Disclaimer: Naruto is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto and various other parties. No money is being made from this story, and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Note: This is the sequel to "The Way of the Apartment Manager." It's still an AU story. In the canon timeline, Yukiko was one of the nameless casualties of the Kyuubi's attack... but in this world, she lived. Eight years later, the effects are beginning to snowball. Asuka Kureru suggested the idea that became the nucleus of this story, when she wondered if Sasuke might also end up as a tenant in Yukiko's apartment building. I've thrown a LOT of other stuff on top, but that was the original spark. Thanks, Asuka!

Hey, look who's back in business! \o/ :DDD

Also, it's been forever and a day, so a quick recap: Yukiko is en route to Tengai, undercover in a trade caravan, as part of a mission to assassinate Amane Eiji. Sasuke and Naruto are tagging along with Yukiko because of reasons. Eiji is busy trying to overthrow the hidden village system on ethical grounds but A) his plans are rapidly spinning out of control and B) hiring Akatsuki is never a good idea. And Naga, Kakashi, and the three Grass-nin are pursuing Itachi through various neighboring countries.

Fic Summary: The reward for a job well done is a bigger job. In this case, Ayakawa Yukiko's new job is a lot more complicated than anyone expected. The Uchiha massacre and its aftermath, in the world of "The Way of the Apartment Manager."

Chapter Summary: Chapter the Seventeenth, in which an unexpected development short-circuits yet another interminable Amane family argument, Sasuke and Yukiko have a very bad afternoon, and Eiji opens negotiations.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
The Guardian in Spite of Herself: Chapter 17
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"We can't evacuate Tengai," Eiji said for what felt like the hundredth time. "You know that. You run our logistics. We don't have the ships, we don't have the wagons, and several thousand people leaving on foot would only be asking for trouble - not to mention we don't have the authority to order an evacuation in the first place."

"I know! But we can't defend the town either," Tetsuko said, also for the hundredth time. She knocked the heel of her palm against her desk in frustration. "Argh. We're going in circles. I hate going in circles. We need to bring somebody in to find a new angle, or sleep on the problem and hope we'll have a flash of inspiration in the morning."

Eiji raked his hands through his hair and sighed. "I still think you should take Mitsu-chan and-"

"Not unless you come too," Tetsuko said firmly. Then she blinked and turned to Ginji. "Wait. I have a thought. Hidden Cloud will be targeting us and our associates; they're only interested in Tengai insofar as the people are part of Eiji's idiotic plans. If we evacuated ourselves and our organization, is there any way to make clear that the town at large was uninvolved and therefore innocent?"

"No," Ginji said.

"But-"

"Eiji's plans are dangerous because they might work. Therefore the example must make clear that not only will those who plot against the hidden villages be destroyed, so will any people who harbor the plotters. By that interpretation, nobody in Tengai is innocent."

"Not to mention that a number of the townspeople were involved, at least in the sense of providing logistical support," Eiji added ruefully. He leaned against Tetsuko's desk to ease weight off his bad leg. "I could keep our ultimate goal within a small circle, but I couldn't hide that the local missing-nin population had tripled, and they had to be housed and fed somehow."

"I had noticed that, yes," Tetsuko said. "I'd simply assumed that one of the other blind-eye harbors was under pressure to clean up its shadows. There have been a few rumors along those lines drifting up from Wave Country."

"I think there is some pressure on Wave Country, or we wouldn't have been able to hire so many missing-nin so fast. It's been a very useful cover," Eiji agreed. "Nobody here would think twice about spiting Hidden Cloud and grabbing market share by turning an even blinder eye to our own black market. Which is, of course, another reason nobody in Tengai is safe from retaliation."

Tetsuko sat on the corner of her desk and frowned at the closed, locked, and genjutsu-muffled door of her office. "I hate this. I almost wish we'd never left Hidden Cloud. If we still lived right under the Raikage and Council's thumbs, you wouldn't have dared to get into this much trouble."

"Maybe not. And maybe other, worse things would have happened," Eiji said. "Listen, you're right. We need a good night's sleep to help us find a new angle we're not seeing today. Let's set this aside, grab some lunch, and get back to our actual business."

Tetsuko sighed. Then she slid off the desk and wrapped Eiji in a brief hug. "I hate this. I think you've condemned us all to fates worse than death. That doesn't mean I hate you."

"Damned with faint praise," Ginji said, his breath ghosting unexpectedly over the rim of Eiji's ear since he'd apparently crossed the room without making a sound or pushing the air in front of him.

