"This doesn't make any sense," Naruto insisted, not for the first time. Karin blinked bloodshot eyes, forcing down the urge to shake him until he stopped pacing like a lion at a zoo. That would hardly be very considerate or caring, considering the circumstances.
But watching him was making her feel sick.
Or hell, maybe she was nauseous for other reasons. Like thinking about what had probably happened to her cousin. Sure, Aiko was a brat, but that didn't mean she deserved whatever a rogue nutjob would unleash on her.
"Uchiha Madara? He'd be over a hundred years old! He should be feeding worms, not trying to get back at Konoha. What would he want from Aiko? What's the point?" Naruto stressed, pulling at his hair with a grubby fist, apparently not caring that nails were tucked between his middle and index fingers. He was still holding the hammer in his other hand.
Sasuke made a noncommittal sound, eyes even darker than usual. He was doing the best job of maintaining the illusion of working. None of them cared in the slightest about constructing the third house of the day.
Resentfully, Karin kicked at a bit of patio stone, and wished everything was on fire so she could go home.
'Look at me, I'm so handy,' she sneered. 'That's what Konoha is known for now. We get our asses kicked and our village razed all the time, but no worries, because we're all master craftsmen from all the practice we get rebuilding. Our client list is going to suffer as soon as someone thinks to mock us for being rubes with a bi-monthly invasion.'
She hadn't yet shared her analysis of the likelihood of someone thinking to use that rhetoric against Konoha. Probably Kumo, actually.
That was a near-heroic feat in itself, if anyone asked Karin. They didn't, of course, because everyone else was too busy to care that she hadn't signed up for a career in construction. She almost wished the supply train of shinobi and civilians hauling in lumber and other materials from various locations in Fire Country was less efficient.
'Practice makes perfect, though, so of course this is down to a science.'
At least she got to stop for a while whenever she ran out of materials. Poor Yamato had the worst deal, if she were to be fair about assessing the situation. He could build entire homes in minutes, albeit odd ones without a single nail or joint. He'd been worked mercilessly to raise the highest priority buildings until his chakra levels were barely above what it took to maintain consciousness. And then he'd done the same thing the next day.
"Are you two even listening?" Naruto demanded, voice breaking a little.
"Of course we are," Sasuke snapped, dropping the wood he'd been nailing with a clatter and wheeling on his teammate. "You won't stop repeating things we already know. Give it a rest! Whining won't bring her back. We can't do anything now, Naruto. So just stop." He took a deep breath. "Stop," he repeated raspily, glancing down and bending to pick up the plank he'd just dropped.
Karin swallowed, clenching her jaw and breathing in deeply through her nose. She just felt raw and angry, like water being poured over a sunburn. At least she had the restraint not to bite Naruto's head off.
Naruto was irritating the hell out of her too, but that didn't mean she was unaffected.
'Not like what I feel could compare to him,' she thought guiltily, wiping sweat off her temple before it rolled down her cheek. 'I've never had a twin. They were together all their lives. Losing that would be awful.'
Granted, she'd never seen them spend all that much time together. Nothing like the time she spent with Hinata. Aiko had Naruto over for dinner every week, and came over to the house in the mornings sometimes, but other than that… Well, she never seemed to seek him out for things unrelated to training.
'It's not like she ever really seeks anyone out, unless she needs something or has something specific in mind,' Karin thought, guilty for the observation but too logical to lie to herself. Aiko just wasn't social. She didn't seem to feel lonely and seek out human company. (Except Sai, who hadn't been proven to technically count as 'human company') It was weird and a little off-putting. That didn't mean she deserved to be kidnapped.
And tortured, probably. Honestly, it was unlikely that she'd survive the week. Statistically speaking, if they didn't receive some sort of ransom note by tomorrow, it was almost certain that her captor had no intention of keeping Aiko around for anything more than information. Joke's on him, Karin thought bleakly. He won't be getting any of that.
