Chapter 48: Shēn Xiù
Seven times
It seemed like such an insignificant number, a number he could count off on his hands with fingers to spare, yet it had done so much damage. Seven times since April. At least he could count on his hands the number of people that had a clue: Asuma, Nariko, Yuugao, Mikoto, Gai, Shizune, and the Hokage to a minor degree since he was sure she only knew about his first episode. Genma no longer counted. Secrets didn't escape graves very often. He wasn't sure whether to be bitter or grateful for this fact. Genma had known why he had let this continue. Genma had agreed to a degree.
He had promised himself that this wouldn't happen: that he wouldn't become weak like his father. That had been before he had understood, before Obito had explained and had made him understand. Nevertheless, that understanding had not changed the fact that he had promised. It was out of his hands though, and he despised that. He was a jounin, a high-ranking member of ANBU, a top Konoha shinobi, yet he couldn't even control his own mind when things happened to follow a pattern that resonated within him and widened some schism he hadn't even been aware of the existence of until that first time years ago.
He tipped his head back against the wall and pulled his knees higher up so that his feet weren't hanging off the edge of his bed. He stared across the narrow room at the dog mask staring back at him from his desk. It was propped up against the standard ANBU armguards; its empty eyeholes made it seem even more soulless than it usually did. Not all of the red marks on it were ink, but he couldn't work up the will to wipe away the evidence of his last mission, perhaps because of the pangs of his buried conscience. It wasn't as if the blood would cause the porcelain to corrode, as it would do to his steel armguards. He had cleaned those scrupulously.
ANBU couldn't afford to look careless or anything less than completely meticulous. If the ANBU commander suspected that something was wrong, he would be put under observation. That could become a very painful process if the higher-ups became worried enough. Agents had been known to go rogue often enough that interrogation of subordinates was permitted in extremely suspicious cases.
Genma hadn't been all that well put together when he had set out on the mission that had killed him. Mikoto-san had been right about that, he could admit that to himself here. However, he wasn't quite as guiltless as she had insisted. The latest of his episodes had happened just before Genma had left. Those empty eyeholes stared accusingly at him as though they knew he could have gone to someone else. Sure, he hadn't known that Genma had had a mission the next day, but still…
He knew that whoever watched over him didn't get much sleep. He should have known that Genma was nearing the end of his energy. All of the jounin were still being overworked. It wasn't as if replacing all of those that had died in that invasion a year ago could be done overnight. Ninja took years to train. He should have known. He should have gone to someone else and left Genma alone.
He tilted his head back further to avoid looking at that accusing porcelain face. He couldn't go to any ninja, not anymore, not after this lesson had been shoved so forcefully into his face. Everyone was too tired, and he would just make things worse.
"You know," Pakkun said, pushing the bedroom door open with his nose and trotting over to the bed, "I'd suggest that you let the pack try, but I don't think it would work." His pug summon had refused to leave him alone after he had completed his mission. "Buru hasn't been able to successfully pin you down for years. Getting out and away from him has become instinctive for you, I think." The pug glared at the height of the bed before gathering himself and making the leap. The covers deformed under his paws as he padded over and sat down by his summoner's side.
"Hmm." Kakashi set a hand on the pug's head and closed his eyes.
"Your training probably isn't going to help," muttered Pakkun.
Kakashi didn't reply.
"I guess it couldn't have waited for long though."
"No, not with Konoha so shorthanded like this. If Konoha can't have many fairly skilled ninja, then it needs what ninja there are to be as skilled as possible."
"Did you get access to those records you needed?"
"Yes. They suggest that I'm on the right track. If my theory is right…"
"True, though why you chose to train that way doesn't make sense. It's hardly going to help you regain any ground."
"It needs to be done," Kakashi muttered, and Pakkun grunted softly and curled up at his side for a snooze. Kakashi envied him until he finally managed to drift off into mercifully dreamless sleep as well.
Mikoto watched the girl swirl the tea in her cup. It was painfully obvious that something was bothering her more than usual. "It's not going well, is it?"
