Well, it's precise enough to do something. A person pops into existence - "pops" isn't really the word; there's no accompanying sound - in the middle of the seal. "Person" might or might not be the word; he's foregoing a shirt to accommodate a set of blue batwings and his pants are slung a little low to accommodate a blue barbed tail. "Hullo there! You're letting me talk, I appreciate that in a summoner, what can I do for you?" He glances around at the surroundings.

His summoner appears to be in that vague early- to mid-teens age range, probably between fourteen and fifteen. The room is windowless stone, the door wooden, the air still and heavy despite its large size. It's lit evenly by lights on the walls near the ceilings. There's a single new language, similar enough to Japanese that a non-speaker would probably get them mixed up.

His summoner also has bright red eyes, which are currently narrowed suspiciously at the new person. (Orochimaru could've told him this was a probably untested summons-seal, but that would require basic safety standards, wouldn't it.)

"I'm not used to humanoid summons," he says, evenly. "Which realm are you from?"

"...run that by me again? You're not used to humanoids? Do you typically summon angels off a body mod club membership roster or something? - is this Venusian Japanese?"

"I don't know what an angel is, or what Venusian is. I'm speaking the main language in the Elemental Nations. Most summons are nin-animals from different realms; if you're usually summoned to another continent I guess it could be different there. Where are you from?"

(Nin seems to mean "person" and implies "magic".)

He rubs at his face. Orochimaru is probably going to want information, too, not just 'hey yeah your seal worked'...

"I'm from a place called Hell and I'm really confused."

"About what?"

"Who hasn't heard of angels or Venus? What are the Elemental Nations? Where are you getting sapient summonable animals from? Given that all of this is not as expected how did you summon a demon anyway?"

"I haven't. They're a cultural group - Lands of Fire, Earth, Wind, Water, and Lightning. From summons realms. My teacher gave me a seal and told me to draw it."

He shrugs. "I guess my teacher wants me to get information. I can summon a snake, if you want to know about local summons."

And then maybe he can summon one of the talkative snakes and not deal with surprise interview.

"...sure, if you don't mind summoning a snake for me."

He folds his hands into a few odd shapes - not a language - and then kneels to tap the floor.

And, in a puff of smoke, a large snake mottled brown and white appears. There doesn't seem to be a summoning circle.

"Summoner!" she says, immediately coiling around the boy's feet. "I want noodles."

He sighs. "You can have noodles later. I wanted you to talk to - someone from Hell that Orochimaru had me summon."

She climbs up Sasuke, looking at Cam over his shoulder. "Lord Orochimaru has odd taste," she comments. "Is Hell a new summons realm? What's your name? I'm Shiromi, the rude one is Sasuke."

"I'm Cam. Is, uh, limiting snake access to noodles important for some reason?" Cam asks Sasuske.

"No," they say at the same time. Sasuke's tone is more long-suffering, while Shiromi sounds more energetic.

Cam presents the snake with a bowl of spaghetti. "Do you want sauce? I assume you don't want a fork."

"I don't need sauce. Where'd you get that from?" the snake asks.

"I made it. Help yourself."

The snake hums, then figures she's very hard to poison as a nin-snake and also can just dismiss home if she feels poorly, and then slithers into the bowl. Actually eating the noodles seems to be a mild challenge for her.

Sasuke sighs. Well, there goes his plan of 'make the snake do all the talking.' "How did you make it?" His sharingan is still active, and he didn't see any movement of chakra...

"That's what demons do, we make things. Do you have such conveniently summarized abilities yourself, I'm still a bit lost."

"I shape chakra into patterns, and it does stuff depending on the pattern. Chakra is the energy in everyone and everything. There's fields of focus, but they're not as broad as 'make things' - can you make people? Is there a mass or density limit?"

"I can make human bodies but not conscious ones, the intellects of things I make tops out around 'bug'. There are limits to volume per time but I think mass factors in at all, I can look up the current best understanding of the operative formula if you're curious but the upshot is it would take a few weeks to make a planet."

He makes a very complicated expression. Then, to the snake: "We're not telling Orochimaru."

The snake pauses in eating. "Should I dismiss, I feel like this is a 'no potential leaks' conversation - "

Sasuke sighs. "Go ahead. Tell Aoda I might be in trouble soon."

"Right! I heard nothing." And the snake vanishes, alongside the noodle bowl, in a puff of smoke.

Sasuke takes a deep breath and sets in to gather his thoughts.

"...I mean, that doesn't mean that I can be convinced to make a planet if someone wants a planet for bad reasons."

"There are a lot of things that aren't planets someone could cause trouble with, and I assume you're not the only person from your summons realm."

"I am not. What are we worrying about here?"

"First, if he doesn't need farmers to feed his troops he might decide they're all experiment fodder. Second, he can use living sacrifices to resurrect immortal, indestructible soldiers under his sole command. And if he has any other source of my bloodline power he might just kill me. Unlimited food, resurrecting the dead, and spreading bloodlines aren't bad,  he's just specifically an ass."

He's talking faster than he usually does, a bit agitated.

"You work for this guy why?"

"He doesn't like hearing 'no,' and it's another year before my best opening to kill him."

"Are we under any time pressure right now or is this a good time for me to get more general background?"

"I'm expected somewhere in a few hours."

"Okay. So this chakra thing, I'm not accustomed to that being a thing, can I get the introduction to what the heck starting from there?"

"Chakra is a combination of mental and physical energy. It's in everything, but most people can only use the chakra in their own bodies. Using it tires you out. If you use too much you die. Molding chakra can influence your own body and mind most easily, the natural world less easily, and other people the hardest. We've had chakra as long as anyone can actually remember, though there are myths it got introduced at some point by a Sage."

"What-all can it do - I'm looking for diverse examples more than necessary and sufficient conditions, I'm assuming you haven't got the latter -"

"I can make a solid but fragile clone which will return the memories to me on dismissal, summon snakes, channel lightning through my body or weapons, react quickly, memorize things, move faster... Orochimaru can jump into someone else's body every three years. Illusion experts can trick people's senses. Medics can change the body of someone they touch. Seals can be used to trap energy or objects in lines of ink to be released later. Really powerful seals can trap people. Sensors can track things with chakra, sometimes miles out. The Yamanaka clan can also possess people. Puppet masters can move and control objects, and sometimes people. At least one person can cause any injuries dealt to him to appear on opponents. There's a rumor of someone who can control gravity."

"Well, many of those things are extremely concerning. Why every three years, how does that kind of limit fall out of this system?"

"It damages his core self, the thing that's actually jumping. It takes him that long to recover."

"Okay. What's the advantage of this, is he doing it to be immortal or something?"

"Yes. And get powers from the people he jumps into; some things are easier with certain bloodlines. My memorization and reflexes, some elemental manipulations..."

