"Hey, hey, Shizune-chan! That's you, right?"
She tried not to startle at the oversized, yellow and orange monstrosity hopping in her face. Instead of tossing the thing through the window, she clenched her fingers ever-so-slightly around her coffee. "Yes, toad-san?" Shizune greeted politely. This wasn't one that she recognized. Either Jiraiya had made a new friend, or this was one of Naruto's summons.
"I have a message!" His chest puffed out importantly, and then deflated. Meekly, he added, "It's bad news."
Shizune tucked her coffee in her elbow and unceremoniously scooped the amphibian up, ignoring the way he fussed. In flawless whoosh of chakra, she pulled a Sasuke. Tsunade looked up even as she elbowed her way out from behind the wall of potted plants, holding the messenger toad aloft like a squishy shield from her mentor's possible irritation.
Tsunade outright groaned. "What's the pervert done this time? He's only been gone-"
"It wasn't him!" the thing peeped up, wiggling out of Shizune's grip to land on the desk and grin up at Tsunade. "I'm Naruto's friend, Gamatatsu. Nice to meetcha, baa-chan!"
Shizune took a moment to wonder what would happen if Tsunade flattened someone else's summon, because her fingers were gripping the book in her hands with enough force to turn them white and it would only take an instant for her to lift it and make him into goo… The moment passed, thankfully, and Tsunade let the disrespect slide.
"Is something wrong?"
Gamatatsu slumped down sheepishly. "Ah, yes. I forgot all about that. Yes!" He seemed almost triumphant about remembering what he'd come to tell them. "It's terrible. Right after Naruto and his friends got back to Grass country, actually. When they found…" He trailed off, and then corrected, "No, that's not right. When they didn't find who they were looking for? I dun know, something about Kumo and Kiri? I get those confused. Anyway!" He hopped straight up, as if for emphasis. "They weren't where they were supposed to be! It turned out they tried to go into Ame, and a bad man came! Naruto found a Chuunin and his grumpy friend healed the Chuunin which was pretty cool, but I don't think there's anyone else left."
Tsunade was slightly white, though whether she counted this as a disaster or a near-miss because her people had been gone at the time was hard to tell. Konoha's teams had been running back and forth for supplies and messages, since they were by far closest to where the teams had tracked a team of Akatsuki and Konoha had the most information about the organization.
"They're all dead?" Tsunade confirmed numbly, although her tone left little hope for correction. The way the toad shrank back was answer enough. "Did Naruto know what happened?"
The toad shook his head vigorously. "Not exactly! The Kumo team decided to follow their targets past the border. Yeah, I think it was Kumo."
"But hadn't they been told to wait outside?" she demanded. That was what Kakashi had said was the consensus when he'd left with his team to ask for further orders… She'd sent him back out just yesterday, there was no way he should have already arrived in order to aid in a situational re-assessment.
The toad shrugged. "I guess they got too eager," he confirmed quietly, a little more solemn than before.
'And it got them all killed.' Tsunade swallowed, hard. "Is Naruto certain that there was just one assailant? How did this Chuunin survive?"
"He must-a been some kind of monster!" Gamatatsu confirmed with just a bit too much cheer. Toads were irrepressibly good-natured, and right now it grated. "I dunno why, but the man let him go!"
"Do we know anything else about this assailant?" Tsunade demanded. "Was he Akatsuki? Was he marked as Ame? Did all this happen within Ame, or did he follow them out of the border?"
"I don't know!" the toad crossly interrupted, stomping one filthy little foot on her nice mahogany desk. "I wasn't there, and neither was Naruto. The Chuunin didn't say much about what specifically he used except that he used all the elements, but he said the guy claimed to be a god."
It took a moment for that to sink in.
'So we're dealing with a very dangerous lunatic,' Tsunade realized tiredly. 'Someone who is dangerous enough that we will definitely not be sending anyone in Ame until we have re-evaluated the situation.' …And had Naruto even bothered to try to train his summons to work as information aids? That report was terrible, and she knew that Naruto knew how to make a report. That information was all but useless. And why had it gotten to her so late?
That question was answered easily enough, though the conversation gave her even more of a headache. Naruto had thought Jiraiya was still in Konoha, and sent the toad to report directly to his mentor. At that point, Jiraiya had decided to go meet the teams to provide reinforcement since he was almost there, and sent the toad to Tsunade on foot.
After that, the damn thing had gotten lost. She hated toads sometimes. Thankfully, humans were better at carrying accurate and timely messages.
"Shizune, get Aiko," Tsunade ordered tiredly. Her apprentice had probably already predicted that and left without a fuss.
She had to wonder… For this news, should she really be relying on a messenger? It might be best to dust off her fancy hat and have Aiko Hiraishin them both to the Raikage to tell him the news herself. Hopefully, he wouldn't take her unexpected arrival as a possible assault and would be reasonable, despite having previously specified that news should be relayed through Aiko.
…No, that was a stupid idea. He wasn't going to be reasonable at all. The Raikage was a gibbering moron, and she wasn't just saying that because he'd snubbed her.
Tsunade was apologetic about making the girl endure the Raikage's temper, but she had Aiko go out to Naruto's team, return the witness to the Raikage, and then kept her occupied running between kage for the next four hours.
The Raikage was indeed outraged, but he agreed to send out another team immediately to replace the one lost. Gaara risked Temari, Kankuro, and Baki for the mission as backup, which was more of a sacrifice than it sounded, despite only being one team. Mei's team was still intact—they hadn't been working directly with Kumo—and so they were merely informed, though the Mizukage was concerned that now was the optimal time to hunt down her loose jinchuuriki before Akatsuki got him.
