"Well, this is traditionally when we exchange witty banter," Temari sighed, slowly reaching over her shoulder for her fan. "I don't suppose you have anything to say?"
"Nothing more than hands off your fan, unless you really need it to hide a blush, you delicate flower," Aiko tried winsomely, darting forward to force Temari into taijutsu and make her defend herself with her hands. Accordingly, her first strike was an open palm swipe aimed at Temari's throat, mimicking a kunai stroke that would have been fatal if she'd been armed. Temari clearly recognized the implication and her pride wouldn't let a mock-fatal blow pass. Her response was to slap the blow away while she jerked her head to the side and bent inwards, leading with her elbow to deliver a punishing blow to her opponent's unguarded ribs. Aiko was already twisting on her supporting leg to bring her left leg up and managed to completely evade the blow, snapping her left out with a stiff ankle and a flat foot that impacted painfully with Temari's gut.
It was something of a balm to her ego to see that she had the physical strength to send someone faltering, after Yugito had shrugged it off when they'd fought almost two weeks prior.
Temari curled inwards to gasp at the hit to her lower torso but jerked her free arm out to retaliate. She was too slow. Aiko had swept around the taller girl with un-augmented speed and snapped both hands out to steal the heavy fan off Temari's back.
That was the most efficient way to ensure it didn't get used against her at all. She couldn't see many ways to end this fight without hurting Temari or getting hurt herself, so her next best bet was to rub in how silly the whole thing was and remind everyone that this was just a game.
She was amused to note a gasp from the crowd at that point. Matsuri, perhaps? Was it Just Not Done to touch Temari's fan?
The abject fury in the blonde's face when she whipped around to see Aiko awkwardly clutching the weapon to her chest like a baby supported that theory. She gave an apologetic smile and danced away, ducking completely under the first anger-fueled blow and then flickered to the opposite end of the arena for the second blow.
To her credit, Temari didn't miss more than a beat before she veered around to stare at Aiko. Her eyes were a little rueful while she stared at her own weapon.
Just to play to the crowd, Aiko made a dramatic, slow swing with the pilfered weapon and grinned at the wave of titters that passed around the pavilion. Absolutely nothing happened. Apparently, she wasn't much of a wind-user.
Temari's expression indicated that Aiko's inept attempt had been downright painful to watch. "I'm not going to be able to hit you, am I," she confirmed, as though she already knew the answer.
"Nope," Aiko chirped back, grinning from behind her burden. "We could play tag, though." Illustratively, she darted to three different positions in less than a breath, playing with her Hiraishin. It had been confirmed, so she may as well rub in to the audience that she wasn't using it how they expected. It should also make her point to Temari. She was a smart girl, and she would know that Suna would be better represented if she recognized that this fight was stacked against her instead of stupidly charging forward into a match she couldn't win. Aiko was more worried about the next match, honestly. That would be when she really needed the seals she had planted. Temari didn't actually have any intention to hurt Aiko from the start, but others might.
"Maybe later," Temari dead-panned, settling into a relaxed pose with a sigh. "This is no fun, Uzumaki. I give up. Now give me back my damn fan."
"Boo!" Tsunade called out playfully, hands cupped around her mouth. "Keep fighting, you sissies! I want to see some blood!"
"Drunk looney", Aiko said fondly under her breath, before turning to Temari to quietly joke, "Tits McGee wants us to continue, are you sure?"
"I am certain," Temari said dryly, reaching out insistently for her weapon. She smoothed her hand over the metal surface lovingly before putting it back over her shoulder—or trying, at least. The blonde grimaced at Aiko, real irritation on her features. "Damnit, woman. You messed up the straps," she complained, tucking her fan under her arm and fiddling with the holster as they walked out.
No one seemed particularly pleased with the short show, but Aiko didn't care. She nudged Temari with an elbow and leaned in close to mutter, "Sorry. Is it just me, or is that blue-haired woman sketchy? I didn't want to be a jerk, but I don't like showing more of my repertoire than I have to."
Temari snorted in reply, shooting Aiko a mirthless look. "I know the feeling. I've never even heard of her before. It's like the Mizukage let in anyone with a can-do attitude and funky hair."
At that point, they were too close to anyone else to continue the covert conversation, but it was at least somewhat of a relief to see that someone else was wary of Konan.
'I want that woman gone from here. She's causing trouble, and who knows what Akatsuki could do with any real insight into what everyone is deciding? Or rather, what she could do here, more immediately. There's at least two jinchuuriki in this town right now. If she were to snatch one and run… Well, Konoha might well get blamed, and it'd be doubly bad news. Or she could let in more Akatsuki and do real damage to any number of countries in one relatively unsecured target. If Deidara alone was willing to take on Suna, a small mob of S-class shinobi could cause a lot of problems.'
The thought caused an unpleasant shiver. But she couldn't just challenge Konan to a damn duel or anything in front of the whole delegation.
Not least because she probably didn't want to fight Konan. All she knew about her was that she could turn into paper and was probably an S-class fighter. For a fight like that, she would want both Kakashi and Yamato at her back, and a write-up of Konan's abilities. Maybe Tsunade and Jiraiya lurking around just to be on the safe side would make her feel a bit better about that hypothetical match.
'I might not have a choice,' Aiko told herself firmly, not letting her gaze wander over to Konan while she began to push her way through the crowd. 'Which means that I should think about how I would want that fight to go. And where I would want it to happen. I don't particularly fancy trying to ambush Konan in her boudoir.'
Involuntarily, she shivered, imagining opening the hotel door and finding Kakuzu on the can. It was never a good idea to fight an enemy on their turf when you could help it: they could have back up or traps.