Eiji almost managed to stifle his reflexive twitch. Tetsuko simply reached blindly over his shoulder to flick her brother in the forehead.

"Ow," Ginji said flatly, then added, "You might want to pretend that you're professional adults. Someone's at the door."

"There are days when I think we'd all be happier if he'd never rediscovered his sense of humor," Tetsuko said, falsely solemn, into Eiji's shoulder. Then she let him go and smoothed down her skirt while Ginji did some shinobi thing to the doorframe before turning the knob and using his body to block the interior of the room from whoever was standing in the hallway.

"You're early for shift change, Kamisori. Report," Ginji said.

"I think our employer needs to hear this also, Ginji-san," the missing-nin said.

Ginji glanced back into the room, a question clearly visible on his face. Eiji looked at Tetsuko, who said, "I'd prefer unfiltered news to secondhand reports." Eiji shrugged and nodded.

Ginji stepped aside and let Kamisori into the office, then brought the muffling technique back up with a few quick hand seals. The missing-nin looked askance at Tetsuko for a moment, perhaps remembering his previous instructions to keep her in the dark. But he seemed to set any concerns aside as none of his business, and knelt, head bowed to keep his gaze on Eiji's feet rather than his face.

Eiji still wasn't sure whether to read that archaic formality as a personal quirk, a gesture of genuine respect, or a subtle form of sarcasm. He'd have to ask Tetsuko and Ginji later; they were both better at body language.

"Eiji-dono, Ginji-san," Kamisori said. "You asked to be notified when Hoshigaki Kisame, the Akatsuki representative, arrived in Tengai tomorrow. Ten minutes ago one of the internal patrols discovered that he is already here."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Travel got boring very quickly, in Sasuke's opinion. What was the point of seeing new places and new people if the places were mostly dusty roads and endless trees, and the people only cared about selling things?

Two days out from Aoukouchou, he finally managed to make Naruto promise to leave him alone for the whole afternoon. The problem was that he had no idea what to do with his resulting free time. At home, he'd study or train, but here he had no lessons to work on and he couldn't let anyone know he was a ninja.

He tried to do walking meditation for a while, but he couldn't make his brain shut up or his body stop complaining about the sweat running into the half-healed cuts on his palms.

Eventually he admitted defeat and fell back along the road until he reached the wagon Naruto's sister was driving, bringing up the very rear of the caravan like a secret guard. Seichi was somewhere else, for which he was grateful. He disliked the way the assassin looked at him, like the worst parts of Sasuke's life were in front of him instead of in his past.

He cleared his throat and had no idea what to say.

Naruto's sister looked at him with raised eyebrows, then smiled. "Hey, Sakama-kun. Bored?"

Sasuke frowned at being so easily read. But she was right, and anyway, this wasn't something he had to solve alone. Not like training to face Ita- to face that man. So he nodded.

"Well, I can't do much to get us to Tengai faster, but I can probably find you something to read. Would that help?" Naruto's sister asked.

Sasuke nodded again.

She slid to the right along the wagon's front board and patted the wood beside her. "All right. Swing up here for a minute and let me show you how to manage the mules. Then I'll go hunt down a few books."

It was easy to climb onto the slow-moving wagon, and the reins were also easy to understand - mostly because, as Naruto's sister said, he shouldn't need to use them unless something went very wrong. Apparently the main problem in driving a wagon was fighting off boredom just enough to react to unexpected changes in the road.

"Set the brake to the first notch if I'm not back before we head over the pass, and call for help if you need any," she said after the brief lesson, then swung down off the seat and strode forward along the line of the caravan: five wagons, twenty-odd mules, and nearly twenty people on foot strung out like beads on an ugly necklace, rising slightly with the dusty road toward the low ridge that separated the current valley from the next.

Sasuke held the reins in his left hand - a thick bundle of leather that tensed and slacked minutely with the four mules' movements - and stared outward at the passing trees. They'd been changing a little as the caravan crept northward, more pines scattered in among the broadleaf giants that surrounded Konoha, and the terrain shifted a bit as they passed from valleys to hills and back again, but there was an essential sameness to the landscape without the whimsy of human structures to break the sea of green. He wondered why there weren't more fields near the road, and why the trade villages were so spread out. Wouldn't people prefer to live where they knew traders would pass by every few days? Wouldn't that reduce bandit attacks by giving them fewer places to hide?

Civilians didn't make much sense, he decided.

