What she was seeing took a while to sink in. She'd done everything right. According to what she'd read, the only way to mess this up would result in either no change or temporary blindness. So she'd done it right.
That didn't change what she was seeing.
Black eyes. Not turquoise.
Aiko inhaled sharply, touching her reflection. This couldn't be right. But it was—the glass wasn't lying, and she could sense chakra well enough to be sure that the information she'd read jived with reality.
"Well, that makes exactly no sense," she murmured, displeased with the universe at large for allowing whatever the hell this was. She gently prodded one eyelid, as if to make sure that it was really her face she was looking at and not some black-eyed stand in.
It was very creepy. She didn't like this surprise at all. Surprises were supposed to be cake and glitter and cute boys. Not mysterious eyeballs. What the hell?
There's no denying that they're black and not turquoise. According to my understanding of my book, that's impossible. That means that I must have misread the textbook I bought,' Aiko reasoned shakily, knotting her fingers in her hair and scowling at her reflection. After all, a reference used to train doctors for actual hospitals wouldn't be inaccurate. That was just silly.
She swallowed and walked out of the bathroom with her head high, determined to figure out what she'd misinterpreted. In her eagerness to try to get her regular eyes back, she had probably put the book down too early after having found that there was no way for her to permanently maim herself by playing with the chakra output to her eyes. After all, she'd only read the introductory chapter and the one about eyes specifically. She must have missed something.
That faith carried her through the entire textbook. Twice. Her head was all but vibrating with pain and her eyes were dry by the time she finally put the book aside in confused disgust. Aiko pulled the curtains shut against the searing nuisance of dawn brightening the house, and tried to think.
'Alright, if that's impossible, something improbable has to be true. My eyes can't possibly have changed to black in their base state. Therefore, these can't possibly be the eyes I was born with. There's no chance.'
But that was ridiculous. Wouldn't she have noticed something like that?
Then she wished she could stop thinking, since her mind was stuck in a loop of 'what the fuck this makes no sense' and that wasn't helping anything.
It was hard to know how much time passed while she gradually forced herself to calm down and kept her face pressed against her bed. She didn't remember falling asleep- maybe she hadn't, maybe she'd just lain there all night, but Aiko hauled her aching carcass to the shower at noon. There was a terrible emptiness in her chest, and no amount of scrubbing did anything for it.
What she wanted to believe didn't change medical fact. It was impossible for her eyes to have actually changed color in their base state.
There was no excess chakra being funneled to her eyes at all. That meant that this wasn't some mysterious extra stage of eyes. These were the base eyes.
And they weren't hers.
They were familiar, though. How many people did she know who had black eyes? Just Obito. He couldn't possibly be the only person in the world with black eyes, of course, but it did seem like a coincidence worth noting.
'And he would be the only person who I trust enough that anything like secret eye surgery would be remotely plausible. That would take planning and knowledge of me personally.'
She felt guilty as soon as she had the thought. That was crazy. He wouldn't.
'So is finding out that-wait.' Aiko froze, muscles stiff. 'These aren't my eyes. Therefore foreign material is in my body. And where are my eyes?' A shudder worked its way down her neck to nest between her shoulderblades. 'I don't know which thought is more disturbing.' Feeling ill, she carefully set her razor down, giving up on shaving her legs. Normally, shaving with a bare blade was no trouble. Shaking hands might change that.
'I can't believe someone else's eye is in my body that can't possibly be hygienic-'
Aiko felt embarrassed by the overreaction the moment she lunged to turn the water to cold and jerked out of the ensuing stream to the back of the shower. But the steam fogging up the room wasn't making it any easier to breathe, and she seemed to be having an oddly hard time getting enough oxygen to keep her vision from getting shivery no matter how many gasping breaths she took. Deep breaths. In and out, counting.
For a shinobi, Aiko was terribly attached to her creature comforts. But for once she was thankful for the grounding sensation of pinpricks of icy water falling on her skin, thousands of needles biting and keeping her attention grounded. With very precise movements, she reached through the freezing wall to retrieve her shampoo and squeeze out just enough liquid. The heady scent of black cherries instantly flooded the air.
She needed to think, no matter that it wasn't pleasant. Okay, so this had been an unpleasant shock, and reminded her of things she would rather not think about. But she had to buckle down. She couldn't just freak out until Obito came home so that she could ask him. He might stop by tomorrow, or he might not for a week. Waiting would be infantile.
'Alright, I can do this. I can do anything. What do I know, and what can I extrapolate?' The intellectual routine settled her a bit. 'These aren't my eyes, but they're definitely the Rinnegan. Does that mean they're from another Uzumaki?'
If that was true, the obvious assumption was the mysterious, seldom mentioned Nagato. He was the only other Rinnegan user she'd ever heard of. Although that wasn't a good basis for future deliberations, it was an association and not a sure thing.
'What can I know with reasonable certainty?' Aiko chewed her lip, genuinely unaware that her flesh was paling under the cold. She was squeezing her eyes (no someone else's eyes oh god that's repulsive) shut, after all. 'I don't necessarily need to know whose eyes these are to discern who had motive and opportunity to do such a thing.'
