Kunteki Oushi fidgets, sitting on one of the chairs in the waiting room before the Hokage's office. She is pretty sure that this is an important matter. Positive. It probably is.

That or she is just imagining things and making Hokage-sama waste precious time during a war. That sounds like a bad idea, maybe she could come back another time, when the war is over… Or not.

The decision is made for her soon enough when her turn comes up. She rushes to the now opened door and hurries inside, immediately bowing before the Hokage.

"You are here because you have concerns about one of your students, yes?' He says, looking at the papers sitting on his desk. She is sure those were the reports on one Ikotsu Reishi she had prepared for him.

"Yes sir, I-I think there's something off with the kid, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. It's just… her behaviour doesn't quite match with her grades, and I've noticed that she uses words in her written exams that an average student wouldn't know." Oushi fidgets under the Hokage's gaze, she has barely been in his office since she started teaching at the academy.

"And you say her grades are low?" The Hokage's brow is raised in scepticism, making her rethink her purpose for being here. Is the odd behaviour of one of the students important enough to bother the Hokage? Yes, yes it is, she reaffirms to herself; a possibly talented student is holding back for some reason and it is her duty as a teacher to ensure her students' success.

"Not low sir, average, like she's scrapping by, both in her physical and written tests. It doesn't add up, the other day she knocked one of her teammates out with one kick, but ever since then she just dodges all attacks until the time is out."

"That does sound odd. Perhaps a visit to a psychiatrist would be in order. Not a Yamanaka though, I'm sure a civilian one will suffice, make sure they report to the Yamanaka clan if they find something important though."

"Thank you Hokage-sama." Oushi bows again and the Hokage smiles.

"It is good to see the teachers worry about their student's well-being," he nods.

Reishi almost has a heart attack when her teacher – a fidgety woman with short fluffy hair – comes up to her during recess to inform her that she has an appointment with a psychiatrist.

She immediately starts analysing her behaviour in her last weeks, trying to understand what had prompted her teacher to think that she needed a psychological evaluation, but comes out empty handed. The most she can think of is that one sparring session a week ago, but that alone isn't enough to justify it. Has she done anything out of character lately? It is hardly possible, since she hasn't made any effort to hide her aversion for the company of the rest of the kids ever since she started at the academy. She had seen other kids do it in the show, like Sasuke, and nobody had suspected him of anything.

True, his entire clan had died so it was more or less expected that he would have some kind of trauma, but her 'father' died too, so she should be excused. Besides, as far as she's concerned, teachers tend to let the students do whatever as long as their grades aren't unsatisfactory. Hers aren't, they aren't good either, but definitely not failing grades.

Something is amiss here, or rather, she has failed to see something.

There is nothing she can change now anyways, so for now she should focus on trying to act as normal as possible in front of the psychiatrist. Luckily, it won't be a member of the Yamanaka clan, those creeps. She shudders just thinking about the possibility of having one roaming free inside her head.

Yeah, not happening.

Obito, who has been sitting with her and stealing food from her bento without any shame, looks at her with a worried expression.

"Is there something wrong, Rei-chan? Are you okay?"

Reishi just shrugs. Not knowing what this is about herself, there really isn't any explanation she can give him. This, of course, doesn't stop Obito from mothering her until the fated day arrives, sharing his sweets with her and doubling his efforts to make sure nobody bullies her. Not that anyone would ever dare to bully her, the other kids are rather creeped out by her, but Obito doesn't seem to notice.

Fuhaku walks her to the address Oushi-sensei had scrabbled in a note for her, she gave up on holding Reishi's hand while they walked some time ago, so now they just walk side by side in an uncomfortable silence. Once they reach the psychiatrist's lobby, Fuhaku sits on one of the chairs while Reishi is ushered inside the office by a gentle-speaking woman. The woman shot Fuhaku an incredulous glare, unsure of why wouldn't she want to come inside with her daughter to support her.

Hisoka has been a psychiatrist for twelve years now, she's had a long career and she is very proud to keep being useful to Konoha, even if she can't fight like ninja do. Her job might not be flashy like theirs, but everytime a ninja breaks, everytime the PTSD becomes too much, it's her they look for. And while ninjas get old and their abilities worsen due to tired muscles and stiff joints, she only gets wiser and better at her job. She is quite proud.

Reishi seems to be proud too, for what she gathers of the posture of her shoulders, confident despite their stiffness. Perhaps not proud on the same sense as herself, Hisoka notes, but proud nonetheless. This is a dangerous trait that needs to be taken care of. Proud people don't follow orders well.

