A lesser man would have been panicking. As it was, Yakushi Kabuto would have preferred a less stressful situation, but he was able to keep any traces of unease hidden. This had not gone as expected at all.
His message to Sasori, given using the same techniques that the puppet master thought meant Kabuto was under his control, had been sent as usual. The missive he'd received in place had requested a meeting in person, but that wasn't so unusual that he had been alarmed. He was certain that he would bluff his way through and acquire the backing he needed to run his fledgling village.
He was now alarmed.
"And who, pray tell, are you?" Kabuto bluffed calmness that he did not feel. He was a formidable foe himself, but it was easy enough to see that the masked man who had come to meet him in lieu of Sasori was out of Kabuto's league entirely.
"That's not important," rumbled out from behind a swirled mask. The effect was disorienting and Kabuto had to suppress a shudder and the desire to make a tactical retreat. How had he missed a large player like this? What had happened to Sasori- was he dead, or had the message been intercepted at the start?
"What is important, Yakushi Kabuto, is that you work for me now." The mask came down, and the world turned red.
When Kabuto returned to the Sound hideout in Grass, he impassively countermanded his earlier orders about patrolling the borders and collecting taxes (and new medical subjects from those who declined to pay taxes) from their new citizens. Tayuya scoffed at his wishy-washy behavior, but didn't care much what the little prick did. She'd rather have a real fight than babysit whinging babies anyway.
Takigakure, huh? She didn't know shit about it other than that it was one of the minor villages, but that was fine. She was good at killing strangers.
Good at killing people she knew, too. She let a smirk slip onto her face as she jerkily bowed to her 'kage' and left the room. What he didn't know would definitely hurt him.
~~~
"Ready?"
Sasuke might have rolled his eyes in another situation. Of course he was ready. He was only watching the surgery. He didn't quite understand why Tsunade and Shizune thought it was such a major step—he would be providing the bulk of the medical chakra that Shizune actually manipulated for this surgery. She didn't need the help, of course. It was the only way to introduce how it really felt to manipulate internal organs of living beings without the sink-or-swim method, which tended to end up in a lot of dead patients and unconfident surgeons (and that was not done in Konoha anymore, unlike in pretty much every other shinobi village).
The surgery went off without a single hiccup, as he had completely expected. Shizune-senpai was a professional, and it was not an especially complicated task. Medical mask and gloves discarded, he abandoned his senpai and went back to the administration tower to report the results back to Tsunade after Shizune had filed the paperwork for the poor overworked hospital director himself. ("I'm too old for this shit," he'd muttered rather rebelliously. Shizune had given a nervous laugh and carefully not mentioned that it had been her idea to put the hospital director on the advisory council).
The place was bustling, much more so than Sasuke would have expected for the afternoon. He turned right back around and went to go get precious caffeine. Few people could tolerate a shit storm like that without something to soothe their nerves, and he knew the secretary was on holiday with her family. Tsunade would be on her last nerve, if not actually punching holes in walls. Sasuke hated putting up drywall. This was just easier. Spotting Ibiki and two Chuunin he knew worked in codes waiting in the lobby when he returned gave him a clue as to what was going on, but it wasn't until he'd managed to hand Tsunade a gigantic latte that he got any sense at to this urgency of the situation at all.
"Have I ever told you that you're my best apprentice?" She ignored the red-faced man who had been babbling about something and took a long drink. "Ah. That hits the spot. You can go now." Tsunade waved dismissively, getting out of her chair and all but shoving him out of her office so that she could leave as well. "You coming?"
Sasuke followed, slightly amused and also slightly annoyed at being treated like a dog. Sit, stay, follow, re-connect metatarsals, and then roll over, why don't you? Nonetheless, he remained silent as the Hokage strode purposefully down to the mission office and put her hands on her hips. "All of you, go home for the day. I am. I will be taking this new information into consideration and you can expect new orders tomorrow. Now get the hell out."
They scattered obediently. Sasuke smirked. At least it wasn't just him.
"Get Shizune and meet me at my house, would you?" Tsunade tossed over her shoulder. "We'll call this a test and see if anything I've taught you got through that thick head of yours."
"Whatever you say, hag," he muttered slightly below what his mentor could understand. Hopefully. While she whipped around to glare at him suspiciously, he turned around and strode back down the hallway to an open window. Shizune was doubtlessly still in her office at the hospital with those damn toxicology reports.
When they were all gathered in Tsunade's living room, Sasuke finally allowed himself to feel curiosity about the situation. Whatever it was must be bad—Tsunade had dug out a pint of ice cream for each of them and gravely handed out spoons at the door.
