"Have you ever decided what you want to do about your old boss," Obito called out over the irritatingly chipper sound of summer cicadas.
Aiko glared, not even trying to respond. That was too hard with a lungful of fire. She pushed the flames out, pursing her lips like her intention was to go in for a kiss. The small spray that she forced past her teeth came out in a thin, high-arching plume.
(and that heat hurt, if this was a C-class jutsu she didn't know how Obito's teeth hadn't splintered from the heat of higher level jutsu).
He dodged it easily, alighting on the pock-riddled ground with a butterfly's grace.
In comparison, she felt like an eighty year old smoker. She wheezed for a moment, tilting her head back to optimize oxygen consumption. "You tried to trick me into breathing in to speak," Aiko accused hoarsely through a hot, painfully dry mouth.
That would have hurt.
All she got in return was a surprisingly wicked grin, before he telegraphed the motions of a water jutsu. Her chest was still aching from the last chakra she'd filled it with, but she mimicked his motions anyway, letting him teach her another jutsu.
He'd become a much less gentle teacher since her eyes had changed. Admittedly, that appeared to be because he was sharing his formidable repertoire of elemental jutsu. Learning that way was paradoxically effortless but time and labor-intensive. Seeing him perform a jutsu was enough for her to mimic it and reproduce it, but she still had to practice everything he showed her when alone later to truly master it.
With a little too much glee, Obito had taught her the lesson that being able to perform a jutsu was unrelated to being able to control it by allowing her to copy an A-level earth ninjutsu, and then saving her only at the last moment when she nearly killed herself with it.
Maybe that hadn't been kind, but she wouldn't forget or complain again about it being dull to have to learn D- level ninjutsu before he'd teach her anything more impressive. At least she was past the really low level stuff now.
The water jutsu he demonstrated (in a mirror, really, her motions so closely followed his that it was nearly impossible to tell he was leading) turned out to form a slick of two-inch or so water that coated the ground.
'Meant to make it easier to track opponents I can't see?' Aiko theorized. He didn't spoon-feed jutsu to her. Figuring out their use was her job. 'The splash should allow me to find anyone who was too surprised to water walk in time. If I can sense through the water, or force someone to use chakra to stand on top, I can use that chakra expenditure to keep track of their movements.'
"I was serious, you know," he brought up when they finished. Aiko didn't look up, bent over as she was to dab at her face with the hem of her shirt. "I tracked down your civilian coworkers when I realized what had happened. I may have jumped to the conclusion that there was a reason you were down for the count and they were fine."
Aiko looked up sharply at his sheepish tone. "Judging by your phrasing, they weren't responsible."
"No," Obito admitted, breaking eye contact. "I don't know about the woman who employed you all, though. I thought you might like to know, for peace of mind if nothing else." He frowned audibly. "That doesn't mean that they don't still present a danger to you, mind. They saw you activate your bloodline. If you think there's a chance they might talk, we'll have to do something."
She sucked on her lower lip, considering it.
'I had fun with that job when it lasted, but it wouldn't really be worth it to go back to Ando-san and try again. Then again, it would be polite to talk to her instead of just wandering away forever. I wonder if she ever got her cart back?'
After a moment, he reluctantly added, "We could kill them. The decision is in your hands, but I don't see much point in taking care of them forever."
Aiko blinked, honestly taken aback. "No, I don't think that'll be necessary," she waved him off. "I don't think they knew what was going on, certainly not enough to sell information. Besides," she decided, "we could just…" her voice trailed off, as she tapped a finger meaningfully against her temple.
Obito snorted, rolling his eyes. "You mean me," he groused. "You'd probably fry their brains."
She shrugged, unbothered by his lack of faith in her abilities. He was right, after all. Who did she have to practice genjutsu on? No one, that's who. All she knew was stuff that worked by altering and distorting areas near her person. Hypnosis was entirely different.
"We may as well take care of that today," Aiko decided, giving a stretch. "You drop me off with Ando-san, I'll see if she's guilty and give my resignation if she's not, and you pick me up after an hour or so?" Her voice lilted in question.
"Of course," he indulged. "And I'll take your former co-workers home."
"Lovely." She leaned back so far that her back cracked three times, nearly collapsing in a puddle of sore muscles. "It would be kind of rude to just stop by, though," Aiko mused. She frowned slightly. Maybe she should bring a peace offering.
~~~
("I heard you were dead," Ando-san said tonelessly, staring at Aiko with an expression she couldn't quite sum up.
