Unsung Story of the Inconspicuous
'Sup? Still going, doing so with a modicum of efficiency largely because Shana is awesome as a beta, and also in general. I AM UNSTOPPABLE maybe.
Ryuu was starting to get tired.
In truth, she was surprised he was keeping up as well as he had been, though she knew that Ryuu maintained speed by consuming the souls of his victims. Or by somehow decreasing air resistance, maybe, but that sounded less like him. Raiku's overpowering velocity was simply part of her nature, as much as the blinding light that came with it, but at least her surly companion could suppress any sound her movement would ordinarily generate. But it took very little effort for her to go fast, as most of her concentration was focused on making sure she kept breathing despite the counterproductive urge to stop. So really, the fact he'd maintained pace was a credit to his hard work. She wouldn't realize how tired she was until she stopped, when she knew from experience it would all catch up at once and probably knock her out as well, but there usually was a catch to everything. At least in the Gairano experience.
The village they ended up in was small. Or, it looked that way on approach, half-hidden by hills, each turn revealing more small, wooden buildings until the surprising scale of the labyrinth could be revealed by degrees. It would have been peaceful, too, the village left sleeping in a fine blanket of mist that lay perfectly still and settled right up until Ryuu and Raiku carved two narrow lines through it. It was old-fashioned, or so she thought while caught up in the blur her surroundings became, unadorned wooden homes with wrap-around terraces and narrow streets that made it hard to navigate on so little sleep. The inn was obvious, mostly because it actually had a chakra presence to speak of, being where any and all shinobi would be staying if they needed to pass through.
Or so she understood by Ryuu's half-caught words, blocked out by the roaring in her ears, the rabbit-fast beat of her heart. They skidded to a stop in a small paved courtyard, the lights within the inn casting a gentle glow over them the pale blue light that preceded dawn.
Raiku swiftly started to stretch out her legs, feeling fatigue start to make itself known in waves of steadily increasing intensity. She had to stretch and she had to pull what felt like a twig out of her calf, because otherwise she'd regret it like hell the next time she woke up.
Ryuu tried to catch his breath, hindered by how he was probably trying not to sound like he needed to. 'Not bad,' he allowed, wiping dirt from his face. Raiku was probably similarly dishevelled, but fortunately her sweat would have largely evaporated from heat and so she wouldn't smell.
She inched away from him. Hopped, since she was still stretching one leg, but at least she could pass it off as trying to keep her balance. She could feel a few small chakra signatures inside the two-story building, too small to be civilians. Kakashi had made it very clear that while civilians never developed their chakra as much and so had small signatures, shinobi would deliberately conceal theirs and go too far the other way, giving themselves away by trying to be subtle.
He'd also made some pointed digs about her total lack of subtlety, but that was actually pretty fair.
Ryuu staggered up the steps, devoid of his usual grace. 'Finally,' she thought she heard him mutter, but it could just as easily have been something ruder. The little wooden inn's entry room had a front desk next to a set of stairs leading up to the second floor, an archway to what must have been the dining area to the left, and a distinct air of actual domestic comfort that almost made Raiku pass out from relief. It was small and traditional and they would have water and it was going to be glorious.
Not that Raiku and Ryuu were in a state to appreciate any of that. They were exhausted, sore and somewhat distracted.
By the impossible.
'How?' Raiku demanded. Well, more panted, really. 'How?!'
Yamada appeared totally unimpressed, sipping at tea from a cup rendered comically miniscule by his enormous hands. He was visible through the doorway into the other room, sitting at a low table. "You little dipshits should know better."
Ryuu responded to this by simply collapsing. Typical Ryuu, had a quick response to everything, Raiku thought, just a little hysterically.
'How did you … get here before us?!' she wheezed, grabbing at the inn's front counter for support. 'Not… possible!'
