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edenfallingThis is the sequel to "The Way of the Apartment Manager," which can be found in clean draft here on ff.net, or in rough draft with comments here on my livejournal. It also has fanart, which can be found here.
I swear to god, Seichi is not a bad copy of Kakashi. His chosen cover persona is not helping me prove that right now... but things should clear up when he and Yukiko get some time to talk privately in the next couple chapters. *crosses fingers*
Also, look! I got Iruka in, and on-screen! *pets poor, flustered Iruka*
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The Guardian in Spite of Herself: Chapter 6
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"'Near the southeastern wall,' she says. 'Track him,' she says," Naga muttered as she flung herself headlong from roof to balcony to roof. "So helpful, Yukiko. How do I track him if I can't get a line of sight?"
Theoretically, no building in a shinobi stronghold should be more than one or two stories high -- there was no sense building towers that would only collapse on you during battles -- but Konoha was lucky enough to stand on bedrock, and the laws about secure foundations were very strictly enforced. Maximum building height, therefore, was defined as 'nothing higher than reasonable.' Civilians stretched the fucking hell out of 'reasonable.' They also clung to traditional Fire Country railings, skyways, banners, balconies, and hanging eaves that -- while they made nice footholds and saved the trouble of jumping half the streets -- made it nearly impossible to get a clear field of vision unless you were a Hyuuga.
Naga scanned her options. There, one street over. That was a nice tower, a good twenty feet taller than anything else in the neighborhood. A running start, a strong leap -- she shot her arms out and caught the crenellated edge of the roof -- momentum and retracting bones pulled her through the air -- and a neat tuck-and-roll flipped her upright in her new vantage point.
Iruka wouldn't take the streets -- he tried to look harmless for civilian parents, but scrape the surface and he was shinobi to the bone. Now, soft focus, three sixty degrees, find the movement that's out of rhythm with the rest of the town...
"Got you." Only three streets over, a stroke of luck.
Iruka was fast, but Naga was faster. She caught up to him just as he kicked off a roof and landed on the side of a three-story building, scrambling toward a top-floor window. Naga anchored her feet to the eaves, pinned her knees together to keep her kimono from succumbing to gravity, and swung down in front of him.
"Screw with Kakashi and I'll kill you."
Iruka's head snapped sideways, and he tucked away a half-drawn shuriken. "Naga, yesterday you were unconscious and nobody knew if you'd wake up. You were in the hospital. He has no business taking you out after someone like Uchiha Itachi."
"Not the point," Naga said. "It's my decision. Itachi almost killed Tsukime. I have to do this."
"There's a difference between revenge and dying because you're not thinking straight! Uchiha Itachi could have passed the jounin exam any time he wanted to in the past two years. He was Anbu. There's no way you're a match for him, not even with Kakashi's help." Iruka scrubbed irritably at his scar. "Think how your partner will feel when she wakes up and you've gotten yourself killed."
"Ahem."
They twisted around to see Kakashi leaning out his apartment window. "Fascinating as this is -- really, Iruka, I didn't know oven mitts were ninja accessories now -- I think a bit of privacy is in order for this conversation." He leaned aside in tacit invitation.
Naga flipped herself through the window, neatly clearing Kakashi's bed; Iruka climbed in after her. She looked around, not bothering to be discreet -- there was no point, not with Kakashi, who could read people like open scrolls.
Kakashi's apartment was all one room, with a tiny bathroom off in one corner. Against the far wall, he had a bookcase full of porn, a weapons chest, and a surprisingly well-stocked kitchen; the back wall held the bathroom and closet; and an overstuffed armchair and coffee table stood next to the door. His bed was jammed right under the window, against a broad sill that ran the length of the outer wall. He seemed to use it as a shelf; it held a few loose books, three potted plants, and two pictures right behind his pillow.
One was a snapshot of Yukiko, Iruka, and Naga all yelling and waving their arms at Kakashi, who was ignoring them in favor of a little orange book. The other was an official team portrait: a black-haired boy with goggles, a cheerful girl with tattooed cheeks, a sour-looking Kakashi (with gray hair and a mask even as a kid, though he had two dark eyes instead of a Sharingan), and a strangely familiar blond man, smiling like a fool as he ruffled the boys' hair.
"Do I pass inspection?" Kakashi asked, his visible eyebrow raised.
"Your quilt has shuriken on it," Naga said, for lack of a better response. What she wanted to say was 'Why the hell do you sleep with your head right under a window, you crazy bastard? Are you suicidal, or just that cocky?' -- but this wasn't time to ask personal questions. It also wasn't time to ask about his old team, or how and why Kakashi had acquired a snapshot from her mother's photo collection.
"Ah," Kakashi said, looking pleased. "I just bought that last month -- I think the pattern suits the décor. Don't you agree, Iruka-kun?"
Iruka pinched the bridge of his nose and took a several deep breaths. He seemed to get a choke-hold on his temper before his face turned any color more interesting than red.
"Hatake-san," Iruka said icily. "I understand that her bloodline limit and taijutsu skills would make Naga a reasonable addition to a team assigned to hunt Uchiha Itachi, under other circumstances. However, you are not a team. You are one man. Furthermore, no ninja should take such a dangerous mission so soon after injuries serious enough to require hospitalization, and a need for vengeance is less important than the need to actually carry out the mission. I would appreciate it if you would act like the adult and authority figure you're supposed to be, and not encourage my friend to endanger your mission and kill herself!"
Kakashi closed his eye.
Naga wrapped her foot around Iruka's shin and snapped her leg forward. He rolled with the fall and shot back to his feet in a heartbeat, but she thought she'd made her point.
