"Well, that's not suspicious at all," Kakashi commented dryly when the two Akatsuki members ahead of them wordlessly turned and entered the gaping maw of a natural cave system.
He gave his team a quick glance (inadvertently shaking out some of the sand that had found its way into his hair and was making it even heavier and stiffer than usual). At least Tenzou could be counted on to be calm and ready to go. He'd keep an eye on the boys. Sasuke was paper pale and shaking. 'Eagerness, or something else?' he wondered with concern. Naruto looked about murderous.
Better eager than frightened, he supposed, but not by much. A fight like this would require cool heads. The Sabaku girl looked ice-cold and ready to go, but she was hardly his to command, so he ignored her.
"Wait, boys." He pushed up the headband covering the Sharingan eye he had been training with extensively in the past few years and gave the cave a once-over. Nothing. No genjutsu, no residual chakra from jutsu techniques, and no unusual physical signs.
Not seeing signs from a trap was a bit disconcerting, since this was so obviously one. There had to be some reason that the Akatsuki wanted to engage them in enclosed quarters. To let the third doubtlessly hiding within get them while they adjusted to the darkness, perhaps? There had to be at least three present, after all. Akatsuki traveled in groups of two, and the Kazekage had killed one. Hoshigaki Kisame and Uchiha Itachi must be his reinforcements.
It wasn't a particularly soothing thought. But these people weren't going to give up. If they retreated, the Akatsuki would just try again and the circumstances might be less favorable that time. It didn't seem likely that he would ever be leading a team more equipped for this fight—six shinobi, all either elites or incredibly powerful but under-experienced were the type of force that wasn't assembled often.
"If Gaara doesn't mind, I think that he and I should check it out. We'll give a holler if we want you to follow us in." He stared down his team, checking to see if they looked to be obedient. "If we can, we'll lead them out and away from whatever trap they have ready to spring. If not, we'll hopefully get the brunt of it and you can be our backup force."
Gaara seemed to be on a similar wavelength. "This is certainly a trap," he agreed solemnly. "We do not all want to walk into it at once. Temari-"
"I know, I know." She bit her lip, looking down. "Be careful."
"How long should we wait?" Kakashi repressed a fond smile. That was Sasuke for you, ever practical.
"Ah, a few minutes or until you hear us dying horribly, I suppose," he added with an eye-smile.
Naruto met his eye with an uncommonly serious expression. "Don't even joke about that, Kakashi-sensei. Tsunade'd kill you if you died."
Sasuke snorted, somehow releasing the built-up tension. "Idiot, that doesn't even make sense," he muttered, elbowing his teammate.
"Does too," Naruto argued. "She'd revive 'im so she could strangle him!"
"Keep in mind that my acquaintance with her is brief, but I'd put my money on a bludgeoning, actually," Temari added with a sideways little smile. Yamato cringed.
"You're both off," Sasuke huffed. "It's much more likely that-"
"As soothing as discussing the methodology of my inevitable murder at the hand of the Hokage is, I think we're going to head in." His tone was unamused, but the banter was actually a bit relaxing. It was familiar.
They didn't say goodbye. It would have felt too final, too much like giving themselves bad luck. He let Gaara investigate the lead with a sand clone and an undulating wave that preceded them, washing over the rocks and soil in order to search out anything suspicious. He kept his own Sharingan active. The drain be damned—he'd need every advantage possible against Uchiha Itachi. He was much stronger than he'd been the last time they had clashed, but that didn't guarantee anything.
'Thank all the kami that Sasuke didn't argue and try to charge in.' That would have been bad, but well within his character profile. Perhaps he'd matured significantly under the Hokage's tutelage?
The light from above head failed, giving only the faintest hints of visibility. They were silent, pacing implacably through what appeared to be a long cave system, barely lit by fluorescent mold growths scattered on the walls.
"Perhaps this location is an attempt to limit my usage of sand," Gaara mused quietly. His supply was only what he had brought in, and he had much less room to work in than was optimal.
Kakashi was about to hum in agreement, but someone else beat him to the punch.
"I constantly find myself in admiration of the stupidity of others. Surely you know that you will die here."
