She watched him go, then turned and gave the clone a mildly horrified look. "Whistle again and I'll rip your throat out."

It chuckled.

Sharply, Tsume turned on her heel and marched toward the docks. She started forming seals on the way there, carefully drawing on her limited chakra, trying not to strain her pathways. When she thought she'd collected enough, she let it fly with a burst and a prayer.

A henge settled over her, removing too-long teeth and bright red clan markings, putting her in normal clothes. Even that minor jutsu tugged uncomfortably on the chakra pathways stretching thin and strained between her and Kuromaru.

The clone could henge himself.

She avoided the nearest people, making the assumption they could have seen her quick transformation. Give them an hour and they'd have convinced themselves otherwise, but until then...

She wandered to the docks, keenly aware of the gazes on her as she moved. She paused here and there, asking brief questions before moving on.

It just figured that the man who lied was the one who reeked of halitosis. Tsume cuddled up to him anyway, the better to get under the greased-pig scent. By the time she'd battered him with enough questions to get an approximation of the truth, only Asuma's clone was keeping his unhappy cronies at bay. They all smelled like halitosis, and she was beginning to feel queasy.

She tipped her head and the clone followed her out, angry stares boring into her back.

Asuma's smoke-scent was a welcome change. She flopped down next to him, sliding over until her head was against his shoulder, where nicotine from both cloth and skin and the healthy sweat-scent of a heavily worked male masked the last disgusting rot of filthy teeth. "The things I do for my village," she mumbled, then looked up when muscles shifted and it smelled like food. His hand dwarfed the paper container.

Food was even better.

Tsume pushed herself upright and took the tiny meat pie. "Our two jounin got a ship this morning and headed not-north, and not along the coast." She gestured to the ocean. "I'm guessing Water Country."