Yamato knew this as well as she did. He must be banking on a miraculous escape or resigned to torture and death. The traditional answer would be to try to make him decide that betraying Konoha was worth it in exchange for retaining his life and limbs, but she wasn't interested in that. It probably wouldn't work, and it'd be a huge bummer besides.
Resentfully, Aiko eyed the top of his fluffy head as he continued to fake unconsciousness. He'd been awake since Mei had secured his ankles to the legs of his chair. He'd probably decided his best chance to escape was after she and Mei left. Which, no. She forbid it.
She picked up the glass of cold water and took a sip. Aiko made a face. Tap water from someone else's well never tasted quite right, unless you were really thirsty. She looked around to see if Mei was watching- she wasn't, Mei was still outside the room.
Aiko leaned over and upended the water on Yamato's head. He came up sputtering, looking at her with shocked indignation.
"You are a shit spy," Aiko accused immediately, because there didn't seem to be any point to dicking around. She set the glass out of his reach and then crossed her arms as she settled back in her chair. "If you're going to infiltrate a foreign country, for god's sake, don't get caught."
He snorted. "That's hypocritical." Yamato shook his head, sending water flying. His nose twitched. "Konoha knew when you entered the borders. I made it all the way to your center of administration."
Aiko made an indignant sound. "That's hardly the same thing!" She leaned forward. "I wasn't sneaking in. The next time I need to sneak into Konoha, I'll tell you so you have an accurate point of comparison. Because honestly, your security is terrible and you'd never know I was there." She tilted her head back and mockingly mimicked an ANBU callsign giving the all-clear.
His expression didn't change. Well, perhaps he looked even more mutinous. "I don't know why I'm arguing with you." He looked away. "Whose to say you're even who you look like?"
"That depends on who I look like," Aiko countered nonsensically.
"You should be in Konoha," Yamato accused. He was inconspicuously working his arms, trying to loosen his bonds.
She considered that for a moment, and nodded. "True," she agreed. Truer than he realized.
"But you're not," he stressed, as though he was proving some point.
Aiko looked around the room, and then at herself. "I'm not?" she asked mildly. "Isn't that the Hokage monument?" She widened her eyes at some water damage in the wallpaper. "It's everything I dreamed of and more."
His face twitched. "You're not in Konoha," Yamato repeated slowly.
"Okay," Aiko agreed. "You're the expert here. I'm not in Konoha."
"But you should be," Yamato said triumphantly. "You checked in 6 days ago."
"Oh." Aiko looked up, pretending to consider that. "I must be in Konoha, then."
He made a strangled sound.
She cracked a smile, warming up to the conversation. "This is fun," Aiko decided. She tapped a finger against her face. "I'm glad I got out of bed for this, whether that bed might have been in Kirigakure or in Konohagakure."
Yamato's eyes narrowed. "Where, more specifically, might that bed in Kirigakure be?"
Aiko faulted. She opened her mouth. She closed it. She looked at him suspiciously. "Is that a line? I'm flattered, but honestly now's not a good-"
"No!" he burst out, pinkening. "Why are you interrogating me? Not three months ago, you claimed you had no allegiance to any state. Who are you really?" Yamato looked like he wasn't entirely certain he was the one tied up for interrogation. He leaned forward aggressively until metal clanked. "You're a hunter-nin. You were in Wave for Zabuza, and you're in Konoha for another target."
She paused.
'Who on earth would I want from Konoha?' Aiko wondered.
He looked victorious.
'No one. There's no one who would be that important to Kiri there. Bit of a self-centered conclusion, Konoha.'
Her face contorted in an effort not to laugh. "You got me," Aiko said solemnly. "I'm a hunter-nin. Here, in Konoha. It's getting difficult to keep up with where we are, though. Could you maybe help me draw a map? I have a crayon here somewhere."
He gave her a disgusted look. "No, that's not it then. Who are you?"
Aiko gave him a guileless smile and adjusted her posture to look as relaxed as possible. "I'm a nobody, really."
Yamato snorted. Then his gaze darted to the side, hearing the footsteps that Aiko had already detected. Mei had been standing there for a few seconds.
