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When the waitress came around, Jiraiya put in his order without a hint of flirtation. When his companion said nothing and the girl skittered a little uncomfortably, fluffy pen held to her heart-shaped pad of pink paper, Jiraiya rolled his eyes and looked up at the man across the table for the first time. "Are you going to order anything?"
Black eyes slid over to the girl, but his expression didn't change as if he really saw her or the way she was blushing. "No."
"Suit yourself," Jiraiya sighed, waving the girl off and slouching. Somehow he still managed to emit an aura of formidability. It wasn't necessary. No one was close enough to overhear and Itachi would sense any usage of chakra.
"The Lady Tsunade has returned to Konoha," he uttered tonelessly, staring off into space. It was an inauspicious start to an information exchange. Then again, Uchiha had never been known for polished conversational abilities. Odds as to whether he was socially impaired or actually just reticent were about fifty-fifty.
Regardless of the motivation, Jiraiya knew the teenager well enough to realize he was both asking for confirmation and dancing around something else. "Yes," he said shortly, glaring a little bit at the reminder. "To fix your mess, and to become Hokage. I'm surprised you haven't heard about that part yet at least."
Itachi narrowed his eyes, unused to that kind of vehemence from the man. "You are angry," he stated. It was a habit of his that drove others to near-fits of irritation, but was often effective at gathering information without giving the other conversationalist the psychological upper hand of being asked a question.
Jiraiya felt a muscle twitch in his jaw, despite being familiar with mental and verbal games of all sorts. 'I hate conversations with this brat,' he grumped internally. 'He doesn't give me many cues to work off. If we are here to exchange information we should just be straight forward.'
Despite his near blindness, he knew that the younger man somehow sensed his irritation. The sage heaved an irritated sigh, casting a longing glance in the direction of the kitchen. "You put my goddaughter in the hospital," he said shortly in a way that implied that part of the conversation was over. He knew that the boy had to maintain his cover and that included attacking leaf nin, but there were dozens of ways he could have stopped the girl from interfering without causing that kind of damage. Then his gaze sharpened when he noted something unusual. Confused, Jiraiya registered that some brief emotion had crossed the boy's face, which was unusual to say the least. He had no idea what it was, but he had almost certainly surprised the teen. "But you didn't know that," he said slowly, trying to pry out what it was that had elicited a visible reaction. 'That didn't do it.' He consciously did not frown, but he was dissatisfied with the lack of results.
The teen had somehow gone even stiller, obviously recognizing that he had given away some sort of clue. 'He had to have known that she would have been hospitalized after a genjutsu like that,' Jiraiya reasoned. 'Is he surprised at the implication that she survived? No. If he'd wanted her dead she would be. It is the fact that I know her that surprised him? But why would he even care about a Leaf Chuunin? It would have been more like him to ignore her and continue to his objective. He's never liked extra casualties.' Something uneasy roiled in his gut. He trusted the boy on some levels, but the implication that there was some reason for S-class nin to care about his goddaughter was unsettling. Monsters like that shouldn't even know she existed yet. With parents like that it would be surprising if she didn't reach that level one day, but that day was not today.
"Enough of this," the nukenin demurred, pulling out a short scroll. Jiraiya took it numbly, knowing that the report on Akatsuki was doubtlessly important even if it didn't seem that way right now. 'I must be imagining things,' he tried to convince himself. Jiraiya was normally an excellent liar, but it didn't seem to be working as the teen across the table nodded his head farewell and strode off, still henged into less conspicuous clothing and facial features.
A disturbing thought occurred. 'Was it really an accident that Aiko was the first person Itachi and Hoshigaki ran into in Konoha?' The large man shifted in his seat, barely noticing the sounds of laughter from a distant table. He had initially assumed so. Then again, a ninja didn't live to be his age without examining strange occurrences closely.
And an S-class nin who had been out of the village for seven years just happening to display even the slightest hint of interest in his former student's child positively stank of something suspicious. 'Aiko, what have you been up to?'