Somewhere up ahead, a man began singing an unfamiliar melody. Several other people rapidly joined in, their voices enthusiastic despite being slightly out of step and occasionally out of tune.

Sasuke supposed the caravan couldn't become a more obvious target than it already was. But he disliked the noise, and he disliked the cheerful acceptance of imperfection even more.

The first wagon crested the pass and edged downward out of view, swallowed by the hills. One by one, the others followed, until Sasuke's own wagon lumbered along the short stretch of flat ground and tilted sharply down. The wheels picked up speed until he hastily set the brake.

The north side of the ridge was much steeper than the southern face, and the road snaked narrowly back and forth between bare rocks. Already the walkers at the front of the caravan were out of sight around a switchback turn. His wagon shivered slightly with the mules' steady gait, and the rumble and creak of wheels and brakes echoed off the stones, mingling with the ragged ends of the annoying song and the loud complaints of a disturbed flock of crows.

As the first wagon began its turn, vanishing by degrees behind a granite shoulder, Sasuke spotted two splotches of blue-green vivid against the gray-brown rocks - Naruto and his sister, standing beside the road and waiting for him to catch up.

He supposed he could put up with Naruto for a few minutes in return for a book.

The wagon juddered slightly as if something had fallen in the back or a wheel had run over a loose stone. Sasuke leaned down to check the wheels and make sure the brake was still set correctly. Everything looked fine.

Everything was fine. This was a beautiful day and there were no problems to worry about at all. He was absolutely sure of that. A smile curled tentatively at the corners of his mouth, because really, how could anyone be sad on a day so wonderful as this? It was fine to be happy. It was more than fine; it was right.

He should sit up, relax, and stop worrying so much. It was his duty to be fine.

Sasuke straightened slowly, wondering at the sudden twist and drop in his gut when everything was perfectly fine. Maybe he should call somebody over? It wouldn't do for him to get sick on such a beautiful day, especially since there wasn't anyone else in the wagon to grab the reins if something went wrong.

Sasuke frowned.

A sharp line of pressure bloomed across his throat and callused fingers clamped around his wrists. The knife dug into his skin when he opened his mouth - a thin film of blood seeped downward; his throat constricted as he tried to swallow - and hot breath washed over his ear: "Still and silent, boy, if you want to live."

Everything was fine, his mind whispered to him. Everything would stay fine as long as he obeyed and-

Sasuke hurled himself up and backwards into his captor's grip. His head smashed into the man's chin- he used the sudden slack to wriggle free and turn, one hand fumbling for the single knife Naruto's sister had agreed he could carry- he drew breath to warn the caravan-

And froze.

In the two seconds it took to convince his brain that the person in front of him - low ponytail, tired burgundy eyes, defaced forehead protector, sword hilt over his shoulder and an armored vest strapped to his chest - wasn't Itachi, couldn't be Itachi, the bandit regained his breath and flashed through a handful of seals. "Enjoy your worst memory, boy," he snarled.

The world stuttered, the sun-warmed canvas confines of the wagon blurring into the moonlit walls and floor of Sasuke's home.

Across the corpses of their parents, Itachi smiled.

"Hello, Sasuke," he said.

Sasuke's mind tore apart into darkness.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Yukiko was never sure which came first: Sasuke's scream or the strange, scraped-tight snap of a distraction genjutsu exploding into shards of chakra like cheap steel under pressure. Kurenai's work, no doubt. At least one of them had been paying proper attention.

A dozen armed figures boiled up from the rocks like summon creatures exploding into reality. Yukiko reflexively threw up a distraction jutsu of her own and yanked Naruto back to her side, under its cover.

"Stay close!" she hissed into his ear.

"But Sasuke! We've gotta help him!" Naruto protested, twisting half out of his jacket in an effort to move. "We've gotta help everyone!"

Yukiko adjusted her grip, pinning the kid against her side. "We have to stay alive. Everything else is secondary. And keep your cover."

"But-"

She shoved her knife into Naruto's flailing hands. "Stay alive. And keep quiet - if my genjutsu breaks, I can't repair it while anyone's actively paying attention. Now crouch down and follow me."

This was a horrible idea, but all of her options were horrible. She might as well keep the kid close where she at least had a chance of reacting if he got into trouble.

Yukiko took a deep breath and began edging along the chaos of the caravan, toward the rear wagon. The bandits seemed to be targeting the second wagon - they must have heard about the salt merchants' money chests, and if she found out who'd let that slip she was going to give them screaming nightmares - which meant getting to Sasuke was going to be complicated.

