Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Chapter 315: Between the Scenes — Morning Training​

It was a beautiful day in Konoha. The sunlight streamed down through sparse clouds, awarding a little of its jealously guarded heat to those brave enough to show their skin in the cold February weather. The snow in the fields and rooftops glittered as it started to melt, leaving the streetcorners sparkling with forming droplets of water. It was almost enough to take Hazou's mind off the tension in the air.

The relentless march of tragedies in Konoha had started to dull the people's ability to feel grief. Hazou remembered speaking with a merchant just after joining Leaf, remembered how the merchant was so worried for the wellbeing of Konoha's ninja after the disastrous battle with Mist and Akatsuki. Now, what would that merchant think? After that battle, the one at Nagi Island, the skywalker sealing failure (which may have killed said merchant), and the Collapse (another possible culprit), was there yet any room for such tender concern? Who in Leaf hadn't lost someone dear to them?

Mari had taught him to distrust the stories his eyes told, to pay attention to other channels of information. While the glittering snow on the ground sang a tale of beauty and purpose, it dulled sound and gave Konoha an air of deathly stillness. The village stood balanced upon a high-walker's rope, spare moments away from plunging out of the present and forever into the past. Konoha would soon be a glittering, beautiful memory.

"Hazou? What's on your mind?" asked Akane. She walked in her usual bouncing step next to Hazou's quiet smouldering pace.

"Just... all of it. The world's falling apart around us, and we're walking over to the training grounds like it's a normal day. Jiraiya's dead, Leaf's military is crippled, our village was blatantly attacked, and there's nothing we can do about it. The thread of the past is stained with tragedy, and the needle of the present points to increasingly fewer good futures," said Hazou.

Akane paused mid-step, visibly thinking through her response. She said, "it's true that things are tough right now." Each word carried a sense of deliberate intent. "Ever since coming back from the Chuunin Exams, it's felt like a nonstop parade of deaths and funerals and wakes. There were-," Akane cut herself off abruptly, then continued, "but we're still alive, so there's still hope. And while there's hope, we can't give up the fight."

As the pair stepped out of Leaf proper and took to the trees, Hazou took advantage of their lazy, loping stride through the branches to compose a response. "Of course not. There is no future with Uplift that doesn't require suffering along the path. I know, I always knew that we'd have to take things apart to put them back together in a better form, yet I fear that the way the world is crumbling right now, no useful pieces will remain for us to build with."

"Are you feeling okay, Hazou?" asked Akane. "You almost sound like Keiko right now. Have you been spending too much time at the," she caught herself mid-word, trailing off.

Hazou managed a chuckle. The Nara compound would be a touchy subject. "I figure I have to get it out of my system before our morning 'training'. If there's one thing liable to get my teeth kicked in before all the meetings today, it's being all mopey while within hearing distance of the First Disciple."

"Don't worry about his kicks, Hazou-sensei! If I get my way, I'll write your teachings on your face for you!" Akane's words might have seemed like a threat by anyone else, but she punctuated them with a smile so sweet it made Hazou's heart twist in his chest. He clamped down on the Iron Nerve, but Akane must have seen something, because she turned away and pointed ahead through the trees to a clearing just beyond. "We're here! Let's go greet the others!"

o-o-o-o​

Training Ground 4 hadn't been cleared of snow, but it was close enough to Leaf to be frequented by ninja, making the ground a hazard of packed ice. Well, a hazard to anyone who didn't have supernatural agility and the ability to stand on virtually any surface.

"They really are something, huh?" Hazou asked the stone-faced statue.

"That's a word for it," said Yamamoto Haru.

Akane and Lee were racing back and forth across the training field on their hands, throwing snow back and forth. The loose snowballs were punctuated by sudden peals of laughter - clear and pealing for Akane and deep and jovial for Lee. Their cheeks were reddened by the physical exertion in the cold, and their uniforms were streaked with bits of snow clinging to the exterior fabrics as they hustled around in their horrifyingly Youthful warmup.

Yamamoto was quietly working through a minimal set of stretches, while Hazou absently put his body through the kata his mother had taught him so long ago. While he autopiloted, he thought. Yamamoto was still distant, but at least he didn't seem openly hostile. He was more... tame with Akane and Lee around.

Speaking of which, Lee seemed in good health and eager to engage, but it was clear to anyone who saw him talk for more than a moment that he was carrying a hidden pain. The loss of his mentor and father figure still hurt him badly, and who did he have to talk to about it? Hazou didn't know anyone who Lee would take as a confidant, much less what that relationship would look like. It was hard to imagine Lee being any less... Lee. Yet, when the pain made itself clearest, even when he was struggling, on the verge of tears to anyone who could spot the contraction of muscles under his eyes, he forced on a smile and another aphorism or innuendo about Youth.

As his body worked through the motions, Hazou wondered what Mari would think. Was Lee pushing himself into familiar patterns to try to return to the time when he still had Gai as a rock (he could already hear the snicker)? Or was he trying to prove to himself that he could accept himself for who he was even though so much had changed, that he didn't have to change himself out of grief to be valid as a person?

Suddenly, Hazou and Yamamoto tensed as a green blur entered their vision, slowing to a stop in the form of Rock Lee. A second green blur with hints of red followed close-behind, pulling to a stop with the other three in a loose circle as Hazou and Yamamoto stood to attention.

Lee started, "what a Youthful convergence we have brought together! I look forwards to seeing the meeting of our bodies as we push ourselves ever higher in our journey for the-"

Hazou butted in before Lee could scare Yamamoto too much, "I'm grateful that everyone's come out for some early morning taijutsu training! Before we get into the dregs of the work, should we warm up with some spars?" Quiet nods from Akane and Yamamoto agreed, while a more enthusiastic ejaculation from Lee said about the same. "Right, well, I'm sure we're all used to boring warm-up spars, but I was thinking today we could try something more exciting. Full contact," Lee whooped, "any jutsu," Lee made an exaggerated pout, "and to make things interesting, winner gets a prize.

"See, Lady Tsunade was working with my brother the other day and she mentioned a healing salve she used when training her Strength of a Hundred technique. Noburi asked about it, one thing led to another, and," punctuating the words, Hazou held up a a small jar filled with a nearly solid beige-white cream, "he managed to get the recipe out of her. The ingredients are hard to come by, but Noburi put together a small jar of the stuff as a proof-of-concept. We'll do some one-on-ones, winner of each pair fights, and the winner of those two gets to try out a training tool worthy of a Sannin!"

Lee and Akane cheered, appreciative of Hazou's showmanship, while Yamamoto simply cocked his head, then nodded.

"Right then, let's draw straws."

Spoiler: Rolls (fight order)

Ordering arbitrarily:
Hazou
Akane
Lee
Haru

1d4 = 2

Akane chosen! She fights:

Hazou
Lee
Haru

1d3 = 2

Fight 1: Akane vs. Lee
Fight 2: Hazou vs. Haru
Fight 3: winners

Arbitrarily, I'm saying that each party has 3 FP to spend per fight, since I don't know how to adjudicate Lee and Haru. Chakra and Consequences stay between fights.

o-o-o-o​

Lee smiled at Akane from across the training ground. The snow in the field wasn't more than a half-foot thick, but the reflection of the rising sun glinted and glimmered. Luckily Lee was sportsmanlike to a fault; Hazou would at least have made a passing effort at positioning the sun at his back so the reflection would get in Akane's eyes ("Ninja! Can't fault me for trying").

"Akane! You are among the greatest of the disciples of the Spirit of Youth, but you have yet not seen the full extent of my dedication! Witness now the fullness of my being as we sing our bodies' labors into one another!"

"Huh," said Hazou, watching from the sidelines with Yamamoto. "He does it to girls too."

Yamamoto didn't react, just starting at the battlefield with a bewildered expression.

"Lee! While I may not have seen the fruits of your passion, neither have you seen my passionate fruits! The Spirit of Youth will guide my fist firmly between your cheeks as I deliver unto you the Righteous Punching I have longed to give you!"

"Akane! Though we are surrounded by snow, the heat of your passion nearly burns away at the ground around us! I will gladly enter into the Springtime of Youth with you to test my endurance against yours!"

"Lee! Let us engage in the sublime song of spirit and sweat! Show me now that you are a man worthy of the fullness of my body's fervor!"

Yamamoto tore his gaze from the scene to hit Hazou with a inquisitive look. "How long, exactly, can they keep this up?"

Hazou pondered a response as Akane and Lee continued to trade pre-match... encouragement (?). Yamamoto's hostile aura seemed to have mostly dissolved as he watched the spectacle, making sitting next to him a more comfortable experience than it was ordinarily. "I'm not really sure there's any limit to how long they can go because once they run out of words-"

"Lee!"

"Akane!"

"Lee!"

"Akane!"

"Lee!"

"Akane!"

Their faces were flushed and exhilarated, both of them grinning like loons. Hazou wondered if Akane was glad to be part of the tradition now, and how long it had been since Lee got to... do this, whatever it was.

"Akane! We have given each other the seeds of our youth, but for the Springtime to come, we must now allows those seeds to flower! Let us not bore the spectators who watch the outflowing of our spirits! Let us begin!"

Lee started bounding forwards across the clearing, yelling "YOUTH!"

Akane did the same, low to the ground, becoming a green streak against the white, "YOUTH!"

They met in a furious clash of green, bright enough against the backdrop of muddy snow and dead trees to make Hazou think reflexively of springtime.

Lee opened with a flying roundhouse kick that Akane ducked underneath. Lee continued to turn with a spinning backhand blow that Akane tried to stay under, waiting like a shark beneath the water with a cocked uppercut. As she started to rise, Lee's hammerfist scraping the ends of her hair, Lee leaned backwards into a handspring, coming up with a front-kick for Akane's face.

Akane leaned down and into the kick, robbing it of most of its power as she droppped her weight. As Lee came out of the handspring, Akane lunged, striking him across the chin with a solid blow. Lee barely reacted as the fist hit him, instead using the momentum of his handspring and Akane's swing to grab onto her fist and pull her forwards. Momentarily off-balance as Lee stepped around her grappled arm, Akane struggled to turn. Lee caught her spin with a brutal stomp to the knee, and as Akane recoiled, he followed up with a crane kick to her ribs that sent her tumbling across the snow.

Hazou could see Yamamoto wince. The force of Lee's kick would easily have broken ribs. Even Akane would be waking up with a nasty bruise tomorrow if it weren't for the Pangolin jutsu protecting her.

"Come Akane, I know your Youth has much more to show than that!"

Akane, breathing heavily from the trade, spared her words for more pertinent actions. She turned her tumble across the snowy landscape into a roll, already making handseals as she came up.

"Fire Release: Flame Aura!" said Akane, her limbs glowing orange as ethereal flames danced across her uniform.

Lee let out a laugh of euphoria. "Yes Akane, show me the heat of your resolve!"

Akane got to her feet and bounded across the field, melting the snow with the heat of her technique. She jumped, yelling "Pangolin Clan Technique: Pantokrator's Hammer!" as she made the trio of handseals and wound up a massive haymaker.

A giant, flashy midair jump is one of the worst things to do in ninja combat. Jumping high off the ground gives you a predictable trajectory, and removes you from surfaces that you could use to change your direction. Lee reacted instantly and moved to intercept her massive cocked punch with a straight kick. Any ordinary ninja in this situation would fly into his waiting chakra-boosted leg, helpless to avoid it. At best, they would roll on the floor clutching their solar plexus for the next minute. At worst, their vertebrae would exit their bodies like macerator shot.

Akane is no ordinary ninja. As Lee snapped his foot out to end the fight, she extended her other hand, letting loose a jet of flame that changed her trajectory mid-air. Spinning into her new position, she drove her hips downwards in a brutal roundhouse that promised to give Lee a concussion.

Lee barely managed to bring his arms up into a side guard - catching the kick with one arm. Sadly, he was already on one leg, and the force of the kick sent him tumbling head over heels in the snow.

As Akane hit the ground, she immediately jumped forwards at Lee, who barely came to his feet in time to turn aside the straight punch she aimed at his face. Lee stepped back out of a knee-strike turned toe-stomp as Akane aimed a ferocious flow punch at his ribcage.

Rather than block the blow, Lee spun with it, moving like water to grab Akane's arm and turn her momentum into a over-the-shoulder throw. Akane let loose another jet of flame to spin in midair, planting her feet upon his back and pushing him facefirst into the snowbank as she took a high jump back onto the muddy ground.

As Lee stood and turned around, Akane ran at his back with a rising roundhouse kick at his blindspot. Lee must have seen it coming because he fell into it, driving his weight into Akane's knee joint and forcing her anchored leg to buckle as Lee tried to take her into a grapple. Akane desperately let out a jet of flame, kneeing Rock Lee in the ribs and pushing him a step back, then bounced to her feet with a screaming face punch-

Lee's fist caught her dead in the center of her chest and knocked the breath right out of her as Akane ribcage visibly flexed, on the verge of breaking. Rather than push through, she let the blow carry her across the snow as she coughed out her lungs' complaints.

"I yield!"

Spoiler: Rolls (Akane vs Lee)

Initiative: Lee first

Round 1
(NB: First fact is that with some assumptions on how Lee has allocated XP and his talent level, he could totally have 60 Taijutsu 3 years out of the Academy, so long as he completely mono-focused it. That seems like a good assumption, given who he is. Second, we don't know how his chakra-malfunction works, so I'm generously assuming that it makes all ninjutsu cost 10x chakra to him, and cost 10x XP to learn. He recognizes this and doesn't learn any ninjutsu. Hopefully he can survive on only taijutsu for a long and healthy life, but that isn't an issue for the righteous face-punching that will happen today. The tradeoff benefit, small as it is, is that he can chakra boost for twice as many points as an ordinary person. He burns through chakra fast, but he hits brutally hard while he's going - which is approximately the feeling I want from him. Whether this has long-term effects on his body is something we'll have to see.)
Chakra boost:
Lee: 70 CP, 130 remains
Akane: 30 CP, 270 remains

Lee:
Supplemental: Get into the Zone with Akane
Standard: Do the Punch
Akane tries to get Youthful Fist of the Mythological Beast that's Really Tough and Strong
YFOTMBTRTS:
Akane (Physique): 30 + 4 (AB) - 6 (dice) = 28
Akane spends a Fate Point to reroll!
Akane (Physique): 30 + 4 (AB) - 6 (dice) = 28
Akane spends a Fate Point to reroll!
Akane (Physique): 30 + 4 (AB) + 6 (dice) = 40
Lee (Physique): 40 - 3 (dice) = 37 (NB: hey, she's pretty strong!)

Lee (Taijutsu): 60 + 3 (dice) + 7 (invoke 'Spirit of Youth') + 14 (boost) = 84
Akane (Taijutsu): 50 + 0 (dice) + 6 (YFOTMBTRTS) + 6 (invoke 'Youth is All You Need') + 6 (boost) - 1 (PCJ) = 73
RESULT: Akane gets smashed! She takes 5 stress, PCJ tanks 2 and breaks, she takes 3 in her stress track.

Akane:
Standard: Flame Aura (3) (36 CP, 234 remains)
Supplemental: Pantokrator's Hammer (2) (16 CP, 218 remains)

Round 2
Chakra boost:
Lee: 70 CP, 60 remains

Lee:
Standard: Engage in Polite Discourse
Akane tries to get Youthful Fist of the Mythological Beast that's Really Tough and Strong
YFOTMBTRTS:
Akane (Physique): 30 + 4 (AB) + 3 (dice) = 37
Lee (Physique): 40 + 0 (dice) = 40

Lee (Taijutsu): 60 - 3 (dice) + 7 (invoke 'Genius of Hard Work') + 14 (boost) = 78
Akane (Taijutsu): 50 + 3 (dice) + 12 (Pantokrator's Hammer) + 9 (Flame Aura) = 74
RESULT: Lee wins! Akane takes 3 stress, which she could dump with a Medium, but she can see the writing on the wall. Now that she's injured, Lee would tag the injury and counterattack even harder. She probably wouldn't get YFOTMBTRTS, and even with it, the dice would have to fall in her favor to win. Because with a consequence, she would be at a disadvantage for the next round if she were to win, she opts to concede and cheer Lee on. She gets Taken Out and removes the Medium.

o-o-o-o​

Hazou sized up Yamamoto from across the clearing. Random streaks of the snowy ground were melted after Akane's spar with Lee. Luckily, Akane didn't seem to have been hurt badly by Lee's finishing blow, and the two of them were now happily chattering away on the sidelines.

Yamamoto seemed to be doing much the same from his side. What could he be thinking? Perhaps he would see this as a way to judge the merit of his potential new Clan Head, Hazou mused. No, that was unlikely. Haru wasn't like Lee; he saw more than just taijutsu skill, and his distaste of the clans wasn't related to a single spar. More likely, he saw a great opportunity to beat up on a Clan Head in a way that he couldn't be blamed for.

He'd let the damnbeasts take him before he gave Yamamoto an easy chance to do that. Well, in the absence of some Youthful pre-match banter, may as well get started.

"Akane, care to count us in?"

"On the mark! Ready!" Hazou and Haru dug into the ground, preparing to move in any direction. "Set!" Hazou felt his fingers twitching in anticipation of the techniques he was ready to cast. "Go!"

Hazou immediately started running clockwise over the snowy terrain, his hands forming the seals needed to give him strength. "Pangolin Clan Technique: Ghost Scales!" formed a glowing aura of yellow around him, "Pangolin Clan Technique: Pantokrator's Hammer!" filled his limbs with the strength to deliver a pointed message to Yamamoto's more fragile body parts.

As Hazou circled closer, he could see Yamamoto forming the handseals to activate his lightning bucklers. Sparks of electricity popped off of his wrists, sizzling in the snow below as Haru dropped into a ready stance for Hazou's onslaught.

Hazou entered into melee with Yamamoto with a fastidiously neutral expression on, not quite the match for Yamamoto's vicious snarl. He felt the subtle weight of Yamamoto's killing intent upon his shoulders, but didn't let it stop him as he surged forwards with a jab-cross-hook.

Yamamoto blocked the jab and leaned backwards out of the way of the cross, lurching forwards with chakra-boosted speed to get inside Hazou's shoulder for the hook and deliver a punishing blow to his abdomen.

Little did he realize that the hook was a feint. Following the pattern for Yamamoto's actions, Hazou aborted the hook and spun his hips, delivering a downward side kick to Yamamoto's knee that snapped it straight. As Yamamoto stumbled to get back to a fighting stance, Hazou carried through with a leg sweep that took Yamamoto's leg out from under him. As he fell, Hazou swept up next to him and grabbed his arm in a wrist lock, trying to drive him into the snow from the shoulder joint.

Rather than nicely land in the snow with a dislocated shoulder, Yamamoto quite rudely spun about his grappled arm, twisting it to pull around with a high kick at Hazou's chin. Hazou, forced to let go, stepped smoothly back. Yamamoto found his footing, shaking out his elbow. Something in it must have been tweaked, because his movements were nearly imperceptibly slower as he readied for Hazou's next attack.

Time to attack. Yamamoto's internal experience would be tinged with the transient pain from the way he twisted his elbow to escape Hazou's grip. Hazou moved his fingers in the requisite patterns simultaneously as he moved his mouth and exhaled vocally simultaneously as he molded his chakra, an expression of his being past, present, and future, to augment the strength of his body with the strength of the Pangolin Clan, outside this world yet still In reality.

Hazou moved his legs, pushing them backwards against the ground to move his body forwards, simultaneously as he moved his arms to imply an attack pattern that Yamamoto would be forced to respond to. Yamamoto reacted as intended, and Hazou shifted his meat and bones into the appropriate next pattern to capitalize on the opportunity.

Perplexingly, it didn't work. Hazou observed with a distant tinge of disappointment as he watched his body recoil backwards across the snowy field as the pattern of thoughts and meat and actions referred to as Yamamoto seemed to exploit a subtle flaw in the patterns that Hazou had encoded within his bloodline, tripping Hazou and delivering a crushing backhand across the back of his head. The blow had fortunately not damaged the meat that made up Hazou's vehicle for acting in the physical realm, yet it did destroy one of the pair of chakra constructs Hazou had been depending on for protection. The strike in three dimensions rippled outwards across time as the anchor for the fourteen dimensional pattern in the ebb anj flqw of uh7 i0askj 9a9a9a kPc?H*+{1Z$b29Bh[u) @*;f-zhxSJ$yPBwkrWc#q`28B/K--

That pattern was clearly flawed, so Hazou picked a different pattern to try, flexing the muscles within his body to adjust the joints to the correct positions to allow the light entering Yamamoto's eyes to lead his thoughts to a false belief, then allow the truth of reality to shine forth by means of applying the bony appendages of Hazou's upper torso to the area of Yamamoto's body with the greatest density of sensory organs. Hazou watched as Yamamoto reacted predictably again and instructed his body to follow the correct pattern to exploit this opportunity, yet his body reacted imperfectly, slowed by the lightning chakra that Haru must have left within Hazou's body.

Hazou felt a remote pain as Yamamoto finished the pattern of attacks he started. The pattern was imperfect, yet imperfect in a beautiful way. Unlike the patterns Hazou made, eternally identical, Yamamoto's patterns were new each time, like a concert piece presented again and again, improving as the musicians gained familiarity with the piece. Hazou barely tore himself away from the admiration as he felt the chambered side kick narrowly miss his groin. This perspective wasn't useful. He needed to be more present, within his body as he guided it to harm Yamamoto's to assert physical dominance.

Hazoue struggled to center himself as he commanded his body to shake off the crawling worms of lightning that surged through his veins. Pushing them away with only a prickling internal sensation as a souvenir, he remarshalled the strength of the Pangolin Clan around himself. That alien perspective borrowed from the Summoning Scroll still troubled him and made it harder for him to pilot his body. No, it made it harder for him to move and attack effectively. He didn't have to "pilot" his body, since he was fully in control.

As Yamamoto closed the distance, a predatory growl on his lips, Hazou considered his options. Engaging could lead to another dip into that alien mindset - and his opponent could nail him with a hit that Hazou wouldn't be aware enough to take without being seriously injured. And yet, he had an insight from that brief dip into the veil. Yamamoto was burning chakra like kindling to keep up the assault. With Hazou's recent chakra training, he would become the fortress, to withstand the siege.

Yamamoto surged into melee, body low to the ground and arms out like a pub brawler. Hazou prepared to defend. The rising uppercut was blocked by a sharp elbow downwards that left Yamamoto flinching from the possible counterattack, yet none came. Yamamoto's right cross was quickly dissuaded when Hazou moved smoothly around the attack, tensing his shoulder as if to hip-throw Yamamoto, yet the feint kept Yamamoto at bay long enough for Hazou to jump back and form the handseals for Pantokrator's Hammer anew.

Yamamoto's attacks were fast and his hits were crippling, yet if Hazou caught the attack against his forearm or shin, the lightning sprawling forth wouldn't debilitate him like before. The stinging that Yamamoto's fists left behind was only assuaged by the faint hope of seeing Yamamoto run out of steam.

Yamamoto cleared into range for another flurry of blows, and Hazou kept up his guard, mixing in feints and probing attacks to prevent Yamamoto from building up the momentum he needed to crush Hazou's defense. Yamamoto was learning, ignoring the first feint and instead moving to counter the second, or even ignoring that and only flinching backwards at the surprise third. The scant seconds that Hazou was buying spoke to an immense quantity of time spent across tens of hundreds of hours with that beautiful, broken pattern called Mari, building a recursive tree of depth so immense that Hazou could barely imagine the precision of the path that Yamamoto would have to tread to find a means to break loose of the encompassing net of falsehoods that Roki wove around the opponent.

Hazou was torn away from the beauty of the space-time construct that constituted the carved memory of the Iron Nerve as he noted his meatsuit skidding across the ground, then straining a muscle in its back to return to its feet to barely block Yamamoto's crushing spinning crescent kick.

Right. The fight. He was injured, though he managed to shake off the worst of the lightning after Yamamoto knocked him on his back halfway in a trough that Akane's Flame Aura left behind, though his lower back was complaining from the awkwardly-angled kip-up. He formed the handseals for Pantokrator's Hammer and started moving, circling the clearing to find a better spot to engage Yamamoto.

As Yamamoto entered the range, Hazou leaned in with a snap kick to catch him in the gut. Yamamoto pushed himself off to the side to dodge it, but Hazou didn't kick, instead dropping his foot to drive an elbow into the dodging Yamamoto. Yamamoto raised his arms to block the elbow, but Hazou didn't complete the motion, instead lunging forwards with a knee at Yamamoto's face. Yamamoto turned to land on his back to dodge the worst of the knee, but Hazou aborted even that attack, instead twisting around to deliver a crushing blow to Yamamoto's solar plexus.

Twisting didn't quite work out. Hazou let out a yelp of pain as his back complained, and stumbled as he struggled to pull his body against the violent rebellion of his muscles. Yamamoto rolled to his feet and leapt forwards with an open-handed neck-chop that promised to drop Hazou like a sack of rocks.

There was no way to dodge. Roki had never had his back arched awkwardly in pain like this, there was no pattern in the tree that let him move laterally in space to avoid the attack like this.

And yet, there was. Hazou broadened his view, no longer observing the four-dimensional breadth of his Iron Nerve movements that encompassed Roki, but rather seeing the fullness of his extra-personal memory. In the Academy, when the two bullies had jumped him in the alleyway. One had kicked his lower back in while the other threw a haymaker at his face. The pattern was the same.

