Donkey shrunk down a little further in grudgingly given sympathy, not really paying attention to his own spar. Fish gritted his teeth and pushed the older man, trying to get him to focus. It was a lost cause.
"Are they really that fascinating?"
His subordinate jolted at the exasperated tone, glancing back at him. "No." Donkey snorted. "Just glad I didn't get paired up with the rookie. She must be on the rag."
His eye twitched, and Yukimasa reflexively moved to swipe Donkey's feet out from under him and unceremoniously spill the older man onto his ass. "Inappropriate," he scolded lowly, putting away his blade to turn their match into taijutsu. 'Not to mention it's an idiotic comment to make. It seems far more likely that Aiko-san has a personal grudge against Boar to work out.'
Despite the hypocrisy, Yukimasa's eye wandered over to the other spar. He cringed a little as the big man barely dodged yet another barrage of those bizarre glowing chains, getting his standard short-sword tangled up in a failed attempt to block them and having to abandon it. Oh- no, not completely dodged. That was just cruel. Yukimasa resisted the temptation to cover his own behind to ensure that he didn't get spanked. How embarrassing.
'Whatever Boar did, he probably deserves the workout,' he tried to tell himself. But really, to be honest… 'Better him than me.'
In a head-on fight with intent to kill, he knew he would be able to overpower Butterfly. But that repertoire was completely out of reach in a training match. As far as he could tell, she was both exponentially faster and more vindictive than he'd pegged her as.
A grudge could explain her enthusiasm, but the drastic increase in speed was frankly baffling. There were more than a couple times when he literally could not see her move. It seemed as though she was suddenly in another position without even moving to take a step. His best assessment… 'It's creepy. Really creepy. I should probably ask her what's going on. Either that or work on my own speed and perception time until I can figure out how she's doing it.'
Most of the time, he could see the purpose of her bizarre bursts of speed—she was pushing Boar into a corner, or pulling away his weaponry, or otherwise harrying him. But occasionally she flickered somewhere and then immediately moved, as if she'd miscalculated the first time. So she probably hadn't mastered whatever she was doing to increase her speed, or at least hadn't mastered her ability to perceive as quickly as she could move.
Yukimasa didn't particularly treasure the possibility of being outmatched by his youngest soldier. Finding out that she wasn't nearly as much of a rookie as he'd initially thought was a good thing, but that didn't mean he wanted to be surpassed so soon. He'd always thought that he was speedy himself.
He shook his head, casually sidestepping Donkey's attack and letting the other man take the offensive entirely, only blocking and dodging. Donkey's hits hurt, but strangely enough his attention kept being drawn to his elbow where Butterfly had touched him to get his attention at the start of practice. He could swear that her chakra signature was lingering… But that was ridiculous. Of course, it was in the one place he couldn't look at, he scoffed quietly. Typical. So his paranoia would just have to fester.
With a frown, Yukimasa determined that he would have to follow up on that later. It hadn't occurred to him at the time, but it was unusual for her to touch him, and she'd… she'd actually touched the other two as well, hadn't she?
'Methinks the rookie is up to something tricky…'
His lips quirked into a smile under his mask as he rolled to the left and darted from pole to pole in the training ground, Donkey hot on his heels.
'It almost fits. She didn't speed up until she got her first hit in on Boar, and then he couldn't avoid her at all.'
But he just couldn't think of a way to connect that. She was a tracker, so it wouldn't surprise him if she had a way to zero in on a target that required some sort of physical contact for a genetic sample or something, but that couldn't possibly explain how it could help her when she already had an opponent within short-range.
'If I can't figure it out in a month, I'll ask her,' Yukimasa promised himself silently, holding up a hand to signal that practice was over. It would be a blow to the ego to have to come slinking to her for information, but better that than do nothing about apparently being far slower than he'd realized. Three masks swiveled to take him in, and he had to blink for a moment to readjust to the situation mentally and recall what he needed to say.
"We're on patrol tonight. Dismissed until 2300 hours, team."
They were just barely too disciplined to groan about their on-call status being bumped up to active duty, but shuffled off. Yukimasa was eager to take advantage of what relaxation time he could, even though they only had about three hours. He spent his time taking a shower, raiding his aunt's fridge for leftovers (she was the best book in Hi no Kuni, he'd swear it on his headband) and flopped down for a short nap before he re-dressed in uniform and met his team. They seemed good-naturedly resigned to the extra shift, though admittedly it could be hard to tell when they were all masked and silent.
'There's something exhilarating about running a four-man team through Konoha in the dead of night.' The wind was whipping through his hair, his heart was pounding, and his unit worked in perfect unison covering their patrol designation only by the grace of shockingly white starlight. It seemed like the city was theirs at this time of night.
'Rather romantic musings,' he chided himself, not really feeling guilty about his good mood.
