Chương 38: Chapter 25

Sunagakure Ryoma, Jonin"Jonin Ryoma." A familiar voice greeted him in a smooth tone. He turned his head slightly over and up to regard them, hands folded in his lap and legs loosely crossed. Mari's friend, Nagare, was standing to his right and looking down at his seated form. Her immense jugs secured to her shoulders with overlapping leather straps and hair hidden beneath a loose beige headdress. She carried two bags of what looked and smelled like take-out food.

"Mari's Friend." He greeted, a little amused smirk hidden beneath his veil.

"Fancy meeting you here."

"This is the Ninjutsu Corps HQ." She replied blandly. Ryoma glanced around, looking at the glazed clay walls, the tall arched roof, the regular and bold electrical lighting, the patterned tile flooring, and the comfortable reception chair he was sitting in. You could tell just by looking that the Ninjutsu Corps had cash to burn- mostly because ninjutsu were both powerful and cost chakra to utilize, rather than money.

The Eight Corps of Suna all received a set stipend from the central treasury and a small percentage of whatever their members earned from completing missions. Puppetry, Shiki, Sealing, Medical, Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, Barrier, Weaponry- all received the same base level stipend to keep existing, researching, and to pay for whatever facilities they needed to do both of those things. Anything more had to come from the paychecks of their members.

Many of the corps had either niche applications, so fewer applicants, or outstanding costs, so less liquid capital free to be used on whatever. The Puppeteers had the manufacturing costs and renting out the space for the silos, the Shiki and Sealing Corps both used big oversized tools in their 'standard' equipment loadouts, the Medical Corps made a lot of money and spent a lot of money on their potions and poisons and laboratories, and so on. Most didn't have much in the way of 'disposable' income.

The Ninjutsu Corps didn't have any of these issues- no big costs or shortage of members- and consequently had some of the fanciest looking facilities in Suna. When one considered this, and added that both the current and previous Kazekage were former members of their particular Corps, you ended up with an incredibly arrogant bunch.

Hence why when he swung by and requested a meeting for future business, the receptionist told him that he'd have to wait in the lobby until the Captain could meet with him- no specific time given. This was frustrating, because several people had requested meetings similar to him and had been allowed to enter immediately.

"So it is." Ryoma commented, turning back to her. He tried to think of a funny follow-up to that, but couldn't quite manage to come up with anything in time. Thinking was a bit difficult through the persistent irritation that was building up behind his eyes. Those were called 'headaches', he was pretty sure.

"Hello." Her eyes trailed up and down along his body once, before glancing up at the receptionist pretending to be working, and back to him.

"What brings you here, Jonin Ryoma?" She asked plainly, sounding like she was already pretty sure about the answer but asking to confirm anyways.

"Well." Ryoma leaned back and put on a falsely chipper tone.

"I had swung by to request a meeting- or if nothing else scheduled one for the future- to get a quote for a commission for custom work with the Ninjutsu Corps." He made sure to smile toothily, even if it couldn't be seen, and shake his head.

"It's just the darndest thing though- because I showed up four hours ago and have seen at least three unscheduled visits show up and processed while I waited." He stretched long, letting bones crack and pop as he did.

"It's enough to frustrate me, Miss Nagare, it's enough to make me grumble and squint. Heck, I might just lodge a formal letter of complaint to the Lord Kazekage and include very strong language." His tone conveyed a great deal more irritation than his words. She nodded slowly.

"I see. Are you intending to maintain secrecy about this commission?" She asked directly, tilting her head. He reached into his pocket to pull out the scroll in question detailing the process he needed to put wood through to densify it, and the amount that he would need for it, and tossed it over to her carelessly.

He realized immediately after that both of her hands were currently occupied, and reached out a string to- She caught it in her mouth, flawlessly, smoothly lowering the bags in her hands down to the ground before taking the scroll out of her teeth and gently patting it against her clothes. Then, as if she hadn't just done something incredibly odd, she took the scroll in both hands to unfurl and read through it. Ryoma wasn't really sure what his expression was at the moment.

His raised finger slowly lowered before his hand dropped entirely, returning to his side. She rolled it up again and handed it back to him, then bent at the knees to pick up her take-out bags again.

"I see. Would you like my independent referral to a specialist?" He considered that for about half a second, nodding as he pushed up from the chair.

"If you wouldn't mind- I'd love to take you up on that offer!" He gave a little half-grin, tucking the scroll away and bowing his head in thanks. She nodded again.

"Please follow me." She spoke, turning to start walking down a side-hall.

"The Captain will see you no-" The receptionist tried to call out, only to be interrupted by Ryoma's polite but firm refusal.

"Fuck off." He called out, waving a dismissive hand over his shoulder as he followed Nagare down the side-hall and towards another equally fancy section of the HQ. He could hear the receptionist trail off awkwardly behind him, and briefly felt bad about being rude to her before deciding that he was too annoyed to care. He made a mental note to not ask the Ninjutsu Captain for anything ever again.

"You have someone in mind already?" He asked, sighing and doing his best to shake off his ambient frustrations.

