"Are you even paying attention, Konoha nin?"
"Of course," Aiko lied, blinking to focus her gaze on the intimidating mammoth of a woman who had come to represent Nadeshiko. 'Is it really that obvious when I'm watching my seals move? I need to ignore those for now.' Her lips threatened to twitch into a frown, but she kept her face locked into pleasant detachment because the dour woman was still glaring at her. 'Even if I can't figure out what the hell it is that Sai's doing.'
She had two seals on him now. As the seal next to his sword seeped and blended with his chakra signature from constant proximity, it was beginning to develop the distinct flavoring of his own energies.
That meant that he was one big beacon for her attention, even if she hadn't been wondering about what had happened with them the night before.
"In any case, I don't see how we could possibly commit to a location until we have seen them for ourselves," Aiko pushed, causing Mei to roll her eyes yet again.
The Mizukage had only stipulated that they choose a location within Water Country for the meeting they were planning, but had been sensitive to the fact that no country would want to be trapped within a foreign capital with allies, wild cards, and their long-time enemies. It would have made security easier from her perspective, but also have brought her people into contact with a large amount of outsiders with varying agendas, so Mei had gracefully conceded the point.
It was still necessary to account for certain logistical problems with their location. Security, housing, food, and a certain amount of entertainment were expected at something like this, especially since Mei was trying to impress. Tokiwa thought that they needed to hammer out what they required before selecting the most appropriate location, whereas Aiko thought it made much more sense to select a location and tailor their plans accordingly. She was prepared to be stubborn about it.
'I'm not about to get stuck working in some town that ends up totally sucking.'
Aiko narrowed her eyes at the older woman, radiating immovability.
"Why don't we go on a day trip to the two closest locations?" Mei finally prodded, looking bored by the stand-off.
Of course, when it was the Mizukage's suggestion, Tokiwa was willing to go with it, Aiko pouted. As she stood, Mitsuo's nails scratched and skittered at the floor, betraying his eagerness to go for a run. Mei's aide for the day winced, but didn't dare say anything.
Perhaps it was impolitic, but she felt better with someone at her back. She couldn't have Kakashi or Yamato as guards this time, so she had summoned her puppy. Despite being a friendly, gentle sweetheart, the fact that Mitsuo had shot up another four inches in height from paw to head was enough to put wariness onto the faces of all but the most determined of dog lovers.
'Pakkun picked me out an intimidating partner.'
Still wasn't sure why, precisely. Mitsuo had made it clear that he felt lucky to get a summoner and that there were more than a few puppies his age whose parents had been miffed that Kakashi had never had puppies of his own. She was very fond of her partner, but if she'd picked, it probably would have been one of the smaller dogs to whom human speech came much more easily (the larger dogs' wide throats and elongated mouths made it much more difficult for them to mimic the sounds and pitches that came naturally to human speakers).
The prospective locations were all relatively close to Mist. That was lucky, since it apparently wasn't properly dignified for the Mizukage to go sprinting out in the middle of the workday and Tokiwa ended up being their only traveling companion.
'You would think that working with her one-on-one (Mitsuo really wasn't a diplomat…) would be enough to warm her up to me. There's no point in being so formal and distant…'
Perhaps she'd been spoiled by unconventional acquaintances. All the powerful and important people that she knew and worked with (excepting Danzo, of course) didn't exactly hang on formality. Many sensei wouldn't have allowed her to speak back, and most shinobi went their entire lives without talking to three Kage, much less ones who let her refer to them on first name terms.
'Okay, so Tokiwa isn't cold and annoying. She just doesn't want to be my friend, and that's fine. I don't really want to be hers either.'
There was something very unnerving about the older woman. It couldn't all be attributed to her detachment…
'It's probably her weird face,' Aiko decided childishly. 'Just looking at her sends a chill up my spine. There's just something not right about her and I can't put my finger on it. She looks like no one I've ever seen.'
But… that wasn't quite right. Aiko stopped dead in her tracks, unintentionally falling slightly behind Tokiwa before she blinked herself back to the real world and jolted forward. Realization hit her with a sickening suddenness.
