Disclaimer: I totally and utterly diss any claims that I own any part of Naruto, any of Kishimoto's other works, the Day of the Jackal, or Harry Potter and Leopard-walk-up-to-Dragon.
'I'm not missing-nin, ANBU-san. I never really belonged to a village, did I? My mother was a clanless chuunin from Kumo, though she never talked about it. My father used to be a citizen of Konoha, true, but he always said that he belonged to the Whirling Tides. And they were really too young to have a child, though they did it anyway. If there were ninja who could claim allegiance to me, they're either dead or don't give a shit about me. Uzushiogakure was destroyed by the Kyuubi no Kitsune decades ago, and we all know Kumo doesn't care about no-name weaklings who leave it. I really don't know what you want from me.'
Nara Shikamaru went over the memory in his head one last time. The Hokage would not be pleased with the report, but when was he ever? The mission was supposed to be an easy one, it was only C-ranked and far under his pay grade, but he'd taken it anyway. He thought it'd be a break from the endless recon missions they carried out on Kumo and Suna, they still didn't trust the Godaime Kazekage despite all that he had done for them, and he'd even get to see a little bit of the countryside. Ha! So much for that notion.
He thought back to the days of the Academy, when the Sandaime was still in power and the only thing that mattered was whether or not something was troublesome. That had all changed the year he'd graduated. Shikamaru had no idea why, and he'd spent a lot of time trying to work it out. It wasn't as if the village had changed completely with the coming of the Godaime. They were still training children at the Academy with that joke they called a syllabus, their gate-guards were still so laid back the Sage of the Six Paths could walk in and they wouldn't notice, and the Sandaime's grandson got away with more pranks than a trickster spirit with a grudge. No, on the surface everything had stayed the same. It was only at the very highest levels that things had really changed.
The ANBU became much more disciplined. Once they had been used for anything and everything, the Hokage's personal tools to shape the village as he saw fit. Now they were focused only on one goal, to secure threats emanating from both within and without the village. The Godaime's ANBU were polished weapons, and all the he needed to do was to aim them in the right direction. The normal policing of the village that they had absorbed after the collapse of the Uchiha had been given back to a new military police wing, consisted of both retired-nin and civilians, and the endless amount of paperwork they'd had to go through had been forcibly streamlined into the Information and Recon wing. By the time he had been approached, the ANBU of the Leaf were no longer the jacks-of-all-trades they once were. Now they were specialised weapons of Konoha's intent, and Konoha had done much better for it.
The hospital soared to new heights. They had found Senju Tsunade-hime and persuaded her, though Shikamaru rather suspected the Hokage had forced her, to come back and help the village she once called home. Once under the oversight of the Slug Princess, recovery rates soared and mortality was the lowest it had been for years. She had even brought her apprentice with her, and Shizune-san had been integral to the development of Konoha's new medic corps. One of the first members of the corps had even been a member of his own graduating class, and Haruno Sakura was now being tutored by the Sannin on a personal basis. It had left Ino more than a little cheesed off, but he suspected his friend was just a little bit proud of her one-time rival, too.
'Deer! The Hokage is expecting you in fifteen minutes! Get your damn report ready now!' bellowed Ibiki, breaking Shikamaru out of his reverie.
'Yeah, yeah, don't get so worked up. I'm almost done here.' Shikamaru replied, getting up from his desk and gathering his papers.
'Kid, it might not seem like it, but this report is very important to Godaime-sama.' Ibiki said with a glare.
'Since when does the Hokage care about a civilian whose father might have once been enrolled in our academy, anyway? I can think of a dozen people I went to the Academy with who moved out of Konoha and had kids, and we're not investigating any of those, are we?' Shikamaru said.
'It is not up to you to decide what the Hokage does and does not care about. You're not here to ask questions, you're here to help answer his questions, and if you don't get to the tower double quick, you might find that you no longer have the ability to ask any questions at all, understand?' Ibiki said in little more than a whisper. Serving under the Head of Torture and Interrogation had taught Shikamaru a few things, and one of them was that Morino Ibiki could make a crocodile cry tears of genuine grief with nothing more than a well-placed glare.
'Yes, Ibiki-sensei. I apologise for my impertinence.' he said in what he hoped was a suitably conciliatory tone.
'Whatever, kid. Just get the hell out of here. You're done for the day after you give in the report.'
He was done? But it was barely noon! Maybe Ibiki liked him more than he let on, then. Shikamaru grinned at his boss, put on his mask, and disappeared with a flurry of leaves. Just one more hurdle to negotiate, and he was free!
He arrived at the Hokage tower a few seconds later, the grin still on his face, though the receptionist couldn't see it through his mask.
'Can I see him now?' he asked.
The receptionist looked up at him, and then looked at one of the guards to the Hokage's door, who nodded.
'I think he's in a meeting, but he won't mind the interruption', she said.
'That's ok, I'll wait' Shikamaru replied, and took a seat on the couch.
