A familiar, simplistic melody of soft bells was stuck in her head. Aiko had to press her lips together to be absolutely certain that she didn't accidentally start singing along with the Princess Fuin theme song under her breath.
'I'll wait to break into song until Obito picks me up,' she promised herself. She was totally an adult, and she wasn't going to let a little thing like an incredible mood prevent her from behaving with a minimum level of professionalism on the mission. Sure, he hated those movies for some inexplicable reason, but he'd cope.
It felt so damn good to be out working again after spending all that time recuperating and training. At least all the practice meant that no one so much as sniffled when she passed by under genjutsu. Which was good, because she wasn't wearing henge on anywhere but her eyes. It wouldn't matter much, since the plan was that anyone to see her was going to die. Besides. She was young and green-looking, when her eyes weren't blood red. A lot of people hesitated and looked around for her backup instead of assuming she was the biggest threat when they saw her.
Speaking of which, an Ame nin with graying stress-hair and a hard set to his jaw rounded the corner, frowning slightly into the room she'd entered.
Ah. Well, that looked like a candidate for a necessary death that would ruffle Ame's skirts.
Aiko smiled absently, tapping her big toe inside her right sandal along with the beat of that Fuin song. Adrenaline kept her mood light, even as she tensed her muscles in preparation for the upcoming fight. Her target had barely stepped inside when a highly-honed sense of danger prompted the older shinobi to put his back to the wall and whip his sword out warily.
Well. She could go right to him, but that introduced extra risk since he had the tactical position. Besides, it just wouldn't give the right impression when his body was found. It was better for both his reputation and for ticking off Ame for him to have died in glorious battle, rather than backed up against a wall and confused.
With a shrug, she dropped the illusion and gave him a big smile to force him to be the one to attack her. Unfortunately, his skill level was below his awareness. (Which, in a way, made sense and explained why an obviously long-term Chuunin was on border duty). She ducked under what seemed to be a pathetically slow sword slice and twisted under the shocked Ame nin's raised arm to stick him in the gut with an old-fashioned kunai, literally without missing a beat in the staccato she was keeping.
"Sorry, love." She lied casually, stepping in just a little closer and giving a nice, big scoop with some serious elbow action and muscle behind it. His stomach opened up with piteous ease.
(She was reminded of her chakra chains, how easy they had been. But no, that wasn't possible right now. She needed to use less distinctive weapons)
He made a choked sound and dropped his weapon with a clatter to reflexively reach for his gut. She batted one arm away with her elbow and used her free hand to grab his right wrist. Immediately she pulled it around his back so that she could brace his torso up with her forearm when his knees threatened to buckle.
In the instant where he was hanging supported by her leverage, frightened blue eyes met Aiko's gaze, silently begging for mercy.
She shrugged. He wasn't going to find what he was looking for there.
"Nothing personal." With deft motions, she pulled her blade out and made a precise jab at the pulsating artery on his upper thigh. He had a minute left by the time she extracted her blade, tops.
The gut wound would have been enough to kill him, of course, but she wasn't a sadist. This had to look messy, but there was no reason to let the man suffer for the hours it would take for intestinal bleeding to finish him.
Excess cruelty served no purpose, after all. It didn't entertain her and it didn't make the three unlucky guards she'd met alone any more dead. She was just doing her job. Obito knew what he was doing. It was unfortunate that people had to die to create the confusion they needed to start snatching jinchuuriki, but life was unfair like that. In order for her to help Obito, she had to step on other peoples' goals and lives.
It really wasn't personal, despite her good mood. She wasn't taking out her irritation from her last disaster solo mission out on anyone. Holding grudges wasn't a good idea. Obito stressed that enough (although she thought he was managing to ignore a spectacular inconsistency in his behavior in relation to 'Bakashi' and Konan). Anyway. Taking business too personally would get you killed. If you were busy crying for your competitors and enemies, you weren't going to get anything done.
She left her new friend awkwardly collapsed face-up with buckled knees on the cement floor, tucking a bit of loose hair behind her ear with the cleaner hand as she meandered through the storage facility of one of Ame's newly re-occupied border outposts. She'd never been there before, so she would be forgiven a bit of curiosity at the surroundings.
'In a desolate way, Ame is beautiful.' She took a deep breath of heavy, cold hair, feeling crisp condensation coat her lungs.
It was very grey, for lack of a better word. This was one of the few places she'd seen where a cement bunkhouse wasn't totally out of place. The rocks were grey, the long grass was a strange blue-green color she had seen in no other flora, and the sky itself was tinted from low-hanging clouds ambling with the sluggish wind.
Ame was clearly a hard place. Of course, she could have already concluded that by assessing the apparent character of the people who lived there. They were an awfully cantankerous lot, as far as she could tell, judging by their choice to elect the traitor Konan to their kage. Clearly, they still weren't buying into international opinion that Akatsuki was a terrorist organization.
'That's what happens when you don't play well with others,' Aiko sighed, patting down a bit of frizz as she tapped down a set of stairs into a cool underground area well-insulated from the permeating damp. 'You try to launch one little takeover of the world, and suddenly nobody wants to play with you after school'.
Not that she had any room to talk, of course, but her own lack of a social life was beside the point. She didn't know exactly what had happened a year and a half ago that had led Ame into provoking what was now being called the 'Amegakure Incident' (not even a war, an incident). But she didn't really care, either.
Aiko kneeled to pry the lid off what proved to be a container of munitions.
