I scooped a handful of sand up and watched it melt between my fingers before trailing down to rejoin the mass that made up the Land of Wind—there was quite a bit more rock than I was expecting, but the sand was omnipresent. Temari had woken up once already, but she'd almost immediately gone back to sleep, apparently content to let Kankuro carry her back to Sunagakure on his back. He complained almost the entire time, but when Gaara had made the offer to carry her, Kankuro had waved him off. Matsuri had also made a spirited attempt, apparently as an apology for having been kidnapped—which was an odd thing to apologise for—but all she'd gotten out of it was Battle-Fan carrying duty. By the time we'd set up our little array of tents, Matsuri had pretty much collapsed and hadn't moved since.

"If your destination was Sunagakure," Gaara said so suddenly that I started at the noise. "Why would you wait for our team in the Land of Rivers?"

I nodded my head to where Ranmaru was sleeping beside Karenbana—her attempt to pretend to be asleep had evolved into actual sleep a while ago, bless her tiny little heart.

"I was in the Land of Rivers to heal that little guy," I said, not bothering to hide it. "Sunagakure was actually our next destination, but I ran into Kakashi, who was investigating the fact that all of Takumi Village suddenly moved into the Land of Fire."

Gaara turned to look at where Ranmaru's sleeping face could just be seen through the opening in the tent.

"He was ill?" Gaara asked.

"Ranmaru was born with a frail body, bad enough that he couldn't walk on his own," I said, "His parents vanished when he was really young, and when his bloodline limit activated for the first time, all of the villagers turned on him—guess they thought he was a demon or something, glowing red eyes and strange abilities have that kind of effect on people."

Gaara's previously implacable expression turned into a visible frown—which was pretty much what I'd been expecting and why I'd worded it the way I had.

"They attacked him?" Gaara murmured, glancing over at my nod. "How did he survive?"

"One of the Seven Swordsman of the Mist turned up—Raiga Kurosuki—and apparently, they hit it off well enough that Raiga actually defected from Kirigakure to take him on a world tour," I said, shaking my head. "From an outsider's perspective, it seems to me that Ranmaru had a case of Stockholm syndrome."

"I don't know what that is," Gaara said.

"It's like when someone gets abducted, and the victim starts to fall in love with or become dependant on the abductor—it's a weird little quirk of human nature, seeking safety from the person who has all of the control in your life," I said, lifting up another handful of sand. "They get so used to mollifying the threat that it actually starts to warp their own personality towards empathising with them."

"A chilling thought," Gaara wondered.

"You bet it is," I agreed, "Either way, Team Three and Naruto Uzumaki put an end to Raiga, and Ranmaru was left with a small family in the Land of Rivers—once again trapped in place by his inability to move, if with a much more positive environment."

"Naruto Uzumaki," Gaara said with clear interest. "You know of him? I suppose you must if you are allied with Kakashi Hatake."

"We've saved a country or two together—Naruto is a good kid, and he's going to make one hell of a Hokage one day," I said, eyeing him for a moment. "You are going to make just as good of a Kazekage once you get around to taking the hat."

"Kazekage?" Gaara said with an odd intake of breath. "What makes you think such a thing is possible?"

While I had a whole litany of 'ins' as far as Konohagakure was concerned, my only real chance of bringing Sunagakure into the category of an ally was sitting right in front of me. Temari and Kankuro probably counted, but it was Gaara where all the momentum would come from.

"Gaara, I've only told a few people this, so I'm going to trust you to keep it to yourself," I said after a long pause. "I can see the future and a great deal of the past—and it's not looking good for all of us."

Gaara was silent in the face of my admission, and I leaned back on my hands, content to wait for him to parse out whether or not he would choose to believe me. It stretched on for what felt like an eternity but was probably only half a minute in reality, and then Gaara spoke again.

"You engineered our two groups meeting by directing Kakashi to assist us," Gaara said without much of an inflection in his voice. "What was your real purpose here?"

"If I'm being really, really honest, my real purpose here was to meet you," I admitted, "But I didn't lie about the trade deal—I just made sure to convince Kakeru Tsuki to make the offer to your village so I'd be in a position to speak with you."

"Because I will become the Kazekage," Gaara observed.

"That's part of it," I said, "My goal here is to ensure Sunagakure and Konohagakure become allies as fast as possible."

"As fast as possible," Gaara repeated. "You hold no doubt about whether or not such a thing will occur."

"Even if I didn't get involved, you would eventually become Kazekage by merit of your strength, intelligence, and your care for those in Sunagakure who need your protection," I said, "The mutual respect you hold for Naruto, and that he holds for you would inevitably manifest itself as a formal agreement between the villages—I'm just working to speed that up."

"Do you have any proof of your claim?" Gaara wondered.

"Inside of the Council of Suna, you have at least two people who I know are working against your interests—which is the polite way of saying that they are trying to get you killed during the course of a mission," I said, "One of them is a sleeper agent for a missing-shinobi, and one of them is a man named Tojuro. Baki knows about these attempts because Tojuro actively prevented him from helping you save Matsuri—in the hopes that you would die during the mission."

Gaara said nothing to the information, which was fine because I hadn't exactly proved anything by just stating it—but it was something he could use to confirm my authenticity in the future, with a bit of sleuthing. It went unsaid that if Kakashi and my own team hadn't been present, both Temari and Kankuro would have died—so I probably had some good-boy points from that as well.

"Who is the sleeper agent?" Gaara asked. "You didn't say his name or who he was working for."

"Because this is going to open a massive can of worms that none of us is ready for," I said, "I'll tell you, but I'm going to have to reiterate just how sensitive this information is."

I didn't bother waiting for confirmation because Gaara seemed far more thoughtful than most people his age, and I thought the warning would be enough to at least make him think twice about it.

"Before Sasori of the Red Sand left the village, he implanted a sealing tag inside a trusted follower's head—a man named Yura," I said, "It had the effect of sealing away all his memories of Sasori, and when he eventually comes back—and he will—all of those memories are going to come back with him."

"Yura," Gaara said. "I know this man."

I just nodded at the comment before continuing.

"Sasori has since joined a group of S-Rank missing shinobi that are using the name Akatsuki," I said, "The goal of this group is to abduct every single Jinchuriki, transfer the Tailed-Beasts into a prepared sealing statue, and then use it as a weapon strong enough to destroy entire countries."

I scooped a handful of sand up, vanishing it into my inventory to join the rest.

"Naruto knows about this already because Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki—two more members of Akatsuki—attempted to abduct him several weeks before Tsunade became the Hokage," I said for the sake of authenticity. "Sasori and a man called Deidara will be coming for you in just under two years' time, and I'm going to tell you now that you lose that fight."

"You've seen this?" Gaara murmured.

"I have, and I can give you a breakdown of their strategy, techniques, strengths and weaknesses, along with the details of how the original fight went after we're done talking," I offered. "Either way, this time, it's not going to happen like that because I'm going to make sure you've got allies waiting to assist you when the time comes."

#

"Why are you up so early?" Kakuro grunted as he sat up, carefully rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "Do you not sleep?"

"Correct, I do not sleep," I said, raising an eyebrow. "How do you stop sand from getting stuck in your makeup?"

"I don't," Kankuro muttered before pausing. "It's not makeup; it's face paint."

"You shouldn't lie to an official Emissary from the Land of Moon," I said, feigning disappointment. "I expected better from one of Gaara's older sisters."

"I'm not a girl, dammit," Kankuro complained. "Just cause you're some fancy messenger doesn't mean—"

"I can't take you seriously with all that eye shadow," I said, "Why don't you go play with your dollies for a while?"

"Oh boy, we're really doing this," Kankuro said, punching a hand into his palm. "You want to go, big guy? Because I'll take you there."

"Take me where?" I wondered. "You're not asking me on a date, are you? You're a bit too young for me, sweety; maybe you can ask someone more age-appropriate, like Karenbana—"

I cried out as Karenbana grabbed hold of my ear and twisted it hard enough that I thought it was going to tear off. Kakuro seemed pretty damn pleased by my predicament, and I put his ass on the list of ones to kick. Slapping at Karenbana's face got me nothing more than an extra twist for good measure, and I was forced to tilt my entire body towards her in an attempt to ease up the pressure.

"I'm twenty-two," Karenbana said. "Say it back to me, so I know that you heard me this time."

"You absolutely are, and by the gods do you look it," I rattled off in an attempt to pacify her. "Out of all the twenty-two-year-olds, you're definitely the twenty-two-ist—actually, looking at you now, I could even mistake you for a young twenty-three—Oh my god, why are you still twisting my ear."

"You're saying the words, but somehow it feels like you're still making fun of me," Karenbana said, eyes narrowed. "Behave yourself."

I gasped out in relief as she finally let go and then clapped a hand over my ear in case she went back for seconds.

"Would you look at that mister emissary," Kankuro said, a visible smirk on his face. "She's got you domesticated."

"Rich," I said, scrunching my face up. "Coming from a catgirl."

"I'm a boy, dammit," Kankuro cried out in disbelief, "Gaara, are you sure we have to take this guy with us?"

"Yes," Gaara said, "Temari, are you fit to travel, or do you require more rest?"

Temari actually managed to drag herself up into a seated position, but it seemed to take her a herculean amount of effort—it was clear enough that she wasn't going to be walking anywhere on her own. I scratched my chin for a moment as the three of them discussed her inability to move around before deciding I would attempt to craft a solution to the problem. I'd already told Ranmaru about my intentions to create a skill to regenerate chakra, so I might as well get it out of the way now—I made a promise to myself to put the teleport skill down as my next skill, no matter what. I dropped down onto the sand again and cupped my hands in my lap before calling up Meditate.

"What are you doing?" Karenbana murmured.

"I am creating a mysterious new skill," I said, "I've been meaning to do this for a while now—go wake up Ranmaru, will you?"

"You're not going to tell me what it is?" Karenbana muttered.

"After you almost tore my ear off?" I said, aghast. "Not fucking likely, little bean."

Karenbana made as if she was going to grab my ear again, and I crossed my arms in front of my head to deter her, but she just turned her nose up and wandered off in the direction of the tents. What I needed was the ability to regenerate or give chakra to other people in the same way that I could Heal them. Exchange my mana in order to supply someone else with chakra. Gifting chakra points wasn't really all that much stranger than gifting Health Points, was it? Replenishing a foreign energy source. Regenerating chakra. Gifting physical and spiritual energy. Exchanging mana for chakra. I built up the mantra like I always did, folding the words inside my mind and accumulating that odd unformed pressure into something more uniform, something structured. Something more complicated than I could ever really hope to understand, but in which the thrust of my desire guided the alien process towards an end result.

You have unlocked a new skill, Refresh.

When I finally opened my eyes again and managed to tear through the malaise trying to drag me down, I found myself being watched—Gaara had seemed to find it hard to stop looking at me throughout the course of the sleepless night. It had been nice to have someone to actually talk to, though. He'd been stuck with his insomnia for much longer than I had, and unlike me, he had all the negative side effects to deal with as well—Shukaku was kind of a dick. I checked on the skill description

Refresh(Lv1)

Exchange 0.25 mana to recharge the target's resource pool up to 0.25 (+0.25 per level)

Active skill use grants EXP towards this skill.

It was an equal ratio of mana to chakra, and while it was a low amount, there were no real cooldowns for any of the skills I'd made. I should be able to just dump my entire bar of mana into a Refresh and then go from there.

"Huh," I said, genuinely stumped. "This one is actually—not bad? I'm not sure how to deal with this."

"Sora?" Karenbana said. "Did it work?"

"It worked," I said, pushing myself up to my feet. "Temari—I've figured out how to cure your chakra exhaustion."

I stumbled a bit as the sand shifted beneath my feet—but it wasn't Gaara of the Sand launching a surprise attack—it was just the nature of walking on the most annoying substance in the universe.

"I thought you couldn't fix that," Temari said, eyeing me from the shadow of the tent. "You said as much."

"Yeah, but that was before I sat down and decided to figure it out," I said, flapping my hand around. "This is afterwards—don't mind me."

I planted my hand on her head and felt Kankuro shift closer towards us. Karenbana moved as well, putting herself in range to respond if he attempted anything—everyone was so paranoid all the time. Gaara remained where he'd been standing, hands crossed over his chest, expression implacable as ever. I sub-vocalised the command phrase for Refresh and then pushed all of the mana that wasn't being taken up by Energy Sense and Iron Hide into it—roughly forty mana, which wasn't a lot.

"I felt that," Temari said, carefully lifting her hand up. "What did you do?"

I dropped into Meditate to speed up the process and started spamming Refresh every time it reached full.

"I'm converting my energy into your energy," I said, "It's only about a hundredth of your chakra pool at a time, but it's something—Ranmaru, can you check out her chakra system for me?"

