"How do I look?" Tsunade pursed her lips and readjusted her robes one more time in an attempt to achieve perfectly symmetrical hems.
With his tightly crossed arms, Sasuke looked like he very much wanted to be anywhere else and in anything other than his sleek red kimono, but Aiko gave the Hokage an assessing look.
"That hat swallows up your face," Aiko critiqued, making a face and turning away from the dossiers she had been organizing for the office lady to put back. "The draping fabric makes your shoulders enormously boxy. Two of ten, I would not wear."
Sasuke gave her a narrow-eyed expression that implied she was plumbing new depths of stupidity.
"But you really pull it off, of course," Aiko added insincerely. "It's just anyone else that would look like a total bag in it." She gave the Hokage a simpering, dull-eyed smile.
Tsunade's red nails glinted when she curled a hand up into a fist. "Thank you." She adjusted the ceremonial headgear a centimeter and brushed off a wrinkle in the fabric.
'Before I met her, I didn't know that 'dangerously polite' was a thing,' Aiko mused absently.
"You're welcome."
The Hokage drew in a long, calming breath. "How long?"
"Two minutes," Shizune piped up from the door, as impeccably dressed as her fellow apprentice. The stressed expression that she was giving to the watch on her wrist only tarnished the effect a little. "I'll set off the lights thirty seconds til your entrance." She fidgeted with her sleeves, shaking them down over her hands. "Are you ready, Tsunade-sama?"
"Oh, yes," the woman confirmed, checking her makeup from all angles in a hand mirror. "Not that it matters. No one is going to like this."
"That's why it's important to do it perfectly," Shizune fussed.
Aiko took her eyes off the two women in time to see Sasuke start mouthing along with Shizune's words, face still impassive.
"You have to impress the importance of an alliance with Ame, despite the recent feelings of hostility engendered by Pein." Shizune's fingers tightened around her sleeves. Sasuke was still mimicking her speech. For some reason, Aiko suspected that this was not the first time she had given it to Tsunade. "Remember to be sensitive to the lower income civilians who are still in public housing. And the shinobi who were retired from service after-"
She cut herself off at quiet beeping from her wrist.
"Oh dear." Shizune rushed out to the balcony doors and bent to flip a tiny switch attached to black wires. The view through the translucent window was instantly darkened. The ambient noise from the crowd outside faded to nearly nothing in anticipation.
At a frantic gesture from Shizune, Aiko obediently stepped far to the side so she wouldn't be visible when they threw open the doors. Tsunade's back seemed to straighten and she oriented herself in position to fling open the balcony. Shizune stepped two paces behind her mentor on the right side while Sasuke visibly rocketed up three notches on the 'grumpy teenager' spectrum and mirrored her position on the left.
"Showtime," Tsunade said quietly. There was a tiny clicking that Aiko couldn't identify, and then a pure, bright light spotlighted the three from behind just as the Hokage opened the balcony and stepped out to raucous cheering.
'Show time is right,' Aiko huffed. 'What a drama queen.'
She definitely was not jealous of the Hokage's swagger. Nope. A little resentfully, she skirted the edges of visibility below and plopped down into Tsunade's seat. After a moment of thought, she propped her feet up on the desk and surveyed her domain from the position of ultimate authority.
"Citizens of Konoha!" Tsunade bellowed outside. The crowd went wild.
Aiko studiously ignored the three lonely blue folders sitting on the side table by the couch. Tsunade did have a good view of the entire office. Granted, the plant forest wasn't usually squashed against the wall, but they didn't often need the balcony.
"It is my privilege and duty to act in the interests of this great nation."
'I think I like this.'
She scraped her heel against the desk top, pushing an ugly knick-knack to the ground. She didn't expect it to shatter. Aiko shot a guilty look towards the open balcony. She couldn't see Tsunade from this angle, but she could hear her quite clearly. Aiko would be able to even without the sound system and carefully managed acoustics set up. Could Tsunade have heard that breaking?
"You are all well aware, I am sure, about the international meeting scheduled in two weeks' time for the trial and possible sentencing of Ame no Konan as a potential war criminal."
The cheers that statement roused were disconcertingly cheerful, considering that Tsunade was working her way to telling them that Konoha did not want a conviction. Aiko suppressed a snort.
'Good luck with that. I should bounce.'
She did not look at the wreckage of whatever bauble she had broken in the interests of plausible deniability.
'For purely considerate reasons, I should be gone before Tsunade finishes. She'll probably want to have a talk with her apprentices and I'll just be in the way,' Aiko convinced herself. She edged around the walls, careful to remain out of sight.
She paused at the couch that was her usual seat, guiltily noticing once again that she had dossiers left to read. Her avoidance looked even more blatant than usual, considering that she had finished the last yellow folder about half an hour ago.
She still wasn't allowed to take those dossiers out of the office. They were highly sensitive information. It would be suspicious for her to be caught reading about people she supposedly knew. And it was just plain rude to wander off with someone else's property, even if they hadn't explicitly asked you not to.
Aiko tucked the folders under her arm and pushed out of the office.
'I'll live with myself somehow. This is not the most reprehensible thing I have done.'
Actually, Tsunade should be grateful. She was going to read them. Aiko was doing the Hokage a favor, valiantly pushing through all the stupid prep work to argue her stupid cause at trial for some stupid woman who was totally guilty.
Aiko wasn't stupid. She'd read enough to see that Ame no Konan had very little legal defense for that whole kidnapping thing. Her best hope was arguing that she had been caught up in forces beyond her control.
'And fuck, it would rankle to argue that you deserve mercy because you couldn't get out from under someone's thumb. I wouldn't make that case. I might rather be executed than remembered in such a humiliating fashion.'
Perhaps Aiko shuddered at that thought precisely because she was guilty of that exact same pathetic floundering under Obito's control?
She stewed in that as she crept out of the deserted Hokage tower. It was impossible to avoid getting caught up in the outskirts of the mob listening to Tsunade go on about the spirit of international cooperation and goal of long term peace, but she kept her head down and pushed her way free as quickly as possible, eliciting only a few indignant mutters of, "Watch it! Where do you think you're going?"
Although that wasn't a half-bad question. Shizune's apartment wasn't a terribly inspired place to go to avoid Shizune. Aiko paused a few blocks away from the crush of people to contemplate her problem.
'I could go sit in a bar and read,' she reasoned. 'Just be alone around people. It's late enough that it'll get busy after Tsunade is done. That could be nice.'
Of course, this would be the first time that she'd gone out alone in Konoha. The thought made her frown a little bit and miss her usual companion for eating out.
Not that she needed Yamato to pay for her food, of course. Apparently she had a couple active bank accounts and even received a stipend while she was in training to re-join Konoha's military.
