"How the hell would I know how to harvest dragonflies?" Hashimoto-sensei growled. "What, you think I go traipsing around in the woods?"

"We thought, with your medical expertise..." Noburi stumbled.

The medic threw up her hands. "Catch 'em, grind 'em up, dry the gunk out, throw it at people. Don't get it on your skin. Might work, might do nothing, beats me. There, does that satisfy you?"

"Yes, sensei," Noburi said, bowing low. "Thank you for your time, and for your healing."

"'Here, sensei, have two thousand ryo' sounds a lot better than 'thank you'," Hashimoto growled. "This is my job, you know."

"Here, sensei, have two thousand ryo," Noburi said with a bow. "I am very grateful."

"Great," Hashimoto said. "Now be grateful somewhere else, I've got patients to see."

"Yes, sensei," Noburi said, bowing again before quickly turning for the door.

"Not that way!" Hashimoto said. "Use the back door. I don't want anyone seeing you and associating you with me."

"But...I'm henged. No one—"

"Don't care! Back door, now!" She snapped her fingers imperiously and pointed straight-armed at the door.

"Yes, sensei!"

o-o-o-o​

"But...you were henged. And you'd never used that henge bef—"

"She didn't care."

Inoue-sensei looked at Hazō. In perfect synchronization, they shrugged.

"Okay," Inoue-sensei said. "Moving on...."

o-o-o-o​

Noburi sat cross-legged beside the river as dawn broke. The light barely trickled over the horizon, raising clammy fingers of cottony-white mist off the water. Silence lay across the world like a gentle blanket; the night creatures had only just gone to bed and those of the day were still deciding that their nests and burrows were comfortable and everything could wait a few more minutes.

His eyes were closed, his hands rested on knees, and he breathed slowly and evenly as he traced the flow of his chakra. It began in the heavy barrel on his back, the barrel that was the blessing and the curse of the Wakahisa. It made them sought-after teammates, but also pushed them into the background and left them unappreciated as ninja.

A lifetime of frustration and resentment bubbled up at that thought. In the past he had forced it down, ground it beneath a mental heel, and dismissed it from his mind so he could get on with the exercise. Now, following the advice of his jounin-sensei, he let it flow instead. His skin flushed and his lip curled up in anger as the memories flashed behind his eyes:

"Hey, barrel boy, I need a drink!"

"Get over here, fatty! I'm running low."

"Oh, cool, Nobby's here. Guess we can keep practicing after all."

"Don't worry about your taijutsu grades, Wakahisa. Your family are considered very desirable teammates, and I'm sure that whomever you're assigned to will be glad to have your chakra water available."

One by one he examined the images. Children, teachers, former teammates. The truth was that they didn't hate him, they didn't despise him...they didn't really think about him. Ninja life was difficult, and they had their own problems that they were wrapped up in. Too wrapped up to realize that someone might want to be valued for himself instead of for his bloodline. Thoughtless, not contemptuous.

What would the family think if they could see him now? He knew how much progress he had made. He could recognize the chakra flows faster and redirect them more smoothly than most of his older cousins had been able to before he left on that ill-fated mission. The Wakahisa family game was water polo and draining chakra from your opponents was par for the course. The chakra would flow back and forth between the competitors, each of them pulling from the others. The youngest children would be drained dry in seconds; their competition was simply to see who could stay in the pool the longest. The slightly older children could mostly only manage one target at a time and couldn't drain nearly as quickly as their seniors. They would end up having to drop out of the game from exhaustion soon enough. The fight would then go to the fresh Academy graduates and their slightly older siblings.

Cousin Shou had been the best of Noburi's generation, but by now Noburi had far surpassed him—had surpassed even his own parents, if truth were told. Were he still in Mist he would have been studying under senior elders. He would have been respected by the clan, and perhaps even by some of the non-clan. Best of all, that respect would have been his, due to his own skill, not to his bloodline.

Of course, there was no need to go to the family. His current team accepted him and respected him for himself. They had never once treated him like a mobile chakra source. They might tease him but it was never cruel, and if he was feeling low there would be support instead. And, of course, he was able to tease them and support them in kind.

The truth was, the team would be dead half a dozen times over if it weren't for him. Providing chakra wasn't sexy or dramatic, and it didn't earn the same kind of impressed looks that Hazou got every time he pulled another one of his clever plans out of nowhere. No, it wasn't sexy, but it was important. The whole team had escaped from overwhelming enemies because he was there to supply chakra. Keiko had been able to summon Pankurashun only because Noburi was there, and without Pankurashun's teachings Akane would not have survived the fight against Komori, nor would the team have been able to save her when she ran her chakra reserves empty. The team could run longer, hit harder, and punch above their weight class because he was there.

The barrel was no curse and it was no gift. It was simply part of who he was.

