'Is it really necessary to have me approve office supply acquisition?' Aiko wondered, scanning through the lists for anything that seemed odd. She wasn't saying it was extraneous paperwork, because she really didn't know. Maybe it was good procedure to know what had been done with public funds even in such small accounts, so that larger possibilities for abuse didn't go unnoticed. Or maybe it was just that the public funds were currently so low that it was a reasonable exception in procedure.
She rubbed at her eyes.
The purchases seemed to be in order, anyway, for a small office. She really needed to get some staff assigned to help with organization. But now wasn't the time to take anyone away from other projects. Everyone was overworked and everything was time sensitive, so the fact that she was overworked wasn't an excuse to take resources from anything else going on.
She looked up sharply before she knew why.
Nothing was outwardly wrong- the genin were still working on their warm-up exercises, and dawn had nearly broken over Konoha, bringing with it enough light for her to work by.
But there was something coming. She could feel it. Wary, Aiko stood.
There was a rustle in the trees, an ominous wind that pulled smaller branches to the point of bending.
"I HAVE COME FOR A REMATCH!"
Aiko closed her eyes. She put her face in her hands. She did not look at where she knew Gai-san would be standing, teeth gleaming in the sun and expression one of absolute determination.
"Sensei?"
Ryuusei's voice was impossibly meek.
She sighed. "Keep working," she told the genin. There was nothing to do for it, so she faced the jounin head-on.
'He brought Lee. He came to challenge me, and he brought Lee. Why? Surely he doesn't bring Lee around with him all the time. He certainly doesn't always bring his students when he wants to compete against Kakashi.'
"Shinobi-san," Aiko greeted. "Have we met?"
His face fell, just for a moment. "Surely you remember me!" Gai was certainly standing in a heroic manner, backlit marvelously by the rising sun. "The last we met, you defeated me in a foot race. But I have been training hard, shinobi-san! I've come to regain my honor. Perhaps through another competition. What do you say?"
'He's either teaching Lee a lesson on perseverance, or he's trying to make me regard this interaction as harmless and dismiss him as a threat,' Aiko decided. 'Probably both. Gai is clever, and he'd be able to give a very good gauge of my abilities after even one spar. He's not doing this for the hell of it, although he probably would spar me for the sheer fun of it.'
"Ano…" She tugged on the end of her braid. "Sorry. I don't recall. And I'm pretty busy anyway, I don't think I have time in my schedule for a competition. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to say no. Perhaps another time."
She was, in fact, too busy to get into a spar that would quite possibly put her in the hospital. But that would look like a bald-faced lie to Gai-san. She regretted that a bit.
To his credit, he looked only a little downfallen. "Another time, then!" Gai gave a bow. "I will try again another day. Lee! We must begin our training."
"Yes, Gai-sensei," Lee agreed cheerfully. "Goodbye, Kiri-san!"
Aiko waved. "Goodbye, Gai-san, Lee-san," she said, nearly stumbling over the honorific for Lee. Her habitual, reflexive honorific would have been inappropriately friendly.
They made no reaction, but Gai would have noted the oddity. Who knows what, if anything, he would think of it.
Her genin stopped pretending to be absorbed in their stretches. "Wow," Ryuusei said. "That man was really weird. Why did he think that he knew you?"
"He was telling the truth, obviously," Aiko responded absently. "We met in Fire Country months back. When I was traveling with Utakata."
"Why'd you pretend that you didn't know him, then?" Yuusaku asked. He sat up straight, giving up on reaching his palm past his toes.
"So she didn't have to spar with him, obviously." Ryuusei gave a little laugh. "What would be the point? She's far stronger than he could be."
That… might not be true. She would probably win in an actual fight, if she was the one to start it. But that was no reason to be dismissive. In a spar, when neither of them were playing to kill, he would probably win 4 times out of 5. She could surprise him once, or maybe twice, but after he knew her tricks… He was good enough to counter her and win.
"Don't be foolish," Aiko said sharply. "I'm a taijutsu specialist, and he's my superior in that by far. I wouldn't fight with him unless I had no other option."
Yuusaku made a face like he thought she might be joking. Ryuusei and Keisuke exchanged skeptical looks.
"Why would you make the assumption that he's weak?"Aiko pushed, irritated by the arrogance of that lazy thinking. "Because he's loud? Because you think his clothes are strange for a shinobi?"
"Because he's weird!" Keisuke burst out. "He's really weird and not stealthy at all."
