Author's notes: I have no excuse for not updating for over half a year. Can I blame covid? I mean, it's been blamed for pretty much everything else.
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Most of the dismantling was done under the cover of darkness. This was where it really paid to be a ninja, Tsume thought, as she helped Yuu and his team roll up the silk canvases. Everyone had to move quickly and quietly, and that was the expectation of ninjas everywhere – or at least that's what Danzo had said, in a voice that implied he didn't find his current companions to be quiet or quick.
Tsume wasn't close to Yuu's chuunin team – Kasen, Dokuya, and Ginsen – but they smelled nice, and anyone whom Yuu liked was good enough for Tsume. They seemed amiable too, more cautious with their words and less prone to mocking Tsume than the Uchiha twins. In the end, Enkan had decided that they were best suited as backups for everyone, because he decided that the last act needed to be simple enough for every audience to follow, instead of busy and chaotic. Tsume was grateful that Enkan had decided that she was the wild wolf girl and that was that; he had changed his mind multiple times with people's placements and the acts, even during the practice of such acts. There was no way she had the brain space to memorize three different acts in less than a week and still be expected to perform perfectly.
Kasen, Dokuya, and Ginsen had been the busiest of all the Konoha nin, learning how to be fire dancers and jugglers in case the twins got sick, to be replacements for anyone on her brother's team, and memorizing the acts and skills of trapeze acrobatics like Minato and Osamu. They were what Enkan had called "free-floaters". Since they weren't needed tonight for any of the performances, they instead helped with ticket sales and crowd controls. Tsume wondered if they were bothered with how the others got the spotlights, but then figured probably not, since they remained amiable. She expected that anyone whose sensei was part of T&I learned to value the significance of shadows and disinterest. Tsume personally felt that anyone who had to learn everything was someone worth watching – the Uchiha twins could probably do what everyone else was doing, but that's because they would cheat and use their Sharingan to copy everything.
"Did you pack any regular clothes?" Yuu asked as Tsume, boosting her strength with chakra so she could heft the large stack of folded silks, tottered past him with her large load.
Tsume shuffled around with her feet and hoped that her nose and Ichi would alert her to any tripping obstacles. Ichi and Kuromaru were being helpful, each hauling several lengths of tent ties that had been gently knotted together to form wreaths draped around their necks. "Was I supposed to?"
"We're heading up north. You're going to be awfully cold if that's your only wardrobe."
True, dashing around in the cold dressed in what amounted to a leather-and-fur bikini wasn't going to be the highlight of her mission, although Danzo had given some indication that it would be the highlight for some of the guys, and had strongly urged her to throw on a bathrobe if she were ever in the vicinity of Jiraiya. (To which Jiraiya had loudly proclaimed that of course Tsume was off-limits, she was fourteen years old, and he hadn't forgotten that!)
Yuu glanced at his team with a raised eyebrow.
"I'm packed."
"Yup, me too. Even brought along a spare pair of wool socks for Ginsen."
"Hey! I remembered to bring…wait. Yeah, now that I'm thinking about it, I probably did forget my socks again."
"And you wonder why we want to tattoo socks on the back of your dominant hand."
After delivering the silks to the covered wagon where Chouza was rearranging everything to maximize space (leave it to the Akamichi to assume control of supplies and packing – the clan was Queen Alpha Bitch merchant-ninjas extraordinaire, and Tsume knew where her place was on that food chain), Tsume told Shi and San that they had to run back home and ask Oyubi to pack a spare bag of cool-weather clothes for her to grab when she returned home only long enough for a quick meeting.
Shouldn't you have thought of this yourself? San demanded.
"Yes, but we all know that I'm not the best for thinking ahead –that's why I've got you guys. And since you didn't remind me to do this beforehand, you have to go do it. I'm supposed to stay here and help tear-down. We leave Konoha with daylight, and Sakumo-sensei won't teach me a bilocation jutsu no matter how much I ask." He kept saying he didn't know any, and Tsume kept reminding him that she could smell a lie.
Shi and San gave Tsume a look and a body stance that clearly told her what they thought of her order. Or maybe it was in reference to how she wasn't prepared as a good leader should be. Some days, despite being the alpha queen bitch, Tsume clearly didn't measure up as Shinzou once did. So she narrowed her eyes, bristled her hair, stamped her foot once, and loomed over as threatening as she could. San replied with an insolent huff, but at least she followed Shi as he turned to lope back to the clan compound.
The storage wagon that Chouza had commandeered was more of a flatbed that one of the elephants pulled. When Tsume had asked if any of the show horses were going to pull wagons, their handlers were so insulted that Tsume might have caused less offense in asking Danzo what the latest ANBU secrets were. Actually, if she did ask him, Danzo would've just given her the stink eye and replied with something like, "Why ask me? Your nose probably knows more than I do. By the way, what is everyone doing right now? I told them that they weren't allowed to take breaks, and I know someone has been sneaking off for dango lately…"
Okay, she would've caused less offense if she had asked Sakumo what it was like having sex with her sister. Which, oddly enough, from what she could remember from before Kakashi was born, had probably been pretty good. Hidarime sure looked like the dog who nicked the sausage whenever she came back home...
"I really need to stop thinking," she told Kuromaru as they walked past Inoichi.
Inoichi, whose face was freshly scrubbed clean of its layers of makeup, snorted. "That would imply you even started in the first place." Then a suspicious look crossed his face. "This thinking of yours doesn't involve any cockamamie schemes involving a demonic horse or your teammates, does it?"
"No. Just Sakumo-sensei."
Inoichi breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good. The White Fang can take care of himself. Look, this is an important mission for us – my team is looking at possible promotion to jounin – so don't try anything that's going to drag us into a mess that would jeopardize our possible success."
Tsume glared. "I don't have to try anything." Wait – that didn't come out right. "I mean, I don't want to drag anyone into a mess."
Inoichi wilted in dismay. "Oh. That is true – most of the messes you drag us into are accidental, not manufactured." He rubbed his forehead in thought. "Look, just make sure that you suck Ringo or Daimaru into your mess first, all right? That way, my team can look like we're rescuing you from your problems when we all become inevitable victims of your mischief, and then everyone will be happy but the Uchiha."
That sounded like a safe compromise to Tsume, even if Inoichi was just being a drama queen. "Okay." They sealed their deal with a friendly fist bump.
oOoOoOo
Kagami was already waiting in Tsume's kitchen when she hurried across town to her compound. He was scratching San behind her ears while Tsume's knapsack, stuffed with a few extra traditional leather clothes, the leather poncho, some regular civilian clothes and underwear, a first aid kit, and her standard camp kit all sealed in a scroll, rested at his feet. Oyubi, looking half-ready to fall asleep, was also at the kitchen table. From the odor of it, Kagami had done most of her packing. Well, if any random guy was going to go roaming through her underwear drawer, she was comfortable with it being Uchiha Kagami. (He had also packed Mikoto's bag, which rested next to hers, so she figured he knew what was necessary for a long-term mission.)
