I did not recognise these tunnels at all and that did nowt to quell my catastrophic thought spirals. The twists and turns were different from before and with only the glow of a small torch illuminating our way, I was certain that any other civilian would be left stranded in this maze.
His vague request echoed non-stop in my mind. 'The base is unliveable, make it the opposite'.
Okay, what did that mean exactly? Or was this all merely a pretence to get rid of me without any witnesses? If the latter was true, it was disturbingly ironic that I followed him all the way here like a lamb to slaughter. The questions teetered on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them, choosing to walk silently behind him in this dark labyrinth. It was too late to turn back anyhow.
The innermost tunnels felt warmer and more humid, nothing like outside. Within a hundred paces, my body was covered in a sheen of sweat under the heavy winter garments. We turned a corner until Kakuzu abruptly stopped and I nearly crashed into him (but thankfully did not).
"Here", he broke the silence first. We were standing in a corridor now; the bare earthen walls were replaced by doors on both sides. I counted four in total.
He pushed open the door closest to us and walked inside. With great apprehension, I followed his lead. To my surprise, there was nothing inside except for a stone slab that was two metres off the ground. Nothing to suggest imminent death and torture.
"These are the sleeping quarters. They need furnishing and cleaning", Kakuzu spoke gruffly.
I stared blankly at him. It took a moment for the gears to start turning.
Ah.
Make it liveable. His codeword for redecorate. 'Thank the heavens'. He was not going to kill me.
I breathed a heavy sigh of relief, redecorating and cleaning up were firmly within my repertoire of skills. "You want me to prepare this base for your colleagues", I reiterated slowly.
"Why else would you be here?" Kakuzu growled irritably. His patience was skating on thin ice after travelling for slightly over two days straight from the bounty checkpoint. The enormity of this underground base only added to his tetchiness.
My jaw clenched, quickly annoyed by his condescension. "I need more than that", I replied, trying to keep my own aggravation at bay.
He was silent, but the sliver of his exposed face was both vexed and confused. Before my confidence was shaken, I continued, "I need more details. Who is staying here? How long will they be here? How will I acquire the furniture?" I raised a finger after every question, trying to put my point across.
A strained silence befell us, the anxiety was foaming in my gut again. Moments passed before the tense lines in the bridge between his eyes relaxed ever so slightly. "Fine, pay attention. I will not repeat myself", he warned.
I nodded and fetched a small notebook from my thick winter coat's pocket, another acquired habit from the pharmacy. The more he spoke, the stranger the descriptions became. While he did not offer any names, I nevertheless conjured aliases for Kakuzu's uncanny colleagues.
The genius. His demands were the least extraordinary of the bunch. Bedding, a table, chair, and closet. I sensed unmasked chagrin in Kakuzu's voice, suggesting that there was no love lost between the two.
The scientist. A peculiar fellow who preferred to sleep on a higher bed. His room put one in mind of a makeshift lab with its ample tables and bookcases as well as a generator for experiments. I did not want any details about his research.
The artisan. The most bizarre of all. His living space resembled more of a workshop than a sleeping quarter. In Kakuzu's words, a bed was superfluous for his colleague. Apparently, he never slept. A terrifying creature in my eyes.
The miser. His room required a large bookshelf, table, and a chair. The bedding would be handled by him because I would, quote, unquote, "get it wrong". It was a no-brainer who planned to stay in this room.
Once he elucidated his colleagues' demands, we moved on to another hallway without any doors. I was baffled until he explained that four more rooms would be carved out later. I replied vaguely, not entirely understanding his declaration. The next space on our travel itinerary was the newly anointed kitchen. According to Kakuzu, I had to prepare the seating and kitchen equipment.
We then plodded along to an unremarkable door. "This will be the supply closet. Stock it with ninja tools, medicine, and camping materials". He had a mental list ready at hand.
I nodded studiously, jotting down all his instructions. "I need to see the inside as well", I moved to open the door.
It was only a third of the way open before strong, unyielding scents of ammonia and decay assaulted my senses. I visibly flinched as the blood drained from my face, leaving a ghastly complexion behind. My inner voice screamed at me to run away, and I unhesitatingly obeyed the instinct. But in my haste to flee from the room, I stumbled over my own two feet and dropped clumsily to the ground.
Kakuzu marched into the room once I backtracked out of the way. I heard a sharp intake of breath before he slammed the door shut. It was nigh impossible to suppress the urge to expel the contents of my stomach. I silently thanked whichever deity existed that I had not eaten anything in the past few hours.