Especially since her cover meant she only had the one knife, which she'd just handed to Naruto. Well, a ninja who couldn't improvise was worth less than her forehead protector, right? And there was no shortage of rocks.

She picked one up and threw it at the nearest bandit, who stumbled and missed his strike at one of the salt merchants. The merchant's partner seized the opening and shoved the bandit to the ground.

Yukiko missed whatever happened next, since the Grass Country twins and a second bandit blundered straight through her genjutsu screen and tripped over Naruto.

"Shit!"

She kicked the bandit in the back of her knee, yanked Naruto out of the resulting tangle, and dashed up the trail toward the communal wagon.

The third wagon was rolling forward uncontrolled, panicked mules tugging hard enough to override the brakes. Its driver hung sideways off the front seat, throat torn open in a horror of blood and gristle. "Don't look," Yukiko said as she lunged forward. She had nothing to cut the harness, but the shafts were just wood. Wood was easy. Wood broke. And there should be a pin, an emergency pin to uncouple the whippletree from the body of the wagon. Where was it, it had to be- right, there, half-lost under the spray of blood and gore. She pulled, swore, and then hammered it loose with a rock.

She stopped, stared at the jagged chunk of stone. When had she picked that up?

"Yukiko-neechan!" Naruto hissed from right behind her shoulder.

Yukiko found herself halfway through a knife-hand to his throat, converted the motion to an open-handed shove, and caught her dropped rock in her left hand. "I told you not to look. Go, go, hurry!"

Behind them, toward the front of the caravan, something exploded. Heat and wind washed outward like the petals of a deadly flower. Kurenai's work? Seichi? The bandits?

There was no time to sort out irrelevant details.

"I was just trying to stay inside the genjutsu," Naruto said, but his tone fell horribly flat and he kept twisting back to steal horrified glances at the dead driver. "I. Um. Is he...?"

"Very, very dead," Yukiko said as she tugged Naruto past the fourth wagon, whose driver had managed to cut loose her mules and was busy stabbing a bandit to death with the shattered, gleaming remnants of a large hand-mirror. Blood welled from a sword slash across her left shoulder and her left arm hung unnaturally still. "Don't look."

"But-"

Someone else's genjutsu brushed up against Yukiko's own, and she clapped her right hand over Naruto's mouth. "There's a missing-nin. I'm shifting the distraction veil to you. Stay quiet, sneak around the back of the wagon, and see if you can drag Sasuke under cover. Don't get caught."

"But what if-"

"Go."

She pushed the kid away and ran toward the fifth and last wagon, where whoever had made Sasuke scream was still lurking.

This was completely stupid. She had a rock, some genjutsu skills that were next to useless in this situation, and middling taijutsu skills that might break her cover if anyone happened to see her use them. She had no backup, not with the screams still rising from the downhill road. Kurenai and Seichi were both stuck near the money wagon.

But she couldn't do nothing.

Yukiko dove into a shoulder roll before she consciously registered sunlight's glint on the barrage of kunai headed her way. One still struck, sliced across the back of her right calf where her stupid civilian skirt left her skin exposed.

She slapped her free hand onto the stony ground and grabbed the bloody knife. "Arming your enemy is a beginner's mistake," she said, straining to sound calm and easy of breath as she shoved herself upright and peered into the wagon's darkened interior, trying to see through the swirling shadows. Which were clearly genjutsu, given the angle of the sun, and the weird, statue-like calm of the mule team.

"Kai," she muttered under her breath, and leapt for the driver's seat as the shadows broke.

Suddenly visible, the missing-nin - from Hidden Rain, Yukiko noted absently; probably a recent defector since she didn't recall him from bingo book updates - dropped from the wagon's canvas roof, full weight behind his sword. Yukiko deflected with the rock and stabbed forward with her stolen kunai. He dodged and slashed again with his sword, but awkwardly; the rock's impact had shaken his grip.

Yukiko dropped flat and rolled backward off the driver's seat, out of his range.

Chakra groped around the edges of her mind. She grabbed hold, swarmed along that channel, and screamed into the missing-nin's brain before he could shut her out.

He stumbled and fell among the mules, shattering the calm he'd been holding over their minds. They shrieked and milled in panic. Bone snapped under frantically stamping hooves.

Yukiko, already on the ground, clenched her teeth and breathed through the backlash.

Then she crawled over and slit the missing-nin's throat before he could escape the mules.

