They were gathered around the campfire in accordance with Hazō's instructions, in a well-lit space where their absolute lack of weapons could be clearly seen. Even so, Kagome was jitterier than ever at having left his beloved forest, and it took a constant stream of reassurances to stop him either turning back and fleeing or blowing up everything within a one-mile radius.

Finally, though, one of the most harrowing journeys of Hazō's life was over, and the team stood ready to greet their newest member.

"Nice to meet you, Kagome," Inoue-sensei waved slowly at him. "No hard feelings about the whole chasing-and-trying-to-blow-up business from before, right?"

"It is a pleasure to finally meet you, sir," Keiko bowed.

"Thanks for trusting us enough to come all the way out here," Noburi said cheerfully. "Don't worry—we've got your back, and we're counting on you to have ours in a pinch."

Akane beamed at the somewhat dazed Kagome. "So you're the sealing master who's taught Hazō-sensei everything he knows. He's got so many funny stories about you!"

Kagome jerked back, eyes going wide as he rounded on Hazō. "Stories? What stories? What have you told them?!" He grabbed a kunai in his left hand a seal in his right and waved both in the air threateningly.

"Nothing!" Hazō said, raising his hands. "I promise! I told them that you're an amazing sealmaster but you're a very private person and you get a little jumpy around new situations. That's it, really!" Very privately, he promised himself that Akane's next sparring session was going to be the most painful of her life.

"Please, Kagome, it's all right," Inoue-sensei said, her voice calm and low, with just a hint of purr in it. "Really. We're your friends—or, at least, we'd like to be, if you'll let us. Please, won't you come sit with me?" She waited, smiling, with one hand extended in a gesture of invitation. She held the smile until Kagome looked over and saw it.

"Uh..." said Kagome. Inoue moved closer to him, still smiling, still with that hand extended, and with a sway in her walk that visibly melted Kagome's brain.

Very slowly, as though Kagome were a frightened horse, Inoue placed a hand on his arm. "It's all right," she said. "Please, will you sit with me? I've never had the chance to talk with a sealmaster before. You must be really smart."

"Uh..." said Kagome.

Inoue laughed, soft and throaty, and tugged gently on his arm until he followed her back to the fire and settled on one of the logs they'd placed there for seats. She sank down next to him, putting an arm around his waist and leaning her head on his shoulder.

"Uh..." said Kagome, sitting frozen like a mouse being stared at by a snake.

"This is nice," Inoue said, not moving from where she sat. "It's good to have another grownup around, don't you agree?"

"Uh..." said Kagome.

From his own seat on the far side of the fire, Hazō watched with amusement for Kagome and no little puzzlement about what had Keiko so angry. Whatever it was, Kagome-sensei seemed oblivious.

That worthy was trying to figure out what to do with his hands, since Inoue had cuddled up against him and he had no idea how to react. It took him a good three seconds for his brain to unlock, at which point he suddenly realized that he was still holding a lethal weapon and a kunai. His face went red and he quickly fumbled the seal back into his beltpouch. The kunai holster was inaccessible due to being trapped between his own hip and Inoue's. After a couple of abortive attempts he laid it on the log next to him.

"Mmmm," Inoue said, sitting up with a yawn and a stretch that sent Kagome back into brain-melted oblivion. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be so presumptuous on our first meeting. It's just that we've been on the run for a really long time and it's just me and the kids, you know?"

"...yes?" said Kagome.

"Anyway," Inoue continued, "I'm not sure how much Hazō told you about us...you know that we're missing-nin, which I guess is the key thing. We think things in Iron are probably going to get hot pretty soon, so we've decided to head down to Tea. It's out of the way and well away from here. I'm really glad you're going to join us." She suddenly looked worried. "That is—you are going to join us, right? Please say you will." The smile was back, and it had brought doe eyes with it.

"Uh..." said Kagome. He nodded like an inexpertly-controlled puppet.

"Oh, good!" Inoue said. "I'm really glad." She looked aside for a moment as though noticing something. "That reminds me! It's dinner! What would you like? We've got makings for sushi and a stir fry, veggies or chicken or both."

Kagome stared at her with the desperate expression of a puppy that really, really wants to do what you're asking, but doesn't quite know what that is. "...both?" he said.

"A man after my own heart," Inoue said, laying a friendly hand on his knee. "Veggie and chicken stir fry it is. Would you mind cubing the chicken for me? I'll get the veggies ready."

"...okay?" Kagome said. He looked around, seeming to shake off the effects of Inoue's spell just a bit. "As soon as I check the perimeter." He reached into his tunic and brought out an entire ream of tags, then flowed to his feet and out into the night.

o-o-o-o

Hazō had spent three days compulsively making lists of precautions for seal development. On their last trip to Yuni, back before they coaxed Kagome-sensei out of the woods, he had purchased an assortment of heavy leather clothes, as well as a lot of raw leather suitable for working into the next best thing to armor. He'd also prepped a pair of bunkers, each one a berm of dirt three feet thick. The western bunker contained a fire for seal disposal—Keiko was standing by with her Zephyr's Reach jutsu to help with that. The eastern one had a narrow piece of clay pipe bought from Yuni embedded in it so that Hazō could stretch an arm through to brush a finger against the seal blank resting on the outside of the berm; needing to touch the seal in order to infuse it meant that he needed to be a lot closer than he would have preferred, but this allowed him to be as far away as possible. Furthermore, the entire area was surrounded with carefully-positioned logs and rocks specifically selected to be easy Substitution targets. The plan was to touch the seal, infuse it, and immediately Substitute away. All in all, Hazō was feeling pretty good about how well he'd prepared, and was excited to hear Kagome-sensei's reaction.