Tokiwa looked Western. In this lifetime, she'd never seen a Western face. It didn't matter what coloring people had—be it Sasuke's black hair and dark eyes, Ino's blond and blue, or Sakura's unearthly hues: everyone she had ever met had similar facial characteristics and builds. But Tokiwa was different: taller than almost every man Aiko had ever seen, and with an unusually long face with a more pronounced nose, jawline, and cheekbone structure.
'I forgot what a Western face looked like.' Involuntarily, she shivered. 'What else am I forgetting?'
Terrifying. What was she-who was she, if she couldn't rely on her memory?
"I hope no one comes looking for me in my suite in Mist," Aiko muttered to herself. She wasn't worried enough to feel even the slightest bit guilty about shedding her clothes and burrowing into her own bed in a cami and panties, though.
She had just come back from her first debriefing with Tsunade about what she'd been doing in Water Country, even though she hadn't had much to talk about. Really, she'd gotten more surprising information than Tsunade had, when she'd thanked the Hokage for her butterfly hairpin and gotten a confused look in reply. That left her list of suspects at like, zero. That afternoon, she'd allowed Tokiwa to pick the location for the conference so they could begin planning. It had been foolish to get over-involved in minutia that didn't actually matter long term. No matter where they had the damn thing, they would have to tailor their plans to the benefits and drawbacks of the locale.
"Nnnnngghhhhhh."
"Mitsuo, not now," she mumbled into her pillow. When he whined again, she struggled out of her cocoon enough to pin the hound with a soulful eye. "Don't do this to me, dude." He gave an argumentative yap, leaping agilely up onto the bed and trodding insistently on her legs. "Ow, fuck! Get off." She kicked.
Her friend hit the floor with a doggy grin and a scitter of claws, sliding sideways across the floor until he connected with her rug.
"Oh, fine, you jackass," she snapped irritably, throwing off the covers. "I'll go to stupid practice. Even though I could instead be taking a nap."
"Whuff."
The distinctly canine laugh was a little too much for her ill mood. Luckily for him, his wagging tail had just cleared the door when her pillow thumped against the hallway wall.
"You'd think I'd already done enough for the day." With a long-suffering sigh, she struggled into a red skirt and a blue sweater. "I mean, it's not like I've been involved in diplomatic liaisons, Konoha's political processes, and covert operations in the last twenty four hours," Aiko grouched self pityingly.
She might actually go mad from overwork if she didn't get a real break soon.
The tiredness in her bones aside, she dully followed her ninken out the door. He apparently had a relaxed sense of time, and she didn't have it in her to care right now. The first place that he led her was to a sushi restaurant, where he nudged her into ordering him a roll. Apparently, he liked tuna as much as she liked sweet potato.
'Or maybe he's just not picky at all.' Her eye twitched, and she did her best to ignore the watery eyes pleading for more scraps.
It didn't work well at all.
"Can I have another roll, please?"
Once he'd scarfed it down, he gently pulled on her skirt with his teeth.
"I'm coming, you bully," she muttered resentfully, leaning back to drop her money on the table before the hound walking backwards could force her to make the choice between a ripped skirt and following him out. If she went limp, he might actually drag her bodily across town. So she hustled. "Please allow me a little bit of dignity," she whined through her teeth, taking a swing at his nose, barely brushing the wet appendage with the tips of her fingers.
He raised one ear in a gesture she didn't want to think too much about, but released her skirt to lope at her side.
"You're late!"
She nearly jumped out of her skin. "What?" Aiko asked, bewildered by the vehemence in that statement. How late was she-
Late enough that Kakashi had beat her there, apparently. Ah. That was late. 'Well, too damn bad. No point in complaining about it. I have bigger shit on my plate. I came, didn't I?'
That sounded a little too hostile. So she settled for a half-truth. "Yes, I laid down for a nap. I had a dream where I remembered what I had to do for the week, but then I forgot it all in the next dream. So I had to go back to sleep in order to remember the first dream and get here. I hurried as fast as I could."
Okay, so it was less than a half-truth, but being overworked made her a bit contrary. Naruto and Sasuke looked more horrified than her idiotic excuse really merited, however. Kakashi… was beaming.
"It happens to the best of us," he nodded sagely.
"That's the dumbest thing I have ever heard," Sasuke snapped, making a fist.
