Disclaimer: Don't own. Don't care. Writing this for free.
ANOUNCEMENT: 29/07/2015
I ended up yielding to the demand of getting the OMAKES out of here. I have put on only one (new) OMAKE so far because I didn't want to focus on fixing the mistakes in those until I got back on track on the main fic. Also, you might be happy to know that I ADDED NEW CONTENT ON PREVIOUS CHAPTERS to replace previous OMAKE'S. I also fixed the mistakes I saw on the past chapters... which is not to say they are perfect now, but I did notice some sentences that were rather hard to read, so there is improvement.
PS: THE START OF THIS TAKES PLACE BEFORE THE ENDING OF THE LAST CHAPTER.
PPS. Remember this stopped being cannon. Tsunade is not cured of her Hemophilia because her confrontation with Orochimaru didn't happen, because the Sannin went to look for Danzo to get his arms fixed.
Chapter still dedicated to Eating Upside Down.
.
Chapter 6: Evildoers
In a world where light prevails, a lot of shady things happen in the shadows, beneath people notice, and as far away from the public eye as possible. So, having ROOT -the most influential, secret organization in all Konohagakure- have its base underground was something that was very fitting.
It also worked to make bad puns.
Not that ROOT was a joking matter: having the eye-patched war hawk as a leader made it a lot of things, but fun was not one of those. Danzo had a talent to suck the happiness (and all other emotions) away from people, and he did it so often, and with so much inner glee, that it could almost be considered a hobby. Which explained why he tried to convert all the people underneath his command into expressionless fanatics instead of the normal fanatical kind.
Of course he wrote off the whole hobby thing by telling himself squashing emotions out of others meant he was successfully weaponizing shinobi.
Nevermind that expressive shinobi had proved to be equally effective than his soldiers.
Then again, Danzo might be wisely trying to prevent his men adopting some eccentric behavior. God forbid one of his tools turned into a soldier half as 'youthful' as Maito Gai.
Yes. Un-emotive soldiers were the best. Not to mention, stripping his foot soldiers of even their identities prevented them from forming emotional attachments, which reduce the risk of betrayal to the organization.
Speaking of nameless soldiers, now that Orochimaru was in Konoha -something he knew because the Sannin sent a snake with a note- Danzo needed to send someone disposable, yet competent, to keep an eye on the Snake Sage. And Danzo, having a long list of tools from which to choose, could afford to be picky. So he would send a man who looked non-threatening enough not to rise suspicions, one who could be easily underestimated, but no so much that Orochimaru would feel demeaned by his choice... And the man should be young, yes. Maybe not so much of a man. A boy? Yes, a boy would do. Specially since Orochimaru had such fixation with obtaining the Uchiha boy as a potential vessel, which hinted that the Sannin had a preference for younger boddies.
Maybe assessing a kid would keep the Sanin's attention split? It would be beneficial when Danzo back-stabbed Orochimaru, if his chosen kid-agent served to distract the snake summoner enough to make a mistake. Danzo would undoubtedly get rid of the man then, for Orochimaru was a danger to Konohagakure. Of course, that didn't mean he would be getting rid of the man hastily. After all, there was much profit that could be obtained in a temporary alliance.
It was also wise to choose a kid to handle Orochimaru because it wouldn't be as big of a loss as it would should he perish. After all, there was a lot less invested into the younger ones. And kid soldiers were disposable, even if they showed a lot of promise, since most of the time the young shinobi died before reaching their full potential.
Danzo walked to the heart of the ROOT hideout. A place caved in stone and reinforced in metal. The spot he had stopped at to wait was the intersection of two bridges resilient enough to support an army, but that had a deep bottom underneath, connected to complex labyrinth in which his people and himself could hid if worst came to worst.
Not even a minute after Danzo stood stiffly in the cross-shaped platform, a small figure walked in. The child-soldier couldn't be older than 12, and his black hair and eyes made his pasty-white skin look even more unhealthy.
This kid clearly didn't know the meaning of the word sunbathing.
