The Queen that wasn't

Even the least attentive Academy student knew this: chakra was life, life was chakra. The lesson had been hammered again and again to the few idiots who hadn't already noticed. Where there was chakra, there was life, let it be shinobi, civilians, animals, plants, or mosquitos. And reciprocally, where there wasn't chakra, then there was no life. Simple, basic, logic. Shikaku liked his lectures best that way.

What had life had chakra. Except this girl hadn't.

Shikaku had never realized how much he relied on his chakra senses before that moment. Of course, he was far from being a sensor, nor had he worked towards that direction, or any direction to be honest. As a typical son of the Nara Clan, Shikaku made a point to invest as little energy as possible into academic skills in any official fashion. Nonetheless, no matter the degree of personal disinterest, every shinobi or shinobi-to-be, including the laziest ones had unconsciously developped a latent sense to detect chakra. To detect life.

And yet, he could felt nothing from the girl currently frolicking with his Clan's herd. Had the child not been surrounded by adoring deers, Shikaku wondered if he would have even noticed her presence.

He had never felt so genuinely disturbed in his nine years of pattented indifference. She might as well have been a corpse to him, a very well-preserved, pretty and smiling corpse moving, running and breathing. Still hidden beneath the comforting shadows of the trees, he could only stare in shocked disbelief as the younger child that shouldn't exist giggled under Moriko's ministrations, their grumpiest elderly doe obviously unbothered by the thing's wrongness.

"Aren't you the cutest thing, my lovely friend," she cooed as she smoothered Daiki with enthusiastic caresses. The shy fawn, who had run hiding behind his mother's legs when Shikaku had came to feed him not two days ago, looked that close to perish of pleasure under her tickling hands. And that by itself would have been suspicious. Shikaku had known those deers all his life, and they had never shown more than polite indifference to his presence, not unlike Nara themselves. He had never see them demonstrate that much affection to anyone, even less a complete stranger.

This couldn't be happening right now. Chakra signals could be attenuated, the best trackers could even lower their apparent level to the size of a mosquito, but never entirely erased.

Genjutsu? A pretty shitty one then, because no one would look at this monstriosity and not notice the trickery. If this crap was Shikane's idea for a joke, they were going to have words.

"Kai," he whispered while making the appropriate hand signs.

Nothing happened. Except from attracting the girl's attention to him, which had not been not the objective at all. Things were not looking up for Shikaku. He had just came to feed the deers, like he had every single day, for fuck's sake. Why couldn't the exitement happen to people who actually seeked for it?

"Oh hello there," she smiled hesitantly as she stared right at him with bright blue eyes. "That's not a very polite thing to do."

Moriko seemed to think so as well, if the mean glare she gratified him with meant anything. The rest of herd whined in genuine distress as their new creepy friend gently pushed Daiki out of her lap and rose from the ground.

At that instant, Shikaku seriously considered running away to call for reinforcement. A stranger roaming free in the middle of Konoha, clearly using some kind of weird jutsu to remain completly undetectable, which wasn't suppose to be possible, and stealing their deers' loyalty right under their nose. Probably for some nefarious purpose yet to be uncovered. Shikaku on the other hand only had three years of unenthusiastic training at the Academy under his belt, and the so called Nara strategic mind.

Had she not looked like an armless six-year old, he would have been gone long ago. As it was, Shikaku had yet to get rid of his remanant of manly pride. He took a decided step forward.

"This is a private proprerty, miss," Shikaku tried to channel his grand-uncle Takeshi at his grumpiest. It worked better on bitter old men than apathic nine years old, or so Moriko's unimpressed glare told him.

Instead of turning repentant and going away, like he had hoped, the girl's smile grew even more wilder. "Oh, I had no idea," she outright lied with a cheerful grin. "Although it's not very nice to keep such lovely friends to yourself Nara-san!"

The girl looked positively eerie, standing in the middle of his deers, her golden hair running free on her shoulders, while Shikaku's senses kept on screaming at him that there was no one there. She stared at him with intense curiosity, like she had seen another human being before, and who knew, perhaps she never had. Perhaps his aunt Fubuki wasn't that crazy after all, and there were indeed spirits haunting the forest. Perhaps Shikaku had stumbled upon a Youkai visiting the deers by accident, and now his family would never find his body.

"Maybe we can find..." she started as she took a step towards him, miraculously avoiding to walk on any deer's hoof, and Shikaku couldn't help the instinctive gesture of revulsion at her approach.

He took a step back. She stopped, and her cheerful eagerness just wavered under his eyes. A pure expression of hurt, and longing, and loneliness flickered for half a second, before she reigned her features back into a mask of polite indifference.

Shikaku had offended the Yokai of unkown intentions. Now he was definitely going to die.

"Please forgive me for the intrusion, Nara-san," she bowed to him, her tiny back stiff and her eyes blank. "It won't happen again."

If deers' glares could kill, Shikaku would be nothing more than a bloody puddle on the floor. The traitorous beasts made an attempt to follow their new friend when she attempted to entangle herself from their herd. "Aw, you must let me go I'm afraid, my friends! We wouldn't want Nara-san to sue us, right?"

"Indeed," a unfamiliar male voice said out of nowhere.

Shikaku's hand flew to his kunai pocket, before he recognized the ANBU uniform of the masked shinobi who had shunshin'ed next to the girl. She seemed neither surprised nor afraid as she grinned unapologically to the newcomer.

"Owl! You're getting better, only half an hour to find me! I am so proud of you!"

Shikaky blinked in raw surprise as the petite blond rose her hand to pat the professional killer's arm. To his credit, Agent Owl didn't even react to her patronizing touch.

"Ojo-sama. You mustn't run away. For your own safety," he sighed while trying to stay monotonous, but with the exasperated tone of those who had to repeat the same thing again and again. His father used that voice a lot.

Undeterred, 'Ojo-sama' only pouted, pushing her arms around Kaede's soft neck and gratifying her bodyguard, or so Shikaku assumed, with the biggest puppy eyes he had ever seen. The ANBU stiffened with uncomfort, and honestly the Nara couldn't blame him. He doubted they covered that kind of formation at ANBU training.

"But I'm so booooored," the girl whined, only gaining in sheer cuteness when the doe put her stout on her blond curls. You could almost forget the revulsing feeling of blablant wrongness. Almost. "Plus, I gotta keep you guys on your toes. Wouldn't want you to get rusty."