Of course, if the kidnapping was more personal, as the recurring interest made it seem, it was probably about revenge instead. Aiko had stolen two jinchuuriki from Akatsuki and made them look incompetent. It wasn't unreasonable that he could think to restore some of that reputation by proving it had been a fluke.
All that indicated was that Aiko would meet a much messier end, to be honest.
The only possibility where there was a reasonable likelihood (and by reasonable, Karin meant above ten percent, based on historical records of capture by enemy forces) of getting Aiko home alive was that Madara wanted to ransom her back for Naruto. And that excluded any possibility involving Naruto being handed over, because Tsunade would never let that happen. No, that chance came from the hope that Madara would make a mistake that allowed them to trace a path back to him, or that they would be able to overwhelm him at the supposed exchange site. Improbable and optimistic at best.
They'd know soon enough, she suspected. If Madara was going to kill Aiko after having made such a point of walking into Konoha's stronghold twice, he would extend that theatricality to making it obvious that she was dead. No shallow grave for Aiko, Karin suspected.
No. She was probably going to get strung up somewhere very public, to make a point about Konoha's weakness. Fucker.
As scientific and impartial as Karin liked to think she was, she shied away from any thoughts about possibilities that Madara had other reasons to want to keep Aiko alive and with him. She didn't want to think about Aiko being used against Konoha somehow, or being used in general. Her very first thought when his stalking had been made known was that there was a carnal interest involved, if she were honest. But god, he was older than dirt. That couldn't be it. It was too horrible.
Karin shuddered. Best not to mention any of that to Naruto. His imagination was clearly torturing him, but she didn't think that her estimation of different probabilities would soothe his mind at all. It might be kindest not to know.
They settled into a sullenly businesslike rhythm, working as the morning sun fled into painful heat at midday. A lot of the people working nearby drifted away in shifts to escape burns and dehydration.
A sudden up-shot in tension alerted the team that something had happened. Sasuke straightened, frowning slightly at the way the crowds staggering down the street with supplies cringed closer to the building faces being put up and repaired.
"Come on," he said shortly, abandoning his post.
The other two followed without a complaint, craning their heads.
"Are those… Kumo-nin?" Naruto asked skeptically, tilting his head slightly and putting his dirty hands on his hips, leaving blackened handprints on the low-slung green pants he was wearing to work in.
"Must be," Karin breathed, giving the small crowd a gimlet stare.
'I should have been paying more attention. They're not exactly blending in with the civilians. It's not like I know every Konoha nin's signature, but I should know everyone that strong…'
And the intruders really were strong. Actually…
"That's the Raikage," Sasuke said very quietly, eyes slightly narrowed at the tan giant wearing white everywhere but on his muscular chest.
'That's bad. That's really bad,' Karin realized. 'Does Kumo know that Sasuke's brother was the one who killed the eight-tail jinchuuriki? Because that would be a teensy bit awkward, now that Itachi's been reinstated.'
There was really only one way to find out.
The enormous man flanked by a grim-faced shinobi on either shoulder seemed to look over at their group. His eyes scanned over Karin without interest, but Naruto stiffened and firmed his gaze in a way that told her he definitely felt scrutiny. The slender blonde man next to the Raikage leaned over slightly to say something quiet that garnered an abrupt and not entirely kind bark of laughter.
"I don't like the way he's looking at you," Sasuke said quietly, moving ever so slightly in front of Naruto and raising his chin slightly in defiance.
The Raikage actually laughed at that defensive gesture, but at least he and his retinue continued walking past without comment.
For a moment, the only sound was Sasuke's teeth gritting and murmurs beginning in the crowd. Then Karin folded up the floor plans and shoved them in her pocket, before jerking her head towards Hokage tower.
"Let's go," she said darkly. "I want to know what's going on."
"Ummm…"
The other two stopped and looked at Naruto, wary of his uncharacteristic hesitation.
"We should probably clean up first," he said sheepishly, holding out his blackened, scraped fingers. "It's one thing to barge in on a meeting above our clearance, but another to do that when we stink. The old lady might actually murder us for embarrassing her like that. Our place is closest—I have some stuff you can wear, Sasuke-bastard."