Well, that had to be their mysterious third person, since it decidedly wasn't Uchiha Itachi or Hoshigaki Kisame's voice. It was low, evenly paced, and gravelly. In the dark, it was almost unnerving. It was almost a pity that their puppet master friend had picked an unreceptive audience to waste his theatricality on.
"Big words, from the incompetent who tried to kidnap Aiko," Kakashi bantered casually. "How did that work out for you?"
He took a moment to regret that his only audience was the Kazekage and their enemy. He would have gotten at least a snicker out of even Sasuke for that one. She must have been a horrible hostage, contrary as she was.
The following silence was palpably irritated. The puppet master had probably hoped she had gotten lost in the desert and that they thought he still had her. "I recognize you, whelp," the voice hissed, changing tracks. "How convenient. Even after everything possible has gone awry, it still appears as though I will get to add to my collection. Not only has the Kazekage has come to fight, but also the famous Sharingan no Kakashi."
A slow, wooden clacking came from all around in the darkness. It was impossible to see more than a few feet in any direction, but the acoustics indicated that they had entered a much larger chamber.
"Here I thought the Kazekage would be my best prize, but I already have one of those. You will have the honor of being my first puppet with an ocular kekkai genkai. I will do my best to utilize your abilities to the fullest. But first…"
Gaara's sand whipped up to block a barrage he couldn't see. It shook under the force of heavy thuds, then slowly collapsed.
"You'll have to show them to me."
"Then you should show yourself," Gaara said calmly, arms crossed in front of his torso.
"Ha. You would like that, wouldn't you. Why would I do that, when I have two flesh puppets to assist me?"
Comprehension dawned. "Those weren't really your fellow Akatsuki," Kakashi shifted his hands, ready to make a seal. It had been a trick to lure them in and separate the group.
A hmph echoed around them. "Yes, and no," the puppeteer allowed. "Their physical bodies are elsewhere, but through my jutsu, they are perfected! I would rather have these works of art imbued with their chakra as my allies than the originals themselves."
"Convenient claim, considering the real ones aren't here to help you," Kakashi taunted lightly.
The short laugh was an unpleasant surprise. "You are mistaken. They're outside. Hurry and die now… I promised I would be the first to capture my assigned bijuu."
'Well, shit.' He didn't have time to think more than that, because the cave was suddenly filling with nearly ice-cold water. He was soaked to his ankles before he could react, jumping to the surface. 'This is bad,' he thought with bleak amusement. 'Water will slow Gaara's sand, and then Itachi's fire will bake it. Unless he manages to keep it all dry, which will leave us open to assault from below.'
Hoshigaki Kisame would almost certainly be talented with water release jutsu, even in a secondary form such as this. Of course… if the puppeteer was telling the truth, then fighting these opponents with the same strategies he would normally use was inefficient. It assumed that the puppeteer would use them to fight the same way that the nin themselves battled.
What were the odds of that? It was unlikely, especially since he'd professed preference for his automatons. These opponents would be in perfect sync acting upon one predictable agenda…
With a splash, he took off at a roll, using two spinning kunai to deflect the needles aimed at Gaara's feet. Those had to have been from the real opponent, but he didn't have time to track them back to their point of origin because he was dodging an enormous sword. Knowing it wasn't the real legendary sword didn't make him more eager to contact it. Who knew what traps had been laid on its surface?
This man was after the Kazekage. He had prepared to neutralize the sand that made him a nearly undefeatable opponent, and taken great trouble to specify that he had two 'flesh' puppets. Real ones would be pitifully easy for a sand user to defeat: the slightest bits of dust or matter in the exquisitely formed joints would ruin all the carefully built traps within and slow down its movement. Being flesh, Gaara could immobilize these opponents just as easily if they weren't simulacrums of such high-level shinobi. The unfavorable environment and their coordination would make that aim more difficult.
Of course, the fact that this trap had been expertly tailored for Gaara made Kakashi the fly in the ointment. It would be up to him to provide assistance that this man couldn't have planned for.
That made the first thing they needed to do clear: find their real opponent. The largest factor that would help was increased visibility. If Pakkun hadn't been able to scent this man, Kakashi wouldn't, so they would have to use something else. Of course, fire ninjutsu wouldn't go for any longer than chakra was poured into them. He'd have to figure something out.