Before Naruto could manage to properly express his dissatisfaction, the peanut gallery piped up with a dubiously sincere, "I quite liked it."
At that, Naruto and Sasuke managed to give a first-class bitch face in unison. It was a bit hard to figure out who said what, because "who asked you, jackass" ran into "Why are you only nice to her?"
"Nice is a stretch," Kakashi mused, scratching at his chin. "His nickname for her isn't any kinder than yours, Naruto."
Sai looked downright shocked. "What do you mean, Kakashi-san?"
Crickets chirped. Naruto, who was responsible for the genjutsu, looked unduly pleased to have finally had a reason to demonstrate an auditory genjutsu.
In a sharp contrast to Naruto's detached delight at the awkward situation, the silver-haired Jounin looked a bit pained. "Sai, please don't tell me you had no idea the nicknames that you've chosen for your teammates are rude."
"What?" Sai tilted his head like a bird, blinking slowly. A faint line of concern appeared between his eyebrows.
Sasuke groaned. "You're serious?" he added flatly, fisting a hand in his hair compulsively as if resisting the urge to send Sai flying out of the clearing at such an impressive velocity that he'd never have to deal with the older teen again. "Don't act like you're unaware that you've been insulting all of us from the day you met us."
The root agent looked a bit stricken. "I read that nicknames were meant to be commentary on a person's personality or appearance, humorous because they are either an inverse or an exaggeration of literal traits," he explained with a hint of strain and big, dark eyes.
The lost tone tugged at her heart strings. "Don't listen to them," Aiko soothed, giving a nasty warning glare to the other boys as a group. "I like your nicknames even if the boys don't. They should be able to have a little humor about their flaws." She fixed Kakashi and Sasuke with a glare for upsetting the least socially capable person in the area. Really, they should have some sympathy. "If you are all done chatting like ladies in a hair salon, we could move on with practice."
At her self-righteous tone, Mitsuo gave another whuffing laugh and a whined comment she couldn't entirely understand. From context, she'd think it was "fine talk, coming from you after I had to drag you here with my teeth," but it honestly sounded more like nonsense words to her.
Judging by the smugly amused flicker of emotion of Kakashi's face, it had been the first thing. Damnit.
Still, he was kind enough to shoo the other boys into getting on with practice. She had apparently missed out on a second day of genjutsu training, which unfortunately meant that they'd all had an opportunity to learn one more than she did. That put her at a distinct disadvantage when they all paired off and were restricted to fighting with genjutsu. Mitsuo got bored and went home within minutes of watching them stare at each other.
Kakashi was the overall winner, of course. That was expected.
'He's sort of the master of the mindfuck. Still, this is impressive.'
Her teammates seemed less pleased to discover that they had been in a genjutsu since they had arrived for practice and were in fact in training ground four.
'I have no fucking idea how he managed that. I mean, I wouldn't be hard to trap right now, but presumably the boys aren't nearly as tired as I am.'
"Show-off," Sasuke sniped, ruffling his ridiculous hair.
Naruto had crossed his arms to pout, but unfolded them to raise a finger at the older man rudely. "You think you're so tough, huh!"
"Not really."
The boy's eye twitched at the disinterested tone and the way that Kakashi was actually beginning to walk away, reaching for the pouch where he kept his book. "Stupid sensei! I can do better than that dumb trick. Watch this, you old jerk! I defeated the pervert sage with this illusion."
Kakashi turned and looked genuinely interested at that point, but Sasuke whitened to an unhealthy degree. That was the only reason Aiko clued in to what was about to happen before—
"Sexy no jutsu!" Naruto roared, disappearing in a cloud of smoke even as Kakashi pushed up his headband in obvious interest. Naruto wasn't one to brag about confirmable things like that, after all. She could just see him thinking that he would steal this technique.
Aiko cringed, face-palming even as she began to giggle uncontrollably. Oh god no. Didn't the Sharingan have perfect recall? She had to peek out from between her fingers though, in some sick, vain hope that he hadn't- he had.
'I am way too tired to deal with this shit. Kakashi and Sasuke are just going to have to cope. At least he put some clothes on me this time.'