The door slide open. Mei took three sharp steps in and set down a full coffee set for one on the table. "Mizukage-sama," she said politely. Then she backed away, as if she hadn't just ruined Aiko's fun.
'She did that on purpose.'
Aiko was left speechless, watching the door as Mei slid it open again. She only mustered, "You're demoted!" at the last second.
"Of course, Mizukage-sama," Mei agreed blandly. She bowed and shut the door. She walked away with casual heel-clicks on the tile, unlike her stealthy approach earlier.
Aiko took a deep breath. She rubbed at her temples. She said to no one, "That woman is out to get me." She looked to Yamato. "You ruin a person's career just once, and they never let it go." Then she poured herself a coffee and filled the cup with 4 cubes of sugar and two of the little cups of syrup sweetener. Then she added some milk.
Yamato made a disgusted noise.
She frowned at him, holding the cup covetously against her chest. "What," Aiko said. It wasn't a question, because she didn't want his opinion.
He rolled his eyes. "Are you going to throw that at me, too? If I get an opinion on this, my opinion is no."
"Because it's hot?" Aiko guessed. She wouldn't want hot liquid thrown at her.
"Because I'll never get all that sugar out of my hair," he countered. "You eat like an unsupervised child." His expression was insolently pleased. Of course it was. She'd walked into that.
Her fingers tightened on the cup. She wanted to consider it, but she couldn't. That would be painful. No one should have hot liquid thrown at them. After a long moment, she rolled her eyes. "Throwing this at you would be a waste of sugar." Defiantly, she took a long drink.
She didn't like the look that Yamato was giving her when she looked back at him. He looked like he hadn't bought that.
'He was provoking me on purpose to see what I would do. He's making judgments about my personality. He's probably assumed I'm not likely to actually hurt him personally. Which does rhetorically defang me, a bit.'
Typical. Well, he was a consummate professional. He hadn't been distracted from his desire to gain information, either, even when she tried to put him off-balance. Aiko pursed her mouth and considered the problem. She wasn't willing to torture him, she wasn't willing to let him go to ruin her plans, and she didn't want to poison her future relations with Konoha.
She couldn't afford to keep talking with him, really. She was baffling him with bullshit, but she didn't have unlimited time. Even if she did- the more time they spent together, the better he'd get at extracting information from her. She had to pass him off to someone else, and she had to find a way to keep him stuck in Kirigakure that wouldn't piss Konoha off too much.
There really weren't a lot of reasons it might be plausible for a shinobi to spend time long-term in another nation's capital. Just the one, really, and it hadn't applied to Konoha and Kiri in a long time.
Well. Where there was one rhetorical option, that had to be her solution, no matter how stupid it was. And boy, was it ever stupid.
"I'm glad we had this talk," Aiko said, making her decision. She gave him a painfully false smile, thinking of Sai. It must have worked- Yamato recoiled instinctively. "I'm terribly sorry about the misunderstanding, but I'm sure you know how it is. People sneaking around get brought to interrogation. Bad habit, we'll work on it."
He gave her an odd look.
"Actually, I quite look forward to working with you," Aiko said instead of anything that made sense, tilting her head. "You'll be a nice addition to Kirigakure. I can only assume that Konohagakure sent you as a diplomatic ambassador for a long-term assignment, we haven't replaced the old one. For some reason. Probably paperwork."
(The permanent ambassador at residence in Kirigakure had been vacant since Kirigakure had the ambassador assassinated 9 years ago, actually.)
She kicked back in her chair. "Shame that you forgot the paperwork and that it's traditional to make an appointment before you come to visit administration to begin your work. You'll have the finest suite available while we get around to verifying your credentials. You'll understand that you must remain under supervision until the mistake with your paperwork has been cleared up. I'm so embarrassed. I'll get that resolved as soon as possible. A month. Two. Three, tops."
Yamato was looking at her like she was an alien. That was strangely comforting. Good: he was the reason she was up at such a ridiculous hour. If she couldn't be happy, he shouldn't be either.
