Chapter 20: Roses and Pricks
The ANBU ghosted along the corridor, pace brisk and silent. Despite her slender stature, she cut a remarkably imposing figure; the white mask all but glowed over the dark uniform, red paint almost black in the dim lighting. But behind that mask—behind the deadly shinobi gear and confident stride—she was grinning and actively keeping the spring from her step.
Today was the first day of the week, after all, and that meant that she would get to pop around to the shop with the indecipherable name and mooch some food off her friend. Not that it really counted as mooching, since she regularly brought her own food to contribute to their weekly dinners. Last time Minato and Kushina had brought some groceries with them, and the two of them made enough ramen for everybody to eat their fill and still have leftovers for later. Now, Akaiko wasn't much of a cook, but the least she could do was pick up some dango after work to bring as a dessert.
Looking back over the past months, it was unclear how having dinner at the shop came to be such a regular occurrence. She was happy that it had, though.
And she would be even more pleased to participate once she was done staking out her friend's house. The guy was just too… non-shinobi-esque: all open and honest. Sometimes he was a bit suspicious of things, to be sure, but he never really acted on that suspicion.
Axel just didn't scheme. Not like a shinobi would, anyway.
In fact, it made her feel a little guilty whenever she was on duty—keeping an eye on him from a distance. By now she was fairly sure that he either had no clue he was under surveillance or just didn't mind. She wasn't sure which was worse for her conscience.
A genin with a teetering stack of papers rushed past, not even registering her presence. Which was understandable, given the subtle genjutsu she had woven over herself to keep less careful glances away. Usually she didn't come through the halls—preferring, like most jonin, to use the windows—but she had the distinct impression that the Hokage was tired enough these days and really didn't need shinobi popping in from any entrance at any moment.
The war was stressful enough, having taken a sharp turn for the worse just barely over a year ago with not much improvement since, and… Well. Every once in a while, they were still getting reports on missing children.
At least the documents she was handing off today were not weighed with news of war, but rather about the funny new blacksmith in the otherwise abandoned district. Maybe the Sandaime would appreciate the anecdotes she had taken care to include. Like how the smith—what a clever codename—had started letting his customers try out kunai with test throws at the store's log sign through the open window. Or how that same sign—completely unintelligible—seemed to be the first thing any customer commented on, and how the smith looked a little more vexed every time. And that the different factions of local stray ninken seemed to have declared the property to be some kind of neutral zone.
Just funny or lighthearted observations and stories.
It was… relieving, to have some good news to hand over to her Hokage.
Even if it had been a bit weird at the start, doing spy work within the village bounds for once—she and her partner Inochi were usually sent out on long term infiltration missions, being away from home for months or more at a time. Being able to stay at home for a while had been a relief in and of itself.
Up ahead, a door swung open and her brisk pace came to an abrupt stop.
She pulled Koi—her ANBU identity—around herself like a shield, hands loose at her sides and ready to flick through signs at any moment. The chakra signature was familiar, but that was no comfort; she had never been able to put her finger on why, exactly, but there was something… almost wrong about it that always had her on edge.
Councilman Danzō leveled a stern gaze at her, his one unbandaged eye regarding her cooly. There was a flicker of dampened chakra, and the masked shinobi accompanying him vanished in a swirl of smoke and leaves.
Then he smiled, slightly, and it never seemed to reach his eye. "Hello, Agent Koi," he greeted, voice perfectly smooth. "I presume you are here to deliver a report to Hiruzen, yes? Oh, excuse me. To Hokage-sama."
She gave a curt nod.
Danzō hummed to himself, his expression becoming thoughtful—though she had little doubt that this encounter was not mere chance. His chakra was hard to read, uncanny, but she could still feel a twist of intent from him; he wanted something from her.
"I can take the report from here," he said, holding out a hand for the scroll.
From behind her mask, her eyes widened. She hadn't expected that, there was no reason to have expected that: he had to know what mission she was currently assigned to, and that it had nothing to do with the war or political intrigue. Her report was purely pedestrian, just a banal account of a civilian setting up shop and being, by most standards, unremarkable.
