"Stop laughing at me, you idiot!"
Kakashi waved his hand slightly, glad he had his mask on, despite the weather. Mito, worried that the chakra she'd used in summoning Buddy and sending off the Hyuuga heiress had caused the earlier explosion, swore not to make that same mistake again. So now he might be a little amused at her getting knocked around by waves as she tried to seal a mega-yacht, and then seal that seal into her ankle.
During a storm. A bad storm!
"Maa. Mi, be careful. Concentrate on your task!"
"Scah-reww you, Hatake," she shouted as she went under again. Kakashi was impressed when the big white eyesore disappeared.
Anytime, hime-sama. I'll screw you anytime. A wave slapped over the back of his head, drenching him. A second wave landed him on his face before climbing on top of the water again - or trying to. "Okay, maybe not right now." Mito bounded over, looking as if even she was sick of the ocean. "You look like a drowned kitten." She pouted. "Not literally." Oh, yes. Literally: she did.
"Regardless," Mito drawled, almost shouting so that she could be could be heard over the storm. "I'm going to draw my chains around you and summon Buddy, providing enough room for him, too, and ask him to quickly head into my apartment.
Yes, she'd already explained all of that. "Maa, I think we're gonna die," he shouted. Were they near the eye of a hurricane? How inopportune. And Mito was a second tsunami, very, very unhappy with him for not remembering the Chunin Exams. She was also pissed that Hinata had been ordered not to tell her sensei (by her father, who was going to be pranked into next month, he was sure.) Her chains went up around them and his breath caught when they started to sink.
At the last second, Mito changed tactics and reverse-summoned them instead.
Kakashi's eyes widened in shock when his Sharingan (which he only had open to keep himself somewhat level - and NOT gazing toward the border, although it immediately shut down, leaving him dizzy,) caught the tail end of an enormous explosion. She hadn't previously blown herself up through a sealing accident: it was the chakra! But why? Even Mito looked alarmed, and then - wherever they'd wound up - she bent her knees, fists up, ready to attack. Huge cats came flying out from every direction. Her hands clapped over his ears and Kakashi ducked to better hold her when they were thrown into the air within her chains, the resort of an earth-splitting roar.
"Hinote, it's me!" she shouted.
Kakashi was apprehensive. When they bounced back down (several times,) the cats were prowling around each other as if they were at war. Then they all, one after another, flopped over.
Stupid cats!
"You brought a wolf." That one was Tora the tiger, infamously known as the 'Other Tora' throughout all the lands. Stealer of snacks, junk-food addict, and strangely omnivorous, as were most of the others. The much-too-large tiger was pouting. Honestly.
"Sorry about that," Mito said, totally unphased, although she kept her chains around them. "I'd like to request transit back to Konoha, inside of my apartment."
"I can do it," Tenga grinned, really wanting to know how the wolf nicked a Sharingan. And why he kept it closed. If he had one, he'd show it off all the time. Kakashi sighed, sounding miserable.
"I…" Mito stopped, looking at Tenga in bafflement. She didn't know he could teleport.
"Anyone but him," Kakashi half-tapped/half-signed against her arm. Fortunately, Buddy stepped on the little asshole, not enough to hurt the rusty-spotted cat, though. Kakashi wished they'd stop playing around.
"You're wet."
"Well spotted," Mito replied to the leopard, smiling when the other cats groaned or snickered. "I need help. As soon as you can manage it. My cubs are in Suna for the Chunin Exams, right now! No one told me." She shot Kakashi another dirty look.
"And you don't want your sire to know you're going back beforehand."
"Exactly. Plus, I've gotta write and deliver my mission report, although I'm going to Suna in the meantime."
Buddy glared at them. That sounded like a lot of hopping. "Not until you're dry."
"I would be honored to do it," Tenga grinned again, lying through his tiny, incredibly sharp teeth. Buddy hissed at him and eventually allowed the wet humans on his back. No way was he giving up his position.
Buddy slept in the living room while Kakashi and Mito got cleaned up. She smiled again shyly when she saw his toothbrush sitting next to hers. He immediately picked it up but she stayed his hand. "You can leave things here if you want." He had other brushes at his place and in his packs. And she loved being with him.