From the barrel the chakra flowed into the carefully-drawn pattern of Wakahisa family seals and from there into Noburi himself. It wound through his mangled and stunted chakra system, sustaining his body and enhancing his muscles. It came at his call, flowed where he told it to flow, shaped itself to his command.

Without opening his eyes he traced a series of handseals and reached out his left hand. A strand of water leapt up from the surface of the river, shaping itself into a whip and settling across his palm with an almost friendly tingle. He observed the way his chakra wrapped around the river water, holding it in the form he chose. He could bend the chakra like this and the whip would bend with it. He could shift it like that and the whip would coil itself up. He could extend it, reaching the whip into the river again and connecting him to the chakra of all the life within the water.

Without losing control of the whip, Noburi pulled very delicately on the web of chakra in the water. It flowed more easily than it had just a few months ago, leaping to his call like the friendly puppy at his neighbor's house. He could sense the differences more accurately now...the shifting swarm to his left that was a school of fish, the muted yet steady thrum that was the water plants near the riverbank, the tiny flitting of the mosquitoes in the—

His eyes shot open and the Water Whip splatted to the ground as he momentarily lost control.

Had he really...?

Carefully, he reformed his Water Whip and stretched it out in front of himself. He didn't reach it into the river, just extended it forward through the mist. Very gently he wrapped his chakra into the 'calling' form, the key that unlocked his family's gift.

Tiny threads of chakra flowed to him from the insects that flitted hither and yon through the morning mist.

For three long minutes, Noburi sat wide-eyed, practicing a technique that many of his peers had thought was only a story.

o-o-o-o​

"The grubs are back!" Panchipāma shouted into the back room of the clubhouse. Almost immediately a stomp of footfalls heralded the arrival of a dozen Naraka Rollers, all of whom towered over Kei in a bristling wall of muscle, each armed with claws the length of her forearms. She couldn't be bothered to feel threatened. She'd seen too much, done too much, faced down too many powerful foes—among them Pantsā of the Adamant Scales and Jiraiya of the Sannin. No, she had no fear for her safety; if the Naraka Rollers wanted a fight they would find her more than they'd bargained for. Amazingly, she wasn't even afraid of the talking part of this meeting; she was buoyed up by Jiraiya's advice and sustained by the hours that Mari-sensei had spent working with her. No. Today was no day for fear. Today was when she would finally do it right. She would not be the foolish child who failed at everything. The carefully-rehearsed words were as ready to her hand as her kunai and they flowed just as easily.

"Watcha want, grub?" Panchipāma demanded. "You get that chapter of the Naraka Rollers set up like we agreed?"

Kei bowed low. "I fear I have not. The Human Path does not treat its women well. With the exception of female ninja, women are taught to be quiet and meek. I am having trouble finding any who would do honor to the Naraka Rollers. That is not what I'm here for, though."

"Oh?" the pangolin said with a sniff. "If you can't even do something that simple, why should the Panchipāma waste time on you?"

"My team and I are planning a heist," Kei said. "We're going to steal from the most dangerous non-ninja organization in the Elemental Nations. We're going to defeat their security, take their goods, and then sell it all back to them and laugh. It will be the first word in the legend of the Pangolin Summoner as I take my place in history. The previous summoner was Ui Isas; he lived centuries ago, yet his name still echoes through our history. Children sit wide-eyed when their elders tell his stories. I intend to be greater. I will write my name across history and the names of my pangolin battle companions will be written beside my own. People still shudder at mention of Ui's Six Scourges; I intend for my name to be different. I and those pangolin who choose to stand beside me will be a beacon, a sign of what women can do and what honor can rest with a missing-nin. We will be a thumb in the eye to authority across the world. We will burn the Hidden Villages to the ground and remake our world in our own image, forging it into a place where women are powers and rulers respect the ruled.

"I am on the Summon Path today to find companions for this heist. Pandā and I have made a list of pangolin who would be good choices. I will go to each person on this list and offer them the opportunity to form a one-time pact with me. I will summon them to the Human Path one time, for purposes of the heist. Afterwards they can choose to continue as my companion or to break the pact. I will go home tonight with a shield mate, but I choose to give the Naraka Rollers the first opportunity, as I have so far been unable to honor you as you deserve on the Human Path. So, I ask the great Panchipāma: do you wish to show the Human Path your power or should I go elsewhere?"

Kei stood straight and tall, arm extended in invitation and eyes locked on those of Panchipāma. Still, she kept watch on the pangolin around them. Her words were being felt; as Mari-sensei had expected, these pangolin were defined by their rebellion against social norms and their loyalty to one another. The scarcity of breeding licenses in pangolin society caused frustration and left a lot of undirected energy swirling around with no outlet. Joining the Summoner on the Human Path, writing yourself into legend...those were words that would play well in this crowd.

Panchipāma's lower jaw dropped open in a pangolin laugh. "This one's got claws!" she said. "Yes. The Panchipāma accepts your offer. I will grant you permission to summon me one time and, if you impress me, we can talk about making it permanent."