Chapter 8

The Hokage looked at me over his overflowing pile of papers (seriously, there was more paper than desk!) and puffed a bit on his pipe. While our greeting had been a little… odd, thanks to Genma, the mood quickly became somber as we remembered what we were here for.

"We've run into some resistance about your stay here," He said after a moment of silence.

I nodded, expecting as much, before asking, "Is it Danzo and the elders?"

He nodded, "You've seen this before then?"

"Yeah, much later it becomes obvious he's got them wrapped around his little finger but I wasn't sure how long he'd had them under his control."

He frowned, "I didn't realize it was to that extent. I know he means well, but I constantly have to make sure he doesn't go too far. If the elders are as obedient as you say I may have to take more drastic action."

"I suggest you fire him and the Elders. They're nothing but trouble"

"I can't do that!" The Hokage said, surprised.

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't! We can't make Danzo's actions public knowledge, it would weaken the village," He said, sounding a little insulted.

Oops, there I go, being too blunt when tact is required. You can't just go giving advice willy-nilly to a Kage. Plus, Danzo and Hiruzen were close at one point in time so it makes sense that he'd still feel loyalty to him over me.

"Sorry, Hokage-sama, I didn't mean any offence, it was just an honest question about if you could legally fire the 3 of them."

He simmered down a bit at that, leaning away from his (incredibly messy) desk and shook his head.

"Technically yes, I could fire a council member by myself, but it wouldn't go over well with the rest of them. I'd need to provide a very good reason too, or else I could the rest could try to force my resignation because they feel threatened."

"Hmmm OK, that makes sense," I say, "I'm hardly a good enough reason on my own."

"I could try to find some incriminating evidence, but Danzo is smart. He's only been stretching the law, not breaking it."

I shake my head, "No, he's definitely broken the law. He's kept root active despite the fourth's order to disband."

The Hokage's face darkened. Eventually, he said, "I should have expected this."

He looks legitimately upset, and I wonder if I should keep my suspicions to myself. I don't want to cause him unnecessary amounts of pain, and maybe waiting would lessen the blow… But waiting could also just delay the inevitable and complicate things in the long run, especially if holding back information caused the Hokage to make a decision he otherwise wouldn't have.

The choice is obvious.

"Danzo has done more than just keep Root active," I start then stop, wondering how to continue.

"Hokage-sama, I'm not trying to insult you when I say this, I know you are a great Hokage, I've seen it, so I need know when I say these things it's with hindsight." I continue, eyes unfocused and mind focused on my memories, "Danzo is more corrupt than you know: He aided and supported Orochimaru's experiments, including the ones on the villagers and is currently going behind your back to entice the Uchiha into rebellion. In the future he'll steal the eyes out of the Uchiha's dead bodies and implant them in his arm and eye socket, then try to use them to control the other Kages at the first ever Kage Summit. He'll tell himself he's doing it for the good of the village, but he's lying to himself. He's doing it because he wants to be power and to be Hokage."

I can see the Hokage drift between disbelief and anger, but I don't stop.

"Hokage-sama, I know that Danzo, despite what he has done and will do, isn't evil. He's corrupt. Corrupted by the dark, or the shadows, that he is so fond of hiding in. You can't hush this up, or try and out manipulate him. The only thing that can drive away shadows is light, and you need to shine a light right on him. Hopefully not only will you save the village, you'll also save him."

"I… can't do that. Danzo may be underhanded but he's not all wrong in his views. We need someone like him."

I paused, good point. But still…

"While every military needs spies and lies to win, you don't want to rely on Danzo for either. He may say he has the villages best interest at heart, but I can assure you part of him doesn't, and that side of him will rear it's ugly head at the worst possible moment and nearly drag the village down. Multiple times."

I pause, my chest tight and my leg jiggling up and down nervously. I don't want to say this, but I can't bear to keep this to myself.

"He teams back up with Orochimaru and lets him nearly destroy the village in return for letting him become the Godaime Hokage," I say and, with great trepidation, I say, "Hokage-sama, he was an accomplice in your murder."

The meeting stagnates a bit after that.

I keep my eyes downcast and focused on the pile of papers by my feet, feeling horrible and guilty. The Hokage is a smart man, a wise man, but even he is thrown off balance by news of his foreseen death.

It's understandable.

Especially considering that I'm naturally the world's most brutally honest and emotionally insensitive human being. I mean, when you've got the emotional intelligence of a teaspoon for your own emotions it's very hard to be "sensitive" to another's.

In summary, I just don't know when to shut up.

I could have kept that last part to myself. Even now I started to doubt myself. Is that really what I what happened? I did read a lot of FanFiction, was that maybe a plot that another author had inserted? I didn't remember exactly what Danzo did either… but part of me – most of me – knew it was true. It was the same part of me that knew Sasuke liked tomatoes and Naruto liked gardening, despite not remembering where I learned it. There are some things that I just knew.

