'Now would be an excellent time for a drink.' Tsunade rubbed at her temples with her fingertips, struggling to stay focused on the ongoing report through her massive migraine. She was the best medic in the world, but there wasn't a damn thing she could do about psychosomatic pain originating from stress. In her experience, only alcohol and gambling were really adequate distractions. It was most unfortunate, because getting hammered and running off to a casino was probably the second-worst possible response to this report, second only to "declare war on all other Elemental Countries and cut out the middleman."
Hatake paused, clearly wondering if he should inquire. She waved him on. 'May as well get this all over in one go.'
The actual de-briefing had been stressful, but not unmanageable. The bad news that Sound had been puppets for some mysterious agenda had been mitigated by the solution to the mystery of what the hell had been happening on the north border, the fact that Wind's border troubles should be dying down, and the knowledge that at least the specific threat used to subvert civilians and missing nin alike had been defanged.
'Though I would have liked to examine the patient,' she mused regretfully when that part was covered. She'd never even heard of such a thing. No wonder it had caught Orochimaru's attention. If she had been there, she would have brought the patient back alive if at all possible. It was hard to blame Hatake, however. He might very well have lost the patient when they were attacked outside.
But then Hatake had gestured for his team to file out and proceeded to unload the terrifying evidence that they had somehow missed either a rogue Uchiha or a bloodline grave-robber. He was right to tell her in private—if their allies found out that Konoha was inadvertently responsible for empowering the person who had been causing all their problems, relations would be more than a bit strained. They might not be able to keep this fiasco secret forever, but hopefully they would at least be able to have a better answer than, "I don't know, but it's probably our fault, sorry about all those deaths and such."
Tsunade put 'Ask Sasuke for permission to dig up his cousin's corpse' on her long list of unpleasant things to do that day, trying her best not to hate Hatake for bringing such bad news.
When he finally stopped, she breathed a sigh of relief… until she realized that he hadn't stopped. He was pausing and trying to phrase something. She outright groaned. "What the hell else is there?" Tsunade demanded petulantly.
As if to ward off her temper, he gave her one of those ridiculous eye-smiles and ruffled his hair sheepishly. "Oh, it's nothing important. I was just wondering who raised the twins. I was sort of in a ten-year dark spot, and I'm afraid I never looked in on them after they left the orphanage."
Tsunade blinked once. Then twice.
'Oh. Well, that's much less terrible. Mildly interesting, as well.'
"I don't know," she said thoughtfully, trying to remember if Naruto had ever mentioned a guardian. Then she shrugged, dismissing the thought. It wasn't that important. "But I do know how you could find out. I would suggest reading through the old notes the Sandaime kept. They're like a diary of everything that happened." She rolled her eyes. "So you're going to have to wade through far too many mentions of breakfast and temporary office staff you've never met."
He furrowed his brow at her. "Why not just ask the Sandaime?"
The rueful smile slipped off her face. "You just can't," she said brusquely.
Hatake was very still. "Hokage-sama?"
Tsunade sighed, gaze darting around the room. She'd already dismissed the ANBU watchers, so they were alone. And she did trust the brat… 'Besides, someone else should know.'
So she shared the burden. "I'm afraid that if you ask him about the Uzumaki twins' childhood, he'll fumble around for a bit before deciding you're asking about little Kushina-chan and tell you that he's been tutoring her lately in fuinjutsu," she breathed out, blinking hard to keep her eyes dry.
"Ah." It was toneless, but somehow conveyed a whole range of horror and grief.
It was nearly inconceivable to think of the Sandaime, the man praised as a genius and god among shinobi, as old and frail. Even when the evidence had been in front of their faces for over a decade, Tsunade herself had still tended to see him as her powerful-but-not-infallible teacher with whom she'd had too many disagreements as she grew into an adult. It wouldn't be as hard of a blow on Hatake, but it was doubtless hard to swallow.
"So, those notes?"
