Red Kunai Bolts
Here's the fourth chapter.
Note: Akemi and Asumi are now in the same timeline. Plus, I know Gaara-sama ends up without the Shukaku, but since I need him for the story I'll just say Gaara hasn't lost it yet.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. However, I do own Akemi, Asumi, the Amano clan, the nagare shogai, any other OCs that appear here and the plot.
Chapter Four
Paperwork
-o-
Asumi carefully dipped the tip of the thin paintbrush into the black paint resting in the pallet she carried in her left hand. She deftly signed her full name at the right corner on the bottom of the canvas, and smiled at her finished painting. She had begun to work on it the previous night and had not been able to finish because time had run by quickly. She'd started around eight thirty and the next time she checked the clock hanging from the wall it was midnight. So she was forced to go to bed without finishing. Before falling asleep, she'd set the alarm clock to four in the morning so she could finish her painting without much trouble. She had awakened the moment the alarm clock started to sound and had gone straight to the circular space she had arranged as her study to finish her work of art.
She cast a glance to the clock to her right and noted it was around 4:45 in the morning. She'd not spent that much time finishing. She turned to the plastic cup filled with water she'd placed on the wooden table below the clock and rinsed the paintbrush in it. Then she pulled it out and pressed the wet end to a multi-colored medium-sized towel. It had been white a few days back; now it was unrecognizable. She followed the same procedure with the rest of the brushes she had left steeping when a scream pierced the calm silence around her. The paintbrush she had in hands escaped her slender fingers and in its process down to the wooden floor stained red her navy colored spaghetti strap shirt.
Without losing time, the young kunoichi ran over to the front door and slipped her maize colored shinobi sandals on. Before running out she grabbed her keys. When she came at the end of the stairs she saw a young woman land roughly on the wooden corridor of the second floor. Soon a robust male figure stood next to the fallen woman.
"I told you to keep my sake, not throw it away!" he bellowed before he swung a fist down on her.
The building caretaker, a man in his middle forties, swung a vase down on his head before he could harm the defenseless woman. He had run upstairs the moment the scream had reached his ears. The moment he came across the unsightly scene he decided to do something about it. But the vase was not enough to stop the aggressor.
"You!" the man howled, turning to face the caretaker, "you will regret hitting me with that thing!"
He pulled his large fist back and swung it forward toward the caretaker's face. Before it could connect however, a knee hit him on the side of the head and hurled him a few feet away. He landed hard on his back just as a few neighbors walked out to see what was happening on the corridor.
"Just because you can pack a punch doesn't mean you have to use it when you're upset. Especially on defenseless people," Asumi stated, standing between the man and the woman.
He managed to sit down while he rubbed his head on the spot where the blow connected. When his eyes landed on the young kunoichi, he gave her a dark glare.
"You shouldn't have interfered, kid," he stated as he wobbled to his feet.
He's drunk, Asumi thought as he threatened her. This will not take long.
"Be careful miss, he gets violent when he's in a bad mood!" the young woman warned from somewhere behind her.
"Don't worry about me," Asumi replied softly, stealing a glance at her over her right shoulder, "worry about yourself. I'll take care of him."
The man charged at her with a battle cry, pulling his fist back to hit her on the face. Asumi waited for him to be close before stepping to her side and slamming her right hand to the back of his neck. She rapidly activated the nagare shogai and allowed the electricity to filter to the nerves on his neck. Afterwards she released him to observe how his large form fell immobile on the floor. The people around them watched in shocked silence.
"What did you do to me, you little fiend?!" the man exclaimed, futilely trying to move his limbs.
"I intercepted the signals your brain sends through your neck to your limbs, disabling the communication in the process," Asumi explained, gazing down at him, "in simpler words, I paralyzed you."
"What's all the noise?" a monotone voice asked from the top of the first floor stairs.
Everyone turned their attention to such place to have their eyes land on the form of the young Kazekage. He stood in the dim light, with arms crossed and a blank expression on his face, just a few feet away from them.
"Kazekage-sama!" the caretaker and the young woman exclaimed in surprise.
Gaara observed the scene before him only to have his eyes land on the young kunoichi he had seen in his office the day before. She stood to the side of a fallen man, with hands clasped behind her back and hints of a smile on the corners of her lips. Unlike the day before, she was wearing no headband, another shirt style and loose hair that fell all the way down to her waist. Of everyone in the long corridor, excluding himself, she was the most awake.
"What is this?" he asked in an emotion-drained voice as he took a few steps forward.
He'd been on his way to his home when angered exclamations reached his ears from somewhere nearby. So he decided to stop to search around for the place from which they came from. It was then that he sensed a strange energy coming from the apartment building nearby and he took it upon himself to check what it was. After all, if it was someone trying to attack his village he had to defend it. As soon as he entered the place and walked up the stairs he was met with the scene before him. Now he wanted some answers as to what, exactly, had transpired there.
"Kazekage-sama, he attacked me," the young woman explained as she pointed at the immobilized man, "and she saved me."