Koi slid one foot less than half a step back, bracing herself, and replied politely with the perfectly generic cadence every agent was trained in; it was meant to help maintain anonymity, though this particular man had the clearance to know who she was already. "This report is to be delivered to Hokage-sama personally."
She stood still, feeling the councilman's chakra subtly test against her determination. After a long moment, his eyes narrowed, and his fingers curled into a loose fist as he withdrew his hand.
Voice as steady and deadly calm as a honed knife, he said simply, "I see."
With a polite bow, Koi slipped past him. Her guard remained up as she walked on down the hall, until she finally felt his regard of her turn away.
How… unsettling.
She was really regretting not taking the window route now.
At least it didn't take much longer to reach the Hokage's office, though that might have been since she had begun rushing a bit after that strange encounter. There was no need to knock on the door, as it was already open.
From his desk, Sarutobi Hiruzen—the Sandaime, a man hailed as the God of Shinobi—glanced up with a friendly smile and waved her in. He looked tired, and the stacks of paper beside him were almost as tall as he was.
"Come on in, Agent Koi," he said. "And close the door behind you, please."
She stepped inside, and the door shut with a soft click. The Hokage's office was always positively swamped with documents, but it seemed to be even more packed than usual; there were packages and a fairly fancy crate in one corner, and many of the scrolls on his desk were letters rather than mission reports. There was even a vase she didn't recognize, tied up with a bow, almost swallowed by paperwork.
"That's new," she pointed out, a question in her tone.
The Sandaime sighed a little, giving the innocuous pottery a glance as if he somewhat expected it to try and bite him or something. "It was a gift from the Daimyo," he said.
Handing off her report and waiting as he unrolled it to briefly skim through, Akaiko gave the vase a closer look. The negative spaces between the blue forest designs were shaped to look like dogs; given who it was from, it must have been intended as a particularly unsubtle message about the relationships between the hidden village and their country's leader.
With a chuckle at something in her report—she mentally cheered—the Hokage finished scanning the scroll and set it down on one of the rare patches of free space on his desk. "Report."
Akaiko stood at attention, and began recounting her observations from the past week with confident efficiency. There wasn't really anything new: just who had dropped by to see him, and who he had dropped by to see. The shop had become fairly popular among those who knew it was there, and she kind of thought that a lot of the regulars who shopped there now sometimes came around just to visit—even if they always left with a new knife or ten.
Sarutobi-sama smiled when she added that little observation.
When she finished, he leaned back in his chair with a sigh. He unrolled her report again, rereading some parts of it again more carefully. "So tell me," he asked, looking back up, "in your own opinion, what do you think of him?"
That was an easy question, but she still took a moment to think. Akaiko never let her opinion sway her reports—she was a professional, after all—but she knew that the smith was a friend: a somewhat strange one, but a friend nonetheless.
"Honestly, he seems harmless to me." A shrug. "If it weren't for… well, you've read the reports. Mostly just the chakra thing. Other than that, I'd say he's just your average civilian."
He nodded, looking thoughtfully down at the scroll in his hands. "Alright then. Report again in one week and, assuming nothing new comes to your attention, we will end surveillance."
She brightened, noticeable even with her still wearing her white koi mask. "Should I bring flowers for your fancy new vase next time I come in?" she asked, only partly joking. "Crane has been going on and on about gifting flowers lately."
Which was almost an understatement: her ANBU partner—Inochi Yamanaka, ANBU infiltration specialist and part-time flower saleswoman extraordinaire—had been basically shoving bouquets at her for weeks now. Akaiko was already forwarding those flowers on to Axel, so bringing some for the Hokage would be no trouble.
The Hokage did not seem interested in that prospect. Actually, he looked positively against it, though at least amused at the idea of his highest ranked shinobi delivering flowers on a whim.
She bowed, turning to leave, and then a thought made her pause.
