Naruto lay sprawled across a thick pile of scrolls.
His grimy face had been pressed bright red by the stiff cardboard tubes.
He grinned, tracing his finger back and forth over the yellowed paper.
"Land of Lightning... pluck... twenty thousand ryō for plucking feathers?"
"Plucking feathers, my ass! That says an allocation of twenty thousand ryō!"
Sen smacked Naruto on the back of the head.
The sharp slap rang through the courtyard.
"Can't read, and now your eyes are just for decoration too?"
Naruto rubbed his dazed head, whimpering in pain.
"Sen, those strokes run together under the grass radical. It really does look like 'pluck feathers.'"
"Read one more thing wrong, and I'll pluck every hair off your body."
Sen yawned and grabbed half a rotten twig to use as a pen.
Kakashi lay slumped on a fallen door panel nearby, too lazy to move.
A feeble sigh drifted out from beneath his mask.
"Naruto, that means allocating funds. Stop embarrassing Konoha."
"Quit talking, Kakashi. The tea's cold. Go boil another pot."
Sen kicked the empty teapot by his feet, sending it clanging.
Shikamaru crouched on the steps, his eyelids drooping.
He made a few marks on a scroll, looking utterly dead inside.
"Sen, there are still sixty sets of old accounts from the Daimyo's Palace to reconcile."
"Reconcile, my ass. Scrap them all and start over."
Sen slammed the rotten twig onto the table.
It snapped in two, spraying wood chips across Shikamaru's face.
"Is that big head of yours just a kettle?"
"We make the rules. Why should our books follow their lousy ones?"
Shikamaru wiped the wood scraps off his face and grimaced.
"Those bookkeepers at the Daimyo's Palace are stubborn. They won't accept it."
"Then send them to look at the Divine Tree by the