"So, uh," Tsume looked between them. "Did you have a chance yet to talk to Oyubi?" she asked Kagami.
Oyubi made a sour face. She was never polite when she was exhausted. "I already know about my parents and the wedding that Mikoto is planning. Apparently, the colors are supposed to be orchid and cream." She wrinkled her nose, and not from the strong scent of coffee as she poured a cup for Tsume. "I don't even know what color orchid is. Blue? Yellow with brown spots? Swan shapes or hairy monkeys from the moon? Can shapes even be a color? Orchids come in an awful lot of colors." And Oyubi would know – she had to do a stint as a guard at the Annual Orchid Convention last year to make sure that no one sabotaged anyone else's plants. It paid quite handsomely and required very little physical strain - perfect for Oyubi, who had been recovering from a compound femur fracture and was on a month-long stroke watch by her medic.
It turned out that in the competitive world of orchids, people were cutthroat. Several throats, in fact. And Oyubi was only supposed to guard the prized vampire orchard. (Oyubi had been solemnly warned by Yamanaka Inoichi against ever getting involved with the International Dahlia League. When Tsume had asked him, Inoichi had twitched and said that the First Rule of the International Dahlia League was that you Didn't Speak About the International Dahlia League. Tsume was a month shy of being fourteen years old when she learned that the horticultural world of competition was even more shady than the shinobi world of, well, everything else.)
Fugaku was brought in to investigate claims of theft when various judges refused to just take Oyubi's word on who the thieves – and murderers – were because odor alone wasn't acceptable proof in the court of law, or with the Itty Bitty Orchid Committee. Fugaku had grumbled nearly as much as Oyubi, both of them bonding over their frustration with flower judges and getting quite drunk off of Tsume's attempt at homemade dandelion wine. Apparently, Uchiha Police also didn't realize that the world of orchids was Serious Business. Not only did they all bond (very awkwardly), but Tsume learned that Fugaku and Oyubi both made horrible, maudlin drunks, and Uchiha Mikoto was awesome to hang out with. The investigation wound up uncovering an international smuggling ring of ultra-rare orchids, which not only implicated multiple foreign dignitaries, but also caused the collapse of at least two nations – Here and There, which were very small nations, so no one in Konoha cared too badly – and a small war that lasted about six days between the Lands of Hither and Yon.
It still ranked as one of the most bizarre missions anyone had ever had to do in the history of Konohagakure. Danzo later reported that the Hokage wound up classifying it an S-rank secret just for the embarrassment factor.
Kagami didn't stop scratching behind San's ears. "It's a vibrant purple that borders on pink. It's like magenta, but not as bright."
Oyubi eyed Kagami as she stole a sip of Tsume's coffee. "Would you believe me if I think it's strange that you should know what the color orchid is? And why, of all things, you would focus on that part of my rant?"
"Not at all. Mikoto-chan and her mother were undecided between orchid and cream, or midnight blue and silver, and I had to cast the tiebreaking vote. I personally feel that the orchid and cream are most complimentary with our skin colors. However, discussion of wedding colors is not why I'm here, Oyubi-san."
"Of course not. You wouldn't be here at…" Oyubi double-checked her watch, "the ungodly hours in the morning meant for nothing but sleep, sex, assassinations and clandestine meetings between Clan Head and Head of Internal Affairs for no reason. Wedding colors are best discussed in the afternoon."
"I am actually here to discuss you, not your parents."
Oyubi froze in mid-yawn, clamped her teeth shut, and flickered her gaze from Kagami to Tsume. "You didn't." Her sour face went very blank and still. Tsume tried to push her personal scent down, but her scent also had a big, fat mouth. "You did. Tsume, how the hell did you manage to spill a secret that I have never shared with a living soul – not even with my own ninken?"
Tsume wondered if it was becoming of a Clan Head to duck for cover. Oyubi rarely became angry – she just got even, instead. In some ways, she was much more like her sire's family than her maternal clan. "I didn't say a word!"
"Her face gave it away," Kagami said. "Tsume has never been able to adequately disguise guilt, and when discussing Shinchuu and Hiroaki, I mentioned how my clan was very unlikely to ignore your baby sibling, no matter that you were never able to awaken your Sharingan, and her expression indicated that you had. Tsume then admitted that she can smell when the Sharingan blooms. Apparently, the scent of an individual changes when their bloodline limit awakens."
Oyubi stared hard at Kagami. "I wasn't aware that the scent changes. I don't think anyone else could." Kagami went very still, eyes widening perceptively. Slowly, he and Oyubi focused their gaze upon Tsume.
Tsume honestly didn't know why no one else could tell. When Oyubi's bloodline limit awakened, her eyes evolved. "The ocular cells shifted and changed, and Oyubi's optical nerves and visual cortex mutated. They didn't smell the same as they did before," she explained. How no one else couldn't pick up on the shift was dumbfounding. Tsume could understand someone not having the sensitivity to detect the DNA molecules of an individual over 200 kilometers away, but Oyubi was sitting right there in her kitchen, close enough to touch Tsume's elbow, and not even the pungent coffee was enough to smother the odor that indicated that Oyubi's ocular scent was almost the same as Kagami's.
It was probably be a good idea if Tsume never mentioned that she could also tell how Kagami's Sharingan wasn't an ordinary Sharingan, like Oyubi or Fugaku's seemed to be, but was instead something so much more.
Tsume concentrated on blowing on her coffee and trying not to squirm in her seat. Kagami lifted his hand off of San's head, who whined and nudged his knee. "So…. It's not normal to detect a change in scent in someone who has an active bloodline limit?"
Oyubi shifted her gaze from her Clan Head to her unacknowledged uncle. "No more normal than it is to detect what you ate for breakfast from eight hundred kilometers away, two years ago, the morning that the Hokage left for the Capital."
As Kagami pinned Tsume with a gaze that was on the verge of the Sharingan, she failed in not squirming in her seat. "I see," he said softly, the steel in his voice sliding through her blood vessels as easily as a sharpened kunai. He knows, she realized with a flash. He knows that I know that he doesn't have an ordinary Sharingan. She opted to distract him from knowing what she knew. "You, uh, had left-over fried rice and milk, no tea. Fugaku and his father never actually ate breakfast." After a moment, she added, "The Hokage was drinking oolong tea with two cubes of sugar and a spoonful of cream, and he ate a green banana with some ink-stained sugar."
