Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shikako was ten years old the first time she heard about Norashi. The source, as was so often the case back in their academy days, was Ino.

"By the way, the first years just got their final rankings as well," she said, leading Sakura and her the long way home after kunoichi class. "You got three tries to guess who's at the top of the class."

Sakura and her exchanged glances.

"The only academy first year I know about is Hokage-sama's grandson," Shikako offered, since Sakura wasn't from a clan and likely couldn't name a single name. "Or, uh, somebody from the Hyuuga clan. I think she's Hinata's younger sister?"

"Wrong, and wrong again!" Ino said, looking back at them with two fingers raised. "The Hyuuga's only just getting enrolled. But I've heard she's good too. You've got one try left."

"Hey!" Sakura complained. "You said three tries, not a total of three tries between us."

Ino cackled. "You won't get it right anyway. Her name is Norashi. No surname."

Sakura looked interested at that. "A civilian girl?"

"Yeah. I've heard she's an orphan too. They say she's some kind of prodigy."

"What? Is she better than Sasuke-kun?"

"Nobody is better than Sasuke-kun," Ino said, chin up.

(Norashi eyed her report card with despair. All that effort to hold back in class, just for Daikoku-sensei to override it. Surely, teachers couldn't be allowed to just... make up grades. Except they apparently were, because he'd just done it.

Clearly, this whole 'perfectly average' thing wasn't working. She resolved to try for 'above-average, but not exceptionally so' next term.)

.

.

.

"-oh, and remember that girl I told you about? The one's who's at the top of the class for the current second-years?" Ino asked several months later.

"What about her?" Shikako asked. She didn't have much cause to interact with academy students from other years. The only exception was the small handful of fellow Nara children. She thought she might have spotted Lee training after-hours once, but it was hard to tell without all the green, and she hadn't had an excuse to come closer and check.

She hadn't given Norashi no-last-name much thought since that last conversation either, except as a cautionary tale. Don't stick out. Don't attract attention. People talk.

She wasn't sure how much it mattered anymore. It wouldn't be that long before her class graduated from the academy - less than two years left - and there was a big difference between having an adult's understanding of science and mathematics when you were five versus almost-eleven. Iruka-sensei had said something about early graduation once, and her nervous, stuttering response was likely a big factor in why they hadn't gone through with it. She suspected most of that conversation had been conducted with her parents behind her back.

"Apparently," Ino explained, "she's so good she's being apprenticed to a jounin."

Shikako shrugged. "Makes sense. If she's an orphan with no clan, then she's only getting academy training." Both of them had clans standing behind them and jounin for fathers. Jounin in particularly high-ranking positions, at that.

This was one advantage she had, at least. She'd always had her clan to blame if anybody questioned her intelligence, and Sasuke to point at if they accused her of being too good at anything else. She was hardly exceptional when it came to ninjutsu and physical abilities. Not naturally. If she was so far ahead of her peers that the idea of graduating her early had to be raised at all, then well - that was only due to superior instruction. Only due to hours upon hours grinding away at the clan's training grounds, preparing for a future nobody else knew was coming.

"Oh. I guess it would be harder to train without anyone giving you pointers," Ino said, and didn't actually bring up Sakura. "But speaking of class rankings... did you know Hyuuga Hanabi's first in her year as well?"

"What? No. That makes two years in a row with a girl at the top," Shikako said. If nothing else, she could be pleased about that. "Do you know who the jounin is?"

"Hm?"

"The jounin teaching Norashi."

"Somebody named Might Gai. I've seen a picture of him once." In a bingo book, no doubt. "Seems like a weirdo."

"Huh," Shikako said.

"You've heard of him?"

"A bit. He's supposed to be a taijutsu specialist."

She wondered if this had originally happened off-screen, or if her presence had somehow led to Gai taking an extra student before Lee, Neji and Tenten.

No, she decided. So many things had stayed the same so far. She couldn't see why this, of all things, would change. And Gai, from what she remembered, was an open kind of person. He would be exactly the type to spend his free time training a poor orphan out of the goodness of his heart.

She put the second-year out of her mind after that.

Chapter Text

The Hokage was dead, Kakashi's students were alive, and his daughter was at the hospital.

It was nothing, really. Just a broken arm again. He left her in the emergency room and observed from the outside. As amusing as it was to listen to her haggle with the medic over how long her sick leave should be, it did little to settle his nerves.

The medic was in favor of one week. She wanted six weeks on account of the fact that this was how long it took bones to heal without the aid of medical jutsu, which was ridiculous given that she'd already been healed. It only took a few days for the new bone to stop being so brittle. They settled on a still rather excessive two weeks.

There was no point in telling her, he decided. Not when he had no idea whether or not he was still going to be alive this time next year. Nobody said so, but Kakashi wasn't an idiot; if his rate of chakra production was gradually approaching the rate at which he was expending it on missions - if there was no obvious cause and no sign that the decline was ever going to stop - then that could only mean one thing.

...and wasn't it better, not to know your parents, when the alternative was this?

"Your students are having a sleepover at my house," the jounin commander informed him later. "My wife checked up on them. Naruto is chakra-exhausted, but they're fine otherwise."

They, at least, were going to be alright. Shikako had living, breathing parents. Two of them, neither of whom were complete fuckups. If, one day, she didn't have a sensei anymore, her father would still be there to make sure she didn't slip through the cracks. Naruto had Jiraiya to teach him. And Sasuke... Sasuke had no family ties, nobody at all outside of his team. He had one S-rank missing nin after him and was hell-bent on killing another.

At least Norashi was going to be fine. She may not have had family, and seemingly no friends either, but she had Gai. That had to count for something. Even if Kakashi would never admit so out loud.

.

.

.

"She said you brought her to the hospital," Gai said.

"Hm?" Kakashi asked, not looking up from his book.

The equilibrium between them had been off ever since Lee's fight against that Gaara kid. More sharp jabs, fewer intentional meetings. It seemed awfully unfair seeing as Kakashi had already apologized. Had already admitted that he understood his point of view.

The two of them had never fought before. Not unless you counted Kakashi being cruel to him and Gai just... ignoring that.

"She said she's been relieved from taijutsu practice for two whole weeks," Gai said. "Her injury must have been serious."

"Hmhm."

"Just to think. My precious student, unable to train for such a long time." He clutched a fist to his chest and very nearly burst into tears before remembering who he was talking about. "Wait. Don't tell me... she's not trying to avoid training again, is she?"

Her mother is dead, Kakashi didn't say. What came out of his mouth instead was, "She really did break her arm."

"I see. You should introduce her to your students."

Kakashi finally looked up at the non sequitur. "Why?"

"They're good kids. Maybe they'll motivate her to train harder."

She just watched her mother die, Kakashi still couldn't get out. He tried to imagine doing as Gai asked, and couldn't. All he could picture were Shikako's clever eyes, taking one look at Norashi's gray hair and eyes and figuring it out. She had deduced Naruto's status as the host of the Kyuubi with less information to go off of. How did one even go about introducing children to each other? Did you have to find a neutral location and monitor their body language, or was that just for dogs?

"No. Introduce her to your own students," he said.

"I've been having Lee and her train together regularly. Before..." Before he'd allowed him to go all-out at the chuunin exam, quite possibly ending his ninja career in the process. "And Neji and her are acquainted, as you well know."

"Great. Then you can complete the set."

.

.

.

In the end, Gai found out about Akiko's death anyway.

"Gai-sensei. Can I ask you a question?" she asked during training. He had precious little time for her these days, with Konoha as short-staffed as it was. He was resolved to use what time he did have as productively as possible.

"Of course," he said. To his recollection, this was the first time she was ever taking the initiative to ask him anything. He hoped she wasn't about to ask for a break.

"Where do ANBU get buried when they die?"

Gai opened his mouth and closed it again. That wasn't what he'd expected at all. He got out of his headstand and approached her, laying a hand on her shoulder. "Did something happen?"

"No. I was just wondering." Like with most things, her effort to lie convincingly was half-baked.

"That's..." he started. "It depends on whether or not they died in their capacity as ANBU and whether they had family that could claim the body. Normally, they would get cremated." Or rather, the body would get incinerated without a trace.

"She didn't," Norashi said. "Have family, I mean. And she had her uniform on at the time. I checked the list of casualties from the invasion, but her name isn't on there."