Yamada looked mysterious and foreboding instead of answering. This was easy to pull off for a man with scarred lips and more muscles than most countries had citizens. Daisukenojo was nowhere to be seen, or at least he was until Raiku's knees gave out and she saw him passed out under a table.
Yamada must have carried him. Or sacrificed his youth and vitality to some demon to gain superhuman speed because she and Ryuu had been relentless. They had left the other two in the dust and no one was faster than her. But… she had had to slow down so Ryuu wouldn't feel threatened and kill her, but still! Yamada was too big to be that fast! The universe forbiddened it. Forbidded it. For…
Raiku squinted. She knew this word. She knew it, it was just… out of reach, like most words right that second. But weariness was dulling her mind at this point, as the demands of her body were finally given the opportunity to make themselves known after hours of shoving them aside.
Yamada glowered. "I'm a goddamn Jounin and there was no way in hell you morons were going to outpace me. Little shits. Now," he added, tone oddly magnanimous, "I'm gonna chalk this up to new Chuunin enthusiasm and only punish you a little, get me?"
'No,' Raiku whined. It was really very unfair that she was the only one conscious for this, even if she'd known it was coming.
Yamada sipped his tea and forced her to brood in the silence.
Raiku twitched, her vision starting to go dark around the edges, and he finally let the hammer fall.
"No breakfast."
Birds fled in flocks from the trees around the inn at Raiku's piercing wail.
Raiku and the others had about three hours to sleep while the rest of the town woke around them, before Yamada mercilessly rolled them off their futons and into the harsh light of day.
"You three are gonna look around," he announced, while they struggled blindly around on the mats like oddly lethal newborn kittens, "and I'm gonna get some shut-eye, get me?"
'That seems irresponsible of you.' Raiku wasn't sure which of the boys said it, but it was a valid point. She was busy trying weakly to untangle herself from her sheets. It was embarassingly difficult. The sheets were soft and warm and wrapped around her leaden limbs like an inviting boa constrictor.
Yamada snorted. "You three little bastards are Chuunin now, I think you can handle asking some villagers if they remember a group of bandits. Do not leave the village, get me? Sullen, I'm looking at you."
Free at last, Raiku had rolled onto her back to look at the wooden ceiling. She could feel tatami mats against the back of her neck, the fine hairs catching on the fibres. That was about all she was capable of registering, except for how dry her throat was and how her stomach was rumbling and her limbs were on fire.
So there were a few things, after some consideration. But she could go back to sleep, still. She could ignore anything. It was a skill acquired through years of practice. Anything.
"Get me!?"
Except for Yamada's yell, which could have woken the dead. She flipped onto her feet and tripped her way to the door, scrambling over Daisukenojo in her haste, a brief tangle of limbs and pointy elbows and yelping. 'Yes Yamada!'
The innkeeper would be the best bet, she decided as she tripped down the stairs, limbs still sleep-clumsy and landing nowhere she was trying to send them. He was fortunately very conveniently located, sparing them a glance before resuming … whatever he was doing at the desk. He was a middle-aged man, greying brunette and dark-eyed and gloriously average looking. He was actually a little overweight, Raiku noted enviously.
And Raiku could do this. She could totally do this. She could be suave and investigate-y. She had this one. 'Hello!' she chirped, ignoring how her sleep-rough voice made her sound more like an extremely angry and equally tiny frog. She laced her fingers behind her back. 'Have you seen any criminals?'
To her left, Daisukenojo smacked his hand to his forehead.
The man slowly looked up from his ledger. 'Criminals?' he asked, tone clearly implying that hello, there were three probable murderers standing in front of him and he was only capable of so much tact.
Raiku, a definite murderer, smiled hopefully.
He looked a little exasperated. 'You're a bit new, aren't you?'
That was a little unfair. She wasn't a Genin.
'Please, please ignore her,' Daisukenojo groaned.
'Yes!' she replied, ignoring him instead. 'Thank you for letting us stay here,' she added politely, because good manners were rather important to the Gairano when being rude often implied arrogance, which often implied Drama ahead.
