Things were tense after Hazou's conversations with Noburi and Keiko. Fortunately they were left alone until mid-afternoon, except for a short visit from the team of servants who brought in lunch. The meal was a quiet affair; the genin occupied themselves with their food as an excuse to not talk. Kagome's stress had gotten to the point where his only comprehensible speech was monosyllabic grunts in reply to direct questions, with a constant string of grumbling just below the threshold of hearing. He ate lunch with his left hand, the right being occupied with a kunai that he clutched like a child clutching a safety blanket.

Given the mood of the room it was an incredible relief when the knock on the door finally came.

"Good morning," Hazou said, bowing shallowly and gesturing the Leaf team in. "We're just finishing up. Would you like some tea? Or maybe some gyoza?"

Akimichi's eyes lit up. "Gyoza? I wouldn't mind."

"Help yourself," Inoue-sensei said, gesturing to the food. Whatever Konoha's intentions might be for the team, they definitely didn't include starvation; everyone had stuffed themselves and the table was still half-full. Akimichi fell on the leftovers with focused intent, chopsticks flashing as he scarfed them down. The team watched in amusement for a moment.

"Gotta tell you," Noburi said to Asuma, "it's really nice to be able to visit Leaf in a friendly way. We hear a lot about you guys."

"You better be friendly!" Kagome said, jumping to his feet with kunai in both hands. He was twitching slightly, his eyes flicking around like an animal in a trap, and his knuckles were white where he gripped his weapons. "I hear a lot about you too, and I won't let you do that to my team! If you try it, I'll—"

With the first words, Nara and Yamanaka had shifted into a combat stance and Akimichi had paused in his eating to look up at Kagome. Sarutobi didn't blink, simply continuing to smoke his cigarette peacefully.

"Sensei, it's all right," Hazou said, reaching slowly for Kagome's arm. Physical contact reassured the man...and also made it easier to physically restrain him if it became necessary.

"Jiraiya assigned us to protect you," Sarutobi said calmly, taking a long drag on his cigarette and keeping his hands carefully visible. "Yes, we're also to protect Leaf from you, but our primary job is to keep you and your identities safe."

"A likely story!" Kagome said, shaking Hazou's hand off without seeming to notice it and backing away.

Inoue-sensei rose, moving slowly and carefully, and stepped between Kagome and the Leaf team. "It's okay, Kagome," she said, her voice and gentle. "Look at me."

Reluctantly, Kagome dragged his eyes away from what he clearly thought of as the enemy and looked at the tiny redhead. Hazou noticed that he was careful not to meet her eyes.

"Kagome, I need you to breathe for me, okay?" Inoue-sensei said. "They aren't going to hurt us, and starting a fight would be a bad thing to do. We want to get along with them, and they want to get along with us. We're here under Jiraiya's protection, remember? He doesn't want to get in trouble with the Toads for fighting the Pangolin summoner or her team."

It took a few seconds, but eventually Kagome's muscles relaxed and the whites of his eyes were no longer visible. "Fine," he grumbled. "Stinkers."

"Please excuse him," Hazou said to Team Asuma. "He's really jumpy without his explosives." He studied them for a moment, then decided to take a chance. "It might actually be safer to let him have a few tags. I think it would calm him down."

Yamanaka snorted and Nara muttered "Troublesome." Akimichi went back to scarfing down gyoza.

Sarutobi shrugged. "I'll talk to Jiraiya about it, but I wouldn't hold your breath."

"So, what's on the agenda for today?" Inoue-sensei said brightly.

"We thought we'd start with a tour of the city," Sarutobi said.

"And some shopping!" Yamanaka said, her eyes shining with fever-brightness. "I'm sure you need things after being out in the woods for so long, and I know the best places."

"Troublesome," Nara muttered.

Sarutobi snorted. "You're just excited about the idea of shopping on an expense account," he teased.

"Expense account?" Keiko asked.

"Jiraiya authorized a budget from the Materials and Equipment fund," Sarutobi reminded them. "And ordered us to pick up Wakahisa's barrel and materials for repairing same as our first stop."

"Right!" Noburi said, jumping to his feet. "It'll be great to have it back."

Inoue-sensei checked in with the team by eye and saw that everyone was ready and Kagome wasn't about to start murderizing things.

"Just to check, our cover is that we're visiting dignitaries, right?" Hazou asked. "What are the rules? What are we allowed to do or not do?"

"Don't kill anyone," Sarutobi told us. "And maintain cover. Inoue, you're the leader of a minor village here to open trade arrangements with Konoha. These are some of your ninja, here as your bodyguards."

"Easy peasy," Yamanaka said with a laugh. "Just look noble and arrogant."

Inoue-sensei nodded and yawned. "Guess I should be a guy, huh? Pity." She stretched, rising up on her toes with both hands reaching overhead, then twisted from side to side a few times to get probably-nonexistent kinks out of her back. Sarutobi swallowed and Yamanaka shot her a fulminating glare full of envy.

