thirteen.
Ikaru met up with her superior for the next week, Yuu, outside the main Root entrance. It was behind Hokage Mountain, an urban mess of pipes, walkways, and concrete shelters that guarded the entrance to Konoha’s worst-kept secret. They continued together to the estate where foreign visitors were housed in silence.
There were going to be four people watching the Kumo delegation, Ikaru included. As always, they worked in teams of two. Her superior Yuu was a tall man with a blank mask and broad shoulders. What task the other team, Yui and Hidari, were assigned, she didn’t know. They exchanged brief words confirming they all knew what the mission was then they all split their separate ways.
Ikaru’s orders were to observe only, do not engage.
As she crept through shadows and over rooftops she couldn’t deny that she was a bit on edge. It wasn’t nerves, this mission was well within her abilities. She was chosen specifically for her abilities in fact. There was no room for error.
The blue-safe-warm barrier around the village stretched, and the sensation of crackling-static pierced the veil.
Maybe it was nerves, she confessed to herself. Whatever it was, Ikaru had a mission, so she steadied her heart and took out a notebook. As the barrier stretched and rippled to allow the group to pass she recorded all she could see about the group. Based on the maturity and amount of reserves everyone in the group was Jonin level. Their signatures were similarly staticky, even if they weren’t all raiton natured. The group of five shinobi were keeping their chakra close but not so much as to seem stand-off-ish. How polite.
The ‘greeting party’ consisted of the Hokage, his guards, and the shinobi meant to accompany Kumo throughout the village. They met the Kumo-nin as they finished check-ins at the gate and proceeded together to the estate after exchanging tense pleasantries.
Ikaru closed her journal with a silent snap and followed them quietly. She was suppressing her chaka to a level similar to a bird, and keeping a cloaking jutsu up that would silence her footfalls, erase her scent or any sign of body heat.
The route was planned specifically to avoid shinobi clan compounds and crowded areas to make it easier to avoid any altercations. There was no issue in transporting the group, the late hour of the night made it so there weren’t many passerby, plus the police were stationed at road corners to keep away any civilians from interfering.
The Kumo nin had strange uniforms, their asymmetric white vests were worn over black pants and black shirts cut-off at the elbows. The Head-nin, a jonin of thirty-two years, was a tall broad shouldered man with dark skin and bandages wrapped around his head. The bandages covered one eye, a choice that seemed deliberately provoking. Bold of him to cover his eyes in the village known for its powerful doujutsu. He wasn’t as tense as his teammates, but calm. A similar watchful calm as the Hokage. The trip from the gatehouse to the foreign housing estate was short. When the Hokage and his guards parted ways and the Kumo delegation was shown to their quarters, Ikaru settled into place for the night on the office building neighboring the estate. She felt Yuu take position on a building opposite. The other two shinobi should be taking their places near, they were to be observing suspected and known Kumo informants.
While she was stationary Ikaru wrote down the appearances of the group and the main chakra natures so she could tell them apart as she monitored and for the mission record. For lack of better words to describe their overall group signature, she wrote, ‘crispy’ and vowed to change it later to something that made sense. It was lightning but not quite like a Raiton nature. More like the tense energy of the skies before a storm.
Was that too poetic for a report? Maybe. Made sense to her, but it wasn’t likely to make sense to anyone outside of a sensor type.
Ikaru had trained for this so staying alert all night wasn’t a problem. Her watch was uneventful, throughout the night they cycled through bouts of mission-light sleep and wakefulness as they traded watches. It was to be expected that they wouldn’t trust Konoha enough to sleep through the night without precautions.
Nothing stood out in the group, except a sense of… smugness? The group wasn’t nervous, just aware. But there was a sense of arrogance that pervaded their emotions. Especially the Head-nin. It was out of place among the wariness and cautious hope that surrounded everyone else.
Ikaru recorded that in her journal, she could decide its usefulness and whether or not to omit it from her report later.
Kumo’s delegation was peaceful throughout the night and into the morning. At 0900 the group moved as a whole to the Hokage Tower to negotiate the terms of the official war’s end treaty.
Wisely, none of the shinobi strayed from the escorts and stayed in the tower. Ikaru felt a small bit of relief, it seemed they really had come for peace. All five of the Kumo nin were willing and helpful in the treaty. None of them did anything too rude, nothing that couldn’t be excused as cultural differences or nerves. They didn’t wander around and they didn’t use the training grounds provided at the estate. She kept her guard up though.
Strangely, smugness didn’t go away, if anything it got worse. She asked Yuu about it when she reported to him during a recess in the negotiations. It stood out to her, ‘smug’ was not an emotion associated with ‘peace’ to her knowledge.