It wasn't much comfort. It appeared to be a teal version of the bikini she'd worn to the lake with her peers all that time ago, though the cloud version of her was considerably more… Well, it was bustier. Those were a solid D, not her smallish C. The bikini was the same size as the original. It was… ah, it was interesting.
The most atrocious problem, as far as she was concerned, was everything happening below the hips. Why were her legs three inches longer than they should be? What was wrong with her real legs? Self-consciously, Aiko glanced down. That might have been a blessing, because she managed to miss the exact instant that Kakashi realized what the hell had happened and froze like a block of ice, unable to look away until his mind caught up with what he was seeing, fingers still scrunching his headband around his temple.
"Impressed, aren't you," a voice that sounded unnervingly like hers cooed in the way she did when trying to butter someone up. The simulacrum delicately turned an ankle up and laced her fingers together, demurely blinking up at Kakashi through her eyelashes.
Legs aside, a fair bit of it was reasonably accurate, though. Those were her delicate wrists, the correct curve in her back, and the proportions of her shoulders and neck were just right. If it weren't for the expanded chest region, she would have said that the torso was entirely accurate. And of course, that was definitely her face turning to wink at an alarmed-looking Uchiha, which changed the angle she was viewing her own body from.
'Damn, I'm a sexy bitch. Is that really my ass?' Aiko put a hand to her hip, swiveling and straining to see for herself. 'Maybe I should get a mirror.'
"Mou, what's the matter?" Naruto purred, slinking to Sasuke (who looked stiff as a board) and draping Aiko's body over him like a mink coat, turning to nose into his neck and running her nails up his chest.
Sasuke made an undignified 'meep' sound, appearing desperate to escape but not mentally capable of fighting his way out from under Naruto.
'Haha, kinky thought. Maybe Naruto is going to end up being the one on top, when they eventually stop ignoring all the unresolved sexual tension.' A satisfied smile curled across her face before she realized that the other Jounin was struggling for words.
"What-"
'I've never heard his voice sound quite that high pitched before,' Aiko noted, looking up to check that her doppelganger was still making poses and kissy faces whilst inappropriately invading Sasuke's personal space, threatening to untie the bikini top. No wonder he'd looked displeased to know the technique was coming, if Naruto used it to tease him.
Kakashi cleared his throat and tried again, with admirable dignity for a man who'd just squeaked, Sharingan eye squeezed firmly shut. "What on earth are you doing, Naruto? Did you really think that was going to stop me in my tracks? It's not much of a genjutsu if I know it's real."
"To be fair, you looked pretty flummoxed to me," Naruto pointed out practically, going back to his real form with a puff of smoke and a wink. Sasuke relaxed a bit, gaze still darting between Naruto and Aiko as if he expected her to start screaming (or worse, leap at him herself). "Besides, I said it was an illusion, not a genjutsu."
"He was probably taken aback by all the inaccuracies in your technique," Sai criticized idly, putting a hand to his hip. "That's not what Washboard looks like in a state of undress at all."
Numbly, Kakashi seemed to lose his grip on his headband. It flopped back down all the way to his nose to cover both eyes and he didn't bother to retrieve it for a long second while everyone else in the clearing looking at each other, wide-eyed.
Suddenly, the situation wasn't funny.
'Someone should take me out back and shoot me dead right now. And then teach Sai social skills. It's not cute. I take back every time I thought it was because it was backfiring on Naruto and not me.'
No amount of cringing would actually make her disappear, but she couldn't just Hiraishin away from the awkwardness either. Who knew what Sai would say if left to his own devices? Would it be better or worse if he clarified that he'd seen her half naked on a mission together when she got a four inch gouge carved into her side?
Naruto appeared to be broken.
"Why do you- Why does he know-" Sasuke looked irrationally upset, turning first to Sai then to Aiko with an accusatory stare. "I thought you had better taste than that."
"It's not what-"
For better or worse, that was when Naruto regained his head. "Sasuke, would you help me?" The group at large recoiled from his calm tone. "Hold him. So I can kill him."
"Okay, that's enough of this! It was nice practicing we should do this again sometime goodbye I'll see you later" Aiko chirped out in one breath, blurring the words together in her haste and flash-stepping to Sai's side, grabbing a fistful of his shirt, and Hiraishin-ing to her apartment.
