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We were stars.
Naruto doesn't get it, exactly — he knows it's a metaphor and stuff. Shikako is always using metaphors and they usually help; he can usually understand what she means better when she uses them.
Stars are… bright, he guesses, and hot. So that's kinda like the feeling he gets when he uses a lot of Kyuubi's — Kurama's — chakra. Bright and hot and too big for his body, kinda exploding outwards.
Yeah, maybe that's what she meant.
She wasn't really talking to him, anyway, and it's not like Naruto to be that bothered by words but—
But later, when they're on their way home, when they're camping out and he's keeping watch alone…
Naruto stares up into the black sky and the sparkling stars. "They're so far away," he says to himself.
And yeah. That's what he doesn't like about that metaphor-thing. Stars are super far away and super small (even if Shikako says they're really actually big, like suns) and he doesn't want Shikako to be super far away and small.
"What's far away?" Shikako asks, and he jolts, not even realising she had woken up.
"Ahah, the stars!" he says, because he can't come up with a lie on the spot and there isn't any reason to, anyway.
Shikako nods. "They are," she says. "If you could travel as fast as a beam of light, it would take you years to get from here to the nearest star."
Naruto tries to wrap his head around that and fails. "Super far," he concludes. "I don't think I'd like to do that, sounds like it would be super boring and lonely."
Shikako doesn't smile. She's always looked a little bit far away — it's called thinking, idiot, Sasuke would probably say, if Naruto ever told him he thought so — but… it's worse now.
"You're not wrong," Shikako says, and it's probably only 'cause it's night time that her eyes look so very dark.
It'll be better when they get back to Konoha. Baa-chan and Shikako's dad will know what to do.
It's not like Sasuke expects Shikako to be alright — not when all he knows is that she's in hospital after a bad mission and definitely not after she's heard her report to Tsunade — but…
No, that's not quite right.
He does expect her to be alright, because they're Team 7 and they're always alright, even when they really aren't. But the ways in which she's not okay are… weird.
"I'm pretty sure Tsunade told you not to use any jutsu for the time being," he says, watching her pluck another flower from the Nara garden.
"It's not a jutsu," Shikako murmurs, as if that's really the issue at hand. The purple flower in her hand starts to wither, the long thin petals crumpling and folding inwards. The stalk goes thin and dry, unable to support the weight of the head, and it all tips over.
By the time it hits the ground it's nothing but dust.
"You're the one that gets to argue that with the Hokage," Sasuke points out. He shoves his hands in his pockets so he's not tempted to reach out and stop her. Or something stupid like that.
"Hmm," Shikako says, and picks another flower. The plant is looking very sad after losing so many stalks. This one doesn't last any longer than the last, once she's plucked it.
Sasuke is tempted to flick his sharingan on to check but he thinks there's more colour to her cheeks now — less of that awful sickly pallor.
Chakra exhaustion but not chakra exhaustion. A jutsu that isn't a jutsu. Things that die with just a touch. Yeah, it's probably connected, isn't it?
"Your mom probably isn't going to be too impressed with what you're doing to her plants, either," he points out. It feels a little fruitless, but hey. He's trying.
Shikako hesitates at that. "They're dead the second you pick them, anyway," she says, as if that kind of callousness is natural for her. The grass around her feet is dry and dead, creeping further out with every second that passes. With every flower that dies.
"My point exactly," Sasuke says, dryly.
Almost reluctantly, Shikako huffs a laugh. "Alright, fine," she agrees. The patch of dead grass stops spreading outwards around her. "Maybe Ino will have leftovers from the flower shop."
Sasuke sighs and follows her. Of course he won't be that lucky. Whatever. He's sure it'll be fine.
"If you strike me down," Shikako says, voice cold and calm and quiet, "I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
Kakashi lurches forward and knows that he won't make it in time. The Path of Pein has already pressed its hand against her head — had done so before she'd even spoken — and he's seen what that has done to other ninja during the invasion.
Why hadn't she stopped it from getting so close?
"I guess," Shikako says, the same cadence to her voice, no more bothered than if she were catching up with friends after a mission, "it would have been polite of me to warn you before you'd done it." She shrugs one shoulder. "Too bad."
Obito's sharingan doesn't want to seem to look directly at her, as if Shikako is suddenly a shape full of too many edges and moving parts — the way that Kakashi sometimes loses focus when wind rattles a tree and it wants to count every leaf and predict all their paths — and he doesn't have the chakra to spare to keep it open, besides.
The Path of Pein—
Collapses. The black metal piercings seem to collapse or implode in on themselves, and what is left is just a corpse.
He hadn't seen her move. He hadn't seen her jutsu.
To all accounts, she hadn't done anything at all.
Kakashi has seen hundreds of skilled ninja fight in his lifetime. He's seen the Third use jutsu more skillfully and accurately than any other ninja alive. He's seen Minato-sensei in his prime, effortlessly controlling the battlefield. He's seen ninja renown for their speed.
He's never seen anything like this.
"Ah, Shikako-chan," he says, voice coming out playful, even if he feels none of it. "As expected of my genin. One down, how many more to go?"
She glances sideways at him and even Kakashi Hatake nearly recoils.
There isn't anything fundamentally different about how she looks. No jutsu markings or chakra lines. Her eyes are the same colour, all present, whites-iris-pupil…
But there's nothing human behind them.
"Four," she says, and walks forward. No, strolls, casually as if there's no need to hurry, no urgency in this situation at all. As if Konoha itself isn't fighting and falling around them. "Naruto has to fight one."
"Saving one for your team?" Kakashi asks, as if this is just a regular occasion afterall. Let it never be said his coping mechanisms aren't up to the task. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind if he doesn't get the chance."
"He has to," Shikako (or the thing-that-is-Shikako and damn it he hopes this is temporary, is another weird-Nara-jutsu-thing) says implacably. This is a fact, not a suggestion.
Kakashi signals a nearby Chunin — directs him to take the body to be investigated and to pass on the knowledge that there are four-possibly-five enemies at least — and follows after her.
No one ever warned him that being a Jounin-sensei would mean dealing with things like this.