Naruto: Dreaming of Sunshine

This is a wonderful day. I've never seen this one before ~ Maya Angelou

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I stopped in a bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, trying to control my trembling. My face in the mirror looked pale and wan.

What an emotional wreck of a day.

'Wrung out' didn't even begin to cover it.

And yet, of all the ways that that conversation could have gone – all the permutations I'd run through in my head – that had been the best. Better than I'd dared to hope, truthfully. I wasn't in trouble. It was a weight, lifted off my shoulders. Only one of many, granted, but the absence of it made the others seem less daunting.

I had handed over information that I shouldn't have had and it had been okay.

No, more than that.

I had handed over information on Akatsuki.

I had done something about Akatsuki. Whether it paid off… Whether it meant anything in the long run… I couldn't tell. But I had done something.

It was like walking along a very long road, heavy step by heavy step, seemingly endless and impossible, only to look back and find you were halfway up a mountainside. There was still a long way to go. Still the rest of the mountain to climb. But I had managed to come further than I had thought. And there were paths ahead of me now, ways I could keep moving forward, easier and easier.

If I found more information, I could hand that over too. People could prepare. We could be ready for it, when it came.

I dried my hands briskly and headed back towards the Sensory Squad.

Tsume had a whole new pile of paperwork waiting for me, which she cheerfully dropped into my hands. I slid back into my chair.

"Promotion paperwork?" Kiba asked, reading the header upside down. "What, you didn't do it already? I am disappointed."

I tapped the second line with my pen, directing his eyes.

"No," he said. "You didn't."

There was a brief flurry around the table as we proved just how easily sensory specialist ninja could cheat on paperwork.

"Uh, surprise?" I said, shrugging awkwardly.

There was a resounding silence.

Then Sasuke flat out rolled his eyes at me "No one is actually surprised," he said, tone implying 'you idiot' in the exact same fond intonation he would have used on Naruto.

"Oh," I said, intelligently, blinking at the faces of my friends who were acting like this was, to some degree, expected.

Oh.

"I will admit to a small degree of surprise," Shino said. "Why? Because of your specialization. I was not previously aware that your sensory abilities were so advanced. However, today was sufficient evidence that I was merely lacking in information." He adjusted his glasses.

I blinked at him. "Uhm. Thanks, Shino?" I said, still utterly floored. They hadn't doubted it at all, had they? Somehow, they had looked at me and thought I could do it. Right here, in the absence of reaction, was the support I'd been looking for. They had never even thought to doubt it.

"Come on, you can't be that surprised," Kiba said. "You were there. That thing where you fought a Jinchuriki? Ring any bells?"

"Gaara is the Kazekage now," I blurted out, unthinkingly, because Tsunade had just told me and the fact was right at the tip of my tongue.

It was a mistake.

Sasuke very calmly put his head down on the table.

Kiba started laughing so hard he wheezed.

I waved my hands, flustered. "Stop it!"

"Oh sure," Kiba said, as he gasped for breath. "I have no idea why you were promoted." His voice went high, like he was mimicking a conversation. "Oh, that's just Shikako Shadow Killer, I can't believe they even gave her a Chunin vest. Standards must be slipping."

I kicked him underneath the desk. "Okay, you made your point."

I dove back into my paperwork before things got even further out of hand and ignored them all. They were mostly finished, having completed theirs while I was busy with other things.

"Alright, brats," Tsume said, when the table started to get too rowdy. "Hand it in and get out of here. Be here tomorrow morning and we'll get you set up with training plans and all that."

I scrawled the last signature on the page and dropped my pen. Not the most informative of instructions, but it would have to do. And I'd have to drop by the Intel Division after to get that sorted out.

I went home.

"Tadaima!" I called, shucking my shoes and hanging my vest on the coat rack. Everyone was sitting down for dinner, and I gladly made myself a plate in the kitchen and joined them.

"Busy day?" Dad asked mildly.

"I got promoted to Special Jounin," I said, equally mildly. Huh. He was the only one in the room that outranked me, now, come to think of it. That was weird. It had been weird enough being the same rank as Mum, let alone higher.

Gratifyingly, even Dad looked surprised by that one.

"But, what?" Shikamaru asked. As far as first words said to each other after a fight went, they weren't bad.

"In the Sensory Squad," I elaborated, smiling, just a little. "Oh, and I signed up for a three month rotation in the Intel Division." I nodded to myself, in satisfaction.