'Do I need identification to drink here?' Aiko wondered, letting her feet take her towards what her explorations had revealed as the seedier side of town. She hadn't before, but then, Konoha was a shinobi village. They tended to be much more observant of legal technicalities than backwards towns in the exact center of nowhere.
Nah. She was way past the drinking age. If it was necessary, she was certain that she could bully a bartender into serving her.
The first bar she saw…
"Covert Schnapps," Aiko read, disbelieving. "Newly Renovated: Now With Ceiling." Really?
'It's probably not actually where Konoha's black operation workers get drunk. Right?' she reasoned.
When she pushed her way in, the bar was nearly deserted. A woman with a prosthetic hand and some rather becoming facial scarring was carefully arranging a liquor display while a person with seriously impressive tattoos on their bare shoulders scrawled out a special drink menu for the night.
Aiko read over what was completed, and tried not to laugh.
'You can get something called an Ame nin served dry, and a Suna border rookie with candied beetles. How is that a thing? People eat candied beetles?'
It didn't appear that anyone was ready to take orders, so she settled into a booth to wait. It would probably be a good idea to at least start reading before she got hammered. Right?
Right.
She sucked on her lower lip and carefully spread out her three dossiers. The covers held no meaning, much as they hadn't when she'd stared at them over the last three days.
'I just need to go for it,' Aiko thought, screwing her forehead up in determination. 'Any one will do. Like ripping sutures out. It'll be much easier after I have started.'
Still she did not move.
'Oh for the love of-' mildly disgusted with her cowardice, Aiko closed her eyes and slapped a hand down on a folder. She pushed the other two off to the side and settled in to read her randomly selected dossier.
Her mouth went dry.
'Oh my fucking kami, that hair.' She had to stare at the identification photo of a young woman with the most stunning red hair she had ever seen. It was almost painfully vivid even in a photograph. And it matched her eyes.
The woman herself was wearing an unimpressed expression and a crisp white doctor's coat, hanging open down her chest. Underneath appeared to be a purple top that displayed collarbones, but nothing scandalous.
'I might be okay with my relatives. This woman appears to be on point.'
Aiko shifted back in her seat, throwing her left arm over the back of the booth and stretching her legs out under the table. She would have propped them up on the opposite seat if her legs were long enough. As it was, she pulled the folder upright and began reading with genuine interest.
Oh, this was that poisons technician whose research Shizune was so enamored with. Maybe Shizune had a crush? Uzumaki Karin was definitely worth a broken heart or two.
'She came from Grass?'
The fact that the Sandaime Hokage had blatantly stolen an allied nation's nin when he noticed her at a Chuunin examination made Aiko laugh out loud. What a fabulously shameless troll.
A moment later, she sobered to realize that Grass was now a deadzone. Holy shit. If he hadn't done that, Karin would be dead. That'd suck. She looked pretty cool.
'She must be, if I let her live in my house and vouched for her.' Aiko pressed her lips together and inhaled through her nose. 'Either that or family was just a big thing for me.'
Karin had been a training partner of sorts, though they had apparently shared no missions. Well. She had been a low-rank shinobi with a skill set that wasn't suited for the field. Until her apprenticeship with the former apprentice of the snake sannin along with another girl-
Another Uzumaki? Her eyebrows shot up. Sometimes the second girl was written with a redacted surname, and sometimes as Uzumaki Hinata. Curious, she abandoned Karin's file and peeked inside another.
The face she saw wasn't Naruto's, so she felt safe in assuming it was the right girl.
'She doesn't look much like Karin or Naruto,' Aiko thought dubiously. Something was a little odd there. 'Maybe she married in? Is she Karin's wife?' Reluctantly, she let the dossier fall shut to finish reading Karin's. Nope, there was no mention of Karin getting hitched. How else did Hinata end up with a legal name change?
"Sorry about the wait." A woman about Aiko's size with a perky smile and a series of black tattoos winding around her thin arms slid a bowl of mixed nuts onto the table. "Can I start you off with anything? We have a few new items on the menu." She pushed a lock of pin-straight brown hair behind her neck.
"Yeah, I saw." Aiko slapped her dossier shut and slid it away, scanning her memory. "I want… Was there something called a Black Clover?"
"Yepp!"
"I want that and a glass of water," she decided. It was a little morbid to name a drink after a poison, perhaps, but she was curious.
"Sounds great. I'll just need to see your identification, since you're not wearing your hitai-ite." The waitress pulled a straw out of her black apron and settled it on the table.
Ugh.
Aiko frowned. "I really don't think that's necessary." She raised an eyebrow, and milked her aggressive posture for all that it was worth. "I'm well over the drinking age." That was visibly apparent. She was a little short, sure, but what fucking thirteen year old looked like she did?
"Ah-" The waitress looked uncertainly toward the kitchen. "I'm sorry, miss, but since I don't know that you're above the age of fourteen-"
There was a snort from a nearby table. Aiko involuntarily glanced over to see a man with a senbon waggling in the corner of his mouth. "I know her." He gave Aiko a once-over that wasn't entirely friendly. The Chuunin he was sitting with gave her a confused look at well. After a moment, her eyes widened in apparent recognition.
"Shiranai-san?" The waitress prompted, glancing between the two Jounin whose postures had become just a little bit too aggressive for her comfort.
Aiko held his stare, a little confused but confident. She didn't know why this man had a beef with her, but she was more than willing to take it outside if he felt like starting something.
After a moment, Shiranai broke eye contact and leaned back in his chair. "She's nineteen," he vouched begrudgingly, and far too loudly considering how close he was. "Don't you recognize the Yondaime's first kid?"
The waitress dropped her notepad. Heads swiveled in the closest booths.
"But I heard she was dead," someone asked in a tone that she probably wasn't meant to hear. Aiko winced at the sudden attention.
'That absolute shit. He did that on purpose.'
Shiranai smiled ever-so-slightly at the disbelieving look she gave him, but no one else was paying him much attention.
"I- I'm sorry." The woman bent to pick up her lost notebook, but didn't entirely lose eye contact. "I didn't realize-"
"It's fine." Aiko reassured with all the kindness she could muster through her irritation. Admittedly, it wasn't much. "Just get me my drink, please."
The waitress gave her one last searching look, seeming to survey her features for some mysterious resemblance. "Of course. It'll be just a minute." Professionalism recovered, she pushed back to the counter. That would have been much more convincing if she hadn't immediately leaned over to confide something into her coworker's ear.
Aiko suppressed a groan and glared at her table neighbors. The Chuunin gave her a friendly nod, but her male companion seemed pleased with her irritation.
"You're welcome." His grin was slick. Then he dismissed her, turning back to his companion. "Now, what were you saying about your sister?"
Moody about being stared at and uncomfortable with being publically identified in connection with a famous father she had never known, Aiko readjusted so that both elbows were on the table and pulled out her next file. Uzumaki Hinata.