He also felt a little superior—he would never eat on the couches in his own home. Granted, Tsunade had strange tastes and decidedly non-traditional aesthetic in her home. Perhaps the teal couches and the enormous yellow rug they all sat on would be easier to launder than his tatami mats.
"Are you going to explain, or do we have to ask?" Shizune scraped her spoon around in search of fudge and chocolate bits, wiggling slightly to keep the tub away from Tonton's snuffling nose.
Tsunade leaned back onto the side of her couch, propping her bare toes up on the other side and shrugging languidly. "Funny thing. Turns out the political shithole of Mist is straightening up."
Sasuke furrowed his brow. 'What?' He knew that they had theorized that their Mizukage was dead- someone named Yagura- but his disappearance had hardly been the event that threw Mist into chaos. Arguably, disappearing was the best thing that lunatic had done for his country.
"Is there a new Mizukage, then?" Shizune queried, actually looking interested. "I'm afraid I don't know of many big names left in the village."
"One Terumi Mei sends us an invitation to meet and greet, one Kage to another," Tsunade said dryly. "In other words, she wants us to court her for favor and alliance. It's almost certainly not in our favor to do so, of course. Mist is going to be a mess for a long time—something like half their forces deserted or went rouge, and she's probably maintaining order through force."
"But if you snub her now…" Sasuke trailed off, implication obvious. Tsunade sneered.
"Got it in one. Good thing I got rid of the old coots when I did, they'd be pushing to insure that I stay in the village and that this meeting falls through. Not that they wouldn't have a point."
"It would be awfully dangerous," Shizune mused. "So much could go wrong. You can't go, you can't snub her, and you can't afford to get caught cleaning up her mess."
"But if we help her now," Sasuke interjected lazily, "we could have an alliance of three out of the five major villages. We are never going to mend the rift with Rock and Lightning."
Those wounds were too fresh, on both sides, and both were still highly militant. Konoha had a tentative alliance with other villages like Grass, for example, but there was an enormous difference between the five major villages and even the respectably mid-tiered ones like Grass. At the moment, Rock and Lightning were probably the two most stable villages, and had a long-standing alliance. If they decided that now was an excellent time for war, no one or two villages could stand against them.
Tsunade looked amused, popping a cleanly-licked spoon out of her mouth and angling a scolding look at his own untouched portion. Sasuke grimaced down at his melting ice cream and reluctantly put a spoonful in his mouth. It was a bit undignified, but he really did like green tea ice cream. His mentor nodded in approval.
"Good point, Sasuke-chan. And that's why I'm sending you and Shizune to meet with her and make nice. It's the next best thing to going myself- entrusting her with both my apprentices is a huge show of trust." Then she rolled her eyes. "But I don't trust her at all, of course, which is why I'm also sending your scruffy ex-sensei."
Shizune groaned.
Surprised, Sasuke raised an eyebrow at her. 'What's so wrong with Kakashi-sensei?'
Then he realized that was the wrong question. Many things were wrong with Kakashi, of course. He amended the thought.
'What specific problem would Shizune have with him?'
She flushed, waving her free hand frantically and inadvertently let Tonton get his face into her treat. "It's nothing! Really. But Tsunade-sama, do you really think that just Hatake-san will be enough?"
"I'm not sending your boytoy, if that's what you're asking," she taunted with a cruel little smile. Sasuke had no idea what she was alluding to, but it didn't matter. Shizune actually looked relieved, so it was probably a bad joke.
"Who will be filling out the team, then?"
Tsunade snorted ungracefully. "Well, Hatake's brat apprentice for one. I'd need a goddamn crow-bar and chakra proof cell to stop that from happening. And then probably one of his old teammates from ANBU."
"That's it?" That was a strange configuration. Either Shizune and Sasuke were diplomats or they were part of the team—if they were solely diplomats, Tsunade should send a four man team with them. If they were part of the team, then it would just be Kakashi and Aiko.
Tsunade cracked her neck. "That's all I have to add, in a way. Danzo stopped by to helpfully offer a suggestion to fill the last space." The sarcasm was palpable. She shrugged. "I'd be disturbed that he was the only one who knew what I would decide to do so quickly, but he has never been stupid. Many things, but not stupid." She eyed Sasuke pointedly. "This will almost certainly be one of his private ANBU. They'd fill out the combat requirements nicely, if I know Danzo at all, but they will also be invaluable for our purposes."
Sasuke nodded ever so slightly. It made sense. He was going to either gather information from this person or try to subvert them.