Easier said than it was done, while they were harried by simulacrums of two S class fighters, but it was the simplest course of action. Killing the puppet master would turn 'Itachi' and 'Kisame' into piles of meat… so that he could worry about the real ones outside, if this man was telling the truth.
"That makes five minutes," Sasuke noted quietly. He hadn't taken his eyes off the cave entrance since their commanding officer had gone in. Eerily enough, they couldn't hear a thing. How deep was the formation? Was there some sort of genjutsu or seal work in place muffling sounds?
Temari flinched, catching Yamato's eye. "Ah, guys? We have incoming."
'And how sad is it that I'm the best sensor here?', she thought glumly. Those chakra signatures weren't exactly subtle ones.
The group's collective gaze followed her finger to where two blurs were approaching at a frightening pace. Warily, she unhooked her fan and slid it out to the first fold, tilting it slightly so that the metal edge caught the sun and reflected back to blind their newest problems. They came to a stop and the tall one flinched his gaze away from the refracted light, but the other gazed implacably at the assembled group.
"But—you went in there! We saw you."
Everyone else seemed too floored to properly react and Naruto's surprise was really quite forgivable, but Temari rolled her eyes and uncharitably thought, 'Well, clearly they aren't in the cave anymore, if they ever were.'
The monstrously imposing Mist nukenin gave a barking laugh, whipping his sword off his back and thrusting the tip into the sand so he could lean on the weapon. "I guess that means we found out what we came here for, eh Itachi? Sasori must have survived if he's playing with those stupid dolls. And look, Konoha conveniently sent out another jinchuuriki for us to grab. It would be a shame to pass up such a golden opportunity. Sasori can fend for himself."
"Indeed."
'Holy hell, the prettiness is genetic.'
Temari shifted her eyes almost immediately away from the pale face that had been hidden under a low hat. She would really prefer not to fight an Uchiha—wind and fire were a dangerous combination. At least they had the advantage of numbers, even if their strongest members were preoccupied.
As if he'd been sharing her thoughts about finalizing how they should split, Yamato slipped a kunai out of his hip pouch- and then threw it to Naruto, of all the people.
"Naruto, catch!" The blonde snapped a hand out to get it, momentarily more confused than anything. "They're after you. If it looks like you're about to lose, spark chakra against that. It's very important, okay?"
"Well, I'll be damned," Hoshigaki murmured, eyes fixed on the tagged kunai. "I haven't heard of one of those in years."
'Well, at least the boys look as confused as I do,' she noted. Yamato had apparently hoped to leave it at that and assume Naruto would obey without further explanation, but the bizarre tendency that some people had to share everything they know kicked in.
"That's the technique that the Yondaime Hokage was famous for. That's how Hiraishin works, doesn't it?" Hoshigaki turned unnatural eyes on Yamato. "You think you'll be able to provide a rescue, boy? Not if I kill you first!"
Yamato leapt backwards and clapped his hands into a seal. "Wood Ninjutsu!"
'Whoa, he's actually pretty good.' That was an enormous element manifestation. Of course, the wall didn't stop Hoshigaki for more than an instant, even though the thunk of it connecting with his bulk was amusing. 'Wait, Hiraishin? Konoha's instantaneous travel technique? Well, suddenly what's been going on with Aiko makes so much more sense. But Yamato must be really desperate if he's hoping she'll be able to get Naruto out. This situation is bad.'
It was probably a good thing that the Mist nin seemed to think that Yamato was the Hiraishin user. Akatsuki would think that the situation was controllable, as long as they kept him too preoccupied to provide aid to Naruto.
"I guess that means you're my fight!" Naruto roared, calling five clones into existence. They immediately grouped into twos and started making odd hand motions. "Rasengan!" He barreled forwards to the older Uchiha, two clones helping him make a pincer formation. The figure he collided with disappeared into smoke, and the real Itachi appeared ten feet away. He huffed irritably. "Sasuke, you're going to have to help. You're faster than me."
That was all she spotted of that fight before it became clear that Yamato needed an assist. "Wind art," she gritted out, forcing her fan open and batting it with such force that she could feel the strain in her shoulder blades. The resultant wave of air forced Hoshigaki's water dragon off course and gave Yamato time to jump out of the sludge pit that had appeared sometime in the seconds she'd looked away.
