Date: May 3rd, 13 years following the Kyuubi's attack
Days since Teams 11 & 13 reached Mizumiyo Palace: 15
Time: 3:16 AM
"This is absolutely unacceptable!" The traitor exclaimed the instant the ninja he'd hired showed up, after leaving him waiting for the better part of five hours that had passed since the end of the opening dinner. "Mizuzaki should be a frothing bubble of near insanity by this point! What the fuck am I potentially PAYING you for?!"
The ninja shook his head. "I'm at a loss to explain it, sir. I worked on the Lord Daimyo MYSELF every night of the two months we had Mizumiyo infiltrated. The damage I did should have taken YEARS to heal naturally; not that he would have lived long enough to do so. Every piece of gossip we received afterwards was that he even been degrading FURTHER over the course of the six months since his last 'treatment;' given mere hours before Kodansyo was exiled for life. Either Mizuzaki's mind is far more resilient than I initially estimated or..."
"Or what?"
"Or a ninja with Jonin-grade medical training was able to discover my tampering and reversed it." The facilitator finished. The traitor opened his mouth, but the ninja answered his unspoken question. "Your orders were for slow debilitation with no permanent damage before he was deposed. That meant anything I did could be undone nearly as easily as it was for me to do it in the first place. I hid it as well as I possibly could, but anything that is hidden can be found. If one knows to look for it, of course…"
"Fukamichu! That Valleys-born devil spawn!" The regional Daimyo hissed. "He must have finally realized something was amiss and called on one of the other villages for support."
The ninja shrugged. "Well, if he did, the medic-nin isn't here anymore... Besides, I did it once; I can do it again."
The other cocked his head. "What do you mean?"
"Well, unless he hired medical ninja that are no longer beholden to the village that trained them, like the deadly beauty Tsunade of Konoha and her retainer Shizune, the only ninja currently in Mizumiyo Palace are the 17 teams that were hired as bodyguards - much as my team was. Only the Hidden Sand and Hidden Leaf Villages have the resources to train a medic-nin of sufficient skill to discover what I did and heal the Lord Daimyo so quickly. That reduces the pool of candidates down to six of the seventeen teams. Of those six, four are known to be from the lesser "support" villages on the border of the Land of Rivers so we can eliminate them from contention."
A frown crossed the traitor's face. "Why?"
"In the world of ninja, medical jutsu are amongst the most complex and most time consuming to teach. As a result, there aren't that many medic-nin; making each and every one extremely valuable."
Realization dawned on the traitor's face. "Naruhodo... Too valuable to be left anywhere EXCEPT the primary village where they can not only be protected, but train others in the arts as well…"
The ninja nodded. "Exactly! Having Tsunade turn her back on Konoha after the Second Great War probably hurt their medical program severely. However, because she was the granddaughter of the First Hokage - the man who worked with the Uchiha to create the current ninja village system - not to mention everything she did during the war, no one in their right mind would have tried to deny her request to retire regardless of how badly it affected their programs. Despite her departure, Konoha has - without a doubt - some of the best trained medical ninjas in all of the Five Nations."
The curse master shrugged. "In any event, that leaves two teams to worry about: one from Konoha and one from Suna. Daimyo Kosha has a Sand team made of four women: the three Genin are clearly seduction specialists while the Jonin is the Desert Rose herself."
"The assassin?!" The client gasped in shock. "Why would..." He paused, a sly grin appearing on his face as he chuckled. "Kosha, Kosha, Kosha...I never would have thought you had it in you!" The ninja looked at the traitor questioningly. "He's after two things: retribution and blood. Those seduction specialists are probably here to pry the truth as to why his only son was exiled, under the very accurate assumption that it was politically or personally motivated by someone who will be here in attendance.
"Once he exonerates his son, he will claim the right to decree sentence on the one who betrayed his family, as the protocols state is within his rights. Mizuzaki will grant it unhesitatingly for his oldest friend to try and salve over the sting of his role in the whole thing..."
The Jonin grimaced as he followed the idea to its logical end. "And Kari is known to be capable of being instantly lethal, but she also knows how to leave a target in lingering pain. As a hunter-nin, she once captured a rogue-nin from Suna and since hunter-nin make sure their village's secrets don't get out, they kill rogue-nin and destroy their bodies utterly. According to the rumors and whispered stories, however, it's that the Desert Rose took this one's betrayal personally. So personally, in fact, that she didn't bother killing the rogue-nin before she began to disassemble her."
The traitor looked curious. "How long..?"
"The story says she kept the traitorous kunoichi alive, in a state of absolute agony, for the better part of three WEEKS." The Jonin answered. "And whether the story is true or not, there have been very few missing-nin from Sunagakure in the decade since."
"I'll have to make sure to remember that. Could be useful for the executions that I want to be... memorable. Well that leaves one team: even IF Kosha and Ayanami were still on polite speaking terms, the Suna kunoichi team is clearly not the one responsible for the Lord Daimyo's sudden recovery of his faculties. What about the other team?"
The Jonin snorted contemptuously. "Not a chance. The leader's a Hyuuga. While they're exceptionally gifted in chakra control and can become superior medic-nins, most of the Main Family members focus more on Taijutsu and Espionage as their clan have techniques in both that are practically unbeatable, leaving the Branch Family to handle support-type roles."
"How do you know she's Main Family?"
