Shikaku is thrown a curveball (but he has always been a good player)
Shikaku takes one look at the child held carefully into his brother's hands and everything clicks into place. Genma's smile, the Mokuton boy's hovering at the door, the message Shiho had given him on her last update.
'He did it again', she had written in a playful script that did nothing to hide her teasing.
He had been expecting a cat.
Not a-
"Something you want to report, Ensui?" He asks and does nothing to hide his smirk. Shikaku walks closer to inspect the child- smaller than Shikamaru, and though he does not say she is a mission child the implication is clear.
His brother's ears redden and he hugs the girl closer, like a shield.
"I picked her up from the Land of Swamps," his brother accuses, like a child, and the opening is too good for Shikaku to let it rest.
"Ah," he nods, "It is your second mission there, right? Do not worry, it happens to the very best."
The blush crawls to his cheeks but before Shikaku can keep going a helpful cough from the Hokage reminds them they are not, in fact, alone and so Shikaku has to wait a bit more to tease his little brother.
"Ensui-san here wants to take-" a look at Ensui, leave it to his brother to pick up a child and bring them to Konoha but forget to include a name on his report.
"Akako," he supplies, ears still red and a scathing look at Shikaku that lets him know too much of his thoughts are evident.
"-Akako-chan as his ward, but I do not believe she is related to him in any way."
A little obvious, seeing as the child does not look like a Nara and the last mission Ensui had in the Land of Swamps had been over nine years ago- too long to produce a child this small.
Not that Ensui was incapable of producing a mission child, but Shikaku thought his brother would be more responsible than to go leaving little fawns all over the continent. He has a soft heart but Ensui, whatever his failings, is not soft of mind.
Shikaku nods, like he needed the Hokage to point out the obvious.
"I assume she is not a sleeper agent?" he asks, just to be a dick, and Genma coughs out a laugh.
"Worst infiltrator I'd seen in my life," Genma snickers around a senbon, "It took us three days to get her name."
He raises an eyebrow at that.
"We took her right from the capital," Ensui declares, giving him a look.
Shikaku has heard of what happened, but he had seen worse, he had seen and lived worse in person, so it had not been important at the time.
Just two minor lords in a skirmish for power, trampling over anyone below them in the process.
No great nations involved, no ninjas.
Just life.
When put in contrast with the tiny girl in Ensui's arms.. "Was she one of the refugees?"
"No, the city was still populated, we were retreating with the scrolls in the middle of another battle when I passed over her hiding spot," his brother's eyes have more life than he had seen in a good while, but still his pain is clear for Shikaku to see, "I think she spent there three days before I found her, her district took the worst hit."
If someone had meant to pick her up, they were no longer alive.
He was too seasoned to be mad at injustices like this, but still some parts of him ached. He was glad Shikamaru has not lived through strife at all. He won't, if Shikaku has any say on it.
"What about the weapons the intel mentioned?" he asks, though he doubts his brother would have dwindled by if there was any imminent threat.
Genma's snort says it all.
"Bows, cheaper and shorter than a samurai's, but nothing to worry about," his brother informs and Shikaku's worries are put to rest.
His son is safe.
"Parents?" it is a pretense, a bother that must be put up for formality's sake.
"Dead," a look passes between Genma and Ensui, so he raises a brow, "We found her close to the outskirts, near the red district."
He narrows his eyes.
A child is one thing, a traumatized child is another.
He looks at his brother but he does not cow or waver, Ensui looks into his eyes like he had not done since the Kyubi attack.
'Are you up for so much trouble?' he asks in the tilt of his head.
"She is a sweet child," his brother says, on a tone that lets Shikaku know his brother is past the point of listening to logic.
It does not matter if Ensui has his approval or not (when has it ever mattered?), his brother will get his way in the end.
A Nara with a goal in mind is a scary thing.
Shikaku's life will be easier if he just goes along, so that is exactly what he does.
He nods and looks back at the Hokage. "Will her place of birth be any problem?"
"Not if the Nara clan takes responsibility for her," comes the sly reply.
Meaning, Ensui's stray will be Shikaku's problem if she fucks up.
Privately, he doubts the kid will be any trouble. No more than Inoichi's girl, if that.
"Citizenship?" he drawls, aware the child will be a target on his brother's - and by extension, his - back if he leaves it to the usual channels.