Tsunade jerked her head towards the closed door keeping the muffling seals active. "Open that, would you?" When he obeyed, she raised her voice. "Keiko-san, would you bring me the Sandaime's notes from…" She paused to do mental calculations. "fourteen years ago up until four years ago?"
"Really?" Came the incredulous response, before they heard a chair lightly scrape back as the woman moved to obey. "It'll be a minute."
Kakashi waited patiently, up until he heard the secretary call out to someone else in the anteroom. "Honey, could I get some help with all these boxes?"
That, combined with the Hokage's mischievous grin, gave him a rather sinking feeling.
"Here you go," Keiko huffed, her form nearly hidden behind two stacked boxes in her arms. She shuffled in and laboriously set them down on the table.
Kakashi cringed. That had to be thirty notebooks per box.
That was when his own little apprentice trotted in with another three boxes and easily set them down beside the others, giving them a curious glance before bowing and backing out of the office. 'Why is she still here?'
"Thanks, dear," Keiko muttered, moving much less quickly and shutting the door behind her.
Tsunade felt rather like the cat that got the canary, flicking her tail in satisfaction. It was nice to see someone else buried in paperwork for once.
"I'll be wanting those back soon," she warned idly. "We need them surprisingly often." Of course, after such a long mission, his whole team had a month furlough unless they requested work, so he'd have plenty of time to read.
The man in front of her looked surprisingly morose, but still determined. "Thank you, Hokage-sama."
'He sounded more sincere earlier,' she cackled. Depressed or not, he industriously fluttered in and out of her office, using shunshin to drop boxes off in his apartment and returning for the rest while she conferred with Keiko on her schedule for the day. There were only two more appointments, thankfully. One of them was Gai's team (and that was always a fucking headache) and the other, well…
She groaned when she realized that Hatake's brat had been lingering in the anteroom because she wanted to talk to her as well. What could that possibly be about? With her luck, doubtlessly the chit would inform her that she'd accidentally managed to reinvent Edo Tensai, or point out some other fabulous 'lost' technique that Jiraiya had apparently been hoarding for a decade but was too damn sentimental to use or share.
She was still mildly irritated by that one. Grieving was one thing, but carrying around a mini-shrine to your dead loved ones was going too far.
Tsunade wasn't always the best at spotting irony.
With the full expectation that she was going to have to endure something phenomenally stupid or troublesome, Tsunade made the girl wait longer for her appointment while Sasuke was dragged out of his office and coerced into bringing hot drinks. He gave her a particularly reproachful look, but complied nonetheless. He was probably suffering from the lack of caffeine as well. Her younger apprentice worked hours as long as hers. She was reminded that he knew the girl waiting by Keiko when he wordlessly brought five drinks instead of the usual four without even asking what Aiko took. (Hot chocolate with marshmallows, apparently. What a lightweight.)
Tsunade took a few moments to detox and let the caffeine set in before she stretched out on her couch. "Come in," she sighed without bothering to call the ANBU anxiously lingering outside her office back in. He'd just have to cope. She didn't like having people lurking around at all goddamn hours of the day anyway. "Shut the door behind you."
ANBU squirrel gave her what she thought was probably a reproachful look from behind the ceramic mask that made the expression useless as the door swung shut. Tsunade resisted the urge to giggle.
ANBU were just so adorable when they were crabby.
"Ah…" She really looked the girl over for the first time as Aiko fidgeted, and was a little appalled.
Tsunade had never seen Aiko looking anything less than put together. The girl walked a wide spectrum from 'garish' (orange skirts? What the hell kind of killer-for-hire wore orange skirts?) to 'painfully dull' with her clothes and presentation, but she was always clean, tidy, and professional in posture.
The fourteen year old in front of her had apparently been nervously picking at her hair even in the hour since Tsunade had last had her in the office and pulled out her braid in favor of messy pigtails. She looked tired, travel-worn, stressed, and a bit too thin. Her hands were shaking slightly around her cocoa.
Tsunade easily recognized the signs of a tough mission. That made sense—it had been a long one, and had a lot of combat in unfavorable conditions, and the girl was inexperienced in extended assignments. She gave serious thought to sending Aiko away for a hot bath and a nap, but refrained. This might be important, after all.