"No." She set her cup down. "I hardly had to do anything other than talk to him for a bit, but after September… I…" Riko scrubbed at her face. "I don't know why he's just coming to me now. I mean, I know I told him it was okay, but now that I'm actually doing it, it's just not right and those women after him don't let me forget. Genma and Asuma used to handle it, but recently… Asuma was in the village too yesterday, but he came to me. It was easy enough this time, but what if he gets bad again? Gods, I wish Genma was still here."
She wasn't alone in that wish; Mikoto knew that.
"You're not a ninja. Your job won't kill you if you drift off to catch up on sleep. He blames himself for what happened to Genma. Why are you even helping him? We both know you don't like him. You blame him…"
"I can't blame him for doing his job." Riko sighed, drawing lines on the tabletop with idle fingers. "I don't even know why I'm doing this anymore. I guess because I know it's what needs to be done. My clan, we give help wherever it's needed. He came to me, so I'll help him. That's how it works. Whether I like him or not doesn't really matter."
"What if you can't help him?"
The question had to be asked. Riko didn't seem to agree because she pressed her lips into a thin, white line and stared at her hands, which she had pressed flat on the table. They both knew that Riko wasn't strong enough to handle things if they got bad enough. What would she do then? Neither of them really wanted to think about it, but Mikoto was a jounin. She was used to asking the questions that no one else wanted to voice.
"Are you strong enough to walk away for your own sake? Or will you let me make you?"
"Mikoto, I need you to teach me how to properly restrain a jounin with a rope."
Mikoto blinked at her friend and then frowned sadly at her. This was the second time in four months that someone had approached her with that determined and desperate look and had asked for something from her. She found that she was just as incapable of denying this request.
She forced a slight smile at the girl that had been so painfully naïve and blind. Mikoto had been frustrated by her obliviousness on a few occasions, but now that Riko wasn't missing things, Mikoto wondered why it had bothered her. At least Riko had been happier in her ignorance the same way those poor rookies were. Mikoto could sympathize: her own realization of just how much her job had warped her had been excruciating at sixteen. "Let me say now that I don't like this."
Riko nodded, noting the point, but not backing down. Maybe Naruto was a bad influence.
"Fine," Mikoto said, hiding disappointment. She had the feeling that this wasn't going to end well. "Just let me call Yuugao. She's a master with this sort of thing and she can help. Besides, we need somebody to tie up. Sasuke won't volunteer."
Riko's wry smile at that last comment relieved Mikoto. If Kakashi made the girl lose the personality she had dredged up only a little while ago, Mikoto was going to skin him alive. Once she got off the phone, she smiled a bit more genuinely at Riko.
"We'll train you up so well that you'll be able to hogtie someone in your sleep." That her friend found the courage to laugh at this ominous statement restored Mikoto's good humour. "Do you want us to teach you anything else? Knowing how to break holds or punch properly could be useful…"
"No, I won't hurt people. I can't."
"Why?" asked Mikoto. "I hurt people. I've killed people. I used to do it all the time. Why do you think you are incapable of doing the same?"
"It is against clan principle." Nariko's utter calm was disquieting. The conviction she held in this principle was absolute, or it had been. "We embrace compassion."
"You're not going to like what I have to say then." Yuugao shucked off her coat and threw it over the back of the nearest chair. "I know what this is about. He's doing this on purpose."
Mikoto blinked at the younger jounin's statement. "What makes you so sure?"
"I talked to Asuma. I know Senpai as well as anyone who isn't dead can know him. Senpai doesn't have problems; he has plans and regrets, which fuel each other. He expects them to.
"Riko, he's using you." Yuugao shrugged at the older woman's resentful hiss. "He knows about your clan, and he knows you. More importantly, he knows that you're weak and that you alone can't interfere with his plans. That's right, be angry. That's the only way we can win against whatever he's plotting. He's a genius. We are only us."
"Speak for yourself," Mikoto grumbled as Riko muttered dastardly sounding things in a foreign language.