Kagami's voice was faint as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "You could smell two cubes of sugar in a single cup of oolong tea from eight hundred kilometers away?" When Danzo learned of how strong her olfaction looked, Tsume distinctly remembered that he looked torn between deciding which was easier: burying Tsume, or fucking her, into the cold, hard ground. Kagami, on the other hand, didn't look like he wanted to fuck or kill her, but instead was desperately struggling to keep his head above towering, raging ocean waves.
Everyone else always seemed more impressed by the ink-stained sugar on the green banana. "Why are we even talking about me? We're supposed to be talking about Oyubi."
Kagami turned back to Oyubi. "Can you identify the exact amount of sugar in the exact type of tea that a single individual is drinking from eight hundred kilometers away?"
Oyubi's voice was a sulk. "I can't even smell a week-dead body rotting in the sun from two hundred kilometers away."
"Then why are you simply shocked that she could smell your development of the Sharingan when you're sitting elbow to elbow with her right now?"
Oyubi sighed and dropped her head onto the kitchen table. She looked as exhausted at the day they discussed Shinchuu's unexpected pregnancy. "I really shouldn't be. This is why Tsume's nose and sensitivity is considered an S-rank secret in the Village. I thought the Hokage would've told you about the tea and the sugar, though."
"Apparently, Hokage-sama felt that knowing Tsume could catch the scent of a kidnapped Uzumaki five countries away was enough detail for me to infer upon her sensitivity." Kagami rubbed his temples. "But Tsume is right. We're supposed to be discussing the Sharingan, which you keep so handily distracting us from. In truth, I'm not so much interested in how much you've developed it, or whether you're even using it – I only wanted notify you of the Curse of Hatred. I would be criminally neglectful in failing to inform anyone with a developed Sharingan of the Curse."
"Sounds dreadful." Oyubi lifted her head upright. "Is that where a person goes blind if they use their Sharingan too much?"
Kagami blinked. "I…I should probably go over that too, although the blindness is only in regards to overusing the Mangekyo Sharingan." His eyes flickered toward Tsume. "The Curse is different. It was so-identified by my old sensei, Senju Tobirama. He recognized and realized that we Uchiha are a rather passionate people, and we love deeper than most, even though many of us prefer to be more private in sharing our affections. We have a tendency to become overly attached to a single source of affection, and when we lose that – usually through death, if we're attached to a person – the love flips into hatred for ourselves, because we couldn't protect that person we loved. When we hate and loathe ourselves, we lose any care for personal boundaries and morals. Without the restraints of love, we are inclined to do anything and everything in our power to achieve whatever goal suits our fancy, regardless of means and consequences. It's why Uchiha Madara turned dark. It has to do with the same chakra in the Sharingan affecting the emotional centers of our brains."
Oyubi studied Kagami's face, and then stole another sip of Tsume's coffee. Tsume felt that Oyubi should just pour her own cup. "A single source of affection, eh?"
Kagami nodded once. "Yes."
"It doesn't have to be a person."
He shook his head once. "No."
"Your source of affection is justice."
He smiled gently. "No."
Tsume snatched her coffee back from Oyubi, and softly swore when the hot liquid sloshed out of the cup across her knuckles and onto the table's surface. "His source if people without a voice," she said, thinking of how he had approached her about Hiroaki asking Shinchuu's hand in marriage. She remembered Kagami sitting still in the back of a covered wagon as he readily welcomed and allowed a twelve-year-old rape victim to paw at his dandelion-fluff hair, because she found comfort and security in doing so. "The people that no one else wants or have failed to protect."
Kagami's smile grew wide, sunshine bright. "Indeed. There will always be those without a voice, so my single source of affection will never be lost. My Will of Fire will always burn true, and never darken into the Curse of Hatred." '
Oyubi threw a dry hand towel at Tsume to clean up the spilled coffee. "Huh. Well, that explains so much about you, Kagami-kun. I never could figure out why you always seemed so damn perfect as the Head of Internal Affairs. Way to make the rest of us look like selfish slobs."
Kagami's smile slipped off. "Again, we're supposed to be talking about you. I won't ask you about your single source of affection – I just hope and pray it's not a person, for people often wind up dead. And truthfully, since you are as Inuzuka as you are Uchiha, I don't know how the Inuzuka loyalty and characteristics play into the Will of Fire and Curse of Hatred."
Oyubi's face was blank as she leaned back in her chair and considered Tsume. Her scent was carefully controlled, and Tsume felt a pit of cold settle in her stomach. "I am… I am gamma. I lead and I herd those whom I love, but I choose to keep my territory is small and personal, unlike this one who seems to have taken the entirety of the country under her wing and every single misfit who strays into her sphere of greed. I have no ends I must meet, and therefore no means in which to hurt people, unless they interfere with my mission or threaten my territory. But I can honestly say that I don't have a single source of affection. My clan, my ninken, my Village, my leaders. They are my territory, and I will live and die by them." She bowed deeply to Tsume, held the pose for a moment, and then straightened. The look in her eyes made Tsume feel naked. "Don't die on this mission, Tsume. It would probably be a bad thing for many people."
Tsume tried to think of a good response to that; it was like Oyubi had just declared Tsume her most precious person in the world, and it made her feel awkwardly vulnerable. The best she could say was, "I think it would be a bad thing for me, too, if I died."
oOoOoOo
They left Konoha before dawn; Tsume hadn't been allowed any sleep, because after she left Kagami and Oyubi to discuss how the Sharingan made people go blind (to which Oyubi firmly told Tsume that this was now firmly in the territory of the Uchiha clan secrets, so Tsume scuttled back to the circus with her and Mikoto's packed supplies), she got thrown into other details with the circus.
She was exhausted as they left through the gigantic walls. Everyone seemed to hold their breath, as if they expected to be denied permission to leave. It was too early yet for visitors – outsiders to Konoha were not allowed entrance until dawn. Only fellow citizens and shinobi were allowed to enter or exit Konoha before daylight touched the stone faces on the Hokage Monument.
Tsume craned her neck to see the tops of the walls as the train snaked down the path into the forest. Standing at the top edge of the wall, hands folded behind themselves and their faces shadowed, were the Hokage and Shikake. At Shikake's side, face tilted so she could see features, was Kakashi. When Tsume raised her hand and waved goodbye, only the Hokage waved back. Kakashi slouched his shoulders like he was getting a head start on becoming a Nara, and slid out of view behind Shikake.
Tsume scratched her head and wondered if she should say something to Sakumo about her suspicions, then decided to take a wait-and-see stance when it came to Kakashi. After all, Shikake was way smarter than her, and also way smarter than Kakashi, so he'd be able to stop Kakashi from doing something stupid or reckless. And if he couldn't, well, then Kakashi deserved the satisfaction that came with outwitting the Nara.
