DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto universe.
Thinking (+ flashbacks, "Mito speaking to Kurama in her mindscape," etc.)
Emphasis
Bijuu, etc. speaking
Bijuu, etc. thinking
"I sealed Karin's healing ability," Tsunade said when Mito questioned her about it. Shizune nodded; her fingers threaded together as she sat on their mentor's desk.
"So… Can you please explain that in more detail?" There were several ways that Tsunade could do it and Mito couldn't help but feel even more concerned now.
The Slug Sannin closed the book she was studying and stretched. "The scrolls you brought from Uzushio really helped, brat. The girl can still heal herself. But anyone that tries to take Karin-chan's blood or chakra forcibly will be poisoned - and they'll get a nasty shock that should knock them out."
"Excellent. I'm really worried, though. What if her team or village wants revenge or something? What if after Karin-chan was approached here, they blame Konoha and, being unable to immediately get to us, they try to hurt her." Or worse.
Tsunade tapped her finger on her desk. "I treated her without her team being present after Shin reported, telling me about her. I gave her some ideas to tell her team about why things had changed: why she might not be able to heal anyone anymore. –Uzumakis and their ties to the gods - especially the gods of death and the sea, the weather - those kinds of things that terrify people. Plus that all Uzumakis are supposedly born with only so much chakra to give before it sours; that age is a factor." Which was bullshit, of course. "PLUS - don't tell your father - I gave her one of your hiraishin kunais."
Mito felt her eyes well up with tears. "So I should be ready for the call. You told her how to use it, right? And… that means you need another one, too." Tsunade rolled her eyes but Mito released a few from the seal on her hand.
The older woman grimaced. "I still can't get used to those seals. How many kunais do you have stored in that hand?"
Mito scratched her cheek. "I need to count them, I guess. Last I checked, I had around two hundred in there."
Tsunade snorted and shook her head. "Why?" The last she'd heard, Mito used them by multiplying one in the air when she needed to.
"I don't know," Mito cried uncomfortably. "It's easier just to keep them all in one place! I'd like to think I'm a fairly organized person, 'ttebane. But back to Karin-chan: I - I'm sure I'd recognize her chakra signature…"
"You're not allowed to kidnap her. Minato told me the same thing."
Mito huffed and plopped down into a chair. "So BEYOND uncool. I'd totally disobey orders if I didn't fear I'd be needed here with all of this Orochimaru shit going on."
Tsunade allowed her head to drop back and sighed, carefully running her hands across her face and patting her cheeks, making sure she didn't mess up her makeup even though she wanted to hide. "How are you handling it?"
"Orochimaru?" Tsunade nodded. "I'm disgusted. How about you?" Tsunade had known Orochimaru since they were both small children.
"I… don't understand. –Or at least understand how we missed the signs early on." Orochimaru had always been different but much of that "difference" was attributed to his genius. THIS, however, was something entirely different. "I've known there was something seriously wrong with him since he brought me in to consult on some of the orphans he'd taken in. Before that: it was just a feeling I had," she mumbled to herself.
"Why then?" Mito asked. "Seriously, what would make a man of that age decide to do something so vile? The only thing I can think of was the death of his sensei."
"That wasn't when his descent into psychopathy began, though, was it?" Tsunade reminded her darkly. "Tenzo's proof of that - and he's one of the few that survived that series of hellholes Orochimaru claimed were labs. Anko-chan? She went through some shit with him when you were at the Temple before he marked her with a curse seal. He'd tried to leave her at one point."
"Leave her?" Mito rubbed her arms, trying to hold back a gag. "She never told me that."
"Oh, I heard about that," Shizune said quietly, remembering the tale well. "Orochimaru claimed it was an accident - but he told Anko that he left her with those pigs to try to save you."
"When was this?" Mito asked in a small voice. And what do you mean by "those pigs?"
Tsunade scoffed. "You weren't in danger. It was about a year, year and a half after you were sent to the Fire Temple. He claimed he'd received intelligence that you were to be taken."
"I didn't know." Oh, Anko…
.
