He hadn't been on watch since there were so many people to share it, so Kakashi was the first one awake and ready to start in the morning that they would reach Rouran and the real mission could begin.
Kakashi didn't like any of these interlopers. This mission should just have been him with Sensei's team. They didn't belong here, and he didn't trust them. The Sandaime had apparently believed that they came from the future, but he was less certain.
He hadn't managed to decide if it would be worse to find out that they were spies or that they were telling the truth. He didn't… he didn't want to know what was going to happen. The older boys didn't seem to have any compunction about giving hints. He disliked them for that. He didn't want to know. The thought that his life was already predetermined was terrifying.
If they were honest and sane, then he was going to get saddled with that blonde moron as a student. It was an unappealing prospect. His other supposed student, the Uchiha, was surprisingly okay for a cat person, and markedly more intelligent than Obito. He'd grant that.
Though his stupid eleven year old teammate was far more irritating than this 'Sasuke', Obito was probably a good match for Naruto. Ugh, Naruto.
'He just really gets on my nerves.' Kakashi clenched his jaw, totally unaware that the expression was an adorable pout on his 9-year old features and Minato-sensei was a champion of distinguishing facial movements through his mask. His teacher coughed to hide a giggle, but Kakashi was too busy moping to catch it.
Naruto thought he was so tough. And he was annoying, too, always grinning and looking at Minato-sensei. It was weird.
Sensei was too nice to say anything, but he could tell that it unnerved him. Sensei seemed strangely fond of and interested in the idiot, though, for some bizarre reason.
'I don't know why. I don't think he's even a real shinobi.' Kakashi took an extra large stride, working twice as hard as everyone else to keep up. 'The Uchiha might not be either. I've never seen him do anything impressive.'
The last one seemed to be the team-leader. That wasn't necessarily prestigious, considering her company. At least she wasn't simpering all the time like Rin, and she didn't seem interested in lording her knowledge of the future over him. He much preferred 'taciturn' to 'chatty'. Bossy, though, and he didn't like the way she looked at any of them.
Sometimes it seemed like she was going to bare her teeth at Minato-sensei if he got too close to her teammates. Funny that she was so protective when she was seemed to be the weakest one there. What little he'd pieced together of the failed mission that brought them here indicated that she was some sort of support type and had been lurking back.
Kakashi scoffed, pushing his lower lip out for a moment before he caught himself and tried to still his face. It was hard, damnit, but he was a real shinobi and they didn't have emotions or weaknesses.
He had finally been trusted with a real mission for once instead of stupid escort missions or watching big dumb Obito fail mundane D class tasks. Sensei had chosen him to accompany his own team. No one was going to mess that up for him.
They entered the city of towers in the cover of darkness, vaulting completely over their precious wall and traveling in a line like ants, one leaping from the wall to a tower with an open window in a room that Shibi's insects had made sure was clear as soon as the person in front was safely inside. The home owners who had left their entrance open lay sleeping, unwitting and restlessly, on the other side of one of the walls.
"We'll set up a base in an empty apartment in this complex," Minato whispered to everyone but Shibi whose plan it was. "There are an unusual amount of unoccupied homes."
'That's probably a clue that something is wrong.'
Despite the unnerving sense that the city was too quiet even for an area at sleep, Aiko didn't breathe anything about her bad feeling. Her intuition was nothing to write home about, so she'd wait until she had concrete evidence and something more than 'where are the criminals, dissident teens, and streetwalkers who should be out at this time of night?'
Perhaps Rouran really was so regulated and clockwork-clean that they didn't have any of those social ills. The thought made her shudder. It would have to be a totalitarian nightmare for there to be no one willing to risk the nightlife.
"Alright team, gather round," Minato began with a silent (and therefore pointless) handclap to gather them together and unnecessary bubbly attitude. Obediently, they formed a seated circle of sorts. "For now, we need to gather information. My team's primary goal will still be to investigate any hints that indicate the human trafficking originates here. You three will be locating and shadowing princess Sara in order to ascertain whether she is willingly complicit in what this 'Anroukuzan' or 'Mukade' is planning. Any questions so far?"
There was apparently a question, but it wasn't directed at Minato.
