barbie does tend to come before book in the standard english dictionary... [open]

[haruno]

There is a point, Sakura decided, Where directions are useless if there's no consistent measurement of distance. She felt she'd reached this point, stepping out of the main walkway and up onto a semi-clear platform lining this part of the road. By what she could figure, she should have arrived at this particular bookseller by now, but she still

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[i_am_the_bafo]

"No! I do not want to go to the bookstore! I DO NOT need a girlfriend! Not from THERE anyway!"

Apparently a local tout was attempting to shake down a book for a tour fee.

[haruno]

Sakura had a moment to ponder the viability of books dating before attempting to intercede on behalf of the book which preferred to be single.

At least literaturely.

"Is there a problem here?"

[i_am_the_bafo]

"This guy seems to think I'd be willing to pay for directions to a bookstore!" Zetta said, loud enough to completely overwhelm the protestations of the would-be guide. "Just because I AM a book at the moment doesn't mean I want to go sit on a shelf and hit on other possibly sentient tomes!"

[haruno]

Sakura raised an eyebrow, focusing her attention on the would-be guide. "It doesn't look like he needs a tour to anywhere, sir." Let alone a set up to start dating something else that sat on a shelf until moved.

"If they change their mind, I'll take them myself. Your concern is appreciated, but unnecessary."

She put on her best 'polite' smile.

[i_am_the_bafo]

The combination of Sakura's firm-but-polite logic and the glimmering possibility of an incident in the book's eyes were enough to make the hopeful tout decide what the better part of valor was, and retreat.

The book held that glare on his retreating backside for a moment before it became a simple frown. "I'm not sure I like the direction that took, there," he said. That was probably a 'thanks' if you translated it from Overlord.

[haruno]

Sakura watched the retreat as well, shaking her head. "It'd be tiring dealing with people like that all the time. Earning money is one thing, being pestered by people who largely want to cheat you out of yours just so they can have more is another."

Not that some shinobi (or shinobi nations) hadn't done just that. "Where were you heading before you got waylaid?"

Where did books even go? To the press?

[i_am_the_bafo]

"Oh, I don't mind the shameless wheedling and trickery," Zetta said. "It's the fact that he didn't listen to me till the human girl stepped in. Damn, I hate being a book." The Overlord sighed, wearily.

"Huh? Oh... nowhere, actually. Just figuring out ways to waste money and avoid anyplace selling food. Let me give you a piece of advice: never seal your soul in a damn book. You know, in case it ever comes up."

[haruno]

"I'll try to keep that in mind," she said, expression far carefully blank -- by stint of not knowing how to react outside of staring. She was, however, finding it only slightly difficult to absorb the reality of someone bonding their soul to strange objects. (A book was a step up from something like, say, the god of death. Probably. Since the book could talk and was in some theory alive... it was a big step up.) "What... made it seem like a good idea at the time?"

[i_am_the_bafo]

"It was that or die," Zetta said bluntly. "And actually, not dying is a very good reason to confine your soul to an inanimate object. But there sure aren't many others!"

[haruno]

"What happens if you're damaged?" she asked, not sure if the cling to life no matter the cost or means was appealing... Though it would be to some people from home.

[i_am_the_bafo]

"If the Sacred Tome is damaged, anything in the Netherworld I'm in that's connected to it would be injured," Zetta said. "Right now, that only applies to the minions I've summoned on the ship, if I've summoned them."

Lectures on Netherworldology 101; who knew it would come to this?

[haruno]

Certainly not Sakura! "You're still connected to this Netherworld place from here?"

In a more general sense, from anywhere. She recalled the crystal Aibghalien had given her, demonstrating how the different realms had operated on his world. If they did still exist... she wasn't sure if it meant much of anything.

"Your Netherworld?"

[i_am_the_bafo]

"The Sacred Tome is the keystone to my Netherworld," Zetta said. "Its past, present, and future are recorded in here."

The book flipped open in the minion's hands to a random page with a large amount of indecipherable writing on it, then shut again.

"So even though it, uh, doesn't really exist at the moment, I'll be able to restore it good as new as soon as someone gets enough mana to wish it back."

[haruno]

"What is mana?" Sakura felt like she'd heard the word before, though she didn't place it right then. "How much is enough to wish something like that back?"

Twenty questions was a way of life for Sakura, when she could get away with it.

"... Was any of this recorded in there?"

[i_am_the_bafo]

Zetta was so used to questions at this point, he answered them practically on reflex. "Mana power is, basically, the strength of your existence. It's not literal physical strength, or magic or technological might, but someone with stronger mana will generally have SOME sort of asskicking prowess to back it up. The only person in the cosmos who could wish back my Netherworld without dying outright is me, and I don't have any arms to write in the damn book with."

Which was a serious problem, damn it!

"I only found it because Pram the Oracle told me someone was going to attack it. When I opened it up I only was able to read one sentence... that's when it became clear the Ohm had sabotaged it. Long story short, it was nearly destroyed, I had to confine my soul to it to save my life."

[haruno]

Man was an interesting concept, not like the concepts of body energy or capacity she had from home. Or a little like chakra... if not quite, since magic (in some forms) was also similar to chakra.

It was puzzling, and distracting her from her end goal of procuring medical tomes. "Is there any way to bind your soul into something else, after all that? Or is it something you would have to do for yourself."

Which got back to the no arms problem, in some schools of thought. Or hostile takeovers... if Orochimaru's containers seemed to be more willing to go with what he wanted, before Sasuke-kun.