"Orochimaru has been working on a research that, once it's in our possession, will greatly help Konoha stand above other ninja countries. You shall meet him. Steal his notes, his prototypes, anything that has to do with this research. Once you have stolen what you must, get back to the base. Unseen," Here Danzo made a pause, looked intently to the kid's face looking for a sign of doubt. He found none... though he did found some semblance to a fox in the face of the creepy smiling kid. "If asked for a name, you shall refer to yourself as Sai."
"Sai, is it?" The kid smiled. It took all the self-control gained during his lifetime as a ninja not to punch the expression out of the scrawny twelve year old's face.
"Don't make fake smiles in front of me... or Orochimaru," Danzo ordered. It wouldn't do to have his agent killed before he accomplished anything...
The kid looked like he was about to give a reply, but Danzo was in no mood to waste time chit-chatting. Not when he was about to get a step closer to accomplish his dream and duty of putting his village on top of the world. "Now go."
The words "Sai" would have spoken never got past his fake smirk. He had his orders. In an instant, the kid's sun-deprived body vanished in a Shunshin, leaving his eye-patched superior standing in the middle on the room.
Danzo stroke his chin, callused fingers going over the ever-so-familiar white, x-shaped scar. If the child he just named proved competent enough to survive, Danzo would make sure to order him to read some books to help him with infiltration missions... Or he could just have the kid copy the Aburame tendency of covering their expresions to hide the lack of those. It would probably be a lot better than letting the brat move around smiling like that.
That smile was bound to earn "Sai" instant enemies. And an ease to earn enemies was not a desired trait in a ninja, much less in one that might be sent on incognito missions, or ordered to ensnare others by befriending them.
Who knows, if it all went well, Danzo might even maneuver Sai to take the place of that pink-haired kunoichi, Haruno Sakura, in the genin-team under Hatake Kakashi. It could prove useful for Danzo to have a mole keeping an eye on both Sasuke Uchiha and the Kyuuby Jinchuuriki. Something made easy by getting rid of the unimportant kunoichi civilian, then replacing said kunoichi with one of his own agents.
Yes. The civilian pinkete shall be eliminated in due time. For now, though, Danzo had bigger fish to fry. Namely Orochimaru and his newest achievement.
Little did Danzo know that the true source of the knowledge he desired was, in reality, a pet-doe with a big green ribbon that was going on a merry walk with the Nara matron at that precise moment.
...
Orochimaru looked up to the sky through the canopy of the trees. He would have moved his arms to cover his yellow eyes from the too bright sunlight if he could move them. As things stood, though, Orochimaru was unable to so much as twitch his fingers. His former teacher sure had inconvenienced him by making that Shinigami suck the part of his soul attached to those extremities.
The whole thing was annoying, especially since Kabuto had to feed him like a sappy lover, or a mother feeding an uncoordinated baby.
He had yet to decide which one of the two ideas disturbed him the most.
Kabuto, on the other hand, looked overly static to take care of his needs, dress him and wipe his muscled... The man's devotion bordered on obsession, really.
Orochimaru probably would have killed his assistant for that behavior, if he wasn't so damn useful. Or if Orochimaru could hold a kunai to do it.
But never mind that. The humiliating days of paralyzed limbs were counted. All the Sannin had to do was trick Danzo into thinking he knew what the old bastard was talking about in his letters, get the help he needed to stop being a cripple, then murder Danzo for letting Sarutobi know about his human experimentations all those years ago.
Problem is, Orochimaru, for once, had no idea what Danzo expected him to have achieved.
The Snake Sage was unable to figure out what hidden meaning was behind the word "socks" in the coded message. The contents of it couldn't possibly be literal, though. That much was a given since ninja always wrote seemingly mundane notes full of hidden meanings. However, out of ideas as Orochimaru was, he made sure to pack enough of the rarely-used-by-ninja piece of clothing...
Not that Orochimaru thought those would be useful. He just really, REALLY needed to get Kabuto out of his sight. The Sannin was sure he would have figured out how to strangle his devoted assistant, despite the fact he could not use his hands.
