Akaiko was far from home, and surrounded by enemies.

This wasn't a problem, of course, as none of them actually knew she was their enemy—that's the whole goal when infiltrating somewhere, after all. Still, even if she did appear to be just a simple civilian minding her own business, the Land of Mist isn't exactly a peaceful place to visit, ever. Doubly so if since she happened to actually be a Konoha kunoichi in disguise, and triply so with Kirigakure on the verge of joining in the war against her village.

But Akaiko didn't bother to worry about all that, since for all intents and purposes she was just a nobody running a stall at the local festival. She was more worried about Inochi, since her partner was the one who actually needed a disguise to stay low-key. Honestly, there were plenty of benefits to having brown hair and a plain face when it came to sneaking around: she didn't need to deal with hair dye and contacts, unlike her Yamanaka partner.

She trailed her fingers lightly over the water in the shallow glass tank she had set up, poking one of the floating bouncy balls and mentally checking the rock-solid presence of Inochi's chakra elsewhere in the crowd. It was subdued to a civilian level, of course, and seemed unconcerned. There were a few other strong signatures that stood out to her—deep murky water and an ocean being the most worrying two—and Akaiko would guess that some of the civilian chakras she felt weren't actually civilians at all.

Festivals are good places to gather intel, so she actually would have been more worried if there hadn't been other shinobi snooping around. With most everybody in the crowd happily relaxed and talking (or at least drunk and talking), she'd already overheard a number of interesting conversations they would need to follow up on later.

Of course, she'd also listened to plenty of chatter from people just having fun.

"Come on, come on, come on," murmured the little girl playing at the moment, nearly broken paper scoop in one hand and a bowl of her eight colorful captured bouncy balls in the other. "Just two more!"

With a gentle twist of chakra, so slight even the best sensors would have had trouble detecting it, she tugged a current around one of the floating balls and pushed it away from the scoop. The player groaned and tried to go after it, but the paper in the scoop had spent too much time in the water and finally broke.

"No! Augh, I was so close!"

"I really thought you had it there for a moment!" Akaiko said, which was a lie even if the way she said it sounded perfectly genuine. She handed over the prize for catching over five balls: a little wooden charm carved to look like a fish. "Want to try again?"

The girl looked like she very much did want to try again, but then she shook her head and tugged the long sleeves of her kimono back down from her elbows, plainly disappointed. "I'd better not. My mother would be annoyed if I spent all my money trying to win a fish."

Akaiko chuckled, glancing over her shoulder to the carefully stacked tanks behind her. Each held a single betta fish, serving as the reward for catching ten or more bouncy balls. At the moment they were all swimming about and proudly displaying their colorful fins. For all their complaining about how degrading it would be for them, her summons—for that's what they were—seemed to be really getting into the idea of being prizes for a festival game.

They probably liked all the attention.

"Well." Akaiko crossed her arms, watching a bright blue betta twirl dramatically with a fond smile—Gebra had always liked to show off. "They are nice fish."

And quite good spies, too, if one could get them into position.

The girl nodded, enthusiastic, and looked as though she was about to say something when a shouted name from the crowd made her wince.

"Oh, I was hoping they wouldn't notice for a while," she whispered.

"Who wouldn't notice what?" asked Akaiko, the picture of obliviousness. She pretended to not yet notice the young shinobi storming their way.

Because of course the boy was a shinobi, he was the ocean she'd noticed: to her senses, the sheer size of his chakra reserves clearly marked him out. And if that somehow hadn't been enough, his shark-ish appearance and the Mist hitai-ate tied at his forehead certainly would have done the trick.

She recognized this brat, actually. Hoshigaki Kisame may be just a ten-year-old kid, but his teacher was somewhat infamous. As one of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen of the Mist, his Bingo Book entry took up quite a number of pages: it was essentially a severely abbreviated biography, and as such it did include a snippet on his student.

And if Hoshigaki was here, his teacher couldn't be too far away.

Not that she was particularly worried about that, as she'd already noticed that definitely-not-civilian murky water chakra signature milling around near the other end of the festival. It was good to be able to pin a likely name to that shinobi.

"Keiko...-sama." The honorific was added almost like an afterthought, as Hoshigaki clearly didn't like addressing somebody younger—or, more likely, somebody weaker—than him with any kind of respect. "Your father was worried."

"Oh, I see," Akaiko leaned forward, resting her chin on one hand with a cheeky grin. "Looks like someone's in trouble."

Hoshigaki gave her a quick once-over, and a suspicious scowl.

As the girl—Keiko, he'd called her—fiddled nervously with her necklace and generally floundered her way through her justifications for sneaking away from her parents to enjoy the festival, Akaiko quickly reevaluated the situation. She hadn't thought the girl was from a family wealthy enough to hire shinobi guards, let alone one that would need to do so in the first place.

