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In the week before the tournament of the Chuunin exam, Aiko felt the old worry overwhelming her again. Naruto had finally settled down and stopped sniping at Karin and both boys had been calmed by a combination of therapy and mind-numbing workouts that left them too tired to dwell on much. The other redhead had slipped into Konoha like she had always been there—fighting tooth and nail with Ino over who looked better in purple, becoming Aiko's ally against Naruto's bad moods, and developing shocking proficiency in her work at the hospital. Aiko was starting to get royally pissed at her sensei, however. He hadn't so much as shown his face in almost three weeks.
She didn't feel like she had enough allies for what was about to happen (if it did happen). It didn't seem that she could have changed anything big enough to make Orochimaru abandon the invasion plan, but then it hadn't seemed like she could have possibly influenced him to kill Sakura just by getting Anko to the group slightly faster.
All she could do was polish her kunai, restock her poisons (she had added one to coat the tips of her senbon) and tie her headband on in the morning, staring at her face in the mirror. The girl looking back at her looked calm and self-assured, red hair curling rather riotously around her face (she'd slept with it wet). It seemed strange to her, not for the first time, that she was one of the tallest in her age group when her brother was the shortest. The gap between them seemed very real when she could tease him by tucking her chin over his head when they hugged.
But it was very possible that he was the only person who could save Konoha from Gaara.
"What a joke," she muttered bitterly, tearing her eyes away from her reflection and brushing her teeth before she went to wake up her housemates. Karin had a shift at the hospital, but Naruto would be going to watch the tournament with her. The boys had been remarkably… well, not bitter at all about not getting to participate in the tournament. Doubtlessly that would have been very different if the reason wasn't that Sakura hadn't made it through the forest. They probably would have split apart as a team if Sasuke thought that he had one of them to blame for ruining his chances at advancement.
'Dying was probably the best thing she ever did for team spirit.'
The stadium was packed- and why the hell did a ninja village have a building like this, anyways? Sasuke seemed equally uncomfortable with the crowded space.
The opening match was surprisingly exciting, considering that Shikamaru was in it. Quite possibly on threat of bodily harm from Ino, he methodically humiliated Kankuro with careless ease. The constant name-calling and heckling from the audience seemed to put the puppeteer off his game, as well as the fact that Shikamaru slapped said puppet with exploding tags on the very first hit and let the explosion of splinters that resulted speak for itself. Deprived of his primary weapon, he almost certainly would have lost even if Ino wasn't gunning for his blood.
Konoha continued to overwhelm—in the next round Shino casually drained the kunoichi from Rain with an insect planted before the match even began and left her in a limp pile on the floor, before she even had a chance to employ a single jutsu. The match was as quick as it was silent.
The next round was one of the ones that she had been nervous about… Lee was very good, and didn't have a particular disadvantage in the match up. Still, Temari was highly skilled as well and vicious besides. She managed to keep him at bay with swirling winds likely perfected just for this match- seeing his speed and strength in the preliminaries would have made almost anyone wary of letting him within arm's reach.
She'd probably never know who was the stronger opponent. Lee wavered and fell to his knees when a cloud of white feathers fluttered down, catching most of the stadium in genjutsu thrall.
"Kai!" Aiko snapped, shaking her brother's shoulder until the glazed look snapped out of his eyes. Sasuke had shaken it off just as easily as she did, though he looked confused.
"W-what?" The blonde turned his head, taking in the sleeping spectators… and the foreign shinobi who coasted among them like ghosts, perforating throats methodically in the split seconds before the Konoha nin who had thrown off the genjutsu gathered their wits and leapt to battle. Sasuke snarled and leapt at a lone nin two rows below who was raising a blade to a group of sleeping Academy students. She would have gone to help him, if another group hadn't drawn her attention at that moment.