"I'm sorry. In that case, there won't be a grave to visit."

"Oh." She did not exactly look heartbroken. Not like she'd just lost somebody close to her. Then again, nobody knew where she'd lived for the first four years of her life before she was taken in by the orphanage. He'd assumed her mother had died back then, but maybe-

He sighed. "Come on. In situations like this, we go to the village memorial instead. I'll show you where it is."

.

.

.

Kakashi watched them from the trees. He made a habit of coming to the memorial stone to remind himself of his failures. Those normally involved the dead, not the living, but he supposed it wouldn't hurt to branch out.

"Her name was Akiko. She wasn't..." Norashi said, voice slightly choked. "She wasn't a bad person." She sounded desperate to convey that, like the last thing she wanted was for her teacher to believe her dead mother had been wrong to abandon her.

Gai stood respectfully as she placed a bouquet of flowers at the base of the memorial. She didn't cry in the end, just waved him goodbye and left.

"You didn't tell me," Gai admonished once she was gone.

"But she did," Kakashi said, wondering at that. He'd spent so long categorizing all their similarities that he hadn't paid attention to how different she was from himself as an eight-year-old. She was the kind of person who would apologize for getting into an altercation with an older academy student, not because anybody made her, but simply because she was sorry. The kind who was rude to adults - or, now that he thought about it, possibly just to Gai - but perfectly cordial with her fellow kids, no matter how much she outperformed them.

Who would, apparently, simply tell people around her when something bad had happened to her. He didn't understand how that meshed with the five years during which she'd neglected to tell anyone about Akiko's abandonment.

I was a bad kid. It wasn't her fault, she had told him when he'd dug her from under ANBU Dove's corpse.

"Were Akiko and you..." Gai started.

"No," Kakashi said. "She was my subordinate."

That hadn't been the case since he'd been eighteen years old. He wasn't sure what muddled version of events Gai had received and what conclusions he had drawn, but it didn't seem right to try to make himself sound better.

Gai opened his mouth as though to say something, and then thought better of it.

.

.

.

Norashi, Kakashi remembered, didn't even want to be a ninja. That was the most baffling thing about her.

Chapter Text

Kakashi was in a coma. Norashi knew this because Gai-sensei had, inexplicably, told it to her.

"O...kay?" she said. "I hope he gets better soon."

If he had expected something else in response, then he didn't let it on.

"Come! You must join my team and I in our youthful training!" he exclaimed. "I have taken on one of my eternal rival's students while he recuperates!"

Norashi tried to parse that. If her memories of canon were accurate - which, admittedly, was not a guarantee - then Kakashi being in a coma meant Itachi. Itachi meant Sasuke was also in a coma. And... and Konoha didn't currently have a Hokage, which meant that someone had to go fetch one. Hadn't there been something in the anime with Jiraiya taking Naruto along to look for Tsunade?

Yes, she thought, because she remembered a still image of the sannin having a three-way kaiju battle with their summons. Another one of Naruto taking a kunai stab to the hand in order to land a rasengan on Kabuto. She couldn't quite recall the surrounding events, but she was pretty sure the whole thing had doubled as a training arc and that it had been resolved with Tsunade getting inspired by Naruto and agreeing to return to the village.

Since Tsunade had yet to return, that had to mean Naruto wasn't around. Which left only one of Kakashi's students in the village and able to train.

Maybe, she considered, this wasn't canon Naruto at all. Maybe she had been in some alternate universe all along, but the only difference was that in addition to his obsession with youth, Might Gai had a burning passion for teaching random girls.

She decided to reserve her judgement until she saw Tenten fight.

And yet, when she arrived at Team One's training ground, she wasn't confronted with Sakura but with a scowling Sasuke. He was wearing his Part I outfit, with the dumb white shorts. He had knobby knees.

Huh. She'd thought she had reasoned everything out so well, but it seemed like she remembered fuck-all about canon after all.

"Why'd you bring a kid?" Sasuke asked Gai-sensei.

"Yeah," Norashi said flatly. "I'd like to know that too."

-or maybe, she considered, her presence had caused some sort of butterfly effect. Or she'd been right about being in an AU all along.

She placed a firm lid over those thoughts. That way lay uncomfortable ideas, such as the story not sorting itself out as expected. It was bad enough knowing ahead of time that Pain was going to invade the village - that she was probably going to be there, unless she managed to be out on a mission at just the right time - without the niggling fear that the invasion would happen, but the solution to it would not.

She did have to spar against Tenten in the end. She won. Now she was sore and had secondhand embarrassment.

.

.

.

"They've decided to graduate Norashi early," Gai told Kakashi three months later.

"Hm? I thought she couldn't perform ninjutsu," Kakashi said, as though this was something he'd only heard about in passing. As though it had nothing to do with him at all.

"She can't. That's why they're doing it," Gai explained. "Daikoku-sensei says she knows everything that can be done without chakra, so there's nothing left for him to teach her."

No chakra meant no tree walking and no water walking, which were regular chunin-level skills. She wouldn't even be able to break out of genjutsu. Unless, he thought, she could achieve the same effect by disrupting the physical or mental energy that flowed through her body, somehow completely disconnected. His daughter, the medical marvel.

But that wasn't the point. The point was that she could be strong for her age, at least for now, but she would never become simply strong. Never anything beyond a genin, or maybe the world's most hyper-specialized chuunin. Even more so than Rock Lee. Maybe if Gai could teach her to open the gates... but it was unclear if it was physically possible for her, even disregarding the fact that very few ninja without a crippling chakra imbalance could do it. All his knowledge of chakra theory failed him here. And- and there was still no indication that Norashi would want to.

He tried to imagine it. Another chuunin exam, or maybe a desperate mission, and the nine-year-old with his hair and eyes zipping around so fast it was impossible to follow without a Sharingan, her muscles and tendons tearing with every movement. He immediately had to un-imagine it.

"Early graduations just aren't what they used to be," he said, a deliberately vapid comment.

"She still has almost a year until the next graduation," Gai said. "They haven't informed her yet. I'm sure she'll complain about it, but the decision is ultimately up to the head of the academy or the Hokage."

"Hmm..."

"Of course, that's only because she doesn't have a legal guardian. If you have objections, you would have the right to intervene as her-"

Kakashi cut him off. "You could intervene. As her sensei." He thought back to the time they'd visited her at the hospital. That first time, when Neji Hyuuga had broken her arm. The medic wouldn't tell him anything until Gai had stepped forward, an actual adult with a claim to her and a reason to be asking.

"I'm not going to," Gai clarified, "because I don't disagree with their decision. I think it could be good for her. Maybe going on missions will teach her to take her training more seriously."

"I see," Kakashi said. Did he himself even disagree? Did Gai think he did, or was he just hoping he would tell Norashi the truth?

If so, then he could keep on hoping.

.

.

.

Shikako had heard about Norashi before, but the first time she actually met her was during that whole treasure hunt debacle.

"I did not mention this before," Neji was saying. "But underneath the training post, there is more than an explosive note. There is also a scroll. I do not know what it says, but it could be important."

Shikamaru sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Great. We'll work out how to get that out too."

"Do we have any leads?" she asked, and then felt an unfamiliar chakra signature approaching them. It was a little girl, maybe eight or nine, with a shock of gray hair not unlike Kakashi-sensei's. "Hello. Did you miss the evacuation order?"

The girl looked at her, down at the Nara crest on the sleeve of her jacket, and then over at Neji. "There was an evacuation order? Is something wrong?"

"Norashi," he said. "Do not worry about it. Did you have independant training again?"

"Yes," she said flatly. It took Shikako a moment to place the name. She did not exactly look like somebody who was fresh off a training session - unless that someone was Shikamaru and nobody was there to yell at him - but she did come from the wrong direction to have been in class or at the academy's training fields. "Is everyone at the shelters again? Do I have time to get there?"

She looked like somebody trying to hide agitation beneath a stoic facade. And... her chakra was weird. Not weird like the Kyuubi, or the Curse Mark, or Mizuki under the influence of that potion that made him into a tiger, or anything else she'd ever sensed. Not like natural energy either. Shikako had a hard time putting her finger on the exact way in which it felt off.

Neji exchanged looks with Shikamaru.

"It should be fine," Shikamaru said. "You should hurry up, though."

The girl nodded and bolted.