A second look didn't make her look any more like what Aiko thought an Uzumaki should be. Hinata had the smooth, moon-shaped features of a traditional beauty and long dark hair with a glossy sheen. Aiko, Karin, and Naruto had all at least shared pointed, foxy facial structure and bright coloring. Certainly none of them had that kind of healthy, pettable shine in their hair.
She leaned back, giving the picture another skeptical examination. It didn't change- a pretty young woman in a purple dress with her hitai-ite around her neck and a mark on her forehead. Aiko squinted, but couldn't quite make out the details in the little photo. It looked oddly like a seal. Something like what Tsunade and Sasuke wore on their foreheads, perhaps?
Oh. Apparently not. Aiko winced when she got to the part about her former classmate being passed over for her sister after a disastrous showing in the Chuunin exams against the Kazekage.
"Here's your drink."
Aiko blindly reached towards the light clink of glass setting on the table, grasping something cold. "Thank you."
'That seems shitty of her family. He was obviously not really a genin if he became kage so soon after that examination. He couldn't have been more than sixteen when he became Kazekage.'
Was that what had made Sasuke's Chuunin exams so disastrous? If he was Naruto's teammate, he could be close to Naruto's family.
Aiko frowned, noticing something. 'It seems odd that I've read what seems to have been the files for almost every team in that Chuunin exam. Hinata filled out the reconnaissance team with the Aburame and dog nin. If Karin was a Grass-nin, she can't have been the kunoichi filling out Naruto and Sasuke's team. I suppose I assumed it must have been Hinata by process of elimination. Pity I didn't get to read Sasuke's file. I might have found out more about his team.'
Well. Naruto's file would probably have answers there as well. She cast it an uncertain glance, longing to know mixing with trepidation. Jinchuuriki were dangerous. Then again, so was she.
She took a tentative taste of her drink –pleasingly tart- and went back to reading. She nearly dropped the folder in surprise. She'd adopted Hinata? What an odd thing to do. Then again, perhaps they had been on good terms, considering Hinata's address also changed to be the one that Aiko had apparently shared with Karin. The reading was absorbing enough that she hardly noticed finishing her first drink, or when it was replaced with another.
Like Karin and pretty much every other Konoha nin Aiko had read about, they had shared no missions. Hinata had apparently been pretty occupied with splitting her time between her original team and her training under Mitarashi Anko.
"Do you have a minute?"
It took a moment to come back to the real world enough to respond. By that time, the interloper had made himself comfortable. "Excuse you!" Aiko snapped. She slapped the dossier shut.
The man who had slid into the seat across from her gave a surprisingly sheepish expression. "Ano, sorry to intrude, but I was wondering if you would be adverse to answering a few questions?"
What.
She gave him a once-over. Ame nin, male, early twenties. He wore the same goggles as the Ame nin that had eyed her the other day- a teammate, perhaps?
"What do you want?" Aiko asked ungracefully. She didn't like being interrupted.
"My teammate mentioned that you remind him of someone we haven't seen in a while," he started carefully.
Her neck prickled.
This Ame nin was giving her hair the same creepily intense examination that his buddy had. But he was also reaching out with his chakra and-
Aiko stood abruptly, muscles tight with tension. There was a slight sway in her calves that told her she had been drinking faster than was perhaps advisable before a fight. And what the fuck else could he be angling for after probing her chakra signature? He was trying to get a read on her. That was hostile, aggressive, intrusive.
But the Ame nin threw his hands up innocently, palms out. The gesture was undermined by the creepily euphoric grin on his face and the marveling stare he was giving her eyes. It was enough that Aiko self-consciously checked to ensure that she hadn't activated the Rinnegan or Sharingan. Nope. Just black eyes.
"Don't worry," he said very quietly. "I won't say anything. We were just so-" he faltered. "Not that we actually believed you could be dead," the Ame nin backtracked, manic speed flipping his otherwise charming voice into something unnerving and nervously deferent.
Her stomach seemed to fall out of her body entirely, leaving only a swooping feeling in its absence. Her fingers were cold.
'He knows something.'
The Ame nin was far too thrilled to see her. She could think of absolutely no positive reason for Ame nin to recognize or care about her. The man fidgeted, scarred fingers shaking on the table with adrenaline. His eyes were positively manic. "It's just- seeing and believing are-"
'What kind of people was I involved with? Would Tsunade know what's going on if I asked? Or if this Obito's work? Is he coming for me?'
"Hey, leave her alone!" someone bit out.
The grin slid off the Ame nin's face when he looked up and realized that he was getting dark stares from the restaurant in general.
Aiko certainly did not need any help dealing with this man. He was a Chuunin. She could kill him. Maybe she should. But with this audience?
'Not a tactically sound choice. And now that we have an audience, I'll be a suspect for anything that happens to him. Depending on what he's talking about, getting rid of him might still be worth the risk of an interrogation later.'
Of course, that was contingent on whatever he knew ending with him. That hope was already a lost cause- his teammate had shared whatever suspicion he had. The death of one Ame nin in Konoha would be a diplomatic incident even if they never proved anything; but the death of two would probably mean war.
She chose to take a step back, a defensive movement that stressed the visual contrast between his bulky, equipment peppered outline contrast with her lithe and obviously unarmed body. If that didn't summon protective instincts from anyone who was already agitated in the crowd, nothing would.
The shinobi the waitress had called Shiranai was giving the Ame nin a black stare that seemed out of place, considering his earlier hostility. His pretty companion had been replaced by-
'Oh dear. That's the Konoha nin that I killed. Maybe that's why Shiranai is disgruntled with me?'
Aiko gave her one-time victim a mildly queasy smile. His returning expression was filled with surprisingly tolerant amusement.
'What in the actual fuck?'
She squirmed, a tingle traveling up her neck.
'If anyone is holding a grudge about that, it should probably be him.'
"I think you should go." A chair scraped. Aiko startled at the soft arm that rested on her right shoulder, soon joined by a face propped on her left. The woman's free hand danced down Aiko's hip, fingers digging in possessively- or was it protectively? "This just isn't your scene, Ame-nin." Warm breath drifted over Aiko's neck, carrying with it a scent that wasn't entirely pleasant. Something about this woman was dangerous, hard and sliding and dry as scales. Aiko itched to duck away- or worse, relax into the disconcertingly sensual hold.
'At the moment, she appears to be on my side,' Aiko told herself to excuse her inaction. It definitely wasn't that there was anything pleasurable about the chest pressed against her back- an interesting juxtaposition of softness covered in what could only be a ridged metal leaving criss-cross patterns in Aiko's shoulderblades.
Surrounded in a bar full of Konoha nin who weren't feeling particularly partial to his country, the man swallowed slowly. His dark eyes darted around. "Maybe it isn't," he agreed slowly. A hand played with his goggles- a nervous habit? "I'll leave, then."
