"I saw them down by the river cooking fresh fish," Satsuki declared.

Naruko slammed her fists against the table they were sitting at. "That's totally a date!"

Yakumo shook her head, though she seemed a bit disappointed. "I still don't think that's right. Just because Kotaro suddenly has a friend who's a boy doesn't mean he and Sakurai are dating."

Satsuki rubbed at her chin thoughtfully, her face showing deep calculation before she nodded decisively once. "Yakumo's right. There's a lot of explanations for everything, and we've never even seen them act like a couple, not really."

"But you said-!" Naruko said loudly, then cut herself off at the Uchiha's severe look and searched the top of the school for any potential eavesdroppers. Lowering her voice, she continued, "-but you said you found Sakurai's underwear in his room! And they've been going around the village together!"

Satsuki grimaced, but nodded as she crossed her arms. "They could just be friends."

Yakumo nodded as she picked at her lunch, then cocked her head thoughtfully. "Kota could be teaching him."

The other two girls stopped exchanging looks.

"Heisteaching those two weirdos who work at the store," Naruko noted consideringly as she made a face at the memory of the oddballs. She hadn't quite forgiven the pale one for cheerfully referring to her as 'Fox-Bitch,' even if Kota had explained the situation and Sai had apologized.

"It's not like he only teaches girls, I guess," Satsuki stated in the same tone. "Although I've never seen them sparring, doing sword forms, or practicing seals."

"Does Kota know something else he could teach Sakurai?" Yakumo asked, tapping at her lips thoughtfully.

All three were quiet, Satsuki in particular, as they contemplated that question.

"I still think they're dating," Naruko declared defiantly. "Sakurai's really cute and Kota could have totally fallen for his charms, believe it!"

Satsuki attempted to push down that nagging doubt. "We should talk about something else," she decided, "We need more evidence or something definitive before we make a decision about what to do with Kota and Sakurai. How's Shikamaru coming along?"

The question was directed at Naruko, who had been given the task of pushing the boy to be more active. She'd been chosen because, among the three of them, the Uzumaki had a strong reputation for not playing political games, unlike the Uchiha and Kurama. Even if Satsuki and Yakumo in particular were less inclined towards what Kota derided as 'shenanigans,' there were some things that couldn't be unlearned.

Naruko made another disgruntled face. "They still don't like me hanging out. Well, Shika doesn't, but he's not as stuck up as I thought he was. Turns out he's cool with the fox and everything, just... he doesn't want people giving him shit over palling around with me." Unhappiness flashed across her face. "Which... eh, fair I guess."

"It's good to establish a working relationship with him, at least," Yakumo advised. "Everyone seems to believe he'll take his father's spot as Jounin Commander one day and seeing as how you're the village's jinchuuriki, he'll be directly in charge of your deployments outside of the Hokage."

Satsuki wondered if her mother's advice of, 'don't make faces, it'll get stuck like that,' would come true today given how the blonde was contorting her appearance.

"Ugh, don't remind me!" Naruko shook herself. "Chouji's cool, though. Shika seems to put up with me more when I bring snacks and stuff for Chouji. Especially things with potato chips." The girl shivered over her entire body seemingly apropos of nothing.

Satsuki frowned. "Did Kota give you a weird recipe or something?"

Haunted blue eyes turned to him. "He talked about potatoes for three hours."

The Uchiha heiress reared back in surprise and the response tumbled out of her mouth without any conscious effort. "How do you talk about potatoes for-"

Naruko dropped her head in her hands. "I don't know! He talked about grilling them, baking them, frying them, salting them, smoking them, and all sorts of other things! He talked about making glue with them! To shine silver! He made aplastic boxout of a bunch of potatoes that had gone bad for me to take cooked potatoes in!"

Yakumo frowned and cocked her head. "How did he make a box out of potatoes? That seems like it wouldn't work?"

"I don't know!" Naruko moaned, rocking slowly. "He just did! It was like magic!"

The Kurama heiress shook her head as she extended her hand to rub the jinchuuriki's back. "Don't worry, we'll add it to the list when we get home."

