She came awake, murderous and blind. Aiko flashed chakra to her eyes and the world lit up. A little. It was definitely still dark, but more importantly her security had suddenly become alarmed and that wouldn't do at all.

The chuunin was confronting another one of her shinobi at her bedroom door- at least, the spectral figure looked like one of hers, in special operation whites. They must have come through the hallway window checkpoint- there were no entries directly to her room from the outside. So either the outside security had chosen to let them in, or that person was dead.

'I think I would have noticed a fight. But not if the security personnel had no chance to fight back.'

"Speak," Aiko said in a hard voice.

Her personal security didn't relax at all.

The special operations officer ducked their head. "Mizukage-sama," they murmured. It was difficult to describe the voice as anything other than soft. It wasn't particularly high or low, no rasp, or other identifying qualities. Possibly it was some kind of audible genjutsu, or possibly just disguising voices was in the curriculum. "We have apprehended a person who we believe to be a foreign agent. A patrol officer sensed someone in city hall and investigated. The intruder subdued the officer, but was taken into custody soon after."

She threw off the futon cover and slid out of bed. "I see. Identification code, please."

They rattled off a 10 digit series of numbers ending with the personal id number '892'. The first three matched a department she knew, the next four belonged to a subgroup that affiliated with…. She strained to remember Kiri's system. Ah, this person worked with Counter-Intelligence and rendezvoused with patrol teams. They probably had more information, then. She nodded and didn't take her attention fully away while she pushed open the closet door and found a long-sleeved shirt to pull over her head. "Wait a moment. Gaara?"

He shifted on his feet, the first sound he had made since materializing behind the intruder. "Yes, Aiko-sama?"

The Special Operations officer gave the smallest start.

Aiko did not smile. She did not. "Wake your sister, please, and stay with her."

He hesitated for a moment. Which was loyal, but- "Entertain yourself with one of your own projects," she urged, thinking of his library books. "This is something that I need to take care of. Thank you."

Apparently, she had reassured him enough. He nodded and disappeared into the house.

"Are you making certain that your small red friend does not gain information of value to Orochimaru-san?" Sanbi confirmed.

'Ah, you know me well.' She flipped her hair over her shoulders and gestured for the visitor to start walking first. The chuunin kept an uneasy position between Aiko and the masked officer, which was dutiful and not at all safe if they really were a threat. "When did this happen?"

"The intruder was observed about half an hour ago," came the muffled answer. "Stealthy pursuit and observation lasted about 12 minutes, the fight about five, and then reinforcements arrived on the scene. I was on the second team of reinforcements and came to contact you as the suspect was taken to interrogations. I left as he was escorted away."

Five minutes? That was a long time for a fight to go without one party ending up dead. Under most circumstances, that sounded to her like one party had been trying to do something other than kill- delay, capture, something. Had her agent been trying to capture alive and overextended their reach, or had the intruder been foolishly playing around and then lost their advantage?

Aiko felt her mind waking up, wondering at the possibilities. She usually liked her mysteries to start later in the day, but this did seem like a good one. "I would like to personally see them in custody. Anyone who has made it this far into Kirigakure is formidable, in preparation and intelligence if not ability."

"Of course." The officer gave a little bow, which looked a little strange since Aiko had forced them to walk ahead of her.

"This could be a trap," Sanbi said thoughtfully. "Perhaps this person is a spy. Or perhaps this is intended to walk you into an ambush."

'Mei has waited longer than I thought she would to try to kill me,' Aiko acknowledged. She grabbed a sword off the top of a dresser and buckled it on over her sleeping shorts as she walked. 'But at least for now, I will take this at face value. I will be careful, though. If you see anything that reads as unusual…'

"Of course."

Tactical Team Turtle remained on alert, but there wasn't even a half-hearted murder attempt. She met with the head of her Torture and Interrogations department while her escort faded away into the wall. Kiri's T&I was surprisingly small, by Konoha's standards. Kiri took less living prisoners. The head was a hard-faced man of about 60. She could only assume that Abe-san was simply too angry to retire.

