The Way Through Stone Village (Naruto)

52: Assessing

[OP: "This Will End"--The Oh Hellos]

"Are you going to meet with Mirai today?" Shine asked Gaara when they had all gathered outside, trying to avoid the puddles that were everywhere--for a village that was always in rain, it really didn't have a very good drainage system.

Gaara looked startled. "Alone?"

"That is how it's been done," Shine said.

"Clearly it didn't work very well," Gaara said, more dryly than he usually spoke. "Should you go with me?"

"But no one in Rain Village knows about us in the war," Shine said. "It hardly has the same effect. I don't think they were at all impressed when you told them we were your senseis...and, really, why should they be? Surely you can handle it."

Gaara didn't know if he could.

"There is no rush," he said. "We still haven't assessed the village's needs."

"What better way to do that than for you to ask Mirai about it, while we scope it out?" Shine pressed. "Come now, it might look rude if you don't do it. She'll feel slighted."

"Don't push him." Temari began to worry that Gaara would feel panicked. "It's up to him, isn't it?"

Shine game Temari a look like "are you questioning my authority?"

Or maybe it was "you're ruining this for me." With Shine it was hard to tell.

Wally thought Shine was right that Gaara should go but was not as sure pushing him to was going to work out for the best.

"Maybe he can do it later," he said. "No reason he can't go with us first."

Shine glanced at him.

"He might have more to say if he sees the village first," Wally added. Which was code for "give him time to think about it."

Shine at least understood it.

"Yeah, maybe." She shrugged. "Okay...well, Guren told me she has a kind of office of sorts in the front of her house here. We should look for it. She promised to help us tour around more."

"I can do that," Kosame spoke up, as if she wasn't liking that the job was being passed to someone not even selected by the Council.

"Of course you can," Shine said, not batting an eyelash. "But we and Guren go back a ways, and there are so many of us, that it seems unfair to ask you to do it all alone. Is it all right if she helps us out? Then you can focus on the official business, and she can give us a layman's perspective."

Perhaps Shine was smart to use those terms to imply that Kosame was higher ranking--it was obvious to at least half of the team who knew ninja politics that Kosame was recently promoted to her position and was probably not very confident in it yet, which was why she was sensitive about being overruled or passed up of in favor of someone else.

But of course she was also nervous about having to supervise them alone for the day, since Kyuu and Jakku were busy elsewhere now. They would only be guarding them at night, it seemed.

"I guess that's one way to do it," she said stiffly.

"You should have some kind of talk show," Dabi told Shine.

"Hush, Touya." Shine waved him off. "Let's just get a move on. I'm hoping it won't rain on us while we're out, but you clearly can't bank on that here."

"I can't believe how it's not raining right now," Kosame remarked. "You must all be good luck."

"Luck isn't real," Wally said. "But it's a good sign."