Or, you know, Kakuzu on the can, which she was sure was scarring enough to last several lifetimes. Now she just couldn't stop thinking about it. No, no, nooooo. She was arrested from her path and increasingly disturbing thoughts by a vaguely familiar voice.
"Uzumaki."
She raised an eyebrow. "Yes, Fuu-san?"
The other girl narrowed orange eyes at her. "Put up a better fight against me in the next round," she clipped out shortly. "I don't want you to think I'll just give up because you try to play a childish game."
'Tokiwa looks pissed,' Aiko noted. She didn't bother to hide her amusement at that. It was cocky and rude for Fuu to assume she would be continuing in the match, or at least to say so in her opponent's hearing. What a silly kid. "I look forward to sparring with you as well, Fuu-san, but let's not get ahead of ourselves."
She really did like the idea of sparring against Fuu. The other girl had been careful to keep her distance from Aiko so far, and it might be her only chance to tag the jinchuuriki. You never knew when it might come in handy to be able to access one of those guys. They were sort of a hot collector's item, after all.
But it seemed that Fuu talked better than she performed, because Tokiwa quickly put her on the run. The teal-haired girl was obviously frustrated and struggled not to whip out her jinchuuriki-based powers. Any sane person might have felt trepidation about pushing someone so obviously volatile, but Tokiwa was apparently a stone-cold bitch. Aiko felt oddly fond of the older woman as she watched just how chillaxed she seemed to be about the imminent possibility of very real danger. Even the atmosphere among the spectators grew tense as it seemed that a semi-friendly contest of strength might turn into a bloodbath.
Either Tokiwa thought she could handle even what a jinchuuriki could dish out at her worst, or she trusted that the establishment would control any demonic overflow.
Personally, Aiko thought it was the former. Fuu couldn't even hit Tokiwa, and the older woman was steadily scoring hits with the freakishly long katana she carried, gouging slices out of Fuu's arm guards and chipping at the short sword that Fuu had pulled out instead of a kunai to block.
"She is a hell of a swordswoman," Aiko murmured casually to a rather stiff-looking Yugito, propping her chin up on both hands and peering interestedly at the contestants. "I pity the Fuu."
All she received was an odd look for her wording.
She sighed a little mournfully. That was probably another person who thought she was irredeemably weird. 'It's almost like Mr. T. doesn't transcend realities. Ridiculous.'
There was an ugly gasp and an obvious burst of killing intent when Fuu finally lost it completely and burst out with demonic energy. Pity. She really hadn't mastered her bijuu, then. It was terribly irresponsible of her to enter a spar if she couldn't control herself. Despite her disapproving thoughts, Aiko's heart stopped momentarily when she really took in the sight.
'That is so much better than tails that it isn't even funny.'
Aiko lurched over the table, practically climbing up in order to get a better view and balancing on her elbows with her hips at the edge. "Ah, that's so fucking cool!" A grin split her face that no one else seemed to notice, as they were a bit preoccupied with the fight that had suddenly turned into a possible death match with onlooker casualties. "They look like glitter. Hey, hey, Tsunade-sama!" She thudded her palm on the table childishly. The older woman didn't respond, so Aiko demanded, "Aren't her wings so pretty?"
Tsunade gave her a long-suffering look. Instead of replying, she reached out to pull away Aiko's untouched rice wine and knocked the whole thing down in one long series of gulps.
Wide-eyed and gleeful, Aiko actually paid avid attention to the next interchanges. Even if it was unintentional, Fuu was putting on quite a show. There were a few shrieks as Fuu crashed into a table, sending chairs and kunoichi flying.
"Aiko, stop this idiocy," Tsunade groaned, fanning herself with one hand and looking longingly at the empty glasses in front of her. "I don't care how pretty the damn things are, make them go away."
She pouted, but obediently leapt over the table and rapidly thinning crowd. Aiko casually wound two blunt chains out her back and down each hand, eying the distracted jinchuuriki like a performer might eye the tigers they were trying to convince through hoops. "Hey, Tokiwa-san, do you mind if I cut in?"
"Go for it," the brunette grunted, a hint of strain on her face while she dodged a spray of some sort of poisonous glitter. Maybe she had been bluffing about not being bothered by an unleashed bijuu.
Fuu had to be the most glamorous jinchuuriki Aiko had ever seen, and she definitely approved. Still, the demonic chakra was bothering some of the lower-level nin. Matsuri was actually shaking, but at least she still stood by Temari's side. Three of the Mist Chuunin and Genin who had been serving the group had actually made a run for it. Little shits. Come on, there were how many A and S class shinobi in the room? What drama queens. It was going to be fine.
But she had orders. So Aiko crossed her bent arms at the elbows, palms out, and then whipped out the chains to full length as she slid her arms over one another, straightening them to guide her weapons' trajectory. The chains attached to her right arm caught Fuu around her left upper arm and immediately curled around her torso, failing to secure her right because the limb had been raised. The momentum began to tip the jinchuuriki over sideways even as the chains that had shot from Aiko's left elbow caught Fuu on her right hip (Tokiwa barely dodged in time) and snaked down and around her legs, tangling all the way to Fuu's ankles and pulling her feet entirely off the ground. She hit the cement with a clang and a painful thump.
The only sound was the scrape of chain against the cement as Fuu struggled. Apparently, she wasn't terribly vocal like Nii had been, but the red of her eyes was directed at Aiko with more than a bit of fury.
