"You worthless!" crunch! "Stinking!" crash! "Bitch of a pig-faced WHORE!" SMASH!

Mari whirled and spun, fists and feet lashing out in sync with her own furious curses. At the last word she tucked her head to keep the shower of splinters out of her eyes. She planted one foot and lashed out with a sidekick that smashed her next opponent's burlap-wrapped head off. "Think you're better than me?!" She kicked off, rolling through a cartwheel that brought her right foot down on the head of the next filthy rat-bastard Hyūga bitch, splitting it down the middle. For just an instant her foot was trapped but she torqued her body, wrenching her foot free and turning the motion into a tumble away from any potential counterattack.

"Storm Wind!" A wall exploded away from her in a shower of fragments. "Fist of the Lightning God!" The world turned red and white through momentarily-closed eyelids as the lightning lit the world around her; when she opened them again she leaped over the blackened, carbonized remains of the enemy's third squad and launched herself at the fourth. "Bile of the Ocean Demons!" Her first enemy melted; she blurred past the silently dissolving carcass without a look, the fire of chakra boost surging through her body as she tore apart the remains of the enemy force. "Adorable, am I?!" Crash! "Impressive how far I've come, given my disadvantages?! I hope you choke on your next bite of those mealy, overcooked, shit-tasting little cakes, you fat-assed pile of sanctimonious vomit in an overpriced kimono! And your precious little nephew looks like a girl, too!" The final enemy fell, Mari's fist punched all the way through what would have been its beating heart, had the enemy been a flesh-and-blood person instead of a wooden training dummy wearing a cheap shirt with a Hyūga clan crest on it.

Mari collapsed to her knees, gasping for air as the chakra boost faded. She ignored the pain of the splinters in her arm with practiced ease, focusing instead on breathing through the lightheadedness. Her coils were nearly empty, chakra thrown away with profligate haste over the course of her tantr—exercise of righteous anger. The exhaustion left her feeling hollow, but the rage still lay coiled just under her heart, glaring resentfully and grumbling to itself.

"Is it safe to come out?" called a voice from the trees.

Alarmed, Mari leaped to her feet. "Sure!" she called brightly. "I was just getting a little training in." Shit, shit, shit, shit! The Hokage's wife could not be throwing t—exercising righteous anger in public!

The spiky-haired woman didn't walk out of the trees. No, she strutted out, a little touch of sashay thrown in for free. A surge of envy momentarily drowned the rage in Mari's heart: the new arrival was just as well-endowed and curvy as Mari, but on top of that she was rocking a sexy-bad-girl vibe that Mari could never pull off for long. The mesh shirt and purple-lined longcoat covered just enough while drawing the eyes in with all the strength of a grappler's chokehold. And the rotten wench had the sheer gall to be tall, too. Well, taller.

"Mitarashi, right?" Mari asked, smiling and offering a respectful nod. She pushed herself to her feet and grabbed the towel she'd left on the ground at the edge of the training field so she could wipe the sweat off her face. "Nice to meet you."

Mitarashi Anko came to a halt ten feet back and turned, surveying the training field. Dozens of wooden training posts, each one a foot-thick hardwood log, lay in splinters. Climbing walls were demolished, huge gouges torn into the dirt, ropes courses burned away.

"Training, huh?" she asked, one eyebrow raised in disbelief. "I haven't seen this much wreckage since Hatake cut in front of me at Old Man Misumi's and bought out all the dango just to be an asshat." She shrugged. "I helped Misumi rebuild though, so he forgave me."

Mari snorted. "Did you get Hatake back?"

"Yep. Blasted forty gallons of bacon grease all over his bedroom while he was asleep."

Mari's eyebrows shot up. "You snuck into Hatake's bedroom while he was asleep?"

"Nah, I put an explosive tag on a barrel of the stuff and fired it through the wall with a trebuchet."

Mari's laughter belled out, causing the anger to flee before its feet could get soaked in the upwelling amusement. "That's cheating, you know."

"Eh. Ninja. So, you feeling better?"

"What makes you think I was feeling badly? Like I said, I was just training."

"Uh-huh."

Mari rolled her eyes. "Oh, Sage's nose hairs. You're not one of those suspicious conspiracy-theory types, are you? You know, the ones who latch onto some ridiculous idea and then won't stop pestering everyone about it?" In truth, she already knew the answer; Mitarashi Anko liked to act wild and crazy to rattle people but was reasonably well grounded under it. More importantly, she was ridiculously loyal to Leaf and a person that Jiraiya had specifically mentioned as reliable. If there had to be someone to walk in and see Mari losing control, there weren't many better options.

Mitarashi laughed. "Tell you what, why don't we get you out of here before anyone else sees it? There's live music and good booze down at Tanaka's Grill tonight. We could go dancing, grind up on some of the boys and then leave arm-in-arm together while they stare and drool."

"Why Miss Mitarashi, if I didn't know better I'd say you were propositioning me." Mari's voice was artfully innocent and she even batted her eyes. "I am not that kind of girl, you know."

"That's okay, I am. Come on, I'll show you how it's done. Besides, Tanaka's is right next to the Hyūga clan compound. There's always a bunch of the younger ones there. If we get them all riled up they'll embarrass themselves in public, which will humiliate that pig-faced whore of a Clan Matriarch."

"What are we standing around here for?! Lead the way!"

The mesh-clad kunoichi turned and bowed Mari ahead, gesturing back the way they'd come, then fell in beside her as the redhead hurried by.

"She really is a raging bitch, isn't she?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Mari said. "...to her face. But, yes."

"She attended a graduation ceremony that I was chaperoning once. Came up to me after the speech and asked if I'd be interested in 'being an incubator for the Hyūga seed. There are no acceptable exogamous marriage candidates available for young Tamotsu and those wide hips suggest you would be as good at giving birth as anything else you've tried.'"