"He's not?" She let her eyebrows raise. "How do you know? Do you think he was trying to be stealthy right now? And as for weird, so what? If anything, that should make you wonder if he's not more than you would otherwise assume. Eccentricities are more easily afforded to the powerful. An administration will excuse more irritations or oddities for an especially valuable resource."
"Jeeze." Keisuke huffed, shrugging. "Alright, we won't judge books by covers."
"Thank you," she said. "And with that in mind, let's try again. Why do you think I refused to engage?"
Keisuke rolled his eyes, but answered quickly. "Foreign jounin comes looking for a spar, he's probably trying to gather information. Which we didn't think because of our assumptions, which means that by being loud and weird he was in fact being stealthy. Yes, I get it now, sensei."
Aiko blinked. "Yeah, you kinda cut off my next point," she agreed. "I was on kind of a teacherly-roll there, couldn't you let me finish? The other two didn't think that far ahead in the conversation, did they?" She looked at Ryuusei and Yuusaku for confirmation.
Yuusaku shook his head, a little embarrassed by the failure.
"Not for a minute," Ryuusei said honestly. "I was thinking about lunch." He did not look shamed at all.
"It's five thirty," Keisuke said incredulously. "We just ate."
Ryuusei shrugged.
"See?"Aiko asked Keisuke, who was giving his teammates withering looks. "Let me finish next time, don't spoil it for the others."
"The short version is fine," Yuusaku disagreed. "Feel free to cut sensei's lectures off. I don't understand half of them anyway."
Aiko tossed the scroll she'd been reading at his head, slowly enough for him to dodge but with enough force that it rolled a while. "No," she said firmly, shaking a finger at him. "Bad."
He raised his hands, palms-out. But he was smiling, so she hadn't gone too far and frightened him or anything.
She sent them all back to work. Aside from a nap between 8 am and 10 am, she worked diligently as well, approving requisition notices and going over the reports of the disturbance that Utakata had mentioned as well as other security notes. It probably was Yamato's backup… Who would that even be? ANBU, for certain. Which of Yamato's ANBU peers would be doing missions out of Konoha at the moment? Not Kakashi or Genma, for certain.
'Oh, crap.' Aiko nibbled on the end of her pen, getting ink on her lips. 'I have a suspicion.'
They broke for lunch a little late, but this time Aiko actually shelled out for a hot lunch that she and Yuusaku carried back to the others. This time, the students sat a little closer, which was a nice expression of progress. Maybe they'd make a team after all.
She didn't want them to know that she was pleased or draw attention to it, so Aiko kept up with her work while she ate again.
The next papers she found were dossiers from the outgoing genin class that would be graduating in a month's time. Really? It was her job to look at these folders and decide how the teams would be made up? That was…. shouldn't their teachers have input in that? They'd know better than she would how the students interacted on a personal level.
A little worried, she flipped through the stack to see what kinds of teacher comments were given to each student. They were briefer than she would have liked- each student got a sheet of paper with the class rank, skill levels, and a few comments about personality and work ethic. Some of them didn't have more than a half-page of writing. This seemed… it made her nervous to make this kind of decision. She wanted a lot more information than this.
There was some general things about the composition of the classes that she noticed, however. It was considerably smaller than Konoha's graduating class, with 3 classes of twelve students rather than 4 classes of 36. If enrollment had dropped that low, no wonder they'd had to get rid of that graduation death-match tradition, they'd have no shinobi at all otherwise. The general demographics were sharply weighted towards water-natured shinobi with better skills in blades than any other specialisation, there were no students with any type of special ability noted, and the male-female ratio was the same as it was in Konoha.
"Oh." Aiko tilted her head. "So we're kind of an odd team then."
The genin exchanged a look, their conversation trailing off. "Sensei?" Ryuusei ventured.
She waved the papers. "I'm looking at the new team assignments," Aiko explained. "Looks like the gender ratio is about 2 to 1 male to female, so that's the usual team breakup. I guess we're an anomaly."
The genin looked deeply, deeply uncomfortable and didn't look at each other. Ryuusei strategically shoved an entire dumpling in his mouth. Keisuke opened his mouth, and then closed it.
"O—kay," Aiko said uncertainly. "It's not that interesting, I know. Wanna go back to talking about how to hit things really hard?"
"This team was intended as a standard formation," Yuusaku said carefully. "Is that a problem?"
What?
Oh.