She had a point, but it was hard to want to send out another high level team on a risky mission. Mei was irritatingly persistent about it, and equally insistent that it made sense to send Aiko.
'Probably because she doesn't want to risk her own people', the Hokage thought uncharitably. She managed to swallow the automatic retort.
At that point, Tsunade had to send Aiko out with Shizune to get lunch, because she didn't know how to convey her initial response through the girl in question and needed some time to think.
It was easy to tell that Aiko was chomping at the bit to get back out in the field, and she would be an asset to a retrieval team hunting a jinchuuriki, as both a tracker and a method of restraining him. But she was more valuable in village as an emergency communication system and emergency transport for any jinchuuriki who got into trouble in the field. Aiko could be ambushed and killed if sent out in the field, and the sad fact was that there were Jounin who were comparatively disposable. If she was safely in the village, she could be used as a resource over and over again to mitigate losses.
Instantaneous communication like what she'd been abusing today was an unparalleled development. The closest thing they had before was communication through summons or messenger birds, which was a complicated mess and had a lot of limitations. The ability for Kage scattered across the continent to communicate within minutes was far more valuable to a campaign than one inexperienced Jounin's presence out in the field. Aiko probably hated it, but it was true.
Still, with Tenzou out with Kakashi, Aiko was the best resource they had available for restraining jinchuuriki. The girl's skill set could have been plotted out for that specific purpose—Tsunade wouldn't pit her against a bijuu, or even most S class shinobi (or some A class, if she were to be honest) but her speed allowed her to use her undersized but efficient chakra chains to restrain one humanoid target with piteous ease. On the other hand, if the jinchuuriki were in an evolved form of their bijuu's chakra, or if the beast itself was in control, Aiko would get ripped to pieces.
'Why am I dwelling on this?' Vexed with herself, Tsunade rolled her neck and took a walk around her office, which degenerated into pacing. 'Her whole fighting style revolves around getting in the first hit and taking down superior opponents before they get their bearings or analyze her attacks. I can hardly claim that sending her against one jinchuuriki is too much of a risk when I know damn well she's good at it. Terumi is right in that it needs to be done. With Hiraishin, Aiko could get the boy trussed up and delivered to Mist in a sixth of the time it would take anyone else, and spend minimal time outside of the safety of the village.'
It would just be a phenomenal waste to lose Aiko on a mission that didn't absolutely have to be performed by her.
On the other hand, she should have some faith in her shinobi's abilities to fulfill the mission. Aiko couldn't be confined to the village indefinitely, in a practical and literal sense. Really, there was nothing Tsunade could do to keep her in boundaries, unlike other shinobi who at least had to factor in the danger of getting caught sneaking out as an impediment to mischief.
She didn't like admitting it, but at this point, she only had control of the teen because Aiko allowed it. That control was tenuous at best. If she continued to give Aiko orders that the girl found unpalatable… well, eventually she would crack and rebel in some way. Anyone would. And once she'd disobeyed once with no repercussions, why would she continue to obey?
Running a village full of strong-minded individuals was difficult enough when they had reason to respect and fear her displeasure. But Aiko was like Naruto and Sasuke in that they knew her too well to think that she would penalize them for anything short of murder.
'Damnit, I'm too soft,' Tsunade sighed crabbily. 'It shouldn't matter that Aiko is unhappy with the situation. I know that what I should do is make sure she doesn't break the rules regardless, not let her go blow off steam because I sympathize with her.'
But she was going to do it anyways. If she needed a message carried urgently, she could always recall Aiko. And it wasn't necessarily that dangerous for Aiko to be out and about wandering the countryside, if Akatsuki had no way of knowing where she was. A small team could move quickly to locate Utakata and bring him in long before Akatsuki could possibly know she'd left Konoha. Besides, they were all ensconced in Ame at the moment.
Aiko's face visibly lit up when she was told to convey that Mei was getting her way, despite the fact that enough time had passed for Kumo's team to be ready and that she was subjected to the indignity of carting them out to meet Konoha's team.
'I wouldn't be that happy about acting like a land-boat for sassy kumo-nin', Tsunade noted sardonically. Especially since they really seemed to despise Aiko. But whatever, it wasn't as if she'd never been subject to ignominious usage of her hard-earned medical skills. Not every necessary duty was dignified.
~~~
The news of the day was downright tragic, but Aiko still had to fight down a grin. She was finally being let out on a real mission. No matter how cute Fukiko-chan was, teaching just wasn't high-energy enough to suit Aiko's needs. If she'd spent one more week looking at the inside of Konoha's walls, she might have completely snapped and just started screaming.
It was sort of like being claustrophobic, or getting cabin fever. When a person routinely traveled hundreds of miles every month, sitting around one city was maddening.
(Visiting international offices didn't count. For all the effort she expended, Gaara's office might as well have been next door to Tsunade's with Mei's on the other side. That wasn't really a trip).
"I'm hunting jinchuuriiii-ki," Aiko sang tonelessly under her breath as she packed, dancing around her apartment as she worked. It was probably for the best that there were no witnesses, because she did not in fact, have 'the beat'. She nearly tripped over Mitsuo, who startled awake and gave her a reproachful glare without getting up off the floor. "Wake up, lazy thing," she chided good-naturedly. "We get to leave!"
Granted, she had no idea who she was working with, or if she was working with a team at all—Tsunade probably wouldn't send her out alone, right?—but they were just going to have to cope with dogs. Because she wasn't leaving them behind. She had no idea how long the mission would last, after all. They might find him in a day, or it might take a week.
