Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There is something eerie about the quiet that has engulfed the elemental nations. Though it had been over a year since everything went to hell, Hinata still hadn’t gotten used to it. Even amidst the expansive forest that surrounded Konoha, in spaces uninhibited by the steps of nearly silent shinobi, wind would rustle through the leaves and woodland animals would forage and dart around. Now, though, other than the occasional sounds of battle, there was nothing. Under the blood red moon of the Infinite Tsukuyomi, it was as though time stood still, with not even a breeze to scatter leaves. Almost like the world was holding its breath. Hinata wondered what it could possibly be holding it for; there was almost no one left to save.

There’s no time for you to be morose, Hinata chided herself. There are still things for you to do even after all of this.

With a sigh, she straightened from her crouched stance, popping her weary joints that felt old -- too old -- for her seventeen years. Under the sickly crimson glow, the glob of remains from the white zetsus that she had defeated looked too much like blood and tissue for her liking. She quickly turned away, unwilling to see more of the graphic imagery and the memories it would dredge up. In the early stages of the war, she wouldn’t have had to face this -- both the fight, and the echoing of her thoughts in the aftermath -- alone. 

If only her teammates…

But now, there were too few shinobi in their number to afford having partners on scavenging missions. Not that there was very much food left to forage; excessive muddy moonlight had killed most plants, and with them the vast majority of small game. At the rate things were going, even if they could manage to keep avoiding the wave of attacks of the Zetsu, or the piercing gaze of Kaguya, it wouldn’t be long before death found the rest of their small group. 

And then she would lose all that she had left.

Hinata couldn’t help but feel a little resigned. Even though she tried to keep her thoughts moving forward rather than back, she could remember all the stages of this slow descent to silence. The byakugan, it seemed, had cursed her with spectacular vision, even within her mind’s eye.

The war effort had started out so optimistically. How could it not? The ever-warring hidden villages had united in an unprecedented alliance, bonded, more than anything, by the illustrious presence of Uzumaki Naruto, the number one most unpredictable ninja. Hinata, while a naturally reserved person, couldn’t suppress the tidal wave of determination, an infectious desire to fight and win when she saw him enter the battlefield. Really, everyone did, her love for him notwithstanding. After early gains against the tide of white zetsus and reanimated corpses, it seemed foolish not to have hope. When Sasuke had shown up with the other Konoha Hokages to fight on Naruto’s side, Hinata had thought her heart would burst. Sasuke, Naruto’s biggest regret and best friend, had reunited with him and with enough power to solidly fight against Obito and the Zetsus. Who would have thought he would ever come back, let alone come back willing to save a village he had abandoned. 

Then everything turned dark.

Madara’s resurrection was the first in a domino effect of misery. People started dying, one after another, even with the aid of Naruto’s chakra cloak. Hinata still remembered the stabbing, hoarse pain in her throat from screaming (and screaming and screaming and--) as Neji, her noble self-sacrificing cousin, died protecting her. 

Perhaps everyone else was wrong, and his younger self was right. Fate came for him in the end, after all.  

The terror was capped off with the treachery of Black Zetsu and the successful implementation of the Infinite Tsukuyomi that had coaxed Kaguya from her seal, where she should have stayed buried. If it weren’t for Sasuke’s quick thinking, and the gift of the Sage of Six Paths to both Naruto and Sasuke, the Konoha 11, Kakashi-sensei, and the five living Kage would have been snatched away by the tree, deprived of their life, energy, and free will.  As it was, their formidable fighting force had been reduced to less than twenty shinobi and the four reanimated corpses of the Shodaime, Nidaime, Sandaime, and Yondaime. It was sobering, to say the least. 

How could they win with nothing but desperation and ancient relics?

It only grew worse as more and more of their already small number disappeared. First Tenten and Lee, run through by Black Zetsu after a mission to test the effectiveness of Taijutsu against the sentient plant, ending Team 3 for good. The Mizukage, Raikage, Tsuchikage, Gaara, and Tsunade-sama met their end attempting to stall Kaguya to allow time for Naruto and Sasuke, sent away on a cloud of sand, to recover from their wounds. 

Naruto became Hokage afterwards. In a world of only a dozen people, the victory was hollow. 

The reanimated kage lasted for quite a while, long enough to teach Naruto more seals that managed to keep their group relatively hidden from the pervasive eyes of their enemies, but they could only do so much against a chakra goddess and her minions. Eventually, they too disappeared, hit one by one by corrosive chakra rods. 

The day Naruto watched his father disintegrate before his eyes, Hinata could see some of the light in his blue eyes dim. And when Kakashi-sensei died of illness borne from chakra exhaustion, starvation, and perhaps the trauma of seeing his former friend-turned-villain, she could have sworn Naruto’s eyes became as gray as Kakashi’s hair. 

Oh, Naruto-kun… to lose your family after you had finally found them again …

The rest of their friends didn’t last very much longer; one by one, members of the Konoha 11 disappeared. 

The day that Kiba and Shino died, misdirecting a swarm of white zetsu that attempted to ambush the group, Hinata felt a part of her crumble to dust, as if she too had been hit with a chakra rod. 

Out of everyone they had known, everyone they had loved, only seven remained. Seven out of thousands. 

And with the tree slowly killing the trapped shinobi… there’s no one left to recover, either.

As Hinata turned to bring her meager edible findings back to their base camp, she descended deeper and deeper into her internal well of darkness. She was the last of her clan, the last of her team, and almost the last of her friends. Even Naruto’s cheery smile and boundless optimism, which had carried her through the crippling anxiety that marked her difficult childhood, had almost waned to nothing. Pain was etched in his eyes, engraved on his whisker-marked cheeks. And what could she do? Despite all her love, she couldn’t do anything to bring back his hope. It was at times like these that Hinata wished for the steady and warm presence of Neji more than ever. 

Perhaps he shouldn’t have dove in her way…

“Oi, Hinata!”

Shikamaru’s call interrupted Hinata’s self-deprecating train of thought. What was Shikamaru doing away from camp? The formerly lazy jounin stayed in camp more often than not nowadays, conspiring with Naruto and Sasuke in whispered tones in the commander’s tent while the rest of them tended to food and security and pretended that their leaders still had a reasonable last ditch effort to plan. 

“Shikamaru-kun! Did you need me for something,” Hinata asked as she caught up to him with a chakra-enhanced run. 

Shikamaru gazed down at her, his tired gaze and untrimmed facial hair making him look more like his father than he had any right to at this age. 

“It’s…well it’s something troublesome. There’s something that we-- that Naruto wants to discuss with everyone,” he sighed. “We should head back to camp now.”

Hinata was intrigued; usually the entirety of the group was never in one place. Someone was always scouting ahead for a new location to avoid their relentless pursuers, or desperately trying to coax water or food from dying trees. To have everyone stay for a meeting meant trouble.

“Ok Shikamaru-kun. Let’s get there quickly.”

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When they finally arrived at the network of caves they had been calling their camp for the last few days, everyone else had already assembled in a haphazard circle around Naruto and Sasuke, who seemed to be surrounded by a mountain of paper.

“It took you long enough moron,” Ino hissed, her exasperation a pale imitation of better, livelier days.

“Oi, who are you calling a moron,” Shikamaru said with an eye roll, carrying on the attempt at levity.

“Well it’s obviously not Hinata-chan. Unlike a certain lazy Nara, she’s sweet and has common sense.”

Hinata smiled faintly despite herself. Ino’s words were kind; she hadn’t felt sweet in months. 

“I’m surprised you can recognize sweetness, Ino.”

“Eh? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“H-hey guys let’s all relax,” Choji cut in, pantomiming eating chips in a reflexive tic while darting his gaze back and forth from Ino to Shikamaru.

Hinata took the opportunity to drop her meager bundle of mushrooms and forest greens into the food pile next to Choji, softly muttering “Glad to see everyone still has their energy.”

Sakura gestured over to her from her spot next to Sasuke on the ground, crying out “Welcome back Hinata-chan, Shikamaru.”

As Hinata settled in beside her, Naruto leaned forward across from her and squeezed her hands while gazing at her with an unreadable expression on his face. “Yes, welcome back Hinata,” he whispered. 

A fiery blush spread across Hinata’s cheeks. Although her relationship with Naruto had progressed far enough for occasional  gestures of affection like this, she still wasn’t used to it. Especially since Naruto insisted on a firm sense of propriety completely contradictory to his impulsive nature. Although he clearly cared for her, and he knew ( he had to know ) that she loved him, he set odd boundaries in the level of intimacy of their interactions. She didn’t know if it was to protect her heart, or his. 

After what seemed like an eternity, he dropped her hands and exchanged some sort of subtle nod with Sasuke. Somehow Naruto was very skilled at interpreting the deeper meaning behind Sasuke’s silent headshakes and grunts, nearly the only way he knew how to communicate.  Leaning back, he called out “Oi, everyone, gather around here. Might as well get this meeting started dattebayo!”

With a grumbled “troublesome,” Shikamaru dragged a still bickering Ino behind him to sit on the ground on Hinata’s other side. Choji wisely chose to sit across from them, next to Naruto, completing their lopsided oval.

For a long awkward moment, even though Naruto had called the meeting to order, silence spread out among the small group. Hinata’s eyes darted around anxiously; she didn’t need to activate her byakugan to see the tenseness in Naruto’s shoulders, the defensiveness in Sasuke’s narrowed eyes, or, shockingly, the alert apprehension in Shikamaru’s drumming fingers. Even Sakura looked vaguely resigned, which means she had some clue as to what was going on. And they, one and all, were avoiding her gaze. Whatever it was, it seemed that this meeting was not going to bring her good news.

“So,” Naruto began with a deep breath, “I guess there’s no way around saying it. We’ve…we’ve basically lost. To Kaguya and Zetsu. Other than us there’s nobody left to save.”

We’ve lost. We’ve lost. We’ve lost.

The words echoed dimly in the cavern, and Hinata couldn’t hold back an inward gasp of shock. Naruto was only putting to words all that she had thought for months, but it was still utterly surprising that Naruto, their brightest optimist, could ever say something so final. So defeated. 

We’ve lost, huh.

“Oi oi Naruto, what are you saying now? After all this, we’ve lost? Are you kidding me? What-- how-- what is that supposed to do for us now?” Ino looked visibly upset, her pale eyes ablaze with rage and, underneath it all, with fear. 

Shikamaru sighed deeply, head bowed. “Just let him finish, Ino.”

“How can I--”

“Ino--”

“But he’s--”

“Can’t you just--”

“After Kurenai and our parents and--and Sai how can we just give up like--”

“Shut up!” Shikamaru finally exploded, his eyes glaring fiercely. “Would you just, for once, stop talking and let Naruto finish his goddamn statement.” 

Each one of his fingers was clenched tightly, the knuckles white from lack of blood flow. Everyone, especially Ino, was stunned speechless. Shikamaru rarely, if ever, raised his voice or got publicly angry. Hinata, attuned as she was with chakra, could almost feel the roiling tension within him. Whatever Naruto had started to say already had him tense, and Ino’s ill-timed reminder of Kurenai-sensei had set him off. It nearly set Hinata off too; she hadn’t consciously thought about Kurenai-sensei or her ill-fated daughter in a long time, to avoid the heartache. Bringing her up now, after her symbol of hope had declared defeat, had Hinata feeling uncomfortably fragile, like an ice sculpture left out in the sun, brittle edges chipping away from the melting core. She could understand Ino’s outburst too, though. Losing Sai and her father within the same few days had hurt her in a deep, unspoken way.

They all hurt in some deep, unspoken way. 

After the pained shock following Ino and Shikamaru’s argument stretched out for a few more seconds, Sasuke cleared his throat.

“Hn. Naruto, we don’t have a lot of time. Finish what you were going to say, dobe.”

“Teme…fine. You’re right.” After briefly shutting his eyes, Naruto turned to face Ino. “Ino-chan, I’m sorry to have put it so bluntly. But it’s true. Everyone here has fought so bravely for so long, but Kaguya’s plan has progressed so much that I don’t think we can reverse it, not with only the seven of us. And not with them having the upper hand.”

“So are we giving up?” Choji asked, eyes downcast in a face too skinny for an Akimichi by half. With the nature of his clan’s jutsu, he had perhaps suffered the most from their lack of food. 

Before a solemn silence could envelop the group once more, Naruto’s eyes flared a brilliant blue, a hint of his old fire coming back, leaving Hinata breathless.

“No. No, we're not giving up. Sasuke, Shikamaru, and I -- with the help of Sakura-chan-- have come up with one last ditch effort to fix everything.”

“How--”

“Remember when me and my dad took that diversion to Uzushiogakure a few months back?”

Hinata remembered that trip. As Kaguya and the Zetsu’s gained more ground, their ( bigger ) group thought it would be worth it to check the ruins of Uzushio for any sealing knowledge that would be helpful. She had thought the mission to be largely a failure though; beyond some helpful storage and concealment sealing knowledge and fascinating clan history, there wasn’t much useful sealing scrolls left that hadn’t been pillaged. At least, not that she had seen, before they had to beat a hasty retreat. 

With that in mind, she spoke up. “I thought we hadn’t discovered anything of use there?”

Shikamaru and Naruto exchanged a glance. 

“Naruto found something, but it was incomplete and so out there that we could probably only use it as a very last-minute hail mary. Since we didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, we didn’t say anything,” Shikamaru explained.

“Really? What was the seal that you found, Naruto-kun?” Hinata turned her expectant eyes back to him, only to find him avoiding her gaze again. Why was he doing that?

“An experimental seal meant for space-time jutsu.”

“Oh, some sort of long distance body shift jutsu? So we can somehow transport Kaguya and Black Zetsu back to the moon or wherever they came from?” Ino interrupted, marginally less upset than before.

“No. It’s not a space travel seal. It’s a time travel seal.”

Silence. Then, “Time travel? I thought that only existed in Jiraiya-sama’s books! Time travel is real?” Choji said in disbelief.

“As real as we can make it. Dad and I applied his knowledge of the Hiraishin jutsu, with help from the Nidaime, to complete the seal. It’s still experimental but with the input of a lot of chakra and the use of the Rinnegan, in conjunction with some of the power given by the Sage of the Six paths, then it should work well enough to get us back to at least our childhoods,” Naruto replied with a small, proud smirk. “ I’m not sure what the side effects will be, but it’s written to transport your current body into the past, existing at the same time as your past selves. There might be some issue with having two concurrent souls in the same time period, but we sort of have a plan for that. It’s our best shot to change things. If we can’t beat Kaguya now, then we can make sure she’ll never be released from her seal.”

Hinata was stunned. She had thought nothing good was going to come out of this meeting, but this was beyond her wildest hopes! To imagine that time-travel existed! She could see her family again. She could save her family again. She was a little concerned about the prospect of dangerous side effects, and the paradox of having multiple duplicate souls wandering around, but if Naruto said that he and his co-conspirators had a plan for that, she believed him. It wasn’t too late.

She could see the cautious hope rising in Choji and Ino as well. Their excitement, combined with hers, was so overpowering that she almost missed the continued distress of the other four, especially Naruto. Almost. She was always attuned to his mood shifts, though, and she reeled back in her yearning in order to study him more closely. Although he was smiling, it didn’t reach his eyes, which had petered back to the depressed gray it had been for ages. He hasn’t told us everything yet. 

“Naruto-kun,” Hinata intervened gently, “You haven’t told us everything yet, have you. Is something wrong?”

Everyone turned to look at her. Sasuke had raised an eyebrow and looked vaguely impressed, while Shikamaru looked pained, which made her even more certain that she was right. Initially, Naruto had hunched his shoulders inwards, an effort to hide in plain sight, but then he suddenly slumped back into his original position with a startled laugh.

“Haha, Kurama just said I should've known you’d pick up on it first, Hinata. You’ve always been so perceptive,” he snickered sheepishly. Slowly, his smile wilted and his eyes grew serious once more. “Sasuke, could you explain? I think you’d be better at it.”

Hinata did not think anyone would be less qualified to break bad news than Sasuke, but it was obvious Naruto did not want to be the one to give it, and Shikamaru seemed too volatile to speak properly. Sasuke clearly reached the same conclusion she did, because he did nothing but scoff before saying in a deadpan:

“This seal is too powerful and too unstable to take all of us, not to mention the power it’s going to take. So at most only two of you can go back to the past to save the rest of us.”

Mouth gaping, Ino blurted out “You can’t be serious” before she could censor herself. Choji’s face was crumpled up, only his will holding him back from crying. Hinata didn’t blame them; her mind was scrambling with this new devastating information. Only two of us are going back . That meant not only would those left behind be forced to live in this doomed timeline ( what would happen to this timeline? Would it cease to exist once they went back to the past? Or would the remains of their friends be cursed to suffer with the knowledge that this timeline was an apocalyptic nightmare? ) but those who went back would lose their version of their remaining friends forever. Even when they went back in time, they would be older teenagers and their friends would be children who would never truly know them in the same way. It would almost be like their friends had died, and there would be only one other person who could understand why they were mourning, even as they saw their childish versions run around. If they could even get into the village to see them. 

With concentrated effort, Hinata wrenched herself away from that train of thought. She wasn’t the indecisive shy child she used to be anymore; she had to be stronger, if not for herself than in Neji’s memory, on behalf of her surviving friends, her family.

Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto, Shikamaru, Choji, Ino.

Only two of us can go back into the past .

Which of them were going to go into the past? Sasuke and Naruto? Or perhaps Naruto and Shikamaru? He had been acting rather odd, and she knew his council and strategic thinking would be invaluable to Naruto in figuring out how to tear Zetsu out by his malignant roots. The choice of who to go must have been painful for them, she realized, eyeing Team 7 and Team 10. How do you decide which friend to condemn to lonely mourning mid-mission in the past, and which to a bleak and prolonged period of suffering in this detestable present? 

“Hinata,” Naruto called, pulling Hinata away from her introspection. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m sorry Naruto-kun, I was just surprised. But I can tell you all have given this a lot of thought. If you can change the past and save us, then it’ll be worth it even if we can’t all go. I believe in you,” she rushed out, meaning every single word. Despite her sorrow for all involved, the hope that had sparked at the start of this reveal was still there. Her friends, her family, the village, the world , they could all be saved if this went correctly. 

Naruto raised his arm and cautiously rubbed his hand along the back of his neck as he looked back at her, looking altogether out of sorts, yet somehow still earnest. “I’m glad you think so Hinata, really I do. But this time, it’s me who believes in you. It’ll have to be you and Shikamaru who go back in time to save us, after all.”

There were very few times Hinata’s mind has ever completely shut down. Given her introverted tendencies and anxious nature, she always had a stream of running commentary ranging from self-deprecating thoughts, to observations of her surroundings, to loving lines dedicated to her friends and family. But Naruto’s declaration, that she was going to use the time travel seal, along with his confidence in her, was so beyond her realm of understanding that for once the silence that befell the elemental nations extended into her subconscious. 

And for a whole minute she saw, thought, and heard nothing at all.

Chapter Text

“-ta. --nata. Are you o--. Hi-- please -- HINATA.” A chakra jolt accompanied the last call of her name. Hinata startled back to consciousness with the feeling of hands cupping her face and the intense awareness of Naruto staring deeply into her eyes, his face mere inches away from her own. Embarrassment from his proximity, his declaration, and his hands on her face! made her go ruby red as she stammered out a string of nonsense. 

“Na-naruto-kun I’m fine it’s j-just why did you choose me to go? I can’t possibly…there are so many other people who could probably do better than me! Sasuke has the Rinnegan and the Sharingan and could beat so many Akatsuki members, a-and Sakura has her seal and her medical jutsu, and Ino can mind-walk and-and Choji is much better than me at wide range assaults,” she protested, stumbling over her words. “Why…I don’t understand Naruto-kun, why am I going? And why aren’t you?” She finished, breathing heavily.

“C’mon Hinata,” Naruto replies, gently yet sternly, “Don’t you trust me by now?”

“I-I mean yes of course, but--”

“Then trust me enough to know I have a good reason for choosing you to go with Shikamaru to the past.”

Hinata took a deep breath then let it out slowly, before dragging her gaze up to meet Naruto’s electric blue eyes. The warmth that was there, which so often comforted her to the point of silent acquiescence, wasn’t enough to quell her disarray this time. 

“No, Naruto-kun,” Hinata stated firmly, brow furrowing with intent. “I know you said we don’t have a lot of time, but you have to explain this to me, at least a little. I can’t go along with something I don’t understand. Please.”

Naruto gazed right back at her seriously for a moment, before sighing, turning to look helplessly at Sasuke, who merely raised a brow at him. 

“Bastard is no help,” he muttered, before looking back at her tiredly.

“You’re right Hinata-chan, you deserve some sort of explanation” he admitted, his hand reaching forward again to clasp hers. Between that action, and the reintroduction of the chan honorific in her address, Hinata was momentarily distracted from what he had to explain. A subtle cough from Shikamaru had her snapping back to attention. Focus Hinata! This is important.

“Ahem. Well then I’m listening, Naruto-kun.”

“Maa, well Sasuke, Shikamaru, and I have been discussing this for a few weeks now. The process of time travel is pretty tricky. With the cobbled together seal that we have, a large amount of power is going to be required, large enough that I’ll have to put all of my chakra, as well as the strands of chakra from all the tailed beasts into it, not to mention however much extra Kurama will contribute. And then there’s the gift from the Sage of Six Paths… When it comes down to it, I can only power the seal from the outside, meaning I can’t be one of the people sent back.”

Oh, Naruto-kun…

“That’s not enough, either” Sasuke cut in, finally deciding to ease some of the explanation burden from Naruto. “In order to make sure the chakra surge doesn’t completely dematerialize the people being sent back, I’m going to have to activate a technique similar to the Rinnegan Rebirth that Pain used to revive the village. Even if that wasn’t probably going to kill me, I need to be outside of the seal to activate it, both because of my gift from the Sage and so that the dobe’s chakra build-up doesn’t interfere with my concentration.”

And even Sasuke too?

Sakura then placed a gentle hand on Hinata’s shoulder, drawing her attention away from the jaw-dropping explanation the boys had given. “And regarding me… well even with Naruto’s insane chakra reserve, and Sasuke’s Rinnegan, there isn’t enough power to truly send you guys very far back in the timeline. If we want to nip this Zetsu problem in the bud, literally, then we need to at least go back to the earlier days of the Akatsuki, before they started collecting the tailed beasts. For that we need insane amounts of power, more than all seven of us combined.” To Hinata’s surprise, Sakura smirked. “The boys have a ridiculous and brilliant solution, as per usual: using Kaguya’s chakra to infuse the seal.”

Huh?

At this point, Ino cut in, her brain seemingly restarting after a long period of shocked silence spent watching the ludicrous statements get ping-ponged around the circle. 

“Kaguya??!!??” She shrieked incredulously. “Listen up, Billboard Brow, how in the world are we supposed to get Kaguya to fuel this shit show? By asking nicely? ‘Pretty please nice world-destroying alien goddess lady, would you mind activating this top-secret last-ditch effort jutsu meant to keep you locked in your moon prison for all eternity?’ Fat chance.”

“Don’t say fat,” Choji murmured on reflex, his wide eyes still clearly struggling to take everything in. 

Shikamaru, ignoring Choji’s comment, slid his eyes over to his teammate, enhancing the tension between them. “It’s not as impossible a task as it sounds. Once Naruto gets the seal started, any excessive amounts of chakra released will get absorbed into the seal automatically. And Kaguya’s chakra release has been nothing short of excessive every time we’ve fought her. She doesn’t seem to care about rationing it, probably because she’s so damn powerful. Troublesome, but useful in this case. If we can manage to lure her to the general area of the time travel seal and keep her distracted enough for her to release chakra without annihilating all of us, then the seal will be fully powered. Then Sasuke can cast his Rinnegan jutsu, and the time travelers will be sent back immediately.” 

Hinata noticed that Shikamaru referred to the ‘time-travelers’ as if Naruto hadn’t already stated he would be one of them, but she chose not to mention it just yet. It was clear Shikamaru was troubled about this plan, even though they had seemed to think it all through. She still had questions though.

“I-- I understand why you and Sasuke can’t go now,” she started softly, words thrumming with pain and regret, “and I know Shikamaru-kun is essential for strategy and planning, but I still don’t understand why I am the other person chosen to go back. You still haven’t explained that at all.”

Naruto gave her a soft smile, as if understanding what the first admission had cost her. “There are a lot of reasons for that Hinata. It really boiled down to suitability for the tasks left to do. Someone needs to occupy Kaguya and her army of Zetsus long enough to power the seal without getting everyone wiped out. For that, Sakura-chan will be needed. She has the strength of 100 seal, which means she’ll be able to last longer than anyone else while Sasuke and I get the seal ready. She’ll also need backup, of course, to make sure the fight lasts a while. Ino’s mind transfer jutsu could at least provide a minute distraction against Kaguya, and Choji’s long ranged attacks are suited to taking out hordes of Zetsus at a time. You specialize in hand-to-hand Taijutsu, which wouldn’t be as effective in this situation. Even if you managed to touch her, we need Kaguya to emit chakra, not get her coils dampened.”

Ah, Hinata thought, so by process of elimination I was found to be the least useful in this assault. In a way it made sense, although the thought of being so useless as to warrant disqualification hurt Hinata in a way she thought she couldn’t be hurt anymore. Not even an apocalypse could completely rid her of her bouts of crippling self-deprecation, it appeared. 

Naruto seemed to be able to sense her dip in self-esteem, because he immediately tightened his grip on her hand, causing her to refocus back on his suddenly determined face. In all the chaos, she had briefly forgotten his hand was there. 

“That’s not all Hinata!” He exclaimed passionately.

“The dobe is right,” Sasuke interrupted, “Regardless of how impractical you would be in the Kaguya stalling mission, you were chosen to go with Shikamaru because your attributes were particularly well-suited. Your byakugan allows you to see through most genjutsu, which will be a good counter against Obito and…Itachi, should that be necessary. In addition, it can pinpoint weaknesses in chakra systems and potentially identify foreign chakra and influence on other people. You’re also an invaluable tracker, which will be necessary to identify and subdue the akatsuki members, especially in their early stages.”

Sakura nodded along enthusiastically. “Your fighting skills are nothing to laugh at either. After all, you and Neji trained together, and the Hyuuga are one of the most powerful clans in the village!”

Hinata’s face flushed from the compliments and the reminder of Neji. He helped her so much to become the shinobi she was now, the shinobi that even Sasuke was praising. Although she still couldn’t accept it fully, perhaps she wasn’t the worst choice. As if sensing her more positive train of thought, Shikamaru also piped in with his own thoughts on the matter.

“Your temperament doesn’t hurt either,” he said wryly, his lips pulling into a half grin. “If I were sent back with Ino or Choji, we’d probably spend too much time bickering or lazing around and making a mess of things.”

Ino harrumphed haughtily, but there was a knowing look in her eye and a slight uptick in her cheek that suggested she agreed and found it amusing.

“You’re probably right Shika-kun,” Choji said with a sharp burst of laughter that came straight from his gut.

“They’re all right, you know, Hinata. You’re strong, steady, loyal, and smart. For a mission that requires both reconnaissance and fighting ability, in a time that’s not really your own, you’re perfect,” Naruto finished, peering at her fondly. “Of the seven of left, I think you and Shikamaru have the best shot of fixing things before they get so out of hand. It’ll be hard, but I believe in you, as your temporary Hokage and as your friend. So. Do you still doubt yourself, Hinata-chan?”

Her brain was fried, trying to contend with all the unexpected compliments of her character and the nuances of a plan that she still couldn’t fully grasp. Instead of trying to get it in order, Hinata decided instead to focus on her heart, and the hand still clasping hers. And her heart was telling her:

“I’ve always been weak and looking at the backs of others. In order to get stronger, I relied on the help of my jounin-sensei, my teammates, my dear cousin, and you, Naruto-kun. Even with how far I’ve come, I can’t call myself the strongest or the most capable. But,” she said with determination, steel filling her pale lavender gaze, “do you remember what I told you before? Always going forward and not going back on my word… that’s my ninja way too. I’ll try as hard as I can, Naruto, everyone, to save you all.”

Naruto’s mega-watt grin came in full force, a rare appearance nowadays. “I never thought otherwise for a second.” With one last squeeze, he released her hands, and she drew them back towards herself with a gentle smile. 

The energy in the cave, which had been tense and despondent the entire time, seemed to lighten with Hinata’s declaration. Even Ino and Choji, who had before seemed so morose about the fact that this timeline was doomed, seemed to brighten. 

“If me fighting now will let you guys change the past and save our families, then I wouldn’t have it any other way. We’re counting on you, Hinata, Shikamaru.” Ino stated fiercely.

“Count me in too!” Choji butt in, hands fisted and cheeks reddened with resolve.

Sasuke stood up, brushing dirt off his pants. “Well then, if explanation time is over, then let’s move on. With the way Kaguya and the Zetsus have been moving, we’ll need to get this fully implemented by tomorrow. We’ve already laid out the groundwork seal in a clearing not far from here. Now we just need to get the finishing touches, and get everyone in position so that the timing all works out.”

“Let’s get some rest so we’re prepared, alright?” Naruto chimed in, grin still in place, and eyes a bright, hopeful blue. 

With that, Sasuke stalked off deeper into their cave, Sakura following close behind. Naruto sprang up to walk hurriedly after them, muttering about a Team 7 reunion and disrespectful teammates. One by one, everyone else slowly made their way to their pallets, eager to get rest. Shikamaru alone remained in his spot in the circle, presumably to keep watch.

Hinata was so overwhelmed and exhausted from the day’s revelations, and the hint of darkness that lapped at her mind when she deigned to think about the implications of her resolve, that she fell asleep almost immediately. Perhaps she should have commented on the fact that Shikamaru didn’t have an eager, determined look on his face. If anything his mien was greatly disturbed, his thin brows lowered and gaze dark and morose as he looked into the distance. However, for one last selfish moment, she wanted to pretend that her future partner in saving the world was handling this better than she was. After all, he was better at delegating horror to the shadows. Tomorrow, she thought, I’ll approach him tomorrow . And wasn’t that a new thought. To actually have a future (or was it a past?) worth investing energy into contemplating. To have someone left to save. 

Chapter Text

Nara Shikamaru was a lot of things. To various nin out in the field, he was a fairly accomplished Chuunin, a veteran member of Team Ten, a master of shadow jutsu, and a cunning Nara. To his friends, he was an effective yet reluctant ninja, a certified genius, a lazy cloud-watcher, and an awkward flirt. 

And to himself, he was a repressed, weak, and unambitious knot of tangled emotions and motivations, hiding behind a carefully constructed veneer of indifference and witty observations. 

Yes, Nara Shikamaru was a lot of things. And in his genius opinion, none of those things justified his role in this troublesome time-travel hail mary. He hadn’t been able to puzzle out a way to save his family, his friends, his…whatever Temari had been to him. What were the rest of them thinking, assuming he would be able to fare much better in another timeline, without the bubbly support of his team or the sage advice of his father. His jutsus, while effective for subtle maneuvers, would be useless against some of the verifiable tanks that were in the Akatsuki. And as for his formidable mind… well. When he had helped Sasuke and Naruto make this plan, his calculations had surmised that it would be better for them all if one of them, rather than him, were able to accomplish the mission. His supposed clever brilliance had felt more and more like a front, or a transformation jutsu of some kind, as the war ( massacre ) dragged on. 

He knew he was bad at dealing with his grief. All ninja were, quite frankly. After Asuma-sensei had died, he was blanketed with an intense sorrowful rage that overtook his whole being. Only his dad had been able to help him through. Now, however…

When he closed his eyes at night these days, instead of computing the best routes to take to evade Zetsus, or the appropriate amount and arrangement of jutsus it would take to defeat Kaguya, or even the necessary number of foraging parties needed per day to keep the group fed at a minimum level of survival, he was bombarded with memories. And he wasn’t even lucky enough to catch glimpses of his loved one’s faces while he suffered through them. No, Shikamaru’s mind was special. Instead of vivid images, his eyelids were suffused with melancholy shadows, forcing all his attention to the sounds that haunted him. He couldn’t escape it, even as his breaths grew shorter, and his heartbeat seemed to vibrate dully through his entire torso. 

In, the squelch of Neji’s ravaged heart as blood gushed out from the hole that had so suddenly appeared in his chest.

Out, the concussive boom and high-pitched squealing echo of the tailed beast bomb that destroyed the HQ where his father and Inoichi-san had taken their final stand.

In, the slithering hiss of the roots of the God Tree as it wrapped its barbed talons around all of the gathered ninja, and then the rest of the world.

Out, the sharp indrawn breath of Temari as she was snagged away from Shikamaru, beyond his reach as he lay within the protective arms of Sasuke’s Susano’o. 

In, the child-like whimper Naruto had led out, privately, after his father crumbled to dust before his eyes, disappearing with a soft ‘shi-shi’ like the sands shifting through an hourglass.

Out, the startled and hoarse ‘arf’ of one of Kakashi’s ninken, as it got thrown against a tree, and then the longer mournful howl as it watched Kakashi’s weary body slowly topple into the dirt with a thump, never to rise again.

In, the gruff ‘Sayonara, brats’ from the alcohol-abused throat of a battle-worn Tsunada-sama.

Out, the silence of the elemental nations, now that almost everyone ( even Kurenai and Mirai, oh gods) had entered their eternal rest. 

In, Out, In, Out, In, In, In, Out, In-In-Out, In-Out-In-In, Out, Out, Out, In-In-I-Ou-I-O--. 

And then nothing but the grating sounds of Shikamaru’s harsh breaths, and the mad shuffling across the ground as he struggled to find a way out of wherever they were hiding at the moment and finally breathe normally, rubbing his chest with one arm while he tried to plug an ear with the other. All the while, the glaring red moon imbued him with its light, dying his skin as if he was drenched in the blood of all those he had lost. 

Needless to say, Shikamaru no longer slept very close to the others. He was sure someone had already noticed his near-nightly panic attacks anyways. Sasuke definitely had, that wily bastard.  But what were they going to do? Everyone was dealing with their troubles on their own. Might as well pretend the breakdowns of the others were happening in private. Shikamaru wouldn’t have thought too deeply about it (or any of his feelings for that matter), if it wasn’t for the fact that he was still somehow in a privileged leadership position. And despite his clear mental fracturing, Naruto and Sasuke entrusted him with the bulk of their machinations for the past. 

Him. Nara Shikamaru. Above all else, a self-acknowledged failure. A lazy excuse of a warrior who had only ever managed to drag himself up the ladder in order to support Naruto, and his crazy, wonderful dream of being the Hokage. 

Naruto was Hokage now. Life, for the seven not under the lure of the Infinite Tsukuyomi, was not a wonderful dream at all. 

Even if it was not clear to most everyone else, Shikamaru recognized that he was suffering from a rather chronic bout of self-loathing. And yet, in spite of his misgivings, he knew that since Naruto and Sasuke were out of the running by default, he was the only one left that nominally knew how to plan a strategic assault on the past Akatsuki, and how to successfully infiltrate Konoha as well. And so he acquiesced. One-half of the save the world dream team was a despondent general with cracks suffusing through his best asset: his mind. What a pain. What a joke.  

Thinking too deeply about this set of circumstances never failed to make his nightly panic attacks worse. So he filled his mind with other things, at least during his waking hours, when he could drive his subconscious away. Tonight, the night of the grand reveal, he found it harder than usual to displace his thoughts. 

As everyone went their separate ways to rest and process the clusterfuck they were just greeted with, Shikamaru remained in his spot in their haphazard circle, idly staring at the cave wall where they stored all their meager food supply. Hmm, a handful of mushrooms, some sad leafy greens, a possibly poisonous bushel of berries, and some crushed nuts. Not enough to feed all seven of us. Probably need to up the amount of patrols if we want to make it past tomor--. Right. There was nothing after tomorrow, at least for some of them. 

Attempt #1 at diverting-Shikamaru’s-troubled-mind was a crash and burn, excellent. 

With a fatigued sigh, he turned his head around, hoping to find something else to catch his eye and distract him from the imminent disaster of the next day. Instead, his weary gaze caught onto Hinata’s form, tucked in the corner on her sleeping pad, raven hair spilling across the flat green-gray in a mesmerizing wave. Shikamaru idly wondered how she kept her hair glossy when there wasn’t really a time or place for appropriate hygiene anymore. Ino’s hair had become a rat’s nest ages ago, leading her to cut it in frustration with a kunai a few months back. 

By tacit agreement, no one mentioned how bad of a job she did. 

Hinata, however, appeared to have handled the war unscathed, at least hair wise. Her demeanor had changed of course. Unlike the timid, mousy creature she had appeared as in years past, she had toughened up over the past year, even more than she had during Naruto’s training trip with Jiraiya. Sharp, lavender eyes in a too-skinny face ( starvation, and grief, in equal turns) frequently darted around to capture movement and warn the team of any Zetsus approaching. Nimble fingers formed delicate hand-signs to cast basic jutsu when far away, or formed intimidating palm strikes when fighting in close quarters. Naruto was right. Hinata had become strong, steady, loyal, and smart throughout their entire ordeal. Shikamaru often thought of her growth as the callouses on a musician's finger. They were tough and battle-hardened at the points where the skin met string, but the pads of the fingers still remained soft and supple. Hinata had been put through the wringer, as they all had, and had come out stronger for it, even as she retained the vulnerable shyness she still cultivated deep within. There was a sweetness about her that hadn’t been scoured away yet. She would be a useful partner in the trip to the past. That was one decision in this plan, at least, that Shikamaru was fairly confident in.

Of course, that meant he would be abandoning his teammates, ending their generation of Ino-Shika-Cho early. Not that they had known about that until today, after he yelled at Ino and ignored Choji. So much for endearing last memories.

Attempt #2 to distract Shikamaru’s overactive mind was rapidly failing. 

Damn, if only he had a measly cigarette right now. Or a shogi board. What a drag.

Letting out a disgusted huff, Shikamaru sprang silently to his feet and stepped out of the cave, leaning against the rocks at the entrance, head hanging low and brow furrowed. If he tried to go to sleep now, with this headspace, he would only end up having a worse panic attack than usual, which would make the next day even more stressful. What a stupid, stupid, stupid spiral. 

Mild shuffling noises had him snapping his eyes back up, doing a quick scan to make sure they weren’t under attack to just add onto this splendid day. He relaxed marginally when he saw it was only Ino, projecting her presence so as to warn him he wasn’t alone. He tensed again, however, when he saw that she had Choji with her.  It was a bad sign about his attention span that he hadn’t noticed them leaving the cave after him.

Shit, this means that they want to talk. 

Awkwardly clearing his throat he asked, “So. Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it.” Way to break the ice, you idiot.

Despite how god awful his attempt at humor was, Choji laughed anyway. He was loyal like that. “Hehe, Shikamaru, glad to see you haven’t changed.”

“Hasn’t stopped being socially stunted, you mean,” Ino said, rolling her eyes. 

“Eh, no one can be more stunted than Sasuke.”

“You take that back! Sasuke is just on a different plane of understanding, that’s all.” 

“And you’re in a different universe if you’re still defending him.”

Shikamaru snickered silently to himself, watching his friends go over the same banter they had engaged in for ages. Never let it be said that years of borderline terrorist activity and her huge crush on Sai ever let Ino drop her automatic defense of Sasuke. However, Shikamaru knew deep down that this whole display wasn’t brought on by that; it was for him, to put him at ease. After he had practically committed to abandoning them. Sage, he didn’t deserve them. Maybe he should be honest with them now, at least a little.  

“Guys,” he said, levity leaving him, the red of the moon seeming to suddenly increase in intensity. “I know what you’re really doing out here. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

After a moment of silence, Ino huffed and thumped him over the head harder than was strictly necessary. “Oi listen, Pineapple, what are you even apologizing for, huh? Saving the world? For a genius you sure are dense.”

“But I-- None of you guys will be able to come back with me. My plan…it sentences you to death in this wasteland.” Shikamaru protested, rubbing his head. 

“Do I need to hit you again?”

“Please don’t.”

“Shikamaru,” Choji interrupted, “I know that you’re probably feeling guilty, but stop it. I meant what I said back there during our meeting. If I can help save the world by doing this then I will. Your plan isn’t sentencing me to death, it’s bringing everyone else back to life.”

“You’re giving me too much credit here,” Shikamaru grumbled, “there’s no guarantee that the choices we made of who to go and when to go back to and how to achieve it are even going to work.”

Ino stomped her foot angrily, pushing herself into Shikamaru’s space. “Who are you and what have you done with Shikamaru? It isn’t like you to second-guess your own plans so much like this. Sure, time-travel is the second craziest shit I’ve ever heard of, right under the vengeful alien goddess of chakra, but it’s you and Naruto and Sasuke. I trust them, and I trust you most of all.”

She shouldn’t, not when my mind…

The next instant, Shikamaru was on the ground with the wind knocked out of him. Shocked eyes locked gazes with a thunderous Choji, who had his arms crossed, pushing his chest up into his ruddy cheeks. “What did you say?”

Shit did I say that out loud?

Sighing, he slowly rose to his feet, brushing off his pants and leaning back against the wall. “All my brilliant plans got us here, in a cave in the middle of the mostly silent land of fire, running from a deity with nothing but mushrooms and nuts. Why would you still trust me to go back in time? I might just screw it up sooner, in this new timeline.”

Wilting, Choji turned his slumped shoulders inwards. “It can’t get any worse than this, can it?”

Well, that was a good point. 

“Look,” Ino cut in, voice gentle but eyes stern. “I know that you’re feeling guilty, and sad. I’m sad too. This sucks! This whole thing sucks. And when you guys go back in time, I don’t even know if this timeline is going to disappear or not, and I don’t know if this version of me will still exist, or whether or not I’ll enter the Pure Lands and see my family again. I just don’t know. But that doesn’t matter if you can save the past versions of us. And even if I don’t know anything else, I know that you can do that much.”

“How? How do you know that,” Shikamaru whispered, eyes cast down. He had been avoiding thinking about the implications of time travel and alternate realities. He hoped and prayed to every higher power who bothered to listen that they wouldn’t be trapped in this reality. He didn’t think he could take it otherwise.

“Because you have the spirit of a leader, of course. Do you remember what you said last year?”

“I said a lot of things last year.”

“I remember it,” Choji said, eyes watering. “You said we shouldn’t look away from what was happening, because at some point, even our insignificant power may be enough to determine the fate of the world. It’s that time, Shika-kun. Time to use your power to change the world.”

“Yeah,” Ino chimed in with a feral grin, “Of everyone, I believe in the man who said that to me when I had lost all hope. Even now I’ve been looking and waiting for a way to be useful, to save everyone, and today you three handed me that opportunity on a silver platter. I can’t resent that, Shikamaru. I could never resent you.”

“Me neither,” Choji said simply. “You’re my best friend, after all.”

Shikamaru bowed his head low, trying to rein in the tears gathering behind his eyelids. Ino, Choji…he didn't deserve them. Even now, after they faced death and an uncertain future, they were supporting him, pushing him up on a pedestal he didn’t deserve. He couldn't bring himself to say it out loud, but he loved them both for trying so hard to fix his emotional state and ease the weight of guilt that had cloaked his shoulders. But it wasn’t working. He knew, inside, that he didn’t deserve their faith, that those words they were quoting were the words of another man, a confident, arrogant, ignorant one who could never imagine that the Will of Fire could be snuffed out so readily. 

But he couldn’t tell them that. Not when this was their last night together. Not when tomorrow he would never see them, as they are right now, ever again. 

“Well,” he said, putting on a practiced wry grin, “you’re my best friend too. Guess I should listen to you.”

With tearful smiles and ribbed remarks, Ino and Choji latched onto him, forming an Ino-Shika-Cho huddle one last time. 

Shikamaru should listen to them, really. But he couldn’t.

Later that night, after extracting himself from Choji’s grip and ducking Ino’s fist for daring to ruffle her wretched bob cut, he settled into his sleeping pad, successfully passing the nightwatch over to his teammates. As he settled into sleep, he wasn’t greeted with the usual panic-inducing sounds. Instead, he was haunted by a feeling of loneliness and grief so deep and profound he wondered if he had gotten wrapped in his own shadows. Even in these last moments, he couldn’t be honest with his friends. And tomorrow, he would be in a new time, shouldering the fate of the world, with his insufficient power and maladapted mind, with only one other person to support him.

Shikamaru hoped Hinata was prepared for this. He had promised Naruto, the romantic oaf, that he would do his best to protect her. But at this rate, despite his best efforts to keep his head together, he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to hold on.

Chapter Text

As Hinata slowly came back to consciousness, she was filled with the inexplicable mixture of faint hope and grief that had thrummed through her the night before. Around her, she could sense the low tones of some of her friends speaking, without any sense of urgency or frenzy that she would assume would be there on time travel day . For a moment she was disoriented. Had the revelation last night been real or a sign that her mind had started to slip from the sheer grief of it all? Partially fearing the worst, she blinked open her eyes as she sat up from her sleeping pad, rubbing at the corners of her eyelids to get rid of the lingering effects of sleep. To her right she could see Shikamaru, pensively staring at loose scroll leaves that presumably held parts of the seal. So it wasn’t a bizarre dream after all . 

Weirdly, Hinata couldn’t tell if she was happy or sad about that fact. On the one hand, there was finally a chance to save everything and everyone they had known. On the other hand, they were engaging in an unknown, untested jutsu that played around with the concept of fate itself. After Neji’s death, Hinata had become a bit superstitious. Who could blame her if she was wary of how this whole escapade would turn out, especially with her at the helm. 

There’s no time for this, Hinata. Get yourself together. It’s what Naruto-kun has entrusted you with. 

Fear had plagued her all her life. When she was little, her mother used to hold her at night and tell her that the Byakugan was a gift and a curse. As an inquisitive but painfully introverted child, she would often get overwhelmed with the world around her, her senses wrought with minute observations and imagined monsters in every corner. ‘ Don’t be so down my love. The byakugan is our clan’s greatest strength, but they can spot a worry or doubt in every shadow. You will one day learn not to shy away from them.’ It was true, Hinata couldn’t help but fret over all the imagined terrors she could sense in her peripheral, both physical and existential. But Neji, and Naruto, and even her father had claimed that she had become strong. Hinata could only persevere and prove that she was strong enough to overcome her illusory anxiety. 

Besides, she would be traveling back in time with Shikamaru. While it was true that he seemed less than ideal after their talk yesterday ( or even for a while before that, if she truly stopped to think about it ) he was an advisor to the Hokage, and the first in their class to get promoted beyond Genin. If anyone could deal with the monsters of fate entrenched in the shadows of the ruined elemental nations, it would be him.

Right? 

A quick look at his tense posture, eyes so focused on the seal runes that he didn’t even bother to register that she had awoken, had her revising her opinion. She still believed he would be the best partner she could ask for in these dealings, but maybe she would have to keep a better eye on him. 

With that resolution settled in her mind, she set to preparing herself for the surreal events for the day. Glancing around the cavern, she spotted Sakura helping Choji man the fire, preparing some sort of energy-boosting concoction that would double as their breakfast. Sasuke and Naruto were at the opposite end of the cavern, Naruto gesticulating wildly as he argued some sort of point, probably about the seal, looking tired but more impassioned than he had in several months. Despite wanting to spend some moments in private with Naruto before…well before the events of the day, she was loath to interrupt him right now. 

Alright, that’s everyone except for…

And suddenly Ino was right in front of her face, kneeling, pale blue eyes narrowed in focus. 

“Finally woke up, huh Hinata? You’re just in time. C’mon princess, let’s head on out,” Ino stated confidently, as if Hinata knew what she was talking about. And where had the princess moniker come from?

“Head out where?” Hinata inquired, already stretching into a standing position, and checking her sandals. No matter how abruptly Ino had asked her to come along, she wasn’t just going to say no. It simply wasn’t in her character; last night’s brief rebuttal against Naruto likely covered her defiance metric for another two months. 

Ino’s sharp face pulled into a smirk, revealing the cunning face of the beauty who had intellectually sparred with Sakura and Shikamaru for over a decade. “There’s no use standing around. Sasuke said we could check out the territory around the ‘time-travel, who would have fucking guessed’ area they mentioned they had set up yesterday, to see if there are any Zetsu trash hanging around. Besides…this is an excellent time for one last chat between us girls, don’t you agree?”

Hinata didn’t know whether to feel amused by Ino’s description of the clearing holding the beginnings of the space-time seal, or saddened by the reminder that this was her last day of seeing Ino as she was. Ignoring both for the time being, she instead asked:

“Shouldn’t girl talk involve Sakura too?”

“Eh, Madame Forehead doesn’t count.”

Hinata decided against commenting further on that statement. It was clear Ino wanted to speak privately with her, and though she didn’t understand why, she was not inclined to avoid it. 

She wanted to feel useful, so going on the patrol would do her some good, and she did want the chance to talk to Ino (really to talk to all of them) one last time, in depth. She had been contemplating waiting out Naruto’s conversation with Sasuke, or interrupting Shikamaru’s staring contest with parchment in order to glean how he was handling the situation, and how he felt about her as a (formerly weak and exceedingly timid) mission partner. But this was most likely a better alternative. 

“All right Ino-chan, I’m ready. Let’s head out.”

And after a quick wave at the rest of the group, who nodded absentmindedly at them ( although, was she imagining the two pairs of eyes lingering on her?) Ino and Hinata set off into the woods, the dawn light breaking behind them as they hopped quickly but efficiently among the trees. 

------------------------

Once they were far enough away from the base, Hinata deemed it appropriate to address the odd tension that had been building between them. It wasn’t hostile, per se, but Ino clearly had something heavy she needed to say to her.  

What was a tactful way to break the silence?

“Um, Ino-chan, I didn’t…I didn't realize that you would want to talk to me today. N-not that I don’t want to talk to you! It’s just that uh we haven’t always been the closest among us, and I thought maybe you would want to talk to Choji or Shikamaru or even Sakura more?” Hinata rambled, betraying her nervousness with every word.

“Relax Princess,” Ino smirked, “I’ve always liked you. As if I would seek you out if I didn’t. Also, as if I would spend my last day having a massive heart to heart with Billboard Brow.”

Hinata would never pretend to understand the exact dynamic between Sakura and Ino, but she knew that they cared for each other more than they were willing to admit. Their friendship was ironclad, yet volatile. It was beautiful in a sharp, jagged way, just like Ino.

“Thanks for the compliment, Ino, but I know you like Sakura, even if you call her names sometimes.” Hinata swallowed reflexively, then adjusted her form so that she was looking directly at Ino as she jumped to the next tree. “Speaking of…why do you call me Princess? That’s the-- the second time,” Hinata finally murmured, voice fading at the end as embarrassment suffused her.

Ino raised her eyebrow. “Caught that, huh? Naruto did say you were perceptive. I call you Princess because you’re basically clan royalty, you know. Plus you have that regal demeanor, excellent posture, and manners for days. You’ve heard some of the civilian fairy tales, haven’t you? You fit the image of the princess to the T.”

Hinata’s cheeks were bright red with embarrassment. A princess, oh gods. Hinata remembered the stories Ino was talking about. When she was a child, she would occasionally sneak away from the compound, trying to avoid her father’s disappointment by suffusing herself with the innocent warmth of fireside storytelling that the civilians of the town arranged for the kids not destined to be ninja. The stories filled her with wonder, tales of beautiful swooning princesses, talking animals and spirits, handsome princes and warriors, sinister villains. In a world as dark and dangerous as one filled with chakra-enhanced ninja, hearing stories about magical battles and romance was a comfort. However…

“Thank you, I think Ino-chan, but aren’t the princesses usually in distress? And always in need of a rescue? That doesn’t sound very flattering for a ninja on a mission, does it.”

“Oh please,” Ino rolled her eyes, “Could you imagine trying to be level-headed when you have bull-headed princes and idiot villains to deal with? Everyone knows the enchanted singing princess with the bravery to keep marching ahead, and the gentleness to draw others to their cause, is the most badass character of all.”

It looked like Hinata’s blush was going to stay on her cheeks for the whole morning. What a comparison!

“U-um I guess that’s true? Does that mean that Shikamaru is supposed to be the bull-headed Prince?” Hinata asked, curious as to why Ino had said it dripping with such sarcasm.

“I think your prince is more likely to be Naruto hmm?” Yes, the blush was permanent. 

“I-I--”

“No,” Ino continued, saving Hinata from further shame, “Shikamaru is definitely not the prince in this scenario. He’s the wounded wild forest animal -- let’s just call it a deer-- that the princess needs to heal by song or whatever bullshit, but he’s stubborn and keeps trying to evade. So still bull-headed, but less refined about it.” 

By this point they had reached the thinned out patch of trees that surrounded the clearing. It was empty, except for the symbols etched in each of the four corners, symbolizing space, time, direction, and power. The boys had set it up after all. And there wasn’t a Zetsu in sight, as far as Hinata could see with her byakugan. That left her with just enough bandwidth to focus on what Ino had just said about Shikamaru, and more importantly, the way she had said it. So it was him, and not fairy tales, that Ino wanted to talk about.

“I guess, from that statement, that you’re worried about Shikamaru?” Hinata ventured, hoping to glean more information from Ino. 

If even Ino is worried about him… that’s a bad sign.

“You’re not? Have you seen him recently? I mean, really seen him? He looks like shit. He doesn’t sleep well, he doesn’t smile, he doesn’t talk to us anymore.”

“I-I guess you’re right,” Hinata conceded, frowning, “but he’s been under a lot of pressure, and we’ve all been…well we haven’t been at our best. None of us. Not even Naruto-kun.”

Ino sighed heavily, crossing her arms as she leaned back against a cluster of tree limbs. “I know, we’re all half out of our minds. But Shikamaru is… different.”

“Different?”

“We all know he’s a genius. The greatest mind of our generation, yada yada. But just because he has a high IQ does not mean his emotional intelligence is anything above the bare minimum. He’s spiraling, I can tell. I tracked him down last night, after he slipped out of the cave, and even though he said everything was fine, I know he wasn’t telling the truth yesterday. Not at all. He’s grieving, and he’s angry, and he’s blaming himself for everything going wrong, and even the fact that we have to rely on this time-travel plan to save us. He’s given me the most damn hope I’ve had in months, and he’s sad about it!” Ino stopped her rant, breathing slightly more heavily, and the wrinkles in her furrowed brow were only beaten by the creases in his clenched fists.

Hinata didn’t know how to respond to that. The grief, and the tendency to blame himself… that sounded familiar. It sounded a bit like her, actually. But she had never expected that out of their general, the brains of this operation. Although, she had resolved to herself earlier that morning to keep a better eye on him. Grief, anger, self-blame. Was it really so surprising after the horror of this doomed war?

“I understand why you’re worried, Ino-chan. I guess I noticed he seemed a bit down recently, more nervous than usual. But,” she bit her lip, “I think those feelings, the anger, the self-deprecation, and the grief , while regrettable, are to be expected right? This has been awful, and a lot of the leadership burden has been on him ever since Shikaku-san…”

Ino grimaced at the reminder of her pseudo-uncle. His death had come coupled with her father’s, after all. 

“I would agree with you, Hinata, for anyone but him. I know Shikamaru. I’ve known him since we were toddlers. To be the next Ino-Shika-Cho, they had us train early, so we could learn and understand each other, predict what we’re thinking. And for the most part he’s amazing,” she admitted with a sad, nostalgic smile. “Shika-kun grew from a tiny cloud watcher with no goals to an inspiring general who gave speeches before leading troops into war. But when he’s grieving… it’s another thing entirely.”

Hinata leaned forward from her perch, turning away from her scouting task to focus most of her gaze on Ino. It was important that she understand what Ino was trying to say about her mission partner, about her friend.  I need to know, so I can help him. 

“Shikamaru…he was always the most logical one out of all of us. Almost every single ninja and jounin sensei in the Konoha 11 were too self-sacrificial by half. Sage, the amount of times Kakashi tried to throw himself in front of blows, or Naruto threatened to die with Sasuke, was absurd.” Ino let out a brief chuckle. “Every great ninja has to be like that, honestly, to make a difference. Except for Shikamaru. When he would play shogi against his father and lose, he would reconstruct the entire game sequence from memory, trying to see where he went wrong and how to improve. He’s always done that. Learning, observing, trying to make the rest of us look bad by pointing out what everyone else has missed. He’s calculating, always waiting for another angle, for a time when his skills would be enough to gain a victory.”

Yes, Ino was right about that. Hinata remembered his speech about waiting to lend their power, and how he progressed through the first Chuunin exams. And she had heard stories about what happened to Hidan too. Shikamaru, while caring (not that he was likely to ever admit it), was cunning and methodical in a way she could never quite comprehend. But it was what made her trust him, and his contribution to their time travel plan. 

Obviously though, he isn’t as certain .

Ino huffed angrily, continuing her monologue, “But yesterday he tried to apologize for planning our survival, and he has these panic attacks he thinks we don’t notice, and sometimes the look in his eyes… that desperation reminds me of Kakashi when he saw Obito, or of Asuma-sensei as he died for us. And that’s bad. This plan needs a Shikamaru who has his shit together. And that’s where you come in.”

“Me?” Hinata questioned, startled and more than a little concerned about the picture Ino was painting of Shikamaru’s mental state. 