Naughty, naughty. Ame had been dealing with the technology-rich countries outside of the shinobi nation-states. It wasn't a surprise, but it was good to know. She patted the crate companionably, information confirmed. It wasn't crucial, but it was nice to see that Kotaka wasn't useless after all.
The storage area had been a bit of a detour, but she considered it time well-spent, even though it meant she had to move that much faster to her true destination.
She ended up in the barracks by accident, calmly holding her breath and sliding past a pale-faced duo who were talking quietly at a small table. They didn't hear her steps and they certainly didn't notice the slight friction of chakra against reality as the genjutsu wrapped around her like a silk dress let them see what they expected to see.
That was a little thrilling, to be honest. When he'd started to teach her, Aiko had tried to convince Obito that she needed jutsu much more than genjutsu. Now that she was suddenly competent, Aiko found all sorts of situations where it was useful.
In other words, she was getting lazy as all hell with her fancy new eyes and she probably owed her friend an apology for being a poor student.
'I'm terrible,' she thought with a thoroughly inappropriate smile at her own expense.
Hypocritical or not, the technique worked like a charm to get herself in the control center. It was pretty nice, for an office in a little outpost.
Feeling strangely artistic, she carefully left a sixteenth of a bloody fingerprint on the inside of the door at a height that implied someone just a little shorter than she was. That was insignificant enough to look accidental. Aiko accidentally leaned a little too close and got a nose-ful of the cloying reek of iron and fear.
'Whoo, that's gonna piss somebody off.'
The inevitable forensics team would know it was from one of their people when the sample was compared. Even Iwa could handle that kind of detective work. Ame should do fine.
She left the office mostly untouched, doing her best to imitate the movements of an agent who was pressed for time, but attempting to ensure that they left no traces. The three bodies in the warehouses would be dismissed as a distraction from the intruder's real aim, hopefully, when all was said and done.
Even if they were really clueless, Ame would only be able to conclude that someone had commissioned an intelligence gathering mission.
If they were incompetent, they would think that Iwa had been the ones to break in, which was a violation of their current but shaky treaty. Ame should be leery about that, actually. A nominal ally sneaking around was much more hazardous than a known enemy. Their closest neighbors would be on Ame's shortlist of suspects, and Aiko had spent the night in a hotel not four hours away wearing the face of an Iwagakure kunoichi. Digging would uncover that and reinforce their paranoia in regards to their northern neighbors.
But if Ame's people were as good as 'Obi hoped they were, they would think that Konoha was framing Iwa in an attempt to pry apart their alliance.
(Aiko didn't bother fretting about the possibility that they would actually figure out that a third party had attempted to frame Konoha for framing Iwagakure. If Ame worked that one out, they deserved a pat on the back, no matter how much Obito would scowl and stomp around).
She lazily picked papers up nearly at random, leaving her scent in case Ame would think to check what had been touched that way. It wouldn't matter that it was hers, since they wouldn't know her personally. It took a great deal of time and experience to memorize an individual scent and not just follow a trail. There was no reason for any Ame shinobi to know her off-hand. All they'd know was that a female shinobi had been poking around. She paid special attention to information on orders in regards to the other nations, holding Ame's protocol about Rock-nin at borders and the records of contract for the longest time out of personal curiosity.
It was mildly interesting to see that Ame wasn't treating Rock with more caution than they were Suna or Kiri, who were understandably peeved about their tiff in the not-so-distant past. That wasn't wise of them, was it?
'This Konan woman must not be much of a politician. Too straight forward, I think,' Aiko decided disinterestedly. Maybe Obito was right about her being an idiot. It was true on the surface, at least, that it was logical to be most wary of the countries that Ame had recently engaged in armed conflict with. Rock had been the only one out of the great shinobi nations who had stayed out of that scuffle, so Ame must have decided that Iwagakure was their most probable ally. That was a one-dimensional way to look at things.
'Ugh.' She blinked back excess liquid and shook her head. Aiko felt a headache coming on. 'I should hurry out of here.'
Now that the adrenaline-filled part of the mission was over, she was losing interest. Still, the mission had to be finished. It was her job to leave the impression that Konoha was framing Rock for illegal entry that undermined Ame/Iwa relations.
Speaking of that…
Aiko dug around in the left-most pocket on her hip pouch and extracted a tiny glass bottle. She held it up to the light to see the dry corpse inside one last time.
'How on earth did he get one of these?'
She pursed her lips and shrugged, carefully tipping out one kikai bug onto the thin carpet right by the edge of the desk she knelt in front of.
The bug had died of natural causes—old age. They occasionally just did that, and fell wherever their master was. Any shinobi who looked around this room would be able to tell that there had only been one intruder, a female with a petite build. The bug clan was notoriously sneaky. So Ame wouldn't be surprised to 'discover' that an Aburame had gotten in the premises, though Ame wouldn't be pleased about it either.
'And there goes Konoha's hope of convincing Ame that the threat from an Iwa/Kumo alliance is more important than their pride,' Aiko sighed. She didn't really care one way or another, but it was a little shocking that the lives of so many people could be affected by something so fragile.
Or not. Maybe it wasn't that fragile, judging by the faint presence she was noting flicker on the edge of her awareness. Maybe Konoha had actually planned a mission like the one 'Obi was having her fake. Wouldn't that be funny?
She repressed a snort as she crossed her way across the lines of barbed wire and miles of icy marsh that made up the no-man's land between Ame and River Country. That was awfully convenient, but then, Konoha and Ame were running out of time for their respective goals.
