Naruto: SL Ch. 03

Chapter 03 - Inventory Check

Three days of eating soup and pretending to be weaker than he was had given Shikaki enough strength to walk without looking like a newborn deer. More importantly, it had given him time to memorize the guard rotations.

Morning shift change: 6 AM sharp.

Evening shift: 6 PM, give or take five minutes depending on who was running late.

Night shift: Midnight, unless someone was fucking someone else's wife, then it could be 12:30.

Right now it was 6:07 AM, which meant New Guy was on duty. New Guy who spent more time checking his reflection in his sword than watching the hallway.

Why was he still calculating his odds? Well, it was pretty boring here...

He pulled himself to sitting, waited for the room to stop spinning, then reached into his jacket's inner lining. His fingers found the edge of a storage scroll, small enough to miss unless you knew where to look.

The seal work was smudged. He pressed a drop of blood to it and pushed the smallest amount of chakra he could manage.

The scroll unsealed with a soft pop that New Guy definitely didn't hear over his own humming.

Contents: Pathetic but better than nothing.

Three soldier pills that looked intact. Two blood replenishment pills that had gone a suspicious green color. A stack of chakra paper, maybe twenty sheets. Basic seal supplies like ink that had partially dried, brushes that had seen better days, and his personal journal written in a cipher that would take a Nara about ten minutes to crack and anyone else never.

He resealed everything immediately.

The door opened without warning because of course it did.

"Oh!" The servant girl froze in the doorway. "I didn't... you're awake."

"Disappointing, I know."

She was carrying fresh bandages and what looked like breakfast. Her hands only shook a little this time.

Shikaki had already started drawing on the floor with a piece of charcoal he'd pocketed from the breakfast tray yesterday. Nothing complex, just a basic privacy seal that would muffle sound. To her, it probably looked like random scribbles.

"What are you doing?" she asked, curious despite her fear.

"Meditation circle. From my homeland."

"Oh." She set the tray down carefully, watching him draw. "It's... pretty? What does it do?"

"Keeps the ghosts out."

Her face went pale. "There are ghosts here?"

"There are ghosts everywhere. Most of them are just memories." He finished the last symbol. "But they hate circles. Geometry confuses them."

She stared at him, clearly trying to decide if he was joking. "You're very strange."

"Thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"I'm choosing to take it as one. Makes my day better."

She left quickly, probably to report the weird merchant drawing on floors. Eccentric was safer than dangerous, right?

The moment the door closed, Shikaki activated the privacy seal. The air shimmered briefly, then settled. Anyone listening would hear vague mumbling at best.

Time to figure out what the fuck that pool had done to him.

He started with basic chakra molding, the kind they taught Academy students. Channel chakra, shape it, direct it.

Except his chakra moved like honey mixed with tar.

"Well, that's not good," he muttered.

He tried again, pushing harder. The chakra moved, but it was dense, thick, like trying to pump syrup through veins meant for water. He used a basic technique. Shadow Imitation, targeting the rat that lived in the corner and had been stealing his bread.

His shadow extended normally at first, shooting across the floor toward the rodent. Then it kept going. And going. And going.

It didn't stop.

It spread across the entire floor like spilled ink.

"Fuck." He yanked back on his chakra.

The shadow snapped back but not all the way. It pooled around him in a circle three times wider than it should be. The rat squeaked in terror and fled through a crack in the wall.

"Can't blame you, buddy. I'd run from me too."

He tried again, this time with more focus. Extended his shadow just a foot. It worked, but he could feel the chakra wanting to spread, like water finding its level. The control was there, but it required constant attention.

Curious, he touched the cup on his breakfast tray, then extended his chakra into its shadow. Normal technique would be to connect his shadow to the cup's shadow. But with this dense chakra...

The cup's shadow expanded, growing from a small oval to a pool of darkness the size of a dinner plate. Then bigger. Then...

"Shit." He cut the flow, and the shadow snapped back to normal size. But for a moment, he'd made a teacup cast a shadow like it was a barrel.

He tried with other objects. The chair shadow he could expand to cover half the room. A spoon became a sword-length shadow. Even his own shadow, when he pushed chakra into it, spread like he was standing under two suns at once.

