"Sir, your guests are here," the nurse said.
"Thank you," Hazō said, pushing himself up in the bed. "Send them in."
Moments later, Akane, Haru, and Gaku bounced, glided, and shuffled into the room respectively. Gaku was clutching a stack of papers and desperately trying to be invisible.
"You look better," Akane said, giving him a very gentle hug that still made him wince from the pressure on his triple-broken collarbone.
Haru simply nodded, stone-faced.
"My Lord," Gaku said, ducking his head and doing his best to be unobtrusive about keeping distance between himself and Haru.
"Thanks for coming," Hazō said, telling the Iron Nerve to keep him upright and not show the pain that doing so cost him. Even with near-constant tending by senior medic-nin, including Lady Tsunade, he was still in bad shape. A surge of fire through his nerves reminded him that his bloodline was still recovering from the bodyblow of absorbing the Great Seal and therefore unavailable.
"You're the Clan Head. You call, we don't get to say no."
Hazō hid a sigh at Haru's blunt words. "Fair point, I suppose. Still, you're the reason I called. You've been doing a great job on the bank run investigation and I wanted an update."
Haru's face tightened for a moment. "Your suggestion about tracking the scrip based on the wood? It was—"
"It didn't work," Akane said quickly. "The scrip is all ours and it was all carved in a couple of batches on the same equipment using the same source materials. There aren't enough differences to matter."
"Pity," Hazō said. "Is there anything else I can do that will make it easier for you? Writs from a clan head, direct pressure on someone, offers to trade jutsu or seal training...?"
"No," Haru said.
"I think we're good," said Akane.
"Okay. What can you tell me? Any progress?"
"Some," Akane said. "We've been tracking the movements of the scrip as best we can. The interesting thing is that we can't find any reference to the Hagoromo using it until shortly before the run. Then they were using a
lot of scrip."
"
Only using scrip," Haru said.
"We aren't sure of that," Akane said.
"Did you find a single example of them using ryō?"
"No, but it's not like we have better than sketchy records. Most people don't track what currency they're paid in."
"Not
one example, Akane! It was deliberate!"
"Haru—"
"Excuse me," Hazō said, cutting across the argument. "Whether it was absolutely none or nearly none isn't important. They were using a lot of it. Why? And how do the Hyūga tie in?"
"The Hyūga were buying the scrip but we don't see many references to them
using it," Akane said. "Which is weird because they were buying a lot of it."
"So they were taking it out of circulation at the same time the Hagoromo were moving it around."
"Yeah," Haru said. "And the day of the bank run the Hags made some major purchases. They went to six different goldsmiths and bought out most of their stock. They went to three different Yakuza gambling halls and exchanged scrip for ryō. They placed some huge orders for various kinds of goods, and they bought a big stretch of land near the border with Noodle."
Hazō frowned. "Why Noodle?"
Akane shrugged. "We're looking to see if they approached anyone else about other land. What they bought is a snip off of a larger holding held by the Amori. I'm trying to track down what the nature of the land is and why the Amori were willing to sell it."
Hazō rubbed an itch on his nose and then winced as his collarbone objected. "Okay," he said slowly. "Check into that, let me know what you find. Anything else particularly relevant to report?"
"No," Haru said. "Although I don't know how they're getting away with some of the things they're saying."
"Like what?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "How wise is it to trust IOUs from a clan that's already shown they can't be trusted with money? It's so unfortunate that there is a voting clan so incompetent that the Hokage had to bail them out in order to prevent them from ending up in the poorhouse. It's a good thing that the Hokage has the wisdom of the Sage because no mere mortal could keep this foreign-born idea of 'scrip' from causing another financial disaster that will destroy Leaf. It just goes to show that no matter how much effort you spend training foreigners to act according to the Will of Fire, they will always find it challenging and the Gōketsu should be proud at how few mistakes they've made."
Hazō deliberately forced his jaw to unclench. "They're saying that?"