Aiko could feel a cheek stretch against her neck when the unfamiliar woman smiled. "Lovely!" she chirped. Somehow, it sounded dangerous. "Have a good night. I hope you're enjoying Konoha's hospitality."
There was something very pointed about that statement that flew over Aiko's head with a soft whooshing sound.
The Ame nin walked out with as much dignity as he could manage. After a moment, the unfamiliar kunoichi drew back, formidable presence seeming to fade into nonchalance.
"What a terrible bore," she muttered.
Aiko nearly choked on a laugh and twisted around. "Pardon?"
The stranger wasn't much taller than Aiko- a kunoichi with a heart-shaped face, choppy purple hair, and generous assets. Wow. Wow-wow-wow.
"My face is up here."
At the snapped fingers, Aiko jerked her eyes up and looked innocent.
All she received was a snort. "Yeah, you can't fucking fool me." The one-handed shove she received nearly pushed Aiko into her seat again. "You." The other woman scowled. "You just drop off the map for a fucking year and give me that dopey ass look? I thought you were fucking dead, you ratchet skank."
'She's so grumpy,' Aiko marveled. 'Holy shit. She's amazing.'
Feeling like she had just been run over by a team of horses, Aiko opened her mouth to give some polite deflection that danced around the fact that she didn't recognize the other woman. Instead, "I think I love you," popped out.
The other woman stared for just a moment and burst out laughing. "Goddamnit." This time, she gave a moderately friendly punch to Aiko's ribcage. Which, ow? "Don't make me laugh when I'm chewing you out."
"No, go on," a male voice called. The woman scowled and instantly oriented on the offender, a blue-haired man with a scar over his face. He grinned. "Anko-chan has an admirer. It's cute."
'Anko? The Mitarashi Anko who taught Karin and Hinata, perhaps?'
That could explain how they knew each other, but their association seemed to go beyond that of acquaintances. This woman acted much more familiarly.
"I have tons of fucking admirers, shitstain!" Anko barked. "S'not novel. The only thing that's cute around here is how hard you're trying to schmooze on that poor man there. Don't you understand the concept of leagues? He's not in yours."
The man flushed, reply cut off by hoots and laughs.
He wasn't going to get a chance to respond. Anko wrapped a hand around Aiko's arm and tugged violently. "You have some 'splaining to do."
It was a phenomenally bad idea to leave a bar with a stranger, just because they were hellishly attractive and seemed to know her. Aiko couldn't possibly be that asinine.
"Just a sec-" Aiko pulled her arm away and lunged to sweep up her dossiers. It would be pretty awkward to explain losing them to Tsunade. Anko gave the folders a knowing look, but didn't comment when she bodily hauled Aiko out of the smoke into the night. They made it a good block before anyone spoke.
"So," Aiko started, injecting false confidence into her tone and forcing down a shiver at the wind. "If I said I was sorry-"
"I would tell you that you aren't sorry enough yet." Mitarashi wheeled around and hip-checked Aiko against the face of the building they had been passing. She caged Aiko in with her arms in the same movement, scowling and sharing alcohol-tinted breath.
She had just enough time to think, 'This woman is handsy,' before she was being glared down.
"What is your game?" Anko leaned her head in. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you didn't bite it. But I thought we were close enough that you'd do me the courtesy of letting me know you hadn't ended up face down in a ditch." Her face twisted- this close, Aiko thought she sensed pain behind the anger. "Or do you just show up now when we have fuckin' Ame nin infesting the village?" She paused for a second. When she spoke again, her tone was just a little raspy. "I thought you were dead," Anko repeated, eyes distant.
The vulnerability there struck Aiko dumb. "I-" She cleared her throat and glanced down. From her perspective, that meant her chin was nearly touching Anko's cleavage. Aiko hurriedly made eye contact again. "I don't know what to say," she said honestly.
Her chest was hurting with something that felt suspiciously like guilt. But that was bullshit. She couldn't possibly have been expected to make things right with this woman after Obito had spirited her away.
'She was looking for me.'
Aiko's mouth was dry.
'While I was settling in with Obito, this woman was looking for me.'
She'd known that she must have had loved ones- family and friends- but it hadn't really hit her. But this was real. Anko had hurt. She might still be hurting. Hurting like Aiko was hurting after finding out that Obito had used her.
"You don't know what to say," Anko repeated, disbelieving. She drew back in a snap, seeming to coil into herself. "I see," she said stiffly. "I overestimated your regard for me. I won't-"
"That's not it!"
The words surprised Aiko as much as they seemed to surprise Anko. The older woman raised an eyebrow, waiting.
'What am I going to tell her? The Hokage told me to lay low. We're going to lie in court. I shouldn't tell anyone that Tsunade hasn't approved.'
Then again, it was her story to tell. Not Tsunade's. Aiko straightened her back and made a decision.
"It's a long story," she said. "Or, more accurately, one that shouldn't be told in public. Your place?"
Anko's place turned out to be a traditional home in a shocking state of disrepair. Aiko pressed her lips together tight and withheld comment. Anko kicked off her shoes with enough force that one flew into the door with a thud and slid into the house proper. She didn't glance behind her as Aiko stepped out of her own shoes. There was a horrible, chest-shaking clatter when Anko swept a pile of clutter off of the kitchen counter to free up room.
"I'm going to make some fucking tea," Anko called, sounding proud.
"Thank you?" Aiko tried, running a hand over her hair. She tripped into the front room, carefully avoiding debris. Empty boxes of mixed chocolates? At least it appeared to be the good stuff.
"Yeah, you better thank me." Something scraped ominously. There were a few beats of silence. "Actually, I have some booze." Anko came out holding two clear bottles and giving the kitchen a guilty expression.
Aiko chose not to think about that and silently accepted the bottle she was offered.
"So." Anko bounced when she landed on the couch and flung her legs up. "You better have a story, bitch." She frowned, disturbed. "Last thing I remember that day was that fucker snapping my neck." She waved her bottle. "When I wake up, your skinny prude of a captain said he remembered you fucking blowing your fool ass up-" She leaned over and slapped Aiko upside the head with delicacy at odds with her fierce expression. "And then!" Anko waved her free hand jerkily. "And then you're just not there. No one says anything, even when I ask." She stopped talking and unscrewed her bottle to take a thoroughly unladylike swig.
That seemed like a good idea. Aiko imitated the motion, forcing herself not to cough at the hard liquor burning down her throat. She gasped and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth.
'This is nothing like a mixed drink.'
She could only put it off so long.
"I don't remember any of that," Aiko admitted. She nearly collapsed on the floor, sliding her legs under the kotatsu. "I mean that so literally. In fact, I knew that Nagato killed me somehow, but you just gave me more information than anyone else has. Some things make more sense now." She cupped her hands together and mimed an explosion by wiggling her free hand and moving the bottle out in the opposite direction. "An explosion could explain a little…" Aiko trailed off, and tapped her free hand against her head.
