Chapter Twenty-Three
"Alright, that's enough for now!"
Ken drew back from Aoba as their spar ended, his shirt long discarded and runnels of sweat dripping from his body. As he caught his breath, he thought over the last three days with a faint smile.
Aoba hadn't been kidding when he said they would be using every spare moment they could to train. For the last three days, he had sparred with Ken to the best of his ability to gauge the redhead's skills in hand-to-hand combat and with all basic ninja tools as well as the black wakizashi Ken favored.
Which, incidentally, had left nicks in every weapon Aoba had used and had absolutely no damage in return. Hmm.
"That's enough of that hard-press for now," Aoba announced, sweating equally hard and seeming far more haggard. "What I wouldn't give for some of that unstoppable Uzumaki stamina," he groused, turning to wipe off his shades without Ken getting a look at his eyes before replacing them and facing him again. "Your taijutsu is certainly up to the task, I think. We'll continue to keep your edge sharp, but we'll also be focusing on updating your repertoire a bit."
Ken lifted an eyebrow in curiosity as he wiped himself down with a towel before replacing his grey, hooded shirt. "How so? You gonna try and teach me a new element?"
Aoba barked a laugh. "No, I'm going to do something a little less common. Tomoko and I actually discussed this some weeks ago, but we never found time to broach the topic." He bit his thumb to draw blood and wove a chain of five hand seals. "Now, I think, is the best time." Aoba slammed his bloodied hand to the ground, a web of sealing formulae emerging from the point of contact, and a large crow appeared in a burst of smoke. "We're going to get you a summoning contract."
Ken blinked in surprise, thinking back to all of the times that Sir Yama or the crows that Aoba contracted had helped them over the three months that the original Team TAK had been active. He also considered the stories he had heard growing up of the Legendary Sannin — Jiraiya the Toad Sage, Tsunade the Slug Princess, and Orochimaru the Serpent — who were all famed and frequent summoners. "That sounds awesome," Ken noted with a grin.
"I'm glad you're enthusiastic," Aoba said, adjusting his shades, "because it may get a little unorthodox." Aoba tucked his hands into his pockets and began pacing as he explained himself. "The Summoning Technique cannot be completed without a summoning contract, which you do not have. But I've heard rumors that if one in that situation tries to use the technique with an exceptional amount of chakra behind it, the result will reverse summon them to the domain of the summon tribe they have a strong affinity with.
"However," he said, raising a hand, "doing so would mean you would leave Hidden Grass. And should they learn of it, that would result in an automatic disqualification from the Exams." Aoba looked to Ken with an air of expectation, as if he were waiting for him to figure out a puzzle.
Ken thought over all he had been told before an idea came to him. 'Once again, thank you, Lord Tobirama,' Ken thought before forming a single shadow clone, which prompted a nod from Aoba. The clone nodded to his creator and listened as Aoba relayed the steps in the Summoning Technique. Biting its thumb to produce the shadow clone-equivalent of blood — which had long been recorded as capable of using the Summoning Technique by Lord Jiraiya — the clone wove the five seals and channeled as much chakra as it could muster for a single technique.
The clone disappeared in a burst of smoke, and Ken braced himself for a few new memories … that didn't come. "I think it worked," he said.
Ken's clone fell to his knees as vertigo assailed him, fighting to keep his non-existent lunch. He took a few deep breaths and let his nausea settle before standing again and looking around in awe.
He stood within a forest of massive trees, the land falling with the slope of a gentle hill and massive clefts of grey stone in the distance, while river rapids gurgled in the distance. The massive leaves of the trees created a web of sunbeams that offered equally gentle and disjointed illumination and the air was damp with moisture. The bark and wood of the trees, whether standing on the hills or in the waters, was covered with ivy-like vines … and was pale as bone.
"It can't be …" Ken whispered.
After who knows how long, the rustle of leaves caught his attention and Ken dropped to the forest floor to avoid something racing over him. He looked up to find a white slug with blue streaks running down its length, its body the size of his torso, adhering to one of the trees.
"Behind you, child," the slug said teasingly.
Ken's eye twitched as pieces of stories he had heard rapidly clicked together and he turned to find a creature identical to the first — aside from being the size of a freaking building — looming over him, its approach as silent as death. And if he was right, it wasn't just identical in appearance, but in genetic makeup. The first slug was merely an extension of this one.
