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Uchiha Itachi looked once more at the picture of his target, Uzumaki Naruto, and considered banging his head against the wall. It would be most undignified and out of character, but then again, so was the fact that he had managed to overlook the fact that his otouto's sensei had taken one student before the team with the jinchuuriki. Just one—which was more than a bit unusual. Even Itachi himself had been on a genin team (if only for about a month).
He had sent a query with a mutual contact about young, red-headed kunoichi in Konoha's active forces in an attempt to figure out who that girl had been. There couldn't possibly be very many, he had thought. Only about a third of the active forces were female, only 26 percent of which were under the age of twenty, and he knew that the vast majority of Konoha's citizens were far less colorful than those of Mist or Snow.
As it turned out, there were only two kunoichi who fit his description, and both of them shared a last name with his jinchuuriki target.
When he had received the initial briefing on his target, it hadn't taken Itachi long at all to put a few pieces of information together and come to a few conclusions. He certainly hadn't missed the connection between the boy's birthday and the day that he was sealed, and his last name implied that he was a direct relative of the former jinchuuriki. Public records listed that woman as one Uzumaki Kushina who had been listed as dying on the day of the nine tails' attack. The fact that his sister shared a shade of this Kushina's unusual hair color seemed to lend credence to the theory that she was their mother and not some other relative.
It seemed most likely that the woman had died in childbirth in a Madara-assisted tragedy and it had been covered up for some reason, Itachi had surmised. Perhaps it had been intended to prevent her name from being smeared after her death by upset villagers looking for a scapegoat for the horrors of that day? If that had been the intention, it had worked well enough. Itachi remembered the confusion of the days after October tenth and the moment that fingers had seemed to point at the Uchiha clan on the basis of a legend.
If Madara was to be believed, the villagers had been onto the correct path of deductive reasoning even if the people they pointed fingers at were innocent. However, when they turned their resentment towards the new jinchuuriki after his identity became clear, they had failed to show such clarity of vision.
After all, it was obvious even to Itachi who had no memories of seeing the man in person that this Uzumaki Naruto was the child of the fourth Hokage. The resemblance was far too strong for any other conclusion to be reached. Unless Namikaze Minato was an absolute monster of a man, he would not have sealed a demon inside his own child without being certain that it was safe. Itachi was certain that both of those children were kept under tight supervision. It would explain Jiraiya's connection to the girl and why he was taking a personal interest in Naruto when conventional wisdom would have indicated that the boy should have been kept within the village while S class criminals hunted him. Konoha's jinchuuriki was a treasure of the country for more than just the contents of the ink on his belly.
That heritage meant, he concluded rather bitterly, that the twin of the jinchuuriki may well be a person of interest on her own merits rather than as a note about a possible weakness to use against Naruto. No child of the Red Chained Death and the fourth Hokage would be content with mediocrity.
Still, no amount of Uzumaki sealing or Namikaze speed (he had been doing a lot of reading up on the two figures he had previously only known about in a passing sense) would explain the girl's strange visions. Unless it was a bloodline ability that had been concealed? Very possible, he concluded. Anyone with sense at all could tell that it was a very dangerous ability that could easily be misused. If the Uchiha had really had the predictive powers they boasted about, they would have denied everything that hinted at the ability and hoarded it as best as they could.
Then again, if it had been an Uzumaki trait, their village probably wouldn't have been destroyed, Itachi mused rather wryly. He struggled not to let any irritation rise. 'This is an unproductive line of reasoning.' He blinked slowly, lifting his head to view the sunrise outside his window. 'Without more information about how such an ability would function, I cannot draw conclusions about what limitations it may possess or what a user would do with it.'
What was more important, Itachi decided, was determining if he should act on the information he had unwittingly stumbled upon or not. His initial plan had been to stall retrieving the Nine-Tails for as long as possible and feeding Jiraiya information that would hopefully lead to the incapacitation of Akatsuki personnel to prevent their goals.
It seemed unlikely that the girl would do anything to interfere with those aims. Perhaps it would just be best to gather what information he could and step carefully.
~~~
There was an awkward four-way stare off between Aiko and the three genin she would be leading on a short messenger mission as a way to get them a little experience outside of the village and give her experience with command. She swallowed, hard.
The genin just looked so… tiny. Had she really been that small only two years ago? 'No,' her mind supplied. 'I was one of the tallest kids in the Academy when I was nine. At their age, I must have been four inches taller than that.' A voice that sounded a little like Sasuke's was laughing hysterically at her somewhere in the back of her head. She resolved to never let him know about this mission if it didn't go well.
