Jan. 11, 10:10
Konoha market district
Subject: green dress, hair down
Still no Minato…
Such drearily lonely and lazy times… Kushina, normally so full of life and energy when she went out, slumped her way through the marketplace, shoulders falling with the weight of her grocery bags under a cloud of misery spared just for her. It was practically visible to all who saw her dragging herself through the dirt roads. The normally-terrifying woman now garnered looks of pity and woe from her fellow villagers. Some women sympathized that a young newlywed should not be so long alone, and the men contemplated giving her company, but of course thought better of it. Beauty, she might have been, but also dangerous… like some plant or something copier is trying to remember, but can't…
No fun at all. Jiraiya had come and gone the night after drinking, his pursuit of novel inspiration greater than the need of company for a chatterbox like Kushina. She missed him now too.
She stopped in place, standing like some gloomy wraith at the bridge leading from the market. The canal waters moved smoothly and quietly beneath her, but in this ominous silence, the waves could be heard and birds miles away sounded like a Chidori overhead! The bags almost dropped in her slacking grasp, and her knees caved inward. And that was when the long hair came away from her face so that she could wail skyward in her solitude: "I'M SO BORED, TEBANE!" She droned and collapsed in the heap of wifely chores she had become. What had happened to the adventurous, mischievous shinobi she used to be? Married, sure, but without her beloved with her, it just felt monotonous. Aside from Minato and Jiraiya, what friends did she have? Who could she call on? That stuck-up Mebuki and her somewhat amusing if not annoying husband? That Inuzuka whose temper and alpha attitude warded away all sorts of company? Or…
"Kushina-san."
The redhead's eyes flashed open, and she looked up to see the stunning beauty of Uchiha Mikoto. Kushina gawked for a moment. The Uchiha were the pride of Konoha, and Mikoto was perhaps the most stunning of them all, though she did little to flaunt it, sticking herself at home after her firstborn and living the typical mother's life. Kushina both envied and dreaded what Mikoto had turned into a lifestyle. A mother, ya know! A stay-at-home shut-in, ya know…
Mikoto, despite the odd way she found her friend, bowed slightly to offer her hand, a warm smile on her lovely face. "Lonely without Minato-san, right?"
Kushina laughed meekly, rubbing the back of her head. "I suppose I shouldn't have anything to complain about, right? Your husband leaves for months at a time." She took the offered help and brought herself up quickly.
"Yes, it can be difficult without a man around," Mikoto admitted, though she did not seem like the time apart mattered much to her. "I sometimes with I had a man who stuck around."
"That's why you had Itachi-chan," Kushina joked, and Mikoto seemed surprised by the mention of her son, and then smiled and agreed. "Ahh~, Itachi-chan! How is he?" Kushina, of course, had heard of the youngest Uchiha, a boy who was showing even more promise than Minato's own student, Hatake Kakashi.
Mikoto offered some details about Itachi, but she was vague. Must've been tuckered out, chasing after a boy who absorbed knowledge faster than it could be taught. "It's a bit of a chore," she said with a smile, "But it makes the breaks very rewarding. In fact, would you like to come with me to the hot springs tonight?" As Kushina's attitude suddenly switched, she closed her eyes and cocked her head to the right ever so slightly, shining with a smile. "I think you'd do well with company."
Kushina blinked several times. Best friends, no doubt they were, but it was rare to be invited places by her; Mikoto was always so busy with her clan and family, and to face facts, it didn't reflect well on the Uchiha to deal with a stray from the lost Uzumaki clan. Slowly, the corners of her gaping mouth began to lift, and before a moment, she had on her happiest smile.
"Sure, tebane!"
Mikoto smiled just as happily, if not more so.
Jan. 11, 20:34
Konoha's outdoor hot springs
Subject: towel (Special Note: NOTHING ELSE~!)
