Chapter 172: Helping Hands
The little shits were streaming into their classrooms, ear-gougingly shrill as always.
Yasuzaemon strode past his secretary without more than an inchoate growl, secluding himself in his office and locking the door behind him. His hands were shaking hard enough that it was difficult to disarm the traps, but long practice helped him through. Once the various spikes and daggers were safed he pulled out his best friend and poured himself two fingers of ability-to-get-through-the-morning-without-killing-the-little-monsters.
Disgusting little larvae, all of them. Their shrill little voices, their tiny little hands. Always lying—that was the worst of it, the incessant, unnecessary lying. "I didn't do it, Headmaster!" they would say, while standing in front of thirteen different witnesses that said they had done it. Or "I never touched him, Headmaster!" when the cuts on their knuckles perfectly matched the bruises on the other brat's face.
No, wait. The lying wasn't the worst part, the worst part was the cheating. "But we're ninja!" they would say, when he caught them redhanded trying to steal exam questions. Or sometimes they would appeal to power: "Well, I'm really rich because my daddy is a clan head and so you have to let me do what I want!"
No, wait. It wasn't the lying or the cheating that was the worst part, it was the incompetence. Every day, his duty required him to offer constructive criticism to some little firstie who couldn't even wall-walk, or a second-year who kept smacking himself in the face every time he tried to do kata #17 with the chain whip, or some other ridiculous loser failing at some ridiculously simple task. It was enough to make a good man utterly despair.
No, wait. It wasn't the lying, or the cheating, or the incompetence that was the worst part. It was the smugness. Every single one of them thought it was the next Byakuren. The minute they learned one trick or technique, no matter how trivially simple, they would preen and prance around as though the entire world should pay them honor.
He snarled at his own thoughts and slammed the two fingers of whiskey back. This batch was smokier than he remembered, but not bad. Those fingers got lost somewhere on the way to his stomach, so he sent another finger as an advance scout to track them down while he got on with the serious business of paperwork.
Ten minutes and twelve forms later the scout still hadn't reported back, so he paused long enough to send two more reinforcements after it. He was finally starting to loosen up, getting past the perfectly understandable irritation of waking up too early in order to come drown in a sea of shrieking maggots one more time. He had slept for crap again last night, but the lethargy was falling away. The paperwork was, bizarrely, actually pretty okay. It was satisfying to flick his brush over each one, solving problems with his normal speed and efficiency. Today was one of the better days; the fingers of whiskey had finally found one another and come together in a clasped hand of friendship and warmth that fizzed out from his belly and through his blood.
He went back to the paperwork and zipped through more pages, fingers flicking and mind flashing as he tore through it all, shredding problems and destroying difficulties with skill and aplomb because all of it was so easy as to be trivial. So easy that he found himself tapping a foot as he went, impatience requiring motion because this was all beneath him and that sense of success was fading as he saw how tedious and dull it all was and he really just couldn't stand it anymore, couldn't stand sitting here wasting his life on these little brats, couldn't stand being locked away from sun and trapped at a desk and Sage why was he just sitting here with this abominable stuff?
He pushed himself to his feet, fidgety fingers flicking the papers into a pile, the brush resting to the side. He couldn't stand the desk, needed to be out and about, needed to be sure the little brats weren't destroying his school. Yes, definitely. Motion! That was what was needed!
He shoved his way through the door to the outer office, striding for the door to the hall. That ugly cow was at her desk as always and her head came up as he passed by. "Headmaster?"
"What?!" Couldn't she see that his hand was already on the knob?!
"Nothing, sir. Just...you aren't usually out so early. Did you need som—"
"I'm fine!" The aggravating woman was making his skin itch; he glared at her as he scratched at it, then barged out into the hall and down a few doors to the nearest classroom.
The teacher was standing in front of his desk lecturing a bunch of firsties; he broke off midword when Yasuzaemon yanked the door open.
"Good morning, Head—"
"Never mind that! Are the students behaving properly?!"
