Five shinobi left from lush Konoha before the sun had risen. The air became cold and dry on the route north they traveled towards Iron. Aiko's eyes watered the entire first day, but they only prickled with pain when their route was just northeast enough for the rising sun to be a nuisance. Iron loomed in the distance after two hard days of travel.
As soon as they had crossed the border, Aiko wanted to turn back around and hide at the bottom of a bottle. Or under her bed. She wasn't feeling picky, really.
'There's no way at all for this to end well. If Konan gets off, it'll normalize international tensions, but most people in Konoha will be out for blood.'
The trial was somehow less interesting than her personal relationships. That probably made her a shitty shinobi, but Aiko's thoughts kept coming back to the fact that she would probably have to look Gaara in the eye in Iron. What had those bijuu done after she'd released them in his country? People had to have died.
All the while, the rush of blood in her ears sounded like a reminder that this would be a very attractive opportunity for Obito. He was dramatic. It would be more surprising if he didn't attempt to capitulate on a gathering of the five kage, especially one with so many jinchuuriki in attendance.
He would be there. Aiko was sure of it. The only question was how he would infiltrate the gathering. A subtle shinobi might replace some minor government official, a civilian if possible, and hide in the audience watching the proceedings. Another shinobi might rely on total stealth- somehow watching the proceedings from the shadows. Obito was capable of that, but it was a risk. There were going to be so many high-level shinobi there. It would probably be less risky to break in mid-way through the proceedings and take off with jinchuuriki, but then he would miss out on subtle political shifts that he could manipulate.
She didn't know how he was going to do it, but odds were good that whatever Obito had in mind was completely unnecessary and overly difficult.
'Goddamn drama queen,' Aiko thought darkly. She did not let the hypocrisy inherent in that accusation bother her.
As always, thinking of the danger Obito meant for jinchuuriki led her thoughts right back to Naruto. Something angry coiled in her gut at the reminder that Obito would have used her as a weapon against her twin, but nausea was her overwhelming reaction. What would Naruto- what would her family think when they saw her again? What would they say? She kept worrying at the thought, unable to let it go.
What could she possibly say to them? Sorry I fucked off for a year to go run drugs, kill jinchuuriki, and consort with terrorists. Let's pretend that never happened and I'll go back to being a reclusive control freak, kthanksbai.
She'd never actually heard of a more thorough case behavior worth bringing shame upon the family name. She'd pretty well hit all the high notes of moral decay and personal betrayal.
"As puerile as it is, remember that we are utilizing the buddy system," Tsunade drawled. The words sounded distasteful, picked out with hard consonants.
The others present exchanged an involuntary, assessing round-table sort of stare. Shizune took a quick step towards Tsunade, as if to call dibs.
Aiko looked at Yamato and Itachi. Itachi looked at Aiko and Yamato. Yamato looked at his toes, uncomfortable with the unspoken expectation that someone make a decision that would leave someone out.
Aiko reached out and wrapped her fingers around the cuff of Yamato's shirt, and avoided eye contact with Itachi. Being clique-y seemed so bitchy and immature…
'But something about that man scares the absolute fucking crap out of me.'
Aiko stiffened her muscles, but a shiver still ran up her spine. She couldn't sleep when he was on watch, but she didn't want to be awake in the dark with him either.
Tsunade made an unimpressed sound. "As the sole civilian in our group, Itachi-san will of course never be unaccompanied," she said with a hint of censure.
Aiko didn't quite manage to suppress a snort.
'It was nice of Tsunade to retire Itachi-san instead of killing him, but that doesn't really make him a civilian. That guy is one pointy edge short of a weapon.'
Metaphorically speaking, that was. He was basically one big weapon. He was scary.
Aiko rubbed the back of her grubby, dusty hand against her eyes and immediately regretted it. She didn't feel the repercussions for a while, however. The group traveled the last miles to Iron's capital and were at the end of a depressingly long line by the time the slight of sting of strained eye muscles turned into a prickly burning and a swell of tears. Merchants, travelers, and diplomats were all lined up together in a mass of unwashed human and susurrus of conversations. The noise began to hurt, and her poor mood was exacerbated by just how cold standing still was. Aiko buried her face in her hands, but she couldn't block out enough sound to cease the pounding.