The Nara techniques were about precision, about using shadows as tools. This was like someone had given him a fire hose when he'd asked for a garden sprinkler. Same principle, way too much pressure.

But there was something else. A pull, constant and insistent, toward the center of the city. Like iron filings feeling a magnet, except the magnet was apparently the Ryūmyaku.

He could feel it through the stone, through the air, through everything. A pulse that matched no heartbeat he knew. When he molded chakra, it felt like the Ryūmyaku responded, adding its own rhythm to his.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Someone knocked on the door. Three sharp raps. Masaru.

Shikaki quickly smudged the privacy seal with his foot, breaking the effect. "Meditation time is private! I'm very busy in here with... personal matters."

"Sāra-sama requests your presence."

"Tell her that I'm currently indisposed. Very thoroughly indisposed. With my right hand. If you catch my meaning."

There was a long pause. Then, in a tone dry enough to cure meat: "I caught it. Threw it back. Get dressed."

"Already dressed. That's the beauty of sleeping in clothes, always ready for disappointment."

"Two minutes, or I'm coming in."

"Kinky, but I don't swing that way, Captain~."

He heard Masaru's footsteps retreat, probably to stand at a distance where he wouldn't have to think about what he'd just heard.

Shikaki stood, immediately regretting it when the room tilted. He had to catch himself on the wall, and noticed his shadow stretched further than it should when he did, like it was trying to provide more surface area for stability.

"Interesting," he muttered, then louder: "Coming! But not in the way I was planning!"

He opened the door to find Masaru standing exactly ten feet away, looking like he'd eaten something sour.

"Was that really necessary?"

"You interrupted a man's private time. Turnabout's fair play."

"You weren't actually—"

"How would you know? Were you watching? Because that's a whole different conversation about boundaries and I'll need to charge admission."

Masaru's eye twitched. "Just... follow me. And stop talking."

"Stopping talking costs extra."

They walked through hallways that probably looked impressive if you hadn't seen actual hidden villages. Rōran's palace was all curves and flowing lines, built to channel wind through the structure. Pretty, but tactically stupid. Too many blind corners, and not enough defensive positions.

"Admiring the architecture?"

"Wondering who designed it. They were either an artist or an idiot."

"The third queen's consort, actually. He was from the Land of Wind's capital. Wanted to bring culture to our 'quaint desert town.'"

"So an artistic idiot with a superiority complex. The trifecta of bad design."

"He fell off one of his own balconies. The wind channels he designed created an updraft that—"

"Pushed him off? Hahaha, that's beautiful. Killed by his own pretension. There's a lesson there."

"Several, I'd imagine."

They stopped at a door marked with symbols Shikaki didn't recognize.

"Sāra-sama is inside. Try not to scandalize her with your... directness."

"I'll be the picture of propriety. Assuming the picture was painted by someone very drunk."

Masaru opened the door and gestured him through.

Sāra was sitting at a low table, tea service set for two. She looked up when he entered, and he noticed the dark circles under her eyes. Girl wasn't sleeping well.

"Thank you for coming," she said, gesturing to the cushion across from her.

"Your captain made it clear that refusing wasn't really an option. Something about coming in whether I was finished or not. Very forward of him."

Sāra blinked. "Finished with what?"

"Meditation? Very intense meditation. Sometimes requires... manual assistance."

"I don't understand."

Masaru, from the doorway: "And you don't want to. I'll be outside if you need me, Sāra-sama."

He closed the door firmly.

Sāra poured tea, the ceremony of it giving her something to do with her hands. "I wanted to ask you about something."

"If it's about my meditation technique, I'm afraid that's a trade secret."

"It's about where we found you."

Ah. Here it comes.

"Near the Ryūmyaku chamber," she continued, watching his face. "The passages to that area have been sealed for a while. Since my mother's time."

"Sealed doesn't mean impossible to access. Just means difficult."

"The seals were intact."

"From the outside, maybe."

She set down her teacup carefully. "You came from inside the chamber."

Not a question.

"I was dying," he said simply. "Crawling through caves, following the only light I could see. I don't remember most of it. Just pain and blue light and then waking up here."