In the depths of the wagon, a boy broke into sobs.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"This is a bad idea," Ginji said for the dozenth time as he and Eiji waited for Hoshigaki Kisame to arrive at the arranged meeting place. Not his office - Ginji had flatly refused to allow an S-rank missing-nin that far within their defenses - but a side room in Rika's harbormaster headquarters, with three of Ginji's own security staff on watch.

"I know. I agree. But doing this secondhand would be an even worse idea," Eiji said. "I trust you implicitly, but I need to get a feel for this man and his organization myself."

Ginji crossed his arms and leaned against the window frame, which glinted faintly with the promise of lightning for anyone who tried to enter that way. His expression didn't visibly change, but he managed to make a blank face feel like reproach.

Eiji laced his fingers together on the surface of his borrowed desk, unlaced them, and laced them again. "Do you think-" he began, before Ginji stiffed and someone clapped loudly on the other side of the door.

Eiji allowed himself one deep breath and a sigh before he pulled on his calm, professional negotiation face. "Enter."

Hanran swung open the door and Hoshigaki Kisame strode through.

They'd been warned, of course, but the man's height and odd, shark-like features still took Eiji aback. The massive sword swung across his back was less startling, though still worth noting. All those things paled, though, when the missing-nin offered a friendly smile.

It wasn't the teeth that were disconcerting. It was that he genuinely seemed to mean it.

"Pleased to meet you, Amane-san," Kisame said with a polite nod. "Sorry for showing up early, but you know how it is. I built a little extra time into my plans in case of trouble so of course trouble failed to show up for the fight, and I figured as long as I had the chance I might as well do some reconnaissance. No offense meant."

"None taken," Eiji said after a moment. "I presume you're here with your associates' response to my proposal?"

Kisame unslung his sword from its straps and sat in one of the guest chairs, leaning the wrapped blade against his left thigh. "Our preliminary response, yes. I can't do major adjustments on my own, so if you have more things you want to tweak I'll have to send correspondence to the rest of the organization."

It was refreshing to deal with someone so upfront about the limitations of their negotiating authority. On the other hand, Kisame was a ninja and there might be some hidden undercurrent to his surface frankness. On the third hand, a man could drive himself mad chasing spirals of possibility into paralysis. Eiji smiled politely and said, "Thank you for making that clear. It's always best to be thorough and careful when setting terms for a new contract."

"Exactly!" Kisame agreed. "So, the terms. We of Akatsuki offer our services as front-line troops in any open conflict between you and the forces of a hidden village - but only one village at a time. We're good, but taking on a multi-village alliance is an entirely different kettle of logistical fish. In return, we request free transportation for our members and certain cargos no larger than one ton, at times and to locations of our choosing, with no questions asked."

"That last is impossible," Eiji said. "In order to arrange safe and efficient transportation, cargo-masters need to know things such as the density and weight distribution of cargo items, or whether an item requires special handling procedures. We don't need to know what the cargo is, but knowing nothing is counterproductive for you as well as for us."

Kisame grinned. "Fair enough. I told them that was too paranoid to work, but secrecy is a hard reflex to break. What about the rest?"

Eiji glanced over his shoulder toward Ginji, who tapped his fingers against the window in an apparently absent-minded gesture. Sparks flashed at each contact point, sending little flares of brilliance through the dim, lamp-lit office. "If you want to sell your services at a tenth of market price, that's your own business. What I want to know is how we should expect this protection to work in practical terms. You clearly have your own agenda and bases. How do you plan to balance that against the need to remain close enough to respond to sudden attacks against our network?"

Kisame shrugged. "Our transport requirements will keep several of us in close proximity to your people. The rest we figured we'd negotiate once we have a better sense of your network and your own timetable for going open with your plans."

A timetable of his own choosing! If only. But this wasn't yet the time to admit events had spun out of his control.

Eiji allowed himself to lean forward, pinch his nose, and sigh as if relieving a headache. "Of course you did. I don't know why I hoped we could conclude this contract in a single meeting."

"Optimism," Ginji said. He stepped away from the window, letting its network of electricity fade without his touch. "I'll arrange escorts to show you around the shipyard and warehouses. Will you need supplies for sending messages?"

"Thank you, and no, I'll manage," Kisame said. "Are we done here? Because I'd like to take advantage of the chance to buy real food and sleep in a real bed for a few nights."

"We're done for today," Eiji said. "Welcome to Tengai, Kisame-san. I hope your stay is both pleasant and profitable."

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AN: Thanks for reading, and please review! I am, as always, particularly interested in knowing what parts of the chapter worked for you, what parts didn't, and why.