Chapter 26: In The Air Tonight

The four of them had plenty of opportunity to talk on their way back to Wave, double time, without being slowed down any by having a kid in tow on this trip. As soon as they were well past the village boundary Shikaku started asking questions.

"So, Yoshino, what exactly is it you have to do here?" he asked.

"Paperwork," she smirked back at him.

"What? Seriously, what are you coming along for?"

"I am not 'coming along' on your mission, Nara , I'm traveling with you. We'll split up when we get to the coast." Did he detect a hint of ice in her voice? What was up with that.

"Okay, Chouza can go with you. Inoichi and I will take care of the fields."

"Chouza will only slow me down. He doesn't know what to look for."

"Well, just exactly what is it you're looking for?" he shot back, perhaps a little testier than he meant to.

"Shikaku," Chouza intervened, "She has certain documents she has to locate for Koharu, bills of lading, receipts, cargo manifests. It's a paper trail…"

"I know what a paper trail is," he answered, again a little testier than usual but unable to help it. He felt a little uncomfortable with his friend taking Yoshino's side in this. Although, he had to wonder to himself why there were 'sides' at all. She had a mission, fine, he just wanted Chouza to go along and look out for her.

Unfortunately, he made the mistake of voicing his concern. Yoshino stopped so fast they were two trees ahead of her before they realized it and had to turn around and come back.

She stood there in the branches, arms crossed, toe tapping, glaring at him. "Let me clarify something for you Nara . I have a set of documents I have to retrieve. I don't even know what they are, just which offices to search. The list of documents is sealed in my memory. If I'm intercepted, I can't even tell them what I'm looking for. I'll recognize the papers when I see them, only I won't even have to take the time to visually think about or process the images wondering is this the right one, is that the right one – I'll just be able to flip through the files and take the ones she needs. Chouza, or any of you, will just slow me down. I briefed Chouza and Inoichi while you were still at Orochimaru's. Sorry you missed it."

Shikaku glared at her. The problem with seeing a woman's eyes go from all flinty to soft in an instant was that they could go back just as quickly. "Fine," he grumbled. "I'm sorry that sounded the way it did. I just…I don't want anything to happen to you."

Eyes soft again. Dammit, he'd never get this troublesome woman figured out. He realized she was speaking.

"I don't want anything to happen to you, either," she said softly, "but you don't see me asking Chouza to babysit."

"Fair enough," he grumbled again and they all got back into formation to continue onto Wave.

After they were underway again, the four of them continued to discuss the mission. They quizzed Yoshino about her meetings with Koharu and their daimyo.

She shook her head. "Most of it, I wasn't even in on, planning discussions and so on, I know as little about that as you all do. A lot of it's sealed – like the actual orders themselves – I knew I had them, but I couldn't have told you what they were until the ANBU unsealed them."

There was a general flurry of discussion about the rationale behind having the orders come from the daimyo instead of the Hokage. Yoshino smiled to herself as they continued on, interested to hear their theories on the topic.

"Plausible deniability…

"Can't be seen as a military operation…"

"He has to stay out of it, can't appear as if he condones…"

Yoshino shook her head and looked back over her shoulder at them. "Man, you guys just don't get it, do you?"

A chorus of "what? what? what?" made them all sound like a bunch of chirruping crickets behind her. She laughed. "I may not remember a lot of the discussions that took place, but there is one thing I certainly came away from them with. And that is the overwhelming sense that they couldn't have Hokage-sama give the orders to destroy these installations because they weren't sure he would do it."

That shut everyone up for a while.

Once on the outskirts of the coastal country, they split up, agreeing to rendezvous again in four hours. Shikaku reluctantly watched Yoshino head off into the city itself, before he and his teammates turned to scope out the fields that they would need to destroy shortly.

