five.
“I don’t need them.”
The ceramic figure of a cat holding a big steamed bun in its paws stared back at her. Ei clutched her market bag tighter. The cat’s cheeky grin begs her to buy it, but she stands her ground.
“I already bought everything I need.” She states firmly and continues walking down the aisle.
Naruto babbles from the sling on her back. He was old enough to not need the swaddle kind, so instead Ei had switched to the piggyback kind of sling.
“Exactly. I restocked all the bathroom stuff. And the paycheck is supposed to be used for school. And responsible things.”
Ei nodded to herself, her little kitty cat purse that she used to hold her spending ryo and her sparkly bankbook was a completely necessary purchase. Ei needed a money purse. Melon cream buns were also very necessary. Ei steeled herself and walked away from the shelf of ceramic statues and souvenir cups. She was here to buy cheap travel tupperwares, not ceramic statues. Everything is cheaper at souvenir stores, which is why Ei liked to get snacks and tupperware there, she needed to replace the thermos she used to use because the lid had crac-
Ei’s steps halted abruptly. There was a salt jar set on sale. The jar was shaped like a chubby kitten. Ei had just used the seasoning for the meal kits they came with, so she rarely used any other seasoning. Her salt was kept in the wooden grinder and didn’t see much use. But... if she bought the cat jar then it would take up less space on the counter.
“Organizing is a responsible purchase, right Naruto-chan?”
She twisted one arm behind her back to absentmindedly pat Naruto’s face.
“Organizing is very responsible.”
Ei ended up leaving the store with a very responsible purchase of a pink and yellow kitty kitchen organizer set.
Ei’s normal routine was this. On school days, she got up at 7:00 and ate, usually a bowl of rice with an egg or pickled vegetables. Then she would get Naruto feed and dress him, pack both of their day bags, dress herself and if she had extra time she would read one of the books that came with their “fully furnished” apartment. When it got to 30 minutes till school started she would grab her and Naruto’s bags, walk down the street to drop off Naruto, then go to the academy. After that was done she would go back, talk to Hisako-san, take Naruto back home, and make some sort of meal kit.
On days with no school, she did one of three things. Stay at the apartment; cook and do inside activities. Go outside and eat something packaged, because people yelled at her when she brought Naruto in their shops. Or stay at the orphanage and bring something back from the markets for lunch. Her free days spent with Naruto were usually good.
Once a week she meet with Susuki-san at what seemed to Ei a random location. Those lessons depended on Susuki’s mission free days so those were basically random. The lessons were also basically random.
Her new academy allowance on top of her normal allowance meant she could buy something more than senbei. So once a month she bought senbei, green tea, and a steamed bun; pork or adzuki filled. Naruto was old enough to have things other than formula, so Ei shared her rice crackers with him in a park. Naruto didn’t have teeth yet but he could gum on the senbei.
“Hand me that brush darling? The pink one?” Susuki-san leaned back and took the brush from Ei, carefully brushing the pink goo onto her hair. “This one is a highlighter, it makes sure that the red doesn’t look bland you see.”
Ei kind of saw. “Your neighbor is back, he doesn’t have his summons with him.”
“Correct! Write that in your notebook.” Susuki pinched one foil-covered layer of hair and flipped it to brush the ends with a light pink color.
This week's lesson was taking place in Susuki-san’s house. While she touched up her hair, Ei was supposed to write down the number of people that passed the house and try to guess their chakra nature, age, and gender. They sat in the kitchen, Susuki-san leaning on the counter over her sink, Ei sitting on the floor with her eyes closed. Susuki asked her random questions and filled the silence with talk to help Ei practice filtering distractions and multitasking.
Three approaching signatures. One Male, small and dim signature. Two females, one hasn’t learned to suppress her chakra, which is like sun-warmed slate. The other seems to be trying to suppress it. “Genin team, no sensei.”
“Check above them, the sensei might be watching them from the roof.” She wraps the pink ends of her hair in foil which makes an awful noise that Ei ignores.
Ei checks. “There is no sensei.” She writes down the time and what she sees. “Isn’t that bad Susuki-san?”
“Hm?”
Ei taps her pencil on her crossed legs. “Sitting on the roof in a Shinobi neighborhood.”