'Tadano Taro,' the innkeeper said, and in her tired, hungry state it took Raiku a moment to realise he was introducing himself and that totally ridiculous name actually belonged to him. Thank god. Such unimaginative rhymes were a good sign.
She was too tired to be especially anxious, but this seemed to be going well. 'Raiku!'
'Well, Raiku,' Taro said, giving her a weary look that she seemed to inspire in people, 'not really. I can't say anyone's come up and said "thanks for the hot water, I'm off to commit crimes".'
Damn.
While Raiku's fatigue-addled mind struggled with this crushing disappointment, Daisukenojo pushed her out of the way and took over. 'Well done,' Ryuu muttered to her, rubbing his temples. Tired didn't look good on him, which was a relief with his Drama levels. He had huge bags under his eyes and he was pale under the tan and his hair was just messy, rather than… artfully mussed. Perfectly normal. It was great.
Daisukenojo looked the same as he always did, but he had had dinner and slept the night before. He came back to them after a few seconds, bowing to Taro with gratitude. 'No big groups have stayed here, except for some of our teams,' he told them around a yawn.
This set off a chain reaction of yawning that gave them all some time to think.
'So we just… ask everybody?' Raiku ventured.
Ryuu snorted. 'This place is surprisingly spread out. It'd take forever. Shops, or the local bar; places like that are the best bet.'
Raiku hesitated. 'I don't think… are we legally allowed in bars of any kind?'
The two of them gave her a rather dirty look. She threw her hands up. 'What?! I'm the oldest and I'm pretty sure seventeen is still not basically-as-good-as-twenty, at least in the eyes of the law.' Wait, did that apply to shinobi? After a moment of consideration, she decided to just go with what she knew and assume she was in the wrong.
There was a long silence. Daisukenojo eventually broke it with a skeptical tone. 'You're seventeen?'
'No way in hell.'
Raiku sputtered. 'I am! How do you not remember that?!'
'Wait. I'm almost seventeen,' Ryuu said slowly, apparently working through what he should have known already. 'So that means she could be.'
'Could—what?! I am! You guys were just at the Chuunin Exams! So I spent my birthday alone!' Patently untrue, her dad had made her favorite dinner and quietly wept about what the Gairano called The Danger Zone, or the period of teenage life that marked when the average shinobi became sexually active. Even though she was removed from developments of that nature. But still.
'No, no, because you turned thirteen when we first took it,' Daisukenojo pointed out, like she didn't know how old she was.
'Yes, and then I spent time wandering around with you guys, getting lost without you guys, in hospital for ages,' Raiku listed, counting it off on her fingers, 'recovering from being in hospital, which I think is a little unfair, resting even more and missing the next exam—' and then the whole time mess where somehow time stretched out to make people the ages that were convenient for the story. Her dad had actually aged one year less, apparently, and he was loving it to no end.
The others just blinked, taking this in.
'…Shit. Really?'
'I think we're still missing a year in there,' Ryuu said, frowning, and Raiku immediately set about steamrolling over this inconvenient thought.
'Well! I am definitely seventeen and that is the end of it! We should really, uh, get started! If we aren't done by the time Yamada gets up, he'll be pissed.' She started pushing her teammates out the door, desperate to cut it off before they looked into things too closely and also tried to convince her she was sixteen when she had earned seventeen, damnit.
'Stop pushing, god!'
'What the hell is the sudden hurry?'
'Out, out!' Raiku cried, yelling over the two of them until they stood outside in the light of day.
Mostly the light of day. Raiku had braced herself for a wave of heat and slowly, cautiously relaxed when it didn't hit nearly as hard as she thought it would. It was overcast, with pale clouds hanging over the village and softening the light, providing some much-needed relief.
She could avoid summer for at least another day. Glorious. Well, not wholly. The air was still and humid, no breeze to provide relief, but still! Better than nothing.
