Whoa, thanks a lot to all my reviewers and the multitudes of faves. I wrote the last one-shot to work out my impatience for DOS chapters and was only going to write again later on but reviews have always spurred me into writing so this chapter is for you guys. I was worried before posting the first chapter- I wanted to do justice to Silver Queen's epic work. I've found publishing chapter two is even scarier as people who have read chapter one can't help but compare the two. Anyways, I'm planning to slowly work my way through different POVs, not all of them will be as successful as Shikaku's so bear with me. I might also write a few missing scenes I've imagined happening outside Shikako's view. Any prompts?
Also, I have no beta and this is still rough around the edges, I will come back to it and polish but I thought you would appreciate a quicker update...
Summary: Life as a ninja. It starts with confusion and terror and doesn't get any better from there. OC Self-insert
In other words, Nara Shikako is an OC self-insert who becomes Shikamaru's sister and has survived Naruto's lethal adventures until now.
This is Jiraiya's POV of Chapter 42 after Team 7 encounters Uchiha Itachi. Again, there are a lot of flashbacks. Feel free to point out mistakes, I'll try to fix them as soon as I can.
Chapter 2: Toad Troubles
The Toad Sage is halfway through the window before he takes in the scene before him and pauses. Minato's prodigy is half reclining against the bed, the bleak expression on his face quickly smoothing out as he quirks his head towards the window. His hand however doesn't stop absently stroking the dark hair of the small body curled up next to him.
Two more people hurt by his mismanagement of information, Jiraiya cannot help the bitter thought and compensates with an overlight tone as he greets them: "Hey, kiddo. And it looks like you've got a limpet with you."
Kakashi's hand does still this time as he quirks an eyebrow with a silent question. Jiraiya ignores him as he stares at the third occupant of the room. The Sannin has been put under the Uchiha eyes more than once during his tumultuous youth, more often than not because an irritated member of the now defunct clan did not get his sense of humour. They had been rather benign but he still remembers how often he had seeked a companion's touch after he had regained his senses. At a slightly morbid angle, the little Nara and the Hatake prodigy seeking each other's company was ideal for their recuperating mental health.
"Jiraiya. What brings you here?" Kakashi finally deigns to verbalise and Jiraiya feels another pang as he remembers the lengths Minato would go to in teasing his student into talking. He quickly forces the thoughts back. If he starts reminiscing he will never get anything done so he focuses on replying. He knows he is a great spymaster but information that comes late is useless and he hasn't managed to pin down Akatsuki's movements accurately yet, only through third-hand reports.
"Just checking up on you. I didn't expect them to be moving so fast. I would have warned you, if I knew."
His eyes flicker as he notices the slight movement of a hand sign by Kakashi and he tries to minimise his blunder. With an expert chuckle he adds: "It's a bit late for any sort of warning now,"
He hasn't known Nara Shikako as long or as well as Naruto but he should have understood enough about her character to know she wouldn't let this go. He gives a purely mental sigh as she reaches up and destabilises the chakra he had coated her voice box with.
In a grimace of pain she asks: "You're… talking about Akatsuki, aren't you?"
He would have winced at the ruined rasp of her voice if she wasn't spouting things she should not remember and had no other possible way of knowing without looking into S-class secrets. He gives a sharp glance at her Sensei- he thought Kakashi would have protected the knowledge better considering just how foolhardy his genin have proved to be but Kakashi's face shows true shock and responds with silent denial so he focuses back to the young girl as he leans back against the wall with forced calmness and with a carefully normal voice asks: "How do you know that name?"
"Itachi told me," She replies without flinching, her eyes impossibly dark. Then she frowns as she adds delicately: "Didn't Naruto tell you what he said?"
Jiraiya snorts before he can help himself. He loves Naruto as his godson, as the son of his student and now as his student but the boy would never make an Intelligence expert. Naruto had babbled ceaselessly about the fight but apart from vaguely mentioning Itachi was talking about a group of super strong ninja criminals that acted really cool if they weren't you know, criminals he had been of little help. "That brat… Wouldn't remember his own head if it wasn't so loud." He shook his head, half exasperation, half drama. "What else did the Uchiha say?"