Eventually, it became miserable enough that she tugged at the closest sleeve in hoped of gaining attention. Aiko sniffled,"Hey, Shizune-san? Do you think you could do the thing where you relax muscle tension?" Aiko indicated her face, making a loose hand motion with her free hand. Her fingers were numb with cold, stiff and prickling. It felt like she was waving a block of tofu.
'Someone should suggest a uniform change. I'm thinking fluffy hats and long scarves and big coats with fur linings.'
Yamato disentangled her hand from his sleeve, put his hands on her shoulders, and gently oriented her to face the dark blur that was probably Shizune.
Shizune sighed heavily.
Aiko attempted to make an appropriately endearing expression, but her face was probably blotchy and she couldn't entirely keep her eyes open.
She recognized the quick, soft steps towards her front as the med-nin's pace."I'll take a look when we stop for the night. We'll be at the head of the line soon." Shizune reached into Aiko's pack to pull out the redhead's pass papers. Her face was a pale smear in Aiko's vision, but her voice was slightly amused. "Stop touching your face."
"I figured that out," Aiko lied resentfully. She'd known. She'd just forgotten. No matter what Sasuke said, it was habit to rub at her eyes and face when it hurt. She couldn't completely drop that in a week. She'd had migraines for a long time.
"I have hers right here," Shizune called out from a few feet ahead. The murmur of someone else checking Tsunade's identification continued off to the left, but Aiko wasn't even trying to look. In the pinks and oranges of twilight, her head was throbbing. She creased her eyes nearly shut and tried to look as though it was a deliberant, nonchalant choice.
'This is embarrassing.'
The tall blur checking their papers at the city gate made a whistling sound when Aiko shuffled forward. "What happened to you?"
Aiko shrugged, sullen. She did not attempt to pry open her eyes. "I'm sad because I broke a fingernail."
There was a pause where the security officer might have been glancing down at her perfectly manicured and evenly short, blunt nails. "I see. You can go. Your party leader has already met your guide."
She tilted her head up high and strode forward. Her left foot connected into something metal and cold with a 'doink' sound. She stopped. She took a step to the right, and then started walking again.
Yamato cleared his throat and wrapped an arm around her waist. He steered her like that a few steps behind the fluttering green figure that had to be Tsunade. The Hokage's politely interested tones floated back, but Aiko couldn't quite pick out where words started and stopped in the outpour of sounds.
'Iron is terrible and I want to go home. It's cold here.'
Feeling ill, she leaned a little bit more into Yamato's side, choked down bile, and thought about just what she would like to shove into Obito's eye sockets. See how he'd like it.
Aiko walked a mostly straight line for what was probably only minutes, but felt like hours. A few moments after she heard the sound of a door opening, Tsunade made some polite comment about the accommodations. Aiko forced her eyes to crack open despite the piercing sunlight to step inside, wiggling out of Yamato's grip. He let his arm fall without comment. She toed off her shoes in the genkan of their suite before uncertainly picking her way up into the suite proper. Aiko stood a moment, then came the sound of a bag being set down. Shizune's perfume wafted up, as close as the older woman's breathing.
"I hope that repeated treatment cuts down on this kind of thing," Shizune muttered. Cool fingers probed at swollen, sensitive flesh. "Sasuke did a lot of internal work to repair degeneration and correct an exceptionally poor job of connecting optic nerves, but of course there's some trauma. I'll see what I can do."
It only took Shizune about fifteen minutes to soothe the strain on Aiko's eyes, and a short time spent laying in the dark with a cold cloth on her eyes helped the swelling and soreness. It was almost an hour after they had been shown to their quarters that Aiko finally got to look around.
Yamato was dozing with his feet tucked under his body on a chair, but nobody else was visible.
''He is way too big for a nap in that chair. Why not go to his room to sleep?'
She sat up on the couch, blearily noting that the first room was in a modern style. Tsunade slid open a door and stepped into the room. Over the hokage's shoulder, Aiko caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a traditional seating area.
"Oh good, you're up." Tsunade trailed her fingers along the back of the couch and leaned over to look down at Aiko. "Be a dear and run an errand for me." It was not a question. "I wouldn't be surprised if some kind-hearted soul would allow you access to your brother."
Aiko inhaled sharply, turning her attention to Tsunade so fast that her neck cracked. There was a snuffling sound as Yamato stirred, blinking tired eyes open.
