“Akatsuki, you say,” Kagome said thoughtfully. “Well, what I know is—“

He paused so as not to be interrupted by that weird gurgling screech that came from the bowels of the mansion every fifteen minutes between four and five pm. The Gōketsu Clan had long since decided that it must be malfunctioning pipes, and silently agreed that there was no need to go and investigate further.

“Akatsuki is a society of summoners,” Kagome continued.

“What, all of them?” Noburi interrupted.

“All of them,” Kagome said. “Uchiha Itachi summons crows. Everyone in Leaf knows that. Why crows? Because they’re great at pecking out eyeballs. And what did he do? He killed everyone in the Uchiha Clan so he could steal their eyes and take their Sharingan powers.”

“But what about the civilians? And his brother?”

“Exactly,” Kagome said. “Unlike your ordinary clan-massacring type, he was smart enough to make sure there’d be more Sharingan users to kill later. And while he waits, he flies around the continent looking for anybody with a drop of Uchiha blood so he can consume them and become even stronger.”

“I… see…” Hazō said slowly. “That’s certainly… worth knowing.”

“Of course, all that was part of the Sage’s plot too. The Uchiha were getting too close to things they weren’t meant to know, like the truth behind the Tailed Beast Breeding Programme. Them and their genjutsu-piercing eyes. But I figured that was obvious.

“Then there’s their shark summoner. Don’t know his name. He’s one of the ancients, the first ninja who got themselves trapped in the incomplete Transformation Technique. Only he was so smart he managed to figure out how to modify it without having to use his hands—which he didn’t have, being a chakra shark and all. So now he’s half-shark half-man. He ate the last Shark Summoner so he could get the scroll, and what he does is that he floods villages with his ancient forbidden Water ninjutsu, and then he and his summon friends swarm in and eat everyone. Only most people don’t know because it looks so much like scorch squad work.

“But the really dangerous one is Deidara, the Last of the Dragonlords. He swoops in on his legendary grey dragon with his blond hair streaming in the wind, saturates the battlefield with perfectly-made explosives, then watches and takes notes on exactly how everyone dies so he can make the next batch even better. They say half of all explosives used in the last Fang-Claw war had his mark on them.”

“Blond hair streaming in the wind?” Keiko queried with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m just telling you what I’ve heard, is all!” Kagome snapped. “Now are you going to pick at my every word, or are you going to listen to vital intel?”

“I apologise. Please continue.”

“Right. Where was I? Oh, there’s Hidan the Blood Reaper. Everyone’s heard of him. Deadliest scythe-wielder in the world.”

“How many scythe-wielders are there in the world?” Hazō asked.

“He’s the only one I know of.”

“Right. And what’s he the summoner of?”

“Death,” Kagome said simply. “Nobody knows what he had to do to get the Death summoning scroll, because he hunted down and killed everyone who knew. When he summons Death, he becomes completely unkillable, and every wound he deals is fatal, even if he just nicks you. He’s head of a vast secret cult, and everyone in it worships him as the avatar of Death itself.

“His eternal rival is Kakuzu the Elemental Summoner. He’s got four different summoning scrolls—Fire, Lightning, Water and Wind—and he can use all of them at once. He’s said to be the oldest ninja alive—so he’s probably another of the Sage’s masks—and an expert bounty hunter. If it’s a choice between facing him and facing a squad of hunter-nin, any missing-nin will run to welcome the squad with open arms. I can’t imagine how rich he must be, if he’s that old and constantly collecting bounties.”

“To the best of my knowledge,” Keiko said, “there is no such thing as an elemental summoning scroll. Blood must be used in the creation of a summoning scroll, and I fail to see how Fire, Lightning, Water or Wind can provide it. Or Death for that matter.”

“And that’s why you’re not on Akatsuki’s power level,” Kagome said smugly, as if their success was somehow his accomplishment. “Those people are crazier than a civilian going on a hiking trip through the mountains, but it’s the productive kind of crazy. Look at Sasori of the Red Sand and his golem summons.”

Keiko looked like her patience was wearing thin. “There is no Golem Clan. I do not see how there can be a Golem Clan, insofar as golems, in addition to not possessing blood, are not living creatures by definition. It does not help that they are entirely fictional. Perhaps this Sasori is simply a skilled puppet user?”

“Oh, sure,” Kagome sneered. “A skilled puppet user took out Ōtori Castle in Fang on his own, did he? Along with the daimyo and all his ninja bodyguards? A good puppet user can control what, two, three puppets at a time? Sasori is said to have used an army.”

Keiko glowered, but quietly.

“That’s all I know for certain,” Kagome concluded. “Anything else would be speculation.”

