wafflelate:

Man it’s been so long since I plotted this out uhhh let’s see if I can remember this off the top of my head / come up with some decent bullshit lmao:

1. Shikako was born in y43 (year dates assigned per usual by SQ’s rough timeline) and was a whoops baby for sure. Yoshino, idk, got hit by a jutsu that messed up her contraceptive jutsu. Had surgery that messed with it. Whatever.

   Nara drama happens and it’s even worse than in canon because Shikano is VERY sure that this clanless kunoichi is honeypotting his son and those accusations fly free and thick.

2. Shikaku gets disowned and marries Yoshino and loves her and fuck the clan anyway.

   Yoshino is kind of dazed? She cried on her mom for like three hours when the pregnancy test was positive because she thought there was no way in hell Shikaku would believe it was an accident or be serious enough about her to tie the knot and raise the kid together.

   But it’s y43 and he’s 20 and she’s 18 and Shikaku was just getting started on revolutionizing Nara clan jutsu and his father can’t take his bloodline away from him and now everything he creates will be a Kinokawa technique.

3. In September Shikaku says the Nara can’t stop them from naming their kid whatever they want and Kinokawa Shikako is a beautiful, loud little girl.

   The war is still happening, though, and maternity leave means Yoshino can stay home with Shikako but Shikaku is a jounin and not a clan heir anymore and needed dearly to win the war. The Sandaime is sympathetic, though — Hiruzen’s oldest is 16 that year and Asuma is 10 and Hiruzen is starting to realize he’s not been the best father — so Shikaku gets rotated back as much as possible so that he can work on his techniques and see his infant daughter.

4. Here’s the thing: when he was Nara clan heir, Danzou knew he’d never be Hokage. He’d be Jounin Commander at best, like his father. Sure, he’d come up with new jutsu, but he’d have clan heir responsibilities keeping him from making a name for himself, anyway.

   Now, though… now he’s Kinokawa Shikaku. Now he’s out in the war, on the ground, throwing around new shadow jutsu and turning battles. That’s dangerous. That needs to be stopped because Danzou can’t lead a Nara Hokage around by the nose.

5. So, Kinokawa Yoshino needs to die.

   Make the man a grieving widow, disowned by the clan that would have otherwise kept him grounded.

   Only spare the kid — barely old enough to be a toddler, it’s late y44 or early y45 — because being a single father is another burden to keep him down.

   Imply strongly that it was Iwa, or Kumo pretending to be Iwa, or Kiri pretending to be Kumo pretending to be Iwa, because obviously you don’t want Shikaku looking around the village for enemies.

6. Oops, though, you motivated a Nara, Danzou. Shikaku gets some time off to grieve because Hiruzen isn’t yet at second-term levels of brain dead and he uses that time to get even more dangerous.
7. Shikano isn’t a total asshole and he does love his son and he asks Shikaku to come back to the Nara.

   But Shikaku can’t. He can’t. That would mean giving up the Kinokawa name. That would mean raising his daughter around people who had called Yoshino a gold digging slut, a social-climbing honeypot. It would mean entrusting Shikako’s care to those people while he’s away at war.

   Shikano says some more shit, though, because sticking with the Kinokawa name and the memory of his dead wife is to Shikano’s mind pretty much equivalent to spitting on the history and tradition and clan pride that Shikaku was raised with. 

8. Thank god for Inuzuka Tsume, because Shikaku isn’t going to let Shikako set foot on Nara clan lands while Shikano is alive.
9. Meanwhile Ikoma had all this clan heir stuff dumped on him way earlier than in canon but he’s making it work. Getting a handle on it. In canon he comes into things with fresh eyes and an adult’s confidence but here he’s a little younger and less experienced and when he’s pulled out of the war to do more in-village work and learn the ropes, he lets himself be guided away from all those things he found and was killed over in Shadows Inked in Black.

   But he still meets Kanatoko. And he still loves her. And things crashed and burned for Shikaku and Yoshino but at least they got to be together publicly and watching Shikaku’s grief drive him, Ikoma doesn’t even really consider keeping things with Kanatoko secret once they’re sure they’re serious.

10. He tells his brother first. He says, “I figure Dad only has so many sons, right?” and laughs.

    Shikaku doesn’t laugh, he doesn’t laugh much anymore, but he says, “Yoshino and I registered the Kinokawa as a new clan. You could always join us if you don’t want to be a Kurama.”

    (And Ikoma and Kanatoko do talk about that and absolutely Kanatoko thinks that if they can’t be Nara they should be Kinokawa. Fuck the Kurama.)

11. But in the end Ikoma is pretty much right. They don’t have any other siblings and no one else has been trained to be clan heir and it’s notoriously difficult to get Nara to take more responsibility, so Shikano can have a clan heir and welcome a Kurama into the clan, or he can have no clan heir and no sons.

    Maybe he learned something from all that shit with Yoshino because he keeps his mouth shut and pays for the wedding, at which point Kanatoko isn’t even pregnant with Sai yet because Ikoma was really on top of this.

12. Shikano’s outpost isn’t overrun. It isn’t overrun because near the end of the war Shikaku is on the cusp of S-class and he’s not even stationed anywhere near Shikano (War Operations practically does backflips not to put them near each other) but just having him be that strong changes the shape of the war.

    So Shikano comes home from the war and is still clan head and things are awkward with Inoichi and Chouza, who are both now clan heads. His granddaughter is four and they have never met. His granddaughter is four and he has never apologized.

13. Kanatoko spends the year before the Kyuubi attack being a new mom. She and Ikoma come over to Shikaku and Shikako’s apartment with little Shikasai sometimes, but babies just look like babies. Maybe she’ll figure it out down the line, though.
14. Shikaku makes Hokage after the Kyuubi attack. Shikano votes him in, however that works, and then immediately steps down as Jounin Commander and clan head so that Ikoma can take over both. 
15. Eventually Shikaku and Shikako will get to have dinner with Kanatoko and Ikoma and Shikasai in the Nara main without Shikano dying, though, because Ikoma strongly encourages him to take lots of trips to check up on out-village Nara resources. The conversation goes something like:

    Shikano: “I’m not the one keeping him from bringing the girl here.”
    Ikoma: “Do you want Shikako-chan to grow up knowing nothing about the Nara, except possibly that you hated her mother?”