She paused.
'I can't even begin to think of how anyone would benefit from taking my eyes and giving me another set.'
Well, that wasn't precisely true. There were two ways to look at that:
Theory one was that the potential benefit came from whatever happened to Aiko's eyes. Presumably they still existed somewhere, and they were perfectly good eyes. She'd liked them quite well.
Theory two was that the potential benefit came from Aiko having the new ones. If there had been something unique about Aiko's eyes, taking them was gross but conceivable. But in absence of any noted benefit to her normal eyes, she was leaning towards the thought that the situation had been the other way around: the purple eye stage did allow her to do a lot of interesting jutsu. So theoretically, anyone who could convince her to use them for their benefit had motive.
…The only person Aiko took orders from was Obito.
'And he is the only person I trust enough that getting away with something like this is remotely plausible. I even sleep in the same house that he does. So he is around me when I'm vulnerable and I do know that he's a superior shinobi. If he wanted to, he could do something like that to me.'
It was equally evident that there had really been only one time period wherein someone could have conceivably conducted surgery on her without her notice: her long period of unconsciousness and subsequent drug-filled haze after she had barely won against the ambush by that team of Iwa nin.
'Obito somehow found me while I was unconscious,' she remembered, anger bubbling up. 'I had the eyes when I woke up. It fits.'
No, shut up. That wasn't true. He wouldn't do that to her. He was her friend he loved her that's what friends do.
She'd missed something, obviously. Because Obito was her only real friend in the world and he wouldn't do that to her.
Desperate to drown out the creeping doubt, she seized onto another line of thought. No matter what she tried to concentrate on, her mind kept crawling back to the same subject.
"Fine. What's the worst case scenario, then?" Aiko asked herself tersely, tipping her head forward to rinse the shampoo out. Maybe actually unpacking the paranoia would help her move past it and come up with a more plausible explanation.
'The most obvious explanation and worst case scenario is that Obito really did conduct surgery on me while I was unconscious.' She grimaced, teeth grinding together. 'and didn't even tell me. That implies that he thinks he doesn't even need to tell me, or that he had a reason to hide it from me.'
Which of course he would have because that would be a gross violation of her bodily autonomy and human rights essentially a rape via surgery but it didn't matter because he would never do that to her.
This was all very confusing. What would be the point of giving her Rinnegan eyes if she was going to get her own when she figured out how to use chakra chai-
Oh, hell.
'I'm making the assumption that the Rinnegan and chakra chains are connected. But I've never had that confirmed by anyone but Obito. He could have planned this. That's why he bothered to talk about the eyes being connected to the chakra chains beforehand. He was preparing my preconceptions to match up with what he was going to do so that I didn't question it. That bingo book was probably right, and I already knew how to use chakra chains. I didn't 'activate' any damn bloodline.'
Aiko didn't even register that some part of her had already determined that Obito (that bastard what was he thinking) had been the culprit.
But-wait. His plan had been contingent on coordination with the first time she used chakra chains. So those Iwa nin hadn't been an accident- and he had to have been watching, so that he knew when she used the chains! Had he arranged that entire encounter so that he could trick her? It had been intolerably convenient that those Iwa nin had been there-that he had rescued her so quickly- that her chakra chains had drained her so thoroughly at the time but not since-
'Is that why I've had constant migraines? Because my body wasn't built for these eyes? What are they doing to me?'
That led to a disturbing implication. Obito hadn't done this on a whim. Therefore the Rinnegan was important to him-he needed it- but he hadn't taken it himself. Why? That could mean that there was some consequence to having them that he wanted to be safe from. Maybe this meant she was disposable.
Like Fuu.
No, that was bullshit. She was not disposable.
"It would be nice if my head would shut up," Aiko growled, tangling her fingers in her hair and drawing her brows down. She didn't know if she was referring more to the ever-present humming-song or her increasingly upset thoughts.
Why would he do this? What did he want?
She didn't understand his motivations at all. She didn't know why he'd made her help kill Fuu, she didn't know why he kept her around, and she certainly didn't know why he needed her to have these eyes. Suddenly, those things seemed of utmost importance.
(What was he going to do to her when she wasn't useful anymore? Was she going to end up like Fuu?)
She didn't want to think that he would ever hurt her.
'I do know that he's unstable,' her mind whispered, logic unwilling to let that pass. 'It's been either better or less obvious lately, but his personality is inconsistent and he has violent moods. He burnt me once when he lost his temper. Who's to say something worse won't happen?'
Feeling sick, she twisted her torso to face the shower wall and rested her forehead against the comparative warmth of the mint green tiles. 'Who's to say that something worse hasn't happened? How would I know what's normal or not? Everything I know comes from him.'