"Okay, is there any chance he'd be easily appeased with mindless bodies with whatever genetics he cares to enjoy in them and cut it out with the bodysnatching?"

"Probably. Less risky to him. But he's also - he cuts people open to see what they'll do. He starts wars when he's bored. A very foreign library could entertain him for a while, but... Making sure he doesn't hurt people is hard." He shrugs. "But right now he's the only person who knows how to put back the dead, so... I guess there's advantages to just bribing him."

"Your kind of magic can put back the dead?"

"Imperfectly. The current technique sacrifices a person, overwriting them with someone dead, who is immortal, invulnerable, and somewhat under the control of the person using the technique. I don't know if a mindless body counts for it."

"And you don't know the technique and can't check, okay... hm. How'd you come by the design for this summoning circle?"

"Orochimaru gave it to me. I don't know where he got it, but I don't think he knew exactly what it does. I could learn the resurrection technique, if I had his notes. At least eventually."

"Do you have an idea of what subset of his notes that is?"

He can name titles.

(Orochimaru keeps very thorough and clearly labeled notes and mostly relies on ciphers and being terrifying to keep people out. Also, Orochimaru is either fucking with his head or under a really bizarre delusion that Sasuke's like him - or both - but it means Sasuke's trusted with a lot.)

Cam produces, during this recitation, a strange sticklike object that projects a rectangle of light off one side. The light changes to reflect what Sasuke is saying but Cam is writing it all in katakana because he doesn't have the local character set as a font yet.

He finishes his list, then peers at the stick and asks, "Is that a computer?"

"Yes." He opens a new file and takes retroactive notes on things messing with chakra is supposedly able to do.

"It's small," he says during what looks like an appropriate break. 

"Yup. How big are yours?"

He shrugs. "I haven't seen many. Bigger than me, mostly."

"Advancing technology lets them get smaller till they're yea big. They're usually bigger than this even at my tech level, though, because they usually need stuff attached to be an input method and this model instead relies on brain surgery to control it."

"For security?" He shakes his head. "Can you make the notes? And - are there customs, with summoning demons? I forgot to ask." Usually there's a trade with nin-animals, but usually nin-animals are very upfront about stating their typical demands.

"I can make the notes, but no offense, we did just meet and I don't have a clear picture of how you fell in with Bodysnatcher-san or your alternative vision of the future. It's customary to trade us for stuff but this circle was not done elaborately enough for that to be necessary, I can just make whatever."

He nods.

(He really doesn't like being the powerless one. He really doesn't like having to talk about his personal sequence of traumas. But whatever. This is probably at least more likely to leave his brain intact than throwing his lot in with Orochimaru.)

"I was a shinobi of the Hidden Leaf, the main organization of chakra-users in the Land of Fire. I'm one of two or three people with my bloodline, and was the only one still in the Leaf. The other two are stronger than Orochimaru. Orochimaru decided he wanted my bloodline. He found me, put a seal on me that fucked with my head, then ditched me to live or die on my own strength. I lived. He later sent his own shinobi to retrieve me. I told them to fuck off. They were stronger than me, and could manipulate my seal, so got me angry enough to trap. Next thing I was really aware of was being in one of his lairs. I've been here two years, mostly trying to earn his trust and sabotage him."

"I'd like people to stop hurting each other. My earlier plans were pretty vague, mostly involved killing Orochimaru and one other asshole. Figured I'd probably die somewhere in there, and if I didn't I'd have enough of a reputation to start un-fucking Orochimaru's research without being bothered too much. This world sucks, but - Orochimaru has a lot that could do good. With 'creating objects' available as an option - I don't know if our political problems can be fixed with ending scarcity and putting back the dead, but there's at least been some respected politicians who weren't dickheads."

Cam nods, taking notes. "Accumulated questions: What-all does the seal do to you, how's it work? What's the idea with letting you maybe die when you're scarce and he wants to bodysnatch you?
What're you up to trying to earn his trust? Who's the other asshole? Is this level of dramatic murder commonplace around here?"

"I don't know everything about the seal. It collects nature chakra, I think, and mixes it with my chakra. Which can cause transformations if I let it. It can be forced back by enough strength of will."

"He said I'd be useless to him if I was weak, when I asked."

"I mostly train his shinobi. I haven't killed anyone."

"The other asshole killed my family and was trying to kill my friend last I checked, and has made a general point of ruining my life."

"And I get accused of being a pacifist, so no, that's a very low level of murder."

"Transformations like what? Train them to do what? Why's the asshole up to assholery and does he have a name or anything? How does a society with this much murder in it sustain itself?"

"My skin turns grey, and I grow wings, and I get angry. I train them to fight. And I have no idea why, he said he wanted to test himself but lies about a lot. His name is Uchiha Itachi. My brother."

"Presumably civilians have less murder in their lives, and the Hidden Villages recruit fairly heavily from them. People also have a lot of kids."

"What defines a civilian as such, I'm assuming you can't just go be one but you're kinda young-looking."

"Civilians aren't trained in chakra use and usually don't fight. And I'm fifteen, not young."

"I'm a hundred and seventy-two and people where I'm from are not considered adults till they're like eighteen. Why were you trained in chakra use, is it a bloodline thing?"

"My family were traditionally shinobi. If you pass your village's basic competencies, you're a shinobi and therefore a full adult, and most people pass them by twelve. Someone old enough to be in the shinobi academy is considered old enough to fend for themselves, though, and that's usually seven."

"I'd wonder how long your years are but you do look fifteen in Earth years."

"There's a lot wrong."

"Sounds like it."

"I'm good at learning things, not at people. So my best place in fixing things is in figuring out techniques to help."

"Yeah, I get that, but it sounds like the place is lousy with hostile actors and those can snap up whatever you invent, yeah?"

"Why I wanted strength and a reputation. And my friend wanted to change things too, and was better at people. I think he's still alive, but I haven't heard if he's changed his dreams."

"I can check on alive but cannot divine dream-related trends."

"...I would like to know if he's alive. Uzumaki Naruto."

Mini plastic Uzumaki Naruto appears. "He looks fine."

He nods.

"...Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"What's your future vision?"

"I'd really like to terraform Mars. In more local contexts I don't know enough about what it's like here to get very specific but I think aiming at reducing the murder rate would be a solid beginning."

"...Mars is - another planet that can be made like Earth?"

"Well, it is back where I'm accustomed to humans living."

"I don't know what our other planets are, but probably we'll need some made worth living on. At least eventually. So you could terraform one here, if you can't back there."

"That would be nice but it's definitely a longer term thing after murder rate reduction."

Nod. "...Orochimaru probably actually would be good at reducing wars, since he's good at manipulating them. I don't know how large a bribe that would take, though."