She'd left a slight trail leaving Ame to River (although only an expert would be able to tell) because a Konoha nin wouldn't have gone directly through the border at Fire Country, but they wouldn't really go through Rock Country either. Nice neutral River country left plausible deniability for any party. Coulda been a Suna mission, even, if it weren't for the fact that Suna and Kiri were outright refusing to take part in Konoha's less than selfless efforts to keep Kumo from taking Ame. If Ame didn't formally ask for Konoha's protection, then Kiri and Suna couldn't be forced to take part in helping them. Konoha was crippled, until Ame pulled their collective heads out.
'Ugh, why am I wasting time thinking about this? It's not really my problem.'
Apparently, 'Obi was operating on the same wavelength as the Hokage, because there really was a Konoha-nin creeping towards Ame.
Or at least, she assumed it was a Konoha nin heading north through River. Aiko stopped leaving an intentional trail at all when she veered off course to meet with the approaching chakra signal. It would be a pain if this asshat managed to make it into the Ame border-post and do damage control.
'Like what?' Aiko snickered at her own dramatic thoughts, licking her lips. 'I don't even know how he would figure out what happened. Still, it's an unnecessary loose end.'
As soon as she saw him, she circled downwind, to the west of the traveler. He wasn't marked, but Konoha wouldn't have sent a hitai-ite on a mission like that anyway.
'No one I recognize,' Aiko thought wryly, wishing she'd made a cleaner kill earlier and hating the obvious stink on her arm and shirt. There was always a risk of running into a dog-nin when dealing with Konoha, and blood carried a strong scent.
She could have killed the sentries without the fuss, of course, but it was supposed to look like a hack job by an infiltrator who accidentally drew too much attention. Aiko hadn't had a problem with the men she'd run into, and could have ambushed them like an infiltrator should. But that didn't fit the profile she was attempting to imply. An Aburame who was canny and practiced enough to pull off a mission like this would already be well-known, and there wasn't one of those with Aiko's physical profile currently active. So she was portraying someone talented but inexperienced, a girl who managed to sneak past most of the security but had to fight for her life against a rather good Chuunin.
'This guy is definitely not a Chuunin, though. I wonder what that scarring is from. Very distinctive.'
In an odd way, the horizontal lines marring her new find reminded her of 'Obi. Except this guy's scars made a sort of rough triangle with a tip across the bridge of his nose that stretched and expanded over his left cheek, instead of decorating a neat half of his face. Odd, though not particularly important.
But the Konoha nin didn't seem to be a dog-man. No matter how obvious the stink of blood was to her, he was visibly ignorant.
He was skilled, however, even if he did have beady black creeper eyes. He picked his way rather expertly through the marshland, not leaving a physical trace of his presence. Like a veteran, actually.
'He has a lot more experience than me,' Aiko noted, more interested in an accurate tactical analysis than her ego. 'I can't afford to let him have a fair shot. It would be pathetically cliché for the young shinobi to underestimate someone cannier.'
It was almost a shame to unceremoniously kill someone that good, but she couldn't have him undermining her work. Aiko shrugged, picking a single senbon out of her leg holster and twirling it between her middle and forefingers as she examined her target to pick her shot.
'All that muscle might be enough to put the needle penetration off if I get the wrong spot. He's not in bad shape. What is he, in his mid-thirties?' Aiko gauged, eyes flicking over his lithe form for weaknesses. 'Definitely from Konoha, with that chest armor. They really prioritize that.'
Her target stopped suddenly, clearly alert.
She didn't know how, but he knew he was being watched. Did he have a chakra sense that was better than her suppressing? That would be odd, since his suppressing wasn't as good as her sensing. It was more likely that indefinable seventh sense that occasionally pricked the back of your neck for no apparent reason that had alerted him he was in danger. More experienced nin were frustratingly good with that type of awareness.
'Oh, pooperscoop.'
Aiko pressed her lips out in a pout, slipping the senbon behind her ear like a schoolgirl would store a pencil. Now that he was alert, it would be a pain to get that perfect shot. And she hated unintentional messiness. There was no point in doing something sloppily when she could expend minimal effort and still get precise results by switching tactics. Her next tactic wasn't hard to choose, seeing as there was one obvious resource all around her, curling into her lungs and kissing her lips damply.
'Well, do you know where I am or not, sweetheart?' she wondered curiously, circling just a little bit as the sluggish wind shifted. She was still wearing her genjutsu, but no technique was perfect. A fellow infiltration shinobi was more likely to be able to spot the cracks in the technique than a random nin.
"Kai!"
Aiko jerked in mild surprise as the burst of chakra washed over her. Hastily, she restored the henge over her eyes and stepped backwards. Usually she could maintain her technique through one of those disruptions, but he'd really gone full-out with the power he'd put into the technique. Not bad. She was right, he was experienced. Special Jounin at least, if not a full Jounin. Konoha's Jounin were nothing to sniff at. Their standards for promotion seemed to be set higher than many other countries', which meant that this would be nothing like fighting a Chuunin from Ame. She should be wary and professional. Still…
"That's cheating!" Aiko faux-pouted, cocking her head slightly and letting him drink the sight of his killer in for just a moment.