No no no no no. So he had taken away her eyes and given her new ones, and he hadn't told her about it. That didn't necessarily prove that he was trying to manipulate her by giving her funky eyes. Maybe there was another explanation. Maybe her real eyes had been damaged in the fight –maybe she'd missed a fourth Iwa nin- and then he hadn't wanted to put her through further distress. So he'd hid it.
Of course that didn't explain why he so conveniently had Rinnegan eyes just laying about ready to be inserted into an unwilling skull. Or why he had claimed ahead of time that chakra chains and the Rinnegan came together as a set.
'Maybe the ones I have now didn't start out as Rinnegan eyes. I don't know much about dojutsu, but it makes more sense that there's something special about a person in general than eyes in specific,' she reasoned, licking her lips. 'Maybe whatever chemical or chakra property that activates a dojutsu is fed to the eyes, or in the larger genetic code and not contained just in such a small organ. There'd be no reason for an eye to develop the ability to do all those things, it makes more sense that someone originally mutated unique chakra or something and it manifests in the eyes. So maybe being put in my body after I managed to use my bloodline made my body work to make the eyes compatible enough and that's why my head hurts.'
If… if that was true, then there could be a less insidious reason for surgery while she was unconscious. That would fit with her theory that something had happened to her real eyes she didn't remember in that fight. If her eyes had been ruined and she was unconscious, it wouldn't be totally unconscionable for her closest friend to arrange treatment. Of course there was still the fact that he hadn't told her, but that was a flaw of his. It wasn't a good thing to do, but it did fit with his tendency to assume he could make decisions for her.
A lot of the time he did know better; maybe he'd been right. After all, she had developed a near-paralyzing inability to cope with the fact that she'd died and been brought back so maybe he was thinking of the parallels there. It wasn't nice but maybe it was okay-
'I'm lying to myself and making justifications with very little evidence. No, there's no acceptable reason for hiding something this big from me.'
Suddenly pissed off, Aiko threw the conditioner bottle in her hand with as much force as she could muster. The plastic bongk-d and ricocheted before spinning a few times, pale purple goop vomiting over the porcelain floor and her toes.
"Fuck!" She stomped her foot once, feeling impotent. Of course, that did nothing to help. She turned the water off violently and stalked out of the bathroom stark nude, wiping her foot on the rug in front of the sink as she passed.
It wasn't until she was standing in front of her dresser that Aiko realized she was shaking from cold, not temper or panic. Hastily, she pulled on a blue bra and panty set, plain black pants, and one of the few uniform shirts that she hadn't scissored into a cut-off. Her eyes slowly wandered over to the book that had started all this.
She knew that thought was illogical even as she had it, but that didn't make the resentment go away. If she hadn't bought that stupid textbook because she just couldn't let things go, she wouldn't be dealing with this. She wouldn't be so confused or worried that he had ulterior motives for her or-.
'I wouldn't be suspecting that he really did kidnap me again, if I could have just left well enough alone.' Aiko bit her lower lip, wishing she didn't have to confront the suspicion that she had been suppressing for so long. Because deep down she knew that complacency wasn't safety, but it still felt pretty nice. She liked living with Obito. He was fun.
The book that had brought all this back up sat innocently on her bedside table, as books are wont to do.
Corpse-cold fingers slid over the cover for a moment before Aiko came to a decision.
'There's no need for me to keep this. Obito'll be back sometime soon. If he sees this, he'll know that I didn't give up on trying to get my eyes back. I don't know if he'll figure out that I succeeded, but it's just an unnecessary loose end.'
(And that was unsettling, hiding things from him was just not something she did.)
But what else could she do?
Aiko genuinely did not know what she believed, beyond that Obito owed her a serious explanation and that something in her gut was urging her not to come out and just ask. So she covered her ass and preserved her ability to make future decisions by incinerating the book and flushing the ashes.
That decision was lucky, or at least well-timed. Not an hour later her ears perked at the sound of someone moving around in the kitchen. Cautiously, Aiko forced her eyes back to purple with only a little grimace at the upswell in chakra consumption. She made her way across the house and peered in, feeling exhausted and like she probably had hideous dark circles under her eyes.
Obito was humming as he worked, pulling groceries out of paper bags and washing vegetables. He glanced over at her, red-cheeked from cold.
'It's hard to look at him and think that he's been tricking me. He just doesn't seem capable of it. I know he's an amazing shinobi, but he's also kind of a silly chump.'
Aiko gave him a thin smile, watching as his hands worked lightning fast to pull out a cutting board and snatch newly clean produce from the sink.
His mouth twitched into a moue of concern. "Ne, what's wrong, Aiko?" He tossed a pepper into the air and sliced it in two while it fell, using the handle of his knife to bat one half onto the counter and slicing away at the half that he let fall to the cutting board. "You look tired," he continued, tipping the chopped bits into a clear bowl and retrieving the other half.
'Does he know something is different?'
(Obito was actually wondering if she knew that her shirt was on backwards.)
Completely unaware of the banality of his thoughts, Aiko shrugged slowly, not sure what to say. Everything running through her head sounded somewhere between too accusatory and too passive.
