Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Reading Totems ❯ Chapter 12 ( Chapter 12 )

Author's Pre-ramble: OK OK…I've been pestered, and I now deliver! Here's a short chapter filled with yummy build-up for the council meeting. Squint, find the Gaara reference, and get a cookie! Don't be too sad about the shortness…I promise the next chapter is extra long to make up for it and filled with action, fluff, romance, drama, and totems!

 

A huge hug to all of my reviewers: otakutron, DragonTamer94, TheForsakenOne, tasuki001, Dwarfwarrior, ghostreader14, TheRavenQuoth

 

Title: Reading Totems

By: GrizzlyTeddyBear

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, and this makes me sad. I do own Paige Stone, my OC!

Main Pairings: ShinoxOC, NaruxHina, SasuxSaku

Rating: M for mentioned adult themes

Warning: AU, Post-series start time. Rookie 9 is 23-24 years old. Fic mentions pagan religions, if you can't handle it, don't read! Also is OC-centric. Hold your pants, all will be revealed as the story progresses. I like to take my time.

 

Chapter Summary: Shino shows up at Paige's door with unexpected and unwanted news. She goes to the library and bumps into Jiraiya.

 

***Chapter 12***

 

For the first time since her arrival in Konoha, Paige had actually slept in. It felt glorious! To be able to just languish in bed instead of realizing she had to jump up and accomplish 80 things at once was a gift from the spirits. She was grateful that someone was thoughtful enough to let her regain the sleep she had lost yesterday from being up extra early and being out later than normal.

 

Shino! That someone was Aburame Shino! Quickly Paige bolted up in bed and ran through her mourning routine like a mad woman with a mission. He could come any minute! She didn't want to answer the door looking like she just woke up. She was not hospitable until after her shower and breakfast. Team Kakashi had experienced that first hand on her first morning in Konoha.

 

Once she had finished her shower, eaten breakfast, and gotten dressed she had a new dilemma. Was she supposed to wait for him? Was he waiting at the library for her? Were they supposed to meet in the clearing anyway? Paige was pacing back and forth trying to figure out what she was supposed to do when a knocking at her door stopped her in her tracks. Beetle. `Well, think of the Aburame and he shall appear,' she mused to herself as she walked to the door. “Hi…” Whatever else she was going to say died before it had a chance to become words in her mouth. Shino was occupying her doorway, yes, but he seemed a bit more…stiff than she had previously seen. After taking this in, she spoke again. “Is something wrong?”

 

“Mission.”

 

`That would explain everything,' she thought. `He is a ninja after all; it was bound to happen…and will continue to happen too. Might as well start to get used to it now,' she resolved silently to herself. Aloud she said, “When do you leave?”

 

“In a few minutes.”

 

“Oh…” He wouldn't have time to come in. “When did you find out about it?”

 

“This morning.”

 

Paige was trying really hard to not sound so dejected, but it wasn't working. So, it wasn't a date; it was practically doing research together, but damn it, she liked him…a lot…a huge ton. She wanted to spend more time with him. “How long will you be gone?” She was asking questions to his feet now. They were nice feet. She was too crushed to look at his face.

 

“Most likely a few days, but it is never certain.”

 

Paige nodded and tried to force her gaze back to his face. That meant he wouldn't be able to play moral support for her at the council meeting either. “Can you tell me what it is?”

 

“Classified.” Shino sighed after a short silence and shifted on his feet slightly. It didn't look like he was enjoying this any more than she was. That was a small comfort to Paige, but not much. Suddenly a hand came into her field of vision—a hand with a kikaichu crawling on it. “Here. I want you to have her while I am gone.”

 

Paige held out her own hand, accepting the bug and letting it crawl up to her shoulder where it stayed. It didn't tickle. “Her?” She wanted to make sure she had the gender correct.

 

He nodded. “Her.” This meant he would be keeping tabs on her and would be able to find her. Paige's sour mood melted a little at his thoughtfulness. This appeared to be what he took as his cue to leave, and he started to turn to walk away.

 

Before she thought about her actions, or how sudden movements might not always be OK with possibly jumpy ninjas, Paige found herself hugging Shino. She just didn't want him to leave without one…without some way of letting him know she cared.

 

He appeared to be shocked by the hug because he suddenly went still under the contact before his arms circled her and hugged her back.

 

“Be safe.” Her voice was muffled as she spoke into his grey hooded jacket. He was so tall compared to her. The top of her head barely met his chin.