She loosened her shoulders, trying to make her posture counteract her stupid kimono. "Okay. That's enough. First, I'm chuunin -- I make my own damn choices. Kakashi gets no say until we start the mission. Second, I was in the hospital for genjutsu aftereffects, not injuries; I'm not deadweight. Third, I won't die. Itachi will." She smiled at Iruka. "Painfully."
"I think efficiency is more important than pain, myself." Kakashi opened his eye and dropped the happy-go-lucky mask. "Iruka-san, your concern does you credit, but there is a time and a place for such care and this is not the time. If someone killed your students, if that person was declared a target, and if you had the skills required to track and kill that person, neither Naga nor I would interfere if you chose to join a tracking or assassination mission." He shrugged, leaving the obvious corollary unspoken.
Then Kakashi crouched and scooped a giant blue mitten from his floor -- an oven mitt, Naga realized after several seconds' blank confusion -- and offered it to Iruka. "We seem to have interrupted your dinner. My apologies."
Iruka flushed, grabbed the mitt, and shoved it inside his vest.
Naga studied the two men. "We done? I'm supposed to be waiting tables. And I need to pack."
Kakashi tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. Iruka scowled. "Are you sure about this, Naga?"
"Yes."
"Then yes, we're done. I apologize for disturbing you, Kakashi-san, and for revealing the location of your home without asking permission." Iruka nodded; a hint of movement in his shoulders converted the curt gesture into the shadow of a polite bow.
Kakashi melted into a slouch and leer; Naga grabbed Iruka's sleeve in anticipation. "Ah, it's only Naga-chan! I'm sure I'd have invited her up here sooner or later -- after all, a bachelor should never turn away a woman, especially not one who wears a kimono so well!"
"Tomorrow, eight-thirty, west gate," Naga said, and dragged Iruka out the door before a new argument could start.
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Sasuke woke shortly after dawn, and spent the next hour or so trying unsuccessfully to go back to sleep. At six thirty he gave up, showered, and forced himself to eat a bowl of miso soup. At seven, Naruto knocked on his door.
"Hey, bastard! Yukiko-neechan's leaving. Grab your stuff and let's go."
He scooped up his pack and opened the door. Naruto was standing there, grinning, with a bag slung over his shoulder. The idiot was also wearing his usual bright orange pants and jacket.
"Change your clothes," Sasuke said.
Naruto looked blank.
"We're trying not to be seen, moron. Orange is too visible."
"Oh! Yeah, you're right. Hang on." Naruto unlocked the door across the hall and vanished inside. He left the door open, though, whether on purpose or by accident, and Sasuke found himself drifting over to look into the moron's apartment. It was a mirror of his own -- kitchen along one wall, bed against the other, and a tiny closet and bathroom in the back -- and surprisingly clean, even if the idiot's idea of extra furniture was limited to a battered couch and a bunch of open boxes. The boxes, at least, seemed to be organized. They were also labeled, though the kanji were only semi-legible.
Naruto emerged from his closet wearing black pants (with orange stripes) and a blue shirt (with a hand-painted orange spiral on the front). "Better?" he asked. Sasuke nodded. "Then let's go. We've got to hurry so we get to the way-station before everybody else. They lead civilians in circles, but they go pretty fast, and I'm not 'zactly sure where the way-station is, and we have to watch out for traps."
He shut his apartment door -- he forgot to lock it; Sasuke didn't remind him -- and dashed for the stairs. Sasuke followed, trying to remember when, exactly, he'd agreed to this plan, and why he'd thought it was a good idea. He wasn't strong enough to fight Ita-- to fight that man, not yet. He'd only get in the way.
But to just sit back and let someone else kill his brother...
He trailed Naruto behind the building, and over to the village wall; it towered above them, yard upon yard of smooth, reinforced wood. "We can't use the gate, 'cause they'd never let us out, or they'd come after us too soon, so we have to climb the wall," Naruto said. He grinned conspiratorially. "Hey, Yukiko-neechan doesn't know, but I've done this lots of times. I'm practicing so I can climb the Hokage monument!"
Sasuke turned from the wall to stare at the moron. "Why?"
"Because! Everybody's too chicken to touch the monument, and I want to see how long it takes people to notice if I sit on the First Hokage's hair, or maybe the Fourth's nose. I was gonna paint stuff on them, but I bet Iruka-sensei and Yukiko-neechan would make me clean it up after, and that would be a pain, so now I think I'll just bring some water balloons, or paint bombs, and throw 'em down at people. Besides, I'm gonna be Hokage someday, believe it, so it's not like I need to be scared of a bunch of statues!"
"You won't be Hokage," Sasuke said, turning to look at the wall instead of the moron's squint-eyed grin. "The Hokage is the strongest shinobi in Konoha. You can't even do Henge right, you're clumsy, you're slow, and you're stupid. Nobody would choose you to protect the village and lead other shinobi." His mind jumped involuntarily to his father, and then to Ita-- "Nobody would listen to you," Sasuke continued. "Nobody respects you. Nobody trusts you."
In the corner of his eye, he saw Naruto draw himself up, reddening. Sasuke was sure the moron would pitch a tantrum and forget about his grand plans... and then Naruto took a deep breath and kicked the wall instead. "I'm not stupid," he said flatly. "Maybe I suck at book stuff, but I make good plans -- I'm good at being sneaky. And the rest of it's none of your business, bastard. Now come on. I cut handholds, and I have a rope to get us down the other side."