It was in those Kabuto-free moments that Orochimaru's tried to puzzle what Danzo was seeking. It had to be something big enough to risk infiltrating Konoha's most famous missing nin when the village was most vulnerable.
So, since what Danzo was looking for something. And being the timing of the request as it was. Orochimaru knew it could only be something that took place at some point during the invasion the Sannin did during the chunin exams. Orochimaru tried to think the whole content of the letter carefully:
Socks.
You put your feet into socks.
Your feet are part of yourself.
Socks are also a piece of clothing, something you wear to cover a part of yourself.
He WORE the body of the Sandaime to cover himself...
Maybe Danzo wanted his ability to get under people's skin (literally) so he could have himself or his soldiers impersonating people without the risk of other ninja noticing that chakra was fueling the technique? It would make sense with so many Hyuuga in Konoha, not to mention copy-nin Kakashi, and that probably all the dogs of the Kiba clan could smell the true scent of infiltrators under a genjutsu.
The whole conclusion was more of an educated guess than anything else; not to mention it made sense, for Danzo, to desire a way to get into an enemy's territory undetected by wearing other people's body.
It was probably a good thing for Orochimaru that Kabuto, his #1 fan, never asked for explanations, no matter how seemingly absurd a request Orochimaru came up with these days, so he could send him away to get his very needed moments of peace. Unfortunately, Orochimaru couldn't enter into enemy territory without the protection of his assistant, nor remain without him for too long. Not until his hands were fixed, which led the Sannin with an ever-devoted assistant standing close by, hovering about him like a fly on top a pile of shit.
For a moment, Orochimaru couldn't help but curse Kabuto's usefullness. If the Sannin could dispose of the inventor of the 'wipe-ass-no-jutsu' he would do so as soon as Orochimaru was in full control of his body again.
At least Orochimaru could pretend Kabuto wasn't right beside him at the moment if he didn't turn his head around.
The Sannin couldn't help but daydream about potential replacements: Yamanaka Inoichi's daughter came to mind. He had no doubt he could brainwash her into mindless servitude, and that the girl could be then be prompted to obtain the knowledge of his current assistant/workshiper with the famous Yamanaka mind technique.
The only downsides Orochimaru could see was that the she-brat was not strong enough, and she would need time to adapt the medical knowledge she extracted from Kabuto's deranged mind.
After thinking about the matter for about 2 seconds, Orochimaru was seriously considering the merits of having a female assistant. Even if she became a crazed fan, he wouldn't be bothered by the attitude half as much if it came from a younger kunoichi instead of Kabuto. If only because a Kunoichi could sire him a son, and having someone with similar genetic make-up to experiment on could be beneficial for his research.
Before the idea cemented on Orochimaru's mind, an expressionless kid, one who could put up a good fight against the Sanin in a paleness contest, arrived to the cozy part of the forest he was currently in.
Kabuto instantly moved closer to Orochimaru, kunai firmly held on one hand, ready to attack the newcomer. The kid, however, didn't recoil upon the obvious threatening stance. Instead, the kid lowered himself to one knee and waited to be acknowledged.
A ROOT agent then. A young, disposable, harmless-looking one. Orochimaru wasn't impressed by Danzo's logic, but knew he would probably have done something among those lines if the roles were reversed. After all, kids were never all that useful unless they had a bloodlimit, and, Orochimaru could tell from experience, that even then, the bother of waiting them to master their bloodlimit was not worth the reaps of it.
The Sharingan would be an exception, of course. He knew the ultimate eye technique and his ideal vessel were worth the wait, even more so when the wait would mean him not getting into the young body before puberty issues were over.
Finally deciding to focus on Danzo's little tool, Orochimaru nodded and the kid rose and started leading the way silently towards what was probably one of the scattered, minor ROOT bases. Needless to say, he expected to be left waiting for Danzo to arrive since the man surely wanted to make himself seem more important by wordlessly stating that things would be done on his time of convenience. The ass.