"That reminds me," Aiko said under her breath, dropping unceremoniously to the floor and picking up one of Mitsuo's paws to peer at the soft pads at the bottom. "How are your feet?" She rubbed at the pink flesh. "Is this callous enough for you to keep up on a long run in open terrain, you think?"
He was willing to try, so she summoned Hōseki and let Mitsuo explain the situation while she got ready. Packing was a short affair, due to the fact that she was really just stuffing several outfits into storage seals and putting them as a page marker in inside Icha Icha Tactics (it was a classic) with the oft re-used seal that had her camping equipment.
She changed into blue shorts and a thin grey shirt that opened at her throat (to cover her newest tattoo) and barely brushed her thighs (to enable freedom of movement when running). Aiko contemplated her flak jacket for a moment, but ultimately left it. For her, that was more of a formality and an impediment than an aid. Those jackets were damn heavy. The lighter she was, the faster she was. She was better off trying to not get hit than hoping the jacket deflected blows. The only physical weapons she took were her sword over her back and the thin blades hidden in her boots—the thigh pouches for kunai were irritating, to be honest, and she wasn't interested in that today.
A braid would take more time than she was willing to invest, so Aiko tugged her hair back in low twintails and secured them tightly. Her headband was already on her forehead, so she merely tightened the knot and all but bounced out the door, sliding down the railway to escape her apartment and taking to the rooftops immediately. Hōseki gave an indignant bark, but raced behind as best as she could while Mitsuo gave a self-pitying sigh and leapt right after them.
Tsunade rolled her eyes, but Aiko could tell she wasn't really grumpy about Aiko being there early with Hōseki cuddled in her arms and Mitsuo nuzzling her side.
"You're just sickeningly cute sometimes," Tsunade critiqued sternly. Still, she deigned to scratch Mitsuo behind the ear when he came close enough to investigate her perfume. She only waived him off when a polite knock announced an arrival for debriefing, and a Jounin who Aiko had never actually spoken to sauntered in.
"Aoba," Tsunade greeted, which conveniently enough answered her next question (which would have been, 'who the hell are you, sunshine?'). "Thank you for coming on time. Not early, not late, but at the time that was specified." Aoba seemed to give Aiko a curious look from behind his red-rimmed sunglasses, but it was admittedly hard to tell.
'Complainer. There's nothing wrong with being eager to go. Would she have preferred I take after Kakashi?'
Reluctantly, Mitsuo returned to Aiko's side as the Hokage explained the situation to Aoba. Aiko hardly needed to pay attention, as she'd been playing at 'messenger pigeon' for the last few hours. The details were uninteresting, but still she was excited. She was going on a mission! Outside the village!
"Uzumaki, kindly attempt to show more decorum than Mitsuo-chan is," Tsunade drawled. Aiko noticed for the first time that she was grinning and fidgeting, but didn't feel ashamed. She had a lot of energy, damnit, and hadn't been able to really burn any off in a long time. Which reminded her.
"Do I need to stop on the way out and let Fukiko-chan know practice is cancelled?" she wondered aloud.
Tsunade rolled her eyes. "I think I can take care of it," she said with practiced patience. "Aoba, you'll be in charge of this mission and primarily combat support if the situation degenerates. Hopefully, Aiko will be able to track this Utakata down and he'll come quietly, but if not, distract him so that she can immobilize him."
Aiko tried to work up indignation as the slightly skeptical look her partner leveled at her at that moment, but couldn't force herself to care. She was fucking awesome even if he didn't see it. And to be fair, this wasn't exactly the best display of her professionalism.
Then again, neither was the way that she initially left him in the dust when they rocketed out past the gates into the free, clean air of Konoha's forests. It took a disgracefully long time for her to come down from her cheer-induced high to realize that he was trailing a little too far behind her. Sheepishly, she circled back and let him take the lead.
"I apologize, Aoba-san," she forced out before she could be scolded. "I was just happy to run. I've been in the village for months straight."
He heaved a sigh, but dismissed the apology mildly enough. "That's quite all right. Just don't do it again." After a moment's pause, he cautiously asked, "So, is it true that you have the Hiraishin?"
'Well, everyone knows that, I thought.'
Aiko blinked twice before she realized what he was really asking. "Ah, we could cut out quite a bit of time, couldn't we?" she realized sheepishly. "Stop for a second, please." He furrowed his brow slightly, but did as she said. Aiko took note that he wasn't doing a good job of defending his position as top dog, but let it slide this time in favor of dropping to pick Hōseki up to her chest and tangling her finger tips in Mitsuo's fur. "We should start looking for the trail in Tea, right?"
"Ah, yes." He fidgeted slightly, as if about to ask what was going on. In lieu of explanation, Aiko pulled on a tag in Mist and two along Konoha's border, and sighed in satisfaction at how accurate her slingshot was.
"Be right back," she assured, rubbing her nose against Hōseki's before setting down the little dog and flickering back to Aoba's side. He was still looking at her old location, so she purposefully gave a little kick at the forest floor to garner his attention and held out a hand in his direction. The unspoken order was that he should take it, of course.
Aoba gave her a very skeptical look. Aiko blinked innocently and cocked her head to the side.
"Don't you want to hold my hand?"
Of course he didn't. He was a 34-year old man who probably thought she was a silly, hyper twit. If she were him, she'd avoid contact like the plague. Maybe he really did think she was contagious.
At the way she faked hurt, he heaved a put-upon sigh and gingerly took her fingers.
