō said. "Well, that sounds positive."
"Yup! Once all the regulations are out of our way, we'll be able to control the entire market. Merely by crooking our fingers we'll be able to shut down any business we dislike, force any merchant to sell us anything at whatever price we specify, and choke enemy clans into submission by raising prices on everything so high that it's beyond their ability to pay and they end up mortgaging their souls to us in order to eat."
Noburi cleared his throat. "I think—"
Before Noburi could finish saying what he thought, a voice called from the direction of the door. "Hello! Keiko and Yuno here! We're coming in! You turned the traps off, right?"
Kagome-sensei looked grumpy but he nodded.
"Come ahead!" Hazō called, pushing himself to his feet and ignoring his teacher's sub voce grumbling.
"Hi, everyone! Hi, Noburi," Yuno said, gazing at the barrel-wearer for the longest duration permitted by Isan's restrictive traditions.
Noburi blushed to the ears and mumbled greetings in response.
"Kenta, Yukari, hold the fort for us?" Hazō asked with a smile. "We need to have a high-security meeting, and that means getting out of the city for a bit."
"Of course," Kenta said, nodding jerkily. "We'll...see you in the morning, I guess."
"Thanks. Oh, and before I go: Kenta, Gaku should have the marble contract dealt with by tomorrow. Drop a revised budget on his desk and he'll get you the disbursement so you can finish up the Tokunaga house. Also, he wanted you to consult on a new structure; the MEW buildings are fine as living space, but they're a little too brutalist for fancy meetings. We need your expertise to put something together in a more traditional way so that we can impress the people we need to impress.
"Yukari, I haven't had much time to check on the Gōketsu Education Department but the summaries I'm getting say that the GED is doing a great job. I signed off on your request for more budget to pay for another vocational teacher, and threw some extra in for another salary on top of that. I want to make sure that the math and critical thinking tracks are solid, and I've been hearing conflicting reports about a couple of their teachers. You know them better than I do; if they're doing a bad job, handle it in whatever way you think best. Fire them, fix them, up to you. You've got the money to get someone else in addition. If you need anything else, tell Gaku. Check?"
"Yes, My—yes, Hazō."
"Cool. Catch you later." He turned for the door.
"So," Noburi said, falling in beside him. "High-security meeting, huh?"
"Yup."
"Outside-the-city high security."
"Yup."
"You going to tell us what it's about?"
"Nope. Not here."
"Not even a hint?"
Hazō rolled his eyes. "Fine. I want to start working on the family's future plans and some of the avenues we could explore."
"Spifferoony. Stop dragging your feet, I want to get this over with."
o-o-o-o
The contest ended where the contest began: At the former Chūnin Exams, with the rising sun shallow on the horizon and the breadth of Leaf's defenders standing shoulder to shoulder under the gaze of their sworn leader.
"Battlemasters of the Leaf! You have done me honor and given me pride!"
Asuma paused, surveying the uniformed warriors who stood below him. Leaf had a loose definition of 'uniform'—in truth, only the headband was essential—and the men and women in service wore a variety of camouflage patterns and regular street wear. Whatever they wore, it was clean and tidy, the sign of a warrior elite.
"Over the course of this contest, each and every member of Leaf's ninja forces have shown the Will of Fire. Each and every one of you has come forward and offered something—a jutsu, a skill, a piece of information. Length of service—irrelevant. Wealth—irrelevant. Clan or clanless—irrelevant.
Every single one of you joined in the spirit of our brotherhood." He chuckled. "And yes, there was a fair amount of overlap. Still, I could not be prouder of you.
"The time has come for final judgements. The five entities whose donations will provide the most benefit for the Leaf will be granted prizes. Note! I did not say, 'the most valuable', or 'the most powerful'. I received multiple jutsu that call down destruction on a massive scale...but most of them require so much chakra that they cannot be used by the majority of ninja. These contributions are impressive, and your Hokage is humbled by your willingness to share. Despite that, some of the winning contributions are less outwardly impressive—for example, one of the prizes was taken in large part due to the contribution of three flowering plants." He paused, smiling in amusement as he waited for the grumbles and mutters of surprise to die down. "I should perhaps mention that, as an example, the sap from one of those plants is a powerful sedative and painkiller that caused Lady Tsunade to go on a ten-minute rant in which she stated that, quote 'This shit is fucking amazing, so why the fuck have I not seen it before?!'"
His impression of Tsunade's voice was spot-on and the crowd burst out laughing.
"I stand by that!" Tsunade called. "Seriously! Motoyoshi, you and I are going to have some fucking
words once the kid wraps it up!"
"Tsunade," Asuma said, a crackle of warning in his tone. "I explained this to you in my office: My orders were to not disclose which contribution came from which source, nor specifically what the contributions were that prizes are being awarded for."
Tsunade glared up at him. He met her gaze with equanimity until she finally deflated and looked away. "Fine. Sorry, or whatever."
The sound of the breeze seemed deafening in contrast to the absolute gaping silence of the crowd.