So I kept my mouth shut and I waited.

Sometimes people just need time, space and quiet to process things. I suspect the Hokage wasn't the type to show any sort or weakness and probably would try to be "strong" and "practical" if he realized he was just sitting there in horrified silence, but he needed this. He needed to mourn the loss of naivety and process his friend's betrayal.

There's a trick I use sometimes to erase my presence in a room. I based it off of the idea of selective attention, or how you don't notice certain things depending on the circumstances.

For example, if you're focused on one thing you won't notice something that you otherwise would. Its how pickpockets generally work: they misdirect your attention or wait for you to focus on something else before they swoop in.

Also, if something is regular enough that it becomes a pattern you don't register it anymore, like how you only notice music was playing when it stops. The pattern becomes normal to you, so you stop registering it, then are only able register the change when the pattern breaks. It's the same with smell: you don't register your own natural smell despite everyone having a slight, faint one at all times. Your nose just stops registering it.

I brought these two ideas together, but really crucial point in erasing your presence was movement.

The first thing your eye registers is movement, so moving too much will draw attention to yourself. However, if you suddenly stop moving it's just as noticeable, so you have to slowly dial your movement back and create a pattern to it. I timed everything to my breath, since it was a very normal pattern that most people didn't register on a daily basis.

Also, don't try and become completely still because no one can stay perfectly still for very long (rarely more than a couple seconds, in fact) and even the tiniest twitch at that point will give you away. It's the same with holding your breath. For some reason our natural instinct is to hold our breath when we don't want to be noticed, but you need to start breathing at some point, and when you do you'll break your movement pattern and create a relatively loud huff of breath.

You have to stay relaxed and comfortable, with a slight sway in your body as you breath.

The last step, is to rotate your face so it's not facing anyone directly. Our eyes are trained to find faces and will subconsciously send a "someone is watching you" signal to our brain, which will cause the person to get paranoid and notice you. We find faces even in the silliest of things, like faucets or car headlights, because of this and sometimes are brain gets so convinced that their real faces that we start to feel like we're being watched even when no one is there.

Obviously it was complicated, and it didn't always work even for me. Luckily it did this time, so, within a moment, I melted away from the Hokage's senses and left him alone.

I became part of the background and waited.

It was Shikaku who broke the Hokage out of his trance.

I had been sitting there quietly for about five minutes, studying the horribly organized stacks of paperwork and wondering if anyone had even bother to create a filing or prioritizing system to this thing, before a knock on the door snapped Hiruzen out of it.

"Come in."

I gently eased myself back into his senses as Shikaku came in.

"Good morning," Shikaku drawled.

Hiruzen nodded, "Good morning, Shikaku."

"Good morning," I said with a smile.

The Hokage's eyes flicked over to me, and I wondered if he noticed that he'd lost track of me for a moment.

"We were just discussing Mika's stay here."

"You told her about the council?" Shikaku asked.

"Yes, but she already suspected."

Shikaku looked at me and nodded. I wondered briefly what he was nodding about (was it a "Yes, just as I though" nod or an "Well OK, that's interesting" nod or maybe a "Yo, I recognize your smarts" nod…)

"What's our next step then?"

Good question, what was our next step?

"Right, you'll need an official cover and background," The Hokage said, turning to me.

"What did you tell the council," I asked. We'd have to build on that.

"Just that you were an experimental resource of mine."

"'An experimental resource'?" Well that was tricky. "Did you hint what the experiment was? Or can we just invent any background and trust the council to go along with it?"

"They'll go along with it so long as you seem to be doing something of importance."

OK, that made sense. If we gave them at least a slight inkling of what my "real" job was they would be more willing to accept it. On the other hand, if they had no idea who I was or what I was doing, they'd start poking around and that would be problematic. However, we couldn't exactly hint that I was a dimensional traveler and expect people to be like "Oh, that's cool"…

A plan started to form.

"Well, how about a 3 layered cover? First layer is my everyday, visible to a clueless civilian life. Under that, my other 'experimental resource' job that some ninja figure out, and finally under that a second even more secret role in case somebody starts to suspect the second layer is fake."

"Would you be able to keep that up?" Shikaku asks.

"Yeah, probably, but I might slip up. Hopefully the layers will allow for some wiggle room… and we'll have to keep as close to the truth as possible. If I only have to remember a few things that I absolutely can't say it'll be easier."

Shikaku nods and says, "I had a similar plan, but I don't know your lying and acting capabilities. The bottom layer of your cover can be that you're from a country outside the elemental countries that has a very different life style, and you're here because you're on the run due to your abilities as an oracle. Do you think you can do that?"

I nod, "Yeah, definitely possible, pretty close to the truth and all… but and oracle? Really? Would anybody believe that?"

"There have been rumors of a priestess up north with the ability to predict death, so we could go for something similar. Maybe even plant fake evidence of ties between you and her," Shikaku responded nonchalantly.