She waits until the child is standing and she has her attention, and offers her the seat in front of her and some cookies and tea her assistant had prepared earlier in the afternoon.

Reishi's mouth twitches, barely perceptible if you're not looking for signs of discomfort, and eyes the offered food warily before filling a cup to the middle and taking one cookie. She keeps the cup on her lap, careful so as to not spill it and sips from time to time, sometimes accompanying it with a small bite of the cookie.

Her posture keeps being stiff for a few seconds more before Hisoka notices her taking measured breaths and relaxing.

The woman wonders why hadn't they sent this child to her earlier, it's obvious that this isn't normal behaviour, and once again she reminds herself of the impossible standards ninja impose upon their children.

She watches as Reishi risks glancing behind her shoulders at the door, clearly unnerved by having the main entrance at her back and out of her line of sight. Most ninjas do this, though admittedly they have normally had some field experience before becoming neurotic.

The file provided by her teacher and other academy employees states that she lost her father a few months ago, and also that there are some unspecified problems at home that they're keeping watch on, but there is nothing about a field mission in it. This is most inconsistent with her past experiences, Reishi has never left the village or been exposed to ambush training yet, so she has no reason besides raw instinct to be so nervous about her unfavourable tactical position. She takes note of this on her notebook for further analysis.

"Hello," she decides to start the session, smiling at the small kid sitting in front of her hoping she will open up when seeing a friendly face. It doesn't work, the child doesn't smile back, she just stares at her with unblinking eyes, "do you know why are you here?" The kid seems to bite back whatever she was going to say and shakes her head no, could it be that she's shy? She tries to reassure her with a smile yet again, to no avail.

"Do you like to read Reishi?" She asks, bringing up a topic she knows the girl enjoys, perhaps this will make her loosen up a bit. Sure enough, Reishi nods, "and what do you like to read?" This is, in part, a trick question. The library keeps record of all the books and who borrows which. Hisoka wants to see if the kid will lie, as lying would mean that she has something to hide.

"I like history books." The confident tone with which the girl states this rules out her being shy. It is also a vague answer, as 'history books' is a wide range and they cover many things from bloodlines and when they were discovered, to the tactical strategies used in the previous shinobi wars. Hisoka wonders if the girl did that on purpose. She decides that she will have to read through the list offered by the library.

After making a few more annotations on her notebook she decides to move forward.

"And what do you like about history?" The girl twistes her face, it's for a fraction of a second, but Hisoka sees it. It's a good thing that she has had twelve years of experience, because this girl barely emotes at all. Hisoka has to recognize that her stare is starting to make her a little nervous.

Reishi's eyes are black, and they give the impression of absorbing the light rather than reflecting it. There are dark circles under them, accentuated thanks to her very pale skin. The girl looks like she hasn't slept in years and, if you couple this with her grey hair, she has the appearance of a ghost.

"The old ninjas were very strong," the ghost-girl answers with conviction. She is leaning forward slightly on her chair, making Hisoka deduce that she is actually very interested in this topic. Finally, something she can use.

"And who was your favourite?" You can glance a lot from a person from the people they admire and look up to. Firstly, they are probably identifying in some way with them; and secondly, they are projecting what they want to be like themselves onto these 'idols'. By extrapolating the most famous traits of the person the girl most admires, she could gleam a lot about her personality and motivations.

Apparently though, this seems to be the wrong question, as Reishi frowns and keeps the cup closer, meaning she's retreating into herself again. Hisoka decides that it's better to change the subject than to lose her completely. She takes note again and asks the next question.

"Do you get bored at the academy?"

Reishi seems to consider this for a few seconds as she nibbles absent-mindedly on the cookie, and Hisoka is happy to have her haunting stare away from herself. Finally, the girl shrugs.

"Do you like your teachers?"

"They're fine."

"What about your classmates?" Hisoka is starting to feel very frustrated, this kid isn't answering any of her questions, she just shrugs or gives her vague answers. She needs something to work with. "What do you think of the Hokage?"

"He seems nice," Reishi says, though her posture seems to say otherwise; she's gripping almost unnoticeably the cup on her lap, her posture has gone stiff again and she is looking at a fixed spot on the wall behind Hisoka, "he's also very strong."

The woman nods and, after a few seconds of awkward staring she asks another question, looking at the door.

"Do you love your mom?"