Kakashi inhaled deeply and only slightly bobbed his head. He still had a fresh uniform here and one of his secondary knapsacks had been here for quite some time. "...Watered your plants like you asked," he said, trying to explain the toothbrush. It wasn't like he'd come here roughly once a week to sleep and luxuriate in her scent which had so depleted. Much. "Me or Anko."
A towel wrapped around her, Mito's hands slapped her cheeks after bending over to really look at the little ivy on her countertop. "It's so alive!" She'd never seen one of her plants look so alive! She was terrible about overwatering. "Thank you."
"Not a big deal."
"It is!"
"It's fine."
"Can I repay you real quick?" Mito asked, smiling mischievously.
Kakashi narrowed his eyes at her, but began to smirk. "Thought you'd want to set straight out for Suna."
"They're already in the first task, though, right?" Kakashi slowly nodded. "And I still have to rewrite my report." Mito whipped his towel off his hips, her knees soon softly hitting the floor. She gave his head a kitten lick and winked at him. "Do ya mind?"
Later -
"Pakkun," Minato greeted Kakashi's pug brightly. Ever bored-looking, the pug only yawned, setting a message down on his desk as he did so. "So did Kakashi get to Suna okay?"
Pakkun nodded. Sort of?
"And Mito?" Pakkun shrugged. Minato glanced over to Shikaku who, as he so often did when it came to his dealings with Mito, somewhat teasingly rolled his eyes even as he continued primarily focusing on the latest T&I budget. He sighed and read through the message, suspicious that Kakashi had supposedly left Mito several days ago. "He's in Suna now?"
"That's what he said, right?" Pakkun asked, scratching at an itch under his jacket. "Or at least that's where he was headed. The cat," he nearly hissed, "would only take him so far."
Minato nodded, looking concerned. "Did you happen to see Mito, Pakkun? I know Kakashi went to assist her."
Pakkun yawned. "I think he was able to do something but said… Hmm." Mito had mentioned that she had several different people to report to and that she was reporting different aspects of her mission to different departments. Sounded cagey, and he'd rather not get involved with anything cage-y. "She was fine."
"Thank goodness." Minato beamed over at Shikaku - who snorted.
Pakkun tilted his head at his summoner's former sensei, the Hokage. "She knows about her brats being in the exam, right?"
"...Sure." Minato grinned much too sunnily.
The little pug jumped down off the desk and onto the window ledge before turning back. "Liar." He poofed away.
"Better prepare yourself, Minato," Shikaku smirked.
Minato pulled the edge of his armor away from his neck. Yeah, he was going to pay for keeping her away and in the dark, wasn't he?
Three days later -
Oh, Kami! What? Did she seal the entire ocean in here?! The Hokage's blue eyes bugged out when he saw part of what he was fairly sure was a shark fly by inside the tsunami now in his office as he was hurled, swimming desperately against the currents, into the rafters. Something hard hit him in the side. Ah. My credenza. A shadow yanked him out the window and onto the street.
Shikaku, too, was soaked, plus he had the imprint of a small fish on his unscarred cheek. Minato's guard was drenched, as well. His office window was open yet none of the swirling tides were exiting. Minato glanced at his friend with a proud smile, soaked to the bone. "Nice sealwork, huh?"
"What a drag. You realize your paperwork, and all that other shit's in there, right?!"
Minato's smile dropped. "NOOO! Oh, gods, no!"
"Serves you right, you butthole," Mito muttered to herself, irritated, as she was escorted into the desert. She told her escorts she was only talking to herself and smiled at them apologetically. On they walked.
Kakashi took Buddy somewhere outside of Suna a day or so ago, presumably so he could hurl from the transport in peace before making his way to the kids. That lazy ass wasn't even sure who Sakura had teamed up with! –Although that was mainly because ALL the kids had trained together and had been trying to decide for themselves.
After her report was written, she asked Kei to hang onto it for her, so she could flash toward Suna by her lonesome. Buddy had worked his tail off and she didn't want to tire him.
He and the others had been quite satisfied with the fish she'd brought them, though. Now they wanted to hunt in Suna, or some of them did.