Anko's face was screwed up in uneasy anticipation.
It seemed like a good time to take another large drink, so she did. "Screwiness," Aiko decided wryly. She rested her drink on the table with a loud clink. "Nagato fucking sucked," she stressed. "He didn't bring me back how he meant to." She paused. "Or maybe he just didn't care," Aiko grudgingly allowed. "However it happened, all the pieces didn't get fit back together right. Body's fine," she admitted, and let the omission speak for itself.
Something like horror was dawning on Anko's face.
"So…" Anko's fingers tightened around her bottle. "Did you retire? A psych retire? A lot of people thought that," she added unnecessarily, voice speeding up so that her words bumped into each other. "That whatever happened to you made you retire and take off. You, Sandaime-sama, and the Sannin were the only ones who managed to kill any of those fuckers. You bet your ass that people were looking for you."
The darkness of her tone dissuaded any interest Aiko might have had in a follow-up question.
"Did I get a psych retire? Not… exactly," Aiko fidgeted. Maybe she should have. She took another pull, now immune to the itching in her throat from the liquor. She just felt warm. "Although I nearly retired from Konoha on accident." She pulled at her hair with her free hand, tugging out her ponytail.
"On accident?" Anko repeated slowly.
"Yepp." Aiko smiled bitterly. "I may have been slightly kidnapped by an Akatsuki out of the hospital."
Anko carefully put her drink between her knees and balanced her face in her palms.
"That about sums it up," Aiko agreed politely. "No idea how he knew to come by, but he did." She shrugged, despite the fact that the other woman wasn't looking. "I just recently got back to Konoha. Figured out that I'd been played and got in a fight with him. Hatake's team came by just in time to scrape me off the ground."
Anko's head shot up and she gave Aiko an odd expression. "Hatake?" she repeated, stressing the name strangely. She gave a low laugh, shaking her head. "Holy fucking shitcakes, I think you're telling the truth. A year ago, that would have been 'Kakashi-shishou'." She batted her eyelashes in a way that was truly sickening.
Aiko recoiled.
"It's true!" Anko nearly tipped over her bottle in her enthusiasm, which was a pretty good clue that she was well on her way to inebriation. "You had the hots for teacher for the longest fucking time, I swear on my tits."
Aiko could physically feel the blood draining out of her face as the true horror of just how embarrassing that was dawned on her. She swallowed. "Was it obvious?" she asked gingerly.
Unmerciful, Anko nodded. "Of course it fucking was." She paused, and begrudgingly added, "It was cute though. No one would hold it against you. You were just a kid." Her face shifted, gaze turning sharp. She gave Aiko a once-over. "You're not anymore," Anko said slowly. Her eyes appeared to be lingering on the curve of Aiko's exposed shoulder.
Suddenly the room was hot. She pushed her bangs off of her face just to have something to do with her hands. Then she realized they were sweating and clenched them.
"Pffft." Anko flopped back, the intensity of the previous moment gone. "That's enough feelings talk. I'm starting to feel all vulnerable and shit." The toothy grin she bestowed invited Aiko to share in the joke, but Aiko didn't feel like laughing.
Anko really was vulnerable. That was okay. Acting like she was too tough was- well, it was probably a coping mechanism. But it was still sad.
She forced out a smile, but didn't feel it.
Her companion must have sensed that, because she frowned. "Hey, knock it the fuck off." She waggled her eyebrows. "I'm done talking. Let's just get drunk and pretend the television is fascinating, alright?"
Aiko cracked a real smile. "Yeah," she agreed. She did have a lot left in her bottle.
She woke up the next morning with her right arm asleep and the fingers of her left tangled in the mesh over Anko's stomach. Her head was resting in what appeared to be the curve of Anko's armpit. The same dangerous, scaly scent that had put Aiko off last night lingered there along with faint body odor. Glamorous.
Aiko grimaced, withdrawing. Her head was pounding, but she could cope. The pain was roughly equivalent to the headaches that centered behind her eyes. She somehow managed to survey her surroundings. She was still in Anko's home, but the older woman appeared to have slumped off the couch and onto the floor sometime in the night in search of a warm body like a freaking lizard or something. The bottles were abandoned on top of the kotatsu- one empty, and one still slowly dripping sticky liquid onto the floor. The tv was displaying only static.
'At least we're both fully clothed,' Aiko told herself, and definitely did not feel let down in the slightest about that. Sheepishly, she ran a hand through her puffy bedhead. It immediately caught on a tangle. Hm. Should probably do something about that.
Anko yawned and stretched, nails scratching the floor. She did not open her eyes.
"Hey, I think I need to go." Aiko looked around for her hair tie, and then gave it up as a bad job. If anyone asked, she'd say 'messy' was the new look. The dossiers clung to her sweaty skin when she tucked them under her arm.
'I need a shower. I smell like I bathed in booze.'
"Fine," Anko grouched. "Leave me here to die." She rolled over and tucked her arms over her head.
Aiko tried not to laugh, because that would probably hurt. "Will do." She hastily pulled on her boots- and then had to try again, blinking gummily in mild surprise about mis-identifying her right shoe. Huh. She paused with a hand on the door knob. "See you later?"
If anyone asked, Aiko would forever deny the slightest hint of vulnerability in that question. She wasn't the one who needed someone to talk to. That had been Anko.
"Yeah." Anko forced herself into a seated position, rubbing at puffy, dark skin under her eyes. "Yeah, I'll track you down later. You must be going out of your fucking mind with those stiffs up in the tower. A soak would be nice, right?" She pried an eye open. "Blue Dragon Hot Springs. I'll see you there tonight?"
She nodded and left before she could embarrass herself by grinning at having made an actual appointment with an actual friend in Konoha. Someone she wanted to see, other than Yamato. That was going on the calendar.
"Where have you been?" Shizune all but bowled Aiko over as soon as she opened the door.
'I thought you would be at work by now.'
Aiko physically recoiled from the taller woman, fingers tight around the stolen dossiers hidden behind her back. "I can explain," she lied.
"What?" Shizune brushed hair back from her face, accentuating deep circles under her eyes. "I thought-" she shook her head and groaned. "Do I even want to know what you're talking about?"
Wisely, Aiko kept her mouth shut.
"Why didn't you come home last night?" Shizune finally backed off enough that Aiko could shuck her shoes and enter the apartment proper. She dithered over what to do with her hands for a moment, and then went with the standby of making tea.
It only took a moment to contemplate how Anko would feel if Aiko was honest about their conversation and her need for answers. Nuh uh, not going to sell her out.
'That does leave the question of what to tell Shizune.'
Hastily, she stashed her stolen dossiers under a magazine on the kotatsu. Aiko cautiously followed Shizune into the kitchen and decided on a selective truth.