Hazou dropped to his knees, pulling the blow in and ignoring the lightning crawling greedily into his hands as he pulled Haru into and past him, hurling him into the trashbins laid out- no, into the snowbank on the side of the clearing. As Haru emerged, his movements were noticably slower. Hazou collected his chakra for one last Pantokrator's Hammer, sudden strength filling his tired limbs. Hazou closed in on the tired Yamamoto, limbs singing a song of lies as he brought his fist overhead in a pattern his opponent knew well by now. Feint high, feint center, feint low, strike center. As Yamamoto crouched forwards to guard his midsection, the feint never came, and Hazou's fist caught him across the jaw, knocking him unconscious.

Spoiler: Rolls (Hazou vs Haru)

Initiative: Hazou first
Round 1
Chakra boost:
Haru: 25 CP, 125 remains

Hazou:
Supplemental: Pantokrator's Hammer (2) (16 CP, 174 remains)
Standard: Ghost Scales (2) (25 CP, 149 remains)
Supplemental: Rush into Melee with Haru

Haru:
Supplemental: Activate Sparking Touch (3) (24 CP, 101 remains)
Standard: Punch the Man
Hazou tries to get Roki
Roki:
Hazou (Deception): 24 + 3 (AB) + 3 (dice) - 6 (Severe) = 24
Haru (Deception): 14 - 6 (dice) = 8

Haru (Taijutsu): 40 base - 3 + 5 (invoke 'Vicious Scrapper') + 5 (invoke 'Will of Fire') + 5 (boost) = 52
Hazou (Taijutsu): 40 - 6 (dice) + 10 (Pantokrator's Hammer) + 2 (Ghost Scales) - 1 (PCJ) - 10 (Severe) + 5 (invoke '(Formerly) Marked for Death') + 3 (Iron Nerve) + 5 (Roki) = 48
Hazou spends a Fate Point to reroll!
Hazou (Taijutsu): 40 + 9 (dice) + 10 (Pantokrator's Hammer) + 2 (Ghost Scales) - 1 (PCJ) - 10 (Severe) + 5 (invoke '(Formerly) Marked for Death') + 3 (Iron Nerve) + 5 (Roki) = 63
RESULT: Hazou wins, inflicting 5 stress! Haru takes 3 in his stress track and takes a Mild (Kinked Elbow).

Round 2
Chakra boost:
Haru: 25 CP, 76 remains

Hazou:
Supplemental: Pantokrator's Hammer (2) (16 CP, 133 remains)
Standard: Get In There
Hazou tries to get Roki
Roki:
Hazou (Deception): 24 + 3 (AB) - 3 (dice) - 6 (Severe) = 18
Haru (Deception): 14 + 3 (dice) = 17 (NB: almost had it, better luck next time!)

Hazou (Taijutsu): 40 - 3 (dice) + 10 (Pantokrator's Hammer) + 2 (Ghost Scales) - 1 (PCJ) - 10 (Severe) + 3 (Iron Nerve) + 5 (Roki) + 5 (tag Mild) = 51
Hazou spends a Fate Point to reroll!
Hazou (Taijutsu): 40 - 6 (dice) + 10 (Pantokrator's Hammer) + 2 (Ghost Scales) - 1 (PCJ) - 10 (Severe) + 3 (Iron Nerve) + 5 (Roki) + 5 (tag Mild) = 48
Haru (Taijutsu): 40 + 6 (dice) + 5 (invoke 'Fuck the Clans') + 5 (boost) - 3 (Mild) = 53
RESULT: Haru hits back hard for 3 stress! Hazou takes 2 through Ghost Scales and 1 goes into his PCJ. Because Haru landed a hit on Hazou, Sparking Touch activates.
Sparking Touch:
Haru (ST): 20 + 0 (dice) = 20
Hazou (Physique): 25 - 6 (dice) - 6 (Severe) = 13
RESULT: Hazou fails! He is affected by the lightning bucklers and gains the Aspect "Sizzled and Zapped!"

Haru:
Standard: Not Youthful but Still Punching
Hazou tries to get Roki
Roki:
Hazou (Deception): 24 + 3 (AB) + 6 (dice) - 6 (Severe) = 27
Haru (Deception): 14 + 9 (dice) = 23 (NB: nice try, kiddo)

Haru (Taijutsu): 40 - 6 (dice) + 5 (boost) + 5 (tag 'Sizzled and Zapped') - 3 (Mild) = 41
Hazou (Taijutsu): 40 - 3 (dice) - 10 (Severe) - 1 (PCJ) + 3 (Iron Nerve) + 5 (Roki) = 34
RESULT: Hazou takes another 4 stress! PCJ absorbs 1 and breaks, and his stress track the other 3. He's already "Sizzled and Zapped", so he can't gain the Aspect again. The countdown hasn't started yet, so Haru can't refresh it.

Round 3
Chakra boost:
Haru: 25 CP, 51 remains

Hazou:
Supplemental: Attempt to resist "Sizzled and Zapped!":
Haru (ST): 20 - 3 (dice) = 17
Hazou (Physique): 25 + 0 (dice) - 6 (Severe) = 19
RESULT: "Sizzled and Zapped!" ends
Supplemental: Pantokrator's Hammer (2) (16 CP, 117 remains)
Standard: Full Defense

Haru:
Standard: Punch his Lordly lights out
Hazou tries to get Roki
Roki:
Hazou (Deception): 24 + 3 (AB) + 3 (dice) - 6 (Severe) = 24
Haru (Deception): 14 + 6 (dice) = 20

Haru (Taijutsu): 40 + 0 (dice)+ 5 (boost) - 3 (Mild) = 42
Hazou (Taijutsu): 40 + 3 (dice) + 10 (Pantokrator's Hammer) - 10 (Severe) + 3 (Iron Nerve) + 5 (Roki) + 5 (Full Defense) = 56
RESULT: Hazou doesn't inflict stress because of Full Defense


Round 4
Chakra boost:
Haru: 25 CP, 26 remains

Hazou:
Supplemental: Pantokrator's Hammer (2) (16 CP, 117 remains)
Standard: Full Defense

Haru:
Standard: Can't keep dodging forever. Keep attacking.
Hazou tries to get Roki
Roki:
Hazou (Deception): 24 + 3 (AB) + 0 (dice) - 6 (Severe) = 21
Haru (Deception): 14 - 6 (dice) = 8

Haru (Taijutsu): 40 + 3 (dice) + 5 (boost) - 3 (Mild) = 45
Hazou (Taijutsu): 40 - 9 (dice) + 10 (Pantokrator's Hammer) - 10 (Severe) + 3 (Iron Nerve) + 5 (Roki) + 5 (Full Defense) = 44
RESULT: 2 stress, a narrow win for Haru. Hazou takes "Twisted Back", a Mild Consequence. Because he got hit, Haru gets to try to zap him.
Sparking Touch:
Haru (Sparking Touch): 20 - 3 (dice) = 17
Hazou (Physique): 25 +3 (dice) - 6 (Severe) = 22
RESULT: Hazou narrowly avoids a shock.

Round 5
Chakra boost:
Haru: 25 CP, 1 remains

Hazou:
Supplemental: Pantokrator's Hammer (2) (16 CP, 117 remains)
Standard: Full Defense

Haru:
Standard: Capitalize on the opportunity.
Hazou tries to get Roki
Roki:
Hazou (Deception): 24 + 3 (AB) + 6 (dice) - 6 (Severe) = 27
Haru (Deception): 14 + 3 (dice) = 17

Haru (Taijutsu): 40 - 9 (dice) + 5 (boost) + 5 (tag Mild) - 3 (Mild) = 38
Hazou (Taijutsu): 40 + 3 (dice) + 10 (Pantokrator's Hammer) - 3 (Mild) - 10 (Severe) + 3 (Iron Nerve) + 5 (Roki) + 5 (Full Defense) = 53
RESULT: Hazou doesn't inflict stress because of Full Defense

Round 6
Chakra boost:
None

Hazou:
Supplemental: Pantokrator's Hammer (2) (16 CP, 85 remains)
Standard: Time to Strike!
Hazou tries to get Roki
Roki:
Hazou (Deception): 24 + 3 (AB) - 3 (dice) - 6 (Severe) = 18
Haru (Deception): 14 + 3 (dice) = 17 (NB: just out of reach yet again!)

Hazou (Taijutsu): 40 + 9 (dice) + 10 (Pantokrator's Hammer) - 3 (Mild) - 10 (Severe) + 3 (Iron Nerve) + 5 (Roki) = 54
Counter: 40 + 0 (dice) - 3 (Mild) = 37
RESULT: Haru runs out of energy and into Hazou's fist, taking 7 stress. He would barely survive this in a real conflict by taking a Medium and a Severe, but Hazou doesn't want to cripple Haru, so he pulls the blow, ending the match nonetheless.

o-o-o-o​

Hazou was tired enough for the grave. His body ached and pained from the abuse Haru gave to him, and his skin and uniform were covered in spiderwebbing scorch marks from the lightning bucklers Haru had used all too effectively. Lightning Element taijutsu users, Hazou decided, were hell to fight (nonlethally). Hazou's estimation of Yamamoto's worth has improved considerably, yet he couldn't help but wish that Yamamoto had been a little weaker as he watched Lee across the clearing, bouncing back and forth on his heels, waiting for some unclear starting mark.

On the sidelines, Akane was cheering equally for Hazou and Lee, and Yamamoto was holding a loose cloth filled with snow to his quickly darkening chin.

Lee started to yell, "Hazou! Your bout with Yamamoto Haru displayed the inner firmness of your resolve, yet I wish to see you push harder, plunging deeper into the Spirit of Youth I know you bear within yourself! Show me the growth of your spirited manhood since we last sparred, and I shall show you a strength to rival your own in the Springtime of Youth!"

As Hazou started to consider a response to that outburst, anything which might resemble both engaging with both sanity and Lee's Youthspeak, Yamamoto muttered to Akane.

"Ishihara. Did he do that on purpose?"

Akane shot him an opaque look and turned back to watch Hazou trip over his words to yell at an increasingly excited Lee.

"Do what, Haru?"

"Turn the sparring match into a... recruitment pitch. He used only ninjutsu techniques from the Pangolins, and he did them over and over to show how useful they would be. He dragged out the fight to show he could outlast me even when doing them, then knocked me out with one of them as if to show that his clan techniques are better than the stupid shit I get stuck with."

Akane looked thoughtfully at Lee gesturing wildly at Hazou, nearly jumping up and down as he yelled something about the "greatest eruption of manhood splashing across the upturned faces of the disciples of Youth."

"I don't think he did that intentionally, but I wouldn't put it past him to be unintentionally clever or manipulative like that. I mostly think he was looking for ways to win the fight, and it turned out that the best way involved, well, that."

"It seemed almost like he was fucking toying with me, the way he zoned out in close-quarters. Like he took the hits he did because he was sorry for me, not because I was good enough to land them."

Akane was silent for a moment, letting Hazou's anguished spluttering fill the clearing. "I don't think that's true. Hazou is quite youthful, and I don't believe that he tried anything less than his hardest to beat you. Still, he's incredibly overworked and mentally strained, I think his exhaustion is genuine."

Haru turned to look at Akane, and she turned to meet his gaze. "Why are you saying this? Admitting that he's manipulative, admitting his weakness. What's your angle?"

"I think Hazou would want to be honest with you the same way I've been. Nothing more, nothing less. He doesn't think of himself as better or worse than you, he's just human."

A gentle gust of wind from the clearing made Haru and Akane snap their heads towards the fight just in time to watch Hazou crumple over, folded in half by a savage pointed-hand strike to the diaphragm. As Hazou struggled to get a breath in, Lee started to speak again, none the quieter for being closer to his victim listener.

Haru snorted. "Big fucking surprise, the green beast takes the cake. I'm not sure how Gouketsu or I were supposed to win this. We both saw your fight with him, neither of us came close to the speed and power you were trading blows at."

Akane let out a light laugh at that, and quickly jumped up. "Come on Haru, let's go rescue Hazou before he starts attending Church!"

Haru watched her leap across the clearing towards Lee with congratulations on her lips, then slowly pushed himself to his feet, taking pains to avoid putting weight on his twisted elbow.

He looked at the group, Hazou slowly coming off the ground, now looking like he was in seiza at Lee's feet, Akane jumping around and hugging Lee, Lee still bent halfway over and saying something about Youth.

"What the hell are these people?"

Spoiler: Rolls (Lee vs Hazou)

Initiative: Lee first

Round 1
Chakra boost:
Lee: 60 CP, 0 remains
Hazou: 25 CP, 60 remains (NB: Hazou will lose this boost when he uses Pantokrator's Hammer)

Lee:
Supplemental: Get into his comfort Zone.
Standard: Perform comforting things.
Hazou tries to get Roki
Roki:
Hazou: 24 + 3 (AB) + 6 (dice) - 6 (Severe) = 27
Lee (Deception): Haha.

Lee (Taijutsu): 60 base + 3 (dice) + 7 (invoke 'Spirit of Youth') + 7 (invoke 'A Genius of Hard Work') + 7 (invoke Hazou's Mild) + 12 (boost) = 96 (NB: Holy shit.)
Hazou (Taijutsu): 40 + 0 (dice) - 3 (Mild) - 10 (Severe) + 3 (Iron Nerve) + 5 (Roki) + 5 (invoke '(Formerly) Marked for Death') + 5 (invoke 'Impress the Adoptees') + 5 (boost)= 50
Hazou spends a Fate Point to reroll!
Hazou (Taijutsu): 40 - 6 (dice) - 3 (Mild) - 10 (Severe) + 3 (Iron Nerve) + 5 (Roki) + 5 (invoke '(Formerly) Marked for Death') + 5 (invoke 'Impress the Adoptees') + 5 (boost) = 44
RESULT: Hazou takes a whopping 19 stress. Lee chooses not to kill him instantly.

Hazou:
Full-Round: Clutch stomach, question life choices

Round 2
Lee:
Full-Round: Speech
Lee (Youth): 30 - 3 (dice) + 4 (tag "I'm Saving You a Hospital Trip") = 31
Lee spends a Fate Point to reroll!
Lee (Youth): 30 - 3 (dice) + 4 (tag "I'm Saving You a Hospital Trip") = 31
Lee spends a Fate Point to reroll!
Lee (Youth): 30 - 6 (dice) + 4 (tag "I'm Saving You a Hospital Trip") = 28 (NB: sigh, just not your day for speech-making, huh?)
Hazou (Resolve): 20 + 6 (dice) - 6 (Severe) - 3 (Mild) = 17
RESULT: Lee wins by 4 shifts, but Youth is Weapons:4! Hazou takes 8 mental stress, and he takes the Mild Consequence ("Green is a Nice Color") and the Medium Consequence ("Youth Missionary!"). He chooses to get Taken Out and removes the Medium Mental consequence.

(NB: Lee did not know about Hazou's Mental Consequences. With the Severe 'The Thinness of Reality', any more YOUTH would have killed Hazou instantly. Lee didn't know he had to pull the blow. Luckily for Hazou, the dice were just in his favor.)

---

XP AWARD: 5

Perplexingly, I still don't have access to the QM drive with stats for NPCs. While the chapter may have been canonized, the numbers and rolls contain a large but finite number of inaccuracies. Do not trust what is in the spoiler tags.

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 316: Decisions and Delayed Demolition​

The snowball fight and Noburi's playtime with the wind spirits were finally over. Noses and cheeks were red, eyes were bright, and fingers were numb; it was time to end on a good note.

Hazō waited until everyone was home, washed, changed into fluffy comfy clothes, and settled with hot drinks.

"So," he began. "The competition."

"Yeah, that was quite a thing," Noburi said. "Asuma's really pulling out all the stops, isn't he?"

"And smart," Mari noted. "I didn't expect such good politicking from someone his age."

Hazō frowned. "How do you mean? It seemed risky to me; he's basically asking the clans to give up a bunch of their secrets. That's going to cause issues."

"Sure, but he's going to undercut Ami, weld the KEI to himself, and gain the backing of the clanless ninja' while simultaneously having no direct responsibility for their actions." She saw the incomprehension on everyone's face and started over. "Most of the clans are...what? Thirty, forty ninja, once you take out the outliers?"

"Depends on what you count," Noburi replied. "There's a lot of variance."

Mari waved the objection away. "Fine. Regardless. The KEI consists of a third of all the ninja in Leaf—more, since the Collapse didn't affect them as much—and the contest heavily favors clanless over clan."

She turned sideways in her chair, draping her legs over the arm of her chair so she could conveniently set her drink on the floor. She let her head tip back so that she was looking thoughtfully up at the as-yet-unpainted granite ceiling of their new quarters.

"Start with the prizes," she said. "What have you got? The Dog Scroll and the land grant are both equally valuable to anyone, clan or not, so that's a wash. Training with Ebisu is more valuable for clanless; they don't have the money to pay for it on their own. Repayment of all debts; clan ninja aren't likely to have significant debts, clanless are. Income of ten million per year? Very valuable for clanless ninja who have to pay for all their own expenses. Less so for clan ninja who live rent free and probably get free board. Finally, option four in Asuma's list: Your clan gets a seat on the Clan Council plus extra adoption slots, and if you're currently clanless then a clan will be formed for you and up to ten friends. Obviously, having a clan formed for you isn't useful if you're already a clan. Likewise, getting a seat on the Council isn't useful to the roughly one-third of clans that already have a seat there. Maximum value for that choice only goes to clanless ninja.

"Furthermore, I'm fully expecting Ami, Naruto, and Keiko to 'ask' Asuma to grant the KEI a seat on the Clan Council. Having some clanless ninja form a clan and get a seat means that the KEI effectively has two seats...out of nineteen, but that's still double representation.

"On top of all that, look at what the entire point of the contest is: Collect stuff that will make Leaf ninja more powerful and then give it to all of them, clan and clanless alike. That disproportionately benefits KEI ninja. Their main weakness as a group is that they have less access to good training and less access to resources. No individual clanless ninja has the money to buy a ton of seals, or convince more experienced ninja to sell them good techniques. No one of them has access to as many jutsu as an equivalent clan ninja, so clanless have a lot less flexibility and usually a lot less raw power. After the contest ends, clan ninja will still have access to more techniques than clanless, since the Clans aren't going to give up all of their stuff and they're going to receive everything the clanless do. That isn't so important though; the clanless will have a big enough pool to draw from that it won't matter if it's not as big.

"On the flip side, Ami has been using the KEI as a way to drive a wedge between the clanless ninja and the established power structure, and Asuma just spiked that. The members of the KEI are going to recognize that Asuma was the one who got all this for them, not the KEI. They'll still be loyal to the KEI because it's to their advantage—prejudice isn't going away anytime soon—but if it ever comes down to a choice between the KEI and the Hokage, they're much more likely to come down on the side of the Hokage."

The room was silent as everyone digested that.

"Okay," Noburi said at last. "All that aside, the question of the day is: What are we giving up?"

"I think we want to get something in right away," Hazō said. "Like, today, and notify them that we're looking at other options. If and only if the rest of you agreed, I'd like to contribute the Pangolin Conditioning Jutsu, but that would require convincing Keiko to convince the Pangolin to let us contribute it. The deal we made with them was that we wouldn't give it out to non-Gōketsu or let it be modified; I'm not going to break our word on that. Still, an armor jutsu? That would be the single biggest contribution we could make. Think what it would mean for Naruto in particular, if his clones suddenly became more durable."

"Water Element: Water Whip." Water gushed out of Noburi's barrel, currently sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, and leaped towards him, forming into a thin strand. Noburi flicked the tip so that it lashed out and wound itself around the top log in the stack of firewood. A yank and a toss sent the heavy chunk of wood crashing into the massive brazier that heated the room. Sparks flew everywhere and the brazier would have tipped over if it hadn't been close enough to bump against the wall and settle back upright.

"Noburi!" Akane reproved.

The boy in question blushed. "Sorry, sorry. That was cooler in my head. Anyway, I'm fine to give Asuma the Water Whip. In fact, I'll pony up all the jutsu I have, although I learned most of them here in Leaf, so I'm not sure if they'll have value or not."

"Thanks, bro. They might have value or they might not—just because someone in Leaf knew them doesn't mean that everyone did. Regardless, you've got a good package of skills; it's well balanced and proven effective. We might get credit just for suggesting the idea of pre-packaged sets of jutsu that trainees can learn, instead of everyone have to start from scratch on deciding what to study."

Noburi arched an eyebrow. "Hazō, did you just compliment my package?"

Hazō felt his cheeks heating up. "Shut up, Nobby."

"I would be willing to share the Flame Aura and Firefly techniques," Akane said. "Firefly is from outside of Leaf and therefore should have value." She hesitated, biting her lip. "I...I think I would like to keep Elemental Mastery for myself." She looked away, clearly embarrassed. "It's the only thing I have that is unique."

"That's totally fine, Akane," Hazō said. "You're entitled to want something for yourself. Just...you know that Leaf is going to reach out to Isan at some point, right? And they may trade the technique for something they want from Leaf."

Akane swallowed and nodded, still not looking at anyone else. "I know. It is not youthful of me, and perhaps I'll get over it before the contest ends, but...for now, I would like to retain it." She looked back, meeting Hazō's eyes with brown eyes filled with worry and self-doubt. "Is that all right?"

"Of course." He smiled.

"Better schools," Kagome-sensei grunted. "Theirs suck. I could teach their teachers to not suck." He sniffed dismissively. "Maybe their sealmasters, too. For all that Jiraiya-stinker yammered about their collaborative seal studies, I haven't seen anything like that. I could show them how to do group work properly. Maybe formalize some of their training methods, because it looks like they're still doing master/apprentice."

"What's wrong with master/apprentice, sensei?"

"Get one stupid master, you get a whole lineage of stupid students." He snorted. "Or, more likely, a whole bunch of seal failures that rip everyone into shredded gobbets of flesh."

"But...aren't you and I using the master/apprentice system?"

"Yeah, but I'm not stupid."

What could one say to that?

"Ohhhhkay, moving on. We've got a bunch of jutsu, the idea of pre-defined jutsu sets, pedagogic reform for the general ninja arts, and a formalized pedagogy for seal research. What else?"

"I've got some jutsu I can throw in the pot," Mari said. "Fist of the Lightning God; high-damage, very flashy lightning attack. Jōnin-level technique that should get us lots of points, but there aren't a lot of Lightning-Element ninja in Leaf, so it doesn't cost us much. Ditto for Bile of the Ocean Demons, which is Water Element. Plus the FUBAR technique, although that's small potatoes. Wind Wall. Zephyr's Reach. Not any of my genjutsu, though. I'm not giving those out."

"Thank you," Hazō said. "That will help. I'm fine to donate the Poor Man's Yellow Flash—Jiraiya said that time-release storage seals already exist, so we should get credit for that before it gets out on its own. Macerators, too. Those are high-value as they are, but they would be better if we could crank up the storage stress and ejection speed. If we contribute them then maybe some other sealmaster can do that work for us and then contribute the improved version back.

"I also had an idea while we were out in the snow—"

Mari snorted. "When do you not have ideas?"

"As rarely as possible, now hush." He stuck his tongue out at her. "As I was saying, I was imagining something like a really big kite, big enough that the sky spirits would lift the user right off the ground along with the kite. Or, alternatively, a shuriken big enough to ride on. You could use skywalkers to climb up to a skytower, then use one of these 'skysliders' to cover distance while not having to use skywalker time. When you've gone as far as you want you turn on your skywalkers again. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy."

"Breezy," muttered Kagome-sensei.

"How would that even work?" Mari asked. "A shuriken big enough to ride on? It would be too heavy to throw, and how could you throw it while sitting on it? Even if you could, the spinning would make you dizzy and you wouldn't be able to see down. Plus, wind spirits don't like to support larger objects."

"And kites can't lift a person," Noburi said. "Seriously, dude. There has literally never been a case of a kite lifting a person, no matter how big the kite is. Are you thinking of using seals on it?"

"No..." Hazō stumbled to a halt. "I don't know. Maybe? It just feels like there should be a way to make it work."

Everyone took a moment to digest that.

"I mean...maybe if the person was really little and the kite was really big?" Noburi said doubtfully. "Even then, I doubt it. Like I said, it's literally never happened."

"People walking on air had never happened either, until we did it."

"Yeah, but that's seals. Seals can do weird stuff. Kites can't."

"I dunno, I just feel like it's possible."

Noburi shrugged and slurped on his tea. "Hey, you want to go fly a kite, good on you. Let me know when you're going out. I'll join you, if I'm not too busy."

"Actually, I want to get some craftsmen to work on it. I don't have any particular skill to make the thing or any way to contribute except maybe the occasional idea. I figure we hire some people and throw them at it."

Mari snorted. "Ah, yes. And, knowing you, I assume that you will be forgiving if they don't come up with anything, right?"

"I mean...of course? Well, I want them to hurry because I want the option to include this in our contest contribution if and only if we as a group decide to do that. Still, you can't blame someone for not figuring out something really complicated that no one has ever figured out before."

"So there won't be any actual consequences if they can't figure it out, right?"

"No, of course not."

"So, basically, you're going to pay a bunch of civilians to fly kites for a couple months with no need for them to ever actually produce anything."