-o-​ “What do you have for me, Pandā?”

The military liaison tapped his claws against his chest awkwardly.

“Um, sorry, Keiko. I spent hours at the library, I really did. My claws are aching from carrying tablets back and forth. I did my best for you.”

“I am confident that you did.”

“Thanks, Keiko.”

Pandā straightened up a little.

“First off, I think the Toad Summoner must have been pulling your tongue about what happened in his big battle. The Archaeopteryx Clan doesn’t have a summoning scroll.”

“Archaeopteryx Clan,” Kei repeated. “Are you saying it was lost?”

“Nonono. They never had one. They were the first of the winged clans, created to be the Pantokrator’s steeds and messengers. Today, they’re practically a myth—mothers say they will swoop down and carry off bad little pangolins who don’t respect the chain of command. Even if the archaeopteryxes are still alive somewhere out there, only the Pantokrator would have the power to summon them to your world.”

Kei frowned. This observation gave far too much credence to Kagome’s convoluted theories about the Sage.

“Are you absolutely certain?”

“Well,” Pandā said uneasily, “I suppose if the Pantokrator shared his powers with somebody else. He’s omnipotent, so presumably he could do that if he wanted to. I can’t imagine why he would, though.”​

“No indeed,” Kei said. “But on the assumption that Jiraiya’s testimony was accurate, do your stories provide any tactical data on archaeopteryxes? Weaknesses, known abilities and so forth?”

Pandā’s eyes widened a little. “You’re not planning on fighting the Pantokrator’s personal servants? If they still exist, I mean. Because I think that counts as blasphemy. No, sacrilege. Um, which is which again? I always get those two mixed up.”

Kei resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She should probably be grateful to Hazō and Noburi for the practice.

“Obviously we would not be fighting the Sage of Six Paths. I am led to believe that would be suicide. However, in the event that someone is imitating his abilities, would that not be a far greater sacrilege?”

“I dunno,” Pandā muttered. “You should probably talk to the Commissars about that. They don’t like people like me making doctrinal statements.”

“Pandā,” Kei said, “either way, there is no harm in providing me with information that is already freely available and that I could acquire myself were I to learn pangolin writing and invest time in research.”

“Well, if you say so,” Pandā reluctantly agreed. “They’re said to come down on their enemies like the Pantokrator’s hammer, which isn’t how you normally hear about bird clan heroes. Those are all ‘swift talons’ and ‘move like the wind’, so I guess archaeopteryxes might be strong but slow instead? And not good at manoeuvring? But on the other hand if they’re messengers, it would be dumb if they were too slow, so I suppose they must build up speed when they go in a straight line.”

“Impressive analysis,” Kei said. “It seems your training has not been for naught.”

“Well, you know, everyone in the clan got special briefings on how to beat up the beak-faces if they come within a mile of our settlements. Which they won’t now, because we slaughtered their warriors and took their territory and now we’ve enslaved them like they all deserve.” Pandā’s eyes shone with an unhealthy light.

“I… see. Moving on, then. What of the other summons I asked about?”

“There aren’t any dragon summons,” Pandā said. “A lot of summoners ask about those. Maybe humans from the past saw the Pantokrator riding an archaeopteryx and called it a dragon? I dunno.

“As for the other stuff, that’s getting me worried about you, Keiko. Maybe you should take time off, let yourself rest and recharge your brain a bit? You can… borrow my burrow if you like?”

Kei narrowed her eyes. “Pandā…” she said with a faint undertone of threat.

“All right, all right, just trying to show some friendly concern for a friend, no need to kick at my log.

“Look, Keiko,” Pandā said patiently as if explaining something to a small child, “fire needs something to burn. Even Fire ninjutsu burns chakra. So what’s a Fire summon supposed to do, jump off a torch and stroll over to you over the bare earth? And how would it talk to you even if it did? How would it understand you without a brain?”

“Clones can understand instructions without a brain,” Kei observed.

“Yes, because they’re not people, they’re a ninjutsu effect. Summons are people. We have our own lives, our own thoughts and feelings—how does fire even sign a contract, Keiko, tell me that!” Pandā exclaimed in exasperation.

“Fine, you’ve made your point,” Keiko said testily. “What of the others?”

“There’s a Shark Summoner, sure enough. We don’t have any diplomatic ties to the Shark Clan—they live far away, and we don’t exactly have any overlapping interests, but I asked around and intel says they’ve had one for a while. I’m surprised you don’t know that yourself, Keiko. Don’t you come from the village in the ocean?”

“I left as a genin,” Kei said. “Prior to that, my training focused on logistics and structural aspects of information management, and left little time to collect data which would be of no immediate use to me.”

