Shikaku wiped tears of laughter from his eyes as he stuffed his amusement back down inside himself. "I think we'll get along great, Nora." Snickering under his breath he added softly, "Poop," and then sniggered a little more before clearing his throat. "I do want to have a serious conversation though. Do you know why I'm here?"

"Because I'm really bad at training," I replied, plopping down to sit with him on the floor. "Like, really bad." I sighed, crinkling up my nose. "Mommy mentioned that she needed reinforcements for training me. You're that, right?"

"Reinforcements." Shikaku rolled his eyes at the word, "Yeah, basically. Besides, it's not that you're bad at training. It's that your bad at Tsume's training. Running, jumping, kicking, punching - it's an Inuzuka thing."

"And I'm not an Inuzuka." I said softly, then I winced and covered my mouth looking up at Shikaku with wide eyes, "Don't tell mommy I know that. She'd get super upset."

Shikaku gave me a pat on the head, smoothing my hair as he offered me a small smile, "I won't tell her you know. Still, you're not surprised or upset. You must have known before overhearing us tonight."

"Well, it's obvious," I replied with a small nod. "I don't look like the rest of the clan. My skin's paler, and my hair is a lighter brown. I also don't have the markings on my face. Plus, most of the clan are good at what I'm bad at and bad at what I'm good at. Besides, it would be physically impossible for Tsume to have given birth to me two months after Kiba without something weird happening. So, there's all those things, plus, if I ever had any doubt, adults talk a lot. They say things thinking I won't understand, but I do."

Shikaku grimaced at the last part of my explanation and clicked his tongue, giving me a sigh as he looked me over, "Yeah. Some adults are idiots, aren't they?"

"Yes." I gave him a single nod, "About all I can do when they're saying bad things is stick my fingers in my ears and yell, 'Lalalalala!' - but that's kind of weird so I don't."

"So instead you listen and learn things from them - even if they're bad things."

"Exactly, Shikaku-san."

The corners of his lips curled in a small smile. "And you also helped Kiba steal Tsume's chocolate."

"Well, he couldn't do it by himself. He would have wrecked the kitchen. It was like - damage control with chocolate benefits at the end."

"Ahh, so public service, basically."

"Yes. Um, so … are you going to be training me instead of Tsume?" I jumped ahead, curious and eager to know where this conversation was headed and was rewarded with a mysterious little smile.

"Hmm, well, not instead of, but in addition, yes. See, my son needs someone to train with who's closer to his age. This won't be physical training - this will be training your mind. It's a kind of training I think you'll like better. Of course, you can't just stop doing physical training, so you'll do that too, but I'll talk to Tsume about making your physical training something that's more … reasonable."

"Reasonable is good!" I gushed, my relief so obvious that Shikaku chuckled and gave my head another pat.

"Plus, your brother will come, too. He'll probably be terrible at mental training, but it's only fair." Waggling his brows faintly, he added, "Won't it feel good to be better at something than Kiba?"

I nodded eagerly at this question, a wide smile blossoming across my face. "Yes! Thank you, Shikaku-san. You're my third favorite person in the whole world now!"

"Third…" He nodded thoughtfully, "Not bad. I'll take that spot."


Frankly, a little physical training was hardly the worst thing in my life right now. No, my biggest worry at three years of age was what I was beginning to forget.

I remembered reading before I died about those who had said they were reincarnated. Some were stories about their lives before, and others were mere impressions about what it was like living as someone who could remember a past life. The thing I remember best was that, with time and age, the memories of the past life usually began to fade.

Unfortunately for me, this appeared to be true. At three years old, I hadn't yet fully grasped writing so recording anything was a challenge. I knew that my memories of my past life were fading, but writing more than a few awkward characters with a big crayon was beyond my abilities or what was even normal for a child my age. I was still very much an adult mind inside of a child's body with knowledge of things I shouldn't know at my age, but I was also slowly losing bits and pieces of memory from my prior life. I tried clinging to the really important bits as well as I could - stuff like the fact I was murdered and that Orochimaru was important.