Tsunade made a face and tilted her neck to scorch the ceiling with a glare. "The recent harassment of Naruto by Akatsuki is worrying. It might benefit him to know that Tobi was in Konoha recently." She rested her elbows on the back of the couch and curled over the furniture, looking more catlike than regal. "But it would of course be phenomenally inappropriate for me to attempt to give my operatives new orders, after having released them to the guidance of our esteemed allies for the duration."
"But sisterly advice and worry…" Aiko trailed off. She reluctantly moved her feet off the cushions, giving a stretch.
"Aa," Tsunade hummed. "Hopefully, your uncanny ability to find Naruto will pay off."
That was a little oblique.
'Hiraishin reference? Maybe she's concerned we're being listened to. But Tsunade knows I don't have anything on Naruto now- is she telling me to tag him again, so I can get him in an emergency?'
No duh. He'd apparently destroyed the tagged kunai she'd given him, or somehow lost it. The next one was going on his skin. Maybe she'd get Sai to help her find a tattoo gun and make a big ol' seal right on his ass, where he couldn't possibly misplace it.
'I'll have to tattoo a lot of butts if I want to recreate the seal network I used to have.'
Depressing.
"I'll do what I can." Aiko tried to steer her thoughts away from butts and reflexively checked the sky outside the window, despite knowing that evening was approaching. Sunsets in Iron country were drab. Dark blues swallowed up the horizon before any vivid pinks could bleed into the skyline.
"I've been here before," Yamato offered. When the kunoichi looked at him, he was fidgeting, rubbing his thumbs against the side of fisted hands. "Konan-san will likely be held in chambers above the deliberation hall, and her guards lodged nearby."
Tsunade nodded acquiescence, so Aiko pulled her gloves on and held open the door for her companion. Wind slapped her face.
'This place is a tinderbox and I'm going to burn it to the ground.'
Aiko glared at the neat line of lawns leading up to a series of suites just like the one they had left. They all looked the same.
At least Yamato knew where he was going. She had zero interest in a pleasure walk.
They had to show their passports, stamped travel papers, and work orders, but a grim-faced woman in full samurai armor eventually had them walk in front of her down a gleaming hallway on the fourth floor. Aiko glanced down to verify that yes, she could see her reflection in the floor, and then winced away from the sight of her scuffed sandals. Yamato plodded along at her side, completely untroubled by being underdressed.
Feeling green, Aiko examined their guide in her peripheral vision. The red-tinted armor over blue cloth looked neat, professional, and weather appropriate.
By contrast, her Jounin vest and weirdly fitting pants just felt frumpy. Aiko bit her tongue and reminded herself that even Shizune had been stuffed into the uniform. Nobody else cared, probably. It was sort of vaguely important to be easily identifiable when in a foreign country filled with paranoid military personnel.
"Konohagakure has the second to last room. The door will remain open, and you have ten minutes." The samurai woman seemed unimpressed, blue eyes flinty and cold as she gestured with her whole hand. "I will remain at the door, ninja-san." She rapped on the door before Aiko could respond.
"Coming," Karin called, apparently on automatic, because there was a long moment of silence. There was a sudden oofing grunt sound. A click. The sound of small metal bits falling.
The samurai shifted her weight from one foot to the other, neck and shoulders stiff with disapproval.
Someone yelped.
That quiet sigh had to have come from the samurai, but her expression still gave nothing away.
The door slid open. Hinata stood there, pale and prim in her own Jounin uniform. She bowed. "Thank you, samurai-san." It was impossible to tell where she was looking since she had no pupils, but Aiko had the sense of being under a stare. "Aiko-san, Yamato-senpai," Hinata greeted. "It is good to see you. Please, come in."
Aiko gave Hinata a smile but she was already stepping forward and craning her head to survey the room. It looked something like an ANBU bunkroom after a localized tornado, with three futon pushed together on the floor. They were covered in a riot of blankets that made it impossible to see where one mattress ended and the next began. Karin leaned over the edge of the dresser she was perched on, toes dangling a good three feet off the ground as she stared. Her glasses slid down to the tip of her nose and she fiddled with a long, slim braid that trailed over her shoulder.