Going about one's daily business as if an attack wasn't imminent was supposedly the right thing to do. When ordered to simply act like herself, Mito wasn't sure what to do. The last thing she wanted and WOULD do was question her identity right now considering that she'd turned from a med-nin into a murderer/murder instructor.
So she blew it off and may have taken her frustrations out on her student. "Yikes."
Sai lay in what was now mud. When he asked Kurenai-sensei if he could have Mito-sensei train him, he didn't think he'd drown as an outstanding impression of a pincushion. This was definitely not something he'd draw, had he survived. He was fairly sure he was going to die.
"Sai," Mito sang, skipping over to her drowned downed little brat. "How are we doing? You didn't dodge!"
"Can I speak?" Sai asked himself out loud. "I can. Yet I cannot move. Perhaps I am in the afterlife?" He tried to glare at his chuckling sensei who had come with him (meaning he was in Hell) but couldn't move his eyebrows. "I will avenge Sai."
"Okaaaaaay," Mito drawled a little worriedly now, bending down into the mud to begin pulling senbons out of her student. She carefully twisted each one up and out, drawing her chakra back as she gathered each and scolded him for getting dirty. "We're gonna have to take you to the hospital or hot springs, scrub you clean, and then I guess… Hmm. If you try to expel chakra from your body and all these tiny holes, if you will, we can be sure you don't get a little infection or something. Little ones can lead to big ones!"
"I am aware, She-Hulk."
Mito hummed, not having paid attention to what he called her. "Let me go through my scrolls; I'm sure I have some ointment that you can slather yourself in once you clean up."
"Considering it might turn me green, I don't want it."
"What?! –Never mind - and Tough! Don't make me tell your brother on you, Sai."
"He will be on my side. I will tell him that you attempted to assassinate me."
Mito rolled her eyes. "Nah!" After gathering her senbons and putting them in a seal to sterilize later, Mito picked her student up and helped him walk to the onsen after carrying him for a while.
"Make sure you clean up really well, Sai!" There were several people she knew (and quite a few she didn't) here. She let Sai limp off toward the men's section of the onsen with his antibacterial cream and strolled back outside to see if she could find Jiraiya. A big green toad was standing guard; he waved a little salute at her and Mito wished that she could remember his name.
The toad's arms were crossed and his swords were on his back. "You've grown," he said. He recognized Mito from her hair. Either of his older summoners used to occasionally drop her off on the mountain when she was a very small child during the war when things got too hot. They were both small then.
"So have you," Mito replied with an easy smile. He scoffed. Mito sighed; she'd forgotten that he was one of the very serious toads.
"Is Jiraiya trying to… you know?"
"Absolutely not," he sneered. "Minato-sama would never allow it. He's enjoying time soaking with Sora and Naruto. They were doing some training here, as well."
"That's actually a good idea," Mito nodded, deciding to drag Sai over to the outer, unfenced section where people generally played around in swimwear or what have you after they had a nice soak. Sai had earth and water affinities and they'd been working on earth techniques all morning. She was also tired of Sai flinging ink all over her everything.
After scrubbing down, Mito peeked outside and saw Kurenai and Shizune along with some of the little Genins Shizune trained at the hospital enjoying the nice, hot water. Deciding to make a splash, Mito jumped up and in, completely dousing them all. Water went flying MANY meters into the air before she used a technique to make it all return. –It was a good way to ensure they couldn't really get a look at her body, particularly that one scar she despised so much.
Unfortunately, it nearly sent some of the little girls flying. "How's it going?!"
Mito grinned: even the men on the other side of the fence were loudly cursing her, personally. It seemed Jiraiya had outed her, having seen her use that jutsu before. She used to use it on him when she thought he might have been peeping on women.
Shizune pushed her wet hair back and figured her mascara was running down her face. "Just get the surgery to reduce the scar again and stop screwing around!"
"Aw. You know me too well! How's it hanging, Kurenai?"
"I am not saying something perverted, Mito." Her friend pouted at her but Kurenai felt like a drowned rat and didn't appreciate it. Mito, it seemed, wasn't going to let up as she was tilting her head this way and that, looking more and more like a cute but sad, wet kitten. She was oddly adorable. -Those little whisker marks above her cheekbones were killer! "Fine. 'It' doesn't like cannonballs, is now entirely too wet - but is still hanging quite nicely. It's quite long and sleek." Kurenai knew she was blushing like mad but Mito cheered for her and Shizune was snickering behind her hand. "Bakas. I don't know why I hang around either of you," she lied.