Yuugao shrugged sheepishly. "Uchiha genius was almost commonplace."
Mikoto was not impressed and not pleased with the past tense in that statement. "So what should we do, oh non-genius? We can't thwart his self-destructive tendencies without his permission."
"True," Yuugao admitted, "we can't stop him, but we can hem him in. Riko, you aren't strong enough to stop him, and he knows that. Use that against him. We can't let you get hurt because guilt will just make him worse. Riko, be distant. Just still the shaking."
"What about the nightmares?"
"The way Asuma talked about it, it was almost as if he wanted them to come. Senpai's a genius: he can make anything into a weapon, even dreams."
"He's training. Mist ninja trained themselves into apathy by using events like the old Academy exam. Kakashi knows about that. He might be trying to the counter the divide by rendering himself apathetic to it." His earlier request belied this particular hypothesis, but Mikoto kept that knowledge to herself. That was clan business.
"But you still haven't told me what to do about the bloody nightmares!" Riko said.
"Tie him up and leave him like I told you before."
"But he's hurting himself!" Riko protested, looking appalled. "His wrists—!"
"Are his problem." Mikoto understood ANBU mentality too well.
"But—!"
"He wants this or he would have done something more about it by now, so we'll give it to him on our terms. You said Gai helped that time, right?" Yuugao pressed, not looking too happy with this herself.
"He did seem better that time, yes," Riko admitted.
"Good, we'll sic Gai on him too. Let him have his secrets, but let's make sure that they don't hurt Konoha or him."
Riko looked doubtful.
"Clan principles have no bearing upon this, Riko," Mikoto warned her. "This is ninja business. Compassion has no real place here. You either say no and let us handle this, or do this our way."
Riko glared and finally nodded. "We can't let this go on forever though. He'll have no flesh on his wrists if he does this even seven more times."
"No," Yuugao agreed firmly, "we can't. Training can take months, but this is different. Give him until April. If he's still struggling, we make him give up by bringing in the big guns."
"Tsunade-sama would hardly appreciate being compared to the forbidden weapons," Mikoto said dryly, but Yuugao shrugged and Riko snickered, looking far more optimistic about the whole thing than she had before.
"There's one thing though," Yuugao admitted reluctantly, grimacing. "The ANBU commander is going to notice eventually despite how quiet Senpai has managed to keep this. I don't know how to head him off if things do get bad."
Mikoto smiled, remembering an old conversation. "Don't worry about that. I have the feeling someone else has that covered."
Naruto glanced down at the blank piece of paper in front of him and frowned. His mind was just as empty as the page. Sure, he wanted to get into contact with this Ni'i Yugito, but now that he came to it, he wasn't sure how to go about it.
It wasn't as if he could simply send her a letter and expect her to reply. Based upon Gaara's earliest response to his offer of friendship, it was likely that Yugito would hunt him down and slit his throat for making such a proposition. He rubbed his neck as he fiddled with his pen.
No, he would need to meet her face-to-face and try to convince her that way. Unfortunately, this was an even more difficult prospect than just sending a note explaining that he was a bijuu container and that he wanted to be friends. They had been made to fight each other, to balance each other out. How the heck would he get her to agree to meet up with him? How would he convince Ero-Sennin to let this meeting happen? He hadn't actually told his temporary sensei about his plans yet: it hadn't seemed important. Now that Gaara had gotten him this information though…
He tightened the ties of the robe, slid the door of his room open, and padded quietly down the dark hall of the hotel they were staying at. Unfortunately, Ero-Sennin was the only one around to bounce ideas off of at this late hour. He needed to start this now or he would never get to sleep, so hunting down the pervert was his current goal. The old oil lamps that lined the off-white hallway to give it a traditional feel flickered as he slipped past, casting more shadows of his form than he could count on the wood floor, each more hazy than the last.
Where would Ero-Sennin be? The baths would be closed for the most part, and if Jiraiya was in there, there was no way Naruto was going to go in after him. He would see things if he did, things that would make him need to gouge his eyes out. Naruto had no idea what those women saw in his master.