Shikako wanted to follow that thread - to ask if this was the same 'Norashi' who had made a stir two years ago by becoming Gai-sensei's apprentice - but the answer to that question was fairly self-explanatory if she knew Neji. Everything else she wanted to ask was much more ill-defined.

More importantly... Trap Master Genno was still on the loose.

Chapter Text

"Oh, Shikako-chan," Iruka-sensei said, looking up from his mission desk paperwork with a distracted smile. "What are you doing here?"

"I have the pick-up assignments from Intel," Shikako said, waving with the papers to justify her presence here.

"Oh, yes, that's right," he said and took them from her. "That all looks like it's in order."

She nodded. "I was wondering if you could do something else for me. Chiyako Aburame is in your class, right?"

The three fancy letters she had prepared were burning a hole in her kunai pouch.

"She is. I wasn't aware you knew her."

"Shino is a friend," she dismissed. "But I was wondering if you could pass these along; they're invitations for a few of your students to attend our kunoichi group."

She pulled out the invitations and handed them to him. They were written on thick heavy card in her best calligraphy. Maybe four of them were a bit excessive, but... on top of the vindictiveness that was guiding her here, she was curious.

"I've heard of that," he said, recognition lighting up his eyes. He took the cards and flicked through them to see the names. "I'll be happy to. I wasn't aware that you were inviting Academy students. Norashi-chan isn't in my class, though."

"Oh. Sorry. Who is her homeroom teacher then?" In her own year, all 'notable' students were herded into the same class by their second year. They only had the one class by the third. Maybe that was less due to any intentional policy on the academy's part, and more due to certain events that led to a smaller pool of students to educate.

"It's Funeno Daikoku," Iruka-sensei said. "Never mind, I'll give it to him on Monday - I can't promise Norashi will agree to come, though."

.

.

.

"A kunoichi study group?" Norashi asked blankly. Her classmates were streaming out of the kunai practice range. She opened the letter.

"It'll be a good opportunity for you," Daikoku-sensei said. "I've heard there are two special jounin involved in this group. And several chuunin as well."

"Okay," Norashi said, skimming the text. She struggled to even think of two female special jounin in canon. Anko, the fishnet lady with the curse mark? Who else?

The signature on the letter belonged to one Shikako Nara. Norashi didn't know any Nara either. The closest she'd ever come to speaking with one was that girl who'd been working with Neji the day the academy was evacuated.

"And with your graduation next year," Sensei continued, raising a hand to preempt any arguments, "knowing some active-duty ninja other than your teacher could be helpful. Maybe they can give you some pointers."

"Maybe," she said doubtfully. But the joke was on him. She didn't actually need the convincing.

("Gai-sensei," she said later that day. "I can't make it to training on Saturday. I got an invitation to a thing.")

Thus, on Saturday, Norashi actually got to sleep in for once. She took a long shower, made herself breakfast and headed out precisely five minutes early.

She wasn't wearing her ninja gear. The meeting was scheduled to take place in the park, and it was called a study group. If somebody tried to make her train anyway, she would get up and leave.

"Oh! You're here too!"

She turned around at the three pairs of child footsteps. One of them was wearing a yellow raincoat. One was clearly a Hyuuga. The third girl, however, was instantly recognizable as Moegi from class A - Konohamaru's friend.

"Seems so," she said, without bite, and turned to keep walking. This road didn't really lead anywhere but the park. That, and a cluster of nondescript office buildings.

"I know you," the Hyuuga girl said abruptly. "You're Norashi. People say you beat Neji-niisan."

"No, I didn't," Norashi said.

"But Grandfather said-"

"I think we both lost that fight."

This was the problem with having literal children for peers. There was no comprehension on their faces.

"You've been in a real fight?" Moegi asked, terribly excited. "Hey, one time, I got kidnapped and..."

At the park, they were greeted with enthusiastic waves from two older girls. 'Older', as in maybe thirteen.

"I'm Yamanaka Ino," one of them introduced herself. Only then did Norashi place her as Sakura's friend from the show. The one who had possession powers and talked about flowers a lot. Too bad not every ninja wore their distinctive anime outfit every second of every day like Kakashi and Gai to make themselves as easily recognizable as possible.

The other was a Nara - the same Nara who had been hovering around the academy training halls with Neji and Shikamaru, back during the evacuation in August. Norashi still couldn't figure out who she was supposed to be in relation to canon characters.

Probably just a filler character, she decided. Or a family member of Shikamaru's who never got shown on-screen. It would make sense for Ino to know more people from the Nara and Akimichi clans than just her teammates.

Whoever this Shikako was, she was weird. The first thing she did was present the girl with the raincoat - Shino's little sister, apparently - with a friendship bracelet, publicly and in a way that seemed almost ceremonial. If there was some context to that interaction, then Norashi refused to be curious about it.

"-and you're Gai-sensei's apprentice, right?" Shikako asked, finally turning to her next victim. Her.

Norashi shrugged. "So you know him."

"We've met," she said vaguely. "I heard you're graduating the academy next year."

All three kids - Moegi, Chiyako, the Hyuuga girl who turned out to be Hinata's sister - whipped around to look at her in shock. So did some of the older people here. In the past, Norashi would have wanted the ground to swallow her whole just to avoid the looks.

These days, she just... didn't care.

"It's not finalized yet," she said. "But yeah, probably."

Shikako's face took on the blandest smile Norashi had ever seen. And she's met Kakashi. "It's supposed to be an honor," she said. "You don't sound happy about it."

Norashi shrugged again.

They shifted to more comfortable topics after that. Chakra theory, which Norashi could deal with far more readily than actual chakra usage. Something about plants.

At the tail end of the study session, when everybody started picking up their things and wishing each other goodbye, Shikako turned to the four of them again.

"If you're free tomorrow, we can meet up for some more training," she suggested.

The others - even Hanabi - looked thrilled. Norashi just looked at her blankly. Why was this teenager so invested in a bunch of eight-to-ten-year-olds?

"Training in what?" she asked.

"I've been thinking maybe your ninjutsu."

"Great! I can't use any," Norashi said, and went home.

.

.

.

"So it's true," Shikako said afterwards. "Aunt Igaku said something about an academy student who can't use jutsu, but she didn't tell me who it was."

The only reason Shikako had made the connection at all was that the girl's chakra felt weird.

"Oh!" Sakura exclaimed. "This is what Yamaguchi-sensei was talking about! Apparently, she has a complete separation between her physical and mental energy."

"It's weird that they're graduating her early, then," Ino said. "You think she's like Lee?"

Sakura blanched at the mention of him.

Chapter Text

It was lunch break, the weather was perfectly lovely and the novel Norashi was reading was finally starting to get interesting. Then she glanced up at the sound of footsteps on grass and saw Hyuuga Hanabi marching towards her like a woman on a mission. 

Well, like a third-grader.

"Fight me," Hanabi said, and looked seconds away from sinking into a fighting stance here and now.

"Why?" Norashi asked, finger between pages so she didn't lose her place.

"What?"

"Why should I fight you?" Norashi clarified.

"Because," Hanabi said, seeming thrown-off by having to explain this, "you're going to graduate early. Grandfather said I have to be better than you."

"Okay," said Norashi. "You do that."

Hanabi blinked. All facial expressions looked different up-close when paired with eyes that lacked pupils, but Norashi had spent enough time with Neji by now that she was mostly used to it. "So you'll fight me?"

"I'd rather not," said Norashi. "What your grandfather wants really doesn't have anything to do with me."

"What? Of course it-" Hanabi cut herself off mid-sentence and sputtered like a fish.

"Did you find her?" asked Aburame Chiyako's quiet voice. She looked harried, like she'd been searching as well. "Oh..."

Norashi sighed. "Look. We can spar if you really want. But you're going to get stronger than me sooner or later anyway, so I don't see the point."

"What? How can you be so sure?!" Hanabi demanded. Chiyako looked like she didn't know what to do with her hands. Norashi knew the feeling - from her last life, more than this one, because things seemed to matter so much less in this strange world where she was surrounded by fictional characters.

"I can't use ninjutsu," she reminded. "I can't form chakra at all."

"But my family uses taijutsu!" Hanabi objected. "And everyone says you're stronger than me!"

Chiyako buzzed slightly. "You do have chakra," she also objected.