Shikaky stared in morbid fascination as Owl bent to take the girl into his arms, to the despair of Kaede and the rest of the herd. Didn't it felt weird, to hold her while your chakra senses kept on denying her existence?

"There is no need, Ojo-sama," and then the ANBU turned towards him. "Nara Skikaku-san. You will not speak to anyone of what you just saw."

On the plus side, the girl didn't seemed to be a malevolent spirit of the forest after all. She was however classified, so classified, and Shikaku way above his clearance. He managed to nod in understanding, which seemed good enough for her bodyguard.

"It's like you're ashamed of me, Owl," she laughed with poorly hidden bitterness, before waving at Shikaku without looking at him. "Pleasure meeting you Nara-san!"

His stomach recoiled in guilt. He had...hurt her, though unintentionally, and yet she kept on trying to spare his feelings. Aside from her...presence issue, she seemed like a genuinely good person. And a very lonely one.

The deers adored her. The deers never adored anyone, no even Naras who had taken care of them for centuries now.

"Wait," he called out, before he could stop himself. "I apologize for..."

He couldn't even say it. His rudeness? His disgust? She seemed to get his nebulous meaning anyway, and smiled gently at him, like he had been the one to gift something precious to her. "It's alright. I understand. Thank you."

And then both bodyguard and protegee were off, leaving behind them a herd of upset deers and one bemused pre-genin.

Thank you, she had said. Thank you. Now Shikaku truly felt like a jerk. The glare of pure contempt Moriko granted him didn't help.

.

.

"You're distracted," Nara Shikako, estimated Clan Head, Hokage's advisor and his beloved mother commented as she proceeded to destroy his struggling defense.

Nothing new under the sun, so. Shikaku frowned as his knight tragically perished to his attackant's merciless advance. He had never came even close to win any Shogi game against his mother before, and wasn't going to start now. Although, she was right, he was more distracted than usual.

She kept on bugging on his mind. Her odd cheerfulness. Her sad smile. So troublesome.

"Not really," he shruggled, keeping his attention to the game. He silently congratulated himself for not staring at the forest yet again.

His mother was not impressed by his acting skills. What a shock. "Hm. So you're not bothered with what happened with Hikari-sama then?"

Shikaku stilled in the middle of a move. Hikari. Light. Was that her name? "Who's Hikari-sama?" he asked with false confusion. He doubted there were much secrets in this village his mother wasn't cleared to know, but. Just in case. Better safe than sorry, especially when it came to got back to the word given to an ANBU. An ANBU that knew where he lived, and could have found out with no trouble if he didn't anyway.

"At ease, kiddo," Shikako snorted, with what definitly looked like a hint of amused pride. "I'm giving you clearance."

The youngest Nara sat back on his seat, their game completly forgotten. He might get some answer to the puzzle who had been eating his brain for days now. He smirked just for the form. "You got some papers to certify that, Ma'am?"

"Cheeky brat," she laughed and bent over to ruffle his hair. "Don't want to talk about girls with your old Mom, right? I get it."

She was baiting him, obviously. She knew that, he knew that, the whole Clan, nay, the whole village knew that. Yet he couldn't held back his disgusted reaction. "Geez, Mom, what's wrong with you? Girls are...and she is..."

His mother's gleeful mask crumbled with...he wasn't sure what it was. "Yeah. She is."

Shikaku shuddered as he remembered vividly the feeling of emptiness. "What...wrong with her? Her chakra I mean."

"She doesn't have any, for what we can tell. She was born like that."

No chakra. No chakra at all. It didn't felt real, although it did make sense with what he had felt. What was alive had chakra. What had chakra was alive.

Unnatural, Shikaku frowned to himself. It wasn't fair to her, nor to him. She had been nice. Good. And the deers had liked her. Which became even more weirder, in the light of his mother's revelations. Shouldn't they feel even more uncomfortable with her than Shikaku had?

How odd. And how dangerous, as they both understood. No wonder they kept her existence classified and under ANBU constant surveillance. Although in the light of those new informations, her guard had acted incredibly lenient towards his charge. And why the 'sama'? Perhaps the girl came from a noble family, why might explain how she was allowed to roam by herself and not be trapped into some lab to be experimented on.

Konoha had a reputation of high ethics for a Hidden Village, but they weren't that nice.

"She's a Senju," Shikako droped seemingly out of somewhere, and visibly enjoyed her son's gasp. Shikaku hated when she did that, like she could read his mind or something.

"A what?" How could have one of the strongest clans have given birth to a living chakra blackhole?

It didn't made sense. Nothing about her did. Although it did explained the 'sama' and the treatment of favor. She did looked a bit like the terrifying Tsunade-sama now that he thought about it.

"Indeed," his mother didn't bothered telling him to keep his mouth shut on the matter.

Shikaku knew better after all.

.

.

Rather naively, he had assumed their meeting would remain to the stade of one time fluke never to be reproduced.

He had assumed wrong.

"Then Mitsuko went to the river, and asked to talk to the Fisher King. The river told her to bring them three presents, one for the River, one for the Queen and one for King. Mitsuko replied...ow, that tickles!" Hikari rose her head from her book and pushed Daiki's stout away with a delighed giggle.

So. The girl was lying in the grass on her stomach, a colorful book open between her elbows, sporadically kicking her feet in the air. And currently reading a fairy tail out loud for sake of the herd of deers surrounding her. Shikaku recognized Kimie, Daiki's mother guarding her left flank, and Kaede on her right. Moriko watched carefully the book as if trying to read for herself, and Daiki was all but sprawled on the girl's back.

No ANBU visible, but that didn't meant much. If ANBU didn't wanted to be seen, then a nine year old Academy student wouldn't be the one to spot them, otherwise they might as well give up their mask and retire to cultivate potatoes. Or so his mother kept on grumbling.

Okay. Good. That was the perfect opportunity he had been hoping for. Shikaku could do this. He would go speak to her, and apologize properly. Easy. No big deal.

Anytime now.

"Not now Owl, I'm not done reading," Hikari said louder without bothering to raise her head from her book, before visibly startling and turning in his general direction. "Oh Nara-san, I'm sorry!"

Shikaku blinked. There were no way in hell she could have seen him where he was spying on her like a creeper. Could she...sense his presence somehow?