She blinked. "No." For a moment she wondered which genin had been- but no, it didn't matter. "Of course not. I don't care what your birth certificates say, I care how much you improve your running times this month. Speaking of which, some of you are making more progress than others. Some people could stand to daydream less when they should be sprinting. Not naming any names, Keisuke." She paused pointedly. "Oh, damn."
"I'm not daydreaming," he argued. "You said not to push myself if my ankle hurt."
"Wait, your ankle has been hurting and you didn't tell me?" She felt a headache coming on. "You've gotta be fucking with me here."
"It's not that bad." He looked mutinous. "Just a twinge sometimes."
"Don't sass me, we're in the country with the best medical care in the world." Aiko scowled at him. "It'd be stupid not to make sure things are fine."
"Are you my mother?" Keisuke asked. He crossed his arms. "Because you sound like my mother."
"Your mother sounds like she knows what's up," Aiko retorted. She sat up straight, putting her paperwork away. "Maybe I'll bring her along next time we have a long mission and she can help me. I'd love to hang out with your mother. We'll be friends."
"Please don't bring his mother," Ryuusei said under his breath, stabbing at a piece of chicken.
Keisuke gave his friend an offended look.
"What? You don't want her to come either," Ryuusei defended.
"Yes, but you can't just say that about someone else's mother," Yuusaku pointed out, incredulous. "What would you say if I said I didn't want to spend time with your mother?"
"I'd say-"
"Boys," Aiko interrupted. "This was a half-decent attempt at distracting me from the hospital trip and all, but we're leaving in four minutes and anything you've not eaten is going to be my snack while you all do pushups. I won't even enjoy eating all your food, but I'll do it. It'll probably make me sick. Do you want to make your poor sensei sick?"
Yuusaku sighed, pushing his hair out of his face. "It was a good try," he said philosophically.
Ryuusei started scooping rice into his mouth with rude haste. Luckily, they all finished their food before her imposed time-limit.
The hospital in Konoha was a somewhat awkward experience as a foreigner. The civilian staff didn't seem to care much, but there was a definite chill to the air with which the student medic-nin took Keisuke's initial questioning before a matronly doctor did his exam and said he'd strained the large muscle up the back of his ankle.
The doctor pushed her rolling chair backwards to give the genin some space, blinking behind square glasses. "If you've no hurry, it would be better to heal the natural way. I'll get you a brace and have you ice and elevate. But if you've got to get back to your work in the next week, I'll find one of the shinobi interns and have them soothe you right up. What do you think?"
When Keisuke looked at her, Aiko shrugged. "Your medical treatment is your call," she reminded. "You'll lose some conditioning if you heal slowly, but you'll probably have a stronger ankle in the long term. It's not a huge risk, though. Either decision is fine by me."
"Um." His jaw flexed.
"I'll give you a moment to think about it," the doctor said. "You there, young man. Yes, you."
Yuusaku stiffened.
"You're breathing rather shallowly. Since you're here, why don't you hop up on the table and let me have a listen to your lungs?"
Aiko suppressed a smile at the dumbfounded expression on her genin's face. This was the kind of medical environment that she remembered. "Yamaguchi-sensei?"
The older woman didn't entirely turn. "Yes, shinobi-san?"
"I'm going to go to the restroom. Thank you for your excellent care." She threw her genin one last look. "Do as the good doctor says."
"Yes," Ryuusei answered cheerfully, echoed a moment later and with less smugness by his peers.
"Good." She slid the door quietly behind her and took off to the right. She hadn't been lying about her destination, although she was more interested in washing her hands after lunch than using the facilities. Aiko checked her reflection, grimaced, and made a conscious note to put some makeup on tomorrow. Her skin was not exactly glowing after the sleepless nights she'd been having.
It was pure coincidence that she was leaving the room when someone familiar went to step inside.
"Hey." On impulse, Aiko nearly reached out to take Karin's sleeve and only thought better at the last moment. "Uzumaki Karin?"
"What?" Karin whipped around, sneering. She gave Aiko an up-and-down without showing the slightest hint of intimidation at a foreign jounin, because of course Karin wouldn't.
Aiko felt a fond smile threaten to come out. "Uzumaki Aiko. I see that incredible good looks are genetic."
The look Karin gave her now was longer and kinder, lingering on the set of her jaw and her nose. It was a little uncomfortable under that stare, but Aiko endured it knowing that Karin was looking for hints of shared heritage.
"Good looks are genetic," Karin allowed generously. "Some of us get more than others, but there's not much to do about that."