The sky was veiled by the transparent trailers of steam that almost camouflaged the starlight. Kushina stargazed for a while as Mikoto, for whatever reason, was held up in the changing room. The moment they had arrived, in a flash, before her companion could even see her, Kushina had stripped bare like a shedding cicada and was in the water at once. Now she was up to her chin, relaxing as wisps of scarlet drifted about her. No one else was here, and that just made it all the more comfortable to be her brash self.
Her eyebrows then furrowed, and she cast an impatient glare back at the changing room. "Mikoto! Hurry up, tebane!"
The door slid open in response, and Mikoto walked out. On her face was a strange pout that altered noticeably to a look of awe when her eyes went on Kushina. Was that a blush on her face? Kushina had to quirk an eyebrow at that.
"Well? What are you waiting for?" She gestured for Mikoto to sit with her.
"Uh, right!" Mikoto did not have her serene composure when she spoke, and again, Kushina was left wondering. Mikoto stared down at her when she was at the water's edge, as if expecting something. Kushina stared right back, carefully holding her towel in place as she waited for the two of them to sit back and relax. With a sigh like defeat, Mikoto went into the water.
Kushina, normally so bright and bubbly at the hot springs, felt unsettled by Mikoto's attitude. She looked at her friend, but Mikoto looked forward as if determined not to look anywhere but the other side of the pond. Her posture was unusually stiff, without the ease of nobility.
The silence was, to say the least, uncomfortable. Mikoto wasn't chatty by any means, but this just felt weird to Kushina. A few times, the Uchiha looked at her, eyes noticeably sizing her up. Did the towel Kushina have wrapped around her torso offend her? Should she take it off as a way to express that neither of them should feel uncomfortable?
Not like she had a problem sitting naked in a bathhouse! Giggling to herself, Kushina stood up, a heavy wash of water spilling from her and her soaked towel. The stiffness of Mikoto was gone when she looked up at her red-haired friend, that familiar blush returning to her cheeks as she gawked up at the beauty.
"Mikoto…"
"Eh?"
"NICE TRY!"
A straight that would make the Raikage's son envious! And it landed right in Mikoto's left cheek. Her composed, beautiful features turned into a mess of slobber and K. eyes that jabbed from their sockets. Nothing of her beauty or dignity remained in the moment Kushina's fist crashed against her.
It seemed like such a betrayal of their friendship until a plume of smoke erased Mikoto and replaced her with a towel-clad Jiraiya. He sputtered in slow-motion under the weight of Kushina's drive until his head bounced off the cobblestone floor behind him.
Jan. 11, 20:50
"Sorry, sorry. But you can't blame a hermit for honing his craft," said Jiraiya, now that he and Kushina sat on opposite sides of a boulder, effectively blocking his view of her.
"Hmph!" Kushina puffed out her cheeks like a pouty child and turned her nose up at his excuses. "Perverted craft," she inputted for him. "You'll earn the name Ero-Sennin before long."
"Kushina-chan can be so cold sometimes," she heard the old man whine, bringing a slight smile to her face. Pervert or not, he could play the charming part very well. But sometimes, his charm and goofiness masked his cleverness. "You better not be making a Kage Bunshin to peep on this side, tebane!"
"Aww~, Kushina-chan~" The white head peeked up over the rock, and Jiraiya gave a broad smile down at Kushina as he boldly leaned over the rock, folding his arms to rest his chin on. Despite the obvious danger of this move, he looked relaxed. "My peeping technique is never done secondhand; I need to see it with my own eyes."
A rock flew at his head, and with his forehead protector removed, it would cause quite a lot of pain. He ducked in the nick of time and watched the airborne stone fly harmlessly overhead. "Scary, scary! I forgot who I was talking to for a moment. The Red-Hot Habanero shouldn't be teased, huh?"
Lies! He knew exactly what he was doing, though he didn't get a glimpse of anything important. But that didn't mean it was a wasted risk. Kushina narrowed her gaze against the drifting steam. Everything had turned quiet, like someone holding their breath in anticipation. With skills of observation honed in her years as a ninja, she scanned the pond. What was Jiraiya-sensei plotting?