She was mildly curious about what everyone was thinking as the girl they suspected of stealing jinchuuriki held one down easily, but Aiko didn't dare take her eyes off Fuu while she was still under demonic thrall. She'd been told to solve the problem, and she would look like a gigantic ass if she let Fuu slip free due to carelessness. It was one thing for others to think she was immature- they might underestimate her- but it was quite another for them to think that she was incompetent or incapable of following through on orders.
Mei was the one who broke the stand-off. Her voice echoed mockingly off the distant ceiling that kept the sun off the group. "That was fun, but perhaps the tournament is over. Why don't we break for the day? Personally, I hope to see some of you lovely ladies in the hotel reception room tonight. I have some small games planned, as well as refreshments."
Aiko could practically hear Tsunade perk up at the suggestion of free drinks, and she knew where she would be later that night.
Surely enough, after Fuu came back to her senses and cringingly apologized for the trouble, keeping Aiko in her white-rimmed eyes the whole time, Tsunade and Mei led them all but arm-in-arm and chattering gaily on the way to the hotel. Apparently, an amusing diplomatic fiasco and the promise of a free bar melted all sorts of barriers. They'd spent enough time after everyone else had left in the clean-up that the small group went directly to the event room Mei had referred to as the 'reception hall' in the hotel room. They were the first ones there, since everyone else had gone to their rooms or for a walk when released. It was only proper to allow Mei to be the first, as the hostess, so it wasn't surprising.
The Konoha nin stopped dead in their tracks when they caught their first sight into the reception hall.
It wasn't the garish decorations, although the room had been prepared along an aesthetic that was best described as 'glitter rainforest'. It wasn't the full bar, it wasn't the geisha strumming the koto in a corner, and it wasn't even the enormous hot tub in the center of the room that was dotted by floating candles.
Well, it was partly those things, but it was mostly the small group of rather attractive young men who were scattered around the room behind the bar or standing by racks of towels. Mei had apparently decided that today was 'Casual Friday' and that there was no need for shirts.
"I'll bite," Tsunade said numbly. "What the hell is this?"
'Besides a hilarious glance into Mei's psyche, you mean?'
At Aiko's side, Fuu sputtered a little helplessly, all but clinging to the girl she'd been so frightened of a moment ago. Aiko absently wrapped a comforting arm around Fuu's shoulders and took the opportunity to brush a seal there with her fingertips. She tried not to grin at the elation of having sneakily added one more to her collection of tagged jinchuuriki. That made… Well. Naruto, Gaara, Fuu, Yugito, and Shinji. That was five. Hot damn, she was much better at this collection game than Akatsuki.
Mei shot Tsunade a faux-offended look, placing a hand on her chest. "Tsunade-san, weren't you aware that the employment rate for men aged seventeen to twenty-three is the lowest it's been in decades? I know it might not be in the spirit of this conference, but my tender heart couldn't help but feel for them. We're stimulating the economy by providing temporary employment for young men in the area."
Tsunade choked at the innuendo, giving Mei an incredulous look. "I feel… dirty," she mused. Still that didn't stop her from shrugging and striding into the room as if she owned the place.
"They're just so cute," Mei huffed lowly, giving Tsunade a mischievous look. Subtle, she was not. Aiko didn't exactly approve of the hint of sexual exploitation in the way that Mei had tailored her staff, but the sheer unrepentant tackiness of the whole affair was rather glorious.
"Mei-neesan, have I ever told you that you are my personal hero?" Aiko asked conversationally, taking a towel from an attendant with a wink and slinging it over her shoulder. He directed her towards the changing rooms with a flirtatious smirk that Naruto might have punched his face in for, but she wasn't fussed. It was kind of funny, and it wasn't as though any of them seemed like they'd been coerced into wandering around in their swimtrunks.
Mei outright laughed. "No, but thank you. I do deserve that and all other compliments you can think of."
Tsunade made a wounded sound. "I should be your hero."
"No, you're already Tenten and Sasuke's personal hero," she deflected nonchalantly.
"Who the fuck is Tenten?" was the last thing she heard muttered confusedly as Aiko crossed the room and pulled the door shut behind her. She stripped easily and left every item on her person but the pin in her hair into the provided basket. It wasn't exactly that she trusted everyone here: of course she didn't. But everything she had with her, barring the hairpin was replaceable. The yukata was nice, yes, but she had a whole closet full of them. (Hey, she liked clothes, even if she wasn't very good at putting together outfits that didn't make other people cringe).
She entered the water with her towel on, even if that wasn't exactly conventional. Aiko wasn't particularly body shy, but she didn't see the need to show off her scars and comparatively dinky chest in front of the smexy kage powerhouses in front of her. Fuu looked about ready to implode from embarrassment and kept glancing nervously at the brunet who was chatting with Mei and bringing drinks to the group, but she bravely sunk in the now bubbly, flora-scented water up to her chin instead of fleeing.
'Poor thing. I think she doesn't want to risk miffing Mei any more after she lost control earlier. She's trying to do damage control, but Fuu clearly doesn't want to be here.'
Aiko gave the other girl a sympathetic smile. Fuu really couldn't be that much older than she was, and apparently she was a bit shy. That was a hard personality trait to have in their business.
Other kunoichi began trickling in. About five others made an immediate bee-line for the hot water where two of the most important political figures were already soaking, but others settled at the bar, in front of the sunny windows on lounge chairs with card games and complimentary books, or even around the shoji sets interspersed through the fake forest.
"Suddenly, I am so very glad that I never told Jiraiya this conference was happening," Tsunade groaned, laying back in the water and letting one boy put a drink in her hand while another put cucumbers over her eyes. "He would get way too big of a kick out of this."