Norashi was aware that being a medical marvel on display should have bothered her more than it did too. "Uh. The medics said I have the components of chakra, but they're separate in my body. Your family's taijutsu style is only so strong because it uses chakra, right? You're not just punching people. So sooner or later, I'm going to plateau, while you're going to keep improving."

"What's 'plateau'?" asked Chiyako.

"So that's it?!" Hanabi spoke right over her. "You think there's no point in us fighting because I'm gonna get stronger than you anyway, and you're just okay with it?!"

"Exactly," Norashi said, glad she'd finally made herself understood, and looked back down at her book.

A paragraph later, the girls were still there. She looked up at them again.

"You're weird," Hanabi said. "What are you reading?"

"Would you- would you like an animal cracker?" asked Chiyako, tripping over her words a bit.

Cute, Norashi thought distantly. 

.

.

.

Seven-and-a-half months after the Sound-Sand Invasion, Gai-sensei was still away from the village on missions almost constantly. Norashi supposed the same had to be true for every active-duty jounin, though the only other one she knew was Kakashi.

That made it doubly notable that both of them were here to hassle her. Well, Gai-sensei was here to hassle her; Kakashi-sensei had yet to escalate to the point of having his book out, but was looking off to the side like he'd wandered here completely by accident.

Why was he here, again?

"I don't have time for training," she said, looking Gai-sensei straight in the eye. You couldn't show weakness in front of a predator. "Saturday is Kunoichi Group day. I'm leaving."

"You're still going?" Gai-sensei asked, surprised. Clearly, she'd managed to throw him off, if only for a moment. Now she had to press her advantage- "Never mind! You can join my other students for training once you're done!"

"Can't do that either," she said, not even trying to hide her schadenfreude. "I'm going to hang out with my friends."

"Friends?" Gai asked.

"Hanabi and Chiyako. You're the one who kept telling me to spend more time with kids my age, remember?"

"Indeed I have. Ah, the bonds of friendship in the springtime of youth! If that's the case, we can postpone training until tomorrow morning!"

"No can do. We're having a sleepover."

"A sleepover?"

"A sleepover," Norashi confirmed, maintaining perfect eye contact.

"That- that should leave you plenty of time to train with your new friends, then," Gai-sensei said, voice just that little bit weaker than it had been at the start of the conversation. Not in a mean way. Just - baffled.

"Oh, we won't," she said. "We'll be making friendship bracelets. Chiyako's got the beads already."

Gai-sensei slumped. To his right, Kakashi-sensei looked deeply amused. "See? She doesn't have time for you, Gai."

Norashi took this chance to slam the door in his face. It was a well-worn routine by now.

Chiyako had, in fact, invited Hanabi and her over; it had taken Hanabi most of a week to get permission from her father, during which Norashi had kept her own answer to a tentative 'maybe'.

"I talked to my Sensei about the sleepover thing. I can come," she said, a post-hoc justification for why she hadn't said 'yes' right away. It was one thing to slam doors in Gai-sensei's face, and another thing entirely to reject a kid who'd looked like the mere act of asking had cost her everything.

Norashi just... didn't know what to do with Hanabi and Chiyako. They weren't young enough to need taking care of like the kids back at the orphanage, but talking to them was nothing like talking to a fully-realized person. Not yet.

On the bright side, the other two girls clearly had no idea what to do with her either. They barely knew what to do with each other half the time.

("Where's Shikako, anyway? Did she quit the group?" Norashi asked after Shikako's name came up during some sort of discussion about medical seals.

"Huh? No," said Sakura, but turned to Ino a bit uncertainly. "She hasn't, right?"

"No, no," said Ino. "She's just too busy for plebians like us now."

Norashi didn't care about that part, but was trying very hard not to think about the fact that this was Sakura from the Naruto anime, and this Sakura had been recruited by Tsunade straight from the Medical Training Program, and had never been a member of Team Seven. Because Shikako was.

'The world isn't going to end because there's a different kunoichi on Team Seven,' she told herself. And then, 'Even if it is, there's nothing you can do about it.')

Chapter Text

"Absolutely not," Tsunade said.

"Hokage-sama-" Might Gai started.

"I've made my decision. Arguing won't change that. I can't afford to pull you from the field to teach another genin team right now."

"But-"

"And no," Tsunade added, "I don't forsee the situation improving that much by March."

There was a moment when the fight visibly left him. "I understand."

Good. The decision to allow the girl to graduate early had been made before Tsunade's coronation; it had apparently been in the talks long before her diagnosis. Tsunade was willing to go along with the momentum of decisions that predated her, but only up to a point - it made no sense to keep a student at the academy when they knew two-thirds of the material and were incapable of learning the remaining third, but that was no reason to make a target of them unnecessarily. It was bad enough that she was Gai's personal apprentice and everybody knew about it. Any team taught by him under the current climate would simply have to move on to higher-ranked missions faster than their peers regardless of the best wishes of anyone involved.

"Now," she said, mind already half-drawn back to the mountain of paperwork on her desk, "was there anything else?"

Gai hesitated. "There was one thing."

"Yes?"

"Are there any plans to inform Norashi of her parentage?"

Ah. That.

"You mean Kakashi hasn't told her himself?" she asked dryly. "Why am I not surprised?"

It wasn't like anyone had approached Tsunade and told her that Norashi No-Last-Name was Kakashi's secret child. Tsunade wasn't in the habit of seeking out information about random nine-year-olds either, no matter whose apprentices they were.

(Had the girl turned ten yet? She definitely would by the end of February, or else Tsunade would have told the Academy teachers to wait another year. Ten was a respectable enough age to graduate. It had been the standard graduation age for a good chunk of Konoha's history, even if they'd traditionally tried to shoot for twelve.)

No, the only reason Tsunade knew who Norashi's biological father was was her status as a medical mystery. Her academy file looked pretty normal, all things considered. Her medical file, meanwhile, was over a centimeter thick. The paternity test result was tucked all the way in the back and didn't contain the name of the father so much as it was the first clue of a scavenger hunt. Tsunade hadn't known at the time that the girl was a dead-ringer for Kakashi in terms of looks and had received her answer by barking out a question at the medic with the highest security clearance in the building at the time.

"Kakashi wants to tell her. He just hasn't gotten around to it yet," Gai said with great conviction. "But surely, now that she's about to become a full-fledged ninja, this is information she needs to know. The physical resemblance alone could cause problems."

Tsunade had no desire to involve herself in Kakashi's personal business. If Gai wanted somebody to go behind his back, he could damn well do it himself.

On the other hand... she had tried to involve the Nara girl in Kakashi's medical business. To drop a hint, at least, in the hopes the girl would latch onto it like she had with the Yakumo situation. She had no idea if it had worked.

She let out a great sigh. "If he hasn't told her by now, then maybe it's for the best. What a pity."

She dismissed him after that. No need to lay it on too thick.

.

.

.

"You're going to accept the War Operations position," Gai said.

Kakashi gave him a suspicious side-eye. His lack of denial was confirmation enough.

"I've heard some other things, too," Gai added.

"Hm?"

"Kakashi," Gai said very seriously. "Are you dying?"

"Well," Kakashi started. "That's a strong way to put-"

"Are you?"

Kakashi's shoulders dropped. "That's what they think."

"And you're still not going to go through with their surgery? You will be a wonderful ninja without the Sharingan. You always have been." But that wasn't what this was about, for Kakashi. "What do you think Obito would want you to do?"

A decade ago, Kakashi would have been incensed at that name being used as a rhetorical device against him. There was none of that here and now. "They could be wrong," he said, sidestepping the issue entirely. "Even Tsunade doesn't know why the eye is doing this. For all we know, it could stop just short of killing me."

And how was Gai supposed to respond to hope being used against him?

Chapter Text

Shikako woke up seconds before her alarm. It went off. She stared at it, mildly disoriented, and slapped it quiet.

Shikamaru wasn't home. Mom was at the front door talking to someone. A Nara, but not a ninja. Probably one of the people who did administrative work rather than a researcher or a medic, since those were the clan members Shikako was least likely to recognize by their chakra alone. There was no Sensei here threatening to mark her face with indelible ink.

It was Saturday, and the reason she'd set an alarm was that she'd been planning to actually make it to the kunoichi group this time. She wrestled with herself for a bit before accepting that yes, she really was going to get up now. She'd promised Shiho.