"...Look, just get some carpenters and people who know about kites and put them on the project, okay? Figure out a reasonable rate and pay it. Oh, and keep this quiet for now. I don't want anyone else scooping us. Make sure they do their work away from prying eyes."

"Actually," Akane said, "that could be a contribution on its own."

Everyone looked at her with a universal 'huh?'

"The idea of civilian research teams," she clarified. "There are many civilians and few ninja. If there are non-chakra things that civilians can create that will assist Leaf, that would be a good contribution. Look at the printing press—it makes money for Leaf, advertises our wealth, and it requires no chakra to use or build."

And Jiraiya used it as the control system for his spy network, Hazō thought to himself.

"I got some more of his notes," Kagome-sensei volunteered, apropos of nothing. "Big chunk, actually. He wasn't as clever about rotating his ciphers as he should have been; I noticed the pattern he was using and it let me crack a lot of stuff all at once."

Everyone sat up. "Cool!" Hazō said. "What did you find?"

"A bunch of spy stuff. Names, locations, roles...details on fifty or sixty agents, and I'm pretty sure there's more. Most of them are low-level and have a note saying 'not reliable', but I figure maybe it's worth something?"

"Absolutely. Thank you, sensei. That's a big help. Asuma mentioned that Leaf's intelligence network took a big hit in the Collapse. He'll definitely like this."

"There's more." The older man fidgeted a bit. "There was details about the assassination of the last Raikage, as well as a detailed map and security analysis of Raikage Fortress, although it's probably out of date by now. Also, details on how Jiraiya seduced the Tsuchikage's wife and turned her into an agent funneling him information."

The room went absolutely silent.

"He what?" Mari demanded.

"Yeah. Also, the Kazekage's 'bastard daughter' is actually an ANBU sleeper agent named Marmot. She's spent years adding both poison and antidote to the Kazekage's breakfasts. The poison stays in the body, so as soon as the antidote is withdrawn the person will die." He shrugged. "That would be useful if the guy hadn't already died. Anyway, then there's the part about how he—Jiraiya, not the Kazekage, who is still dead—fought a float of gaki and trapped them in a sealing array in the Hanguri Gulf. He spent three years researching control seals and now they're available if we want to render a country unlivable."

Every non-Kagome-sensei eye in the room was filled with shock and every non-Kagome-sensei mouth hung open.

"I mean, as long as it was a small country," Kagome-sensei hurried to add. He paused, then noticed the expressions. "What?"

Mari sat up. "Kagome, do you have these notes on you? Could I see them?"

Kagome-sensei shrugged and rummaged in his seals. "Sure. Here." He passed over a thick sheaf of papers.

Mari flicked through them, crossreferencing certain sections.

"Kagome," she said slowly. "Some of this is notes for upcoming Icha Icha novels."

"...It is?"

"Mm-hm."

"...Oh." The man shrank in on himself.

"On the other hand, some of it isn't," she said. "The list of agents you mentioned seems to be real." She stopped talking, frowning as she skimmed. "I have no idea what this is."

Kagome-sensei craned his neck so he could see what she was reading. "Oh, that's the training instructions for all the chakra natures."

Mari looked at him in surprise. "What?"

Kagome-sensei reached over and took the papers back from here, leafing through and pulling off the top five sheets. "Yeah, these are study guides for acquiring the five elemental chakra natures." He glanced down at the top sheet for a moment, nodding appreciatively as he read. "Good job, too. Way better than the tangled-up mess they taught in...in Cloud." He stopped and took a breath, centering himself as though he'd just climbed out of an icy bath, then shook his head and continued. "The teachers there maundered on about 'universal connections', and 'feel the nature of the storm', and 'oneness of the spirit'." His tone had gotten steadily more contemptuous as he did the list; at the end he snorted in disgust. "Jiraiya-stinker was arrogant and boasty and arrogant and self-important and arrogant, but the man could write."

"Cool," Hazō said. "That should make a good donation. Anything else of interest?"

Kagome-sensei shuffled through the stack a little. "Let's see...drafts of blurbs for the last five Icha Icha novels, no help there..." He tossed the pages aside, allowing them to flutter to the floor. "Self-flagellation about various missions and failures and whatever, nope..." Toss, flutter. "Name, location, and description of the son of the head of the Green Dragon Yakuza's unmarried daughter..." Toss, flutter. "Name of the guy who supplies Vermillion Sigh to one of Wind Country's Daimyo's Viceroys...hm, not useful...oh, here's one! There's a trade confederation specifically organized around supplying squirrel-based meat treats for the Inuzuka ninken." He shook the paper at Hazō. "Squirrel-based! They're killing cute little squirrels!"

"Sensei, I think—" Hazō broke off as the knocker on the front door of their quarters banged. He glanced around to see if anyone knew what it might be.

"I'll get it," Akane said, standing up and heading out of the room. She was back moments later with a folded piece of paper and a small smile.

"That was Haru," she said. "He's interested in being adopted."

o-o-o-o​

9pm, February 27, 1069 AS

"You sent for us, Lord Hokage?" Hazō said, bracing to attention. Kagome-sensei belatedly and sloppily copied him, although the effect was ruined by the way he kept looking around for potential assassins, lupchanzen, and/or suddenly appearing demonic invasions.

Asuma waved them to the comfortably-stuffed chairs that were positioned in front of his desk. "Please, please. None of that—at least, not when we're in private. It gets very wearing. Have a seat."

Hazō sat down. Kagome-sensei inspected the chair minutely, including getting down on hands and knees to look for lupchanzen dispensers on the underside. Asuma watched in patient bemusement.

Once Kagome-sensei was satisfied with the underside he stood up and poked dubiously at the seat (either to test the firmness or to verify that it would not transform into a person-eating gelatinous monster) and then grumpily settled himself and wiggled around a bit until he was comfortable.

"Your timing was really good, sir," Hazō said, once his teacher was no longer being distracting. "When your messenger showed up, I was actually about to leave to ask for an audience. I have some things to turn in for the Gōketsu contribution to the contest." He leaned forward so he could place a thick leather-wrapped stack of papers on the Hokage's desk.

Asuma's eyebrows went up as he looked at the stack. "Would there perchance be seals in there?"

"Uh...yes sir. There's one that we call the Poor Man's Yellow Flash—it's a time-delayed storage seal that's good for dispensing a Substitution target where you need it. Then there's one called a 'macerator'. It's a storage scroll variant with the stress limiters removed and the ejection velocity linearized and amplified. It chews up whatever you put in it, then shoots it out really fast." He fidgeted a bit. "There...may be some others coming. We're still debating on some things." He eyed Asuma's calm face nervously, then hurried to say, "It's just...we're a new clan. We want to support the Will of Fire and we're offering up as much as we can, but we also feel the need to keep a few things back, since we know other clans will, and I hope that's okay. There was some debate about whether I should tell you this or just not say anything and I hope I'm not—"

Asuma chuckled and raised a hand to cut off the flow of words. "It's fine, Hazō. Based on the size of this stack it looks like you're the largest contribution I've received so far."

Hazō digested that. "Other people have turned stuff in already?"

"Indeed. One moment, if you would." He riffled through some of the papers stacked on his desk and produced an envelope. "Shikamaru told me to read this if and when you showed up to contribute offensive seals." He broke the wax seal, unfolded the paper, and skimmed through. When he got to the end, he began laughing.

"To: Lord Hokage," he read aloud. "From: Lord Nara Shikamaru. Your Lordship, it is with honor and respect for the Will of Fire that I enclose the following: The macerator seal that I included with my clan's contribution was, to the best of my knowledge, created by the Gōketsu. The Nara reverse-engineered it after seeing it used in a sparring session before the Chūnin Exams. I did not mention this with the original submission because I was uncertain whether the Gōketsu intended to retain it as a clan secret or not. If you are reading this then they have joined with the Will of Fire and shared the design. In such case, I withdraw the seal from the Nara contribution and request that credit for it be given to the Gōketsu. Yours in respect and obedience, Lord Nara Shikamaru."

Hazō fulminated, but Kagome-sensei nodded. "Good man."

"Good man?" Hazō demanded, disbelieving. "Sensei, he stole our design and would have taken credit for it!"

Kagome-sensei shrugged. "And? He didn't take the credit and demanded that it be given to us."

"But he stole it from us!"

His teacher gave him a baffled look. "I mean...duh? Ninja, right?"

"But—" Hazō cut himself off and took a deep breath, then turned back to Asuma. "Right. There's a few seals and a bunch of jutsu in there. There's also some abstract ideas we had for new technologies or organizational items, and a lot of stuff that we decoded from the very extensive notes that Jiraiya left us. We're working through it, decoding as much as we can, and we'll keep submitting more of it as we break the codes. There's an index in the front, but it includes, among other things, detailed and comprehensible training instructions for all five chakra elements, plus some deep-theory work on sealcrafting."

"Excellent," Asuma said, breaking out in a pleased smile. "That will go very well with the Leaf Private Library that the Nara are funding."

"The what now?"

"I'm sure you remember the Leaf Public Library, site of our very exciting conversation about the printing press." Asuma was trying and failing to keep his face straight; Hazō felt his own heating up as he remembered the fit of foolish anger that had caused him to attack the jōnin son of the Third Hokage.

Asuma took a drag on his cigarette then looked up and blew a perfect smoke ring, probably-not-coincidentally giving Hazō a moment to gather his composure.

"The Nara are building a bespoke Leaf Private Library. Very high security, but open to any Leaf ninja in good standing. The goal is to make it include every non-classified jutsu and seal known to Leaf. They've invented a...card catalogue, he called it, and a numerical classification system for items stored in the library. There's also flow charts that allow a ninja to determine what jutsu would be most effective to study in order to fill holes in their skill sets, where the chart ends with the catalogue number for the jutsu that the person should learn."

Hazō leaned forward. "Actually, one of our contributions is the idea of pre-set, battle-tested jutsu lists. For example, the 'Noburi' package." (Hazō's brother had been very clear on the name, especially after the alternate 'Soggy and Dangly' had been floated.) "Water Whip for close- and mid-range combat. Hōzuki's Mantle for defense and combat amplification. Syrup Trap for battlefield control. Water Dragon Bullet for multi-combatant situations."

Asuma nodded, pleased. "Interesting. Yes, that will make a nice complement to the Nara flow charts and the personalized advisors they are training."

He set the stack of Gōketsu papers aside and leaned forward on his elbows.

"If I may shift topics for a moment, I'd like to discuss why I called you here." His eye shifted to the senior ninja across from him. "Kagome, Leaf needs your talents on a mission. Hazō, you are here in your capacity as Kagome's teammate and Clan Head in order to advise us on what support he will need."

Kagome-sensei glared at the absolute dictator of his nation. "You're sending me on a suicide mission, aren't you, you stinker? You just want to get me killed, I can tell!"

Asuma ignored the comment with munificent grace and pulled out a map of the Elemental Nations. He turned it around and slid it across the desk so that Hazō and Kagome could see it clearly.

"I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Land of Grass," he said, tapping on one of the minor nations that formed a buffer between Fire and Earth. "There's a major ravine that runs from here in Rain"—he set his finger down just above and to the right of the final 'N' in the nation's name—"through Grass and into Fire, ending here." He slid his finger over and tapped it on the final 'S' in 'Hidden Grass Village', the words being long enough to stretch outside of the map's image of the territory that the eponymous village actually ruled. "The width and depth vary from place to place, but at every point it's an impassable barrier to civilian trade. Hence why there are three bridges, here, here, and here." He tapped three points, one inside Grass territory and two in Fire, then moved his finger back to the one in Grass. "Kagome, your skill with explosives is well known. I need this particular bridge to cease existing and not resume existing for a good long time. You're the man for the job."

Kagome-sensei frowned and gave Asuma five long seconds of narrow-eyed studying, then turned to Hazō.

"Is he making fun of me?" he demanded.

Hazō shook his head. "No, sensei. He's being completely serious."

Kagome-sensei thought about that for a moment, then gave Asuma several more seconds of narrow-eyed studying.

"Are you joking?" he demanded.

Asuma shook his head, a small smile at the corner of his mouth. "I do not joke about missions, Kagome."

"Hmph."

"Sir," Hazō said carefully, "I don't know the etiquette for a meeting like this. Is it permitted to ask questions?"

Asuma frowned in puzzlement. "Why wouldn't it be? If you don't understand the mission assignment, how are you supposed to succeed?"

Hazō hesitated, biting his lip. "Sir," he said carefully...and then paused, thinking. After a moment he continued, choosing his words carefully. "Sir, we are loyal ninja of the Leaf and we will obey any orders you give—"

"Unless they're stupid," Kagome-sensei said, sending a blast of terror down Hazō's spine. "Like, if you told me to kill Akane, or not do the dance before a sealing experiment, or—"

"Rest assured, I have no expectation of ever giving such orders," said Asuma. "Now, Hazō, why don't you assume you've laid enough groundwork to keep yourself out of trouble and simply get to the question."

Hazō cleared his throat nervously. "Right. Um. Sir, I understand that this information might be compartmentalized and we aren't in the compartment, but if you're able to tell us the purpose of the mission it might be useful for planning purposes."

Asuma hesitated only the briefest moment.

"You are obviously aware of the fact that ninja from Hidden Rock have been oh-so-graciously helping us rebuild—"

Kagome-sensei sniffed derisively. "Stinkers. Should splat 'em."

Asuma smiled. "Tempting as it is, Leaf does not need a war right now." He pointed back at the map. "As you know, we are allowing the so-helpful ninja from Rock to rent a strip of our land along the border between Grass and Fire. The only good thing about that situation is that the land is disjoint from the Earth Country, which complicates their logistics.

"They've found a solution to that. Our spies tell us that they are in negotiation with Grass. Grass will cede Earth a strip of land on the eastern border between Grass and Hot Springs. In exchange, Grass will receive some of the land that we are 'renting' to Rock. Grass will likely end up with more land than they currently have, and richer land too. Earth will once again be contiguous and it becomes much harder for us to interfere with them.

"On the other hand, if this bridge weren't there then the new land would be inaccessible to civilian traders living in the main body of Grass. There would be no easy way to bring the food and lumber back and the new land would be essentially worthless to Grass. If that happens within the next forty-eight hours then they likely won't sign the agreement with Rock and things will remain as they are." He leaned back and took a drag on his cigarette. "Like I said, I need that bridge to not exist.

"That's the easy part. Now for the hard part: Grass is an ally of Fire, and has a mutual defense treaty with the minor nations in its area. The ideal situation is that this all looks like an accident; in that case, there should be no diplomatic issues. More likely, they'll figure out that it was sabotage and suspect that it was us. In that case I would expect a bit of kunai-waving but no meaningful problems."

He paused and studied them carefully for a moment. "The worst case is that you are identified as Leaf ninja, or actually captured. That would at the very least cause Grass to break our alliance and force them into the arms of Rock. It could invoke the treaty and end up with ninja from all the nearby minor nations swarming through Fire, blowing up key infrastructure and generally causing havoc. Therefore, this mission must be completely stealth, and if you are identified then I will claim you were rogue actors. Please do not force me to do that."

Hazō and Kagome-sensei exchanged glances. Neither of them was willing to respond to that last point.

"Sir," Hazō said carefully, "couldn't they just rebuild it? I could do it in a few minutes with the Multiple Earth Wall jutsu, and I'm sure that the ninja from Earth Country have something as good or better."

Asuma shook his head. "The terrain isn't favorable for bridging. The canyon is wide and the sides are limestone, so a MEW bridge wouldn't have the anchoring it needs. This bridge is where it is because the canyon is at its narrowest and there happens to be a basalt upthrust there to provide solid support. It's possible that they can figure something out—a tunnel under the whole thing would be an option, but Shikamaru did an analysis that suggests such a thing would be unattractive to the Grass leadership. Regardless, if they do find an alternative we'll deal with it when it happens."

The two Gōketsu ninja thought about that for a moment.

"Can you tell us about the terrain, sir?"

"The canyon is about eighty feet deep at this point, and at least fifty feet wide. Cover in the immediate area is minimal, but the forest starts only a half mile or so away, so you should have little trouble with your approach. The bridge is stone, and solid; a foot or two thick thick and wide enough to take a wagon easily, if I recall correctly and there have been no changes."

"What resources do we have, sir?"

Asuma shrugged. "Pretty much whatever you need, within reason. I'll send Snake and Hawk to provide physical security. If you need anything or anyone else, say so. Try to keep the party small, if possible."

"Yes sir. How much time do we have to plan?"

"I need the mission to succeed, which means I'm not going to rush you out the door. That said, sooner would be better. You need to leave absolutely not later than tomorrow noon, and I'll need time to put together what you need."

Hazō nodded. "Yes, sir. I'll have a plan on your desk in two hours."

"Excellent. Unless there's something else, you're dismissed."

---

XP AWARD: 5

Brevity XP: 1

It is now about 9:30pm.

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, January 8, 2019, at 12pm London time.

 

[Velorien]

Chapter 317: In Which Many Things Do Not Bode Well​

The first thing Hazō noticed was an absence of both Keiko and Tenten in Shikamaru's office, which did not bode well both because it signified a lack of Keiko and because for the last couple of months Keiko had been keeping Shikamaru sane, and Tenten had been keeping Keiko sane. The second thing he noticed was that the bags under Shikamaru's eyes were slightly smaller than usual, perhaps by a few millimetres, which boded considerably better, unless it was a sign that Shikamaru had gone insane and no longer cared. The third was the mess—while Shikamaru's office invariably looked like it had been hit by a sealing failure, albeit one that left the chaos in distinct stacks of paper, this one was worrying even by his standards. Overall boding, therefore, came down on "vaguely ominous".

Shikamaru looked up from an eye-watering list of figures, with an expression of either disappointment or relief at the distraction from his work. It could be hard to tell the two apart where Shikamaru was concerned.

"What business are you about to inflict upon me, esteemed brother-in-law?"

"Actually," Hazō said, "I was looking for Keiko. I was hoping to get her help preparing for a mission."

"Ah," Shikamaru said slowly. "I'm afraid that Keiko is no longer with us."

Hazō froze. The images flashed through his mind. Keiko, reeling from Snowflake's litany of abuse. Keiko kneeling. Keiko's hollow stare when he came to talk to her in the bedroom, and the fact that none of the Gōketsu had seen her since.

But also Keiko's promise to herself. Hazō had faith in his sister, probably more than she'd ever be able to accept.

"What is she doing, Shikamaru?" Hazō asked with frustration, only just stopping himself from lashing out at Shikamaru for what was, ultimately, Hazō's own interpretation of ambiguous wording.

"I apologise for being unclear," Shikamaru said. "I meant to inform you that she has left the village."

Was he doing this deliberately? There were some things Hazō was not comfortable hearing about the girl who'd once run away to another dimension to escape the consequences of an unintended revelation about her feelings.

"For what purpose did she leave the village, Shikamaru?"

Shikamaru sighed and slid a slip of paper across the desk. Hazō picked it up.

"I'll bring you back a souvenir ^_^"

"Ami instructed me to give you this if you reached the correct question with sufficient alacrity."

The promise of a souvenir did little to calm Hazō's building wrath, especially a souvenir chosen by Ami, which could be anything from exotic chocolate to a live flying squid named Madoka. (Though this was coming from the man who'd given her a stuffed octocat as a random present.)

"Shikamaru," Hazō said with forced patience, "the next time you lie to me on Ami's instructions, I will turn the full power of my creativity in your general direction, and I promise you that you will not enjoy it."

Shikamaru swallowed. "I knew from the moment I first caught Ami's interest that I was headed for the abyss of ruin. At least now I have Keiko to inherit the clan."

"Never mind," Hazō said. "I'll accept that a normal human being can only accept so much responsibility for Acts of Ami. Right now, you still haven't answered the question."

"She is out hunting the Condor Summoner," Shikamaru said matter-of-factly.

Another mark against boding well. Hazō had been wondering when the pangolins would finally get round to giving her a mission. And when they would end up sending her against the much more experienced summoner of an avian clan. At Nagi Island, less than a dozen people had leveraged air superiority to nearly wipe out the greatest army ever made. If it hadn't been for skywalkers, there wouldn't even have been a battle at all.

That was setting aside the fact that his sister was currently one of the most wanted people in the Elemental Nations thanks to the Pangolin War and its revelations about Gōketsu capabilities.

"Tell me she's bringing half of Leaf with her," Hazō said.

"Both of the other coordinators, as well as a KEI escort. The Hokage signed off on letting Naruto out of the village, which tells me that he is taking the mission with the seriousness it is due. Ami, meanwhile, is not a combat specialist, but she is nevertheless a jōnin, and terrifyingly creative. Come to think of it, I really must find out what she has done to herself to make that possible, in case it can be applied to Nara productivity."

Shikamaru paused.

"On second thought, a full clan of proto-Amis would promptly take over the world for their own amusement, and given the kinds of activity that amuse her…"

"So she's going to hand over the Condor Scroll as part of the KEI contribution, rather than for the Gōketsu or Nara?" Hazō asked, forcibly blocking the image before the imaginary proto-Amis found some way to coordinate and take over his soul (or at least play for keeps against the horrors of the Out, with Hazō's own will as a civilian population caught in the middle).

"Indeed. She wishes to avoid a conflict of interest, the note said, as well as live up to the expectations of the ninja who have accepted her in a coordinating role despite her obvious unworthiness et cetera et cetera. Which, I will admit, is an effective move, insofar as having the coordinators take on a difficult and dangerous challenge purely for the sake of benefiting the KEI will cement individual loyalty in a way that bypasses the Hokage's more pragmatic-level efforts."

Hazō nodded. "And if the scroll is in their hands, they can extract additional concessions from the pangolins, to be handed over alongside it. Unless they just want to hand it over to a KEI ninja, which they're allowed to do because of those personal ownership rules Keiko once made very very clear to us."

Shikamaru shook his head. "If, at the last second, it becomes obvious that the donation of the scroll will not be enough to close the gap with other contenders, perhaps. I doubt it, however. What the KEI lacks in most respects, it compensates for with numbers, and many of those numbers are likely to have their own ideas to suggest, not to mention simple manpower superiority."

Hazō suppressed a groan.

"She's going to have three seats on the Clan Council," he said miserably. "One she's already wrangling out of the Hokage, one for Naruto as KEI coordinator, and now she's going to have one of her subordinates make a clan for the third. That's one seat for every month she's been here."

"Insofar as my beloved wife shares my global priorities," Shikamaru added, "a KEI policy that she has approved may well also find favour with me. Where Ino-Shika-Chō interests are not harmed, or where the KEI provides sufficient compensation for any harm dealt, that could be six votes. A fact worth reflecting on before making further threats."

Hazō reflected on this.

"Maybe I was too harsh. We both know that there is only one person to blame for all this, and in fact for pretty much everything other than Nagi Island and the Great Collapse. Frankly, we only have her word for it that she isn't the one who resurrected Orochimaru. Shikamaru, would you consider an alliance of convenience?"

"Unfortunately, the Nara and the KEI signed a formal armistice treaty at the time of the latter's formation, as a precondition for Keiko's present degree of independence. I think it would be injudicious to break it, and suffer unspecified diplomatic consequences, as well as Keiko's recently-honed death glare, unless there was a clear and present reason to do so."

"Fine," Hazō said. "Plan B, then. Shikamaru, could I ask you to help us optimise? There are certain clan secrets I'd like to leave out, but other than that, this is an official mission given by the Hokage. It's separate from any inter-clan competition."

"Very well," Shikamaru said. "I assume the Hokage chose the Gōketsu because he needs a minor country annihilated? Grass, presumably. Or either of Fang or Claw, as a weapons test that would also send a meaningful message to Hidden Rock. Bring whomever else you wish present for the discussion. I will be refreshing myself on the existential risk contingency files in the meantime."

-o-
​

XP will be awarded by @eaglejarl as appropriate.

-o-
​

What do you do?

Voting closes on Saturday 10th of January, 9 a.m. New York Time.

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 318: Bombs and Secrets​

"Okay," Hazō said, once everyone was settled and tea had been poured. "Here's the deal: This bridge"—he tapped his finger on the map—"needs to not exist and not be easily rebuildable. The canyon is eighty feet deep, fifty feet wide, and made out of limestone, meaning there's no good anchors for MEW or other jutsu-related bridging techniques. The only reason the bridge is there is because there's a basalt upthrust that provides support for the bridge. We'll need to delete the bridge and the upthrust. The terrain in that area is relatively flat and mostly lacking in cover around the bridge; it's probably been cleared, since there's forest half a mile away.

"Kagome-sensei, you're on this mission because you're Leaf's premiere expert on explosives"—he paused to let Kagome-sensei preen for a moment—"so really this meeting is to help you. Obviously, if you can get in close to the bridge you're the best choice to know how to make it go away. That said, I'm afraid of losing you and I pretty much assume the bridge is guarded, so I'd like to propose some alternatives."

"Alternatives are good. Not getting splatted by guards is good, so yes, definitely do the alternatives."

Hazō's chuckle was more a twitch of the lips than an actual sound, but the fact that Shikamaru echoed it suggested that the amusement was shared.

"First option is the one we don't like: Kagome-sensei and the strike team sneak under the bridge and place charges. On the one hand, it's guaranteed effective at destroying the bridge. On the other hand, it's got the highest chance of you being caught. In my opinion this should be the last choice.