"I met a woman at a bar and went home with her," Aiko offered. She tugged at her hair again, knowing she looked like something that crawled out of the lint compartment.
Shizune slapped her forehead and muttered something nearly inaudible.
Aiko rolled her eyes. "I'm an adult," she reminded waspishly. "I don't remember you being my mother or keeper."
The older woman sighed quietly, thin shoulders heaving. Aiko felt a twinge of guilt for worrying her hostess.
"You're right, of course," Shizune admitted wryly. She turned just enough to give Aiko a dry smile. "Normally, I wouldn't mind. Didn't you hear the riots last night? Is that why you stayed out?"
She really didn't have a response for that, except to let her mouth hang slightly open and her eyebrows crawl up.
"I will take that as a negative." At the shrill call of the teapot, Shizune turned away again to pour out hot water into the steeping pot. When she began scooping leaves, the scent of peppermint floated into the air. Shizune raised her voice to be heard. "We knew that public sentiment would be opposed to our decision, but I have to admit that I was surprised by the extent of their enthusiasm." She screwed the lid back onto the tea tin and put it up.
"Who, exactly," Aiko hesitated, struggling for diplomatic terminology. "dissented?" she settled for.
There was an unabashed snort. Shizune waived an empty teacup in the air by her shoulder. "Who didn't? That's the better question." She arranged the pot of steeping tea and two cups onto a bamboo platter and settled it on the table.
Aiko pulled out a chair nearby, listening intently.
"There are levels of malcontent, in a way," Shizune decided. She gracefully perched into her chair, waiting for the sweet-scented water to hit the perfect composition. "Most of the problem stems from-" her eyes darted to Aiko- "when Pein came to Konoha."
She nodded politely. That sounded like a reasonable thing to be upset about.
Shizune just looked tired. "Quite a few of our elite shinobi and the bulk of our Chuunin force were in Ame or on their way there at the time. We didn't know it, but the alliance had just taken control of their village. That meant that when Pein arrived, our forces were already depleted." Frown lines etched into her face. "Luckily, we had some time to prepare," Shizune admitted, seemingly in the interest of fairness. "We evacuated our civilians, genin, clan key personages, and selected chuunin as guards."
'That makes a lot of sense,' Aiko noted. 'Kept the potential cannon fodder out of harm's way and insured it would be impossible to completely collapse Konoha's infrastructure without making it to the evacuees.'
Shizune didn't need her approving nod to continue. She didn't even see it- eyes glazed with painful recollection. "His very first attacks eliminated almost everyone stationed within the village center. Chuunin," she explained distantly. "Remaining Jounin and elite Chuunin were taking shifts on patrol of the outskirts. Those tended to be the people who fought either one of Pein's incarnations or his summons beasts." The medic shuddered.
'Is she cold? Does she know that she's rubbing at her arms?' Feeling like she was intruding, Aiko averted her eyes.
When her voice came again, Shizune had collected herself. "As I was saying. Civilians and genin are largely resentful about all the property damage, having been spared from seeing anything too damaging. The reactions of our personnel can generally be divided along how Pein killed them."
Her tone was far too impersonal.
"More experienced soldiers are those who fought for longer and experienced more drawn-out deaths," Shizune explained.
'That would have been me. I was a Jounin even then. I wonder who Anko referred to as my captain. I bet he knows more about the particulars.'
Aiko curled her toes up so tightly that her calves began to cramp.
"They are the most contentious demographic. By virtue of experience, those Jounin and Chuunin are more likely to have established coping mechanisms that reduced the trauma. But they are also most likely to have experienced horrible deaths." Shizune's knuckles were white around the teapot. "It changes you. Who would trust anyone connected to the monster who did that to them?"
'Good question.'
She ran a hand over her head to suppress the shudder trickling down her neck. Her mouth was almost painfully dry at that point. It was just the hangover, of course. Aiko swallowed. "Isn't the tea oversteeped?"
Shizune blinked, outright surprised. "Oh!" she flushed, lifting the pot. "I suppose that it is." She hastily poured out two cups and fished out the wire that held the looseleaves in place.
Aiko took her cup when offered and eagerly brought the tea up to her mouth. The two women drank in silence for a moment.
"This is awful," Shizune said contemplatively, staring down into her drink.
Aiko nodded. "Yes." She took another sip.
"Would you like to go to the coffeehouse-"
"Definitely," Aiko cut her off. She dumped both of their cups and washed out the pot as quickly as possible. "Can I have a few minutes to change?"
"Of course." Shizune promised, not bothering to hide her amusement. "You look like you had a more exciting night than I did. I wasn't going to mention it, but you smell like a brewery."
Aiko finished setting out the dishes to dry and stuck her tongue out at the older woman. "You're just jealous that you didn't have any fun," she sniped back. She didn't wait for a reply, hurrying to gather up clothes and slide into the shower.
'I need to do laundry. This is getting sad.'
While she was still rifling through her closet for something that wasn't completely atrocious, Shizune's lofty response drifted back.
"As you say, Aiko-san. Don't forget those dossiers that you stole, ne? Tsunade-sama would like those back."
She startled, bumping her head on the rack.
'If she already knew, why didn't she say anything?'
Aiko scowled at her closet, snatching a skanky red top and a ruffled pink skirt that definitely did not match. Fuck it. In a record ten minutes, she was technically clean and heading out the door.
Shizune cast a dubious look backward, tucking the dossiers into her bag. "Are you entirely certain-"
"Yes," Aiko confirmed, not waiting to find out if the skepticism was about her wet hair or admittedly ugly outfit. "I don't care, I just want a drink." Her stomach growled. She didn't blink, adding, "and probably breakfast."
"It's noon."
She shrugged, shaking off Shizune's disapproving tone. "I don't tell you how to live your life."
It took forty minutes but Shizune doggedly stayed with her until Aiko had finished eating and started towards Hokage Tower.
'If I didn't know better, I'd say she doesn't trust me.'
Aiko hid a thoroughly inappropriate smile behind her hand. Fancy that, where would Shizune get such a silly idea?
"I can sense your happiness," Shizune called out darkly, holding open the door to the tower lobby.
She stopped smiling and heaved a sigh.
Tsunade gave only a cursory glance when she entered behind Shizune. "Oh, you found her. Good work." Her attention instantly went back to the man in front of her desk- an ANBU with dark, mussed hair. "Assuming the instigators have sobered up, have them all cited and released." The Hokage looked as tired as Shizune.
'Wow. It really must have been a bad night. If anything, Shizune understated it.'
Aiko shifted her weight, reaching out wordlessly for the folders.
Shizune gave her a long-suffering expression but handed them over. Then she nodded sternly at the couch.
The message was clear. 'Behave, this time. I'm watching you.'
