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She took a deep breath; salt air met the rise of acid in her throat.
It’s okay, Ama-chan, she tells herself, you’re in the middle of the open ocean, you don’t sense any potentially hostile ninja and there is no reason to panic. You’ve got this, you’ve handled unreasonable requisitions from Momochi-sama, you can handle a random panic attack in the middle of your patrol .
Your boring patrol in the middle of nowhere, her train of thought continues. Because someone has to cover it so foreign ninja will not get up to shenanigans, and that someone just had to be you. It’s a great honor to be on patrol at the moment because it means that you are a trusted and valued member of Kiri, Ama-chan reassures herself.
Just because out of all the old rebellion members that are on patrol during the wedding, you’re on the lower end of combat ability, the higher end of water walking efficiency, and are not on evaluation duty does not decrease your value.
Thought and action pause, she runs through an internal checklist. Ama-chan carefully surveys the middle of the open ocean, sense by sense. Checklist seen to she continues onwards.
Hey, perk up, you’ll be off patrol in time for the reception and that might be as fun as the time you learned money laundering and book mishandling from that captured Gatou Shipping employee....
Oh shit! What was that?
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He should have stayed in bed today. Before the bijuu, Shiro had been hoping to pick up teaching tips from foreign Jonin-sensei. At least there are solid evacuation plans in place due to the invasion at Konoha's exams. At least it isn’t another Hunter-nin mission from the old regime.
He’d almost take another Hunter-nin mission over dealing with foreign dignitaries while soaking wet. Possibly, if he tries really hard to pretend he was just another water clone, maybe they won’t object too hard to a little rough treatment while he prioritizes evacuating them. Shiro could only hope.
Shiro and his clones did a couple of round trips depositing dignitaries with the guides to the evacuation zones. The battle with the Sanbi was a bit beyond him, though he still kept an eye on the danger, crossfire always a possibility. He glanced back to ensure that all the evacuees were clear of the beach.
He paused as his clones rush forward to provide reinforcements. The Sanbi rushed the cliffs and he dodges back. Lung-clogging dust settles, Shiro glanced towards the last evacuees stumbling away. Tearing his attention away, his clones headed towards the evac zone, dodging around the ones returning carrying comrades. Sliding down the cliffs, he yanks moisture out of the air in an effort to prepare more clones. If Shiro wants to protect anyone, he needs to be everywhere at once.
Shiro stumbles as he lands, sucker punched by the chill from the walls of ice. He stumbles again as the Sanbi brakes through. Dodging, he grabs a prone comrade out of the way of falling debris.
He glances up. What the hell are they doing?
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When he woke up this morning Ryou’s only concern was which of the Hamasaki cousins to flirt with at the post-exam party: Ama-sempai, who when roused has a sword for a spine, or the quietly brooding Shiro. Both are highly competent in their fields, reasonably attractive for shinobi, and relatively nice people. The former classmate or the former Hunter-nin?
Now he’s staring up at black tentacle-things that enveloped a bijuu and pinned it down. Who has that much power? It broke out of Haku’s ice! Haku’s ice is nothing to be messed with. Then two Konoha? chunin?? are on the bijuu, there are Konoha chunin on the bijuu. And the bijuu is sitting perfectly still!
The eerie hush in this armistice made his heart pound like a festival drum. Ryou-sama noted other people were evacuating the injured and repositioning themselves to more strategic points. Ryou-sama decided that he should move himself to a better location too. The looming tableau seemed to stretch on from lung breaking breath to lung breaking breath.
Finally it shatters as the bijuu spoke. “I’m scared.”
Wait, what the fuck?
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By all the kami in their shrines! The fucking Sanbi did show up in the middle of her patrol route. Well, her orders were clear. Observe, report, continue patrol. Was she able to provide any reasonable level of support with the situation? No. Were her orders clear? Yes.
She clicked on her radio. “Bijuu sighted on my route. It’s headed in toward the event location. Complying with orders and continuing patrol until relieved.” Patrol commander was enough of an ass to make her pull a triple patrol for this even though he said not to diverge if a fucking bijuu showed up in the middle of her route when asked. Of course he’d have to relieve her by the fourth shift change otherwise he might get court martialed.
She climbed up a bijuu-tossed wave and continued her patrol route. Her patrol route which, wasn’t so boring now. She prayed to her ancestors and the wave-lost dead for safety to see Kirigakure through this storm. She might not be the most creative person with orders, but she would follow them through with only grit and bloody-mindedness to back her up. Ama-chan grinned, her chapped lips burning with salt.
Ama-chan can’t wait to report in to Patrol command. Ask a stupid question indeed.
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Okay, this was Shiro’s life now. He was prone on a beach and getting sand in his hair while people were being diplomatic with the Sanbi. Someone said, “Stand down!” Well, he would stand if he could. Then there was something that sounded like: “Isobu has agreed to stop fighting.” The wetness of the sand against his face felt nice.