"The Hyuuga Branch Family members get a special sealing jutsu placed upon them that destroys the parts of their eyes that would allow other villages to study the secrets of their Kekkei Genkai after their death. The engraving of the seal leaves a distinctive mark on their forehead that indicates their status as secondary clansmen. It can never be removed while they live and those who are unable - or unwilling - to accept that fate typically keep the seal hidden with some kind of headwear."
The traitor gestured confusion. "She was wearing a forehead protector every time I saw her. How do you know it's not there?"
The edges of the other ninja's mouth hinted at a self-satisfied smile. "She wasn't every time I saw her. Even the all-seeing eye of the Byakugan can miss things when one is enjoying a soak in a Sento's tub. Who would pay attention to another puddle of water in a bathhouse?"
"Rather petty use of your talents, don't you think?" The man asked pointedly. Not that he could fault the ninja - the woman in question WAS gorgeous.
"Trust me, the Hyuuga was WORTH it." The ninja said lustily. "If there is perfection to be found in this world, she is DAMNED close to it." He sighed wistfully. "It's a shame we come from two different villages..."
The facilitator shook his head. "In any event, the Hyuuga is the only one in the Leaf team worth worrying about. Her three Genin look greener than the Grass ninjas' uniforms; I wouldn't be surprised if this was their first trip from Konoha. They're probably not to be trifled with, but I'll eat my forehead protector if any of them turns out to be a medic-nin." He paused. "What about that guy in white that was seated at the Lord Daimyo's table? You hear anything about him?"
"Only that he's a retainer of a Fire Country Daimyo I've never heard of… Not that that means much; I don't have many dealings with that nation since it's less willing to accept my... efforts." The regional Daimyo admitted. "In all likelihood he's either the real thing or an imposter used to sell the story that Reiyuriko-hime was on a trip for the past two months. I doubt he's anything worth worrying about." The man licked his teeth contemplatively. "So, how do we make certain that Mizuzaki's mental break occurs?"
The ninja gestured negligently. "Leave that to me. It will be done or I will die trying."
The traitor nodded. "Very well. Leave me; I have to be up for the audit in five hours."
The Jonin bowed in silent agreement before disappearing in a puff of smoke.
* * *
Day: ????
Time: ????
Motoko Hata's eyes opened slowly as the morning sunlight touched her face. Her body felt leaden and she really didn't feel like getting up, but the brightness pierced her eyelids such that she had to move.
"God, am I tired..." She muttered. "Who left that curtain open?"
She paused in confusion. 'Curtain? There aren't any windows in the security closet.'
Forcing her eyes to open, she noticed that she was in a room with a white ceiling and lime green paint on the walls, resting on a delightfully plush Queen or King size bed - she wasn't sure which; she just knew there was far more space on it than her normal bed was - with a reddish-brown wooden frame. There were satin sheets and a thick comforter covering her up to her neckline. Motoko felt an odd twinge in her belly, unlike anything she ever felt before. Curious and confused, pulled the sheets away.
Her emerald eyes widened in shocked disbelief as she looked down at her body.
She was wearing an emerald and black bra and a pair of emerald silk night pants, but her sun yellow sash, which was normally tied between her breasts and her bellybutton, rested barely above her womanhood.
This was due to the fact that her normally flat belly was distended by at least three or four inches and her "innie" had become an "outie." She raised a shaky hand to the ovular dome of flesh. As she touched it the odd twinge came again along with a slight, almost half-imagined pressure against the palm of her hand as the developing infant shifted away in response to the intrusion.
"O-O-OhmyGod! I... I'm pregnant!?!" Motoko cried out in surprise. "How can I be pregnant when I've never…"
"Honeybunny? Was that you?" Sho Inugami's voice, sounding deeper than usual spoke from one side. Motoko's head snapped in the direction of his voice. Sho had stepped out of the bathroom, nude save for a pair of powder blue boxers with two black stripes, his long hair hung loosely as he looked at her with loving concern. He was also older than she thought he should be - easily in his mid-twenties rather than his teens.
"Sho...kun..?" She asked, feeling more than a little disoriented as memories of things that hadn't happened filled her mind: dates, their wedding, the honeymoon, and the days of blissful joy in between. Not to mention the look of excited shock he'd had when she told him he was going to be a father...
"Hey... Are you okay?" He asked worriedly as he dashed over to her. "Is your morning sickness back?"
'I'm having a dream... It has to be a dream.' She thought to herself as she sat up. The small of her back started to ache from the changing position of the extra weight of the tiny life in her womb. 'But damn, this hurts too much to be a dream...'
"Easy, easy, 'Toko-sa." Her husband said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Let me help you up."
"Thanks, Sho-sa. And no, my stomach's fine." Motoko Inugami replied, climbing out of bed.
As she got to her feet, the pain changed directions yet again: a new experience, yet somehow familiar. Her ankles gave way slightly, but Sho - as he always had been - was there to catch her, his strong hands wrapping around her hips to rest on the lower half of her belly even as he craned his neck over her shoulder. It was an intimately close feeling, but so utterly comforting because it just felt RIGHT.
Motoko rested her hands on the top of her belly, melting into her husband's loving embrace. "It's so hard to believe at times that this is real..."
Sho began to nibble at her earlobe. "I think that to myself every single morning that I wake up with you by my side, Motoko. And soon, we'll have our first child to make our lives complete. Although Mom and Pop are kind of miffed that we haven't been able to tell them whether they're shopping for a boy or a girl…"
"I don't want to ruin the surprise, Sho; you know that." She countered as his tender ministrations moved to her neck line, filling her with wild passion. "Oh... Don't do that... You know I can't resist you when you do that..."