He sees exactly when he loses her to memories as the shadows in her eyes turn opaque.
He turns his eyes away and wonders if he could have done anything different. He had known something was wrong as soon as he had seen the inviting prostitute's glazed eyes. On high alert, he had followed her, thinking she was bait to lead him into a trap and what better way to find his enemies than let himself be lead to them? He had realised his mistake as soon as he had felt the strong chakra flare by the Nara girl who had no business to be in this village. He'd never Shunshin'ed away so fast. It hasn't been difficult to locate the altercation when he heard the high pitched screaming and his eyes had widened.
It seemed Akatsuki had found his new student and he ran faster as images of the last war flashed under his eyes. He had been fighting with a platoon of Uchiha and one of them had the idea to use the Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu to kill two ambushing ninjas. Their death had not been quick and they had emitted the same pain-filled screams he was hearing now before he had thrown two kunais and ended their pain. There was a familiar cold fear at the fate of the young girl that had wormed a place in his heart with her cool logic and implacable determination.
The Sannin felt a fraction of relief as he arrived on scene to see the girl physically unharmed. It only took him a second to understand as Uchiha Itachi let go of her as if burned and she slumped to the floor, still screaming in desperate pain. Both her team mates were still, eyes wide with shock. He didn't wait for them to snap back and do something foolish as he let his anger show with heavy chakra and Killer Intent. Both boys flinched while Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame faced the new threat. These were two members of Akatsuki he had managed to find quite a bit of intel on. He had traced their journey since birth and knew he could best them in a fight. They seemed to realise it too as they shared a flicker of a glance and Shunshin'ed further away. The Toad Sage hadn't yet faced any Akastsuki members and he was tempted to give chase- they would be an information goldmine but he had three genin to think about and the Nara girl had not let out on her screaming so he made sure their chakra was running away at high speed before he gave his attention to the three twelve year olds.
He turned to see the two hot heads rushing towards their team mate. The screaming would not stop. Of course it wouldn't, the Uchiha's ultimate weapon lay in their eyes and their abilities were well honed in that respect. He swiftly reached the girl and targeting a pressure point, tried to knock her out more soundly. But the screaming continued. It was also attracting civilians as young girl screams were wont to do.
"Pervy sage, what's happening to her? Fix her!" Naruto shouted, eyes wide with fear.
It took him three long seconds to decide on a course of action and grabbing all three he wasted half of his huge chakra reserves to make it to Konoha in record time.
Shikako takes a deep breath as she blinks away the darkness and he finds himself back in the hospital room.
"That he belonged to an organisation called Akatsuki. That they were there after the Kyuubi and they're after the other Bijuu as well…" She faltered before musing: "There are more of them, not just him and Kisame… he called it a 'mission' like a proper…"
She doesn't need to finish her sentence. Jiraiya has seen many rogue ninjas band throughout the years but Akatsuki were on a whole other league. The Sannin had become the official spymaster for Konoha after Orochimaru had betrayed his village. It had been part penance, for he could never have imagined liking it and part desperation to find his former friend's trail. It was only though his dogged tracking of the Snake that he had stumbled upon the larger organisation. The confrontation with Uchiha and Hoshigaki had been the first time he had met any members face to face. The fact that the little Nara had found so much information in ten minutes would have been insulting if the result had been different.
Kakashi seemed to be thinking among the same lines as he shot him a glance and asked: "He specifically said they're after the Bijuu?"
At her nod, Jiraiya scratches his chin. "Hmm. Awful chatty of him. Still, that works in our favour."
