A pounding on her door woke Aiko up far before she would have liked to return to consciousness. She tried to ignore it, but two sets of grumpy little dog eyes peered up from the end of her bed to glare at her to make the noise stop. Whoever the rotten bastard outside was, he just wouldn't go away. Bitterly, she pulled her comforter off the bed (inadvertently up-ending the smaller dog) and over her shoulders like a cape and trailed out to the front room to yank the door open and glare at the idiot on the other side.
"What the hell do you want?"
Karin was unimpressed. "Are you seriously still in bed? It's eight in the morning." She pushed her way into the apartment without invitation, blithely disregarding the disgruntled expression on her host's face.
'Of course I know the time, but I can sleep in on my day off.'
Or, at least, she could have if Karin hadn't come over. "No, do come in," Aiko monotoned, letting the door shut and slumping in defeat while her cousin shed her shoes and moved into the kitchen.
"You're almost out of tea," Karin informed her practically, going through her cupboards and then to the refrigerator. "And… I think this milk is expired." She gave it a cautious sniff and then gagged, holding the plastic away from her face as though she thought it was an explosive. "That's some foul shit right there."
"I've been busy?" Aiko defended weakly, taking the proffered container and pouring the remains down the sink before rinsing it. "Why are you criticizing my pantry, anyway?"
Karin rolled her eyes and slammed the fridge door before pushing her glasses up on her nose compulsively. "Because I was going to talk with you about your plans for your birthday over breakfast, but I guess we'll have to eat out."
Before she knew it, Aiko found herself corralled into real clothes and pushed out the door of her own home. As if to make sure she didn't wander away, Karin linked her arm through Aiko's elbow and kept up a non-stop commentary on the way. Somewhat unwillingly, Aiko learned that the twins apparently weren't going to get away with going to the yearly festival that was always held on October tenth for their birthday. Karin brought up some salient points—like that this was the first birthday Naruto was celebrating in Konoha in years—and some not so great points, like her arbitrary insistence that a 16th birthday party was more important than the ones that had come before it.
"Oh, by the way." Karin poured an obscene amount of strawberry syrup over her pancakes, light glinting ominously off her glasses. "Why did the team that rotated back from patrol duty yesterday think that you'd been in a fight in the outskirts two days ago?" She cut her pastry into strange geometric shapes with her fork before painstakingly selecting one to eat.
"Because I did? Why did you hear about that, anyway?"
What awful gossips.
Her cousin looked unbearably pleased with herself. "I know everything, Aiko." She leaned over the table and widened her eyes so that the whites were showing. Karin grabbed Aiko's hand to prevent her from recoiling, and slowly hissed, "Evvvv-ryyyy-thiiiing."
"Well, that was weird." Aiko yanked her hand back to her chest defensively, but Karin just gave a little snort of laughter and went back to her food.
"Anyway, did you seriously think that no one would know anything? There was an update in alert status, which could only mean that Cloud had tried something. The only question was where, since they obviously didn't make it to the village, since there weren't any sirens." Karin shrugged, letting her fork scrape against her plate rudely.
'Karin likes the whole 'wartime procedure' stuff far too much', Aiko mused. It wasn't that she liked the increased danger or anything. Karin was just a very orderly person. She positively thrived on things like the uber complicated system for keeping shinobi in the loop that Aiko never paid attention to.
And planning birthday parties, apparently. Aiko couldn't even imagine a universe where she cared about such a thing, but if it got Karin off her back...
~~~
Aiko narrowed her eyes. The pretty little lady in front of her pulled a lip up into slight snarl, leaning further inwards. Aiko leaned in as well, using her superior height to loom, awkwardly contorting so that her elbows were pinned between her bent legs and her torso. After a long period of silence and stillness, Hōseki issued a grumpy little whine and looked away, breaking eye contact.
The human in the room was far too pleased at having cowed a small dog.
Mitsuo huffed and covered his eyes with his paws. He would never understand bitches. They could work out who was dominant later. Right now, it was an excellent time to go for a run. That had been their plan, after all, until his packmates had gotten distracted by the need to have an argument about the optimal arrangement of the cushions on the couch. He rather suspected that it was more an issue of territory and a front for a larger argument and not that either of them simply couldn't bear the idea of letting the other have another pillow.
Especially since neither of them had noticed when he'd dragged the item of contention off with his teeth and lazily shredded it. Problem solved. He sneezed, dislodging the last of the tiny feathers that had somehow gotten up his nose. Ponderously, he dragged the tattered fabric to the kitchen and shoved it under the table.