Akane nodded. "And more. Always right on the edge of what they could be censured for but apparently they haven't gone over."
Hazō took a deep breath. "I note that the Gōketsu Clan is loyal to the Leaf, the Will of Fire, and the Hokage, and therefore we will follow the lawful orders we were given and will not burn the Hagoromo compound to the ground, or drop rocks on it from skywalkers until it's a gaping pit lined with meat paste, or murder every one of their members while they sleep, or destroy all their businesses in order to render them penniless. We will continue working with them in good faith as two honorable clans of the Leaf should do."
Haru's lip twitched in a half-smile that disappeared immediately.
"Anyway," Hazō said after a moment, and then had to break off as a yawn ambushed him. "Sorry, some of the meds are really knocking me out. It sounds like you guys are doing great at this. If I can do anything to help, let me know. Otherwise, unless you have anything else I'm going to get some sleep." He struggled to hold back another yawn and couldn't.
"We'll see you later," Akane said, giving him a quick peck on the cheek and then herding the other two out.
o-o-o-o
Asuma chuckled as he sat down. "Most people, when they want a meeting,
they come to
me."
Hazō did his best to laugh but had to wince when the excessive breath sent a lance of pain through his head. "Sorry, sir. I didn't feel like I could afford to waste time lying around, but I can't really get around much just now." He smiled. "And I'm pretty sure that if I tried, Lady Tsunade would kill me."
"It's fine," Asuma said, waving off the concern with a smile. "I'm just pulling your leg. Honestly, should we even be having this meeting? You look terrible."
"I feel terrible," Hazō admitted. "The concussion is healing but..." He paused, blinking twice and forcing his eyes to focus. After a moment he became confident that no, the scorpion skittering across Asuma's shoulder did not actually exist.
"Hazō?"
"Sorry, sir. It's healing, but I'm still a little out of it."
"Is that why she moved you to the main hospital?"
Hazō nodded, forgetting that head movement could make him puke. He managed to keep his gorge down, barely. "Yes sir. She found it easier than going out to our clinic every day, plus here there's other medic-nin available for when she's busy with other things."
"We'll keep it short. I read your initial briefing paper; thank you for getting that to me so quickly. I've put together two groups, a combat planning group to get with the Summon Clan representatives and talk about how to deal with the Dragons, and a seal research team. I've shown them the drawing that you made. They're screaming for more data, so the sooner that you can brief with them the better."
"I can go now, if—" A yawn split his head open before he could cover it.
Asuma laughed. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow morning, I'll send some people to bring you to the meeting. And I'll warn the researchers that they need to go easy on you or they'll have Tsunade down on their heads. It should keep them relatively calm."
"Did I hear my name?"
It was amazing how much menace the Slug Princess could pack into five neutral words.
Asuma jumped to his feet as Tsunade came through the door. "Tsunade. Nice to see you. You've been doing good work with Hazō."
Tsunade, resplendent in a splotchy green medical apron over field uniform, looked narrow-eyed at her Hokage. "Did I hear some nonsense about you taking him out of here tomorrow?"
Asuma straightened slightly and seemed to brace himself. "Yes." He held up a hand just in time to cut off the tirade before it could start. "It's necessary, Tsunade. There is a seal the size of a small mountain over in Arachnid territory. It's breaking down, and monsters are coming through it. If we can't fix it then there's a good chance that the Seventh Path will be destroyed, and a better than even chance that the Human Path will go with it."
Tsunade studied him, narrow-eyed. "You're joking."
"I'm really not."
"It's Dragons," Hazō said to the Lady Tsunade on the left. She had apparently used both Shadow Clone and Wind Technique: Mirage when he wasn't looking, because both of her were blurring back and forth and occasionally shimmering into one body temporarily.
"Dragons."
