Chapter 3: Of Ninjutsu and Fixations 1/4

Disclaimer : Naruto and all related characters and settings do not belong to me. I'm just here on vacation.

Rating : T for all the lovely homicide being planned… not really. T for naughty language, violent things, and mind screws… so far.

Author's Note : And all I can say is… really? I've got a number of other fics that need to be worked on, and all I can do at the moment is this one and Deus ex without scraping what I work on half an hour later of brain bashing against writer's block. Let me know if you need a breakdown of why thing happened the way they did, cause Natsumi's not going to pull her head out of her ass about it until… the next part after next? Sounds about right.

Have you ever noticed how the word assassin is spelled? Ass- -ass- -in! You know, like… I've been writing Natsumi too much…

Secondly, Nawaki's age. I recently found that he was supposed to die either in the beginning or end of the Second and possibly even the start of the Third Great Shinobi War, and all I can say is… oops? He'll have died in the 'last life cannon' of this around the middle of the Third… that works, right?

cormalin and KleverKilva share joint credit for the correct Japanese term for special jōnin spelling, since I can't tell who submitted it first. You two reviewed almost at the same moment and I almost didn't actually use it in this part. cormalin also checked my spelling of the Third Hokage's wife's name and Sonea66 did as well for both, and actually gave me a breakdown of Biwako's name. Thank you lovelies.

monophonic, the story is gen until they get to the age to think of it themselves. Right now only the clan shinobi around this age, and one worried red head, are thinking of marriage and not even all the fun things that go with that, though the older ones are starting to realize their hormones are becoming a little unmanageable. I had considered leaving Natsumi single, so yes she's got something in her future, but with a biological clock primed with thirty years on it already that wasn't looking likely at all.

Mybffisazombie Natsumi's old US Army rank was Staff Sargent, E-6, which let her lead a platoon of soldiers around eight to twelve in number. NCO not Officer. But she's not arguing the on the spot commission.

xXKaminari-TsubasaXx and Wandering Sprite, thank you. Though you really can see how often I can get online these days, huh?

khaos974 aided a bit with formatting issues.

Part Three : Of Ninjutsu and Fixations

Morals are a wonderful thing. The innate guide for proper behavior, both taught and learned by watching the world events happen around you.

However, which is right when two separate sets of morals clash over the same troubling issue?

Natsumi firmly ignored the panic boiling up from her guts, sticking one chakra coated ninja sandal to the underside of the branch before attempting to move her other foot forward.

It was so stupid to be scared of falling off, that was why Jiraiya was standing just beneath her ready and willing to catch her if her control slipped. She knew this was possible to do because shinobi stuck to walls and things all the time and she saw it nearly on a daily basis now, like the kunoichi just the other day that walked up a storefront just to get out of the civilian foot traffic.

A lifetime of experience in how gravity worked was not so easily overcome by telling herself not to be scared of falling and if they could do it, so could she.

Tree walking was a basic genin skill. A freaking genin level skill she sometimes couldn't do because of some supposed accident of her chakra nature.

Barely a month ago, Senju Tsunade had finally gotten the time to see to ensuring their continuing health after all the walking wounded from the war effort had been dragged kicking and screaming, sometimes literally, to the hospital so they could be checked out for any lingering problems to hastily patched wounds. Genin were not as high priority as jōnin, even if she knew them personally, so the massive backlog from the war veterans' medical reports and notation adjustments had eaten most of her free time up until the scheduled appointments for them came due.

Jiraiya's genin Team Seven went in for the round of mandatory physicals to get them out of the way as ordered after six months of mission work since graduating the academy, with the ex-ANBU assassin that had been attached to them two months before that and who had never had a shinobi standard physical in her life besides the brief one covering the usual before getting her ANBU tattoo.

This one had covered the normal stuff Natsumi was used to in military standard health screenings and the one she had gotten before getting her Panther mask; eye sight, reflex speed, gums and teeth, height and weight, immunization shots; but it also covered a few extra items she had never seen before or had even thought of. Muscle tone, bone density, and chakra system for all shinobi and body fat percentage for kunoichi.