She caught up with Sakura and then Yakumo. Introduced Shiho to everybody - Ino already knew about her, but she was away on a mission. So was Hinata. In what appeared to be a continuation of a conversation from last week, Tenten was desperately trying to wring details about knockout tags out of Anko. They were used by intel more than they were used by the general forces, so she wasn't a bad person to be asking. She wasn't even unknowledgeable on the subject so much as she - like most ninja - didn't seem to care how seals worked and had as much interest in modifying them as Shikako had in modifying her microwave back home.

Then again, there was that whole thing with the curse seal, so... maybe that wasn't the whole story.

The kids she'd invited all those weeks ago were here too. At least Chiyako and Norashi were; Hanabi had 'important clan things'. Shikako was frankly surprised that they'd continued to attend. Surprised, but pleased, because she still wanted to know what was up with Norashi's chakra. 'Separation of physical and mental energy in the body' wasn't an explanation so much as it was a description.

"Nara! Come over here! Tenten and you can nerd out together," Anko decreed.

Shikako scrambled over. "Okay, so. These have their base in medical sealing, right? So the mechanism must be-"

"They're not medical seals," Sakura argued. "A medical seal is defined as a seal used in medical ninjutsu, which is either adjustable or capable of being rewritten to account for anatomical differences." She had slipped into her lecturing tone, as though she was directly quoting from a textbook. "The sole exceptions are sensory seals that function as components of medical devices or antiseptic seals which do not directly interact with the body of the patient."

Shikako couldn't say that was wrong, but it sounded too absolute to be right. Did Tsunade's Creation Rebirth even count as a medical seal if you used this definition?

"But knockout seals do have several features in common with medical sealing," she argued. "Like the mathematical calculations being a direct component of the seal - that's not common in most types of seals." Except her own. "And the fact that they employ the user's chakra rather than ambient natural energy - that is, because they're meant for live capture and injecting natural energy into the human body is-" She started to explain for Sakura's benefit.

"Right, right," Sakura said. "It's dangerous, and in large quantities, it has the potential to petrify living tissue. We covered that in Advanced Chakra Theory. But still, a medical seal that knocks you out would have to be a lot more complicated."

This part was... probably right. Knockout tags weren't even compressed. But the fact that they were one-size-fits-all likely helped explain that.

"Is that why there isn't one?" Shikako asked. "I saw them use drugs once." As in, the drugs had been used on her.

"There is a seal," said Sakura's fellow medical trainee, tentatively raising a hand like she was in a classroom. What was her name again? Keiko?

"That's not what Shikako means," Sakura told her. "Tsunade-shishou said those kinds of seals are transcriptions- as in, they're a direct equivalent of a technique." And now she was explaining for Shikako's benefit. "So you can use either, but the medics will try to prepare as many seals as possible ahead of time for scheduled surgery, and field medics only ever use jutsu and adjustable seals."

"I thought it was a question of skill," Shikako said neutrally. "The more skilled the medic, the more they can do without seals. Like using fewer hand seals for a jutsu."

"That, too," Sakura said. "Like how Shishou can do the Healing Resuscitation Regeneration Technique all by herself. But even she will work with seals if it's a scheduled surgery."

Surely, that had to be an efficiency issue, since medical seals could hardly ever save on chakra cost? Shikako could hardly imagine Tsunade having problems with efficiency, but maybe it was a matter of her assistants wasting their chakra instead, or of offsetting some of the mental load that would have been wasted on multitasking, or there was something about those seals that inherently made the same process consume less chakra. Or maybe Shikako was overthinking this and it made sense to use tools when they were available, in the same way it sometimes made sense to use a kunai even if you could create a wind blade.

She was just about to ask if Tsunade had mentioned what kinds of seals she used in surgery and for what purpose, but Tenten spoke first.

"Okay, but how do knockout seals knock you out?" she asked. "It doesn't work anything like the Temporary Paralysis Technique."

"That's... an ANBU technique, isn't it?" Shikako asked doubtfully. She'd only ever heard that technique described as 'like a worse version of Shadow Paralysis'. "Here, let me write it out bigger."

She unsealed a large sheet of paper from hammerspace, spread it out over Tenten's camping table and started writing. Sakura got up and walked around just so she could peer over her shoulder. Tenten, too, looked on with great interest, even though Shikako had shown her the notebook with this exact pattern in it and Tenten was the one who was currently trying to analyze how it worked. Maybe she couldn't write it out from memory?

When Shikako was almost done, Anko gave a very sarcastic clap.

"I really don't think it's medical," Sakura spoke right into Shikako's ear as she finished the last side of the triangle. "All the medical seals I know either imitate a chemical effect or they directly describe what they're doing to the body. Look, all these equations are about chakra interaction."

Keiko was looking at Sakura like she'd said something shockingly smart, so Shikako supposed this wasn't a standard part of their training curriculum.

"It uses Yin Release," Shikako said. "Maybe the base is actually genjutsu. I don't know. I've never seen a genjutsu described as a seal." Not anchored to one, like Yakumo's techniques, but described in mathematical terms.

Heh. Maybe there was a reason why the closest example she could think of 'described' the effect visually in the form of a painting and relied on the user to do the actual casting part. And it wasn't a targeted genjutsu either.

"Can you break out of a knockout tag like a genjutsu?" asked Tenten.

"No? I mean, I don't think so," said Sakura. "Either it knocks you out or it doesn't. Right? Shikako, you're the one who's tried one on yourself."

"You did?!" Keiko brought a hand to her mouth in horror. Shikako twisted around in her garden chair just to mouth 'traitor' at Sakura, who looked utterly unrepentant. Tenten and everyone else present, at least, seemed to find the idea of testing a completely harmless seal on yourself par for the course. Except for Yakumo and Shiho, who were chatting about something else a few meters away, which had - sort of been the point of bringing Shiho along.

The kids sat a bit off to the side as well, but seemed to be actually trying to follow the conversation.

"How else would I know if it works?" Shikako asked very reasonably. "Anyway, sleep genjutsu is possible to break because there's a delay. You can't break out of it after it's put you to sleep. In theory, if there was a genjutsu that knocked you out instantly without any kind of delay at all, it should be impossible to break."

"Couldn't you just make a seal for that too?" asked Norashi.

Shikako did a double-take. Not because she hadn't been aware of the academy student standing up and approaching her group - Kakashi-sensei's training had more than taken care of that issue - but because the girl was voluntarily involving herself in the discussion. She had done nothing in her presence so far to indicate she was interested in - well, much of anything. She had seemed pretty worried that time the academy was evacuated, but that was different.

Chiyako was still hovering in their periphery, and looked far more bashful at the interruption than Norashi herself.

"Make a seal to break yourself out of genjutsu?" Shikako tried to clarify.

Norashi was looking at the gigantic knockout tag on the table. She didn't exactly look interested now either. Her eyes were drooping - not unlike Kakashi-sensei's, really. It was probably just an eye shape thing.

"Other people can break you out, right?" she asked. "By, like, interrupting your chakra flow? Can't you make a seal that does that for you automatically?"

Shikako supposed one could. She had never considered it, since she'd never found interrupting her chakra flow manually to be difficult in the first place. And it was just as easy for her to shunt the foreign chakra out of her body entirely. Even Naruto, who had struggled with the traditional 'release' method at first, had gotten it down after some practice and a few hard genjutsu-assisted knocks during their spars.

Then again, could Lee break himself out of genjutsu?

Could Norashi herself?

"A seal that interrupts your chakra flow would be easy enough," she thought out loud, sketching out a rough draft on the margins of her knockout sheet. "The hard part would be defining the parameters for the seal to go off."

"Why can't you just have it detect foreign chakra?"

"That would be very difficult," Tenten said. "How do you define 'your chakra' in the first place?"

"How would I know?" asked Norashi. Shikako remembered belatedly that they knew each other, on account of them both being Gai's students. "I can't even find it the normal way. Maybe have it kinda tap into your chakra system so that it treats your own chakra as 'it' and all other chakra as 'not it'?"

"That... actually sort-of makes sense," Tenten said, then looked to Shikako as though she was the final authority on the matter.

"You would-" Shikako started.

"You can't do that!" Sakura exclaimed, so heated one might have thought they were already in the process of applying the nonexistent seal on each other. "What if there really was a sleep genjutsu and the target was injured? It could interfere with medical jutsu."