"If she is living in your clan compound, I see no reason why she would not be beneficiary of the same privileges of anyone taken into a clan," which is to say, Sarutobi will speed the process along into a single year, but healthcare and expenses will be the Nara's problems and not the village's.
Fair enough.
Ensui will have to move back into the clan compound but given by the way his posture does not change, he had known and accepted this already.
Really, his brother is far too soft, but the complaint is half hearted. (He has not teased his brother in five years, and damn if he had not missed him.)
This is the longest he has spent in his brother's presence in years, and if that child is the way to make amends with his own little brother.. well, Shikaku has always rolled with whatever life decided to throw at him. This is no different.
"Is that all?"
"Yes, do try to drop the paperwork before the year is up, Shikaku," the old man says, and they take it as the dismissal it is. "Good luck, Ensui."
And his eyes are laughing.
Privately Shikaku rolls his eyes. How much trouble could one little girl be?
(Years later he will think back on this moment and laugh at his own naivete.)
.
.
.
Her head is bursting.
The pain is not only on her veins, like it had been when she had been a baby, but on her head. It spreads from the top her head and down, down to every nerve and her skin crawls at the foreign presences rubbing against hers. They are big and burning, like living furnaces, and Akako feels as if she were standing between a hundred bonfires at once, every one just that little bit different than the last so she can not even pretend is just one hot day.
If her little town had been a stream filled with tiny frogs and slippery fish brushing and dancing between her toes and fingertips, then wherever she is its an ocean.
Akako has never seen the ocean, in neither life, but she has never felt tinier than right this very moment.
She closes her eyes and goes deep, deep to the calm dwell inside of her, the very same the Miko said would be her temple when the world became too loud, too bright, too much for this small body.
Sweet Mother, she thinks, now concentrating solely on her own presence. Her energy is fussy and jittery, moving along with her turmoil and it takes her several breaths before it is calm again.
Where is she?
Ensui said- oh.
If Yamato had been a living beacon of energy, it stands to reason the very trees around Konoha will make her skin crawl and her mind to panic. How does she expect to live here if the mere trees make her senses go into overdrive?
She can barely ear the rhythm of Ensui's heartbeat, so loud are the trees.
Akako sighs and furrows herself further into the warm cocoon of his arms.
The trees are big, they are big and loud and hot, but she is not alone.
If she tries hard enough she can feel Ensui's signature and it feels like burrowing her finger into the wet dirt, soft but full of little bits that pull at her skin. His is quieter, subtler than the trees or Yamato's or even the humming river of Genma's, but it is familiar and soothing and it feels like a blanket over her shoulders.
Ensui is here and that means safety.
(It is childish and naive, but Akako has long ago learnt not to expect her mind to be any different than her body. She is small and fragile and part of Akako hates it, but it is all she has known on this life so burrowing herself into a grown up's protection feels right. She had been an adult but here she is not, feels and knows herself not, so she accepts this like she will come to accept the loud trees.)
"Sleepy?" he asks and she has to strain herself to hear him, but she does and so she simply nods against his shoulder. "Sleep, we still have two hours until we reach the village."
Not enough to get her used to the trees or the air or -Akako shudders- other ninja, but life has never bothered to warn her before something is asked of her, so she appreciates the heads up.
Akako burrows herself into her own energy, and little by little keeps turning up the volume on the trees around her. It's like learning the language all over again, only this time her skin burns each time she fumbles a vowel.
To anyone outside, it looks like sleeping, but Akako needs to get herself used to it so they will have to forgive her for being an ungrateful guest.
She will 'wake up' when Ensui wants her to and, bless the man, he does not do so when they pass the two men with the energy -chakra, here it is chakra- that taste like ash at the tip of her tongue, neither does he wake her up when they face the man with a huge furnace, smoking and heady, that just has to be the Hokage.
She is grateful, puking all over his office because his chakra makes her want to cough her lungs out would not have been a good impression.
For a moment there she truly does doze off. She is small and against such an overwhelming presence Akako's only response is to knock out and hope the problem is gone when she wakes up.
It is, so points to her.
.
.
.
"You will be staying with us until we find a house," Shikaku declares as soon as they are clear from the main village.
Ensui would protest being treated like a child but one glance at Akako and his retort crumbles. Shikaku has a big house, with plenty of room for the two of them until Ensui finds a house inside the compound whose neighbours do not get his nerves.
"Alright," and when Shikaku looks twice at him he smirks, "Hey, I can be responsible you know."
