Author's notes: The circus mission is kinda like the beta of future International Chunin Exams, of which Kakashi was in the first class/year in which International Chuunin exams became a thing. That being said: This chapter was so much fun to write! It's lighthearted, and lets me explore the Capitol of the Fire Country, as well as some of the (non canon) Fire Guardians. Well, some of the name drops are canon, as they would remain guardians to the Daimyo decades later in Asuma's time and role as Fire Guardian.
Also, bees! And Uchiha Madara! And Uchiha Mikoto! And some history on the Sarutobi clan and why they're a powerful enough clan enough that Hiruzen becomes Hokage without known S-rank techniques or a Bloodline Limit, and Mikoto names her second son after a Sarutobi clan member.
o-o-o
o-o-o-o
o-o-o-o-o
"Enkan's circus is on the move."
Madara didn't bother looking away from where he studied the moon. He remained perched on the window sill, enjoying the cool air against his face, and the soft scents of spring playing across his senses. The world was so still and beautiful at the dead of night – not even the usual nocturnal activity of shinobi taking advantage of the surrounding darkness was present. He thought that maybe this is what the world would look like, once he achieved World Peace. Quiet, soft, and innocent.
"He has recruited Konoha allies. We want him dead."
"You want a lot of people dead," Madara replied, still not looking at Zetsu. "Going after the circus will take me out of the way, and I haven't yet met this year's quota for Kiri." Besides, after slaughtering the gang of child traffickers and making off with the mere lackluster potential three children available, it was probably best to avoid Fire at the moment. Kumo would soon be making their attempts to break free of their snowy confines en masse; he should hit up Lightning for civilian children with potential before Kumo nin started swarming the countryside with far too much cabin fever-induced energy. During winter, only a few teams were allowed to rotate through the country while some of the elite were stationed in major cities to accept contracts.
"Kiri will pay handsomely for Enkan's head, after what he did. They'll even overlook your lackluster gathering, this year."
Madara turned his attention from the moon to inspect his fingernails. "Pickings would be less slim if you weren't so gluttonous." Besides, Enkan was a personal matter for Zetsu. It was the only time Madara had ever seen Zetsu so close to dying, and it served the creature right for attempting to eat Enkan. Madara knew that Enkan would be difficult to capture or kill – he had single-handedly fought off the Isobu when Kiri unleashed it upon the man's circus. Bandits, indeed. That alone should've served as warning to a hungry Zetsu. He was sort of glad he rescued Zetsu though; he liked the creepy little weirdo, even though he (it? Madara had never seen Zetsu naked – maybe them) seemed to be two creatures stuck together as one. It was… nice to have someone who knew who he was, and appreciated Madara for just being Madara.
"We've made some connections with another trafficking circle in the Land of Rice Paddies. All you have to do is swing through and pick up the fresh meat. A well-developed chakra system improves the flavor. Here. This is for you."
Zetsu plunked the mission scroll onto Madara's lap. Madara frowned as he rolled the scroll open and read its contents. "I thought the Eye of the Moon hinges on my survival. How likely do you think I'll be to survive an attempt of capturing Enkan, alive?"
"Oh, you'll be fine. Just use the Mokuton."
Madara hated using the Mokuton. Every time he did, Hashirama's voice whispered in his head. After two years of fruitlessly trying to talk Madara out of pursuing his Omelet of World Peace, Hashirama decided that he would instead annoy Madara to death. As of late, Madara had to endure an endless number of knock-knock jokes. It was almost enough to turn Madara away from the Omelet. Almost. It was even more tempting to fetch back his Rinnegan, just so he could resurrect Hashirama, and murder the man in retaliation. Why had he thought that implanting Hashirama's DNA was such a good idea, two years ago? Oh yeah, because he needed something to slow down his aging, because he needed to buy time to achieve his plans.
With a sigh, Madara lit the mission scroll on fire, and cast the ashes to the gentle breeze. In the end, he knew that it would take untold sacrifices to bring world peace. And in his perfect world, knock-knock jokes will cease to exist. It will all be worth it in the end, he desperately told himself. He was so tired, so very tired, and there was no rest for the weary, or the wicked. His thoughts and aching heart turned to the memory of his deceased brother, and he was grateful that Izuna wasn't alive.
Somehow, he knew that Izuna would be very disappointed in where Madara had taken his life. (The idea of such disappointment wasn't enough to stop Madara though, because he hated Konoha so much that it gave him strength to bear the weight of imagined disappointment.)
oOoOoOo
Tsume rejoined her human comrades as the circus was getting set up. It was a quick mount and open-air display because they were only going to have one performance, after the sun had set. Then they would tear down and leave early the next day for the Capital. Tsume was excited about going to the Capital. Enkan had assured her that the Fire Daimyo himself would attend the performances, which meant that he would be accompanied by the Fire Guardians - twenty elite shinobi hand-selected by the Hokage himself. Well, twenty-one, unofficially.
An elite shinobi could say that they were part of the ANBU - but it was more rare to be selected as a Fire Guardian. Of the twenty(one) Guardians, Tsume knew two of them - Inuzuka Hiji, darling of the Inuzuka clan (she was an actual, certified, official med nin by every definition that Tsunade had declared - most Inuzuka couldn't qualify as such because they had a tendency to throw themselves into the fray, instead of standing off to the side), and Nara Koyama, who was her sire's nephew. Both were the most recent additions to the Fire Guardians. Hiji's ninken, Hose, had his own forehead protector, but wasn't considered part of the official count. Hose's main job was to sniff out the Daimyo's food as a canine food taster/sniffer.
Tsume had once asked Hiji why she had named her ninken Hose, and also where the name came from. Hiji had merely tapped the end of her nose and whispered, "Because the llamas told me to." Tsume supposed there were worse things to be told to do by a llama, and at least Hiji wasn't following the advice of her guppies. Tsume had met one of the guppies, when she was about eight years old and Hiji had summoned one to teach Tsume how to swim. It was then that Tsume learned that her hair wasn't anymore hydrodynamic as it was aerodynamic. She also had a tendency to sink like a rock.
("The worst," Aunt Natsumi said mournfully as she tugged at Tsume's spiky locks after Tsume and Kimimaru crashed during another failed attempt at Fang-Over-Fang.)
Still, it would be good to see her two cousins again, since she hadn't seen either since the end of the War.
oOoOoOo
Their first official test began without any preparation.
Tsume, sitting in a pile of earth and getting ready to rub it all over her hair, was called away from her early morning dirt bath by Mikoto. Tsume rolled to her feet, dusted the back of her legs free of dirt clods, and ran to where Mikoto was waiting with Kushina. Orochimaru silently stood just behind Mikoto, his eyes glittering with mirth. No one paid any attention to them; everyone else was doing their best to avoid looking hungry, as the cooks attempted to make breakfast without Tsume's nose telling them what ingredients were very poor choices. After a week of trying to teach three men how to use ingredients to compliment each other, Tsume arrived to the conclusion that some people just didn't want to learn, which was upsetting to her, because she wanted to learn, but was held back by her brain injury, not her own stubborn pride, and also, they were so not her friends anymore.