Aiko shrugged, not knowing how to feel about that. "That was for a limited time only. May I come in?"
The older woman's mouth moved silently for a moment. Apparently unable to verbalize anything, she stood back and held the door open.)
~~~
Team Kakashi had nearly returned to Konoha after the three men tracked away from the spot where Raidō had nearly been killed into a dryer forested area. Not because they were unsuccessful, per se.
"Located traces of both Aiko's scent and that of unknown Uchiha," Tsunade read silently from the scroll she'd been given by a dog in a blue cape. "Gone to reinvestigate clue from previous mission, suspect that woman known as Ando-san had been in contact with Aiko after all."
What? She furrowed her brow, not seeing the connection, until Kakashi's scribbles spelled out the logic- "Oh, I see." Tsunade blew air out of the side of her mouth.
Funny. It had taken Genma to point out something that one of them really should have seen before.
She hadn't released a photo of Aiko with the subtle call for their contacts to keep an eye out for her. It would have been too dangerous, considering the intention had to keep the information that she was missing quiet. The only internationally available photo of Aiko was the one in the bingo book.
'And that picture is old,' Tsunade confirmed for herself when she flipped open her copy to verify Genma's information. How lucky that he'd gone to look after she had attacked Raidō (and wasn't that a can of worms, shit). 'Far too old to be in use now, it should have been replaced. If anyone other than incompetent Iwa had put out the bounty, it would have been. This might even be her graduation picture.'
The girl in that photograph still had baby-fat cheeks, a choppy home haircut, and a truly obnoxious dimpled smile. She was much cuter than the pointy-elbowed teenager that Tsunade had first met years ago.
Kakashi had scribbled down the description the unpleasant civilian in Grass had given him for point of comparison. It did describe Aiko accurately: the Aiko of about age sixteen and up, when her face had thinned out and her big baby eyes seemed to fit her face better. The twins looked more alike now than they had before they'd lost their respective baby fat that disguised the fact that their bone structure wasn't that disparate.
If Ando-san had learned Aiko was missing, she wouldn't have known to describe her that way unless she had either seen Aiko recently or knew far too much about Konoha shinobi.
Assuming the first was true, Kakashi would get information out of her. If the second was true and Ando-san was a spy, she'd be coming back to Konoha in chains.
Tsunade actually smiled, leaning over to scratch the canine messenger behind his floppy ears with much more cheer than she ever treated Jiraiya's summons. The nindog allowed her touch, and after a moment dissolved into a gooey puddle of doggy love. His chin was laying on her knee and he was staring up at her adoringly through shining brown eyes when Sasuke pushed the door open and strode in, wearing a grumpy expression and mission clothes.
The look he gave the dog was truly withering.
"What's Kakashi done now?" Sasuke prodded, amusement tilting the corners of his eyes just slightly when the hound stiffened in offense.
'How petty does he have to be to taunt a dog?' Tsunade wondered. Out loud, she lazily replied, "He's found good news, actually. I'd tell you all about it, but I want your report first."
When Kakashi returned with Yamato and Genma three days later, she was relieved enough to nearly cry. Naruto had been trying her patience. Naruto practically bounced on his former teacher, mouth running a mile a minute. He peered over Kakashi's shoulder, deflating slightly when it became clear that his sister wasn't following.
Tsunade wasn't too cold to deny that she shared a little of Naruto's disappointment.
Gently, Kakashi pushed the blond away and patted his shoulder. He centered between his two teammates, slouched slightly in what wasn't quite his usual attitude.
"Any news?" she prompted.
Hatake glanced at Naruto for a moment, before directing his voice to her. "Genma was right," he admitted, a strange twist in his voice. Irony, perhaps. "Ando-san opened the door and greeted us with, 'I thought you said she was dead'," he mimicked, pitching his voice up slightly. "We'd missed her by about four hours. Apparently, Aiko came by with apology cookies for letting all Ando-san's goods rot and her wagon get stolen."
Naruto let out a surprised laugh, eyes glittering with relief. At least she sounded like she was doing reasonably well, if a bit confused. They'd been so close- next time, they'd work things out. They just needed to talk to her and she'd see.
Tsunade cradled her face in her palm, suddenly feeling a headache. "Should we be sending someone to wait around Ando-san's house?"
Kakashi shook his head regretfully. "The cookies were also an apology for quitting without notice."
~~~
"It is time to take our next jinchuuriki."
Five shadowy figures flickered in the dim light of a gaping cavern. Suigetsu, the only person who was physically present, rapped his fingers against the handle of his sword in boredom.