He chuckled dryly as he unfastened the hooks holding her bra closed. "Oh, I know... You know what I also know?
"Hmm..?" She moaned in pleasure. Sho was so very good at making her feel like a woman, but he also managed to do so without it being from the pleasure of sex.
"We've earned a vacation day or two," He murmured as he continued working her neck with light kisses, like a butterfly landing on the curve of her milky skin. "Shall we go back to bed?"
Motoko blushed, feeling conflicted between the desire to protect her unborn child and longing for the feel of her husband within her. "Sho, I'm nine weeks pregnant!" She protested, but did not make any serious effort to pull away from him.
"Is it my fault that I find you irresistibly sexy no matter how you look?" He murmured as he started working on the lower part of her neck, his gentle hands whisking the straps of her bra off her shoulders. "And you can be on top so we're as gentle as possible for the little one." His hands caressed her swollen belly protectively before sliding up to the underwire of her bra. "Hey~ Something's different here..."
"Yeah, I've gotten to that point..." She agreed, removing the confining piece of fabric and plastic, letting it fall limply to the floor. Motoko Inugami winced slightly as her husband's delicate fingers gently compressed her full, tender breasts. They had been uncomfortably tight even in the D cup bra she'd just removed thanks to the changes brought on by pregnancy that would allow her to produce milk for the baby.
A decidedly naughty thought popped to mind, but one that she knew her husband - not to mention herself - would find enjoyable, although he would never think she'd be willing to consider. "Care to help me break them in?"
"> I thought you'd never ask... <" He said, a dry, dusty-sounding lilt to his voice, as he began to shift his location to work his way down from the top.
The tone of his voice suddenly raised the hackles on the back of her neck. 'Something's wrong here...' Motoko Inugami realized as she unconsciously activated her Auric Sight ability.
"Sho? Are you alright?" She asked, reflexively pulling away so she could look at him.
As soon as she did so and got a good look at him, she screamed in absolute horror...
Her beloved Sho's aura was filled with a darkness that overwhelmed all but the faintest traces of the normally warm colors that his soul had shown the night she'd enabled her ability for the first time.
A raspy hiss escaped his mouth. "> Stupid bitch... You should have just played along. <" Imaguni Ohs breathed as he caught both of her wrists in a grip that she was unable to break as he spun them around and pinned her to their bed. "> But no, you had to over-think things like he always did. <"
"You're hurting me!" She said, struggling. "Where's my husband?!"
"> Why, I'm right here, my dear Motoko-chan; I AM part of Sho Inugami, after all. When you married him, you married his darkness, too. Now, I believe I'll accept your generous offer... <" His mouth suddenly seemed to be filled with razor sharp teeth as his tongue extended far longer than it had any right to be capable of.
Motoko felt its warm moistness land between her ponderous breasts before it began wrapping itself around her right one like a coiling snake. As it reached her swollen nipple, it began to tease it in the way that Sho had always done so well. "Uhnn... No..." She protested, struggling. She felt the wrapped tongue begin to squeeze like a boa constrictor, sending a surge of agonized ecstasy through her breast as pressure began to build up deep within.
If it continued...
She only had to be careful to make sure she didn't hurt the baby by accident...
Focusing all of her willpower and chakra within herself, she deliberately removed the mental dampeners that kept her body from unleashing a charged electrical current as she neared orgasm. To protect her baby, however, she only lowered the ones around the area where she was being molested.
As the barrier dropped a powerful bolt of lightning coursed through her trapped breast onto her corrupted husband's tongue and ran into his body. The surge was far stronger than Motoko wanted or intended it to be; in fact, it was if the weak pulse that her entire body would have emitted was concentrated and spilling out like the stream formed by a pin hole in a water balloon.
For Imaguni Ohs, it was if he'd suddenly taken a bite out of a live, high-voltage power line. The electricity traveled straight into his brainpan and hurled him backward with the ease of an irritated giant swinging at a fly. Sho Inugami hit the wall and crumpled to the floor, curls of horrific, fatty-smelling smoke rising from his body.
He coughed once, trying to focus on her, but his eyes had a milky look to them, as if they'd been cooked from the inside out. "Sor..." He coughed again. "Sorry, Mo-tok-o... I... cou-cou-couldn't st-top him..."
Motoko felt her heart crack as her Auric Sight revealed that the darkness had evaporated. "Sho! Oh, God, what have I DONE?!" She wailed as she saw that the colors of his soul were beginning to fill with some sort of static. "I've got to call the Hospital!"
"Motoko! Don... Don't..." Sho gasped, stopping her before she reached the phone.
"But you're hurt, Sho! If we don't get you help you'll... You'll..!" She couldn't say the word 'die.' If she said it, it would be more than she could stand.
He smiled sadly. "Bet... Better this way."
"NO..! No, Sho! I..." Her hand went to her belly. "WE need you!"
His head shook once. "If I survive... He survives... Couldn't... Couldn't live with... myself for letting... him hurt you. Won't risk... him ever raising... my hand against... our child." He coughed again, this time spitting up blood. "Protect... you both... if I die now. Good... Good enough... for me."
Motoko ran over to him and kissed him passionately as she hugged him. "How could they have ever called you a monster..?"