“Depends on the person I guess,” She shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t mind because I can sense them anyway, it doesn't matter if they are stomping around on my roof or not. Most people are polite enough to muffle their steps though, which you'll learn to do with chakra eventually.”
She takes a new brush from the bowl of dark red and dabs it onto her hair.
“Any shinobi knows not to stomp around the Anbu apartments though. Or T&I. That's just stupid.” Instead of waiting for a response she just answers what Ei’s question will probably be.
“When someone is startled, they might jump or drop what they are holding. When anbu are startled, they throw knives. So try not to make a habit of scaring shinobi dear, not until you can dodge anything that comes at you.”
“Oh.”
While Ei waits for someone new to pass the house she asks any question that comes to her mind. Susuki-san has never told her to be quiet so Ei isn’t quiet here.
“Why do you make your hair red?”
Susuki hums and places one perfect nail on her chin. “I like the way I look with red hair I suppose. There was this one kunoichi, she died a couple years back, but she had this dark red beautiful hair. You might hear her mentioned in your classes actually, but she was married to the Shodaime. Uzumaki Mito was a seals mistress, and she was a damn good sensor too.”
“Mito-sama was a Princess from the land of waves, she married Senju Hashirama and helped found this village. She was so good that she could sense up to 5000 miles! Ei dearest, that's almost the entire land of fire! And that's just when she didn’t use seals, she used seals like homing beacons to expand her reach!”
“Seals themselves are complex though Ei,” Her face scrunched in thought, “Chains upon chains of characters and enough math that it would make your head swim, she was such a master of that art that she created the Tailed Beast Seals.” Suzuki-san paused here triumphantly to allow Ei could marvel at this. Ei thought it was pretty cool.
“I thought the Niidaime did that.”
“Is that the kind of garbage they teach you now?” Suzuki grumbled and tsk’d. She hadn’t even had a history class when she was in the academy, at that time in the war they just had to get Genin out into the field as quickly as possible but that was beside the point. Nothing was stopping them from teaching those impressionable kids the right way now, especially during this peacetime.
“Along with the fact that Uzamaki-san herself was the first jinchuuriki, and yet she still lived long enough to oversee the choice of the next Jinchuuriki and had six children. SIX! Beautiful, elegant, smart, and super kickass!” Susuki-san finished her impassioned speech with a fist in the air and a winning smile.
Ei thought Susuki’s pose was probably one of those things she wasn't supposed to ask questions about.
Susuki saw her look and cleared her throat. “I’m emulating her a bit I suppose.” Susuki gently shakes her head, which is now a wet bundle of red and tinfoil. She hadn’t meant to go on a rant.
Susuki takes a pink stained towel to wrap around her hair, now finished with her touch-ups. “Alrighty girlie, repeat back to me what I was talking about while you were spying on my neighbors.”
Ei huffed and climbed into the kitchen chair. “Not spying,” She pouted. “Sensing.”
Susuki snorted and moved to sit with Ei at the table. “Not really a difference in this occupation Ei. Now Report.”
Kakashi returned the one finger standing ovation Finch gave him from the roof across.
Team reassignment request, verified.
Official curses did not exist in the Anbu sign, unofficially, there was a stapled-together packet in the Anbu lounge just for curses and insults. Fingerspelling also worked just fine. Finch is very proud of his extensive knowledge of the book and repeated his message with his hands moved higher up to indicate the positive connotation.
Team reassignment request, verified. Smelly s-t-i-n-k-y Taichou.
Anbu Dog gave the sign for affirmative and dragged it upwards to indicate his great pleasure. Kakashi really didn’t care who he did the detail with. He was a professional who could do his job in any situation. But Finch was annoying.
Hunt missing-nin, mission in three days. Pleasure working with you, Dog.
Just to be an asshole Kakashi waves in his direction instead of an actual response. Good for Finch, he was part of the hunter corps anyway, they could put Finch’s sensor skills and maniac energy to good work. Maybe I’ll finally get a silent partner Kakashi thinks to himself. Finch’s move to protection detail had been hot gossip among the small Anbu corps. Finch himself said it was probably his sensor capabilities, which made sense. There were enough shinobi qualified to be sensors in Konoha, but only a few were good enough for Anbu.