The dining hall was just as empty as the halls had been, and the darkness in it was that much deeper since the dark yellow light of the lamps didn't penetrate into the gloom as well. He slipped the door to the foyer open and pulled the chakra away from his ears as sounds reached him from some of the rooms down the halls. Ugh, that was not something he was including in any of his letters, he resolved as he sped down the hall towards the bar this hotel boasted. If Ero-Sennin weren't in here, then Naruto would have to go back to his room and change so he could go searching around the sleeping town for the perverted Sannin's chakra presence, something Naruto wasn't very good at.
Sensing chakra signatures was something only those with super attuned senses could do. Naruto definitely wasn't among that group: he really hoped he never reached that level of paranoia considering that a simple touch could send those ninja into paroxysms of fight/flight reactions. Naruto had found this out the hard way when he had successfully poked his dozing sensei on the arm. Kaka-sensei had had a kunai in hand so quickly that Naruto had thought he was going to lose his finger. Kaka-sensei had given him a superior look and Naruto had been really impressed, but now he wasn't so sure if it was a good thing.
If he ever developed reactions like that, it was way too likely that he would end up killing his sister by accident—she was a pretty tactile person, though she was learning to give ninja space. That or she wouldn't ever be able to hug him or ruffle his hair again. He had sort of mixed feelings about that. He was fourteen. He was getting too old for hugs.
The noise in the bar hit him like a pillow to the face as soon as he slid the doors open. So this was where everybody was. Huh. Why was it always like this? Every damn hotel they stayed at, where did everybody go when the baths shut down? They went to the bar of course.
Technically, he probably wasn't allowed in here, but bending the rules was a ninja thing. He took great pride in doing so at every opportunity. He grinned at those that looked up at his arrival and relaxed as they dismissed him. Most of the occupants of this smoky room were older men, who sat around in groups of two or three, sipping alcohol together and hatching canny plans that would seem rather foolish in the light of day for the most part. The air, lit only by the same lamps that were in the halls, was hazy enough with cigar, cigarette, and pipe smoke that it made everything happening within the traditional walls seem far more important and serious than it actually was.
Naruto was relieved when he spotted Ero-Sennin looking over some papers in the corner with the best view of the entire room. He wove through the tables, ignoring the suspicious glances inexpertly tossed his way. These guys were all way too obvious: anyone with minimal ninja training could have been able to tell that they were up to something. Talking in hushed voices as they were was only going to make them stand out more.
However, Naruto didn't care about whatever petty plots they were weaving or what mean gossip they were spreading in their tiny holiday village. Most of the stuff would be small things that would be easily countered by the victim or wouldn't do very much damage. If things did get out of control, someone would hire a ninja, maybe one from Konoha since it was the closest village, and that ninja would make sure that things got patched up one way or another. That was what ninja were for since there weren't any big wars going on.
"Gaki," said Ero-Sennin, tossing back a shot, "what are you doing in here?"
Naruto ignored his query, glancing at the pages Jiraiya was looking over. He really wished he hadn't a moment later. His eyes picked up words like "hot," "heavy," "slick," and "sweat," and it was all he could do to keep from going red. Was there no escape?
If it wasn't the noises down the hall, it was Ero-Sennin's manuscripts! It was as if puberty was stalking him and trying to catch him off guard… It had managed to do funny things to his voice a couple times recently, and zits were irritating as hell considering their small size, and he didn't want to think about the other odd things happening to the rest of his body without his consent, but this was the last straw! He would wage war on adulthood and resist its advance with every iota of his will!
Those magazines the chuunin that guarded the gates read weren't descriptive like this: they had pictures that were partially censored. Ero-Sennin didn't censor anything.
"Ah," stammered Naruto, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, "I've got a question."
"No."
"No?" He hadn't even explained what he wanted. What the hell? What if it had been something even more important than this? Damn pervert…
"No, you're not ready for Hiraishin."