Naruto was ankle-deep in blanket, with cow-licked bedhead and his hands clasped behind his back. He seemed more politely wary than anything.
Of course he was. She hadn't recognized him the last time they'd met. Why would he set himself up for a miserably awkward encounter?
'I can't believe how tall they are. They're not kids.'
Why had she always acted like she was so much older and better than they were? Try as she might, Aiko couldn't think of a reason. That must have grated.
"Aiko-san." Naruto bounced on his heels, not quite making eye contact. "You're looking well." He extracted the foot that was caught in rumpled fabric and used it to rub at his calf.
Aiko winced. That distance sounded so odd from his mouth. "Hi, otouto."
Karin hooted and shot her arm up in a victory sign. Aiko could see Hinata crack a smile, but her focus was on Naruto.
He didn't move.
Her fingers trembled. Her feet were heavy.
She didn't know what to do. Usually, he was the first to leap for physical affection or gush. But Naruto was standing still and tall, blue eyes serious and broad jaw clenched. He didn't look like her baby brother. He was a man. He didn't need her the way he used to.
But she needed him.
Aiko forced her shaking fingers to still and lifted her arms slightly, indicating that she could really use a hug right now. That was all Naruto needed- he crossed the rest of the distance and wrapped his arms around her. He smelled like tonkatsu and amphibians. Aiko tucked her nose into his collarbone and closed her eyes.
She registered quiet steps as a sign that Yamato was stepping out into the hallways to give them space, but she didn't much care at the moment. Her little brother was bigger than her, warm and breathing fast and he needed to do his laundry. She hugged a little tighter.
"You okay?" her brother rasped into her hair.
She breathed in through her nose to fix his scent in her memory. "I will be."
"I feel so left out," Karin muttered. The sound that followed was probably Hinata smacking the redhead.
"You know," Naruto started, voice hoarse. He dug his fingers into her back. He had to be leaving marks. "I think we're going to have to put a bell on you."
"Right after I put a seal on your ass," Aiko murmured into his neck. Naruto pulled his head back to give her a disturbed look, mouth slightly open.
A cold hand on Aiko's shoulder pulled the twins just far enough apart that Karin could sling her arms around each of their waists. Her horrible talons curled into Aiko's side, but Aiko managed a watery smile up her cousin. "That weirdness aside, I was thinking maybe a weekly bulletin," Karin said thoughtfully. "About the relative likeliness of you ending up dead in a ditch."
"I could probably manage that," Aiko choked out. She licked her lips. "There's some back issues we could probably talk about when we get home." Like why she hadn't come home for so long, and how Obito'd brainwashed her into being a total jerk. She still owed that one Konoha nin an apology. Raidou, was it? Oh, and she should probably say something to her family about her itchy eyeballs before Sasuke dragged her in for another healing session.
Hinata wrung her hands, but she cleared her throat and stepped forward to make eye contact. "We're glad to have you back safely."
"For shit's sake." Karin pawed through Aiko and Naruto, forcing them to step apart. "Hinata, get in here. We're hugging it out."
Hinata took a step back. "No, thank you."
Before the situation could degenerate, Aiko took a few steps back and plopped down in seiza onto the mess of futon. Karin heaved a sigh and followed, pulling at the tie on Aiko's long braid and unworking the twists. "Let me do something," she commanded after she'd already started.
Pliant but puzzled, Aiko let her cousin do what she wanted.
Karin put in another braid, a small twist of locks that curled under the left side of Aiko's jaw. Aiko tilted her head when it was tied off with her elastic and twisted to raise an eyebrow at Karin. "So this is a thing now?" She jerked her head forward at the similar braid in Karin's hair.
Karin sniffed. "Team ten all have earrings." She sounded miffed about that, as if Ino-Shika-Cho had stake a claim on the best group 'thing'.
"I can't have piercings," Naruto said patiently, as if he'd said that many times before. "It heals up as soon as the metal comes out."
"That's hardly my fault." Karin tugged her fingers through the rest of Aiko's hair, fingers catching on a knot. "Sorry," she muttered into Aiko's ear.
"It's going to be all knots by the time I get back to where I'm staying." Aiko shrugged one shoulder.
"I could cut it," Karin said practically.
Aiko jerked her torso forward and rolled away, flipping over her right shoulder and popping up to her feet. "Nope, nope, nope."