"I actually have four ANBU teams specially tasked with keeping him and all 'suspicious' toads out of city limits," Mei said dryly. "Nadeshiko insisted. As did Iwa. Waterfall. Ku-"
"Alright, alright already," Tsunade waved away, faux-testily. The tone was ruined by her rueful grin. "I get the point. He's a scoundrel. If an apology is what you want, I can draft one, but I've never been able to control him." She gestured blindly with her drink at Aiko (inadvertently sloshing something pink and fruity into the pool). "But this one might be helpful."
Temari gave a barking laugh, letting her own clothes drop directly on the floor and stepping in the tub without a care. Her little genin hanger-on was so red-faced that Aiko thought she might actually combust (probably a good hint that Suna didn't have the same cultural nonchalance about nudity in bathhouses that Konoha or Mist did), but the blonde didn't seem to care. "Does Aiko really have a miraculous jutsu to keep him out or something?"
"No, he's my godfather," Aiko yawned, giving a stretch. "He probably doesn't want to see me naked."
Temari dubiously repeated, "Probably?" She slowly shook her head. "Why can't you say that with a little more confidence?" Her voice was unusually high-pitched.
"He's an odd duck," Aiko muttered, laying a hand over her eyes and leaning back.
Mei visibly cringed. "I would hope he would have that small amount of shame." She gave her glass a distasteful look. "I need more alcohol to help me forget that disturbing implication, right away."
"Hey, you could utilize that information for good instead of evil," Fuu cut in with a little amusement, eyes darting to Aiko (and then immediately down into the bubbly water with a blush). "Just…" She cleared her throat to try again. "Just put up glamour shots of Uzumaki-san on billboards if we have a conference like this again. I'm sure that would be suitably scarring. You could justify it as advertising, since she's basically the winner of our tournament. She was the only contestant to beat two other people." Her voice got tinier and tinier until it trailed off into meek nothingness.
Fuu cringed back from the indignant look that Aiko shot her, even as other kunoichi gave in to giggles. "Hey, I'm not so hideous that I should be used to ward off perverts," she protested crossly. "I'm no Tsunade, but I'm not exactly Danzo in a dress, either."
Tsunade spit out a mouthful of her icy drink into the glass still at her lips. "That's disgusting!" she protested crossly, wiping her mouth with the back of a hand. "I can never un-think that image."
"Do I want to know who Danzo is?" Mei asked curiously.
Aiko shook her head. "Not really, other than that he's like seventy years old, cantankerous as all hell, and not about to win Miss Konoha any time soon."
There was a moment of silence.
"Uzumaki, you're a buzz-kill," Yugito posited clinically from the other end of the tub. "I think that in punishment, you should be used to ward off Jiraiya. That statement is not merely motivated by self-interest or personal dislike."
She just rolled her eyes. "You all just lack humor." Aiko considered the conversation over, and turned to lever herself out of the pool. She froze at Temari's curious tone.
"Aiko, is that a tattoo?"
Defensively, she clapped her hand awkwardly over her shoulder blade, (not noticing or caring that a blond cabana boy was gaping stupidly at the way her towel slumped) and shook her head. "Nope! Definitely not." She grabbed another towel from the closest pile and draped it over her shoulders before turning to give the kunoichi still in the hot tub a cheesy grin. "Don't be silly, Temari!"
The Suna nin didn't look convinced, but she just shrugged the abjectly bad denial off.
The soaked towels were a little uncomfortable, so she gratefully accepted the plain robe that was offered and hurriedly changed into that.
At least the company could have been worse. For all her meddling, Konan apparently drew the line at excess socialization, which Aiko both understood and was grateful for (though it did seem like a strange opportunity to miss). She didn't drink more than a serving of alcohol, however, because the idea of being chemically compromised here didn't sit well with her. Tsunade was a badass bitch and could just burn the liquor off if she needed to, but Aiko did stupid things like get tattoos and giggle all night in bars with her ANBU captain when she drank, apparently.
As a reward to herself for being good in regards to mind-altering substances, Aiko allowed one of the masseuses Mei had arranged for to rub some sort of luxurious conditioner into her hair before braiding it and another to give her a foot massage and a pedicure, opting for pink paint out of the rather limited selection. Absently flirting was fun, but as the night dragged on she grew more and more tense and just wished that Tsunade would allow them to leave. The Hokage appeared to be having the time of her life, however, red-cheeked and laughing up a storm with Mei, all but collapsing over each other. The conversation over there seemed to have degenerated into tall tales about fights with missing nin (the only universally politically correct bad-guy to brag about beating up, Aiko noted with vague amusement).
"Would you like a drink?"
"I said no the last ten times, so you can feel free to stop asking," Aiko snapped testily. Immediately, she regretted it and gave a sigh. "I'm sorry, that was rude. I'm a bit tired."
The heavily pierced redhead gave her a faint smile. "No apologies necessary."
"You think you're sso hot," Kurotsuchi slurred, lurching over to point a good foot to Aiko's left, clearly too inebriated to see straight. The redhead whose name she had never asked looked mildly repulsed as the Iwa-nin rather ineptly menaced Aiko. "I could- I can take all three of you." Her brunette attendant followed her over with a long-suffering expression and laid a hand on the girl's shoulder to steer her from starting a fight.
"Yeah, you could sit on me," Aiko mumbled, tossing her braided hair over her shoulder and disengaging with a shared eye-roll with the older teen that she'd snapped at earlier.
