"It's weird not to have Hinata around," Karin groused. Aiko glanced at her cousin without pausing her push-ups. She made a noncommittal grunt in response. It was much less unusual for her—she spent a lot more time out of the village than Karin or Hinata did. Karin almost never left the village on missions except when posted with Hinata and Anko. Since Hinata was still training to be a tracker with her first team, she went on a fair few trips, but they were short.
This one was a bit longer, though, so Karin's restlessness made some sense… Even if her whining did demonstrate what Aiko thought was a strange dependency.
It wasn't like Karin and Hinata would probably be part of a permanent team. The only thing they were really learning from Anko anymore was her special serpentine taijutsu—they had already begun working with specific summons who were tailored to their specialties. With small, fast snakes, Hinata was a rather terrifying scout and infiltrator. Karin preferred to play with serpentine poison. It complimented her specialty in extracting, creating, treating, and reverse-engineering poisons. Although some of her summoned friends were tiny in hopes of using stealth, she generally preferred the shock and awe approach in an actual fight.
Aiko couldn't blame her. If you were going to throw angry, writhing snakes at people, they may as well be forty pound snakes. Why the hell not?
It did make sharing the house a little uncomfortable, to be honest. She had only managed to bring Pakkun over once, before he flipped his lip and started barking.
Apparently, dogs did not like snakes, in person or by scent. Training with the gigantic puppy Pakkun had introduced her to (a fluffy white dear called Mitsuo who she couldn't imagine actually getting in a fight. He was just so skittish and awkward—in that puppy stage where it looked like he was walking on stilts he wasn't quite used to yet after a sudden growth spurt) was complicated by the fact that he downright refused to come within a block of the place. Apparently, snakes weren't well trusted.
'Maybe Anko should move in here and I'll take her old place,' Aiko thought dryly. It wasn't the first time she'd had a similar thought. It totally sucked not to be able to spend time with her summons in the comfort of her own home. The training fields were okay, but… ugh. Just, ugh.
"Hey, are you listening?"
'No', she thought.
"Yes," Aiko said.
"You're a fucking liar," Karin muttered, collapsing indolently onto the pink towel she had stretched out on the grass. "I asked you to toss me the sun lotion."
"Why?" Aiko frowned. "If you're worried about getting burned, why don't go inside?" She quirked her head, and added, "or put clothes on." That was an itty bitty bikini right there. No wonder Karin was worried about tan lines. Nonetheless, she shifted her weight to one foot and kicked the bottle over. Then Aiko tossed her head to dislodge a bead of sweat threatening to roll down her forehead. Ew, so gross. As soon as she was done with conditioning, she would be going inside for a while, thank you very much. Her arms were starting to ache by that point. These types of workouts had been so frustrating lately. It was like no matter how much she worked, she just didn't get any stronger. Her arms had clearly defined musculature, but even Karin showed more raw power when she flexed. Karin hated working out!
Karin propped her torso up with her arms and gave a gusty sigh. "I don't know how I ever forget that you're so clueless," she muttered airily, tossing her hair back.
'Okay, those comments get really old. I guess that's enough push-ups.'
Aiko bent her knees to spring her legs up by her hands, re-situated her weight entirely on her feet, and grabbed her half-empty water bottle as she stood. Then she yanked the contents out in a thin spray that hit her cousin. Karin yelped like a Chihuahua, momentarily stunned by the cold. That delay cost her—Aiko had already given her a grin and shot back into the house.
"You're such a brat!" Karin hollered after her, holding her hands to her mouth. Aiko just snickered, pulling her tank top over her head on her way to the bathroom. It was probably really weird and wasteful, but she always showered and changed clothes between her conditioning workout and whatever else she did that day. It just killed her to wait around in dirty clothes if she didn't have to. She would be meeting with Kakashi in about an hour (hopefully, if he wasn't later than she'd calculated). Aiko wasn't entirely certain what he had planned.
It turned out to be a late day. An hour and a half came and went after she made it to the training grounds. Aiko didn't see hide nor hair of her wayward shishou until she finally gave up and sat down to open her lunch. It was almost one.
"This is not nine-thirty in the morning," she said flatly when she sensed his chakra signature. He just hmm'd and snatched a rice ball out of her tin.
"Really? I had no idea. You see, I was out by the gates, and I thought I saw a dog I knew. I was mistaken, but we had a lovely conversation anyway."