Time to face the music. "Hikari-sama," he greeted her as he stepped out of the shadows.

She struggled to get back on her feet, only to admit defait to Daiki's persistance, and compromized to sit crosslegged with the fawn's head on her lap. Shikaku tried very hard not to find the scene cute.

"Hello Nara-san," she smiled sheepishly, as her hand found her way to the back of her head. "Aren't you supposed to be at school today?"

Had she been keeping track of his schedule or what? "Got released early today," and didn't get a detention for sleeping in class, a exploit that deserved a reward for itself.

"Oh. Right. I'm sorry, I said I wouldn't bother you again..."

So that was the reason of her apology. "Actually I'm kinda thankful. The deers had been sulking at me lately." Not a lie, if by sulking he really meant passively agressive, or actively agressive in old Moriko's case.

Hikari laughed openly at his discumfiture. To fair, Shikaku would laugh too, and more mockingly than she did. "Those darlings? I can scarcely believe it."

"Believe it. They like you way better than me," he drawled out honestly.

"They might be the only ones," she replied cheerfully without thinking, only to immediatly regret the jab, as her redding cheeks betrayed her.

The latent guilt he had been carrying since that day came back to bite his belly. He did not let it stop him. Naras did not wallow in their problems, they solve them with the better investissment/result ratio they could get.

He sat down next to her. Close enought to touch, but with Kaede acting as a buffer between them. At his feet, Moriko sent him a warning glance that screamt 'don't mess up again, boy, or else.' Geez, thanks for the vote of confidence, he wasn't that insensitive, alright.

"Please let me apologize for my conduct last time," Shikaku made to a point to look at her right in the eyes. "I was...startled, which is not a excuse, but didn't meant to offent you in any way."

Her sky-blue eyes grew enormous with surprise and embarassment. Shikaku kept his smirk of self-congratulation to himself. "There is no need for apologies Nara-san! If anything I'm the one who intruded on your lands. And I know I can be...upsetting to shinobi."

Understatement of the year, at the very least. 'Upsetting' indeed. The feeling of wrongness had yet to ease from his mind. He ignored it.

"I'm Shikaku, Hikari-sama," he chose to say instead. "Nara-san is my mother." And all his uncles and aunts and older cousins.

"Actually, since your mother is head of clan, she would be Nara-sama," Hikari argued with clear amusement. "I, however, am not head of anything, so I invite you to drop the sama."

Oh, if she wanted to play that game. Let it not be said Nara would get bested on a mind joust unless they felt like it. "I was merely following my superior's lead."

She snorted. "Owl is stubborn as a mule. His lead is not be followed, Shikaku-san."

"That's not I've been taught at the Academy, Hikari-sama" he retorted, trying to stay dignified while Kaede began to sniff his hair. Annoying females.

She leant towards him with a grin full of malice, while taking the precaution to stay out of contact, probably for his sake. "Because you're the kind to do only what you've been taught, is that right?"

Damn, did she had to read him like the open book still at her feet? Bad enough when his mother did so, but a six years old he had met twice? If he hadn't several years under his belt to severe his own pride, the sheer humiliation might have killed him. Thankfully Shikaku had no been born Uchiha. Pride was an overrated quality for shinobi anyway.

"Doing otherwise would be too troublesome."

He had not expected the success of his own retort, as Hikari bowed over Daiki's back in hilarity. "Too troublesome, he says," the blond almost cried tears of laugher. "You're really something, Shikaku-san."

That was just rich coming from her. "Just your typical Nara, Hikari-san," Shikaku conceded to her.

"Ah!" she cheered. "Better, but I'm only six-years old, I'm sure you have noticed."

What a joke. If she was an actual six years old, he would eat his his shogi board. She spoke like an adult, kept up with him better than his classmates of three years her elder ever did. Shikaku would not call her Hikari-chan.

"You call me Shikaku-san, Hikari-san," he chose to smirk instead of bringing back her weirdness to the discussion again. "What am I, your venerable elder?"

At the innocent beam she nearly blinded him with, he realised too late he had just offer her the lance to impale him with. "Well, you do have three years over me, Shikaku-oji-san. It's like, a third of my lifespan!"

She did have a point, dammit. Although. "You're very well informed, Hikari-san..."

Her hand froze in the middle of a stroke of Daiki's fur, and she smiled with visible uncomfort. "Oh. Abooout that...Owl might have a run a minimal background research on you..."

No kidding. His eyes narrowed as he leant over a sleepy Kaede's back, intrigued by her embarassment. Clearly the 'invasion of his privacy' meant more to her than to him. Shikaku, raised among a clan of shinobi that put the importance of knowlegde above everything else understood perfectly the need to stay informed. Actually, he might have felt offended if the ANBU hadn't done a basic research on him. "Minimal, hm?"

"Oh you know," she eyed him with casual flippancy. "Birth certificate, medical check up, academic records, completely normal things."

Shikaku snorted as she rolled her eyes, and didn't even flinch at her ANBU's timely arrival. Progress.

"Hikari-sama," Owl didn't managed to keep his disapproval from leaking out of the usual ANBU monocord tone. "Even though you don't seem to care about your own safety doesn't meant we don't."

Hikari let herself be collected into Owl's arms once again. Shikaku had to try very hard not to laugh out loud at her pretty scowl. "If by we you mean paranoid bastards..."

Owl had been that close to scream 'language!" Shikaku could tell from his sudden stiffness. The Nara rose from the ground and adressed a smirk at the Senju carried bride-style. "That's the definition of a shinobi, princess."

"Princess? I'm afraid you're mistaken, Shikaku-san," Hikari managed the exploit to stay dignified despite her position and stared down at him. "I am a Queen."

For half a second, Shikaku completely believed her.

.

.

"I'll go feed the babes," Shikaku, being the doting brother he was, made a move to take the bottle out of his sister's hands.

Normally Shikane would rejoice at the chance to ditch her domestic duties to her brother. This time however, the annoying brat pushed his arm away and narrowed her eyes with growing suspicion. "Okay, that's weird. What's going on with your lazy ass lately?"

That was the problem with growing in a Nara household. They always knew when something fishy was happening under their nose. Fortunately, most of the time they were too lazy to do something about it. Unfortunatly Shikane had gotten more than her fair share on the 'nosiness' gene pool, and let most the 'lazy ass' ones to him. "Geez, Nee-san, last time I try to be helpful..."