Because she wasn't a total monster, she bent her legs to make room and nodded at the end of the couch. "Just take a seat." Aiko obeyed, carefully setting her drink to the side as she did so.
Inwardly she winced. Right, she should probably sound a little gentler.
"What's this about, Aiko?"
'I overcorrected, I sound like I'm trying to coax a wild animal in for a hug,' she assessed grumpily. Luckily, Aiko demonstrated the textbook trait of awkward geniuses and didn't even seem to notice the oddity. Good old reliable social failures.
Aiko opened her mouth, closed it, and took a steadying breath. "I think I should end my apprenticeship."
Tsunade nodded soothingly, and took a deep breath. Then she registered the words and started hacking on nothing, surprised right out of words.
Unfortunately, the girl seemed to take that as permission to break down into tears. They were at least the quiet, dignified sort of tears instead of wailing and sobbing, but she still definitely had not been given leave to do that. Tsunade waved her hands. "Stop that! Stop that right now."
Aiko gave an obedient nod and a little squeak, rubbing at her face. "I'm sorry, I'm just a little stressed."
'A little?' she thought incredulously. Best to get to the bottom of this before she had to mop up a teenager in her office.
"Why the hell do you want that done, Aiko? I thought you two were inseparable. Have you talked to Hatake?"
Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. The girl's face screwed up a little, and she blinked furiously in an attempt to calm down. "N-no."
"Well, what the hell's the problem? Did you argue?"
Aiko shook her head and shrugged. Tsunade was mildly stumped, until the girl elaborated, "Well, yes, but that's not the problem."
The Hokage groaned. "Girl, stop dancing around it. You know that I don't want to go through the excess trouble for no reason, so convince me."
'Does this have something to do with Hatake's sudden interest in Aiko's family?' A possible connection sparked.
Showing remarkable difficulty with the words, the teenager said in a very small voice, "I have an inappropriate crush on him and it's making it hard to work."
…
…
"What," Tsunade said flatly.
…
…
The tears started up again. Tsunade had to do her best not to fall into hysterical giggles, making an urgent grab for her coffee to occupy her mouth for a moment so she could hide her smile.
'I suppose even genius teenagers are still teens,' she sniggered. 'Poor baby. Imagine having Hatake as your guide through puberty.'
Suddenly, she actually felt a little sorry for the girl in front of her. The occasional stirrings of maternal sentiment that so far only Shizune and Naruto had ever sparked stirred in her chest, and she impulsively opened her arms. "Come here, sweetheart."
The girl looked so baffled and off-kilter by the offer that Tsunade leaned over and bodily gathered her up into a hug, patting her back soothingly. Not coincidentally, the girl's new position on her chest left her unable to see Tsunade's inappropriately amused smile. This was serious business for a fourteen year old, after all. But it was funny.
Aiko was far from the first girl to have a crush on her sensei. Tsunade would be willing to bet that Yamanaka girl would be making moon eyes at Asuma-kun when her hormones kicked in and she first realized that boys her own age weren't yet as developed as she was. It was…
"Perfectly normal," she assured the girl in her grip, somehow managing to keep the humor out of her tone. "No matter how mature you are, your body is going through a whole lot of hormonal changes. When you don't spend any time around boys closer to your own age, it's perfectly normal for you to notice that your sensei is cute. Between you and me, he has the second best butt in the village, after mine of course."
The strangled giggle that brushed across her chest let her know that at least the girl was listening. Tsunade stifled a snort. "Noticed that too, then?" she asked archly. Then she masterfully switched from her humorous, confidential tone to one imbued with firm assurance. "Aiko-chan, there is nothing wrong with you, and that's not a reason to dissolve the apprenticeship. Don't you think he'd be confused and hurt?"
