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"How do you feel about learning some barrier ninjutsu?" Shikako asks, after they've run through their daily warm up.
She feels unjustly pleased with how well Anko is improving — she hadn't been behind, but once Shikako explains what they're doing and why and how badass it's going to be once it's mastered, her student has put forth exceptional amounts of motivation, even for tasks as boring as running laps or dodge training.
("I wouldn't call dodge training boring, sensei," Anko had muttered into the dirt and Shikako had blithely agreed it was a little more entertaining than running circles, at least.)
"Barrier techniques?" Anko repeats, bouncing in place a little, seeming to recover energy as she does. Kids. Shikako feels tired just watching her, sometimes. "Like, uh, tripwires 'n stuff? I'm good at that! Or like earth jutsu stuff?"
Shikako hadn't really meant to get herself a defensive specialisation, but with the majority of her usual tricks off the table while 'laying low', she was left with adequate taijutsu, barely adequate kenjutsu, unqualified medical ninjutsu, a handful of earth jutsu and whatever else she could pull up at short notice.
Defensive it was.
"Well, I could teach you Earth Wall," Shikako says, consideringly. It's a pretty basic C-rank, and handy in a pinch. Versatile and there's generally plenty of natural resource around for it, unlike water jutsu. "Remind me to test your elemental affinity later, okay? And we can definitely do more trap work. No, uh," she runs a hand through her hair, "this technique is kinda a personal creation. You're about five years behind on Jutsu Theory to be able to understand it, but you should be able to use it."
"Shikako-sensei, you're so cool," Anko says. "You made a jutsu?"
If only she knew.
"Can I learn Jutsu Theory? Can I make a jutsu? What does it do?" Anko rattles off the questions without pause.
"Sure, I'll get you some notes," Shikako says, amused. "And we can talk through the new jutsu you learn when you learn them. But first watch this." She holds a palm out in front of her and thinks: Barrier Wall. Ink stamps itself into the air and a translucent chakra barrier springs to life. "Attack it, if you want."
Anko throws all of her tiny genin arsenal at it, and — after a questioning look — even tries a few exploding tags.
"That's amazing!" She enthuses, when they do absolutely nothing. "Hell yeah! Please teach me how to do that!"
The Barrier Seal is technically in the Nara RnD backlog, to be approved whenever they get around to it. With the combination of everyone being flat out with the war, the lack of seal specialists in RnD and her own barely-begrudging-tolerance by the clan… that timeframe is probably somewhere south of never.
Which is disappointing in its own right. Konoha would be better off, if all the ninja had Barrier Seals and Shikako kinda understands how Tsunade got so jaded when her life-saving medical proposals were sidelined. But for now it means that her barrier technique is basically unknown and therefore largely assumed to be a ninjutsu — because statistically most techniques were ninjutsu. No one would blink an eye at her teaching it to her apprentice.
Even when it was revealed to be a seal —
No one would really blink at her teaching her apprentice that, either, because teaching apprentices your techniques was what you did.
"It's a little like Exploding Tags," Shikako says. "I'll teach you how to draw it, and then we can start going over the theory behind it until you understand. We'll start with paper, since it's always good to have some tags you can set and leave… but for a seal like this you can also draw it on your skin." She taps the palm of her hand, maybe implying that's what she'd done. "So you can always have one… at hand."
Gratifyingly, Anko laughs at the joke. "It will be so cool," she says, reverently.
Anko is a quick study and the seal isn't that complicated — as seals go — so by the next day Shikako is confident in supervising her to paint two seals onto the palms of her hands. One Barrier Wall, one Barrier Dome.
"Don't get them mixed up," Shikako suggests.
Anko rolls her eyes. "They're on different hands, sensei."
Shikako smirks, twirling a kunai around her index finger. "We'll see," she says. "To the practice field, Anko-chan."
Exploding notes are the kind of offensive force multiplier that Shikako herself had used as a genin to great effect. Easy to use, easy to get, and packing a hell of a punch. She hopes this barrier technique will give Anko the defensive equivalent — because the simple fact of the matter is that training a Genin takes time and that's the one thing that they do not have.
"Same rules as our last mission," Shikako says, wiggling the scroll at her student.
"Don't die," Anko says dutifully. She fidgets with her new fingerless gloves — covering the seals on her palms so no one realises they're responsible for her barriers and tries to target them — and adjusts her mission pack. "Where are we going?"