"Other people... The commanders of the Hidden Villages and the leaders of the various nations have a large say, and getting Mist to stop bleeding missing-nin everywhere would reduce rogues, and most of the very powerful criminals have been joining into one terrorist organization over the last decade."

"Missing-nin?"

"Shinobi - ninja - who betray their village. Sometimes who don't have a village in the first place."

"What tends to make them do that?"

"From Mist, because the village was collapsing. For most - disagreeing with the leadership, criminal tendencies, not following orders well, I think are common?"

"A system where your options if you disagree with the leadership amount to 'become a criminal' and not, like 'move', has some drawbacks."

"Yeah. That might change some with more high-level peace, though."

"What's the high-level conflict about?"

"Politics. Sometimes it's over land, or resources, or bloodline theft, or old grudges from the last war, or deciding your neighbor is getting too powerful."

"Is bloodline theft a fancy word for kidnapping?"

"It's considered more severe if the kidnapped has a notable bloodline power."

"I mean, I suppose it implies a higher likelihood that they've been kidnapped specifically to force them to have children? Since bodysnatching in particular is niche?"

He nods. "Stealing body parts is also bloodline theft. It's more - about keeping that power in the village or clan. Probably making mindless bodies with a bloodline is technically bloodline theft, but I really don't care."

"What does one do with a stolen body part, how's that useful? Can you clone them or something?"

"Some bloodlines you can use them if you graft them onto someone living's body. For mine - someone could take my eyes and have some of the powers, though they wouldn't work as well."

"That's really weird - is there a chakra thing to make the eye go in properly, that's medically difficult - why wouldn't they work as well - is this all very short-term-thinking, I assume people with stolen eyes don't pass the eyes on to kids?"

"Yes, and because you need different brain and chakra structures to support it fully, and yes it's very short-term and usually people who are optimizing for their own gain."

"Your world sucks," Cam opines.

"I noticed." He's weirdly amused by that.

Maybe because someone who isn't Naruto actually noticed that the world is fucked up.

"You have freaking magic and you're spending it all on short term negative-sum conflict! Do you know enough history to have an idea of how things got this way? Who's doing things like inventing computers, is there some nonmagical civilization somewhere that exports technology and makes sure it doesn't have any ninjas in it so they get left alone..."

"I know some history going back - two, three hundred years? But that was hard to find. There's a lot of information suppression." History, fortunately, is like swords and is one of the things he can actually talk about. 

"We used to have a feudal empire covering the continent, that was more stable. There was a war, and the last emperor died without heirs, and then the feudal lords started fighting. Two hundred years later, we were still in the Warring States period. Shinobi were in small mercenary clans."

"Sixty three ago, the two most powerful shinobi clans in the Land of Fire decided to band together. They formed the Hidden Leaf, which I think was initially kind of like the old artisan's guilds or worker unions? They convinced other clans to join, and other clans in other nations copied them. That and a wider trend towards consolidation of smaller nations forced the constant small wars to stop, though the wars that did happen later were bigger. The Hidden Leaf - under I think the third leader - started to become less a guild and more its own state within a state. They're on the fifth leader now."

"And I think the computers are foreign, yes. I've been oversees once to somewhere with better technology. The Land of Snow. They have a thing that gives them temperate pocket climates, but I don't know how it works. They stay out of everyone else's politics, mostly. The leader might remember me, since I helped install her on her throne when I was still a Leaf shinobi."

"Okay. I kind of want to, like, bring you along as a native guide and then go park in the Land of Snow."

"To do what?"

"End scarcity without being constantly distracted by escalatory short-term ninja conflict. I mean, figuring out the short-term ninja conflict stuff also sounds important for the no-scarcity endgame but in the meanwhile maybe you also have lots of civilians dying of diseases I can cure or something like that."

He nods. "It'd also be - a diplomatic position."

And not involve Orochimaru. That's a bonus. They can just steal his notes. Probably Orochimaru will come after Sasuke again anyways but Sasuke's a lot scarier now than he was at thirteen.

"I don't know much about different diseases, sorry."

"I'm hoping the Land of Snow knows where I can find disease-related information. Do you have a general idea of how Orochimaru will try to track you down? My default plan is to fly away in a little shuttle under cloud cover, but if it's likely to be necessary I can go in the wrong direction for a few hours too, or go straight up and proceed through space assuming you're not about to tell me the planet is flat or something?"

"Why would the planet be flat? And he has a sensor whose range can cover the continent. Karin - she likes me well enough, but is loyal to Orochimaru first."

"I don't know why the planet would be flat but I also don't know why you can do chakra stuff and it's the sort of thing I'd like to check before attempting to exit the gravity well. Is the Land of Snow on the same continent? How does the sensor work?"

"It's on a continent to the north, but this nation is on the northern edge of this continent, so Karin wouldn't have to go far to notice me. There's three territories - Land of Iron, in the middle-south, Land of Snow on the north-east edge, and then some tribal land. Karin's never explained it, but she can track people, make predictions about what someone usually does with their chakra, and tell if two people are related."

"I could send mindless copies of you - optionally without any eyes - in a few other directions? And... leave one in geosynchronous orbit to be extra confusing maybe? Depending on what exactly she senses."

He shakes his head. "She'd notice. Normal chakra's got a mental and physical component."

"Are there any materials that block her? Lead or something?"

"I don't think so. But - she's assigned to guard the Eastern Prison by herself. That's fairly far, so I could talk to her before Orochimaru catches up if you can get me there quickly. She'd be warned I'm fleeing, but..."

"But what, what's your contingency here?"

He struggles with the words for a few moments. "She owes me her life. She might be bribable - probably not into staying silent, that's not safe, but into defecting entirely."

"So we bring her along?"

Slow nod.

"I think Orochimaru's next most powerful sensor is more on the scale of 'one small nation.'"

"That implies more of a search process, but still worth fouling up if they can be fooled?"

"I think so. They wouldn't look for me in the Land of Snow first anyways. The expected directions to go are 'the Leaf' or 'straight after Itachi,' which are both to the south. If I grab Karin, they'll think I'm trying to hunt Itachi, not that I'm neutralizing her. I'll be able to defend myself by the time they catch up, probably, and Karin will know they're coming."

"Do you know how the second-best sensor tracks, is it the same thing Karin does but with worse range?"

"He can hear chakra, and gets less detail, though probably also wouldn't be fooled by mindless copies."

"All right. They're creepy anyway."

Nod. He looks thoughtful, though.

"If I can figure out the resurrection quickly - Konoha has some seals that can block some sensors, but Uzumaki Mito, the woman who made them, died, so no one knows how they work anymore."

"Do you need to know how they work or would having a copy of one do?"

"Sealing's dangerous, and there's - dimensions beyond just the two that are inked in. I'd need to know how it works."