"Why did you let me go inside?" I demanded furiously after the dry-heaving subsided.
His eyes hardened from my accusation. "I did not know".
I glared at him but believed that he was telling the truth. What reason did he have to lie about this? My misdirected anger was stoked by his ability to remain collected and apathetic; it was yet another reminder of the enormous gap between us. He was an unflappable shinobi while I was a squeamish civilian.
"That is where they kept them", I murmured, hastily rubbing away the tears swimming in my eyes.
He did not disagree. The lingering scents of urine and faeces were dead giveaways on the well-being of the young women and children. Blood smears across the walls and ground suggested that the kidnappers were not above beating their hostages when they did not behave. Based on the room's abhorrent state, he hypothesised that the kidnappers amassed their victims for months at a time and transported them en masse to save time and money. It was risky, but cost-effective.
While the room was atrocious, most would not have registered what they were seeing in the unlit room. Only shinobi with high visual acuity could process the space in a mere second. This meant that Nao's visceral reaction was inexplicable, unless...
"You can sense emotions?" He knew the answer but sought her confirmation. It was not uncommon for sensory types to detect emotions.
"Sometimes", I replied vaguely, keeping my gaze downcast.
"I can prepare a purchase list. However, how do you want to do this?" I voiced wearily, eager to move on from my spectacular outburst. We were deep in the middle of nowhere, hardly the setting to transport furniture.
"Order the items from different suppliers and ask them to be delivered at various locations at these times", he paused to hand over a piece of paper with what I presumed to be the coordinates.
"Memorise and then burn it. I will know if you do otherwise", he warned. I nodded obediently.
"I will seal the items and transport the scrolls here. It will be your job to sort them".
"Alright. The pharmacy is open during the daytime, but I can be here in the evenings", I reminded him.
He inclined his head; I took that as a sign of agreement. Now, on to the more awkward section of our discussion...
"What about payment?"
"Our organisation will pay the manufacturers before the deliveries", he answered simply.
'Um, not what I meant'.
"That is all well and good, but I was referring to my salary. Heh", I added nervously.
His brows piqued as though the answer was apparent. "Your town's minimum wage for manual labour and it is taken away from your debt".
'Right, my debt...'
The town's minimum wage was meagre compared to wages in similar communities on the other side of the border. But this was to be expected, given the land's smaller economy. It felt disingenuous to haggle for a wage increase from Kakuzu, so I acquiesced in his offer.
Before setting off to work, an inconvenient detail popped into my mind. "You have not shown me the bathroom", I voiced with trepidation, unable to shake off a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
He stared at me. And I stared back with equal obstinance.
"There is no bathroom. Go outside if you cannot hold it", he finally answered.
"You cannot be serious..." I began to protest.
But he was unmoved, and the matter was closed. My fingers ran through my curly, sable locks in frustration. "Is there a deadline?" I demanded, dreading to hear his answer.
"You have four nights, including today", he answered in a clipped tone.
'Give me a break...' I groaned silently to myself. Of course! His deadline naturally coincided with the ultimatum issued by Backpain-san.
"Is there a problem?"
"No", I countered sharply. We were both equally unconvinced.
After surveying the rooms again, I submitted my preliminary list for Kakuzu's approval. Naturally, the miser struck off a few of my suggestions before begrudgingly approving the other requests. Fortunately, he did not protest the addition of more cleaning products after witnessing that odious closet. Once this business was sorted, I left for the pharmacy.
It was child's play to use the trails of our freshly laid chakra and find my way back. By the time I was outside, dawn had surrendered to the full morning sun. The air was warmer than usual, courtesy of today's unusually bright rays. While I could still see white fog with each exhale, at least I was not shivering to my core. These small mercies were appreciated.
I was strangely energised for the rest of the day. Making calls to furniture suppliers and tidying up were familiar tasks from my tenure in the inn, it was comforting to return to them. After placing the orders, I served a few customers in the pharmacy and researched deeper into Backpain-san's prescription. In no time at all, the day had ended and my second shift was due to begin.
Although the deliveries were only due to arrive in two days, my docket was already full. The sheer number of items on Kakuzu's list for the supply closet demanded multiple trips stretched out over days.
