AIC Chapter 40

“Konoha is whining again,” Mei said. She dropped a letter on Aiko’s desk. “Something about ‘please stop making positive diplomatic connections with Wave, it makes us feel sad and like we might not be your best friends.”

“Did they really say that,” Aiko said absently. She initialed a section she had just finished reading, deep into a report regarding the upcoming budget proposal. “That sounds just like them. Except I think there should be something to prompt our action in there.”

“Yes.” Mei took a moment to think. “I believe they said that if we play nicely with Wave, it will make them so upset that they will have to do absolutely nothing about it, because they have so little international influence and everyone thinks they’re pompous. That also makes them sad, by the way.”

Aiko hummed and picked up the letter. It was still sealed in the envelope. She glanced up at Mei.

“I know them very well,” Mei said smoothly. She flicked her long hair back. “I can sense it.” She nodded at the envelope, urging her to go ahead and open it now and prove Mei right.

With a repressed snort, Aiko broke the seal and pulled out the missive. It was fairly brief and uncomplicated. Konoha was expressing their concern, as representative of the other 4 Great Nations, about Kirigakure’s apparent expansionist plans.

“On behalf of the other 4 Great Nations, they say,” Aiko said absently.

Mei gave a disdainful little laugh.

“Yes, I’m sure they spent long hours in intimate conference with Lightning and Stone,” Aiko mused. She kicked back in her chair a bit and read on. “They don’t mention their enduring sadness here.”

“It’s subtext.” Mei’s sneer came across in her tone.

“Do you find this at all insulting?” Sanbi asked. “As a former Konoha shinobi yourself, this is not the flattering international image one would hope to convey.”

‘Nah, it’s par for the course. Sandaime did bluster and have a surprising reputation for softness, so far as shinobi go. We definitely stagnated during his second term and lost international relevance. Tsunade rehabilitated our image a bit.’

“I’m invited to an idyllic retreat,” Aiko said. She put the letter down. “We’re going to have a chat about our feelings, leader to leader, and see if we can express mutual concerns and come to agreement.” Her tone was bland. 

“Better you than me,” Mei said, despite that very clearly being a lie.

“Definitely,” Aiko said. She gave her employee a skeptical look. “God only knows you’d show up looking like that and undermine our reputation.” 

Mei, who was wearing a perfectly pressed uniform and a full face of makeup, narrowed her eyes. Her waterfall of riotous hair seemed to puff out slightly, like a serpent’s hood foreshadowing danger. She looked powerful, competent, and dangerous.

Aiko pretended not to notice this thoroughly reasonable outrage. She was experimenting today with a yukata, loosely closed with a jeweled pin. It was gaping open artfully to show one shoulder and a tight purple top. She tapped at the missive thoughtfully with an index finger. “I suppose I should go. The host is some priest, though. I don’t know the etiquette for being hosted at a temple. I assume it’s different than staying with nobility.”

“As our resident expert in everything, I have every confidence you will succeed,” Mei said in a silky tone that meant ‘I hope you choke.’ “If you have a moment, I meant to ask about the escorts we are sending to Wave to bring our honored noble guests.”

Aiko glanced up expectantly. 

“We have adequate shinobi guards,” Mei allowed. “However, I think we need at least one figure of significant political importance, to improve the optics. Someone who is a noble in their own right, to act as welcome and guide. We don’t want to look like hired thugs forcibly removing disfavored nobility to aid a coup.”

“That’s a bad look, yes,” Aiko agreed. She sighed. “Hozuki-san is going to welcome them to their accommodations, isn’t she?” Aiko said idly. She frowned. “I see your point, however. I don’t really have time to address it personally. Make a recommendation, explain why, I’ll approve.”

Mei swept into a bow. “By your leave,” she said, and glided out.

Aiko sighed. She put the letter aside for now, since it didn’t require immediate action, and went back to the paperwork that had been priorized. Once the budget was on track and she’d ordered an audit of those suspicious fuckers down in accounting (oh! The tables turn!), she deposited the completed stack on Nishikawa’s desk. He was nowhere to be seen. The woman sitting in his desk looked up briefly to make eye contact, nodded, and went back to her project. At first glance, it did not look work-related.

...Aiko leaned over to look more closely. “Rats?” She gave the temp an uncertain look. “Why are you making rats?” 

The other woman didn’t look up again. “It’s the year of the rat.” Her tone strongly implied the conversation was over. She was drawing shut a bunched bit of fabric that, judging by the squadron of completed rats overseeing, would become a little rat butt and get a string tail later. 

She felt her brow furrow. But she didn’t have any specific objections to rat arts and crafts. And presumably they were all adults here and whoever this person was had finished their work, so… “Carry on, then. I’ll need the blue-marked folders-”

“To Amae-san when pickup comes, and the green go with the general outflow?”

Reassured all was well, Aiko nodded. “Thank you, I’m out for lunch now.”

“Bring me back a coffee, please. Two cream and three sugars.”

Aiko stopped at the door and squinted back. The temp didn’t seem to be joking. Aiko didn’t have a frame of reference for whatever this interaction was. She furrowed her eyebrows again. “Okay,” she said. And she promptly resolved to not spend any time thinking about whatever was going on, because it was clearly not her business and she trusted her office’s staffing decisions.