Ranmaru rubbed at his eyes, still not quite awake, and then suddenly, they were glowing red.

"She's producing chakra on her own again now," Ranmaru murmured a bit blearily. "I can see it flowing through her coils."

"Perfect," I said, "Temari—feeling any better?"

"I do feel better," Temari admitted. "The sluggishness is fading away."

About twenty casts in, she seemed far perkier than before; whatever hold zeroing her chakra out had held over her receding, and by the time she'd reached about halfway to full, it seemed to have vanished entirely. I kind of got bored standing there, so I dropped both Energy Sense and Iron Hide to free up my entire mana bar. One-hundred-and-sixty-four chakra replenished per cast was way more significant, and once I'd brought her all the way back to full, I retrieved my hand.

"How's that?" I said, thumbing my nose. "Chakra still goes woosh, wind-girl?"

"I think so," Temari said, "I feel pretty much back to normal—a bit better, maybe."

"You're welcome," I said, stepping back. "Now, are you going to sit around in the desert all day, or are you going to get up, you damn layabout? Don't you know I'm super important?"

"I'm going, I'm going," Temari said, rolling her eyes. "Matsuri—where's my fan?"

#

Sunagakure was a bizarre place, at least in comparison to anything else I'd seen in this world—sandstone buildings with circular, dome-like rooves. The windows, doors and even the rooms look as if they'd been carved out of the material—the lack of wood was notable. The Land of Moon had some wood, but it wasn't something they could sustainably harvest in the way that the Land of Fire could. Tsunade—if Kakashi had indeed taken the suggestion to her—would likely use that as a part of the trade agreement I was attempting to bully everyone into.

There was lots of glass present here—although that was to be expected considering their environment—which was also something that the Land of Moon wanted. All of the big glass panels that their buildings, homes and casinos had been adorned by had been imported—and considering the place was still growing larger every year, they'd need more of it. As a destination for tourism and gambling, it didn't have many exports of note, but what it did have was an assortment of imported goods from over two dozen different countries—and bulking out those orders before ferrying them along to Sungakure was more than within the power of Kakeru-the-richest-man-who-ever-lived-Tsuki.

"Ranmaru, if you're going to confess your undying love, you better do it now," I said, clearing my throat. "I don't think Matsuri is coming with us to see the Council of Suna."

Ranmaru's mouth dropped open just a little before he turned to look up at the much taller girl in question—Matsuri tilted her head at him in consideration. Ranmaru paused for a moment, made as if to speak and then fled behind Karenbana, doing his best to hide from Matsuri's sight.

"Why are you glaring at me, little minion?" I said, trying not to smile. "Fine, true love can wait until we finish politicking."

I stepped into the bottom floor of the massive building where Gaara was waiting and out of the sun—it was slightly cooler inside but nowhere near what I'd been hoping for. Kankuro, Temari and Matsuri remained outside as the rest of my team followed me in.

"Bye, Ranmaru," Matsuri called after us.

Ranmaru managed a partial farewell, but his face seemed to be taken over by a sudden onset of temporary sunburn. Karenbana placed her hand on top of his head, but the way her lip had curled up at one side made it clear that he would find no saviour there.

"I thought I was back on King Tsuki's island with all that mooning you were doing," I said, "Aren't you a little young for a crush?"

"It's not funny," Ranmaru managed.

Gaara led us up the curving staircase that seemed to lead around the entirety of the building, with dozens of locked doors passing them by on either side. It was actually pretty late, and through the windows that trailed above us, I could see it dipping below the craggy outer wall of the city. We came to a stop before a large, closed door that Gaara opened without comment or announcement—then again, the twelve people inside were all supposed to be Jounin-level shinobi, so I had to imagine they'd heard us coming up the stairs.

From what Energy Sense was telling me, six of them were a stone's throw above what Kongo had been, and four of them were trailing behind Ishidate; one of them was at Kakashi's level, and one of them was actually above him by a fair margin. Total chakra wasn't exactly a perfect measuring tool as far as strength went, but it wasn't too far off, either. I started firing off Observes as Gaara announced us to the twelve at the table and matched them all pretty solidly to what I'd expected—from level two-hundred-ten at the lowest to two-hundred-seventy-two at the highest. Ebizo—at level two-hundred-and-ninety-three—was the outlier, his old, frail body showing none of the monstrous strength roiling under his skin.

"Gaara, you may leave," Ebizo said before turning his eyes in our direction. "Why have you come?"

"Actually, I'm going to need Gaara to stay here during the negotiations," I said, smiling. "He's part of the reason I came, honestly—I was recommended to meet him by someone who saved my life back in the Land of Moon."

Gaara hadn't moved at all, even at Ebizo's words, other than to glance over in my direction. Karenbana was standing rigidly in place, making sure to keep her hands in clear view at all times, while Ranmaru had finally managed to overcome his earlier embarrassment and seemed to be watching everyone with clear interest.

"Is that so," Baki said, speaking up. "Who is the person who recommended this?"

If Baki held some kind of lower status at this table, it didn't seem to be apparent right now; a unified front to be shown to foreigners probably went without being said.

"Naruto Uzumaki," I said, moving forward again, so I didn't have to raise my voice. "He's a Konohagakure shinobi, but you must know that already—he holds a lot of respect for Gaara, and I can see why; I've scarcely seen such poise and intelligence in someone so young, a regal bearing."

A bit on the nose, but I couldn't really bring myself to care. Ebizo seemed visibly annoyed that I'd avoided his question, and I waited a moment until he opened his mouth before speaking again.

"I've come here on behalf of King Kakeru Tsuki, the ruler of the extremely prosperous Land of Moon, and with the intention of brokering a mutually advantageous trade agreement between these two countries," I said, meeting the gaze of Ebizo for a moment. "Having twelve of you haggle with me while I remain standing in the middle of the room seems incredibly annoying—so perhaps you can all select a representative, and we can spend some time going over the details."

"Very well," Tojuro said, frowning. "We will vote on it—in your absence."

I tossed a wave over my shoulder as I headed for the door, Karenbana and Ranmaru following after me. Gaara remained in the place he'd chosen, arms crossed and unwilling to move yet.

"Oh," I said, pausing at the threshold. "I'd like Gaara to be present during the actual negotiation—see ya."

I could feel the same twelve shinobi who'd been following us since we first entered the village, moving to retake their previous positions—some of them behind the locked doors, some outside of the building, clinging to the walls. I could also feel Gaara moving for the first time, coming to stand behind Baki's seat, off to one side. There was a rustle of minor movement from the other council members, although whatever they were saying, I couldn't hazard a guess—I should have made Ranmaru figure out how to conceal his glowing eyes and the chakra they radiated because being able to hear them right now would have been useful.

"There is a lot of shinobi following us," Karenbana said, eyeing the windows. "I don't know how people can live in villages like this."

"Yeah?" I wondered. "Well, don't worry, Karenbana; I spend all night looking at you while you're sleeping."

"If that was supposed to be reassuring," Karenbana said, narrowing her eyes at me. "You're doing a terrible job of it."

"Sometimes you make little noises in your sleep," I said offhand. "The occasional word, and I even saw you pawing at the air once like a little kitty cat—so cute."

"I can not wait," Karenbana said, cheeks vaguely red. "Until we are outside of this village."

"Me-ow," I said, wriggling my eyebrows at her. "So forward."

Karenbana blew an explosive breath out of her nose at the comment, but her face remained distinctly red.

"I don't know what this is," Ranmaru said, "But I don't like it."

"It's called flirting, chief, and Karenbana started it," I said before clearing my throat. "Maybe we should have sent you off with Matsuri—your girlfriend."

I stretched the word out, long and loud like something a kid would say, and then let it devolve into grotesque kissy noises. Ranmaru looked stunned by the childishness of it all. Karenbana looked like she was about ready to team up with Ranmaru to murder me and hide the body. The two closest energy signatures were shaking oddly, and I felt a smirk pulling its way onto my face—their first mistake was giving me an audience. The door opened behind me, and the Suna Council caught perhaps half a second of kissy noises before I managed to shut it down.

"Right, like I was saying," I said, clearing my throat. "Politics is a serious business, Ranmaru, and you should always maintain civility—oh, it looks like they're ready for us."

I turned to face Gaara, who was looking at me with a sort of odd fascination, and I raised an eyebrow at him.

"They have decided to hear you out, and a room is being prepared as we speak," Gaara said, maintaining eye contact. "The councilmen responsible for the negotiations have been selected, and you'll be meeting with Baki and Tojuro."

What a fucking combination to be chosen—still, it wasn't something I couldn't work with. I was adaptable, if nothing else.

#

"I knew a man named Baki once," I said, scratching my chin. "The man was something of a grappler—you shinobi do any of that?"

"No," Baki said, brow furrowed. "Shinobi combat rarely lasts that long and usually involves weapons—it's antithetical to a style of close-ranged grappling."

"Tojuro?" I prompted. "You of the same mind?"

"I know many grappling techniques," Tojuro said with a pale glint of interest. "Baki is correct, however, the predominant form of combat does not permit prolonged contests of strength."

I just nodded at the words.

"Maybe I should talk Kakeru into making some kind of inter-village sports contest. Make it like the Chunin Exams, but with non-lethal events," I said, humming. "Points-based sparring, actual sports, tests of skill—put it in front of a massive audience and then charge everyone to come to watch."

Baki and Tojuro turned to look at each other for a moment, sharing some unknown under-the-table hand-based communique that I wasn't privy to. Gaara, who'd been eyeing the exchange out of the corner of his eye, spoke up.

"You've indicated that you wish for us to share at least one Wind Release Technique with you," Gaara said, "Revealing even one of the techniques of our village is highly irregular, and I do not believe it is something we have done in the past—If you could expand on why you have requested this."

Both of the Jounin seemed rather impressed by the question, which was funny considering one of them was driven by some small sense of pride, while the other was in spite of a great dislike.

"I'll be completely honest with you, Gaara," I said, leaning forward. "I snuck that one in myself—Karenbana, my bodyguard, has like zero awesome techniques, and it's honestly kind of embarrassing."

All three of them looked completely stunned by how quickly I'd admitted to such a thing—well, in Gaara's case, he kind of leaned back a bit, but that might have been to avoid getting too close.

"The number of times we'll be fighting off some crazy shinobi, and they'll be throwing around elemental techniques, and all she has is kunai?" I sighed, "She's always stabbing people in the face, you know? It's so lame."

I sat back and rolled my shoulders in an attempt to get comfortable again.

"Kujaku tried to kill your sister with this awesome tornado attack; it was actually gigantic—and Temari herself almost cut me in half after taking out half the trees in the forest," I said, sighing. "Then again, that woman died to a kunai, so maybe giant attacks aren't so good as a general strategy? This may bear thinking about."

There was a bit of odd silence as the four of us considered what I'd just said—once again, Gaara spoke up, breaking the silence.

"When you spoke of this before the Council of Suna, you mentioned that it would be mutually advantageous," Gaara said, eyeing the scroll on the table. "You've requested the high-quality glass and a five percent discount on missions, but even if we were to agree to release a single technique, this is one-sided in our favour—it points towards a motive that is currently unstated."

There was another shared glance between the two Jounin, and I found it amusing that they'd relinquished the negotiations almost entirely to Gaara, a thirteen-year-old boy—part of it was because of how easily I was responding to his questions, which they'd noted the higher level of resistance I was putting up to the two of them—but the reality was, Gaara genuinely had a talent for this kind of thing.

"You're right, of course, but it's probably not what you're expecting," I said, admitting it outright. "This world is bountiful, but it's mismanaged. It's filled with terrifyingly strong forces—armies and individuals who are even stronger than that—but it's also weak and divided when it should be strong."

I met Tojuro's gaze for a moment.

"One man should not be able to destabilise an entire region for selfish gain, nor should people throw away their lives, warring for resources as if they're scarce when it's far more efficient to trade for them," I said, glancing over at Baki. "Grudges, bad blood, unearned paranoia—that kind of thing weakens a country and, in turn, slows progress for the entire world."

Tojuro linked his hands together in front of his face for a moment, concealing his mouth.

"There are technological marvels in this world, capable of turning entire continents of ice and snow into grass and trees. There are machines that can fly through the air, trains that can cross countries in a fraction of the time it takes even a shinobi of great strength," I said, "There are countries with wood, and countries with stone, and countries with more resources than they could ever use—that will ever be used—and nobody is sharing a damn thing."

I blew a genuinely frustrated breath out of my nose.

"Pick any country in the entire world, and you'll find a lack—of water, food, heating, clothing, homes, craftsman, engineers, fighters, and inventors," I said, listing them off. "Three countries with an efficient system of trade, covering for each other's weaknesses and sharing specific technological advancements, can become the leaders of this world—half a dozen could reshape it in our image."

