A Different Path

Decoding

"Take a look at this. We believe these numbers represent pages from one of Lord Jiraiya's books, but we don't know exactly which one. Being close to Naruto, I suppose he's told you something about this." The Nara leaned against the table behind him, his hands reaching down for support as his fingers curled around the hard edge of the wooden surface.
"He has. He used to read me one of his books. But not the adult ones. It was the first book Lord Jiraiya had written and Naruto told me that his father named him after story's the protagonist." Haru narrowed his eyes. Something had seemingly caught his attention.
"What is it?" Shiho took a step closer to the boys, ignoring the dangerous proximity between her and Shikamaru.

"This first number.. And odd nine.. Oh! It's actually a katakana letter. Naruto told me that this weird nine called 'ta' is a writing quirk of Jiraiya's penmanship. He makes it look like a nine." Haru fiddled with the photo.
"Are you sure? It might mean something else. Maybe you're just wanting to think that it is." Shikamaru sighed. Shiho jumped from her place and ran her fingers along the books on the shelf behind them. She made a satisfied noise once she found the one she was looking for.
"Here. This book was written by Lord Jiraiya." She turned the pages until the sign caught their eyes.
"There! It's the same as the one in the code. They match." Shikamaru clasped his hands together.
"Now that we know this, which Make-Out book does contain this letter?" Sasuke moved his gaze onto Shiho as if he knew she'd know.
"I-I remember that the latest book's cover had something similar to this. The numbers must represent pages from the Make-Out Tactics."

"Good. So what now?" Sasuke folded his arms on his toned chest.
"Now that we've found the use of the letter in the code, it might be the letter or line orders, but the normal strategy is to first look at page numbers. 31, 8, 106, 7, 207, 15. Six pages in total. There might be a problem, though. I.. I've heard that those sold out before m-most people got to buy them." Shiho tried to hide the blush creeping onto her face. She wasn't even supposed to know anything about those books. I'm not even going to ask why she knows that.
"I know someone who has every single book from the Make-Out series." A mischievous smirk occurred on Sasuke's lips.

~~~<>~~~

"Is this really necessary?" Kakashi's right eye twitched tiredly.
"Yes, it is." Sasuke contained himself from having a rage quit.
"The first one would be page thirty one. Please open that page." Shiho read the numbers between commas once again, to make sure.
"Page thirty one.. There we go." His hand rested upon the thin sheet of paper. "Where do we look?"
"In a situation like this, we should start by simply looking at the first words. Please read out the first sentence from the top of the page." Shiho raised her index finger.
Kakashi's eye widened considerably. That was when the thread connecting him to reality snapped. But Sasuke was growing impatient.
"Wait, um.." Sweatdrops ran down his unmasked cheek.
"What the hell are you waiting for? Start reading!" He barked at his sensei.
"'Th-Th-The truth is.. That you l-love me then?'" His face was so red it looked like it might explode and his eye was completely bulgy, ready to pop out of its eye socket.
Oh my God.. This is worse than Haru or Guy.. Where's Naruto when I need him?

*Half An Hour Later*

Actual steam was lifting out of Kakashi's now forever-traumatized being. He had never been so embarrassed in his whole life. Sasuke could only blink. His brain wasn't even functioning properly anymore. He was watching a few pandicorns in bikinis run around in circles and he was pretty sure that they were puking rainbows filled with lots of mini naked-Narutos. Shikamaru's eyes were narrowed to dots and his stiff and still in-shock body seemed to be on a different galaxy while Shiho remained unfazed. That was when Sasuke began questioning his meaning of life.
"Alright, that should cover all six pages." She grabbed a pencil and started circling the first words from each page. "If you read the first word of every page, it becomes.. The.. Real.. One.. Is.. Not.. There." She bit her lip with frustration.