She didn't want him maimed, after all. This also got him away from anyone who he might accidentally scandalize further, if that was even possible.
The older teenager landed on his ass with a thump, but went completely limp and docile in response to the look on her face instead of hustling to his feet. "Washboard?"
"Yes, Sai?"
"Have I said something wrong?"
She buried her face in her hands, just too tired to scold him. He didn't even know what he'd done wrong. So cute, and so hopeless. "A bit. You implied that we're having sex to my little brother. He's never going to let this drop, you know. Not that I would be ashamed if we would, but oh my god I don't want to have Naruto bugging me about anything like that."
There was a moment of silence, and then slim fingers tugged her hands away from her eyes.
"Sorry?" He tried hopefully.
She snorted, managing to keep her face in place for only a moment before she broke down into giggles. "For future reference," Aiko managed to start sternly, before she had to shake her head and try again. "If you see a girl in a state of undress, you shouldn't talk about it. Okay? People will get the impression that you're bragging and you don't respect her very much."
"I understand." Sai looked mildly pleased to be able to claim that. "I will remember that, and no longer hint as to your past or future indecency in public."
"Hey now," she pouted, reaching out to ruffle his hair. He caught her wrist, so she pushed him with her elbow playfully. "That wasn't the nicest way to phrase that. I guess it doesn't matter, though." When he released her wrist, she snaked it around his upper back to pull him into an awkward hug. "You're adorable, Sai."
Bang bang bang
"I know you're in there!" Naruto hollered, still sounding a mite upset. "Let me in, Aiko. Sasuke says you want to give him a talk about birds and bees and that's a bad talk!"
'He doesn't sound like he's in a particularly rational frame of mind… I really should sit him down and tell him that it wouldn't be any of his business even if I was banging half of Konoha, but that sounds like it would be awkward and uncomfortable. I could just avoid him instead until he cools down. Yes. That's a good plan.'
"The window?" Sai asked a bare instant before she nodded, already on her feet and rushing through the apartment.
He found the boy exactly where he had expected to, sitting cross-legged and grumpy in the hallway between Tenzou and Aiko's apartments.
"Naruto?"
"Ungh," the teen grunted noncommittally in reply, still pissy about having failed to find his sister to find out why the hell she had made such a bizarre life choice.
Kakashi cleared his throat sternly. "Why did you invent that technique?"
Blue eyes blinked and finally focused, now that the topic was interesting to him. "Well, you see the pervert wasn't paying any attention to me, so I thought that he would if I were a pretty girl and I wanted to make a point about his lack of attention and unsuitability as a ment-"
"Naruto." The strain in his voice was a little more audible than he would have liked. "It's a ridiculous technique, but I'm not surprised in the slightest that you came up with it. My question is why you used your sister for it."
'And why she hasn't killed you,' he thought a bit darkly.
The teen looked at him like that was the dumbest question he'd ever heard. "I wanted to make a pretty girl," he said slowly, like Kakashi had suddenly stuck his fingers up his nose and Naruto didn't want to acknowledge it. "I tried to make it what I would look like as a girl, and I realized I'd probably look like Aiko."
'That's not exactly how genetics work,' he thought despairingly, but didn't even try to educate the blond. It wasn't relevant, and Naruto was still babbling with an unnecessary amount of hand movements.
"I looked at my face, and it was too broad and I have baby cheeks and then I realized I was putting way too much thought into this because Aiko is one of the prettiest girls I know and when I thought about making it Ino I felt weird for some reason-"
Now that he'd started talking, he just wouldn't stop. Kakashi had quite enough to try to avoid thinking about now, thanks very much, and he didn't need to spend five minutes wondering if he should be explaining puberty to Naruto, since the twit apparently hadn't figured out for himself why thinking of Ino nearly naked affected him more than it did to think of his sister, who he obviously had no desire to fuck because he didn't consider her as a sexual being. Aesthetically appealing, yes, but not sexual.