One benefit to Hōseki's presence became clear once they actually managed to get out the door: she was obscenely fast and pushed the pace. Mitsuo let his tongue loll out happily, feeling the wind created by their speed tug his fur and whip under his vest, sending delightful shivers across the fur on his chest that so seldom felt fresh air. His paws burnt before too long, but he was learning to ignore the pain of soft puppy pads turning to callous.
Hōseki would be good pack, yes. Not a fighter. No. But she spoke fluent two-leg and loved the chase.
A fly buzzed near his ear when they stopped, and Mitsuo lifted his head away from the cool drinking water Aiko had provided to snap lazily at it. The thing fled.
He gave a doggy grin, letting the sunshine warm his teeth. Good run, yes. Vaguely, he noted that his packmates were conversing, but it was in two-leg and rapid enough that following would be a bother. A sniff revealed a person he had not met before was approaching. New person! New person to smell and to meet. Mitsuo leapt to his feet, not even realizing that his tail was already wagging with enough force to knock Hōseki clean over if she was unwise enough to get too close.
His first evaluative sniff determined that this wasn't one of the two-leggers with the bad animals. Good. Aiko had ruffians for friends—toads and snakes and… and… cats. Mitsuo shivered, nose bothered by the memory of feline stink. The motion followed through as a brisk shaking of his coat that cleared out the bad associations from his mind.
Oh. Forgot was meeting new person. Apologetically, he gave a cursory lick to the hand that was stretching cautiously towards his face and shoved his nose under to let them know that they were allowed to pet him, yes.
~~~
'At least he doesn't look too put-out at having dog spit on his hand.'
Still, Aiko gave Iruka-sensei an apologetic smile and reached out to still Mitsuo, who was begging for petting in a manner most unbefitting a trained killer. "Good morning, Iruka-sensei. I hope you're a dog person."
"I haven't been before, but perhaps that was a premature judgment," he replied good-naturedly, bending to scratch behind Mitsuo's ears. She winced away from the loud thump of a doggy foot against the wooden bridge they'd stopped on. That was highly undignified. "Who is your handsome friend?"
"That's Mitsuo," she introduced, before swiveling to indicate the suddenly reserved dog lurking at her right side. "And this is Hōseki. Mitsuo, Hōseki, meet Iruka-sensei. He was my teacher in the Academy."
"It's nice to meet you both," Iruka gamely offered, despite the fact that his welcome seemed a bit lukewarm on one end. "Are you enjoying the morning? It looks like it's going to be a beautiful day."
"I don't have time to enjoy," Hōseki replied testily, hackles raising slightly. "Am taking my human for a walk."
Aiko covered her face with her hands and didn't know what to say to that. Her impulse was, 'I don't need to be walked,' but that was just opening up a can of worms by dignifying the assertion with a response. Worse, it might end with a well-meaning reminder from Iruka about the importance of regular exercise that completely missed the point. He was either a gigantic troll or completely clueless and she had no idea which it was.
"Well, I would hate to interfere." Iruka was smooth, and straightened with an amiable expression as if he hadn't just been told to fuck off by a Shiba Inu. "I hope you enjoy your walk!" He left quickly. For lack of anything else to do, Aiko drained the last of her bottle of water and emptied out the little dish her ninken had been using before she put both containers back in the small backpack she carried for that purpose. It was far too hot to risk dehydrating her furry companions on a workout.
The small dog's attitude improved immediately, and she gave a little leap, moving to face Aiko and crouching slightly before performing some bizarre, wiggly dog dance that Aiko couldn't interpret.
'Must she dance right now?'
"I scared off," she announced proudly, before darting forward to lick Aiko's dangling hand. "We go run now?"
"You did indeed scare Iruka-san off most fiercely," Aiko dryly confirmed. "But he wasn't an enemy."
Hōseki tipped her head to the side, little ears perked. "But you did not want talk," she pushed crossly, picking her paws up and down as if the ground needed to be punished.
"Not particularly, but social obligation is part of being human," she sighed, running a hand through her hair and decided that her ponytail needed to be fixed. The band was slipped onto her wrist and she tipped her head forward as she gathered up the mass, finger-combing out the worst of the tangles as she went. "I didn't dislike talking with him either. When you meet someone you don't know very well, the convention is that you exchange some pleasantries before parting so you know that you're still on good terms."