Oddly, the man outright gaped, though he didn't seem happy to see her like a friend or colleague might have. She might have thought he was leering, if it weren't for the fact that he seemed stuck on her face and hair and hardly glanced below the collarbones. (Not that there was anything to see, clad as she was in a high-necked but sleeveless top with pants). He looked more surprised at seeing her than he really had any right to, considering he'd just attempted to disrupt a genjutsu. Had that been luck? Did this guy just occasionally freeze like a startled deer and check for genjutsu?
'I'm definitely not telling 'Obi I got caught out by a complete lunatic,' she thought morosely.
Now that he'd seen her, he definitely had to die. She wasn't much good to 'Obi if the whole world knew about her, after all. Her hand slipped into her hip pouch for a smoke pellet.
Wow, he didn't even tense. Was he an idiot or what?
Generally, one took evasive action when an opponent was possibly reaching for a weapon. This man must be particularly clueless. Or trusting. It wasn't as if she had a mark of affiliation on her person. Maybe he wasn't willing to attack a stranger met within a country that was technically on peaceful terms with his own, if loosely.
That was… somewhat reasonable, actually.
Didn't matter. He'd kill her in an instant if he knew the mission she'd just completed. It wasn't particularly sporting to make the first move, but should that really matter in a fight to the death? Having had a chance to fight back wouldn't make the loser less deceased. Aiko had no plans of being that deceased shinobi.
Ah, well. Philosophy later, fighting now. Her hand darted like the head of a snake, snapping the pellet down with enough force that it burst open and spat a fat billow of scentless purple smoke. Aiko didn't bother repressing a smile and a cheeky wave in the instant that her upper torso was still visible, before she faded into genjutsu again and let the smoke cover her.
She didn't move an inch. No one other than a total idiot would expect someone to remain in the same position after using a smoke pellet. It was an absurd, just plain stupid strategy. Sure enough, as the smoke dissipated, the poor reasonable bastard of a Konoha nin clearly thought she'd merely moved into hiding.
'He really shouldn't be surprised that I would use the same trick twice,' Aiko assessed critically. 'Silly. Are Konoha nin just showboats or something? No point in re-inventing the wheel when you have a technique that gets the job done.'
No wonder 'Obi had been careful to keep her away from Konoha nin, aside from the whole 'they'd kill her on sight thing'. He probably didn't want her to pick up bad habits.
With preternatural ease, she took hold of the mist clinging insistently to the air as a preemptive strike. It was almost too easy, really. It was a second's work to condense it into actual water—a trick that was nicely timed with the instant that her unknown opponent opened his mouth wide. "U-"
'It's like he wants to help me kill him,' Aiko thought, bemused. That didn't stop her from taking control of her element and bastardizing a water bullet to send it shooting down the Konoha nin's throat before he got out more than a syllable. His jaw clamped shut and a hand shot to his neck, but she was already flooding his lungs. Clinically, she tilted her head and watched as panic set in. He wasn't even looking for her anymore, preoccupied as he was with the fact that he was about to drown.
Dispassionately, she waited and watched while consciousness fled and the poor sap collapsed. He had the presence of mind to turn his face to the side when he fell, probably in hopes that she would get sloppy and bored. If she were in too much of a hurry to wait until he was actually dead, he might cough up the water even in his unconscious state. With his head to the side, it would spill out. It was a little trick, but it would have saved his life, had she been careless or rushed.
'That's a tactic straight out of the warnings about passing out drunk,' Aiko thought, charmed by his hopeful attitude. He was a cutie. 'Well, buddy, that was a nice try.'
She let the genjutsu slip away and stepped forward, delicately tilting his chin up with her clean hand so that he faced skyward. His eyes had fluttered shut when oxygen was cut off to his brain, and he almost looked peaceful. He laid still and quiet on his back without so much as a scuff or wrinkle on his clothes.
That was the way she preferred to operate. Nice and clean. Aiko gave his shoulder a fond pat as she rose, finally releasing her hold on the water and glancing curiously at the rings on his hand. She had waited long enough that he was definitely dead, so it had merely been her impulse towards perfectionism that had led her to thwart his last-moment plan and not any practical reason.
Finished, Aiko cast her senses out. She wasn't sure if she thought Buddy was operating alone or not. On one hand, Konoha nin did tend to travel in groups, so he very well could have back-up. Then again, it was often easier to get in and out on a stealthy mission with as few people as possible.
She didn't sense anyone… There could be someone who was very sneaky, but it didn't seem likely. Aiko wasn't a half-bad sensor.
'Well, if he had someone who was meant to help, I think they're running late,' she decided perfunctorily, tossing her head and distractedly unclipping her hair. It was going to kink up terribly if she left it like that for long, and she had plans for the night that didn't involve a bad hair day. She didn't give it another thought, casually loping back on her path to the point where she'd diverted to meet Buddy.
'If Ame really has anyone as good as me available to check this out, they are going to be so fucking confused when they find that body,' Aiko thought with unkind amusement as she went through the motions of leaving a slight trail in the direction she had initially intended to go.
Of course, that would be more amusing than the original plan. She half-hoped that Ame was more than competent, just for the entertainment value.
'God, my head is killing me.' Aiko made a face, rubbing her palm against her temple in an ineffectual attempt at soothing the pain while she waited for her friend to meet her and whisk her away.
~~~
Genma jerked into full awareness, twisting to face the direction his partner had gone, much in the way that a prairie dog twitched toward a possible predator. He frowned, biting down on the senbon in his lips and worried at the tip with his tongue.
'What is Raidō doing?'