'What would I even say- I suspect that you did something really wrong to me? Maybe we should talk about that?'
"I didn't sleep well," she settled. It was self-evidently true, after all.
'I'll confront him when I either know more or have time to figure things out. Acting hastily never helped anything.'
The shriek she gave when a blank-eyed fish came sailing at her ruined her serious contemplations. That was probably why Obito had thrown it, of course. Aiko caught it at the last moment and grimaced, holding the cold corpse away from her chest.
"That is not hygienic," she bit out primly, trying not to notice whatever greasy liquid had splattered onto her shirt.
'I hate the smell of fish.'
Yeah, that wasn't working. While he grinned at her, Aiko set down the fish on a plate and pulled her shirt over her head. With a scowl at what had so recently been clean, she tossed the dark gray fabric in a crumpled heap on the floor. Obito's back seized up. Without commenting or looking directly at her, he washed his hands, pulled his long-sleeved shirt over his head and handed it back to her, leaving him in a short-sleeved mesh shirt.
She rolled her eyes, but pulled on the oversized shirt. Prude. If he could shove body parts into her while she was unconscious, it was ridiculously pretentious to act offended about a little skin.
Aiko didn't lie to herself: she was definitely not happy with Obito, even if she hadn't decided what exactly she thought he'd done or why. He seemed to figure that out from the slightly hostile silence as they worked. Obito attempted to pull her out of her funk with conversation over dinner. He eventually fell silent and watched her contemplatively, clearly considering a new strategy.
"How would you like to go train your Rinnegan today?" Obito shifted in his chair, breaking eye contact. "I know I've been busy lately," he apologized awkwardly. "You want to know how to summon animals? Or would it make you feel better to know about the jutsu that was used to revive you?"
It was hard to say no to that.
"The second one," Aiko decided, despite a strong desire to cuddle something fluffy right now. She did need to know. Maybe that was relevant to all this bullshit- anything involving Nagato, the only other Rinnegan user that she knew about, could be relevant.
He had apparently hoped she would take the other option. Obito was clearly uneasy, black eyes boring into her with uncertainty. Just as she thought that she might have to summon up watery eyes in order to get him to talk, he seemed to decide something. "Let's go for a walk." He led them a ways from the house, through gently rolling hills and close to the copse of trees where they got their firewood before he spoke up again.
"It's not anything bad," he started awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his neck.
Aiko raised an eyebrow. She didn't really believe him, and not just because she kind of wanted to punch him in the face at the moment.
"There are resurrection techniques that are forbidden, because they require human sacrifices or they enslave the risen dead," he explained bluntly. "Those are meant so that the user can revive powerful warriors and deploy them without personal risk. What was used on you is different, obviously. If it had been, you wouldn't have outlived Nagato. The Rinnegan offers a true resurrection." He frowned.
'A true resurrection?'
At this point, Aiko was actually listening intently for personal interest as well as practical.
"I've heard the theory that what the Rinnegan actually offers is unparalleled mastery of the forces of chakra," Obito shared, extending his arms out in a grandiose gesture. "If that's true, all that a Rinnegan user needs is the raw power and ability to imagine a way in which to use chakra to exert their will on the environment. Theoretically, you can do anything you have the chakra for." Idly, he swatted away an ambitious mosquito, killing it mid-air. "That might explain the versatility of the Rinnegan. That's why you can use all four basic elements easily, learn genjutsu easier, and all sorts of things that we haven't gotten to yet." He shrugged one shoulder.
'Wait. Why does he know so much about the Rinnegan?' Aiko carefully did not frown. 'I never questioned that. But if the Rinnegan is supposedly so rare and not common knowledge, either he did a lot of preparatory work to help me or he knows more than he would just from observing Nagato at a distance.'
He was giving her an odd look, so she hurriedly spat out the first question that came to mind so that he didn't wonder what she was thinking.
"Just the four main elements?" she asked, and elaborated quickly as his brows drew together. "If the Rinnegan is really a tool to help you enact whatever you can imagine, why wouldn't you be able to use lightning, or mimic bloodline limits like wood ninjutsu?"
As far as she could tell, Obito had genuinely not considered that. He gave a small laugh, shaking his head. "Maybe," he admitted. "I wouldn't know. Anyway, we're getting off topic." He coughed into his fist, looking mildly embarrassed. "Basically, you could do the same thing that Nagato did. It takes a lot of chakra, from what I understand. The more complicated the restoration, the more chakra. So if someone is recently deceased and in one piece, effort and energy required would be minimal," he explained, moving his hands as he talked. "If, on the other end of things, someone is long-dead or severely damaged, it takes more. A lot more."
Aiko took a sharp breath. That didn't sound good.
He glanced over at her, face serious. "You could die trying to resurrect someone. So be careful. Not that I think you'd mess with that," Obito added sheepishly, fluffing up his hair. "And it may not be so bad as all that. Nagato resurrected hundreds of people at a time in Konoha, so it's hard to know what the chakra cost is."
