Chapter 14: A shark to remember

Entering the bath house through the servants' accessway was decidedly humbling, but Tenten and Kakashi were there as cleaners, not customers.

"You, female bath area," the mouse guiding them spoke in clipped tones and pointed Tenten to the right.

"You, follow me," evidently the mouse was male, and led Kakashi personally away to where the baths for the masculine gender were presumably located.

Tenten blinked at being left alone in an unfamiliar place. It had always served her well during undercover missions to be able to blend in seamlessly with the locals, but she hadn't expected to be so overlooked even by non-human creatures.

"I'll guide you, Tenten."

She jumped at the sound coming from her back pouch. "Osh! You're familiar with this place?"

"A bath house is a bath house, even if this is one that caters exclusively to summoned entities. You could probably find your way, but I can help. Can you bring me out to look around?"

Tenten took out the scroll containing Osh and unsealed it. The wavy blade gleamed in the soft lighting as she held it up, admiring the workmanship once again.

Osh's amused eyes shone back at her, "Like what you see?"

She grinned, "Always. You look great from any angle, Osh."

"Heh," Osh fluttered its eyelashes at her as she giggled, "Go down the hallway to the right."

It walked her successfully to a storage room for cleaning materials and there she met some of the bath house staff who were ecstatic to have more help, even from a human. They brought her upstairs to the floor allocated for female patrons and put her to work.

Osh seemed interested in observing the surroundings, so Tenten sheathed the weapon securely into a scabbard and strapped it to her back. She was assigned to the hard-to-reach areas of the ceilings and walls since she could walk up surfaces with chakra and her hands were more dexterous. Below her the staff, a mix of weasels, dogs, and salamanders, were scurrying in straight rows down the hallway while pushing polishing cloths with their front paws across the floor boards.

True to her resolve to ask Osh directly about what she wanted to know, Tenten began to quiz her blade as she cleaned, "Could you tell me how you're able to navigate around this bath house?"

"I have a bit more affinity to the realms where summons stay than to places where humans live. You could say… the air is different."

Tenten understood that places like Mt. Myoboku, Shikkotsu Forest and Ryuchi Cave could not easily be found unless one knew of the secret pathways or were summoned there by the frogs, slugs or snakes that lived in those respective regions. She hadn't considered that those places to be different realms of existence altogether.

"Is this a separate dimension?"

"It's a matter of perspective, really. It's just like following a rabbit to Wonderland. You can find your way if you know the path."

Tenten shook her head, unfamiliar with Lewis Caroll's work. "Is it still in the human world, or not?"

"Humans don't really belong to just one world, you know. The rules are simply different depending on where you are."

Osh was both answering but not answering her.

Tenten considered her next question as the cleaners below her completed their task. Tenten waved when they gave her nods of farewell before moving to another area. She made short work of the rest of the room, utilizing her full speed now that she wasn't worried about knocking the other staff into the air from her wake turbulence.

"Osh, what are you?" she finally asked when she was done.

Osh was quiet. Tenten stood for a while, hanging upside down at the middle of the ceiling, waiting for an answer.

After a moment, she let herself fall, landing lightly on her feet, and started packing up. "The first time you talked to me, you said you were a bit like Samehada. I really don't think Samehada comes close to what you really are, Osh."

"I'm glad you realized that," Osh sniffed, "That thing's so far beneath me, it's laughable. I just tried to find a comparison you could relate to. You mentioned liking that weapon."

She was being diverted again but Tenten went along with it. "Not especially, it was more of the way the shinobi who was using it created a perfect fusion between weapon and wielder. It's always thrilling to discover the most elegant and effective use of a weapon."

"That's one of the things I like about you," Osh complimented. Tenten smiled, saying nothing as she headed downstairs to return the cleaning items.

She entered the storage room, feeling around for the light switch.

"You asked what I am," Osh's voice came out of the darkness.

"I can be anything you want me to be, Tenten."

Tenten stood for a moment, taking in Osh's words.

She was capable of turning anything into a weapon, even the mop she was holding and the bucket and brushes she carried. Any object could be a weapon, for her.

For a weapon to be anything she wanted though? That was new. Strange and new.

"Can you become the Bashosen?"

"I can be all five of the Treasured Tools, if you like," Osh said gamely. "Just say the word."

Tenten was glad she had been prepared by a life of ridiculousness growing up with Team Gai well enough so she could take this in stride. She returned the mop and other items to their proper places, mulling things over.

She finally asked, "Why have you been bringing me to different dimensions then?"

"Because I can. It's fun for us both. I said I could be anything you want, not just any weapon you want."

Tenten sank down to sit on the upturned bucket, placing her head in her hands, "Say again, Osh?"

"I told you, I could have taken care of Orochimaru, if you'd let me."

"Why?"

"Why am I able to do and be anything?"

"Yes, and how?" Tenten leaned her elbows on her knees, clasping her hands in front of her.

"Excellent providence, my dear. I just so happen to have unlimited power that I want to spend on you."

Tenten stared at the wall stacked with cleaning paraphernalia, not really seeing anything in front of her. "Why me?"

