Enough of This

Chapter Two: What Happened

"Ohayo, Akari," Ibiki muttered as he scooped the younger chunin up in his arms and placed her on his bed again. He lightly slapped her face to try and get her to come around, but had to go get a glass of water in the end. She seemed to be coming out of it some when he returned, so he only dipped his fingers in the glass and flicked some water on her face instead of upending the glass over her head as he had planned to do in the first place. After a bit more slapping she came around, her pale eyes flickering open.

He absently wiped away a drop of water from her nose. She blinked up at him.

Akari gazed up at him, and rather than meet her penetrating eyes, Ibiki made a show of checking the time. Right. Like he had anywhere else he needed to be.

Ibiki leaned back, and pulled the chair by the door over to the side of the bed, so that he could sit on it.

"So," he said, trying fiercely to ignore the pull of emotions in his gut. "I assume you were found out. And that is why you were….delayed in your returning here. Correct?"

"Hai…" Akari murmured scooting up into a sitting position, wincing as she did so.

Ibiki reached out to help her, but pulled back and cleared his throat. "What happened?"

Akari shrugged and almost passed out again from the pain it caused. "Three weeks in a cell. Questions. Stupid guards. I escaped, but was followed and that's how I got," she gestured carefully to her abdomen, "this."

Ibiki regarded her levelly, before he shook his head. "I really hadn't planned on having to interrogate you to get details, Akari. I don't want to. Now, what kind of questions?"

Akari scowled at him. Even when she had been a trainee under his command she had always hated giving reports. "The normal ones." She answered flatly."

Ibiki tilted his head expectantly to the side.

With a muted sigh, Akari embellished her previous answer. "Name, Village associations, goals and reasons for spying, information sought, information obtained, sabotage wrought, etcetera, etcetera…."

Ibiki regarded her for a moment before asking, "You answered?"

Akari jerked, nearly feinted again and glared at her boss her pale eyes flashing with subdued anger. "So," she said hotly. "That's what you think of me, huh? Nice."

Ibiki withdrew from her, Akari could feel it. The air suddenly felt colder and his eyes took on a shuttered, impersonal look. It wasn't until that moment that Akari realized how open Ibiki always was with her.

"Just answer me, Suzuki."

Not Akari. Suzuki. Formal. Professional, and not the least bit familiar or affectionate. Not even warm. As if Ibiki was simply talking to one of his subordinates. Akari felt a pang of hurt cut into her. But denied it and slowly eased herself away from her boss.

"Dear God." she thought miserably, turning her head away so that Ibiki wouldn't see her expression and know how much he was causing her mental stress and pain. "I don't need this, not again."

"Oh, yeah?" A nasty little voice in her head retorted. "You know that he knows you. And you know that he has a thing for you. Twisted though it might be, it's still more than anything you'd get with your peers. Even if it could get you in trouble. You are not a child any more. Or at least soon to be."

"No." Akari thought firmly. "I will not do this. I've had enough of this."

"Where did you put all my stuff?" She said her back to the only man in the room, the only man at all. She eased herself oh so slowly over the edge of Ibiki's large bed and slowly stood up, careful not to annoy her wounds.

Ibiki ignored her own question and drove for his own. "What did you tell them?"

Akari turned her head and peered at Ibiki through her loose hair. "Fuck off."

Ibiki narrowed his eyes unsure if that was her answer to the questions or if she was suggesting he go... yeah.

"Where are my things, Morino-san?" If Ibiki wanted to be formal so be it. She would accommodate him. "I must be on my way."

Mutely, Ibiki got up from the chair and returned a short while later with her cloths and weapons pouches, her clothes now clean. He stopped in front of Akari, who was now perched on the edge of his bed. His bed. He held them away from her when she reached out to take the bundle from him so that the younger shinobi would lift her head to look at him. She arched a fine, dark brow at him. Ibiki hardened his expression before he answered her unspoken question. "Sense you seemed disinclined to answer an informal inquiry into your mission I expect a full, detailed report and interview in my office at nine sharp tomorrow morning. Understood?"

"Hai," Akari drawled and took her possessions from Ibiki.

The T&I leader stayed in his bed room and merely listened to his subordinate, a girl who really meant so much more to him, leave his apartment.

Iruka peered thought the light morning fog as he walked to the academy, mentally going over his lecture on basic taijutsu that he would give today. As he walked he hummed softly to himself, thinking about nothing really besides his lecture but after a few minutes even that left his mind. Of its own accord, Iruka's memory floated back to the image of Morino Ibiki and Kakashi-san walking side by side. He wondered what they had been doing together for the teacher knew for a fact that they most definitely ran in different circles.

The chunin turned a corner and entered the school yard, taking in the old tree and swing and the hokage monument in the background. It was as familiar to him as a lover's face, and just as beloved. Entering the academy and then his class room he looked out over the desks as he set his files on the desk. It was time to begin thinking about potential gennin team set ups between that years graduating class. He sat down behind his desk and gazed out over the empty classroom. Knowing that only half of the students, if that, would ever make it to gennin caused him some pain. It was unfair to deprive so many children of their dreams, but Iruka knew that the potential Jonin leaders of each gennin squad knew what weaknesses to expose in the real graduation exam and knew what things could be over looked and what things couldn't. Sighing, he still couldn't dispel his feeling of sadness and worry.