Teasing him like that had been an amusing diversion, but now she was actually somewhere she could work. Aiko briskly shook his hand off, all business, the instant that she rematerialized next to Mitsuo. "What town was he seen in again?" Aoba seemed to be dumb-founded at the sudden switch while she unfolded her map, so she impatiently prodded the paper with her finger. "I need to see the location to get a comparison for where we are," she slowly explained, as if to a child.
He didn't like that much, but obligingly enough helped her find the right settlement on the map. She could have found it on her own with time, but it was really much faster for the person who had a general familiarity with the layout of Tea country's infrastructure to point out the location. Aiko folded the paper up and tucked it away at her hip pouch.
The Kiri informant who had noted Utakata's passing was definitely not eager to talk to them, but eventually, he directly shared what he knew and what he suspected. The details of when Utakata had left town combined with the direction he'd gone in and what he'd done in the village was enough to set Aiko off on a theory. He'd been four days ahead of them, so any messages from an informant who'd spotted him since wouldn't have reached Mei yet. So Aiko left the dogs sitting in the informant's house and dragged Aoba off to apologetically ask Mei for the information to access whatever informants she had in two neighboring areas. She wasn't thrilled about exposing more resources, but obligingly enough gave up four names so that they could continue the search.
By that point, Aoba was looking distinctly queasy. He brushed off his front and hurriedly stepped away from her as soon as they were back in Tea. "You know, that technique was much less jarring when your father used it," he informed her in a tone of mild reproach.
All she could do was shrug. "No idea why," Aiko lied. It was probably because she wasn't as good with it as he'd been.
The withering look he shot her implied that he agreed about her comparative lack of skill, but it didn't bother her. Wasn't like he was any better, was he? It wasn't much of a shame not to be as skilled as a kage, parent or not. She'd inherited stunning good looks from him, not an intuitive understanding of his techniques.
To let Aoba's stomach settle, she didn't argue when he took off for their first interviewee at a run instead of letting her take them there quickly. She'd assumed that they'd come up with nothing and have to check the others, but once the white-haired mist plant had been convinced that they weren't there to assassinate him (and stopped throwing flowerpots) they found out that Utakata had indeed passed through… and he'd meandered over to a local teashop.
Once directed to the booth he'd had by a baffled but indulgent proprietor, Mitsuo picked up on the scents of the last ten or so people who'd sat there. Aoba had looked frustrated at that news, but Aiko wasn't surprised when her ninken confirmed that only one of the trails led directly out of town.
"Most people live here, ne?" she explained idly as she brushed past her superior officer. "Wouldn't have reason to leave all the time." Hōseki gave a superior-sounding huff, as if to ask why this useless man was even here. Aiko replied with a straight-faced yap (learned from Kakashi's most mischievous ninken) that probably shouldn't have been repeated in public. Mitsuo laughed, though, even as Aoba rolled his eyes and very deliberately didn't ask what the conversation was about.
From then on, it was a conventional hunt—if a hunt could ever be so called. The tree cover had given out into ambitious shrubs (she couldn't call them trees, none of them broke twenty feet in height), which let a marvelous breeze whip across the hill land and through her thin clothes. Tea country really was a marvelous place, Aiko thought, enjoying the heavily scented air from the wild plants that grew everywhere. It was heady, like incense, but fresh and natural instead of stuffy and smoky-hot.
Utakata found them before they found him, which shouldn't have happened. Maybe she just wasn't paying enough attention. Maybe he was just that good.
It would be a long time until Aiko forgot the swell of self-loathing that froze her muscles at the instant when she saw an iridescent glint off a strange round item in the grass and realized her ninken didn't see it in time.
She attempted to call his name, but it came out an incoherent bark. At least the sound conveyed alarm.
Mitsuo made a jerking aborted dodge and went down with a pained yelp, his momentum carrying him in an ungainly flip that fluffy white dogs were clearly not built to undergo. In another circumstance, the perplexed look on his doggy face would have been hilarious. As it was, it was overshadowed by the cracking sound that immediately followed when he whumped to the dirt.
Hōseki rocketed forward to engage the enemy with a growl as Aoba exploded into a cloud of crows that barely avoided the second small, glistening explosive bubble. But Aiko had skidded to a stop and flung herself over Mitsuo's downed form, frantically checking for breaks in the leg that he held aloft with a whimper. If Utakata wanted, he could have tried to take her out right then—she trusted that Hōseki would distract him, but he could have tried.
He didn't. "What do you want?" His footsteps were light, accompanied by the rustling of what sounded like expensive fabric. "Why are you chasing me?"
She didn't spare him a thought. Aoba could handle it.
Aiko kept her head bowed and tried to calm Mitsuo, soothingly rubbing at his back while he cried. It was a definite break, and he wasn't much more than a puppy. He'd never had a broken bone before.
"Have you heard of Akatsuki?"
She wasn't interested in the conversation at all and let it become a rumble of male voices, background noise rather than something important. If Utakata attacked, she'd kill him, and to hell with the consequences. She might kill him for this even if he didn't attack. Until then, Mitsuo was more important. "It's alright, you did well," Aiko mumbled, trying not to cry. He lifted his head and tried to lick her soothingly but couldn't reach, so she leaned in and let him lap at her cheek. "Go home, okay? Or- Or do you want to go to Tsunade-sama?"
Surely he had good medics at home, but really he deserved the best. She probably wouldn't mind being asked to heal such a good dog, would she?
He managed to convey that both of them abandoning the mission would be a little extreme, and gave her one last doggy kiss before ending the chakra thread that tied him to Tea country side for his own home.