I smiled.

"I want the Land of Moon to be one of those countries. I want the Land of Wind to be one of those countries. I want the Land of Fire to be one of those countries." I said before catching Gaara's eye. "The door is currently rusted shut, and if I have to make some lopsided agreements to oil the hinges—well, that's alright with me."

I sat back again and dropped my hands back into my lap.

"I'm charming you right now, obviously, with my good looks and my reckless display of wealth, all in the hopes that you'll agree to more down the line," I said, tilting my head. "But keep in mind that your agreement now isn't locking you into any future action, other than I might have another chance to convince you in the future—so, shinobi of Sunagakure, are you going to risk it?"

There was a long silence in which the two Jounin seemed to have another silent conversation, but I could feel their fingers blurring into a hundred different shapes as they spoke to one another in some language I had no chance of interpreting. Gaara eyed the two, visibly following along but not actively participating. After half a minute had passed, Gaara turned back to look at me—they were now actively relying on him as the more effective negotiator, and I had to stop myself from smiling.

"If this were to become the finalised agreement," Gaara said, "What technique would you be asking for?"

#

"We're still being watched," Karenbana said, leaning against the wall beside the door. "That's likely to continue until we actually leave."

I just nodded, my hands folded under my head, and my eyes closed. I could feel Ranmaru sleeping in the room they'd given him—despite not having the space to run around, he'd done his best to complete the exercises Karenbana had shown him. He really was a good kid—diligent, focused and a hundred times more level-headed than I'd been at that age.

"Does that worry you?" I asked.

"What do you think?" Karenbana murmured.

I sat up on the bed and then turned until my feet were on the floor before gesturing for her to come. Karenbana frowned, clearly attempting to figure out what I wanted before she agreed to anything. I kept my silence, waiting, and eventually, she crossed the room, coming to stand over me. I twirled my finger, indicating for her to turn around, before pointing down at the ground beside the bed. Again she paused, unsure about putting her back to me and wondering if I was trying to lure her into the best position to launch a surprise assault.

"If you're going to—" Karenbana started.

"Sit," I said.

Karenbana must have detected something in my voice because she turned around and sat down on the floor between my legs. I reached down, wrapping my hands around her shoulders, and dug my thumbs into her back. Karenbana blew a quiet breath out of her nose as I massaged her shoulders—and despite the fact that I'd seen her naked on several occasions and had the opportunity to touch her more than once—I continued to find myself surprised by how firm her muscles were. It was easy to forget sometimes because of her slight build and small stature, but she was a bundle of hyperdense muscle, and there was a layered array of steel cords stretching out beneath her too-soft skin.

"Chakra is a hell of a drug, huh?" I said, working on her traps. "Your body is a work of art, Karenbana—how long have you been training to get like this?"

There was a small lull where Karenabana simply enjoyed the feeling of my fingers pressing into her skin, and then she seemed to find the time to speak up.

"I worked on a farm until I was eight years old," Karenbana murmured, shifting slightly. "After that—that's when I started training."

When she was forced to learn, I supposed—being ripped away from her home at that age must have been infinitely more traumatising than waking up on a beach in another world. I slipped the fingers of my left hand down to rest against the left side of her throat and then pressed my thumb into the meat of her neck—If I'd tried to place my hands anywhere near her neck back when we first met, she might well have killed me out of paranoia. I took it as a pretty flattering sign of trust, considering that there were only two words separating her from a fatal injury.

My right hand slipped down to mirror my left, my thumb adding a counter-pressure to the other side of her neck. Karenbana tilted her head back, perhaps without really thinking about it, and her hair started to slip away from her eyes. It was getting pretty long now, just about hanging around her ears, her fringe getting in her eyes. I lifted my hands up her neck, adjusting my grip until I was cradling the back of her head in my palms, fingers curving under her jaw and thumbs over the tops of her ears.

"Your hair is getting longer," I said, tilting her head all the way back so I could see her face. "I was right after all."

"About what?" Karenbana mumbled.

Karenbana's eyes were closed tightly shut now, and I could feel the way her throat shifted as she swallowed. I smiled at the question—because she knew exactly what I was talking about. I ran my fingers up over her cheekbones, around her temple and across her brow, before bringing them down over each side of her nose, vaguely tracing the tract I knew existed somewhere beneath her skin.

"Growing it out was a good idea, Karenbana," I said. "It does look pretty."

I felt her hand curl around my ankle, but I paid it no mind, continuing my attempts to relieve some of the anxiety that had been building up since we'd first arrived here. For a girl who'd lived in a clan with no village—who had likely stayed away from all of the Hidden Villages for fear of exactly what Iwagakure had eventually done to her clan—being suddenly surrounded by hundreds of well-trained killers and then being expected to do nothing but exist at their mercy must have been pretty overwhelming.

"You can't do things like this," Karenbana managed, "It's not fair."

I ran my fingers through her hair, fingertips dragging against her scalp, clearing out the few snags in her hair as I went. I took my time with it, and when I was finished, I leaned down until I could feel her breath on my face. Karenbana's eyes were still clenched tightly shut, undergoing some internal battle where she wanted to open them but couldn't bring herself to do it. I kissed her, just once, before pulling back, and smiled at the way she shifted to follow me.

"I know it's not," I said, brushing my thumb across her cheek. "But I'm going to do it anyway."

#

"It's cool looking, though, isn't it?" I implored, "Please tell me it isn't something you use on the interns to rustle their skirts—"

"We don't have interns," Temari said, annoyed. "Why the hell would I be doing something like that, anyway?"

"You've got a nefarious skirt-flipping look to you," I said, "Everybody says so—behind your back, at parties, mostly."

"Uhuh," Temari said, "I already told you; I'm not allowed to tell you until everything is finalised—I just wanted to make sure we had a scheduled time for this."

"That's totally a lie; you just want to lord it over me and leave me in suspense," I whined, "This is torture, literal torture—"

"If you keep talking, I'll show you what literal torture looks like," Kankuro said, scrunching his face up. "You're like the most annoying person—"

"Temari, your little sister is doing this thing where she moves her mouth, and all these terrible sounds are coming out," I said, horrified. "How do I stop her?"

"I'm not a girl," Kankuro gave a cry of frustration. "He can't keep getting away with this."

"Kankuro," Temari said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "He's trying to rile you up—just ignore him."

"You're doing the thing you do when you've got a headache," Kankuro said, stabbing a finger at her. "He gave you a headache—tell me I'm wrong? I know I'm not."

"I do have a headache, but I had it when I woke up," Temari said, narrowing her eyes at her brother. "You're starting to rile me up, Kankuro."

"I can cure those, you know," I said, offering a hand. "Two-second job, easy as can be."

Temari eyed the offered hand for a moment in consideration before reaching out and placing her hand on top of my own—I dumped some of my mana into a Heal and then went about dusting my hands off like I'd just done something physically intensive. Temari blinked and then turned to look down at her palm as if it might hold all the answers to my headache-erasing technique—I turned and stepped past the two of them as Gaara finally came back into the room.

"Please tell me it's not Wind Release: Skirt Flutter," I said, clapping my hands together in prayer. "It will take me forever to hire enough interns to make it worthwhile."

Gaara looked a bit puzzled at the cold start to the conversation, but Temari came to his rescue a moment later.

"It's not important," Temari said, "Gaara? What was the outcome?"

"The decision was a single B-rank Technique, Wind Release: Wind Cutter Technique," Gaara said, "It is already known by Konohagakure, Kumokagure and Iwagakure, so there is little more that can be lost by teaching it to a single shinobi."

"Minimal delivery, huh?" I said, scratching my chin. "Eh, I'll take it."

"Very well, then all of the conditions have been fulfilled, and a team will be sent to the Land of Moon to establish contact with King Tsuki," Gaara said, "As expected, Temari has been selected as the instructor and has been asked to make herself available to you."

"Perfect," I said, impressed. "Thirteen years old and already negotiating trade deals between countries—you've really got a mind for this, Gaara of the Sand."

The faintest ghost of a smile touched his mouth, but it was gone so quickly that I was mostly sure that I'd imagined it.

"What do you plan to do now?" Gaara asked.

"I'm heading north to see if I can't bend any more ears to my cause, and then I'll be heading to Konohagakure, although I'm not sure when we'll arrive there," I said, "Tsunade wants to meet me, or so I've heard, and I want to recruit her for a little threeway action—if you know what I mean."

I waggled my eyebrows at Gaara to make certain he knew.

"A three-way alliance," Gaara said, nodding. "I recall the discussion."

"Uh, yeah," I said, clicking my fingers. "That too."

#

Stepping back out into the desert proper and setting off to—what looked like to me—an endless plane of sand was honestly a bit daunting. Even with my inventory filled with supplies and the fact that I didn't need to eat, drink or sleep to survive. It almost felt like a trap, which was probably because all of these changes had only come recently, and I had a lifetime of experience telling me that recklessly walking off into a desert would spell my end. It had felt different with the Sand Trio leading us, although I'm not certain why exactly; perhaps I'd just been distracted by their presence or their status as a guide.

"Anyone else getting the heeby jeebies?" I said. "The desert is kind of hardcore, you know; we could get lost."

"I doubt it," Karenbana said, "We can see the sun; finding north isn't exactly difficult."

I was halfway towards suggesting that the sun might disappear and that she clearly hadn't accounted for that when Ranmaru spoke up.

"Will we come back here?" Ranmaru asked.

I glanced down at him for a moment and found him staring down at the sand, looking a bit sad. It had only been about a few weeks in total, but he'd clearly grown pretty fond of them in that time—the Sand Trio and Matsuri were all much closer to his age than Karenbana, and I was.

"We'll be coming back here after we get to Konohagakure, so you'll be able to see them all again," I said, "It's probably not going to be as easy-going as this visit was, considering we'll be organising a defence against Akatsuki, and then if I can swing it, getting their help dealing with Mōryō and Mukade."

"That's good," Ranmaru said, lifting his head a bit. "Who is Mōryō?"

"Mōryō is a shadow demon thing in the Land of Demons—a country that shares a border with both the Land of Wind and the Land of Mountains," I said, rubbing at my neck. "I considered trying to tackle that early, but I have no real idea about where the instigators of that are at this point in time—and I'm not fucking letting it out early if I'm not sure I can deal with it; you know?"

"Mukade?" Ranmaru wondered.

"He is another missing shinobi of Sunagakure, with a lot in common with Sasori of the Red Sand, and who will eventually be hiding within the ruins of the Roran Kingdom—which is on the west side of the Land of Wind," I said, "We need to either kill him before he can go back in time or actually go in after him with some serious backup, else he's going to rewrite history in a way that's going to get a lot of people killed, if not the entire world."

"We're really not doing anything about that now?" Karenbana asked.

"I already promised you there wouldn't be any S-rank shinobi this month," I said, "Now you're turning around and trying to convince me to go chasing after one of them?"

"I'm not," Karenbana said, glancing away. "You didn't say anything to Gaara about that the other night—I thought you would warn him, at least."

"I knew you were awake, you sneaky bean," I said in righteous indignation. "How many new secrets did you hear? You owe me a dozen now."

"I'll give you one," Karenbana said. "If you argue, it'll become zero."

I scrunched my face up at the words—I was getting absolutely handled here, and I didn't like it.

"Fine, you can tell me later, but it better be something good, though," I said, scrunching my face up. "I didn't tell Gaara because he has enough to deal with already, and he doesn't have control over Sunagakure, so he'd be forced to pass that information up to the Suna Council."

"Is that a problem?" Karenbana said. "A village full of shinobi should be able to handle one missing shinobi."

"Like hell they can," I scoffed, "Minato fucking Namikaze couldn't kill this guy, and not for lack of trying—he's rendered himself effectively immortal."

"Then what do you expect to do about it?" Karenbana asked.

"I'm going to arrange for a whole host of badasses to be present," I said, "If you're both still following me around like cute little ducklings at that point in time, you'll be two of them."

"You think I could do anything in a fight like that?" Karenbana murmured.

"That depends entirely on whether or not you've been meditating every night," I said, folding my hands behind my head. "Have you?"

"Why do you keep asking me that?" Karenbana said, frowning.

"Because you need to learn how to be still and how to blank your mind out completely because it's a functional requirement of a technique I intend to arrange for you to learn," I said, peeking at her. "You'll also need a lot of chakra to make it work, and that means meditating every single night—so?"

"You know I've been doing it," Karenbana mumbled. "What is this technique?"

"Like I'm going to tell you that, little bean," I said, laughing out loud. "Ranmaru, you might be able to learn it one day as well—although you'll probably need to sign that Summoning Contract we were talking about."

"The sea snail one?" Ranmaru wondered.

