Chapter 20: A Patronus message and Ino-Shika-Cho's bar meet

Summary: In which Calla wonders whether Lily and Luna were alike and no one had ever thought to mention it, and Ino-Shika-Cho hear a ghost speak and despair at the potential of change and damage even a thimble's worth of the power held by Calla could change - and start thinking of revolution.
On another note, Ino-Shika-Cho decided to take up drinking.

"Alright," Calla nodded to herself and then pointed at Minato, "now write it down."

A pause as the blonde Hokage blinked at her.

"I'm sorry, you want me to what?"

"Write it down," she reiterated calmly, pointing again, as he now noticed, at the block of paper and pen immediate behind Minato.

"Sorry – just to clarify. Again. You want me to write down your name?"

"Yes! This can't be that hard. Come on! Write down "My name is… followed by my name."

The blonde Hokage still looked bemused.

"You realise I'm a ghost?"

Calla paused.

Well, that complicated things. Curse her impetuous Gryffindor nature. She really thought spending time with Blaise and Draco after Hogwarts would have quelled it somewhat.

Not that she would admit as much to the blonde man in front of her.

"Well, what if I command you?"

Even the Hokage looked stymied, before shrugging slightly and giving into the insanity that was clearly Calla's life.

"Alright then, let's give it a go. After all, what could possibly go wrong?"

Minato didn't notice Calla grimacing behind him. It really wasn't worth the additional risk making such exclamations in her vicinity. Her luck had an odd sense of humour, according to Ron. Even Hermione was half-certain any and all magic around Calla was at least half-sentient and had a tendency towards chaos.

Minato's hand went through the pen and he looked back at her.

"Do you have a secondary plan?"

Well, since she was being reckless, anyway – with a couple of hand motions, Calla used her magic to amplify the sound waves and used her death magic to infuse it with the order to be heard.

Then she used the patronus charm and called for Prongs. The deer snorted and stomped as he looked around her apartment before staring at her calmly.

"Alright, Prongs. Only the Nara may see and hear you and Inoichi Yamanaka's direct family and all the Akimichi, alright? And then my two friends – Tomo and Yori. And my boss in the genin corps, actually, as well. No one else. I need you to go to all three clan heads, their wives and their children and the other ones I mentioned. This is the message you're taking to each of them.

"Hi again. So, the Hokage wants to hide me in ANBU for a few years. He told me I shouldn't be in touch with any of you. Well, pish to that! I'll still come by and visit when I can and I'll use this deer to drop off notes or gifts sometime when I can't. Anyway, point is – he wanted everyone to forget me – so I made it so. You'll not remember my name – this deer is here to remind you. You won't be able to tell anyone else, but at least amongst yourselves you'll know and you won't forget. No one else will though.""

Calla gestured for Minato to speak and the man cleared his throat hastily.

"Her name is Calla Potter-Black known to you as Kara Togeika-Kuro."

At her nod the deer pranced off, Calla grinning in satisfaction.

"Why do you have two names anyway?" Minato asked curiously, having watched her speech to her friends, still a bit bemused as he wasn't sure what had gone on in the world of the living since she had last called on him. Or how much time had passed, for that matter.

"Ah, yes, that. Calla is hard to pronounce for people here and never mind my last name. Plus, it would stand out as foreign – not something I particularly wanted. My mother named me, rather aptly, as it turns out."

Calla smirked and offered a slight shrug.

"In my mum's family the women were named after flowers. Mine is after the Calla Lily – a toxic flower, by the way. It's known for it's hardiness and surviving in very varied climates. But the real clincher is in its meaning: it means rebirth or resurrection and stands for triumph in death," she explained, a wry smile tugging at her lips at Minato's comical look of surprise. "it's a flower which is meant to carry people's hopes and dreams as well as their sorrows."

And although Minato would only get half the meaning, not knowing much about her life before she entered this world, it still amused her.

"Do you have seers in your world?" He asked, genuinely curious and Calla's face immediately dropped into a frown.

"We do, but prophecies are nothing but hogwash," she opined easily, still angered by the disaster her life had turned into. It still bugged her that Dumbledore, who held all his job interviews in his office, had decided that this one, specifically, for some inexplicable reason had to be held in a pub in the open.

Or, well, not so inexplicable if you believed him capable of the level of manipulation both Ron and Hermione had accused him of, mere months after the final battle, having spent time unravelling and drawing correlations between events Calla had never thought to connect or be suspicious of before now.

"Hm," Minato offered no opinion, clearly recognising a hotly debated topic when he saw one – and the barely withheld contempt, probably. "Interestingly enough," he added, clearly changing topics again, "your name, the way you're writing it, stands for flower and orchid – a flower used in funerals. It stands for death and everlasting love."

"Huh," Calla raised an eyebrow, "well, the one who taught me how to speak your language suggested spelling it this way. Wonder how much she knew?"

Maybe she had been a bit like Luna, someone who saw so much beyond what others could see, beyond the obvious.

Shikaku stared.

There was a white glowing deer in his office.

The moment that Kuni had left – via the window, of course – the deer had appeared. Shikaku had quickly abandoned his plans to snare the shadow – not that this – whatever it was – had a shadow – and grabbed his kunai, but he doubted that this would prove anymore successful.

"Hi again," spoke a familiar voice from the deer's mouth and Shikaku blinked rapidly, loosening his grip on the kunai ever so slightly, waiting to listen to the rest of what was undoubtedly a message.

He wouldn't have believed her, if he hadn't felt things in his head rearrange again as the knowledge of her name slotted into place and he wondered how he had ever forgotten it.