In the light of day, the village—wait, what was the village called? Crap. Crap, she didn't know. Wait, had she been told? Maybe? Well, this was going to be embarrassing. 'Hey. Not that I don't know, because I clearly do, but just to make sure that you know,' she said slowly, 'where are we?'
Daisukenojo sighed. 'You didn't read the sign?'
Raiku turned and looked where he was pointing. "Inn of Imichi-son", the sign proclaimed. "The only inn here" was scrawled beneath it, rather more pointedly.
'So… Imichi?' she read slowly, unfamiliar with the reading of the characters.
'Iji,' Daisukenojo corrected.
Raiku glared. No. No, it was impossible. '"Iji"?' she asked sceptically. 'That can't really be the name of this place. It's ridiculous.' The village wrapped around hills couldn't be called "winding path", "crooked path" or any derivation thereof. Nope. Unacceptable. Tadano Taro and now this? This was all too harmless. It was getting suspicious.
…Also, it sounded like "itchy", and that was totally undignified.
'Well, it is, so shut up. It's not the village's fault that you don't know how to read.'
A fair point. But still, it wasn't like Konoha was imaginative, what with it being surrounded by trees. Maybe it was just their society's pathetic naming conventions? Her name was her in summation, so she could hardly criticize.
It was at roughly this point, being dragged down an unevenly paved, crooked path, that Raiku realized she was being stared at. People were staring at her. Well, as far as she could see. "Crooked path" was actually incredibly accurate, close-knit buildings separated by the paths winding up and down hills, around high, ivy-covered wooden fences and occasionally stopping entirely in inexplicable dead-ends. They were on what seemed to pass for a main road, wide enough for a whole three, maybe four people, some shops scattered sporadically around with old characters carved into worn overhangings to label their purpose. Too old for her to read, at times—she was hardly an adept scholar, but she usually got by. This was a little like stepping back in time, probably because as far as their country was usually concerned, small villages could take care of themselves. They could usually see about ten meters in front of them at a time before the road twisted again, and saw about that many people in five minutes.
And the people she could see were apparently seeing her with rather more consternation. Raiku was used to it, to a degree; she covered up a lot, after all, and as such was the most shinobi-looking shinobi to ever, uh, shinobi. Plus she was freakishly tall, but still.
After a moment, she realized it was probably both of those things in addition to her hair, white and spiky and longer now, far too obvious. She'd forgotten about it entirely over the time skip, since she'd become so unaccustomed to dyeing her hair even beforehand, but hair like hers was not normal. Except for Kakashi and oh god that was so much worse.
Holy shit. She was funny looking.
Raiku stopped in the middle of the narrow street and gaped in silent horror.
She was… oh god. She was so conspicuous.
'What the hell?' Ryuu pushed her shoulder from behind, held up. 'Why have you stopped?' Already tetchy, which was no surprise. Ryuu didn't like mornings. Or any time of day, really, but he was particularly angry every time the day had the audacity to start without his permission.
One of the young ladies Raiku had seen staring promptly leaned slightly to the side. Raiku gawked at her, uncertain of what was happening.
Ryuu sighed and pushed past her. 'Come on. Try not to get lost.'
The woman stopped leaning.
Raiku then, fortunately, had her second epiphany of the day.
They were leaning to see around her. Because they were staring at Ryuu even more. Well, the young women were.
Ryuu… was shiny.
She relaxed a little, reassured by the idea that it wasn't so much her as it was teenage girls being teenage girls, and also because Ryuu finally was helping her; his shininess was providing the perfect camouflage for her oddness. Which was a relief, because Gairano didn't like being conspicuous but also hated anything being all about them.
God. That had been a terrifying few seconds.
Raiku, feeling a little more relaxed, quickly drew pace with him again. 'How do we know where we're going?'
'I've got a map!' Daisuke called from a few feet ahead, waving a tiny piece of paper.