The bulk of the circus was being hauled in flatbed wagons that were hitched to the elephants. Smaller wagons were towed by mules and horses strictly used for work. The show horses, their fur gleaming and their mane carefully braided, were ridden by different circus performers. Some of the circus workers rode in the wagons, but all the Konoha shinobi had to walk. Except, Tsume thought jealously as she kicked at a rock, Mikoto and Kushina, who were expected to keep up appearances even on the road, and were thus perched each upon an elephant's head, dressed in silks that looked like Enkan had loaned them from his personal wardrobe.
And she really shouldn't be jealous. Kushina permanently smelled of embarrassment, and also smelled just as jealous of Tsume walking in the back. ("The grass is always greener," Sakumo had told Tsume earlier as he steered to her the small cart that contained a cage holding two tigers.)
Enkan rode one of the show horses, often turning her to the side and having her sidestep and prance for merchants camped out on the side of the road with their carts of goods – merchants were denied entry to Konoha until a half-hour after dawn. This was mainly to prevent a backlog of people coming and going; most shinobi left Konoha before dawn. Danzo also rode a show horse, but smelled like he would much rather walk.
Sakumo was walking, and he did so with Aunt Natsumi and Orochimaru. The latter two appeared to be having an animated discussion that Tsume would hear if she bothered to increase the chakra in her ears, but didn't, because they didn't smell too hostile towards each other. San and Shi dogged Aunt Natsumi's heels. As long as Aunt Natsumi stayed close to the circus train, Tsume wouldn't worry – however, the world was a very large place to an old woman who frequently got lost between home and the market, despite the path remaining unchanged in Tsume's lifetime. Tsume had firmly told Grandmother's ninken that their main responsibility was to ensure that Aunt Natsumi was never left alone unsupervised, no matter what Aunt Natsumi told them otherwise.
The wagons holding the tiger cages were pulled by shinobi genin and chuunin in teams of two. They had been told it was because the horses were too scared to pull the wagon, but Tsume just suspected that it was because they were the lowest ranking people in the entire circus. Tsume never thought it was supposed be one of her duties – didn't she look a little too wild to pull a wagon? Her team member was too busy looking pretty and the ninken didn't fit into harnesses designed to pull the wagon, so she got paired with Minato. Ichi, Ni, and Kuromaru kept pace, sometimes beside the wagon, sometimes in front or behind, but always close. They mostly ignored the tigers, and the tigers did likewise. In fact, the tigers looked too bored and lazy to consider breaking out of their cages to eat horses or humans. They were just a pair of gigantic cats, lazing around in the sunshine.
"The horses aren't really scared," she told Minato after the sun had been up for an hour. She was bored and starting to get thirsty, and wondered if she could borrow his canteen. It occurred to her that she couldn't carry a canteen because it didn't fit her image, so she was probably going to spend this entire mission bumming sips off of everyone else. Well, at least she could sniff out people whose oral hygiene could be trusted, and Minato was fastidious about brushing his teeth. He was actually pretty fastidious about anything that went into his mouth, too, come to think of it. She bet that if his milk was a single day after expiration, he'd dutifully pour it out for the enjoyment of stray cats everywhere.
Minato tilted his head to the side as he considered this for a moment. Like all the other chuunin, he wore nondescript civilian clothes – plain, homespun linens that were dyed in soft blue-grays and muted greens – and his forehead was bare; it made him look younger than his thirteen years. "I know. I think this is just something we're supposed to do to stay occupied. The circus doesn't move as fast as we otherwise would on foot."
They both fell silent. Minato was satisfied to be left with his own thoughts, but Tsume wasn't. As Enkan rode past with his prancing horse, eyes sharp and shoulders tense despite his lazy air of confidence, Tsume thought of chuunin testing and missions and everything that she more-or-less remembered Enkan saying that first night everyone had gathered at Tsume's home.
"Enkan also hired us because of the past attacks and raids on his circus, but he doesn't strike me as the type who would've allowed any attack to be successful. You think what whoever or whatever attacked the circus is more than just your ordinary bandit? Do you think the attackers could be missing nin?"
Minato shrugged. "If it is, that would explain why Danzo and Orochimaru are involved. Our sensei are strong enough to do protection detail without any assistance from Danzo, Orochimaru, or especially your aunt."
"My aunt is actually here because of me." Oops – as Minato's eyes narrowed, Tsume wondered if she should jam her foot in her mouth or kick herself instead.
Then Minato's face smoothed into understanding. "Ah, because you're the clan head. I was wondering why the Hokage was allowing her to leave Konoha when there didn't seem like she was going to obtain another summon." Tension still tightened and hunched Tsume's shoulders, especially when she was aware that Minato kept glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. Tsume knew that Aunt Natsumi's main purpose was to stand as a very deadly wall between Orochimaru and her.
And the more she thought of that, the more uncertain she felt, and the more Minato would realize something was wrong. Instead, she did a quick sniff-peek at Kakashi. Kakashi was hanging out with Shikake, eating rice cakes (Kakashi) and drinking sake (Shikake), and Kakashi smelled of more rice cakes than he was eating… Huh, the little sneak was squirreling rice cakes away. Well, if he insisted on hoarding food when the circus train hadn't even been gone an hour, then Shikake was sure to catch him. It would serve him right; Shikake and the Hokage were probably way smarter than Kakashi, or at least were experienced when it came to sneaky children. Well, the Hokage was, at least. Shikake's two children weren't very sneaky, as shinobi children went. Shukaku was too lazy to dedicate time and energy into being sneaky, and the best Tsume could do was short-term stalking with hair that was impossible to hide.
"Where are we heading from here?" she asked absentmindedly; Hikaru had blanketed the next twenty kilometers with kikaichu.
"Jiraiya-sensei said we have a personal audience with the Fire Daimyo a week from now."
Tsume's instant mood elevation wiped out all shreds of jealousy. "Really?" She had never been to the Capital before. Cousin Megumi had once told her that the Capital streets were paved with gold, but she knew that was a lie without smelling it, because gold was just too soft to be paving streets with. She sniffed the air, and then coughed. "Uh. Do you happen to know where your sensei even is?"
Minato closed his eyes as a spasm of pain crossed his face. His head drooped low. "Let me guess. We left him behind at the women's side of the hot springs in Konoha. He'll probably get run off before we're even half-way to the Capital."
"Well, we didn't leave him behind. I think he's one of those who Enkan sent ahead to put up posters and spread the word that we're coming to town. If it's any consolation, he did put up two posters at Oro-fuma. And if he stops watching the mayor's daughter while she washes her hair, there might not be any angry mobs involved."
Minato slowly raised his head. "Oro-Fuma is almost thirty kilometers from here."