He heaved a beleaguered sigh and sneered. 'Dramatic old men.'
This whole thing reeked of theatricality. The heavy uniform cloak on his shoulders matched that of the projected participants. From their perspectives, his face was probably cast in as much shadow.
He'd never even seen his fellow Akatsuki, aside from the asshole that had recruited him. Not much for camaraderie and hugs, these guys. He told himself that was fine. There was no point in bonding with anyone other than a fellow swordsman of the Mist.
Their apparent leader's deep baritone rung out again, distorted through static by the projection jutsu he was using. "We will be hard-pressed to acquire all the jinchuuriki in time once the great nations are at odds. We must be ready to strike and seal the last bijuu in rapid succession. However, there is one jinchuuriki that can be obtained before the critical moment. My partner and I will do so. If all goes well, we will perform the jutsu tonight."
It was hard to believe that the prick had a partner. He didn't seem the type to play nice. Curious, Suigetsu let his eyes wander over the figure standing closest to the leader. They could be standing in the same location or miles apart for all he knew, but their apparition-like projections were perhaps only two feet apart.
Even if they'd been in person, the high collar would have obscured the vast majority of the person's face. As it was, the only physical characteristic Suigetsu could pin down was that the person was short in comparison to the leader. Very few men were that short.
That meant either a child or a small woman. His gut told him it was a woman, especially considering her proximity to the leader. His logic wasn't rock-solid: the leader could be a pedophile. But it seemed less likely.
If he was a pedophile, of course, Suigetsu'd have to kill the disgusting bastard. He would kill leader eventually regardless of what happened, of course, but still.
"Be ready."
With that, the jutsu cut out. Suigetsu irritably pulled his sword over his shoulder and used it to cut through a hanging wall of moss in the decrepit, damp shithole he had to wait around in all day. "Useless fuckface," he grumbled. "Better hurry that slow ass up."
~~~
Obito seemed to shrink a bit when the jutsu faded, leaving them staring at the front yard instead of a dark cave. "I think that went well," he said to himself in an undertone, apparently bemused at that.
'This is sort of exciting.'
Aiko finally felt free enough to bite down on the hard candy she'd been nursing while Obito monologued. Sharp chips of green apple flavor fell across her tongue and melted nearly instantly. She may or may not have let out a slightly gratuitous moan of long-delayed pleasure. Oh yeah, that's the stuff.
She could all but feel Obito consider giving her a wearisome look, and decide against it on grounds of pointlessness. When her mood was this good, she just couldn't be stopped.
This was going to be her first time using the ridiculously long jutsu, so he was going to have to excuse a bit of fidgeting and silliness. He'd cautioned her that it was an incredibly trying technique, but that made her feel more excited than anything.
Perhaps she should be worried, but at worst Aiko was feeling butterflies in her tummy. She grinned to herself while pulling off the distinctive outer uniform. She could do this: she could do anything. She didn't know where her talent for ninjutsu had been hiding before her eyes got all sassy on her, but the fact that it had come out was thrilling.
Perversely, she was sort of falling in love with her ugly eyes. They truly were awful to look at and they contributed to her fatigue, but they made her combat repertoire so much better that it was downright unfair. What element she was using didn't even seem to matter: breathing fire wasn't any harder than hiding in the earth.
Besides, the ugly eyes weren't a half-bad chakra exercise. The concentration required to change them was significantly less than it had been when she had first started. Obito was more irritated by that than she was: one than once, he'd implied that she shouldn't mess with them if she didn't have the automatic ability to turn them 'off' and 'on' in the way he did. Worrywart. Aiko chose to believe that she was the one who was better off, because deciding otherwise would be depressing.
"Ready to go?" Obito glanced back at her, apparently preoccupied with checking his equipment for the last time. "Chakra pills, hydration? We're not going to come back before we do the jutsu, and it can take the better part of a day."
'This is not the first time you have asked me that.'
Aiko blew air out through her lips in what was too forceful to be a sigh. "Yes, mom. I have a change of socks too. But you know we have to come back," she reminded wearily. "You don't want me wearing the cloak there, remember?"
Honestly. It was his plan; he could recall it for an hour or two.
He made a sound of vague comprehension, apparently only now realizing that she had shrugged it off and piled the hat on the table.
Their mission wasn't going to be that hard, frankly. She was still itching to get started. Hopefully, they would find their target quickly once Obito took them to the village. Most of the plan was up to him: he was going to hypnotize the jinchuuriki into fleeing the village, whether through stealth or violence didn't matter much. The point was that the blame wouldn't be on them when no one could find it. It'd just be another missing nin, albeit a demonic-powered one.