'I am not getting paid anywhere near enough for this,' she sighed. 'Baby-sitting heads of state while they alternately politick and get as much relaxation as they can squeeze in is too stressful for a stupid A class mission.'
"Aiko! Walk me back to my room." Temari tossed a hand over Aiko's shoulder. It looked relaxed, but the fingers that laid against the muscles over her collarbone were tense.
This at least promised to be interesting, so she let herself be led up a floor. "Hey, your room is pretty close to mine," she noted. She wondered where Matsuri was, but didn't ask. It might not be something Temari wanted brought up right now.
"That's probably not a coincidence," Temari huffed, shaking her hair out and unlocking her door. "They probably tried to separate people they thought might get into fights as much as possible."
Aiko snorted. "Joke's on them, if I leave her alone for much longer, Tsunade is either going to end up in a fist fight with Mei or sitting on her bed all night while they gossip and paint each other's toenails."
For all that she'd claimed to be disapproving at first, Tsunade had been giggling incoherently at cute men for the past hour or so. That was probably a pretty good sign that she should be going to nap.
"They do have a disturbingly inconsistent dynamic," Temari mused with a slight grimace. Then she shook her head. "That's not important right now. You noticed that something was seriously off with that woman from Ame, right?"
Relieved, Aiko nodded. "I'm glad it's not just me. I think that she's trying to cause trouble."
The blonde frowned. "Something about her bothers me. I think that she has been paying far too much attention to me and alienating the smaller villages from Suna and Konoha in specific. I'm sending Matsuri home. I can't leave, but I wanted to see if you had any ideas. She's been on your case as well since we got here."
"It might just be my enormous paranoia," Aiko acknowledged, "but I can't help but think that the only agenda she could be serving by creating dissent the way she is would be Akatsuki's."
Temari outright shuddered. "I don't like that idea," she said darkly, giving a wary glance at the door. "It had crossed my mind that she was a spy, but I had assumed that Ame was planning to try to undermine us for some reason and not that she might actually be affiliated with Akatsuki."
Aiko snorted, reaching out to ascertain that Konan's seal and the woman attached weren't nearby before she responded. Assuming the Akatsuki had gone to her hotel room, she was based two floors above them on the opposite end of the building. That was definitely too far to overhear, so she didn't feel too wary about intimating, "Why does it have to be one or the other?"
She couldn't outright say that she knew things like that with no evidence, but she could lead Temari to the right conclusions if she was willing to listen. Tsunade had been disinterested, but here was a willing ear. If Temari got Gaara on the right track, then Tsunade would have to pay attention to the admittedly minor bits of evidence she had under the guise of an intuitive leap.
"You don't beat around the bush, do you," Temari said wryly.
'You don't know the half of it.'
She felt a sudden rush of honesty well up. Sure, this was a big hint as to her most important technique, but she did trust Temari. The sand kunoichi was a genuine ally, and sharing this information could help them make a better plan of action. Besides, it was almost like following through on her promise to Yamato… even if he might have preferred that she work with Tsunade rather than Temari.
Well, Temari wasn't an inebriated hot mess right now.
"On that note, I should probably tell you that I tagged her. So at least I know where she is at all times."
Temari's expression twisted into incredulousness before she gave the distinct impression that she had a massive headache. "How?" she asked helplessly, before making a sharp motion with one hand to cut off conversation. "Never mind that. You mean a Hiraishin, right?" At the sheepish nod, she outright groaned. "You…" Then she shook her head to start a new train of thought. "That's good. We can use this. Do you think we should try to ambush her?"
Aiko cringed a little. "I'm not sure I want to go that far without provocation," she admitted. "If we get caught, it would seem to validate every stupid claim she's been making."
Left unsaid was that could be even worse than doing nothing, if Konan really was just there to observe. But they could hardly afford not to act on their suspicions if the Akatsuki were going to make infiltrating this conference worth their time by taking a jinchuuriki souvenir.
"So we don't get caught," Temari posited logically.
"Should murdering a diplomat really be option number one?" Aiko asked a bit skeptically.
Temari snorted. "I highly doubt that she's a real diplomat. But you're probably right about not making that our first option. Then again, what would undermine her claims quite like doing something highly suspicious like just disappearing?" She gave a cruel little smile and wavered her hand in the air to emphasize the point.
'God, I love this girl.'
"That'll only work as long as it looks like she was the one who made a break for it," Aiko reasoned out, tugging on her braid. "If it seems like something went wrong and made her panic, anyone with a healthy sense of self-preservative paranoia will investigate her further. What do we need to do to avoid leaving the impression of foul play?"
~~~
Aiko jerked into consciousness in the dead of night, with no idea what was wrong. But something had to have woken her up. Out of habit, her first check was a visual scan, a chakra pulse, and then she quietly peered into Tsunade's room under Jiraiya's chameleon genjutsu with her chakra silenced.
'Nothing.'
She frowned, unsettled. Had it just been paranoia? A bad dream that woke her up?
'I can't dismiss this. If something is wrong and I ignore it…'
She trailed off the thought, realizing that her mind was only leading her to one prominent idea of what could go horribly wrong. There were multiple variations on the scenario, of course, but they all involved Konan.
Konan. Who was crossing the hotel towards Temari's room. Temari, who was lodging alone after Matsuri had left. Somewhat unpleasantly, she realized that it would look awfully suspicious that Temari had sent Matsuri home if Temari were to disappear in the dead of the night.
'If Kumo could think of using a jinchuuriki's sister as bait, Akatsuki could. And she might be trying the same thing we thought of: making her look like a suspect by suspiciously disappearing her.'
