Chapter Seventeen - To Outwit a Fox
Aiko slumped back into the curve of the boulder, letting out a 'chuh' as she eavesdropped on Kisame and Itachi's discussion. They had scouted Konohagakure without her, claiming that she would get in their way. However, she was of the opinion that if they had let her approach Naruto, they would have already succeeded in their mission's objective. Now they had to figure out how to overcome the strength of a Sannin.
"It's said that every strong man has a weakness."
"You mean the whole pervert thing, right?" she drauled, one foot swinging back and forth.
"What would you know about it?" Kisame questioned, one eyebrow lifting up into his hitai-ate as he turned to consider her.
"I have met the guy. In fact, Naruto was able to convince him to be his sensei by using his 'Harem no Jutsu'," she explained, letting out a 'bleh' noise as she scrunched up her face and stuck out her tongue.
"Harem no jutsu?" Kisame parroted, letting out a breath of laughter before turning to Itachi. "So that's your plan? I always thought you'd make a pretty girl, Itachi-chan."
"Enough. We have to remain focussed if we wish to succeed in our objective," Itachi murmured, staring pensively into the distance.
"Right," Aiko nodded, pushing a palm against the boulder to stand, feeling the wind tousle her lavender hair as she tightened the knot of her Ame hitai-ate, now bearing the signature scratch of a nuke-nin, "but you two have had your chance. This time I'm going to be the one to retrieve the fox."
XxX
The door to the hotel room creaked open, causing Naruto to blink as he took in the sight of his fellow Chunin exam participant, the corners of her mouth twitching as she swept a stray strand of lavender behind her ear.
"Suki!" the boy exclaimed, jumping forward to latch himself around her shoulders, oblivious to the widening of her blue eyes. "I knew you were okay! I told Kakashi-sensei that there was no way you would let yourself be killed by a bunch of idiots who thought they could take us on! What happened to you? Why are you dressed all funny?"
Naruto rambled on, blinking at the red clouds that emblazoned the girl's black cloak, its high collar obscuring her neck.
"Oh, this?" she said, looking down at her cloak, whilst holding out her arms for him to admire. "This is just a new look I'm trying, and in regards to the invasion, I was removed from the situation by Konohagakure ANBU."
"ANBU," Naruto parroted, eyes bulging.
"Yes, Naruto. You see, I am no mere Ame genin," she whispered, eyes flicking to the sides as if to check that they were alone before leaning in closer, "in fact I'm not from Amegakure at all… I'm-"
"WHAT?" Naruto shrieked, similarly leaning forward in secrecy before ruining the effect with his shout. "What do you mean? Where are you from? Does this have anything to do with why your hitai-ate is all scratched?"
Aiko let out a breath, pinching her nose as she slowly lost the will to explain to this idiot the backstory she had prepared. Jiraiya would probably be back before she even explained what a spy was.
"Tell you what," she beamed, tilting her head to the direction of the street. "How about we go get some food at the ramen stand I saw on the way in?"
"Ramen?" the boy confirmed, yellow stars appearing in his eyes.
Aiko gave the boy a close-eyed smile, outstretching her hand. Her eyes gleamed as Naruto interwove his own digits with hers, guiding him out the doorway of his room and into the establishment's corridor. That was when her gaze settled on the figure frozen at the opposite end of the hall.
"Get away from her, Naruto," the younger Uchiha commanded in warning, poorly attempting to obscure his heavy breathing.
"Teme, what are you doing here?"
Naruto titled his head at the boy, eyes squinting.
"Yeah, teme. Me and Naruto have a date to get to," she smirked, causing Naruto's eyes to bulge as his mouth dropped open and his cheeks flushed pink.
"Uchiha… Itachi," Sasuke growled, his onyx eyes becoming shrouded in shadow.
"No, Uzumaki Naruto," Aiko dead-panned.
"It's been a while… Sasuke."
Aiko flashed her fellow Akatsuki members a dark look over her shoulder as they made their presence known, finding it developing into an overwhelming dark aura as Kisame proceeded to stand between her and Naruto.