Donkey and Butterfly stiffened in unison. He caught the movement in his peripheral, but had sensed the intruder so soon after they did that he hadn't had time to wonder what was wrong. He pushed slightly farther ahead of the group, pushing them to fly down out of the cover provided by the rooftops to land in a diamond around a figure in one of Konoha's outskirt training grounds.
"Name and identification number," he demanded brusquely.
Occasionally, shinobi were out training in the dead of night. There wasn't a problem with that, at least when there wasn't a wartime curfew. Inadvertently intimidating poor, hard-working Chuunin was the most entertaining thing that usually happened on these patrols, but it wasn't a big deal. They would stutter out their information politely, white-faced and clearly unnerved by their ANBU protectors.
This person—a woman, he thought it was a woman—blinked at him. "Of course." Slowly, she reached up to cover an involuntary yawn- that turned into a spray of what had to be a liquid poison. Shocked, Yukimasa jumped back, noting that some of it had made contact with Butterfly on his right, and grabbed for his sword.
"Capture, not kill!" he barked, throat nearly closing up.
That didn't mean that they couldn't maim her, of course. She just had to be able to be taken into interrogations.
Heart pounding, he swerved inward, catching the fist that flew at his face- and then blinked stupidly when a shock of those blue-colored chains sprang out and wound around the intruder. She looked just about as surprised, comically wiggling like a worm with her hands bound awkwardly (one snugly held to her torso, the other poking out and still caught in his grip) before she teetered over with a whumph.
Boar cleared his throat, shifting his weight from foot to foot uneasily. "Well."
"What?" came the muffled reply, sounding honestly perplexed. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No, no." Yukimasa stifled a snicker. 'Just something anticlimactic, I suppose. Whoever taught her had a very poor flair for the dramatic.' He knelt, pulling out a length of wire from his hip pouch and beginning to secure the prisoner in a more permanent fashion. "Could you move this bit- yes, thank you."
He bit his lower lip in concentration, completely binding both of the woman's hands before he moved to secure them together so she couldn't even try to whack them with her wire-wound hands. As he worked, Butterfly obligingly wiggled the chains keeping the woman immobilized, at times moving them up or out, dissolving a few links altogether, or shrinking an area to wire-sized tendrils that left him plenty of room to maneuver while still keeping their prisoner still. He had to take extra wire from Boar—this woman was rather tricky, and had nearly managed to get a leg free to kick at him. She was cursing up a storm now, but he paid it little mind. When he was done and Butterfly had slipped the last of her chakra generated chains off, he patted their prisoner's head just once before slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of rice.
The mask hid his grimace. She was heavier than they looked, but it could have been all the metal restraints. "Donkey?"
It took a moment for the man to catch on, but he stepped forward and put his hand to the woman's forehead to force pulse of chakra in that caught her in what was probably a rather nasty sleep genjutsu. At least she stopped struggling. It would have been rather embarrassing if her wiggles managed to put him off-balance. He wasn't the largest man.
"Lovely."
Surprised at her tone, he glanced up—and blanched. "Ah. That was an acid that she spat earlier, wasn't it," he said rather faintly.
If it was possible to communicate a glower from behind a mask, that was exactly what was happening. It could have just been his imagination though. 'I feel a little guilty… I should have realized that she was injured before now.'
Butterfly must have dodged most of the spray, as the only damage he could see was splotches of blood poking out from holes in her left glove that had not been there before. Just droplets, then. She must have miscalculated the force used and how widely it would spatter. Idly, he noted her move to clench and flex her hand, as if making sure it was still in working order.
As the highest ranking member, he'd taken it upon himself to keep the rookie close in their formations. Unfortunately, that did increase the likelihood that she would get caught up in attacks meant to take out the largest threat. As she had today.
It was the type of injury that would be discomforting, but nothing that a half-decent medic couldn't fix given half an hour and a large quantity of sanitary water, he assessed. 'After we report, I'll take her to the hospital to get patched up.'
"Boar, Donkey. Take the intruder to the holding cells and report to Ibiki-san. You'll be at his discretion for your next orders."
They nodded in unison, and Boar moved to pick the woman off his shoulder and into a princess hold. As they left, he turned to the remaining member. "Come."
The order was probably unnecessary, but he thought it polite. At this hour, the Hokage was certainly not in her office, but all reports of actual intruders had to be made directly to the highest authority for further orders. Doubtlessly Ibiki would send out at least another full patrol to check for any other breaches in security, but Tsunade might have more insight.
He found the woman in what looked to be her bedroom, sleeping in—"oh my," Yukimasa said faintly, hoping to god that he wasn't about to get a nosebleed while the Hokage moved to pull on a nightgown.
"What is it," she barked.