If Konan were to do something like take a jinchuuriki with her, Temari would be the obvious suspect. And that was disregarding the value Temari had as a hostage against Gaara.
On the bright side, this neatly wrapped up the problem Temari and Aiko had wrestled with about how to avoid any signs of foul play. No one would look for signs of a struggle in Temari's room, and Konan had doubtlessly made sure she wasn't seen on her way to Temari's rooms. They could turn Konan's trap back on her.
'That's assuming that she doesn't know about the seal I put on her.' Aiko frowned, rapidly strapping on her arm protectors and shoving on her boots. They doubtlessly looked stupid with the white tank top and pink cotton shorts she was wearing for pajamas, but there wasn't time to change further. Of course, since she was still under Jiraiya's genjutsu, it didn't matter much. 'If she does know about that, she would deal with it by having backup and get both of us at one time. This could easily be that trap.' Uncertainly, she glanced over at the room where her Hokage was sleeping. Going to check on Temari would mean leaving Tsunade alone.
'Temari is in definite danger. Tsunade… She can take care of herself. I won't be gone long.'
Aiko hastily dropped her genjutsu and knocked on the wall in Tsunade's room to startle her awake from a safe distance. "Tsunade-sama!" she hissed, keeping her voice low even as the older woman lurched upwards to glare at her. "That creepy woman from Rain is approaching Temari's room. I think she's trying something."
Tsunade groaned and fell back into her bed with a whumpf. "Enough with the Rain-nin," she huffed, rubbing at a temple. "Really, you woke me up to tell me that your new personal enemy is walking around the halls at four in the morning? Maybe she needs to get some damn ice. Bother me when you have something more solid to act on."
She had to resist the urge to stomp her foot childishly against the ground. Tsunade didn't believe that there was reason to worry, but from her perspective, the evidence was pretty circumstantial at best. Fine. "Can I go check on her?" Aiko bit out testily. She swung around and back into her room the instant she had permission, slapping a seal onto her door so that she could return and pulling Jiraiya's genjutsu back on. By this point, Konan had stopped moving… probably actually inside Temari's room. She couldn't linger. There just wasn't time to argue with Tsunade.
She didn't like the plan, but she silenced her chakra signature, took a calming breath, and flickered to Konan's seal. Temari was standing combatively in front of her bed, mussy-haired and pajama clad. By contrast, Konan was fully dressed in the same outfit that Aiko had noted the day before. Ew.
"I'm afraid I will have to ask you to come with me."
Temari gritted her teeth, probably noting the same irony that Aiko had about their pipe-dream ambush being turned back. Her eyes darted towards her fan—propped against the wall, right next to the impassive looking Konan.
But lo and behold, the blue-haired woman didn't seem to notice Aiko at all. That was more of a shock than anything. Shouldn't an elite terrorist be able to spot some geeky teenager trying to sneak up on her? Granted, the hope had been that she would pass unnoticed, but she hadn't really thought it would work.
Temari jerked towards her weapon and then leapt backwards, narrowly avoiding getting pinned to the wall by some small weapon that Aiko hadn't even seen Konan throw.
'Well, item number one on the agenda is to take this fight away from here so we don't draw any attention… or worse, so that we don't find out exactly how she was planning to extract Temari. If Konan really is reliant on some paper-based ninjutsu, the easiest way to decrease her combat capacity is to get any paper on her soggy.'
She spent a long moment willing Temari to step closer to Konan so that she could flash between the two and grab them at the same time. But that wasn't going to happen, Temari was a mid-to long range fighter. Of course she didn't want to get any closer.
Oh. Duh.
'If only I had a jutsu that allowed instantaneous travel so that I could come back for the person I initially leave behind,' Aiko mocked herself internally, shaking her wrist to loosen up the joints and gritting her jaw. 'Dumbfuck.' She flash-stepped immediately behind Konan and burnt a Hiraishin seal onto the back of her neck even as she tore the two of them away from Water Country and dropped them into a section of ocean that should be between Wave Country and Mist's island chain.
Konan sputtered, but regained her balance to stand on the water and darted forward to break free of Aiko's grip. Disappointing. She was going to have to be forced into the water instead of obligingly fall in out of surprise. Whatever her faults, Konan had excellent reaction time. And many small weapons falling out of her robe to hover oddly at her side and around her in a cloud that partially obscured the older woman, even as she looked around for her new opponent with a small line of confusion pressed between her eyes.
'Yes, paper. That's definitely paper coming out of her sleeves,' Aiko judged grimly. 'Kind of pretty though.'
She didn't care how pretty it was. She didn't want to be killed by thousands of papercuts. It was something like what she imagined working in an office would be like.
She spotted the exact instant that Konan seemed to notice the slight shimmer left by the chameleon genjutsu in the night air, which was frankly impressive. It was hard enough to see in daylight. Maybe she wasn't a total idiot.
"Jiraiya?" Konan sounded confused.
Aiko's jaw dropped in indignation at the same time the genjutsu did. "Did you seriously just mistake me for a fifty year old man?" She asked incredulously, placing a hand on her chest. She wasn't old! Konan was the old one. Who the hell was she to criticize Aiko?
"Uzumaki," Konan breathed, quirking her fingers delicately to direct the cloud of paper butterflies hovering in a cloud at her command.
"Yes, it's Uzumaki, you tacky idiot," she snapped irritably, tilting her hip out combatively. "Because I pity you and you're obviously as thick as you are blind, here's an economics lesson. Maybe if you bothered to spend ten dollars on waterproof mascara, you wouldn't look like a five dollar hooker. I doubt it though, since you're dumb enough to match your eyeshadow to your hair."