"North," Shikako says, mouth pressed into a flat line. "Extremely close to the Rock front." Given that the front is an ever shifting zone of combat, as ninja from each village attempt — and sometimes succeed — to sneak past each other, Konoha proper probably doesn't even know where the current front is exactly. That kind of up to date information would be handled at the outposts and combat stations.
It's still much closer than Shikako is really eager to take a genin so fresh that she still sparkles, but she doesn't have a lot of choice. And more than that—
"How do you feel about chameleons?" She asks.
"Uh," Anko says at the non sequitur. "I haven't seen one? They're cool, I guess? With like, the camouflage and stuff."
"Good," Shikako says, and instead of going straight north leads them slightly northwest, to where the Kubisaki Pass crosses the northern mountain ranges. It's risky — far too close to the war stations that will one day become the Land of Stone, where the heaviest of the current fighting is — but in this case she considers the payoff worth it.
There aren't many ways to quickly upskill a genin — if it were easy everyone would do it. There's no way for Shikako to get her student a legendary sword (the Sword of the Thunder God remains sadly locked away and unused in the Senju Treasure Vault) and even if Gelel might have been an opportunity, it's location deep in Sand territory means it's completely off the table.
But a summons…
That would do it.
If Anko hadn't wanted it, Shikako would have taken it herself — bittersweet reminder of Ino or not — because she could think of a few uses for a man-eating castle.
But she's glad Anko isn't opposed. Given that she usually signs the snake contract, Shikako hadn't thought that reptiles would be a particular issue, but she can imagine that Orochimaru might not have exactly presented it as a choice.
Their trip is thankfully uneventful. They hit the pass and Shikako teaches her student how to keep her footing on the looser rock and shale ground — or how to slip and slide under her own control — and how to minimise signs of her passing and how to spot where others have been. How to keep her balance in trees that are thinner and weaker than any in Konoha, and when such a thing might be safer than standing on the ground.
"We're going to make a quick stop first," Shikako says, leading them off the main path. "Can you tell me anything about this castle?"
Anko looks at her and then it, like she knows there must be more to it than she can see, but not like she suspects it to be a trap. "Uh, it's old," she offers. "And empty."
Shikako waits and let's her student assess and gather information to the best of her abilities. From the outside, the castle isn't dangerous and that makes it good practice.
"I don't really see anything," Anko says eventually. "How come we stopped here? Is it related to our mission? Is there information here? Is there treasure here?" She says the last one like it's more of a joke, but it's the closest to being true.
"The best kind of treasure," Shikako assures her. "Because that's not a castle at all. It's a chameleon. A summons."
Anko looks at the castle without an ounce of disbelief. "No way. Like the Sannin have?"
"Exactly like," Shikako says. "But the person who summoned it died a long time ago. Which means… if we're very lucky… you might be able to sign the summoning scroll inside."
"Me?" Anko says. "Not you, sensei?"
"It'll be better if it's you," Shikako assures her without getting into the many and myriad reasons why that's so. It's enough that it's true. "So what do you think?"
"Hell yeah," is apparently what Anko thinks. "It would be super badass to have a summon that's a whole castle."
"It'll be a little dangerous," Shikako warns. "Once we go inside we won't be able to leave again until the scroll is signed. So stick with me, or if we get separated head upwards until you find the scroll. Use your barriers and your exploding notes, if you have to."
Anko nods, firmly, and squares her shoulders. "I'm ready."
Contrary to what Shikako warns, when they walk inside it doesn't seem dangerous at all; nothing attacks them. The doors slam shut, and the interior has that creepy haunted house vibe — but since they don't attack it, it apparently thinks it's fooling them.
Shikako fixes on the ghost of the chakra of Kubisaki — the chakra of Kubisaki's ghost? — and leads them through the fake repeating hallways towards it. The closer they get the more that the floors start to buckle underfoot and the suits of armour start to move but…
This place had given Shikako trouble when she had been a genin. She isn't, anymore. She isn't by a long shot. She just sets a hand on Anko's shoulder and whisks them through a shunshin that takes them right to the ghost.
"Uh, sensei?" Anko asks, as they watch the ghost walk across the floor. "Is that guy… okay?"
"Mm," Shikako says. "He's the ghost of the summoner. Just follow him."