"Sad but true," Aiko agreed, letting her mouth curve into a bitchy little smile and her gaze rest on Karin's chin judgmentally. Karin occasionally worried that it was too pointy.
Her itty bitty cousin began coloring pink.
"It's nice to meet you," Aiko said, seriously meaning it. "If Grass doesn't work out for you, come find me."
Karin gave a cutting little laugh. "Me? In Kirigakure?"
"I don't have a lot of family," Aiko said, not rising to the bait. "If you get into trouble, or maybe if you're just not seeing your career going anywhere, tell a Kiri-nin you're my little sister. They'll probably curse at you, but they'll take you to me." She nodded goodbye and stepped away while Karin was still looking for a response. "Please excuse me."
She could feel the teenager staring at her back.
'Nostalgic.' Aiko flexed her fingers. 'Maybe I should find Sakura and see how she is, since I'm here. Would she still be in the hospital?'
Probably not. And actually, no one would be happy about her presuming to visit one of Konoha's genin. Kakashi was more protective than he seemed- he might actually try to drag her out of Konoha himself. He'd already warned her off of his team once.
It was, on some level, a relief that he would take care of the rotten little bastards, since she couldn't do it.
'He's doing better without me anyway. I'm the only difference, and Sakura survived this time. That probably means that I fucked up somehow in the test design or administration. There was some weakness that Orochimaru exploited last time that he couldn't now.'
"No, brain," Aiko told herself. "We're not doing that recrimination today."
A passing medical ninja pretended not to be watching her intently. Aiko privately acknowledged that she, too, would be somewhat wary of a Kiri-nin talking to themselves in a hospital. She kept her mouth shut until she reached her genin again. They had acquired suckers in the time that she'd been gone, and Yuusaku had a blue bandaid with ducks on his arm.
"You went with the chakra healing, then?" Aiko asked, because Keisuke didn't have a brace on his leg.
He nodded. "I'd rather work hard while we have your undivided attention. Who knows what time you'll have when we get back to the village?"
She opened her mouth. She shut it, because actually she couldn't say that she would make time for them. Although she was starting to like them, and she did like training sweet baby ninjas. It was so sweet watching them try to be deadly. But no. She had a job. A full-time job.
'Tsunade trained Sasuke while she was Hokage.'
Yeah, well, Aiko wasn't Tsunade. Also, Sasuke was just one genin.
…but he was one genin who was younger than these ones, and needed more individual attention. But he'd still become perfectly terrifying in good time, and he'd gotten an excellent education in leadership and administration that would give him valuable job prospects.
Hm. Something to consider. And not just for these three- what training opportunities did Kiri's genin and chuunin have? Autonomy was needed, yes, in order to begin branching out and working as an adult. But these three had been working without supervision far too early in their careers. Was that the norm in Kirigakure for children who didn't catch a powerful sponsor's attention? How could she begin to change that?
'Oh my god, stop,' Aiko told herself. 'No. No, no, no, I can only have so many projects at once. Mark that in a folder labeled 'consider later' and just leave it be until I've put away what I'm doing now. I can't do everything at once.'
Outside the hospital, Aiko stopped to consider what needed to be done now. It was 2:30… Far too early to stop training for the day. But she needed to head to Wave. Her impulse was to set the boys to training on something that they could do without supervision. But they'd all done muscle-building exercises yesterday. It didn't make sense to push that two days in a row. A rest day, or some other kind of growth day was a good option.
"Sensei?" Ryuusei laced his fingers behind his head. "What now?"
'I want to take them with me to Wave,' Aiko decided. 'Can I do that without anyone getting really suspicious?'
Probably not. If there were no noises coming from the hotel rooms that supposedly had four people, the ANBU might risk peeking inside.
'I can take one, and leave the other two to watch tv or something. Read a book, play a game.'
It'd be hard to do that without singling a student out. The other two would feel excluded, and then one who went would probably resent missing a chance to relax.
She sighed. "Here." Aiko unfolded her wallet and pulled out man-en. Yuusaku took it on reflex, eyes wide. "I think you should take a few hours off. Do whatever you want. There's a movie theater, a bowling alley, or a game parlour. Ask around, maybe spend time with some foreigners. You've got to be getting bored with me by now, find someone your own age." She used a hard tone on the end that hopefully made clear that 'make a friend' was the assignment for the day.
Keisuke opened his mouth, probably to ask her what she would be doing. Then he realized that of course she wouldn't and shouldn't answer that. He shut his mouth sheepishly and shrugged. "Alright. We'll find something to do. Is that our budget? Can't you find a little more within your heart?"