"Lady Katsuyu," Ken whispered before collapsing to one knee in fearful respect. "I apologize for the intrusion into your domain."
"Who are you, child?" Lady Katsuyu asked him, her voice not loud or deep but still forceful, like distant thunder. "And why have you come to the Damp Bone Forest?"
"I am Ken of the Uzumaki clan," he replied, his voice shaky as he tried to be as formal as possible. "Or rather, I am a shadow clone created by him. In preparation for the finals of the Chunin Exams in Kusagakure, I attempted to acquire a proper summoning contract. In performing the technique, I was brought here. It has been said that such a result indicates an affinity for such a summon tribe."
Ken felt sweat roll down his face as Lady Katsuyu seemed to consider his words, which gave him ample time to review everything he had ever heard about her.
Lady Katsuyu, the Great Slug of the Damp Bone Forest, was the personal summon of Lady Tsunade of the Sannin. She was on par in power and experience with the Toad Chief Gamabunta and the Serpent Lord Manda, though unlike her contemporaries her reputation said little of her personality or temperament.
"You claim the title of Uzumaki?" Katsuyu asked.
"I claim the title of my heritage and bloodline, Lady Katsuyu," he replied, more levelly than he had before.
Katsuyu hummed in apparent thought and a duplicate emerged from within her, this one about the size of Ken's palm. It launched itself from the surface of the greater slug and landed with a wet squelch onto Ken's shoulder. "Remain still, youngling," the slug ordered. "I will examine your chakra for signs of the lost clan. Should your words ring true, I would have further words with you. But if I find deception, I will smite you where you stand."
Ken tried to keep his breathing even as he felt a subtle chill grow from the slug on his shoulder, a sign of chakra being leached from his body. The greater slug seemed to shudder at the taste of the chakra, a massive movement that shook the surrounding earth and trees. With that, the smaller slug launched itself from his shoulder and crossed the considerable distance to the original Katsuyu and merged with it.
"You, young one, bear the unmistakable vibrance of the line of Asura, as does Milady Tsunade, and show the red hair of the Uzumaki clan. And in addition, you have comported yourself with decorum after your surprise journey here." The slug bowed its head in a gesture of respect that sent a wave of wind to rustle the leaves around them. "Be welcome in my home, clone of Ken Uzumaki. Now disperse yourself and summon your creator. I would have words with him."
The clone nodded and dispersed itself.
When the shadow clone's memories hit him, Ken yelped and almost fell backward. Steadying his breath, he ignored Aoba asking him what was wrong and performed the full summoning ritual that transported him to the Damp Bone Forest. The same feeling of vertigo hit him, just as he remembered his clone feeling, but he expected it and kept his feet beneath him.
Ken stood up straight and faced the massive shape of Lady Katsuyu. "Lady Katsuyu, I am honored to be welcomed into your domain," he said, mustering as much formality as he could.
"The honor may be yours, young Uzumaki," the great slug replied, "but I think the pleasure will be mine." The slug leaned its head down, her eye stalks bending forward to make something like eye contact with Ken. "You wish to sign a summoning contract with me, youngling?"
"It would be my further honor, Milady," Ken replied honestly.
"Long has it been since another has forged a compact with me," Katsuyu said. "And in the way of things, a challenge must be levied and met." The great slug righted herself and another clone emerged to land before Ken, this one twice his size. "A test of will, it will be. Keep your wits and your will about you, and I will allow you to forge the compact."
"Keep my wits-?" Ken asked, before the smaller slug lunged at him with lightning speed and swallowed him up into its depths.
Ken instinctively thrashed against the insides of Katsuyu's form before a feeling of warmth and peace settled over him and began to lull him into sleep. It was like … being in a mother's womb. Warm and weightless and soothing. Where was he again? Did it really matter? Ken let himself relax into the weightless warmth as fuzzy images of his memories played before his eyes.
His grandfather smiling with pride as his painting seal worked perfectly, Tomoko and Aoba laughing with him around a campfire, the Lord Hokage's warm smile as he was appointed a shinobi of Konohagakure … Ken felt his resistance crumbling as he surrendered completely. Well, almost. An image of Naruto's face, his bright smile and sparkling blue eyes emerged as darkness began to creep in …
Ken forced his eyes open as the memory of his cousin, his last living family, jolted him out of his reverie. He felt the burn of his starved lungs and the weakness of his limbs creeping in. He screamed in denial into the warm depths of the slug and rolled himself around. He swung his limbs as wide and as hard as he could, still screaming. It might be like fighting a cloud, but he wouldn't die without offering as much resistance as he could.
