aic bit, future scene i just want to share so you know i am not dead

“Do you have time to meet with the Fire Daimyo on Thursday?” Nishikawa looked pained, flipping between two pages of the master schedule book. “I think we need to block off the entire day for that, really… You’ll have to enter at the closest border the conventional way and be escorted to the palace, they won’t appreciate you-” he shot a glance at her. “Arriving at the gate directly,” he finished diplomatically.

Aiko bit her lip and leaned back, thinking through what she had to do. “I need some morning time for fundraising work, but… I think that if we meet at the border at 8:30, I can be received at the palace and go through all the niceties. I think we will have to stay the night, it would be rude to rush out the same night. I’ll need to step out in the evening but we can say I’m taking a long bath, and have our sentries ensure privacy.”

“And that errand would be…?”

“Checking in with the pencil queen,” Aiko said. She was trying to remember the woman’s name. She needed to check that before the meeting, clearly. “I’m going to need her support to make sure our name stays golden currency in Wave, so I need to keep our appointments.” She grimaced. “It’ll be tight. I can probably give her 20 minutes. She’s a business woman, she’ll understand if I give her enough notice.”

“We can spare…” Nishikawa pulled a pale yellow binder out from the shelf and flipped it open. He flipped pages, expression a little pained. “We need to be appropriate,” he murmured.

“Not our strong suit.” Aiko surreptitiously took off her socks underneath her desk.

He ignored her. “We want to bring enough big names that we look like we are a powerful force, but no one controversial… We don’t want to look aggressive…”

“Oh no, we don’t want them to think we are mean and scary,” Aiko said mildly. She flexed her feet, thinking of all the people she had kicked to death across the span of her career.

“Or maybe we should just impress, as we are in near-enemy territory and it would not be at all surprising if this was a trap. Plenty of people would like to get rid of you.”

“Hey,” Aiko said. She frowned. “What did I do?”

He looked at her. He sighed. He looked back down at the binder. “Terumi-san, certainly,” he said.

“Oh. I already know she wants me dead.” Aiko waved that away. “Do you know about someone else?”

Nishikawa frowned. “What? No- no, I meant that she should attend this meeting. Is there- is there a problem with Terumi-san?” The pitch of his voice rose a bit at the end.

“It’s fine.”

He looked at her dubiously. “Wanting one’s leader dead is traditionally considered somewhat problematic by administration. At the very least, perhaps she ought to be demoted out of leadership.”

Aiko shrugged, disinterested. She’d used to feel a slight sense of relief at the possibility that Mei might kill her and let her rest. But now that she knew she was a creepy fucking monster and could not lay down and die if she wanted to, the issue was even less pressing. “Let’s bring Utakata,” she said. “He likes me.”

Nishikawa outright laughed. He immediately straightened his face when she gave him a sharp look. He cleared his throat. “I believe that bringing a known jinchuuriki to a foreign Daimyo’s residence would be provocative,” he demurred.

“I see.” Aiko bit her lip and thought about that. “Alright. I’ll bring Utakata and Gaara. It’ll be a big show of strength, including our relationship with Suna, and it will make us such unpleasant houseguests that we definitely won’t have to stay a second night.”

“Your reasoning and manners are as impeccable as ever, Mizukage-sama,” Nishikawa said dryly. He closed his books with a soft sound. “I’ll ensure that they are assigned no missions in the interim, to prevent any possibility of them becoming unavailable.”

“Lovely.” She tucked her feet underneath her body, so that she was resting in seize on her chair. “Anything else?”

“Fairly standard mission requests,” Nishikawa said. He cleared his throat. “But I thought you might want to look at this personally.” He avoided eye contact as he handed her a scroll. 

Her eyebrows went up, but she accepted it and broke the seal. She read it silently, and then put it down on her desk. She rested her elbows on her desk and folded her hands. She looked at the space where the wall met the ceiling and contemplated her life choices.

There was a long, awkward silence.

“It’s a very-well compensated mission,” Nishikawa said mildly.

“It sure is,” Aiko agreed. She stared into space over his head, wondering why her life was this way. It was definitely her fault, but still, she wanted to complain to someone. What was the use of having a godly master if he wasn’t even a good excuse for the bullshit that happened?

“It would be very odd not to accept it. And if we did reject it, not only would the client wonder why, but they would go to another nation.” He paused pointedly. “With the information that we had rejected the mission.”

“I would never reject a valuable mission that does not conflict with our morals.” She knew she was making an ANBU level blank face. “Very well. Of course we will accept and assign appropriate personnel.”

“And do our best to find the woman who is running a very profitable international drug running operation.”

“Definitely a bad person,” Aiko said, thinking of the money that went directly and ironically into paying for drugs for the hospitals, bought from Iron. “We will apprehend her. Such criminal actions are not to be tolerated anywhere in the Elemental Nations”

“Our jounin can handle nearly anything,” Nishikawa said, face and voice perfectly blank. He was definitely laughing at her, on the inside.

She wondered if this would conflict with her Thursday morning plans to deliver a drug shipment. Well. That was entirely up to her, wasn’t it?

…In the long term, she would make a lot more money by continuing the operation. In the short term, this payment would be nice. And it also didn’t

set well to accept a mission, knowing full-well that she wouldn’t allow it to be successful. If nothing else, it was unfair to her staff. Failed missions went on records, after all. And it would be embarrassing to lose face with the client.

Aiko sighed, deeply resentful, and resigned herself to retiring that particular fundraising effort. It would just create a vacuum in the market anyway, but whatever. She’d let whoever she assigned run around for a while looking productive while she did one last profitable hurrah and then… have them report that they were successful and killed the criminal. Something like that. 

…Who could she assign to this mission who would not ask too many questions? Did she want someone too dim to realize that she was at least connected to the crime, or find someone who she hoped would have a good sense of humor?

“You have a lot more stupid employees than funny employees,” Sanbi pointed out.

She wanted to defend them, but… Kiri was not really known for cultivating easy-going personalities.

“Bring me our finest moron,” Aiko declared. She spun her chair around. “I need someone with absolutely no deductive reasoning skill whatsoever.”

Nishikawa looked like he was in actual pain.

“A real dum-dum,” Aiko added., because she was enjoying his facial expressions today. “Like, someone with high enough rank for this mission, because I only want to put one person on it. But just dumb as a box of rocks. I don’t want to hear any whispers of this person having made inferences before. Not a whiff of higher reasoning to be sniffed in their vicinity.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing who your subordinate puts forward,” Sanbi admitted. She cherished the childlike glee in his tone. She didn't get to hear that often.

“I will see what I can do to subtly locate our highest ranked…. person who fits your criteria.” Nishikawa stood, holding his binders and scrolls against his chest. He managed his poker face again. “If that is all, Mizukage-sama…?”

“Yes, it’s fine.” She stretched her arms and settled her legs back underneath her desk. “I have 20 minutes until my next meeting, right?”

“That’s correct. By your leave, Mizukage-sama.” He bowed his way out of her office.