His brother snorts. "Could have fooled me," a pause, "Does she need food or can we get her a checkout now?"
"Checkout," he says immediately. He has agreed to take the child in, now it is his job to ensure her welfare and he does not think she has had a single shot on her life.
Shikaku nods, like he had expected this all along, but Ensui knows his brother like the back of his hand so he sees the surprise there. "Well, Hitomaru-"
"Not Hitomaru," he says immediately, perhaps too fast because his brother actually pauses to look at him, raising a single eyebrow in a way that just demands clarification, "Akako-chan does not do well with men,"
It gives his brother pause.
"And you decided the best idea was to take her in yourself?" the 'idiot' is heavily implied, but Ensui lets it wash like rainwater.
"Not like that- I do not think anything terrible happened," being shinobi, there were a lot of things between 'terrible' and 'bad' so Shikaku knows to read between the lines, "She likes me and Genma, and she let Shiho give her a bath."
Shikaku is smart enough to hear what he isn't saying. She will get better - she can get better - but for now it is best to avoid her triggers.
His brother, bless him, takes it all on stride. "Naname it is then, you came at just the right moment, she just came back from her border post."
He barely hides a wince at the name, but Shikaku knows how to read him like a book, so the asshole smirks.
"Oh, she will love to see you."
"Asshole."
"Scatterbrain."
"Oldman," and Shikaku winces, giving him reason to laugh in front of his brother in what feels like an eternity.
No matter what happens, they are brothers.
It is a special kind of bond, one that lets Shikaku smile like he does not have the whole jounin forces on his shoulders, no matter that is at his own expense.
His brother has never taken himself too seriously. It is something Ensui can appreciate now that he is no longer a snot nosed brat.
Perhaps- perhaps they can truly do this. Be brothers.
He is no fool- he knows all his missions are monitored by him, knows Shikaku has done his best to get him as far as he can from the most volatile missions.
And Shikaku has to know where Shikamaru's extra gifts come from.
It is not much but they had never broken contact. Not truly.
It makes Ensui think it is possible to make amends. He no longer is that insecure child, lashing out at his brother and sensei and everyone he felt inferior to.
"Here we are," declares Shikaku, coming in front of a mildly large house that has a single lone symbol of a green hand outside.
Shikaku knocks but he is more than happy to let Ensui do the talking. "Uh- Hello, Nanami-chan."
Nanami gives him the same unimpressed look she had on when Ensui told her he was breaking ties with the clan.
She takes one look at him, at the child on his arms and looks right back at Shikaku, "I win," she chants, a predatory smirk on her lips, like a shark that has smelt blood, "How much was it? Two weeks off the active rooster?"
Shikaku huffs, hands on his pockets, not even pretending he had not bet against his own little brother. "One. It is not his."
She scoffs. "Of course she is his. He took her in, didn't he? I'll be taking my vacation in Hotsprings."
And she walks in again, fully expecting them to follow.
Ensui is hit by an incredible rush of affection for his old friend.
"You bet against me?" he tells his brother, shoving his shoulder on the way in.
Shikaku, true to form, does not have an ounce of shame. "Of course I did, and you just had to go and make me lose."
Ensui should not. Really, he is better not knowing, but- "What did you bet on?"
"She said you would get a child before thirty. I, like the helpful brother I am, told her you would not last until twenty five."
He is twenty six.
"She won," Shikaku deadpans. "Would it have cost you to wait another year?"
Ensui snickers. "To make you lose? Not a chance."
"If you are done bickering," Nanami pippes up, "Would you be so helpful as to put my patient on the bed?"
Ensui nods and puts Akako on the bed, his hand hovering above her shoulder.
"Do I wake her up?" Nanami gives him a look as if to say 'you think?' so he obeys and shakes her. It takes a while, but she does wake up.
When Akako wakes she looks visibly startled but relaxes at the sight of him. It makes something on him soften- she is on an unfamiliar environment, with people she does not know, but just because he is here she does not panic.
That kind of trust is not something Ensui is used to.
He kind of likes it, much as it terrifies him, it is nice.
Ensui shakes her again because she looks one step away from clocking out again. Nanami snickers behind him.
"Akako-chan, we are in Konoha, do you remember what I told you about Konoha?"
She nods. Or she has fallen asleep again. Could go both ways.
