That spot of action was the last exciting thing to happen in the Land of Swamps. Our final day in its borders consisted of an altogether depressing trudge through mud, which only began to dry out a couple hours before we reached Sōgen. Alongside it, the humidity soon abated as well, to the relief of everyone in our party.

"I don't understand how such a wet place can exist right next to somewhere renowned for its lack of rain," Rika panted, barely refraining from draining her water skin dry. The Jashinists weren't completely unprepared; one of their wagons was almost entirely devoted to water storage. But it was necessary to ration it regardless.

"It's probably runoffs from the mountains," I explained, not nearly as out of breath as she was and fully hydrated. I just used an application of the Suiton: Mizurappa (Water Style: Wild Water Wave) I had nabbed off Aki to draw moisture out of the air.

Suiton had a reputation as the most limited elemental ninjutsu in most parts of the world. Both it and Earth took far more chakra to amalgamate than other elements since they held more mass, but since people generally existed on solid ground, there was almost always existing material for Doton users to draw upon.

With Suiton, however, there was no such guarantee. In many places, you would be hard pressed to find a substantial water source—that was a big reason Kirigakure largely stayed out of the war despite their love of violence. They took advantage of the chaos to raid surrounding settlements, but their armies never strayed too far from their borders.

I'd never really cared about that. I loved the water and that's all there is to it; if I had any choice in the matter, I'd swap my Doton affinity for a Suiton one on the spot, versatility be damned. My reserves could compensate for the added chakra cost of jutsu. However, the fact that I could feel the drain after a single, toned back Mizurappa in this environment was alarming. It cost, like, ten average-sized Stone Pistols! Missing-nin must be exhausted just from living here.

"It's the same forces that created the Land of Mountain Streams," I continued. "It's just that the water table here is higher for whatever geological reason. The border between the two nations is about where the Sekitsui drops off. The tall mountains combined with the tropical, southern heat changed up the wind patterns, causing updrafts that merge with colder winds coming down from the north to create storms over the Land of Swamps. Since it's so flat in Sōgen, and since there's near constant wind blowing in the opposite direction, the clouds rarely make it over the Sekitsui."

Rika clearly didn't expect a real answer to that question. Despite what I thought when I first arrived in this world, people weren't entirely clueless about science, weather included. It was just that so many of them didn't really care about why the world behaved as it did, so they rarely bothered to educate themselves. We had skimmed over it at the academy (there were sometimes applications in survival and more rarely ninjutsu interactions), but most civilian schools were all about trade, so they typically knew even less than us on the subject.

However, I carried into this world knowledge from my last, and knowing how storms formed was relevant knowledge for the captain of any modern seaworthy vessel.

"You're very smart, Kasaiki-chan," she complimented, and I shrugged, glancing over my shoulder at the jonin. Biwa-sensei and Endo-sensei were preparing to leave, now that we'd reached Sōgen no Kuni. They'd head off to search their own quarry: Yamasaki Toyokazu, missing jonin of Iwagakure, and though I was ashamed to admit it, all I felt was relief.

It was stupid. I was stupid. But every time Biwa-sensei's gaze landed on me, I shivered. Though chakra normally kept my memory sharp, I had already forgotten what exactly he'd said, or what I'd promised him. All I vividly remembered was my feet dangling in open air and the pounding, furious pulse in my head. That was what intent did to you. It erased your own experience and replaced it with someone else's. One I'm sure would stick with me forever. So while I knew that it would be the intelligent, mature thing to do, I couldn't bring myself to check in with Biwa-sensei before he left.

Not that he'd be leaving leaving. Though we'd treated the Jashinist's escort mission as second fiddle in private, it was still an obligation Iwa needed to see through, and this was a dangerous place. Biwa-sensei explained that he'd leave a clone in last night's team debrief, though that would be kept from our client. They thought the original would stay with our group and the clone was going with Endo-sensei—it had been made clear to them that she had a separate mission in Sōgen, and that she'd only traveled this far with us out of convenience.

Of course, in typical Biwa-sensei fashion—typical ninja fashion, really—he kept the specifics close to his chest. Which is why I was surprised when, as we were about to part ways, he didn't cast the Shadow or Rock Clone like I thought he would. With many, many more hand seals, his body began to split into two, head multiplying first, then his arms, torso and legs. Soon enough, two Biwa-sensei's stood before us.