"I am capable of one step of the process. I am aware of one other who is capable of another one of the detailed steps, and I trust that she will know others who are capable of the last two."

"One of those steps is ultimately optional, mind you. I don't really need it to get the material I'm looking for." Ryoma made sure to clarify. Nagare nodded.

"I saw that." She stopped in front of a door that read 'Vice Captain', provoking a raised brow and glance from him. Not that she seemed to notice or heed either. Nagare set one bag of food down again, knocking on the door with the back of her knuckles, and calling out, "Vice Captain, I've returned with lunch and a guest."

"Come in." A female voice called out from inside, making Nagare nod, open the door, then reach down to take up her other bag again. She pushed the door open with one of her massive jugs, the ones slung next to her hips, and stepped inside. Ryoma followed politely, step hitching once as he saw who was on the other side of the door. Dark, seaweed-green hair tied back in a smooth bun, kept in place with a long bone needle. Uneven orange bangs that framed the sides of her face.

A long, sleeveless black top secured around her waist with a white obi. Faded amber eyes, fair skin, and light purple lipstick. She was certainly attractive, for sure, with a pretty face and rather shapely figure. However, what she was was very much secondary to who she was. Ryoma recognized this woman, the same way he might recognize Kazekage Rasa and for very similar reasons. Pakura of the Scorch, Hero of the Hidden Sand, one of the two S-Rank ninjas left in Suna, sat behind the desk.

He hadn't known she was the Vice-Captain of the Ninjutsu Corps- that wasn't very important compared to the fact that she was Pakura and therefore wielder of the Scorch-Release, the creative name for super-hot fire that magically dehydrated things into mummies by proximity. Ninja 'Ranks' were an imprecise science. It was tricky to get any clear delineation between what rank a ninja should be and why, the reasonings varying wildly from person to person and rankings riddled with exceptions and edge-cases.

Theoretically it was a measure of a ninja's overall threat and force-projection capacity, practically it was an argument about who could beat up who. Most of the time, earning the coveted status of S-Rank required a particularly noteworthy feat that others could point to and say 'that's it, they're S-rank for sure'. Pakura's feat was fighting Han of the Steam, a ninja of Iwa, to a standstill in the middle of the largest battle on the Suna-Iwa front during the Third Ninja War.

This alone didn't sound all that impressive until one learned that Han of the Steam was a Jinchuriki, had a massive primordial chakra-demon sealed inside of him, and had been wearing that chakra-demon's form and trying to trample the Suna forces while Pakura had fought him. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

A Jinchuriki who could do that was so far beyond Ryoma's league it wasn't even funny- so a woman who could actively brawl with one and not die was similarly intimidating. He wasn't sure how exactly she did it- he wasn't present on that battlefield when it went down, but he was relatively certain that she had used her magic dehydration-fire to hard-counter the giant steam demon. Currently, she was looking into one of the bags of take out with a curious eye.

"Hm- They gave us a lot of sauce, huh?"

"I asked for extra." Nagare explained calmly, sitting down on the other side of the desk and taking out a pair of chopsticks.

"Their mayonnaise is very good."

"This is a lot of mayonnaise."

"Yes."

"I see." Ryoma couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he was starting to think that Nagare and Pakura were rather similar. The Hero of Suna pulled out her dish, a basket-tray of fried fish covered in a frankly unreasonable amount of mayo, and set it aside to look up at him.

"Who is this, Nagare?"

"Jonin Ryoma of the Puppeteer Corps." Nagare explained, pulling out her own tray of fried fish drowned in mayo, setting it to the side and starting to neatly fold the take-out bag up for disposal.

"He has been waiting in the reception for a meeting with Captain Udekabe. I offered a direct referral."

"Ah." Pakura nodded, taking a large bite of her mayo-slathered fried fish and turning towards him. It had to be a large bite too, because the quantity of mayo on the fried fillet was enough to slightly increase the bulk of the actual food. The sight of mayo spilling a bit over her lips and onto her chin was somewhat distracting. Not too distracting though- because mayo was gross and Ryoma didn't like it anywhere near his food.

She had clearly intended to speak earlier, but had to work through her bite of food slightly longer than anticipated. She raised a hand apologetically before slightly covering her mouth, cheeks distended, and turning slightly to the side to finish. Ryoma raised a brow, glancing over at Nagare to see her politely gorging herself on the fish and mayo. The room was dominated by the sounds of quiet but furious chewing for a few long awkward moments.

Ryoma reached up to scratch at his neck, politely looking away and waiting to be properly addressed. Finally, a swallow.

"My apologies." Pakura said, provoking him to turn back.

"The fish is more chewy than I was expecting." He reached up to gesture at the corner of his mouth.

"You uh- got some mayo here-" She nodded, reaching over to take a napkin and wiping at the corners of her lips before carefully scrunching it up and gently dropping it into a trash bin.

"I am Pakura, Vice-Captain of the Ninjutsu Corps. What is the nature of this meeting?" Ryoma reached into his vest and pulled out the scroll, stepping forwards to gently hand it over.