Eyes still averted, he swallowed, hard. "Reporting an intruder in sector two, Hokage-sama. She was taken captive and should be in Ibiki's custody by now."
A lowly ANBU had no reason to expect the Hokage to pay attention to him, but he still felt a little uneasy when her gaze drifted right over him. "Is that all?" At his nod, she rubbed at her eye. "Alright then. Come here, Aiko-chan. What happened to your arm?"
His heart dropped to his gut.
'I'm dead.' Yukimasa realized dully. 'Not only did I not get some random rookie as a snub, I must have been assigned someone important. Someone the Hokage knows by name. And I let some amateur hurt her. I'm a terrible captain, and I'm dead.'
Aiko sighed, rotating her wrist and periodically bending her elbow to be sure that the new patches of skin didn't stiffen. She was lucky, really. If she had gone to another medic, she would have shiny patches of scars dotted on her arm.
'I wouldn't have gotten burnt at all if I wasn't a twit in the first place,' she moped, giving a sad little kick that scuffed at the floor as she struggled out of her uniform one-handed.
It was embarrassing, but it probably served her right. She'd been beaming under her tacky little mask about getting so much better about using three moving Hiraishin tags to navigate. (It was hella hard, especially since that bastard Fish just wouldn't stay still while she'd been working out her frustrations on Boar. Fish was fast.) Making a rookie mistake like underestimating the way that stupid acid was going to carry on the wind was just karma for getting arrogant.
Tsunade had dismissed Fish (and good thing too, he'd been terribly twitchy) and healed her right away. Of course, that had meant that Aiko was sitting on the edge of Tsunade's bed and wincing with her eyes squeezed shut while the Hokage grew her new skin when a shame-faced messenger from T & I had come by to sheepishly admit that their hostage had woken up and used some sort of suicide technique.
He hadn't given details, but he'd had a bit of what looked to be brain matter in his hair and more than a bit of blood on his front, so Aiko had taken a guess.
At least seeing her had reminded Tsunade to take her ANBU team off active patrols and first reserve lists. She was really starting to feel stressed and like she had a little too much to juggle at once. Aiko was only free from regular ANBU duties, but that probably also took her away from her Root project, since she hadn't moved to actively sneaking around.
At this point in time, Tsunade was hoping to gather what information she could about Root's infrastructure before she made a move against Danzo. If it fit her fancy, she could have had him arrested at any time. But that would have left him with an unknown amount of resources with unknown orders. The more that she could find out – where and how many bases they were, what financial and human resources they had, what Danzo was trying to do and might have as safeguards if he needed to be rescued from the law—was better, as far as the Hokage was concerned.
Of course, nothing could be perfect and her break wasn't complete. She'd immediately been given other orders for a project she'd start in the coming week. At least it would be less time-consuming than ANBU patrols and guard shifts interspersed with occasional midnight summons from Danzo.
'At least, it is since I have Hiraishin,' she reminded herself wryly. 'If I didn't…' Aiko shuddered.
Apparently Terumi Mei had included a proposal for some sort of conference in the documents she had sent back in Kakashi's care. Among other things, she was angling to get included in the Chuunin exam rosters, so that she could boost her tourism and mission requests.
Thankfully, Aiko had dodged that bullet. She hadn't managed to evade getting stuck as the designated messenger/delegate from Konoha to help Terumi put together the conference. Tsunade hadn't gone into much detail, but she understood a fair bit of what was going on. Terumi was looking to adjust her contracts with pretty much every country that she could. In order to be competitive, anyone who had anything to do with Water Country would have to send representation to ensure that they didn't get stiffed. Of course, if half the countries in the Elemental Nations were sending representatives, then the other ones would get suspicious and sneak in to be sure they knew what was going on, so Terumi was skipping the middle man and obligatory spies by just inviting them all in the first fucking place.
Supposedly, Nadeshiko was the other host for this event. In honor of that, it would be restricted to kunoichi participants.
Tsunade had growled something to the effect that Terumi just wanted to make things difficult and didn't want to let the Raikage into her country.
'To be fair… I'm not sure I could blame her.'
Aiko had never met the man, of course. But his reaction to Gaara's call for international action had been a pretty poor first impression. The Raikage couldn't actually be a total idiot, but …
'No, there's no point in lying to myself, Aiko snorted. 'Of course he could be a moron. That's what happens when you choose your leader by strength instead of intelligence or political mien. Them's the breaks.'
She toed off her boots, not bothering to fix them when they fell over. The only sound that greeted her in the apartment was her fridge humming. Aiko grimaced, half-wishing she'd taken a tv from the other house so she could have some background noise. It felt like she was living in a cemetery sometimes. To fill the air, she absentmindedly began singing whatever came to mind under her breath. 'Kiss the Girl' had turned into 'Mac the Knife' by the time she found what she had been looking for in her room.