There was a better way to climb walls. Sasuke knew that; he'd seen his family walk blithely up vertical surfaces, as if they were walking on level ground. But he didn't know the trick, and Naruto had done a good job cutting the handholds while keeping them nearly invisible.
Sasuke skipped as many of them as he could, kicking off from toeholds and jumping instead of inching from one slash to the next. He flipped awkwardly onto the narrow walkway almost at the top of the wall, and tried to even his breathing.
"Show-off," Naruto grumbled as he scrambled onto the walkway a full minute behind Sasuke.
Sasuke ignored him.
"Sky Country's northeast, right?" Naruto asked. Sasuke nodded. "Yeah, I thought so. Okay, the way-station's a couple miles north of where the road crosses the river. So we climb down, go behind the Hokage monument, and follow the river upstream. The traders prob'ly have a bunch of wagons, and they either left them at the way-station, or somebody took them around while they were in Konoha. If we hide under a bunch of stuff, or in some big sacks, nobody will notice us. But there's always a ninja at the way-station, 'cause of bandits and stuff, so we have to be really sneaky."
This was Naruto's plan?
"You really are a moron," Sasuke said. "I can't get past a real shinobi without being noticed. There's no way you can."
"Hey, hey, I can so sneak past real ninja! Yukiko-neechan's teaching me how to set traps and stuff, and she lets me practice sneaking into her office, and Taizen-san lets me sneak into her building, and I get out of class without Iruka-sensei noticing sometimes, and I sneaked into the Fourth's office once, and I even dyed Kakashi-baka's hair, and stole his pervert book twice, and he's a jounin. So there!" Naruto folded his arms and glared at Sasuke, with the air of someone who'd delivered a winning argument and knew it.
"You wear bright orange," Sasuke said, glaring right back. "That's the most conspicuous color there is. You crash around like a drunk ox in a teahouse, and you can't keep your voice down. You couldn't sneak past a blind civilian."
"Jerk."
"Moron."
"Hey, hey, stop calling me that!" Naruto kicked at Sasuke's shin, and then made a face. "And stop distracting me -- we have to hurry, remember?" He fished a coil of rope -- genuine shinobi cord, both strong and thin -- from his pack, along with a pair of fingerless gloves. Then he looked at Sasuke's hands and frowned. "Um, do you have gloves? I kinda forgot to bring extras, and rope burns hurt really bad, and your hands are already hurt..."
"I'll be fine." Sasuke touched the fraying bandages around his palms, feeling the tender mess of healing scratches and cuts. He could deal with a little pain.
Naruto shrugged and swiftly tied a loop of rope over one of the trunks that formed the wall. The knot looked vaguely familiar -- something like a slipknot, but not exactly -- and Sasuke hoped the moron had been telling the truth about being good with traps. "You first," Naruto said. Sasuke drew a deep breath, climbed over the pointed top of the wall, and skidded down in a semi-controlled slide, his feet braced against the wood and the rope hissing through his hands.
Naruto was right; rope burns hurt a lot.
"You didn't have to hurry that much," Naruto said when his feet hit the ground. "Idiot."
Sasuke glared, but Naruto ignored him and twitched the rope sideways with a slight twisting motion; the knot popped loose and the rope tumbled down to hang in uneven coils over Naruto's shoulders.
"Wrap it while we walk," Sasuke said, and headed north over the firebreak to the scrubby edge of the forest.
Stumbling over a loop of rope, Naruto followed.
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Yukiko walked beside the laden mule, reins held loosely in her right hand. Now and then, she leaned in, patted the animal's shoulder, and praised him for keeping up a good pace despite the uneven footing. Kurenai had quickly left anything that passed for a path, and was leading the caravan over a rich mulch of fallen leaves, moss, and tangled tree roots, pausing now and then to circle around stands of underbrush or well-concealed traps.
They headed directly northeast for about ten minutes, after which Kurenai began to circle. Five minutes after that, a subtle genjutsu rippled out and settled around the caravan. Yukiko forced herself to ignore it at first -- she recognized Kurenai's chakra signature, and this was too gentle to be anything more than a minor perception shift.
After nearly twenty minutes, though, her curiosity won over her common sense, and she started prodding lightly at the genjutsu, trying to figure out exactly what Kurenai was doing. Normally ninja guides just circled a lot while leading civilians out of Konoha. Without a compass, and under the dense forest canopy, that was more than enough to confuse most people's direction sense.
Yukiko stared upward, waiting until a tiny gap in the leaves let a sliver of direct sunlight through. The sun was ever so slightly to the left; they were heading east southeast. She closed her eyes, gently disentangled herself from Kurenai's genjutsu -- it clung more than she was expecting, and tendrils kept trying to wrap back around her -- and looked up again. When the sun flashed through the next tiny gap, it was on her right. Huh. Kurenai was leading them northeast, almost on a direct line to the way station.
That was... actually very clever. Circling was an effective misdirection technique, but it took time, and meant that caravans often didn't reach the way-stations until well after dark. This genjutsu let Kurenai skip at least half the detours without compromising security. By the time she finished fiddling with the traders' perceptions, not a single one would be able to lead invaders to within five miles of the valley, let alone Konoha itself.
Of course, ninja invaders wouldn't need to be guided, but these precautions weren't aimed at other shinobi. They were aimed at the feudal lords of Fire Country, and they had proved effective for nearly seventy-five years, ever since the First Hokage had gathered the scattered ninja clans and schools and founded a stronghold in a rich but sparsely-populated valley near the infamous Forest of Death.
"Yen for your thoughts?" Seichi asked, dropping back from his conversation with the Wind Country woman. His hand drifted to rest on her shoulder.