She didn't protest, pulling a cushion onto her lap and opening dossiers to find the one she hadn't read. Uzumaki Naruto looked more serious in photo than he did in real life, and even younger somehow. Age 19? Really? That was-
Her fingers went numb. Of course he was 19. He was her twin. Her eyes had glazed over- she wasn't even looking at the paper. Naruto. NarutoNarutoNaruto. She'd raised him and helped train his team and failed miserably she'd just been separated for a few days and Sakura had ended up deadDeAdDEAD. She'd left Naruto alone for a year. A lot could happen in a year.
The folder fell to her lap.
Naruto running out of the Academy with his Hitai-ite. Naruto crying when he'd seen her kill a Mist nin. Naruto boasting about his crush. Stuffing his chipmunk cheeks with ramen chasing rabbits learning Rasengan sexy no jutsu tussling with Sasuke still in the hospital bed-
Aiko bent over and clapped her hands to her head just to make it stop.
She hadn't even recognized him. She hadn't asked him how he had been. How long had it been since she'd seen him? What had happened? Sasuke was still in Konoha and so was Kakashi who was watching Naruto? Who was watching Naruto?
"Tsunade?" Her voice was very small. She looked up. The ANBU was gone. Shizune looked concerned.
"Yes?" The Hokage frowned slightly, tapping the handle of a paintbrush against her face.
"Where is my otouto?"
Tsunade's ink laden brush hit the desk and rolled off, splattering black pigment onto the carpet. Shizune took an uncertain step towards Aiko, glancing back at her mentor.
"Where?" Aiko repeated. The sunlight was glinting off of Tsunade's blonde, blonde hair.
She'd seen him less than a month ago. But not really. She hadn't known who he was. It wasn't the same thing. The last time she remembered, he'd been in-
"Ame," Tsunade admitted slowly.
She swallowed. Pushed her feet together. Rubbed a palm against the couch.
"I see."
"Diplomatic escort," Shizune added, smoothing over her kimono. "With Hinata and Karin."
'All of them are in Ame? Were they intentionally keeping me away from Uzumaki?'
No, that was ridiculous.
Shizune hurried on, "We couldn't spare Sasuke, but Hinata works well with them. And-"
"They probably have a decent reputation," Aiko filled in. "After helping take Ame the first time. That's a hostile gesture."
The medics exchanged a glance at her dull tone. "To be honest, team seven is rather notorious for having led the invasion," Tsunade said. She pushed her chair back and stood. "They're internally perceived as likely to be hard on Ame. I thought it might smooth over some tensions with our people."
Aiko hummed from the back of her throat.
"Every country is sending an envoy to escort Konan to trial, to eliminate the probability of funny business." Tsunade was watching her intensely, amber eyes narrowed. For what, Aiko wasn't sure.
"Alright."
Tsunade walked around her desk. "Can I assume that you-"
"Just Naruto," Aiko interrupted. "I just…" she trailed off. "I just remember Naruto. Things with Naruto." She blinked, a strange swelling in her tear ducts. "In my head, he's..." She held a hand out, indicating a height comparable to her shoulder. "And now he's so big," Aiko continued. She shook her head, bereft. "And gone."
"The time frame of your memories cuts off around what, age thirteen?" Tsunade prodded, taking one of Aiko's hands and kicking a chair so that she could sit across and stare with sharp eyes.
"Uh." Aiko shook her head. "No. It's just he's mostly little. There's some." She screwed up her face, flustered. "He's older in some things."
"Do you remember school? Training?" Tsunade asked briskly, changing the topic to something a little less confusing. When she nodded yes to both, Tsunade tried again. "Kakashi?" "Sasuke?"
Aiko nodded again, and rasped out the omission. "Sakura."
Tsunade's face screwed up in mild confusion. "Sakura?" she repeated under her breath. "I don't-" She took a sharp inhalation. "Oh." She was still.
Aiko loosened the grip she had on her hair. When had she started pulling her hair? Aiko stood. "I think I need a walk."
"That's-" Tsunade cut herself off, frowning slightly. "Alright. You'll see Naruto in a little more than a week," she added gently.
Aiko was already at the door, but she nodded in acknowledgment. "I know."
Even if she tried, she wouldn't be able to remember how she ended up sprawled on the grass in training ground seven. The trip was a blur.
"Are you alright?"
Yamato squatted a few feet away, elbows resting on his knees. His brow was drawn down. He looked much the same as he had when she had met him. Perhaps his face was a little broader. He'd gone from, what, nineteen to his early twenties since she'd met him? And now she was nineteen. Was that a full circle of some sort?
She patted the grass. He made a pained face.
"It's soaked," he said carefully.
Wet grass was sticking to her legs and backside. When had that happened? "Mud never hurt anyone."
He hummed, low in the back of his throat. "That is not true. With Doton-" He cut off at the look she gave him. "Ah. I see." Yamato rubbed at his neck. "Do you need to talk about it?" he offered.
The world clarified a bit.
"You're one of my ANBU guards," Aiko said blankly. When he did not react at all, she knew it was the truth. "That's why you've been spending time with me."
Yamato plopped down on the grass without a second thought. "Can't I happen to be enjoying my work?" he asked gently.
"Work isn't pleasurable," she rejected. "Look. What do you want?"
He didn't even have the grace to look offended by her rudeness or struggle for an answer. "I want what's best for you, including your safety," Yamato answered readily. "You're one of my comrades."
Aiko looked over. He looked serious, all big brown eyes and boyish sincerity.
'If he's lying, I really can't tell.'
"That so?"
His sandal tapped against the ground. "I want to help you. What do you need?"
'I think he really means it. If I want, I bet he would talk to me. Yamato's never been a liar.'
As far as she knew, anyway. He hadn't had much time with team seven. But then, if re-gaining her friendship under false pretenses wasn't a lie, what was it?
She shifted away, wrapping her arms around her legs. "I think you should go," Aiko said quietly.
When she looked up, he was gone.
It was cold enough that she was no longer looking forward to her appointment with Anko at the hotsprings. It would be good when she was actually there, she was sure. Not so much on the walk home… It would be much more intelligent to cover up before she even went over. Still, she wasn't too enthusiastic on her jaunt back to Shizune's apartment for more clothes. She cast a dark look upward to gauge the time. It must be four- it would be dark within a few hours.
The blue jacket that she found possibly minimalized the clashing tackiness of her ensemble. She pulled it on and crawled into bed to think.
'I want to see Naruto. I want things to go back to normal.'
But what was normal?
Normal was training with Team Seven. Normal was perfecting chakra chains and letting Yamato buy her ice cream. Normal was teasing Obito about Icha Icha and absorbing whatever pearls of financial wisdom Kakuzu was willing to drop.
'I should go.'
Aiko twisted around enough to peer out the window. It was getting dark out. Anko would be waiting. It would be pretty shitty to stand her up. She ignored her shinobi-esque boots in favor of white shoes with a soft, furry lining. They were warmer.