And then, with a sudden lurch, Katsuyu spat him back up. Ken gasped sweet air into his starving lungs before coughing and hacking, then gasping again. This pattern kept up for a few more cycles before he finally calmed down and began wiping mucus from his face and then the rest of his skin.
"Well done, youngling," Katsuyu intoned. "You have succeeded in the challenge. As per my word, I will allow you to sign your name upon my summoning contract. My smaller self will guide you to the sacred place and through the signing, then send you back to the place you were before. When you return, summon me as you did before and we will discuss terms."
With that, the massive form of Lady Katsuyu shifted and turned to one of the trees before apparently feeding from the top of it. The smaller Katsuyu prodded him to follow her before moving with surprising speed toward a distant rock formation that resembled a small mountain.
As they walked, Ken was able to get a better look at the Damp Bone Forest. He could only assume the name came from the odd coloration of the trees, like bleached bone. The forest floor was shaped into gently rolling hills broken up by creeks that gurgled in shallow crevices, and huge boulders of seemingly broken grey stone dotted the landscape. Patches of shadow were broken up only by the sunbeams that penetrated the canopy, forming columns of radiance that illuminated the surroundings.
After an indeterminable length of time, the smaller Katsuyu stopped before one of the grey rock formations, this one shaped inexplicably like an open scroll. Within a deep recess in the stone was a wall bearing half a dozen names, the most recent being Tsunade Senju. Beside each name was a handprint.
"To form a compact with me," Katsuyu said, Ken having decided to call any clones of the great slug by her name, "sign your name in blood upon this sacred stone. Then finish the signature by placing your handprint in blood with the hand you would use to summon me, marking it with your own unique impression."
Ken nodded and bit his thumb to draw blood as he had before, carefully signing his name underneath that of Lady Tsunade. He groaned as the process took longer than he'd thought, his Uzumaki healing closing the wound on his thumb fast enough that he had to reopen the bite twice before he finished. Finally, he dug his thumb nail into the palm of his right, non-dominant hand and spread the welling blood over his palm and fingers to place a bloody handprint upon the stone next to his signature.
"Wonderful," Katsuyu commended. "Now to send you back. Remember, be ready to summon a portion of my own self to discuss the details of a summoning relationship."
Ken nodded and, per Katsuyu's reverse summoning, disappeared in a burst of smoke.
Ken reappeared on the Kusa training ground to find Aoba pacing and nearly tearing his hair out. He blinked in surprise at the usually coolheaded tokujo so worked up before once again biting his thumb to draw blood and flicking through the five seals of the Summoning Technique. This time, when he slammed his hand to the ground, something much like sealing script but … older, more archaic, almost … timeless … spread from the point of contact and a burst of smoke heralded the appearance of a portion of Katsuyu as large as Ken himself.
"Greetings, youngling," she said brightly, her eye stalks shifting to Aoba who appeared utterly speechless at her appearance. "Is there something the matter, Leaf Shinobi?"
"Lady Katsuyu!" Aoba cried, dropping to one knee. "I must admit I did not expect my friend here to sign a contract with one of the great Sage animals." He elbowed Ken in the arm and harshly whispered, "What the hell happened? You've been gone for hours!"
"I guess time got away from me," Ken chuckled before returning his attention to Katsuyu. "Would you prefer Lady Katsuyu, or just your name?"
"I do prefer a title, youngling," she admitted. "I am old, and the old do appreciate such respect and courtesy. Milady or Lady Katsuyu will suffice."
Ken nodded in affirmation. "So what would you like to know about me, milady?" he asked.
"If I may, Lady Katsuyu," Aoba interrupted, "I have a feeling this is going to get personal. As such, I think I'll take my leave for the day." He adjusted his shades. "But I would ask if I may offer my help in honing Ken's summoner bond with you, as I have experience with such a thing."
"This is an excellent idea, Sir Ninja," Katsuyu replied. "I would welcome your input, but only if I may know your summoning tribe."
"The northern crow tribe," Aoba answered.