Mitsuo pulled his head up to give her an accusing stare at her for that statement.
'Oh come on, is the dog really going to lecture me about human social niceties?'
Aiko glared at him through her bangs, but dutifully added, "I'm not very good about it, to be honest. But I think it's considered less offensive to leave than to chase the other person off."
'Probably. If not, I don't care.'
The Shiba Inu took a moment to think. "Should I bring him back here? He wasn't moving very fast. I can catch." She bared her teeth and crouched to take off running, as if to illustrate what she would be using to convince Iruka to return. Aiko bent down and scooped the dog up before she could take off at a sprint, just in time for impatient little paws to skim the ground and start wiggling furiously.
"Maybe later," Aiko said dryly. Automatically, she adjusted the dog in the crook of her elbow and snuggled her like a hefty teddy bear. Mitsuo whuffed in laughter, trotting over to lick Hōseki's face where it was dangling in the air.
'I don't think that'd be any better.'
At least she was trying to understand.
All three of them perked up at the same instant. "Lockdown sirens," Aiko noted, clipped. Knowing what the sound was didn't tell her what was going on, though. "Come on, we need to find out what's happening."
~~~
"Lightning zombies," Aiko said numbly, wondering if information that made more sense would be forth-coming. Naruto seemed to think that pretty well covered things, however. She tried again. "You went off to the fire temple, made a friend, and now… lightning zombies attacked Konoha?"
"That pretty well covers it, yes," he piped up, kicking his heels against the legs of his chair.
She covered her face in her hands.
"You make my head hurt. Please stop talking."
"My thoughts exactly," Sasuke grunted, sullenly scuffing his toes against the floor of the waiting room outside the Hokage's office. "This whole episode was painfully stupid and I can't wait for it to be over."
Aiko opened her mouth and then closed it again. She didn't want to know any more. Whatever had happened, Yamato and Sai were both quiet and scuffed-up from it. The more that Naruto tried to explain about fighting monks and grave-robbing and corpses with special lightning abilities, the less sense that the world made. Sure, she could believe that the whole tawdry affair had somehow concluded in an attack on the village that had lasted all of ten minutes and she hadn't even gotten to be involved in, since that explained the state of alarm, but it was just inconceivable that some idiot had attempted to wipe out Konoha with four zombies. In what world was that plausible?
'Don't think about it. You'll just get dumber.'
She rubbed at her temples. When that didn't help, she stood abruptly. "You know, I can talk to Tsunade-sama later. I'll just let you guys go to your de-briefing."
"Don't be ridiculous," Shizune cut in, causing everyone to look at her as she swept across the room. "Your errand is bound to be much shorter than theirs." She cast a tired look at the sheepish men folded into the child-sized chairs in the outer office. "Come in, Aiko-chan."
"Right."
She followed the medic to the door. Shizune appeared to give not one single fuck for convention and respecting privacy. She proved that by pushing the Hokage's office open and striding in confidently. Tsunade looked up, clearly in conference with no less than three masked ANBU operatives. "Oh, it's you two," she said unenthused.
"My apologies," Shizune started, completely unapologetic, "But I think you'll need this." She passed over a manila folder casually.
"And you?" Tsunade asked dryly, giving Aiko a long-suffering look. "Are you here to make trouble for me?"
"I actually had a thought about the… trophies," she picked delicately, "from the other day. I was hoping I could see the subject I delivered to you that day to confirm a scent sample."
She had headbands from four highly-placed Cloud shinobi, one of whom was their jinchuuriki. Yugito's was easy to pick out, since it had been cut to a smaller size than the others, but she had no idea to whom the other three belonged. If she got a good sniff of C before he was killed or sent back to Lightning, she could seal the scent sample up in plastic in case it was ever needed. It would also allow her a chance to plant a seal on him, since she hadn't in the fight. If he really was the Raikage's bodyguard… well. It might be useful to have a way to instantly access him in the future.
The sharpness in Tsunade's eyes implied that she had similar thoughts. "Shizune. Take Uzumaki to the prisoner." Shizune straightened to attention, giving Aiko a flustered look, but the Hokage's voice was hard. "Do what you have to do."
'That sounds suspiciously like permission to plant a seal on him. He's an amazing sensor… he'll probably know what's happening, especially since I don't have the benefit of doing it in combat while he's distracted. If I can sense chakra in seals, there's always the chance that he would feel it going on.'