They didn't exactly look impressed with her either, to be fair. They were probably not expecting a thirteen year old Chuunin who didn't even wear her flak jacket.
She spent a moment wondering where the hell that thing was. The one they'd given her at age eleven had been far too large to wear. Maybe it was in the back of her closet somewhere.
The three children in front of her (and they seemed like children, even if those headbands made them adults) were from the group that Tsunade had bumped up into the genin corps to free up more experienced ninja to take the missions the village desperately needed to function. They probably weren't happy knowing that they wouldn't be getting a real Jounin sensei until the village found its equilibrium again, but they were at least smart enough not to voice the doubts they were obviously having. Their best chance for escaping the trap that the genin corps sometimes became was to find a sponsor in an upper level peer… like Aiko.
She cleared her throat and pasted on a smile. "Ohayo, I'm Uzumaki Aiko and I will be your team leader." There was a beat of silence while the eleven year olds glanced at each other with varying levels of skepticism and uncertainty.
Aiko committed to memory that the girl with the sleek black pigtails and blue eyeshadow in a white halter top and slit blue skirt was Akira, the dirty blonde boy beside her in a green sleeveless tee was Ken, and that the other little girl, a shy thing with shaggy bangs who was practically swimming in loose yellow clothing, was Emiko. She led them to the red bridge her team liked to meet at before folding her legs and encouraging them to sit on the sun-warmed wood as well to look over the mission brief.
"Have any of you been outside the village before?" At the three heads that shook silently, Aiko sighed and leaned back. She readied herself for a lecture. "All right then. The town we are going to is near our closest border outpost, normally manned by Chuunin," she started easily, cracking one eye open to be sure they were paying attention. "Can anyone tell me why that this mission is going to be run by a team of genin instead of a single Chuunin posted on border duty?"
Akira was apparently insightful enough to guess that the Chuunin at the border were basically glorified genin. When her teammates gave her scornful looks, Aiko cut in by ruffling the girl's hair.
"That's right, actually. In much the same way that you three were promoted before you were to normal genin standards because we desperately needed to fill the ranks, so have they been promoted. Therefore, while it is normally acceptable to take one Chuunin off patrol to run messages, we will be doing that off and on for a few weeks so that the border outpost doesn't lose any strength. Does anyone think they know what all they will need to bring for a mission like this? Feel free to ask questions."
"Um…" Emiko bit at her lower lip and looked down. "Should we bring full camping equipment? I mean, it's pretty warm this time of year, and they're so heavy that we won't be moving very fast if we carry them everywhere."
"Good question, but I think you'll be surprised by how cold it gets at night," Aiko informed in an amused tone. "I would pack a change of clothing other than what you wear out of the village, at least one of which is for colder weather. Normally you would be right about camping equipment, but I will have that under control. I need to practice my sealing anyways. So when we meet, lug your sleeping bags along if you have them. If not, at least one warm blanket."
"Weapons?" Emiko asked with more confidence this time.
"No more than you can carry in your holster, and only the kind you are most skilled with," Aiko confirmed. "I hope you all had good survival scores, because I will be making sure you can take care of gathering and preparing food within Konoha's borders on this trip." She made a face. Because the class had been graduated half a year early, they hadn't yet completed their curriculum. That meant she might be walking sobbing children through their first time skinning a bunny rabbit. Joy.
They gave each other uneasy looks, but let that pass without comment.
Then Aiko broached the topic that Kakashi never had with his genin team. "Your outfits," she started, watching with some amusement when all three of them glanced down, "are unsuitable for field work. I expect to see you report for duty with close-fitting clothing of dark or camouflage coloring and any flapping sleeves or such secured with bandages or clips that won't snag. Mesh or other light armor is recommended, and I don't want to see any polyester blends. That means cotton or other breathable fabrics. Does anyone not have clothing like that in their wardrobe?"
When two hands went up and the other wavered uncertainly, Aiko heaved a sigh and wondered why the hell the Academy didn't make this point more often.
She swiveled her ankles to place her feet flat on the red painted wood and stood up without bothering to unfold her legs, letting her left leg slide over to stabilize her weight. "Alright then, follow me kiddies. I will finance exactly one work appropriate outfit for all three of you, since I know you haven't been earning much yet. But I will be very disappointed if I don't see that you've added to it in a month or so. I know that weapons and food are important, but your clothes are ninja gear too."