"Did you say that this Anroukuzan would recognize you?" Shibi asked.
Aiko sucked in a breath through her teeth. That was a harder question than it sounded. "Maybe?" she admitted uncertainly. "For him, it's been six years. If he does, he'd probably recognize just the boys. I don't think he had a good look at me."
"Then perhaps it would be unwise for you to accompany them to shadow this princess," Choza pointed out, crossing his arms across his broad chest. He looked surprisingly like a lucky cat with his eyes squeezed shut like that. "If he sees them, Anroukuzan will know that he brought back the two closest to him when he traveled here. If he sees someone he doesn't recognize…"
Choza trailed off meaningfully, but Minato cut in. "Yes, I see. He would suspect that there were further intruders, and the rest of us are likely to be discovered before we want to be. Our mission is better accomplished if no one knows of our presence until the appropriate moment."
She stared at them, aghast. It turned to sullenness quickly. "You don't think I can hide from a puffed-up Chuunin when it counts?" Aiko asked disbelievingly. None of them looked ashamed. Kakashi even looked a little amused.
'Don't they know I snuck into the Hokage's office? That's not something an amateur- oh. No, he wouldn't have shared that information. Still.'
She actually felt a bit angry. The hell was that about? Had she been imagining a hint of disdain earlier the other day when Naruto had clarified that she had been removed from the initial fight? Was this because they thought she was a support type?
It wasn't the first time that she'd encountered casual prejudice against ninja like medics and infiltration specialists—those who weren't pure combat specialists. But it was the first time it'd been directed at her, even if it was in a mildly patronizing, protective way. Like the stupid little girl needed to be kept out of a risky operation or risk ruining it.
"Of course," she snipped after a long moment, giving the three older men a nasty look. 'You simpering troglodytes.' In unison, Minato and Choza recoiled. "You're right. My delicate constitution isn't suited for the dangerous task of following around a spoiled teenage girl without getting seen by her fat old advisor."
'What the hell just happened,' thought Minato, who had thought he was being perfectly reasonable.
Choza cringed back a little at the unexpected temper, attempting to exchange a desperate plea for help with his eyes while his submissive body language warded off further hostility, but Shibi was impassive and her teammates just stifled snickers.
"In any case," Minato burbled, eager to get back to a conversation he understood, "Shibi has a point. Aiko-san, I think that you should work with Kakashi."
All the unkind amusement fled the boy's face.
"You can watch each others' backs," he gently added, raising an eyebrow at his student as if to ward off protests. "I was going to allow you to do unassisted recon, but I'd feel better knowing a Jounin has your back," he tried for a little flattery of both of in one go to assuage their egos. The attempt failed to affect Aiko's ill mood and made Kakashi's obviously worse.
'I give up. I can't make them all happy.'
"If you're worried about your team, don't be," Minato said with a tone that brooked no argument. He seamlessly untucked a Hiraishin kunai from his thigh pouch and reverently held it out for Naruto to grasp. The boy reflexively took it with a strange expression on his face. "I will be watching out for them, and if anything goes wrong they can call me instantly."
For some strange reason, Naruto and Sasuke exchanged a supremely amused look.
'Supreme,' Minato mused, suddenly distracted. 'What an excellent word. Supreme. I like it.'
He never did get around to questioning Aiko's dry response about how that made her feel exponentially better or her teammates' odd response.
"A Hiraishin you say," Sasuke exclaimed in an unusually positive tone. "How novel. We will treasure it always."
"Yes, well." Minato coughed a little, uncomfortable with the awe. Unfortunately, his next topic might not deflect it. "If your report was accurate, then there was some sort of seal covering the chakra well? We would probably need the princess's help to replicate the feat, but it would help if any of you could describe it."
'Was it put there by me? If I had to seal a large amount of nature chakra in a rush, what would I use?' Worry struggled with intellectual curiosity. 'Obviously, if removing it had the effect of transporting those who came in contact with it to their timeline's past, then I could have done a better job. But is it now crucial that I create the same seal so that they end up traveling back in time? Will it just be sitting there waiting for another disaster like this? It could be so much worse, if someone like Mukade were to try such a thing again. Would it be possible to have the seal altered after those three are safely home?'
