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Shikaku had always wondered where, exactly, his daughter pulled her motivation from. He didn’t think anyone in his family or Yoshino’s had ever been quite so energetic. Her chakra hypersensitivity should’ve been the deathblow to any potential career as a shinobi. He had agreed with the doctors when they said that she would never be anything other than a civilian.
And yet.
Years later and Shikako is a Jounin at fourteen, her Jounin project having been rebuilding the police force, and she had helped reorganize Konoha’s entire education department as a side project at the same time. She had, over the span of a few days, completely revolutionized Konoha’s logistics division. She is a student of Kakashi Hatake and every inch a sealmaster prodigy inching ever closer to S rank- if she wasn’t already there. She had participated in more regime changes than he was entirely comfortable with, probably more than anyone was really comfortable with. She had duelled a future kage and he left the field alive because she allowed it. Twice. She had been half the reason for the alliances with Suna and Kiri that had been brokered, and she had strengthened one of those alliances by taming a Bijuu in front of an entire hidden village. He was more proud of her than he could truly put into words, but that pride was paired with something else.
Fear.
Once, his worst fears for her had been about her hypersensitivity and how it would affect her life in a family of shinobi, more specifically, how it might affect her relationship with her Shikamaru. Now, he’s already had to gather a team and assassinate an S rank nukenin who was gunning for her. She’s had to fight for her life against long odds in both of the chunnin exams she attended- once from Orochimaru, once from the genin from Sound, and once from kidnappers in Grass. She’s in ANBU and that carried its own set of risks, not least of which was the need to conceal certain techniques to protect her anonymity. She nearly dies on seemingly half of her missions (and actually died on several) and the desk nin are convinced she and her team are somehow cursed. They had even had the audacity to complain about it where they knew he could hear them. Shikaku isn’t entirely sure they aren’t right. C rank missions shouldn’t escalate that often.
He was half terrified that one of those insane missions would go wrong again, that there wouldn’t be a convenient god and stubborn brother to save her from another sword through the chest. He knows about the moniker of Shikabane-hime, hates where it came from and hates what it means. It’s not because she’s dangerous to her enemies- or at least, that wasn’t what it first meant when Shikako coined it and it doesn’t mean only that. Corpse Princess was too apt a name for Shikako and that was something he would never truly be comfortable with. He wouldn’t try to lock her up in the village like Shikamaru wanted him to, she would never accept it and there were many ways she could get around it anyways, painful though most would likely be.
Privately, he wondered if she had made any more S rank enemies, if there were other things that lurked in the dark she wasn’t telling him about, or perhaps ones that even she didn’t know existed. He could do nothing but worry and lend a hand, an ear, or a jutsu when she needed them.
Of course, Shikako wasn’t content generating worry about her physical safety- she also made him worry about her spiritual well being. She had been catatonic entirely too long after the incident at Hot Springs, and he wasn’t sure she had ever really recovered- having a comrade and friend die in front of you was bad enough, but Jashin had hurt her in ways nobody truly understood. Itachi’s tsukuyomi had clearly done a number on her, even if she never admitted it, nevermind how quickly she had jumped in front of it in the first place. Shikako’s split shadow had made him feel more guilty than he ever had before- his utter failure at protecting his daughter, not just physically, but spiritually, forever grating. He had thought that if he couldn’t protect her in the field, he could at least do so in Konoha- at home. Apparently he wasn’t even capable of that much. Worst of all, Shikaku was uncertain how much his daughter valued her own life, and that terrified him.
Kakashi has noticed the parallels between his team now and Team Minato. How could he not? They had been a lot more apparent when things had started- loud and boisterous dead last, grim and brooding prodigy, friendly kunoichi, and a genius sensei. The gap between the two teams had widened with time, however. Sasuke was far warmer and kinder than Kakashi had been anywhere near his age. Naruto was apprenticed under Jiraiya, one of the Sannin, and very much uncrushed by a large number of rocks. While Shikako knew medical jutsu, she was far more a sealmaster than a medic- more Minato than Rin. His thoughts circle back to Shikako often, especially of late. She was strong, so much stronger than Obito or Rin had ever gotten the chance to be.
But Minato had been strong too, stronger than Shikako, and it hadn’t saved him, hadn’t saved Kushina. At times it even seemed as if she was shooting for Hokage like Minato had been, although Kakashi knew better. Good thing for Naruto too, he wouldn’t have much of a chance if Shikako made a play for the hat, not with the reputation she already had.
Her entrance into ANBU had worried him a bit, but it hadn’t taken much to assuage those particular worries. Even if Shikako maybe needed a lesson in how not to die, she wasn’t ever going to seek death the way he once had, and Sasuke wouldn’t either. Granted, Shikako didn’t seem to need to look for near-death experiences for them to find her. She had almost died, or been clinically dead, far too often for Kakashi's taste (or Shikaku’s, as the man had informed him in such a friendly manner). She had been the one to coin rule one, and it seemed unfair to the rest of them that she was the one that was often closest to breaking it. Kakashi casually ignored his own many near death experiences, as they were different. And not relevant. Except maybe the Sharingan chakra drain due to the unmanifested Mangekyou. That was relevant because his cute genin had gotten together to save him and Obito’s eye. He was so proud of them all.
Shikako was the only one of his genin that hadn’t seemed to have a reason to be greatly motivated and was a Nara besides, and yet she had seemed the most motivated of them all half the time. Quite the feat, on the same team as Sasuke and his desperate need for revenge (that Kakashi was very glad had been properly tempered). For all that she might deny it, she was a sealmaster like Minato had been- even if she hadn’t or couldn’t figure out something like the Hiraishin, she had plenty of terrifying things up her sleeves. Literally so, with those storage seals on her arms.
His pride for her was always married with that ever-present tinge of fear that one day she, that all of them, might one day die like his last team had. Kakashi tended to avoid thinking about that fear, but he could never truly dismiss it- it was a part of him that had been carved deeply into his soul.
Kakashi would be there if and when she needed help, and he would pray to any god that might listen that he wouldn’t fail another team that way he had his first.