I just nodded, and Karenbana blinked at the words, having not been present for that conversation.

"I'm honestly not sure if the Chameleons or the Conch will know how to do it, but, worst case scenario, I talk to Jiraiya of the Sanin," I said, eyes on the sky above. "From there, I can offer to de-petrify every single being that tried and failed to learn it in the past in exchange for him giving you both a bit of instruction."

"You have a plan for everything," Ranmaru said, bemused.

"Now you're getting it," I said, pleased.

"You know where another Summoning Contract is?" Karenbana asked, glancing between us. "You never told me that."

"I keep my Haku's compartmentalised to avoid contamination," I said, with no small amount of glee. "Enjoy living with the knowledge that you'll never discover—"

"There is a man named Kandachi in the Land of Waterfalls," Ranmaru interjected with a smile. "He holds the contract—and Sora said we'll be going there eventually."

"Ranmaru," I said in disbelief. "How could you do this to me?"

Karenbana pressed a finger to her cheek in thought, clearly pleased that he'd taken her side in our ongoing struggle for dominance.

"You tell her everything else," Ranmaru said, "It seems weird not to tell her this as well."

"You're a good boy, Ranmaru," Karenbana said, patting him on the head. "We can practice your tree-walking later."

"This is absolutely unacceptable," I said, aghast. "Stop being friendly—you're both fired, again."

#

Once Sunagakure was several days away, and Ranmaru had returned to using his bloodline limit to scan the area every so often, I finally felt safe enough to drag Kubikiribōchō out of my inventory, because as far as training tools went, carrying around a massive slab of metal was pretty good for building up my Strength. I removed the Fujaku Hishō Shōken; next, the two swords fit tightly together in a way that allowed it to be used as a single thicker sword.

"Karenbana, I already paid you for this month," I said, "So you can either sign on for another two months, or you can return this to me after you're done practising with them—I'll leave the choice up to you."

Karenbana carefully stretched out a hand and took hold of the sword, moving to investigate without speaking up with any confirmation on what she intended to do. I turned my attention to Ranmaru and then lifted a single hand up into the air, a small square of paper suddenly sitting between my fingers.

"Paper?" Ranmaru asked, curious.

"Chakra paper—which will tell us what your elemental affinity is so I can plan out how to get you an appropriate weapon," I said, handing it over to him. "You simply hold one corner of it and channel some of your chakra into the paper."

"Where did you get that?" Karenbana asked.

"I traded Kakashi some information for it," I said, "Go ahead whenever you're ready, Ranmaru."

Ranmaru turned to look down at the paper in his hand and seemed a bit put on the spot. He carefully pinched the paper between his thumb and forefinger—the entire thing sank inwards, crinkling towards where his fingers were touching.

"You know why you're my favourite Haku, Ranmaru?" I said, planting my hand on his head. "It's because you're just so damn easy to please."

Ranmaru blinked at the comment, but I caught sight of Karenbana's eyes narrowing in my peripheral vision.

"There's no 'please, Sora, organise a trade deal between nations so I can get my first real elemental technique and become a real shinobi' or 'please, Sora, all the other shinobi are laughing at my itty bitty kunai, can't we cross two whole countries to get a weapon?'" I said, putting a lot of whine into my voice. "Instead, you choose the thematically appropriate option, which I already have a weapon for and that you probably wanted to use anyway."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

I beamed at him.

"I didn't ask you to do any of that—and I didn't pick my Elemental Affinity either," Karenbana managed, cheeks red. "You just decided to do all of that on your own."

I removed Kiba from my inventory, and it came out in the same double-bladed form I'd left it in the last time I'd returned it there, both swords connected at the hilts. The sword spun once until I was holding it out horizontally towards him. Ranmaru reached up to take hold of it, eyes a little wide.

"Two months of team pay," I said, letting it go. "Once that time is up, we can renegotiate if you want to stay, alright?"

"Okay," Ranmaru said before pausing. "You don't have to pay me—you've done a lot for me already, and I don't really have anywhere else to go."

"If I'm going to be employing a small child to kill people for me, then I'm at least going to pay you for your time, Ranmaru," I said, rolling my eyes. "Geez, it's like you want me to go to jail."

"What?" Karenbana said, frowning. "Why would you go to jail?"

The absolute state of this world—I shook my head at her.

"Nevermind," I said, waving her off. "It's a joke only an adult would get, and you're clearly—twenty-two—you are very clearly, and unmistakeably, twenty-two."

The green shard of razor-sharp metal withdrew from where she'd begun pointing it at my chest in warning—and I breathed out in relief, too close.

"Anyway, Ranmaru, those might well be the sharpest non-enhanced swords in existence, and you will absolutely cut yourself in half if you try to do any flippy shit," I said, "Karenbana will be training you, so make sure you listen to everything she says about it, alright?"

Karenbana gave me a look that I interpreted as an annoyance that I was giving Ranmaru safety advice at wielding a sword when I wouldn't listen to any of it myself, crossed with a bit of being flattered that I was trusting her to do the job—then again, she could have just been constipated.

"I will," Ranmaru said, hesitating. "Do you—do you think Raiga would be mad at me?"

"For using Kiba?" I guessed, "Absolutely not. You're probably the only person he would have wanted to use it after he died."

"Right," Ranmaru said, staring down at the still-combined swords. "Thank you, Sora."

"Don't mention it. We'll figure out a storage solution later, but for now, I'll carry them in my inventory when you aren't using them," I said, glancing over at Karenbana, so she knew I was talking to her as well. "Maybe we can find someone to make us some sheaths—or I can get someone to put a seal tattoo on your wrist or something, and that way, you'll have a weapon on you at all times."

#

The desert was hot by day and cold by night, and despite my best efforts to absorb every single grain of sand that got on me into my inventory, I kept on finding more of it. It was driving me mad—mad enough, in fact, that I'd taken to engaging in an all-out war on the desert with Kubikiribōchō throughout the night. I'd been forced to move far enough away from our camp after the third time I'd woken Karenbana up with a war cry, and she'd threatened to break my legs.

Still, I'd gotten to the point where I could actually swing the damn thing around without exhausting myself, something that was completely and utterly awesome. I turned on my heel, sinking slightly in the sand as I pivoted my upper body around—Kubikiribōchō screamed through the air, the curved tip carving a short-lasting trench through the side of the dune and sending sand scattering through the moonlit desert.

Strength has increased by 1.

Despite my inability to use chakra, and my seemingly eternal journey to catch up to Karenbana, I was undeniably in the realms of the superhuman now. I jumped to the side, avoiding an invisible attack, and then went for an angular downward strike, anticipating and then using the weight of the weapon to increase the striking power. The slab of metal carved down into the mess of sand, burying itself deep enough that I didn't even bother trying to pull it out. Instead, I vanished it into my inventory, spun around, and then brought it out again, already in mid-strike.

Another splash of sand rained down around me as I panted for breath, but despite my growing exhaustion, my spirits had never been higher—in moments, I found myself laughing again, unable to help it as I fell back onto the sand. The Land of Wind had looked pretty large on Kakeru's map but actually crossing it was another story entirely. The fact that we were moving at Ranmaru's pace didn't help, but the more time the little guy had to build up his body, the better off we'd be in the long run. The environment was beginning to change, though, less sand, more canyons filled with haggard-looking outcroppings of rocks, and even the occasional dead tree.

The horizon showed a distant blotch of black that my best guess put as the ridge that ran the length of both the Land of Fangs and the Land of claws. We were close enough to their shared border that we could probably shoot straight on through the canyon that apparently separated the two without many adjustments. The river that carved through both and into the Land of Wind hadn't quite revealed itself to us, but I was on the lookout for it. I enjoyed the sweat and exhaustion for a little while longer before finally clearing my throat.

"Heal," I said.

I felt the pain in my arms wash away, even as Meditate brought me back up to full mana and stamina. Pushing myself back to my feet, I brought Kubikiribōchō up with me, holding it out in front of my body with no real hint of strain. I lifted it up into the air above me and then struck downwards, halting its movement before it could crash into the sand.

"Let's take it from the top," I cried, trying to restoke my vanished anger, "You sandy fuck nut of a desert—get your wandering tendrils out of my pants."

I lashed out in a wide arc, making sure to keep careful control over the blade as it curved back up into the air. Once it reached the end of its path, I twisted, adjusting my grip and then followed it down through the next cut, fighting to deal with the added momentum. I managed it, a few inches above the sand, arms straining against the savage weight and force. A small puff of sand washed outwards as the wind caught by the mass continued forwards. I vanished the blade, diving to the side to avoid an invisible return attack, and then came up swinging again, bringing out the blade at the last possible moment.

As far as technique went, I hadn't much of anything, but I had advantages that a lot of people didn't—and the inventory system was one of the biggest. While I struggled with the speed of my opponents, a mass of legendary steel appearing an inch away from an enemy's head, already in motion, would go a long way towards helping in that regard. If I ever did get to the point where I could track them, I could probably use my inventory to absorb thrown weapons or even melee weapons that might mortally injure me but not kill me outright.

"Kisame, you giant motherfucker," I cried, sending Kubikiribōchō crashing down into a dune. "I'm going to steal your goddamn sword—just try to shave me and see what happens."

I ripped it out of the dune, hopping backwards to make it possible. I vanished it again and twisted it into another spin, the blade reappearing a fraction of a second before it sunk into the sand once more. Although, maybe I shouldn't try that after all; Samehada might actually be categorized as a living entity, which might prevent me from putting it in my inventory.

"Orochimaru, you sneaky motherfucker," I said, readjusting my battle cry. "I'm going to steal your Kusanagi and shove it right up your butthole—"

Karenbana rolled over in her sleep, and I paused, sword pulled back for a herculean smash of epic proportions—there was a tense moment where I thought I was going to have to do a runner, but Karenbana remained where she was.

"That's what I thought," I said, eyeing her through the dunes. "Go back to bed, you little firecracker; you don't want any of this."

#

I dumped all of my mana into a Refresh, bringing her the rest of the way back to full—Karenbana looked up as I pushed myself back to my feet, having apparently lost herself in thought during the process.

"Thank you," Karenbana said, shaking herself out of it. "Should I go again? I can't seem to get past Shiroeki—he's so big."

"For you," I said, shrugging. "You're using about sixty percent of your chakra, as far as I can tell—pump it up another ten percent, and I'll save you if you pass out."

"That's so much, though," Karenbana managed, looking a bit unsettled. "What if I mess it up really badly—you won't be able to save me if I kill myself outright."

I stepped forward until I was directly behind her, close enough that she shifted a bit to glance back at me—but I just smiled at her.

"I'll keep my hand on your back," I said, doing just that. "The moment I think you're going too far, I'll take care of it—trust me."

Karenbana shifted a bit at the words before carefully bringing her hand up to her mouth and running her thumb across a too-sharp canine. A splash of red followed, dripping down to her hand as she blurred through the handseals she'd long since mastered. I felt her chakra surge upwards in response as she pushed beyond her self-imposed limit—even further than I'd suggested, dropping her down to almost a tenth of her chakra. Karenbana dropped to one knee and placed her hand on the rocky plateau, the words for the technique coming out shaky.

I fell into Meditate as my entire mana pool converted itself into chakra, bringing her up a few percent. There was a twist in the world directly in front of her, where I could feel the massive chakra signature coming into existence, and then there was smoke everywhere, towering above us, far beyond what Shiroeki had ever managed to bring with him. I felt Karenbana tip backwards a bit as she fought to regain her feet. I caught her around the middle, re-engaging Meditate as she leaned heavily against me. The moonlight pierced the slow-to-fade smoke that still clung to the absolutely massive form that could only be Shiromari—his wreath of wind entirely missing, and his previously active camouflage washed away with the smoke.

"Earlier than I had expected, given your steady progress, but I suppose that is because of how very diligent you are, Karenbana," Shiromari rumbled, "I must admit, I'm glad to finally meet you in person—my family has spoken so much about you."

"Lord Shiromari," Karenbana managed, trying to catch her breath. "It's a pleasure to meet you, as well—I'm sorry it's taken me this long to summon you."

I'd never seen what he'd looked like under all that smoke, but I hadn't pictured him as having blue colouring, a striking pattern of dark blue stripes passing up over his ridged body. He lowered his head down and to one side, coming to something of a rest with his chin touching the plateau, one massive eye peering at us as a partial reflection of the moon shone across it.

"This long?" Shiromari said, "You have shown remarkable growth, considering you did not possess enough chakra to even approach the cost required to summon me when you first signed the contract."

"O—oh," Karenbana managed, swallowing. "I hadn't realised how much I'd improved."