The Slug Princess, having been told by her teammate that his female student was still wary of being touched casually if you could actually do her harm, had explained each and every routine to her before conducting her full yearly physical. The misplaced soldier was deeply grateful for her sensei covering any unusual reactions from her as something from her time in ANBU before she had to face the female sannin in only a paper gown with a wide slit in the back about her chakra system and poor weight gain.

Some things never changed, and the scary medic-doctor person glaring at you when you were underdressed and feeling really exposed and guilty about your eating habits was one of them.

Shinobi of Konohagakure no Sato had their chakra networks inspected annually, every other physical they went in for. By a Hyūga iryou-nin from another room before anyone got naked, but it was still inspected for any unusual stressing or abnormalities… or ninja wearing another's face, but that rarely happened.

Apparently her middle name was abnormality.

Her iryou-nin done medical report had dissected the problem even better than Ma and Pa Toad could with senjutsu, finally giving her the news on how to fix it.

The first bit was that spiritual energy she had kept from her past life was overpowering her physical of this life. They had known that already, it was why she could only use her one jutsu. Tsunade had added that unless she could keep that in check by making herself hold it all in second nature to keep up, she would never get better than a C-ranked kunoichi without more than that one jutsu and the E-ranks to her arsenal, because of that spiritual overpowering her physical kept her from balancing enough chakra to power even D-ranked jutsus.

That was the full diagnostic results ran on her as decrypted by the Toad Sage.

Natsumi had to get better than chūnin, some of the threats to Minato, Kushina, and Naruto were S-ranked and she wouldn't last two seconds in a fight against something like that if she didn't fix the problem holding her at a C-rank.

Now she was upside down, walking back and forward under a tree branch with her sensei standing beneath her waiting for her to fall off and keeping note of how long she was up there. Just to fix that little problem of hers.

Humiliation, thy name was tree walking.

Sometimes, she couldn't believe the shit she did for her kouhai. It seemed that giving up ANBU for the time being had only been the start of it, if what she was diligently doing again and again now was any measure.

Minato and Inoichi, having already mastered this part of shinobi life, were ensconced with their own projects on the other side of the training ground's clearing. Actually Inoichi was, the other blond on the team was worriedly eyeing his sempai's progress.

Knowing that, even without needing to look to see what he was watching, was throwing off Natsumi's concentration.

Damn blonds.

Shakily though, she managed another circuit of her chakra exercise before falling off again.

Jiraiya caught her without a sound or grunt escaping him, taking one good look at his female student's paper white face before setting her on the ground and plucking a leaf off the tree for her. "An hour better than you're last attempt, Natsumi-chan. Take a breather while I go talk to the boys and see how they're doing."

The ex-assassin took the leaf unenthusiastically, weakly smiling up at her sensei when he patted her on the head. Sticking it to the tip of her nose for the new exercise, she watched the older looking shinobi walk across the clearing to see the results of the elemental chakra manipulation exercises done by her blond teammates. She finally did crack a genuine smirk when her kouhai scrambled for more leaves to cut with the fūton control exercise Orochimaru had dug up for him.

She and Jiraiya had an odd relationship for something between teacher and student, to say the least.

While he treated them all the same when the team was with him, like annoying brats more often than not, he actually talked to her like the adult she used to be when it was just them. They bickered over the reasoning for their actions, called each other rude or insulting names, and she cheerfully blamed him when she cracked a perverted joke in retaliation of his spying cover being shoved under their noses when he checked in on civilian gossip around the village. She had only recently started telling him some of her past life, the bits that wouldn't seem like much to someone of her past but were interesting and unusual to someone of this life, and in return he told her some of what he had seen in his twenty-odd years here.

The Toad Sage had compared her life now to an indefinite undercover mission and had flat out told her to her face that she needed an outlet or the nightmares that plagued her in ANBU would probably never stop, driving her finally over the edge of sanity she had been trying to avoid on her own. Good thing the man hadn't cared for her and Inoichi's conversations on psychology, beyond knowing how to predict the way people would react most of the time, or he would have known she was far beyond that point.

She could have gone to Minato, Inoichi, Kushina, Mikoto, Shikaku, Chouza, and Hizashi; any of them would have helped her after understanding the point the white haired sannin raised. Natsumi had started giving little pieces of that past to the others when it seemed to fit, she was teaching Shikaku the tactical games common in her last life and cooking some of her old favorites for Chouza to try.