The next day, she and her three mini-me ninjas (clad in long-sleeved tunics much like her own, complete with adorable little masks that Ken had been decidedly unhappy about) met at the gate. Izumo didn't bother to hide his snorts of laughter, eventually descending into desk-slapping hysterics. Aiko tapped her foot, unamused and with her lips pressed so tightly together that they were turning white.
That was about when Kotetsu looked up from his paperwork, scrunched up his face at his idiotic coworker in disgust, and then caught sight of Aiko and her three genin. His face turned green.
"Am I seeing things, or has Hatake finally figured out how to reproduce by splitting in thirds?" he half-whispered as if afraid to catch her attention.
Aiko turned bright red, cheeks coloring under the half-mask and slapped down her mission orders with more force than necessary. "Cut the crap, please" she snapped briskly. They didn't have to be such total dicks all the time. Okay, so maybe she hero worshiped her shishou a little bit. But that didn't give them license to mock her. He was actually a really freaking awesome shinobi. On his worst day, blinded and with both hands tied behind his back, he could easily put the hurt down on the two of them at once. They had no right to be anything less than reverent towards such a fine specimen. Besides, his preferences in mission gear were both practical and good-looking.
"Sure thing senpai," Izumo wheezed, not noticing his coworker disengaging from the conversation and snatching the last of his cruller.
She reached over and hit him upside the head. It took a few minutes of glowering and paper stamping to get them out of the village, at which point her ducklings tried to give her inquisitive looks. "Don't ask," she practically growled. "They're just jealous."
The eleven year olds noted her stomping and clenched fists. Wisely, none of them commented, though they did exchange looks behind her back that they probably assumed she didn't sense.
It quickly became clear that the genin were still innocent enough to be delighted by their first trip out of the village walls. Not for the first time, Aiko wondered if the strictly enforced restriction of travel was actually intended to cause children to associate the freedom outside with the glamour of being a ninja and not something that everyone should be able to experience. She said nothing, however. It wasn't a productive area of discussion, especially when she was the only person she knew whose formative ideals hadn't been purposefully engendered as part of Konoha's military culture.
She drove them at a grueling pace to the outpost more because it was professional than because she needed to work off irritation, stopping only once for a twenty minute break and sympathetically watched them struggle to get down as much water as possible with shaking fingers, flopping down onto the cool dirt.
"Slow down," she cautioned mildly after giving them a few minutes to make bad decisions. They probably wouldn't want to listen, but it would only be fair to give them the information to make the right choice. They'd remember it later. "You'll regret it if you make yourself sick. Use small, constant sips. And don't just fall over like a dead cat, stretch so that you don't get cramps."
'Wow, timid little Emiko has an unexpectedly fierce glare,' Aiko noted. Outwardly, she gave them a big silly grin that she was sure they could see through her mask. That surety was partially based on the fact that Akira grit her teeth and began breathing slowly through them as if she was counting her breaths. She forced her smile to move upwards, creasing her eyes. One of them actually managed to achieve mild killing intent.
'Hey, this is actually pretty fun,' she giggled to herself while doing her own stretches. She was just doing what she had to do—keeping them on task and moving at a respectable speed. The transition from training to be a shinobi and even introductory level shinobi active duty wasn't an easy one.
"Okay kids, break's over!" She did her best not to relish the overly-dramatic wails that came after. It was a veritable chorus of "that wasn't twenty minutes!"
It hadn't been. It was twenty three minutes, but breaks always felt too short when you were still coming down from a stomach-churning workout.
The next time that they stopped, it was for the night. It felt more than a bit silly to spend more than one day en route to the outpost. On her own, Aiko could have made the trip in about five hours. Her shishou undoubtedly could have done it in four. But luckily for her poor genins' sake, Aiko had possessed the foresight to ask Iruka-sensei as to just what speed she could safely push fresh genin to. The surprise on his face had indicated that either the common sense approach to information gathering was rare or that Iruka wasn't usually the person people asked. She wasn't sure if she should be depressed by that lack of practical habits or wonder if there was something wrong with Iruka's assessments that would lead people to avoid asking him those types of questions.
As it turned out, Ken had the quickest reflexes and brought down a hare first. When Emiko brought down the second, she had them skin and prepare them while Akira gathered wood, lit the fire, and went out on a short hunt for edible berries.
She split the watch into two-hour segments that night, taking the last watch herself and running a short perimeter check while Emiko practically crawled back into her sleeping bag with gummy eyes.
