"So, how can we help you, Miss Honami?" Hazō asked politely, pouring the tea and setting a cup in Honami's hands.

He was sitting seiza with the pregnant girl in her rooms. Inoue-sensei knelt beside him, henged as a vaguely attractive girl in her mid-teens with brown hair dyed streaky green. So far she'd been content to have him do the talking; Hazō found the implications of that a little disturbing.

"I don't know," Honami said, blowing on the tea to cool it. The nausea and weakness of her pregnancy made her hands tremble, making tiny rings dance across the surface of the tea, although she did her best to control it. "I don't know what ninja can do...civilians hear all sorts of rumors, but we never know if they're true. Can you really outrun the wind and dance on the clouds? Or snap your fingers and conjure gods and demons?"

Hazō glanced at Inoue-sensei, but got only an eye-smile in return. She really wasn't going to help.

"There's a lot of variation in what ninja can do," Hazō said carefully. "For obvious reasons I'd rather not reveal exactly what my group is capable of, but I suspect there's a lot we could do for you. As to the particular examples you gave...no. As far as I'm aware, no one can do those things. Ninja can travel very fast, but we can't outrun the wind." He smiled. "Well, except on a very calm day. Dancing on clouds is right out, though."

"Hm," Honami said thoughtfully. "Is it true that you have scrolls that can make things vanish and then reappear?"

"More or less," Hazō said. "You can use a scroll to put something into storage outside the world. It doesn't age while it's there so it's a good way to transport food and other perishables. There's limits on the weight and volume, though. And it doesn't handle fragile things very well." He paused, thinking, then decided to go for it. "As it happens, my group has quite a few storage scrolls."

"That could be very valuable," Honami said. "There's a lot of resorts around here, and we're all competing for customers. Every time someone comes up with a new innovation we all have to have it or we lose business. We're all constantly reaching out to merchants, asking them to bring in exotic spices and goods from far away so that we can differentiate ourselves. Those things are really expensive, though, and the caravans travel slowly. It takes months or years to get anything really special, and it's generally too expensive to get much of it. If you can bring lots of something and do it quickly we could outcompete all the other resorts."

"What did you have in mind?" Hazō asked, sipping his tea.

"Ice," Honami said.

Hazō raised an eyebrow. "Ice? I'd been expecting spices, chocolate, something like that."

Honami shook her head. "We all have standing orders for those things, and they aren't terribly visible, so they only give a marginal advantage. Ice, on the other hand—" She cocked her head, frowning, as a thought hit her. "Um...I'm sorry if this is rude, but I don't know where you're from or how much experience you would have had with this." She bowed deeply. "Please excuse me if this seems obvious, but how familiar are you with ice houses here in Hot Springs?"

Hazō shrugged. "I assume it's like anywhere else, right? You collect ice in the winter, put a lot of it in the ice house and cover it in sawdust or dirt so that it doesn't melt, and then you can use it to keep food cold through the summer."

She nodded. "Yes, exactly. But there's no mountains in Hot Springs to get the ice from, and the volcanic activity that generates the springs keeps our country warmer than most of the surrounding areas. There's only so many lakes that actually freeze in the winter, so there's only so much ice to be had. When we have a warm winter there sometimes isn't enough ice to go around. Many of the ice cutters actually run commercial ice houses."

Hazō nodded thoughtfully. "Ice is valuable, and it's not something that can be transported long distances by civilians. You pretty much have to get it locally, but we could bring it in year-round, and that would significantly reduce your operating expenses. Let you shift money to other things."

"More than that," Honami said. "In years when ice is especially cheap, the richest resorts will buy extra. We'll hire a sculptor to carve the ice into flowers, animals, or other beautiful decorations, and put them out by the gates. Very eye-catching and a sign of tremendous wealth. It always attracts a lot of new business. We also shave it, add crushed fruit and a little alcohol, and serve it as a treat. Guests will pay to the skies for those things. In the hottest months we charge the moon and the stars for a glass of ice water. We've only been able to spare the ice two years in the last ten, but we made a lot more in those years than average—eighty-seven percent and one hundred and thirteen percent more, respectively."

Hazō whistled. "That is a lot," he said. "The Land of Frost isn't too far away, though. Don't they have ice all the time? Can't you hire Hot Springs ninja to go there and bring it back?"

She shrugged. "In theory," she said. "But missions that require going outside the country are incredibly expensive. It ends up not being worth it."

"Hm," Hazō said, nodding. "Whereas, as m—ninja from outside the country, we aren't limited that way. Interesting." He thought about it some more, then nodded. "Yes, we could do that. Crossing borders is risky, though. What could you give us in exchange?"