"An honorable flock," Katsuyu surmised. "Very well. Good day, sir."
"Good day to you both," Aoba said, nodding to the slug and the Uzumaki before bounding away toward the main village.
"Now then, youngling," Katsuyu said, "before we begin I would very much like to hear how you survived the tragic fate of your clan." She drew her eye stalks a bit closer to examine him. "You seem rather young. You must have been a child when it happened."
"I was just a few weeks old, actually," Ken confirmed solemnly.
Katsuyu hummed in genuine sympathy. "The Uzumaki were often noble and valiant warriors, in addition to their mastery of the sealing arts. But it is fortunate that one survived."
"Actually, at least three," Ken said with a smile. "My grandfather was the one who got me out of the village during the siege." Ken swallowed back a wave of grief. "He died a few months ago, right before I relocated to Konoha." Then his frown turned into a sad smile. "But there, I learned of a young Uzumaki who has lived there his whole life, one Naruto Uzumaki."
"It seems you have quite a tale, youngling," Katsuyu surmised, curling up into a spiral as if sitting on a comfortable chair. "Might an old creature trouble you for a good story?"
As Ken laughed and began telling his story, neither of them were aware of a figure shrouded in the shadow of a large tree who was watching carefully to report back to his superior.
Mabui, the freshly-minted jonin and assistant to the Fourth Raikage, considered herself a calm person. Any assistant to A, a man known for his fearsome temper, would have to be to survive the stress of the job. Due to her unique ability to transport objects over vast distances, she had held the position for three years since her promotion to chunin.
In that time, Mabui had seen her commander fall prey to his temper several times. His temper tended to burn hot and bubble close to the surface when he was stressed and would erupt given setbacks to his village. He had never killed someone in these fits of rage, thank heaven, but he tended to leave quite a bit of property damage in his wake during these episodes.
As she was finishing up reading a document to pass on to the Raikage and placing her signature on the bottom to indicate she had indeed looked it over for him, something to prevent overly ambitious or impatient shinobi from trying to get something to him without her approval, Mabui was surprised hear the flap of wings at her window. A messenger hawk had alit on the sill, bearing a scroll marked with the seal of a jonin from the Chunin Exams.
Mabui blinked at the odd circumstances. Every jonin team leader was given permission to send a message directly to the Raikage if they believed they had discovered information that was tied to the fate of Kumogakure itself, such as snippets of invasion plans. Mabui broke the seal and read over the message, one brow rising at the message.
But Mabui was nothing if not dutiful, and so she knocked on the Raikage's office door and announced the message with no embellishment. The Raikage took the scroll and read over it, his eyes slowly widening as his gaze moved lower over the text. When he finished, his skin tone had darkened considerably, as it did when he was furious.
"Mabui, take the rest of the day off," he said with utter calm. "But I would appreciate it if you called the usual contractors for my office first. Just a precaution."
Mabui's eyes had widened at the sight of her commander clearly so furious and not acting on it. Whatever he had derived from the message was clearly nothing minor. She nodded her acquiescence and calmly left the office … before grabbing her purse and bolting for the staircase.
She made it to the doors of the Raikage Tower before she heard the distant sound of smashing furniture and the Raikage's furious howls.
"Faster, child! If you cannot close the gap, her blade will cut you to pieces!"
Hotaru nodded and wiped the sweat from her brow before taking a Gentle Fist stance, one different from the standard position. This one was designed to be used against swordsmen, to optimize a pivot to spin ahead of their sword sweeps and get in close to cripple them with taps to their tenketsu. Specifically to target their wrists and disarm them.
"Yes, Master Hoheto!" she barked, focused on her relative who had been sent to help train her. Hoheto Hyuga, a jonin of the branch house, was like most of her relatives a very serious and focused individual. Though many Hyuga looked very similar, she had always known him by the creases under his eyes. In his hands, he held a bokken — a blunted wooden sword used for training — and swung it with practiced fluidity. He stood as one of the few Hyuga who had mastered a weapon skill besides standard tools.
Hotaru focused her chakra to trigger her byakugan and rushed forward. Her white eyes traced the pathway of Hoheto's blade, anticipating his movements as she had been learning to do during their training. She shifted her line of movement just a bit to avoid the edge of his bokken by a hair's breadth and struck at his forearm. The area lit up like a spark where conflicting chakras met, and Hoheto dropped his training weapon, allowing Hotaru to strike at the tenketsu in his torso that also lit up like colorless sparks before she leapt back to let him collapse to his knees.