Karin sighed heavily, but Hinata was already passing over an elastic from her wrist. Aiko gathered up the loose hair and secured it in a high, messy ponytail that mostly didn't interfere with the hanging braid.
It probably looked stupid. Aiko swiveled around and impulsively caught Karin's hand, giving it a squeeze. After a moment, Karin's expression softened and she squeezed back.
Aiko loosened her jaw and left her lower lip slip free of her teeth (when had she started biting at it?). How much time did she have? A quick look over at the samurai woman told her nothing, so Aiko decided to rush. "I actually wanted to talk to you guys really quick." She rubbed her tongue along her teeth. "Akatsuki. I wanted to make sure you're being careful."
Naruto let out a pffft sound, rolling his eyes. "Of course we're careful. Don't worry so much, nee-chan. We've kicked tons of Akatsuki ass before."
"This ass is beyond you," Aiko snapped back. She shoved at her brother with an open palm, sending him stumbling back. "Let me handle him, okay? He's seriously- he's… persuasive," she settled, anger filtering out for shame. "And really strong."
But mostly persuasive. She'd stayed with Obito and worked for him on the basis of personality alone, not fear or force. The realization was bitter on her tongue.
'That family talk is not going to be fun. Sitting down for a nice chat about my criminal career might strain their benevolence.'
There was an awkward silence, wherein Hinata's eyebrows slowly traveled up her forehead.
"What is with you and ass today?" Karin grumbled to change the subject, gathering all her hair above her head before letting is collapse. "Fiiiiine," she drew out. "If we see black and red, we'll go hide under the bed or something."
"Good," Aiko managed, lacing her fingers together. "That's… that's good. If you see Akatsuki, or something is weird, get out. Don't ask questions, just go."
Naruto exhaled slowly, mouth pursed. "You worry too much, big sister," he said, and it sounded like a promise.
The samurai woman rapped her knuckles on the doorway. Her mouth was in a hard line, but her attention was poorly concealed in her eyes. "It's late," she said.
"You should return to Tsunade-sama." Hinata's eyes crinkled in a smile. "We'll see you tomorrow, I am certain."
Aiko nodded. It was like her mouth was full of cotton and her hands three sizes too big, useless lumps that she didn't know what to do with. Should she hug her family goodbye, or wave, or-
Or put Hiraishin seals on them, actually. She grabbed at Naruto's arm and ignored his questioning wheeze to plant a seal on the back of his hand. He jerked away from her fussing as soon as he caught on, pouting.
"Stay safe," Aiko blurted, over the disgruntled noise he whuffed out his nose.
"Yeah, yeah. You too." Naruto waved her off with a hand, the other tucked protectively behind his neck where she couldn't get at it again. He watched as Hinata delicately held out a hand in offer for Aiko to give her a seal as well, and huffed when she leaned forward to playfully pop the last hiraishin seal on the point of Karin's nose. The redhead's eyes crossed to follow the motion. Naruto shook his head. "Stay out of trouble, try not to get taken captive until we see you tomorrow morning."
Hinata made a sound of polite disbelief that Aiko couldn't read into, carefully examining the back of her hand.
"That's not true," Karin said practically, apparently to whatever Hinata had implied. She finally readjusted her falling glasses, pushing them up the bridge of her nose. She twitched her nose, as if trying to see the chakra seal. "I have the utmost faith in Aiko. There's gotta be someone out there who hasn't kidnapped her yet, and she'll find them."
Wasn't family meant to be loyal?
Aiko stalked out with her head high and cheeks burning. Yamato caught up with her and kept a very polite poker face. She still wanted to hit him with a pillow on sheer principle.
"I can hear what you're thinking," she warned when they finally stepped away from the samurai.
"Are you the happiness police?" Yamato asked mildly. "Show me your badge, officer, and I'll stop." He shot a wide, white-toothed grin at her for emphasis.
Goddamnit.
Yamato huffed out a laugh.
Aiko jerked her head to look up at him, raising an eyebrow in question. "What?"
He shook his head, smiling slightly and looking away. "Later. I don't want to squander the grumpy look on your face."
~~~
Tsunade went inside the state building early the next morning, ready to rub shoulders with the other kage and the samurai lord Mifune.