"The Ryūmyaku is special to our city. It's the reason we can exist here, in the middle of the desert. The reason anything grows."

"Magic water source. Got it."

"It's more than that." She hesitated, clearly debating how much to share with a stranger. "My mother believed it was alive. Not conscious, but aware. She said it could sense intentions... Desires."

"And what does it desire?"

"To be used, she thought. But carefully. Respectfully." She laughed, bitter. "She also thought it would protect us forever. Then she died, and half our farmland turned to sand within a year."

"Correlation isn't causation."

"Isn't it? The desert's been advancing ever since. Slowly, but steadily. Like it's reclaiming what was always theirs. We estimate another twenty years before the outer districts are uninhabitable. Fifty before the entire city is sand."

"Unless?"

"Unless we find another way. Trade, maybe. Connections to the outside world. But we're so isolated, and the few traders who come charge prices we can barely afford." She looked at him directly. "You're a merchant. You understand trade routes, supply and demand. Could you help us establish new trade connections?"

"With what? You have water and food, but so does everyone else who isn't in a desert. What's your unique export?"

She was quiet for a moment. "We have craftsmen. Potters, weavers. And..." She hesitated again. "We have knowledge. Old knowledge. My grandmother collected scrolls from across the continent. History, philosophy, even some basic medical texts."

"Knowledge doesn't sell unless it's practical."

"Then what do you suggest?"

"Stop trying to be what you're not. You're not a trade hub, you're not a military power, you're not a cultural center. You're a city that exists where it shouldn't. That's your selling point."

"I don't follow."

"Neutrality. You're so isolated that nobody considers you a threat. No alliances to complicate things. No armies to worry about. You could be a neutral ground. A place where enemies could meet safely."

"We don't have the defenses for that."

"You don't need defenses if everyone agrees you're not worth attacking."

She considered this. "It's an interesting thought. But it would require everyone to know we exist first."

"Start small. Send messages to the minor villages. The ones too small for the big five to care about. Offer to host diplomatic meetings. Charge for the service."

"And when the major villages notice?"

"By then you're established as neutral territory. Attacking you would be like attacking a monastery. Bad for everyone's reputation."

"You've thought about this before."

"I think about everything. It's a terrible habit that's kept me alive."

She poured more tea. "There's another matter. The children in the city... many of them can't read or write. Their parents are laborers, can't afford teachers."

"And?"

"You can read and write. Obviously. Merchants have to for contracts."

"You want me to teach children?" He couldn't keep the disbelief out of his voice. "Have you met me? I told a servant I eat people on Tuesdays."

"She mentioned that. She's been checking what day it is every morning since."

"See? I'm not exactly teacher material."

"You're literate, you're here, and you're being paid room and board while contributing nothing to the city's function."

"I'm contributing my sparkling personality."

"... Sadly, that's a deficit, not a contribution."

He actually laughed at that. "Hahaha, fair point. But why would I agree to this?"

"Because I'll pay you. And because it's either that or I let Masaru assign you to manual labor. He's suggested the sewage treatment facility needs workers."

"Oh, that's extortion."

"I believe it's called negotiation. You taught me that."

"I'm regretting that lesson already."

"Two hours a day, three days a week. Basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. I'll pay you the standard teacher's wage plus a bonus for materials."

"What materials?"

"Whatever you need to keep the children from running away screaming."

"That'll be expensive. Children are naturally repelled by my presence."

"Then consider it a challenge. You seem to enjoy those."

He was trapped and they both knew it. Teaching kids was better than shoveling shit, marginally.

"Fine. But when they all end up traumatized and illiterate, that's on you."

"I'll take that risk." She stood, then paused. "One more thing. We had scouts near the eastern border yesterday."

"Bandits?"

"That's what we're hoping. But they moved like they were trained, military trained."

"Which military?"

"If we knew that, we'd be less worried." She moved to the window, looking out at her city. "Masaru thinks they were testing our response time."

"What was your response time?"

"Twelve minutes to mobilize. Another five to reach the border."

"Damn, that's terrible."

"I know."

"No, I mean that's genuinely impressive for a civilian city. Most villages would take twice that."