"What are you two up to today?"
"The Ame Genins that competed in the Chunin Exams are finally being discharged today. –I've been on call all night," Shizune sighed, deciding to float in the water. She glared at Mito just in case she would try to dunk her as she used to do when they were kids.
"And I'm scheduled to escort them to the border," Kurenai said. "I really need to be going soon. What about you?"
"I've been training Sai and…" Mito stopped, frowning at the Yamanaka heiress who had snuck out to peek at the boys. "You've gotta be kidding me."
Shizune looked up to see what she was talking about and bit her lips. "Kids that age are curious, Mito."
"Hmm. YAMANAKA INO, STOP TRYING TO PEEP ON THE BOYS." Mito snickered as Kurenai glared at her. She had tried to make her voice sound icy-smooth and in a timbre like Kurenai's and it seemed she was successful. Ino had returned, red and shame-faced to the water. Mito actually appreciated Sakura smacking someone for once - although from their loud argument, it sounded like Sakura had put her up to it: daring the blonde to take a gander.
Both of the girls turned to her, each looking murderous. "We know it was you, Mito-sensei," Ino hissed.
"Hm?" Mito asked, playing innocent. "I don't know what you're talking about, you little perverts."
"NO ONE - ESPECIALLY NOT KURENAI-SENSEI - IS AS LOUD AS YOU, SENSEI," Sakura accused. A voice from the other side of the onsen made the pinkette cower.
"OI! SAKURA-CHAN! I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE OVER THERE, "TTEBAYO!"
"Naruto?" both Genin kunoichis shuddered. "NO! HE'LL TELL SASUKE-KUN!" Both girls began wailing while their senseis shook their heads at their antics.
"I guess I was a late bloomer," Mito said in disbelief. "I don't think I had anything near a crush on a certain guy until I was mid-way through my teens and it was nothing like THAT." Kurenai got up to leave, leaving her with Shizune, whom Mito planned to dunk as soon as she let her guard down.
"What are you doing today?" Shizune asked.
"I thought I'd take Sai out for something to eat and then if his chakra reserves return to an acceptable level, train with him for a few more hours. Would you like to come with us? …Better still, I'm going to play with a seal I've been interested in for a while now!"
.
"Yosh," Mito muttered excitedly as she was led into the Konoha Strict Correctional Facility. She snorted at the name of the place when she first got there. What? Was there a Konoha Lax Correctional Facility where the inmates stayed in jail as a result of its brilliant picnic lunches or school-like dances?
"So! Anything you can tell me about this shithead?" Her Chunin escort's brown eyes went wide and Mito gave him a somewhat apologetic smile. The guard was just a kid.
Her target, though, was a shithead: the same shithead that had attacked her brother and - from what she understood - his own best friend: that jerk that stood her up, Iruka-sensei.
"Mizuki-teme," as Naruto now called him, had undermined him at school early on and then as he got older had been negligent at best and a major asshole the rest of the time. If I'd been in Konoha, I would've beat the shit out of him the first time he looked sideways with Naruto. The second time? –Well, he would've been unable to continue abusing children in his (or any) career if he'd lived at all.
"Uh, not really," the Chunin said. "He mainly stays to himself although he's made friends with a couple of real degenerates: Fujin and Raijin."
"'Fujin and Raijin?'" Mito parroted in disbelief. "Someone named kids after the gods of wind and lightning? Wow. Their parents didn't put heavy expectations on them, did they?"
The Chunin grinned at her. "They're brothers, too! Ah- so troublesome! Actually, Mizuki-san is usually good with them: has a tendency to calm them down, you see. Frankly… I've found it worrisome."
"Is that right?" Mito asked. "Have you informed your superiors?"
"I have," he said sourly. "The warden will want to meet you Mito-hime."
"Jonin Namikaze is fine, Chunin Nara."
"Troublesome. I meant no offense."