She knows she has hit a gold mine with this one, because the girl tenses and also appears to shot her a murdering glare for a second, as if angered that she would dare to question her relationship with her mother. It's clearly a sore spot.

Reishi looks to the ground, apparently mulling it over. Her gaze focuses on her hands again when Hisoka tries to pry the tea cup gently from her fingers. At some point they had started shaking, pent up anger perhaps? Maybe frustration? A reason why the kid is almost unresponsive and clearly detached could be that she's been neglected emotionally.

Hisoka discards this almost immediately, neglected kids show very loud and expressive behaviours, trying to catch people's attention, and Reishi is doing quite the opposite.

Maybe she has been receiving the wrong sort of attention and so she wants to make herself invisible to the rest of the world? That is also unlikely, ninja are very sharp and her teachers would have noticed any new bruise and asked her about it, as fighting without supervising is forbidden in the early stages of training for fear of a lesion or more serious injuries. They would have reported it if the kid went hurt to school without a reason.

A sociopathy, psychopathy or some level of autism could explain her detachment. They seem unlikely, but she has already ruled out the rest of the options.

She notices how Reishi balls her hands into fists and tightens them until her nails dig into her palms, it looks painful.

With a sigh Hisoka decides that it will be best to move on. She will dig into it after their session.

"That's enough personal questions for now, how about we talk about mission scenarios from now on? Do you think you can do that Reishi-san?" She watches as Reishi forces herself to lift her gaze from her white knuckles to look at her, taking a deep, shaky breath. She nods yet again.

"Okay."

"Let's say that you're stranded on enemy territory, all of your teammates have been snatched by enemies, but different ones, and you have to choose one to save. Which one do you go for?"

This is a standard question, you see: if she asks about the rank of each teammate, it means that she puts this before anything else, and that she will respond well to orders and authority figures; if she asks for her teammates roles and abilities, it shows that she is prone to critical thinking and strategy; asking for each of their whereabouts and/or the enemies abilities displays situational awareness and a priority for information gathering.

Those are statistically the three most popular answers, and it was very odd for a ninja to give another, though not unheard of. Mostly it was either a combination of the three or they would give the three answers but in priority order.

"Who would my teammates be?"

That's not... this is not a question people ask. It's irrelevant to the mission and completely superfluous. Ninjas don't think this way. Kids raised by ninja don't think this way. They have a thinking pattern, Hisoka has been studying it her whole life, and so did her father before her, and his father before him. She wrote a book.

The worrying part is not that it's unusual, it's that she shows a belief in individuality. Such beliefs are dangerous on a martial society in which the village and the mission come first. Individuality leads to questioning and questioning leads to uprisings. An ideology like this, with the potential to contaminate an entire generation, must be nipped in the bud, so to speak. The ramifications and consequences are too unpredictable to leave it unsupervised.

This, coupled with the fact that the girl has shown no loyalty of interest towards anyone she has asked for in the last hour, labels her as a high risk of becoming a missing nin.

This questionnaire goes on for about another half an hour, in which Hisoka only confirms that the only loyalty she has is towards an Uchiha outcast, which makes him change from medium risk of becoming a missing nin, to a high risk merely by association with her.

She should notify the Hokage immediately. She might not be a ninja, but she knows that the risks a missing nin poses to their former village are not only physical; there are a lot of secrets and techniques that cannot be divulged.

When Reishi finally gets out, Fuhaku is nowhere to be seen, she had probably left some time ago, tired of waiting. Fair enough. Besides, Reishi is completely exhausted in a way she hasn't felt in a long time, as if she was a jar and she had just emptied all her contents on that office. She just wants to crawl into her bed and sleep for a while.

She is still reeling from The Question, that psychiatrist had hit deep with that one.

'Do you love your mom?' Does she? Fuhaku had been there since she was a small mushy blob of meat, and she had endured her weirdness even after it became obvious that Reishi wasn't a normal child. She respects her 'mother', but she hardly ever calls her mom anymore, opting instead for calling her by her name and Fuhaku has started doing the same.

That makes her feel... guilty. She doesn't love her, and she knows that that's fucked up in a way. She is also angry, not exactly at Fuhaku or herself, but at... something. At how things have turned out. Under any other circumstances, Fuhaku would have had a normal little girl to light her days when Ryouji died. Instead she got a burden and a problem with alcoholism.

She walks aimlessly for a while, not wanting to go back to the house and deal with Fuhaku just yet, and before she can notice it she's in front of a park and near a chakra signature she knows very well. She must have followed it unconsciously.