 

“Kiba and Naruto will be on my team.” was his response to her concern. Before letting go of the hug, he leaned down and whispered in her ear through his shirt collar, “I will be there, if you need me.” And then he performed hand seals…and was gone.

 

Paige stood frozen for a moment in her doorway. She had hugged Shino…Shino had hugged her back…he would be there, if she needed him. She wasn't too sure about what that meant if he was on a mission, but his voice did sound even more like sex when he whispered in her ear. She really hoped he stayed safe. Sighing to herself, she decided the best thing was to try not to worry—it never really did anything helpful—and go to the library anyway. She could ask for directions. Paige left her front door open while she walked back to her bedroom, gathered her bag of non-medicine bag items, transferred a few blank notebooks into it, and walked out the door, closing it finally behind her. She was careful not to place the strap of the bag on her kikaichu tag-along, but she seemed to know to move to avoid being squashed.

 

The walk to the library was relatively uneventful. Evidently the library was well known to the villagers and they were eager to provide her with directions. Unfortunately she learned that it was by the Hokage Tower. The walk would not be a short one. Paige hoped that no one important would see her out on her own since technically she was still supposed to have an escort. To have something to keep her mind occupied and try not to draw unwanted attention to herself, she decided she wanted to name her kikaichu tag-along…something simple. She liked having names and nicknames to call people and things. After considering several possibilities she settled on Scarab. It was not a flattering name for any other animal, but for a beetle, it worked. However, now that Scarab had a name, this meant Paige would eventually start talking to it like people would to other household pets. At least this one didn't need food that she had to buy.

 

Once she had arrived at the library, she decided she had died, evidently been a very good girl, and had gone to nerd heaven. The library was huge! There was a strange mix of scrolls and books, but Paige could deal with that. It was the sheer amount of the scrolls and books that first had her head spinning, and then her mouth drooling. She could spend days in here and not get bored! But first, she had to find a librarian and figure out how they organized things, and how to go about checking out materials. Spotting an older woman sitting behind a desk, she took a guess and walked over. “Excuse me. Are you the librarian?”

 

“Yes dear. I am.” She wore plain clothing. Her hair was black with a light dusting of grey mixed in. Her brown eyes looked kind.

 

“I've never been in this library before. I'm new in Konoha. Could you tell me how things work here?”

 

“Sure.” The librarian's eyes lit up. It looked like she loved her job and relished the chance to enlighten another person to the joys of the library. She reached down and brought out a few pieces of paper. “This is a map of the library that explains what books and scrolls you can find in each section on each floor.” She handed the map over to Paige. “And this is the form you need to fill out in order to bring anything home with you. We need your address for mailing purposes if anything becomes overdue.”

 

Paige obediently filled out her current address. She wasn't planning on checking anything out just yet, but if things went well with the council meeting, she could see herself being in the library often. She handed the filled out form back to the librarian.

 

“Is there anything I can help you find?”

 

“Yes actually. I'm a big animal person, both real and animals found in local myths and legends. Is there a certain section I could look up that information for Konoha?”

 

“There are actually two separate sections for that…one for the animals native to Fire Country and one for myths and legends…” The librarian then proceeded to mark on the map she had given Paige the areas she was to start her search. “Just let me know if you need any help, my name is Miko.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

Paige began her journey through Konoha's library. When he arrived at the section marked for native animals in Fire Country she discovered it wasn't just native animals, but native plants, imports, exports…in short, she had basically found a gigantic encyclopedia of information on Fire Country. She spent a few moments just browsing the shelves figuring out how they were organized. Soon the shelves on animals were located. She pulled several volumes and scrolls from the shelf and walked over to a nearby table to see what she had found. Paige decided on pulling the volumes that looked like they were overviews of many animals. She would find more specific materials if something intrigued her. Tapping into her connection with the spiritual, she settled in for reading and some note-taking if something called out to her abilities.

 

***

 

After a few hours, several books, and a few scrolls, she sensed frog closely followed by the emotions Intrigue, Arousal, and Curiosity. “Jiraiya-sama. I know you're there.”

 

Shock… Arousal.

 

“If you're here to ogle, then you get to leave…if you're here to ask me intelligent questions you can pull up a chair. The table currently has three of them available.” She was partially amused and partially nauseated that she was currently arousing him, but it's not like she could actually control that.

 

Intrigue. Curiosity. Arousal.