"You didn't offend me. But I have no interest in meeting your warden unless I have to." Especially if you've reported your worries about Mizuki's relationships and he's done nothing. Mito couldn't be sure of that but didn't care to look into it more; she had enough shit going on.
She felt the loser's chakra up ahead and warned the kid what she was going to do in a whispered voice.
"You are not allowed to enter, got it? That's an order." The teen's eyes had gone wide as she described a bit of her initial plan.
.
"To what do I owe the great pleasure?" Mizuki drawled from behind a book as he lay in his bunk. Henged, Mito was allowed in, shut the cell door behind her, and turned to him with a slanted grin. Mizuki was glaring at her, trying to figure out why she was there, undoubtedly. When she felt his interest turn to lust, the only thing she could say was "gross." She slapped a silencing seal with a genjutsu component in it down as she grabbed him with her chains, making a clone and slamming him into a chair. "You! You bitch!"
"That's enough out of you!" Mito slapped his back with a paralysis seal and got to work, tearing his shirt off while he continued trying to fight her. "Interesting!" Mizuki's seal was pulsing with fucked up chakra not his own - much harder than Anko's. "Tell me, did you allow Orochimaru to give you this seal or did he force it on you?"
Mizuki called her really awful names that eventually made her hide a snicker. She could imagine that he did believe her to be a "fuckfaced, scarred-up freak of an Amazonian monster." She tapped him on the temple. "I asked you a question, asshole."
"Fuuuck," he eventually groaned after a lot of other utter nonsense. The damnable man was about to pass out on her from the tiny love tap so Mito healed him a bit but almost wished she hadn't. "Lord Orochimaru will prevail," he slurred. "I give my body, my soul, my devotion…"
"Sure, sure, but what about before? –Did you allow him to give you this seal?" She pulled back her fist as a vacant threat and he began crying, making her feel bad (a little,) before he admitted that he DID let Orochimaru seal him, pissing her off! He began cursing her again so, getting a wild hair, she yanked the seal in two directions, opening it across his shoulder, down his arm, and back, making him scream. "Sorry. Not really sorry."
"Transform" is the part of the seal that's different.
Something's not right with this thing.
I'm not sure whether Anko has that part of the seal. That's too bad. The seal was close enough to continue investigating it, though.
Mito's chains kept the edges of the seal wide open as Mizuki whimpered or hollered and she realized that aside from that one part of it, the seal's components were just like Anko's. Mito had her clone put down one of her most reinforced storage seals and used scalpels to try to pull that part out. As she did, her clone watched with interest as Mizuki turned into some kind of tiger man.
"That… was unexpected."
Mito would've snorted because it sure as hell was - but that part of the seal had activated! She slapped a silencing seal on him so she wouldn't have to listen to him scream (and snarl, sounding like he was a bulky man-sized Tora) then knocked him out, feeling guilty as he REALLY began fighting her.
"Wow!" That had been unexpected! "Pretty creepy."
The clone began laughing when Mito turned Mizuki around and got a good look at the tiger man. Her original's eyes had gone wide and her face had lit up in a fiery blush. She was obviously uncomfortable but her eyes seemed to be drinking in the humanoid tiger. "Pervert."
"I'm not a pervert," Mito insisted as she internally cursed her clones, "YOU'RE a pervert!"
The clone nodded. "Tiger Man's lookin' real good," she said cheekily, giving the original Mito two thumbs up and a big wink.
Mito scoffed but couldn't really disagree: if he wasn't that asshole, Mizuki, Tiger Man would probably be bone-jumping worthy. Who knew I might have a furry kink? It wasn't worth thinking about, she told herself.
She began trying to pull out whatever had been in the Transform part of the seal - it was a liquid - so changed course and used a syringe. A few syringes: there was a lot of odd fluid in there. She gradually transferred the solution to a large vial and handed it to the clone so she could further secure it. "Now for the quirky part of this thing." Mito swallowed hard as she observed it because she KNEW the chakra inside that other part: it was Orochimaru's. Now that the seal was opened and a bit diluted as much as it was, she could actually feel him. "Fuck." And now his seal really does look exactly like what I can see of Anko's.