A team of Oto nin who had just dismissed the illusions hiding them as civilian spectators were coming in hot, the kunoichi in the lead clearly out to get the two nin who were awake. Aiko leapt off the seat, kunai in her right hand and joined battle with a clash of steel, rabbit fast punches with her left to the brunette's abdomen and twisted her armed hand under the other girls' guard into a follow-up swipe that split her face from left jaw to her right eye. The screaming was terrible but short—she smoothly severed the spinal cord at the base of the girl's head when the unwary kunoichi reflexively jerked her face forward and exposed the neck.
Almost instantly, she twisted away into the path of one of the other two nin, pausing immediately behind him before he caught up with what had just happened and managed a quick, deep jab into the tender flesh of the boy's lower back, piercing his kidney. He went down, so she didn't bother to finish him before she whipped around to face the third genin (and they appeared to be genin, only suitable for killing sleeping opponents, pathetic). She was pleased to note that Naruto had regained his senses and managed a kunai toss that the older boy barely dodged, easily adjusting for the attempt at evasive movement and cleanly snapping his neck. Naruto panted from shock, wild-eyed. "What's going on!"
'Sad that he's looking to me for direction. Kakashi-sensei, you asshole. You're supposed to be the one to send us after Gaara. Where are you? I can make the call myself, but I might get in trouble for it later if this goes south.'
She let none of that appear on her face, taking a moment to check on the positions of the people she knew. The three sand genin were fleeing out an open hole in the stadium side towards the village center, Tenten and Lee taking up pursuit. She didn't see their third teammate—oh no, he was with Gai on the upper deck. "It appears that Sand and Sound have betrayed us."
Sasuke flickered to her side, dark eyes full of violence. "Cowards. We should show them what real nin can do," he spat.
Aiko assessed the situation, knowing what she had to do but also worried about leaving all the sleeping Konoha citizens. Someone else had already noted that problem, apparently. Team Ten was flipping around the stadium disabling the genjutsu to free anyone unwary enough to be caught, their sensei guarding their backs with a grim expression and twin blades.
"Come on." She leapt easily to the stadium floor, dodging fights in the straightest path to the outside she could manage. Her two subordinates followed, although they didn't seem to understand.
"Gaara of the Sand and his team immediately ran out toward the village center, as if they were just waiting for a signal. Whatever they're meant to do is bound to be a big problem, and there's only two genin going after them that I saw. We are providing assistance. Sasuke, if it is necessary your preferred target is the girl. She's the oldest and probably the most intelligent of the three, but you're fast and strong enough to get behind her wind jutsu." The boy nodded, a business like expression plastered to his features. "I think Gaara is the biggest threat. I will aim to have Cat-face removed from the fight immediately so that I can provide assistance to you, Naruto."
"H-hai, Aiko-neechan."
It was a damn shame that none of them were trackers by trade, but at least Tenten had left what appeared to be a metaphorical breadcrumb trail of scattered weaponry for them to follow. The first fight they found was Lee and Kankuro, which made her orders practically useless—before the boy even knew they were there, Aiko flickered forward and caught the hatred and fear in his gaze in the instant before she hit his head with enough force to shatter bone. He instantly lost consciousness.
Aiko frowned, mildly worried that she had hit him too hard. She had intended to leave the Sand siblings alive if at all possible, knowing that they could become valuable allies. She rolled him into a recovery position, stripped him of weaponry and was done before Sasuke finished tying his hands behind his back with wire.
'Smart kid, I didn't even ask him to help.'
The whole encounter took about ten seconds from start to finish.
"Hello, Uzumaki-san, Uchiha-san, and Uzumaki-san again! Have you come to help?" Lee seemed surprisingly relaxed that she had just barged in on his fight, so she gave him a rare smile.
"Hai, Lee-san. We should catch up to your teammate. I know that she is skilled, but two on one is poor odds."
He didn't offer any protests, easily joining the group. "Do you know what they're doing," Aiko half-yelled over the sounds of wind rushing as they attempted to catch up.
The tall boy shook his head, eyes busy cataloging whatever story the spray of senbon on an oak they passed told. "No, but Tenten seemed adamant that they were up to no good! Gai-sensei and my eternal rival stayed to provide assistance to the Hokage's guards, but we were ordered to follow." She could hear the frown in his voice. "I do not like the looks of that redheaded boy, Uzumaki-san. He is most unkind."
