There was something disconcertingly clinical about the way that Sai let his fingers trail over the lines of the seal on her chest, despite the fact that the slow glide of his fingertips sent shivers up her neck. Unconsciously, Aiko leaned into the touch—and then sighed when he drew his hand back proportionally to keep studying the new tattoo.
A bit grouchily, she settled back into her old position, seated on her bed with bent knees. When he sat at her side like that and leaned over her knees… Well, her thoughts didn't go to fuinjutsu, to say the least.
"Are you certain this is safe?"
Aiko picked his hand off and flopped back down onto the bed, fed up with his worrying. Easily, she dug her toes under the covers crumpled at the edge of the bed and watched with satisfaction as he snapped to attention, seemingly mesmerized at the way the movement made her breasts bounce. That was more like it. There was something off-putting about having a boy stare at you while in a bra in a way that implied he might have been thinking about making lunch. "Yes, Sai," she drawled. "Jiraiya-sama himself told me that leaving it was the best course of action for now. I'm not going to up and explode."
Sai frowned, (though whether it was because he didn't like the reminder that Jiraiya had seen her shirtless or that he wasn't convinced about the seal's safety remained to be seen) but let the topic slide. Instead, he stood to slip his own shirt off and neatly placed it at her bedside, piling his weaponry on top of it.
"You're spending the night?" Aiko confirmed, mildly surprised. He hardly ever did that. Not that it was a problem, of course, they were both adults and she could sleep alone.
Well, okay. A lot of the time she slept with Mitsuo and Hōseki. But she totally could sleep alone if she had to. It was just nicer to have a warm body.
Sai nodded and pulled the covers at the end of the bed up to stretch over her body before slipping in himself. "I leave on a mission tomorrow."
Aiko frowned and rolled onto her side, propping her jaw up with one hand and resting the other on his chest. She absentmindedly tangled their ankles together, as if in a subconscious effort to prevent him from leaving. "Again? I think I'm still stuck in the village." She was correct, of course.
The next day, Aiko found herself picking Fukiko up from school. It felt strangely maternal in a way that wasn't unpleasant, but made her a bit self-conscious. Luckily, taking the girl out to work on taijutsu erased that lingering sense of oddity.
It did bring up one depressing point, however. Fukiko had the initial Academy stances memorized, and a fair few of the kata, but she had no practice whatsoever in taking those lessons and turning it into martial arts that was useful for a fight. Not only did she completely lack an aggressive instinct, Fukiko faltered and let her carefully memorized stances slip whenever she was asked to use any respectable speed whatsoever.
That observation, which she had initially hoped was a passing phase, didn't fade in the practices that followed. Fukiko became faster and stronger through physical conditioning. She demonstrated an adequate grasp of both tactics and strategy. But her slow plod towards taijutsu competency showed no hint of gaining momentum.
Aiko was getting frustrated. She'd expected that she would have to polish Fukiko's taijutsu, of course. She had even planned to teach her the variations Kakashi had given her over the years, to enlarge the girl's repertoire. But at this rate, she'd be lucky to get Fukiko to respectable genin taijutsu in a couple of years. Fukiko was a sweet girl, but she'd much rather be out in the field than restricted to the village as a teacher and running messages between the kage. That part wouldn't change anytime soon, but she didn't see why the fact that she was the most logical option for passing information had to mean she was grounded in-village all the time. The whole unique aspect of Hiraishin was that the travel was instantaneous from anywhere—why the hell couldn't she go directly from a field posting on a quick trip to Konoha or wherever when she was needed, instead of sitting around all day?
~~~
"You're going to be leaving soon?" Aiko frowned, tossing a rock out onto the hot water.
'Why not, everyone else gets to,' she thought bitterly, but tried to keep that thought off her face. Being trapped in Konoha was driving her mad, and running messages hardly felt like a break. There was no stress relief in instantaneous travel to offices filled with jumpy bastards who tried to lop her head off half the time that she showed up. C might have been trying to assassinate her on purpose, to be fair, but Chojuro, Mei, and any other random asshole lurking in a kage's office who made a leap at her was really getting on her nerves. Gaara, at least, had never attempted to kill her on reflex when she showed up carting papers, which made Suna the least actively stressful place to go.
'But that doesn't matter right now,' Aiko tried to convince herself. She should take a distraction from those depressing thoughts when it was offered, as if by fate.
She'd come upon her godfather doing what he did best after leaving dinner with Ino, and approached him after he'd inevitably scared off all the bathers. Once he'd stopped pretending to quail at their wrath, he'd settled with her at the edge of the pool to dangle their feet in and talk.
"Yepp." Jiraiya crossed his arms and closed his eyes, looking uncharacteristically wise and solemn. "Tsunade-hime doesn't want me to go, but I need to see what's going on in Ame for myself. If Naruto can take shifts chasing Akatsuki, I think that I can go to the border."
She pressed her lips together tightly to hold in what she really thought about that. Naruto shouldn't be involved in those missions. And there was no need to risk Jiraiya.