My most vivid memories of my past life were often in dreams. Some days, I had trouble discerning what had really happened in the past and what was a dream my mind had constructed. Other days, everything was clear and I could remember the faces of family, the location of places, and even the exact details of a particular day. Then there were days where all I could recall were vague impressions like an echo of an experience that I had struggled through before.

I was having one of those latter moments right now. It was my first mental training session with Shikaku, and he was running Kiba and me through a series of tests to judge our individual abilities. For this portion, he had sat me down in front of a board with a series of squares and a selection of white pieces. Opposite me was Shikamaru, the man's son. The boy seemed only half awake but had grown more alert as we had played the game.

This game, shogi, was eerily familiar. In my mind, I had strange, dream-like memories of playing something called chess. That game had a checkered two colored board and black and white pieces. I could even recall some of the rules to it in my head, but it was not exactly the same game as the one set before me. Still, there were significant similarities between what I remembered and how the pieces moved in shogi.

The result of this strange, hazy knowledge was that I was learning how to play faster than Shikaku had anticipated. Without him explaining it, I had already grasped that the main point of the game was to protect your king while capturing the king of the opposing player.

Shikamaru, who basically looked like a tiny clone of his father Shikaku, had gone from bored to alert to frustrated in the span of the last half an hour playing against me. Meanwhile, Kiba was nearly in hysterics to my right, dramatically freaking out each time I didn't make the move he thought I should make. On the left side, Shikaku sat in alert silence, an amused smile curving his lips as he watched the game unfold.

"Nora! You could take his piece! Look, look!" Kiba wailed dramatically as I failed to take Shikamaru's bait.

"But if I do that, he can take this piece. Which means I would be leaving an opening for…" I found myself calmly explaining my strategy in my teacher voice once again. It was automatic. I might have been reborn, but, after years of working as a teacher in my previous life, no question could go unanswered. Especially, if I knew I had the correct answer.

"Mmmm." Shikaku muttered next to me, "But you're not playing to win either."

"Well, this is my first time playing this. I don't understand the game well enough yet to win. So, if I know I can't win outright, there is only one choice."

"Be as annoying as possible?" Shikamaru muttered as he gnawed at his lower lip. I laughed at the expression on his face but shook my head.

"No, not that, well, not just that. The annoying part is kind of an added bonus, but, yeah. So, if I can't win outright, my only option is to play for a stalemate. Maybe I can't win, but if I can tie, then that's just as good."

"And live to fight another day." Shikaku muttered under his breath, reaching out a hand to pat my head, "Good plan. You can't always win. So if you can't win and can't retreat, but defeat is unacceptable, a tie is just as good as a win."

"But it's not a win!" Kiba cried out dragging his hands through his hair in a frustrated gesture just like Tsume's.

Shikaku laughed loudly and nudged his son from under the table with his foot. "You know what your next move is, unless you're going to give her an opening - you might as well give Nora her stalemate. Just two more moves, after all." Leaning back on his palms, he glanced between Shikamaru and me with a wide grin, "Nice work you two. Kiba, you're up against Shikamaru-kun next."

"Awesome! I'll show you, Nora! I can take this dweeb down!" Kiba declared hopping to his feet and pointing at Shikamaru with a wide grin.

Kiba's game didn't last long. Within five minutes, Shikamaru had cornered Kiba's king and the game was effectively over before it had even begun. Kiba's shocked silence as he stared at the board was almost pitiful.

"It's okay, big brother." I spoke up with a small smile, "I bet you can run faster than Shika-kun."

"Yeah! I'm definitely faster than you!" His gaze snapped up and he pointed at Shikamaru. "I challenge you to a race."

The dark haired boy stared at Kiba for a moment and then groaned rolling back to lay spreadeagle on the floor as he muttered, "No thanks. Let's not and just say you won the race we didn't do."

"See, Kiba!?" I chimed with a bright grin, "You already won! That was easy!"

Shikaku broke out in a loud laugh as Kiba gave a frustrated grunt, "But … but what about actually, you know, racing?"

It took Shikaku several minutes to regain his composure as he snickered into the hand that covered his mouth, "Okay, that's enough for strategy and planning. Let's move on to basic logic. Then we can test your chakra control. After that, I'll know enough to be able to decide what direction to take your training in."