'Why don't we go over the buildings?' Raiku asked, leery of any teammate's map-reading skills, as they'd never been tested before. Yamada somehow managed to always know exactly where he was, like he had some internal compass always pointing straight at magnetic Suffering, the least known of the cardinal directions.
'Why don't we just wave a giant sign over our heads saying "come and murder us" to the guys we're looking for?' Ryuu asked sarcastically.
Raiku snorted. 'We're not exactly inconspicuous.'
'You're not.'
'Hey!'
Daisukenojo groaned. 'Oh my god! Shut up back there!' He stopped and pointed, after a brief map consultation. 'There. There's the bar.'
The small bar was undeniably just that, based off the large hangings with "Bar" neatly written on them. There was a row of bottles lined up along the inner windowsill so they could be seen from the road, just in case someone missed that.
'Well-spotted,' Ryuu drawled. Raiku just huffed, fanning herself with one hand. She had been wrong. The humidity and the lack of breeze had quickly proven worse than the dry heat she was used to, and she was already feeling sticky, the inside of her head feeling muggy.
Daisukenojo folded the map and stuck it in his pocket. 'Shut the hell up, asshole. So. Who goes in?'
'Ryuu,' Raiku said immediately. 'He looks oldest.'
Ryuu stuck his hands in his pockets. Probably to stop himself from strangling her with them. 'We're all allowed in as long as we don't order alcohol, moron.'
Raiku hadn't been aware of that. She also wished it wasn't true, given that she was apparently not up to asking anybody any questions.
'Oh for the—we'll all go,' Daisukenojo decided, a few minutes being far too long to wait for him.
The no-smoking rule was more of a guideline in Iji, it seemed. Konoha bars had banned smoking, mostly because drunken behavior, smoking and wooden buildings didn't mix well, but that hadn't crossed over at all. Or at least not very well, judging from the strong smell of tobacco that staged a hostile invasion of Raiku's airways the second she entered.
It was…
Okay, she didn't want to save it was a dive. Diving, after all, was a difficult and noble profession. It was… it was a bit… it had character. Much the way that Ryuu had character, in that it was sketchy and murderous.
It was also blessedly empty. Not entirely, with a few men scattered around at tables alone or in one case, a pair sitting in total silence, but mostly empty! They got a few totally apathetic stares, but there didn't seem to be any staff around. The silence was oppressive, but Raiku was on that. 'Hello?' she called, bracing her hands on the suspiciously oily bar so she could lean over it to try and see through the doorway to the back. 'Hello-o?'
'Wow,' Ryuu deadpanned. 'Just. Well done.'
'Shut up, asshole,' Daisukenojo hissed. 'Let her do it.' God bless Daisukenojo. Even if he did think she was at the same mental capacity as his tiny siblings. His mentally tiny siblings, anyway, since most were now physically taller than him, but at least it made him slightly more supportive.
When there was no response, she let her feet hit the floor and pushed herself away, ignoring the tired headrush. 'Do we… come back later?' she asked, blinking in a way that felt oddly uneven.
Daisukenojo and Ryuu exchanged looks. '…How about you sit down?' Daisukenojo suggested after a moment. 'You're looking a little…'
'Just sit down,' Ryuu ordered. Raiku made her way to a nearby stool, at the far end of a table from another bar…drinker. Dweller. D…something.
'Hey,' she greeted when the much older man met her eyes, with what was a totally macho head-nod. '…'Sup.'
He looked away, but Raiku still counted it as a social win. Conversation started up behind her, and when she turned around she saw that Daisukenojo had apparently found the owner. Or at least someone authoritatively grumpy, which was probably as good as.
Which was when she saw it.
Glimpsed it, really, and it wasn't any of her business. It wasn't the one that had been basically throwing a tantrum when she didn't pay attention to it a few days ago, and it wasn't going after her.
…But.