"Aha!" Triumphantly, she flicked through one of the notebooks she'd filled while traveling with Jiraiya and Naruto. He had shown her something that at the time had seemed paranoid and stupid, but now… "Why wouldn't I want to put up a seal that prevents foreign chakra constructs from getting into my house," she muttered under her breath, half-mocking herself but partially serious.
It was a nasty little piece of work—or she'd thought so when she looked at it last. At this point, it seemed gloriously simple. Unlike the last seal she'd put up, this one hardly needed to be interlaced into the overwhelming security system that spider-webbed through the apartment, over walls and across the ceiling.
Instead, she ran a simple line around the borders of her apartment, tracing the baseboards and crown molding to ensure that she had specified the relevant area in all three dimensions, and attached the threads to a single seal that she tapped onto the ceiling. She bit her tongue between her teeth and breathed slowly as she did it, less because the seal required concentration and more because she had to do that part while perched with one foot on her kitchen table and the other braced against the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room.
If her balance had been any less good, she probably would have hurt herself falling when the seal flickered into being, out of pure shock.
"Ah!" She slipped and dropped to the floor in a crouch, tears rising to her eyes and both hands cradling her jaw. 'Owww.' Aiko swallowed, as if that would end the burning on the very back of her tongue, almost to her throat. 'How on earth did I forget about that?'
Of course her root seal was using Danzo's chakra. It was just a little trace, but it was enough to cause discomfort. It faded to manageable levels even as she focused on breathing calmly, and after a moment she waveringly rose to her feet and stumbled to her bedroom with one hand to her temple.
By this point, the pain had radiated out to give her a seriously wicked migraine. She couldn't let that distract her, though. The notebook she had been working out of had provided an array that would allow her to adjust the wards to let certain chakra constructs in. She was going to have to allow the Root seal, potential problems be damned, because she couldn't live with this in her own home.
'Again, I'm an idiot,' she berated herself, trying to concentrate on the details she was reading. It would be important that she adjusted her wards to accept just the root seal, and not Danzo's chakra in general. She didn't want the man himself being able to send clones or the like in her apartment, no matter how unlikely that was.
'It may have been easier to just tolerate Sai's stupid ink roaches. Why was it never ink butterflies, or ink puppies?'
The thought had been meant to convince herself into taking the seal down entirely, but instead it bolstered her to focus better on the modifications she needed to make. No more fucking roaches, thank you. Granted, she didn't see a reason for him to spy on her any longer, now that they both knew the other was in root. But still, as long as Danzo was paranoid, there was a chance that people would be spying on her, and that just wasn't acceptable.
Even after she struggled through altering the seal (and thank all the kami that she'd gotten around to replicating it, because otherwise she wouldn't have been able to tailor the security seal to allow Danzo's chakra when in a root tattoo), her headache lasted. It faded, though, so she pawed through her cabinet for pain relievers and swallowed two down dry because the thought of waiting for tea was unappealing. She made the tea anyways, of course, because it helped her get to sleep and she desperately needed that.
'I really don't want to be alone,' she realized, feeling oddly lonely.
It was a little late to do anything about that, though. It was four in the morning at that point, and she was feeling far too worn down to stay up until nine am to meet with team seven. Aiko could be pretty rude at times, but she wasn't feeling bold enough to bother anyone at such an awful time just because she wanted company. She was far too old to climb into bed to cuddle with Naruto now anyway.
Hot tea settling in her belly, she set her alarm for eight twenty and pulled the covers up to her chin. What little sleep she got was fitful, but that was a problem she periodically had and nothing new.
"I feel like shit, and I probably look like shit," Aiko muttered when her god-awful alarm when off, but dutifully pulled on the first outfit in her drawer and avoided mirrors. That part was easy, since the only one was in her bathroom attached to the medicine cabinet. The heather grey leggings and sleeveless top set with a peach skirt she had found most certainly did not fit her mood at all, but she couldn't muster the effort to give a single fuck, or the determination to sort through her mostly dirty mission appropriate attire for something plainer and more somber. Awkwardly, she gathered her hair into a messy spritz high on her head while attempting to shove her feet into her boots, an apple held between her teeth all the while.
At least the juice and sugar from the fruit seemed to revitalize her on the short trip over to the training grounds where she could feel everyone else congregating. Naruto was already there with Yamato and Sai. Kakashi was lingering by the memorial stone, but she still didn't have a tag on Sasuke.
'I should take care of that today. I might as well ask him, though, instead of just sneakily touching him. No matter how funny it is to see Yukimasa trying to see the end of his elbow, it's not really morally upright to do that to comrades.'
She'd been a bit gung-ho about planting her seals wherever and on whoever took her fancy lately. But when the target in question was a teammate who already knew about her Hiraishin, she might as well be honest. As she walked up to the group, she noted that they were only waiting on Kakashi. It figured.
