"What are you writing?" she asked, because of course it beggared belief that Leaf's counterpart to Mori Biwako should need to use a memory aid during an interview.
Shikaku gave a sudden smile, and held the paper up. There was a loose oval-ish outline on it that could have been a sketch of a face.
"An exercise to improve the visual part of my mind," he explained. "In ancient times, it was the Yamanaka who were the verbal thinkers, we believe, and Nara the visual. I trust you see the implications?"
Kei did. Shikaku's phrasing suggested two interesting things. First, he referred to these modes of thinking as if they were roles, with one clan taking each. That suggested that the Akimichi also had some distinctive means of thinking that was neither verbal nor visual, which was fascinating in itself, but not as fascinating as the idea that the three clans had somehow developed complementary ways of perceiving the world, and that those ways stayed complementary even if the roles changed around.
Second, the changes themselves. It made sense for the Nara who had first developed the famous shadow ninjutsu to be visual thinkers (she was not yet sure what this term actually meant, but could infer by association). If their descendants had switched from visual to verbal, then that change paralleled the clan's own change of specialisation from ninjutsu to the management of what was primarily verbal information. What kind of mechanism was involved, and in which direction did it exert causal influence?
"The Yamanaka have researched the matter somewhat," Shikaku said, ironically as if reading her mind, "and I have been following their work with interest. Nara Clan membership opens a number of such doors to Yamanaka and Akimichi resources."