"Jounin, or upper level chuunin." He paced like a cat, hardly giving his Mizukage a second glance. "No indication of affinity or bloodline limit. Clothes and weapons are all from Kirigakure, but she's definitely mainland."

Aiko bit her lower lip and turned to look at the kunoichi on the other side of the bars. It was hard to tell with her face all bloodied up, but it seemed like the infiltrator was a teenager. Maybe 15, 16. Slight build, healthy looking skin, a bit more muscled than you'd expect throughout her upper back and shoulders. She either liked building muscle or did something a little unusual, maybe used some kind of large weapon, or did a lot of free climbing? Judging by her apparent good health, she'd either come from one of the wealthier villages, or was from a privileged social strata in one of the smaller ones. A clan member, or daughter of someone wealthy.

"Fighting style?" Aiko asked. The prisoner looked up to give her a little sneer and then tossed her head.

Abe grunted. "She used poisons, but she's either mediocre or wants us to think she is."

There was a flash of irritation on the girl's face, and she turned away.

"Weapons?" Aiko asked.

Abe shrugged. "Had wire, shuriken, and a short blade on her. Only used wire in the fight, trying to garotte. Hoping to end it quietly and continue the mission, probably. Not strong enough to finish things that way, turned to hand-to-hand, delivered a poison carried under her fingernails."

She felt a tinge of doubt at his words, but Aiko gave an appreciative nod. "Thank you." She tilted her head, taking the infiltrator in one more time.

If she had been kitted-out with local goods, it meant her operation was either well-funded or done with inside help. She might have been impersonating one of their operatives, possibly for some time. At a glance, the girl fit in well enough. She had one of the broader faces so common in the older families around the western islands, a suntan, and a proud tilt to her chin.

Actually, long-term infiltration really might have been the angle. There were a lot of faces going in and out of Kiri lately, and a younger operative was likely to have a lower rank and attract less suspicion.

Well. Time would tell. Aiko took a step back and nodded to Abe. "You're authorized." But she also gestured for him to follow her. His second stepped up to the cell as they passed. She led him silently down the hall until they were far enough for her to pose a question.

"She's downplaying her strength," Abe said, before she could ask. He cracked an unpleasant smile. "Fujiwara actually cut through the wire, this girl nearly overpowered him. I think she decided mid-fight that she was going to get captured, and decided to look weak in order to leave herself wiggle room to get out. I want to give her a chance to try whatever it is she thinks she can do."

Aiko nodded, feeling reassured in his judgment. It really wasn't that hard to garotte someone, and this girl looked like she could do it. "Is it possible that the initial goal was to be captured?" she asked. "Failing to kill with poison in this situation is odd, since she can't have been hoping to take a hostage. It could be just that she doesn't know what she's doing, but that's hard to reconcile with a person who chose to deliver it via her hands. An inexperienced agent could easily make a mistake and poison themselves that way. I think that she didn't want to kill, because that would make it much more likely that we would execute her."

Abe nodded agreement. He seemed pleased by the analysis. "It's a possibility. It truly could be that a mistake was made when selecting Kiri-based weaponry, or that it was due to lack of options. But it is more interesting to wonder if this was a competent operation to get an operative in custody." He tapped the concrete wall of the prison, underneath one of the administrative buildings. "Which begs a few questions."

Aiko smiled at her agent, because it was nice to be around people who thought of puzzles the way that she did. "Well, let's ask them. Thank you, Abe-san."

He gave her a grim smile in return, with warmness in his brown eyes. "The write-up from the encounter is preliminary, I'll have more information to you as I have it." He dug within his flak jacket for twice-folded piece of paper that Aiko took. No, it was two pieces of paper, with narrow handwriting.

They exchanged nods and then went their separate ways.

Aiko took her thoughts to her office. Her first instinct was to point a finger at Orochimaru, because he had already installed one agent in her home and had a personal grudge against her. He might have assumed she had a weakness for kids, especially if he realized that she still had Gaara. And it was possible that this girl could have hoped to make contact with Karin, might still manage it. Or her mission could have been separate.