It just felt a lot better only letting Jiraiya hear about the places she had seen, the history only she knew now, and people only she had known there. To her, it just seemed to be a better idea to trust the master spy with information that she would have preferred never to have seen the light of day, even if she would never breathe a word of the leisure habits of that life no matter what happened. He did know how to keep a secret much better than the shinobi of her academy years.

The exchange had helped the both of them get used to the other in the beginning after the events following Kushina's kidnapping and the newness of the situation wore off, because the two of them had started to circle the other like the type of cat she was called by in ANBU. Jiraiya had been uneasy with 'teaching' a woman stuck in a girl's body, a warrior of another age that probably had a good idea on what to do in battle already. Natsumi had been unsettled with the fact the sannin knew that she had lived another life, knew that she knew what it was like to die in a violent manner.

Minato had been the one to point out to them, after Inoichi told him the reasons his sempai and sensei were grating against each other's nerves, that the assassin was still in training for higher shinobi ranks and skills and the Toad Sage hadn't really cared about her previous death in the least beyond what secret they were all keeping from him.

Now it was more like an older uncle to a younger niece, a lot more than Natsumi had been expecting from any teacher assigned to her much less from someone that knew of her history. She had maybe convinced herself that Jiraiya would mostly ignore her after poking at her sore spots and possibly taking a look at her chakra and finding a solution.

He instead listened to her life before finding a solution for her chakra troubles with his and Tsunade's skills and was now working on it with her in between missions and training sessions and helping Inoichi in keeping her on an even keel, not content unless he knew the problem was solved.

Natsumi would have been intensely uncomfortable under that kind of attention, except he did the same for her kouhai and their other teammate; cycling through those individual lessons and one on one coaching they asked for with broader lessons and training to develop their skills and knowledge in different areas. Minato had his time every four days just before she did, pouring over more complicated fūinjutsu than they all were taught with the older man, and Inoichi would use the sannin to bounce ideas off of, and to find him willing test subjects for his developing mind jutsus, before a day of individual skill polishing and then they did the loop over again.

Narrowing her focus to the smear of green in front of her face, the assassin figured she should get back to concentrating on what she was doing. The quicker it was all over, the quicker she could try some of those mythical seeming ninjutsus for herself.

(ooo000ooo)

"So, how's Natsumi-chan doing?" Sakumo asked when he and Jiraiya met up later the same night in a shinobi bar.

Civilians didn't like drinking with killers and mercenaries for some odd reason, so they had their own set of bars to frequent when wanting to drink each other under the table.

It had become almost traditional for the head of the Hatake clan, such as it was, to ask the Toad Sage about the student they would be sharing when the ANBU captain caught up with his old friend when he made it back to the village. The white haired sannin didn't mind his silver haired companion asking about his female student, and the other man's old subordinate, because he tended to wax lyrically about Minato's sealing interest and skills whenever he could to whoever would listen and this way it didn't look like favoritism.

Yamanaka Inoichi had his own support base, he had an entire clan interested in their heir's progress. Jiraiya's lack of boasting about his blond haired but lavender-eyed student's progress to anyone outside that clan was only the common sense of any jōnin-sensei that took on clan affiliated genin.

The Toad Sage didn't intend on keeping his genin team together after they made chūnin like his sensei had done for the sannin team, their interests and skills were too far apart on the spectrum of ninja arts for a general use chūnin or jōnin team. If he apprenticed one of his orphans and had no other options to give his other one when the other blond student of his went back to his clan for further training a lot of shinobi would start asking about it.

Originally, he had thought Mesuji Natsumi would go back to ANBU as a chūnin with more experience under her belt after replacing the weak link in his team that had no real talent for their kind of life, once he figured out what was wrong with her chakra network. ANBU had it's own covers made up for returning agents, out for whatever reason, and wouldn't have been a problem for anyone.

That was what he had planned on when he suggested to Hiruzen-sensei that he take her out of ANBU for a while and let the little kitty grow up some.

His plan had switched tracks with her captain's, who turned out to be his old friend like he had thought, suggestion of teaching her kenjutsu and completely derailed with her forced retirement from ANBU when she went and backed up his protégé's mad dash after his little academy friend.