Iruka sat up straight and rolled his head on shoulders, glancing out the window as he reached for his first file and his hand froze just over the file. A girl, unknown to him, walked there. Just out the window of his classroom at the academy. She was young, perhaps eighteen; with dark hair tugged back from her face in a loose tail. She wore normal, standard issue blacks, with a dark sash about her narrow hips, the hilt of a dagger sticking out of the sash on her left side. She wore her hitai-ite backwards, with the leaf symbol one the back of her head and the ends of the headband knotted over her right eye, the tails, tucked seamlessly back into the cloth part of the headband.

Though she wore no sign of her rank, Iruka knew her to be at least a chunin. She moved with far too much grace and awareness to be a gennin. Something about her aura made Iruka think immediately of Anbu. Perhaps it was the way her hand rested so near the dagger at her waist. Or perhaps it was the solemn lines of her expression, calm and composed, if just a bit somber, an expression that sat rather oddly on her face. But Iruka knew better than to judge a shinobi. However he also noted that she wore none of the official Anbu equipment. Perhaps she was off duty, but Iruka sincerely doubted that. No, she moved like a ninja with a purpose, or a deadline.

Watching her pass away, Iruka made a mental note to make some inquiries.

Ibiki sat behind his impressively large desk with his fingers neatly steepled in front of him, his elbows propped on the dull, heavy wooden desk in front of him gazing at his office door. It was 8:58. Akari wasn't here yet. He tilted his head slightly to the side, wondering if she would defy him and not show up. That would not be good. At all.

A light knock on the door made him look up. "Enter," he murmured.

Akari opened his door and closed it, facing him the entire time, her face calmly composed. In three carefully controlled steps, she gave Ibiki a scroll, sealed with a wax crane, and then took another step back, standing halfway between his desk and the door. Ibiki motioned the chair that was now directly in front of Akari.

"Sit," he ordered curtly.

Akari stiffly moved forward and sat on the edge of the chair. Ibiki watched her carefully. She wouldn't even look at him. Ibiki's hands clenched into fists then smoothed out. He sat back in his chair and regarded his subordinate solemnly. Oh, what a mess this was. She was what one might call his personal spy. She went after information that he himself sought and was a damn good espionage expert to boot. Her techniques were superb and just what Ibiki always needed. He had, after all, trained her himself. But it was the fact that Ibiki had let his emotions get involved with her, that he had let their relationship morph into something more. Though not sexual (even though, God knew, the urge was there on his part) they had a relationship that bordered on the inappropriate for a commander and his subordinate. Ibiki knew that if he ever was to let their relationship get out, if even a whisper of them reached the rumor mill, Akari Suzuki would be ruined, while people didn't even bat a lash over his. That was why he had to keep things professional between them. Strictly professional.

Ibiki slowly unsealed the scroll and read. Akari sat stiffly and stared at the stone wall of his office behind him. When he was finished he sighed deeply and leaned back in his chair, like a king surveying an ill behaving subject. God, she was gorgeous, Ibiki thought. Not in the traditional way though. Her features by themselves were remarkable, however they sat on a face that was not all together made for them. Akari's features were sharp and finely wrought, sitting in perfect proportion on a round face that narrowed out into a faintly pointed chin. Had her face been narrower, she would have been fairy-princess beautiful and had her features been a bit softer, she would have been viewed as sweet and innocent. But they weren't and that left her with a sort of mismatched, overwhelmed look to her face. But Ibiki knew that face as well as he knew his own mind. It was her mouth and eyes that Ibiki loved most. Eyes a deep misty grey, framed by long thick lashes that were almost too long and heavy, seeming to drag her eye lids down to half-closed. And her mouth was a bit thin on top, but the bottom lip and full and lush, as though she were perpetually on the verge of pouting.

"So," he said now, staring at her face and pondering how to ask the questions that needed to be asked, but without offending her overly and making her so pissed off that she went and did something stupid. "You say that you were found out by a rain ninja. Do you know the name?"

Akari hesitated just long enough for Ibiki to be suspicious. "No," she stated defiantly with a little toss of her head.

"She's lying!" A little voice screamed inside Ibiki's head. "But why?"

After a moment of thought Ibiki decided not to pursue the matter at the present time. "Did you find out my requested information?"

Akari reached into the pouch at her waist that was standard issue for most any ninja and drew out a second scroll, this one's seal blank. Instead of opening it Ibiki simply set it aside.

"You said and did nothing to give away your loyalties?"

Akari, not feeling like being miffed after a night of little sleep on top of a major healing, tired, and stressed she simply shook her head. "I did not."

Ibiki studied her for a moment and narrowed his eyes slightly when a light tinge of color rose to her cheeks. "Are you lying about that, too?"

Staring at him stonily, Akari lifted her chin. "Think what you will," she told him.