Ryuusei gave him a scandalized look.
"You're going to have to live with that," Aiko said dryly. "I know you three have some money of your own. You got a budget for this trip, you rotten bug, and you've been letting me pay for it all out of pocket."
'Did he forget that I assigned the budget? Honestly, trying to pull one over on your kage. Cheeky.'
"It was worth a shot." He shrugged. "What time should we be back?"
"Curfew," Aiko said firmly. "Eat without me, I'll make my own plans." She paused, knowing an ANBU was closer than usual and they would wonder what she intended to do all day. "Or maybe I'll just sleep through it."
"That's not healthy," Yuusaku scolded. He frowned down at her. "Sensei, how are you ever going to get big and strong if you don't eat your vegetables?"
Her eye twitched. "I'm going to throw you in the river, see if I don't," Aiko said in her most reasonable tone. "I'll lean over the bridge and laugh."
"Can you see over the railing?" he asked. He actually looked concerned, the little bastard.
She took a moment to check their surroundings, and determined that there were too many civilians milling by for her to sweep his feet out and put him on the ground. It would be unfortunate to cause an accident.
"Be good, children." She reached out and punched Yuusaku's arm. "I'll see you in the morning, if not tonight. Practice is at 5:00 am, and I'm not waking you up this time. Meet at the field."
"Hai, hai," someone muttered, but she was already walking away.
~~~
"Hikari-chan!" Tsunami actually hugged her as soon as she realized who was in her doorway. "Oh, what are you wearing?"
"Hello, Tsunami-chan," Aiko said fondly. She returned the squeeze, careful not to use too much strength. "I've found myself working for Kirigakure lately, actually. I was hoping to talk to your father on their behalf." She glanced down at the drab uniform that had surprised Tsunami- it was black slacks, white socks, and a black high-necked shirt with subtle grey stripes. It was meant to go under the flak vest, but Aiko hadn't managed to scare up a vest that was truly in her size yet. The one that she'd brought to Konoha for when she absolutely had to have one was large and, of course, fucking heavy. The design really was unfairly preferential to shinobi with a lot of upper body strength in the same way that Konoha's were. It was just so incredibly shitty.
"Is that so?" Tsunami barely seemed surprised, but then, she was under a helluva genjutsu. Aiko didn't think she could end it now if she wanted to. "Well, that's interesting. We are very close to Kirigakure, so that makes a lot of sense. I'm sure Inari-kun will be excited to see you dressed like that. He's been playing ninja since that team from Konoha left."
"Oh?" Aiko followed the older woman into the house, noting with pleasure that it looked less shabby. The water-marked shoji had been replaced since she had last visited. "I can imagine. He had a very good experience with shinobi."
"Haven't we all?" Tsunami asked absently. She put on some water for tea. "Would you believe that after you left, Hatake-san told me that you were a shinobi?"
Aiko froze, because, awkward.
"He thought I didn't know!" Tsunami had a sweet laugh, genuine and a little hiccupy. "Honestly." She shook her head. "I told him that we grew up together. Oh, we didn't talk about it, but we knew there weren't many reasons for a woman like your mother to travel for work the way she did."
'She's been filling in the gaps of the genjutsu I gave her with whatever makes the most sense,' Aiko realized. 'Well… It's a good story. And Konoha will believe it, coming from her. Kakashi probably put as fact on my record that I grew up in Wave with a single parent and worked as a solo contractor.'
"I'm happy to have a village to work for now," Aiko said, steering the conversation back to the present. "It's a lot more secure, although a large cut of my mission earnings have to go to public funding and other things. It's not quite as lucrative, but it's safe."
That was all true. The bits about losing her earnings to fund public works was true to a hilarious degree that Tsunami would not assume.
Tsunami hummed. "Oh, I can imagine," she agreed. "Although it's hard to imagine Kirigakure being secure. They don't have the best reputation. There's a reason that Father went to Konoha."
Aiko winced.
"Partly that they wouldn't know there were Mist-affiliated rouges in the area," Tsunami allowed thoughtfully. "He didn't want to pay for that."
…She didn't even want to get into that discussion, although she was aching to burst in with an educational lecture about how wrong that was. No. Now was not the time.
"Do you think your father would be interested in working a contract with Kirigakure?" Aiko asked, a little strained. "I'm empowered to negotiate salary considerations and can provide a little information on the project. We would also offer shinobi assistance, assuming he believes water or stone jutsu would be helpful to provide materials."