Her eyes narrowed dangerously and she came to a halt, reaching out to feel for familiar chakra signatures that were scattered around widely. Suna's desert sure was vast.
"I can't believe this," Kurama sighed with a slide of his red eyes. For him to call on her like this, front and center in a foreign territory was a surprise. He'd left her alone (when she wasn't bugging him) during those long, long stretches of loneliness during her last mission. "Two containers are in trouble."
"Akatsuki?" Mito asked out loud. Her escorts came to a halt.
"What are you talking about?" a Suna Jonin kunoichi asked tersely.
"I'm a sensor," Mito half-answered, although she was having trouble reaching out to any other jinchuurikis.
Seconds later (and suddenly,) it was as if something plucked on a string, sending vibrations of chakra through the desert and her gut clenched. "Gaara-san and… He's with someone else and is in trouble." This is bad. That was demonic chakra she'd felt!
In her mindscape, she could suddenly see one of them: a girl around her brother's age with the redhead; she was crying. Kurama didn't seem to be hearing the kids because a giant beetle was in the back of her mindscape whispering buzzes and hisses to Kurama who was either wincing or nodding along. Mito sighed, waiting for answers as weapons around her were tapped. "Let me guess," she said to the fox in her partially whited-out mindscape, pointing at the multi-tailed giant beetle. "That one's pissed at you, too."
She KNEW Shukaku was here and trying to hide himself, and he was in trouble! What in the world had Kurama done to piss his siblings off so much?
Kurama looked almost embarrassed but more worried than anything. That wasn't good.
"Sabaku no Gaara is under attack," she told the Suna Jonins urgently. They all looked at each other as if they didn't know what to do.
"He's… in the exams."
"I figured. – Welp," Mito decided when they all stood there twiddling their thumbs. If they weren't going to help she would. Those kids, aside from the presumed Akatsuki in the area were alone, her students a wide but not necessarily safe distance away. "See ya."
Mito flashed away, hiding behind a dune near the action.
PLUNG
A monk - not one of my monks, Mito thought - was attacking the two jinchuurikis, Gaara and a girl, who were hiding inside something that looked kind of like a cocoon. Mito nodded at Lexi, whom she'd summoned as soon as she was close to their location.
"I'll get him," Lexi quietly snarled, salivating.
"No, he's mine, Lex," Mito whispered, shaking her head. "That dickweed's after my brother and it just chaffs my ass when I see weird, shitty Suna fuuinjutsu, besides."
Lexi gaped at her, looking silly. "Why am I here then?!"
Mito gave her a puzzled look, glaring at the monk when he pulled out a huge bunch of the two demon's chakras, allowing it to enter himself. An alteration of a barrier fuuinjutsu; how did he learn that? "You said you wanted to hunt and were one of those I inherently trust to leave the kids alone with. ALL the Genins competing, Lexi! –Don't mess with any of them, please." Lexi nodded and silently trotted off to hunt scorpions, looking back at her a couple of times worriedly.
The monk, a rogue Suna nin that went by the name Hoichi, was using fuuinjutsu. In plucking strings on his biwa, he could extract multiple tailed beasts at once. The technique he'd learned from a previous container was perfect! He'd only planned to take Shukaku but this was even better!
Mito watched him, her eyes widening at what she was seeing, as the fuuinjutsu moved down into the cocoon-thing, ripping it from the jinchuurikis. It was happening faster and faster…
Hoichi's head snapped when he saw a kunai whiz by his face, but before he could do anything, his biwa was yanked away by golden chains and bashed over his skull. Uzumaki!
"Akatsuki, huh?" Mito asked mildly, stringing this kid up in the air between her chains. "Answer my questions and I'll give you a painless death." The monk sneered. Not a very monk-like expression, she thought. "How old are you?"
"None of your concern." She jerked all his limbs away from his body, hard enough to show she meant business. They had a long stare-off and Mito began to laugh.
Now the monk looked a bit wary. "I am… 36."