Fission Clone. Not that I was supposed to know the name. Without Minato and Jiraya there to distract me, I drank in the confusing visuals, noticing details that had escaped me in the last instance.

First off, while they both looked identical on the outside, I was pretty sure there was one real body and one that split off from it. I made that assumption off of their behaviors; the original Biwa-sensei stood stock still while the other pried itself off him. And then, that split-off intentionally circled around to take Sensei's place at our side. I could be reading too far into it, but that suggested to me that they were, in some way, not interchangeable.

Then there were the hand seals themselves. Biwa-sensei's technique used a lot of them, but despite that the sequence didn't seem to involve a lot of nuance like so many complicated techniques did. The modified seals he used were almost all transitions from the elemental quintet—Inu, Hitsuji and especially Tora, Mi, and Tori. It made sense that those three seals were featured so heavily, since this was supposedly a Dust Release Technique. But the fact that the sequence read so logically led me to believe there was a lot more going on under the surface. Chakra manipulation, internal and external, shape transformation and nature. It could be any or all of the above. It was like a test problem with hidden variables, and I didn't have the context to solve it even though it seemed simple enough on the surface for me to grasp.

But now that I think about it, is this actually a Dust Release Technique? I really don't see how it related to anything else I knew the Kekkei Tōta to be capable of, and I don't remember the Tsuchikage confirming it one way or the other in the anime. It was just implied, since Lord Mū was the one to use it. For all I knew, it could be something else entirely. Maybe it worked under the same premise as Naruto's special Shadow Clone.

I digress. There was one last point of intrigue, and that was the execution itself. The technique took a long time to implement—that was something I'd noticed back in Rain. And that was even after the long string of hand seals, which took nearly a minute for a jonin of Biwa-sensei's experience to fly through. Once he had, over five whole additional minutes passed before the bodies separated, and from the look of concentration on his face, it was an mentally intensive process.

In other words, unlike every other clone I'd heard of, it was entirely out of the question to create one in the midst of battle. It had to be done ahead of time, or not at all.

"That's the clone you used in Rain," Daigo noted in a detached tone of voice. "The one capable of using ninjutsu."

I was glad he was curious and brave enough to probe for information.

"Yes," he confirmed, the clone speaking on the original's behalf. So they could think and act independently, instead of having to rely on simple directions given at the time of creation. Most clones were directed by intent filtered through the Yin half of our chakra, but not this one. It was as if it had its own brain.

"It has limited ninjutsu capability," Biwa-sensei continued. "Though I will refrain from casting any unless I have no other option. That is for both strategic and logistical reasons."

Limited ninjutsu capability? Is that simply an allusion to the fact that he couldn't use Dust Release while in this state? Or was there something on top of that?

I had a question, and I opened my mouth before closing it.

Stupid. This is an important question. It might be relevant to our mission, or even impact how we behave going forward.

I opened my mouth again, cobbling together every nerve I had left.

"Ano," I tried to say strongly, but the word came out timid even to myself. I swallowed harshly and tried again. "Is this clone capable of regenerating chakra? Or is it…out when it's out?"

"No, it will regenerate," he said. "Albeit at a slower rate. However, my capacity should be sufficient to handle most tasks."

Biwa-sensei gave no indication that he recognized my internal conflict, the asshole. Not that I expected him to. Like so many in this world and my last, he wasn't willing to admit he made a mistake by apologizing or even acknowledging that he might have gone a teensy bit overboard. He was going to just ignore the issue until I got over it on my own.

"And is there any communication between your two bodies?" I pressed on, trying to come off as nonchalant even as my heart beat faster under his continued attention.

"I cannot perceive what my other body perceives, if that is what you are asking," he said. "However, if we need to pass a message to my other body, I can use my personal summons. Each body can act as a beacon for the technique, as if they are separate people under contract."

So there wasn't memory transfer, like with Naruto's Shadow Clones. Interesting.

"Are there any situations that we should be made aware of in which this clone may dispel?" Daigo asked tactfully. He of all people loathed to nose into the secrets of his comrades'—not to mention superiors'—techniques.

"This clone will not dispel," Biwa-sensei announced, and I could tell both Iwao and Daigo, who lacked my foreknowledge, were taken aback. "It is my own body, split. Nothing short of a true, fatal wound will kill it."

I was close to (mentally) calling cap. Splitting a whole body in two with a jutsu? That just…didn't seem right. Both from what I observed, and what I knew about chakra and biology coming into this. I know there were those weirdos on the Sound Four that could do something similar, but that was an entirely different scenario. Those were two different people who could merge bodies, and that was only due to a bloodline. They were born with a genetic advantage, and Biwa-sensei wasn't.