"Unfortunately, I didn't get a very good look."
Mildly surprised that the sulky girl had spoken up again, Minato blinked and looked over at her.
"Whatever you used, you must have thought that it could be destabilized from the undulations of the chakra beneath, because you bothered to physically pin it in place with a Hiraishin kunai." Her eyes were distant, almost glazed with thought, but her face was perfectly smooth and unemotional.
The effect was a little creepy, to be honest. Aiko could have been in a trance or séance. Didn't people normally do something with their face when they thought hard? Like squint or frown or something?
"There must be far too much chakra for it to be contained in a normal storage type array, so you substituted a stabilizing agent that occupied a similar frequency to persuade it to straddle the line between the physical and the metaphysical, probably as you physically stilled the energy supply—or Sara did, I suppose—and prevented it from growing or moving. Really, you put it to sleep more than anything, but your other option would have been to steadily siphon it off, and that would have had a transformative effect on the environs that I definitely did not observe." She frowned. "Then again-"
"You're a seal user, I take it?" Minato interjected, for once regarding her with interest. When she remembered her audience, Aiko looked mildly embarrassed.
"I dabble," she deflected.
'That is not dabbling. Is she modest, or is she uncomfortable discussing the extent of her abilities?'
Either way, he was content to let it rest. Naruto wasn't.
The boy let out a rude snort and kicked his feet up to rest on Sasuke's legs. The Uchiha (even without sharing his last name, that was one an easy identification) scowled, but his friend paid him no mind. "Don't be modest, Aiko chyyaaaan. You're way better than I am. I don't think you get to claim you're dabbling after you've been asked to seal a-"
"Naruto."
At the clipped tone and tight expression, the blonde teen's eyes widened and he looked sheepish. "Right. Yes. We're not talking about the future."
'Asked to seal a what?' He sent his team to rest and took first watch, but Minato had to wonder what one instance of sealing was so important that it could qualify as sensitive information.
The ANBU team left first in the morning after Shibi woke everyone else. Naruto and Sasuke made a beeline for the palace soon after while they still had the shadows of early morning to ease their travel, but Kakashi and Aiko waited in awkward silence for daylight to truly come before they ventured out in the guise of civilians.
Their objective was to assess the atmosphere and attitude of the city by subtly interacting with the populace. They would go and do some shopping, perhaps go out for breakfast.
Or at least that was the plan.
'This is spectacularly creepy.'
Her face was probably a bit green under her henge, but at least Kakashi didn't know to mock her for it. 'Even so, it's completely legitimate to be grossed out by human puppets or puppets of humans after having met that nutjob back in Sand,' she argued to herself, justifying her discomfort.
It didn't work, so she turned to dark humor to steady herself and prevent gaining the notice of any of the real people moving with obvious fear through their artificial fellows. There were so few that they might be recognized as outsiders. That had seemed ridiculous in such a large city, but that didn't change the bizarre fact that there appeared to be less than a tenth of as many people as there should be in the streets.
'At least I was right about Mukade,' Aiko remembered blackly. 'More right than I knew. He must have been more than a little pissed about missing his opportunity to have real influence in Sand. He couldn't control the people there. I bet he gets off on creating his own perfect little world. Like his own real Barbie Dreamhouse, if she and her entire world was made by a monster.'
Control freak. He was definitely a control freak, past even the point that qualified as a mental disorder. He was obsessed with asserting his will on his environment.
With that knowledge, his apparent goal of gaining domination over Wind Country (at least, possibly the Elemental Nations as a whole) made sense. Mukade was unsettled by things that were out of his control or that he felt he could better manage. He was proving to himself in an endless circle-jerk that Sand had really fucked up by not allowing him to run his own town. He was so excellent at running a city that he didn't even need people to live in it, for christ's sake. What a prize.
They had immediately returned to their base to wait for the others finish their reconnaissance. Even though they had left hours after the others, it seemed to be an unbearably long time later that the other teams returned.
"Sara is innocent," Naruto concluded, nibbling on a nail.
"She seems completely ignorant," Sasuke added in his usual way of back-handed compliments.