"Logic training?" Kiba blurted out on a dejected sigh, "But my brain hurts already! Chakra control sounds cool, but … logic?"

"Logic is an essential ninja skill. Every squad should have at least one ninja who is skilled in it, just like every squad ought to have at least one medic-nin and one good fighter." Shikaku explained calmly, glancing over at me as I leaned forward eagerly.

"So, um," I blurted out, "how are you going to measure our logic?" I was quietly fascinated by this series of tests we had been put through. So far, it had been a series of different games. There had been a treasure hunt when we first arrived, presumably to judge our ability to follow instructions. Then Shikaku had thrown increasingly complex mathematical equations at us in the form of a competition to see how fast we could give the correct verbal answer using only mental math Then we'd moved on to shoji, but, clearly, the man wasn't done with us yet.

"Puzzles - word, numerical, and kinetic - it could be you'll be better at one over another. I don't think you're ready to start with material conditional phrases… at least not yet." Giving me a wink, Shikaku stood and gestured for us to follow him over to a shelf that was stuffed full of everything from jigsaws and puzzle boxes to riddles and sudoku-like gamebooks. "Pick whichever one you'd like to start with."

Kiba responded to Shikaku by pulling down the easiest looking jigsaw he could find and upending the whole box on the floor next to him. Meanwhile, I flitted from one puzzle to the next. I loved puzzles, and this shelf was puzzle heaven. After a moment, Shikamaru trudged up next to me and pointed out a small wooden box, "Do that one. It's fun."

Peeking out from under my bangs at the boy, I grinned and gave a small shrug as I picked up the box. I knew just from seeing the way it was constructed that this was one of those infamous puzzle boxes and the only way to open it was moving the pieces in just the right sequence. I again had that vague recollection that I had done a puzzle very much like this in the past, and without thinking about it I ran my hands over the entire box as I settled down on the floor, looking for any piece that was looser than another.

As a piece in the base slid out with no resistance, I paused, suddenly feeling a chill run up my spine as a strong sense of deja vu had me moving my fingers to another point on the box and sliding out a second piece as if I knew exactly what to do next. In my mind's eye, I could almost see my hands turning the box before they did as I picked a third piece and slid that into position. It was almost as if I had done this puzzle before. Still, even if I knew this puzzle from before and could recall the solution still, why was this so clear while other memories grew foggier by the day?

Shikamaru, who had sat down just next to me while I worked on the puzzle, had gone eerily still. His silence caused me to look up and then I noticed Shikaku staring at me with a lifted brow and pensive frown. The only one who hadn't noticed the sudden silence was Kiba, who was grumbling at the puzzle in front of him.

"Argh!" My brother twisted the puzzle piece around in his hand as he tried to shove it into the spot he had chosen, "Why won't it fit! It's the right color, isn't it?! Um, Shikaku-san, is this puzzle broken?"

In that instant, I chose to move the wrong piece on the puzzle box, even though I could see the next correct move. My mistake seemed to jolt Shikaku out of watching me, and he turned to Kiba to reply, "No, it's not broken. A different piece goes there. Keep looking."

Puffing out my cheeks, I breathed out a sigh as Shikamaru muttered, "You're good at this."

"Eh? Am I?" I asked, reminding myself to smile calmly as I looked up at the boy.

"Yeah. Three correct moves in a row - on that box…" He shrugged again, "No one's that lucky on a first try. There are at least 15 possible moves each time, which means your odds of successfully making three correct moves in a row is… uh…" Shikamaru's nose scrunched up, and he looked up at the ceiling as he tried to work out the calculation in his head.

"Three-tenths of a percent," Shikaku's calm voice provided the final calculation before his son could come up with it, "Well, slightly less if you don't round up, but it really doesn't matter. Of course, some moves can be eliminated just with logic, but … No, nevermind. Continue, Nora. I'm curious to see how long the box will take you."

"Okay, then," I replied, but for the first time that day, I decided a little cheating to fudge my score downward was probably a wise idea. Something about the expression on Shikaku's face worried me.

A/N: Things are about to get very interesting for Nora! Thank you all for following this fic, and I hope to have the next chapter to you very soon. ^_^