He said that Kaminari no Kuni was getting more out of the deal than the Hi no Kuni. From her understanding of the events, Lightning’s Daimyo was going to retreat from Kusa and Steam but they were going to keep troops in Frost. Hi no Kuni couldn’t afford another war, and neither could the small nations and hidden villages between Lightning and Fire.
The negotiations came to a close late in the night. Trade between the smaller nations would resume, and promises not to declare war for at least a few more years, today we have formed a lasting bond, etc, etc. With a little bit more hammering out of minor details and sending back-and-forth messengers between the Daimyos, the treaty would be signed publicly and Kumo would be free to go. It did not go unnoticed that the Raikage deigned not to sign in person. Now came the real part of her assignment.
The group did not stay together after negotiations were over. Ikaru felt that Danzo-sama was right in having the ‘visitors’ observe Kumo. The Sandaime wanted to trust that the party wouldn’t do anything, and it wasn’t helping his image as a weak kage that the party was being allowed movement after negotiations. He was probably trying to preserve Konoha’s image as the ‘nice’ village, but it was wishful thinking that Kumo would play nice.
Kumo split up. The headnin and one other jonin, probably the second highest ranking one, stayed in their quarters. The other three jonin went out into town. They were of course escorted by a Jonin, watched by the police, and tailed by herself, but it still made her nervous. In a shocking display of a lack of shame, Nangumo Raichi went to a specialty weapons shop. Nankumo Mirai and Ogumo Raiji went around street food stalls and souvenir shops. They were either stupid or very overconfident.
Ikaru stayed in her post observing the estate but kept an eye on the others in the background. They were too comfortable for her liking. Almost seven years since the armistice was announced meant that tensions between villages had certainly died down a little, but surely they were aware that they were being too casual inside a shinobi village? They weren't doing anything especially wrong, but the rudeness had the village on edge.
Yui from the other team reported that one of the jonin had made contact with a retired shinobi. The Kohonan was disposed of by Hidari, likely a traitor contact. Only one very drunken civilian had made an aggressive move towards one of the Kumo Jonin so far, and he was swiftly dragged away by the police.
She turned her focus back to the estate when she saw senior Jonin woman chakra begin to slowly move into sleeping patterns.
Not too exciting for a first mission. It’s good that Danzo-sama’s worries were for nothing then. The Foundation had expected worse, only one contact disposed of was above mission expectations. She flipped through the pages of unorganized notes compiled over the last 24 hours and organized it into a neat nightly report for Yuu. Once those Kumo shinobi were out of the Land of Fire she could rest fully and compile a total mission report, for now she would take light mission naps and stay awake.
Ikaru glanced up.
That doesn’t seem quite right.
Kumokawa was faking sleep.
Ikaru slipped her things back into pouches and jumped down from the pipe she was resting on to a curved roof closer to the estate to take a better look. She didn’t want to use the pulse and risk alerting Kumo that they were being watched so she shrunk her mental map down to only a portion of the village.
Now that there was less interference and background noise it became obvious. Kumokawa wasn’t sleeping, she was forcibly moving and repressing her chakra in a pattern similar to sleep. It might have fooled Ikaru if she hadn’t been observing them already. The Head-nin was still awake. Dim chakra, but not sleep dim. Still bore the mark of lucidity and mission awareness.
Hm.
Her head tilted to the side as she considered the Headnin. His chakra was gathering in his hands, but it wasn’t any brighter or dimmer.
Ikaru blinked.
Ah.
How clever.
Kumokawa Miu and the Head-nin had very similar signatures. Same age, have relatively equal levels of Raiton and Suiton natures, and similar reserve sizes. By making herself seem smaller, it would cover up signs of her superior using jutsu. Ikaru could probably use that.
Right before her senses, a new network formed. It was fuzzy around the edges and didn’t bear the mark of higher intelligence. That Kumo-nin just made a clone.
A clever dupe thought Ikaru. Her orders were to observe only, so she stayed put. Yuu would have noticed as well. Until she received orders otherwise she would remain still, but she did mark it down and inform Hidari in case the Head-nin was trying to make contact with anyone. The clone was soon dispersed. Strange. Likely a mist clone.
Despite trying her best to be unaffected by this, it was making her worried. Whatever that was, she was missing something. Old reports of a failed Jinchurriki kidnapping attempt swam to the surface of her mind.
If it was important Yuu would say something right?
A brief check on the other teammates assured her that they were nowhere near Naruto or the Orphanage. Her squad members were still in place. The Anbu detail around Naruto was still in place, and it was doubled. Uchiha police and wary shinobi hung around the rest of the Kumo delegation barhopping around Konoha.