'Not that there's much of a risk.' Fondly, she glanced up at her godfather. Akatsuki couldn't possibly have anyone who could challenge Jiraiya. Even Itachi and Kisame had fled from him. Still… "Can I give you a seal, then?" she asked. When he gave her an inquisitive look, she flushed a little and explained, "I'd feel better if I knew where you were, I suppose."
Jiraiya snorted and ruffled her hair. "I'm not one of your puppies to keep track of," he huffed, eyes crinkled in amusement. "I think that I can take care of myself, Aiko-chan. Thank you for the sentiment, but I'm a little too old to feel comfortable with the idea of giving a lovely young lady such as yourself the means to track me at any time. That would undermine my air of mystery, wouldn't it?"
His words were light-hearted, but there was some odd undertone in the words that made her drop the topic entirely.
He left the village before dawn the next day, which Aiko quickly regretted. Not for his company, really, though that was pleasant enough. Her sudden yearning for Jiraiya had more to do with the fact that for the first time in months, Aiko woke in the dead of the night to a white-masked figure standing at the foot of her bed.
She responded by throwing off her covers and rolling to the ground to avoid the expected blow, popping up into a defensive posture and-
"I apologize for the intrusion, Uzumaki-sama." The man knelt. "I feared contacting you in open air."
Dumbstruck, it was all Aiko could do not to stare. That was a ROOT uniform. He had to be here to kill her for selling them out… But he didn't seem to be hostile.
"What's going on?" she asked, voice portraying a calm she didn't feel.
The intruder didn't raise his head. "It was my mistake. This one did not immediately know what Danzo-sama had intended in the event of his passing. I only sensed that you had been gifted his mark when I passed you on the street."
It took a shamefully long moment to connect those dots. 'ROOT members can sense that I took Danzo's seal?' Unconsciously, Aiko let the fingers of her right hand rest against the seal hidden under her clothes. 'But how? I couldn't feel anything earlier… unless it's…' She swallowed, remembering something. 'The really horrible feeling I always got from Danzo?' Aiko half-questioned, already knowing that she was right. That was what this man had sensed. He'd made the connection between something he'd only felt in relation to one other person, and had been so desperate for orders that he had come to the conclusion that she had taken legitimate control of the organization.
Now that she mentioned it, she could feel Danzo's chakra lingering on this man… but it was faint. No. That wasn't right. It wasn't faint, she just wasn't noticing it because she had a large concentration of it on her chest constantly. It was like wearing perfume—eventually, the wearer couldn't smell it anymore.
"You are forgiven," Aiko settled, trying to come up with an idea. She had no plan for this. What use could she possibly have for ROOT? What would Tsunade want her to do? She couldn't tell him to come back once she'd asked Tsunade for help… though she could tell him to come back later. "What information do you have?"
The reply, when it came, was tentative. "Clarification, Uzumaki-sama?"
She let a hint of irritation into her tone. "Have you told any of your comrades what you have discovered? What do you know of Danzo's passing and what it means for us?"
As it turned out, he had told his one contact person, who had also had no idea that Danzo-sama had made contingency plans. The poor lost lambs had jumped at the possibility of following the person Danzo had supposedly entrusted with his legacy. And didn't that make her feel guilty? She'd known that his conditioned, brain-washed soldiers would be bereft after his death, but hadn't thought that it was her problem. But it was, as she found out when she took what she'd found out to Tsunade the next morning.
The Hokage had no idea how to deal with this, frankly. Telling them that Aiko had turned traitor (and therefore would not be giving them orders) would only set them on a warpath for her head—she hardly wanted to arrange the situation so that an unknown number of confused hostiles would be trying to assassinate Aiko. But letting them believe Aiko was carrying on Danzo's vision in opposition to Tsunade would either fall apart when they noticed that they had no missions, or inadvertently actually work against Tsunade's interests in an attempt to trick them.
Perhaps on an individual basis, they could be gauged for the possibility that they could be rehabilitated. But as a group… it would be obscenely dangerous to put out a blanket order for them to report to Tsunade or the hospital for counseling.
As a stop-gap measure, Aiko told the few ROOT who attempted to report to her in a trickle after the first man that they would going underground for now, and to wait a month for further orders. It meant that she wasn't sleeping well, however, even on the nights when no one came by.
~~~
"Again," Aiko clipped out professionally one practice considerably after Fukiko's spectacular lack of talent had come to light, trying to keep her irritation from showing. Fukiko seemed self-conscious enough without coming to the mistaken impression that she was doing something wrong. Well, she was, but she couldn't exactly be faulted for lack of natural ability. Eventually, Aiko grew frustrated enough that the lesson switched tracks, and she set the girl to meditation when she might have otherwise forced taijutsu practice. It might have helped Aiko to calm her mind as well.
'It was stupid to expect her to have natural taijutsu ability,' she criticized herself, pacing while the timid girl attempted to interact with her chakra. 'Just because Sasuke is talented… Well, there's no reason for that to have any bearing on Uchiha in general. Besides, he was trained practically as soon as he could walk. She's barely had any training, sickly as she's been.'