Shit, did that mean she could hide any information absolutely like that? If she could do this, - hell, she could make people forget that there was any such position as a head shinobi, or Kumo's kage. She could make the world forget about dojutsu. She- this could change everything!

Information – control of it and controlled dispersal of information as well as forceful acquisition thereof was everything in the world. The shinobi world lived and died for information – information was king, it was power.

If she could do this – Calla could control everything and no one would ever know.

The deer had long since departed, Shikaku sitting shakily on his chair, mind running a mile a minute as he tried to analyse the impact, the options and what she could do – what they could do. He had never ever been more glad he'd taken an interest in her and that he had set himself and his clan up to be in her favour, rather than the opposite.

By the Sage, his Hokage was a thrice-damned fool.

Yes, Kara – or Calla, as it appeared – was a weapon of previously unknown caliber; but instead of trying to coerce her with force and alienating her, he should have reached out to her with kindness. She could have given him the world on a platter.

Given the tone of the message, he didn't think she would ever lift a finger to aid the Hokage unless someone she liked asked her to.

And- hold on a second.

Shikaku rewound the message he'd been given in his head and jumped up, startled.

Was that- had that been Minato's voice?

…

What?!

How was this even possible? But- that was Minato's – his Hokage's – voice. The man he would have followed to the ends of the earth, if given even half a chance. There was no chance Shikaku would not recognise the voice of the man he loved (no, platonically, thank you very much, Inoichi), trusted and admired above all others.

But… he had died.

He was sure he had died – had seen it, seen the seal and him disappearing, offering himself as a sacrifice to bind the Kyubi to the death god.

It was impossible. Completely, utterly impossible.

And yet, it was also without a doubt Minato.

…

What?!

Shikamaru curled himself around the glowing, warm deer. Calla-nee was so, so troublesome.

He huffed slightly and nuzzled into the deer's neck, slowly sinking into sleep, suffused in the warmth of her love, hope and happiness.

"Ha, that's nothing," Inoichi declared, when Choza bemoaned the difficulty in the contract when her name suddenly was nowhere to be found.

"Hiruzen called me to his office," after the reprimands and punishment they had received, the Ino-Shika-Cho trio had unanimously reverted to calling their Hokage by his name, rather than title, as the man had spent the last few years losing their respect, bit by bit, for each of his actions and inactions and today had just been the pinnacle of the issues they have had with him.

"He couldn't find Kara's files," Inoichi had a wicked smirk on his lips and Shikaku barked out a laugh. "And of course, none of us remember her name as she was forbidden from contact with us."

He winked and the other two laughed, Shikaku giving a lazy wave to the bartender to serve their table with a refill.

"Hokage's furious but he gave her the order. And she complied. Oh, by the way – it appears she is now an adult male."

Shikaku sprayed his last sip of sake all over Inoichi. Choza raised an eyebrow, looking slightly amused as the Yamanaka grimaced in disgust, quick to wipe his face dry and wave away Shikaku's apology.

"Illusion?," he asked curiously, looking intrigued.

Inoichi shook his head, looking amused again.

"Nope. Solid and complete, as far as they can tell."

"Huh," Shikaku offered, looking curious. "Have either of you tried telling someone else? I tried telling Ensui and even brought him to our room full of our conjectures and thought on Calla, but I couldn't speak it and he couldn't see it."

Choza nodded. "Ringo asked – couldn't do a thing," he confirmed.

"Troublesome," Shikaku sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose, before upping the security seal to the highest possible level at their table and informing the remainder of the trio of all the ideas he'd had, of what she'd be capable of with everything they'd found out so far, and just how much it would shake up their knowledge of the world as it stood.

Choza ordered a bottle of liquor, face pale, as he realised just what kind of disaster they were skirting and had avoided – so far – by the skin of their teeth. Shinobi were familiar with skirting danger, intimately so, and scraping by, but not on this scale.

"I need a drink," he declared flatly, not surprised to find Inoichi nodding rapidly.

"I wish you hadn't shared that," Inoichi declared, eyes still wide. Choza nodded.

"And what the fuck?! Did you notice that was Minato's fucking voice there at the end?"

Inoichi winced. Choza grimaced, nodding slightly though.

"Been trying not to think about it, actually," he confessed.

Shikaku snorted. "Good luck with that."

"Yeah," Inoichi nodded, cheeks coloured with a healthy flush by now from their rapid descent into alcoholism, "she's a ghost whisperer," he suggested with a laugh and Choza laughed loudly, inhibition a thing of the past by the third glass.

The third glass of their fifth round, of course, it took a lot to affect an Akimichi.

Shikaku cackled, head thrown back.

"Oh, can you imagine the chaos?"

The rest of the evening passed with one outrageous suggestion being tossed out after another, spent in tears and laughter, and ended with the three falling into restless sleep at the bar, unnerved by the suggestions despite their best efforts, disquieted by the failings of their Hokage and his seeming refusal to step down, and their own shortcomings in assisting and caring for the small, quiet civilian child who had so quietly entered the lives, thrown it into disarray. She had been forced into the bloodiest part of their profession which tore even the psyches of grown men to pieces, mourning the innocence they failed to protect and fearing for the future of their children under the current regime.

That a change was needed was more than obvious to all three, but how far were they willing to go?

Author's Notes:

Hi all. Happy 4th December - your fanfiction advent calender :)

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Hope you enjoyed it - sorry, next chapter really will be the mission, just needed to put in a missing scene and explain the Fidelius charm a bit better :)