That cart finally crashed and burned when what his brats knew of reincarnation came to light.

There was no way in hell was he letting only ANBU hold onto that kind of perseverance needed to thrive after a traumatic injury and the iron guts that it took to rebuild a life from scratch in a completely different one from what she had known before, not to mention the years of military leadership experience the girl-woman held. There were so many ways he could think to utilize that prior experience and level of commitment for Konoha's benefit, and she could make a damn fine jōnin kunoichi to complement his fūinjutsu specializing student later on without the shadow guard, no matter their plans for her future.

He just had to show her that with examples like Tsunade and himself before she decided to go back. Her mental health was a little alarming at present, but with the heir of a clan that specialized in mind games and interrogation keeping watch after solving the worst of it already, the Toad Sage had no doubts that by the time they all made chūnin it would be manageable and the ghost eyed girl-woman would be mostly normal… -ish.

Besides, it was fun to spend time with the dead soldier turned kunoichi assassin that looked like a preteen girl when collecting the general intelligence available from the civilians. He didn't have to watch what he said to her the same way he had to watch what he said to the rest of the team right now, and it was kinda fascinating to hear about sights, people, and insults of civilizations long since gone by.

"Frustrated with her slow progress. Can't really blame little neko-chan for that one, though." Jiraiya sighed, tugging a hand through unruly hair before pouring them both a saucer of sake. "I'm starting to get a little frustrated with it too. She's just so used to reaching for that other energy along with her chakra for her jutsu that it's hard for her to separate it and hold that part back."

Sakumo hummed in the back of his throat before tipping back the small clay dish and swallowing the alcohol. "Try having her focus her chakra in a weapon's blade, splitting it between the blade and hilt. That's how my clan learned to control themselves."

Jiraiya shot a look at his drinking companion, storing that bit of information away in his brain even as he made sure his friend was being serious. He had learned more than he ever wanted to about kekkai genkais in Konohagakure over the last few months, ever since they started using that publicly as a possibility for Natsumi's spiritual natured excess and the ANBU assassination technique she developed.

Mostly, he learned how the clans taught the younger generation how not to screw themselves up for shinobi life. That bit held promise though, the Hatake's White Chakra Nature was the closest comparison they had to the girl-woman's and it would stand to reason the methods for control might be as similar.

"You're still set on teaching her kenjutsu, right? Got a bokken she can use for that?"

\V/

Watching the redhead Uzumaki preteen sink into hot water was always amusing, since she would dart into the water with a splash and almost reverently relax against the side of the hot spring with some kind of animalistic sound.

Natsumi and Mikoto exchanged dryly humorous looks at the preteen's groan of almost-pain as they followed more sedately, wrapped in the towels supplied by the onsen for bathers.

"Are you sure you don't want any help with whatever it is you're doing, Kushina-hime?" The former ANBU assassin asked as she slowly sunk into the steaming waters of the bath house. "It sounds strenuous."

Getting used to public bathing hadn't been a problem for her, kami-sama knew the military communal showers in her last life had shown her more bare female flesh than she had ever wanted to see herself. After a while, like a little before basic training ended and long before the military first sent you out into the field, it had stopped becoming weird to see another naked person of your own gender and you just casually asked the soldier under the shower head next to you if you could use her conditioner before turning back to the reason you all were buck naked and wet in the first place.

"If you meant that in the same way you're pervert of a sensei would say it, Natsumi-chan, I'm going to hold you underwater until you stop struggling." Kushina threatened half-heartedly with a lazy smirk.

"Ooh, death by onsen… sounds serious." Natsumi nodded faux importantly, causing the two kunoichi with her to giggle.

The three of them were in the kunoichi pool, set aside with another one for the male ninjas behind the wooden divider by the owners of the onsen within Konoha solely for the protectors of the village. The reason for it was simple; shinobi had scars and injuries that most civilians never wanted to see on the warriors that represented the military strength of Konoha, so they never saw them.

It was a little insulting and appreciated at the same time. On one hand, no one liked to be stared at when trying to relax and it was doubly dangerous to stare at and unsettle a shinobi. On the other, it was kind of like denying the ninjas the right to be injured in service to the village.