'Then again, Sai doesn't necessarily know about Hiraishin, and he'll be there.' She frowned contemplatively, distracted by her earlier train of thought. 'I don't exactly plan on telling him that I tagged him, especially not with an explosive.'
"Morning," Yamato nodded. She gave a grunted reply an instant before Naruto seemed to spot her and launched into some discussion that she couldn't focus quite enough to follow. His enthusiasm did make her smile, though.
"What?" she asked distractedly, turning to blink at Sasuke. He'd muttered something.
Sasuke frowned, creasing his forehead. "I asked if you were alright. You look terrible." Behind him, Sai looked up and gave one of his clinical once-overs, seeming to catalogue her hideousness for himself.
She gave them both a dirty look. "Thanks. You really know how to perk up a girl's ego."
"That's not what I meant," Sasuke scoffed. "Your eyes are glazed and you're clearly half-asleep."
When all he got in reply was an imperious sniff and a raised jaw, the Uchiha rolled his eyes and seemed to give up. Yamato got them all started on some conditioning while they waited for Kakashi to show up. Aiko couldn't help but wonder about what such a large group would do. Six people? It was a little ludicrous. Really, this was two different teams that just happened to both be headed by Kakashi. She felt a little out of place practicing with Naruto and Sasuke. Yamato gave her a weary look that communicated he might be on the same page.
"-why you gotta be such a bastard all the time-"
"Same reason you're an idiot, probably," Sasuke jeered, flipping a bit of bang off of his face and pushing to touch the tree that he and Naruto had established as the goal first.
Sai looked confused at it all, but kept longingly veering closer to the bickering boys. Yamato heaved a tired groan, but his expression brightened almost immediately after.
She would have known that visible relief meant Kakashi had shown up even if she couldn't feel the seal he carried.
"All right boys, break it up," Kakashi sighed. He didn't sound particularly invested in whether or not they listened, but they stopped shoving each other long enough to pay attention. "If you're really feeling that frisky, save your energy."
Naruto was practically vibrating with excess energy. "Can we have a battle royale again?" He pumped a fist and crowed, "Yes, yes, yessss," when Kakashi nodded with an amused air. "Last one standing picks where we go out for dinner!"
"No," Sasuke interjected with a cruel little smile. "If Kakashi isn't the last one standing, he buys dinner for everyone."
"Now hold on just a-"
"Alright! Kage Bunshin no jutsu!"
What followed was hideous chaos. Aiko had reflexively taken higher ground to get out of the mass, but Yamato had jumped after her almost immediately. 'Alright. I should use this as time to practice more triangulation. It's probably going to be even harder with extra seals around to choose from and not everyone on the ground level.'
Thus committed, she pulled on seals and bounced around like a rubber ball. At least, that was what it felt like.
Sometimes it worked really well, like when she tugged on Kakashi's stationary seal (he was hiding in a tree) along with Yamato and Sai's in order to spring herself up behind Yamato, completely baffling him.
Other times… Well. It only happened once, but she was ridiculously glad that no one was paying attention when she accidentally materialized a foot to the left of the tree branch she had aimed for and started to fall. Her expression was probably embarrassing. After a while, Naruto seemed to catch on that she hadn't been hit at all, and veered away from the three-way fight he'd been having with Kakashi and Sasuke to provide Yamato with an assist.
She might have had to worry if Sai didn't side-swipe him with a magnificent ink cockatiel, which he then rode to higher ground when Naruto staggered to his feet ready to knock Sai's block off.
"Aiko, switch me!" her otouto rasped, turning to barrel at Yamato instead. She snickered.
"Of course." She crouched and sprang straight upwards as if she planned to jump directly up to Sai, despite the fact that he was far too high for that to work. There was just enough time to giggle internally at how much this could fluster him when she used Sa i's seal to rubber band herself directly above his ink bird and land like fucking Batman.
Sai was too disciplined to look surprised, instead moving to confront her with taijutsu as much as was possible in the limited space they had. When his split attention caused the bird to veer off course and tilt over, he jumped straight off.
She probably should have followed, but instead she sprang up to the bird's head and spread her arms wide, grinning into the artificial breeze. "I'm queen of the bird! Wheee!"
It wasn't quite 'King of the Mountain,' but it was close enough to rouse competitive feelings in Sasuke. Light-footed, she trotted off the ink beast even as it crashed, ducking under his initial blow and weaving around him, letting her arms sway and not even attempting to get her own hit in. 'He looks so serious,' she giggled, easily flipping backwards and landing facing him. His eyes widened and he moved to say something, coming at her with a fist cocked. She readied herself to grab his fist and use him as a brace to flip over the blow-
The next thing she knew was pain in her upper back and that her nose was in the dirt. Dizzily, she braced her palms on the ground and attempted to push herself up, swaying a bit.