"From what I heard, it wasn't too long ago that you would have done anything to go on a date with Itachi," Kisame grinned, enjoying the mutters of death-threats to Kakuzu's latest partner before gripping the handle of Samehada to turn to a tense Naruto. "So, is this kid really the Kyubi?"
Naruto's attention flicked between the shinobi in the room, two of them promising death whilst the other threatened to cut off his legs as he unsheathed his sword.
"Ho… and a Sharingan?" Kisame continued his monologue, enjoying every twitch of response Naruto provided him with as the perspiration grew on his skin. "You seem to be familiar with Itachi. Who is this guy?"
"Oh for Kami's sake," Aiko exploded, pointing at each of them in succession, "Hoshigaki Kisame; fish who thinks he's funny, Uzumaki Naruto; kid who eats so much ramen his nine-tails are probably made of noodles, Uchiha Itachi; most likely murdered his whole Clan over a stick of dango, and Uchiha Sasuke."
Aiko just shook her head and sighed.
"I've been waiting to say this to you. I have lived to hate you, and soon, I shall kill you," Sasuke proclaimed whilst Aiko rolled her eyes, flicking her wrist out as if the boy had just proved her point, whilst the sound of chirping birds filled the room, "I have lived for this moment!"
Lightning chakra concentrating into his hand, Sasuke letting out a war cry as the wall caved into the mere power of what Itachi claimed in a soft voice to be, "Chidori."
Catching his wrist to blow a hole into the wall, Aiko's neck snapped to Naruto to witness his hands form a tiger seal, allowing the Kyubi's chakra to fill the room in a suffocating manner. Paper surged from her sleeves as it formed into the shape of a sword in the time that Naruto moved into a boar seal, her eyes narrowed as his chakra withdrew at Samehada's light touch.
"Dammit, dammit," the boy panicked, smacking his hands together in a ram's seal repeatedly as he tried to complete his jutsu.
"Forget it. Kisame-sensei's sword 'Samehada' eats up chakra at the slightest touch, " she explained, eyes gleaming as she indicated her own weapon. "Unfortunately, 'Kirie' can't do anything like that, so I suppose a limb or two will have to suffice."
Aiko brought her blade down as Naruto pain-stakingly attempted to complete his jutsu. That was when she was tugged back by the collar of her cloak, squeaking as Samehada took her blade's place to meet the arm of a frog summon.
"You don't seem to know very much about me," came a deep rumble from behind the now smiling boy. "I'm better at getting girls than they are getting me. It might not look like it… but that's my specialty."
"Yeah right, you big pervert," Aiko yelled, cutting him off in his self-proclamation of his 'resistance to womanly wiles' and 'sexiness'. "No girl would touch you with a kunai."
"She's right! That girl just winked at you and you were all over her, but now you're trying to look all cool, Ero Sannin!" Naruto confirmed, white-eyed as he pointed a single finger in Jiraiya's direction.
"What? You're agreeing with her?" Jiraiya exclaimed, teeth-bared. "That girl just tried to kill you, AND WOULD YOU STOP CALLING ME THAT!"
"No I didn't," Aiko shot back.
"Yes, you did," Jiraiya argued, a single eye twitching.
"No - I didn't."
"Yes - you did!"
From the floor, Sasuke groaned.
"Shouldn't you be focused on those guys over there, Ero Sannin?" Naruto huffed, hands on his hips as if scolding a child, causing Aiko to let out a giggle.
"So, it's one of the Sannin, the Great Jiraiya, eh?" Kisame grinned, eyes fixed on the man as if eager to test his strength against him. "While it's true you like beautiful women, we doubted that such a simple distraction would keep you busy for long."
"Right, you said he was so old he wouldn't take long to-" Aiko continued the sentence in a muffle, her chirp from behind the shark's back lost into his hand as he clamped it across her mouth.
He hadn't realised she had overheard his 'little joke' that he had made to Itachi earlier.
"Anyway," the shark continued, resisting the blush creeping up his cheeks, "it seems you already broke the genjutsu on the woman."