"Akako," he repeats, and bleary gray eyes peer at him sleepily, "My friend will get a look at you. I need you to stay awake, do you hear me?"
The pout she gives him is downright murderous, but Ensui manages to strangle his laughter before it bubbles out.
Shikaku has no such reserves, letting out a soft huff of laughter through his nose. "Are you sure it isn't yours?"
"Stay awake," he orders and Akako straightens. "Good girl, now say hello to my friend and my brother."
She peers at them from half closed eyelids and gives a little wave that gets interrupted halfway by a yawn.
Her eyes rest on Shikaku for a fraction of a second more and she looks from him to Shikaku repeatedly before concentrating on Ensui again, putting two tiny fingers together.
Ensui nods, ignoring the other's questioning glances.
"Alright, if you two are done, I would like to give Akako-chan here her checkup," before she falls asleep, went unsaid, but they hear it anyways. "Would it be alright, Akako-chan?"
Her voice is sweet and nothing like the threatening tone she has to use patching up shinobi and Ensui wonders of this is the same woman who broke up his arm for stealing her eye liner.
Then she looks at them and the illusion is broken. 'Scatter' it orders, unmistakably.
Ensui would but- Akako tilts her head at him, touching the braid Shiho has made for her. 'Do you trust her?' she signals and Ensui nods before he has to think about it.
Akako relaxes and both Shikaku and Nanami had seen the exchange but neither comments on it, for which Ensui is grateful.
They get out of the room without a backwards glance and Ensui pretends he does not feel her gaze on his back until the door is closed. He makes no move to go further, resting against the door frame in a casual move that fools no one.
It definitely does not fool Shikaku because he smirks at him. "A code, Ensui?"
He shrugs. "She does not like to talk."
His brother's gaze is disinterested and all the more piercing for it. "Cannot or won't?"
Ensui ponders it. "Won't." He shrugs. "She just lost everything she knows. There are worse ways to grieve than silence."
He thinks back on blood and mud under his sandals and Shikaku's hunched shoulders let him know he is not the only one recalling things better left buried.
There is a reason his brother is not sober half of the time and there is a reason Ensui picks every stray that crosses his path.
"She is young," Shikaku says, following his train of thought, "She will bounce back from this. Who knows? She might not remember Swamps in a few years."
The thought of forgetting his homeland is not a pleasant one for Ensui, but it might be for a child. Time will tell.
"What did you get from her?" Ensui asks, because if he trusts anyone's judgment is his brother's. Whatever differences they have, Shikaku will be honest with him. "Do you think I can do this?"
"Depends. Do you want to?"
"Yes."
"Then you will do your best," he looks at him askance, he had not even paused for a second, "What? Your best is the most you can do. It will be enough."
Better than an orphanage or whatever old couple he can find, he means.
He looks at his brother. Just- looks at him and gulps.
"Do you mean that?" 'Do you believe in me?'
Shikaku's smirk leaves no room for argument. "Sure thing."
No doubts. No hesitation.
His faith on him is heavy, has always been heavy, but Ensui shoulders it with a shrug and a smile at the tip of his lips.
Yeah. He can do this.
He still has the urge to bite his nails while waiting for Nanami's report.
.
.
.
"What did you find out?" his little brother asks as soon as Nanami is out of the door, "Is she alright? Do I need to go inside?"
"She's asleep," she deadpans and it startles a laugh out of him, Ensui grinning sheepishly. "She is malnourished and under height, but nothing permanent. I will give you vitamins for her and you will give her real food, Ensui."
She leaves no room for argument and Ensui wisely raises his hands in surrender.
"Real food, vitamins. Got it."
Her lips twitch, but she keeps her professional mein on. "Good. I took a general scan of her body. She doesn't have any parasites and she is not ill. I healed the bruises on her legs but I couldn't do anything about the cigarette burn on her feet. Apart from that there wasn't anything immidiately worrying."
There had been some manhandling and blunt wounds, but they hadn't made her work.
The signs would have been hard to miss. Children that small scarred easily not just in body, but in mind. Ensui breathes a long tired sigh. It is bad, certainly worse than any clan kid he knows has lived through, but it is not terrible. She can bounce back from this and better yet- he can not mess it up more than wherever she had been.
It is only a way up from here.
"Would you recommend a Yamanaka?" Shikaku asks and Ensui is touched his brother would go that far.
Arranging that for a clan kid would have been a nightmare. For an orphan? Almost impossible, and here he was offering. If Shikaku spoke at all it was because he fully intended to go through with it if Nanami considered it best.