The two fights quickly veered apart. That was both good and bad. On one hand, it reduced the possibility of friendly fire. But it also meant that they wouldn't be able to provide the younger team with an assist if they got in over their heads. She clenched her jaw. 'We have to finish this as quickly as possible.'
Kisame didn't seem to be feeling particularly cooperative, however.
"Why don't you just drop dead!" Temari rather succinctly expressed her thoughts, sending a gust of razor-sharp air at Hoshigaki. As big as he was, his sword was nearly as bulky, so when he lifted it to block her attack he only ended up with minor gouges in the skin that had been exposed around it, noticeably his bulky shoulders and an arm. He grinned at her, displaying teeth that he had to have spent hours sharpening.
"You want to play too, little girl?" He dislodged his jaw and projectile-vomited a spout of hot water at her. She dodged directly into the air and flipped onto her fan to take the high ground, but barely escaped. Her right foot didn't quite move out of the way in time, and was clipped by the spout. It sent her fluttering uncontrollably backwards and instantly scalded the flesh it had connected with, making it swollen, red, and painful. His follow-up attack might have finished her while she was still fighting for control of her own fan if Yamato hadn't chosen that second to dash in and give a punishing double-kick directly to the Akatsuki's torso.
It got his attention, but the fact that the impact barely seemed to shake the blue man was chilling. Yamato instantly kicked off into a roll, dodging the retaliatory strike. Clearly irritated, Hoshigaki pushed forward with his sword and forced her comrade on the defensive, ducking and weaving around a sword that had to weigh as much as she did and only rarely getting glancing blows of his own in before scuttling backwards.
She pulled her damaged limb safely up onto her weapon and current mode of transport, frowning in through.
'Even with that enormous weapon, he's as fast as either of us. We're going to have to attack simultaneously to cause any real damage to this freak.'
Of course, they were going to have to step up their hitting power as well. "Summoning jutsu!" she bit and smeared a bloody finger across the surface of her fan as smoothly as possible, pumping power into the technique. She was going to need the big guns for this, especially since her wind jutsu was weaker than usual while she was using her fan for other purposes. "Combination wind and summon technique!"
Without further explanation, her speedy weasel summon flickered into the gust she forced out with a huff and landed on the back of the nuke-nin who had turned away from her to engage Yamato. His light feet and more damaging strikes were hidden among the sudden pressure and lightly scored blows from her hard-edge wind technique. Kisame roared in anger and turned to bat her friend away, barely missing the weasel who darted agilely out of reach—which left him open to a low swipe at his shins from Yamato who had pulled out a kunai at some point. He reflexively kicked out, sending Yamato stumbling backwards, but he'd been blooded well.
By the grimace on Yamato's face, the blow had connected solidly, but he stood without a flinch and readied himself to engage again.
Temari was the only one who didn't stumble when the ground shook with such force that something seemed to crack in the stone cave several hundred feet away. It didn't take a genius to figure out the culprits: the two largest summons she had ever seen were silhouetted in the distance where the other fight had meandered. She had to stare. 'I knew they were powerful, but that's insane!' Compared to that mountain-sized toad and the slug thing at its side, her summons looked like a stuffed animal. The toad gave a hop that sent the ground shuddering again, knocking both Kisame and Yamato to their knees on the ground.
'I guess that's my chance!'
She gripped her fan tightly and whipped it out from underneath her body, generating an enormous force while she fell and forced it down, completely bowling Kisame over and sending him rolling across the sand, ending mostly buried in a flurry of the hard particles. She'd managed to keep the worst of the blow away from Yamato, but he was still harried enough by the disturbed landscape that he had to hold his arms up to shield his face.
She grinned ferally as she lightly touched down with her weight mostly on her good foot, rotating her fan so that it was sideways and spinning her body around entirely to generate a whirlwind that she released directly at the Mist-nin struggling to his feet among the blinding sand she had already kicked up. "This one was inspired by Gaara!" She called out. "Sandstorm!"
True to her rather unimaginative name, the funnel shaped air disturbance picked up a frightful amount of hard sand and buffeted Kisame with it fiercely, hitting him several thousand times and forcing him inside its tunnel. The move blinded, gave physical damage by knocking the victim around like a toy, and filled their lungs with sand and made it hard to breathe. He'd survive, but this would significantly slow Hoshigaki down and impact his ability to spit water ninjutsu.