"Such a thing is hard for one to see from within the cage of your own mind; an outside perspective is always welcome in that regard," Shiromari advised, "Karenbana, as much of yourself as you put into this, I cannot remain here for long—know that you may summon me at any time, if you are in need of counsel, to practice your technique, or if the situation is ever dire, and I will come."

I let her go, withdrawing my hand as she bowed forward at the waist, and then caught her by the back of her coat as she almost overbalanced.

"Thank you, Lord Shiromari," Karenbana breathed, "I'll keep working hard."

I offered a silent wave as the massive creature devolved into smoke, returning back to his home once more—I'd talk to him after the formalities were dealt with and Karenbana had time to build a proper relationship with him. Karenbana managed to get back up straight again, and a rush of air mixed with bright, breathy laughter came out of her. I caught her as she fell back against me again, engaging Meditate to continue my attempts to refuel her reserves with Refresh.

"I did it," Karenabana got out, the words almost lost in her giddiness. "Sora—"

"You worked really hard for that, didn't you?" I said, "You're amazing, Karenbana."

She clutched at my hand for a moment, once again wrapped around her belly, and I weathered the bone-crushing grip with a smile, not willing to ruin the moment for her. By the time I'd brought her back to full chakra again, she'd closed her eyes, content to rest there, and her laughter under control once more. I couldn't recall hearing anything like it from her, smugness, a few smirks here and there, expelling air from her nose when she allowed herself a bit of room to express herself—I'd heard all of those, but witnessing her actual genuine laughter was something else entirely.

"I like it when you laugh," I said, "You should do that more often."

"If you want," Karenbana murmured. "Maybe I will."

#

"This must have been how Naruto and Sasuke felt," I said, a bit sad. "My day is ruined."

I'd been working on it since we were still in the Land of Fire, leaving it on almost constantly whenever I had the opportunity, but my Surface Adhesion was only capable of lifting just under forty kilograms. Less than half my weight and the idea that I might be carrying something like Kubikiribōchō at the same time was impossible to envision right now.

"Sasuke?" Ranmaru said, eyes clenched shut as he carefully walked up the cliff. "That was the boy you said could be redeemed—how does he know Naruto?"

"How long have you been able to do this?" I said, ignoring his question entirely. "When did she teach you—it wasn't yesterday, was it?"

"It was yesterday," Karenbana admitted. "He learned it way faster than I did, maybe two hours? Most of that was explaining how to properly mould chakra through his body—most of what he does with his bloodline limit is natural to him, this stuff isn't."

"Two hours?" I said, aghast. "You're not a Haku; you're a god damned Sakura."

"I'm a cherry blossom?" Ranmaru wondered, carefully turning until he was facing us and then continuing back downwards again. "That's a weird thing to call me."

I flapped my hand at him, unable to bring myself to explain it—I was left to wonder if his chakra control was naturally high or if his constant use of his bloodline limit had worked as some kind of unconscious practice that had likely been occurring over the course of several years. Either was a net benefit, but having naturally higher chakra control was probably the better option to build upon. It would probably become more noticeable once he started on water-walking—

"Damn, I haven't even made a water walking skill yet," I said, stunned. "That's going to take months to get to a level that will support my own weight."

"Then you better do it now, before you need it," Karenbana said, glancing over as I shook my head. "No?"

"No," I said, "It will have to wait until next time; I've got a more important skill that I've been pushing back for far too long—maybe I'll do that now."

A quick check of my Status Screen showed that my Skill Creation Resistance had dropped back down to three again, not ideal, but manageable. I watched Ranmaru complete another few laps of the wall and then waited for him to come back down as he burned through enough chakra that he was visibly straining at the end. I topped him up with Refresh, gave them both a Heal for good measure, and then excused myself.

"The time has come, my little friend, to speak of awesome things," I muttered, "A Stealth, a Heal, a Shield, a Spear—to stab their ding-a-lings—"

I dropped down into a cross-legged position and curled my hands together, humming the ditty under my breath. The reports had been filed long before I'd ever arrived in this insane world, and all of them said that teleportation was king. Minato Namikaze, Tobirama Senju, Sasuke Uchiha, Obito Uchiha—the list went on, and while the form or variation of teleportation changed, it was always powerful. I'd spent a lot of time thinking about all the things and people I would need to fight, and the one thing that came up over and over again—I was too slow, and at the rate I was improving, that would almost always be the case. Given half a decade, I could probably train my way to the top of this world, but I didn't have half a decade—I had until we got to Konohagakure to get my shit together.

"I want teleportation. I want to be able to reposition instantly. I don't want to pass through the space between," I said, crystalising the thoughts. "I want to bring people with me. I want to control my momentum."

Teleportation. Repositioning. No passing through space. I want to bring people with me. I need control over my momentum—my mantra grew as I added all the little things I'd considered, and through repetition, concentration and sheer want of a thing, I brought it into existence, mixing it with the ethereal pressure until—

You have unlocked a new skill, Jaunt.

Dimly, as the darkness, despair and horrifying inability to bring myself to move took over my mind, I realised that something had gone very, very wrong. The strength of the malaise was like nothing I'd felt before, not even compared to when I'd pushed it too far that first time. Meditate was like a spark of light, surviving against the crushing dark through some unknown interaction I couldn't quite comprehend. The only tether between my mind and being dissipated within the endless, motionless nothing that surrounded me.

Over the course of what might have been an hour, I lowered my gaze to a pair of hands curled serenely in my lap, and at some point, I must have come to the realisation that they were my own. I reached for my fingers with the sensation that informed my body on how it should act, and nothing happened; the spark of thought eroded before it could transform into enough energy to carry the message. I was trapped within my own body now, mind disconnected, and the flesh made impossible to pilot by the monstrous affliction I'd cursed myself with.

I called for Status Removal, but it didn't come, that same erosion stripping the thought of its potency, and so I was left to sit, stilled, mind floating through molasses as the world passed me by at a speed I couldn't comprehend. A flicker of a person appeared, a face I recognized, hanging in front of my own, and for another hour, I watched as their hand approached, the impact against my shoulder like an earthquake that shook the trembling spark of Meditate—a burst of fear cut through the nothing, and I felt my tongue twitch once before I was struck immobile once more.

Karenbana shook my shoulder, just once, a tiny, gentle thing—Meditate broke, and the darkness rushed inwards.

#

"—I've never seen him sleep, not once in six months," Karenbana's voice said, a strange quality to it that I'd never heard before. "Sometimes, when he 'makes a skill,' he comes back a bit different, quieter, not making any of the jokes he usually does."

I could almost hear the quotation marks in the way she said the word like it was some strange, eldritch thing I was doing and not wishing, really, really hard. The malaise was still here, not quite as strong as it had been, but enough that I doubted I could have moved, even if I'd had the willpower.

"How long does that last?" Ranmaru murmured.

"A few hours," Karenbana said, "Sometimes he tries to pretend that nothing is wrong, or he'll try harder to cover it up, but it's pretty obvious after you've been around him for long enough."

"A few hours?" Ranmaru repeated, sounding a bit unsettled. "But it's been three days."

I felt a spark of something at that, horror perhaps, that I'd been stuck like this for that long because it gave it a sense of permanence that I could have gone forever without recognizing. I channelled that spike of fear and used it to dig deep, writing the words for Meditate within my mind—it took a long time, but eventually, the thought somehow survived long enough to take hold. Meditate burst to life, the tiny spark growing, beginning to gather speed as it circulated through my body. The darkness shifted, like a titanic, lethargic mass of weight, slowly rotating with it, and some of it fell away, like dirt from a sealed door.

Meditate found a foothold, and the rotation grew stronger, dislodging more of it, and I felt something other than fear for the first time—anger, maybe, or frustration, or triumph. Meditate kicked it into high gear, and like a blurring spiral, it tore through the darkness, and all at once, it came free—and I came upwards with it, gasping for breath. Karenbana actually gave a cry of fright at the suddenness of it, choking it off a half second later as I sat panting for breath. I pulled Meditate back up, but the malaise had lost its grip on me, and I was free—not cured or safe from its haunting grip, but free, at least.

"Karenbana," I managed, "Please, don't ever shake me like that—not when I'm bending reality to my whims."

Karenbana flinched back from where she'd been reaching out to touch my shoulder.

"I did that to you?" Karenbana swallowed. "I—I didn't mean to."

"Fuck," I breathed before collapsing back onto the ground. "Fuck."

"Sora?" Ranmaru said. "What happened—you just stopped moving; we weren't even sure you were alive for a while."

"Fuck," I repeated a third time. "There's a hard limit to how many skills I can make in a certain period of time, and I'm supposed to wait for it to reset—the more I push it, the worse the backlash gets."

I brought up my Status Screen again in an attempt to check if what I'd seen before the world had collapsed in on me was true.

"What I didn't know was that certain skills apparently cost more than others to make," I said, staring at the number on the screen. "I don't know if it was the type of skill or the number of conditions I was trying to put on it—fuck."

Skill Creation Resistance, twelve—that would stop me from being able to create anything else for a minimum of three months. I couldn't quite comprehend the cost of it and how I'd gotten away with it for so long. Even if I'd waited until I had reset back to zero before creating Jaunt, I'd have put myself into that cursed state regardless or something just shy of it—nine points of Skill Creation Resistance for a single skill. Why? What had been the factor that was responsible for that? Heal was literally warping reality to fix injuries; Status Removal was manipulating matter by turning stone into flesh and organs.

Was it the nature of moving myself to a new location? Was there some invisible cost associated with each of my skills, and Jaunt was beyond them in some unknowable way? How could I ever be sure it would be safe to make a new skill again? What if making a barrier of mana had a higher cost than expected? What if walking on water invoked some kind of religious cost increase? What if.

"I can't make any more skills for at least three months," I said, pressing the back of my hand into my forehead. "Three days of that is not something I can do again; everything was just—I need to move around."

I struggled up to my feet, trying to shake off the lingering ghost of it all, and they both followed me up.

"This isn't where we were before," I said, checking the area out. "Where did the trees come from?"

"We're in the Land of Fangs, just over the border," Karenbana said, shoulders tight. "I thought you had been attacked at first, so we moved, hoping to get out of range of whatever it was."

"Wasn't there a giant canyon?" I said, making something of a chopping gesture. "Straight through the middle—are we topside?"

"I carried you up the cliff while Ranmaru followed me up on his own," Karenbana said, and the way she was now avoiding looking at me was sending a tracery of shivers down my spine. "Are you sure you're okay to move?"

"The supplies were in my inventory," I realised, "How did you—"

"I had my canteen out, and we passed by a river," Karenbana said, "Sora?"

"I'm fine to travel," I said, clenching my hand into a fist. "You two are eating first, here—"

#

Seeing all of the greenery, the grass, the trees, and everything else thriving should have lifted our spirits or at least contented us with the fact that we'd left the desert. But for once, I couldn't quite manage the energy to maintain my usual activities. Karenbana and Ranmaru had both tried to engage me in conversation several times, but I just gave the minimum needed for the exchange to be over. The lingering fear of that number twelve and how the creeping stillness might return. The failure of leaving them both without a source of food, water or shelter. The frustration of losing three days of training, of having to be carried like some useless sack of meat—and to top it all off, I couldn't even use the skill I'd traded it all away for.

Jaunt

Exchange 235.25(300) mana to reposition the user by 0.25m (+0.25 per level)

Active skill use grants EXP towards this skill.

A total cost of three hundred mana for a single use, for what amounted to less than a single step—even with the cost reduction from Mana Mastery and with the increased mana capacity from Mana Core, I was seventy mana short of being able to use it. It was beyond frustrating, and I'd seemingly spiralled into a mess of negativity over the entire thing. By the time night had come and we'd finally stopped to make camp again, I still hadn't managed to speak a single word to either of them of my own volition. It made me feel even worse because neither of them had done anything wrong, and yet they were invariably feeling discomforted from my lack of mental fortitude.

"Goodnight," Ranmaru murmured long after the fire had burned low, barely hanging on to his consciousness. "I hope you feel better tomorrow."

"Thanks, little guy," I managed. "Sorry about all of this."

Whatever Ranmaru might have said in response was lost, his breathing all that could be heard, and I turned my eyes back on the coals. I felt Karenbana slip from her tent almost half an hour later, and though I tracked her progress towards me, I couldn't hear her footsteps at all, not even when she'd slipped down to sit on the log beside me.

"I haven't summoned Shiromari since you—" Karenbana hesitated, "I didn't want to use up my chakra in case I needed to fight."

It didn't sound like whatever she had been about to say, but I suppose it didn't really matter. 'Stopped Karenbana from meeting with Shiromari' was just another strike in the series of them brought on by my titanic fuckup. I drew in a long breath, filling my chest until it couldn't expand an inch more, and then let it out over the course of a long minute—this, at least, was something I could address.