Sensible? Yes. That was the worst thing about that plan. But Aiko had to acknowledge that it suited their purposes a lot more than challenging the village of Waterfall to a glorious battle for control of their beast.
'Although I would totally kick ass, were that the plan. I can't believe he didn't want me to be a front line fighter. Ninjutsu and taijutsu are so much more enjoyable than throwing things.' Aiko flicked her eyes to purple, and then back to red. Purple-Red-Purple-Red-
"Stop that." Obito reached back and gently swatted at her head, ignoring the indignant sound that she made. "The chakra fluctuations are very distracting. You'll remember to suppress that?"
At that, she couldn't help but roll her eyes. Of course she knew how to go unseen.
And that was exactly what she did, while Obito transported them directly in the village that had apparently been hidden behind a waterfall.
'Some people take the 'hidden village' thing much more seriously than others,' she mused philosophically, carefully leaning into Obito's side to avoid colliding with an adorably tiny child who was appropriately incapable of seeing through his Sharingan genjutsu. 'I don't think any of the others are really hidden. Spectacularly inconvenient and remote, yes, but not hidden per say.'
Props to Taki for committing to the name thing, then. For all the good it did them. As far as she could tell, Taki didn't have a single person capable of realizing that two invisible ninja were in their midst.
That was almost a pity, because she might have liked a fight. The vast majority of her new toys had only been used on Obito in spars.
Aiko swallowed that awful thought and wrapped her hand a little tighter around Obito's bicep, tugging in the direction she thought most promising. 'This isn't a game,' she berated herself. 'If we have to fight here, it won't be a fun spar to test out my abilities. It'd be a massacre. I don't want that, what the fuck am I even thinking?'
There was something frightening and insidious about just how easy it was to forget that other people were real and their pain mattered in the way that hers did.
She couldn't let herself think that way. Rationalizing fighting for her life and killing people who were in her way was a necessity of doing her job. Bringing that violence to civilians and people who weren't her enemies was unacceptable.
'I'm such a child sometimes. A brawl in the middle of Taki wouldn't be fun for these people. It'd be terrifying, even if I didn't kill anyone.'
Mood dampened, she didn't try to work up enthusiasm when they actually managed to locate the jinchuuriki via process of elimination. Taki was small, after all, and there were only so many things that shinobi did in their off-time. Since a jinchuuriki was likely a shunned loner, finding it on the training grounds wasn't surprising.
The thing itself wasn't exactly what Aiko had expected, though. The picture Obito had shared was of a tanned girl with eerie orange eyes and hair that reminded Aiko of her base level eyes. As with all shinobi mugshots, it was neither flattering nor expressive. The thin-lipped girl depicted looked ready to reach out and hurt the viewer.
In person, the jinchuuriki seemed almost disconcertingly normal: cute and perky, and as preoccupied with training as any other shinobi.
For all the good it did. It never stood a chance.
'There's something artistic about watching Obito use genjutsu.' Aiko sucked on her bottom lip and watched the chakra move with purple eyes, transfixed by the illusions he was pulling together. The first three layers slid smoothly around the jinchuuriki, distorting its reality and interfering with inhibitions and thought process. There was a worrisome moment as Obito spun a compulsion into the mix when thin, teal brows came together as if the bijuu was trying to shake it off.
She pursed her lips, impressed when her friend soothed whatever objections were roiling in the target. Obito might have been onto something with his claim that the Sharingan could control bijuu.
Point one to him, then.
From start to finish, the jinchuuriki only stood still for about seven seconds while Obito flipped its worldview and made it realize that a walk outside the village would be quite nice right about now. Smoothly, it bent to slip the large, red cylindrical device on its back and took off at an easy gait, round-cheeked face smooth and untroubled.
It looked disconcertingly adorable. Aiko pressed a hand against her tummy, irritated that the tactic she used against others was kind-of-sort-of working on her. She knew that a pretty face on a petite girl could be disarming. She should have immunity or something.
'Apparently, it doesn't think sneaking is the way to go,' Aiko noted, tilting her head in mild interest as they trailed their target across streets full of people that pushed to get away from the beast. 'And no one looks interested in stopping it. Is just walking out seriously going to work?'