Naruto palmed his forehead and groaned. Maybe asking the same question repeatedly wasn't a good thing. Ero-Sennin had started tuning him out the way Sasuke did sometimes. That bastard thought he was so clever, but Naruto could always tell when Sasuke wasn't really paying attention: it was the way his best friend's eyes glazed over and the way he started nodding at odd points that gave him away.
Sasuke was pretty good at judging when to nod, but Naruto had managed to make him screw up by altering his tone. Sasuke's nods coincided with certain tones and pauses, which meant that his friend was only listening to the lilt of the words and not their meaning. Naruto had managed to take advantage of this a couple times, but he was coming up with a couple very good blackmail opportunities as soon as he got home. Getting lambasted by Sakura by letter hadn't been fun, and Konohamaru's plot had been thwarted. Naruto still needed some sort of retribution for the fangirl abuse he had suffered for Sasuke's sake without proper thanks.
"Ero-Sennin!" His volume attracted the attention of some of the would-be plotters. "I wasn't going to ask about that!
The plotters dismissed him as a loudmouthed idiot. Perfect. They would disregard anything significant that he said. He could have spouted off the passwords to get past the Daimyo's guards at this point and no one would have cared. He pouted when he realized that his guardian wasn't listening. Ero-Sennin had turned back to his pages and was scribbling down characters. Naruto averted his eyes, not wanting to know how Jiraiya could look almost normal when coming up with this crap.
"That's a first," muttered the pervert.
Naruto glared. Why was he being so mean? The one time Naruto was honestly worried about something and wanted to ask a pertinent question, Ero-Sennin decided to be a complete asshole about it. "Oi, listen, Gaara sent me some information this morning."
That got the pervert's attention.
Naruto almost smirked. Ero-Sennin loved holding information over his head. It was great for Naruto to be one up on him for once. "He found out that there's this woman in Lightning called Ni'i Yugito. I need to talk to her."
"Let me get this straight," said Jiraiya. "You want us to blatantly ignore Tsunade's orders to keep you out of trouble and go into Lightning Country, into Kumo—which is still very bitter about getting the wrong Hyuuga corpse I might add—to meet some woman?"
Naruto nodded and was nonplussed when his master grinned.
"Ah, gaki, you're learning!" The dirty old man started rubbing his palms together. "I had thought that the time was coming…"
Naruto suddenly had a very bad feeling about this.
He cringed when the pervert set a fatherly hand on his head. "You will be the first to read my newest book. In this way, you will finally understand what it is to be a man."
Oh gods… No… "Eh? You think I'm going to…" Naruto couldn't bring himself to finish his sentence. He was pretty sure that Ni'i-san would kill him if she ever found out about this, whether he convinced her to be friends or not. "Gah! Ero-Sennin! Damn pervert! She'd kill me. She's the damn Nibi container!"
"The what?"
Oops.
That had come out badly.
"Yeah, she's the two-tailed beast's holder. I want to get into contact with her."
Naruto figured that he should have broken the news a little more delicately to the old man. Maybe Riko-nee was right about that tact thing. He raised his hand and waved the bartender over, gesturing at Jiraiya's mostly empty glass. The man obliged, and Naruto somehow managed to get Ero-Sennin to throw back the shot.
"Are you insane?" his guardian squeaked before his voice settled back into its normal range. Naruto suddenly felt a hell of a lot better about the odd squawks his own voice had dished out lately. "Nibi, he's a sadist of the worst sort. Take Shukaku, multiply that love of pain by seventeen, add to it that he was the property of the Shinigami, and you've got a hellcat. Not just any hellcat, but the hellcat that embodies darkness the way Shukaku embodies wind and the way Kyuubi was fire."
"Hey, I'm not dumb," said Naruto. "I did do some research. Sakura helped me look up all sorts of stuff before we left. Of course I know who Nekomata was before he got his sadistic ass locked up inside the woman I want to talk to." He pouted when Ero-Sennin didn't look like he believed him. Was it so hard to believe that he could do bookwork? He was studying those seal patterns as he had promised, and he was getting better.
"You are dumb, gaki. You want to go meet with that creature."
