Amegakure had levels.
It was a city built of them. A layer cake growing up from pylons sunk so deep enough into the lakebed that they touched the center of the world. The next layer was pumps. Like the air bladders that kept aquatic plants afloat, Ame was kept where it was by a sprawling root system of pumps and pipes. The poorest citizens were forced to live with the ever present thrum of pumping machinery, and it was said that a true Ame resident's heart beat in time with the pumps themselves.
The next layer was houses. Apartments. Buildings. The strata of any city. There were even a handful of parks. Difficult for an artificial city, but not impossible with the jutsu out there.
Izumi lived in the housing layer. Midway up, just before the apartments became really comfortable in any way. Her apartment was a single, and just big enough for her futon in the evenings, and a kotatsu during the day.
It was the kotatsu she was thinking of at present. The rains had been cold that day, catching an unseasonable chill that cut away the usual humidity and replaced it with bite. Her umbrella and raincoat hadn't done much against the horizontal spray of rain that always kicked up when she crossed the higher sky-bridges.
Most of Ame's important places were higher up, in the upper levels of towering buildings. The Academy, in a design idea she was sure was sadism, was at the tip-top of a fat government building. Getting there, for her, required five separate sky-bridges and a detour through the redlight district.
Feet heavy with a long day of training, Izumi plodded home. She'd reached the stage of wetness where it stopped mattering so much, because there weren't really measurable grades between 'drenched' and 'soaked.'
The real annoyance was the sopping bandage wrapped around her left palm. They'd been doing weapon practice that day, and she'd fumbled a kunai and grabbed for it without thinking. Her sensei had wrapped the wound up and told her to get back to work. Typical. Her sensei was more scar tissue than human.
She'd need to clean it when she got home. Dealing with the moisture was something every Ame nin learned on day one of Academy. Izumi's understanding was that it was something along the lines of 'if you can deal with omnipresent, torrential rain, you can deal with anything. Now treat that before it falls off.'
She shook her hand slightly, wincing at the little flash of pain it generated. She used her elbow to push open the door into the shopping complex. The air inside was musty, filled with the scent of too much incense and too many bodies.
Folding her umbrella, she descended a flight of stairs into the area proper. The crowd there was middling, just beginning to bustle. The civilians had started getting off work, so the redlights were filling up. She wove between them, using her elbows and umbrella to shove past anyone who dragged their feet.
The shopkeeps and workers had long since grown used to her, so no one got in her way, though a few civilians did double-takes when she passed. Izumi rolled her eyes. There was never anything fun to see out in the open anyway. She'd had her run of the kinkier shops once she figured out henge, but she'd ended up too embarrassed to buy anything. Not that she had the money for any of the fun stuff anyway.
She umbrellaed her way through a knot of rough looking laborers arguing over who got to take the first run at the best whore at that particular shop. The woman, who was admittedly very pretty, looked more bored than anything. She was casting seductive smiles at the men, now rifling through their wallets to check funds, but her eyes were flat. Uninterested.
Izumi hurried on, her skin crawling.
There was nothing wrong with that. Everyone had to make their own way, and not everyone could be fortunate enough to be ninja. If she hadn't had chakra, she might well be there herself.
But gods, it was just so… gross.
She paused at a junction in the path. A staircase would take her down into the next leg of her walk, while going straight would lead to her favorite shop in the district.
A raucous cheer came from behind her, as one of the men won the honor of going first. Izumi shuddered, her uninjured hand white-knuckled around her umbrella.
As much as she wanted to leave, she needed something to get the taste of that scene out of her mouth.
She went straight.
The adult bookstore sat at the end of the aisle, sandwiched between a ramen shop and a shop peddling some exotic leather goods. It was small, no bigger than five by five meters, but every inch was crammed with merchandise. It was a maze of floor to ceiling shelves, all filled and double-stacked with books and magazines.
The shopkeep nodded to her as she entered. The old man was good people. His prices were cheap enough for her to afford on the shoestring budget Ame provided for orphans, and he didn't give a frig if she was twelve or twenty-seven.
It didn't take long for her to navigate through the stacks to her favorite shelf.
Novels.
This was the good stuff. Not just smut or bodice rippers, but books with actual plot to go with the dirty parts. That was what made them interesting. Smut was just… meaningless. It was like watching those men debate over buying a whore. Anonymous strangers rutting. People she didn't care about.
The center of the novel section was dominated by the orange spines of the Icha Icha series, but she'd never had much taste in them. A little too obviously written by a man. Written one-handed by a man. Blech.
She'd torn through the Lily of the Valley saga, and was waiting for the next one to come out- it hadn't yet. The author was apparently 'doing research.' But the books had ads in the back for stuff from the same publisher.
She snagged a couple of those, perusing the different series for something that caught her taste. The first went back on the shelf. Too dry. The second and third were apparently sequels to series she'd never heard of. The fourth was about a duo of female bounty hunters, scrapping away to survive, both of them apparently very much inclined toward the fairer sex. Seemed like it was as much about their struggles and friendship as it was about the girl on girl.
Nice. She checked the shelf- the book had a sequel, which she grabbed as well, before making her way up to the owner.
She had to dig through her change purse to get enough for both of them, and she wouldn't have any spare cash until her next payday, but she left the shop with her head held high, books wrapped up under her arm.
Leaving the redlight was like coming clean. Not just because it was pouring once again, but because the air outside was cool and fresh, thick with the taste of the rain. It was the kind of shower she'd normally walk through without an umbrella, but her books were still clenched in one hand, and it was a long way home.
She squelched across the skybridge from the redlight, passing through an apartment building before descending a spiral staircase to a lower rooftop. The foot-traffic was lighter now. Though not rich enough to live higher up, most of the people who lived here were still affluent enough to take in the entertainment district after work. Even now the bridges and pass-throughs of the district would be filling with families, out on the town after a long week at work.