Tsunami paused, looking up from pouring the boiling water over leaves. "We," she said thoughtfully.
….what?
"You said we," Tsunami explained. "You really are considering yourself part of Kirigakure already, aren't you? How long have you been working for them?"
Aiko strained to remember a date, but couldn't. "Since after you saw me last," she said. "I met a Kiri-nin and became friendly. We went there together and I ended up getting a position that I think I'll keep for a while."
"Hmm." Tsunami's eyes narrowed, but she seemed to shake away whatever trepidation she was having. "Well, father might like another story to tell, since this project went so well. And I know that several of the men who were on his crew would like some work. Would Kirigakure want to hire them too?"
"As many workers as possible," Aiko said honestly. "The skilled manpower that Kirigakure can direct to this project is low." She took the tea she was offered, though it was still a bit too hot.
"I see." Tsunami tapped her fingers against her cup. "Father won't be back for hours. Will you be waiting for him?"
Hours? Aiko shook her head. "I can't," she apologized. "I could try to return at a more convenient time tomorrow?"
"He leaves pretty early most days. How about 7am?" Tsunami suggested. "I'll talk to Father tonight and see what he thinks. We'll have breakfast together and talk business after I take Inari to school."
She tried not to be too obvious in her relief. At least, until she remembered that Tsunami wouldn't judge her for it or run to tell anyone about Aiko being suspiciously exhausted. "Thank you," she stressed. "I really appreciate this. It's the first big project I've meant to get going, and Tazuna-san was the first person that I thought of."
Tsunami smiled brightly. "It's no trouble at all. I was going to do some sewing- would you like to stay and just talk for a while, or should you be leaving soon?"
"I can spare an hour." Aiko ran her fingers over the scroll in her thigh holster. "Actually, there's something I could work on."
"Oh?" Tsunami asked politely. She reached to the counter for a basket of oranges and began to peel one.
Aiko watched the way the peel came off in one long spiral and enjoyed the scent released into the air. "I need to write a letter. A few quiet minutes to sit down and think about it could be very helpful."
Not to mention a place to write where there was no one trying to see the paper or waiting to dig around in her garbage for clues. She didn't want to try writing her letter to Nadeshiko sitting outside while someone used binoculars on her.
She got her first draft done, and was rather pleased with it. Carefully, Aiko blew to dry the ink, and then rolled it back up.
"I'm heading out," she told Tsunami. "I'll see you in the morning. Is there anything I can bring?"
"Oh, no," Tsunami demurred. "We have enough on hand."
Aiko waved that away. "How about fresh fruit? Maybe some melon?"
"Well… That would be very nice." Tsunami brightened. "I look forward to seeing you, then. Please have a safe trip."
"Thank you, I'll do my best." Aiko gave her friend another hug, and then stepped into her boots. "Please have a good night. Excuse me."
She stepped out of the house, shut the door, and immediately moved to her office where she bumped into her desk. The lights were off, and the shutters drawn. She grumbled under her breath and flipped on the light.
The Konoha shinobi who had been standing very, very still in the hopes that she continued not noticing him gave her an alarmed look.
Aiko sighed. "Hello," she said unenthusiastically. She tossed the envelope she was holding onto her desk. "Please consider yourself a guest of Kirigakure as of this moment, Konoha-san. Unless of course you would prefer to fight?"
He looked at her, really examining her. She could see him calculating the odds. "You're the Mizukage, aren't you?" he asked, somewhat awkwardly.
She nodded. She sat down at her desk and held out her hand.
Raidou carefully put the letters he'd been reading into her waiting grip. "I, ah. I'm looking forward to my stay," he said in a tone heavy with irony. He put his hands behind his back.
"Lovely." She indicated the seat across from her desk. "Let's talk about how you'll be helping Kirigakure while you're here."
He blinked.
"Yamato-san is very skilled with wood-working," she said blandly. "Do you have any similar talents?"
"Um." Raidou reluctantly sat, eyeing the entrance in her peripheral. He folded his hands on his lap. Someone had heard voices and was knocking on the door. "I'm afraid not."
"That's fine. We'll find something you can enjoy until Konoha gets around to sending the paperwork explaining that you're meant to be here for diplomatic reasons," Aiko said dryly. "I imagine that yours are just as lost at Yamato-san's?"
He didn't blink for slightly too long, clearly wondering if this was the story Yamato had given her. "Must have left them at home."
"Probably in your other pants," Aiko agreed. "Do you like bridges?"