"A ghost? For serious? Sensei, you take me on the best missions."
It has been so long, Kubisaki says, bowing over the summoning scroll. He is loyal. I asked him to stay… to devour my enemies, and he did so. But it has been so long. Return him home. It is over…
"We… uh… we'll take care of him," Anko assures him, approaching with surprising boldness. Maybe because Shikako has already told her what to do and why she's here.
The ghost vanishes. Anko pricks her fingertip with a kunai and signs her name to the scroll with a flourish. "Uh, thanks, Mister Ghost. Thanks, Mister Castle. Can you let us out now?"
The wall flexes in a disturbingly fleshlike way, and opens a corridor back to the outside.
"Tell it to desummon," Shikako suggests. "It's mission is finished. All of Kubisaki's enemies were destroyed."
"Yeah. Mister Castle," Anko repeats. "You can go home now, okay?"
Your words have been heard, the castle sighs and vanishes in a vast cloud of chakra smoke.
"Nice job," Shikako says and means it. "Now, just signing the scroll doesn't mean that the chameleons have to listen to you — anymore than getting assigned a team by Konoha means that your teammates have to listen to you. You'll have to talk to them and negotiate and make friends."
Anko smiles at her brightly. "You can count on me, sensei!"
There's one more reason that Shikako was willing to take this mission with her student — and that reason pays out as they detour even further east on the way back home. Land of Grass isn't any less of a war front — and in many ways is actually more so — but in this one instance Shikako isn't looking to avoid a fight.
Well, a specific fight. A very specific fight.
It's edging into April, 47 years past Konoha Founding, and Minato Namikaze has been deployed to the Iwa front. In the Academy history classes, they'll say this is the beginning of the end of the war, when the Yellow Flash had for the first time demonstrated his true mastery of the Flying Thunder God Jutsu and it's army killing potential.
It means that Kakashi Hatake is a newly promoted Jounin.
It means that Team Kakashi is — maybe — somewhere between Konoha and Kannabi Bridge.
Maybe. If Shikako hasn't done something to change it already. The butterfly effect is hard to track. Maybe Shikako taking missions has shuffled the pool of available ninja around. Maybe she's killed the right Rock ninja and stopped the mission on their end. Maybe she's killed the wrong one and they're busy doing something worse. Maybe the mission has been delayed. Maybe it's already happened and she's too late.
But her luck holds, both good and bad.
She isn't too late. Team Kakashi is in the area. They're fighting two Rock ninja and there are about two dozen more incoming as backup. Two squads, the way Hidden Rock structures them.
"Anko," she says, crouching down so that Anko can clamber onto her back. "We need to move fast. We're about to enter combat. Your job is to regroup with the other Konoha ninja and get inside a barrier. Preferably off the ground."
She pours on speed that a Genin couldn't have hoped to match, heading as directly for the combat zone as she can. The area is pretty flat but there are massively thick bamboo growing everywhere — narrowly spaced enough that dodging between them at speed takes some severe agility.
"Ball up. I got it," Anko says, tucking her face down into the shoulder pad of Shikako's vest and hands gripping nervously. She's a trooper but she is ten and this will be her first serious combat encounter.
"I mean it," Shikako adds firmly, hoping to head off any attempts at heroics. She will let Anko gain experience under controlled circumstances, and this is not one of them. "Let me do the fighting."
There isn't time to hammer the point in more — ahead of them is a clearly jutsu-made earthen dome and inside that dome is the chakra of Team Kakashi. Kakashi and an Uchiha fire-chakra are on one side, separated from probably-Rin by the two Rock ninja.
Not a great position to be in.
"Hold tight!" Shikako says and hits the earth dome at speed, reinforcing her legs and kicking straight through the wall. She scoops probably-definitely-Rin under one arm and bounces onto the ceiling, running up and over so she can land by the boys. Kakashi has one eye shut and bleeding, and one shoulder hunched down like it's wounded. Obito doesn't seem injured but his sharingan are activated. Rin is limp in her grip — not unconscious, her chakra is disrupted under some kind of genjutsu.
"Heh," the one visible Rock ninja says, as the other — under some kind of Hiding with Camouflage Jutsu — starts to drift sideways and around. "Backup, huh? You think that's going to be enough?"
"Anko," Shikako says, as her student scrambles down off her back. She thrusts Rin at Obito, draws her crappy Konoha issue tanto, and darts forward out of Anko's range.
