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edenfalling"The Guardian in Spite of Herself" is the sequel to "The Way of the Apartment Manager," which can be found in final form here on ff.net, or in beta draft with comments here on my livejournal. It also has fanart, which can be found here.
Here is chapter 10, in which we get actual plot development. Be still my beating heart.
I just finished the chapter tonight, so it probably sucks -- there are reasons I usually wait a day and do a rough edit before I post things -- but, you know, this story isn't the great American novel and I want to get back the sense of fun I have when I'm really into working on a story, so I'm trying to pick up my pace all around.
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The Guardian in Spite of Herself: Chapter 10
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The Hokutou road had way stations every five to ten miles, catering to travelers and marking side roads to local villages. On her own, Yukiko liked to take advantage of their solid roofs and hot meals, and often detoured through the countryside to gauge a region's civilian economy, but most of the merchants in this caravan had more specialized businesses and cargos. They pushed on past several way stations and camped at the side of the road, circling the wagons at sunset to form a rough enclosure.
"It's a bit rough on the bones," Yoshitaka-san told Seichi as they unhitched the mules, "but we'll reach Nagarehiya in two days instead of three -- by midmorning if we're lucky -- and the less time we're on the road, the more time we have to do business in the city."
"I'll miss the inns," Seichi said, leaning against Yoshitaka-san's wagon and stretching his feet toward Yukiko's newly built campfire. "I used to stop everywhere that had food and beds, so I could play every night without wearing out my welcome anywhere." He shuffled as he spoke, cards cascading from hand to hand without any apparent conscious direction.
Yoshitaka watched the cards for a moment, and then clapped his hands. "We're all friends here, Seichi-san, and I don't play for money -- my wife would disembowel me -- so if you'd like to warm up your old skills after dinner..."
The cards slapped down into Seichi's left hand, jack of hearts topmost. "Yuki-chan? Would you disembowel me if I relapsed a little? Or would you like to learn more than just shuffling and new versions of solitaire? I feel like poker."
Yukiko shrugged. "I'm willing to learn. But first, dinner." She pulled out a collapsible pot, a canteen, and three packages of noodles. "It's nothing special, but it'll hold us for the night." She was glad Naruto wasn't around -- if the kid saw her eating instant noodles, she'd never be able to drag him away from Ichiraku ramen stand again.
The water had just started to boil when a commotion broke out across the circle of wagons -- the Grass siblings and the pretty woman from Water Country were shouting at each other, while the older Wind woman had pushed her veil back to yell at all three of them. She seemed to be sheltering someone behind her, against the side of a communal wagon.
Kurenai appeared from the shadows, spinning a minor genjutsu to encourage calm and silence. "What's the trouble?"
The four civilians all answered at once, talking over each other, but Yukiko caught the words 'intruders,' 'ruined,' and 'children,' and a horrible suspicion bloomed in her mind. "Yoshitaka-san, please watch the noodles for me," she said, and hurried across the firelit clearing.
"We're not spies!" a terribly familiar voice shouted from behind the Wind woman. "And we didn't mean to smash your stupid plants, but if you're gonna be such jerks about it, then I'm not sorry!"
Naruto's face -- sporting a wide bandage over his left cheek -- glared out from under the woman's shoulder. The Uchiha boy, Sasuke, stood sullenly beside him.
Yukiko wanted to beat her head against a tree. Instead, she took a deep breath, spun a quick genjutsu to alter Naruto's hair color and hide the demon marks on his face, and stepped forward. "I'm very sorry," she said, bowing to the Grass siblings and the Water woman. "This is my younger brother, Yujiro, and his friend Sa-- Sakama. Yu-kun likes to play jokes on me, and he seems to have thought it would be funny to sneak along on my trip. I'm very sorry for this incident, and if you get your goods assessed in Nagarehiya, I'll pay for whatever damage the boys caused above and beyond the typical hazards of overland transport."
Naruto opened his mouth; Sasuke slapped a hand over it before the kid could say anything. Yukiko made a note to thank him later. After she killed both of them.
Kurenai shot her a confused look and the hand-sign for 'compromised mission.' Yukiko shook her head subtly and answered with 'later' and 'go along with me.' Kurenai shrugged. "I'll have to look into how they got around caravan security, Yukiko-san, but for now, please take charge of your brother and his friend so we can make a preliminary investigation of the wagon."
"Sure thing, no problem, thank you!" Yukiko said, darting forward to grab Naruto and Sasuke by their shirt collars. "Come on, you little idiots -- we have lots to talk about..."
She dragged the boys past Yoshitaka-san's wagon and into the charcoal shadows of the massive trees, deliberately crunching twigs and dry leaves under her feet as she went. She didn't stop for several minutes, until they were well away from the caravan and hidden behind a fallen, half-rotted tree trunk. Moonlight streamed through the gap in the forest canopy, just enough to see close up, washing the world colorless and soft around the edges, lending the shadows a menacing edge of uncertainty.
"Stay still," Yukiko commanded, letting go of the boys long enough to cast a sound-distortion over the area, just in case someone got curious and followed them.
Then she grabbed Naruto's shoulders and shook him, twice. "What in the name of the kami were you thinking? You could have been killed -- by traps or monsters in the forest, or if the way station guard had found you and not pulled his strike in time. And I'm on a mission! I can't drop everything to take you back home, but I can't keep you with me either -- then you'd really get killed!"
"I would not!" Naruto protested. "I'm a ninja now, like you!"
"No, you're not," Yukiko said, raking one hand through her loose hair and wishing for the comfort of her forehead protector. "You're sneaky, and you can be smart, but you don't have the reflexes, kid, and you still don't think about consequences. A shinobi wouldn't have followed me here. A shinobi knows when to obey orders and how to be patient. I swear, Naruto, do you even understand what you and Sasuke did?"
"It was my idea," Sasuke said, startling Yukiko out of her focus on Naruto. "I... my brother... Itachi..." His fists clenched. "If I can't kill him, I want to see him die."
Yukiko blinked. Itachi? True, he'd caused the disruption that rescheduled this mission, but why would Sasuke think that Itachi -- an S-class traitor -- had anything to with a routine assassination? "We're not going anywhere near your brother. Last I heard he was near Grass Country, not in the northeast."
Sasuke shifted, drawing back into the shadows. "But I heard you talking about him -- you said you'd never done assassination, and you'd be happy when he was dead." Naruto nodded in vigorous agreement.