"Good point," Shikako said. "Although, it wouldn't interfere that much if you set it to only react to an incursion once. It would just be one spike. And medical jutsu is shorter-range and uses more chakra than low-level targeted genjutsu. I've never tested it personally, but in theory, that should make it harder to disrupt. Medics probably deal with uneven chakra flow all the time, right? Because pain and physically damaging the chakra pathway system can both disrupt it."

"Well- yes," Sakura conceded. "It could still lead to misdiagnosis though. If your medic doesn't know about the seal and thinks you have internal bleeding or something like that."

"But you wouldn't want a seal like this to only work once," Tenten said. "That would make it a lot less effective. Sometimes, you have to do the release a few times before it works."

Shikako caught herself just in time to avoid asking 'you do?'.

"That only happens if you don't do it properly the first time," Sakura said. "Halting the chakra flow in your entire body at once will successfully release up to 95% of all targeted genjutsu. If you halt it only in certain pathways, it's possible for it not to work at first but then to work on a successive attempt as the genjutsu probe travels through the body-"

"That's just book theory. Nobody ever actually stops the chakra flow in their whole body. That would be like saying you expel chakra from every tenketsu to do the transformation jutsu."

Shikako interjected, "There are several methods. There even- might be advantages to trying a sort of half-release first. Because it's faster to do." Sakura still looked like she wanted to argue, so Shikako hurried on to the next problem. "What I'm concerned about is how to make the seal distinguish between chakra that's different because it's someone else's and chakra that's different because you're trying to do a jutsu. Worst-case-scenario, it completely wrecks your chakra control."

"You mean like Yin or Yang Release, or elemental jutsu?" Tenten asked.

Chiyako looked like she was trying to creep closer while hiding behind Norashi the whole way. She hadn't been this shy her first time here, but then, she wasn't being actively included in the conversation right now. Shikako beckoned her over and tried very hard not to regret it when she remembered Mr. Cranberry and her were a package deal.

Sometime between one seal-related subject and the next, Anko had drifted off to talk to Yakumo - and by extension Shiho - instead. Shiho didn't seem intimidated, or much more frazzled than her baseline.

"So you could make this seal," Norashi summarized matter-of-factly, "but it couldn't be used by ninja who use any kind of nature transformation."

Nobody used the term 'nature transformation' unless they were currently trying to explain the elemental wheel or writing an essay. For all that Norashi didn't seem outwardly interested in ninjutsu as a subject, she clearly read about the theory.

"Nature transformation is the most obvious issue, but any jutsu that requires the shape transformation to happen inside the body could be a problem. Chakra isn't just physical energy. It's mental too. When you form a jutsu, it changes the chakra."

"How much does it really change it?" Tenten asked. "You would just have to allow for a bit of variance."

"But the more variance you allow for, the bigger the likelihood that genjutsu will slip through because the intruding chakra is too similar to your own."

"Now we're just talking edge cases-"

"Then why don't you give it an off-switch?"

"If you had to turn it off to use any jutsu in the middle of a fight with a genjutsu user-"

"But-"

They kept arguing about it. Eventually, the idea of two different seals was floated: one that could be turned on and off, to fulfill the original purpose of waking up a ninja who was otherwise capable of dispelling genjutsu but had been hit with a sleep genjutsu unexpectedly, and one specifically for Norashi to use. Shikako immediately dismissed the former. She didn't have the time to experiment and fiddle just to maybe solve such a situational problem. On the other hand, Tenten exchanged looks with her over Norashi's head, and appeared genuinely worried about this.

"Norashi-chan," Shikako asked. "I know you said you can't do jutsu, but can you activate seals?"

Norashi scanned her face like she was looking for the catch. "I don't know. We didn't learn any at the academy. Probably not, if you need chakra to do it."

Shikako watched her in turn, trying to discern if the subject made her feel put on the spot. There was no sign of it, but... on one hand, Norashi was going to be a ninja soon. This was probably useful information for her to know. On the other hand, she probably should have brought it up in private. Shikako certainly wouldn't appreciate it if someone started talking about her supposed chakra hypersensitivity in front of an audience, and she didn't even have it.

How, though? She had no excuse to pull Norashi aside in any way that didn't seem awkward and had no backup plan in case the girl said no.

"Oh, right. Iruka-sensei didn't show us how to use explosive notes until our final year," Sakura said.

"They didn't show us at all," Tenten said. "Maybe it's one of those things your teacher decides? Mio-sensei did show us how to seal and unseal things from storage scrolls in - I think our fifth year, though."

"Should I give it a try?" Norashi asked, deadpan, and reached for the Knockout Sheet.

"H-hey! Not on me!" Tenten exclaimed, scrambling away comically. 

"Wha- it's live?!" Keiko asked.

"That's probably the worst possible one for you to try," Shikako said dryly. "Since it's both manually-activated and powered by your own chakra. Let me write a different one-"

"Shikako," Sakura said. "Do not give her an explosive note."

"It's a flare," Shikako said, and the presence of a medic trainee who wasn't Sakura - and who was watching the proceedings with rapt attention - made is slightly less funny than it would have been otherwise. The control measurement seal fiasco had ruined so many things. "Here, Norashi. Do you think you can activate it with physical energy instead of chakra?"

Norashi couldn't. She couldn't consciously manipulate any of her energies at all. "They told me I use physical enhancements when I fight," she said. "More than the usual amount, I mean. But it's not like I can feel myself doing it."

"Hm," Shikako said. "I wonder if you could copy a seal that activates as soon as it's written. In theory, you shouldn't need chakra for that as long as you use chakra ink, but you would still have to interact with the seal somehow..."

"Even if she could, there's no way to test that," said Tenten.

"You couldn't hand a random civilian an inkbrush and expect them to copy seals from a pattern," Shikako agreed. "It's something people have to learn first." And with Norashi, it would be near-impossible to tell if she was incapable of doing it or merely hadn't gotten it yet.

"Is it even possible to set a seal with physical energy?" Tenten followed up.

"Spiritual energy," Shikako corrected. Her shadow wasn't pure spiritual energy, but it was close, and she knew she could plant seals with it. At least in a controlled setting, outside of combat. "That's much more intuitive, since we're talking about a task that takes... will, I guess."

"I don't know how to use that," Norashi reminded. She did look interested in their back-and-forth now. Like there was something mildly amusing happening on TV.

"I was mostly talking in hypotheticals. I really don't understand your condition," Shikako admit.

"She has a near-complete separation of physical and mental energy in the body," Sakura recited.

"Okay, but what does that mean? Chakra is what happens naturally when mental and physical energy mix. If they occupy the same space without mixing, isn't that-" Yin-Yang-Release. "-something else?" What she was getting here was mostly that Norashi lacked the ability to perceive her own chakra.

"Yamaguchi-sensei wrote a thesis about that," Sakura said. "It's very interesting. Oh, I guess you aren't allowed to read it, though."

.

.

.

That evening, Tenten came by to pick up Shikamaru, but spared a couple of minutes to talk to Shikako first.

"I know what you're up to," she said.

"Huh?" asked Shikako, because - well, there could be a thousand things, but none of them were things it made sense for Tenten in particular to be accusing her of. At least none that she could think of.

"With Norashi," Tenten clarified. "You're trying to help her, aren't you? Well, it's not going to work."

"If there's no way around her condition then there's no way," Shikako said very reasonably. "I mean, a medic wrote a whole thesis about her. I don't see what I could contribute."

"Yes, but that's not what I mean. She doesn't even want to be a field ninja."

"She doesn't?" Shikako asked, baffled.

"I know! She's so weird."

"But if she doesn't want it," hadn't fought for it like Lee had, "and she can't use jutsu, then why are they making her graduate two years early?"

Tenten shrugged. "She says her teacher told everyone she's some sort of prodigy and now he's too embarrassed to walk it back."

"R-right," Shikako said. "Wait. Why did Gai-sensei take her on as an apprentice in the first place?"

"I don't know. Because she really is a taijutsu prodigy, I guess. She's known him longer than I have. But it is kind of weird that he made her continue training with him, now that you mention it."

There was a pause.

"So what are Shikamaru and you up to?" Shikako asked.

"Not much. We were going to go get dango," said Tenten, which was exactly the kind of vague and impersonal answer Shikako had been hoping for when she'd used date night as her subject change. Tenten really didn't miss.

