Chapter 62
Baki (one month later, approximate time: 9:00 AM)
In an ordinary mission for an ordinary shinobi village, civilians like those with political affiliation to the Land of Wind daimyo would pay a shinobi village for service. Escorts, babysitting, discreet poisoning. Half paid up front and half after the mission was completed. The second half, sent via check or wire transferred to Suna, and the civilian (whoever it may be) would be given the contractual understanding a shinobi village representative would be sent to collect that second half with an additional retrieval fee if it went unpaid.
The shinobi village, in turn, would pay the shinobi sent to complete their given mission. But the mission Baki had been sent on was no ordinary mission. Nor was the Land of Wind daimyo made aware of any of its happenings, much like nearly everything Suna did since the daimyo's disavowing of Suna's services in favor of Konoha. No, the long series of missions Senior Joseki—on behalf of the Council—sent Baki on came out of the Council's own budget.
It was hardly the first mission to come out of the Council's own budget, and it would not be the last, but Baki found it curious when he realized it.
Now en route back, Baki threw a look over his shoulder as he traveled from the last outpost he scouted. His two mission teammates—who he suspected early on plainclothes ANBU with loyalties to Senior Joseki himself—ran behind him. Their mission: the verification of the existence of various Oto bases and the assessment of their threat levels.
"Considering your luck locating the body of the last Kazekage, we expect this mission to go successfully," Senior Joseki had told him before his mission scroll had arrived.
It was a statement that could have been interpreted in a multitude of ways depending on Joseki's definitions. But to what would be Katiya's benefit, Baki decided to interpret Joseki's words literally. And to that effect, his written reports would detail exactly what he had seen with a lack of speculation.
Katiya (one week later, approximate time: 9:00 AM)
"Coochie coochie coo—coochie coochie," a mother said to her child in a shopping cart seat, "Coochie coochie coo," she said as she lightly pinched the child seat with each coo.
Gaara rubbed his cheek absentmindedly. He could not say he remembered anyone doing similar to him, Yashamaru having been blocked by Gaara's sand in his later years and Katiya not being one for physical attention.
"Gaara, stop staring. You're going to scare the baby," Katiya said without looking, her eyes fixed on the ingredients list of what looked to be a canister of preserved meat.
Gaara flicked his eyes to Katiya. They were in line to pay for the week's groceries, the mother and her child in another line. He used to go grocery shopping with Yashamaru before it was decided his control over the sand was too unstable, Yashamaru then sending clones out with money to shop instead. Combined with the years his father instead delivered food to him after that day to keep him away from civilians he could possibly kill, Gaara couldn't help but feel he missed the experience of grocery shopping.
Even now, Gaara knew Katiya was being careful to only go to stores and market stalls willing to tolerate him.
Katiya put her canister of meat down, noticing Gaara was staring at her, rather than the child. "Mm?" she hummed in question.
Gaara shook his head.
Katiya sighed. "As gratified as I am there's a restaurant that sells Land of Waves styled cuisine in the middle of a desert, I swear, the food isn't the most authentic," she said, taking Gaara's silence as a cue to say what was on her mind. "Lamb is not something you'd ever find in a proper Land of Waves styled sandwich."
"Is that why you are purchasing pork?" Gaara asked.
Katiya narrowed her eyes. Pork and its derivatives were considered unclean for consumption per the local civilian religions, making it a rare find even in a village populated by less religious shinobi. Though, while she was indeed purchasing a type of imported preserved pork, she suspected it was not quite the kind she desired. What she was after, closer resembling a Vietnamese cha lua, not… American-style spiced ham.
"Ye—" Katiya hesitated.
"Oh my—wait, is that who I—what is he doing here?" someone apparently unused to shopping at that particular store yell-whispered two lines away.
"—es," Katiya said, narrowing her eyes. The issue of having trained in Oto to have her ears be more sensitive even without pushing chakra to them appeared to not only be loud sounds being more grating but also the ability to hear… stuff like that.
Katiya turned her head to the speaker. It was a pair of what would appear to us to be hijabis, both civilians, the lack of gear suggested. The speaker, in floral pink and the other in a more muted navy blue. Katiya turned her head back.