Huh? When had she... oh, right! Kakashi had dropped by to tell her about his mission with Naga, and Sasuke must have been in the hallway at exactly the wrong moment. Yukiko really wanted to beat her head against a tree. "I was talking to the man assigned to track your brother," she told the boy. "My mission is completely unrelated. It's still important, though, and you two may have compromised it beyond repair."
Sasuke closed in on himself, crossing his arms over his chest; Naruto looked torn between guilt and defiance. "But we haven't done anything, Yukiko-neechan," he said. "You're not fighting anyone now, and we'll stay out of your way when you find the bad guys, I promise!"
"Kid, shut up while I think." Yukiko tugged on a strand of hair and tried to figure out how to fix this mess. She couldn't send the boys home on their own; that was just asking for trouble. Kurenai couldn't take them back to Konoha; that would leave the caravan officially undefended, which would be a breach of contract. She and Seichi couldn't leave the caravan without compromising their mission; the whole point of traveling slowly with merchants was to build a deep cover in case anyone in Tengai got suspicious and traced them.
But she couldn't keep the boys with her either. For one thing, she didn't think Naruto could manage deep cover if his life depended on it, which it would in Tengai, and for another, there was no way on earth she could take the surviving Uchiha heir into danger. Maybe she could ask Yoshitaka-san to watch over them? He planned to leave the caravan in Nagarehiya and head west instead of north.
Yukiko considered that for a moment, and then felt like slapping herself. She wasn't thinking straight -- she'd let her emotions take control -- and if this had been a battle, she would have died from sheer stupidity.
The obvious solution was to leave the boys in Nagarehiya with the local Leaf-nin on long-term city guard contracts. A quick message back to Konoha would bring someone to take them home, where Iruka and Sarutobi Hokage-sama could make sure Naruto and Sasuke understood just how stupid -- and how lucky -- they had been.
"Okay, I'm not going to strangle you," she said to the boys, "though you may end up wishing I had. Instead, you're both going to get a small taste of ninja life until we reach a place where I can turn you over to be someone else's headache. I'm on a deep cover mission, so you have to pretend not to be ninja -- don't talk about kunai, jutsu, or the academy. Ever. You, kid, will be my little brother Yujiro, and you, Sasuke, will be his friend Sakama. Make up your own family name if you want one, but don't you dare use Uchiha. That's a dangerous name now."
Sasuke looked skeptical. "Nobody will believe the moron's your brother. He doesn't look anything like you."
Yukiko laughed, too irritated to care about being polite. "Really? Look again, Sakama-kun -- his hair is blue-green, just like mine. And the beauty of it is that the people who saw Yu-kun's face before I cast the genjutsu will write reality off as a trick of the moon and firelight. For your disguise, I advise a smile -- I've only seen three people from your clan who smiled more than they frowned, so I bet that would make you nearly unrecognizable."
"Hey!" Naruto said. "Don't pick on Sasu-- on Sakama! He's a jerk, but that's not his fault. And anyway, it was my idea to follow you, not his. So be mad at me, not him."
Sasuke stared blankly at Naruto, as if he thought Naruto might be an illusion spun out of moonlight, a fever dream instead of solid, prosaic reality. Yukiko almost sympathized -- some days, the kid's mind just didn't seem to work on the same path everyone else's did.
"Idiot," Sasuke said finally.
"You're both idiots," Yukiko said before Naruto could respond. "Whichever one of you came up with this idea, you both went along with it, so you're both at fault. Now come with me so I can introduce you and make excuses for whatever damage you caused in that wagon."
She lifted the sound-distortion and headed back toward the caravan. Naruto and Sasuke trailed after her, bickering.
Yukiko felt a headache settling in for a long visit.
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The pack found nothing on the first day. "That's life," Kakashi said with a shrug, and sent them back in puffs of smoke. "We'll reach your campsite around noon tomorrow -- if we don't pick up his back trail, that's just how it goes."
"How can you be so calm?" Naga asked, shifting on a tree branch in search of a more secure and comfortable position. "He's a fucking traitor, he has creepy unknown jutsu, and he was Anbu. Oh, and he's insane. We can't just say 'Oh well, too bad' if we don't find him."
"Actually, we can. Where else do you think S-class missing-nin come from?" Kakashi leapt into Naga's tree, two branches further up, and tucked his pack against the trunk. Naga scowled up at him -- she would've preferred him farther away, but the giant trees were growing more scarce as they neared the forest's edge, so it was either share a tree or separate. Separation, when hunting someone as dangerous as Uchiha Itachi, was stupid.
Naga slept deep and hard, refusing to think about all the ways Tsukime might have died in the hospital by now, and all the things that might go wrong with her mission.
She woke -- again -- with a dog in her face. This time, she just sighed.
"Your master's a bastard," Naga told Hibiki as she carried the dog down the tree.
"You don't need to tell me," Hibiki said. "Trust me, we're all very damn aware of that. Now let me get to work." She hit the ground running, and the pack fanned out into the underbrush.
Kakashi drifted over to Naga as she shouldered her pack. "It's not impossible for Itachi to still be in this area. Aerial surveillance might be useful."
Naga shot him a sour look, but she nicked her thumb with a kunai and clapped her hands three times, spreading blood over the contract scars on her palms. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu! Akaruime, Yamiko, Kazemaru, come to me." Chakra rushed through her, twisting into the otherwhere of the summon beasts, sending a call and a guideline for them to follow back to her.
Three ravens popped into the air in a waft of smoke and downy feathers. "Hi!" croaked Akaruime, folding his wings and landing on her shoulder. "What's up?"
"Surveillance," Naga told the ravens. "We're tracking a missing-nin named Uchiha Itachi -- male, my height, longer hair, and lines on his face." She traced her fingers down her cheeks to demonstrate. "Keep an eye out for him, and for Grass-nin -- people who wear Kafunnokaze's symbol on their forehead protectors. Report anyone you find; don't get killed."
"On it!" Akaruime said. The other ravens croaked their agreement, and all three hurled themselves into the air in a rush of wings.
"Happy?" Naga asked Kakashi.
"You always leave me in ecstasy, Naga-chan!" he answered, and sprinted after his dogs before the phrasing registered. Naga ground her teeth, and then blew her frustration out on a long, hissing breath. She eyed the trees, wrote them off as too spindly for a reliable pathway, and charged after Kakashi, leaping light-footed over tangles of underbrush and vines.