'I know she's an adult, but that wasn't good for my heart.' He slouched, a little pained. How awkward, to have seen one of his subordinates in such an intimate light, even if it wasn't really her. That wasn't professional at all, and she was too young to be doing… that sort of thing, prancing around almost naked. Well, okay, she wasn't, but he didn't want to see it. God, Minato-sensei would probably have cheerfully bludgeoned him to death for unintentionally ogling his fifteen year old daughter. With his Sharingan. So that the image of Naruto using the technique to recreate a fidgeting habit that he recognized—Aiko tilting her hip as she ran a hand down her side to reach for a weapon—was burnt into his brain.
It looked a little different in lingerie. It could never be un-seen.
Kakashi cringed, feeling like he was about to be scolded. He hadn't even done anything wrong. He'd just looked a little, that was all. He hadn't touched. He wouldn't even have looked if Naruto hadn't sprung that on him. Unconsciously, he put his hands in his pockets as if to symbolize keeping his hands to himself.
It was going to take some heavy duty brain bleach to pretend that hadn't happened and manage to actually look at Aiko again when they had to work together. And Naruto could just do that awful technique at any time…
Luckily, he knew a way to nip this in the bud.
"Naruto, if you don't want Sai to think about your sister naked, do you really want to show that technique to anyone else?"
There was no point in letting Naruto know that there was zero chance that someone as awkward as Sai had managed to seduce his sister. Really, Naruto should have known to trust Aiko when she'd started to deny the accusation, but his alternative to using the easy target was saying something about Sasuke looking at her, and that would only lead to paranoia on Naruto's part. Or worse, the realization that there had been another man in that clearing. He didn't need Naruto shrieking accusations at him in public, thank you very much. Jiraiya would kill him if he thought he had been taking advantage of his goddaughter while she was under his protection.
"That's different," Naruto protested crossly, brow wrinkling. "Sexy no Jutsu is funny and makes perverts bleed out of their nose because they want to touch the illusion. I just don't like the idea of… perverts… touching…" He trailed off, tan skin whitening more than Kakashi would have thought possible.
'Ah, there's the missing puberty,' he noted cheerfully. 'He must have been avoiding considering that for a while now.' Duty done, Kakashi gave a half-wave and fled.
In, out. In, out. Aiko just concentrated on breathing steadily for lack of anything else to entertain herself.
'Not that watching old people read isn't thrilling…'
Danzo flipped yet another page, slowly and steadily working his way through the second set of scrolls. He had initially been more interested in Terumi Mei's profile—that made sense, as she was the one Aiko was currently working with. But he might have changed his preferences. After he had rushed through that notebook, he had turned to read the one on Gaara.
It was taking an inordinate amount of time. He had already given her orders to spy on everyone from the Mizukage to Tokiwa.
'This is probably another idiotic discipline thing,' she groused, keeping her face smooth and free of irritation. 'Danzo is stressing the power dynamic between the two of us by making me stand here.'
It must have been an hour already since he had started reading. 'I just want to go to bed,' she felt like crying out. She did know better. Showing weakness like that would just end with her either punished or downgraded in usefulness. She couldn't have that. She would get done with this mission when she had enough information to help Tsunade pick up the pieces of Root after Danzo was removed from power. No sooner. The more he trusted her, the less she would have to sneak around him to gain information.
Not that she expected him to exactly entrust her with the keys to his kingdom, of course. She would settle for letting her go to sleep, though. A girl could only have so many of these late nights before she ended up as pale as Sai.
'Not that I'm much darker,' Aiko thought self-depreciatingly. 'It won't take too many more of these late nights until I look like a vampire too.'
"Sakura."
That name did cause her to look up, if only because no one ever said it anymore. Around her, at least. Ino probably hadn't completely forgotten the girl who had been her best friend for years.
"You have a more than professional relationship with the Kazekage?"
'Is that his super awkward way of asking if we're friends?'
There was no point to lying. They weren't exactly bosom buddies, but it would be a bit thick to deny that they knew each other on a personal basis. Many people could verify that.
"Hai, Danzo-sama."
"Hmm." The old man delicately pieced through the notebook on Gaara again, seeming to come to a decision. "This provides a unique opportunity to gain more nuanced information. You will seduce the Kazekage, if he is even capable of such weakness."
'What. The. Fuck.' Aiko wheezed lightly, feeling as if someone had just suckerpunched her in the gut to knock out all her air. 'That's disgusting! What is wrong with this man?' Her heartbeat was beating a violent tattoo against her chest, mouth agape and eyes so wide that the whites were probably showing. Her distress was probably apparent even behind her mask to a man like Danzo.