He nodded, aborting the motion as it sent a lance of pain through his temple. "Yeah. And I asked Kumokōgō—she's the head of the Arachnids—I asked her if she could beat a Dragon. She laughed. And then I asked if they could separate one so we could ambush it and then they could beat it together—oh, wait. Before that I asked what she would need in order to beat one and she said she wasn't sure but her best guess would be multiple Clan Rulers. That was what I meant by 'they'. She said she could probably lead one..." He paused, gagging, and blinked as his vision swam.
"Yeeeeaah, you're going to sleep now." Tsunade stepped forward, green chakra blazing to life around her fingers.
"Wait!" Hazō said, holding out an arm to fend her off. "I need to ask 'bout Orochimaru. Gotta get him into th' research project but don't wanna be eaten. How c'n I..."
The words trailed off as Tsunade tapped her finger on his forehead and sleep engulfed him.
o-o-o-o
"'Don't be interesting?'" Hazō asked, annoyance and disbelief layering themselves over the words. "That's the best she had on how to work with Orichimaru and not get eaten?"
"It's not the worst advice," Asuma said, smiling in amusement and patting him carefully on the forearm. The Hokage was walking on the righthand side of the litter on which two ANBU were carrying Hazō to the research meeting, and the forearm was the only piece of Hazō's right side that was amenable to contact without causing pain. The litter was buried in furs and small warm rocks because Tsunade had been very unhappy about the idea of her patient going to a seal research center at all, much less outside in the cold. It had almost required a literal order from the Hokage to get her to authorize the visit at all, and even when she did it had come with a long list of caveats and dire warnings.
Hazō grunted in annoyance, which made Asuma smile.
"We'll be there in a moment," Asuma said after a moment. "How are you both feeling?" He looked back and forth between Hazō and the apprentice who walked to his left.
"I'm good enough for a briefing," Hazō said. "Although Lady Tsunade threatened to break the rest of my bones if I stay more than an hour."
"Sounds like her. How about you, Harumitsu?"
"I'm f-f-f-f-f-fine, s-s-s-s-sir." The junior sealing student blushed crimson at his near inability to get the words out. His nervousness was making his stammer much worse.
Asuma reached across Hazō to rest a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Good man. You'll do fine. Breathe, and remember that you're only here to listen. Hazō's been telling me good things about you. He says you're very dedicated and you learn quickly."
Harumitsu seemed utterly appalled at the idea that he had in any way been brought to the Hokage's attention. He opened his mouth to reply but the words simply would not come, so after a moment he made the handtalk sign for 'all is well' and bobbed his head in gratitude.
"Don't worry about it," Hazō said. "This will be good experience for you. All you have to do is stay in the background and listen. There's going to be a lot of very smart people at this meeting, and there will be a lot of incisive and creative thinking flying around. Hearing the kinds of things they talk about will be useful for you. Try to focus on how they think instead of specifically what they're saying. Are they looking at structural elements, or chakra flows, or what? Do they structure their arguments as a formal syllogism or do they give more casual summaries? That kind of thing."
"You stupid fucking
moron!"
The words were plainly audible from the clearing twenty yards up ahead.
"Or, perhaps
very informally," Hazō muttered.
The party broke out of the trees, passed around two offset Multiple Earth Walls that prevented line-of-sight into the clearing, and arrived at Gōketsu Sealing Experimentation Facility #3. Kagome-sensei had been appalled at having to choose between working in someone else's facility or needing to let strangers into his own (not attending wasn't even considered), but after several hours of loud complaining he had finally decided to let the rest of Leaf's sealmasters work in his facility. Akane and Haru were both serving as his wingmen, albeit more to keep him from killing the visitors than to keep them from distributing lupchanzen around the area. Hazō wasn't sure if 'the visitors' covered literally all of Leaf's senior sealmasters or simply the majority of them. It definitely wasn't the entire complement of Leaf's sealsmiths since Harumitsu was the only student present.
"Don't you lecture me, you scum-scraped bloviator!" bellowed someone wearing a Kurusu crest. "You Amori still think that a Tanaka condenser is cutting edge! I read that worthless tripe that you tried to pass off as a monograph for the contest and it was bullshit, first to last!"