Whatever he saw on her face made him feel uncomfortable. He coughed again, eyes darting away. His voice was higher and faster when he concluded, "Anyway, I think all that you have to do is direct your will. Nagato said something- 'Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique,' I think, but it's a mnemonic aid more than an absolute necessity, I think. All you need to do is summon Naraka and make your intentions clear, and be prepared to lose a lot of life energy," Obito explained grimly.
'That's depressing.' Aiko licked her lips compulsively, scrunching up her nose. 'Depressing, but doable.'
He'd already talked about summoning Naraka in order to see if people were lying, after all. She hadn't tried it, but the theory wasn't complicated.
"Er-"
Obito was staring at her face, uncertain. She schooled her face into a belated smile, but he had already decided something.
"This is an uncomfortable, depressing conversation," Obito hissed between his teeth, making a face. He flashed an exaggerated smile at her. "Let's do something else. How would you like to see Susanoo?"
Her eyebrows shot up. "What's that?"
"It's kind of like a guardian deity," Obito explained, putting his palms up and making an 'ehhhh' sound. "I haven't mastered it yet," he admitted sourly. "I can do the first stage: an aural manifestation of pure chakra that serves as a partially permeable shield. When it's complete, it becomes a skeletal or armored behemoth that fights on your behalf."
'Sounds badass.'
"Yes, I want that," Aiko replied without having to think it over.
She watched Obito try twice- once with red eyes (that was still a mystery) and once with purple (Rinnegan. Whose Rinnegan?) before making an attempt herself. Her first reaction was smug satisfaction: seeing his eyes widen in shock and jealousy when she began to manifest a violently orange aura on her first attempt at imitation was pleasing. Aiko managed to note that it was shadowed with faint traces of pink- veins that almost made it look like something other than an orange fog.
Her second reaction was more of an observation. Pain. It was like every cell in her body was vibrating and tearing, screaming and protesting. She let the jutsu go after less than a second out of shock, the marrow of her bones still protesting what had just happened.
"Yeah, it's like that," Obito said blithely.
'Asshole.'
Aiko gritted her teeth, pushed down nausea and that damn migraine, and reached for her chakra again. She wanted to see what her Susanoo would look like.
"Was that seriously orange?" Obito called out after her second try, sounding disgruntled. "Orange, really?"
"You're just jealous," she bit out, licking her lips and readying herself. "Since yours is a dumb blue."
Neither of them made much progress after that initial success. Obito stopped her after a few hours. "Enough. You're shaking," he clinically pointed out.
She didn't appreciate that but couldn't argue with his recitation of fact either.
'I'm not ready to be done for the day. If I have these eyes, I should learn to use them.'
"Can we do something else?" Aiko asked, pushing a bit of sweaty hair out of her face. Her mouth was dry and she was probably dehydrated, but she didn't want to stop for the day yet.
The more she knew, the more options she had, after all. She might need the flexibility in her jutsu repertoire later. Aiko tried to avoid looking suspicious, but the effort was wasted. Obito seemed to have been expecting that. He collapsed onto the ground with a scoff.
"You and your animals," he groused, scratching at his shin. "But fine. Sit down, I don't want to look up at you." Obito stretched, toes curling. His back popped audibly when he yawned. "The theory is a lot like summoning Naraka. You're going to pull from the same dimension that a contracted summons would come from, but you can't contact anyone from one of the clans because they're protected," he cautioned. "So whatever or whoever you summon won't be bound to work for you. Nagato used his Rinnegan to hypnotize animals into compliance, but you need practice in that area."
She flushed, looking down at her toes.
Damn him for sounding so amused by that. Though, really…
'I don't know that I want to learn to control other people's minds. Summons aren't people, exactly, but they are sentient. That makes them both more dangerous and more valuable as allies.'
More relevantly, of course, it meant that they probably deserved the same sort of rights she'd afford to humans. Among those was mental and bodily autonomy.
"So I would suggest using as little chakra as possible and working your way up to larger animals," Obito continued. "I've never had a summons, but I'm pretty sure that's the way it works. The more chakra you use, the bigger the summons that can answer."
Aiko let out a slow breath, skeptical. "That's not very helpful without some idea to gauge how much is needed for a minimal summoning," she pointed out. "No matter how small the animal, I'd still be pulling across interdimensional space. That can't possibly be as chakra efficient as, I don't know, a grand fireball." She shrugged, palms up.
Obito made a rude pfft sound. "I suppose you'll have to just try it and see," he said eventually. "Keep in mind that this is dangerous, and that there are good reasons that our ancestors negotiated contracts with summons. Anyone outside of a summoning clan hasn't agreed to those treaties. They're likely to attack you on sight. I would suggest thinking about something remotely harmless. How about a kitten? Try summoning a kitten."
She rolled her eyes, but directed physical chakra to her eyes and held her hands in the closest seal to help her concentration- tiger. "Summoning jutsu," Aiko enunciated clearly, concentrating on a kitten, and gave a shove of energy into the ether. Chakra sparked and burned through her veins, rushing out of her like water off a cliff.