That just seemed too easy. Weren't villages supposed to have tight control and regulations? Perhaps the jinchuuriki was so habitually agreeable that the sudden turnabout had them all stunned and unable to react appropriately. That kind of whispering and pointing couldn't be the normal state of affairs.
There was clearly no love lost between Taki's monster and the slightly chubby man posted at the gates. As the three came closer, Aiko had to classify the expression on his face as 'cruel disdain'.
'That really can't be an intelligent way to react to a powerful village weapon,' she thought doubtfully. 'Either you're frightened, or you're not. There's no circumstance in which taunting the demon makes any amount of sense whatsoever.'
People were surprisingly stupid sometimes about the simplest things. She did enjoy the slight break in his expression the moment he realized that 'Fuu' was still smiling and walking towards him en route to leave the village.
The confused scowl that turned to flat-out befuddlement when the jinchuuriki walked out the village without a word was a memory that Aiko would treasure.
At her side, she suspected that the shaking of Obito's chest meant that he was hiding laughter as well.
'I can't believe they're really going to let their most powerful weapon just walk away,' she marveled silently as they followed past the namesake waterfall and a mile into the countryside without a hint of pursuit. 'Are they really so weak?'
Obito elbowed her after a few minutes, which she took as her signal to go. She shook off Obito's cloaking genjutsu with a concentrated blink of her purple eyes and strode up to the jinchuuriki, trusting that whatever illusion he'd put the beast under would keep her relatively safe.
If it had fought, the plan had been to use chakra chains to subdue it. Since that hadn't happened, it hardly seemed necessary. It would probably be enough just to keep the other shinobi calm. The jinchuuriki smiled docilely at her, apparently accepting Aiko's appearance without a second thought.
(Jinchuuriki were not very bright, were they?)
Then again, Obito had expected that it wouldn't find her to be particularly fearsome. No matter what conditioning was pounded into someone's head, shinobi still found it much easier to be wary of a tall man in a lurid mask than a pretty teenager.
She interlocked her arm with the jinchuuriki's companionably, giving a cutesy smile of her own. Aiko was oddly surprised at just how soft and warm its skin was. She didn't know why she had expected anything different, but it just seemed off. A heartbeat later she was drawn from her contemplations by the sensation of Obito wrapping a firm hand around her shoulder—they were about to Kamui away. "Ready to go, Fuu?" Aiko asked warmly.
For whatever reason, the taller female form all but melted against her at the small kindness. She felt a prick of guilt—it was terribly sad that the creature had been treated so poorly that she was vulnerable to this.
"Aiko," it greeted in a much higher conversational pitch than Aiko's near contralto.
It was an effort not to let her smile falter.
'Obito, you told it my name? Very creepy.'
Effective, but still disconcerting. She could have lived without that. On the other hand, if the jinchuuriki thought they were friends, of course soothing it would be easier. The tactic was an intelligent one.
"Where are we going?" Fuu followed up, turning her head slightly.
Aiko let her gaze wander westward, to the isolated locale in the Wind Country's great empty deserts that had been selected for this operation. "Nowhere special." She nudged the taller kunoichi (and it was disconcerting, just how human it seemed up close). "I think my house for a bit," Aiko shared easily, keeping her tone light. "We're going to go see some of my friends later, but they won't be ready for a while."
That extraction had been much easier and timelier than their worst scenario estimates. Obito would probably flit ahead to take care of last minute arrangements like putting out protective seals and traps to keep them from being disturbed while they worked while the other Akatsuki filtered in.
That was when Obito pulled them through what she privately thought of as a void to a safehouse with that same sick, twisting motion and eerie blankness. Fuu seemed a little motion-sick, but not nearly as disturbed as Aiko had been on her first few trips via Kamui.
Without ever letting the jinchuuriki know he was there, Obito tapped his fingers against Aiko's arm in the Konoha code he'd taught her.
Hour or less. Use caution.
'Of course I'll be careful. It's cute, but it's still dangerous.'
She nodded slightly in confirmation, making the motion look natural. She wouldn't have been able to tell that he'd left if she couldn't see through his genjutsu with the purple eyes of funkiness.
Aiko glanced into the jinchuuriki's trusting orange eyes, wondering how she was supposed to entertain them both for an unspecified period of time. They hadn't spent much time thinking about the mundanities of this outcome. Aiko was torn. On one hand, it felt like she should be locking the other kunoichi up and feeding her gruel or something. On the other hand, watching Fuu lean her cylindrical burden against the wall and blink agreeably up at the ceiling almost made her feel like she had a girl friend over.