"Uh...I mean...yes, sir. Why do you ask? They've been—"
"Bah!" He waved the stammering idiot aside and rounded on the maggots who were the source of all his pain and the ultimate cause of that infuriating itch. "LOOK, YOU LITTLE BRATS! YOU'D BETTER PAY ATTENTION, YOU HEAR ME?!" Gah, they made him itch even more than that stupid secretary. "MIND ME, AND MIND YOUR TEACHERS! UNLESS YOU THINK YOU'RE TOO GOOD FOR THESE CLASSES? YOU'RE NOT! YOU'RE NOT! YOU'LL PAY ATTENTION TO EVERYTHING YOU ARE TAUGHT HERE, DO YOU HEAR ME?!" The fizz in his blood was pouring out through his mouth, the anger leaving him panting for breath as it departed.
"Headmaster, are you feeling all right?" the teacher asked cautiously.
"I'M FINE! Why do you all keep wasting my time with these stupid questions?" His triceps were itching the worst, and just like the little shits they refused to settle down no matter how hard he scratched. "I'm fine! And why is this room so hot?! HAVE YOU BEEN TEACHING FIRE JUTSU TO A BUNCH OF FIRSTIES?! I'LL HAVE YOU SENT TO THE FLOGGING POST FOR THAT!"
The instructor stepped back, an expression of alarm and confusion spreading across his big stupid face. "Headmaster, I haven't been teaching any jutsu at all. We're discussing equipment maintenance, like we always do this wee—"
"Equipment maintenance?! EQUIPMENT MAINTENANCE?! WHY ARE YOU WASTING TIME ON THAT?!" Gah, why wouldn't his damn arms stop itching?! He dug harder at them, hard enough to be painful.
"Headmaster...are you sure you're all right, sir?"
"I'M FINE! SHUT UP WITH YOUR STUPID QUESTIONS!"
"Sir...you're bleeding, sir."
"What?! No, I'm n—" He glanced down to find dark wetness on his sleeve over that damn itch that he couldn't get to stop and why wouldn't it fucking stop?! Where had the wet patch come from, anyway? "SHUT UP! Just shut up and teach your damn class! AND NO MORE JUTSU!" He leaned forward, shouting the words into the instructor's stupid ugly fat stupid face because these people were all stupid, incompetent idiots who couldn't do the simplest things unless you told them over and over and over and why couldn't he stop the damn itching?!
"Yes, sir." The instructor was leaning slightly away, but one foot had slid back into a ready stance, body shifting as though to attack or defend. Was the fool actually thinking he could threaten his Headmaster and get away with it?!
"ARE YOU THREATENING ME, YOU FAT BASTARD?!" He raised both hands, shaking his fists at the impertinent bastard as though trying to smash the words through his ugly stupid head.
The instructor slid back a few inches, body squaring off in what was now undoubtedly a combat stance. "Sir, please calm down. I'm not sure what—"
"DON'T YOU TELL ME TO CALM DOWN, YOU CATFISH'S ASS! YOU CALM DOWN! AND STOP TEACHING THE LITTLE BASTARDS FIRE JUTSU! YOU THINK I CAN'T TELL?! THIS ROOM IS ROASTING HOT, YOU LIAR!" The anger had taken all his breath; he was panting in his rage, his professionalism barely restraining him from knocking appropriate deference into the instructor's head with a well-deserved Divine Hammer Fist.
In his peripheral vision he could see the lying little bastards looking at each other in confusion. They were all hunching down at their desks like the animals they were, frightened little mice trying to hide from their well-deserved fates.
"Sir, it's not hot and I have not been teaching fire jutsu," said the lying liar of an incompetent instructor who never should have been allowed into a classroom in the first place because he was much too soft on the animals and he was making Yasuzaemon itch even worse, the prickles under his skin now turning to stinging sparks. "Sir, something is wrong with you. I think we should get you to sickbay."
"SHUT YOUR MOUTH, YOU LIAR!" That was enough, and way more than enough! Yasuzaemon stepped forward and backhanded the lying bastard across his fat stupid face, showing him just what happened to people who taught fire jutsu to firsties and then lied about it, the rotten—
The instructor blocked the strike with a bong sao that sent pins and needles up Yasuzaemon's arm, then slipped aside with a condescending, "Headmaster, please—"
Yasuzaemon stepped forward with a smashing kick to the belly, but an intercepting gaun sao deflected the kick and activated the nerve cluster in the side of his calf, causing Yasuzaemon to stumble when his weight came down on the leg. The bastard instructor ducked back, putting the desk between them, but he would launch his next attack the moment he saw Yasuzaemon's vulnerability. Quick, handseals! "Wind Element: Wind Blade!"