"Oh right," I said with a start, remembering the white haired girl with a pessimistic attitude from that one arc about the chakra beast (in the lava or something, right?)… It was a little fuzzy, obviously, but I could see how this would work. What'ya know? They did sort of believe in fortune tellers here.

"The other two layers definitely depend on your own talents. What could be another resource, besides your providence, you could offer the village?" Shikaku asked.

"Uhhh…" I said intelligently.

What did I have to offer? First thought: NOTHING. I wasn't particularly talented.

But what did my world have to offer? Machines, technology, languages… But I wasn't an engineer and popping languages out of nowhere would, at best, add to my third cover layer. Maybe codes based on other languages? No, still too problematic. Biology? I obviously had some information that could be useful, but did I really have enough? I wasn't a Biology major (I was an Economics that I hadn't even completed one year of college) and I didn't even know if I had that much useful information… No, Biology wasn't ideal either.

My jiggling foot finally became a nuisance and knocked against the pile of papers at my feet, knocking the thing over.

"Oh shit, sorry," I reached down and picked up the papers, trying to file them back in order as I gathered them, "I'll just put them back the way they were…"

But, what were they? Each one looked like a freaking essay… Scratch that, it looked like a combination of bullet point notes, essays and short answer questions. How the hell did they organize this?

"Oh don't worry, it doesn't really matter."

"But… how were they organized?" I asked baffled at the mess in my hands.

Shikaku and Hiruzen shared a glance.

"They're organized by subject, like that pile was mission reports. It doesn't matter which order they come in though," Hiruzen explained.

"That's all?" I asked, I had my suspicions but this was too much!

I look down at the reports and immediately a general formatting and layout starts to come to mind. This was horrendous! This flew in the face of everything I lived for: efficiency and logical systems of organization…

"Do you have better way?" Hiruzen asked.

"Yes," I respond immediately. Without really even thinking about it I continue, mostly muttering to myself, "Start with the forms themselves, you should have a template for these. Mission number and rank at top, with participating ninja up there too, an abstract or summary of mission before the full report oh, and there should be a multiple-choice section for mission type and rank… Need to sort them by rank, higher rank ones should be sorted and read first, and what about mission requests? Those should have a basic format too and…"

Suddenly, I notice how quiet the room got.

"Uhhh, sorry, that was a bit much," I say nervously, shuffling the papers back together neatly (repressing my urge to re-file the entire damn pile). I know I'm a bit weird about organization…

Instead of the usual look of apprehension and "you weirdo" vibes, Shikaku smiles.

"I think we found your talent," Hiruzen says.

"Paperwork?" I say, dumbfounded.

"You can be my personal assistant and be in charge of reorganizing the systems here for mission requests," the Hokage explains.

Soooo my superpower is my secretarial skills?

…

That's kinda sad.

…

Kinda perfect for me too… Which is even more sad.

Oblivious to my self-deprecating thoughts, Shikaku turns to Hiruzen and says, "That's probably a bit to much to start with, Hokage-sama. Starting off as your personal assistant when Mika has barely adjusted to being here, let alone shinobi protocol, is a bit much. Plus the public attention on her would be too risky, especially with her cover being so new. She should start off as my assistant first. I'll teach her, and when she's ready we can see if she should be transferred."

Hiruzen frowns, but reluctantly nods. "You're right… But I can't help but think just want her to do your paperwork for you."

"Why would you think that, Hokage-sama? Perhaps the idea crossed your mind earlier?"

Excuse me? Is he implying that the Hokage is trying to sneak out of his work… and that he is too?

From the smirk on their faces I'm guessing that would be a yes.

I let out a smile, then a slight chuckle.

That's… really funny.

Maybe this job won't be so bad after all.

Author's Note:

Sorry for the wait!

When I said my life got crazy last chapter... I meant it went bat-shit INSANE. It's hardly any less insane at the moment, but frankly if I don't suck it up and post now I'll never get back in the groove.

Not going to promise another quick update, but I'm going to promise to try (Yes, I know that's not much of a promise, and honestly even I find that to be a cop-out answer, at all but sadly it's the best I got). Sorry.

I'll repost this question (just incase you missed it last time and have an opinion on the matter)

Potential love interests~ oo la la ;)

1) Hatake Kakashi (age 26)

2) Umino Iruka (age 22)

3) Genma Shiranui (age 29)

4) Uchiha Itachi (age 18)

5) [Insert character here]

If you didn't get the joke ^ (which, admittedly, was rather lame), you can suggest another one if you like.

I'm actually keeping track of you're responses too, though my methods for counting them up aren't exactly... normal. There's a lot of "HIM or maybe him, but not him please" which is hard to tally... Not that thats a bad thing! It's just a little complicated, but I completed calculus for god's sake so I got this.

Reviews actually help me write... They're like strategically placed explosive tags on my writers block :)