Tsunade's daughter (A Naruto original fanfiction)

Chapter Sixty-Eight: Deciphering the Code

A few moments after she handed it to Naruto who was still holding Kei into his arms. 

"Here, let me hold her," Shikamaru said to him. 

Naruto let him take her and Shiho gave the photo to him. 

Naruto observed it carefully. 

"I think I know why you haven't found anything yet, Godaime-Mai. If you looked at page 9, you shouldn't have, because this isn't a nine. If you look carefully at his way of writing-"

"It's the katakana "ta" letter..." Mai interrupted him. 

Yes, Mai had read novels written by her father, long before Naruto started, even the Icha Icha Paradise stuff (not entirely though) to see what those books were really like and what they dealt with precisely (Yeah, because she's not a pervert, right. Or.... Is she?... aha). So she should have noticed that sooner. 

"How do you know?" 

"Just like you, I've read Tou-San's novels many times, including this one, and I watched him write too," Mai replied.

"The Katakana "Ta" letter?" Shikamaru questioned. 

"That's right," Mai confirmed. 

Meanwhile Shiho went to look for a white sheet of paper. And then Naruto showed and explained to them how Jiraiya wrote this letter. 

"Why couldn't say it sooner Naruto?" Shikamaru asked him. 

"Well, what's the big deal with knowing it's the letter "Ta" anyway?"

"Yes, I understand everything now. This message was indeed meant for both of you. And you were right Godaime-Sama when you said these numbers referred to book pages," Shiho told her. 

Mai leafed through the book again carefully, without looking at page nine this time and looking for the "ta" character. But once again she didn't seem to find anything. 

She shook her head no, almost getting desperate. 

"That doesn't correspond."

"What do you mean that doesn't correspond? We can't be wrong." Shikamaru said. "Naruto, do you remember which book it was?"

"Hmm... I think it was Icha something... Four... Or...."

"The Icha Icha Paradise series," Mai stated. 

"I think it's probably this one."

They all turned around to see Kakashi behind the window, showing said book.

The man had been spending the night with Mai, but she had woken up much earlier, unable to sleep for too long, even with Kakashi by her side. She had gone to see Shizune and her daughter, but her cousin had told her that she had entrusted Kei to Shikamaru. So she had gone to see Naruto to take the book she had given to him but soon noticed he hadn't been in his apartment, and so had gone looking for him.

Naruto approached him before he said:

"It's been on my mind so I decided to stop by when I overheard your voices. This is the book you're looking for. 

"Ichi Icha Paradise! So Godaime-Mai was right!"

"So Jiraiya-Sama did pass the key onto Naruto," Shikamaru noted. 

Naruto just nodded.

"When a character is used in a code, it could signify word placement or line number. So the numbers separated by commas are 31, 8, 106, 7, 207, and 15. Six sets. Meaning there are six pages worth of information," Shiho explained.