But Aiko had been naturally talented herself, benefitting from an adult mind to analyze and remember stances, and an exceptionally healthy, athletically inclined body from an excellent pedigree (as much as the thought made her feel like a dog).
'Maybe Fukiko just isn't going to be a taijutsu type,' Aiko mulled, biting at her lower lip. She'd still have to train the girl up to at least high-genin level, of course, but it might be a good idea not to invest too heavily in that discipline. Fukiko was prone to bodily infirmity, after all. Sasuke was a damn good medic, but if he hadn't been able to confidently drive out whatever illness she had, then remission was probably the best Aiko could hope for. It would be foolish to put all her hopes on Fukiko making it as a taijutsu specialist.
But what did that leave? Uchiha were traditionally front line fighters—elite ones too. If she ever attained the Sharingan, then Fukiko would have a possible affinity for genjutsu. That was one idea… if it weren't for the fact that Aiko's own skills in that area were patchwork at best. But Fukiko didn't have exceptional chakra control, nor did she have the impressive reserves that made a student an easy pick as a ninjutsu specialist.
'Well, I can only teach her what I know.' she thought. 'Fuinjutsu? She's a pretty smart kid, that could work out. Maybe she'll have a knack for traps. If so, I could get tips from Naruto.'
Aiko stilled. Now, there was an idea. It didn't have to be Naruto in particular, per se, but was there any reason she couldn't ask for advice from other outside sources? If her skill sets weren't optimally aligned with what Fukiko would need to become truly formidable, then she could work to attain those skills, or at least how to help Fukiko learn them.
Cheered, she collapsed into a seated position across from her adorable little student and tweaked her nose. With a gasp, Fukiko's eyes shot open and the girl jerked backwards, away from Aiko's smiling face.
'She really needs to work on her reflexes,' Aiko noted idly. 'Awareness of her surroundings will come with time, but staring at an enemy with big startled doe eyes is never the appropriate response.'
"Alright!" She clapped her hands lightly to draw attention back to what she was saying, and not whatever Fukiko was self-flagellating about now. "Tell me about your chakra core, Fukiko. How does it feel to you? To me, chakra is cool and tingles, but I know that a lot of people experience warmth. How is yours?"
After she had taken one sweaty little pre-genin home, Aiko set out in search of Jounin. Two Jounin in particular, actually. She ran into Kurenai before she found Gai. It would be dishonest to pretend that she was disappointed. She could postpone seeking out his help until hopefully she didn't need it any more. Maybe Fukiko would experience a sudden bout of athletic genius. Or competency—she'd settle for mediocrity.
Curious red eyes pinned Aiko when she politely made enough noise to draw attention to herself. Asuma and Kurenai had probably noticed her already, of course, but it was a bit uncouth to sneak around allies. "Hello, Aiko-chan," the older woman greeted calmly. Her fingers were laced in Asuma's hair, but she didn't jerk away from the obvious gesture of affection or look otherwise uncomfortable.
Asuma was sitting between her knees in front of the park bench Kurenai was seated on, worrying an unlit cigarette in his lips.
"Sorry for bothering you, Kurenai-san, Asuma-san," Aiko apologized, doing her best not to let on that she wanted to smile at the sight. They were a handsome couple. "I was hoping to get some advice on E and D level genjutsu. I'm trying to figure out how to teach Fukiko-chan, and her talents don't really line up with mine." Sheepishly, she fluffed up her hair, and wished that she'd run into Kurenai when she was on her own.
Her mild discomfort seemed to amuse Asuma, but Kurenai merely blinked it off. "You have a student already?" She arched one perfectly formed brow and shook her head slightly. "I can't imagine I can really tell you much about teaching genjutsu to someone with an affinity, since none of my students are so inclined. I would suggest that you try to get permission from Hokage-sama to look around the archives. There should be physical copies held there of all sorts of techniques. It's not traditional, but you're a smart girl. I'm sure that you can figure out low-level genjutsu yourself without a personal tutor, given adequate instructions and illustration." Her hand curled in her lap, tugging at her dress, and Kurenai gave an odd little smile before adding, "I'd offer personal assistance, but I'm going to be rather busy in the oncoming months. Feel free to come for me for help on a case-by-case basis if you get stuck, however."
Aiko just blinked for a moment. There were public domain jutsu records? Granted, she'd known that clans and shinobi families often kept some sort of physical records so that nothing was lost, but she hadn't realized that the village as a whole stored techniques.
'That's not completely true,' she realized, absentmindedly thanking Kurenai and turning away. 'Naruto was supposed to have stolen a scroll of kinjutsu to learn the shadow clones. I'd assumed that meant that it was a special, one of a kind type thing, but it could just have been the highest security of what is otherwise a mundane storage.'