Uh oh.
"What's the mayor's daughter washing her hair with?"
Tsume looked anywhere that wasn't Minato. Aunt Natsumi had looped an arm around Orochimaru's shoulder as her laughter floated overhead, and Orochimaru's arms hung loose at his side, hands open and relaxed. At least they seemed to be getting along for now. Ni and San followed three paces behind Aunt Natsumi, shoulder to shoulder. Sakumo was way in the back now, hanging out with Yuu and his team, and Danzo was at the head of the line. It seemed like no one was paying attention to her and Minato. "She's washing it with a homemade mixture of lemon and orange oils, and rose water." It actually made the Mayor's daughter smell like a fruit salad.
Minato leaned close so he could whisper. "How far away were you and Danzo when you caught Kushina's scent?"
Tsume bit the inside of her lip.
"That's a rhetorical question, actually." Minato raised his voice a little as he leaned back from her, but not enough for others to overhear. "Danzo himself said, that night we were at the cave over the waterfalls, that you had caught Kushina's scent from two hundred kilometers away. And then I later looked at a map and realized it was probably closer to three hundred kilometers away, based on where your death declaration stated you had been killed. Frankly, thirty kilometers is nothing in comparison, so I would've been shocked if you couldn't tell what the mayor's daughter was washing her hair with."
Tsume didn't know if she should hug Minato, or run away.
"Anyway, you don't have to worry about me. I was just curious because Jiraiya-sensei has been seeing someone, but he's evaded everyone when he sneaks off, including Hikaru's kikaichu. I don't remember him smelling of orange or lemon oils whenever he came back, though, so…"
Tsume wasn't used to someone being so accepting of the strength of her olfaction.
"Look," Minato said as Tsume wrestled with her thoughts, "you're good. I know that. You're probably the best of your clan, because I've done some work with other Inuzuka – I know that most of them wouldn't be able to track someone from over three hundred kilometers away. There's nothing wrong with being the best at something. Especially for this chuunin exam – they're going to be watching you on how successful a leader and kunoichi you are, and your nose is going to be your greatest asset. You shouldn't be ashamed of it."
"I'm not ashamed!" It was one thing to be good, it was another to make Danzo look at you like he couldn't decide if you were too important to die or too dangerous to live. She just didn't know what an acceptable level of olfaction was to show in public, and her teachers didn't really seem to know either.
Minato shrugged. "You're either ashamed, or you've been told to hide it, and you're doing a really lousy job at the latter. Either way, your attempts at being evasive only brings more attention to your olfaction. Own it, take pride in how good you are, and treat it naturally. You can smell things as easily as the rest of us can walk, but you don't see us trying to hide our walking when Kokoro is around, do you?"
Whoa. Tsume never thought about it like that. Danzo, Yuu, Aunt Natsumi, and Sakumo still weren't paying attention to her. Well, then, if they (okay, Danzo) didn't like how Tsume was going to display her strengths, then he should've been more specific in teaching her on what was acceptable to show in public. Besides, Minato was right. If she were Ringo or Daimaru, she wouldn't be second-guessing the use of her Sharingan. Hikaru wasn't going to hold back her kikaichu. Kushina wasn't going to suppress her stamina.
And no one hid their walking from Kokoro.
Tsume closed her eyes for a moment to concentrate, and then opened them when she nearly tripped over an exposed root. The wagon jostled and the tiger cage tilted slightly as they tugged it over a section of the path torn up by tree roots. The path was shadowed from the large branches that crisscrossed overhead – Konoha's Highway In the Sky. Down here, beneath the branches, the sky a patchwork of blue, shadows stretching and waning between the tree trunks and the bushes, it seemed like an entirely different world to Tsume's eyes.
Her nose told her differently. The scents of Fire Country – the people, animals, plants, soil, wind, and water – was every bit the same outside of the wall as it had been before she stepped outside. And in the pores of the humans, the glands of the animals, the stems of plants, the fabric of the air and earth itself, was Fire. She could tell where migrating birds had come from – their diet colored their scent, and the insects they ate in turn consumed on the plants of Fire Country. Borders weren't distinct lines of odors, more of a gradient. Very often, borders were defined by different landscapes and geological formations; the dusty arid of Wind Country eventually gave way to the lush dankness of Fire Country, which eventually gave way to the salty mustiness of Rice Paddy and Whirlpool Countries. Smaller countries, like Bear, were harder to detect when she was at a relatively low olfaction.
Since there didn't seem to be any reason to raise her olfaction level, Tsume kept it where it was to follow the flight of birds, beetles as they burrowed through the rich soil, ants as they diligently cleaned up the forest floor of its decaying debris. There wasn't much of anything else to do, since she was stuck pulling the tigers, and Mooncalf was a really lousy conversationalist. There he was, with that stupid thinking expression on his face again. If a butterfly landed on his nose, he probably wouldn't notice.
oOoOoOo
Lunch was basically the cooks making cold sandwiches with slabs of cold meats slapped between a sliced stale bread roll, and leftover cotton candy for dessert, while the circus caravan paused to rest the animals (the elephants and horses sure didn't smell tired). Enkan didn't even permit time to allow fires for fresh tea. The meat was safe, because the cooks had roasted it the previous night in anticipation of lunch, and then stored the meat in coolers with fresh seals from Orochimaru.
Minato's sandwich was pinched between his fingers and he stared at it like he couldn't tell if he should be offended or not. Tsume, after sharing half her food with her ninken, decided it didn't taste too bad (a little bland, but nothing that a good swab of mustard couldn't fix), and demanded that Minato hand his over if he wasn't going to eat it.
Minato hunched over his food and actually glared at her. "Are you turning into Kushina or something?"
"Probably. Since she and Makoto have to keep their womanly figures, the cooks didn't give them any lunch." And Tsume was so not going anywhere near the cooks tonight when Kushina and Makoto were finally released from their elephants. Her new friends were on their own, especially after the comments they had made on her wardrobe.
Hearing about the lack of lunch, Minato brightened and hurried away with his lunch in hand… towards the elephants. Oh, darn it. "I tried," she told Kuromaru as he gave her a sad expression and draped his head in her lap. She scratched his ears as a consolation.
oOoOoOo
Just after breakfast on their second day, when they were a few hours away from Oro-Fuma, Enkan paused his horse beside Minato and Tsume, and pointed at Tsume. "You. I want you to take your wolves ahead to Oro-Fuma and just roam around and look like a curious half-wild child until we get there." He flapped his hand. "Do whatever it is that raised-by-wolves wild-childs do when they reach civilization."