"Are you crazy?! What are you thinking?! Do you want to make us all melt into goopy rotten muck that all merged together and stared up at us singing the little teapot song?! Is that what you want?!"

Perhaps there was a bit more development to be done.

o-o-o-o

After three more days of work, Kagome-sensei grudgingly agreed that okay, yes, the precautions might be somewhat adequate. Kagome and the rest of the team watched from a hundred yards away as Hazō lumbered over to the berm. He was wearing a full-coverage leather suit reinforced with steel bands. The suit had no joints ("Points of weakness!") so Hazō was walking in ridiculous, straight-legged strides, his right arm strapped at his side and his left sticking out at a forty-five degree angle. The only exposed part of his body was the very tip of his left pinky—he needed some bare skin in order to infuse the seal and, as Kagome-sense had put it, "Since you're determined to burn something off, make it the least important something!"

In the actual event, Hazō didn't burn anything off while reverse-engineering the storage scroll, but the results were a lot more exciting than he would have preferred. The most exciting was the very first attempt: it was a dud. Somehow, that sent Kagome into a massive panic attack in which he gibbered about seals that "just pretended not to do anything to lure you in close!"

The seventh attempt (giant implosion that scooped a four-foot hemisphere out of the ground and nearly took Hazō's arm off before he Substituted away) was interesting, but Kagome commanded Hazō to never ever ever ever ever try to replicate that, muttering dire predictions about stinking ninja stinkers and their stinking stupid ideas.

The fifteenth attempt (eruption of talking porcupines that sublimated away after ten minutes) was the funniest. That was the first time that Hazō noticed Keiko and Noburi passing money back and forth. Unsurprisingly, Keiko was winning.

o-o-o-o

"Damn it!" shouted the heavily-muscled dockworker.

Hazō shrugged. "Sorry," he said. "Just my night for craps, I guess." Privately, he resolved to win one more throw and then crap out. He'd thought he was keeping a decent win/loss ratio, but it might be good to go on a losing streak for a bit. Or maybe just leave; this guy seemed a lot angrier than the average local, and Hazō didn't want any trouble. Not because it would have been a risk, but because he didn't want to take a chance on being recognized as a ninja when he put his attacker down.

The dockworker glared at him, then threw his money on the ground in disgust and stomped off. Another four hundred ryo went to keep company with the eight thousand that was already in Hazō's pouch.

When you had the Iron Nerve, it was always your night for craps.

o-o-o-o

Noburi woke up to the unpleasant awareness of three things: first, it was still dark out. Second, he really needed to pee. Third, he was sharing a campsite with Kagome.

He tried to roll over and go back to sleep, but the urgent cries of his bladder but the kibosh on that idea. He seriously considered just wetting the bed, but eventually sighed and untied the flap on his tent.

Before setting foot outside he looked around carefully. Three nights ago, Kagome had woken up in the middle of the night feeling nervous and decided to add some extra defenses...inside the perimeter.

There didn't seem to be any new explosives added in the immediate area, so he walked carefully to the edge of the wall that surrounded their encampment. When Kagome had learned that Hazō had the Multiple Earth Wall jutsu he had nearly cried in delight. When he discovered that Noburi's bloodline meant that Hazō had immense chakra reserves available he'd gotten all choked up.

"Another wall here!"

"Sensei, there's already a hundred and thirty-four walls. I think we're safe enough."

"A thousand pushups, NOW! Don't you ever say that again!"

Noburi walked to the nearest of the two entrances to the maze that surrounded their campsite. He carefully avoided touching the walls as he made his way methodically out. Three lefts, one right...step over the unassuming patch of dirt...wallwalk on the right-hand wall...crawl under the invisible sensor beam...wallwalk on the left-hand wall, but without touching the grey spot....

Using the bathroom really should not be a survival test, Noburi reflected as he relieved himself. Business done, he turned to go back when he felt a slap on his back and a knifepoint on the side of his throat, right over the carotid.

"Don't move, you stinking stinker!" the paranoid sealmaster growled. "What have you done with Wakahisa?!"

"Kagome-sensei, it's me!" Noburi said, remaining carefully still. "I just came to pee!"

"A likely story, you stinking stinker!" snarled Kagome. "Where is he? His tent is empty, I saw it!" Jab, jab, jab, went the knife.

"Yes, my tent was empty because I came to pee!" Noburi said. Crap, crap, crap, what was that recognition sign? Apple-cloud-spearmint-red? No, that was the sign from lunch yesterday. Brandy-firepit-boom-splat? No, two days ago, eleven to eleven-thirty. Crap, crap, crap!

"Uh...uh...dead-chicken-stinker-doofus-pretty!" Noburi said. He remembered now; he hadn't been terribly fond of where Kagome's eyes had lingered when he put that password together.

Pause. No more stabbing. "Wakahisa?" Kagome said. "Is that you?"

"Yes!" said Noburi, frustrated, relieved, and trying not to show either one.

The knife retreated. Noburi turned to find an abashed Kagome behind him.

"Oh," Kagome said. "Um...right. Sorry, I just...I thought...um. Yeah, so...nice night, huh?" He gave a sickly smile.

Noburi took a deep breath and forced himself to be calm. Kagome was improving. Really. He was sure of it. Well, mostly sure. Sometimes. Inoue-sensei had said so, at least. She'd pointed out what an amazing force multiplier it would be to have another senior ninja (especially a sealmaster) on the team.

The amazing force multiplier pointed towards Noburi's back. "You, uh, maybe oughta turn around." Kagome said. "I should probably deactivate the timer on that."