When it came, the food tasted like ashes. That might have been his perception or the fact that he was at a total dive. So he dropped a gold coin on the table and headed back to the hotel where he had left his charge sleeping a few hours sooner than planned. The boy would no doubt scream about perverts if he knew that the sannin had poked his head in the room where the child slept, but the reassurance made him feel marginally better. Jiraiya cradled his head in his hands, white hair a riotous mess around his face, and sighed. 'I knew that the boy was in serious trouble,' he thought wearily. 'But I never considered that his sister might be in direct danger. Sure, she could be used against him, but that's a mess to consider when they finally get serious about hunting Naruto and realize that he's too powerful to take easily. Maybe I should find out why exactly an S-class criminal (even if he isn't one, strictly speaking) has interest in a 13 year old. Perhaps I could accept it as keeping an eye on a potential future problem if someone had figured out that she was Minato's child, but if Itachi had known that he would have already suspected I had a connection to the child.'
Itachi was equally discomfited by the brief exchange, reflecting on it even when he met back up with his partner to travel to their next mission. He had considered bringing up his strange encounter to Jiraiya to prod for information. It had never occurred to him that the toad sage would bring up the girl. The revelation that she was his goddaughter was a little shocking, and he had instantly known that the sage would not give him any useful information on the girl. Prying further would have only put the man on guard and revealed that he had a strong reason to be curious about someone he had encountered completely on accident. If he truly could find no other way to investigate whatever was going on, he would try again later.
'Unsettling.' Hoshigaki Kisame edged slightly further from his partner, sensing the boy was irritated even without any visible cues. After working together for years, he was well attuned to his partner's tells.
Itachi couldn't bring himself to care about what the nukenin thought, face pressed into an incredibly mild frown. 'I do not like hints that I have missed a possible factor.'
It wasn't the only news that had taken him by surprise, a feeling he definitely did not like. At least discovering that his otouto had been taken under the wing of the Hokage herself had been reassuring, though unexpected considering the long-standing enmity between their clans.
If he had been anyone else, Itachi might have snorted with morbid amusement when he caught himself thinking that. 'With one Senju and one Uchiha in Konoha, would it not be more unlikely if the feud continued?'
Regardless of old grudges, the Senju woman would likely be able to guide Sasuke and help him gain the strength to stay safe from monsters like Madara. He might need more motivation if he seemed to be growing complacent. The 19 year old did his best to turn away from that unpleasant thought, but once it had occurred he couldn't stop wondering if his brother's drive to get stronger had faded in the years since he had seen Sasuke. If it had…
~~~
Glossy, perfect nails caught the sunlight from the windows and refracted sparkles from blue glitter polish onto the wall when Aiko pulled open the door to wait on the deck for her two partners. She had been guarding their belongings while the older two did reconnaissance.
Cool wind tugged at her hair, carrying with it the scent of dying flowers. She frowned slightly and tried to gather up the tangles with her fingers, irritated with how long her hair had gotten again when she wasn't paying attention. "Time for a haircut," she sighed, a little surprised that she could actually see strands of blonde hair in her peripheral. The summer sun had bleached out almost all of the red that had seemed so prominent, leaving her much closer to looking like Naruto's relative than Karin's. Just a short year ago, she had been dead in between color-wise.
She blew air out, letting her lips purse with irritation and leaned back into the cool stone wall. For more than one reason (like the lack of sound and the wall immediately behind her), she was startled to feel warm breath on her ear. Aiko shrieked and wheeled around, backing up to see Anko's grinning face hanging out of the open window and her Kakashi slouching by the door, looking hangdog as usual.
She scowled and stuck her tongue out at Anko, curling into her sensei's side and wrapping her arms around him. "She's mean to me," she pouted.
"Don't be like that," Anko drawled, hopping out the open window and joining the other two on the porch. "Well, do you want to tell her the good news or should I?"