But Orochimaru wasn't the only village out there interfering in Kiri. Someone had tried to poison her people, or done it in order to sour the alliance with Nadeshiko. It could be Nadeshiko, one of Nadeshiko's enemies, one of Kiri's enemies, a neutral party who stood to lose something if they joined forces….

Could be Konoha. They had their spymaster in the country already. If he was going to go around starting conversations with people who looked like Kiri shinobi, sending a young woman would be a good method to disguise the communication.

Suna. They had responded to her message to say that they would send a delegation, but they had to be cautious. It was probably half to placate her, being that they were so weakened at the moment. Could be Suna loyalists looking to protect Temari's team, could be a rival group looking to delegitimize it to prevent her from taking power in the vacuum.

Or, hell, it could be Kumo, because those guys were just really hard to read and uncomfortably close. Close enough for all sorts of shenanigans, and a likely place to produce a kunoichi who seemed young and strong enough to pull this kind of thing off. Aiko sighed and put away the prelim report when she was done with it.

She waited an hour to hear back, at which point her body was starting to complain more vigorously about her already stressful schedule being taxed by a lack of sleep. When she got the initial report- disappointing- Aiko sighed. She considered how good Obito had been at convincing people that they wanted to tell him things. She flicked her eyes absentmindedly between Rinnegan and Sharingan, wondering at how exactly he had done that. She should have asked before, probably.

Well. She'd start looking out for opportunities to practice that kind of thing, then. It seemed wasteful to try it on this girl, though. If her first attempt went sour, she would have lost out on any chance to gain intelligence on the situation.

Irritable and exhausted, she went back home as soon as the full security sweep had come back clear. It was about 4 in the morning when the last team signed off and she crept through her house. It was dark and quiet, so she went back to her room without trying to talk to the kids. It was better that someone had gotten some damn rest.

She was back in bed for 23 glorious minutes before she had the sudden feeling of imminent doom.

"Aiko-sama." Gaara stood at the foot of her bed, arms crossed over his chest.

She sat up blearily. "Good morning," Aiko said. She tugged at a pillow that had migrated halfway down the bed at some point. "What time is it?" It was still dark in her room- the only light was coming from down the hallway. Fuck. Really? Really?

Gaara just looked at her, as though the question was completely incomprehensible.

"The boy does not sleep," Sanbi reminded.

Ugh. As soon as Konoha knew she had been lying to them about the Ichibi, she was going to pay Jiraiya to fix Gaara's seal. That wasn't the kind of thing she felt comfortable experimenting with, but the boy deserved some peace.

"What did you want to talk about?", she went with. Aiko rubbed the sleep away from her eyes and half-wished that Mei would kill her already so this bullshit would be someone else's problem.

Sanbi made a deeply unhappy noise.

"You need to arrest two of your shinobi," Gaara said promptly.

She eyed Gaara over her wrist. "For amusement value, or..." She trailed off as she remembered one of Gaara's assignments. "Oh, the poisoning?" She threw off the bedcovers and grimaced at the cold. Aiko resigned herself to it. This was clearly going to be the worst kind of day. "Who is it?"

Gaara stepped to the side slightly as she put her feet on the floor and rose into a stretch. "One of the chuunin recently interviewed," he said. He watched her run fingers through her hair and pull on thick leggings to ward off the cold night air. "They were an accomplice."

"Oh, shit," Aiko said with feeling. She wrinkled her face into a scowl. "I really would have guessed that the twins were either both innocent or both guilty."

Her apprentice gave her a doleful look.

Mei or Utakata would have taken that as a chance to say something witty. Aiko sighed and snagged more clothes off of hangers. She tossed the undershirt and sweater on the bed and began unfastening the slacks. "And?" she prompted.

"One of the former political dissidents who returned when you allowed it." Gaara did not seem particularly approving. "I found them by researching who returned to the village around the time of the shipment."