He waited a full twenty seconds, but his partner's chakra signature didn't reappear. That was unusual. Raidō was more than skilled enough to hide from Genma's senses, but he wasn't supposed to completely blank out until he was by the Ame border so that Genma would know where to rendezvous when Raidō came back out.
'Something is wrong.'
It was a violation of his orders, but Genma cared more about his partner than some stuffy rules. He hauled ass, cautiously blanking his own chakra signature. Raidō's choice to hide his signature probably meant that he had run into trouble. Whoever he was fighting shouldn't know that Raidō had backup coming. Or hell, Raidō might have chosen to hide his chakra because he knew it would draw Genma's attention.
Genma arrived at his partner's last known location ready to leap into a fight. He was hardly expecting a nice pot of tea, but he still wasn't prepared to see the dumbass he'd been working with for a decade laying on his back in the muck.
His heart actually stopped.
"Shit, man."
He didn't give a thought to the likelihood that the situation was now a trap for him, and that approaching Raidō was (from a tactical standpoint) a fucking stupid idea. In a blur of motion he dropped to his knees by his old friend and leaned over.
No pulse.
Genma felt sick.
But Raidō was still warm… which was odd, since it was so damn cold on the upper reaches of River country. He didn't have a pulse, but he was warm. What had happened? Despite his reputation for being easy going and a bit lazy, there was nothing slow about the way Genma processed information. There were no wounds on Raidō, no signs of jutsu use, no signs of a physical fight…
He had to frown. What the hell?
Genma firmly put his hands on his comrade to roll him over, thinking that there might be wounds on the back of his head or something similar. Instantly, he knew Raidō didn't feel right.
'No way he weighs this much,' Genma thought incredulously. 'I know I said he was getting fat, but this is ridiculous.'
It took a moment to make the connection. Raidō was too heavy because he was weighed down, weighed down with something actually inside his body and what type of death fit that- He released his comrade and started chest compressions, tilting Raidō's face slightly and spitting the senbon out without a second thought. At another time, he probably wouldn't have wanted to lock lips with Raidō, (despite popular opinion that Genma would kiss anything that held still long enough, he wouldn't disrupt his working relationships) so he probably never would have known that his comrade used cherry chapstick until he bent to give CPR.
It was a long shot. He didn't know how long exactly Raidō had been dead, unless he assumed that his comrade had never intentionally dropped off the map and the time Genma had known something was off was the time of death… That was what, seven minutes back?
Genma's eyes bulged in a spectacularly unattractive way when Raidō convulsed and spat up a glob of cold water directly into his mouth. He sputtered, falling backwards while his comrade lurched to the side and proceeded to vomit bile and plain water onto the marsh.
"That was foul," Genma hissed, wiping his mouth irritably. That didn't keep him from gingerly touching his hacking friend, hovering to make sure he really was alright.
Raidō blinked twice, and managed to focus. His face screwed up, and he opened his mouth to say something. Genma leaned in closer, not certain if Raidō's voice would be strained after drowning.
"My hero," Raidō crooned raspily, making a kissy face and fluttering his eyelashes. "I always knew you were just waiting for a chance to plant one on me."
Genma twitched. "Jackass."
'I guess he must be fine after all. Actually… that's uncharacteristic. Is he giddy from lack of oxygen? Or it could just be relief that he's not dead. Maybe he's even telling me that something is wrong…'
"We should go," Genma deflected, helping his partner up. "We need to get you to a medic. No, don't talk," he scolded. "Your voice is terrible. Just focus on breathing."
He desperately wanted to ask what had happened, but it didn't look like Raidō thought they were in immediate danger. That either meant that he'd had a weird medical issue instead of being attacked, or that he was too disoriented to make an accurate situational assessment. Either way, he wanted a medic, stat. Preferably Shizune.
Genma had to settle for a Chuunin medic-nin he didn't know at the closest border post, several hours away. He didn't even feel like flirting, instead settling his idiot partner on the cot with a stern glare to stay put.
"What happened?" The woman frowned, stress lines exacerbated by her confusion.
"I think that dumbass here slipped and drowned in a puddle," Genma prodded casually, expecting Raidō to look offended. Raidō just shook his head. "You do know what happened, right?" Genma asked uneasily.
"Yeah."
That was all Raidō said. The medic scowled, but she moved forward to check his vitals anyway and make sure there weren't any microtears in his lungs and esophagus, idly commenting something about freshwater as opposed to saltwater that Genma wasn't really listening to.
'He knows what happened, but he isn't saying. Raidō doesn't keep shit from me. That means that whatever happened is too sensitive to mention outside of a debriefing.'
Frowning, Genma moved to worry at his senbon—and then blinked, realizing he'd left it in River Country when he'd moved to give Raidō CPR.
'The things I do for this guy… Alright then. The mission is time-sensitive, but not by a matter of hours. We'll head back to Konoha, and a new team can go out tomorrow. The mission will be delayed by a day and a half, but it'll be fine.'
That was, of course, making the assumption that his partner wouldn't act like a total fucking weirdo before they managed to get to the Hokage's office. Now that they were inside Fire Country and with his relatively clean bill of health, Raidō hadn't been worrying Genma much until they checked in at the gate post outside Konoha. That sense of relaxation went out the window when Raidō clammed up as soon as he saw some blonde Chuunin having way too much fun with his post on guard duty.
It took a moment to recognize him.
'The Uzumaki boy? Damn, he's gotten tall. He looks scarily like Minato-sama now.'