Chapter Text

Even after her training with Tonbo-senpai, the separation of Norashi's mental and physical energies was not something Shikako could sense. It wasn't like she had a model for what physical and mental energies should feel like while separate yet occupying the same space. Did they mix in her body while remaining apart in some paradoxical way or did they flow through the same chakra pathways like oil and water? Shikako couldn't tell. All she could sense was general weirdness, with perhaps a higher-than-average concentration of spiritual energy in the brain.

Maybe the issue could be corrected through some sort of... specialized spiritual training, she thought. Or maybe, if Norashi could learn to sense her energies - if she could interact with them consciously - then it, like the Gelel shadow effect, could be turned to even greater strength.

Yin-Yang Release. The thought niggled.

'Stop,' she told herself. People didn't have to try to overcome their disadvantages. If Norashi didn't want to be a ninja, then the people forcing her to be one were wrong.

She figured she should get a confirmation from Norashi herself, though. Just in case she'd changed her mind or something since the last time she'd discussed this with Tenten.

.

.

.

The fourth time Norashi met Shikako was at the kunoichi group again. Not like they had cause to meet anywhere else.

Shikako was still weird, and still an interloper on Team Seven, but at least Norashi was starting to understand why she had invited Chiyako, Hanabi and Moegi here back in November. Or - no, she still had no idea why Shikako had picked a bunch of kids to invite, but she was starting to see a pattern behind it. Last time, she had brought along that girl with the swirly glasses who'd had a crush on Shikamaru in the Pain Arc. This time, she brought Shizune. Yakumo had apparently also been invited by her at some point.

Norashi wasn't sure how she felt about Yakumo. She had the perfect out from being a ninja - weak lungs - and yet insisted on being one anyway. At least Lee had the grace to act wacky like a cartoon character so she could dismiss his perspective out of hand. Yakumo seemed so reasonable about it.

Later, when the group was starting to disperse, Shikako offered to take Chiyako out for barbeque.

"You can come too, Norashi-chan," she added.

"Let's go!" Chiyako exclaimed happily. "You'll come, right?"

Norashi looked at Shikako suspiciously, but relented a moment later. The girl wasn't her teacher and couldn't actually force her to do anything distasteful, such as running. "Alright, I guess," she said, then added, "Free food."

You're being paranoid, she told herself. She only offered because she knows Chiyako and didn't want to make another kid feel left out.

And then, What are the chances the reincarnation thing's happened twice?

"Norashi-chan," Shikako started, having gotten all her questions for Chiyako out of the way remarkably quickly. "I hear you don't want to be a field ninja."

Norashi didn't bother asking who had told her that. It could have been any number of people. Shikako could have halfway put it together herself after noticing Norashi wasn't appropriately enthused about her early graduation.

It wouldn't do to come off as unpatriotic, though. "Of course I do," she said blandly. "Doesn't everybody?"

"It's fine if you don't," Shikako pacified. "There are plenty of in-village positions that are very important."

"I want to work in the tower," she said. "Maybe something in finance. I have no idea how they do hiring, though. Nobody will explain it."

"Hm," Shikako said. "Well, normally, the departments hire people they already know, or know of. But for the kinds of positions where you don't go on missions... Intel gets a lot of its people from the genin corps. They prefer people with some administrative experience, obviously. I think it's kind of similar for Logistics. It's that, or general forces ninja who've retired from the field, but there are a lot less of those."

"But when you go into the tower, everyone's wearing a chunin vest," Norashi argued. Chiyako was very carefully trying to tear off a piece of raw beef with her chopsticks.

"You mean in the lobby? That's the mission desk. You have to be a chunin with field experience to work there." Shikako turned a piece of meat on the grill. "Also, a lot of the chunin you see are general forces ninja on rotation. You're supposed to do three months of in-village work for every three years on duty - that's what I was doing in Intel. And sometimes people slide into permanent in-village positions that way. Other than that, there are people who receive internal promotions so they're the equivalent of a chunin. I don't think the head of Accounting has ever been on a real mission."

This alone was more information about Konoha's internal workings than Gai-sensei had deigned to give her over the course of several years. He'd explained all about missions, of course.

"Okay," Norashi summarized. "So the way to start working in Accounting or Logistics is either nepotism, having already worked there, or sucking as an actual ninja." 

Shikako had only just taken a sip of her drink. She didn't do a spit-take or anything, but did snort. "You could always just submit an application. I wouldn't recommend going into Logistics, though."

"Why?"

"The department head is a bit..." She made a so-so motion. "And it's the kind of department that depends very heavily on the rest of the tower. One small thing can happen, and bam, you have to do double time for a month to restructure literally everything."

"You mean like... the invasion?" Norashi asked.

"Sure. As an example." 

"But aren't all departments going to be like that? This is a ninja village."

Chiyako had finally succeeded in removing a piece of raw beef from a larger slice and was lowering her chopsticks to feed Mr. Cranberry in her backpack under the table.

"Well. Have you considered R&D?"

"No. Wouldn't I have to be able to use chakra for that?"

"I'm not sure. But they're definitely not field ninja. That's why I turned it down," Shikako admitted. "You seem to have a good theoretical grounding in maths and science, which should put you ahead of most candidates even if you can't personally test whatever they're making."

"Huh," Norashi said. "I guess it's something to consider." A few years down the line, she didn't add, because they're going to force me to do my share of field work first. Shikako may have been unusually understanding so far, but Norashi didn't want to push it.

R&D, she thought, rotating the idea in her mind as she ate. So far, the idea of learning about Chakra Things had always been tainted by their proximity to Ninja Things. She didn't want to run marathons or go camping in the woods as a regular part of her job... but she still read all those books.

The people of this world could coat ninjutsu and sealing and chakra in all the faux-scientific mumbo jumbo they wanted, but fundamentally, what they were was magic from a fantasy anime with a ninja aesthetic. There had been a shine to it (up until she'd realized she couldn't do any of it herself) and it hadn't just been because the academy was boring. There was nothing about the idea of becoming a ninja accountant that she actively disliked, but if she could land a job doing magic maths...

"I don't like this," Chiyako spoke into the lull in the conversation. "Norashi and I just became friends and now she's leaving. And she's going to be on a team with older kids, and... and... I don't like it."

Norashi laid a hand on her shoulder, a bit awkward. "We're not in the same class anyway. We didn't see each other that much at the academy."

Chiyako sniffed. "We had kunoichi classes together."

"I'm sure you'll still get to see each other after Norashi graduates," said Shikako, then looked worried. "Right, Norashi?"

"I'm not going to just stop talking to her," Norashi defended. She liked Hanabi and her well enough. She just hoped they would become easier to talk to in a couple of years, as preteens rather than actual children. It was possible, if Shikako was any indication. She was what, thirteen or fourteen?

She could be like you, said the niggling voice in the back of her head.

But even if she was, Norashi still had no idea what she was supposed to do about it. It wasn't like she could ask without sounding like a crazy person in the very likely event that she was wrong. Besides, Shikako's friend Ino could hold a real conversation just fine and there was no indication whatsoever that she was anything other than the Yamanaka Ino from the show.

"By the way," Shikako asked later. "Have you ever met Kakashi-sensei? He's friends with Gai-sensei. Or, uh, rivals, I guess."

"Right. He's your jounin sensei," Norashi said. "What is it with those two?"

"What is with them?"

"Are they an item?"

Shikako blinked. "No? I don't think so. I mean, I've never thought about it, but..."

"Fair enough," said Norashi, who had thought about it back when Gai-sensei had first started training her and Kakashi-sensei had kept tagging along for no apparent reason. Then she'd realized that whether or not two fictional characters were dating was far less interesting when you were forced to interact with them as real people with no access to their internal monologue. 

"They're what? Are you saying they-" Chiyako started, wide eyed, even though she probably didn't even know who Kakashi was. If she did, it was only by reputation.

"That's not important right now," Norashi said firmly. "Anyway, yeah, I've met Kakashi lots of times. Why were you asking?"

"Oh," Shikako said, "I just thought it's funny how much you look like him. 'Lots of times', huh?"

"Well, yes. Gai-sensei and him always go everywhere together."

"They do?"

Norashi shrugged. "Maybe not anymore. Everyone's busy."

The last expression on Shikako's face - mild puzzlement - morphed into a controlled sort of curiosity. It was a lot of difference for very little distinction. "That's true. Who did you say your parents were, again?"