"I never tried this type of pork before, but I'm trying to find one like what I used to eat with my parents," Katiya told Gaara before fixing her eyes to her shopping cart to disguise her eavesdropping.
"Uhh, yeah, that's Gaara and his friend," the blue speaker replied. "They shop here every week around this time."
Katiya lifted her brows, pleasantly surprised. The one in blue did not call her "Gaara's girlfriend" like she both expected and dreaded.
"What is this?" Blue's pink companion continued over Katiya's thoughts, "Some kind of low-end publicity stunt—? That the Jinchuriki's suddenly better now? I had a cousin..." Pink trailed off and out of Katiya's auditory range, anguished. "How are you okay with him just being there?!"
Gaara suddenly stiffened, knowing intuitively the comment was directed to him. He heard that. Katiya spared him a glance and looked at the civilian pair out of the side of her eye.
"Hey, hey. It's okay. As long as you mind your own business, they'll mind their own business," Blue replied.
"My cousin—!" the pink civilian woman admonished before breaking off into tears. Her friend hugged her, shushing her.
Gaara breathed, looking to the other shoppers that gave a large berth around him. "It was an accident," Gaara would want to say to one in particular before stopping himself, the words on the tip of his tongue. That wasn't quite true. Even when he was younger, he knew what he was doing even though it was true the desire to kill wasn't innately his.
Katiya met Gaara's eyes. "You okay?" she asked him.
Gaara gripped the fabric of his bodysuit but said nothing to her in response. Gaara took a breath, then with a shake of his head, slowly walked across two lines of shopping carts to stand in front of the woman whose cousin he apparently killed. The other shoppers and what Katiya knew were her disguised ANBU guards, parting the way. Gaara stopped a few meters away from the civilians that had spoken.
Gaara addressed the crying civilian woman quietly. "I cannot bring the dead to life, but I am sorry for the role I played in the death of your loved one," said Gaara, bowing deeply, "If there's anything I can do to make it up to you, I am at your discretion."
Katiya's lip quirked. She needed to tell Gaara just how deep and how long an appropriate bow was supposed to go, Gaara's bow extreme. The curl of her lip deepened. And aside from that, she couldn't help but feel making individual apologies to every next-of-kin of the people that died was a waste of time and energy, opening one up to being used at worst or doing nothing at best.
"How 'bout you stop shopping here and die already?" someone asked under their breath. It was the person behind the mother and child in the line next to hers. The mother ceased her cooing.
Katiya frowned. She remembered when she and Gaara first started shopping there. People had simply given them wide berths and quietly went about their day or equally quietly vacated the store. People were getting bolder. Gaara stood from his bow. Katiya wasn't sure he heard the last speaker though so at a loud enough volume for the front half of the store to hear, she turned around and moved to reply for him.
"You do know that he's a Jinchuriki, right?" she asked rhetorically at an even tone, leaning her back over the handle of her shopping cart. "A demon host," she flicked her eyes over the crowd, resting them on Gaara before looking back at the last speaker. "When a Jinchuriki dies, the demon they carry is freed to reform and attack again," she recited from Oto's various files, deciding to ab lib the rest. She neglected to mention the reformation can take years, the reason why a demon might actually choose to help their host.
"His control over that demon's actually what keeps you alive. Would you really want to risk it booting him out of this store like dozens he's killed have?" she asked, the possibility of Gaara having done that before being plausible. She hadn't been around if it did.
The shopper looked down to their cart, averting their eyes shamefully. Good. Katiya flicked her eyes back to Gaara.
"Will she be okay?" Gaara asked the civilian woman in blue. Her companion, sobbing hysterically now from his proximity.
"I think she will be," Blue replied for her friend. "I think she will be."
Kankuro (the next day, approximate time: 10:50 AM)
Since Gaara's transfer into the standard infantry of Sunagakure officially marked the disbanding of the team he had been on with his siblings, Kankuro was free to take missions as genin in the standard infantry or puppeteer ones with the Puppeteer Corp. The one he decided to take, surprisingly, was with the two genin Gaara actually teamed up with on his first mission with the standard infantry.
"D'you think we might be able to take some of the wood for our own personal puppets?" Yaoki asked Korobi as they traveled back.