Everyone else was left to mill around outside in a faux-friendly mob of shinobi and politicians who weren't quite important enough to be admitted early, but couldn't afford to be late when the doors opened.
The Konoha delegation didn't quiiite huddle, but they were using some tall people from Kumo as a windbreak.
"Someone is staring," Uchiha Itachi said in a dispassionate undertone. She wasn't certain if he was more discomfited by the cold or the crowd, but either way, it was kinda funny. His arms were wrapped around his body, holding his coat shut. His hands appeared to have disappeared under his armpits. "A man, not fifteen feet away."
Aiko glanced up and around. "Oh," she agreed quietly. Then she raised her voice in greeting. "Yo, Utakata-san."
The Mizu-nin scowled and turned away.
"Don't you want to want to meet my friend?" Aiko called, indicating Itachi. The Uchiha lurched backwards from the implication of socialization, eyes narrow and suspicious.
'That man is unreasonably bitter. You'd think he'd let it go eventually. So I brought him back to Mizu in a bag. Big deal. I saved his skin from Akatsuki, didn't I? I really don't think I deserve that level of grumpiness from him. I mean, from other people yeah, but not him.'
Well, petty people weren't her problem.
'Hey. I should talk to Mitsuo and Hoseki,' Aiko realized. 'They're…. not going to be happy with me.'
She winced away from that thought, shoulders creeping up as if to protect her ears. There was going to be barking.
"Behave," Shizune said out the side of her mouth, lips hardly moving. A few seconds later she let out a peal of false laughter at whatever some important person had said. "Oh Choko-san," she smiled, waving down a stranger. The smile didn't reach Shizune's eyes. "How lovely to see you. Have you met Aiko-san here?"
Oh. Right. They were supposed to be schmoozing now.
"No, I haven't!" Choko-san leaned forward, looming over her. "Lovely to meet you, dear."
She plastered a smile on her face. Choko-san, a heavily muscled person with a wide mouth, reached out for a handshake that threatened to send Aiko's palm into spasms of pain.
'What are you trying to prove?'
Aiko didn't let pain show on her face, but she didn't try to crush Choko-san's hand in return either. She couldn't deal out the same kind of pain. But…
"A pleasure," Aiko bit out. Her smile widened to something toothy and dangerous. "Have you met Itachi-chan here? Shake his hand." The suggestion came out as more of a dare than anything.
Choko-san looked at Itachi-san. Itachi-san's expression promised pain for anyone who attempted conversation. Choko-san gave a strained laugh and whipped their hand away, wiping it against the front of their pants. "I think I hear someone calling my name." With a nod to Shizune, Choko-san was gone.
Shizune made a disgusted sound and rolled her eyes before picking out a new target. Yamato snickered.
Itachi-san turned to Aiko. "I am not a punishment to be inflicted on people who you do not like." His pale face was hard, but his ears were scarlet with cold.
"I just wanted to help you make friends," Aiko muttered rebelliously into her collar.
"Hmm."
Fine. She'd stop. Aiko sulked, wrapping her arms around her body.
"I think it's time to go." Yamato nodded his head at the building.
"Really?" Aiko frowned. "How can you tell?"
His lips twitched. "I can see over the crowd," Yamato said, carefully nonchalant.
She scowled anyway, but he was right. Within a few minutes the crowd funneled inside, passing through the enormous entryhall with the winding staircase that led to the upper floor where Konan and her jailors were housed. The conference room they moved to was a high-ceilinged half-circle affair with seating curling up and around the room for spectators to look at the central pavilion. Ame no Konan already sat against the flat wall, prim and silent in seiza on a cushion. The kage had their back to the audience, split between two tables on either side of a desk where Mifune-san sat. Tsunade, Oonoki, and the Raikage sat to Lord Mifune's left, Mei and Gaara on his right. The last position was an unoccupied cushion not far from Konan's position.
The audience was disciplined and quiet enough that hearing the proceedings was easy. Mifune gave an opening statement. Some legal expert stalked in on his cane and discussed the treaty that Konan was accused of breaking. Aiko didn't really pay attention until the kage began to confront the accused.
"I am curious. Is there precedent for blaming someone else for your war crimes?"
