"Not bad," Inoue said. "Your initial plan sucked, but after I gave you that infodump you really turned it around and came up with something good. Okay, let's get started."

Hazō, Wakahisa, and Mori all exchanged surprised looks. That was a much more positive response than they'd expected.

"What? You were expecting a lecture?" Inoue said in amusement. "If you thought I wasn't going to like your plan, why did you propose it?"

"It...was the best we could come up with?" Mori said. "We didn't know enough though, and I saw all these failure modes but I didn't know enough to fix them and if they aren't fixed then the plan won't work and we could all end up dead but we didn't know and I kept looking for answers but—"

"Aaaaand, we're breathing," Inoue said. "We are exhaling stress and panic." She blew out an exaggerated breath. "We are inhaling calm and relaxation." She drew in an equally exaggerated breath. "And, exhaling...and inhaling...good. Now. Yes, you did not have enough information. That's how it's going to be basically all the time in the real world. Having enough time to create a good plan, having enough information to create a good plan...those are schoolroom things. They rarely happen out in the field, so you need to learn to do the best planning you can and then adjust on the fly. That said, let's talk about it.

"Iron is a reasonable place to go," she said. "Obviously, there's nowhere that's good to go when you're a missing-nin...that's kinda the point. If there were, then all the missing-nin would go there, so all the hunter-nin would go there, so it it would be a bad place to go. Anyway, there's no ninja village in Iron, so there's no organized competition. Without an organized ninja presence there will be a lot more demand for our services...especially since they probably don't see many jōnin-led heavy combat teams."

She paused, the corner of her mouth twitching in amusement as she waited for the question.

None of the genin wanted to be the one to admit ignorance, but Wakahisa broke first. "Why not, sensei?" he said. "Wouldn't heavy combat teams be more likely to survive whatever they come up against?"

Inoue smiled in satisfaction. "Nope," she said. "Heavy combat teams have the lowest survival rates of any team composition. Scout teams optimize for speed and awareness. They see threats coming and they outrun them. Infiltration teams are optimized first for not being detected and second for escaping. Etc for other team types. Heavy combat teams, on the other hand...well, they're all about the Righteous Face Punching. Find a threat, run up and punch it in the face. Sooner or later, they run up against a threat that can tank the punch and punch back harder, and then the heavy combat team gets wiped. But hey, don't worry—I'm sure you guys will be the ones who beat the odds and survive to your thirteenth birthday!"

All three genin were starting to look a little green.

"Relax," she said. "I'm just screwing with you."

Wakahisa's sigh of relief was audible.

"Well, sorta," Inoue said. "It's true that heavy combat teams have the highest mortality rates, but the experience-to-lifespan graph is really skewed—it's mostly new genin who get it in the neck, and you guys have a little salt on you. Don't die for another six months and you've got a decent shot at making jōnin. There's another mortality dip for new-minted jōnin, because people get there and, first, they start thinking that they're all billy badass and, second, they start getting bigger and badder missions. Anyway, if you survive for another six months your odds of surviving five years are pretty good."

She frowned. "Now, as it happens, I'm pretty motivated to see you guys not get dead too soon, since without you I'd have to cook my own dinner. Best thing I can do on that front is to give you a slightly wider skillset.

"Anyway, yes, Iron is a good choice. Dealing with villagers is also good; it's a way to get you three some infiltration training without too much risk."

She paused, scraping the last of the beans out of her bowl and savoring them. She licked the spoon clean, then set the bowl down with a sigh.

"I'm going to bed," she said. "I'll leave you three to the washing up, and then you'll need to stand watches. In the morning we'll be heading out for Iron. G'night!" She turned and vanished into the shelter she'd built.

The genin exchanged worried looks and then started cleaning up from dinner.

o-o-o-o

Sneaking out of Fire was an interesting experience. When the group had come in they'd had over thirty ninja, most of them fresh genin; there had been no way to completely hide their tracks, so they'd mostly focused on speed. The falconer had kept his bird in the air as a forward scout and one of the jōnin had lagged behind to cover their trail as well as possible, but they'd still been making good time.

Inoue, on the other hand, was more interested in stealth and misdirection than speed. They stuck to the treetops wherever they could. When they had to travel on the ground they waterwalked; it didn't prevent them from leaving tracks but it did lower the ground pressure, thereby making the tracks fainter. Inoue would occasionally stop and be completely still and silent for up to ten minutes at a time; the genin were never quite sure what she was searching for or how she was doing it, but they stayed quiet and tried not to distract her.