She gazed up from the floor at Asumi before giving her a thankful smile. The younger girl returned it with one of her own.
Gaara walked over to the man before he gazed down at him with a frown. "Why were you attacking?"
"She invaded our home!" the man replied as his eyes darted to Asumi, "I tried to defend myself!"
"I did no such thing," Asumi replied, gazing down at him calmly.
"She paralyzed me!" the man exclaimed, gazing at Gaara with narrowed eyes, "tell her to reverse the effect of whatever she used on me!"
The young Kazekage turned his head to the girl standing next to him and asked, "what did you use on him?"
"My kekkei genkai," Asumi explained, raising her gaze to meet Gaara's, "he's paralyzed."
"Hm…," Gaara turned his gaze back to the man, "he'll be taken to the hospital and then receive punishment."
Asumi completely ignored the cries the man gave after hearing the Kazekage's statement, and said, "Kazekage-sama, medic-nin can't undo the blows given by my kekkei genkai. Only someone who has it can do so. Would you like me to undo it?"
From a certain point on, any blow given with the nagare shogai had to be undone with the same ability; otherwise the body would remain in the conditions with which the blow left it. From that point back, a hit with the kekkei genkai would cause numbness for a certain amount of time, depending on how much electricity it had been used. In places besides Iwagakure, the nagare shogai was a limiting ability.
"No," Gaara retorted as he turned around, "perhaps later…"
Asumi shrugged before she watched him walk away. The Kazekage was a mystery.
-o-
She gently knocked on the door of the Kazekage's office before walking inside silently. She was fifteen minutes early.
Gaara didn't look up from the paper he was inspecting as she entered the office. She guessed he was concentrated on whatever he was reading.
Asumi noted that a smaller desk lay across from his on the other side of the room. She assumed it was hers. So she walked over and inspected it in silence. At that moment the door opened quietly and Temari walked in carrying a stack of papers. She laid them on Gaara's desk before turning to face Asumi.
"You're here early," she observed as Asumi gazed at her. "I'll make this quick. That's your desk. Your task around here is to work with the papers after Gaara has had a look at them. That means sending them wherever they need to go, organizing them, archiving them and making sure they're all complete. The archives are the ones behind your desk. Your working hours depend on how much Gaara might need you and you'll have a free day whenever he thinks it's fine. Understood?"
Asumi nodded. "Yes."
"Now work with those papers on the left side of the desk," Temari stated as she turned to a small pile placed to Gaara's right, "when Gaara finishes with them, he places them there. Take them without disturbing him."
Asumi nodded yet again before Temari smirked and took her leave. The older kunoichi was finally free of all the accursed paperwork! Now it was turn for the tortured soul Gaara had employed the day before to work with them. She would need luck.
Before Asumi formally began her work with the archives, she took a good look at them to know with what she would be working. She memorized the order and type of information the archives contained before she glided over to Gaara's desk and took the pile to work with it. As she settled on her chair Kankuro walked in without knocking.
"Asumi, how are you?" he smirked, one eye closed.
"Ohayo, Kankuro-kun," she smiled, looking up from the small pile of papers, "I'm fine, arigatou. You?"
"I'm here to give you a hand with that," he replied, glancing at the papers in her hands, "I figured you'd need help since you don't know anything about how things run here."
"Kankuro," Gaara addressed him as he placed a paper on the finished pile in a corner of his desk. He raised his gaze to his older brother passively before he took a paper from the larger pile. "Knock before coming in."
"Oh, sorry Gaara," Kankuro replied, turning to him and scratching the back of his head.
Asumi smiled to herself as she classified the papers she had in different piles. After that, she would have to archive them.
"Anyway, let me show you the different papers we have around here," Kankuro stated, turning back to Asumi.
He took the pile from her hands and pulled out several different papers. Some were job applications while others were finances and such. He told her where to place them, after which he began to help her classify the small pile on her desk.
"Kankuro-kun, I have an idea," Asumi said as her fingers stopped moving papers around her, "could I leave you with these? I'll work on another pile."
"Which one?" Kankuro asked, gazing up at her from his spot on the floor with a quizzical expression.
"That one," Asumi answered, casting a glance at one of the two large piles Gaara had on his desk.
"What will you do?" Kankuro asked again, frowning slightly.
What was the young girl thinking?
"You'll see," she smiled as she rose to her feet.
She walked over to Gaara's desk and, without disturbing him, took half of the pile she had gazed at a few moments earlier. She then settled herself comfortably on the floor and began classifying the papers at a speed she had not used before. Kankuro stared in amazement at the girl while she moved the sheets in different piles without stopping to read them once.
"How on Earth can you be so fast?" Kankuro asked, observing how the larger pile began to decrease.
"I have photo-memory so I tried to memorize the heading of the different documents to make the classifying process easier," Asumi answered without tearing her eyes away from the task she had at hand. "I use photo-memory whenever I see a landscape I can't paint right away. I try to remember how it looks like and then when I get home, I paint it."