A shadow fell over her legs. Aiko looked up, up, up, and into the confused eyes of an eight foot tall feline with fluffy orange fur and long white whiskers. Not quite what she'd planned, but- "It is a kitten," she said slowly, noting the disproportionately big eyes and short body.
Obito groaned.
The kitten pounced, attempting to flatten him to the grass between enormous paws. The ensuing whoosh of air sent Aiko's hair flying straight back.
He barely escaped in time, rolling to the side.
'I think I fucked up. How do I suck at something so simple?'
"Get rid of it!" Obito bellowed, fingers stuttering on the last seal for a potent fire jutsu, apparently fighting his reflexes out of unwillingness to roast a kitten alive, no matter how oversized and dangerous its bulk and teeth made it.
She released it, red-faced and unwilling to make eye contact. The summon beast was gone from one moment to the next. Obito sniffed indignantly, pressing imaginary wrinkles off of the front of his pants. He leveled a Look at her.
"Try again, with less chakra," he ordered stiffly. Obito moved to stalk off, and then paused. "A lot less chakra," he clarified. A moment later he was gone.
Left alone, she practiced until her chakra levels began to scrape at about thirty percent of her capacity- which was fucking risky, considering that she had to keep her eyes red or purple while Obito was around. She should have stopped earlier, really. Aiko collapsed to the grass with a groan and cradled her head between her knees. The cat was the least problematic thing she tried—using the snake seal or the ram both led to outright vicious animals, as opposed to one that might have killed her for fun. At least the following experiments were made with significantly less chakra, and resulted in much smaller summons.
'I don't know if that was good or bad.' Aiko chewed on her lower lip, feeling weariness like a physical weight. 'At least I have a handle on summoning, even if I haven't managed to summon anything useful or figure out how to control a summons. No wonder people usually use contracts. That's much safer-ow!'
She stilled, suddenly registering that her index, middle and ring fingers were resting on her closed eyelids. And that her short nails were digging into delicate skin.
'What… was I doing just now?'
Wincing, she pulled her hands down to her side and glanced at her nails.
'There's skin under my nails.' Aiko blinked, registering the faint burn of scratches working their way from her eyebrows to the crease of her eyelid. 'What was I even trying to do? I…'
Need to stop being such a headcase, that's what she needed to do. She shook her head, allowing her messy bangs to work their way over her forehead to shadow her eyes. Lucky Obito wasn't that observant, because she didn't know how to explain that bit of weirdness. What would she say- wearing someone else's eyes creeps me out? True, but that would show her hand.
'Keep your shit together,' Aiko scolded herself, climbing to her feet. 'Just… keep it together.'
A little shaken, she made her way back to the safehouse- and stilled at the sound of voices from within.
"You're certain?" Obito confirmed, voice a little excited.
Zetsu's lighter voice responded. "Yes. Mizu trusts their elder jinchuuriki much more than its history would warrant."
'Jinchuuriki? Oh fucking hell. Not another one of these missions. I thought we weren't going to be doing another one of those for quite a while?' Aiko swallowed. She twisted her fingers into the fabric of her pants, digging into her skin. Her irritation with herself fled immediately, traded out for a jolt of loathing. 'Fucking Zetsu. What a creep. I wish he would just drop dead.'
"It's tempting," Obito allowed. There was a clack, as though he'd set something down. "I hadn't planned on making a move on any jinchuuriki from the five great nations until- but when else will a chance like this come along…" he trailed off.
Aiko remembered Fuu: how she'd smiled and talked comfortably. How she'd convulsed and died.
"It is a golden opportunity," Zetsu rasped. "Unprotected, traveling alone… It would be days before they knew it was missing. And it has run away before. Nothing on our part would be suspected, even if they could contact the village with enough speed to get a retrieval team sent before it was too late."
She held her breath at the low voice, remembering the ghastly slurping sound as that freak-monster-beast had eaten Fuu whole. Zetsu was basically a plant, wasn't he- Fuu was probably fertilizing him right now. She was the reason that his fronds were green. Zetsu was soaking in her blood.
'Pretty rich for Zetsu to call anyone an 'it'. If anyone is inhuman, it's him. Not whatever poor bastard he wants us to go after this time.'
"Alright," Obito said decisively. "We'll do it. It'll take you longest to get there, so head straight to the hideout in Wind where we performed the last extraction. Since they're closest, I'll order Kakuzu and Suigetsu to collect the jinchuuriki from Wave and take it south, through Fire Country. We'll perform the jutsu as soon as they arrive, before anyone has the chance to track us or arrange permission to cross those borders. Any pursuants will be hindered by their own treaties at border crossings."
'I don't want to do this anymore.'
She clenched a fist against her thigh, tuning out the discussion of logistics. Refusing to participate in torturing another jinchuuriki was probably analogous to quitting the Akatsuki.
'How does one write a letter of resignation to what is probably considered a terrorist organization? That was not in the handbook.'
