"I'm impressed you haven't moved." Tsunade's voice called from the second story window. "You even fell asleep sitting down like that. Come up and we'll talk."
Anko took a moment to stretch her legs before jumping up the side of the building. On the table Tsunade was looking over a scroll with her assistant Shizune looking on, a small pig wearing a vest wandered about the floor finding little pieces of popcorn that had been scattered about. Surprise took her when she realized what the scroll was that Tsunade was examining.
"When did you take that?" Anko demanded forcefully.
"While you were sleeping last night. The grip you had on that briefcase was one I remember Orochimaru using; any attempt to move that case would have woken you up. But the scroll inside your robes was not as carefully guarded." Lifting part of the scroll to show to Shizune put a look of shock on the assistant's face. "This is what brought you here? I assume you have more than this?"
Nodding, Anko had brought the basic information regarding Kimimaro's condition with her. The more detailed charts and scrolls were with him back at their hotel outside of town. Doubtless Tsunade would want to examine him personally if she were to accept the job but such knowledge was important to have from the start.
Tsunade's eyes did not rise from the scroll, "How much did you bring for the negotiation?"
"I have half a million, gold, on me. But that's for purchasing any supplies you need. Your fee is something else."
"Oh?" Tsunade sat back, tapped the table with her fingers, and faced Anko.
"I took the liberty of contacting a few of the loan sharks you owe money to. Truth be told you aren't intimidated by their goons and collectors, but there are some who have stopped letting you borrow money from them. The Ishimura Clan, One-eyed Ringo, the Tezuka Brothers, and the Silent Steps have all closed their doors to you. Now each of these clans owe my father a favor."
"Shizune, how much do I owe those clans anyways?" The young women flipped through a notebook and tallied numbers. Anko already knew the sum and she presumed Tsunade did as well.
"Between those four and their associated branches, it is around eight million."
"That's my offer. You do this for me and you walk away debt free." It was an interesting gamble, but Anko trusted in her luck and the saying that Tsunade was bad with gambling.
Rolling up the scroll, Tsunade nodded to Shizune. "Make the arrangements; I'm going to meet the patient. You know what we're going to need?"
"Yes Tsunade-sama." Bowing, the girl took the briefcase and took her leave.
Going to the window, Tsunade jumped down into the alley and waved for Anko to follow. "I've only heard about you in passing, talk that Orochimaru had adopted a girl from the village. I never figured him to be the fatherly type."
"Are we speaking freely Tsunade… hime?" Anko was unsure about the honorary to use with her.
"Please, Tsunade will do. And yes, I'm curious about you. You don't quite fit the idea I had about what his daughter would be like."
"I'll admit that I was impressed you knew about that. He is a rather secretive man."
"Which is what intrigues me about you - you are clearly mature for your age, yet you still have those youthful eyes, full of trust. The fact that you have that curse seal shows you are no amateur when it comes to the world of shinobi, but I think you are still young to the world at large."
"I started going on missions away from home since I was six. I saw other families, even lived with a few for months at a time. I have seen this world from the slums to the palaces."
"Yet you are still separated from them in your heart. You analyze them with your mind, but you keep yourself distant, detached. But you wouldn't have come here if this Kimimaro wasn't important to you."
"He's my brother; I would do anything for him."
Tsunade stopped and placed a hand on Anko's shoulder. "You remember this feeling. How you feel right at this moment." Not saying another word, they continued walking in silence.
Having finished the second to last journal, Zabuza paced the room while Chojuro reread the volume. Every instinct he had told him that the journals were more than they appeared. There was a code inside them that needed to be cracked, because if read literally the truth was almost too hard to imagine.
Taking off his glasses, Chojuro pressed his hands against his eyes, obviously tired from the mental strain. "Let's assume for a moment that we're wrong and that there is no code."
It was not something Zabuza wanted to consider, but he relented. "Very well. The swords are alive."
"Well it would only make sense." Opening the journal, Chojuro turned to the pages that documented the creation of the Samehada blade. "The master required a large number of assistants to forge each blade, but the assistants are different with each sword. Moreover, the book lists makes mention of someone named 'Zu' who took weeks to make the seals for each sword's construction."
"More likely it's 'Zu' is code for 'Uzumaki' they had captured a sealing expert and brainwashed him to make the seals. Nobody would willingly do this."
"And yet it was done not once, but seven times." Chojuro made a point to flip through the pages again before slamming the journal shut. "I don't even know how I'm supposed to look at my sword the same way again."
Zabuza said nothing, since the Chuunin preliminaries he had barely touched his sword. Even then something seemed odd about its chakra. He had known about its ability to repair itself by absorbing iron and carbon from slain foes, but it was different thinking about the people who might have died making the thing in the first place.
The thought of Samehada haunted Zabuza as well. That room would never leave his memory, that horrid laugh that echoed through the room was inhuman; it followed Kisame as he stepped over the bodies of his former comrades. The man-shark smiled but said nothing. It was his sword that was laughing - a sword with a soul.
"You okay Zabuza?"
"Yeah. I was just thinking about samurai." Those warriors from the land of iron had an interesting warrior's philosophy: that their own souls lived in the swords they carried into battle. "We have one more volume to finish, if we can get through it by tomorrow evening we'll still have a week to train before the final exams."
"Right." Chojuro nodded and put his glasses back on before sitting at the desk next to Zabuza, it was going to be another all-nighter.