"We're a second-tier resort, but we're at the top of that tier," she said. "We already get mid-level nobles, rich merchants, scribes, ninja—all sorts of important and influential people. If we had a regular ice contract we could become first-tier within a year. Then we'd be getting daimyos and people at that level." She smiled. "People come here to relax. Relaxed people talk a lot, and are more open to deals. Guess what you hear from some noble or merchant as he's lying back in the lounge with a hostess cuddled up to him, a masseuse working on his feet, and three or four peach-brandy icies inside him?"

"I don't know," Hazō said. "What do you hear?"

She ticked points off on her fingers. "In the last three weeks I've learned that one particular noble is sleeping with another's wife, that the rice fields in the north have been devastated by chakra mites, and that a caravan loaded with chocolate was going to be arriving the following week. Usually a caravan has to come in, take rooms, rent a stall in the market, get the word out that they've arrived, sell their product in order to generate the money they need to resupply, then haggle for the goods that they'll take on the next leg of their trip. All that time they're staying in inns and buying food here, where the prices are inflated by all the local resorts."

She gave a predatory smile. "I convinced one of the factors to go out and meet the caravan two days from town. He found out what they wanted for their next leg and what prices they would accept, then he and his guards ran back to town. By the time the caravan's slow-moving wagons arrived our people were waiting at the gate with everything they needed and swapped it for their entire supply of chocolate. It gave them a much better net profit and meant that until the next chocolate caravan comes in, we have chocolate and our competitors don't."

Hazō looked at Inoue-sensei, impressed. She gave him a miniscule nod as though to say 'keep going'.

"How did your father feel about that?" Hazō asked.

Honami's smile transformed into tight-lipped frustration. "He wouldn't have thought of it," she said angrily. "Of course, I can't just suggest things to him. It's not appropriate for a woman to engage in business, you know. I always need to trick him into thinking it's his idea."

"Mm-hm," Hazō said. "Interesting. Would it be useful to you if your father weren't...in the picture anymore?"

"What are you saying?" Honami asked suspiciously. "That you're going to kill him?"

Hazō shrugged. "I'm just exploring options," he said. "He sounds like he's making your life pretty hard. I was wondering if there was some way we could help."

She laughed bitterly. "Not unless you can give him a new personality," she said. "And no, I don't want you to kill him. As angry as he makes me, he's a good father."

"Oh?" Inoue-sensei asked, one eyebrow going up. "How so?"

Suddenly Honami seemed much less confident "Well..." she said. "He never beats me."

Inoue-sensei snorted. "By that definition, I'm a good father," she said. "Try again. What makes him a good father?"

"He takes care of me," she said. "I've never wanted for anything."

"Mm-hm," Inoue-sensei said doubtfully.

"I haven't!" Honami said.

"Okay," Inoue-sensei said, raising her hands placatingly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you angry. That was rude of me, and I apologize. I'll shut up now." She gave an embarrassed shrug and mimed pinching her mouth closed.

"You know," Hazō said carefully, "we might be able to help you, actually. We can't literally give him a new personality, but there are some medicines that would help him relax, make him happier. If he were happier he'd probably be willing to be more reasonable with you. You're clearly good for the resort, he should be letting you help."

Honami opened her mouth to object, then paused. "What kind of medicine?" she asked uncertaintly.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Hazō shrugged. "I'm not a doctor myself, but I know one," he said. "We could talk to her about what a good option would be. Something non-harmful, that you could give him discreetly—maybe in a glass of sake at dinner?"

"That...doesn't sound right," Honami said. "I shouldn't be drugging my father."

"No, no, not drugs," Hazō said. "Nothing harmful. Just something to help him relax and enjoy his life more. He sounds like an insecure man, someone who's nervous and angry a lot. I don't know a lot about medicine, but I do know that stress causes people to make worse decisions, and even reduces lifespan. You'd be doing him a tremendous favor by helping him with his problem."

"He is angry an awful lot," Honami said. "But...I shouldn't."

Hazō glanced at Inoue-sensei and got a micrometric headshake.

He looked back at Honami and gave a perfectly casual shrug. "Well, I'll ask my friend for a recommendation anyway," he said. "Can't hurt. For now, we should probably head out soon so that we can get together with our team and figure out how to make the ice deliveries work. Before we go, let's nail down some basics. How much ice would you need and how often?"

"How much can you supply?" Honami shot back.

Hazō waved the question aside. "From the other side, please. I don't know where we'll need to go or how easy it will be to get. I need numbers so that we can figure out if it's practical."

"Well..." Honami said. "A one-meter cube weighs a ton. Can you transport that?"

"Um," Hazō said, thinking about it. "Not if you need it in one piece. Our storage scrolls won't take more than a hundred kilos. We might be able to find some bigger ones, though." He was careful to say 'find' instead of 'make'. Granted, it would need some research, but it shouldn't be hard to make higher-capacity scrolls.