"Second option: The Aburame. Before going into this: Shikamaru, do you know what their attitude is towards their insects? If they're high value and can't be risked then this idea is dead in the water."

Shikamaru nodded. "Interesting, but likely unworkable. Yes, they regard their insects as expendable so long as a breeding group is retained and the effectiveness of the host is not unnecessarily compromised. Regardless, their insects would not be strong enough to carry explosives to the target, and they definitely would not have the skill to place them for maximally effective destruction. Plus, if they were noticed there would be no way for the host to be aware of that fact and it would be proof positive of Leaf's involvement. What is your next idea?"

Hazō nodded; that wasn't much of a surprise. "Okay, third option: Fuck subtlety. The Hokage said that he'd give us enough skywalkers for thirty minutes for four people. You walk into the attack zone a mile in the air and drop big rocks on the area until the bridge is gone, then you scram."

Kagome-sensei grinned. "I like that one, but I've tried it and it's really hard to hit anything." He thought about it and shrugged. "Still, drop enough rocks and we'll probably manage it. Especially with MEW bombs."

Hazō cocked his head and frowned. "With what?"

"Storage seal only takes a couple hundred pounds," Kagome-sensei reminded him. "That's a chunk of granite about a foot on a side, maybe a little more. When we played around with those down on the southern islands I found that if I dropped it from low enough for accuracy then it did less damage than an explosive tag wrapped around a pebble. If I dropped it from higher up then it would do massive damage, but I couldn't hit anything. Still, the damage scales up. If you use Multiple Earth Wall on something that isn't earth then it's just a construct and it dissolves in thirty seconds or so but, for those thirty seconds, it's completely the same as granite. When you use it you can make cubes...what, three feet on a side?"

"A little more, but yeah. And those would do massive damage...enough that accuracy wouldn't be as important." He thought about that. "Plus, if we managed to do it in one shot then it could look like an act of angry sky kami."

"Not really," Shikamaru noted. "Besides, Asuma's information leak will ensure that it does not."

Hazō blinked. "Asuma's what now?"

Shikamaru frowned, then glanced at Kagome-sensei and nodded in realization. "Apologies. It is conceivable, albeit unlikely, that it would be viewed as an act of supernatural displeasure. Even if our enemies were foolish enough to believe that, their belief is not to Asuma's maximal advantage and therefore he will arrange an 'information breach' to ensure that they discover it was Leaf."

He held up a hand to preemptively cut Kagome-sensei off before the man could interrupt to demand explication. "Rock has effectively extorted land from Leaf, but that land is disjoint from their main nation. They are bargaining with Grass to fix that. The deal amounts to Grass giving some of their land in the east to Rock and receiving in exchange some of what is currently Fire. Effectively, they would shift from an east/west rectangle into a right angle matching the northwest corner of a square; their east/west extent shortens but it is more than made up for by the addition of a north/south leg reaching down into Fire. The value of that part of Fire is dependent on the bridge to enable civilian transport of goods from the new land to the old. If the bridge is destroyed then the value of the land is drastically reduced and the negotiations fail. Everyone will know that it was sabotage by Leaf, but so long as they cannot prove it there will be no casus belli.

"The destruction serves more than one purpose. It cancels the negotiations but it also conveys a message regarding Leaf's power. If the destruction is accomplished through use of explosives planted on the bridge then we are boasting of our stealth. If it is undermined and collapsed as a result of tunneling jutsu we are boasting that we can compete with Rock on their own ground.

"On the other hand, if the bridge is destroyed in the manner suggested, what then? Suppose any guards onsite are killed in the attack. When the event is discovered, Grass will find that the land in the area is devastated, but there is no evidence of how—after all, the Multiple Earth Wall that caused the damage was a construct and will have dissolved. Grass will naturally conclude that Leaf has some incredibly powerful jutsu that can cause massive impact craters yet leaves no evidence of a projectile. What is the nature of this attack? What are its limitations? Can it be deployed easily and frequently? The unknown is always far more frightening than the known.

"On the other hand, it is unlikely that all guards will be killed in the initial attack, and if they are not then they will flee to a safe distance. What do they see? What appears to be a massive Earth Bullet from the sky—or, better, a dozen of them. What do our enemies think of this event? Clearly, we have not only an enormously scaled-up version of an already powerful jutsu, we also have someone with the chakra reserves to use it multiple times in quick succession...or multiple people each able to use it once.

"Most likely, such a jutsu would require massive reserves, meaning that the user is likely an Earth-natured S-rank ninja that we are willing to field-deploy. Who might that be? The Third had all five natures but he was known for skill, not reserves, and is dead. Jiraiya had all five natures and large reserves but is also dead. Tsunade is a medic and not renowned as an Earth user. Naruto has effectively unlimited reserves but is not known to have the Earth nature. That leaves two options: Orochimaru or someone unknown.

"Orochimaru should be a blank to modern intelligence agencies. He has been completely off the map for a generation and no one will be sure of his capabilities. The legends of the Sannin are just that: legends, and therefore untrustworthy. He is the most likely source of this attack, but that means that he is willing to be field-deployed on the Hokage's orders. This will change strategic calculations of every nation in the Elemental Nations and make Rock much less willing to press us.

"Alternatively, perhaps we have an S-rank ninja that no one knows about. Unlikely, but conceivable. We might have rescued and turned one of the jinchūriki believed to have been killed at Nagi Island. Alternatively, perhaps Uchiha Itachi has returned to the fold; after all, we have been shown to offer citizenship to missing-nin on two occasions now—yourselves and Orochimaru—so would it be surprising that we would accept Uchiha? To my knowledge, he never demonstrated the Earth nature before going missing, but it's been long enough that he might have acquired it.

"Finally, what might be the worst possible option from the perspective of a foreign nation: It was not a single S-rank ninja. No, somehow our jutsu researchers found a way to drastically reduce the cost of the Earth Bullet, to the point where it can be used to create vastly larger projectiles for a cost that can be paid by...jōnin? Chūnin?" He placed a hand on his heart in supposed shock. "What if it could be used by genin? When a Leaf ninja is next engaged in the field, will they be able to repeatedly make attacks of such devastation?"

He dropped the pretence of fear and shook his head. "No, I feel that this is your optimal strategy and in order to reap maximal benefits, Asuma will ensure an information leak such that other nations are aware, but still unable to conclusively prove, that Leaf is responsible." He chewed on his cheek for a moment, his face as sour as though he'd bitten a lemon. "I confess that I had not thought of this methodology."

Hazō's eyebrows shot up. "What?"

Shikamaru glowered at him. "I feel no need to repeat myself. Now, is there anything more? I am quite busy."

Hazō grinned and spent a moment debating with himself whether the satisfaction of mocking his supposedly-brilliant brother-in-law would be worth the knowledge of his own immaturity.

"Huh. So, your mom had a fling?"

Hazō winced and glanced at Kagome-sensei, who was leaning forward and studying Shikamaru like a curious Aburame might study an interesting new bug.

"What?" Kagome-sensei asked, catching Hazō's horrified expression. "I thought he liked that whole skipping steps thing?"

"Sensei..." He trailed off, mind completely blank on how to respond.

"I mean, isn't he supposed to be this super genius, always one step ahead of everyone else? I thought of this and everyone thinks I'm a crazy idiot."

"No one thinks that, sensei," Hazō said, hurrying to do damage control. "It's just—"

Kagome-sensei waved him off. "It's fine. I'm used to it. 'Oh, Kagome's so crazy' they say. 'Paranoid freak', they say. 'What an idiot, can't even ask a girl out without sounding like an idiot' or 'Let's pretend to be his friends and then get him drunk and dump him in the girls' bathhouse; he'll never expect it because he's so stooopid.'" He sniffed. "At least I'm not stupid enough to miss something this obvious."

Hazō glanced from a smug Kagome-sensei to an utterly stone-faced Shikamaru. "In fairness, sensei, you've had a lot more time to think about skywalkers and MEW than Shikamaru has." He turned to his brother-in-law. "Shikamaru, I'm sorry. Kagome-sensei didn't mean to say that you were stupid, or illegitimate."

"I only meant that he's dumber than he's supposed to be," Kagome-sensei said, not at all helpfully. "So, either that whole Nara bloodline thing isn't all it's cracked up to be or else he isn't really a Nara." He gestured towards Shikamaru. "Look at him. His supposed dad's face was longer than his, and his nose was bigger. Maybe—"

Recognizing an unsalvageable situation, Hazō grabbed Kagome-sensei by the arm and hoisted him to his feet, practically shoving him out of the room. "Thank you for your help, Shikamaru, we need to be going!" he called over his shoulder.

o-o-o-o​

"Oh, hey, we should probably talk to Asuma about the spy stuff before he kills us all."

Ten minutes. Was it really so unreasonable that the universe offer Hazō a ten-minute respite between crises? They weren't even halfway back to Command Central. He blew out a deep breath and then inhaled slowly. Inhale calm and peace, exhale stress and panic.

"And why, exactly, might the Hokage want to kill us?"

Kagome-sensei was busy rummaging a trail bar out of his pockets and tearing the waxed paper off of it. Hazō waited impatiently, knowing better than to come between his teacher and food. It only led to longer delays before they could actually get back to the topic, and to hungry-grouchy Kagome-sensei.

"If Jiraifa's nof'," the older man said around an impolitely large mouthful of honeyed granola. He paused to chew for a moment, then swallowed. "You know how we talked about Leaf's intelligence stuff taking a big hit in the Collapse and that's why you turned in all the spy stuff I had decoded? Well, there's a lot more of it. That got me thinking; all this stuff is Jiraiya's portable office, right? I mean, he turns in reports to the Hokage but keeps a copy for his own reference when he's out in the field, or even just working from home."

"Okay..."

"Well—" He paused to take another bite and noisily masticate it to destruction with his mouth open. At least he swallowed before continuing. "The Tower and the Academy both got stomped in the Collapse, right? So all the intelligence reports that were stored there are gone. That probably includes a lot of the details of who their spies were, how to control them, that kind of stuff. That means that what we have might be the only copy in existence. If I were Asuma, I'd be pretty grumpy with anyone who hadn't turned in a major strategic advantage like that. Sure, we gave him some of it but we've got more." The third and final bite got processed; he folded the waxed paper and tucked it back in his pocket. "Won't he want copies so that he can have other people decoding it? We didn't give him copies. And there's a bunch of other stuff we didn't give him."

Hazō hesitated. "Is it easy to tell the spy stuff from the other stuff?"

Kagome-sensei shook his head. "It's all mixed together—story ideas, spy stuff, seal theory, seal designs, random journal entries, blah blah blah I'm so clever because I'm Jiraiya-stinker and I don't need any sensible kind of organization." He sniffed disapprovingly. "The papers all have key phrases across the top-left corner so it would have been easy to find something when you were riffling through a stack. The phrases don't make any sense to me—I think they're probably references from his past that he used as mnemonics, so they're not going to be interpretable by anyone else." He thought for a moment. "Well, I suppose you could ask Punchy Lady. Still, it's been ages since they worked together so I'd be surprised if she could make anything out of it."

"Got it. That means that we've got a ton of stuff that might be intelligence data which should be shared with the Tower, but it's all mixed in with stuff that should be clan secrets. There's no way for Asuma to take one without taking the other." He thought for a moment. "He wouldn't have known that we had the stuff until I turned over the first batch, and I told him that we were decoding it as quickly as we could. I guess he's giving us the benefit of the doubt?"

Kagome-sensei sniffed again, this time in magnificent disapproval of the concept that the real world might be isomorphic to a hypothetical world in which Leaf's Hokage-stinker would be doing something nice for the Gōketsu.

"We can mention it when we turn in the mission plan," Hazō said. "You're cool with the MEW bombing, right?"

"Are you kidding? You're asking if I want to be there when we drop ginormous rocks from the sky that make all those foreign stinkers poop themselves?"

"Right. Stupid question."

o-o-o-o​

"That was even quicker than promised," Asuma said as Hazō and Kagome-sensei were ushered into the room. "Please, have a seat." He indicated the chairs opposite him, then picked up the steaming pot of tea on the desk to his right and fished three cups out of a drawer. He poured all three full and set them on his desk before gesturing invitation. Hazō took the one closest to him; Kagome-sensei eyed the options with narrow-eyed distrust.

Asuma picked up both cups, took a sip from each, and set them down again. Hazō nudged his teacher nervously until the sealmaster grumpily chose one and skooched it closer to himself, touching it only with the sleeve of his shirt.

Asuma sat back in his chair, rolling the third teacup between his palms and inhaling the fragrant steam that rose from it.

"So," he said after a moment, "you have a plan for me?"

"Yes, sir. We talked to Shikamaru and went through multiple options. He approved Kagome-sensei's suggestion and said it was the optimal choice: We use skywalkers to approach at a great height, then use Multiple Earth Wall to drop large rocks on the bridge and everything around it." Quickly, he laid out the chain of conclusions that Shikamaru had drawn for them.

"Interesting," Asuma said, nodding. He took a sip of his tea. "MEW needs to be performed on a surface, but I assume you can simply hold up a board."

"That was my thought, sir."

"Hm." He thought for several seconds. "All right. I can find someone who possesses the Multiple Earth Wall jutsu. Kagome, there's no need for you to go, so I'll let you get back to what you were doing."

"Hey! That's not—"

"Excuse me, sir," Hazō said quickly, clamping a hand on Kagome-sensei's arm. "Kagome-sensei expressed interest in going along in order to review the effectiveness of the technique."

Asuma raised an eyebrow. "Kagome, you are needed here to scribe skywalkers and decode Jiraiya's notes."

"But...explosions!"

Hazō gritted his teeth. "Sir..." He broke off, trying to think of a convincing reason that Asuma should let a valuable asset out of the village on a mission he didn't need to be on. "I think it might be useful to let Kagome-sensei go. He's been working flat-out and could really use a break. It's only going to be a day or two, right?"

"Yeah, that's it!" Kagome-sensei nodded furiously. "I'm really tired!" He drooped in his chair. "So tired! Definitely need to take some time off. Maybe a couple days. Definitely can't be doing anything useful. Because I'm tired."

The Hokage's lip twitched in amusement. "Well, if you're that tired then I suppose it wouldn't be fair for me to ask you to run for hours on end...."

"Nonono, I'm not that tired! Uh...I mean, not physically tired! My brain is tired. That's it. I definitely need to get out, go for a run in the fresh air." He pumped his arms as though jogging and gave Asuma a hopeful look. "Short run in the fresh air. Just what I need."

Asuma snorted and shook his head in amusement. "Fine. This plan means you're unlikely to have enemy contact, so I'll allow it. You, Snake, Cat, Hawk, and a jōnin who possesses Multiple Earth Wall. We haven't built up a sufficient stock of skywalkers that I'm comfortable authorizing you to travel in the air the whole way, so you'll need to go out and come back on the ground, taking to the air only when you're near the target. Kagome, you will stay in the middle of the group at all times. If you encounter any resistance you are to activate your skywalkers, disengage, and return immediately to Leaf. The other members of the team shall be considered expendable. Understood?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Repeat it back, please."

"We go out and come back on the ground. I stay in the middle of the group and if there's anything dangerous then I run away on my skywalkers like a scared little girl and leave all those ANBU stinkers to die horrible screaming deaths."

"That...is not quite how I would phrase it to your escort, but you understand the parameters."

"Sir, I wonder if it might make sense to send Akane along? She's a strong fighter and"—his eyes flicked to Kagome-sensei and he hesitated for an instant, trying to find the appropriate wording—"she's trustworthy and a reassuring presence."

Asuma cocked his head, considering the words, then nodded as he caught the subtext: She will keep Kagome from freaking out and/or saying the wrong thing to his escort. "That sounds sensible. She performed quite well in the Exams; I'd like her to get a bit more field experience before promoting her, and this seems like an excellent opportunity. I'll add her to the roster."

"Thank you, sir." Hazō took a deep breath and sat up a little straighter. "If I may, there's one other thing I'd like to discuss. It relates to Jiraiya's notes."

Asuma leaned back in his chair, sipping from his cup so that the lower half of his face was masked. "Hmm?"

"Sir, I gave you all the intelligence-related elements of the notes that we found so far, but there's a lot more of it and it's all mixed together with stuff that should be Gōketsu property."

"Such as?"

Kagome-sensei started counting on his fingers. "Jiraiya-stinker's Lightning Lash technique, Swamp of the Underworld, love letters, the start of three separate romance novels built off those love letters, a bunch of blackmail stuff on people here in—Yow!" He glared at Hazō, whose grip on his arm had gotten tight enough to grind the bones together.

"There's a wide variety, sir, and it's not organized in any way that we've been able to figure out, so there's no way to know what a given page references until it's been decoded. I understand the importance of this material and I fully intend to turn over everything related to intelligence work. I also expect that I'll be using some of the jutsu, seals, and other things as part of the Gōketsu contribution to your contest, but I'd like to be able to choose what we hand over."

The Hokage's eyes locked onto Hazō's.

The room seemed to expand around them, everything becoming blurry except for the brown eyes in which danced and flickered subtle hints of fire. Fire in both its life-giving and all-destroying aspects; its heat was measured and contained, yet the implied devastation left Hazō sweating and pale.

Asuma's gaze shifted back to his teacup and the spell was broken. He took a final sip and placed the cup back on the table, sitting up straight and studying the teenage Clan Head across from him.

"The Gōketsu are a loyal clan," he said calmly. "I feel confident that you will hand over all information of strategic importance to Leaf as soon as you find it, and therefore I would not dream of asking you to surrender these notes."

Hazō swallowed nervously. "Thank you, sir."

"Was there anything else?"

"Um...yes sir. With Keiko off looking for the Condor Summoning Scroll, I thought perhaps this would be a good time for the Gōketsu to go after one of the others. I was wondering if you would be willing to ask the Monkeys for any information they have related to scrolls that either have no summoner or, um...a summoner that we don't particularly care about. If you take my meaning."

One eyebrow went up. "You are discussing assassinating a Summoner merely to claim their power? That seems a bit out of character for you, Hazō."

The words were spoken calmly, yet they resonated through Hazō's mind and he found himself suddenly watching from somewhere metaphorically behind his own eyes.

Was this idea in fact out of character? The rest of the family had been worried that he was being influenced by the Out, but he didntt feel that way. Everything seemed perfectly n0rmal, and his thoughts were no stranger than they ever were. Capturing a Summoning Scroll was a perfectly sensible thing to do to do to do; it would render the Gōketsu significantly more powerful and they could use that power to help people. Loook at how much the Pangonls hda acomp!shed; their space-warping shells had strengthened those items that Hazō cared most about, their ability to clear land had allowed the Gōketsu to provide comfort loci for all the entitites that Hazō had chosen to identify with, and their provision of matter had enabled much of the clan's monetarily-necessitated interactions.

He blinked, forcing himself forward within his own self so that he was looking out from his eyes instead of from behind them.

"For now, it's intended as a scouting mission, sir. We would locate the Summoner and identify opportunities; would it be possible to steal the Scroll? Could we perhaps buy it from them? Are they looking to pass it on—perhaps they are on bad terms with their Summon Clan and want to get out from under."

"Hm. You realize those are unlikely scenarios, yes?"

"Yes, sir. Still, I'm willing to make the effort. And another scroll would greatly boost Leaf's power."

"True...both in absolute terms and by reducing the power of whichever nation had its Summoner." He thought about that. "It's late on the Seventh Path, but I'll talk to Enma when he wakes up. Offhand, I can think of five possibilities: The Condor Scroll, which your sister is already after, the Capybara scroll, the Otter Scroll, the Porcupine Scroll, and the Kangaroo Scroll."

Hazō sat up, excited. "That's more than I had expected, sir."

"Well, don't run too fast. All of my information is out of date and uncertain. The Capybara Scroll was being sold some time ago but the sale was interrupted, so it's possible, but very unlikely, that it still doesn't have a Summoner.

"The Otters is probably the most secure lead. Five or six years ago, I sat in on a briefing in which Enma told Dad that the Turtles had raised the price of iron so much that the Otters were buying it from the Human Path by way of the Toads. That would imply they didn't have a Summoner of their own.

"The Porcupines...Enma makes it a point to stay in touch with the neighboring clans, which usually results in knowing their Summoners. At my twelfth birthday, Dad summoned Enma to tell stories at my party, and I remember him telling a very long and raunchy story in which he mentioned in passing that the Porcupine Summoner was quite old. If she's still the Summoner then she may be looking to retire.

"As to the Kangaroos, that's the least certain of all. Enma mentioned meeting the Kangaroo Summoner back about thirty years ago; at the time that was Yoshida Daichi of Cloud. I was Dad's part-time adjutant since before I graduated the Academy; I didn't see all the intelligence reports, but I saw a fair number of them, and I don't remember ever seeing a single current mention of Yoshida, nor any reference to the Kangaroos being summoned. It's weak evidence that he died and the Scroll is lying fallow, possibly lost in the wilderness somewhere."

"Thank you! That's a lot more than I expected to start with."

Asuma nodded but gestured a warning. "Don't read too much into it. Summoning is chakra-intensive and most Summoners are already S-rank ninja. There's a narrow range of battles in which it makes sense to use a Summon; it needs to be an opponent that you cannot defeat on your own, but the chakra cost of Summoning will not cause you to lose the fight. Furthermore, the older reports on Yoshida said that he was assassination-spec. Very stealthy, good at disguises, that kind of thing. It's possible that he's still out there but has changed his identity so as to confuse potential enemies, and has been avoiding using his Summons where they would be seen."

He shrugged. "I'll be honest, Hazō, this seems like a longshot to me. If you're doing it because you want to win a Scroll as part of your contribution for the contest, I would be surprised if you could locate one and capture it within two months. If that's your goal then your efforts would be more productively spent elsewhere. On the other hand, if you're doing this because you want power, fine. You're an adult and a Clan Head; you can choose how your resources are allocated, and so long as your decisions do not interfere with the needs of Leaf I won't stop you."

"Thank you, sir."

Asuma raised a finger. "To be clear: Until Jiraiya's notes are fully decoded and all intelligence-related parts have been turned over, I expect that to be the Gōketsu's top priority."

"But—!"

"Aside from the brief run in the fresh air that you're going to be taking, Kagome."

"Oh. That's fine then."

Asuma smiled at the older man, then turned back to Hazō.

"Before he died, Jiraiya mentioned that clarity was important to your family," the Hokage said, his fire-tinged eyes serious. "Given that, please forgive me if my words are a bit blunt: The Tower owns everything that Jiraiya knew about Leaf's intelligence service, its enemies, and any scrap of information that might have strategic or geopolitical relevance. I expect those to be turned over, in full, as soon as possible. Failure to do so would constitute high treason against Leaf; I have confidence in the honor of the Gōketsu and am therefore confident that you would never do such a thing intentionally. I simply mention it so as to avoid any oversights or confusion. I assume I have eliminated any possibility of such?"

Hazō swallowed. "Yes sir. Crystal clear."

"Excellent."

---

XP AWARD: 2

Brevity XP: 1

Author's Note: The plan called for checking things with the clan before going to Asuma with them. That was entirely reasonable and it's good that you did it. I skipped over it because it didn't fit well with the narrative structure and I knew that the answer was going to be "yup, that's fine." Don't worry, this is not a thing I would do if it was going to screw you.

Likewise, the plan asked about requisitioning flash seals and earthquake seals and etc. I chose to skip those because they weren't necessary for the plan that got chosen and Hazō felt that asking for unnecessary stuff, particularly seals, could look selfish. Similarly, he didn't talk about chakra beasts etc because it would have been a diversion from the "Rocks fall, Rock falls" plan and it was better to keep things focused.

It is now about 2pm. Hazō is technically still in Asuma's office, but it's clear that Asuma is looking to wrap it up. If there's anything else you want to ask, you can, but the expectation is that you're going to move on and the next update will start somewhere else.

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, January 15, 2019, at 12pm London time.

 

[Velorien]

Chapter 319: Forking Paths​

"I have been properly briefed on you now," Hyūga said coldly to Yuno as he gazed down at the cup in front of him disdainfully, as if it were an insufficient offering from a ritual summoner. "I should have been able to tell that you were a foreigner from those ridiculous allegations you were throwing at Gōketsu and myself."

As usual, everything was thanks to Akane. It was Akane who'd worded the invitation in a way that would get Hyūga to come even though he was a xenophobe (not that anyone outside Isan had any idea what xenophobia really was). It was Akane who'd led her to this café despite how busy she was. It was Akane who'd smiled and left them alone, with Hyūga in less of a foul mood than Yuno had expected given what she'd heard about their two clans. It made sense, of course. Nobody could really hate Akane. She'd even managed to find a café with no more than three window-side seats and a female proprietor who looked between thirty and forty years of age.

"What do you want from me?" Neji snapped.

"I just wanted to talk," Yuno said. "We didn't really get to last time, because of the asura attack." She'd have to apologise to Satsuko later, but Akane insisted that it was too early to formally introduce the two to each other.

"Fine," Hyūga said. "What do I want from you?"

"I've been thinking about you," Yuno said, "and about what Noburi and the others have to say about you." The way they'd sounded… they were well-meaning, trying to educate her about the dangers of this world. But she couldn't help thinking that this was also how the parents of Isan tried to educate their children about the dangers of Yuno.

Hyūga gritted his teeth. "Those filthy—"

"Hyūga," she interrupted. "I want to hear about you from you too."