'And maybe if it were waterproof, it wouldn't run down your stupid face when I soak you. You stupid head.'
Konan looked confused, frankly, but Aiko didn't have time for her shit. She flickered back to the hotel (and had to reorient outside of Temari's room and let herself in sheepishly because she hadn't thought to plant a seal there) to grab her comrade. Temari was still blinking at her room, though she'd turned the light on and snatched up her fan to hug it protectively to her chest.
"We're going on a field trip," Aiko said grimly, grabbing Temari's arm and forcibly dragging her to the position where she'd left Konan. Perhaps she should have warned her comrade, because Temari yelped and sank down to her ankles before she reflexively adjusted to stand on the water.
'Well, I don't need two seals on her,' Aiko thought a bit vindictively, and yanked on the explosive she had first planted on Konan.
The Akatsuki gave out a tiny grunt, but didn't have the wherewithal to control the widening of her eyes when her hip suddenly decided that it wanted to spontaneously combust. It demonstrated that desire with a violent expulsion of chunks of flesh and a spatter of hot blood that arced out over the water. Konan jerked sideways, nearly dropping to her knee before she re-balanced.
Aiko was reluctantly impressed. Now that was adapting. It wasn't what she'd wanted, though: she had thought that Konan would lose concentration long enough to get soaked.
"Did your hip just go out?" Temari snarked, hefting her fan ominously and letting the first joint slide silently open. "I hear that's normal for the elderly. That's okay, I'm sure you can just stand and fight. You don't look like much of a runner anyway, grandmother time."
Konan heaved a jagged breath and cut her right arm across her torso violently without so much as a word, possibly because her teeth were still gritted shut. Aiko jerked away from the spray of paper that shot towards the two girls, but Temari stood her ground and flipped her fan all the way open in one smooth motion before viciously batting the projectiles back at Konan. Some flew past, some came to an abrupt halt, but some connected with the woman and melded into her clothing.
"Come on," Temari jeered, expression ugly. "You think you're going to hit either of us with something like that?"
The Akatsuki narrowed her eyes and flung both arms upward. It would have been a dramatic move if even she hadn't grown enormous white wings and shot straight upwards into the air.
"Okay, that might help," Temari acknowledged quietly, tilting her head slightly to the side as Konan partially dissolved up to her hips into thousands of sheets of colored paper, which apparently decided that now was an excellent time to fold into shuriken that glinted in a rather ominous way that implied they weren't regular paper. The sight momentarily took Aiko's breath away: what little she could see under moon and starlight, anyway. They hung in the air for a split second, alien and beautiful.
And then they weren't just floating on the breeze.
"Move!" Aiko half-shrieked, barreling her ally out of the way when they shot downwards. It was like trying to dodge raindrops—they were so thickly packed that they was no way to avoid the barrage without escaping the hundred-foot wide crowd. She flung her arms around Temari just as the first of the tiny blades came crashing down onto her head. She jerkily reoriented the two of them several hundred feet away to Konan's left, though unfortunately still in her range of vision since Konan had taken the high ground.
The next thing she registered was that blood was soaking her face. "Ow," Aiko said dumbly, running a hand up her head to pull out the half-dozen tiny blades sticking directly into her skull. Temari was wide-eyed but unharmed, having ducked while Aiko had moved horizontally. The only blood on her was Aiko's. Pain came a moment later.
"I think now would be a good time to test your theory that getting her wet would slow her down," Temari said a bit faintly. Aiko nodded, wiping blood out of her eyes as best as she could with the underside of her forearm.
"Good plan. Please tell me you have a kunai or something like that on you? Anything small."
Temari hurriedly hitched up her sleeping robe to her thigh and yanked a single short blade off a leg holster. "Make it count."
"I will," Aiko responded a bit grimly, pressing a Hiraishin seal onto it—and then throwing it directly downwards, into the ocean. She didn't wait to see Temari's (no doubt hilarious) reaction before she shot upwards to Konan and violently wrapped her hands around the woman's neck where her seal was and then instantly brought the two of them back down to the seal she had just thrown down into the freezing depths of the ocean.
'Ha. Water beats paper.'
Except the next thing she knew was that Konan had dissolved into razor sharp sheaves of paper under her grip and brutally sliced at all the flesh she found, scoring dozens of times on her fingers, hands, and up her arms. She had kicked away from the pain in the same instant, slightly before she could register the biting pain from hundreds of tiny cuts into her torso and shoulders.
'Water does not beat paper! Paper wins, paper wins!'Aiko thought somewhat frantically, and ricocheted back up to the surface to wrap her cold arms around her torso and put pressure on the worst of the bleeding.
That had all happened in less than two seconds. Temari's eyes were wide and aghast with just a little bit of fear, and Aiko knew that the Sand kunoichi had caught on to the same thing that she had even as she rushed to brace Aiko up.
They couldn't beat Konan.
"New plan," Temari huffed, jerking her fan up to shield them as paper shards shot out of the water and veered at the two kunoichi. She couldn't help grimacing at the ugly sounds of colliding metal. "We're not going to be able to kill her. Retreat?"
"I never retreat, but I think that we could advance in a backwards direction," Aiko shot back with a faint smile that didn't reach her eyes. "We can't leave her here, though. She's too close. She could come back to Mist within the day."
"How far away can you dump her off?," Temari asked grimly, arms shuddering under the force of holding up her weapon against Konan's paper spears that definitely were not paper.
Aiko shrugged helplessly. "The northern half of Wind country? But I don't think that's necessarily a good idea."