"Oh, like you're one to talk," sneered a Motoyoshi. "Your grandly-named 'Breath of the Angry Kami' seal used eight separate inverters in series as a way to step down the flow rate!"
"It's safer than—"
"Oh, shut up Bunta," said a Hyūga. "It was a trash methodology and you know it. All you needed was a Sogabe Slide."
"A Slide has a ternary interlock and I needed a hexagonal, so—"
"So double it," Kagome-sensei said. "Two ternaries interlock into a hexagonal, plus if you lay them in parallel they will synchronize the interregnals and give you an opportunity to use second-order harmonics for smoothing."
"You can't interlock two ternaries!" screeched the Amori sealmaster. "It would produce a gapped congestion node!"
Kagome rolled his eyes. "Fill it with a blitter." He glanced over at Haru, who stood to his right and one step behind. "Seriously, you Leaf guys need to stop dropping your kids on their heads. They can't even do math."
"Kagome,
we are 'Leaf guys'," Akane reminded him gently.
"You fucking foreign devils should—"
The cacophony of arguing suddenly stopped as someone noticed the Hokage's party approaching. There was an instant of silence and then multiple senior sealmasters, all people of age and wisdom and dignity, raced over to interview the only living person to have laid eyes on the Great Seal. Fortunately, the Hokage and two ANBU were there to ensure that they didn't trample on him in their excitement.
o-o-o-o
"So, what did you think?" Hazō asked, once the attendants had gotten him settled back into his hospital bed after returning from the third day of interviews.
In accordance with Lady Tsunade's 'request', Hazō had only remained for an hour per day before returning to his bed at the Leaf General Hospital. During that time he had had dozens of requests for clarification on parts of the drawing that his Shadow Clone had produced, as well as questions about relevant astrological influences at the time of viewing. It was very clear that his interlocutors were frustrated by their inability to break his skull open and physically pull the information out, being instead restricted by the need for the slow and error-prone method of speech and memory.
It was no picnic for Hazō either. With the Iron Nerve still disabled by his injuries he was unable to produce a clear image of the Seal in his mind and was forced to rely on normal memory. He had never needed to do so before; the Iron Nerve retained every seal he had ever seen in perfect detail, making it easy to reference during research. It had allowed him to skip over the mnemonic training that was a major portion of a sealsmith's education and that lack was biting him now. He comforted himself with Lady Tsunade's reassurance that his bloodline would come back as his injuries healed. He firmly ignored the fact that she wasn't as good a liar as she thought she was, at least not when it came to concealing a diagnosis from her patient.
"They d-d-don't s-seem to b-be m-m-m-making much p-progress," Harumitsu said.
"They identified the primary intake channels," Hazō said. "At least, that's what we're assuming." He glanced over at his apprentice. "What does that mean and why is it important?"
"Th-the p-primary intake ch-channels are where the chakra c-comes into th-the s-seal. Inf-f-usion instantiates the s-seal, but it d-draws chakra from the env-v-ironment to p-p-power its operation after th-that. F-finding the p-primary intake is imp-p-ortant because it g-gives you a s-starting p-point to reason ab-b-bout the s-seal's m-mechanics."
"Right. Now, which direction does the chakra flow from the lowermost intake?"
"It s-splits. Deosil, w-widdershins, and a Y-branch f-forward."
"Good. Technically it's a half-W branch, because the two sides don't have equal length before reaching the next element, but you got it. What's the main problem they were talking about?"
"I d-don't know, s-sir. I couldn't f-f-follow them."
"What names did you hear that you didn't recognize?"
"Um..."
"Think 'spiralizer'."
"Yokota s-spiralizer?"
"Right! Now, a Yokota spiralizer is generally used to..." He went off on the details, giving the theory only a brief skim and focusing mainly on the standard usage and how it typically interfaced with other structures in a seal; Harumitsu had a much easier time grasping theory if it was first grounded in practicality. At each stage Hazō checked to see that his apprentice was following, and when he finished he asked hypotheticals about what would happen if various components were linked to a Yokota in various orders.
