12 Idle Hands

Don't You Have Something Better to Do?

"It sure is a beautiful day out," mused Taiki from where he lay on the veranda, drinking from a cup of tea that Kotori's grandmother had given him. "Perfect for rest and relaxation."

Naeko nodded. "On days like this, you'd almost expect Takeshi-sensei to show up and tell us he has a job for us, or some new training exercise he wants us to try."

"He does have a talent for that, doesn't he," Kotori muttered, joining the other two with a tray of nigiri and a fresh pot of tea. "If he bothers us, I'll hurt him."

"Hurt who, Kotori?" All three genin flinched as a familiar voice cut the afternoon silence, the face of the jounin peering out from behind a pile of grocery sacks that contained various supplies and foodstuffs for the eldest Yamataki. When no response was given, he shrugged and disappeared inside the house to make his delivery. He reappeared moments later, whistling a cheerful little tune under his breath as he trotted back down the path on other unguessable errands.

Silence reigned for the next few minutes, then broken by a gusty sigh from Naeko. "That was all too close. For a moment there I thought he was actually going to find something for us to do!"

"Way too close," Taiki echoed, glaring at the path as if he expected the jounin to materialize on it once more. "I did notice something strange about him, though, and it's been bugging me for a while now." Both girls looked at him questioningly, and he shrugged. "It's probably nothing significant, but I've just got to find out the answer." He sighed, then mused, "I have never once seen him without his headband, and he wears it to cover the top of his head… almost like there's something he doesn't want us to see."

"Like a skin problem, maybe?" Naeko guessed. "Or a really bad tattoo?"

"Something like that." Taiki shrugged again, then turned to Kotori. "What do you think, Tori-chan?"

"I think," the third genin muttered, rising to her feet, "that both of you are stupid. He's got something up his sleeve and he intends to drop it in our laps soon."

"Aw, come on!" Naeko scoffed. "Quit being such a spoilsport!"

"I'm not. I'm being practical," Kotori replied, going back indoors and leaving the others on the veranda. She emerged about five minutes later in training attire, gave the two one last withering look of disdain, and left the same way her uncle had.

Watching her teammate walk away, Naeko sighed. "Doesn't she know how to relax? I'd bet you she even fights things in her dreams."

"Maybe that is the way she relaxes," speculated Taiki. "Maybe all this sitting around is really bothering her, you know? She's not in her element unless she's destroying something."

Naeko raised an eyebrow. "So that's why they won't let her near the training dummies anymore… What is with her these days anyway? Ever since we came back, she's been even stranger than usual."

"Probably just the usual mix of angst and teenage hormones." Ignoring the blank look of shock given him by Naeko in response to this, Taiki took a sip of tea. "Or whatever's in that scroll. The only other person she's let even touch it since we came back is the Hokage, and of course he won't say what it is… eh, whatever. It's probably nothing for us to be worried about right now. Wouldn't you say so, Naeko?"

"I'd definitely say so," Naeko agreed, jumping up from her seat and pulling a puzzled Taiki along with her. "Let's get some lunch!"

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Twenty minutes of swift running later, Kotori reached a clearing that had become her favorite training spot and put the Mist manuscript in a safe place before beginning the conditioning, strength and agility exercises that constituted her solo training regimen. "How can they be so… so…" she fumbled for the words as she hung from a low tree branch, pulling her chin up above the branch "unconcerned? They think that life's a picnic just because they've finished their first truly difficult mission." Face creased both in effort and frustration, she completed her first set of chin-ups and rotated so that she instead hung from her knees, then began curling her torso up so that her elbows touched her thighs. "They just don't realize that it only gets worse from here."

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"So our first step in finding out the answer is to analyze his lifestyle," Naeko announced, flourishing her chopsticks to emphasize her point. "Once we find out just what he does every day, we'll be able to figure out why he never takes his headband off." She then made a face as something else occurred to her. "Just kinda makes you wish the Ice Princess wasn't being such a pill. She might be able to help us fill in a few things."

"But she's not, so we'll just have to figure things out without her," Taiki mumbled around a mouthful of noodles. "She really needs to loosen up every now and then. If she keeps on going the way she is, she's going to get really bad ulcers, her hair's going to fall out, or her head's going to implode, take your pick."

Naeko snickered as if visualizing all three outcomes, then suddenly grew serious. "But we need to focus, Tai-kun. Think about it, what does Takeshi-sensei do in his spare time?"