Aiko stood and smiled, nodding down at him over her coffee cup. "Sorry about the mix-up, I'm sure you'll have a great time. Tomorrow you'll start your full tour. I have just the guide in mind- Mei, you remember Mei, I'm sure." Her smile turned vindictive. "She'll be happy to show you the cultural highlights of our fine city."
"Your city is a mess," Yamato said blankly. "Half of it's under construction."
She gave him an admonishing look. "That's a rude thing to say, isn't it?" She clicked her tongue. "Don't hurt Mei's feelings, I'm sure she'll be so happy when I tell her I'm assigning her to you. Which I can do," Aiko said dryly, "Because I am the Mizukage, as she so helpfully pointed out."
'Repeating it like that makes it sound like I'm lying,' she noted. 'Good. That's fine. It'll keep him guessing. He should know as little as possible, until I know he can't do any harm by sharing information.'
He made a noise like a teakettle. She reached over to pat at his hand, thought better of it, and the withdrew her hand. She nodded officiously. "Welcome to Kirigakure, Yamato." When he looked up sharply, she gave him a pointed little smile. "Or is it Tenzou?"
Confusion was now fighting with fear on his expression. That wasn't fun to see, exactly, but it'd sure give him plenty to think about. More specifically, it would give him plenty to think about that would occupy him with dead-ends instead of something more productive.
She swept out without waiting for a reply.
As soon as she stepped out, two masked nin bowed and went into the room she'd exited. Mei was waiting in the next room with a mutinous expression.
"It's not me being petty," Aiko explained without waiting for the accusation. Mei's eyebrows ticked up. "I don't trust anyone else to be able to contain him long-term. Yamato is well-suited to fighting Utakata to assign him instead of you. We can't afford to let Yamato escape before we're officially allied with Konoha, but we don't need resentment poisoning our relations. We have to treat him fairly well."
There was a pause. Then Mei nodded. Her expression was inscrutable.
Aiko eyed the older woman and figured that was the best she'd get. "He could be very useful," she added. "If you present things well, he may be amenable to helping with reconstruction. He's a very sympathetic personality, and talented with mokuton. You won't be able to trick him into adding to Kirigakure's military capacity or anything like that, but public works- he might even enjoy the occupation. Establish some rapport, and then walk him past the camps full of orphans and homeless we've got," Aiko said bitterly. "He might jump to offer."
She didn't like showing off that weakness, or asking for pity. But pride came second to what could be beneficial. She wouldn't be a leader who cut off her nose to spite her face.
Wha-
Someone was signaling via hiriashin again. Now that she was fully conscious, it was easier to identify the source- definitely Konoha.
'I told them not to bother me unless they needed to. So. It's probably Orochimaru or Gaara.'
"Fuck," Aiko groaned. "I really don't think I deserved this kind of day. I'm a good person, aren't I?'
Then she realized Mei was the only other person in the room. She did not want Mei to answer that question.
"I have to go."
'I can't be seen. The team would get disqualified and this would have all been for nothing.'
Mei's mouth opened in question, but Aiko was already flying through the handsigns for Jiraiya's chameleon jutsu.
"The genin need me," Aiko half-explained. She pulled the disguise on and moved to the problematic seal within an instant.
The stench of blood. Heavy breathing. One, two,- six people, including her team. Also including Gaara. That wasn't ominous or anything.
…And that was all that she could tell, because, oh yeah, it was dark and her vision was shit.
Aiko blinked on the Rinnegan, hidden behind the genjutsu, and took an instant to breathe in the tableau.
Yuusaku's back was to her in a defensive posture- it must have been him with the presence of mind to call for her. The other two boys were -
She twisted.
-they were behind and to the left. One of them was bleeding heavily. Figured- it looked like Temari's work. Streaks of blood painted the ground in front of them.
She couldn't see over Yuusaku's shoulder, but when she leaned to the side she could tell that Gaara was staring at her team, eyes glinting in the dark. Something was shifting inside the gourd he carried on his back. It sounded more like a cat waking up on a bedspread than murder-dust stirring, but it was probably not a cat on a bedspread.