Orochimaru led them out of the circus camp, away from where they wouldn't be overheard.
It was too dark for the circus to enter the guarded Capital gates last night when they finally arrived, and it wasn't a priority anyway, since there wasn't any available room within the city walls to set up the circus itself. They parked in an appropriate clearing that Enkan had prearranged, surrounded by mature beech trees that provided a screen of privacy, and Tsume expected to be part of the announcement crew, playing peek-and-growl while circus workers hung up posters and spread word of show times.
Mikoto slid her arms around both girls' shoulders, and tugged them into a huddle, foreheads brushing against foreheads. Tsume nearly poked out Kushina's eye with a wild lock of hair.
"Listen up," Mikoto began, her voice just louder than a whisper. "Orochimaru-sensei has assigned us a mock-mission, and will be evaluating our performance. The mission is to infiltrate the Grand Palace before tonight without anyone in the Capital knowing that we're with the circus or are kunoichi. The Fire Daimyo himself granted permission to infiltrate so none of us will get executed if we're caught, but we will only be allowed to use minimal force, should we be caught, in order to escape."
"Only minimal force," Orochimaru stressed. "Minor injuries that will not require any treatment. If there is any use of excessive force against the palace guards or the Fire Guardians, the testing will stop, and you will all be sent back to Konoha in shame, should you actually survive the wrath of the Leader of the Fire Guardians."
"Are the Grand Palace guards in the know of our tasks?" Kushina asked Orochimaru. "Because I don't want to be killed by a guard looking to make a name for himself protecting the Fire Daimyo, all because I have to pull my attacks."
He crossed his arms. "Then I guess you should learn very quickly on how to disarm your opponent without harming them."
"Orochimaru-sensei has implied that guards are under the impression that Konohagakure will be running unannounced infiltrations to check for holes in their security," Mikoto replied. "The guards don't know what we look like, or when the actual infiltration is supposed to take place, only that this was supposed to happen at some random time this year. We have been assigned to make contact with a single individual who knows who we are, but we were not given the identity of this person. We are to receive a scroll from this individual, and return it to Yuu-sensei no later than three minutes to sunset, or we will have failed the mission."
Kushina wrinkled her nose. "Riiiiiight. So, we have to quietly integrate ourselves into enemy territory and make contact with an undetermined mole? These are lousy mission parameters, and I demand more information." She glared at Orochimaru again. He flashed a tight-lipped smile, and shrugged wordlessly in reply.
Mikoto grinned. "And yet that's exactly the sort of mission we're going to have to expect as chuunin and jounin. I'm the lead for this mission, and you are supposed to follow my directions. So, ladies, knowing you must assume the identity of a local who has freedom to move throughout the entire area, but would never get a second look from guards or anyone else who could raise the alarm, who would you pick?"
Kushina nudged Tsume with her elbow. "Ah, Sakumo-sensei would be so proud to know that all those horrible D rank missions we complained about actually served a good purpose!"
Tsume grinned and pumped a fist in the air. "I can guarantee that Kushina-chan and I are going to be the best damn housekeepers that ever knew the right end of a feather duster!"
oOoOoOo
Well, okay, so they also made really great laundry lasses, too. Washing bedding for the entire palace by hand was on all-day task, and required a small army of women. Laundry utilities within the Palace was reserved for the use of royalty's wardrobes – there was only so much time in the day to manually heat the water and wash the clothes in the gigantic pots, after all. Palace guardsmen had to make do with the river when it came to their sheets. However, the housekeeping staff was responsible for providing clean sheets as part of the benefits packages to the guards. And since it was a lot of laundry, it wasn't unusual to hire young women and older girls looking to make some quick cash for the day.
It wasn't difficult to raid the wardrobe of an empty house for clothes in the local style of underclass teenagers, nor was it difficult to fall into place with other locals who clustered around the laundry mistress, ready to be selected as part of that day's workforce. They were all promised 200 ryo for a day's work, to be paid after they had distributed dry sheets (yesterday's washing) to the guards whose beds had been stripped earlier this morning. Each was provided a large metal basin of sweaty, smelly linens, and then they fell into line, following the other hired servants on a four kilometer walk out of the Palace, single-file across the bridge that spanned the brackish moat, down a smooth road that took them directly to the lower banks of the river, upstream of the rest of the Capital from where pollution hadn't contaminated the water.
It wasn't unusual for groups of laundry lasses to cluster and gossip with their friends at the riverbanks, as they set to the difficult work of washing. The metal basins were filled in the river, and then dragged to the shoreline. Soap was added to the basins, and the linens was immersed and swooshed in the mixture. Once the linens were thoroughly soaked with the soapy water, the laundry lasses had to massage the sheets against the large boulders that lined the river. For stubborn stains, more judicious force had to be used, with the sheets whacked against the boulder surfaces.
Orochimaru followed from a distance. As their judge, he had to be able to accurately evaluate their performance in real time, but it was necessary to do so from afar – a bunch of civilian women would definitely notice a suspicious male showing interest in girls as young as Tsume and Kushina, so Tsume felt confident in at least complaining a little bit.
"I'd rather assassinate someone," Tsume muttered, wrinkling her nose at the stench of the laundry. "Or even do a quick blow job on one of the guards to get us through the gate." Even if the guard smelled as bad as the sheets she carried, it would've been over more quickly than what they were currently stuck with.
"Oh hush," Mikoto said softly, looking as pristine washing the linens as she did dangling from silk ropes. Even when sweat beaded at her forehead, her hair remained in place as it cascaded down her back in a smooth, black river. Even Kushina had drenched the ends of her hair in soapy water, and she was using a kerchief to tie it up and out of the way. It had to be some kind of mysterious Uchiha jutsu, Tsume suspected. Maybe the Uchiha's nice, cooperative hair was even a previously unknown Bloodline Limit that Kagami was unlucky enough to not inherit. "Not every mission can be solved with sex or violence."
"You'd be surprised," Kushina replied. "Kokoro once calculated that about 75% of our missions could be improved with judicious use of sex or violence, or both." Kushina handled the violent part, Tsume handled the sex part, and Kokoro was the one who figured out which application should go where, much to Sakumo's horror. Luckily, he had enough control over his team to prevent them from doing either, most of the time. It all came to a halt, however, after Kagami gave them all a lengthy lecture on why it was inappropriate for genin-ranked kunoichi to be using sex on C and D class missions, especially when they were under the age of sixteen.
Then he extrapolated a solemn, written vow from Tsume that she wouldn't use sex on missions, ever, ever, ever, until she was at least sixteen years old, after the whole Hidden Village of Hot Springs fiasco, no matter how greatly rewarded the Miko had promised the team would be once Jashin returns to earth in his human form and they had consummated their marriage because of the brave sacrifices Tsume had made for everyone.