When tummies grumbled and the bags had been re-sealed back into one of the short scrolls Aiko tucked into her hip pouch, she withdrew four energy bars and passed them out. "If we hurry, we can pick up our package and stop for lunch at a teashop close to the outpost," she said mildly, knowing perfectly well that the thought of real food would be irresistible after having those terrible bars for two days in a row.
She let Ken take point and set the pace when they left again, taking the rear position so that she could keep them all in sight and keep an eye out for threats. It would be pretty terrible to have her genin swiped out from behind her on her very first command. Aiko was pleased to note that her admonishment about speed had been taken into account and Ken was setting a pace that had both him and Akira panting. Emiko took much longer to seem to give out steam, face flushing pink about the time that her teammates first had to take a five minute breather for drinks.
"We need to veer east," she advised mildly, letting Ken choose the exact path. She would have taken to a higher route through the trees, but the rookie genin were all unfortunately still bound by gravity's rules and had to take the somewhat more circuitous route around the thickest copses of trees.
Of all the people in the world who could have been manning the outpost, Shikamaru was the Chuunin who ambled out to meet them. He shook his head wordlessly, giving the panting genin a somewhat pitying look. "She made you run the whole way, did she?" Dark eyes passed over Aiko's sweat-free form. "I'm glad you weren't my sensei, Aiko-senpai."
Akira lifted her head to give Aiko a strange look, darting back and forth between the two Chuunin. Her expression was most politely described as 'incredulous'. Aiko was mildly offended. She was the same age as Shikamaru and about as tall as he was. He didn't really look any more impressive than she did. Maybe it was that damn vest? Goddamn, she was going to dig through her closet when she got home. If the smallest size fit Shikamaru's skinny ribs, hers should work fine now that she was older.
Of course Shikamaru caught the look. "When are you getting promoted?" he prodded, giving a slight smirk at the way she glowered. "If I'm Chuunin material, you're Jounin material."
"What, you want to share all the fun you're having?" she asked dryly. Then she shrugged artlessly. "It's a long story, that begins and ends with Kakashi-shishou mouthing off to a Hokage and telling them they aren't qualified to make decisions about promotions. There may have been pointed comments about someone's alcoholism and relative lack of intelligence. At this point, I think it would be best if I just let Tsunade-sama forget I exist so as not to draw any attention. I'm fine with Chuunin clearance anyway."
The boy snorted. "Bet she liked that." Shikamaru dug around in his hip pouch, extracting a brown paper bundle tied with blue string. "Here. It's too troublesome to hold onto this longer than I have to. My supervisor keeps checking to make sure I haven't lost it. It almost seems like they don't trust me or something."
Aiko snorted. "That's an adorable package," she deadpanned, unzipping her own pouch and tucking the surprisingly hefty 4x4x2 box inside.
It was in fact very cute, but the colored string was actually a message itself. It would have been yellow if the missive had been top priority. As it was, a blue stringed message wasn't worth dying to protect. More importantly, it meant that she hadn't lied to her genin about stopping for lunch.
She withdrew her own package from her thigh holster. Shikamaru raised an eyebrow but didn't comment about the fact that she had sealed everything inside a scroll instead of carrying it normally. It hadn't been an impossible amount of material—a few letters with updated orders, a package from someone's sweetheart that she suspected contained baked goods, and a few porno mags and personal items that had been unofficially entrusted to Aiko when word got out that she would be making the deliveries between Konoha and the outpost for the next few weeks. Officially, such things were contraband and personal belongings other than regular letters from family were not allowed on base.
Unofficially, it was widely accepted that border duty was magically even more fucking boring when one was off duty and extracurricular reading material was traded for prices that luxury goods were back home.
Aiko certainly didn't mind bringing the reading material with her; although a couple of the men who'd handed them to her seemed to expect to be beaten roundly about the head. She wasn't sure if the fact that they expected her to scream 'hentai' but had delivered it anyway meant that they were brave or just stupid. There was a fairly good chance that anyone who gave a thirteen year-old known for a cool head reason to scream about perverts would end up full of holes before Anko stopped to evaluate the situation. She did so love to puncture things.
Aiko did, however, mind the idea of passing adult contraband out to her bright-eyed genin to stick in their packs and carry. They were eleven, after all. Hence the sealing scroll.
"There's a 100 ryo delivery charge," she half-joked, trying not to wince at the idea of the expense she'd sunk into sealing it. That wasn't particularly cheap, and it hadn't been for her benefit.
