​

"Hey guys," Hazō said. "I feel like I've been in a bit of a rut lately. How about tomorrow we have a little friendly competition to spice up training?"

Keiko looked over in interest. "What did you have in mind?"

"I'm thinking hunting. There's plenty of chakra monsters around here. We'll take turns killing or incapacitating them in specified ways to test our mastery of various skills. Killing without making a sound is for stealth, killing as many as possible within a minute is mass combat, killing one member of a pack without the others noticing is stealth and situational awareness, that kind of thing." He grinned. "And we could get a little silly too, just for fun. Use only one hand or one leg, that kind of thing."

Mari-sensei's eyes lit up. "Ooooh, I bet I can—"

"You have to be the judge, sensei."

Weapons-grade puppy-dog eyes. "Awww." Sigh. "Fine, but then I get to make the challenges."

"Uh...okay?" That gleeful look on her face wasn't even remotely disturbing.

o-o-o-o​

"Aaaagggh! Killitkillitkillit!!!!" Off-balance series of hops into trees.

snap! snarl! firey woosh!

"Why aren't you killing it?!"

"Are you sure? I mean, you said—"

"Forget what I—yikes!—said, just kill it!"

"All right." thwock

Urk!

"That one didn't count! I would have had him fine if the stupid fruit hat hadn't fallen over my eyes!"

"Keep telling yourself that. Next!"

o-o-o-o​

Urk! Nigh-silent impact of massive furred body on forest loam.

Raised eyebrow. "I thought we were not going to use any seals in this round?"

"We were not going to activate any seals. I set that one up last night before proposing this contest."

"Hm."

o-o-o-o​

"That's it...that's it, one more step little monster horror thing. Come on, you're almost there, just— YAAAAGGGHHHHHH!!!! KILLITKILLITKILLITKILLIT!"

thwock!

Urk!

"Stupid fruit hat."

o-o-o-o​

"Yaa!"

thwock!

Urk!

"Okay, you're right. The fruit hat sucks."

"I know!"

o-o-o-o​

"But...."

"You...."

Facial expression that is absolutely not at all smug. "Yes."

"All of them?!"

"Yes."

"But...you only used one kunai."

"Yes."

"How...? I mean, I saw it but...how...?"

Her father would never forgive her if she allowed that flicker of inward glee to actually show on her face. Must...keep...control!

o-o-o-o​

The games continued until both boys grudgingly admitted that Keiko was the winner.

"Seriously, Keiko?" Hazō grumbled while he pulled a clean set of clothes out of his scroll as preface to a much-needed bath. (Mari-sensei lesson #217(a): 'Remember, kids: your enemies have noses! Stinky ninja are dead ninja!') "How the hell do you hit something that size between the eyes when you're only allowed to use one eye yourself?"

"Slightly left of center."

Luckily for Keiko, Hazō still had not mastered the Kill You With My Brain no Jutsu.

o-o-o-o​

"So...what do you guys think about Mountain?" Hazō asked, carefully waiting until everyone was finished eating. "They're going to be opening up in a few months."

Mari-sensei frowned in puzzlement. "Opening up?"

"Yeah," Hazō said. "Remember what Takahashi said about us not coming back for a year?"

Mari-sensei shook her head. "He didn't want us coming back for a year so that he could consolidate power in the village without us messing things up. He didn't say anything about opening up to the world at the end of that time."

"But—"

An upraised hand cut him off. "Yes, when he gave me that bizarre ants metaphor he was talking about changing their society. That didn't say anything about interacting with the outside world, though." She paused, then nodded in thought. "Still, Yoshida wanted to open up and she and Takahashi were allies. They probably will at some point, but I don't know when—could be tomorrow for all we know."

"Oh." Hazō stopped to consider that. "Well, anyway, I've been thinking about them. Keiko, as the Pangolin summoner you've got a lot of political clout with them. They're an entire ninja village—"

"Ninja hamlet," Noburi said, not looking up from where he was scooping barley-ish soup out of the dinner pot for seconds.

"—ninja village with no ties to the outside and almost no one is aware of them yet. They could make a good powerbase for us, or a good hidey hole."

"Jiraiya-stinker knows about 'em," Kagome said, glowering at the piece of wood that was rapidly forming into a delicate sea creature under the careful ministrations of his carving knife. "He'll move in at some point."

"Right," Hazō said. "So if we got there first, we could be the interface, guide how the interaction went. There'd be some issues to plan for, though. Noburi, you'd see Yuno again. How would you feel about that?"

Noburi grimaced. "It's complicated? I've thought about her a few times. I was never in love with her, and sometimes she freaked me out a little but...I really liked her. She was honest, and straightforward, and a good person. Fake-dating her was incredibly uncomfortable and embarrassing, but it was also really nice. She deserved better than what happened—with me and with the village in general."

"Were you to see her again the interactions could be complicated," Keiko said. "She was unpredictable at the best of times. Do you think she would attack you?"

"No!" Noburi said. "No, she wouldn't do that."

"Would you want to see her again?" Hazō asked carefully.

Noburi studied his soup with the same intensity with which a seer studies a crystal ball. "I wouldn't want us to go there just for me," he said finally. "I think that yes, I would like to see her again, but I'm not willing to put the team at risk."

Hazō looked across the flickering campfire to his teachers. "Mari-sensei, Kagome-sensei, what do you think?"

"Stinkers tried to kill us before," Kagome grumbled. "You want to go back? Are you crazy?"

Mari-sensei waffled her hand side-to-side. "I can see some advantages, but a lot of risks," she said. "We really threw an explosive tag in their politics, and we don't know where the pieces landed. The Inoue and the Aida were the ones who attacked us—loremasters and religious leaders, so hardly surprising they were the xenophobic ones. Their political star was on the wane after we left and by now Takahashi probably put a muzzle on them, but there's no way to know for sure. Just as one example, they might have managed to come out even stronger than before if they whipped up some populist fervor around the idea that their teachings had been shown to be true and obviously the foreigners would be coming to take away the lives of decent hardworking Mountain-folk everywhere."

"Would we be safe if we went back?" Hazō asked.

Kagome-sensei snorted. "Safe? Safe?! Don't talk to me about safe. All those stupid rules you guys gave me... 'No setting off landslides to destroy the entire village so we can pick through the rubble at our leisure, Kagome.' 'No putting explosives on the houses, Kagome.' 'No putting explosives on the tapir pens, Kagome.' 'No putting explosives on the tapirs, Kagome.' 'No putting explosives on anything more than one hundred feet from the cave, Kagome.' 'No putting lethal traps in the outer perimeter, Kagome.'" He spat to one side. "Stupid rules. Don't talk to me about safe." He pointed his knife at Hazō like a lance. "I know how this goes. You're going to talk about how great it would be if we went back and used Mountain as a power base to uplift the world and make everything better for everyone so we can squish all those Headquarters stinkers and then dance on their exploded corpses. It'll sound crazy and then you'll talk some more and maybe it won't seem completely crazy, and then you'll talk some more and everyone will decide that they're crazy too so they'll go along with it. Well, don't come crying to me when it all goes horribly, horribly wrong. And I'll tell you what, this time I'm going to put explosives wherever I feel like it! Got that?!"

What did you even say to that? "Yes, sensei?"

"Good." The grumpy sealmaster bent over his carving once more, angrily brushing a strand of his thinning hair out of the way as he focused on the wooden dolphin leaping out of the wooden ocean in his hand.