Chapter 21: Dirty Laundry

Tsunade sat in the lab rubbing both eyes with the heels of her hands. As if she didn't have enough work to do already, Shikaku had brought in something, Kami knew what, in that syringe saying that Jiraiya had found it on the missing nin's body. The missing Uchiha's body, she corrected herself.

Stupid toad sage didn't even have the courage to bring it to her himself. Humph!

But still, the contents of it had turned out to be disturbing enough, regardless of who had brought them to her. A fast-acting virus, variant of a very common childhood illness among most of the shinobi nations. And since it shared many of the same characteristics then the implication was that a large portion of the population would be suscepticble.

Most troubling of all perhaps was the syringe itself. It was the three pronged variety favored by ANBU for delivering their knock-out drugs, and just like the little cocktail that they used routinely, this syringe too was actually multi-compartmented, filled with two solutions. One contained the virus which was inert unless delivered with the activator contained in the second. So, the virus in and of itself was relatively harmless only in combination with the other chemical did it pose a problem.

She shook her head. And in the last week, they'd been working on just how bad of a problem that might be. By fast acting, she was coming to realize that it was frighteningly fast, test animals had succumbed to fever in a matter of hours. And there was something nagging in the back of her mind about that. Something that Shikaku had said earlier but she was too tired to really put her finger on it.

She looked at him, he was actually a very reliable worker once you ever got him kickstarted. Diligent. Dependable. It was good to have him here. Still, she really wished that Dan was in Konoha with her. Two days with him in Amegekure last week had just been too short of a time. And it hadn't been the purely enjoyable time with him that it should have been, damn Jiraiya to hell. Why did he have to be so jealous? Why had he planted those doubts in her mind? Of course the sneaking truth behind the matter was that she was feeling more than a little bit guilty because deny it though she might to herself, she couldn't escape the fact that one reason she had gone to Amegekure was to reassure herself that it was impossible. And she hated herself for that. She shouldn't have needed to reassure herself in the first place, should have just dismissed Jiraiya's outrageous theories out of hand.

And then this turned up. This three-pronged syringe with its multiple compartments. Developed by Dan several years ago. Of course, that could be purely coincidence. It was a wonderfully handy medical device, in regular use by ANBU and field-medics alike for dispensing a variety of medicines. The fact that the dead man had it one him probably meant nothing at all. Of course, it meant nothing at all.

"Shikaku, what was it you were telling me a few days ago? Something about someone with a fever?"

"Hmmm? Oh, it was one of Yoshino's teammates, Asako Miterashi. She came down with something while they were on their mission." He paused and looked up at her. "Do you think it's related?"

Tsunade was chewing on her thumbnail again. "Probably not," she said trying to sound dismissive.

"But it occurred in the same city that the syringe is from."

Sighing, Tsunade said wanly, "I really wish you hadn't told me that. We should at least check it out."

She sent Shikaku to check for any records from the morgue about Miterashi, to see if there had been any post-mortem workup done on her. Meanwhile, Tsunade went to make arrangements to have the body exhumed.

Up in the Hokage tower, Yoshino had been kept busy all week by Koharu, quietly gathering records from a variety of sources. It had seemed all very boring at first, and Yoshino was sure that Jiraiya had just stashed her there, effectively making Koharu her own babysitter. Yoshino grumbled to herself, although she'd appreciated the comfort and concern the first night, it now seemed cloying and unnecessary.

But as she continued to work with Koharu, on what the older woman euphemistically referred to as 'forensic accounting' she realized that the job was in its own way, challenging and satisfying. It was like trying to make a picture out of the numbers in front of you. Individually they might mean nothing, like individual tiles before you began a mosaic. But put them together, graph them, cluster them and they came alive and told a story.

It was a story of the ebb and flow of money into and between ANBU and the Konoha Military Police Force (and for the first time in her life, Yoshino had to honestly question why her village maintained a military police force – what the heck was up with that anyway?) and the Uchiha clan.

