The Way of the Apartment Manager
Chapter Three
Elizabeth Culmer

The mission center was nearly empty -- ninja generally picked up their assignments in the morning, leaving the clerical workers nothing to do in the afternoons but sort through new mission requests. Yukiko skulked outside the doorway, remaining visible despite her strong urge to either use a genjutsu disguise or run away.

Sarutobi Hokage-sama had told her to meet her new teammates here at noon. She'd come half an hour early, since it was easier to lurk alone with her tangled thoughts than to try explaining her change of heart to Naruto. The kid was thrilled at her choice, but still upset over her previous refusal to take the chuunin exam and the way she'd mocked his dream of becoming Hokage.

Eventually she couldn't take his watchful eyes anymore, and she certainly couldn't concentrate on insurance forms. So she'd fled.

Unfortunately, it seemed that her new partners didn't have any similar issues driving them to arrive early. She hoped they'd at least be on time. Iruka probably would be -- he'd seemed fairly responsible -- but she had no idea what the other genin was like.

Five minutes later, as Yukiko leaned against the wall and traced patterns in the dust with her sandal, two shadows fell across hers. "Hello, Iruka-san," she said, studying her toes with sudden intensity.

"Yukiko-san? You're our third partner? Hokage-sama didn't say who you were." There was a slight pause. "You recognized me from my shadow?"

"Your ponytail is distinctive." Yukiko shook her hair back and looked up to examine her teammates.

Iruka looked the same as the last time she'd run across him -- ragged ponytail, black pants, dark shirt, scarred face, and a mild, unobtrusive air. He looked adorably harmless -- she hoped that was only an impression he cultivated in order to make people underestimate him, rather than an accurate reflection of his skills. He carried a battered pack slung over his shoulder.

The other genin was younger than Iruka -- while he was in his late teens, she looked as though she'd only been out of the academy a year at most. She was deathly pale, with short-cropped dark hair and long bangs that shadowed her golden eyes. Unlike many girls, who aspired to be elegant kunoichi and wore dress-like outfits, she wore practical dark pants and a purple vest over a fishnet shirt, with tape wound around her pant cuffs to keep them from flapping. Her one concession to femininity was a pair of shimmering mother-of-pearl earrings.

"We should introduce ourselves," Yukiko said, pushing off from the wall. "I'm Ayakawa Yukiko. I specialize in genjutsu and traps. My ninjutsu and taijutsu are limited and I haven't been an active ninja for several years; I retired to manage an apartment building. But recently I've been thinking about being a shinobi again, and Sarutobi Hokage-sama asked me to join your team. What about you?"

"Umino Iruka. I have basic ninjutsu, genjutsu, and unarmed taijutsu. My jounin instructor said I'm best at strategy and using weapons both in close combat and at a distance. I don't have any special jutsu." Iruka looked down as if embarrassed by his lack of flashy skills. "I want to teach at the academy and I need to be a chuunin to do that."

The girl gave Yukiko and Iruka a cool, searching look, and then spoke. Her voice was low and slightly gravelly. "Tonoike Naga. Unarmed taijutsu specialist -- I have a bloodline limit that helps." She opened her mouth and let her tongue run out, far past the length any human appendage should reach. As she retracted it, her body seemed to go temporarily boneless and she undulated to the side. "That's how it works. No genjutsu worth mentioning. No ninjutsu worth mentioning. I'm learning to summon ravens."

There was a brief silence.

Yukiko touched her forehead-protector for reassurance, disguising the motion as an adjustment to her hair. "Huh. So, now we know a little about each other. We only have a week until the exam and we need to practice working as a team. Do you have any special practice areas?"

Iruka shook his head and Naga twitched a shoulder.

Yukiko sighed. Looking after a hyperactive six year old apparently wasn't enough trouble in her life; now she seemed to be stuck managing a pair of teenagers as well. "Okay. I have a yard behind my building. My tenants use it for exercising pets, but we can chase them off and run some basic drills. Follow me."

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Miraculously Naruto wasn't waiting for her to return -- Yukiko supposed somebody had come by and dragged him off to afternoon classes. She led her two partners around the building to the large, tree-lined yard that lay between her building and the village wall. It was used for exercising pets, but it also acted as a staging area for village defense and a barrier to prevent enemies from leaping directly from the wall to the village rooftops.