"I just did the math," Kushina muttered as she battered her set of sheets against a rock, as if she could smash the odor molecules free with brute force. "There's thirty of us. That's seventy-five hundred ryo being paid out just to wash sheets. Say this happens three days a week, rotating through the bedding once a week but in shifts. That's twenty-two thousand, five hundred ryo a week." As she spoke, her voice remained soft, but the outrage was becoming more clear. "That's better than a million ryo spent each year at the palace, just for washing someone else's sheets! That budget doesn't include the soap, or the fact that these are really nice cotton sheets. Better than what I sleep on."
Tsume tried to recall exactly how much her clan paid in taxes to the Fire Daimyo. She remembered there being at least six digits, and feeling put out that they didn't get a discount with the use of two Inuzuka clanspeople in the Fire Guard, even if one of them was considered unofficial. "That's outrageous!" she declared, once she realized that her clan's taxes probably paid for three or four months' worth of laundry.
Mikoto wrinkled her nose at a particularly suspicious stain on her sheet, and applied extra soap, just in case, before she rubbed it against the rock. "It would probably be more efficient just to hire extra laundry lasses full time instead of assigning it out every day."
Tsume rinsed her sheet off in the river, letting the linen fan wide in the current. "I'm sending a stern note in with my taxes next year," she said.
"I," declared Kushina, soft enough that she wasn't overheard by a pair of passing laundry lasses with their washed linens to lay out in the sun to dry, "think we should stage a country-wide revolt to overthrow the Daimyo in favor of someone who tells his guards to wash their own damn sheets."
Mikoto sighed. "It's not wise to plot revolution against our fine leaders."
Kushina wrung the water out of her sheets like she was pretending it was the neck of someone she really didn't like, at that moment. "Revolutions have been started over less," she muttered darkly.
oOoOoOo
Practicing with kunai over and over was good practice for strengthening hands, but even Tsume's hands were cramping and ached (even more than usual for her right hand, which still reminded Tsume years later that breaking every bone in her hand was so not a good idea) by the time they finished. "How come no one's invented a machine to wash clothes?" she wondered as she carried two metal basins, one stacked on top of the other and both filled with sun-dried linens. They were lifted high and balanced on the top of her head; it was the closest thing to decent shade she got. She carefully followed Kushina and Mikoto, who carried a metal basin between the two of them, stacked even higher with linens, as one of the laundry lasses slipped them an extra fifty ryo to finish up for her so she could sneak away for a romantic tryst with a fisherman.
"Why would anyone want a machine to do laundry?" Mikoto asked. "You could never be so sure if it was doing as good a job as you could, by hand."
"I'd rather let the machine do it," Tsume replied. "I'm fine with living in squalor and questionable filth." Her right hand would be grateful, at least.
"Hmm." Mikoto turned her face to the sun and smiled. "I never would've imagined such, with the way you've avoided dirt this last week." Her voice was teasing and her scent was welcoming, so Tsume just grinned in response. "So, have either of you given thought as to whom we're supposed to meet up with once we're inside?"
The laundry had to be taken directly through the Palace walls, and to the large linen store rooms. Then the metal basins had to be stacked and the soup put back, and the lasses would line up to receive their hard-earned wages before eventually finding their way out of the Palace grounds. From what they could gather from the local gossip, the laundry lasses weren't even escorted out of the Palace. Some of the guards liked to flirt, and some of the laundry lasses enjoyed the attention, and it wasn't like some random ninja was going to commit to the not-glamorous drudgery of a day-long shift of dirty sheets, just for the opportunity to sneak into the Palace and commit some sort of heinous crime, like assassination. To start a revolution and an uprising against the upper class frivolously using taxes for random women to wash the sheets of the guards? Yes, that was certainly doable at this point and time.
"It's gotta be one of the Fire Guards," Kushina said. "They'd need to know about the whole scheme to infiltrate. They'd be able to recognize the movement and training of other Konoha shinobi, and would have the skill to subdue us, and the trust of the guards to side for us if we're caught and we try explaining how we're part of the random security check."
"That is also what I think," Mikoto replied. "The trick, however, is that there's twenty of them, and only one is supposed to be our contact. The others may be expected to use reasonable force to subdue and capture us. We have a one-in-twenty shot to pick the correct person."
"But the person we're supposed to contact wouldn't make it impossible to figure out who they are, right?" Kushina asked. "In real life, a mole would know that you're looking for them, and would reach out to you."
Tsume tried not to trip or stumble in surprise as she thought about her time as mole in Madame Haori's Palace of Pleasure. Orochimaru had just told her that her contact would eventually arrive, and he hadn't given her any information as to who the contact was. But there was the expectation that she would recognize the contact. She didn't expect a test to be any different from real life. "I'll know who the mole is."
"What? How?" Mikoto asked.
"It's going to be someone who smells like they're expecting us. Or they'll smell like they made contact with one of our people from the circus, since they had to receive the scroll we're supposed to fetch."
There was a brief pause, and then Mikoto, her voice very dry, said, "Expectations have odors?" And then, "All of the Fire Guardians will be expecting us."
"But the one who's supposed to be our contact will have a different set of expectations – they'll be anticipating us, and will probably move towards us, rather than away. And they'd have the scroll, so that one bit of odor would be different from the others."
"Unless," Kushina said, "some of the other Fire Guardians are supposed to be decoys to throw you off the scent. Pun intended."
Mikoto shook her head as her brow dipped in a frown. "No, I don't think so. This is just a basic test for our infiltration skills, and isn't meant to exceed the level of a chuunin, for you two. What Kushina is implying is more of a logistics exam meant for jounin. You two are the only genin on the wagon train, and while I am being tested on my ability to lead and direct a team, I was told that all of the obstacles were specifically geared towards testing your skills for the chuunin level."
Kushina's face scrunched up with a frown of her own. "Yeah, but Orochimaru is just sadistic enough to throw a logistics test into an infiltration test, and say that real life wouldn't separate the two of them."
And from the spike of amusement from Orochimaru's tree, Tsume knew Kushina wasn't wrong, and that Orochimaru was on to them. "Not to change the subject, but Orochimaru can read your lips. I feel like we should be plotting and figuring out our mission where he can't see everything." With his ongoing amusement, she suddenly found herself wary of Orochimaru purposefully rigging traps into the exam.
Mikoto sighed. "And you know this, again, by scent?"
Tsume tried to think of a good explanation on just how strong her nose was, without actually getting into trouble for reveling information above and beyond Mikoto's clearance level. Even if it was Tsume's secret, she still wasn't allowed to tell people willy-nilly.
Kushina, utterly aware that Tsume had known that she had been captured and in the company of nine Kumo nin from over two hundred kilometers away (or three hundred, if Minato's estimation was more accurate), explained it for Tsume. "Mikoto, you and the other Uchiha have really, really good vision. Like, the average human has three color cones in their eyes, so they can see a million shades of color. Sakumo-sensei once said that the Uchiha have four types of color cones in their eyes, so you can perceive a hundred million shades of color. Tsume's nose is like your eyes. She perceives shades of scents that the rest of us would never be able to. She can perceive a million different odors to every thousand that we detect."