"Troublesome."

There was a faint shimmer and Inoue-sensei was replaced by a tall, wiry man with salt-and-pepper hair and a hooked nose. "Let's get this show on the road," he said in a light tenor.

Moments later the rest of the team was ready, henges hiding both weapons and faces, and out the door into the crowded streets of Konoha.

The place was a marvel—the equal or possibly superior of Kirigakure, much less the small hamlets and towns that the team had spent most of their time in for the last year. People bustled back and forth, the streets were lined with shops, and smaller merchants sold food and goods off the back of carts. There were buskers on every other corner—musicians, jugglers, and storytellers. None of them seemed to be making a rich living, but they all had at least a few ryo in their hats.

"This place looks nice," Hazou said, gesturing to a clothing shop they were passing. Like most shops it was open on the street side, with a gate that could be pulled across at night. Shirts, pants, and shoes lined the walls and the marked prices were reasonable.

"As if," Yamanaka said with a derisive snort. "Those are just for peasants. No style at all, and they were designed for softfoots. They wouldn't stand up to ninja life."

Hazou frowned, looking at the clothes. They seemed perfectly nice to him. There were brightly-colored ones but the majority were in shades of grey or brown. It was the sort of stuff he'd grown up wearing, and hearing it dismissed so bluntly...well, it wasn't a good feeling.

"Come on, there's a better place down this way," Yamanaka said, diving into an alley with the ease of someone who'd grown up here and knew the place like the back of her hand.

"Reel it in, Ino," Sarutobi said. "We're going to Secure Storage first, remember?" The blonde grumbled, but followed along.

The Secure Storage facility could have been any warehouse in the Elemental Nations except for the subtle yet impressive security. A few passwords and forms later and Noburi's broken barrel was being loaded onto a dolly to be taken to their quarters. Noburi's eyes tracked it hungrily but he made no protest.

"Where to next?" Inoue-sensei asked. "Back to that store young Miss Yamanaka was so excited about?"

"Yes!" the girl said, her eyes gleaming with an unholy light. "You all need new clothes."

Sarutobi and Akimichi groaned and Nara muttered his catchphrase. Clearly there was some history here.

"Their clothes are fine," Sarutobi said. "I was thinking more along the lines of the theater district."

"No," Yamanaka said firmly. "They are supposed to be a visiting noble and his entourage, and those clothes aren't even remotely convincing. Well, except for hers—his." She gave a disgruntled wave towards Inoue-sensei. "And those are still so far out of style that you'd be laughed out of any serious meeting. I mean, really? Mandarin collar? That is so last year."

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Inoue-sensei shrugged. "I've been mostly out in the woods for over a year," she reminded the girl. "When I have been around people it's mostly been in tiny little nothing towns. Little hard to keep up with the trends."

"Hmph. Fine," the blonde said, her nose lifting unconsciously. "Still, you need something better than that."

"And of course you have no intention of purchasing anything for yourself," Nara said.

"Wellll...I did see this really cute top yesterday. And there were some wedges that would look so good with that skirt I bought last week...."

"Wedges? What do you need wedges for?" Kagome asked, kunai suddenly in his hands. "You're going to use them on us, aren't you, you stinker!"

"They're shoes, Kagome," Inoue-sensei said quietly. "It's a style of shoe."

This did not help.

"Shoes?! Wedge shoes? I knew it! They're going to use them to crush our feet so we can't run! Quick, we need to—"

Kagome's panic cut off as Inoue-sensei snagged him in her Sunny Day genjutsu. The tension slid out of his body and he smiled.

"Thanks," he said.

She rested a hand on his shoulder for a minute, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Sorry, my friend."

He shrugged. "Better than starting a fight," he said. He looked at Sarutobi and ducked his head in embarrassment. "Sorry about that."

Sarutobi chuckled. "Don't worry about it. We've got plenty of ninja here who have been on one too many missions. If you want it—and only if you want it—there are a number of priests that you could talk to. It's not magic, but they're good at listening and it can help. No pressure, though. We aren't going to force you into it."

Kagome's smile slipped and a trace of tension returned to his shoulders. "No."

Sarutobi raised his hands placatingly. "Okay," he said. "Like I said, no pressure."

"Come on!" Yamanaka said, setting off with the determination of a freshly-graduated genin on her first mission. "Shopping awaits!"

o-o-o-o

Yamanaka knew more about clothing styles than Hazou knew about taijutsu. It was almost terrifying watching the girl flip through the stacks of clothing on the shelves of the second store they'd been dragged into—they'd been in the first one for less than a minute before Yamanaka had pronounced it "hopeless" and swept out, pulling them all effortlessly along in her wake. Apparently the selection at this one was better; she was so excited that she was actually using shunshin to move around the store.

"Crazy, huh?" Hazou muttered to Keiko.