Perhaps having one of her fishy spies in that household might be worth it after all.

"Tell ya what," she said, interrupting the girl mid-sentence. "I'll give you a second chance at winning one of my fine fish friends, free of charge."

Keiko blinked at her, mouth open in surprise, then she smiled brighter than the sun. "Really? You really mean it?"

Hoshigaki scowled even more (somehow) and looked like he was going to say something against it, so Akaiko cut in again. "Sure, so long as you promise not to give Shark-Boy here any more trouble."

The look of complete 'what the-' on his face was totally worth it, as if he couldn't process what this civilian had just said to him. "Don't call me that."

"I promise!" the girl chirped, happily taking the last paper scoop from the tray and focusing her full attention on her second chance.

Akaiko smiled to herself as she knelt to peer around under the table, looking for her stock of paper fish-catchers (or rather, bouncy-ball-catchers) to refill the tray. Unfortunately, it wasn't the only box she'd stuffed under there.

"Bouncy balls?" It was Hoshigaki, surprisingly enough—she really hadn't expected him to try and make conversation. "Doesn't this game usually use goldfish?"

"Well, sure," Akaiko sniffed, now half-under her stand and too busy rooting around the boxes to actually look at the boy she was talking to. "But bouncy balls won't attack each other, obviously."

Also, she doubted that she would have been able to convince her proud little summons to be scooped out of the pool for entertainment. It had been hard enough to get them to agree to be prizes, no matter how much they might preen with the attention.

The boy said nothing for a moment, and she was thinking he might have just walked away—even without Keiko, whom he was apparently supposed to be guarding—but he did eventually speak up again.

"Goldfish don't attack each other." Another pause, then more uncertainly: "Do they?"

"Nah," Akaiko replied, waving away that question. Most of her was still under the table, though, so all the boy could see of her was that hand.

"Oh. So why bouncy balls?"

She would have answered, but she'd just found the box she'd been looking for. "Got it! Dumb thing was behind the fish food."

As she backed herself out from under the stall, dragging the box with her, she knocked the back of her head against the bottom of the table. Cursing under her breath—she really hadn't meant to hit her head quite that hard—she sat up and looked at the kid peering down at her over the stall with not-well-concealed amusement.

At least her goofily hurting herself had had the effect she wanted; there's no way she could look like somebody worth being cautious around after bonking her head like that.

"Why bouncy balls?" he repeated.

Rubbing at the sore spot on the back of her head, playing up her fumble, she gave him the same answer as before. "I told you, Shark-Boy, bouncy balls don't fight."

"I said don't call me that." He scowled at her. "And you just said that goldfish don't fight either."

"Yeah?"

"Why not use goldfish?"

Akaiko jerked her thumb to the stacked fish tanks—or, more to the point, the colorful bettas watching them with detached fishy interest. "Do you see any goldfish here?"

"Then why'd you get betta fish?"

"Obviously that's because betta fish are way cool, Shark-Boy," she defended with a huff.

He smiled threateningly, showing off his sharp teeth. "You're kinda stupid."

She wasn't sure if that was in reference to her hitting her head, choosing to use betta fish over an easier alternative, or just her continuing to use that nickname. It was probably the nickname, though.

Usually if she encountered shinobi while pretending to be a civilian, she would have gone for 'scared' or, at the very least, 'uneasy'. Both of which were personas she could pull off without a hitch, thank you very much. But honestly, if there was one thing she had learned after meeting a weird certain someone nearly a year ago, it was that acting like yourself could ease a lot of suspicions.

Man, she missed Axel.

"Well, thank you," Akaiko quipped back. Then, before he could say anything else, she gestured with the paper scoop from his spiky blue hair to his standard-issue sandals. "Anyway... you must be some type of shinobi, right?"

He scowled at her, which was actually pretty unnerving looking given his peculiarly inhuman eyes: unblinking white on black. Neat.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'." She pushed herself back to her feet, refill box under one arm, and dusted off her kimono with brisk motions. "But a better question," she continued with a smile, "is if you're just here to fetch the little miss back to her dad."

"...What?"

"C'mon, Shark-Boy, do you want to play too or not?" she asked, holding out one of the paper scoops for him to take. When he didn't, she gave it a little wiggle as if to make the offer more appealing.

It was almost funny how out of depth he managed to look without even twitching at all, just staring at the scoop like it was going to bite him or something.

"You're not just stupid," he finally bit out, "you're crazy."

She shrugged. "So my friends tell me."

It looked like he was trying to figure out what to say in response to that—it was something of a conversation killer—when a small splash and a startled 'oh no!' drew their attention back to the girl. Keiko was fishing around for something the the water, and she wasn't using the scoop.

"Hey!" Akaiko yelped, surprised that the girl would try something like that when she wasn't looking. "Little miss, ya know that's against the rules, right?"