“Yeah, you. Shikamaru said it himself, you have a good temperament. And you’re kind, above all else, Princess. When you guys get sent back, the only person he’ll be able to rely on 100% is you, not that the idiot will let you in at first. I…I want him to get a hold of himself. Be happy and calculating again, playing everyone like shogi pieces. You know, the usual. And I’m telling you that you’re the one who’s got to look after him.”

This was an immense responsibility. Hinata could feel the weight of Ino’s demand, and her desperate hope, pressing on her shoulders. But no part of her wanted Shikamaru to continue suffering. It went both ways; Shikamaru was also her only bastion of support in the distant past. Even if he hadn’t been, he was a precious comrade. And she would never turn her back on one of those, not with the few remaining. 

“Alright, Ino-chan,” she said with a decisive nod, mouth pursed as her luminescent lavender eyes narrowed with intent. “I’ll try to look out for him,” making her second vow in as many days.

Ino’s answering grin was relieved, if a little unhinged. “Good luck Hinata. Shikamaru is probably a carnivorous deer. Also…take care of yourself too.”

“I will.” I’ll try. I can’t let anyone down, so I’ll try to be strong. For you all, who’ll never make it back. 

And that settled it. 

The conversation over, Hinata turned her eyes back to her observation task, not expecting to find anything changed within the last few minutes. Thus, she was blind-sided when she spotted globs of milky white surrounding demented faces, bent in permanent grins, located several kilometers away, but moving steadily towards their general location. Zetsus. A large group of them, at that. Oh no. Not right now. It’s too early!

“Ino,” she called out sharply, legs tensing to spring. “We have to inform the others. There’s an approaching group of Zetsus, several dozen strong, steadily gaining ground on this location.”

“Fuck! If they find evidence of the runes, it’s over. You have to go back immediately Hinata, to let everyone know. I’ll start picking them off, slowing them down,” Ino snarled, palming her kunai.

“But--”

“No buts. You’re the one going back in time, not me. I was always meant to be on delay detail anyways. Hurry, we don’t have time!”

“There are so many of them though, you--”

Ino shot her a look, full of confidence and a touch of feral humor. “Hey, don’t forget I’m not weak. Now go. I’ll be around here waiting for you guys.”

Hinata shook herself, recognizing the truth for what it was. She needed to go gather the others to start the sealing, immediately. She was worried about Ino, but she could handle herself just fine for a little while. And , the dark despondence in Hinata’s subconscious whispered, she wouldn’t have made it through the day anyways . 

Stop. There’s no time for this.

“I’m going now, Ino-chan. Be safe. I’ll bring everyone back here soon.”

Soon. Soon they would start the ritual. Soon they would be back in the past. Hinata had thought she’d still have a few more hours, enough time to say goodbye to Naruto and the rest of her friends with more formality, one-on-one. That didn’t matter now though, another regret in a months long list. 

As she dashed through the trees, hurrying back to their base, only one thought reverberated through her mind. 

This is the endgame. They had officially run out of time. 

Chapter Text

He had been staring at her. He was aware enough to admit it.

There were a lot of reasons he could give for that. One, she had been staring at him earlier, so quid pro quo, pay it back tenfold, etc. The combined hope and concern that had lied latent in her pale gaze made his cheeks warm and his skin itch in a way it hadn’t since the youthful days he spent constantly ill. Feeling out of sorts, and still brooding, he had focused on the parchment in his hands rather than look back at her, hoping that she would turn away so he would stop feeling so confused. It was only fair that he looked back at her once she was finally distracted by someone else, right?

Although that wasn’t quite it.

Another reason to stare was who exactly she had been distracted by. What possible good reason would Ino have to cling to Hinata? It was like watching a mountain lion put on a show to convince an elk that it was changing its ways to be a nurturing, vegetarian friend. Shikamaru, as the de facto leader of their time travel mission, could not in good conscious ignore what was clearly a volatile situation forming. He was, in his own limited capacity, doing his duty by shamelessly staring at her to register if she looked uncomfortable or alarmed, beyond her typical alertness, by Ino’s eagerness.

As they left the cave, however, with minimal fuss and not a word spoken by Shikamaru, he was finally able to admit to himself that that wasn’t the reason to stare either.

In all honesty, Shikamaru was curious.  Hinata presented a puzzle to him. Not in her personality or skills or background; for a ninja, she was frighteningly transparent around those she trusted, and he could decipher her simultaneous hope for the future, pained remembrance of the past, and deep yearning for Naruto and their other friends from far, far away. Everything about Hinata’s soul was pure and clear like lake water (pre-Kaguya, of course). Despite this, what he couldn’t truly understand was the source of her motivation and hope. She clearly believed in him, and in this crazy plan, and neither of those facts were computing for Shikamaru.

The calculus in his head went something like this: he was a mess (fact), this plan had many avenues for failure (fact), their two most objectively powerful members were guaranteed to be taken out even attempting it (fact), and Hinata was bright enough to know all of this (conjecture, leaning towards fact). And yet when added together, all these logical leaps concluded in Hinata having hope and raising no protest to his participation or the plan in general, beyond her own insecurities about her involvement. In Shikamaru’s opinion, this leap in faith was completely out of left field, especially since, quite honestly, the entirety of the plan’s successful completion was dependent on her steady presence keeping him from losing the rest of his thin grip on sanity.

So, to satisfy his own intellectual curiosity (to try and understand what she saw in them all, in him to even think that this had a chance of working without him fucking it up) he stared at her, following the gentle curve of her face and studying the glimmer of dark flecks within her eyes, as she and Ino sauntered out of the cave for “reconnaissance.” His gaze stayed fixed in that direction even after she had left.

Another thing that Shikamaru no longer was: discreet.

“So, you’re staring at Hinata-chan too now huh?”

In a move that might have demoted him from being a Chuunin if Tsunade-sama had been around to see (not that there weren’t already, in his mind, a multitude of reasons he should not have been granted the title), Shikamaru stumbled to the side from his perch in the cave, as Naruto popped up beside him with his trademark post-war half grin.

Sage, he saw me staring at Hinata. Damn.

“Naruto, why would you sneak up on me like that, eh? What a pain,” Shikamaru managed to say, settling back into a semi-dignified seated position.

With a snort, Naruto arranged himself next to him in a seemingly lazy sprawl.  “No one has ever accused me of being sneaky before, especially you, so thanks for the compliment. But that proves even more now that you were staring at Hinata.”

“How does that prove I was staring at Hinata?”

“I wear bright orange, and I wasn’t trying to conceal my movements at all. Also, you’re super paranoid and usually alert to your surroundings unless something interesting has caught your eye. Ino-chan, while terrifying, is not enough to get your mind working over-time, and the only other person in the direction you were looking at was Hinata. So, if you add it all together, you didn’t notice me walking towards you because you were so distracted by Hinata’s general brilliance that you couldn’t help but stare at her and think whatever thoughts broody geniuses think,” Naruto finished with a flourish, waving his hands dramatically with each point he made.

Shikamaru always thought Naruto’s brain worked in a weird, inexplicable way, and his leaps in logic were exceedingly nonsensical, but he couldn’t deny that he was kind of right this time. However, the look in Naruto’s eyes was a bit unreadable and he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to open the ‘you were distracted by Hinata’s general brilliance’ can of worms. So, he deflected instead.

“I wasn’t so distracted that I didn’t notice you saying too, Naruto. What were you staring at her for?”

After another few seconds of looking contemplatively at Shikamaru, Naruto’s wry grin settled into something more serious. “I know that she loves me.”

Well, that was quite a way to start.

“I’m not an idiot, you know,” he continued. “Well maybe I am, but even I pay attention when somebody proclaims their love for me before being taken out by Pain’s spears, all in a bid to protect me. We never talked about it again after. Honestly, every single moment since then has been rife with war and suffering. Over and over and over again.”

Shikamaru had no idea what to say to that, so he just looked at Naruto and let him keep speaking. In some ways, this reminded him of the talk they had after Jiraiya had died. Naruto was rarely this serious or up front about his deeper emotions, and although Shikamaru never thought of himself as the most emotionally available person, he was still, despite all his failures, able to listen when Naruto wanted to talk.

“You know, I promised Nagato that I would end it. The cycle of suffering and shame, that led to the endless ninja wars and this disaster. The wars that lead to my parents dying, and the pervy sage dying, and the tailed beasts being used as weapons and bargaining chips, and the sad lives of the jinchuuriki. I wanted to stop them. I promised to stop them.” A deep, regretful sigh escaped him, a sound so wholly unlike Naruto that Shikamaru nearly did a double take. “And I’ve failed. I think I convinced myself, ya know, that once this was over, I would have a proper response for Hinata-chan, a way to acknowledge her feelings and all the faith that she’s always had in me. But it’s not over. And it won’t ever be over, not in this timeline. So instead, I’m putting all my trust in her and in you, believing that the strength of her feelings, and the fierceness I’ve always seen in her will fulfill my promise to Nagato for me. I can’t bring myself to tell her that though, no matter how much Kurama teases me” Naruto murmurs staring at his hands. “So, on my last day on earth, I stare at her instead. Why not right? My dad didn’t have anything to say to me either, when he sealed Kurama in me.”

So, he’s in love with her too, huh. Shikamaru swallowed hard and waited for Naruto to look back at him before asking “Why are you telling me all of this now, Naruto.”

With a knowing glance, raising an eyebrow, he replied “You were staring at her like you were trying to figure her out. So, before you fixated too much, I wanted to tell you why, beyond her temperament and her abilities, that I chose her to do this with you. You get it now, right?”

He got enough of what Naruto was trying to say. The strength of her feelings. That was an answer to one piece of the Hinata puzzle then. Love. That was what made her so willing to believe in them.

Suddenly frustrated, Shikamaru averted his eyes and glared at another piece of the seal parchment instead. “It doesn’t seem very logical to rely on her feelings and my… ability to make plans as a way to end decades of warring ninja history, Naruto. I know that we’re doing it anyways, but why do you have so much faith that this will work, huh?”

Shit, some of my self-deprecation leaked there.

“I didn’t choose you for your ability to make plans Shikamaru,” Naruto rebutted after a moment of silence, “I chose you because of your ability to look underneath the underneath. Kakashi-sensei always said that that was the most important part of being a ninja.”

Shikamaru didn’t know if he could do that all that well anymore. He didn’t know if he trusted himself enough to think he knew anything at all, let alone the hidden meanings layered deep within the political and intellectual movements of Madara’s brood and the hidden villages.

Seemingly reading his mind, Naruto added “And if you don’t have any faith in yourself, Hinata will have faith in you. That’s what she does, with the strength of her feelings. That’s part of the reason I made it this far. Don’t knock it just yet.”

The itchy skin and warm cheeks had returned with a vengeance. Wisdom from Naruto was always unexpected and able to jar loose something deep within Shikamaru. It had been that way from the moment he decided to reform his lazy ways enough to climb the ranks to be Naruto’s advisor, in a future where Kaguya was properly defeated, and Naruto became Hokage the right way. He didn’t know if he could accept his words now, but he nodded in acknowledgement, because he certainly heard them, and he wouldn’t soon forget them.

Opening his mouth to say something (would he admit how broken he felt? Would he deflect with a joke again? Would he say thank you, or goodbye, or anything else he desperately felt crawling up his throat?), he was suddenly distracted by the sensation of movement near the cave entrance. Everyone inside immediately snapped to attention as Hinata stumbled in, her voice steady even despite the rampant fear that was written all over her face.

“The zetsus are here! Ino and I spotted a group of them a few kilometers from the site of the seal, and they’re closing in fast! Ino stayed behind to slow them down, but w-we need to go. Now,” she gasped out, her eyes wide with terror and… was that guilt? Oh. For Ino. And for being unable to give everyone a proper goodbye. Hinata’s feelings were strong, indeed.

Naruto jumped to his feet immediately, all traces of their previous conversation, the mixed look of pain and love, wiped from his face. There was nothing but determination in his eyes now.

“Sasuke!”

“I know, dobe,” Sasuke replied shortly, already amassing all their supplies.

“We’re ready too, Naruto,” Sakura said, a nodding Choji beside her, their arms full of food pills. “Everyone, take one of these; we’re going to need it.”

Shikamaru started gathering parchment and stuffing them into his travel bag, then hopped across the cave, his mind whirling with tension at how sudden everything was. And Ino… He exerted a lot of effort into making sure none of his thoughts were reflected on his face. After exchanging a nod with Choji that he hoped was reassuring and somehow conveyed 17 years’ worth of friendship, he swallowed his portion of food pills with a grimace. Dear gods the taste has not improved.

With one last glance around the HQ they had called home for several weeks, the small group of ninjas gathered in a loose semi-circle around Naruto, who was looking to his left at Hinata.

“Alright everyone, this is it. I know it’s shorter notice than we thought, but I believe in you guys. This is our last shot. Let’s make ‘em regret ever meeting us.” Softer, he said “Lead the way, Hinata-chan.”

And with a careful nod, Hinata activated her byakugan and jumped out of the cave and to the trees, using chakra to land quietly but firmly, the rest of them cascading behind her in a coordinated movement borne of nearly a year of being on the run.

This was it. And I’m not quite ready at all.

Later, Shikamaru would reflect on the fact that his conversation about staring at Hinata would be the last piece of advice this Naruto, his Naruto, would ever be able to give him. 

Chapter Text

Everything felt like it was happening in a hallucination, like that time in her careless early days when she crossed through a miasma of gas during a mission, and she remained drugged until Kurenai-sensei had tortured the antidote out of an enemy nin.

Some things were hazy, like the blur of trees covered in downy verdant leaves around her, or the sound of the puttering breaths of her comrades as she set a breakneck pace, or the thrumming of her own erratic heartbeat.

Other things were clear, passing through her mind’s eye in technicolor; the glare of the blood red moon on dappled patches in the ground (it’s almost as if the earth is bleeding, seeping its life and sorrow onto the surface world), the almost distracting, cotton candy pink of Sakura’s hair in her peripheral vision (does it smell sweet too?), and the bright, sickly beacon of neon white zetsus she could sense ahead, circling the location where she had last left Ino, a few meters from their seal site.

And as always, the enduring silence of the elemental nations seems to reverberate with an unwarranted intensity, permeating both the haze and the technicolor with a presence not meant to be ignored.

It's seemingly random, what receives Hinata’s hyperfocus and what gets pushed into the background, a backing track to the end of the world, as she advances the group ever forward.

The stray kunai embedded in a tree next to her? Each curved metal line of the shiny silver dagger, and each minor scratch in the well-worn handle, stands out in sharp relief against the backdrop of the bark.

The muttered curses of Sakura, the fearful grunts from Choji, and the eerie silence from Shikamaru? All registered and then cast aside to clear space for focusing on other things.

Ino’s body, drenched in a deep red blood somehow even darker than the red of the moon? It stands out in vivid contrast to the white of the zetsus attempting to drag her towards them in an unholy mosh of pale, malleable tissue.

Hinata’s startled shriek was probably piercing to others but sounded like the nothing of the rest of the world to her. Likely, the others couldn’t see Ino yet. But they would. They would see a lot of her, including some of the marbled muscles, sinew, and tendons connecting her shoulder to her chest, and the pale green vomit pooled next to her head, and the sickly white of her left leg, which had already started the absorption process into one of the zetsus.

“INO,” she gasped out, tears rising to her eyes.

The bloody mess in the pile of flesh twitched, and then Hinata’s overactive byakugan caught the bright white of Ino’s teeth, bared in a determined grin.

“Who…knew…the princess…could yell? Don’t worry…. I’m not…dead yet.” She gritted out, shoving some zetsus away. She scrambled for purchase along the ground but couldn’t gain her balance with her left leg acting in total opposition to her, the infection spreading upwards. Her expression morphed from frustrated, to calm, to determined so quickly that Hinata felt deeply unsettled, even as she watched her friend fight for her life at a distance still a bit too far to interfere.

“Oi, Sakura,” Ino called out, trusting in the kunoichi’s ability to hear her, “Do you remember how long Tsunade-sama told us it would take to bleed out from a sudden amputation?”

“What the hell, Ino?” Sakura yelled back, finally getting within view of the situation. “Oh my gods.”

“It’s thirty minutes if you cut the artery, right?” Ino asked, ignoring her. “We’ll probably be either dead or have succeeded in thirty minutes, hmm?”

“Probably,” Sasuke cut in, taking in the situation in a glance and offering no immediate reaction beyond a slight narrowing of his gaze. Hinata could always count on him to be cold and calculating, at least when it came to the trauma of others, although that did not necessarily apply to himself.

“That’s good enough for me, Sasuke-kun.”

“Oi oi, Ino, wait a second—” but Shikamaru’s protests were cut off, as she leaned over with her last remaining kunai, a feral grin decorating her blood-spattered face. She angled it down and through skin and bone with chakra enhanced strength. With a gory “shquick” and a grunt, the zetsu infested lower leg was cut off, and Ino was left with enough wherewithal to hop up, blood streaming down her newly formed stump, drip-dripping onto the forest floor. By now, they had reached a distance where they were able to help her, so Choji surged forward to put his body under one of her arms, and Shikamaru appeared on her other side to steady her by her ribs, avoiding her cut open shoulder.

Ino-Shika-Cho, minus a quarter of one member, standing ready to fight and support one last time.

“Ino-pig are you out of your mind!” Sakura yelled, scissor-kicking one zetsu before spinning to blast another group in the face with a chakra-enhanced punch, screaming “Shannaro!”

Ino lifted her good shoulder in a shrug even as she tossed her last kunai, the one she had used for the amputation, through the head of another zetsu. “It worked, didn’t it? Honestly, this is kind of embarrassing. If these parasites didn’t keep regenerating, I totally would have beat their asses before you guys even got here.”

“Hm. I’ll handle this” Sasuke contributed, snapping his fingers and unleashing Amaterasu on the rest of the hated globs, burning them to ashes they would never recover from.

Naruto landed last, crouching down slightly even as he was wrapped in the glowing orange coat of his sage mode, pupils already forming into the frog’s cross. “Oi, Teme, you took all the fun! I wanted to punch at least one of them.”

“Don’t be so slow next time. This is why you never caught up to me.”

“Maybe I was just trying to avoid seeing your lone wolf act, the performance wasn’t that good.”

Sasuke’s eyes narrowed dangerously, but the corner of his mouth twitched, the most emotion Hinata had seen from him in days. Before he could say, or grunt, anything more, Sakura punched Naruto in the back of his head.

“You idiot, we don’t have time for the banter. Your chakra is lighting up this area like a beacon. It won’t be long until Kaguya comes with more of her legion of trees. We have to get to work.”

Shikamaru nodded grimly, gently leaning Ino until she was supported by Choji at an angle. “She’s right. Let’s head to the clearing and start laying down the rest of the seal.”

A work of a few short moments (that somehow felt like eons passing in a second, a twig passing through the eye of a needle, immense and small at the same time to Hinata’s jumbled mind), found the group settled in the middle of the four seal marks she and Ino had noted earlier in the day. Shikamaru started muttering under his breath as he yanked parchment from his travel bag, placing them in a complicated spiral that had Hinata going dizzy. There was just so much stimulation happening to her senses, and she had yet to shut her byakugan off. This was truly happening right now. We’re going to time travel. Today. Within the next half hour. And all my friends, bar one, are going to be dead. Or worse.

A sudden cluster of sickly, intense chakra distracted her from her dismal thoughts. Turning to get a better picture, her eyes widened as she took in what was coming. There must be thousands of zetsu. And… is that… “Kaguya,” she breathed out, feeling sick and exhilarated with the hysteria of an adrenaline rush.

“What did you say Hinata-chan,” Naruto questioned, halfway turning towards her from his position at one of the seal corners.

“Kaguya. KAGUYA. It’s Kaguya and thousands of zetsus, closing in fast from the northeast. No wait, the zetsus are closing in from every direction! We-We’ll be surrounded in a couple minutes,” she cried out, readying herself to run forward and do her part to distract the white monsters from her friends.

Naruto turned his head in the direction she indicated Kaguya was coming from sharply. “I sense them too.” Sage mode, of course he can. “Shikamaru, are you finished laying the seal?”

Shikamaru, pale and tense, managed to stoically deliver a “Just now.”

“Good. Everyone, take your positions. Remember, Choji you’re on zetsu duty, Ino try to lock onto Kaguya or Black Zetsu after I give the signal, and Sakura try to buy us enough time afterwards.” There were gamely nods in response to his command, everyone starting to shuffle to their positions, except for one, who was now laid out against a tree after encouraging Choji to get moving, you oaf.

“Ino,” Hinata called out, everyone turning back to stare at her. “Can you even stand or move on your own?” She hoped no one had forgotten that Ino was bleeding out from one leg and had a partially separated arm.

Before Ino could answer with a yes that should certainly be a no, Sasuke flash stepped forward and simply looked Ino in the eye, having a conversation Hinata could not decipher. Before she could even attempt to figure it out, Sasuke muttered “Katon!”  and blew a stream of fire at Ino’s stump and another at her shoulder. Her ensuing shout was short but came from deep in her core.

“GYAH.” Ino.

“Oh my fucking gods.” Sakura.

“What?” Hinata.

“Sasuke!” Naruto.

“INO!” Shikamaru and Choji, in tandem.

Everyone’s incredulous reactions clamored around in Hinata’s skull and left her even more disoriented as she stared in disbelief at Ino’s shivering body, now sealed shut in grotesque burns, pink and fleshy looking.

“She couldn’t move around or pull up her hands to do the mind transfer jutsu like that,” Sasuke said with a matter-of-fact tone, “because she was leaking blood and tissue everywhere. This, and the adrenaline boost, will last her long enough.”

“Oi, teme—”

“It’s ok Naruto,” Ino managed to squeak out, her breaths starting to regulate again, “this is what I wanted. Thank you, Sasuke. Now, let’s get to it, we really, truly don’t have any more time.” Then she started to resolutely hop to a position in a copse of trees exactly opposite the direction Kaguya was coming from.

There was nothing they could say to argue with her.

With a grim determination, everyone went back to moving in position, Choji popping his own special Akimichi food pills as he moved to the front of the northeast corner, and Sakura pressing her palms together directly under Ino’s perch. Naruto and Sasuke took up positions in the northwest and southeast, respectively, turning towards the seal, where Hinata and Shikamaru resided in the very middle. In all, they formed an exhausted diamond, ruby red under the cursed moon.

“Should we –” Hinata began, fighting the urge to join her friends and defend them as best she can.

“No Hinata,” Shikamaru replied, “Stay here, next to me.” He looked pained and burdened in such an obvious and uncharacteristic way that Hinata briefly regretted not having the opportunity to speak with him this morning, rather than with Ino. Although perhaps she would not have noticed the extent to his suffering, if Ino had not brought it up. And who knows if they would have spotted the zetsus on time…

Despite the terrible grief and rage, she could sense that Shikamaru was resolute in his ‘no’, and that had her casting aside her regrets for analysis on another day in the future-past.

“Ok,” she agreed, “is there anything we need to do? We didn’t get to discuss the mechanics of the seal in any detail.”

“I know,” he responded tiredly. “It’s complicated and a pain, but just a drop of blood from each of us will activate the seal, and then Sasuke and Naruto will take care of the rest.”

It’s always blood.

“You can do it Hinata!” Naruto said, bouncing on the balls of his feet in preparation.

Naruto believes in me.

Rather than speak any further, Hinata bit into the fleshy pad of her thumb and let a drop fall onto the portion of the seal spiral beneath her sandals. To her left, Shikamaru did the same.

For a moment, Hinata was hysterically convinced that the silence of the elemental nations managed to permeate even the last seven living humans on earth.

Then, chaos, beautiful and terrifying.

The seal began to glow, a dim blue that started to grow when Sasuke and Naruto both slammed their hands down, chakra leaking out from them into the seal at breathtaking speed.

Almost simultaneously, the first of the zetsu horde showed up too, and Choji, in his full giant butterfly form, was off to the races, batting them away from the seal and those working on it with the reckless abandon of someone knowing this was their final stand.

And above all, there was Kaguya, gone one moment, then there the next, in a frightening microsecond.

“There you are, my children,” she said softly, peering at Naruto and Sasuke gently even as she readied orbs of instant death in her hands. “You have finally agreed to come home.”

She didn’t even phrase that as a question.

“No can do, old lady,” Naruto quipped back, lifting his palms from the seal only long enough to activate nine-tails mode, combining it effortlessly with the sage of six paths mode he had continued to hoard, even after their initial sealing failure. On the opposite end, Sasuke silently activated the Susano’o to protect the seal and its occupants from the dematerialization orbs and rods, while also activating his portion of six paths chakra.

“It is always a shame,” Kaguya continued slowly, her voice tinged in both regret and fury, “when children misbehave. Why must we always fight?”

“Oh you misunderstand, crazy lady,” Naruto chirped, sending a chakra cloak over to Sakura, who had black lines spreading from the diamond on her forehead to the palms of her hands and soles of her feet, “I’m not the one fighting today.”

“Mother,” hissed Black Zetsu, sprouting from the ground next to Kaguya, his evil face missing malicious mirth for once, “There’s something about this that seems –”

Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by Ino’s triumphant whoop, followed by a thud as she slumped forward in sync with Black Zetsu. He had been so distracted by Sasuke and Naruto’s ostentatious displays of power that he hadn’t even noticed the dim energy of the dying, but savage, Ino.

“That’s one overgrown shrub taken care of,” Sakura grinned, “And now… Strength of a Hundred!” And with a shout, covered in Naruto’s chakra and partially shielded by a piece of Sasuke’s Susano’o armor, Sakura launched herself at Kaguya, who was too confused by this turn of events, and too confident in her own invulnerability after the team’s months of failure, to dodge. Sakura landed an enhanced uppercut right to her chin, before springing backwards, her right and left legs landing two more consecutive hits to Kaguya’s face before she could react to the first strike.

The incredulous look on Kaguya’s face melted into a thunderous rage that had Hinata rattled from her position of relative safety. “What have you done to my child, insect? Whatever it is, I will return tenfold to you.” And then she hurled a chakra rod at Sakura’s face, following it with more and more as Sakura gamely dodged, darting from side to side, and letting her borrowed armor catch a few more that she could not outmaneuver.

Hinata was suddenly very glad that in one of their previous encounters, Tobirama, Minato, and Naruto had managed to find a way to seal Kaguya’s ability to transport them to various dimensions, or this plan, and Sakura, would have been dead in the water. As it was, Sakura would not be able to last very much longer.

As if in accordance with her worst thoughts, Kaguya materialized behind Sakura in an instant as she attempted to dodge another chakra rod. A blast of energy from Kaguya’s palm blew away Sakura’s torso, leaving only a sliver of her spine, covered in gore, to connect her upper body to her legs. She had already started to regenerate but it was slow and looked painful. A sudden stream of Amaterasu shot towards Kaguya, and she blinked away from Sakura, allowing her seal more time to rebuild her body. Hinata glanced at Sasuke, who was still determinately pressing chakra into the seal, and… was he filtering in some of Kaguya’s leaking energy through himself as well? while staring at Sakura with a glassy look of sorrow so profound that Hinata had to look away. Although she had been around them for the better part of the year, she had not been able to perceive the growing love Sasuke so clearly had for Sakura, a feat of emotional stability that Hinata had thought impossible.

Naruto, she was surprised to see, looked less affected by Sakura’s missing organs. Instead, he was looking at her, with an expression so full of everything that she blushed, unbidden. Suddenly, his eyes became unfocused, in the way she now associated with Kurama speaking to him. Whatever he said caused Naruto to turn bright red. After some spluttering that did nothing to distract him from channeling in more chakra, Hinata heard an exasperated “fine!” and slapped his hands together again, quickly summoning Kurama in his separate, tailed-beast form.

“Finally, Naruto-brat. I thought I was going to die inside you, listening to your heartsick thoughts forever and ever.”

“Stop being dramatic and start doing what I told you to.”

“I’ll put my chakra signature in the seal and direct some of Kaguya’s energy in too. But brat…you should air out some of your thoughts now. You know,” he gestured upwards with one of his tails, where the battle between Kaguya and Sakura had resumed, “that that will not last much longer.”

After staring at Kurama’s toothy grimace for a few moments, Naruto turned away. “I know, old friend. We’re almost done, anyways.” Sighing, he lifted himself off the ground and started walking in Hinata’s direction, too exhausted to use any chakra to enhance his speed.

Should he even be walking through the seal spiral? I guess he would know best.

“Hinata,” he began, then paused. “Actually, Shikamaru, could you turn away for a second. And, uh, maybe have a talk with Sasuke or something?”

Shikamaru, who had been silently watching all the proceedings unfold with a lost expression, eyes fixated on a flagging Choji and an unconscious Ino, attempted a small smirk. “Go ahead, Hokage-sama. I could never disobey your orders.”

Naruto rolled his eyes so hard, she half-expected him to fall over. “Thank you, my loyal subject.”

With that, Shikamaru shuffled around to give them an illusion of privacy, and Hinata felt her heart start to beat faster than it already was.

“Naruto-kun?” She questioned, wondering why he was standing in front of her when he should be finishing the seal, although she noted that neither Shikamaru nor Sasuke looked at all surprised. Perhaps deep down, she wasn’t surprised either.

He let out a small chuckle, then grasped her hands. To her shock, his felt hot, almost scorching from the power of his chakra. She would not pull away for all the cherry blossoms and hot springs in the world.

“Hinata-chan. No. Hinata,” he murmured, dropping the honorific and all pretenses. “There’s a lot I could say to you right now. A lot you probably deserve to hear. But I’m a bit of a coward, you see. That’s what Kurama has been saying anyways, that old fox. I can’t bear to tell you it all. But I can tell you one thing right? I should say it, before I die.”

Hinata was holding her breath, so she couldn’t even let out a startled gasp when she felt Naruto raise one hand from her grasp to caress her face. And afterwards, she could do nothing but widen her eyes when she felt his lips brush her own, once, twice, before settling in for the longest and briefest seconds of her life. The sensation of warmth, softness, and gentle grief settled into her breast and wheedled its way into her heart, permanently.

“I love you too,” he finished once they separated, brushing away a stray tear that had leaked from her unsuspecting eyes.

Too. He knew that I loved him. And he loves me. Too.

“I know its selfish of me. But I couldn’t help it. I wanted to know how it would feel. Just this once.”

Hinata opened her mouth to respond to him, to tell him that she didn’t mind and maybe to scream out in pain that this was the first and last time she would ever get to exist in this shared, loving space of intimacy, but she was interrupted by Shikamaru grabbing her hand and Sasuke yelling out.

“Naruto,” not dobe, that’s a bad sign, “I know this is a bad moment but Sakura…I think she’s about to reach the end of her seal’s capabilities. The seal is almost fully fueled. You know…”

Naruto turned a resigned and hurt eye to Sakura above them, bleeding from multiple gashes and missing several limbs, the last of Naruto’s chakra squeaking out of her bit by bit, the Susano’o cracked and peeling. His groan was guttural and frustrated, the first sign of anger he had shown in ages. Then he seemed to deflate.

“I know Sasuke. I know. Are you ready?”

Sasuke nodded, then turned his head up to look at Sakura, gaze unfathomable. “Sakura. You know, don’t you?” This know was completely different from the word he and Naruto had tossed around earlier. Hinata could sense it somehow. And whatever it is he wanted her to know, she clearly understood, her lips curving in a heartbreaking smile, unable to speak even as Kaguya sent a chakra rod that managed to land on its target, for once.

“You are next, children,” she said, turning her moony gaze to them.

Sasuke’s jaw gritted with tight pain and fury, and then he closed his Sharingan eye and opened his Rinnegan wide. Naruto backed away from the center of the seal, releasing Hinata’s hands so gently that she only noticed because her palms were cold. Once he reached his former position next to Kurama, he shouted “NOW.”

And Sasuke formed his hands in a complex series of hand signs, lightning fast, yelling out “Rinne Tensai!” at the end before stamping his foot into his corner seal. Hinata felt a surge of raw power tempered by a seemingly cool hand on her forehead and cheeks, and she opened her eyes wide to see Sasuke staggering and then falling, the light from his eyes fading before she could say thank you, or goodbye.

A sudden thought occurred to her, devastating and final.

They’re going to die without seeing the sun again. Sakura and Sasuke, already gone. Ino, unaware, and Choji, thin as a reed now, deflating and succumbing to the months of malnourishment and the beating of inexhaustible foes. Kurama too, light disintegrating as he channels all his chakra in. Naruto, my Naruto, standing there, as if Kaguya wasn’t bearing down on him with a glare of superiority. They’re all dying under this blood red moon. Just like everyone else had before.

As if reading her mind, Naruto turned to smile at her, the glowing orange of his form almost as bright as the sun she could only partially remember. “Say hello to the skies for me would ya, Hinata, Shikamaru?”

And then everything started to swirl together, and she screamed soundlessly, feeling Shikamaru grip her hand so tightly she lost blood flow. The last thing she saw before her vision went mercifully black were three black rods piercing Naruto’s body, his torso already starting to crumble to dust. All the while, his mouth was curved into the widest grin she had seen on him since the war began.

He was always the brightest when the world seemed the dimmest.

Hinata would never forget the sight, or her mixed-up emotions, for as long as she lived.

Even as darkness encroached her vision, though, she felt something else. Something wrong. Rather than being suffused only in Naruto and Kurama’s warm soothing chakra, with a hint of Sasuke’s cold fire, she felt something else, powerful, ancient, unstable being added to the mix. From the volatile flaring of heat around her, it seemed as if Kurama’s chakra was violently trying to fight the imbalance by wrapping around her and b u r n i n g.

Kaguya’s power, unfiltered through Naruto’s side of the seal. This can’t be good. Is Shikamaru alri--

Then Hinata’s consciousness was gone before she could finish her final thought, wondering if this was all for nothing, after all.

Chapter Text

Everything hurt. Everything. Even more so than his apocalyptic usual.

His legs felt as bruised as they had when he had once been foolish enough to be dragged into one of Guy and Lee’s bothersome testaments of youth. His mouth felt cottony, dry and sticky as if he hadn’t had a drop of water pass his lips for months. And his head. His brain was pulsating against his skull, and his thoughts were completely fragmented. He couldn’t grasp an idea long enough to expound on it.

I feel like I am forgetting something. Why am I in so much pain? Why does my heart hurt along with my head?

Ok, focus Shikamaru. You’re a Nara. Try to ground yourself.

There are twenty pieces on a shogi board… but there were only seven of us (right?). Eight if the nine-tails counts.

Let’s say we were a king, two gold generals, two silver generals, two knights, and a lance

Which would be which? Naruto is a Hokage. A Hokage without a people to protect takes the place of king in their stead. He was serving up pretty lines to Hinata like a diplomat as well. Sasuke and Kurama can be gold generals; those two were also fueling the seal (what seal?). Hinata is a silver general, and so am I by default I suppose. We were…important to a plan for some reason.

Hinata would blend seamlessly in silver, lit up by actual moonlight.

Choji and Sakura were knights. They hit hard. Or maybe… they used to hit hard.

Choji looked like a stick bug.

Sakura’s spine looked like a stick bug too… (sage above, what?)

Ino. She was a lance. She was missing a few spikes. Her lower leg. Her shoulder.

They were fighting her.

I wonder if Kaguya sensed what we were trying to do. Her energy surged right before we were sent back in tim—

And with a jolt Shikamaru suddenly remembered everything. Naruto was kissing Hinata while he pretended not to notice them; Choji was battling too hard and under too much strain to focus on him trying to say goodbye; Ino was down a few parts and down for the count; Sakura was torn to pieces and disintegrated; Sasuke was saying the final piece of the jutsu before he flopped forward, graceless in death’s repose; Naruto, dying too, asking them to greet the skies on his behalf; Kaguya, mucking up the chakra balance. And there was dizziness and power so sharp and uninhibited flooding his system, scorching his chakra network, and Hinata had been holding on to his hand and he felt some of the nine tails chakra touch his palm to try and help him, but it did nothing to prevent the agony of his cells being ripped apart and and and…

He was having another panic attack, laying there (wherever he was) on the ground in pain, with his eyes glued shut and his awareness foggy. He had never felt so vulnerable before.

Deep breaths, Nara. Focus on what’s around you.

In, the feeling of living, thriving grass beneath his palms.

Out, the sound of forest creatures skittering in the distance.

In, the pungent odor of briny waves carried along by the breeze.

Out, the gritty, earthy taste of dirt stuck in his teeth.

In, the brightness piercing his vision through the thin layer of his eyelids.

That was the sun. And the ocean. And signs of life.

Either he was dead in the Pure Land (and in pain, without his father and Asuma-sensei there to greet him, as some sort of penance), or it had worked. They had successfully landed in the past.

With a groan of effort, he forced his eyelashes to part, blinking into the world around him so he could assess the situation for himself.

The first thing he saw was the sky. Naruto says hello. The direct sunlight made him squint and flinch, but it couldn’t stop him from looking because it was bright, and blue, and there were clouds waiting for him to watch. If Shikamaru were any way a lesser ninja, he would have teared up.

Then he thought about his dead friends, who would never see the clouds again, and he did anyways.

Focus.

Rotating his aching head bit by bit to his left, he noticed a copse of trees, the leaves verdant green with health, and squirrels scurrying along the bark. The small patch of woods resided on a jagged cliff face, which dropped steeply into a whirling mass of frothy water that lurched back and forth in a dark blue spiral. So that was the ocean I sensed earlier. That cliff face above it seems familiar too.

Suddenly, alertness crashed into Shikamaru with a biting clarity.

The ocean? We were nowhere near an ocean. The seal was supposed to drop us in the same location where we originated from, the clearing that we chose.

Spinning his head around to his other side, fast enough to twinge the delicate muscles in his neck, he took in the vague mountain peaks that served as a scenic backdrop to sad beige ruins. Twisted metal rose out of the earth like demented hands crawling out of their grave. If he focused more closely, he could make out runes posted here and there on various pillars. Recurring more often than any other symbol was a notorious spiral he recognized instantly, borne on the back of every Hidden Leaf ninja for decades.

Shit. He was in…

His train of thought was abruptly interrupted by a whimper sounding out behind him. He forgot about Hinata.

Adrenaline bursting through his veins by his series of disturbing realizations, he found the strength to force his throbbing legs to cooperate and leapt upwards, whipping around quickly so he could see her and confirm that at least she was alright, despite Kaguya’s untimely disruption of the seal.

Fluttering her eyelashes at him dazedly lay a young woman, with long bright red hair and crystalline blue eyes, the visible skin on her wrists and ankles covered in swirling seal tattoos.

What the…

Shikamaru couldn’t help but let out a snarl as he palmed his kunai furiously, eyes fixed on the stranger who was beginning to show more awareness in her gaze.

“Who the hell are you?”

Nara Shikamaru was many things, as had been established before. Confused and afraid had unfortunately made its way onto the list. The facts were simple. His underperforming (yet still genius) brain had deduced, one, that he had indeed made it back to the past, to a time before the Fourth Great Ninja War had destroyed most nature. Despite this seemingly positive news, his body was experiencing more pain than he had accounted for. Even more unfortunately, his third deduction was that, for some reason, he was in the ruins of the Hidden Eddy Village, which was at least three days journey away from where the time-space seal had been drawn. And fourth, instead of being greeted with the familiar black curtain of hair that framed Hinata’s pale lavender irises, he saw a random redheaded woman who looked suspiciously like the description of Uzumaki Mito. In short, he was missing his time travel companion, and faced an unknown factor alone, physically compromised, and far from where he should be.

For a second, he wondered if this truly was his punishment in the afterlife.

The stranger widened her gaze at him, and drew in a breath sharply, seeming to be haunted by something. She was staring at him. Or rather, she was staring slightly above his head, drawing in breath more and more quickly with each passing moment. The back of his eyes, nestled right under his pounding head, began to burn for an instant. She let out a soft squeak, looking startled, and the sensation stopped but his heartbeat accelerated. Her panic only fueled his own, causing him to stamp it down maliciously and repeat with a harsher tone:

“I’m asking you again, identify yourself! Who are you?”

This was not a calm, rational, or particularly intelligent approach to an unidentified kunoichi who, judging by her red hair, likely had more claim to Uzushiogakure than him. But Shikamaru was too disoriented from his whiplash of emotions that had already taken place in the last few minutes, from euphoria to grief to horror to panic, to regulate himself. His father would have been disappointed, if he knew. Logical, gifted, genius Nara Shikamaru, reduced to an impulsive time traveler armed solely with one kunai, waiting on the words of an unknown entity of unregistered skill and unidentified motives.

“Shi--,” she began incredulously, “Shikamaru-kun? I-is that you?”

Shikamaru tensed, his knees bending into a familiar fighting stance.

“How do you know my name?”

The redhead got to her feet nervously, and took a single step forward, pausing when she saw how his shoulders coiled, preparing to strike. If he were thinking clearly, he would have immobilized her with his shadows by now.

“What are you doing, Shikamaru-kun? It’s me. Hinata. I don’t understand what’s going on, but you must calm yourself, you seem to be in a lot of pain. Let me help you,” she finished gently, palms shaking but gaze resolute, if a bit anxious still.

“Hinata? You can’t possibly…” He paused, stopping to look more closely at her form. The gentle curve of her cheeks, the sharpness of her chin, the clothes she was wearing, the familiar purple top and shorts that had been her constant mission gear for the past few years. Sage, this really is…

“Hinata. What happened to you?” He asked, shocked.

“What do you mean?”

“Look at your wrists, Hinata.”

She glanced down, finally seeming to notice the dark black tattoos that had wrapped around her wrists like a stylized bracelet, the seal marks intricate and almost gossamer, like a web.

“Oh,” she breathed, fixating her gaze on the black markings. “That’s new. Is this what was supposed to happen?”

Shikamaru chuckled mirthlessly at the question. “None of this was supposed to happen. Just look,” he muttered, gesturing with his hands to have her follow him to a small puddle of ocean water he had seen glinting in the sun a few meters away. She followed him dutifully, seeming to have a better range of motion than he was. At least she doesn’t seem to be in pain.

“Look at what Shikamaru-kun?”

“Lean over,” he replied, gesturing to imply that she should look down into the pool. “Look at your reflection.”

She looked unsure, but darted her eyes to look slightly above his head one more time, before crouching down to look into the water. Shikamaru narrowed his eyes, catching the oddity of her glance again. Troublesome.

Nevertheless, his suspicions were cast aside when he heard her loud gasp.

“My hair, m-my eyes. What, what’s happening? I look like…”

“… an Uzumaki,” he finishes. “A full-blooded one, from Uzushiogakure. I don’t quite know what’s going on, but we somehow landed in the Village Hidden in the Eddies, and you’ve turned up looking like a native.”

“I don’t understand. How could my appearance just suddenly change? And what happened to my byakugan?”

That is an excellent question.

“Do you still feel connected to them in some way?” Shikamaru questioned, cringing a bit at his own uncertainty. He was not very well-versed in how exactly ocular Kekkei Genkai were supposed to feel to the members of the favored clans. Regardless, Hinata seemed to take his question seriously, thumbing her chin and looking up from her reflection.

“Maybe? Perhaps if I,” and then without any further warning, she shouts “Byakugan!”

In an instant, Shikamaru finds himself staring into the familiar pale lavender gaze of the Hyuuga, the veins circling her temples standing out in sharp relief against her face.

“They’re back,” he exclaims, surprised his suggestion actually led to this. “Say it again.”

After a moment to reacclimate herself to her once-again wide field of vision, she acquiesced with a quiet “ok.” Brows furrowed in concentration, she again exclaimed “Byakugan.” In an instant, her eyes returned to that unfamiliar crystal blue.

Wow.

“It looks like you might be able to turn it on and off, like the Uchiha do,” he mused, curious despite, or even because of the sheer impossibility of what was happening at this moment. He had never seen or heard of the trademark Hyuuga pale eyes appearing or disappearing by the will of the user. Judging by Hinata’s consternated expression, neither had she. He watched closely, however, as a sudden realization seemed to strike her.

“Maybe that could explain…” she murmured, the rest of the sentence said too softly for him to hear.

“Explain what,” he questioned, sensing that there was something she wasn’t telling him. And her eyes were darting above his head again.

“Um,” she began, “Perhaps it’s better if you see for yourself. I might have imagined some of it as well. I was a bit… unfocused when I awoke.”

Shikamaru was confused. Again. It might become a permanent state if he was not careful. “See what?”

Instead of responding with words, Hinata only slowly reached out to grasp his hand, encouraging him with a squeeze to crouch down and look into the puddle himself. He consented to her gentle guidance and gazed down.

Ah. She meant that I should see that.

His hair, wrapped in his usual spiky ponytail, had somehow become an ombre, remaining dark at the roots but fading into a white tinged with pale purple at the tips, making him look like he had dipped his hair in rice flour and colored powdered sugar sold at festivals. It was a look so unlike him that he almost dismissed it out of hand, fashioning himself as a hallucinator. But no. Hinata had seen it too. Hinata had wanted to show him that she was not the only person who was changed. Leaning forward more, he could see a seal mark, nearly identical to the bands wrapped around her wrists and ankles, originating beneath his shirt and crawling upwards, gracing his collarbones and curving behind him, presumably to end at the nape of his neck.

Was this a side effect of the seal, like Hinata asked? No, it couldn’t be. They calculated everything. There shouldn’t have been such a drastic change in their appearance, and there shouldn’t have been markers of a seal left on their person either. It shouldn’t be possible.

Although my calculations assured me that we would be hundreds of kilometers away, as well. What if I failed in this, too?

“Shikamaru-kun?”

He couldn’t respond to her. He could feel his chest tighten again in the beginnings of another panic attack. Sage, he couldn’t do that in front of her, his last shame bared open. The more he fought it, however, the harder it was to breath. The back of his eyes started to burn again, and he shut his lids against the pain, fighting it.

“Shikamaru!”

He was beginning to hiccup a little, his attack in its early stages. If he didn’t get a hold of himself soon, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from a full meltdown, with Hinata to fret and bear witness. He forced his eyes open again, and though he tried to avoid it, caught another glimpse of himself.

And what the fuck was that.

His eyes had changed. They were periwinkle, almost white, and pupil-less. He looked like a Hyuuga. No, more specifically, he looked like her. Kaguya. And now that he thought about it, the ends of his hair looked like hers too.

The shock he felt at that thought was so intense that he could do nothing but succumb to the panic suffusing every part of his being. This was worse than the memories that bombarded him every night in the cave, worse than his earlier crumpling due to reintroduced grief. Nothing had gone according to plan, and he looked like that monster.

Heartbeat thundering in his ears, he choked, unable to draw enough air into his lungs with his rapid In-Out-In-Out-Out-In-In-In-Out breathing. What’s happened. What does this mean for us. Why are we here? Why do we look like this? Who are we? When are we?

The sudden realization that they could be at a random point in the past, rather than the agreed upon date of a few months before the infamous Chuunin exams, accelerated his breathing like a runaway train.

“SHIKAMARU! Kami!” then a disembodied “Byakugan!”

He didn’t even care that he was scaring Hinata anymore. The conciseness of the plan, the knowledge that he and Hinata were going to work together (in their original forms) was the only thing that had kept him from spiraling too deeply into grief and rage before their trip. Now? Now all he felt was fear, visceral and unbecoming, but real, nonetheless.

Distantly he felt gentle jabs hitting his chakra points in his shoulder, chest, and abdomen. The small part of himself that was still Nara Shikamaru, genius, registered that Hinata was trying to redirect his chakra flow to boost healing, and hopefully calm him. Unfortunately, Nara Shikamaru, the fearful, confused, and angry war veteran, had control over most of his usually brilliant mind. And so, his eyes still burning, his head still aching, he whipped his head around and met her purple eyes with his own, stumbling backwards to the ground as he did so.

In an instant, he felt a large rush of energy leave him, and he slumped, exhausted. Belatedly, Hinata’s efforts kicked in, and he felt his lungs expand to take in more air. With a mix of tiredness and oxygen, his panic began to abate. The burning of his eyes simmered down to a low throbbing.

Looking up, once he was finally composed enough to move, he was instantly filled with horrified regret. Hinata looked like she had been blasted back a few meters away from him, and she was folded in on herself unnaturally.

Did I do that?

“Hinata? Hinata!” He croaked out fretfully, abandoning what was left of his tattered pride to half crawl half stumble towards her. Softly, he turned her over, and laid one hand on her cheek while another gripped her shoulder.

“Hinata, are you ok? I’m… sorry. I’m sorry. Hinata, open your eyes,” he pleaded, guilty and meek and a failure.

After what seemed like eons of waiting, he felt her cheek twitch and her eyes, back to a sparkling blue with black pupils, opened.

Thank the sage.

He breathed a sigh of relief, that quickly dissipated when she spoke.

“Shikamaru-kun? What are we doing here on the ground?” she remarked, tilting her face in delicate confusion. “I… apologize. My head is a little clouded, but I thought you were going to show me something in the puddle?”

Shikamaru stared back at her, perplexed, a constant state of being at this point in time. She had just witnessed him having a panic attack after staring into the water and seeing his appearance. She couldn’t have possibly forgotten…

Damn it. Did I…did I make her forget? When I looked at her? Isn’t that something Naruto mentioned Kaguya used to do, based on the stories told by the Sage of the Six Paths?

This was not good. Somehow, some way, Nara Shikamaru had managed to stumble and fall harder than he ever had before.

With a surge of insight, he remembered his last fleeting feelings right before he had gotten sucked away into numbness by the seal’s completion. The rush of uninhibited power that had felt old and wrong as it sizzled across his body, and the paltry efforts of the nine tails to protect him, too focused on Hinata.

That must have been Kaguya’s chakra, channeled into the seal with no limiter.

It changed their destination.

It changed their appearance.

It had likely changed their target time period.

It had turned him into a monster that altered the mind, without consent, of his only living friend. And he didn’t even know how he had done it.

We are doomed.

Chapter Text

Hinata did not understand what was going on, but she was completely certain that something was wrong. Otherwise, her wrists would not be encircled with seal marks, when she had always been warned that seals placed on one’s skin was ill-advised and had the potential to be unstable. Otherwise, she would not be haunted by the chaotic remembered pain of conflicting powerful chakras enhanced by nature, threading across her skin and through her hair and hurting her. Otherwise, Shikamaru would not have been clutching her gracelessly, dark eyes wild and confused, and hair multicolored, looking and acting almost like a total stranger. Otherwise, she would not feel like she was missing something important.

It would be easy to cast off her worries as a side effect of the ordeal of the day. After all, when she had first awoken in this unfamiliar place, her inner thoughts had been tumultuous. With her eyes still closed, she could sense the sun’s warmth on her cheeks and the lack of silence all around her, from the crashing of the mysterious waves to the startled cries of birds. There was life, teeming all around her, which she had never thought she would hear again in her lifetime.

That meant it was all real. The time-travel seal, Naruto’s long-awaited confession, cut short by the deaths of all her old friends, the dizziness, the seeping feeling of ancient wrongness. It was all real. And despite her conviction to see this plan through, Hinata couldn’t help the whimper she let out as she was hit with emotional whiplash. Although her body did not feel anymore hurt than was normal (although there was… something off balance), her grief more than made up for it.

I’m sorry, Ino, Sakura, Naruto, everyone. You brought me back to a world full of life that you will not ever see. Thank you. I’m sorry.

Opening her eyes had taken an embarrassing amount of willpower, unbecoming of a kunoichi in whom so much faith had been placed. However, it was the best that she could do. And she knew, as she took her first look at the sky (Ah, old friend. Uzumaki Naruto, the Rokudaime Hokage of a future that shall not take place again, says hello), that her loved ones would not begrudge her for her stray tear.

As she sat up, she rubbed her head, attempting to get her bearings in this strange environment. A scuffed sound in front of her brought her focus to a man, who looked just like Shikamaru, if he had doused his hair in pastel paint, and had something similarly pale and strange flickering in and out of his eyes.

What on earth?

Based on their ensuing interaction, the confusion was mutual. She registered the shock and fear in the grim set of his mouth when he demanded to know who she was. She saw the calligraphy on her wrists and ankles, which matched the markings she glimpsed on his chest. She heard the hesitance in his voice when he asked her to follow him to a small puddle of ocean water, their steps echoing amongst the ruins that surrounded them. And she…somehow found herself on the ground, dazed, looking up at Shikamaru and displaced from the pool she was sure they had only just reached.

And that was all she remembered, communicated succinctly to a grim Shikamaru who looked increasingly more untamed, dark brows furrowed, with each subsequent sentence.

“So, you don’t remember anything after that?”

“No,” Hinata replied gently, cautiously setting her hand on his shoulder like he was a wild animal. “I didn’t even realize there was anything to remember.”

Shikamaru let out a short, harsh breath. “Well, that’s… I’m not sure how to process that.”

“I don’t know what happened to cause this, but perhaps you can start by reminding me of what just happened prior to this incident Shikamaru-kun.”

Pursing his lips, Shikamaru rose back to his feet, pulling her up with him. “Yeah, that’s probably a good plan. I’m sure you’ve seen that my hair and eyes are… different now. Yours are too.”

Hinata’s hands flew to her hair, eyes wide as she gaped back at him. “Is my hair white now too?” That would make me look like a ghost. The ghost of future-past. It seemed petty for her to worry more about the color rather than the fact that they had undergone some sort of genetic modification, but it was sometimes easier to focus on the superficial. Shikamaru was already clearly worried enough for the both of them.

“No, no,” he said, “It’s bright red. Uzumaki red. Then there’s also your eyes. Come see for yourself in the water, it’s simpler than explaining.”

Uzumaki red. Just like Naruto’s mom. Oh.

Hinata did not know how to feel about the fact that she looked like an Uzumaki now when she could never be an Uzumaki (by marriage at least) in this life. So she focused on the second part of the statement instead.

“My eyes?” Before Shikamaru could respond, she walked over to the pool and looked. Her immediate thought was that she was looking at a field of cornflowers, bright blue and cheerful, framed by a burning red sunset. She had Uzumaki hair, that much was undeniable. And she had Namikaze blue eyes. Was this the traces of Naruto’s chakra, encircling her and changing her appearance? Shikamaru looked nothing like her, however. He looked a bit like Kaguya, in fact. And judging by the fear underlying his voice, he had realized that too, more immediately than she had.

Wait. She was getting sidetracked by thoughts of Naruto, as she often did, and thoughts of Shikamaru too which was a new, wholly different, but likely permanent phenomenon. Regardless, if her eyes were blue (Naruto blue) then what had happened to her Kekkei Genkai?

“Shikamaru! My Byakugan—" she began.

“—Is still there. We tested it before,” he cut in. “If you concentrate and yell out byakugan, it should activate. It looks like you can turn it on and off by will now, which is weird but probably useful.”

That’s very odd. I have never heard of that in my entire clan history. If my father or the elders knew this was possible, they would likely be furious. But I am glad I didn’t lose it, even for a connection to Naruto.

“I’m glad,” Hinata said simply, leaving her ruminations to herself. She did not think she needed to add to Shikamaru’s obvious stress. He still had more to explain, anyways.

As if picking up on the presence of her unspoken words, he cleared his throat and continued “Yes. Well after we discussed your eyes, my eyes flickered and suddenly you were blasted away from me. When you reawoke, you had forgotten the last few minutes, and here we are. So, now you’re all caught up.”

He was hiding something from her. She could tell immediately, familiar with his avoidant stare and his stiff posture, not to mention the clear topic jump from her eyes to his suddenly malfunctioning. She wondered what could have triggered such a thing, whether it was his will to make her forget whatever it was he was ashamed of, or the sheer unpredictability of a power that had suddenly come to him.

No matter what it was, Hinata was scared. Shikamaru was uncertain, volatile, and riddled with an unexpected power as a result of genetic modifications they were both affected by, and he was unwilling to tell her the whole truth of what happened. That was dangerous. Already, their partnership was fraying. She decided to let his trigger go, in favor of figuring out what on earth was going on. Already her mingled joy and pain at seeing and hearing a world full of life again was being overshadowed by anxiety.

Hoping to keep tension out of her voice to steady him, she asked “Do you think you were the cause of my memory loss?”

The answer was obvious. But he needed to admit it to himself in order to move forward.

A pause. And then, a defeated sigh. “It’s a pain to think about it, but probably. It’s a power that Kaguya had, according to Naruto’s retelling of the life story of the Sage of Six Paths.”

Shock was such an odd emotion. It was pervasive, and showed up uninvited, even when she was asking leading questions to get the answers she already suspected. Kaguya, though. Shikamaru somehow has one of the powers of an ancient rabbit chakra goddess. If Kiba were here, he would already be laughing incredulously at the impossibility of it all.

“I’m sorry, by the way,” Shikamaru mumbled, interrupting her train of thought. “I didn’t mean to mess with your head.”

He looks so defeated.

Hinata, in a bold move, gently lay a hand on his chin, bringing him out of his slouched posture, turning his head high enough to meet her eyes. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose, Shikamaru.” No honorific, for my dear friend. “I forgive you, anyways.”

If Hinata concentrated, she could see the faintest blush rise on his cheeks, before he softly pulled away from her. “You wouldn’t blame a wasp for stinging you, Hinata. But thank you.”