His cousin’s classmate Shimizu-san dragged him over to the end of the triage line. Shiro focused on memorizing the conversation, not actually paying attention to the contents, but catching things like the name “Sasuke” and “Ceasefire” and then he focused harder when the Mizukage started speaking.
Suddenly introductions were happening first by a foreign nin and then by Haku. The Hokage drained chakra from one of his clones and shunted it back into his coils, dragged him up and told him to “walk it off.”
Shiro walked over to the end of the line for introductions.
Well, when life drops you amidst a storm and everything goes ass over tits you might as well roll with it.
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It was a few days later at the post-post-clean-up yay-the-foreign-nin-are-gone party and Ryou is still not over it. Like what even. “A bijuu crashes the Mizukage’s wedding, gets stopped by a pair of Konoha chunin talking at it, and then gets an invite.”
“Actually a special jonin and a chunin,” interjects Ama-sempai, carrying only a smug grin and a coconut. She seems relaxed for someone who is in hot water.
He had forgotten how exasperating she is. “Why does that matter!? There was a bijuu attack and it was stopped by Konoha nin! We should have been able to do it ourselves!”
“Next time we’ll be better prepared for the Sanbi and possibly even the Rokubi,” comments Hamasaki-kun, wandering over to stand next to his cousin.
Ama-sempai huffs, “Well yeah, our allies gave us valuable intel when they informed us that Isobu-sama is a person, people are--”
“--made to be bribed, coerced or convinced in some other manner. Oba-san was terrible, why would you listen to her?” Hamasaki-kun interjects while stealing his cousin’s drink.
“Just because she’s a terrible mother doesn’t mean she’s a bad Kunoichi,” Ama-sempai argues before turning abruptly.
Ryou-sama decides he should distance himself slightly from the cousins’ conversation.
“You,” she says sweeping her hand to encompass both of them, “better watch your language because while the Konoha nin might have started it, Terumi-sama validated it. So legally Isobu-sama is a person and unless you want to wake up stuck to the top of the academy by icy underwear you will be careful what you call him.”
“So, it’s probable Haku-san is going to be the Jinchuriki,” comments Shiro-kun.
“Great, the kid who brought his pet rabbit to Kirigakure and formed an alliance by failing to kill opposing shinobi is going to be granted even more power,” Ryou-sama scoffs, When neither cousin concurs, his empty drink happens to catch the majority of his glare.
“Yeah, that tracks,” said Ama-sempai, distractedly grabbing a can out of a tub of ice with a water whip. She glances at him, and then catches Shiro-kun’s incredulous expression and rolls her eyes. “I was the one eyebrows deep in the Rebellion’s infrastructure, I should know.” She punctuated her point with a click-hiss of an open can.
Ama-sempai rudely holds a hand up as she takes a sip, failing to offer him a drink. She clears her throat while lowering her hand. “Shiro-kun you of all people should know the skill level necessary for the sort of non-lethal takedown described in that incident.” She rounds on Ryou-sama, her voice picking up a frustrated growl. “Kohai, you should know what kind of boast bringing a pet rabbit into Kirigakure is if you read the archived incident reports I assigned you.”
“And for those of us who don’t think pearl-diving for Intel is a fun weekend hobby?” Shiro-kun interjects, saving Ryou from the brunt of his sempai’s derision.
Hamasaki-sempai adjusts her posture theatrically, putting weight to the rumors that she had a kabuki actor for a father. “Well, if Momochi-sama deliberately let his apprentice boast that he could take on the Kaguya clan and win,” she shoos away an interjection from another partygoer. “I don’t care that they’re dead some fool wouldn’t let that boast lie.”
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Shiro’s cousin folds back into herself as if she were merely a genin and not a solidly A-Ranked threat. “If fools want to take on a future S-ranked shinobi just because a dead clan would have an aneurysm because domestication is considered condescension to their ancestress’s mascot, that’s their folly.” Ama-san says before chugging the rest of her drink.
“Anyway, if you don’t find Haku-san’s potential scary even without Isobu-sama backing him up, then cousin-mine I don’t know what will give our family’s characteristic white streaks to your deep ocean blue hair,” she shrugs the motion translating into the toss of a can by her second water construct of the night.
Shiro groans, “Black my hair is black, like your hair is black, stop calling it weird names.”
Ama-san scoffed.
“So what exactly did you do to earn your piebald streak?” he asked. Shimizu-san seemed to perk up at this conversational thread.
“I am a consistently an anxious wreck.”
Shiro scoffs back and Ama-san responds with a shrug.
“Can we get back to the important topic?” Shimizu-san interjects.
“Right!” his cousin responded, “Jinchuuriki pay scales!” clearly running with a conversational plan neither of the other two were privy to.