By noon, they still had no sign of Itachi's trail, and they were closing in on the Grass Country border; the trees fought for dominance against bushes, wildflowers, and growing sweeps of tassel grass. Lunch was nothing but a quick stop for ration bars and for Kakashi to swap out his dogs for fresh trackers. Naga fed crumbs to her three ravens and watched Kakashi for signs of exhaustion -- summoning wasn't as easy as he made it look, especially not repeated summons.
"I know my reserves," Kakashi said, catching her surveillance despite her attempt to stay on his blind side. "I'll sleep hard tonight, but I'm not as decrepit as you think I am. I'm more than capable of fighting anyone up to Itachi's level, and it's your job to make sure we don't run into him by accident." He smiled, that mocking curve of his eye and the subtle shift of his lower face underneath his mask.
"Whatever," Naga said, tossing her hand to launch Akaruime back into the air. "Let's go."
The sun hovered two hand-widths above the horizon when they reached the border, marked by a shallow stream. Kakashi whistled, shrill and piercing, and his hands flashed through a quick jutsu to call in his pack. Naga sent her own call to Akaruime, leaving the other two ravens on wide patrol.
"Any luck?" Kakashi asked Pakkun as the dogs loped down to the water and drank. The stubby dog waved a front paw dismissively, and trotted off to join his fellows. Kakashi sighed. "So much for that -- Itachi must have swung around through Grass Country, starting from further south or north. We'll head for your campsite tomorrow and start again from there."
"Um," Naga said, watching Akaruime swoop in from upstream, a black glove clutched in his feet. "Actually, let's go there now. Grass-nin are waiting." She caught the glove as the raven dropped it -- yeah, thin leather, detachable fingers for delicate work, barrier seals stitched into the backs and the palms -- this belonged to Kafunnokaze. He had spares, but he'd want this one back.
Kakashi endeavored to look astonished. "You want us to explain our internal problems to a foreign village? How rash -- I'm shocked!"
"Stop being a jerk," Naga snapped, stuffing the glove into her vest pocket and calling Akaruime in to perch on her shoulder. "If they're hunting, they're willing to help, and that saves diplomatic crap. Besides, they know the ground." Kafunnokaze's team had spent all spring and summer on border patrol; if anyone could guess where Itachi might have hidden, they could, and she bet their jounin-sensei was ready to kill the bastard for evading their sweeps.
"Valid points," Kakashi conceded. "All right. Let's go see your boyfriend."
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True to her word, Tetsuko handed Eiji a sheaf of cargo lists and voyage itineraries when he dropped by her office for lunch. One hour later, Eiji was down in Rika's office, handing instructions to his captains while Rika herself was out supervising the loading of their ships. "Also, remember that while your security guards are really part of our operation, officially they're lone ninja hired only for your current voyages. Don't give any customs inspectors or affiliated shinobi any reason to think otherwise. You can let profit margins slip a bit until the situation in Tengai returns to normal; I won't dock your wages for these voyages. Beyond that, I leave matters to the weather and your own judgment, as always. Any questions?"
The captains stirred, but before anyone could speak, a hatchet-faced man -- one of Eiji's new personal guards -- sliced through the gathering and knelt at his feet.
The captains shifted uneasily. Missing-nin were the monsters in children's bedtime stories, and Eiji had sharpened their distrust of all ninja by pointing out the inevitable results of the hidden village system. They understood that ninja who had repudiated their villages were no longer necessarily the enemy, but maintaining the peace between civilians and shinobi was a touchy business. Eiji hoped to blend both groups in the future, but at the moment he and Ginji had settled on separation as a more practical policy. For his captains to see him dealing so openly with a ninja, right in their midst...
Eiji clasped his hands and counted to ten before letting himself speak. "Yes, Kamisori-san?"
The shinobi raised his head and stood, his movements fluid despite his stocky build. "Eiji-dono, Ginji-san requests your presence at your office. An emissary has arrived from Hidden Cloud, and wishes to speak with you about the state of the town."
Eiji's hands shifted, the thumbnail of his right hand driving into his left palm where no one could see. "I see. Thank you for the message." He pushed back Rika's chair and stood, laying his hands flat against her desk. "I apologize for cutting this meeting short, but something important to the whole town has come up. If your questions or concerns are pressing, please tell Takeshi-san or Rika-san today and consider their responses final."
Takeshi shrugged as the other captains turned toward him. "Sure thing, boss. Okay, you lot -- who's catching the evening tide and who needs to wait for morning?" As the captains began talking over and around each other, Eiji followed his guard out of the office and away from the docks.
"How long ago did the Cloud-nin arrive?" Eiji asked as they walked through the narrow, twisting streets of his town. His left knee barely twinged despite the brisk pace; the sky would likely stay clear for the next day or so.
"The Cloud-nin evaded the outer sentries, but we doubt he was in town before noon. Ginji-san spotted him at half past, buying a skewer of fried shrimp and trying to persuade the yatai owner to gossip about your organization. He had hidden his forehead protector, but Ginji-san caught the skill in his movements, and then recognized his face." Kamisori touched his own forehead protector, where a deep line gouged through the symbol of Hidden Stone, and shrugged. "Once he realized his cover was broken, he declared himself and requested a meeting with you and Ginji-san."
"I see. Thank you, Kamisori-san."
Eiji's mind raced in broken circles for the rest of the walk up the hill from the harbor district. Hidden Cloud shouldn't have any grounds for suspicion yet; why would a shinobi be investigating him and Ginji? If this ninja had no grounds for suspicion, how could they avoid giving him any? But what would seem suspicious to a man steeped in paranoia? Could something have tripped his superiors' attention already, back in Hidden Cloud? But Ginji had been thorough about building a consistent support of truth around the vital lies in his reports, so Hidden Cloud shouldn't have any ground for suspicion yet...
The front room was unnaturally hushed, all the clerks looking up from their work to glance toward the stairs and strain their ears for noise from the second floor offices. The two traders in the far corner were equally quiet and curious; they stared blatantly at Eiji as he walked toward the stairs. He forced himself to walk steadily, smoothing out his limp, giving them nothing to construe as a weakness.
Eiji stopped outside his office door, rolled down his sleeves, and checked that his collar was buttoned. He looked back down the corridor toward Tetsuko's office -- her door was shut, thank the kami -- and prayed, very quickly, that she and Mitsuko would have the sense and luck to stay out of this mess.
He opened his door.