Its not- it wasn't like the idea of flirting with Gaara was disgusting. She'd done that before. He was attractive, intelligent, and powerful. That was the combination that revved her up, to be frank.
'But he's basically ordering me to whore myself out. That's not—that's not my job. That's not who I am. There's no honor in that.'
Danzo gave a mocking little laugh. "Calm down, child. Have you really no experience?" He shook his head sadly. "Such a thing used to be a standard part of the preparations for shinobi life. Your body is your best weapon, be it for taijutsu or for less obvious applications. Do you really think that such a thing is unique? That sensei of yours used his pretty face for those purposes too, once upon a time."
'Oh my god, ew. He's talking about Kakashi having to whore himself out for this awful hole in the wall town. That's far too undignified for someone so powerful and-' Aiko halted in her train of thought. 'Why… why would he know if Kakashi really had that kind of mission? He's not the Hokage.'
That disturbing thought bubbling in her head, she couldn't even focus enough on her current situation to panic. It probably helped, even if she was now remembering that Kakashi had once upon a time been a vulnerable, unguided genius in ANBU, a very familiar scenario.
'But he couldn't. He wouldn't.'
Surely she would know if Danzo had gotten his claws into Kakashi. He just wasn't the type, that was all, she tried to convince herself. He would never allow himself to be used that way. The man he was now would… not… But he wasn't always that man, was he.
'It's not like I can ask him,' she thought bitterly, bowing her head slightly. 'He wouldn't be able to say, even if he abandoned Root. And Danzo won't say a thing beyond what he just did.'
"It's about time you had the rest of your ANBU training, isn't it?" Danzo mused quietly. "Bring that up to the Hokage when next you see her. That is all, Sakura-chan."
She didn't even remember leaving Danzo's side. When Aiko came back from the red hot whine of panic, she was mechanically stripping her ANBU uniform in exchange for plain blue slacks and the standard issue blue shirt. "I have to know," she mumbled to herself, not bothering to put back down a single one of her weapons and searching out Kakashi's seal.
It was the middle of the night: about four a.m. Kakashi would certainly be in bed. Even he had to sleep at some point.
She didn't care. Aiko found his signal and pulled on it, going from the dim light of her room to pitch-black visibility in an apartment she'd never even seen before. About a second later, she was flat on her back with about 180 lbs of startled shinobi on top of her, taut muscles pressing her wrists together and a thumb into the underside of her jaw.
There was a sniff.
"Aiko?"
"Sorry, I thought I felt a chakra pulse," she lied evenly, even as if he leapt back like her flesh burnt him. He'd been sleeping. He wouldn't know that she was lying. Kakashi had lived through things she couldn't even imagine : he would have PTSD that would make her cry in a corner. If he never had nightmares, she would eat Smaug. He could easily have sparked chakra in his sleep and never even know.
She flipped to her feet and ran a hand through her loose hair, fingers tangling in the wavy strands. "Well, you appear to not be in any particular need of assistance," she said dryly, giving a loose wave, eager to flee his presence.
There was no denying or ignoring what she had to have been subconsciously blocking out before. In such close quarters, the sickly feeling of Danzo's chakra clinging to Kakashi's jaw had been unmistakable.
He'd been Root. The seal hadn't been as refined as the one on her own tongue, and the chakra signature had faded in the many years since it had been given, but Kakashi had been Root.
She felt oddly betrayed.
Kakashi was left blinking one red and one gray eye at the spot where his former student had been only a moment ago. "Odd," he mused, feeling unease trickle up his spine that he couldn't quite explain. It was more than a bit out of character for Aiko to appear in his bedroom in the dead of the night. He felt a bit guilty for pouncing on her like that, but he had been rather surprised to see… or rather feel her in his room, as he'd only known who it was when he'd knocked her over.
Convulsively, Kakashi moved to put his hands in his pockets for a reason he couldn't quite articulate—and had the unpleasant realization that he hadn't worn real pants to bed. Boxers didn't have pockets.
And he felt even more awkward than he had a moment ago.
'Maybe I should start sleeping in full uniform.'