WAP CH 5

CHAPTER 5


It took a few days to tiptoe towards making something that might put her village on the map as a religious site of importance. While her little flock was doing their regular seasonal work, Aiko put up another building to serve as a clinic, and then one for a school. She gradually outfitted them both with the materials that she could manage. When no one was looking, she dug out a hole to make a lake. It would look nice, but it would also be a source of water to use in sanitation efforts.

Then she realized that that still water would be a huge musty home for disease ridden mosquitoes.

Her next effort was to do a ridiculous amount of math in order to use the natural curvature of the land to make a wandering circle that should keep the water continuously moving.

She was almost surprised by how patiently the villagers accepted all these things appearing. They seemed to actually enjoy having a great ugly pit that changed size and shape over the course of several days of tearful, half-remembered math. At the end, Aiko had black circles around her eyes and a head full of any semi relevant information about working with water from her time overseeing canal lock construction.

All of this did require her to push the village boundaries a little, and to level some of the ground. It was a very satisfying use of her chakra, and an interesting set of exercises in control. Every night she went to bed tired in a way that helped her sleep deeply.

She was entirely on task, focused on her mission. She needed to make the worship of Izanami such a cultural phenomena that the mother goddess could claw her way back from the land of the dead. As soon as that happened, she could go home. She'd see Naruto again, her Naruto, not the bleak vision into how unloved he'd have been without her. She missed Karin's sly commentary and subtle concern, Kakashi's sideways affection, Hinata's steadfast kindness.

But mostly, she missed her dogs.

'They must think I'm dead by now. Someone else will have replaced me at my job. I… I'm pretty late for that meeting with Gaara. Are they even waiting for me?'

The thought that they might have given up made her feel a bit sick. The thought that they were looking for her somewhere they'd never find her made her feel guilty.

In a very real sense, the situation was her fault. She hadn't done it deliberately, but she had been the one to leave.

The return of anxiety and loneliness was actually a huge relief. In Kirigakure, it felt like there was nothing to live for. She hadn't had hope, and then she didn't even have the promise of an eventual end. She felt terrible, but feeling anything was better than the grey reality she'd been stuck in before.

She was in the middle of filling her new water feature when she realized there was a visitor approaching the village. Aiko dropped the water jutsu and headed to meet them.

"Hellooo," came a… an obnoxiously cheerful greeting. Aiko blinked as a stranger waved enthusiastically from the mountain path. "It's your favorite neighbor!"

"I've never seen you in my life," Aiko said. She frowned slightly at what absolutely had to be an Izunuka woman. Even without her canine partner, there was no mistaking it. "You're therefore my third favorite neighbor at best." She pushed down her desire to find community and connection in someone familiar. This wasn't one of her peers.

"I'll claw my way up the list," the other woman said cheerfully. She grinned at Aiko. "Aiko-san, right? Ude told me he met you."

"...Aa," said Aiko, who had just realized she'd never actually gotten that man's name. "We had a chat," she said evasively.

"I'm his boss," the woman said cheerfully. "The glittering light of his life, in fact."

"... His wife?" Aiko said, wondering if the Inuzuka had actually become less eccentric since the village founding. She would not have predicted that.

"Inuzuka Mayumi," the kunoichi introduced herself. The muscles in her bare arms flexed when she put her hands on her hips. "You're doing a lot out here." Hey gaze very pointedly tracked over Aiko's pristine shrine maiden outfit. "My man didn't mention that you're a priestess."

"I was dressed more casually at the time that we met," Aiko said, well aware that it was unhinged to claim that wearing a silk kimono was casual in any context.

Mayumi nodded sensibly. "I've been to this village before, you know." She tilted her head to look at the half full lazy river and the wooden clinic behind it. "It's changed a little."

"I'm sure I wouldn't know," Aiko demurred.

The two women held eye contact for a moment. Mayumi had definitely been close enough to sense, maybe even see Aiko using water jutsu to condense the humidity into water.

"The world is mysterious," Mayumi said gravely. "And rapid, improbable change is the way of life."

Fully against her will, Aiko began to like this woman. She kept any hint of that off of her face. "Izanami no Mikoto provides," Aiko granted, leaning into her role.

Mayumi's eyebrows shot up. "Izanami sama, huh?"

She winced at the slightly too informal phrasing. She might have once thought that was sufficiently respectful, but meeting the goddess had taught her otherwise.

The Inuzuka woman clearly caught the discomfort. Her eyes narrowed slightly, but her tone stayed light as she continued her train of thought. "I've never been to one of her shrines before."

'You still haven't.'

Well.

"Join me inside," Aiko said, wondering if Mayumi was susceptible to cult influence. She seemed to have a strong sense of personality but who knows, she could lack purpose. "Then you can say you've been to her shrine." She gave a winning smile.

'Join my cult. Bring your dog.'

Mayumi hesitated for a long moment. It wasn't good policy to follow an unknown shinobi into an unknown building. It was in fact a very efficient way to get murdered. So Aiko was a little surprised when the other woman accepted her invitation.

In short order, Aiko was heating water for tea. Mayumi was very obvious about exploring the shrine, nearly putting her nose up against the carpet, the collection of bottled ink, the calligraphy on the walls that Aiko had painted and hung. Her gaze lingered a long time on the characters for "peace" and the names of the seasons.

Aiko welcomed the scrutiny. This wasn't just her temporary home. It was a set for the character she was playing. She knew what kind of inferences Mayumi would be drawing.