No ninja worth their weight would sneer at privacy and the space to hide a weaknesses though, so they went with it.

The reincarnated soldier had her own scars on this almost too thin preteen's body, acquired by the time she spent in ANBU and a few training accidents, but only one of the other two she was visiting the bath house with had some as well.

Mikoto had a stab wound scar on her back, the edges still pink and telling the former assassin that someone had almost managed to kill the Uchiha teen under three months ago, a few that looked like childhood scars from the usual assortment of injuries, and a number of thin white lines showing on her arms from learning how to use the razor wire favored by her clan in pitched battle. Kushina didn't have one, not even a mark from the reincarnated soldier's kunai on the inside of her ankle caused during her kidnapping.

Natsumi knew that was because of both her kekkai genkai and 'fuzzy', the burden the Uzumaki had inherited from the honorable Mito-sama before her passing and was supposed to pass onto her own son, but still had pangs of jealous feelings for the unmarred skin of the other preteen. There wasn't even a seal to show where the nine tailed demon fox was contained, leaving naturally pale skin clear.

"So!" Using some of that unreal store of energy her clan was known for, Kushina suddenly popped upright and slung one arm over the Uchiha kunoichi's shoulder once all three of them had managed to relax into the hot water for a little while. "One, maybe two, more promotions before we're hitching you up! Excited?"

"Are you asking if I'm excited to be unable to publicly tell Fugaku-kun to shut up when he's being annoying? No, not really." Mikoto smirked slyly at the redhead's expression of surprised glee. "The guy's great and all, but way too stiff sometimes."

Natsumi's right eyebrow raised up sharply, looking sideways at the others in the hot spring with her. "Are you sure you want to say that, Mikoto-chan? There are so many ways I can-"

"No!" The Uchiha teen waved her hands between them with a panicked look. "I meant proper! Proper, not stiff. Noodle like-oh kami-sama." With a despairing wail, Mikoto splashed the assassin with Kushina's enthusiastic help. "Bad kitty! You and your sensei are making us think perverted thoughts!"

The former ANBU agent squinted at them after being hit with the face full of water shoved at her, snickering all the while. "You said it, not me!"

Kushina cackled evilly, tackling her best friend into the water to keep the girl-woman from dying as per her previous threat when the other teen looked ready to fulfill it.

It took the three of them a few more minutes to calm down, still splashing each other like children every few moments when one was suitably distracted. It gained them some annoyed looks but the other, mostly older kunoichi on the other end of the hot springs were tolerant of their younger sisters in arms messing around in secured places like the onsen compared to screwing around when there wasn't others nearby to guard their backs for them while distracted.

None of them in there was unarmed, even if the weapon of choice was water for the moment.

That may be another reason the civilians didn't like bathing with shinobi. Steel weapons in hot water. Huh.

"What about you, Natsumi-chan?"

The reincarnated girl-woman froze at the wrong moment, inhaling again just as a wave of water from Mikoto hit her in the face. Spluttering, she hacked and coughed a few time to get her breathing back under her control. "WHAT?"

"You're not really supposed to die here, silly." Kushina clucked at her as she helped the Uchiha teen haul her upright. "And I was asking if you ever wanted to get married."

"Oh." Blinking her mismatched eyes clear of excess water, she took a moment to think about that issue. That… was not something she had thought of before.

With everything going on; her chakra difficulties now, ANBU before that, and being confused over reality for most her life here; Natsumi hadn't given thought to how she would fit into the future besides keeping her friends alive and happy. She had always wanted kids in her last life, as siblings were never something she had growing up the first time and really liked about being alive now, and if she ever did have children she wanted them to have a brother or sister to care for.

Not that she had ever told Minato that she liked having him as an almost-little-brother, it sounded way to girly even in her head. It was something to offer to sate the other kunoichis' curiosity for now as she scrambled with this new issue to think about.

"I do eventually want children, at least two. I hadn't given a thought to with who yet."

"We're going to just have to think of someone you can have all the kids you want with, then." The Whirlpool Princess told the blinking assassin, elbowing the Uchiha teen distractedly frowning at her dripping shoulder length hair to get her to agree.