Sho gave her a weak smile. "Never really cared... Only your opinion... ever mattered. Want you... forgive yourself... this..." He then pushed her back weakly. "Look away... Don't want... see this..."
Tears filled her eyes as she backed away. "Sho... What are you..?"
"Have to hurry... End it... before he recovers... tries healing us." Sho said, tears dripping down from his face, his blind eyes looking at her sadly. "I'll be waiting... for you in… Pure Land, but I don... don't want to... see you there anytime soon..."
Motoko could feel all of the chakra her husband could muster being gathered in for one final effort, one that she knew that, no matter what she tried, she would be powerless to stop. All she could do now was try to respect his last wishes, though she didn't know if she would ever truly be able to forgive herself for killing him the way he wanted her to.
Turning to the bed, she grabbed the comforter and threw it over her head, blocking her view of the room. Seeing what was about to come would undoubtedly be a burden she was better off not having to carry. Knowing her husband, that was why he spent what little vital energy he had left to get her to not watch.
"Good... bye... My love, my child..." Sho gasped just before a powerful rushing wind, like a spontaneous tornado, disturbed the stillness of the room. As it crescendoed to its maximum volume, there was the sound of the roof collapsing - hiding what would surely be the grisly sight of a Wind jutsu specialist using his Ninjutsu to utterly destroy himself. The wet paper ripping sound of Sho's flesh unraveling… The fluids splattering… The series of sounds was perhaps one of the most devastating things the kunoichi had ever heard...
But it didn't hold a candle to the sound of Motoko's own heart shattering as she felt Sho's tender, loving soul give her one final, intangible caress before slipping away to wherever they went once freed of their mortal shells.
"SHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" She wailed, helplessly, as she curled up into a ball; the agony of having murdered the only man she'd ever loved finally hitting home and rending her heart and soul asunder.
* * *
Time: 6:15 AM
Motoko Hata shot out of bed, her futon cover flying off as she hurled it away with all the strength of her body. How could this have happened? She never imagined a reality without Sho Inugami in her life being possible, but now all she'd have left of him was his child...
"No, Sho!" She cried, burying her face in her hands as she wept bitterly. "How am I going to do this without you?!"
"Say wha..?" Sho Inugami's voice asked, confused, from the opposite end of the security center where was standing in front of the open door to the Sento. "It's my morning to get to use the bath, isn't it?"
Disoriented once again, the kunoichi's hands parted slightly in shock - almost afraid she would see his devastated corpse half buried where she'd left him in their bedroom. Instead, he was there, a mere five meters away, still fifteen years old and vitally alive, the two of them in their hidden room, where she'd fallen asleep before he'd returned after the dinner the night before.
She looked down at herself, her hands rubbing her belly, which was every bit as flat as it should be - no sign of the unborn child the dream had shown her carrying or larger breasts that were on the verge of producing milk for the first time. The kunoichi's hands, questing for confirmation that it had been nothing more than a dream turned nightmare, began to examine her breasts, which showed no signs of growth, sensitivity, or even welts from the snake-like tongue that had been so rough to them just moments before.
> Be good, be good, be good... < Imaguni Ohs began repeating, mantra-like, to himself in an effort to abide by his promise to not make lurid comments.
Even so, Inugami had to blush and turn away. "Umm... Hata-san? Guy in the room, remember?"
'Why is she doing that?' Sho wondered to himself, remembering the odd dream that had woken him up. 'Did she have a dream she was pregnant with our child, too?'
"EEK!" Motoko shrieked in embarrassment as she removed her hands from the most visible aspect of her womanhood. 'S-S-Sho saw me fe-fe-feeling myself up! Oh, Kami-sama, just let me die now!' Hata wiped the tears out of her face and sniffed a couple of times. "S... Sorry, Sho-kun... I just..."
"A bad dream?" Sho asked, risking a glance. Seeing that the coast was clear, he turned back to face her.
The kunoichi sniffed again and nodded. "Yeah... It was just so real; like the one a week or so ago." She began crying again. "It started out so GOOD. It was the future and you and I, we..." She blushed unable to say the words. Motoko knew Sho was having a hard time coping with his feelings; telling him she dreamed of having his baby would probably be too much for even a great guy like him to handle. "We were HAPPY, Sho! And then..."
The medic-nin smiled wanly, remembering how the first dream of the "future" had turned on him so viciously. As had the one just minutes ago. "It all went to hell?"
Motoko Hata nodded miserably as a warm rain began to fall on her nightgown. "You lost to that... that voice and he..." Her voice cracked. "He tried to FORCE me and..." Her throat shifted as she tried to swallow, but all the moisture seemed to have evaporated from her throat. "I, I defended myself and..." She gasped for breath. "Oh, GOD, I KILLED you, Sho-kun!" She cried as she began to sob uncontrollably.
> Way to go, Sho! < Imaguni Ohs muttered in disgust. > You've managed to make her fear me as much as you did! <
'Hey, we don't know she means you, alright? And now's not the time for recriminations, Ohs… She needs us to be there for her.' The medic-nin thought back as he walked to her futon and knelt on the floor beside her.
Unsure as to what to say, the white-haired young man put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze. "Hey, now... It was just a dream. I'm safe, you're safe; Okay?"
"No, it's not okay!" Motoko cried, her green eyes looking into his mismatching pair. "My mind played on my fondest dreams and my worst fears and I just can't STAND it! And this was the second time it's done that since we've been here!"
"Second time..?" He asked gently.