"Hey, so…" Akaiko grinned sheepishly. "If you're not planning on using that vase, would you mind if I took it off your hands?"
=X=X=X=
The blue and white vase sat on the floor beside her, a new card she had just written—in hiragana, since she knew that Axel still wasn't that great at reading—tied onto its ribbon.
She stretched, glancing over to the house across the way to make sure that nothing had changed. A quick chakra sweep didn't tell her much besides that fact that Axel may or may not be in there, but she was mostly checking that nobody else was in there anyway.
As it turned out, there were four somebodies in the shop; five, since Axel was almost definitely present if there were customers. From their chakra signatures, she figured it must be a jonin-sensei and their little genin students. One of the genin was familiar to her chakra sense—that green-spandex kid stopped by often enough that it would be stranger if she couldn't recognize him.
Akaiko lifted her mask slightly to scratch her nose, shifting ever so slightly to keep herself from getting stiff keeping the same position for too long.
Stake-outs were always either nerve wracking or mind numbing, with no real in between. And given she was spying on Axel—the funny, altogether harmless civilian whom she considered to be a close friend—this instance fell squarely under the boring category.
No offense to the smith, of course: it's a good sort of boring. The ones without the ever-looming threat of death were better for her health anyway.
And besides, she would only be stalking him—or rather, surveilling him with explicit permission from the government—for one more week. After that she would probably be given some time off, then back to the usual missions.
She smiled at the thought, though a little sadly. It would be nice to not need to think of Axel with 'suspicious individual' perpetually tagged in the back of her mind.
Akaiko ducked behind the sill as the shop door swung open, relying on her chakra sense to track the young genin team as they left and made their way down the street. She could catch some of their conversation, but mostly only the very loud parts: so basically just whatever the one in green-spandex said. After a few minutes, she popped her head back up and resumed her bored vigil.
A familiar whisper of chakra slipped into the room, and she turned her head slightly to see her ANBU partner with almost a full armload of yellow roses.
"Hello!" she greeted, keeping her voice hushed but still somehow infused with friendly energy.
Akaiko eyed the flowers somewhat skeptically, even if the expression would be lost behind her mask: Inochi knew her well enough that she would be able to tell just from the head tilt. "I wasn't expecting you to bring back the whole shop, Crane."
"It's fine," she replied, her free hand gesturing the coded hand sign for 'all clear' as easily as a shrug.
"Actually, it isn't—the vase is not nearly large enough for all of those."
She tilted her head to the side, probably smiling behind her crane mask. "That's alright, I'll just leave what you don't take around T&I. Liven it up a little."
Of course—yellow rose decorations were just what the Torture and Interrogation Department needed. The bright color would complement the gloom and fear so well.
She chose not to comment.
Inochi settled herself by the vase and got to work arranging the flowers into something presentable; it wasn't something Akaiko could be trusted to do on her own. Flowers, while a subject every kunoichi studied in the Academy, was not her strong suit.
With the yellow roses next to blue porcelain, Akaiko couldn't help but be reminded of the color of his eyes under blond bangs. Of course, Axel's hair was not nearly as yellow as these flowers were, though the shade of blue just about matched his eyes. Not perfectly—his eyes were brighter. Or maybe deeper. Different from the vase, regardless.
Akaiko shook her head, and realized that her partner had apparently finished with the arrangement and was watching her. Probably with an annoyingly smug look on her face, hidden behind her mask.
With an almost teasing flip of her wrist—who knows how she managed that—Inochi signed 'advance on target'. Then, with a rather significant nod toward the house across the street, she pushed the vase of roses a little closer and added a cheeky 'aim for the heart'.
Behind the white koi mask, Akaiko rolled her eyes. Her partner had a tendency to look for drama and romance in everything. Actually, thinking about it, every Yamanaka she had ever met had been the same way: maybe it was just another clan genetic thing.
That's beside the point.
Making a mental note to get back at her partner for that signed implication later, Akaiko flicked her hands through an adamant denial.
