"But potentially useful," said Jiraiya.
"How so?" asked girl-type-Naruto.
"After watching you for the past several hours I have determined that there are NO direct mental changes that have occurred, however my observation also reveals some things I've heard about," said Jiraiya. "Though you may just be a little bit smarter as a girl. Tsunade would be fascinated by that - I'm sure."
"Oh, I'm just so happy that you're using my suffering as some creepy experiment," said Naruko with a particularly flat voice.
"Look, you used to have poor color vision," said Jiraiya. "Below average from what I've seen. But I'd heard from medic-nin that they'd done some work on various eyes and they'd discovered that guys see colors differently than girls. I don't understand the full explanation - I'm not a medic and it involved some stuff with these rods and cones things in the eye itself. Girls are more sensitive to variations in color, and you are currently a girl."
"I'M A GUY DAMNIT!"
"Who can tell the difference between Scarlet and Volcano Red," said Jiraiya.
"Huh? Well, it's obvious... isn't it?" asked Naruko, her face taking on a distinctly disgusted look.
"Nope," said Jiraiya. "It's all 'red' to me. That salesgirl and you saw it though. There's other differences, but you're still you. I don't expect you to suddenly start acting all girly or something."
"Ugh," said Naruko, shuddering as images of what THAT could mean passed through her head.
"Yup, my niece Naruko is a bit of a tomboy," said Jiraiya with a grin.
"'niece'?" asked Naruko quietly.
"As for the fox-ears and fox-tail that keeps popping out when you lose your cool," said Jiraiya with a shrug. "That'll just be explained away as getting too close to a ninja battle and some weird jutsu that was used. Our training mission will therefore be explained as gathering information towards your eventual cure."
"I can keep those from popping out, you know," Naruko informed Jiraiya.
"Yes, but the moment you get excited or angry, they pop back out again," noted Jiraiya.
"That didn't give that kid an excuse to go stroking my freaking tail!" noted Naruko, snarling at the memory.
"Didn't say it did," said Jiraiya, waving off the point. "Still, it's sufficient indication that this mission is going to go completely nuts."
"What about a cure that turns me back into a guy?" asked Naruko.
"Simple, we'll continue looking for that while we train," said Jiraiya. "However, while we're looking - you'll maintain the fiction that I'm simply a wandering writer by the name of Jeri Sinefell and you're my niece Naruko."
"That's a weird name," said Naruko.
"I've used it as a pen-name for some books that don't sell as well as the Icha Icha series," admitted "Jeri" with a grin. "Mainly a combination of comedy and cookbooks."
"You're kidding me, right?" asked Naruko.
Jiraiya unsealed a scroll from another scroll, then unsealed that to pull a stack of books out. He handed one off to Naruko.
"What the hell?" asked Naruko as she went through the first few pages. "Who did the little cartoons in the margins?"
"A co-writer that the publisher uses," said Jiraiya. "Look, if I wrote these under my usual name - there's a market that wouldn't read my cookbooks because of the fame of the Icha Icha series. Same with the kid's books."
"KID'S BOOKS?!" asked Naruko, completely in shock.
"Face it, nobody would buy a book for their kid that was written by the highly acclaimed author of the Icha Icha series," said Jiraiya. "So I use a different pen-name for that too. When I'm Jiraiya, I'm the mighty toad-sage and writer of the bestselling Icha Icha series - and proud of it too. But you know - ninja. Always have a back-up plan, always have an escape route, always have an ace-in-the-hole to play."
"You wrote KID'S books?!" asked Naruko.
"Yeah, they don't really sell that well though," said Jiraiya. "I make more money off the merchandising of the characters so it works out. The cookbooks don't even sell as well as the kid's books though, so there are only three of them out there."
Naruko stared for a moment then began reading the book in her hands.
Jiraiya just went back to making notes in one of his notebooks, planning out his next move.
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(Posted Sun, 05 May 2013 18:58)
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