"All right," Honami said. "That's fine. A cube the size of my fist"—she held out a dainty, adorably non-combat-ready fist—"is enough to make three or four icies. I'd need to be able to supply at least six before I could reasonably make the offer to anyone, and ten would be better. Each person will typically want two or three per day, and sometimes more. Not being able to provide them is worse than not offering them at all."

Hazō nodded. "Okay. So, let's call it four fist-sized blocks of ice. Yeah, we could transport that much. I'll talk to the team about if we want to do it and how. I'll want your help in exchange, though."

"With what?" Honami asked suspiciously.

"We were sent here to retrieve a scroll from one of your guests," Hazō said. "Jōtarō. He should have it on him."

"You want to steal from a guest?" Honami said doubtfully.

"That's the deal," Hazō said. "We're ninja. We steal things and spy on people. You help us do that, we'll help you turn this into the richest resort in Hot Springs."

He watched her struggle for a moment. "If it helps," he said. "If someone pays us to show up at your door, you probably did something to bring us there."

"You're not going to kill him?" Honami asked.

"Not unless he makes us," Hazō said. "Our mission is to get the scroll, and there's a bonus if no one knows it's been taken. We'll steal it and replace it with a fake. As long as Jōtarō doesn't walk in on us at the wrong moment and attack us, there won't be any fighting."

Honami thought about that. "All right," she said unhappily. "I can help you with that, if you bring me the ice first."

"Getting the ice will take time and means crossing the border with Frost," Hazō said. "That's risky. It would be a lot easier for us to do the mission first."

Honami shook her head. "No. How do I know that you'd come back? Once you have your scroll, you could just leave."

Hazō sighed. "Look, there needs to be some trust in order for any relationship to get started," he said. "We don't actually need any help to do this mission, so there's two ways it could go down. You can stand clear, we do the mission, we leave and you never see us again. Or you could help us, we do the ice retrieval for you, and we have the basis for a future that's good for both of us."

Honami thought about that. She had a good poker face, but Hazō was sure that she was thinking through the branches on the conversational tree.

Possible Future Honami: I could alert the Hot Springs ninja forces and they would stop you.

Possible Future Hazō: Are you sure you want to threaten us, a team of highly skilled magical kung fu battle wizards?

Possible Future Honami: Oh. Um, no. No, I do not want that.

Or, along a different branch...

Possible Future Honami: I refuse to cooperate in anything that harms my customers! I won't interfere, but I won't help you either.

Possible Future Hazō: Okay. Say goodbye to your dreams of fabulous wealth and influence in the world. Also, I might go tell the Hot Springs ninja about your maybe-has-a-bloodline baby.

Possible Future Honami: No, please! I'll steal the scroll for you! You won't have to do a thing!

Possible Future Hazō: Mwahaha! Dance, little civilian puppet!

"All right," Honami said. "I'll help. You said it was a scroll, and it's important, so he'll probably have it with him. He won't be able to take it into the baths, though, so he would have to leave it in his room or in the clothes cupboard. Rei is responsible for watching the customers' clothes, but she'll let me check them if I tell her that I think Jōtarō might have stolen something. For his room, I can get the spare key and let you in."

"Just tell us where the keys are and we'll get them ourselves," Hazō said. "Then you aren't at risk."

Honami smiled. "But then you don't need me," she pointed out. "The more useful I am, the more likely I am to get my ice."

Hazō blinked in surprise; Inoue-sensei laughed.

"Fine," Hazō said, smiling. "You get the key and let us in. What about the dogs? We can get past them, but we'd prefer not to take chances. Can you get them out of the way?"

Honami thought about that. "Not without being obvious about it," she said at last. "I can introduce you to them, though. If you go down there with me, feed them, pet them a little, then they'll think you're safe and they won't bark at you."

"Okay," Hazō said. "That sounds good." He hesitated. "There's one more thing," he said slowly. "I'd like to get a friend of mine into the same water as Jōtarō, but not in the same pool. Is there a way?"

Honami frowned. "What? Why would you want that?"

"Is there a way?" Hazō asked, ignoring the question.

"...Maybe," Honami said, thinking it through. "The springs come up from the side of the hill and run down into the soaking pools. The pools drain downhill through a sluice gate. If your friend gets into the runoff channel he'll be in the same water. Will that work?"

Hazō nodded gratefully. "Yes, that should be fine," he said. "Thank you. Can we—"

Hazō cut himself off in midword just as Inoue-sensei's head turned in response to the footsteps at the end of the hall. Honami caught their motions; a moment later she heard the sounds as well.

"Go!" she said. "That's Mother, coming to check on me!"

The two ninja were out the window before Honami finished her sentence, dropping casually into the bushes two stories below and vanishing.

o-o-o-o

"Not bad, Mr. Mew," Noburi said as Hazō finished his report.

Without looking, Hazō flung a balled-up scrap of paper at him from across the room. Noburi caught it, laughing.