The haul was heavy. I severely overestimated my muscular strength and wasted a good ten minutes trying to carry everything out the door. I threw in the towel and retrieved a wagon from Fuyuta's backroom. It was a large, four-wheel contraption, the length of my body and twice as wide. I noticed with despair that my earlier fortune with the weather had vanished like the sun. Dark clouds were pervading the evening sky, forewarning a nasty storm.
I do not like to embellish, so trust me when I say that most of my journey was spent cursing Kakuzu up and down as well as inside and out. I counted half a dozen times where I could have fallen and maimed myself. He and his damned list were going to be the death of me.
Nearly two hours elapsed by the time I reached the agreed entry point. Lugging around a hefty wagon during a brewing snowstorm was no easy feat. While waiting for Kakuzu to open the entrance, I gathered fresh-fallen snow in the wooden buckets. Without a running tap or water tanks in the base, melted ice was the next best source.
Despite being decked out in full winter gear; this cold was bone-chilling. A flurry of snowflakes blasted against my raw skin while powerful, biting winds obscured my surroundings. I seriously contemplated yanking the tarp off the wagon and hiding in it before the ground gave way. From below, Kakuzu emerged wearing only a long-sleeved shirt and ordinary pants. This did nothing to quell my growing bitterness.
He immediately scowled, the mask did little to hide his disapproval, "That thing is hardly inconspicuous, what if someone saw you?"
"They w-would not-t! It's a g-ghost town by sunset", I argued with chattering teeth and all. If my chest did not hurt with every uttered word, I would have readily pointed out that he could have easily stored the items in a scroll at the pharmacy.
He sighed, performing a set of hand seals to transform the underground staircase into a ramp. I wondered how dire my appearance must have been to be granted such generosity.
'Pretty damn miserable', I concluded.
A gush of warm air hit my face as we descended the stairs. "Thanks-s", I said once the shaking abated. He cast a mystified look at me, but I did not catch it. My attention drifted to the unfamiliar entrance and accompanying passages. Familiarising myself with the base's layout was high priority after this hellish assignment, lest Kakuzu disappeared for weeks on end again.
We did not exchange pleasantries or small talk the rest of the way. The tunnels were silent save for a squeaky wheel echoing noisily. After wordlessly escorting me to the sealed room, he acknowledged my existence.
"Take this", he dropped a piece of jewellery into my outstretched hand.
'A ring?' It was a smooth, light-blue band. Oh, I had so many questions.
"Wear it and perform these seals to access the base", he briefly demonstrated a simple sequence of seals before disappearing into the maze of tunnels. I did not know the names of the hand seals, but roughly memorised their shapes.
Holding the ring between my thumb and index finger, I detected a flicker of his chakra coursing through it. I slipped the jewellery into my pocket for safekeeping and made a mental note to rummage the pharmacy for an elementary guide to the ninja arts.
It was time to move on to the main event – cleaning the supply closet. My arsenal was stocked with masks, disposal bags, brushes, and ample cleaning solutions. Unlike this morning, I was prepared for whatever chaos laid on the other side of the door.
I shall spare you the disturbing details of what I found and how hard I worked to get rid of it all. I silently sent a thankful prayer to my deceased master for forcing me to clean all the inn's bathrooms in the early years of my apprenticeship.
As disgusting as the room was, the emotional residues of pain and terror were a thousand times worse. The victims' suffering was indelible, it was as though their cries and screams were ringing faintly in my ears. It proved overwhelming and I was gasping for fresh air after just the first round of cleaning. The entire experience thoroughly challenged my belief in humanity. Whenever my thoughts drifted to their greedy and sadistic captors, I took pleasure in the knowledge of their dishonourable deaths at Kakuzu's hand. Cruel but true.
'Good riddance'.
It was after applying the second and third round of my detergent-bleach mixture that the room became tolerable. With the snowstorm raging outside, I planned to wait and burn the waste bags the next morning. But to my humiliation, nature called, and I was pressed to relieve myself outside.
As promised, the ring and the seals opened the entrance. Burning the waste bags with the cleaning liquids acting as accelerants was thankfully easier than attending to the call of nature. The gelid wind continually assaulted my senses, any longer outside and I would have contracted frostbite in a very sensitive area of my body.
Unlike Fuyuta's chaotic backroom, sorting and lining this first batch of supplies ate up much less time. By midnight, I was running on fumes and my eyelids were heavy with sleep. Despite all of my meticulous planning, one crucial detail slipped my mind.
Sleeping arrangements. I did not anticipate the storm lasting this long and naturally failed to pack a sleeping bag.