Both of them were close friends from what Kankuro was able to ascertain from conversation. Both of them, dressed similarly with their faded Puppeteer Corp uniforms under regulation chunin flak vests, had been unofficially promoted under Lord Rasa. Not that similar promotions were going to happen for a while without a Kage now, Kankuro knew. The reason why he wasn't similarly sporting a chunin flak vest himself. Not that the unofficial rank meant much.
"You have to submit an application," Kankuro told the pair behind him, him at the lead. The wood they were transporting, actually dense leadwood from the southwestern Land of Wind, the reason why he took the mission. Each one of them, carrying about a dozen cubic meters of leadwood sealed into giant Storage Scrolls. "If it goes through, you can get a cut of the wood," he said.
Denser than the desert ironwood the original maker of his Karasu and Kuroai puppets used, and denser than the Puppeteer Corp scrapwood he used to rebuild Karasu after the Aburame kid from Konoha mangled it with his beetles, Kankuro planned to switch out out the wood for his two puppets. Desert ironwood for leadwood. Give those beetles something harder to chew on, Kankuro thought to himself.
He also considered drenching his puppets in insecticide as a preventative measure but the issue was that most insecticides tended to have a distinct smell to them. And thinking back to the possibility of being tracked by scent, that would've had a negative effect on stealth, which was valuable to a puppeteer. Another option he had in mind was to create a metal puppet, but that also ruined stealth, being flashier and clangier.
Plastics, maybe? Kankuro thought as sighted what were (relative to us) rudimentary oil drills in the distance, the Land of Wind being a major exporter of oil-based plastics. But we don't have the molds to do that, Kankuro frowned. Not to mention the fact the puppeteer traditionalists would kill me.
Kankuro bit back a sigh. "So what're you two planning on doing with your wood if you get some?" he asked the pair.
"Upgrade our puppets!" the pair crooned in unison.
Kankuro felt a bead of sweat drop in exasperation. No duh. "Uhh, yeah. I meant what upgrades. I'm hoping to make my puppets insect-proof."
Korobi was the one to respond. "Heh, the both of us are hoping to recreate the 'specialty puppets' we received but were actually an attempt to assassinate Gaara—" Yaoki nudged him "—I mean your brother—" nudge again "—I mean one of our former teammates!"
Yaoki groaned. "Don't tell him that—!" he exclaimed.
Kankuro smiled at the antics. "Don't worry about it, you two. A well-made puppet's a well made puppet. And I'm guessing they were well-made?"
Korobi sheepishly rubbed at his neck. "Heh, we think so. They got destroyed before we could even try them out in battle though. We've just been using the older puppets we built ourselves since the 'specialty' ones from the Puppeteer Corp got destroyed."
"So did you ask Senior Takeo for the schematics or are you rebuilding them from memory?" Kankuro asked.
"Memory," Yaoki groaned. "The schematics are still classified, but we think we know the water blasters used come from seals on the puppets but we don't know how they work or what they look like."
"Ah," Kankuro replied knowingly. "I think I might be able to help? I've been working on learning basic Sealing Jutsu myself to carry more puppets." That, or discreetly hide them.
"Ooh! Can you please?" Korobi asked.
"And maybe teach us how to control more than one puppet? We can so far only do one." Yaoki added.
Kankuro smirked to himself. Most puppeteers only controlled one or two puppets but it was said a puppeteer's skill depended on how many puppets they controlled. The legends did up to ten or more. Kankuro was working on trying to get control of a third.
"It's pretty easy," Kankuro started, launching into explanation as they traveled back to Suna, "You just have to remember the chakra strings you make are just the medium to imbue chakra into your puppet. And from there, it's just like stretching. Stretching with your chakra to be able to cover and control more area once the string meets the puppet body wherever it might attach."
Kankuro smiled to himself. These were some of the first shinobi to accept Gaara as a friend. And as he was finding, they weren't so bad themselves.
Gaara (approximate time: 2:00 AM)
"… A demon host," Katiya repeated from Gaara's memory from earlier in the day, "When a Jinchuriki dies, the demon they carry is freed to reform and attack again," she had said. "His control over that demon's actually what keeps you alive. Would you really want to risk it booting him out of this store like dozens he's killed have?"