It seemed to be her best bet. She didn't want to bother Kurenai for titchy little genjutsu. She was past the age and level of ability where it was acceptable for her to beg personal attention from a Jounin. It was normal for shinobi to get all their genjutsu and jutsu from their teacher or parents. If Kurenai never had another student, she would probably teach her arsenal to her children. Aiko fit neither of those categories, of course, so it was a bit rude to do more than give Kurenai opportunity to offer if she was so inclined.
This was better. Tsunade rolled her eyes, but obligingly let Aiko take one scroll at a time and read on the couch in her office. That proximity meant that she ended up flickering back and forth to Suna several times to pass frivolous messages and ask questions, but it was a small price to pay.
Aiko had a good memory, but not a perfect one. So as she flipped through the scrolls and books for possibilities, she took brief notes summarizing their functions and associated handsigns. A lot of it was above her level, of course, but that was expected. As far as casting genjutsu was concerned, she probably wasn't much better than Fukiko. She had a couple of blanket techniques that worked by preying on someone else's subconscious and flooding it with chakra, but that was hardly what she should be teaching to Fukiko, even if it was a viable solution. Complicated as desire and fear based genjutsu seemed to be, the ones Aiko relied on were terribly crude and reliant on the victim's ineptitude or desire to believe the vision was real.
The first technique that she marked as something to attempt to learn allowed her to tweak the victim's perception of color. It was a little thing, but would help as a basis for more complicated techniques. She learned that one the first day and had picked out the second she wanted to learn before Tsunade kicked her out of the office. Aiko was there when Tsunade made it to the office the next morning, holding a box of sweets aloft as apology and tribute. It seemed to do the trick—Tsunade let her continue that pattern for six days straight before she was thoroughly fed up with the company and constant experimentation in her office and booted Aiko out with the recommendation that she only show her face once a week from then on.
It was intensely relieving for Aiko to discover that Fukiko had more of a knack for genjutsu than hoped for, even without the Sharingan as an aid. Fukiko was obviously interested, and didn't complain about being told to perform chakra control exercises for a full hour alone before she headed to the Academy in order to make learning new techniques easier. She was a little more reluctant about being required to study brain chemistry and the anatomy of eyes in detail in order to facilitate tricking them and other sensing organs, but it had to be done. Oddly enough, it actually became a struggle to learn low-level genjutsu at enough speed to pass them on before Fukiko had finished the last assignment. She was restricted to single-sense genjutsu, of course, and nothing with a persuasive element like causing emotion or confusion, but it was impressive nonetheless.
Her taijutsu still sucked, though.
'One thing at a time,' Aiko told herself, trying to channel serenity and not crush Fukiko's little spirit by letting on that her teacher was absolutely baffled by her lack of ability. 'I can concentrate on one thing at a time. If I have her keep working on taijutsu, she's bound to get better eventually. In the meantime, she might actually make a genjutsu specialist yet.'
At the rate Fukiko's voracious genjutsu appetite demanded she keep researching techniques to keep her student occupied, Aiko might make a decent genjutsu user herself. She'd probably have no use for E and D ranked techniques in the kinds of fights she found herself in, but they'd make learning higher level genjutsu easier as Fukiko progressed.
Of course, gains in one part of her life seemed to correspond to struggles in another.
"What are you planning on doing with ROOT?"
Aiko blinked, lowering her chopsticks and swirling them around her soup instead of answering immediately. Sai was paying even less attention to his lunch, which was a bit strange, since he'd picked the place. She only now theorized that it was as part of an insidious plot to arrange the correct conditions for a conversation. Tricky boy.
"I don't have a plan," she admitted with a shrug. And wasn't that depressing? "I wish Jiraiya hadn't left so soon. Tsunade doesn't know what to do."
Sai seemed spectacularly unamused by that response. "What does that matter? I asked what you intended, not the Hokage."
Stunned by the implications of that, Aiko raised an eyebrow. "Ouch, Sai," she mumbled, setting aside her uneaten lunch and turning to face him entirely. "Why is it my responsibility?"
Displeased, he intentionally contorted his face into a slight frown. She took a moment to wonder if he'd been practicing. "When you save a life, it becomes your responsibility," he said finally. "The Hokage does not understand."
'Survivor's guilt of a sort, for people that Danzo hurt?' Aiko theorized, trying to pick out clues in his posture and coming up blank. 'Maybe he feels like he should be helping the other ROOT trainees to function outside?' It wasn't as though he had time to take care of them himself, even if he had the means to do it. He'd been kept obscenely busy, probably in an effort to keep him out of trouble and allow him to work professionally with a large amount of people. If Tsunade was trying to improve his social competency, it was working. He did a far better impression of normality than he had before.
It was hardly fair for him to put that on her workload, though. She couldn't be responsible for keeping his conscience happy as well.
He didn't like that answer much, though. She didn't see him for days after that.
~~~
'Kami, what fools these mortals be,' Madara mocked internally as the man who called himself a god deigned to communicate with his subordinates. Pein was pretentious and weak.