As such, it held some inactive traps that could be armed at the first sign of an invasion. Yukiko knew their working inside and out, since it was her responsibility to trigger them. She figured they might make decent practice aids.

"This is a nice area," Iruka said as he looked around the yard. "Do you get much incidental damage from being so near the village wall?"

"Not really -- even when we were at war, this part of the wall is sheltered by the outcropping over there, so most attacks came in other areas."

Naga cast an appraising glance at the stones looming beyond the massive wooden wall. "Looks like a good place to set up long-range weapons."

Yukiko grinned. "You'd think so, from here, but the other sides are mostly a sheer cliff, and what idiot is going to climb up this side of the rock with all our ninja ready to shoot at him? Especially since we have the Hyuuga and the Uchiha so we're sure to spot them."

"Good point." Naga dropped to the ground and began a series of stretches, ignoring the other two.

Iruka and Yukiko looked at each other. "I haven't done this sort of thing in a while, Yukiko-san," Iruka said. "Do you have any ideas?"

This boy wanted to be a teacher? Where was his confidence? "Let's start by demonstrating our skills so we know where we stand. Then we can plan ways to mesh our efforts and not interfere with each other. Oh, and we're teammates now -- just call me Yukiko."

Yukiko looked at Naga, who was flowing from a center split into a handstand. "You look warmed up, Naga. Why don't you go first?"

Naga stared sourly through her bangs, but she twitched her shoulder, took a stance, and ran through a blindingly fast series of kata before launching into free-form motion. She shaped the emptiness around her until the other genin could almost see the imaginary opponents she was fighting, and Yukiko whistled in appreciation at the way Naga used her bloodline limit.

The girl wasn't using any jutsu other than the occasional Kawarimi, replacing herself with stray rocks and sticks lying around the yard. But her body flowed and curved and bent in eye-straining ways, her limbs and neck extended like serpents, and her tongue swept out to act as a prehensile fifth limb. It was next to impossible to predict her movements, since ninja were trained to read the human body and Naga could reshape herself until her body had very little to do with human physiology.

When Naga finally stopped, freezing in a fatal neck strike to her imagined enemy, Yukiko burst into applause. Iruka joined her, smiling at Naga.

"That was amazing!" he said. "With you on our team, we'll pass the exam for certain."

Naga shrugged. "I'm no good at strategy," she warned. "All I can do is fight -- you'll have to tell me when and where."

"That shouldn't be a problem," Yukiko decided. "Iruka? Will you demonstrate now?"

The boy flushed. "It won't look like much, not after Naga. But I'll try." He dropped his pack to the ground and began pulling weapons out of it -- kunai, shuriken of all sizes, explosive notes, smoke bombs, flash bombs, chains, collapsible metal bo staves, various swords, and several sharp or spiky objects Yukiko didn't recognize. She wasn't certain, but she thought Iruka must have used some sort of jutsu on the pack in order to fit that armory inside -- she couldn't figure out how on earth he got a katana in there otherwise.

"I don't normally carry all of these at once, but I thought I should bring them today. You can decide which will work best with your own skills," Iruka said. "Do you have a target I can use, Yukiko-sa... um, Yukiko?"

"Hang on a minute and I'll set one up."

Yukiko pulled her keys from her jacket pocket and unlocked the back door. She'd thrown away all her old target boards after the Kyuubi's attack, but she had a gallon of blue paint sitting around thanks to Naruto's tantrum this morning. She could sacrifice one of the trees to Iruka's weapons.

Naga gave her a peculiar look when Yukiko walked out carrying a can and a paintbrush, and Iruka seemed to be restraining several comments.

"I got rid of my old targets," Yukiko said as she painted concentric rings, feeling that she ought to offer some sort of explanation. "One of my tenants left this around -- the one I mentioned the last time we met, Iruka -- and I thought we might as well get some use out of it."

Iruka laughed. "He just left it around? Strange kid."

Yukiko grinned. "Strange is not the word; impossible comes closer. He likes practical jokes. Just think -- if you pass the chuunin exam, you may be teaching him next year!"

"He can't be worse than I was," Iruka muttered, face darkening briefly, but he recovered and offered a tentative smile. "Shall I start now?"