"This might get messy," she warned her clone. Inserting her forceps, she changed course when her anxiety surged. Careful of what she was doing, she tapped the traitor's forehead and searched for answers through the Yamanaka-ripoff technique she'd used with Naruto - just in case pulling that shit out would kill him Mizuki before she gained more answers. Noticing a very interested Kurama on one side - maybe I'm not doing this right - she shrugged at him and tried to search through Mizuki's corrupted mindscape and memories. She eventually glimpsed what she was looking for, feeling sick as she watched Orochimaru bite Mizuki after the former Chunin gleefully pledged his life to the Snake Sannin, having been promised power.
She was knocked out of the jutsu by the pain of the seal. "God!"
"Are you alright?" the clone asked. Her original was rubbing her shoulder as if she'd been marked. "You were in there for over an HOUR, Mito."
"No shit?" Mito took a deep breath after her clone nervously nodded, shoring up her courage. Mizuki had only had that seal on him for a little over a year, she inferred from what else she'd seen. "Get the other storage seal; I think this thing's alive." The clone looked at her in disbelief but quickly did as she asked, bringing out a modified, reinforced body scroll. "Good. Hold that one close to Mizuki's seal, please." Reaching in with her forceps, Mito pulled, and this time a snake (an actual snake!) of malevolent chakra and... SNAKE came out, wriggling and fighting her. "Holy…!"
"What the fuck?!"
It was a long fucker, too! "What kind of weird shit IS this?!"
Thank all the gods in heaven and earth that the slippery little bastard went (HIGHLY unwillingly) into the seal. Mito almost snorted at the way her sweaty, pale clone jumped back once the end of the unnatural thing finally disappeared into it but when the scroll holding the seal suddenly sprang open again, they both jumped on the paper, further securing it. "Holy shit!"
And then, naturally, Mizuki went into cardiac arrest. "Fucking hell." Mito supposed it wasn't surprising.
"Secure the seal and I'll deal with this guy."
.
Stabilized but comatose, another one of Mito's clones was dealing with the warden who was losing his shit. "I wish that guy would shut up." She'd brought really extravagant permissions to deal with Mizuki as she deemed fit from her father; what else did he want? A fist sandwich?
Mito could definitely give the warden a fist sandwich.
"Yeah," her clone agreed about the noisy warden. "Boss, look at this." She nodded when Mito's eyebrows rose into her hairline as she looked at what remained of the loser's seal. "The control part of the seal's now gone."
Mito let out a huff of bitter laughter. The seal was empty now. Mito worked at it, eventually sticking a chain in it, and found that the seal was only sucking Mizuki's chakra away: it was reaching for what she'd taken out; sucking at nothing at all. "Gross." She retracted her chain, feeling utterly creeped out.
She was almost positive Mizuki was going to die soon.
"Orochimaru really doesn't know shit about making seals. I bet the elements were tangled together somehow." She rubbed her temples, trying to think of where to go from here.
The question was whether or not Orochimaru had recently "improved" his seal with that mistake, or if he had designed it this way, AND whether or not the length of time the seal had been on affected things - which Mito bet it did. "Goddammit." She needed more information.
It wasn't until she sought out the Chunin Nara's chakra signature there that she realized it was the next day. She made clones to go tell Tsunade and Sai that she wouldn't be in - instructing Sai to seek out his brother if Tsunade said it was okay for training.
"Yo!"
The previously napping Nara kid was in a dark office and jumped as people so often did when they found someone had teleported to their locations. Like any good Nara, his reactions were muted, though.
"Troublesome."
"Yeah, yeah. Honestly, I figured people in Konoha would be more used to ninjas instantly appearing beside them considering what a flash-happy Hokage we have." The kid snorted.
"Flash-happy," he snarked with a lazy grin. "Ah, what can I do for you Jonin Namikaze? You almost gave me a heart attack - and you definitely gave me a lot of extra work."
"Sorry about that," Mito said, not seeming sorry at all. "Can I turn on the light?"
"Uh… No."
"Okay." There was enough light in here, Mito supposed. "Who's your senior medic and what's his or her relationship to your warden?"
