Inoichi took a moment to gather himself. Not once in the last six years did he imagine this situation. Shikaku might have, but he was being understandably distant at the moment.
Interrogation wasn't exactly a team sport.
He adjusted his grip on his files. They were thicker than usual, filled with information gathered by different people over the last 6 years. There was even a set he'd written himself, full of confidential information he never thought would see the light of day. Nothing was sacred to T&I. He knew that, but he still felt sick at the thought of using the things told in confidence against his patient. It had to be done, though.
He pushed open the door after finally finding his composure and almost immediately lost it. The girl sitting on the other side of the metal table was small—too small for her age and made even smaller by the way her shoulders hunched. She looked up at him through curly brown hair with doleful black eyes. The harsh lighting washed out her pale face and erased her freckles, but her inky black irises reflected none of it. Vivid red skin around her eyes made it look like she'd been crying or otherwise rubbing at them. She looked the very picture of a contrite child, ready for a scolding.
He knew better, though.
Hopefully.
"That's enough of that," he said as he took his place in the seat across from her. He placed his files on the table and steepled his fingers in a poor imitation of Shikaku. "You and I both know you regret nothing."
She barked out a humorless laugh. "I regret a lot of things, actually."
"But you won't tell me which ones."
Her fathomless eyes closed into halfmoons, but, like her father, it was impossible to tell whether she was really smiling underneath her mask. "No."
Inoichi sighed. When did this child become so difficult? What happened to the mature young lady who never caused any trouble?
Wait, why did that line of thought sound so familiar...
He sighed again. Damned Hatake. Were they all like this? Did Sakumo undergo a total reversal like his child and grandchild? Sage...what did that look like?
"Hanako." His voice was stern, but he couldn't help the fondness leaking through. "There have been a lot of questions regarding you and your actions. I need the answers to at least some of them if you want to continue being a shinobi of Konoha."
She raised an eyebrow at him, not at all fazed by his blatant bluff. The new Hokage was her father, after all, adopted or not, and he'd just promoted her despite all the controversy around her actions during and after the invasion. Though Inoichi was sure he could convince Kakashi to remove Hanako from the active duty roster, that's all he would do. If the girl in front of him wanted to remain a kunoichi, there was nothing anyone could do about it.
"I don't know why everyone is so surprised," she said. Inoichi's trained ears easily caught the bitterness and anger in her words, though she was probably unaware of it herself. "It's not like I became a different person, all of a sudden. I've always been like this."
"There are many people who would beg to differ."
She was making a face under her mask, but Inoichi could only use her voice to decipher her emotions. "I don't know many people. I doubt they know me as well as they think, either."
Inoichi didn't wince, though he knew he was included in that. He wasn't a child psychologist, by any definition of the term, but he was a shinobi psychologist. That, unfortunately, meant he had a lot of experience with children and adolescents. Given the circumstances, he was prepared to deal with a confrontational and rebellious young woman in the throws of puberty, not...this. Hanako was sullen and clearly agitated, but she wasn't mindlessly pushing back against authority in an instinctive bid for independence. Nor was she chafing under the weighted reality of shinobi life.
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."
Right. An unfortunate truth but an excellent segue into the more important questions. "How did you know Orochimaru had spies in Konoha?"
She cocked her head like a dog listening to something outside the human range. "I could smell it."
That...made sense.
"It was strange," she elaborated without prompting. "I was separated from my team almost immediately after entering the Training Ground. Orochimaru attacked me, but the rest of my team was unscathed. And...they smelled like him, so..." She shrugged. "I thought I should tell someone."
That...also made sense. Alright, next question.
"Jiraiya-sama has submitted a report about the seal you had with you when you entered the barrier. Do you want to explain to me what you were hoping to accomplish by stepping into a fight between Kage level shinobi?"
Ah, there it was. Her shoulders hunched ever so slightly forward, her breathing faltered, and she looked down briefly before meeting his eyes again. She was going to lie.
"I thought—," she cut herself off and looked down at her lap. "I thought I had a solution."
"Solution to what?"
She didn't answer immediately so Inoichi waited. And waited.
"In the forest," she resumed haltingly. "I almost got him. Looking back, he definitely let me get that close, but I swear I almost got him. With my seal, I mean," she clarified. "I've been practicing with shadow clones—Naruto helps me—and they don't dispel inside, so I thought I tried to get him inside. It didn't work, obviously."
Obviously. Not even the Hokage—previous Hokage—could stand against his old student. A Genin never meant to see combat would be lucky to survive without serious injury.
Which she hadn't.
