Hidden in the Fine Print?

"I'll look into medical facilities later, but it's not on the top of my list. Do what you can, it'd be a shame to lose people this soon." is what you finally decide to say.

As a medic first and foremost, Kekkon is naturally less dangerous... and also more than other ninja, you guess. Less likely to wind up getting your head cut off if you cross her, more likely to wake up mysteriously infected with something terminal, you'd guess.

"I'd rather have proper medical equipment to pick up the slack, but I suppose I'm already working with spare senbon instead of medical pins and I can ask around after strong spirits..."

To be perfectly honest, you've never made much of a study of medicine or treating injuries beyond the basics. You know how to bind a wound, the theory of stitching it together, how to take care of ordinary colds, and beyond that how to say 'go talk to a doctor, already'. This whole conversation is already outside of your scope and faintly disgusting.

It's probably for the best that you have a good poker face.

For now, you have a few more things to do. You need to make a polite reply to the message that carefully keeps the thoughtful priests and monks at a distance while not insulting them or implying... any number of things.

You rub your temples as you make your way back to your main office. If you just ignore the letter, then they probably can't be sure you got it in the first place, but if they find out you're ignoring them then that brings problems of its own. Will just saying 'come back later' do? Maybe... but if you don't give a reason, then that's a pretty clear snub, isn't it? You need to have an excuse, you decide. With that in mind, you start thinking, looking for something that would serve as a reasonable excuse.

If you're lucky then you can just excuse yourself with reconstruction... you hope. You've never been the sort of person that gets pulled for writing the important correspondence... and you've had to feign complete illiteracy in the past to get trusted just to carry messages without reading them. But construction seems like a reasonable way to delay this. You do have repair work that needs doing, and you should be here to oversee it, and it would be rude to make them come here and bring their own food and sleep in the courtyard outside.

It seems like that'll work, and you take a moment to write the response.

In the meantime...

In the meantime, you're sick of cooking your own food, and tempted to test the limits of what the ninja will really let you get away with. You have the funds to have a mess hall. It would be cheaper if you had a stockpile of building materials, since without that you're going to have to pay for both the lumber costs and an architectural design, but at least you don't need to bring a labor crew in.

--

Time passes, and Kekkon proves her value as your two injured rogues return to partial service. It seems like they, at least, are more fully behind the idea of this place now, with a reminder of what they left behind in a hidden village and none of the reasons they left presenting themselves.

As rogues, solo, surviving their injuries would have been unlikely at best, a matter of crawling off the battlefield and managing to hold themselves together long enough to find someone both able and willing to patch them together through sheer luck. Some basic first aid is almost obligatory to learn as a surviving rogue ninja, but in the state they were in it wouldn't have been nearly enough.

It's one of the harsher kinds of reminders about the benefits of a support network and infrastructure to fall back on. You don't always have to die when someone kills you.

Outside, Axe lets loose a piercing battlecry and swings, splitting a tree trunk in half with a single blow. A few more render the raw materials into something that can be properly used as less notable ninja move them into place, the framework of the mess hall coming into form.

That reminds you of your other current issue, and you sardonically leaf once more through a test report based on the construction going on. It turns out that the poison-petals girl can read and write perfectly well, but...

Well, the first page is all right.

The second drifts into a story about beavers deciding to build a wooden castle instead of a dam, as the old adage 'out of sight and out of mind' is proven true. It seems like she completely forgot what she was doing after turning over one of the sheets of paper on the provided clipboard.

The third page has a few spots of what you suspect might be drool on it, and simply repeats the words 'stir fry' over and over, with a single dissenting 'barbecue beef' in the middle of the pack.

The fourth and final page of the report is completely taken up by an artistically rendered human penis with butterfly wings floating around a colorfully blooming vagina bush.

On the plus side, it seems like she's perfectly competent at ordinary menial labor as long as someone reminds her what she's supposed to be doing, and she's too consistently high on whatever her own body is doing today to really object or care about getting messy. Though in contrast this also means that she doesn't have a problem with just taking her clothes off when they get dirty and continuing on, or following through with the preventative measure of removing them in advance.

You really want to dislike that girl, but it's a little hard when she seems to be hallucinating you as a giant teddy bear half the time. You'll refrain from going into detail about what the other half consists of.

... You're interrupted from your thoughts by a commotion outside, and it only takes a moment to confirm that ninja are slipping away from the construction site, moving...

You stand up, walk out of the office, and then sprint the rest of the way outside to where you slow down again to an appropriate walking speed.

Your ninja are guardedly watching the approach of a group of monks, headed by a single shrine priestess. She comes to a stop at a respectable distance, close enough to speak but not close enough to make a single tackling leap at anyone... you hope.



Her eyes are cool, and somehow judging you in a way you can't quite name. But you don't like it. You feel... small, in a way you haven't felt since you were a child. It's not the same thing as the threatening and dangerous presence of a powerful ninja, though.