Izumi paused on her next bridge, looking down. A pavilion was set up on an open area just below. Stalls and kiosks thronged with customers, moving with the same vibrancy the redlight had had, but none of the filth. There would be more than just families down there. Some of her classmates, surely. The ones with spending money, and people to spend it with. Friends. Dates. Parents.
She sighed, hefted her armful of smut, and continued on.
The final stretch to her building was a long, arching bridge that spanned one of the main roads in Ame. More elaborate in design than most bridges, this one was framed with red arches, almost like torii, and a number of statues stood facing out over the road, greeting guests to Ame with raised hands and open arms.
The largest was at the center, a massive arch stood over a bronze statue as big as an elephant. It was two-sided, one facing the street, another facing the bridge. A man, his legs folded under him, left hand held up, index and middle finger raised, the others curled inward. His right was in his lap, holding a lotus flower. Ten other arms emerged from behind him, each holding an object or making a hand-sign.
His features were indistinct- something she'd never liked about this statue. Other artisans would cast their depictions of God with various elements, horns, halos, crowns, tears, etc. But this one was not. All it had was a smooth, bald head, and odd, wide eyes. It was hard to tell, but she thought the sculptor might have given the statue mandalas for eyes. Weird.
There were two boxes in front of it. One with a slot in the top, and another that was open on one side. Izumi stopped, pulled the last few coins from her purse, and dropped them in the box. Basically broke was the same as broke.
She pressed her palms together in a quick prayer. "God, please help the money go to someone who needs it." The whore's face flashed through her mind. Flat, empty eyes, like a statue's. Could have been her. "And… protect me from misfortune?"
It didn't feel like enough, so she went to the second box. The wish box. This one was larger, more of an enclosed bulletin board, with hundreds of paper slips clipped to it. A stack of blank slips and a pen were in a little basket in the bottom.
Izumi pulled one free and paused, pen hovering over it. The words were there. I wish no one would have to sell themselves to live. But it felt hollow. She was just as lustful and foul as the clients who bought the whores. And she'd thought of it before. Entertained the idea of doing it. Buying one.
She just… it wasn't what she wanted, but it was close. That was love, wasn't it? Sort of?
Izumi sighed. She put the pen down.
Her eyes trailed across the other slips.
'Help my son find work.'
'My father is a ninja, please get him home safe.'
'I am too weak to do the right thing. Help me be better.'
'Avenge my family on Konoha.'
Her gaze settled on an odd shape in the bottom corner. Not a slip. She blinked, and looked closer.
It was an origami flower. One of the paper slips had been written on, then folded dozens of times into an ornate blossom, more detailed than even the lotus sitting in the statue's lap. A crossbreeze rustled the slips and shifted the minute inner petals of the flower.
Izumi stared. It was… beautiful. Most of the slips had gotten at least a little splashed with rain by now, and were kind of melty, but the flower was tucked away in the corner, protected from the water. Immaculate.
Her free hand rose, and was already reaching out for it when she caught herself.
"What are you doing?" she hissed.
That was someone's wish to God, written on paper to give it substance. A disclosure of their most heartfelt desires.
But… what kind of person would make a wish like that? Stand out here in the rain for however long it took to fold the flower.
What had they wished for?
Her hand inched closer.
"This is fucked up. Seriously."
Maybe God had meant for her to see this message and be inspired by it? Or maybe that was an excuse so thin she couldn't even pretend to believe it.
Her fingertips brushed paper.
Izumi wanted it. More than she'd wanted the books, or new kunai this morning, or someone to walk the festival with in the evening. She wanted to look at the flower and see what it said, because maybe, just maybe, the person who'd made it was someone who… who… wanted too.
Her hand closed around it like a baby bird, not daring to hold tight for fear of crushing it.
Izumi turned and ran, heels kicking up spray as she hurtled along the final bridge to her apartment building. She came in from the rain, clutching her books and umbrella under one arm, the flower in her hand, held out like a sacred relic, and didn't stop running until she slid into the dim hallway where her door was.
17-H opened and closed. She locked it behind her and slumped against the door. Her clothes were wet, clinging to her back, and the bag of books finally slipped away to thud against the floor.
She sank down, following the bag to the ground.
Izumi opened her hand slowly.
The flower was unharmed, maybe a tiny bit misty from her run through the rain, but otherwise undamaged. Black lines ran across the petals at random, bits and pieces of the larger message broken up by the folds.
She licked dry lips, staring at it, trying to decode the words there.
It was impossible. She'd never know unless she unfolded it.
And once it was unfolded, the holiness of the flower would be gone. It wouldn't just be something she stole, but something she desecrated as well. There would be no returning it.
But she'd gone this far. And she needed to know.
She tugged the smallest petal in the center. The paper was so delicate that she let go immediately, fearing that she'd torn it.
It took her another minute to recover after that, her heart pounding at the idea of tearing the slip.
She started from the outside this time. The calyx, the outer layer of flower that shielded the rest. Izumi pressed it down, nudging it away from the main body with gentle pokes.
From there it was just a matter of teasing apart the layers until it unfolded. She fiddled with it, working with surgical precision, before it finally, randomly, just clicked, and the layers split apart. The flower wasn't one slip- it was three, twisted together to form something greater.
The first two slips were blank.
It was only the last, that had formed the core of the flower, that was written on.
Izumi held it, not looking at it until the last folds were undone.
It was written not in pen, but in ink. A woman's delicate brushstrokes curved and curled across the page, as much a work of art as the flower itself, ruined now by the creases.
'The man I loved is dead. The man I love is dying. I am terrified to be alone again.'