"That does sound like a problem," I said, finding that mental switch buried deep beneath all of the self-recriminations. "Far as I can recall, you promised to summon him the other night—you're actually supposed to keep your promises, you know?"

I brushed my fingertips down across the tip of my thumb, hammering each of them into my palm with a staccato of claps before vaguely pointing a finger gun in her direction.

"I could have sworn they taught that back at shinobi school," I said, clearing my throat. "Being short on chakra—"

Karenbana reached over and took hold of my wrist, the motion slow and somehow startling enough that I found myself falling silent. I glanced down as she pulled my hand down and then cradled it inside of her own.

"I'm sorry," Karenbana said, staring down at my trapped hand. "I didn't know that was going to happen."

That old faithful switch in my mind was suddenly developing a mind of its own, and I couldn't quite seem to lock it down.

"I know that, and it wasn't your fault," I said, "I'm not going to blame you for something you couldn't have predicted—I haven't been blaming you. I've just been—I've just been a bit off today, I guess."

Karenbana didn't say anything in response; she just continued to play with my fingers, making it seem as if cleaning the dirt off my fingernails was somehow a monumentally important task that I couldn't bare not having her attend to it right that second.

"I'm not angry at you either or Ranmaru; I'm just frustrated at myself for making such a stupid mistake," I said, feeling a shiver of unease at admitting it. "I've been playing a juggling act with that facet of my abilities since I woke up on the beach in the Land of Moon, and I kept on telling myself to just wait for it to reset—"

I breathed out my frustrations.

"But then I'd get greedy and ride the line, thinking I had it all figured out. But I've got a limited amount of time to get this done, you see? That's a pretty rational justification towards groping around for just one more advantage," I clenched my hand around hers, "Pushing too far, too fast, rushing things, grasping at things beyond my reach. I've often wondered if that was my tragic flaw—well, it's that or my good looks; it's kind of hard to nail down at times."

My attempt to flip the switch back on struggled to take, because that empty pit that had followed me since I'd woken up in complete stillness was a hard thing to overcome.

"Why do you have to be the one to do all of this?" Karenbana said.

"Because I'm the guy who's here. I'm the chosen one. I'm the hero who cuts down the villains, saves the damsels, and beds the Karenbanas," I said, lifting her hand up between us, thumb pressed deep into the centre of her palm. "Who else is going to save a king-turned-to-stone or a lonely shinobi who dies to a genin in a clash of worthless missions? Who else is going to steal a grave marker for a legendary shinobi and use it to cut down a cult of men who hunt the monsters? Who else will save a frail boy who can't even walk to use as a weapon against an alien god?"

"It doesn't have to be you," Karenbana murmured, glancing away. "You told Kakashi, you told Gaara—why can't the villages handle it?"

"Because there's a difference between winning and finishing the race," I said, pulling her towards me by her hand. "Konohagakure, Sunagakure and all of the other villages will finish the race, Karenbana—but it will cost them every bit of grit, energy and willpower they can muster to manage it."

Karenbana let me pull her in, and I pressed my forehead into her hair, tightening my hold until I was hugging her against me. I felt her hands thread up my back, fingers sinking into my hair, and I closed my eyes at the feeling.

"I don't want them to crawl across the finish line, broken, bleeding, and with a hole in their hearts, borne out of the guilt they feel for everyone who died for them to make it there," I murmured, telling her the flat, unmuddied truth. "I'm going to destroy every single enemy that I can get my hands on before they even get to the starting line, and then, when their plans burn, when every contingency fails, when they're panicked and forced to improvise, they'll discover that we've locked that down as well."

I sunk my hands into her clothing, fingers pressing the fabric into her skin, and she made an odd intake of breath as I pulled her the rest of the way into my lap.

"When the race finally starts, there's only going to be one team still moving forward," I said, feeling her breath against my neck. "Things are moving fast now, Karenbana, but when the time comes, we'll walk over that finish line."

#

The Land of Mountains was an absolute mess of a country—peaks, hills, and plateaus patterned the land in a patchwork of overlapping stone angles. From our position, high on the northernmost ridge of the Land of Fangs, we could see everything, and beyond it all was a massive, towering monstrosity of a mountain, twice again as big as anything else.

"It's killing everything around it," Ranmaru said, staring at it with fascination. "You can actually see where it ends."

About the only thing that seemed to survive the effect of the chakra drain was the river that cut down the side of it in a series of interlocking waterfalls. The water passed through the ring and into the land beyond it, untouched and clear. The land, on the other hand, had a gradient to it, starting with old, yellowed trees, whose leaves had a clear lack of something in them, the trunks of which were bent, assailed by some unseen force.

Just beyond that yellow ring of faded fauna was death. Gnarled, twisted trees, grey as dust and crumbling. The earth itself was black at the edge of the ring and then lined with a spiderweb of cracks from there on out, all the way to the base of the mountain itself, and even the river seemed unable to revitalise it. In the far left centre of that ring of dead, barren ground lay a massive arc of pale white bone, curving up out of the earth—a bone that could have only belonged to a Summon Animal or something equally as large.

"You're going into that?" Karenbana said, voice flat.

"Not yet, but soon," I said offhand. "First, we're going down there."

I directed their attention to the surprisingly intact village, well outside of the ring that was slowly ravaging the country. I'd expected it to be there, but the only state I remembered seeing it in was when it was on fire—sometime after the war that had sent Genno on the path to destroying Konohagakure. Thirty years was a long time, though, and it looked like they'd actually used some of it to rebuild.

"Kagero Village?" Karenbana said, turning her attention back to the map. "Is there something important there?"

I reached over and clapped a hand over Ranmaru's mouth and stared at him, but he just blinked up at me.

"I know you're going to tell her the moment I let you go," I said, giving him the squinty eyes to show how unimpressed I was. "I just want you to know that you were once my favourite Haku."

I attempted to push Karenbana away with one arm as she made to free my captive, but considering that I couldn't push her away with my entire body, a single limb just wasn't going to cut it.

"Ranmaru?" Karenbana asked. "Did you want to tell me something?"

"There's a man called Genno, who used to live there," Ranmaru said, smiling. "He had a Summoning Contract for Giant Eagles—"

"Traitors," I declared with a huff. "I'm going on without you."

Spinning away from them both, I approached the edge of the canyon and peeked over the edge—it was a really, really fucking long way down. But there was a tonne of different plateaus; I'd just have to be careful with my handholds—my superhuman grip strength and my forty kilograms of Surface Adhesion would take care of the rest of it.

"How are you going to do that?" Karenbana said, clearly smirking. "You can't even—"

Dropping down, I caught the edge with my hand and then planted both of my feet against the cliff before taking a deep breath and letting go. I slid down the wall, slow at first, but even with four points of contact, I started to gain some serious speed—I chickened out, latching onto a rock that was sticking out and cutting off my momentum entirely. Karenbana came sprinting over the edge a moment later, Ranmaru on her back as she angled towards me.

I let go again before she could get close, forcing her to speed up to match my reckless rate of descent. Karenbana caught up to me after my next attempt to brake, and I got a good look at her face for the first time—she looked absolutely livid, and I could only imagine it was because I was winning the race. I hit the plateau after my next slide, grunting at the force of it and healing away the burst of pain that flashed up my ankles into my legs when they couldn't withstand the force.

"Idiot," Karenbana gritted out.

I ignored her, dropping straight off the next edge and catching the flat with my hand as I went—as far as my Strength went, I was more than capable of holding up my own weight without effort now, and probably indefinitely, considering I could Meditate in just about any position so long as I was still. Two points of contact, my left leg and left hand weren't nearly enough to properly control my descent, and I was forced to add my right foot to the mix to slow down for the next plateau.

Iron Hide worked well to protect my hands from getting torn to pieces from the contact, although it was a pretty close thing—any more force, and it would probably start grinding things away. It took me about ten minutes of sliding, picking my next spot, and repeating the process until I'd made it to the base of the cliff, Karenbana pacing me the entire time while Ranmaru watched it all with the odd interest he seemed to show at just about everything.

"Not exactly graceful," I said, dusting off my dirty hands. "Then again, I'm going to need all the practice I can get if I'm going to be climbing Mount Koryū without you two to save me."

"You should wait until you can actually tree-walk properly," Karenbana said, still visibly upset that I'd been so reckless. "Can you even survive falling from a height like this—that mountain is twice as tall."

"Survive free fall from this height?" I said, looking back up above us. "So long as my head didn't explode on the impact, I could probably Heal my way through the damage—"

"Probably?" Karenbana said.

"I'll be climbing upwards, which means I'll be going a hell of a lot slower than what we just did," I said, "I'll make sure I'm extra careful, so you don't have to worry, okay?"

"Is that a promise?" Karenbana insisted.

"Trying to weaponise that against me already, huh?" I said, eyeing her. "This is why you don't tell people how you work, Ranmaru."

"He didn't say yes," Ranmaru said.

This Ranmaru-Karenbana coalition was going to become a problem, I was sure—I'd need to figure out how to turn them against one another before they started walking me like a dog.

"I promise I'll be careful," I sighed, turning away again. "You're really killing my vibe, chibi-squad."

"What the hell did you just call me?" Karenbana said.

I set off in the direction of Kagero village without answering her. Maybe if Genno was still around, I could ride a giant Eagle over the effect of the chakra drain and skydive down to the mountain—that would be awesome, provided I could figure out how to actually survive the fall.

#

Kagero Village seemed to be doing pretty good for itself, honestly. It was at least as large as Takumi Village had been, and considering that everybody who lived here hadn't evacuated the city—recently at least—the population was a hell of a lot bigger.

"Two separate bedrooms; give us your best rooms," I said, placing a stack of money down on the counter. "I'll only be here for the first night or so, but these two will be staying for—uh—how long do you think it would take to run to Mount Koryū?"

"It would take you about a day to get to the edge of the ring if you're as fast as you look," Ayano said, reaching up to touch her greying hair. "After that, you'd die within minutes—so unless you're going to buy my building, you might have to come up with a better idea."

"A day to the edge, so about two and a half days to the mountain itself?" I translated, "A day for mishaps, and then the return trip—put them up for a week, with meals; if I'm not back by then, you can kick them out on the street like the unemployed losers they are."

"It's your Ryo, I suppose," Ayano said, "I keep the rooms clean, so you're welcome to go up anytime—unless you want to try and talk him out of killing himself?"

"I've been trying to do that since I met him," Karenbana said, taking the keys from her. "It hasn't worked yet, and I doubt it will now."

"Now that's the kind of resignation I like to see in my Haku's," I said, pleased. "Ayano—I met an old guy once who told me to come to see him if I'm ever in town."

"Does this old guy have a name, or do you want me to start guessing?" Ayano wondered. "That sounds like work, and you're not paying me to work."

"His name was Genno," I said, rolling my eyes. "He didn't go and die on me, did he?"

Ayano tilted her head at the name.

"Genno? He's still here, at least for the moment," Ayano said, "Last I heard, he was planning a trip to the Land of Waterfalls."

That sent something of a flicker into my memory—hadn't he gone to Takigakure before arriving at Konohagakure? He'd somehow figured out that the shinobi there were doing training exercises and then used it to lure half of Konohagakure's forces away from the village under the guise of an impending war. If he was still here, then none of that had happened yet, which was a bit odd because I was almost certain it had happened while Naruto was still a kid—and long before Shippudden.

That worried me a little bit because it was additional confirmation that some of these events were going to happen whether or not Naruto was present to stop them—just like everything in Takumi Village had. I'd long since confirmed that the events of the Stone of Gelel movie hadn't happened yet, but I'd hoped that had meant that it wasn't going to happen at all—but if there was no real adherence to timelines going on, then it might well happen at any point—

"You're not paying me to stand here and watch you stare off into space either, boyo," Ayano said, clicking her fingers in front of my face. "You purchased a room, not my lobby—get moving already."

"You're a class act, Ayano," I said, "Where can I find Genno, though?"

I made Karenbana memorise the directions, and then we headed straight back out onto the streets of Kagero. As far as planning for some kind of discussion with Genno, I didn't have too much in the way to offer him. He wanted revenge for his grandson being killed, and I had no real way of making that go away. Naruto had managed to change the man's mind about destroying Konohagakure, but I looked nothing like his dead grandson, nor did we have the time to really handle him with the kind of care needed to bring him around to my side.

"Ranmaru, you heard the directions; search the building," I said, pausing on the street. "Check the walls, ceilings and floors; you're looking for seal tags, escape tunnels, and other traps—this guy is a master trap maker and smart enough to outplay Tsunade of the Sanin and bring Konohagakure to one kunai throw away from destroying the village."

"What?" Karenbana said, turning to stare at me. "You—you said there weren't any S-ranks—"

"This guy is hyper-specialised," I said, "He's smart, but in a straight-up fight, we can definitely wipe him—I don't want to fight him either; I want to make a deal with him."