"Barrier Ball!" Anko shouts. Unfortunately there isn't enough room under the dome for them to get off the ground the way Shikako would ideally like them to, to protect them from attacks from below — but if Anko can protect them from falling rocks then that's half the battle covered.
Team Kakashi might protest, but Shikako isn't open to criticism right now.
Shikako feints at attack at the Rock nin with bushy hair, and then skips sideways instead and stabs her tanto into the air where the invisible one is trying to circle into her blindspot. She moves quick, using the tip of her sword to set a touch blast and then has to reverse her momentum to block the sword of the first ninja. His sword — either much better quality or strengthened with a jutsu — cuts through her crappy tanto and shatters it into pieces.
She stamps a Touch Blast onto the hilt and throws it into his face, retreating backwards. "Explode!"
Invisi-ninja flickers back into sight in a mist of blood, missing half a shoulder and all his life, but bushy-hair-ninja manages to tank through his — probably earth armour or similar — losing only his eyebrows, launching himself through the smoke at speeds that would definitely make things difficult for the average jounin Shikako is pretending to be.
She dodges narrowly, then dodges narrowly again and decides that the incoming backup means they don't really have time for her to prevaricate very much.
"Shadow Possession," she says, outloud for the benefit of the kids, and snares the Rock ninja easily because it's dimly lit inside this cave-dome-thing and he keeps trying to engage her in close combat.
Okay, Shadow Possession is kinda cutting edge jutsu at this point in time — rather than the more old fashioned Shadow Paralysis — but he is holding a sword while she isn't, and Shikako feels like she's obligated to make use of that, turning her empty hand until he stabs himself.
Then again, if she thinks about it, the only one who might be able to judge what she's doing is Kakashi who is probably too busy being injured and also, as a genius prodigy, likely has no idea what a normal jounin is like anyway.
All clear she signs at Anko as she quickly seals her ex-opponents into Body Scrolls. Said scrolls aren't really a habit of Konoha at this point in the timeline, but leaving bodies lying everywhere is so… unhygienic.
Anko cancels the barrier dome and scrambles to her side.
Shikako wishes she had time to be more reassuring but… "They have backup incoming," she says. "We need to regroup to a better location ASAP. First rule of combat, Anko-chan, is 'don't hang out inside enemy jutsu'."
Anko nods and casts a wary glance at the ceiling. "I'll definitely remember that rule, sensei," she agrees which means somehow or other Shikako has already infected her with the selective rule following behaviour of a true Team 7.
Well, as long as she agrees that this rule is important.
Shikako even manages to hustle Team Kakashi out of the dome towards dubious safety before Rin speaks up.
"Ah, thank you for the help," the girl says politely. "But… who are you?"
"Shikako Nara. Jounin. That's my apprentice—"
"Anko Mitarashi! I'm a genin!"
"—We were in the area on a separate mission when I noticed the fighting and figured you guys needed a hand."
This clearly seems to be perfectly believable to them. Depending on how this plays out, Shikako might get censure when she makes it back to Konoha but, as Inoichi had once said if it works, it looks like it was well planned. Stopping to help a fellow team of Konoha ninja is a good plan if you're capable of backing it up.
"Your mission…" Kakashi starts to ask.
"Is already complete," Shikako says, not cutting him off as much as completing the sentence. "So we're free to help you complete yours. Whatever that might be."
She could guess why a newly minted Jounin wouldn't want a slightly-less-newly-minted Jounin honing in on their first mission, and she can definitely see that Anko is far from prepared for missions of this caliber, but neither of these factors are actually up for consideration. Shikako isn't interested in taking over, but she isn't going to be shaken off, either.
"This will do," she says when they reach a large clearing that's going to play a little better into their strengths.
They don't exactly have a choice, anyway, because the first of the Rock nin following them slinks out of the ground and more and more start sliding out of the bamboo forest like creepers.
"Just a bunch of kids," the first says, satisfied. Like they're going to be easy prey.
What a jerk. And an idiot. Have they not thought about what happened to their pals? None of these nin are even at the level of the two she has already killed, but they are utilising Hidden Rock's favourite strategy of numerical superiority. Shikako's team is fully surrounded — including both above and below.
