When dawn came, Nara Suzaku still hadn't returned. Ami had woken Tsuzumi easily, the sensei's eyes flickering open before she had even reached down to shake his shoulder. He'd moved to the wash room to clean up, and Ami had gone into the adjacent room to try and wake the other chunin.

Both men were still asleep, and Ami had to resort to slapping their faces before their eyes even opened. After waking they stared vacantly at the ceiling, not speaking or moving.

"Okei! Okei, wake up, you drunk!" Ami slapped the chunin again, though he was already awake. Deciding she would never get this opportunity again, Ami spent a good deal of time striking their faces, poking their noses, and physically lifting their eyelids. She finally got a response when she emptied a canteen of lukewarm water over Hayase's wide, spiky hair.

"Eh, leave me alone," the man groaned, pulling the blanket over his face.

Ami stripped the blanket away and pulled at the man's hair. "Wake up! There's a mission, it's dangerous!"

"What's the point. Let me rest."

Ami still hadn't managed to properly rouse them by the time Tsuzumi left the wash room.

"There's something wrong with them," she muttered, experimentally jabbing Okei with a senbon, and getting only a grunt of vague disapproval in response.

For once, Tsuzumi didn't look happy, and went through his own litany of slaps and yells. Growing desperate, he tried to feed Okei a soldier pill, but the man just chewed mechanically and showed no improvement. Tsuzumi swept out of the room, and returned a minute later with alarm in his eyes.

"This is bad, Ami. The traders are all the same."

"Is it a jutsu?" she asked.

"I don't know. This is bad, maybe some kind of poison. We have to find Nara-san."

"But we didn't turn lazy like them," Ami mused. "We must be immune."

"No, we ate differently to the rest. There may have been something in the food yesterday." Tsuzumi paced agitatedly as he spoke, worrying the knuckle of his thumb with his teeth. Ami had never seen her sensei so tense, he was usually the one diffusing the situation, but he'd transformed into a bundle of nerves.

"Come on, get your things. We'll try and track down Nara-san."

o o o

Ami had followed her sensei for half an hour of running across board-walks, up the sides of buildings, and jumps between trees, before they reached the elegant house at the address Coda had given him on their separation the previous night. The secretary's home was richly decorated, and had a clay tile roof rather than the simple wooden planks that covered the majority of the Numa-Ku's buildings. Standing on dozens of tall stilts, the building was more or less at ground level, eschewing the trees in favour of a stable platform driven deep into the marsh mud.

The woman opened the door after the second time Tsuzumi knocked. She was wearing a casual kimono, and her hair was in disarray, completely different from the meticulously refined image she'd offered the day before.

"Oh, Sarugaku-san? I didn't expect to see you so soon," she said to Tsuzumi, obviously uncomfortable at the intrusion.

"Ah, Coda-san, I'm here to ask about Suzaku. The last I saw of him, he was returning here with you?"

The woman's cheeks flushed, and she opened the door. "Please, come in."

She led them into a tidy living room, richly furnished with low couches at either side of a central table. She beckoned them to sit and rushed into the kitchen, returning moments later with a pitcher of green juice and several glasses. She joined them at the low table, pouring herself a drink.

"Nara-san did return here with me. He told me he wanted to speak to me in private, and naturally I thought..." the woman flushed again, and spared a glance at Ami. "Well, that wasn't his intention. He did just want to speak."

"What did you talk about?" Tsuzumi asked.

Ami reached for a glass of the juice, but Tsuzumi caught her eye and shook his head minutely, and she turned the motion into stretch.

"Oh, he had so many questions, about our city, our history. He asked about our social problems, our religion, our agriculture. It was almost an interrogation." The woman drank from her own glass, and her blush faded as she began to slip into her role as a hostess. "I'm sorry, have you eaten yet? Would you like some breakfast?"

"No, we're fine, thank you. When did he leave here, and do you know where he went?" Tsuzumi asked.

Ami silently thought that she would actually appreciate breakfast, but could see the logic in refusing.

"I'm not sure where he went. But... he seemed most interested in one of our farms, a site several miles away. I'm not sure if he headed that way, the only way to get there is by boat. He also showed interest in the temple, though if I'm honest, he doesn't strike me as the religious type."

"Where is the farm, and the temple?"

Coda gave Tsuzumi directions to both, and they left quickly after that. The farm Suzaku had seemed so interested in was several miles travel to the east, as many as three hours away even assuming both were running over water, which Ami hadn't even attempted yet. The temple was reportedly on the outskirts of town, one of the few buildings that rested on solid ground, built on the flattened surface of an enormous rock which had been drawn up from beneath the marsh during the second shinobi war.

"If he went to the temple, dummy-san could have trapped him," Ami muttered.