'He is the type to carry a grudge after all,' Aiko noted, somewhere in the back of her mind. Then she hooked her hand into Yuusaku's collar and pulled him away to the first place she could think of before he could react.
She should have taken him to the hotel room in Konoha, but she was standing in front of Mei again. Aiko dropped the genjutsu and held her hands up into a new seal before the startled genin could whip around to look at her. He turned just in time to see her henge into his face, taking an instant longer to try to nod to the disheveled state of his equipment in her disguise.
Then she was back to the forest, ten feet to the right of where she'd been before. That hadn't been intentional, but it was good. It'd take the focus further from Keisuke and Ryuusei.
Gaara blinked at her, registering her new location much faster than the others. She didn't wait for any of the genin to catch on to what had happened- she ran at Kankuro. He didn't even see her before she hit him, sending him skidding to the ground and crashing into a jagged shrub. Temari stepped at her, fan splayed, but Aiko kicked her legs out from under the girl, twisted, and was on top of her back before any of the genin could react.
Temari grunted as her head was yanked backwards. Aiko pressed her foot a little harder into the space between the teen's shoulder blades and tightened her grip around a spiky blonde ponytail.
Well. She had Gaara's undivided attention. Her genin were inching away, Ryuusei supporting Keisuke's weight in a way that implied the news was bad.
'You can't fuck with my team, assholes. I don't even like them that much, but they're mine.'
She felt her lips pressed into an ugly expression. "This is downright unfriendly," she commented. She directed her words toward Temari and gave an unfriendly tug of her own, not appreciating the damage to her genin. "I think you might have hurt my teammates' feelings, Suna-san."
Temari's hand scrabbled on her fan, but she had no leverage to swing it. It moved a few inches, digging into the moss coating the forest floor.
Kankuro had regained his feet and was eyeing her warily.
"You should go," Aiko advised. She didn't think they'd take her up on it. But it would draw way too much attention if someone beat the shit out of Gaara.
Gaara swiped, a fist of sand that would have broken bones if it had connected. Aiko let go of Temari to leap out of the way. Just to be ostentatious, she did a flip while she dodged. Because really, no matter how big and bad Gaara thought he was, he was fucking 13. This was ridiculous. He needed to be put in detention and given a hug. There was no call for these dramatics.
'I should end this interaction and make sure it doesn't happen again. I can't beat Gaara without risking interfering with Suna's invasion plans, so I just need to separate the groups.'
"You're a little stormcloud, aren't you," Aiko observed, nodding at the darkness of Gaara's expression. "Look, I'm not interested in fighting you. I'd thought that your team would try for the record. Why are you wasting your time? You could have been to the tower already."
His eyes were furious. She knew what was coming before he made a motion. Aiko let her gaze dart over to the genin on the ground, calculated the difference, and used the Konoha-classic wood substitution jutsu when the sand coffin came crashing down like a fist of a god. There was a fraction of an instant when the jutsu closed on her where she had time to be surprised at the sensation of sand digging into her skin. It wasn't pain, exactly, not at that point. It was more of a scratchy all-body hug.
Well. It wasn't a good place to linger, most likely.
Ryuusei had just opened his mouth to scream when she landed in a crouch behind him, grabbed both genin, and removed them from the altercation altogether. Fuck it. If the hiraishin jump was caught on camera there'd be some questions, but Konoha couldn't force for answers. They'd have to wonder.
When she let go of Keisuke's arm, something tacky and warm squished in her fingers. He moaned in shock. Aiko grimaced at the feeling and stood. She wanted to shake her hands, but that'd just send it splattering.
Ryuusei rounded on her. "What the fuck was that?" He reached out and gave her a shove. Bemused, she let it happen. It'd been meant for someone heavier than she was, so Aiko had to step backwards quickly to keep her balance. The teenager was paper-white. "That wasn't the plan- that was-"
"Ryuusei," Aiko interrupted. "Let's take care of Keisuke and then argue."
She could see the instant he realized that she wasn't his teammate. Actually, it was a bit irritating to see that flash of terror on the face of someone she'd just saved. She gave him a pointed smile. His mouth dropped shut. He ducked his head.