Naruto held his own in the glaring contest that commenced upon the completion of that insult. Oh, Ero-Sennin was going to pay for spelling that out for him. He was going to get broadsided by an awesome prank so badly that—! Naruto froze and blinked when he realized just what he needed to do.
"Thanks, Ero-Sennin!" he called as he leapt over tables in his haste to get out the door and back to his quiet room. He ignored the irritated shouts when his passage ruffled some wigs and whipped some papers into the air. Jiraiya's confused shouts and insults followed him down the hall and successfully drowned out the noises until he was safely in the wing where his room was.
He fumbled with the door to his room for a moment before it finally submitted to his desire and slid politely aside to allow him entrance. It slipped shut just as nicely and Naruto could finally get to work. His pen scribbled nonsensically all over the paper until he was satisfied that he was holding something no sane person would be able to make heads or tails of. One could say it was a curiosity. Taking a kunai, he carefully cut the large page up into pieces. Grinning evilly, Naruto gathered the necessary chakra and summoned a small toad. He was pleased when he got Gamakichi.
"Naruto?" The orange toad yawned sleepily. "Watsup?"
"Not much," said Naruto, feigning casualness with some difficulty with triumph bubbling through his veins like some sort of heady drink. "I was just hoping you'd do me a favour."
"What kind of favour?" asked Gamakichi, and Naruto couldn't blame him. That water balloon prank hadn't gone very well for the toad at all in the last hotel.
"Nothing too dangerous." Naruto held out a piece of his ingenious letter of introduction. "I just need you to deliver this to someone in Kumogakure, if you could."
How Gamakichi managed to convey sarcasm with his bulbous eyes Naruto would never understand. However, the toad's expression somehow perfectly expressed "Oh, is that all?" without a word needing to be said. Even Naruto could appreciate this masterful display since he was so pumped up on success. He passed over Gaara's notes on Ni'i Yugito and let the toad look them over. Naruto's grin turned into a smirk when he heard the toad's sigh of agreement.
"I'm expected lots of payback for this," said the toad as Naruto folded up his message and handed it over. "I want no backtalk when I request food or drink the next time I hold a party without Pop's consent."
"Yeah, sure." Such things would be easy enough to secure when the time came considering just whom he was roaming over the continent with. "Leave this somewhere in her apartment where she's bound to find it, but not right off the bat. Make it look suspicious, but not like someone's stalking her. Got it?"
"I've got it, I've got it," said Gamakichi as Naruto drew up a seal to help the toad transfer to Kumo. The toad would have to find some other toad to finish it since Naruto didn't have any specs on that village, but his seal was imbued with enough of his chakra to get the young amphibian there and back home. "I'll see you around." He left only smoke in his wake.
Naruto smiled before settling down to come up with the perfect trick to play on Ero-Sennin. His note was just the beginning of what he had in store for Ni'i Yugito. He wasn't Konoha's greatest prankster for nothing, and curiosity was said to kill the cat. Hopefully, even hellcats possessed this fatal flaw.
"Kiri is showing signs of suspicion," said Shizune. "They haven't even been allowed twenty kilometres from Konoha yet. When they finally are, Kirigakure will definitely find out and—!"
"Silence!" thundered the Hokage, slamming her fist down on her oddly organized desk.
Her sake stash had been depleted for the month, and she had been left adrift and without excuses to put off her work. With Shizune's constant nagging and help, Tsunade had actually managed to get almost caught up on most of her paperwork to the astonishment of her aides and the advisors. The glee this had inspired among them had made Tsunade smile until she had realized that many of them had been holding off piling more issues in front of her because she was so behind. Thankfully, most of them were as reluctant to get too far ahead of schedule as she was.
"Hokage-sama," Shizune continued, "the Mizukage is not going to be pleased when he learns that Konoha has adopted two nukenin he has been hunting unsuccessfully for years and that we have placed them under our jurisdiction and protection. In fact, just based upon this suspicion, he has sent teams to harry our coastline. We cannot afford to fight a war with Water Country at the moment, not with Oto regrouping beyond the northern border and Iwa showing signs of limited aggression again on top of the Akatsuki threat!"