"If he even escaped the poison," Tsuzumi added, unhappily.

"What should we do sensei?"

"We have to check the temple. That's the most dangerous place. If Nara-san reached it, he'll need my help. We can scout it from outside. If he's not there, I'll have to visit their farm while you run back to Konoha for help."

"On my own?" Ami asked, startled.

"You're a shinobi, aren't you?"

o o o

The temple turned out to be actually more of a converted function hall, resting at a slight slope on top of a broken square of mossy stone. It was made up of a large central hall, and two stubby wings which abutted it to the left and right. The exterior was ornately carved, the walls dotted with square buttresses whose tops were chiselled into large frog faces. In places the remnants of painted enamel plates could be seen, hinting at elaborate decoration in the city's more prosperous past.

The pair had found a nearby rooftop from which they could see the front of the temple, but Tsuzumi's attempts to scout the interior were frustrated by the building's small, almost completely opaque windows. Relatively few of the houses and structures in Numa-Ku had glass windows, but the temple was one of them. Dark and dirty glass filled every arch, making it impossible to see inside.

"Come on, Ami-chan. Time for plan B," Tsuzumi said, drawing a kunai, and moving to stand.

"Wait, something's happening," Ami hissed, her eyes fixed on the temple door.

Tsuzumi crouched, and there was a movement at the door to the temple. It opened, and a bald man in dark red robes emerged. He closed the door behind him, then walked off quickly, eastwards down the board-walk which encircled the town. The pair waited until he was out of sight behind the clustering houses and warehouses that filled the outskirts of the floating city.

"Ah, that's even better eh Ami-chan," Tsuzumi said, smiling.

Something in Ami's chest relaxed at the return of her sensei's smile, however forced, and she followed him down to the temple door. The door opened without sound.

Compared to its exterior, the inside of the central hall was almost austere. There were no rugs to decorate the floor, which was formed of the polished stone on which the building sat. The edge of the room was dotted with simple clay urns of varying sizes, plain and unadorned, and towards the back of the room was the only hint that the room was used as a temple - a simple wooden altar, though where there should have been a picture or idol of a deity, there was only a hanging black curtain, with a single symbol written in white paint: 'Nothing'. The central chamber had two exits, each would lead to a corridor of one of the wings they'd seen from above.

"Do you sense anyone present?" Tsuzumi whispered, looking around the room, then turned to Ami.

Ami shrugged exaggeratedly, and gave her sensei an expression that suggested he was stupid.

"Ah-ha, right, just a little genin. You take the left wing, I'll look in the right. Look for any evidence, or any sign of Nara-san." Tsuzumi began moving off towards the right hand door, and Ami slipped to the left.

She didn't know what Tsuzumi had meant by 'evidence', but the first room along the corridor branching away to the left was obviously someone's bedroom. There was a low bed covered in dark red sheets, a bookcase of scrolls, a square chest at the foot of the bed, and a large desk covered in paper and calligraphy equipment. Ami checked the chest first, and she felt like her eyes must be bulging when she found several neat stacks of money inside.

"Sorry dummy-san. The spoils of war," Ami said lightly as she picked up the bundles and stuffed the notes into her pouch. The pair of scrolls which were the chest's only other contents followed the ryo into her soon bulging equipment pouch almost as an afterthought; their titles seemed boring, but they were clearly prized, and their loss could only inconvenience the man who'd tried to kill her.

The second room contained what Ami realised was a clue. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all covered in enormously intricate calligraphy. Circles within circles, within spirals, surrounded by characters she'd never seen before. She understood in theory that sealing existed, and was considered an art, but she'd never seen an example of it that left her in awe before. At the centre of it all was a huge clay urn, as tall as she was, and similarly painted with obscure markings. The only word she did recognize in the mess of ink covering the urn was the word 'womb', written large, and in a space of its own on the urn's side.

She was distracted from her reverie by the sound of metal striking against metal from behind her in the main room. She ran through, and saw her sensei shuffling backwards, parrying strikes from the naginata held by the mercenary from the inn the previous day.

"Spear-san!"

"Ah-ha, would you like to help Ami? It's good training," Tsuzumi huffed out in a rush.

Tsuzumi raised his kunai to block a strike from the mercenary, which turned out to be a feint, the naginata changing direction in mid swing and slicing forward in a thrust, catching along the Tsuzumi's bicep. The chunin spun out of the way and tossed a pair of shuriken in response, which the mercenary simply endured, the padded material of his shirt reducing the impacts to shallow cuts.