Aiko turned her face further down as if to nuzzle further into the safety of Tsunade's hug, avoiding the question. 'So she knew, but doesn't want to deal with that.' Still, Hokages could play dirty. "I don't think that dissolving the apprenticeship would solve anything, Aiko-chan." The girl stiffened and pushed herself up as if to argue. Tsunade unceremoniously shoved her back down. "Shut up and snuggle, brat. I have one maternal episode for the month, and if you end this one prematurely I'll just have to send you to talk this out with Hatake."
That put the kibosh on resistance. Apparently, she really didn't want to share her crush with her sensei.
'She's fourteen and just figuring these things out, she'll move on easily,' Tsunade concluded. The thought made her frown slightly. 'Well, she will as long as she doesn't just spend time with Hatake. That's probably why this came about. In which case…'
She lifted the girl's chin with two fingers to meet her eyes with a serious stare. "Aiko-chan, I am giving you an unofficial, off-the books mission. Do you accept?"
Aiko looked absolutely baffled, but nodded.
"Spend some time with people closer to your age." She tweaked the girl's nose and enjoyed how wide her eyes got. "I understand that people your own age probably seem a bit immature to you, since you grew up so quickly and moved on in your career before most of them did. But there are plenty of people closer to your age than Kakashi who are also intelligent and mature."
A thoroughly wicked thought occurred. She could settle that bet with Shizune as to whether Sasuke-chan really had a crush or if puberty had just hit him with a thousand pounds of force.
"I can think of at least one cute brunette in this tower right now who would probably jump at the chance for a date with you," she added mischievously. "Just try asking someone out to do what teenagers do on dates. That's still food and a movie at the outdoor, right? On dinosaur back?"
"Sounds about right."
Aiko recoiled from the glare Tsunade shot her, which made her feel a little better. It was okay for her to joke about her age, but not for other people to agree with her.
"H-hai, Hokage-sama!"
That was a bit of an overcorrection, but she let it slide.
"Alright then. Clean your face up, you look terrible. Then get the hell out of my office and socialize."
She was relatively certain that, had she been anyone else, the reply to that would have been inappropriate for delicate ears. As it was, Aiko actually had the gall to glare at her huffily before flipping her left pigtail over her shoulder and rubbing at her face with an elbow. Somehow, she managed to make the motion imperious.
When the girl finally trotted out, on a mission and much more put together than she had been when she had entered, Tsunade leaned back and toasted herself. It was a shame all she had was tea, but it would have to do. 'Damn, I'm good.'
Several minutes later, she heard an extraordinary amount of Youth coming up the stairs. Tsunade just rolled her eyes. She almost wished this was an unusual occurrence, but there was at least one incidence of shouting every time she had this particular team in.
Of course, when they trickled into her office and the exuberance became slightly decipherable, it became clear that something had gone horribly wrong with her plan.
The little girl with the twin buns looked a bit exasperated with her loud teammates. The Hyuuga boy was blushing red, which was far more emotion than she'd ever seen out of that particular stick in the mud. And the green buffoons were pontificating about Springtime of Youth and The Beauty of Young Love.
'Aiko, what the fuck did you do?'
'A cute brunette, huh?' Aiko pursed her lips, trying to distract herself. Talking to Tsunade had actually helped. Being told by an actual doctor that she was just hormonal because she was a teenager (and therefore not sick and wrong for being… what, a reverse pedophile? She still couldn't verbalize exactly what seemed so wrong) had been incredibly soothing. Tsunade had all but said that no matter how old she was mentally, there was still a physical component to her brain makeup.
It was obvious in retrospect. She wasn't just trapped in a teenager's body—that body also affected her personality and behavior. (Clearly. That hug had been torture. She'd been valiantly fighting the urge to rub her nose in the fascinating chest Tsunade had unceremoniously shoved her into. There was just so much, and it was suddenly so interesting when it was up close.)
The idea that the crush would probably go away if she spent time with people closer to her physical age had helped too. From what Tsunade had said, she just needed to give her hormones eye candy and feed them.
'I can totally do that,' she decided, feeling optimistic. 'All I need to do is pick someone.' Tsunade had been hinting at someone in particular, however. She was a little curious as to what the Hokage had meant.
