Contrary to what the civilians of Konoha say, Mina Olivander is neither retarded nor illiterate. She knew how to speak a variety of languages and customs since the family connections are world wide. But since only Grandma Sayuri sold things in japan (Candies and fashionable clothing.) she was the only person who could could've taught her japanese.
It's how she knows how to mentally convert galleons to yen to ryo.
The problem is that she died when Mina was 7. Right around the time when Mina had mastered hiragana and katakana and beginning kanji. Her portrait had not been completed until she was in Hogwarts.
Her DADA teachers had taught her that the mind is an interesting thing. It is much better at recognition then it is at recalling. Both of which are needed if anyone wanted to function in society for long.
Hearing and understanding foreign languages would fall under the category of recognition.
Speaking on the other hand requires recall.
Mina Olivander understood what everyone was saying, and while she had some trouble reading Kanji she could still write out contracts in reasonably clear handwriting.
Once a week she would have to visit the Hokage (She has learned that he is the person in charge. While she doesn't agree with military dictatorship she has to admit that the government of Konoha does a better job of keeping things in order then the ministry of magic.)
There she would sit along side one other boy and learn how to read and write kanji as well as proper grammar.
Why did she have to go the the Hokage of all people?
She scared the civilians. Most of them seemed to regard her the same way they regarded ninja. They appreciated their services but would prefer if they kept the buisness as far from them as possible.
The boy, Naruto Uzumaki (Uzumaki Naruto, she repeats in her head, because she is a citizen of the village now. She'll be living here for the future. She should get used to the culture.), apparently was the same though she couldn't really fathom the reason.
Perhaps she should invite him into the shop one day for tea. They could bond over their weirdness.
She'd better get better at speaking the native language first though.
She knew that she sometimes had an off smell due to the plants she worked with. (Thank god her at least some of her plant stocks survived the trip. It was the only one she had and while she had seeds they took years to grow and many of the ingredients in her potions required parts from aged plants.) Her venomous tentacula had reestablished itself in the backyard of her shop and occasionally shot those awful spiked spores.
She would have to grow another snargaluff though which is going to be a pain. The bubotuber was currently not in good health due to being deprived of sunlight for too long. She would have to grow plant dittany when the weather cooled.
(Years later Genin would curse her name as they found themselves getting torn up and bitten by the plants they had to uproot. She would have the dubious honor to be the only client of C ranked weeding missions.)
"BU' ITS BORING" Whined the boy.
Then again his voice was rather grating and he didn't seem to understand the concept indoor voice. So perhaps that was it.
In exchange for the language lessons Mina would bring in a vial of fire protection potion.(She isn't entirely sure why he needs since walking into fire is obviously a piss poor idea but who was she to judge. She raided several stores before setting the Lestranges on fire and running away.)
Several unsavory characters had entered the store with the malicious intentions. Most of them were obviously looking for someway to stick their grubby fingers into her cauldron on success. The most common method seemed to be contracts written in highly advanced and archaic Kanji despite her repeated requests for everything to be printed in kana.
One such contract was actually an agreement for her first born.
Good god, she thought those things only happened in fairy tales and archaic wizard societies.
She resolved to send such contracts to the Hokage for him to deal with, complete with the names of the individuals who gave them to her (A charmed piece of paper that identified visitors of the shop was a very handy tool to have. Once she figured out how Sirius Black had done it she would make a map that would track the people on her property and record what they bought. But for now an identifier was good enough).
She knew that an arranged marriage would eventually be advantageous to her shop though but she had to be of age to set herself up with one.
Though marrying for love was a romantic, though highly unrealistic dream (As preached by her aunts, uncles and grandparents.) She would at least like to get along with her partner. Plus it would be nice to have someone to pass the store to (and she would pass on the store, because even if her plant stock was eating most of her profits, she had faith that the Flying Blackbird would one day be famous just like her grandfather Garrick's wand shop in Diagon Alley).
Most wizards looked to marry up in high society. Pure blood to pure blood. Daughters to the heirs. Seconds to exclusive and high class buisness families (Pure blood obviously). The more pragmatic members of the noble houses (and the average magus) however, were a little less picky. But still few were interested in the Olivander family for anything other then discounts and connections (they tended to be pricks too).
Sarutobi Hiruzen was beginning to think that the gods were making Konoha the epicenter of a colossal joke.
He already knew that the presence of a witch would throw things off. It had only been six months and his village was already reaping the benefits of her presence (Veritaserum was prized in T&I though the unfortunate ninja who had to test the potion had been so embarrassed with his hobbies coming to light that he refused to show up for work the next day. The antidote to common poisions had been added to standard mission kits.) but she was already generating more paperwork then the upcoming peace conference.
He kept getting complaints about her dangerous shrubbery.(Plants that snapped and bit and spewed sludge were one thing. But he drew the line at flaming bushes. Garbage disposal and potion ingredient or not he refused to let her keep such a fire hazard in the middle of the village made out of WOOD.) He ordered some of the more hazardous plants to be planted close to the prison and for an instruction manual written for their care and harvest.
Prison escapes had dropped due to the presence of the biting flowers and some sort of spike shooting plant. The fire seed bushes had been taken out and replanted in the garbage sector to burn up the methane caused by garbage decomposing.
He was certain that the exotic plant life was probably giving the R&D a head ache (He guiltily hopes that its as bad as the ones he's been getting recently from all the paperwork.)