Of course, she immediately followed it up with a standard wind cutting blast carrying her summons to cause as much damage as possible. Before he could even see through the sand, it was slicing across Kisame's torso, getting blood all over the sand. He grimaced, standing slowly. "You two are better than I gave you credit for. I'll admit that you're each half as good as me, no small feat."
She fought the urge to stick her tongue out at him. How cocky.
'I just need to keep my head. He isn't actually trying to capture Naruto, and he won't permanently injure either of us. We just need to put up enough of a showing that he can disengage without rousing suspicion.'
Telling himself that didn't stop the screaming in Sasuke's head that wanted him to tell Itachi that he knew, damnit, and he thought his brother was an idiot but he'd done the best he could and he didn't hate him, could never hate him.
When Naruto shouted for his attention, he jerked back to the real world enough to remember that he had to pretend to want Itachi dead. He had to fight. Breaking his brother's cover would kill him as surely as a chidori to the chest, and he couldn't be certain that they wouldn't be overheard. Besides, he couldn't break Tsunade's confidence and undermine everything they'd been working for. She would find a find to get Itachi home safely and pardoned as soon as it was possible. He knew she would.
'This is just a spar,' he lied to himself. 'Itachi is strong and fast enough that Naruto and I won't be able to kill him anyways. Just pretend it's Shizune.'
Somewhat bolstered by his internal pep talk, he fell into a ready position. Itachi didn't seem inclined to make the first move—merely reacting to Naruto's blows. If he were really taking this fight seriously, he would have to say-
"Don't be stupid, Naruto! You're never going to hit him like that." He glared at his brother. "He's too fast."
Comprehension seemed to dawn in Naruto's eyes. "Geeze," he taunted, "it's like you think we need to take a guy like this seriously. If what we need is a distraction, this should do!" His crossed hands signaled to Sasuke that his companion was about to summon some variation of his Kage Bunshin. Perhaps he intended to use overwhelming numbers? It was crude, but it could work. He readied to slip in and attempt to bat his brother back with Tsunade's strength technique- but faltered entirely when the chakra smoke cleared to reveal what appeared to be Aiko, butt-naked.
'Did Naruto use the Hiraishin to call for help already?' he thought dumbly, closely followed by, 'I would have taken the time to dress.'
Then he grimaced in outright shock. 'And why the hell is she blowing kisses at Itachi?'
Said Uchiha looked unimpressed, if a little bit taken aback by the sheer 'what the fuck' factor of the situation.
When the smoke wafted away entirely and Naruto didn't emerge, he managed to force himself to activate his Sharingan to search for the idiot.
'I should have known,' Sasuke groaned.
"Idiot! Your sister is going to kill you!" he snapped irritably. "And what the hell kind of attack is that?"
"It works on Jiraiya," Naruto pouted, ending the technique and putting his hands on his hips. "It's not my fault that you Uchiha bastards are defective!"
"I am afraid that the success a naked woman has against the toad sannin is not entirely reflective of the general population," Itachi added with- oh god, was that a hint of amusement?
If he could have, Sasuke would have sunk into the ground in shame. That was the first full sentence he'd heard from his brother in god knows how long. What must Itachi think of his teammate?
Itachi wasn't thinking much of anything at all beyond, 'Sasuke has unusual companions,' having not quite hit the hormonal aspect of puberty himself, self-stunted through sheer willpower and the inability to access even most neutral emotions after years of repression. Kisame wasn't entirely mistaken when he claimed that if Itachi was any more tense, he'd compress his ulcers into diamonds.
Just to make the awkward moment end, Sasuke charged forward with fists practically glowing from the readied chakra, making a swipe at Itachi that he dodged. Itachi made the mistake of catching his second blow. The accumulated force sent them both skidding along with his momentum, and Sasuke managed to land a glancing blow across Itachi's torso before he dissolved into a flock of crows, reappearing with a flicker behind him and easily twisting his arm up behind his back to lean down and speak into Sasuke's ear.
"You've grown, Sasuke-kun. But not enough."
He recognized exactly why his brother said that. Sasuke even knew that such an acknowledgment was probably completely genuine. But hell, it still pissed him off a little.
"Kage Bunshin!"