It was an ability she was glad of having; it had proved to be useful during various missions. She could remember faces she had paid attention to once and she could also identify landscapes they had passed through. It was hard to get lost whenever she was around.
And it's this ability that I'll be using during the mission, Asumi thought as she unconsciously moistened her lips while dividing the larger pile, I can spy on the records and documents Suna has from now on. Maybe some of the information I gain by doing this will be of some use when I decide to kill Kazekage-sama. After all, I'm practically exploring Suna by doing all of this.
The position she had been recommended to by the Tsuchikage had proved to be the very one she needed in order to do the assassination mission. She was close to the target and she had access to different files regarding the shinobi village. Orochimaru had been pleased when he heard the news; he couldn't have asked for anything better.
Gomen nasai, Tsuchikage-sama, Asumi thought sadly as she took the other half of the pile from Gaara's desk and began working with it, I have no choice…
She worked in silence with the pile as Kankuro kept on archiving the papers Gaara had been done with. No one spoke for a few minutes. But then, out of nowhere, Kankuro asked something Asumi had not been expecting.
"So, how do you like Suna?" he asked as he placed some sheets on the top drawer of one of the archives.
Asumi contemplated the question and its answer while she worked. She needed to give him an answer in a point of view that did not incur into her artistic side. After all, most of the things and places she gazed at she looked at them with painter's eyes. When she was on a mission, this particular view of things was completely excluded from her mind. She could not afford any distractions in the middle of an assignment.
"Suna is…beautiful," she answered as she cocked her head to the right, her gaze far away, "it's very different from Iwa. The only thing I don't particularly enjoy is the temperature. Iwa is a windy place; Suna is hot."
Kankuro chuckled at that. "I figured you'd complain about the temperature. But you'll eventually get used to it."
The honey-brown eyed girl focused her gaze on the shinobi across from her before smiling yet again. That was the only answer she could give him for the moment. She'd not spent much time wandering around on her own to get to a detailed statement or two. The only place she had visited that morning alone was the post tower. She owed her elder sister a scroll explaining how things had gone for her during her first night.
After some minutes she finished classifying the other half in different piles. She presented them to Gaara, and quickly explained what she had done so he could understand. She guessed he had agreed with her idea because he did not complain or utter a word in return. She shrugged it off before turning back to work with Kankuro.
They both spent the next passing hours conversing in mild tones trying not to disturb the young Kazekage as he worked. To her delight, the paperwork seemed to have decreased considerably after she had presented the idea to the Kazekage. And also, she seemed to be getting along with the archives. The only exception to that were the various top drawers of such; she could barely reach the ones in the higher furniture.
"I'm off to eat lunch," Kankuro stated around eleven, "why don't the three of us go eat together? If we find Temari, then she can tag along."
"We're going to finish the pile," Gaara mumbled without retrieving his gaze from a paper resting on the desk.
Kankuro's eyes landed on a small pile, consisting of about fifty papers, stacked over the desk on Gaara's left. He was currently working on it.
"Then maybe next time," Kankuro replied, eyes flickering to Asumi as she archived a set of papers. "Later, Asumi."
"Bye, Kankuro-kun," the young kunoichi replied as she gazed at him over her left shoulder with a smile.
He nodded in return before walking out of the office silently, leaving Gaara and Asumi to work.
As the girl placed a medic-nin job application on a file, she wiped away the beads of sweat that trickled down her cheek. The office was hot, despite the fact that a window was open. Not even a slight breeze walked into the room. She sighed softly before moving away from the archive toward the door. She walked out as silently as possible and closed the door behind herself.
Gaara felt her presence slip away from the office, but he paid no attention to it. She had to return, otherwise he was going to do something about it. But, as a secretary, she was allowed to move about the building without asking for his permission as long as she was working. So he guessed she would return soon.
About a minute later Asumi walked into the office carrying two bottles of cold water in hand. She placed one on Gaara's desk and took the other with herself. This caused him to gaze up from the paper he was studying. No one had ever done that to him, excluding his sister, unless he ordered for it.
He observed as she gazed down at the papers she had to archive before she began drinking from her bottle. He noted she drank half of it at once. She was thirsty. Then she began on archiving again.
He slowly opened the bottle and took a sip from it. Why had she done that?
Around thirty minutes later, when Asumi was finishing a job application pile, Gaara spoke up.
"Let's go," he said in an emotion-drained voice.
The young girl turned on her heel to find the young Kazekage moving toward the door. The pile he had been aiming to be done with was finished and was neatly placed to the corner of the finished work.
I guess it's lunch time? she thought, blinking.
He opened the door but stopped before walking out. He turned to gaze at her with a frown. Why wasn't she moving? Couldn't she see it was time to eat?
"Aren't you hungry?" he growled, fixing his eyes on her.
She blinked at him and then smiled. "Yes. Gomen."
Asumi walked around her desk toward the door, keeping her smile in place. She wasn't forcing it; for some reason she could not comprehend, he made her smile.
-o-
End of chapter. I hope you liked it. There's not much to say now, so I'll be leaving. Until next chapter!
Please review and keep reading.