'Idiot', I scolded.
The idea of using the tarp as a very thin buffer between my body and the cold stone slab briefly crossed my mind. 'Well, that's a terrible idea'. No doubt I would wake up completely sore and sleep deprived.
To my greatest dismay, there was the more feasible option of asking Kakuzu for one. As a shinobi, he must have carried one for camping outdoors. 'Damn'. I swayed back and forth but threw in the towel in the absence of alternatives.
With grudging acceptance, I used my sensory abilities and found him in one of the rooms at the leftmost corner. The character, North, had been engraved onto the door. I assumed that it was his handiwork.
My hand was poised to knock on the door and stayed in the air for a while. I struggled to follow through with it. The last thing on my wish list was asking this man for another favour.
'How much will this cost me?' With Misaki taking her time to buy out my share of the inn, I still owed him a fortune.
Before I could reach a decision, he beat me to it, "How long do you plan on standing there?" Of course, he knew I was there. The curse of politeness demanded that I knock before going inside anyway.
If one could sum up Kakuzu's mood in a word, it would be prickly.
His entire day had been consumed with testing and reinforcing the tunnels' existing structures. He hardly had a moment to himself before his subordinate arrived, she was drenched and shaking which he found faintly bemusing. They walked in silence which he preferred over mind-numbing small talk.
Leaving the woman to her devices, he returned to his room. He was many things – a missing-nin, bounty hunter, the Akatsuki's self-appointed treasurer – but not a babysitter for civilians.
Kakuzu's fastidiousness kicked into overdrive when it concerned his bedding. Decades later and he still struggled to sleep soundly in modern beds and shiki-buton. In his youth, straw mats were woven and stacked to form a mattress of sorts. But this style had gone out of fashion, forcing him to either procure them from very old and very expensive weavers or craft them himself. Both options were inconvenient for a nomad, necessitating that he seal away the bedding in a travel scroll.
Now when she came around, he was sitting cross-legged on the bed and balancing the accounts. Since he was not even close to done, this unwelcome interruption only added to his prickly state. The strange woman stood outside his door for a full minute. Time was money and she was wasting it.
"How long do you plan on standing there?" That finally jolted her into action.
In the faint glow of candlelight, he watched her eyes curiously study his room. It was when she met his steely stare that she realised her imprudence and quickly looked away in embarrassment.
"There is a storm outside. I cannot leave the base tonight...", she mumbled.
"Use one of the empty rooms", he ordered, not bothering to take his eyes off the books. This did not qualify as a conversation-worthy problem.
"I didn't bring anything to sleep on...", her voice was louder this time, "Can I borrow a sleeping bag?"
His pencil stopped moving. 'Interesting'. He couldn't recall the last time when anyone dared to ask him for a favour. He rarely, if ever, doled them out.
"And why would I do that?" It sounded crueller than it was, he was actually curious to know.
The woman was visibly unsettled. Her tightly folded arms and clenched jaw alluded to her growing crossness with him. "I cannot work on your assignment if I am severely sleep-deprived. It also costs you nothing given that you already have a bed".
'Anger suits her', he thought to himself. He cared very little for shyness and subservience. In that moment, he decided that he liked pushing her buttons. The arguments were fair and reasonable, but there was no fun in just giving it to her.
"You can have it if you properly answer my questions", he decided. Her shoulders sagged in defeat. With no place to sit, she shifted her weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. Up till now, he ignored the questions floating in his mind. His handling of her had been slipshod at best. But since the mental fog had dissipated after his latest hunt, he planned to mine every detail about her capabilities.
To her credit, she answered his questions with a satisfying level of detail. He learnt that her sensory range could extend slightly over a mile, even further with powerful targets. With a lead, she could even find and track day-old chakra trails.
"What if a target masks themselves?"
"Like what you did in my house?"
He assented. She let out a heavy sigh. "If I'm too tired and not paying attention, I can miss it".
"What about emotions?"
"Sometimes". She looked away again.
"Sometimes?"
"I don't consciously practice", she admitted with a hint of self-consciousness.
"Why not?"
A pained expression clouded her features. "If you are too intuitive, someone will notice".
"You speak from experience".
"Is that a question?" She countered.
He didn't answer.
"Can you mask your own presence?"
"I can do that?" She asked with genuine surprise. 'So, no...'
"You need chakra control", he curtly replied.
"Oh..."
"Anything else?" Her voice was tight.