He received a glare from Naruto for that one. "She is a really nice person, I can tell," Naruto asserted. He crossed his legs, apparently unconcerned that the others were treating this as a more formal debriefing. "I think she's sad about something though."
"It might be the city full of demented puppets getting ready to put on a parade," Kakashi interjected unkindly, looking bored.
Everyone else, who had been far from the majority of people, gave him looks that begged clarification.
"He's right," Aiko helped, folding her hands behind her back and straightening as if to formally report. "Perhaps one in every twenty of the apparent civilians doing business on the streets this morning was an actual person. I am not certain, but I think that the others are deceased city residents who had been made into puppets." The expressions she got ranged from revolted to disbelieving. "That's a thing," she informed dryly, not hiding her shudder. "It's really gross. I hate puppet masters."
Naruto made a sound of comprehension. "Oh yeah, that time Sasori kidnapped you."
"We're not talking about that."
Her Uchiha teammate, the traitorous bastard, had the nerve to smirk. "I think we should. Didn't he find you such an unpleasant prisoner that he released you? Perhaps you should be the one to deal with Mukade after all."
"You know perfectly well that I escaped on my own," Aiko replied icily, not appreciating that the amusement that had been interjected into the conversation was at her expense. "No thanks to you."
It was actually a little hurtful that they would tease her about that. It had been one of the worst experiences of her life. 'Then again, how would they know that? They never met the creep in person, and it's not like I talked about it.' Still, it stung.
"Hey, don't blame us," Naruto taunted, giving the watchers a mischievous look. "Blame Kakashi. It was never my job to make sure you didn't get kidnapped from your hospital bed."
Kakashi seemed to disbelieve that would be his problem as well, but Minato was giving the boy a mildly disappointed look. Hell if Aiko knew why.
"This is pointless," she deflected, tightening her clasped fingers in irritation. 'I know that they deal with stress by making light of it. But I do not appreciate it right now.'
Somehow, Minato managed to get them all sent back out. She didn't fail to notice that he hadn't shared what his team had discovered, but he had concluded that it would be acceptable for her to travel with her team now. That had to mean that he had discerned that Mukade was the culprit for his mission as well, and he didn't worry about them getting in a fight over their heads because his team would be around. They were going to have to confront Mukade.
'We're probably the decoy. Minato's team is shadowing us. Mukade is meant to see us but not his team.' Aiko parsed, following Sasuke through the crowds that paid them no mind to have a better view of the princess. She was already walking out onto the balcony to give some speech to a vast courtyard full of puppets, gargled cheers torn from dead throats and generously supplemented by the enthusiasm wrestled from the few real humans there. It was probably enthusiasm not to be murdered for failing to help make the show pretty.
'Mukade must think it's amusing to figuratively puppet Sara into giving pointless speeches to literal puppets.' Aiko's own lips twitched with amusement she hid from her brother. It was pretty funny, in a perverse way. He probably wouldn't appreciate it, though.
That was when the girl on the balcony seemed to suddenly jerk forward and fall. She must have been stunned, or drugged, or under mind control of some sort because it was just plain unnatural for her to plummet from a fatal height without a sound.
'Is he trying to have her killed because he knows we're here?' Guiltily, Aiko glanced down at the redheaded girl in her brother's arms. He'd been the fastest to rescue a damsel. Creepily, none of the puppets had reacted at all to her fall. More tellingly, neither had the figures on the balcony. Either Sara was surrounded by more convincing human puppets, or they were all in on the plot. 'Poor girl. If we weren't here, she would probably have been left alone, if only for a while longer.'
Sara was fourteen- barely younger than Aiko herself. But a civilian fourteen was so much younger than a shinobi fifteen, even if Sara had technically come of age. Sara was probably more naïve than most, pampered and misled by someone who wanted to control her since she was a vulnerable child right after the death of her only living family.
Then Sara opened pretty, jewel-bright purple eyes that had apparently been squeezed shut in fear and shock—and immediately slapped Naruto twice.
'Suddenly, I do not like her at all.'