Right?

Ugh, this was going to keep me up all night. I highly doubted that, if I were to dissect the Biwa-sensei that had pried it out of my original Biwa-sensei, I would find a complete set of human organs. That would be crazy—not to mention revolutionary to the field of medicine. But what would I find? What secrets lay underneath that entirely real-looking skin?

"Despite my continued presence, I have chosen to be hand's off with this mission," Biwa-sensei said when it was clear there weren't any more questions about his bullshit technique. "In fact, to remain inconspicuous, I may conceal myself altogether. Iwao, you're in charge, and I grant you the right to make decisions for the group. Consider it a test—for all of you."

Iwao straightened, a glint of confidence in his eye. I just let out a weary sigh.

"You have your heading," Biwa-sensei finished. "If you make good time, you should arrive in three days. But be careful. You're in no man's land, now. Any face you see in the bingo book could feasibly turn up. Treat this with the urgency it deserves."

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

Despite sensei's warning, our first day in Sōgen was peaceful. Our party didn't encounter a single human soul, friendly or unfriendly. But that didn't mean we were entirely alone.

From the descriptors I'd been given—inhospitable, low-fertility, without civilization—I'd imagined Sōgen no Kuni as a desert without the sand. Hot, desolate, barren, unable to be developed. However, that wasn't really the case. There was wildlife; plenty of it. Bugs crawled over the rocky ground, birds flew overhead and I'm pretty sure I even saw a herd of deer in the distance. And any warmth from the fully exposed sun soon became almost impossible to feel under the heavy, near constant winds.

Honestly, I was beginning to think that they were the reason vegetation was so hardy and sparse. The wind scraped away whatever dirt had been ground out of the rocky landscape by wandering hooves or weathering, leaving nothing but stone that plants were hard pressed to take root in. Instead, dust was tossed high into the sky, creating an orangish haze overhead that was quite disorienting.

I bet that if someone invested a little time and resources into this place, building sheltered greenhouses instead of leaving everything exposed to the elements, growing food wouldn't be incredibly difficult. Especially if they began composting as a means to enrich what little nutrient deficient soil they could gather. However, no trader or craftsman would brave this lawless country to bring in metal or glass when no one here had the money to purchase it.

"There's an intermediary campsite to the north," Iwao said to Makishi, referencing the map that we'd been given. It was the least detailed piece of cartography the mission desk had ever given us, but I was reasonably confident we could trust the few landmarks we'd be given. "That's probably the best place for us to spend the night."

The Jashinist leader agreed with the plan, but was clearly shocked to see what said intermediary campsite consisted of.

"It's just…a well," he muttered in dismay. "A well smack in the middle of the plains. No structures, no shelters. What's even the point?"

I wanted to shake him and shout this is what you signed up for, idiot! But I refrained.

"It's the only place a traveler's going to find any water around here," I said instead. "I'm sure the nomads are used to spending their nights under the stars anyway, and with so few resources, why would they go through the effort of lugging building materials here? Especially since it's just a stop on the journey."

"The intermediary campsites aren't meant to host anyone for more than a night," Iwao said. "The nomads' goal is to get to the next outpost as soon as possible, before their herds begin to starve. There isn't anything to sustain them here. And I doubt that well's capacity can sustain an entire nomad group for long before it needs to replenish."

Makishi sighed. "Well, I suppose we best drain it sooner rather than later, then. We'll fill up our containers, and satiate our thirst now. We have no choice but to spend the night here, anyway."

It was already getting dark.

"Make sure you don't drink any of it until you boil the water," I reminded him. Or, at least, I thought it was a reminder.

"Boil it?" the pot-bellied man repeated, confused. "Why would I do that?"

I stared at him for a moment, wondering if he was joking. Seriously? How do you plan this trip without learning basic survival skills?

"You should always boil any water you find in the wilderness, even from wells," I said, trying to keep the judgment out of my voice. "You never know what bacteria or parasites could be living in it. Boiling the water should kill most if not all of them off. If you don't take that precaution, you could risk extreme sickness, even death."

The cult leader seemed alarmed by the revelation.

"I had no idea," he mused. "Thank you for letting me know. I'll tell my congregation."

As he left, Iwao turned to me with a long-suffering sigh.