The treck to the ROOT base was both uneventful and predictable. Sai made Orochimaru run around in circles for a while, to make difficult for the Sannin to remember the way there, before stopping in front of a hidden trap door behind a group of non-descript bushes. A small leader went down into a pitch black hole that seemed to stretch several dozen meters into the earth. The three of them ignored the leader, jumping blindly to the abysm of the underground organization.
As they descended, an array of old, sound-suppressing arrays muted the noises coming from the forest. And, had they jumped a few minutes latter, they might have heard a distant hiss coming from the other side of the walls.
...
Nara Shikamaru was moving forwards as the after-image of his mother and that damnable doe finally vanished. The young Nara had his heart beating with great speed, losing his cool like he had never before.
It had his mother.
Whatever that thing was (for it certainly was not a doe) had the woman that had raised him up, the one who made his food and frightened both him and his father in a way only she -an authoritative and exasperated mother/wife- could. He had known Mendo was different, that there was an intelligence in it that didn't reflect in that stupidly doe-eyed face. But he even didn't think about the dangers of having an unknown element at home, all he was doing was try to put together the puzzle, to see how the unusual animal could be of benefit to him, his family and his village.
He was a failure as a ninja, for not noticing the threat. And he was a failure as a son for not protecting his mother.
The panicked people around him were clearly his fault. But a part of him was pleased that the Jounin were searching for what they assumed to be Orochimaru...
Then it hit him. A too smart to be a doe, one that had unknown powers and could hiss like a snake. An experiment? A ninja with a rare bloodline to turn into deer? The possibilities were twirling in Shikamaru's head with vengeance. It was entirely possible (and not too far-fetched) to send an agent to spy the main strategists in Konoha. And what better place to hid a leaf than a forest? Surely nobody would even blink when they learnt the Nara had a new deer. Not even his father would suspect of the fake doe if the agent had used a well-timed ninjutsu (so the appearance of the newborn doe matched the form that agent would have as said animal), then keep a low profile until now. Now that there was no Hokage and the town was rebuilding.
And... wasn't the birth of Mendo conveniently around the time the Sandaime began to prepare for the Chunin exams?
"Shikamaru, are you ok?" Koji asked his best friend who, after letting out a scream of anguish due his loss, froze in place, eyes fogged by the twirling ideas that tried to bury the sense of failure and guilt about what happened.
He could have done so many things different, but he didn't, and his sloppy, lazily-executed actions had made him pay too high a price.
"Hey, kids, did you see anything suspicious?" Anko, the snake kunoichi stopped to ask them, the only ones in the block that weren't either running for shelter from the apparent return of Orochimaru, nor running around to search for the source of threat.
Shikamaru looked to Anko with unusually sharp eyes. He knew that Anko, despite the woman acting brash and having a dress code that gave male ninja very happy dreams, was very smart. She was on the T&I department and, more importantly, had a grudge on Orochimaru big enough to get on his case right away. So he blurted his recently formed theory about the sleeper doe-agent, how he believed was planted, when, where, and complaining (but not specifying) about all the information it probably managed to acquire while spying on the Nara household. Anko didn't reply during Shikamaru's tirade, seemingly seeing the merits of the strategy of planting an animal mole into the unsuspecting Nara.
The furious face Anko made as Shikamaru brought up her old teacher being a possible culprit make Shikamaru take an unconscious step back. The kunoichi looked ready to murder and Shikamaru had no doubt the woman would do anything in her power to unravel whether or not the Sannin was actually involved with the doe's unusualness.
"Thank's for telling me, kid. I'll take it from here," and with that Anko vanished, leaving a calmer, but not less worried, Shikamaru. He feared for his mother potentially being in the clutches of Orochimaru… he needed to tell his father what happened as soon as possible.
He didn't have the time to make his way home to search for Shikaku when his team and him were approached by a sick looking ninja. "Oi, you lot," Hayate Gekkō coughed twice, then continued speaking "There are orders to evacuate the area *cough*. Escort the civilians to the shelters *cough* This is a mission. C ranked *cough**cough*," And with that the men left.
Shikamaru didn't look happy with his abruptly assigned duty. He wanted to make his way to the Nara complex, not to the bunker designed for civilians to be guarded in while ninja attacks took place in the village hidden in the leaf.
