Disclaimer: Don't own. Don't care. Writing this for free.

IMPORTANT AN: I made changes to the past chapter on the 13/03. The people who read the last chapter when it still lacked a name need to go over it or won't be able to make much sense of this one. Sorry for the trouble to those who read then. I put an extra there to redeem myself to them (the changes are only there before the first line break).


Chapter 9: Doeminded (part 1).

Losing blood is never a happy subject. It makes the poor sod with the injury hurt and, if the blood loss is big enough, get dizzy and even die. Not that Harry-doe's nosebleed was anywhere life threatening, but he was getting dizzy... which, to be fair, might have everything to do with the fact that Harry was being carried on a shoulder, with a nosebleed, and the "vehicle" was fast and jostling, and was making his stomach flop in a way reminiscent of his first travel on the knight buss... plus the nosebleed. Don't forget the nosebleed.

So, as the world moved around Harry!Doe in a dizzy blur, the doe dangled like a hunt trophy, or a poor animal hit by a truck on a road before getting carried by a skimpy assassin.

Despite the motion sickness, blood-loss dizziness, the anger, the confusion, the leftover embarrassment (from his latest sissy moment) and the always present exasperation with Fate (and more recently the entity known as Death), Harry still had the presence of mind to plan what to do next: play dumb. Which wasn't much of a plan, not really. Since it was mostly winging it when all inevitably went to hell.

...

"An explanation would be good," Ibiki rubbed the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

"Well, sir. That is a doe," Anko replied cheekily, in a tone so chirpy nobody would think it natural.

"I'm perfectly aware of that, Mitarashi. What I want to know is why you put a tied up deer on top of my desk instead of patrolling like you were supposed to," he clarified, then rose an eyebrow, "Specially after you decided you needed to be you out there, without consulting your superior."

"Well…" she trailed in an infuriating sing song voice. Ibiki's eye twitched. She noticed the man's bad mood so she cut the nonsense short "I spoke with Shikaku's boy, and he told me there was a real possibility this doe was a spy of Orochimaru."

Ibiki took a long moment to process that statement, then looked towards the peculiar green-eyed doe, which promptly stopped glaring at his subordinate, giving him a withering look from a deceitfully impassive face.

"I shouldn't have to be taking care of this shit… Mitarashi! before you try anything with the animal, bring Shikaku here. It would be poor judgment to take the word of a gennin over that of the Jounin commander, and if Shikaku's brat noticed something amiss, you can bet your ass his father did."

"Hai, boss!" Anko gave him a mock-salute, then vanished… leaving the doe on his desk.

Ibiki looked down to the doe, then rubbed the bridge of his nose again. He should have told her to take the damned thing off his desk before ordering Mitarashi to go. Why? because the kunoichi was a moron who didn't care the implicit "take this damned thing of my desk", and left it there when she should have just dump it somewhere. Anywhere. As long as it wasn't on his desk.

Now Ibiki had to deal with his usual mountain of highly sensitive reports, a doe, Anko Mitarashi, the Nara's, the fact that Anko thought the Nara doe was a Orochimary spy, which also meant they would need to go through all the usual procedure for village betrayers... on a doe. Then, after the whole matter was settled he had to clean the blood on the desk and figure out a way to make his office stop smelling like a butcher's shop. Sure, he could dump the last 2 things on the list to an intern, but Ibiki knew it was never wise to leave anyone wander into his office, where so much sensitive info was hoarded.

So he got to spend a good portion of his day with doe, waste time on this crackpot theory, then clean the blood in his office on top of the already long list of shit he had to work on today.

If Ibiki discovered this was Anko trying to be funny, he would be scaring her favorite dango chef so badly he would have to move his shop to the next village.

On the bright side, there was a couple of sound ninja that were caught last time that had yet to be broken and, to be fair, only one was necessary... Which meant he could indulge himself a bit (or a lot) in the next interrogating session.

But the fun part of his job would have to wait. Right now he needed to move the doe to his usual T&I room of operations, then send a nin bird to Inoichi. A little glimpse from the blond into the doe's mind, then Ibiki would be dumping the whole doe thing on Anko because, frankly, the idea of Orochimaru training deer to spy was a total nonsense. That man could be all kinds of fucked up, but Ibiki didn't see Spy Deer as a rational option to the snake Sanin thematic modus operandi. Ever.