The Cloud-nin, a nondescript man with short black hair, a sleeveless black shirt, and heavy civilian-style boots, sat perched on a corner of Eiji's desk, facing sideways to watch the door and window at the same time. Behind him, Ginji leaned against the window frame, playing cat's cradle with a ribbon of crackling electricity. Ginji glanced up as Eiji walked through the door, and the dead blankness in his face and eyes confirmed all the warnings that an open, deliberate use of his elemental chakra suggested. The envoy either knew or suspected something major, and there was almost no chance of a peaceful resolution.
Eiji clasped his hands behind his back, fingers locked together in a death-grip, and nodded his head in a cursory imitation of a bow. "Welcome to Tengai," he said. "I hope you haven't been waiting long."
"That depends on how one defines 'long,'" the Cloud-nin said; his voice was deep and slightly raspy, as though he'd screamed himself mute at some point in the past. "I'll get directly to the point. Amane Eiji, Hidden Cloud condones a certain amount of missing-nin activity in Tengai, of which I'm sure you're aware. Recently our spies have gathered civilian reports of significant increases in that activity. Amane Ginji's reports, however, make light of this increase. I'm here to investigate that discrepancy."
"Ah," Eiji said. He moved toward his desk, allowing his guard to slip into the room behind him and shut the door. "That's easily explained. You see, I've started using missing-nin as security forces on my ships. I find that they cause little trouble at sea, and they're both cheaper and more convenient to hire than Cloud-nin. Tengai, as you say, is a center of unofficial activity, so missing-nin are always available on short notice whereas hiring Cloud-nin requires a several day delay for messages and contracts to travel from here into Thunder Country. Because I only hire on temporary contracts, the missing-nin don't remain in Tengai to disrupt the area, and Ginji-san finds little additional trouble to deal with or report."
He smiled at the Cloud-nin, spreading his hands in a gesture of revealed innocence.
The Cloud-nin remained neutral. "I see. I will, of course, make my own investigations to confirm your assessment of the situation. If I find anyone who's marked for death in the bingo books, I'll have to kill them regardless of their employment status. Please keep your sworn dogs from interfering; the consequences would be unfortunate." His eyes skipped over Kamisori as if the missing-nin were unworthy of consideration, nothing but a badly-carved coat-stand or other piece of furniture.
"Thank you for your warning," Eiji said. "If you have no other messages from Hidden Cloud, I have a business to run..." He pulled his chair out from his desk.
"That's all for today. I'll speak with Amane Ginji tomorrow; I'd appreciate if you released him from his contracted duties as your security chief." The Cloud-nin nodded his head in an equally insincere imitation of respect, and slipped out the window.
Kamisori looked from Eiji to Ginji, waiting for instructions. "Tell the others to increase surveillance distance," Ginji said. "Never get within a hundred yards, and never try to hide from him." Kamisori nodded and left, closing the door behind him.
Eiji collapsed into his chair. "Shit."
"Exactly," Ginji agreed, still weaving lightning between his hands. "There's no way he won't notice all the ships leaving, and once he has that line, it's only a matter of time before he reels us all in. We're all guilty by Cloud's laws. What do you want me to do?"
Eiji stared at his hands. They were still callused from years spent learning the merchant shipping business from the bottom up, and ragged around the fingertips where he'd bitten his nails to the quick as a boy, waiting through endless weeks and months to hear if Ginji would survive his missions and his advanced training. They were rough hands, but they were clean. He had never used a weapon.
"Eiji." Ginji's voice was soft, and his hands, no longer wreathed in sparks, were open and gentle as he reached across the space between them. Burn scars streaked his fingers, the only visible token of all the death those hands had caused.
Eiji clenched his hands, pulling away.
"Kill him."
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End of Chapter Ten
Back to chapter 9
Continue to chapter 11
Read the final version here on ff.net. (Trust me, you want to read the final version. The lj version is a beta draft, with all the boneheaded mistakes that implies.)
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In real life news, I have pretty much mastered the sequence of opening the store. Now I just need to refine the sequence until I have it up to speed. That's the art of the thing, the rhythm. You have to find the exact sequence, the exact timing that works for you. :-)
Also, I have examined my health insurance options and reached the conclusion that I have three realistic choices: 1. move to a cheaper apartment (that is, frankly, not hapening -- I hate apartment hunting and I love my current place); 2. keep on gambling that I won't get sick; or 3. borrow some money from my parents so I can actually afford the insurance policy offered by my employer.
...
I think it's going to be option 3. That is incredibly galling to me, but my good luck with health matters can only last so long. My dad put it this way: if I have an accident, get sick, develop cancer, or whatever, they wouldn't leave me hanging. So if they'd end up paying my medical bills anyway, why not do it cheaply and up-front?
He's right. He usually is, on practical matters.
It's still galling.
Here is chapter 10, in which we get actual plot development. Be still my beating heart.
I just finished the chapter tonight, so it probably sucks -- there are reasons I usually wait a day and do a rough edit before I post things -- but, you know, this story isn't the great American novel and I want to get back the sense of fun I have when I'm really into working on a story, so I'm trying to pick up my pace all around.
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The Guardian in Spite of Herself: Chapter 10
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The Hokutou road had way stations every five to ten miles, catering to travelers and marking side roads to local villages. On her own, Yukiko liked to take advantage of their solid roofs and hot meals, and often detoured through the countryside to gauge a region's civilian economy, but most of the merchants in this caravan had more specialized businesses and cargos. They pushed on past several way stations and camped at the side of the road, circling the wagons at sunset to form a rough enclosure.
"It's a bit rough on the bones," Yoshitaka-san told Seichi as they unhitched the mules, "but we'll reach Nagarehiya in two days instead of three -- by midmorning if we're lucky -- and the less time we're on the road, the more time we have to do business in the city."
"I'll miss the inns," Seichi said, leaning against Yoshitaka-san's wagon and stretching his feet toward Yukiko's newly built campfire. "I used to stop everywhere that had food and beds, so I could play every night without wearing out my welcome anywhere." He shuffled as he spoke, cards cascading from hand to hand without any apparent conscious direction.
Yoshitaka watched the cards for a moment, and then clapped his hands. "We're all friends here, Seichi-san, and I don't play for money -- my wife would disembowel me -- so if you'd like to warm up your old skills after dinner..."
The cards slapped down into Seichi's left hand, jack of hearts topmost. "Yuki-chan? Would you disembowel me if I relapsed a little? Or would you like to learn more than just shuffling and new versions of solitaire? I feel like poker."