Ami drew and tossed a kunai at the man, which he easily parried with the haft of the naginata, even as he launched into another flurry of attacks at her sensei. Ami noticed the bulk of the man's style seemed to focus on strikes from the side, at the shoulder and feet, debilitating strikes which her sensei was easily parrying, but would occasionally be reversed into unexpected thrusts at the last moment, it was in that way that the mercenary had managed to score a couple of shallow cuts on her sensei's arm and leg, while keeping him too far away, and too pressured from the chunin to mount a counter-attack.

Ami turned half away and put her hands to her equipment pouch for several seconds, hearing her sensei give another grunt as he took another shallow cut from the blade. The next kunai she threw was also batted side, but the mercenary missed the pair of senbon which followed, and they thudded into his chest. The man grunted, but the needles didn't seem to have penetrated as deeply as they should have, caught on the man's coat.

The mercenary, seemingly worried by Ami's intervention, began to press the attack, aiming for a fatal strike. Tsuzumi tried to use the new aggression as an opening to get inside his guard, but was pushed backwards in the fury of the assault, and was forced to draw a second kunai to better parry the unexpected thrusts.

Ami ran behind the mercenary, drawing a third kunai, and running at his back with the blade poised to stab. The mercenary didn't even look behind him, simply spinning the haft of the naginata back to strike her head. The blow landed in the existing bruise on the side of her head, and Ami staggered backwards, momentarily blinded by pain, half falling to her knees.

The mercenary was pressing her sensei hard, and with the reach advantage granted by his weapon, they seemed about even. As a shinobi, Tsuzumi had any number of additional weapons and techniques at his disposal, but he was being kept too far away to use taijutsu for anything but blocking, and he wasn't being given a moment to string together any hand seals for ninjutsu.

As Ami contemplated what she could do to help, she noticed the cool ground beneath her hand, the polished stone of the temple floor, and a memory of the journey surfaced.

She strung together hand seals, slowly, deliberately, before slapping her hands onto the ground, shouting "Doton: Open Pit technique!"

The ground beneath the mercenary was yanked down with a cracking sound, and he dropped. He fell only a little under a foot, and Ami's sensei had been caught in the edge of the area, but it was enough to momentarily unbalance the mercenary and deny him the mobility he needed to use his weapon effectively. Tsuzumi immediately kicked the naginata out of his hands, and sent a second, almost contemptuous kick to the mercenary's head. The ronin slumped unconscious over the edge of the pit.

Ami took a second to catch her breath, and raised a hand above her head. "Victory!"

"Nice one, Ami," Tsuzumi said as he regained his breath. "He shouldn't have underestimated you, eh?"

"Yeah," Ami said, walking up to the unconscious man and slapping his face several times with the sole of her foot. "You should have killed me when you had the chance."

"Ah-ha, don't gloat, Ami-chan," Tsuzumi said, shooing away her foot and pulling a bundle of wire to tie the unconscious mercenary's hands and feet.

"Oh, Sensei, I found a clue."

Tsuzumi looked up from the binding. "Show me."

Ami led her sensei to the room with the large urn, and he had his own moment of awe as he examined the room in detail. "I bet Nara-san would love to get a look at this."

"Euuuh-" a noise came from the urn.

Ami and Tsuzumi leapt backwards from the noise, Tsuzumi with his kunai at the ready.

"I-is Nara-san in the pot, sensei?" Ami asked, shakily.

"Wait here." Tsuzumi inched forward, lifted the urn lid, and peeked inside. He reeled away with a hand to his mouth, letting the lid clatter down. He swayed for a moment, then vomited onto the carefully inscribed floor.

"Nara-san?" Ami said, rushing forward to look.

"N-no! Not Nara-san. Some townspeople." Tsuzumi said, spitting, and stopping her with a raised hand. Ami saw him reach into his equipment pouch, drawing an explosive tag. "I think... I think he's making a doki in there. Go wait in the main room, Ami."

Ami did as her sensei instructed, and a few seconds later he came sprinting down the corridor after her. He swept up the mercenary over one shoulder, and darted to the door. "Come on," he said quickly, gesturing with his head for her to follow as he almost bounced on the spot.

There was a muted explosion from the urn room. Ami moved to follow, paused, and after a moment's thought kicked the naginata up into her hands before following Tsuzumi from the temple.

o o o

"It's up here, sensei!"

Ami led Tsuzumi up along a series bridges and tree trunks towards the derelict house where she'd fought Koka the previous night.

"This looks fine," Tsuzumi said, dropping the mercenary into a corner of what remained of the building.

The explosive tag Ami had set off had apparently destroyed most of the wooden platform in front of the house, and had taken some of its front wall away, but its supports were still surprisingly sound, and most of the damage to the building's roof looked like old wear - pieces which were missing before Ami ever used it as a battleground.

"We can interrogate him here, and watch for Nara-san coming back to the inn at the same time."

"Okay! I call torture," Ami said, slipping her hand into her equipment pouch.