"Sorry," Keiko apologized, and she lifted something that was distinctly not a bouncy ball from the water. "My necklace came off."

And the light from the lanterns strung overhead glinted off... something unexpectedly familiar.

"That pendant..." Akaiko found herself saying, wondering if she had seen that correctly. "Was that... Do you mind if I took a closer look at it?"

Keiko blinked, then glanced to the necklace she had already begun drying with her sleeve. "Uh, sure, I guess," she replied, sounding uncertain as to how it could be interesting. Still, the girl gamely held it out for her to see.

The pendant was small and round, only a little bit larger than her thumbnail, and it vaguely resembled a copper coin. Not that any of its features looked like any kind of coin she was familiar with, save for the large '1' on one side, but a coin nonetheless. Akaiko leaned closer, and the light caught on some of the smaller details of the raised relief on the metal.

And yes, she recognized it.

In a manner of speaking, anyway. She wasn't able to read what the characters—the 'letters'—spelled out, but she knew someone who could.

It was weird seeing the same word-shapes that Axel used so far from home.

"Where'd you get this?" she asked, careful to keep her tone in the range of simple curiosity.

"Father said he found it by the road when he was traveling somewhere with the caravan." The girl shrugged, and turned the coin so she could see the back. "He thought I'd like the funny bird thing."

The image on the back was, indeed, a funny bird thing. It looked kind of like a hawk, if the hawk splatted itself into a window; its wings and legs were splayed out, and, as she looked even closer, even its tongue lolled from its open beak.

Still, those 'letters'...

"Hey, new deal," she said, and she pointed from her bettas to the dangling pendant. "I'll trade you a fish for that necklace." Reconsidered after a second. "Or just the pendant at least, since that chain looks kinda expensive."

Almost as soon as she finished her sentence, Keiko was eagerly slipping the pendant from its chain and handing it over.

Hoshigaki looked skeptical. "You actually want that thing?"

"Well, sure." Akaiko went to the stack and selected Gebra from the top row—blue fins still proudly unfurled and showing off—then, fish tank in hand, carefully turned back. "I have a weird friend, and it's a weird coin thing with a funny bird. It's perfect."

Keiko took the tank from her almost reverently, wide eyes admiring the shimmer of dark blue scales. "Oh, he's so... so pretty!"

"Careful there, I'm sure his ego's already plenty big," she said with a small chuckle.

"I'm going to name him..." the girl paused, thinking, and finished, "Bluey!"

It was almost comical, seeing how affronted her summon looked at his new name. Alas, that he must pose as a simple fish and thus could do nothing about the whims of his temporary owner.

Akaiko gave her a very quick rundown on betta fish care, like food and tank cleaning and so on. "Oh, and if you move him to a bigger tank—which I strongly recommend, by the way—you should keep those pebbles in there with him." She smiled, perfectly innocent. "It'll help him feel at home."

It would also keep the few slightly-larger hollow stones with her summon, which was necessary if the fish was to be able to trigger the seals carefully rolled up inside. She used to sandwich the necessary sealing tags between two plates on the bottom of the tank, and her summon could trigger them to open a line of communication with her. As it turns out though, hanging out with Minato and Axel during their idea sessions had the happy side effect of being not only fun, but informative as well.

They helped her upgrade her setup, and now some of the pebbles acted like very small tags that her summon could use to remotely activate a much more complex seal. This larger seal could selectively amplify or record any sounds in the vicinity of the tank and directly contact her.

Very useful, as one might imagine.

Even for a civilian, Axel really didn't seem to have a frame of reference for what shinobi could or couldn't do half the time. As such he had a lot of crazy ideas, if one could pester him into sharing them.

"I'll do my best, don't worry!" Keiko chimed in, interrupting her thoughts of home. "He'll be safe with me, I promise!"

"I'm sure he will be," she said, smiling, and she waved as the girl and her likely-way-overqualified shinobi guard walked away into the crowd.

And when Hoshigaki sent her one last suspicious look, she may or may not have definitely clearly mouthed a very snarky 'Goodbye, Shark-Boy' and earned herself one last amusing glare. That kid really needs to get a sense of humor.

Actually, considering the reputation of his home village, any sense of humor he might gain there would probably be pretty sadistic... so maybe not.

Akaiko sat back on the chair she kept behind the stall, half watching and listening to the crowds as they moved past her and half checking out her new necklace pendant. Not that she'd keep it for herself, knowing that it must be somehow related to Axel and his... weirdness-es.

No, she was planning to give it to him as soon as she got to return to the village and could drop by his shop for a visit. Which, seeing as festival season was coming to a close, should hopefully be within a week or so. She was already looking forward to it.

"I wonder..." she murmured to herself, a fond smile on her lips as she thoughtfully turned the coin over in her hands. "What'll Axel think of this?"