It's been a week or two. We had to drive through Vancouver to get to Alaska and my connection was all screwed up everywhere, and they didn't wanna pay for internet and...well, I'm just making up excuses now! Please enjoy.
Chapter Six: Heart-To-Hearts (gotta love 'em!)
The next morning, I was once again the last member of our team to arrive, but only because I had to grab another couple of books. One thing that I loved about these Genin is that they do the easiest jobs, and I get paid between five and ten thousand Ryo for supervising them.
And the missions would probably be boring, so I brought my scrolls with me as well.
My team seemed to be boring as far as forehead protectors went: they all wore theirs the traditional way, around the forehead. I sighed and led them to the Hokage's office, their eyes wide and wondrous as they looked around, trying to drink in everything at once.
"Hey, Aya," called an ANBU captain, causing me to stop and squint until I recognized the patterns on his ceramic mask, "this your squad?" He asked, pulling it off of his face and looking down at my children, who looked ready to piss themselves with fear.
"Yeah," I said, "I got quite the catch," and then something clicked and I walked closer to him, "can I ask you a question?" I asked in the lowest voice I could call on, close to his ear. He nodded, "you know how you're engaged right?"
"No," Yamato said sarcastically, "must've slipped my mind that I'm getting married."
I punched him in the arm, "shut up. Well, I can't help but to remember something that Kakashi told me the other day, and I want you to answer honestly." Yamato laughed and leaned back against the wall. We were whispering now, completely shunning out my new team, "well would that fiancee of yours happen to be named Maki Miyazaki?"
He laughed out loud now, "fuck no," he said loudly, clapping me on the shoulder, "she's not my type, anyway. I don't really go for the mean ones."
"Well in that case, can I meet her?"
"I think you've got a team to lead," Yamato said, slipping his mask on and bumping hips violently with me as he walked past and sashayed down the hall
"Hey, Yamato!" I called after him. He turned around and I stuck out both of my middle fingers at him before turning to my squad and saying loudly, "that's my best friend, Yamato. Whatever you do, you don't want to end up like him."
"See you in a few!" Yamato shouted, disappearing through the door. I laughed at the expression on Kyou's face as I continued to herd them towards the Hokage's office.
Tsunade was sitting behind her desk, talking to her assistant, Shizune, who lay across the couch. Shizune made to get up when she heard the door open, but Tsunade held out a hand and said, "no need. It's just Ayame."
"Screw you," I said, picking up a throw pillow and throwing it at Tsunade, who caught it and discarded it on Shizune. My squad were so completely horrified, jaws hanging slack. I was in a good mood.
"We got your mission," Tsunade said, "and I happen to know that you need the ryo, so I got you an important one," my students perked up at the word important, "our main gate is currently under repair, so we need the four of you to stand on the main road and direct all incoming missions on the path through the woods to the east gate—you know the one. Keep this up till sunset, and—" she held up a small pouch and shook it around. It didn't take a super-genius to know that it contained my pay.
This would be a good opportunity to work on that jutsu, which was nearly finished. All that I had to do was finish up with the hand seals.
"Hey, Ayame-sensei," said Izumi as we walked out to the east gate, then down the path. I waved to the first gate ANBU. The second was probably waiting by the main gate.
"Yeah?"
"Are you good friends with the Hokage-sama?"
I shrugged, "she's my godmother, so I guess so," was my lame reply as we came to our post, "okay, Kyou can have the first rotation," I said, "you just stand there and take all incoming Leaf Nin through to the gate. Riku can have the second in an hour."
I sat down and pulled out my scrolls to keep working, Izumi lay in the grass, already half-way down the path to sleep, and Riku had produced his drawing pad, seemingly out of nowhere, "back to see me so soon?" Yamato joked, sitting beside me, "I managed to pull some strings and get gate guard duty, watch your super teacher skills in action."
I laughed and continued writing shortcuts and hand seals on my last scroll.
We were about five shifts (in other words five hours) into the day and Izumi had just started his second shift when I completed my jutsu, feeling exceedingly proud.