Obito wouldn't call the man weak, per se, but he couldn't help but note that Pein was overly dramatic. Sometimes it was funny. Like now, as Pein darkly informed his organization via projection that they were to return to Ame to protect the village and borders from encroaching dangers brought by four of the five great shinobi nations. He took himself far too seriously. The alliance was more interested in hounding Akatsuki than invading Ame—it would have been more sensible to keep them apart for now.
Mocking Pein was a temporary amusement at best for both Obito and Madara. Neither of them was paying the false god all that much attention. The future had much more appeal than the present.
Tobi, however, was listening patiently with an eager posture that all but begged to be either kicked or given a pat on the head. He was such a good boy, after all.
Not like the other Akatsuki. Hidan and Kisame were both very bad boys for failing in their duties. Not only had Kisame let Tobi's friend go, but Hidan hadn't been able to stop her from taking the captured jinchuuriki with her.
Even as Madara had cursed that the brat had set back his plans, Obito and Tobi had understood. She was a good girl who wanted to help others. A very good girl, who had risked herself to help bad shinobi she didn't even know, shinobi who weren't even her friends. Perversely, he found himself hoping she was alright. She must be a very sweet, gentle girl. And she had been so nice to Tobi! The others yelled at Tobi and called him names. They thought that he didn't understand, but he did. But Aiko-chan had actually played with him, and talked to him about Hidan-san's feelings. What a nice girl, to be interested in someone she didn't even know.
'She reminds me of Rin,' Obito thought morosely, once more reminded of his grand purpose. Sweet, gentle Rin, who had suffered so much in this dark world.
Really, the similarities were uncanny. For all the he'd expected to dislike the girl when all he knew was that she was Bakashi's apprentice, Aiko was most well known for sparing her opponents. That didn't sound like Bakashi's influence at all. Kakashi had murdered Rin, after all. What would he care about turning a little girl into a killer?
'He'll probably get Aiko-chan killed too,' Tobi sniffled, already picturing her with a sizzling hole through her chest. Obito knew Kakashi's clenched fist would be coated in her blood, bits of her heart caught under blunt fingernails. He could remember the slow collapse as she realized what had happened far too late, no medical jutsu could help her and he'd just watched, he'd just watched.
It was the innocent who suffered most in this imperfect world, Obito knew. Madara, the outside Madara, had taught him that well. The Madara that resonated in his mind was just as critical as that Madara had been, however. That voice scoffed.
'You may as well assume the girl is your precious Rin's reincarnation at this rate,' he criticized idly.
Obito stilled, even as Tobi moved through the motions of applauding whatever Pein was talking about. The statement had been a jab, but it rang with truth. Was it really possible that Rin had been reincarnated so soon? It would have been so like her to become flesh again as Minato-sensei's daughter. He'd been like her father. And the timeline fit. Aiko-chan had been born so soon after Rin had died. She'd come back to Konoha, even though he hadn't. Had she known how bereft he was of her presence and tried to find him by being reborn as another Konoha kunoichi? That must be why he'd never been able to forget her and why the pain had never dulled. They were connected on an intrinsic level. He'd somehow known she'd lingered and he would never be happy until they were together again.
It was the only explanation, he realized. These things repeated, and that was why such a good girl was with Kakashi. But that was terrible: Rin was under Kakashi's dubious care again. He was going to get her killed, if he didn't do it himself. Kakashi couldn't be blamed, of course, he was an imperfect product of an imperfect world. Already twisted and stained. But Rin wasn't. Rin was pure, and good, and needed to be protected. Rin was Obito's friend. Aiko was Tobi's friend. Aiko had been kind to Tobi when no one else had, just like Rin had always been kind to Obito. She was just that kind of person, regardless of the body she wore. And how could he hold that change of flesh against her? His own flesh was warped and hideous. Only Rin would be able to love him like this, but she shouldn't have to. She deserved a perfect world. Rin deserved a perfect man.
'You'll have Rin once you finish the Eye of the Moon plan,' Madara reminded him firmly. 'There is no use in chasing this idea.'
He could tell that Madara thought this was a distraction from his true purpose. That wasn't right; he wouldn't allow it to be, because of course the plan was still important. With the Eye of the Moon plan completed, he would have Rin again and they would all be together.
But that didn't mean she should suffer in this world as well. If he knew about this and let it hurt her again, he'd be trash.
Obito stirred, feeling a new resolve to take interest in the outside instead of slipping behind Tobi and Madara. He could do this one thing for her. He'd do anything for Rin, after all, no matter how transitory and stop-gap. She had to be protected. Konoha wouldn't do it, Konoha sent Rin out to fight when she wasn't meant to; she was loving and gentle and not a killer, never a killer. Her hands weren't stained with blood like his were.
As filthy as his hands were, perhaps they could be of some small use in this still. The bad must be punished and forgiven, and the innocent helped. He could keep Rin safe.
'No,' Madara warned. 'Do not kill any of the Akatsuki yet. They still serve a purpose, even defanged as they are by the failure of Pein's first strategy.'
But Kisame had risked Rin. He'd let her go back to people who might harm her again.