Well, in Tsume's book, that would be to 1) take a bath and 2) get more food, especially for her ninken. She tried to do a rapid calculation in her head that she could get to the near-by stream to catch some fish, then hurry to Oro-Fuma before the rest of the circus got there, but the mere thought of math, especially when it came to distance and time, made her head throb in warning.
Minato touched her shoulder. "Enkan wanted you to stop and see Sakumo-sensei before you leave. I don't think you heard him."
"No, probably not. I was too busy thinking of math." Since she had to get San or Shi from Aunt Natsumi, seeing Sakumo would be on her list of stops anyway. "Are you going to be able to pull the tigers all by yourself?"
Minato's face scrunched up. "I'm not weak. Besides, it's the twins' turn."
Tsume waved goodbye as she trotted ahead of the caravan to meet with Sakumo and Aunt Natsumi.
Upon seeing her, Sakumo's face lit up with a bright smile. He looped a casual arm across her shoulders and pulled her to the side. "Some friendly advice from your sensei before you go," he said. Without his expression changing, he whispered, "Find Jiraiya. You've got your first mission, and you need to complete it and still make an appearance as the wild wolf girl from the Land of Iron before we arrive."
Any possibility of getting a quick creek-bath was forgotten as excitement made her heart skip a beat. Then pragmatism decided to nose its way into her excitement as she realized that she was going to have to move really fast. "Do I need to take any supplies with me?"
Sakumo's answering smile was soft. "You're probably going to want a snack before you go."
Okay, so it was just her wits, her ninken, and a snack that was required for this mission. Tsume turned to Shi and San. "Who wants to stay with Aunt Natsumi?"
"I can take care of myself. I've been doing great for nearly ninety years without any help, and you'd be better off with all the ninken."
San and Shi's tails tick-tocked. I think I better stay, Shi said. She can't be trusted on her own.
"I said that I can take care of myself."
Natsumi-sama can't find her way out of an upside-down cardboard box.
Aunt Natsumi threw a heavy arm around Sakumo's shoulders. "Sakumo-senpai will save me from evil, marauding cardboard boxes, won't you?"
Sakumo, with an unsure look of why he was being dragged into an argument that he could only hear one side, nodded his head. "I swear so, on my mother's grave and upon my honor as a Konoha shinobi, to protect Inuzuka Natsumi from evil, marauding cardboard boxes."
Shi was not convinced. Sakumo-papa is nose-blind. Someone should stay with Sakumo-papa to make sure he can track Natsumi-sama when she disappears. San wagged her tail in agreement.
"All right then. Shi, stay with Sakumo and help him with Aunt Natsumi. I'll be fine – I'll still have four ninken with me." Tsume quickly held up four fingers.
Aunt Natsumi wrinkled her nose. "Well, if all else fails, you may use your emergency backup."
It took Tsume a moment to realize that she had just received permission to summon for the first time. Of course, Aunt Natsumi would probably realize it if Tsume tried to manufacture an emergency – the ninken would definitely tattle if she just up and disappeared. Nodding her head and crossed her heart to behave and use her backup only in an emergency, she hurried off to grab a snack. The only thing the cooks were willing to give were a few stale rice balls left over from last night's dinner. After carefully splitting one into four pieces for her ninken, Tsume secured ninja essentials (kunai, exploding tags, twine, and pepper powder) in her old beaded pouch, because it was just impossible to tuck it all beneath her leather breast straps, even though she had tried twice just to make sure. Those massages sure didn't seem to be helping in any possible expansion of her chest.
Tsume gave Danzo a nod, and then very carefully pointed at herself, and then at the woods. When he returned her nod with his, Tsume slipped into the woods. Since she had to find Jiraiya, Tsume increased her olfaction to track him; he was still hanging out around the hot springs, but the Mayor's daughter was now gone, wandering through the butcher's shop in an out-of-place fruit salad-scented haze.
Tsume and her ninken traveled on the ground instead of the trees. The closer they got to civilization, the more the trees gave way to long stretches of half-grown crops and fenced livestock. The Country of Fire was famed for its thick groves and seemingly endless forests of tremendously tall, lush trees, but it was also one of the most fertile countries on the continent. As Tsume ran past fields of green wheat, small buds of cabbage, and rows of peas, she tried not to think of what her mission might consist of.
They scared a rabbit from its burrow in their helter-skelter dash towards Jiraiya - it was easy enough to swoop in and snap its neck in mid-stride. Cooking it at the same time, however, was a little outside of Tsume's area of expertise. She did skin and gut it with her claws, slowing just slightly so she didn't exactly trip over anything. Multitasking while running gained them enough time that Tsume felt comfortable enough to pause long enough to swiftly build a fire and stick the corpse over it on a skewer. She was quite pleased with their catch, because she had to feed her five ninken with her personal rations, and her so-called friends-the-cooks were flat out cheap with the leftovers.
"Okay, we need to figure out what's expected of us," she told her ninken. "I know that I'm not always going to have time to sit and think out a plan and figure out what our expectations are, but it's like what Sakumo and Danzo and Aunt Natsumi and Shikake-"
"Everyone?" Kuromaru supplied, not wanting her to continue naming names.
"-yeah, everyone, it's like what everyone says. It comes more automatically with deliberate practice. So this is deliberate practice for us."
Ichi yawned. We're supposed to find White Pervert - he's our contact for this mission. We have to do so without compromising your current cover.
Tsume rotated the rabbit on its skewer, wishing that she had snagged a couple of young onions two fields back to give the meat some flavor. Still, the smell of fresh meat was making her mouth water. "Right. So we're going to engage in peek-and-growl when we hit town, opposite from wherever Jiraiya's hanging out, and we'll gradually make our way over. By the time we get close, Jiraiya'll have sensed us and meet up with us."
Ni snorted and scratched her neck where the forehead protector normally hang from. Why are you assuming that White Pervert will be meeting you? Perhaps this will be part of the test - luring him toward you.
Tsume knew that some missions would require doing such that for informants, but she felt that Sakumo would've given her a better heads up than that. "But I have a cover I'm supposed to maintain." She narrowed her eyes in thought about the best way to find Jiraiya while maintaining the image as a wild child raised by wild wolves. Wolves were certainly a lot more predatory than your ordinary pet dog. "Okay, we could always ambush him instead."
Her ninken liked this idea very much, bloodthirsty animals that they were.
oOoOoOo
Jiraiya hung up his final poster advertising the circus right next to the fried rice foodstall, which attracted the attention of the pretty buxom brunette in charge of cooking the fried rice. There were fine lines around her eyes and a tiredness in her shoulders, but she smiled so nicely at him and asked him if he were part of the circus. Deciding that he had time to talk to her while Tsume was making her way (rather rapidly but eh, she did have four ninken that hadn't been walked for a while) to him across town, Jiraiya leaned across the counter and struck up a conversation.