"Older than me, then." Thinking of what this shithead would've done to Naruto, Mito ripped one of his arms off. "I'll do that every time you fail to answer one of my questions," she told the shocked and then screaming guy. Still holding him above the ground, chains around his remaining limbs and neck, she fried: NO, healed his shoulder as Gaara and the girl struggled to get out of the cocoon-thing. "You were going to kill them." He was ABOUT to kill them; it was no telling how long they'd been in there. For jinchuurikis, their chakra was LOW. "You're Akatsuki?" The monk didn't answer in any intelligible way, so she gave one of his legs a brief yank. "See the thing is, I care for someone who you're hunting. Several someones. Fess up and face justice, dumbass. Be a fucking MAN about it if you're going to try this shit."
The guy glared at her, shuddering. Numbly, Mito pulled one of his legs off. She then smirked, chuckling (and wondering if she'd finally lost her mind.) It's to keep Naruto safe, she assured herself, shoving a chain where she'd "amputated" and feeling her blood sing when she pushed fuuinjutsu down the chain. It stopped the bleeding but the guy sure was moaning and crying a lot. This guy might look young but he was older than even Obito. "I can make the pain stop. Then again, you and your little band of dipshits killed my mother! Her death was senseless, cruel, and painful!"
"I ha- have killed no one's mother!"
"You sure about that?"
Mito laughed, something deep and nasty coming from her gut when his expression indicated how clear it was that he wasn't sure at all.
The trapped girl's voice came from behind her. "Gaara, she's one of us!"
Mito sighed, shivering with rage. The monk had gone from petrified to furious, looking sickened by her mere existence, if his ugly sneer was anything to go by. "Girly, that is not information I want out there. …But I have questions."
"Namikaze-hime?" Gaara panted, shocked silly, and exhausted. He'd almost had his tailed beast ripped out after rescuing Matsuri's team from a rogue Suna fuuinjutsu user who had not only entered the exams but brought down their barriers. "I will… take him into custody."
"I don't think you get it, kid. This guy's hunting us." A Suna Jonin who looked a little like Spock came flying over the dune east of them, running through hand seals and chanting some kind of weird shit. Mito felt other, additional presences incoming but wasn't sure how many were in league with the monk, although several had at least Jonin levels of chakra. More of her chains shot out toward him and she was blinded by a strong, HUGE gust of sand. She (and the monk) went sailing but Mito came right out of the sand flying and spitting rage.
Kurama wanted death and blood. Badly.
So did she!
"Run," she tried to tell the younger Genins, choking out sand. Gaara was trying to fight and placate the Suna Jonin, and blinded, Mito thought the world had gone mad.
"You killed my friend, Kazekage," the Vulcan-wannabe hissed.
Gaara was only (and barely) defending himself, trying to discuss his previous faulty seal, his father and…
Who the fuck cared?!
"You can't–" Mito choked out more sand –"just forgive them, Gaara!"
Suna nins loyal to Gaara finally came to assist but Gaara was being ridiculous!
…
Just before Mito learned he'd been inaugurated as Kazekage LAST MONTH - and what happened to Temari being the placeholder? Hell, even the Taki girl who held the 7-tails, Fu, hadn't known her "friend" was Kazekage - Mito pulled the Akatsuki monk down deep in the sand. And held him there with her chains.
She'd use up all her chakra and soak the sands with his blood, just to prove a point here.
Still half-blinded and with her eyes shut, Mito grinned (sandily, choking every now and then) toward the redhead when he grunted as he tried to get the monk out of her hold, using his sand.
Naive!
My chains may not be as good as my mother's but I'll be damned if I allow anyone associated with her death to live.
.
Gaara was TRYING to be patient.
Naruto's older sister was being an utter BRAT (not a word he used often) and his own big sister had what? Decided that Namikaze Mito was right and he should back down?! Kankuro looked like he found the whole thing amusing, although that was only when the kunoichis weren't watching for his reactions at the door. He needed a way to make her/them understand his side; to foster communication. The enemies were already dead; one buried and in pieces, the other having committed seppuku.
He looked to Temari hoping to telepathically convey that if she wasn't going to fully support him, then why didn't SHE become Kazekage?!
Temari only lifted an eyebrow at him challengingly.
.