"Just admiring Kurenai's genjutsu," Yukiko said softly. "She has a deft touch, very persuasive. I shook the illusion off for a minute, and it wrapped me up again the second I stopped paying attention. Barely one in twenty illusionists can reattach genjutsu once a person is aware of the trick -- it's why genjutsu is so useless in open fights -- but I think Kurenai has the knack. If she has a partner to act as a distraction, she could probably make an enemy forget her even in the middle of a battle."
"Useful. But I asked the trader, not the spy." Seichi's voice was soft and flat; his fingers tightened over a nerve cluster, just hard enough to send a rush of pain down Yukiko's arm without truly harming her.
Then his hand slid down toward Yukiko's waist, and his voice snapped back to the cheerful drawl of his cover persona. "Tell me, sweetheart, do you only buy for old Yutaro, or do you trade a bit on the side as well? I'd buy junk from you in a heartbeat, let alone specialty goods... but then, I've always had a soft spot for women with pretty hair." One ice-blue eye closed in a lazy wink.
Yukiko frantically shuffled mental gears. "My business is property-based, so I don't have goods to sell, but I do carry samples for my cousin Yuichiro's cloth shop -- those are in my second bag -- and I take a percentage of any sales I arrange for him. And, of course, if I see a good deal on something that I can unload later, I won't pass it up."
She shrugged off his hand; he was coming too close to her one concealed knife and she didn't want an assassin in her personal space with a weapon in his hand. Seichi could almost certainly kill her with his bare fingers, of course, but edged weapons strung tension along her nerves in a way that theoretical taijutsu skills couldn't match.
"What makes a good deal, Yuki-chan?" Seichi asked, catching her fingers in his. "You don't mind if I call you Yuki-chan, do you?"
"Yes, I do mind." Yukiko scowled. This was only a cover persona, not Seichi's real attitude -- probably -- but she really would slap him if he didn't tone down the smarmy flirting. "As for deals," she continued, "it's hard to say. It depends on the price, and your route, and on knowing what's popular and what's scarce in various places. I can usually trade Fire Country medicines in return for a good deal on silk or dyed linen -- I resell the cloth to Yuichiro -- but there aren't any shortcuts. You have to put in the time and get a feel for the flow of trade."
She shifted his grip on her hand, lacing their fingers together. The foot of space between their bodies was just enough to blunt the edge of her tension, but regardless of Yukiko's nerves or her irritation, she and Seichi needed to act close. A physical relationship was the best excuse for sharing a wagon and seeking privacy at night, and that privacy -- especially in a closed area that she could seal with a sound-based genjutsu -- would be very useful.
"Who here knows you?" Seichi whispered into her ear, leaning down so close that Yukiko felt his breath trickle over her skin. His voice had gone flat again.
Yukiko wished he'd stop flipping personas; it was hard to know how to react to him. "The brother and sister from Grass Country -- you can tell them by the hats -- traveled with me just before the monsoons last winter, but we didn't talk much. They won't be trouble. That stocky man two mules ahead, though, with the boy in tow -- that's Akibana Yoshitaka. He's from Konoha, he knows me, and he knows my uncle." A thought struck her, and she frowned. "Does your cover require you to be from Konoha itself?"
"Aha. Discrepancies." Seichi's fingers twitched. "No. I can come from anywhere in Fire Country. What works best?"
Yukiko patted the mule absently as she considered the options. "Yoshitaka-san sells medicines and medical tools, so he travels very widely... but he sells mostly to hospitals and town doctors, not to farm families. A farm is safest, probably one near the Forest of Death. Very few people go there, so it would be hard to disprove your origins, and if we have to fight, growing up in that area would explain a reasonable amount of skill."
"I'll alter my papers," Seichi said. "Luckily, I'm quite skilled at forgery -- good hands, you know." His voice had settled back into a drawl; mischief seeped into his eyes, veiling the ice, as he added, ""My offer to teach you card tricks still stands."
"Right," Yukiko said, deciding to figure out Seichi's persona shifts later. For now, she'd just play to whichever face he was displaying, and at the moment that was a young man from an isolated farm, who, despite his roguish attitude, was still quite ignorant about the wider world and a trader's role.
"If you teach me card games, I'll owe you," she said, "and besides, my uncle told me to show you the ropes. Let's trade lessons for lessons."
Seichi nodded.
"Okay. Here's my first lesson for you: traders thrive on information, maybe half of which is business-related, and two thirds of which is shameless gossip." She grinned up at Seichi and pointed at the Wind Country woman with their joined hands. "You spent nearly half an hour talking to that woman. Tell me all about her."
"Always working," Seichi murmured. "I see why you're so successful. Tonight, I'll teach you a game called 'daimyo' -- I think you'll like it. And I think," he said, reaching over with his free hand to tap Yukiko's nose, "that I'm going to enjoy this trip... Yuki-chan."
He winked.
Yukiko leaned her head against the mule's neck and groaned.
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End of Chapter Six
Back to chapter 5
Continue to chapter 7
Read the clean version here on ff.net. (Trust me, you want to read the clean version. Think of the lj version as what I'd send to beta-readers if this were Harry Potter fanfic.)
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Is there a name for those cymbal-shaped straw hats that Akatsuki members wear? I'd like to know, if only so that I don't have to keep calling them 'cymbal-shaped straw hats,' because that gets really old really fast.