She spots Obito not too far away; he is the one listening for once, and a pretty girl seems to be chatting happily about something. A distant part of her brain registers her as Nohara Rin, and starts offering her little bits of information that Reishi decides to ignore at the moment.

Though she doubts this is a date, she doesn't want to interrupt her friend's quality time with his crush, so she starts to turn away to leave. Obito has already spotted her though, so her token effort is pretty useless.

"Rei-chan, over here!" Reishi looks at the boy, who is waving at her excitedly, and at the girl, who clearly seems confused but welcoming. She walks over to the bench they are sitting in and sits down beside Obito, leaving him in the middle of the three.

She doesn't have the strenght to avoid meeting Rin, and though she knows that getting attached to yet another character – and one who is going to die, no less – is a mistake on her part, she can't find it in herself to care right now.

"Hey." It's not her best greeting, but she's mentally exhausted and hey, it's better than nothing. Obito seems to have noticed that there's something wrong and is trying really hard not to ask, knowing fully well that she won't answer with Rin here, if she decides to give him an answer, that is. Reishi very pointedly stares at Rin, hoping that Obito will get her barely disguised clue and offer some kind of introduction.

"O-oh, yes! I almost forgot! Rei-chan, this is Rin-chan; Rin-chan, this is Rei-chan."

"It's nice to meet you Rei-san! Obito-kun is always talking bout you!" Rin says with a bright smile, making Obito's ears turn red in embarrassment.

"T-that's not-!" He protests at Rin, "t-that's not-!" He protests again, now looking at Reishi. But they never get to know 'what wasn't' because Reishi interrupts him with her natural sense of consideration and empathy.

"He talks about you a lot as well, he says you're very good at chakra control." She still doesn't manage a smile, but that doesn't seem to matter to Rin, who seems very pleased with this bit of information. Obito, in contrast, is mortified.

Hiruzen sighs, the perfect portrait of a tired man, and looks at the psychological evaluation of Ikotsu Reishi that sits innocently on his desk.

This isn't a problem itself, more like the origin of a possible one, but it is more work for him nonetheless.

The girl is more than she lets on, that much the psychiatrist had assured them, though her full potential is still unknown. She also has a distinct lack of ties to the village and a sense of patriotism that shines by its absence. This is pretty dangerous, as it brews dangerous ideas, and ideas can spread among unhappy crowds like a fire on dry grass (and what crowd would be more unhappy than one that faces war?).

It isn't a wonder why the girl failed to form a sense of patriotism, he has read on her file that her father had been one of the first ninja to die in the front lines. A death like that was bound to brew hatred, though he should make sure that it isn't directed at Konoha. A ninja with a grudge can be very useful in the battlefield, yes, but also very dangerous if pointed in the wrong direction.

Then there is the question on whether she is a genius or if this is just a fluke. Everything seems to point to it – there is no doubt that she is more intelligent than her grades show, though there's still the question about her battle prowess –, but he still doesn't understand why is this kid holding back.

Usually children in general seek attention by any means possible, more so if they are down one parent and – if the information he has been given is correct – are on the path of losing the second.

He is also worried about the complete disregard of the hierarchy she shows in the psychiatrist report. Can it be explained by her merchant part of the family?

The Yamanaka in front of him cocks his head to the side when Hiruzen lets out a deep, tired sigh – yet again –, obviously curious as to what is going on in his head but trying very hard not to ask. Hiruzen dismisses him with a vague hand motion, once the door clicks shut behind the man, he serves himslef some tea, hoping it will help.

Getting rid of the girl as in killing her is out of the question, besides the fact that he refuses to give an order of execution for a child – sending them to fight and directly sentencing them to death is different, he tells himself – if word got out of it he would risk backlash from the clans and Konoha couldn't stand divided, even a little, during war times.

However, he needs to get her out of the academy as soon as possible, lest she influences the other kids in her year.

If she is a genius after all, it won't be suspicious if she gets tutored by a jōnin, even this young. There are precedents for it, like Hatake's kid, though it's true that being his father who it was, the boy had no trouble finding a jōnin sensei of his own.

Finding one for the girl will be more tricky than that, most jōnins are out on missions and those who aren't are suffering from injuries that prevent them from exercising or using chakra in any way.

The only ones available inside of Konoha would be the higher ranks, the... heads of the clans.

He can feel his headache worsening.