Hazou decided to break the comfortable silence that followed Keiko’s acknowledgement. “So, while we’re all sharing, I’ve had another idea.”

“Scariest words I’ve ever heard,” Noburi grumbled good-naturedly.

Hazou stoically ignored him, and picked up a dried leaf from the ground and tossed it out over the campfire. The group’s eyes tracked its winding ascent. “Hot air lifts things. It happens to leaves over fires, it happens to sky-lanterns during festivals. Could we use that to make something that can carry people through the air?”

“People weigh a lot more than leaves, Hazou,” Mari-sensei objected.

“Sure, but that probably just means you need a lot more hot air,” Hazou countered. “It’s worked for me in the past, getting lifted up by the furnace exhaust of Amatetsu’s yam shop, jumping to the Mizukage’s tower.”

“Hmm. I choose to remain dubious,” she replied as she leaned back and closed her eyes.

“I share Inou... Mari-sensei’s hesitation,” said Keiko haltingly, “but I can see that this would be another significant contribution to warfare. The ability to carry large amounts of supplies alongside personnel would be an enormous tactical advantage, increasing utility of both watchtowers and skywalkers. Knowing you, I suppose you are envisioning a seal-based solution to providing heat?”

Hazou nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly! Either a seal that just heats air around it, or macerators to pulp wood to burn quickly. Also, can you imagine what it would mean for civilian trade if we could get it working without active chakra manipulation? None of the ground-based chakra beasts could get to them!”

“Still gotta deal with sky squid,” Kagome grumbled, poking the fire absent-mindedly.

“Right, of course, but even accounting for those, and all the various kinds of birds and bugs and bats, it’s still got to be safer overall.”

“You’re assuming the Hidden Villages would ever let civilians have access to these things,” Noburi pointed out. “Why in the world would they? Your civilians would get captured faster than you can say ‘kunai’, and now your enemies have sky-wagons, or whatever other dumb name you’re going to give these things!”

“Huh, I might keep that one. Thank you for the suggestion,” Hazou said thoughtfully.

Noburi brought one hand to his forehead. “Oh, for the love of--”

“I take your point, though. Until we fix the system, nobody’s going to be happy sharing this kind of thing. If we sell it to Leaf, they’ll keep it for themselves. If we keep it for ourselves and use it for border crossings, we’re doing the same thing on a smaller scale,” Hazou said, frowning. “And that’s assuming we even get them working - there are going to be a lot of technical details to address.”

“Use storage seals to change the weight of the thing,” Kagome cut in, looking off into the middle distance. “Steering, you could do with wind jutsu, or seals that do the same stuff, or maybe explosive seals.”

Hazou grinned. “I had a couple thoughts on that, actually….”

-o-​

Over dinner, Hazou decided it was time for an extra team meeting. “Guys, on top of what we discussed last night, I was hoping I could talk to you all about some other stuff.”

Noburi turned to Keiko with a long-suffering expression. “You’ll help me beat him up if he’s come up with another world-shaking military innovation, right?”

Keiko nodded gravely. “A truce might be the only way to stop him.”

“Wait, we were at war?” Noburi asked.

She flicked a pebble at him, bouncing it off his arm.

“Ow!”

“We are now. Truce?”

“Kids,” Mari-sensei growled over her tea.

“Thank you,” said Hazou, relieved. “So, I’ve been considering the fact that we have a lot of options for how to move forward as a group, and I’m really not sure what the best option is from a standpoint of wanting to improve the world. We have, thanks to Keiko, a way to influence both Hidden Mountain and the Pangolin Clan. Despite my screw-up, it seems like we still have something of an in on Hidden Leaf in the form of Jiraiya, and potentially in the clan heirs we interacted with while there. A connection to Jiraiya and the Pangolins means a connection to the Toads. Any or all of these groups could benefit from having access to the skytowers, skywalkers, or skywagons. I would very much appreciate all your inputs on who, if anyone, we should share them with, when we should do so, and in exchange for what.”

“The Pangolins would certainly benefit from the ability to fight against the Condors on more even footing,” Keiko mused. “However, it would only be logical for them to share the innovation with the Toads for the purposes of joint operations. And what the Toads have, Jiraiya and Leaf also have.”

“Hazou, you’re counting chickens before they’ve hatched. You’ve only got one of the three things you’re proposing to trade away,” said Noburi.

“One and a half!” Hazou objected.

“Is the same as one,” Noburi insisted.

“I’m still confused why you would ever want to talk to those Leaf stinkers again, never mind helping them kill people better,” Kagome interrupted.

“Realistically, it’s not going to be possible to keep secrets from Jiraiya indefinitely, Kagome-sensei. I think it’s better to choose the time and place the secret gets out, and bargain some reward out of it.”

“Reward? Is that what you think you’re gonna get, huh?! I’ll tell you what you’re gonna get when that stinking Toad stinker hears about all this. Locked up and only fed on days when you come up with new ideas, that’s what you’re gonna get!” Kagome exclaimed, gesticulating frantically. His eyes had grown wide, and were occasionally darting back and forth across the tree line instead of meeting Hazou’s. “Is that what you want, huh?”

“Of course not, sensei,” Hazou answered, keeping his voice calm and quiet.

“...good,” Kagome stated emphatically, clearly not sure where to carry the conversation. “I... was starting to worry.”

“So, that sounds like one vote against Leaf, and one vote for the Pangolins,” said Mari-sensei. “I would be concerned about giving Hazou’s innovations to Mountain alone. For all their political trickiness, they don’t have the raw body count or individual S-class firepower to prevent one of the larger villages from coming in and just taking whatever we give them. The only way to prevent that would involve us engineering the situation such that they were allied with Leaf from the start -- which we could do, in theory, but might be destabilizing in and of itself.”

“Plus, if we gave them to Mountain and not Leaf, Leaf would be pissed,” added Noburi. “Which we would really like to avoid, since it would sour that alliance right off the bat and have us on the shit list by extension. So it’s sounding like if we don’t want Leaf to get them, we can’t give them to anyone.”

Hazou nodded. “There’s the extra option of keeping one or two of them to ourselves, but I expect that will just lead to a repeat of the Hokage asking us how we did so-and-so during a mission.”

“Yeah, let’s not do that again,” Mari-sensei said, grimacing and beginning to rise and move toward the fort. “Whatever we do, let’s make it deliberate. Let’s all sleep on it, okay? Hazou, for making us all do homework, you’re on first watch.”