The Uchiha grunted agreement, clearly more interested in haste than presentation.
Karin only felt a little guilty about abandoning her work in the civilian housing district to go home. It wasn't surprising that the central areas had suffered the most. Since paranoid, isolationist shinobi were most likely to live on the outskirts of the city (and were least inconvenienced by a long walk to the business and market districts), the military population was much less affected by the worst of the structural damage.
In other words, the empty Uchiha district and the Uzumaki house were both mostly fine, once debris had been pulled off the roofs and the broken windows had been replaced. They were livable, even if ugly and battered.
'I wonder what Kakashi-sensei and Yamato-taichou are doing.' Karin hurriedly scrubbed at her hair, cursing the filth that turned into mud in the shower drain. 'They both lived downtown. I bet there's nothing left. I think they've both been dressing out of the warehouse, so that probably means that nothing was salvageable.'
That must be awful. Should she ask? See if they needed space? Sasuke had much more room to offer, but there was still one empty room here.
(Karin was lying to herself. She was not going to ask because she didn't want to see what Naruto said if she offered out Aiko's room, no matter that it wasn't being used).
She tried not to stare too much at the way Naruto's standard issue blue pants and short-sleeve top fit Sasuke. The boys were wearing identical outfits, but it looked nearly indecent on Sasuke. Neither of her boys had very big builds, but Sasuke had a little more bulk than the blond. That translated to a rather tight fit in Naruto's tailored muscle shirt.
'Now is not the time, you insufferable pervert,' Karin told herself. She painted on a grim, professional mien, and tossed her damp hair over her shoulder before pushing her way to the front of the group and leading them to Hokage tower. Hopefully the boys would think that she was eager to get to work, instead of resisting the urge to ogle.
It was a damned shame that the Raikage had showed up at such an awful time. Konoha was disheveled. If they'd been anywhere near organized, then Sasuke would have already known the man was going to be in town.
In other words, Tsunade must be very stressed and distracted.
The Hokage was putting on a good front, however, when the trio made their way to the upscale bank that was serving as their administrative center for the moment.
"That's unnecessary," Tsunade said bluntly. The pale blond bodyguard turned to give Karin of all people an oddly scathing look when Shizune let the group in, but no one else paid them much attention. "Ame is no longer in control of the group responsible for the recent aggression. Punishing the survivors serves no purpose."
'That's awfully generous,' Karin thought doubtfully. There was probably something she was missing. Tsunade-sama wasn't that altruistic.
The Raikage sneered, giving a dismissive glance over the newcomers. Sasuke calmly met his gaze, moving to stand by Tsunade's shoulder. He actually belonged here, as her apprentice, and he looked comfortable. The Uzumaki, on the other hand, were obviously riding in on Sasuke's coattails.
'Not completely true. If Tsunade-sama really does have any intention of training Naruto as a possible successor, it's not unreasonable for him to be here. Course, that just leaves me as the intruder…'
Ah well. She didn't mind being rude. If they really cared, someone would kick her out.
"I was promised that Ame and Akatsuki would pay for what they did." Stubbornly, the Raikage cocked his head at Tsunade. He looked hilariously misplaced in the red velvet chair that had been scrounged up from somewhere.
"I never said that we'd take punitive action against Ame as a whole," Tsunade protested crossly. "What more do you want? Akatsuki is nearly finished. We need to hunt down the stragglers."
"Your representative guaranteed that I would have a chance to…" The enormous man sneered slightly, though the expression looked oddly fond. "How did she put it? Bury the fuckers ten feet down? There may have been something about burning Ame to the ground and dancing on the ashes." A shrugged dissidently, leaning forward ever so slightly. "What about that promise, huh?"
Something cracked in Tsunade's composure. "My represent- Oh, hell," she cursed fluidly.
The dark-skinned man with nearly white hair lurking at the Raikage's left shoulder looked scandalized.
