Shinobi Isekai!

Consequences

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.