"There is an escape tunnel, but I can't see any kinds of seals or traps," Ranmaru said, "He's sitting in his living room, drinking tea."

"Where does the tunnel lead?" I asked, "Check it for traps as well."

"It leads back towards the canyon, almost directly south of the village," Ranmaru murmured, "There is a single explosive tag at the exit—to seal it shut behind him, maybe?"

"Good work, Ranmaru," I said, nodding. "Check twice more, don't leave any inch of the house unearthed, and then I'll go talk to him."

"On your own?" Karenbana said. "What rank is he?"

"I'd put him at Special Jounin, but he's slowing down a bit with his age," I said, "You two are going to watch the escape tunnel in case the meeting goes poorly—Ranmaru, you can listen in if you want, so Karenbana doesn't worry too much."

Karenbana stared at me, hand clenched at her side, and for a moment, I thought she was going to hit me out of frustration—but she just turned her head away, shoulders stiff.

"I understand," Ranmaru said. "I think it's clear."

I turned the corner without another word, trusting that he'd taken the search pretty seriously, and angled to cross the street. What I knew of Genno suggested that deep inside, he was a decent man; he was just stuck in his grief over the loss of his village and his grandson. I couldn't wipe that away, but I could promise him other things and perhaps connect with him on a level past that. Knocking on the door of his home, I brought up Energy Sense and felt his chakra moving from where he'd been seated, cross-legged, towards the front door.

"Genno," I said, tilting my head. "I've come to talk to you about your rather impressive plan to destroy Konohagakure."

Genno blinked at the words, his incredibly non-descript appearance making it a bit hard to pin him down as a mastermind shinobi. I could feel his chakra tightening in his coils, speeding up in preparation for something.

"I know about the secret tunnel under your home, and I have someone watching it," I said, "I'm not here to fight; I'm here to talk."

The chakra roiled beneath his skin for a moment, and yet not a single sign appeared on his face that he was doing anything other than fixing his glasses on his nose to see me better. I waited patiently for him to come to a decision, and then he hummed.

"I can't imagine how you would have discovered this," Genno said with clear interest. "I haven't spoken a word of it to anyone."

"I'll be happy to tell you about it," I said, "If you'd be kind enough to make us both some tea?"

Genno shuffled back into the room, waving me inside, and I stepped past him, wondering if he was about to put a kunai in my back, but the man simply closed the door. He shuffled past me into the tiny kitchen and set about fulfilling my request. Without waiting for him to finish, I stepped through into the room that Ranmaru had mentioned and took a seat in front of the table, with my back to him.

"I'd heard that Kagero Village was destroyed thirty years ago," I said, "It seems to have made a monumental recovery since then—pretty impressive, I think."

"It's been something of a task, but buildings aren't so hard to manage once you understand the process," Genno said, continuing his efforts. "We've had a great deal of craftsmen, carpenters and artisans come through here over the years, looking for work—it's why it looks a bit haphazard in style."

"I like it," I said, "I had a pretty good look of it up from that canyon on the border of the Land of Fangs—a painter could do something special with that view."

"I've seen it," Genno admitted, "Mount Koryū's destruction takes something away from it, but it's still striking, I agree."

"That's actually the main reason I came here," I offered, "I'd heard about Mount Koryū tearing up the country and thought I'd come to take care of it."

There was a bit of an odd pause in the sound of the tea making, but it only lasted a moment, and then Genno stepped into the room. I watched as he placed one of the small but tall teacups down in front of me, curious at the lack of a handle. He took the seat across from me and took a sip of his own drink, heedless of the steam coming off of it.

"That's a task I haven't a clue on how to go about tackling, and I'll admit that I've spent decades thinking about it," Genno said, fixing his glasses again. "I've seen several attempts over the years to approach it, and all of them have failed—perhaps the most notable one was a trio of puppeteers from Sunagakure."

"Chakra strings?" I guessed.

"Yes, three of them attempted to send a single puppet into the wastelands, a rotating shift to help them keep it moving despite the drain, and a series of specialised sealing stakes to help extend their range," Genno said, "It made it about two kilometres before the strain of keeping the chakra strings intact grew to much—the puppet itself lasted three weeks before it turned to dust."

"Metal would probably work better than wood, but they wouldn't have been able to push it any further," I wondered. "As far as attempts go, that's a pretty impressive one."

"It may not be the elephant in the room, but I find myself curious," Genno said, "How do you plan on dealing with it?"

"Don't tell anyone, but I don't actually have any chakra in my body," I said, deciding to just be honest. "I'm going to walk straight up to the mountain."

"No chakra?" Genno said, taking a sip of his tea. "I had thought that such a thing was impossible, as even someone without any kind of chakra-moulding technique still requires some small internal reserve to live."

"I'm singularly unique when it comes to this," I said, lifting my tea cup. "It's been really, really annoying to deal with, honestly, but it does come with a few advantages."

I took a sip of it, absolutely certain I was about to receive a notification that I'd been poisoned, but it never came—my impression of the man in front of me rose by a whole order of magnitude.

"The first is that I can approach giant chakra-draining mountains," I said, "The second is that I can see the future."

Genno nodded like I'd just said something completely mundane and placed his tea back down.

"The same gift shared by the priestess from the Land of Demons—or so the rumours say," Genno said, "I suppose you've seen my future, and that is why you've come."

"Genno, you get pretty close to destroying Konohagakure," I said, "Impressively close, which considering how many people have tried and failed—or will try and fail—is something incredible."

Genno actually smiled at that before taking another sip of his tea in an attempt to hide it.

"Who was it that managed to see through my plan?" Genno wondered, "The Hyuuga, perhaps? They were one of the elements I wasn't sure I could deal with entirely—luring most of them out of the village was the best I could come up with."

I shook my head.

"Genno, your plan worked, you infiltrated them, tricked the Anbu, lured the main forces outside of the village, and your plan was even sophisticated enough that Tsunade of the Sannin couldn't see through it," I said, "The person who actually managed to stop your plan—was you."

"I made a choice not to go through with it?" Genno said, seemingly startled. "Is it within your ability to determine why that is, or is that something unknowable?"

"You met a young boy named Naruto Uzumaki, with blonde hair and blue eyes, a shinobi of Konohagakure," I said, watching him. "He befriended you, you let go of your long-held resentment, and you disabled the traps throughout the village—then you sent him and his young friends on one last treasure hunt."

Genno's hand shook for a moment, the surface of his tea rippling from the motion. I took another sip of my own, letting him deal with it however he needed to.

"Blonde hair—he looked like my grandson," Genno murmured. "Is that really all it took?"

"Naruto Uzumaki is a force of nature in more ways than one, and he's going to lay down a challenge for the entire world—change for the better, or be left behind in his dust," I said, "Konohagakure is already changing at a fundamental level, as the minds who seek war and personal gain are aging out, and the younger generation is rising up."

Genno placed his tea down because his efforts to still his hand were failing.

"The young people there aren't responsible for what old men did here, and I know that you know that," I said, "So I suppose here's my offer to you, and I sincerely hope you take it because I know you aren't a bad guy."

Genno fixed his glasses with a shaking finger.

"Let go of your resentment and put your faith in a boy you've never met—let him right the wrongs of this world in your stead," I said, "You've been around a long time, Genno, but you've still got plenty of time left—and after I get done fixing that blight taking over your backyard, the people in this village are going to need a brilliant mind like yours."

#

Travelling on my own was a pain in the ass, with nobody to use as a sounding board and nobody to take gleeful potshots at in an attempt to start a localised war that would inevitably end with Karenbana kicking my ass or Ranmaru building up his confidence as he tested out what exactly he could get away with. He hadn't figured out that I'd been trying to force him to create some boundaries for himself yet, but he didn't have to know what I was doing for it to be effective—and it was. Ranmaru was talking more, pushing back against the teasing, and even occasionally telling jokes now. It was a massive step up from the detached state he'd been in when we first found him.

As much as I'd joked about them being something of a mirror of Haku, I didn't want them to function as tools; I wanted them to be able to actually live a good life after all of this was over—and that meant I had to put in the effort to make sure they had a chance to develop socially in a bunch of different ways. Karenbana had been almost as closed off as Ranmaru, although she hadn't been as detached from reality—at the start, I'd rarely seen her express much of anything outside of the heat of battle. Now, she actually seemed to be processing her emotions and resorting to violence far less because of it.

It wasn't just me pushing them in uncomfortable ways either; they'd actually seemed to develop something of a connection between them. Joking together, teaching, training, sharing secrets and even banding together to defy me—as far as I was concerned, that was my greatest accomplishment yet. In the event that this mountain actually did kill me, they'd still have each other. Genno had broken down in front of me, and while he'd seemed pretty well genuine that he was going to take my suggestion, I was still a little bit worried. Introducing Karenbana and Ranmaru to him had seemed like a pretty good idea at the time—the man had a soft spot for kids. Ranmaru wasn't blonde, but he was roughly in the same age range as his grandson had been—and while Karenbana wasn't a kid by any stretch of the imagination, she was extraordinarily short, and that had to count for something.

"Don't kill me," I said, sneaking my foot over the yellow, faded grass. "I'm not even that tasty—not a speck of chakra in me, promise."

My Status Screen loomed large in my vision, and my eyes remained locked on my mana, making sure it wasn't doing anything funky. I stepped further into the ring of dying grass, but still, there was no change—the real problem here was that I had a certain amount of mana regeneration per second, and if it was stealing my mana, it would need to overcome that amount before I started seeing anything. At that point, I might well be too far in to make it back to safety—still, I had Meditate, and I'd hit zero mana a bunch of times before. It didn't have the same kind of effect on me as someone zeroing out their chakra, but there was also the possibility of some strange interaction occurring, and having it suddenly bite into my health bar would be catastrophic—maybe not that bad, but it was still a concern.

"Fuck it," I decided, starting forward. "Fortune favours the bold—and if I'm anything, it's that."

I passed over the yellow grass, ignoring how it was slowly fading to brown before it grew patchy and then vanished entirely. The black soil seemed healthy enough at first, but the cracks started to show the further I went and the dryer it became until I was walking on what looked almost like a dried-up sea bed.

"You may be big," I said, eyeing the mountain looming ahead. "But you know what they say about big mountains—they have big Dragonblades in them."

#

I'd taken to swinging Kubikiribōchō around as I walked, and when that had grown boring, I'd attempt to perform a running fight with an invisible foe—something I found was far, far more difficult than standing in place and swinging the massive thing around in controlled arcs. Once I'd discovered that little detail, I'd become pretty determined to actually get good at it because no shinobi in the world was going to stand still and let me whack away at them—Gaara, maybe, was the exception, but I wouldn't be fighting him.

Mount Koryū must have been getting pretty anxious, with me creeping up on it, wildly swinging the sword around like I was going to start carving away at it—but if it was, it didn't show it. I'd expected some kind of response to my approach, as slow as it was, but nothing emerged from the cavern at the base of the mountain, and nothing came down at me from the top either. Energy Sense told me nothing was in the first ninety meters of the cavern, but I was still pretty hesitant to test that—I might get lost in there, and that was something I'd much rather avoid. I eyed the monstrous tower of stone above, trying to pick out a relatively safe path to follow, something I'd been doing since I'd gotten close enough to actually make out the crevices, cracks, ridges and paths winding around the thing.

Deciding that I'd make no progress thinking about it, I slapped a hand against the stone, digging my fingertips into a tiny ridge, and then hauled myself up without any effort—I turned Surface Adhesion on a moment later, turning the tiny fingerholds into an easy grip. I moved upwards, aiming for a steady, careful pace because that's what I'd promised Karenbana, and while it was a bit annoying to actually work below my means, I stuck to it.

Strength has increased by 1.

I ignored the notification and focused on getting to the first resting place I'd identified. It took the better part of fifteen minutes and two stops where I'd been forced to hang by my fingertips with Meditate active to regenerate my stamina. But eventually, I made it, and for the first time, I turned around to look down—I'd made it surprisingly high up. High enough that I'd most definitely reach terminal velocity on the way back down. All the more reason to keep to my promise.

The upward journey continued, and I found it growing easier as my ability to identify better handholds, distribute my weight more efficiently, and better leverage my imperfect Surface Adhesion all contributed in different ways. Within several hours, I'd made significant progress towards the top, easily over halfway, although it was getting more difficult again. I was forced to move horizontally once I'd realised how far off track I'd actually gotten from the cavern I'd seen from the foot of the mountain. That actually required me to go back down or else take a massive leap of faith across a gap—something which would have definitely broken my promise.

