"I found several options for employment," Mori said. "Given our disguises as mercenaries we are not eligible for most civilian jobs, and many of those are controlled by the guilds in any case. We are, however, able to pursue bodyguard work, caravan protection, escort duty, bouncing at various bars and clubs, messenger work, supply runs, and illegal pit fighting."

Hazō's eyebrows went up. "Pit fighting?"

"All right!" Wakahisa said. "We will absolutely demolish any pansy-ass civilian. Candy from babies! Where do we sign up?"

"That might be risky," Hazō said carefully. "We'd lose our henge the minute we hit the opponent."

"Also, it would be clear that we were ninja," Mori said. "No civilian would fight the way we do. On the other hand, I investigated some of the fights; the more popular ones have a lot of money moving around. Unfortunately, they're all run by the Yakuza."

"Ah," said Hazō, momentarily flashing back to a conversation with a man covered in tattoos who had just placed a hammer gently on the table. "That...might be unwise."

Wakahisa opened his mouth to say something, then shot a glance at Mori and closed it again.

"We could talk to them about it," he said. "There's no organized ninja presence in Iron, but there are ninja. That means many of them are missing-nin like us—maybe even most of them. If so, maybe we could just go to the Yak and ask them for work. We're a lot better than most genin and there can't be that many ninja available; we could probably get good rates."

"That's...actually a really interesting idea," Hazō said slowly. "We'd be breaking cover as ninja, but the Yak would undoubtedly love to have us, and having an in with them would make a lot of things easier. Mori, what do you think?"

Mori said nothing for long seconds; her face had the blank, distant expression that the boys had seen only once before: when she'd gone deep into her bloodline to ensure Wakahisa's safety during the jutsu experiments.

"I think...," she said, her voice very far away, "...I think that this is a balance point. There are hazards on both sides. Speaking directly with the Yakuza carries significant short term risks, but not speaking to them carries steadily increasing risks as time goes on. If we continue to operate in Yuni the probability of them identifying us as unaligned ninja approaches unity. Once they discover us and determine that we have been operating here without their approval they will assume we are hostile, especially since we will likely have disrupted some of their businesses. They have the resources to employ other ninja and might well send them after us. We could mitigate those risks by not returning to Yuni, but this is the main center of trade and population in Iron; our resources and options would be severely constrained if we were not able to come here."

She fell silent and stood still. Her eyes were pointed at a knot in the wall near the ceiling, but Hazō was absolutely certain that she was not seeing it.

"Mori?" Wakahisa said. "Mori?" He reached out and tapped her arm gently. When that got no response he took hold of her shoulders and shook her lightly. "Mori! Hey! Wake up, Keiko!"

Mori blinked very slowly; her head pivoted slightly, her eyes passing across his face and slowly coming back into focus.

"Wakahisa?" she said, confused. She stumbled and would have fallen if he hadn't caught her and helped her to sit down on the edge of the bed.

"What just happened?" Hazō asked.

Mori blinked several times like someone just waking up from a heavy sleep. "Nothing," she said. "It's fine. I just went a little too deep. It's difficult to analyze things with so many variables."

"Yeaaaah, how about you never do that again?" Wakahisa said, trying to sound casual and failing. He still hadn't taken his hand off her shoulder, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Let's leave the Yak alone until Inoue-sensei comes back," Hazō said. "We should talk about it with her."

"Definitely," Wakahisa said. Mori nodded dreamily.

"Wakahisa, what about you? Did you find anything useful?" Hazō asked.

Wakahisa shot him an annoyed look. "Of course!" he said. "What, you think I was slacking?"

"No! I just...." Hazō sighed, then tried again. "No," he said. "That came out wrong. What I should have said was 'what did you find?'" He gritted his teeth a little and forced himself to finish without sounding sullen. "I'm sorry for the mistake—I wasn't trying to be insulting."

"Good," Wakahisa said. Like Hazō, he took a breath and clearly forced himself to be calm. "Sorry, didn't mean to snap. I'm a little stressed about all this."