Iruka turned out to be one of the better marksmen Yukiko had seen in a while, and could also angle weapons off one another to reach otherwise impossible targets. Yukiko asked him to spar with Naga in order to demonstrate his close combat techniques -- Naga didn't use her bloodline limit, though from her expression when Iruka got his weapons to her throat or other vital points, she strongly wanted to slide out of the way and beat him into the ground.

Iruka apologized every time Naga didn't dodge fast enough and he drew blood. Yukiko sighed. How, exactly, did the boy expect to be a ninja without hurting people? True, teaching would keep him out of the dirtier missions, but any ninja had to be prepared to kill.

She called a break before Iruka could pin Naga again. "What do you think?" she asked the girl. "He can't carry all the weapons; which will be most useful?"

Naga scowled at Iruka. "Give the bombs and explosive notes to Yukiko for her traps -- she says she's good at them. Take all your kunai and the small shuriken -- you're accurate, so you don't need the big ones to make sure you hit something. Ditch the other throwing things -- same reason. Ditch the bo. Ditch the katana -- too flashy and awkward in close combat. Take the two kodachi, but paint them black so they don't reflect."

Her lips curled into a small, cockeyed smile. "And ditch the chains. They're way too kinky."

Iruka flushed scarlet.

"Thank you, Naga," Yukiko said hastily. "Now it's my turn to show what I can do. Iruka, may I have the bombs and the explosive notes for later?"

Iruka handed over his packets of notes and his stash of flash and smoke bombs. Yukiko moved to the a nearby tree and knelt as if to arrange the bombs. "It's no good to demonstrate traps if you already know where they are, so I'll start with genjutsu." She grinned as she started forming seals where Naga and Iruka couldn't see. "While you're trying to break the illusions, I'll set up some traps. There are some deadly ones already in this area since it's against the village wall, but I won't arm those. Watch for them, though -- it would be really stupid to fail the chuunin exam because you got a poisoned stake through your leg today."

Naga snorted. "Your genjutsu's strong enough to keep us under for that long? Even I can do a basic dispelling."

"Genjutsu is trickier than ninjutsu or taijutsu," Yukiko said, standing. She glanced at the other genin and nodded to herself. They were looking to her left, where their minds now told them she was standing. Good. The longer they accepted her reality as their reality, the harder it would be for them to remember how to dispel the genjutsu.

She pulled a coil of darkened wire and a roll of cord from her pockets and starting unwinding them, talking as she tied a slipknot and looped the rope over a branch. "True genjutsu doesn't just change what you see and hear; it changes how you think about what you see and hear. If a genjutsu caster is skilled enough, he can make you forget that you're being affected by illusions. In order to dispel the genjutsu you have to fight not only the caster but also your own mind, which is telling you that nothing is wrong, that the genjutsu is real."

...And there! That was probably enough hidden nooses. Now she'd start on the explosive traps. There wasn't time to do anything complicated, but if there was one thing Yukiko was good at, it was hiding things. That worked for traps as well as illusions.

"Also, the longer you accept a targeted genjutsu, the more it weakens your will -- that is, if the caster has any sense. Good illusions include a little voice in the back of your mind telling you to believe, to give in, so when you finally set your will to dispel the genjutsu, the caster has a strong advantage. You have to be very stubborn and strong-willed to break a long-running genjutsu.

"Of course, area illusions are less complex and easier to break. And even with targeted genjutsu, the more people the caster is trying to affect, the thinner her will is spread and the easier it is to dispel the illusion over any given person... but I'm only targeting you two. And you've been accepting everything I say for several minutes now." Yukiko set down the explosive note in her hands and twitched her fingers through another three seals; in Iruka's and Naga's minds, the false Yukiko smiled and grew fangs. "Let's see how well you deal with my world."

Now things got tricky -- she had to devote her attention to the genjutsu, concentrate her chakra and will on maintaining the illusions, and keep her hands ready for reinforcing seals. But she also had to set traps and be ready to hide when someone broke the genjutsu.

Naga liked to fight. Yukiko threw her into complete darkness, surrounded by chill, stinging whips with no obvious origin. Nothing for the girl to fight there, but Yukiko's voice echoed from behind the whips, taunting Naga with the hope that if she could hit her, the genjutsu would break. Yukiko smiled. A good blow would break her concentration and dispel the illusion, but she wasn't anywhere near where Naga was lunging around.