"Forgiven. Now, as I was about to say, I will be disclosing one or two items from each of the prizewinners. Aside from that, please refrain from questioning others about what they donated. If they choose to make their contribution public, that is their choice, but I wish there to be no judgement of another's efforts. Those who had much to give gave some. Those who had little to give gave all. If their contribution was smaller in stature, it looms far larger in cost and deserves far more praise in turn."
He paused, considering as his gaze wandered across the upturned faces below. "I mean that very sincerely. As an example, I was dumbstruck by the contribution of one young man. Two years a genin, clanless, his family dead. Still struggling to build his place in the world and unblessed by the hand of fortune, he contributed an escape jutsu created by his father's father's father. This jutsu was passed down through the line, never known to anyone in the world save a father and his son. It was the only unique thing that this young man had. It is not flashy or dramatic, it does not explode mountains or raise dragons. It is the kind of technique that a casual glance might have dismissed, that a fool might have seen and said 'how nice'. Yet it was this young man's sole possession, a legacy of honor, and he freely granted it to his village. It will save the lives of countless Leaf ninja over generations to come, and this young man gave me permission to list it in the Leaf Private Library with his name attached. All those generations to come will know the name Tanaka Yoshi as a savior. Thank you, Yoshi."
The Hokage placed left palm over right fist in warrior's salute and bowed, truly bowed and not merely nodded, to a clanless genin not old enough to shave.
The crowd murmured and turned to look at Tanaka Yoshi, who very clearly wanted to melt into the ground.
Asuma straightened up and waited while his ninja got their fill of staring. "Having embarrassed the young man sufficiently, perhaps I should turn to the actual prize winners. Before I begin, let me note that there is a party waiting for us at the Academy and, in the interest of not keeping all of you in this icy arena unnecessarily, I shall be mentioning only one or two items for each winner regardless of how many they submitted."
"Fifth place: The Motoyoshi clan, for the contribution of three medicinal plants and a jutsu that enhances the fertility of soil while preparing it for seeding.
"Fourth place: The Kurusu clan, for a lightning jutsu that converts iron into lodestone and a set of maps of the Land of Fire more accurate and detailed than any I have ever seen.
"Third place: The Nara clan, for the creation of the Leaf Private Library and its docents. The Library shall become a compendium of every seal, jutsu, battle style, and tactic known in Leaf. Every Leaf ninja in good standing will be able to access its complete listing at any time and be allowed to learn any jutsu or seal therein that they are capable of. The Nara have committed to providing an initial staff of docents who shall help Leaf ninja find things of value to them, as well as working with them to analyze the ninja's skills and generate suggestions about how to best enhance and complement those skills. They will also be training non-Nara docents so that the Library can become independent of the Nara clan.
"Second place: The Konoha Enlightenment Initiative, for the contribution of thirty-seven different jutsu and two original seals." He paused, smiling. "Oh, yes—and also one of the most powerful artifacts in existence: The Condor Summoning Scroll!"
Laughter circulated, as well as some whistles and cheers of congratulations.
"Finally, the first prize: The Gōketsu Clan. Their patriarch, Jiraiya of the Three, was well known as the greatest sealmaster of his time. Jiraiya's prolific inventions include everything from advanced combat seals that regularly save the lives of Leaf ninja all the way across to toys that make Leaf's children happy. Arguably the most important of his creations was organized and clearly written theories and practices of seal creation.
"The Gōketsu clan contains two highly skilled sealmasters; it was entirely within their rights to maintain Jiraiya's notes as a clan secret. It would have given them great power and opportunity, but instead they chose to share this knowledge. It will save the lives of Leaf researchers going forward, and will lead to more and better inventions to protect the lives of our ninja.
"Join me in honoring these five exemplars of the Will of Fire!"
Thunderous applause echoed across the arena, along with whistles and shouts of 'Huzzah!'
Asuma let the cheering go on for several seconds, then patted at the air in a gesture for calm.
"Once more, I offer my thanks and the thanks of the Leaf. I have never been so proud of anyone as I am of all of you right now. Your contributions were generous and myriad and every single one of you deserves honor.
"With that said, I believe I mentioned something about a party? Come to the mess hall of the Academy and let us celebrate!"
Author's Note: The high-security meeting as specified in the plan could be fun, but I was more interested in jumping to the end of the contest.
@Velorien has the option to write the high-security meeting if it appeals to him. (As a flashback since this update includes a timeskip.)
FP AWARD: +2 (time-based refresh)
Total XP AWARD: 39
Base XP: 38 This update covered 12 days
Brevity XP: 0
Ami-style training XP: 0
"GM had fun" XP: 1
- +0 for scene: High-security family conversation. My initial reaction to it was "Ugh, this sounds like a lot of work and there's no direction about what they want to make happen, just a directive to conversationally meander around."
- +1 for scene: Conversation with Asuma. I ended up eliding this one into a few sentences but it was the kind of thing I would have enjoyed writing.
It is now about 12:30pm. You have taken possession of the Dog Summoning Scroll.
Voting for plans is currently open, although
@Velorien may choose to close it in favor of writing the parts of this plan that I skipped.
Voting is open for 'To whom do we give the Dog Summoning Scroll?'