For the first time, she glared up at her target in person. Utakata was a good-looking man, or at least she'd thought so when she'd seen the black and white picture in the dossier. In person, however, his hair was stupid and the lazy set to his eyes made him look unintelligent instead of discerning. Also, what was the point of wearing a kimono if you were going to let it hang open all the way to your hips? It was highly impractical for a shinobi—he could only be doing it because he thought it looked cool. Poser.
"What are you staring at?" Even his voice pissed her off. It was a smooth, disinterested tone. It sounded as if he didn't have the time of day for her, even though he'd been the one to initiate conversation.
"An asshole," Aiko countered calmly. Aoba's face fell at that particular bit of bluntness, but she didn't care at the moment. "Because no one else would try to blow up a puppy as their first target. Do you maybe want us to wait while you find a bunny-rabbit to kick or something? I have time." She gestured expansively at the greenery around them.
He had the grace to look a little flustered. "That was not a puppy," Utakata denied. "That slavering beast had to be at least five feet tall."
Slavering beast? She was going to turn him into a bloody smear. Mitsuo was an adorable little love, and probably twice as clever as Utakata was. And at least Mitsuo had manners, even if he did lick his plate.
"He's a growing boy," Aiko huffed. Hōseki gave a warning growl that seemed to startle Utakata into remembering that there was another dog present.
"I think that's enough," Aoba cut in sternly. "Please be calm, Uzumaki-san. I'm certain he did not intend to harm your friend. Now, Utakata-san. We really have to insist that you at least consider returning with us. This is for your own safety, as well as that of everyone in the Elemental Countries. Akatsuki will stop at nothing to capture jinchuuriki. I'm sure that you are formidable, but no one man can stand against half a dozen S-class shinobi. This is folly. The Mizukage offers your protection and amnesty."
His lips thinned further, if that was even possible. "I care not what my former village wants," Utakata denied. "I can avoid Akatsuki."
"Yes, like you avoided us," Aiko pointed out sardonically. "It took me less than a day to track you. We spent maybe three hours start to finish, not accounting for when we stopped for tea. Frankly, you're not that stealthy. You've just been low priority until now."
Utakata gave her the strangest look—perhaps the right word was evaluative. "Uzumaki, he said?" Suddenly, his voice had a slight lilt. He shook his head slightly and let his eyes flutter all but closed. His tone lowered dismissively. "I expected someone a bit more impressive, if you're really the girl who supposedly defeated the Nibi and escaped the Akatsuki."
'There is a huge difference between defeating the nibi and defeating the nibi jinchuuriki, you insufferable dodo.'
"Learn to live with disappointment," Aiko informed him crisply. "I'm not here to impress you. I'm here to convince you to return home where you're safe using my wit and charming personality, or to hit you over the head and drag you back to Mist over my shoulder."
The look he gave her was absolutely withering, and the response sardonic. "I wish you the best of luck with that endeavor."
She just shrugged, eyes hard. The breeze that had seemed so nice before while they ran carried a stifling, biting heat now. That may have just been her poor mood, however.
"Please, Utakata-san," Aoba sighed, probably cursing teenagers in general. "We do have you out-numbered, and this doesn't need to become a fight. I would prefer not to use force."
Utakata shook his head slowly. "I can never return to Kiri," he informed them. His tone was light, but Aiko imagined she heard a bitter undertone. "They only wish to use me what the power I contain."
'Well, duh,' Aiko thought rather uncharitably. It wasn't pretty, but that was what it meant to be a jinchuuriki. It was what being a shinobi was in general, really.
But he continued. "I cannot and will not trust any who hail from Kiri."
She blinked. That didn't sound right. "No one from Kiri?" Aiko confirmed a bit skeptically. "That seems like a big generalization. It's like saying that you can't trust anyone who prefers udon over ramen."
"My own teacher betrayed me on Kiri's orders," Utakata informed her rather snidely. "Who then could I trust?"
"That sounds more like a problem with your teacher in particular than with Kiri," Aiko countered genuinely, sitting down and bracing her elbows on her knee. Aoba seemed perplexed, but she ignored him while she cradled her chin in a palm and observed their target thoughtfully. This was a bit more interesting. "He definitely shouldn't have done that, of course. My teacher would have told Konoha to go eat dirt if they wanted to sell me out."
Of course, Kakashi might not be exactly representative of the average or healthy individual. But she'd do the same for Fukiko. Hell, she had essentially thumbed her nose as a higher authority for Fukiko before she'd even met the kid. That was what it meant to take responsibility for guiding a young life.
(She ignored that the thought made her feel guilty for passing ROOT off onto Tsunade. A master-apprentice relationship was one of the best vehicles for guidance precisely because it was flexible and personal. She could hardly mentor a large group of adults).
But he shook his head, eyes narrowed. "No. The entire concept of masters and apprentices is fundamentally flawed," Utakata rejected her argument. "I will never again be an apprentice."
"Well, yeah," Aiko rolled her eyes. "You're too old now. But you could be a master and treat your apprentice in the way that you think they should be treated. That's the dangerous and wonderful part about that relationship—it's so personalized to the individuals who enter into it."
"It gives unnatural authority to one individual." However displeased he was, Utakata seemed passionate enough about this topic that he moved from the deceptively languid posture that hinted he was about to bolt away at any moment to something stiffer and more genuine. Aoba kept his mouth firmly shut, gaze darting between the two. Aiko took that to mean he was going to let her have a try at talking sense into their target. "The master and apprentice relationship is reliant on inequality. It subjugates one to the other and allows the master to overrule the apprentice, who is should be his equal, as a fellow sentient being."