But it did bring back all the doubts he had had about Uchiha Itachi. The whole Uchiha massacre had reeked of deception. The mechanics had not added up. He had been hot on Danzo's tail during that time. The bastard had been in regular contact with Orochimaru before his disappearance. But to his shock, the Sandaime had called him to his office for a formal meeting and ordered him off the Uchiha case and Danzo. In anger he had left the village but he could never keep grudges against him Mentor and the same year had started his spy network outside Konoha.
His musings are interrupted by her rasp: "You… know more about them, don't you?"
He sees the Kakashi-brat stiffen and he feels incredulous at what direction the little Nara is going into. Apparently Team 7 was absent when common sense was distributed.
"That's not something you want to get yourself messed up in, kid," Jiraiya warned. He had enough on his plate without worrying about 12 year olds jumping into danger again. He had regretted telling her from where he and Naruto would set off in the first place but she had saved Naruto from kidnapping. He knew once the Uchiha had Naruto in his grasp they would have been near impossible to track. "Don't worry about it, okay?"
"I already am," She retorts without a pause.
He sees she has already thought about this. He cannot afford to have this complication so he drops the remnants of his jovial mask as he hammers out:
"You've just had an abject lesson in how out of your league you are. You should be jumping at the chance to get to safety."
She shrugs uncomfortably and offers another token of protest. "Naruto is my team mate. If they come after him again, I'm going to be there. It involves us."
He does not want to bring Minato's student into this but he needs this idea to be nipped at the bud. "Look at your sensei there. At your age, he was already a Jounin. And he went down just as fast as you did. There are very, very few people who can stand up against that level of enemy."
Kakashi's fists clench convulsively at the unwelcome reminder of his defeat and the subsequent harming of his students. But Jiraiya knows he understands the necessity of the reminder. He focuses back on the 45 kg of foolhardiness to see her eyes lost into the distance before she snaps them back to his face:
"You're going to take Naruto away."
He is the spymaster of Konoha and has lived through fifty summers of ninja warfare and deception but he cannot hide the blink of surprise. He might have expected this of Nara Shikaku but this little slip of a girl does not stop jumping deductive leaps and landing correctly. He understands a little better how she got so much information off the Uchiha.
He answers guardedly: "Yes... Not right now, but soon."
She ignores him as she steadily continues deducing: "You'll take him away, because you're the only one that can protect him. But you're also going to be teaching him how to fight back, aren't you? How to match up against opponents of that level. And eventually… you'll bring him back. So we'll learn too. We're his team."
Her words ring eerily in the silent hospital room, lending them weight. For a moment he wonders how far those dark fathomless eyes can see.
He has wondered at the deep friendship between them when he had first met her with his godson. He now understands it must be their bull headed stubbornness that had united them. But Uzumaki Naruto used bluster and sheer will power to convince and hold steady. Nara Shikako politely listened to all objections and then through impossible leaps of logic confounded everyone into agreeing.
Yet, he cannot help but try to halt the flow of determination: "He also has advantages you don't. Look. It's great that you want to help your team mate. It really is. I bet your sensei is proud of you. But it doesn't change the fact that there's nothing you can do."
She bites her lips subconsciously, as if she has a few choice curses but her intellect stops her knowing it won't help. "I know, I know. I know we're too young, too weak. I know we have to rely on you to- I know. But we can learn, can get stronger, can… At least we'd know when to run."
Jiraiya knows she is reaching the end of her argument as she cuts herself off twice. She does not even realise her limbs are shaking with exhaustion, her body unused to movement after so much inaction. But it is the look in her eyes, the frustrationangervulnerability with the sheen of tears she refuses to let fall that finally make him sigh in defeat.
It had been the same look that had made him relent when he had first met her.
He had started training Minato's legacy, slowly seeing Naruto in his own right after having abandoned him for so long. It had been easier to makes excuses when he was a newborn with little personality – when Jiraiya could only see more loss whenever he laid his eyes upon him. But time had dulled the pain and seeing Naruto grow to look more like his father every day; to laugh out Kushina's favourite phrases and mimic gestures he had never seen had brought their own form of healing. The kid was just as ambitious as his parents and Jiraiya had let him sign a contract with the toads immediately. Kushina's huge chakra reserves and Minato's skill combined in one bundle of eye-soring orange was a sight to see.