'That's a bit of an understatement.'
"We're close," Sasuke rasped, dark eyes narrowing.
~~~
Karin fought the urge to shrink into the wall, away from the insanity that had just erupted in the hospital where she was just starting to feel at home (in a good way, not like Grass). Something had gone terribly wrong in the village. They didn't have any information yet, but the sudden influx of patients and the hostile nin roaming the halls were pretty big clues.
She squeaked involuntarily at the unmistakable fluttering chakra that signified fighting down the corridor to the long-term ward (and wasn't that strange, new admissions were obviously being brought to emergency), red eyes searching for friendly faces. The experienced nurses and iryo-nin had leapt into battle, literal and metaphorical, and she had yet to be trained in triage or emergency procedures.
'I'm a kunoichi,' she reminded herself firmly. 'If I can't help medically, I can fight!'
That in mind, she sprinted full-pace towards the disturbance she had noted. What she saw shocked her. The face-off was between a short, brunette kunoichi with casts on both arms and a sneering man wearing a Sound headband. It was really more of the kunoichi using her arms as guards to prevent the man from getting close enough to knock her unconscious, as seemed to be his aim. If he had been intending to kill her, he would have already.
She took stock of her situation in the long instant before either of the fighters noticed her presence. Karin was not carrying any traditional weaponry. For some reason, Konoha just wasn't comfortable with having a trainee who had become a citizen about a week ago armed around unconscious soldiers, a point she had understood. Her taijutsu was poor. Her phenomenal sensing skills were useless—she already knew he was there. She had a clipboard in her left hand and a pen in her front pocket. On the other hand, the man was distracted by another opponent and she had endured so much anatomy being drilled into her head in the past three weeks that she could think of any number of ways to kill him with the clipboard.
The choice was pretty easy. She leapt into close range, used the clipboard to deflect his first hit, and slipped out the pen, clicking it reflexively and forcing it directly into the gap of the man's clavicles and jerking it back just as soon so that it didn't stopper the hole. Blood spray formed an impromptu fountain that she side-stepped to avoid, somewhat unsuccessfully.
The Sound-nin gargled pathetically, falling to his knees as Karin examined her front and grimaced. "Ugh gross." She flipped her hair, trying to keep the tips dry. "This shirt is ruined." The white medic's coat hadn't done much to protect her adorable lacy tanktop.
The girl she had saved shuddered, big wide lavender eyes focused on the man dying on the crappy linoleum floor of her hospital room.
"You're welcome," she said pointedly, considering slipping off the soggy top and fighting in her bra. The feeling of blood-soaked cloth drying against her skin was one she both hated and was intimately familiar with.
The other girl bowed hastily, a bizarre bit of formality in her already weird day. "Thank you, kunoichi-san! I woke up, and that man was here. Do you know what is happening?"
Karin sighed, considering taking her emergency blade out of her glasses just so that she wasn't totally unarmed, dropping the broken pen idly. "Not a clue. I'm just a trainee here. No one seems to know, but there's a whole lot of injured coming in suddenly, as well as Sound and Sand shinobi roaming the halls." She frowned, remembering something about Sound. "You have a bloodline, then?"
At the other girl's squeak, she scowled. "Figures. That makes sense. They're looking to make off with examples of Konoha's bloodlines while the main forces are distracted. You want to help guard the sleeping patients?" Karin industriously smashed a glass drinking vessel while she talked, pocketing the more promising looking shards.
The other girl looked shame-faced and red. "I… I'm not a good shinobi," she all but whispered, looking like she was confessing to being a drug lord or something instead of unskilled.
Karin merely snorted. "Me either, but that doesn't mean it's any less important for you to try. You can watch my back—even with two broken arms your taijutsu is better than mine, and I'm basically unarmed." She started out the door without another word. "You can't stay here, they'll probably come for you again. Your name is on the door, isn't it?"