"Please," she interrupted him, her hands on her hips, acting like the ungrateful brat she had always been. "You never offer to help me. Most of the time you're too lazy to help yourself. So, what are you hidding, little brother?"

And they wondered why he loathed interacting with hysterical females? He silently called his mother for reinforcement. Nara Shikako, the traitor, ignored him and grinned at her daughter. Didn't anyone have any respect for what was classified anymore?

Typical. He had to do everything himself. "Fine, you got me," he deadpanned. "I'm meeting with my contact from Kumo. They promised me that once I helped them conquer Konoha I could sleep all day forever. I've hidden the intel inside the bottle."

Shikako almost choked on her tea. His father, on the hand, didn't seem very impressed. "Oh really? That's disappointing," Masato mused out loud over the newspapers, because like every other dad in the Element Nations, he red the newspaper with his coffee in the morning. "I was hoping you were secretly meeting with a girl."

Shikaku did not wince. Nope. Not at all. Just like his mother was not silently dying of laugher. "What's wrong with this family?"

"Sage, there is, isn't it?" Shikane couldn't seem to choose between disgust and glee. "My little brother is meeting with a girl."

"There is no girl!" he protested, which technically belonged to the lying category. There was a girl, of the classifed kind. But not a girl like they were all implying. Ugh.

"Is that what you were doing with your girls Masato?" his mother smiled sweetly, in an entirely unhelpful manner. "Meeting them clandestinaly in the middle of the forest?"

"You would know, darling," her husband grinned slyly. Shikaku would have been just fine never knowing that.

Shikane agreed with him, for once. "You're disgusting," she growled before reaching for her brother's arm and proceeded to drag him out of their house.

"Hey, what are you doing, you crazy woman," he tried weakly to remove his limb from her grip. Not much hope on that front, once she had worked herself up into a mood, his sister would rather dislocate his shoulder before she let him go.

"Go feed the babes of course," his lunatic relative gratified her victim with a vicious grin.

"And we need to be two for that since..?"

"Since you've been meeting with your girlfriend, apparently."

"Nee-san, there is no girl!"

And there wasn't. No suspicious nins, nor hypothetical girlfriends lurking on the herd's grazing ground. Shikane went as far as to check kunoichi-style.

And Shikaku was not disappointed. Nope. Not at all.

"Can we go now?" he sighed condescendently once he was done feeding Daiki and the other fawns, and his sister had tried all the sensing jutsu she knew, without success.

"Yeah, fine, you got me," his sister grumbled like a sore loser, which Shikaku hardly heard at all.

Daiki turned insistantly his head to the younger Nara's right. Shikaku barely caught a glimpse of gold before she disappeared into the trees. His heart skipped a beat. What the hell was she playing at?

"What again?" Shikane stared at the spot both human and fawn had turned to.

Shikaku put on his best childish frown and prepared himself for the show. "I already told you, nothing."

.

.

Surprisingly, Hikari turned out to be a perfectly decent cloud-watching partner. From what he had gathered from previous interactions, Shikaku would have assumed she wouldn't be able to keep the chitchat down. Yet she contented herself to glaze aimlessly without saying a word at the sky just fine, with Kimie snorting quietly to her side.

Which was good, obviously. Coming from anyone else, Shikaku would have been overjoyed of the opportunity, in his own Nara way. But.

If he lied on the ground watching the sky, and she did no speak, the fact that he could not feel her became even more bothersome. He did not see her, or hear her, or feel her, therefore she wasn't there. How was he supposed to sleep when he kept worrying about stuff like 'what if she had been kidnapped' or 'maybe she had stopped breathing, smoothered under several pounds of nosy deers and I didn't notice'.

It was a problem.

After the hundredth time or so of turning his head to the side to check that yes, she was still lying next to him, her gold curls spread on the grass, he decided to take the matter between his own hands.

"So, how to do managed to escape your ANBU babysitter?" he asked casually, as if he hadn't spend the last half hour silently freaking out and peeking at her every two minutes like a creeper.

"Babysitter," Hikari giggled, likely amusing herself with Owl's hypothetical indignation. "It's like you don't have faith in my ninja skills at all, Shika-kun."

She had taken to the surname since 'well, I can't call you Shikaku-san anymore to spare your precious feelings' and 'I'm not going to say Shikaku-kun. There's too many Ku, it's ridiculous." Shikaku let her have her way because it would be way too troublesome to fight her over for such trivial matters.

In exchange, he got to call her 'my queen', with a surplus of sarcastic grovelling. It hadn't embarrassed her nearly as much as he had hoped, but by then the surname had stuck. Somehow, he felt like he had gotten the short end of the stick.

"I had no idea you had one of those, my queen."

"Why, because of my disability?" she joked lightly of her condition, and he ended up cringing. "Yet I am here, aren't I?"

Yes. She was. She was right there. If Shikaku moved his arm, he might even touch her. He kept his hand firmly to his side.

"They don't know how to track someone like me," she continued, oblivious of his inner crisis. "Their usual technics doesn't work."

"There are other ways to track someone than chakra," Shikaku argued. "Like sent." And...stuff.

"Sure," she nodded. "But the last time they put an Inuzuka on my watch, I pulverized his nose with perfume. And summons are my buddies."

The Nara shuddered. "You're evil."

She cackled with fake malveolance, Kimie half-waking at the sudden sound. "That I am! Mwahaha, fear my wrath, innocent ANBU of Konoha!"

"And ridiculous," he rolled his eyes, though she couldn't see it.

"You asked for it. Wanna hear the secret of my success?"

No. Secrets were too troublesome. And Shikaku already spent way much time trying to figure out hers. Without much success on his part, to be honest.

"I'm all ears," he deadpanned with false casualness, as if he wasn't hanging to her lips like a starving man.

Kimie whined in vain protestation while the blond nuisance leant dangerously close of said ear. Shikaku had to fought over his every muscles. Not. To. Move. Hikari had grown rather lax with her own personal bundaries lately.

A single curl of gold briefly graced his cheek, and he stopped breathing for a second.

"The trees help me hide."

Shikaku blinked. She had not said 'I hide in the trees' but 'the trees help me hide.'

...the fuck?