The onsen wasn't difficult to find, though Anko wasn't there yet. Aiko was about to strip and get in the water when she felt it.
'Is this some kind of sick joke?'
Her hands paused on the zipper of her jacket.
Impossible- Well, no. Not impossible, improbable. It was so unlikely.
And yet there it was, not a hundred feet away, all but begging for her attention.
'This is just not my day, but I would know that chakra signature anywhere. He's not even hiding it.'
Then again, who other than her would know it and know to look for it?
'And if he didn't hide it, how would I know to look for him? He must have been checking in for a time when I wasn't with the Hokage or a guard. Tsunade tried to prevent something like this. Smart woman.'
Her appointment could wait a little bit. It would be ruder to bring that confrontation to poor Anko than to leave her waiting at the onsen.
Aiko flipped up her hood and set off briskly, fisting her hands into her pockets with accumulated tension. She followed him across town in the fading light, ignoring the cold whip of wind against her face. He settled in a park ten blocks from the onsen Anko favored. It didn't take her long to find him waiting under a ginko tree.
'I think I forgot how big he really is.'
"You're looking well."
Aiko clenched her jaw and pulled her hands out of her pockets. "You're not," she lied. He looked fantastic, especially for a thirty-something year old. Halfway to forty. God.
Obito huffed, the expression tugging at the warm, friendly wrinkles of his scarring. "My feelings," he said reprovingly. "Ouch."
She moved her left foot, steadying into an athletic position.
'Why is he acting like such an idiot? We both know why he's here.'
"I've been expecting you," Aiko said instead of playing into his banter. Chakra began to rise, mingling with the atmosphere, ready to coalesce into chain-linked solidity.
He'd almost killed her in a fit of temper when he found out that she wanted to leave him. There were really only so many ways this interaction could go. He could try to persuade her to return with him, or he could kill her. And she wasn't going anywhere with him.
'Pity that I didn't have time to practice with Hiraishin. That would have been helpful.'
His eyebrows shot up. "Really?" Obito looked strangely pleased. "I thought-" He huffed out a quiet laugh and scratched at the back of his head. "I thought you'd be-" his eyes darted away, "upset," Obito finished. His body language opened up hopefully, painfully obvious in his hope for forgiveness.
She faltered, honestly a little thrown-off by the deviation from the hostile script. "What?"
Obito kicked at the ground, sandals tossing up grass. "I did overstep my boundaries," he acknowledged hurriedly. "If I'd explained myself better, I'm sure you would have understood. See, with the bijuu-"
"I'm not going anywhere with you," Aiko interrupted in a high pitch, desperate to get the fight for her life and freedom back on track. It was starting to sound a lot like he didn't even want to fight.
He gave her an odd look, and then broke eye contact. "I probably deserve that," he admitted with a hard edge in his voice. "Although you did undermine my life's ambition by destroying the irreplaceable-" Obito cut himself off, visibly calming. "We're not talking about that," he said softly, curling a hand into a fist at his side. His tone jumped back up. "It's a minor setback," Obito bit out, clearly trying to convince himself. "I will… work around it somehow. It'll be fine. It has to be fine. I can make it fine."
"Without me," Aiko said flatly, ignoring his mental breakdown. She felt that part was important enough to repeat.
A hysterical giggle boiled out of Obito's throat. "Without anyone," he stressed. "Well. Zetsu. I thought I would have Kakuzu but-" He rolled his eyes, red flashing in the moonlight. "I haven't heard from him since that day and three of my bank accounts were emptied."
That sounded a lot like Kakuzu.
"I owe you an apology," Obito said, words sounding painfully rehearsed. His right arm disappeared. It reappeared from his private hole in space and time with a crinkle of paper.
'This can't be happening.'
Numbly, Aiko reached out to accept the glossy pink bag he offered.
'This can't be happening.'
"I considered flowers, as they're traditional. But." Obito wrinkled his nose. "You'll probably like this better," he admitted grudgingly.
She glanced inside. He hadn't bothered to put any of the thin paper that hid contents in presents like this. She could see down to the bottom of the bag.
"Replacement copies of my books?" Her voice sounded distant to her ears. Although her breathing was coming loud and fast.
"And some of your clothes," he added, pulling out a blue bag this time. "You left without anything." His face lifted sharply, as if he scented something on the changing wind. "It was nice talking to you and confirming that I didn't kill you," Obito finished hurriedly. "I wasn't certain. I apologize for what I'm going to do, but I promise that it'll work out. You'll see," he assured. "Until next time."
He was gone. Aiko was standing alone in a park, holding a bag full of hardcore pornography and a care package from a terrorist.
The wind picked up, pushing her hood down. She didn't bother to fix it.
"How is this my life?" she asked. She looked directly up, noting that the moon was just creeping into visibility on the horizon, white and sullenly swollen.
It didn't seem to have any answers for her.
"Aiko?" When the leaves cleared, she was looking at a male form- a little shorter than Obito, but comparatively as broad through the shoulders. Familiar. Safe. She blinked up at him. Yamato took a step forward, head swiveling to check the vicinity. "I thought I sensed someone else," he tried, voice too strong for there to be any doubt in his mind.
She couldn't manage indignation about the fact that he'd been alarmed enough to check up on her when she mysteriously wandered to a deserted park in the middle of the night. Of course he had. The intrusion seemed pretty small at this point.
'Maybe I shouldn't have told him off for following me around.'
Aiko nodded numbly, holding up her burdens. "Yes." She turned her face up at Yamato, not bothering to hide the pained confusion on her face. "Obito came by and gave me apology presents?" she said, the statement coming out like a question.
Yamato flash-stepped over and lifted the bags out of her hands, holding them gingerly away from his body. "Let's go see the Hokage."
She nodded, appreciating the professional tone. "There are worse plans." She let him gallantly heft the bags. Oddly, she didn't share his worry. Obito was a fucking lunatic, but if he wanted to kill her with dynamite hidden in extra blouses- well-well-
Fine. She threw her hands up, metaphorically.
"Can we stop and get hot chocolate?" Aiko curled a shaking arm around Yamato's elbow, soaking in his steady warmth. He stiffened and pulled the bag in that hand away from her in apparent hopes of keeping her out of a blast radius. The look he gave her was mildly disbelieving.
"No."
She tightened her grip and leaned into his side, affecting her best injured tone. "I'm having a bad night." And she was. She was confused and angry and she didn't want to go directly to an interrogation with Tsunade. Even if asked under pain of death, she wasn't going to admit that she was blinking down tears.
Yamato sighed. But he altered direction slightly, and didn't shake her off.
Aiko remembered something important. It was rude to keep people waiting.
"After hot chocolate, can we stop by the onsen?"
"Aiko!"