'I'm never sure if it's worse when his excuses are plausible.' She just rolled her eyes. "Yamato is right, you are a mooch, shishou."
"He said that about me?" Kakashi asked in a very false, hurt voice. When Aiko looked up, the rice ball was gone. Then he blinked, suddenly focused on her. It was a bit weird for a second, until… "Good lord, that outfit is an abomination. Did Naruto dress you this morning?"
She threw a cherry tomato at his head. He snatched it out of the air and popped it into his mouth. 'This isn't even that strange,' she pouted. A pink v-neck shirt and white shorts was a bit casual for her to actually work out in, but it was stupidly hot out.
"If you two are done flirting, I thought we were going to be doing some training?" Yamato drawled from somewhere behind her. Aiko made a sound that wasn't much more dignified than Karin's yip that morning and jumped, swiveling to glare at him. He grinned at her boyishly. "If not, I can come back later."
"We need to put a fucking bell on you, cat," she muttered grumpily. Stupid ANBU with their stupid sneaking. Stupid Yamato in particular with his uncharacteristic intelligence in finally figuring out that he could tease her back. Did he know something? Or was that just payback for the 'Yamato Nadeshiko' pun that he couldn't seem to shake? She hadn't meant for that to happen, to be honest. Stupid plebians should come up with their own jokes.
While she was sulking, she'd managed to miss Kakashi's reaction to being accused of flirting like a teenager. One eye narrowed. "You know, you've gotten a little fat," Kakashi mused with sugary concern, giving a slight cringe and obvious once-over to the younger man. "Tenzou, I really think it would be for the best if you ran a few dozen laps around the village to burn off that gut." He flopped down onto the ground and innocently blinked up at him. "We'll wait here for you."
Yamato sputtered, one hand jerking convulsively to his tummy at the same time that he attempted to correct Kakashi about his name, deny the accusation, and presumably whine about being set to run laps like a naughty genin.
Aiko wasn't entirely sure what all he said, to be honest. It was hard to focus when she was so busy trying not to snicker aloud.
'Whipped.' She mimicked the motion behind Kakashi's head, enjoying the way her senpai flushed.
"and you can join him," Kakashi added smoothly. "You'll get fat as a house if you keep eating like that."
Somewhat incredulously, she let her eyes slide over to her packed lunch. Two rice balls, some tomatoes, blanched sweet potatoes and peppers, and a box of grape juice were nestled around a piece of fruit—oh, no they aren't, she noted. Her shishou had already snagged her apple and was rubbing it casually against his pant leg with an amused mien that dared her to say anything.
'Maybe I should have brought another lunch so I could actually eat mine. Does the man just not know how to cook?'
It was hard to imagine him doing anything so domestic as putting together a packed lunch. …Though the mental image was adorable.
When she caught up to him on her second lap, Yamato turned to give her a superior expression. It was mostly ruined by the smirk tugging at his lips.
"Oh, shut up," she muttered, elbowing him in the gut. "At least I'm his apprentice, I have to do what he says. Why are you letting him boss you around?"
It appeared that the thought had never occurred to him before.
Aiko felt a little guilty. Yamato was a nice guy, if a bit of a chump sometimes. It was hypocritical to hold him to standards she couldn't perform to. "To be fair, I wouldn't want to tell him no, either," she sighed. "What if he got disappointed in me for being lazy or something?" She'd never really disappointed him before, and she didn't intend to start now.
"I know what you mean," the man at her side grumbled. In the same serious tone, he continued, "and that's why I'm going to finish my laps first." Her jaw dropped, and she unconsciously kicked up her pace to match his increase in speed. "It'd be a bit embarrassing to match the efforts of a Chuunin," he taunted mildly, easily increasing the size of his strides. It was a bit of a dirty trick to play on someone so short.
She actually didn't mind. 'I didn't know Yamato ever played. He usually seems so serious. First time for everything, then?'
"You wish." She shot back, now full-on sprinting.
He did win. By a good four seconds, which was a helluva long time between shinobi. She was fast, but he was ANBU fast. She faux-glared up at him, working to catch her breath. He looked smug, and then glanced at Kakashi as if hoping for approval.
He just raised an eyebrow, spectacularly unimpressed. She wasn't entirely certain, but it sounded like a disparaging, "puppies," left his lips as he turned away.