"That's...very nice of them?" he tried, uncertained to what he was expected to say. They hadn't covered that part on 'The Nara Men Manual To Survive Women's Madness And Effectively Perpetuate The Line'. If not for that life-saving piece of wisdom, the Nara would probaby have been wiped out decades ago.

"Hm. It is," she fell back on her initial position and kept her eyes on the uncovered sky, Kimie sighing blissfully at the return of her beloved human's hand on her head.

Shikaku took a cautious peek to her side. She didn't look angry, just...disappointed. As if Shikaku had failed a test he hadn't been aware of.

The Nara had failed hundreds of test before without giving a care, yet the thought displeased him. Mostly because he knew he could have won those without breaking a sweat had he wanted to. But here he had no idea what she expected of him.

It was frustrating.

"But your ANBU should know where to find you by now?" he casually changed the subject. Unless Hikari had several other hidding places. With other friends to hang out with. If she did, Shikaku decidly didn't care.

Jealousy was way too troublesome for Shikaku to deal with.

"Of course they do, silly!" she laughed at him, before waving vaguely towards the trees. "Hedgehog is lurking somewhere over there. She always let me have a bit of fun before dragging me back to Ghost Town. She's a big softie, deep, deep down."

Shikaku vowed to never again make any kind of derogative comment on ANBU agents from now on. You never knew when they were listening. Better safe than sorry.

.

.

"Matsuda-sensei," Shikaku waited until the end of the class to pester his homeroom teacher.

Since the Nara had refrained from voluntarily engaging his teachers in any way for the last four years he had been sleeping off on Konoha Academy's benches, Shikaku couldn't find it within himself to get upset at Matsuda-sensei's expression of pure shock.

It was damn hilarous though.

"Yes, Shikaku-kun?" the chuunin tried to contain his surprise, with the air of someone who wanted so badly to threw a 'Kai' but didn't know how to do so without offending the other party. Shikaku had been there. "Can I help you?"

He couldn't believe he was actually doing this. If his clan disowned him for the sake of their 'You Shall Not Seek For More Work' sacred moto, he was so blaming Senju Fucking Hikari. "Sensei, you're a stealth specialist, right?"

"How do you...nevermind," Matsuda-sensei pinched the bridge of his nose and valiantly did not whined 'damned Nara', as most of Shikaku's interlocutors tended to at that point. "Yes I am. Or I used to be anyway."

Before a Kiri-nin had exploded his leg to several gory pieces, that was it. "You should have seen the other guy," the chunnin had joked when one of his student had tactlessly asked about his wooden prothesis, and then proceeded to collectively kick their asses, just in case they had any doubt left regarding his abilities.

Shikaku had little love for teachers, especially when they actively tried to get him to do things, but he did have have a certain admiration for the former stealth specialist. For a given value of 'admiration'. The man had style.

"I was hoping you might share some tips," he leant againt his desk, careful to maintain his usual mask of sheer boredom. He wouldn't want to shake his teacher's worldview irreparably after all. "About how to track someone without using chakra."

"Without using chakra? That's an interesting question," Matsuda-sensei said while he really meant 'this conversation is getting so weird, suspiciously weird.' "Why would need to know such a thing, Shikaku-kun?"

He didn't. What he needed however would be to know how to track someone without chakra. That was the closest he could get without directly entering the dangerously classified territory.

"Nevermind," he mumbled before making a move to leave.

The chuunin held him back with a manic grin, as Shikaku had guessed. Matsuda-sensei belonged to that category of over-achievers who couldn't let a challenge go unanswered. "You stay right here, young man."

The Nara stoically endured the next hour full of his teacher enthusiastically ranting about 'scent', 'mud steps' and 'broken branches' and of course the 'Capital Importance Of Intel Gathering.' And then asked for more, because the constant exposure to Hikari's very special brand of madness had ruined his self-preservation skills.

Those things he had to do.

"And how get undetected?" Matsuda-sensei grinned to wildly at the question Shikaku feared he had broken his face.

Shikaku came home four hours late and his pack full with five books on stealth, infiltration and chakra suppression. Shikane almost slamed the door to his face.

"Mom," his loving sister cried out very dramatically. "Someone broke Shikaku! Do something!"

Someone had broken Shikaku alright. And someone would bite back their smirk.

Senju Hikari wouldn't know what hit her.

.

.

Senju Hikari knew what hit her. Like she always did. In restropect Shikaku had been stupid to think he might managed something her ANBU handlers never could.

"I give up," he let himself fall to the ground after another failed attempt to catch her off-guard. "I can't believe you always see me coming."

She sat next to him, her face still rosy after laughing her ass off for five whole minutes. "And I can't believe you actually studied. I don't recognize you anymore, Nara Shikaku."

"That's what my sister said. You should have seen my teacher's face."

"Oh no, stop making me laugh, my belly hurts too much," she had the audacity to complain, her head aligned next to his on the grass. "If it makes you feel better, Wolf is even worse than you are. I think he's a tracker, so I'm offensive to his personal skills or something."

Shikaku felt for Wolf's pain, on a deep, personal level. "Wait, you mean there are feelings behind the mask, my queen? Shocking."

"Ah! You should have seen them when they started. So repressed, it ain't healthy," she snorted.

Shinobi lifestyle wasn't a healthy one, far from it, as she very well knew. Not for the first time, Shikaku wondered what Hikari's life would have been like had she been born 'normal'. She probably would have gone to the Academy, promised to a glorious kunoichi carrier, as one of the last two Shodaime's direct descendants. If she hadn't get killed or abducted before of course.

He liked to think they would have been friend anyway, though realistically speaking nothing was less sure. Cheerful Hikari would have bonded with popular Inoichi or soft-hearted Choza before she paid any attention to the lazy ass asleep in the back of the class.

"You shouldn't take it personally," Hikari chirped, unbelievably smug. "I'm getting reaaaally good at this chakra thing."

Shikaku missed a breath. Then forced himself to keep cool. Like he hadn't been seeking for such an opportunity for months now. "Like a sensor?"

He had spent more hours than he cared to admit trying to figure that mystery out. Every single pore of her body rejected the very idea of chakra, so how exactly could she feel it the way a sensor would? It made no sense.

"A sensor? I guess?" Hikari mused out loud. "I don't really know, I can just feel it? I meant, at first I couldn't distinguish one chakra source from another, but now I can recognize some I'm used too."