"Um," he began to reply, looking around anxiously. Mito-hime put a security array up and he sighed, giving her a look before leaning back in his chair. This really was so troublesome. "Maa, we transfer more serious cases to one of the Konoha hospitals. And the senior medic, believe it or not, is me. As far as the warden goes? I suppose I keep my head down. Please don't ask me to look up." It would be exhausting.
Now it was Mito's turn to snort. Naras cracked her up. "Keep Mitzuki alive for me as long as you can, will ya kid?"
"Do I have to?"
"Yes. I need to see if he can recover although I doubt he will. Don't do too much, though." She tossed a scroll to him outlining what kind of (and exactly how much) care she wanted Mizuki to receive. "I transferred him to the medical bay. That little Aburame Genin on duty said she didn't know how to do some of this so train her up good, yeah?"
"What a drag!"
"Definitely, definitely. Just to make it worse for ya, I'm going to require you to provide me with detailed daily reports on his condition. This is important, Chunin. I've got some seals we can use to communicate with…"
.
Mito went back to her new apartment to get a shower before heading out again for her first follow-up.
"Yo." Mito gave Kakashi a dry look as her tri-pronged kunai stopped his normal one. "What up?"
"Hime-sama," Kakashi eye-smiled, retracting his kunai with a twirling flourish as he genuinely enjoyed the way her red eyebrow began dangerously twitching at his unwanted method of formal address. He looked over her shoulder and tilted his head at his student who had only now given up and was all but slumping bonelessly in her chains. "Too slow, Sasuke."
"Hn."
"Damn Uchihas," Mito whispered to herself. "Soooo," she chirped to Kakashi as she released the brat with a smile. Sasuke wandered over to a tree. "Got a minute?" Kakashi nodded and they began to waltz off together. She shook her head, telling Kakashi about the gross, furious snake she'd found inside a seal.
Sasuke watched them, completely irritated and exhausted from training. Kakashi was a sadist and Mito seemed to be what he thought the guys might call a "BDSM freak," whatever that was exactly. He was fairly sure it had something to do with bondage and the dobe's sister was often wrapping people in chains or using them for weird things. He huffed, wondering why all Jonins walked so damn slowly before noticing the way the Mito-sensei's hips swayed under her long hair. He wished that it wasn't so long: he was a teenage boy, after all.
He turned away, angry with himself for most likely blushing. Uchihas didn't blush. He knew his thoughts were totally normal, though. Sasuke cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest before speaking up. "Do you have food?"
"Maa, hime-sama's always got food." Sasuke nodded at his sensei: he'd heard that - and even seen it in the hospital and at Friday rookie training. Mito narrowed her eyes at both of them.
She heard the kid's stomach growl before Kakashi's did the same. Kakashi - that goof - grinned at her from underneath his very dusty mask and rubbed his stomach in little circles, tilting his head like a dog and wiggling his silver eyebrows at her. She almost expected him to start whining at her. "Oh, fine."
Sasuke and Kakashi looked at each other in combined bewilderment/interest/disgust as Mito's hand and then head disappeared into what had turned into a zipper-like seal on her upper arm. The whole thing looked so weird, they stepped closer to each other, seeking safety or sanity, without realizing it.
"Ah! Here it is! Mito pulled out a couple of paper seals before quickly dousing both males with a Suiton jutsu. "You're both filthy so you're welcome! Here's some soap," she tossed it at the kid first: Sasuke was especially dirty and now even more surly than usual to go along with it: cursing and everything. "No food until you clean up."
.
She sighed as both guys nearly dived for the food she spread out after they did as she'd asked. She hit them with a wind jutsu to dry and slow them down (to save her rations.) "Once again, you're welcome. By the way, you'll owe me for what two you eat, Hatake." Kakashi did whine at that.
Aside from the total lack of ambiance and the way the guys smelled at first, Mito thought it was pretty nice being in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. They were really simply in an unpopulated, rocky area North of the Hokage Mountain, so she stayed and watched them train a little later. Kakashi was pushing Sasuke's speed.
"Aren't you leaving?" Kakashi eventually asked rudely.