I swear to god, Seichi is not a bad copy of Kakashi. His chosen cover persona is not helping me prove that right now... but things should clear up when he and Yukiko get some time to talk privately in the next couple chapters. *crosses fingers*
Also, look! I got Iruka in, and on-screen! *pets poor, flustered Iruka*
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The Guardian in Spite of Herself: Chapter 6
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"'Near the southeastern wall,' she says. 'Track him,' she says," Naga muttered as she flung herself headlong from roof to balcony to roof. "So helpful, Yukiko. How do I track him if I can't get a line of sight?"
Theoretically, no building in a shinobi stronghold should be more than one or two stories high -- there was no sense building towers that would only collapse on you during battles -- but Konoha was lucky enough to stand on bedrock, and the laws about secure foundations were very strictly enforced. Maximum building height, therefore, was defined as 'nothing higher than reasonable.' Civilians stretched the fucking hell out of 'reasonable.' They also clung to traditional Fire Country railings, skyways, banners, balconies, and hanging eaves that -- while they made nice footholds and saved the trouble of jumping half the streets -- made it nearly impossible to get a clear field of vision unless you were a Hyuuga.
Naga scanned her options. There, one street over. That was a nice tower, a good twenty feet taller than anything else in the neighborhood. A running start, a strong leap -- she shot her arms out and caught the crenellated edge of the roof -- momentum and retracting bones pulled her through the air -- and a neat tuck-and-roll flipped her upright in her new vantage point.
Iruka wouldn't take the streets -- he tried to look harmless for civilian parents, but scrape the surface and he was shinobi to the bone. Now, soft focus, three sixty degrees, find the movement that's out of rhythm with the rest of the town...
"Got you." Only three streets over, a stroke of luck.
Iruka was fast, but Naga was faster. She caught up to him just as he kicked off a roof and landed on the side of a three-story building, scrambling toward a top-floor window. Naga anchored her feet to the eaves, pinned her knees together to keep her kimono from succumbing to gravity, and swung down in front of him.
"Screw with Kakashi and I'll kill you."
Iruka's head snapped sideways, and he tucked away a half-drawn shuriken. "Naga, yesterday you were unconscious and nobody knew if you'd wake up. You were in the hospital. He has no business taking you out after someone like Uchiha Itachi."
"Not the point," Naga said. "It's my decision. Itachi almost killed Tsukime. I have to do this."
"There's a difference between revenge and dying because you're not thinking straight! Uchiha Itachi could have passed the jounin exam any time he wanted to in the past two years. He was Anbu. There's no way you're a match for him, not even with Kakashi's help." Iruka scrubbed irritably at his scar. "Think how your partner will feel when she wakes up and you've gotten yourself killed."
"Ahem."
They twisted around to see Kakashi leaning out his apartment window. "Fascinating as this is -- really, Iruka, I didn't know oven mitts were ninja accessories now -- I think a bit of privacy is in order for this conversation." He leaned aside in tacit invitation.
Naga flipped herself through the window, neatly clearing Kakashi's bed; Iruka climbed in after her. She looked around, not bothering to be discreet -- there was no point, not with Kakashi, who could read people like open scrolls.
Kakashi's apartment was all one room, with a tiny bathroom off in one corner. Against the far wall, he had a bookcase full of porn, a weapons chest, and a surprisingly well-stocked kitchen; the back wall held the bathroom and closet; and an overstuffed armchair and coffee table stood next to the door. His bed was jammed right under the window, against a broad sill that ran the length of the outer wall. He seemed to use it as a shelf; it held a few loose books, three potted plants, and two pictures right behind his pillow.
One was a snapshot of Yukiko, Iruka, and Naga all yelling and waving their arms at Kakashi, who was ignoring them in favor of a little orange book. The other was an official team portrait: a black-haired boy with goggles, a cheerful girl with tattooed cheeks, a sour-looking Kakashi (with gray hair and a mask even as a kid, though he had two dark eyes instead of a Sharingan), and a strangely familiar blond man, smiling like a fool as he ruffled the boys' hair.
"Do I pass inspection?" Kakashi asked, his visible eyebrow raised.
"Your quilt has shuriken on it," Naga said, for lack of a better response. What she wanted to say was 'Why the hell do you sleep with your head right under a window, you crazy bastard? Are you suicidal, or just that cocky?' -- but this wasn't time to ask personal questions. It also wasn't time to ask about his old team, or how and why Kakashi had acquired a snapshot from her mother's photo collection.
"Ah," Kakashi said, looking pleased. "I just bought that last month -- I think the pattern suits the décor. Don't you agree, Iruka-kun?"
Iruka pinched the bridge of his nose and took a several deep breaths. He seemed to get a choke-hold on his temper before his face turned any color more interesting than red.
"Hatake-san," Iruka said icily. "I understand that her bloodline limit and taijutsu skills would make Naga a reasonable addition to a team assigned to hunt Uchiha Itachi, under other circumstances. However, you are not a team. You are one man. Furthermore, no ninja should take such a dangerous mission so soon after injuries serious enough to require hospitalization, and a need for vengeance is less important than the need to actually carry out the mission. I would appreciate it if you would act like the adult and authority figure you're supposed to be, and not encourage my friend to endanger your mission and kill herself!"
Kakashi closed his eye.
Naga wrapped her foot around Iruka's shin and snapped her leg forward. He rolled with the fall and shot back to his feet in a heartbeat, but she thought she'd made her point.
She loosened her shoulders, trying to make her posture counteract her stupid kimono. "Okay. That's enough. First, I'm chuunin -- I make my own damn choices. Kakashi gets no say until we start the mission. Second, I was in the hospital for genjutsu aftereffects, not injuries; I'm not deadweight. Third, I won't die. Itachi will." She smiled at Iruka. "Painfully."