Hohetu allowed a faint pleased smile to lift his lips before he settled back into his usual Hyuga stoicism. "Very good, Hotaru," he complimented, rising to his feet with no trouble.
Very few outside the clan were aware of the second quirk of the Hyuga clan beside their all-seeing white eyes. They were born with an innate capability to expel chakra from any of the tenketsu on their body, rather than simply the hands and feet. This facilitated the Gentle Fist "One Blow Body" maneuver, but also had another use in training in the Gentle Fist style. An experienced user could anticipate a student's or sparring partner's target and expel chakra from the target tenketsu to block a full attack, allowing Hyuga to genuinely train their art against each other without crippling or incapacitating their opponents.
"You tagged me going at a third of my usual pace," Hoheto noted. He twirled his bokken and adopted his sword stance again. "Now we move on to half-speed."
Hotaru nodded with a challenging grin and launched herself forward.
Kato laughed as he lunged with his Adamantine Staff — a Transformed Sho — and delivered a series of furious jabs at Muto, who dodged all of them with relative ease. Muta leapt back to get some distance and wove through a series of hand seals before exhaling a blade of Wind chakra at his student, carefully blunted for training purposes.
'It would seem taking up Wind as my second nature was a wise decision,' he noted inwardly.
As soon as he saw the hand seals, Kato began twirling his staff in a quick figure-eight motion whose path covered the entire front of his body. When the blade of Wind struck the staff, it was dispersed by the unbreakable surface of the staff, bolstered by the speed Kato had been moving it. The blade figuratively shattered and Kato braced himself against the blowback by securing himself to the ground with chakra.
As the winds died down, Kato shouted a battle cry and raced back at his teacher. True, he would still focus on his Fire Release and hand to hand skills, but his first opponent in the Finals — the genin from Amegakure — was a powerful long-distance Wind Release user, channeling his techniques with that umbrella of his. So he and Muta had decided to focus on his close combat skills and his defense against Wind Release techniques.
'This is going to be so much fun!' Kato thought.
In a small town in an unknown minor nation, a slim, young-looking woman dressed in a headscarf and a red kimono with silver filigree stood upon a raised dais of stone before a number of rough, thuggish men and women on their knees — each of them undressed from the waist up and each of them trembling with both cold and no small amount of awed fear. The room was spacious and made of more stone, aside from a pair of doors carved with spirals in the far corners, plain black double doors behind them, and a skylight that allowed fitful sunlight in for intimidating lowlight.
The woman's dark eyes raked over each of her subjects, examining from a distance the lines of swirls and sigils that had been painted on their skin stretching from a spiral on their foreheads and gently curling across their faces, down their necks, and over their arms, chests, and bellies. The woman's fingertips and long nails were coated in the same substance that made up the sealwork, a mixture of chakra-conductive ink and her own blood.
Around each of the figures kneeling unbound and trembling before the woman was a circle of sealing script, a chain of sealwork leading from the front of each circle to another chain that connected them with gentle curves before converging and leading to a tightly-woven seal matrix in front of the woman's dais. With one final glance at them all, the woman wove a long chain of hand seals before gathering chakra in her fingers and leapt from the dais to slam her open hand onto the seal before her.
The matrix flared with eerie blue-red light before the light of chakra spread along the lines of formulae like fire along a trail of oil to light up the circles around the kneeling peoples. With that, the sealing matrices on their skin began to glow and smoke. All of them began to scream, those kneeling crying out with pained discomfort and the woman with rapture. The sealwork on the thugs began to recede and condense toward the central spiral on their foreheads until all that remained was the spiral surrounded by a thin circle of sealing formulae, the seals finally fading into invisibility and allowing the subjects to collapse into merciful semi-consciousness.
The woman who had initiated the technique flicked a finger and two men in flak jackets and wearing blue bandanas lined with silver thread and marked with "tsunami" rushed and began dragging the subjects from the room with speed and efficiency until only the woman remained. Only after the last of them had been removed, the two minions bowing in respect before departing, did the woman exhale and allow an air of exhaustion to bring her to her knees.
"Truly magnificent," a voice said from the shadows.
