The Two Fawns Chapter 11:
Meet Team Nine, the Support Team.
Troublesome. If Shikaku had to describe his current predicament, it would be none other than - Troublesome. Why? Flipping through the various mission reports, he had stumbled upon Team Seven's Wave mission.
Damn that Kakashi and his wonderful luck. A simple C-rank had became a B-rank with the Hatake infamous luck. Well, as a Jonin Commander of Konoha; he was more than happy about the extra revenue the village would receive, as a clan head of the Nara Clan, he was glad that his clan had once again proved their prowess in strategy and trickery that he could go bragging about over a bottle of liquor with his old teammates. As a father, nope, he was not happy at all.
His little fawn was once again cast into the headlights of politics. Well, it would be fun getting out of this one. Poisoning and tricking Zabuza Momochi might have saved Yoshiko's life against that swordsman, but the attention that came with the little achievement was not.
Those wrinkly war hawks had seen what they wanted to see, her 'ability'. That was not a good thing. Kakashi had tried helping his fawn tone down her so-called talent.(It was not really a talent, even a child would have got logic to think of mixing poisons like how one mix ice cream flavours. Of course, most ninjas lacked common sense, there lies in the Clan's strongest suit - Logic. The elders in their incessant need to prove the village's strength often clouds their logic.) She was in fact, extremely lucky that Momochi was unfamiliar with poisons used primarily in the Nara Clan. If she tried pulling that off with one of their own shinobi or someone more knowledgable on poison, well that is a whole different story. But those council members were pushing for a potential ANBU recruit. Danzou had openly requested to take care of her 'training' when the twins were in the academy, Shikaku had barely managed to drive the old war hawk away with some troublesome evidence against his underground association. Hell would freeze over before he would allow his daughter or any children in. The fawn that was still rather defenceless and according to Kakashi, rather dependent on him for protection.
She was no ANBU yet. No matter how good a poisoner, his little fawn lacked battle experience and was still very wet behind the ears with regards to the ninja arts. He would never deliver her into the very hands of wolves or send her deep into the dark abyss of the Leaf unarmed. No, his little daughter, part of the other Ino-Shika-Chou team could have been the ideal intel gathering team against the poisonous vine in the Hokage's side; but he cannot in good conscience send an unprepared team in. That evidence gathering had hit a hard end, and without hard proof, it was difficult to clear a certain weasel's name without implicating the Hokage. Inoichi and Choza too had no intentions of sending the would-have-been Team Nine into the deep end called ANBU. Choza had kept Marako by his side while Inoichi had parked Kujo under T&I on the pretext of the younger Yamanaka's talent in Interrogations. Still they were built for that role: Makaro removing all potential threats, Kujo doing the interrogation and intel gathering, Yoshiko devising traps to trip up the enemy and a quick escape.
The negotiations took a few weeks and sleepless nights but he managed to come out the winner. The knocks on his hardwood door confirmed his guest's presence. The Nara clan head dropped his now empty cup and reach for the slim bottle. How many was it? Eight? He had planned to stop; but his hand continued refilling cup after cup. He would have cut his nightly drink by half when his little fawns demanded his attention with those little games they played or the riddles made by their quick minds.
His wife was going to kill him when he goes to the main compound reeking like his favoured drink. Ninjas were creatures of habit. Just like how the Hokage smoked every four hours, Inochi would work on his bonsais every six hours, Choza would consume something every other hour; he would finish at least half a bottle of hard liquor every evening. Ninja secretly craved a routine. Something that they can predict easily.
They lived through uncertainty every day; not knowing when would be their last. For him, not knowing when he would get people killed again. Smiling faces of the old Team Shikaku surfaced; he could feel his insides twist again. He would not make the same mistake twice. He was not letting the current generation of Team Nine suffer the same fate that its predecessor suffered. The espionage and sabotage specialists; always the first team of all those elite teams to be sent to the slaughterhouse. Those bloodied tiny bodies, his students' blood all over those caves... He could only retrieve one body from the mess; still the lone body was half of what it was in life. The other two were reduced to flesh and bones spluttered on the floors of the cave. The chill he felt when he felt desperately for a pulse in one of them, knowing that he was already dead. They were no green genin, but special jonin, strong enough to have been an elite Anbu squad and were slaughtered by Iwa's infamous Explosion Corps in a suicide mission given by him. He closed his eyes. That day was when he earned that disfiguring scars that he had refused medical treatment for. They served as a grim remainder of him putting the village above three innocent young lives. Three chakras that had faded out for their sensei's mistake while the enemies murdered them in cold blood for the intel they had assumed was given to them while he completed the second half of the mission himself. It was a well thought out plan if only the enemy ninja had thought of capturing him and the Cypher team or the Jonin squad instead of Team Shikaku. However, the opponents had thought that the crafty Shikaku was able to pull the unexpected and his genius had costed his students their lives.