Having set his young student a task that would hopefully occupy him for a good while, he had gone onto the more pleasurable occupation of reinforcing his reputation in Konoha. Peeping in the women's bathhouse while giggling and scribbling in a notebook was a classic. Jiraiya's reputation was one part accidental and three parts intentional. It had been Minato that had inadvertently given him the idea once while they had been hiding deep in Iwa territory. Jiraiya had been complaining about the number of ninjas approaching him for teaching and clans trying to entrap him into marriage so that he would pass his skills and heritage in their bloodline. Ever since Hanzo had dubbed his team the three legendary Sannins and as their fame grew with the Second Great Shinobi World War he was never left alone.
Minato had been utterly useless as he tried to muffle his laughter in the tree they had been hiding in but he finally pointed out Jiraiya needed to acquire a few bad habits to keep all the scary females away. He cannot help a smile at the memory. That was how he had started the Icha Icha series. It had only been after he had left the village, furious with the Sandaime and had started establishing his spy network that he remembered Minato's words. Half his informants had been prostitutes at that time for what better way to tease out a man's secrets and learn about rumours?
He had carefully built up his reputation from there. It had allowed him easier movement between his spies and most clans stopped throwing their daughters at him once he started his lecherous routine. It also helped slightly erode his reputation of a skilled ninja in some villages and that underestimation had often been the last thing they had done. Overall, an enjoyable means to achieve multiple ends.
Sometimes Jiraiya impressed even himself.
His rambling thoughts were interrupted by his new student. He had felt the slight chakra presence approach but it wasn't until Naruto shouted that he paid attention to it.
"Shikako! Look! Look! I did it! I summoned a toad!"
He observed the slight twelve years old stare blankly at the small tadpole before her mouth curved into a smile and she said: "That's great, Naruto,"
Jiraiya had checked out all of Naruto's files when he had returned to Konoha. The fact that his godson was dead last had him rail at the Sandaime for a few minutes. He had known it would not be easy for the Yondaime's Legacy but the sheer neglect his file implied had sent a shard of anger and guilt ripping through him. When he had seen the team placements he had flicked through the first nondescript team mate to the name Uchiha Sasuke which resulted in a sharp eyed glance to his Sensei.
"Uchiha? You think that wise?" He had asked.
"The standard sorting was used."
Jiraiya had given a short bark of laughter, "Don't give me that. These two? With Minato's student as their Sensei? I hope you know what you're doing because you just doubled the risks for my already danger-prone Godson."
The Toad Sage had forgiven the Sandaime a long time ago for his mistakes and obfuscations but the rest of that conversation had not been pleasant.
This team mate he had overlooked rather quickly as he took a quick measure of her.
Her dark eyes and hair were not very telling and it was only the glance at her name in the file that made him recognise her as a Nara. He would not have guessed otherwise. There was a lack of a certain posture that masked her clan name. She stood in front of Naruto, sensible ninja attire in shades of green and grey and a smile at her team mate's accomplishment. He wonders why the Sandaime put her in this team. The old man always had a reason. He decides he needs to suss her out a bit more. He has twelve years to make up for in his Godson's life and team mates are a first priority.
He snorts and inserts himself into the conversation: "I wouldn't get so excited about it, kid. That's a pretty pathetic attempt!"
"Shut up! I'm trying, alright?" Naruto hollered back. Nothing could put that kid down. Jiraiya should know – he had tried damned hard the first few days.
The girl had not noticed him and she perks up to his voice, it seemed Naruto wasn't the only one with poor situational awareness.
"Is that…?" she asks.
"Yeah, that's the pervy sage. Are you really sure you wanna meet him?"