"Wow, are my eyes deceiving me or has Ayame Fujioka really returned?" it was right on cue that Asuma Sarutobi had shown up with his team, an annoyed expression on his face and cigarette clutched in his fist—as always, "I mean, Shikamaru had told me it was so, but really?"
I smiled up at him, hoping that my face looked sorry in the cheeky way, "Asuma, you know what would be a really good homecoming present for me?" I didn't give him a chance to reply, "if you stand there and let me try out my new jutsu on you. Shikamaru and Yamato, too. Everyone else here has valuable lives, so stand back."
"I value my life very highly—as well as my health," Asuma said at the same time as Shikamaru said, "sweet! You finished it."
"No worries, this is a bondage jutsu. It expresses my love of nonviolence."
"At least tell me the name before I do this," spoke Yamato, who hadn't moved from his position. All of the genin onlookers—including Shikamaru's friends—were extremely interested.
"I haven't named it yet, I finished it just as you walked up—oh, and wanna have a drink at the bar with me later?" He would say yes, so I didn't have to wait for it. I began to put together the hand seals, breathing through my nose as I put them in the right order: Boar, Snake, Tiger, Horse, Dog, both hands out in the direction of my three friends, huddled in the middle of the path.
And it worked! I'd had to add a thin crust of translucent dirt to the air, with tiny pinpricks for filtered oxygen to seep in and not effect the zero-gravity, "whoa!" Asuma had exclaimed, and as I looked through the walls, I could see their shapes, floating around aimlessly. I released my hold on it, using a small chain of mental chakra to keep it in place.
"Try to break it!" I called, and could faintly see Yamato's figure pull out a shuriken and throw it as hard as he could at the wall of the bubble. It immediately began to bounce around, picking up momentum as it ricocheted back and forth.
"GET ME OUT OF THIS!" Asuma yelled threateningly, throwing himself against the wall and beginning to ricochet with the same velocity as Yamato's shuriken. I laughed and released the jutsu, letting the dirt fall all over the ground.
"Pretty good, right?" I said. All three of them looked as if they had gone swimming in a needle-stack, small cuts all over their bodies.
Asuma shook his head, laughing, "only you could think that up. That one might get an S-rank if you play your cards right with it," he nodded, wiping a trickle of blood from his arm, "now can I pass, or are you going to experiment water torture on me?"
"Eight O'clock at the bar," I said, waving to Izumi that he could take Asuma's team through and to the east gate, winking at Shikamaru, who shook his head and laughed, "remember, you gotta teach that to my dad!" He said as he tailed the group.
Kyou was looking wide-eyed at me, her mouth half-open, "you're really good," she said, "could you teach that to me?"
I shrugged, "probably not now, but I will eventually," I promised, pulling out one of Jiraiya's books to read, but finding myself unable to get into it. Izumi's shift ended and Kyou started again, so I just sat and talked to Yamato, Riku and Izumi both being too preoccupied to talk to me.
"You're lucky. You have a quiet team," Kakashi said, appearing with a pop, "I was told both that you were here and that you finished your jutsu," he plopped down between Yamato and I so that we sat in a triangle, "can I see it?"
"Yeah," I said, standing up.
"Make sure to throw a shuriken at it!" Yamato called as I finished my hand seals and enveloped Kakashi in the now-familiar sphere, "it really is brilliant," said Yamato to me, as Kakashi took his advice and threw not one, but three shurikens at the inner wall of the sphere, and saw the immediate consequences. I didn't let him suffer for too long, though, before I let him down.
"Thanks for the advice, Yamato," Kakashi said, wiping a bit of blood from his eyelid with one finger, and the three of us sat together, bringing over Riku and Izumi to speak with us as Kyou sourly relayed people back and forth between the gates.
"Wow, she really becomes more like her father every day," that was a mocking voice that sounded exactly the same as it had four years ago, the double-entendre in her words obvious. I had actually been lucky to avoid her so far, "how's it going, Aya-chan?" She said my name in a teasing tone, and I looked down at my knees.