"Sorry!" Yamato called out from somewhere behind her. He really did seem apologetic. "I was aiming for Sasuke."
"You suck!" she managed to hack out, collapsing onto her side. "I'm out. Avenge me, Sasuke!"
'At least I didn't even break a sweat and I'm not gross. That was an abrupt ass-kicking. I forget how powerful his wood ninjutsu really is,' she thought, feeling terribly sorry for herself while the now five-sided battle raged around her. That thought cracked her up. It hurt to laugh, but she couldn't help it.
Apparently, that was just a little bit too strange, because her teammates turned some level of attention to her.
"I could swear I didn't hit her head!" Yamato called, sounding a little panicked. "Sasuke-"
"No, I'm fine," she gasped, wiping away tears. "It's just- I was thinking that your wood is soooo hard, Yamato," she crooned, curling further in on her side.
The silence that followed was aghast, only broken when she collapsed into a fit of giggles, slapping the dirt. "I don't know you," Naruto muttered, an inappropriate grin stretched across his features nonetheless. Yamato looked like a tomato.
It took another six minutes of merry hell, but Yamato and Naruto apparently decided that they wanted a free meal enough to work together. She watched with interest while Naruto scattered what she would have assumed were pre-prepared explosive seals and over charged them while Yamato penned everyone into a wooden cage to prevent Kakashi from sneakily escaping. The seals turned out to be paralysis seals. She managed to dig into some reserve she didn't know she had in order to laugh at his morose expression when he woodenly fell over, resigned to paying for lunch. She dragged her sorry carcass over and picked at the chakra threads restraining him, grinning all the while. "I'll pay for half of lunch," she offered. "Since we were the first two out."
He heaved a sigh and gave her a very sad looking stare.
"I'm not paying for all of it. You lost, fair and square." Her lips twitched. "No arguing." The last bit of the seal unraveled with what seemed to be a sense of a snap to her, and her eyes flickered to watch the chakra she could sense but not see. It dissipated when she didn't try to hold it together, wisping away into its two components and then to nothing. She had wondered if he had bought the tags, but it really was Naruto's chakra, so he'd made this on his own. Impressive.
She looked up to find that her captain was giving her an odd look, having traced her gaze to see there was nothing there.
"The seal network," she explained vaguely, waving a hand. "When it snapped, it…" Aiko trailed off. "What?"
Kakashi's brow was furrowed, but he just shook his head. "Nothing, nothing. You're talking about sealing concepts that are over my head again."
She scoffed, shoving him with a shoulder. "You're a lying liar who lies."
"I'm serious."
Aiko rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever." She drew her knees up and rested her elbows on them, wincing a little at what felt like a massive bruise on her back. At least it wasn't so bad after she'd managed to get her breath back, but it sort of felt like she'd gotten in a fight with Gai. Yamato really was formidable in a fight, even if he was rather silly outside of it. "You're just propping up my ego, like how you let those two catch you."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Her reply was a withering glare. 'No way do I buy that. He let them get him out of the match, probably because he was bored with sparring.'
She pulled up a bit of grass and tossed it at him instead of continuing to argue. In companionable silence, they watched the shifting alliances and fights among the remainders. A glowering Sasuke was the next to join them, followed by Yamato. The last fight made her shift uneasily, twisting her fingers together.
"Maybe we should stop them," Aiko ventured.
Kakashi shook his head. "I think it's best to let them fight it out and get this out of their systems.
Displeased but obedient, Aiko watched Naruto and Sai go at it. They'd abandoned all finesse in favor of beating on each other with their fists. She cringed, covering her face with her fingers, but peeked out with one eye nonetheless. It wasn't pretty. She couldn't quite hear, but they seemed to be arguing, and Sai actually looked visibly upset.
-even have any feelings-
-such an-
-Of course I-
"Wow, that's ugly," Yamato muttered, scratching at his head. He gave an awkward laugh. "Those boys really want to be able to pick dinner, huh?"
The joke fell flat. So did Sai, physically pinned by about 150 lbs of angry, confrontational Uzumaki.
"Alright, that's enough."
Naruto took a long moment to get off Sai, but huffed, stretching, and turned to the group.
"Whatever you say, nee-chan. Kakashi, I hope you're ready to buy a whole lot of ramen."
Sasuke groaned and started some argument about lunch, but she was focused on peeling Sai up off the ground. He followed silently, a little depressed looking. It tugged at her heart strings, so she moved closer to his side and stretched her arm over his shoulder. At his inquisitive look, she shrugged sheepishly. "I'm barely standing," she lied, giving a fake smile that was much more convincing than his because she knew to crinkle her eyes and duck her chin to feign embarrassment. Wordlessly, he tucked an arm around her waist to steady her.