"I think efficiency is more important than pain, myself." Kakashi opened his eye and dropped the happy-go-lucky mask. "Iruka-san, your concern does you credit, but there is a time and a place for such care and this is not the time. If someone killed your students, if that person was declared a target, and if you had the skills required to track and kill that person, neither Naga nor I would interfere if you chose to join a tracking or assassination mission." He shrugged, leaving the obvious corollary unspoken.
Then Kakashi crouched and scooped a giant blue mitten from his floor -- an oven mitt, Naga realized after several seconds' blank confusion -- and offered it to Iruka. "We seem to have interrupted your dinner. My apologies."
Iruka flushed, grabbed the mitt, and shoved it inside his vest.
Naga studied the two men. "We done? I'm supposed to be waiting tables. And I need to pack."
Kakashi tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. Iruka scowled. "Are you sure about this, Naga?"
"Yes."
"Then yes, we're done. I apologize for disturbing you, Kakashi-san, and for revealing the location of your home without asking permission." Iruka nodded; a hint of movement in his shoulders converted the curt gesture into the shadow of a polite bow.
Kakashi melted into a slouch and leer; Naga grabbed Iruka's sleeve in anticipation. "Ah, it's only Naga-chan! I'm sure I'd have invited her up here sooner or later -- after all, a bachelor should never turn away a woman, especially not one who wears a kimono so well!"
"Tomorrow, eight-thirty, west gate," Naga said, and dragged Iruka out the door before a new argument could start.
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Sasuke woke shortly after dawn, and spent the next hour or so trying unsuccessfully to go back to sleep. At six thirty he gave up, showered, and forced himself to eat a bowl of miso soup. At seven, Naruto knocked on his door.
"Hey, bastard! Yukiko-neechan's leaving. Grab your stuff and let's go."
He scooped up his pack and opened the door. Naruto was standing there, grinning, with a bag slung over his shoulder. The idiot was also wearing his usual bright orange pants and jacket.
"Change your clothes," Sasuke said.
Naruto looked blank.
"We're trying not to be seen, moron. Orange is too visible."
"Oh! Yeah, you're right. Hang on." Naruto unlocked the door across the hall and vanished inside. He left the door open, though, whether on purpose or by accident, and Sasuke found himself drifting over to look into the moron's apartment. It was a mirror of his own -- kitchen along one wall, bed against the other, and a tiny closet and bathroom in the back -- and surprisingly clean, even if the idiot's idea of extra furniture was limited to a battered couch and a bunch of open boxes. The boxes, at least, seemed to be organized. They were also labeled, though the kanji were only semi-legible.
Naruto emerged from his closet wearing black pants (with orange stripes) and a blue shirt (with a hand-painted orange spiral on the front). "Better?" he asked. Sasuke nodded. "Then let's go. We've got to hurry so we get to the way-station before everybody else. They lead civilians in circles, but they go pretty fast, and I'm not 'zactly sure where the way-station is, and we have to watch out for traps."
He shut his apartment door -- he forgot to lock it; Sasuke didn't remind him -- and dashed for the stairs. Sasuke followed, trying to remember when, exactly, he'd agreed to this plan, and why he'd thought it was a good idea. He wasn't strong enough to fight Ita-- to fight that man, not yet. He'd only get in the way.
But to just sit back and let someone else kill his brother...
He trailed Naruto behind the building, and over to the village wall; it towered above them, yard upon yard of smooth, reinforced wood. "We can't use the gate, 'cause they'd never let us out, or they'd come after us too soon, so we have to climb the wall," Naruto said. He grinned conspiratorially. "Hey, Yukiko-neechan doesn't know, but I've done this lots of times. I'm practicing so I can climb the Hokage monument!"
Sasuke turned from the wall to stare at the moron. "Why?"
"Because! Everybody's too chicken to touch the monument, and I want to see how long it takes people to notice if I sit on the First Hokage's hair, or maybe the Fourth's nose. I was gonna paint stuff on them, but I bet Iruka-sensei and Yukiko-neechan would make me clean it up after, and that would be a pain, so now I think I'll just bring some water balloons, or paint bombs, and throw 'em down at people. Besides, I'm gonna be Hokage someday, believe it, so it's not like I need to be scared of a bunch of statues!"
"You won't be Hokage," Sasuke said, turning to look at the wall instead of the moron's squint-eyed grin. "The Hokage is the strongest shinobi in Konoha. You can't even do Henge right, you're clumsy, you're slow, and you're stupid. Nobody would choose you to protect the village and lead other shinobi." His mind jumped involuntarily to his father, and then to Ita-- "Nobody would listen to you," Sasuke continued. "Nobody respects you. Nobody trusts you."
In the corner of his eye, he saw Naruto draw himself up, reddening. Sasuke was sure the moron would pitch a tantrum and forget about his grand plans... and then Naruto took a deep breath and kicked the wall instead. "I'm not stupid," he said flatly. "Maybe I suck at book stuff, but I make good plans -- I'm good at being sneaky. And the rest of it's none of your business, bastard. Now come on. I cut handholds, and I have a rope to get us down the other side."
There was a better way to climb walls. Sasuke knew that; he'd seen his family walk blithely up vertical surfaces, as if they were walking on level ground. But he didn't know the trick, and Naruto had done a good job cutting the handholds while keeping them nearly invisible.
Sasuke skipped as many of them as he could, kicking off from toeholds and jumping instead of inching from one slash to the next. He flipped awkwardly onto the narrow walkway almost at the top of the wall, and tried to even his breathing.