Hyūga went quiet for a moment. "What?"

"I want to hear your side of the story," Yuno said gently. "I would never condemn someone without listening to what they had to say."

Hyūga stared at her as if she'd given Grandfather a gift in a black box.

"What does that even mean?" he demanded. "Do you expect me to try to justify myself in the face of their doubtless preposterous accusations?"

"Forget the allegations," Yuno said. "Forget about them."

Noburi sometimes felt like he could be her counterpart, light to darkness. Yuno wondered if Hyūga was someone like her instead, and if it would be better or worse if he was.

"You sound like the world is wrong," she said, "and you're the only one who's noticed."

"Well, yes," Hyūga said with a note of confusion in his voice. "You haven't even met Rock Lee. But what does that have to do with anything?"

"My world is wrong too," Yuno said. "The rules are supposed to be for everyone, but every time I try to follow them, I run into an exception. Even if I try to explain that, nobody will understand, because in their mind, everything is working fine, and the parts that hurt me are working as intended."

Hyūga frowned. He took a sip of his drink, winced when it was hotter than he expected, but didn't interrupt.

"People don't respect me, even if I don't make mistakes. They never give me the benefit of the doubt. It's like I'm an outsider in my own home, even if I try to do what everyone else is doing."

Hyūga took some time to respond.

"For a foreigner, you have a surprisingly astute grasp of human nature," he concluded. "It doesn't matter how much insight you have if no one is willing to listen. And while a comprehensive set of laws is necessary for human existence, that doesn't matter if they are the wrong laws. But what of it? The world is not going to change, and if you are here merely to deal in wishful thinking and hypotheticals, then I have an oversized scroll to study."

"I'm here because I want to find out what you're like," Yuno said. "You must have realised by now. I'm supposed to marry one of you, and it's not fair for me to only know Noburi."

"Hmph. If he is my sole competition, then I suppose I may as well start instructing you in the Leaf wedding rituals now."

Yuno beamed.

"It was a hypothetical!" Hyūga said urgently. "I never said…"

"Do you see now?" Yuno asked. "I have to marry one of you. And I'm not going to marry him just because it's the default option."

Hyūga rubbed the bridge of his nose. "A wonderful parting gift you've left me, Lord Hiashi. Either I marry a foreigner, or Gōketsu marries her because she has a mind disturbed enough to find him better."

"The world is a cruel joke," Yuno agreed, "fashioned to the twisted sense of humour of someone you want to find and disembowel so the rain of their blood and innards can wash away your tears even for a second. But I'm starting to think it might have its merits."

"I wonder if it would be easier to find this person with the Byakugan," Hyūga said abstractedly.

"I have wasted enough time here," he said an alarmed second later. "I have work to do. Much work. I will take my leave."

"See you again soon!" Yuno said brightly.

Hyūga walked away. Yuno watched him. In the back of her mind, she wondered whether the Byakugan was a property of the eyes or the chakra system, and whether the eyeballs would still be pale and lacking pupils if they were scooped out and left to drain.

"Neji."

"What?"

Hyūga looked slightly sideways as he spoke, not even looking over his shoulder, so the word was hard to make out.

"Hyūga Neji."

A second later, he disappeared into the terrifying amorphous beast that Leaf called a busy street.

-o-​

Hazō stared despondently at the familiar zeroes on the menu. He had a strong feeling they'd had many order-of-magnitude babies since his last visit, just to catch up with him getting clan head resources. He honestly couldn't tell whether Ino had picked this place a second time because the food was that good, because she enjoyed making his life difficult in subtle ways, or because she was making a point by bringing him to the café where she'd reamed him out for breaking Akane's heart. Stupid social experts and their social expertise.

"So what's the deal?" Ino asked, casually spinning a fork in a gesture of poor etiquette that would also allow her to launch it at his eyes without shifting her body weight. "Telling you up front: if you're here to bribe me for the big competition, go to Shika first. Weeding out stupid ideas before they get to the people who matter is in his job description. I pay him in cookies."

Shikamaru accepted cookies as payment. This information could be tactically useful somewhere down the line.

"I just wanted to unwind," Hazō said. "Things are crazy back at the estate, they're crazy here in the village proper, and I feel confident in saying that they're pretty crazy in the rest of the world as well. It would be nice to have a couple of hours with someone who has a sense of humour and can spare a little time to use it."

Ino took a few bites out of her flambéed rodent. "I suppose I can do that. Mind, you're still in the middle of paying back the karma for what you did to Akane. But on the other hand, she seems happy enough being your clanswoman now, so the jury's still out."

"What's a jury?" Hazō asked.

"Chakra catfish," Ino said. "So what did you want to talk to Leaf's best and most gorgeous about? Is it fashion? Because I should warn you, Lightning-style winter cheongsams are on the way out. Great status symbols while they were in—what with there only being the one crate imported—but nobody can fight weather, at least unless they have a certain rare ninjutsu you shamelessly spilled the beans about.

"You do really need to work on your colour coordination, Hazō. Red and green didn't work for Jiraiya, and it's not working for you. Hit me up some time if you want me to do you a favour and make you look less like Naruto's long-lost cousin."

"Duly noted," Hazō said, suddenly self-conscious about wearing an outfit that, until the last few seconds, he had imagined to have a timeless kind of quality, like the black pyjamas Academy trainees used for particularly cruel stealth training.

"Not fashion, then?" Ino asked briskly. "Then boys. Hey, is your brother still available?"

Hazō choked on his drink as if a condor had gone down his throat.

"Asking for a friend. Anyway, what's the deal with you and Ami?" Ino leaned forward hungrily, though without lowering the fork. "Star-crossed lovers? Battle buddies? Nemeses fated to battle each other lifetime after lifetime?"

"No idea," Hazō confessed. "I'm pretty sure we're not lovers, what with me not being dead of Keiko, I'm positive I'd remember if I had multiple lifetimes of Ami, and I don't think we've ever stood side by side, except maybe for Keiko. I think technically we might be siblings?"

"Your family tree sounds more like an octopus tied in a knot," Ino said approvingly. "If I could write, I would be halfway through Hōketsu Gazō and His Chamber of Secrets right now. If you end up marrying any of your siblings or technical siblings or siblings-in-law or Tenten—what? I'm not blind—I will be expecting a detailed report. Except if you marry Akane, in which case I will murder you because you've done enough to that poor girl who is too forgiving for her own good."

"I am not going to marry Akane," Hazō was about to say, but somehow the words stuck in his throat. At least the condor was going to be in good company.

"Changing the subject completely," Hazō said, "how have you been? In a non-fashion, non-boy way?"

The fork stopped spinning.

"Well," Ino said lightly, "I lost my father a couple of months ago, followed by my entire extended family, plus a bunch of financial assets and orally-taught ninjutsu which I could really do with in order to rebuild the clan I wasn't supposed to inherit for another decade or two, plus my technical not-sibling is going through the exact same thing and there's nothing I can do to help him because anything I can do for him, I should already be doing for the Yamanaka. Any further questions?"

"I'm sorry, Ino," Hazō stammered. "That isn't what I wanted to…"

Ino shook her head. "No, my bad. You wanted to unwind. And besides, things aren't that bad. Chōji and his dad are managing a whole bunch of cross-clan practicalities so we don't have to, and I've got Akane when I need her, and I can entrust Shika to Keiko, no problem. Girl's useful and adorable."

"Adorable?" Hazō said incredulously. There was exactly one person in the world who might conceivably describe Keiko as adorable, and that person was so biased in her own way that she made Hyūga look like a champion of social equality.

"I just want to take her home and put her on a shelf," Ino confided. "But my shelves aren't big enough to carry teenage girls—though I'm keeping the option open—so I guess Shika's bed is the next best thing."

She stopped to process her own words. The fork clattered onto the plate.

"Unthink, brain, unthink! Ahh, that's better. Hashirama's enormous wood, it's great to be a Yamanaka."

"Changing the subject completely again," Hazō said, "I was actually wondering about Leaf humour. I keep noticing a lack of sharks in casual conversation, and it's making me feel almost like I'm in another village."

"Leaf humour?" Ino asked. "All right. Here's a riddle for you. Three travellers are on a cart going down a forest path. They reach a clearing, and they see a sheep. The driver looks back and says, 'I'm not from around here. I'll buy a beer for whoever gives me the best advice on what to do with that sheep.

"The trader says, 'Great. Free sheep. Let's catch it and have ourselves meat for dinner tonight.'

"The farmer says, 'Are you crazy? You don't get a sheep wandering around in a forest on its own. It must be a chakra sheep. Take a detour.'

"And the ninja in disguise just smirks and starts doing hand seals. 'What sheep?'

"Now, Hōketsu Gazō, can you tell me what each one of them did wrong?"

Hazō glared at her for the nickname, which he had a horrible suspicion wasn't going away any time soon, and could only hope wasn't contagious. Then he began to think.

"Well," he said, "wild sheep are pack predators, right? So the trader's wrong for not being suspicious."

Ino nodded. "Civilian common sense. If you're in the wilderness and see anything, you run. If you don't see anything, that means it's too quiet, and you run."

"The farmer…" This one was harder. If it was a chakra sheep, then giving it a wide berth could only be a good idea. Unless staying away from the sheep made you vulnerable to something worse, or gave it time to build up more power, or the sheep was a sign that you were already under predator genjutsu and you had to confront the heart of the illusion in order to be able to escape before you were eaten…

"All right," Ino said, "I guess you don't have chakra sheep where you come from, so I'll make this a freebie. If you have line of sight to a chakra sheep, then a chakra sheep has line of sight to you, in which case it's already too late to run. You may as well act as if it's something you can survive which just happens to look like a sheep."

"That makes sense. We say the same thing about chakra chameleons. If one lets you see it, it's because it will no longer make a difference."

"I didn't realise they had chakra scorpions in Water," Ino said. "So what did the last one do wrong?"

"If there's no more sheep, then you can't tell who was right? Or maybe killing it attracts more predators, or makes it self-destruct in a huge blast?"

Ino shook her head. "You're overthinking it. What the ninja did wrong was compromise his disguise, so now he'll have to kill all the witnesses and cover the remaining journey on foot—which will look suspicious at his destination and could endanger his mission."

Kill all the witnesses. All fifty witnesses.

Hazō gave a smile that was pleasant, rather than tortured, only thanks to hours of mocker- err, practice with Noburi.

"My turn," he said after a lengthy pause. "So one night, a Hoshigaki stumbles into an underground broker's shop in a panic. 'You've got to help me,' he says. 'I told my brother I'd bring my new girlfriend to his wedding tomorrow, but she got arrested for treason this afternoon, and I can't tell him something like that on his wedding day. I need someone to take with me, but I can't afford to pay for a professional escort.'

"So the broker thinks a little, and smiles, and he says to the Hoshigaki: 'I have the perfect solution. I'll let you pay in instalments, and you can use my loan shark.'"

Ino looked at him blankly.

"The Hoshigaki are the shark clan like the Inuzuka are the dog clan," Hazō explained awkwardly.

"Oh, now I get it!" Ino gave a gracious smile. "We don't make fun of the Inuzuka much. It's like shooting fish in a barrel—which is probably popular entertainment in Mist, now I think of it."

"Actually," Hazō said, "we use fishing as a trial of manhood. You can't tell in advance what kind of fish is going to bite, and it could be anything from a kasagin to a chakra megalodon. It takes guts to go fishing off the coast, even if you're a ninja. The Angler of Attack championship is like the Chūnin Exam, only it's against the ultimate opponent—nature—and that makes it a lot harder. The Mizukage provides the prizes because he thin- thought that survival fishing expresses Mist's ideology of man overcoming the natural world and absorbing its strength."

"You sound like you're still into it," Ino observed neutrally.

"You can't do proper fishing in the Fire Country," Hazō said. "Not that I've really had time to try, but your freshwater fish don't even bite your arm off if you tug on the line at the wrong moment. It's like hunting tamed sheep with ninjutsu."

"Well, obviously," Ino said. "Leaf is the bastion of civilisation and refinement. Around here, we read poetry at each other. It can get very heated."

"Poetry."

"Sure," Ino said. "The Third was an amazing old-school poet, though people had to beg him to publish his work. Lord Akimichi's well-known in certain circles. And Shika's dad was awful, but people still read his work because he got the technical level perfect and everybody wanted to learn from him. The Fire Country has the oldest civilisation in the world—obviously—so we've got a cultural heritage going all the way back to the Sage of Six Paths."

Hazō raised an eyebrow. "And you?"

"I'm more of a popular fiction kind of girl. Still…

Beneath the cold snow
He dreams impossible dreams.
I fear for us all.

"You can't be a clan heir, much less clan head, without a proper classical education. Nudge nudge."

Hazō rolled his eyes. "Well, I'll just have to go sign up for remedial classes while the wealthy, influential clan founded by my clanless orphan stepfather runs itself without me. Maybe I'll ask my Mist-educated clan consort sister to look in on it when she's not too busy running a third of the village."

A shadow passed over Ino's face, but only briefly.

"Touché," she smirked. "Maybe you're in with a chance after all."

"You mean in the competition?" Hazō gave his own smirk back. "The Gōketsu Clan welcomes all challengers."

"Yeah," Ino agreed. "In the competition too." She looked down thoughtfully at the strawberry cake (the availability of strawberries in winter probably had something to do with the number of zeroes in that menu). She raised the fateful fork. "But enough talk. Have at it!"

-o-​

You have received 2 + 1 = 3 XP.

-o-​

Kagome dithered a little over the Shadow Clone Technique, insofar as he was uncomfortable with the idea of another ninja with all of his knowledge wandering around, especially given that the copy would be as sensibly but dangerously suspicious of him as he was of it. However, Hazō persuaded him by highlighting the practicalities of never having to take time off research, even when seals needed scribing. He also commented that Kagome could now have a permanent disposable prototype tester who would pass along detailed memories of how the prototype failed, but was thrown into silence by two words: "Out contamination".

That said, the odds of a specialised sealmaster having the chakra to use it right now are low.

-o-​

The paralysis experts Ommonē Clan have lost their drive with the recent death of inspired clan head Sae. They may be willing to sell an adoption slot in return for rare ninjutsu, which would allow them to pursue a new vision for the clan.

The Daisho Clan have kept themselves politically relevant by having a sealmaster in every generation—until this one. With the rise of the KEI, their hopes of adopting a non-clan sealmaster any time soon have plummeted, but they still want their adoption slots on that million-to-one chance. Preferential seal trade terms, however, are the next best thing, and may be an option for persuading them.

The Shihō Clan were once in the top seven non-voting clans, only to undergo a great collapse when precious ally Shimura Danzō died in a tragic accident, and the dissolution of his clan meant their investment in him and his cause could never be repaid. They have learned their lesson well, and no longer care about lump sums of payment. Instead, they are building sustainable income streams with which to fuel their return to power, and can always be bribed with more.

-o-​

Asuma appreciates the copied seal list, and will check it against backup records, but he implies that your list is incomplete relative to the Tower's.

He is willing to accept a transfer of mortgage from the Orochimaru estate to the Gōketsu estate, but is not going to fight Orochimaru over whatever back rent etc. the latter feels you owe him.

-o-​

Any Yuno punching scenes are hereby officially left for @eaglejarl, should he desire them, with the note that Yuno was last seen in combat in Chapter 49 (poor Noburi).

-o-​

What do you do?

Voting closes on Saturday 18th of January, 9 a.m. New York Time.

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 320: Bargaining and Adopting​

"...so yeah. What do you think?" Lord Gōketsu stopped talking and looked at her expectantly.

Fujie shifted uncomfortably. Some of the questions that had been coming across her desk were weird, but this... This was above her pay grade, and probably above anyone's save only Lord Sarutobi himself. On the other hand, the Hokage had said not to bother him about specific contributions to the Will of Fire competition unless it couldn't be avoided.

"Forgive me, Lord Gōketsu," she said carefully. "I'm not quite following. Isn't it normal to pay bride price or departure price when someone moves between clans?"

Lord Gōketsu frowned, clearly confused. "I mean...yes? How does that relate?"

"Well, then I'm unclear on how this is novel. You want to pay the Daisho so that you can adopt one of their members, fine. That's between the clans." She paused, confusion clearing away as two facts connected. "Oh! Wait, I see. You're a...you were born outside of Leaf, and aren't familiar with the precise details of the law. Have no fear, you don't need to seek the Hokage's permission to adopt ninja from other clans."

The teenage politician in front of her shook his head, seeming annoyed. "No, I don't want to adopt someone, I want to buy the right to adopt someone."

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"No!" He paused to take a breath. "Okay, let's start over. Each clan is allowed to adopt two clanless ninja per year, right?"

"Yes."

He reached into a pocket and pulled out some spare change, laying two pairs of coins on her desk. "Assume that these represent four clanless ninja. The Daisho could adopt these two"—he slid one pair towards her—"and the Gōketsu could adopt these two"—the other pair—"and that would be fine, right?"

"They're adopting two genin and you're adopting a genin and a...what, jōnin?" She gestured at the coins: two one-ryō pieces for the Daisho, a one- and five-ryō piece for the Gōketsu.

"No, that's not...look, it doesn't matter, okay? The denominations of the coins don't matter."

Fujie frowned. Sure, he was rich, but....

Gōketsu sighed and rummaged through his pockets until he found another one-ryō piece to replace the five-ryō piece. "There. All the same. The Daisho could adopt these two and we could adopt these two and everything would be fine. Yes?"

"Yes."

"Okay, then suppose that we wanted to adopt this one." He tapped on the Daisho's left-hand ninja. "He starts off clanless, but as soon as the Daisho adopt him he's a clan ninja, and there's no restrictions on how many clan ninja can be adopted per year. The Daisho could adopt him and we could immediately adopt him from the Daisho, right?"

"Of course."

"But if we do that, the person still has legal obligations to the Daisho."

"Yes, but it shouldn't matter. They won't know any of the clan secrets or have any significant relationships to the Daisho."

He nodded and pulled the four coins back to his side of the desk, metaphorically undoing the adoptions. "Instead of doing this complicated thing where they get adopted twice, suppose we simply buy the right to adopt them from the Daisho?"

"You want to buy a ninja?!"

"No! No, I want to buy the right to adopt them."

"But don't you already have that right...?"

Lord Gōketsu took a deep, calming breath.

"Would it be possible for me to speak to Sarutobi Rin or Sarutobi Yōta?"

o-o-o-o​

Sarutobi Rin had been saddled with a name's meaning that was awful when you were a new Academy recruit trying to make friends, but worked really well as an adult and high-ranked adviser to the Hokage. As such, she had cultivated the characteristics of her name. Dignified. Severe. Cold. It worked for her.

Two decades of practice kept her from showing uncertainty. The contributions that had been coming in thus far had mostly been straightforward—a wind jutsu here, a multiple-explosion seal there. Easy. Then there were the weirder things, like all this...'theory of games' (?) stuff that Lord Nara's messenger had brought. Why was he submitting games to the contest? Was it intended as an insult to the Hokage, because that was certainly what it looked like—the Nara saying that they were above the contest, that the Will of Fire was nothing more than a game to them. They were a Founding Clan, so accusations of treason were definitely something to move slowly on, but still....

Regardless. The Nara were offensive but this...this was just weird.

"Let me see if I understand...you want to buy the right to adopt a ninja, not buy an actual ninja. You want to treat privileges like...like pieces of bacon, that you sell in the market." Sage, she was hungry. She had a delicious rabbit burger with bacon and cheese stuffed in a storage scroll for lunch, and as soon as she was done here she was going to devour it.

Lord Gōketsu nodded. "Exactly. Think of it like renting an apartment. You're paying for the right to use the place for a specific period of time, not for actual ownership."

How did that apply? Someone was either adopted or they were not, so how could anyone rent the right to adopt someone?

She kept her face calm and severe as she thought about it. According to the briefings, when Lord Gōketsu's cousin was creating skywalkers the boy had contributed some assistance, so it was safe to assume he wasn't stupid. Still, the rent analogy didn't really work, so what was he trying to get at?

"Actually, let me amend that," he said, breaking into her thoughts. "Suppose I rent an apartment from someone for a thousand ryō per month and then I sell you my lease? You pay me some money in order to take over the rent, you get to live there, and I go live somewhere else. I had a right—the right to live in this place—and I sold you the right, not the actual property. Does that help?"

She scratched her hand, thinking. That was absolutely clear as mud, and even negatively helpful. Mentally, she downgraded the probable amount of his contribution in the skywalker development. Still, this related to a contest submission so she needed to figure it out.

"I...think I see," she said, after chewing on the idea for almost a minute. "And you want this idea to be part of your contribution for the contest?"

He nodded. "And, if possible, I'd like to ask Lord Hokage to put it into effect immediately. I know that things are being kept secret until the contest is over in order to prevent clans gaining an advantage by building off early submissions, or giving away information on the general nature of their capabilities—not sure that's the optimal strategy, by the way, 'cause it sure seems like it would be better to get them in play right away—but I'd like to have this one go into effect immediately so that I can make use of it. I don't care about the anonymity part one way or the other; you can say it was the Gōketsu or not as you prefer."

Rin thought about that. "I think we shall need to speak to Lord Hokage about this. Please come with me."

o-o-o-o​

"Approved. Rin, have some tickets made up for my signature. Every clan gets two of them. Each ticket has a unique number and the name of every hand it passes through. From now on, all adoptions and marry-ins who aren't Leaf clan ninja require that the adopting clan turn in a ticket when they submit the tax modifications or the adoption can't go through. They're welcome to sell or trade the tickets to other clans. Make it clear that they are being given an additional asset and that it has no effect on their earnings. This is purely an advantage for them and they are losing nothing.

"Nice job, Hazō."

o-o-o-o​

"It's a pleasure to see you again, Lord Gōketsu. I enjoyed yesterday's discussion quite a bit."

"Thank you, Lord Daisho, I did as well." Surprisingly, he had. The plan had been to have a social visit to build rapport, then come back the next day to do business. Hazō had expected the 'build rapport' part to be agonizing, but he'd been surprised at how engaging Daisho was when he wanted to be. The man had a wicked sense of humor and a wide base of knowledge.

"I'd like to thank you again for the gift of your most recent book," Hazō said. "I absolutely devoured it last night; kept me up until the moon was setting. Your tenth through fifteenth haiku in particular—they sent chills down my spine." Daisho was much better than Hazō had expected, possibly even as good as his reputation suggested. Not that Hazō knew much about poetry, but Mari had coached him both on how to read it, how to frame discussion about it, and relevant vocabulary so he didn't sound like an uneducated bumpkin.

The redhead in question knelt quietly beside him, letting him take the lead but ready to jump in if he said something stupid. The clan was starting to relax around him as he continued to not show signs of being possessed by a horrific otherworldly intelligence, but he still wasn't being allowed out without a minder.

Daisho Nagaharu, Clan Head of the Daisho sealmaster clan, smiled. It was a repellent smile; his teeth were rotten and three of the front ones were missing. Hazō was not about to acknowledge that fact.

"Thank you, Lord Gōketsu. That's very kind of you. Yes, I was proud of the fourteenth. Took me a month to wordsmith the symbolism. What did you think of the longer-form work?"

Hazō ducked his head slightly. "To be honest, My Lord, I know very little of poetry and am still learning to appreciate it. The haiku worked well for me because I could hold the entire thing in my head at once, but some of the longer form work left me behind, especially the experimental work. The one on page sixteen, for example."

"Yes, I can see how that one might be difficult. I'm calling the form 'nichōka'. It's two normal chōka poems interleaved, with each line interplaying with both its successor in its own poem and its predecessor in the other."

Hazō chuckled and shook his head. "That is a fascinating idea, but too technical for me."

"Ah, well, perhaps come back to it in a year or two?"

"I shall." To his surprise, he found himself wanting to. Some of the poetry was too esoteric for him, but even the ones that he found impenetrable teased at his mind, making him feel that there was deep meaning to be gleaned if only he invested the time to pick apart the words and images. Or perhaps that was the problem—the point was in the interplay of the words and separating them destroyed the meaning.

"So," Daisho said, smiling slyly and sipping his tea. "As grateful as I am for the praise, I suspect that you did not come here simply to compliment an old man's hobby. How may I help you?"

Hazō studied his interlocutor for a moment, doing his best to read the older man's mood. It was difficult; the Daisho were a minor clan, not more than a dozen members, but Nagaharu had been Clan Head for forty years, ascending to the title while still a teen. His squat bald head and smiling face showed nothing that he wasn't interested in sharing.

"You received the Hokage's messenger?" Hazō asked carefully. "The one about the adoption tickets."

"Indeed!" The bald head shook back and forth like a bull trying to dislodge a particularly persistent fly. "I bear no ill will to Lord Saruboti—he is a strong jōnin, likable, and there is a good case to be made that his father was the greatest Hokage Leaf has ever had. Despite that, I admit to some discomfort with how many changes he is making." He turned one hand up in dismissal of his own point. "Still, perhaps that's just me being reactionary. Every Sarutobi I have ever known has been skilled, honorable, and a hard worker. I feel certain that our current Hokage will be all those things and usher in a new era of prosperity."

Hazō smiled slightly; Leaf was far different than Mist—indeed, from what Kagome had said, the Academy students had not even been required to assist with interrogations or public executions—yet there were still similarities. 'Uncomfortable' was the strongest word that one would use to describe the policies of the Hokage, especially when talking with a new associate.