Temari gave an ugly bark of a laugh. "If that woman wanted to get through the borders, she would, so that wouldn't be the worst. But I think she's laying low for some reason. I bet that she'll go back home. Could you take her straight to Rain?"
"I don't want to go there, but… Grass?"
A single sheaf of paper fluttered innocently through the gap between Temari's fan and the surface of the water.
'Well, that can't be anything good.'
Aiko clung to her friend like a limpet and Hiraishin'd them a hundred feet away. It wasn't quite enough to escape the massive wave that erupted after what had apparently been an explosive tag snapped into fire on their old position. Both girls were slapped with a good hundred-something pounds of force and dragged into the salty water.
"Just get the bitch!" Temari forced out breathlessly, spitting sea water out and futilely trying to climb back up to the still agitated surface of the water. The next shockwave of water from the epicenter dragged them both back under.
'I can't. Not as long as she's in hundreds of pieces.'
Despairingly, Aiko kicked upwards towards the faint hint of moonlight she could see, feeling Temari struggling similarly at her side. She would Hiraishin up, but the seconds spent underwater were actually her best chance at an opportunity to think, as terrifying as that was.
What would make Konan reform? Well, the need to do something that she couldn't do as thousands of pieces of paper seemed to be a good bet.
That meant she needed to parse out what Konan could and couldn't do as paper. Clearly, she could kick their asses. But she couldn't take either of them captive, or talk to them.
So, what, pretend to be defeated? It wouldn't be much of a play. She was in very real danger of bleeding out if she didn't slow her heartbeat and get medical attention. Temari was fresh, though, having blocked or been out of the way of Konan's attacks so far.
Konan would probably make a move to capture them once they were incapacitated, but she didn't want to have to have Konan beat on Temari to that point to get her to make a move.
Temari seemed to clue in at the same time Aiko did, and her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Don't you da-"
Too late. Aiko carried Temari to her hotel room and the two collapsed with an ugly squelching thud on the carpeted floor, soaking and shuddering. Tsunade burst into the room an instant later.
"Tsunade, stop her-" Temari snapped out, but Aiko flash-stepped back wards and held her hands out, openly pleading for them to understand.
"I can't leave her there! She'll just come back and it'll be so much worse. She'll only make a move to become solid if she thinks she's won. That's the only way I'll be able to grab her and get her out. I'll let her think I'm being cocky and want to take her by myself so that she reforms once it's obvious she's won."
Bless her heart, Tsunade was both quick on the uptake and didn't ask stupid questions. "If you get any more beat up, you're going to lose consciousness, and you really might die or be taken captive," she warned grimly, moving to help Temari up off the floor. "Is whatever is going on worth that risk?"
"Yes, Hokage-sama," Aiko replied, relieved that Tsunade was willing to trust her judgment in a hurry. "Permission to re-engage target?"
"Yes, but Sabaku here is going to be explaining things," Tsunade gave Temari a warning glare. Aiko pulled a tired smile at the sight, letting it be the last thing she noted in the hotel. At least she didn't have to be the one to talk things out with Tsunade.
Back on the water, Aiko scanned the area for her opponent, cursing that the increased light in her hotel room had diminished her night vision again.
'Focus, just focus. I just need to draw her out into showing herself, grab her, and ditch her in the desert somewhere. Then I can go back to Tsunade and get medical attention.'
Harder than it sounded. The night was ominously still and silent. Apparently Konan had some genjutsu or something to help her hide as well. Maybe she'd just left. Maybe Aiko was too late and she was on her way back to Mist.
'My legs are shaking,' she noted distantly.
Funny. She didn't remember getting her legs injured. Still, her left knee wobbled precariously. It gave out when she was hit from behind. Aiko caught herself on her elbows and immediately scrambled forward, splashing as her focus wavered and she partially dipped below the water, struggling to get to her feet. That pretty well proved that Konan was here. She had to regain her feet and grab her—chakra chains if she had to, although Konan was likely to just dissolve around them and escape.
And then she knew nothing.
~~~
"She's not coming back tonight, is she," Temari asked quietly, staring down at the five small splotches of blood on the hotel carpet. They had waited for two hours, and the sun was beginning to warm them through the window.
Tsunade looked strangely pale. "I don't think she is," she agreed numbly. "I think it's time that we go seek out the Mizukage. I think that this counts as a kidnapping from her conference. We're going to have to go with a selective lie, however."
"What, don't want to tell anyone that Aiko's been marking everyone within arm's reach?" she asked tiredly, not really able to inject any venomous humor. Her friend was either dead or lost to Akatsuki.
'and it should have been me. If she hadn't followed Konan to my room, it would be me. My tessen is all but shot, and I only took a couple blows. I couldn't fight that woman at all.' Her face tensed, and she clenched her hands into fists at her side. 'I need to get stronger. A lot stronger. I couldn't even keep up with Aiko, and she got her ass handed to her. '
"No, I don't," Tsunade sighed. "That would be a diplomatic nightmare. New story is that your fight with Konan spilled out into the hall, Aiko heard and went to investigate. I followed out, but a second too late when Aiko took the two of you out of city limits to protect civilians from collateral damage. From there, we can tell the truth." Her gaze drifted to the floor and tightened, staring at the same drying blood stains Temari had been hovering over all night. "Lucky us, we even have some collaborating evidence that there was a fight, and everyone had a chance to see Aiko's skill set the day before, so they won't distrust that she would have reflexively used Hiraishin."
"Yeah, lucky," Temari repeated bitterly, moving to stand. "That's exactly how I feel."