WAP 15

"Mmhm," Aiko agreed over her fifth refill. She blinked slowly and watched Izuna's mouth move. She had no idea what he was talking about. With some effort, she tuned back into it.

He beamed at her. "Allies of the Uchiha benefit from our protection," he enthused. "In exchange for this relationship, we would ask to trade for food."

Boring. Not really needed.

He had such a nice mouth, Aiko thought vaguely. Shame about the things that were coming out of it. She took another sip of sake.

"The amount would rely on what you can comfortably provide, of course." Izuna fidgeted a bit, smile slipping as her attention receded. She watched him tuck a bit of hair behind his ear. Aiko had the brief feeling that she wanted to bite the shell of that ear. "Rice- we need rice. And we don't have enough of our own."

Belatedly, Aiko blinked back to awareness of how uncomfortable the man seemed to be. The room was in a fog of alcohol and a post-fight high. "I see," she lied, trying to get her bearings. She turned the sake cup in her hands. "We have a modest rice surplus."

For no particular reason, don’t ask any questions.

Izuna let out a sigh of relief.

A thought occurred. "Craftsmen," Aiko said.

He tilted his head to the side and waited.

She realized that she had to elaborate. "You have craftsmen," Aiko carefully sounded out. "I want talismans- something to represent my shrine."

Izuna blinked at her, inadvertently batting his lovely eyelashes. "Oh, is that all?" He sounded relieved. "We could do that. I'm certain of it. In fact, I could do it if you had a decent workspace" He cast a look around the room as if he thought he might see a smithy by the tea table.

A door slid open and then shut. Aiko twisted to see Mayumi pad her way elegantly into the shrine. Her sleeves had been tied back and the dust of the road had been washed off of her face.

"I think the bounty hunter will not present a problem," she admitted begrudgingly. "Uchiha, pour for me."

Izuna blinked at Mayumi and then back to Aiko, clearly having an etiquette related mental stoppage before he obeyed. The Inuzuka didn’t seem to notice. She folded to a seated position and gave all of her attention to Aiko.

“Thank you,” she said, because it seemed necessary. Then her attention was back to the man who could apparently make art for her. “What do you require in a workspace?” She narrowed her eyes at him and turned over her hands on her lap. Oh, the silk felt so nice on her skin. She should wear things like this more often.

“A firepot, anvil, and a few tools,” he said dismissively. “And a place that isn’t particularly apt to catch alight.”

“Flammable,” Aiko corrected absentmindedly. Izuna cocked his head to the side, but she didn’t notice. “I can do that,” she said to herself. Aiko frowned slightly as she thought about it. “We can cement a preliminary agreement with an exchange of goods, as a show of goodwill,” she bullshitted. And then she realized that was a really good idea- she needed to lock down the Uchiha before someone smarter realized that she’d killed the Daimyo and thought it might be smarter to talk to another village for groceries. If she was in charge of a clan, she might not want them to need anything from a cult leader playing at politics, much less material resources.

“We have a forge that you can use,” Mayumi said idly, as if she couldn’t possibly be offering for any reason but that they had equipment sitting unused.

‘Yeah, no, if Izuna goes into the Inuzuka compound he isn’t going to come back out,’ Aiko thought with bleak amusement. ‘Her opinion of him is a little improved, but he’s still an Uchiha.’

Izuna gave her a sideways little look that said he wasn’t quite as dim as they thought he might be. “I think your terms are acceptable,” he said, definitely to Aiko and not Mayumi. “Thank you for your kind offer, Mayumi-san, but it’s more of an exchange between us if our activities stay here.” He crinkled his eyes at her in a smile that looked honest. “Besides, my Clan Head should know where I am.”

Aiko generously did not comment on how this was a policy that he’d apparently developed quite recently. It also didn’t quite seem in line with his apparent decision to stay here and attempt to influence her interactions with the nobility rather than rush home for orders. Mayumi merely inclined her head and flashed her fangs in a pointed little smile that was somehow quite ladylike.

“As you say, Uchiha-san. As for a workspace, Aiko-sama, I don’t think your recent acolyte will suffer you to do manual labor,” she said lightly. “I must suggest that someone else construct it.”