'I suppose that explains why Yuusaku was the one to call for help. One man was down, and one is more afraid of me than the Ichibi. Fucking idiot. I told them about Gaara specifically.'
"Yuusaku?" Keisuke's voice was lower, disoriented. "What happened?"
"I used shunshin to take us away," Aiko lied calmly. That was highly improbable for a genin- she couldn't do that, actually, but then she'd never had reason to hone her shunshin to those heights. It wasn't impossible, strictly speaking. Just improbable. "I don't think we should fight them. Let's hurry and get through this forest so that we don't encounter them again. Remind me what scroll we have?"
"Wha…" Keisuke swayed. She steadied his shoulders unthinkingly, and then thought better of it to gently lay him down flat. "Don't you have it?"
His tone was odd. She cast a look at Ryuusei.
He blinked slowly. A finger twitched towards his own hip holster. Then to the ground.
Ah. Keisuke realized that she was acting oddly for Yuusaku, but didn't know it was Aiko yet. He was testing her. He wasn't half-bad, if he could try something like that while bleeding out.
Aiko felt her lips quirk into a smile. "Did you hit your head? I need a look at your arm now. Ryuusei, med kit." She kept up a running commentary as she cut off his sleeve and the arm-bands securing hidden weaponry. "I was testing you. Ryuusei has the earth scroll, obviously."
He relaxed, pliant in her grip. "I want an explanation later," Keisuke slurred. "You've been holding out on us."
"Hmm." She let that hang in the air. He'd probably figure it out later, but no way was she going to verbally acknowledge that she wasn't a genin in this forest. She didn't sense anyone, but that didn't necessarily mean shit. Especially since it was trapped with cameras and sound equipment. "Good job earlier," Aiko said. She assumed, anyway. Keisuke had probably tried to take a blow for his teammates, judging by the bloodspray and his position earlier. Aiko hissed in sympathy when she saw the full extent of the problem. Temari could be vicious.
'But I didn't expect her to be ready to make a killing blow. Is she blooded already? It could also have been a miscalculation. She is just a genin. Or she could have assumed it wouldn't matter what she did, since Gaara wouldn't let them live anyway.'
"What?" Keisuke asked when the silence was a little too long.
Aiko blinked. Well. "She clipped your artery. You'll probably be fine, as long as we get it taken care of."
She'd survived a lot worse. But he was going to need medical attention. Like, as soon as possible, by someone a lot more competent than she was.
Keisuke startled. Ah. That probably wasn't something you should say to a patient, was it?
Whatever. She wasn't interviewing for the hospital.
Aiko held him down. "Stay still, we want your heartrate down." Businesslike, she cleaned the wound- that she could do. Then she bound it tight. When she was done, she levered him to his feet and guided the arm to his chest. "Put pressure on it with the other hand," Aiko instructed.
Keisuke gave her a wounded look, obviously confused. "Why?"
'So you're distracted and feel like you're doing something.'
Instead of answering, Aiko made a grabby hand motion in Ryuusei's direction. "Water," she commanded.
He fumbled for a moment, then passed it over. Aiko held it up to Keisuke's mouth and gave him a stern look until he started drinking.
Actually.
"Ryuusei, help him get hydrated," Aiko ordered. She let him take her place. "I'm going to scout out a team to get a scroll from. We're going to the tower tonight."
She cast her gaze up, checking the moonlight.
Hmm. What was it, five am?
No wonder her team was flagging, if they hadn't camped down for the night. Most teams would have, Aiko decided.
'They probably thought they could make it through the forest in one go,' Aiko realized. 'That's the only reason not to sleep the first night.'
Prideful twits. They weren't that good. They were too incautious- it was the same hubris that had compelled them to think they knew better than she did about setting up camp in Konoha's forests on the way in.
But it was better to stumble on Gaara then to have him find you sleeping, she supposed. The first time around, the Suna team would have been finished with the test about an hour ago, smashing the test record by five hours. They'd gone looking for her team, probably because she'd hurt their pride.