'There's no particular reason to be unkind,' Aiko decided, twisting the end of her long braid around her fingers. On the other hand, leading the jinchuuriki to the more private areas of the house like her room or the sitting area seemed too friendly. She compromised by indicating that the other should pull up a seat at the kitchen table. Aiko poured herself a glass of water- and after a moment's thought, did so for her (guest? Prisoner?) companion as well. Manners never hurt.
When she came back to the table, she leaned her elbows on the table and her chin into her palms, sizing up the placidly compliant girl-shaped demon obediently sipping at her beverage.
'I wonder what on earth Obito did to it with that genjutsu.' Aiko tilted her head slightly, trying to catch latent glimpses of intelligence flickering in hypnosis-dulled eyes. 'He convinced her that she knows me and trusts me, for sure. What would it take for something like that to trust a person? From what Obito said, I wouldn't have thought it was capable.'
"Fuu." Aiko let warmth color her tone. The jinchuuriki perked up, pathetically eager at the small hint of affection. "Do you remember how we met?"
"Of course I do. You stopped me from using my bijuu in Mizu, which meant that no one was mad at me for causing an incident." Fuu frowned slightly, and added with a bit of petulance, "I thought you were an awful showoff."
She felt a muscle under her eye twitch. An awful showoff? That seemed pointed.
'Obito, you jackass.'
"I later confirmed that my initial analysis was accurate, but you're not all bad," Fuu blithely continued.
'Why is it that Obito teases me even when constructing elaborate backstory?' Aiko wondered, feeling her pasted-on smile waver. 'Did he come up with this specifically to test if I would be nosy enough to figure out what he did?'
Well, he could suck on that. She wasn't going to let on she'd done what he expected. He'd just laugh at her.
"Actually, by my standards, you might be my best friend." Fuu gave a depreciating laugh, rubbing at the back of her neck in a gesture that looked much more genuine than her otherwise muffled body language. "That's pretty sad, isn't it? You haven't tried to kill me, anyway, and you were nice to me at the hotsprings. And then there was the whole thing with Grandmother Time," she continued, before descending into babble about an imagined adventure that made absolutely no sense – something about traveling with a Kumo nin on the lam from the leader of Ame?
She tuned out most of the fantastical nonsense; mind still arrested by the phrase 'you might be my best friend'.
Heat rose in Aiko's cheeks before she controlled herself. Her throat felt oddly right—and that was ridiculous, none of this was real. She shouldn't feel embarrassed or pleased by that bit of emotional frankness. Everything the jinchuuriki was talking about was artificially constructed.
So she shoved the wiggling sensation of bashful pride down and changed the subject to an inquiry about what it was like to be a jinchuuriki.
What she heard indicated that her deductions had been dead-on: there was no one there who could hope to physically keep Fuu under control. So they had resorted to bullying and attempts to cow her into servile obedience.
(If she ever went back to Taki, Aiko might not use as much restraint as she had today.)
'Why does it matter?' Aiko wondered uncomfortably, hooking her feet around the rungs of her chair and letting the conversation fade into silence. 'It seems a lot like a person, and it has a hell of an imagination if Obito was letting it fill in blanks instead of coming up with that all himself. But it's not. So why does the idea of Taki mistreating it bother me? It's not just the illogical nature of that decision, it's something morally motivated.'
Obito gave her a funny look when he came back and noticed that she and the jinchuuriki were sitting in amiable silence, but didn't venture to comment.
Aiko smiled weakly, tilting her face up in a moue of cuteness that hopefully communicated the phrase, 'I'm not getting attached to her.'
She blinked, a little disturbed at that thought. 'It,' she corrected hastily. 'What am I saying, it's not really a person.'
Even as she thought that, Aiko wondered if she was lying to herself. But she couldn't think of a reason that Obito would have lied to her about that. It didn't seem to serve any purpose. If she was willing to fight and kill people for him, why would he worry about this specific job? If Fuu really was a person, killing her wouldn't be any different from killing other people.
Obito must still have been veiled under genjutsu, because Fuu never reacted to his appearance. Light didn't reflect off of his mask when he tilted his head, which was a little creepy. Aiko shrugged it off and glanced down at his hand quickly signaling through a short message.
Immobilize target. We move out.
She blew air out the side of her mouth and turned back to Fuu as she stood and walked around the table, pushing down the odd feeling in her gut. Getting attached was unacceptable.
Trusting, Fuu glanced up. She didn't even move to stand.