She nodded. "It was right after the…" Motoko glanced at the Sento door and flushed with renewed embarrassment. "I dreamed you proposed and we got married and then…" She clutched at her chest, remembering how painful that dream had felt.
Sho's heart was pounding in his chest. 'She… She had the same nightmare? Twice?'
"After I sensed that other half of yours take control of your body yesterday..." A shudder passed through her body. "I don't understand… The boy that helped me save you when you fell into that boar nightmare said the guy with the dry voice was your Subconscious. I didn't think he could control your body like that and my dream played on that confusion!"
Sho Inugami and Imaguni Ohs both froze at the mention of the boar that had broken the medic-nin's psyche. > "Boy?" < They both asked in confusion.
Hata sniffed back tears. "Oh, right… He said he was your Unconscious mind, so you wouldn't be aware of him… God this is so confusing! It's why I didn't say anything before… I was sure you'd think I'd lost my mind…"
The medic wrapped his arms around her in a comforting hug. "Never, Hata-san… What happened?"
The kunoichi shook her head. "I don't know where to begin, but…" She took a deep breath. "I saw the terror that you went through, Sho-kun… You were running for your life and screaming in your sleep. I… I couldn't wake you up; the Illusion Break wasn't working." Hata twisted in his arms and looked at him. "You were in such pain, Sho-kun and then…"
Inugami suddenly fell back in terror, breaking the hug; visions of her rejecting him for the Demon inside flooding his mind. "You… You saw it..?"
She shook her head and practically lunged at him; grabbing him in a hug and burying her tear-streaked face in his chest in an effort to comfort them both. "No… I only heard a voice; the same one from the first dream, not the one from your other half."
Hata looked up at him, unconditional love and acceptance in her eyes. "Oh, Sho-kun, I can't imagine how much it must have scared you to go through that… But I understand why you would want to keep people away because of it! Unexpected powers can terrify experienced ninja. What happened to you as a child and what happened with my eyes that night…" She buried her face in his chest again.
Unreality stacked upon unreality. Inugami held onto Hata until he could trust his own voice. "Your eyes?"
The kunoichi looked up at him. As she did so, her eyes tensed as she had seen Hinata do so many times before and her Reikigan activated. Sho Inugami stared at her eyes with wonder – Dojutsu Kekkei Genkai was the part of his parents' research that interested him the most; they were the hardest thing to explain from an evolutionary standpoint. The revolving rainbow colors of her irises were mesmerizing.
"I still don't understand what's happening to me, Sho-kun, any more than you understand what's happening to you…" She said, looking soulfully at him. "But as long as you don't reject me, I'll never reject you… I… I love you, Sho-kun!"
*BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP!*
* * *
Time: 6:30 AM
Sho Inugami and Motoko Hata were both startled from their sleep as the alarm clock's shrill ringing began.
The two of them looked at each other from across the room for a brief moment in confusion before the medic-nin reached out and cut off the alarm. They both opened their mouths as if to ask each other if what had just happened was real, but then both blew it off as their exhausted imaginations getting the better of them.
"Busy day ahead of us, huh, Hata-san?" Inugami finally said.
She nodded as she began to roll up her futon. "Yeah, the royal seamstresses are coming to fit Reiyuriko-hime for her formal dress at 8:30 and that will take most of the day, so I probably won't see you until the dance this evening…" She paused, looking uncertain of herself. "Sho-kun… Mitsune Konno and Keitaro Urashima…"
The medic-nin swallowed tightly – their alter-personas for the dance were lovers. "I know. The cover story."
"Yeah…" She looked at the floor. "Look, Sho-kun, I…" Hata looked at him. "I think I understand why you started acting the way you did before we left home."
Inugami's eyes tensed. Her knowing what happened during the boar incident and accepting it had just been a dream, hadn't it?! "Hata-san, I don't…"
She raised a hand, cutting him off. "Sho-kun, you can't spend night after night with a woman without her managing to get at least a glimmer as to how your mind works… And let's face it, a lot of WEIRD stuff has been happening to both of us during this trip, okay?" He nodded at that – weird barely scratched the surface. "Some of it is stuff we can't take our minds off the mission for as long as it would take for us to get to the absolute truth; I don't know how much is real and how much are the weird dreams that I've been having, but that's not the point…"
Inugami's brow stitched in confusion. The kunoichi had been having unusual dreams, too? "You've lost me, Hata-san... What are you getting at?"
She took a deep breath as color filled her cheeks. "Keitaro and Mitsune are LOVERS, Sho. I know you're a great guy and you don't do anything unless your whole heart is behind it, which is probably part of the reason we're so uncertain about each other." She paused. "But at the same time, we're going to have to be convincing at the dance or we'll blow a hole in your cover story a kilometer wide! That means we're going to have to dance and kiss and generally be CLOSE tonight. It means that neither of us are going to be able to flinch away from it the way we have been when things have gotten..."
"Squicky?" He supplied the euphemism.
"Right." Motoko agreed, her cheeks flushing even deeper. "So I think we should agree, now, that it'll be like we're a pair of actors in a play; nothing more. In other words, no matter what has to happen between Keitaro and Mitsune tonight, once the night's over it will have no bearing on what happens - if anything - between you and me. You NEED to be Keitaro Urashima tonight; not Sho Inugami PRETENDING to be Keitaro Urashima. By the same token, I have to be Mitsune Konno rather than myself."