From her body language, Inochi seemed unconvinced.
Well, too bad for her.
Akaiko could tell that she wasn't going to convince her partner of anything fast, so she just sighed and turned back to the house across the street again. With one hand tracing along the side of the vase, the smell of roses rich and fragrant in the air, she waited for her chance to deliver her present.
=X=X=X=
There was a vase sitting by the register, filled with a new set of flowers: yellow roses, apparently. The mixing bowl they usually would have been sitting in was nowhere to be seen, but presumably had been relocated back into the kitchen where it belonged.
It was a nice vase, to be sure—decorated with delicate branching tree patterns painted on in blue over a pure white base.
The issue was, of course, that Axel didn't actually own a vase.
Or at least, he hadn't.
A note tied around the narrowest part of the vase informed him that it now belonged to him. The note also teased him a little bit for having not owned a vase in the first place, as if that was simply an item every household was expected to own.
And maybe that was the case, Axel sure as heck didn't know. Maybe ninja were all closet flower enthusiasts or something. Minato may very well have a secret stash of prized perennials for all he knew.
The mental image of his friend hunched protectively over a patch of colorful flowers prompted an amused snort.
As if summoned by his thoughts, the bell hanging over the front door gave a cheerful jingle and his friend called out, "Hey, Axel." Minato sounded pretty tired. He was scrubbing a hand through his hair as he came around the corner, mussing his blond locks into a disordered mess. "I have another mission tomorrow and need to buy some… more…"
He spotted the vase and drifted off, frowning a little to himself.
Axel waved a hand in front of his friend's face to reclaim his attention. "You okay?"
A slightly confused blink brought Minato back into focus, and he pointed to the bouquet of flowers. "I've seen that vase before. It was on the Hokage's desk just yesterday."
"…It was what?"
"Yeah…" It was like the memories where coming back slowly—he must be more tired than he was trying to let on. "He said it was a joke or something."
Regarding the vase now as if it might explode into a billion pieces, Axel asked, "How did Akaiko get it?"
Minato smiled and sent a glance out the window, enunciating clearly. "I'd imagine Hokage-sama pawned it off on her. He didn't look particularly happy with it."
From across the street, likely having read his lips, there was a confirmatory flicker of light that Axel didn't even notice.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
The ninja shrugged. "Not sure," he replied. "I'm sure it's fine. Just don't break it, you probably won't get another one this nice."
Axel tapped the porcelain thoughtfully, admiring the skill that must have gone into the shaping and painting and whatever else is involved with pottery; it was true that it was probably the single most expensive thing he owned now. Except maybe his laptop which, being from a different dimension, was a completely priceless unique item.
He twisted the ribbon around so that the note wasn't hanging on the side customers would be seeing and, as an extra caution, shifted the vase farther from the edge. It really would be a shame if it broke, after all.
Author's Note:
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
I think we all know who the prick is in this chapter: Danzō.
Though if you said that the prick was, in fact, the author for posting literally under an hour before the deadline… Okay, that's fair. Sorry.
So what do you think Orochimaru and Danzō are up to at this point? Canon is a bit tricky to parse out, since as far as I can tell there aren't any real set dates. And while I have a timeline I'm working off of, there's not a timeline out there that can contain all the things that might have been going on and when: there has to be at least a full non-stop week's worth of content in this show.
So really, any advice or thoughts on it would be greatly appreciated!
By the way, Inochi is not the same person as Inoichi. The names are similar—maybe too similar—but different. Inoichi is Ino's father, while Inochi is Akaiko's ANBU partner.
Do you think I should change her name? And if so, got any name ideas?
Oh man, how is this semester almost done already?!
(Just imagine distant noises of distress at this point. It's accurate to how I'm feeling.)
Updates on the 15th of every month. Though I'm cutting it real close today.
Thanks for all reviews, favorites, and follows—and most especially for putting up with this almost-late update! You are all amazing, thanks for the support!
See ya on the flipside, everyone!