How many brunettes did she know, anyways?
Aiko winced at that thought. Bad question. Almost everyone in Konoha had brown or black hair. In fact, she saw four people right now coming down the hallway, and every one of them fit that vague criteria of being brunette and in Hokage Tower.
Inspiration struck like lightning.
There was no point in making this too complicated. Step One: Acquire date, socialize with teenaged human/s, feed hormones. Step Two: Re-acquire working relationship with the best person in the world.
It was a good plan. It was a short plan. The simpler the plan, the less chance there was for something to go horribly wrong.
Getting assignments done early had always been a habit of hers. Aiko let her eyes glance over the team, ignoring Gai completely. He was too old, that was the whole point of the exercise. The other three were all slightly older than she was, which helped. She couldn't help but think of the group that had graduated with her otouto as being too young, no matter how broad Kiba's shoulders were getting. Lee was a nice boy, but no, that wasn't going to happen. Hell no, not in a million years to the other one, which left...
"Hi, Tenten. Would you like to go on a date with me sometime?"
"It's really not that big of a deal," Tenten muttered with a sigh. "It's a date, not a sign of destined true love." 'Sure, I don't really know her well, and that was really forward, but I hang out with much stranger people on a daily basis…' She tried not to look at her teammates.
Her words had about as much effect as they usually did on Gai and Lee. They'd somehow dissolved into sobbing into each other's jumpsuits.
'And the plot thickens.'
Tsunade thought she might actually die of amusement. That was the most Uzumaki thing she'd ever heard of. She took back every thought she'd ever had about how Aiko didn't seem to fit in with Naruto and Karin. Oh, kami. Just asking the first person she sees—not even someone she really knew—out on a date because the Hokage told her to do so. What a way to miss the point of being advised to learn human socialization. This was better than the daytime television Shizune liked to watch in the hospital lounge, though.
If she hadn't been so dignified, the Hokage might have been on the floor laughing. Just the thought of Sasuke-chan's face, when he found out he'd nearly wrangled a date from his crush but been foiled by the fact that she found team nine first…
"Excuse me," Tsunade managed, in a strange, stifled tone of voice.
Even Gai and Lee stopped shouting (still engaged in a standing hug complete with a rainbow behind them), totally confused by the concept that they were being left alone in the Hokage's office. That was against all protocol. There was awkward silence for a moment while Tsunade gracefully walked out to the connected balcony and carefully shut the French doors. Then she broke down into utter hysterics, wheezing and just letting the laughter bubble over with far more volume than could be considered decorous. Lee looked disturbed. Tenten edged away from the door. Neji was still busy contemplating logistics he had never had reason to ponder before.
There was the intensely disturbing sound of Tsunade laughing so hard that she gagged. At one point it became clear that she had been thumping her fist against the metal in a failed attempt to contain her mirth, because the crack it made when it broke was distinctly audible. Eventually, the laughter died down into giggles and the occasional snort. Once there was silence again, the doors opened and Tsunade strode in looking professional and impartial. She seated herself behind her desk, as regal as any queen, and leveled them with an unimpressed look. "Now, then. Team nine, you have been assigned to…"
Author's Note Here (there's an Omake below, you can skip if you think my notes are boring. That's cool, I just thought it was more appropriate in this order).
If any one of you can tell me that you honestly expected that to happen, I will write you whatever the hell you want. In fact, I'll buy you a pony. And Kakashi and Aiko will talk next chapter, I promise.
I do apologize a little, because I don't want you to think I'm jerking you guys around too much with pairings. Even though it is totally fun to see the consensus change as I add new bits to the story. I don't intend to set off SS Tenten, so I will share that at this moment I don't intend for that to be 'endgame', as it were (I mean, unless there's a massive uprising of pro-Tenten sentiment, in which case I would dream up a scenario to make that happen. I have a plotline planned out for each pairing I'm considering. It's just the way I think). I won't confirm or deny anything else pairing wise, although I do actually keep track of how many people want what pairings. (I'm not choosing by vote, but I do take things like that into account).