Annoying.
Also entirely her fault. It was fitting that she fix this.
But, of course the nearest team she found was a Konoha team. Aiko frowned at the genin on watch, safely ensconced on an overhanging branch outside of the barrier of their traps.
Kiba was dangerously close to nodding off, one hand curled in Akamaru's fur. Hinata was curled up nearby, nearly touching Shino.
'Puppies,' Aiko thought, and felt something tug in her chest.
They shouldn't be in this situation, really. They'd get out of it alright, but…
'Hinata fights Gaara,' Aiko remembered suddenly. 'She's really not strong enough to beat him.'
Well. She survived that- barely. Of course, that was the catalyst towards her ousting as Hyuuga heir, Aiko realized. After that, she'd been an outcast. After that, she'd started staying with the Uzumaki household. It worked out in the end.
But.
There wasn't an Uzumaki household here. There was no Aiko to take on duties as the most farcical, technical sort of clanhead. There wasn't even Karin, as far as she'd seen. Not yet. No one would trust Naruto, a genin, to watch over a foreign genin once she was converted. He certainly couldn't protect Hinata socially and politically.
Shit.
Well.
'I might actually be doing Hinata the biggest favor of her life, if I keep her from that tournament. And the opportunity dropped into my lap.'
Well. If that was decided, where would the scroll be? Aiko sucked on the inside of her cheek. During the day, it could be in anyone's possession. But at night? Kiba probably had it, since he was awake-passing it off to the conscious teammate would be the most logical choice. And a team that contained Shino would probably take that route.
She eyed the genin in question closely. His chest was moving slowly. Every once in a while, a muscle tensed in his jaw, as if he was nearly grinding his teeth. He had his oversized coat… and Akamaru was resting on his lap, instead of inside the coat as was customary. No one would think that odd unless they knew Kiba's habit of cuddling his dog. So. The scroll was inside Kiba's jacket, and Akamaru had wiggled out because the metal-edged scroll was uncomfortable.
God, Kiba was actually sleeping, wasn't he?
No, not quite, Aiko determined on a closer look. He was just relying far too much on his ears and letting his eyes rest. There was a very good chance that would lead to him actually falling asleep, leaving the team unprotected.
He didn't hear her touchdown in the camp. He didn't startle when she leaned over him. His eyes flew open when she yanked his coat zipper down and snatched the scroll in one smooth motion. Akamaru barked in the same instant, picking up on her scent as she left her position downwind. Their eyes met, inches apart. Kiba yelled something incomprehensible that had Shino all but flying upright, winging a shuriken at her.
Aiko was already gone. She paused for a moment in the undergrowth, listening to the team awaken and panic. She shook her head.
Well. Kurenai must be a good teacher- that team had some sense. It had been impossible to grab the scroll without alerting the one guarding it. They couldn't be faulted for failing to realize a jounin would be the one coming for their prize. That was ridiculously unfair, really.
'But life isn't fair,' Aiko thought with the deep satisfaction who was often on the other side of that unfortunate truth. She flickered back to her team before she took a good look at the scroll.
It was another earth scroll.
Aiko leaned her head back and took a deep breath. Goddammit. She'd wasted half an hour surveilling them and gotten a useless scroll out of the deal.
"You're back already?" Ryuusei whispered. He was holding one arm around his teammate. Concerned, Aiko realized that Keisuke's eyes were closed and that he was shuddering. Not good.
Wordlessly, Aiko held up the scroll and watched the genin's eyes fall.
"He's cold." Ryuusei sounded frightened. "What do I do?"
Aiko gritted her teeth. "Start a fire," she ordered. "It'll draw attention if anyone is near, but he needs the heat. I'm hurrying. Call me if you need help." Wait. Her team had been so slow at setting up camp. It wouldn't be any faster with one worried genin doing the work. She hesitated a moment, and then scrambled to help start the campfire. It was a hasty, ugly attempt that wouldn't burn more than an hour, but she lit it on the first try and hauled Keisuke closer. He was clammy.
Shit.