"Kushina-hime… I don't think that's a good idea given-"

Scowling, the Uzumaki planted her hands on her hips and glared at the bewildered, misplaced soldier who trailed off uneasily. "If I was you, I would have ignored the shinobi life and found someone to be happy with instead of jumping in with both feet to the darker side. Kami-sama, Natsumi-chan! You deserve some kind of happiness after everything, you know, and if gakis will do it for you then we'll help you get them!"

Natsumi opened her mouth to sound out an automatic protest and snapped it shut without a word of said argument spoken, her head of individual psychology training for managing platoons of soldiers kicking in and worrying the other preteen's motives over.

She had avoided the hell out of the other kunoichis just to keep from having to give an opinion on the subject of marriage and boys, weird out by the stubborn thought of they were thirty years younger than her. Natsumi stoutly avoided the whole topic, even though the general age of clan ninjas marrying was around fifteen and most shinobi saw to it they had at least one child by twenty at the latest to continue whatever skills they specialized in or family techniques they knew in case of premature death in the field. That had been the reason Mesuji Natsumi had been born in the first place, her biological mother on this side wanted a legacy to give to the village even if she wouldn't, and eventually hadn't, been alive to see that legacy grow up into a good shinobi for Konoha.

Did Kushina think she would never have a family? Was that why she was insisting on this even though the former assassin had never given any real thought to it before?

It was reasonable, taking into account that the Uzumaki was now the jinchūriki for the Kyuubi, for her to think no one would want to willingly get that close to a demon container. Reasonable, but unlikely with what Natsumi knew.

That may be why the preteen was trying to sound out the idea of setting her up with someone. Mikoto's future had already been planned for her, Kushina and everyone else knew what the Uchiha teen was doing with the rest of her life. Neither the ex-assassin nor jinchūriki had ever given each other any kind of hint to a preference for the future aside of being good kunoichi.

With her other life, the Uzumaki probably saw some parallels between them. A burden neither really wanted, but held onto for the village's benefit. Her with her prior military experience, and she with a demon in her gut. It didn't sound even at all, Natsumi didn't think her bloody death remotely compared to dealing with Kurama's rage at this point in time, but if that was what the other kunoichi thought…

…but Kushina and Minato… right, getting ahead of herself. No one but her knew of her kouhai and the jinchūriki being a couple before their end.

For fuck's sake, she wasn't supposed to know of the Kyuubi's location even with her low level ANBU Intel clearance.

"Only if we can help you."

Blindsided with something she hadn't thought of being turned on her, the preteen hesitated mid-nod. Mikoto, unknowing of what the real issue was besides Natsumi's past life, nodded seriously as she ensured her wired shuriken were tightly secured before they had the chance to slide out of her waterproofed thigh holster. "Right, sounds fair. We'll have to find someone for the both of you."

"R-right…" Kushina faltered only another moment on agreeing, one hand drifting across her stomach.

"Agreed then. I'll go on a date when you do, Kushina-hime."

Secure in that promise, assuming that the Uzumaki preteen would be way too caught up in her kouhai in a few years to bother her about anything like that, she missed the momentarily calculating gleam in the Uchiha's eyes as she readjusted the bladed chopsticks holding her now wet hair up and handed back the senbon that had held up the redhead's she had snatched from falling into the water earlier.

"I do hope you didn't mean we'd get the same man, Mikoto-chan."

"NATSUMI!"

"I'm just saying that it would be more than a little awkward, Kushina-hime. If you want to, though…"

"You'd better run, Natsumi-chan. I don't think I've ever seen her that red before."

\V/

Sakumo handed her a wooden sword the next time the whole group met up.

Natsumi inspected the length of dead tree in her hands for a moment, before curiously looking up at her old ANBU captain. "What's this for, taicho?"

The older looking, silver haired shinobi hunkered down to sit on his ankles. Hatake's were apparently all tall bastards regardless of generation, because that brought the two of them to eye level even with her slowly rising height. "I had the idea that since your chakra nature was similar to my family that the control methods we use might help you. Jiraiya knows the tricks now, but he asked for a bokken so you could get used to one before I start teaching you kenjutsu."

"Thanks, taicho. I promise to return it in the same condition." The misplaced soldier hefted the weight of the wooden mockup of a katana, knowing from another life wielding steel weapons, rifles not swords, about the same size that a real one wasn't too far off from the weighted one in her hands. Possibly a lead core inside to mimic the actual weight of steel, or some kind of metal ore.