"I don't think I will," Mito grinned, pretending not to have noticed as she reclined in a tree. "You haven't even asked why I'm here; you only wanted me for my food." Kakashi shrugged. "What have you two been eating?"
"Rations and dog biscuits," Sasuke answered, looking at his sensei disapprovingly. Mito started laughing although she tried to scold his idiot sensei between giggles.
Kakashi gave his student a look that promised pain. In addition to what Sasuke said, Mikoto-sama had been bringing them each at least one bento daily. "My dog biscuits are excellent." Plus, Kakashi was sure that going without built character.
Mito nodded, believing him. She'd had one of Kiba's biscuits once and that kid munched them with Akamaru all the time for a reason! "I've got some cat treats if you'd like dessert." –Those were nasty, though.
"No thanks!"
"Hey, Kakashi. I'd like to take a look at Sasuke's hickey but I'll need to knock his ass out. I also need you all powered up."
Sasuke scowled at the woman who'd called his disgusting curse seal a hickey. "Do I get a say in this?" he asked. Mito shook her head and Kakashi said "no."
Ninja or not now, Sasuke was absolutely going to tell his mother on them.
"My chakra's a little low," Kakashi said. Mito rolled her eyes which meant she knew he was lying. He WAS tired, though, plus his stomach was finally full again so he'd like a nap. She put down a seal and he asked her why she needed him. Kakashi wouldn't mind knocking Sasuke out, one way or the other: that way he could enjoy his book by the firelight in peace without the brat nagging him to train when Sasuke was way past his limits. "Speaking of being low on power, you look like crap, hime-sama."
"Well that's hurtful," Mito groused. "And stop calling me that! –It's true that I haven't slept in a while, I guess."
After getting some fitful sleep while Kakashi woke her every now and then, trying to dip her fingertips in water, the Jonins decided to knock out Sasuke - but they had to catch him first. They gave him a few minutes start but he could only head north.
.
"That was fun!"
"What do you need me to do?" Kakashi asked. He wanted to go home and take a nice hot shower.
Mito scratched her chin after carefully taking off Sasuke's shirt. She felt kinda bad about this but it was important to get that seal off the kid as soon as she could do it. "I'll create a barrier and I'll need you to reverse the seal you put on him - but HOLD it: don't unseal him." Kakashi was supposed to be a genius so she gave him a few seconds to figure it out by himself.
"That will take a lot of chakra."
"You can do it; I have faith in you," Mito smiled, patting him on the upper arm.
The filthy man was glad she probably couldn't how affected he was by her praise. It was nice to be complimented by a seal master - a seal mistress, he corrected himself - and especially nice to receive a nod about what he felt were his shitty reserves. Most Jonins had more chakra than he normally did (and teased him about it) thanks to the Sharingan but his chakra was dense - meaning that it took him less than half the chakra it would take for someone else to power the same jutsus. The unique and dense white chakra he'd inherited from his father had saved his life more times than he could count. "Okay. I'll follow your lead."
Mito turned Sasuke on his side while a barrier of chains shot out of her back. Kakashi whistled and looked like he winked at her when she turned to him in surprise, making her blush like an idiot. "Go slow with hand seals, reversing what you did before, okay? And push chakra into the seal slowly."
"Maa, don't we need to write the seal elements first?" he asked her cockily. He smirked when Mito seemed not to have thought of that.
"No," she said, puzzled by what he was talking about. Kakashi's seal was already there and Orochimaru's nasty one was certainly under it! "Just give me a sec."
Mito ran her fingers over the seal that was on top, getting a feel for it. She looked back at him but quickly looked away again when she saw that he was watching what she did with his Sharingan activated. You damn thief. "You did a nice job, Kakashi-kun. You sure put a lot of your blood and chakra into this thing. …Okay, here we go. Give me your hands." She placed his partially gloved, much larger hands where she wanted them - feeling a very hot stir deep and low inside of her over those talented, long fingers that she was determined to ignore. "Gently nudge your chakra around the seal; I'm going to drag it out and let you take over."
Mito closed her eyes, carefully spreading her index finger and thumb from the middle of Kakashi's seal outward. Unintentionally whispering what she interpreted in the lines, swirls, and kanji he'd used, the seal slowly began unraveling.