Yeah, she had no idea how to do that. For a seventeen year old, she was terribly inexperienced. Having a guaranteed place to stay, allies, contacts, and monetary resources… Well. It was hard to turn her nose up at that, even though she had some serious fucking concerns about what Obito wanted from her and why he thought it was okay to make decisions about her body.
'If I leave, I'm in unknown trouble. If I stay, I'm in unknown trouble but my material needs are cared for. I'm not seeing a good option.'
Aiko stepped inside as the communication jutsu cut out and Zetsu disappeared.
Obito glanced over at her. His face split into a smile. "We're going to-"
"I heard," she interrupted in a bored tone, pushing hair that crunched with dried sweat behind her ear. "I need a shower, stat."
"Moody much?" Obito scoffed.
She rolled her eyes. "I'm going to need a lot of rest," Aiko dodged. That was true, after all. "If we're doing another extraction so soon, I need to be at my best. Maybe we shouldn't have done so much jutsu practice after all."
He switched his eyes to red, glancing up and down her body. Obito frowned slightly. "I think you'll be good to go," he decided after a moment. "But you're right, you need to rest and conserve chakra so that you're in good shape for the extraction in a few days." Apologetic, he offered a shrug. "I don't mean to rely so heavily on you. It's just-"
"I have a lot of chakra capacity, I know," she acknowledged, pouring herself a glass of apple juice. "I understand. That doesn't bother me."
'A lot of things bother me, but not that.'
Obito put a hand on her shoulder just as she tipped the cold glass up to her lips. Aiko managed to suppress the muscles that wanted to tense, instead loosely relaxing under the gentle grip. "This one shouldn't be so bad," he said encouragingly, squeezing. "The last one was the seven-tails. This one will be easier."
'Yeah, that's not what I'm upset about.'
She twisted to get a good long look at him. He was smiling, but his eyes were distant.
'How can someone mean well, but be so obtuse?' Aiko wondered. 'I mean, I think he means well. He's trying to be nice to me. But he has no idea at all what I'm actually thinking about.' She brushed past him to set her now-empty glass in the sink. 'I don't think I trust his decision making skills. I should tell him that I don't want to do this.'
Aiko opened her mouth and let it hang for a moment, struggling for words. 'I've never told him no. What would happen if I told him no? What, do I think he'll say ok, I guess we're done with the jinchuuriki thing now that the seventeen year old has cold feet? Of course not; he's been planning this for a really long time. Maybe longer than I've been alive. That's not the kind of thing you just give up on. What would he do if I refused to go along with this?'
He could try to convince her, but nothing he could say would make her trepidation go away. Maybe he'd just kick her out of his super-secret club. That would be lonely for her. It would also be a terrible decision on his part, considering all the information that she had on him.
(Aiko couldn't quite bring herself to consider the options that she would consider 'logical', were she in his rhetorical position. They involved more use of force than she'd like to think Obito was capable of bringing to bear against her.)
'I don't like not having an answer for that question.'
"Good night," Aiko said finally, barely hearing his distracted reply.
'I'm a coward.'
~~~
Naruto wiggled slightly in his seat, seeking a comfortable position. Or maybe it was a less comfortable position that he needed- Sasuke had made painfully clear that he would fall over and die of embarrassment or something something if Naruto something something and disrupted this meeting finalizing something something.
He hadn't been paying that much attention, okay? It was boring. But Sasuke-teme had been very stern while he'd said it, and Naruto remembered tones and general meaning well.
'I will not fall asleep. I will not fall asleep,' Naruto maintained, curling his toes in his sandals. The tensed muscles didn't ground him as much as he'd hoped, so he moved on to other muscle groups. He flexed his ankles, clenched his thighs, and was in the process of discovering previously unknown levels of booty coordination when a blue-clad aide with a stern look crept in silently and passed a note to the Mizukage before backing out in a bow.
'That's not weird at all.' Naruto smacked his lips contemplatively, staring as Terumi Mei began reading despite the fact that everyone else was politely averting their eyes. Finally, something interesting was going on.
It was hard to tell what was going on in her head. Whatever was going on might be private Mist business. She was probably really stressed about having to host a meeting so far from her home country, no matter how nice the hot springs were in this country. Sasuke was definitely not going to ask, busy as he was in conversation with Temari-chan while Kankuro slowly cycled through glowers at the side of his head.
"Hey, Mei-neechan," Naruto piped up, pawing at the air in front of him to get her attention. Conversation stopped. "Whatcha got there?" He blinked twice, letting the big blue eyes that bullied even Jiraiya into humoring him do their thing.
'Mei-neechan' let her jaw drop ever so slightly at that impudence. Naruto wasn't deterred at all. He knew full well the value of his adorability.
'There is no point in resisting. Give in to the cute.'
Naruto scrunched his nose ever so slightly and tilted his head to the side.
The slightly shell-shocked Mizukage seemed to melt, still staring at him oddly. She regained her composure after a moment, shaking her head. "Are all Konoha nin so…" her lips twisted as she sought out the perfect word. "friendly?" she tried, raising an eyebrow. She flashed him a smile that told Naruto no harm had been done. He grinned back in return.