Sho Inugami was silent for a few moments. "Do you realize what you're asking of me?"
"Sho-kun, it's not like I'm asking you to MARRY me or sleep with me!" The kunoichi retorted, finally irritated by his hesitancy; although she blushed despite herself; recalling the two dreams where they'd been just that.
'Not that we're opposed to either notion. Especially not the later one.' Hata's Naughty mind thought with a lusty moan.
"All I'm asking is that for just ONE night you let your burdens go for a change. You can pick them back up tomorrow, okay?"
The medic-nin took a deep breath before Imaguni Ohs could chime in that by the spirit of their deal, she WAS expressing a desire for intimacy and he was bound to tolerate it. "If anyone else had asked me, I wouldn't even consider it, Hata-san…"
"I know, Sho-kun." She agreed, her heart skipping a beat. "But that's why it has to be me that asked it off you. We're selling a character; nothing more."
He nodded in acceptance of her deal. "Then tonight, Mizumiyo Palace will be graced by Urashima and Konno…"
"And what happens in Mizumiyo Palace stays in Mizumiyo Palace." She agreed, feeling a flush at how forward she was being.
He bowed elegantly as he pushed the character of Keitaro Urashima to the forefront of his mind. "Until then, milady..." Keitaro said in the urbane tones he'd cultivated for his cover story, giving her a wink and a knowing smile before disappearing into the bathroom.
'Why do I have a feeling that I've just bitten off more than I can chew..?' Motoko Hata wondered to herself as she pulled the disguise for Naru Narusegawa from the cabinet.
* * *
Time: 1:15 PM
"I have to admit though, Princess," Kari the Desert Rose said to the real Princess Reiyuriko as she finished providing her and Prince Kodansyo with an update on the events of the first day of the Convocation. She hadn't been in a position to let them know of the conversation with the Lord Daimyo before now and the revelation was affecting both of the clients. "I've never seen a stand-in that is such a perfect likeness before - even by those that have mastered the ninja disguise arts. I know for a fact Amaya Satou was half convinced that you had actually snuck back into Mizumiyo Palace to be there for the opening banquet. And since Daimyo Kosha is in the Audit as we speak, given the active - albeit behind-the-scenes - support of the Lord Daimyo, we should soon have any number of leads to work on shortly."
Tears were streaming from Reiyuriko wa Mizuzaki's doe brown eyes before she turned to cry into her husband's shoulder. "Thank Undine Kawa..!" She sobbed, overcome by the vindication of her beliefs that her father was still every bit the man she had known her entire life. "I knew we were right to stay…"
Kodansyo nodded as he patted her shoulder comfortingly, allowing his wife to vent the six months of misery she'd been carrying at the thought of her father's betrayal. "Yes, yes you were." He looked at Kari. "So Rei's absence at the Convocation has not been noticed by anyone thanks to the skill of her substitute... What of this aristocrat you mentioned, ah, Kei..?"
"Keitaro Urashima." The Jonin supplied. "At first glance, he appeared to be the real thing, but the way he reacted when Satou was thrown by the sealing jutsu protecting Lord Mizuzaki, I suspect that he is more than what he appears to be. He acts with the kind of sophistication one would expect from an aristocrat in your age group, but something about him makes me think he's no older than any of my Genin. For all I know, he could be an active Village ninja, a rogue-nin, a doctor, a spy, or some combination of those four."
The Prince in exile nodded thoughtfully. "I've dealt with any number of ninja over the years, Kari-san. Can you show me a picture of him?"
The Jonin nodded and a moment of focus later there was an illusionary image of Urashima standing in the room, rotating on an invisible axis.
"He looks familiar to me, somehow..." Kodansyo said as he contemplated the image for a few moments. "Well, if he were a little bit older and had gray hair instead of white, he would look like a Leaf ninja whose team my father had down to guard a caravan a few months before this whole mess started. I never really talked with him, but something about him just makes the image of him stand out in my memory... I SUPPOSE he could be related, maybe..."
"It's possible, but at the same time, but there are people who have grown up in Konoha that didn't take the path of the ninja and became aristocrats in the Land of Fire. We'll just have to keep an eye on him." Kari grumbled with a hint of a frown visible through her mask. "Yet another mystery... A near perfect copy of Reiyuriko-hime and this strange man... We'll just have to proceed with caution until we can figure out what's going on with them."
"Anything else interesting happen?" The exiled prince asked.
The Desert Rose nodded. "I'm not certain if it's 'interesting' per-se... In fact, it could just be nothing but talk as I didn't see it with my own eyes."
"What is it?"
"One of the Konoha Genin encountered one of your peers, a Prince from the 10th district. When Leaf ninja insulted the Prince, apparently he claimed that he was going to be the next Lord Daimyo."
Princess Reiyuriko sighed and rolled her eyes. "Renkotsu-kun. Never could handle being told 'no.'"
Kari frowned again. "What do you mean?"
"Daimyo Kosha and Daimyo Bankotsu were my father's best friends growing up." The Crown Princess explained. "So Renkotsu, Kodansyo, and I were almost always together when we were children. Renkotsu was a spoiled brat by the time he was twelve - he actually tried to get Kodansyo to agree to a fight between them for the right to my hand. He's an egocentric moron that considers himself to be the Goddess's gift to the Land of Rivers."