Wow. When she translated the strength of her nose to the strength of the Uchiha vision, Tsume suddenly felt kinda eye-blind, and wondered if that was how people felt when she described scents.
"I see," Mikoto murmured. "Very well. A good team leader uses the strength and skills of their team to ensure the success of the mission, so I shall defer to Tsume's nose."
Tsume knew her nose wouldn't fail her. She just hoped that the Fire Guardians would cooperate.
oOoOoOo
Mikoto caught the eyes and attention of two guards as they delivered their linens to one of the several linen rooms. It was entirely by design, but could've easily been accidental, as Mikoto was a beautiful young woman. And a good ninja should never pass up opportunities that present in their favor. While a smile, wink, and swish of the patchwork skirt she wore, the two men followed her down a dimly lit hallway like fish dumbly trailing a baited lure. Kushina grabbed up a mop, a broom, and an empty bucket from the linen room. Tsume threw several sponges and two spray bottles of cleaners into another empty bucket. Together, they took advantage of Mikoto luring the guards away from their post to slip through the door that led to the inner court yards.
They paused in a private alcove to quickly henge their clothes, shifting their appearance from working class teenagers prepared to get their clothes soaking wet to the solemn dove-gray long-sleeved tunics and short pants that was the required uniform of the palace servants. The henge wasn't the most secure disguise – a solid bump from a passerby would disrupt the delicate chakra construct, but they also didn't want to increase the likelihood of getting caught by searching around long enough to successfully steal an official uniform that seemed tailored to their fit. They swapped their handkerchiefs and quickly tied each other's hair back into a tight bun worn at the nape of their necks, as required by all women servants. Tsume felt her hair strain against the ties, and half-expected her wild locks to explode outward, like a peacock flaring his tail feathers. When Mikoto hadn't joined them by the time they completed their change in disguise, they decided to continue making their way to the Fire Guardian Tsume was convinced would be their contact.
("Are you sure?" Mikoto had asked as she assisted in stacking the linens. "Knowing that this was tailored to you two, I would've assumed that your contact would've been your clanswoman."
"I'm positive. Hiji and Hose are too obvious, and Koyama's scent isn't following his usual pattern. He's totally expecting us. Also, he has a scroll with Orochimaru's scent, and he's parked himself in a secluded area in a honeysuckle maze, and not just because he's trying to steal a nap. I think he did it on purpose to obscure his scent.")
"She'll be able to knock them out with a genjutsu," Kushina whispered to Tsume. They walked with a purpose and tried to appear as if they belonged as they skirted the outer perimeter of one of the internal courtyard gardens. It was a maze of wide, tall honeysuckle hedges, the air heady with sweet nectar and the buzz of royal bees. The Fire Daimyo had a notorious sweet tooth and, ever since he became Daimyo when his father was assassinated with poison hidden in a dessert, this Daimyo kept his own bees just to ensure a safe, ready access to honey, and also insisted that one of his Fire Guardians always be someone who could detect poison.
"I know that. It's just that Orochimaru is meeting up with some guards on the other side of the palace. I think he's alerting them to our presence." Mikoto was doing just fine, however. The two guards were unmoving lumps of happy, sleeping endorphins tinged with the odor of Mikoto's chakra.
Kushina flushed red with anger and shook her mop, as if she would bean Orochimaru over the head if he was standing in front of her. "That sadistic jerk! He's interfering with the test! I thought he was only supposed to watch!"
"Maybe alerting the guards is part of the test?"
Kushina's eyes glittered. "Yeah? Any other judges alerting the guards? I felt Minato lurking around here – I bet his team is also infiltrating. What does your nose say?"
Tsume upped her olfaction strength to make it past the smothering drench of honeysuckle. "You're right, Minato and his team have been circling the palace perimeter. They actually seem to be stalking someone. Sakumo is their judge, and he's off in a distance. But they're a chuunin team working on being promoted to jounin. We're the only genin in the circus, so our test isn't supposed to be like the others."
There were a number of tables and chairs set up outside the parameter of the honeysuckle maze. Amid the dirt beds and well-worn paths, these chairs and tables sat upon patios of multiple shapes – stars, the sun, the moon in various lunar cycles, multiple different flowers, and even an uchiwa.
The honeysuckle hedge-maze was truly breathtaking, almost legendary throughout Fire, and frequented by many visiting lords, ladies, political appointees, and diplomats. The tables allowed visitors to sit and enjoy the sight and odor of the thick green vines and luscious blooms of white, lilac, orange, red, pink, and gold. Tsume hadn't realized that honeysuckles came in so many different colors. Here are there were a variety of water founts – some were incredibly elaborate, with life-sized mermaids perched upon rocks, holding flowers in their hands from which streams of water gushed. Other fountains were little more than shallow basins filled with marbles, where bees could get water without risk of drowning.
With Nara Koyama's scent being further back into the maze, Tsume and Kushina realized, in a single shared glance, that Mikoto wouldn't be able to find them if they sought him out without her at their side. They busied themselves with cleaning the mosaic tiles that the patios were constructed from, since the guards would be suspicious of housekeepers failing to be busy. Tsume scrubbed the patio tables and chairs while Kushina swept and mopped the patios. They were ignored by a babble of visiting dignitaries. Tsume tried to eavesdrop, but found herself more annoyed by the week-old stains of egg yolk.
"Someone's been skipping the elbow grease," Tsume muttered as she scrubbed hard enough to put a hole through her sponge. "What gives the rich people the right to be such slobs?"
Mikoto hushed Tsume's grumbles as she joined them with another bucket of sponges. "Don't think about it," she said softly, her voice as melodic as the gentle breeze that rustled the honeysuckle. "Remember, we palace servants are delighted to provide only the best to the esteemed guests of our Daimyo." She helped Kushina replace chairs back to the table after the mopping was complete. "Come, there are more patios further in the maze that also require our elbow grease." The girls dutifully emptied their buckets of dirty water down the drains, and refilled from a fountain with frolicking nymphs. At least, that's what Tsume assumed the naked ladies were, squinting at the disproportionately large bosoms. She wondered what sort of artist thought it was a great idea for the water to stream from the nipples, creating multiple bridged arcs of water jets.
"That was obscene," Kushina muttered as she and Tsume followed Mikoto. "I wonder how much of my tax money went to commission that eyesore."
"Maybe it was a gift from another country," Mikoto suggested without looking over her shoulder. "It could've come from Whirlpool."
Kushina gasped, deeply insulted. "We would never! Our artisans had far better taste than that!"
Once they were out of sight from the guards, Mikoto pulled Tsume aside. "I want you to take the lead, now. Make sure we avoid everyone so there aren't any witnesses to give a description of our direction. I also want you to accept the scroll from Nara-san."