The vast majority of sensors didn't seem to be able to detect chakra within seals. The amount contained within a complete seal (and her seals were completed in one piece, rather than being built line-by-line) was pathetically negligible. She'd never heard of someone else being able to sense chakra within seals, but she couldn't rule out that he would be able to sense it as it was put on. There was a slight swell of chakra that bubbled up when she made a complete seal form.
If a massive hint as to the workings of her best technique got out for such a stupid reason as using it outside of a combat situation… well, it just wouldn't be good, that was all. Who would ever be stupid enough to allow her within arm's reach if they knew that just getting brushed by her fingertips could be a death sentence and they wouldn't even know they were tagged? Granted, taijutsu was the bread-and-butter of shinobi combat and couldn't be completely avoided, but it would create more problems for her than anyone else if her opponents knew to maintain distance.
That possibility created complications and reduced the usefulness of her idea. It didn't eliminate it, however.
Team Yamato gave her curious looks when she followed a stern-faced Shizune out of the office, but made no comment.
She ended up choosing to actually paint the seal on the man named 'C'. He cursed and spat at her, but at least he wouldn't be spreading any information about a seal master applying their art by touch.
As far as he was concerned, it was a seal that would prevent him from running away from Konoha. It wasn't exactly a lie: that was one prisoner who wasn't going to escape, even if that purpose was secondary. Most importantly, that excuse didn't give him reason to refuse to return to his Kage's presence. Sure, he would almost certainly get the seal looked at, but she trusted her precautions.
By that she meant that if she felt someone tinker with it, she'd destroy the seal and leave him as a hilariously one-armed armed guard. Hopefully it didn't come to that and he believed her when she said that he'd regret messing with it, but if it didn't, his days of playing Twister were going to jerk to a sudden halt.
The high probability that he would hurry to get his seal looked at (he didn't seem to be a complete moron) gave Tsunade a very small window of time to decide whether or not to utilize the Hiraishin if C was allowed to return to Cloud. But it was something.
Nose full of his scent, she separated his headband from the others once she was outside the room and made a note to preserve it as a scent sample later that night.
~~~
Team Yamato shuffled into the office soon after Shizune had left and fell into a line. Sai stopped slightly too close to Naruto's side, and the blonde gave him a grumpy look that the other boy didn't react to. Yamato briefly gave thanks to the universe at general that he wasn't obligated to try to teach Sai about personal space. He had been getting disconcertingly close to snuggly lately.
"What was up with them?" Naruto jerked his head at the closed door in lieu of greeting Tsunade. Yamato gave him a mildly pained look, as if to ask why he was such a barbarian, but the Hokage answered herself.
"What are you talking about?"
It was not the reply Naruto had wanted. He rolled his eyes and dug his elbow into Sai's gut for the hell of it before indicating the hallway again with a thumb over his shoulder. "Shizune-neechan and Aiko-nee-chyaan! They were all serious and stomping away without stopping to talk about-"
"Shut up, moron," Sasuke sighed, grinding his heel onto Naruto's toes. The droop in his shoulders betrayed that the violence was out of a genuine tiredness and not intent to start an impromptu spar. His blond friend displayed a rare acquiescence to social convention and fell silent with only a mock-glare at his teammate.
Tsunade looked mildly incredulous. "I take it you haven't talked to your sister about what she got up to while you were gone, then?" At the blank stares, she just shook her head. "I don't have time to catch you nits up on gossip, but… Kumo showcased their fabulous ineptitude yet again by sending an eight-man team with the intention of acquiring several high-value targets from the village."
Yamato was pale, but his jaw was stiff. "So it's war, then?"
His solemnity seemed to have spread to the rest of the room, so it was jarring when Tsunade snorted and pushed her chair back. "Hell if I know," she complained, showing them her palms in what was probably an unconscious way of denying culpability. "Kumo might want to pretend that this never happened, seeing as they got stomped by one teenage girl and we now have the Raikage's bodyguard in custody." Thoughtfully, she amended, "To be fair, I think only four of them got stomped, including the Nibi jinchuuriki. The other ones ran."
The group of men exchanged looks of various levels of incredulity and amusement before their captain spoke up, with the exception of Sai who looked like he could have been thinking about repainting his house. Yamato sounded a little incredulous. "Aiko did that?" Tsunade pulled a little proud little smile and grunted in the affirmative. "J-just…" He shook his head, having a hard time processing the information. "Really?" At the confirmatory nod, Yamato let out a low whistle between his teeth.