Jiraiya inwardly groans, apparently his tales of lewdness has not driven away all of them. He prepares his routine:
"What's this? Someone wants to meet with the great Jiraiya? Is it a pretty woman? Oh, brat, you make me so proud!"
"It's not like that, you - you pervert!" Naruto explodes, waving his hands about and shouting at the top of his lungs. "Why can't you be serious at all?"
"Well, you're starting to get the right idea," Jiraiya claps Naruto on the back as he leers at the young girl. Intellectually, while she still had a prepubescent body he is enough of a connoisseur to know she will grow up to be rather beautiful. Not very curvaceous but she will have an understated kind of loveliness, elegant and slim. For now though, she is a young girl facing the kind of perverted old man they are warned about since infancy, whether civilian or ninja. That usually sends them running or punching- depending on the type of girl. He might even let her get a good hit, he feels rather generous. He adds: "This one is a little young for me though."
Naruto gasps in outrage but the Nara girl just tilts her head slightly to the side as she looks at him blankly, as if waiting for him to finish acting. Jiraiya is not often surprised but this kid has managed it without even opening her mouth. He nearly feels reluctantly impressed until she bows low and opens her mouth: "Jiraiya-sama, please-"
Damn, he thinks, not another one of those and goes for straight forward irritating: "Oh, no. Just because I got suckered in to teaching this brat doesn't mean I'm about to go around giving lessons to every kid he drags along. So you can just toddle off back home and do whatever it is young girls do." He adds a giggle for good measure.
"I-"
"Nope. Not a chance. Sorry." He waves half-heartedly over his shoulder and turns to go back to his previous spot, he's seen enough. The girl must be a calming presence between the boys and obviously has no issues with Naruto though he didn't expect any considering her father and clan. Sometimes he thinks the Nara are the only sane clan left in Konoha. She must be smart enough to recognise him by sight but doesn't seem to stand out –
He pauses as shadows hold him in place.
He is taken aback by her audacity.
"Jiraiya-sama, I've been studying seal work but there is only so far I can get studying books without someone to ask for clarification. Please, could you answer a few questions?" She says hurriedly as she drops the Shadow Possession.
She is smart enough to know it couldn't hold him at her skill level and it is obviously only to catch his attention but he turns anyways as he drops the levity he usually wears and scrutinises her. She recognises the weight of his gaze as she lifts her chin stubbornly, her face blank.
"A Nara, huh? Sorry, little girl, regardless of whatever clan tricks you've got up your sleeves, you just don't impress me." He lets out a bit of Chakra, not Killer Intent but it reinforces the fact that for all he looks harmless he has a body count higher than the number of days she's survived and she is defenceless against him. "I'm a busy man, I don't have time to hold your hand and teach you how to make your own explosive tags or whatever kids want to do with seals these days."
He rarely has to get this serious when he rejects ninjas desperate to be taught and he shifts around, having settled the matter. But he is learning the little Nara likes to be unpredictable and he barely hides his shock at the look in her eyes. Frustration, anger and iron cold determination that should not belong to a girl her age glares at him as she snaps out, no mention of sama's or respect:
"I already know how to make my own explosive tags," She pulls a notebook from her pouch, "What I want - what I need - to know is how to create my own seals. And how to apply them with a touch for use in combat. Nothing I have read even hints at it." She frowns as if the natural caginess of ninjas was specifically designed to annoy her.
Jiraiya flashes her a considering look and snatches the notebook from her hands, he is rarely surprised and that alone deserves a second look. He hmms impressed as he flicks through the pages, he can see the analytical side of the Nara clan at the clear comparison of different types of tags. Neat handwriting carefully highlights improvements to classical tags and combinations of different ones.
Still, she had some work to do, the notebook shows she is still copying and not creating.
"You'll never be able to seal like that using mass production seals like these. You have to own your seals. Mind and soul. Look, the reason no one else can do the Fourth Hokage's Flying Thunder God Technique isn't do to any safety seals or secrecy seals, no matter what anyone else says. It's because he invented his own damn branch of sealing to make it work."