“No--” Shimizu-san says.
“Should they be based on ninken partnership, summon contractor, or diplomacy pay rates?” Ama-san ponders.
“Konoha--” Shimizu-san tries again, futilely.
“Ah yes, I heard a rumor that Konoha has subsidies for retired ninken care,” she says, finally leaving an opening in the conversation.
“We were attacked by a bijuu--” Shimizu-san inputs.
“--were incidental damage in Isobu-sama’s distress,” his cousin mutters.
“--that was stopped by two shinobi of Konoha,” he said that last word with a derision that is so poorly masked that Shiro felt he could have picked it up without supplementary lessons from Oba-san.
“Uchiha Sasuke,” Shiro blurts.
“Nara Shikako,” his cousin says, nearly overlapping.
“And you’re already discussing pay scales!” Shimizu-san snaps.
“Well apparently bijuu are people now! Or really they were always people, but no one legally recognized them as such,” she says, sliding patronization into her tone. “Life moves on, get over yourself,” she finishes, falling back onto the bad old habits of turning her words into kunai.
“I’m still adjusting, but I’m sure part of her adaptability is sleep deprivation,” Shiro says, trying to steer the conversation to more civil grounds.
“You say the nicest things,” Ama-san responds with a saccharine tone, while using a chakra trick on a coconut that he really wants to learn.
“But Ama-san is Oba-san’s student, so she has trouble being honest with her feelings,” Shiro continues.
“You want honesty? Fine. The world is a big scary place and not all problems can be stabbed,” Ama-san snaps, accidently projecting to the entire room. “Your choices are either to race the storm, roll with the waves, or get crushed by the surf,” she quoted from memory, copying Oba-san’s intonations down to the syllable. Ama-san then shrugs and hands the open coconut over to him. “I choose to get ahead.”
“If you’re always racing ahead you’ll forget things in your wake,” Shiro chides. He remembers the rules of public presentation as well as Ama-san.
“Right! Speaking of,” Ama-san says, dropping her ire for more interesting topics,“you need better chakra control.” The non sequitur hit Shiro like a tall wave. “I mean, you probably would have chosen to hit the edge of chakra exhaustion in that situation even if you had better chakra control at the time, but you need to be better,” Ama-san continues, trying to corral her thoughts in the appropriate direction.
“And why do you think I need better chakra control?” he gingerly decided to respond.
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“So you can at least apply for one of the med-nin training positions, you need a new career and you know more anatomy than most ninja here,” Ama-chan says. She hopes her cousin would pick up the thread.
Shimizu wanders away--exasperated that neither she or Shiro-kun are going to indulge in his petty tantrums.
“I considered applying myself, partially to see how their medical paperwork is set up,” Ama-chan admits, and pauses, trying to sound out his opinion on this topic. “Also, it would be beneficial if the people who sign up for the training are prepared to pass on the skills they learn,” she appeals.
There was a long pause. It feels like the noise in the room dropped, and then, picked right back up twice as loud. Maybe it is time for a topic change, a wild change of topics.
“If anyone breaks your heart, the body won’t disappear without a trace,” she rambles, no consideration to what she’s saying, just trying to incite some reaction. “I’ll make it public so that everyone knows it wasn’t you. I will make their torture by red tape last so thoroughly they die millimeter by millimeter.”
“That won’t be necessary Ama-san,” Shiro-kun finally responds.
“Of course it’s necessary--we’re family. Even after everything, we’re family,” she confesses, dropping the political mask drilled into her by Oka-san.
“Thank you for looking out for me, Ama-sa--Ama,” he pauses, “It sounds nice, but let me think things through before I take you up on your offer--any of your offers.”
“Okay,” she responds, throat tight and eyes teary. They share a smile.
Shiro sighs, and then uses his responsible commander voice. “So what are you avoiding in regards to the Sanbi--Isobu-san?”
“Every Hidden Village has rules about how people are treated, even prisoners.” Her breath hitches. “Every country. There are rules regarding the treatment of summons and ninken. Yet, how we have treated the Bijuu since the formation of our villages, since the first Hokage captured the Kyuubi--violates those rules.” Her voice wavers. “Even if they were our enemies at the time,” Ama takes a few deep breaths. “There’s just so much we’ve done wrong, so much we have to change, and I don’t even know where to start.”
Shiro wraps an arm around her shoulders and gives her a tight hug. Always the voice of reason, he says, “It isn’t your job alone to make reparations for all the terrible things humans have done to the bijuu. Or rewrite our entire legal system to reflect the fact they are people. Start with something small.”
There is now too much sincerity for her to handle all at once. Ama has to inject levity into this situation somehow. “Do you think giant turtle-shaped people like crayon drawings? I can make mochi to bribe academy students to make them. And I do have paperwork to give Haku-sama.”