Tsunade silenced her with a glare. "You think I don't know this?" she said, shuffling papers detailing the strikes against her eastern coastline a ways north of the bridge to Wave Country. Some watchtowers on those cliffs would have to be repaired. Damn, yet another reason to sweet-talk the Daimyo. She hated those meetings. "Send in that team and call for the two ninja in question. We'll deal with this right now."
"But, Hokage-sama!"
"What is it now?"
"You promised Matsuku-san a twenty minute conference to verify your agreement with the hospital proposal and the staffing issue her department has been having."
Tsunade snarled at her desk and nodded unwillingly. Shizune scurried out of her office to see to her previous orders as the finance underling slipped in, burdened with a smaller stack of papers than usual.
"Good morning, Godaime-sama." The girl set a six-page summary of the hospital plan before her superior. "As you can see, the three departments have come to an agreement as long as the funds the Daimyo promised us do come through. They would just like some signatures to reassure the contractors."
"None of them had the guts to come before me, eh?" Tsunade chuckled as she pulled out a pen and skimmed over the details and technical drawings. Everything seemed in order, so she scrawled the necessary signatures all over the pages to make it official. "How bad were the arguments?"
"Not too bad according to Fumiaki-senpai. He told me that he just insisted it to be as economical as possible, which was a given seeing which department he was representing.
"Apparently, the hospital director, his board, and the department in charge of village direction did most of the squabbling. Fumiaki-senpai says they were all as interested in keeping costs down as our department was, so there wasn't much for him to do except nod as they proved that they were being as frugal as possible to get the best quality for Konoha's citizens. The others would start slapping the table and shouting over the smallest things though…"
Tsunade chuckled, handed the documents back, and signalled that Nariko could begin with her request.
"As you know, we're going to need a lot more hands on deck during the next three months. The entire department agrees that hiring a whole batch of temporary people isn't cost effective. I've spoken to the Financial Councillor—a very efficient man, by the way; he makes me feel like a disorganized snail—and he says that he usually just made do and subcontracted out to smaller Konoha firms a bit.
"Now, his idea worked very well under the Sandaime because the benefits structure wasn't quite the same as it is now. Subcontracting out to smaller firms works simply because they are so eager for any sort of work and are very willing to go more than one hundred percent to acquire those contracts, but unfortunately, there are always issues in communicating with the bigger firms that most of our shinobi patronize, like my old firm for example.
"It would be better simply to subcontract out to that firm, but I'll need your permission. The cost will work out to about the same since those large firms will subcontract out to those small firms in any case to even out the workload, but we won't have to deal with all of those individual contracts. Going through the larger firm will unfortunately mean we'll have to deal with Ii-san, but awarding them this contract should ease tensions between that sector and the Hokage."
"Still worried about that, eh?" This amused the Hokage to no end: Nariko didn't seem to be able to let go of that debt she owed the Sandaime for making sure she kept her old job when she hadn't had anywhere else to go. Sure, Ii-san had been very upset at the Hokage's interference, but it wasn't as if he could have done anything about it. The Hokage was the head of the village even ahead of all civilian leaders. What the Hokage ordered went unless the council had severe issues with it.
"It is better to be diplomatic if possible. Threatening a person with a fist makes them resentful. The horse will always work harder for the carrot than for the stick. Also, the horse is less likely to fight the carrot."
Tsunade smiled slyly. "You've been reading up on proverbs?"
"My father was a fan of passing on little tidbits of wisdom at dinner. My mother would not allow him to speak over her head, so he related what he thought important in terms she could understand. Her family is from a rural background, so these bits of wisdom were couched in terms she was familiar with."
Tsunade nodded absently. "I see no reason to prevent the scheme from going through. Start making the arrangements and keep me up-to-date. Write up those old contracts just in case Ii-san proves resistant to the carrot offering."
Nariko smiled, her eyes crinkled with amusement as she bowed and collected her papers. "Thank you, Godaime-sama. We will see to it," she promised as she made her way to the door.