Yukiko shrugged. "I'm willing to learn. But first, dinner." She pulled out a collapsible pot, a canteen, and three packages of noodles. "It's nothing special, but it'll hold us for the night." She was glad Naruto wasn't around -- if the kid saw her eating instant noodles, she'd never be able to drag him away from Ichiraku ramen stand again.
The water had just started to boil when a commotion broke out across the circle of wagons -- the Grass siblings and the pretty woman from Water Country were shouting at each other, while the older Wind woman had pushed her veil back to yell at all three of them. She seemed to be sheltering someone behind her, against the side of a communal wagon.
Kurenai appeared from the shadows, spinning a minor genjutsu to encourage calm and silence. "What's the trouble?"
The four civilians all answered at once, talking over each other, but Yukiko caught the words 'intruders,' 'ruined,' and 'children,' and a horrible suspicion bloomed in her mind. "Yoshitaka-san, please watch the noodles for me," she said, and hurried across the firelit clearing.
"We're not spies!" a terribly familiar voice shouted from behind the Wind woman. "And we didn't mean to smash your stupid plants, but if you're gonna be such jerks about it, then I'm not sorry!"
Naruto's face -- sporting a wide bandage over his left cheek -- glared out from under the woman's shoulder. The Uchiha boy, Sasuke, stood sullenly beside him.
Yukiko wanted to beat her head against a tree. Instead, she took a deep breath, spun a quick genjutsu to alter Naruto's hair color and hide the demon marks on his face, and stepped forward. "I'm very sorry," she said, bowing to the Grass siblings and the Water woman. "This is my younger brother, Yujiro, and his friend Sa-- Sakama. Yu-kun likes to play jokes on me, and he seems to have thought it would be funny to sneak along on my trip. I'm very sorry for this incident, and if you get your goods assessed in Nagarehiya, I'll pay for whatever damage the boys caused above and beyond the typical hazards of overland transport."
Naruto opened his mouth; Sasuke slapped a hand over it before the kid could say anything. Yukiko made a note to thank him later. After she killed both of them.
Kurenai shot her a confused look and the hand-sign for 'compromised mission.' Yukiko shook her head subtly and answered with 'later' and 'go along with me.' Kurenai shrugged. "I'll have to look into how they got around caravan security, Yukiko-san, but for now, please take charge of your brother and his friend so we can make a preliminary investigation of the wagon."
"Sure thing, no problem, thank you!" Yukiko said, darting forward to grab Naruto and Sasuke by their shirt collars. "Come on, you little idiots -- we have lots to talk about..."
She dragged the boys past Yoshitaka-san's wagon and into the charcoal shadows of the massive trees, deliberately crunching twigs and dry leaves under her feet as she went. She didn't stop for several minutes, until they were well away from the caravan and hidden behind a fallen, half-rotted tree trunk. Moonlight streamed through the gap in the forest canopy, just enough to see close up, washing the world colorless and soft around the edges, lending the shadows a menacing edge of uncertainty.
"Stay still," Yukiko commanded, letting go of the boys long enough to cast a sound-distortion over the area, just in case someone got curious and followed them.
Then she grabbed Naruto's shoulders and shook him, twice. "What in the name of the kami were you thinking? You could have been killed -- by traps or monsters in the forest, or if the way station guard had found you and not pulled his strike in time. And I'm on a mission! I can't drop everything to take you back home, but I can't keep you with me either -- then you'd really get killed!"
"I would not!" Naruto protested. "I'm a ninja now, like you!"
"No, you're not," Yukiko said, raking one hand through her loose hair and wishing for the comfort of her forehead protector. "You're sneaky, and you can be smart, but you don't have the reflexes, kid, and you still don't think about consequences. A shinobi wouldn't have followed me here. A shinobi knows when to obey orders and how to be patient. I swear, Naruto, do you even understand what you and Sasuke did?"
"It was my idea," Sasuke said, startling Yukiko out of her focus on Naruto. "I... my brother... Itachi..." His fists clenched. "If I can't kill him, I want to see him die."
Yukiko blinked. Itachi? True, he'd caused the disruption that rescheduled this mission, but why would Sasuke think that Itachi -- an S-class traitor -- had anything to with a routine assassination? "We're not going anywhere near your brother. Last I heard he was near Grass Country, not in the northeast."
Sasuke shifted, drawing back into the shadows. "But I heard you talking about him -- you said you'd never done assassination, and you'd be happy when he was dead." Naruto nodded in vigorous agreement.
Huh? When had she... oh, right! Kakashi had dropped by to tell her about his mission with Naga, and Sasuke must have been in the hallway at exactly the wrong moment. Yukiko really wanted to beat her head against a tree. "I was talking to the man assigned to track your brother," she told the boy. "My mission is completely unrelated. It's still important, though, and you two may have compromised it beyond repair."
Sasuke closed in on himself, crossing his arms over his chest; Naruto looked torn between guilt and defiance. "But we haven't done anything, Yukiko-neechan," he said. "You're not fighting anyone now, and we'll stay out of your way when you find the bad guys, I promise!"
"Kid, shut up while I think." Yukiko tugged on a strand of hair and tried to figure out how to fix this mess. She couldn't send the boys home on their own; that was just asking for trouble. Kurenai couldn't take them back to Konoha; that would leave the caravan officially undefended, which would be a breach of contract. She and Seichi couldn't leave the caravan without compromising their mission; the whole point of traveling slowly with merchants was to build a deep cover in case anyone in Tengai got suspicious and traced them.
But she couldn't keep the boys with her either. For one thing, she didn't think Naruto could manage deep cover if his life depended on it, which it would in Tengai, and for another, there was no way on earth she could take the surviving Uchiha heir into danger. Maybe she could ask Yoshitaka-san to watch over them? He planned to leave the caravan in Nagarehiya and head west instead of north.
Yukiko considered that for a moment, and then felt like slapping herself. She wasn't thinking straight -- she'd let her emotions take control -- and if this had been a battle, she would have died from sheer stupidity.
The obvious solution was to leave the boys in Nagarehiya with the local Leaf-nin on long-term city guard contracts. A quick message back to Konoha would bring someone to take them home, where Iruka and Sarutobi Hokage-sama could make sure Naruto and Sasuke understood just how stupid -- and how lucky -- they had been.