Yamato looked mildly devastated.
"What did you want, a medal? Maybe for him to jump out of a cake in his underwear?" she whispered to her companion. Kakashi twitched in a way that implied he'd heard the jab, but was already walking away.
She took the chance to glance over her belongings and take a long pull from her water bottle. As expected, her lunch box hadn't really been touched since she'd left. Kakashi had probably just been teasing, then.
"If you two are done flirting, then," Kakashi mocked with wording like Yamato's earlier. The younger man blushed pink on the tips of his ears. Aiko just rolled her eyes. As if.
"I was thinking that it was probably time to do some team training exercises. It's probably for the best you never had to use your new technique the last time we were out on a mission," he directed at Aiko. "Because I don't think you understand just how much it would disrupt team dynamics."
Yamato eyed her curiously. "So, am I finally going to figure out why you two were growling at each other for two months?" he asked innocently.
"Nope." Aiko popped the 'p' sound and fluttered her eyelashes at him.
"Don't tease my poor little kohai, Aiko-chan," Kakashi scolded absentmindedly. "Now. Do you have one of your special toys with you?"
'That sounded dirty', Aiko thought. Judging by the way Yamato blanched, he'd had similar thoughts.
"No." She shrugged. "But I could whip one up, if you have the stuff?"
She half-expected it, so she didn't even blink when he unzipped his hip pouch and dug out a brush, ink, and a little pad of unlined paper.
'Someone planned ahead today.'
"Make two," he said shortly. Aiko cringed. 'There goes almost half my chakra,' she sighed. But she nodded obediently and flopped down onto her tummy to work, crossing her ankles in the air behind her. She wasn't entirely sure if the other two did anything or just stared silently the whole time, because she was in a world of her own while she drew. Instead of completely making one before she started the other, she inked both out and then sat up. Aiko tucked one safely under the toe of her sandals to protect it from the wind. Then she drew her knees up to her chest and pressed the other one to the uncovered skin close to her heart, closed her eyes, and worked on infusing it with her chakra. No matter how much practice she got at this part, it seemed to be easier if she was in physical contact with the seal. (The closer to a large gate, the better).
It stopped accepting chakra with a shudder against her consciousness, so she blinked her eyes open sleepily and held the paper out to her shishou. "There's one," she yawned. Kakashi frowned down at her.
"Are they really so tiring? I didn't think…" he trailed off. Aiko shrugged, and answered the unspoken question honestly.
"I have no idea, it might just be me instead of the actual seal. But yes, this part wears me out."
He seemed to frown. "Can you make another one right away?"
"Oh yeah," she reassured him. "I've made up to four in a day before."
'Of course, I did end up in the hospital,' she reminded herself.
It was probably best not to share that part. It took a moment to gather her thoughts enough to ignore the persistent buzzing of the super-close seal in her shishou's hand. She hurried through the second seal, before anyone got bored enough to actually take a nap. Yamato didn't seem particularly thrilled when she'd glanced his way.
Kakashi must have noted the stutter that indicated she was done, because he gently tugged the paper out of her hands and exchanged it for a kunai with her first tag already on it before she'd even opened her eyes. "Once you've cleared your head, show Yamato your little trick, would you?"
She blinked the tiredness out of her eyes and managed a nod. "Of course." For a moment she just twirled the short knife between her fingers, coming back to the real world enough to pick a target. She almost wanted to play with Yamato by throwing it close to him, but that would be phenomenally stupid. He would probably reflexively move to bat it away, which would probably end with her getting cut up or knocked halfway across the clearing.
But on the other hand, she did want to showboat a little bit after he'd showed her up earlier. So instead, she tossed the seal-laden kunai directly up into the air, caught it and safely tucked it into her leg holster, and then gracefully flipped in the air twice before landing in a crouch.
'I should practice more of that,' Aiko silently decided as she fell. 'Is there any point in being this in-shape if I never pretend to be a gymnast?'
She desperately fought not to giggle at the slack expression on Yamato's face. It became easier when her shishou cuffed the back of her head. "Idiot," he muttered fondly while she yelped and jerked away. He cleared his throat. "Depressing, isn't it?" he addressed to Yamato.
Aiko furrowed her brow. "What?"
They ignored her. "A bit, yeah," Yamato agreed, sheepishly rubbing at the back of his neck.