"I think we all are," Hazō said, grateful to have defused things. "Anyway, trying again: what did you find?"

Wakahisa dug in his pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of notepaper; upon opening it, it was revealed to be covered in incomprehensible notes. Hazō wasn't quite sure whether Wakahisa had great skill in cryptography or terrible skill in penmanship.

"Okay, I found everything we were looking for," Wakahisa said, his eyes skimming over the paper. "It looks like this place has whatever we're likely to need for the foreseeable future, so that's good. High-quality paper wasn't too bad, and there's plenty of it. I sighed and looked put-upon, told the guy I was a local factor for a hill daimyo with pretentions to being a poet. The guy laughed and didn't bat an eye when I told him how much I needed. The paper was only middling expensive and the inkstones weren't too bad. The copper kettles were moderately spendy, but I talked the guy down to practically nothing. The bread, raisins, and honey weren't too bad, but the chocolate is insane. A pound of the stuff starts at ten thousand ryō and goes up; the most expensive I saw was twenty-eight thousand, and I have no idea how to judge the quality. Personally, I say we just steal it."

Hazō and Wakahisa reflexively glanced at Mori, having gotten used to her assessing any plan they came up with. She was still sitting passively and staring at her fingers as they twined nervously back and forth in her lap. The two boys looked back at each other and silently agreed that they weren't going to push.

"Did you—" Hazō caught himself. "What sort of prices were you able to get?"

"I had them set stuff aside for us," Wakahisa. "The kettle we can get for basically nothing, the bread, raisins, honey and tea aren't too bad, but the chocolate is going to cost. A LOT. Assuming we go for the middle of the range on the chocolate, we're looking at about thirty thousand ryō for everything together.

Hazō winced. "That's a lot," he said.

"Hey, you want to try beating decent prices for things you don't know squat about out of grabby merchants while you have to be careful not to sound like a foreigner, you go for it," Wakahisa said angrily.

Hazō held up both hands placatingly. "I wasn't criticizing," he said. "Just noticing. Mori, what kind of money are we looking at for those various jobs?"

"Highly skilled bodyguards with excellent references command up to eight hundred ryō an hour," Mori said. She was sounding less out of it, but still fuzzy. "Although it's highly variable, and I suspect that most clients simply negotiate a retainer with significant discount built in. Given that we are new in town and have no references, I suspect we could only get two hundred at most. That's assuming we could get the job at all. Also, bodyguard work tends to mostly be long-term and paid on salary, although there are a few jobs where someone needs a bodyguard for a few hours or a day while going to an event or a nearby town. The other jobs are extremely variable in their payment, and caravan work doesn't fit our timeframe."

"Suppose we give ourselves references that are actually us, under different henges?" Wakahisa suggested.

"Stop," Hazō said quickly. "Mori, don't analyze that just yet; wait until you've recovered first. Wakahisa, that sounds like a great idea to me, but let's wait until she's a little more together before we decide on it, okay?"

Wakahisa nodded, staring at Mori and looking stricken. "Right. Sorry, Mori."

"It's all right," she said. She looked down at his hand where it still rested on her shoulder; Wakahisa yanked it away as though it were burned.

Hazō hurried to fill the awkward silence. "Wakahisa, great job with the prices. I think I've got some good news; there's a lot of craps games in this town, which is something I'm pretty good at. Most of them are low stakes—say, fifty ryō a bet—but I found twelve just in a couple of hours. There's also a couple of casinos with higher stakes; I didn't do any betting, but I saw some craps games with a hundred ryō minimums and five hundred table max."

"What do you mean you're 'good at craps'?" Wakahisa asked suspiciously.

"I cheat," Hazō said blandly. "But nobody's going to spot me cheating; it's a bloodline trick. Also, I memorized the probabilities when I was nine and I don't bet emotionally."

"People would still notice if we won a lot," Mori said.

Hazō shrugged. "Yeah. Also, the casinos work on a chip system. You play with chips, then you cash out at the end. It makes it easy for them to track how much you're actually winning. The private games you can win some, lose some, and as long as you're careful you can clean people out without them noticing."