His uncharacteristic bashfulness (everything was so uncharacteristic of Shikamaru these days that she felt redundant even commenting on it) made her stomach warm, soothing some of her worry. She wished she could bask in that feeling forever.

But the mystery of their abilities took precedent.

“Have you noticed anything else different about us Shikamaru?” Hinata asked after she thought he had calmed himself enough.

He furrowed his brow again, “No, not that I’ve seen. I feel a bit off internally, and my body is in pain, but that probably has to do with the seal, and the…eyes. And the hair.”

“You’re in pain?” Hinata exclaimed, eyes wide. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“Well, we were a little distracted. And the pain isn’t a big deal. Don’t you feel a little achy too?”

“No, I don’t,” she said uncertainly, “Although I do feel a little strange too, inside. Let me check with my Byakugan.” She was genuinely out of her depth when it came to the medical side effects of time travel, but she had minor training in the healing arts and her eyes could find any internal or chakra issue with ease.

Likely drawing the conclusion that she would be helpful enough, Shikamaru nodded and gestured for her to go ahead.

“Byakugan!” she called, and suddenly her eyes were back to how she remembered, the world alight in sharp vividness. For just a moment, she was distracted by how much more sensory input she was receiving, now that the moon was uncovered, and forest animals still lived, and the earth still moved. It was beautiful. It was painful. It was bright.

Although, not quite as bright as the mass of chakra she could see flowing within Shikamaru.

“Oh my gods!” she burst out, eyes taking in every inch of his body.

“What is it? What did you see?”

“Your chakra pool… it’s massive. I have never seen growth to this extent before! It’s almost as large as Naruto’s naturally is, without Kurama. And the way it’s flowing within you…it looks a bit chaotic, but it’s organized at the same time. And it’s concentrating in your eyes and your feet, for some reason.” she rushed out, relaying information as fast as she gathered it.

“As much chakra as Naruto? But he’s a monster!” Shikamaru called out, surprise rendering him still and distracting from his own fears for once. “And I can understand my eyes, but I haven’t noticed anything suspect about my feet.”

“I know, and I—” Hinata was distracted from whatever she had begun to say when she accidentally looked down at herself with her eyes still activated.

Sage above, Shikamaru was not the only one whose chakra had increased.

“Hinata? Are you ok? What do you see?”

“I think this is another consequence of the time travel,” Hinata finally said, turning her arms around in wonder. “My chakra is also much larger than it used to be, nearly on par with yours.”

After a few moments of shared disbelief, Shikamaru’s lips twitched into a sardonic grin. “So, we went back in time, and apparently ended up in genetically modified bodies that have changed our features, wrapped us in seal marks, granted us strange abilities, and created chakra monsters.”

“…yes, it appears so. I take it that none of this was supposed to happen.”

“Well, I suppose you never know what you’re dealing with when you meddle with a half-finished hidden fuinjutsu,” he muttered petulantly, head turned up at the sky, “but no, I had not predicted this.”

This was fine.

No, it wasn’t fine at all. If Shikamaru hadn’t been able to predict it, no matter how far off his game Ino claimed that he was, then clearly something had gone wrong, or at the very least, interfered with.

Naruto, Ino, Neji-nii-san. What would you do?

Enough, Hinata. They all died believing in you. What would I do? Gather more information.

Refocusing on the present, she could sense Shikamaru’s gears turning, already sorting through information at a lighting fast speed. This was a puzzle that perhaps she could help him solve.

“Do you suspect what caused all this to happen? I know Naruto said something about changing our souls with the seal so that we did not conflict with the presence of our past selves,” she questioned, remembering the initial conversation that had sparked this all, eons ago.  

Unfortunately, he was already shaking his head before she finished. “No, no, that component of the seal shouldn’t have affected us, at least not to this extent. Naruto was supposed to insert a small piece of the Kyuubi chakra into our system so that our souls would be recast a bit more in tune with nature chakra. That would have distinguished us enough from our past selves, without any of our features changing.”

That was a dead end, then.

“If it wasn’t the seal, do you think something interfered?”

“Well,” he began slowly, “We shouldn’t rule out the seal quite yet. But I remember, right before I passed out and woke up here, this feeling of wrongness.”

Hinata remembered that feeling too. It had made her skin crawl, and then burn, as the nine-tails chakra fought against it, using her body as a battleground.

“I felt it too! It was something ancient and unregulated. Like Kaguya’s chakra,” she said cautiously.

Shikamaru flinched at her name, but continued to speak, starting to get caught up in the intellectual mystery. “The way the seal was designed needed some of her chakra to work. Sasuke and Naruto were supposed to use their Six Paths chakra to connect with her and filter in her energy while removing some of the wildness.”

The picture was starting to come together for her. “But Naruto di—got struck with her rods right as he finished the activation,” she concluded.

Solemnly, Shikamaru nodded. “Yes. Without Naruto as an anchor point, her chakra probably flooded the seal unbidden at the last minute. I could feel Kurama trying to protect you, but it didn’t extend to me completely. Maybe… actually, probably, that’s why you ended up with Uzumaki features and I ended up with hers.”

It made horrifying sense. She was torn between gratitude for the tailed beast Naruto had called a friend, and terror that she had been altered as a result of wild nature chakra. Anything could have happened to them. Anything could still happen, while they remained ignorant.

And something was still suspicious about the delicate seal markers encircling her wrists and ankles, and adorning Shikamaru’s chest. With her byakugan, she could see small hints of chakra entangled in it, pulsating with power. Though more untamed, it didn’t feel like Kaguya’s. It was almost inviting.

I wonder…

“Maybe we will find more answers, and see what else has been altered, if we reinvestigate the spot we woke up in, Shikamaru,” she mused, shelving her suspicions for the moment.

The prospect of more answers, and something to analyze, coaxed another small smile out of Shikamaru. A big win for me. “That sounds like a good plan, Hinata. Although I have to admit, after the last half hour I don’t really remember what direction it was in,” he replied, gesturing wildly at the indistinct crumbled landscape.

“I’ve got it,” Hinata said, turning her byakugan out to try and trace an unnatural chakra signature.

There! A few meters away, there was a concentrated sphere of chakra hovering above a vaguely indented patch of dirt.

After making sure Shikamaru would follow her, she hopped ahead, landing softly at the edge of the chakra region, taking care not to disturb the ground. Close up, no longer distracted by the sensation of being in a living world or the fact that Shikamaru had ombre hair, she could tell that there were symbols etched in a spiral, reminiscent of the original time-space seal.

Shikamaru was already striding forward, turning along with the spiral and seeming to find meaning in some of the marks.

“This is like a mirror of the seal we wrote,” he muttered under his breath, almost to himself “but some of the details have been changed.”

“Changed?”

“Like this section here,” he gestured down to an complicated series of symbols she vaguely recalled from her Academy days, “indicates the location we were sent to.” And with his words she could see the distinctive spiral that marked Uzushiogakure as the location. Perhaps due to random chance induced in the chaotic chakra mixing, they were directed to a place that had a high concentration of fuinjutsu.

“And this section here,” Shikamaru continued, oblivious to her speculation, “should tell us which time—”

Hinata had spent enough time around Shikamaru in the last few days to know that a sudden cut-off was a bad sign. She was proven right when his eyes started flickering pale purple again, pearlescent and eerie.

“FUCK,” he burst out, looking seconds away from pulling his hair out. “This can’t be right!”

“What’s wrong Shikamaru,” Hinata asked, but she could already make a guess.

We’re in the wrong time.

“We’re in the wrong time!” He confirmed her thoughts with an indignant scoff. “We were supposed to be here a few months before the Chuunin exams! By then most of the movements and locations of the Akatsuki members were accounted for, and Orochimaru had already left, and Itachi had been weakened by his illness. It would have been the perfect opportunity to engage in small strikes and change everything. This is what we planned for months!”

Shikamaru’s distress was a story told in the lines creasing his forehead, the tension carried in his shoulders, and the dangerous paleness of his eyes. This reaction, as far as she could remember, was the most unkempt she had ever seen him.

“We made a plan,” he kept repeating, “we made a plan.”

Loathe to startle him, but finding it necessary to interrupt, Hinata approached him as quickly as she dared and softly asked “Shikamaru. Calm down. When are we?”

As she grew closer, he swiftly shut his eyes, likely unwilling to repeat her earlier amnesiac episode. “From what I can tell, we’ve landed about a year before the Uchiha massacre. When we were all seven. We’re six years, and at least two different Akatsuki members, too early. And this means Obito is still lurking about the village on high alert too.”

Six years too early.

Hinata, while not overly optimistic, was a fairly hopeful person. But now she could understand why Shikamaru kept repeating “we had a plan” ad nauseum. The factor of years changed everything, from the location of allies and enemies to the number of variable actions the other nations, and the Leaf, could and would take in the future.

More uncertainty meant more risk, especially with only the two of them. This was not good at all.

I’m sorry Sakura, Ino, Naruto, everyone. The plan must be scrapped from the start.

Chapter Text

Shinobi were calm, decisive, and controlled. They didn’t turn over so much as leaf without meaning to, and they remained clear-eyed and observant under pressure. They were meticulous, refined, and deadly, the tip of their nation’s spear, destined for clandestine battles meant to protect the interests of their people.

This is why, for the next few minutes, Nara Shikamaru would be temporarily dropping his designation as a ninja. Right at this moment, he was just a man, a teenager really, who was having a perfectly reasonable and prolonged chaotic negative outburst after their blown time travel journey set a lit match on his powder keg of unacknowledged, tumultuous emotions.

In layman’s terms, Shikamaru was losing his mind. The irony was not lost on him.

“Fuck! We had a plan. Dammit! We’re too far back. Shit! What’re we supposed to do? There are too many variables, I—I--. Fuck! We had a plan.” He had been vacillating between muttering and screaming the same mix of profanity and babble for the past… he doesn’t know exactly how long. Vaguely, he can sense that his lip is bleeding from biting it too hard one of the many times he tried to cut himself off, and the skin around his finger beds are raw from ceaselessly picking at them. Most concerningly, his eyes haven’t stopped aching. He knew, deep in his mind, that if he opened them and looked in a mirror, the ominous purple gaze of Kaguya would be staring back at him, ready to wreak an unknown havoc on Hinata and whoever else was unlucky enough to wander past them.

Actually, the mirror was a good idea. Maybe if he looked himself in the eye, he could make himself forget that everything had gone wrong. Maybe he could forget everything that lead to this moment too, the war, the deaths. Even farther back, before Pain attacked the village, before Asuma was killed, before Sasuke ever left. Before he started the Academy to carry on his family’s proud and violent legacy.

In this dream world, all he would remember were his friends and the clouds.

Through his hysteria, Shikamaru could see the thread of true bitterness weaving in his panicked thoughts. Being a ninja had done no favors for him. He had been too lazy to want to be one in the first place, and now, after years of death and trauma and failure playing on repeat in his mind over and over and over and over and… He didn’t want to be a ninja, if it meant endless suffering and inadequacy like this. He didn’t deserve to be a ninja. And a Nara? He wasn’t cool, collected, or particularly smart at this moment. He was bleeding, ranting, and closing his eyes against an alien power. He was scaring Hinata, most likely.

He didn’t deserve to be a Nara either.

Not even half a day in the past, and I have somehow managed to mess everything up AND I’ve lost it even sooner than I had assumed. Sorry, Hinata, I guess this is all up to you now, if we can even salvage this.

His last thought tipped him over the edge. Abruptly he stopped his mumbling and opened his eyes, careful to avert his gaze so he didn’t look into Hinata’s. He could see her out of his periphery still. She was staring at him, wide-eyed (bright blue, now, how weird was that) and with dry lips slightly parted. The only sane living member of the savior squad.

He couldn’t help the giggle that burst out. Savior squad, that’s quite some alliteration, almost a Lee level joke. The giggle turned into a chuckle. Lee is still alive right now, huh. I wonder if his parents have already died. Now we’re far enough back for that to still be an uncertainty. The chuckle turned into a cackle. If we saved them, Lee would probably be happy. But if we saved them, then would that change anything? Would Might Guy still be so vigorous? Will his parents somehow go on a mission or a journey that sets them up with an Akatsuki member and change everything? Will we lose even faster and more graphically than before? His cackle was now a full-on sob.

We had a plan. We had a plan. Now there are too many options. Screw the plan.

Distantly he heard a noise, like someone was saying something, but he couldn’t hear anything over the choked sound of his own shameful tears. Shinobi didn’t have panic attacks and emotional breakdowns. But Shikamaru did, and right in front of Hinata too.

Oh Hinata. She’s probably the one calling me. My fellow silver general, loyal even now that I’ve taken my piece out of the game. Hehehehe…

The distant chatter grew silent. And then

Thump!

A harsh palm-strike straight into the center of his chest sent him flying through the air and out of his head. Ow.

“Shikamaru! I’m so sorry! But you weren’t breathing well, and your eyes were starting to look extra bright which was probably a bad sign, and you were crying, and you couldn’t h-hear me, s-so I just decided to hit you! I’m sorry. Are you alright,” Hinata rambled out, kneeling in front of him in obvious worry. Her byakugan was active again, leaving him with something familiar to focus on amid the sea of red.

His chest was a bit numb. He could feel the point at which she had blocked some of his chakra. If she had not held back, he probably would be nursing broken ribs and a fully skewed chakra system. So, in all, he was alright. And better, shock had rendered his head momentarily clear.

“Um… yeah, Hinata,” he finally eked out, slowly sitting back up. “I’m fine.”

“Ok,” she nodded, “Ok. That’s good.”

“Ok.” Shikamaru was still a little out of it. But at least he had stopped crying and laughing maniacally. And his eyes were no longer aching, probably thanks to Hinata’s chakra block. Small mercies.

Hinata looked uncomfortable with the silence. He couldn’t blame her. She had just witnessed sardonic, scathing, and relaxed Shikamaru have a tantrum that would have him benched and seeing a Yamanaka in normal times.

Clearing his throat, he said, with a low voice “Sorry about…all of that. I didn’t mean to lose it quite like that. I just, seeing the date…I’m sorry.” He was sorry. He had never handled loss very well, and a loss of control was sometimes even worse. But it didn’t excuse freaking out in front of her. He should have kept it down, like he was supposed to.

“It’s perfectly fine, Shikamaru,” Hinata said firmly, grasping his hand and pulling him up to his feet. “I’m not upset at all. Look at me.” She waited for him to turn his head to see her face. “Do I look mad at all?”

To his shock, she didn’t. She didn’t look angry, or disappointed, or frustrated that she had been stuck with a defective model. In her gentle gaze, he only saw sadness and… affection. For him.

“Shouldn’t you be?” He blurted out. “I’m supposed to be helping you and figuring something out, not…crying in front of you like a villager child.”

“Shikamaru,” she said, her hair lending her an air of protective ferocity, like a vixen protecting her cubs, “If you can’t break down in front of me, then we aren’t partners at all. It’s alright to feel sad, or mad right now. I know you, and Naruto, and Sasuke-kun worked hard to plan for this. I…I’ve wanted to cry for the longest time.” And as if admitting that set her off, he saw tears start to gather in her eyes.

“Hinata,” he whispered, reaching out a shaking hand to grab one of hers. They were soft and delicate on the outside, but he could sense the hard calluses on her palm from years of hard work and training.

“No, this is ok Shikamaru,” she declared, still quietly tracking tears down her cheeks. “It’s ok for us to cry. This is a bad situation. We can be sad. But what we won’t do,” she continued, eyes still blazing with power, “is give up. Not just because we are ninja of the Hidden Leaf, but because we and our friends were the Konoha 11.”

Shikamaru shook his head, unwilling to fully concede his despair, even if her soothing demeanor and uplifting words were affecting him a little. “Hinata, you don’t understand. We’re years ahead of schedule, and we have no plan for this. And we can’t just sit here and wait for the future to come either. Just us existing here has likely changed a few things already, and in six years our old plan may be useless.”

“That’s it, then.”

“What’s it,” he asked, genuinely confused.

“We can’t sit around, and we can’t use the old plan. So let’s make a new one,” she stated matter-of-factly.

Let’s make a new one.

When she said it like that, it seemed so obvious. But there were so many new variables, and unknown factors, and with their genetic modifications now thrown into the mix…

“What we won’t do is give up…because we and our friends were the Konoha 11.”

Shikamaru pinched the bridge of his nose. In your own way, you’re troublesome too, Hinata.

With a wry grin, he finally settled his eyes fully on her, both sets red-eyed and puffy. “I guess we’ll have to make a new plan then.”

In his head, Shikamaru silently promoted her piece to a gold general. She was too radiant not to be.

-----------------

The work of a few minutes finds Hinata wandering around the spiral of the seal imprints while Shikamaru sits cross-legged in the center with his fingers steepled in front of him, sorting through the various factors they now have to work with. Any self-deprecation and doubt have, for now, been deeply suppressed. I can only let Hinata down so much in one day. He was carefully sorting their list of targets and threats as internal (domestic) and external (international) when a hum from Hinata distracted him.

“You know,” she started, “I am not an expert on seals, but the marks on our bodies do not match the space-time seal at all. If everything is truly a side-effect of the time travel, shouldn’t it be the same?”

Frowning, Shikamaru sprang upwards and made his way over to her. Not wanting to grab her arm, he pushed his tunic collar downwards to see the markings on his chest and compare them with the ground. Hmm, she was right, these aren’t quite the same. In fact, I barely recognize some of these marks on my chest. This one means ‘family’… or is it ‘familiar?’ And this other mark looks similar to some of the elemental markings from each of the kingdoms. The rest… could they be names? If so, I haven’t seen them before… So lost in his thoughts, he didn’t even realize that more of him was exposed than was strictly necessary until he heard a muffled squeak and glanced over to see a blushing Hinata furiously trying to blend in with her hair.

He coughed nervously. “Um, sorry about that. I was just comparing the marks. You’re right, these have nothing to do with time. I’m uncertain why we would have them though. Maybe it’s an echo from Kaguya?”

Hinata looked skeptical. “I suppose that’s possible, but from what I can see, the chakra coming from them is not as threatening as hers was.”

“It could be that it was tempered by the Kyuubi,” Shikamaru reasoned, “and so the effect was filtered.”

“I guess,” she conceded, “but it’s still weird that it ended up on our skin. I’m still wondering if this was because of Naruto changing our souls somehow.”

“I agree, this is another puzzle on top of everything else,” he replied, “but it seems to be stable and benign for now. I don’t think, based on the few symbols I could understand, that this has anything to do with our souls or our appearance changes. That part, at least, seems to be all Kaguya, and this may be too. I think we can table it for now.” Shikamaru was curious, endlessly curious in fact, but he knew when to focus on other things. Right now, they had a laundry list of problems to sort through, which was more than enough to keep his brain fully occupied. That wouldn’t stop it from residing in the back of his mind, however.

Hinata seemed even more reluctant to let it go, or let it be blamed on Kaguya’s interference, but with a soft “I defer to your judgement then, Shikamaru,” she changed the subject.

“Speaking of our new appearances,” she began hesitantly, “I think we should talk about our new abilities more. I feel like that’s going to affect the plan more than anything else.” She was clearly tiptoeing around the elephant in the room. I can’t control it and made her an amnesiac, so who knows what I could do with more instability.

“Yeah, I should probably try to restrain myself from wiping the minds of everyone I come across,” he muttered petulantly, angry at himself but more than that, freaked out by the fact that he now has uncatalogued alien goddess abilities.

“That’s not what I meant,” Hinata protested, bright blue eyes sparkling. “This could be a good thing!”

Shikamaru levelled her with a flat look. “A good thing? Never mind the fact that I look ridiculous, how is being a mutated offshoot of that monster a good thing.”

“You don’t look ridiculous!” she blurted out.

Shikamaru had meant that as a throwaway comment to lead up to his real issue, so he could not logically ascertain why that was the first thing out of her mouth. Um, thanks?

“Anyways,” she hurriedly continued before he could open his mouth to say something awkward, “You’re nothing like her, and that’s what makes this a good thing.”

He simply raised an eyebrow at her, silently gesturing for her to go on.

“You’re not evil,” she said bluntly, “and that means the power is in good hands.”

Shikamaru sighed, “I’m flattered Hinata, but if you recall, I have no control over it. I don’t even know what I can do.”

“My father used to say something when he trained me,” she started, fidgeting with her sleeves. “He said that the Hyuuga weren’t a great clan just because they had the byakugan, but because they knew everything there was to know about it and trained efficiently to take advantage. He always told me that I was nothing, even with the gift, if I couldn’t understand it and use it. Even Kakashi-sensei tried to learn as much about the sharingan as he could towards the end, to be a better ninja.”

Shikamaru chose to ignore the fact that her father, however indirectly, told her that she was nothing. For now.

“So,” he smirked instead, realization blooming, “you think I should learn what I can about Kaguya and take advantage of my brand-new eyes?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“How exactly am I supposed to go about learning about a buried myth?”

“Well,” Hinata said slowly, “Naruto told us some of what the Sage said. She could enact hypnosis and memory loss with her eyes, right?”

“Yes,” he said reluctantly, “but I don’t know how.”

“Well, we’re in Uzushiogakure. They were supposed to have one of the greatest libraries in the world, right? If we looked through the ruins, we may find something.” Hinata blinked at him hopefully, gaining confidence with every word.

It… actually wasn’t a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all.

“Let’s do it then.”

Hinata looked genuinely flabbergasted that he conceded so quickly. “Let’s do it then?”

“Yeah,” Shikamaru said with a sardonic half twist of a smile, “I was thinking that before we get too deep into the new planning stage, we’ll have to re-catalogue our abilities and identities. I have no idea how all of this has affected my shadow jutsu, and with both of us having increased chakra pools, we’ll need to learn control. The Uzumakis were known for having monstrous chakra, so there are probably exercises written down and hidden away in their library. And,” he continued mischievously, “since I’ve been here before with Naruto, I know where it is.”

Hinata looked ecstatic to have Shikamaru agree with her. She responds well to praise, then. I never really noticed before. “Oh! You’re right, I don’t know how this has affected my techniques either. And with a new chakra pool, once I can control the output, I’ll be able to do more ninjutsu as well…”

Shikamaru nodded sagely, “Yeah, plus if you’re going to masquerade as an Uzumaki, you’ll need to learn some fuinjutsu too, as well as the shadow clone jutsu that Naruto liked to spam.” Shikamaru was already running the numbers in his head about a reasonable timeframe to learn their new abilities and study the scrolls in the ruins (those should be less ransacked than when we came across them in the future). He almost missed Hinata’s gasp of surprise.

“A-an U-uzumaki?” she stuttered out, surprise claiming her tongue.

“Hmm?”

“What do you mean, masquerade as an Uzumaki?” she questioned him.

Shikamaru blinked slowly, and simply stared at her. “Well, you look exactly like one, and it would be a good backstory for us when we go to track some members of the Akatsuki down. It’s really a good thing you can switch your byakugan off and on, otherwise the Hyuuga would be after us with a vengeance. I don’t have any distinctive Nara features from afar, except for the earrings perhaps.” He felt a pang in his chest at the thought of removing his earrings.  They were his last tie to Choji and Ino, and their team. They were his last ties to his father as well. But he had decided to be useful to Hinata, as much as he was able. For the sake of his mission… “This way, we can move through the nations undetected as mysterious time-travelers and eliminate our obstacles more smoothly. After we—”

“What are you talking about Shikamaru-kun,” Hinata cut in, more aggressive than he had ever hear her. It was probably a bad sign that the honorific has been reintroduced to my name. It’s probably not for respect. “I can…understand me being an Uzumaki. I can’t be Hyuuga Hinata anymore to other people, when there already is one in this time.” Her delicate face briefly betrayed her sadness, before hardening into confusion and obstinacy again. “But you’re speaking as if we’re not going back to the village.”

“We aren’t, at least not for a while” Shikamaru replied bluntly. He couldn’t believe that this was already coming up. He had been dreading this topic ever since Naruto had selected Hinata to time travel with him. They were here to change the future, but attempting to go to the village would likely change events to a catastrophic degree. At some point, they would need help taking on the more senior members of the Akatsuki and protecting some of the jinchuuriki, but for now that point was moot. Besides, it would be difficult to infiltrate at this time because of…

“What about Danzo?” Hinata exclaimed! “I was there when Naruto and Sasuke related that story. You said we landed here a year before the Uchiha massacre! We could stop that, and stop him.”

“There is no way in which we should interfere with the events of the Uchiha massacre, Hinata.” Shikamaru could already tell that this conversation wouldn’t go well. So much for re-establishing our partnership with tears.

Hinata paled, her streaming red hair appearing even more fiery with the contrast. “What? B-but we could save them! And protect the village from Danzo!”

Shikamaru sighed heavily, cursing the fact that he had to tell her this. “I know you want to save them. I know. But we’ve come so early that we’re already going into the situation blind. We’ll have to rescout the Akatsuki members as is. If we don’t let the Uchiha event go on as scheduled, then Itachi likely won’t even become a member of the group, and Orochimaru may never leave. The knowledge of the timeline that we get from going to the future would become even more useless. And at this point, Obito and Black Zetsu are hovering around the Uchiha as well. If we do anything, we’ll be noticed. And if we’re noticed… that would be very bad.”

His reasoning, while heartless, was the truth. They couldn’t afford to change things too badly yet, if they wanted the highest chance of success. And they were already going to be on a razor’s edge by thinning the Akatsuki herd little by little. Getting noticed by Obito before their endgame would be catastrophic. Sad as it was to say, the Uchiha were lives already lost. They couldn’t save everyone in this quest.

By the look on Hinata’s face, Shikamaru might as well have said they were committing to drowning puppies and killing each and every member of the Uchiha clan themselves with a rusty kunai.

“My family hated the Uchiha,” she began lowly, “But even they were disgusted by their deaths. It was an entire clan, Shikamaru-kun. Ninjas and civilians. Children. Babies. We could save all of them.”

“At the expense of all the others that will die if we fail this plan?” Shikamaru said firmly but not unkindly.

“This plan wouldn’t even be possible if it wasn’t for Sasuke! Doesn’t his pain matter? We could save Itachi, save his whole family for him! And by preventing Sasuke’s hurt, we could heal some of Naruto’s too!” Hinata exclaimed, cheeks beginning to gain color from exertion. Her breaths were escaping with increasing speed, and he grew concerned about her state. If she wasn’t careful, she would send herself into a panic.

“His pain matters,” Shikamaru said eventually, breaking eye contact for the first time, “but is it worth it to risk our advantage?”

Hinata stepped forward, and he focused on the tips of her shoes that had entered his field of vision, focused on the ground. “We’re shinobi. Our way of life is dictated by shifting advantages. That’s no reason to give up on our friends. The Uchiha could be very useful allies to us, when we go after Obito and Black Zetsu.”

“You forget Hinata,” Shikamaru added despondently, trying to drive home his point, “that the Uchiha were going to betray the village anyhow. This is a useless and dangerous venture. We can’t do it.”

“Look at me, Shikamaru-kun,” Hinata said for the second time that day, this time with stiffness backing her usually gentle tone. He slowly raised his eyes, resigned to the disgust and disappointment he expected to see in her gaze. Instead, he saw sadness and pity. Pity?

“You know that you’ve been thinking of a way you could have adjusted the Uchiha situation if you had been advisor to the Hokage back then. I’ve seen you speak about it with Naruto before.” That was true, but he didn’t realize that she had heard them. Damn her for noticing. I’m trying so hard to hold the line.

“You’re rating my skills very highly here, Hinata,” he said wryly, hoping to sway her. “If Itachi couldn’t come up with a better solution, why do you think we could? He worked for years to dissuade his clan and that did nothing. The Sandaime didn’t have a viable plan either.”

Inexplicably, Hinata’s face darkened. Wow, seeing her so uncharitable is kind of unsettling. “I remember what Sasuke-kun had to say about it. And Itachi was a genius, yes, but he was also a pacifist, thirteen, and too closely involved in the situation. His judgement was clouded by his love for Sasuke-kun too. If he had foresight, and perhaps some way to show how corrupt Danzo was to the Sandaime, enough to sway him from his sentimentality, then it could have gone differently.”

That is a very intelligent assessment of the situation. We have foresight, power, and more importantly some time to think of something.

“So,” she continued, as if she could sense his thoughts, “I know that you don’t think their situation is hopeless. With our new abilities, we could do even more to prevent it.”

But still, this could all go dreadfully wrong. All it takes is a single misstep…

“But—” he started, before Hinata cut him off again, eyes lit with a cold fire. For a minute, she looked like Naruto before a fight. Scary, yet iridescent.

“No, Shikamaru. Let me ask you. For the sake of the timeline,” and now the pity was back in full force, “would you let Asuma-sensei die, before he could even meet Mirai?”

The words echoed in his mind. Would you let Asuma-sensei die? Would you let him die? Would you? Before meeting his daughter? Now it was his turn to start breathing more harshly. Hinata had come for his jugular. In any other circumstance he would be impressed. Now, he was only shocked.

But her question wasn’t wrong. Would he let him die? The ghost of the boy who had destroyed a shogi set, then cried in front of his father answered him from the shadow beneath his feet.

“No,” Shikamaru breathed out hoarsely, “no I wouldn’t.”

Hinata looked mortified that she had hurt him, but the resolve in her eyes never wavered. “So, we’ll be preventing the massacre then?”

He let out a laugh without any humor. “You won this argument. I guess we will.”

Hinata nodded once, then twice, then teared up. “Ok then. I—I’m not sorry about what I said,” she squeaked, clearly surprised by her own words, “but I am sorry that I hurt you.”

Well, he couldn’t blame her. He had tried to use nothing but cold logic. It was his fault if the warmth of emotion she used to thaw his mindset was hot enough to burn him. Naruto had already warned him about the strength of her heart.

Did that blast from Kaguya turn me into a monster too?

Keeping those thoughts quiet, he said aloud “We’ll still have to have new identities though. They’ll have to be even more impeccable than before. That means training and studying, for at least three months. Maybe longer. And we’ll have to scout the Akatsuki before we arrive at the village too. That’s at least six months in total.”

“Six months,” Hinata mumbled. “Do you think it’ll be enough? And will we have enough time to sway the Uchiha and stop Danzo?”

“It’ll have to be,” Shikamaru said grimly. They would barely be able to control themselves and lay the groundwork of their plan in six months. Even now, the thread of effort it took not to launch his mind-altering eyes was causing him to sweat, the panic from Hinata’s well-placed question stoking the flames of power.

He ignored the very small, very vindictive part of him that wanted to give in to the ache behind his eyes and make her forget she had ever convinced him to save the Uchiha. It disgusted him.

Did that blast from Kaguya turn me into a monster too?

It was a question worth repeating.

Regardless, he brushed off his pants, and started kicking dirt into the seal markings.

“What are you doing?” Hinata asked, keeping a slight distance between them.

“I’m destroying evidence of the seal. It would be dangerous if anyone else saw this. I memorized what we needed from it, anyways.”

“Oh. Good thinking.” She still stood around awkwardly, looking for all the world like a fawn who had just learned to walk.

Shikamaru couldn’t leave her like that. With one last scuff, he tapped his foot into the ground, and reached out an arm to spread it behind him.

“It’s not a hot-spring,” he said with humor that was only slightly forced, “but these pack of ruins will have to do!”

Hinata looked confused and vaguely amused. Better than lost.

“Anyways,” Shikamaru continued, clearing his throat, “three months of training might as well start now. Let’s start digging for scrolls.”

Hinata’s first step towards him was hesitant, but it was still a step. It was enough, for now. They had work to do, and powers to control, before they launched the rescue portion of this time heist. And he needed to become master of his own emotions as well.

Did that blast from Kaguya turn me into a monster too?

He hoped not. For her sake as well as his own.

Chapter Text

Training, Month 1:

One did not have to be especially perceptive to realize that something was wrong with Shikamaru. Or, more accurately, that something was wrong with the way Shikamaru and Hinata now interacted. In the week since their argument about the Uchiha, a subtle tension laced every planning session, food gathering, and scroll reading that the two did. It wasn’t malicious or excessively awkward. No, Shikamaru showed no signs of being angry or disappointed in the way Hinata had targeted his emotional hurt in order to get her way. He was courteous, helpful, and calm.

Too calm.

To someone as sensitive to the feelings of others as Hinata was, the seemingly minor veneer of politeness that clouded each of their interactions left her feeling cold, the chill seeping into her bones despite the temperate weather that graced the Land of Whirlpools. Hinata had seen his panic, and even his tears, and she had tried to comfort him through both. So, she knew enough about his emotional center to know that he couldn’t possibly be feeling this placid so abruptly after losing his semblance of control over the time travel situation, especially when faced with the prospect of saving a group of people he never seemed to particularly like.

He maintained that they were partners, but he never complained in front of her, and if he felt frustrated or pained, he kept it to himself. Even when they discussed a rough timeline of events, he maintained a mask of composure. It felt, vaguely, as if they were ships passing in the night. A silence that she attributed only to blood red moons filled in the cracks between their necessary and perfunctory conversations. And for the first time since the war had started, Hinata felt lonely.

So lonely, in fact, that she could sometimes imagine, amid her self-guided fuinjutsu lessons that Shikamaru occasionally oversaw, that a thread of warmth, comfort, and humor emanated from the seal markings on her wrists and ankles. When she gave in and looked at them with her byakugan, she could almost see the shadows of creatures rise from the ink. Then she would blink, and it would be gone. She could believe anything, she supposed, to ward of the chill of Shikamaru’s reserve.

And yet, despite the uncomfortable feeling she had when she reminisced on their argument, she still felt that she was right. They could save the Uchiha. They would save the Uchiha. And they would defeat the eye-stealing Danzo while they were at it. She would train as hard as she possibly could to make sure she was powerful enough to do so.

Unfortunately, that meant that she would need to do more than learn introductory fuinjutsu. Jiraiya, from what she knew, had spent most of his life studying seal work, as had Minato after him, and they still were not anywhere near the level of mastery that Tobirama or Uzumaki Mito had reached. Shikamaru had suggested to her that it didn’t matter, since no one would expect an Uzumaki raised after the fall of their village to be particularly adept in the sealing arts. After all, knowledge had been lost, stolen, and buried after Uzushio’s destruction. However, learning simple holding seals within pocket dimensions, or perfunctory barrier seals that could be breached by a mid-level ninjutsu would not be enough, even with a few more months to upgrade. Her combat skills had rapidly improved after a year of war and running, but that would not serve her well against some of the more intelligent and deadly opponents she would face. Quite frankly, many of their enemies were “bothersome weapons of mass destruction,” to quote Shikamaru. Her byakugan was impressive, but they could not be seen within the village, at least for a while, lest she face an inquisition from the less charitable version of her father that currently existed.

My father is alive right now. And thinks I’m a disappointment. What a painful reminder. But, that is a thought for another time, Hinata. Focus.

Thankfully, at least, her eyes seemed to work as well as they ever did, even with her new chakra system. A system that she still needed to figure out to take advantage of its potential. She always had more control technique than the majority of her class, bar Sakura, but she felt useless when it came to applying it.

What can I do? I cannot simply invent a new sealing technique without understanding more about the seal’s kanji, and I do not have an instructor anymore to continue to teach me new taijutsu, which I was doing with Sasuke, a little, before the end. And my Gentle Fist techniques need to be kept under wraps unless strictly necessary, or my backstory will come into question. That leaves ninjutsu, but I never learned beyond the elementary techniques. I know my chakra nature is fire and lightning, and that’s it. I wish… I wish I wasn’t so alone right now.

Her first breakthrough came in the second week, after several days of quiet study and meditation had granted her the knowledge of 500 new kanji. Still nowhere near enough. There are thousands to learn. Frustrated, she slumped over in her studying spot located in a corner within the partially submerged library. Shikamaru had made her a rudimentary desk out of earth release, which had taken him several tries because he kept molding miniature mountain ranges from his inability to control his suddenly potent chakra outflow.  Its current incarnation was lumpy and partially lopsided, but it held her scrolls and her notes, so it suited her well enough.

“I didn’t mean for this to be a napping spot too, Hinata. Otherwise, I would have added in more padding,” Shikamaru interrupted her, sliding into her field of vision.

A joke. That’s new! Or old, reminiscent of how he used to be.

“I wasn’t napping,” she protested, “I was laying my head down for quiet meditation.”

“Hey, I won’t judge,” he replied sardonically, “I used to get my best ideas when I took naps. Choji always—” and then he cut himself off abruptly, humor and any other emotion vanishing from his features. In its place was cold granite and studied indifference.

“Shikamaru, I—” she started cautiously.

Please, don’t shut me out.

“I didn’t come here to interrupt your studying for nothing Hinata,” he stampeded his way forward, pointedly ignoring her attempt to reach out. “I found something that could be of use.”

“Really?” she said, sadly allowing the topic change.

“Have you ever heard about the legend of the Red-Hot Habanero?”

Hinata furrowed her brows in contemplation. “You mean Naruto’s mother? I only know as much as the Yondaime and Naruto mentioned before, well…” Before Minato’s reanimated corpse withered to dust.

Shikamaru cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Right. Well, her signature technique were these adamantine chains that were popular amongst the Uzumaki.”

“Oh, I remember this a little!” Hinata perked up. “They capitalized on fuinjutsu by creating chains that suppressed chakra and created a barrier people couldn’t leave or enter without permission! That’s what she used, the day Naruto was born.” The day they died. The first time.

“Yeah,” Shikamaru agreed. “And I just found the scroll that teaches this technique! Or should I say re-found. We had seen it during the first scouting mission, but only Naruto had enough chakra to make it feasible, and it didn’t seem important in the grand scheme of space-time.”

That made sense to her. Wait. If he dug up the scroll now, that means he wants me to learn it! Finally, a way to improve.

“T-thank you Shikamaru!” she stammered out in gratitude. “If I can use these, then I can become stronger! And I can maintain my cover.” After two weeks of anxious studying and chakra exercises, this could not have come as better news.

Shikamaru was blushing slightly, the most emotion she had seen from him in days. “No problem Hinata. I also have some scrolls on lightning and fire release if you want to take a look. I know that you didn’t do very much ninjutsu, but it’ll probably be useful now that you’re not a Hyuuga.”

Hinata knows that he meant it in a matter-of-fact way. She couldn’t be a Hyuuga to the outside world as of right now and learning new techniques to match her new looks would help them… well not quite blend in, but prevent them but standing out in the wrong way. But it still hurt. She felt lonely with herself too, sometimes. Everyone that used to make her Hyuuga Hinata was dead, and everything else was being overwritten for someone new.

It was necessary. Wasn’t it?

“Y-yes, thank you Shikamaru-kun. I’m sure it’ll be helpful.” She hadn’t even realized she had reintroduced the honorific in his name. Whether it was that or the distress she hadn’t managed to fully hide from her face, the brief air of camaraderie between them dissipated.

“Ok, I’ll just leave these here then,” he said. And then he vanished, leaving her to study the new scrolls in silence.

A day later, he offered her a vague notice that he needed to spend some time to himself to control his eyes and left before she could offer her assistance.

Did I scar him so badly that he doesn’t want to be around me?

She didn’t see him for three days and had to resist the temptation to search for him among the desolate ruins. If he was even around.

Feeling isolated doesn’t count as an emergency. He deserves some privacy even amidst all this.

Eventually, he returned, announcing his presence with a hasty “Yo” at the tent they kept their food in, digging into rations of bread and squirrel meat as if nothing had happened.

Welcome back, I suppose.

---------------------

Shikamaru ‘spent time practicing alone’ twice more before the month was out, leaving Hinata feeling lonelier with every breath.

The final time he returned to her, however, brought another breakthrough. He had Summons contracts. He had special, unspecified summons contracts. Rarer than the normal summons contracts, these were meant to lead them to an animal haven best suited for their personality, and offered the chance (not a guarantee) to sign with them in blood.

Hinata was completely shocked. And suspicious.

“Shikamaru, where did you manage to find this? Summoning contracts like these are usually passed down family lines. A new one hasn’t been seen in decades, ever since the village fell!” she questioned, staring wide-eyed at the contract he had deemed hers.

Shikamaru shuffled his feet, the white and purple tips of his hair sparkling in the sunlight filtered through the half-broken library windows. “I haven’t just been wasting my time on my eyes. I searched the library too, in those times we don’t see each other often.”

He was blatantly lying again, or at the very least obfuscating the truth by redirecting and using pretty words to conceal his omission. After the second time he disappeared for quiet time, she went to look for him, hoping to offer more assistance in handling Doujutsu. He had been nowhere to be found. She knew then that he had been leaving their little outpost to disappear for days.

She could say something. She likely should say something. But everything was still so awkward, and she was lonely, and this was actually beneficial to her and to them in the long run.

She didn’t want to confront him now, or ever quite frankly. So, she let it go.

“This is amazing Shikamaru. I can’t believe you’ve helped me get stronger, again.” She contributed softly, hoping her face showed sincerity.

To his part, if he noticed anything off, Shikamaru gamely ignored it. “Oi, oi it’s not a big deal Hinata. This type of contract isn’t a guarantee. But having a summons should be useful. We need more eyes and ears on the ground, and to help fight.”

That was also a good point. A two-person army couldn’t watch out for every threat, especially those with summons of their own.

“Don’t sell yourself short Shikamaru. Thank you.”

“Maa well,” he looked away, scratching his head, “I hope it works for you. If you’d like to try it now, I’ll watch over you while you undergo the reverse-summons.”

Right now?

After a pause, Hinata nodded her head slowly. “I would like that, thank you. And I can do the same for you, afterwards.”

He tipped his head in ascent and let the moment simmer for a minute before offering instructions on how to get started. It seemed fairly simple: bite your thumb, press it into the parchment, and infuse chakra. Then wait.

They went outside to do it, mindful of the hazards of being summoned and reversed-summoned in a place full of weapons and rubble. Hinata cleared a space in the field near where they had appeared weeks before and settled into a cross-legged meditative pose. Shikamaru took a sentry spot in front of her

Ok. Here I go.

She bit into the fleshy pad of her thumb, barely wincing at the drawn blood, and pressed it into the empty space at the bottom of the scroll, delicately lacing her chakra into it.

For a moment she was disappointed. Nothing happened. Then, suddenly a whooshing sound filled her ears, and a whirlwind of colors swept across her gaze. It felt like a less anxiety-inducing version of their journey across time. I suppose I’m being reverse summoned into a separate dimension. This was her last coherent thought as she felt herself falling and falling, before she found herself thudding into the ground, a groan bursting from her mouth.

I think I landed on something cushiony and crisp, like crumbled leaves, so that’s some good news. But wow, that was quite a fall.

“Well, this is new. How long are you going to simply lay there, human,” a deep and curious voice addressed her.

Hinata’s eyes flew open, and she sat up quickly, hands arranged in a defensive position, and her byakugan active. She used her 360-degree field of vision to quickly find the being who addressed her, swiveling her head consistently until she found herself eye to eye with…

“Please excuse me,” she started, “but are you a porcupine?”

A frankly giant porcupine, with dark brown fur and exaggerated quills, managed to somehow look down its rounded nose at her. “My name is Rashi, young Uzumaki. Or, judging by those eyes, is it young Hyuuga? We haven’t bothered with your kind in ages, so it is quite difficult to keep track of all your family lines,” the porcupine—Rashi—grumbled.

“My apologies for not addressing you properly, Rashi-san. My name is Hyuuga Hinata. Although I suppose I am sort of an Uzumaki now too,” she replied, dipping her head respectfully.

Rashi rotated his head and sniffed, looking at her with intense beaded eyes. “That sounds complicated. I don’t know if I care to know the story. I would like to know what you’re doing here, however. And to explain how you managed to find your way to Kuira no Kuni.”

The land of quills. Fitting.

“Um, yes. I would like to apologize for intruding in your home.” And she took that moment to take in more of it. The air was arid and warm, and she found herself seated in a sparsely populated forest, overlaid with red, orange, and yellow leaves strewn amongst the undergrowth. The bitter scent of earth and chlorophyll permeated everything. She could see the faint edges of a partially green and yellow grassland stretching out beyond the perimeter of the forest, and in the distance, a slope of hills. The sun was setting, casting the entire scene in a warm glow. On the other side of her, deeper within the forest, she could make out an interconnected series of dens partially above and below ground, from which she sensed multiple creatures, large and small, sheltering and observing her. That is a bit unnerving.

She was so distracted that she had stopped speaking.

“That answered none of my questions, Hyuuzamaki.”

Rashi, Hinata quickly concluded, was a bit rude.

Shelving her twinge of annoyance, because she really was infringing on their home, she replied “My apologies! I acquired a general summoning contract and was brought here because this land fit in the best with my personality, supposedly. I came here in the hopes of forging a contract with you and the other inhabitants of this land, Rashi-san.”

There, that wasn’t so bad.

For an extended period that frankly grew increasingly more uncomfortable, Rashi just stared at her while she stared timidly back. She could also see that, slowly, more and more creatures, from hedgehogs, to echidnas, to more porcupines were creeping over from the dens to surround her.

Finally, when she had been effectively encircled by quilled creatures, Rashi spoke again. “Would you care to repeat that now, Hyuuzamaki?”

Taking care not to show any discomfort, she said “I would like to form a summoning contract.”

“No, no not that part. Although that part is ridiculous. I meant the part where you said you came here because this place best fit your personality?”

Hinata herself was confused as to how she ended up in a pack of quilled mammals, but she had long since surrendered to the quirks of chakra that powered all of this. Besides, any summons had to have extensive ability in either stealth, combat, or ninjutsu beyond what first appearances might suggest.

So, she simply said, “Yes, it would appear so.”

High-pitched squealing laughter erupted from one of the hedgehogs who had dared to creep the closest to her. It was the size of her forearm, and its derision was the size of the entire kingdom.

“You. Have a personality to fit in with us,” the hedgehog – evidently a she – burst out between giggles. “You’re as timid as a mouse!”

Hinata blinked once, then twice, then hesitantly asked “Aren’t you also a rodent?”

“A rodent?!?!” the little hedgehog squealed, bristling. “Did you just call me a rodent, Uzuga?” That nickname was even worse than the last. “I’m in the Erinaceidae family, thank you very much!”

“I apologize,” Hinata began, “I’m not very familiar with etymology. I had a friend who would have known that.” Shino…And likely Shikamaru as well. “I did not mean any offense.”

“Hey, there’s nothing to get defensive about,” Rashi grumbled at the hedgehog, “I’m a rodent.”

She glared at him. “Exactly.”

Hinata interrupted them, hoping to get this bizarre meeting back on course. “Um, may you tell me your name, Miss Hedgehog?”

She tilted her long nose in the air and sniffed in a way that was probably meant to be snooty and intimidating but only ended up being cute. “If you must know, Uzuga, my name is Nezumi. You can call me Nezumi-sama.”

Another hedgehog, this one larger and equipped with quills that were a shade whiter than Nezumi’s, cuffed her nose with a paw. “Lay off it, Nezumi-chan. Stop pretending you’re a big-shot.” And ignoring Nezumi’s muffled squack, she whipped her head around to look at Hinata.

“Pleased to meet you, Hinata-san,” she began, “You can call me Hari. Please ignore my idiot sister, we think she lost a few quills as a baby and never recovered.”

“Hey!” came Nezumi’s protest.

Hinata couldn’t help herself. She laughed.

“Well, well,” Rashi interrupted with amusement, “It looks like you have a bit of personality after all, Hyuuzamaki. But I’m afraid you can’t sign on with us. We haven’t meddled with human affairs for a while, and for a good reason."

No! This is my only chance.

"I'm sorry to hear that Rashi-san, but I have a good reason for you to partner with me. There’s a threat coming that will affect even your realm.”

“Impossible,” Nezumi protested, “Nothing can infringe on Kuira no Kuni.”

Hinata nodded grimly. “Yes, something can. This dimension exists outside the standard stream of the human dimension, correct? So you have a special relationship with space and time”

Rashi inclined his head, and Hari twitched her nose in agreement. “Yes, that is true.”

“Then can’t you sense something odd about me? I’m a woman out of time,” she asserted, turning her gaze around to make eye contact with all three of the creatures that spoke with her, as well as the others hovering in the background.

Rashi’s quills settled back along his spine, head tilted in concentration. “Now that you mention it… you seem wholly displaced from the standard time stream. An anomaly.”

“Yes,” Hinata said sadly, “I am not meant to be here. But we must be here, to stop a bitter future.”

“We have neither the need nor the desire to interfere in human conflicts, no matter how devastating” a new voice said beside her. An echidna, with a long beak and majestic white spines bursting upwards from its thick brown body. Long claws curved against the ground as it padded towards her. All the other creatures, even Rashi, appeared to defer to the echidna, bowing their heads respectfully. “You will need a more compelling reason than that, child.”

Hinata widened her gaze, then dipped her head hastily in respect. This must be who is in charge of the kingdom. “It was not a human conflict. All of humanity banded together to fight a goddess. Or perhaps the better designation is an alien. Kaguya.”

At the name, the echidna let out a deep hiss of disgust. “Do not speak that dreaded name here again. Are you to tell me that the mother of chakra, who attempted to disrupt nature’s balance, returned to your time?”

“She did,” Hinata confirmed, “and decimated everything in her path. I know I may seem timid, but I am here with a purpose. I want to prevent her from rising again. And for that, I know your help would be entirely beneficial. But,” she continued firmly, “I will not press more than this if I am truly not wanted. Please, reconsider.”

Nezumi and Hari, who had been cowering in fear, met her gaze with a new depth of respect. Even Rashi looked halfway convinced. Please, let them listen. After an extended silence, the echidna let out a snuffle.

“Even meek creatures can be surprisingly strong when pushed,” the echidna said consideringly. “You have convinced me of your conviction, child. I will allow you to pursue this summoning contract, the first my people have awarded in many years.” And with a ‘tick’, two of the spines on the echidna’s back burst forward and landed in front of her. As she watched, they touched vertically, then slowly rolled in opposite directions, unfurling a shimmering white contract before her eyes. Rashi padded up next to her and offered her one of his quills to be a pen, dipped in her still bleeding thumb, which was serving as ink.

“I suppose you’re not entirely that bad, if the elder finds you acceptable,” he said haughtily.

With a smile, Hinata signed her name and then stamped her thumbprint next to it, cementing the contract.

‘Welcome as a member of the Kuira no Kuni, Hyuuga Hinata, or whatever name you choose to carry from this point onward,” the echidna intoned.

“Thank you, elder,” Hinata said humbly, bowing from where she was kneeled on the forest floor.

The echidna chuffed in some imitation of laughter. “None of that, girl. You may call me Akira.”

“Thank you then, Akira,” Hinata beamed. I did it! I received assistance from the quilled creatures! And this means I won’t have to be alone.

“You know how to reach us, when necessary,” Akira said. “I suggest calling on Nezumi and Hari to train, and perhaps Rashi too if you can convince him, ornery as he is.”

“Hey!”

“I guess, Uzugu.”

“It’ll be a blast Hinata-san!”

“And maybe,” Akira continued, “one day you’ll introduce us to your friends.”

My friends? Like Shikamaru, or those in the village?

Dismissing her questions, Hinata dipped her head gratefully, too overwhelmed to speak properly beyond another round of thanks. In the next instant, she found herself slamming back into the clearing amid the Uzushio ruins, Shikamaru staring at her in alarm.

“That was quite a harsh landing,” he said, reaching a hesitant hand out to lift her up. “How was the journey?”

Hinata forgot their previous tension and latched onto his hands in excitement, letting her hair float as she whipped her head in happiness. “I did it! I met this grumpy porcupine named Rashi, and I accidentally called a hedgehog a rodent, and I met this intimidating echidna named Akira, and they signed a summoning contract with me!” she blurted out in one big burst.

Shikamaru raised his eyebrows in surprise, and then let loose a half-grin. “That sounds lovely, Hinata.” And he sounded genuine. “You look tired though. It’s probably best that we wait to use my contract until later.”

Hinata felt the latent chakra exhaustion pulsing in her temples, and she quickly agreed, beckoning him to follow her to the food tent for much needed nourishment. For once, he joins her without an excuse.

For the rest of the day, and into the next few, they resume talking more frequently than they had before. The introduction of new jutsu seemed to have melted some of Shikamaru’s new icy veneer, perhaps because it gave them something impersonal and less frightening to talk about. Whatever it is, Hinata is happy enough to let it continue.

However, in the back of her mind, beyond the excitement of her new adamantine chains or quilled friends, the weight of Shikamaru’s secrets dampen some of the breakthroughs they had made.

What are you up to, Shikamaru?

Chapter Text

Training, Month 2:

It was exceedingly difficult to wash blood out of the mesh undershirts most male Konoha shinobi came equipped with. Somehow, the dried maroon flakes manage to collect themselves in some of the little wire holes so deeply that he can’t simply scrub in one of the saltwater pools in the ruins and then whack it against the rocks to get rid of it. Trying to put more brute force in made the bruises in his sides and thigh ache too. It was troublesome to say the least. Hinata probably knew a better way to wash it. And a better way to wrap bandages in the hard-to-reach places in his back. But like hell was he going to ask her. Better to just wear the dirty armor and pretend the residue didn’t bother him.

I’m fine.

Shikamaru had become a rather prolific liar. Not that he hadn’t excessively lied before; he was trained as a shinobi from birth and being duplicitous was kind of par for the course. In fact, some might say using his brains to be sneaky and underhanded in a fight was his entire brand. But every lie and omission that escaped his mouth now was tinged in shame, because he was lying to Hinata, who was supposed to be his partner and his friend. It made his chest burn, right over his seal tattoos. The shame wasn’t enough to stop him though.

How can it, when I can’t bear to tell the truth?

He wasn’t an idiot. He knew that she could tell he wasn’t being honest with her about his escapades that he masqueraded as ‘quiet time to train,’ and he knew, deep down, that he was hurting her.

Nice going, Shikamaru. Give yourself an award.

It was necessary though. In the long run he was helping her. Because he knew, for a fact, that she would not approve of the reckless self-appointed missions and… alternative training methods… that he had started to engage in to try and improve their strength and prevent himself from accidentally melting her brain the next time he became overwhelmed or upset. That was why he was doing his best to suppress his emotions and keep their interactions to clinical or dryly sarcastic remarks. She likely thought he was mad at her for the Uchiha incident, but at this point he couldn’t care less. She was right to try to save them, in the end. It was his fault that he was a coward and a hypocrite. And potentially (probably) a monster.

And if he was a monster, then he certainly should not be around her more than was necessary.

He couldn’t explain himself, though, not when it was important to keep her at an arm’s length so he wouldn’t risk his control, and she her sanity and autonomy. If he said a word, she would do something foolish, like forgive him and try to insert herself in his problems even more. Absolutely not.

But it was difficult to avoid her, too, as the first month dragged on, and the hurt glances she couldn’t contain grew heavier and heavier, adding to his burden and distracting him from his side quests. It wasn’t as easy to cast her worry to the shadows as he wanted to believe. So, he brought her the summons contracts, and stood silent sentry over her empty spot after she was swept away. He even managed to subdue his instinctive panic enough not to appear too rattled when she returned with tales of… porcupines and hedgehogs. It was honestly not quite what he expected for her summons, but she looked happy, and apparently the oddly rude Rashi could shoot out lightning quills as electrodarts, so it seemed like that gamble paid off.

Another ally that she can count on more than me, if it comes down to it.

And a few days later, after her chakra replenished from the journey, he pretended he wasn’t rattled by the prospect of being taken to places unknown (even if it was his own choice) and agreed to let her near him when he activated his own contract. And he even managed to look her in the eyes without them turning opaque before engaging in the whirling, nostalgic terror of being transported elsewhere.

Score one for character development.

But despite all this recently revived goodwill between them, Shikamaru knew he was still nothing but a dirty liar and a sneak so long as he kept his extracurriculars secret. So, the kingdom he found himself chucked into shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did.  

And yet.

When he used to indulge in whimsical what-ifs with Choji when he was younger, he always imagined, if he ever got his hands on a summoning contract, that he would wake up among tall vaunted oaks, perched on a branch as a wizened old owl with soot-tipped white feathers would turn its head 180-degrees and look him in the eyes before proclaiming that he had a quest of knowledge and strategy to complete before he could earn the right of their favor. Then he would be challenged to a game of multi-dimensional shogi, or asked to infiltrate a hawk’s nest, or stalk an Anbu. Something challenging along those lines. It made logical sense. Owls operated best under the cover of darkness and were known to be smart and dangerous, when necessary, while conserving energy. That was classic Nara Shikamaru.

But apparently Nara Shikamaru had lost his way a bit. He was cunning, jaded, mildly malicious, and double-crossing. That was why when he thudded into the ground, he was in a dark den embedded in loose sandy soil that sifted through his clothing. Far beyond him, all he could see were grasslands in a steppe formation, and the occasional flowering desert flower. Blending into the dry beige landscape, as mischievous as could be, were tailed fox spirits of varying size, shape, and color, all staring at him.

Foxes. Mythical foxes, for that matter. Of course. Can’t wait to summon these in Konoha, they’ll love it. Hey everyone, look! It’s the mixed-omen cousin of the chakra spirit that tore apart the village (not by choice, but what does that matter, you bullied a child for years anyways)! His luck was the absolute worst.