Of course, her sneaky way of getting a half-hug in backfired on her at Ichiraku, where the group kept an embarrassingly close eye on her as if they thought she was about to sway off her stool. At that point, she could hardly claim to be fine without Sai realizing that she'd just been trying to distract and comfort him, so she scowled and bore the mothering as patiently as she could. Her vice was probably pride—it galled to let people think she was less capable than she really was, but she could do it in a pinch.
Worst of all, the difficulty she was having focusing on conversation and the yawn that came unbidden indicated that perhaps she really should be lying down. Granted, it was because she was sleep-deprived and not because of injuries, but she really should be more disciplined than to yawn in public.
Her pride might be stinging, but at least she had her self-satisfaction to keep her warm on cold nights.
'I think I was right earlier.' Aiko pushed her empty bowl away and drummed her fingers on the wooden bar surface, waiting for the boys to finish eating. 'Sai is unconsciously leaning closer to me. He may not have realized it, but he definitely wants physical affection.'
Not surprising. Touch was a human need, and he'd been denied a lot of the things that humans need. If Naruto really had hurt his feelings, he would be more vulnerable than usual. Either he would open up or shut down… making today a good opportunity to work on making sure he was emotionally reliant on her and less loyal to Danzo.
"Also, what the hell was that, Aiko?"
"Huh?" She glanced up. "I wasn't paying attention."
"The thing you were doing in practice," Sasuke clarified for Naruto, leaning forward onto his elbows. "It wasn't quite…" His eyes drifted to Sai. Pointedly, he finished, "the usual thing."
'Was so, just because I wasn't ending up anywhere near you guys doesn't mean anything.'
She gave an intentionally catlike smile, turning her face up. "Not telling."
Sasuke scoffed, but abandoned the subject. Kakashi slumped slightly out of her notice, apparently not willing to ask but curious as well.
Underneath her stool, she tapped her boot against the metal bar and tried not to grimace. Kakashi had been doing that ridiculous trick where he distracted the others before taking off his mask to eat, and was now slumped contentedly in front of three empty bowls. Her stomach hurt in sympathy just thinking about overeating like that. Yamato was futilely trying to hold a discussion with Ayame, who was staring wide-eyed at Kakashi and none-too-subtly tugging at her clothing. Teuchi was cheering Naruto on in what appeared to be an eating contest with Sasuke.
'There is no way that can end well. Sasuke doesn't even like ramen.'
With a scrape, she pushed her stool back to stand and bent to dig into her boot for the pouch she kept inside. "What's the bill, Teuchi-san? I'm paying for half." Intentionally, she swayed just a bit. Subtle enough that it looked as though she was attempting to stay steady, but drastic enough to catch Sai's attention. Straight-faced, she counted out bills and laid them out on the counter, noting his conflicted attitude out of the corner of her eye. "I'm heading home, guys."
Sai didn't say a thing while she waved and exchanged goodbyes with those few who were paying any attention at all, but he stood and walked with her as if there had never been a question. She didn't call him out on his spontaneous chivalry. It would be a mistake to make him feel uncomfortable.
He might turn her down if she invited him in. So instead she just held the door open and moved to the side as if there was never a question that he'd come in, taking off her boots and gesturing to a pair of house slippers. "Those are for you."
With strange reluctance, he switched out his foot gear. Maybe he thought she was going to steal it when he wasn't looking? Ridiculous. She'd only do that if he ran off with the house slippers.
'Don't smile,' she sternly commanded. 'No matter how cute his uncertainty is, do not smile.' Sai didn't appear to know what to do in her home when not spying on her, so she determined that she would have to play hostess properly to avert awkwardness. "Why don't you have a seat on the couch? Do you need anything?" He was silent, so she moved to fill the air as she started tea to get the taste of lunch out of her mouth. "I was hoping to show you the next book Ino wants to get published, since they liked your other illustrations so much."
When she came out with tea, he'd found the book in question on her coffee table and was paging through it. She set their cups down relatively close together and sat down at his side to peer over his shoulder.
'Damnit, not another yawn.' Vexed, she rubbed at her cheek with the hand that wasn't cradling her hot beverage, but it was a losing battle. Somehow she managed to focus enough to at least begin a discussion, but hell if she could remember a thing that they said. Whatever it was must have worked for Sai, because he pulled out his sketch book and began to languidly trace something out.
He was looking like a really good pillow at that point in time.
'I was just noting that he longs for human touch,' she justified, unknowingly pouting. Black eyes flickered from her and back to the paper. 'It's not just a nap, it's a step towards my ultimate goal. Does that story logically hold together?' Aiko rubbed at her eyes again. 'I think it does.'
She turned onto her side, pushing her feet out to the far end of the couch and letting her head drop in a smooth motion.