"There won't be torture," Tsuzumi barked sharply, eyeing the naginata Ami was almost hugging. "And leave that weapon behind, it looks ridiculous on you."

Ami pouted at her sensei.

"I'm going to check if Nara-san came back while we were away. Wait here." Tsuzumi jumped from the ruins of the wooden platform, leaping from house to tree down towards the inn, where he slipped into the bedroom window.

Ami passed the time by swinging the naginata around, making thrusts against shadow opponents in the empty ruins of the house.

"That's wrong," a quiet, defeated voice uttered from the corner of the room.

Ami spun, holding the blade of the weapon out in front of her.

"Also wrong," the mercenary said, then broke into a coughing fit, straining against his bonds. "The most basic stance, is standing naturally, with the naginata held upright in one hand."

"Like this?" Ami asked, relaxing her posture and holding the weapon loosely.

"That's the 'shizentae'. It allows you to react quickly to your enemies movements." He coughed again. "What's your name?"

"Ami." She moved, taking the stance she'd seen the mercenary using with the fight against her sensei. "What about this?"

"That's the chudan stance. It's the best balance of attack and defense. Why did you attack me?"

"You started it!" Ami said.

"No, your friend attacked me first, in my own home. I don't know who you are, except that you're Fire ninja."

"Well, it must have been because you're working for Dummy-san," Ami said uncertainly.

"I follow Koka-sama. He's teaching me how to achieve peace. He's a great man."

"He makes monsters!" Ami objected. "And he tried to kill me, and he killed Captain-san."

The mercenary seemed to think for a moment. "Koka-sama says we are all monsters. We bray and we fight in the dirt, but he has a special way, a way to rise above the suffering of the world."

"Sensei says this looks ridiculous," Ami said, stamping the shaft of the naginata on the wooden floor.

"It does," the man said, laughing through a cough. "It's much too big for your frame,"

"You're not so much bigger than me, spear-san."

"True. It's a good weapon for a small person."

"What's the best stance for fighting a ninja?" Ami asked.

The mercenary gave Ami a long look. "There is no good stance for fighting a ninja. If you try and fight a ninja with a naginata, you will lose. Besides, you are a ninja, you have your own ways."

Tsuzumi appeared at the edge of the ruined wall, smiling. He seemed so unruffled that Ami thought he might have been there for a while.

"Ah, no sign of Nara-san at the inn, and the others are still half asleep," Tsuzumi said, crouching to look at the mercenary. "You don't know why that is do you? Most of our team can barely stay awake."

The man tried to shrug, and winced. "No, it's something about this place. It's a peaceful city. People wake up to feed themselves, and bathe sometimes, but they're content. The sun shines, the children play. I think this place is blessed."

"It seems more like a curse," Tsuzumi said. "Those people are sleeping their lives away."

"And what is life," the man stared glassily at his feet. "A dreamless sleep is better than this nightmare we call life."

"Ah, who are you then?" Tsuzumi asked.

"Just a warrior. My name is Juzo," he replied, the sullen glare falling to the floor.

"And how did you come to work for Kotaro-san?" Tsuzumi asked, remembering the real name of the monk.

"Kotaro isn't his name any more, we call him Koka. But- I was a samurai once, in the service of the daimyo of Fire."

"Oh? I didn't know the daimyo kept a samurai force," Tsuzumi asked pleasantly.

"He doesn't. I was a personal retainer for the daimyo. Until about ten years ago. There was an attempted coup by some of the daimyo's ninja protectors. I was there that night. I tried to fight, but their strength, it was monstrous. I lost everything in the fire. I wandered for a long time, I thought I'd lost even myself, until I found Koka."

"So you serve because of loyalty," Tsuzumi asked.

The man shook his head sadly, a dribble of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. "Loyalty is just another word to me now. All words have as much meaning as mist. I serve because he leads me on the path to peace."

"And where is he now?" Tsuzumi asked, getting to the heart of the interrogation.

The man tried to shrug. "He left in a hurry. There was a disturbance, at the farm. The lotus farm."

"Nara-san," Ami whispered, recalling the farm Suzaku had been so interested in.

"Ah. Looks like I have to go and visit," Tsuzumi said, moving towards the door. "Don't forget to look after Juzo, Ami-chan. Don't untie him!"

"I know, I know," Ami said, rolling her eyes.

Tsuzumi cast a final, reluctant gaze over the room, then flickered away.

o o o

Author Note

About reviews: I've had some kind and some thoughtful reviews, so thanks to anyone whose left those. I take every criticism on board, and I'm trying to improve as I go, but I'm writing a few chapters ahead, so don't worry if there's a lag between giving some good advice and seeing me take account of it. Thanks for reading.