"What does security look like at the casinos?" Wakahisa asked.

"Varies a lot," Hazō said. "I checked three different casinos. They all had civilian guards floating around, armed both nonlethal and lethal. On top of that, the first casino had a ninja prowling around out in the open, plus another one blending into the crowd. The second had another ninja, also hiding. The third place was the most upscale, but I didn't see anything but civilians guarding it. It did have a bunch of seals scattered around the ceiling and the tables, disguised as patterns in the wood or whatever."

"Seals?" Wakahisa said dubiously. "That doesn't sound good."

"Yeah, I know," Hazō said. "On the other hand, they had a lot of money. There was one table with a table minimum of two thousand ryō. We could go in there and make our bank in just a few minutes."

"We do not have the table minimum," Mori pointed out. "In fact, we have almost no money whatsoever."

"Oh, right," Wakahisa said. "I also talked about selling the stuff we've got. The meat isn't worth much at all; about four hundred ryō for all of it. The steelback bristles I couldn't sell at all; none of the smiths I talked to had heard of them so they figured I was just a scam artist. Fortunately, I was using a disposable henge when I talked to them, so it shouldn't be an issue. Anyway, sell all the meat and combine it with the two hundred that we've got left after paying for the room and we've got almost nothing in terms of spending power."

"I can win us plenty in craps," Hazō said confidently.

"Hang on," Wakahisa said. "What's this trick of yours? If we're talking about gambling as our money-making strategy, that sounds like a losing proposition."

"I used to gamble back in Mist, to help my momma pay the bills," Hazō said, his voice catching. He swallowed before continuing. "I got so good that I got banned from a lot of games. I'm pretty sure that I got sent on this mission because I pissed off some Yakuza casino owners."

"That was a seriously dumbass move," Wakahisa said.

Hazō's lips tightened, but Mori broke in before he could respond.

"Please do not fight," she said, her voice still far away.

Hazō swallowed the angry retort he'd been planning to make and took a breath. "In retrospect, yes. There were good reasons at the time and I've learned from the mistake. Let's move on."

"Okay, so what's the plan?" Wakahisa said. "We need thirty thousand ryō, and we need it fast. The bodyguard work is a possibility but a difficult one, talking to the Yak could get us a lot of money but is risky, gambling has some major risks, and the other stuff sounds pretty uncertain."

Mori sat silent, hands folded in her lap. Hazō pondered.

"I think first we should get some lunch," he said. "Personally, I'm hungry. Wakahisa, could you give me a hand carrying? Mori, why don't you see if you can sleep a bit, get yourself back together; Wakahisa and I can bring something back"—he turned quickly to Wakahisa—"that is, if you don't mind helping me carry stuff?"

"Hm," Mori said, not looking at him.

Wakahisa looked at her, clearly torn, but shook his head. "Sure," he said, and followed Hazō out the door.

The two boys found a noodle shop and ordered some ramen to go; it was the cheapest food they could find, but it was still forty ryō a bowl.

While they waited, Hazō turned to Wakahisa. "Can we talk?" he said. "There's some tension between us, and I'd like to get rid of it if we can."

Wakahisa looked surprised, but nodded. "Okay," he said. "Talk."

"You and I have been striking sparks on each other, and it's getting worse," Hazō said. "You're a smart guy with good ideas, and we're living in a dangerous situation. We can't afford to have problems in the team, so I'd like to know what to do about it. How can we work together better?"

Wakahisa blinked. "Well, for one thing, you could stop assuming you're the leader and we all need to do what you say," he said. "Shikigami-sensei didn't know us from a hole in the ground. He chose you as leader pretty much at random, and I don't see why that should still hold true."

"Okay," Hazō said. "I can work on that. Do you have a specific problem with my leadership?"

"You miss things," Wakahisa said. "Like when you proposed fighting the steelback hand-to-hand. That was s—" He cut himself off, then continued more diplomatically. "I don't think that was the best approach."