The girl was so furious she'd forgotten the dispelling seal, an attitude Yukiko subtly encouraged.

Iruka didn't like hurting people. He was shy, easily embarrassed, and easily flustered. Yukiko gave him three corpses for companions and dumped him into the middle of a crowd, who drew back from his blood-streaked face, torn clothing, and dripping kodachi. A child whimpered in fear. Iruka looked down in shock and dismay, trying to figure out what was happening.

"They're coming!" a voice cried from the back. "Please, kill them instead of us!"

The crowd drew away, leaving Iruka to face several kunoichi. They were armed to the hilt, wore clothes slashed in strategic places, and held both death and lust in their eyes. "So these useless bits of flesh want to live?" one asked, licking her kunai. "You're kind of cute -- why don't you help us finish them off? I'm sure we could have a lot of... fun together."

Iruka trembled. Iruka flushed. And Iruka snapped, charging at the kunoichi with his teeth bared and swords hungry for blood.

Yukiko, rigging a tripwire well away from the sudden whirlwind of blades, blinked as her illusory fighters twisted into action and she had to shape seals to keep the genjutsu from fraying around Iruka. She hadn't expected that reaction -- she'd pegged the boy as a basically mild person and had wanted to freeze him with shame and confusion. Apparently he had a bit of a protective streak.

Naga was still lunging around fruitlessly, but Iruka dispatched the kunoichi before Yukiko could alter the rules enough to stop him. He fell to the grass, panting, and she watched him with interest. Unlike Naga, Iruka was starting to think.

"Genjutsu," he muttered, staring at the illusory corpses. "She was going to show us genjutsu. I was in a yard, not in a street. And... and... Kai!" He formed the dispelling seal and set his will against Yukiko, bringing to bear the same passion he'd just shown in fighting the false kunoichi. Yukiko let him feel the strain of pushing against her for a few moments before she released her will and the illusion melted around him. It was best to release voluntarily; the backlash from a forcibly snapped genjutsu could knock her nearly unconscious.

Iruka looked around frantically, but Yukiko was up a tree, masked by leaves and branches and a subtle area illusion. The boy scowled at the sight of Naga flailing wildly at nothing, and directed his will toward her. "Kai!"

Yukiko winced as his chakra snapped through hers before she could release the genjutsu. That was going to be a monster headache.

Naga blinked, panting, as the sunny afternoon of the yard melted into her senses. "What? Where? The whips...?"

"Genjutsu," Iruka said. "Don't you remember?"

Naga bared her teeth. "I know. I could hear her -- just one hit, that's all I wanted. Coward, hiding in the dark."

Iruka gave her a questioning look. "If you knew it was an illusion, why didn't you dispel it?"

"...I didn't think," Naga said slowly. "It had to be an illusion -- total dark and whips coming out of nowhere -- but I heard her and that was all that mattered. I had to hit her."

Iruka nodded to himself. "That's what Yukiko said -- she changed how we thought, not just what we saw. A little voice, telling us what to do. I think I broke through mine because she didn't expect me to react the way I did." He nodded again. "She's good. I don't think she'd be as effective with people she'd never met -- my illusion was set up to play on my weaknesses -- but she's good."

Yukiko smiled at his assessment. She'd worked hard for her skill and it was vindicating to have someone acknowledge her. Also, Iruka was shaping up to be a good partner. He'd spotted that genjutsu didn't work so well on strangers -- she couldn't play on intimate weaknesses, had to go for more basic fears or deceptions instead. And from the lack of hesitation when he cast the dispelling jutsu, he'd noticed that she'd lied when she said fighting a genjutsu meant fighting yourself as well as the caster. That was only true until you realized you were in an illusion.

She ran through another set of seals to disguise the origin of her voice. "You broke the genjutsu -- good job! Now come find me."

Yukiko settled back on her branch to wait.

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It took Iruka and Naga five minutes to find her hiding place. They avoided over half of her traps and managed to dodge most of the ones they did trigger, but by the time Naga dropped down to Yukiko's branch and Iruka walked up the tree to join them, Yukiko had stuffed her hand into her mouth to stifle her laughter at their inadvertent comedy routine.

The teenagers were not amused -- not at being hauled into the air by their ankles, not at falling into hidden potholes, not at getting their hands stuck in finger-binds, and definitely not at having flash bombs set off in their faces. Iruka, with soot from a three-note explosion covering his face, looked particularly unhappy.