Aiko closed her eyes and concentrated on the closet chakra signatures. It took some straining- she'd never been good at this without using rain. She could do that, but there was 'that person is suspiciously advanced for a genin' and 'there's no fucking way that's a genin.' Demonstrating more than one high-level skill was veering sharply into the second territory.
"Ten minutes south," she decided a full minute later. She cast one last look at the teenagers. "I'll hurry. Keep him warm and be ready to move out."
She couldn't take them all the way to the tower with hiraishin, and she couldn't be with them when they went in. Someone would verify their identities.
'Get the right scroll, bring those two within easy distance of the tower, and then switch myself out for Yuusaku so that he can get them to the medic,' Aiko determined. 'I have to go fast, and without letting anything potentially incriminating get caught on camera.'
The cameras had probably caught at least some of what she'd done so far already. Anyone who watched it would know that her actions were far above what her genin should be capable of, even though they would mistake her hiraishin for shunshin. Poor Yuusaku would be in the hotseat when Konoha decided he was not a genin level shinobi. But everyone stacked the teams for these events. As long as that was all that Konoha could assume, they'd be fine.
They'd be just fine.
~~~
Thump. Thump. Thump-thump.
Aiko dug her head a little deeper into the blankets, but her eyes were wide open. She scowled. She considered pretending she'd heard nothing.
Thump. Thump.
She considered killing whoever was on the other side of the door, dropping the body in the ocean, and going back to sleep.
Thump-thump.
Ugh. "Just a minute," she called without caring that her words would probably be unintelligibly muffled. Then she struggled out of bed. She wasn't dressed for company, but that was fine. Maybe it'd make them feel uncomfortable and leave faster.
Barefoot, messy-haired, and in her underpants, Aiko opened the door. "What," she said in her most uninviting tone. She'd had a long night. She deserved sleep.
The chuunin on the other side was completely unfazed. He seemed a bit bored, even. "Your genin cleared the second exam," he said. "It was a record, actually."
She allowed smugness to creep into her expression- she couldn't fake surprise.
"They've been seen by a medic, but you need to see the person responsible for their treatment and sign off." He sniffed, as if he had a runny nose. "Liability."
Her mouth was a flat line of disapproval. It might have been better for her to mimic concern, but it was too late for that now.
What he was saying didn't make sense. It seemed benign to ask a minor's temporary guardian to approve of medical paperwork and waive responsibility, but it shouldn't be necessary. No one would take on the liability of hosting an exam if the participants' home villages hadn't already waived all right to complain about damages and deaths beforehand. What were they trying to pull? She'd been a coordinator for this event. Foreigners had been quickly appraised of deaths and life-threatening injuries on their teams, but her students hadn't had anything like that when she last saw them.
'Either they were attacked after the exam, or Konoha is trying something with me. I should be careful with whatever it is they want me to agree to.'
She kept the calculation off her face. "Where do I go and when?"
"They're in the tower, of course," the chuunin said breezily. "Please hurry." His chakra roiled, and she sensed the shunshin before he appeared to break into a cloud of leaves.
Aiko slammed the door shut, but some leaves still got in. Perfect. Near-violently, she went about getting ready for the day, still considering possibilities. She really couldn't see what they'd get out of this, unless they were going to try to trick her into signing something, or if they wanted to surprise her with something at the tower and needed an excuse to get her there. She pulled on the uniform that she'd eschewed last night, grimacing at the weight of the armor. It put her off-balance. She took a few minutes to smear concealer under her eyes and apply mascara, so that her lack of sleep was less obvious. She frowned into the mirror for a second, wrestling with the sensation that she was missing something, but nothing came to mind.
So Aiko hurried across town to see what was going on, jumping fences but mostly sticking to the most obvious, conventional route to training ground 44. Aiko pulled up short when she saw the figure leaning against the fence, waiting for her.
Kakashi took a moment to look up, apparently as exhausted as she felt. "Ah," he drawled. She forced her feet to carry her onward, and kept her face impassive. "Did you fall back to sleep? At least you made it on your own."