"Mendokusei," Shikamaru sighed. Maybe, Shikamaru reasoned, he would bump into his father since the chaos in the civilian sector would need all level headed Jounins at the ready for any eventualities. Not to mention, Orochimaru being a missing nin of Konoha knew where all the designated evacuation spots were, which turned those into potential targets if the Sannin was opting for a distraction to his true purpose in Konohagakure.
"Shika, are you ok?" Ino asked worriedly, as if he were about to break.
"We can take care of this if you want," Choji was giving Shikamaru the same concerned look. Shikamaru felt the lightest bit touched by their friends' attitude, but he wouldn't bend for confort. He was't some kid whose mom had been taken away, he was a ninja, a Chunin, and his mother was too (and she was a lot stronger and experienced than him), so he knew she would be fine. She was too frightening to lose against a doe impersonator.
"I'm ok," he tried to convince himself as much as his friends about that one. "Let's get this mission done."
His friends nodded, and if Ino and Chouji noticed the worry in his voice, they said nothing as they started hoarding the civilians towards safety.
...
Nara Shikaku, a man too lazy to walk to the toilet when he was alone in his house's forest, was peeing on a tree of the Nara woods when an unidentified *POP* sound came from his house. Expertly rushing his release and, getting up his pants in a way only a ninja can, he mentally mapped the route he would walk towards his house as he made it there to stealthy discover the source of the unknown sound.
A minute or two latter, him going extra slow not to step on a branch, he discovered his wife and her favorite doe giving each other meaningful looks.
He was really surprised when he noticed a sort of conversation going between them.
Also, by the words exchanged, it appeared the doe did know how to play shogi. He probably owed an apology to his son for that one.
"Would you play with me then?" Shikaku asked out of the blue, startling the two inside into a jump. Huge doe-eyes glared at Shikaku, noticing it was him right after jumping in front of Yoshino protectively. Interesting.
The sound of an alarm filled the air and Shikaku knew that his need to satisfy his curiosity about the doe's apparent intelligence (and the reason why it chose to hide it) would have to wait.
With a look that stated things weren't over, Shikaku, one of the makeshift, temporary leaders of Konoha, rushed out to the Hokage tower, promising himself to get a game out of the intriguing doe.
Yoshino looked at "Rai-chan" with an apologetic look before following her husband at full speed. All able-bodied ninja had a fixed role to play on the times some treat befell the village and Yoshino couldn't carry a doe along with her...
Besides, Rai-chan would he safer being left behind.
If Yoshino had more time to get over the shock of her beloved Rai-chan shunshinning her from one place to another, being able to play shogi and actually understand her words, she might have suspected that the panic in the village had everything to do with the hiss the doe had let out after seeing Shikamaru and his team come out of the alley from wich they were shadowing the doe.
...
Naruto, Tsunade, Shizune and Jiraiya had yet to set foot past the western gate when the sound of alarms filled the air. The Frog Sanin stopped traumatizing Naruto with tales of his sex achievements at the sound; Tsunade, on the other hand, sobered up in a blink, and Shizune merely hugged the very lucky pig that got pressed against those small, but plump, breasts. Sure, they paled against Tsunade's twin melons, but Jiraiya, the super pervert that he was, could appreciate all sizes of fruit.
Sadly, he couldn't enjoy the perks of having female company around during an emergency. And, even though he was too far from to hear the hissing sound that threw the ninja of the Village Hidden in the Leaf into panic, the pattern of the alarm sound and the pattern of the nin-birds flying in the sky let him know exactly where the source of the panic was.
After ten minutes of fast traveling on the rooftops, they found civilians being hoarded by genin and chūnin as was regular procedure on invasions. Only, he couldn't see the invading party, or any new property damage since he took Naruto form the village... nothing was out of the norm if one ignored the jounins jumping on the roofs looking around with intense focus.
Odd.