There it was again.
He was making another clone. It was more solid.
Still nothing from Yuu.
A mist clone peeled off from the Head-nin chakra network slowly, and Ikaru shunshined to Yuu’s position.
Taichou. She signed.
Aware. He replied, not having moved when she appeared next to him. She stood on the giant branch next to her invisible superior in silence for another minute. And another.
The clone hadn’t dispelled.
Taichou.
It stayed in the room with the Head-nin and the female Jonin, who actually was asleep now. Ikaru didn’t move as the rest of the teammates returned to their quarters and all fell into their beds.
Acknowledged. Return to post.
Clearly dismissed, Ikaru left her captain’s side and returned to her post. She should be saving chakra for the signing event but she stayed hyper-awake the entire night watching the delegation and Naruto.
The clone still wasn’t gone.
The public treaty signing was going on and he still hadn’t dispersed it.
The Hokage had his anbu guards, the council members had their guards, and almost the entire population of Konoha was gathered to watch the signing. This was an opportunity to take a break, get some rest while every eye was on the Kumo-nin.
Ikaru wouldn’t take that chance.
She kept her eyes peeled all night watching the clone. While the rest of the Kumo team went to the Hokage Tower balcony, the clone had sunk under the estate sometime during the night and was lying in wait for something.
Her orders hadn’t changed. Observe only, do not engage.
Cheers rose from the mountain. Ikaru didn’t turn her head. The treaty had been signed, and relief-bitterness-grief-happiness that erupted from the sector was distracting her so she ignored that part of her senses. She didn’t dare turn to bask in the joyful chakra abounding from relieved people. It was wrong. Why leave behind a clone and do nothing with it?
The clone finally moved. Ikaru tracked the movement with her head in an owlike movement, staying unmoving. Her limbs were tense with coiled energy just waiting to be released, making her crouch uncomfortable.
Yuu wasn’t near, he had left to report to Danzo-sama. Hidari was in the happy-loud-bright-victory crowd by the mountain. Yui was nearby but he wasn’t doing anything. Observe only. Follow your orders.
She really did try to keep still and clear her mind, she really did.
The clone moved under the soil and emerged in a training ground meant for visiting chunin examiners. It looked around and walked into an alley. Yui still hadn’t done anything.
She shot off the curved red roof and followed at a distance.
Dispelling the clone would alert him. Not dispelling the clone would probably be worse.
Grateful for the sound-muffling effect of the silencing jutsu as she fumbled the landing jumping from one roof to the next, Ikaru’s thoughts raced. Despite being a clone she could follow the signature easily, really easily actually. To her knowledge, there was no jutsu to make a solid clone with as little chakra as the Head-nin has used. Even the infamous Kage-bunshin of the Leaf used half a shinobi’s reserves. What was the point of creating such a weak clone only to send it away? Reconnaissance?
It took a turn out of the alley, skirting past the walls of a minor merchant clan and casually walking into the street. If it weren’t for the uniform it would look just like any other passerby.
The bunshin took a wide strolling path around the Inuzkua compound gates, avoiding other smaller compounds that had people inside still.
Yui was closer now, he had followed her there. Still no change in orders. Yuu-san hadn’t returned, he had likely joined the guard detail for the treaty and to keep an eye on the Kumo delegation.
Clones don’t have a scent, why take such a long path, where is it going? Ikaru stopped on a mossy tree branch frustrated. Was it lost? There was a reason foreigners had to have escorts in the Hidden Leaf; most outsiders got confused by the alluring chakra given off by the Hashirama trees; it would make sense for the clone to get lost.
But then again, despite its wandering path, the clone clearly has a destination in mind. It would make turns with purpose, not hesitating when it came to splitting paths or stopping when the surrounding phased out of the confusing urban sprawl of the village center and proceeding with confidence into the more traditional sections of the village that defined the clan districts.
She paused, sticking to the side of a rounded building with one hand on the beams supporting the overhanging roof, and her feet stuck to the plaster walls with chakra when the clone finally came to a stop. It looked both ways, sunlight glinting off the lopsided hitai-ate, dropping the relaxed gait of a civilian on a stroll and standing straight. Its gaze locked on something and it took a step forward just as it clicked with Ikaru.
It’s not a clone.
As she shakes the jutsu that hides her presence off, her thoughts are not on what consequences will come. Without thinking, her first action was not herself, but the village. Later she would question if it was her own will or another’s. Chakra boils under her skin and pours outward rapidly, Ikaru guides it to hover above her and flash Konoha standard. The Headnin of Kumogakure dipped below the surface, speeding towards the pale purple glow of the Hyuuga clan boundary.