"Now put away you're pointy stick and come over here, Natsumi-sempai!" Minato grinned at the glare shot his way. "What? It's pointy and a stick."

Oh dear kami-sama, she had made a monster out of her poor adorable little kouhai. "If I didn't think taicho would smack me, I'd smack you with my pointy stick."

Natsumi earned herself a hair ruffle with that, and she switched targets for her evil look because the smirking older man had knocked her hair bun askew with a few deft pulls before messing up her hair.

"In the interest of all our sanity, I'm going to have to insist the two of you shut up about pointy sticks now." Inoichi glowered at all of them from where he was seated with the Hyūga twins, Chouza, and a grinning Mikoto playing poker. The Uchiha teen had to be cheating with her eyes in that group, since the Hyūgas were way too proper to use their kekkai genkai in such a manner even if it would be easier for them to hide it than their old genin teammate could.

Tucking away her hair ties in her thigh pouch, there really wasn't much of a point putting her hair back up when Nawaki had spotted her already and was grinning ear to ear, Natsumi tucked the wooden length against her side like any ANBU traveling with a live blade. Nodding her thanks to her taicho for the training sword and then bowing to Hokage-sama and Biwako for hosting them all in the Sarutobi clan compound, she walked across the yard with the older looking Hatake to see what the others around her physical age were really doing under that table.

Sarutobi Hiruzen had told his wife about the gatherings the Toad Sage had invited him to only recently, and the woman was ecstatic over the idea and badgered her husband into inviting them all over for the next one. Biwako was a retired iryou-nin that specialized in kunoichi child birthing now and with her own newborn to handle, Asuma-chan and how weird was that, the woman had less and less time to socialize with others outside the clan compound or hospital so she had jumped on the idea with both feet.

These meetings, now that they were no longer over Natsumi's supposed sanity, were almost like mandatory officer and enlisted picnics that the reincarnated soldier recalled from her other life with the side option of testing each other in a spar. Jiraiya had been extremely amused to learn that his sensei's wife was following traditions of another age's military wives in wanting a party like atmosphere to include herself into.

There were points where that parallel failed; Biwako had been part of this military before and could keep up with the usual discussions well enough without them having to change the topic to a safer one for civilians, and besides the tea there was no food other than what the Akimichi heir had with him; but it was similar enough Natsumi felt echoes of her other life bleeding through.

Now it really was more like a social setting like Biwako thought than a meeting over the stability of mental health one of them probably didn't have.

Minato and Kushina had stolen the Toad Sage's attention and were deep in a discussion of barrier type fūinjutsu; Tsunade was probably taking about recent medical jutsus and procedures with Biwako from what little she could understand of it; and now Sakumo and Hiruzen was listening to Uchiha Fugaku and Orochimaru discuss the recent findings of R&D as they all watched the blatant cheating going on at the poker table, as the card game wasn't really much fun for shinobi unless everyone was being underhanded at the same time.

Natsumi really didn't know what to make about the Snake Summoner, and she ran what she knew so far through her head as she watched the really ongoing game of who could cheat who the most.

Orochimaru had blown into the scientific research division after being formally pulled from the last of the war effort, put his foot down about his teammate's female student's time being wasted continually by going back and demonstrating her jutsu if it caused the civilian and shinobi researchers to be useless the rest of the day. He then declared the technique the misplaced soldier had developed for her ANBU assassinations a kinjutsu for everyone else's seeming inability to use it pending kekkai genkai status if another of her bloodline could use it and they couldn't find a method to mimic or reproduce the effects.

No one had dared to argue with him and the subject of dissention was sorted accordingly, and Jiraiya had all but thrown the other sannin a party for dealing with the situation without letting it drag on for a few more years.

Now he was thick in the work she, Fugaku, and Mikoto had started; looking for a way to defeat the jutsu for others without mastering senjutsu for the Uchiha Clan. He had theorized that searching their methods of finding a counter would let him reverse engineer exactly how it was done, so their little study group put together by the Uchiha Clan now had a sannin's reasoning backing them up to the rest of the shinobi corps wondering why it was being worked on in the first place.