Maybe that was what Raidō was thinking about as he rudely stared at the teen gabbing at his severely unimpressed desk partner and a trio of elderly women who appeared charmed. Raidō was certainly spending enough time staring at the bridge of the kid's nose to be noting a resemblance.
"Stop being so damn weird," he hissed, elbowing his long-term partner. "He's going to notice."
At that point, Raidō gave him a slightly confused look before adopting the opposite but equally awkward tactic of not looking at Uzumaki at all. Genma pushed past him to take care of their identification and paperwork, just wanting to get him to the office. Thankfully, it didn't take too long. He winced and gave Raidō a long-suffering look when, "Hey, Shino-kun! Is there something on my face?" was whispered a little too loudly behind them.
Subtle. Way to represent the elite, Raidō.
They only had to wait seventeen minutes to get into the Hokage's office, but that was more than long enough. Genma grunted with effort when his name was called, wrestling himself out of one of those godawful chairs and trying to look suave because Shizune was eying him.
He didn't think it worked.
"What's this about?" Tsunade asked perfunctorily, looking them over for injuries from behind her desk and frowning. "Aren't you meant to be on a mission right now? What happened?"
Raidō took a deep breath, frowned a bit, and then said nothing.
Weird.
"He didn't even make it to Ame," Genma informed mournfully. "I hung back to create less of a chance he would be noticed entering the border. A few minutes later, his chakra signature winked out. When I went to investigate, I found that he had drowned on dry land." He gave his partner a weak glare, still disturbed by the fact that he'd been technically dead.
Tsunade looked sympathetic, though she quickly hid the emotion. "I see. What happened, Raidō? I'm assuming you didn't do that to yourself."
"No," he said uneasily, glancing down for a moment. "I'm… a little uncertain about what I saw, actually. A kunoichi found and attacked me. She wasn't marked, but to be fair, I wasn't either," he admitted, "so she might not actually be an enemy."
"Sounds like an enemy to me," Tsunade remarked dryly. "What are you uncertain about?"
Raidō huffed a little laugh, shrugging. "Well, I must have been mistaken," he prefaced with an odd tone in his voice. "Though god knows why I would hallucinate a distant acquaintance."
'This isn't weird at all.'
"You thought you recognized her," Tsunade inferred, folding her fingers patiently.
'It's amazing that Hokage-sama can give off that soothing aura,' Genma thought, just watching the show unfold. 'We even know that she's utterly terrifying, but she gives you that look and it's like you're talking to your sweet maiden aunt.'
"I did," Raidō agreed. "I couldn't have. I mean, she's dead, I thought."
"Who is dead?" Tsunade asked, a line forming on her forehead. "Stop deflecting already. I understand that you aren't certain. You're wasting my time."
"Well…" Raidō coughed. "The Uzumaki girl," he admitted, looking embarrassed. "Not the scary medic one- I mean," he corrected hastily, misinterpreting the look on Tsunade's face, "not the one with the really long dark red hair. The other one. The blond's sister."
'Well,' Genma thought optimistically, 'That sort of explains some of his persistent ogling.'
Of course, now he was relatively certain that the medic back on the border had missed a head injury in her perfunctory scan of Raidō's pointy skull. It was pretty common knowledge that the Uzumaki kid was dead, even if not everyone was willing to admit it.
Tsunade was quiet for a long moment, and her face very still.
"She is dead, isn't she?" Raidō asked uncertainly, looking sheepish. "For a while there she was everywhere, but I haven't seen her around in a very long time. It was the strangest thing. I don't think I ever said two words to her, so it would be an odd person for me to imagine."
"Legally, yes," Tsunade said distantly. "She was assumed dead after being missing in action for six months. We didn't have any proof of fatality, however. Hatake would say we have proof she's alive, although that's complicated by some fuinjutsu nuance that Jiraiya-" she cut herself off, shaking her head slightly. "Have you told anyone else about this?"
Confused, Raidō shook his head. "No, Hokage-sama. So, do you think I really saw her?"
"Maybe," she prevaricated, frowning. "You say she attacked you? How?"
'What is she doing?' Genma scowled. 'She shouldn't be encouraging this delusion. Doesn't she care that something is wrong with him?'
"Ah… I don't know how long she was watching me, but I had a bad feeling and checked for genjutsu," Raidō summarized easily. "She just looked at me for a moment, seemed amused. I didn't get any hostile or aggressive impressions from her. I was going to ask her if she really was who I thought she was, but as soon as I opened my mouth…" he trailed off, more than a bit embarrassed. "I didn't even see it coming," he admitted. "I thought that maybe she was frightened that I was aggressive, but I didn't think she would make the first move. At worst, I thought she was going to run, once I saw her. But I opened my mouth and she slammed me with water. Pushed it down my throat and kept it there 'til I passed out."
Genma nearly made a fist, suddenly overcome by a powerful urge to strangle a kunoichi.
The Hokage looked severely disturbed. "That… doesn't sound much like Aiko," she said faintly. "I can believe that she would make the first blow, but I don't think I recall her using that modus operandi. You said that she seemed amused?"
'Calm down. He's fine.' A muscle jumped in Genma's neck, but no one was paying him any attention. 'If it was an enemy, she was doing her job. If it's somehow who Raidō thought it was, he wouldn't appreciate me fighting his battles anyway.'