… “Kakuzu-san?” Aiko checked. Maybe she’d been drinking too much. She wasn’t used to hard liquor. She put down the cup, feeling troubled.

Mayumi nodded, amusement tugging at her lips. “He was growling about the lack of splendor for your station.” She glanced towards the door. “If I am not mistaken, you will find that he has… suggestions.”

Well. Why the fuck not. This might as well happen. “I’ll listen to him.” Aiko pushed her sake away and wished for a water. “How long do you think we have until the rich people start coming?”

Mayumi barked out a laugh. “I don’t think they’ll keep you waiting long,” she said dryly. “I’m certain that they’ll see poverty as virtue, in this situation. And the inside of the shrine is not so humble.”

Aiko made a face.

It fit her cover, sure, but humility? Vile. Not her style at all.

“They’ll bring gifts,” Izuna said lightly. The bright way he watched her over his cup brought her attention to just how little the alcohol seemed to have affected him even though he’d been matching her cup for cup. “Perhaps something will be to your taste.”

“Almost certainly,” Aiko agreed carelessly. She liked luxury as a broad category. “Uchiha-san, perhaps you could consult with Kakuzu-san about the forge? I believe that he may have doton affinity that would simplify the process.”

She wanted those talismans, damnit, and she wanted them yesterday.

‘Definitely before people start arriving,’ she thought crabbily. She would be so annoyed if she missed a great chance to start spreading her influence.

XXX

IZUNA

This was honestly becoming a really annoying quest. He wanted to be home, where the food was good and no one wanted him dead. Instead, Izuna slept on the floor of the hallway outside the Priestess’s inner shrine. That wasn’t particularly bad. He often slept outside. He didn’t know where the other shinobi were sleeping, but he hadn’t turned down the offer of a roof over his head. But this whole situation…

He made a face where no one could see it. It was a mess.

Madara was going to be SO mad, but he didn’t really see what he could have done better. He was already bracing himself against the temper he’d get hit with for being so late back, but it couldn’t be helped. He was a delivery boy, not a message man. He would be leaving wildly successful with arms full of rice, even if that meant he had to make nice with some two-bit fanatic to put together a workspace first to do some metal work.

There was that other reason, too.

‘I should see who becomes the next Daimyo,’ he remembered unenthusiastically. ‘The Clan Elders will want to know.’ Izuna tried to work up some patriotism to make him care about the topic, but honestly…

No. It wasn’t happening. He rolled over and tried to get more sleep. He drifted off and woke again. Faint and pale morning light was drifting through the paper on the sliding doors.

He stretched like a cat on the wood floor and then frowned as he noticed something odd about it for the first time. There were no planks, no joints. He felt thunder flash over his expression before he controlled it and flicked on his sharingan. He examined the wood in the morning light.

It looked like that bastard Senju’s material, but it was more… tame and sophisticated. Here were smooth lines where he remembered ugly, brutal twists.

‘Do they have another mokuton user?’ Izuna scanned the area with with careful deliberation. The anger was receding now that he recognized the chakra wasn’t Senju Hashirama’s, but his hackles were still up. ‘Why would the Senju have their thick fingers in this village? This is well within our territory, and it has been for years.’

Well, that settled it. He definitely couldn’t leave yet. He turned off his sharingan and rolled up his sleeping mat with a grim sort of determination. If the Senju were sniffing around the area, he wanted to know about it. He wanted more information if at all possible.

‘Are those four clan shinobi from the Senju after all?’

Izuna paused mid-motion, hand stuck inside his travel pack.

…No, he decided. They couldn’t be. He was fairly certain that they were one of the dog clans. If they were Senju, they would have tried to kill him outright. The woman had tried to trick him into the walls of her compound, but that had been a lazy attempt at his life at best. If he’d fallen for that, he would have deserved it.

He crouched over his pack, fiddling with the closure. It took a while to find the will to get up and go talk to boring people.

The only interesting person here was the Priestess, and she was in high demand. Sad. He perked up a bit at the thought that he might get to work with his hands today. It would feel good to make something.