"Well, you are welcome to a mindless copy of Uzumaki-san to experiment on once preliminaries have been sorted."

He nods.

"We're underground right now. The easiest way to get you out is probably just walking out. Most of the people in this base are scared of me, and I can avoid the people who aren't. We'll be noticed when we leave, though."

If he felt like being dramatic he could blow a hole in the ceiling, and that'd probably even make him feel better, but it'd be monumentally more stupid than even his usual plans.

"Yeah, I don't have a very discreet method of tunneling - I could replace missing bits but can't make them cease to exist..."

"I can tunnel, but it'd be noticed faster, since that's obviously something I'm not supposed to be doing."

"Should I take off or hide the wings and tail? And dress differently?"

"You don't look any weirder than some bloodlines. If you usually go around shirtless it'd be odd that you don't have scars, so a shirt would help, but this mostly relies on acting like nothing's wrong."

"I usually do go around shirtless but I can put something on. A remaining problem is that presumably Orochimaru can reproduce the diagram that got you me. I honestly have no idea how it got you me so it could be an irreproducible fluke, but it's not actually good for a supervillain to have a circle that gets an unbound random demon."

"I can steal the related notes, assuming he has them in the usual places; it'll increase our chances of getting caught, but the payoff would be worth it."

"He doesn't keep backups?"

"He does of important things. I'm assuming he thought this at best a summons for a new nin-animal realm."

"Well, I suppose I can check if he has any other copies. I should probably do that before we go note-stealing."

"...That'd help, yes."

"Do you have a copy on you so I can check for instances of the diagrams or whatever elsewhere?"

He pulls out the notes he'd been following. Each only shows a section of the diagram.

Other instances of this and their surroundings in little flammable dioramas?

What looks like a room full of filing cabinets, and that's it. Sasuke seems to have one of only two copies.

"Cool. Where'd he even get this?"

"He didn't tell me. But he's always digging into old records, and he has some international trade. He might've also acquired it from the snakes, since it's also a summoning method, or from Uzushio's ruins, or from somewhere else entirely. If he'd developed it himself I would have expected him to oversee any tests."

"Because if he notices that you tried this, and then stole the only other copy and fucked off out of town, he will probably figure out it was interesting. I'll see if I can conjure from the snake realm..." How's that bowl of spaghetti doing?

Thoroughly eaten!

"Okay, and..." Copies of the notes from there?

Yes; one, in a more brittle condition.

"Snakes have a copy. Can we send your snake friend to wreck it with noodle bribery?"

"...Possibly."

He re-performs the snake-summons, and Shiromi appears.

"Summoner!" she chirps. "Why is the person I don't know about still here, are there going to be more noodles - "

"Yes. I need you to steal something from the White Sage's library," Sasuke says.

She sways back. "...You have very weird plans," she says. "And you'll want Kusana to help me. She's a good thief. And I want new noodles. With spices!"

He drags a hand down his face, summons a mottled brown and green snake about as wide around as his index finger, who listens to the explanation, then asks for an emerald mouse. For reasons.

Cam will provide spicy Thai noodles for Shiromi and an emerald mouse for Kusana, no problem.

And some very grateful snakes will dismiss with their prizes.

"They might take a while, but should be done before Orochimaru notices exactly what I stole," Sasuke says.

"If there is not a limit to how long you can keep a summons around, it might be a good idea to summon them again once we're in Snow so we can be sure they aren't gossiping."

"It's tiring, but doable for two their size. And I'm confident they won't tattle - but keeping them with us will also protect them from retaliation."

"Do they have to come when called?"

He shakes his head. "They can refuse, but some of the snakes are on Orochimaru's side."

"Ah, intra-snake retaliation. How does he acquire all this loyalty? Is he very charismatic? Does he make really good japchae?"

"He's charismatic when he feels like it, and good at bribery. He's also willing to take in people others aren't, which got him a lot of now loyal outcasts."

"Why were those people having trouble finding places to go?"

"Mist started prosecuting some bloodlines for no reason anyone could discover, Karin joined because she'd been a quasi-prisoner in Grass and Orochimaru gave her a place, some people have out of control bloodlines Orochimaru promised to help them master..."

"...and people aren't allowed to just move, at least if they have fancy ancestry. Right. How do all these interesting bloodlines start, they seem very consistently useful or at least survivable to be random mutation... unless you didn't mention the seventy percent infant mortality rate or something..."

"Nobody knows. Orochimaru's theory is either that our ancestors had advanced genetic editing, or we somehow interbred with aliens or spirits. Apparently it's possible to trace the origins of some genes, and bloodline genetics don't fit."

"There evidence of a previous advanced civilization that, uh, succumbed to ninja war or something?"

"There's a suspicious lack of evidence of any civilization older than five to seven hundred years ago."

"...it's weird if you have computers and have only had civilization for five to seven hundred years but I will do my history forensics once we have exited the supervillain lair. We should talk tactics on that, I know ideally we just walk out but if something goes wrong with that plan I'd like to know how best to be helpful, if you die I go back to Hell."

"...I'll try not to die then." Crap he's going to have to be actually cautious with his life, isn't he.

"Most shinobi are immune to most poisons, unless you have something really exotic. I can knock out most potential opposition fairly easily. The ones I can't are Yakushi Kabuto and Orochimaru himself. Yakushi is a medic, so if he touches you he can mess with your biology. Orochimaru has a broad spectrum of powers. I can just blast a hole in the ceiling, to allow a retreat."

"I might be invulnerable to any subset of ninja stuff, do you know a basic medical-type thing you could try on something I can replace? And something in the illusion department, which I'm less likely immune to."

"I know one very basic technique for stabilizing bleeds, but the same thing could let me try to cause bruising. I'm bad at placing illusions but do know some."

Cam extends a wing in his direction. "If you fuck up my wing I can cut it off and put it back. I have just administered some painkillers in case the thing you are gonna try hurts a lot."

He pokes the tip and tries to force the blood to clot when it really shouldn't.

It's non-effective.

"Excellent. Okay, I can stand between you and anything merely physically injurious, at least, try an illusion?"

His eyes start - spinning? There's definitely moving black flecks in his irises.

Also the lights are flickering, and there's vines moving around Cam, and Sasuke's fading out - 

"Yikes, okay, no, I see that, can you give me a rundown of mind-affecting shit I should look out for - it can't be bad enough to throw everyone into perpetual total Cartesian doubt but that doesn't imply that much of a ceiling -"

The effect stops. Sasuke's standing where he was. "Any illusion I know of needs a hook. If you can't perceive each other, they don't work, and they're harder if you're about a hundred feet away or more. I need eye contact, which is pretty common."