For the moment, though, Ibiki had a doe to deal with. Joy.

None too gently, Ibiki picked the doe by the rope tied around the doe's leg and started making his way towards his usual interrogation room.

...

Inoichi had been making a pretty bouquet of tulips when he saw the nin bird flying on a too familiar coded pattern. To be more specific, Inoichi was trying to make the same bouquet for the second time. The first time he got interrupted by the false alarm of an invasion, then the second time he started with the flower arragement he got summoned by T&I, which was... typical, if he was to be honest. He might be retired, but he was too useful to be let of the hook, not to mention he was the most competent Yamanaka mind reader alive.

With a resigned and apologetic look towards his wife, he put the flowers back on the table, then flash-stepped out of the room.

...

Konoha was back in a state of calm. The civilians were out of the safe houses, the hokage candidate was no longer under a panic attack by the sight of a bloody scrap, and Ichukaru Ramen was back in busyness just in time for the rush hour so. As far as Naruto was concerned, everything should be OK in the world... only it wasn't. Ero-Senin had taken his wallet again and Naruto didn't have money to buy Miso ramen.

If he found out Ero-Senin was fooling around while Naruto took care of Tsunade-baachan, then he would get pissed and hid all of Ero-Sennin's pervy books. Naruto's stomach rumbled, then hungry blue eyes landed on the pig. Tonkotsu ramen would be good right about now.

Tonton, noticing the look Naruto was giving him, stiffened and started sweating.

Shizune, who was more than used to seeing that look towards Tsunade's nin-pig, sighed. "Let's get something to eat."

Upon hearing those words Naruto let out a cheer, and jumped doing a double fist bump into the air "Shizune-neesan is the best!"

"Who says we are paying for your food?" Tsunade huffed, and Naruto started to complain abut stingy old women. Which, predictably, started a round of petty discussions. Shizune looked silently to the exchange, wishing Tsunade was didn't take out her bad moon on the kid. Then again, being back at Konoha probably was making her revive a lot of things she had tried to left behind, and the fighting might be a coping mechanism.

Still, was a bit of maturity too much to ask?

...

When Anko finally got back to T&I with not only Jounin Comander Nara Shikaku, but with a Toad Sanin tag-along, Ibiki could feel the migrane he got explaining to Inoichi that the Yamanaka was pulled out of his retirement to mind walk a doe, get 10 times worse. The repeat of the briefing was as necessary as it was ridiculous, and Ibiki felt like punching someone. Preferably Anko.

"Anything you want to share, Shikaku?" Inoichi asked with a rose eyebrow.

"Troublesome," he declared lazily. Nobody was impressed by the opening. He kept going, though, and the Nara got everyone's attention. "Rai, the doe, is my wife's pet of sorts... and Shikamaru's occasional shogi opponent."

Silence stretched for a whole minute as people tried to digest the second half of that statement.

"Your son has been playing with your deer?" Inoichi asked incredulous. Shikaku shrugged.

"So you have an unusually smart baby doe?" Jiraia looked to the doe in the room, the poor animal immobilized by a bunch of seals and ropes, as protocol dictated they do with hostiles under interrogation. The sight of those green doe-eyes on the baby doe with the bright green ribbon would probably make animal right activist have an apoplexy, even more so given that the adorable animal had the tell tale tracks of blood stuck on the fur of its little face.

"It does look unusually calm for a captive wild animal." practically everyone in the room had noticed what Inoichi pointed out. The Nara especially since does are never prone to bouts of bravery. The doe, hearing such proclamation huffed. It looked as though it was thought the situation was as absurd to it than it was to them.

Irritated and wanting to get this all over with, Inoichi let the other men known he was going to start. A few hand-signs later and Inoichi was soon delving into the mind of the captive doe.

To Be Continued.


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AN: I did consider putting the mind walking part, but I figured you would rather get this much now instead of waiting the whole thing when I do put it all together... not to mention it looked like too much of a good place to cut this chapter short. Look out for part two of Demanded :3

Ps. If I ever think of an extra for this one, I will let you know.