Kodansyo nodded in agreement with Reiyuriko's assessment. "He's just delusional enough that he probably thinks that because Muso and I are out of the picture..." His voice trailed off as he looked at his wife in stunned realization. The Jonin looked confused. "If I'M out of the picture, it would be just like him to believe that because she and Muso aren't a thing anymore, Rei-sa would be his by default! In fact, now that I think about it, I wouldn't be surprised if HE made all this happen! That son of a BITCH!"
The Suna kunoichi looked at her client. "Then unless either of your fathers get us something out of the Audit to focus on, we'll assume he's our primary suspect for now, then. I'll have the girls try to pry the information out of him at the dance tonight."
Reiyuriko shook her head. "I don't know how successful you'll be... Renkotsu has a lust for power and I'm the one that can give him the most of it."
A hint of a smile appeared through the mask covering the lower half of the Jonin's face. "Trust me, Reiyuriko-hime. A man as shallow as Prince Renkotsu sounds has no chance of resisting the advances of a Satou kunoichi when she really tries... When they do it right, a guy could have his manhood tied to a wall with piano wire and he'd STILL walk over to her over burning coals if a Satou asked him. Larissa, Amaya, and undoubtedly the other three Satou are some of the best that the Satou clan has when it comes to manipulating men in that fashion."
"WHAT?!" The Princess asked in surprise; she'd been nervous with Amaya all this time just because of her looks, now she was worried for a completely different reason. "And you're leaving us with two of them?!"
"A genuinely faithful man can resist the allure of a Satou-clan siren for some time when subjected to their power. That's why I've made sure to leave Kane Suzuki here to protect Kodansyo from Larissa, who has an almost predatory taste for men that are spoken for. Suzuki's related to the Satou and is immune to their charm magics, detests his kin and they feel the same way about him. All of these traits make him perfect for this task."
"Are you sure they'll be able to be successful?" Kodansyo asked uncertainly.
Another smile crossed the assassin's face. "We don't require high society-quality dresses often enough that we carry one with us as part of our standard travel packs. So, as we speak, my Genin are over at Madame Yoruichi's dress shop at the moment getting fitted with some of her finest stock as we speak."
The name of the dressmaker with the official Imperial family's seal of approval brought a smile to the faces of both Kodansyo and Reiyuriko as they envisioned the three Sand kunoichi in Yoruichi's products.
"Oh, yeah." Reiyuriko agreed. "In fact..." She took a quick walk to a nearby desk and wrote a quick note, signing it with a flourish. "Give this to Hoshi Fugato… He'll arrange to have my handmaids to set your team up with some of my showpiece jewelry. Between Yoruichi-chan's fabric art and Keiske-san's metalwork, Renkotsu won't know what hit him."
Kari nodded as she accepted the letter and tucked it into her uniform: she'd have one of the Satou use their arts on the assistant majordomo before showing this off so he wouldn't be tempted to ask how she came to have a signed letter from Reiyuriko. "Thank you, Princess. In fact, I should probably be getting back to them so I can be fitted for my own dress." She bowed slightly. "I'll be back as soon as I have something new to report."
* * *
Time: 5:30 PM
Nakahito Haruno walked fairly mindlessly through the bowels of Mizumiyo Palace. He and Raiden were technically off duty until the dance began at 7:00 PM, at which point they were expected to watch over Kimiko's alter ego of Reiyuriko-hime and be an additional layer of security for her uncle, the Lord Daimyo.
Kimi's UNCLE was THE freaking Lord Daimyo of one of the richest Nations in the world! The red-clad young man was still mentally reeling from that particular revelation when Itou had shared it, mere hours after she'd learned it herself. If Rock Lee's gifts were a gold mine to Kimiko, Lord Mizuzaki's was a diamond encrusted platinum mine to his best friend.
'I suppose on some level I knew Kimi was from a socially prominent Clan, like Hinata-chan, but this is far beyond what I could have ever imagined!' Nakahito thought to himself.
"…happened to that secret … Reiyuriko-hime that would send … bouquets of flowers…" A woman's voice echoed down the hall that faded in and out.
'Bouquets?' Haruno thought to himself, moving closer to the voice. No one had mentioned the Princess receiving flowers, but then again – given how popular she was – Reiyuriko probably received dozens of floral arrangements each week.
"I don't know, but whomever it was had no artistic sense or long term memory to them…" A different woman's voice replied. Dull thuds interspersed their words. The Genin reached the doorway the voices were coming from and looked around the corner to see two women working on laundry. "I mean carnations, cleomes and salvia flowers – all red, no less! – were delivered at least three times that I saw while assigned to the Princess."
Haruno frowned to himself; a dim, half remembered memory wiggling to the surface... While flower arranging was strictly in the early kunoichi curriculum, Kimiko had had the hardest time learning how to do it, so she had required a tutor in the form of Ino Yamanaka. What was it..?
Then the memory clicked into place…
~•~
"No, no, no, Kimiko!" The blonde girl, who'd been about 6 or 7 at the time, protested in the memory. "You can't mix red salvia with dark red roses! Not only do the colors clash, the meanings get horribly jumbled up, too!"
"Meaning, Ino-chan?" Itou protested, throwing them down in annoyed disgust. "They're just stupid flowers! There's no meaning to them."
Ino gave Kimiko a smile that said, 'How wrong you are!' as she picked up Kimiko's bouquet. "By themselves, you're right, they don't have a meaning. But humans GAVE them meanings to be able to send messages that aren't written down."