Feeling a little overwhelmed but still the dutiful daughter of Konoha, Hyuuga Hinata glanced at her own name on the door as she passed by, running to catch up to the strange girl who talked so quickly. Better than being alone, she supposed. She carefully didn't look back at the room where she had spent a month, with the depressing artwork of a fruit bowl and the one vase of wilted flowers on the windowsill.
~~~
"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit," Aiko chanted, dodging pillars of sand from a distracted but still deadly jinchuuriki, trying not to have an absolute fit and succumb to the combined fear of her opponent and of the three fucking massive snakes wearing BIBS (sick and hilarious) that had just crashed the party about a half-mile away at the gate. A snake you could see from a half-mile away was a terrible snake.
Not that she had a fondness for snakes in general. They creeped her out when they moved. Stationary snakes are A-okay. But the wiggling…
She shuddered, feeling desperation slide over her mind. Gaara was quickly transitioning to his jinchuuriki form. Naruto in jinchuuriki mode was about their only chance of defeating him, and he had never activated it. Tenten had narrowly escaped a maiming blow- actually, all four of the genin fighting with her had been extraordinarily lucky so far. But any minute now the handicap Gaara was experiencing from the transition would turn into an enormous advantage.
Once they'd felt that monstrous chakra, Temari had given up on slowing them down and made a run for it, clearly terrified of her brother but reluctant to go too far from his side. It was sad, really. The girl was currently hanging back and observing the fight with nerves that led her to bite already short nails—Temari probably didn't even know what outcome she was hoping for.
She couldn't imagine being frightened of her brother but still determined to make sure he was safe. Being frightened for Naruto was quite stressful enough.
"Naruto!" she yelled over the noise of the fight. "You need the kyuubi's chakra, now! He's using the one-tailed demon's power."
Tenten and Sasuke both gave her sharp looks, Lee seemed too involved in the fight to spare her a thought, and Naruto looked determined… but definitely not connected to the Kyuubi.
Her heart felt like it hit the bottom of her stomach. 'Think, stupid girl. He first activated it in canon when he thought Sasuke was dead, secondly when he thought Sakura was in lethal danger. He accesses the chakra either through anger or protective anger, specifically. I need to make him mad.' She grimaced. This was going to hurt.
Aiko leapt into close range as only Lee had dared so far, dodging fatal-looking attacks and hoping she didn't get killed when Shukaku's creepy eyes focused on her. The grin was even worse than the eyes, in her humble opinion… and up close, the stench of rot and blood from the sand was overwhelming. She fought the urge to gag and flee in equal measure. 'I've never fought an opponent who outclassed me like this before.' The thought was not reassuring. As if it wanted to pretend that the fear pressing all around didn't exist, her body reflexively went through the motions for a series of water bullets. 'Let's hope he can't work with mud as well as he does sand.' She soaked as much as she could, knowing that the basic jutsu couldn't actually pierce the armor.
'Please slow down.' Shukaku wasn't nearly as fast as Lee, but there was a pretty big difference between Lee and other genin, like Naruto. Besides, demons probably don't tire nearly as easily as humans.
She might have been onto something with her use of water, because her move really pissed off the demon. It was hard to register anything beyond the enormous roar that filled the air, but she took the time to notice that the string of sand that grabbed around both her ankles and flung her headfirst into a tree was the smallest amount she'd ever seen him use at one time. She quirked a smile in the instant before the impact knocked her unconscious, coming dangerously close to snapping her neck.
In any other situation, she might have been embarrassed to be caught and carried to a safer distance by one of the genin in her care. Once she awoke, however, and learned that Naruto had flipped a switch into crazy town that had made Sasuke not entirely mind the retreat, she was too relieved to care. She came to consciousness the next day in a hospital bed, bandages over wounds she didn't remember getting and an iv securing her to the bed. She paled, closing her eyes and curling up as much as she could without moving her arm.
She could kill twenty men before breakfast without blinking and had stoically tolerated more than a couple scrapes and stab wounds in her almost three year career, but somehow that little needle still made her want to cry.
A few steady breaths, a conscious steeling of her nerves and she had managed to calm herself to the point where she could pretend not to be disturbed by the needle in the delicate crook of her elbow.