She went out for lunch at a tonkatsu place, asked them to make breakfast for her instead, and felt a little bit guilty about it. She avoided looking directly at the sign proclaiming that breakfast ended at 11. It was past 1 by the time she got her toast, eggs, and salad. The coffee and fruit came a few moments later.

While eating the ill-gotten gains of her reign, Aiko mulled over the invitation to meet with Konoha. She didn’t care that much what they thought, and she severely doubted that they would be willing to object strongly enough to force her to let  go of Wave. 

She was doing a good thing, and she didn’t intend to back down on it. That stubborn determination made her give serious thought to telling them that she was too busy and just weathering their disapproval. Tazuna’s little island had a budding local defence force of locals that her chuunin were giving basic training to. The island was beginning to bustle with tourism over their bridge, drawn to stay at the appropriated mansion Gato had abandoned, eat the exceptionally fresh seafood, and buy the pearls that local women were beginning to dive for again. As for the more cental area of Wave-- they were doing well, too. The Daimyo had been prodded into paying attention to his country, the worst of the leeches were being pulled away from influence, and Aiko expected better things were going to come.

She was relatively certain that Konoha was not willing to use enough muscle to forcibly extract her from influence in Wave. That would mean a protracted cross-continental military campaign.

Of course, there was the small but significant risk that Konoha was not totally exaggerating the extent of international concern. Aiko had made a very informed risk assessment that there was no appetite for international cooperation on that scale any time soon. But if she was wrong and Kiri was enough to bring Lightning and Konoha together despite their differences, it would be best to know that as soon as possible.

Fuck. She stared sourly into her empty cup. She was going to have to go hang out with the Sandaime and a bunch of other old men at a shrine.

“Then go,” Sanbi offered lazily. His tails lashed as he stretched, like a sleepy cat. “Why is this so difficult?”

‘I don’t want to make any faux pas.’ Aiko sighed and tried to catch someone’s eye to ask for a refill. ‘My religious education was lacking. There is always the chance that I unintentionally do something mortifying and we end up having to do penance, or pilgrimage, or issue apologies. I just don’t want the international conversation about us to include that we’re heathens.’

“Are you?”

She had to think about that one. ‘Less than other people?’ She finally got someone to take away her coffee cup. ‘I used to be pretty certain that it was all bullshit. But now I know at least one of the gods is real, out there, and dislikes me on a personal level.’

“...” Sanbi paused a very long time in his answer. He stood up, turned in a circle, and then sat again. When he finally spoke, it was in a carefully diplomatic tone. “It seems possible that a faux pas in a religious context could have more serious impacts for you than bad publicity.”

Aiko grimaced.

She was really tempted to say that it couldn’t get any worse. She was an unpaid intern of the thoroughly unsympathetic god of death, who was either going to keep her undead as a servant in the living world or drag her to the land of the death whenever he remembered about her.

The thing was, she had a sinking feeling that it could, actually, get quite a bit worse than that. She didn’t know how, but something about the tension on the back of her neck felt like a warning and validation that she still had a lot to lose, even if she didn’t know what it was.

‘Field trip it is,’ Aiko decided. ‘I’ll have someone set up an interview with a religious teacher. A priest or priestess, I suppose. I have a month to read up before I need to go talk with Konoha. I can fit that in my schedule.’

She stopped at a cafe on her way back to the office and ordered two coffees to go, one for her and one for the stranger at Nishikawa's desk. The caffeine powered her through the rest of the work day. 

At the earliest time that she could, she slipped away from her work and to the closest shrine from her office. She had no idea when it would be busy, but it was deserted at the moment. There was something reassuring about that. She didn’t want to have a lot of people around while she tried to figure out how to not be blasphemous and damned.

There were two priests at the gate to the shrine. One was a fatherly-looking man, whose laugh lines implied he was nearing 50. He paused, broom in hand at the top of the stone stairs, and watched her approach. The other one was absolutely ancient-looking. He was so thin that she could see his wrist bones clearly when he raised his hands and gestured for her to shoo. 

Affronted, Aiko frowned. “What’s this about?” she asked.

The younger man answered. “Welcome, Mizukage-sama,” he said. He bowed humbly. He did not seem to notice that his companion was making a face at her. “How can I help you today?”

She looked at the elderly priest again. “I’ve been invited to conference with the Hokage at a shrine and I want to talk with the head priest about any etiquette or background information that I should know.”

“I understand.” He bowed again. “I’ll retrieve the senior priest.” And then he went away, leaving her with the rude old man.

He frowned at her. 

She frowned at him. “What?” Aiko asked again.

The younger priest turned around to give her an inquisitive look.

Aiko gave him a smile and gestured for him to go on. “Not you, sorry.”

His untrimmed brows pressed together in what looked like confusion, but he nodded and continued on his way.

She waited until he was out of hearing range to try again. This time, she was calmer and carefully respectful, despite the old man’s rudeness. “Good afternoon,” Aiko said, because she had manners and she was hoping this could be smoothed out. “I’m Uzumaki Aiko, and you are…?”