They probably wouldn't even find that too strange. Konoha had a policy for Chunin or higher ranks (though it was obviously flexible, especially for people in high demand) that they should do three months of in-village work every three years on duty. At the tower, or gate duty and patrolling or teaching or any of the other in-village positions. It could be all one at once in a chunk, or spread out over the years. It helped ensure there were enough shinobi staffing the important positions in the village, and to remind people of what it was they were fighting for. And possibly, though no one said, to give individual shinobi had a period of lower intensity and less dangerous work.

The fact that Tsunade had specified 'three months' mean that the easiest possible conclusions was that that was what I was doing. And at the same time, the time constraint was reassuring – it wasn't permanent. If I didn't like it, if it wasn't helping, it was only three months and I could go back to doing field work.

"That's lovely, dear," Mum said, as looks were exchanged around the table. "What are you doing?"

I shrugged. "I don't know yet," I said. "I have to go in tomorrow and find out."

"We might be working together then," Shikamaru said.

"We might," I agreed, even though I didn't think it was very likely.

.

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The next morning I woke up early.

"Morning," I said to Mum as she started cooking breakfast. Sometimes I wondered if she was actually a morning person, or if she had just decided at some point that someone needed to make sure we all actually got up and no one else was going to do it. It was a labour of love that we never thanked her for. "I'll feed the deer. Let Shika and Dad sleep in, yeah?"

I slipped out the back door and into the forest towards the deer pens. They were mostly empty, the majority of the deer wandering in the larger, fenced off areas of the clan grounds, but there were feeding troughs and water that needed to be refilled and checked.

I was mostly done when dad wandered out, casual and vestless and leant against the fencepost.

I called a greeting, but finished up before I went over, hauling myself up to sit on the fence. The empty feed bucket drummed against my legs, so I balanced it on my toes, just to see if I could. It was barely difficult.

"You're up early," Dad said, rolling his shoulders to ease them.

"I woke up early," I said, which was really all it was. Okay, there had been the requisite 'I'm awake but do I really want to be up' debate involved, but all said I was still up under my own power.

"Excited for work?" He asked, almost teasing. "Nervous?"

I shrugged. "Not really. Maybe a bit? I don't really know what it'll be like." Which might have worried me more, if that hadn't been what receiving missions was like. Any day could bring anything. I'd cope.

"I didn't think you were interested in the Intelligence Division," he said, thoughtfully.

I hummed and swung my feet. The bucket wobbled but stayed. "Tsunade-sama suggested it," I said, because I doubted he'd remain in the dark about it. "It's only three months, anyway."

"I see," he said, and I wondered if he saw more than I did. Probably. "It's not a bad plan. You'll have time to grow into your new rank this way."

I made a non-committal sound. There were probably more factors in play, especially given the Grass situation. I hoped I wouldn't end up with anything like Sasuke's village grounding – that would just be a pain.

The conversation faded out.

I could have left it there. He wasn't asking anything else. He was just waiting.

There was movement at the far end of the pens, by the gate towards the field. The doe hovered near the trees, watching us, but didn't come closer. I looked away.

Deer were shy creatures. They weren't like cows or horses that would tolerate or even enjoy human company. Even the domesticated ones were wild at heart. They didn't really do well with human intervention; You could kill them with kindness.

I leant back, lightly kicked the bucket up into my hands and inspected it. "You'll look after Shika, right?" I asked.

The words hung quietly in the air, nearly mumbled. I hadn't said them loud. I hoped he'd heard, because I wasn't sure I could repeat them.

"Of course," Dad said, steady and calm. Serious. Factual. He would. I hardly needed to ask. He already had, hadn't he? I even heard them talking.

"I couldn't," I said, haltingly. "I couldn't fix him."

There was an empty, inviting silence. The words spilled out of me to fill it. "He was hurting," I said. "And I couldn't…I mean, I saw it. I knew. But I didn't…"

Of course I'd seen it. I wasn't blind. And even if I hadn't it wasn't like Shikamaru had let me forget that he'd seen me die and it had hurt him. I'd just. I'd just been trying to help him the way I wished he would help me – I'd been ignoring it and pretending everything was fine.

But Shikamaru wasn't me. He wasn't exactly an emotional person – but he'd never held back when he was. If he felt like crying he would cry and damn anyone who said anything about it.

So maybe he had needed someone to let him cry, to acknowledge that pain.

Only…

"I couldn't fix him," I repeated, voice small. "Because I was trying to look after me. "

And if I'd been able to find my footing, to get back into the swing of dealing with life and missions and everything, then I could have sat down next to him and let him cry. And it wouldn't have only made me worse.

But it hadn't happened like that.