Naruto looked completely unsurprised- proud, bordering on smug, but not surprised. It contrasted with the pained look on Sasuke's face before his palm hit his forehead with an audible smack. "We were gone a couple of days. That's just ridiculous. Sometimes I forget she's an Uzumaki," he complained in a muffled tone. Naruto puffed up like an indignant cat, but Tsunade was nodding wearily.
"The weirdest shit happens around you kids. I don't know if I want to laugh or cry." When he made a face as if to protest, Tsunade gave Naruto a black stare. "Before you deny that, stop and remember that you're about to explain why the hell four people decided to attack Konoha as a result of your completely inane B class mission."
"They were zombies," Sai piped up helpfully, now that the conversation had gone in a direction he was informed of. Before this mission, he had never had a technical term for the risen undead, so he was pleased to utilize the addition to his vocabulary. He had never thought that Ugly Girlfriend would be able to teach him something so practical.
Tsunade made a small, wounded sound and stared around the room, obviously hoping someone would congratulate Sai on his joke. That, if nothing else, highlighted how off-balance she was. Sai did not make jokes.
"Zombies?" she asked weakly.
Yamato averted his eyes and nodded sheepishly. "Well, I don't know if I would say that… but it's as good a term as any other, I suppose."
She audibly groaned. "I don't get paid enough for this shit," Tsunade whined through her teeth before valiantly trying to get the meeting on track by indicating that Yamato should begin his verbal de-briefing. Naruto made a rude sound that derailed that hope entirely.
"No duh, you don't even get paid enough to pay off all your gambling debts."
Sasuke gave him a completely disdainful look. "The Hokage doesn't get paid, Naruto. It's service to the village and an honor, not a job. She gets free housing and services, but nothing so base as pay."
Naruto blinked at him, genuinely surprised. "Well, that sucks," he declared.
"The peanut gallery needs to be quiet now," Tsunade gritted out, hopelessly frustrated. "Yamato, please translate this mess into something I can explain to the council. With any luck, it'll be buried under the developing situation with Kumo, so I just need you to get this over with for me."
~~~
"Shouldn't you be going to report to Danzo soon?"
"Hello, Sai," Aiko said evenly, still concentrating on the bit of 'Great Expectations' that she was transcribing with slightly too much force of her pen against the paper to pass for disinterested. She'd never been a fan of Dickens, but it was what had occurred to her when she'd sat down with a clean notebook.
He plucked the writing utensil directly out of her hand and sent it sailing into a potted plant without even looking. All she could do was sputter for an instant.
"Sai, what the hell?"
"You weren't paying attention," he said simply, as if that was all there was to it. "I am beginning to suspect that you have no ability to discern when you are on a potentially hazardous course of action. So I must rectify that lack of concern."
Aghast, she stared at him just a little too long, and received a surprisingly vicious poke to her gut. His impassive expression didn't let on to any glee at the violence, which only supported the theory that he was genuinely trying to serve her best interests. Aiko heaved a put-upon sigh and gave him an obligatory glare before she reluctantly put her book aside and got up. While she rifled through her closet to pull out the sleeveless ANBU armor she would need and began to strip right there, Sai followed her just far enough to observe.
'He's being a bit of a mother-hen,' Aiko thought with a scowl that wasn't entirely truthful. 'I guess I'm going to have to put up with a bit of hovering.'
Really, she was a little pleased. It meant he cared, right? Sai wasn't equipped to express that in many ways, so she'd take what she could get.
'I can't believe I thought I needed to talk to Ino about this. What would she know?' Aiko shook her head at her own folly and shot a fond smile at her -boyfriend? Was he her boyfriend? He looked suddenly unnerved, but she didn't notice, too caught up in her own good humor. Ino might be fun to gossip with, but that was hardly an urgent matter. She had already sat on her bit of gossip for a week without it coming to bite her in the ass.
She had things pretty well under control.
~~~
"I find myself pleasantly surprised."
'That's a first.'
Aiko tried not to let her surprise show. She'd been expecting to get a major ass-chewing.
"As contemptible as it is that one kunoichi should happen to do what the entirety of Tsunade's forces cannot, at least Konoha's weakness is not obvious to outsiders." Danzo scowled darkly into the distance. "That upstart in Kumo need not know how poorly matters are being mishandled."