'Irrelevant,' came the dismissal. An uncharacteristic anger was already welling up in Obito when his ancestor pacified, 'Kisame has caused no permanent damage. His error was one of ignorance, not malicious intent. He is our best and most loyal supporter, and he showed your teammate kindness while she was in his care.'
That was true. Kisame had been a good boy after all, hadn't he?
Well, there were other ways to help Rin. She would be sad if he hurt her friend Kisame, so it was really for the best that Obito didn't have to have Madara kill the shark-man.
Madara sighed. 'If you insist, I will talk to Pein about leaving on a trip alone,' he gave in. 'We have nothing to fear in Konoha. That's where the girl will be found. If it will make us happy, we can remove Rin from Kakashi's dubious custody.'
No, Obito responded, firmly pushing his mentor's voice down. He could do this on his own.
~~~
"Hey, shithead," Hidan grunted conversationally, tossing a rock through Kisame's shimmering form. Either the insult or the projectile caught his attention, and the Mist nukenin turned an unimpressed eye on the Jashinist. Hidan just grinned and indicated the cloaked and masked figure that also shimmered to Kisame's left. "The fuck did you do to the retard? He's been looking at you like he loves you."
Hidan was a jackass, but he wasn't completely wrong, Kisame noted. Tobi was indeed fixating with an unusual intensity on his person.
The kid had been running hot and cold in regards to Kisame for a while now—ever since little red had escaped. The little idiot probably thought she really was his friend or something and was sad that she'd hightailed it out of there. Kisame didn't have the patience to pacify Tobi. He'd barely managed to divert Pein's irritation after that goddamn fiasco.
It probably hadn't helped that he'd had a hard time not laughing about it, once he realized that she'd even told him she was about to escape. The kid hadn't even been able to stand up properly for kami's sake. There she'd sat, in clothes twice her size with dark circles under her eyes from sleep deprivation, and calmly thanked him for breakfast before she blew through their defenses, proving that Pein and Konan had both been completely remiss in information gathering.
Kisame didn't blame himself in the slightest. He'd followed his orders to perfection, and had Pein been correct, there would have been no opportunity for her to escape his custody. The leader hadn't seen it that way, of course. The leader was perfect, at least in his own mind, so it had to have been Kisame's fault. He tried not to scoff, concentrating on the real issue and not the fact that the puppet leader of Akatsuki was fooling himself.
More to the point, she'd taken proof back to Konoha in the form of two jinchuuriki that had persuaded many of the shinobi nations to stand against Akatsuki and Ame.
They had been prepared for outsiders to declare themselves Akatsuki's enemies. Ame, however, was not ready for such an assault. The civilians and the actual hidden village who depended on Pein and Konan for guidance would never be able hold the borders on their own. Which was, of course, why Pein was recalling all of them from their current missions to protect the country while Akatsuki licked their wounds. There was something bitter about being called to protect someone else's country after being forced to part ways with his own, Kisame noted.
His attention was drawn sharply back to the conversation when Pein seemed to lift his head and stare off into the distance.
Konan stepped forward and put a hand on his arm. "Pein-sama, allow me to take care of the intruders," she murmured, as the rest of Akatsuki actually demonstrated interest in what was going on.
Pein shook his head just once and disentangled his arm. "No, tenshi. I will handle this personally." With that said, he cursorily dismissed the group and faded out of sight. Kisame was almost regretful that he was too far away to join in on whatever fight had been unfortunate enough to stumble Pein's way.
His mind trailed back to the kunoichi who had complicated his life by escaping on his watch and getting Pein angry with him. For such a small thing, little red had put a surprising dent in Akatsuki's plans by virtue of making it all but impossible to capture and keep jinchuuriki. If she had one of her tags on them, Akatsuki now knew, she would be able to travel to them and probably escape nearly instantaneously to the safety of Konoha. That made it more useful to either capture jinchuuriki she'd never touched, or remove her from the equation first.
There were obvious ways to deal with that, of course, both of which centered around neutralizing the plausibility of her apparent plan to steal away any jinchuuriki they gathered. The simplest way would be to kill her. It could be done. She was fast, but that was her strongest trait, and her perception and reaction time still paled in comparison to Itachi's. Especially for a kunoichi who was little more than a child, she was highly formidable in the areas where she was strong. But conversely, her weak points were almost tragically exploitable. If she could be kept from fleeing, she could easily be killed by a fighter of Akatsuki caliber. Kisame himself knew how he would do it. Even with her speed, it would just be a waiting game. She was inexperienced, and would make the first mistake. He'd only need one mistake to finish the game, and her ability to dance away from blows wouldn't matter then.
Simple, yes. Killing her would be the most obvious way to keep her from ruining their plans, but perhaps not the easiest or more practical. Really, what they needed to do was prevent her from using her Hiraishin against them. That could be part of a plan to kill her, but it could also stand independently. If they could force a confrontation in such a way that retreat was not an option, she would never again trouble their cause. That could be done by somehow neutralizing her Hiraishin, or by ensuring that she had no safe place to travel to. Perhaps it would be simpler to raze Konoha than it would be to trick that flitting kunoichi into staying still long enough to be caught in a glass jar.