Osh chuckled. "I'll let you reason that out for yourself. So, are we staying in this storage room forever?"

Kakashi had not reckoned on being apart from Tenten while rendering free labor to the bathhouse. He'd envisioned them working together as a lean, mean, two-person cleaning machine and making their way from top to bottom of this establishment while exchanging sweet nothings and laughter, maybe getting into a soap suds fight, with him crowning her with a bouffant of bubbles on her head (Icha Icha Paradise, Chapter 10, page 101).

He mechanically wrung out the soapy cleaning cloth and worked on the second large tub near the corner, already having cleaned the huge main tub in the middle of the men's area of grime and dirt. It was hard going. The last customers who had used the baths were hogs. Filthy summoned warthogs.

What kind of shinobi had warthogs as their summon? As far as he knew, Tonton was a normal pig, and Tsunade's main summon was Katsuyu the giant slug. He might try teasing his girlfriend by asking her, but she would very likely hit him. Tonton-Tenten jokes got old very quickly.

"Oi, are the baths in this area open?"

Kakashi pointed to the sign hung at the doorway that said: Cleaning In Progress, "Sorry, you can use the next set of baths down the wing."

"They use too many herbal mixes in those tubs. And I like the ambiance here," the voice had a curious rasp to it, almost reptilian in quality. Kakashi glanced up to check if it belonged to a salamander.

A tall man with bluish-gray skin stood at the entryway, a towel slung loosely around his hips.

"Huh, I haven't seen humans among the staff before." Pinprick black pupils in white irises stood out in stark contrast against dark sclera, shrewdly taking in Kakashi's automatic settling into wary battle posture.

"You're dressed like a civilian but your stance gives you away. Shinobi, eh? Well, I guess only those who've made summoning contracts could come here after all."

The customer waved an impatient hand, "Move aside for a moment. Let's speed things up here so I can start relaxing."

Kakashi nimbly picked up his bucket and brushes and jumped up towards the ceiling just as the guest finished the hand seals for a water release technique that flooded the room in a self-contained whirlpool, loosening all the ingrained muck and swirling it down the drains in a fraction of the time it would have taken Kakashi, even using bunshins, would have been able to finish.

"Uh, thanks," Kakashi stepped back onto the pristine floor. "Guess we can reopen this section."

Hot water began to fill the tubs from the pipes and a slight mineral smell rose from the steaming baths.

"Guess you can," the customer gave a sharp-toothed smile. "Will you be trying to catch me for the bounty on my head, though, I wonder?"

The Sixth Hokage shrugged, giving the former Akatsuki a wide berth while moving towards the exit.

"Hoshigaki Kisame was reported as having committed suicide to avoid giving up vital information to his captors. There are no bounties over dead men."

Kisame gave a rumbling laugh. "It seems my sharks were able to put on quite the convincing show of devouring me inside of the water prison. We just needed to cloud the water with enough blood to conceal the moment when they reverse summoned me to their ocean. I doubt you'd have been convinced if you were there to see it, though, Copy Nin Kakashi."

The Rokudaime was impressed that Kisame could remember him from that one time they had encountered each other in Konoha.

"I almost didn't recognize you without the Sharingan. What happened?"

Kakashi paused at the doorway, and glanced back, "The Copy Nin is no more. I'd still fight you if you posed a threat to my village, regardless of bounty. But I take it all these years of staying out of sight mean you're no longer interested in making trouble."

The shark nin was stepping into the largest tub, paying Kakashi only the scantest attention, "There's no point meddling anymore. Even the 'world of truth' I was promised to be shown was all a lie. I hear it's thanks to the Nine Tails jinchuuriki that things are marginally better now. Frankly, I'm tired of all of it. I just want to relax."

Kakashi refrained from telling the outlaw that he knew exactly how Kisame felt.

"Enjoy the baths, then."

Kakashi had no interest in picking fights with dangerous missing nin for no reason. But he had to find Tenten.

It wasn't common knowledge, but he had it on good authority that the Monster of the Mist had quite the crush on his girlfriend.

And while he hated to admit it, the former Akatsuki had a really impressive weapon, even without Samehada. It was enough to make anyone insecure.

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(15 September 2023) A/N: Happy birthday, Kakashi. Sorry you had to spend it looking at Kisame's remora.

I can finally reply to the reviewer Mady, who expressed dismay that this was yet another story where Tenten pines away after Neji. I had to do it, you see, having written about 'hints of Nejiten' in my 2010 Kisaten story. 'Twas foreordained.

To Selys00, I love your Spanish review. I was so nervous about what might come out on Google translate, but it was wonderful. To Bennettnasagirl, thank you, I am glad you are enjoying. And to the very frequent reviewers, Kakalovetenten and fanofthisfiction, your constant support keeps me going. The lack of KakashixTenten stories also keeps me going out of sheer frustration, but reviews play a huge part.

Which brings me to Sinisterhime, who is slowly losing letters to their name with each review (should we be alarmed?) All I can say about your inability to ship Kakashi with anyone else due to my insanity, and to quote the words of Japanese voice actor (VA) Shimono Hiro, "Me too, desu." Me too.