"You mean Aiko," Sasuke said flatly. The tension in the room instantly ratcheted up. Karin made a grab for Naruto's hand, as if hoping to prevent him from doing anything risky. The tension in his muscles was obvious, but he didn't shake her off. "Unfortunately, Uzumaki Aiko is missing in action. So it is impossible to confirm your account with her. She was not alone when she made this offer, was she?"
Shizune sighed, swaying slightly. "I'll go get Hatake-san."
"Get Yamato, he'll be easier to find and he needs a break," Tsunade corrected, rubbing at her temple while the young woman bowed slightly and left.
The blonde man at the Raikage's right side looked so amused at the bad news that Karin seriously considered lunging over and punching him. By contrast, the Raikage was frowning.
"You lost her?" Displeased, he shook his head slightly. "You really are incompetent. I didn't think you would actually lose track of the Fourth Hokage's kid. Is that why this one is here, then?" A jerked his head toward Naruto. "The spare? How long until you get this one killed too?"
'He's trying to provoke us. Be calm. Be calm.'
Nope, she still wanted to rip off his stupid tacky belt and shove it down his throat after she used it to bludgeon him black and blue.
"She's not dead," Naruto said calmly, looking bizarrely unperturbed. "I'll be sure to convey your concern about her well-being when I next see her, though. I'm sure Aiko will appreciate your interest."
'What?'
The white-haired bodyguard might have been choking down a laugh, and he couldn't even see the flabbergasted expression on his kage's face. It was pretty glorious.
A let out a long breath, narrowing his eyes in a contemplative glare. Naruto stood straight, completely unaffected as far as the eye could tell. Karin cautiously disengaged her hand from his, not wanting to undermine the attitude he had going on at the moment.
"Well, that apple fell a little closer to the tree," A condescended grudgingly. "You look a lot more like the fourth Hokage, and you sound more like him too. Are you the smart one, then?"
Naruto, smart?
Well… he certainly wasn't stupid, but Karin had never thought of him as academically intelligent. He thought well on his feet, and he had both social and creative intelligence. Was that what the Raikage meant?
"Nope," Naruto smiled, and the tension in the room instantly fled. "But that's what I have Sasuke and Karin for."
"What am I, furniture?" Tsunade asked dryly. Karin wasn't fooled. The older woman was pleased that Naruto had managed to undercut the tense atmosphere.
Naruto wasn't quite magical enough to fix everything, however. After another twenty minutes of arguing, the Raikage stormed out with an anxious Shizune on his heels directing him towards the temporary 'diplomatic suite' where he would be staying the night.
Tsunade sighed heavily, slumping as soon as he was out of sight. "What a mess," she groaned. "I don't need his war-mongering right now. He really wants to storm the border himself."
"Why don't you want Ame punished?"
The blonde cracked one eye open to give Sasuke a tired look. "Isn't it obvious?"
Sasuke huffed, amused. "I thought you might want to monologue. Yes, it's obvious. The Raikage won't give up the territory once he's done with it. That would mean that one of our worst enemies would have a base very close to our center of power, one that was right next to the other large country out for our blood. Right now we have the protection of a three-country alliance, but we won't have that forever. We can't afford to let Kumo have Ame."
"Got it in one."
Appalled, Naruto opened and closed his mouth before he found words. "So Akatsuki is just going to get away with what they did, because we're too worried about Kumo being a danger in future?"
"No," Sasuke rejected. "Akatsuki itself will be punished, and Ame is going to be crippled for years to come. They're hardly getting off scot-free. They'll be paying diplomatic sanctions-"
"Crippling sanctions," Tsunade interrupted darkly.
The brunet nodded agreeably. "Right, they'll basically be giving us everything but their kidneys."
"And that's not good enough for the Raikage?" Karin ventured. "What more could he want?"
Tsunade gave her a pitying look that made Karin feel very young and small. "Revenge. Or justice, as he feels. He blames Ame for B's death."
"That's not completely unjustified," Sasuke muttered.