That was lucky, because a tired-looking nurse poked his head in a moment later and took the needle out, droning through the litany of her injuries and treatment recommendations. It was a song and dance she knew well, so she quietly tolerated it, thanked him, and slipped out. She had received all critical treatment while asleep and been cleared of a possible concussion or brain damage, so there was no need to stick around. Besides… she pretended not to see the civilians packed like sardines into treatment rooms on her way out. They could use the extra room.
In triage, shinobi came first, according to rank or social status. How valuable they were, really. It was a shockingly amoral way of treating patients, but she had long ago figured out that what she thought of as morality was altogether foreign from a ninja mindset.
The subdued atmosphere of the village wasn't exactly surprising, but it made even more sense when Aiko first found someone to ask about the situation. The information was a little scattered—the giant snakes she had noted had done a number on the infrastructure, but been fought off by a group of Inuzuka and some very large toads. The Third Hokage was on his deathbed and in a non-responsive coma, all the Academy students and genin teams had been reassigned to manual labor digging for survivors and repairing damages while the bulk of the higher ranked nin went out to patrol the borders to ensure that no one thought to strike at Konoha's weakness. Apparently Sound had done a runner after which Sand had quickly surrendered and their surviving nin were still in the village under supervision.
The rumor that caught her most off guard was the one saying that Orochimaru was dead.
'How the fuck did that happen? Does this have to do with Jiraiya?' The inclusion of the toads was the only thing she hadn't half-expected, after all. Aiko didn't know if she wanted to frown or not- it might not be true anyways and she'd be wasting her time thinking about it. Then again, enough people had claimed to see giant toads that it seemed clear Jiraiya was in Konoha for the invasion. She was pretty sure he had not been in canon, though she could be wrong.
It was all rather confusing and not entirely pleasant to wake up to. She was now pretty much like everyone else in this shithole of a village—she had vague fears for the future, suspected that there were monster shinobi out there who would harm her and hers and could only grit her teeth and prepare as best as possible for the upcoming disaster.
Not encouraging.
Unfortunately, it seemed that she could still expect a few unpleasant things from canon. It wasn't until late that night when she went home and found a tired, filthy looking Karin washing yesterday's dishes that she heard Naruto had left the village with Jiraiya while she was unconscious.
"He wanted to wait until you woke, but the nurses didn't know how long it would take," Karin said apologetically, grabbing the entire carton of apple juice of the fridge and gulping it down greedily. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, which Aiko only then realized was shaking.
The two sat down at the table with their thoughts and a carton of juice each. It would usually be dinner time, but neither of them felt up to cooking. It turned out that Karin had been drafted for grunt work at the hospital- changing sheets, bringing around food for patients, refilling coffee for medical nin on the tenth hour of their shift or worse and doing all manner of errands that would usually be an orderly's job.
Aiko stared out the kitchen window, a little bothered that Konoha looked as it always did from her vantage point. Their location on the outskirts of town had been a good selection, apparently. 'So this is what a village in flux looks like.' Even without foreknowledge, she would have known that a power struggle was going on somewhere in the village at this moment. She just wouldn't have known that her silly otouto was about to get caught up in it.
~~~
Jiraiya carefully didn't look at his blonde companion when they kitted down for the night. Didn't look at the way those eyes were a dead ringer for Minato's, didn't look at the way that pudgy baby face and those comically short legs screamed 'Kushina', and definitely didn't look at the way his sullen, combative attitude conflicted with everything Sarutobi had told him about the kid.
At least the other kid they had brought along depressed him less. The last Uchiha… what a joke. At that age, Itachi had been an ANBU captain. The child in front of him carried a heavy burden with very little talent.
There was a good possibility that the angst choking the air was a result of the recent death of their teammate and that their teacher had essentially abandoned them in his own grief. Jiraiya was highly qualified to commiserate, but much less so to guide them out of their funk. If he knew how to get over grief and disappointment, he'd be a very different man. Most days, Jiraiya hated himself.