She rolled her eyes. 'Ugh, they suck sometimes. I bet even Karin would have been impressed by that. The Hiraishin is cool, even if I do have something better.' The thought gave her reason to be smug even when the boys were mocking her, but she didn't want to let them know she had something else up her sleeve. It might be useful later. So instead…
"Are you done pretending I'm not here yet?" she demanded crossly.
Kakashi blinked lazily at her, as if he didn't understand why she would be grumpy. "As I was saying. We're going to spar, and Aiko is only going to use Hiraishin and taijutsu. You two against me."
Yamato frowned. "How is that working on team dynamics?"
Both of his companions gave him dry looks. "Obviously, he already knows how to work around it," Aiko drawled. "Besides, what kind of help from me could he possibly need fighting you?" She glanced at him. "Maybe he'd be desperate enough for my help if he was fighting the Hokage or something, but I sort of doubt it." She paused contemplatively. "I guess I could be a decent meat-shield for a blow or two, but I'm not very big… contrary to someone's claims earlier." She shrugged. "I could protect you from a Kage from like, your hips down," Aiko drawled.
It was only a slight exaggeration. She hadn't grown in a little over a year. Doubtlessly, even stumpy little Naruto had surpassed her.
Her shishou looked mildly amused, despite her glare. "Moving on."
'Actually, I was going to have Yamato make all the stupid mistakes and learn from a distance.' He smiled slightly underneath his mask. Honestly, how would he have learned to work around Hiraishin? He'd barely been Jounin when he'd last worked with Minato sensei. He would have to have been in ANBU to keep up in that sort of fight.
It was sort of adorable that the two in front of him deified him to such ridiculous proportions, even after he bullied them and took their lunches. There was probably something severely wrong with both of them.
"I would recommend taijutsu for you as well, Yamato," he added idly as if he'd never trailed off. "It would be a shame if you skewered Aiko." The boy glanced nervously as their kunoichi, who was displaying her usual failure to worry about the possibility of bodily harm. It was probably the biggest personality trait that linked her to her brother, but he at least had a terrifying giant demon in his gut that would feed him chakra if he was in danger. Aiko was just somewhat lacking in common sense.
That, or she trusted entirely too much that he would keep her safe from anything. That possibility was a little unnerving, so he dismissed it.
Yamato pulled his hands slightly away from his side, as if itching to make hand signs. Aiko rolled her neck in that creepy, boneless way of hers (the kid was far too flexible, even for a ninja) and fiddled with the kunai in her hands. Kakashi tucked the kunai he'd attacked the other seal to away safely in his thigh pouch. Best not to have anything sharp out.
"Let's try Chuunin level taijutsu first." He blinked at his subordinates—and then leapt backwards, dodging Yamato's premature strike and the way Aiko immediately followed, tossing her knife to his left and reappearing with a fist readied.
'Well, that's already annoying,' he noted, making a water clone in the trees and switching places with it. When the other two rushed it, he dismissed the clone and let them knock into each other in their failed, uncoordinated attempts to rush him. He didn't bother to suppress his snicker. That did mean that a moment later both of them were barreling up the side of the tree.
When he had finally tired out both of his subordinates, (and they'd stopped humorously smacking into each other) Kakashi called a halt to the practice, eying their pale-faced kunoichi warily. She was controlling her breathing in a way that indicated she was carefully modulating it to get the most oxygen possible, but not panting. It was a bit odd. He'd seen her use the Hiraishin a good forty times, which seemed to indicate that she had been practicing with the technique on her own a fair bit. That would have to end.
"Aiko, I don't want you to practice with the Hiraishin alone. Understood?"
For a moment, it looked like she was going to protest, but she nodded in acquiesce. He let a hint of warning into his tone. "I'm serious. Don't think I haven't heard that you hospitalized yourself the first time you tried."
The girl flushed bright red.
'That wasn't exactly what she told me,' he thought mulishly, not for the first time. It was hard to deny that his apprentice was growing up rapidly— she was keeping her distance (Though he didn't miss the impromptu cuddles. Really), getting a girlfriend, making the ridiculous failure in judgment that somehow allowed her to think he wouldn't take basic investigation measures like cornering Tsunade in her office and demanding access to Aiko's confidential medical information…
The Hokage hadn't even argued, which he was both pleased and disappointed by. It was less fun to make himself a nuisance if no one blinked twice at it. In fact, she'd already had the papers with her.