"Th-that would create a vortex?"
"Exactly. What happens when you get a vortex?"
"Um..."
Hazō waited patiently, smiling as his apprentice frantically riffled through his memorized teachings.
"I d-d-d-don't kn-know, s-s-s-s-s-sensei." Harumitsu's eyes were big and he was holding his breath, clearly worried he was about to be castigated for his ignorance.
"It depends on the size and the direction of spin. Typically, you don't want a vortex because it delays the flows. On the other hand, it also smooths them. There are times when you don't have enough space in the design for the standard smoothing elements. You can use a vortex to do that, but you need to balance it very carefully, and you need to ensure that it's spinning in the same direction as the primary flows. If you don't, you'll get leakage and it will create a weak point in the chakra channel. Over time it could actually build up to the point where it ruptured the channel. What would that cause?"
"Um...if it b-b-broke the chakra ch-channel, wouldn't the seal f-f-fail?"
"Exactly. The results would vary depending on where the vortex is in the design, how fast it's spinning, and various astrological influences. If everything lines up exactly right then it would probably just explode. If not...well." He shrugged and pushed himself up a little in the bed, wincing at the resulting pain. "Now, suppose that you attached a spiralizer to a hexagonal interface instead of a quaternary?"
"Um...w-well...y-you s-said that there was always disr-r-ruption around the outflows. W-with s-six outflows there would be a lot of disruption and eddies...would the chakra remain contained?"
"Good catch. It would probably leak out through one of the squinches, most likely the one between the fifth and sixth outflows. That would create a weakness in the flow and an imbalance. Is there any way you could anticipate and manage that when you designed it?"
"W-w-well...you c-could have a s-s-sink to absorb th-th-the chakra and sh-shut the s-seal down s-s-safely."
"Exactly. What's the weakness of a sink?"
"It can only h-h-handle s-so m-much chakra and if it f-fails the s-sink w-will fail. If the l-leak that it's t-trying to p-p-p-prevent is t-too big then the s-sink will m-m-make things worse."
"Exactly. Same thing if you've got multiple sinks. They can handle more leakage, but if they aren't perfectly aligned they can create vortices that build up and cause a cascade failure."
"Are there any s-sinks in the Seal?"
"Sort of. The whole point of a sink—oh, thank you." Hazō gave a small nod to the orderly who had brought in a rolling table with a tray containing bland food and tepid tea. The orderly fussed over him for a bit, bowed, and disappeared.
"The point of a sink is that it isn't connected to anything," Hazō resumed. "We don't see anything like that. There's a whole bunch of elements in this thing that none of us recognize, but they're all connected. Kagome-sensei is theorizing that they aren't
sinks, they're
stabilizers. They actually absorb the leaked chakra, clean it, and put it back into the system."
Harumitsu eyed him dubiously. "R-r-really? If you'll f-f-f-forgive m-me, My L-Lord, th-that sounds c-c-crazy."
Hazō chuckled and took a sip of his tea. "I know, right? If the chakra didn't get properly synchronized before being reinjected you'd get a resonance and it would all blow up. Plus, if there was too much leakage for the intake to handle it would build up and you'd have the whole vortex problem." He shifted slightly, trying to find a position where his back didn't complain so much, and sighed when he couldn't. "If Kagome-sensei is right about what's happening, that would suggest that the Seal
is failing, it's just doing it slowly. The best case is that its performance will degrade until the entire thing shuts down. More likely is that the vortices build up and up and up until the entire seal fails catastrophically. Given how much chakra this thing must be pulling in, that failure is going to be truly epic."
"P-pity th-there isn't s-some w-way to add more s-stabilizers, or u-use up the ch-chakra. That c-could p-prevent the f-failure, r-right?"