'I'm sensing a lot of baggage here, and can't help but note that he didn't say fellow human,' Aiko observed. 'He must be on very good terms with his bijuu, then. This isn't just about his teacher. It's tied into his state as a jinchuuriki.'
She was sympathetic to that, actually. Making jinchuuriki was completely unethical. Of course, so was murder, and she did plenty of that if the circumstances were right. "I agree that all sentient beings are created equal and should be treated equally, but the primary function of a master-apprentice relationship is not reliant on inequality," Aiko calmly rebutted, letting her eyelids slide mostly shut and observing his reaction.
What the hell, why not try philosophizing at him for a while.
"It is instead intrinsically attached to hierarchy, which is neither good nor bad. We all live in hierarchy, unless we never deal with others." That was a mild jab at his wandering loner act. Judging by the brow he arched, Utakata caught it. Aiko unapologetically gave him a playful little smirk. "The pack can't function without hierarchy. We'd just be wild animals." Her tone was innocent, but the implication was clear.
That jab he actually quirked a smile at, slightly hostile though it was. "And that's not a form of oppression? The strong forcing their worldview and agenda on the weak?"
Aoba looked bored out of his mind.
"Only when perverted," Aiko sighed, as if he was droll for even trying to make that connection. "All interaction is cooperative, at its core."
"Your naivety is charming," Utakata drawled in a tone that said it most certainly was not, looking down on her. "But you are incorrect."
She raised a brow and inserted as much scorn as possible into her next words. "I'm wrong?" Aiko repeated mockingly. "My, that sounds an awful lot like you're falling back on your original statement because you can't think of a rebuttal."
"It's not worth my time." Utakata gave a little jump, and—
"That's not terribly practical," Aiko mumbled under her breath, absolutely flummoxed as he attempted to escape via bubble. It was really pretty, she supposed, if a bit conspicuous. And it wasn't what she thought of first when defensible transport came to mind. It almost had to be permeable, and bubbles weren't exactly known for being sturdy in the first place.
She badly stifled a snort. This shouldn't be amusing, it really shouldn't. It probably indicated that he had a very dangerous, unique set of techniques that he could do terrible things to her delicate person with. In fact, he'd been living as a missing nin for a while, which was a notoriously hard life. He shouldn't be underestimated.
Still...
'Glinda, you're leaving far too early! Don't I get some shiny shoes out this deal?'
Luckily, her captain was able to force down any amusement more easily than she was. Perhaps he just had no sense of humor, but she'd forgive it. Someone had to deal with the fact that their princess was floating away to another castle, after all.
Aoba flung his arms out and what appeared to be (in technical terms) a ginormous cloud of chattering crows flew out and up at Utakata. They easily invaded his personal bubble and harassed him. The strain on his face as the first one broke through the glistening water let the Konoha shinobi know two things.
The bubble was indeed designed to allow physical objects to pass through, probably so that he could attack.
And it would be a pain for him to escape if birds were harassing him the whole time, which would force him to choose between killing the hundreds of annoyances and maintaining his sphere.
He chose to let the bubble pop, flitting to the top of one of the ambitious bushes and starting off west at a dash.
By that time, Aiko had stood up and flitted after him, only letting Aoba leap in front of her as an afterthought. The birds abandoned the bubble—which was good, because the tiny bubbles hidden inside the large burst transport detonated and sent a few unfortunate stragglers drifting to the ground in bloody feathers—and dove at the jinchuuriki from above.
She hoped they'd poo on his hair. Utakata twisted slightly to face them, revealing that he'd pulled some strange flute-like device out of his kimono and lifted it to his lips.
It probably wasn't to play get-away music, so Aiko was ready to bolt to the side regardless of the fact that she would fall further behind when a trail of green, glimmering bubbles shot out from his device at unpleasant speed. Despite her preparation, she felt the whoosh of air disturbed by their passing, and she'd had more time to react than her temporary captain who had been in front of her.
'Holy cow, Aoba is kind of a badass,' she realized, when her eyes registered that her companion had chosen the path less traveled by leaping over the bubbles like he thought he was a bird himself. That left him in the air and unable to dodge for a crucial moment, which could have ended him if the bubbles had been able to change trajectory—but they didn't, and he flipped in the air like a world class gymnast and continued running when he hit the ground without losing any speed. He immediately flung three short blades—Utakata dodged them all without even turning around.
The green bubbles were apparently an acid. Aiko wasn't any sort of expert, of course, but the sizzling sound and nearly immediate collapse of greenery behind them was a pretty good clue. Aiko lost just a foot or so of distance when she had to gather just enough concentration to form two winding chakra chains and trail them down each arm, but Aoba had caught up and moved to knock Utakata down with a swipe to the back of the neck.
With preternatural speed, the jinchuuriki swept around in a rustle of fabric and easily swung under the blow. Aiko could have sworn that he was smirking and his eyes were amused, but it might have been prejudice. His reflexes were inhumanly good. She knew that he would use the change in momentum to swing around Aoba and knock him over from behind, then dart over to her. With both of them immobilized, he would flee before they could regain their bearings. Or try to, at least. If he didn't really mess her up, she'd be able to catch him if she dropped the chains, and she didn't think he actually wanted to kill them. He'd been pulling his punches so far.
Shame that he forgot about the angry dog, who was also inhumanly fast. Hōseki probably weighed only about thirty pounds, but when she strategically applied that weight by latching onto Utakata's right ankle as it twisted without even attempting to slow, it had the humorous effect of bringing him down into a destabilized splitz. He might have recovered from that if Aoba hadn't knocked into him an eighteenth of a second later, wide-mouthed and clearly trying to dodge.