Tearing apart then drowning a guy in sand, the enemy of an ALLY or not probably should've phased her more, Mito figured, but there was nothing for it. "So what's this I hear about you and my little brother, Temari? Are you planning to marry him?" she asked her new younger "friend." Her eyes widened when she heard a shout from outside the door after a telling THUD.
"Ehhhh? Hinnn-naa-Tahhhhhhhhhhhhh?"
"Heheh. I haven't seen her do that since Dickless left."
Closing her eyes, Mito groaned into her fists. She was wearing lame chakra cuffs that worked surprisingly well considering that they were made in Suna, but that sound of a body hitting the floor was assuredly Hinata, who probably heard what she had just asked her supposed competition for Naruto's affections. And of course, Kiba's and Sai's voices were easy to recognize.
Beside Mito, Temari smirked at her brother. Gaara looked at her questionably. Boys! So infuriatingly annoying or silly! She's the one who had called for Mito's students! –Had requested that they be held silently outside. Konoha was easy to spy on, the people there gossipped like crazy, so she had a feeling this might work.
Gaara tapped his pen on his desk, having finally figured out something that would make the Namikaze emote - and not like an unrepentant brat. "Something wrong, Mito-hime?"
"Please don't call me thaaaat," Mito did NOT whine.
"Nothing's going on between Naruto and me," Temari told her confidently. She'd planned to orchestrate this conversation but Mito had just walked into it. In a lower voice she added, "And as sweet as he is, I'd like it to remain that way, with us… only being friends."
"Agreed," Mito sighed adamantly, sticking out her hand to shake on it.
Temari thought that she should've been offended but it was more important that she get out of an arranged marriage, although who it was to was still in the air. That way she could stay and protect her brothers and Suna. "Gaara, why don't we let Mito-sama freshen up?"
Gaara ran his hands over his face. "Fine," he relented. "But no further violence within my territory."
Mito gave him a false smile and tried not to roll her eyes. "Sure. –Nobody bothers me or mine, then I won't bother nobody right back!"
The next day -
Gaara dismissed the Konoha teams, having watched to see how Naruto's sister reacted to Temari's manipulations. Since being released from custody, she'd been noisily jovial with a Mist team (who brought her a strange, humorous gift) and one of their additional Jonin-senseis, along with the other Konoha Jonins, but had otherwise mostly avoided her own students. "We look forward to seeing you in a month."
Mito nodded but stayed in place, the last Konoha nin to step away from the village gates. "Kazekage," she said, voice pitched low and serious. "That sweet girl, your friend: Fu." Gaara nodded, looking worried. "I sense the Taki group is right behind us, just leaving the inn. Please make sure they know - no, that SHE knows - to avoid anyone she sees in black coats with red clouds. …That if foreign nins or rogues come looking, she needs to run or… fly or whatever she can do to get away."
Gaara sighed, already quite worried about this. "Agreed."
"And just because someone's not wearing Akatsuki robes doesn't mean they're not a threat." God, how many negatives could she use in a sentence? She shook her head, scoffing. "And those Jonins with her don't give a shit." He closed his eyes and bobbed his head, having had the same feeling - and having appealed to them already. He wasn't sure he was successful.
"I will send their village leader an urgent message."
Mito sighed, hoping that would be enough. Fu wanted to be her friend out of nowhere and Mito had to all but beg her to keep her mouth closed about her (and her brother: thanks Gaara,) as she promised that she would do the same for her. She shoved a hand into her pocket and nodded, giving him a wave goodbye over her shoulder before turning back, focused on Temari, who was behind him. "You do know that I don't speak for my father or Konoha in any way, right?" Temari stared at her blankly, her mouth falling open a little, and Gaara sighed again, looking disappointed. "I didn't mean to mislead you."
Necessarily.
She soon grabbed an even more teary-eyed Hinata's arm and flashed a brief distance away, in front of the other Konoha teams. "We need to talk."
Mito was angry. Hinata needed to get over her schoolgirl crush on her brother. If they'd work out one day, great, but she and her little brother were both being hunted by powerful foes. Plus, Hinata's tears and leaving herself vulnerable around foreign nins BEYOND irked her. –Had scared her silly!
No. Mito was furious with her. "You are BETTER than this, Hina!"