"I'm worried about breaking into Jōtarō's room," Hazō said. "The way he moves, he looks like a fighter. If it turns out that he's a ninja he might have put traps in the room. Keiko, with your pangolins...when a summons is hurt it goes back to its own realm, right? It doesn't really die?"

Keiko shook her head. "No. When a creature from the Summon Realm is brought here, it is not the actual creature that arrives. The summoning ritual constructs a chakra envelope into which the summoned animal's mind is projected. If the body is disrupted before the being is dismissed then the mind is flung back without time to prepare. It's quite painful and debilitating, but does not actually cause real injury. The summon does have all the memories of what happened to it while it was here, though. That can be traumatic—for example, imagine what it would feel like to remember yourself being stabbed in the heart, even if it didn't happen to your real body. The other problem is that when a summon's body is disrupted it destabilizes the aetheric channel through which the ritual operates. The pangolin that is connected to that channel can't be called again, and can't reverse-summon me, until the channel stabilizes. That can be anywhere from hours to weeks, and the exact duration is nearly impossible to predict. Stronger summons lead 'larger' channels, though, and those tend to take longer to restabilize."

Hazō nodded slowly. "Okay," he said. "So, hypothetically, if you summoned Pandā and asked him to search Jōtarō's room he wouldn't really be at risk from any seals or traps? The worst that would happen is that he'd be sent back and you wouldn't be able to summon him for a while?"

"Yes," Keiko said, her voice cold enough to make a thousand icies. "Do you think it is a good idea to ask my summon to sacrifice himself for no reason?"

"It's not no reason, Keiko," Inoue-sensei said firmly. "It's to keep you safe. That is exactly what summons are for, is to aid and protect their summoners. Pandā is a great kid, but I would much rather that he experience some temporary discomfort than that you die from a poison needle."

"Yes, sensei," Keiko said, abashed.

"Do you think it likely that there will be poison needle traps, sensei?" Akane asked.

Inoue-sensei nodded. "Yep. The way Jōtarō moves, I'm pretty sure he's a ninja. I'd be amazed if there aren't traps in his room."

"You don't think..." Hazō began before pausing. They were going to laugh at him, he was sure of it. Still, better to be embarrassed than right about this. He took a deep breath and gathered his courage.

"There's no chance that Jōtarō is Jiraiya, is there?" he asked, immediately flinging himself backwards, kicking his chair towards Inoue-sensei in order to give himself an extra moment to escape the ruthless hair-ruffling that—

—totally failed to occur.

Everyone stared at him as though he were insane.

"Is something wrong, Hazō?" Inoue-sensei asked, false concern layered over barely-suppressed laughter. "You seem nervous."

Hazō eyed her warily as he picked up his chair and sat down. "I'm fine," he said. "Is it possible?"

"Well," Inoue said, before flinging herself out of her chair at him, hands in hair-ruffling position.

Eventually Inoue stood up and took her seat again, snickering all the while. Hazō climbed to his feet with a sigh and pulled a brush out of his pocket. As thorough as she'd been, nothing less was going to get the job done.

"No, I don't think Jiraiya is Jōtarō," Inoue said. "I chatted him up at the buffet yesterday, tried one of the code words that he gave us back before the Liberator mission. He didn't react at all." She shrugged. "Or, alternatively, he gets so many women talking to him about lingerie shopping that he didn't realize it was a code word. Still, I don't think it's him."

"But he is a ninja?" Noburi said. "Who do you think the woman and the kid are?"

Inoue shrugged. "Part of his cover, maybe? Or a pair of civilians that he's escorting? They've both been staying out of sight. I haven't managed to get a good look at either of them. We'll know more once Noburi manages to check his chakra levels."

"Easier to just squish him," Kagome muttered. "Boom. Done."

"Kagome," Inoue said reprovingly. "We promised not to hurt any of the guests or blow the inn up."

"I didn't promise anything," Kagome said grumpily. "Boom. So much easier."

"Kagome," Inoue said.

"Fine."

o-o-o-o

Noburi dipped a hand into the hot water that was sluicing over the rocks beside him. For a moment his fingers felt like they were being parboiled, but once he adjusted to the heat it was nice.

From the particular set of soaking pools that Honami had carefully steered Jōtarō to, the water spilled down a rocky slope and into a small creek. Noburi had spent three hours in a hot and stuffy ghillie suit, carefully creeping across the rocks until he was close enough to drain the residents of the pool. He couldn't see up to where the pool itself was, but that was fine; if he couldn't see them then they shouldn't be able to see him.

He pushed his bloodline out from his fingertips, traces of his chakra spreading through the water. There were miniscule flickers of chakra from the mosses and lichens on the rocks, but nothing significant. His awareness reached farther up, creeping into the pool itself, only to find—

He yanked his hand out of the water as though he'd been burned and forced himself not to run.

Oh yeah, Jōtarō was a ninja.