The night air in the Land of Sound didn't cool down; it just got heavier. The smog that choked the valley all day settled low to the ground, trapping the heat of the blast furnaces against the pavement.
The heat radiated upward through the soles of my boots, sticky and humid, making the air shimmer at knee-height.
We stopped in front of the inn.
It wasn't a welcoming wooden structure with paper lanterns. It was a blocky, brutalist concrete bunker that looked less like a place to sleep and more like a pillbox designed to survive an air raid.
Above the reinforced steel door, a sign buzzed with an erratic, insectoid hum. It wasn't powered by electricity, but by a canister of glowing purple gas—a chakra lamp that cast a sickly, bruised light over the street. The gas hissed inside the glass tubing, a continuous, leaking sound like a tire slowly going flat.
THE GEAR AND PISTON.
I stepped onto the porch. The concrete felt greasy under my boots, coated in a thin film of industrial soot that seemed to cover the entire town. I reached up to wipe the oily grime from my glasses, but my finger just smeared it. It felt granular, like sand mixed with Vaseline, instantly lodging itself under my fingernail.
Scuff.
My boot caught on a loose paving stone near the threshold. I stumbled, throwing my hands out to catch the wall.
"Don't trip!~" Ino sang out as she walked by, her ponytail swishing. She followed Asuma, Shikamaru, and Chōji inside, stepping lightly over the hazard.
I smirked, regaining my balance. "I was just testing the structural integrity."
I looked down at the stone that had tripped me.
It wasn't concrete.
It was an old, red clay brick. It was chipped, faded, and covered in a patch of slimy, black moss, but it stood out against the gray monotony of the street. It looked like it had been shoved into the foundation to fill a gap—a piece of the past used to patch the present.
I squinted, leaning down. The purple neon light flickered, illuminating the worn kanji stamped into the clay. The moss growing in the grooves looked less like a plant and more like a scab, dark and crusty against the red surface.
Toyosaka.
Bountiful Prosperity.
I stood up slowly, looking at the forest of smokestacks choking the sky, their blinking red warning lights pulsing like heartbeats. A plume of fire erupted from a distant stack, momentarily painting the low-hanging clouds in violent shades of orange and black.
"Toyosaka..." I whispered. The word felt wrong here. Like finding a flower growing in a landfill.
I pushed the heavy steel door open and stepped inside. The hinges screamed in protest, a high-pitched metal-on-metal shriek that made the fillings in my teeth ache.
The lobby didn't smell like tatami or green tea. It smelled of industrial solvent, stale tobacco, and wet rust.
The floor was linoleum, peeled up at the corners. The walls were covered in metal grating. The only sound was the low-frequency thrum-thrum-thrum of the city outside, vibrating through the walls like a headache. On a side table, a glass of water rippled with concentric circles, syncing perfectly with the heavy thuds outside.
"Welcome," a voice rasped.
The innkeeper stood behind a high counter made of diamond-plate steel. He was a gaunt man, his skin the color of wet ash. He wasn't wearing a kimono or a yukata; he was wearing a heavy, black rubber apron that glistened under the halogen lights. The rubber creaked as he breathed—a wet, squeaking sound that was unsettlingly biological.
He wiped his hands on a rag that was stained dark with grease.
"Welcome to Saisei," he said. He forced a smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. His skin looked tight, stretched over his cheekbones. "My name is Gengorō. We have warm water. Mostly. The boiler is... temperamental."
As if to emphasize his point, a pipe in the ceiling rattled violently and let out a moan of rushing air.
Asuma smiled—that easy, disarming Sarutobi smile that made everyone relax. "Water and a bed is all we need, Gengorō-san."
I looked at Anko. She was standing with her arms crossed, leaning against a support pillar. She had that look I saw when she ate a bad dango once: she was absolutely swallowing her complaints right now. Her jaw was tight, her eyes scanning the exits, but she stayed silent.
But my thoughts... they weren't complaints. They were questions.
"Saisei?" I repeated, stepping out from behind Ino. The word tasted metallic on my tongue, like I was licking a battery. The hum of the electric lights seemed to pitch up, whining in the silence that followed.
"Regeneration? Or Playback?"
Asuma raised an eyebrow. He didn't turn his head completely, but his right eye slid over to land on me.
Smart girl, his expression seemed to say.
I gestured vaguely at the front door, toward the neon sign and the hidden brick.
"Is this not Toyosaka?" I asked. "The brick outside says—"
DONK.
A fist came down on the top of my head. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to rattle my teeth.
The sound was a hollow thwock, like dropping a ripe melon onto a wooden counter.
"OW—HEY!" I shouted, clutching my head.
Anko was standing over me, hands on her hips. She was giving me The Face. The 'You are asking too many questions in a town run by a snake sociopath' face.
"Curiosity killed the cat, Sylvie," she hissed, though there was no heat in it. Just warning.
Gengorō blinked. He glanced toward the doorway, then back at me. A flicker of genuine surprise crossed his dead eyes.
"Heavens no, little miss," he chuckled. It was a dry, rattling sound, like stones shaking in a tin can. "Toyosaka? That was so long ago. The harvest ended when the factories opened."
He sighed, leaning heavily on the counter. He gestured with a greased hand to the wall next to the door.
"This is Saisei now."
I followed his gesture.
The wall was covered in a series of framed drawings. They were encased in glass, likely to protect them from the airborne soot. I had to wipe a layer of gray dust off the glass with my sleeve just to see the ink clearly.
I walked over.
The first drawing showed a lush valley filled with golden rice paddies and wooden farmhouses. Toyosaka.
The second showed scaffolding rising around the paddies.
The third showed the pipes coming down from the mountain.
The fourth showed the city as it was now—a sprawling fortress of metal and smoke.
"We don't grow things here anymore," Gengorō said softly, his voice barely audible over the hum of the ventilation fans.
He looked at Naruto and Chōji.
"We... process them."
Somewhere deep in the building, a heavy metal door slammed shut, the echo booming through the floorboards like a gavel.
The air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
Naruto and Chōji gulped simultaneously, the sound loud in the quiet lobby.
Shikamaru scratched the back of his head, muttering something about "troublesome symbolism."
Ino and I instinctively took half a step back, positioning ourselves behind Anko's trench coat.
"Right," Asuma said, breaking the tension.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of ryō. He slapped the coins onto the metal counter.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
The coins spun on the diamond-plate steel, the sharp ring cutting through the mechanical drone outside.
"Thanks for the wisdom, Ojiisan," Asuma said, his voice steady. "Now, about those keys."