The woman glanced backward to find a large, broad-shouldered man leaning against a pillar on the outer edge of the room with his arms and ankles crossed, his dark hair in a top-knot and matching his sparkling black eyes. The muscles of his bare arms rippled even as he stood, his dark sleeveless robe and hakama pants contrasting the bandages around his wrists and knuckles.
"You always say that when I place my Mark upon the initiates," the woman deflected coyly as she rose back to her feet.
"And it never becomes any less true," he replied, unfolding his arms to cross the distance and stand before her, his height towering over the waifish woman.
The woman removed her headscarf to unleash a cascade of flowing red hair that reached her ankles, then uncinched the top of her kimono to unveil a long expanse of flesh from her collarbone to her belly button, as well as a tantalizing view of ample cleavage.
The man's eyes burned as he reached for her, but the flame was snuffed out by pain as the woman curled her long, elegant fingers, still stained by mixed ink and blood, in a strange hand seal that made seal work along his shoulders flare and wrench him back into rigidly tense attention.
"Now, now, my dearest Sabu," the woman purred, trailing her other hand down the valley between her breasts, "remember your manners. Sight is free, but touch only with … permission."
The man nodded jerkily and the woman released her hand seal, the script along his shoulders fading back into obscurity and allowing him to relax with a frustrated growl. "You know I hate that," he snarled.
"Oh, yes, I know," she replied with a girlish smile. "But everything comes at a price, dearest." She placed a fingertip of her clean hand under his chin and turned his head to place a smoldering kiss on his cheek. "But it is the price you pay for my services."
"Part of the price," Sabu corrected, with much less heat.
"Part of the price," she agreed with obvious relish.
Their conversation was interrupted by a rhythmic pounding on the double doors, the rhythm of Sabu's close lieutenants. The woman gracefully re-tied her kimono and spun her hair into a tight spiral that she again hid within her headscarf. She nodded to Sabu before taking a place behind him and changing her body language to appear subservient.
"Enter," Sabu called.
The double doors opened to reveal Oda, his second-in-command. The woman swaggered with her typical smug confidence that bordered on arrogance, but her grey skin was paler than normal. "Master," she greeted, "I apologize for the intrusion, but our men from Flora have brought news I believe you will want to hear."
"Speak then," he said mildly.
"The Chunin Exams are being held in Hidden Grass this year, and one of the entrants in the finals is named Ken. Ken Uzumaki."
The woman behind Sabu gasped and covered her mouth with her clean hand, while Sabu's eyes widened. "You are certain of this?" he asked harshly.
"I made it clear to our agents that a mistake of this nature would be … bad for their health," Oda affirmed, her teeth bared in a feral grin.
"Well done, Oda," Sabu said with a nod. "Leave me and return to your assignments."
"Yes, Master," Oda said with a bow before leaving.
Sabu turned to find his companion lost in thought. "What are you thinking?" he asked rhetorically.
The woman smiled, the expression fierce. "I think I will partake of the Chunin Tournament myself this year. Inform our usual eyes that I will be joining them."
Sabu nodded his head. "Yes, Uzume," he replied reverently.
The woman, Uzume, smiled warmly and reached up to pat his head like a dog before making her way to one of the atrium's back doors, her mind whirling. Could it be, after all these years …?
And chapter twenty-three is here! I really had fun with the worldbuilding for this one, and I hope it makes sense and was enjoyable.
*The "reverse summon without a contract" idea is adapted from the anime, in how Jiraiya found mount Moyobuku. The "add a huge amount of chakra to make it work" and the vertigo were my own additions.
*Once again, I explore a facet of the Narutoverse that I believe were underutilized: Lady Katsuyu and her home. The appearance of the Damp Bone Forest is almost entirely a product of my own imagination. It was really fun to develop it. Katsuyu's test and the large stone to sign the compact were my own ideas, too, with little bearing on canon.
*Hoheto Hyuga is a canon minor character, first appearing in the Fourth War arc. Also, the hyuga ability to release chakra from all points of their body is anon, too, established in the Chunin Exams arc.
*Who could Uzume - whose name means "whirling," "cloud," "pearl," or "beautiful/gorgeous," but is also part of the title of the Shinto goddess Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto - be?
As always, thank you for reading! Let me know what you think with a review, and may your own inspiration flow freely.