Hazō nodded. "True, it wasn't. And you pointed that out and I changed the plan. Personally, I'd say that leaders don't have to be right all the time, they just need to be able to get everyōne moving in a good direction and then not be too proud to take suggestions from people who have better ideas. Is that fair?"

"Yeah," Wakahisa said. "It's fair."

"Okay," Hazō said. "I'm guessing you'd like to be leader?"

"Uh...." Wakahisa paused, clearly not wanting to sound arrogant by answering 'yes'. "I think I'd be good at it," he said instead.

"What exactly would it look like, for you to be the leader?" Hazō said. "How would it work in practice?"

"Well, I'd propose plans and we'd do them," Wakahisa said.

"You'd take input from us, right?" Hazō asked. "After all, I don't think either of us is as good at spotting holes in plans as Mori is." He flashed Wakahisa the same perfect grin that he'd once given to a friend in school when they'd agreed on a wicked prank. "That's not on us, though—she cheats like crazy with that bloodline of hers."

Wakahisa laughed. "Yeah, true," he said. "And yeah, I'd ask you guys for input."

"Okay," Hazō said. "So you being in charge would be you proposing plans, the three of us talking about them, and then—assuming we all agree that the plan is good—we do them. Right?"

"Yeah," Wakahisa said.

"What's stopping you?" Hazō said.

"What?" Wakahisa said.

"You're welcome to propose plans," Hazō said. "If I think they're good, I'm certainly not going to vote against them. I really doubt Mori would either."

"Yeah, but—" Wakahisa stopped, then tried again. "You're always pushing your plans out first," he said.

Hazō nodded. "Okay. I'll slow down, give you a chance to get yours in first. You don't mind if I suggest plans, I assume? You did say that you'd take input."

"Yeah, that's fine," Wakahisa said.

"Okay, good," Hazō said. "Do you mind if I make a suggestion now?"

"Go ahead," Wakahisa said.

"If you want to lead, you need to be focused on more than just whether we take the bodyguard job or the escort job," Hazō said. "You need to think more long-term, think about things that could get in the way. Things like bad team dynamics."

Wakahisa's lips thinned as he saw the trap. "Thanks for the suggestion," he said tightly.

Hazō nodded, the point made. "Anyway, what do you think we should do for money, O fearless leader?" He said it lightly, smiling widely and inviting Wakahisa to be part of the joke.

Wakahisa smiled back, then glanced around and lowered his voice. "You really can win at craps?" he said. "Reliably?"

Hazō nodded. "You know how craps works—the shooter rolls two dice and whatever number comes up with is the point. If he rolls two, three, or twelve then he craps out and loses his bet. Seven or eleven, he wins immediately. Otherwise he keeps rolling until he gets the point again, but he loses if he rolls a seven before rolling the point. Once he loses, he passes the dice to the left." He waited until Wakahisa nodded, because Hazō actually had no confidence that the boy knew how to play craps.

"Anyway," Hazō said. "Because of my bloodline I can roll any number that I've rolled before with that pair of dice. I'll lose a few in the beginning until I learn how to roll seven and one of the good point numbers, but after that the dice will do whatever I tell them to. The only problem is if they switch dice on me."

Wakahisa nodded his understanding. "That's a pretty cool bloodline," he noted. "But that dice-switching thing sounds bad."

"Yeah, seriously," Hazō said. "It won't happen in the private games, though—well, not unless someone's cheating. The problem is that the casinos switch the dice periodically and they give you a choice of four pairs at the start of each round. I'd need to be able to tell the difference, and they might start to notice if I always chose the same set, so I'd have to learn all the pairs in each set. We'd lose a few bets here and there, but in general I can make as much as I want, as long as I'm careful to lose some too."

"Probably smart if you lose your entire stake and Mori and I do the winning," he said.

"Yeah, good plan," Hazō said, just as the chef set three bowls of ramen in front of them, packaged for take-out. "C'mon, let's get back to Mori and figure out what we're doing."