Protection was one of the more disorganized departments, seeing as the head of Protection was just the Hokage, and the missions were just whoever the Hokage thought needed it. Or anyone who was being watched. The missions could range from guarding Konoha’s jinchuuriki, which Kakashi had done alone for Kushina on Minato’s orders, making sure certain political figures didn’t kick the bucket before the Daimyo wanted them too, to making sure paranoid Jonin didn’t kill someone when they woke up in the Hospital. Kakashi managed to mostly avoid hospital duty, as most of the time he was the flight risk escaping.
Finch settled on his roof, with a direct view of the container’s window if an intervention was needed, and thought pleasant things about his new mission. Wonderful Wonderful Very Good. No more silly children trying to talk to him with chakra. Realizing that she could talk to people long distance, the child tried to talk to him. Occasionally during the evening that little brat would brush against his chakra and flash a message in Konoha standard tap code. Finch would have told the small child that she was awful and ugly and loud but his lovely taichou smacked him upside the head before he could. So he had just sent a bland greeting and told her to go to bed. He moved his main focus to his own thoughts.
Danzo-sama was satisfied with Finch’s reports of the Jinchurriki’s status and was going to pull Finch back to missing-nin hunts. His job of spreading rumors was finished. Under his mask, Finch licked his lips and really hoped that Danzo-sama wouldn’t pull him from the missing-nin hunts again. There were always traitors to drag into the shadows after all.
Kakashi ignored the low level of killing intent that always seemed to be leaking from Finch. Anbu were allowed a measure of weirdness.
Hisako patted Ei on the back and smiled as she led the child out the door. Ei’s sensing had a lot of potential if she could ever expand her range. Hisako is certain that while Ei will never match the range of the Nidaime, but her capabilities in sensing minute details will make her an excellent asset to the village. It may be time to start sending out the scouts.
Ei waved at Hisako-san and started her march toward the marketplace. She had heard talk about a vendor on the poorer side of town that gave discounts for academy students, and she found a coupon that meant it was free .
Hisako had not in fact died. Surprisingly. The Sandaime Hokage had basically given her a slap on the wrist since Ei had figured it out on her own. Hisako was aware she was on extremely thin ice, the only thing that stopped her from falling into the waters was the Hokage’s foolish affection toward the container. The blond woman had a feeling that Ei would soon be telling her that the Hokage had paid a visit. Before Ei had grown so attached to the container, the Hokage had visited the orphanage to talk money and inform Hisako of a permanent mission to watch the jinchuuriki. She was heavily encouraged to take the mission because the Hokage would fire her otherwise. Danzo-sama said it would be an opportunity to get a watch on the jinchuuriki before the Hokage isolated him. Hisako got a raise. She never actually did anything with her money but it was the thought that counted.
In her personal opinion, if the village as a whole knew that the baby they blamed for the Kyuubi attack was actually the Yondaime’s son and last heir of Uzushio, then they would be kinder but she didn’t get paid to have opinions.
“Ei-kun, do you want to go to the river together? My mama will be home all this week, so we could play together after school?” Kaho ventured.
Ei waited to respond, but not her normal wait. She really did want to see Kaho. Ei had said before that she had a brother, and that she had her own apartment. But she didn’t know if Kaho would like Naruto. The senbei man didn’t like Naruto, then he didn’t like Ei. Keiji and Nori hadn’t liked Naruto, and they hadn’t liked Ei anymore. Ami-san never liked Ei but when Naruto came Ami acted like Ei was never there. When Ei came to pick Naruto up she only lingered to talk to Hisako, otherwise she just ran back to her apartment. Ei had all but disappeared from that place and she pretended that it didn’t hurt. Her grip on the backpack straps tightened.
A part of Ei didn’t want to lose Kaho. The other side said if Kaho didn’t like Naruto then she wasn’t as kind as Ei thought.
“Um.” Ei shuffled her sandals in the dirt and kept her eyes down. Kaho was her first real friend. Ei could see her chakra and little pinpricks of light that were the kaichu in Kaho’s veins. Kaho’s chakra looked nervous but hopeful.
“Ok. I have to pick up my brother though. Do. Do you want to come with me? Kaho-kun?” Ei offered. She decided to be hopeful too.