Aiko told herself she didn't care at all, easily reaching an arm around Fuu's shoulder in a parody of a one-armed hug. The teal-haired girl leaned into it, and didn't even react when Aiko's left hand curled up through her hair to pulse chakra into the base of Fuu's skull.
She balanced the jinchuuriki easily enough to a hand on each of its shoulders so that it didn't fall out of the chair, wiggling her eyebrows at Obito.
'See,' she said silently. 'I don't care. No big deal.'
He snorted in amusement. "Here, let me take that so you can put on your uniform."
"I still don't see why I have to hide my face from our coworkers," Aiko groused without any real feeling, gratefully latching onto the change of subject. Reluctantly, she kept her face still as Obito easily took the jinchuuriki out of her grip.
It was probably lucky that the uniform covered almost all of her face and shadowed what was left, because letting Obito take her to the cave rubbed in the reminder that they were about to kill Fuu, even if it was inadvertent. The hideous oversized statue that Obito had summoned to crouch over them all seemed like some demon god, and Fuu the sacrifice when she was laid at its feet.
The contrast was odd. Fuu didn't look like the demon in that scenario. Fuu just looked like a little girl.
'It has to be done.' Aiko pinned her lip between her teeth and calmed her chakra. 'Obito told me that this part was hard, but it's necessary for his plan.'
Whatever the hell that was, anyway. Tsuki no Me made little sense to Aiko, but Obito was passionate about it and he was her friend.
Outwardly serene, she made her way to the high pillars that ringed the cavern. There were far more than they needed, as far as Aiko could tell. She didn't comment and instead left an empty space in between her chosen perch and Obito's.
'It stinks in here.' She swallowed, breathing shallowly through her nose. 'It stinks like mold and death. Has Obito used this location before?'
On some pre-arranged order, another Akatsuki –the one she didn't know- sauntered over to the low central point where Obito had dropped Fuu and pulled the massive sword off his back. Aiko grimaced at the almost sensual way he stroked the blade before he allowed it to drop on Fuu's belly.
'Ew. That man has problems.'
Problems like his supremely creepy sword, she realized a moment later as it convulsed through the white wrappings and latched onto Fuu with what appeared to be scales. That was just nasty. She stiffened but didn't let herself look away. It would be both immature and disrespectful to distance herself from what was being done today. It was real even if she ignored it.
'It also looks really uncomfortable.' Aiko bit the inside of her cheek, tasting iron-rich blood. Fuu was shuddering visibly, convulsing on the rocks, brutalizing her own body in an attempt to squirm away.
As far as she could tell, whatever he was doing involved draining Fuu's chakra. Aiko reluctantly admitted to herself that decision made a lot of sense. It was twice beneficial: it would allow that Akatsuki member to pour more juice into the jutsu, and it would decrease the amount of time they had to spend draining Fuu of demonic chakra by getting rid of her regular chakra.
The Akatsuki who could only be Zetsu (the only person present with giant plant fronds that prevented him from wearing a hat) arrived last and took point across from Aiko, on Obito's other side. As Fuu was left alone, Aiko gratefully turned her attention to the people she would be working with.
'Small group,' she noted interestedly. 'No wonder Obito was nervous. This'll take longer than he'd like with only five participants.'
Obito raised his arms first. In perfect concert, everyone mirrored his motion. Aiko licked her lips and concentrate, bringing the painfully long hand sequence she had memorized into the forefront of her mind and pushing away the impulse to look down at the small figure below.
Rat-Dog-Dog-Dog-Tiger-Dragon- {...]
The whimpers started below at almost the exact moment that the group hit and held the last handsign. In the sickest, strangest way, they were comforting: Fuu sounded like an animal in pain, and not a person. A jinchuuriki, not a human being.
It went on and on, dragging out the daylight hours into one long monotonous blur of slowly letting energy seep out. Aiko switched her eyes to red in an attempt to preserve as much chakra as possible. Even Fuu seemed to tire: her pale limbs thrashed less, and her voice quieted for minutes at a time when all she could do was gasp raggedly.
What must have been an hour or so of painfully careful boredom was enough for it to become clear that even with her partially occupied reserves, Aiko was the chakra tank of the group. The others were all relatively comparable with the exception of the lithe swordsman that had stolen from Fuu's chakra. Once his stolen energy was sapped, he drastically altered his output in an attempt to keep from being drained.
Aiko was both irritated by his inability to fairly contribute and sympathetic with his desire to avoid chakra exhaustion. That could kill.