"Okay, I'm not going to strangle you," she said to the boys, "though you may end up wishing I had. Instead, you're both going to get a small taste of ninja life until we reach a place where I can turn you over to be someone else's headache. I'm on a deep cover mission, so you have to pretend not to be ninja -- don't talk about kunai, jutsu, or the academy. Ever. You, kid, will be my little brother Yujiro, and you, Sasuke, will be his friend Sakama. Make up your own family name if you want one, but don't you dare use Uchiha. That's a dangerous name now."
Sasuke looked skeptical. "Nobody will believe the moron's your brother. He doesn't look anything like you."
Yukiko laughed, too irritated to care about being polite. "Really? Look again, Sakama-kun -- his hair is blue-green, just like mine. And the beauty of it is that the people who saw Yu-kun's face before I cast the genjutsu will write reality off as a trick of the moon and firelight. For your disguise, I advise a smile -- I've only seen three people from your clan who smiled more than they frowned, so I bet that would make you nearly unrecognizable."
"Hey!" Naruto said. "Don't pick on Sasu-- on Sakama! He's a jerk, but that's not his fault. And anyway, it was my idea to follow you, not his. So be mad at me, not him."
Sasuke stared blankly at Naruto, as if he thought Naruto might be an illusion spun out of moonlight, a fever dream instead of solid, prosaic reality. Yukiko almost sympathized -- some days, the kid's mind just didn't seem to work on the same path everyone else's did.
"Idiot," Sasuke said finally.
"You're both idiots," Yukiko said before Naruto could respond. "Whichever one of you came up with this idea, you both went along with it, so you're both at fault. Now come with me so I can introduce you and make excuses for whatever damage you caused in that wagon."
She lifted the sound-distortion and headed back toward the caravan. Naruto and Sasuke trailed after her, bickering.
Yukiko felt a headache settling in for a long visit.
---------------------------------------------
The pack found nothing on the first day. "That's life," Kakashi said with a shrug, and sent them back in puffs of smoke. "We'll reach your campsite around noon tomorrow -- if we don't pick up his back trail, that's just how it goes."
"How can you be so calm?" Naga asked, shifting on a tree branch in search of a more secure and comfortable position. "He's a fucking traitor, he has creepy unknown jutsu, and he was Anbu. Oh, and he's insane. We can't just say 'Oh well, too bad' if we don't find him."
"Actually, we can. Where else do you think S-class missing-nin come from?" Kakashi leapt into Naga's tree, two branches further up, and tucked his pack against the trunk. Naga scowled up at him -- she would've preferred him farther away, but the giant trees were growing more scarce as they neared the forest's edge, so it was either share a tree or separate. Separation, when hunting someone as dangerous as Uchiha Itachi, was stupid.
Naga slept deep and hard, refusing to think about all the ways Tsukime might have died in the hospital by now, and all the things that might go wrong with her mission.
She woke -- again -- with a dog in her face. This time, she just sighed.
"Your master's a bastard," Naga told Hibiki as she carried the dog down the tree.
"You don't need to tell me," Hibiki said. "Trust me, we're all very damn aware of that. Now let me get to work." She hit the ground running, and the pack fanned out into the underbrush.
Kakashi drifted over to Naga as she shouldered her pack. "It's not impossible for Itachi to still be in this area. Aerial surveillance might be useful."
Naga shot him a sour look, but she nicked her thumb with a kunai and clapped her hands three times, spreading blood over the contract scars on her palms. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu! Akaruime, Yamiko, Kazemaru, come to me." Chakra rushed through her, twisting into the otherwhere of the summon beasts, sending a call and a guideline for them to follow back to her.
Three ravens popped into the air in a waft of smoke and downy feathers. "Hi!" croaked Akaruime, folding his wings and landing on her shoulder. "What's up?"
"Surveillance," Naga told the ravens. "We're tracking a missing-nin named Uchiha Itachi -- male, my height, longer hair, and lines on his face." She traced her fingers down her cheeks to demonstrate. "Keep an eye out for him, and for Grass-nin -- people who wear Kafunnokaze's symbol on their forehead protectors. Report anyone you find; don't get killed."
"On it!" Akaruime said. The other ravens croaked their agreement, and all three hurled themselves into the air in a rush of wings.
"Happy?" Naga asked Kakashi.
"You always leave me in ecstasy, Naga-chan!" he answered, and sprinted after his dogs before the phrasing registered. Naga ground her teeth, and then blew her frustration out on a long, hissing breath. She eyed the trees, wrote them off as too spindly for a reliable pathway, and charged after Kakashi, leaping light-footed over tangles of underbrush and vines.
By noon, they still had no sign of Itachi's trail, and they were closing in on the Grass Country border; the trees fought for dominance against bushes, wildflowers, and growing sweeps of tassel grass. Lunch was nothing but a quick stop for ration bars and for Kakashi to swap out his dogs for fresh trackers. Naga fed crumbs to her three ravens and watched Kakashi for signs of exhaustion -- summoning wasn't as easy as he made it look, especially not repeated summons.
"I know my reserves," Kakashi said, catching her surveillance despite her attempt to stay on his blind side. "I'll sleep hard tonight, but I'm not as decrepit as you think I am. I'm more than capable of fighting anyone up to Itachi's level, and it's your job to make sure we don't run into him by accident." He smiled, that mocking curve of his eye and the subtle shift of his lower face underneath his mask.
"Whatever," Naga said, tossing her hand to launch Akaruime back into the air. "Let's go."
The sun hovered two hand-widths above the horizon when they reached the border, marked by a shallow stream. Kakashi whistled, shrill and piercing, and his hands flashed through a quick jutsu to call in his pack. Naga sent her own call to Akaruime, leaving the other two ravens on wide patrol.
"Any luck?" Kakashi asked Pakkun as the dogs loped down to the water and drank. The stubby dog waved a front paw dismissively, and trotted off to join his fellows. Kakashi sighed. "So much for that -- Itachi must have swung around through Grass Country, starting from further south or north. We'll head for your campsite tomorrow and start again from there."
"Um," Naga said, watching Akaruime swoop in from upstream, a black glove clutched in his feet. "Actually, let's go there now. Grass-nin are waiting." She caught the glove as the raven dropped it -- yeah, thin leather, detachable fingers for delicate work, barrier seals stitched into the backs and the palms -- this belonged to Kafunnokaze. He had spares, but he'd want this one back.
Kakashi endeavored to look astonished. "You want us to explain our internal problems to a foreign village? How rash -- I'm shocked!"