Then he frowned. "Aren't I probably the least qualified person in the village to emotionally manipulate this person?" He asked a bit dryly, ignoring Shizune's muttered 'Not so, there's always Hatake'. Tsunade actually burst out laughing, snatching up Tonton when he wandered too close and petting his belly. He snuffled happily, completely unaware of the fate of a country being decided above him. It must be nice to be a pig.
"You've never met one of these Root operatives before, have you? There's a reason Danzo keeps them out of the normal forces—whatever the hell he does to them makes it very hard for them to blend in." She shrugged. "Even you aren't that obtuse. If this teammate is a Root operative, you'll know it. Besides, you'll have your nosy little girlfriend to help you make nice. I'm starting to think that there's a hidden Uzumaki bloodline where their complete lack of self-preservation and crippling social retardation somehow combines to form reality warping charisma."
There was probably an argument to be made against that, but for the life of him Sasuke didn't know how to go about defending his teammates or even if he wanted to. He'd had to bang his head against the wall out of frustration when he heard that Aiko had apparently befriended the Suna jinchuuriki who had genuinely tried to kill her not so long ago. Sasuke understood that she might have sympathy for his situation (now that he'd finally been told about Naruto's condition) but that didn't have to extend to actually allowing the creep to spend time around her. Her nonchalance about the affair was shocking.
It was downright unnerving, bordering on a hint that she had a frightening predisposition to forgive abusers. He was going to keep an eye on her, since she wasn't willing to do it herself. Kakashi was probably similarly alarmed, if he'd managed to lift his head from a book long enough to hear about that idiotic decision and parse through the nuances of human interaction.
"Now, as for what I want you two to be willing to accept and negotiate with. First of all, you can thank Hatake for having the presence of mind to seal up Zabuza's sword and bring it back after you brats killed him, because that'll make an acceptable good faith offering. It doesn't do us a damn bit of good without knowing how to use it, but it's an important part of Mist's cultural heritage. In other words, they'll want it back even if they don't have anyone who can use it."
Shizune snorted rudely. "It's also a way to shove in their face that one of our genin teams killed their strongest missing nin." She gave Tsunade an unimpressed look. "Don't you think that sending three out of the five members of that group will be a bit obvious?"
"I like to make my points very clearly," Tsunade responded primly. "I don't know this Terumi woman well at all. She could be a total incompetent."
~~~
"Hello. I am called Sai. Please take care of me." Dark hair slipped over his face when he gave a small bow to the group eying him for the first time. Most of the office was thoroughly unimpressed, but not all.
'Hot damn,' Aiko thought. 'Why are all the men I know ridiculously good-looking? This isn't even funny anymore.'
Really, it wasn't. It was easy on her eyes, though. And Sai was slightly older than her physical age- just old enough that she didn't feel like a total creep for checking him out. (She knew Sasuke was beautiful, but hell if he didn't look like a child to her. Maybe in a couple of years she would be willing to tap that, but right now Yamato was her best eye candy).
Sasuke grunted, and for one horrid moment she thought he had spontaneously developed telepathy and heard her unprofessional thoughts. Luckily, he seemed to be ignorant so far. She had carefully kept any hints of the perverted side that Yamato was now far too familiar with for his comfort and that Kakashi-shishou was amused by from Sasuke. That was mostly because she had the benefit of knowing that appearing to have a romantic interest in him was the fastest way to drive Sasuke off. If she wanted him to respect her, she had to be professional.
She'd somehow managed to trick him into respecting her just a little bit, and she wasn't about to ruin it now.
That was another reason this mission was going to be a total drag, she knew. Her displeased thoughts didn't cross her face during the mission briefing and she somehow managed to pay attention to what little she was allowed to know. (Mist? Why the hell were they going on a diplomatic mission with Mist? She thought that they were isolationist and universally hostile). But the situation was still a total bummer. Yamato had been included on the team for some stupid reason, and he was going to think that she had either given up on taunting him or (much worse) actually figure out that Sasuke and Kakashi-shishou were good shields against her perversion. (She definitely curbed her enthusiasm around shishou. He didn't seem ready to see her as an adult yet, and probably with good reason. Her body was thirteen, after all.)
The worst part was that she didn't even dislike Yamato. He was talented, handsome, and seemed to have an easy going personality… when he wasn't paying attention to her. She was almost a little hurt that he seemed to single her out as an object of dislike. She hadn't done a damn thing to him.