Chakra source? Was that how Hikari saw them? "I guess you're used to me now?"

"Oh Shikaku. I can spot you anywhere in the village," she giggled, until she took notice of his frozen expression. "Wait, that sounded creepy right? I meant it in a completely non-stalkerish kind of way!"

Anywhere. In. The. Village. Sometimes Shikaku couldn't find her when she stood right next to him and he was a fucking shinobi. How was that fair? "You're not joking."

"Err, no?" Hikari smiled anxiously. "Are you...angry?"

Yes. No. Perhaps. "What does it feel like?" he asked instead, unwilling to ponder too much on his confusing feelings.

"What, chakra? I wouldn't know how to explain it. How would you explain colors to someone who has never seen them?"

"I've seen chakra before." The glowing green of a medic-nin's hands working his magic. The soft blue on his father's imbued shuriken.

"Precisely. I don't see, I feel," Hikari stared straight at him with one of her mysterious grins.

"How does my chakra feel like then, my queen?" Shikaku wasn't entirely sure to want to know, but whatever.

Hikari took her sweet time to formulate her answer. "Subtle."

.

.

"So this is your boy," a blond kunoichi Shikaku recognized as The Senju Tsunade took a slip of tea as she gratified him of an unimpressed glance.

If she made any kind of cliché remark like 'thought he'd be taller' Shikaku was so out of here, Senju Tsunade or not.

"You have a mean glare, kid," she smirked instead, with a hint of appreciation. "Sure he's one of yours, Shikako-san? I have never seen a Nara spawn so invested before."

"Since I vaguely remember seven long hours of labor, I would tend to say I'm pretty sure he is indeed my spawn, Tsunade-sama," his mother replied drily over her cup of tea, with no consideration whatsover for the fact said spawn was standing right there.

One day, Nara Shikako would snicker over her damn tea one time to many, and she would choke on it. Which meant Shikane would become chief in her stead, and wasn't that an awful prospect to consider.

"Tsunade-sama," Shikaku fell back to his usual blank persona as he greeted the Hokage's former student with a lazy bow. "What an honour."

Tsunade nodded at him, more amused than offended while Shikako gestured him to sit next to her.

"So kiddo, I've heard you're all chummy with my cute little cousin," the First Hokage grand-daughter went for the kill without more pleasantries.

Shikaku blinked. To be honest, it had not occured to him that Hikari did have some relatives still alive and kicking left. Relatives like Senju Tsunade, or Uzumaki Mito, now that he thought about it. She always seemed so lonely despite her apparent cheerfulness, not to mention her habit to call the enornous Senju Compound 'Ghost Town'.

Shikaku might have assumed wrongly she lived alone with only gloomy ANBUs to keep her company. But to be fair, a rising star like Tsunade couldn't be home that often.

"We're friends," he replied rather evasively, indifferent under his mother's sharp knowing glance.

"Then I hope you stay very considerate of her special condition. Some people are not as understanding as you are, Nara Shikaku-kun,"

He frowned at her false flippancy. What could she possibly mean by that? Of course he knew other kages would jump at the opportunity of a defenseless Senju, waiting to be stolen, despite her... defficiencies. Especially because of that even, for the possible experiments on someone like Hikari were endless. Unless...she meant dangers from the inside.

He met her steel-like golden orbs without flailing. "I would never dream to put Hikari-sama in any danger."

The Senju princess held his resolved stare for long seconds, before broking their silent contest with a satisfied grin. "Now I see why she's so fond of you, brat! It's always 'Shika-kun' this and 'Shika-kun' that nowadays."

Do not blush, Shikaku ordered to himself. Do. Not. Blush. The crazy females were only waiting for any sign of weakness to eat him alive.

"I'll guess you'll have to do," Tsunade added with a thoughtful frown.

.
.

"Do you think he might let me ride on his back?" Hikari mused out loud, her hand patting Daisuke's neck. "I'm not that heavy."

If by 'not that heavy', she really meant light as a feather, then yes, they could agree on that account. Shikaku sometimes wondered if they bothered feeding her at all. That observation might ou might not be related to his new quirk to bring Akimichi's leftovers each time they met. Choza watched him weirdly now, but it was worth it to get the satisfaction to stuff food in her skinny mouth.

"Am I supposed to act as if we both didn't already know all our deers would jump happily from a cliff if you asked them to?" he said instead, arching his back against the tree he was currently fake-sleeping against.

The youngest Senju laughed at that, since for some obscure reasons she appeared to enjoy his dry sense of humor. "You're exaggerating."

He really, really wasn't. Katsuyu, the Tsunade's slug summon standing on Hikari's shoulder seemed to think so as well as they both exchanged one look of long-suffering.

As far as summons went, Shikaku did like the slug. If not exactly the prettiest summon to look at, they had been nothing but perfectly polite and a reasonable individual, unlike some people. Hikari had begun to show up with the summon faithfully guarding her shoulder since Tsunade's return.

"Nee-sama worries otherwise!" Hikari had rolled her eyes after Katsuyu had introduced herself. "I hope you don't mind."

Shikaku hadn't mind. And even he had mind, he would sooner cut off his own arm than make a comment on Tsunade's choice of summons to the ridiculously strong kunoichi. Self-amputation would probably hurt less than whatever treatment the medic-nin would inflict upon him.

"Hey Hikari," the Nara called her out. "For how long is your cousin back?"

"Who knows?" she shruggled like it meant little to her. Shikaku wasn't fooled. "Nee-sama is a very demanded medic-nin after all."

And war lurked at their door. The shadows beneath his mother's eyes grew heavier each day that passed.

"Hm. And who do you live with when she's away?"

"Careful, Shika-kun. I might start to think you actually care," Hikari replied lightly with a wink. "Well, there is Takada-san, and Sayori-san. And Owl, Hog and Wolfie."

So two elderly servants and a rotation of three ANBU. Hardly made up for an actual family.

"What about Mito-sama?" Shikaku asked with false casualness.

Katusyu sent him what could be translated as a warning glance in slug body-language. Hikari turned her back on him under the pretence of paying extra-attention to a slighty fretting Daisuke. "I don't see Mito-oba-sama very often."

Why not? Uzumaki Mito, unlike her grand-daughter hardly ever left the Compound anymore. With the depressing lack of Senjus nowadays, the last of them should have been pretty close. "No?"