Demon, Gaara mentally repeated, unsleeping as he watched the stars. When he had slept when he was younger, his mind would have been plagued with nightmares and the yowls of Shukaku, whose voice was not dissimilar to nails on a chalkboard. Shukaku, threatening to attack whenever he slept back then.
But since hearing from Naruto, during the Chunin Exams, he was finding it easier to coexist with himself and thus with Shukaku. He knew who he was now, beyond the endless bloodshed Shukaku begged for at times. He was not alone as a Jinchuriki. Nor was he alone as a person.
Biju, Shukaku replied suddenly, breaking out of his more recent silences after his host's personality change. Naruto's work. BIJU! Shukaku exclaimed.
Gaara blinked. "Tailed beast" the term would translate to for us.
Bjiu? Gaara mentally repeated.
Shukaku nodded. Us BIJU onLy beCame knoWn as "demoNs" becAuse of PeskY HUMANS. The PRoPER term is "BIJU".
Gaara blinked. He wasn't entirely sure, but he felt as if Shuaku's voice was less grating than usual as he processed the term the latter had used.
—And yoU can teLL that frieNd of youRs it'S "BIJU" too!
Shukaku harrumphed into silence again as Gaara mentally repeated the word "biju" in his mind.
Baki (the next day, approximate time: 3:00 PM)
Baki stood at attention from where he was at the front of the Council's main meeting chamber. A number of the Council members had requested an in-person briefing of his mission details, hence Senior Lord Ebizo arranging the meeting. If Baki noticed how his mission teammates were absent from the meeting, however, he did not show it. But with him being the de-facto team leader at the time, perhaps it was not so strange.
"Baki, welcome in," Ebizo called as he shuffled his papers. "My colleagues and I just have a few questions for you regarding the last series of conjoined missions Senior Joseki, on behalf of the Council, sent you on."
"Of course, sir," Baki replied, standing at attention at the front of the chamber. While he was not being grilled as he was when two of his students tried to defend a defecting Oto-nin, one could glean the sense the Council meeting was not the place to disregard decorum.
"Councilors?" Senior Ebizo prompted.
"... Is it true? Are we to believe that this 'Katiya Shiratori' is correct? That there are indeed Oto bases at the coordinates she listed, and some of them within Land of Wind territory?!" one of the councilors asked.
"That is correct, as I have detailed in my written report. I had identified and scouted three conjoined Oto bases located in the northern Land of Wind and yet another satellite base located to the northeast, sir."
"We've all read your written report, Baki," Senior Erusa enunciated. "What we're after are the details you may have left out, such as for security purposes. You can understand that, of course."
"Of course, sir."
Written reports were liable to interception from spies, which shinobi tended to be wary of. It was therefore not uncommon practice for sensitive information to be redacted on reports until an in-person briefing by whichever superiors requested it. But what Baki felt Senior Erusa was implying was the redaction of information to serve his own purposes.
"Did you make contact with any of the shinobi in the Otogakure military base? Or order any members of your team to make contact with any of the shinobi in the Otogakure military base?" Senior Erusa asked.
"No, sir," Baki replied. "As the mission was reconnaissance only, my team did not engage with the Oto-nin we observed, though a member of my team had sent a small spider puppet equipped with a sensory seal and a camera into all of the bases we surveyed. The resulting photos were developed and should be attached to the written mission report of his, sir," Baki said decisively.
"Were you aware of or in contact with any rogue Sunagakure shinobi that may have defected to Oto as part of this reconnaissance mission?"
"No, sir. Though from the sensory puppet's photos, I had identified what appeared to be a holding area, possibly indicating there may have been shinobi held at the bases unwillingly. My team was unable to ascertain their origins, however."
Several of the councilors exchanged glances. They didn't like the sound of that.
"Some of the information provided by Miss Katiya relating to the Land of Fire was relayed to Konohagakure per our alliance," Lord Ebizo said, changing subjects. "They also had an attack from the Akatsuki somewhat recently. Were you able to ascertain any indication of Akatsuki association with Otogakure? Orochimaru was said to formerly be of the Akatsuki by Konoha."
"No, sir," Baki replied. "But as our former alliance with Oto did not show signs of Akatsuki involvement, I don't believe the Akatsuki is still associated with Orochimaru or they would have also taken part in the invasion."
Lord Ebizo nodded his head, as if coming to a decision.