Knowing wordlessly that Naruto would be approaching Itachi's back right now to free him, he used the replacement technique to trade places with one of Naruto's clones and leap downward with all the force he could muster to blow up an enormous amount of the hardened sand that formed something of a floor, instantly dirtying all three of them and inadvertently ending Naruto's clone technique. The genjutsu Naruto had been using to hide among them flickered to an end and he coughed violently, covering his face to protect it from breathing in debris.
"Ah, Sasuke? Maybe we'd be better off backing off and trying to avoid getting thumped."
He had to pull his hands up and shout "Kai!" to be sure that wasn't a really bad genjutsu.
'Kami, that doesn't sound like Naruto at all. He must be taking Akatsuki seriously.'
Naruto also looked mildly affronted, but just gave him a dirty look instead of yelling at him then. "Summoning no Jutsu!" Sasuke joined in as soon as he realized what Naruto's plan was, calling Katsuya's full manifestation for the first time since he had signed Tsunade's contract. The sudden uplift in elevation gave him the odd sensation of his stomach dropping, but he covered the sudden discomfort well.
"Katsuya, acid attack!"
Obediently, she opened her –well, what passed for a mouth—and hacked out a bullet of greenish liquid that impacted against the sand with a sizzle. Itachi darted around on the sand below like a jumping insect, dodging even the far-flung splashes.
Naruto's stupid toad may have come to a similar analogy, because unprompted it gave a gigantic thumping leap that nearly squashed Itachi with little fanfare. The impact send enormous ripples shuddering along Katsuya's length, and she squalled indignantly, her own attack caught in her throat.
"Damnit, Naruto," he yelled in irritation, despite knowing that toads were difficult to control. If he couldn't get his summons to do what he wanted, then he shouldn't be calling them.
"No, stop," Naruto shouted, completely ignoring Sasuke. "Use your oil! Sasuke, light it up!"
Comprehension seemed to dawn on both Uchiha at the same time that an enormous spigot of oily liquid covered the entire field of battle. Sasuke's eyes were wide with horror as he numbly worked through the handsigns he had to in order to play his part- this attack could burn Itachi alive—but Itachi was already moving across the field, away from them and towards his companion.
"Holy shit, did we put Itachi on the run?" Sasuke distantly registered the words coming out of his own mouth.
A moment later, Sasuke managed to pull himself out of his disbelief thoroughly enough to note that Kakashi and Gaara had returned from-had the cave collapsed?
'That makes more sense,' he thought with some disappointment mixed with relief. Running was a good call at that point. Naruto cancelled his summon and sprinted to their team leader, completely ignoring the Akatsuki turning tail to run.
"Sensei! Are you alright?"
"Maa, maa," he demurred, looking tired.
"Should we pursue?" Temari interrupted, visibly scanning her brother for injuries and seeming relieved.
"No. We did what we came for." He tilted his head slightly at Kakashi, who lifted a slightly bloodied fist in acknowledgement.
That was odd. Usually chidori was messier than that. Sasuke didn't question it, however. If they said this puppet master was dead, then he was.
"Was it really Sasori of the Red Sand?" Yamato interjected with poorly-hidden worry.
The two who had fought the puppet master exchanged looks.
"Could have been," Kakashi admitted easily. "That might explain the bit about how it would be fitting to kill me with his parents."
Sasuke cringed a bit. He didn't want to know. Really, he didn't. Just to change the subject, he turned to the group at large. "Does anyone need medical attention before we go?"
Temari and Yamato exchanged sheepish looks and gave him guilty looks that implied the answer was, 'a little.' He rolled his eyes and grabbed Yamato roughly by the arm, lighting up his hand with medical chakra to perform a diagnostic scan in lieu of tugging coherent answers out of him. Naruto sniggered. He seemed to get bored even before Sasuke had fixed Yamato's cracked rib and reduced the swelling in the ankle that would have made running all but impossible for Temari. He dealt with that boredom by summoning a small toad and asking it to carry a message to Jiraiya, who was still waiting in Konoha. He almost immediately got a reply that Naruto passed off to Kakashi with a pout.
The trip back to Suna seemed much longer than the run they had made earlier that day. Shadows were slipping across the dunes, decreasing visibility and making footing even harder to find. Gaara and Temari had broken off as soon as they'd hit the gates, giving goodbyes and apologizing for having to run back to work. It had only been something like eight hours since they had left Suna in the first place, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that Shizune had managed to find the time to complete Aiko's healing.