No, his interest was sated for the moment. He tossed the camping bag to her. She narrowly caught it and shot him a withering look.
"You may leave", he not-so-subtly ordered and returned to his work.
'Idiot. Idiot. IDIOT.'
The voice in my head was relentless. Was I was cursing myself or him? It was likely the former. I managed to fly under the radar for ten years in this town – that was, until he showed up. In the past quarter of an hour, his precise questions unearthed almost everything. And there was hardly a thing I could do about it.
'What if he uses you? He's done it before'.
I shivered inadvertently and grumbled grimly to myself. 'Who hasn't? I can hardly run away, can I?'
Absconding from the urge to throw his sleeping bag against the wall, I reminded myself that there were only three more nights for this assignment. After that, we could avoid one another for another month.
A quick swipe of my finger revealed that both the floor and stone slab were covered in a thick layer of earth. Without an actual mattress on the slab, I opted to sleep on the ground. The sleeping bag was bathed in his chakra. It was one thing to mask your presence, but no one could eradicate it from their personal belongings His chakra was...peculiar. It was not unpleasant, I just had trouble placing it. The closest metaphor would be an open field after a thorough soaking from a thunderstorm. However, even that was a clumsy match.
Who was he? Even his chakra was a mystery.
The next days were a whirlwind.
Nature did not smile kindly on my activities because it snowed heavily on most nights. Some would have taken it as a sign, but those same people didn't have Kakuzu as their debt collector. So, I forced my way through snow that reached past my ankles, nevertheless.
The recurring snowstorm meant that I spent most nights at the base. Kakuzu did not ask for his sleeping bag, but I brought my own and left his outside the door on the next night. I had asked for an inch and was not planning to take a foot. Though I didn't see Kakuzu most of the time, he was around. There were sounds of distant explosions, I assumed that they were his handiwork.
One silver lining was that the furniture and generators arrived as promised. In the inn, it took at least an hour to clean and turn over one room. I needed at least double that amount of time to assemble furniture and clean every room in this base. While the old me would have decried the timeline as impossible, the new me did not have such luxuries and I powered through.
And it worked (at the cost of very sore muscles the next day). In addition to punishing my body, my daylight hours were consumed with the mental gymnastics of figuring out Backpain-san's medication. I was still drawing blanks on that front. All of this, combined with poor sleep, caused my temper to boil over on the penultimate night – I snapped over discovering a twig and some leaves in my underwear. On hindsight, perhaps that was a slight overreaction.
"I already told you. If you need the bathroom, go outside", Kakuzu replied dismissively.
"No", I voiced assertively.
He turned slowly to stare at me. The term, "bone-chilling", perfectly matched his expression.
"What?" He bit out angrily.
I expected that few people had the nerve, or stupidity, to refuse him. I likely had both.
"When spring and summer arrives, locals and tourists will flock to this area in droves. Going outside whenever nature calls or to fetch water exposes myself and by extension your organisation to unnecessary risk", I paused to take a breath.
I was still breathing. It was a small victory.
"And how is disposing of night soil any better?" He countered.
"It isn't", I raised a hand to ward off his immediate protest and continued, "However, my house isn't too far from here. If you connect the pipes to my drainage system, no night soil will be needed".
"So, you expect me to take time to dig underground tunnels and play pipe builder?" His voice was deathly calm.
'Well, not now...'
"It doesn't have to be you, maybe a colleague?" I was exasperated.
That seemed to catch his attention.
"Hmph". Was I imagining that nasty glint in his eye?
I swallowed audibly. "Um, okay then".
"You cannot be serious!" A high-pitched voice exclaimed.
"Do I look like I am joking?" Kakuzu replied sardonically.
"Who knows how you look like behind that mask", the opposing hologram shot back.
"Pein-sama, this is ridiculous", a gravellier voice pleaded with their stone-faced leader.
Any observer would assume that these S-ranked missing-nin were heatedly arguing over a grave matter. Two members vying over a dangerous mission, perhaps? Disappointingly, the actual issue was nowhere near as exciting.
"Reconnaissance, transportation, and disposal. That's my job. None of which involves building an underground system for your latrines", the bleached side of Zetsu argued vigorously.
"You would be aiding in the transportation of our waste", Kakuzu answered simply. As Zetsu already pointed out, no one could see his face. Naturally, everyone was unaware of his malicious grin.