He had looked around for a threat, he found none. A gasp from behind him had him jump and draw a handful of shuriken ready to strike. He noticed Tsunade's horrified eyes. He followed them to the sight that mortified his fellow Sanin: a kid with a bloody scrape on his left knee -he probably fell at some point during the commotion. The injury was pretty minor, but Tsunade's hemophobia caused her to freeze like she had just seen all her loved ones standing in a pool of their own blood all over again.
"Tsunade, we need to get going," Jiraiya informed. Something was off. He could feel it in his bones. The fact that some ninja began lowering their guards, convinced that it had been a drill, wasn't helping his nerves. His honed instincts were screaming at him that something big was about to happen. And big things in the ninja world meant a lot of innocent lives would be lost.
And without a true leader to govern and unite them all, chaos was going to ensue at the flip of a coin.
They needed to move. Now. Just… Tsunade wasn't moving at all. Jiraiya cursed.
"Naruto, help Shizune move her to a safe spot. Stay together."
"Awww, but Ero-Senin I want to fight," Naruto complained, whiskered cheeks puffing as he pouted.
"Just do it," The Sannin ordered, more serious that Naruto had ever seen him before, then jumped away, hands moving into the now-familiar summon katas.
...
Danzo was very unhappy when the village alarms sounded. He said as much when Orochimaru entered the base, demanding an explanation of the Sannin since the ROOT agents that were on patrol in the area had made sure he knew as soon as possible that every jounin in the village was looking for their most famous missing-nin.
Orochimaru was honestly surprised they knew he was there; he was a careful man, and he had done nothing that could possibly alert even the best sensors Konoha had to offer. So the White Snake asked Danzo what exactly his agents had told him. Unamused, Danzo complied, looking into Orochimaru's face very carefully as he retold word for word what his agent had relied.
…
Pain. So much pain. His body hurt like it was about to fall to pieces. But he didn't give up. He couldn't. He had fought too hard to get where he had, to have his dreams stolen after he put so much effort.
So he rose his leg into a kick, green spandex stretching as sweat poured from his forehead.
He was alone. And not just because he had removed himself as far as he could from his fellow human beings, but because not even Gai-sensei was standing by him as he fought to recover of the terrible damage an out of control Gaara had done to his body.
How could Gai-sensei of all people ask him to rest when his career as a ninja was in the verge of ending? And what else was out there for him if it did?
The first kick was followed by another, then another. The yells coming out of his mouth were half youthful passion half anguish. He couldn't hear anything with the blood pumping on his ears. He didn't notice when his wobbly legs slipped on a pool of his own sweat. His face met the muddy ground, his crutch falling far away from him. He stayed down, motionless, tears and sweat mixed as they rolled down his face.
His life was over.
He passed out before the alarms started sounding. He didn't see Nara Shikaku and his wife pass near where he collapsed, neither did he noticed the small, green-eyed doe that was stumbling on the same path the Naras had passed by, making it's way towards his unconscious body.
To Be Continued.
EXTRA: Petition. Shogi matchs.
"And this is the king," Shikamaru pointed to the most important piece of wood on the board. Mendo The Doe looked vacantly at him as he explained every piece blindly being pointed since he had long since memorized the position and size of each piece of that particular shogi set. As Shikamaru finished explaining how the king moved and how the game was over when you took it, he wondered if the doe understood what he was telling it.
Shikamaru moved the first piece: a wordless statement that the game had started. In turn Mendo stared, and stared, and kept on staring. Shikamaru's attentive eyes were, for once, not on the board but on the other player. His concentration was fully into the green doe-eyed face of the tiny, 4 month-old doe. That same concentration he had now in the animal had been the reason why he hadn't noticed his father's momentary shock at him explaining a doe how to play shogi.
He was also unaware of him being thought as crazy by the Nara Jounin.
But that's besides the point. The only thing that seemed to exist in the world for a moment were himself, the doe and the Shogi board.
An intense moment of silence and doubt was broken as the doe awkwardly raised its foreleg and stepped over one piece with it's hoof, uncoordinatedly managing to move it unto another spot in a trembling zig zag.
Apparently, the doe had understanded him.