Chakra poured out of him, compressing and condensing the air into a barely-visible arc that leaped forward faster than any kunai. The instructor was faster, kicking the massive desk up and forward with chakra-enhanced power. The Wind Blade sliced deeply into the spinning mass of wood and was disrupted. It did nothing to stop the desk's forward motion, nor to prevent it from clipping Yasuzaemon in the side of the head as he desperately tried to duck beneath it. The world swam around him and he staggered.
"Headmaster, please, stop!" The bastard was no longer in a combat stance and he had raised his hands placatingly.
Yasuzaemon growled and stumbled for the door. "Just...stay here! And teach your class! No more fire jutsu!"
The door closed behind him with a click.
o-o-o-o
"Switch. Shifty's up," Noburi murmured, not looking away from his assigned arc.
Hazō's eyes flicked to the man in the poorly-dyed clothes who was not-casually-enough loitering in front of a street vendor across the way, pretending to examine the man's pots and pans. He and two others had been running a rotating tail on Team Uplift all morning, occasionally changing clothes in an effort to go unnoticed. They were better than average, but they didn't stand a chance against a team that had lived in the wilds for two years. After you had spent weeks checking to make sure that no vampire grass had migrated into the area of your camp and disguised itself among the normal greenery...yeah. Spotting a trio of faces that kept disappearing and reappearing among the crowd didn't require much effort.
The team had affectionately dubbed this guy 'Shifty' for the way he was constantly keeping his profile to his targets and flicking his eyes over to watch them. His co-inadequates were 'Stubby' (he was short) and 'Squashy' (cauliflower ear and multiply-broken nose suggested that he was no stranger to fights and didn't always win them). Squashy had been on duty when they went into the store, but was moving off to the north now that Shifty had taken his place.
"Stubby, south, cafe," Keiko said quietly.
Hazō didn't look and he stopped himself from raising an eyebrow. This was the first time that all three members of their tail had been in sight at the same time and he didn't like the way they had the team bracketed. The street ran north/south and there wasn't a corner for another hundred feet, so no opportunity to slip out of the box. The buildings here were low, mostly only one story, with flat roofs that would make perfect sniper roosts.
The team had protested strongly against coming through this area, but Granny Karina had insisted. They were even less thrilled about where they were going next: into the maze of slums and squalor that was the docks. The sun was nearly on the horizon, the shadows were long as a water python and by the time they got to their destination it would be full dark, which just made everything perfect.
"Hey, you!"
Whoever had spoken must have stepped in front of the palanquin, because it had jolted to a halt. Hazō didn't turn to look. The voice came from Arc 1—everything from the palanquin's twelve o'clock to four belonged to Keiko. Noburi had Arc 2, the space from eight to twelve, and Hazō was currently riding drag in Arc 3, covering the area from four o'clock to eight. They would switch later; he couldn't wait, as walking backwards for miles was a pain.
"Yer one'a those ninja kids, right? The ones in the 'xams?" Hazō could almost smell the alcohol that must be seeping from the man's pores to make the words that sloppy.
"Please stay back," Keiko said, her voice only pretending to be polite. "We are bodyguards for an important person and we require a buffer zone for her safety."
"Yeah, whatcha gonna do, huh? I see those ban..band...neck things. Yer not 'lowed to hurt me or you lose points and I get paid! Huh? Right?"
There was a pause; without turning around, Hazō could almost see Keiko eyeing the man. At last she spoke, her voice utterly disinterested: "It's true that if I hurt you I must pay your medical bills. On the other hand, I have a lot of money. How much would you like to be paid?"
There was a momentary silence and then the sound of drunken footsteps attempting to run.
o-o-o-o
When the team moved out, their tail kept them in the box. They didn't approach, maintaining a carefully non-threatening distance, but they stayed there. It made Hazō's teeth itch, and he found himself wanting to gank one of them just to make the other shoe drop sooner rather than later.
They had switched guard positions, so Hazō was covering Arc 1. Walking forwards was nice, but that just meant he was in a position to watch Shifty paralleling them the whole time. And to watch when the man finally broke position to hurry ahead and out of sight.
"Shifty just went on ahead," Hazō murmured to the others. Grunts of acknowledge from Arcs 2 and 3 were his only response.