Annoyance sparked in Ame no Konan's eyes, but her tone was cool. She kept her gaze focused on the panel as a whole and not the Raikage, whose arms were crossed. "I do not believe that an accusation of malfeasance is equivalent to a war crime." The deflection was unnecessary, when addressed to a court that had just endured a lengthy legal analysis.
"But that's a no," A pressed. He was perfectly still, aloof and unimpressed. "There is no such precedent, even if you were blaming a real person. I don't believe it is necessary or appropriate for the miraculously reformed Uchiha Itachi to provide character witness. We are not putting the organization Akatsuki on trial, nor this fictional leader Uchiha Madara. Ame no Konan's actions are her own, and passing blame to an existing criminal organization is a cheap scapegoat tactic."
Lord Mifune was hard to read from behind, but he seemed to nod once in agreement.
'Well, damn. A character testimony could have helped, if Itachi lied well.'
Aiko paused to contemplate that.
'Actually, if he gives everyone the creeps the way I feel around him, it might be better for Konan if Itachi doesn't try to help her.'
"Uchiha Madara was very much a real person," Mei interjected. Ame No Konan shut her open mouth, politely letting the kages bicker. "Someone using his name attempted to interfere with today's proceedings through disrupting the transport of the accused. Surely a fictional person does no such thing."
'A fictional person doesn't kidnap girls and put stolen body parts in their heads. Obviously, he is not fictional, nor is he Madara.'
Not that she was going to try explaining that again. Definitely not to an international audience. If there was any way to make it happen, Obito deserved psychiatric treatment and not execution. That would be a lot easier to make happen if 'Obito' wasn't an infamous criminal. Madara could take that slack.
She had the sudden impression that the Konoha delegation was very deliberately not looking at her. Aiko ran her tongue along the inside of her teeth, forcing her face to remain calm. She did not rub at her head to relieve pressure and pain.
She was being watched, after all. With Shizune on her right and Uchiha Itachi on her left, Aiko would be in quite a few people's peripherals, if only because her seatmates were being watched for telling reactions or sudden bouts of genocidal violence.
"I do not claim to know how Uchiha Madara could have survived to this day. But equally unimaginable is the audacity to use his name," the Tsuchikage confirmed. He looked decidedly unhappy. "Uchiha Madara was a man of great power and purpose."
Tsunade-sama herself appeared pleasant and perhaps a bit bored at the return to previously-argued ground. "As I have previously stated, Konoha does have evidence that suggests Uchiha Madara was active considerably longer than we assumed, and may be yet today."
The Tsuchikage's nose twitched, but he did not offer another opinion. His eyes, though… They were sharply considering.
'He's one of the only people in the world left who could possibly remember Madara in his heyday. If he's taking this seriously, others will follow.'
"Perhaps we should cleave to the schedule." The samurai lord Mifune suggested in a completely reasonable tone. His words punctured the rapidly devolving situation, sending postures and aggression to deflate. "Ame no Konan will make her statement."
Unsurprisingly, Konan entered a plea of 'not guilty'. Not long after that, court recessed for the evening. It seemed to take hours to cross the entry hall and escape onto the street.
"You don't actually have to glare at everyone else, you know," Shizune said out of the side of her mouth.
Aiko shrugged, hugging her arms to her body and breathing a little easier when she wasn't surrounded on all sides by strangers. Any one of whom could possibly be Obito.
Shizune rolled her eyes and peeled away from the group to find the Hokage. She and Tsunade returned to the suite several hours after everyone else.
In the meantime, the three leftovers had wandered around the suite awkwardly. Itachi and Yamato ended up in the bedroom Tsunade had decreed they would share for the trip.
That was a thing too awkward for Aiko to contemplate. So she flopped down on the couch, closed her eyes, and tried to sort out the jumble in her head to remember how to summon her ninken instead of monstrous animals from an alternate dimension.
'I think I have it.'
"Boss!" Hōseki warbled and leapt up from the smoke, sticking her paw into Aiko's mouth and wagging her tail with such force that her entire body shook from side to side. Bemused, Aiko put a hand on either side of the dog and lifted with some effort. Then Hōseki strained to lick her face and wiggled so fiercely that her hands slipped. The dog fell sideways onto her chest with an oof and flipped off to the floor.
There was a ponderous sigh. Aiko wheezed and sat up enough to see that Mitsuo's tail was slowly swishing across the floor. He blinked at her.