'No, why don't you tell me how you really feel about Tsunade,' she thought sarcastically. Her mask was still on, but still she schooled her facial expression to placidity. He wouldn't be interested in whether she approved of his bad-mouthing the Hokage. There was one thing he probably wanted to hear from her.
"I only apologize that I could not capture the jinchuuriki." Aiko artfully let a hint of chagrin enter her tone.
It was a lie on multiple levels. She didn't regret letting Yugito's teammate rescue her, although Aiko didn't quite understand why she had done it. Had the impulse just been because she'd admired his dedication to a teammate? Or was it that after Yugito had been defeated, her original plan to minimize further hostilities had been plausible again? Or maybe she was emotionally compromised when it came to jinchuuriki because she associated them with Naruto.
Whatever it was, there was no point in agonizing over it. The decision had been made. That didn't mean she particularly felt like explaining that it was no big deal to Danzo or even Tsunade.
When she had debriefed, she had sort of downplayed the part where she intentionally let the remaining shinobi abscond with Nii. Who would argue? Out of context, it would be absolutely insane for someone to seriously expect one shinobi to do more than hold their own against eight others. It seemed almost like an obvious omission to her, knowing what she did about how easily the Hiraishin made it for her to control the field. But if she hadn't practiced with it herself, Aiko wouldn't have necessarily known how easy it was to drag others around with it.
'And if I was just using it by throwing kunai like dad did, then it would be a lot more dangerous for me and more predictable than blind-siding people by moving between pre-existing seals. It's not implausible that such a large group would be able to hold their own.'
Danzo gave her a withering look. "I expect that you succeed upon the next opportunity to take a jinchuuriki for Konoha, of course. But I am not an unreasonable man. Putting seven shinobi on the run like recalcitrant children is impressive enough for a single operative. The Raikage's bodyguard will serve as a prisoner, and your actions have pushed back the escalation of conflict." His generally reasonable words were only slightly undermined by the disgruntled 'harumph' he let out.
"But enough of that. I have a mission for you, Sakura."
'What, now? Tsunade has the village on all but lock-down. Is he really going to risk me being noticed missing?' Puzzled, she followed the old man with her eyes but kept her posture locked into stillness while he painstakingly gathered up a thin folder.
"You may be familiar with this individual."
At his nod, she flipped it open and examined the photograph of the target. She was dispassionately memorizing the information when he began to speak again.
"This man is an enemy of the state. You will find and eliminate him." Danzo sounded bored, dismissive.
It was possibly a test. He was seeing if he could trust her not to flinch at contentious orders like assassinating someone she definitely shouldn't be… like a political official of Konoha who had committed no crimes as far as she knew. It was probably blackmail material as well—a mission that would make it hard for her to turn traitor later without fear of repercussions when she admitted what she'd done in the organization.
Didn't mean much to her. Tsunade herself had ordered Aiko into this business, and could hardly turn her nose up at her for accepting one morally dubious mission. It wasn't like Aiko didn't kill on Tsunade's orders.
'Still, I wonder what he did to piss Danzo off.'
Aiko laid the folder back down on Danzo's waiting hand and gave a perfunctory bow. He seemed quietly pleased by her easy memorization and lack of emotional reaction to her new orders. She wasn't sure if that should be insulting or amusing.
'So little faith that anyone outside his organization can do a simple thing like kill a civilian. I don't see why it would matter. It's not like shinobi can turn noses up at something distasteful.'
Well, Naruto would. But frankly, he should have been a samurai or something. Shinobi could have codes of honor, but they had to either be flexible or creative.
A few days later, an official on the immigration board, a third cousin of the Daimyo, was discovered to have passed away during the night. It was almost pathetically easy to give his heart a minor jolt and force it to beat at a speed his body couldn't cope with. There was a reason that Kakashi had bothered to teach her lightning jutsu despite her lack of affinity. He had passed with a peaceful smile on his face during his sleep, held under a mild genjutsu that kept him from realizing anything was wrong. The lack of visible distress was more important than it sounded: She would be surprised if anyone made more than a cursory check for foul play, though the effect she got could have been achieved through several means, including poisons.
It was the first time she had used the skills Kakashi had taught her on a Fire Country citizen who hadn't been condemned by a real authority. That was one of the largest sins condemned in the ideological institutions of Konoha: you were never supposed to use your skills against those you were sworn to protect. Kakashi would probably be repulsed to know what she'd done. Hell, even Sasuke would.
Aiko didn't see the big deal. For all the taboo, that old man died like anyone else.