But a Plot was a Plot and she was a Gairano, so she squirmed around until she could see it again. Another glimmer of light on a surface like oil and it vanished. While Daisuke politely showed himself to be the most effective human in their group, Raiku tried her best to discreetly track the tiny black Plot as it slid along the floor. It wasn't a danger at all; it wasn't after her, so there was no need to stop it. The world did run on them, after all. It was more reflex than anything else.
And also curiosity, because it was tiny. Unbelievably tiny. She'd never seen one so small. But that wasn't a reason for concern. The shape was the odd thing. It was long and stretched out, thread-thin, almost impossible to see until light caught on it, like how a spiderweb could be invisible until it'd been walked into face-first.
Not that that would ever happen to Raiku, what with her acute shinobi senses.
Of course not.
She caught Ryuu's eye and raised her eyebrows in question. He mouthed "nothing" and she slumped.
Goddamnit. No decently sized civilian groups recently using the inn or the bar. Well, it had been a long shot anyway, since civilian criminals wouldn't make a habit of passing through shinobi-frequented areas, but still. It was disappointing. The Plot was stretching out too far when she looked down again, its tiny mass extended beyond what she would have expected, thin as a hair.
'Toaster! We're going to check out some other places! Come on!'
Raiku dragged her eyes off the floor. 'Yeah, sure,' she said distractedly, and by the time she looked back it had overextended, stretched itself out existence. Well. Omnipresent didn't mean smart.
She made it all the way back to the street before an earlier thought finally completed itself.
'Denizen!' she exclaimed, almost startling a passerby out of their skin. 'I knew there was another one!'
By the time they got back, having hit every store on the main drag and come up with exactly nothing, Yamada was as fresh as a daisy and all Raiku wanted to do was curl up and die. And eat. Ooh, and shower. In any order, but definitely those three things. "So. Find anything?"
Ryuu stretched his fingers, probably antsy after a violence-free day. 'We discovered that Raiku is really conspicuous. Permission to henge her or hide her in a cupboard?'
Raiku smacked his shoulder irritably, even as Yamada considered this idea. "No," he decided eventually. "We might be here a while and the last thing we need is her exploding out of a henge and scaring someone shitless, get me? Same goes for the cupboard."
Raiku glared. 'Gee. Thanks.' Whatever she'd been about to add to the conversation died in her throat as they entered the dining room and saw four figures, standing side-by-side at the counter. 'ANBU,' she said instead, eyes wide.
Daisuke followed her gaze. 'Hey, yeah. Cool.'
'Should they be in an inn?' Raiku wondered, still a little stunned. The four of them wore the iconic heavy brown coats and their traditional white masks, the two combining to completely hide gender and identity. It looked like… Raiku craned her neck to see what their masks were. Cat, Demon, Monkey-Demon-Thing-Maybe, and another she couldn't see from that angle. 'As in, right there? Super obvious?'
Ryuu rolled his eyes. 'What, you think they sleep in burrows?'
'Hey, no, I have a point here! It's not exactly covert! Anybody could ask "oh hey, seen any ANBU recently?" and it isn't like civilians are trained to stand up to torture even if they didn't want to answer,' she pointed out. '…Like I'm not. Y'know, I never did get an answer on the t-word yesterday—'
"We're at a border we share with two countries, Speedy,' Yamada informed her, steering her towards a seat. "If there weren't ANBU passing through here, that'd raise some questions. Get me?"
That actually made a lot of sense. Huh. She wasn't used to coincidences anymore.
They were awesome.
"Anyway. What'd you find?"
'Nothing,' Raiku replied, dejected. 'Not exactly a main civilian stop, and it's close enough to Rivers that people don't want to stick around, just in case.'
'Neither the inn nor the bar had any changes in traffic,' Ryuu added.
'And neither of these shits know how to talk to people,' Daisukenojo finished. Ryuu glared at him, but it was half-hearted at best. Even he had trouble functioning on so little sleep.