"Not completely justified, either," Naruto pointed out wryly. "That was your brother specifically, wasn't it? Technically on Konoha's orders to follow Akatsuki's orders, even if we didn't know it at the time. If that comes out…"
"We can't hand Itachi over, either," Tsunade groaned. "So stop being so damn fidgety, Sasuke. I'm not throwing your precious brother to the wolves. No, we're claiming that he was our man on the inside all along and that was why the invasion went so smoothly. No one is going to like it, but they won't disagree, either, since Itachi never did anything particularly offensive in his tenure in Akatsuki. As far as the public knows, anyways."
"Really?" Yamato asked sullenly, leaning on the doorjamb. "You mean he did nothing particularly offensive except attacking Jiraiya-sama and Naruto multiple times in an attempt to kidnap Naruto, or putting Kakashi-senpai and Aiko in the hospital?"
"Nothing offensive to anyone but Konoha," Tsunade amended, while Sasuke exchanged an uncomfortable expression with Naruto. They were probably going to have to talk that one over at some point. Then she scowled. "What took you so long? And did Aiko really promise the Raikage that he was going to get to exhaust his aggression on Ame?"
Yamato took a moment to answer, scratching thoughtfully at his chin. "I think there was something about burning it down? Which would be pretty hard, on account of the damp, but in her defense, she may have been unfamiliar with the climate."
Karin groaned.
"I suppose it could have been hyperbole," Yamato added with an air of contemplation, squinting slightly. "She sorta started by threatening Kumo if they didn't leave Naruto alone. That was where the burning thing came from, pretty sure. And then it just got transferred to the discussion of Ame. So technically, I don't think she promised that." He blinked, as if realizing the room was full of other people. "Does that help?"
No, that did not help. There was a moment of appalled silence.
"Good thing you didn't diplomatically empower anyone hotheaded with a flair for the dramatic," Sasuke commented mildly. "That would have been bad."
Tsunade crumpled up a paper and tossed it at his head in response.
~~~
Without opening her eyes, Aiko breathed deeply. Her bedroom still retained a bit of a dusty smell that made her nose itch, but it was beginning to seep with the scent of the shampoo and weapon polish that Obi had provided for her.
Obi was a liar.
Or at least, he was leaving something crucial out. Aiko rolled over and buried her face in her pillow, slinking her arms underneath the cool fabric.
It seemed a lot more likely that her nightmares and dreams were fragments of memory than that they were total coincidences. She'd brought up a couple of them, spaced days apart so that Obi wouldn't know she was having the dreams every night. He had claimed not to recognize what she was talking about. Either Obito was lying about being close to her (because he really should have known something about her personal life) or he was lying about not recognizing the situations she mentioned.
'Still, I suspect that it would be unwise to let on.'
She liked Obito, she really did. He was kind to her, and smart, and he helped her with all sorts of things. That didn't mean she was blind to the fact that she didn't really know what was going on, except that he now controlled every aspect of her day-to-day life, he was much stronger than she was, and that he had some sort of agenda for her.
Maybe she would go along with that agenda. Maybe she wouldn't. But she couldn't possibly help her situation by letting him know that she was suspicious of his intentions. If she was wrong, he'd be hurt. If she was right…
Well, she didn't even know what might happen to her. If he'd wanted her dead, she would be dead already. There had to be other things she had to fear, but Aiko didn't know what the hell they were.
'It might have been easier to stay in Konoha,' Aiko thought wryly. 'I probably would have figured out that they were hostile about the time I found myself strapped down with thumbscrews in my face. Would be nice to know where I stand with someone.'
But that ship had sailed.
Regretfully, she heaved her lazy carcass out of bed and rifled through the (approximately seventy billion) shiny plastic bags piled on the long-neglected furniture.
"I should probably put this away," Aiko mumbled, holding up …something, and squinting at it suspiciously. Maybe it was a scarf?
She didn't know what half this shit was or what she was supposed to deal with it.
"I get the feeling that Obi thinks I'm a kid," she remarked to an unimpressed dresser covered in a sparkly white table-runner.
