"Kagome-sensei? It's Hazō. Kurosawa Hazō. I have your things, sensei." He walked carefully forward, holding the sealing scroll well away from his body.

"Don't move, kid," called Kagome-sensei from well back in the trees. "You'll set off the motion detectors."

Hazō froze.

"I thought we had a deal?" he said carefully. "I have everything you asked for right here...if I get blown up, all your paper and chocolate and such goes with me."

"How do I know that you're the kid I made the deal with?" Kagome asked suspiciously. "You could be somebody else under a henge. Or a genjutsu."

"I'm not, really," Hazō said. "Here, I'll prove it's not a henge." He knelt down and punched the ground hard enough to make his knuckles bleed.

"Could be a genjutsu," Kagome said. "Or maybe a lupchanz ate you."

"What's a lupchanz?" Hazō asked.

"Chakra monster," Kagome said, "Half plant, half animal, likes to crawl into an orifice, travel to your brain and then slowly eat it until it can totally control your body. Can use any chakra technique you know. Lupchanz."

Hazō shuddered. "That sounds horrible," he said. "I'm not a lupchanz though. I'm me."

"Yeah, that's what a lupchanz would say," Kagome said.

"Okaaaay," Hazō said. "Uh...how about this? When we first met, I fought the crabs and the chakra bird. I was throwing a kunai into the field...." He related the story of their meeting in as much detail as he could recall.

"Okay," Kagome said. "Maybe you're not a lupchanz, and you're not henged. And I've been dispelling. Maybe it's you. Show me the stuff."

Hazō unsealed the crate containing Kagome's goods. Moving carefully so as not to alarm the very twitchy ninja in the bushes, he pried the lid off and set it on the ground, then started taking things out and putting them on the lid. First came the chocolate, then the honey—seemed smart to play to Kagome's sweet tooth—then the paper. Before he could remove any more, Kagome stopped him.

"Okay, that's good," Kagome called. "Just tip the box so I can see in."

Hazō tipped it towards the voice, reaching in with one hand to balance the wax-sealed jug of chakra ink.

"C'mon, kid, you don't think this is the real Kagome, do you?" Kagome called impatiently. "I'm just a clone. Turn it in a circle. I want to make sure there isn't a lupchanz in there waiting to eat my brain. Or maybe a hunter-nin. Or a damnbeast. Or a—"

The list went on long enough that Hazō got impatient. "Here you go," he said. He tipped the box onto one corner and spun it in a slow circle while walking around it to make sure he didn't obstruct the view from any direction.

"Okay," Kagome called. "You delivered, I guess it's my turn. You wanted seal training, right?"

"Yes please," Hazō said.

"Okay. Sit down and be quiet." He waited for Hazō to sit before continuing.

"First thing: don't bother trying to learn sealing, because you'll just end up killing yourself in some horrible way," Kagome said from the trees. "Most likely you'll kill everyone near you, too. And that's assuming things go well—there's a lot worse than killing yourself that can happen.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Second thing: If you think I'm just going to draw some pretty pictures for you, tell you to contemplate your navel for a while, and then you're going to run off and blow things up—think again! That's not how it works. Sealing isn't that pansy jutsu stuff that you can just teach someone. Sealing is hard! Sealing is unique to every sealsmith. Making a seal is opening a communications channel to the intelligence that resides within chakra and using your own chakra system to encode directions so that the chakra flows into your blank correctly. If you really want to kill yourself, go get in a fight with a jōnin. If you want to kill yourself horribly, learn to make seals. It's a lot slower and more painful and there's a good chance of something horrible happening at the worst time and in the most horrible way."

Kagome-sensei sure did like the word 'horrible', Hazō thought, taking care to keep a look of interest on his face as the lesson—or, rather, the paranoid rambling—went on.

o-o-o-o

"Okay, kid, we're done," Kagome's voice finally called. "I'm hungry. Get lost."

"Yes, sensei," Hazō said, standing up. He looked around carefully. "You mentioned motion detectors...?"

"Oh, right," Kagome said. "Yeah. You'll need to walk the maze to get out. Simple. You just need to step one pace right from where you are now, turn twenty degrees to the right, walk forward six steps, turn left thirty degrees, walk twenty-three paces, turn left again, walk nine...."

The directions went on and on; Hazō moved subtly through the whole list, small turns of the body and walking in place so that he had the movements safely stored in his bloodline.

"Before I leave, sensei, I have some news," Hazō said. "May I share it?"

"Go ahead," Kagome said, his voice coming from deeper in the trees than previously. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything, I just wanted to extend an invitation," Hazō said. "My teammates and my sensei asked me to tell you that they appreciate the training you are offering me and, if you want to, they'd like to give you dinner and say thank you."

"What?!" Kagome said. "Your teammates are after me too? Get lost, kid!"

"The Liberator is back!" Hazō shouted just before rustling bushes heralded a ninja's clearly-stated departure.

A pregnant silence hung in the air for a moment. "The Liberator?" Kagome said. His voice came from the trees behind Hazō now.

The genin turned to face his bizarre mentor. "Yes, sensei," he said. "He's building a village up in the north end of the country. The rumor is that he's already attracted five thousand ninja and he's teaching the civilians to be samurai again."

Given how hard he was laughing, there must have been tears running down Kagome's face.

"I know, right?" Hazō said with a laugh. "Ridiculous. Still, Inoue-sensei said that there really is a village there, and there really are ninja in it, and civilians training with weapons. She didn't go in, but there were chūnin on patrol, so there's at least some reality to the story."

"You know what this means, right?" Kagome said. "Those stinking ninja stinkers in Leaf are going to burn that place to the ground. Then they'll fan out through the country looking to see if they missed anyone, and stick them in boxes to use as chakra batteries for tired ninja. Maybe they'll just put trained lupchanzen in our ears so that we do whatever they tell us. Then the other Great Village stinkers are going to decide they don't like Leaf having a large force of expendable lupchanz ninja, so they're going to unite and attack and it's going to be World War Three all over again, except this time it'll be World War Four."

"Uh...sure," Hazō said. "That could happen, I guess. Anyway, I wanted to make sure you knew. Inoue-sensei said to tell you that we're going to stick around for a while, but you're welcome to join us if you want someone to watch your back."

"Watch my back?! Watch my back?! What does she plan on doing to my back?" he demanded. "Is she going to tattoo explosive seals on my back so that she can blow me up if I don't work fast enough? Is that what she's going to do?!"

"No!" Hazō said. "We just meant that we're grateful for the training you've given me, and we'd like to show it. You don't have to take us up on it."

"Uh-huh, sure," Kagome said. "We're done here, you stinking stinker. Tattoo things on my back, will you? I don't think so! Go blow yourself up on your own time, you stinking stinker! Get out of here and don't come back! Leave me alone!"

"I have more chocolate!" Hazō called out.

Silence.

"...more chocolate?" Kagome asked.

"Yep," Hazō said. "Inoue-sensei bought more before we left Yuni. I'd like to buy more lessons from you, if you're willing. We'll pay in chocolate."

Long silence.

"How much chocolate?"

Hazō smiled and sat down to bargain.