Aiko didn't remember moving, but she was holding an incredibly delicate wrist between her thumb and forefingers to restrain the brat's movement. When the princess twisted to look at her, fury in her face, something stilled her.
Probably the expression Aiko held, though she had no idea what it was. "Maa," she started with deliberate casualness, "That's not a good way to thank someone who just saved you from falling to your death. I think you owe him an apology along with your thanks." She gave a smile with just a little too much teeth and let go of the younger girl's wrist.
Sara turned an unbecoming pink. "I- I don't have to say anything but put me down!" She elbowed Naruto with all the force a wiry looking civilian girl could muster. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she was dusting herself off and giving an imperious sniff. "Thank you. If you will excuse me, I need to get back up there."
"I," Sasuke breathed into Aiko's ear, "am not impressed."
She didn't think she had to speak to communicate agreement, only direct a dry look at him. "Since she can't be bothered to thank Naruto for her life, maybe she doesn't appreciate it very much. If she really wanted to fall to her death, we could put her back up there," she turned just enough to mutter under her breath. Sasuke gave her a wicked smirk in return.
But Naruto seemed to be about to set Sara off on another snit, judging by the way she was puffing up, so she reluctantly re-entered the conversation.
"Look, Sara, is it?" The other girl turned, probably to say something indignant about her title, but Aiko gave her a look that brooked no shit and pressed forward. "Don't you find anything remotely unusual about the fact that you just nearly fell to your death and no one seems to have noticed? Go and take a closer look at the crowd."
"Why?" Sara frowned. "I had a much better view from the balcony, of all the colors of their clothing and them cheering for me."
Aiko cringed a little. 'It helps our purposes, but someone really failed this girl. She has no self-preservation, and she's unbearably naïve. We're representatives of a foreign military illegally in her city. She should be struggling to get away from us. Someone… Someone needs to help her. She'll never survive ten minutes like this once we get rid of Anroukuzan. She's an easy victim.'
"What, you don't find the idea of meeting your subjects in person interesting?" Sasuke raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow. Sara seemed to notice him for the first time—and instantly flushed. She dipped her chin slightly in what seemed to be shyness but also allowed her to check him out.
'Sasuke, you pretty boy. I think we just about heard her panties drop.'
He looked less amused, and Naruto hadn't even noticed. Ugh, boys. At least Sasuke had thought to play on the girl's apparent sentimentalism for her people. Naruto was looking at them in disquiet that indicated he would have preferred to open by telling her the truth: that her people had been killed and replaced with simulacrums and that her trusted advisor was a criminal from twenty years in the future.
But that just wasn't going to win them any friends. In fact, Sara would probably be in the right to decide they were dangerously crazy and flee post-haste.
The princess looked torn between her curiosity and duty to return to her attempted murderer, but luckily she was just contrary enough to indulge herself. Aiko felt almost bad about how obviously eager Sara was to meet her adoring public. In another circumstance, she might have found amusement at the look on Sara's face when they first got close enough to see the unnaturally altered visage of one of the puppet-civilians.
Aiko was instead sympathetic. "Yeah, they're creepy." Sara was a bit of a brat, but her naivety was intentionally cultivated and not necessarily a personal fault, so she didn't have to steel herself too much to give the younger girl a comforting squeeze with one arm.
Physical reassurance was usually more Naruto's shtick than hers, but after Sara had smacked him for saving her life, Aiko was going to assume that the girl wasn't comfortable being touched by boys. That was fine.
She did feel badly for Sara and a bit melancholy in general. The girl had been used all her life, and her future was bleak. No matter what they did here today, Rouran was destined to fall soon.
Still, she withdrew her arm briskly. No need to push it or wallow. "Do you want to know what those are, and why they're here?"
Sara looked to be on the verge of panic. Her purple eyes were welling with tears, but this was the time to push. If they let her go now, she would run back to her trusted advisor.
Naruto gave her a dirty look that said he knew exactly what she was doing and didn't approve. Still, she was currently the team leader, and he generally trusted that she wouldn't bring the girl to harm. "Princess Sara?" he tried gently. "Don't you think you should know what's going on?"