"Ah, yeah," Raidō shrugged, squinting as if to look into the past and remember details better. "Downright cheeky, actually. She pouted at me when I found her, and waved when she hid again. That was before she attacked," he clarified unnecessarily.
Something twitched in Tsunade's face that told Genma that part of the report might sound like Aiko after all. Smartly, he kept his mouth clamped shut.
No way was he getting involved in this unless he had to. A missing Konoha kunoichi resurfacing after a year and attacking a comrade? Not a good sign. That had the potential to get very ugly and painful, no matter what the explanation was. Even if it was a total mix-up. If Uzumaki had gotten away from her captors and was in fit shape to take out Raidō, then she should have returned to Konoha.
"Genma, would you get me Hatake?"
He sucked in a deep breath, not liking that idea. "Raidō could do it," Genma suggested weakly.
Tsunade shook her head absently. "I want him to stay put. There might be a scent remnant on his person that could confirm this one way or the other."
'I severely doubt that. The encounter happened yesterday, we slogged through the rain and a forest, and we don't even know that she touched him,' Genma thought grouchily.
Still, it wasn't his place to tell Tsunade that her optimism was causing him too much work, so he shut up and restrained his sigh until he was out of the office. What a pain. It took him a full hour to track down the Copy-nin, by which time Genma was all but breathing fire.
"You," he said shortly. "Report to the Hokage's office."
There was a pause, wherein Hatake turned a page. "Hmm?" A languid grey eye drifted up, as if he'd just now noticed Genma's arrival. "Did you say something?"
"You heard me," Genma said shortly. It wasn't really his problem, but Hatake would probably regret it if he took too long and ended up missing out on a chance to catch a fading scent… "You should hurry," he added gruffly. "It's definitely of personal interest to you."
That caught the other man's attention.
"Is it now?" Hatake asked warily, straightening. "I don't think I've done anything recently."
"Nah," Genma rejected, wishing he had a senbon. "S'about one of your kids."
'Possibly. Either you're getting the good news that she's a murderous lunatic traitor, or she's dead and nothing's changed.'
Inwardly, he realized his mistake. Hatake was probably going to think something had happened to the grumpy Uchiha or Naruto. He was downright paranoid about his surviving students.
Sure enough, the younger nin was gone before Genma could blink. He snorted, shaking his head.
'Hope that turns out well, though I can't see how it could. I'm going home.'
Kakashi had nearly forgotten Genma in his anxious state by the time he slipped into Tsunade's office. He was reminded when he saw Raidō (who was practically connected at the hip with Genma most days).
'I thought this was about Sasuke or Naruto? No, it can't be Naruto, he's in the village. Sasuke. Where's Sasuke? I thought it was just a B class because of the potential for contamination and that the client is politically important.'
"Calm your tits," Tsunade said dryly, clearly noting his near panic. "The boys are fine."
Then why was he here?
"Tell me if you can smell anything unusual on Raidō."
That was weird enough that he stopped and gave his Hokage a baffled look. She nodded indulgently, as if she thought he'd been asking for permission instead of evaluating her sanity.
Raidō looked just about as uncomfortable as he felt about invading the other man's personal space and getting a good, long whiff. His nose crinkled. "Vomit," Kakashi clipped out, stepping backward hastily. "And damp that's turning to mold. You should throw out those clothes."
"Nothing else?" Tsunade led, sounding disappointed.
Kakashi scowled. "A moment." With a blur of motion and a puff of smoke, Pakkun sat on the floor, giving him an inquisitive look. "Could you see if you smell anything particularly odd on that man?" Kakashi directed, still not knowing what he was looking for.
Pakkun sighed heavily, but lumbered over to give Raidō a cursory examination. "You're too tall, buddy," he rasped. Obediently, Raidō crouched. Pakkun instantly flinched away. "Your breath is terrible," the dog criticized, shaking his head. "I'd ask if you've been drinking, but there's no alcohol. Just yack. You been eating grass, boy?" He sniffed a couple of times, checking Raidō's hands and the muck coated along the back of the man's vest and pants. "You apparently rolled around on a mildly poisonous plant," Pakkun informed, not reacting when Raidō gave a surprised jerk. "Hey, keep your clothes on. I'm not that kinda guy. Besides, you would know if this had touched your skin."
Kakashi choked down a cough as Raidō stopped tugging on his shirt. It had made it halfway up his back before the pug had scolded Raidō.
"Other than that, nothing odd," Pakkun summarized, sitting with a thump. "Two human scents on him. One is that jerk with the needle, and the other a female carrying a whole lot of antiseptic."
"The medic," Raidō said a little too quickly, as if trying to shut down the hope that flickered in Tsunade's face. "Genma took me to a medic before we came back."
Pakkun grunted in disinterest. "Do I get a treat?"
Kakashi released the summoning without another word, pretending he hadn't heard that last part.
Tsunade sighed, disappointed. "It was a long shot," she admitted. "I didn't want to bias you by telling you what you were looking for. But Raidō may have run into Aiko."
He made a conscious effort not to move his hand towards the rather worn Hiraishin kunai that he had never thrown in a fight and therefore risked losing. Checking that there was still chakra in it was part of his routine as much as talking to his dead comrades at the memorial stone, and he'd channeled his own chakra through it more than once in hopes of drawing his lost student's attention, but it seemed more than a bit pathetic to admit to such.
"Is that so," Kakashi managed evenly.