It was just a fleeting suspicion, really, based on nothing more than the fact that the wardrobe he'd provided was rather heavy on flouncy skirts and high collars in pretty, bright colors. The inconsistency was odd. The man who was re-teaching her how to kill people –corpse corpse corpse—she shuddered—seemed to think she was an adorable kid.
'At least I'm sure he's not a pervert,' Aiko thought wryly, finally settling on a black skirt and a green button-up shirt with a high collar. 'That's one insidious motivation off the list of possibilities. And it does seem like he's fond of me. He's spoiling me terribly. If he really had no emotional attachment, he wouldn't go the extra mile, I think.'
As she slipped them on, she suspected that the white boots he'd provided had belonged to another kunoichi before, although Aiko had no idea who.
'Someone with big floppy feet,' Aiko thought meanly. And unfairly. She'd had to pad the shoes so that they weren't too big, but that probably had more to do with her than with their previous owner. Judging by the women she'd seen when Obito took her into town, she was a hopeless shrimp. Maybe there was a growth spurt in her future?
Because padded second-hand boots were not glamorous, and neither was the insidiously creeping suspicion that Obito was interchangeably acquiring her clothes from the child's and junior's sections.
It wasn't a thought worth lingering on.
The boots were in pristine condition, but they didn't feel stiff like the new equipment he'd gotten her did. Real shinobi gear was both expensive and hard to procure outside of a hidden village, from what she understood. The boots were the only thing in her wardrobe that appeared to be shinobi-tough, although they were well-disguised as merely pretty shoes.
'I like imagining that some poor woman is wondering what happened to her spare boots,' Aiko snickered. 'Obito, you silly creep.'
"See, you're adorable," were the first words out of his mouth when she trotted downstairs. "I told you to trust my taste." Aiko gave him a baleful stare.
"When did you get back?" she asked archly, tossing her hair as she settled against the counter. The motion would have been more dramatic if the mass of hair had cascaded or bounced or something. Unfortunately, she had an ugly explosion of tangles and knots that sort of jerked angrily.
The motion apparently drew his attention to her ill-maintained mop. Obito sighed, shaking his head slightly. "I just got here. Did you lose your hairbrush?"
Aiko blinked, hand frozen over the rather depleted fruit bowl.
'Hairbrush? What hairbrush?'
After a moment of racking her memory, she flushed self-consciously and patted at a tangle on her right shoulder. "Some girls don't brush their hair," she sniffed, tilting her nose up and randomly selecting a rather sad-looking orange.
'I remember that now. What happened to the hairbrush anyway? I haven't seen it in a while.'
The look on Obito's face implied that he didn't buy her lie. "You mean that you forgot. I thought that kind of thing was supposed to come naturally to girls," he drawled.
Aiko looked down and pressed her lips together, feeling strangely ashamed. It was hard to remember all the little things she was supposed to do.
She hadn't forgotten the humiliation that first night with the nurse who had helped her shower. Her impulse had been to say that she didn't need help—she knew enough to be certain that hygiene wasn't terribly difficult and that she should be able to handle it on her own. But when she was actually faced with the task at hand, Aiko had stared blankly at the arrangement of soaps and lotions she was supposed to use.
Could she just use one bottle and be fine?
No?
Well then. Was it shampoo and then conditioner? She was probably going to forget that at some point. What happened if she did it in the wrong order?
She was pretty sure that slathering herself in the scented chemicals deemed necessary by society wasn't meant to be actively stressful. She was getting better at it, though. The more she thought about it, the harder it was.
"Aww, hell. I'm sorry." Obito pushed that dumb mask that was always on his head up, exposing a slightly rueful expression. "It doesn't matter. Your hair looks exciting. Anyways, I have something for you to do today."
That perked her right up. "Really?" Aiko twisted to look at him, abandoning the fruit she'd been trying to peel with a plop onto the table.
He gave her a blank look for a moment before shaking his head slightly. "Yes, right." Oddly, he swallowed before he managed to gather his thoughts. "You'll be working with one of my associates. Zetsu should make sure that everything goes well. If worst comes to worst, he can contact me. I think you'll be fine," Obito added encouragingly.