She blinks but her eyes are sharp and it has been a long time a student of his has given him undivided attention and he subconsciously switches into mentor mode.
"Look. Seals are all about influencing the world with your chakra. The ink, the symbols… its all trapping. Important, yeah, but …" he flicks his fingers back and forth.
"But… then why are there so many distinct branches of sealing?" She asks bewildered.
He cannot help laughing at the confused expression on her face, he's starting to realise she rarely wears it. "People only think in so many different ways, kid. You live long enough, you'll work that one out."
"Oh." She blinks as she looks down at a second notebook. "So I guess this is useless then. I was comparing the twelve most used branches of sealing arts. Method, theory, range of uses, results, points of conflicts…" She trails off.
"Let's see it," Jiraiya curses himself for asking but he's more or less resigned to another pseudo-student. She hands him her notebook with no hesitation and he makes a note to tell her never to do that with ninjas she doesn't implicitly trust. But for now he contents himself to scan her calculations and conjectures, his mind whirring as he sees what she has already postulated and designed with the examples she had. It's rather impressive how far off the path she's gone and yet through sheer intelligence still managed to make accurate assumptions about sealing.
"Well, you completely missed the point," he says slowly, trying to gauge just how much potential she has. "But… do you mind if I read through this? A large part of being a seal master is working out what other people have done. I'll correct any mistakes you've made."
"Yes, of course, Jiraiya-sama," she replies automatically and frowns slightly at the long measuring look he gives her. Jiraiya is astute at sizing up characters and he wonders how he wrote her off so quickly as average. Probably because the more flamboyant legacies of both her team mates eclipses her presence. He's wary now of overestimating her but he cannot help the spark of excitement as he continues flicking through her neat writing. She reminds him of Minato's determined competency, but somehow the comparison with his old student doesn't hurt as much.
He wonders if he should pay a visit to Nara Shikaku as he watches her analyse the failings in his godson's technique. Hmm, chakra sensitive too. He had wanted the brat to figure it out himself but he guesses Naruto would probably be there all night if he was left to his own devices.
"Okay. Let's try this. Build up your chakra." Naruto followed her instructions with no hesitation, closing his eyes to concentrate. "Now do the hand seals but don't do the summoning yet. Now move the chakra in your Hara down your arm."
His hapless students lost focus, "Huh?"
The Nara girl smiled patiently as she hovered her hand over his stomach, "This is where you're building your chakra, right? Now, you need to move it up your shoulder and down your arm... Now do the summoning bit,"
He watches absently as she helps Naruto summon a bigger toad, all the while explaining each step. The girl is obviously comfortable with Naruto's practical vs theory aptitude and their gestures speak of long familiarity. He wonders is she knows about the Kyuubi.
"...You lose a lot of chakra between moulding it and using it in the jutsu. So you need to focus on moving it where you want to go, right? That's probably what more chakra control will help you with the most."
"Right! I'm going to get this jutsu down. Believe it!" Naruto said firmly. "Here I come! Summoning Jutsu!"
"I'll leave you to it, then." She gives a crooked smile and walks off, a quiet shadow in the morning sun.
"How long have you known the little Nara Naruto?" Jiraiya asks idly. There's something niggling at the back of his head. It was her eyes. She was the same age as her Godson and her maturity could be explained somewhat with her clan and gender but her eyes, they had looked too old, too knowing.
"Eh? Shikako? What do you want with her pervy sage?"
Jiraiya sighs exasperated at his own mind for conjuring more puzzles. He puts the matter to the back of his mind as he concentrates on Minato's son and the headache the Chuunin exams are turning out to be.
Of course the second time he sees her it must involve explosions and his blonde troublemaker.
He is just finishing his daily peeking and mentally preparing himself for Naruto's exuberant company. So when he sees the explosion coming from the last place he left his student with strict orders to train and not cause trouble he panics slightly and immediately Shunshin's to the clearing. He relaxes when he sees the situation.