"There's a process I need to perform on wood to densify it- but the Puppetry Corps doesn't have the right tools for it. I was hoping to commission specialists of the Ninjutsu Corps to make it for me- at least five thousand pounds of raw material in the form of debarked logs." He shrugged.

"At the very least, I'd like an estimate for how much you'd charge for it so I can judge if I can afford it or not. If I can't, I'll just have to use untreated wood." Pakura listened carefully to his words, nodding slowly before unfurling the scroll across the table in front of her. As she read, she leaned to the side and took another large bite of the mayo-fish, chewing thoughtfully and making sure her mouth wasn't over the scroll.

A drop of mayo fell onto the front of her dress, a spot of white against black, which he did his best to ignore. Eventually, she swallowed and wiped her lips off again.

"I will need at least three others for this- those capable of general elemental manipulation are not usually skilled enough to perform the processes outlined here. I have two in mind, including Nagare, but one is currently on a mission."

"So four mission-payments then?" Ryoma asked, scratching at his chin with a thoughtful expression. Better than he had feared, worse than he had hoped.

"Do you have a general price point in mind?"

"No more than a C-Rank Mission, but you will be required to provide the sodium sulfite and unprocessed wood. We will be able to begin as soon as the last of four return from their mission- I do not anticipate them taking longer than a month to return." C-Rank meant anywhere from thirty-thousand to one-hundred thousand Ryo, worst case scenario was he had to wait a month and shell out four-hundred thousand to get the wood he needed to layer over the metal skeleton-frame and make the wooden… muscle?

That would be the analogous component here, but it didn't operate anything like meat-muscles so it didn't feel quite right to say. Again, worse than he had hoped, better than he had feared. Random delays like that were part of his initial calculation of 'six months to two-years', and he wasn't at all surprised by it. Ryoma nodded, ignoring the distracting sounds of Nagare chowing down on her second large mayo-fish.

"That sounds agreeable to me- please send word when you can get started. I'll pay the standard half up front and half upon completion."

"I suppose, being a puppeteer, you will need to make a purchase like this several times throughout your career?" She asked in a relatively blunt manner.

"Why not simply develop the ninjutsu or machinery required to perform this process yourself?" Ryoma raised his brows before shrugging. Of course an S-Ranker would say 'why not just develop the 2-3 elemental manipulation talents yourself?' There's a reason that they were an S-Ranker.

"By the time I could create the tools to create the material to build my tools- I could've just paid the professionals to make the material so I could build my tools several times over. I can always get more money, I can never get more time." A thoughtful, contemplative look crossed her eyes.

"I suppose so. Is there anything else, Jonin Ryoma?" She rolled up the scroll again and handed it back to him.

"Nah- that's it from me." He waved off, putting the scroll away with his other hand. Naturally, even if the secret scroll wasn't actually that big of a secret or important, ninja had a cultural impetus to return them and politely maintain the illusion that they weren't constantly stealing ideas from each other. If he had put it in a folder or something, it might have been stolen before the day was over.

But because he put it in a scroll, the ninja-brain defaulted to 'clan secrets of an ally' and thus hesitated to just take and read it. Or something like that- it was a theory-in-progress at the moment. He turned to leave, before pausing and turning back to the Hero of the Hidden Sand.

"Actually, thinking about it, I do have a question. If you don't mind me asking." She nodded, letting her orange bangs bounce again. He raised a hand to gesture at them.

"What's with the orange-bangs and green hair- is that just a fashion thing or-?" Pakura visibly slouched and groaned.

"No- That's a- Ugh." She raised a hand to hold a lock out, glaring ruefully at it.

"They're a consequence of Scorch Release- it's been turning my hair orange, going from the tips and working their way up. I've been trying to dye them- but they turn the dye into steam before it has the chance to work." She shook her head, dropping the bang and tapping herself on the shoulders.

"They remove the color from all my clothes too- I've had to get this top re-dyed a half-dozen times by now."

"Huh." Ryoma replied intelligently.

"Makes sense- sorry to hear that." She waved him off.

"It's fine- I just have to live with it now. Maybe I'll start wearing white in a few years." She let out an annoyed huff and leaned back in her chair.

"I had a 'look' and everything too- black primary, light purple secondary, dark green tertiary. If it was all the way orange now I could just get a new look- but it's only changing my bangs!" She threw her hands up with a glare at nothing and a scowl on her lips. She leaned forwards and took an angry bite of her chewy mayo-fish, clearly working through her frustration with food. He nodded.

"Alright then- I won't take up any more of your time. Thank you for the quote." She nodded as he turned towards Nagare, who was now licking mayo off her lips with an expressionless face.

"And thank you for the referral, Miss Nagare." She nodded at him, her serious expression at odds with the pinky in her lips and the rapid use of a napkin to remove the saliva from her fingers. He waved and moved out the door, shutting it behind him gently and making his way back towards the door. …Ugh, he could still smell the mayo. Who the heck asks for extra mayo?