There was a noticeable lurch in the upswell of chakra, and a horrible scraping as one eye began to move on the grotesque statue. She would have known that meant the end even if Fuu hadn't begun shrieking with a new vigor, slamming the back of her head on the rocks again and again in mad, stupid pain. In contrast to the darkening Fuu must have been experiencing, the cavern was growing lighter from the pure concentration of energy accumulating.
Fuu's body was actually being pulled off the ground by the sheer stubborn force of the energy being sapped out into the hideous statue.
It was clearly the end. The demon went out in one last hurrah of vivid white light and an inhuman croak torn from Fuu's abused throat.
She fell like a broken doll in the instant that the cavern darkened, supernatural presence gone. Then she was limp, blood spreading out from her head and dripping slowly down into the rocks she laid on.
Aiko sucked her lip in between her teeth, glancing down. She didn't need to check to know that there was no pulse and that the girl would be growing cold. She took a deep breath and buried any regret at having helped kill a lonely thing like Fuu. At least it was over.
"Good work, everyone," Obito rumbled, voice exceptionally low from being silent for so long.
Despite her determination to be professional, she cringed at that juxtaposition of positive reinforcement and her bleak mood.
'He did say that this was hard.'
She turned her face slightly to look at him, despite knowing that she wouldn't be able to see anything but the light hitting his eyes. She swallowed the urge to ask what was going to happen to Fuu's body. Judging by the group silence, Obito was the only person who should be speaking up in these meetings.
In the end, she didn't have to ask. Zetsu made his way down towards the body, slipping into out of the shadowy heights to the wash of soft light below.
Oh, good. She didn't want to have to ask. It would be a bit pathetic to make it so explicitly apparent that she'd gotten somewhat attached in a few hours. But really, Fuu had gotten a poor hand in life. She deserved a nice send-off. Fire would be alright, although really-
Oh god. What- what was he… Aiko gaped, feeling her stomach lurch at the sight of what appeared to be toothy protrusions extending from Zetsu's fronds and digging into Fuu, dragging her whole into the shadows hidden by Zetsu's cloak. Someone chuckled, but she just felt ill.
Inanely enough, the next coherent thought she managed was, 'I don't think I like my coworkers much.'
~~~
"That was well done," Obito repeated, letting go of her arm as the kitchen coalesced into visibility around them. The overhead light flickered three times before coming on when he lazily flipped the switch, washing them in clinical brightness. "I think we should-"
"Can it wait?" she interrupted, in a calm voice that did not sound like her own. "I need a shower. I feel disgusting." Aiko didn't wait for a response, shedding the hat and cloak as she left and tossing them on the counter.
Strictly speaking, she didn't need a shower. She hadn't done much in the way of physical expenditure, though the cave had been foul enough that she would have claimed that was the problem if he'd asked. She shed her uniform, kicked it under her bed, and went to stand under the hot water for a while to breathe in steam and think in peace.
'That seemed unnecessary. I don't really mind that we killed Fuu, but the body could have been treated with respect.' A moment later, she frowned. 'I… I didn't like the way that we killed her, though. That was cruel. Is Obito's plan worth doing this to six more jinchuuriki? I know that they've already been twisted, but maybe that doesn't justify what we're doing.'
She remembered the gist of his words at the time—that nine beings had to die in order to buy peace. In the grand scheme of things, that wasn't much bloodshed. Of course, she'd also never seen something killed like that. All Aiko's kills were fast and efficient. But it had taken Fuu the better part of a day to give up and die.
'I don't think she deserved that. Fuu didn't do anything wrong. We hurt her because of something out of her control—something done to her as an infant. I didn't think of what we would be doing in that sense.'
Akatsuki was a lot more cutthroat than she had supposed.
It was ridiculous, of course. But she couldn't help but remember the matter-of-fact way Zetsu had gone about what was obviously a habitual duty and wonder what would happen to her if she ceased to be useful.
No, that was crazy. Obito cared about her. He wouldn't let that happen to her.
Aiko thought she'd dismissed her paranoia, but she found herself making a note to look into a few things. Like excellent seals for keeping her room safe, and whether or not Konoha really had put out a bounty on her that would keep her from going home. Though she had no idea how to find that out, since her entry in the most recent bingo book had been so very out of date…
She'd have plenty of time to start poking around and attempting to fill in blanks, since Obito had been so much busier lately.
'I mean, I have to figure out something.' Aiko swallowed, carefully rubbing about twice as much conditioner as she needed into her long hair. 'I don't really want to do that to another jinchuuriki. At least, not until I understand why we're doing it.'