"Okay."
She upped her olfaction to 30%. The honeysuckle maze was amazingly private, with hedges so thick that voices of other visitors in the maze couldn't be heard even if they stood on opposite sides of a hedge. It was also incredibly saturated with the flowers' perfume– Tsume's head swam and buzzed, nearly overpowered by the odor. She half-suspected that Koyama had deliberately picked the honeysuckle maze , knowing how much it would bother Tsume and make it difficult to track him. It ordinarily would've worked against any other Inuzuka who weren't also Oyubi, Bashira, Megumi, or Hiji, or an almost-Inuzuka, like Kakashi. (Tsume sometimes wondered if her brothers had a decent sense of olfaction, but Shikaku never said anything, and she rarely saw Subaru.)
Nara Koyama was found near the center of the hedge, a short distance from where all the bee hives were located. The air was heavier with the sugary scent of honey than that of the surrounding blossoms. Nara had a pillow under his head as he snoozed beneath a table, unbothered by the hard surface of the mosaic tile. Mikoto seemed to hesitate waking him up, cautious against approaching a sleeping Fire Guard.
Tsume, far too familiar with the Nara, just kicked the leg that was sticking out from beneath the table's shadow. "Hey, we're here."
Koyama groaned loudly as he rolled upright into a seated position. He was shorter than the average Nara, and wore his unruly hair in a bun tied at the nape of his neck, very much like the palace servants. The top of his head didn't touch the bottom of the table. "I was in the middle of a great dream," he complained, rubbing the spot Tsume had kicked.
"Hand it over," Tsume said without preamble, holding her hand out. Even with the cloying stench of honey and honeysuckle, she could still smell the six palace guards making their way from Orochimaru towards the maze. "I know you got the scroll we're supposed to retrieve."
Koyama snorted. "Oh, it's also very nice to see you, too, cousin. Thanks for taking the time to tell me about how your trip has been going; I'm glad that it was uneventful for you, except for that random time you were all attacked by rogue squirrels, how exciting that must've been. Thank you for graciously asking how I'm doing. I have been having a great time in my stint." He rubbed at his eyes and then stretched forward, fingers wrapping around his ankles. His voice was temporarily muffled. "The ladies around here love a man in uniform, and there's nothing sexier than the Fire Guardian's uniform." He straightened upward. "I am simply delighted that you're interested in how I've been doing here."
Tsume eyed his wrinkled clothes, and personally felt that the uniform was neither sexy, nor flattering, on Koyama. He arched an expected eyebrow at Tsume. He didn't move to give her the scroll that was tucked down the front of his uniform. Most of the Nara were, frankly, too lazy to care about social niceties. Koyama wasn't. It was why he made an excellent Fire Guardian, where rudeness could get a person killed for insulting the wrong powerful individual. Tsume sighed in irritation. "Oh, all right, Koyama-san. It's been a great trip, so far. Shikaku's with us, and so is Sakumo, so Kakashi's been staying with Shikake. Hikaru wanted me to tell you that she loves the various honeysuckle blossoms that you keep sending them for her perfume oils, and wants to know more about the fuuinjutsu you use to keep them fresh for sealed transportation."
"Thank you," Koyama said, nodding his head. "And…?" He arched his eyebrow at her again.
Tsume pouted, well-aware of the look Mikoto was giving both of them. Kushina shifted her weight from one foot to another. "You don't look that sexy, senpai," Kushina supplied.
"No one looks sexy when their uniform is sloppy from sleeping under the table," Koyama replied with a wink. "Unless it's Fuuka, or Uta. Those women would make a potato sack the hottest fashion look. Which, by the way, ladies," he clicked his tongue, "I understand that orchid is going to be the it color this season. Jump on it before it saturates the market and just looks cheap. Tsume, you're much more a deep autumn palate, so just aim for orchid in accessories, like scarves and belts. An entire shirt of orchid would look terrible against your skin tone. Lovely Uchiha Mikoto, you are most certainly a clear winter palette, and orchid would be marvelous on you. Kushina…" His voice trailed off as he considered Kushina. "Your skin and eyes a warm autumn, but with that hair, no. Orchid will not suit you at all, and the color combination would be bright enough to send some sorry individual into seizures."
Tsume thought of Shinchuu's upcoming nuptials and wondered if this was a veiled reference to how they should dress up – Koyama had a terrible tendency to pick through her closet and complain about her wardrobe choices whenever he was in Konoha, visiting. And then the thought of the Uchiha clan being so picky about wedding colors made her think of being sticklers for missions – she felt Mikoto's gaze boring into her spine – and that reminded her that she really had more pressing matters than listening to Koyama's fashion advice. "Look, Koyama-san, we're in a little bit of a hurry." Tsume gestured at them. "You know that missions are time sensitive. Can't we catch up on the local gossip and fashion after we're done?" They had less than two hours before the sun set. In addition to completing their mission, Mikoto and Kushina had to get cleaned up and costumed for their performance, tonight.
Like his kin, Koyama was extremely intelligent, with a quick mind that absorbed information. However, he also enjoyed discussing the information, and the information he loved to absorb and discuss was considered "unprofessional" by the leader of the Fire Guardians, and "useless" by the Hokage when it came to filing reports on what was happening at the Fire Daimyo's courts or how people should put more thought into their color palettes. The only times he was ever able to share his wealth of gossip was when he took the occasional vacation and leave of absence to Konoha. Tsume had to sit and listen to far too many details whenever Koyama was visiting and she was stuck in a go match with Shikake. Her father liked to use Koyama's blabbering as an exercise for Tsume's thinking skills, because she would have to recall which lady wore what color of shoes at what dance three hours after Koyama offhandedly mentioned such. Kushina and Kokoro sat through a single two hour-long session once (they had to wait on Tsume so they could all leave together on an assignment with Sakumo), and later told Tsume that they would much rather endure Danzo's lectures after pissing off Danzo. It was kinda sad that Danzo's rage was more palatable than Koyama's mindless chatter.
(Tsume never admitted that she liked it when Koyama talked about hair, because one of these days, she really was going to do something about her hair that was more than just spikes and caltrops. One of these days.)
Koyama heaved a huge sigh, as if the effort of returning to the mock-mission was exhausting. "I really think you should stop and smell the honeysuckle." He carefully dragged the scroll out of his shirt, and presented it to Tsume with a flourish of his wrist. As she pulled it free from his grip, an uncharacteristic smirk twisted his elfin features. Alarm bells runs through Tsume's mind as Mikoto reached over Tsume's shoulder and snatched the scroll.
"Let's go," Mikoto said; she turned her back to Koyama. Kushina and Tsume froze in place, facing Koyama. And so did Mikoto, turned half-way, as Koyama's shadow captured them from where it had been artfully hidden within the table's shadow.