Seeing how people think about and engage with possibilities like that makes me consider them, and sometimes I like things better than my original plans. I'm terrible about consistently responding to reviews, but I read each and every one of them multiple times, even the rare unkind ones. Those people can go suck an orange and I hope the gross taste of the peel lingers in their face for hours, (Because really, who reviews stories they dislike to say mean things? Dudes, just exit the window and don't let the internet hit your butt on the way out because no one wants to hear complaints about internet-butt interaction.) but the rest of you are freaking amazing and you brighten up my day.
Mm, also, I've been getting a couple of reviews mentioning that I should probably slow down if I'm pushing myself. The concern is appreciated, but I'm actually writing at a pace I like. I'm not pushing myself because I feel pressured, I'm writing in my spare time because I enjoy it. I spend maybe two hours working before bed or in-between classes per chapter from start to finish, so it's no hardship. : )
A legit Omake that doesn't fit in the story—something I was considering putting in the actual story. But it got too cracky and I never edited it.
Sasuke curled up in his regular chair in Tsunade's office, setting his steaming drink on the lamptable. Aiko awkwardly lingered in the door, glancing at him as if she'd been hoping for a private audience.
Tsunade raised an eyebrow at the girl. "Well, are you coming in?" she drawled. "Is this so important that Sasuke-chan here needs to leave?"
He was so used to her taunting that he didn't even respond verbally. Instead, he raised his head to give her a sassy look, as if a slight sneer and unimpressed head-tile could convey a sentiment like, 'Is that really all you can do?'
"I… Well." Aiko shifted uncomfortably. "It's not precisely important. It's just…" She hugged her cocoa to her chest, eyes darting around the room as if looking for an escape.
For the first time, Tsunade noted just how disheveled and out of sorts the teenager looked. She was dusty, breathing a little too hard, and looked like she might just fall over from a combination of over-work, stress, and lack of sleep. She shifted tactics. Brusque hadn't been working. Letting her eyes soften, she lowered her tone to something soothing and slow.
"What's the matter, Aiko-chan? Are you doing alright?"
'Ah, that's the ticket,' she thought. Often times, just a little bit of sympathy would do the trick. Smooth as can be, Aiko slumped over a little, clearly done fighting.
Sasuke, on the other hand, had looked up with a little alarm and suspicion. His eyes widened when they took in just how stressed Aiko looked. She didn't seem to notice the way he subtly straightened and edged further back into his chair (as if to put a safe distance between himself and human emotions, Tsunade noted with a snort).
Aiko gave a little sniff and looked up. Instantly, Tsunade knew she'd miscalculated. The soft touch had been the wrong approach. Now the girl had gone and gotten the idea she had the okay to spew emotions all over everyone.
The teen boy in the room had frozen as if in the presence of a predator, so still he looked like a statue. It was a rather creepy effect—he was even holding his breath.
Whatever he had hoped to accomplish didn't work. Aiko looked between them with big sad eyes and averted her gaze. "I… I wanted to talk to you about…" She stopped, clearly having problems having the conversation in front of Sasuke. After a deep, steadying breath, the girl tried again. "I've been having a problem-"
She was interrupted by the sound of a potted houseplant appearing on Sasuke's chair with a whumph and then rolling onto the floor. It was a good thing the pots were sturdy. The boy who had been there was long gone, doubtlessly halfway back to the Uchiha compound by now. Tsunade eyed the plant critically, unimpressed but also unsurprised.
"Just a minute, Uzumaki." The words were unnecessary. She had stopped talking when Tsunade held up a hand. The Hokage pulled open the office door and raised her voice a little. "Keiko, would you make a note to tell the receptionist downstairs to water the damn plants? They look awful."
The older woman groaned. "Please tell me I don't have another one to water up here."
"I think they cheer up the place," Tsunade deflected mildly. Besides, she sort of wanted to see what Sasuke would do when he ran out of plants to use when he needed to escape the office.