"God Damn!" Color me impressed and a little afraid, Kakashi thought.
"Can you grab it, please? Use more chakra as the seal reveals itself and extend it; keep hold of the end of at least one line!" She grinned as she could sense how excited the man who'd been beside her was. "Got it?"
By now, Kakashi was several steps away while more of her chains held down what he couldn't reach. The whole exercise was taking a lot more chakra than she thought it would. "Fuck." She winced and apologized to Sasuke when, even though he was unconscious, he flinched as she pried open the borders of his curse seal. It looked exactly like Mizuki's. "Well, hell. Okay. Let's close this back up."
.
"What do you think?" Kakashi asked minutes later, flopping down beside her as she gently turned Sasuke over and placed her vest under the boy's head.
Kakashi was QUITE close to her, Mito noticed. She shifted uncomfortably and would swear the baka was smirking at and smelling her. Weirdo! It's not like HE smelled good and she probably didn't smell bad- did she?! She shouldn't smell stinky anyway. She licked her lips and cleared her throat. "I need to do some tests. His seal is just like Mizuki's."
"And?" Kakashi asked. He slump backward and whipped out his book before thinking better of reading it. The last thing he needed to think about was things like that with her here - especially not after she smelled like that when she touched my hands.
And still does. His head was spinning.
Kakashi felt like putting a kunai in her or something.
"That means I need to wait and see if Mizuki recovers before I remove any part of it," Mito tried to explain. "Hmmm. Sasuke has a 'Transform' command in his, too." She reluctantly grinned at the man sitting on the ground next to her. Considering that she needed to wait and see how things went with Mizuki, she might as well kick back until the heat was on again. Plus there was the other thing: would Sasuke turn into a tiger cub/boy if that part of the seal were to activate? "I'm a little worried because, well…
If Kakashi wasn't interested before, he certainly was now. Mito was turning so red he was surprised her face didn't explode.
"Um. Mizuki: you know that Academy sensei turned traitor that I checked out?" Phrasing, Mito: come on, you can do better than that! "Well… He turned into a tiger man."
"Maa, maa! A 'Tiger Man?' What does that mean? …Oi, hime-samaaaa? Why are you blushing like that?!"
"Sh-shut up."
"Hime-sam-aaaa," Kakashi pleaded, smirking like a madman. Later he'd realize how silly he was acting with her and want to crawl under a sea of tree roots when he thought back on this moment. "What are you thinking, ehh? –C'mon now! Tell me! What's a tiger man?"
"Shu- stop calling me that and back off, you baka!" How could Kakashi be such an ass or assHOLE and then be so silly at other times? "You're way too close!"
.
Sasuke eventually groaned, sending the two violent adults who had been wrestling careening apart.
Mito wasn't quite sure what had just happened but one thing was certain: she needed to get out of there and not think about it, ever. "Thanks, Sasuke-kun! Thanks, Kakashi! Ja!" Off she flashed to check and see how Hayate was doing.
"Maa, Sasuke: you've got terrible timing. I was just about to kick Mito-sensei's ass." He REALLY wanted to know what a Tiger Man was.
"Hn. As if."
"What did you say, brat?!"
.
Successfully dodging most of the senbon Sai and Shin hurled at her - after ensuring Hayate was recovering well - Mito went furniture shopping for her new place. She ran into her aunt Momo on her way out of the last shop she found a few items in.
Weren't the civilians going to be evacuated or something? What a drag.
Things seemed so damn normal in the village, it was hard to imagine that an attack could happen at any time - any more possible than it ever was.
She dropped by The Residence, making an appearance at her old quarters and wondering when would be a good time to tell her father that she'd bugged out and gotten her own place. Mito had stuffed her face and fallen asleep by the time a sensor she'd installed had gone off that told her that her father had entered his quarters. As he did whenever he wasn't flashing around, he used the front door: meaning he was tired.
"Yo, Tou-san. You got a minute? I'd like to talk to you about a seal." Her father's exhausted eyes brightened, and Mito sighed, hoping that he would have some ideas for Anko and Sasuke's seals that she hadn't considered earlier.