Keiko nodded. "Yes. What I find more impressive, though, is that this city is so rich that they actually have multiple styles and sizes of clothes lying around their shops. Not only that, but apparently they even have styles that change more than annually, thereby requiring the fashionable to update their wardrobes. And there is enough wealth to support that excess."

Hazou blinked. "That is a very good point," he said. "I'm impressed. I would not have thought of that."

Keiko shrugged with one shoulder. "Logistics," she muttered, as though that explained everything.

o-o-o-o

"Does she do this often?" Noburi asked Akimichi. It was nice to not be the fattest one in the room for a change, and the larger boy seemed friendly enough.

"Yup," Akimichi said, chewing placidly on a potato chip he'd pulled from a small leather pouch. "Don't get the wrong idea, though; she's actually a really good ninja even if she gets a little too excited about shopping."

"I didn't think otherwise," Noburi said. "Your team leader is the Third Hokage's son. They're not going to put dead weight with him." He paused. "Hey, the genin who brought our food said that the three of you are all clan heirs. Is that right?"

Akimichi ducked his head in embarrassment. "Yup. It's not really a big thing, though. We aren't better than anyone else just because we're clan, so what does it matter if my dad is the current head?"

"Hey, shopkeeper, get over here!" Yamanaka called. When the old man bustled over she thrust a red blouse at him. "Do you have this in green?"

He bowed immediately. "I'm terrible sorry, ma'am. Just what you see on the shelves."

She sniffed in irritation. "All right well, I guess red is okay. It'll go with that belt I got for my birthday."

"Try this," Inoue-sensei said, offering a crushed-linen skirt. It was asymmetric, cut ankle-length on the right and above the knee on the left, and it was a wash of green and blue that started off a rich jewel tone at the top and dimmed to pastels at the bottom. "It'll look great with that."

Yamanaka's eyebrows went up, but she grabbed the skirt with polite thanks and vanished into the changing room. Squeals of delight indicated a probable sale.

"You know your colors, sir," the shopkeeper said to Inoue-sensei.

The henged jounin shrugged modestly. "My wife is a clothes horse. After buying enough birthday presents you start to pick it up just in sheer self-defense."

The shopkeeper laughed. "Very wise, sir."

Sarutobi had been fidgeting more and more since they walked in, and clearly had reached his breaking point. "Ino!" he called. "Pack it up! We're out of here in two minutes and whatever you haven't bought by then stays here!"

A loud squawk from the changing room gave a few seconds notice before Yamanaka came tearing out, hands full of clothes. She tossed them on the counter and began frantically counting ryo out of her pouch.

"No haggling," Hazou noted to Keiko, fingering his own newly-purchased clothes. Before diving into her own shopping crusade, Yamanaka had used her shopping powers for good by picking out clothes for the team. She'd tried hard to urge Hazou into some clothes that she swore up and down were stylish, but they were too fancy for him. He'd let her guide him on styles and materials, but had insisted on simple construction, minimal decoration, and no embroidery. Based on Yamanaka's anguished complaints you would have thought he was stabbing her in the heart instead of merely refusing shopping advice. Still, the royal blue silk shirt and slate-grey pants were the nicest things he'd ever owned. The fact that they were new was a bizarre concept, and the fact that he hadn't needed to pay a ryo for them was just amazing.

"It's a high-end shop," Keiko murmured back. "I suspect it caters only to clan ninja and the wealthiest members of the bureaucracy. You see how inflated the prices are?"

In truth, Hazou had taken one look at the prices and started to walk back out the door. Even when he was told that the trip was covered under their expense account he'd been extremely uncomfortable and finally settled for just not looking at the tags.

It was more than two minutes before they walked out the door, but at least they weren't burdened when they did. Amidst much bowing and expressions of gratitude, the shopkeeper agreed to have their purchases delivered.

Hazou blinked as they emerged from the shade of the store into the full sun of the outside. He was just opening his mouth to ask about food when he was beaten to the punch.

"Shoes!" Yamanaka said. "Yours are all worn out, we need to get you something better. There's a great place just a mile from here, come on!"

"Are you sure you don't just want new boots to go with your new skirt?" Nara asked slyly.

"Well, I did see this really kicky pair—no! It's all about our visitors!"

"Troublesome," Nara said, shaking his head. "You are very troublesome, Ino."

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Are you coming or not?"

"A mile away, just for shoes? Too much like work." Despite his protests, Nara followed her as she turned right and headed out at a quickstep.

"Hey, can we stop for lunch?" Akimichi asked hopefully. "I'm starving."

"You can't be starving, you just ate this morning!" Yamanaka said.

"Yeah, but—"

Hazou shook his head and trailed along behind the bickering team. He really hoped Akimichi won this argument. And that there was something other than shopping that they could do for the rest of the day. If there wasn't, honorable suicide became a much more appealing option.