Satsuki sighed and nodded. As much as she loved Kota's food, she wasn't willing to risk a three-hour lecture on one of the various incredibly-boring topics that the boy found incredibly fascinating for some reason. She'd been the first to experience the phenomenon when she'd accidentally mentioned some money laundering case her father had been working on for the police force. Instead of getting a passing remark as she'd expected, Kota had asked a series of insightful questions and then ran off on a bizarre rant about counterfeiting, something called fiat currency, protectionism, and other strange things.

Yakumo wouldn't talk about the lecture she'd gotten, simply muttering about 'feudal politics' or something.

Potatoes? Really?

Why did she like Kota, again?

"We're supposed to meet up for a sealing tutorial, anyway. My father's been talking to me about getting a focusing seal applied. Evidently, Kota thinks it will help me access my bloodline more readily." Yakumo spoke, trying to distract Naruko.

Oh, right. Because she knew why he probably had all that random knowledge stuck in his head, and even if he did like to talk about weird stuff he also knew a ton about being a good ninja.

...now if only she knew whether or not he was dating that pink-haired boy.

…

"Hey everyone, sorry I haven't been around! The mission Guy-sensei arranged for ran long and we had to wait out a storm..." Tenten paused in her greeting, blinking as she took in both myself and the other girls, then sighing tiredly. "Alright, I'll bite. Why are Kota and Yakumo bald?"

Yakumo blushed, still somewhat uncomfortable with her shaved head as she ran a hand over it self-consciously. "Ah, we had to shave them, because Kota needs to put on seals."

"I designed a pair of focusing seals for myself and Yakumo. Because of the way her chakra works, this should make it easier for her to use it. I'm adding one to myself out of solidarity and to demonstrate its safety." I explained patiently as I laid out my brushes. "This will also double as a body-control exercise for Yakumo to see if she can properly apply my lessons to regrow her hair before the academy starts back after break."

Tenten stared at us, then turned to the silent Naruko and the brooding Satsuki who both shrugged. "Ah. Alright then, I guess that makes sense."

Said in a tone which directly implies the opposite.

Shaking my head, I made sure I had all of my instruments available before beginning to grind out ink. "Okay, so I'm going to go first. If the audience will please remain silent? This takes a great deal of concentration and I'd rather not accidentally make my head explode." I rolled my eyes at their sudden hawkish attention. "That's a very low-probability outcome and only truly likely if Ii ntentionally screw things up. I've built in a great deal of safeties for this seal."

Tenten gave an aggravated sigh. "Ugh, this is exactly the kind of thing I should have expected you to do, eventually."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, frowning at her.

She rolled her eyes and waved a hand at me. "The rings, the bracelets, the anklets, the buttons on your coat, your belt buckle, your shoes, and don't think I haven't noticed those studs in your ears, either!"

I resisted the impulse to reach up and touch them, even as Satsuki and Naruko perked up and leaned forward to see the small flesh-colored studs that were barely-visible on the front of my ears. The back had a much larger surface with a storage seal engraved on them, though.

"You got earrings?" Naruko asked, her eyes wide as she pointed to me in shock. "See! He's totally dating Sakurai!"

Satsuki turned a shocked and urgent look on the blonde as she hissed to her, "Shut up, idiot! That doesn't mean anything!"

"You mean you still haven't asked him?!" Tenten cried, shocked as she looked to the other girls. "I told you to ask him before I left!"

Seeing the three about to devolve into a shouting match, I puckered my lips into a shrill, ear-piercing whistle and cut through the combined noise of their voices. Once all four of them had silenced themselves and covered their ears, I cut the sound and waited for them to pull their hands back from the sides of their heads.

"First, Naruko." I turned to look at her with the kind of stare that made her wince and droop like a puppy who was going to be confronted with evidence it had wet on the floor. "I have piercings in my ears, not earrings. Even if I did have earrings, though, that doesn't mean I'm dating anyone. The studs I have actually have seals on the backs of them, which is what Tenten was getting at."

I turned to the aforementioned girl, who smirked in response to my stare as she crossed her arms, unwilling to back down. "Second, Tenten, you train constantly, refill your stockpiles of kunai and shuriken, and ask me to teach you how to make quick-release storage seals. We all have our coping mechanisms. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

Seeing Naruko's mouth open again, I held up a hand in her direction. "I'll explain later."

The blond pouted, but nodded.

"Third, Satsuki." I rounded on yet another girl. "Do you have anything you want to ask me? This is your chance."