"Stop being a jerk," Naga snapped, stuffing the glove into her vest pocket and calling Akaruime in to perch on her shoulder. "If they're hunting, they're willing to help, and that saves diplomatic crap. Besides, they know the ground." Kafunnokaze's team had spent all spring and summer on border patrol; if anyone could guess where Itachi might have hidden, they could, and she bet their jounin-sensei was ready to kill the bastard for evading their sweeps.
"Valid points," Kakashi conceded. "All right. Let's go see your boyfriend."
---------------------------------------------
True to her word, Tetsuko handed Eiji a sheaf of cargo lists and voyage itineraries when he dropped by her office for lunch. One hour later, Eiji was down in Rika's office, handing instructions to his captains while Rika herself was out supervising the loading of their ships. "Also, remember that while your security guards are really part of our operation, officially they're lone ninja hired only for your current voyages. Don't give any customs inspectors or affiliated shinobi any reason to think otherwise. You can let profit margins slip a bit until the situation in Tengai returns to normal; I won't dock your wages for these voyages. Beyond that, I leave matters to the weather and your own judgment, as always. Any questions?"
The captains stirred, but before anyone could speak, a hatchet-faced man -- one of Eiji's new personal guards -- sliced through the gathering and knelt at his feet.
The captains shifted uneasily. Missing-nin were the monsters in children's bedtime stories, and Eiji had sharpened their distrust of all ninja by pointing out the inevitable results of the hidden village system. They understood that ninja who had repudiated their villages were no longer necessarily the enemy, but maintaining the peace between civilians and shinobi was a touchy business. Eiji hoped to blend both groups in the future, but at the moment he and Ginji had settled on separation as a more practical policy. For his captains to see him dealing so openly with a ninja, right in their midst...
Eiji clasped his hands and counted to ten before letting himself speak. "Yes, Kamisori-san?"
The shinobi raised his head and stood, his movements fluid despite his stocky build. "Eiji-dono, Ginji-san requests your presence at your office. An emissary has arrived from Hidden Cloud, and wishes to speak with you about the state of the town."
Eiji's hands shifted, the thumbnail of his right hand driving into his left palm where no one could see. "I see. Thank you for the message." He pushed back Rika's chair and stood, laying his hands flat against her desk. "I apologize for cutting this meeting short, but something important to the whole town has come up. If your questions or concerns are pressing, please tell Takeshi-san or Rika-san today and consider their responses final."
Takeshi shrugged as the other captains turned toward him. "Sure thing, boss. Okay, you lot -- who's catching the evening tide and who needs to wait for morning?" As the captains began talking over and around each other, Eiji followed his guard out of the office and away from the docks.
"How long ago did the Cloud-nin arrive?" Eiji asked as they walked through the narrow, twisting streets of his town. His left knee barely twinged despite the brisk pace; the sky would likely stay clear for the next day or so.
"The Cloud-nin evaded the outer sentries, but we doubt he was in town before noon. Ginji-san spotted him at half past, buying a skewer of fried shrimp and trying to persuade the yatai owner to gossip about your organization. He had hidden his forehead protector, but Ginji-san caught the skill in his movements, and then recognized his face." Kamisori touched his own forehead protector, where a deep line gouged through the symbol of Hidden Stone, and shrugged. "Once he realized his cover was broken, he declared himself and requested a meeting with you and Ginji-san."
"I see. Thank you, Kamisori-san."
Eiji's mind raced in broken circles for the rest of the walk up the hill from the harbor district. Hidden Cloud shouldn't have any grounds for suspicion yet; why would a shinobi be investigating him and Ginji? If this ninja had no grounds for suspicion, how could they avoid giving him any? But what would seem suspicious to a man steeped in paranoia? Could something have tripped his superiors' attention already, back in Hidden Cloud? But Ginji had been thorough about building a consistent support of truth around the vital lies in his reports, so Hidden Cloud shouldn't have any ground for suspicion yet...
The front room was unnaturally hushed, all the clerks looking up from their work to glance toward the stairs and strain their ears for noise from the second floor offices. The two traders in the far corner were equally quiet and curious; they stared blatantly at Eiji as he walked toward the stairs. He forced himself to walk steadily, smoothing out his limp, giving them nothing to construe as a weakness.
Eiji stopped outside his office door, rolled down his sleeves, and checked that his collar was buttoned. He looked back down the corridor toward Tetsuko's office -- her door was shut, thank the kami -- and prayed, very quickly, that she and Mitsuko would have the sense and luck to stay out of this mess.
He opened his door.
The Cloud-nin, a nondescript man with short black hair, a sleeveless black shirt, and heavy civilian-style boots, sat perched on a corner of Eiji's desk, facing sideways to watch the door and window at the same time. Behind him, Ginji leaned against the window frame, playing cat's cradle with a ribbon of crackling electricity. Ginji glanced up as Eiji walked through the door, and the dead blankness in his face and eyes confirmed all the warnings that an open, deliberate use of his elemental chakra suggested. The envoy either knew or suspected something major, and there was almost no chance of a peaceful resolution.
Eiji clasped his hands behind his back, fingers locked together in a death-grip, and nodded his head in a cursory imitation of a bow. "Welcome to Tengai," he said. "I hope you haven't been waiting long."
"That depends on how one defines 'long,'" the Cloud-nin said; his voice was deep and slightly raspy, as though he'd screamed himself mute at some point in the past. "I'll get directly to the point. Amane Eiji, Hidden Cloud condones a certain amount of missing-nin activity in Tengai, of which I'm sure you're aware. Recently our spies have gathered civilian reports of significant increases in that activity. Amane Ginji's reports, however, make light of this increase. I'm here to investigate that discrepancy."
"Ah," Eiji said. He moved toward his desk, allowing his guard to slip into the room behind him and shut the door. "That's easily explained. You see, I've started using missing-nin as security forces on my ships. I find that they cause little trouble at sea, and they're both cheaper and more convenient to hire than Cloud-nin. Tengai, as you say, is a center of unofficial activity, so missing-nin are always available on short notice whereas hiring Cloud-nin requires a several day delay for messages and contracts to travel from here into Thunder Country. Because I only hire on temporary contracts, the missing-nin don't remain in Tengai to disrupt the area, and Ginji-san finds little additional trouble to deal with or report."
He smiled at the Cloud-nin, spreading his hands in a gesture of revealed innocence.
