Aiko WAP ch36 preview

Hashirama was a scary motherfucker like this, cold with fury. Aiko walked towards him with a serenity she did not fucking feel as his chakra roiled all around them. He was spread out into the trees above and the roots below, simmering all the way through the grass under her feet. 

“You are angry,” Aiko said, because it was obvious. “I have not deliberately harmed you.” That bit of honesty out of the way, she made the executive decision to fold down into seiza as if they were in a civilized meeting room. It might prompt him to follow suit. 

He made an angry sound in the back of his throat that she hadn't heard out of a young man before. Aiko kept her face in a sort of pleasant neutral even as her blood pressure started to rise.

“Let us dispense with the pretense.” Hashirama did not sit. He took an aggressive step closer to her, in fact. 

‘If he really does decide to fight, this is a bad position for me to start from.’ 

“You have conspired to disadvantage my clan.” 

Aiko made a face that hopefully politely conveyed that wasn't the case. She didn't dare speak. 

Hashirama had very intense eyes when he was angry like this. He didn't seem to notice the creaking all around them from trees. “We are now publicly committed to installing Uchiha Izuna as the Daimyo, but there is no mention of Konohagakure in the disseminated news.” 

Yeah, he was pissed.

“In my defense,” Aiko said slowly, “I didn't know that Madara was …. Circumspect enough to be interested in that maneuvering.” 

Hashirama stared at her for a very long moment of incredulous disbelief. “You believed that the head of the Uchiha was an upfront and honest sort of man?” He said. It was halfway between a question and an insult. 

She pressed her lips together. She was not enjoying this. “I did not anticipate what they did,” Aiko said. It was a bitter thing to admit. She was the one who had spent hours drafting things with Madara, and she just hadn’t been careful enough

His face twitched. “Incompetent,” he said, and ohhhh god she hated that. 

She took a long, bitter moment to wrestle down her ego. He was right. She had inserted herself in this situation and she had gotten played. That did not reflect well on her relationship with either the Senju or the Uchiha. 

Aiko took a deep breath. She nodded. “I was overly confident in my management of the situation.”