Aiko paused, one leg in her pants. "Are you saying that you assumed that one of my chuunin was guilty, and then looked for connections?" she asked. She felt vaguely insulted by it as she zipped up and pulled a long-sleeved undershirt over her head.

"Yes," said Gaara, who did not have much faith in her shinobi. "Many of your shinobi who never left the village had ties to shinobi who returned. This causes them to be compromised, if they wish to protect their friends."

"Everyone wants to protect their friends," Aiko said dryly, the instant that her head was out of the neck on her sweater. She pushed the sleeves of her coziest sweater up to her elbows and glanced around for socks.

"Not everyone's friends have previously expressed their hatred for the citizenry of the village," Gaara pointed out.

She stopped in her tracks, mismatched socks in hand. Then she gave her apprentice a wounded look, as though it was his fault that he was right. "Some of them are nice people," Aiko pointed out. "There were good reasons to leave."

"I do understand your policy," Gaara said. He looked bored beyond belief at the concept. "The former political dissident is Yama Shuu. He left as a jounin and was reinstated as a chuunin, pending mental health assessments before returning to rank."

Aiko let out a gusty sigh. "I don't think he's going to pass them." What a pain in the ass. They could have used another jounin.

Gaara's eyes tracked over to her and then away. He didn't respond.

Ah, well. He was here on business after all. "Motivation?" Aiko asked.

"Yama-san blames Kirigakure as a whole for the toxic culture that resulted in the bloodline purge," he said, more comfortable on topic. "He was not associated with any clan, but fled when the order to purge was given."

She sighed. "So either just because he disagreed with it, he thought more killing would come, or that he possibly had some bloodline connection that might have gotten dug up," Aiko summarized. She felt tired. All she had energy for was pulling her hair back in a way that hopefully disguised any bedhead. "Evidence against him?"

"He has one of the missing containers," Gaara said, sounding offended at this sloppy work. "Possibly he intended to use the tainted food in another location."

"Ugh," Aiko said, disgusted. That was fairly damning. "When did you discover this?"

Gaara shifted his weight slightly, the first chink in his armor that she had seen today. "Recently," he hedged.

She folded her arms and looked down at him. "You just came here from wherever he lives, didn't you?"

He looked away.

"And he didn't see you at all? We do need to move fast. If he's a jounin, he might well notice someone was in his space." She started for the door and stalked down the hallway.

"He awoke," Gaara said, sounding stiff and defensive.

Oh, no.

She stopped in her tracks.

"I have restrained him."

Well, that boded well. Didn't sound fatal or anything. Considering Gaara's track record of problem solving, not murdering was a definite plus.

...It was factually true, but she just didn't feel that reassured.

"I have broken his arms and legs. As a precaution."

Ah. She turned around to look at her apprentice, unamused. "Was that necessary?"

Gaara didn't meet her eyes. "Yes. He would flee on his legs, would he not? And make handsigns for a shunshin or other such techniques."

Aiko inhaled, closed her eyes for a moment, and considered how it actually sounded like Gaara must have broken all the man's fingers in order to be certain that he would not be able to perform any jutsu. There was a certain brutal practicality to it. As a solution for a person with few, if any, resources to fall back on, she could understand it. She would do it, in the right circumstances.

But being the student of the Mizukage, a person who knew many powerful and resourceful people- those were not the circumstances of harsh desperation.

"Are you going to give a lecture about bringing proper supplies?" Sanbi asked.

'And a team,' Aiko answered, annoyed that she had to spell this out. That was the more important part. Gaara was not a lone wolf. He could have asked her, or pretty much anybody to go along with him. Two people could have much more easily handled the unpleasant surprise of disturbing their target. And one of them could have stayed to watch the prisoner, instead of breaking half their bones to be sure he wouldn't escape.

She felt a sudden pang of sympathy for Tsunade- her Tsunade, the one who had had to beat the same lesson into Aiko's head again and again. Shit. She totally deserved this student, didn't she.