"Oi, brat! Quit messing around with explosives! You scared all the ladies off," Jiraiya says mock aggrieved. "Oh, it's your lady friend. Come to see Jiraiya again, hehehe?" He knows it doesn't bother her but it is his moral obligation as a Godfather to embarrass Naruto and as predicted...
"Don't say it like that!" Naruto shouts.
"Jiraiya-sama. Sorry for disturbing you. I was just showing Naruto what I'd managed to do."
"And here I thought you said you already knew how to make explosive tags," Jiraiya says shrewdly. And from studying her notebooks he knows she is competent in the basics.
"Uh, yes, I do. I mean, that's why I started with them because I already know how…" She flushes at her own words.
"Do it again!" Naruto instructs with impeccable timing, shoving a rock into her hand. "Watch this, pervy sage, it's awesome!"
He suspects what she is going to do as she places her hand on the rock and he is proved right as she throws the rock into the air and it explodes. She gazes at him, eyes guarded, apparently ignorant of the enormity of the step she has achieved. Minato had managed it at a younger age but he had already been studying seals under him for a few months and a seal master is critical in the sealing field. He's studied her notebooks enough to know she should not have reached this stage anytime soon. It must have been a calculated leap of genius that had allowed her to link and understand what to do for paperless sealing. He comments in a measured voice: "Well, it's a good thing you showed up, anyway. How long have you been working on this?"
"Uh, since just after graduation." He really needs to work on his poker face because he cannot help the incredulous look he gives her. Three months? She manages to figure out an intrinsic part of sealing with no teacher to guide her in ninety days? He had known some to take years to understand the depth needed to do what she had just done.
"What? We had a mission to do as well,"
"That's not what I… oh, never mind. How many more of these notebooks do you have?" He asks, excitement bubbling. He hasn't seen anybody since the Yondaime understand sealing so instinctually.
"A few. I work on stuff other than sealing as well, you know. The rest are mostly encrypted though."
"I noticed that, why isn't this one?" It had been the first thing he had noticed, the strange symbols, unlike the standard Kanji alphabet ninjas used throughout the Land of Fire. He had first smiled at the proper paranoid care she seemed to be taking with her notes but then wished he had had a few more samples of coding and hours to figure it out. He had only had a glance but it seemed complex and she appeared to have invented a whole language for it. There was no way to doubt her parentage when she stared at him, eyes dissecting in a very familiar pattern. Only, Shikaku masked it with lazy half lidded eyes while his daughter made no such pretence.
"I …uh… didn't encrypt that book because it's an analysis. I wanted… I wanted to have it put in the clan library later."
She blushes and looks down at her own audacity but he has no doubt anything she writes will later on be treasured in the famed and secretive Nara libraries. "The rest are in code. And I don't really want to give you a chance to break it."
He can't fault her for that, and he wonders again at how he ignored her potential at first- for there is no doubt she holds just as much potential as either of her team mates. Give her a few years with a good teacher and she would soar- she had the Nara brains and an unexplainable drive for it.
"Fair enough, fair enough. Well, we might as well go over this now." He pauses and as expected, Naruto is staring at the sky, eyes glazed and mouth drooling. Jiraiya sighs, why couldn't the boy have inherited a bit more work ethic from his father?
"Brat! Get back to work!"
He flicks open the notebook to all his comments, cramped handwriting on yellow post-it-notes, and begins teaching seals.
He feels both rejuvenated and weary. Throughout his years, he has taught seven students. Six of them were now dead. He had sworn, while standing on Minato's grave that he would never take a student again. The Sandaime had tried to push some on him, had told him he was unreasonable and a new generation needed to be trained. But what was the use when the new generation died before the old?
Besides, Orochimaru had become a missing nin after being caught performing horrific experiments on children while Tsunade was all but by name a missing nin, racking up huge gambling debts and generally being a useless drunk. Out of the three of them, he found himself to be quite reasonable in only refusing new students.