A movement in the water from the corner of her eye, just barely audible…
"Jiraiya-sensei…"
"Hmm?" The old hermit sounded nonchalant.
"You said that you wouldn't let your Kage Bunshin peep for you?"
"Nope! I must respect the art of the peeping, or I can never master it!"
"Then the real you…" She took a stone and gripped it in her fist. "…is HERE!" Kushina struck, sure and suddenly, her fist plowing through the water with such force that it broke like a cloud around a missile, revealing the underwater hermit with a bamboo straw in his mouth. No time to dodge, he was hit fantastically hard! Once, he'd peeped on Tsunade and wound up in a hospital with broken ribs, arms and legs, and all sorts of other injuries to remind him of his peeping failure. This punch would surely be one for him to remember and compare with Tsunade's.
But for the fact that he was… a Shadow Clone that poofed out of existence when her fist drilled into his cheek. Her eyes went wide.
A feint!
Then the real one…!
Her towel was slipping, the weight of the water in it and the fierce movements of her arms undoing the fold. The hem drooped, and she couldn't catch it in time. Her breasts were coming into full view just as Jiraiya popped his head over the boulder. He'd get his eyeful and then some! She'd be logged away as just another success of his undefeatable Peeping Technique!
He'd used his earlier 'blunder' to distract her from the swap of real and fake! Luckily, though, she had still had the stone on hand and threw it with certain marksmanship right between his lecherous eyes. Bull's-eye! But a cloud of smoke revealed the truth. A third layer to the trap, and hands empty, her towel had sunk to her feet. Her nakedness was there for Jiraiya to claim, and she could hear him cackling. But where…?
"Kukukuku~! It seems this round is won, Kushina!" His voice was all-encompassing; no set point of origin for her to look in! She tried to cover herself, but from whatever vantage point he was at, he'd get enough. Just where had he gone?
Then the truth came as he announced the technique: "Hentai no Jutsu! The Toad's Throne!" The entire boulder shifted, and Kushina could hardly believe the truth. With no use of Chakra at all, Jiraiya had fashioned a cloak to look exactly like a boulder! How had she not noticed before? And how patient was he to have been waiting here all this time for this chance?!
She was taken aback by the power of his Pervert Jutsu! There was no time to cover up decently, no way for her to punch through the flourishing cloak as the towel-clad hermit unveiled himself!
There was only one thing she could do…
That technique!
Forming a seal with the hope of a prayer, she tried to make it in time, grunting as her Chakra flashed with a cloudy burst.
Jiraiya laughed triumphantly as the boulder cloak flew behind him. His eyes were like fat, upside-down 'U's as he prepared to feast his eyes on her for the first time. "Now, Kushina-chan! Let us see…!" He froze when the blade sunk through his heart…
…
… The blade of disappointment! For when he set his hungry eyes on Kushina and devoured the sight, it was like he'd just ingested a bucket of sludge. Where there should have been full, perky breasts hung flabby, brown-spotted udders; where there should have been lean trim and youthful tightness, skin sagged with more blemishes; and where there should have been a patch of red meadow above the most sacred crevice for man, there drooped a sad, wagging old wiener, complete with a pendulous set of nuts.
Where Kushina once stood now moped his former teacher Sarutobi Hiruzen; a comical version of him with fat fish lips and dead eyes. And for Jiraiya to see in full naked glory. With his pasty white eyes, he gave a lifeless smile and lifted two fingers in victory. "Anti-Jiraiya no Jutsu: Sarutobi-sensei."
As if dealt a blow just as lethal as anything Tsunade ever dished out, Jiraiya flew back and crashed down, unconscious while foam bubbled up from his mouth. Even when Kushina changed back, giggling uncontrollably at the turnaround while still naked, he did not stir.
He would lie there until morning, when he would find a note left on his chest, sporting a self-portrait doodle of Kushina, holding up her 'V' again (this time, as herself) with a taunting heart fluttering overhead. And the paper read Better luck next time, tebane!
Peeping Log:
FAIL!