The chuunin guards looked at him as if he'd just grown a second head. ANBU had a reputation for never relaxing on the job, but Shikamaru loved breaking the stereotype. Just as he closed his eyes he heard the shouting from inside the office.
'- YOU DON'T HAVE A CHOICE!' That sounded like Tsunade-hime.
'I'M THE HOKAGE, AND NO ONE TELLS ME WHAT CHOICES I HAVE!' And that was Godaime-sama. He was glad he'd not stepped into that confrontation, then.
With that, the Slug-princess stormed out of the Hokage's office, and looked angrily at Shikamaru. 'If you're waiting to give him that report, maybe you'd like to tell him to eat it, too.' she said, before leaving.
Shikamaru blinked, perplexed.
'Hokage-sama isn't eating enough, isn't sleeping enough-' the one with the bandage, Kotetsu?, started.
'- and needs a break from running this village before it kills him' the one with the fringe, Izumo, finished.
'At any rate, the only way she'll get him to take one is to chain him to his bed' the receptionist said with a sad smile.
'Deer, Jiraiya-sama will see you now.'
The Hokage was not in a good mood, and when the Hokage wasn't in a good mood, an unaware and unlucky ANBU tended to pay the price. Shikamaru prayed to whatever kami were watching him at that moment to have mercy on him, and more importantly on his poor report, and in return he would burn ten, no, fifteen sticks of incense at the temple the next chance he got.
He walked into the Hokage's office and saluted to his military leader, who only seemed to notice him after a few minutes.
'Hm? Oh, yes, Deer, was it?' The man had an odd habit of appearing out-of-sorts at crucial times, but the glint of intelligence in his eyes never faded. Jiraiya was one of the Three and the Fifth Hokage for a reason, and anyone who wanted to survive an interview with him would do well not to underestimate him.
'Sir, yes, sir!' Shikamaru immediately got rid of his trademark slouch, and his eyes sharpened in a manner that would have been visible if anyone could have seen underneath his mask.
'You're the one I gave the recon mission to, aren't you? The girl in River Country?'
'Yes, Hokage-sama.'
'I know you have a written report for me, and I'll read it in due time, but give me your verbal now. And Nara-san, every detail is crucial.'
Shit. Nothing to worry about, just make sure that he didn't contradict a single detail from the report and Hokage-sama won't have a problem. At least, that's what Shikamaru needed to believe. Slipping into formal ANBU speech, he started his report.
'Sir. I left Konoha a week ago under orders as directed by the mission log. Target was a sixteen-year-old girl living in the Kesen Province of Kawa no Kuni, in a minor town called Shiwa. Said girl was the daughter of a former citizen of Konoha whom Information and Recon suspected of having classified information regarding the village.' Despite the boy having left Konoha at age ten, he added mentally.
'The objective was to ascertain whether the information was indeed in the hands of the father, whether he had told it to his daughter, or anyone else, and whether we could plug the leak before it became too big' Why we didn't just go after the father, they'll never tell me.
'I passed through the border and arrived at Shiwa without incident, at which point I shifted to my cover of wandering swordsman.'
'This was three days after you left Konoha?' Jiraiya-sama interjected.
'Yes. Discovering the girl's location was easy enough, everyone in the town knew each other and she was not easy to miss. A redhead in River Country is enough of a rarity that the rest of the townspeople pointed me in her direction after a liberal application of genjutsu. Then it was just a matter of tracking her down and applying standard procedure.' Standard procedure was in itself a misnomer. There were at least a dozen 'standard' procedures, and each member of ANBU, whether or not assigned to Torture and Interrogation, had their own personal spin on one of them.
'Genjutsu again?' Jiraiya-sama asked.
'Only as a last resort. I find that while genjutsu works well when only a specific detail is needed, but a wide-ranging brief like this is easier handled if the target's emotions are engaged in other ways. My traveling swordsman cover both provides reassurance and engages the targets' sympathies, so it works well either way.'
'The target has a name, you know. You could just call her-'
'Forgive me, Hokage-sama, but emotional detachment from the mission is one of the guiding principles of the Shinobi Code.' Interrupting the Hokage was never a good idea, but the less he thought of the girl as a person, the less he would be disturbed by what had actually happened.
Jiraiya raised his left eyebrow, and for a moment Shikamaru feared he'd breached the bounds of acceptable behaviour, but then he resumed his blank stare.
'Emotional detachment is nice for killing machines, Nara-san, but I do hope that's not what Konoha is in the practice of producing. Nonetheless, go on with the report.'
'I apologise if I overstepped, Hokage-sama. I approached the girl at a local bar and tried to engage with her about her family, but she appeared unwilling to talk about it. In the interests of not blowing my cover' not looking like a prick, he translated, 'I gave up and planned to infiltrate her house instead.'
This was where it got tricky. It wasn't that he had lied on the mission report, exactly. It was just that it was impossible to convey exactly how unnerving the entire experience was without applying some sort of complex genjutsu to the paper which would recreate the scene exactly, and then subtitle then entire experience with his own mental state of mind at the time. It was the kind of overblown tactic that Uchiha Sasuke might employ, especially if he had felt the same things that Shikamaru had, but was certainly not something he would ever consider reasonable.