"Ha, no." Shikamaru stuck his hands in his pockets and slouched, looking upwards like he was praying for strength. "I suppose I should get back to work now."
"Not likely," Aiko deadpanned. She turned a critical eye to her ducklings. "Does anyone need to rest a little longer, or are we ready to set out?"
Her brave trio of genin agreed that they were ready to leave (probably thinking with their stomachs) so she waved absentmindedly to Shikamaru and a woman she didn't know who yanked the scroll out of his hands and began to unfurl it before they had even set off.
~~~
The sun was cruel and yellow like the eye of a snake, sending punishing lashes down on her deceptively frail shoulders even through the material of her kimono. Temari flushed with heat, eyes darting back and forth between the two males arguing. She considered cutting in, but her newfound bravery around Gaara only went so far. It wasn't like he wanted anything ridiculous, after all. Better let him deal with it.
While all three of the siblings had been promoted to Chuunin after the far-too-eventful exams in Konoha (mostly because Gaara had informed the Council that they had been promoted and left without another word while they sputtered), they had been sent on very few missions as a team. This was in large part because the triumvirate of Sand elders jockeying for power and position placed very little trust in Gaara. She suspected that this mission was largely a trust exercise. Someone was sticking out their neck to demonstrate that the demon container could be controlled for the first time in his life and sent on a mundane mission. If they were wrong, there would doubtlessly be hell to pay. If Gaara snapped in Konoha and so much as stepped on a housewife's toes, Suna could very well be manhandled into even more painful settlements and treaties.
Of course, it was also possible that Gaara had delivered one of his once-frequent threats in order to finagle a rather extended trip to Konoha because he wanted to see his friend. Either way, it mattered little to Temari. Regardless of why, she was taking him back to the place that had changed his mind about defining himself in opposition to every other living being. Temari thought it was a bit of a hellhole- unpleasantly damp, full of loud and obnoxiously dressed weirdoes, and definitely more than a little bit hostile to Suna nin lately- but she was going to have to go and make nice with the Hokage regardless.
It still seemed strange to her that one fight could have altered her baby brother so much. It was almost a shame that she had been cowering behind a copse of trees for most of it and missed whatever the hell Uzumaki Naruto had said to convince Gaara to change his entire philosophy of life. Sometimes she woke up in the morning, saw the sand on her bedroom floor that indicated Gaara had checked on her during the night, and suffered a panic attack that constricted her throat and made it impossible for her to breathe before she remembered that he no longer wanted to hurt her. The absence of the threat almost weighed more heavily on her mind than the ever-present danger had for years.
They set off for the Land of Fire without words. Kankuro was not with them for this mission, a fact that would have worried her far more if she didn't know that he would be safely ensconced in his workroom while they were gone.
This mission was important, of course, but Temari, who had been trained in niceties since she was old enough to toddle, was really the only one being sent as a diplomat. Gaara had definitely not had many of those lessons, a fact which she had awkwardly tried to remedy in the past week when she heard he would be coming with her. With Gaara included on the team, she needed no other escort. It would have been too threatening to send another member at this delicate stage of negotiations. Besides, Sand had been so weakened by the failed invasion and Orochimaru's misuse of their forces that even the removal of a single talented Chuunin from the village could mean the difference between an adequate response force within the village walls in case of an emergency and being totally overrun.
That was probably why Councilman Shu had been arguing with Gaara about going, she idly noted. Despite being frightened of Gaara, all in Sand respected his strength.
She let him set the pace. It was no skin off her back if Gaara wanted to travel at insane speeds. Kankuro wouldn't have been able to keep up. Temari herself was misusing wind jutsu in order to travel on top of her fan while her red-headed brother sprinted like a man possessed. He didn't do things by halves, Gaara.
Of course, he didn't sweat either, she pouted when they reached the oasis where they habitually stopped to refill their water skins. It was unfair. The barrier of sand that protected his skin from even fatal glows also seemed to keep Gaara's porcelain skin safe from wind and sun burn. She wasn't utilizing the air-based jutsu that kept the hot air off her skin with a cushion of artificially cooled air—it was stupidly difficult to maintain while flying at high speeds, and the gusts she experienced on top of her fan kept her from getting too hot.
They didn't save her from minor sunburn, however, so she took a moment to withdraw her little blue pot of lotion and rub it onto her cheeks and the back of her neck while they stopped. Gaara's nose flared as if the scent bothered him, but he gave no comment.