The water had been pumped out of the library with relative ease but the resulting devastation weighed heavy on Yume’s heart. The soggy corpses of hundreds of books lay in waste, scattered across the marble floor of the Grand Hall. She would touch the spine of each book with a gentle hand, chakra moving through it to force any excess water from its pages. Scooping them up into her arms, she fills a plastic tub with the moist volumes and carries them over to where a salvage station had been set up. Some shinobi were carefully pulling the pages apart, transcribing them onto new paper for fresh books to be printed from. Others were lining up tomes on a rack and gently pushing wind jutsus up through the pages to dry them out. Taking her bin to a quiet corner, she sets to work lovingly taking each item in her hands and pulling fluid from each page. It was tedious work but there weren’t many in the village that still valued the old works. Looking over the titles she realized that not all of what was being saved was ancient literature. The histories and epics of the village were held in secure locations with temperature and humidity monitors that ensured nothing would cumber their pages. The main library contained the more common works that were good to read but weren’t essential to the culture of Suna. With an arched eyebrow, Yume would marvel at the sort of things people would write about, skimming over the stories contained while she carried out her restoration efforts. There were books that could teach people how to do anything for themselves from pottery to making your own cheese. There was epic poetry and stories that could whisk one away into a fantasy world of pirates or magical places where there were creatures that were almost human but had pointed ears and played tricks on people. Tales of depraved murders and crimes where there would be a clever detective who always found the one clue that brings justice to the dead. Even a sultry romance or two had endured being submerged. The more passionate texts made Yume blush as she flipped through the pages, ultimately deciding it best that she didn’t read those ones but rather ensured the integrity of the pages instead.
Reaching into the bin once more, her knuckles brush the bottom of the container. Looking over it would seem that she had processed the items she had brought from the wreckage and they now lay in two neat piles: Those that could be saved and those that needed to be transcribed. Taking the stacks of finished items to the team that was restocking the shelves; she sorts them into alphabetical order and places them with the rest of the saved books. It was slow work but it made her smile, knowing that these texts would be there for generations to come… even the more promiscuous ones.
[MFT; WC: 498]
Reaching into the bin once more, her knuckles brush the bottom of the container. Looking over it would seem that she had processed the items she had brought from the wreckage and they now lay in two neat piles: Those that could be saved and those that needed to be transcribed. Taking the stacks of finished items to the team that was restocking the shelves; she sorts them into alphabetical order and places them with the rest of the saved books. It was slow work but it made her smile, knowing that these texts would be there for generations to come… even the more promiscuous ones.
[MFT; WC: 498]