"Illusions are hard and even most experts flat out can't make them realistic, so usually they're used to disorient opponents and buy time. My brother is widely considered terrifying because he can make illusions indistinguishable from reality, though he's enough of a sadist he doesn't tend to for long. Try to avoid looking at him, but if he catches you - he'll probably mess up on stuff that's different from humans. If you're taking damage, it's probably an illusion."

"There's ways to dismiss illusions. Disrupting your chakra is the most common, causing yourself pain is the easiest, and you can disrupt illusions on other people. Shiromi and Kusana both know how to do that, if you don't mind carrying a snake everywhere."

"Okay, bite my lip if something weird is up, and I don't mind carrying a snake either. I could wear mirrored sunglasses?"

"That would foil me, though not every expert, otherwise there wouldn't be much point in illusions. Any sense can be used as a hook; sound's the second most common after sight, and has more specialists here. If someone looks angry and takes out a flute they're probably about to use an illusion."

"And destroy nearby flutes. Anything else?"

"There's a technique that's not technically an illusion that can change the user's appearance, which would complicate plans like 'just avoid Itachi.' It's not dismissed the same way."

"Teaching someone to use chakra is possible but not fast, so when we're escaped I can show you how to disrupt your chakra. On the way out, if combat looks likely I can put a hand on you to dismiss anything. If you felt like doing radical eye surgery, my eyes can see through almost all illusions."

"That might be worthwhile, it'd certainly be gory but I could probably go through with it sufficiently numbed up... that part doesn't require training?"

"No. Not if you specifically make an active one, but de-activating them can be hard and they drain chakra while active. The usual for implants is one eye that's kept covered with a chakra-suppressant when not in use."

"I might have infinite chakra, if that's a meaningful concept, but I also might not be able to make an active one, I can't generally make magic things and I don't know how ninja stuff counts."

"I'd assume it's not more magic than rocks? Chakra is attached to everything. And that's a meaningful concept."

"Can you drain people's chakra, to test that?"

He shakes his head. "That's a specialized ability."

"The reason I'm reserving judgment on whether chakra is or is not a special thing that I might not be able to make stuff interact with is that I think if it were attached to people where I came from someone might have come up with a way to use it."

He shrugs. "It might be something true just about this universe."

"Right down to the rocks, which is odd, but not impossible," agrees Cam. "Some worlds have wacky laws of gravitation. Actually over the sample I know about roughly half of worlds have wacky laws of gravitation. Anyway, since that might just not work and we apparently can't check if I have any chakra let alone infinity of it I'll at least postpone the eye surgery." He acquires mirrored sunglasses.

"Sensible." He tries to summon Shiromi, but she doesn't respond - "They're probably not done."

"Should we wait for them, how are we on time?"

"We maybe have two hours, but it's best to leave before then. I don't know how long they'll take."

"Does this supervillain lair have any features that are hard to walk on? I have very poor balance."

"It's paved with even stones, mostly. There's stairs between us and the exit. If no one's looking I can just carry you."

"I can manage stairs if I'm leaving the wings and tail on, they help."

Nod. "It might still make sense for me to pick you up if we're running. I'm faster than most shinobi."

"Yes, go ahead and pick me up if we specifically have to run, I can't run without falling down. I can fly about fifty miles an hour, I don't know how fast a shinobi is. If I make a shuttle it'll do a few thousand miles an hour."

He does some math. "Short tactical bursts, I could maybe catch the shuttle. Long-distance, more like a hundred miles an hour for sustained, a few hundred if I'm rushing somewhere. I'm on the upper end of the scale, though."

"That's really fast."

"Chakra strengthens muscles and can be used to directly accelerate."

"Apparently! So, run out if we can't saunter, then switch to shuttle."

He nods.

"Do you have any more questions?"

Please say no, Sasuke's brain is exhausted, and he's probably going to have to talk to get them out.

"Am I going to need to say anything? How should we best disrupt this circle before we leave?"

"I can use an earth technique to lift the ink. And no, I'll do any talking."

"I think I'm set."

He nods, forms a few hand-signs, kneels, touches the circle, and the ink rolls into a ball in his hands.

He stands, then: "Follow me."

And he turns to push open the doors on the end.

Cam torches the forensic models and follows silently.

Sasuke puts on his scariest resting face and stalks (slowly) through the halls. They don't meet anyone, and people who do get out of their way and carefully don't look at Cam.

The records room in question is well organized. Sasuke successfully his way past the guard by saying Orochimaru neglected to give him all the information he needed for his last mission, which gets a sympathetic nod.

He sorts through the files efficiently and silently, and steals a far more massive amount than they actually need, from an assortment of cabinets, taking out a scroll and sealing the files into small seals.

Their guard isn't alone when they leave.

There's a grey-haired shinobi, probably in his twenties, lounging against one wall, his glasses catching the light.

Sasuke casts an apparently bored glance at him. "Kabuto," Sasuke says, then keeps walking, angling to head past.

Kabuto sticks out an arm to stop him, smirking and tilting his head. "I'm curious who your friend here is, Sasuke-kun."

"One of Orochimaru's new pets," Sasuke says, sounding like a teenager being asked to babysit some neighbor kid. "Did you want something, or are we playing twenty questions?"

"It'd be remiss of me not to make sure he isn't carrying anything," Kabuto says with a laugh, stepping towards Cam, reaching out one hand.

Cam takes a step back.

"Go bother Ami, then; she cleared him already," Sasuke says, sounding annoyed. "You can ask Orochimaru if you want play time. He's mine until then, though, and I say who touches him."

(The guard is inching back into the records room, apparently deciding she's not paid enough for this level of drama.)

Kabuto pauses, tilting his head to look at Sasuke. "You're quite the presumptuous little brat, aren't you?"

Sasuke scoffs. "Orochimaru will be more pissed at you than me if you hold me back or break command, so go right the fuck ahead."

"I'll take pleasure in getting you on my table when you try to report that," Kabuto says, lips curling. "Maybe I can see what it takes to get someone like you to acknowledge that I outrank you." He steps towards Cam again.

"Then let's go ask Orochimaru which of us he likes more," Sasuke throws out, scowling.

"Maybe," Kabuto says - before lunging for Cam. He's not moving at the kinds of speeds Sasuke described, but he's still fast.

Cam trips in the process of flinching and winds up on the floor, but that doesn't stop him from putting a small layer of ultrahot plasma under Kabuto's hand.

Kabuto flinches, the burns on his hand already healing - 

And Sasuke slams a lightning bolt into him, throwing him down the hall.

Sasuke then blurs, resolving in a protective stance between Cam and Kabuto.

"We're going," he says, as the roof stops existing in a flash of light and an ear-splitting boom, though there's still a roof above that between them and the sky.

Kabuto starts getting to his feet.

Sasuke blurs again, picking up Cam.