The seventh, Naruto, he could not refuse- he had too much to atone for and Minato's son needs to know how to handle his Chakra and his Jinchuuriki. The sunny blonde boy had proved to be healing for his festering wounds.
Taking Nara Shikako as a sort of student was completely his own decision. There was no obligation, duty or lingering memories. Jiraiya just didn't want to see her potential wasted.
He did however, meander towards the Nara compound after finishing with his two students. As expected on his only few off hours during the Chuunin exams Shikaku was alone on his front porch, frowning at a shogi board.
He looked up at Jiraiya's approach and raised a single eyebrow, "How troublesome. How I fathered that girl I sometimes wonder."
"How did-" Jiraiya sighs, he should know better than question Shikaku by now.
"You wouldn't approach me about work during the few hours I have and Shikamaru knows better than make himself interesting to you. Besides, word is, you're teaching her teammate. It was rather inevitable..."
Jiraiya chuckles, "The legendary Nara laziness... Yet you find yourself in your current profession."
"Hopefully my son will be more skillful in avoiding responsibility. Shikako though has never understood the importance of laziness."
Jiraiya hmms before asking: "I assume you know about her potential in sealing then? Have you thought about getting her a specialised teacher?"
Shikaku just raises an eyebrow at him.
"I can only give her advice, you know what I must do once these cursed exams are over."
"Shikako has managed rather well until now. I'm more interested in why you're really here."
"One day, I will figure out how to get something past you."Jiraiya sighs and adds delicately: "Your daughter... Does she know about the Jinchuuriki?"
Shikaku gives him a penetrating look before nodding: "Yes, she guessed after their first mission outside Konoha. She has always loved the legends and myths of the hidden villages. Why?"
"She is... very mature for her age." He cannot seem to say more but the clan head seems to understand. Apparently he is not the only one who's noticed those too-old-eyes or adult behaviour. But there is no good explanation for it. He knows for certain she cannot be an imposter- she would not have gotten through Nara Shikaku. But it still worries him, children should not grow too old too fast- especially when their is no obvious reason for it. He sees the same worry reflected in the black eyes before him.
"She is a Nara. Sometimes that manifests in different ways."
Jiraiya snaps out of his memories and into the present. He hasn't doubted her nearly maternal attachment to Naruto but this latest episode proves the Uchiha brat is also under her fierce protection.
"Save me from Genin with no self preservation," he sighs. "Alright, alright. You're going to be disappointed though, because what Itachi handed you is close to our sum total knowledge."
Which was the truth in a certain light. Everything else he had were conjectures and half formed rumors.
"You said Orochimaru used to be part of the organisation," Kakashi-sensei asks, apparently his willingness to answer Shikako has become a free-for-all.
"Yeah," he adds grimly. "Which is close to the only reason I know about them at all."
"I asked him that," Shikako rasps thoughtfully. "Why we didn't know about them if it was people like him. He said we would, in time."
"Well, that doesn't sound good," Kakashi mutters.
Well, might as well give her all the information he had given the Sandaime. Since they were determined to be involved they would need to be well informed. "No. There are nine shinobi involved, as far as I can tell. All S-rank. So far they've been keeping pretty quiet, gathering information, keeping to the shadows, the kind of thing. There's Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki, obviously. Orochimaru left a while ago but there were some murmurings he'd been sighted with Sasori of the Red Sand. One of them is a bounty hunter, since we've been getting a lot of reports from the bounty offices. That's really about all we know."
She blinks and looked at me suspiciously, eyes telegraphing she does not believe he is being completely honest.
Fair enough. "Told ya, kid."
Events are speeding up faster than he likes. As he stares at eyes that should not look so haunted Jiraiya can't help but feel these two will be intricately involved in the unfolding troubles.
Whew, that was longer than I had planned. So, don't know when I'll update next but would you rather another POV or an original snippet in the DOS world?