Despite her lack of personal enmity for the guy, she couldn't let his pointed silences and little snipes at her slide. It was probably a character flaw, but she always had to have the last word. Most people didn't challenge her (people just sort of let her do whatever she wanted, with the exception of the few people she deferred to without question or attitude), and so this was disconcerting. He didn't fit in her hierarchical understanding of relationships.
'Sai might, though,' she mused. That was going to be a strange fit. They could be equal comrades with differing specializations who deferred to the other when appropriate, perhaps? He didn't seem like he would be overly aggressive, unless one counted the insulting names that had been his trademark in canon. Her personal theory was that those things stemmed from his lack of socialization and not an actual cruel personality, so she wasn't going to let them bother her if they happened.
The answer to the question of nicknames was answered soon after they left the building, accompanied by Shizune. Kakashi-shishou had left in a flicker of light, but the others were all there when Sai turned a painfully fake smile on the rest of them and tilted his head like a bird. "I have read that it is considered friendly to give nicknames to companions based upon their notable attributes."
Sasuke rolled his eyes, the question, 'Is this guy for real' written all over his features.
Sai was socially awkward, not blind. His eyes narrowed imperceptibly at the snub, and then his grin widened to bare perfectly white teeth. "I will call you Dickless."
'What,' Sasuke thought flatly. 'What.' That didn't even compute. Why… who would say such a thing, in public or otherwise? This mission was doomed to failure, because Sasuke was going to kill the moron and hide the body in a lake as soon as they were out of Konoha. This could not stand.
Aiko actually choked. Apparently that nickname had more to do with Sai than Naruto. Or maybe there was a commonality between the two boys that they would doubtlessly not fess up to.
He turned that unnerving gaze on her while Sasuke whitened to an unhealthy shade and became dangerously still with rage, like a cat about to pounce. "And you…" he tilted his head the other way, as if to take her in. She felt Yamato practically begin vibrating with anticipation, clearly interested in the conversation. "I think that you will be washboard. You're rather flat, aren't you."
'Okay, maybe he is testing the waters by intentionally being insulting,' she acknowledged in her head. 'Either that or he's using some logic I don't yet see to assign names.' She was far from flat-chested, especially for an athlete. 'Maybe that means Sasuke is hung like a horse.'
Alas, speculations were useless at the moment, and there would be no opportunities for field investigation.
Her companions seemed to agree that the nickname was inappropriate. Sasuke looked like he wanted to attack Sai, and she might have been worried if he'd already possessed Tsunade's super strength. On the other hand, Yamato looked highly amused at what he probably perceived to be a situation that would embarrass her. Shizune was wheezing with laughter.
Canon had made clear that getting angry at Sai would solve nothing- either he simply didn't understand what he had done wrong or he intentionally pushed back against aggression. So telling him to fuck off was right out. She wasn't even that insulted, really. She knew she wasn't flat, and if she had been, it wouldn't have mattered anyways. Her job wasn't to be pretty, it was to be good at killing people. And she was.
So she took it in stride, looking down pointedly and cupping herself with both hands. "I'm not that flat," she said mildly, giving a generous squeeze. If she'd seen Sasuke's expression at that moment, she might not have continued. "I'm almost a C." She wanted to see Yamato's face –was he smug now, huh?!- but had to look casually back at Sai. "What about him?" She jerked her head towards Yamato.
Sai turned his head to the suddenly still man. "I thought that was the kunoichi of the team," he said mildly.
"An honest mistake," Aiko agreed, despite the fact that Yamato was a hunk of manly man. Said manly man looked a bit stricken. Oh god, she was going to love having this kid around. She gave him a genuinely amused smile. "Well, when you think of one, tell us. I'm sure I'll enjoy it. You have a knack."
He seemed pleased. Perhaps he wasn't intentionally provoking them after all.
'It's just me she hates,' Yamato realized numbly. He felt oddly miffed. That was unfair—this boy had been far ruder than he had. Was she really going to hold a few minutes of dismissal the first time they'd met against him forever? He'd been certain that Aiko was going to join the Uchiha boy in murdering their new teammate and forget about him altogether.
Was this what it was like to have someone you disliked on a personal level? Yamato had never had an enemy like that before.
He didn't like it much.
~~~
"Okay gaki," Jiraiya half-pouted. He did feel a little guilty that his apprentice thought he was being neglected so much that he invented a new technique to impress him. So it was time to teach him something really cool. He'd had to pay more attention to what was going on in that last village than his apprentice—something was very wrong among his contacts. The man he had come to meet- the one who had been sending him dull, regular reports for the last few years- had apparently been dead for half a year. Yes. Something was very wrong, and it had been a bad place to bring his nearly defenseless apprentice.