"It's going fine, Maki," I said clearly, looking up at her. She was flanked by another two of my good friends, Kotetsu Hagane and Izumo Kamizuki, both of whom looked a little embarrassed to be with her. Maki looked pretty much the same. She still had her long blonde hair, ravishing good looks, iced blue eyes, and bodacious curves, accented by revealing clothes. She was one to talk about my father!
"So you're chasing these brats around because the ANBU black ops are too hard?" She asked, wrinkling her nose. Kotetsu shot me a sorry look.
"Well you wouldn't know," I said quietly, "because you've never been an ANBU," Kakashi put one fist over his mouth and I could tell that he was laughing quietly beneath the mask. It wasn't my jibe that was funny so much as Maki's reaction. Either I had poor judgement in friends, or she had gone through a drastic change.
"Come on, brat," she said to Kyou, who looked rather scared, "take me to the village."
I called out a little louder, "don't do it, Kyou! She can find her own way," Maki glared at me and disappeared down the path, "the east gate!" I called after her, then turned to my squad, "nobody turn out like her. She's mean."
Izumo and Kotetsu hung around after she had gone, joining our little parade, "she can deliver the documents on their own," Kotetsu said, "we missed our Aya-kun."
That's what caused me to pounce, enveloping the two of them in the largest hug that I'd offered since my return to Konoha. These two men were my first companions, out of anyone: my Genin squad from nearly ten years ago, "guys, this is what you'll be in ten years if things work out," I said to my own squad, snuggling right in-between my two friends, arms around their shoulders, "these were my genin companions. Do you guys want to see my new jutsu?"
Kakashi and Yamato answered "no" and "yes" at the same time, so I did the jutsu one last time, knowing that I was at my limit once I released it, leaving two more cut-up friends to sit back in the grass with me.
"Why don't you ever make any offensive jutsu?" Izumo asked, pulling a banana out of his bag and peeling it slowly, "since you're such an effective creator and shit."
"It's 'cause she's got too many nature affinities, she couldn't choose one," joked Yamato, a hand on my shoulder. I rolled my eyes.
I nodded, "while I can control four of the five chakra natures, I don't like being on the offense, and I never am, so why create my own jutsu? I'll just use someone else's."
"It's not the same," Kakashi said, leaning forward, "it's never the same when you're not the creator. There's no dominion over your jutsu. And sometimes, the best defense is a good offense."
So the rest of the day was spent with Yamato, Kakashi, Izumo, Kotetsu, and whichever two children from my squad were off-duty at that time, recounting old times and telling bad jokes. "Don't you have any friends that are girls?" Kyou finally asked.
"No, girls don't like me," I said, "my sense of humor is all wrong for that," that was as well as I could explain it. I could never figure out why I was outcast by other girls, but in my opinion the guys were more fun.
/\/\/\/\/\
"I heard you got quite a bandwagon going," Tsunade said as she handed me my pay: five thousand Ryo. That would get me through the next little while—and I wasn't broke anymore, "half of my men were hanging around with your squad when they should've been working."
I shrugged, "what can I do, I'm a magnet," I said jokingly, tucking the money into a pouch on my belt and turning to make my leave.
"You really do look just like your father," were her parting words to me. It was just around seven-thirty, and I remembered the eight o'clock drink that I was to share with Asuma. I had my ID with me this time, so I didn't have to gain admittance by showing my tattoo.
It was as if my bandwagon had randomly decided that it was a good night for a drink. In the bar were all four of my earlier company, although Izumo and Kotetsu had to have gotten in as guests, since they were both Chunin. I got a drink too, finally able to purchase for myself again, and we all drank and laughed and shouted out random monstrosities, laughing together.
Kakashi, though, it seemed was a bit too drunk. He sat, hunched forward pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers in a way similar to how I did when I was feeling particularly horrible. After catching up with Asuma for at least three hours, it was one in the morning and I decided to escort Kakashi home.
I think it might've been the Karasu's power, but my drunk was very different than other people. Alcohol didn't effect me so badly while I was drunk, although it did me the proper haze and happiness that reality couldn't offer. I didn't do such stupid things, somehow managing to keep some sort of grip on reality no matter what.