Her name was Yugito, she was a lonely widow with two children, and there was a strong spark of attraction between them. This had all the potential of an evening spent in pleasure and a night in a soft bed. Jiraiya estimated that the circus train would arrive by midmorning tomorrow and be set up in just a few hours, ready for one evening performance, and the leave by dawn the next day. Oro-Fuma was only 15 kilometers from the Capital, so they would make it there by evening the next day, right on schedule. He was expecting Tsume and planned to meet her after she made a couple appearances around town.
But the best plans of mice and men often go awry when they cross paths with many a teenaged Inuzuka, and that was how a leather-clad hedgehog sank her sharp teeth into his leg and demanded to be fed. "Wait - what?" He tried shaking his leg to dislodge Tsume, but she shook her head and growled as if his trouser was a squirrel and she was hungry. "Um, may I help you?" She was supposed to pop up around town like a mysterious invader, feeding into the air of controlled danger that Enkin liked to associate with his circus. Instead, she zeroed in on him like a cloud of angry wasps.
Tsume spit out his trouser and growled. Then she rubbed her belly and looked pointedly at the food stall. Yugito served up three types of fried rice - chicken, pork, and beef - and it was after a normal dinnertime. Tsume pointed a steady finger at the stall, sharp claw prominent and bloodstained - whoa, that was more realism that he had expected. When she spoke, Tsume deliberately spaced her syllables out like she was unfamiliar with human speech. "Paaaaaaa-paaaaaaaa." She then reached and strained towards the food, making childish vocalizations. "Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!"
Jiraiya turned to Yugito and laughed nervously. "I swear, rescue a foundling from a lifetime of being raised in the wild from wolves, and they expect you to feed them for the rest of their life!" And speaking of wolves, there were her ninken finally surrounding them, body language clearly threatening towards everyone who wasn't Tsume.
Tsume slapped his leg - it stung because she used chakra. "Foooooooood!" Rotten little minx. From the expression on Yugito's face, the prospect of an evening of pleasure and a night in a soft bed was dead on arrival.
With a sigh, Jiraiya finally pried Tsume loose. "Go sit with your wolves," he told her. "I'll order us up some grub."
She brightened and did as he had ordered, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the road with four ninken surrounding her back and sides. He turned to Yugito. "Two orders of chicken fried rice, please." Three ninken promptly started barking and howling. After a pause, Tsume threw her head back and howled with them. Jiraiya felt the hair on the back of his arms stand on end as Yugito flinched backwards, raising her spatula as if she intended to fend off a pack of wild animals. The crowd that was being attracted by the presence and behaviors of Tsume and the ninken looked on warily, the few farmers gripping their tools like makeshift weapons.
Enkan liked to give his fans a thrill, but Jiraiya suspected that this was way more than even what Enkan desired, and he had no intention of being beaten to death with a rake. Jiraiya slapped a hand over his forehead and yelled at the pack. "Hey, knock that off, all of you!"
Tsume held Jiraiya's gaze even though she had schooled her face into puzzlement, and then deliberately raised her foot to scratch behind an ear. First, he had no idea she was that flexible, and second, the lifelong question of whether the ancient Inuzuka women wore underwear beneath their girdle skirts was finally answered. (No. They did not.) Kuromaru turned large, watery eyes on him and whined.
After glancing through the contents of his purse, Jiraiya turned back to Yugito with a sigh. "Make that five orders of chicken fried rice." A pointed bark. "And a side of pork fried rice."
oOoOoOo
"Look, Tsume, the scene you orchestrated back there certainly gave you some authenticity and also some extra notice for the circus, but..." Jiraiya paused to think about how he wanted to say this next part, "but it kind of disrupted my own plans. For romance, see." The two of them were camped out in a fallow field next to an apple orchard. The air was thick with the perfume of the apple blossoms, and there was a constant buzz overhead from nectar-hunting bees. Hotaru would've loved to be right beside Tsume with her back pressed against the tree trunk. Hotaru's insects may not have been bees, but she always felt she had a special bond with them nonetheless.
Tsume replied with a mouthful of chicken fried rice. "I did you a favor."
Yeah, a favor. A sexless night sleeping on the hard ground with the chance of catching fleas from his fellow shinobi. He'd hate to see what Tsume would cook up in an act of malice. Still, Tsume was cute and well-meaning, if not a bit misguided at times, so he'd give her the benefit of doubt. "How's that?"
Tsume paused in chewing long enough to side-eye Jiraiya, no doubt smelling his disappointed doubt. "I'm just saying, you can sleep with her if you want, but you better make sure that you get treated for the subsequent gonorrhea infection."
Ok, so maybe Tsume had done him a favor. Still, a night of passion with a lonely widow woman? It would've been worth it. At that thought, Ichi, holding Jiraiya's gaze, boldly lifted a leg to lick at a massive pair of balls. That was just a deliberate taunt.
"Sakumo-sensei said you had a mission for me."
Well, as Hiruzen-sensei would say, if you've got a nose to catch an STD, then you've got the nose to catch a criminal. Or he would say that, if he had to sit through this same conversation and situation. "Yes. Yours will be a long-term mission. Unlike other people and perhaps even some mini-missions we can cook up for you, your mission is going to span the continent and the entirety of our time with the circus."
Tsume looked puzzled as she looked up from her food. "Won't I forget half-way through?"
The answering expression on his face made Tsume bristle defensively and look deeply appalled.
"I have to remember for four months straight?"
"You can do it, Tsume. Stop underestimating your own memory - you had more confidence in it when you were twelve than you do now." He waited until her eyes dropped down to stare into her bowl of food. Her self-esteem came and went in cycles, Jiraiya thought. She would do well for a few months, and then an unexpected challenge would set her back in doubt and second-guessing. Inuzuka Shinzou's shadow cast long, even two and a half years after her death and six months of personal therapy with Yuu. Of course, if all the background he had gathered on Tsume's struggle with being the Clan Head was anything to go by, Tsume was met with Shinzou's shadow at every turn.
("Or she might just be finally catching up with her fellow teenagers, Jiraiya-kun."
"How so, Sakumo?"
"Hormones, Jiraiya-kun. Hormones." That was a good sign though, that Tsume was finally willing to start embracing a sexuality free of the siren seal and her past. "The other day, I overheard all three of my girls rating shinobi butts of Konoha."
"BUAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"Oh you laugh now, but they were quite serious in declaring that Minato was eight out a ten - although Kushina felt it was a ten and Kokoro thought it was a six, so they all settled with Tsume's score. Osamu was an seven -"
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"-and you're an eleven."
"HAHAAAACK - what?"