"Mm. Mito-sama has some important seals on her person. Too risky to have someone like myself too close," Hikari replied neutrally, without bothering to add false cheerfulness.

Important seals? Oh. That seal. To endanger the prison holding the Kyuubi would be quite disastrous indeed. Hikari had told him jutsu didn't work on her, but to able to mess with a sealing master from Uzushio by accident...Shikaku hated the part of him that was already considering how such an unpredictable ability could be use in their advantage.

"And could you? Mess with seals?" Shikaku let his head back fall back on the trunk, staring longingly at the sky through the ceiling of leaves.

"Oh yes." A pause, and then. "Why don't you try, oh great Nara?"

Shikaku narrowed his eyes at her smirking face. "What."

"You've been training with this shadowy stuff, right? Try it on me," the troublesome vixen had the gall the wink at him. "Catch me if you can."

"Seems like a drag," as Katsuyu let out a pained "Hikari-sama..."

"You don't even have to move! Come on, indulge me," she rose from the ground, to Daiki's loud displeasure.

What a pain. But Shikaku couldn't deny his curiousity at seeing her abilities for himself. From a completely professionnal point of view, obviously. "Wolf won't behead me for attack his charge?"

Hikari rolled her eyes. "Wolfie is back to the regular ANBU now. Punishement over. And Owl won't attack you. And if he does, don't worry, I'll protect your lazy ass!"

"My hero," he drawled sarcastically, as the annoying Senju began to dance in sunlight, provocating in her impatience, but still mindful to avoid stepping on the deers laying at her feet. "Oh fine."

A shot of adrenaline run under his skin as his hands drew the familiar justsu. Chakra pulsed from his feet, and his shadow leapt lazily over the grass.

"Oooh," Hikari cooed with a glint of fascination in her blue eyes. "Very pretty."

Sure, trust her to qualify a notoriously fatal jutsu the Nara had murdered thousands of enemy with of pretty. Shikaku held back his breath as his shadow finally caught Hikari's.

Nothing. His shadow overlapped hers, without catching anything. Even when she gingerly jumped into his shadow, giggling as she danced in the middle of his struggling jutsu, he couldn't feel her at all. As if she wasn't there in the first place. He should be used to the feeling, yet his panic took him entirely by surprise.

Before he could question his stupid, reckless impulse, Shikaku had jumped into his feet and leapt towards his friend. Hikari gasped, bemused at his unusual forwardness when he reached out for her hand. Pink, soft, warm. Alive.

Hikari was there. She was real, not a fragment of Shikaku's imagination. Real.

"Nara-san. Please let Hikari-sama go."

Shikaku jumped from his own skin at Owl's sudden proximity, and released Hikari's hand as if he had been burnt. "I...please accept my apologies."

"Hm, it's fine," Hikari was staring still pensively at her own hand, where Shikaku had groped her without her consent, without a simple warning, dammit. And then she broke into a malicious grin. "Aw, Shika-kun if you wanted to hug you should have said so! I give great cuddles, isn't that right Owl?"

Shikaku barely had the time to process the amount of information thrown in his lap before the ANBU had Hikari thrown on his shoulder like a mocking bag of potatoes, Katsuyu still hanging on her neck with an expression of long suffering at her humans' antics. "We're leaving now."

"Bye Shika-kun! Let's hug it out next time!" he heard before they got swallowed into the forest.

Shikaku stared at his hand, still tingling with a strange feeling he didn't wished to ponder about too closely.

Damn.

.

.

"I am very offended, Nara," Inoichi announced as he dropped on the bench next to Shikaku, Chouza following closely behind.

"Must be a Thursday then," he snickered without moving his head from its resting place, namely their table in the Academy.

Chouza shook his head amusingly as Inoichi kept going without paying attention to the Nara. "And why are you offended Inoichi my friend?" the blond said in a doubious approximation of Shikaku's voice, and then in his usual obnoxious tone. "Well Shikaku, one of my best friend didn't bothered to tell me he had gotten a girlfriend so..."

Not this shit again. Shikaku sighed and burried his head further into his crossed arms, hoping that Inoichi would disappear if he wished it hard enough.

"And I had to hear it from Shikane, can you believe it?" the Yamanaka added with a dramactic sight. "Shikane! She was so smug..."

"And you believed her because..?" Shikaku interrupted the blond's rant when he admitted to himself the problem wasn't going away on its own, not with Chouza prefering to sit back and enjoy the show instead of being the voice of reason and, Kami forbid, actually useful.

That, at least, had the effect to stop the Inoichi's Words Train of Indignation. "Why would she lie about you being cool?"

Which was a good point. If Shikaku had been any other boy. " She's a pain in the ass." And she had made a life purpose to embarrass him as often as possible. Big Sister prerogatives, she called it.

"So you don't have a girlfriend?" Inoichi narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

Shikaku rolled his eyes and sent a mental appology to Hikari. "Girls have cooties."

Which earned him a slap from the Aburame girl sitting behind them, but had the virtue to get Inoichi off his back.

.

.

"What are cooties anyway?" Hikari asked with a wicked smile once she was done laughing her ass off at Shikaku's misfortune and his poor choices in friends.

"I have no clue."

And then she was shaking with laughter again at his tone full of pure pain, her hand tugging his hair in her hilarity.

"Aw," Shikaku turned his head to sent his so-called friend an unimpressed glare.

"Sorry!" She didn't sounded very sorry, but turned her attention back to the task at hand. A task she had insisted on, despite his protests. By that point, Shikaku should admit that his body did not belonged to him anymore, and should Hikari want his hair braided, then his hair would be braided.

"But your hair is so pretty, Shika-kun! Very braidable!" she had the audacity to use the Fawn Eyes on him, and to pretend 'braidable' was an actual word.

Hikari had not been joking about her 'hugging it out' campaign. Once it had been made clear Shikaku was not, as a matter of fact, disgusted by her contact, she had made a point to touch him at least once every time they saw each other. Light touches at first, her hand on her arm, her leg againt his, her head on his shoulder, then she moved on to full cuddling. Shikaku himself wasn't that much into physical affection, but he could not deny her that simple pleasure. Not when he felt her raw touch-starvation melt away at the attention. Beside, it wasn't like having her snuggled at his side where he could feel her was such a pain anyway.