Okay! Cam does his best to be carryable.

And Sasuke jumps, surrounding himself in lightning and rocketing straight towards the ceiling, which crumbles away from him.

He lands on the earth outside, a hundred feet up, sets Cam down, draws his sword, and spins to face the hole - where Kabuto has followed them out.

Sasuke points his sword at the sky, swings it down - 

And a massive lightning bolt slams down from the heavy storm clouds. It's not enough to kill Kabuto, but it sends him reeling. 

"Shuttle!" he shouts over the rolling thunder.

Shuttle! Right over there, door open.

And he gets them on it.

The door slams shut. Cam hops out of Sasuke's arms as it lifts off. "Well, that could have gone luckier."

"I got enough they won't know exactly why I was defecting, at least."

He shakes his head. "Do you have a map? We should get to Karin before anyone thinks to fetch her."

"I can have a map if you identify me a map. Stealing extra notes was a good idea."

He nods, and names a map of the continents. They're leaving the northern sea-ward edge of the Land of Rice Fields, which is on the southern edge of the giant bay that separates the bulk of the northern and southern continents. Karin is on a small, remote island off the south-east coast of the Land of Lightning's peninsula, due east of their current position.

Map: exist. They got a magnetic north on this rock?

Yes. Once adjusted for scale, the combined continents are large, roughly Asia-sized. The northernmost parts are brushing the Arctic circle.

Cam goes way up till nobody on the ground will be able to see them without a fancy telescope, then goes in the wrong direction for a bit, then heads for Karin's island.

And there's a redheaded teenager standing nearby a convenient landing place, hands on her hips, who Sasuke identifies as Karin herself.

"We good to touch down?"

"I think so. She doesn't look hostile."

Plop. Hatch opens.

"Hey Sasuke-kun, who's your friend?" Karin calls when he disembarks.

"Someone I met," Sasuke says with a sigh. "I wanted to talk to you - "

"Something about your dramatic break-up with Kabuto-san?" she asks, tilting her head.

After a pause: "About that, yes."

"If you're defecting…" she says warningly.

"I am."

"Just because I like you - "

"You owe me your life," he interrupts. "From before Orochimaru."

That gives her pause. "Huh. I'd thought you didn't remember that... Orochimaru-sama's rescued me since, though, and this isn't the type of thing I can avoid sides in."

"I'm not expecting you to just avoid talking. I know he wouldn't stand for it. But between the two of us, we can avoid anything Orochimaru could send, and - "

"The Leaf's not going to take in his cast-offs."

"Which is why I'm going somewhere else."

"And you think your plan will work - why?" But she's eyeing Cam.

"Without you helping them, by the time they find us I'll be stronger than Orochimaru."

"So, basically, I betray my whole life for - what, a cute boy asking me not very nicely?"

"I'm going to fix things. End the wars, the death. Not right away, but that's something I can do. Something Orochimaru probably could do, except he doesn't care."

"You're either delusional or you know something," she says with a snort. "And, knowing you, could really go either way."

"Name one thing you want. Any material object," he says, somewhat on an impulse.

She pauses, regards him, and: "The lost library of Uzushio."

"I'll get it for you."

"...You don't feel like you're having a mental breakdown… You know what? Fine, but if Orochimaru-sama catches up I'm saying you kidnapped me. Let's go."

"If we have time, I'd like to release the prisoners here - "

She rolls her eyes. "They'll break out soon enough on their own, but, sure, let's leave chaos in our wake, that sounds fun. You do realize most of them would attack me?"

"They won't attack me. We'll leave them supplies and boats, too, for any who can't cross the ocean on their own."

"Fine, whatever." And she turns and walks to a flat section of the cliff-face, putting a hand against it. The stone shimmers blue and then slides down. "This'll take me a few minutes to do right, but no one's even looking this direction yet. We've got about a hundred prisoners, some chronic injuries but nothing acute."

Sasuke nods, and turns to Cam. "I'll go make sure she actually does what she's saying. Can you make medical supplies, food, water, basic transport for that many?"

"Yes but the locals won't recognize the medical supplies I know. I can try to do a first pass on translating instructions for them if you give me an idea what kind of medical problems we're talking about? I also don't know if you lot are likely to be allergic to something I'm accustomed to everybody eating, like, are you lactose-tolerant, can you digest gluten, will somebody go into anaphylaxis if I include peanuts -?"

"Long term dehydration and starvation. Not enough to trigger re-feeding syndrome - chakra helps with that - but enough people will be weak. Some probably have suffered recent blood loss. Broken bones, probably that set poorly, burns, a few open wounds. Some people are probably on very strange drug cocktails but I can get a list out of Karin. If anyone looks unlikely to survive on their own I can press her into healing them. She isn't the best medic, but she was considered good enough to run this place alone."

"Things that are local - blood pills and soldier pills will stimulate recovery, and they're common enough in the military someone here will know how to administer them. Soldier pills are one per person per day unless you're willing to risk toxicity, for a maximum of five days."

"We're mostly lactose tolerant, except some people from Lightning, which is nearby, so probably assume some portion are intolerant. Glutenous grains are fairly rare and usually expensive a lot of places, so I have no idea how many people are gluten intolerant. Deadly allergies are rare, but I don't think most people will have ever eaten a peanut. I know of absolutely no one allergic to D-rations, which are good for travel."

"This place was mostly storage, not active experiments, so I'd generally expect walking wounded who'll be fine if they can get to the mainland."

"Okay. D-rations, universal blood transfusions, burn gels, I can re-set bones as needed and patch any open wounds that are bad enough to want personal attention, rehydration salts and water, and I guess the prisoners might have their own requests. Where do you want stuff, on the boats or on the shore or what -"

"Boats would be efficient for anything they're self-applying. They'll be anxious to get a head start on any pursuit."

Cam starts making little speedboats and filling them with rations and water and salt and bandages.

And Sasuke goes to keep an eye on Karin, explain the situation, and help the four who aren't moving under their own power out - two due to a missing leg, one to a broken ankle, one to simple weakness and fever.

Sasuke's guess that they'd mostly be dealing with older or more chronic problems was correct, but there's still a good number of people bandaged or in crude casts. Karin heals one Sasuke identifies as having internal injuries, though it seems to tire her a good bit. He also has her flush the experimental drugs out of people's systems, and identifies the names and doses of things people actually still need or will need to be weaned off of.

(Fortunately, one of the less injured patients has past medical training, and is taking charge of the group.)

"Do you want your leg back?" Cam asks of Missing Leg.

Both ones with missing legs would, in fact, like to no longer be missing legs.

"Do you want to be awake for the procedure? I have to cut off some of the stump to have a clean place to attach the leg."

One would rather be unconscious; he's had enough pain and blood.