The council was demanding that something be done to curtail her destructive powers. Which he couldn't do with out resorting to extreme measures (He was not going to lobotomize a shop keeper, nor was he going to cut off her hands, or ruin her vocal cords). Plus he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to do so either. Oribanda's powers certainly made up a good portion of who she was. They were tightly tied to her emotions and intents (Confirmed by Yamanaka Inoichi who noticed that many of the duels and battles boiled down to force of will.), making her a very poor fit for ROOT.
The methods that Danzo would use to train her would very likely sap her of her power. Not to mention the no chakra issue. He doubts that will stop ROOT from trying to recruit her.
Which means that she must be kept in the spotlight despite her wishes (She still hasn't realized how extraordinary she was in the village, much like his young surrogate grandson).
She kept forwarding letters and contracts to him to transcribe into kana. Most of them were fraudulent or coercive in one was or another from certain civilians trying to cash in on her success (They didn't like the idea of an outsider rising through their ranks and resented her apparent success.) The letters were always jinxed so that only he could open it (Why him? A desk chunin would have worked just as well).
Though it was interesting to note that she had included a note explaining that if she MUST marry to remain a citizen (That was a lie perpetuated by unscrupulous citizens.), she would prefer to do it when she did not have to worry about falling into financial ruin. A situation that was unlikely given the popularity of her undetectable extension charms.
But an arranged marriage was certainly a possibility of keeping his council quiet.
Mina is in the shower when the commotion outside starts (It starts with a yell of alarm, followed by swearing).
The first thing she does is fling open her window and point her wand and bellow. "IMMOBULUS!" because the noise was coming from her garden and since her plant stocks were low to begin with and were in the midst of establishing themselves, she couldn't afford to lose any of them (Especially not her bubotuber.)
Because nobody was supposed to be back there.
Once she was certain all movement outside has ceased she steps out of her shower, wraps a towel around herself and goes outside to investigate.
"Lumos"
What she stumbles on to enrages her to no end. She had fled to the middle of nowhere specifically to escape persecution and these ninja had the gall to try and uproot her plant stock?! All the eyes widen with shock as they watch her take in the damage done to her back yard (Though later on she realizes that part of it had to do with her state of dress.)
The ground is tremendously uneven in some parts (it was not like that in the afternoon), half of her precious plants have been upset as evidenced by the indignant noises coming from some of them.
A tied burlap sack lies limply inside a furrow on the ground.
She would look back on this day later and laugh about the ridiculousness of the situation.
It was a rather comical sight to see several ninja being chewed on by her venomous tentacula (also immobilized but the threat of being bitten and invenomated was still there).
All of them frozen in various poses. (The white eyed ones better not be trying to rob her or she will ban them from the premises. It might be a light punishment for attempted robbery but she has no other choice. She has yet to climb out of the red and can't really afford to do much else.)
It occurs that she is standing outside in the november evening, wearing nothing but a towel with shampoo and soap dripping from her hair, and that handling it herself may not be the best of ideas. She shivers slightly before calling into the darkness. "Police?"
There is no response.
"P-POLICE? I R-REQUIRE ASSISTANCE!" Perhaps she is mispronouncing the word. Better try something easier.
"AUROR? ANBU?! HELP?!" What in the name of Merlin's thumbs are they doing? Did she immobilize them too? Don't they have some sort of patrol for something like this? Her teeth were begining to chatter making it even harder for her to speak clearly.
She was not in the right state to juggle three charms simultaneously on her wand. Her arms were already shaking though she couldn't tell if it was from fatigue or from the cold.
Either way her wand was too unsteady for anything, so wandless magic will have to do (Wandless magic was much more tiring then wand magic. But everyone in her family knew at least the summoning charm with just their hands. After all, no one has their wand with them all the time and they should have a way to fetch it in a hurry. It was also handy for fetching toilet paper when they were stuck in the loo).
"Accio howler!" She hoped there was one already prepped amidst her yet-to-be-sorted stationery.
A red sheet of paper neatly fluttered down in front of her. It was slightly wet so it must've come through the bathroom window (Damn, she forgot to turn off her shower. Hopefully the water bill isn't too much.) It would dampen the volume a bit but it should still be loud enough to work. "Dictate." She signaled for it to begin recording and spoke her request to it before kicking the smoking paper as far away as she could (Not very).
A few minutes later the paper burst into flames and her voice was broadcasted in earsplitting volume into the night. "I REQUEST CLEAN UP OF SIX B-B-BURGLARS IN MY G-GARDEN. HURRY UP. M-MY ARM TIRED AND I W-W-WET WITH SHAMP-P-POO IN HAIR."
She cringed, and not just from the volume. Her voice sounds so silly when it's broadcasted like that plus her lack of skill with the language is clearly audible with all the stutters.
Her ears are ringing but it works like a charm. No sooner then ten seconds pass before several masked figures show up.
"Thank You. We'll take care of this mess." Says the one with what looks like a dog mask with two marks on each side. He squirms as he takes in the ridiculousness of the scene. He sounds so embarrassed when he croaks out the next line "You can go back inside and er.. finish washing up."
She eyes him carefully to see if he could actually do it before nodding and going back inside. "Very well. Have good night."
AN: Hopefully I have done a good job establishing Mina Olivander as someone who is very sharp and intelligent but can be a little slow on the uptake and prone to misinterpreting things.
She did actually imobilize the patrols closest to her.
Hermione in her second year didn't have much trouble freezing a huge room of cornish pixies so I figured that someone older, with more power, and a different sort of wand would have an even bigger range.
To the unknown guest who said that ninjas using magic were overkill. I completely agree. Thats why there won't be any ninja wizards. At least not the way you think. Because can you really imagine ninjas waving wooden sticks around?
To the other unknown guest. Thank you kindly for your compliments.
PS. Guess what incident this is.