A disgusted noise. "What do you think I am, Naeko? His shadow?" Shaking his head, Taiki grinned and retorted, "No, Little Miss Stealthy, that's your field. Although that does give me an idea…"

"An idea? Do tell." Easing himself onto the stool on the other side of Naeko, Takeshi squinted at the day's specials posted on the wall, made his choice, and waved the waitress over. Murmuring his order and something else in a voice too low for the genin to hear, the jounin then sideglanced them while waiting for further explanation. "You two sound like you're cooking up quite the scheme. Maybe I, with my vast store of knowledge and experience, can be of help?"

"Oh. Er…" Naeko shot a quick glare at Taiki, hissing Say something under her breath and laughing uneasily when their teacher raised an expectant eyebrow.

"We're just trying to think of a way to get our absent teammate to unwind a little bit," ventured Taiki, giving Naeko a surreptitious thumbs-up. "Don't you worry about her blood pressure sometimes, sensei?"

"About as much as I worry about your sudden interest in my personal life," Takeshi shot back. "Now tell me, what's really going on?" Moments later his order arrived, courtesy of the blushing waitress, who turned a deeper shade of pink when the jounin quietly said something else to her. The girl turned away, giggling, and Takeshi settled back onto his seat in the manner of a man satisfied with a skillful bit of work. "If you're as worried about your dear teammate as you say you are, I'd suggest you just leave her be until when – and if – she's willing to talk. I'd guess this is a personal thing, and she likes people nosing around in her personal business about as much as her uncle does."

"I think that's his none-too-subtle way of telling us to get lost," Taiki grumbled to the other genin, giving Takeshi a studying look.

"Leave the hard stuff to the masters, my boy," replied Takeshi mildly, accepting a cup of tea from the waitress with a charming grin.

"…I think I'm done here, Tai-kun. Are you?" Naeko withdrew a roll of money from somewhere within her tunic and peeled off the correct amount before replacing it, noting with a small smile that this action had not gone unnoticed. Not even waiting for Taiki's absent nod of agreement, she pulled him outside by the arm again and around a corner where they could talk unobserved. "That man's a demon! What does he do, follow us?"

"Maybe," Taiki replied, the distant cast of his eyes showing that his mind was elsewhere. "How old was that waitress?"

"I think she's seventeen," Naeko answered impatiently, glaring at the young man. "What does that matter to you?"

"And how old is Takeshi-sensei?"

"Twenty-seven, or something like that."

Taiki shook his head in wonderment. "A master indeed. How do those older men do it?"

"He's not that much older," scoffed his teammate. "Now to get back on track, what was your idea?"

Shaking his head suddenly to clear it, Taiki had to think for a moment to regain his train of thought. "I may not be his shadow, but you can be. Here's a chance to test your skill!"

Naeko let out a dismayed squeak when she caught where Taiki was going with this. "You want me to shadow a jounin? I may be good, Tai-kun, but I'm not that good. If I get caught, I'm dead!"

"It's just for a few hours, Naeko." Mentally rolling his eyes, Taiki risked a pale mimicry of the grin he'd seen on the face of Takeshi earlier. "Besides, I say you can do it. Isn't that enough?"

The grin had more than its intended effect, Naeko's face traveling from blanched white to fiery red with what Taiki inwardly swore was a shade or two of purple in between. "Y-yes, Tai-kun."

"Atta-girl. I'll be a few minutes behind you in case anything happens and you need my help."

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And hold… one, two. Feeling the burn of stressed muscles ease, Kotori allowed herself to relax and stand straight, posture loose and yielding after the swift thrashing she'd put her body through. After a moment or two of slow inhalation and exhalation, she trotted over to where she'd stored the Mist scroll and brought it forth, unrolling it and laying it flat on the ground in front of her and then lay down for some uninterrupted studying.

"Not many surprises here," she muttered as she read through the introduction and beginning chapters. "It is kind of strange to see someone else's plans for me spelled out like this." With a yawn she skipped over some of the material, unrolling more material as she reached it. "Nope, nothing new here. I learned that when I was seven…" Finally she came to what appeared to be some kind of anatomy diagram, and Kotori frowned. "What the… an illustrated chart of human blood vessels? Why do I need to know this…?"

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Minutes stretched into hours as Taiki followed his teammate's meandering trail through the village, keeping their prey in sight and himself hidden. From time to time Naeko would reappear at his side to relay the latest bit of news before flickering into invisibility again. I'll have to admit, she's very good at this. Better than I thought she would be. Hasn't he figured out that he's being followed yet?