Mari picked up her tea with both hands, supporting the bottom with her right hand. She took a delicate sip and set it down again. Daisho is positively inclined to you. That was probably not a trap.

"I can understand that," Hazō said, nodding regretfully. "It's been difficult for us as well. The entire idea of the contest, for example—being asked to give up clan secrets is never an easy thing, although the Will of Fire inspires us to answer the call. The Gōketsu will be giving much of Jiraiya's notes on the theory of sealcrafting, as well as several seals that we developed, as part of our contribution."

Daisho's thick eyebrows shot up. "Lord Jiraiya's sealcrafting notes will be part of your contribution?" He paused to swallow; apparently he was literally salivating.

Hazō nodded. "Indeed. Likely not all of them, since some of what is there could be very dangerous if it became widespread. Still, it will be a meaningful fraction." He reached into his jacket and produced a folded, wax-sealed sheet of parchment and passed it over. "For example, here is a monograph he wrote about twenty years ago, on interactions between Imagawa converters and third-chord trisections."

Daisho's hand shook slightly as he took the paper and broke the seal. He skimmed quickly through, then went back and read more carefully. Hazō waited patiently, sipping his tea occasionally as the older man devoured the paper with his eyes.

It was three long minutes before Daisho looked up. "This is brilliant. My father was our last true sealmaster; I never had the talent to be more than a petty dabbler. We always used a tetragonal intersection to link to an Imagawa. This is much more efficient."

Hazō nodded. "Faster to draw, more stable, and much less sensitive."

"And you'll be donating more like this?"

"Indeed. Although not that particular piece. That piece is my gift to you, in thanks for the gift of your poetry. You may feel free to use it as part of the Daisho contribution if you wish, or keep it as a clan secret."

Daisho blinked. It took him a good three seconds to get his mouth working. "Lord Gōketsu—"

"Please, just Hazō." He smiled ruefully. "Not only are you my elder, but I'm afraid I haven't gotten used to the title yet, and every time I hear it I feel like someone is going to notice that I'm impersonating Jiraiya and they'll come cart me off."

Daisho laughed. "In that case, please call me Nagaharu. Hazō, I don't wish to be rude, but this gift is far too grand a repayment for mere poetry."

"Lor...Nagaharu, it's really not. Your gift gave me insight into an entirely new way of seeing the world. I have never had opportunity or inclination to read poetry before and it felt...profound. It was like the first time I infused a seal, with so many things connecting in such a small space, a rhythm and flow that I couldn't see but that took my mind in many directions at once." He ducked his head, blushing slightly. It had been an absolutely humiliating time, crafting those words with Mari. He had never read poetry before, beyond the occasional dirty limerick on the wall of the latrine; it had always seemed like such a dissipative pursuit, a waste of time for the reader and a contemptible frivolity for the author. Hazō had read the poetry because that was the mission, fully expecting to be bored out of his mind. Mari had dragged his true, horribly embarrassing reactions out of him and then helped him plan how to convey them to Nagaharu.

Nagaharu studied him for a moment, then bowed and tucked the monograph into his snow-white jacket. "Thank you, Hazō. This means a great deal. You mentioned the adoption tickets?"

"Yes. I was wondering if the Daisho intend to adopt any ninja this year?"

Spoiler: dice

Hazō, Rapport (base 10, effective 14 due to Severe Consequence and Forged in Fire stunt) + 2 (invoke "Gave You a Really Shiny Gift") + 2 (invoke "Your Positive Feelings to Me") + 4dF(0): 18
Nagaharu, Presence (?) + 4dF: far more than 18

Hazō is Taken Out. Fortunately, Daisho does not in fact value the tickets that much and is willing to sell them, but Hazō gets skinned in negotiations.

"There are always interesting candidates to be considered," Nagaharu said casually. "One issue with being such a small clan is that it's important to bring in new members from time to time so that our blood does not grow weak."

"I know that your clan is famed for its sealing...I wonder if you'd be willing to sell us one of your tickets, some seals, and assistance with the contest?"

"Hmmm..." Nagaharu leaned back, right elbow resting on left palm as he rubbed his jaw. "Given the new policies, those tickets are quite important to my clan. The rest is more so. Our seal-related knowledge is our family legacy, passed down from my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, the founder of the clan. I won't say that it's impossible that we would share it, but it would be a considerable sacrifice on our part." He shook his head. "No, I'm sorry. I value our budding friendship too much to drive the sort of bargain I would need to. Perhaps we could simply help with one of your projects? Fresh eyes are always useful."

"That's very kind of you, and we might just take you up on it. Still, I really need one of those tickets. What would you like for it?"

"Well...." He frowned. "You have been most generous with your gift, and I have very much enjoyed our conversations yesterday and today. I know you're a new clan and I would like to help you get established...." The frown deepened and he rocked his head slightly side-to-side in thought before coming to a conclusion.

"How much more of Lord Jiraiya's work did you have?"

Hazō snorted. "Boxes and boxes of it. Some of it is thirty, forty years old, from when he was just starting out."

"Roughly how many boxes?"

Hazō thought about it. "Hard to say. It's all mixed in with other stuff—work papers, reference material, stories, that kind of stuff. Of the stuff that we've translated I'd say that maybe a fifth of all of it is seal-related; if that ratio keeps up then there's probably two or three hundred boxes about like this." He gestured with his hands, indicating an object roughly a foot on a side. "Not all of it is his work; some of it is from his students and mentors, or just random other stuff that he picked up from somewhere."

"Work from his students, you say?" Nagaharu tutted in disappointment. "Not as desirable as the work of the master himself, and the Daisho really do need those tickets...giving either of them up will mean we probably lose one of the candidates we've been considering—if we don't adopt them this year they will undoubtedly be gone before we have the chance next year. Still, you've been most courteous and I really would like to help the Gōketsu." He paused, tapping steepled fingers against his lips in thought.

"How about this," he said at last. "We get copies of the next five boxes worth of seal-related notes that you decode and we'll part with one of our adoption tickets?" He raised a warning finger and smiled. "Now remember: That means five boxes full of seal-related notes, not the seal-related notes from the next five boxes." He wagged the finger at Hazō. "And you aren't allowed to turn those materials in for the contest—they will either be clan-secret to both of us or part of the Daisho contribution. I've heard about how clever you Gōketsu are, and I'm not going to let you take advantage of me!"

"Oh, come now! Five boxes? That's asking a bit much, don't you think? Maybe half of one."

"Now, now. I'm making a major sacrifice here. The Daisho need to bring in new blood and there are very few clanless ninja worthy of adoption. If we lose this one we may not be able to find another next year."

"Okay, fine. One box."

Nagahura shook his head. "Really, Hazō? I was trying to be generous here. I suppose I might come down to four and a half...no, you know what? I'll go down to four. I admire your audacity and I think the Gōketsu will be a positive force in Leaf going forward. Four boxes."

"How about two?"

"You scoundrel! Are you trying to beggar my clan?!" He rolled his eyes. "Fine. I have a meeting shortly so I should really wrap this up. In the interest of closing the deal, I'll take three boxes. Final offer, though." The finger wagged once more. "Three boxes, no less! And it needs to be the next stuff you decode; no picking through and giving us the dregs. And you don't share it with other people or turn it in for the contest. I know about you and your clever, tricksy ways, young man! I'm not going to let you take advantage of me!"

"Well...I'm not willing to keep it locked up forever. How about this: I won't turn it in for the contest and I won't share it with anyone else for a year. Also, no blanks—sealcrafting, safety precautions, design parameters, whatever. Not the actual blanks."

Nagaharu shook his head in disbelief. "I really do admire you, Hazō, but there's a limit to how much I'm willing to let you take advantage of me!" He sighed and glanced at the clock on the mantle. "I do need to go." He paused, thinking. "I can't believe I'm about to agree to this...all right, fine. Three boxes full of the next seal-related work, no blanks, you keep them secret for a year. We may or may not turn them in for the contest." He shook his bald head again. "My wife is going to be so angry with me for making this deal." He looked up. "Let's not tell her until it's done, eh?"

Hazō laughed and extended one hand. "It's a deal. Thank you, Nagaharu."

o-o-o-o​

Mari waited to speak until they were outside and a block from the Daisho gates.

"You realize he absolutely skinned you?"

Hazō glanced at her. "What are you talking about? We really need the extra adoption slots and we were going to turn a lot of this in for the contest regardless. He'll almost certainly turn it in himself, so it will still get into the public realm. We don't need it in order to win the contest—there's more than enough other stuff."

She smiled. "Fair enough. Where are we off to now?"

Hazō grinned and waved the precious yellow ticket with the Hokage's signature across the face and the names 'Daisho' and 'Gōketsu' on the back. "To meet an angry young man."

o-o-o-o​

Seconds after their knock, the door was yanked open with angry speed.

"Look, I already told you people to—oh, it's you."

Hazō nodded to Haru. "Hey there. Got a minute?"

The genin's face soured but he stepped back, holding open the door to his family's apartment.

It was at the back of the building, only accessible by going through a gate and down a narrow path between the building and the fence. The apartment itself was spillway-style: One long room divided into notional segments by the placement of furniture and curtains. The south end, nearest the door, was curtained off with heavy fabric so that opening the door didn't let out all the heat. Unfortunately, this sectioned off one of the two large windows, each covered in thin horn, that let in a little light. A free-standing set of shelves was the pantry and dish cabinet, then a simple but effective kitchen consisting of a counter, large bucket of water for washing, two cutting boards, and various knives and other culinary equipment. Heat and some light came from a fireplace against the east wall, currently filled with a smoky charcoal fire that sent most of its soot and smoke up the chimney. Chairs and a table surrounded the fireplace, clearly making up the primary living area. Curtains beyond that presumably sectioned off the room into living quarters for Haru and the rest.

"Haru, who is—Lord Gōketsu!" A thirty-ish woman, presumably Haru's mother (hadn't Noburi said she was dead?), jumped to her feet, eyes going wide as she recognized the mon on Hazō and Mari's clothes. "Welcome to our home, My Lord, My Lady! Haru, take their coats!" She bustled forward, not giving her son the chance to follow the order before attempting the job herself. "Hiroyo! Slice up the cheese and the bread for Lord and Lady Gōketsu! Airi, make some tea!"

"Thank you," Hazō said, handing over his coat with a smile and a polite nod. "Please, don't trouble yourself."

"Oh, it's no trouble! Please, come in, come in." She looked around frantically. "I apologize for the state of the place. I'm terribly sorry, it's not usually like this, honest. There's been—"

"Eri, stop." Haru's voice was flat and his glowering eyes never turned from Hazō's face. "It's fine."

"Don't you sass me, young man! I may not—"

"Please, Mrs. Yamamoto, it's fine," Hazō said, raising a calming hand. "Your apartment is fine. Far tidier than my room, that's for sure." He grinned.

"She's not 'Mrs'," Haru growled. "She's Dad's new bedwarmer."

"HARU!"

"What? Dad met you two weeks ago and now you're all living here."

Hazō didn't quite know what to say to that, so he settled on "What?"

"Mom's dead. She's been dead for years. This is Dad's new girlfriend, Eri. And those are her kids." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the two young girls.

"Haru, I may not be your biological mother, but it's still my responsibility to look out for you."

"I'm a ninja, Eri. I don't need looking after." The faintest hint of a blood-drenched howl shivered soundlessly across the room.

Hazō cleared his throat. "It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am," he said to the stepmother. The family dynamics were too screwed up for words, so he glanced at Mari to see if she was going to be helpful. She chose instead to merely nod towards the family with a silent Well, go on then expression.

"Ma'am, I'm sure you know that we approached your stepson to say that the Gōketsu would like to adopt him, and all of you. Haru—"

Eri's eyes went wide and she spun. "Haru! You didn't tell me!"

"It's fine," he growled, refusing to look at her. "You didn't need to know, and I figured he was going to flake out."

"HARU! Don't talk like that about Lord Gōketsu! You can't—"

"Ma'am, please," Hazō said. "It's fine, really. The Gōketsu are a small clan and we desperately need to grow our numbers. We reviewed several hundred clanless ninja and there are only three we're interested in. Haru is one of them. We asked him if he would be interested and he said yes." He saw her expression and hurried to add, "We want to adopt him and all of you. We have no interest in splitting up a family."

"You know I'm right here, yeah?" Haru said. "It's not like she gets a vote."

His stepmother didn't seem to notice Haru's words. She simply stared at Hazō, not saying anything and clearly wondering when she was going to wake up.

Hazō glanced at Mari but she still was not being helpful.

Hazō produced the formerly-Daisho adoption ticket from his pocket and held it up. "Haru, if you're willing then we can do this right now."

"Do what?" Haru demanded.

"Get you adopted and moved into the clan compound," Hazō explained. "You say yes and it's done. We pack all your stuff and you can be in clan quarters an hour from now." He looked around. "Or, if you want to stay here, that's fine. I have no problem with the clan picking up the rent going forward. If not, we'll pay off your current month and everything's squared away."

"We're leaving?" asked the girl making the tea—Airi, that was her name. She was probably nine, maybe ten, straw blonde and elfin, with a smudge of dirt on her nose and wide eyes. She lacked the conditioning one would expect from an Academy student; presumably she was a civilian, born without sufficient chakra to be a ninja. The tone of her words was more fearful than excited.

"Like I said, you're welcome to stay here if you want," Hazō said. "I'd prefer it if you moved onto the clan grounds, but I'm not going to force you."

"Going to put us in that big stone pile you magicked up, huh?"

Hazō looked at Haru silently for a moment. "That's the plan," he said at last. "If you're willing. We've got a bunch of apartments and more going up every day; everyone on the compound is finally out of tents and into stone, but there's a ton of space and no reason not to build on it, so we told the construction guys to just keep going."

"'Construction guys'?" He snorted. "There's no construction guys. You're having a ninja use jutsu to build the place."

"I thought that wasn't allowed?" Airi asked from the kitchen area. "The ninja can't 'pete with civilians because the Merchant Council says so. Dad won't be able to get work if the ninja start doing it."

"Airi, hush!" Eri snapped. "Lord Gōketsu is talking!"

"And he's not 'Dad'," Haru snapped. "He's 'Mr Yamamoto' to you."

"Please," Hazō said, a little bit of firmness in his tone. "Could we all please relax?" He turned to the stepmother, Eri. "For one thing, please stop with the 'Lord Gōketsu' business, ma'am. It freaks me out. My name is Hazō."

Eri looked uncomfortable. "But—"

"Eri, shut it," Haru said. "You're embarrassing us."

"Don't you—"

"Aaaand, we're breathing," Hazō said, raising both hands in placation. "We are exhaling stress and panic, inhaling calm and relaxation." Eri didn't seem to get the point, so he took an exaggerated breath, leading her along. "Now. The important question: Haru, are you in? We can get you guys one or two apartments, depending on how much space you want."

"What, you think I want to make my Dad and the kids stay in this place?" Haru snorted in disgust. "Of course I'm in."

"Cool. I was hoping you'd say that." He pulled a sheaf of storage seals from a belt pouch. "I've got a bunch of boxes, bags, and storage seals. Let's get your stuff packed."

---

XP AWARD: 5

Brevity XP: 1

Ami-style Training XP: 2

It is now about 6pm. This update covered a day and a half.

You did some Ami-style training both days: Jumping rope on the ceiling (day 1) and sparring while singing (day 2).

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, January 22, 2020, at 12pm London time.

 

[Velorien]

Chapter 321: The Self and the Other​

March 1, 1069 AS.

With the Uchiha compound slowly turning into the KEI compound, Ami now made her home in the main house at Lord Uchiha's invitation (whether out of genuine gratitude, enlightened self-interest, or as a victim of simple manipulation). In effect, she was living like a clan head, complete with all the comforts she hadn't had in her diplomatic quarters, such as privacy seals. Of course, she made a point of spending a minimal amount of time in said home, both insofar as she was a woman of the people unwilling to bathe in unearned luxury, and insofar as she was always out causing mischief anyway.

Today, Mari made sure to catch her in the morning before she left. When she came in, Ami was busy playing cat's cradle with what looked like razor-sharp ninja wire, the kind where just a little too much tension could result in body parts being cut off. Mari could vaguely make out a guillotine being folded into place.

The two of them looked at each other for a few seconds and simultaneously went "huh."

"Want to talk about it?" Mari asked.

"Not right now," Ami said. "Too confused. You?"

"I was actually hoping to ask you for advice," Mari said reluctantly. In an ideal world, this would have been a subtle, complex social-spec-off with a fellow professional, probing and implying, and ultimately vying for information control beneath a veneer of casual cooperation, but she wasn't in the mood. Not for this conversation.

Ami finished the basket with the severed head, and handed the whole thing off to Mari.

"Is this about you no longer being terrifyingly evil?" Ami asked. "Because I'm not great with redemption narratives."

Mari absent-mindedly began to fold the guts, which you had to do before the rest of the figure.

"Ami, you're lots of people at the same time, right?"

"That would be a simplification," Ami noted coolly. "Rather, it would be accurate to state that each human being is multitudes, and it is only that the majority, presumably due to some early developmental error, have a distorted perception of their own nature. In constructing and being constrained by the image of the individual, and above all by the hypothesis of the 'true self', they then suffer from radical cognitive dissonance as inner conflict cannot be processed at the conscious level and is instead suppressed, to the detriment of all.

"Why do you ask, Mari-sensei? Has some immense trauma caused you to cast off the shackles of false perception?"

Mari handed her the eviscerated traitor.

"I'm given to understand," she said, "that I am an undefined but large number of different Maris, that they're completely uncoordinated, and that some are flat-out undesirable and/or dangerous—and there's too much going on in Leaf right now for me to have an identity crisis. I need practical advice."

Ami began to shape a hand.

"You appreciate the magnitude of the favour."

"Don't care," Mari said. "The last Mari in charge ended up hurting my own family for their own good."

"Did you hurt Keiko?" Ami asked mildly, stretching a length of wire across in what could have been the beginning of the pincers or a non-game garrote.

Damn.

Lie, evade, manipulate, plead?

"You can see why I've come to you," Mari assayed.

Ami's expression shifted to something cold, almost metallic. Mari could sense the edges of the jōnin aura Ami was forcibly holding back. A fire/ice aura clash would not end well for anyone, especially in a densely-populated area.

"You allowed yourself to hurt Keiko," Ami hissed. "She made you family. She let herself be vulnerable around you. Give me a reason not to remove you from her life."

Whichever Mari was holding the reins right now chose to stand her ground. The good thing about this Ami was that she didn't stick around for long, though admittedly this was often because the other party had fled or abjectly surrendered.

"I'm here to ask for your help, Ami," Mari said. "I'm not here to fight. I love Keiko as much as you do."

The other aura spiked. The room grew dark, and cold, and this time Mari was the one forcing herself to hold back and not retaliate. Refusing to defend herself in the face of another's killing intent, in the face of something that verged on domination, felt like dunking her head in a basin full of freezing water and then making herself not come up for air. Every part of her longed to fight back, to reassert her will even if it meant setting everything on fire.

The Heartbreaker wouldn't even have hesitated.

"I love Keiko the same way that you do," Mari urgently corrected herself.

"Don't insult me," Ami said, still coldly, but her aura retreated. "You have no idea what she is to me.

"But not the point!" she exclaimed, casually passing Mari the finished hand, together with the pincers holding the extracted fingernails. "You want the deepest fundamentals of your soul messed with, I'm your gal! There'll be a reckoning for the other thing later, because there has to be, but I'm totally behind you wanting to fix yourself so it doesn't happen again. Which, while we're on topic, first person singular is made up for convenience. You keep that in mind because it's a simple way of saying complex stuff.

"Anyway. Maris. Lots and lots of Maris. Why couldn't that have happened when we were still I&S training buddies? We could've had so much fun! Maybe once Keiko makes her peace with Snowflake and company, and gets over the touching thing, and gets Shadow Clone up and running, I can give them some tips on how to make Tenten the happiest girl alive. Don't tell her I said that, because I don't want the death glare.

"Back on topic, nothing's changed. That's another big thing to remember. There have always been lots and lots of Maris, as I'm sure Hazō must have told you—it was Hazō, right? I don't have a great model of Akane—only now you're aware. Which, congrats. You've made it further than most of humanity. Make sure you get him a calligraphy kit, or a copy of the Nara Book of Obscure and Pointless Inventions if you've got enough credit saved up with Shikamaru, or maybe his own fan club. Why don't I have my own fan club? No, wait, the AMI."

"Ami," Mari interrupted, handing her the Chair, jaw lock included.

"My bad. What you want, Mari-sensei, is to get your priorities straight. Quest for redemption? Too vague.

"Becoming a better person? Not such thing; see above.

"Protecting people? Fine, but Byakuren's whopping kraken, Mari-sensei, how incompetent do you have to be if you can't think of a way of protecting somebody without hurting them?

"Ouch, boomerang."

Mari sighed.

"Don't want an identity crisis, Mari-sensei? Don't have an identity." Ami handed her the bars of a confinement chamber, simple but elegantly crafted. "Most basic logic there is. Don't have a unified identity; have unified priorities. Humanity is killing itself because people have priorities pointing in all kinds of dumb directions, usually towards the self that they believe in so much. We could achieve Hazō's uplift tomorrow if everyone chose 'best for all' over 'better for us'. Which they're not going to, so it's lucky there's such a thing as world domination.

"Those lots of Maris already want sort of the same thing, don't they? Love, happiness, safety, for themselves and all of their loved ones, and all that jazz. So why do you need one Mari to rule them all? Pick some destinations, set a few hard rules in advance on how to get there—those are the priorities—and all the rest is just course correction. Why does it matter which Maris do what as long as they all get what they want?

"Now go away and think about it. And when you're picking up that cake for Hazō, get one for me too. Unless it's sweet potato. Bleh. And, y'know, you owe me the mother of all favours. Look forward to that."

Mari handed her a T&I dossier scroll with a Gōketsu stamp at the bottom, which Ami unravelled into a neat spool of wire.

Then they both went to wash off the blood.

-o-​

March 4, 1069 AS.

Mari was lounging in one of the nicer Ishihara-brand armchairs, rotated ninety degrees with her legs resting against the back, pointing at the ceiling. She claimed that, in addition to being surprisingly comfortable, it was also optimised against surprise attacks, insofar as it was possible to snap up onto the ceiling and into a defensive stance with a single chakra-enhanced arm movement. Kagome-sensei was apparently torn between adopting the same habit based on incontrovertible logic, and sticking to ordinary sitting because Mari's way was stupid. (Hazō privately suspected that Fifi not being able to curl up at his feet was also a factor, although conversely Hazō wouldn't put it past the cat(?) to be able to hover in mid-air in a static position should she so desire.)

Mari was apparently reading, insofar as she was holding a sheet of paper, also at a ninety-degree angle, and being periodically seized by uncontrollable fits of giggling. A familiar-looking stack of paper sat next to her.

"Hazō, I've found the most wonderful thing ever in Jiraiya's notes!"

Mari cleared her throat.

"'Every seduction mission since you left, I've spent dreaming of you,' Minori breathed. 'Come, Jun, take me in your arms and make me remember the true passion of the kunoichi…' Without a word, Jun leaned down for a deep and fiery kiss, his long white hair enfolding her like a cloak. With his left hand, he reached down to undo—"

"Thank you, Mari," Hazō hastily interrupted. "I think I get the general idea."

"Oh, but it gets so much better!" Mari gave him a mischievous grin. "'What do you think you're doing with my innocent apprentice?!' the furious medic-nin demanded, wrathful fist at the ready. Jun gave her a smouldering look. 'If you really want to know, Tsuneko, then come and find out. There's room for three in this bed…'

"I swear, this stuff is priceless!"

Hazō shuddered. He didn't even want to know what kind of depraved and fallen soul would ever want to read… no, wait, she was right in front of him. Never mind.

"Your dubious tastes aside," he said, "I wanted to check up on you. Have you had a chance to think things through since our talk? What are your thoughts?"

Mari swivelled into the traditional chair-using position. "Work in progress."

"Oh?"

"You think I should accept all the Maris except the one I don't want. Ami—yeah, I talked to Ami, and got wired into helping with her training—thinks there's no me to do the accepting and I should own that. She's an authority on being multiple people, and you're an authority on me, weird as that sounds, and I have no idea how to reconcile the two, or even if either of you is right. Maybe there's just one Mari and she's really screwed up. It would fit the facts as well as anything. I think I'm also supposed to be a sobbing wreck, what with you undoing all your good work getting me functional before, but I'm not sure I remember how, so I'm going to let that one slide for now.

"I, or possibly we, have stuff to figure out, which maybe isn't a shock since it's been all of a week since you introduced me to the idea to begin with. In the meantime, I'm on autopilot, so maybe don't expect my best performance.

"Then again," she added with a smirk, "luckily for you, my autopilot is still better than most people's hundred percent.

"'Unhand me, you rampant stallion of a man!' demanded Lady Kaname, even as she melted into Jun's arms. But before he could teach her what it meant to be filled with the Will of Fire, the door burst open. 'How dare you, Leaf scum!' roared the Tsuchikage. 'Earth Element: Spikes of Crushing Destruction Technique!' Jun ducked under the top spikes, and leapt over the bottom spikes with a horizontal mid-air twist that took him out through the window. The Tsuchikage followed, bellowing curses. As soon as he was gone, the real Jun crawled out from beneath the bed. 'Now,' he said, 'before we were so rudely interrupted…' He reached for his unusually large—"

Hazō took this as a sign that the conversation was at an end and ran, pursued by Mari's gleeful laughter.