'Payback is a bitch, no?' His recent skirmishes with Zetsu over the new base turned Kakuzu unusually antagonistic against their resident spy.
"Why you-!"
"Enough", Pein ordered. His one-worded command and oppressive presence ended the senseless bickering. This was not what he imagined when Kakuzu requested a trilateral meeting, he suspected that Kakuzu needed Pein to force Zetsu to do his bidding. While it was devious, his request wasn't completely outrageous. The extenuating circumstances and Zetsu's unusual skills did make him the best possible candidate.
"Despite your clear opinions on the issue, you will follow Kakuzu's directive", Pein delivered his judgement. Zetsu was disgruntled but stayed quiet while Kakuzu's smirk only widened.
"Before you go, Kakuzu, we have an evolving situation that requires your involvement", Pein said. He shared Itachi's discovery of a clandestine meeting between the Frost Daimyō and Shimogakure no Sato, which caused Kakuzu's eyes to widen. Who knew that the innkeeper's innocuous request would have unearthed this gem of information?
"What do we know so far?" The miser inquired.
"Nothing substantive. Whatever is going on, no one is openly discussing it", Zetsu replied.
Kakuzu's eyes narrowed. 'Of course, Zetsu is spying on them.'
"Given the situation, you shall infiltrate the village and gather intel", Pein spoke.
"By myself?"
"No, Itachi will accompany you. His abilities will be useful for this assignment, and he should arrive at your base in half a month or so".
Kakuzu's smirk promptly vanished. 'The damn Uchiha brat...'
"I rather go alone", he replied stonily.
"We can't all get what we want!" White Zetsu exclaimed cheerily, pointedly ignoring the miser's murderous glare.
Pein nearly groaned as though a migraine was forming in the back of his skull, even though it was physically impossible. "I expect updates in a month from you and Itachi". In other words, do not kill Itachi at any point during this mission or else.
"Fine", Kakuzu huffed in resignation. With that, the meeting was adjourned.
After the mighty plumbing debacle, the last night passed by more peacefully. The once-unmentionable supply closet was cleaned and fully stocked while the bedrooms and kitchen were pristine and furnished. I breathed a sigh of satisfaction, it was almost miraculous how everything somehow came together.
Alas, there was no time to enjoy the fruits of my labour. I chose to return to the pharmacy, instead of staying another night. An irate construction builder was coming by in the morning for his long-awaited prescription.
Kakuzu had disappeared from the base by the time that I finished, so I left a note on his door about my whereabouts. It wasn't clear where we stood on the whole plumbing matter, but he hadn't said no...yet. I chose to be hopeful.
The week-long storm had subsided at last, but not without leaving uprooted trees in its rampage. I scurried quickly back to the town, lest a tree decided to come crashing atop my head. Maybe that would have been better since I had squat for the precription. In a last-ditch effort to figure out the recipe, I stayed up most of the night. Of course, it didn't go anywhere.
When morning rolled around, I was barely able to focus, and my limbs felt like lead. After almost a week of restless sleep, it seemed like the edges of my world were blurry. I almost didn't register the doorbell chiming.
'Fuck, is he already here?' I almost swore out loud.
I plastered on a fake smile and steeled myself to greet him. When I turned around, I expected to see a stout, dark-haired man with a sour expression. Instead, there was a statuesque person wrapped in a thick winter jacket. Their skin shone like unblemished porcelain while their hair was an eye-catching shade of coral-blue. With the morning sun shining brightly behind them, they appeared almost divine.
Who was this person? I faintly realised that they were speaking.
I shook my head, trying to wake up from the stupor. "I'm so sorry, what did you say?"
The person smiled, it reached their gentle, obsidian eyes. "I was saying that I saw your ad on a flyer. Are you still looking for a pharmacist?"
A/N:
Shiki-buton refers to a bottom mattress placed on the floor or on a tatami mat. It is foldable and can be easily stored away in the daytime. I referenced Kakuzu's style of bedding from Japan's Nara period (710–784), a period when commoners slept on several layers of stacked straw mats.
Little X-Kid: Your comments always make me smile! Thank you for taking a (well-deserved) break from work and taking the time to tell me how much you enjoy this fanfic.
raingrasslight: Yay! So happy that you enjoy the cultural details and the characterisations so far. There is more to come :3
Thank you everyone for patiently following this story! My huge project has ended (at long last) and now I can return to writing and posting more regularly. The story is picking up and more characters are going to make an appearance, and I am excited to write it all out.