They kept playing for several weeks, months even. Hound wasn't always the one watching from a corner in the back of the room. There were cat and weasel, hare and ox, even a boar one time. Some of them were calmer than Hound, some younger, some older. The cat might be a woman. But regardless of who they were, none of them ever left that spot in the corner for the hours Ibiki and Haruka played their game.
She had been given her own room for the time in-between sessions. Or cell, considering it was locked and a guard posted outside. Still, it was nicer than any place she remembered living in before. She had an actual bed with a soft mattress. A thick blanket and fluffy pillows to ward off the chill that never quite left these halls. Ibiki had taken to trading books for her more interesting answers. He even let her choose, always bringing at least three different ones. She also got a shelf to store her treasures.
The first book she picked was called 'The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi'. When Ibiki warned her that this one had sold poorly she told him she didn't care. She wanted that one because she recognized the author's name. Jiraiya was one of the Sannin. Orochimaru had rant about him sometimes, forgetting that his little experiments were in fact children, able to listen and understand. The snake hadn't said it in so many words, but Haruka knew that he cared for his teammates. It was, after all, the losses all of them had suffered during the war that drove him to despise human fragility, to test the limits to which the body could be modified.
Haruka thought he might be searching for a way to become immortal. He was fascinated with her extraordinary sensing abilities, but the thing he really cared for was how fast she healed. How much abuse her body could take before it threatened to break down. How many days without sustenance it could endure before it started to consume itself.
The tale Jiraiya had written was about a ninja named Naruto. From what she knew about shinobi he wasn't a very good one. He was loud, flashy and obnoxious. His every action was colored and driven by emotions. And yet, he never gave up and somehow managed to actually prevail in the end.
The next book Haruka chose was barely more than a booklet. It listed the Shinobi Rules. Apparently they were taught to children in the Academy, a place where one learned how to be a ninja. She used it to better evaluate Naruto's behavior in The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi, but that only made him seem like an even worse ninja. Rule four stated that 'a shinobi must always put the mission first' and rule twenty-five 'a shinobi must never show their tears'.
Only, Naruto broke those frequently. He would cry for the lost and dead or even out of joy, and he would ignore his orders in order to do 'the right thing'. Haruka didn't know how he decided what was right. He just seemed to know and people agreed with him, even when what he had done was against the rules.
She asked Ibiki about it, and while he was willing enough to answer, it wasn't very helpful. On one hand he insisted that the rules existed for a reason. That they were important and should be obeyed. On the other though, he explained that blind obedience could be just as bad, if not worse, than disregarding the rules. In the end he advised her to try and understand the reasoning behind them, to act according to the spirit of a law instead of its letter he called it.
It took a while before Ibiki offered her books that contained obviously practical knowledge, like how to use chakra. He said she could read it and keep it in her room, but she was not to try any of the exercises on her own. It was fascinating. Orochimaru had never taught her anything more than she strictly needed to know. Just enough to describe what she could sense to him, or which of her organs was in pain after he administered some new concoction.
She obeyed Ibiki, not willing to risk losing any of her printed treasures. Her reward were more practical books and after a while the freedom to visit the public library with one of the silent ANBU as her guard. The first time Haruka had been so excited, she completely forgot that there would be other people. The busy street with all of its noise and buzzing chakra had completely overwhelmed her and the guard, it had been Hound that day, had to carry her shivering form back to her room.
Two days later Weasel offered to take her to the library at night, when the streets would be empty. He actually had to coax her into agreeing, but she was glad that he cared enough to bother. In the dark only a few shinobi jumped from building to building, the Roof Paths, Weasel called it. None of them paid them any mind though.
***
One day another man without a mask was there when Hound led her to the interrogation room she and Ibiki played their game in. He was very old, with a few darker spots on the leathery skin of his face. There were deep wrinkles around his eyes and mouth that made it seem like he laughed a lot.
"You're the Hokage aren't you?" She asked him and he nodded, smiling. Many of the library books mentioned him. Hiruzen Sarutobi the Sandaime. He had also been Orochimaru's and Jiraiya's sensei at some point.
"Would you like to leave this place? Maybe become a shinobi of Konoha?" He offered. She could feel Hound's chakra curl in on itself. There was a tension to it and mild anger. He hadn't known this—whatever it was—was going to happen and it worried him. She glanced in Ibiki's direction, but he was perfectly calm, at ease even. This was the kind of question that had a wrong answer then and he either didn't care or thought she would get it right.
She'd read many books about Konohagakure, her shinobi and values, in order to better understand Naruto's tale. They wanted loyalty and honesty, trust in their leader. Valued strength in order to protect those that could not protect themselves.
"I will serve," she told him. Will, not want. Very careful not to lie to this man, who had earned the title God of Shinobi on the battlefield. If serving gave her the freedom to learn, to become stronger, so that she might protect herself, then that was what she would do.