"In theory," Hazō said. "It would be great if we could, but it's not practical. Even if Kagome-sensei is right about what those things are, there's no way to add more of them. We don't understand how they work, we don't understand how they perform the synchronization or manage the harmonics, and it's not like you can just insert new elements into an active seal. We'd need to redraw the entire seal with the new elements in order to ensure the balance was right, and..." His mouth gaped open and his teacup plummeted from frozen fingers, bouncing off the tray and splashing tea across his blankets.
"S-s-sensei?"
"Use it up..." Hazō whispered, eyes unfocused. "We could use it up." He flung the covers back and swung his feet to the floor, grabbing at the bed for balance. "SENSEI!" he bellowed, staggering to the door. "KAGOME-SENSEI! I NEED YOU!"
"Sensei?!" Harumitsu said, hovering near to Hazō with his hands half-extended, unsure if he should be helping in accord with his teacher's wishes or dragging him back to bed and shackling him down in accord with Lady Tsunade's.
There was a thump from the corridor outside as someone came flying out of the office three doors down and bounced off the wall in their haste. Kagome barreled around the corner, ringboxes on his hands, and nearly collided with Hazō, who was halfway into the hall.
"What is it?!" Kagome said, supporting Hazō with one arm around his chest and the other arm extended, tracking to find the threat. Hazō choked in pain at the pressure on his shattered ribs.
"Sensei, I know how to fix it," he gasped. "We use up the excess chakra."
Kagome, recognizing the absence of threat, manhandled Hazō back to the bed. "What are you talking about?" he demanded once Hazō was lying down again.
The answer was prevented by the intrusion of three separate orderlies who had come running in response to Hazō's shout. Fortunately, Hazō managed to grab Kagome's arm before the older man could splatter the orderlies across the wall as a fine red mist. The junior medic-nin froze, raising their hands in placation, and came forward slowly once the grumbling sealmaster had stepped back. They got Hazō settled in, scanned him with medical chakra, clucked over the way he had aggravated his injuries by moving around, fixed what they could, and left.
"The Great Seal," Hazō said, once they were alone again. He had to struggle to keep his words clear even as the pain drove the breath from his lungs. "Those stabilizer elements you identified? They're being overwhelmed. There's too much input for them to absorb. We put other seals in to absorb the leakage and reduce it to the point that the stabilizers can manage it."
"Don't be stupid," Kagome-sensei snapped. "Putting other seals inside the structure of an existing one would cause their effect to destabilize the ambient flows and accelerate the failure."
"No," Hazō said, forcing his breathing to even out and cursing the absence of the Iron Nerve. "Not if it was Jiraiya's Awesome Daybright Lantern seals. It would absorb the excess chakra and convert it to light. There'd be no chakra effect to destabilize anything."
Kagome-sensei sneered in dismissal. "You're being crazy again. That would..." He paused. "That's crazy. You couldn't... Hm." He frowned, then shook his head. "The amount of chakra it would use up would be insignificant compared to the amount that must be flowing through there. You couldn't..." He frowned harder.
"We use a
lot of them."
Kagome-sensei rubbed his chin. "Even if that would work, they don't last long enough."
"So we make a new version. One that lasts longer."
"That...hm. It could..." He hesitated, then shook his head. "It wouldn't prevent the failure. The leak is still going to grow."
"Sure, but it would buy us time. And researching a long-duration version of Jiraiya's Awesome Daybright Lantern shouldn't be hard, right?"
"Well... I mean, if you reduce the output...I suppose I could...hm. If you expanded the...hm." He drew some notes in the air with one finger, modeling out the basic shape of the seal. "Maybe. It would be dimmer, so you'd need to use more of them."
"They're easy to make and we would have every sealsmith in Leaf to do it."
"Hm."
Hazō held his breath.
Finally, Kagome-sensei nodded. "It's worth a shot. I'll go talk to those twittering morons."
XP AWARD: 10
Brevity XP: 3
"GM had fun" XP: 4
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