She turned, surprised. "Really?"

"You have no standing army, no ninja corps, and you still got people moving in under twenty minutes? That's not bad. It's not good, but it's not bad."

"But if they were scouts—"

"They learned you're not completely helpless. That's actually good. Completely helpless cities get raided. Partially defended cities get negotiations."

"You sound like you have experience with this."

"I've seen enough cities fall to know the patterns. The ones that survive are the ones that look just tough enough to be annoying but not tough enough to be threatening."

"And we're that?"

"Yeah, you're getting there. Might want to put some scarecrows in armor on the walls though. Numbers matter, even fake ones."

"That's... actually not a terrible idea."

"I have those occasionally. Usually by accident."

A knock at the door interrupted them. Masaru entered without waiting for permission.

"Sāra-sama, we have another situation."

"The scouts?"

"No. The water level in the eastern reservoir is dropping. The engineers can't explain it."

Sāra's face went pale. "How much?"

"Three inches since this morning."

"That's impossible. That reservoir is fed by—" She cut herself off, glancing at Shikaki.

"By your magical water source that definitely doesn't exist," he finished.

"You knew?"

"Isolated city in the middle of a desert with green plants and flowing water? Either you have the world's best irrigation or something unnatural. I'm betting on unnatural."

"The Ryūmyaku has never failed before."

"Everything fails eventually. Question is whether it's failing or being redirected."

"Redirected?"

"Water doesn't just disappear. It goes somewhere. If your reservoir is dropping but the source is still flowing, means someone or something is taking it before it reaches you."

Masaru stepped forward. "We should investigate immediately."

"We should investigate carefully," Shikaki corrected. "If someone's stealing your water, they're either desperate or powerful. Either way, rushing in is stupid."

"I don't recall asking your opinion, merchant."

"No, but you're getting it free of charge. Consider it a sample of my consulting services."

Sāra looked between them. "Send a small team. Observers only. I want to know what's happening before we act."

"I'll go myself," Masaru said.

"No. You're needed here. Send Hiroshi and two guards."

"Hiroshi's an accountant."

"Who notices discrepancies better than an accountant? Besides, if it's something supernatural, guards won't help anyway."

Masaru bowed stiffly and left.

Sāra turned back to Shikaki. "You think it's something supernatural?"

"I think your magical water source that's been working for generations doesn't just stop without reason. Either something's blocking it, or something's drinking it."

"Drinking it?"

"Metaphorically. Probably. Though in this world, who knows? Could be a really thirsty demon."

"That's not helpful."

"I'm not trying to be helpful. I'm trying to be accurate."

She sighed. "Everything's falling apart."

"Everything's always falling apart. Entropy is the natural state of the universe. The miracle is that sometimes things hold together at all."

"That's depressing."

She was quiet for a moment. "You're not really a merchant, are you?"

"I'm exactly what I told you I was. A person who trades things for other things."

"But that's not all you are."

"Nobody is just one thing. Even you're not just a queen. You're also a teenage girl trying to save a dying city while pretending you know what you're doing."

"I do know what I'm doing."

"No, you don't. But that's fine. Nobody does. We're all just making it up as we go and hoping nobody notices."

"Even you?"

"Especially me. I'm making this conversation up right now. It's exhausting."

She almost smiled. "Start teaching the children tomorrow. There's a room in the east wing you can use."

"The one that smells like cabbage?"

"That's the one."

"Fantastic. Nothing says education like the stench of rotting vegetables."

"It builds character, according to my tutors."

"Your tutors were sadists."

"Yes. That's why I'm inflicting you on the next generation."

"Wow, the cycle of abuse continues."

This time she did smile. "Get out of my office. I have a water crisis to manage."

"Want advice?"

"From you?"

"Check underground. Water flows down. If someone's redirecting it, they're probably doing it from below."

"That's actually logical."

"I have my moments."

He left her there, surrounded by reports and responsibilities too big for someone her age. But then, everyone in this world grew up too fast. At least she was trying to build something instead of destroying it.

That was more than most could say.

Including him.

He headed back to his room to prepare for teaching children.

Somehow, that was scarier than the war had been.