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Over the next twenty minutes, the missing tail stretched Hazō's nerves to the breaking point. The palanquin moved slowly, the bearers struggling to manage the weight of that woman and her ludicrously overloaded baggage that she had refused to allow the team to put in a storage scroll. The crawling pace meant that there was far too much time for Shifty to get ahead and set up whatever ambush he intended. The worst part was that Hazō couldn't figure out what the game was; there was no obvious reason for civilians to be tailing them, which suggested that Shifty and company were ninja. Three people was a ninja cell, but no team in the Exams would leave their 'client' unprotected and any who had lost their client would be confined to barracks. They had been only moderately stealthy, so perhaps it was a combat team, ones who weren't in the Exams? If they weren't in the Exams then why hadn't they engaged already? It would have been smart to engage in the crowded streets where Team Uplift couldn't use area weapons and needed to be careful about collateral damage. Granted, then there would have been witnesses....
Too many possibilities.
Stressful as it was, nothing happened before they arrived at their next destination: an incredibly disreputable shop in one of the seediest neighborhoods Hazō had ever seen in his entire life. It was full dark by the time they arrived and very few of the buildings in this area had lights on inside, so Hazō and Keiko pulled oil lamps out of their scrolls and held them high, sticking close to the palanquin while Noburi inspected the entryway and the store. When he was satisfied, the three of them escorted Granny Karina inside as quickly as possible.
The store was set in the basement of another building, accessible only by going down a four-step staircase that wasn't exactly hidden but definitely wasn't obvious. At the bottom was a heavy wooden door with blobs of paint on it that, with a bit of imagination, could have been half of a blue rooster. Or maybe a blob of diseased snot, it wasn't clear. The door stood open, held by a balding man in his fifties that Hazō presumed was the owner.
Hazō glanced around the room as he followed Granny Karina inside. Small, dark, and smelled of mildew. An oil lamp hung from the ceiling, swinging slightly and causing the shadows to bob and weave like Drunken Fist fighters. The walls were covered in floor-to-ceiling racks filled with small clay jars, as well as a half dozen larger bins full of loose herbs. A small desk in the far corner held a ledger and a set of scales. Behind the desk was a door that was trying and failing to be unassuming.
"Good evening!" the owner said, bowing and smiling a gap-toothed grin. Most civilians were missing at least some teeth by the time they got to their old age, but this man only had three left and they seemed positively diseased. Hazō ignored it; the man wasn't carrying any visible weapons or displaying hostile body language and that was all that mattered. (Hazō really would have preferred to throw the guy up against the wall and give him a patdown to be sure he didn't have any weapons, but that wasn't a pro-business manuever and risked invoking the collateral damage rules.)
"Good evening to you as well, young man," Granny Karina said, giving him a look that was disturbingly too close to a leer. "Such a pleasure. I'm Granny Karina."
"A pleasure to meet you, Granny Karina," the man said. "I am Tokaji Kyo, at your service. What would you like?" A hint of unwarranted nervousness behind the words made Hazō's ears prickle. He scuffed a foot lightly, signalling to the others that something was wrong but he didn't know what. Noburi scratched his ear and Keiko brushed her hair back, acknowledging that they'd received the message.
"Rumor has it that you're the man to come to for specialty medicinals," said Granny Karina, apparently not noticing the byplay amongst her bodyguard. "You know, things suitable for unusual conditions. I sell such goods."
"Do you now?" the man asked brightly. "Well, the Sage has blessed me because that's exactly what I need! I'd be very interested in buying. How much do you have?"
Granny frowned and Hazō felt a prickle of sweat on the back of his neck. You did not open a negotiation by expressing interest. What was this man doing?
"You haven't even heard what I'm carrying," she said.
The man flashed a sickly smile. "Ah, so I haven't. Please, tell me. What are you carrying?"
Granny studied him carefully for a moment. "Nothing all that special," she said at last. "Merely some neatsfoot oil, sageblood grasses, and dried sunvine flowers." They were the sorts of things you could buy in any medicinal shop.
The owner blinked in surprise, looking like an inexperienced actor faced with an ad-libbing counterpart. "Ah...nothing more unusual?" he asked at last. "I was hoping perhaps you'd have some painkillers. Strong ones? I have three customers with the fireleg, they can't even sleep without something strong. Another who got his feet smashed on the boats and set badly, needs medicine just to walk. Plenty more like that."
