drabble, utakata's perspective

“The Mizukage would like to see you.”

The chuunin messenger was gone as soon as he'd looked up. No doubt she had been sitting in the office doing usual business for three hours, and then had suddenly been assaulted with fifteen errands that needed to be done right now in such a way that errands 2 and 10 could be benefited from in 8 minutes. That was how Aiko tended to conduct business, after all.  

Utakata huffed a fond laugh. She barely seemed aware that other people had limits. For all that her sentiments were insufferably soft, she was a miserable taskmaster. No doubt she had sent that messenger out to summon 10 people and expected to see them all deployed by the time she went to them. It was hard to keep up with the time expectations of a jinchuuriki using hiraishin. She never seemed to tire, she never stopped or delayed.

Her employees loved and hated her with equal passion, but no one feared her. It was a radical departure from the punishment-averse work culture that Kiri nin knew best. They worshiped at her feet. It was rare to disappoint her because it never seemed to occur to her that they might fail what she told them to do. She set them demanding tasks, they rose to the occasion, and she was equally likely to go on with her day or give them a promotion.  

He was a cog in a precisely-running machine, so he rose immediately and went to the office. Aiko might have expected him within 3 minutes, or she might keep him waiting for nearly an hour. It was impossible to predict. He had brought a book with him.

In this case, Nishikawa saw him and rapped at Aiko's door. “Utakata is here,” he called. He gestured Utakata forward with his left hand and was already walking back to his desk when Utakata took a step forward.

There was, Utakata reflected, no movement wasted in this office.  

“Hello, darling,” the Mizukage called. Her head was bent over the desk. “I want the previously unconscious involuntary guest moved to Konoha's diplomatic quarters, now that it's empty.”

“Is he our new diplomat in residence?” he asked. He did not bother to modulate the wryness out of his tone.

Aiko stamped something twice and then shut the folder before the ink had a chance to dry. He winced. “Must be,” she said cheerfully. “I don't know why else he's here. I'll thank him for starting his commission. We go through so many diplomats from Konoha, I meet so many interesting people. It's lovely.”

“It's very considerate of the Hokage.” He sighed, thinking it over. The prisoner was a still little cipher. The only reaction they had gotten had come after Aiko had breezed in to the room where the prisoner was held down and made the extremely alarming choice to put her hand in his mouth. His suicide pill had already been confiscated.  

There had clearly been a reason, however. The boy's struggles and alarm had been proof enough.

“No, this one's Danzo,” Aiko said to herself. She pushed her chair back and started hunting around in her desk. “I should send him a note, a really nice note, that would piss him off so much. Manners are the best revenge.” She extracted whatever it was she had been searching for and promptly drew a seal on it.

He chose not to ask. He ought to ask for clarification on his orders, a timeline at least. But he inhaled and watched his Mizukage shake her bangs out of her face. They were overgrown, and just a little on the sparse side. Her eyebrows could barely be seen, where the force of her concentration had them pulled together. Oh. She was sticking the tip of her tongue out, just barely visible in the right side of her lips. He prayed for strength.

The Mizukage, who he was sworn to protect and serve, was not cute, he told himself firmly.  

She finished whatever she was doing, carelessly dropped her ink-laden brush perfectly onto a plastic case, and put her fist on- no, into the seal she had just made. Her hand disappeared up to the wrist, just enough showing that he could see her muscles flexing as she tested the dimensions of what she had made.  

Aiko made a satisfied sound and pulled open one of the lower desk drawers. Then she made a face. “Hand me the medium height light-blue book with the thistle pattern on the cover, title is something about Wind, no, the third bookshelf- from the right, yeah.” She gave all those directions without appearing to look. When he handed her the book, she promptly opened it to page 58 and stuck the seal she had just made inside of it.

He wondered if there was any meaning to any of this. Likely. It was also likely that he would never find out.

“Is that all, Mizukage-sama?” he asked.  

She gave him her full attention for the first time. “I'll be there to welcome him, make sure there's nothing he can hurt himself with with around. Standing orders to guards are to incapacitate, watch out for black mice and bugs, don't let him use paint unsupervised.” Aiko flashed him a smile that sent his heart fluttering. “Let's do dinner this evening, yakiniku, Snow Country at 8?”

Ah. If they were leaving the country for dinner, her motivation was more likely to be privacy than a specific restaurant. His heart gave a graceless little jump at the realization that she possibly wanted to be alone with him. He bowed. “I'll be at your home at 7:55,” he agreed. “Will it be a family outing?”  

She shook her head. “Karin is hosting something with the trainees, and Gaara is with his other family til tomorrow afternoon.”

Utakata nodded, as if all of that made sense to him. It was probably all true, if irrelevant to Aiko's reasoning for designing the night as she had. “Have a good afternoon.”