“What a pain,” he grumbled, eyeing the three-tailed red fox that was attempting to sneak up to him from his periphery. 

“That’s no way to introduce yourself to strangers Shika-chaan,” the sunset red and orange three-tailed snarked back, ears twitching in amusement. “Although we know all about you! So, I guess you’re only half a stranger? Still impolite though!”

With the first burst of “Shika-chaan,” Shikamaru quickly gathered that this fox was going to be as annoying as young Konohamaru, and the comparison made the corner of his lips briefly quirk up in an involuntary smile. But his next statement forced him to refocus. They know all about me? Immediately he felt his face set in forced blankness, and he knew that his eyes had flashed to purple, partially on purpose this time.

“What do you mean, fox,” he demanded, taking in the fact that he was in a strange territory surrounded by unknowns who apparently were only unknown to him and not the other way around, and trying to resist panicking.

To his credit, the three-tailed didn’t seem fazed at all by his eyes. “Heyyy, my name isn’t fox Shika-chan! It’s Kamaye! And I won’t respond anymore if you keep being mean.”

Having three tails meant this fox was quite ancient, as they acquired a new one after each century. But right at this moment, Shikamaru could swear that he was talking to a three-year-old, not a three-hundred-year-old.

“Kamaye,” Shikamaru replied with a practiced calm, “please tell me what you meant when you said, ‘we know all about you.’ Because I haven’t met any of you before today.”

Kamaye’s teeth glinted in a sharp-toothed smirk, tails swishing happily. “See, see Keiko, I told you it wouldn’t be hard to train him! He said please and everything!”

Another fox, darker red and equipped with two tails, approached from Shikamaru’s left, looking for all the world tired of dealing with the mischievous three-tailed’s antics. “Alright Kamaye, you win. But you better answer his question before he loses his politeness training. His eyes are starting to do a weird sparkly thing, and that seems dangerous.”

Kamaye nodded sagely, “Yeah, you’re right, he looks a little mad. If his hair could turn into spikes, we would be pin cushions. That’s real trouble, alright.”

He so hated to be predictable, but Shikamaru was about to lose his temper.

“Oi, oi,” he cut in, “am I interrupting your comedy routine? I would say sorry, but I’d be lying.”

“But you lie all the time, so how is now any different than before,” Keiko said cheekily, with an obviously fake downcast set on her vulpine face.

“It’s different because the truth is harsher this time,” he retorted hotly. Oh dear gods they’re turning me into a child too.

“Listen kids,” he started, changing tactics, “I don’t want this summons contract negotiation to get off on the wrong foot, but could you please tell me what you meant earlier? Continuing to evade the question will only get me more upset.” There, he asked politely and snuck in a warning. That was the best way to deal with children.

“I’m not a kid!” Kamaye protested, “kids are goats! I’m a fox! Geez, I thought you were supposed to be a genius.”

Shikamaru was suddenly hit with the memory of Hinata telling him about an eerily similar exchange she had had with Nezumi about hedgehogs and rodents. Are all summons this sensitive about animal kingdom designations, or did I just find some defective contracts in the Cloud village? No, he decided after looking at Kamaye’s mirthful eyes, he was definitely just messing with him.

“I think you know that’s not what I meant,” Shikamaru replied with narrowed eyes. “And I think that you’re purposefully evading the question. Now I want to know why, and under whose volition you are stalling me.”

It was clear, from their minimal number of tails to their childish taunts, that Keiko and Kamaye were not the official welcoming committee of the tailed foxes. And yet, the fact that no one had interrupted their antics meant that someone important had sent them to greet (and frustrate) him as soon as he was reverse-summoned here.

Manipulative and clever foxes, indeed.

Keiko immediately started to snicker, whiskers twitching in the breeze. “Busted, Kamaye! I told you that he would figure it out in a few minutes! Looks like I win this one!”

“No fair,” Kamaye slumped forward on all fours, looking like a cowed dog. “I thought if I irritated him enough, he wouldn’t have time to suspect a thing!”

“Don’t worry,” Shikamaru remarked dryly, “the fact that you still haven’t answered a single one of my questions means that you’ve still irritated me plenty.”

Shikamaru could have sworn that Kamaye’s eyes grew slightly wet. “Do you really mean that? Thank you Shika-chan!” And then he looked over his shoulder and widened his eyes. Is there something at my back? Before he could turn to look, Kamaye curled one of his soft tails around Shikamaru’s ankles shyly, before darting away to blend back in with the crowd, Keiko following close at his heels.

Shikamaru was left slouched over, head pulsing with confusion and reluctant fondness, for only a few moments before he heard a dignified voice echo from behind him.

“Good on you for partially figuring out my plot, young Nara Shikamaru. You are as clever as we were led to believe.”

Spinning quickly, Shikamaru found himself face to face with the most regal looking fox he had ever seen. Her fur was snow white and delicately groomed even around her narrow snout, and each of her eight tails seemed to spread out behind her in a fan, twitching ever so slightly as she stalked forward. She stood at least twice as tall as Shikamaru did but remained smaller than Kurama had been the few times he had popped out of Naruto’s seal.

‘Well,” he said after a pause that allowed the awe to settle, “I take it that you are in charge here.”

“That I am, young one. Welcome to Kakusareta Okoku.” The hidden kingdom. “You may call it the land of the kitsune if you would prefer. I am called Takako. We have been expecting you for quite some time.”

Shikamaru’s eyes darted around in disbelief at the gathered kitsune hidden in the landscape, all of whom looked at him with cautious respect. “You have?” he asked incredulously. How could they have been expecting him for a long time? He and Hinata had only been in this time period (as near adults) for a little over a month. And the Nara have never had contracts with the foxes, so they could not have been expecting me based upon a familial lineage.

“We have,” Takako confirmed mildly. “Although, I am sure you are displeased about finding yourself here, rather than in the noble trees of the Owls.”

So, she knew about that fantasy as well, hmm? How? Everything about this summons was becoming more and more mysterious. He wasn’t sure if being cryptic was a fox specific trait, or if every summons contract negotiation in history had started this way.

“Who even cares about the stupid owls anyways, we’re way smarter than those feathered idiots are,” grumbled a voice from behind him that sounded eerily like Kamaye.

Shikamaru cleared his throat awkwardly, ignoring Keiko’s hissed ‘shut up idiot.’ “I am not displeased,” he replied, trying to analyze whether that was really a lie. He was certainly surprised, and perhaps disappointed in himself that he was enough of a sneaky bastard to end up aligned with foxes according to the whims of chakra. But displeased? That was a more difficult question to answer.

“Hmm, are you not?” Takako asked with amusement.

“No,” he said shortly, hoping his voice didn’t raise at the end to make it a question.

“I know that Kamaye and Keiko were not much of a welcome. But it’s been a while since we’ve had company,” she intones, all teeth bared in dry humor. “And a Nara too! One with such a scent…our lord Kurama has favored you, little beast. And something even older,” she continues darkly, “has cursed you. You’re a puzzle. And I love puzzles! They’re so fun to assemble. And even more fun to tear apart at the end.”

He shifted uncomfortably, glaring at her under a furrowed brow. Some of her words were sinister, but the delivery was exceedingly nonchalant. She was messing with him to test him; he was sure of it. But to test what? His reaction? His self-control? Or perhaps even his resolve? He chose to stay silent, raising his eyebrows at her in a silent challenge. Continue with your game, lady Takako.

“And he doesn’t rise to the bait,” she said, settling on her haunches. “What a composed shinobi we have here. Oh, the puzzle just continues to grow larger. Tell me, Nara Shikamaru. What is it that you want here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Shikamaru snorted. “Aren’t I here to sign a summons contract?”

“Are you?”

“What’s with the constant questions?” He retorted, growing slightly frustrated. “That’s why I activated the summons scroll in the first place. That’s what I’m here for.”

“But it’s not quite what you want hmm? Don’t think that I couldn’t spot your hesitancy earlier, little beast. Belonging to the kitsune rather than whatever dream you had concocted in your head has left you at least discomfited, if not displeased,” she elegantly rebutted, tilting her head challengingly.

Shikamaru was growing tired of this conversation.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the one finding me worthy of your contract, rather than the other way around? Why do you insist on questioning my motives,” he grunted out.

“Because watching you deflect and squirm is oh so much fun,” Takako snickered, clearly delighting in his discomfort. “Besides, you don’t need to convince us to take on your contract. We already have your recommendation letter.”

And there it was, another reminder that Kamaye had said we know all about you.

“What do you mean by recommendation,” he asked warily, suspicious of her mercurial statements and her overfamiliar address.

“I am too timeless to brag, but the Fox spirits are amongst the oldest and most intelligent of the summons. We’ve been around, feasting on nature’s chakra, for ages, even before the dawn of the shinobi. And we’ve always found humans to be of the utmost entertainment, so even here in this realm beyond the constraints of space and time, we made sure to keep tabs on what you were up to. So, we could tell when someone interfered with the sacred timestream. And when we went to look at who it was, imagine our surprise! We found you, Nara Shikamaru, and your lovely companion. And we got a chance to observe your past. Or was it your future? Regardless, we’ve also certainly kept up with your present. And watching you? That was all the recommendation we needed,” she narrated smugly, watching as he blanched under the burden of realization that had suddenly hit him.

They know about the time travel? That means they also know about Kaguya, and how we got here in the first place. And they also know about Hinata…

“I don’t take kindly to the thought that you have been watching me,” Shikamaru said with a scowl, trying to calculate the best path to navigate away from this potential disaster. “Or to the idea that my life is nothing but data that has met your invisible criteria.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t call your life data, little beast. It was a story, at times tragic, at times triumphant, and at times amusing, but always, above all else, cunning. Just like us,” Takako said with a toothy grin.

“Why only my story, then,” he replied, attempting to fit together the pieces in his mind. “You already mentioned that you saw Hinata as well.”

“Yes, the Hyuuga girl. Or is it an Uzumaki? That could be true in multiple ways.”

Shikamaru clenched his jaw, although he was unsure exactly why.

“She’s smart as well, I’ll give you that,” Takako continued, unphased. “And she has a surprising amount of backbone for someone so soft-spoken. But she isn’t hardened at her core. Not like you are, Shikamaru.”

“The war was hard on everyone,” he claimed, attempting to defend himself half-heartedly. “Everyone changed, even Hinata.” Although she still cares about everyone, even me, after I’ve ignored her again and again.

“Tsk, tsk, I know that you have convinced yourself that Kaguya has made you a cold-blooded monster,” Takako said, one of her tails flicking lazily as if dismissing the thought. “But we both know that you were cold-blooded beforehand. May I remind you of the Hidan incident? The trap you laid was ingenious! But what really was the cream on top was your monologue. Imagine, he was dismembered and lying in a pit that he could never escape, some of your killer deer roaming around to act as guard, and you leaned over and said, ‘I am your god now.’” She let out a sudden peal of laughter, the most uncomposed he had seen her during this entire conversation. “The audacity of those words! And the utter brilliance from being able to back it up! It’s disappointing, that the Hidan of this timeline will likely never get to experience that moment. I would have so loved to see it in person. Exquisite.”

She had him there. His execution of revenge against Hidan had been meticulous and pitiless. He hated him. He still hated him. And he used his meager skills to surpass him. Perhaps I was always a little bit of a monster, after all.

“That was a special circumstance,” he tried to convince himself. “Hidan was an eminent threat to the village, and he had killed my mentor. I’m entitled to some anger.”

“True!” Takako called out, “Let’s say that was a special circumstance, a one-time only showing. That doesn’t exclude the antics you have gotten up to on your own, in your present.”

Shikamaru briefly shut his eyes as flashbacks overtook him.

*Disappearing into the woods after telling Hinata he needed space to practice, but in reality, leaving because the stress of bottling his emotions was intensifying too quickly, to the point that he would have hurt her with his new powers if he had stayed. *

*Mindlessly advancing further and further away until he had somehow escaped the island covered in mud, finding himself in the familiar lively woods belonging to the country of fire. *

*Spotting bandits harassing a civilian family, the father desperately trying to hold off the assailants with a shovel in front of his upturned cart, a wife and two young daughters cowering on the opposite side. *

*Identifying the leering gaze in the lead bandit’s eyes and feeling his thread of control snap before he descended upon them, eyes blazing and hands forming the familiar hand signs of his shadow jutsu without any thought of keeping his identity as a Nara a secret. Not that it mattered. They were dead in minutes. And the civilian merchants were convinced that they hadn’t really seen anything clearly. *

As it turned out, hunting rogue murderers and thieves for three days (and reveling in their deaths) was excellent practice for his new hypnotic capabilities. Convincing civilian witnesses that they didn’t see an ombre-headed Nara was even more excellent practice for his amnesia inducements. And he discovered that his eyes, in conjunction with his enhanced chakra pool, had hidden effects on his clan’s shadow jutsu. Or perhaps it was better called a shadow garden.

He felt even more monstrous than usual in the aftermath, but a corner of his soul, the same corner that had wanted to manipulate Hinata after their Uchiha disagreement, argued that he needed to learn about himself. He might as well turn it on villains who deserved it. He had gathered useful data, acquired some new items, gained skills, and rescued innocent merchants. There was no reason to stop, and every reason to continue.

He had tried to push these thoughts away when he returned, attempting to interact with Hinata (from a distance still) as if nothing had happened. But his feelings started to bubble up in a pressure chamber again. And so, he had to leave Hinata behind another time. This time, he considered the fact that a lot of the knowledge that would be useful to him and Hinata both had been stolen from Uzushio’s library. So he went on a couple ventures to reappropriate the stolen scrolls at some of the hidden villages. If he had to practice his alien skills on unsuspecting cloud village ninja at the outskirts of their overflow library, then that was just a bonus. The Raikage had always irritated him anyways. And if he returned a week later to do it again to find these summons contracts? That was no one’s business but his own.

And these foxes now too, apparently.

Shikamaru opened his mouth but found that he couldn’t squeak anything out.

“Yes, we know all about the ‘volunteer’ practice dummies that you’ve acquired on your little vigilante trips, Shikamaru,” Takako smirked. “Ruthless and clever, my favorite combination.”

Now that I think about it, it’s completely obvious why the kitsune were chosen as my summons. I have even looser morals than I had allowed myself to believe. And I’ve always had this locked away inside. I’m –

“You know, Shikamaru, we aren’t monsters,” she said, interrupting his train of thought. “You are nothing like Kaguya, a true malignant force of nature.” True. “And I know you have been assuming foxes are bad, but you like Kurama-sama, don’t you? We kitsune are not necessarily bad on our own. We’re just beasts of nature. As are you.”

I’m just a beast? That’s a new one.

“We’re not saints,” she continued, “but we aren’t sinners either. Let us help you. You know we’ll remain loyal to those we sign a contract with. Only humans remain fickle when it comes to agreements of this type.”

This was the most roundabout way Shikamaru could think of for her to attempt to convince him that he was better off signing an agreement with them. Especially since he had been prepared to sign on since the beginning. Or was he? Did a small part of him feel like refusing out of guilt, or out of a mistaken sense that the kitsune were dangerous and evil?

After that speech, how can I call them evil? I would have to call myself evil too. And I may think I’m a failure…but I haven’t reached that low of an opinion of myself. Yet. I’m only a monster, not a villain. Or perhaps… I’m a beast.

“Why did you work so hard to convince me this way, Takako-sama,” he said, furrowing his brow in confused respect. “I can’t imagine I’m the only qualified human who has sought a contract with you.”

At that, Takako inclined her head in acknowledgement. “That is true, you are not. And they were all falling over themselves in eagerness to even speak to a simple one-tailed kit. But perhaps that’s why I like you. You have a difficult mind, and a troubled heart.” With that, she glanced pointedly at his chest, and Shikamaru instinctually rubbed it, tracing the patterns of the seal tattoos that crept up his neck. She knows something. “Your situation is intriguing to me Shikamaru. And I already told you how I feel about puzzles,” she huffed out a laugh before growing serious.  “And I suppose I don’t want that old hag to come back either. Life without watching you humans would be so dull. There would be no one left to trick.”

“So, I could call on you to help me fight when I need you?” Shikamaru asked, hoping to better understand the limits of his contract with these wily creatures. And could I ask you for information? You clearly know more than you are letting on about the seal marks.  

“Yes, we will include all the standard practices inherent in the usual summons contract,” she answered in a bored tone. “And I think we could help control your little powers problem too. I’ve studied chakra since before your family line was a concept. I can help you learn some control, perhaps even assist with your ‘practice dummies.’ That should clear up enough of your emotional constipation to start sparring with your Hinata without fear, isn’t that right?”

Shikamaru gamely ignored her reference to ‘his’ Hinata. Even in contract negotiations, she was being mischievous. That’s also a sign that weaseling information about the seals from her will require some finesse, later. Instead, he focused on what was being offered to him, in spite of his initial disappointment at being here in Kakusareta Okoku.

There would be no more checks and balances for Shikamaru if he agreed. They would support his excursions, and his lies, and his side-quests, and would lean in on his bent towards mercilessness. Even Keiko and Kamaye, as childish as they were, would likely act in his support, another pair of beings he could corrupt with his skewed moral compass. They all would be willing to help him grow stronger, and to control himself when not faced with enemies, letting loose his wrath only on those in his way.

When he framed it that way, it was truly a no brainer.

“Alright, Takako-sama. I don’t think this is how it was supposed to go in the least. But I’ll agree to a summons contract with the kitsune.”

“Wonderful,” Takako said, rising to her full height and dwarfing Shikamaru again. She flicked one ear, and a moment later, he watched as a beige six-tailed fox, with patches dappled gold in the sunlight, scurried over from above with a scroll in his jaw, dancing on mystical clouds across the sky. That’s right, after a certain number of tails, the kitsune can fly and perform illusory magic. It was something to keep in mind.

“Thank you, Hiroto,” she murmured, wrapping a tail around the scroll and unfurling it when he dropped it in front of her.

It stood there, gleaming in the sunlight, waiting for him to make his next move.

This is no time to be indecisive, especially since you’ve already made up your mind.

He picked up a sharp pointed twig that could be used as a pen. Then, he bit his thumb and signed in blood.

Nara Shikamaru. Holder of the Kitsune Contract.

“We’ll see you soon then, little beast. Be sure to call upon us for training soon.” And with a sweep of her tails she was gone, the other foxes darting away from their encirclement, only there to bear witness. He was alone in the den for just a second before he felt the familiar tug that would whirl him away.

I wonder how Hinata will react to this. And then everything was dark.

When he reopened his eyes after landing on the ground with a harsh thud!, Hinata’s wide-eyed crystalline gaze was the first thing he saw. Her red hair served as a burning halo, and the contrast of the colors made his head spin momentarily, distracted by her earnest glow that seemed to combat the mocking brightness of Takako’s fur.

“Are you alright Shikamaru? It’s so odd to watch the reverse summoning from this perspective. I…I was a little worried,” Hinata said, her breath warm against his cheek. She looked embarrassed, as if having concern for him was something to hide.

Say something, you idiot.

“I’m fine,” he groaned out, sitting up slowly while holding his head. The chakra exhaustion from forming a contract was no joke.

“Did it work?” she asked, helping him stand while blinking at him in sparkling curiosity.

Well here goes.

“Yeah,” he said with a forced half-smile, “I formed a contract with the Kitsune. Rascals, each and every one of them.” He held his breath, waiting for her judgement on him being a perfect match for the most feared creatures in Konoha.

But he saw nothing in her eyes but delight. “That’s amazing! If they’re anything like Kurama, you’ll have powerful and loyal companions! I can’t believe we both have summons now! We’re getting stronger,” she finished with a heartbreaking smile. “We’re getting strong enough to win.”

She accepted me. Damn. And I’ve been ignoring her for weeks. Shikamaru didn’t know what to do with the tightness inside his chest.

Instead, he said “We are getting stronger, but we still have a ways to go. We could…start sparring together if you would like. I know you’re getting quite good at the adamantine chains, and I heard Rashi can put up quite a fight.” I can control myself enough to spar with her, that’s what Takako said.

If it were possible, Hinata lit up even brighter than she already was.

“Y-yes Shikamaru, I’d love to! I actually wanted to ask your opinion on some battle tactics anyways..." she rambled on, continuing to highlight all the various ways she wanted to couple their abilities, particularly some new ninjutsu, together to put up a good fight in public while also keeping their heritage abilities hidden.

Feeling warm, he let her talk. And for the rest of the month, he continued to speak with her more than he had before, sparring, planning, and strategizing. Of course, some of this warmth was cooled by the knowledge that even if he wasn't entirely a monster, he wasn’t as virtuous as she thought either. The weight of his secrets still burdened the buoyant cloud of renewed friendship. He knew that she knew he was still lying about his disappearances, and it was quite clear, when she gazed at him with soft ocean eyes, that she didn’t know she was stuck with a beast.

It didn’t matter though. He still had his occasional excursions to let out some steam. And if that didn’t let him leak out all his repressed angst? He’d let out his emotions during training with the foxes, later on.

Chapter Text

Training, Month 3:

Shikamaru had changed after the first month of cold distance. Hinata didn’t quite know how to describe it. His jaw was firmer, his shoulders were set back straighter, and he seemed less haunted by his own eyes. It was like he had come back from his meeting with the Kitsune as a brand-new person. Or perhaps that was an exaggeration; he had come back with a new, refreshed mindset. She didn’t know what exactly had occurred in that mysterious realm, but the kitsune were clever, even if they were a bit mischievous. They might have managed to trick Shikamaru into believing in himself more. Whatever it was, the second month and a half of their training passed much more pleasantly than the first.

Of course, she knew he was still lying to her about his excursions, some of which grew increasingly longer as time went on. But he was speaking to her more often, and sparring with her constantly, to the point that she felt more prepared for battle than she ever had before, including after her training with Neji. Occasionally, she felt guilty about acknowledging that, but the part of her mind that was slowly traversing the stages of grief also knew that he would have been proud of her and how strong she had become.

And Sage, had she become strong. Rashi, Nezumi, and Hari were almost as harsh of instructors in ninjutsu and taijutsu as Shikamaru was in strategy. And her fuinjutsu, while still at the novice level, was a substantial threat to anybody unprepared to face a seal user.

The last several weeks of training, then, were invaluable to her skills and her confidence. And she finally had some version of her last human friend back again. She treasured their rejuvenated proximity with a complicated yet intense fervor that settled deep in her chest, in a way that confounded her. No one has ever said Hyuuga Hinata was good at analyzing her own feelings. But I wouldn’t say that this one was a bad feeling, at all. So, she continued to ignore the obvious elephant in the room. How could she do any differently? Her resolve to not ask Shikamaru any accusatory questions had only grown stronger from the last time she had seriously considered interfering in his private affairs, months prior. Ino had told her to try, but she could tell that pushing him on this would only make him disappear more, leaving her to greet the skies every morning all alone.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t curious, however. Beyond the natural desire to know where he was going when he disappeared, she was also perceptive enough to realize that his emotions were a bit volatile in an unnatural way. Now that he was more willing to expose a few surface level feelings to her, she could confirm that his outward calm and wittiness was nothing but a façade. It only became true in the few times that Kamaye could bring out his inner childish innocence, or when she occasionally said something that made him smile. I can’t pin down exactly what it is that I say, but if I could, I would bottle it up and give it to him as a balm for rough and rainy days. Regardless, now even when someone was referenced that should have made him react negatively, such as Asuma-sensei (who had led to their cold distance in the first place), she couldn’t detect a single crack in his face, even with the byakugan.

He didn’t cry in front of her anymore. Despite not wanting to see him suffer, it felt like a loss.

More obvious than his shifting emotional state, however, was the darkness underlying his tone when he discussed certain aspects of their plan. Quite honestly, some of his bitter and uncompromising commentary was more typical of Sasuke than it was of the Shikamaru of old. For his emotions to affect his strategic thinking, of all things, was the final nail in the coffin for Hinata’s worry. What could possibly be going on in Shikamaru’s mind for him to go off for days and return more hardened than before?

Whatever it was, she wouldn’t receive an answer anytime soon, and remaining tense because of it would do them no favors. Besides, she didn’t even know if she had a real reason for concern. He had always been a good man at his core. And judging by his gifts of scrolls and advice, he clearly still cared about her progress and well-being. Pitilessness due to the war was a hallmark of any reasonable post-traumatic strategist, something every Kage had evolved into in order to protect their people. Their fragile team of two were dealing with a new level of evil hidden in plain sight never before seen by the current Kage; a touch of ruthlessness was now necessary for their plans, even for her.

It would serve them well as they masqueraded as bounty hunters, after all.

--

She had been surprised when he had first brought it up. “Bounty hunters? Us? Why do we need to become bounty hunters just for an intelligence gathering mission?” She had always known that once the three months of training were up that they would have to jump straight into tracking down the current members of the Akatsuki, but she had imagined it as more of an observatory and clandestine affair so as not to rock the boat.

Shikamaru snorted. “It’s not just an intelligence gathering mission. We’re going to cull the ranks of a few members, if we can isolate them. Some of them are too dangerous to let live, especially because we know nothing about their habits and actions leading up to the major events in the village.”

So, they really were going to kill them. It’s for the greater good. And so many of them were irredeemable…

“Ok,” Hinata nodded hesitantly, “but won’t this change the timeline too much?”

“I thought we already decided to hell with the timeline when we decided to save the Uchiha,” Shikamaru said wryly.

“Oh, I-I understand that because of my…I’m s-sorry,” Hinata stammered out in a daze, feeling guilty but not knowing exactly what she was apologizing for when she wasn’t sorry about wanting to save the Uchiha at all. Oh no, the awkwardness is coming back.

“Relax Hinata,” Shikamaru interrupted her, “you were in the right in that argument. Besides, the most valuable knowledge from our future isn’t necessarily the timing of events, but knowledge of the goals held by all the main perpetrators. Even if we speed up or slow things down, if we know the overall framework, we can still prevent her.” Even now after all these months, Shikamaru often couldn’t bring himself to say Kaguya’s name aloud. She supposed she couldn’t blame him. She, normally so adverse to believing the worst in even those that abused her, hated Kaguya with her entire being as well, even more than she pitied her.

“That’s a good point,” she said bringing her mind back on topic, “but won’t killing Akatsuki members make us seem a bit too conspicuous? I know we’re pretty powerful now, but a head-to-head confrontation with Obito and Zetsu, as well as all the other members, would not end well for us at the moment.”

“No, it wouldn’t. Which brings me back to the bounty hunters point. We need to track the Akatsuki members without making it obvious that we’re looking, right? Well thankfully, Obito used the bingo back as a shopping list. Every member of his little group is a notorious nukenin.”

Hinata could now clearly see where Shikamaru was going with this. “So, if we target some of the lower tier membership while also apprehending some other rogue shinobi from the bingo book,” she said slowly, realization stabbing into her throat and almost choking her, “then we’ll be able to make it through the intel-gathering relatively undetected.”

“Yes, exactly. If we disguise their deaths with the capture of other nukenin, then we’ll remain untraceable,” he finished, eyes narrowing on her as if he could sense her reservations. “You understand why we have to do this, don’t you Hinata?”

She was making herself sick, but she did understand. It was the simple, horrifying truth that almost every nukenin in the bingo books were unmitigated monsters. It was the duty of the villages to wipe out those who would dare to threaten and harm innocent civilians and relatively harmless shinobi just for their own selfish and perverted purposes. And still, despite fighting in an entire war, Hinata had not yet been required to kill a real person yet. The white, lifeless zetsus did not count in the least. A regenerating glob was not the same as a living breathing person, whom Naruto had always tried to save in the end no matter what.

But that was then, and this is now.

“Yes, Shikamaru,” she said softly, looking down at her feet to avoid his gaze, “I understand. And I’m with you.”

“I’ll be the one to kill them, Hinata. I can take that duty from you if you’d prefer,” Shikamaru offered, his calloused fingers brushing against her chin as he tipped it upwards to meet his eyes. They were dark, yet earnest, and his scowl seemed tinged with concern. “We can arrange our tactics so that you hold them off and only I have to land the killing blow, if we can’t take them in alive.”

A shinobi who can’t kill when necessary isn’t a shinobi at all. They’re a dull blade in the kitchen. A liability in the field. I’m sure Rashi-san would agree. And this… this is necessary. Right?

“No, Shikamaru. I’m a shinobi too.” I am not weak. “If we are going to do this, to save our friends, then we are going to do it together.” She didn’t want to say it, but she needed to. She was a kunoichi and a Hyuuga, raised from birth to be the village’s sword and shield. And she was his partner, above all else. I will not let you bear that burden on your own, Shikamaru. You already seem so changed by this past year; I won’t let you continue to twist without me there, too, to straighten you out.

He looked at her for a moment, as if skeptical of her resolve and searching to make sure she knew the cost of her acquiescence. For a minute, she suspected (hoped) he would say something in protest. There was so much hesitancy in his posture, and maybe…fear and guilt in his eyes. She thought she saw a flash of purple. But then his jaw set (firmly, like it was after the kitsune visit), and he bobbed his head once in acknowledgement.

And that was that. In just a few weeks, they would make their debut as bounty hunters. And I’ll drift a little further away from the girl that my friends and my love had known. But I’ll draw Shikamaru closer to me.

I must do this for us. Focus, Hinata.

Once again, Hinata couldn’t help but wonder where Shikamaru’s hardness had come from. The thought of going on an intentional journey to capture and/or kill people seemed to have left him with nothing more than a slightly furrowed brow and a grim set to his thinned lips. It was unsettling. She had always known, from the moment that she first witnessed the cold disappointment in her father’s eyes, that nothing could be scarier than the indifference of someone you cared for. This indifference wasn’t directed at her, and yet in the context of their deadly resolve, it felt just as heavy as a blood-moon induced silence.

--

Hinata shook herself out of the remembered conversation, having spent the last several minutes staring as the sun slowly peaked its head above the rushing waves surrounding the Hidden Eddy Village. She always began her morning here at the jagged cliff face when she could, breathing in the sea salt air and listening to the nocturnal animals return to their dens while the early rising birds and squirrels began to chirp and scurry across the landscape. Life was teeming everywhere, and she was going to use her last few weeks at the island to appreciate it. There would be no more time to marvel at life when they had to steep themselves in death, soon, anyways.

I wonder if that was always going to be the plan, or if things would have been easier if we had shown up when we were supposed to. I suppose I’ll never know. But…is this what you wanted, Naruto?

Speculating would do her no favors. She needed to sharpen her mind. With a deep inhale she stood, turning her back to the ocean as she closed her eyes, slowly extending her left leg in a gentle arc before setting it on the ground again, raising her arms in front of her so that they were lateral and outstretched. Starting Posture.

With a controlled exhale, she moved again, slowly, smoothly, rotating her arms and extending her left leg outwards again, leaning into the movement as she carefully spun her body. Part of the Wild Horse’s Mane.

Next she gently pointed her toe, still slowly rolling her arms. White Crane Spreads its Wings. She could feel herself starting to settle within her own mind, the movements coming easily to her body, careful training and muscle memory making the forms fluid and effortless.

Brush a knee and step forward. Green Dragon Shoots out Pearl. Spread her fingers and flutter through the air. Playing the Lute. Step back and reel her forearms. Repulse the Monkey. Constantly moving, and breathing with purpose, Hinata continued to accelerate her pacing, becoming one with the ocean breeze and droplet-ridden mist, feeling the sun warm her back and set her hair on fire. As she settled into her martial meditation, she couldn’t help but let their altered timeline of events flow through her mind, finding that their plan held more clarity when her body moved of its own accord.

Left Grasp Sparrow’s Tail. Training would end in just two weeks, as their agreed upon three months grew to a close. This was no problem. They were strong enough to move on from the Hidden Eddy village now.

Right Grasp Sparrow’s Tail. They would leave on a joint mission spanning the four elemental nations to find members of the Akatsuki, starting in Kumogakure and spiraling west and around until they ended in the land of fire.

Single Whip. Wave Hands Like Clouds. The goal was to identify all members of the current Akatsuki and detect where they often gathered. If they were lucky, they would find their headquarters. Shikamaru had said Sasuke did not remember where exactly he had stayed when he took his brothers’ eyes.

Single Whip. High Pat on Horse. Cull the ranks of at least two Akatsuki members. Shikamaru had not been specific about which ones, but Hinata could guess at least one nin high on his list.

Cross Hands, Right Heel Kick. Steal a bingo book from an outpost. Identify some of the worst of the rogue nin, particularly those poor at concealing their movements. Find them. Kill the—

No. Breathe.

Strike to Ears with Both Fists. Collect bounties and generate a reputation.

Turn Body, Cross Hands, Left Heel Kick. Practice, practice, practice, continue practicing her new skills. Grow more powerful, for the sake of everyone else.

Left Single Whip Low, Bird Stand on One Leg. Identify the locations of the current jinchuuriki, as best as they can. Just in case.

Right Single Whip Low, Bird Stand on One Leg. Rescue them from their fates Unless in direct danger by the Akatsuki, leave them to their current devices. (For now. But Gaara’s seal…).

No. Breathe.

Shuttle Back and Forth. Needle at Bottom of Ocean. At the end of six months post time travel, approach the village and request residency.

Ward Off, Push Away. Somehow, gain their trust and respect, and earn a secure enough place to guarantee maneuverability.

Turn Body, Deflect, Parry, and Punch. Deter Danzo and befriend old allies.

Closing Shut. Cross Hands. Save the Uchiha. Somehow avoid alerting Obito of their future plans.

She straightened her body and opened her eyes, letting her left leg slowly skim the ground in an arc before settling by her right, leaving her standing once more. Ending Posture.

After that, somehow, they would save the world. Save the world. As if it were that easy.

Despite the exercise, Hinata didn’t feel calm at all. There were sharp rocks in the stream of her mind, splitting the flow in a shockwave that rippled into the ambient pressure. Hesitancy in a ninja was a death sentence. But she couldn’t stop herself from the tendrils of doubt, both for herself and their objectives.

But we must. It’s a sound plan. I cannot find any logical faults in its premise. That was the problem though, wasn’t it? Shikamaru’s plans rarely had logical faults. That meant it would work, even without a heart.

Focus, Hinata.

She started her exercises again, flowing into the opening tai chi posture. Perhaps running it through her mind again would work, this time. Steady, Hinata.

Part of the Wild Horse’s Mane…

A few days later, on the same cliffside, Shikamaru joined her unexpectedly near the end of her fourth iteration of the kata set. Her eyes were still closed, but she could hear his steady breathing and the dull reverberation of his heel impacting with the dirt. The air was now suffused in some of his scent, ink and old parchment, and the tartness of fresh grass. She waited for him to interrupt her verbally, but he said nothing. What are you up to, now? With one eye peaked open, she observed him settling into the familiar form of the Sparrow’s Tail next to her.

He's joining me? This…this is nice.

And as he fluidly turned his limbs in sync with her, his dark roots bleeding into the pale hair that is burning bright white in the rising sun, she felt a modicum of peace enter her mind. Not enough to blanket her doubt. But enough of a layer to keep her warm.

Cross Hands. Ending Posture.

With that she opened her eyes fully, turning to look at him with quiet expectation.

“Good morning, Shikamaru. I hope you slept well,” she ventured softly after he had done nothing but stare at her, mouth slightly parted.

He hurriedly cleared his throat. “Yes, good morning Hinata. Starting off the morning with training already?”

“I do this every morning,” she countered with a light blush, bending down to gather her equipment belt.

“Oh,” he breathed out, tapping a pale finger against the back of his other hand. “I didn’t know. It’s relaxing.”

She inclined her head in agreement, smiling a little at his hesitance. This is the gentle Shikamaru I had missed.

And just as soon as she had that thought, the vulnerability on his face disappeared. Neji may have been right about our luck.

“Right. Well, I came out here to look for you. We’re set to leave here in a little over a week, so I’ve been sending some of my foxes out to do light recon work on the village so that we could start making a more intricate plan. Some of them just came back, so I thought we could discuss it right now.” He suddenly looked impatient, the brief calm brought by the tai chi dissipating from his body with every jittery movement of his bouncing legs and tapping fingers. He must be especially anxious about this stage of planning.

Hinata was a bit surprised, to say the least. They hadn’t even ventured into their second phase of their plan, and he was already working to organize their third? “That seems early, Shikamaru.”

“It seems like it for now, but it really isn’t. Our plan for the next phase is fairly tactile in nature and doesn’t require as much finesse. But infiltrating the village…to be honest, that interaction is going to be a stretch of chaos. There are too many wildcards to truly plan for anything, but if we start now, we can organize some of it.” That made sense. Politics made everything more difficult for a shinobi. Naruto had always ignored it, but that wouldn’t work here.  

“Besides,” he continued, oblivious to her consideration, “one of the means by which we’ll enter the village needs the groundwork set now. If…if you would like, I can show you my notes in the library.”

I can see his notes! He hoards them like a dragon. He must be serious about this.

“That sounds good, Shika-kun,” she remarked, letting the nickname slip out without a thought. Oops. Was that too familiar? I’ve only ever heard Ino and Choji call him that!

“Let’s go r-right now, I’m ready,” she rushed out, finally clasping her final buckle. Before he could say anything in reply, she was gone, scaling her way down the cliff and across the tress, heading straight towards the largest pile of rubble in the ruined city, where they had set up camp within the first week.

Crossing through the opening in the side, she swept swiftly past her desk, where she could spot the remains of a failed seal (which was unfortunately mildly explosive) and the familiar list of her kanji exercises. Her mastery level was up to nearly 7500, which was decent. Although, in the face of the nearly 50,000 there was in total, it was minimally sufficient. It was enough, though. It must be.

As she approached Shikamaru’s area on the opposite end of the library, she heard a grunt from behind her. “You can be fast when you want to be, Hinata.”

She resolutely pretended that her face did not match her hair. “Yes, well, I thought that the matter was urgent! So, I decided to be swift.”

Shikamaru couldn’t completely conceal his smirk. “Yes, I can see that.” As he overtook her pace, she allowed herself time to look around. She wasn’t often in this part of the library. It had felt so uniquely Shikamaru’s that she did not want to intrude on his space, especially when he had been stridently avoiding her. But now that he had invited her in, she had an outlet for her interest. Amidst the numerous scrolls and dusty debris, she could spot traces of his presence: an ink pot perched on a crumbling shelf, a whetstone for his kunai lying haphazardly on the floor, and crumpled notes strewn everywhere.

And then finally, there was his desk. She would never claim that her station was exceptionally neat in this perpetually dirty place, but his area looked like a war zone of scribbled paper and dripping black ink. The characteristic space of an occupied genius with an over-active mind.

“Sorry about the mess,” he mumbled, taking care to select a few sheets in a special order only clear to him. “I’ve been trying to sort some things out.”

“I could have helped you, Shikamaru,” she murmured back, slightly hurt. They had discussed their plans for phase two for over a month, but apparently, he did not want to let her in on the in-depth planning for infiltrating the village. I know I am no genius, but I could have at least provided some input on his intel.

“No, no most of this information was boring and useless. A lot of it was the same type of tedious paperwork Tsunade-sama used to dump on me. I only wanted to distract you from your training for something important. Like now.” He said placatingly, attempting to settle her nerves.

She blinked, and then smiled in acceptance. “As long as you’re sure.”

“Don’t worry about me.” I always worry about you, even when I try not to. “Anyways, I know that we still haven’t even ventured off the island yet, but Keiko and Hiroto brought me some intelligence that I think will be relevant for the village.”

“What did they find?” she asked, inclining her head, letting the tips of her hair brush across his hands as she sat in front of him.

“Although no one has tried to breach the perimeter we set up here, it seems that some of the ninja more in tune with nature’s chakra sensed that an anomaly had occurred in space-time a couple months ago. They haven’t been able to pinpoint exactly where it originated from, although they know it is in this region of the world. They also don’t know what it signifies, but it’s enough to raise a suspicion,” he said grimly, taking a seat as well.

Well, that’s no good.

“I assume that Danzo is one of the ones who was informed of this?” she asked despondently. She knew the answer to that already.

“Yes, and he’s been on the lookout for anything anomalous since. I think he’s been led off course a bit by rumors of a new rogue presence in Kumo, so this hasn’t maintained his full attention, but this could be dangerous for us if we show up out of the blue. Particularly because if he knows about it, then surely Zetsu and Obito suspect something.”

I hate Zetsu even more than I hate Kaguya. Getting the attention of that slick patch of tar is a bad omen.

“That’s true, I hadn’t considered that. I would be worried, but I take it you already have an idea?”

Shikamaru briefly grinned at her, lightening his face. “Perceptive as always. Yes, I do have a plan, but you may not like it.”

Hinata raised an eyebrow. “Why won’t I like it?” she frowned. There is nothing that will make me more upset than having to seek people out to kill for my own convenience, which I have resolved to do anyways.

“I need you to establish a trail of rumors to follow for our origins before we step foot near the village. I would have us both do it, but we desperately need to track down the Akatsuki at the same time, since we’re running on a clock. So, based on travel distances and groundwork, we’ll need to spend at least the first few weeks or a month of intelligence gathering apart.”

Never mind. This is almost as bad.

“Apart? Why will we need to be apart?” Hinata wasn’t panicking, but her breathing was more rapid, and she could feel her face flush with displeasure. “It wouldn’t take that long to lay the groundwork of our identities, right? I’m just a lost Uzumaki and you’re my companion.”

Shikamaru sighed, dragging a hand along his jaw in practiced, tired movement. He has an ink smudge on his cheek now. Should I wipe it off? She left it alone. “Unfortunately, we can’t maintain that you’re simply a lost Uzumaki. It would be too much of a coincidence if you appeared from nowhere with no credible backstory about where you came from and why you have no village affiliation at a time when a space-time anomaly occurred near the land infamous for its seals. You—we—need to have a backstory spread by people other than us, to alleviate any inquiries that the Sandaime and Danzo will definitely make.” I hate it when he makes such logical sense.

“I…I understand. And I know how to establish an identity but…is it truly wise to separate at this time? What about our…resolve to track bingo book members as well as the Akatsuki?”

“It’ll be alright, Hinata. We each have summons now. And I’m not sure you’ve truly come to appreciate it, but we’re incredibly powerful nowadays. Stronger than many of the average nukenin, for certain. I trust that you’ll remain safe.”

Hinata felt her cheeks warm in bashfulness. Thank you, Shika-kun. But what about you?

Sidestepping the unspoken question about his own safety, Shikamaru continued to lay out his ideas. “Besides that, we can multitask. While spreading the whispers of our origin, you can observe and investigate amongst the civilian population and the outposts for signs of the Akatsuki, and any obvious bingo book members. You can avoid direct engagement with them unless absolutely necessary. Meanwhile, I can gather information, acquire a bingo book, and start on my reputation as a bounty hunter.”

“How will we explain our connection then, when I join you?” She questioned, desperately trying to find holes in his plan.

“I’ve thought of that too; it actually ties back into the identity rumors and documentation that you’re going to be planting. We can both be lost, orphaned members of the village, scattered after it was destroyed. There are enough of those that it won’t be too terribly suspicious. Remember Karin and her mother?” Hinata pursed her lips in thought, nodding her head. That was true enough. “The official story can be that the older members of the refugees had ways to stay in contact, even as they separated to avoid attention. We used to share the same sensei, who was a nomadic master of Uzushio that visited the different groups. He taught us at separate times; me in my youth, and you in your teens. He had been training you when he suddenly died, and he told you to seek me out since we were of similar ages and had a heritage connection. Then, you used the communication device and ran into me bounty hunting. We hit it off, and then we became a team.”

This story was… quite convincing. Almost romantic or destined. Plus, ensuring that they had identities that were not dependent on the other, but instead complimentary, may work out better than the claim that Shikamaru was the random friend of an Uzumaki. And she would be able to avoid active bounty hunting for another month. Another month to reconcile her mind and heart, even if it would momentarily shift the burden to Shikamaru in spite of her earlier insistence to the contrary. Although…

“That sounds like a reasonable plan, but are you also going to claim to be an Uzumaki? You don’t exactly share the character traits…” she trailed off, hesitant to shoot his idea down. Plus, that would prove to be an awkward, almost familial connection between us. Not that being familial would be bad. It would just be…too convenient.

Right at this moment, Hinata wished that her genetic modifications also came with an anti-blush gene built in, along with her temporary byakugan.

To his credit, he only quirked a brow good-naturedly. “Well, I do have some seal tattoos now. But no, being an Uzumaki wouldn’t exactly work with my…modified genetics. But the Uzumaki weren’t the only tribe in Uzushiogakure. Here,” he said, shoving a couple of loose sheets at her, “take a look at the stories I came up with for us.”

Hinata peered down, absorbing the loosely compiled information written in chicken-scratch scrawled along the page.

“Nara Shikamaru’s new designation:  Chinami Shikage (The Chinami clan is one of the founding Uzushiogakure clans, known for their adept use of Yin release, which utilizes creativity and imagination to create form; this can be used to combine shadow jutsu with the Kaguya-related ocular powers to create illusions and capture people in a dream world made of shadows. A safe and convenient way to explain the Shadow Garden.) Further supported by the kitsune, a heritage contract of Uzushio, who also have powers of illusion. A window can be left open to imply heavily that one parent is a stray Nara from the post-war landscape, if not believed about the acquisition of the shadow jutsu knowledge in the first place.

Hyuuga Hinata’s new designation: Uzumaki Hiyori (The Uzumaki clan is renowned for their chakra storage, fuinjutsu, and adamantine chains. They are identifiable, often, by their red hair.) Novice level mastery of fuinjutsu, as well as enhanced ninjutsu abilities in lightning release, and possession of the chakra chains will all lead to credible cover as an Uzumaki. Contract with the quilled beasts, and knowledge of quilled taijutsu forms, will also imply some sort of established family lineage and general mastery. Will not reveal byakugan and gentle fist techniques unless pressed. If necessary, an explanation about a stray Hyuuga from the post-war landscape will also be used, though this is a last-resort tactic.”

It…it was a lot of information to absorb. Hinata was torn between admiring Shikamaru’s attention to detail, hyper fixating on this so-called ‘Shadow Garden’ that she had rarely ever seen, let alone named, or considering the frankly impressive analysis of their abilities and techniques so seamlessly woven into their new identities.

The first words out of her mouth, however, had nothing to do with any of those things. “I…guess I won’t be Hinata anymore, huh.” Since the first time Shikamaru had told her she wasn’t a Hyuuga anymore, all those months ago, she knew deep down that this was coming. Her entire identity was going to be superseded by the needs of the new person she was morphing into. Shikamaru would have to change as well. It made sense, at its base. And yet… yet it hurt her.

My mother gave me the name Hinata, but now she must die in the place of someone else. Perhaps that would make her feel less guilt for becoming a bounty hunter. Hyuuga Hinata wouldn’t be doing anything deadly. Uzumaki Hiyori would.

Shikamaru, to his credit, looked painfully regretful, biting his lip in consternation. “Yes. I’m sorry, but it would probably be confusing if both you and I turned up with the same first names as our village counterparts. I know they…we…are just kids now, but if they have an excuse to investigate it, the facial resemblance might turn up. I tried to choose similar first names because that will be easier to remember, and to help prevent some pronunciation slip-ups up to the first kana. If you don’t like the name Hiyori, I can always…”

“No,” she said sadly, bowing her head in sadness for only a moment, before she gritted her teeth and looked back at him. “Hiyori is a fine name. And I like the name Shikage too.” Perhaps now I have a valid excuse for calling him Shika-kun. “You’ve truly done some great work, Shikamaru.” She wondered how he felt about the name change. His face, as was often the case these days, showed no exceptional negative reaction to the alias at all.

I will not cry. I will not cry. Sure, she was the one who had told him earlier that it was ok to cry in front of your partner. But at this moment, Hinata felt it was deeply important to conceal her shocked pain. This wasn’t quite the justifiable grief for friends or family. This was grief over a name, in place of a new identity. She wasn’t so weak as to become a crybaby again over that.

She wondered if Shikamaru could tell what she was thinking, or if he noticed the tears she was hiding. She wondered if he would have said anything to comfort her if she had said something.

But they weren’t there anymore. He kept secrets still. They didn’t cry in front of each other. It was most definitely a loss.

“Ok,” he said simply, “ok. Then, memorize this sheet, then burn it. These will be our new identities. To everyone else.” Are we still Shikamaru and Hinata to each other, then?  “I’ll help you practice them over the next week. Then it’s—”

“—time to leave the island, and start our plan,” Hinata concluded. My name is Uzumaki Hiyori. I am the holder of the quilled beast’s contract. I am partnered with Chinami Shikage. We’re going to save the Uchiha. We’re going to save our friends. Even if we can’t quite save ourselves. But we’ll have each other. Right?

The peace from the morning’s tai chi exercise felt so distant, it might as well have been the sun. But she was a shinobi. She must press on.

“Alright Shika—Shikage,” she said, teeth gritted in concentration. “Let’s get started.”

May it be that this does not lead us any further away from our old selves than necessary. Is this what you wanted, Naruto?

Chapter Text

Location: Konohagakure

Time: End of Month 5 post-time travel

Endless amounts of paperwork and clan in-fighting reminded Sarutobi Hiruzen of the reason he had eagerly retired in the first place. He was old, as so few shinobi grew to be. He even had a grandchild now. He thought he had finally earned his break when Minato had sprung up through the ranks and blazed a dominant path during the Third Great Ninja War. Konoha’s Yellow Flash, the hero of his generation.

But now Minato was dead. A flash in the pan. All he had left of him was this mantle, and his orphaned son who had a monster trapped inside of him. An orphaned son that Danzo had convinced him to hide away in plain sight, just another abandoned child in the wake of the Kyuubi disaster. Although word had gotten out about his jinchuuriki status anyways, despite his intentions. Yet another misfortune befalls that family line.

He took another long drag of smoke from his pipe, idly twisting in his chair as he stared at a document regarding trade agreements with Suna, the words blurring together in a meaningless mush. Maybe I should go home. No one has tended to my wife’s garden today, I’m sure. She so loved the flowers.

Footsteps approaching from the front of his office had him looking up from the tedious report. Oh, it’s Danzo. And Shikaku, and Inoichi. Joy. I’m sure this will be something that calls for more stress.

“It’s a bit late gentlemen, don’t you think?” He greeted lazily, raising an eyebrow.

“Us war dogs never sleep, you know that Hiruzen,” Danzo replied shortly. Hiruzen had always been equal parts fond and exasperated by his rudeness. But it was a necessary counter to his own benevolence, he supposed. Their complimentary natures formed the foundation of how the village had continued to run even past Minato’s untimely departure.

Shikaku cleared his throat. “We actually had a meeting scheduled, Sandaime-sama. You requested that we meet to discuss potential avenues of remediation with the Uchiha, and you preferred to do it at night when the tower was not especially busy.”

“Oh right,” Hiruzen sighed, “I did schedule that, didn’t I?” I knew this would be a headache. The damn Uchiha… “Any ideas, then?”

“The Uchiha continue to persist in self-isolation and civil unrest,” Inoichi reported with slight agitation, white-blond locks frizzing away from his ponytail. “Distrust between their clan and the civilians, as well as with us here at the Hokage’s office and the shinobi corps, has continued to rise steadily.” The intelligence master looked worried and drained, no doubt overly occupied by the situation that had continued to escalate in the past three years.

“Itachi and Shisui have continued to excel in the ANBU but that has not swayed the clan opinion of the village. They have reported that the secret clan meetings are increasing in frequency, and talk has leaned more and more towards treason with each event. I don’t think they’re sure how to steer their elders on another course, anymore, beyond attempting something with Shisui’s Sharingan” Shikaku added, face impassive but eyes betraying his pensiveness. “I’m not convinced that it would be worth it to even try. They’re a stubborn people, and village relations haven’t improved at all.”

That was an eminently bad sign.

“I don’t know why Tobirama-sensei gave them police jurisdiction in the first place,” Danzo grumbled. “He should have known to never trust an Uchiha with power. They’ll always abuse it.”

Shikaku carefully raised an eyebrow. He stayed silent this time, but Hiruzen was sure he was thinking that it was the movement of the clan to the outskirts of the village, rather than their duty as the police, that was the main culprit of their isolation. It only fueled the rumors that the Uchiha were the ones who had unleashed the nine-tails on the village. Shikaku had stated his opinion before, repeatedly, to no avail.

“I don’t think we’ve reached the age or wisdom to question Tobirama-sensei quite yet, Danzo.” Hiruzen simply replied mildly. Danzo always was so fierce in his protection of the village. He hates calls for treason. “Don’t forget that Uchiha Kagami was his favorite student, no matter how much you and I tried to pretend otherwise. And he was also our great friend.”

With a sniff Danzo rolled his one visible eye, removing one arm from his pale blue robe to jab a finger at him. “That doesn’t change the fact that they’re discussing a revolt. A revolt that this village can’t afford. I know that you want to settle this peacefully, but they haven’t listened to a word you’ve said.”

They hadn’t, to his utter failure. They don’t respect me anymore. He was just so tired. He never wanted the hat back. He barely wanted it when Tobirama-sensei had thrust it at him in the first place, just before his death. Would Minato have done better by the Uchiha? By Naruto? It didn’t matter. Minato was dead, his soul trapped with the reaper of death. He had his own duties to consider, now.  

“You’ve thought of other incentives and deals to offer them, haven’t you Shikaku?” he inquired, straightening his back.

“Yes, Hokage-sama. There are monetary and land-improvement offers we can take them, but I do not think that will solve the underlying issues of the village’s mistrust.” Shikaku stated matter-of-factly. No, it wouldn’t. But it was something.

“Danzo, you have maintained an impressive social network amongst the citizens. Do you think there is anything we can do, maybe in conjunction with the Yamanaka, to influence village perception?” Hiruzen was beginning to feel consumed by overwhelming desperation. He needed this solution to bear fruit. Otherwise, with a revolution brewing in one of the most powerful clans in the village…he didn’t want to consider the consequences. He had already faced failure with Orochimaru. Although that was partially Danzo’s fault. He couldn’t bear adding another negative laurel to his name.

“I suppose I can try, but I still think this is a fool’s errand. What we need is more surveillance and a firmer hand. Regardless, you’re the Hokage. Let’s coordinate later, shall we Inoichi?” Danzo grunted out, looking vaguely pleased before his usual gruff exterior shifted back into place. Hiruzen wondered…but no. Danzo had always served in the interest of the village, even if his methods were a little misguided. He would do so again, he was sure.

On his part, Inoichi also looked hesitant, but in the face of both Danzo’s casual command and the Hokage’s suggestion, he couldn’t find it in himself to say no to the ploy. So, he nodded once, briskly.

With a groan, Hiruzen stood up with audible popping, cursing the age that had affected his previous prowess. Not that he couldn’t be dangerous anymore. He still inspired fear in the elemental nations as the Hokage, and it wasn’t due to his prowess with paperwork and city planning. Nowadays, though, the God of Shinobi had a few more creaking joints than before, which whispered in a siren’s call that there was nothing wrong with being an ex-deity should he decide to give in to his exhaustion. “Alright then. Let’s reconvene next week to discuss it further and see if there have been any changes. If they accept a deal, I’ll bring it up with the clan council at this month’s meeting. Now—”

A tell-tale whisper of danger at the nape of his neck had him cutting himself off, craning his head around in his dimly lit office to see a man hanging outside his window, wearing a distinctive red and white dog mask.

“Do you ever use the door, Hound?” he said, alerting everyone else in the room to their interloper. “I’m beginning to think you believe it’s there for decoration.”

“My apologies Hokage-sama,” the ANBU said placidly. You’re not sorry at all, you imp. You wanted me to catch you hanging out there. “I was told you wanted a report immediately after my reconnaissance mission was complete.”

Ah, right, another thing I have forgotten. “Come in, then. You remember lords Shimura Danzo, Nara Shikaku, and Yamanaka Inoichi, don’t you?” he asked, waving him in. I always hate addressing them by their formal titles. Useless clan politics.

Hound hopped from the window to the ground agilely, and then flash stepped so that he was in front of Hiruzen’s desk rather than behind it, standing off to the side yet parallel to the three others. His spiky white hair levitated above his mask, in sharp contrast to the Hokage portraits obscured in shadow behind him. “Yes, sir.”

Of course he knew them. Between the three of them, they oversee the elder council, the advisory network, and Enhanced Interrogation, some of the core pillars of the Hidden Leaf.

“Good,” Hiruzen nodded. “They were just on their way out. I’ll hear your report after they take their leave.”

Knowing an obvious cue when they saw one, Shikaku and Inoichi were quick to head towards the exit without so much as a backwards glance at the ANBU, heads bent together as they conferred. Danzo alone hesitated. Hiruzen knew he was vaguely curious about what had been important enough to send his best ANBU agent out on his own in the first place. This was especially true because there was no love lost between the two of them. Danzo would not get any information from Hound that he did not want to reveal, so listening in was his only option. But even he understood the chain of command and need for secrecy in a hidden village, and with a brief inclination of his head, he too swept out of the room, leaning on his cane as he set out with a brisk pace, leaving the sleeves of his robe to flutter dramatically.

“We’ll talk later, Hiruzen,” he called back at him, voice gravelly. Then he was gone.