He already knew he was scum for essentially abandoning his godchildren to raise themselves like wild animals, even if it was for the village's sake. Jiraiya certainly didn't need to all but choke on the palpable bitterness wafting off the kid to remember that shame and just what Minato would have said about it.
It had been easier, only getting occasional reports. From what Sarutobi had implied, the twins were growing up fine. To hear him tell it, the boy was vivacious and charming, though his sister was the one with sharp wit and sharper skills. He had been warned that the girl was on the verge of paranoia and hostility even by shinobi standards, so he had steeled himself to be harshly questioned when he told the girl he was her godfather she didn't remember meeting.
He hadn't seen that in Konoha, when he stumbled into that hospital room with his old teammate and friend's blood still on his hands and seen that tiny, bruised figure under white sheets. He wasn't seeing Sarutobi's description in this strange, sharp little boy either.
If the girl had been awake, he might have taken Aiko with them. Kami only knows that she couldn't have dragged the atmosphere any further down. The boy's second demand had been his other teammate, but that brat was just as sullen. It was a good idea, though. He hadn't thought of it himself, but the Uchiha was in a similar danger to what Naruto faced in the village.
"So what exactly is this person doing?" Naruto kicked up a clod of dirt with his toes, digging for a firepit. His tone was mostly uninterested. Jiraiya had practically had to carry him bodily out of Konoha to pry him away from his sister's bedside, but it couldn't be helped. It would be insanely stupid to leave him unprotected in the middle of a power vacuum. Danzo would snap him up like the last dumpling. Then he'd have to kill Danzo to get him back, and the village could ill afford that.
Jiraiya awkwardly cleared his throat. "What do you mean, gaki?" Those blue eyes looked at him, annoyed. He had to consciously decide not to look away.
"The woman we are looking for is the next Hokage, right? If she's that powerful, why isn't she in contact with the village?" Those big black eyes and the attached long, thick lashes were dead-on for every female Uchiha he'd ever known. Never seen them on a boy before, though. In two years and in a dress…
Jiraiya winced and forcibly changed his train of thought. "Ah, well. That's a long story, kid. Maybe another time."
Naruto scoffed and turned away, sullen and silent for the rest of the night.
Feeling incredibly depressed- he had killed one of this oldest friends a few hours ago, his teacher was dying alone, all his students were dead, and the boys in front of him were teetering on a dangerous precipice.
"Hey, cheer up kids. Tell you what, I'll teach you each a new jutsu tomorrow. I won't promise either of you knuckleheads can actually master them, though."
Naruto needed that Rasengan anyway. Now was as good a time as any to start passing down his father's masterpiece. He'd been damn disappointed to find out Aiko's chakra affinity was with water, but so much for that. As for the Uchiha… well, fire and lightning weren't his specialties, but he'd be damned if he couldn't scrounge up something that would impress a twelve year old. Even a sourpuss like this one.
~~~
He was on the border of Fire and Wind country when he heard the news. Itachi frowned slightly, suddenly less interested in his dango and tea than he had been a moment ago. At his side, Kisame sucked down plain green tea undisturbed, though he had undoubtedly overheard the same conversation.
Itachi didn't like what he had heard. Not at all. It went beyond even the normal grief a loyal shinobi would have when hearing of their military dictator's imminent death although no one knew he was loyal now, except Danzo, Jiraiya and the council.
And therein lay the extra problem. Sarutobi had promised Itachi with tears in his eyes that he would keep Sasuke safe and fairly healthy, out of the influence of malcontent power mongers like Danzo and the Council. With Sarutobi dead…
The man stood with a tinkle of bells, casually dropping the coin for his uneaten food. "Come, Kisame."
A sigh. "I knew you would say that." Almost eight feet of blue muscle unfolded from the seat next to Itachi's on the bar. "We're going to go put the fear of kami in some poor bastard, aren't we?"
Itachi didn't smile, but he did appreciate his partner's easygoing nature. Not every man would go on a hundred mile detour for the sake of a twelve year old he didn't know. He'd have to pay this one back somehow.