Shame, Kisame sighed, beginning the trudge back to Ame. Little red wasn't a bad kid. Reckless and possibly stupid, but not a bad kid. Perhaps she was even charming, if he was honest with himself.
Didn't matter. She was standing in the way of a world without lies. That goal trumped any other concerns, even if he would prefer the least damaging method of neutralizing her so that Akatsuki could collect the rest of the bijuu.
~~~
"Damn that slug bitch," Oonoki growled, bringing a tiny fist to bear against his desk. The motion lacked any real anger, thankfully, so the blow had no visible affect.
"It's unbelievable that four of the five great nations are allies in this," Kurotsuchi observed with a frown. "Perhaps there is something legitimate to this fear of an Akatsuki."
Oonoki snorted at his granddaughter and gave her a thoroughly unimpressed look. "Little idiot! Something isn't true just because everyone else thinks it is." He settled back into his chair with a grumble. Kurotsuchi sneered silently at him, but didn't talk back this time. Eventually, he broke the silence. "And you say that the Mizukage seemed genuine in her alliance with Konoha?"
"Yes," she sighed. They'd gone over this how many times now? Dutifully, she listed off the evidence. "The Hokage and Mizukage spent much time in conference, and the Mizukage referred to the Hokage's attendant most familiarly."
The Tsuchikage snorted. "Yes, the Uzumaki whore," he sardonically countered. "Who we supposedly have to thank for the Raikage losing his senses and agreeing to treat with Konoha. What a fool, to be swayed because Konoha returned a kunoichi that they probably stole in the first place!"
His granddaughter merely rolled her eyes. She'd heard variations on this theme since she had first reported to him, but he still had yet to compose a plan of action for dealing with the threat. The current situation absolutely could not be allowed to stand, after all.
Three great nations locked in alliance had been horrifying enough. Now that all but Iwa were united, the danger that they would turn their greedy gaze north was high. The alliance was supposedly merely in regards to this criminal organization hunting jinchuuriki, but Oonoki had seen enough political shenanigans in his day to know that afterwards, relations would be warmer than they had ever been between those four nations if all went as planned.
And why wouldn't it go as planned? This was an idiotic witch-hunt for less than a dozen shinobi. The military prowess of one nation after their heads should have been enough.
He had no sympathy for their plights. It served Kumo right to have the criminals they'd hired for their dirty work turn on them, and so far Kumo had been the only ones to suffer. The other nations were witless worms, moving to prevent an incredibly vague and unlikely future danger because their jinchuuriki were weak and inadequate. Iwa could keep their jinchuuriki safe without joining this fool's errand. Han was safely within the village, and Roshi could protect himself in the highly unlikely event he was found.
Helping in this quest held no appeal and no benefit for Iwa, aside from the possibility that groveling now would keep the alliance from turning on them later. But stone did not bend to fear. No, their purposes would be much better served by chipping away at the foundations of the relationships that kept four of the great nations in a tentative truce.
Oonoki did not wish to provoke war, of course. Iwa was the strongest of the great villages, but only the worst kind of man sought that kind of violence for his people. But surely there was a way to restore the old equilibrium of uneasy coexistence between the great nations without toppling it into chaos.
He just didn't know how to do it. The obvious answer was to trick them into breaking their alliance, of course, but who was the weak link?
He might have thought Kumo, as the last to enter the alliance, would be the easiest to manipulate into leaving it, but Kumo was also the only nation who had really suffered against Akatsuki. The Raikage would not be swayed from what he saw as his chance for revenge for his brother, as well as a chance to regain the strength brought by the eight-tailed bijuu.
Suna had not lost a jinchuuriki, but they were led by one. Sabaku no Gaara had been attacked by Akatsuki, and reputably saved by Konoha's assistance. They would not be easily convinced to leave the alliance. Losing their Kazekage and sole jinchuuriki was far too devastating a possibility for them not to agree to at least a token participation in Konoha's witch-hunt.
Mist probably had the most to fear from Akatsuki and the most to gain from that alliance. Oonoki had yet to meet the new Mizukage, but he knew enough not to expect her to be easily bent to his will. He hoped that Kurotsuchi's report about the personal nature of her relationship with Konoha was inaccurate, but wasn't about to hold his breath. The Mizukage had much to gain from friendship with Konoha. Her one jinchuuriki was almost certainly the weakest in existence, so they needed the protection. And Konoha had provided the seal master who had given them back that strength in the first place. If Terumi Mei was anything less than an idiot, she would be hoping to gain that seal master for herself, of course. But barring that, she would want to remain on good terms with Konoha so that when her renegade jinchuuriki was captured, she would be allowed to take back the beast he held and given assistance in creating a more pliable container.