Throughout all of it, Hound had stood at stiff attention, hands clasped behind his back and spine rim-rod straight. He was still a bit of a stickler for the rules, despite Guy’s best efforts, and years of separation between himself and his father’s mistakes. There was a cold exterior that hadn’t melted, even after he had stopped Tenzo from assassinating Hiruzen, and had taken Itachi in to guide. The deaths of all his teammates had broken him. Although, there were hints of softness exhibited here and there, such as when he left ‘anonymous’ gifts at the orphanage of one specific little boy, before he had been…relocated. It wasn’t enough to fix him, though. I’m sure you would have had opinions about Kakashi too, Minato. But I need him to remain where and how he is, for now.

As usual, he didn’t voice any of his thoughts. “You may proceed with your report, Hound. I take it you’ve managed to confirm the rumors surrounding the scroll thefts and mercenary deaths in the Cloud?”

“Yes Hokage-sama,” Hound began stiffly, “Although the situation has spread beyond the Cloud. Despite there having been no sightings in the last few weeks, he was last seen near the Mist. Witnesses are reporting this unknown shinobi to be a crafty ghost that operates alone.”

“A ghost?” Hiruzen parroted dubiously. That’s a new one.

“Yes, a ghost. Civilian witnesses are calling him the Nightmare, and that’s what they’ve listed him as on the updated bingo book in at least two villages as well. An overall description designates him as an A- or S- rank shinobi of unknown mastery. His features are pale, but he dresses in all black and wears a face mask.” Sounds like he’s stealing your look, Kakashi. That might pose a problem with the Raikage later. A always suspects we’re up to something. “Some witnesses have reported he flies in on an ethereal mist and rides a sickly-looking horse with six legs.”

Hiruzen blinked slowly, attempting to process that rumor. “An other-worldly mist and a six-legged horse? Do you believe this to be credible?”

Hound cocked his head to the side. In an ANBU mask, the gesture was disturbing. “I believe that they believed it. There were no signs of sarcasm in the in-person interviews I conducted, nor in the conversations I overheard. No one can properly identify his face, but they say his presence leaves them feeling hysterical and panicked, trapped in their nightmares. Hence, the name. The ninja affected, particularly the Cloud ninja, but also Mist ninja in recent months, have also claimed to know they have given away sensitive information to Nightmare, but they are never sure exactly what. No interrogation by other shinobi from their own village can confirm or deny anything they’ve given away. Based on this information, I believe him to be capable of jutsu that alters the mind, perhaps some sort of specialized genjutsu, with the cruelty to use fear against his target.” Despite the horrifying nature of the report, Hound let nothing slip into his tone beyond basic curiosity. Yet, Hiruzen noticed a slight tremor in his shoulders. He doesn’t want to be trapped in his nightmares any more than he already is, most likely. This Nightmare sounds incredibly dangerous, despite the fable-like name.

Hiruzen lowered his brow, smoking more intensely, so that the clouds obscured his face. “Does he appear to have any run-ins in the land of fire?”

“No,” Hound replied promptly. “Although he no doubt has passed through, there have been no unearthly sightings of him, nor have any ninja reported mass panic, hysteria, or scroll theft.”

That’s a good sign, for now. If it’s Kumo’s problem or the Mist’s, for the time being, that would be to our benefit. Nevertheless, he’s demonstrably dangerous and an unknown, with no obvious motive. I’ll have to make a note for the B-ranks and below not to engage with him unless necessary in the new mission directives, as well as increase training in breaking genjutsu.

“Thank you for the report, Hound,” he said, eager to end the meeting so that he can sleep off the overwhelming day.

Rather than leave out the window as was his custom, Hound shifted his legs uncomfortably. Oh? More to say, hmm?“Hokage-sama, while I was investigating the Nightmare, I came across two more new additions to the international bingo book that I think you might take an interest in.”

“Really?” Hiruzen answered in surprise. “There are dozens of new entries a day. What makes these new rogues so special?”

“It is unknown if they are indeed rogue ninja. No village has claimed them, and I don’t believe any will. Casual investigation has turned up rumors that they are loosely connected descendants of Uzushiogakure shinobi, living among some of the scattered settlement groups.”

At that, Hiruzen snapped to attention. “Uzushiogakure?” Our sister city…I knew there were some small clusters of survivors, but they were few and far between, and weak. Considering that we failed them, I’m sure none are eager to make themselves known to Konoha.

“Yes,” Hound confirmed. “They claim to be an Uzumaki and a Chinami…”

Hiruzen sucked in a sharp breath. Another Uzumaki? I had thought they were nearly gone. I wonder if there’s any direct relation to Kushina…

Hound kept speaking as if he hadn’t noticed Hiruzen’s reaction to the names. “…and they’ve been gathering impressive bounties from several dangerous nukenin within the last month. The woman, at least, has the red hair to suggest she actually is an Uzumaki, and the Chinami uses some kind of Yin release to create petty shadow illusions. Their precision and deadly reputation has skyrocketed their names in various village bingo books; not as high as mine, or Nightmare’s, but still impressive. They must be A-class at least. Their nicknames have been widely accepted in village outposts as the Red Empress [Akakougou] and the Half Moon [Hangetsu].”

Hiruzen pressed his lips together in contemplation, setting down his pipe. The red empress and the half moon. Aka-tsuki. I wonder if this has any relation to the Akatsuki that I sent Jiraiya to investigate a few years ago. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence, based on their features and skills, or for dramatic effect. Like Copy-cat Kakashi. Or the more damaging Friend-killer Kakashi. Still, it’s worth looking into. I haven’t gotten a report frog from Jiraiya in a while, anyhow.

“That is noteworthy,” he said instead of voicing his ruminations, “but why have you chosen to bring it up to me in person rather than in a written summation?”

At this, Hound abruptly reached into his pants pocket and produced a roughly hand drawn map that showed distinct tracks operating in a spiral pattern. “This has been their reported movement over the past several weeks.”

As he looked, Hiruzen couldn’t help but feel faint alarm. It appeared that these two Uzushio bounty hunters were eventually heading towards Konoha, in a roundabout fashion. This could be dangerous as well. They might be coming after the only other Uzumaki I know personally…Naruto. Do they know he’s a jinchuuriki? Is this a threat? Or is it perhaps an opportunity?

Hiruzen cut off his mental spiral. The time for planning would come later, when he was alone. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Hound. I’ll take this under consideration. Make sure to include which bounties they’ve collected in your written report. I’m…curious. You’re dismissed, unless you have anything else you’d like to share?”

Hound shook his concealed head no, and in an instant had disappeared again, melting into the night outside of his window.

Hiruzen settled back into his desk chair and sighed. There was no time now to get some rest. He needed to think about the consequences of this new information. I need to contact Jiraiya. These bounty hunters…are they coming here for asylum from a sister city or revenge? And this Nightmare character as well…what is he after in the other villages?

He so wished he could retire. Again. He was too old to deal with ruthless and powerful young blood. But for now, he wore the hat, which meant he bore the responsibility. The weight of carrying the village obscured his own desires.

And sometimes it obscured his attention to detail.

Over the course of the meeting, on top of a tree that sat adjacent to the Hokage’s office, a blank, white-masked individual stood listening through the open window and remained there long after Hound had left. Danzo-sama is going to want to hear about this new addition to the bingo books. All three of them. And news of Uzushio as well. With that, he vanished into the night, the tree sitting undisturbed as if no one had ever been there at all.

He was good at his job; it would have fooled anyone. Almost anyone.

From his perch on top of a building further away, Hound observed the agent scurry down the tree and into the distance, heading towards an abandoned mine entrance. Root again, acting more boldly than before. I always knew that program hadn’t been shut down. Sarutobi is too sentimental to pay attention. Now, I wonder what Danzo wants with these new bingo book members. For some reason, even though he had no concrete reason to point to, Hound knew that these ninjas would be trouble. Good or bad, though, he couldn’t quite say. Just because they had been placed in the book didn’t mean they were evil, necessarily. It only meant that they, at the base, were competent. He was looking forward to the mystery, regardless. The uncertainty was what made being a shinobi exciting enough to get him out of bed in the mornings these days.

Their legend was growing. And he always did enjoy dissecting a good story.

Chapter Text

The Birth of a Legend, Month 4

The relationship between death and a shinobi was that of a scorned lover and a desperate man trying to win her back; they were fundamentally at odds, but could never seem to stay away from each other, even if each encounter ended in heartbreak, conflict, and the continual dimming of a soul. The connection was toxic, self-destructive, and inevitable, a symbiotic relationship amongst two parasitic entities that would span decades, unless or until death emerged the eventual victor, single once more and eager to court another young and impressionable ninja.

Shikamaru couldn’t decide, at this point, if he were the scorned lover or the desperate man following after her. The death of his mentor, and parents, and friends, had haunted him and chased after his consciousness even in his dreams. But these days, he was almost an artist of death, carefully arranging the movements of his targets, finding poetry in their bewilderment and easy manipulation into his web, and a sick sort of triumph when he landed his finishing blow. And if death proved to be too overwhelming of a lover on a given day, torture and fear served well as a mistress. It isn’t that he was doing it for his own pleasure; only monsters killed for amusement, monsters that he internally swore to show no mercy. No, every kill and mental incapacitation he dealt to mercenaries and villainous shinobi were all part of his larger play: hysteria, suspicion, and confusion.

This wasn’t what he had wanted for himself, or at all what Hinata would have wanted for him, if she knew the extent to which his perspective and actions had hardened despite her gentle softness. Their mutual tai chi session on a cliff at the edge of the world had offered him a glimpse of the calm he could embrace if he chose to follow her lead rather than pursue his plan. But peace was for a luckier man, a good man; to save all those that Naruto and Hinata and Ino and Choji had wanted him to save, he would need to be a legendary blade, the feared weapon of a great man. A shadow that haunted every village’s doorstep, a folktale that was whispered through the trees and into the ears of men who needed an evil distraction to redirect them from machinations within their own camp. A more sinister story about an incomprehensible boogeyman to draw focus away from the exact details of the narrative Hinata would be crafting for them. For her and her quest to save the Uchiha, his persona would become the living embodiment of a never-ending dystopian dream. A nightmare.  

If I’m a myth, maybe that will cover up the fact that deep inside I am a coward, a failure, and now a prolific liar and a beast.

It probably wasn’t the best for his mental state that he had been separated from Hinata for a few days, a reality that would continue for at least three more weeks. Isolation made him more desperate for his lover’s cold and unforgiving embrace. But that was also why the separation was necessary; there were tasks he needed to accomplish on his own, as much as he had suggested that it was Hinata’s project that required distance. It all worked out in the end.

“It’s always more satisfying when there’s a plan within a plan, isn’t it?” he idly questioned aloud, staring broodily into the distance.

“Are you talking to yourself now? I—I—I don’t know what you want from me! I—please, what is this?” babbled out his unfortunate Cloud village target, sunk up to his waist in an inky black pool. From a distance, it would have looked like he was trapped in a pit of mud. It’s only when you get closer, or look at it with chakra enhanced eyes, that the writhing tendrils would be noticeable, a multitude of hundreds of shadowy arms that enveloped his legs and waist, and wrapped around his arms, with two noticeable little claws crawling up his neck and inching towards his head with every panicked breath.

“Of course I’m not talking to myself, idiot. Ugh, what a pain. You wouldn’t understand the intricacies of a multi-layered motive, would you. All the Cloud shinobi are so dull; all brawn and no brains, thinking with your fist first,” Shikamaru responded in a carefully disgusted tone, tapping his kunai against his fingers while he leaned against a tree. “That’s why you ended up like this, you know. Who immediately just starts attacking a suspected hostile without checking to see if they had back-up or any shadow clones? Pathetic.”

As he spoke, the shadow claws had finally reached the apex of the ninja’s head, slipping under his headband to create some sort of perverse inky helmet, with two lines trailing off down the side of his face, framing his expressive, wildly darting eyes.

“I—what—is…is this a riddle? Or some sort of test? I don’t have any of the scrolls, okay? You’re the creepy shadow guy going after rare seals and scrolls and stuff, right? I’m just an outpost ninja, I don’t have access to any of that information. Please, please get this stuff away from my head, I don’t know anything I swear!” He was hyperventilating, wiggling his neck and thrashing his arms, attempting to escape Shikamaru’s new and improved shadow prison hold jutsu. Good luck with that, you bothersome fool.

Shikamaru sighed, slowly walking towards his captive, making sure his mask was truly covering the lower half of his face so that his eyes looked even more ominous, floating pale and pearlescent in a sea of white. His hair was down and tracked with mud, just as it had been all those months ago when he had first started his little excursions, settling around his face in sickly black and brown caked-together strands. He looked like a deranged and deadly night walker that haunted the woods. And it was working out spectacularly. “It’s not a test. And it’s not a scroll I’m after, this time. I’ve already acquired everything I wanted,” that wasn’t guarded in A’s private library, “from the Cloud. No, what I want from you, Arabushi Lee, is information. Information that I know you have.”

With the realization that the sinister shadow and glow man knew his name, Lee’s eyes widened with stress and terror. “How…how do you know my name? We only just met today by chance.”

Shikamaru snorted in condescending disbelief. “You think that I managed to trap you here, alone and miles from backup, by accident? If you’re this naïve, it’s no wonder you never got the chance to be a field agent. You’re frankly too embarrassing to be in the profession.”

If it were possible, Lee’s eyes widened even more, the whites shining through. “You know about that?”

“I know everything about you. Arabushi Lee, age 34, unmarried, and overall unremarkable, except for the position you hold as the Raikage’s preferred record keeper. You keep track of all messages going in and out of the office, and sort them in his private archives. You have knowledge, or at least access, to even the most unsanctioned missions. For a worm, you’re rather important, aren’t you? A gifted bookkeeper. You had to be good at something, to have stuck around in the shinobi corps for this long without being killed.” With each cutting sentence, the faint traces of hope that Lee had been clinging to faded from his eyes. Shikamaru had him nailed down, and he knew it. “I would love access to all of it honestly. But if I had to choose, I’d like to know about a little unsanctioned mission the Raikage sent a group of shinobi on oh, around three or four years ago. An attempted theft of a Kekkei Genkai. Is that ringing any bells?”

With seeming resignation, Lee twitched his mustache and firmed his lips, glaring at Shikamaru and daring to look him in the eyes. He showed a surprising amount of tenacity for a man wrapped in shadow tendrils, the same man who had previously been begging for mercy. “I won’t tell you anything, ghost man. I am loyal to my village.” He managed to say all of this without quavering. He was no longer pretending to be a clueless junior shinobi. Perhaps this will be a bit more of a challenge than I had anticipated. Interesting.

“Oh, now you’ve recovered your backbone, have you?” Shikamaru said derisively. I guess I’ll need to put on more of a show. “Good for you, truly. I was beginning to wonder where on earth they found such a wimpy shinobi. From where I’m from, even a fourteen-year-old girl didn’t beg when she got stabbed through the torso with black rods. You should be ashamed that you broke down before anything really threatening had even happened. But I suppose I can give you credit for your late-stage recovery. Unfortunately,” he said in a lowered tone, suddenly kneeling in front of Lee so that their eyes were level, “that precious resolve doesn’t mean anything. Do you know why?”

“I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m from Kumo! We don’t bow to torture or threats! I may be a deskbound shinobi, but I grew up in war times. You won’t get any information out of me,” Lee maintained defiantly, drawing on village pride to persevere. However, his jaw was clenching uncontrollably, and his eyes kept darting around to track the many shadowed fingers keeping him held down. He seemed particularly alarmed that he couldn’t see his lower body. You can't hide your fear all that well, can you Arabushi?

“I’ll tell you why it doesn’t mean anything,” Shikamaru drove ahead, ignoring Lee’s outburst. “It’s because it’s already too late for you. You showed an instinctual fear of the shadows wrapping around your head, but you never questioned what it was for. Maybe if you had, you would have realized how much harder you should have tried to escape. Not that you could have.” He settled his chin in his hand in a mockery of an angelic pose, an unseen smirk settling across his lips beneath the cloth.

Lee’s bloodshot eyes shot up as if he were trying to look into his own forehead and all the hissing tendrils that were now firmly secured at key points on his temporal lobe, hippocampus, occipital lobe, and brain stem. He couldn’t see inside his own head, of course. Not that it mattered very much; the audible gulp he unleashed meant he was starting to understand the gravity of his vulnerability. Another moth caught in the web.

“Now, do you have anything you’d like to say before we begin?” Shikamaru asked pleasantly, the dangerous quirk of his eyebrows and the narrowed concentration in his eyes betraying the placid tone of his words.

It was with a decidedly less confident shake off his head that Lee refused his latest opportunity to reveal his secrets.

“That’s too bad. For you. This will be an excellent test for me. Thank you for volunteering, Lee.” And with a concentrated furrow of his brow, Shikamaru’s eyes began to glow, seeming to alight with a subtle purple haze.

“What the f—”

“Shadow Illusion Garden of Good and Evil,” Shikamaru’s deep tonal call interrupted Lee’s outburst. As the last word left his lips, the shadows seemed to stab into Lee’s head, accessing all the points of his brain that it had been hovering over. Meanwhile, Shikamaru’s eyes held Lee’s in a trance that would find the latter falling deeper and deeper into a pale, blinding well, a perverted hypnosis.

In the back of Shikamaru’s mind, he could see faint traces of what Lee was experiencing: the afterimages of cruelly torn apart friends, distant and abusive parents, and mentor-given rants about Lee’s failure, flashing in a twisting kaleidoscope. In the background of all these images were despicable sounds: gurgles of blood, disjointed singing with no instrumentals, and terrified shrieks, all set against a creepy black, white, and sepia toned backdrop speckled with black film dots. On Shikamaru’s part, this experience was only mildly nauseating and incredibly disorienting. On Lee’s part… he was trapped in a seemingly never-ending torturous dream that engaged every single one of his battered senses.

“Gyaaaah!” his scream rent out into the open air, pausing for breath before he let out another, then another, before the area around them was layered in a cacophony of guttural cries. If Shikamaru hadn’t laid a basic sound concealing seal around the area, he would have been worried that they would hear it all across Kumo. As it was, the sound was irritating his refined sense of sound. And perhaps deep down, in a neglected part of his psyche, he felt horror that he was inflicting this much mental pain on a person.

But I have to do this. This is one plan that won’t fail. Not this time.

After waiting for Lee to cry himself hoarse, he abruptly withdrew the shadows stabbed inside of his brain. Lee’s bloodshot brown eyes flashed open in a panic, his sharp breaths and whimpers replacing the guttural screams of just a few minutes ago. Although, to Lee, the experience had likely lasted far, far longer than five minutes would imply. Time was fluid, inside one’s own head.

“Are you ready to talk now, Arabushi Lee?” Shikamaru asked drolly, trying his hardest to appear cold and unaffected by the ninja’s pure terror. It was harder to maintain the façade of indifference in the face of the result of his actions; it was so much easier with Hidan. He had been smug, unrepentant, and most of all, guilty.

Not that Lee was entirely innocent.

“I…I…argh…gyahh,” was all he could manage to eke out, to Shikamaru’s disappointment. I’m not sure he would respond well to another session without a bit of guidance. It’s time to move on to priming.

“Even though you’re a desk jockey, I’m sure you know,” he started casually, “that there have been mixed responses to the effectiveness of torture in interrogations. It’s hard to use it to acquire new information because people will say anything to make the pain go away, and trained ninja will say nothing at all, just as you’re attempting to. But that’s the beauty of my method, isn’t it? The body has a certain physical pain tolerance; if you exceed it, nothing you do will matter. You won’t be getting anything useful. But the mind? The mind is malleable, the possibilities endless. If you target someone’s mind, then you can push their pain tolerance to the brink and beyond, for as long as you could ever want. Should we confirm that here with you, Lee?” Shikamaru stated all of this calmly, as if it were a boring report over stale facts, but there was a sharpness in his gaze and a certain aura of resolve that showed, more than anything, that he believed his own words. And he would not hesitate to follow through, if necessary.

This is necessary.

And with an imperceptible flick of his wrist, the shadow needles stabbed back into Lee’s brain.

This time, Shikamaru had to grasp Lee’s head and force him to turn and meet his own glowing eyes to engage the hypnosis.

This time, the screams that rent the air were somehow louder. It sounded more like an animal than it did a human.

This time, Lee was all too willing to confess.

As soon as he retracted the needles again, Lee was babbling and begging, tumbling over his words in his haste to get it all out. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, PLEASE, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you, just make it stop, just make it stop, I—I can’t—just make it stop, please I’ll…”

Shikamaru clamped a hand over his mouth to get him to stop blubbering. “Hey. Stop. Enough. Breathe with me for a minute. Follow my lead, okay? In, in, out. In, in, out. In, out. In, out.” With each command, he exaggerated his own breathing, eyeing Lee to make sure he followed along. I know what it means to have a panic attack, and it sucks, but I need him coherent enough to explain things to me. “There you go. Are you calm enough to answer my questions now?”

Lee nodded his head vigorously, still looking deeply unsettled and off-balance. At least now he was in more control of his tongue. “Yes, yes, whatever you want.”

“Ok, then. I need you to tell me everything you know about the attempt to kidnap Hyuuga Hinata, which resulted in the death of Hyuuga Hizashi. And I need to know where any documents related to that event are located,” he commanded, eager to get back to the point.

“Al-alright.” Lee replied, looking marginally more confident now that he was given specific instructions for a task he knew he could complete. And for the next several minutes, Shikamaru listened carefully, making mental note of the dates, people, and specific instructions and goals that Lee mentioned. Most of it confirmed what he had already known, courtesy of his father. The Raikage had ordered the infiltration into the village in order to capture an un-sealed member of the Hyuuga main house and remove their eyes while they were still alive. A classic greedy move, which momentarily failed but was partially made up for by the death of Hizashi and the orphaning of poor Neji. Still, now Shikamaru knew where to find proof of the Cloud’s culpability and wrongdoing, which would put Konoha, and by extension Shikamaru and Hinata, in a powerful negotiating position.

And there was one more new piece of information worth having. Danzo, you sly bastard.

“Thank you for all your help, Arabushi-san. We’re almost done. All that’s left is to clear up a few loose ends.” He straightened his back up from the crouch he had settled into while absorbing all the new information, and grasped Lee’s head firmly in both his hands, to ensure his eyes would remain open and fixed on him.

Lee looked both scared and reconciled to his fate, his eyebrows lowering despondently. “Y-you’re going to kill me now, right? It doesn’t matter. I’m a dead man as soon as the Raikage figures out what I told you, anyways.”

“Oh no, I’m not going to kill you, Lee. And neither will the Raikage.” Probably. “The only thing that you’ll have to fear is my memory.” And with those cryptic words, Shikamaru flashed his eyes again, this time with a whiter glimmer that obscured some of the purple in his irises. This task was more difficult to navigate than the illusion garden of good and evil; there were more arbitrary limits to amnesia. He couldn’t make Lee forget about his own mental anguish because the scars were settled too deeply in his psyche. Thus, he couldn’t make him forget entirely about this encounter. But he could make him forget what information he sought, and the exact details of his face and abilities.

In his mind, Shikamaru whispered “Shadow Prison Obsolescence,” and guided the shadow needles to re-enter Lee’s head. This time, there were no screams. He only passed out, slumping against his binds as he lost control of his limbs.

Perfect. All according to plan, then.

With a sigh, Shikamaru released his shadows, allowing them to melt back into his own. He had gotten what he had come here for, and not a minute too soon. He could already feel the dregs of chakra exhaustion attempting to corral him. And then there was the vague sense of horror…But his tiredness and useless feelings of guilt took a backseat to the new information he had gathered. He had placed himself in an advantageous position, and he had found another shogi piece to target on his opponent’s side of the board. Overall, this pseudo-mission had been a success. It set an excellent precedent for the next one.

Straightening up, he brushed off his all-black tactical gear, and subtly adjusted the cuff on his wrist before he put his kunai back in his belt. It held his two earrings, his way of paying homage to his familial tradition and dead friends without letting it be too obvious that he was a Nara. Ino would have gotten a kick out of this. Well, he winced, maybe not the mental torture part. But definitely the theatrics.

The subtle shifting of dirt behind him, and a distinctive poof! sound alerted him that he was no longer alone.

“It’s rare of you to make a visit, Takako-sama. And without an actual summons too. What brings you here?” He remarked drily without bothering to turn around.

Sure enough, the majestic white mane of Takako’s ethereal fur made its way into his line of sight as she walked in front of him, curling her giant body around him as she did so. One of her eight bushy tails smacked him in the face teasingly, filling his nose up with the scent of cardamom and anise, interlaced with fire, even through his mask.

“I manifested myself here of course, little beast. I am an ancient leader of an immensely powerful group of summons, if you’ve managed to forget within that steel trap of yours. Taking myself out for a little stroll is nothing.” She purred, haughtily turning her nose up in the air in an exaggerated show of defiance.

“Well, that answers how you’re here, but not why,” he responded, raising an eyebrow.

“Usually you call in Hiroto when you’re doing one of your ‘interrogations,’ but look at you! You didn’t even need the kitsune illusion control this time to aid you. I came to say I’m impressed,” she finally answered glibly. “Don’t act like you’re upset to see me. I’m sure you were going to call one of us soon anyways, to carry you away on your ‘scary horse.’ That’s very offensive by the way. The fox is not your common pack animal.”

 “Oi, oi there’s no need to complain about that. I would have thought you liked being perceived as something different; it’s all part of the trick, right?”

“True enough,” Takako agreed. “So, would you like to take me up on my offer, or not?”

Cautiously, taking care to keep his senses alert for any sign of a trap, Shikamaru rested one hand gently on her massive back. “I guess I will. Let me just erase signs of my trail.” And then he moved forward, carefully arranging leaves and scuffing up dirt, so it didn’t make it obvious where he came from, or where he was headed.

“Are you not going to kill this one too, while you’re at it?” Takako called, gesturing a few tails over at the prone body of Arabushi Lee. There was something strange and cold in her eyes that made Shikamaru immediately wary. It added to the nausea that had settled in his gut at the thought of slitting the man’s throat after he had assured him that he wouldn’t.

“No,” he grunted out shortly, “I’ll leave him alive. He’s only a middle manager, not a depraved mercenary or a pleasure-seeking serial killer. Besides. I need this legend to spread, and he’s one of the few who could say they’ve had the pleasure of my company.”

After a brief pause in which she looked him over deeply, Takako smiled a predatory smile, all teeth and cunning. “Good. If you had answered differently, we would have had a different conversation.”

Something told him that he would not have enjoyed that conversation in the least. But he took her smile as a cue that it was safe now to approach her. Feeling more comfortable, he deactivated his alien eyes, releasing the chakra drain, and he started to slowly and carefully settle onto her back, mindful of her tails and rigid spine.

“So, you came to check on me, huh?” he questioned, digging his hands into her soft fur, gripping it firmly against his palms.

“I may have grown wary of your mental state,” she said without remorse, tossing her head back to catch his eye. “I looked at your past, remember. For such an outwardly antisocial know-it-all, you are a very loyal and lonely creature who craves companionship. And your morals are usually unwavering. But these days you are going at the business of subterfuge all alone, and you are compromising your previous ideals for the sake of someone you love.” Shikamaru flinched nearly imperceptibly, but he knows she felt his slight jerk. It didn’t stop her from continuing. “Don’t get me wrong, I have no qualms with you messing with the minds of other ninja, or killing others when you need to, or even for revenge. But I have no desire to aid you in evolving from beast to monster and doing these things for fun.”

Has she caught onto my twisted relationship with death now, too? I wouldn’t put anything past her. Troublesome fox.

“Thanks for your concern, I suppose, Takako-sama. But don’t worry. I’m only here to do what’s necessary.” For the sake of the future, and the memory of my friends. And for Hinata, too.

“For now, yes. And it should continue to stay that way. We wouldn’t want our master to lose his head. Or his chance at love. Kamaye and Keiko would be so disappointed,” she tossed in slyly.

That was a threat if he had ever heard one, and one that he would be wise to heed. And why does she keep mentioning that?

“Right. Well…stop going on about love. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grumbled, embarrassed for a reason that he knew but refused to admit. I can’t even think about it. I don’t have time to consider it. And even if I did, in the state of being I am now…it’s unconscionable.  

Takako clearly delighted in his discomfort but showed him the small mercy of moving on. At least she wasn’t needlessly cruel. “Hmm, of course little Nara. Now, where are we to go next? I might as well drop you off after this talk.”

Shikamaru was more grateful for the topic change than he was ever willing to admit to her. “Good question.” His plan had been to stick around the region for the next couple of days. He needed to see how the Cloud ninja reacted to Lee’s reappearance and whatever story he’d be able to tell about his encounter with Shikamaru. He also needed to pick up the documents that Lee mentioned, and perhaps interrogate a few other ninjas to verify Lee’s information on the finer details of the operation, as well as Danzo’s involvement. And finally, he needed to do the reconnaissance he had actually told Hinata he would do, which was to check in on Killer B and make sure he was still safe and sound, right where they needed him to be. All these items on his to-do list pointed to the same exact place. “Take me to the outskirts of Kumogakure, perhaps a few kilometers before we reach the city proper, near a lake. I’m going to be doing a lot of observation and sneaking around for the next few days.” And the island on the lake was where the Raikage kept all his documents, guarded by B and a vanguard of ANBU.

“That sounds exciting,” Takako said, amused, apparently deducing all the excitement he was about to get himself into. “I can’t wait to see what becomes of your plans.” And with that, she took a bounding leap, jostling Shikamaru slightly. Tightening his grip on her fur, he leaned forward and held on as she took the skies and danced on her magic clouds. For just a moment, as he breathed into the cold thin air, he could pretend that nowadays he was chasing life instead of death.

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It’s dark by the time Takako has flown them to his destination, making her fur stand out more conspicuously that it does during the day. He signals her to drop him off farther away as a result; the last thing he needs is the shinobi on lookout duty getting suspicious. Dealing with all of them discreetly would be a massive headache.

Tensing his muscles, he swan-dived from Takako’s back, her hasty “good luck, little beast” ringing in his ears as he carefully oriented his body towards a sturdy-looking branch on the lone tree below him, standing tall amidst a barren beige mountainous peak. With barely a sound, he managed to land lightly and securely on the balls of his feet in a warrior’s crouch. Step One: Arrival – Accomplished.

Swiveling his head around, he took stock of his surroundings, the shadows looking darker now that he was on the ground rather than amongst the clouds, but the general skyline clear around him. He was lucky; the night-time was when he was at his most advantageous, especially in a place that lacked trees. For a minute, he was homesick for Konoha, but shook himself out of it firmly. It was time to focus on his next steps.

From what he could tell with his aerial view, he was situated equidistantly between the main entrance of the village and the location of the secret lake facility, the third point in a strategic triangle. Now, he only needed to decide where to venture first. I need to get the information from the lake before they enhance security, but I also need to interrogate a few more cloud shinobi to make sure my information is correct. And those nin are more likely to be near the village proper.

Quickly calculating the pros, cons, and odds of success if he delayed his raid, his mind was nearly too occupied to notice the sounds of travelling ninjas on a neighboring mountain peak, only a few kilometers away. But the crunch of dirt and shifting of rocks, as well as the flickering chakra signature that his newly enhanced senses were picking up, were too noticeable to ignore. Pressing his back more firmly against his tree, he cocked his head to track down the source of the noise. There! Moving quickly, but casually, not mindful of the noise at all since they were in their own territory, were a group of five shinobi traversing the mountain, headed in the direction of the village. Three genin, a jounin-sensei, and an accompanying chuunin, it looks like. For a moment, Shikamaru considered his choices. This could be the answer to all his problems; if he managed to entrap all of them, he could interrogate the jounin and chuunin to verify the fact that the archives at the lake facility existed, without having to go all the way to Kumogakure and lose time. Furthermore, the jounin was likely to know of the Hyuuga affair, at the very least through rumors spread amongst jounin circles; he knew how much the ninja corps loved to gossip. If they had been alone, he wouldn’t have hesitated. But am I willing to traumatize the genin for my goals? They look about 12 or 13.

He knew what his friends would have said if he had been there, Naruto the loudest of all of them. But they weren’t here. And he needed to take the most logical path to victory. With a muttered curse under his breath, he hopped down from the tree and started running in a diagonal pattern across the mountain face, placing himself on a path to intersect the group.

Not once did he consider the fact that he was outnumbered five to one, and that he was technically nothing but a chuunin. He wasn’t lying when he told Hinata they were strong. An unrecognizable jounin, a chuunin, and a handful of genin from the Cloud were no challenge to him now.

The genin, straggling behind, didn’t know what hit them. Targeting them first, he stamped his foot into the ground several meters away, flicking his fingers in a simple hand-sign to activate the shadow sewing technique to bind them. With as much chakra as he possessed now, holding down three inexperienced tweens at night was easier than breathing.

He couldn’t move a shadow tendril high enough up their bodies to silence their squeaks of surprise in time, though. Proving their worth, the jounin and chuunin immediately leapt around to face him, widening their eyes when they saw his ghostly presence entrapping their young and eager charges.

“It’s the fucking poltergeist shadow man; quick, light a lantern.” The bandana-clad jounin said hurriedly, taking cautious steps background with his hands at the ready. The red-headed chuunin did as he asked immediately, quickly lighting a lantern clasped to her hips with a well-placed katon. Clever; using a light will illuminate the path my shadows travel, allowing them to evade if they’re fast enough. And they aren’t just leaping at me; already they’re more competent than Lee.

Shikamaru didn’t bother to engage in witty banter; crossing his pointer fingers, he softly called “shadow clone jutsu,” and produced one more copy of him; anymore and he likely would have lost his grip on the children. One of them, a curly-headed boy with deeply tan skin, was clearly the dominant member of the group and was attempting to struggle valiantly. Not today, kid.

He needed to remain relatively stable to hold the kids, and he didn’t want to waste chakra now sending them into his shadow pit when he still needed to interrogate their mentors. So, he communicated silently with his clone, who nodded in understanding and darted into action. The jounin leapt in the air and attempted to blast him with a lightning release which his clone dodged, narrowly avoiding the kunai slash that the kunoichi swept towards his head as he rolled away. The next few seconds were a study of a one v. two melee; the kunoichi’s taijutsu was given an opportunity to land with every ninjutsu technique that the jounin sent his way, keeping his clone off-balanced enough that he couldn’t use shadow imitation or activate his eyes. To an untrained eye, it looked like they had him cornered. But every strike was blocked, and no lightning or wind release ever landed. A roundhouse kick from the kunoichi, and an aborted wind blast from the jounin, finally gave him leave to reach what he had been targeting the entire time: the lantern. With one sweep of his arm, he knocked it to the ground, then flipped over the fire, smothering it with an earth release while suspended upside down in the air.

“Damn it.”

Shikamaru, the original, grinned. Without the light, in this creeping darkness, he had them. Quickly, Shikamaru-the-original activated shadow sewing again, entrapping the fumbling kunoichi where she stood balanced on one leg, and added her to the genin cluster. Meanwhile the clone began cornering the jounin with well-placed kicks and slashes. Shikamaru was straining to hold all four of his captives down now, operating with only half his chakra. His clone had to hurry. One, front kick, eagle strike. Two, side kick, backhand strike. Three, roundhouse kick, double fist punch. Four, front kick, side kick, front kick, eagle claw. On breath five, the jounin slipped up and stepped into a dark patch within Shikamaru’s range. With another feeble hand sign, he caught the indignant shinobi in a shadow sewing hold, while also dispersing his clone, feeling his chakra rush back into him with enough vigor to allow him to maintain his hold on them all. Checkmate.

“Funny running into you here, everyone. I’m wondering if you wouldn’t mind answering a couple questions,” he said with an arrogant grin, sure that it leaked into his purple eyes even if they couldn’t see his face.  

“We won’t tell you jack shit, outsider,” the kunoichi growled at him.

“They always say that” he cooed ominously. The jounin said nothing to him, only glaring at him with strict reproach. The defiance always goes away with proper motivation. And mental torture.

He took careful steps towards the genin, ignoring the muttered curses erupting from the chuunin. I forgot women could be this loud and vulgar. After months of Hinata’s polite nature, this kunoichi reminded him, a little, of Temari. A rush of warmth and pain welled up inside him before he brutally shoved it away. This was no time for memories.

Ignoring the false bravado of the tan leader, and the whimpered cries of his two forgettable companions, Shikamaru quickly placed temporary chakra seals and mobility seals on their person, pre-made courtesy of Hinata before they parted ways. That should keep them out of the way while I…have a chat with the other two. Not that it will stop them from seeing me break their mentors.

Sometimes sacrifices needed to be made. And somehow, I’ve become the person that decides who pays them.

With them secure, he released the shadow hold he had on them, leaving them to slump forward sluggishly with no use of their limbs. Then he turned around, and clapped, easing into his act as the cocky and deranged scroll-stealing ghost, transforming his shadow sewing into his new shadow prison jutsu.

“I don’t really like to harm baby genin if I can avoid it. They don’t know anything of worth, anyways. But I will do whatever it takes to get information out of you two. Now would you like to start by offering me your names?”

“Fuck off. Good luck getting anything out of me or the jounin-sensei. He sealed his voice as soon as he sensed he would be captured,” the kunoichi sneered at him. “And he’ll never break it. And you’ll never break me.”

“Well,” Shikamaru said, eyes starting to glow purple as his shadow tendrils crept up their necks and targeted their sensitive brain points with needle-like precision. “That’s impressive resolve. But I’m sure I can get you to change your mind.”

Then he quickly erected a barrier seal. He had a feeling the nightmares that haunted active-duty field shinobi would produce higher pitched screams than Arabushi Lee ever managed.

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Shikamaru brushed off his palms as the sun kissed the horizon, feeling exhausted and mildly irritated, yet satisfied, as he finished up obscuring the memories of his five captives. He didn’t want them to think too hard about his Nara-like shadow binding jutsus, after all. Besides, what they would likely, more than anything, recall and retell to their Raikage was the fear and delusions they had undergone. That was what was truly important, in the end.

Sato and Kimi, the jounin and chuunin gracious enough to give him their names after some light persuasion, had managed to verify that there was, indeed, a secret archive located at the lake, and that for the most part the guard rotation alternated between Killer B during the afternoon and midnight shifts, and the elite jounin guard during the mornings and evenings, although B was known to be a bit unpredictable. And Sato also had extra information about the extent to which he thinks Danzo, or perhaps more accurately Root, was involved in the Hyuuga affair. In all, it was a successful interrogation.

Although I really messed up those kids.

The remembered echo of their incredulous and pained cries for their mentors twinged his halfway hidden conscience. But it was too late now. And he couldn’t quite bring himself to feel regret, only tired resignation. It doesn’t matter. I got what I needed. At least this time they only encountered torture rather than death. Step 2: Interrogation and Verification – Accomplished.

Sweeping one last glance around at his unconscious targets, he turned and began to shunshin to the neighboring mountain peak, one leap closer to the lake. First, I’ll sleep. Then at midnight, I’ll sneak into the archives. It would mean potentially dealing with B, but the rapping and notoriously lazy jinchuuriki would be easier to navigate around than five roaming ninja who were all deathly afraid of A. And since he was hoping to dip in and out unnoticed, the cover of darkness would be the best time to go amidst his shadows.

With the last of his energy, he bit his thumb and called for Kamaye and Keiko to guard his position while he rested. After a snarky “Gooooood afternoon Shika-chaan” from Kamaye, and a quick smack of retaliation from Keiko, they settled into their posts at his feet and head. Closing his eyes, feeling as secure as he could in these circumstances but missing the same critical waft of lavender and home that he had been without for a week, he slipped into a troubled sleep, his mind replaying splotchy highlight reels of the terror of strangers.

----------------------

Shikamaru had forgotten how annoying Killer B was when not actively getting punched in the face by a ten-tailed beast.

“Yo, yo my friend it’s time

A time to rhyme when I’m outta my mind

An empty facility

Somehow my responsibility

But I’m in a state of boredom

Paper and ink, it’s all so humdrum

Can’t talk to my brother, he thinks there’s an enemy

But against Killer B there is no entity

That could sneak through the wet, and the dark, and the water

To access an archive, really who would bother

All I want to do is rap from my soul

But the Raikage is worried about some dumb scrolls”

The hastily put together freestyle was loud and grating, vibrating throughout the entire island as B made his displeasure known with his rap. At this point in time, B was ten years younger than when Shikamaru had last seen him, which seemed to mean he was even more unreliable than normal and spent most of his time on ‘guard duty’ making bad music to complain. Naruto always made the strangest friends. At least the obnoxious raps made his position easy to pinpoint.

“Would you shut up B, I can’t hear anything over your rhyming whining.”

“Hey, rhyming whining, that’s a neat trick.

Yo, would you want to hop on my beat, it’s sick!”

“I can’t believe, of all my hosts, that you’re the one rubbing off on me.”

The frequent bickering with Gyuki, the eight-tails, made them even easier to avoid. But every subsequent sound stabbed into Shikamaru’s mind, sharpening his headache. Gyuki is right, I can barely hear my own thoughts over this racket.

He roughly shook his head and kept easing his way around the building and to a window, hiding within dark patches of shadow, and suppressing his chakra signature as much as he dared. Hiroto crept behind him, having switched out with Kamaye and Keiko to give them rest. He was casting a subtle illusion meant to make it appear that no one was there to the naked eye. It would be worth nothing, however, if Gyuki and Killer B chose to get serious and start paying attention. So Shikamaru would have to be quick, silent, and careful.

Once he reached a likely window entrance, he pulled out his brush and ink pad, working diligently to attempt to nullify the alarm seals that were threaded across every surface. They were good, but not nearly as good as the ones in Konoha, and practically infantile compared to the seals Shikamaru saw contained in Uzushio. With a few more brushstrokes, he saw the seals flash red before dissolving, the paper falling away and hitting the ground. It would make it obvious that someone had broken in, but hopefully that was after he was far enough away. He crawled in, signaling to Hiroto to remain at his post by the window and continue to obscure their unauthorized presence. Step 3: Infiltration – Accomplished.

He started making his way down the corridors to the file room marked for clandestine and immoral missions, as detailed by Lee. He also kept an ear out to make sure Gyuki and B were still rapping and arguing.

“Why am I so alone, yo.

I need to make some friends, that’s fo’ sho’. “

“I’m your friend, B. Plus, I don’t know how many people could handle you.”

He was still in the clear. Disactivating the seals that he could spot, and hoping he didn’t trip an invisible alarm, Shikamaru entered the room, wrinkling his nose at the smell of stale paper and dust. Looks like this doesn’t get a lot of visitors. Spying the cabinets dedicated to Konohagakure, denoted by a hanging poster of a swirling leaf (very obvious, even for these muscle-brains), he started to rummage through, grabbing the receipts, maps, and communications that would implicate the Raikage and Danzo in a plot to weaken the Hyuuga and steal a Kekkei Genkai. Danzo had probably planned on betraying the Raikage in the end to take the doujutsu for himself while basking in the weakened position of the second strongest clan in the Leaf, but that did not make his involvement any less treasonous. What a bastard, especially to little Hinata and poor Neji. Getting rid of him was going to be his immense pleasure. His seal tattoos seemed to pulse with his indignation.

“Hey, B, do you sense that?”

“I don’t know what you mean,

Maybe you’ve been living a dream.”

“No, it wasn’t a dream. I feel…like something or someone is trying to resonate with me. I don’t trust it.”

“I’m bored, so let’s check it out

Maybe there’s a villain out and about.

Let’s activate chakra mode and see

Who’s brave enough to combat Killer B.”

Damn it. Shikamaru didn’t know what they had managed to sense, but it was definitely time to go. He was stronger now, but he didn’t dare go up against a jinchuuriki at peace with his bijuu. He was binding up the documents in thread and about to stuff it into a storage scroll, when he noticed a file in the back marked “The White Fang.” Kakashi’s dad, who fell from grace, but a legend known to be stronger than the three sannin combined. Without thinking about it too hard, he grabbed those scrolls too, and stuffed them in his storage seal, rolling it up and securing it to his waist.

“Hey yo I think I sense

Another person’s chakra presence.”

“Then let’s go after it, B.”

Fuck.

Dropping all thoughts of stealth, Shikamaru shunshined out the door and headed towards the window, ardently not wanting to fight a jinchuuriki when he was still running on chakra dregs from his misadventures the night before.

“Hiroto,” he murmured, drawing the attention of his kitsune companion, “it’s time to go. Can you fly me out of here?”

“Of course, Master Shikamaru,” he yelped in reply, bending forward to allow Shikamaru to leap on his back directly from the window.

“Ok, let’s go. You can drop the illusion and focus everything on flying,” he commanded, then held on to his glowing pelt for dear life.

Not a moment too soon, they were airborne, dancing on clouds, a black and whitish-purplish smudge against the night sky. As they ascended higher into the clouds, Shikamaru caught sight of Killer B arriving at their window, bouncing back and forth amongst rocks with light-footed steps.

“Ayo, I shouldn’t have left my post

I think my eyes are playing tricks, it looks like a ghost!”

“This ghost managed to disable the seals and break into the archives, B.”

“Some ghost on a six-legged horse

Is going to knock my life off course

If A finds out I let someone in

Killer B is going to be a has-been.”

“You could tell him you saw a ghost lurking around, but not that somebody broke all the way in. If he ever finds out, that would be the end of you, but you still could tell him a lie now.”

“It’s not a lie if he never asks

I’ll just say I saw a ghost on my tasks.

Now help me replace these seals

Before he finds out about the deal.”

From above them, blending in the clouds ever-present in Kumogakure, Shikamaru released a long and slow sigh of relief. That was too close. He was lucky that this version of Killer B was younger, dumber, and more easily distracted. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know about the presence Gyuki had said he resonated with, but he was glad that that had seemed to unbalance them. As a bonus, it appeared it would be a while yet before A realized exactly which files he had stolen, B’s lies a better defense than the dummy files he had placed in the stack to conceal his espionage.

Overall, it was a good night. Whispering to Hiroto to take him to a mountain peak closer to Kumogakure proper, he allowed his shoulders to relax. With the threat of capture no longer hanging over him, he was able to take a breath to marvel at his success, which occurred without him having to flash his cursed eyes at a former acquaintance. Step 4: Extraction – Accomplished. With minimal complications, too. Although, there was that odd warmth he felt emanating from his chest as B passed beneath him. But that was likely nothing more than a mixture of panic and remembered fondness, for a hero that fought and fell in the Fourth Great Ninja War.

If I have anything to say about it, there will never be one in this timeline.

He closed his eyes and settled in to rest on his short journey with the ever-silent Hiroto. There would be more to do when he was forced to reopen them.

--------------------------------

The rest of his stay in Kumo was blissfully uneventful—for him at least. News of his interactions with Lee, Sato, Kimi, and the three genin reached the village within hours of each other, causing a massive panic. News surrounding his break-in at the archives, conspicuously, did not, although the rumors of a ghost seen by the Killer B fortuitously combined with the interrogation news to create a new piece of folklore that had A raging and the townspeople enraptured. Apparently, his masked face had incited A’s paranoia, to the point that he isn’t ruling out the idea that the mysterious thief and torturer is Kakashi. Casting doubt on Konoha was not ideal and making Kakashi the subject for blame was even worse. And considering the information I acquired on Sakumo, then Kakashi definitely deserves a break that this is not giving him. But the suspicions about Kakashi and the information on his father were both problems that could only be dealt with at a later time, from within the village. Shikamaru resolved to put it on the backburner for now; besides, his information on the Hyuuga affair would give Konoha a definitive advantage in any battles for diplomacy. Seeing nothing else occurring that required any further direct interference on his part, Shikamaru got ready to head back out into the world, this time in his new life as Chinami Shikage, the erstwhile bounty hunter and Uzushio survivor.

Before leaving the region, he pilfered a bingo book from a careless chuunin heading out on a mission, intending to add it to his collection to create a masters list of bounties. Skimming through the different names, he made note of those that looked particularly evil and simple enough to capture or kill on his own. I guess I need to head in the Mist’s general direction. That was on the way to the rendezvous point with Hinata as well, so it all worked out.

To his surprise, he saw a new addition to the bingo book that fit his description. Or rather, one of his descriptions. Not Shikage or Shikamaru, but his ghostly, illusion-master alter ego. Nightmare, huh? They certainly nailed the ruthless fairy tale aspect. I guess my spectacle worked. He grinned in grim self-satisfaction, ignoring the iciness that threatened to claw out his throat.

What a fitting name, for the lover of Lady Death.

It was necessary. It had to be.

Chapter Text

Middle of Month 4

Suna was beautiful and haunting in its heated emptiness. Hinata had never had enough time before to appreciate it for all its glory, always too nervous on missions, and later too busy evading Kaguya and her minions, to take the time to sit and soak up the amber layers of sun and sand that made up Gaara’s home country.

Unfortunately, now was also not the ideal time for her to bask in Suna’s natural appeal. Not when she was currently attempting to ingratiate herself with sand merchants and pose as their bodyguard. I need them to like me enough to make this journey comfortable, and perhaps earn some sort of favor, in case I need help at our next destination.  The past week and a half of identity implantation had left her lonely, broke, and hungry in a small, impoverished town in the middle of Sand Country. The skinny, defeated faces of the townspeople broke her heart, almost as much as it had when she was forced to say goodbye to Shikamaru and head out on her own as Hiyori. The look on her face must have been more despondent and awful than even their own, because the civilians welcomed her into their community with minimal fuss, giving her water and soup for barely any money in exchange.

Or perhaps it was desperation, rather than kindness, that had the withered old woman take five carefully counted, scratched coins as payment for an entire meal and a night of lodging.

No matter what it was, this town was entirely dependent on the passing of merchant caravans to supply their stock and generate money. When the opportunity arose to apply to be a bodyguard for a group of sellers who could never afford the cost of shinobi on C-rank missions, Hinata leapt at it, both out of hunger and out of pity. If I can do something good for these people while I deceive them, then I will.

And that’s how she ended up here, working to secure the passage of four merchant families on her own, while they alternated between casting her suspicious and grateful gazes, clutching their bags of money tightly to their person. Beyond the admittedly gruff exchange that she had with the head merchant, a bald middle-aged gentleman by the name of Tamago (a name that she could not discern as either real or a pseudonym), no one had really bothered to speak to her, leaving her mealtimes to be rather bleak. Although it seemed that tonight, warmed by the fire amid the desert cold, and slowly acclimating to the past four days of her presence, one of the merchant children had gathered enough courage to approach her. As she settled onto her spare flak jacket, serving as a seat in the sand, the blonde-headed little boy inched closer to her, making the steady stream of conversation amongst the adults’ hush in anticipation. But nobody tried to stop him.

“What’s your name?” he asked brashly, more of a statement than a question. Oh, Hinata thought in amusement, it seems like we have a little Naruto or Kiba in training, here.

“My name is Uzumaki Hiyori, young one. What’s yours?” she replied pleasantly, happy that someone, even if it were a freckled, eight-year-old child, had bothered to address her.

She could sense some of the grown people jerk back in surprise, even though they already knew her name. Despite the red hair and the bright blue eyes, it seemed like believing the Uzumaki were anything more than a tragic old wives’ tale was still difficult for the average civilian, especially one in a tentatively allied country.

“An U-ju-make-ee, huh?” the child replied, butchering her name despite his concentration. “I’ve never met one before. But that means you’re a ninja, right? I think I heard U-ju-make-ee’s were super cool and super scary ninjas!” he exclaimed excitedly, before looking up and down dubiously at her person. “But you don’t really look that scary, even if you’re supposed to be guarding us.”

Hinata was far too delighted by his seeming bravery and nonchalance to take offense at the thought that she didn’t look like an intimidating kunoichi. In her past, back when she was still haunted by the derogatory remarks of her cousin and the utter disappointment of her father, she would have taken these words as knives to her heart. But that was a Hinata who hadn’t been stabbed, who hadn’t fought tirelessly in war, and lost her entire family, and later on her friends, all within the span of a year. That was a Hinata who hadn’t yet become a Hiyori, with the clan name of her dead and gone first love. Now, she simply smiled, and said:

“Yes, you could say that I am a ninja. Although currently, I don’t have allegiance to any one village.” Hopefully not for too much longer. “And I think it’s ok that I don’t look too scary. Otherwise, I wouldn’t get you to talk to me, isn’t that right Mr.…” she trailed off, gently reminding him that he had never answered her inquiry into his name.

“I’m Kenji Haruto! It’s nice to meet you U-ju-make-ee-san!” he responded with a cheery gap-toothed grin, clearly feeling comfortable now. Around him, the rest of the group seemed to relax their holds on their cutlery and ease their shoulders back. It’s always a child that provides the first steps towards trust, isn’t it.

In a sudden whirlwind, a little girl popped up beside little Haruto, dark-haired and serious in contrast to his light hair and mischief.

“It’s pronounced Uzumaki, not U-ju-make-ee, Haruto-kun. This is why you shouldn’t slack on your lessons,” she piped up knowingly, never tearing her green-eyed gaze from Hinata.

“It’s not my fault the lessons are boring,” he grumbled.

“How would you know if they’re boring? Your head is always in the clouds,” she sniped back, unfazed. This was clearly an argument that they had had many times before and would continue to have after Hinata had long departed their company. She tried valiantly to hold back a laugh, sure that Haruto wouldn’t like someone to giggle at his expense. But these children are so cute, and innocent. I wonder if their teenaged selves were scared, when Madara came, and swept them all away in his chakra-sucking tree.

At the thought, her smile dimmed, but it quickly brightened again at the intrusion of a third and fourth child, dark-eyed, round-faced fraternal twins of about five years old, who had finally worked up the courage to join their older friends.

“You shouldn’t tease Haruto-nii-san so much, Misaki-nee-san,” one of the twins shyly contributed. “It’s not very polite.” Her quiet brother nodded his head vigorously beside her, choosing to stay silent, preoccupied by the hand stuffed in his mouth.

The so-called Misaki sniffed. “Alright, alright, don’t whine. But I’m not saying anything that isn’t true.”

Haruto still looked defiant, but there was a flicker of hurt in his eyes, likely from being belittled by his friends in front of Hinata, a stranger. She knew she shouldn’t, but the comparison to Naruto and Kiba reared its head again. I never could say anything aloud to Naruto at this age. But perhaps I can say something now.

“You know, Haruto-kun, it’s ok not to be the best at academics. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try; but some of my dearest friends when I was younger were terrible at school too.” Even Shikamaru was a bad student, despite his brilliance. He always did the bare minimum to pass. “And you know what? They became some of the strongest, most well-respected ninja in my…nomadic group.” Now is not the time to blow your cover, Hinata.

“Really?” Haruto breathed out, eyes wide with surprised hope.

Hinata nodded, gentling her facial expression so that he could see she was being more than just patronizing. “Really. One of them had the same nindo as me: never giving up, and never going back on your word. And that was enough.” That was enough to get us this far. And it will be enough to let us save as many as we can.

Haruto beamed, shooting I-told-you-so looks at Misaki and gesturing excitedly at the twins.

“Well, if a real shinobi tells me that I can be somebody, then I guess I’ll have to believe it.”

“Oh,” Hinata said, eyes twinkling, “so you believe that I’m a ninja now?”

To her surprise, it is Misaki that speaks up. “Hmm. He was right before, you know. You don’t seem scary, or ruthless, or mean, like other shinobi I’ve heard about. Actually, you’re really nice, Uzumaki-san. But I guess you can still be a ninja if you say that you are.”

Hinata raised her eyebrows. “What convinced you? Is it the kunai that I have strapped to my belt?” Most regular citizens wouldn’t walk around with weapons like these, especially if they couldn’t wield them at a master’s level.

“No,” Misaki mused, “it’s not that, although that helps. But it’s the way you are. After all, even when you’re smiling, your eyes look so sad. I think that only shinobi can look that sad, even if they have a full belly and a smile on their face.”

Oh. Oh. I look sad, huh? Maybe that’s what the old woman saw that made her take my money. The tired eyes of a ninja who had undergone too much grief to escape unscathed.

The idea that the death and destruction of her past, and potentially her future, had left such an indelible mark on her soul left a cut on her heart sharper than a senbon’s tip. And for it to be so noticeable that a child, no matter how inquisitive, had sensed it…it left her wondering, briefly, if she was truly up to this task, after all. No Hinata. Focus. Even if I’m broken, that doesn’t mean I haven’t put some pieces back together. I’m strong enough now to keep moving.

It was only after the quiet twin pulled his hand out of his mouth and hissed, “Look at her! That was rude,” that she realized she had been silent longer than was appropriate. Even the previously at ease adults were looking at her apprehensively, inching closer to the children as if ready to scoop them up if she lashed out.

“No, it’s quite alright,” she eked out, “I suppose I am sad. I’m sure you’ve heard stories, but the life of a shinobi can be difficult. But it’s given me the skills to protect my friends, and to protect people like you. And that brings happiness, too.” And when she flashed the group a small, yet genuine smile, she knew they could tell that she meant it.

And when Tamago’s wife handed her an extra ration of bread and soup later that night as she took up a position for watch, she realized that she had nurtured tentative goodwill in the entire merchant group, which almost felt like a bigger accomplishment than her Academy graduation. This part of being a Shinobi, at least, is peaceful. I wonder if Shikamaru is feeling something like this too, wherever he is. Somehow, deep in the pulsating warmth of her wrists and ankles, hastily covered with bands of cloth, she doubted it.

