A sealing scroll generally had three functions: recording text, storing objects, and forming summoning contracts.
Maya's was a storage type — essentially a spatial container.
The silver item was only 2,200 Influence Points, something she could have bought long ago. If the same storage capacity came in the form of a ring, she'd have snapped it up without a second thought. But this scroll was enormous — nearly the size of her school backpack. That was the catch.
She had no intention of wandering around with a half-body-length scroll strapped to her back like Naruto. If it were a compact, high-capacity model like something Kakashi or Tenten might use — small footprint, large interior — she might actually consider it.
Maya suppressed the urge to blow four silver-tier spins in a row. If she saved up a bit longer and did a ten-pull, she'd get 500 Influence Points back. These days she ran a tight budget: born unlucky at draws and chronically broke — she simply couldn't afford to be wasteful.
She closed the system panel, pulled her jacket from her backpack, and shrugged it on. As for a locker room or changing area — her school didn't have one. Students came already wearing their athletic gear under their regular clothes. Maya's own white-and-black women's track set was something she'd bought herself and put on that morning before leaving home.
The more modest girls ducked into the bathroom to swap out of their outer layers. The bolder ones just stripped down on the field in full view of everyone without a second thought.
In truth, Maya had been planning to leave the moment she changed. There was important business tonight, and going home early to prepare wouldn't hurt. But she still had to collect her award. Well — this year it was just a certificate.
And as student council president, she was also running the closing ceremony. The community school had six to seven grades, each with two or three classes of around thirty students. Total enrollment was under 400. The athletics meet itself only included the upper three grades; the younger kids watched from the sidelines and cheered. That trimmed the numbers further, which was why the whole event wrapped in a single day.
Partly that was a funding issue — the school was underpaid and under-resourced. Some private schools ran separate competitions for each grade and invited parents and community figures to give speeches and offer encouragement.
Maya returned to the field, resigned to her fate as a spectator. She was student council president, after all — she couldn't exactly disappear into the lab on a day like this.
But she wasn't about to waste the time either. She found a seat in the main seating area and spent the afternoon quietly cycling chakra while covertly practicing Shadow Imitation Jutsu on the side.
At three o'clock, Maya accepted her certificate from Nana with barely concealed awkwardness.
Nearly six o'clock, she finally spoke the words: "The spring athletics meet is hereby concluded!"
She didn't wait for Nana — the organizing staff still had equipment to pack up. Most students had already boarded the school buses home. The council members and organizers always ran late on meet days and had to take the public bus back. They were all upper-grade students by now, had grown up in this neighborhood, and had been through this routine plenty of times.
As she did most days, Maya walked west along 42nd Street to the Hudson River, then headed north along the bank.
She walked and thought through her options for dealing with Frank.
Plan A: Long-range. Throw a kunai from a distance and finish him. At the very least, Frank wasn't Hashirama Senju, so she wouldn't end up like every tragic male protagonist in history — leaving behind some legendary tale of a solitary kunai thrown a hundred li against the God of Shinobi.
Plan B: Get into Jimmy's room early, secretly plant explosive tags in every corner. She wouldn't retreat far — just hide outside the wall. When Frank came to meet Jimmy, she'd time the detonation and send him to meet his maker.
Plan C:Elegant. Hide on top of the elevator cab in Frank's building, wait for the right moment, and drive a Rasengan straight down through the ceiling. The building only had two connected old elevator shafts — she'd already confirmed it.
Plan D: Pull off the mask and charge in head-on. Take the enemy commander's head in the middle of a crowd. Reckless, but effective. If all else failed, this was the fallback.
None of these were rigid — they could be combined or adapted on the fly. Maya didn't have much field experience, but she had a sharp mind. She'd read the situation and improvise.
It was nearly six o'clock now. Darkness was drawing in from the edges of the sky, the last strip of amber light fading at the horizon. The streetlamps along the Hudson had come on. Their warm orange glow scattered across the grey expanse of the river, casting the silhouettes of a few piers and anchored boats against the water.
Two or three pedestrians walked alongside Maya along the riverbank, all of them moving with the quick, purposeful gait of people who had somewhere to be.
From out on the water came the occasional knock of cargo shifting against a ship's hull. Farther off, the low hum of traffic from the busy avenue blended into the early spring evening, somehow deepening the loneliness along the Hudson shore.
The first cold surges of spring pushed off the river surface and rolled across the waterfront boulevard in fitful gusts.
A boundless river flows on without end; this body, this day — there is more still to be done.
The line surfaced in Maya's mind unbidden.
She caught herself and laughed quietly. She'd told herself she was going to punch aliens and step on purple-headed madmen and become Earth's greatest power. And here she was, about to deal with one low-level gang boss, getting wistful and poetic about it.
She'd walked this stretch of riverbank hundreds of times. At this hour, it was usually busy — people and traffic in every direction. And yet she'd somehow managed to find loneliness in it.
Mood really does shape perception.
She patted her cheeks, shook it off, and resumed her usual bouncy stride.
She was still bobbing along when she spotted seven people gathered at an intersection up ahead, pointing and murmuring at something.
Frank Gardes was having one hell of a streak of bad luck.
It had started when his Mexican supply line suddenly dropped volume — he'd had to fly out personally to assess the situation. He'd been in the middle of setting up new supply routes through South America to prevent this from happening again. He'd already met with the Argentine kingpin Samuels and was about to negotiate pricing terms when Jimmy called in a panic: Wilson Fisk, the West Coast crime titan, wanted a meeting.
Go to hell. Frank had used this exact play himself back when he'd muscled into the Los Angeles trafficking business — invite the local boss, try to absorb them, and if that failed, eliminate them. Wilson's little invitation had Takeover written all over it.
So Fisk was making another move on New York.
Frank could live with that — Wilson had been eyeing his territory for years. He'd been mentally prepared.
What he hadn't been prepared for was someone sabotaging the premium organ inventory he'd prepared for his high-society clients. The foot soldiers he'd lost were barely a concern. The real problem was that without the matched organs, if any of those powerful clients' relatives died waiting — that was his problem to answer for.
Senator Fitch's youngest son had already had a kidney removed. He was on life support, waiting for a compatible organ that was now gone. Fitch had been calling relentlessly for days. What was Frank supposed to say? Even if he'd been willing to donate his own kidney, it wouldn't have been a match.
Reluctantly, he'd written off the Senator Fitch connection entirely. All the money he'd invested in cultivating that relationship — gone.