It swung open before she could touch the doorknob, and Tsunade's brow crinkled when Nariko froze like a frightened rabbit as Kakashi came through the door with Sasuke and Sakura trailing behind him like obedient puppies. Tsunade doubted that Kakashi had noticed: the reaction had mostly been in the way the shoulder blades pinched together under that loose tunic and the way the muscles of the lower back had tensed. Tsunade had seen similar reactions in people around killers and in horses around hunting dogs: an animalistic reaction, one that was just the beginning of the body's sympathetic nervous system's flight response. Just what had Kakashi done to warrant it?
Tsunade put the matter aside when the girl relaxed and smiled at Naruto's old team before slipping out the door.
The Godaime smirked at them from behind her laced fingers. They looked so odd without a blonde head of hair mixed in with the white, black, and pink. Even they seemed to realize this: they seemed almost awkward about their lack. It would be interesting to watch them cope with this particular mission. Two jounin and three chuunin ought to be able to handle repelling those raiders.
"Team Kakashi, you are being temporarily reformed again to deal with an A-rank mission of a diplomatic sort. We are just waiting for the arrival of a couple other members of your team."
She took the wait as an opportunity to assess her young pupil. Sakura certainly looked the part of a successful Konoha chuunin: she was vaguely reminiscent of Genma with her green kerchief covering her hair, though Genma had never put his leaf engraved plate on his bandana. She had sacrificed her clan clothing for the sake of practicality and uniformity: the only scrap of red on her was a sash around her waist with her clan symbol printed on it. Her chuunin vest was worn over a red-brown shirt and black leggings: both were good choices for blending into Fire Country's landscape. Sakura wasn't quite powerful enough yet that standing out like a beacon would have been a good plan. Besides, what good would she be as a medic-nin if she were immediately picked off by ranged fighters?
Those that were easily picked out were the first to have their throats cut. Tsunade was glad she had managed to pound that lesson into the girl's skull. Sakura was too concerned with her appearance for a combat medic. The sooner she got over that when out on missions, the better. At least Kakashi had gotten the lesson about concealing her hair through on that Wave Country mission last year.
Sasuke was as dark as ever, though at least it was dark green and blue like his sensei. The only colours that defied this were the same red and white of his teammate, though his clan symbol was simply the uchiwa fan on his sleeve. Why did all clans have to be so picky about markings? It was hard to hide identity with those emblems all over clothing.
At least Hatake was beyond that, though his hair was a dead giveaway. She knew from looking at his old reports that he had been identified because of that stupid hair more times than she was willing to take the time to count. Maybe he should have followed his own advice. What was the point of covering the lower half of his face anyway? She had always wondered since the cloth was stretchy enough to give away the facial structure beneath it. It served no purpose.
She shook off those thoughts as Shizune finally escorted the two former nukenin into her office.
"Team Kakashi, I'm sure you remember this duo," she said, hiding her amusement at their reactions. Kakashi looked unimpressed as usual, Zabuza seemed rather insulted, Haku smiled pleasantly, and Sasuke and Sakura were comical in their ill-concealed surprise. "They will be joining your team for their first appropriately ranked mission for ninja of their abilities as ranking Konoha ninja outside of the outskirts of the village. You will be assessing their performance upon your return and making recommendations about whether their probation should end a year earlier than planned."
She nodded to Shizune, who passed over the mission scroll she had probably just finished writing up. "There have been problems on the coast. Kiri-nin are harassing a Fire Country watchtower there. Go investigate and don't cause a diplomatic incident if it can be avoided. War is not something we need at the moment."
Team Kakashi, Haku, and Zabuza nodded their understanding, some more willingly than others.
She shot a pointed glare at the sullen former Devil of the Mist. "No separating heads from bodies unless it is necessary." She was pleased when he seemed a little cowed. Letting him watch one of her training sessions with Sakura had been a good idea. That demonstration of the power of a finger must have gotten through to him as anticipated. "Get going."