"Show-off," Naruto grumbled as he scrambled onto the walkway a full minute behind Sasuke.
Sasuke ignored him.
"Sky Country's northeast, right?" Naruto asked. Sasuke nodded. "Yeah, I thought so. Okay, the way-station's a couple miles north of where the road crosses the river. So we climb down, go behind the Hokage monument, and follow the river upstream. The traders prob'ly have a bunch of wagons, and they either left them at the way-station, or somebody took them around while they were in Konoha. If we hide under a bunch of stuff, or in some big sacks, nobody will notice us. But there's always a ninja at the way-station, 'cause of bandits and stuff, so we have to be really sneaky."
This was Naruto's plan?
"You really are a moron," Sasuke said. "I can't get past a real shinobi without being noticed. There's no way you can."
"Hey, hey, I can so sneak past real ninja! Yukiko-neechan's teaching me how to set traps and stuff, and she lets me practice sneaking into her office, and Taizen-san lets me sneak into her building, and I get out of class without Iruka-sensei noticing sometimes, and I sneaked into the Fourth's office once, and I even dyed Kakashi-baka's hair, and stole his pervert book twice, and he's a jounin. So there!" Naruto folded his arms and glared at Sasuke, with the air of someone who'd delivered a winning argument and knew it.
"You wear bright orange," Sasuke said, glaring right back. "That's the most conspicuous color there is. You crash around like a drunk ox in a teahouse, and you can't keep your voice down. You couldn't sneak past a blind civilian."
"Jerk."
"Moron."
"Hey, hey, stop calling me that!" Naruto kicked at Sasuke's shin, and then made a face. "And stop distracting me -- we have to hurry, remember?" He fished a coil of rope -- genuine shinobi cord, both strong and thin -- from his pack, along with a pair of fingerless gloves. Then he looked at Sasuke's hands and frowned. "Um, do you have gloves? I kinda forgot to bring extras, and rope burns hurt really bad, and your hands are already hurt..."
"I'll be fine." Sasuke touched the fraying bandages around his palms, feeling the tender mess of healing scratches and cuts. He could deal with a little pain.
Naruto shrugged and swiftly tied a loop of rope over one of the trunks that formed the wall. The knot looked vaguely familiar -- something like a slipknot, but not exactly -- and Sasuke hoped the moron had been telling the truth about being good with traps. "You first," Naruto said. Sasuke drew a deep breath, climbed over the pointed top of the wall, and skidded down in a semi-controlled slide, his feet braced against the wood and the rope hissing through his hands.
Naruto was right; rope burns hurt a lot.
"You didn't have to hurry that much," Naruto said when his feet hit the ground. "Idiot."
Sasuke glared, but Naruto ignored him and twitched the rope sideways with a slight twisting motion; the knot popped loose and the rope tumbled down to hang in uneven coils over Naruto's shoulders.
"Wrap it while we walk," Sasuke said, and headed north over the firebreak to the scrubby edge of the forest.
Stumbling over a loop of rope, Naruto followed.
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Yukiko walked beside the laden mule, reins held loosely in her right hand. Now and then, she leaned in, patted the animal's shoulder, and praised him for keeping up a good pace despite the uneven footing. Kurenai had quickly left anything that passed for a path, and was leading the caravan over a rich mulch of fallen leaves, moss, and tangled tree roots, pausing now and then to circle around stands of underbrush or well-concealed traps.
They headed directly northeast for about ten minutes, after which Kurenai began to circle. Five minutes after that, a subtle genjutsu rippled out and settled around the caravan. Yukiko forced herself to ignore it at first -- she recognized Kurenai's chakra signature, and this was too gentle to be anything more than a minor perception shift.
After nearly twenty minutes, though, her curiosity won over her common sense, and she started prodding lightly at the genjutsu, trying to figure out exactly what Kurenai was doing. Normally ninja guides just circled a lot while leading civilians out of Konoha. Without a compass, and under the dense forest canopy, that was more than enough to confuse most people's direction sense.
Yukiko stared upward, waiting until a tiny gap in the leaves let a sliver of direct sunlight through. The sun was ever so slightly to the left; they were heading east southeast. She closed her eyes, gently disentangled herself from Kurenai's genjutsu -- it clung more than she was expecting, and tendrils kept trying to wrap back around her -- and looked up again. When the sun flashed through the next tiny gap, it was on her right. Huh. Kurenai was leading them northeast, almost on a direct line to the way station.
That was... actually very clever. Circling was an effective misdirection technique, but it took time, and meant that caravans often didn't reach the way-stations until well after dark. This genjutsu let Kurenai skip at least half the detours without compromising security. By the time she finished fiddling with the traders' perceptions, not a single one would be able to lead invaders to within five miles of the valley, let alone Konoha itself.
Of course, ninja invaders wouldn't need to be guided, but these precautions weren't aimed at other shinobi. They were aimed at the feudal lords of Fire Country, and they had proved effective for nearly seventy-five years, ever since the First Hokage had gathered the scattered ninja clans and schools and founded a stronghold in a rich but sparsely-populated valley near the infamous Forest of Death.
"Yen for your thoughts?" Seichi asked, dropping back from his conversation with the Wind Country woman. His hand drifted to rest on her shoulder.
"Just admiring Kurenai's genjutsu," Yukiko said softly. "She has a deft touch, very persuasive. I shook the illusion off for a minute, and it wrapped me up again the second I stopped paying attention. Barely one in twenty illusionists can reattach genjutsu once a person is aware of the trick -- it's why genjutsu is so useless in open fights -- but I think Kurenai has the knack. If she has a partner to act as a distraction, she could probably make an enemy forget her even in the middle of a battle."