'That looked painful,' Aiko observed cheerfully, pinning Utakata with a messy pool of blunt chains as soon as Aoba's momentum had carried him in a roll of limbs over the now very disgruntled 19-year old jinchuuriki. He made the mistake of jerking, which gave her all the room she needed to slip the chains around his body and wrap him up like a caterpillar.
"Wow, that was embarrassing," she commented loudly. Hōseki spat out her mouthful of flesh and gave a loud bark through teeth that shone with blood.
"Oh, shut up," Aoba groaned, pushing himself up to a seated position. His glasses were crooked enough for her to see that his eyes were dark colored before he hastily adjusted them.
~~~
Aoba coughed uncomfortably and broke eye contact, though Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "It went acceptably," he half-asked, half informed.
"Well, that's convincing," Tsunade drawled sardonically, tapping her fingers against her desk. "Did you have complaints about the way that Aiko did her job?"
That had never happened before, but then again, she only seemed to work with a small group of people. And it wasn't as if that scruffy mentor of hers didn't have his share of infuriating habits. Some of them could have rubbed off.
"No, of course not," Aoba denied professionally. "She located the jinchuuriki and did manage to subdue him after I brought him down."
His tone on the last five-or-so words was odd, but Tsunade was already rolling her eyes and moving on with her life and report. "That's nice. So Terumi has him, huh? He didn't come quietly?"
After he was done, she sent him out and had Aiko come back in. Aoba was enough of a professional that he didn't let on that he was wondering why their debriefings had to be separate, although he certainly was.
Really, there was no reason she needed two debriefings on this mission. But acting as though she did would provide an excuse for ha—
'I need to give the cloak and dagger routine a rest,' Tsunade scolded herself as Aiko slipped in and gave her a curious look. She didn't feel obligated to explain that she'd forgotten she no longer needed to hide things from Danzo. It was just a force of habit not to openly meet with Aiko without an easy explanation. Perhaps it was the topic of this conversation that had moved her mind in that old pattern. "I have a present for you," she wryly informed Aiko.
Aiko was smart enough to be wary. Or maybe she'd just noticed a pattern.
"You're no fun," Tsunade grumbled. Still she pushed her chair back far enough to retrieve a sealed envelope from one of her drawers and held it out. "Well go on, take it." As soon as her hands were free and Aiko was stepping back, running her fingers over the paper consideringly, Tsunade sighed. "I think you need this information right now. It's what I've had put together from Danzo's records," she explained. Aiko's expression instantly became inscrutable, which made her wince a little. It was a reflexive reaction to thinking about Danzo and ROOT, probably. What had been done to that girl?
Those thoughts were useless, so Tsunade waved them away and trudged forward. "Since at least some of them have decided you're their new boss, I thought it prudent that you have some sort of idea who is out there." It might have been funny under other circumstances to think of Danzo's devotees flocking hopelessly to the woman who'd shut him down, but the lingering possibility that someone would figure out she wasn't really Danzo's chosen successor was worrying. When that happened, would anyone figure out that Aiko had been involved in his death? If they did, they'd want her head. She should at least know who to be wary around.
There was no need to explain that to Aiko. The girl clearly knew what was being implied, and gave a grateful bow.
Tsunade waved her off and out of her office, before getting the guilt-driven urge for a drink. She had a piece of hard candy instead, and tried not to think that she'd single-handedly managed to arrange the possibility that a group with about a hundred combatants within the city would want a teenager dead. If news of Aiko's association with ROOT and involvement in its downfall came out, no amount of well-wishing would change the fact that Aiko would be deader than a doornail. Konoha's walls didn't protect against inside threats.
'Maybe I should take Jiraiya's advice,' she thought glumly.
It had seemed impossibly cruel when he'd first suggested it. These ROOT shinobi had been wronged by Konoha's oversight. How could she possibly justify sending them out on dangerous missions and hoping they would die so they weren't her problem anymore?
What she wanted to do was feel them out individually and have them rehabilitated. But there was always the risk that someone would fake compliance and raise the alarm with their fellow ROOT. Danzo was gone, but they still had his procedures to fall back on, and they were a formidably sized force. It would be utterly impossible to go after them all at once, whether it was to help them or arrest them, and it would only take one of them to raise the alarm.
'I don't want to kill them,' Tsunade thought a bit helplessly.
That had never been what she'd wanted. Having Sai around as one of her bodyguards made the guilt from her thoughts even worse. He wasn't a bad kid. Surely there were others who could be saved, and assimilated into Konoha's forces. Maybe they would assimilate on their own, given time.
But on the other hand, maybe they wouldn't, and then she would have an uncontrolled traitorous faction with unknown objectives operating within her village. She really should inform ANBU and the Jounin, so that they at least knew about the threat. But that could only lead to a military clash. Not only would that be a horrific waste of manpower when they needed it badly, but it was the exact situation she had been trying to steer away from.
Having them report to Aiko worked to stall for time, if nothing else. They were used to taking orders. If they thought nothing was wrong, then hopefully they would just naturally be integrated into the village proper when she didn't send them out on excessively militaristic missions (and really, building bases in foreign powers was too aggressive. What had Danzo been thinking? If he hadn't planned to eliminate the local authorities, he would have been found eventually).
She did have to admit that Jiraiya's solution was neatest, provided she could trust them to fulfill whatever missions she sent them out on. A lot more people could die on missions without arousing suspicion than could be disappeared from within the village. If most of the ROOT only knew one other member or so, it might take quite a while to realize what was happening. And their numbers would be significantly lessened when they did.
