Shinobi Isekai!

Mounting Dread

Jiraiya sneered down at his godson, the little Minato clone scowling back up at him with equal ferocity. Gods, but he looked like his mother when he made that face. Behind him stood a girl no older than ten, her dark eyes watching them with dry amusement above a white mask not unlike Kakashi's.

"Listen, brat," he said with an edge to his voice. "I don't know what you think of me, but I have no interest in little girls. So, your little friend can just," he made a shooing motion with his hand, never even looking at the girl. Honestly, what was Naruto thinking, bringing his little girlfriend around when they had serious training to do?

"Excuse me, Jiraiya-sama," the girl interjected, placing a hand on Naruto's arm before he could go off on a red faced tirade. "I would like to speak for myself before you dismiss me, if I may."

Well, well, well, a kid who knew his name. There was no way Naruto had told it to her, the cheeky brat.

"Fine," he allowed, squatting low so he could look the girl in her dark, dark eyes. "Speak."

She bowed, her brown curls falling forward with the motion. "My name is Hanako Hatake, Jiraiya-sama, and I dare presume Hokage-sama has told you about me."

Well, damn. That mask wasn't an imitation of his obnoxious grand-student's, it was an inheritance. What was it Sensei had said about the littlest Hatake? Something something murder, something something adoption...

"I apologize for approaching a man as important as yourself for this, but there is no one else who can help me—."

Jiraiya waved his hand crossly, already annoyed with the thick flattery. "Just get on with it, kid. Naruto and I have training to do."

She met and held his gaze, the weight of it too old for someone her size. "I would like to receive a mastery in fuinjutsu."

Oh.

Well, damn. He really was the only one who could help her, huh?

He sighed and rolled his neck, looking the kid over with new eyes. She was little, even more so than Naruto, whose height had suffered due to childhood malnutrition. Her eyes were large and dark and way too mature, set beneath straight dark brows and a head of shoulder length brown curls. She wore a white shirt/mask number under a pale green haori and black pants tucked into worn, closed toe boots.

Definitely not standard ninja wear.

"Alrighty, then," he rose to his full height, towering over the two genin. "You can come with. While Naruto's doing his exercises, you can show me some of your seals."

She bowed, unmoved by Naruto's loud complaining. As he led the way to the riverbank he and Kushina's mini-me had been using for training, he wracked his brain for info on the weird little girl.

Naturally, he'd been notified of her existence when she joined the Hatake clan all those years ago, but he couldn't recall anything beyond her exceptional grades and something about an apprenticeship. Oh, well, if it was important he was sure he'd remember it.

He set Naruto and his army of clones off onto the running water of the river, working on staggering the amount of chakra each clone contained. With the hellion occupied, he squat down once more and gestured wildly at the girl.

"Well?" He prompted. "Go on."

She stared blankly at him for a moment before throwing off her haori, exposing slender, freckled arms and dark, winding tattoos. She held out her hand to him, palm up, and began speaking as he took it.

"I've memorized the Second Hokage's sealing arrays and theories," she said as he traced the edges of what was clearly a seal—and one he'd seen before, if his fuzzy memory could be believed. But where? "I've also read all of the Fourth's commentary and additions to the literature. Your think-piece on the role of redundancies in action based arrays has proved very influential in my own seal designs—."