Seduction games
Yugao had never expected to find herself contemplating parenthood. It wasn’t really the sort of thing that was expected of an elite jounin. Except that now it kind of was, by certain old clan traditions at least, what with the recent spate of kidnappings perpetrated by Konoha jounin. After all some clans viewed abduction as a perfectly reasonable way of becoming parents, especially if you murdered anyone else that might have a claim. Ninja clans were kind of fucked up.
Not many clans were very forthcoming about their pre-village policies on such things of course, no sense stirring up old troubles after all. But everyone knew the Senju and Uchiha had a child extermination policy for the majority of the warring clans era, and recent events had made it clear that both the Hatake and Inuzuka had held to the traditional shinobi principle of if it’s not nailed down you can take it, with the added proviso that if it’s a child too small to stab you it’s not nailed down.
At any rate it seemed certain old traditions were making a comeback. Not the child extermination thing thank god, but the other one, the one where if you kidnapped a kid and got away with it, it was yours. And since Raidou and Genma had made it clear stealing kids could be a couples thing, she’d been considering the idea more and more. Not that she had any such old clan traditions of course. She was well clear of that kind of inbred crazy at least, but even inbred crazies could have the right idea sometimes, and recently she’d been finding herself watching Hayate and contemplating what it would be like to raise a child with him. They’d be good parents she thought, they could teach the kid swords and knives and how to be utterly terrifying, and all forty three verses to “The blue eyed kunoichi” with associated gestures. It would be fun, and she and Hayate could finally take the time to indulge their musical hobbies. Maybe they could be travelling musicians, in between assassinations.
She glanced speculatively at the pre-genin girl who was throwing an assortment of bladed objects at a training post with the kind of focus that was one creepy doujutsu away from making the target spontaneously combust. She was actually pretty good, just the sort of potential that could flourish under the tutelage of a pair of ex anbu. Yugito would have to track her home of course, just to make sure she didn’t end up in the kind of shit Genma and Raidou were in after kidnapping a full set of very influential clan heirs. She unlike some people, knew how to plan ahead.
Now, how to convince Hayate.
…
Sakura was having an absolutely wonderful day. She was so excited. They were in Tea country and at first she’d been sceptical, but once again her brilliant mentor had proved she had been wrong to doubt him. There was a Mad Scientist here, no doubt plotting nefarious and world ending plans. She could tell because she kept spotting ninja with extra body parts sewn on, and the last six villages they’d passed through had been terrorised by one form of unholy abomination of an escaped lab specimen or another. If those weren’t warning signs of mad laughter and violations of the laws of nature she didn’t know what were. Clearly she and her mentor were here to thwart his evil plans. Her mentor came up with the coolest training assignments.
Of course she had to impress him, so she’d sneaked off in the evening to try and locate the Mad Scientist’s Evil Lair. And she’d found it, it was underground, and shiny, and large and minionlike people kept going in and out of it. Jiraiya shishou was going to be so proud of her.
When she got back to the hotel room though, Jiraiya shishou wasn’t there. She was worried for a moment before she realised, he must have gone to follow up on a lead. She’d just have to wait for him to come back.
In her defence she did wait for a while. It was just, after a while she got a bit, bored, and then she started thinking about how impressed Jiraiya shishou would be if she managed to infiltrate the enemy’s lair all by herself. And so a couple of hours later saw her slipping quietly through the shadows of the underground base.
…
Kabuto had been having a perfectly ordinary day, writing up the results of his latest tests, when the alarms he’d set up on his personal lab went off. Irritation warred with curiousity in his mind as he he made his way over to investigate. The disruption of his routine was unwelcome of course, but he couldn’t help but be intrigued at the kind of person who would dare invade his sanctum. It wasn’t something that had happened to him before. After all, even those who hadn’t learned to be wary of him in his own right generally had the sense to fear Orochimaru’s reaction if they bothered him.
It took him a moment after entering the lab, to spot the intruder. An impressive feat considering the bright pink of her hair. She had real skill at blending with the shadows. She didn’t so much as flinch when he turned the light on, just met he gaze with a calculating kind of self assurance that Kabuto couldn’t help but find compelling. Maybe that was why he didn’t signal Orochimaru. Much as he adored his adopted dad, there was a part of him that wanted to keep this unlooked for discovery to himself, just for a while, just to see how it would all play out.
She was younger than he was, not by much, but a couple of years makes a big difference when you don’t have many to spare. It meant that he had a good couple of feet of height on her, and yet somehow, he didn’t feel at an advantage. Not when she smiled at him with that sly secretive smile that whispered of secrets and agendas he couldn’t predict. It was a strange kind of rush, to be challenged that way.
“Who are you?” He asked, careful to keep a safe enough distance. Young and small didn’t mean harmless after all. Some of the deadliest creatures in the world were smaller than his hand.
“Sakura. Haruno Sakura.” She replied. “And you?”
“I’m Kabuto. I live here.” She gave him a suspicious look.
“Are you one of the Mad Scientist’s Evil Minions.” Kabuto felt inexplicably offended by that statement. There really was no reason to care what she thought, but somehow he found himself arguing with her anyway.
“I most certainly am not. I am Orochimaru’s adopted son. I am far more important than any mere minions.” He could see by the expressions flickering across her face that it was taking her a moment to slot that information into her world view, but soon enough her face cleared and settled into a look of slightly smug understanding.
“Ah” She nodded, “Of course. You’re the Dark Lord’s beautiful daughter who must be seduced by the hero to the side of good. That makes much more sense. You’re far too pretty to be a minion.” Kabuto wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or insulted by that, and Sakura didn’t give him time to decide before ducking in to plant a gentle kiss on his cheek. It was only then that he realised she had been slowly moving closer to him over the course of their conversation.