She felt her teacher take a deep breath and set his hands on her shoulders, gently prying the teenager off his front. Aiko blinked up at him, awkwardly splitting her attention between his one uncovered eye and the leaf sigil covering the other one. "Well, we're pretty much done with this cover," he announced, pushing his hands into his pockets and slouching slightly.
Surprised, Aiko furrowed her brows. "I thought the guy we caught said the information broker was going to be coming by soon," she objected mildly.
"He is," Kakashi agreed easily. "In fact, he is in town now, in this very hotel."
"Makes sense," she breathed, already cataloguing the few weapons on her person and checking that her chakra reserves were full.
Her teacher held up a hand lazily. "Maa, not so fast," he drawled. "Our client owns this hotel, remember? It would be foolish to engage him here and risk property damage. We will be following our guy out of town. That means we're done resting. We can't afford to sleep until the target makes a move. I don't anticipate that he will be leaving until dark, however. Get packed."
"Yes, sir," she reflexively breathed, pushing past Anko and into her adjoining room, making quick work of the little she had to gather. Most of it had already been folded into a storage seal (a ridiculously frivolous use of a ninja skill, but she could at least justify it as practice). With deft movements, she slipped into more practical footwear, trying not to think too hard about how the knee-high boots must look with the short orange and pink yukata she had been wearing and ripping a line down the side of the material to give easier access to the thigh holster she snapped into place, finishing off by buckling her black hip pouch over the dress and sliding it to rest on the back of her right hip.
By the time she had joined the other two, their rooms looked as though they could have been vacant for weeks. She slipped through and stood at Anko's side. "Ready?" Anko asked, looking down. When she nodded in reply, the older girl gave a sharp grin and nodded. "Right then." She raised her right hand up in a two-fingered seal. "Release!" With a tiny puff, the purple-haired woman disappeared altogether.
Mildly surprised, Aiko raised an eyebrow at her sensei but knew better than to ask for an explanation. The bunshin had probably been meant to signal Anko that backup was on the way. Now that she thought about it, it would have been stupid for them to leave the target alone after they finally found him. Kakashi sighed, flipping his hip pouch shut and straightening. Then he took off, just barely slow enough for her to follow. The speed hardly surprised her anymore, not after four years of being his student. Every time it seemed that she had gotten close to matching his insane speed, he somehow managed to surprise her and make it look easy.
She wasn't surprised to discover that her sensei had been right about when the broker would choose to make a move while Anko tailed him and the other two hung back, ready to provide support but minimizing chances that the broker would sense them. They waited at the far range of Anko's sensing range- close enough that a panicked signal would have them at her side within seconds, but far enough away to speak quietly. Aiko sighed lightly, leaning into her teacher's side. The familiarity was soothing. He glanced down and then his gaze was directed upwards again, at the rooftops and tree line.
"I'm glad Tsunade-sama gave us this mission, sensei. I didn't like it when you went away after the… after Sakura," she breathed quietly. He moved a little uncomfortably. "I… I think that was hard on the boys too." He awkwardly patted her on the head, giving one of the stupidly fake eye smiles. "Don't do that," she snapped, instantly irritated. "You're not really happy, so don't pretend. It's fine to be mad and sad."
"Aa, Aiko-chan," he mumbled, gently knocking the side of her head with his hand and gazing upwards wistfully. "If you insist. I'm not particularly good with those conversations."
The girl huffed, stepping backwards playfully to evade his hand mussing her loose hair. "Whatever you say, old man."
She was a little surprised when instead of a reply, her teacher's eye flashed toward her an instant before a presence materialized right behind her and pulled a forearm across her neck, dragging her backwards into a female chest. "Don't move," a voice hissed directly in her ear. Ignoring that altogether, Aiko went limp and slipped downward just enough for Kakashi to flash-step directly in front of her with a thunderous expression and his large hand wrapped entirely around the woman's neck with what must have been painful force.