The tasks she was sent out on seemed menial at first, and she actually dared to grouse about it once. As soon as the words left her mouth, she would have done just about anything to take them back. Had she actually snapped at one of the council members? She winced, waiting for whatever Koharu would yell or do next.

Koharu just looked up over her tea and asked, "Were you followed?"

Yoshino had to think for a minute. Perhaps there was someone who seemed to be coincidentally running the same errands. She wasn't she, she hadn't been expecting it so she honestly was ashamed to say she hadn't paid that much attention. "I…I think I may have been. Yes." She stammered out an answer.

"Good." And Koharu bent back to studying the document in front of her.

Yoshino stood there blinking for a few minutes. Oh. She was supposed to be followed? She thought about that for a minute. Koharu wanted somebody to follow her to pick up the dry cleaning or return an overdue library book? A…gopher? A fetch-and-carry girl? Why would she want someone to follow her doing that?

So that whoever was following her would realize after a couple of days that she was just Koharu's new fetch-and-carry girl. And would quit following her. Or at least not so closely. As long as what she did was innocuous, they, whoever they were, wouldn't care.

After a couple of days, the tasks remained similar but now there were little notes to go along with it. A withdrawal at the bank and a note to palm over to the teller. The envelope would then be passed back with requested cash and extra notes folded up inside. Pick up a few library books that had been requested and she would walk out with those and a few more that weren't technically checked out to anyone's account. She played her part well, quietly deferential to anyone she might meet, merely Koharu's aide no need to pay her any mind at all. She even started wearing her hair up like Koharu's on a regular basis trying to look the part of an ideal aide-de-camp.

The end of the week came and she was to meet Shikaku for dinner. As usual he was late, but fortunately Tsunade must have taken pity on him because it wasn't too bad. She was so glad to see him – they'd had very little time together this week, really only on Monday when they'd had lunch together and she'd grumbled about the gopher-chores she was having to do.

Yoshino wanted to tell him everything she was doing, how interesting it was turning out to be, how that there were patterns there if you would just look for them. Shikaku just kept shushing her. After the third or so time, she snapped out "What is wrong with you?"

"Well, shit, Yoshino, you know you just can't talk about it in here!" He motioned around at the restaurant.

"No," she hissed back. "I mean what's wrong with you? You look like shit."

He was a bit taken aback. Not that he hadn't heard her talk like that before. She could. She did, infrequently but she did. It's just that she usually didn't direct it at him. And he knew she was right, he probably did look like shit, hadn't slept hardly any this week.

And not just because of Tsunade and her insane schedule.

No, it was more than that. Tsunade actually hadn't even worked him as hard this week as the previous ones. Nope, this had all started when they found that syringe. Something about it just kept gnawing at him, gnawing at the pit of his stomach. It was an abyss yawning in front of him and it had only grown wider when Tsunade had completed the results of her autopsy on Asako. The woman had been infected, the three puncture wounds were quite evident if you looked for them, it's just that no one had had a reason to before.

That meant only one thing.

Tsuyoshi had been going to kill Yoshino.

"Come on," he said, rising from the table, "Let's get out of here. Let's go to the apartment where we can talk. I'll fill you in on what's going on. Even if Inoichi and Chouza are there, Kakashi will be asleep by now and I can tell you all about it."

Arm in arm they walked through the streets of Konoha, footfalls soft on the cobblestones. Halfway there, he stopped and said, "Yoshino, I need to tell you…You're right… I mean what I'm trying to say is…I guess I do look like shit. And I think it's because Tsuyoshi wasn't just going to…

At this point he floundered. What word could he use here? "He wasn't just going to hurt you…I think he was going to kill you. And," he took a deep breath. "And I think I love you."

There. He'd said it. The L-word. He was a ninja, a jounin, and he really shouldn't be afraid but still he was worried – how was she going to respond?

She stood there smirking at him in the moonlight, eyes sparkling. "Soooooo…you look like shit because you think you love me? Gee, Nara , that has got to be about the single most un-romantic thing I have ever heard." And even though she didn't say it with words her smile said that she loved him, too.

"Shut up, you wench," he sighed, pulling her to him and kissing her for all he was worth.