"Guess we're lighting a fire, tonight," he grumbled. "Kami, getting these people back alive is going to be more difficult than I thought."

It would be challenging enough with just missing-nin and the elements to contend with. Now, we had to add the Jashinists themselves to the threat list. Lovely.

"I'll handle that," I said, sympathetically. "I'll dig now, but I won't light them until it's darker."

I wasn't going to take chances. In terrain this flat with no cover, you could see a fire from miles away, and attracting any attention at all could have consequences. So, I'd build each fire underground, with tunnels to act as chimneys. When true night fell, the smoke should be hidden or mistaken for the normal haze that hung above us in the sky.

Without sunlight, the wind wasn't nearly as fierce, but I still felt its aftermath on my skin. I was windburnt after just half a day; perhaps tomorrow I'd go for the full Mu look. The twinges were easy to put out of my mind, however, as I used the Moguragakure to soften and excavate the unforgiving stone. I made four small fire pits for the Jashinists to split amongst themselves, and Daigo chopped down a small, leafless tree nearby to act as fuel with a single wind jutsu. There were thorns all along the branches, and I pricked myself cutting it into smaller pieces. Finally, when Iwao gave me the go ahead, I moved between the fires, spitting out a small Katon: Endan (Fire Style: Fire Bullet) to ignite the wood.

As I stood sentry over our party, who was chattering far too loudly in my personal opinion, I felt someone behind me. Looking over my shoulder, I saw it was Iwao.

"You need something, team leader?" I asked, and he sat down next to me.

"I have a question for you, now that she isn't around to eavesdrop or extrapolate with her ability," he said, looking out at the horizon. "I was surprised to hear that you knew Endo Ayumu. I was wondering about your relationship with her."

I cocked an eyebrow.

"Endo-sensei? There's not much of a relationship there. I told you, she was the one who signed off on my early enrollment to the academy."

"But why?" he pressed. "She isn't the type to sponsor anyone. How did you gain her attention?"

Well, I've already told Iwao a lot about me, so I supposed sharing this wasn't that big a deal. Especially since he was kinda complicit in it himself, as I'd used him to locate Lake Magatta in the first place. I told Iwao my cover story, how I was looking for a better way to increase my physical condition and thus searched for a sizeable body of water to swim in. How Endo-sensei walked in on me with her team, and gave me an unreasonable test to get me out of her hair. How, against all odds, I passed using a technique most people could scarcely dream of.

"At the end of it, she even offered to sponsor me," I finished. "That's really all there is to it."

Iwao snorted. "I can't believe you used me in your scheme like that. Actually, scratch that. I can definitely believe it."

"Sorry," I apologized, belatedly. "I did teach you the jutsu I learned in payment."

"I thought you taught me the Chisana Hikari no Jutsu because you were my friend," he said wryly, and I chuckled sheepishly.

"Why are you so curious about Endo-sensei anyway?" I asked.

He took a moment to answer.

"I've never met Endo Ayumu before, but I've heard about her quite a lot," he finally said. "On account of her position. My father has referred to her as one of his most trusted assets."

Hmmm, how interesting.

"She's a Red Ogre?" I asked softly. Like in Konoha with the ANBU, Red Ogres' identities were supposed to remain a secret. However, in practice, it wasn't hard to figure out if a friend or close work acquaintance was a member. Iwao seemed to have rightly decided that I'd figure it out soon enough anyway.

"She's a mainstay," he confirmed. "Most people in the Red Ogres only take occasional missions under the mask. Much more rare are the people who almost never take it off, and she's one of them. That she was assigned to us…it's strange. My gut tells me there's a reason we're not privy to."

As that sank in, I replayed all the interactions that I'd had with her since the mission began. Nothing stuck out, but I supposed that she'd have to be pretty shit at her job if I had something to bring up.

"It occurs to me that I don't really know much about the Red Ogres," I mused. "Which, of course, I realize is by design. But how does one…find themselves in that line of work? Are they scouted, or is it a position you can intentionally work towards?"

Iwao considered the question.

"I can't tell you that," he said. "However, I can say that the organization pays tribute to its history. Do you know how the Red Ogres came to be?"

"No," I answered, honestly. "I assume that, as the Hidden Village system was in its early days, Iwa realized it had certain needs and created a group to fill them."

"Not so much, no," he revealed. "As a matter of fact, the Order of the Red Ogre predates the birth of Iwagakure by over a century."

I raised an eyebrow.