Except when Hikari got into her head his hair was fair braiding-material. As usual, Shikaku just had to suck it up like a man. Even if he had no idea how to explain his sudden change of heart about hair dress. Even if Shikane would definitely never it go when her little brother showed up with wild flowers weaven in his hair. Even if his hair was not, and would never be, under no circumstances, pretty.

"You done?" he groaned at a harder tug on his scalp.

"Almost!" his tormentor chirped happily, before leaning towards his ear. "You're aware a summon is following you?"

At that point Shikaku wasn't even surprised a civilian could spot what an experimented Jonnin might miss. "What a drag... You can come out now, Riku."

A moment of stillness, before a tiny blurr of fur run from its hidden spot to their meeting point. The deers stared with vague interest at the mouse standing on his back legs in front of the two human children, wearing a small Konoha Hitai-ate around his neck, a sword at his belt and a equally tiny chuunin vest.

"Greetings, Hikari-sama, Shikaku-san" the summon mouse bowed rather pretentiously.

Shikaku peaked a glance at his friend. She had actual stars twirling in her eyes. He closed his eyes in resignation for the impeding disaster.

"Ohmygosh you're so cute!"

"I am not CUTE!" Riku hissed angrily, before deflating more quickly than Shikaku would have thought it possible. "I mean, this mouse is a fierce warrior, not a pet. No offense, milady."

Shikaku blinked slowly in surprise. Riku had been his father's most faithful compagnion for years now, and he had never seen him act so...deferential, to anyone. The temperamental summon had no shame whatsover to call Nara Masato the worst idiot to ever walk on the Elemental Nations to his face, no matter who else might be present. And he positively loathed to be underestimated because of his size. People had ended up in the hospital, if not outright dead for less than calling Riku 'cute'. Shikaku's father thought his summon's suceptibility was a terribly amusing flaw of caracter, especially for a infiltation specialist.

Point, Shikaku had never seen Riku acting so chill to a stranger. Ever.

Also...milady? Riku still refered to Skikaku's father as 'That Idiot', his mother 'The Deer woman', and he'd never called Shikaku anything but 'the second brat', Shikane being 'the first brat'. And only now that he was with Hikari he got to be upgraded to his actual name, while he had known the mouse since he was born.

What was up with Hikari and beasts? They all fell over their own legs/fins/hoofs trying to lick her boots. Except for Katsuyu, who thankfully had proven herself to cool to swoon.

"Oh no, it is I who meant no offense. Please accept my most sincere apologies," Hikari replied, still smiling behind her hand.

"Why were you snooping around anyway?" Shikaku cut in the middle of the avalanche of pleasantries.

Hikari pouted at his rudeness, while the mouse sent him a familiar death glare that promised later retribution. "The Id...your most esteemed Father is back from his mission. He wants to see you."

So soon? Shikaku's father had not been expected back to Konoha until next week. "Oh, I hope he is alright!" the Senju voiced his worries out loud with sincere concern.

"Of course, milady!" Riku visibly preened at the attention. "I, the great Riku, was with him after all!

Shikaku valliantly fought the urge to roll his eyes as Hikari giggled behind her hand. "Guess I better go see what the old man wants. Later, my queen."

Shikaku did not miss Riku's flinch at the endorsement, before the mouse graced Hikari with another florish bow. "It had been an honor meeting you, Hikari-sama."

"Sure, likewise," Hikari smiled back, a bit uncomfortable at the show of deference. "Bye guys!"

Uncomfortable, but not surprised, Shikaku thought as they made their way back to his house, with Riku reverting back to his usual semi-hostile persona and outright refusing to answer his questions.

How...odd.

"Nice hair by the way," Riku smirked before disappearing in a puff as Shikaku climbed on tne engawa.

Shikaku turned pale when one second later his mother caught sight of him and dissolved into cackling laughter over her tea. He had completely forgotten about Hikari's 'Friendship Braid', and the tiny bastard had waited the last minute to remind him.

.

.

"Where summons come from? Maa, can't you keep your philosophical questions for your Academy teachers?" Nara Masato hid a yawn behind his hand before crumbling on the table, undignified like the truborn Nara he wasn't. "Your old man is an idiot, ya know."

Shikaku didn't bothered replying to such a bold lie. Nara Shikako would never have tolerated an imbecile as her husband, not even to strenghten their bond with the Sarutobi Clan.

"Don't look at me like that, kiddo," Masato mumbled in his barb. "I don't have a damned clue. My contract stipulates my summons are in no way obligated to answer questions regarding their Clan, or other Summon Clan."

"Interesting," Shikaku perked up. "Is that common to all Summoning contracts?"

"How would I know? Riku would skin me alive with his damn sword if I enquired about other Summons," the stealth specialist whined. "I'm not even allowed to look. It's not cheating if I'm just looking right?"

"Don't let Mom hear you say that, old man," Shikaku replied distractly, mentally listing which shinobi he could bother about their Summoning contract without risking to create a minor diplomatic incident.

"Meh, Shikako would understand the virtue of appreciating from afar. She's a cool one, your Mom," Shikaku's father grinned foolishly, sharing way more intel than his son ever wished to know about his parent's relasionship. "So, Kaku, how have you been doing?"

Shikaku stopped wondering if the information he could get from Senju Tsunade would be worth the risk to focus on his father, still spread ungracefully on their table. They were hardly seeing him nowadays, as the number of missions he was required to go grew alongside the tensions beetween Konoha, Suna, Iwa and Ame. "Fine. Mom and Nee-san are more unbearable when you're not here, amazingly."

Masato chukled. "Ehe, I bet. Women amiright? And your girl?"

"I have no idea of whom you may refer," Shikaku lied dutifully.

"Sure you don't. The Academy?"

"Boring. All those motivated kids who wants to do things. What a drag."

"You're such a Nara," Masato grinned happily, with a glimpse a sadness on the edge of his smile. "You're a great kid, Shikaku. Don't grow up too fast, yeah?"

Shikaku was not a idiot. He could tell war was brewing at their door, feeding of decades of hatred, frustation and greed. And no children had the luxary to stay children in middle of wars, especially not the children of glorified mercenaries. But he could give his worn-out father one small lie.

"Being an adult is too troublesome."

"Don't tell me about it."

.

.

Four days later, the Second Shinobi War had been declared.