The other scoffs at the idea of blood and says she'd rather see this.

Up to them. Cam puts the one under, checks up on things to make sure he doesn't have Weird Ninja Reactions to the anaesthesia, and gives him a minute to get properly asleep while he works on the other one, who has to lie on his side in case he throws up and can have a very thorough nerve block on the leg. Slice. Leg. "There you go." Then he repeats the process on the unconscious one.

No unusual reactions, though the one he operated on first seems fascinated with her new leg.

"Can I walk on it right away?"

"Well, the numbness'll take a while to wear off, but if you wanna try it despite that, go for it." He starts waking up the unconscious one.

She wobbles a bit and has to stare at her leg but manages some motion.

The unconscious one wakes up, and is mostly just thankful. He does not try immediately walking around.

Cam moves on to the next most urgent patients.

Everyone's cooperative, mostly, though some seem more resigned or wary. There's a general sense that they need to get out as fast as they can; a group of the less injured take a speed boat and leave before Cam finishes with the more injured.

(There's some attempt to coordinate where they're going, which Sasuke helps with, but a lot of them are planning to just scatter.)

That seems reasonable to him! He's not gonna hold anyone down for medical treatment, it's just available since he did go to med school.

No one's actually interested in throwing their lot fully in with Sasuke, though they get some thanks.

Soon enough, everyone who wants treatment has gotten it, and the last group is departing.

"Well, that was exciting."

"Ah. Sorry about the lack of warning on the prisoners."

"It seems like a sort of standard supervillain behavior, having a random assortment of prisoners to do sinister experiments on. I hope they do okay."

"Yeah... He was originally driven from the Leaf for unauthorized experiments on citizens. It's kind of his thing."

"Most of them will probably go into hiding for a while, keep their heads down. Orochimaru's unlikely to go back after any of them specifically; more effort than it's worth now."

"Well. Anything else to do here?"

"Me and Karin destroyed some of their records, sent the rest with the relevant people already. We're good to leave."

"It's nice to meet you," Cam remarks to Karin as he heads back to the shuttle.

"Good to meet you too! Did Sasuke-kun actually bother ever asking for your name at any point?"

"It's Cam. I don't remember if he asked or if it was the snake."

"Probably the snake."

"So what are we actually doing? And I'm curious why Sasuke-kun is so confident about all this."

"Well, you may have noticed that I can create arbitrary material objects."

"How arbitrary is arbitrary?"

"'Not antimatter'."

"...What's antimatter?"

"It's the opposite of matter. If it encounters some matter they can violently annihilate each other. I can't make it. Well, not with magic, there are ways to conventionally manufacture the stuff."

"That sounds unlikely but I'm not a physicist."

"I'd offer you a textbook but I don't have machine translation running for this language yet. Anyway, we're going to the Land of Snow to attempt to use the arbitrary material objects and also my being from another world and my consequent technology advantage to do some stuff without getting bogged down in stupid ninja fights, of which there seem to be many."

"Haven't been there before. I guess they're neutral; why not the Land of Iron, though - "

"I'd been involved in the Queen's ascension, and also Snow has a better technology base."

"Huh." To Cam: "I meant it about wanting Uzushio's library. I'm guessing we'll be prevailing on the locals for a building for the books?"

"A building is a material object. We'll have to talk to them about where it'd be good for us to settle in, but I was planning to offer the books in electronic format. They'll take up a lot less space that way even if I never do get around to inputting fifty thousand ideograms into my font library and all the text has to be images." Up up up they fly.

"I'm a bit confused how format conversions work - can you get everything by a single author - "

"Yes I can. I can do format conversion more or less naively, but the electronic formats I'm using don't know how to read your characters. If it were all an alphabet I'd be working on it, but since it's characters it'll take a long time to do manually. I've been taking notes in a syllabary from another language I know with similar enough phonemes."

"If you can make easier to use computers, Snow should have people who can do data entry."

"I can do that! I'd want to do some investigating before I give anybody the kind I have in case you people have weird brains but I can do kinds that don't involve that."

He nods. "I don't know enough about their economy for if we'd approach the Queen or private citizens for that sort of job..."

"Yeah, I don't wanna just counterfeit their money either, so even if the Queen isn't doing something weird with her labor supply we'll probably have to start by selling some material objects."

"Command economies are considered an ideal on the southern continent, though they don't work at a large scale in practice. Possibly there'll be some regulations about who can do what, though."

"You can get away with doing a lot of inefficient things with your economy if you run it on daeva but if you don't have a bunch of us running around command economies do not work particularly well. Hopefully the Queen won't be too obstructive."

"I think they work decently in very small communities - clans still use them internally - but yes. She didn't strike me as that unreasonable."

"If the population's small enough they sometimes outperform their drawbacks, yeah." Fly fly fly. "You're gonna have to tell me where to land."

He points it out on the map; the Land of Snow is fairly big, but their port of entry is here, and the uninhabited ice fields they're less likely to be alarmed by an approach to is over here near the port of entry.

Cam swoops them over the ice fields and sets down by the port of entry.

There's motion at the edges, and soon enough a group of people clad in dark furs - though not as thick as one would expect given the temperature - are coming out to meet them. 

"Karin and I will want some kind of cold weather gear; we can keep ourselves warm for a while with chakra, but it's tiring," Sasuke comments.

"Sure, do you like the local styles or what?"

"Local styles are designed for local needs, yeah."

Now they are both in snazzy coats.

And they go out to meet the locals.

Sasuke introduces himself, clarifies he's escaped from Orochimaru, and that he's not a representative of the Leaf, and that yes he'd like to talk to their Queen.

Some conferring later, they're told to follow the locals back to the city.

Cam, who rather than be without free wing movement has opted to warm himself with warm air, follows along.

The city itself is a lot warmer than the ice sheets. There's a noticeable line where the air is faintly bluer, and where the snow cuts into green ground-cover. It's still cool, so Sasuke and Karin just open their coats. The buildings are designed so that if the climate control cut off they could stay warm inside, but with the windows and doors all open don't get too hot in the warmer temperatures.

They're told to wait in an official-looking building; apparently, the Queen is coming to them. The room they're led to is comfortable, at least.

Cam sits and starts teaching his computer the commoner components of local characters so he can maybe write a program later to read the language corpus and turn it into a typeface.

The Queen is there quite quickly. She smiles slightly when she sees them, and introduces herself:

"I'm Kazahana Emi, Queen of Snow. I recognize Uchiha Sasuke; who might you two be?"

"My name is Cam, it's nice to meet you."

"I'm Karin. It's an honor."

"The pleasure is mine. To what do I owe this visit?"

"I escaped Orochimaru, with their help, but I'm not ready to return to the Leaf. We have a proposal for you, though."

"I'm listening."