"Ah Genma. I'm afraid you will have to do something troublesome for me again and do not make a joke out of me requesting you for another favour." The clan head waved at the younger man lazily while drowning yet another cup. Nine. He would be in the doghouse for the whole week.
Hmm... at least until his two little fawns sneak him into the room when the night winds cast their chills upon the compound. Soft hearts with compassion for others; something all fawns had. At least until they are forced to harden that same heart to protect the herd.
~Page Break~
"Hikari-san, its Kakashi-san!" The young Nara ran into one of the consultation rooms that Nohara Hikari was in.
Hikari took one look at Yoshiko's disheveled appearance and hazard a guess. "He got away after he broke four of his ribs and ruptured two of his vital organs." Seeing the hazel eyes that narrowed with displeasure, she knew she had guessed right. She simply told the younger medic to carry on her other duties. Hatake had not died yet after escaping the hospital
throughout his ninja career and he was not going to start now.
Sending the young Nara girl to track him down was to teach her some basic tracking skills that most close to mid range sensors had to possess. It also teaches the budding sensors to tell the subtle differences between each and every chakra signatures. It could be a matter of life and death on the field with how a medic can simply be cut down if he cannot tell a friend from a foe with a perfect henge.
Yoshiko have had little experience with Hatake. While Hikari did send her after chunins that fled the hospital with the prime reason of getting them back and resting rather than hurting themselves further; Hatake had been a slightly different case. That man was in ANBU and was an elite Jonin. Of course he'd knew if breaking out of the hospital was going to worsen his injury. Even if he is wrong, that injury was probably not going to kill him, seeing how she once had to drag a whole katana out of his spine and pelvis. (That had kept him down for five days.) He would just be in horrible shape for the next few days, Hikari concluded, snapping the book that she was supposed to be reading shut.
Besides, she only had this one day left with the Nara medic. Might as well get her working on the different antidotes for the various poisons. Rumours or no rumours, that girl had a wicked talent for poison-antidote brewing. A poison specialist was far and few these days even with mainly the Nara Clan members filling its ranks. Even so, most are mainly in the research part, dealing with discovering different properties and uses of herbs, minerals and animal parts. Earlier, the infamous ladies man, Genma had sauntered into her office to request for the medic's presence over the next few months.
~Page Break~
"Hidden Ninja Art: Mind-distortion." Eyes closed in concentration, Kujo proceeded to prod into the minds of the freshly caught rogue ninja. Tied down by chakra draining seals and heavy chains, the missing ninja was held firmly in place while he obtained the necessary information through the distortion of his opponent's mind.
All the minds' secrets are hidden within many doors. Every door held a different lock and required a specific key to open. Kujo was meticulous. He had all afternoon to finish this job. He had been in the maze many times before under the guidance of his clan head and mentor; he was familiar with how to go about it except he was doing it alone this time. Inoichi-sama had deemed him ready enough to attempt the technique alone after three years of training along side him.
It was a group Chunin who defected; a B rank threat. The Jonin who was sent on that hunting mission took care of the group rather easily, leaving all but one survivor. That Jonin was sent to the hospital upon his return; chances are that he'd escaped that place already. His other T&I colleagues and clan members waited beside him, always ready to restrain the prisoner or stop the procedure if they sensed it going south. Not really a chance of that happening anyway. Kujo was widely praised in the clan as the one who inherited the interrogations and mind penetration techniques well for his age. The more subtle version of their clan hidden jutsu. Well, he was more for observing the situation that jumping into things right away. Ino might be good at soul switching with that forceful personality and mind, he was better at dissecting one's mind.
Kujo had to be well versed in the human body language, inner workings of one's mind through subtle manipulation and torture. Yamanakas valued information, as much as the Nara valuing intelligence and the Akimichi valuing physical strength. He knew of his other supposed teammates: Makaro Akimichi who was pursuing a specialisation in his clan jutsu and collaborative attacks with his relatives and Nara Yoshiko poison specialist and medical ninja. That fiasco with Momochi Zabuza was all too funny with Yoshiko taking down the stronger ninja in all true Nara fashion: lazy (she made Kakashi do all the heavy lifting) and highly what-the-hell-you-were-smoking-to-miss-it style.