The calligraphy, for example, showed that she had a level of education and refinement that was basically unheard of in women for all but actual princesses at this point in time. The village residents didn't know enough to pick up on more than that Aiko was literate. But Mayumi was clearly someone relatively important in a big clan. She would be literate, and she had probably studied the block writing forms.

She would have enough education to know that Aiko was proficient in the Gyosho semi cursive style. It wasn't the height of artistic refinement, but mastery of the cursive style was the kind of thing Aiko was decades too young to have yet.

The rug was literally 8 decades and the industrial revolution in the future, in terms of technology. It would look absurdly foreign and luxurious. Orochimaru had spent serious money on it.

'Incomprehensible luxury is a good note to hit. If the villagers have decided I'm Izanami's daughter, it might be worth using that background. I'm not going to claim it, but I'm not going to build a fake history here.'

She just couldn't pass herself off as a real resident of this point in time. She didn't have any accomplices to vouch for her, a fake home to claim, or even the correct accent. No one living would have heard someone who spoke the way that Aiko spoke. Judging by how odd and antiquated everyone else sounded to her, Aiko must sound bizarre to the locals.

So. She wasn't going to answer, she was just going to be foreign and impressive and let them fill in the blanks.

"Thank you," Mayumi accepted her cup and melted into the body language of a different woman. She sat in perfect seiza, with her back straight and her neck somehow held to be elegant.

Aiko smiled back, recognizing that Mayumi was signaling she could use the same register.

'A kunoichi in the traditional sense, after all. I wonder if she has any herbal knowledge. We need those for the clinic and I know I'm deficient there.'

She tabled the thought.

"This is a lovely shrine," Mayumi said. There was a question underneath the statement.

"Thank you," Aiko demurred. "You're very kind. I hear that your home is nearby?"

Mayumi accepted the deflection with good grace. "About 20 minutes, as I run." She very deliberately looked Aiko over. "Perhaps about the same for you?"

'I would be very surprised if you're anywhere near as fast as I am.'

"Perhaps," Aiko offered. She didn't have her reputation for being fast and deadly yet. Mayumi was just establishing that she knew Aiko was some kind of shinobi. "I am not unaccustomed to travel."

"Are you from far away?" Mayumi dug. Her eyes sparkled in the light coming in the window.

Aiko let her genuine, bleak humor come through in her answer. "Incomprehensibly far away."

She had expected Mayumi to parry that, to assume it was a joke. But calculation passed over the other woman's face instead. There was a moment of silence. "I believe that," Mayumi said, and then she tried her tea. "How long have you been here?"

Aiko had to think that one over. "I came to this place at rice planting time," she offered.

Mayumi's gaze drifted around the shrine. "So, Izanami no Mikoto moved in all these mysterious ways in a few scant months, then." It wasn't a question. "Tell me about your enemies." Her brown eyes focused on Aiko, and they were hard this time. "You have them."

She took a quick sip of tea to avoid laughing.

'Not really, not here. Unless you count the god of death. No one knows me enough to want me dead.'

Oh, wait. There was the one person.

"Probably the Daimyo," Aiko mused, setting her tea back down silently. "I don't think he has a very good sense of humor."

The Inuzuka's expression was surprisingly scandalized.

'Oh. Fuck. Do they respect the Daimyo now?'

Aiko smiled weakly.

"The Daimyo," Mayumi repeated slowly. She looked as if she wanted Aiko to claim that had been an unfunny joke. "Why might he be your enemy?"

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "We have disagreed about the rice tribute from this village," Aiko prevaricated. "I sent his retainers away somewhat sternly with less than they requested."

Mayumi closed her eyes for a moment. Her hand twitched, as if she wanted to lift it. "I noticed that you have a lovely horse in one of the fields."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Aiko said calmly, very aware that normal people did not own horses at this point in time. The average subsistence farmer hamlet certainly did not have a confused war-bred stallion in a pasture.

There was a sigh. "The Daimyo has a lot of samurai, you know."

'I'm not that worried.'

Aiko made a polite sound of acknowledgement.

Mayumi opened one eye to peek at her. "And money to hire shinobi. He could hire the whole Uchiha clan and send them to claim the rice."

'I could win that.'

"I'm sure we'd manage to talk it out," Aiko lied baldly, using her mildest voice.

The look she got back was sheer disbelief. "You're serious," Mayumi marveled. She put one elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. "You're the real deal, huh."

Aiko took another sip of tea in lieu of answering that.

"I think I'm going to be busy writing letters," Mayumi said mournfully. She tilted her face up. "I'll need to tell anyone I like not to accept any request from the Daimyo anytime soon."

She hid a smirk behind her tea. "You'll tell the Uchiha that?"

Mayumi snorted. "I'll tell the Daimyo that they want work. Then we can loot that steel off their bodies and let our ancestors rest easily."

Aiko pushed down her reflexive shudder. Uchiha didn't always inspire positive feelings in her, but she liked Sasuke and Fukiko a little too much to shrug off the morbid thought of looting their corpses.

'Oh, fuck. There's a reason why you'd loot them in particular.'

Aiko had the sudden recollection that the Uchiha were known for the quality of their weapons. That meant they had good craftsmen.

'If I kill them, they for certain won't join my cult and make me talismans.'

She made a mental note that it would definitely be better not to murder the Uchiha clan if they did come stomping in demanding rice for a rich man. And that reminded her to try-

"You're the Inuzuka clan head, aren't you?" Aiko checked. "Or close to it, if you'd have the authority to make those recommendations. Do you have anyone who, like, works with wood or stone?"

Mayumi blinked. "Ah. No, that's not really what we do."

Goddamnit.