Shinobi Isekai!

Consequences

He leaned back in his seat and assessed her. She met his gaze steadily and he came to a sudden realization.

She was right.

What he—and everyone else in her life—had seen as a levelheaded and mature young girl was in reality a girl no one had seen under strife. Ever since her adoption in the Hatake Clan, Hanako had lived the life expected of her name. She went to the academy, she graduated early, she was a bright and eager pupil for her sensei—there were no faults in her record. Just like Kakashi, at that age. So much so, in fact, it was almost scary. Like Kakashi, she witnessed a parent's death. Like Kakashi, she excelled at whatever caught her interest. Like Kakashi...

That façade fell apart the moment her safe routine was upended.

Shikaku was training Hanako to be a 'paper ninja'. Though most who fell under that category hated being called such, it was a fact that they spent more time cataloging documents than taking missions outside the village. 'True shinobi work' as most would call it. Hanako's keen eye for detail and slow, methodical work style made her a perfect candidate for Research and Development, if not Cryptography or Analytics. She had several high class missions under her belt from her seal work, alone, since she was the only person in the village with any real knowledge of fuuinjutsu most of the time. She was never meant to be a frontline fighter. Indeed, she was wholly unsuited for it, given her clear aversion to violence. Certainly, Shikaku trained her in taijutsu, but the Nara weren't frontline fighters, either. Even their Ino-Shika-Cho formation was specialized for capture and interrogation, not direct combat. Inoichi didn't even have to open his files to know Shikaku himself had reported her troubles with improvising.

Long story short, getting thrown into the Chunin Exams alone and being targeted by Orochimaru were not things Hanako was prepared to deal with.

Sage, he wasn't sure a Jounin would be ready to handle Orochimaru.

He could kick himself for not realizing all this sooner. If he had, maybe he and Shikaku could have found a way to get her a field promotion instead of sending her into the exams—with traitors for teammates, no less! She might even have both her hands!

No wonder. No wonder.

Inoichi pinched the bridge of his nose and mentally berated himself for not noticing the signs sooner. How did this child manage to become a carbon copy of a man she shared no blood with? Kakashi was a man of routine. He did his job and he read his books. But it took him many years to reach that new normal after the spate of deaths in his early teens. How long would his daughter be in flux? How long until she created a new persona to hide the scars on her soul?

Even knowing all that, he still had an interrogation to conduct. Sometimes he really hated his job.

Better him than someone else, though. He could take solace in that.

"Hanako," he began again, gentler this time. She noticed the change, but he expected that. "Why did you approach the Raikage?"

She answered without hesitation. She probably expected that question. "I knew that Gaara was...unstable. When he ran off, I thought it best to ask a more experienced jinchuriki for help. The Raikage happened to be there when I approached Killer Bee, so I decided to risk asking him for help, too."

A firm answer. Rehearsed, no doubt. "Is there a reason you decided to do it yourself instead of asking a higher ranking shinobi for help?"

Her brows furrowed and she looked small and helpless again. Incredible how she could do that with a single muscle twitch. He remained unswayed. Ino used that trick too often for it to affect him, anymore. "I didn't know who I could trust."