Kakashi reached over and cuffed the back of his head. Naruto gave a little jump and scowled, rubbing at the spot.
"Mean," he hissed quietly.
"I would like to call for a recess," Mei-neechan decided, favoring the table with a languid blink. "Excuse me." With that, she tossed her hair and took off at a pace that was barely above walking. Most everyone cleared out or relaxed in their seats.
'I definitely want to know what that's about,' Naruto decided recklessly, leaping to the balls of his feet and pouncing after the Mizukage's trailing robes.
The odd thing was that Temari was on his heels. Naruto tried his best not to notice just how much she reminded him of a bird of prey when she passed him and snapped her fingers.
"Excuse me, Mizukage-sama," she called, eyes narrowed. "Is something wrong?"
Mei-neechan turned around, the polite mask slipping just a bit to reveal irritation. She exhaled heavily, rolling her eyes up. "Perhaps. If you really must put your nose in it, I assure you that it need not affect this conference."
Naruto frowned. "Is something wrong?" he asked honestly, tilting his head. "Do you need help? I could do something. It's not like I need to be here—Shizune and Sasuke are handling all the actual advocating."
At his side, Temari gave a practiced smile. "Whatever assistance you require, you need but to ask."
'She doesn't seem enthused. I suppose it's her job to make sure nothing goes wrong,' Naruto decided.
The Mizukage looked at the two teens for a moment and seemed to decide something. "I suppose you could be of assistance, since I cannot afford to send off my few retainers at the moment. Follow me, then." The Mizukage ducked into an office a few hall ways over without speaking, a lead that they followed. The man waiting inside was a stranger to Naruto—a Mist nin with a brown ponytail and a harassed expression. He bowed as soon as she entered, sending a questioning gaze to the Suna nin and Konoha nin following Mei-neechan in.
Mei waved a hand. "What's this about Utakata-kun?" she demanded.
'Utakata? That name's familiar.'
Naruto didn't manage to place it before the Mist nin explained that the team that had gone to investigate his lateness hadn't located him.
"Well, he's not gone missing nin," Mei-neechan snapped irritably, tossing her hair.
The Mist nin seemed doubtful, but didn't say a thing.
"I would know if he was going to run off," she defended, a hand on her hip. "He wouldn't have left the boy." Then Mei pouted, pushing her lower lip out just a bit. "And he certainly wouldn't leave me."
"Perhaps he's just late?" the Jounin offered uncertainly.
Mei gave a little huff. "He wouldn't be dragging his feet, I assure you." She ran a hand down the front of her robes, unsubtly accentuating her curves. "I'm certain that he was using all due haste in his travels."
Temari choked quietly at his side, apparently cluing in to something amusing about whatever was being discussed. She inclined her head, looking less enthused about offering her services than she had earlier. "I would be honored to perform whatever duty would assist you, as our hostess," Temari said with one of those diplomatic tones that meant she was lying.
'I hate not knowing what's going on. I feel stupid. What does the Mizukage's boytoy have to do with anything? Maybe he's dumping her.'
Naruto crossed his arms behind his head, making a face. That would be really shitty. He hated people who did that. That guy should have the decency to cut things off to Mei-neechan's face. She deserved better. "So," he drawled, quirking an eyebrow. "We're going to go find your bootycall?"
Something twitched in Mei-neechan's face. "I hear that your sensei is an able tracker," she said with astounding delicacy.
He sighed, shrugging. "Leave it to me," Naruto promised with flagging enthusiasm. "I tracked down the Pervert Sage lots of times. I'm sure I can find your guy. I'll beat him up for standing you up, and then drag him back here."
"He didn't stand me up!" Mei snapped, flushing. "I'm certain that something has happened."
Naruto tried not to eye her too skeptically.
'Mei-neechan is too trusting. Doesn't she know there are guys like Jiraiya out there?'
Well, that made it his sacred duty to make sure this jerk wasn't playing with her heart.
He reiterated that argument an hour later, while his team leader glowered at him for getting them involved in this bit of pettiness. Temari was receiving a similar scowl from Kankuro, but Gaara placidly waved goodbye.
"It's good for relations," he said gravely, which cut off Kankuro's grumbling.
Sasuke gave Kakashi a smirk with all the self-assurance of a man that knows he wouldn't have to go hunt down some truant boyfriend. "Shizune and I will do our best to fulfill our mission while you are otherwise occupied," he soothed in a way that was not soothing at all.
Naruto snorted. "At least we're not going to be sitting around on our butts all day," he rejoined, sticking his tongue out. "You're getting fat as a house, Sasu-chan."
"Okay, time to go," Kankuro cut in, hurriedly stepping between the boys. He coughed into his fist, giving Gaara one last pleading look. Gaara's lips curled ever so slightly. Kankuro's shoulders slumped. "Fine," he sighed ungraciously. "Let's get this over with, shall we, since the romantics here had to get us involved."
Temari hit him fairly hard.