"It's not," Dad said, "your job to fix your brother, Shikako. It's not your job to fix anyone but yourself." He took the bucket out of my hands, set it down on the ground and took my hands in his own. My fingers were dwarfed by his, tiny and pale and I had a moment of disconnect. Those were a child's hands. Not mine. But I twitched them and they moved and the feeling passed like a wave retreating from the sand.

"I'm trying," I said, voice small. "I am, okay?"

"I know," Dad said, so gentle, like I would spook and run. Maybe he was right. "And if you need us - any of us - to help with that, then we're here."

My mouth twisted in a grimace even as I tried to keep it flat. They all wanted me to talk about it. To drag everything up and lay it out in daylight to look at. Like things that were painful got better when you poked at them. Maybe some of it, if I was careful, I could share. But even then, what could they do?

"Thanks," I said, instead. I squeezed his hands and jumped down from the fence. "Breakfast must be ready now. I'm hungry."

After breakfast, I slipped out of the house. Mom and Dad were standing in the kitchen, arms around each other, talking in quiet murmurs. I didn't want to interrupt, so I waved goodbye silently and left, swinging by the Yamanaka flower shop to find Ino.

"Morning," I drawled, hands in my pockets. "Ready for training?"

She smiled, the expression taking over her whole face. "Sure am," she said brightly. "You look cheerful this morning."

"So do you," I said back, slightly bemused. It wasn't exactly like I was singing and dancing over here.

If possible, she beamed even harder. Ino snagged a cut flower from a vase and tucked it behind her ear, then grabbed a second one and did the same for me. "There," she said in satisfaction. "Now you're just as pretty as me."

I laughed. "That'll take more than a flower, Ino."

She linked her arm through mine and dragged me out of the shop.

"Can you help me with something?" I asked, digging my hand in my pocket and pulling out my Chunin earrings. "I want to wear both sets."

The hoops were for Genin. Studs for Chunin. Beyond that there was no tradition and people wore whatever earrings they liked or nothing at all. But for all that it wasn't a tradition strictly adhered to, I didn't want to give it up just yet.

"You could put them in yourself," Ino said, even as she took them from me. We paused, finding somewhere to stop that was out of the way.

"I want them to be even," I said, because yes, stabbing myself with things wasn't difficult. But even with a mirror I probably wouldn't have made them match on both sides. Easier to get someone else to do it.

She acknowledged the point, flicking them with medical chakra for sterilization and coating them for a sharp point. I held still while she pulled my ear and threaded it through, capping it with the butterfly, and repeated the process on the other side.

I didn't even feel it.

She examined me critically, then nodded. "Looks good."

I smiled at her. "Thanks."

At the tower, we milled around with the rest of the new Sensory Squad inductees, until Tsume came along with a bunch of scrolls and started herding us around.

"Tonbo! This one is with you," she called, dropping a scroll into my hand and giving me a push in a specific direction.

I staggered forward awkwardly until someone else appeared to respond to her directions. Tonbo – apparently – was a semi-familiar Chunin who had been part of the Konoha Chunin Exams proctors. He was fairly distinctive because he wore bandages that covered the entire top of his head, right down over his eyes. Which did indicate a sensor, because any ninja that wasn't using visual cues had to have something else going on.

"Come on, then," he said cheerfully, and we escaped the chaos of the tower to somewhere quieter outside. "So in case you missed that, I'm Tonbo Tobitake. I mostly work for the Intelligence Division but I'm a specialized chakra sensor. For the next week, we're going to be working on the training plan Tsume-senpai has given you and see how we can level out your abilities. Have you had sensory training before?"

"Not really," I said, because no one had ever taught me how.

"Huh," he said and shook his head. "Okay, I didn't believe it but fair enough. We'll start from the beginning, then."

'From the beginning' really did mean 'from the beginning'. And while it was – and I was honest – a little bit patronizing to be told how to do things I'd been able to do since birth… I could see the logic to it. Because sensing like this was kind of like sight. I'd been born knowing how to see. But at the Academy we had done all kinds of visual recognition training to turn that sight into a usable, tactical ability. You could see, but that didn't always mean you knew what you were seeing. Or remembered it. Or knew how to interpret it.

I hadn't started to get good at sensing – really good – until after graduation when I'd had to use it.

So yep. 'From the beginning' it was. We blitzed through a lot of the instructions and exercises pretty quickly. Some of them would require repetition and practice to hone, but I didn't foresee that being difficult, either.

After lunch we went sparring. Or rather, taijutsu-only blind fighting, because practical applications were the only things that mattered, in the end. I had been practicing this, but it was immediately clear that I was miles out matched.

Still. I could hide my chakra. And that helped, though it didn't actually let me win, or anything like that.