"I am from another universe with more advanced technology, and also I can create arbitrary material objects."

"Do you need to know what you're making? And what do you want from us, I suppose in exchange?"

"I need to know approximately if I'm copying something, and more exactly if I'm inventing something. Title and author is about right for a book. I'm hoping to call the Land of Snow home base for a while due to the low local concentration of stupid ninja fights, which seem like they'll be a nuisance on any project of generic world-improvement, but you can imagine that someone who can make arbitrary material objects isn't hurting for trade goods, you don't need to worry about that except insofar as I'll need permission to put stuff somewhere and I might want to sell things so we can purchase local labor and suchlike."

"If you start upsetting our neighbors enough they decide to bother crossing the ice to attack us, I'll want compensation of some sort, but I'm fine giving you permission to build in an uninhabited area, and to operate in my country, in exchange for some goods we have more trouble procuring here. I can direct local experts your way, too. What do you mean by 'world-improvement?'"

"I've been through medical school; if any of your diseases are like ones I know I might be able to work on that, though I don't know how much disease burden the average person on this planet operates under. I know things about economics and engineering and information technology. The shuttle I came in can go to space. There's also more of my species and two other also-useful magical species where I came from, though I'm currently uncertain it'll be feasible to get lots of them. If there's cool lost ninja techniques that are more useful than they are inciting I can get all the written material that was ever produced on those. Modulo stupid ninja fights there's lots of room to make everybody's life better."

"There's more lost techniques than modern techniques. Shinobi frequently fail to pass things on. The most useful would probably be anything from the time of the Sage of Six Paths, assuming he actually existed, or anything that was in official use during the imperial period."

"My nation could use disease prevention; malnutrition is a bigger problem, though. Our major bottlenecks are on food production, and some rare materials for our heat-generating machines, which would solve the food problem."

"I can solve that problem both directly and via rare materials!" says Cam.

"The heat machines are more directly useful, but pound-for-pound the materials will let us make more total. Depends on if there's a mass limit here."

"There isn't. I mean, there is but it's not something you're going to notice on the scale of a few warehouses, it'll probably take longer to confirm all the descriptions of what you want and how you want it packaged and where I should put it than for me to make it."

"I suspect this will be a very productive partnership, then. Do you have a timeline on your plans for world improvement?"

"Not a confident one. I need to know a lot more about local conditions. I've been on this planet for just a few hours."

"Then it seems you would benefit from the company of historians, diplomats, and the like."

"Wouldn't hurt!"

"It's possible I'll be receiving diplomats myself, who are curious about you, once word gets out. I'll turn away anyone from Rice Fields, so long as Orochimaru's in power, but I have no excuse to turn away the Leaf, who will at a minimum be interested in Sasuke-san."

"I don't suppose 'he can go wherever he wants' will hold much water?"

"If they send my old team, I can talk to them. It's possible if I make it clear I'm willing to be an ally, and not planning on kids, they'll let actual loyalty go."

"Not everyone has actually discerned their own lifetime plans for having children when they are fifteen, but if you think saying you don't plan on it will be reassuring..."

"I think I can make a case for it."

"Are you reasonably confident Orochimaru didn't like, steal samples of you to clone or anything?"

"His cloning process isn't very good, and artificial insemination tends to have weird interactions with some bloodlines, including mine. Shinobi also miscarry a lot, and it's worse if the mother has a different bloodline than the fetus. He hasn't figured out artificial wombs. He definitely has some of my genetic material."

"Okay, let me know if you ever want me to check up on that but it's probably not happening this week then."

He nods, though he seems a bit more withdrawn. 

(It might not hurt, once he has the resurrection technique perfected, to find some resurrectees willing to raid Orochimaru's labs for him...)

"Okay, so, where's a good place to set up and receive diplomats and historians and get Karin the lost library she asked for and suchlike?" Cam asks the queen.

She pulls out a map, and indicates a place somewhat more inland. "The land's stable, here, but the soil's rocky enough we're not using it for agriculture. Still, it's on one of the major railways; adding a stop won't be hard."

"If you'd rather not be on a railway, here..." And she indicates a place more westerly, "Is outlands, too far from other concerns for us to bother with. You'd be butting up against the reindeer herders during the summer months, but they'll likely be willing to trade the edge pasture for a medical center nearer them. There's a summer port to the north, though most shinobi will come overland."

"Being on a railway sounds great."

"That simplifies things on our end as well..."

She asks for a simple demonstration of his power, next - names an innocuous document - then provides him with information on which model of heat generator is the current one, though notes they'll need time to clear out a warehouse for receiving ones for their own use here.

He demonstrates. "I can come around when you've got a space clear."

"It'll be easy enough to send a message. In the meantime, I want information on Orochimaru from Sasuke-san. That snake hasn't come up here much, but anything you can relay would help still."

"There's a lot. I'll put together a written report."

He has talked enough today.

"Very well."

"Speaking of sending me messages, you can just write things down and add 'letter to Cam'," (he makes a note of how he's translating that into the vernacular), "and I'll get it next time I check my mail, I can just conjure everything with that on it."

"Just in kana? How should we spell your name?"

"Characters are fine, I'll check both. I suppose it doesn't translate neatly. You could put 'swan', that's what my surname means."

"That works."

Cam makes a note of this.

The other logistics are fairly easy to get out of the way. If he wants the train to stop at his location he'll need this set-up for a station... Here's the title of the manual for how the generators work... Here's how they're expecting to get correspondence back...

Cam swishes his tail as he makes sure everything is squared away.

Do they have anything else pressing?

"Would you find it convenient to have some sort of immediately demonstrable diplomatic gift for curious parties, or anything, before we go?"

"Yes, very much so."

"What would be suitable?"

"Some form of technology we don't have, preferably apparently harmless." She thinks of speculative technologies. "Can you do - like a screen but in three dimensions? Something that will entertain the ministers, but not make them get ambitious."

"Yes I can! Kinda content do you want me to load it up with?"

"At least one very obviously foreign film. If you have anything you'd recommend that'd give a sense of your culture even without a shared language..."

"Ooh, good question. There's kind of a wide spread of cultures. I guess I can just go with 'Atriama' and maybe a few years worth of the pre-drama Curator's Symposium? That's mostly music and dance, should be accessible through the language barrier."

"Should be interesting, at least."

"Do you want a little portable projector or a big stationary one?"

"Portable would be of more use, I believe. I'm often in different cities."

He makes her a little projector with wheels, already turned on and playing the overture to something performed on a circular stage. "There you go. The battery will last for a while, depending on how urgent other things turn out to be I might have managed to rig up something to convert local electricity by the time you'd need it recharged but if I haven't I can just swap the battery."

"Alright. I'll avoid running it constantly. Thank you; how do I operate it?"