"Ooooh."

"Yeah. Right in front of the buffet, too. Half a dozen people within reach, much less within earshot."

"So, did you piss in her sake at some point? I mean, she's snotty to me because Jiraiya muscled her precious husband out for the hat and I'm Jiraiya's wife. What's she got against you?"

Mitarashi looked at her in concern. "Hey, that's not fair. She doesn't hate you just because you're Jiraiya's wife."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, she hates you because you're not from Leaf and you're higher ranked than she is."

Mari rolled her eyes. "Right, thanks. I suppose the fact that I'm not from some noble clan doesn't help either."

"True. And let's not forget that you're prettier than she is. Oh, and you don't have a stick up your ass like she does."

Mari snorted. "Yeah, well, henge and a ton of money spent on beauty treatments can mitigate the 'attractive' part, but I've got nothing for the stick. So, now that you've successfully bonded with me over how much we dislike the nobility of Leaf, what was the favor you wanted?"

"Actually, nothing. I just figured I'd show up and bond with you now so that the next time I get in trouble I'll have a high-ranking friend to get me out of punishment duty."

"That works. From what I read in your file, you get a lot of those. Most of the reports include words like 'public lewdness' and 'disrespectful attitude'."

"What can I say? A girl's got needs and people can be so fussy."

A wicked smile twitched at Mari's lips. "If by 'people' you mean 'ANBU' and by 'fussy' you mean 'politely tell you to stop propositioning people in the market' then yes, I suppose they can."

"That was one time!"

Raised eyebrow.

"...this week. Besides, it's not like I was rude or anything."

"As I recall from the report, your exact words were 'I don't care what your name is, I just care that you've got a pulse and man parts. Now take me up to my room and bang me like a taiko drum.'"

"Hey, he was hot and I'd just gotten back from a mission! I had an itch."

"They have ointments for that. And what about that time the ANBU stopped you breaking a guy's fingers just because he grabbed your ass?"

"They totally overreacted! Besides, I didn't break his fingers, I just dislocated them."

"And the poison you used to make him hold still for it?"

"Poison? Is that what they called it? Pish-tosh! Just a mild paralytic. Probably wore off in a few hours...I mean, unless he had an allergic reaction, but what are the odds? Anyway, what are we talking about this nonsense for? Come on, there's drinks to drink, music to listen to, and poorly-controlled Hyūga boys to blue-ball!" She lengthened her stride, shifting up into a quick jog. Mari chuckled and kept pace.

"You're going to be a bad influence on me, Mitarashi," she said, shaking her head ruefully. "I know your type. Always trouble."

"Yep. Fun, though."

o-o-o-o​

Partying with Mitarashi was a baffling but very enjoyable experience. Mari was used to being the wild one in any group, the one who left people on the back foot. Tonight she found herself in the role of 'staid and sober companion trying to keep up'. Mitarashi was like a brakes-off version of Mari, doing naturally the things that Mari did only as a result of cynicism brought on by years of weaponizing her sexuality for the purpose of the mission. The purple-haired woman didn't give a damn about social expectation and just went for what she wanted without regard to possible consequences. She didn't even bother henging the way Mari had. ('Eh, it would just break when the barfight starts.' 'What barfight?' 'I don't know, I haven't found it yet.')

It was only sunset when they got to Tanaka's. At Mitarashi's demand, the two women strutted in, hip-to-hip and moving in perfect sync with their arms around around each other's waists. Mari was henged into a (slightly-taller-than-Mitarashi) striking blonde with a heart-shaped face and ice-blue eyes. As they came inside, she automatically started to move aside so that they wouldn't be a perfectly backlit target. Mitarashi's grip subtly tightened, keeping her from moving unless she wanted to force it. Mari relaxed and went with it.

The purple-haired special jōnin paused long enough to slowly and very obviously survey the room before heading for the bar where a trio of young men had interrupted their drinking to stare.

"So," Mitarashi purred, "are you boys going to offer us a drink or are you going to remember this moment with regret for the rest of your lives?"

The three came within an inch of physically assaulting the bartender in their haste to order.

It really was unfair, Mari thought. The men weren't more than twenty-one or -two; they could barely keep from drooling, and making intelligent conversation was utterly beyond them. Mitarashi flirted and flaunted for the span of a drink, then jumped off her barstool and grabbed Mari's hand.

"Time to dance!" she said, plunging out into the open area where a bunch of young civilians were clumsily bouncing to a fast-paced 'music' that involved a lot of drum and not much actual skill on the singer's part. Mari allowed herself to be dragged along, laughing and shaking her head, before throwing herself into the fun. She took advantage of her henge-granted height to twirl Mitarashi under her arm so the two were facing each other. She put her hands on the other woman's hips, leading her into the dance with subtle pressure and a smoldering look. Mitarashi laughed and looped her arms around Mari's neck, following the 'blonde' woman's lead with the ease and grace of the assassin she was.

The music shifted, slowing slightly and losing the vocals in favor of a steel-stringed dulcimer that positively growled across the floor. Mari stepped back, leading Mitarashi through eye contact instead of hand pressure and running her hands up through her hair. She could feel the space around them widening as people turned to watch, more and more eyes on them. Good. That was exactly as it should be. Mitarashi thought that she was going to out-wild the Heartbreaker? Oh no, that was not going to happen. Besides, a couple of Hyūga brats had just walked in. If they happened to get a little overheated watching two women dance much too close together and then, by purest coincidence and with no help from anyone else, they ended up getting so stinking drunk that they wound up in jail for the night, thereby humiliating Lady Hyūga and her clan...well, wouldn't that just be a pity?