When she wasn't practicing being a statue, Inoue would give them lessons without warning.

"Ten minutes ago we passed a tree with a patch of white moss on it. How many branches were on the tree below ten feet?"

"How many birds were in that flock? What kind of bird? One of them was missing feathers on its breast—what position was it in the formation?"

"All of you henge. Kurosawa: six-year-old girl from a farm family, dressed for school. Wakahisa, small-town grandmother going to market. Mori: left-handed male carpenter's apprentice. Oh my gods, all of you are awful. Try again. No, still awful. Oh, come on, Kurosawa—girls don't walk like that! Wakahisa, not every grandmother has palsy! Mori...ugh. Don't get me started."

"'Hello, little girl, I see you're going to school. What's your favorite class?' ... Oh my gods, Kurosawa, just because you're a little girl doesn't mean you have to make puppy-dog eyes! Try it again. Really? That's what you're going with? You're supposed to be six! Do you honestly think that would be a six-year-old farm girl's favorite class?!"

The entire experience was nerve-wracking.

Nerve-wracking or not, they reached Iron without meeting anyone and without Inoue actually carrying through on any of her histrionic promises to give up and drown herself because there was no point in training such hopeless students. (Although Hazō noticed that she was just as quick with the praise as with the sarcasm, so none of them ended up actually in tears.)

By the time they crossed the border it was after nightfall, so they slept in the trees. Inoue had rope and a half-dozen nets in one of her storage scrolls; they made very servicable hammocks. Still, they were careful to have someone on watch.

The genin shot for it to see who got first choice of watch schedule; Hazō lost and ended up on second shift. Second was always the worst because you slept for not-enough hours, then woke up and stood watch while struggling to be fully aware, then slept for not-enough hours, then got up and had a full day ahead. He was perched on a branch, pinching himself to stay awake when he heard the sfft, tunk! of a thrown kunai slamming into flesh just above his head. A shower of blood soaked his back; a moment later sixty pounds of beheaded snake that had been lowering itself from above fell on him before sliding off the branch and smacking into the ground below.

"For future reference," Inoue said dryly. "Being on watch means you're supposed to see the threats before they bite you. Good thing I decided not to actually sleep. C'mon, the blood and the carcass will attract scavengers. Give me your shirt and let's get out of here." She vanished his bloody shirt into a storage seal and ninety seconds later the group was awake and on the move.

o-o-o-o

Two days later they'd found a good campsite in the canopy of a giant oak. The tree's roots were moderately mobile, and had choked out all the surrounding trees, leaving a clearing in the immediate area. At the base of the tree was a den of several dozen chakra-enhanced weasels. They were the size of small dogs and their fur could release a blast of raiton energy to stun their prey; nothing else in the area seemed to want to tangle with them, but they weren't able to climb, so the ninja could jump over the clearing in order to safely reach the tree. With the weasels as perimeter defense they were relatively safe, although Inoue still slept lightly.

The first day was taken up getting established, training, and scouting. The morning of the second was more training, and in the afternoon Inoue judged them ready to try out their technique for real.

"Hazou, henge up to early twenties," she said. "You're taking lead--you're Yamada Taro, the jonin leader of this team. I'm Fujihara Hanako, one of your genin. Your goal is to ingratiate us with the villagers and get us a paying job." She glanced to the side and laughed. "Put the jealousy away, Wakahisa. You'll get your turn. You and Mori are each going to take lead on contact with the next couple towns."

Hazou did everything he could to keep his face calm but it must not have worked. Inoue-sensei reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, kid," she said seriously. "Take a breath. You can do this, I promise. It's a tiny village in the middle of bloody nowhere. The stakes are about as low as they get. There's zero threat here; if it doesn't work we can retreat, no harm done. These people might not want to work with a particular ninja, but they sure aren't going to do anything to piss one off...such as, by way of example, ratting him out. They'll know that we could wipe out their pissant little village before breakfast, if we were of a mind. Just sound confident, be respectful, and you'll knock their socks off."

Hazou nodded, swallowed the lump in his throat, and led the way into the cluster of twenty-odd small huts on the shore of the lake.