"Okay," he said. "You're good at setting traps. You're good at genjutsu. You're good at using genjutsu to hide traps. We believe you." His voice turned plaintive. "Did you have to show us like that?"

Yukiko shrugged. "How else would you have proof? Taijutsu and ninjutsu can usually be demonstrated harmlessly -- genjutsu and traps need victims. I should warn you that if you were enemies I'd be pretty helpless right now. I can stick a kunai into someone if they move slowly enough, but that's about it. Once you break my genjutsu and get past my traps, I'm done for, and genjutsu on that level drains chakra like water."

Naga offered another one of her tiny, cockeyed smiles. "That's where we come in."

"Yes," Iruka agreed. "Naga and I should be able to stop any opponents before they can dispel your genjutsu. I think we'll make a good team."

"You may be right." Yukiko dropped to the ground, wincing as the landing fed her growing backlash headache. "That's enough for today. Let's meet here again tomorrow. Is noon okay?"

They nodded.

"Good. See you then."

Naga swiftly vanished around the corner of Yukiko's building. Iruka bent to clean and put away his weapons, while Yukiko collected her rope and wire and disarmed the remaining explosive notes and bombs; it wouldn't do to catch a tenant in one of her traps. The bombs wouldn't fit in her pockets, so she pulled off her jacket and used it as a makeshift bag. Then she grabbed the paint can and brush.

Iruka smiled at the paint. "School should be out now," he said. "Would you introduce me to your tenant? After all, I may be teaching him next year."

"Sure. He's probably in my office -- follow me." Yukiko unlocked the back door and led the way through the building, past her own apartment, the door to the basement apartments, the laundry room, the various storage rooms and closets, the common room (her parents' idea, in which they'd been trying to build up a small library for tenants), and finally her office.

She held her finger to her lips. "Step only where I step -- the tiles are rigged to squeak and I want to surprise the kid."

Iruka followed her across the hallway, hanging close to her back as Yukiko eased the door open a crack, pulled a tiny mirror from her kunai holster, and examined the reflection of the room. She didn't usually go to this much trouble, but it would be embarrassing if Naruto caught her off guard in front of the teammate she'd just spent half an hour catching off guard.

The kid was sitting at her desk, fiddling with her penholder -- sabotaging her tripwire, most likely. He'd left the top of the door untrapped for once. "Hey, kid," Yukiko said, swinging the door open. "Trying to rig my tripwire, huh?"

Naruto froze, face turned toward the door and eyes wide with surprise. "Um..."

"Don't worry about it, kid. I want you to meet one of my partners for the chuunin exam, Umino Iruka. He works at the ninja academy and he might be your teacher next year."

Naruto perked up. "Really? Hi, Iruka-san! I'm Uzumaki Naruto! I'm gonna be a ninja someday -- that's my dream! I live on the top floor, and Yukiko-san is teaching me to be sneaky like a real shinobi. But she won't let me play tricks on other people and she makes me eat yucky vegetables instead of ramen. Can you help me learn to be a ninja too, Iruka-san?"

Iruka didn't answer, just stared blankly at the kid, hands clenched on his pack strap like he was hanging onto a lifeline over a chasm.

"Hey, hey, Iruka-san, are you okay?" Naruto leaned over and poked Yukiko, speaking in what he clearly assumed was a whisper but was really just a slightly hoarse version of his regular voice. "Is he okay, Yukiko-san? Are you sure he's a good partner for your exam? I think I broke him."

"I have to go," Iruka said abruptly. "Sorry, Yukiko-san."

Naruto slumped as the older boy hurried out the door. "See, I told you nobody likes me. Everybody always gives me funny looks, and then they yell when I ask why. You should get a new partner, Yukiko-san. He's stinky."

Everybody gave him... oh, shit. Had she really gotten so used to the kid that she'd forgotten about the Kyuubi? "Wait here, kid. I need to talk to him."

Yukiko jammed the office lock with a piece of wire to keep Naruto in place, and hurried after Iruka. He hadn't gone far, just outside to lean against the sun-warmed stones of the doorframe. His pack lay at his feet and he stared straight ahead with a lost expression.