He couldn't, he wouldn't get his hopes up. How many times had someone brought up a lead? They were all false, every damn one of them. He'd taken Naruto (always Naruto, though the others changed) as far as Snow Country, chasing a red-headed girl who never turned out to be the right one. Or if she had, she'd been long gone before they got there.
Tsunade looked spectacularly uncomfortable. "I think you can go, Raidō," she decided. "I need that report within an hour. Actually…" she bent, digging in a side drawer to extract a sheaf of paper that the Jounin obediently took. "A mission report form. Just get it done as fast as possible and wait in the Jounin lounge."
"Hai, Hokage-sama." Raidō gave Kakashi one last cautious glance before striding out.
"What, do you suppose that I was going to leap across the room and strangle him if he shared bad news?" Kakashi asked, blackly amused.
His Hokage rolled her eyes. "It's not all about you, brat. He's had recent throat and lung damage. No point in having him undermine the healing job by talking our ears off. I have the basics. I assume you'll want to leave soon. Naruto can be taken off the guard roster, just this once," Tsunade said for what had to have been the tenth time in Kakashi's presence. He didn't say a thing about the favoritism that had Naruto's time on the least-loved duty reduced.
"I suppose that Yamato can be spared as well," she continued, flipping open a blue folder and eying the names therein briskly. "Who else would you want to take to River Country? Does it matter?"
Kakashi shrugged, apathetic. "A medic."
If looks could light Jounin on fire, he'd be a crispy critter. "Karin and Sasuke are both medics, dillweed," Tsunade huffed. "Pick one."
He heaved a sigh. "Why just one?" Kakashi managed sarcastically. What was the point of this exercise again? Was Tsunade independently investigating the effects of chronic disappointment on Jounin and Chuunin?
Tsunade rolled her eyes. "Why not, indeed. Sure, fine, what the hell. Take them both. Sasuke's getting fat and lazy anyways."
That was patently untrue.
"I can't help but feel that you're not taking this very seriously," she added wryly. "This is a huge opportunity. We need Aiko back, not just for her sake, but for Konan's trial. She's being released any day now, as soon as Iron settles on a date. This is important."
Kakashi tried not to look particularly dissident. It was not a predominantly adept attempt. "This is not the first time someone's sworn that they saw Aiko," he reminded her flatly. "Or the tenth." He didn't bother reminding her that there was no guarantee that Aiko would remember anything for the trial. For shinobi, a little thing like lying by omission was a small problem. If they had Aiko to testify, they could have her say whatever they wanted. No one else could contradict her—she'd spent a good deal of time alone in Akatsuki, and Tsunade did have a record of Aiko's debriefing to use as a reference.
Tsunade sighed. "Yes, well, that's the nature of the beast." For a moment, her tiredness peeked through her permanent transformation in shadows of the wrinkles that she really should have. "And at least this one is a kunoichi for sure."
"You said that about the gangster as well," Kakashi muttered bleakly. Probably a rumor started by that awful Ando woman. They hadn't even bothered to investigate that lead after they realized that the abandoned drug cart they'd found in Grass hadn't been connected to the Akatsuki. Besides, the woman was dead and her body burnt, apparently having been caught on the wrong side of Akatsuki trying to ingratiate themselves to local powers by clearing up criminal problems. It would have been pointless.
(Honestly. Even Naruto had been infuriated by that transparent attempt at cashing in. It wasn't like Akatsuki would be letting Aiko wander wherever she wanted.)
"We know she is a kunoichi, because she attacked Raidō and won," Tsunade said bluntly. "We're definitely not looking at a civilian or petty thug."
Kakashi actually blinked in surprise. "That doesn't sound all that much like something Aiko would do," he pointed out.
"Cut the crap."
He shrugged.
"She's a kunoichi," Tsunade continued dryly, "Aiko has attacked a lot of people in her time. Generally with orders, yes, but we don't know what's happened to her. For all we know, she could think that she is following correct orders. Or she's being controlled by a seal or genjutsu." She leaned back a little, idly rolling what appeared to be a marble between her fingers. "There are plenty of explanations. The physical resemblance was enough that Raidō, who was under the impression that Aiko is deceased, didn't even attempt to fight her," Tsunade drawled.
Kakashi pointedly avoided commenting on the stupidity inherent in that decision. Not that he would have attacked a long-lost comrade, but Raidō didn't know Aiko. That was terribly trusting for someone whose identity he didn't know enough to confirm.
(Raidō was a good guy. He should stop using that particular chump as a distraction for Gai).
"The fighting style didn't sound familiar to me, but that kind of thing could change in such a long time. The attitude definitely sounded like Aiko, and the kunoichi used water ninjutsu." Tsunade made a palms-up gesture, as if weighing the evidence. "It's probably the best lead that we've had."
He nodded slowly. It wasn't airtight—what, a sixth of shinobi across the continent were water-natured? Even more than that could use it as a secondary affinity. But in combination with the unusual hair color, it was enough that he saw why Tsunade thought the clue worth a look. How many cocky, red-headed kunoichi with water-style jutsu could there really be?
Kakashi shoved his hands in his pockets, letting his posture slump in good-natured resignation. "This might be a mission to leave the boys at home."
Unspoken was, there's no good way for this mission to end. Either they found out that Aiko had attacked a Konoha nin, or that it was a dead end. Tsunade nodded slowly, pushing her folder away and crossing her arms contemplatively.
"I can understand that. I'll give you Genma and Tenzou. You move out in two hours. Hopefully you'll get there in time for the scent to be fresh."