They were the best and worst thing a Jonin can ask for. A medical ninja, close combat specialist versed in clan jutsu and intel specialist; nothing that the Jonin can work with unless he or she possessed such specialisations. And no Jonin currently fits that description. Not even the legendary Hatake Kakashi, the copy ninja who copied a Thousand Jutsu. Not even he could get a hold of their hidden jutsu. For the Yamanaka, they were born with a flexible spiritual chakra that could penetrate souls and minds. The Nara had something going with their Yin release and Akimichi, their Yang release. A dream job for jonins as they were also the Ino-Shika-Cho team that had teamwork ingrained into them from day one. No need for burdensome team bonding sessions seeing how the trios were often decided by the clans from the moment his other two teammates were able to crawl. Strategic playdates and sparring sessions within the three clans often featured team games; subtly teaching young clan members to trust their assigned teammates with their backs and to protect their own teammates.
Comically enough, he understood Asuma's dilemma when trying to train Team Ten. Supposed to be the intel gathering squad and sabotage squad; Asuma was left rather clueless when it comes to the various personalities types in the Nara, Yamanaka and Akimichi clans. The lazy yet driven Nara, the ever watchful yet feisty Yamanaka and the gentle yet explosive Akimichi. It must have been a poison cocktail that the poor Sarutobi had to endure; given his cousin's headstrong personality, it must have been a hell of a headache for the man to get his team to do anything he wants.
"Chunin Exams huh?" The blonde teenager mused to himself when Inoichi had brought him aside to tell him the news. No problem. Except like how the Nara would phase it - Troublesome.
~Page Break~
Makaro gave his cousin a slight smile while he watched Chouji finish plate after plate of barbecued pork. The two Akimichi had met up over their off-days to have lunch. Barbecue or shabu shabu would be the usual fare and they took turns treating each other. Makaro did not mind his wallet getting lighter by the hour for the sake of such succulent, marbled fatty pork. Since it was Chouji's favourite, he'd helped his cousin out by grilling the meat for them both. Waiting for meat to cook was one long and annoying process. One had to cook meat and have meat to eat at the same time! It was one fortunate thing that Akimichi got along swimmingly with one another. They are pleasant to everyone, at least until their weight or size is insulted.
People often only see the outside and not the inside, as Uncle Choza always told him and Chouji without fail whenever other children in the playground refused to play with them and called them fatso.
Chunin Exams, with two Ino-Shika-Chou squads working together in their own village; the terrain familiar and easy for the Nara's strategies with its numerous trees would serve them well.
The Nara was needed both as a trap and a scare tactic for enemy ninja. That sprawling Yin Release Shadow that Yoshiko could produce was scary to him, at least. Kujo and his talent for mind games would prove invaluable in the first round of the exams since time and time again, the old clan members would laugh and share about their experiences especially their Genin days on clan gatherings such as birthdays and cook-offs.
He had told his mentor his concerns about his own skills before and how the Chunin Exams might prove too much for him, only to have the clan head smile and reassured him that passing was not the most important thing. Instead it was the process and experience gained that counted. Uncle Choza had recalled his two attempts at the exams to him. One during the period of the peace prior to the Second Shinobi War and the next in the midst of the War.
"There was nothing more frightening for a ninja than to lose control of his body (Nara), his mind (Yamanaka) and him becoming helpless (Akimichi)." He had said at first. Then he continued, "at least to an opponent. For a Nara, there is nothing more important than someone that could guard his back while he uses the Shadow technique and the Yamanaka, someone to keep watch over his vulnerable body while he is in the Soul Switching mode. That is where we the Akimichi comes in. Our vow is to protect the Nara and Yamanaka and it had endured the test of time. Makaro, I hope you would do by our vows and make the Akimichi before you proud." The older man had made him think back on the various embarrassing trainings the trio had endured through the years.
Basic formations ran on that principal as well as the fact that all three members trusted one another with their own lives. Such beliefs were drilled into his head when they did all those strange teamwork exercises. Leading each other blind in a maze planted with hot pepper bombs. Tossing one another to cross a cliff. Trusting their teammates to save them in a time of crisis. Chouji was trapped into a hole in the ground guarded by Uncle Shikaku's deer summons while his teammates had to rescue him; it was highly uncomfortable with chakra binding him and stags poking at him, escape was effectively prevented. Shikamaru was forced to solve a riddle set by his father in mere minutes or risk having his teammates not getting any lunch; that infamous training was also carried out on the more impatient Yoshiko; which she managed to solve fifty percent of the time. That Makaro knew was a way to test how far Shikamaru was willing to go for a friend. Chouji would not last a training session on an empty stomach. As for his Nara teammate, it was a way to train her in being the leader of the team and taking responsibility for the fate of her teammates.
"Makaro, why aren't you eating?" His cousin voice disrupted his trip down the memory lane. Chouji had polished off five plates of seasoned pork and his plate remained full. The aroma of the smoky, sauce dipped pork made his stomach rumble. Picking up his chopsticks, he quickly tucked in before they could mysteriously vanish.