He leaned in painfully close, his chin nearly brushing the top of Aiko's head. "I would advise that you let go. Now." The dark eye narrowed dangerously seemed to pierce a hole directly into the surprised woman behind her, who Aiko could see out her peripheral mostly as a porcelain pale chin and a riotous mass of cotton candy blue curls, decorated with black ribbons and glittering clear beads.
A low chuckle filled the air. "Listen to papa bear, Naomi," another woman crooned. Aiko was immediately released and swiveled out of the way.
"Apologies, Mayumi." The strange kunoichi stepped backwards as soon as Kakashi let go, rubbing at her neck idly and focusing all her attention on the tanned, dark-haired woman who had materialized. She was accompanied by a bear of a man with silky brown hair that fell to his shoulders. All three of them were wearing Rock forehead sigils. The two standing together were wearing what appeared to be some variation of a Jounin uniform in dark grays with green detailing. The blue-haired woman was younger—perhaps a teen, and clad in plain black pants and long-sleeved shirt covered in a virtual armory of arm and leg holsters and criss-crossing belts.
The woman who had grabbed Aiko gave a sigh—Naomi?— and leaned back, blinking indolently at the two Konoha nin in between the Rock shinobi.
"Please, forgive my kohai," the second woman purred and slipped one scarred hand into a pouch at her hips. "She got a little jumpy. I think that we have ended up on the trail of the same person, a high level missing nin from our village. We have documentation to prove it." She held it out to Kakashi with a faintly challenging expression.
Briskly, Kakashi examined the sheaf of folded papers she held out, pulsing chakra through it to activate the little watermark that proved the carriers were conducting official business. "Your papers are legitimate, but that doesn't allow you to be in Fire Country unsupervised," he pointed out mildly. The tall man sneered silently, but didn't say anything when the woman at his side stepped forward with a cold and false conciliatory smile.
"I apologize for the inconvenience, but he meant to shake us by crossing the border. It was hard for my team and I to imagine returning home when he would likely duck back over the border within a day. Perhaps your team could accompany us? You can take command, of course."
Aiko scowled a little, but said nothing as her teacher agreed, tossing her a look that she knew was meant as a warning to be careful. They couldn't leave the group alone, and if they were really right about the target being an A class missing ninja, there was no point in denying the group and inevitably end up fighting them to get to the target. As long as he was killed or apprehended, their job was done anyway. Strange that such a high class ninja would find himself buying and selling information, but that was a dangerous job after all.
That was when all five shinobi straightened, looking up an instant before Anko materialized out of a cloud of dark particles. She raised an eyebrow at the group. "Kakashi?"
"Report," Kakashi said briskly, not looking at the three foreign nin.
She shrugged. "Target is moving west, fast."
He gave a heavy sigh, glancing between the other five shinobi. "Aiko, take the rear. I want a four hundred foot following distance. Anko, take point with Mayumi-san here. I will take the center line with Naomi-san and grumpy-san here."
Naomi snorted. "You mean Jun?"
He shrugged artlessly. Jun glared at the other man, taking the furthest right position and ignoring the laughs from the front of the formation. Then they took off, following Anko's directions. Aiko tried not to pout, a bit irritated about being babied. She knew damn well why she had the rear—it was likely to be the safest position and Kakashi didn't trust the Rock team at all. That didn't mean she was particularly happy about the implication that he didn't trust her in a fight around an elite opponent.
It became clear that their target knew he was being pursued when they picked up the pace, rushing brutally. Aiko couldn't help but grin at the chase, wishing it was just her and her sensei and the dog pack. She had missed those sorts of missions. Training was all well and good, but escort missions and dealing with administrative work lacked the thrill of the hunt.
Hopefully, now that the genin had found new sensei, things could go back to the way they had been before.
The group burst into a clearing and immediately knew that their target had chosen to make his stand there. It was the first time Aiko had seen him. He wasn't particularly impressive looking, but then again neither was her sensei when he didn't want to be. The man was slim, clad in gray pants and a high collared red top, with a short black ponytail and bangs that hid his eyes from view.