He gave her a disdainful look. Then he very pointedly looked down at the ground.

Aiko felt a spark of irritation and then she realized there was nothing on the ground. As in, he wasn’t casting a shadow. She felt her lips go open in an “oh” of recognition. Her mind stalled for a minute. It wasn’t… It wasn’t the first time that she had seen a ghost, but the others had been much less solid-looking. This man looked alive, aside from the fact that he looked like he should have died of natural causes 20 years ago.

“Never mind, then,” Aiko said. She blinked quickly. “You’re the first non-shinobi ghost I’ve seen.”

He gave her a curious look, mouth twisting to the side. But he didn’t open it and attempt to speak. 

“I wonder if it’s because you are a priest,” Aiko mused. She couldn’t help but glance around the shrine, as if she might see other ghosts. “It could be more common for people who are connected to the spiritual to stay. Do you know?” She addressed the last bit to him directly.

He folded his arms into his sleeves, looked into the distance, and began drifting away.

“Rude,” Aiko said under her breath.

The ghost swiveled around to give her an affronted look. He pulled one arm out of a sleeve to gesture at her, up and down, as if there was something visibly wrong with her. 

“I’m not doing anything,” she denied. Aiko was sorely tempted to roll her eyes. “I came here to learn, so that I don’t make death any angrier or make any other enemies.”

His eyes narrowed at her. The breeze picked up, and it brought a heavy, sickly stench. She had never actually smelled rotting meat, but Aiko instinctively knew that was what it was. She brought a hand up to cover her nose and sneezed.

It only took an instant to realize that had been a faux pas. The ghost was suddenly furious. His mouth opened for the first time, showing a blackened stump of a tongue and releasing grave breath. He spat something foul and incomprehensible at her and wheeled away. There was something wrong with him, on a level that unsettled her. Before he had seemed like a badly-tempered old man. He had disliked her on sight, but he hadn’t seemed wicked or inhuman at all. Now, there was something actively malevolent in the air. There was something else that was making her uncomfortable, but it took a moment to pin down what it was. She saw it, when she looked at the ground beneath him.

He was more solid. He was casting a shadow.

That was concerning. She didn’t know much about death, but she knew it was far too active and she didn’t want to live in a world where the intangible could become tangible and kick her ass. 

She had to know if he was truly solid.

As the ghost turned his back on her, she bent down to pick up a bit of gravel and lob it at him. If he was solid, it should have bounced off of his heel. If he was stil a regular harmless ghost, it should have gone through him.

It did exactly neither of those things. There was a surprisingly loud bang, and then gravel went flying. She put her arm up to protect her face, but she could still see that there was a circle of bare earth where the ghost had been standing.

But the ghost himself was gone.

“...Huh,” Aiko said. She put her hand down. “That was interesting.”

And she had learned at least one possibly useful fact: it made dead people very, very angry if you acknowledged that they were off-putting. That meant gritting her teeth through graveyard rot. It was gross, but she could do it now that she knew it would offend.

Someone cleared their throat. When she turned to face the sound, she saw yet another priest. The fatherly-looking man was hanging back behind him, so she expected this was the senior priest. She gave him a polite bow. And then she froze in her tracks as she saw that the ghost was manifesting slowly by his fellows. His face looked strained and thoroughly moody-- but totally human again. He didn’t seem.. Well, was demonic the right word for the ugliness that had twisted his eyes before?

“Mizukage-sama,” the living priest said firmly. “I think that you need to leave now.”

...What, like the problem had been her? She bristled, just a bit. But she looked at the bare earth, the pebbles embedded in a nearby tree, and backed down. It did look like she had been bizarre for no reason. “Goodnight,” Aiko said resentfully. She made eye contact with the smug-looking ghost. “This isn’t over,” she told him.

“Go home,” said the priest.

Aiko gave him a bow. “I wasn’t talking to you, just to the dead man over there. I’ll return to have our conversation tomorrow. I apologize for the trouble.”

The ghost sneered at her and glided away. 

"Wait!" The priest called out. "A dead man?"

She pursed her lips at him. "Yes," Aiko acknowledged. Her gaze darted over to the man in question. "A priest. He looks to be... senior in age. Green eyes, a wooden bracelet, a spot on his left cheek."

The living priest raised a hand to his own face, indicating the spot where the mole was. Aiko nodded in answer.

"I see," he said slowly. Then he nodded. "I suppose that you angered him?"

She had to nod. "Not sure why, but yes. He seemed to dislike me as soon as I walked in."

"Well, yes," the senior priest said frankly. The dead man gave him a satisfied look of approval. "This temple is dedicated to Izanami, lady of the land of the dead, and she has no love for the death god or his servants."

Aiko bit her lip. "I... I want to say I'm not his servant," she said, not sure if that was dangerous or not. "I did not deliberately choose the nature of our association."

There was a long silence, as the two elderly priests looked her up and down. The younger man was looking humbly at his own feet. The dead man's face twisted first. He seemed to huff a great sigh and then gestured at her to follow him.

"I think that you should come inside after all," the head of the shrine said. "Please follow me."