Sara sniffled, glancing back at the simulacrum stiffly waving up at an empty balcony. Sasuke gave Aiko a mildly panicked look, as if begging her to make the crying stop. She gave a helpless shrug in return, silently communicating, 'What the hell do you want me to do about it?' The look he gave her implied he was willing to accept anything to make it go away.
"Yes," Sara stated softly, but with an undeniable firmness. Aiko's lips pulled into a faint smile, both in relief and approval. Good. The girl wasn't hopeless after all.
'Wait. That scent is a living human.'
The difference between a living person and one of the non-rotting puppets made with human materials was slight, but enough that Aiko had turned and pointed a wary glare on the pretty woman who had slunk up behind them before anyone else.
But the interloper had only eyes for Princess Sara.
"Are you…" She shakingly stopped, and tried again, focused with unnerving intensity on Sara. "Are you really the Princess?" When Sara gave a quivering smile and a nod, the stranger woman cut her off before she could speak. "Did you come to help us?"
The naked hope in that question cut even Aiko's heart. Naruto and the princess didn't stand a chance.
An hour later, she was willing to rescind every kind or even tolerant thought she'd had about Sara. She kept getting in the way, tripping over nothing and talking inappropriately loudly about incredibly dull things. Alternately, she monologued (something about her mother? It wasn't half as interesting as Sara thought it was) and argued with Naruto about the likelihood of Anroukuzan being a puppet-master.
They had somehow ended up on some hare-brained mission to show Sara the depths of depravity that the resident puppet master had descended to by investigating one of the complexes that the people thought was suspicious. Or rather, that one of the few people who hadn't been dragged away on 'Sara's' orders found suspicious. Some of the kidnapped people were later replaced by puppets. Perhaps worse was that some weren't. Women and men who were ill-suited to manual labor tended to return as puppets, while the children and athletic men were simply gone.
Aiko rather suspected that what they would find when they eventually discovered where the civilians were being taken to would not be pleasant. She had never seen humans used for slave labor or turned into weapons, but it couldn't be anything less than a shock to an intentionally pampered child like Sara.
'Speaking of shocking new sights: There they are.'
"Oh for-" Aiko cursed quietly, picking Sara up bodily and leaping backwards out of the line of fire when the next corridor yielded a grotesque looking puppet with a tiny head, arms and legs that had apparently been modeled off of Madonna's cone bra, and hula hoops around their hips for some reason–not a particularly humanoid one, thankfully, but probably a more dangerous one—that gave a hoarse sound of some sort of alert when it spotted their group. No doubt it was summoning allies or backup dancers. She'd seen Beyonce do the same thing in a music video once. Or maybe it was the Lady Gaga?
She shrugged away that pointless line of thought and deposited Sara behind a support column and turned back to their opponents. "Stay here, okay? We'll take care of this. There are probably more."
The creature and those that followed it were a dusty red color, like dirty river clay, and they smelled of something sour and herbal. Perhaps it was the compound that Mukade used to treat the metal weapons contained inside to keep them oiled and rust-free. When Naruto leapt ahead to strike the first blow, the impact's sound implied they were largely hollow.
'That would be strange. Usually a puppet designer is very efficient about balancing weight, space, and variety of weapons. Why wouldn't Mukade want to fill all the available space?'
Naruto and Sasuke had already barreled ahead into the complex and began to test themselves against the puppets for the first time. She'd been right to tuck Sara away: there were a lot of the things.
'Mukade is a busy guy.'
"This is actually pretty fun," Sasuke huffed with a grin, blowing a lock of hair out of his face and twisting around to clock another puppet so hard that it crashed into two more of its fellows, shattering against the wall twenty feet away.
She gave a snort in return, keeping a thin smile on her lips and an eye on the massive pile up of puppets and the way that they moved.
This seemed like an odd ploy. What was the point in constructing so many structurally weak puppets with predictable weaponry and sending them at intruders without any sense of strategy? At this rate, they would have them all destroyed within six minutes, easily.
She probably should have noted that the pieces jerked strangely when they fell on the ground, as if the creatures weren't really defeated. But she was cutting her enemies down with little concern for those that fell, working to eliminate their numbered advantage.