 

“Ero-sennin, get out here, or I'll tell Miko at the front desk you're being perverted in a public library.” Suddenly she heard the shuffling of feet a few bookcases down from her table.

 

“Eh…there's no need for that now.” Jiraiya walked up to Paige's table and sat down on one of the previously offered chairs. “What are you doing?”

 

“Looking up information on the animals native to Fire Country…for future reference materials. So far I've come across some I've never seen before. It's possible they'll show up as totems. I want to be informed.” She held up a book on mammals pointing to a picture in it. “This one…a tanuki…never heard of that before. And apparently they're well known around here. I'll need to cross reference it with some myths and legends that the nature book mentions…Wanna make yourself useful?” For some reason tanuki seemed important to know. She didn't question the feeling.

 

“Are you always this…thorough?” he asked, pushing the book down from his face... His eyes had gone a bit wide while she was waving the book in his face and was going on and on about tanuki.

 

“When I have the luxury of time.” She continued scribbling notes in her notebooks while they conversed. “It was one of the reasons I was going to graduate in the top 2% of my class.”

 

“Do you miss it?”

 

“Yes and no. I didn't have much outside of classes and my job in my life. But it's nothing that I couldn't regain here if things go well with the council.”

 

“I noticed you walked over here by yourself.” Arms crossed and a smirk firmly planted on his face, he waited for an answer to his not-so-question.

 

“Guilty. My planned escort was assigned a mission, so I decided to go it alone. Besides, I was getting restless. I'm basically on house arrest.” She gave an exasperated sigh as she broke off her note-taking to look up at the sannin. “I don't enjoy not being able to walk out my front door whenever I like.”

 

“I like a free-spirited woman!” he proclaimed.

 

Was this guy for real? She rolled her eyes. Grabbing the map of the library Miko had given her and thrusting it at Jiraiya, she said, “Here. Go find me tanuki legends. It's marked on the map.”

 

“Uh…”

 

“Shoo! I need to concentrate.” A few minutes later Jiraiya had brought her a scroll on the folklore related to tanuki. While Paige was busily adding this into her notes, she asked, “So why are you really here, Jiraiya-sama?”

 

“The meeting time with the council has been decided…9:00AM. They didn't like that Tsunade had delayed. I saw you walking over and figured I'd deliver the message to you.” He hadn't sat back down, but was reading over her shoulder now. Paige let Jiraiya read over her shoulder. It wasn't anything for a personal reading.

 

“Has anyone else been told?”

 

“The others that will be present for the meeting.”

 

She nodded. That included those that needed to know from last night's meeting. After she had completed transcribing the tanuki information, Paige closed all of the books and scrolls. Facing the sannin, she asked, “So what unclassified history lessons about Konoha would I find in a library?” She didn't bother to cushion it. He was sannin. He probably could tell if she was lying.

 

Looking mostly amused, Jiraiya circled more sections on the library map for Paige. “And something tells me you'll be able to fill in any holes.”

 

She just grinned in reply and instead asked, “Did Tsunade get my physical results from Sakura?”

 

“Yes, why?”

 

“Curious to see if she saw anything unusual. I doubt Sakura missed anything, but I'm not opposed to second opinions.” Paige's wheels were turning in her head. She had an idea of who some of her possible allies could be on the council among the jounin, but the clan heads and elders were unknown. She would need a way to communicate with Tsunade if she suspected something was going to go badly and needed to run out on things. Medical discussions would be a good cover.

 

“She didn't see anything,” was Jiraiya's reply. He gave her a piercing gaze. It looked like he knew something was going on in her head, but wasn't quite sure what it was.

 

“Did anyone else see them?” Her plan of using medical things as a cover would only work if no one else had seen the records.

 

“The council was given notice of your clearance, but they didn't see the records themselves.” Jiraiya had a smirk on his face now. He might have figured out her plan, but that was ok. Naruto trusted him…Paige would trust him.

 

The rest of the day at the library was spent with Paige wandering the shelves and Jiraiya trailing after her, comically holding a large stack of books and scrolls on the history of Konoha. Instead of a jounin escort, she had a sannin escort, but she didn't care. Ninja rank be damned! She was gonna make him work if he wanted any kind of excuse to hang around and look at her butt!

 

***

 

Author's Post-Note: Don't hurt me about making Shino disappear on Paige! I promise it's for a purpose! At least she got in a squeeze before he left! Anyone see where I'm going with this? Huh? Huh? *goes back to plot weaving*