"I…had no idea. What use did the organization have before hidden villages existed?"

"Their mission has shifted since then," he told me. "When the Red Ogres came to be, this region, like many others during the Warring Clans era, was…turbulent. The Bakuhatsu and the Konjiki fought like animals, and their bloodlines turned everywhere they battled inhospitable for a time. The other clans competed for missions as well, and that often turned violent as well. Anyone who didn't belong to a clan was essentially a second class citizen, and wherever there is suffering, crime soon follows. Major cities outside of the clan compounds, many of which still exist, were victimized by bandits and the like, and it was getting too expensive to hire clan shinobi to deal with the problems. They needed someone to police their cities, but too few people were willing to throw their lives away to do it. So, the city officials turned their eyes to people who weren't willing. People who were part of the problem."

Oof. Yeah, I could see where this was going.

"The institution was founded in Tsuchiyama. I don't know who did it, or how they came upon the knowledge required, but they invented masks. Each one bore a so-called curse which made it so that, once they were put on, they could never be taken off. We know now that fūinjutsu was placed on the mask, which used the wearer's own chakra to stick itself to their face. Modern masks have the same ability, but the difference is that our predecessors couldn't control the seal, and they were always active."

"The masks were used as a punishment?" I gathered.

"Exactly," Iwao confirmed. "They were put on criminals that were caught, and those criminals were then forced into slavery. In penance for their crimes, they were turned into those who would fight against the type of people they once were. See, the sticking feature wasn't all. Before the mask was placed, their tongues would be cut out so they could never speak again. And, there was a torture component that could be activated by a commander, who wasn't a criminal. Anyone who didn't fall in line was punished severely."

"How did they eat?" I asked in morbid curiosity. "If they couldn't take off their masks. And couldn't they just disrupt the sticking with their own chakra?"

"There is a metal grill over the masks which can be raised and lowered," he said. "Behind it is a small opening, which they had to force food through. It's the reason that ration bars in this region are so thin."

Oooooh. Yeah, that kinda made sense. Ration bars in other countries, I knew, were thick, but we had multiple thin ones in every pack. I never realized there was a historical reason for that.

"As for the chakra sticking, I'm not sure. My tou-san has shown me a mask, but I'm not literate in fūinjutsu. Maybe there's something that prevents that, or maybe they just didn't know how to do so over their entire face at once. I know people tried to cut them off on occasion in order to escape, but as you could guess, the sticking chakra reached past what was cut off."

That sounded both painful and gross. I was still fascinated by the logistics.

"If the seal drains the user's chakra, there would have to be a failsafe if their reserves got too low," I pointed out. "Otherwise they'd just die if they experienced chakra exhaustion. Did none of them realize they could exploit that?"

"They probably would have, if there was actually a failsafe," Iwao explained. "What you fail to account for is that the commanders, back then, didn't care at all if their subordinates survived. They were criminals facing the consequences of their own actions. Therefore, the masks always drained their chakra. And if they didn't have chakra to provide, it was as you said. The users simply died of chakra exhaustion."

I saw a comet streak overhead. This world didn't have the outrageous light pollution I was used to in my old world, which utterly erased every star in the night sky, so even in cities I could make out all manner of constellations. Here, however, where there was actually no hint of civilization, it looked especially marvelous. I think I could faintly see a nebula.

"The Ogres knew this, of course," Iwao continued. "They were well aware that if they didn't get strong enough, their own masks would kill them. So, they trained day in and day out, motivated to grow their reserves out of fear. In doing so, they became some of the most powerful shinobi around. Certainly outside of the clans. Seeing Tsuchiyama's success, other cities adopted the practice, and eventually the Red Ogre cells joined together, policing not just their cities but the routes between them, which helped commerce. They were so successful that the amount of convicts slowed, and their forces had to be supplemented with ordinary, clanless shinobi. However, the expectations regarding their performance were still there, and the advanced training methods had already been discovered, so there was little to no drop in quality even without the threat of death. When the shinobi in the region were unified to form Iwagakure, it was only logical for the Red Ogres to become what they are today. They barely even had to change their operating procedures."

As interesting as this was (and I mean that with total sincerity), I found Iwao's stated reason for this history lesson alarming.

"When I asked how someone becomes a Red Ogre, you said that the organization pays tribute to its history," I said, putting air quotes around his words. "Please tell me we're not still slapping torture masks on people."