The peace didn’t last long for her, either.

The next day had started pleasantly enough, with a short but meaningful exchange over breakfast tea with one of Tamago’s merchant friends, Yaki, the father of Misaki. Despite the heat, the feeling of casual acknowledgement from her charges brought her cool relief. She was so at ease, that she almost grew negligent with her complacency. The sharp thwick! of a pair of hastily launched darts gave her enough leave to snap her body out of the way, and in between heartbeats, she could do nothing but track the needles, dripping with glistening poison in the midday sun, with her eyes. Sand bandits. Deadly ones, too.

Without even stopping to think about it, she called a firm and loud halt to the caravan, not bothering to check if they had heeded her call as she leapt out in front of them all. She needed the clear space in front of her to see, her byakugan needing to be kept under wraps unless it was certain that she would lose without them. There! Approaching from all four cardinal directions are armed bandits. A swordsman, a poison master, a man who looks like a taijutsu expert, and a woman of indeterminate skillset. This will be more difficult than I intended.

She hoped that that was all of them; most likely, the bandits thought that this caravan, poor as they appeared, were not well protected, and therefore did not warrant a hidden element. She also did not wear the uniform of any identifiable ninja village, so they probably did not view her as a massive threat. They underestimated her. Hopefully, they would come to regret it. I’ll never give anyone I choose to protect reason to doubt me ever again.

Now that each of her targets were identified, her hyper focused senses were able to tune back in to the chaos and fear overtaking the merchant families behind her.

“Great Sage, is that poison darts! That’s so cool! We’re going to die, but that’s so cool!” Haruto exclaimed.

“Shut up, idiot, we aren’t going to die.” Misaki snapped back. “That’s why we have Uzumaki-san, remember?”

Their parents had evidently given up on controlling their children’s tongues, choosing instead to mutter in barely concealed, reasonable terror as they covered their supplies in heavy-duty cloth, and attempted to shepherd everyone to cover beneath some of the tarps.

Despite herself, and the rapidly approaching assailants, Hinata could not help but give a brief smile. Apparently not everyone was fearful. I’ll have to live up to their faith in me.

In her next breath, she had bitten harshly into her thumb, the blood salty and gleaming as she pressed the maroon beads into a seal and called for her summons. Instantly, Rashi, Nezumi, and Hari all popped up, alert in an instant.

“Nezumi-san, Hari-san, would you be able to guard the children and the rest of the caravan?” she said hurriedly, sure that they could assess the severity of the situation for themselves. “They’re all civilians, but I think some of the kids might be a little adventurous, so be extra mindful.”

Dismissing her usual snark for a serious, and mildly terrifying, veneer, Nezumi bristled with her quills out in full, dashing over to the tarps the families had herded under. “Of course, Uzuga-chan. This’ll get sand in my quills, but clearly you had to call in the big guns for this. I hope you can keep up, Hari-chan.” Nezumi’s confidence was slightly unwarranted, but she could hold her own. There was a reason Hinata had called for her and her sister. On her part, Hari didn’t bother to dignify Nezumi with a response. The time for witty replies was for after this mess was sorted. She simply got into position on the other side of Nezumi, snout wrinkled and quills out.

“Ohmygods is that a summons?? This is even cooler than the darts!”

Satisfied with her protective hedgehogs, Hinata inclined her head at Rashi, who had been patiently standing at her side as he warily watched the sand bandits approach. They had slowed somewhat upon seeing her summons, perhaps figuring that she was a higher-class shinobi than they had prepared to deal with.

“Rashi-san,” she murmured, “would you mind going after the poison master? Your quills should protect you a little, and you have some darts of your own. I’ll deal with the rest.”

Rashi’s large nose crinkled in a snarl. “With pleasure, princess.” And then he was darting off towards the south. Princess is a better nickname than Hyuuzamaki, that’s for certain. If I believe Ino, it might even be a compliment.

No time for those thoughts now. Focus, Hinata. No, focus Hiyori. This is a fight you must win, as an Uzumaki.

“Shadow Clone Jutsu,” she called out, crossing her index and middle fingers in a quick hand sign. Around her, five clones popped up, looking more or less exactly like Hinata, and thrumming with unbridled power. She still couldn’t handle producing as many as Naruto could, despite her increased chakra reserves, but the ones she could create were strong and intelligent. More importantly, they all had the same seals inscribed on their bodies and stuffed in their portable storage scrolls. Basic fuinjutsu is still more impressive than anything the banditry world has seen for a while.

“Hiyori 1 and 2, go after the taijutsu expert. Hiyori 3, 4 and 5, secure the perimeter and target the swordsman. I’ll go after the kunoichi.” For some reason, she felt like the unknown kunoichi would be the one to look out for the most. Since her intuition had been forged under the fire of constant war with an alien chakra goddess, and she had survived that long enough to be here, she was inclined to trust in it.

“Yes ma’am,” all four clones chorused back at her. And then they were off.

Hiyori 3, 4 and 5 were the first to start working, pausing right in front of the caravan group as they headed east towards their man. On cue, they each unwrapped the inconspicuous scrolls tucked in their waists and produced a larger scroll, ringed in red, white, and shimmering gold. These seals took a massive effort, several days’ worth of work in fact, to produce but could only be used once. But at this point, for the sake of everyone counting on her, it was worth it. Turning so that they were back -to- back in a loose triad, the clones cut their palms with their kunai and knelt down to press a bloody handprint to the center of the unfurled seal. Immediately, three glowing gold lines erupted, spreading down the battleground in a straight path and erecting clear walls around the north and east targets, effectively isolating the sword master and the taijutsu user, separating them both from the caravan and the other two assailants so that they could no longer reconvene for aid. The fuinjutsu, entitled the Incremental Barrier Seal according to the notes Hinata found in Uzushio, was only easily penetrable by the caster. For everyone else, the clear, warped walls felt like crawling through drying molasses. Every part of your body would feel slow and ineffective as it attempted to pass through, leaving that person open to attack. It was simple, yet efficient, with the one major downside being its constant chakra drain once it was erected. Hiyori 5 was left to sit cross-legged in the middle of the three scrolls and meditate to maintain the walls while she still could. The rest of the clones, as well as Hinata herself, had until Hiyori 5 ran out of chakra to defeat their opponents before the encounters grew more complicated.

They didn’t waste time. Hiyori 3 and 4 quickly passed through the eastern barrier, pausing in their chakra enhanced run to unwrap bandanas laced around their right thighs. There, standing out starkly against a patch of pale skin, were two circular black seal tattoos, encoded with the marks of a simple storage seal. It had taken Hinata the better part of the first month to decipher how exactly to mark simple seals on her body without causing imminent harm, but in a fight like this one, she was grateful she had forced herself to learn it and had Shikamaru there to steady her hands. The seals themselves were remarkably straightforward, designed only to hold a handful of items that she would otherwise find too cumbersome to keep on her person. From it now, her clones slowly pulled out a tanto blade, and a set of five senbon, respectively. Admittedly, Hinata had very little formal training with the blade, beyond what Kakashi had managed to show everyone during their months on the run. But she knew enough to at least distract a sword-wielding thief, so that her newfound skill with the senbon (‘her pathetic human quills,’ as Nezumi liked to say) could shine through in her other clone. They worked best with her byakugan, but she had trained enough under Rashi’s spiteful guidance to be a threat without them.

The swordsman looked utterly unprepared to go against two clones. Slashing his katana in an arc, he attempted to take out the senbon-wielder first, sensing a weaker target, but was quickly intercepted by Hiyori’s tanto blade, which just barely managed to knock the man’s strike off course. Muttering a curse under his breath, he pivoted his footwork and set to whipping his sword at the tanto-user, finding quickly that he had the upper hand in sword combat, Hiyori just barely managing to parry his strikes as shallow cuts opened at her side, her thigh, and her cheek. If she took much more damage, the clone was sure to dissipate. Thankfully, the swordsman was an amateur, and grew tunnel vision that focused on a fight that he sensed he could win. He was so distracted, that he utterly dismissed the senbon clone, who had positioned herself at the man’s blind spot, a few feet offset from the back of his shoulder, spinning and moving with each of his bold steps and strikes against her fellow clone.  After a minute, she grew acclimated to his pattern of movements, enough to predict his body position. Sidestep, lean backwards, upward strike, step backwards, feint, lean forward, sweeping slash, upward strike, direct thrust. On his next upward strike, Hiyori threw two needles, making it land at the juncture of his neck and back on either side of the occipital bone at the top of his spine, temporarily paralyzing his neck. In a panic, he swung wildly, which Hiyori 3 easily dodged and followed up with a determined slash at his forearm which landed true, causing him to drop one hand from his katana. Still grasping the sword with one hand, he tried to counter her next strike, again failing to consider the senbon’s of her clone, who landed her last three in quick succession on the nerve clusters at the back of each thigh, and the top of his dominant foot, causing him to stumble forward onto his knees. With a defeated and stunned expression, he could only watch as Hiyori used the bunt of her tanto to strike him decisively across the head, knocking him out and removing him from the field of play. After securing his hands and feet with restraining ties from her thigh storage seal tattoo, their job was complete. Smiling serenely, Hiyori 3 and 4 dissipated themselves in a puff of smoke, returning some measure of chakra to their creator.

In the meantime, in the northern quadrant of the sand, Hiyori 1 and 2 were closing in on the presumed taijutsu expert, who was looking at them with an entirely too condescending smirk. At her best, using the byakugan, Hinata was second only to Lee and Sasuke in basic taijutsu ability. Although she couldn’t use her arsenal of eight palms techniques at the moment, her training in seal and quill-based taijutsu made her clones more than a match for the amateur bandit. Biting into her thumb to draw a little blood, Hiyori 1 reached for a scroll tucked in her ankle and pulled it out, smearing her blood on the revealed seal. Hiyori 2 mirrored her, and then pressed their bleeding thumbs together, letting the coppery mixture comingle.

“What exactly is that supposed to do, ladies,” their opponent said, smirking as he steadied his gait and moved into a resting offensive position. “This is a hand-to-hand fight, not a time to wait for seals to activate.”

It is always so odd when members of a shinobi nation disparage seals. There was a reason that Uzushio was targeted and subsequently destroyed.

Moving together on a silent signal, Hiyori’s 1 and 2 sprung backwards from each other and surrounded the sand bandit on either side, constantly circling around him at equidistant points. Hiyori 1 ran at him at a sudden burst of speed, aiming an elbow at his face. Right before it would have made contact, his arms already up and braced for her blow, she yelled out “Tsugi (next)” and traded places with Hiyori 2, who kneed him in the solar plexus.

“What the…?” he wheezed out in a daze, before slamming Hiyori 2’s shoulder, sending her sprawling away. As he aimed a kick at her prone form however, he found Hiyori 1 directly beneath him, lifting his knee with the palm of her hand and disturbing his stance enough for her to sweep kick his only stable foot, sending him crashing down. Quickly springing back to his feet, he executed a series of front, side, and back kicks, in a mesmerizing wave that would have been effective…if the two clones had not switched places again.

The next few minutes was a comedy of errors for the taijutsu master, who found himself unbalanced and disoriented as Hiyori 1 and 2 started to engage him, only to dramatically switch places with a “tsugi!” leaving him no time to anticipate attacks. It was said with only as much frequency as was needed for him to misplace his strikes, leaving him confused and ineffective. Meanwhile, the two Hiyori’s antagonized him with a sloppy mismatch of Nara, Hyuuga, and quilled beast taijutsu, balancing targeted strikes at blocked chi points with aggressive kicks, sweeps, and palm strikes.

It was no contest. The man soon found himself stumbling to the ground in defeat, his left arm and right leg uselessly numb, and his torso scattered with cuts and bruises. After tying him up with rope taken from their thigh storage seals, Hiyori 1 and 2 counted their jobs as done, disappearing into smoke and augmenting Hinata’s own chakra supply once again.

In the south, Rashi appeared to be winning handily against the poison master, who proved himself to be a mediocre fighter when faced with a being who could deflect his poison darts. Rashi was bristling in anger and determination at the frequent barrage of needles, even as his eyes glinted with glee. Oh, Hinata thought with amusement, this is probably the most fun that Rashi has had in ages, since the porcupines had withdrawn from human life. Every so often, he released an electrostatic charged quill at his opponent, who shook with terror at each scorching shock. The fight appeared to be well in hand for Rashi, then.

That left Hinata to her own devices against the mysterious kunoichi, her black bob sitting neatly on her slim shoulders. Ok, Hinata. This one is up to you. Focus.

“You are more formidable than I thought,” the woman purred, tapping a metal tipped fan against her knuckles. “I’d like to know your name, so I can tell people that you fought well until the inevitable end, when I’m relating this story.”

Hinata allowed herself a small smile, refusing to get intimidated by the boasts and taunts. “You will not defeat me,” she said confidently. I have faced much worse and survived. I will not lose to someone like you, so early in my journey. “But you may have my name, anyways. It is Uzumaki Hiyori. And you have made a mistake, attempting to rob this caravan.”

The woman smirked in response, pulling out another folding iron fan so that she held one in each hand, unfurling them slowly with a metallic clink. Tessenjutsu. A rare art, and a dangerous one. “An Uzumaki, eh? I thought you were all extinct. No matter. My name is Kanami, a nukenin of Suna.” Oh, I was right to be wary of her. “These days, they call me the Tetsu Tatsumaki (Iron Tornado). I hope you don’t regret daring to face me.”

“Of all the things I regret, this will surely not be one of them,” Hinata intoned solemnly, before crouching into a ready stance to spring.

Kanami had not lost her smirk, but her eyes narrowed with more serious intent. “So be it.” And then she was rotating her wrists delicately in a dance that would have been mesmerizing, had Hinata not noticed that she was generating large gusts of wind with every turn. I hope the merchants and the children have taken a secure position in their carts. With this last thought, Hinata had no more time to think at all, as Kanami yelled out “Wind Jutsu: Dance of the Sharp Wind Blades,” before jerking her fans in Hinata’s direction, sending two large concussive blasts crisscrossing towards her. Hinata attempted to evade but was caught in the tail-end of the attack, flying backwards into the harsh sand, scraping her arms. Although the wind was not as powerful as what Temari could produce during her peak, the use of the two smaller fans afforded Kanami more mobility, making it a pointed hassle.

Groaning, she rolled over back into a standing position. I will not be able to draw close enough to her to use taijutsu with such a mature wind jutsu. I will have to use ninjutsu in return. Unfortunately for Hinata, her ninjutsu was the weakest part of her repertoire, as she had focused mainly on taijutsu and, recently, fuuinjutsu, for most of her training. She knew no bold, eye-catching techniques like those passed on in family lines among the great clans. But perhaps she didn’t need to.

Think, Hinata. What does wind feed? While she tried to sort it out, she was running and weaving across the sand, turning her eyes away from the dust cloud that had been kicked up as Kanami continually turned columns of wind in her direction, laughing all the while.

Wait, that’s it!

Hinata came to an abrupt stop in her evasion tactics, turning to look Kanami straight in the eye.

“Oh ho ho, the little Uzumaki wants to be brave now, hmm? Or are you just giving up? It’s no matter,” Kanami menaced, crossing her arms, fans glinting on either side of her face. “You lose.” And then she spun around, arms swinging gracefully as she sent a veritable funnel of wind and sand careening in her direction. As the cloud approached her, Hinata flashed a series of hand signs, relying on her very infrequently used chakra affinity to carry her through.

“Fire Jutsu: Small Fireball Jutsu.” She whispered. In her hand, a weak looking spurt of fire grew in her hands, tiny from lack of practice and confidence in her fire style skills. But it was no matter; the oncoming gust of wind had enough oxygen to fan her flame into an inferno. From her waist pouch she took out an inconspicuous seal that could absorb and reverse ninjutsu based attacks. Then, she threw her pathetic fireball into the wind, watching as it grew into a large blaze, still heading straight for her. She then placed the seal in front of her and scrunched her eyes closed, hoping more than anything that she hadn’t misapplied a line in the seal’s kanji. For a moment, she could feel the heat encompassing her on all sides. Then, with a sucking sound, the fire was pulled into the seal held in her hands, and then re-released in a gush, shooting out determinedly towards the startled kunoichi. Kanami attempted to bat the column of fire back with a wave of one of her fans, but the beam of fire was too concentrated to be fully dispersed. The potent release struck Kanami straight on, flinging her back and wrenching one of her precious iron fans from her grip. As she screeched, her back facing away, Hinata briefly activated her byakugan, registering where all the weak chakra points in Kanami’s body was, before shutting them off again before anybody could see. Then she dashed forward, pressing them all with sharp palm strikes, causing Kanami to lose feeling in both of her arms, fomenting another wind-based blast.

Without the use of her fans, still waffling from the fire blast, Kanami was open and vulnerable. With one last hit to the back of her head, Hinata disabled the kunoichi, leaving her free to tie her up, just as Hiyori 5 ran out of chakra and poofed out of existence, taking the remaining shimmering gold barriers with her. Exhausted, Hinata slumped forward, hands on her knees, and panted while looking wearily around the expanse. At each corner, a would-be bandit laid tied up and unconscious, with the exception of Rashi’s charge, who was prone on the ground and twitching with residual electricity, while Rashi sat on him, looking smug. Every enemy was accounted for, then.

“Is everyone alright?” She called, dragging Kanami with her as she approached the covered carts. Nezumi and Hari hopped out from within, quills puffed out with pride.

“Of course they are, Uzuga-chan. Who do you think you’re talking to?” Nezumi said haughtily.

“The dumbest hedgehog in the four great nations, that’s who,” Hari muttered discontentedly to the side. Her mood was easily perked up, however, by the appearance of the children, who came stumbling out from the protection of the cart, even as their parents attempted to corral their exuberance.

“Hiyori-nee-san, Hiyori-nee-san,” Haruto burst out, looking at her with barely concealed awe. Behind him, even Misaki was looking on impressed, and the twins were shyly but eagerly clutching at the snouts and tails of Nezumi and Hari, who did not look like they minded all the much. “That was so awesome! You split into six people, and then you blasted the bad guys, and that one porcupine kept throwing electrodarts, and there was this wall of gold and…it was just so cool! You’re actually a ninja!”

Hinata smiled sweetly, genuinely happy despite her exhaustion. I’ve graduated to Hiyori-nee-san, have I? “I’m just glad you’re alright, Haruto-kun, Misaki-san, and everyone else. I was worried when they started attacking. No one got struck with any poison, did they?”

Misaki calmly shook her head, while Tamago, Yaki, and the rest of the adults checked themselves and their families over. “No, I don’t think so. Some of us got a few scrapes, but that was because of the debris from that woman’s sand and wind blasts. Rashi-san made sure none of the darts reached us.”

Tamago nodded along with Misaki’s assessment. “She is quite right. Thank you, Uzumaki-san. You have proven your worth on this trip ten times over.”

Hinata blushed, unused to blatant praise for her abilities. “It was nothing, really. If some of you all could help me collect the assailants, then we can secure them for their bounties. I am not sure about the rest of them, but this woman had a nickname, the Iron Tornado, which suggests she is worth something in the bingo books.”

Yaki’s eyes widened in shock and nearly undetectable greedy interest. “A bounty, you say? Me and some of the men will get right on it.” And drawing Tamago and two others away, they separated into three directions, eager to nab the bandits now that they were incapacitated and potentially worth some money that could recuperate the lost cost of some of their damaged goods.

In the meantime, Hinata dismissed her summons, including Rashi who had ambled over to join them after passing custody of his captive over to one of the merchants. Thanking them for a job well done, they disappeared in a cloud of smoke, drawing even more wide-eyed enthusiasm from the eager children she had been left surrounded by.

“You’re so kind, but you kicked ass!” Haruto blurted out, turning red with embarrassment when Misaki chastised him for cursing. “Buzz off, Misaki-chan, you know it’s true.”

One of the twins tugged at the bottom of her flak jacket, drawing Hinata’s attention away from the bickering siblings. “I was so scared. But then you leaped into action, and the sun caught on your hair, and everything looked like it was on fire. You were like…a warrior princess!” Her brother nodded along eagerly.

The princess moniker, again. This time, it’s definitely a compliment. Crouching down, Hinata ran her hands over the scraped arms and faces of the twins, using the medical ninjutsu she knew to heal them as best as she could. She was no Sakura or Ino when it came to medicine, but she knew more than the average ninja, and she needed a distraction from the mixture of pride and an unintelligible shame that sprung up in her at their words. “I’ve never thought of myself as a warrior, but you flatter me very much. I only wanted to help.” And, perhaps, to prove to herself that she really was as strong as she claimed to be these days.

Misaki’s eyes were back on her, intense focus placed on the glowing blue of her palms as she engaged in the medical jutsu. “You can heal too? You are much more competent than I gave you credit for, princess.”

Haruto nudged Misaki’s shoulder excitedly, looking for all the world like an overeager puppy. “Of course Hiyori-nee-san can do medical jutsu! She can do anything. Princess is too tame of a word, too storybook damsel-in-distress. She’s like…she’s like…she’s like an empress!”

An empress? Oh dear, that’s ambitious.

To her surprise the twins, who had meekly introduced themselves as Koi and Kai (which may or may not have been nicknames), were in total agreement.

“You guys don’t think that’s a slight exaggeration?” Hinata questioned nervously, feeling overwhelmed by the attention, undamped by criticism.

“Hiyori-nee-san, you basically commanded a whole army and took out people invading your territory and your goods! That sounds like an empress to me. Isn’t that right, Misaki-chan?” Haruto rebutted, turning to look for assurance from his friend.

For her part, she steepled her chin sagely, green eyes narrowed in concentration. “You surprise me again, Haruto-kun. It seems like you did pay attention to some of your studies. I agree, she does seem very empress like if you put it like that.”

Haruto turned back to Hinata in triumph. “If Misaki agrees, then you have to admit it’s true!”

Hinata was redder than she had ever been before, but she couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out of her, feeling some joy for the first time in a while. Leave it to these children to give me a new nickname. “I suppose I can grow used to you calling me that then, if you all insist,” she demurred.

“Actually, now that I think about it,” Haruto continued, undeterred, “That scary fan lady had a nickname, right? I know that when ninjas have nicknames, it usually means that they’re amazing. But you beat her by yourself, which means that you’re much more awesome than her, which means you also need a cool nickname.”

Hinata put her hands up, trying to stave off what she knew was coming. “Oh, I don’t know about tha—”

Kai piped up for the first time. “Your hair was glowing red, and that’s when I felt safe. You should be the Red Empress.”

Koi looked over at him, impressed. “Kai, that’s such a good nickname! You’re right, Hiyori-nee-san should be called the Red Empress.”

Haruto raised his chin imperiously and pointed at Hinata, as if giving her an anointed position. “From here on out, all of us in the merchant caravan will refer to you as the Red Empress!”

Misaki simply inclined her head, showing her agreement.

By the time the adults returned with the rest of the bandit party, despite Hinata’s many sensible yet futile protests, the entire group, parents included, referred to her as the Red Empress every time they retold part of the bandit attack. As they approached their destination for the night, a small hot springs resort town located only a few kilometers away from Sunagakure, the tale had been embellished to the point that if Hinata were not intimately aware of how it all came about, she too would be mesmerized by the daring and brilliant adventures of the Red Empress, fighting a storm of evil rogue shinobi with nothing but her bare hands and wit. For a humble person, Hinata could not escape the tell-tale signs of embarrassment suffusing her body. But there was a part of her, deep inside, that was genuinely moved by the faith and trust the merchant group and their children now invested in her, even beyond the fact that this would aid her in securing other jobs and information trails in the future. I managed to fight and win on my own, Naruto, Neji. I hope you all would be proud of me.

Distantly, she also wondered if Shikamaru, as silent and stalwart as he had been, would have complimented her on her victory too.

As if in answer, her seal tattoos on her wrists and ankles warmed, comforting her as she chattered with the group.

Chapter Text

End of Month 4

Shikamaru ripped his kunai out of the back of the nukenin in front of him, a spray of blood jetting out to add maroon freckles to his face and splattered smears to the white strands at the ends of his hair. For a brief moment, he was taken back to the sight of Ino’s blood gushing out of her newly amputated leg, rivers of it running down to taint the leaves, adding to the ambiance that was already tinted red everywhere. The image, taken from a time when he had been helpless to do anything, haunted him, even after all this time. I need to ground myself. This is no time to be sucked into a memory. He focused his mind on the sticky, metallic feeling that had invaded his senses. That’s disgusting. And with that inane thought, his panic settled down. As the body hit the ground with the thud, he wiped his blade clean on his pant leg and slid it back into its sheath at his waist, surveying the scene before him. This kill marked the third of the morning, completing his latest mission to seek out bounties in his capacity as Shikage. He needed to give Hinata some foundation to work from, after all, not that she wasn’t capable of planting the story on her own. Although she would not be enthused that he had killed his marks.

Shikamaru stubbornly pushed his doubts to the back of his mind. His methodology was cruel, but efficient and necessary, especially since most of his targets were monsters even by his standards. These particular missing nin lying on the ground were smaller fry, but they were still dangerous in their arrogance. Besides, they came with extra advantages. One of them was a rogue ninja from Konoha, Aoi Rokusho, an overconfident jounin with a sword that he relied on too heavily. As he had always been taught, it was the responsibility of the village from which a missing nin came from to neutralize them before they became a threat, especially if they had escaped with contraband material. Although that hadn’t worked out for Sasuke, the lucky bastard.

Aoi’s prize, the “Sword of the Thunder God,” was weakened if overused against illusionary chakra opponents, and it was useless if the wielder couldn’t move his body at all. In the past, Shikamaru recalled that Aoi and his band had been defeated by Naruto and Sasuke after he had defected to Amegakure and received further training with his stolen weapon. He was simply removing a useless pawn from the board early and acquiring a weapon for himself and Hinata which could prove to be useful. Hinata uses lightning release, right? She may have some use for this, even though she’s not a swordsman. He tried to ignore the fainter voice in his head that asked him if it was fair to ambush them for this. Nothing about his life’s path was particularly fair. Death had nipped at the heels and devoured so many of his friends and loved ones who did not deserve it. Aoi wasn’t a good man in the least. No one was materially detrimentally affected by his passing, or the passing of his sycophants.  

No one except Idate, perhaps. The former genin, duped by Aoi into stealing the sword in the first place, was trapped off to the side, looking at him with extreme trepidation. No one would have guessed that this was the younger brother of the feared Ibiki of Torture and Interrogation.

Lip trembling, he looked at Shikamaru and asked “Are…are you going to kill me too, you Half-Moon bastard?”

Shikamaru grimaced, wiping away some of his blood and sweat with the back of his gloved hands. He was completely unaware of how he had gotten saddled with such a melodramatic nickname. He knew that his hair was off-putting even when tied back, especially against the paleness of his features, but he had internally resolved to never be associated with the cursed moon again. Not that his resolutions had meant very much as of late. This was probably just a small part of his penance for being a death-dealing schemer, and general failure in another life. The other part of his penance was being thought of instantly as an indiscriminate murderer who would dare to target a manipulated child like Idate.

“No,” he finally said gruffly, approaching the boy ensconced in shadows warily, trying not to spook him. “You still have some potential. What’s a kid like you running around with scum like them for, anyways?” Shikamaru already knew the answer, of course. But he had intuited, after multiple lessons on talking down opponents by Naruto, that getting Idate to admit it himself was important to his character development and evolution into a reasonably upstanding member of society.

He also, desperately, didn’t want to be more off-putting than he already was. When he was Shikage, he was supposed to be held to a slightly different, marginally more compassionate standard than the Nightmare was. At the very least, he needed to appear neutral, or they wouldn’t let him through Konoha’s gates.

“He,” Idate started hesitantly. “He tricked me. I had to leave my village in shame, and I had nowhere else to go but to follow him. I completely disgraced my family, and…and now I’m a criminal. I can never go back.”

“Konoha, right?” Shikamaru replied shortly, crouching down slightly to bring Idate closer to eye-level.

His eyes widened. “How did you know?”

Shikamaru raised his eyebrow and gestured broadly to Aoi’s body. Idate looked sick, complexion turning a faint green as he stared at the bloody corpses strewn across the ground. “I’m a bounty hunter,” he said drolly. “I didn’t just kill a random group of men for fun.” Takako would kill me. And worse, Hinata would lose all her faith in me. “I knew exactly who they were and where they came from. Just like I’ve heard of you, Morino Idate.” If it were possible, Idate’s eyes widened even further.

He continued as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. “Yes, the lost brother of Morino Ibiki, the feared commander of Torture and Interrogation. Do you think, if you were captured, that he would be forced to be the one to question you?” Maybe the question was a little mean, but he was genuinely curious. Family ties within the Leaf had suddenly become much more important to him to analyze, after the disaster caused by generations of angry Uchiha. He also, perhaps, wanted Idate to be able to delineate between love and duty, which most shinobi had never been able to figure out, until Naruto sucker punched them (figuratively or literally) into realization.

Idate had ceased looking shocked and now looked nothing but miserable. “He probably would. And it would kill him.” That’s what I figured. “That’s why I can never go back. Just kill me. It would be better for everyone, Half-Moon.”

Shikamaru sighed, and released his shadow stitching, freeing Idate unexpectedly. “My name is Shikage. Chinami Shikage, not Half-Moon, no matter what my hair looks like. And I won’t be doing anything like that, kid. I kill for a purpose, not for cowardice. If you think you can’t go home, I understand. I won’t be chasing after you wherever you go. That would be a pain. Just remember; a ninja’s loyalty may be to its village, but his heart will always recognize family.” I knew an overenthusiastic golden boy and a pair of batshit crazy Uchiha who could prove it. “You might be surprised by what your brother would have to say.”

Idate looked at him in shock and reluctant relief, looking torn between soaking in his words and trusting his change in demeanor. After a long minute of reflection spent gripping a useless kunai in his left hand, he slumped his shoulders forward. Carefully, he unwrapped his hitai-ate that had the leaf crossed through and tossed it at Shikamaru’s feet. “Well, if you see him, maybe you can give him that. To prove that I’m alive and that I…I never meant to go rogue.”

“I’m a bounty hunter, not a delivery service,” Shikamaru grumbled. He took the proffered head band anyways. Another kid I can’t quite save. The least I can do is talk to Ibiki for him, since I’m heading to Konoha eventually. So long as it doesn’t interfere with the plan. “If that’s all, then you should leave. I need to take these bodies to the nearest village to collect.”

Idate, looking like he wanted nothing more than to no longer look at the body of his former mentor, nodded and started edging away. Looking at his pitiful and downtrodden expression, Shikamaru felt himself softening, enough to interfere once more. “You know, you were pretty fast. I had to work a little harder than usual to catch you with my shadows. Perhaps the Land of Tea will welcome you.” He was fairly certain that was where Naruto and the rest of Team 7 had encountered him the first time, happily ensconced in a new home with a loving adoptive family.

Although he still looked suspicious, Idate gave the barest nod of gratitude. “Thanks, I guess.” He changed directions, heading away from Kumogakure and towards the Land of Fire, which was situated adjacent to the Land of Tea. Before he could disappear fully into the treeline, he turned back to Shikamaru, who was busy tying up his bounties to place them within the storage seals meant for large cargo. Idate’s face became a twisted cast of revulsion and respect.

“By the way,” he called out, drawing Shikamaru’s attention again. “They don’t call you Half-Moon because of your hair. I mean, that’s definitely part of it. But it’s mostly because of your personality. Right now, you helped me, and you were sort of pleasant while you were doing so. But when you hunt bounties, you develop this cold, dark, single-minded rage. The dark side of the moon. It’s like you’re a two-sided coin, Shikage. And no one can tell which part of you is the dominant one.” And with that final ominous remark, Idate was gone.

Does being creepy and intimidating run in that family? Shikamaru thought sardonically. It didn’t make him feel any better. The issue, of course, was that Idate wasn’t necessarily wrong, even though his blunt assessment of Shikamaru’s mental state cut him deeply. Onlookers thought that his personality was confused, and why wouldn’t they? Shikamaru didn’t quite know who he was anymore either. The lazy chuunin he used to be, the embattled war veteran he became, and the reluctant last-ditch hero he was supposed to become all warred within him. And his darker persona, aided by Kaguya’s curse and nurtured through his own apathy and claims of necessity, danced with death across his mindscape more often than he cared to admit, these days. Me, the Half-Moon. He supposed he had already resolved, once upon a time, to be Naruto’s shadow, guarding his light as he navigated the world as the legendary Hokage he never had the chance to be. For now, in lieu of that, he would keep both his dark and light halves, if it would aid him in his plan to save the world, and Hinata’s plan to save the Uchiha. It was really all that he could do anymore.

Sighing, Shikamaru straightened up, casting away his ruminations, and settling his newly filled storage scrolls into his waistband. He had things to accomplish. Idate’s words were a reminder of something greater; now that he had established himself enough to develop a nickname, his brief stint as an average bounty hunter wandering the elemental nations had served its purpose. After he collected his reward, he would have sufficient funding to take him back across the ocean towards Kirigakure. There was no ninja village that filled him with distaste more than the Mist, which was, unfortunately, precisely why he needed to go. The rot from Madara’s influence had deep roots there, in a land so easily manipulated to the whims of the Akatsuki. The possessed Mizukage, one of the nine jinchuurikis, was also the most elusive to ascertain the status of. Since he was one of the first extracted by the Akatsuki, after causing as much internal damage to the Kiri nin as possible through his genocidal havoc, there was not a lot of concrete information known about him or his place within Obito’s timeline. In this multifaceted strategy game that he was forced to play, knowledge was everything, above even action. If he couldn’t somehow affect the mind-controlling jutsu taking hold of the Mizukage with his own, the least he could do was gather intel.

With a contemplative scowl, he started hopping through the trees at a chakra-induced pace. There’s still more work to be done. As Nightmare, and as the Half-Moon. Forgive me for whatever sins that entails, everyone.

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Kirigakure was an even larger cesspool of chaos and misery than Shikamaru had predicted. Despite his hypervigilance, and the use of his foxes as scouts for information across the elemental nations, it had still somehow slipped his mind that at this point in history, the Mizukage was actively engaging in the horrifically widespread bloodline purges that would come to define his tenure as one of the most brutal Kages in shinobi history. For a village that trained their genin by having children participate in culling games, that was saying a lot. And here Shikamaru was, unprepared and ineffectual, caught in the middle of it all.

As he laid on the grass just outside of the village boundaries, stomach uncomfortably pressed against the soggy dirt, he contemplated ditching his binoculars and turning back. All he could see within the gates was chaos and misery. Civilians cowered in their shops and homes as brutal shinobi stormed clan residences and burned them down, striking ninjas and normal townspeople alike. All the while, rebellious factions attempted to strike back, occasionally overpowering individual weak Kiri ninja, but ultimately losing against the tide of mindless cruelty. The united front presented by the shinobi due to the war with Kaguya had almost made Shikamaru forget the blood-soaked history that defined life in the hidden villages beforehand. And nothing in his studies compared to seeing it first-hand. It was almost worse than what the alien goddess had to offer. Although she consumed the chakra energy of all those that she captured, effectively wiping humans off of the map, she was a clear other being, along with her hateful plant-like son. This, though, was a clear example of humans fighting other humans, instigated by Obito and carried out by the village, because they received orders and felt no empathy.

What a pathetic village. Shikamaru ignored the bruised part of his conscience that pointed out he had very little empathy these days, either. He also ignored the distant reminder that Konoha had once succeeded in eliminating an entire clan too, under Obito’s same unhinged wishes. It wasn’t relevant.

Just as he was about to get up and call one of his foxes to carry him away, he caught sight of a short, scarred youth carrying a large hook with a rather twisted expression in his face. At first glance he looked like nothing but a disturbed child, but he wasn’t fooled in the least, especially with the way both sides of the conflict parted so easily with trepidation. That’s the Mizukage. Yagura, leader of the Bloody Mist. With this sighting, Shikamaru could confirm that he was still active in Kiri, and was operating independently, meaning that Obito and his crew of tagalongs were no longer situated directly in the village.

That’s…mixed news. On the one hand, this meant that the jinchuuriki was still in possession of the Three-Tails, which was an eminently good thing. That meant that Shikamaru and Hinata’s appearance in the past had not yet sped up the timeline in collecting the bijuu. However, this also meant that the little despot was firmly under mind control, which would make it difficult to sneak around without violence. This is troublesome. Maybe I should just go, anyways. He’s a lost cause, the puppet of a powerful zealot.

Shikamaru glanced down, frowning at the purple-white tips of his hair that dripped past his chin and encircled his tilted head like a crown. Then again, isn’t that what I would become if I left? The unsympathetic villain, exactly as careless and empty as the alien who gave me this appearance and my new abilities in the first place. The guilt and disgust almost crippled him. No, he refused to be that far gone just yet.

“What a bother,” he muttered under his breath, as he settled into a seated position and thrust his hands into the ground, gathering dirt to smear in his locks. Although perhaps it wasn’t all bad. Even though he was set to deploy Nightmare again, earlier than expected, there was a real opportunity to learn more about the village and any intrigue or future schemes that may lay hidden within it, enroute to the Mizukage himself. Within the uproar, there was very little, documentation or weapons wise, that the village would miss. Sliding his mask over his nose, and removing any identifying marks from his clothing or belt, he sprung to his feet, ready to go.

“Alright,” he whispered, “time to corner a Kage. What a joy.”

--------------------

Regardless of his recent immersion in reckless and torturous activities, and his constant miring in self-doubt, Shikamaru knew well that he was not an idiot. Attempting to take on Yagura, a perfect jinchuuriki with a split psyche, directly in the heart of his own village would be one of the most foolish things he could ever do. Despite his self-hatred, he still very much wanted to live for the time being. Can’t grind Zetsu into dust if I get obliterated beforehand.

Besides. If he had any chance at all to dislodge Obito’s genjutsu, it would be through the use of his otherworldly abilities, which did not require a direct face-to-face conflict. All he needed to do was catch Yagura’s eyes. Carefully, he followed the Mizukage from a fair distance, tracking him as he brutally killed those he deemed ‘traitors’ to his village, struggling in spite of himself to not interfere when he included women and children in that category. I can’t save them all. I’m trying to save the world. It was a cold comfort.

He waited until, eventually, Yagura left the rest of the fighting to his lieutenants and made to return to his office, seemingly to be alone and sort out his other priorities. To be honest, Shikamaru didn’t quite know what Yagura was capable of doing in his official capacity as a leader, considering how compromised his mental state was. He shared it not only with an ancient chakra being, but with the slimy manipulative fingers of an overambitious Uchiha. It frankly sounded like a shit existence. Deep down, beyond the practical applications of having a freed jinchuuriki, perhaps that was the reason Shikamaru was really willing to help. His underutilized conscience, winning a silent battle for once.

As Yagura entered the building, Shikamaru hung back, circling the outside of the office and channeling chakra to his hands and feet to climb up the side of the building to the window on the top-most floor, where he suspected the Kage’s office to be.

I was right. There he is.

The boy was pacing slowly and methodically in the middle of his space, slowly spinning his hooked staff in his hands with a cold, detached look in his eyes. There were no guards stationed in the room. With a reputation as horrifying as his, he didn’t need one. And I’m the guy who’s going to try and tap into his mind with an under practiced skill. Wonderful, and impractical.

Shikamaru pulled himself up so that only the upper half of his face was visible in the glass window. The next part would be the trickiest. He needed to activate his eyes while not using his shadows; otherwise, he would default into his usual method of…enhanced interrogation…using the Shadow Illusion Garden of Good and Evil, which was meant to torture, not reorient the brain. Honestly, he hadn’t bothered to practice more benign usages of his eyes very much in the past few months. Extracting information from his targets and making them forget the details had seemed more important than trying to override genjutsus affecting other people. And there was really no one he could practice thaton, despite how willing he knew Hinata would be to be a test dummy, as earnest as she was.

This is no time to think about Hinata.

Anyways. He would have to just deduce a logical approach now and hope for the best. Not having a concrete plan is extremely stressful. It’s a wonder Naruto and the rest of Team 7 ever got anything done.

Right as he felt his gaze settle into the ominous pale purple that signaled his ruthless alter ego, Yagura snapped his head towards the window, likely sensing the chakra surge despite Shikamaru’s attempts to conceal his chakra presence. Or perhaps he sensed something else. My seal mark tattoos are starting to warm again. Regardless, that was his mistake; as soon as he locked eyes with him, Shikamaru channeled more power into his gaze, and ensnareed him.

For only a split second, it’s as if Shikamaru had entered hell. Every atrocity he could name, and several atrocities that he couldn’t, all rippled through his mind’s eye violently, shredding away some of his tenuous control on his abilities, more invasive and skin-crawling than any after-effect of mental torture he had ever gotten from playing Nightmare before. This was awful, colored red and grey, smelling of sulfur and smoke, tasting of heartbreak and an endless sense of betrayal. It was agony. And just as quickly as he was introduced to it, it melted away, Shikamaru instinctively throwing away his visual connection with the doomed jinchuuriki across from him.

What the fuck was that? Is that the genjutsu that Obito trapped this child in?

As he tried to regain his bearings, clutching desperately at the windowsill, he could see Yagura looking just as dazed, likely the only thing preventing him from snapping towards Shikamaru right that second. For a moment, Shikamaru was vaguely hopeful that he had rescued the young Mizukage from the horror of whatever that was, and that his mysterious mind-bending doujutsu had managed to jar some semblance of sense into his head.

But Shikamaru had never been that lucky as of late. With a firm shake of his head, Yagura’s eyes shifted back into the cold disturbed look that they usually had, although it looked less entrenched than usual. Unless he’s fooling himself. Nonetheless, his efforts were clearly too weak to dislodge the genjutsu completely. Before he could even bother to try again, Yagura blasted a column of wind through the window, sending Shikamaru careening back onto the ground. The offensive maneuver managed to signal to the guards waiting patiently outside, a couple Swordsmen of the Mist, that there was an intruder.

Fuck. Well, there’s my cue to run, which I was begging for earlier. Ensconcing himself with shadows, he began to run away, using evasive maneuvers to blend in with the bloody catastrophe still occurring all over the village, using the screams and grunts of the fighting ninja to conceal his own presence.

The tragedy of his surroundings had taken on a new light, now that he knew just what sort of cursed mind-fuckery that the Mizukage was subjected to. The horror he was inflicting on his people was nothing but a reflection of the horror that he felt in his own head. It wasn’t quite an excuse for all the death, but it sure as hell was an explanation.

Moments like these made Shikamaru question whether Naruto’s method of redeeming murderers and instigators like Obito was really all that fair to the people whose lives he had ruined, for the sake of a dream that was always destined to turn into a true nightmare, malicious and empty. Just like he was beginning to feel.

He tried to push those thoughts to the background as he started sprinting through a new clan headquarters, eerily silent compared to the chaos erupting in his periphery. I don’t have time for the anger stage of grief right now. Who knows what would happen then, with his mental state already as fragile as it was, and his grounding partner miles away on a mission of her own.

And yet, as the silence starts to settle into his bones, he couldn’t help obsessing over the state of the village again. Because he knew, at a visceral level, that the slight clarity he may have granted Yagura and his bijuu were nowhere near enough to knock sense into him. He may have slowed down some of the Mizukage’s bloodlust, but he could not stop the tide of actions that had already commenced.

He was almost at the village border, gates beckoning him with the chance to be fucking gone from this trash heap of misery, when he noticed a crowd of children being chased and attacked by some Mist shinobi clearly loyal to Yagura, and by default, clearly engaging in a clan purge. A couple of the older children attempted to fend them off, throwing out shards of ice that Shikamaru distantly noted was a hallmark of the (extinct in his timeline) Yuki clan. From where he was, hidden in a thick clump of mist and bog water, no one noticed him, although he had a front row seat to the extermination of a group of innocent little kids, too young to have committed any crime, targeted as a result of a Konoha castaway’s desperate plan to make the world ‘better.’

It was a grotesque, senseless purge. But I can’t interfere as I am. Nightmare’s persona is mysterious, deadly, and creepy as shit. And some of the mud is starting to slide away from the white parts of my hair because of all the dampness in this cursed place. I can’t blow my plan and my cover to save a handful of children who were condemned in the original timeline in the first place. And trying to show up as Shikage was out of the question. The Half-Moon mysteriously appearing at the same time as the Nightmare in a war-torn country that no one else wanted to visit would compromise not only himself, but all those who associated with him.

Hinata.

He couldn’t risk it. Does this make me worse than a monster?

Cold logic was warring with a sick feeling in his gut. Clutching his thigh with his fingers, a white-knuckled grip that left his leg bloody, he almost gathered enough fortitude to turn his back on the whole scene, when his nausea suddenly increased with an accompanying intense burning in his torso. What had felt warm and tingly before, when he had closed in on Yagura, was now an inferno, almost as hot as Yagura’s unholy dreams.

Detachedly, he could almost see Hinata materialize in the mist in front of him, a manifestation of his guilt, her shadow shaped distinctly unlike her; the spiky hair and flowing robe and fox-like ears meant that it symbolically belonged to Naruto, the backbone of Hinata’s ideals.

Great Sage, what’s going on?

As if in answer, mirage-Hinata gestured a smack upside his head, so reminiscent of his mother’s stance and posture that he could almost convince himself that he felt it.

“What the…” he muttered, staring wide-eyed into the mist.

“Shikamaru,” he heard his inner-Hinata say, blue eyes cast down in disappointment, red hair blazing in a fire of retribution. Naruto’s voice echoed her own. “You and I are different. I don’t expect you to feel compassion for every living creature who crosses your path or share my distaste for the fatal parts of being a ninja. But when you start to ignore your own instincts, when you try to abandon your responsibility in order to construct a persona for my sake, which I never asked of you, that’s where I have to draw the line.” Amidst his shock, he couldn’t help but think: Inner-Hinata seems to have a lot of my own doubts and perceptions projected onto her.

“I,” he said dumbly, deciding to respond to the hallucination. “I…you are my responsibility. Is it really ignoring my own instincts if I’m choosing to prioritize one duty over another? That’s the life of a shinobi. I’m a soldier before I’m a man.”

Hinata looked uncharacteristically stern. “You are making excuses for there to be a choice where one doesn’t really exist. You’re a genius; I know you can dig yourself out of whatever hole you think this would put you in. Do you want to know what is the difference between a man, a soldier, and a monster? A soldier is a man who sacrifices for the whole. And a monster is a man who is too scared to face any sacrifice at all. Remember who you’re supposed to be, Shikamaru-kun.” Her two-toned proclamation, backed by the deep and serious vocals of a determined Naruto, made every sentence hit him harder and harder in his chest.

I’m a man who makes sacrifices. Isn’t that what I had decided, before?

And with that, her image dissipated, leaving Shikamaru blinking at the approaching children, who were running closer and closer to his hiding spot, their assailants close behind.

They were children. And he didn’t want to become a monster. He only wanted to remain a beast. And he needed a hallucination to remind him of that.

Fuck it.

Cupping some of the bog water in his hands, he cleaned most of the mud out his hair, letting the pristine white-purple shine under the black of the roots. Then he ditched the mask, stuffing it back in the belt at his waistline. Time for the Half-Moon to take out some clan-killers.

Using his flash step, he darted in a wide arc around the group, hoping to conceal his initial exit point from the group so that it looked like he had been pursuing the mist ninja all along, rather than running away. It was all about perception.

Just as one of the battling, older children tried and failed to ensnare the pursuing ninja with an ice wall, Shikamaru activated his shadow clone jutsu, spawning into three agile Half-Moons equipped with shadow abilities and an impressive chakra reserve. The best part about the shadow technique was its insidious ability to counter almost any jutsu user, provided that the opponent had no idea who or where he was, and he finished them all off quickly after.

“Shadow Stitching Jutsu,” he breathed out, piercing the ninja through their arms, legs, and chest with his shadowy barbs. Immediately they fell to the ground dead, blood mixing with his shadows to create dark splotches against the icy backdrop of the former battleground. He didn’t feel any guilt for them. Scum who would kill children weren’t worth mourning or regret.

That was the easy part. Now to deal with potentially hostile mini shinobi.

“You’re not a Kiri ninja,” one of the wide-eyed children finally said to him, looking at the bodies in front of him (her?) with a mixture of relief and apathy.

“No, I’m not,” Shikamaru agreed, slowly straightening from his crouched position, dissipating his shadow clones as he did so. “I’m…a free agent. I was passing through this place looking for bounties and saw that you had gotten yourself into some trouble.”

“Why bother with us, outsider. There is no money to be found here,” the child continued in a low, suspicious tone. The rest of the scruffy and haunted kids behind him nodded warily, hands still clutching the weapons they had managed to procure. Well obviously, this kid is the leader of this band.

“No, there is no money involved, and I’m not completely sure what this conflict is about.” Lies. “But I don’t really like the thought of children dying needlessly, so I thought I’d help out.” Truth. “You could be a little more grateful, kid.” Way to be endearing, self.

The child didn’t look offended, however, merely raising an eyebrow before saying, “In that case, thank you from the Yuki clan. We appreciate your assistance, savior-san.”

Shikamaru couldn’t help the snort that escaped, sounding loud and jarring in the eerie, murderous atmosphere. I’m definitely not a savior. “No need to be so formal. I’m not even an official shinobi, just a wanderer. Call me Shikage.” Might as well spread his name here, while he had exposed himself.

“My name is Haku,” the child replied solemnly. “These are my friends. We are all that is left of our clan, I think.”

Shikamaru glanced around with a perfunctory analysis, but he knew that their assessment was correct. As he had run through the compound to escape earlier, he had made note of the general emptiness and hollow shell feeling of the place. What was once a home was now nothing more than a graveyard.

He sighed, looking askance at the group of bedraggled orphans. “Well, these were ninja from your own village hunting you down. I suggest you escape, fast, before more head out this way. I’m not an infallible bodyguard; I won’t be here the next time.” Probably. So long as not-Hinata doesn’t come back to guilt me into staying. But his vision remained blessedly clear of any weird and overly moral mist-shadow Hinata/Naruto hybrids.

Little Haku lifted his (her?) chin, looking serious and confident even as he said, “I’m not sure where we can go. We’re barely trained, and we’re on an island. Plus, we’re still children, even in a shinobi world where that rarely matters.” Shikamaru winced. It should matter.

Shrugging away his unease, he nodded his chin towards a figure approaching from the side, trying to be stealthy but unable to hide from Shikamaru’s more attuned chakra sense, courtesy of Kaguya’s alien genes. “I bet he could help.” As one, all the children whipped their heads around to look at the man approaching, a large sword strapped to his back, and the lower part of his face covered in a bandaged mask. His body showed signs of a recent fight in which he came off worse for wear, and his hitaiate was crossed through, showing that he had defected from Kiri already.

Momochi Zabuza, Demon of the Hidden Mist, and (once) one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. An all-around extremely dangerous individual. And, according to Naruto, “a really good guy who just got a little lost.” Shikamaru had grown to take some of Naruto’s character assessments with a grain of salt considering that his best friend was an all-around shitty excuse for one, but he knew enough of Zabuza’s history that he was fairly confident of leaving the children in his care. He had tried to save Kiri from their bloody reputation, in his own way. As far as motivations go, that was enough.

“Zabuza, Demon of the Mist. I take, based on your headband, that you wouldn’t mind taking care of these kids? I have places to be,” Shikamaru drawled lazily, exchanging a tense look with the notorious missing nin.

“I’m at a disadvantage,” Zabuza replied, sidestepping his request. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

Shikamaru smiled brittlely, enjoying the unease and bloodlust concealed in Zabuza’s eyes. “There’s no need to be coy. I know that you’ve been eavesdropping on me this whole time. You probably would have intervened if I hadn’t,” he deduced, looking at Zabuza’s posture and look of distaste that he cast on the dead ninja at their feet.

“Fair enough, Shikage. I’ve heard of your nickname too. The Half-Moon of the North. What’s a man like you doing here in Kirigakure?”

Shikamaru tilted his head subtly, taking care to shelve his surprise. My name has spread this far, huh? I must have gotten a tad overzealous in my bounty hunting. “War always means better bounties,” he settled on saying, gesturing lazily towards the village.

“Are you coming to collect mine, then?” Zabuza growled dangerously, shifting his hand to grasp his sword.

Shikamaru raised one hand plaintively, broadcasting that he was no threat. He wasn’t in the mood to test his skills against Zabuza today, not after he already drained so much of his chakra killing these ninjas and trying to reset the Mizukage’s damaged brain. “Considering I’ve come to hate this village, then I would say no. Besides, it looks like you only freshly defected. Your bounty now won’t be as high as it will be after you properly leave. I’ll wait until then,” he said, cocky and assured. “In the meantime, you should take the brats with you. It wouldn’t feel right, leaving them here.”

“Why wouldn’t it?” Zabuza replied, cocking his head like an owl, looking deep into Shikamaru’s eyes. He had a feeling that if he said something that wasn’t to the other man’s taste, he would end up facing the business end of his sword, which he had no desire to do.

“I know something about lost clans,” he said gruffly, looking down. It was a partial truth; he was alluding to his cover story as a Chinami here, but in his heart, he felt a pang for all the Naras that had fought and died in the war, his dad’s voice echoing in his head just before he got blown up by a tailed beast bomb. I’m leaving it to you, son. The trust in a statement like that felt less heartwarming when it’s accompanied by the decimation of your family. “I know what it’s like to live in an empty graveyard. There’s no reason for that to happen to these kids.”

Zabuza grunted and rolled his eyes, smirking all the while. “A wannabe hero, huh? I’m not a hero, even if I tried to defeat the Mizukage. But I’ll take the kids along with me, I guess. Their clan jutsu is impressive. I’m sure it’ll become useful.”

Haku and the kids had been watching Shikamaru and Zabuza’s back-and-forth with barely concealed interest and looked simultaneously relieved and concerned to have come under the guardianship of one of the legendary swordsmen.

Shikamaru simply smiled. Good. Now I can get out of this godforsaken place. “Then it sounds like I’m done here. I’ll be seeing you, Haku, Zabuza, everyone.”

After exchanging a weird head-nod of solidarity with Zabuza, he readied to sprint away towards the exit, when he was interrupted again by the swordsman. “Let me give you some advice, Shikage. This little victory you made for yourself here is rare. A bounty hunter who plays a hero will always be disappointed in the end.” And with that pitiless declaration he jerked his thumb towards lumps in the ground behind him, in the direction from which the mist ninja had originally came. There, Shikamaru could see the outlines of small figures, ranging from skinny to chubby, lying on the ground in a heap of blood and organ matter.

They were the children that Shikamaru had been too late and too busy having an existential crisis to save. From this distance, one of them looked like a younger Choji.

My fault. My fucking fault. And the fault of these goddamn Mist ninja, and the Akatsuki instigators backing them too. Growing in his stomach was the molten lead weight that he had been trying to ignore for the past several months, hell, the past year. It had made its presence known in fits and starts, flaring up against his friends, his surroundings, and most of all himself. But now it was unfurling its strands outwards as the pressure mounted. Rage. That was it. He could finally put a name to it, claim it on his own.

“When you hunt bounties, you develop this cold, dark, single-minded rage.”

“Duly noted,” he ground out at Zabuza. Then, without another word, he headed out through the gate. Instead of continuing further towards the ocean and the boats collected there, however, he circled back around in the direction towards the village proper, feeling anger nipping at his heels and settling in his stomach every step of the way. His emotions needed an outlet. And he wasn’t quite done gathering information on this scouting mission, after all.

--------------------

Shikamaru was fortunate, this time at least. The universe seemed more apt to answer his calls when he’s boiling with rage and decked out once again in his Nightmare mask, like it’s rewarding his miasma of negativity. He made a note of it for the future. But it appeared that the Mizukage, although barely catching sight of him, had felt enough of a brush against his mind to send some of his lackeys after Shikamaru while he recovered from the encounter. For a lesser prepared ninja, one of the Seven Swordsman and two chuunin accompaniments would have been enough to handle the situation. But Shikamaru, for better or for worse (likely for worse) was no ordinary ninja anymore, and his incandescent anger was giving him a last-minute chakra boost. He gleefully intercepted the ninja without even having to dive too deeply back into the cesspool of the village proper, giving him space to truly operate. Simple shadow possession rendered the unprepared mist chuunin useless, hemmed in by earth walls as an extra measure to ensure their stillness while he focused on the main prize.

“Wow,” he said lazily, glaring at the Tokubetsu jounin who was pinned down by the encompassing shadows of two of his clones. “What a lucky day, for me to encounter one of the legendary Seven Swordsman of the Mist. I’m sorry to say that I don’t know your name, and I don’t really care to. You just have to answer a couple of questions.”

The man hissed at him, trying to spit and ending up with speckles of drool on his chin, mixing with the blood pouring copiously from a cut at his temple. “I know who you are. I recognize that mask, these shadows, those eyes. You’re Kumogakure’s Nightmare.”

“I don’t really like to be owned or claimed by anyone,” Shikamaru responded petulantly, flipping a kunai up and down in his hand in a practiced intimidation tactic. “Perhaps we can call me everyone’s Nightmare. I’m a bit of a freelancer.”