He was also a sword specialist from what she saw as he pulled a thin, flat blade out from a hidden sheathe on his back under his top, making a swipe at Anko that the first rock kunoichi parried with her bare hands and a feral grin that made Mayumi's innocuous features somehow sinister. The man huffed. "I should be flattered, getting two full teams to hunt me down!" Anko had slipped around Mayumi, spitting a spray of poisoned senbon that ricocheted off his hardened skin with a tinkle like glass (goddamn rock-nin, Aiko thought absently, I hate that rock skin jutsu), though tiny punctures poked through his collar. As Mayumi swiped her right foot into the man's instep to destabilize him, Jun roared forward like a battering ram—and nearly ran full tilt into a tree when the target dropped down through the earth like a gopher.
Naomi whipped through hands seals—Aiko couldn't see them, but the muscles in her back were moving slightly, as were her elbows—and gave a violent stomp that opened up a crevice, out of which the target came flying, sword readied to open up her gut.
It might have been a killing blow, if Kakashi hadn't almost lazily intercepted the man, knocking the blade sideways with one hand and slipping the other under to hit the man with a spray of electricity. It was nothing on his Chidori, of course, but he convulsively bent over and missed his chance to prevent Naomi from ripping the sword out of his grasp and flinging it to the side.
That was about when Aiko was distracted by the fact that there were two unknown chakra signatures coming in hot from behind them. Her mouth was open and the words "friends of yours, Naomi-san" were on her lips when she felt the kunai whizzing towards her head and reflexively used the replacement jutsu with the closest bit of flotsam. That turned out to have been a broken branch behind her that positioned her in between the two new opponents. She barely swiveled in time to duck under the swinging blow from someone of indeterminate gender and age behind a mask and in one of those godawful pajama-like ninja outfits that old people like the Third Hokage preferred. In the seconds that followed, her rote taijutsu and the fact that these two new opponents were probably only B-class at best saved her life while the other rushed to accommodate the increase in opponents and break off into matches.
'Might not be a bad time to try those chakra chains,' she reasoned when she was joined by Mayumi, which left Kakashi and Naomi with their original target and Anko and Jun swinging back to intercept the third. She had never actually tried it in combat before, and this was about as low-pressure an environment as she was likely to get to experiment in—on the '2' side of a '2 to 1' fight. Karin had hypothesized that the adrenaline rush of a real fight might make it easier to use the ability for the first time and she could work backwards from there to replicate the adrenaline-fueled feat. The worst that would happen was she failed completely and let Mayumi cover her for a second.
That decided, Aiko grimaced with effort and leapt back, heels skidding in the dirt and furrowed her brow in concentration. The next second seemed to be in slow motion—the opponent seemed to glance between the two kunoichi, decide Mayumi was the immediate threat and swivel towards her at the same time that Aiko breathed deeply and visualized the excess energy escaping her back as a mass of chains.
Consciously, she didn't expect it to work. So she was just about as surprised as everyone else by the unearthly glow of the icy blue chakra that rocketed out of her body—and it was exhilarating! She felt so powerful, and it suddenly made so much fucking sense that Kushina could have done this on her death bed—and honed in on her opponent with pinpoint precision even as the shinobi attempted a dodge, wrapping around a struggling body in the blink of an eye with clanks and monster truck force and ripped the poor fucker to lumpy pieces that exploded outside of the chains.
Everything stopped for a full second, which was an ungodly long time in a shinobi battle. Aiko was relatively sure someone was gaping at her but she didn't turn to see, too fascinated by the disintegration of the chains she had materialized. She moved them experimentally, flinging a little bit of brain matter and making Mayumi flinch backwards.
"Uh, oops. May have underestimated my strength," she blurted, voice turning thoughtful halfway through. That had been interesting. It had been an enormous amount of chakra, however, and she didn't feel the least bit drained. Actually, it was a bit invigorating. How odd.