He'd very pointedly avoided looking at her left arm, but the thought of it had him glancing at it. The sleeve of her shirt was sewn shut just below her elbow, hiding the injury from view. There was a report in his file describing the way her amputation miraculously healed while she was on the operating table. It was a small detail, easily overlooked compared to the literal hole in her chest that closed itself in front of so many witnesses, but important all the same. The seal which she used to anchor her identity was repaired in that same moment. He was happy it had, since she was clearly more confident now, but at the same time...
That was a worrying coincidence.
Inoichi carefully shifted his posture, making himself seem smaller, less demanding, more friendly. He reached out as if to pat her head as he always did, then pulled his hand back. It was a show. A play put on to lower her guard. A sour taste filled his mouth.
"Can you...tell me what happened in there?"
Very little was known about the actual fight between Orochimaru and the Hokage. The Raikage submitted a half hearted report as a 'show of unity' between them, but everyone knew better than to trust it blindly. Sarutobi Hiruzen was dead, and Orochimaru was a criminal. The only person who could tell them anything was sitting right in front of him.
She looked him in the eye. This was probably another question she was prepared for. That meant he couldn't quite trust what she told him, either. "I used my summons to get in. She was supposed to help bring more people across, but something happened and she was unsummoned. I still don't really understand it." She reached across herself to grip her left elbow tightly. "He bit me. I could feel his chakra entering my tenketsu, so I did what I thought was best. It was more instinct than a conscious decision, but Jiraiya-sama tells me it made a difference, so I'll have to believe him."
Inoichi listened with growing horror. Did...did she just say she amputated her arm herself? Why was that not reported to him? Did anyone even know—!
Jiraiya. Why was it that every time that man got involved with his grandchild, he made things worse?
Inoichi was definitely telling Kakashi about this. Knowing that man, there was no way he would let his child out of his sight if he knew she'd injured herself like that. It was already a miracle he was allowed to interrogate her as protocol demanded, given the state she was in when the young Suna boy brought her home.
Speaking of.
"What about your abduction?" He used the term loosely. "I know you went with them willingly."
She scoffed and the sheer disrespect left him speechless until he realized it wasn't aimed at him. She stared unfocused into the middle distance. "There wasn't much point in fighting."
She didn't elaborate, but that alone was telling. He was starting to pick up a pattern and he wasn't sure he liked it.
"Alright, then, how about a different topic?" He carefully placed his hands on either side of the table, keeping his body language open and non-threatening. "What is your mother's name?"
Inoichi suddenly found himself pinned under blue eyes. Spinning blue eyes. Right. Well. That wasn't in her file.
He didn't react. He didn't let himself. There were cameras recording the session, but their output was grainy at best. So long as his expression and body language didn't change too obviously, no one would know anything was amiss. He carefully managed his breathing and distracted himself by fiddling with his files while he regained control of himself. Hanako chose that moment to answer him.
"Dying is really weird, you know?" As if that didn't set off every alarm in his mind, she continued. "I've done it...twice? No. No, I think it's three times, actually, but the first doesn't count." Wait, what was she saying? The only death he knew of was the one in the hospital. Was...was she implying that her strange revival wasn't a new thing? Had it happened before? He didn't dare interrupt her, though. Not when she was clearly being honest for the first time since stepping into the room.
Her voice was strangely distant and emotionless as she continued. It was familiar in a way he didn't want to admit. "The first time—or, rather, the second—I remembered my mother's name. I remembered her voice and what her face looked like when she wasn't dead and drowned." That was going in his notes. "The third..." Her one hand came up to clutch at her chest and he knew exactly which incident she was referring to. When was this 'second' then? "The third...I remembered why she died...and who killed her."
Inoichi watched the tomoe spin in her eyes. He knew that far away look all too well. It was the one her father wore for hours when visiting the Memorial Stone, and one many Uchiha tried and failed to hide during active duty assessments, not even a decade ago. As obsessed as everyone seemed to be with it, the Sharingan looked to be more trouble than it was worth, in his eyes.
Then again, his eyes weren't all that special.
She was silent for a long moment, lost in whatever memory had prompted her to speak in the first place. He decided to take a risk.
"Do you remember your father's name?"
He shouldn't have asked that.
Terror is a heavy emotion. He watched it weigh down on Hanako and was helpless before the terrified tears that fell down her face. Whoever her father was, he made a note never to mention the man again.
He cleared his throat. "Let's take a break. The interrogation will resume in 15 minutes."
He stepped out of the room partly to go over what she'd just shared in his mind before starting a new line of questioning, but it was mostly to give her a chance to cry without human eyes watching her. The cameras were still rolling, though. He could only imagine what her father would have to say when he watched them, later. Because he would, stupid man.
Stupid, stupid, man.