“It doesn’t matter who you are,” the swordsman panted out, looking irritated, mixed with a bit of something else. “I am loyal to Kirigakure, and to Yagura-sama. I won’t tell you a fucking word.”

“If you’re so confident,” Shikamaru leaned in, feeling his anger start to spill over and latch onto his target, a poor substitute for the group that really deserves his ire. “Then why do you look so afraid?”

The swordsman drew in a breath sharply but didn’t say anything. Perhaps he couldn’t.

“Don’t worry,” he continued lazily, channeling chakra into his eyes as he grasped the man’s head. “This technique isn’t as clumsy as it used to be. I actually got a bit of a boost from all the shit that I saw in your leader’s head. I bet it’ll only take one turn this time for you to spill everything I want to know.”

His shadow needles began to press at his temporal lobe, hippocampus, occipital lobe, and brain stem. The sudden paleness of the ninja’s cheeks and twist of his mouth betrayed the terror that he had desperately been trying to conceal the entire time Shikamaru had spent speaking to him. It was useless, however. Shikamaru had long since closed his mind against the appeal for empathy, especially for mindless, senseless killers with no autonomy like the pathetic creature in front of him. “Shadow Illusion Garden of Good and Evil.”

His screams were nothing but a backing track to the buzzing of thoughts on Shikamaru’s head. Now he’ll tell me everything that I want to know. Piece of shit.

After he finally shut off the technique, having left the man mired in the horrifying mental hellscape for a few minutes longer than strictly necessary, he found a reduced figure all too ready to talk. Easy.

He took care with his questions to disguise his interrogation as a means to gain political information and the opportunity to steal valuable water jutsu and mist illusion scrolls, since that had been Nightmare’s standard modus operandi since his interventions in Kumo. It wouldn’t do to deviate from the pattern now, even if he was able to wipe most of this encounter from his target’s minds.

It's when he’s probing further into the Mizukage’s rise to power after hearing a horrifying account of genocide and population control methods that he starts to receive anything truly useful. “It seems odd that a child could suddenly become a perfect jinchuuriki and gain enough of the village’s trust to be appointed the Mizukage, don’t you think?” he asked leadingly, knowing full well that cases like Gaara were an exception since Suna was made a mess of by Orochimaru in the first place, not the rule.

“He…he was strong. He is strong. The best ninja in the village. He deserves his post,” the swordsman wheezed out, eyes distant and horrified.

“But it looks like he exercises total control, without a council or a team of advisors,” Shikamaru pointed out. “That’s beyond deserving his post.”

“He…there are rumors that he does have advisors.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. No one is supposed to know, so none of the guards really speak of it but there are sometimes these men with weird robes…all black, with red clouds.”

Shikamaru snapped to attention, leaning in closer to tilt the ninja’s head towards him further. The Akatsuki. They’ve maintained some sort of presence here, after all.

“Do you know anything more about them, these men with the red cloud robes?” he demanded, shaking the man a little.

“Some of us…some of us grew suspicious, so we’ve been keeping tabs on any sightings of them around the elemental nations, when we can. There’s not a lot of information out there...”

Shikamaru can tell that he’s holding something back. “It would be a shame if you were trying to hide anything. I would hate to have to open my eyes again. Wouldn’t you?”

The swordsman practically shuddered with fear, shaking his head as much as he was able to, trapped within Shikamaru’s grasp. “No, no, no, that’s not necessary. I only know information about two of them; they’re the ones who appear the most in rumors. One is this terrifying S-rank bounty hunter. He’s fairly famous on his own, a kind of paragon of greed. His name is Kakuzu.” At the sound of that name, Shikamaru tensed, already suspecting where this is going. The fucking Zombie Combo.

“And the other is a crazy cultist named Hidan.” Shikamaru’s insides felt like they were coated with ice, which somehow did nothing to ease the molten lead burning in his stomach. “The last I heard, they don’t really get along, but they’re often seen together…except for some reason, we received a report last week that Hidan was seen on a solo journey. He was on the roads bragging about visiting a holy altar and complaining that his partner abandoned him to go make money on his own.” An altar. Jashin. That bastard is going to be on his own to worship at the feet of his false god, and probably sacrifice as many people as possible on the way.

He abruptly released the swordsman, shoving him away as he slowly stood, his mind racing, lightning-fast dragonflies hovering above the falsely calm lake face of his psyche.

“Thank you,” he heard himself say absently. “You’ve given me everything I need.”

His simmering rage had finally boiled over, leaving him so burnt that his nerves felt ice cold. He’s going to kill him. Again. A pre-emptive strike against the bastard who had killed his mentor with no remorse. Logically, he knew that Hidan has not committed any personal crime against him yet, and his vendetta had long since been satisfied. But this was a new timeline, and this version of Hidan had yet to face the consequences that he knew he deserved. It didn’t matter what he did or didn’t do yet, or whether there was or wasn’t a possibility of redemption. He was a murderous sack of shit who needed to be stopped, with the added bonus of being able to cull the ranks of the Akatsuki, which he and Hinata had agreed to do in the first place.

Excuses.

Robotically, he made his way over to the terrified chuunin, who had been stuck watching their superior get mentally tortured for the last hour, unable to call for help with their mouths covered in earth and mud. He didn’t kill them; they only needed to forget the conversation regarding the Akatsuki and Hidan completely, and the sooner he went about it, the easier it will be, before the memories became too firmly entrenched. He would be going after Hidan as Shikage, the Half-Moon, his dark side out in full force. That persona was the closest to his true, maligned, and wronged past life as Nara Shikamaru, a clan heir and reluctant ninja who had respected Asuma more than almost anyone else. That was the person who was going to get to avenge himself again.  

After clearing the memories of the useless chuunin, he made his way over to the swordsman, who was looking at him with fear and an intense dislike, the look of a man who had been personally targeted and used beyond the usual boundaries of the tactics of opposing ninjas.

“What did you do to them?” he spluttered out, trying and failing to look defiant.

“Nothing that you’ll have to worry about,” Shikamaru said coldly. He would spare the lives of the chuunin; they were far enough down in the pecking order that he was certain they, though cowards, were not involved in the general decision making for the rest of the village. But this man, one of the revered Swordsman of the Mist…he had taken to opposite tactic of Zabuza. He had decided to kill his own people with impunity, and without Yagura’s excuse of a genjutsu. Shikamaru’s rage had blotted out any room for mercy.

He quickly pulled out his shadowed barbs, watching them climb up the swordsman’s neck and pierce into his brain once again.

“I lied about sparing you from any more illusions. Whoops. And this one will be a little more…permanent. I hope you have fun.” With that, he flashed his eyes.

He wasn’t as versed in mind-walking and psychology as the Yamanaka were. But he had paid enough attention to some of Ino’s rants about her private tutoring sessions to know that prolonged exposure to horrific mental stress would fracture a person’s mind beyond repair. When he did his interrogations, he usually released his targets well before that point was ever reached.

Not this time. As he waited for the swordsman’s mind to break into pieces that would likely never be reassembled, he pilfered some belongings, mission scrolls and seals, as well as a few documents of importance that the three mist nin kept on their persons. He needed to keep up his appearance as Nightmare, after all.

He almost took the legendary sword with him as well, before he recognized the pattern across the hilt, and its distinct shape. It was the same sword that belonged to the new Lady Mizukage’s byakugan-wielding sidekick. For a brief moment, the barest hints of respect and remembered grief push past his rage, enough for him to spiral into thoughts of a better future.

He left the sword behind, stabbed into the ground between the two unconscious chuunin. A message that he could have taken it…but didn’t. Another layer to Nightmare’s mystery.

This last act was the only softness left in his heart. Everything else felt hard. The former swordsman has been reduced to a drooling heap on the floor, twitching in terror, letting loose whimpers every now and then. He’s doubtful that Yagura will let anyone that diminished live; his usefulness had run his course. That’s not his problem.

As he turned to leave the Mist behind, he bit into his thumb, letting the blood drip onto the ground to summon Hiroto. For once, he’s grateful for his fox’s usual silence as they ride off towards Yugakure, bypassing the slowness of boats. He knew Takako might have attempted to talk him out of this, or at the very least urged him to calm his rage before he enacted his vengeance. Though she had delighted in his get-back of Hidan before, he knew that how he's choosing to approach it now is not quite as sane. He had not team, only the rough beginning of a plan, and he was abstractly certain that he had fully submerged himself in the homicidal anger stage of grief. Yes, Takako likely would have had a lot of opinions about everything that had transpired. Not that it would have helped. The vixen wouldn’t have been able to dare to question his deadly resolve.

This entire situation is fucking bullshit.

As he rubbed at his chest atop Hiroto’s soft back, he convinced himself that he could almost distantly hear Hinata again. He ignored it. For once, there was a bigger monster than anything he could possibly become out there, and this creature was vulnerable. There was no room in his heart, now, for anymore softer things. It wouldn’t work this time.

Forgive me for my sins. Or not. I need to remind someone who his true god is, now, after all.

Chapter Text

Hinata had never entered a hot spring resort before. Of course, during the war, there was neither time nor opportunity to take a vacation at a bath house, not when everyone who would have staffed the places were dead, and the Zetsus were haunting their every step. War was a terrible time for self-care, or romance, or anything pleasant at all. Just unending desperation, pining, and the useless sense of futility that seeped into her bone marrow, more poisonous than even the sharpest bite of Kaguya’s chakra rods.

And if I’m being honest, occasionally that futility feels like it’s still there, fighting to escape from its bounds of forced optimism and intense responsibility, borne from the belief of my deceased friends and erstwhile partner-in-crime.

Regardless of the circumstances, however, Hinata could not blame the entirety of her missed experiences on conflict in her teen years. The effective moral prison that had caged her in during her days as the semi-useless Hyuuga heiress was far more to blame for her lack of familiarity with the famed hot springs. If her tutor was to be believed, the public bath houses at these places were nothing short of pornographic, seeped in infamy, negligent chaperones, and pervy men hoping to spy on an eager young lady entering the pool. Even worse were the couples who made it their missions to catch glimpses of each other beyond the watchful gazes of their elders. It was odd, in hindsight, Hinata thought, to have experienced such a desire for control over her bodily autonomy even when she was an unwanted and untalented daughter. It was a contradictory phenomenon, in the great houses, to be expected to be a powerful warrior unflinching in the gaze of their enemies, and yet simultaneously a delicate flower, uncorrupted by the taint of flagrant immorality and misspent youth. Given her father’s uneven hand, it was no wonder that Hinata had ended up with a crystalline soul, feeling strong only in her love for a golden boy who had shone brighter than anyone she had ever seen.

Although, these days, the moon’s shadow also seemed to fill her with just as much confidence as the sun once had. She was growing up and advancing, she supposed. But I still cling to the strength of others as my foundation, don’t I?

But was there anything wrong with finding that she stood firmer with her roots entangled in someone else’s? She was no longer the fragile butterfly her father had created and then neglected to wilt in the corner. She was strong enough to survive the death of the entire world, and the moderate corruption of her dear friend’s drive and resolve, reflected in his new alien eyes. She was the Red Empress, as embarrassing as she found the name, wasn’t she? And she was secure enough in herself to admit that she didn’t want to go through all of this saving-the-world business alone.

Or, at least, more alone than she was at this moment, ruminating about Shikamaru as she stood slack jawed in front of the resort town, her company of merchants marching sedately behind her, their prisoners still bound and hissing with fury in a damaged wagon.

The guards at the entrance were looking at her and her charges as if they were the oddities. But Hinata could clearly see that this time, perhaps her old-fashioned and overprotective nursemaids were correct. This hot spring in the middle of the desert was an oasis for some of the most interestingly depraved group of people she had ever laid eyes on.

Walking boldly through the center of town, Hinata could see women draped in soft silks and see-through gauze, wrapped sensually around their chests and waists, leaving their midriffs bare, jewelry glistening in the setting sun. In direct contrast to their half-bare bodies, a mask of cloth concealed the lower part of their faces and part of their hair, leaving them to look like anonymous yet desirable women of pleasure, invitation clear in their dropping eyes. Around them, lecherous men gazed at them with thinly veiled desire. But perhaps more alarming than that group were the completely average civilians interspersed, children and merchants and travelers, calmly traversing through the crowd of beautiful women and leering men as if their presence was an everyday occurrence. And perhaps, in this town, it was.

“Hey are you listening? I asked for your name and purpose, woman,” the guard lashed out grumpily, startling Hinata from her dazed observation of the people beyond the walls.

Oh dear, was I being too obvious? No need to be such a prude, Hinata.

“Oh, yes of course, I’m sorry. My name is Uzumaki Hin—Hiyori, and I am here with the grain merchants from Chisanamachi, Suna.” Hinata spoke more quickly, hoping to distract both the merchants and the shinobi from her temporary slip-up with her name, still too distracted by what was going on beyond her to respond with her usual practiced collectedness. “We are here to spend the night on the way to the capital city to trade our wares. I am representing them as their temporary guard for this journey.”

“Hmph,” the gate guard’s partner grunted, looking for all the world unimpressed with her appearance. “A little girl like you, acting as a guard? People are desperate for anything these days, aren’t they.”

“Hey!” Haruto interrupted, evading the weary and shocked hands of his parents as they attempted to shove him back into the cart, where he could remain respectful and out of sight. “That’s no way to talk to her! She’s the coolest ninja ever! She’s an Uzumaki!” Hinata smiled despite herself, concern for the boy being temporarily outweighed by her pride that he had finally managed to pronounce her assumed name correctly. “And she’s the Red Empress, too!” The reintroduction of her new nickname wiped the smile from her face, replacing it with a fiery blush. Oh no, now people outside of the group are going to be calling me that too.

The first guard raised his eyebrow, lifting a hand to stop his indignant partner from hissing at a child. “The Red Empress, huh? A bit of an ambitious title, eh. Are you a nukenin, by chance?” He had related this all in a skeptical, bored tone, yet his hands had drifted downwards to clutch at his kunai. Although ninja in outskirt villages such as this were in no way particularly powerful or impressive, they did have some training; enough to pose a danger to her charges as unfortunate casualties in the crossfire, at least, if Hinata did not manage to calm them down.

“Er, yes, the title is one that this group has given me. But that doesn’t mean I’m a nukenin! I’m just a wanderer, and a junior bounty hunter. I was able to offer these merchants safe passage, since I was traveling in the same direction as them, and so I was invited to become their guard. There is nothing nefarious in that,” she rushed out, making sure to maintain eye contact with them both so that she wouldn’t look guilty.

Months of war, followed by more months of isolation on a deserted island village with only her summons and Shikamaru for company, had caused Hinata to completely forget how suspicious other shinobi were. Her social skills, and ability to put highly trained individuals at ease, had surely deteriorated, even as her strength and skillset had risen. I must do better to get a wider range of people to believe in me. And I must be an expert at being disarming before we enter Konoha.

Tamago-san could clearly feel her distress and attempted to jump in to defend her honor. “Yes, please excuse the boy, he’s just overexcited. But she’s one hell of a ninja! She took out a group of bandits hoping to take all our wares, and she did it single-handedly.”

Yaki-san nodded vigorously beside him, gesturing back towards the secondary wagon full of furious captured nukenin. “Yeah, she even nabbed one of the bingo book members…Iron Tornado or something. We came to collect the bounty on that too.”

The guards whipped their heads around in astonishment, appraising Hinata in a new light as they cautiously approached the cart. “The Iron Tornado? That kunoichi has been wreaking havoc in the desert for months! The Kazekage hasn’t deemed her important enough to deal with, but to these outskirt towns, she’s been a real problem,” the second, formerly derisive guard was muttering. After he drew back the wagon cover, he startled backwards as he was met with the Kanami’s spiteful gaze, full of danger and the promise of revenge even with her mouth gagged and her arms and legs bound securely.

“Wow,” the first guard grunted. “You really managed to get her. And the rest of her ilk. No casualties, I take it?”

“None,” Tamago-san reported proudly.

At this point, Misaki-chan and Haruto had poked their heads out of the first wagon too, looking entirely too smug about the situation, as if taking personal ownership of Hinata’s achievements for themselves.

“Yeah, Hiyori-nee-san totally beat all of them!” Haruto chattered excitedly. “I thought we were going to die, but then she split into six and went kablam! It was amazing!”

Misaki sniffed haughtily, looking down her eyes at the now stunned guards, and a few milling passersby. “You guys would be wise to start giving the Red Empress respect. She’s probably a higher-class ninja than all of you, even if she is a bounty hunter. She saved us, which is more than I can say for you all.”

Hinata winced even as she felt her core warm. On the one hand, it was comforting to have gained the trust of these civilians and their children, a feeling she had not been able to bask in in quite a long time. However, she had always felt anxious when people referred to her skills or exaggerated her abilities, perhaps a holdover of her less than idyllic childhood. Now, however, the entire small crowd not so subtly milling around them had heard about her brief exploits in the Sand, and they had heard that ridiculous nickname of hers. Although she had wanted to clear the air of any suspicion, she hadn’t intended for her name to be spread in infamy at the same time. It was Shikamaru who was supposed to be the more well-known of the pair, after all. Well, there’s no way that I can avoid this now. I know how quickly rumors spread. An Uzumaki known as the Red Empress is sure to call attention and be talked about excitedly. I suppose I’ll have to get used to it.

She cleared her throat, getting the attention of the awed gate shinobi again, and startling the crowd somewhat. “Well, um, if this has clarified everything, would it be alright for us to go on ahead. I’m sure everyone is very tired from the journey, and I’d like to get these bandits into secure hands as soon as possible.” If they escaped, I’d have to worry about determined ninja out for revenge on top of everything else.

Her words seemed to call the mildly inept guards into action, and after much sputtering, Hinata and her charges soon found themselves let through the hot spring resort’s gates, supplies in tow, whilst the bandits found themselves escorted away under the watchful gaze of more of the town’s small-time shinobi. Yaki-san had made sure to eke out a promise of remitted payment the next morning before they set off again, much to Hinata’s embarrassed gratitude, as she was torn between desperately needing money and having no desire to engage in haggling with the somewhat awestruck Sand nin. In the past, it had always been Kiba or Kurenai who had engaged with authority figures and money changers on missions like this; although she was now grown and confident in her abilities, it was intimidating to attempt to take on roles she had never been raised or encouraged to assume. Perhaps that was the true benefit of making allies and, eventually, friends with others; they were able to assume the burdens she was unable or unwilling to carry on her own.

As they walked deeper into the village, Hinata bid her companions a good night; they would be staying in separate inns, since they had booked ahead, and she had not.

“Hiyori-nee-san, don’t go! Why don’t we go to the hot springs together?” Koi begged, looking up at her with pleading eyes. Although she was still pretending to be aloof, Misaki was shooting her sidelong glances as well, obviously hoping that Hinata would join them and their mothers in one of the many pools throughout the town.

Blushing, Hinata waved them off. “I’m sorry everyone, but I am not very comfortable in hot springs. I think it would be better if I parted ways with you all right now and reconvene in the morning. But don’t let my absence stop you from having fun!”

“Is it the nakedness that bothers you?” Misaki asked bluntly.

Hinata could feel her eyes widen, and she had to stop herself from letting out a startled ‘eep.’ Misaki-chan is really quite blunt, isn’t she. “I..um…uh..”

But just as quickly as she had mortified her, Misaki set about giving her an alibi. “Because shinobi have scars, right? And you’re afraid of showing them to us. Of course, I would be able to handle it, but some people are so small-minded. In a civilian place like this, other people would probably be thrown off. I understand, Red Empress. Not everyone can handle the realities of the shinobi life. Don’t worry; we can go on our own. We won’t need protection here.”

“Right,” Hinata said vaguely. “Well, I’m sure you all will be safe. I’ll see you in the morning. I’ll be at the Lotus Inn if you need me before then.” And with that, Hinata said her final goodbyes, finally alone again for the first time in several days.

Although the bulk of the explanation provided by Misaki was a lie, since Hinata barely had any scars of note, and was not very ashamed of the marks that designated her as a shinobi and not just a pampered clan princess, she was grateful nonetheless for a valid excuse to miss out on the benefits of a hot spring. Her curiosity was offset by the echoing warnings of her old childhood supervisors, and her shock at seeing the looser pleasure women wandering the area. She had no desire to judge them, really; she was just shocked at their boldness, and uncomfortable with the implications, given her sheltered childhood. For Sage’s sake, she had only ever lightly kissed a man, and that was at the end of the world, as she tried to convey all her love in a heartbeat of time. In her regular life, even Kakashi’s raunchy novels still caused her to blush.

No, she couldn’t go to a hot spring without ruining her reputation right when it had begun to take off. Her companions would easily be able to tell that she was deeply out of her depths, and not nearly as worldly and accomplished as they had made her out to be. It was better this way, probably. She needed some privacy in order to sort through her emotions at her recent accomplishments and the birth of her legend, and she also needed to employ her summons for her real mission, without the watchful eyes of curious and overeager hero-worshipping children.

To that end, she walked quickly to her hotel, a modest two-story building lined with straw, with a small bath house in the back and a bar in the lobby. At the door was a sprawling lotus flower that was the place’s namesake, carved deeply into the wood with what appeared to be fine meticulous sandbending, done repeatedly to carve deep grooves in the wood. Paint had been added to bring the flower to life. In all, the effect was breathtaking, adding life and beauty to an otherwise unremarkable location. It reminded her a bit of the vibrancy of Sakura’s hair, paired with Naruto’s blonde locks in the center of the flower.

Oh, my dear friends. You were all gone too soon.

Shaking her head to clear away some of her residual grief, she walked up to the receptionist, eager to check in and reach her room before she could break down in front of all these people. Her emotions were undergoing a riotous evolution. On the surface, she had all the appearance of a transient ocean, reacting to every minute change in her surroundings; these easily digestible emotions were full of mortification for her inability to enter a hot spring, pride in her new nickname, concern over her charges, and worry over the next stage of her plans. Underneath these emotions was a calmer, but deeper well of feeling, the persistent worry and admiration she held in equal parts for Shikamaru, as well as her fond regard for her summons and her determination to change her horrid future. And underneath the underneath, where the darkest part of a shinobi’s heart came to dwell? There were muddy, sucking, all-encompassing feelings of love and grief, sadness and terror. Almost all that she had held dear was gone, and their remnants were now dependent on her to go on. These feelings had never properly gone away, but over the course of her three months in Uzushio, she had managed to suppress them, working them deeper into her subconscious through meticulous work and genuine advancement in her own abilities. Additionally, Shikamaru’s presence, however fraught on occasion, reminded her that she still had someone left, and distracted her from her deeper concerns. He had motivated her, somehow, just by routinely returning to their hideout, and always believing that she had made a step forward in following their plan to save everyone. But now, she was alone. And her successful battle, and reintroduction to a society that was entirely unfamiliar to her, over ten years behind, had dredged up her innermost feelings once again. She was improving, and she was finally able to see the people she needed to save. But why was it that she had to do it all alone, with only strangers for company?

Making her way to her room, Hinata flopped onto the bed, unable to recall what exactly she had said to the receptionist or how she had found her lodging for the night.

There is no time for this, Hinata. If I cannot behave as myself, perhaps I should continue my work as Hiyori.

Drawing on her mental image of an Uzumaki – shining, confident, exuberant, and ready for action – Hinata drew in a deep breath before setting about to throw up privacy seals around the room, wanting to avoid any suspicious eyes from seeing or hearing her.

After marking all the entrances and exits, as well as key places on the wall, she bit into her thumb, drawing blood enough to call her summoning jutsu. In a flash of smoke, she was suddenly surrounded by two hedgehogs and a porcupine, all looking around fiercely.

“Hinata-san!” Hari exclaimed in surprise, bounding forward to nuzzle at her. “I didn’t expect you to call us again so soon! Is there another bandit we need to fight?”

“No,” Hinata said gently, smiling at her new friends. Although much was lost, there was still something gained from this adventure into the past. “I have a mission for you all.”

“Finally,” Rashi-san grumbled, flicking his ears. “I was beginning to think that my talents were being wasted.”

Nezumi did nothing but sniff in agreement. Far from putting her off, Hinata found amusement in the attitude of her quilled beasts. They play into their stereotypes so well; prickly on the outside, yet soft and loyal within.

“I’ve been a bit distracted by taking care of the merchant family, and I haven’t done enough work to plant paperwork and scraps of fabric and other pieces of evidence to show that Shikamaru-kun and I really do belong to a lost tribe of Uzushio survivors. I think that what I’m doing here is important, by sowing loyalty and good feelings in the townspeople, but I want to make sure that nobody is suspicious that we just came out of nowhere. Nezumi, Hari, Rashi-san would you all mind taking these,” she said, pulling out a pile of letters, forged official documents, and various memorabilia carrying their scents, “and plant them in parts of Suna and parts of the Land of Fire? That should be enough to offset initial inquiries into our identities.”

“Hmmph,” Nezumi said, gathering some of the scraps in her paws even as she looked at Hinata in disdain. “Of course, we can, but you do know this will take several days, don’t you?”

Hinata dipped her head in acknowledgement. “I know, which is why I’m summoning you now. The road between here and the Suna capital is much better regulated than the road we had been traveling before; any danger that we encounter will probably be on a smaller scale, and I’ll be able to defeat them on my own. This is the best time for you to travel far away from me, especially since the chakra draw will not be as much of a hindrance.” She was proud of herself for thinking this through; she was no Nara when it came to strategy, but she did alright for herself when it truly counted. In this nondescript town, she had no need to preserve her chakra reserves, particularly given how large they now were, and even when she left, she would likely not need it either.

Rashi didn’t say anything offering her blatant approval, but a lack of a scoff was all the reassurance she needed that this was the right move.

“Do you need us to do anything else while we’re out, Princess?” he grunted, settling on his haunches.

Hinata tilted her head in contemplation. “Not particularly…although, now that I think about it, be sure to conceal your chakra presence as much as you can. Since I summoned you, traces of my signature would be noticeable if you let it flare too much, and there are some people that I don’t want aware of your comings and goings.”

All three of the summons voiced their agreement to her note of caution; getting caught would defeat the purpose of going in the first place, after all.

“Also,” she said hesitantly, as they geared up to melt away into their realm and show up again at designated target zones. “If you happen to come across any information on the Akatsuki or on Shikamaru-kun, be sure to let me know.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll keep our ear out for the red demons and your boyfriend,” Nezumi said carelessly.

Hinata, predictably, blushed immediately. “No..no he’s not…we’re not…Shikamaru-kun is not my boyfriend.”

Nezumi looked at her with distasteful disbelief. “You talk about him way too often to be anything else, Uzuga-chan.”

Hinata looked down, feeling something uncomfortable welling up inside her heart. “He is important to me. Perhaps he’s the most important person to me, these days. But I love someone else.”

“Oh yeah?” Nezumi challenged, despite Hari’s attempts to dissuade her. “Then where is he?”

Her earlier hard-fought resolve started to wear away, and Hinata could feel tears welling up in her unfamiliar blue eyes, the tell-tale sign of an Uzumaki. “He’s dead.”

Nezumi, for once, looked startled into silence, as Hari glared balefully at her, and even Rashi-san cast judgement. “Hinata-san,” she said after a moment, using her name properly for the first time. “I’m…I’m so sorr—”

“It’s ok,” Hinata cut her off before she could eke out the entire apology. “You couldn’t have known; I never really mentioned him.” Even in all the times they attempted to train her to be a proper Uzumaki kunoichi, she couldn’t really bring herself to discuss Naruto with her summons. She had barely even spoken of Naruto with Shikamaru, beyond basic references to their time travel plan, and her first impassioned plea to save the Uchiha clan from their massacre. No, Naruto existed these days only in her heart, trapped in the mud that lined the bottom of her emotional ocean. He wasn’t meant to creep out, not when she still had a job to do and expectations to meet.

“You all should go on to the mission now,” she said, closing her eyes against their pity. “There is no time to waste.”

It was Rashi-san, of all of them, who was able to nudge them all out the door and give her comfort. “These past days have shown me you are stronger than I had given you credit for, Hinata-sama,” he said, attaching the honorific to her name as if it was an obvious afterthought. “We’ll be sure to meet your standards. Good luck on your end.” And then they were gone.

Hinata’s eyes still hadn’t opened, but she could still feel the intensity of their gazes on her as they realized how broken she really was, beneath the forced calm and shyly fierce façade that she had been employing for what felt like an entire lifetime. They couldn’t have known about Naruto. But is it bad, that my very own summons don’t even know who he is, or rather, who he was? He was the love of my life, after all. But they believed it to be Shikamaru instead. And suddenly she felt overcome with guilt. She loved Naruto with her whole heart, and the grief had not faded in all this time, the memory of their first and last kiss forming a permanent imprint in her already damaged soul. But she had thought it herself earlier, hadn’t she? She found comfort and strength in Shikamaru’s shadowy presence, completely unlike Naruto and yet just as inspiring. She felt compelled to nurture him, support him, and defend him with her entire being. Were those solely the platonic thoughts of a close friend, a partner in world-saving, a still-grieving half widow?

No.

With that one-word revelation, Hinata began to feel sick to her stomach. Those were the burgeoning thoughts of something else. Despite her previous desire for privacy to sort through her emotions, she now knew that no amount of Tai Chi or meditation was going to settle the turmoil incited by her recent thoughts. She could no longer stand to look within herself, at the moment. Firming her jaw, she leapt to her feet and pushed past her door, heading down the stairs. Perhaps at the bar, full of other hotel patrons, she could people-watch and forget the intensity of her own self-disillusionment. She wasn’t a drinker by any means, but if nursing some sake and standing as a pillar in a crowd would prevent her from being alone with her thoughts, then so be it.

---------------

In hindsight, Hinata really should have predicted it. They were in a hot bed of bold women, lecherous men, and luxurious hot springs. Everything about the resort town spoke to decadence, an oasis even among the typically inhospitable and economically downtrodden Sand nation which was otherwise fraught with political disarray.

Malcontent revolutionaries, struggling shinobi, alcohol, public bath houses, and sensual women.

Of course Jiraiya would be here. Oh no.

Although the fact that he was in the bar of the one inn that Hinata happened to be staying at? That was no coincidence. Despite his depravity, he was a legendary Sannin and a masterful spy. He was here, settling himself with a great heaving sigh onto the bar stool next to Hinata’s, on purpose. So, despite her extreme surprise at running into him, she was nowhere near as startled when he started to address her, seemingly drunk but likely not, eyes narrowed in open invitation and intense scrutiny.

“Ah, red hair, blue eyes, and a beautiful face, all in the dangerous attire of a shinobi. You must be the famous bounty hunter that the entire town has been talking about! It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, darling,” he drawled, his white hair making his facial markings stand out in the dim lighting of the bar.

Hinata was a bit lost for words. Should she engage with him or not? If she walked away right now, brushing off his flirtatious advances so quickly, he would surely be suspicious. It likely wouldn’t be the first time that a woman turned him down, but she was more than just a pretty face and he knew it. She had introduced herself as an Uzumaki, and she had earned a fearsome nickname; he would not let it go. But as it was, she was afraid of revealing more than she should. She had already ascertained that her ability to disarm others was lacking due to her small number of recent social experiences. But perhaps this was another good opportunity to establish her background, straight from the horse’s mouth. Information coming from Jiraiya would be fairly credible to the Sandaime, after all.

Also, in her heart, she found herself wanting to talk to Jiraiya, the great toad sage, the teacher of the Yondaime, and the legendary student of the Sandaime, who had worked hard to defend his village until the end, as much as she could. She wanted to know more about Naruto’s beloved sensei, whose death had driven him into an uncharacteristic period of mourning and depression that only Shikamaru had brought him out of. Jiraiya’s death had also noticeably made Tsunade-sama sad as well, even as she pushed ahead in her duties as Hokage. More than anything, he was a taste of home and a reminder of the ideals that had brought her to this point, even this far away in a desert kingdom, years in the past.

I’ll talk to him, then. What is the worst that could happen?

“I suppose that is me, although I wouldn’t call myself a famous bounty hunter just yet. I’m only getting started,” Hinata conceded gently, turning her body to face him more fully, taking a sip of her sweet sake for courage. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t recognize you; what is your name?”

Jiraiya laughed boisterously, eyes lighting up in joy that she was bothering to reply to him. “How rude of me! I can never let such a beautiful woman sit in suspense; you can call me Jiraiya!” Interesting, Hinata thought. He isn’t using an alias. Perhaps he believes this town to be remote enough that no one of note who is familiar with Konoha’s history would know who he was.

“Pleasure to meet you Jiraiya-san,” she said softly.

“No, no, the pleasure is all mine,” he replied with a smirk. “It’s not every day that a man gets to watch the birth of a shinobi legend. The Red Empress, huh? Quite a title.”

Hinata felt her face warm, beyond the effects of alcohol. “Yes, well, the children got a bit eager. Empress seems a bit lofty, doesn’t it?”

“There’s no need to be ashamed of it at all,” Jiraiya said, his grin creasing lines into his handsome face. “I like it, actually. I knew a princess (hime) once before, and I think there’s only room for one scary kunoichi with that name. No, no, the Red Empress. It suits you. Your demeanor and…assets,” he leered, glancing down at her chest, “are quite regal indeed.”

 “Ah, yes, well, thank you,” Hinata stammered out, beet red. Oh, he was such a forward and terrible flirt. Did this actually work on some women? All the times that Naruto took to referring to Jiraiya as the pervy sage was beginning to look more and more plausible. Desperate to change the subject to something other than her…assets, Hinata decided to drop a crumb of knowledge about her name, hoping to see what Jiraiya did and didn’t know.

“The red part of the name, at least, I’m quite comfortable with,” Hinata started hesitantly. “It seems obvious, given my hair.”

“Yes, I haven’t seen hair that red in quite a while.” Jiraiya’s smile seemed to dim for a moment, before he forced it back to its original beaming state. “Is it a genetic trait?”

Yes, he had heard my full name.

“I believe so. I realize I haven’t properly introduced myself,” Hinata demurred. “My name is Uzumaki Hiyori. The fiery hair, I think, is a remnant of my Uzumaki heritage.”

“An Uzumaki, huh?” Jiraiya mused, rubbing at his chin. Although he was attempting to look casual, Hinata could detect the increased sharpness in his regard. He was looking for information more seriously, then. “I don’t think I’ve heard of Uzumakis in quite some time, not after the Red-Hot Habanero in the Land of Fire.”

Kushina. Naruto’s mother.

Hinata hoped her eyes were full of innocence and beguile, as she nursed another sip of her drink. “There aren’t that many of us left, so I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of one in a while,” she related sadly. This, at least, did not have to be feigned. She had always felt sympathy for Naruto; being the last of your clan, in practice if not in actuality, was a heavy burden to bear. It had destroyed Sasuke’s psyche, after all. “I only knew the Red-Hot Habanero by reputation. She was one of the last to leave Uzushio on her own terms, before it got entirely destroyed. I heard she found a home in the Leaf.”

For an instant, deep sorrow flickered in Jiraiya’s expression. “Yes, I believe she did find a home there.” Then his face cleared again. “And she managed to create a terrifying reputation too! That’s why you won’t find me messing with you, Hiyori-chan,” he said with an overly familiar, seductive tease. “I wouldn’t want to face the wrath of a red-headed Uzumaki at all. Although, I wonder…the village was destroyed, as you said. How did you end up here, in a resort town in Suna of all places?”

Hinata worried her lip a bit as she fidgeted in her seat. This was it. Time to plant my story. “Uzushio did get destroyed,” she began, “but not everyone was caught within the village at the time. There were still a few shinobi on missions, and some citizens outside the city limits traveling or selling wares. After word of the devastation reached everyone…well, pods of survivors formed. No one felt safe enough to go back and try to rebuild what was lost. During the war, in order not to draw attention, the elders split up and became nomads. I was born during that time.” Hinata let her voice drop, assuming the mantle of pain of a scattered tribe, set to wander beyond their home. It wasn’t difficult to pretend; after all, for her, running from Kaguya, it had been real. “I have never seen Uzushio, and I never will in its former glory again. But that hasn’t stopped me from learning about what it means to be an Uzumaki, as much as my parents and my teacher were able.”

There. Was that enough? Jiraiya, for his part, looked contemplative. “That is quite the sad tale, Hiyori-chan. But there is a sort of beauty in your resilience, hmm?”

Hinata nodded, feeling carried away by the specter of her past. “It is the way of a shinobi, even one without a village, to carry on, isn’t it? That’s what my sensei taught me, before he sent me off on my own.”

“Perhaps that’s what made me so drawn to you,” Jiraiya mused. “Beyond your good looks, you had something straightening your spine. The will to carry on…it’s very attractive.”

Hinata rubbed the back of her neck on reflex, adopting Naruto’s go to posture when he felt embarrassed. “Uh, t-thank you, Jiraiya-san. I’m sorry for bringing down the mood with such a heavy topic though; that must not have been what you wanted to talk to me about.”

At this, Jiraiya held up a hand. “Don’t apologize, empress. I could face a much worse fate, than to spend the evening talking to a beautiful woman about the content of her heart.”

Hinata was suddenly reminded that Jiraiya was the famed author of a series of erotic romance novels and had a gift for sappy prose and exaggerated love scenes. He was marginally smoother than she had given him credit for. Or perhaps she was swayed by all that she knew of him, beneath his façade as a lecherous author. More than anything, Jiraiya was kind. And she needed kindness in her life, right now.

“You flatter me too much, Jiraiya-san,” she mumbled, signaling the bartender for another cup of sake.

“I could never flatter someone so radiant enough!” he said loftily. “Although, to put your mind at ease…your grief doesn’t dissuade me from your charms at all. On the contrary, it was one of the first things I noticed about you when I walked into this bar. It made me want to talk to you; although you carry sorrow in your countenance quite nicely, no lady should ever look that sad and be left all alone. It’s a disgrace to men everywhere.”

“Oh,” Hinata slipped out, the alcohol and the company making her tongue slightly looser than normal. “Was it that obvious?”

Jiraiya winked at her and took a swig of his own drink. “I’m just that perceptive. I never leave a jewel left in shadow, after all.” Slowly, he reached a hand towards her, laying it on the wrist laying across the table. “I’m a good listener too, you know. What’s on your mind?”

Hinata anxiously fingered a strand of her hair with her free hand, letting one side of her face lift in a nervous smile. “I was just…thinking about love,” she whispered, letting part of her oozing, turbulent current of emotions slip out. Speaking of love to a self-proclaimed romantic who was actively attempting to flirt with her was probably a recipe in disaster, but she couldn’t resist the temptation. Jiraiya gave Naruto some advice, didn’t he? And Minato as well. Perhaps he can help me.

“Ah, love!” Jiraiya crooned. Great Sage, perhaps he’s taking this the wrong way. “The most dangerous and lovely curse in the world, sweet and innocent yet dark and seductive. Of course, a shining young lady like yourself was thinking about love. You have a few beaus fighting for your attention, eh? Or perhaps someone else has caught your eye?” He waggled his eyebrows, showing that he was making a tongue-in-cheek reference to himself.

Hinata couldn’t help the brief chuckle that escaped her, before her turmoil wiped it clean from her face again. “I…I’m struggling with the concept of loyalty.”

Jiraiya’s face creased in seriousness once more, the red lines on his face highlighting the intensity in his eyes. “Loyalty is a serious concept indeed. Loyalty to what? Do you already have someone waiting for you?”

“No,” Hinata rushed to assure him, afraid that any rumors of commitment would chase him away. Please don’t go just yet, Jiraiya-sama. “No, I don’t have anyone waiting for me. Not anymore. For the longest time, I had only ever loved one man. And recently I found out that he loved me too. But he’s dead now. I’ll never see him again. And I should be loyal to his memory, shouldn’t I? I should continue to grieve him and keep myself isolated.” All of this was tumbling out of her in a non-stop torrent that even Jiraiya was unable to stop, despite his mouth opening several times mid-speech. “But already, I have begun to think of someone else in a romantic way and I…I can’t do that, can I? I can’t be a loyal, strong shinobi if I’m already beginning to forget the love of my life, right?”

To her intense mortification, small, pained tears were beginning to drip down her cheeks, a remnant of the mourning that she hadn’t allowed herself to fully follow through on in the months since the time travel seal was first activated. “I’m sorry for the tears, Jiraiya-san. You didn’t come here to hear me speak of other men like this,” she whimpered, acknowledging blatantly for the first time that she knew that Jiraiya was unsuccessfully flirting with her.

Surprisingly, however, he gave her nothing but a gentle smile, as he reached forward to rub tears away from her cheeks. His touch was surprisingly soft; the calloused tips of her fingers skated across her skin, wiping away her tears at first, then carefully cupping her face for an instant, drawing her gaze back to him.

“Never apologize for having feelings,” Jiraiya said. “It’s my opinion that the strongest kunoichi are those most in touch with their own heart.” Hinata noted that he had let his cover as an unremarkable civilian slip for a moment, as he spoke of the way of a shinobi as if he had personal experience. But she let it go, in favor of the comforting words he was offering her.

“But to your question about love, and loyalty…well this is just the opinion of an old, albeit incredibly handsome and very talented, man. But you spoke of this boy as the love of your life, right? I believe that life can have multiple loves,” he proclaimed, letting go of her face to clasp her hand again.

“Multiple loves?” she parroted.

“Yes,” he responded wistfully. “Do you remember the scary kunoichi I mentioned earlier, who also went by the designation of princess? I don’t tell many people this but…I’ve loved her my entire life. And she was always in love with someone else. But he died and…I can’t help but feel that in the end, she grew to love me back. Maybe it’ll make me sound pitiful, but how can I not believe that a person can love multiple people at a time, when some of them are gone beyond our reach? If you love someone with all you have…well, when that person dies, some of that love you gave them has to be returned, right?”

Some of it has to be returned? Is that true? Can the love I had be recycled, reformed, redistributed to someone new? Is it true loyalty to hoard the feeling and never give it away.

Hinata had not expected any of those words, romantic and hopeful, to have escaped from Jiraiya’s mouth. There was not a hint of leering flirtatiousness in his speech; it clearly came from deep within the enigmatic ninja. And she knew, instinctively, that he was speaking of Tsunade-sama. That would explain why she grieved so deeply after he died, in a previous life.

Hinata couldn’t say any of this out loud. Beyond the implications to her cover identity, she was also sure that if she attempted to sort through her complicated feelings about Naruto and Shikamaru out loud, she would break in a way that she would be unable to recover from in time to continue on with her mission with the merchants the next morning. Instead, she decided to lighten the air, hoping that Jiraiya would sense her sincere gratitude for his words in her eyes, if not in her tone.

“You’re oddly…friendly with other women, to be in love with someone else who loves you back, Jiraiya-san,” she teased, squeezing his hand all the while.

Jiraiya, to her relief, did nothing but laugh, squeezing her hand back. “Well, just because we’re both in love with each other doesn’t mean it works out. It’s just…never the right timing, or the right circumstances, for either of us.”

No, it never was, before. But perhaps this time…perhaps this time, it will be. Perhaps we can make it better.

“I hope one day it will work out for you, Jiraiya-san,” Hinata said sincerely, looking Jiraiya directly in his eyes. “You seem like a good man.”

Jiraiya’s eyes tilted upwards in a genuine look of contentment. “You know…no attempt at flirtation with a young lady like you has ever ended with someone calling me a good man. I think I like it!”

Hinata felt herself genuinely smiling back. “I’m glad, Jiraiya-san.” With that she began to slide off of her stool, feeling returning to her numb legs with pins and needles. Sitting and crying in one position over glasses of sake did very little for healthy circulation. “Well, on that note, I believe that it is time for me to turn in to bed. I have an early morning tomorrow, after all. Time for the Red Empress to make another appearance.”

Jiraiya stood up as well, lifting a hand towards his pouting lips to give it a gentle kiss. “It’s a shame to have to part from you so soon, empress, but I’m sure we’ll meet again. After all, the gods wouldn’t be so cruel as to curse me with never encountering such an intriguing beauty again.”

Hinata let out a huff of laughter at his over-the-top antics, even as she found herself blushing again, her permanent state in the toad sage’s presence, it seemed.

“Perhaps,” she said noncommittedly, even though she knew that once they made their way into Konoha, she would surely see Jiraiya again.

As she made to take her hand away from Jiraiya’s grip, one of the bands on her wrist slipped, and traces of her time-travel seal tattoo was visible. In all the time she had been travelling on her own, Hinata had kept the marks carefully contained, since their purpose was unknown. Probably, to an average civilian or even an average shinobi, she would have been alright to have left them out in plain sight. After all, they likely would not know enough about fuuinjutsu to make it that big of a deal. But of all the people she had wished to keep them hidden from, Jiraiya was at the top of her list. He was the closest to a seal master that still existed in this time. Even a glimpse would likely tell him more about the mysterious origins of her past than she wanted to.

“Oh?” he said now, looking at the tattoos with barely concealed interest as Hinata hastily attempted to cover them back up. “What are those?”

“The Uzumaki were skilled in fuuinjutsu,” she blurted out, attempting to recover her balance. “A lot of knowledge has gotten lost, but I consider myself an amateur fuuinjutsu user. This tattoo is one of my earlier failed attempts to practice the art. It’s useless and decorative now, unlike some of my other tattoos. I typically keep them covered up out of shame.” Did he buy it?

From the furrow of his brows, and the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes from discovering something interesting, she knew that he didn’t buy it in the least. Skepticism was dripping from his pores. But to her surprise, he said nothing but “I see. Practice makes perfect, right?” And then he let go of her hand entirely.

It appeared he would be letting her get away with the lie, for now. Bowing once, hastily, she replied “Yes it does. Goodnight, Jiraiya-san,” before turning to walk away, heading back up the stairs towards her room.

The entire time, she could feel Jiraiya’s gaze burning into her back. Their discussion had taken turns she hadn’t anticipated, and although she didn’t think she had given away the bulk of her and Shikamaru’s true origins, her rambling about love and his glimpse of her tattoos had likely given him more information than she had wished. Shit.

Even then, as she slowly washed and prepared for the night, folding her flak jacket in readiness for the morrow, she couldn’t bring herself to regret their conversation. Though it may come back to haunt them later, she had gotten to speak to an integral person in Naruto’s journey into adulthood. And, perhaps more importantly, she had made…if not a friend, then someone who had placed a small stitch in her previously ignored broken heart.

Thank you for everything you have done for Konoha, and for me, Jiraiya-sama.

After setting her traps and alarms, she collapsed onto the bed, mirroring her actions several hours, or what felt like several lifetimes ago. Closing her eyes, she settled into a position to sleep haunted by one last thought: Is my love natural, and not a betrayal, after all?

Chapter Text

The next morning found Hinata wide awake long before she needed to be, watching the sun rise from her cross-legged position on the floor. Throughout the night, the gleam from the moon (blessedly white, without a speck of blood-red in sight) through her window engaged in a combative battle with the shadows stretching across the floor, an intricate dance of light and dark that mirrored the uneasiness in her heart. As comforting as she found the dull light of the moon, so often compared to her own eyes and pale face in a past life, she felt herself being more captivated by the movements of the shadow, mesmerizingly lithe as it worked its way through the room, permeating every corner, shielding her from sight and smothering with it all the cold anxious feelings that tended to be all too clear in the light of day.

There was no denying her feelings, even in the overextended metaphors her mind tried to trap them in, bound in poetry to feel somehow disconnected from the reality of her heart. Her love for Naruto, while as constant and deep as it had always been, was finding a place in a more nostalgic corner of her mind; something found, then lost, never to return again in the shape or form it had originally taken. Moving into its place at the forefront of her consciousness was instead a well of emotion that she had kept well-hidden even from her own inner musings, up until Nezumi’s off-handed taunt had dragged it up from its trenches. Something warm, and caring, not quite an all-encompassing love, but certainly beyond the cordial feelings of friendship that she should hold for her troubled partner. There was an intense intimacy, an endearing attachment, for Shikamaru that had not existed before. It was different from the gentle passion she had held for Naruto, as far as she could tell. But it didn’t have to be soft and sweet to be warm and loving.This much, at least, she could finally admit to herself.

And she could never admit it to him.

Beyond her general mortification that she had long held when it came to the secret nature of her heart, overcome only in life-threatening situations, she was wholly afraid of how Shikamaru would respond. He had not been…in the best frame of mind recently, despite his paltry attempts to hide it. Although she couldn’t pretend to truly fathom the way in which he dealt with pain and grief, she knew he had been lying to her in those times he returned with scrolls and information from unexplained places. And she knew, with the special hyperfocus she held with her byakugan, that he had blood literally dripping from his hands, hidden in the creases and crevices of his palms that he had poorly and hastily washed. Nara Shikamaru was a broken man, as fragile on the inside as Hinata herself had felt her entire life. Holding him together at this point was his sense of responsibility for her and their mission, and his genuine care that he felt for their lost friends, Naruto most of all. For Sage’s sake, he had even seen her kiss Naruto goodbye before the seal had spit them out on Uzushio’s shores. No, he wouldn’t respond well to a declaration of love from her whatsoever. And as much as she had thought she learned about how unhealthy it was to harbor deep emotion unacknowledged in her chest, she also knew, with full certainty, that she needed Shikamaru, her last bastion of support in an unfamiliar past, more than she needed for her feelings to come to light.

I’m sorry, Naruto. I feel like I’ve betrayed you twice; I’ve left my heart open, and I’m too much of a coward to let it be known to anyone but your overly flirtatious sensei.

As the sun’s rays scraped the granules of sand scattered plentily throughout the scenery outside her window, burning red and orange in ripples of colors as the angle of light expanded, Hinata straightened her legs, a new heavy resolve settling in her frame, weighting her bones.

She would keep this revelation to herself and sort out her contemplation of Jiraiya’s words on her own. For now, especially, she needed to keep her wits about her. Her mission was not yet done, and the whole world, from her merchant charges to the young versions of her friends, were all counting on her to push forward.

C’mon, Hinata. No, Hiyori. Matters of the heart can wait, but my responsibilities cannot.

With that she turned towards the door, ready to meet the Suna merchant caravan for the last leg of their journey.

----------------

The children were boisterous as they walked among the dunes, sensing the end of a long and taxing journey that, for all its peaks, was interminably boring the majority of the time. When they complained about the dullness of it all to Hinata, pleading with her to show them a jutsu or tell them a story of bravery, she could only smile, indulging them in harmless, altered stories of her days with Shino and Kiba. It was a reminder of one of her first practical lessons after the academy, given by a jaded and experienced Kurenai: being a shinobi was, for the most part, a practice in patience. Travelling, sneaking around, and gathering intel were all precise arts that required an overabundance of caution and yet rarely resulted in any action or complication. The effect in the end was a constant state of stress, and a hazy trance that encompassed the mind, even as the body fought to maintain alertness. At the time, she had found it a mixed blessing; she so hated to have to go out and fight, fearing strength and hurting others the way most other shinobi would fear being weak. So, having nothing to do with adversaries the majority of the time, and using her byakugan solely to spy enemy formations and gather intelligence from far away, had been her lifeline, even as dull as it appeared, making Kiba crow loudly in complaint.

Then, of course, she had grown and matured, befriended her dear cousin, and learned that strength and hurting others was much preferable to letting her loved ones be attacked. After those years of training, she felt as if there was always something to do, someone to defend, somewhere to be in order to prevent calamity. Then, she felt the humdrum more keenly, silently adopting Shikamaru’s inner register of ‘what a drag,’ when she spent weeks roaming listlessly across the Land of Fire, even as a newly appointed chuunin.

Then there was the war. Blood, a sickly moon, pale creatures in the night and amongst the trees, starvation, vanishing friends, s i l e n c e. And she didn’t have a moment of downtime again.

Now, calmly walking towards Suna’s capital gate, surrounded by friendly adult faces and mischievous child-like ones, feeling a gentle chakra drain from her scattered summons, she felt overly grateful for the routine of it all.  She could almost understand the odd happiness that Kurenai and the other jounin-senseis held for the pathetic D-rank and C-rank missions, beyond the initial glee of remembered retribution. They were boring. They were safe.  And after a war, sometimes, the worst part about being a shinobi gradually became one of the best.

“Uzumaki-san,” Tamago interrupted her train of thought, drawing her gaze to his family. “I know that once we reach the gates that we’ll have to part ways, as per the terms of our agreement. I just wanted to tell you sincerely, before we get there, that I am very thankful for your guardship and aid on this journey. I was…skeptical at first of your capabilities. Ever since that blasted war, well…I’m not very trusting. But you protected my family, and you never took advantage of your skills. I’m honored to have travelled with you.”

Hinata felt herself blushing once again, struck by the sincerity of his tone, mirrored in the eyes of Yaki-san and the rest of the nearby adults, all not bothering to hide the fact that they were eavesdropping on this conversation. It was odd, how attached she had become to this little group of merchants, whom she otherwise likely would have never met in her previous life.

“No, Tamago-san,” she asserted quietly, reaching out a hand for him to shake. “There is really no need to thank me at all. I am glad to have been given the opportunity to travel with you. The reason that I trained so hard for so long was so that I could one day protect good people like you and your family. Being here, given a chance to put my skills to use, was all that I really needed.” And it was true. She did need them, and this opportunity, in a way that she couldn’t describe. Without the reprieve of this simpler mission, and the joyous company of the eager cavalcade of children, her descent into an inward spiral of doubt and loneliness would likely have consumed her. These people reminded her of what Naruto had dreamed of: a world beyond country borders, where ninja were agents of positive change, and not mindless reapers of death.

“We’ll have to agree to disagree, Uzumaki-san,” Tamago protested, even as he reached over to firmly clasp her hand. “But regardless, I am glad that I had the opportunity to say what I wanted.”

I’m glad you told me, as well. She could only smile at him, and the firm grittiness of his palm as they slowly lost the skin-to-skin contact. A meeting of hands and a meeting of hearts; Naruto would have been proud.

The gate to Suna’s capital was rising into view now, a mirage in the shifting sand that grew larger and more defined with each step the caravan took. The last leg of their journey was now coming to an end.

“State your name and purpose,” the gruff gate guard stated as they petered to a stop at the head of the line, looking more alert than the guards at the hot springs resort had been, leaving Hinata both apprehensive about appearing suspicious and relieved that at least some ninja in the nation had the guise of general competence. She let Tamago take the lead, knowing that he had the more legitimate identification documents and a real purpose for being here.

“We are the merchant caravan from Chisanamachi, Suna, arriving as scheduled to deliver grain, vegetables, and miscellaneous items,” Tamago said with quiet fortitude, presenting the guards with an inventory list and their merchant licenses and travel permissions.

The primary guard, a sharp-looking kunoichi with blonde hair twisted in an intricate crown of braids, flipped through the provided papers, glancing up and down suspiciously as she sorted through all the information. She waved the second guard, a man whose eyes were seemingly covered by a shaggy black mane, forward with the inventory list in order to check the veracity of the statements. As a result, the children came spilling out of their secure places amongst the goods, huddled around their parents in the unforgiving hot sand, granules sticking to every part of their body while they looked on.

Eventually, the shaggy haired man, silent in an intimidating rather than an anemic way, exited from the back of their second cart and gave a thumbs up, signaling that everything was as it said it was. I wonder how he even managed to see anything to check against the list. After another moment of deliberation, the kunoichi finally grunted, nodding her head as she passed back his paperwork. “Everything appears to be in order then. Just one last question. Who is this woman with you? There doesn’t appear to be record of her in your travel request, and she seems to have a suspiciously large chakra reserve to be just a random civilian you picked up along the way.”

Ah. Hinata had forgotten, in her months of seclusion, about the frequency with which experienced ninja would use their chakra sense to gauge the strength of those they considered threats. Although she had been actively suppressing her chakra signature at least a little bit by habit, and she was more drained than usual because of her frequent usages in the past few days, she knew she still had enough chakra inundated in her system to draw wary gazes from the hyperactive guards. Another blessing and curse from the Nine Tails and Kaguya, it seems.

To her pleasant surprise, before she could even open her mouth to identify herself, Haruto jumped in, his overeager recklessness and genuine admiration for her outpacing his common sense, as usual. “She’s only the greatest bodyguard ever! We hired her to watch our caravan last minute because of all the bandit activity, and she totally kicked ass! We call her the Red Empress now! She even managed to nab bandits that had actual bounties!” he jabbered on excitedly, less hostile than he was with the resort town guards, but equally as enamored with Hinata.

I garnered so much loyalty on this journey, and a new reputation. I don’t know if I deserve it.

And yet it still felt so good. Gently laying a hand on his shoulder to calm Haruto’s stream of words, she let her gaze rest on the kunoichi, who had remained tensed in anticipation but had relaxed her expression. “My name is Uzumaki Hiyori. The boy is right; I joined this caravan over the last week in order to protect the merchants and their goods from bandits, and apprehended a group led by a woman who identified herself as the Iron Tornado. I’m also seeking entry into the capital in order to finish my job, and restock on supplies,” she finished gracefully, watching cautiously to see if they accepted her story. As she spoke, she handed them her forged identification documents, providing some semblance of substance to her claims about her heritage, not that they really needed the proof, given the way they were eyeing her bright red hair and the hastily covered tattoos on her upper thighs and arms.

“You managed to get the Iron Tornado, huh?” the kunoichi said appraisingly, barely sparing her documents a glance before handing them back to her. “You must be formidable then.”