Lost in her analysis of her new power, she barely turned in time to catch her sensei ram a fist wreathed in solid lightning through the original target and the third opponent fail to move out of a glob of fire that Anko spat. The pause in motion lost him his head—Jun crossed twin daggers the length of her forearm in an X shape that popped it cleanly off like the eraser off a mechanical pencil. He didn't even try to dodge the resultant blood spray, turning his face up to catch it like Ino liked to do with a spring shower.
"Eww," Aiko breathed, a little grossed out.
Someone scoffed. "Like you're one to talk! What the hell was that, short stuff?" Naomi stuck her tongue out, scrunching up her face in disgust. "That was so weird!"
Aiko gave a giddy little giggle, still high on adrenaline and trying not to look directly at the mess she had just made. "Uzumaki chakra chains, apparently," she supplied a little absentmindedly. "Never worked quite like that before…"
'Never worked at all before,' a voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like Karin snarked. She ignored that in favor of the strange expression that cross Mayumi's face. "Uzu.. Uzumaki?" she asked quietly, as if to herself, looking Aiko up and down. Then she shook her head. "Well, good thing we met up. That would have taken longer three on three." She wiped her hands off on her thighs, walking over to the original target and using her toe to push him over. "You don't mind, do you?" She sounded perfectly nonchalant, but she was visibly uncomfortable around the Konoha nin who had apparently proven to be more intimidating than she had expected. Solid chakra constructs were the hardest kind, and two of them had whipped a technique like that out. Aiko tried not to smirk.
"Of course not," Kakashi said gracefully, stepping away and slouching harmlessly again. "Come along, ladies." Anko scowled at being called a lady but obligingly joined them. The three Konoha shinobi crouched in unison, and flash-stepped away towards Konoha, leaving the Rock-nin to deal with the body. It wouldn't do to stick around and get accused of trying to glean information from the corpse after all.
In a blood-soaked clearing, Jun scowled at the direction the Konoha shinobi had left in. "An Uzumaki?" he asked, tone caught between disbelief and disgust. "I thought those fuckers were long gone. Are we really going to let them go?"
Naoki frowned, looking between her older comrades. "I don't understand. Do you know her family?"
Mayumi gave a barking laugh void of amusement and shook her head. "Sometimes I forget you're just a baby, Naoki-chan." She ignored the resultant scowl. "Seal masters from the long-defunct Whirlpool village, but they've always been closely tied to those Konoha dogs." She spat on the ground and sneered in the direction of said village. "They had one about fifteen years back with that same ability when I was a brand-new genin shoved out onto the frontlines as fodder. She was a fucking monster. Never knew what happened to her. Red chained death, I think she was."
"Well, those weren't red," Jun said a bit dryly, bending to tug off the forehead protector as proof of the kill and giving the corpse a vicious kick. He hated tracking, and this stupid fuck had dragged them halfway across the country. "But I think I know what happened to her." He snickered. "She spawned and retired."
"Uzu.." Naomi's face crumpled up. With the foreigners gone, she had abandoned her attempts at stoicism. "Wasn't that the village that developed the bijuu sealing shit? With the special clan that were optimal containers?"
Mayumi's mouth moved for a moment, but she didn't say a thing. Then she gave a slow, horrible smile. "You know, that gives me an idea. What kind of profit do you think we could make off of a perfect vessel like that? Or even if no one wants to use her, I'm sure that Cloud, at least, would be very interested in making sure that career ends early. Mummy dearest didn't make a lot of friends."
Jun scoffed. "She's too old to forget her loyalty to Konoha and be controlled."
"Never too old to forget," Mayumi countered. "What, you think Konoha and those blonde bastards have the monopoly on interfering with minds? There's always a way. Any even if it doesn't work out and she ends up dead, there'll be no Red Chained Death 2.0".