It makes her just a little dizzy, using so much chakra at once. Green chakra condenses and becomes blue, the color of pure chakra, bright enough so anyone can see her lit up like a beacon. She sends pulses through her fingertips, sending a message to every shinobi she can sense. It’s loud and very bright.
It takes less than a second for the Headnin to feel, and a second more for the sirens to start.
Kinoe-senpai flipped off the pillar of the earth about to crush him into the ceiling, his straight hair fell into a neat river of brown down his back as he landed.
Why is his hair like that?
Ikaru dove under the ground and shot back out on the other side of the room to avoid the branches reaching for her torso, her short hair stuck to her face and her neck and she had that deep feeling of wrongness and knows that her hairline isn’t straight anymore. Because of the hair stuck in her face, she doesn’t see the blunt hilt of the chokuto headed for her until too late.
She wakes up with her face in the dirt and Kinoe-senpai leaning over her.
“You were out for 25 seconds. You should tie your hair back.” Says Mr. Obvious.
“M’pmpf,” replies Ikaru, who still has her face in the dirt. A hand pats her head, she feels like some sort of cat. A really dirty stray cat.
She would tie her hair back, but she cut it too short and too unevenly and now it doesn’t all go up until a ponytail. She could probably use pins to keep it all up. She attempts to relay this to her sparring partner but she forgot to move, so her face is still on the floor.
“Kud use a pn to keep it ap.” She says into the floor. He doesn’t bother to dignify this with a response.
“You should have been able to dodge that. I would have been able to.” His chakra glows above her, it has a definite tint of amusement in it. She wants to be annoyed by it, but truthfully the glow is so pleasant she doesn’t actually care that the joke is at her expense.
She peels her face off the floor and tries to get her hands under herself to rise. Her fingers feel numb as she tries to rise to a sit. Eventually, she does get it right, Kinoe-senpai stays crouched beside her form with his usual blank stare very unhelpfully the entire time.
“Is there a reason you wanted to spar?”
Yes. “No,” she says convincingly, now sitting up fully. It has nothing to do at all with the fact she was never called in to report after the whole debacle was over. She refuses to meet his face.
“Nothing to do at all with the Hyuuga Incident?”
“I don’t appreciate being interrogated, senpai.” She brushes her hands over herself, healing the blemishes and small scratches, making note of rips and threadbare patches at need to be fixed.
“When’s the last time you slept?”
“Do I look that bad?”
“Don’t evade the question.”
“Two days ago,” Ikaru says with confidence, knowing full well that a light nap is not what he was talking about. Her attempt at humor failed, being grilled by a superior probably wasn’t a good time to practice. Ikaru doesn’t look at him as she coils her wires back into loops around her hand. The coil is too tight as she winds it around her too-small fingers and it bites into her flesh.
“Whatever mission you had, it's over now. Training won’t change whatever outcome the mission had, and it won’t make you stronger if you train with a broken body.”
Ah. He saw right through me then. Should have expected it.
Ikaru, Yuu-san, Hidari, and Yui all returned to HQ after the alarms were over. She didn’t see it herself, but apparently, the Headnin managed to reach the Hyuuga clan head’s estate. He didn’t last long after that, as the entire clan and most of Anbu’s task force were on his heels. That was two days ago, Ikaru hadn’t resurfaced or heard any more about the event. She didn’t want to think about it. Ikaru isn’t wearing her mask right now, so her sigh is heard easily. His voice becomes more stern as he reprimands her as a superior, not a fellow agent.
“I don’t know what it was they had you doing, and I won’t ask, but you need to get back up. Don’t use training as an excuse, your form was off, you are clearly exhausted, and you took more blows than you needed to. You need rest. You should know by now, Danzo-sama has no use for weak shinobi.”
She looks up through the uneven and dirty fringe she really should be pinning back at the boy. He meets her eyes easily. A reprimand, but a warning as well. Don’t slip, because no one will catch you if you fall.
“Hai.” Ikaru ducks her head to break the eye contact, disguising it as a nod. She feels too open, too exposed now, like Kinoe-senpai’s small kindness had stripped away whatever barrier she had been trying to build up. The mask on her belt is unclipped and quickly placed on her face before the cracks in her blank face shatter completely. Together they clean the sparring ring, evening out craters and forcing branches to retreat back into the earth.
A masked woman melts out of the shadows as they are finishing up. “Summons from Danzo-sama.” Ikaru acknowledges
She mutters a thanks to Kinoe-senpai then turns and follows the woman into a shunshin.