"Speaking of honeysuckle!" Koyama said, his voice just a little too energetic for a typical Nara, "I must tell you all about the latest court dance. It's sweeping the ranks of the upper echelons – an enterprising minor lord who moonlights as a dance instructor studied how bees communicate the distance of nectar sources to the hives, and turned it into a dance!" Koyama's voice dropped into a conspiratorial whisper. "I've never seen so much booty shaking in my life. Oh, come on, now. I need my fellow Konoha nin to commiserate with me over how a horrible dance gaining such popularity is proof that our upper crust is severely lacking in good taste. Pah! As if people's decisions to wear unflattering color palettes wasn't proof enough. I cannot tell you how delighted I am that you appreciate my advice, unlike Seito or Chiriku."
Tsume didn't bother struggling to break free from Koyama's shadow. She felt Mikoto's chakra straining as she tried to yank herself free with chakra-enhanced speed, but knew it would be unsuccessful. The most effective way to break a Nara's shadow was to shatter it with light. The sun was bright in the azure sky, free of any clouds, but with the day closing in on sunset soon, the shadows from the table were cast long, and required very little chakra to stretch and maintain. Koyama's scent was playful, not deceitful, so she knew that she hadn't been wrong about him being their palace mole. "Is trying to break free from you part of the mock mission?" she asked.
Koyama clicked his tongue and shook his head. "Tsume, if this was a true mission, that would hardly be an appropriate question to ask." He shrugged. "I am merely playing the role of a double agent, because there will be times when your informants will be playing both sides. I decided that siding with the enemy is more profitable than maintaining a relationship with Konoha." He grinned. "This is fun. I finally have a captive audience, and I didn't even have to haul my ass all the way back to Konoha. So, anyway, last week, while everyone was doing the honeybunny buzz – a ridiculous name, fitting for such a ridiculous dance – Tamane-sama lost her balance and fell face-first into the lap of Judge Daichi's lap. This alone would've been enough for Tamane-sama to retreat from court in eternal shame, but the Judge's wife was also there, and she was absolutely furious already, because both women went to the dance wearing the same hairstyle and the same shoes…"
Tsume had enough freedom to move her head and did so to look at Kushina. She barely saw Mikoto's long fall of black hair. Kushina's eyes were narrow as she studied Koyama and twitched. "Orochimaru is sending the guards to toss us all into prison, I bet." Tsume said.
Mikoto spoke through grit teeth. "Orochimaru wants to measure our skills when the mission blows up in our faces. And probably wants to know whether we can escape the dungeons."
"Oh, there won't be escaping any of those dungeons," Koyama cut in, interrupting his own rant on the social faux pas of multiple courtesans wearing the same shoes, and how shoe designers needed to consider how feet come in various widths when attempted to make footwear in mass quantities. "The guards will be shackling you with chakra restraints that Uta herself created with special seals. They've never been used on actual prisoners before, so you kunoichi get to be our guinea pigs. Since we're not sure if they'll even work, the guards are going to drug you, too. Shame about that, though. Waking up when those drugs wear off leaves you with a real bitch of a headache. Ask me how I know, later. It's a funny story, actually."
"Koyama-senpai," Kushina said, her voice sugary-sweet. She flashed a smile that was far more teeth than anything else.
Koyama raised his chin as he silently regarded Kushina. Then, slowly, suspiciously, he said, "Yes?"
"Shut up."
Tsume immediately squeezed her eyes shut as Kushina flared her golden chakra blindingly bright in its visibility, as if she had ripped open two chakra gates. She heard Mikoto squeak in pain. When Tsume felt the shadows gripping her feet disintegrate, she blindly spun herself upwards and overhead. Her eyes opened as she dropped in front of Mikoto, who clutched a hand over her eyes in pain. Tsume was fully aware of Kushina's chakra flares and how it could break shadow bindings, and even though she had squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation, her vision still swam with blotches of light. Mikoto wouldn't have known, and her eyes, as sensitive to light as Tsume's nose was to scents, was surely going to be very slow to recover. "I gotcha!" Tsume yelled as she used chakra-enhanced strength to throw Mikoto over her shoulder.
Koyama barrel-rolled from beneath the table, trying to put distance between himself and the girls since he was also blinded and wouldn't be able to see any incoming attacks. Kushina's golden chakra flare mutated into two small chains. She threw them boomeranging over the top of the honeysuckle hedge-wall behind Koyama, and out from beneath. Koyama yelped as the chains snagged his ankles and dragged him backwards into the hedge.
Tsume didn't think as she charged in the direction opposite of the fast approaching guards. "This way!" she yelled at Kushina. They bolted through the hedge pathways, and twice through the hedge itself – Tsume already looked like she was dragged backwards through a hedge as her hair finally exploded free from its confinement, and for once, so did Mikoto. A wide-eyed samurai guard stepped forward with his pole arm raised to block their path. Kushina leapt over Tsume and struck the guard feet-first into his chest, knocking him over and breathless. She gracefully rolled to her feet and fell into step beside Tsume.
"Don't crush anyone!" Mikoto yelled, pushing against Tsume's lower back. "We only have permission to use minimal force! Tsume, put me down!"
Tsume and Kushina crashed headlong into a doutan wall before Tsume could drop Mikoto. That was the fastest raised earthen wall Tsume had ever crashed into, given that Danzo favored them as a way to block her and Mikoto's attacks whenever he had them practice Aunt Natsumi's Wrath of the Beast style. The wall receded into the ground as smoothly as it had formed. Mikoto rolled free from Tsume's grip, stuffing the scroll into her cleavage before crouching into a protective stance, blinking rapidly. They were surrounded by over a hundred wooden beehives. Two rows of beehives away stood the Fire Daimyo, swathed in protective netting with his hands full of two wooden slats heavily laden with working bees and honeycomb. Next to him, wearing only her sleeveless uniform and wholly unconcerned with potential stings, was the Leader of the Fire Guardians – the one responsible for creating the earthen barrier, and without the use of hand seals.
Senju Uta. Her skin was golden from the sun, and her striking white hair was elaborated braided and pinned into a crown around her head. Her eyes were as green as the honeysuckle leaves. She had the same chiseled cheekbones and jaw line of Tsunade. Unlike Tsunade, who had a generous bosom and feminine curves, Uta was built as solid as a man. She was also, besides Tsunade, the last of the living Senju. Her heavily muscled arms were crossed in front of her modest chest, and she regarded them with cool disdain – or maybe most of the cool disdain was aimed at Uchiha Mikoto, whose eyes were watering from the pain of Kushina's chakra.
The Fire Daimyo glanced at Uta – it was more of a tilt of his beekeeper bonnet in Uta's direction. "I'm assuming, given that you're not following through with crushing their skulls after blocking their invasion, that these are not actual enemies. They must instead be the Konoha nin who volunteered to try out your new drugs and chakra restraints."
Uta shrugged. Her body movement was incredibly minimal, and her scent carefully controlled. She wasn't protected against the swarm of bees that filled the air – thousands coming to their hives, thousands leaving their hives – and she didn't seem at all concerned. "In a sense, yes, Yoiyama-heika." The weight of her killing intent was crushing. Tsume felt Mikoto trembling beside her and Kushina struggling to breathe.
