"Do you?" asked Hayate, glancing at the Hokage and then the middle-aged fellow nearby.
"Yes," said the Hokage. "Though admittedly I have not run into this situation before."
"Just to be clear on this, I'm willing to support Nanoha, Fate, or Nanoha AND Fate if they decide to go this route," summed up Hayate.
"Understood," said the Hokage.
"There is no legal reason for not doing this," said the white-haired guy. "Naruto is the last member of his clan, and the holder of his family's bloodline."
"Why exactly are you here for this discussion?" asked Hayate.
"You understand this is all top-secret?" asked the Hokage.
Hayate nodded, now interested instead of irritated.
"I'm Naruto's godfather," said the white-haired fellow. "Jiraiya. I will also be taking a more active hand in Naruto's training in the near future."
"I see," said Hayate, now gauging the two men. "You both are fairly powerful mages, or ninja, within this world's structure?"
"Any Hokage has to be, it's a job requirement," said Jiraiya. "I myself have been a spy and agent-abroad for awhile, but I'm also one of the Three Legendary Ninja of the Leaf Village."
"Oh?" asked Hayate. "I'm sure Signum and Vita would love to spar with you sometime. Just to get further information on how your world's ninja compare with our knights."
Jiraiya paused as if he sensed much pain in his future. "Perhaps. It might be interesting."
"So where do you stand in all this, other than assisting Nanoha or Fate?" asked the Hokage.
"Undecided right now," said Hayate with a shrug. "Naruto, thanks to almost two years spent with us, is almost fourteen. Hinata, as I understand it, is twelve. Nanoha and Fate are both thirteen, as am I. We have time before such decisions really must be worked out. I'll just observe from the sidelines, it may be entertaining. Though..."
"Yes?" asked the Hokage.
Hayate closed her book and looked directly at Jiraiya. "Are you the one who wrote that book?"
"What book?" asked Jiraiya.
"Icha Icha," responded Hayate.
"Uhm, aren't you a little young for that reading material?" asked Jiraiya. Odd, he wasn't getting any feeling of impending doom from this little girl.
"Yes, it didn't make much sense to me when I found it amongst Shamal's medical texts, apparently she got it from Captain Lindy who picked it up when visiting your village," said Hayate. "I think she's a fan. Shamal!"
A blonde woman entered the room.
"Yes, I'm the author for the very popular 'Icha Icha' series," admitted Jiraiya cautiously.
Shamal's eyes widened slightly. "Oh?"
The Hokage coughed, as he WAS trying to develop relations with the TSAB, but wasn't entirely sure how this development was going to effect any part of it.
Just that he had a bad feeling about it.
Tazuna glanced up at the bridge support, where Sakura Haruno sat and watched the area.
"Uhm, boss?" asked a mason.
"She's there to guard us," said Tazuna. "She's a ninja. So no, you may not flirt with her. Get back to work."
"Right," said the mason, heading back to his section of the bridge.
Tazuna grumbled something under his breath, turning his attention back to the work himself for a few minutes. On some impulse, he glanced back at the kunoichi up there.
Who looked steadily back at him with those seafoam green eyes.
"I don't think it's that," said a familiar voice.
Tazuna managed to contain himself enough that he only jumped a couple of inches. As he suspected, the cat was looking particularly smug and superior at her little prank. "What?"
"She picked a high vantage point to be able to see over a long distance," said Kurochan, still in catform. "She also wants to be alone right now."
"Hmph, kids," mumbled Tazuna.
"True," admitted Kurochan. "And she's handling it a lot differently than I would."
"Oh?" asked Tazuna, not knowing exactly what had happened but having an idea that someone must have done or said something that pretty much put the three young ninja on edge.
"Yes," said Kurochan. "I'd have beaten him within an inch of his life, then kissed him very thoroughly, and THEN I'd have said something about him wanting to play with dolls."
"I see," said a Tazuna who quite obviously did NOT have an idea what was going on.
"I have a question for you though, Tazuna the bridge-builder," said Kurochan. "You're certainly not an ideal person to question, but Kakashi is even less so. Maybe I should ask your daughter."
"Tsunami?" asked Tazuna.
"Yes," said Kurochan, getting up. "She might have some answers for me. She wasn't at her home, so perhaps you'd know where she is?"
"Probably working on fishing nets," offered Tazuna after some thought on it. "Go along the shore to the right, there's some fishing vessels still in operation."
"Tsunami?" asked the cat.
"Uhm, 'Kurochan', isn't it?" asked Tsunami, who was really really not used to talking cats. Though she HAD seen a few times that Inari was playing with the cat and the cat was acting rather more cat-like.
"It got boring watching Naruto and Sasuke competing to see who could slash a tree higher," confessed Kurochan. "Sakura's watching over Tazuna. On the other hand, I have questions for you."
"Why not ask your sensei?" asked Tsunami.
"He's a guy," said Hanabi.
"Ah," said Tsunami, figuring out that it was about female matters that the cat wanted to ask her about. "Your mother is unavailable?"
"Died before I was a year old," said Hanabi.
Tsunami paused in her repair of a fishing net to consider the oddity of her being asked to give womanly advice to a talking cat. A talking ninja magical cat.
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(Posted Tue, 04 Jan 2011 15:54)
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