Apparently signing yourself up for one high-ranking mission was all the clue ANBU needed before they started dishing 'em out left, right, and centre. Asuma skim-read the scroll while the antsy runner panted for breath, and grinned to himself. Stolen weapons, definite bad guys, the proposition of a knock-down fight on the horizon--oh yeah.

"Count me in," he said, ignoring the fact that he was already in. "Who's my partner?"

The runner had to gasp a minute before he could answer. But eventually Asuma managed to catch a strangled, "Inuzuka Tsume."

His grin widened. Apparently every high-ranker came with a chaser of hot women. ANBU sure knew how to treat their agents right. Although--

"Isn't she a chuunin?" Or a really lucky, incredibly suicidal genin. He'd felt her chakra once, his second day in town when he'd found her on the losing side of a clan fight, and it hadn't exactly been impressive. "Thought they were restricted to B-missions?"

Unless they were probationary-jounin.

The tracker flapped a hand. "I don't know! She's a tracker, you're a fighter. Clearly they're desperate. Are you going or not?"

Asuma glanced down at himself, dressed in jeans and a complete lack of shirt, and leaned more comfortably against his door-frame. "Isn't armour kind of traditional...?"

"So put it on!" The tracker flapped again, breathless and flushed. "It's an emergency."

A snort cut the air like ironic smoke. "It's always an emergency. Try not to pass out while I get my kit? I'd hate to see you all concussed while you panic."

He left the door open to hear the runner choking, and padded barefoot back into his room, scroll dangling from loose fingers. Black cloth and white ceramic lay thrown across his bed, tangled up in rumpled blankets. His jockstrap was--somewhere.

By the time he'd found everything, given the neat row of stitches tracking down his ribcage a quick lookover (almost a week old, now, and healing well), sheathed himself in ANBU colours, and discovered his mask lurking in the bathroom, the runner was about ready to spit tacks. Or just spit. Asuma dodged a spray of angry words when he landed back in the hallway, and didn't bother to lock the door; it wasn't like he'd managed to pick up anything worth stealing since his last mission.

"You'll give yourself an aneurysm if you keep that up," he pointed out, shoving his mask to rest on the side of his head. "Stress is a killer."

The runner made an inarticulate noise. "Just go. Your partner's probably halfway to the ocean by now!"

Asuma slid a thumb beneath his fire-sash-turned-headband, adjusting it more comfortably. "And you expect me to catch her how? I'm not exactly nasally gifted."

Three fingers drew sharp lines down his breastplate. "Look for those. And you better hope she's got a sense of humour--"

"Oh, we go way back," Asuma assured the man. "Like a whole week. You know where she started the trail? Or am I just heading out and hoping?"

"You're ANBU!" snapped the runner, which Asuma translated as I have no idea. "Figure it out!"

"Excellent wisdom. Almost poetical." He was on the move, heading down the corridor before the runner finished bellowing, "Go!"

The sun was high and shining, glinting off rooftops and the distant monument. Asuma tossed the stony faces a hand-to-heart salute before he winged his way to the nearest crop of forest, stretching his chakra through coils and into muscle. Hopefully Tsume was a better sign-leaver than she was a fighter.