'I should hope so. All you have me do is train.'
She gave him a thin smile instead of that bit of grumpiness. It wouldn't help anything. "So, what am I doing?"
Apparently reassured by her good attitude, Obito leaned back in his chair slightly and began twirling a kunai on his finger. "You'll be working to acquire monetary resources."
Aiko paused. Ruefully, she quirked an eyebrow at her comrade. He broke out into a sheepish smile. "Obiiii," she drawled. "You're telling me to replenish our coffers?"
He coughed. "Quite."
"That's not terribly glamorous."
"Nope," Obito agreed, popping the 'p' sound playfully. "But work often isn't. What do you think I do all day?"
'Steal cute shoes from giant women?'
She sighed theatrically, dropping the fruit onto the table and plopping down across from him. Aiko pursed her lips as she braced her chin on palm. After a moment, she tilted her head slightly, trying to convey pleading.
"That won't work," Obi said flatly. "I thought you wanted to work again? Ninja don't get to do only things that are fun."
"Ugggghhh," Aiko groaned, tossing her head back. "Fine. There goes my faith in humanity." She huffed. "So do I get details?"
"You're going to be answering a request for help that was communicated through some contacts of mine."
That was remotely encouraging. There was something a little romantic about swooping in to save the day. Was that what she and Obito did? Not bad.
"Help stealing an antique scroll. Seriously, this thing is ancient," Obito stressed, tapping his fingertips on the table boredly.
That was less encouraging.
"I'm a thief?" Aiko asked incredulously, scowling. "Seriously? Not even the cool kind of thief who does glamorous things, but a contractor?"
How boring, and businesslike.
Obito tossed his head back and laughed, flashing white teeth. "I may have left out the detail that you're stealing this back for the rightful owner."
"Oh." She blinked. "That… sounds okay, I guess. I think I could do that."
"Your confidence astounds."
Aiko scowled at his dry humor, and crossed her arms over her chest without paying any attention to how the added tension strained at the buttons of her shirt.
Obito flinched oddly.
"A-anyway, you'll have backup," he hurriedly assured her. "I'll introduce you to Zetsu-san when he gets here. Uh- he has the details. He'll walk you through it. But don't worry, you can do this. It's well within your capabilities, even now. Although to be safe, you should avoid using your real name. You don't want to be associated with a bad job. How about Masashi?" he teased.
Masashi. Righteous aspiration. It wasn't a bad name, exactly, but…
'A man's name? Fucking flattering. I don't know if that's worse than being told I'm likely to fail. Thanks, love.'
She gave him a black stare. Why did she hang out with this guy again?
That would be a thing worth knowing. She should look into that.
In response, he cleared his throat. "Yyyyeah. Um." Obito sucked in a self-conscious breath, aware that he was only digging himself a deeper hole and visibly desperate to change the topic. "So, are you going to do anything about your hair?"
That didn't help.
In the moment that Aiko considered leaping over the table and going for his throat, a rusty self-preservation drive kicked in. "Because I could do it for you?" he added weakly, wiggling his fingers. "And would like to very much?"
"Nice save," Aiko muttered forty seconds later, leaning back into the warm digits against her scalp as Obito finger-combed her hair. Even the frequent jolts of pain as his fingers caught on tangles couldn't bring down her good mood- she was all but purring. It turned out that her head was very sensitive. She whined unhappily when he gathered the mass in a slightly off-center tail at the top of her head and moved to awkwardly secure it with-
"Is that wire?" she asked incredulously, avoiding the urge to twist around to stare.
"What's wrong with wire?" her friend muttered self-consciously, withdrawing his hands like he'd been burnt. "Ninja wire has all kinds of uses."
It took a deep breath to calm down enough to formulate a coherent reply. "Obi?" He jolted guiltily at the nickname. "I'm pretty sure there's some sort of specialized product for tying hair."
"Maybe. A hair tie?"
She didn't really know for sure either. Apparently, personal grooming hadn't been particularly high on the list of priorities for her to remember.