If the jounin knew, he gave no sign and continued about his errands, stopping briefly in a bookstore to browse through the titles and selecting one for later perusal ("historical fiction," Naeko reported to Taiki's disappointment) before returning to his apartment to do some laundry and relax for a while with a snack and his new book. In this long period of near inactivity, Taiki found himself dozing off on his perch in the lazy mid-afternoon heat near the jounin's top-story window. Damnitall, what is this man? In his time off, he's almost like a slug, the genin grumbled silently as his eyes began to sag shut. Only a swift snatch from Naeko's unseen hand prevented him from toppling over the ledge and falling to the street below, but even this hasty retrieval made a tell-tale scuffling sound and Taiki could not stop a curse from leaking out. "Hell…"

A barely perceptible narrowing of dark-brown eyes above the top of the book and the tense silence as Takeshi searched the area with keen senses was soon followed by the muffled squeak of elderly furniture as he heaved himself up from the confines of his well-patched armchair. "All right, you two, the game's up. Come on out, I know you're there." Further silence, and the jounin frowned as he leaned out the window to peer around. "Fine, be that way. I will find you, sooner or later, and then I will find out what you're up to…" When even this threat elicited no response, Takeshi sighed heavily. "Kids these days."

Swallowing in a panic-dried throat, Taiki willed his heart to settle back into its normal place and beat while figuring out what had just happened. He'd just realized where he was – the roof above Takeshi's apartment – when a voice made him jump and almost lose his precarious hold. "Smooth going, Tai-kun," Naeko muttered, fading into solidity next to him, breathing raggedly and sweat pebbling her brow. "How do you expect me to keep this up and save you if you mess up again?"

"It won't," Taiki replied, giving the girl a concerned look. "You all right?"

"I've been using the best of my stealth to hide from a jounin." A tiredly sarcastic smile. "What do you think?" Sighing and composing herself, she asked, "So, what's the next plan?"

"One moment, please…" Focusing his chakra, the Lightning genin quietly repositioned himself hanging from one of the eaves outside their target's window, more careful this time not to make any betraying sound. He reappeared a few minutes later with a faintly troubled expression. "You aren't going to like this one bit, but I need to ask one more favor of you."

Naeko sighed but forced a smile. "It had better not be anything too difficult. I'm almost at my limits…"

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"In this manner, one may control the water of one's opponent, raising or lowering temperature or rate of flow. You must not be interrupted or distracted while this control lasts, or its effects will be cancelled. When used in the following sequence, it may only be used once even with an advanced level of chakra, so focus is essential. One may raise the success level of the River of Life control techniques by rendering your target incapable of sight and or movement…" After reading this passage aloud, Kotori scanned further and frowned. "Whoever planned this was crazy. There's no way I could raise enough chakra to pull this off."

And that, my dear, is where I would come in. All you need to do is ask me and my energy is yours for the using.

"Although I dare not ask what your price is," the genin grumbled and continued reading. "You've already started changing me – don't think I haven't noticed – so it almost makes me wonder what you'd do if you were in control."

The demon seemed almost hurt as it retorted, Nothing life-threatening or permanently damaging. Who knows, you might even enjoy some of it.

"Don't count on it, you evil wench." Kotori put the demon into a back corner of her mind while devoting her mind to her current task. "Since I don't have enough skill to immobilize, I'll have to count on invisibility. And for that, I'd have to bank on any convenient bodies of water..."

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"You want me to do what?" Naeko glared at Taiki, eyes emerald chips of resentment as the impact of his suggestion roiled in her mind. "What kind of degenerate do you think I am?"

"Keep your voice down, Naeko. Someone could hear you!" The pair had since relocated from the roof of Takeshi's apartment building to a side street, Taiki carefully watching the passerby for their quarry to pass.

"But you want me to peek on him in the bathhouse! That's not only gross, but… It's just wrong, Tai-kun, and you know it. Why don't you follow him instead?"

"Because he'd recognize me too easily, and you're better at illusions than I am. Besides, if you catch him while he's changing, you can leave then and our mission is done." Taiki peered down the street, spotted a familiar bandana-covered scalp, and yanked Naeko into the shadows of the side street. "Here he comes. Hurry up before he passes and we lose him."

"But Tai-kun - " Any protests the girl would have raised were silenced by the sensation of warm lips brushing her cheek and a whispered plea of "Come on, please just do it for me" left in her ear. Blushing furiously both at her teammate's actions and the potential consequences of her own, Naeko gritted her teeth and blended into the surroundings yet once more.

Satisfied that she would carry out her task as directed, Taiki found a bench nearby to relax on and pulled a well-thumbed novel from a pocket to read.