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The metal frame of my hospital bed creaked uncomfortably as I shifted to take a medical chart from its foot. Silence restored itself as I settled back down, legs crossed underneath me, and stared at its single page.
Name. Age: ten years old. Height: four foot five. Weight: sixty-eight pounds. No diseases, no scars or physical damage of immediate concern. A few lines written in the section for additional comments. Someone had blacked them out.
Approximately eight minutes ago the jounin commander left me here under surveillance, citing a need to tend to administrative duties as the reason for our separation. This was fine. There was no practical reason for his continued presence. Privately, I guessed he did not yet trust me back into his home.
His wife was several floors below me, where I sensed her repeatedly advancing towards some point, then retreating from it. Pacing a hallway. Reception would not be admitting any visitors today.
Shikamaru Nara’s chakra was near his mother’s, but it had not moved since I had first picked him out. The scene was easy to hypothesize: him, slumped into a chair, staring; his mother, wearing a hole deep into the floor.
Just outside this room’s sliding door there was stationed a high-level Konoha ninja. His chakra placed him somewhere between high chunin and jounin. No clock had been provided for this hospital room, but approximately one hour passed between the departure of Shikaku Nara and the entrance of this additional ninja. Perhaps he had been aiming to observe any negative reactions to a short isolation. Perhaps this was a kindness, and I was even being offered a chance to process some very rapid changed in circumstance. Neither possibility was cause for concern.
The man who entered was not wearing any obvious sign of rank. Scoping out further detail was advisable; I needed to know about weapons, about intentions. All of that would be easiest to do by looking directly at him.
The likelihood that he would attempt to harm me was extremely limited, so I did not.
A chair was pulled up beside my bed; he placed himself in it in a manner that suggested friendliness. My eyes did not move from the medical chart.
In a voice low in volume and lacking strong inflection, he introduced himself as Hakuro. The voice was angled to be gentle, reassuring, setting up a sense of trust between us. Hakuro asked me what I was called. I replied with an identification number. Names were not awarded until after graduation, for purposes of inconspicuous identification upon debuting into the public.
Hakuro asked if the chart was really that interesting. I informed him it was not. Thirty-eight seconds of silence passed until, sensing this would not change, soon, he leaned forward in the chair and placed his elbows on his knees in a way calculated to appear relaxed. His chakra bolstered the impression of a person to whom it was safe to talk, coiled around him like soft, loosely-wound yarn.
The next question was whether I could summarize recent events to the best of my ability.
I flipped up the chart on the clipboard, but there was only one page and nothing was written on the back, so I was looking at smooth wood now instead. Someone had once scribbled a spiral in one of the corners in a likely attempt to restore ink flow.
My voice was quiet and steady as I formulated an appropriate response. ”Following the dissolution of Root, rouge cells refused to comply with orders and organized into a secret base of missing nin. Shikaku Nara's investigation into local hostile forces discovered one of these bases. Upon invading this branch, they discovered the existence of training programs intended to perpetuate and expand their mission, which is to strengthen the village of Konoha using any means necessary. These students were commanded to evacuate, but their exit was blocked by Konoha forces. They were then assembled into a contained room. The location of the others is unknown to me personally.”
It was nothing he did not know already. It was barely even from my point of view.
"How did you come to be in this building?"
"I was personally escorted by Shikaku Nara."
"And who are you, to Mr. Nara?”
"I am his biological daughter.”
Hakuro nodded, as if appreciative of the conversation's efficiency. It felt as if I were being indulged. "I want you to know that your fellow students are fine. They're probably all in about the same position you are.”
"And the ones who were not as cooperative?" A shinobi did not have any individuality, but that did not stop inherent differences in temperament from occasionally interfering. Some were more loyal than I was, or simply more prone to violence.
"Then they'll be contained until we can talk to them. I promise, we aren't going to hurt any of your friends." That was good. They were not my friends, because in six months they were going to be paired off to kill each other. Or, that had been the case that morning. It was still a good thing.
"Do you know any of the people who were in charge of things?”
“Yes," I answered.
"What about their names?”
“Yes." On the tip of my tongue, every person who had overseen my transformation. Many important men who had overseen them. One very important man, in particular.
"Can you tell me?”
“No."
"Why not?”
For the first time I faced him directly, then stuck my tongue out in the most professional way possible. Being both physically ten, and a little unnerved by the questions, it probably came across as petulant. His expression was very carefully kind, but not in a way that seemed insincere. I did not meet his eyes.
Still, the silencing seal spoke for itself.
Secretly I was glad for it. Revealing confidential information was no longer a choice available to me.
Should I choose shinobi duty, or clan? If I integrated into the Naras but still held back information, was I remaining loyal, or was I a traitor? The choice had been taken from me.
Hakuro sighed through his nose. It sounded sad. As children, my training distantly intoned, pity and underestimation will be two of your greatest tools.
"How do you feel about all of these sudden changes?" he asked in a voice suddenly even softer; it struck me as funny. Like the world's most formulaic therapist. And how does that make you feel?
"I am stable." Everything was fine. This was not an upsetting turn of events. Or rather, events could not upset me.
"Do you think you'd go back if you could?”
Absently, I noted the medical chart had started to create noise. Its single sheet, still flipped dangling in the air, was brushing against other surfaces. The white bedsheets, my bare legs. Ah, it was shaking. That is, the hands holding it were shaking.
The thought became apparent that this whole scenario could be a genjutsu, and Hakuro's calm, winding chakra was a fabrication, and my handler was gauging each response with disapproval and plans for specialized training. It wasn't that far-fetched a possibility.
"No." What had the question been? Oh, right. "I would not return."
Of anything I'd done today, that was the easiest to justify. In this scenario I was undercover, tricking the enemy nin into giving me more freedom.
Wood creaked under my fingers from where they were squeezing too intently. "Graduation is soon." I contained a shudder, but unsuccessfully. Not at the idea of graduation. "And not for me, but." A shinobi did not reveal information. A shinobi did not reveal information, expressing dissastisfaction towards graduation was proof of weakness, and a shinobi did not reveal information, and a shinobi did not reveal information, and-
"And what's so bad about graduation?”
A question to which there could be no answer.
A few more questions, most of which had very easy answers. Designed to seem banal, quietly probing my mental state. Hakuro seemed satisfied that I wasn't going to immediately stab him and try running away, because after he thanked me and left, no one came back to stand such obvious watch by my door. I had no doubt there were still ninja close enough to immediately respond, but there was no one dedicated to threatening me into place.
This was the interior section of the hospital, and so my room was windowless. The door let through no sound. I traced patterns in the grain of the wooden clipboard, and in my mother's pacing up and down the hallways.
It wasn't long before the Jounin commander found me again. He sat where Hakuro had. I hadn't moved since taking the chart, and didn't see the point in it now. The mood was oppressively careful when he finally spoke.
"Shikako," he said. "Would you like to come home?"
There was a knot in my stomach that hurt. I hadn't been in training for very long, objectively. These emotions were unacceptably volatile.
I looked up and did not meet his eyes. But the face was familiar, and the scar. Even now, the Konoha headband seemed to speak of safety.
A tear plopped on the hem of my hospital gown, and I nodded.