Plus, he’d definitely get to consult with the Priestess about the design.

Feeling cheered, he flung on the travel bag and strode out into the world, a disarming grin firmly plastered in place.

The Kakuzu guy turned out to be some clanless ruffian, as expected. He was also…intense.

“What is your connection to the Priestess,” Kakuzu demanded gruffly, first thing in the morning. He looked like he might bite if he didn’t like the answer.

Izuna bared his teeth back just a bit more. It was nominally a smile. “I will be making talismans for her,” he generously shared. No one needed to know about the Uchiha’s dearth of food, much less some honorless sword for hire.

Kakuzu stared at him for a moment with fathomless black eyes. “Good,” he grunted, and then Izuna was blessed with the force of his full cooperation. It took all day to assemble an acceptable workspace and the requisite tools, which was frighteningly efficient.

He was invited back into the shrine for dinner, which would have been more exciting if there weren’t so many other guests. Izuna scooted as far away from the angry, pregnant acolyte as possible on his zabuton.

The neighbor on his other side wasn’t much better. The dog man– Ube? Ude?- was at his mistress’s side, and he kept a wary eye on Izuna the whole time. “Did you have a good day, Uchiha-san?”

“Yes,” he said, and then was trapped in small talk.

Kakuzu looked like he might revolt when the Priestess was the one who carried a tray to the table, but he stayed seated. His whole body all but vibrated with tension, the fist on the table so tense that the fingers went white. Izuna eyed him across the table and wondered how forceful the Priestess had had to be to override what Kakuzu thought was proper.

No sense at all, Izuna thought a little derisively. Of course the hostess served food. She didn’t have servants, so-

…Her students seemed about as uncomfortable as Kakuzu did.

Ah. Izuna frowned to himself. Yeah, no, they probably should have been assigned that duty. The Priestess must either be humble or a bit controlling. He tilted his head slightly to the side and resisted the urge to turn on his sharingan to examine her better. She had changed into a miko’s clothing, but she still looked … well, she just looked better than everyone else in the room. Except for him, of course.

If he had to put money on it, he’d say that the Priestess was just a bit inflexible. That was a perfectly acceptable oddity for the powerful and beautiful to have, so he shrugged away the violation of social ritual.

‘If she personally serves one of those powdered nobles who saw her ask a demon to drag the Daimyo to hell, they’re going to cry,’ he thought idly, and accepted his first course with thanks. ‘They’re going to be so confused and afraid about what she could be trying to hint. They never like surprises. They might think that they’re meant to dismiss their servants and make their own food out of piety or something.’

That would be kind of funny, so he was hoping that no one talked her around.

After dinner, people began trailing out. Izuna pounced on the opportunity to try to talk to the Priestess alone and lingered.

She caught his eye and seemed amused. “What are you thinking, Uchiha-san?”

Izuna paused. What he was literally thinking right then? He was thinking about how to get maximum rice. “The design for your talismans,” he lied smoothly. He crinkled the corner of his eyes in the way that often sent blood rushing to girls’ cheeks. “Do you have a design in mind?”

The Priestess favored him with a sharp smile. She didn’t seem to appreciate his seducing eyes, but he had other things in his perfectly socially calibrated arsenal. “I have some ideas, but I am open to suggestions.” She crossed the room and slid open a shoji screen to reveal a low desk and what appeared to be an awful lot of stationary.

Izuna felt his eyebrows shoot up.

That ink and paper represented big money. Was that-his eyes widened. He caught sight of what appeared to be a personal seal before the priestess deftly tucked it out of sight.

He held in an impressed whistle.

‘She has some resources. We might be able to get more than rice from a relationship with her.’

It was an interesting thought to keep an eye on. It might make his family less testy when he came back and explained what he’d been up to.

He sidled up to her exactly as close as was socially allowed. He could see the hitch in her breath that showed she was affected in some way, even thought it stayed off her face and body language. Izuna smiled a little harder. Charm, charm, charm.

In the very back of his mind, he wondered if he should really be trying to flirt with a woman who had a direct link to Hell. Izuna dismissed that idea, because he didn’t like it.

“Please, show me your thoughts,” he purred.