"No, no," he reassured me. "The practice was already falling to the wayside, but the Nidaime officially banned it during his rule. The other villages' spy networks were growing too advanced, and we couldn't risk letting anyone who didn't hold extreme loyalty to Iwagakure be included in our operations."

I'm so glad that was why. Not for any moral reason; we just needed to make it harder for other villages to slip moles in.

"Beyond that, I will not elaborate," Iwao stated, and I gave him a brief nod.

Behind us, the Jashinists were noisily scooping the hot water from their pots into barrels. I rolled my eyes; it was more than a little pathetic.

"You really want to take your father's place, don't you?" I muttered. "It's not just an expectation that you were forced into."

"I thought I'd made that clear," he said, stiffly. Mentally, I sighed. Around just about everyone else, Iwao was a social butterfly. I'd seen it a lot over the past few days, when he was interacting with the Jashinists. He was more formal, more closed off with his superiors, but when the two of us interacted, it was like he was an entirely different person. Like someone had injected liquid marble into his veins. I wondered if he'd ever be comfortable around me again.

I was brought out of my thoughts when I saw something in the distance, and I narrowed my eyes. It was an orange dot, far away but not too far. I shot to my feet, and Iwao tracked my gaze until he saw it too.

"We have company," he announced, a frown on his face. "That's definitely a firelight. It looks like a single torch."

"Gotta be a ninja, then," I said, at attention. "No one else would be able to survive out here alone, or even in a small group. But with that fire lit, they can't be looking to take us by surprise."

"No, they're certainly announcing their presence," Iwao agreed. "Why though? Are they approaching us?"

It was hard to tell under these conditions.

"Let's form up," Iwao decided. "Arrange the clients optimally and devise a plan, strategist. We can't discount the possibility that it's a distraction for another attack from the rear."

Though it was possible, I found that unlikely. It was never in an ambushing party's best interest to put their targets on edge in any fashion. However, the enemies we could find ourselves up against might not be the brightest bulbs in the pack, so I couldn't count anything out.

I coordinated the Jashinists, placing the people inside a circle of all their wagons. Daigo and Biwa-sensei stood on opposite sides of said wagons, while Iwao and I stood outside the ring. It soon became clear that the shinobi was approaching us, but an entire, tense half and hour passed before he was even in shouting range. No one else was in sight.

"Hello travelers!" the shinobi called. He sounded young, but not too young. Early thirties, perhaps. His tone was somewhat jovial, pitched to sound as unthreatening as possible.

"I apologize for any alarm I may have caused you. I come entirely in peace. My name is Yatsureta Haruto, and I simply wish to open dialogue."

I stepped towards Iwao to whisper in his ear.

"Yatsureta is the name of one of the nomadic shinobi clans native to Sōgen no Kuni. Act as if you do not know that, and I will try and catch him in a lie."

He inclined his head slightly before projecting his voice. The ninja had stopped about a hundred meters out, and I could see his face, for what little that counted. He had tan skin with darker freckles, short dark hair and a chunk taken out of his left nostril.

"You would approach us, even though us affiliated shinobi are required to kill any missing-nin we meet?" he called.

"Not a missing-nin," Haruto replied immediately. "I've never belonged to a hidden village. My clan is native to this country."

"Can you prove it?" Iwao asked, just to hear what he'd say.

"Not in any way you'd accept, most likely," he admitted. "But I would welcome you to compare my face to your bingo books."

"Henge," Iwao reminded unnecessarily, and the man shrugged helplessly. "Why should I bother? Why are you approaching us at all?"

"Because I need money, and I'm not morally corrupt enough to steal it," he said, cheerfully, and I blinked in surprise. "I know this country inside and out, and not just geographically. The culture is far from what you are used to, I'm sure. I have a lot to offer you, so please consider…"

He bowed low.

"Hiring me as a guide!"

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

AN: Please excuse me as I lay some groundwork for this arc and what follows. Hope you enjoyed!

You should totally check out my other fic on archive. Across the Totem-Verse, (username Poncho_o). It's a Spider-Man, Across the Spider-Verse fic.

I don't have a Ptrn. If you've gotten just five bucks of enjoyment out of this story, please consider buying my original work on amazon (information in my bio). Between the two sites this fic is posted on, I have over 3000 readers. If even half of you choose to support me in this fashion, I would have considerable bargaining power when it comes to getting future books published. More publishing deals means I can quit my day job, which translates into more time for fanfiction. It's a one time thing, and you even get more of my writing out of it.

See you next week!