Tsunade heaved a groan and put the matter aside for now. She wasn't getting anywhere by re-hashing the same problem over and over.
~~~
"You look like the cat that got the cream," Chouji's mother remarked, idly playing with the red stud in her right ear.
Aiko shrugged, before remembering that wasn't considered a particularly polite response. "I went for a good run today," she explained.
Chouji made a face, shaking his head vigorously. "Dad, you have the oddest friends." He gave her a conspiratorial wink to show he meant no harm. "You invite her over for dinner, and she talks of such stomach-turning things," he complained.
"Bah." Choza settled at the head of the table and gave Aiko a faux-stern stare. "Young lady, in this household, we don't speak of such things at the table."
Baffled, she blinked twice before realizing he might be partially serious. "Running?" she clarified.
The only person remotely close to her age gave a solemn nod, looking uncannily like his father when he did so. "Or at least, you can't talk about running for fun. Even Ino doesn't do that."
"Oh, little Ino?" His mother (whose name Aiko had completely forgotten and so was desperately hoping someone would mention soon) queried. "I haven't seen her around here in so long, how is she doing?"
And Chouji flushed a brilliant red, sticking his chopsticks into the table on accident and bumping his fist into his plate. That was bad enough, but then the damn thing flipped and ended up on his lap.
It wasn't particularly kind, but Aiko joined in with snickers when Choza burst out into laughter. Chouji pouted, even as his mother patted his hand sympathetically and tossed him a napkin to clean up his lap.
"Don't make that face, son," Choza managed to chide. "There's nothing wrong with getting flustered by a pretty girl. Just try not to do that in front of Ino-chan."
Chouji was still beet red. His expression implied he would rather do a great many terrible things than have his parents tease him about a pretty girl with an outsider looking in. "Excuse me," he choked out, before fleeing with surprising grace for such a big teen.
Aiko pressed her lips together to keep from smiling and refrained from offering comment.
"Well, we've embarrassed one teenager," Akimichi-san said cheerfully, reaching for some sort of dessert in a sugary frosting. "How may we make you uncomfortable today, Aiko-chan? Are there any cute boys in your life?"
"I plead the right not to implicate myself in a court of law," Aiko deadpanned. Of course, that wasn't a thing here, so the looks she got in return were odd. At least no one pursued it further.
"That aside, have you decided about what you're going to do about the small council seat?" Choza changed the subject. "You're going to have to resign from the large council, even if you choose to defer this offer."
"I'll somehow soldier on without that on my calendar."
Choza's lips twitched, but he waited patiently to a response to his actual question.
Aiko hesitated for just a moment, feeling oddly like this was a test, and then bit her lip for just a moment. "I think I'm going to accept the appointment," she admitted with just a hint of grouchiness. "If I really hate it, I can make Naruto or Karin my representative later. But it would be churlish to reject a good-faith offer. Politically speaking, it wouldn't look good for me to turn my nose up at something that a lot of clans covet. I'd hardly make any friends that way. Besides, there are actually contentious issues involving Uzumaki, and it would be irresponsible to abandon a possible tool to advocate for the others."
Naruto was an obvious issue, of course, as the jinchuuriki. Some people were never going to like him, and even those who did might still see him as a weapon before he was a person.
But he wasn't the only problem. Karin was a foreigner—no one liked those very much. She'd had enough trouble at the hospital with people refusing to work with her to make that clear.
And then there was Hinata… Kami, where to start there? She had no idea how she was going to sit in meetings with Hyuuga Hiashi and not implode from the sheer awkwardness of it all, but she was going to have to figure something out. Hinata had a tougher skin than she'd had when they were children, luckily, but she wasn't immune to the fact that a lot of people disliked her for snubbing the Hyuuga in exchange for a rather disreputable family.
In other words, she had a gaggle of silly bastards who needed someone to look out for them. Besides, the small council hardly ever met except in emergencies when the Hokage wasn't available to give direction. Considering the potential gain available, the commitment required would be small.
Choza looked unduly proud at her responsible decision. "That's very mature," he praised quietly. A genuine smile seemed to peel ten years off his face. "I think that you have a pretty tight grasp of the mentality a clan head needs."
Aiko attempted a smile, but it probably came across as vaguely nauseous. At the look her poor job garnered, she hastily tried to explain. She didn't want him to think she was ungrateful for his tutoring, but, "I don't know that I really feel like a clan head, or even a clan. I know that the Uzumaki are a real clan," she explained, waving her hands apologetically. "I just… I don't understand how I fit in context with that history. I didn't grow up with it. and what I have now hardly feels like a clan. It feels more like I'm taking care of my little brother and his friends. I don't mind being responsible for them, but it doesn't seem like…" she paused, struggling for words.
Sympathetically, Choza helped her, suggesting, "It just doesn't feel quite legitimate, does it? I can imagine that it might be hard to come to terms with a history you're unfamiliar with. You don't have the same sense of where the clan has been and where it's going that you should." Empathy was written in his features, and his voice lowered as if he was sharing a secret. "I don't know that I would feel any differently, if I didn't have that history as guidance. Perhaps you need to spend some time familiarizing yourself with your roots. The Uzumaki taijutsu and fuinjutsu are lost, and the names of people you've never met will hardly be inspiring, but it might help to see how they lived. That sort of thing."
Aiko smiled politely, but she didn't think reading the sparse histories available was really going to help. Konoha had a fair bit of information on how the Uzumaki had interacted with them—records of services rendered, famous friendships, and things of that ilk—but nothing that could tell her what it had been like to be a clan.