-o-​

"…And then the happy couple throw kunai with exorcism tags on them for the guests to catch. If you catch a tag, you'll be purified of romantic evil spirits, and whoever catches the most kunai will be the next to get married. You aren't allowed to wear helmets to a wedding, though, so it's a trade-off of risk versus reward."

Yuno eyed the shrine dubiously. "I can think of at least ten things that are wrong with that ceremony. For a start, they juggle the gems clockwise? Everyone knows that starting the wedding rite with a clockwise movement means you're wishing your spouse a smooth journey to the next life! And there was a clear lack of tapir. How can you bind two people together without the blessing of a tapir? I know the Pangolin Summoner herself accepted the Leaf rites, but, if you'll forgive me for saying so, she didn't strike me as terribly pious. When I marry Noburi or Neji, we're going to do things properly."

"But Leaf doesn't have tapi—did you just say 'Neji'?"

Yuno nodded. "Hyūga Neji. Noburi's best friend. He's going to introduce me to his cousins soon. I can't wait to introduce them all to Satsuko!"

Hazō couldn't decide whether that was a wonderful or a terrible idea, but finally settled on "terrible".

"I think that would be unwise," he said carefully. "Leaf has a custom where you don't introduce people to your melee weapons until the third date."

Spoiler: dice

Hazō: Deceit 18 - 3 + 0 = 15
Yuno: Deceit ?
Yuno fails.

"That's perfectly reasonable," Yuno agreed. "In Isan, it's considered highly improper to stare at someone's weapon longer than you would stare into their eyes, at least without their express permission."

She hesitated.

"Are you saying Neji and I are dating? He hasn't said anything! We don't have a chaperone! Oh, no, I've been so terribly rude!"

"It's fine, Yuno," Hazō said placatingly. "I don't think Hyūga is ready to date a foreigner."

"Oh, good," Yuno said. "I guess if I marry him, we'll have to skip the dating."

A second double-take.

"You actually want to marry him?"

Yuno's smile had a touch of melancholy to it. "Noburi's been too busy with summoning training to spend time with me. Neji hasn't. I don't think I'll be able to unmarry either of them anytime soon, so I need to choose carefully."

"Actually," Hazō said happily, "I was talking to Noburi about that earlier…"

-o-​

Hazō was pleased with himself for discovering the Yabai Café when doing research for Keiko and Shikamaru, back what felt like a hundred and fifty chapters of his life ago. The waiters seemed genuinely grateful for their presence, there were plenty of empty seats, and the prices were quite reasonable (not that this was a major concern for the head of Leaf's fastest-growing economic powerhouse, but after paying a minor clan's treasury for Ino's dessert, it was somehow therapeutic).

True, the food was... unique... and sometimes frisky, but it was no worse than he'd had in Mist, where Mum's salary had not exactly opened doors to three-star cuisine on their rare celebratory outings. Still, it had been either that or homemade birthday cake. One might think that confectionery made by the queen of the cookie would be consistently delicious, but in practice the cake was to the cookies as Ami was to Keiko. Made by the same people, in theory an upgrade, promising to look at, but in practice a source of unforgettable torment from the second you laid tongue on—

On second thought, he was going to pretend he's never made that analogy.

"This is amazing," Yuno said, tearing the cabbage's core in two with a deft twist of the chopsticks (counter-clockwise, because it was before noon). "It's a cooked meal and you get to kill it! Do you think if I asked nicely they would give me the recipe?"

Several thoughts crossed Hazō's mind in quick succession. First, asking a dining establishment for their recipe was the kind of faux pas you'd only make if you weren't someone who went to dining establishments. Second, as a ninja, she could just tell them to give it to her, and they'd fall over backwards to hand it to her on a silver plate. Lord Gōketsu, in fact, could probably seize the entire café, and suffer no serious consequences other than a fine for doing it without the Mizukage's permiss—oh. Hazō wondered whether legal reforms were on Aunt Ren's agenda, and whether she had a choice with the determinedly progressive AMI on the rise.

But thirdly, Yuno's instinct was to ask nicely. It struck Hazō, with the jarring sensation of an Iron Nerve movement hitting an edge case, that every civilian in Isan could trace their line of descent directly to one of the chosen ninja who'd founded Isan with Akio.

"Yuno," he asked cautiously, "do you think civilians are inferior to ninja?" He cursed himself for asking a leading question, but it was too late.

"Well, obviously they're inferior," Yuno said matter-of-factly. "They don't have chakra. They can't use ninjutsu, their combat skills are only good enough for the weakest chakra beasts, and they die if they get sick. Why would you ask something like that?"

"And what does that mean for how a ninja should treat them?"

Yuno gave him a confused look. "Well, you don't send them to fight chakra beasts, obviously. That's why they do the building and crafting and tapir care while we do the hunting and patrolling and tapir training. Also, we're the ones risking our lives, so we should command their respect. Lord Gōketsu, are you trying to make a point?"

"…"

He could work with this.

-o-
​

You have received 2 + 1 = 3 XP.

-o-
​

Noburi is enthusiastic about your proposal, which combines time with Yuno (how dare she not hate Neji?!) and things that are fun and don't involve staring at a huge scroll for hours at a time.

You have sent gift baskets. It is too soon to expect any kind of response.

-o-
​

It is the afternoon of the same day. What do you do?

Voting closes Saturday 25th of January, 9 a.m. New York Time.

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 322: Summoned for a Briefing​

"You sent for me, s—" "BOO!" "Gah! Multiple E...oh."

Asuma waited until Hazō's combat reflexes had settled down, then smiled and gestured to the cushion across from himself. The Monkey King sitting next to him laughed uproariously at Hazō's panic, doubling over in his seat and clutching his hairy stomach.

"I told you that was a bad idea, Enma. He nearly smooshed you into the ceiling."

The Monkey King waved the words away, unable to speak because he was still choking on his own laughter.

Hazō blushed and settled onto the cushion as quickly as possible, a silent and blank-faced Mari taking position to his right. "You, uh, you're Enma, the Boss of the Monkey Clan? Sir? Um...Lord Enma?"

The massive six-foot simian held up one long finger for pause as he got himself under control. It took only a few more seconds and then he sat up and wiped his watering eyes with a napkin. "Whew. Sorry, I know I'm a bad person, but c'mon...that was hilarious."

Three pairs of human eyes stared back at him with no trace of agreement.

"Fine, fine. Whatever. So dour, the lot of you. Anyway, forget the 'Lord' stuff. Enma is fine, kid. My Clan tends not to stand on ceremony." He snatched two sugar cookies off the plate in front of him, took a bite from each, and then looped his tail over one shoulder in order to lift his tiny bone-china teacup to his lips. He slurped delicately, then set the cup down again.

"Asuma tells me you had some questions about Summoners. Your kind are rarely curious about our Path—too stuck in your own problems, I guess. It intrigued me enough that I decided to come talk to you in person."

Hazō licked his lips nervously and shot a glance at Mari. She was there to keep him out of trouble and ensure that he didn't say anything that would offend anyone important. This would have been a pretty good time to speak up, since Hazō had absolutely no idea how to speak to a non-human ruler, and that definitely included the Monkey King. (Monkey Boss? What was the correct honorific? See, this was exactly the time when it would make sense for the trained social expert to speak up!)

They were meeting in a conference room, not in the Hokage's office. The table was longer than his desk and narrower, meaning that people seated on opposite sides were still in comfortable conversational distance. There were no chairs, forcing them into the more traditional kneeling position. The table was occupied by a sheaf of paper, brushes and inkwells, a tray of tea, and multiple plates piled high with sugar cookies. Enma had finished his first two and grabbed two more.

"I'm honored, sir—Enma. Thank you for coming."

Enma snorted and glanced wryly at Asuma. "Nervous little thing, isn't he?"

"In fairness, I doubt he's met a Boss Summon before," Asuma reproved. "Dealing with non-humans is always fraught, especially when you lack the training of a Summoner."

"Wait," Hazō interjected, "Summoning training is supposed to include social rules and culture?"

Enma blinked huge golden eyes. "Of course. What did you expect?"

"I'm pretty sure that Keiko didn't get any training in the social side of things. In fact, I know she didn't."

Enma shrugged. "Hardly surprising. From what Asuma told me, the Pangolins haven't had a Summoner in three hundred years. Who on your Path would have known what to teach? As to Summoners, I believe you had questions."

"Yes! I was hoping—"

"Good, because I have answers. I am also the only one who could provide these answers, as I alone have wandered the Seventh Path so widely. I have seen more, done more, and learned more than any other living being, from the islands of the east to—"

"Oh no," Asuma said, rolling his eyes. "You're not about to do the whole schtick, are you?"

"What? What do you mean?"

"You know, tell all the stories of your 'heroic journeys', with all the myriad times that adventure has called and each time you've gone off to study with some new wise old mentor, cross the threshold of a new lost and forgotten place and—"

"You mock me, spiteful infant! I am Enma, far-traveler! The Unbounded, the Wide-Walker, hero of a thousand tales, the—"

"The pompous old windbag whose stories have been getting more and more embellished since I was four!"

"ASUMA!" Enma glared at him, then flicked his eyes towards an alarmed Hazō and a serene Mari. "You're making me look bad," he muttered.

Asuma laughed and shook his head, then glanced over at Hazō. "Don't let him get started or he'll be at it all day. Suffice to say that yes, he probably has traveled more widely than any other being on the Seventh Path. When I was in the Academy, Enma and Dad took a boat east into blue water—three days out, hung out for three days, three days back."

"Good times," Enma rumbled. "That was when I first met Octennō, the Kraken Boss."

Hazō's eyes shot up. "You spoke with the Kraken Boss?"

"I just said that, didn't I, boy? Try to keep up." He took a bite from his left-hand cookie, used his tail to lift up the teacup so he could have another sip, then patted his lips dry with a snow-white linen napkin held in the 'fingers' of his left foot. "Charming fellow, Octennō. Brilliant competitive improvisational poet. Not as good as me, of course, but he held his own through six straight rounds." His thick lips quirked in a smile. "And yes, I checked with the Kraken yesterday, after Babby—"

"Hey! I thought we agreed you wouldn't call me that anymore?" Asuma glowered fiercely at his summon.

"—after Babby, who should know better than to make fun of me in front of newcomers, told me what you were looking for. The Kraken do not currently have a Summoner, nor have they had one for four years. Their most recent Summoner was a boy named Shunki who lived in that big city way the fuck up in the north of Lightning. He inherited the scroll from his father after the father apparently died of one of those illnesses that you humans are so subject to." He paused to scarf down the last of his left-hand cookie. "These really are good, Babby. You must give me the recipe."

"I promise I will give you the recipe if you promise to stop using that name."

Enma heaved an overly dramatic sigh. "Oh, very well. For the rest of today, at least."

"Thank you."

The Monkey King chuckled. "In any case, the boy and his father were living in that city up in Lightning, like I said. Well, a little outside it, actually. No idea what happened; given that the Clans can only reach your Path by way of our Summoners, it's unusual that we find out how they died. The Krakens' last contact with Shunki was four years ago, and there's been no word since then. That usually means that the Summoner kicked it, but it's always possible that he just hasn't used the Scroll since then.

"Speaking of Marsh, the Porcupine Clan's border with my people is one giant swamp. I passed through it about two hundred years ago—this was before I ascended to my current rank, of course—when I decided that I was going to journey west for a time. Ah, the wonders I saw. There was this one time—"

"Focus, please."

"Eh. You're no fun, Asuma. Very well." He tipped his head up, looking at the ceiling in thought while simultaneously nibbling on his cookie. "Let me see, let me see...traveling, the Krakens...oh, yes, of course. The Otters.

"The Otters are, of course, a bunch of chuckleheads. Charming, I'll give them that, and you humans seem to find the stinky little things adorable for some reason, but they're a bunch of vapid, self-important know-nothings."

"By which he means that they made fun of him when he started in with his usual levels of bragging."

"Hrrrn. That is not what I meant."

"Terribly sorry. You were saying?"

"Hrmph. I haven't spoken directly to them since Jiraiya died—" His simian face grew grave and he bowed his head for a moment before meeting Hazō's gaze. "You were Jiraiya's get, were you not?"

Hazō cleared his throat, which had somehow developed a lump. "Yes, sir. Although not by blood."

"Hrn. I'm sorry for your loss, child. I respected Jiraiya, and enjoyed his company. He is missed in our drum circles. The man could lay down a beat that would rock your bones."

"Thank you, sir."

"Yes, well. The Otters are not in convenient range for direct contact—we haven't had positive relations with the Pangolins since they tried to invade us three hundred years ago; we call it the War of Scaly Humiliation, so you can guess how that worked out for them. Anyway, we obviously can't pass through their territory and the Condor territory is far too mountainous for easy travel, which means getting to the Otters requires passing through the Mara and then the Toads.

"Now—"

"Excuse me sir, would it be possible to get a map?"

One of Enma's caterpillar-like eyebrows went up. "You want a map of my world? I don't believe jutsu can work between Paths."

"...What?"

"Jutsu, boy. What else would you use a map for?"

Hazō blinked. Twice. He looked at Mari but got nothing. He looked back at Enma.

"...Navigating? Figuring out where different nations are?"

"The depths do you need a map to do that? I can just tell you. Even give you all the landmarks to get there."

"But...wouldn't a map be simpler? I mean..."

"The Monkeys believe that the essence of being is indivisible," Asuma said. "Your reflection is yourself. The map is the nation. The broken halves of a staff are still the staff. Work the correct jutsu on the reflection, you affect the person. Work the correct jutsu on the map, you affect the nation."

"But...that's not...I mean..."

"Huh. Got a dumb one here, dontcha, kiddo?"

"Would it kill you to use my name, Enma?"

"Might. Be a lot less entertaining, that's for sure."

Asuma sighed. "Very well, Uncle Fuzzykins."

"Hey now!"

"You know, Granny Imi sure loved it when I called you that. She used to pinch your cheeks and cackle. It was so entertaining."

"...Fine, Asuma. Anyway, what's with the kid? He looks like a fish."

"The Human Path does not have the Law of Identity, Enma. It's a strange concept to us."

"Fine, whatever. Look, kid, let's get this show back on the road. The Otters don't—"

"Sir, I'm sorry," Hazō cut in. "I don't mean to be rude, but you said that jutsu don't work between Paths, so there shouldn't be any danger in giving us a map. Right?"

Enma frowned. "Kid, the first rule of security is don't write down the thing you're trying to keep secure unless you absolutely have to. Suppose I draw you a map and it somehow gets lost after I leave? Suppose—and I grant that this is a slim possibility, but hear me out—suppose that I'm wrong. Suppose that jutsu can work between paths. You and your clumsy human fingers spill tea on the map, my country floods. No, I'm not giving you a map. Now hush.

"Anyway, the Toads are just to the east of the Otters and the two are friendly. Since Jiraiya and Zen hung out a lot, this meant that the Monkeys and the Otters could exchange messages if we wanted. It's generally a good idea to keep in touch with the other nations that border on those psychotic bug-slurpers, so I've been pen pals with Lutrō for decades. They didn't have a Summoner as of two years ago. Their last one went missing back in..." He frowned and turned to Asuma. "It's 1069 for you, right?"

"Yes."

Enma nodded. "Coolio. Anyway, the Otters' last Summoner, a dude named Suketoshi, went dark back in 975 or so. He lived in a village on the side of a mountain in the middle of that big desert southwest of here—"

"The middle of what is now Wind Country, basically," Asuma added.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. Shush, the grownup is talking. Anyway, he apparently flipped his lid when he first came up to Otter territory and saw all that water. Nice guy, according to Lutrō. Shortly before he vanished, Lutrō had asked him to go check on something in Bear—your Bear, not ours. I'm the only one who's directly checked on our Bear, and let me tell you, those guys know how to party. They've got this honey mead—"

Asuma cleared his throat.

"Right, right. Anyway, the last time Suketoshi checked in he said that he was going to resupply in..." He frowned. "Huh. Don't remember the name. It's a little town in the hills about three hundred miles northwest from Suketoshi's mountain. He missed his check-in the next night, so he probably got ganked somewhere in there."

Asuma frowned. "That would probably be either Fang or Mountain. Small countries, but lots of arroyos in Fang, hills and mountains in Mountain, and caves in both. It's possible that a Scroll could go unnoticed all this time, but surprising. I wonder if one of them has been holding a Summoner in reserve all this time?" He looked accusingly at the Monkey King. "Why didn't you tell me about this earlier?"

Enma shrugged and chomped up another cookie. "You didn't ask," he said, around a mouth full of sugar cookie. He swallowed. "Look, Ba—sorry, Asuma, there's a ton of stuff jammed into this old noggin of mine. If I tried to tell you everything I know we'd be here until you were old and grey, and I ain't got time for that."

He turned back to Hazō. "Let's see...the Otters. Yeah, so their scroll is probably kicking around somewhere out in that shithole desert of yours.

"Movin' on, let's talk about the Porkies. Things have been getting a little tense with them, and they've always been prickly—see what I did there? heh—so I'm a little out of the loop on their Summoner. I haven't heard anything about her for twenty years and she was already a grandma back then. You mayfly humans don't often make it to eighty, so I'd be surprised if she was still kicking around. Dunno if she passed on her scroll or what. I do know that she lived in..." He frowned and looked over at Asuma. "What's that place? The Oozy Temple? Something like that."

Asuma stared back in confusion, then nodded as realization struck. "Do you mean Todoroki Shrine on O'uzo Island?"

"Sure, whatever. Anyway, she was living there last I heard. Told her original village to fuck off for some reason, decided she was going to go and sit around and hum a lot."

"She was a missing-nin?" Hazō asked. "Someone let a Summoner go missing?"

Massive simian shoulders allow for truly magnificent shrugs. "Dunno. She came from some dinky little place...Sky? Star? Moon? Something night-related anyway. I doubt they had the juice to stop her."

"Okay..." Hazō said slowly. "So the Krakens, Otters, and Porcupines all have no Summoners. I thought that was uncommon?"

Once again the magnificent shrug. "Dunno what to tell you. We can only have one point of contact with the Human Path at a time, so if our Summoner gets knocked on the knob then we don't have an easy way to find out what happened, or to ensure the Scroll gets into someone else's hands. Sure, Scrolls are really awesome and so whoever kills a Summoner generally tries to become the next Summoner, but that doesn't always work out. Better to have no Summoner than a bad one, and if the Boss and the former Summoner were good friends then you're not always inclined to take on your friend's murderer. Besides, a lot of Summoners get sick of the constant attempts on their life, so they move someplace quiet where it's hard to find them. If they die out in the back of beyond then it takes a while for the Scroll to get back in circulation.

"Anyway, that's the Krakens, Otters, and Porkies. The Bouncies—that's Kangaroos to you—now those guys are a hoot. I've only met their Boss once, about a hundred, hundred fifty years ago. My Summoner back then was this chick named Kinuku, lived up in Whirlpool. Her sister had one of the Abominations chained up in her gut, made her a little crazy. Well, a lot crazy. Kinuku had the patience and courage of the Sage, taking care of her like she did. I kept telling her that slurping up that thing's chakra would mess with her head and she kept telling me to mind my own beeswax...meh, neither here nor there, I guess.

"The Kangaroo Summoner, this chick named Chizuko, lived three doors down from Kinuku, so Kangā and I used to have tea with the three of them every few days. The Bouncies live waaaaaay the heck over on the other side of the continent from all us decent people, on the southeast corner of Arachnid Territory. From Kangā's descriptions I've got to say that those guys sound creepy as fuck.

"Anyway, Chizuko went off on a mission and didn't come back. Roll forward to about forty years ago, Zen brought me in for a meeting with the Lord of River Country. The Bouncy Summoner was there; he sat in the background and didn't say a damn thing the whole time. Creepy dude. He was pretty jacked for one of you scrawny little humans, real quiet, had this creepy stare that made me uncomfortable. Never got his name. He liked to stay off the list, too; I asked Zen about him a few times and didn't get much. There were occasional reports of him up until about fifteen years ago, then nothing.

"Asuma said that you already know about the Condors and the Capybaras, so I won't bother doing those. The last one that I know anything about that also might be fallow right now is the Squirrels. They're east of the Bouncies, so I've never met 'em myself, but Kangā used to say good things. Their latest summoner was this guy from..." He frowned, then looked over at Asuma. "Eastern continent, south side. Weird name. Shoulder? Face?"

"Neck?"

"Yeah, that's the one. Anyway, tiny little country with just a few ninja in it. They basically only held the place because they had a Summon Scroll." He preened a bit. "Shows just how much more awesome the Seventh Path is, when just a few of us can stand off armies of you puny little humans."

"I feel certain that the sparsely-settled nations of the eastern continent were sending vast armies to take over a small and resource-poor segment of their continent," Asuma said drily. "Probably on a daily basis."

"Glad you agree. Anyway, about three years ago, Zen summoned me for tea and spent most of the time pissing and moaning—"

"Yes, because Dad was so famous for his 'pissing and moaning'. C'mon Enma, don't be a shit."

"A'right, a'right. Fine. He was clearly pissed off, but you're right; he wasn't one to piss or moan. He spent the meal being annoyed. Better?"

"Much."

"Anyway, Jiraiya was over in Neck putting together a conference of all the major players in that area, trying to get them to found an actual village the way you pipsqueaks over on this side of the world have done. The plan was to start with the nations all the way on the East side, get something with a solid powerbase set up before Mist knew anything about it. From there they would have brought in the nations west of there until the entire eastern continent was one unit. It would have been a knife at Mist's back, make Leaf's life a lot easier.

"The Squirrel Summoner wasn't keen on the idea; he was the boss of his particular chunk of nothing and not anxious to bend the knee, but no one else was interested in him being the Mokukage. He was disrupting things left, right, and center. Dunno what happened or who started it, but a fight broke out. Jiraiya got a good piece of him but he got away; probably died out in the woods somewhere. The meeting went down on a small island in the middle of a lake where Neck and a couple of the other local countries touched. I dunno more specifically."

"Thank you, sir," Hazō said. "That's very helpful."

"Eh, no worries, kid. Asuma's been telling me tall tales about you and your family. Your uncle invented skywalkers, right?"

"...He made the seal, yes."

"Sounds like a smart guy. And your mom's supposed to be pretty cute." He cocked his head, studying Mari thoughtfully. "No offense, but I prefer someone with a better pelt. Humans...ugh, no thanks. Only got fur on your heads, makes you look mangy. The stunted little arms don't help."

Mari smiled. "I'm glad. I was trying to figure out a polite way to say 'yuck, not enough money in the world.'"

Enma threw his head back in laughter. "Sassy! I like it." He paused for another sip of tea, dabbed his mouth again, and looked back at Hazō. "Anything else I can help you with, kid? If not, I'm outta here. There's a drum circle and poetry reading that I'm hoping to get back in time for."

"You do have that meeting with Noda in an hour," Mari murmured to Hazō.

Hazō nodded to her and then paused, thinking.

---

XP AWARD: 1

Brevity XP: 1

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, January 29, 2020, at 12pm London time.

Author's Note: For reasons @Velorien already mentioned we short-circuited the plan, which is why it's not linked in the title. Despite that, it was a good plan and well-written, so I'm awarding XP.

 

[Velorien]

Chapter 322, Part 2: Uncomfortable Answers​

"Actually, sir," Hazō spoke up, "there are some questions of a more esoteric nature I'd like to ask you, if you don't mind." He glanced at Mari out of the corner of his eye, checking for an "abort before you start an interdimensional war" signal (he felt a brief surge of pride at having worked his way up from "disfavoured genin from a poor family" to someone for whom this was a realistic concern). Mari passively gave him the go-ahead.

"Now, I realise I'm not a summoner," he went on, "and not versed in Seventh Path culture, so there's a risk I'll inadvertently offend you. If that happens, I'd like to—"

"Kid," Enma cut him off, "chill. You're stiffer than my staff, and let me tell you, that thing's stiffness is the stuff of legend."

Awkward silence.

Enma rolled his eyes. "My shapeshifting combat staff, you pervs. I swear, humans. Only ever one thing on your minds."

Mari gave an amused snort.

"That said," Enma added, "the other one's a legend in its own right. You want esoteric lore, well, there was this one time I—"

"Enma," Asuma said. "You're doing this deliberately, aren't you?"

"Hundred and twenty percent," Enma said with a grin. Hazo winced. "Was it that obvious?"

"Only to anyone who's ever met you."

Enma gave an exaggerated sigh. "Kids these days. No respect for their elders. You be sure not to learn from his example."

Hazō politely kept his thoughts to himself.

"Setting the glorious tales of my past, present, and future aside for now, hit me. What do you want to know?"

"Well, sir," Hazō said, bringing forth his mental list with that unique sense of satisfaction at bringing forth a list, "can you tell me about the Great Library? Is it real? Where is it? What's inside?"

Enma chuckled. "Great Library, huh? That takes me back. You're not the only one who's ever wondered. Or wandered, for that matter. Never found the place, and I doubt it was ever more than a campfire story. I mean, think about it, kid. Monkeys can do anything, being Made in the Creator's Image and all, but the majority of clans can't even write. That's half of why Clan Bosses are so important, by the way. We're the clan's memory. For as long as the Boss is there, the clan's oral tradition will never die.