She was instantly on guard. She knew Kakashi- she knew how he thought, how he worked, and that he was provoking her for a purpose. And that, from him- that was him inviting her to walk into a verbal trap. If she responded with something that came to mind, like, "Why would I need help to find a place less than an hour from my hotel," he would say something like-
fuck.
'They didn't specify what tower,' Aiko realized with horror. 'I'm a foreigner, remember? I should have assumed that chuunin was referring to the Hokage tower, unless I knew that my students were supposed to go to another tower as the conclusion for their test. They hadn't told me that yet. The teacher's aren't invited there until the end of the test.'
FUCK.
She'd just confirmed that she knew a lot more about Konoha than she should- or that she'd been in the forest of Death last night. Yeah. Someone had definitely seen some incriminating footage, or at least wondered at the fact that her team had been the first into the tower despite not having been flagged as a team to watch.
Kakashi was still waiting for her to respond.
So she opened her mouth and pitched her voice into a chirp. "You look tired this morning, Hatake-san. Did you have a late night?" Aiko intentionally made her expression as guileless and sweet as possible, because he'd find that really irritating.
"No." Then he looked away, apparently bored. Conversation was over.
She couldn't see his frustration at being brushed-off, but she knew it was there. And that was about all she was likely to get. He'd tricked information out of her (and it probably had been him, this had Kakashi written all over it), but at least she wasn't giving him the satisfaction of rubbing it in her face.
Sure enough, he maintained sullen silence all the way to the tower, where he guided her without meeting any of the genin still struggling in the forest.
Keisuke was fine. She signed the paperwork presented to her. She pretended not to know what had actually been important that morning.
Inside, she seethed. That was a stupid, rookie mistake, and she'd walked right into it. Now she was left with two options that weren't great.
Should she hope Konoha thought that she was overly familiar with the city- perhaps that she'd been spying on them- or hope that they conclude she had cheated?
When she was safely ensconced in her hotel room once again (the genin needed to remain in the tower until the exam was completed) she bit at her lip.
They probably suspected that she knew how to locate the tower because she'd helped her team cheat. Their lack of trust in her integrity was, of course, an arrow in her heart, but she'd somehow soldier on. Of course she'd cheated. Duh.
It's not like they could do shit about that.
Cheating was expected at these sort of things. They could suspect her of anything they wanted- unless she confessed or they could prove it by catching her in the act, that wouldn't cause any complications like getting her team expelled. Boohoo, Konoha would conclude that someone from Kirigakure wasn't a terribly honest person. It wasn't exactly a shocking conclusion.
The real problems were that they would want to know how and why she had evaded her supervision and interfered in the exam.
They'd tighten surveillance of her, that's for sure, now that they could be reasonably certain that she'd snuck past them somehow. But they wouldn't figure it out. Probably. They might guess, but she doubted it- Konoha was too caught up in the mythology of the fourth Hokage to admit that if he'd invented something like the hiraishin, then so could someone else.
…It wasn't like she had re-invented it, but the possibility was still real. And they definitely wouldn't come to the conclusion that Jiraiya had given her the notes to reconstruct and modify it, so that first thing was a close to the truth as they could reasonably be expected to get.
All she could really do was wait it out, then, and try not to do anything suspicious again. There was more chance she'd get caught doing something she shouldn't if they were on guard. As for the other matter-
'The simplest explanation for my motivation is the best,' Aiko decided. 'Mizugakure needs the boost to their reputation from a sterling chuunin exam showing. That's relatively benign, and also true. It's better than Konoha assuming I'm pulling the same kind of shit as Suna or Oto. They probably wouldn't think that waiting for someone else's invasion is much better than participating in it.'
So. She'd work to give that impression, then.
The other thing that she needed to address… Aiko grimaced.
'People will expect the team that broke the record to be better than my genin are. I painted a target on Yuusaku especially by using his face. If they perform badly or even just average… it will look beyond bizarre, and undermine the fiction that I'm doing everything and anything to impress prospective clients.'
She was going to hold her breath and hope like fucking hell that they made it through the elimination round, if there was one, and that she could somehow whip them into shape.
Or help them cheat. Whatever. She wasn't picky.