She considers the chances of success of ordering Team Kakashi into the safety sphere but if she knows anything about Kakashi Hatake it's that he not only won't, he'll also move as far apart from the others as possible to make it hard to keep him safe.
No warning it is, then.
Obligingly, one of the Rock nin races through handseals and makes a wave of dirt race across the ground towards them.
"Jump!" Shikako orders, and they all go up, Rin even sticking close to Anko to help her. What a good kid. "Anko, now!"
In mid-air, Anko materialises a Barrier Sphere around them and the wave of dirt bounces harmlessly off the bottom of it, lacking the firepower to do any damage whatsoever.
Unfortunately, Kakashi — the little shit — has avoided getting caught in the barrier, warning or no.
Great.
Fighting two dozen Rock nin is one thing. Fighting two dozen Rock nin and stopping a bullheaded, already-injured baby jounin getting murdered is something else.
She loves him, she really does, but seriously.
Shikako takes a deep breath and throws a brace of kunai — catching sight of Kakashi doing the same and hopes that he decides to stick to ranged attacks, where he'll be easier to defend. She dashes forward to follow her own up with closer and more deadly attacks —
And then has to perform some fancy footwork as one of Kakashi's kunai abruptly becomes the Yellow Flash, and she nearly makes his acquaintance face-first.
"Friendly fire, kid!" She yelps over her shoulder in the general direction of Kakashi, who is making an I didn't know it would do that face. Yeah, alright. If he'd known he'd probably have thrown that kunai way sooner.
In the time it takes her to avoid crashing into him, Minato Namikaze has caught his own hiraishin kunai, assessed the situation, thrown the kunai again and killed two men.
You couldn't fault him for efficiency. Shikako decides to leave the aboveground enemies all to him. She staggers deliberately over one of the chakra signatures hiding underground, the way someone injured or exhausted might, and almost immediately hands grab her ankles and drag her into the dirt.
It's very kind of them. Once she's safely out of sight she feels no qualms about slipping into Shadow State and using Shadow stitching to take out the Rock nin attacking her and the one that's clear across the battlefield. By the time she's collected both corpses, all the enemy chakra above her has vanished, so she drags them to the surface and dusts off her hands.
She's only a little disappointed to have missed watching Minato fight. He's always so spectacular.
"Namikaze-sama," she salutes. "Nice timing."
"Nice footwork," he says back, "Nara-san." Which probably means her avoid-collision-techniques were a little too flash for the skill level she's claiming to have. Or that he approves of her ambush tactics?
Mostly though, he turns to the Barrier Sphere, lips twitching in a way that says yes this is a serious occasion and he recognises that, but yes it is also funny.
The barriers, being made of chakra, are difficult to stick to. The sphere is rounded with reasonably curved sides.
In practice, that means the three kids have slid into a very undignified heap at the bottom of the ball. It's kind of adorable, though she's not going to say that.
"Interesting technique," Minato says.
"Don't know what I'd do without it," Shikako says honestly and gives Anko an all clear sign so she can cancel the jutsu.
The kids all tumble to the ground and Shikako absolutely abandons Minato to dealing with his teams protestations that they definitely could have fought and that they didn't need to be locked in the safety bubble.
Shikako pats her student on the head, who is hopefully still extremely happy to be locked in a safety bubble. Then again, if Kakashi-sensei had said in the middle of the Land of Waves kids, get in the undignified hamster ball, it's safe genin Shikako probably would have done it with alacrity. "Great job," she says. "You're doing amazing."
Anko looks pleased. "Are we really going to help them with their mission?" she asks.
"Depends what their mission is," Shikako says, as if she doesn't know. "And if Namikaze-sama is going to stick around."
Minato Namikaze looks at them with a look that seems friendly but is absolutely a cold blooded tactical assessment of their skills and worth, how much they're going to contribute and how likely they are to get murdered if he sends them home on their own. He's so great. Shikako can't wait for him to be Hokage.
"The more the merrier," he says. "My presence at the outpost is no longer required—" by which he absolutely means that no Rock ninja is alive between here and the border station "— and our goal now is the destruction of the Kannabi Bridge."
"Excellent," Shikako says. "I haven't yet demonstrated how to purposefully use high grade explosives for structural damage for my genin yet. Anko-chan, you'll have to pay close attention."
"Yes, sensei!" chirps her terrifying and adorable student.
All in all, it's been a pretty successful day.