Satsuki's cheeks heated as she looked around at the other girls, but huffed and nodded. "Are you dating Haruno Sakurai?"

"No." I replied bluntly, and continued over her when it looked like she was about to object. "You found his underwear in my room because I asked him to leave it there so that I could play a prank on all of you. Sakurai heard you all talking about your little plan while at lunch one day-" The younger girls stiffened as Tenten cocked her head curiously. "-and wanted to get me to stop you because he was being stupid-not now Naruko-so I made a deal to tutor him in exchange for keeping his mouth shut."

Naruko, now huffy from being denied her right to object to calling her crush names, crossed her arms and looked away even as she seemed relieved.

"I knew you'd found the clothing he'd left behind because you didn't put it back where I left it. Combined with the way you, Yakumo, and Naruko all became cagey and suspicious around me, I knew there was a very good chance you were all operating under bad mission intelligence and running yourselves in circles trying to understand whether I'd lied to you or was breaking the promise I'd made when I said I was going to wait until you girls had graduated to date." I inhaled through my nose as I kept talking in order not to break my stride. "I did this mainly because Sakurai is a very annoying student that I am having to beat the shit out of and do not enjoy teaching, but because you gave him leverage I'm now having to deal with it in a way that won't ruin your reputations or result in him doing something stupid because he doesn't feel he has any options."

There was silence.

"Umm..." Yakumo began, wincing slightly when I looked her way. "Why... didn't you just tell us everything instead of pranking us?"

"Because even though I try to have a cool head and not indulge in stupid stunts, occasionally I get frustrated and want to be a jerk about something." I replied, sighing. "For which I am sorry, but in my defense it was really funny watching you girls try to trick me into admitting I was going out with someone."

"What about the date by the river?!" Naruko cried, pointing an accusatory finger at me. "You were cooking fish together and acting all lovey-dovey!"

I stared at her, my fundamental belief that Naruto and Sakura deserved each other reasserting itself as I palmed my face and dragged the hand down slowly. "I'm teaching him medical ninjutsu. The basic training for which is keeping fish alive out of water. If they died, we cooked and ate them so that we weren't wasting perfectly good fish."

Naruko's face reddened deeply as she turned away, tapping her fingers together nervously. "Oh."

Satsuki pouted and crossed her arms, unknowingly (and likely unwillingly) mimicking Naruko. "So why tell us now?"

"Because you asked me," I replied.

Another round of blinking. "What?"

"You asked me instead of sneaking around investigating, gathering evidence, and spying on myself and Sakurai. You remember when I told you your seduction course was mostly bullshit? This is what I was talking about. If you want to know something with me, justask me. There's a time and a place to handle information security and it isn't with the people you're dating in your private time," I explained while making eye contact with all of them.

"So it was all a prank? Because Sakurai overheard us?" Yakumo asked, sighing in relief. "I can't believe he overheard us while we were talking at-oh no, that means you know!" She sighed, this time in disappointment. "It was supposed to be a surprise."

I rolled my eyes and waved her off. "It's fine. For what it's worth, I think you're all doing a great job. After talking with Sakurai, he says that everyone in your class is working harder than they were last year, though he still doesn't like the fact that you're targeting one of your teachers-"

"Eh, Mizuki-sensei deserves it, believe it!" Naruko giggled, her mood changing like the seasons as she grinned. "Like half the kids in the class think he's pranking them, but they also think it's a secret test so they can't do anything! It's great!"

I snorted, giving the appearance of good humor as my heart tried and failed to skip a beat.

Mizuki...fuck.

I'd forgotten. It had been avery long time since I'd thought about the opening chapters of the manga I'd once read.

I forced it to the back of my mind. "Anyway, if you all don't mind, I'd like to get on with applying these seals. So, again, quiet."

Picking up a brush, I dip it in just a bit of ink before closing my eyes and beginning to paint the complex pattern on my scalp. I'd been preparing the skin on my head for some time now, creating a reverse-image of the seal into which the ink would naturally flow. All the same, it took every bit of my skill to perfectly match the design I'd so laboriously worked on refining for the last month. This would be my first true sealing masterpiece.

After this, no more applying temporary seals. I'd have a permanent 'overflow' chakra system for each full moon.