“I’ll have to ask my mama! Wait for just one second!” Kaho took off past the gates so Ei stayed in place. Ei took a breath and watched Kaho bring back an Aburame woman.
“Hello, Ei-chan.” The woman nodded to Ei.
Kaho was pinked cheeked and smiling so Ei smiled back. “Mama says we can just go with you to pick up your otouto and we can all go to the river together!”
“If that is agreeable to you Ei.” The woman said. “There are many Aburame, you may call me Shiki-san.”
Shiki-san used a lot of big words. Hisako used big words too so Ei figured it probably meant yes. Ei bowed shallowly which Shiki-san returned with a nod.
“Follow me?” Ei started off in her direction, looking over her shoulder at Kaho and her kaa-san. This was new, but maybe it was good new? Her landlord never said if she was allowed to bring friends with her, but the genin who lived under her brought his team over all the time so it was probably fine. The only time her landlord actually said anything about what Ei did is when he told her to stop dumping so much soap in the clothes washing machine.
Kaho sped up to walk beside Ei and the two started a conversation about the new kaichu Kaho was going to start introducing to her hive. Kaho showed one to Ei, these ones were able to understand simple chakra commands. Ei made appreciative sounds when one of the new ones of the hive flew out from Kaho’s hood and did a figure-eight loop around Ei’s finger.
Shiki-san walked behind the two, happy to escort the two girls, but also to see where Ei lived. Shinobi paranoia and nosiness went hand-hand, and Shiki-san wanted to see what conditions the girl lived in, especially if she lived alone with a sibling younger than her.
When Ei reached the Orphanage complex she took Kaho’s hand to lead her through the doors and up the stairs. The stairs in the orphanage were not in the same place on each floor, it was meant to cause confusion in case of any unknowns trying to enter. It made it difficult for visitors to navigate. Ei flushed her chakra in a greeting to the mossy light and cold water over rocks hiding on the roof. She was told to always greet her peers. Aburame Shiki was intrigued as to why Ei was talking to someone in the building but didn’t question it aloud. Ei stopped at a door at the end of the hall and opened the door.
“I’m here Hisako-san! I brought Kaho-kun with me!”
Hisako had been sitting quietly in a chair by the window and rose to greet them. Naruto was playing on the rug on the floor when the door opened he shrieked happily and made “ uppy ” hands at Ei.
“Hello, Ei. This is your friend Aburame Kaho?”
Shiki stepped into the room with Kaho, “Yes, I am Aburame Shiki and this is my daughter Kaho, I thought I’d supervise the girls while they played.”
“How thoughtful of you.” Hisako answered, and really hoped Ei wouldn’t say anything about the “super secret guards for Naruto-chan” to either of the Aburame.
“Let’s go!” Ei took the sling from its place on the dresser top and slipped Naruto in front, she twisted it around to her back with him in it which made Naruto giggle. Kaho leaned forward to examine the boy and had to agree with Ei-kun, the baby was very cute. The two girls took each other’s hands again and rushed out the door. The plan they’d made on the way was to get grilled mochi (paid for by Shiki-san) and play by the reeds.
Walking behind the girls gave Shiki-san a clear view of the whiskered boy. That was certainly something. The child was staring at the woman with a big smile, and every once in a while Ei skipped to make the boy giggle. Aburame Shiki was part of the sensor division of Tracking, so while the general populace-shinobi included- were not aware of what a Jinchurriki was, Shiki knew what it meant when the Sandaime had issued a gag order on any and all Jinchuuriki talk. Most sensors in the village had been aware of Uzumaki Kushina’s status, so her disappearance only meant that the next Jinchuurkki had been chosen. Her kaichu shuddered at the reminder of the burning waves of chakra from that night.
Not many people knew of Kushina’s role. The Aburame Clan were not the type of people to judge someone for what was inside them. Shiki didn’t see much of a difference between a kaichu host and a jinchuuriki, both used the creatures inside them to help. So when the girls wanted to splash on the banks of the Naka she offered to hold the child. The girls searched for frogs in the reeds with sticky hands from mochi, while Shiki sat on the bank with Naruto on her lap.
With sunlight dancing on the leaves and laughter ringing out in the clearing, Ei’s worries washed away and she stomped with Kaho in the rush of the Naka’s waters, knowing that she had made a true friend.