"But she isn't fit to run yet!" She'd added quickly when Naruto pointed out that they had been ordered to hurry home.
"This isn't that hard to figure out," Sasuke snarked. "We'll have to carry her."
Aiko did not look best pleased by that notion. "I can walk," she protested, sitting up and apparently attempting to look capable.
It might have been a better attempt if she hadn't been wearing a hospital gown.
Shizune snorted and pushed the girl back down. "and someone should find her some clothes," she pointed out dryly, gathering up her clipboard and adding over her shoulder as she went back to complete her rounds, "I don't think it'd be polite to dig out more of Temari's."
"Er-" Naruto, the second smallest person present (if not by much, he was nearly as big as Sasuke) flushed. "I'd offer, but I kind of forgot to bring a change."
The group at large gave him a repulsed look.
"Naruto, I wouldn't have admitted that," Yamato groaned softly, putting a palm to his forehead.
Their team leader didn't seem particularly interested in dwelling on Naruto's lack of hygiene for longer than absolutely necessary. Instead, he pulled off the slack pack on his shoulders and dug around, eventually extracting a blue long-sleeved shirt and pants. "They'll be big, and there's sand, but they're better than a hospital gown."
The group trooped out to let Aiko change. There was a collective snicker when she hobbled to the door, practically daring anyone to say anything with a scowl. Sasuke turned away to compose his expression. He might have offered a change of clothes, but after his growth spurt, the wide-collared shirts he favored might have fallen entirely off the kunoichi. Kakashi's clothes were rolled up several times at the wrists and ankles, but at least they were decent, even if the shirt dipped below her collarbones.
As she was unceremoniously bundled piggyback onto Yamato, Aiko grumbled. "We're never talking about this again. Right, guys? Guys?"
"This is every bit as brilliant as it is moronic," Jiraiya said flatly, shoving the un-activated seal copy that had been given to Tsunade under her nose as if he was scolding a bad dog. Aiko quailed under his unusually stern mien. "I don't know how you did it, but you managed to recreate a working Hiraishin without any of the modifications that made it a viable technique. The meat of the Yondaime's version is here, but somehow this seal is highly inefficient, far too time-consuming, and altogether so inferior to the original that it isn't even funny".
'Don't hold anything back,' she thought a bit snidely. 'Just tell me what you really think.' He did.
"I don't know if the ability and blind bull-headedness it took to do that and still end up with a working technique is more or less impressive than the original technique itself. Explain this mess to me, Aiko."
"Ah…" She swallowed, feeling cowed. It was easy to forget just how imposing this man was when he was giggling at girls or bickering with Naruto, but right now she couldn't seem to forget that he could squash her like a bug and only didn't out of the grace of his heart. "I got most of it from the experimentation process outlined in the notes that you gave me. The array that personalized it to me was pretty much lifted from the seal you helped me design for the three-tails."
"And you don't see the design flaw in that last part?" he pushed, eyes serious. "Think on it."
When he'd interrupted, she'd moved to bite her lip. Reluctantly, she unclenched her teeth and tried to force herself to look relaxed. "I knew that the seal I was using had been intended as a translation," she explained. "and if I hadn't modified it, I would have been indicating that the seal was meant to be used by two people. That's why I added this bit here…" she indicated, but he was already shaking his head tiredly.
"Oh, girl, what am I going to do with you." He pressed a hand to his head. "You closed it brilliantly, but you should have redesigned the thing entirely to fit with this seal. I see why it works, but with the original underlying structure, you're expending twenty times as much chakra as you should and losing most of it to dissipation. You should be able to set this seal without even ink, considering how frequently as you've been using it. Just a patterned chakra pulse," he enunciated clearly as he held up a hand and demonstrated a chakra pulse that puffed out into the air and wafted away into nothingness when he didn't attach it to anything. "That's never going to be possible with the design you came up with, unless of course you're hiding three times your chakra reserves somewhere. Got a Yin seal like Tsunade's stored up?"
She winced at his mocking tone. That might explain why making them tired her so much. "Ah."
"Yes, 'ah', indeed," he said dryly.