The petitie kunoichi made her way into the city, looking for all the world like just another tourist there on vacation. Slipping into the shadows betweeen a couple of the official buildings she made sure no one was looking then picked the lock to a back door and slipped inside. Almost too easy – it was just a bunch of transfer documentation, who would think to guard those anyway.

As she entered the first office, she hesitated, not exactly knowing what to expect when the seal was released. She picked up a few papers from off the desk and rifled through them. Nothing.

Opening a file cabinet drawer she flipped through those until she caught sight of a particular shipping company logo in one corner. She felt the seal release then, a momentary 'a-ha' sense and then she began flipping through the folders in earnest. After she finished with the first drawer she looked down at her side – there was a small stack of papers that she hadn't even remembered pulling out. But when she looked, each had the same logo in the corner.

Smiling to herself and thinking that this was just too weird, she opened the second drawer in the file cabinet and began simply flipping through those again – not even removing the files from the racks. She felt the breeze as she flipped through those and when she finished that row and looked down the stack at her feet had grown some more.

Quickly plowing through the remaining file cabinet and desk drawers, she finished and began to neatly stack the papers she'd retrieved. As she straightened them all so they would fit into her pouch she noticed that they weren't all identified by a single logo, there were an assortment of a few different logos on the shipping documents as well as some where the company name was just embedded in the text. Frickin' weird – she didn't even remember seeing anything on those sheets.

Yoshino left the building and moved on to the next one with similar results. It was odd, feeling things unlock in your head only when you needed them. She'd really only known the first couple of buildings and offices she was supposed to search. But now that she'd finished the first two, she was aware of a list of destinations she needed to go to next.

The majority of those were in one of the new high rise multi-use buildings similar to the one the party had been in that night…

She dismissed thoughts of that horrible night with Tsuyoshi from her mind. She decided that since she didn't seem to have any information about a priority or sequence in which to tackle the next set of destinations, she'd just start at the top of the tower and work her way down.

Scaling the tower on a shadowed side, she stood on the roof looking out at the moonlight over the ocean in front of her. Flicker of motion from the direction of the waves caught her eye and she indulged herself just a moment as she stopped to admire just how beautiful it was. Moonlight silvered a path over the water as the tide brought the waves in further and further up onto the shore, gently sound of the sea lulling. It was absolutely stunning, she stood at the edge of the tower, feeling the breeze ruffle in her hair, thinking back to the last time she'd looked out over this same ocean.

She'd been dreaming about Shikaku then too, thinking how nice it would have been if he could have been there with her.

But then she remembered all too vividly how that night had ended. Tsuyoshi and…she shuddered. She could still feel his hands…feel how disgusting her own hands had felt under his control…

Queasy, she tried to make herself stop thinking about it, but it was almost impossible, as if she was forced to replay that scene over and over in her mind. She tried to get her feet to respond, to step forward to just move, anything to break the spell of this reverie.

Finally she did lurch forward, head down, gasping, grabbing the handrail in front of her as she wretched dry heaves, sucking in fresh air so hard it made her sides hurt. She tried to stand, gripping onto the railings. Steadying herself a few minutes against the railing, wiping spit from her mouth with the back of her hand, she wondered what the fuck was going on.

Just how messed up was her head?

As the seals had released earlier, it had been a pleasant 'eureka' feeling, uncovering a lost memory, knowing exactly what you were supposed to do.

This was different, almost as if she had been trapped in that moment, forced to live it over and over, unable to break free.

Maybe Koharu had been trying to do her a favor? Not just sealing things in her mind for future use, but sealing part of her own past away for her own good?

She felt weak and nauseated, not at all like when Koharu's seals released. Maybe they hadn't released? Maybe they'd broken or leaked somehow and that was why she felt so bad? She didn't think the councilwoman would have done something like that without letting her know, without getting her permission but then again, how would she know?

Long shuddering breath then she forced herself to walk to the access door, she still had a job to do. And besides, she thought, scratching her arm distractedly, she really should get inside, the mosquitos were murderous out tonight.