"So you guys used the sharingan to cast a genjutsu on this woman to lure me away? That's not a very noble way of doing things," Jiraiya murmured, setting the woman down to rest her back on the wall whilst Aiko muttered about 'hypocrites' before the Sannin gave her a sharp look. "And you? All this time you've been watching Naruto. Waiting for an opportunity to lure him away."
"That's right," Aiko confirmed for him, no longer deeming it necessary to deny it as Naruto sucked in his breath, watching as her face shifted into a malicious grin, "and you didn't suspect a thing, did you? You thought I was just a Amegakure kunoichi with a crush. Well let me enlighten you to my true identity; I am Akatsuki's child."
XxX
"Bastard!" Naruto shouted at Itachi, angered by Sasuke's screams as Itachi pinned him against the wall.
Aiko stepped in front of him, head tilted, "remember what I told you outside of the hot springs? We never got to see who would emerge victorious in a fight."
"Why are you doing this?" Naruto challenged her, fists clenched. "You cared deeply for your teammates."
"I didn't even know them," she scoffed, eyes narrowed.
"You saved my life."
"I saved the cute pug."
"You visited Lee in the hospital everyday! You even helped me to find my courage when all I wanted to do was run away," Naruto admitted quietly, a passion sparking in his blue eyes to captivate her attention before lifting his voice back up to yell in her face. "Why would a person like that, be with guys like this!"
"For peace," she growled, lunging at him with her sword, finding her foot had become stuck to the floor.
Her eyes flicked to the walls, now covered in what seemed to be pink flesh.
"Too late," came Jiraiya's deep tones. "You're already inside my stomach."
"That's disgusting!" Aiko shrieked, trying desperately to pull her foot free from the saliva covered flash before pausing to sniff the air and clamping the hand not clutching her sword over her nose, "and it smells! What the hell have you been eating?"
Aiko blanched as the flesh began to creep up her ankles, using her sword to hack at it with vigorous grunts.
"This is the esophagus of the giant toad from Myouki Mountain," Jiraiya explained, palms still resting on the floor, "Since you're criminals, I'm going to feed you to Iwagama!"
"I refuse to be frog food!" Aiko huffed, using the weight of her other foot to pull herself free before realising it too was entrapped.
That was the reason why her arms were now windmilling out of control, her face flying toward as she finally lost her balance and face-planted the flesh.
All the shinobi present blinked at her.
"I HATE PINK FROGGGGGSSSS!" she bellowed, lifting her face free of the esophagus to reveal it was covered in the saliva-like substance, causing the flesh covered walls to shake as if they were in the epicentre of an earthquake.
"Kisame, come," Itachi commanded, turning to his partner.
"Shit," Kisame responded, using his immense strength to tug Samehada free, fleeing before the flesh that began to close in behind him.
Scooping up a screaming Aiko, similarly freeing her legs from the pink flesh, he tossed her over his shoulder.
"You've pissed me off, you perverted Sannin!" Aiko yelled back at them from her position on Kisame's shoulder, violently shaking her fist at the pair. "You'll regret the day you messed with Akatsuki! You're dead!
"Shut it, kid," Kisame growled, flashing her a set of sharpened teeth as he jumped through the opening that was outlined in black flames.
"Why are we running away?" she snapped back. "They were no match for us!"
"There is no need to be hasty," Itachi drauled, eyes focussed, "also my body needs to recover. We must wait. Until 'tsukuyomi' becomes 'amaterasu', we should not use it."
Aiko just stuck her tongue out in response over Kisame's shoulder before turning back in the direction they had come from, opting to rest her elbow on Kisame's back as she supported her head with the palm of her hand. The time to play games was over. The pieces on the board had begun to move, and it was time to cross the board and claim the power she needed to win this war.
She would no longer be Akatsuki's child.
She would become their equal.
A/N: Aaannnnddd that's it! Part I complete! Thank you very much for reading and I hope you liked it. Part II... hmm, like I said production has begun, but geez Naruto is a long manga to cover. I'll work on it. I promise! But maybe you could let me know if you want to see anything in particular for Part II? Any things that you think 'that would be hilarious' or 'this would so happen'. It'll be interesting to know actually, and if it works with my timeline (which is all written), why not include it. I think it'll be quite inspiring!