Kimiko looked over to Nakahito, whom his cousin Sakura had invited to come over for "lunch" – which turned out to be code for being used as a training dummy for her rope tying drills. The one male in the group was trussed up with what appeared to be enough rope to rappel from the top of Hokage Cliff to the base. Sakura had gotten tired of his complaining and had stuffed a gag in his mouth about a hour earlier. Nakahito was taking his situation with surprisingly good grace and merely shrugged to the best of his ability.
Ino took the dark crimson rose out of the bundle. "Y'see, this means mourning, but this…" She held up the salvia flower that now stood alone. "…means forever mine. So if you put them together, it means 'I'm mourning what I thought was forever mine.'"
Kimiko scowled. "I don't like that."
"Right?" Yamanaka agreed. She grabbed some purple/blue forget-me-nots and whitish-yellow honeysuckle. The combination of primary colors was beautiful and visually striking. "But these say 'Bonds of true love make you mine forever.'"
Kimiko was staring at the bouquet, enraptured. This had been before she'd learned about what had happened to her Clan and still had all the standard little girl fantasies about love and marriage. "That's so pretty, Ino! So how do…"
"SAKURA HARUNO!" Nakahito's mother shrieked, causing the four Academy students to nearly jump out their skins. Yamanaka dropped the new bouquet at the same time. "What did you do to my son?!"
The pink haired kunoichi reached up and tugged on one section of rope that was indistinguishable from the rest and suddenly her cousin was free! 'Hito had scowled at Sakura as he pulled the gag from his mouth, but Sakura simply smiled sweetly at Aio Haruno. "Nothing, Aio-basan!" Then she spun to her then regular partner-in-crime. "Book it, Ino!"
Ino and Sakura suddenly realized they had overstayed their welcome and ran from view like the little imps they'd been at that age as Nakahito's mom gave a half playful chase.
Itou sighed as she collected the dropped bouquet while Haruno, after gathering up the rope, helped pick up the rest of the flowers Yamanaka had brought from her family's store.
Kimi had smiled at him before she gave him a child's kiss on the lips, pressing the bouquet into his hands. "Thanks, 'Hito-kun." She said before she began to giggle and ran off, herself.
~•~
Something soft but firm smashed into Nakahito's face, snapping him out of his reverie. Unconsciously putting his hands to it, the Genin found himself pushing against a rather heavily packed bag of clean linens as the two servants he'd been eavesdropping on apologized for bumping into him.
'Well, at least it wasn't another woman's body this time…'
His intuition kept nagging at him. Something to do with the flowers.
Finally, he sighed. "Guess I'm going to have to ask our walking reference library…" He twisted the channel dial to the one intended for reaching the security closet and clicked his comm unit's transmitter. "Red Dragon to White Dragon."
There was a brief silence before Motoko Hata replied instead. "White Dragon is currently offline. He's making the rounds before the Dance, Na…" She paused as she remembered radio protocol. "Red Dragon. Can I help?"
Though the other person couldn't see him, Haruno nodded. "Ah, yes, Lightning Dragon, I think you likely can… What do red carnations, red cleomes and red salvia put together in a bouquet mean in the language of flowers?" There was a long pause. Too long… Were the comms malfunctioning again? "Lightn..?"
"Yes, I'm here, Red!" The female Hata blurted, anxious stress in her voice. "That…" An audible gulp came over the line. "Ano… That's a very bold and forward declaration… Why?"
'It must be to get Motoko to pull a full Hinata…' Nakahito thought to himself. "I overheard some servants in the laundry talking about some flowers the princess received. Apparently someone sent that combination to her three times in recent months." There was the clicking of keys as Motoko tapped a search query into the computer system. A sudden girlish shriek of joy ripped through the comms, making Haruno wince. "Oww..! Hata!"
"I KNEW IT!" She cried out in awestruck excitement. There was some more tapping. "And the sender was…" A pause. "Oh… That could be a problem… Wait, orders FROM Reiyuriko to the delivering shop?" The tone of her voice changed as if she were wide-eyed. "White heather with a mix of red and white roses?! Oh, my… Red! You just figured out what happened to Reiyuriko-hime!"
Confusion was evident in Haruno's face and voice. "I did?! How did…"
On Motoko's end there was some clattering as she pulled out a map. "If they're still there… And Mizumiyo is here… What time is it..? Reeehhhh?! The dance is about to start in 15 minutes; that's not enough time!" Hata sighed. "We'll have to deal with it after…"
Nakahito Haruno pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration as he realized that he had to get up to the ballroom level in a hurry; his flashback had apparently eaten most of the time he'd had left. "Lightning, you're making less sense than White does when he goes down one of his rabbit holes. What did the flowers mean? Who sent them?"
There was the sound of a zipper opening, followed by the shushing of fabric falling to the ground. Nakahito's eyes widened as he realized Motoko had disrobed on the other end. "Oh, no… There's no way I can conceal the mike and transmitter in THAT!" She sighed. "Red, I have to sign off… I just hope White remembered to charge his comm unit."
"What did it MEAN?!" The red clad Genin demanded of the female Hata twin, practically roaring; spooking some of the waitstaff as he entered the mostly empty ballroom. There was a snick as the kunoichi turned her comm unit off. A frustrated moan escaped his lips as he turned his radio back to the regular operations channel.
"I've got 15 minutes to get in my monkey suit and meet up with the Princess..." Haruno muttered to himself. "Watch my friend dance with a bunch of rich nobles... Piece of cake."