I took a few short rests along the way, but with Meditate, there wasn't really much reason to prolong it, and so long as I had light to see, I could climb. When chakra touched the edge of my Energy Sense, I stopped for a moment, surprised at the strange box-like object I could feel—I couldn't exactly place what it was. Above it sat a sharp angle of chakra that I recognized as the same shape as the Dragonblade, although I found myself curious how both objects had actually avoided the chakra drain.

One handhold higher, five hyper-condensed orbs of shining chakra burst into existence, sitting in a line directly above the blade. Five strings of chakra ran upwards from the box-like object to the orbs and one to the blade itself. I studied them as I dragged myself up the last ninety meters and over the lip of the cavern—there was more than enough light, given that the sun was low enough now that it was almost night, and thus angled well into the cave. The box-like object I'd been sensing was actually a small altar and seemed to be the thing responsible for the whole draining the country of all life situation—I fired off an Observe.

Dragonblade

The ancient blade of the Genryu.

"You're damn right you are," I said, approaching. "Yoink."

I picked it up off the altar and marvelled at how light it felt compared to the monstrous weight of Kubikiribōchō. It wasn't a particularly long weapon, measuring from my elbow to my fingertips, but it felt nice to hold, and it made a cool swish noise when I swung it around. I reached up and snagged what Observe told me was the—

Wind Orb

Grants Wind Affinity to the holder while socketed and reduces the cost of Wind Release Techniques.

It slipped into the socket on the weapon with a satisfying click that sent a shiver down my spine, and I gave it another swish for good measure.

"Awesome," I said, impressed.

I snagged the other four orbs, each one offering an identical description as the Wind Orb—only the Elemental Affinity and cost reduction were associated with a different element—and vanished them into my inventory. I eyed the altar that was still funnelling chakra up the black prongs to where each of the items had been seated—considering its location, I felt pretty confident that it was the thing responsible for the chakra drain. I spun the Dragonblade into a reverse grip, aiming the point downwards at the alter, preparing to stab it—and then paused.

Sealing Altar

Absorbs chakra, stores it, and channels it into an object; radius increases based on chakra stored.

There probably weren't that many ways to safely deploy something like this, but there were a few enemies where being able to pull out a massive, chakra-draining sealing array could come in handy—say, whipping it out if Madara Uchiha started winning or yeeting it at Kaguya Otsutsuki. It might kill everyone else in the area, but as far as last resorts went, it was a pretty strong card to pull out. I placed a hand against the top of the altar—before vanishing it into my inventory.

Quest Complete

Acquire the Dragonblade and save the Land of Mountains from the chakra-draining effect.

Reward

Dragonblade

Wind Orb

Fire Orb

Earth Orb

Lightning Orb

Water Orb

Sealing Altar

"It's all easy," I said, with another swing of the blade. "Swish."

Standing in a pitch-black cavern at the top of a mountain for eight hours was just as boring as I'd expected it to be, but I wasn't willing to attempt the descent back down with the quickly fading light. There was enough of a moonlit tint to see a blur of shadows and land outside of the mouth of the cave, which provided something of an interesting sight to see. I'd left both Kiba and Fujaku Hishō Shōken with Karenbana before I left because accidentally dying and wiping those weapons from the face of the earth seemed like an incredible waste.

Given the strangeness of the system powering my growth, I'd doubt anyone would be able to retrieve it from my inventory at that point. Kubikiribōchō had been an easier thing to bring with me, although that might just have been because I'd started to think of it as my own weapon—an odd thought when put into perspective. I'd probably have to give it up eventually, but until that moment came, I couldn't help but want to master it—in my own untrained but enthusiastic way—as well as I could manage.

The Dragonblade made its way into my practice, both weapons appearing and disappearing into my inventory at any given moment, the massive disparity of weight, shape and technique required to use them in intermittent but rapidly changing patterns far greater than just a single weapon. Thus, I stood in the darkness on the top of Mount Koryū and fought shadows until the sun finally returned. Like a spell broken by the light, I found myself covered in sweat, while gouges, lines and scars littered almost every surface of the cave, Kubikiribōchō pointed out across the Land of Mountains.

"Time to go," I said, vanishing the weapons. "Genno, you old dog, you better not have killed my Hakus."

#

The return trip was spent giving my best effort to increase my Mana Mastery and Mana Core as I could manage while still moving forward. That meant spamming every single skill I had that cost a flat amount of mana, pausing to use a flash of Meditate, and then doing it all over again. It slowed my pace to some unknown degree. The result was less than I'd hoped, but probably pretty good considering that when I finally reached the yellow ring of grass—now a few shades greener, although that might have just been my optimism—I'd managed to get within a stone's throw of being able to cast Jaunt for the first time. It probably ended up taking about four days on the return trip, almost double what it should have, but even so, I considered it a pretty decent effort.

The air seemed to grow thicker the further out of the barren wasteland I got, until finally, I was back into the wild untamed—I knew it was the amount of chakra in the air, too small or dispersed for me to actually sense with Energy Sense, but after spending a week in a place without any of it, it was readily apparent that something had changed. I made it most of the way back to Kagero village before a flash of blurringly fast-moving chakra cut into my expanded range, and I came to a stop in preparation. It took me a second to realise it was actually two signatures due to the speed, and then Karenbana—Ranmaru clinging to her back and looking amusingly windswept from the rush—slammed into the ground in front of me, feet first, skidding to a stop from the momentum.

I felt something twist in my chest at the realisation that they'd actually waited for me and, beyond that, that they'd been watching the area close enough to notice my return, even days late, and having missed the deadline I'd given them. Ranmaru dropped down to the ground as I approached, a smile on his face—

"Chibi-squad?" I demanded, planting my hands on my hips. "We've got a world to save, you know? Why the hell are you out here wasting time in the woods while I'm doing all the work—"

I wheezed out a breath as Karenbana socked me in the gut hard enough to double me over, but I only managed to make it as far as her shoulder before she curled her hand around the back of my neck and held me there.

"You're late," Karenbana muttered. "I had to pay for another week at the Inn."

I managed a sort of strangled laugh at the words, still trying to regain my breath.

"What kind of shitty bodyguard hits the client?" I gasped, "Karenbana, you're totally fired."

"You already fired her before you left," Ranmaru said, "I'm not actually sure how she keeps getting rehired—is it automatic?"

Karenbana let me go, looking a bit avoidant after the reunion, and I considered the question as I straightened up.

"You're becoming a real brat, Ranmaru," I managed, planting a hand on top of his head. "Keep it up."

"Okay," Ranmaru said, glancing between us for a moment. "My bloodline limit suddenly started working in the area past the line—you managed to stop the chakra-draining effect after all?"

"A sealing altar, the effect absorbs chakra in a radius from the environment, and the area of effect increases the more chakra is absorbed," I said, nodding. "Eventually, it would have grown beyond the borders of the Land of Mountains—it's sitting in my inventory right now."

That seemed to cause Karenbana to shift around a bit, clearly uneasy—her lifetime of battle strategy and planning allowed her to immediately recognize just how dangerous being able to move such a thing around really was. Nagato had a pretty decent idea on how to use weapons of mass destruction to threaten countries into peace, but I wonder how he would have felt had he known I could waltz right into the Land of Rain and drop the sealing altar at his door.

"But, I'm far more interested in showing you this—behold, my minions," I said, splaying my fingers out in front of my face. "The dragon's balls."

The Fire Orb and the Water Orb appeared in my hand, rolling around in my palm as I gave them a little fondle. Karenbana stared at them with a look of consternation on her face and, on reflex, snatched the Fire Orb out of the air as I lobbed it towards her. Ranmaru managed to do the same with the Water Orb.

"Each one—five in total—has a specific Elemental Affinity and a reduction of chakra cost for techniques of that element," I said, "So long as you're holding the weapon, you will gain that Affinity for yourself and through it you can channel the dragon's mighty load."

"That's disgusting," Karenbana said, looking vaguely annoyed. "You found the weapon as well?"

Using a bit of the practice I'd had with manipulating the Dragonblade, I made it appear in my hand for a moment, flipped it over until it was beginning to fall from my fingertips, spun it into a reverse grip before vanishing it again—before giving it a final swish as it reappeared.

"Behold ye shorties and despair," I said, holding the blade up until it shone in the sunlight. "The Dragonblade—pretty cool, huh?"

I flipped it over until I was holding it by the razor-sharp edge—something I'd had more than one mishap with already due to my lack of care—and then held it out, handle first to Karenbana.

"The orbs go in without any issue, but I think you need chakra to take them out again," I admitted, "I couldn't get it out after I put it in—obligatory that's what she said."

Karenbana carefully took it from me and shifted it around a bit to test the weight, the Fire Orb sitting, almost forgotten, in her other hand.

"It looks strange," Ranmaru said, curious. "Like a kunai almost—the scales are pretty, though."

"Aren't they?" I beamed before glancing back at Karenbana. "There's a whole bunch of people who this is going to be effective against—the chakra absorption alone makes it a good counter to ninjutsu users."

Karenbana figured out how to remove the Wind Orb without much effort and then slotted in the Fire Orb—she tilted her head a bit at the change, perhaps feeling something that I couldn't identify from the outside.

"It's extremely sharp, and it will most likely take a chunk of your chakra away if you get hit by it, so you've got to be very careful," I said, "I am curious about how efficient the chakra cost reduction is compared to the Fujaku Hishō Shōken—but that's something we can figure out in the future."

I raised a hand up in expectation—and caught the Wind Orb out of mid-air as Karenbana passed it back, vanishing it into my inventory, and then did the same when Ranmaru offered the Water Orb as well. Content with the world, and my place in it, I dusted my hands off.

"Last one back to the village owes everyone else a thousand Ryo," I said, taking off in the direction of Kagero Village. "Try not to slip on a peel, Karenbanana—"

I let out a cry of anguish as she passed me by a second later, Dragonblade in one hand, Ranmaru in the other.

#

"The river will probably start fixing the land immediately around it first," I guessed, "It might be worth it to dig a bunch of thin irrigation trenches out from it and siphon off some of the water to help cover a larger area."

"Spreading grass seeds and planting trees in the more fertile areas will help as well," Genno said, brushing the parchment flat against his table. "Much of that process will occur naturally, without our direct intervention, but we can certainly help it along."

I just nodded at the words.

"Does Kagero Village have any large exports right now?" I wondered.

"Iron and stone," Genno said, "There is a series of mines east of the village where most of the younger men work."

"When it's actually alive again, that area near the river might become a pretty good spot for farming, with the easy access to water," I said, "Crops are a pretty good export, and I've got a good relationship going with the Land of Wind—I'm almost certain I could convince them to buy up your surplus at a fair rate."

"We'd have to pass through the canyon between the Land of Claws and the Land of Fangs to manage that," Genno said, humming. "A place which is currently filled with a rather tenacious community of bandits."

"Sunagakure will be open to clearing them out if it means getting food on their tables," I said, "If you do decide to do something like that, send them a message addressed to Gaara of the Sand—if you tack my name on it somewhere, they'll take it seriously."

Genno glanced up at me for a moment, with an odd look on his face, before finishing his most recent note, written in small, cursive, upside and cramped handwriting that I didn't have a chance of actually reading.

"Ranmaru spoke with me about a lot of things this past week, more, perhaps, than he'd intended—though I suppose part of that is reading between the lines," Genno said, lifting his pen. "You've shared with him some of the future you've seen, and there is another war coming, although the structure of which I cannot imagine."

"There is a war coming, along with a dozen other events that will end up destroying large parts of the world unless we stop them," I said, "I'm working towards solving those problems before they can become too much of a threat—it hasn't been easy so far, and it's going to get worse."

It went without saying that Genno himself had been one of them if only a minor role in the play taking hold of the world.

"Ranmaru asked me once about my Summoning Contract and if it was real or not," Genno said, "I can only imagine that I used it during the course of my plan."

I laughed a bit at that—Ranmaru was far too trusting of others, or this man was even more cagey than I'd already known him to be.

"I revealed your plan to him prior to us coming here, in the context of a conversation about finding him a Summoning Contract," I admitted, "You were a potential person to contact about it, but our main target was going to be Kandachi—Hanzo the Salamander's right-hand man when he was still alive, and currently a tyrant who is terrorizing a small village in the Land of Waterfalls."

"Salamanders?" Genno said, curious. "A fine match for the Chameleons that Karenbana is capable of summoning."

Ranmaru had a weakness for kind old men, it seemed—or maybe the insight granted by his dojutsu was simply good enough to determine the kind of man Genno was. Either way, his information control was functioning a bit like a leaky sieve.

"Unfortunately, it wasn't Salamanders; Kandachi summons Sea Snails," I said, "It's funny, though; Ranmaru said the exact same thing when I told him—maybe you're both more alike than it would outwardly appear."

Genno smiled.

#