Half a dozen fishing boats were out on the water, pulling in the catch for the day. It was a nice day and most everyone was outside--hanging wash, mending fishing nets, preparing food, or doing the thousand and one other small tasks that made up the fabric of village life.

With no way of knowing what the social hierarchy was, Hazou just went up to the first person he saw. She was a brown-haired woman, her youth well in the past but old age still up ahead. There was a sewing basket next to her, but she had taken a break to smoke a pipe and pick at some chicken and noodles.

"Excuse me," Hazou said in the deep and most-definitely-a-grownup voice of his henged form. "My team and I are passing through; we're experienced escorts and we thought we would see if anyone needed to travel."

The woman eyed him up and down. "We see very few ninja here, shinobi-san," she said after a moment. "May I ask how long you expect to be in the area?"

Hazou frowned. "I didn't say we were shinobi," he said. "What makes you assume we are?"

The woman looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. "There are four of you, one adult and three younglings. The young ones follow behind you in a group, keeping their eyes turned out. You walk like the walls better get out of your way. You carry pouches at exactly the spot one would reach for a weapon, and those pouches are full of long heavy things that are probably kunai. Finally, there are only four of you and you just walked out of the forest."

"Ah," Hazou said. "Yes. Well, you are correct, ma'am. I am Yamada Taro, jonin leader of this team. We have meat and steelback bristles for trade, and would be interested in paying work if there's any to be had."

"Mm-hm," the old woman said. "I see. Well, I'm Tanaka Mariko. Could I see your meat, please?" Yellow teeth flashed as her face split in a wide grin. "Oh, it's been years since I said that to a handsome young man!" She cackled and tipped him a wink.

Flustered, Hazou pulled out the storage scroll and unsealed it, removing a few of the steaks they'd cut from the steelback.

"Top quality, as you can see," he said, fighting down a blush.

"Hmmmm...not bad," she said. "Not bad. I would trade you one of the steaks for information, so long as you promise not to hurt me if you don't like the information."

"What sort of information?" Hazou said guardedly.

She snorted. "Now, shinobi-san, if I told you the information then I couldn't trade it, could I? Suffice to say, it's something that will help you in future trading. I'll also point you to some good-paying work."

Hazou rubbed his chin. It seemed harmless enough; it wasn't like one steak was much compared to the amount they had, and it was easy enough to get more. "All right," he said. "One steak, and I agree not to hurt you. Now, what's this information?"

Mariko selected the steak and set it aside, wrapping it in a rag from her sewing basket.

"First of all," she said. "Most people know that ninja can henge, and we know that any ninja who turns up in a podunk town like ours is likely to be a missing-nin, so we're always going to be looking close, trying to tell if he's going to kill us all. Shinobi-san, you walk like a dangerous man, but you act like a teenager--you blush at a raunchy old woman's joke, and you hesitate when you bargain. My suspicion is that you're another genin--" She saw his expression of dismay and raised her hands placatingly. "Not that it matters," she said. "No villager in the world is going to care who or what you are as long as you actually have ninja skills and you're willing to deal instead of rob. We don't have much, but we're happy to do business with any ninja who comes through. Kami knows, there's plenty of work shinobi."

Hazou was blushing furiously; to conceal it he wrapped an illusion-henge around his physical henge, making his face seem calm and undisturbed.

"Thank you for your instruction, Oneesan," he said with a deep bow. "May I ask what sort of work you have?"

She rubbed her chin and took another draw on her pipe. "Well, there's some waterbugs that have been causing problems for the fisherman--they got Genzo-chan last week. We'd pay to get rid of those. Our potter needs more clay; there's a good deposit of it not too far from here, but it's a three-hour trip by six men when you need to guard yourself in the forest. With you lot as guards, it probably wouldn't take more than twenty minutes to get there, and they'd be able to bring back a lot more clay if you're willing to carry, or if you've got some of those magic scrolls.

"Let's see, what else? Food's always a big one. We'd pay for anything you wanted to hunt up. We'd pay more if it was one of the dangerous things. We'd like better defenses around the town; I know a lot of you type have jutsu that let you move dirt around, make walls, that sort of thing. The whole town would pay for that. If we had the defenses we could expand the fields a bit; we'd need to bring in more water to irrigate, though. If you're willing to take people through the forest we could organize a trade trip down to Yuni. Do you have any of those magic scrolls? If we could use those we could take a lot trade goods along, make more money for everyone."