"Useful. But I asked the trader, not the spy." Seichi's voice was soft and flat; his fingers tightened over a nerve cluster, just hard enough to send a rush of pain down Yukiko's arm without truly harming her.
Then his hand slid down toward Yukiko's waist, and his voice snapped back to the cheerful drawl of his cover persona. "Tell me, sweetheart, do you only buy for old Yutaro, or do you trade a bit on the side as well? I'd buy junk from you in a heartbeat, let alone specialty goods... but then, I've always had a soft spot for women with pretty hair." One ice-blue eye closed in a lazy wink.
Yukiko frantically shuffled mental gears. "My business is property-based, so I don't have goods to sell, but I do carry samples for my cousin Yuichiro's cloth shop -- those are in my second bag -- and I take a percentage of any sales I arrange for him. And, of course, if I see a good deal on something that I can unload later, I won't pass it up."
She shrugged off his hand; he was coming too close to her one concealed knife and she didn't want an assassin in her personal space with a weapon in his hand. Seichi could almost certainly kill her with his bare fingers, of course, but edged weapons strung tension along her nerves in a way that theoretical taijutsu skills couldn't match.
"What makes a good deal, Yuki-chan?" Seichi asked, catching her fingers in his. "You don't mind if I call you Yuki-chan, do you?"
"Yes, I do mind." Yukiko scowled. This was only a cover persona, not Seichi's real attitude -- probably -- but she really would slap him if he didn't tone down the smarmy flirting. "As for deals," she continued, "it's hard to say. It depends on the price, and your route, and on knowing what's popular and what's scarce in various places. I can usually trade Fire Country medicines in return for a good deal on silk or dyed linen -- I resell the cloth to Yuichiro -- but there aren't any shortcuts. You have to put in the time and get a feel for the flow of trade."
She shifted his grip on her hand, lacing their fingers together. The foot of space between their bodies was just enough to blunt the edge of her tension, but regardless of Yukiko's nerves or her irritation, she and Seichi needed to act close. A physical relationship was the best excuse for sharing a wagon and seeking privacy at night, and that privacy -- especially in a closed area that she could seal with a sound-based genjutsu -- would be very useful.
"Who here knows you?" Seichi whispered into her ear, leaning down so close that Yukiko felt his breath trickle over her skin. His voice had gone flat again.
Yukiko wished he'd stop flipping personas; it was hard to know how to react to him. "The brother and sister from Grass Country -- you can tell them by the hats -- traveled with me just before the monsoons last winter, but we didn't talk much. They won't be trouble. That stocky man two mules ahead, though, with the boy in tow -- that's Akibana Yoshitaka. He's from Konoha, he knows me, and he knows my uncle." A thought struck her, and she frowned. "Does your cover require you to be from Konoha itself?"
"Aha. Discrepancies." Seichi's fingers twitched. "No. I can come from anywhere in Fire Country. What works best?"
Yukiko patted the mule absently as she considered the options. "Yoshitaka-san sells medicines and medical tools, so he travels very widely... but he sells mostly to hospitals and town doctors, not to farm families. A farm is safest, probably one near the Forest of Death. Very few people go there, so it would be hard to disprove your origins, and if we have to fight, growing up in that area would explain a reasonable amount of skill."
"I'll alter my papers," Seichi said. "Luckily, I'm quite skilled at forgery -- good hands, you know." His voice had settled back into a drawl; mischief seeped into his eyes, veiling the ice, as he added, ""My offer to teach you card tricks still stands."
"Right," Yukiko said, deciding to figure out Seichi's persona shifts later. For now, she'd just play to whichever face he was displaying, and at the moment that was a young man from an isolated farm, who, despite his roguish attitude, was still quite ignorant about the wider world and a trader's role.
"If you teach me card games, I'll owe you," she said, "and besides, my uncle told me to show you the ropes. Let's trade lessons for lessons."
Seichi nodded.
"Okay. Here's my first lesson for you: traders thrive on information, maybe half of which is business-related, and two thirds of which is shameless gossip." She grinned up at Seichi and pointed at the Wind Country woman with their joined hands. "You spent nearly half an hour talking to that woman. Tell me all about her."
"Always working," Seichi murmured. "I see why you're so successful. Tonight, I'll teach you a game called 'daimyo' -- I think you'll like it. And I think," he said, reaching over with his free hand to tap Yukiko's nose, "that I'm going to enjoy this trip... Yuki-chan."
He winked.
Yukiko leaned her head against the mule's neck and groaned.
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End of Chapter Six
Back to chapter 5
Continue to chapter 7
Read the clean version here on ff.net. (Trust me, you want to read the clean version. Think of the lj version as what I'd send to beta-readers if this were Harry Potter fanfic.)
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Is there a name for those cymbal-shaped straw hats that Akatsuki members wear? I'd like to know, if only so that I don't have to keep calling them 'cymbal-shaped straw hats,' because that gets really old really fast.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-14 04:22 pm (UTC)I was writing original fiction long before I'd even heard of fanfiction, so I come by my habit of creating OCs (and my obsession with world-building) quite naturally. I'm glad they're working for you so far.
I think Sasuke is the sort of person who, even if he wants help, refuses to admit or show that desire. And since he seemed fairly 'together' on the outside, and since Iruka is doubtless extremely overworked, he probably didn't think too deeply about Sasuke's needs. Besides, unlike Naruto, Sasuke wasn't a problem student. :-)