Raiku fidgeted. The ANBU were still picking up their food, presumably to eat in their rooms. They were drawing in attention. They were a black hole in her mind's eye. ANBUANBUANBU.
Daisukenojo and Ryuu kept casting them looks as well, so at least it wasn't just her. The same went for the only other person in the room, a civilian who probably just wanted to eat out for a change and now found himself horribly discomfited.
Yamada, on the other hand, seemed totally at ease. It took her a moment to understand why.
The thing about Yamada that she tended to forget was that he was actually strong. Not physically strong, that was impossible to forget, but significant amongst his peers. Yamada was a Jounin and had probably been ANBU himself. He would never be as strong as he should be, could have been, though. He wasn't Plot necessary, his relative insignificance both a blessing and a curse. He wasn't discomfited at all by the ANBU, at least, which made her feel better about their presence.
Yamada stretched. "Well, shit. You guys do what you gotta do to look less like zombies, and I'll do some recon out of the village proper, get me?"
Ryuu yawned. 'Sure.' Raiku, never one to miss an opportunity to eat, was already munching on a stolen breadstick, but nodded vigorously.
The ANBU made their way past them, and Raiku almost died when her sharp inhale threatened to choke her on her breadstick.
A tiny Plot clung to one of their coats.
Another one.
Raiku frowned, thumping her chest to dislodge crumbs. That was annoying. She hadn't seen the petulant Plot since the day before, and here was a third? God. Konoha-nin were the worst for this sort of thing. Proximity to the Main Storyline seemed to create a sort of… narrative susceptibility. The ANBU's passenger was small, not even emitting noise, probably some fragment lost off something bigger that had once involved the ANBU member but had since decided that they weren't necessary.
Still. She still needed a good deed for the day. Raiku wasn't smooth, but she was actually so awkward she was getting there simply by being so far up the other end of the spectrum. Much like how if someone walked for long enough in the opposite direction to their destination, they'd eventually go around the world and end up where they needed to be. She braced herself for annihilation and leaned over. 'Oh, you have a bug on you. I'll just, uh…' she said, and smacked Cat's shoulder a little harder than they would have thought necessary. The Plot didn't need a lot of force but it was small enough that direct contact with a Gairano made it deflate with a disgruntled squeak. Her hand bounced off muscle and god, what were they feeding these people? The ANBU didn't say anything, mercifully, just stopped and faced her while she broke out in a terrified sweat, still-outstretched hand starting to shake.
After an eternity of silence, they just nodded. When she turned around the only civilian in the dining room was staring at her, and she could only assume that her casual smack to an ANBU had horrified him. Daisukenojo had his mouth hanging open, and Ryuu was already halfway out of the room.
She dusted off her hands. It hadn't been necessary, sure, but it was a tiny Plot and the ANBU had it hard enough without unnecessary drama, so she considered it a job well done. Plus, her day had otherwise been extremely unproductive, giving them no leads to speak of, so at least she'd done something. Losing track of that persistent Plot from before had already counted against her. But... they hadn't found any leads. She was used to things going a bit faster, and...
Without a Plot, she was slowly figuring out, missions often went really slowly. It was all... investigating and questioning and looking for tiny, tiny clues and waiting for random strokes of luck if those failed. How long was this going to take? Tracking down a group of criminals should have been easy, but they were doing it in stages only starting with Iji so maybe she hadn't fully escaped camping after all? What if—
Wait. Wait, Ryuu was leaving.
'Dibs on first shower!' she called.
There was a snarl of outrage from the lobby. 'Like hell!'
A/N: Ohohoho, and so their actual Chuunin lives begin. Also! Due to RL commitments the alternate means of replying hasn't happened, and may not, but I am open to talking about stuff by PM if people have the burning need. I sometimes take ages to reply. Be warned. Reviews are still awesome and I love every one of them, mostly because I sometimes forget I have a story.
