Blonding

Chapter 31 : The Girl named 'Three'

"Is that her?"

Ino Yamanaka nodded absentmindedly. "Yeah. That's her."

Flicking the unlit cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other, Shikamaru sighed as he gazed through the one-sided glass. "She doesn't look to be any more than thirteen. Maybe fourteen at the most."

"Age can mean anything, Shikamaru. You should know that by now."

The Nara just sighed, shrugging his shoulders. He always hated being in the bowels of the ANBU headquarters; it made him feel like a prisoner, not the other way around. There was too much concrete, too much grey, too much lingering uneasiness.

"Well, what can you tell me, then?"

"Hmm," Ino muttered in thought, as she averted her attention from the sleeping girl in the cell in front of them to the small clipboard that sat on the metal desk before her, flicking through the first few pages of documentation. "Well, all I have here is her Chuunin Exam registration information."

Shikamaru just raised an eyebrow, silently questioning as to why she had finished talking. It was well known that the Hokage's assistant was quite frequently busy – and this week of all weeks was the furthest from an exception as one could get. Ino sighed and continued, not even having to look up to sense the glare her former teammate gave her.

"Fine, fine. Don't look at me like that. And what's your wife going to say when she finds out you've been smoking again, huh?"

Shikamaru sighed again. "What she doesn't know can't hurt her. And besides…" he plucked the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it aside, "…I'm not actually smoking."

He walked over to the table and grabbed the clipboard out of Ino's hands, much to her dissatisfaction. "Excuse me!"

"You were taking too long. I've got other things I have to take care of, and quickly." He sighed, running a hand down his neck. "You would not believe how difficult it is to move around with the media crawling around up there looking for any kind of information on what's going on. Even more so considering I'm the Hokage's assistant. Right now, they've been broadcasting that Naruto has 'suddenly fallen ill'… and it's a miracle that's all they've found out."

Ino blinked, frowning. She'd known the Nara for long enough to tell when he was flustered… the biggest sign, of course, being that he was speaking more than just in simple grunts. "They don't know about Boruto yet?"

"No, thankfully." Shikamaru turned his attention to the clipboard. "Once school is back in session, though, people are going to start to notice."

"Relax," Ino said softly, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair, looking up at her old teammate with a small smile. "Everything will work itself out. Naruto's come back from a lot worse, you know that. He's like a cockroach."

"…"

"…What?"

"You realize you just called our Hokage a cockroach, right?"

Ino laughed. "Whatever. He'd probably agree if you told him." She cleared her throat when she realized that Shikamaru's attention was slowly drifting back to the task at hand, and she had to admit she was quite curious to see what would happen next.