Kekkon isn't represented here, but it looks like most of the rest of the rogue ninja are. Even Nara and Axe are present. They're waiting for you to speak.

"Well." you say, after a long, visibly tense moment. "I'm afraid that we are unprepared to properly welcome you."

"It is of no consequence." the woman replies shortly. "Rather, it is due to our haste that such matters will be overlooked."

The ninja shift, clearly trying to determine if there's about to be a fight. In response a few of the monks shift their weight, but most remain in something close to their leader's state of peaceful stillness.

"Ah. I did think that I had mentioned the current state of the shrine in my correspondence..." you say, slowly.

"And it is for that reason which we are here. General repair and construction is of no concern. However."

She sweeps one arm deliberately.

"That which is consecrated. The torii gate of this place, marking the entrance to what is holy ground. The offertory chest, which accepts the faith of pilgrims and pretenders alike. The sacred altars. These are not matters for profane hands to tamper with." She lists, uncaring of the small offense in her words. "This shrine was erected to pay reverence to a god of life, motherhood, and safe childbirth. To allow such matters to fall into the hands of the profane and irreverent... it will not be tolerated, and such mockery of the divine as allowing those who kill for money to desecrate the shrine in such a way, even with the best of intentions, will raise the curses of vengeful spirits."

You patiently wait for the priestess to demand holy tithes so you can tell her exactly where to shove them, but she comes to a stop there, waiting.

... Unexpectedly, her words seem to have more of an effect than you expect on the ninja. Nara seems to share your disbelief, tempered with a touch of cautious concern, as do some number of the chuunin. Oddly the Jounin seem warier and tense...

And for the first time you can recall, if only for a moment, Axe's face is ashen in silent dread.

You scratch behind an ear, thinking about this one. It sounds an awful lot like she's suggesting you just step out of the way and let her either fix or rip out those holy bits without interference.

---

[-18K Ryo, remaining: 5600]
[Mess construction underway]

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"Hmm..." you say to yourself. "... Then, I'll have to have our housekeeper prepare tea."

"I hope you don't mind that it's seasoned with the hearts-blood of our fallen foes." Nara continues seamlessly, sarcasm almost concealed.

"Shut up, you smug sack of fuck." Axe hisses under her breath, as the head Priestess nods.

"Your hospitality is acceptable, but it must be postponed until our duties are completed." the priestess says, without warmth in her words. Then she moves her arm sharply, setting off a jingle of bells, and the gathered attendants move to begin chanting in chorus while quickly dismantling the torii gates.

In turn, you send people to make sure tea is prepared, and withdraw.

"Nara... keep an eye on this. Don't interfere, but if something's going to explode or seal us into a rock for the next hundred years, I want to know about it before it goes off." you say, still a little uncomfortable ordering around people that could kill you with one finger while half asleep.

"Sensible enough." Nara agrees.

"Gods, you idiots are going to offend the priests and we're all going to wake up with demons sucking on our guts." Axe moans.

You shift in place, slightly unsettled by the mental images. Nara doesn't, and visibly scoffs.

"Any half-trained Chunin can come up with a Genjutsu like that, to explain sudden pain of injury." he grouses.

"How the hell are you so smart and so dumb all at once, you sanctimonious shit?" Axe groans. "Fuck, that's right, you were Leaf. Fucking leaf."

Nara arches an eyebrow.

"Probably never had to fight a demon yourself. God damn leaf. If it's not Senju sealing them in trees without breaking stride, it's the fucking Uchiha hunting them down for ritual meals. No smart demon sticks around in Fire country even with both those clans the way they are these days, and everyone else gets to just suck it up and deal."

"It's been a while since I was in Fire, and I still haven't seen anything like that." Nara argues rationally. "And the most you hear about it from villagers is superstitious gossip. The cow who you haven't been feeding as much isn't giving as much milk because a monster is drinking it in the night. The crops were bad this year because of a drought, it must be a curse. That kid knows too much, it's a witch, smother it in its sleep."

He shrugs.

"Baseless superstition." He concludes.

"Do you think there's no reason that the shrine tenders are the sealing masters? One of these days you're going to get your guts eaten." Axe warns, knuckles whitening.

"Possible. There's all manner of strange bloodlines and crazy people with power out there." Nara allows, without actually agreeing that monsters in the dark might be a thing to worry about. "For now, I'd rather focus on immediate concerns. Dealing with the monks and handling those kids."

He shakes his head and strolls off, leaving you briefly alone with Axe, who seems just about ready to split something in half from frustration before she stalks off in a different direction.

All in all, you're not completely unruffled when the time comes for tea. The head priestess seats herself elegantly across from you, for all the world as though she were just here on a diplomatic visit.

The tea is simple farmer's fare. Drinkable, but in an important meeting like this would normally be, roughly the same comparative quality as a steaming cup of fresh horse piss. It's the best you have to offer at the moment, however, so it's probably lucky that she's already overlooking some amount of decorum. If you'd scheduled a meeting, then you could have sent someone off for the requisite supplies, but that can't be helped now...

---

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