"Half his bones? Not nearly. Humans have many bones," Sanbi said carelessly. "Do not exaggerate."

That was totally not the point, not even a little.

She did not deserve Sanbi, probably, but she had him. So she sighed and did what she had to. Yama-san's poor broken body was taken into custody, and a messenger was sent to divert Oda Aoi onto a mission roster that was leaving at first light, in response to new information that would require more firepower. The poor woman would have to hustle, given that she'd get the message 20 minutes before she was required to be at the gates, but it was still better. There was no sense in risking Aoi getting involved when her brother was taken into custody. He would be there when she got back, one way or another. Innocent and free, or guilty and awaiting judgment.

Kai did not actually have a chance to escape- his residence was surrounded by agents who moved in once his sister was off of the premises- but it was still surprising that he reportedly made his bed, ate half a bowl of rice and some miso soup from a packet, and then ambled out onto the street to surrender.

Guilt? Aiko wondered. Or just a desire to retain a bit of dignity?

Still, it did seem to put the nail in Gaara's theory. Just for that, she considered tossing her water at Oda Kai when she heard her people bring him into the secured interrogation area that Yama-san had only recently left. She had had faith in him, damnit, completely unwarranted faith based on her relationship with her twin.

"Ah. After all, you are so close," Sanbi said dryly. "You have a twin?"

Aiko told him to shove his attitude someplace rude.

She dealt with the poisoner first. He cut a pathetic figure, even after some medical treatment. Gaara had indeed broken his hands, and that was delicate work to reverse. They were swollen purple lumps under white bandage. His legs were better- splinted professionally, and slightly raised. They'd be better within a week, with continued treatment.

So her terrorist suspect was balancing on the very edge of his ass with both legs in the air and arms resting gingerly on a plastic table when she came in.

It was not a sight to strike fear.

"Good afternoon." She let her voice come out just as unimpressed as she felt, not bothering to reach for the manners she'd apply to any random person on the street. He'd been rude first, what with the murder and all. "I apologize for my apprentice's enthusiasm, but you have bigger problems, don't you?" Aiko pulled out the lone seat and settled on it like a queen.

Yama-san still hadn't looked at her, though he had flinched at the sound of her voice.

She sighed. "You present an irritating counterargument to my initiative to reintegrate political dissidents," Aiko said. She let her real annoyance come out. "Selfish, don't you think? Good men and women left their country reluctantly, because it was in the fist of a madman. And now you've given my political rivals a good, solid justification to say that they should all be hunted down because they left, even though the culture has changed to prove that many of those who left were in the right. Is that what you wanted?"

Not that she had many political rivals. At least, not many who had revealed themselves. There was someone waiting around, she had no doubt. There always was.

Yama-san seemed to draw further into himself. Good. Perhaps he was ashamed. It seemed like his profile was accurate, at least.

"Do you deny it?" Aiko demanded, just to be clear. He had already confessed, but she wanted to hear it.

"No." He said it sullenly. "I wanted to hurt as many people as possible. They're weak. They cowered when that bastard ruled. They deserved it."

"You were really bad at it," Aiko pointed out. Her tone slipped into a little bit of mockery. "I was served some- did you know that? I and my apprentice. I suppose you wish we'd eaten that. But it was not terribly subtle- how foolish was it not to stick around to ensure that the damaged foods went to people who would not know?"

Yama let out a bitter laugh and shook his head. That could mean a couple of things.

"You have two options."

The prisoner looked up, but there wasn't much hope on his face.

Aiko didn't smile at him, because there was mocking someone for failing to kill you, and then there was being a real dick. She wasn't interested in further torturing this man. He'd already lost. "The punishment for treason is death," she said. "No matter how sympathetic I find your reasoning for leaving Kirigakure, what you have done is inexcusable."

"Why are there two options, then," he asked dully. "Is it a matter of if I want to be beheaded or poisoned?"

She snorted. That was a dumb question. "State executions need to be uniform," Aiko dismissed. "No, your options are to walk to your execution, or to go under an experimental genjutsu. If it is successful, you will have no recollection of the last months, and will therefore receive no punishment such as demotion or prison time."