Sakumo's eyes were hard, telling Jiraiya in a single glance that he would defend the admittedly dubious honor of his team to the very death. "Solid muscle, were the exact words of Tsume-chan, shaped from the constant squat you keep whenever you go spying through the fence's knotholes at the women's side of the hot springs. Buns, per Kokoro-chan, that you could bounce a coin off of. And Kushina-chan declared that she wouldn't mind buttering them."
"I'm, uh, mildly disturbed, to say the least.")
With that memory alive and well in his mind, Jiraiya shifted his buttocks away from Tsume's reach. She was just impulsive enough to probably give him a squeeze, and she was too young for him to appreciate receiving a squeeze from. Tsume ignored him in favor of licking her bowl clean of any remaining rice.
"Famished, were you?"
"I had a rabbit earlier, but it was scrawny and there isn't much to go around when you also have to feed four ninken. What's my mission?"
"It has come to the Hokage's attention that children are going missing throughout the country. Oh, children always go missing." Jiraiya laid back on the ground, cradling his head with both arms as he stared overhead at the ombre of bright colors - gold and orange bursting into a fiery pink as the sun set. "Sometimes they run away from home, looking for adventure, sometimes they run to escape something, and sometimes they're taken against their will. But there's been an unusual spike of them at the same time that we're getting word of a surge in Kiri's enrollment."
"Is Kiri capturing the children?"
"That is a possibility. The problem is, these are civilian children being captured, so it may also just be a strange coincidence. Also, a gang of civilians, rumored to run child trafficking, was found slaughtered rather brutally, and since your aunt never left Konoha, we're suspecting a rival gang."
"Kokoro said that there's no such thing as a coincidence in the shinobi world."
"Well, I imagine that someone who works in T&I are going to find a lot of connections in the most innocuous settings - talk about a paranoid bunch. They sometimes make ANBU look like a bunch of tree-hugging, hands-holding hippies."
"So, do I have to track down these children?"
"Among other things. There will be many layers to your mission. Sometimes, you'll be tracking them down; sometimes, you'll be tracking the kidnappers from place to place; sometimes, you'll be attached to another team for a rescue mission. You might even have to do an infiltration, but I'm still mulling over that." He risked a look over his elbow when he said that, gauging Tsume's reaction.
She had tangled her fingers in Kuromaru's fur, but she didn't seem to be trying to hide behind him or use him as a deflection of attention. Instead, her brow was furrowed as she concentrated on Jiraiya's word. "Are you supposed to be my judge, if you're going to figure out what I'm supposed to do?"
Ah, bright, bright girl! "Well, most of the adults are supposed to take a share in the judging, but the ultimate decision lies with Danzo and Orochimaru." Which was a really poor decision on the Hokage's part, Jiraiya felt. Left to their own devices, both men had very high expectations and impossible-to-meet standards for shinobi with average skill. The added difficulty with Tsume was that Jiraiya, Sakumo, and Danzo had no intention of making Orochimaru aware of how strong Tsume's olfaction truly was, and this was their best chance at measuring how well her skill would work out in the field in different circumstances. And it was all going to have to happen without Orochimaru's involvement, which was going to make it very difficult for Orochimaru to fairly decide if Tsume was ready for be a chuunin. Jiraiya was hoping that his involvement in shaping the missions would also allow Orochimaru to accept his feedback.
"When does my mission begin?"
"When we get closer to the border. Where are you at right now with your olfaction?"
"I'm at zero. I've been working on using my ears and eyes more, but Mooncalf said I shouldn't be ashamed to use my nose."
As Danzo would say: a well-rounded ninja uses all senses to the best of their abilities and advantages. "Minato is right - your nose is your best feature, but a well-rounded kunoichi doesn't rely just on one weapon or skill. So, at zero, what's your range?"
"Well, on a clear day without any wind, about fifty kilometers. But that also depends on what you want me to look for. I can tell you about Konoha from here and at my baseline, but not much at all about most people in Konoha. I can tell you a lot more about the circus train, and they're about four kilometers behind." She sighed and rubbed her belly with visible satisfaction. "Dinner there tonight isn't nearly as good as what you got us. Thanks, by the way."
"All right. So when we reach the border..." The colors overhead were fading into darker shades, the vivid brightness gradually giving way to night sky as stars glimmered into view. "...you'll be able to smell Kiri without too many problems. In the meantime, you just need to be you in your wild child state. Do your best not to break character. You did a pretty good job about that today, by the way." She perked up at his words - such a simple thing, Tsume was (not a simpleton, never a simpleton), soaking up compliments that she didn't seem know she was desperate for until they were finally granted. "Showing that little bit of human touch with a few words really highlights your similarities to the wolves."
Tsume flopped on her belly and cradled her head on her arms. It let her study him with her feet kicking in the air. "I figured that I must've picked up on something while hanging out with all the humans in the circus." She yawned, and her teeth looked a little sharper than a normal human's in the dimming light. "I don't need to do anything really weird and wolf-like, do I?"
Bloody claws, scratching behind the ear with her foot, and howling in broad daylight like she was part of the Konoha Canine Choir wasn't weird? "How's that?"
"Oh, like marking my territory in front of people or humping an Uchiha?"
Jiraiya's eyes crossed as he thought of Tsume lifting her leg to piss on a tree, and then his mind caught up to the bit about Uchiha. "Why would you hump them?"
"Regardless of what other people think, humping isn't always sexual. It's also a sign of dominance, and I don't want to bite the Uchiha no matter how much better than them I think I am. I might get a disease, like stick-up-butt-itis."
"So, uh, humping them would be your way of saying that you're better than them?" He coughed to clear his throat and to buy more time. Then he coughed again as he glanced over at her. "Seventeen year old human men aren't going to take a woman humping them as a sign of dominance."
Tsume's eyes were fluttering shut. "I thought of that too, you know." Kuromaru shifted until he was laying over her legs, protecting them from the cold. "I was just trying to make you laugh. Jiraiya-sensei has a nice laugh."
He felt an embarrassed flush of heat race across his face and chest. Oh, may the Sage of the Six Paths have mercy - Tsume was crushing on him! He should've known that something like that was going to happen if she was rating his ass. Why can't it be someone over eighteen? he lamented. Sex with an Inuzuka woman was always an interesting adventure – Oyubi was bold and confident, taking what she wanted in bed, and although their trysts were infrequent, they were always memorable – but Tsume was simply too young.
She would always be too young for him.
Quick - who else can I get her to focus her hormones on? Minato wouldn't mind being thrown to the wolves - it wouldn't be the first time Jiraiya used him as a distraction. Except Minato had his eyes on Kushina. Osamu? No, he was sweet on a civilian girl back in Konoha. Hotaru liked girls, but he wasn't sure if Tsume shared the interest.
Well, she did mention the Uchiha twins...