'Wheeee…'
It was even more fun than she'd known the only time she'd used this in a fight before to swirl, dart, and Hiraishin her way through the pileup, getting faster and faster as she tagged seals after seals, all explosive Hiraishin. Speed was definitely her friend—some of those puppets were wielding chakra strings of their own to shoot retractable blades, which was ridiculously extravagant. Enormous amounts of chakra indeed. When she'd fought her way into the opposite end of the area, Aiko turned to view the expanse, gave an anticipatory grin, and yelled "Boom, baby!"
Just for the fuck of it.
The room was positively filled with stupidly surprised looking puppets flying about in bits, but none of the charred smell associated with standard explosions. They were whole and then they were in hundreds of pieces in the air.
There was a strange "Erp" sound from behind her. Aiko swiveled to see chibi Kakashi staring wide-eyed, incomprehensibly shaking his head at the room. Ah, that was right. He was observing today. It was take your student to work day, apparently, and she'd ended up Minato's babysitter.
'Oh well. He seems fine.'
She shrugged and moved on with her life, flipping up onto a puppet's back to avoid the blade it brought down.
"Sara!"
Naruto's panicked shout on the other side of a wall drew her attention, and she realized for the first time that she'd pushed her way further into the complex and in a different direction than the boys had.
Her Hiraishin bounced her off of the enormous thing that had snatched Naruto up and was enclosing him in—were those puppets, fusing together like some sort of goddamn transformer about to fight off bad aliens? Were those the puppets that they had been knocking apart?
In a detached way, her mind surveyed the situation. Her brother was pale-faced and pounding on the closing puppet, fifteen feet off the ground. Sara, that indomitable idiot, was splayed up on the floor with her lower lip trembling in a way that just told her he'd gotten snatched up to save her when she inevitably ran to tell the puppets to stop in the name of love or her mother's spirit or whatever it was she went on about. Sasuke was forcing his way through a crowd of those puppets, pulling them apart as though they were made of tissue paper even as they struggled and warped into a cohesive whole.
But mostly she saw her otouto looking determined but deceptively frail as the new puppet sealed him inside a grotesque, stupid tomb of Mukade's making.
Aiko gave an enraged scream and leapt thoughtlessly at the clay puppet trapping her brother for the sake of that girl who wouldn't pay attention to her surroundings. "Sen Tsurara!"
With sudden, hateful clarity, she realized at least one reason why people shouted out the name of their jutsu, despite it being unprofessional and generally counterproductive for sneaky assassins. When you really despised someone, you wanted them to know how you were going to kill them. She was going to kill Mukade herself, and to hell with the consequences.
Her technique skittered with a cacophony of high pitched shrieks off the hard reddish surface in the instant before it bit in and punched all the way through the unnatural material trapping her brother, leaving her wrist deep in sodden, scraped and shattered material. Her blow had been aimed several feet above him to prevent any chance of harming him with her technique. This should have shattered the damn thing and let him escape.
Instead, the horrid self-regenerating clay bubbled and warped up, already growing back in where she'd collapsed it. Even worse, the hole she'd made had been about a foot and a half in diameter. Certainly not enough for Naruto to escape unless it was positioned perfectly.
'I need more force. A lot more force applied precisely.'
"Sasuke!" she called, fear frantically whining in her head.
"Back up," he roared, cocking and fist and coming at the puppet with a fierce expression. She crouched and pushed off of the puppet in the direction Sasuke had come from, crossing him in the air a half-second before he collided and smashed the whole tacky affair like an antique plate, collapsing the armor inwards. Naruto easily slipped out, hitting the ground in a roll and popping back up to form a shadow clone.
"I'm taking Sara out of here," he called, gathering the girl up like she weighed less than a thought and bounding towards the left corridor and letting his clone cover his back. "They were targeting her."
It was good strategy, though she didn't like him going alone. And it gave her an opportunity to pound on these things without impunity.
"Sasuke, follow him." Aiko cracked her neck and flexed her fingers, giving the reassembling puppets an unimpressed stare. "They're just going to keep regenerating. I'll immobilize them and catch up to you two later."
'It's almost a shame we didn't find any of the missing people here, but this had to have convinced even Sara that something is really wrong. Being attacked on sight has to be unnerving.'