His eyebrows floated up in disbelief. "No consequences?" he said, skeptical. He huffed through his nose. "You're weak."

"There's a pretty good chance that the genjutsu will have side effects, assuming it doesn't drive you entirely mad," Aiko admitted. She shrugged. She did not have a great record with this. "Perfecting it would be very useful for me, but I'm afraid that I don't often find a good chance to practice on someone who could be watched after to track symptoms that would allow me to refine the genjutsu. If it goes well, you will lose several months of memory, but you'll wake up a loyal citizen of Kirigakure."

That, at least, she knew she could do for a fact. She'd done that a dozen times, at least. She could already change what a person believed. It was subtracting information that she was interested to try out.

He was silent and pale. "Ah," he finally managed. A shudder wracked his body.

"The only reason that the punishment for treason is death is as a deterrent. I admit that I'm not certain it is effective," Aiko readily admitted. It didn't matter what she told him, he wouldn't be talking about it later either way. "But as you indicated earlier, we cannot have a state where citizens believe they can harm our people without consequence. Key here is belief. Either your status as a citizen, or your belief can be ended. Your only collaborator has been secured, so there is no concern that someone will walk away from this with the lesson that violence will go unpunished."

"And we are more useful to you alive," he said bitterly.

"For information and as employees, yes." Aiko nodded. And as though it was an after thought, she added, "Although we could make use of fertilizer, of course. You may have heard about our push to produce more of our foods locally, it's very exciting."

She watched him flinch.

"Aiko," Sanbi said, sounding disgusted.

'I want him to think about the consequences,' she thought back, unrepentant. 'Not decide in a moment of stubborn, misplaced nobility that he'll die for his ideals of struggle against Kirigakure. Dead is dead, life has possibility.'

"You can decide now, or anytime within a week." Aiko unfolded her arms and straightened away from the wall. She looked down at him without tilting her head. "You can convey your decision to your jailors at any point, or wait until I return to ask you in 7 days. Unless you have an answer for me now?"

He was breathing heavily, the whites of his eyes showing. He let out a wild laugh. "It's not much choice, is it?" he choked out.

"People who poison food supplies get less choices than other people," Aiko said coldly. "It'd be one thing if you had tried to get revenge, or struck out at people who you thought were going to cause harm. I could understand that. It could even be patriotic, assuming you were successful. But you don't get the moral high ground here. You just wanted to hurt as many people as possible. Obviously, an antisocial mindset like that cannot be tolerated."

He ducked his head to look down at the plastic table his hands were on. It could have been shame, repentance. It could also be stubborn deception.

Aiko waited a long moment, giving him a chance to give an answer. When none came, she turned and swept out.

"Would you actually use him for fertilizer?" Sanbi asked, sounding amused but genuinely curious.

She wrinkled her nose. 'Not for anything that we might eat. I'm fairly certain that's a health risk. Maybe some trees, though?'

"Ah. That is reasonable. I do like trees."

"Everyone likes trees," she responded, feeling a bit cheered at the thought. Nice, calming trees. No one had ever tried to murder her with a tree, no tree had ever attacked her, trees were useful and pretty-

"You have low standards," Sanbi said thoughtfully.

Eh. Anyway.

Mokuton. That would be a nice thing to do today. She would steal away some time to work on that after the workday was done. It would be a lot better for her nerves than trying out her sharingan.

But for now, the work day had to begin in earnest. Coffee was made, mail was received, and she summoned Gaara in for a performance review right before she was going to talk to her advisers about the incident's conclusion.

"Overall, you've been doing well." She leaned back in her chair and hooked a foot around the bar under her desk. Gaara met her eyes with a total lack of concern. "Before he left for Wave country, Tazuna-san gave me a positive report on your intelligence and diligence through your work with him, and I am also very encouraged that you have, overall, been very gentle," she said. It came out a little wry, because of the incident this morning. "Your stability lately bodes very well for your future leadership roles. I'm also proud that you resolved the largest problem that I have given you so far. Successfully investigating an incident of sabotage speaks well to your deductive capabilities." She cocked her head at him. "What, do you think, you could have done better?"