That left Konoha, of course, the originator of the alliance. Most probably, Akatsuki was a shade for their own goals. Oonoki wasn't yet convinced that they had no desire for the bijuu, but even if they didn't, they still stood to gain. They were gathering allies and creating relationships with other nations that would be difficult to break, making it very unlikely that war would be sustainable between those friendly powers any time soon. They would never be persuaded to leave the alliance, not by any device he could muster.
All the same, they were the backbone, Oonoki mused. And there was more than one way to cut a gem. If the other nations were to lose faith in Konoha, the alliance would probably completely fall apart. Even if Mist, Suna, and Kumo agreed to work together without Konoha, the danger was still significantly lessened. Konoha was Iwa's ancient enemy: without the slug bitch at the helm, who would stir up malcontent against his nation?
The only question left was how to do it. Konoha was stronger than they had been in many years, and they had never been weak enough that Oonoki had felt comfortable crushing them to completely eliminate the threat they raised against his people. After having been inactive for well over a decade, it had finally come out that Konoha once again had the power of the nine-tails, and it had been hidden in the twice-damned spawn of the fourth Hokage and his generation's Uzumaki whore. For all intents and purposes, it seemed that the whelp was replacing his mother, and the whore standing in for her father. And what hero did Iwa have?
Oonoki sighed tiredly, feeling every inch his age, though he would never admit it. It didn't seem to have been that long ago when the yellow flash and bloody habanera had terrorized his forces. Even if neither brat was truly equal to their parents, Konoha was still formidable. They had two sannin, Sharingan no Kakashi, that damnable taijutsu beast, and Sarutobi Asuma. With their respectable numbers, large clans, and intimidating force of high level shinobi, it would be foolish to enter a direct conflict with even just Konoha, barring the fact that they would probably be dragging along their alliance with them to war.
Direct military intervention was out of the question, an absolute last resort that would result in pyrrhic victory at best. That left the possibility of covert operations to turn all others from Konoha.
Easier said than done. It would have to be something truly horrendous, and they didn't have any evidence that would suffice. That meant they needed to gather information so that they could at least frame Konoha convincingly.
Something with Orochimaru, perhaps? He was supposedly dead, but they were still at least partially liable for his activities, Oonoki mused. Had it really been half a year ago that one of Orochimaru's former slaves had come to him offering technology and a wealth of information in exchange for instatement into Iwa's forces?
That mission had presumably failed. None of the shinobi sent to investigate his claims had returned. Oonoki had seen no point in sending more to die in whatever ambush had caught four Chuunin level shinobi for so little guarantee of gain. But perhaps now, it was time to try again, he mused. Their informant had provided a fair bit of information. Assuming that he had ever intended to keep his word, then that information should still be valid, and the informant had merely been either an idiot or led the team into an unlucky encounter. The truth of the matter could be ferreted out easily enough.
Thus decided, Oonoki snapped at his granddaughter to prepare her team for a mission, and settled in to scribble out the parameters before turning his mind to what else needed to be done. There was a good potential that this mission would turn up nothing of use, so he could hardly bank all his hopes on it. Perhaps he should be sending an information gathering team directly into Fire Country… The Kamizuru clan would be a good choice. Their insects were remarkable tools for covert operations, being able to travels dozens of miles from their partner and then return without fail. No one but a damned Aburame would know the difference between a trained insect and one that merely happened to perch near interesting conversations.
The Kamizuru would enjoy the opportunity, he knew, so he wrote that up as a possible course of action as well. He'd already asked their assistance for that possibility months ago, and had hoped to send the caravan providing famine relief back to Konoha with their insects. Of course, Konoha had just happened to send an Aburame with the group, ruining that plan and...
Oonoki purposefully changed tracks. That line of contemplation had been unproductive. He needed a delicate balance between subtlety and gathering as much as possible, since he had no idea what Konoha might be blamed for.
War-mongering was always a good standby, as was profiteering. Perhaps he should be looking to set Konoha against Fire Country nobility instead? It was indirect, but the other nations would quietly back away from association in order to calm their own legions of fat idiots who filled the villages' coffers by funding missions.
Accusing them of bloodline theft or espionage was a reliable possibility, of course. They were known as the village that was most invested in bloodlines, so others were wary of them for fear of having their soldiers lured away. But thinking of Orochimaru and the fact that Konoha was headed by a medic of all the things brought up another interesting idea. No one would disbelieve that Konoha had the ability to conduct kidnapping and unethical human experimentations that might give them an edge. If the taint on Konoha's reputation left by Orochimaru could be utilized, it would be highly effective to convince the other three major villages that fire country was after their children as test subjects, or was creating a test-tube army they couldn't fight. Fear of unusual abilities was known to cause all sorts of outlash—like the recent kerfuffle in Mist over bloodline users, or when Uzushiogakure had been destroyed for fear that the chakra sensing bastards would use fuinjutsu that could not be countered.
So the Tsuchikage sat and thought, discarding and piling possibilities in a silent seated position with his hands folded in front of him, outwardly peaceful but inwardly fuming with a century's accumulation of distaste for Konoha.