"Oh, good. I was concerned it might otherwise be those thieving Godo merchants penetrating my sanctuary. So help me, if they steal my latest queen, I will unleash the entire Aburame clan upon their heads, and hang the cost!" The Daimyo gently slid the slats back into the hive he stood next to, careful not to disturb the bees that clung to them.
Kushina opened her mouth to speak, and then started coughing and choking, clawing at her neck. She fell to her knees, waving off Tsume's attempts to grab her arms. "I swallowed a bee!"
"She's not allergic, is she?" the Fire Daimyo asked Uta in concern. "I can't have a corpse stinking up my place! It will upset the bees' appetite."
"I'd clear the body before it started to smell. You should be more concerned about assassins than a simple genin going into anaphylactic shock or merchants attempting to abscond with your hives."
Kushina, still coughing and gagging, glared at her distant cousin. Her voice was scratchy and broken. "I'm not going into shock!"
"Then it had better not be one of my xylocopa caerulea! I'm expecting a visit from one of those lovely ladies today."
Uta gave the Konoha nin a languid shrug as Tsume carefully helped Kushina upright. "If you're not actively dying, why are you lingering? The other guards are freeing Koyama from the hedge as we speak, and they'll be upon you very shortly. Since you're not permitted to use more than minimal force, you'll never be able to successfully disarm them. The only way you'll succeed with this mock mission is if you run."
Tsume glanced at Mikoto, whose Sharingan studied everything. "You aren't going to stop us, are you?" Tsume asked, sniffing for any indication of a lie.
The Daimyo cooed over a bee that perched upon his gloved fingertip. "Oooh, there you are, you beautiful creature! Uta-san, it's one of my blue carpenter bees! I am just delighted with this rare treat!"
"I don't need to test my chakra restrains on you girls – Jiraiya has already tripped over himself to volunteer. No, I only erected the wall to prevent any of you from knocking over the hives, because then our liege here would order you all to be publicly executed. And please, make no attempts to assassinate this idiot." Uta nodded her head toward the Daimyo. "I'd be forced to intervene, and I will not hold back my attacks. You will die."
"How dare you impugn my intellect, woman. You can always be replaced," the Daimyo told Uta, not looking up from his blue bee. "I still have my eyes on Aburame Tadasha as your replacement."
"Yoiyama-heika, for the last time, the Aburame do not use bees; you are thinking of the Kamizuru, and they happen to be a clan that has pledged its undying loyalty to Iwa. And while I very much doubt that you'll be able to talk them into relocating to Fire without sending us hurtling head-first into another World Shinobi War, I will still assassinate you myself if you send them another letter. By the way, I burned the one you tried to slip to the Earth's ambassador last week."
Careful not to disturb the many hives and even more careful not to accidentally inhale or swallow any more bees, the girls carefully and quickly skirted around the perimeter of the maze center, through the cloud of bees, and around the bickering Fire Daimyo and his guardian. Uta never removed her gaze from them, smoothly sliding her feet so her back was never left open and exposed to them. The Fire Daimyo seemed completely unconcerned with their escape, or the casual disrespect of his Fire Guardian Captain. By the time Tsume and her companions reached the far side of the perimeter, the guards and Koyama had reached the entrance to the hives. Tsume saw Koyama flash a grin at them and a thumb's up before the kunoichi slipped through the hedge. Between Tsume's nose, Mikoto's judicious use of her Sharingan to lock people into delightful daydreams, and Kushina's chakra chains that yanked guards up and out of their way with the required minimal force, they made it out of the hedge maze and through the servants' quarters in less than three minutes. They flung themselves out of the servants' windows and plummeted a hundred feet into the filthy moat below.
They emerged coughing and sputtering with no guards on their tail.
"Great," Tsume said, scraping her tongue against the ground to remove the taste of moat water from her mouth. Dirt was preferable to the polluted muck, and probably less likely to give her sepsis. "Now we just have to run around to the other side to deliver the scroll to Yuu-sensei."
Kushina and Mikoto wrung water out of their hair. "Think we'll make it in time?" Kushina asked.
Mikoto glanced quickly at the sun's position in the horizon. "We should be there with thirty minutes to spare. Let's go!"
oOoOoOo
Minato's team ambushed them in a glen of mixed deciduous trees, two hundred meters from the circus site and twenty minutes before the scroll was set to be delivered.
"They were right there! How could you not smell their intent or notice them?" Mikoto demanded, slumped boneless against a large maple. Hotaru had immediately drained Mikoto of her chakra with a heavy-handed use of her kikaichu. Minato pinned Kushina with a heavy knee against her lower back and her arms severely pulled back. Her reddened face was stained green from the grass that Minato had initially grappled her against before finally subduing her with a paper seal that was currently pinned to her forehead. The Sarutobi clan moonlighted as whalers in pre-Konoha days, and were famously known for securing whales – and prisoners. Osamu tied up Tsume and strung her from a tree. Apparently, genjutsu used to stun whales worked very well on the Inuzuka, too.
"Minato cheated!" Tsume declared hotly, trying not to vomit from her disorientation; the stunner Osamu had used was giving her awful vertigo, and the swaying from the ropes didn't help. "He cloaked them all with nature chakra, and do you have any idea how hard it is to smell through nature chakra? It's like trying to use your Sharingan to look through a wall. Especially when we all stink to high heavens from the moat and my nostrils are full of honeysuckle pollen."
"All's fair in love and war," Minato said easily. "Also, I didn't know that about using nature chakra. Does it work to shield us from your kikaichu?" he asked Hotaru, as Osamu finished stringing up Tsume, and moved on to Kushina.
"Not against my breed – they detect chakra, and nature chakra is just another source of food."
Osamu trussed Kushina up next to Tsume. Kushina growled and tried to tear open her restraints through brute force. The knots and ropes held secure. Unlike Tsume, Kushina was left dangling upside down, the trailing ends of her long red hair pooling on the forest floor, mixing with grass, dead sticks, and last year's dead leaves. She huffed and puffed and tried to blow the paper seal off of her forehead.
"You're never in the clear until you've completed your mission with delivery of the scroll," Osamu told Mikoto as he promptly did the same to her. Mikoto was hung right side up.
As Osamu cracked his knuckles and Hotaru recalled her kikachu, Minato eyed Mikoto and the bulge of the scroll, still tucked in her cleavage. With a sigh, Minato turned to Hotaru. "I think you better retrieve it. If Jiraiya-sensei hears that I stuck my hand down Mikoto-san's shirt, he's going to grill me on what it felt to get a handful."
Hotaru retrieved the scroll without any preamble. "We'll save you some dinner," she told the other Konoha kunoichi cheerfully. "Just make sure you free yourself before the show starts, or you won't have time to eat." The three of them wandered off, loudly talking about surviving whatever the cooks were currently destroying. (Yakatori, Tsume would've said, if anyone asked her. And the likelihood of being poisoned from undercooked chicken was minimal, considering how thoroughly burnt the chicken was, and there wasn't enough barbeque sauce in the world to cover up the charcoal crust.)