“That doesn’t sound like fun. But if it makes you feel better, I can tell you lots about the Crow Clan. We’ve got an up-to-date intel package on them in case they decided to back up the Condors for some reason.”

“Go on.”

“They live way up in the mountains. They’re weird, because they don’t fight much—they send their young to do most of the fighting, and—get this—they actually think that war is less important than abstract knowledge. Crazy, right? So they’re ruled by sages instead of generals, and they’re all into medicine and philosophy and stuff, except they won’t share any of it because they think they’re better than everyone.

“Only ever since they made their contract with the Uchiha—and only the Uchiha, by the way, which is weird too—their military started expanding, and now there’s loads of tension between the sages who are in charge and the military faction that thinks it ought to take over. Then there was this big kerfuffle a few years back when something big happened on the Human Path, and they had a completely different split over whether to keep supporting the Crow Summoner or not. That lasted until the Crow Summoner himself came to the Seventh Path and flattened everyone who didn’t like him. Right now he’s probably the second most important person in the clan after Karanium himself.

“That’s everything I have clearance for. There’s some other stuff marked Top Secret, but the overall gist of it is that the crows aren’t going to mess with us, and we have to make absolutely certain we don’t give them a reason to. It’s actually a little weird how emphatic the tablets are about that part.”

“Thank you,” Kei said. “That is very informative. And tactical data?”

“Crows fight in flocks. They have a lot of small fighters, not like us pangolins, ‘cause the older crows tend to stick to academics. They’re cheats who love to have some of them distract you while the rest hit you from behind, or swarm you until you can’t see a thing and don’t know what’s going on. They do hit-and-runs a lot. Can’t take a good hit, though. Oh! They use tools and weapons a lot because they’re so weak, unlike pangolins whom the Pantokrator naturally made the strongest. So you have to be ready for anything with a crow.”

“Excellent,” Kei said. “If you can offer me this kind of information about the rest…”

“I can’t,” Pandā said flatly. “Golems are like those elemental summons—they don’t exist and it doesn’t make sense for them to. Didn’t they teach you this kind of common-sense stuff when you became a summoner?”

“I have learned of late that common sense seldom applies in the shinobi world,” Kei said wryly. “One must grit one’s teeth and keep an open mind.

“Nevertheless, it is a relief that Kagome’s ramblings appear to be just that. I take it that the same applies to the bewildering idea of summoning Death?”

Pandā went very still.

“Death isn’t a summon the way I’m a summon. Death is… something else,” he said in a hushed voice.

“Come now.” Kei’s patience had been bolstered by Pandā’s extensive knowledge of the crows, and at least that had already been confirmed by Jiraiya to be Uchiha Itachi’s summon. But there were limits.

“How can a theoretical abstraction of the process by which living organisms cease to function be summonable? At least a Fire elemental summon is intuitively comprehensible, even if that intuition does not match reality.”

“Dunno,” Pandā said. “But summoning Death is one of the things summoners are forbidden to do on the Seventh Path, like making seals.”

And of course, there was no way of distinguishing prohibitions laid down for good and sane reasons from meaningless superstition, just as with many of the “essential” sealcrafting procedures Kagome insisted on during research. (Kei refused on principle to believe in the efficacy of the “Please Don’t Let This Seal Draw the Attention of the Nameless Hunger that Dwells in the Gaps between Minds” Dance.)

“Well,” Kei said, “I assure you that I have no intention of summoning Death in the foreseeable future. I feel that towering war machines with razor-sharp claws and impenetrable armour fulfil my day-to-day summoning needs quite nicely.”

“Aww, Keiko, you say the nicest things.”

“Is there anything else?” Kei asked. “I should return soon lest I miss dinner.”

“Oh!” Pandā did a sudden little hop. “Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve got a message for you from Commissar Panteon. He says that now we’re moving into the next stage of the offensive, against the Hyena Clan that secretly supported the condors from behind the scenes, we’re going to need a lot more Pantokrator’s Eyes from you.”

Kei’s mind conjured images of the subjugated condor population labouring with bound wings beneath the whips of their pangolin overseers.

“He says that your piety will be noted and rewarded appropriately. Oh, but if you feel this goes beyond the bounds of your relationship with the Pangolin Clan, we may be forced to review the terms of your summoning contract accordingly. His words, not mine.

“Um, please don’t make them review the terms of the summoning contract, Keiko. I don’t know what that means, and I really like being your military liaison.” Pandā gave her what on the Human Path would be known as puppy-dog eyes. “It’s given my life a whole lot of meaning, and, and I really like you. You’re the best summoner ever.”

Well. It had occurred to Kei over the last few days that her life had become suspiciously uncomplicated.