'At around midnight I made my approach. The plan was to put her under the ANBU variant of the Yamanaka Mind Hypnosis technique, and obtain the information directly from the source that way. Unfortunately, it didn't go as planned.'
Jiraiya merely raised an inquisitive eyebrow before letting Shikamaru continue.
'Upon entering the house through an exterior window, which was not unduly guarded or locked, I immediately approached the bedroom. When I didn't find her there, I went back to the entrance of the house, and searched it entirely. I failed to locate her on both my initial and second sweep, and was about to start doubting whether she was even in the house when I found her standing behind me.'
'I apologise if I misunderstand, Nara-san, but are you trying to tell me that a completely untrained teenager living in the middle of nowhere was able to get the drop on a jounin-level ANBU while that same ANBU was trying to find her?' Jiraiya-sama said incredulously.
'Erm. Yes, Hokage-sama, that is indeed what happened,' Shikamaru said. He would have described his current state as 'sheepish' if not for the simple fact that ANBU, almost by definition, were never in the least way embarrassed.
'So how come you're still standing here, then?' Jiraiya-sama asked. It was a fair question. If he had found a strange man sneaking into his house, he would probably have killed the man on the spot, and never mind any regulations about killing while off-duty.
'Hokage-sama, I have no idea. She discerned I was ANBU immediately, even though I was wearing neither my uniform or my mask, and then proceeded to give me both exactly what the mission brief wanted my to obtain, as well as some personal history that I also included because I assumed it would be of some interest.'
'The girl gave you oral confirmation that she was not in possession of any information regarding Konoha, and neither was her father?' Jiraiya's tone came as close to disbelief as he could possibly let it. Why was this so ahrd to believe?
'Sir, yes. Her exact words were "My father cared about exactly three things: me, my mother, and the Legacy of the Whirlpool, which was me again. Unless you're here to assassinate me, which you could have done in the bar itself, I have nothing to offer to you"'
'So not only did she identify who you were, she also recognised you'd tried to pick her previously, and despite this you still took her at her word?'
'I have no idea how she connected me with the previous incident, but I assume it was by the same ability that allowed her to shadow me while I was trying to find her. On the issue of belief, I have been extensively trained by both Inoichi-sensei and Morino-sensei, and I am fairly confident that the target was not lying in her assertion that neither she nor her father knew or wanted to know anything that was vital to Konoha's interests.' If the mission log had actually told me exactly what this 'information' was supposed to be, I could have asked her directly.
'I see. I suppose you're wondering why you weren't told exactly what you were supposed to be looking for?' Jiraiya said with a hint of amusement.
'I am not meant to question my orders, Hokage-sama.' he replied dispassionately.
'Boy, a little less tension would do wonders for you. You're a Nara, for heaven's sake. Acting like one won't kill you, and neither will saying her name.' Now he was deliberately trying to get a rise out of Shikamaru.
'When I put on my mask, I cease being anything other than ANBU of Konohagakure, and the personal weapon of the Shadow of Fire.' Now he was quoting Kakashi-sensei. Things were really going wrong.
'That's one of Hatake's, isn't it? He was sixteen when he said that, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't believe it anymore, and neither should you. Right, then. I've gotten everything I need out of you for the moment. I'm going to read through your report, but I need you to be available to clarify any details for the rest of the day. If you leave your whereabouts with whoever's outside I'm sure that'll do. Go on, get out of my office.' Suddenly ibiki-sensei giving him the rest of the day off made sense. Well, he'd done his best, there wasn't anything more he could do about it.
'Sir, yes, sir!' Shikamaru said. He saluted and turned to leave the room when he heard Jiraiya mutter under his breath.
'Kushina, your granddaughter is almost as confusing as you were. Uzumaki Aoki, Last of the Whirling Tides indeed.'
As Shikamaru left the tower and walked at a sedate pace to his favourite cloud-viewing spot, he turned the mystery of the insanely talented civilian girl around in his head, trying to find an explanation that fit. Some puzzles just caught his inquisitive brain, and some didn't. The sudden retirement of Sandaime-sama was one of them, his replacement with Jiraiya-sama, someone the Council still detested was another, and Uzumaki Aoki, granddaughter of one 'Kushina' was the latest. Usually it was his brain that thought about these things, but this time, his gut told him all three had to do with a common cause, and Shikamaru liked nothing more than to figure out puzzles that noone else could.
A/N And that's the first chapter of something I've been thinking about for a while. Read and review, please, that'd be nice! On the other hand, I've read and not reviewed so many times I do feel very guilty about it, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask! I have a plan for this shit, but I dinna ken if it'll go well, or even if it's gone well so far. I think it has, but I am just very slightly biased. Only very slightly. It's certainly gone better than I thought it would, which is a blessing.