"So that's one. Two is that the clans that can write are usually the smarter ones, or end up being the smarter ones. And smart clans are as arrogant as Pangolins—real saying—with the exception of the Monkeys, who are humility itself. Imagine what'd happen if you tried to put all of those together in a narrow space.

"Three, your unlucky number, is that no one knows where it's supposed to be, or will admit to knowing, anyway. The only parts of the world I don't know much about are the deep underwater, Kraken territory and such, and deep in the mountains, maybe in caves so the flying clans don't spot it overhead." He paused. "And I am never going into a mountain cave."

The sudden, jarring shift in tone made Hazō shy away from continuing the subject.

"What about seals?" Hazō asked, violently twisting the conversation into the first unrelated direction that came to mind. "There's supposed to be a ban on seals on the Seventh Path, right? And on summoning Death, though I'll admit I'm not sure what that would entail."

"No such thing," Enma said very briskly. "All are equal before Death, so it signs no contract. All submit before its power, so it takes no master. All will one day be in its possession, so it cares not for reward.

"And we don't use seals because the Sage said so. That's reason enough. But if you want an educated guess from someone who's graduated from the school of hard knocks with flying colours, two words. Sealing failure. I've juggled flaming torches with my tail before—it was for a dare, don't ask—and even I think you're crazy to be playing with fire that hot. I'm not having that brought into my home, and, speaking bluntly, the Gōketsu aren't in the Seventh Path's good books right now for doing it, especially with the Pangolin War still raging. You're lucky the clans who've already figured out what you did are on the wait-and-see side, and you're lucky you stopped before the Pangolins got to the heavy hitters. And that you have a loyalty pact with our summoner.

"There's other stuff you don't bring to the Seventh Path, and people who don't ever come to the Seventh Path, and stuff you don't do on pain of creativity, but by and large, the people who need to know already know, or got told up front, and the people who don't know are better off not knowing."

Hazō swallowed. "Moving quickly on, Jiraiya told us you're not supposed to drain chakra from summons, but not why. Is that something you can explain?"

"C'mon, kid, you're making me lose my faith in humanity here. Would you drink tea brewed out of sight by a Snake?"

"Odds are low," Hazō agreed.

"Exactly. And you'd be crazy to drain the chakra of a different species without knowing in advance what it'll do to you, right?"

"Uh."

"Well, summon chakra is different. Better. Stronger. What do you think's gonna happen if a kid like you, with your measly eight elements—"

"Five elements," Asuma interjected.

"…with your measly five elements, tries to drain something your puny chakra system ain't designed to handle?"

Hazō couldn't decide if Enma's explanation was more than sufficiently informative, or not informative at all, which, honestly, went for most of this conversation.

-o-​

I'd like to get this published before @eaglejarl's next update, so up it goes. Additional lore may or may not be available later in a flashback. This was a good plan, but a very brief one, so I'll let @eaglejarl do the XP awarding based on if/how the rest plays out.

To recapitulate my earlier summary, you have not spoken to Noda. You tried secretly finding out the birthdays of five random chūnin outside your social circle, but found it too easy to serve as training, due to the availability of registries, and how easy it is to discreetly obtain the information from third parties due to the existence of surprise birthday presents. Noburi and Yuno are going on the mission.

-o-​

What do you do?

Voting closes Saturday 1st of February, 9 a.m. New York Time.

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 323: Events Continue to Unfold​

"Noda?" Hazō said, closing the door behind him and turning to face the room. "Thanks for waiting. What can I—"

Hazō broke off as the faint scent of alcohol drifted to his nose.

The dwellings on the Gōketsu estate had been 'built' through use of the Multiple Earth Wall and a ton of chakra, purchased from various off-duty ninja around Leaf and transmitted via the ever-snarky Noburi. The design intent had been to get shelter for several hundred people as quickly as possible in the middle of winter; speed had been more of a focus than beauty. Each of the various buildings was as identical as cookie-cutter cookies, made unique only by their minor imperfections; none of the floors were perfectly level, since the jutsu insisted that 'walls' needed to always go up, even if only at a very low angle and by the tiniest margin. Many of the walls were slightly crooked—not because the jutsu required it but because the builder had been sloppy. It was all functional and perfectly livable, merely...unique.

The Gōketsu nuclear family had a complex to themselves, three stories high instead of two. Four apartments to a floor, two rooms to an apartment, the whole thing wrapped around a central atrium that would become a food garden as soon as the snow had the decency to melt.

This room had been intended as a living-room-slash-kitchen but was being used as a conference room for Hazō in his role as Clan Head. It was spacious, with a door out to the hallway and another to the inner 'bedroom' that had been revamped into a high-security shield room for particularly sensitive discussions. Hazō had opted to skip the average Clan Head's "massive desk that makes me look impressive" setup, since Mari had informed him that his teenage frame could not pull it off and would instead make him look like a child in his father's chair.

No, Hazō had no desk, preferring instead a low coffee table with a three-person couch and four chairs. A lap desk allowed for work to happen anywhere in the room.

When he walked in, Noda was sitting slumped on the couch, looking up at the ceiling. The moment he walked in, she snapped upright and glared at him.

"Noda?"

"You wann—you wanted me to join your clan," she said, speaking with the careful precision of someone who was very, very drunk and trying hard to sound sober. "I am not going to do that."

Hazō considered that for a moment, evaluating how Mari would probably handle the situation. The Summer Lake, the Melding Streams, the Incoming Tide...those were the particular strategies she had discussed most recently. All were peaceful approaches, but Incoming Tide was the most assertive of them. Not the approach right now, not with a drunken conversation partner. No, this was a time for Summer Lake; nothing for Noda to focus on and take offense to.

He leaned on the wall and folded his arms on his chest. "All right."

She blinked and frowned at him. "What d'you mean 'all right'? I just told you I'm not joining."

Hazō shrugged one shoulder. "I offered, you declined. That's your right."

"You're a Clan Head and I just told you to fuck off!"

Hazō couldn't stop himself from chuckling. "You were a little more polite than that."

"Yeah, but you wanned—wanted me...wanted to buy me so I'd make jutsu for you and I said no." She raised a finger. "And it's gonna stay no. I don't care what you say, I'm not joining and you can fuck yourself in the ear if you think you can force me to."

"No one is forcing you to do anything." He shrugged. "So, what's the plan?"

"Huh?"

"Your plan. Are you going back to your apartment, would you like to stay in one of our guest rooms, or what?"

"Pshah. Like I can go back to my apartment after your stinking fucking Clan-Head tricks. Landlord threw me out, and you know it!"

Hazō frowned. "Wait, what?"

"Threw me out! Suddenly it's all 'three months overdue rent, bleh, get out, I hired a mission to evict you and you can't do anything 'cause I'm a civilian, bleh.' You talked to him and told him to call the rent. Duh."

Hazō chewed his cheek for a moment. Had a certain red-headed manipulatrix done exactly what Noda had accused Hazō of, or was this in fact just a coincidence?

"Noda, I didn't do anything like that, nor did I order anyone else to do so."

"Uh-huh. Sure. Fucking Clans, always fucking over normal fucking people. Proud bastard, couldn't stand that I wanted to think about it instead of kissing your fucking feet." She draped an arm over the back of the couch in an attempted-casual effort to keep herself from swaying.

Hazō sighed and rubbed his forehead, where a profound headache loomed.

"You should meet Haru," he said. "The two of you would get along great."

She stared at him suspiciously.

"Look," Hazō said, "I didn't have anything to do with your situation. I'm not forcing you to join the clan—I'm not forcing you to do anything. If you're feeling tired, you're welcome to crash in the guest room down the hall." He gestured vaguely towards the door. "Or I can give you your own apartment on the estate, or I can clear your debts and let you go back to your previous apartment, or whatever you like."

"Asshole. 'Clear my debts'! Filthy cocksucker, throwing your money around like you're some kind of bigshot. You're not even a Leaf-nin! Fucking traitor from that psycho-demon place of traitors."

Hazō looked at her calmly for several seconds.

"I don't have time for this," he said. He turned and walked out the door.

Let's see...angry-drunk jutsu hacker in his office. Who could he send to get her off the property that could manage it without triggering a fight? And where could he work until that was done?

o-o-o-o​

"Come in!" Hazō called to whomever had just clapped outside his tent.

A middle-aged man, hair speckled with grey and a pot belly, ducked through the tent flap and bowed deeply.

"Your Lordship, I am Shinoda Gaku. Your brother suggested that you needed a secretary?" He held out a folded paper with Noburi's handwriting scrawled across the outside. "I am literate, numerate, and an experienced scribe. I have maintained accounts for several businesses, studied calligraphy under—"

"You're hired."

Shinoda blinked. "Excuse me?"

Hazō shrugged. "Noburi thinks you're good enough so you're good enough. I have a ton of paperwork that needs doing and desperately do not want to do it. You said you've maintained accounts?"

"Yes sir?"

"Do you think you can handle food and sundry purchasing and distribution for a group of several hundred people?"

"I, I don't see..." He took a deep breath and started over. "Yes, sir. I can do that."

"Brilliant. Did Noburi discuss pay?"

Shinoda swallowed. "He, um, yes. Sir. His offer was...quite generous."

"How generous?"

Shinoda named a number, looking slightly green as he did.

"Done. Have a seat and let me walk you through all this. Once you're set, I need to go take care of some stuff. I'll send some food and one of our Academy students who can operate the storage scrolls for you." And could keep an eye on him to make sure he didn't do anything inappropriate in the command tent. That part didn't need to be said aloud, and the chances seemed vanishingly small that the man would try anything. Sure, Hazō would need to check his work later to make sure he was competent and honest, but that was a small price to pay for getting the rest of his afternoon back.

o-o-o-o​

The guards were sloppy; Hazō was not noticed until he was out of the woods and half a dozen yards into the clearing where his research team had set up.

Granted, the guards were a dozen spear-armed civilians, with one crippled ninja providing backup. Still. Five of the civilians were stationed around the perimeter while the rest, and the ninja, huddled around the fire at the center of the clearing. A few yards from the fire stood a work table around which a group of men had gathered to shout at one another.

One of those men, perhaps in his fifties and stocky, glanced up at a shout from the guards. An expression of horror passed briefly across his face and he rapidly jogged over to meet Hazō halfway.

"Lord Gōketsu! How may we help you, sir?" He bowed deeply, holding it until Hazō gestured for him to stand straight.

Hazō studied the senior engineer of his skysliders research team. The man's obvious fear was not a good sign. Still, best to open mildly.

"Just checking in, Michiki. How goes the research?"

Michiki swallowed.

Just for a moment, the world seemed like a very strange place to Hazō. By birth he was a teenager who had grown up in poverty in a far-off land scourged by the whims of a madman and the secret police who were his Eyes. By training he was a killer who bent the painted world to his will with a word and a few flicks of his fingers. By dint of bribery he was the son of a legendary demigod. By necessity he was the ruler of a Great Clan consisting of six people, now grown to a few dozen Empowered plus hundreds of the powerless who cowered in his protective shadow. He stood before a man thrice his elder, steeped in the lore of his time, and that man offered fearful deference. Indeed, the painted world was a strange place and Hazō's presence bent it along twisted paths.

"We...um. We are still in the design phase, My Lord. We have some sketches and are discussing how to refine them. No prototype as yet, but we have orders in for materials."

"Show me your sketches?"

"Um...yes, My Lord. This way, My Lord."

Michiki led him over to the table. The guards around the fire were on their feet in a line, bowing past the horizontal and staying there. Maehata, the ninja with the charred leg that would not straighten, was doing his best to bow just as deeply without falling over.

"At ease," Hazō murmured as he walked past them to the table. The civilian builders were likewise lined up, on their knees in the snow in full dogeza.

"Up, please. I'd like to see your designs."

The men stood up tentatively, exchanging the frightened looks of mice wondering who was going to bell the cat.

"Here, My Lord," Michiki said, stepping to the table and gesturing to one of the multitudinous pages of low-grade paper with charcoal sketches sprawling across them. The paper was sprawled in disarray, sharing space with clumsy wooden forms and masses of feathers.

Hazō picked up a page at random, studied its contents, then moved to the next.

Each drawing was a segment of a whole, none the entirety. A bird's wing, built in wood. Pulleys and ropes. Hinges to permit flapping. Rows of interleaved feathers.

He paused at one page. It contained merely columns of numbers, each one labeled with a word or two. Kite, triangular. Kite, semicircular. Kite, diamond. Hawk 1. Hawk 2. Sparrow 1. Sparrow 2. Sparrow 3. Sparrow 4. Blood Eagle 1. Lantern, square. Lantern, rectangle 1. Lantern, rectangle 2. On and on, names and numbers. It spilled off the page and onto three more.

"What is this?" he asked, showing the page to Michiki.

"Nothing, sir. Just some doodles. Please, if you'll look at these wing formations—"

Hazō held up a hand. "What. Is. This?"

Michiki paled and said nothing, clearly unable to get the words out.

"It's mine, sir," said the youngest of the craftsmen, a boy not much older than Hazō himself. "It's nothing, sir. I'm sorry for wasting time."

Hazō looked over at the young man. "It's fine. Explain, please."

"My Lord, please, I apologize for my son," said an older man, brown-haired and gangly. "I take full responsibility. I should have been watching him more closely. I promise I won't let him waste your resources in the future, just, please don't be angry. It's my fault."

Hazō took a deep breath. "Gentlemen. You are working on a difficult problem and have not been working on it long. I understand that, and I do not have a problem with it. What I do have a problem with, however, is the sense that my questions are not being answered and something is being covered up. I will ask one more time: What is this?" He held up the column of numbers and fanned it gently back and forth.

"It's...numbers about flying things, My Lord," the youngster said, clearly terrified. "Weights, dimensions, things like that. I thought perhaps it would be useful."

Hazō nodded. "How much exposure have you had to mathematics?"

"Um...mathematics, My Lord?"

"Numbers, and how to work with them."

"Well, uh...I mean—"

"My Lord, please," the boy's father said, clearly terrified. "He didn't mean to rise above his station. I apologize. It's my fault for letting him see my books. Please—"

"Gentlemen," Hazō said through gritted teeth. "I am not annoyed by the work you have done. I am getting annoyed by the groveling and the evasions. I think this young man's work is insightful and likely to be very useful. I want to make sure that he has the tools to do the job. Now. I am generally pleased with what I've seen. You will be receiving a bonus in your next pay packet, provided that you stop with the evasions. I have done enough research to understand that it all starts with gathering data and that the vast majority of attempts fail. I'm fine with that. Be diligent in your work, answer my questions, do not try to cover anything up or distract me from anything, and everything will be fine. There will be a reward for success but there will not be punishment for honest failure, only malingering or coverups. Clear?"

Everyone's head nodded jerkily.

"Good. Please put together a short summary of your work to date. One page, just the very basics. Have it on my desk by dinner tomorrow. Again, I don't care that there isn't a working prototype. I don't care that much of what you've done hasn't led to results. Be straightforward and there won't be an issue." He looked around to make sure that everyone had received the message, then turned to the youngster. "What's your name?"

"Kunihiko, if it please you, My Lord."

"Kunihiko, this is good work. Keep it up." He looked around the group again. "If you need anything, including mathematical help, talk to my secretary, Shinoda Gaku. He'll be available at Command Central. That might be the tent or it might be the main building, depending on the day. I'll tell him that you're to get priority."

The craftsmen visibly sagged in relief at their Lord's lack of displeasure.

Hazō looked over at the guards, who stood braced to attention. "Gentlemen. You are on a six-hour watch. I expect you to be eyes-out, not huddled around a fire facing in. Understood?"

"Yes, My Lord!" Seven bows, deeper than horizontal.

"I'll leave you to it."

o-o-o-o​

"...and when I left, Asuma and Enma were swapping stories about Enma's time with Lord Third."

Dinner was over, leftovers back in storage seals, dishes piled on the counter where the housekeepers would deal with them. The family was gathered in Hazō's living room, a roaring fire in the fireplace and several braziers leaving the room toasty. (The existence of the Usamatsu's Glorious Life-Saving Purifier seal was a blessing straight from the Sage, as it meant one could be warm and simultaneously not choking on smoke!)

"Wow," Noburi said.

"Indeed," said Akane, nodding. "That is...more missing Scrolls than I had expected."

"Stinking Summons," Kagome-sensei grumbled. "Why are we even talking about this? Because the Pangolins worked out so well, that's why."

Hazō suppressed a sigh and looked at Mari. She looked back. He suppressed another sigh; this 'teaching by making you do all the work while I calmly sit here and judge you' strategy of hers was getting old. Still, she had set up a series of hand signals with which to discreetly advise him when she felt it necessary. The fact that she wasn't using them meant that she thought he...wasn't making a giant mess of things, at least.

"We're talking about it because it's important," Hazō said to his teacher. "Those Scrolls could be recovered by anyone at any time. That could be us, or it could be someone who wants to kill us." He paused, then shrugged. "I suppose it could also be an ally of ours, or someone who doesn't care about us or about Leaf, but there's a lot more people who want to kill us in this world than people who like us or don't care."

"Plus, despite all the problems the Pangolins have caused us, we've benefited a lot," Noburi pointed out. "A non-elemental armor jutsu that also makes you stronger and tougher? Money? Disposable meat-shields that can't be killed? The ability to communicate instantaneously, or even exchange objects, across hundreds of miles? It's pretty amazing. Having more scrolls would be a good thing."

"Hrmph."

Hazō studied his teacher for a moment. "For the sake of argument, let's assume we wanted to go after one of the Scrolls. We can discuss later whether or not we do want to, but let's just think about it hypothetically. Which one would we go after?"

Mari started ticking items off on her fingers. "Kraken, Porcupine, Otters, Kangaroos, Squirrels. Based on the notes that Jiraiya wrote for you before Nagi Island, the Kraken and the Otters can use tools. Adapting their jutsu to our use would likely be easier than for some of the other clans. On the other hand, the Kraken are mid-layer ocean; they don't have access to fire and they avoid both Crustacean territory on the bottom and Shark territory on the top, so they probably don't have access to material goods."

"Enma met the Boss Kraken on the surface," Akane pointed out. "They do come up sometimes."

Mari nodded. "Fair. Still not a lot of material goods to be had, unless they go up on an island or something. Plus, I'm hard-pressed to think what we could provide that they would find useful."

"The fact that Jiraiya knew they could use tools is suggestive," Hazō noted. "They may have some form of technology adapted to the water. If so, we could find something useful to them."

"Perhaps, but it's unlikely to be a primary focus. Given that fact, it seems like they wouldn't be strongly motivated to have a Summoner. What service could we provide?"

"Healing," Noburi suggested. "They may or may not have anything like medical ninjutsu."

"Only the Summoner can go to the Seventh Path," Hazō pointed out. "You're our medic and you're already studying to be the Toad Summoner. Speaking of which, how is that coming?"

Noburi grimaced. "It makes my brain hurt, but I'm getting there. Asuma and Lady Tsunade are both good teachers and they've been making it a priority to ensure that one of them is available to teach me on a regular basis." He snorted. "Granted, Lady Tsunade's teaching methods are a bit more painful than Asuma's, so I typically prefer his lessons to hers. Don't tell her I said that."

Smiles and quiet chuckles went around the room.

"Back on topic," Mari said. "I can imagine the Krakens being an extremely effective battle summon, but they appear to lack the out-of-combat utility that we're looking for. The Porcupines might well be in the same boat—it's unclear to me whether or they have hands but they apparently lack much technology, which argues against it. Plus, Enma said that the territory on their border is a massive swamp, meaning it wouldn't be mineral-rich so we'd be looking at trading for, at best, plants."

"They likely have non-swamp land as well," Akane noted.

Mari nodded. "Fair. Still, it's another case where they sound like an amazing battle summon but low on the utility scale. That leaves Kangaroos and Otters."

"What's a Kangaroo?" Kagome-sensei asked. "Sounds weird. And probably vicious."

"Enma described it as something like a giant bipedal rat," Hazō offered. "With serious claws, hands, and massive hindquarters that let it jump really far and kick really hard. Plus, they carry their young in a pouch on their stomachs."

Kagome-sensei nodded in satisfaction. "Yup. Weird."

"Potentially useful, though," Mari noted. "It sounds similar to a pangolin's bodyplan, which suggests that they might be good miners. The downside of them is that we don't know anything about the location of their Scroll. We know that it was in River—forty years ago, for one day. No requirement that the Summoner was actually a River ninja, as opposed to an ally from some other country. Plus, from the way Enma described him he was probably in his twenties or even thirties. That means he's either dead, in which case we know absolutely nothing about the Scroll's disposition, or he's the same age as the Third was when he died."

Everyone paused to reflect on how strong a Summoner might become in the course of seven decades. There was more than one shudder.

"What about the Squirrels?" Akane asked. "They sound like they could be useful—fast, agile, likely very perceptive. All useful traits for a ninja."

"True," Hazō said. "Also, Human-Path squirrels have paws that look a lot like hands, so I suspect the Seventh-Path Squirrels could make use of tools, which would make it easier to trade with them."

"Yeah," Kagome-sensei noted, "but their Scroll is under a tree somewhere in the middle of a continent that's nothing but trees."

"Point," Hazō replied. "That leaves the Otters. Hands, technology, equally good in the water and on land. They bring no diplomatic problems with them—they're friends with the Toads, at least not actively at war with the Pangolins, friends with the Monkeys, and probably not in contact with the Dogs or the Snakes. We have a reasonably good location on their Scroll—"

"Yes, 'on the other side of the continent, lost in a ditch somewhere'," Kagome-sensei said acerbically. "Oh, and don't forget that it's next to Bear, and next to those Rock stinkers who just tried to kill us all."

"In fairness," Hazō said reluctantly, "they didn't target us, and they got rid of our biggest enemy. We're in a much better position after the Collapse then we were before."

"Hrmph."

"We know that they don't have any iron in their territory," Mari pointed out. "They were trading with the Toads to get some."

"They may have other resources," Hazō said. "Even if they don't, you know how nasty real otters are in a fight."

"Sure, but there's no reason to think that the Otter Clan will have the same lightning aura," Mari argued. "Without it they wouldn't be that impressive."

"But we have no reason to think they don't have it, either. Plus, they've held onto territory adjoining the Pangolin Clan, so they need to have something working for them in a fight. They aren't bruisers like the Pangolins so their jutsu are probably optimized to do the same things that humans need—defense, early warning, evasion, that kind of thing. And we know they have technology, so it's likely they can provide out-of-combat utility. Plus, they're adjacent to the Toads so it would make it easy to do point-to-point communication with Noburi."

Everyone nodded slowly, considering the argument.

"This is a terrible idea," Kagome-sensei grumbled. "It's a terrible idea and when everything goes wrong I'm going to do the 'I Told You So' dance so hard."

"That's entirely fair," Akane said, smiling.

"Agreed," Hazō said. "In the meantime, do we have anything we could leverage that might help us find it? Sensei, is there anything in the notes you've been going through?"

Kagome-sensei looked sour. He mumbled something.

"What?"

"I said 'probably'!" He grunted. "I'm starting to find some traces of organization in the notes. Ink color, for one. You can tell which notes were written close together in time because ink is never perfectly consistent. An inkwell typically has enough for a day or two in it, so the pages that have matching ink were written close together. Likewise, you can put a location on some of the notes based on paper quality and type; he's a sensible guy, bought his paper in batches. Sometimes I can identify the origin based on inclusions, edge flashing, stuff like that. Ones that were made with the same techniques were probably written in the same area that the paper comes from." He glowered. "Of course, Mr. I'm-Such-A-Smartypants-Spymaster couldn't make it easy. He spread things out across different storage seals, so I have to pull everything out and group it all together. Once I do that it's easier to break because the groups are typically using the same code."

"That is amazing. Thank you, sensei."

The sealmaster grunted and shoved a chocolate-coated pear slice in his mouth, chewing irritably.

Mari considered the older man for a moment. "Kagome...do you realize that the stuff you're working on is the single most important thing for our clan?"

Kagome-sensei paused in mid-chew and looked suspiciously at the redhead. "Wha' 'u ta'w'ing about?"

"The Gōketsu are wealthy and physically secure"—she held up a hand to cut him off—"reasonably physically secure. Our biggest problems are political; we are perceived as outsiders and therefore lower status and worthy of suspicion. Winning Asuma's contest will cement our reputation for being part of the Will of Fire and go a long way towards establishing our place in Leaf. Jiraiya's notes are the single most valuable thing we own, and if we are going to win the contest, it's likely going to be based on those notes. Meaning it will be based on the work you're doing."

Kagome-sensei seemed nonplussed by that. "Really?"

She nodded. "Really. What you're doing is going to contribute more to our safety, our reputation, and our eventual power, than anything I have in the works and probably more than anything the kids can do in the next two months."

The sealmaster digested that for a moment.

"Huh."

---

XP AWARD: 4

Brevity XP: 1

Creative Training XP: 0 Earlier (around lunchtime), you did the first entry on the 'creative training' list. ("Convey the idea of creative training to Rock Lee. Declare yourself his eternal rival.") It was not enough to count for bonus XP.

It is now about 7pm. You are still in the living room.

I'm out of time for the day so I will have to pass the plan to @Velorien.

There will be no voting.