Orochimaru dropped to the ground, falling into a smooth crouch, one minute after Minato's team left, and silently considered the kunoichi as he tapped a half-buried rock with one hand. His smile gradually stretching further and further, he finally ceased his tapping after an uncomfortable length of time. "It's now one minute after your deadline. You were unable to escape your bondage and retrieve the stolen scroll." Orochimaru straightened upward and approached them; his movements were liquid-smooth. "You failed." He pushed Kushina, making her gently sway. Her hair swept up even more sticks and dried grass, and even some clumps of dirt. "You were complacent and arrogant to believe that you were safe once you cleared the enemy's camp. I will give you points for getting into the palace and finding your contact without raising any alarm, so I will say the first half of your mission was successful." He ripped the paper seal off of Kushina's forehead.
"Ow!"
Tsume paused in her attempt to gnaw through the ropes. "We didn't fail."
"Oh?"
"She's right." Yuu emerged from the thick underbrush, the scroll gripped in his hand. "This was given to me twenty-two seconds before their time was up."
Orochimaru stared in surprise, mouth agape. Then his eyes narrowed as Ichi, Ni, San, Shi, and Kuromaru emerged with Yuu. Every single ninken looked as smug as they smelled. "Tsume, I gave no directive that permitted you use of your ninken."
"Sensei," said Mikoto sweetly, "shall I quote you in your entirety when you provided me the mission details? You never said that we couldn't use the ninken. We just didn't bring them along with us because they would've been too obvious in trying to infiltrate the Palace."
"Shinobi rule number 31 – peppermint tea with two lemon drops – use your weapons with discretion!"
Yuu cheered. "Very good, Tsume-san!" He flung three kunai at each rope; the blades bounced off them. "Huh. No wonder it's taking you forever to chew through them." His rope-untying jutsu also bounced off the ropes. "Wow. What is the secret to the Sarutobi ropes?"
Tsume spat out the fibers stuck to her tongue, carefully avoiding Orochimaru. Her saliva was tinged with blood. "Hemp, linen, steel, and silk, with fuuinjutsu woven into the linen. The steel is a real bitch on my tongue."
"Really?" Kushina perked up. "That's brilliant!"
Orochimaru cackled. "I would've loved to see the looks on Team Jiraiya's face when they were ambushed by the ninken."
Kuromaru barked and wagged his tail. "We didn't. Shi stole the scroll out of Hotaru's pocket when Ichi and I distracted them with sticks we brought for them to throw, and then we split up with everyone of us henged to look like we had the scroll, forcing them to separate while they chased us."
Yuu shimmied up the tree to pick at the ropes' knots. "Huh. Minato-san still fell victim to a cute face, just like his sensei. Hah! Wait until I tell Jiraiya. He'll be both proud and dismayed, I know it." He had to work the edge of a kunai into the knots securing Mikoto in order to loosen them.
"Excellent, my dear kunoichi." Orochimaru's voice dropped into a silky whisper as he rubbed his hands together in glee. "I dearly hope that your remaining tests will continue to be as entertaining as this one."
Yuu released Mikoto and Kushina first, since their preparation for their circus performance was more time-consuming than Tsume's – they would have to be freshly washed up from their impromptu swim through the moat. Tsume just had to shuck her clothes and slip into her leathers. Still amused, Orochimaru trailed after them, likely also to prepare himself for his own role.
Sensing her dejection at the thought of how she was best suited at being filthy, Yuu reached down and gingerly patted Tsume's matted hair in comfort. Then he gingerly wiped his hand on the grass to remove the swamp muck. "Even if your ninken hadn't obtained the scroll, you all would've passed."
Tsume wiggled her feet in thought. It made her sway. "But I thought the success of the mission was what's important."
"In real life, absolutely. But for your trial, not necessarily. It's not the success of the mission that we're testing you on. It's how you perform. These mock-missions are designed to showcase your skills and tactics, as well as how quickly you react when the unexpected happens. C- or B-class missions can quickly spiral into S-class missions, and we have to see if you're able to think clearly under pressure, or go into panic mode. It may feel like we're setting you up for failure, but there's no way of knowing where the deficit in your skills lie until they're revealed.
"Some teachers prefer to use a sink-or-swim method. Danzo believes that the best ninja are forged through trials of fire – the weak will die, leaving only the strongest behind. Hokage-sama, however, believes that the greatest are the most balanced – knowledge and skill, creativity and practicality, speed and strength, mind and body. The body doesn't become stronger without exercise, and the mind doesn't become stronger without experience. These missions are as much about giving you practical experience on being out in the field without your jounin instructor as they are to evaluate your skills."
Yuu released the knot, and Tsume dropped to the ground. She tucked her knees and stayed upright. Yuu jumped from the tree limb to the ground, and began working the knots that secured her arms and feet. "Even when you're on missions with your jounin-sensei, you're still in a fairly-controlled environment. You still look towards your sensei for direction, and he's able to provide immediate orders on whatever situation you're in. With his experience, he's able to judge and evaluate a situation and knows to pull you out before it's spiraling out of control. Now is the time for you to survive and adapt without an experienced leader. Even if you feel like you've failed in the mission, it's giving us a better idea on what you still need to learn. Too many of the young and inexperienced died in the last war, Tsume-san. Hokage-sama is hoping that we can improve everyone's survival rates by doing this." The ropes fell away, finally released.
Tsume stepped out of the loops, and then gathered up all the ropes that Osamu had used on her team. Sarutobi ropes were the most expensive, because they were also the best. Danzo and Sakumo had reinforced the lesson of never pass up the chance for looting your enemy in the last two years, and even though Osamu wasn't her enemy, Tsume figured that the ropes were the spoils that went to the winner. Besides, sometimes, less wasn't more – more was more, especially when it came to good ropes that she was never able to afford. "Is this a pilot program?" she asked as she coiled the ropes and secured each independent rope in its own loop. She would share her spoils with Kushina and Mikoto.
Yuu grinned. "In a way, yes, but we are always evolving as a Village. Tobirama-sama was the one who created and developed genin teams being led by experienced jounin. It lets us all learn strengths from each other." It also broke up the inherent monopoly some clans have over others. The Nara were able to help the more physical clans, such as the Inuzuka clan, develop their yin chakra, while the Uchiha clan shared their fire jutsu with non-Uchiha whose chakra nature favored fire. "And now, the Head of Internal Affairs and the Hokage are working in a system that tests would-be chuunin without jeopardizing health and lives unnecessarily. Even though the others are testing for be jounin, the feedback on all the tests and everyone's performances will all be under consideration." Yuu rifled Tsume's hair. "So, on behalf of future generations that would otherwise die under Danzo's idea of improving the strong, thank you."