Gaara shifted his weight very slightly towards the back. Another boy might have looked down at his feet.

She raised her eyebrow and waited.

"I could have broken less bones," he said, sullen. It was hard to hear him.

Aiko gave an encouraging nod. "That's true," she said, in a tone of light praise. "You did perfectly in the context of a one-man mission. However-"

She stopped. Her tired brain had belatedly made a connection between the story and just how diligent Gaara was at obeying orders.

Gaara looked guilty.

Aiko gritted her teeth, sucked in a deep breath, and resisted the urge to run her fingers through her hair. "You didn't go alone. Did you."

It was not really a question. Gaara looked shifty, but he nodded.

She looked at him for a long moment. "I did tell you to keep your sister with you," Aiko started, because she really should have expected this. She stopped. She took a deep breath and actually did run her fingers through her hair. "I meant for you to keep her out of trouble, not that you were authorized to take her out on a mission."

Gaara tilted his chin up. "That is what she said," he ground out. His tone went flat. "After we had first subdued Yama-san. With a rope," he added, as if it was important for her to know that he had initially intended to do things the way that she would prefer.

Aiko closed her eyes and took a minute. She let out a long sigh. "Well, in that case. It was a good idea to bring back up. In the future, please bring backup who does not need to conceal their presence on the mission, if plausible."

Her apprentice nodded.

She eyed him a long moment and thought it over. She leaned forward. "How did it go? Did you work well together?"

Gaara took a moment to answer, but then gave an uncertain nod. "It was- acceptable," he said.

Ah. Aiko pursed her lips, imagining how those two would be as a team. Scary, that's how. She liked it. "Cool." She tapped her fingers against her chin. "I might have you two do some other missions together. But do not do that again." She made sure she was holding eye contact when she emphasized, "Ever. Never ever. Do you understand me?"

He grunted. "I understand." Gaara cleared his throat. "When we report the encounter to Terumi-san and Utakata-san, shall I disclose Karin-san's presence?"

"Oh. God, no." Aiko leaned away from that suggestion. "I would never hear the end of it. You both keep your mouths shut. If anyone asks you why you didn't bring assistance, tell them that I had authorized it."

"And if they ask why there are so many broken bones?" Gaara asked, sounding just a little bit guilty.

Aiko shrugged, telegraphing the movement to banish his sad little mood. "Tell them that you saw he was the kind of monster who puts the toilet paper on backwards," she said flippantly. "You don't have to justify yourself to anyone but me. And a kiri-nin might not think to ask, anyway."

"Yes." Gaara nodded decisively. "I will remember it." He lifted his chin just that little bit higher.

Nishikawa-san knocked on the door and peered inside. He looked tired. "Mizukage-sama," he murmered. "Terumi-san and Utakata-san are here to see you."

Aiko exchanged a look with Gaara, willing him to be cool. "Send them in."

Her assistant drew back. Mei breezed in, a smile playing at her lips. Utakata was at her heels looking annoyed. The combination told a familiar story.

"So." Mei seated herself on the softest chair and crossed her legs. "I went down to see our newest guest." Her eyes sparkled. "Gaara, dear, why did you do that?"

Aiko felt her muscles seize up, but not one was looking at her.

Gaara sneered. "He put his toilet paper on the wrong way. He deserves to die."

Utakata gave Aiko a quizzical look, safely out of Mei's sight. She tried not to give anything away in her face. Stern. Solemn. Yes, this was a reasonable thing that her young man had just said. She gave a firm nod.

Mei faltered. She looked between Gaara and Aiko. Her mouth opened for the obvious question- which is the wrong way?- and then she clearly thought better of it. Her smile turned strained. She tossed her head and suddenly seemed more interested in talking to Aiko. "Has our lady guest from this morning said anything?"