He would deny to his dying day that he blushed a little when she kissed him. He would also deny to his dying day how easily she was able to hit him with a sedative while he was distracted. As the darkness closed in all he could think was that next time, he would have to have a trap waiting for her. It wouldn’t do to let such a challenge go unanswered after all.
…
Jiraiya had not been having a good day. First he came back from scouting out the hotsprings to find a note from his young apprentice informing him she’d gone to infiltrate Orochimaru’s base. Seriously, did that child have no sense of self preservation? Then, when common decency forced him to infiltrate Orochimaru’s base himself in order to rescue her, he found himself captured by his former teammate.
Being captured by Orochimaru was never going to be fun, but somehow, over the last few years his old teammate had reached new levels of depravity. No longer content with experimenting on small children or kicking puppies, Orochimaru had crossed a whole new moral event horizon.
He may have sobbed a little as Orochimaru brough up the 750th powerpoint slide. He had been trained to resist torture, but tying him up and forcing him to sit in on Sound Village’s organisational committee meeting while Orochimaru gave a six hour multimedia presentation on fostering young talent within the organisation, complete with an unreasonable number of holiday photographs of him and his new son, was just inhumane. There were multi-page handouts, and evaluation forms. Jiraiya suspected Orochimaru might be punishing him for infiltrating at an inconvenient time.
Then, to top off an incredibly bad day with extra humiliation, he had to be rescued by his young apprentice, who had managed to successfully infiltrate Orochimaru’s base, steal his files, find Jiraiya, and seduce Orochimaru’s son, all by herself. Jiraiya wasn’t sure whether to be impressed, disturbed, or insecure. He settled for paternal anger, Sakura was definitely far too young to be seducing the heirs of supervillains, if that Kabuto showed his face around Jiraiya he’d regret ever laying a finger on his little student.
At least Sakura believed he’d just been biding his time to get information out of his nemesis. To be fair the presentation had contained a lot of useful information. It was just that the price had been so horrifyingly high. There had been action statements, and actualization goals. Jiraiya wasn’t even sure what an actualisation goal was, just that it was awful, and soul destroying, and he hadn’t known his former teammate could sink so low. In any case the hero worship was intact, which was a nice sop to his bruised ego. Even if he was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, he might be in over his head on this one.
…
The rain fell grey and unrelenting on the dirty streets of the capital, washing away the filth of the day. Too bad it couldn’t wash away the crime and corruption that ran through the city’s foundations like rot. Asuma sighed and leaned back in his office chair as he took another drag of his cigarette. Another day, another helping of courtly intrigue, it was almost enough to make him wish he’d stayed in Konoha.
Almost.
But watching his village’s slow decay had been too much to bear. Too much, when he knew how his father would have wept seeing it, if he had still been able to understand what was happening. Sarutobi Hiruzen might not have been the world’s best father, but he had loved his village, and most days Asuma thought it would probably have been kinder for him to have died the day of the Kyuubi attack, rather than left as a figurehead to the fall of that same village. It was one of life’s great cruelties and Asuma cared enough for his father that he couldn’t bring himself to watch.
The court might have been rotten to the core, but at least in the capital there were no memories waiting to assault him down every alleyway, no disappointment at how broken things had become. The capital was poison, but there was an honesty to it. People knew what to expect, and what they expected was nothing, no justice, no honour, no pretence at kindness. It was easier, than watching what Konoha had become, the corrupted hopes, and failed dreams.
And here, no-one expected him to live up to his father’s legend, or halt his disintegration. Life in Konoha had been a life always in his father’s shadow, the good and the bad, until there was nothing of himself that he could call his own. Out here, his actions were his own, for what it was worth.
He breathed in the smoke, let it swirl through his lungs, and considered asking his young apprentice to fetch him a drink. God knew there wasn’t much else to do on an off day like this, not unless he felt like networking with the unending parade of sycophants that plagued the Daimyo’s court like locusts, and he wasn’t that far gone yet. He was on the verge of calling to Neiji to open the liquor cabinet when… She walked in.
Neiji tried to stop her, poor boy was still too hung up on protocol, but talented as he was Neiji was years too young and green to stop the kind of trouble she was. She sauntered in with long dark hair, and blood red eyes, the kind of predatory grace that screamed Kunoichi, and the kind of smile that screamed trouble. He knew from the moment he laid eyes on her that his day was about to go to hell, so he finished his cigarette before acknowledging her presence.
“Kurenai. To what to I owe the distinctly unexpected pleasure?” She rolled her eyes as she folded herself gracefully onto the chair in front of his desk, every movement a carefully deliberately casual performance. Asuma couldn’t help but be impressed.
“I can’t just stop by to see an old friend”, she asked, with a wide eyed pretence at hurt. Asuma raised a cynical eyebrow.
“You’re a missing nin Kurenai. I’m assuming it was something more significant than a desire to remenice that led you to my doorstep.” Out the corner of his eye Asuma could see Neiji’s frame tense with the revelation, poised for combat. The boy really needed to work on his tells. In any case there was no need. If Kurenai wanted him dead, she wouldn’t be meeting him face to face. Kurenai held the moment for dramatic effect, but after a few breaths of silence she continued.
“Well I was in the neighbourhood, and I heard there was a plot to kill the Daimyo. And, being a good friend, I thought it was the sort of thing you’d want to know.” Yep, Asuma had been right. His day was definitely about to go to hell. If only she didn’t look so damn good in those heels.