Shikamaru moved a second piece, Mendo did too. He prepared a formation, got ready for attack; she built a defensive front. Little by little, the clumsy movements became less erratic, though he did still have to get pieces near the one that was being moved back to their proper places when the doe bumped them out of spots in her clumsy playing. The doe even got the moves wrong every now and then, him having to repeat the explanation of how that particular piece moved...
He wasn't exactly sure when the doe had gotten the upper-hand.
He felt shock when the doe cornered his king into a checkmate.
He couldn't believe he lost to a doe.
Still incredulous at the face of his defeat, Shikamaru rose his face and looked to the still blank-faced doe. That face ticked him off more than any expression he had seen before in a human being. The doe looked downright dumb. And he lost to that dumb-looking animal.
He wanted a rematch.
Fixing the board anew, he started again. The doe took less time to make its moves. He wasted less time fixing the board as the doe's coordination rose a little with every move.
He lost again.
He started over. He lost a third time.
The blank face of Mendo was making it very hard not to punch the doe. Then, when he thought he couldn't get any more riled up by the situation, it stuck his tongue at him with a blank face.
It was an effective taunt (whether or not the doe knew the meaning of the gesture). This meant war. He would not stop util he got his victory!
...
He won.
He was not happy.
If he hadn't thought the doe as irritating before he did so now. In fact, he felt increasingly upset every time the doe fell for an obvious trap (something it hadn't done in any other matches), then it would make small mistakes that a man of lesser intellect would have mistaken as the opponent being distracted. He knew better, though. The doe had let him win.
He looked up to the doe again. The same blank face greeted him. There was no glimpse of intelligence, no evidence of the strategist that had beaten him every match so far.
Shikamaru's eye twitched.
He shooed the doe back into the forest, lest he tried to make himself feel better by chopping it to pieces. Not that he would actually do so. Chopping a doe (no matter how small) not only required a lot of effort (specially when he imagined all the blood he would have to clean off the wooden tiles), but it also would be too troublesome to explain to his parents why he decided to murder the animal.
For now, the young Nara needed time alone to rethink his strategy, figure out why he lost, then come up with a new game-plan the next time he had a match against Mendo. It would take him four hours of intense planning, but he got his strategy at last.
Sadly, he could not convince the doe to play again when he invited it back in (forced it back into the room would be more accurate). Standing in front of the board, Mendo simply looked him in the eyes, face blank, then moved away perfectly pretending to be as dumb as his fellow deer, walking all over the board before wandering aimlessly inside the room making as much of a mess as it could in the sparsely furnished room.
Shikamaru wanted to force it to play with him again, his hands were twitching to get a grip on it and drag it back by it's neck if necessary. Unfortunately, Asuma-sensei came knocking down his door. The Ino-Shika-Cho (Second Generation) had a mission away from the village. It would be a while before he got home.
He would get a proper rematch when he was back. He assured himself.
Little did Shikamaru know that the doe that defeated him would get another victory while he was absent. With the strong-willed Yoshino as a cooing shield for the doe, Nara Shikamaru wouldn't have his rematch until the after the new Hokage sat in the big, comfy chair, and wore the mandatory silly, white hat.
Needless to say, by wrapping Nara Yoshino to her (figurative) little finger, Harry doe had achieved the ultimate victory in the Nara complex.
End of the Extra
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AN: Sorry for the delay. I don't have a very excuse for it, other than on the 29th of July I got the whole thing done beautifully... only for the internet to fall when I was about to save it. Needless to say, I was upset I lost what I was working on. I refused to write for a month out of sheer pettiness… point is, this one came too late, and doesn't have anything added that made it worth the wait. Sorry about that. I do want to point out that Anko is still Anko, the confrontation with Orochimaru has yet to happen and Mendo is in her way to meet a very much alive Lee.
Also, I finally decided which of my many many plotbunnies I was going to make into an actual HPxNaruto fic… But I need someone to run things by. Any volunteers for a pre-read of the first chapter of a fic that I have written? I have two versions of it and I cannot make my mind which I like the most.
Anyway. Thanks for reading. Keep up being awesome readers who REVIEW your favorite doe-centric fic.