Sai stiffened as if he was afraid the head on his lap was about to turn to bite him.
"Washboard?"
"Can I take a nap, Sai?" she muttered into his tummy, curling her knees up into the back of the couch. With her nose poking into his bare skin, Aiko couldn't see the slightly wild-eyed look he gave her, or that his grip on his paintbrush shook slightly. 'He didn't say no…'
When she woke up, it had probably been less than an hour and several sheets of paper were drying on the table. Content, she stretched, smacking her lips and curling her toes into the far end of the couch. As she moved to snuggle further into her pillow, it moved strangely. In silent protest, she moved with it, nuzzling into the crook of whatever comfortable spot she'd found, rubbing her cheek against some slightly rough fabric.
At that, her pillow had apparently had enough, jolting awkwardly. The sudden movement woke her up a bit, and she registered that her nose was digging into where the waist of Sai's pants gave way to his bare belly.
"Washboard, may I relocate you to a more appropriate location?"
'But this location is a comfortable one…'
With some effort, she planted an arm on the side of the couch to prop herself up just enough to look at him with half-open eyes. "But I'm enjoying myself," she purred, scrunching up her nose cutely. "What could be more appropriate?"
And his pupils dilated slightly.
'Wait,' Aiko realized, heart thudding in surprise. 'He's affected by my physical presence on a more visceral level than I realized.'
To test her new hypothesis, she snaked her right arm around his neck to support herself and arched her chest very subtly forward with a bigger breath than usual so that it brushed his own.
His reaction was slight, but more than enough to damn him. Sai glanced down, his eyes widened slightly, and his breath hitched.
'He looked down,' her mind crooned. She didn't bother to smother her smile. 'Helloooo, boytoy. Still, I should be sure. He would be an amazing hook-up, and it would help keep him close, but he might not be interested beyond the physical. If I could be certain that it wouldn't be emotionally damaging for him, Sai would be a lot of fun to play with.'
No better way to find out than to ask, she supposed.
"Sai… Is this okay?" Aiko transferred her weight to the arm around his neck and traced her left hand down his cheek. He swallowed. "Sleeping on you and touching, I mean. I'm enjoying it."
"You are?" He blinked, sooty lashes brushing his pale cheeks.
"Mmm," she hummed, trailing her fingers down and tapping her nails on his shoulder. "This is the sort of touching that teammates and friends can do, you know."
Sai looked shaken. "Washboard. I do not know how to do the things you are talking about."
"Not knowing how can be fixed," she pointed out steadily.
He looked severely shaken. "That would be inappropriate. It would be fraternization. I was trained not to engage in unwise emotional attachments."
"That's not a no," Aiko breathed, lightly massaging at his neck, dragging her thumb along his spine.
A muscle jumped in his jaw. "It isn't," Sai agreed slowly, looking stunned by his own daring. When she waited, an eyebrow raised, he eventually amended, "Yes."
Using her arm around his neck to steady herself, she leaned in and pressed her lips directly to his on an impulse, chastely for a moment, then moving slightly down to tug at his lower lip with both of her own, lightly nudging his nose with the tip of hers.
When she backed up enough to check his expression, Sai's gaze was unfocused for just a moment before snapping on her in shock. She gave him a cheeky grin. "Have I ever told you that you're wonderfully cuddly?"
"What?" a thin line appeared between his eyes.
"Sai, Sai..." She nuzzled his cheek. "I'm hitting on you."
He blinked at her.
"Is this like Icha Icha Makeout Paradise?" Sai tilted his head slightly to the side.
Aiko huffed in amusement, cupping his face. "It could be. What page are you thinking of?"
Bang Bang Bang.
Both of them jumped. For Sai, seated properly on the couch, that meant very little. But Aiko's lack of balance and distraction ended in her falling off his lap onto the floor with an unwieldy thump, feet still up on the couch cushion.
Snort.
Slowly, Aiko looked up. "Did you just… laugh at me?"
"No," Sai said quickly, face wiped clean of any emotion.
'Mildly embarrassing. But also a good sign.'
She narrowed her eyes, and crossed her arms across her chest, giving him a stern look. Pretending to be miffed taxed her acting abilities, so it was probably lucky that the bastard on the other side of her door knocked again. Aiko tossed her head back and groaned. "Seriously?"
Sai braced his feet on the edge of the couch and pivoted over the back to land gracefully on the other side and pulled open the door. Aiko had just managed to get to her feet in time to see surprise register on Ino's face.
"Oh. That's convenient." She pushed her way in the apartment past Sai, waving a package. "Good news, everyone. Mail's here! I thought we should open it together to see what had happened with the first print."
"Thank you, Ino," Aiko grumbled under her breath, slumping. 'Great. Just great, you mood-killing harpy.'