Kakashi coughed pointedly. "Not that this isn't fascinating stuff, but perhaps we could continue our briefing?"
Jiraiya blinked at the younger man as if he'd only just noticed the office he'd walked into was already occupied. "What, you still aren't done? You need to move faster, man." Without waiting for a reply, he shifted his focus to Tsunade. "You finished with this one, hime?"
She gave an amused nod in return. "Have at," Tsunade favored him with a single brisk wave.
"Excellent." Aiko barely had time to squeak in surprise when the toad sannin picked her up bodily by the back of her shirt and hauled her out of the room. Naruto gave her a smug look that all but screamed, 'Ha! It's not me this time' as the office faded from view and she found herself swinging lightly from Jiraiya's monstrously big paw from the momentum his shunshin generated.
Getting grabbed in someone else's technique was a decidedly unpleasant sensation.
"Was that entirely necessary?" When released, she bent over slightly and attempted to force down nausea, but Jiraiya unsympathetically thumped her across the back.
"Toughen up, kiddo. Take a seat. We're going to go through this step by step until you see why what you did at first was inadvisable." He paused, and added, "Then you're going to tell me how you realized that using this here would work."
It was a good thing she hadn't been particularly taxed by the trip home, because Jiraiya mercilessly prodded and brow-beat her until she had a far superior design and had communicated exactly how she'd come to the unconventional solutions she had the first time on her own. It took hours. When he was done, he had her light it up—and she was downright shocked to feel an active Hiraishin seal flicker into awareness with just a kiss of chakra.
While she stared dumbly, he gave her a toothy grin. "I'm brilliant, aren't I?"
"Whoa." She stared at her new seal, and then amended, "I mean Hai, Jiraiya-sama." She swiveled to give him a low bow. "I am thankful for your guidance."
He looked discomfited by that. "Hey now, no need for such formality," he muttered, turning his face away. "It's my job, you know." Jiraiya cleared his throat uncomfortably. "What I mean to say is-"
"You're my godfather," she interrupted absently, still preoccupied by how easy that had been. After a second of silence, she blinked and looked up. "Is something wrong?"
Jiraiya shook his head and gave an undignified snort. "I keep forgetting how sharp you are, kid. I take it I didn't fool you when I gave you those notes, huh?"
"No, but it was a nice try."
He cuffed her across the back of the head. "Don't lie to me, brat. It was a paper thin excuse, and I was hoping you'd figure it out. Tsunade must have told you about your dad, then? Is it still common knowledge that I was his sensei?"
"No, but it wasn't hard to verify either once I'd noted the physical resemblance that Naruto has," she admitted honestly. (And she really had done that research, years ago. Her records at the private library could testify as to such.) "Seeing as I've only ever seen the name 'Naruto' in one other place, I assumed that you made it up and he was either named in your honor or by you."
"Yes, well." He scratched at the back of his neck. "Anyways. While I'm fulfilling my parental duties, is there anything else that you need, or can I run away from this awkward moment?"
She gave the rhetorical question serious consideration. There was one thing she'd wondered about. "That chameleon genjutsu you taught Naruto. Can you teach me that?"
"Er-" he gave her an odd look. "What for?"
"I think it might help prevent getting immediately clobbered when I Hiraishin around," she explained contemplatively. "I don't have any genjutsu, so I have no idea if I could even do it. But I have terrible nightmarish visions of transporting to Yamato's side and accidentally finding out he prefers briefs to boxers and then having to look him in the eye at the next practice. There's probably an even worse combat scenario, but I'm still too caught up on that one to care."
Jiraiya started laughing immediately. "There are worse reasons," he admitted, shaking his head. "But!" he held up a finger and put his other hand on his hip. "I want you to promise me to use this responsibly!"
"Of course," she agreed immediately.
He grinned. "And by that of course I mean that you have to use it to sneak into the changing rooms at an onsen at least once."
Aiko considered it, but not for long. "That's fine."
"What, really?" Jiraiya gave her a disconcerted look. "That was the part where you were supposed to yell, 'Eek, pervert,' and stomp off." He fluttered his hands above his head in mock-horror.
She gave him a deadpan stare. "I'm still not Naruto. I'm a pervert too."
A silly smile wobbled across his face. "I've never been so proud to have a potential rival in the noblest of pursuits."