"Come on," I said with a pained grunt as I slung a nearly-useless Kakashi Hatake across my shoulders, making my slow way down the street until he broke very suddenly.
It was dark, and all I could see was his silhouette as he dropped to all fours, violently yanked the mask from his face, and begin to puke violently in the gutter. All I could see from where I stood was his silhouetted profile, which consisted of a nose with a wavy bridge, from being broken.
Slowly, I walked up behind him and put one hand on his back, as if burping a baby. Eventually, he finished and put his mask back into place, collapsing back into my arms like he had been before.
And it occurred to me that I had no clue where he lived and the only thing was (oh, shit) to bring him back to Jiraiya's apartment. It took me a good hour to get him up there, though, and Jiraiya had women over again from the sound of it.
"Fine, you can have the couch," I said with an irritated growl, setting Kakashi down across the couch and walking over to get two glasses of water: one for him, one for me. He was about five minutes from passing out, so I figured I would wait it out and make sure he was safe before I went to bed as well.
I walked over to the closet and grabbed a blanket, then by the time I got back, he was passed out. I put him on his side in case he were to throw up, and then realized that he would choke anyway because of that retarded mask. So, I looked away, and as quickly as I could I yanked the mask down around his chin and pulled the blanket up so that it covered his face.
There we go. If he didn't want me to see, I wasn't going to look, and that was that. Since he was safely asleep, I decided that it was a good time to shower. The running water would alert Jiraiya that I was home—not that the fact would slow him down or anything.
I was stuck with the regrets that I usually rolled over in my brain while in the shower. Bath was my relaxing time, but shower was my thinking time. The bad part of being raised more male than female—when I thought about it, my upbringing was far too male-dominant—was that you didn't get the same foreign approach to the opposite sex.
When all your friends are male, there's nothing exotic about the male species, nothing to strive for in a romantic relationship that you couldn't (probably) have in real life. Part of what attracts males and females to each other is the strange foreignness—something that I missed out on. I couldn't have a real boyfriend, because almost all of the worthwhile males in the village were too close of friends with me that it would be weird to date.
Before I realized it, the water was cold and I was shivering. So much for a nice shower.
Thinking that I was safe, I walked out in a towel and went to get another cup of water. Upon sitting down in the chair where I would be sleeping that night, I discovered with a violent jump that Kakashi's eyes were, in face, open, "did you see my face?" He asked, still lying down with the blanket across his face.
"No, I figured that there was a reason you kept it hidden. And I'm not much of a secret-keeper, anyway."
His eyes—both of them, he had removed his headband—widened in surprise, "you don't seem like the bigmouthed type of person to me."
"Oh, I'm not," I said with a shake of my head, "It's just—you know how when you confide in someone, it's meant to make you feel better?" He nodded, "well when people confide in me, they don't feel any better. Because I'm not a person to tell. Just a monster that gobbles everything up."
He rolled his eyes, then blinked slowly before pointedly ignoring (but not denying) what I had said, "those scars are my favorite part of you," he said, and I was suddenly aware of my rather revealed towel-clad body.
"I'm that ugly, huh?" I said with a laugh, scratching the scars beneath my right jaw.
"No, you're actually rather beautiful," I found myself blushing at this slightly. The only other people who had ever called me beautiful were Kushina, Tsunade, and Jiraiya, "it's just that—where's the interesting in beautiful?" I furrowed my brow, "I mean, people who are just beautiful are…just beautiful. Why not be beautiful and have an interesting story to go along with it?"
"Well, the story of these scars is not interesting as much as it is disturbing—"
"I know the story and I think it's interesting."
"—And you're drunk and need to go to sleep," I patted the side of his head, and stood to go and put on my pajamas (AKA Jiraiya's extra sleeping t-shirt), then a blanket. On my way back to the living room area, I shut off the lights.
"Good night," I heart him whisper as I curled up into a tiny ball so that I could fit onto the chair. The next thing I knew, I was asleep.
Nice chapter, i guess...I don't really know. SO TELL ME! puhrleese.
Piper