At least it was a nice day for travel. The sky was clear and the sun beating down cheerfully in a way that could have convinced him he was still within Fire Country if he didn't know better.
He stiffened, bringing his hands up and clapping, tapping his wooden geta on the cobblestone surface of the road that hadn't quite yet faded into the dirt that characterized country roads. "The great Jiraiya, the gallant toad sage, will be teaching you his specialty, starting today!" He grinned down at his apprentice.
Naruto looked spectacularly unimpressed. "You already taught me toad summoning, and I don't want to learn how to be a gigantic pervert and get beat up outside hot springs."
'Is that all the kid thinks of me?'
Jiraiya tabled that troubling thought and moved on to pretending to be hurt. "Come on kid, do you really think that summoning is all I can do? I'm internationally renowned because I am a seal master, a rare and difficult specialty."
"What, like the thing the creepy guy put on Sasuke with his hickey of doom?"
That made no sense, so Jiraiya decided to ignore it. That was his general policy whenever his apprentice started to say things that were arranged in perfectly good sentences but still incomprehensible.
"Sealing is an incredibly versatile art," he boasted, posed heroically with his fists on his hips and hair ruffling dramatically in a wind that did not exist. A couple of young girls traveling down the same road passed them, giving Jiraiya strange looks. They were clearly making an effort not to catch attention and edging along the other side of the path. Naruto shrugged helplessly and tried to apologize with his eyes.
'He's not paying attention,' Jiraiya noted. 'I'd better get louder.' He wasn't going to put up with the sheer hypocrisy of his obnoxious apprentice being embarrassed by him. Jiraiya broke social convention because he liked to. Naruto barreled through propriety with all the elegance of a drunken cow.
"Behold!" He whipped out a prepared seal and activated it with chakra. It fizzled and sparked with electricity, charring the ground where it landed. "Fuinjutsu can be used to fundamentally alter the nature of laws of dimension and space, to do things like store chakra, solid materials, bend space, or even time! You can use seals to make explosives, contracts with summon clans, spy, detect intruders, or even utilize powerful attacks of other chakra natures!"
"Big deal, my sister can do that stuff." Naruto turned his nose up. "Boring! I want something cool, like maybe a sword that channels chakra like that Ino's sensei has."
Jiraiya was genuinely insulted. He was far cooler than Sarutobi Asuma, that diapered brat. And besides, "Your sister can't have mastered fuinjutsu. It takes years!"
Naruto snorted. "Maybe for you. She had to learn it for the Chuunin exams."
"That's not a Chuunin skill."
The blonde gave him a 'Are you stupid' look, which Jiraiya resented more than just a bit. "Not her exams, mine. She was working with Anko on the second exam. She made the summoning scrolls that brought Chuunin to meet teams that opened them at the tower."
Jiraiya face-palmed. 'Minato, you put the Kyuubi in the wrong kid,' he groused. 'One of them has prodigal sealing talent, and it's the wrong one. What is Sarutobi-sensei thinking? I can understand testing her to see if she had any of her parents' ability, but why wouldn't he tell me so I could direct it?'
It had to have been a test. No one would honestly expect a Chuunin to master an entirely new skill set like that in a few months at absolute most. Anko wouldn't actually be a bad supervisor for that. Sarutobi sensei had taught all three of his students advanced sealing. Even though Jiraiya was the only one who had gone a conventional route with it, being apprenticed to Orochimaru would have exposed the girl to plenty of fuinjutsu.
He had been a sealing prodigy himself once he got past the initial barriers of learning a new language, of course, but fuinjutsu ran in Uzumaki veins as much as blood did. He'd met a few in his time, and they were positively uncanny, often understanding and executing concepts they hadn't been taught and couldn't verbalize. Naruto had a bit of that quality himself, but it seemed to be directed to understanding jutsu instead. Maybe he had more of Minato in him than Kushina in that regard—Minato had pushed himself to become a sealing expert precisely because he found it difficult and intellectually engaging, not because it was intuitive. He and his red-haired wife had been a fearsome duo indeed with their combined abilities and wildly varying approaches. If they'd lived, they would have revolutionized everything. He was sure of it.
But that ship had sailed, and this was what he was left with. Jiraiya would do his best to pound some introductory level fuinjutsu concepts into Naruto's head to see if it would spark intellectual curiosity. If not… well.
Jiraiya heaved a sigh.
He'd just have to teach the brat to hit things really hard. Depressing.