Nanami paused, clicking her pen in a nervous tick. "I have not observed her enough time to tell. She went to sleep as soon as I was done with the shots and she did not talk. Like- at all. Is she like that with everyone?"
Ensui thought about it. "Some, yes. She did not talk with anyone but she communicates with me or Genma and even Shiho. She even told me her sisters all had color names."
Nanami brightened. "Good! That's good, for both of you. If she can confide in you then half the job is done. Does she have nightmares? Avoids to eat? Makes tantrums?"
"No tantrums, she eats whatever I put in front of her, but she has lots of nightmares if she sleeps too long. I mean, she naps most of the day, so I did not think it was that bad."
Nanami nods, jotting down what he says on a journal. He does not even think to fight the point she has all but decided they will be back again. "Short naps? How long?"
"Half an hour, more or less. She wakes up before the hour is up, stays awake a while and then naps again."
Shikaku and Ensui share a look when Nanami winces. "She has trained herself to wake up before she dreams then. Is it the same at night?"
Without falling of exhaustion, she means.
"Not if she sleeps with someone. She slept with me or Genma in the way back, and she napped with Shiho when we passed the outpost."
Nanami blinks once, twice and then jots down his words, a pluzzed expression on her face.
"What is it?" he asks.
"She should not feel safe around strangers, not enough to sleep," she responds, haltingly, "I mean- I guess it makes sense if you are the first positive stimulus she has known since they abandoned her, Genma too- but Shiho? I gave her enough shots to put an Inuzuka out of commission, so it was not that odd, but Shiho?"
Shiho was not known to be the gentlest woman around.
Oh, she would be the first Ensui would want to have his back, but she could be downright mean and her face was perpetually set in a scowl. She was a softie, as proven by the braid Akako now wore, but she did not come off as welcoming.
Ensui shrugs. "She liked her hair," it had made sense at the time, it was lilac "and I never left them alone. Akako asked if she was 'safe' and I told her yes. She did not make a fuss of the bath but she did insist on washing her hair herself."
Nanami makes a small 'o' of understanding and grins up at him. "Like earlier? This is great Ensui, she trusts you."
She says it with such wonder- Ensui had never doubted she would, given time and care.
It was like any abandoned stray he had picked up. There was distance and a few scratches at first, but given a bit of food and care every animal gets better.
"A child and an abandoned cat are not the same," Shikaku deadpans and he grins, having been caught making the comparison on his mind.
"Hardly," Nanami snorts, but there is a smile on her eyes, "But you have made progress. Sage help us all, treating her like a cat did give results. Let's give her a week or two to get used to you and her new environment. If she does not eat or loses too much sleep or anything, you will come to me and then I will decide if a Yamanaka is necessary."
Ah, that was right.
Nanami had a bad run in with a Yamanaka a few years past- their techniques were known to be invasive. Ensui winced- if Akako did not like to talk, he couldn't imagine the grudge she would have if someone pocked inside her her brain.
Nanami locked eyes with him, and he gave her a firm nod.
Yes, better leave that as a last resort.
"What about her chakra?" He asks, trying to cover all fronts.
Nanami blinks. "What about her chakra?"
"Well- is it alright? She did go through a scare."
Shikaku snorts, but Nanami has chosen this moment to flick her pen at him and he is too busy avoiding it to respond.
"I didn't check her chakra! The girl doesn't speak and she is a civilian. How do you think she will feel if I stick my chakra inside her body?!"
Ensui cringed at the tirade. "I'm sorry! I just thought-"
Nanami huffs, but she rolls her eyes so he is safe from further projectiles. "Only children with ninja parents are at risk. The stories about them dying from a scare and their chakra depleting in panic are true, but a civilian kid has no risk. Do you think she even knows what chakra is?"
Ensui thinks back on it and no, he doesn't think so.
"Exactly," she continues, "It must be inactive, if she wants to be a ninja we will check it out, otherwise-"
Better to leave things as they are.
He nods in understanding and Shikaku mimics him.
"Good, now let's get you a checkout."
"What? But Akako-chan-"
"Is asleep. Hurry up you big baby, I know your records aren't up to date."
He groaned, looking at Shikaku but he found no help there. Traitor.
He hangs his head and resigns himself to his fate, and if he is smiling- well, he has missed his cousin alright?