"Iruka. Iruka, are you all right? I'm sorry I didn't think to tell you; I guess I've been around him long enough that I forget. He's a good kid, really, just with way too much energy..."

Iruka turned slowly to face her. "He killed my parents."

Oh. Oh, shit.

Yukiko let her jacket slide to the ground and slumped next to Iruka. He couldn't have been more than twelve when the Kyuubi attacked, maybe as young as ten. Kids still idealized their parents at that age, couldn't conceive of a world without them. Their deaths must have been devastating. But Iruka wasn't the only one who'd lost precious people to the fox.

"When I finally passed the academy exam," Yukiko began softly, "I was paired with two girls I barely knew -- Fuuma Ame and Ichihara Kasumi. It was a long time before we bothered to learn anything about each other beyond our ninja skills. But after a few years we were like... like family, in a way. When my parents died, when I gave up being a shinobi, they were there for me.

"Then they fought the Kyuubi. They died. And I wasn't there for them."

Yukiko started tracing patterns with her sandal, eyes pinned to her toes. "When Sarutobi-sama asked me to rent an apartment to Naruto, I was scared that I'd die like Kasumi and Ame. But he isn't the fox. He's a six year old kid, and all he knows is that nobody likes him and nobody will tell him why. Hating him won't bring anyone back.

She sighed. "I'm not asking you to be his friend, Iruka-san -- he can get on anyone's nerves in less than a minute -- but... don't hate him. Don't pretend he isn't there. Please. He's alone enough already."

She glanced sideways at Iruka. He was staring straight ahead, face too carefully expressionless to be natural. Yukiko waited.

"...Will he still be in your office?"

Huh? "I jammed the lock," Yukiko admitted. "Why?"

Iruka's mask cracked, letting a muddled mixture of shame, fear, hurt, anger, and an embarrassed flush show through. "I should apologize."

Yukiko blinked -- that was a lot more than she'd expected this soon. Maybe this would work out. "He'll be suspicious at first," she warned, and led Iruka back to her office.

Naruto sat cross-legged on her desk, mangling her penholder, and the door bore footprints and scuff marks around the lock plate from his escape attempts. He scowled as Yukiko and Iruka walked in. "That was mean, Yukiko-san. Why'd you have to bring back the stinky person?"

Iruka twitched. "My name is Iruka, not stinky person. I'm sorry I left without talking to you, and I'm... glad to meet you, Naruto-kun. Will you accept my apology?"

Naruto looked at Yukiko in confusion. "That means you forgive him, kid," she said. "You say you don't mind that he was rude, because he feels bad about it and won't do it again. But you don't have to. It's your choice."

Eyes narrowed, Naruto studied Iruka. The older boy flushed under the examination, but held a neutral expression on his face. Finally Naruto hopped off the desk and looked challengingly up at Iruka.

"Hey, hey, Iruka-san, do you like ramen?"

Iruka looked puzzled, but nodded.

"Yukiko-san says ramen isn't good for me and she makes me eat vegetables all the time. If I say I don't mind that you were mean, will you take me out for ramen?"

Iruka glanced warily at Yukiko. "I guess I could."

"Really? Cool! If I don't mind and you stop being mean, it's like we're friends! I've never had a friend before. Maybe you can tell Yukiko-san that it's okay to eat ramen all the time. Can you do that, Iruka-san?"

Yukiko shot warning looks at both boys. "It is not okay to eat nothing but ramen, kid. But I guess Iruka can take you out to eat if he wants. It'll get you out of my hair."

A mischievous look flitted over Iruka's face, and he crouched down to Naruto's level. "My mother used to make me eat salad all the time, and I didn't like it either. I used to sneak out and buy candy instead. I think it would be fun to sneak out and buy ramen for you."

Naruto beamed. "You're cool, Iruka-san! See, see, Yukiko-san, now I have a friend and he's gonna help me sneak around and not eat your yucky vegetables."

Yukiko stifled a smile. "Generally you shouldn't announce your plans to the enemy, kid, but I'll let that pass for today. Go on, get out of here."

Iruka nodded to her, shouldered his pack, and led a bouncing, babbling Naruto out of the office. Yukiko smiled until they were out of sight. Then she dumped her jacket on top of the mess Naruto had made of her desk, locked the office door, and headed off to buy some aspirin.

She had a feeling she'd be needing a lot of it over the next few weeks.

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