"Understood." He gave a brisk nod and left in a flash of movement.
It wasn't like she was at any risk for being trapped inside a puppet cage, after all. Besides, the constructs that she had detonated still hadn't brought themselves back together. Either that was impossible, or it took much longer. She blinked away thoughts of the potential strain of setting that many seals at once. She'd already set at least a hundred, and that was a good chunk of her reserves.
'I'll tag every other one and make the explosions bigger to conserve chakra,' she decided grimly. It was hardly optimal to do less localized explosions when fighting inside, as it increased the risk of structural damage or friendly fire. But the only ally who was possibly still in the area was Kakashi, who was a sneaky little bastard. He was probably scoffing at her showiness and steadily picking through a confused-looking group of the idiot devices from a distance, insulting them under his breath the whole time.
That was about the time that she jumped and realized one of her Hiraishin seals was definitely not where it should have been. She methodically, efficiently worked to get through her opponents—they didn't seem to regenerate when detonated—so she could go investigate.
When all the puppets laid in broken pieces on the floor, she picked her way through the rubble mindlessly, making certain that the missing workers weren't in the area. Naruto and Sara must have gone the right way, because her path led her outside. Oddly enough, she'd traveled far enough through the complex that she could see one of the city gates, and a single figure standing under it looking lost.
A bit of dust was kicked up by a rather efficient shunshin, and the boy she'd misplaced was standing by her side. "That one of yours?" Kakashi asked long-sufferingly, pointing at the older shinobi who had just now noticed them and gotten a dopey grin.
"Yepp," she sighed, wishing he looked a little more impressive and a little less windswept and silly. Then Aiko frowned. "But he shouldn't be alone." She purposefully left Kakashi behind, striding to meet Yamato in the middle of the block. Before he could open his mouth, she flung her arms around his flak jacket, burying her face into his chest. She could feel him stiffen and knew he was uncomfortable. Didn't even care.
"You're taking over," she informed him, knowing he could understand her muffled tone. Still, for emphasis, she drew one arm back and poked him in the chest repeatedly with two fingers. "This shit is ridiculous and I want to go home and I don't like being captain."
"I- I guess I'll take that as a compliment?" he asked uncertainly, gently pulling her back by her forearms and giving her a slight frown, brows creased. "What's going on? Where are we?"
Aiko tilted her head up just to be sure he could see her roll her eyes at him. "You serious? Look around." She gestured widely, fingers held together so she wasn't rude like Naruto or chibi-Kashi.
Not coincidentally, said boy was in the range she indicated. Yamato's eyes locked on him and widened comically.
In a strange, stifled tone, he asked, "Is that-"
"Yepp," she informed easily.
He seemed to deflate with a puff, before just the slightest hint of boyish amusement crossed his features. Then he was a professional again. "Right, then. Where are the boys?"
"They're playing bodyguards to a princess who is being manipulated by Mukade while an ANBU team lurks in the shadows," she replied professionally. At least, as professional as it was possible to say such a ludicrous thing.
Yamato pinned his hand to his head and slowly shook it. "Start from the beginning."
"Well, to be fair, the princess doesn't seem to really believe that Mukade is the one behind all this. When he unstuck that seal, he ended up getting us all sent back in time." She raised her eyebrows meaningfully. "As you've noticed, we didn't all end up in the same time."
Sweet, clever, socially capable Yamato seemed to read the question she didn't hint at. "As far as I know, Mitsuo is fine," he assured briskly. "He was far enough back that I'm sure he didn't get caught up."
She slumped in relief, taking a deep breath and putting that worry to rest. "Thank kami."
Kakashi had been watching with curiosity, but seemed fed up with waiting now. "You're being rude," he pointed out waspishly. "And we should report."
Yamato stared at him for a moment. He seemed to swallow the first thing that came to mind, and merely gave him a rather sad look. "You've got a lot of growing up to do, kid." Aiko tried not to wince. Yeah. This was pre-Obito Kakashi. He was almost a different person.
Whatever he saw in their expressions unnerved him enough that he didn't say a damn thing, only took the lead and cut the straightest line to the rendezvous point.