"I'm an orphan."

"Oh, right. I'm sorry."

Whatever Shikako was thinking, Norashi decided she didn't want to know. She really didn't need that level of drama in her life. And there was probably nothing there regardless.

"Thank you for the food," she said after Shikako had paid. The girl had been genuinely helpful and not just nosey, so there was no excuse for Norashi to be rude anymore.

Chiyako got up and hugged Shikako. "Yes, thank you, Nee-chan!"

Shikako hugged her back.

On their way out, Shikako said, "Think about the R&D thing. Then there's Hospital R&D, and my brother works in Logistics if you really want to go that route. You have options." She flapped open the curtain. "I have some books I could lend you..."

Chapter Text

The first day of March fell on a Tuesday this year, which meant Chiyako was sitting through kanji class and Hanabi was having outdoor weapons practice while Norashi was taking the written portion of the Academy Graduation Exam.

It was a multiple-choice test. Norashi contemplated her answer sheet for exactly as long as it took her to tick an answer to each question and not a moment longer. If she was ever going to get things wrong on purpose again, the time for that would have been several months ago, when she was moved to one of the graduating classes, handed a stack of books and expected to catch up on two years worth of material.

No. There was no point in answering wrong on purpose. As she handed her sheet in, she still hoped she'd gotten a couple things wrong on accident. Not because she still harbored any hope that somebody would swoop in and halt her early graduation or anything like that, just out of spite.

The teachers collected the last of the exam sheets and sent them on a very long lunch break, presumably so they could grade the written portion before moving on to the practical one. Not that anybody was expected to fail this year - "Normally, students who aren't going to pass are strongly encouraged to drop out long before their final year," Chiyako's mother had explained. "More students used to fail back when the graduation age was lower."

Norashi continued to be a special case completely against her will.

"Well," the teacher of this class said, scratching at his head. "I'm not quite sure what to test you on. Wanna run some laps?"

"We could just put down that a jounin vouched for her," the assistant teacher said. "Isn't that enough?"

"I... sure," said the teacher. "The Hokage is informed either way. Norashi-chan, congratulations. Here's your headband. Next! Fumikawa Koki!"

Afterwards, Norashi got ready to weave through the crowd of jubilant children and their parents and head straight home. Nobody in this class liked her and she'd finished her book already, so there was no cause to linger.

There was, however, cause to take an alternate route. Gai-sensei was standing in the center of the crowd. He was easy to spot, seeing as he was taller than most of the civilian moms here to pick up their kids and the crowd had parted to let him through. People always got out of his way.

Norashi dove back inside. There was a back exit from the Academy building which led to the training grounds. There was another back exit from the Academy building which led to a fenced-off area full of trash containers.

She swung open the squeaky metal door and found Gai-sensei already waiting by a dumpster.

"Congratulations on passing the exam!" he exclaimed. "Though it is but the first hurdle in your journey as a ninja."

She sighed. "Thanks. What do you want?"

"Why, to take you to your celebration dinner, of course!"

It was going to be more of a celebration afternoon snack, since Norashi had only just eaten lunch, but she wasn't complaining. They arrived at the section of Main Street where all the nice restaurants were concentrated. Tenten, Lee and Neji were already there.

"Oh. How did you get roped into this?" Norashi asked Tenten.

"I suggested it," Tenten said. "Gai-sensei would have probably gone with a celebratory triple marathon or something."

"We can still-" Lee started.

"Shut it!"

They got seated at a restaurant chosen nearly at random; Norashi wasn't a picky eater, and didn't go out to eat often enough to have favorites either.

"I'm sure my Eternal Rival would have come too," Gai-sensei said. "Unfortunately, he is away on a mission."

"Why?" Norashi asked.

"Why what?"

"Why would he have come?"

"That's... well, uh..." Gai-sensei started, uncharacteristically halting.

"Never mind," said Norashi, who was very rapidly realizing she didn't want a real answer. What she wanted was to be told there was no reason and it was just Kakashi and Gai being Kakashi and Gai. 

"Perhaps that's something you should ask Kakashi yourself," Gai-sensei said.

"I don't actually care," Norashi said. She stuffed a piece of fish into her mouth and chewed it for an excessively long time; curiosity may not have killed the cat but it sure did kill its appetite. 

She swallowed.

Chewed.

Swallowed.

"Gai-sensei," Neji said, mercifully changing the subject. "You said you won't be the jounin in charge of Norashi's team. So then, isn't it a bit early to celebrate?"

"Hey!" Tenten said. "Does she even know about...?"

"About the second test? I do," Norashi said.

Tenten slumped. "Ugh. Did everyone know except for me?"

"That isn't true, Tenten! I didn't know either!" Lee exclaimed, very excited.

"About that," Norashi said. The possibility of failing was a rare and enticing ray of hope in these dark days, but it was marred somewhat by the fact that she had no idea what would happen if she did fail. She'd never heard of somebody graduating early only to get booted out of the general forces, and surely, they wouldn't just let her go back to her old academy class after all this fuss. "What'll happen if my team fails? Will I be sent to the genin corps like everybody else?"

That didn't sound too bad - delivering mail and repairing roads and whatever else the genin corps did. She would really rather have a desk job though.

"Don't fret, Norashi!" Gai-sensei said. "It is true that a ninja needs skill and perseverence. Especially perseverence," he said. "But do you know what else they need?"

"No, Gai-sensei," Norashi said obediently. "What do they need?"

"Luck!"

He gave her a thumb-up.

His teeth sparkled.

Norashi's jounin sensei turned out to be a no-nonsense brown-haired man in his twenties who wore a completely unaltered version of the standard Konoha uniform. He didn't even have a cool sword.

In other words, he was clearly a background character.

"It's a Konoha tradition for newly formed teams to introduce themselves and talk about their dreams for the future," he said. "We can do that tomorrow after the test... if you pass."

"Kakesu-sensei," Norashi said, hand raised like she was still in a classroom. "What would you say are the odds of us passing?"

"One in five," said the jounin, which was hardly an answer. One-in-five were the odds assuming the teams were put together completely at random. Shikako had assured Norashi that they were not. "Norashi, right? I've heard you're Might Gai's apprentice. Well, don't expect any special treatment from me."

"I won't," Norashi said. "In fact, I think you should treat me exactly like everybody else, Sensei."

"That's-" He blinked, caught off-guard. "Very well. You've got the place and time. I'll see you all tomorrow."

He body-flickered away. Norashi wondered if there was some practical utility to it over taking the stairs or if adult ninja just did it to show off.

One of Norashi's new teammates - a purple-haired girl whose name Norashi didn't know - did a little stretch. The other member of their team-to-be was an Inuzuka boy with a mean scowl.

"Dreams, huh?" the girl asked. "Do you have a dream, Norashi-chan? Mine is to be strong like Ashi's cousin Hana. She's got three dogs. And her hair's really pretty." She sighed dreamily.

"Will you shut up about her already?" asked the Inuzuka boy. "I should have never introduced you."

Norashi nodded to herself. These two came as a pair and she was the third wheel here. That was good. Being the third wheel suited her very well.

"Good luck with that," she said. "My dream is to, uh... work in Research and Development at the tower."

"Huh," said the Inuzuka boy. "Aren't you supposed to be some kind of prodigy? I thought you'd be all stuck up."

Norashi very plainly outlined her inability to use chakra. "They were already talking about graduating me early before I got diagnosed. I guess afterwards, they decided they might as well, since I can't learn the jutsu."

"Oooh! So that's why you were always excused from ninjutsu class!"

They all went home. Their new sensei held their test early the next morning. It wasn't designed to teach them a life lesson or anything; it was just a tracking-and-capture exercise.

Norashi didn't cause them to fail on purpose. That would have been petty, even for her.

.

.

.

"I ran into Gai-sensei," Sasuke said to Shikako. "He said he wants to arrange some sort of team-versus-team free-for-all match with his team and Norashi's new genin team."

"Hm?" Shikako asked, not looking up from her drafts.

"Could have been interesting if it was just Team Gai," he said.

"Hm," said Shikako.

Sasuke sighed. "You're not going."

It did seem a bit weird. Was Gai-sensei just trying to terrify a fresh genin team or was there an actual point to this? Was Kakashi-sensei going to be present at this hypothetical match too?

"I don't have time for this right now," she said. Shikamaru's arm was far more important.