Granny paused even longer. "I might have a small amount of elders-ease," she said at last. "It's rather dear, though."
"I'll give you two hundred ryō the ounce."
Hazō forced himself not to look at Tokaji. He was no expert on the prices of medicine, but that sounded pretty good to him and he couldn't tell why Tokaji was opening with it.
"Done," Granny said. "I've got ten ounces. I'll get it." She started to turn for the door.
"Wait, please!" Tokaji was wringing his hands. "Please. I really need something better. I had some supplies that were...spoiled recently. They've already been paid for by some of my more important customers and I would hate to disappoint them."
Granny's posture suddenly eased. "Oh, well, that's a shame. Always a hazard of our business, isn't it? You take all kinds of precautions but eventually something goes wrong and you lose a whole batch."
"Indeed, indeed. So, do you have anything stronger? I need...a lot."
"Well, now, I suppose if I rooted around a bit I might find some bloodbark," Granny allowed. "Maybe a pound of it?"
"I'll take it. Can you get more? I could use more."
"Hold on there. It's expensive stuff. I've got top-quality bark. Already ground, sieved three times, and washed pure as a virgin stream. I'd be asking ten thousand for it, and not a ry—"
"Done. How much more can you get?" Tokaji was twisting his shirt in his hands and shifting his weight impatiently.
Granny paused again. "How much do you need?"
"Look, how about I just give you five hundred thousand ryō for everything you've got? All of it. Your whole supply of everything."
Hazō had been watching the door but he couldn't keep from shooting a shocked glance at Tokaji before forcing himself back to his duty.
Granny Karina was absolutely still for a long second. "You don't know what I have."
Tokaji was starting to sweat; he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his head. "I don't care. I can find a way to sell it."
Granny thought about that. "Eight hundred," she said at last, her tone probing.
"Six. It's all I have on hand."
"Mist ryō," Granny specified, clearly looking for the trap.
"I've got three hundred thousand in Mist ryō, eighty in Leaf ryō, about fifty in various others, and the rest in gold. I can get it all turned to Mist ryō but I'd need a week or two."
"Show me," Granny said.
"Show me the product."
Granny paused, then nodded to Noburi. A few hand gestures, a muttered phrase, and a pair of Noburis sprang into existence. They hurried out the door and up the stairs.
The silence dragged on, no one speaking or moving aside from Tokaji's restless fidgeting.
A minute trudged past.
Another limped after it.
A third hove into sight on the horizon.
Finally, just as the tension was becoming unbearable, the clones returned, grunting and barely managing to lug Granny Karina's ridiculous backpack between them.
Tokaji glanced at the old hag for permission before flipping the pack open and searching inside. The search was far more casual than Hazō would have expected for such a sale, and then Tokaji hurried to the desk in the corner and ducked behind it. One after the next he hefted a trio of lockboxes up off the floor, grunting as he dropped each one on the desk. He unlocked them with a set of keys that he took from his pocket and flipped them open for Granny Karina to inspect.
The old woman went through the boxes far more cautiously than Tokaji had gone through her wares. She brought out her own set of weights and verified that Tokaji's scales were fair, then went through and weighed each piece of the gold—much of it in the form of jewelry but also some plain nuggets—and a selection of the coinage. She was exacting, and careful; it was over two hours before she had finished. Keiko had gone outside twice to tell the palanquin bearers to keep waiting; it was well past the hour that the men were expected to knock off for the night, and only the promise of more money was keeping them here. (Well, that and the unwillingness to overstep themselves with a group of foreign ninja of unknown temperament.)
"Be a dear and store these for me, cutie?" Granny Karina asked, waving Noburi towards the lockboxes. The young ninja hurried to obey; everyone was itching to get this weird transaction done and get out of here. Keiko took it as her cue to prepare for their departure, and start checking the door, stairs, street, and palanquin for traps. By the time their 'client' was done exchanging pleasantries, everything was set and the team was able to bundle her into the palanquin and back to their lodgings.
o-o-o-o
Jiraiya scrubbed at his face and looked blearily out the window. Yes, it was just about dawn. Time to check in. Ugh. Why had he agreed with this schedule again? Should have said something like noon and dinner. Or just not come to Mist at all.