(He'd always been prone to finding amusement at other people's expense, but taking on the tribute of emulating Obito had provided nearly endless, light-hearted ammunition that safely steered him away from his own adolescent cruelties. Obito had always been the better person).
Kami, Itachi disliked that man. For him, that was a very strong expression of emotion, even if he never managed to state it outside of his head.
A deep chuckle filled the air, and Kisame leaned against the wall. He eyed his partner. "You know, we are eventually going to have to do our real jobs," he pointed out.
Itachi didn't bother to answer. He knew perfectly well that Kisame was itching for a real fight by this point. He had been avoiding working on their assigned jinchuuriki, but they would eventually have to take care of that. They would also have to provide assistance to their comrades.
He found the idea incredibly distasteful, even beyond what he had already been forced to do for Akatsuki. At least missions re-funding the treasury were much like any mission he could have performed in Konoha. Extracting bijuu was an abominable prospect, especially since every one that Madara gained only put Konoha in more danger.
At least he'd apparently stopped caring about what Sasuke did or did not do in his free time. Itachi was quite happy to discard those plans.
"You know, I don't think Sasori will wait much longer," Kisame rumbled.
He was correct, of course. They had not been pushed to hurry their capture of the jinchuuriki because they did not yet have the number and strength of personnel to conclude the extractions necessary. It would have been a wasteful effort to capture them and then keep them under constant guard until Akatsuki numbered enough S-class criminals (who were, frankly speaking, in rather short supply). But now that they had a full ten…
Doubtless, they would be brought to task if they accomplished absolutely nothing. It would be easier to volunteer his assistance to Sasori's efforts than move against Konoha's jinchuuriki.
Besides, Itachi couldn't help but morbidly hope that the mere sight of him would one day throw Deidara into such a rage that he detonated Madara.
A man could dream.
Kiba fidgeted, thoroughly sick of being professional. It boggled the mind that his team had been chosen for such a diplomatically sensitive mission.
'I mean, I get why it has to be done, but I don't get why it has to be us,' he groused.
Kurenai-sensei aimed a gently admonishing look at him as if she could peer directly into his soul with those red eyes of hers. Maybe she could. He huffed and kicked at the dirt.
He could accept that it was great that there was this terrible grain famine in Rock country, but-
Kiba wrinkled his brow. It sounded bad when he put it that way, but it really did make sense.
Everyone seemed to forget that he wasn't actually stupid, but he had noticed the way everyone had been on edge in the last year or so. The older population had acted as war might break out at any minute if they breathed too loudly. The aggressors in that theoretical war always seemed to be Rock and Lightning, two of the few powerful shinobi nations that didn't have some sort of alliance with Konoha. It hadn't actually gotten that far, of course, and it was starting to look like it wouldn't. No nation would be stupid enough to start a war on their own.
Rock must have been very desperate to come to the Fire Country for relief with their famine. The countries were on notoriously bad terms, two decades after hostilities officially ended. Kiba lived in one of the most prosperous agricultural countries in the world- (which was by far the largest) he had never known the possible effects of a single bad year of crops firsthand.
But he had read all about it in the Academy. More than one war had been started over a few dozen miles of fertile land, even in the lower elevations more analogous to Konoha. A place like Rock, where the climate necessarily restricted the variety of foods they could produce, was much more susceptible to being extremely affected by minor climate or social changes.
He understood why it made sense for Konoha to defang Rock by providing aid at a cost. If they didn't, Rock would still have civilians starving in the streets. When diplomatic actions failed, they would have to do something to feed their populace, even if that meant starting an unwise war. Of course, by going to Fire Country for help, popular opinion should swing somewhat in Konoha's favor, which would make it harder for the Tsuchikage to justify making trouble.
'Still don't see why they'd want a tracker team,' he pouted.
The supply caravan moving through friendly Wind Country territory now was rather large- if he'd been the one staffing it, he would have provided them with much more back up. They had a team of chuunin at the back end, but that was it. Considering how important this mission supposedly was, it felt like a rip-off.
Okay, so maybe it made a little bit of sense to have a tracker team, if only because trackers were also sensors by nature. Between his hearing, Akamaru's nose, Shino's bugs, and Hinata's creepy eyes and creepy snakes, they would know if a chipmunk sneezed twenty miles away.
But still, he grumped. This mission totally sucked.