The Cloud-nin remained neutral. "I see. I will, of course, make my own investigations to confirm your assessment of the situation. If I find anyone who's marked for death in the bingo books, I'll have to kill them regardless of their employment status. Please keep your sworn dogs from interfering; the consequences would be unfortunate." His eyes skipped over Kamisori as if the missing-nin were unworthy of consideration, nothing but a badly-carved coat-stand or other piece of furniture.
"Thank you for your warning," Eiji said. "If you have no other messages from Hidden Cloud, I have a business to run..." He pulled his chair out from his desk.
"That's all for today. I'll speak with Amane Ginji tomorrow; I'd appreciate if you released him from his contracted duties as your security chief." The Cloud-nin nodded his head in an equally insincere imitation of respect, and slipped out the window.
Kamisori looked from Eiji to Ginji, waiting for instructions. "Tell the others to increase surveillance distance," Ginji said. "Never get within a hundred yards, and never try to hide from him." Kamisori nodded and left, closing the door behind him.
Eiji collapsed into his chair. "Shit."
"Exactly," Ginji agreed, still weaving lightning between his hands. "There's no way he won't notice all the ships leaving, and once he has that line, it's only a matter of time before he reels us all in. We're all guilty by Cloud's laws. What do you want me to do?"
Eiji stared at his hands. They were still callused from years spent learning the merchant shipping business from the bottom up, and ragged around the fingertips where he'd bitten his nails to the quick as a boy, waiting through endless weeks and months to hear if Ginji would survive his missions and his advanced training. They were rough hands, but they were clean. He had never used a weapon.
"Eiji." Ginji's voice was soft, and his hands, no longer wreathed in sparks, were open and gentle as he reached across the space between them. Burn scars streaked his fingers, the only visible token of all the death those hands had caused.
Eiji clenched his hands, pulling away.
"Kill him."
---------------------------------------------
End of Chapter Ten
Back to chapter 9
Continue to chapter 11
Read the final version here on ff.net. (Trust me, you want to read the final version. The lj version is a beta draft, with all the boneheaded mistakes that implies.)
---------------------------------------------
In real life news, I have pretty much mastered the sequence of opening the store. Now I just need to refine the sequence until I have it up to speed. That's the art of the thing, the rhythm. You have to find the exact sequence, the exact timing that works for you. :-)
Also, I have examined my health insurance options and reached the conclusion that I have three realistic choices: 1. move to a cheaper apartment (that is, frankly, not hapening -- I hate apartment hunting and I love my current place); 2. keep on gambling that I won't get sick; or 3. borrow some money from my parents so I can actually afford the insurance policy offered by my employer.
...
I think it's going to be option 3. That is incredibly galling to me, but my good luck with health matters can only last so long. My dad put it this way: if I have an accident, get sick, develop cancer, or whatever, they wouldn't leave me hanging. So if they'd end up paying my medical bills anyway, why not do it cheaply and up-front?
He's right. He usually is, on practical matters.
It's still galling.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Chapter 10
Date: 2007-02-26 01:26 am (UTC)The scene between Eiji, Ginji, and the other Cloud-nin was quite intense. I expect that's what you were after; nice job on getting it. I really especially like the chapter's last four paragraphs. In my opinion, they're perfect as-is; please don't change them at all.
Very very nice work.
Re: Chapter 10
Date: 2007-02-26 01:39 am (UTC)(Trust me, if I knew how to write the discovery better, I would've written that version instead! *grumbles at the universe*)
Hmm... *eyes final paragraphs* Actually, I think I'm overusing the word 'hands.' Bother.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 07:45 am (UTC)(though if Eiji is married to Ginji's sister, I'm wondering why they all have the same family name. Who adopted whose?)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 05:20 pm (UTC)The more I work on this story, the less I want to kill Eiji and Ginji. That was the point of making them sympathetic, of course, but it's a pain for me as the writer. Because I like them, I want them to win (I want all my sympathetic characters to win, even when they have mutually exclusive goals), and unless I pull one hell of a plot device out of somewhere, they are going to die. They have to die. Or the Leaf-nin die instead, and then probably Eiji and Ginji die shortly thereafter anyway, when Hidden Cloud finally catches on to their plans and comes down on them like a ton of bricks.
*sigh*
Oh well, that's life.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 08:16 pm (UTC)Specifically, say that Yukiko and Seichi manage to get close to Eiji and Ginji at some point where their protections are loose enough that the assassins' training screams 'CHANSU!'... and then they miss. Barely.
So Y&S have to run for their lives. Until they trip over the squad of Kumonin sent to investigate the dissapearance of the Cloud-nin we met in this chapter.
And then everybody's got problems. Eiji's entire operation is blown wide-open. The Leaf-nin are in deeeep dog-hockey without a single little bit of backup anywhere nearby. And the Cloud has a rebellion on its hands that's big enough to take some significant firepower on hand - firepower that they very much do not want to stick right out where the Leaf can see and decide to either snip it off at the wrist or slip in the gaps that they pulled it out of.
Then somebody on the Cloud squad has an idea. There's other continents, right? So they tell Eiji that he and his people will get to live - full pardons, as it were, even up to permission for continued (albeit tightly monitored) trading in specific ports... provided that they pack up their families and everything and get lost.
And, with Akatsuki nowhere in evidence, Eiji looks at his options, sighs, and does so.
Happy ending?
Ja, -n
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 09:20 pm (UTC)Thanks!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-27 01:21 pm (UTC)Ja, -n
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 12:42 pm (UTC)When I first saw the post heading, I thought you named the new chapter "health insurance".
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 05:24 pm (UTC)Health insurance as a chapter title? *sporfle* Even in this story, that's a bit of a non sequitur... but, you know, now I suddenly want to write a story about medical insurance in Konoha. Curses!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-26 10:00 pm (UTC)Shinobi medical insurance = kunai + throat.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-27 08:44 pm (UTC)Good chapter, as usual.
-- Guile
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-28 10:55 pm (UTC)I suppose civilian society works along traditional lines, where extended families care for each other when they're in trouble or old, but I do wonder how developed the insurance industry is in the elemental countries. And how does one classify shinobi-related damage, if you're not a direct target but your possessions or body kind of got in the way of a fight?
...
Ah well. Maybe someday when I have more free time, I will do something about those thoughts.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-01 08:10 am (UTC)There must be a special 'Repair-background-set-no-jutsu' I'm not aware of.
-- Guile
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-06 10:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-07 06:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-22 03:28 pm (UTC)*tips his hat*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-22 11:32 pm (UTC)