Well, maybe not that last one. The information he'd been able to gather had more than made up for the inconvenience. Didn't mean he had to enjoy it, though.
He nicked his thumb on a kunai and slammed his hand on the desk. "Summoning Technique: Gamasid!"
There was a puff of foul-smelling smoke and a tiny toad, hardly bigger than Jiraiya's thumb, crouched atop the bloodstain. "Morning, Jiraiya," the toad said, its voice surprisingly deep for its size.
"Morning, Sid," Jiraiya said, yawning and stretching. "Want some tea?" Sid was a touchy one and he got pissy if you didn't observe the social niceties.
"Nah, I'm good. Just had some. Thanks for offering, though."
"No worries. Anything for me, or can I go back to sleep?"
Sid's bulging eyes switched around the room quickly. "You should come back with me."
Jiraiya groaned, but he knew better than to protest. This was the entire point of communicating via the Summon Realm; it was the one place where he could be certain he wasn't observed by That Woman or her minions. "Okay, let me just grab my sandals."
He slid the footwear on, refilled his mug, and laid his free hand on the desk so that Gamasid could jump on it.
"Return," the toad said.
There was the expected and uncomfortable sense of being pulled through a multidimensional cheesegrater and suddenly he was standing in front of the conference room table in the heart of the Pangolin Clan Embassy to the Toad Clan. Two human-sized and -shaped chairs were set at one corner of the table, a pot of tea with steam wisping from the spout resting on a trivet in front of the chair closest to him. The other chair held his adoptive daughter; the moment she saw him she jumped to her feet and bowed.
Jiraiya dropped into his chair and sighed. He turned the chair slightly so he could put his feet up.
"Ahem," Sid said pointedly.
"C'mon, Sid, I'm tired," Jiraiya grunted, letting his head drop back against the chair. Another even more pointed clearing of a bactrian throat made him put his feet back on the floor. He sipped from his mug and looked over at Keiko. "What's up, kid?"
"We had an unusual interaction with a local merchant," Keiko said, her voice precise and metronomic as she laid out the details of their day.
When she finished, Jiraiya scrubbed at his face again and finished his tea, then refilled it from the steaming pot and sipped a bit. "Well, that's fun," he said. "Nice to see the Oyabun making such positive outreach. Not thrilled about owing him a favor, though."
"Is it likely to be a problem, sir?"
Jiraiya shrugged. "Dun—" He had to cut himself off as a jaw-cracking yawn slipped out. "Dunno. Probably not; there's a limited degree to which the Mist Yakuza can threaten us—meaning either Leaf in general or the Gōketsu in specific—and they know it. Everyone is going to be happier if we all stay on good terms. Can't imagine that they won't try to take advantage somehow, though." He yawned again and gulped more of the tea, burning his mouth in the process. "Anyway, not your problem. You kids did fine."
"Thank you, sir."
He shot her a glower. "My, aren't we formal?" He rolled his eyes and finished his tea, then refilled it again. "Anyway, speaking of doing fine...you might be interested to know that your old headmaster had a bad day. Apparently he'd been using betel nut to help him get through the day. He took a little too much, had a bad reaction, and attacked one of the Academy instructors."
Keiko froze, her eyes locked on him and her face utterly motionless.
Jiraiya waved away her concerns. "Don't worry, no one was seriously hurt. The headmaster is a little concussed, a desk was trashed, and a couple dozen firsties were traumatized—including the youngest from three different major clans, so that's fun."
"I see," Keiko said calmly. "What might the consequences of this be?"
"Too soon to tell, but it's put the smoke in the hornets' cave, I'll tell you that." He chuckled. "You should have seen That Woman's face. Just for a moment I thought she'd swallowed one of Sunny's slugs." He yawned again and rubbed his eyes. "Anyway, I've got maybe an hour before I have to be at my next meeting and I'd like to slip in at least twenty more winks. Anything else?"
"No, sir."
"Right. I'll check back tonight. Keep up the good work." He glanced at the small toad perched on the table. "Thanks, Sid. Are you still the one on duty tonight?"
"Yep. I'm on until about midnight your time."
"Great. Okay, catch you later." With a casual wave he unsummoned himself back to the Human Path.
Keiko stared at his now-empty chair for several long seconds before sighing and pushing herself to her feet. It would be an interesting conversation with the rest of the team when she got back.
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