“She’s the greatest!” Haruto cut in again, before his mother clamped a hand over his mouth and dragged him a few feet away.

Hinata tried her best not to appear too red, trying to maintain a veneer of professionalism. “I did my best to prevent harm from coming to my charges,” she settled diplomatically.

The kunoichi only snorted at the exchange, softening enough to let Hinata know that she and Haruto had won them over. “And it seems like that got you a fan club and a nickname of your own,” she commented dryly. “Well, since they’re vouching for you and you appear to have been legally hired, then we’ll grant you entry. Open up the gate, Takumi,” she called to her silent, hairy partner. “And welcome to Sunagakure. I hope your stay is…uneventful,” she tacked on, eyes flickering briefly with anxious unease before she covered it back up.

With that odd note of caution, she stepped back, already looking ahead to the next group in line. I wonder if she’s referencing something specific. Bowing gratefully, she fell into step with Yaki-san, off to the side as Tamago-san lead the slow and careful procession into the greater capital through the cart entrance, anxiously watching to make sure nothing untoward happened right as they reached the cusp of their journey. And then, more quickly than she ever could have imagined during the humdrum of the last week, it was over, and they were successfully at the marketplace, marking the end of her duty as their guard.

She knew she needed to move forward in her plans, and that this stoppage was natural, but she still found herself clinging on to the moment, stretching out her reluctant steps longer and longer, as she faced the reality that she would soon be alone again. I grew so attached.

“Well,” she started slowly, “I guess this is where we part ways. I wish you the best of luck in your travels and your future, Tamago-san, Yaki-san, everyone. I am very glad to have met you all.”

To their credit, the children looked equally as devastated to be parting from her as she was from them. “Hiyori-nee-chan, do you really have to go so soon?” Haruto protested, looking for all the world like he had been told his best friend was moving to Kirigakure.

Misaki huffed and rolled her eyes, although her fidgeting fingers betrayed her own unease about Hinata’s imminent departure. “You idiot, she’s a ninja, and this is the end of her contract. She probably has other things that she needs to be doing.”

Hinata knew, despite her own trepidation and unwillingness to fully leave, that she needed to be the mature one, if only for the kids. “It’s true, I do have to part ways with you all now.” I’m always the one who has to say goodbye. “But I hope that one day our paths will cross again. And I’ve already told your parents, but it was an honor to have travelled with you. I wish you well.”

Koi and Kai, the little twins both, raised their hands in a sad wave, and Hinata returned it wistfully, reminded again, not for the first time, of her own childish shyness that occasionally still latched onto her more jaded, adult psyche. It cemented her purpose, in spite of all the sorrow that it had already caused and likely would continue to cause her. I’m saving the world for children like them, too.

Haruto looked like he wanted to protest, but then deflated with a wry half-grin. “Well…well then, don’t you forget about us, nee-chan! Because we won’t forget about you! I hope you keep fighting, Red Empress!”

Misaki, for once, looked like she was in total agreement with Haruto. “Good luck,” she stated simply, betraying her earnestness with the look in her eyes.

Hinata knew if she didn’t step away then, then she never would. With one last wave of farewell, and a choked “I’ll try my best, everyone,” she turned her back on the entire group, marking the end of this unexpected chapter in her life. I’ll try harder than I would like you to ever know.

----------------

As she wandered through Suna’s capital, simultaneously admiring the stout buildings made to endure the harsh desert climate and watching the markers of poverty that she saw on the general public with conflicted despondency, Hinata felt aimless. With the combination of the tiredness that she felt from the constant chakra drain she had engaged in over the past few days as well as the feeling of being adrift that came with ending her merchant contract, she found herself uncertain about what to do, and a bit miserable about it.

I suppose I haven’t had to be alone without even my summons for company in a long time. She knew the smart thing would be to continue with her mission…but with Rashi and company out planting documents and gathering intelligence, there was very little that she needed to do in the near term. And it was still ever so slightly too soon to start making her way towards the meeting point she and Shikamaru had agreed on, several weeks ago. And the last thing she wanted to do was take more downtime to settle into her thoughts, and contemplate the weighted necklace of love and loyalty, pain and isolation that choked her neck.  

No, I must find something productive to do. And quickly.

Suddenly, the gate guard’s offhanded comment about an uneventful stay in Suna’s capital, and their reluctance to let in outsiders, hit her again. She couldn’t immediately tell what had caused to wary look in the kunoichi’s eyes, or the hypervigilance, beyond even Konoha’s famed security. Unless…

She remembered, in a flash of awareness, that unlike Naruto, not all jinchuuriki were able to confine the rage of the tailed beasts that resided unwillingly within them. And there was no greater example of this than Gaara, before the monumental chuunin exams that resulted in the start of Naruto’s ascendance and the key transition point in shinobi society that her and Shikamaru had originally planned to take advantage of, before they were shot too far into the past. In all those musings, therefore, they never really gave much thought to the state of affairs for some key players before Naruto managed to change their minds and hearts. And from what she could recall…Gaara was one of the ones in most need of change, even at the tender age of 12. Was he just as bad now, when he could only have been six or seven years old?

Is he what the people are so afraid of? Perhaps I should check on him.

Shikamaru had requested that she identify the positions of the known jinchuuriki that crossed her path after all. Although he also warned me not to interfere. But it was something to do that would make her feel productive. And, deep down, beneath the rigors of duty and responsibility, she was eager to see the façade of one of her friends, lost too soon to the mindlessness of war and genocide.

It was that last thought that galvanized her more than anything. Alright, Gaara. Let’s see how you’re doing.

---------------

Gaara, as far as Hinata could tell, was doing extremely poorly. As she watched from the outside with her byakugan as he huddled with a small blanket on his bed and whimpered out muttered ramblings to a being that he only called “mother,” Hinata could only grimace with muted horror. The journey to find the young jinchuuriki should have prepared her for what she would find at any rate, although the reality far outpaced her wary suspicion.

For the child of the Kazekage, he was surprisingly difficult to find. Attempts to eavesdrop on the populace to gather information only let her know that unlike the two oldest children, the youngest son of the kage was very rarely seen, to the immense relief of many. When he was out, in the stories they told, they only ever referred to him as one thing: a monster.  And unfortunately, unlike with Naruto’s receipt of vitriol from the Leaf’s public, it appeared that the moniker was at least a little justified in this case. Poor Gaara. And poor villagers, to live in fear of their own village’s children. It was the consequence of hubris, of a leadership council trying overly hard to maintain relevance by raising a weapon that they had no right to own, and no skill to manage. How foolish. Although just because it was idiotic, that didn’t make the situation any less heartbreaking. Filing the village’s terror in the back of her mind, Hinata continued on her journey, searching and searching for any sign of Gaara’s distinct chakra, so faint that she had to lift some of her chakra suppression if only to expand her awareness and increase her sensitivity. As she crossed into a seemingly minimally inhabited part of town, a vague sense of frustration, and a quiet desperation, found her finally resorting to using her byakugan, taking care to shield herself from view. Not that her efforts seemed to really matter. She was in an abandoned and crumbled part of the town, littered with sad chunks of concrete and desolate children’s toys. No one seemed to reside there anymore, and she almost resolved on giving up and trying a new district, when her advanced sight caught onto a faint trail of familiar chakra. This…this is Gaara’s sand jutsu! His automatic defense that is always active. And it seemed to be originating from the one building in the entire mutilated district that looked a little too pristine. If no one bothered to investigate too closely, they would have missed it. Which was probably the point. If Gaara was truly such a danger, they likely needed to sequester him away from the public, for their safety, but also for his. If it weren’t for the vigilance of the ANBU, who knew what would have become of Naruto, in the face of wrathful and frankly ungrateful villagers? That hatred was probably doubly assured here.

And still, despite her intellectual understanding of the situation, watching now through the chakra enforced window, as the little red-headed boy cast his bloodshot eyes around an empty room devoid of toys or cheer, muttering to himself and likely Shukkaku, she couldn’t bring herself to accept it empathetically. How someone could treat a child, who looked so scared and vulnerable, like this, an inconvenience better left alone and without love, was beyond her comprehension. But she had the benefit of future sight, and the privilege of not having grown up in the Land of Sand. Loathe as she was to admit it, the desolate landscape of abandoned crumbled buildings and small streaks of blood that she had walked past, the genuine fear she could detect in the eyes of the adult shinobi guards who milled around and gossiped in a disgusted undertone…that was all Gaara’s doing as well. Poor confused child.

Well, he was still alive and well, exactly where they had thought he would be. Their arrival hadn’t changed that much, at least. She knew, with this verified, that she should go. She remembered Shikamaru’s farewell warning vividly: “Don’t interfere too much, Hinata. We are already changing the timeline enough as it is. If we do too much to gather the attention of Obito or, sage forbid, Zetsu, then we’ll be in real trouble.” She understood his reasoning. She had even agreed with it, staring into his tired eyes and tense shoulders in the middle of the destroyed Uzushiogakure.

But that was before she saw it, the consequences of decades of shinobi recklessness, and the vision of a formerly deceased friend, looking almost as miserable now as he did on the verge of his own death in the future, a kage without a people.

This is how it is meant to be, though, she tried to convince herself. Naruto saves him, and forms a bond that transcends borders. That’s part of the reason the Shinobi alliance came into being.

Deciding on the right thing to do was so difficult, with the burden of knowing the future. Who to save, who to leave to their fate, and who they knew nothing about, weighed on Shikamaru and Hinata heavily as they had attempted to sort through plans to save their friends, their families, and their village, complicated enough without having to look to save every other village from the horrors of their own ninja corps. It was, as Rashi had often explained to her, impossible to account for everything and everyone, especially since patching one problem could expose numerous weaknesses and cracks in the entire rest of the frame, leaving a crumbling picture behind. Interference could destroy everything.

I’m sorry Gaara. I can’t help you.

As she tensed her body to leap away from her hiding spot and force herself into a hotel for the night, Gaara’s door creaked open, causing both her and the boy’s heads to whip around to see who could possibly be intruding on his solitude.

It was a man, dressed as a Suna jounin, with surprisingly kind brown eyes and sandy blonde hair. Hinata had never seen him before, although the war was not the best time to get to know individual shinobi from all the great nations. Still, for someone who had so much access to the village’s jinchuuriki, it seemed odd that she had never heard of him.

She crept closer and channeled chakra to her ears so that she could listen in on their conversation, curious despite herself. It was also an excuse not to leave and abandon Gaara so readily, as well.

“…doing here right now, uncle?” she heard Gaara’s high-pitched voice say, sounding entirely too solemn for a child.

This man is Gaara’s family? She felt a grim sense of foreboding. The Gaara she had known had no family, bar that of his siblings and his recently deceased father. The future was probably not kind to this man.

“Gaara-kun,” the man said gently, crouching down to be on eye-level with him. “You know that the Kazekage has requested that you refer to me as Yashamaru-san, and not as your uncle.”

How cold. Even my father let me refer to himself and our extended family by their familial honorifics, no matter how much I disappointed him.

“Right,” Gaara only said dully, entirely too used to such treatment for Hinata’s comfort. “I’ll ask again then. What are you doing here, Yashamaru-san?”

“I came to check on you,” his uncle said calmly, if not a little sadly. “You did not appear for training today.”

Abruptly, Gaara went from placid and unassuming to feral, anger glinting in his eyes as he tilted himself forward. “Why would I bother going to useless training? I can’t control myself, and none of you are talented enough to teach me!” he snarled.

To his credit, Yashamaru barely flinched. “Now Gaara-kun, you know that that isn’t fair, to yourself or your instructors. You’ve made some progress recently.”

With her byakugan still active, Hinata could see the tendrils of sand that had begun to stir from the ground, inching closer to closer to Gaara as he experienced an explosive rage that had seemingly come from nothing. “No, no, no I haven’t. I haven’t! I…I hurt those people, the other day. I didn’t mean to! I didn’t mean to,” he started with an anguished cry, fisting clumps of his hair before his tone shifted. “But they deserved it!” he shouted, laughing hysterically. “They deserved it! They didn’t understand me! Only mother…only mother understands. Only mother knows me. Mother protects me. I know she does,” he whispered compulsively, rocking back and forth as the sand in his room started to swirl in earnest.

Yashamaru had slowly backed away during Gaara’s entire disjointed speech, but at his last words, he crept forward again, alarm not overshadowing the concern Hinata could see hidden in his demeanor. “Gaara-kun, please calm down. I know that being the jinchuuriki can not be easy for you. Remember that you have other family, other people who know you beyond…mother.”

“Who?” Gaara lashed out bitterly. “I’m not allowed near my siblings. Father doesn’t care for me at all. I can’t even call you uncle. Who do I have, other than mother?” His voice had gotten louder and louder with each harshly punctuated sentence, and when Yashamaru attempted to reach a hand to comfort him once again, a whip of sand reared back and slashed Yashamaru’s cheek, leaving him to stumble towards the ground.

Oh, no. Gaara-kun…

Just as abruptly as Gaara’s fit of pique had started, it ended, the horror of seeing his uncle bleeding on the floor because of him halting his burgeoning madness in his tracks.

“Uncle?” he whimpered, forgetting to call him dispassionately by his name. “Are you ok?” He made a few hesitant moves to approach him before stopping and burrowing back in his covers. “I didn’t mean it I didn’t mean it I didn’t mean it I…” he chanted over and over in a low tone, looking at Yashamaru fearfully, as if expecting him to lash out.

But the man only sighed, gripping his wounded face with one hand as he slowly rose to his feet and approached the door. “I know, Gaara-kun,” he said simply, his hand resting on the doorknob. “This isn’t your fault,” he said in a quieter tone, so soft that Hinata doubted Gaara, currently not enhancing his senses, could hear it. And with that he disappeared, leaving the young boy alone once more, even more traumatized than before.

I can’t possibly leave him to a fate like this, Hinata protested internally. He was, despite what the rigors of shinobi society dictated, only a little boy; and yet he looked tired and manic, even as he exhibited moments of sweetness. Only a child, and his mind was already a sacrifice for a ninja village that his father never quite managed to successfully build. All this, for nothing at all. As she stared at his still slowly rocking body on a bed that she doubted he ever truly slept in, she remembered what had led to his fractured mindset in the first place: his broken seal, used originally to trap the One-Tail in an inanimate object, not meant for human usage. And the ambitious fools were too stubborn and conniving to request aid from real seal masters, even with their nominal alliance with Konoha, which had at least three when Gaara had been born. Do I know enough seals to help him? She tried to sort out in her mind if she had made any progress on jinchuuriki type seals, which had never been her primary focus in the three months she spent desperately training and studying to pass herself off as an Uzumaki. That had never bothered her until now. I don’t know anything to the level of Naruto’s seal. I’m neither the Yondaime nor Jiraiya. Although…and with sudden clarity she remembered a set of seals she had studied, meant to stem a person’s chakra flow. It originally had offensive purposes, but she’s sure that she could adapt it for her needs here. She didn’t have the skills to fully fix Gaara’s seal and shut Shukkaku away, but she could add a layer to his existing seal to stem the flow and joint intermingling of their chakra, hopefully quieting the One-Tail’s voice enough to allow Gaara time to sleep, and room to enforce his will over the bad-tempered tanuki.

Haruto had told her to keep fighting. And with this, she finally could. She was definitely going to get in trouble for even attempting it, but she had realized, somewhere along the path of her spiraling inner thoughts, that she couldn’t bring herself to worry about that more than she worried for Gaara’s mental state. I’m sorry Shikamaru. But I’ll have to ignore your warnings, just this once. I want to do good. That’s why I trained so hard.

Resolved as to her course of action, Hinata crept away from the building, unwilling to get caught by any of the patrolling shinobi before she could enact her plan. With the question of what to do out of the way, she now needed to focus on the how. Eavesdropping was one thing; getting close enough to Gaara to put a proper seal over his existing seal was tantamount to a suicide mission if she tried to go at it alone and half-cocked. Even if she could beat all the guards, the high alert from the rest of the Kazakage’s equivalent of ANBU would certainly have her regretting it. Unlike Naruto, she was not a one-woman army, especially at her level of chakra depletion. No, the best strategy was to find a way to convince someone close to Gaara to let her near him. His father was out of the question, which left either his uncle or Kankuro and Temari.

The thought of Temari almost made Hinata freeze in place from her spot on semi-stable ground in one of the many crumpled buildings in the area. She was only a child at this point, barely eight or nine years old, and hadn’t even met Shikamaru yet, but Hinata, still reeling from her recent revelation that she cared for him much more than she should, couldn’t help but associate the girl with everything Shikamaru had actually loved and lost. Confident, tall, skilled, and loudly beautiful, the sand kunoichi was her opposite in every way, and another dear friend lost to the madness and terror of Kaguya’s reign. And I’m still overly attached to the man she very clearly liked, despite their awkward back and forth.

Those thoughts weren’t productive in the least, but the residual guilt and faint traces of jealousy certainly soured her from pursuing that avenue of getting to Gaara. She scrambled for other reasons why it would be a good idea that didn’t make her sound extremely unprofessional. Wait! Gaara mentioned that he barely saw his siblings. At this point in time, they weren’t formally in a genin team yet, and Gaara had even less control than usual, and so they probably weren’t allowed to spend very much time with him. Approaching them would be futile. Pushing down her own self-disgust, Hinata mentally crossed the siblings off her mental list. Yashamaru-san it is.

Bringing out parchment and ink from her bag, as well as a book from the Uzushio stores and seal paper, she set to work to construct the seal, concentrating hard with every stroke of her brush. This wasn’t any old seal that she would slap to the ground, or even ink onto her own skin. This was for a little Gaara, who already had a shoddy seal haphazardly attached to him; it needed to be as perfect as she could make it. Besides, a competent looking seal was likely her only ground to stand on when she attempted to convince Yashamaru to let her interfere.

Hopefully this works.

When the seal was finally finished, black ink gleaming in the dwindling sunlight, she hastily repacked her travel bag, readying herself to approach Yashamaru and ask for his trust. No pressure.

Sending chakra to her feet, she leapt across the tops of buildings, eyes narrowed with byakugan enhanced vision as she sought to find Yashamaru’s chakra signature. There! Despite his conflicting coldness to Gaara, he was still nearby his nephew’s location, crouched on an adjacent ceiling as he monitored his surroundings. Perhaps, despite everything, the gentleness that he had shown was worth more than the words he had said when it came to judging his merits as an uncle.

As she grew closer to him, she shut off her byakugan, unwilling to let this secret escape her as well. It was bad enough that she was making herself known, even as an Uzumaki, to the sand ninja.

Landing gently on the opposite corner of the roof, she cleared her throat, reluctantly releasing some of her suppressed chakra to alert Yashamaru to the fact that he was no longer alone. Predictably, he spun, eyes widening at the sight of her before he narrowed his eyes, kunai laced with explosive tags already in his palms.

“What are you doing here, outsider?” he demanded, no trace of warmth in his gaze. For all that he was a reluctantly loving uncle to Gaara, he was clearly a highly skilled shinobi. I’ll have to be tactful to win him over.

“I just wanted to speak with you, Yashamaru-san,” she projected calmly, not even bothering to pretend that she hadn’t sought him out purposefully. Forced ignorance would be even further cause for him to distrust her.

He narrowed his gaze at her all the same. “You have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“My name is Uzumaki Hiyori,” she answered softly.

From the brief widening of his eyes before they settled again, she knew that he had heard of her. “The supposed Red Empress, I presume? Perhaps we were foolish to let you into the village,” he said in a low, threatening tone.

“I don’t mean any harm,” she said, slowly raising her hands. “I’m not affiliated with any village, and I’ve only ever helped the people of the sand that I’ve come across.” He dipped his head in the barest acknowledgement of her exploits in guarding the merchant caravan. “I just want to offer my services.”

“For what?” he demanded.

This was the moment of truth. Depending on what she said next, she could find herself with a barrage of kunai aimed at her throat, and a mission partially failed. “I couldn’t help but… overhear some of the chatter in the village, about the Kazekage’s ‘monstrous,’ possessed son,” she started hesitantly.

Yashamaru, predictably, immediately became defensive. “So what,” he snarled, “did you decide he would make an excellent bounty to add to your record?”

“No! Not at all!” she protested immediately. “I want to help him. He’s only a child. As you know, I’m an Uzumaki…if his problem with ‘possession’ has anything to do with a seal, then I came to offer my assistance. I approached you first because you seemed to care about his well-being,” she said in a rush, hoping that she was vague enough that he wouldn’t assume that she knew that Gaara was a jinchuuriki and not just a poor possessed child. Knowing where to find the Kazekage’s son was already pushing a boundary; having knowledge of a state secret would have been beyond the pale.

Her last words seemed to have softened Yashamaru, if only marginally. “Are you a seal master?” he asked distrustfully, even as he lightly relaxed his posture.

“No,” Hinata replied honestly. “I’m nowhere near a master; but I’d venture to say that I know more than the average shinobi, perhaps even more than anybody in this village.”

Yashamaru seemed to appreciate her response, because he carefully lowered his kunai, although he still eyed her warily. “Clearly you’ve been watching us for some time, if you know who I am and where to find Gaara-kun. You don’t seem malicious, but no one does anything for free. What’s in it for you, really? Leverage over the Kazekage? Extortion?”

Hinata shook her head emphatically. I wish I could say it’s absolutely nothing but basic kindness, but he would never believe it. Perhaps… “Like most Uzumaki, I’m an orphan,” she said softly, truth woven with lies to create a believable story. “I’ve been alone for a long time, but I’ve managed to create bonds with several of the people I’ve met here in Sand country. They’re good, strong, and kind. They don’t deserve to be terrorized by any sort of possession, especially if it can be remedied by a carefully applied seal. My nindo,” she finished looking straight into Yashamaru’s eyes, “includes never failing to protect those closest to me.”

Hinata could see the minute her words resonated with the bereaved uncle, the minute she was able to convince him, at the very least, that she was earnest in her offer of help and aid to his nephew. His shoulders slumped and he hung his head for a second before tilting it back up with a new, sadder look in his eyes.

“He doesn’t want to be a monster,” he whispered. “I can tell. He never means it. But the constant death and destruction…I don’t think the people can take much more of it. I don’t know if he can. If you say that you can help, then I’ll believe you for now, and let you get close to him. But” he threatened mildly, the dangerous edge to his gaze betraying him, “if you turn out to be lying to me in any capacity, I’ll strike you down where you stand. And I’ll find your precious people and strike them down too.”

She shivered as the frigid hostility of his words washed over her. There was only one thing she could say in response. “I understand.” It was all to help Gaara, in the end.

Seeing her acknowledgement of his threat in her gaze, he nodded once before signaling her to follow him on a twisting path through various windows and around the back of Gaara’s building, likely evading the other ninja stationed to keep watch over him.

Finally, after creeping through a silent and plain corridor, they arrived at Gaara’s door. Before she could reach her hand towards the knob, she found her wrist clasped in a narrow grip. When she turned her head, Yashamaru’s furrowed brow was directly in her line of sight. “Gaara’s seal is…volatile. If you think, for any reason, that your interference has even the slightest chance of making it worse, you will cease immediately. Do you understand, Uzumaki-san?” The or else was left unsaid but was still very much heard.

Rather than speak aloud, she only nodded, her mind already leaping forward to focus on the careful application procedure she would need to follow in order to activate her new seal correctly. This had better work. For both our sakes.

When the door finally swung open, Hinata was sad to see that Gaara was still cloistered on his bed, dark ringed eyes still desperately clutching at his blanket for cheap comfort in the desolation of his bedroom. His eyes flicked over immediately, gaze glancing over Yashamaru’s still puffy cheek, before sliding and settling onto Hinata.

“Yashamaru-san,” he intoned blandly, only his facial expression betraying his bewildered curiosity. “I didn’t expect you back so soon. And with a stranger, too.”

“Hello, Gaara-kun,” he said soothingly. “I came to make sure you were alright after earlier. I know that it wasn’t your intention to hurt me. And I brought someone along who claims she can help so that you don’t hurt others accidentally again.”

The blood-red of Gaara’s ‘Love’ tattoo made his small, scrunched up face look even paler than normal. “No one can help me,” he said dully, looking back down at his clenched fists, sand streaming all around him.

“She can,” Yashamaru said with more confidence than he likely felt. He really loves Gaara, doesn’t he. “You can still be saved, Gaara.”

Tears gathered in the young jinchuuriki’s eyes, spilling onto his chubby, childish cheeks, and rolling across his jaw to meet in a point at the chin. “Do you really think so, uncle?” he asked innocently.

Yashamaru looked like he was holding back tears as well. “Yes. I do. Your mother believed it too.”

Gaara’s eyes widened. “Mother?”

“Your real mother. Not the voice you hear in your head,” Yashamaru affirmed, stretching a hesitant hand to settle on Gaara’s shoulder. And unlike earlier, this time his palm was allowed to connect.

“My real mother,” Gaara whispered in awe.

After giving the boy a gentle smile, Yashamaru inclined his head towards Hinata, nodding her forward. “Go ahead, Uzumaki-san,” he said quietly. “I think that we’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

“Of course,” she said. And with that she reached into her pack, producing the completed seal meant to overlap the mark on his forehead.

She approached him cautiously, but in the secure grip of his uncle, he made no move to threaten her, even as he eyed her warily. His defensive sand, which she knew to be a gift from his mother and not a trait of the One-Tail, seemed to recognize her good intentions as well, as it made no move to block her.

“Here I go,” she said quietly. And quickly, before Gaara could struggle overly much, she pressed the four corners of the seal around the edges of his tattoo, before pressing firmly into the center with her pinky and index fingers. “Kai,” she said loudly, hoping the spirit of restoration worked quickly to integrate this new seal into his existing one.

She had expected Gaara’s flinch, and Yashamaru’s anxious panic. What she had not expected was to find herself one moment in Gaara’s lonely bedroom and the next in his mindscape, facing the One-Tail in all his glory, pale, fat, and unbearably angry.

“Who do you think you are,” he somehow both whined and roared, “interfering in my vessel’s seal!”

“I—” she started, before he cut her off with an even louder roar, blasting her consciousness with wind and anger.

“Please, Shukakku,” she cried out against the swirling air, hoping that the use of his real name would make him calm. “Stop! I only wanted to quiet your rage!” Several things happened at once. The unexpected sandstorm that she had found herself engulfed in swirled down to a gentle breeze. Her voice kept echoing around the mindscape. And a now familiar warmth that she identified as originating from her wrists and ankles flared to life, for the first time also glowing within the mental space they found themselves in.

Most shocking of all, Shukkaku, the most bratty and ill-tempered of all the tailed beasts, suddenly paused in his outrage, staring intensely at her limbs. “Father?” he whispered, looking incredulous.

Father?

Before she had time to dwell on his comments, he levelled his gaze back on her face. A face, she suddenly realized, was now framed with long, dark black hair instead of the red it had been for months. If she could see her eyes, she suspected that it would be the pupilless byakugan rather than the bright Uzumaki blue as well. “An Uzumaki? Or a Hyuuga?” The Tanuki questioned in bafflement. “Who are you?”

But before she could answer, the burning in her tattoos reached a fever pitch, and she suddenly found herself yanked out of Gaara’s jinchuuriki mental space and back into her body, topped with dark red hair as usual.

She gasped for air, clutching her chest with one hand while she reached out to check her newly laid seal with the other. “Gaara-kun?” she cried out. “Are you—”

She was cut off by the sound of shy laughter. Both her and Yashamaru, who had bent over to clutch Hinata’s shoulder, both turned around in awe, watching as Gaara—traumatized, sad, and lonely Gaara—let out a peal of laughter that only a truly happy child could produce.

“Mother,” he said reverentially, “Mother is finally quiet. I can barely hear her, anymore. My thoughts…my thoughts are only mine.” And then he laughed again. Looking more excited than she had ever thought possible, Yashamaru joined in, his chuckles weighted with an old grief and the kind of euphoric sorrow that only belonged to adults trapped in an unforgiving shinobi’s lifestyle for far too long.

“I told you that you could still be saved, Gaara-kun,” he said with tears in his eyes.

Hinata smiled at the private moment, and slowly rose to her feet. She had done it. She had fixed, at least partially, the cracks in Gaara’s psyche. He now had the chance for a childhood, for family. I did it!

Gaara looked at her shyly, whispering a small “Thank you, Uzumaki-san.” And then, without warning, his eyes fell shut and he slumped against his pillow.

“Oh!” Hinata exclaimed, rushing towards the bed. “Is he…?”

Surprisingly, Yashamaru didn’t look concerned, only more grateful. “He’s fine,” he croaked out. “He’s sleeping.”

And Hinata knew, given his history, how monumental that was. “Oh,” she said gently. “Oh.”

“Thank you so much, Uzumaki-san,” Yashamaru exclaimed. “The entire village thanks you.” And for once, none of his words were laced in threatening innuendo, even though he must clearly know that she knew about Gaara’s jinchuuriki status now. His gratitude outweighed his wariness, just like a man who truly valued the well-being of his family.  

She accepted the thanks wholeheartedly, never feeling happier than in that moment to have defied Shikamaru’s orders. However, as she stood there watching the Yashamaru cradle Gaara’s sleeping body close to him, without fear of Shukkaku taking control, one thing would not leave her. The entire encounter with the tailed beast, from her unexpected dive into a headspace that she had thought only reserved for jinchuuriki, to his question of “father?”, to the continual flare of energy in her wrists, bore further thought. It all formed pieces to a puzzle that she couldn’t help but think she needed to understand. And sooner rather than later.

----------------

Despite Yashamaru’s repeated reassurances that he would keep her involvement in the entire debacle to a minimum, particularly in light of the sensitivity of Gaara’s status as a jinchuuriki in the first place, word still managed to spread among the ranks of the elite shinobi who made up the Kazekage’s top guard, as well as his secret service. For a group of ninjas sworn to keep secrets from their enemies on pain of death, the group as a whole was surprisingly gossipy, much to Hinata’s dismay.

As she received conspirational looks and subtle nods of acknowledgement from various ninja, as well as distant but tacit approval from the Kazekage himself via message hawk, she grew to dread the notoriety that was now going to be attached to her name as a benevolent bounty hunter and a supposed expert user of tailed beast sealing jutsu. Her path, previously mostly uninhibited due to her relative anonymity, was now at dangerous risk. Anyone who interfered with jinchuuriki seals were bound to have a tighter eye placed on them, even by the sand, despite the good turn she did for them; as helpful as she had been, gratitude in the shinobi world only extended so far before political greed and distrustful reserve halted efforts. If she did not find a way to evade notice and somehow escape the Sand without prior approval, then she would soon likely find herself entrapped in the village under the façade of honor. And should any of her adventures with her summons, or with Shikamaru’s alias, come to light…well. In the shinobi world, you didn’t need absolute facts to condemn someone. All you needed was reasonable suspicion.

That didn’t even begin to cover what would occur if anyone outside of the village learned of her exploits. The Akatsuki as they were would at least add me to a list of curiosities, and without an affiliation with Konoha yet to secure my position, it is way too soon for that to occur.

It was a bitter reminder that Shikamaru did have legitimate reasons to restrict her activity, as chafing as she found it. There’s no helping it now. I may just need to speed up our timetable a little bit. It’s time for me to head towards our rendezvous spot.

Her mind made up, over the course of the next few evenings, she subtly packed her bags with supplies carefully collected and concealed from view. The night before she was to have a formal congratulatory meeting with the Kazekage, returning from a diplomatic mission, she activated the stealth seals woven around her body, and carefully crept out of the room at the inn they had placed her in, slipping past the vigilant guards meant to watch her, and darting towards an ignored part of the wall surrounding the village, near the sector that Gaara had presumable destroyed.  

“Goodbye Gaara-kun,” she whispered as she scaled the structure and leapt into the outside sand. “Hopefully I’ll see you again.” And then she disappeared into the night, making her way towards the road leading away from Suna and towards the interior of the continent.

I’ve accomplished all I can, here. It is time that we start making our way home.

--------------

Jiraiya, from the outside, looked like a wastrel of a man, and he knew it. Quick to drink, even quicker to flirt, and boisterously loud, not a single person who met his lecherous persona in passing thought very much of him. And he liked it that way. There was no greater obstacle to becoming a spy than to be thought of as competent by the average person.

That was why he always took notice when somebody treated his flirtatious public persona with anything but exasperation, quiet resignation, or outward disdain. Curiosity, and keen observation, after all, were other hallmarks of being a spy. And Jiraiya was the greatest spy master in the land of fire. That was why Uzumaki Hiyori, the so-called Red Empress, had sparked Jiraiya’s interest.

Admittedly, his first reaction to her, after basking in her regal beauty (which had lasted quite a while, he was secure enough to admit), was apprehensive. He hadn’t consciously thought about the Uzumaki in ages. He was alive during the second war, when Uzushio had been utterly destroyed before Konoha could get word. He had loved and lost his connection with Tsunade, Uzumaki Mito’s headstrong granddaughter. He had both saved and condemned Nagato, the first student he had ever thought would become the child of prophecy, attired with the hair and chakra reserves of an Uzumaki and the thrilling, fated power of the Rinnegan, potential that was now all wasted. He was there when his favorite blonde student, his supposed second try at a child of prophecy, proposed to a bombastic redhead. He was there when Kushina and Minato decided on a name for their precious son. He was there, soon after Naruto’s birth, to bury another one of his students and his wife, and to check on the unfortunate new jinchuuriki’s seal. He notably wasn’t there to take care of the Uzumaki babe, despite being his godfather, because he couldn’t bear to remain in the village, haunted by the ghostly mistakes of his past.

No, Jiraiya hadn’t thought about an Uzumaki in a long time. He couldn’t, for his own cowardly piece of mind. After all spies were excellent at hiding, even from themselves, armed with uncomfortable truths. Despite his internal hesitance, however, Hiyori warranted further thought.

She was lovely, well-spoken, likely very powerful, and shrouded in mystery. And although she had tried to pass of her wrist tattoos as nothing but failed fuuinjutsu practice, but unfortunately, she was lying into the face of a man intimately familiar with the most renowned sealing masters in the five great nations. He would recognize the call sign of a Namikaze on her seal tattoos anywhere. Personalized seals of that nature almost always carried some sort of signature, and artist signing off on their work. At some point, the shy, love-sick Uzumaki had crossed paths with Minato, or someone who had learned his sealing style.

And now, by virtue of his extensive information network, he had learned that that same mysterious kunoichi had made a name for herself among the private circles of the Sand shinobi as a sealing expert who successfully fixed, at least partially, the hare-brained faulty seal they had haphazardly slapped on the Kazekage’s newborn son.

There was no other choice. Jiraiya had to find her again. And perhaps he would find the love that she was searching for, or at the very least the people that she was working with. If there was this much mystery surrounding her, he could only be intrigued by what mysteries he’d find in her partner as well. And perhaps, he thought, burning the note that Sarutobi had sent him, he would be able to cross paths with the mysterious Half-Moon as well.

I look forward to seeing you again, Hiyori-san.

Chapter Text

When Shikamaru had first started training to become a shinobi, he hadn’t fully understood the hatred he had seen gleaming in the eyes of the older veterans, cries for retribution that had led to the cycles of war, grief, and rage that had defined ninja families and their villages for generations. Calls to stop the fighting and save children from the burden of conflict—and adults from the strain of never-ending fights—had always meant nothing in the face of remembered slights and hardened internal whispers of revenge. Intellectually, it was all easily comprehensible. But real, empathetic awareness of the hatred, an understanding of what drove the adults to such lengths as to continue incessant conflict in every generation? Shikamaru couldn’t fathom it. Even after he had become a genin, going on missions and developing a deeper understanding of how the ninja villages were run, he didn’t understand it. Hatred was such a troublesome emotion, that required illogical, hysterical energy to maintain. It did nothing but cause pain to both those who wielded it and those who received its manifested vengeance. He would rather set aside his anger to follow the guidance of his father or the Hokage, and spend his free time watching the clouds roll by. If everyone had been like him, peace would have been easy.

Then, after he became a chuunin, he got a taste of it. Sasuke, sprinting towards Orochimaru with everything he had, was defined by hatred, sculpted and molded by it lovingly until he became a paragon of its twisted virtue. After their failure to retrieve him, Sasuke’s dedication to cultivating hatred had made Shikamaru start to dislike him, just a little. It wasn’t a complete sense of enmity, of course. That still required too large of an emotional investment. But it was enough for him to start acknowledging the power that the emotion had over the entire shinobi society, or perhaps just humanity in general, holding men and women in its choking hold, tricking them into thinking it was a gentle caress.

It was when Asuma had been cruelly killed right in front of him, with a child on the way that he would never know, that Shikamaru finally began to understand the seductive texture and taste of hatred. It didn’t trick him like it did all the others, no. He knew its hold wasn’t comforting, and its basis did not justify all the wrongs it encouraged him to commit. He knew that it sapped him of strength and energy that he could have invested in other vital things, such as strategy, or training, or meditation, or even relaxation. But he couldn’t help it. Suddenly, the clouds no longer held sway over him, and the shogi board couldn’t hold his attention, even in a match against his father.

That was the worst thing about hatred, maybe. Shikamaru knew all the illogic that formed its twisting, thorny roots. But when he was wrapped in its vines, fresh from Asuma’s funeral, haunted by the image of Kurenai sobbing in the open, shedding the hardened mask of a kunoichi, he couldn’t bring himself to care. Hidan, the monster that he was, deserved to pay the price of Shikamaru’s newfound empathy for the adult shinobi he had scorned, with interest if he could have exacted that toll.

That was then, at a time when he had tricked himself into thinking that that ugly feeling of his had finally been laid to rest, hidden in a Nara Forest under the watchful eyes of his loyal pack of deer. In the here and now however, a bit older but stuck in the past, mired with the stunned grief of war and the weight of responsibility, Shikamaru’s hatred had reignited and done nothing but fester, winding tighter and tighter around his throat and his chest, until he could do nothing but internally scream with the pressure of it all. In this moment, on the back of his summons flying high across the sky, Hidan’s trail lit up in his mind’s eye with the eerie red light of hypnotic moons and the spilled blood of the innocent, he didn’t just understand how hatred had ensnared shinobi in an inescapable wheel of misfortune. He embraced it.

I’m going to ruin him.

He knew, at some point in the corner of his soul, that he should be horrified by the directions of his own thoughts. Hidan wasn’t a saint by any means, and he deserved to be stopped, by lethal force if necessary. But there was such a fine point of difference between killing someone out of necessity and seeking to ruin him, joyfully soaking in the pain and terror of the act, prolonged to its fullest extent. The first was logical, defensible, the way a Nara should fight. The second was emotional, detestable, the way a sadist would revel in the misfortune of his adversaries.

Naruto would have been disappointed in him. Naruto was who he had previously dedicated his life to following faithfully.

Naruto was dead.

And so was everyone else. Who cared if he failed in following his own loose, naïve code of ethics anymore? At some point his self-recrimination had reached a peak, the effects plateaued. Failure only hurt when he still had the duty of helping his needy friends around him. But now, approaching the forgotten corner adjacent to the Land of Fire that he knew Hidan was traipsing through, he had no one depending on him but his silent, ancient summons. He was alone in his own misery.

I’m going to ruin him. And I’m going to enjoy it.

--------------

Hidan was remarkably easy to find, in the end. For a member of a clandestine ninja group bent on taking over the world via unsavory tactics, half of the Akatsuki seemed to take the word ‘subtlety’ as a personal insult to their peculiar personalities. Considering that their real leader spent most of his time masquerading as a loud, orange-masked idiot, however, perhaps Shikamaru shouldn’t have been so surprised. Still, Jiraiya’s inability to trace them, leading nominally to his years-long absence from the village, made it mildly shocking.

They did also happen to be a group of murderous cultists who by and large had zero qualms about permanently silencing innocent bystanders, however. And it was clear that the Sannin was, like the rest of his old team, taking any excuse necessary to run away from his demons. So perhaps it wasn’t that strange, after all.

Whatever the circumstances surrounding that nebulous veil of secrecy, Shikamaru couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment. Hidan’s boisterous revelry of blood and psychopathic devotion had made Shikamaru’s rage-enhanced journey that much shorter. As he observed the man singing, the sun glinting off of his blood red scythe, crusted in dried blood that had likely been recently spilled and ritually presented to his false god, Shikamaru could only feel hate and gratitude in equal measure. Hate for the purple-haired bastard who had ruined the last shreds of his youthful innocence, so many years (in the past? In the future?) ago. And gratitude, for handing him his opportunity for revenge on a silver platter. It was as if fate had conspired to make this encounter the easy pickings of a low-hanging fruit—a lazy man's dream.

It’s go time.

With a suspiciously steady pulse, even as roiling anger and mildly sadistic anticipation clashed within his heart, Shikamaru nudged Hiroto to land a couple miles ahead of Hidan’s current location, sure that the thick patch of woods was reasonably within the monster’s path to his ‘sacred’ temple, if his gleeful tromping was any indication. If the six-tailed fox had any words of wisdom, or, more likely, admonishments about Shikamaru’s chosen course of action, he stayed blessedly silent. The only hint as to his comprehension of Shikamaru’s mental state at all, in fact, was the uncommon gentleness with which he landed amidst the dense trees, one of his tails lightly grazing Shikamaru’s forearm as he dismounted, as if to both caution and comfort him.

Normally, Shikamaru considered himself quite adept at interpreting the subtle communication of ninjas and their trained summons. But nothing about this was normal. His genius was now being employed in devising the best strategy to destroy his enemies, and to willfully ignore the council of those older, kinder, and wiser than he had ever been. He couldn’t deal with it now that his course was set.

“Thank you, Hiroto,” he mumbled. I’m sorry, Hiroto. “You’ve done enough, flying me here. You can go back now.”

Hiroto’s ear flicked out with apparent unease, but he didn’t attempt to delay him any further. With a bow of his majestic head, and a knowing glint in his eyes, the fox disappeared in a cloud of smoke. In a few seconds there was nothing, not even a puff of ether, to indicate that he had even been there at all.

He was truly alone, now, and for a moment, sorrow settled like an icy blanket around his shoulders, soothing the fire of his surface level rage, but only adding to the cold, focused anger that had disconcertingly settled itself in his stomach. With a rough jerk of his head, he shook of the melancholy that was threatening to overtake him.

Now isn’t the time. I need to collect myself and assess. Breath, idiot.  In, in, out. In, in, out.

In, one. Despite being in the woods once again, a creature comfort that reminded him of the familiar trees that surrounded Konoha, this terrain was fundamentally different from the spot in which he had faced Hidan for the (previous) final time. The trees were of a different species, providing less footholds from which to leap from, exchanging branches for height and shaggy bark, characteristic of the area on the outskirts of the Land of Fire, near its border with the Land of Rivers.

In, two. Furthermore, the last time Shikamaru had the unfortunate displeasure to face Hidan head on, he was leading him into a trap deep into the Nara Forest, where he would have had the support of his anti-stranger family deer, abundant shadows, and twisting trees that only he knew. There was, frankly, no chance that he would be able to mimic anything close this time. Another point of bad luck.

Out, three. It didn’t matter, though. For ruination, he couldn’t rely on Nara stratagems, or the Nara deer. He would have to take his cues from the Shikamaru that was beaten down by war and corrupted by the alien chakra of an uncaring goddess, whose wit and resourcefulness had been interlaced with sheer ruthlessness. That Shikamaru’s mind was in control as he let out his final breath, eyes narrowing in concentration.

His mind looped through various ideas, half-forming and tossing out impossible strategies, and matching the semi-decent ones against the many imagined scenarios he could see play out in his mind’s eye, based on all he knew of the near-immortal ninja.  Even though he had beaten him once, with the partial help of Ino, Choji, and Kakashi-sensei, there were several moments where he had almost gotten his ass handed to him on a silver platter. The bastard had underestimated him, a wily but inexperienced chuunin without a bounty, with eyes he believed to be clouded with revenge.

This time though? Hasty traps and contingencies might not be enough to catch Hidan sufficiently off guard, especially if his reputation as the Half Moon had spread far enough to reach the ears of the Akatsuki.

Back when he had full control of his senses, he hadn’t found the building of his reputation as a bounty hunter to be that big of a deal. After all, why would he go after an Akatsuki member alone? That would be foolish.

Well, he though sardonically as he silently moved through the underbrush, call me a court jester, then.

As his breath released a self-deprecating huff of laugher, he mentally catalogued a makeshift perimeter within which he intended to have complete control. With any luck, he would be able to lead Hidan straight there. With careful precision, he set up layered traps, utilizing what he could see of the natural elements around him to his advantage. From his pack, he gathered thin metal wires and seal tags, simple ones that relied on Konoha-brand explosives. To beat Hidan, the tricks would have to lie in the application, not in the tools. As he continued to breath, in, in, out, the area was quickly laced with pitfalls, snare traps, and garlands of explosive tags, all meant to distract the man, as if there were three shinobi fighting him instead of just one.

As he finished up one last trip wire, pocketing the berries he had found nestled nearby against the unforgiving bark of one of the many unfamiliar trees, he could suddenly hear Hidan’s boisterous voice, echoing through the trees.

At first notice, the sound of cheerful humming in an admittedly beautiful baritone might have been comforting. But then he heard the words, making them out more and more clearly as he approached.

“Oh la di day, oh la da dee

A hymn for one as great as Jashin

The blood of a babe, a warrior too

Is never enough for a savior like you

The pain of defeat

I’ll never repeat

For I offer up death

And steal another’s breath

When I bare my ritual blade

And watch their lives fade

It is only I that can tell

Their suffering keeps me away from hell

Oh la di day, oh la di da

I’ll live forever, glory to my god

For I am only ever-willing to sin

Proselytizing through gore, for the great Jashin”

Shikamaru closed his eyes in disgust, as if by shutting off one sense he would be free from the sheer insanity being heard by one of his others. It didn’t make any logical sense, the twisted joy that he could detect in the cultist's tone. Even as despicable as Kaguya and her rabid plant child were, they had always seemed to kill for a reason, as unsatisfactory as it was to him. But Hidan? His bloody scythe was a macabre symbol of the pain and suffering he willingly and gleefully caused, for the glory of an uncaring god.

What a fucking piece of trash.

Time seemed to slow down as Hidan edged nearer, his terrible song continuing, bouncing through the trees, the vibration of each note wheedling into Shikamaru’s chest, making his core colder and colder. The hate that had engulfed him enough to guide him here was now a driving force, a better motivation to cut Hidan down where he stood than almost anything else could have been.

Perhaps this was the other thing he had been missing, in his pursuit to understand the hatred that had interwoven itself seamlessly in the bloody, tired history of shinobi. Being motivated by nothing but this spite…it was freeing, in a sense. The weight of responsibility no longer held him back; he was alone in his misery and driven by his burning desire for retribution.

"I'm going to ruin him," Shikamaru whispered to himself, his voice carrying a chilling resolve, cutting into the sinister notes of Hidan’s twisted hymnal. The words hung heavy in the air in front of him, taking shape, given a life of its own. It was a reflection of his transformed state of mind.

It was a promise. The time for empathy and forgiveness had passed, if it had ever truly existed in the first place.

“Oh la di day, oh la di da; I’m gonna make Kakuzu’s words stick in his craw,” Hidan grumbled, even while singing, as he crested the corner and approached Shikamaru’s section of the woods.

“It’s such a shame,” he sighed, speaking normally for the first time, as his outline went from hazy to defined, “that my partner has no appreciation for the wonders of faith. All he cares about is money, the fucker. No respect for the passion of bounty hunting, only the shininess of his coffers. Classless and uninspired for someone so old. Or maybe that’s just the way of all bounty hunters, not as enlightened as I am by the light and glory of Jashin,” he monologued forlornly.

Shikamaru rolled his eyes from where he was hidden in the trees, one of his shadows slowly making its way across the forest floor near Hidan’s feet. He was almost within range. If his shadow couldn’t grab him immediately, the wire trap a few steps in front of him would slow him down.

Yeah, yeah, keep talking, fucker. Just come closer.

“Yes, it’s the fate of all blasphemers, to not know the zeal of a true believer! That’s the problem with ninja today, only in it for the gold and not for the beauty,” he continued with exaggerated sadness, before he stopped just a step in front of the trap hidden beneath fallen leaves. Shikamaru tensed. “Wouldn’t you agree? Little huntsman,” Hidan said with a sinister laugh, before throwing a dagger in Shikamaru’s direction.

Shit.

With a sudden leap, Shikamaru propelled himself up and out of his perch, flipping once in front of the tree before landing softly on his feet, his trailing shadow returning to him as his concentration was broken.

Of course, it wouldn’t be that easy. Not for me.

Head tilted to the side, he smirked at the more irritating of the Zombie Combo. It only makes it more satisfying in the end. “Ah, you’re just as creepy as I’ve heard. What gave me away,” he said conversationally, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. “I thought I covered my tracks pretty well.”

The smile that split Hidan’s face was unsettlingly sharp, the gleaming white of his teeth standing out in stark contrast with the blood red of the weapon he was lightly twirling in his hands, deceptively casual. “I might not be very clever, but even I can tell the difference between a bird and a fox. Your reputation precedes you, Half-Moon-chan.”

Shikamaru winced. Forgetting to conceal Hiroto’s presence was, frankly, idiotic of him. He was too used to combatants who didn’t bother to look that high up, but as an avid cloud watcher in his former life, he should have considered it.

I am really abandoning a lot of the Nara strategies for this fight, aren’t I?

Shikamaru couldn’t show how flustered he was to his opponent, even as he beat himself up in his head. What did Asuma do during situations like these? Deflect.

He snorted aloud, clasping his hands together in a mock thinking pose, curling his hands beneath his chin, concealing the motions of his pointer fingers and thumbs. “As does yours, Hidan, the disgraced missing nin of Yugakure. Decided to become a cult member in the meantime, huh?” he needled, shuffling slowly to the right.

Hidan mirrored his movement, making sure that he was always parallel to Shikamaru, even as he bantered back. “Jashin isn’t a cult. It’s a lifestyle! A holy calling. I only wish to spread his word.”

“I was actually talking about your robes, but sure, let’s talk about your nutty religion.” Hidan’s face twitched with apparent ire, either from Shikamaru’s reference to the Akatsuki, or, more likely, his slander of his beloved bloody god. “You can’t really spread word when you’re dead,” Shikamaru shot back, sweat beading near his forehead as his second attempt at a shadow snaked behind him and around in a circuitous motion, aiming at Hidan’s back.

Hidan’s next expression would probably have been more fitting on a corpse. “Their ghosts can spread the word in the dreams of the living. I can’t leave survivors, you see. Jashin demands total destruction,” he pouted. He must have loved Kaguya then.

“Did he tell you that personally?” C’mon, just a bit more.

“He didn’t have to,” Hidan sniped viciously. “He granted me immortality. And he led you to me, like a pig to a slaughter.” And then, despite Shikamaru’s best efforts at stealth, he hopped over the shadow tail that had been ready to latch onto his own shadow, successfully springing up and away from its path, and landing to its left.

“Valiant attempt, moony, but I’ve heard all about your little shadow trick. Lifted that from the Naras, did you?” he boasted, looking entirely too pleased with himself as he swung at Shikamaru, the long reach of his three bladed scythe more than making up for his remaining distance from Shikamaru’s location, causing him to hop hastily backwards.

“Actually,” Shikamaru panted between breaths, “This little trick is a Shikage original.”

He reveled in Hidan’s look of utter confusion as Shikamaru’s second shadow tendril popped up from Hidan’s other side, having spent the entirety of their conversation coiled there, ready to strike. It wasn’t large, having siphoned off a lot of Shikamaru’s energy as it lay in wait, but it was large enough to yank Hidan’s shadow out from under him, leading him, stumbling, into one of Shikamaru’s wire traps.

“What the flying fu—” Hidan started to exclaim, cut off by the grasping circle of wire that enclosed his ankle and calf, dragging him sideways and upwards, until he found himself hanging nearly upside down, his other leg flailing uselessly.

He was quick with his blades, Shikamaru had to give him that. In the next second, he had cut himself out of the trap, landing neatly on his feet as he executed a practiced half twist in mid-air. If Shikamaru’s goal had been to incapacitate him with that trap, he would have been thoroughly humiliated.

Of course, that wasn’t the goal at all.

It had taken the now-angry Hidan a full four seconds to recover from his trap. Shikamaru only needed two.

“Shadow Possession,” he muttered, encasing the man in twisting tendrils even as he finished landing on his feet. Got you. He blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, his normal dark gaze was gone. In its place was the epitome of hatred, the glassy purple eyes of an enemy he hoped to never face again.

“Well, that’s a little different,” Hidan mumbled with wide, irritated eyes.

He directed his shadow tendrils to creep up Hidan’s body. Normally, he would attempt to pierce Hidan’s brain stem and trap him in his shadow garden, engulfing him in his worst fears. But the man was…probably clinically insane. Simple fear based on graphic images and bad memories lost much of its power when faced with true craziness. Shikamaru had something else in his back pocket that may work to subdue him, but the one time he had tested it, on one of the unsuspecting scum that he played around with during his three months of training, his target had been left permanently discombobulated. In a vague corner of Shikamaru’s mind, his hatred was dulled by the barest hint of self-serving logic. I can still get information out of him.

So instead of using his shadow tendrils to attack his fear centers, he directed them towards the pre-frontal cortex and the hippocampus, regulating his rapidly depleting chakra stores. “Dojutsu: Hypnos,” he whispered, targeting the areas associated with suggestive thinking and memory.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, you freak?” Hidan yelled, scrambling as much as he was able to in Shikamaru’s hold, though his moves became more sluggish when Shikamaru’s eyes continued to bore into his own.

“Don’t fight me,” Shikamaru said cajolingly, taking a careful step closer. Hidan’s efforts began to cease. “Tell me more about the Akatsuki. How many of you are there currently? What are your current goals? Who do you think is in charge?” As much information as he had either known or deduced himself, there were still hazy details about the Akatsuki actions and makeup at this point in the timeline. So much of what they had experienced was the end-game actualization of the group, after the hunt to collect the tailed beasts was more than halfway underway, while they were none the wiser. More information would be useful.

And might justify this excursion, he tried not to think.

Hidan’s mouth was gaping open and closed as his eyes glazed over, his normally caustic expression overwritten with Shikamaru’s will. “F-f—” he puffed, seemingly struggling to get the words out.

Four? There must be more. Although…I suppose Itachi helped recruit a lot of the members we’re most familiar with, Deidara included.

“F—?” he prompted, leaning closer.

The action very quickly bit him in the ass. “F—fuck off!” he grunted, exhaling harshly. With a burst of chakra that vibrated Shikamaru’s bones and stung his eyes, Hidan threw off his shadows and tossed out his mental control, slamming Shikamaru’s own power back into him with force.

Damn it. His head was ringing, and his chakra network seemed jolted by the returning slam of his borrowed powers, but Shikamaru didn’t have any time to focus on it. While before Hidan had been content to casually engage in sinister banter with him, his humiliating trap and subsequent attempt to control Hidan’s actions had apparently made the already unstable zealot mad.

Fuck.

“I’ve gotta say, they didn’t mention that your dumb shadows came with mental puppeteering,” he laughed hysterically, swinging his scythe with powerful, precise strokes that drove Shikamaru backwards as he feebly deflected the monstrous blades with a kunai in each hand. He didn’t even bother to reply. More than half of his brain was occupied with movement, attempting to avoid getting wounded by Hidan’s blades. Out here, alone, with no backup incoming, letting Hidan get even a drop of his blood would mean a certain death.

Block, parry, step, slash , slash, slide, DUCK.

Shikamaru dove through the bushes, aborting an impromptu cartwheel to tuck into a roll, drawing his legs towards his body as his opponent dug deep grooves into the tree bark where his feet had been dangling just moments before.

This was a bit of a miscalculation on my part, he thought grimly as his hands tumbled into the berries adorning the bush he had landed in, partially squishing as they softened his fall. Hidan is a much more skilled fighter than anyone I’ve engaged with so far, even one of the Mist’s famed Swordsmen. And his chakra has obviously been juiced up by whatever rituals to his god he managed to complete before I ran into him. I should have accounted for that, and prepared a poison dagger, or some other sort of hidden weapon. Or I should have just attempted to use fear in the first place. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Call me a court jester my ass.

He might have been a fool, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. As a quarter of his mind whirred with setting up his contingency plans, the rest of his mind dutifully fell back on his years of training and war-time experience, dancing around the skilled swipes Hidan’s blade.

“C’mon little puppeteer, don’t you want to stay and play” Hidan cackled, narrowly missing cutting a stripe into Shikamaru’s cheek, before abruptly calling his triple-bladed weapon back, spinning it around behind his back before sending it hurling in Shikamaru’s direction again, even as he hopped an escape to the thin branches of a neighboring tree. “No? Such a shame. Old Sasori doesn’t like to play either.”

Unfortunately for him, just like he had noticed earlier, the branches of these trees weren’t the familiar sturdy ones of his childhood home. They were thin, high in the air, and fickle. With the force he had landed on one, it was no surprise that it cracked beneath his heel and unceremoniously dumped him onto the forest floor below, right beside yet another godforsaken berry bush. It was almost like the shiny poisonous plants were mocking him.

He rolled to the side at the last moment, narrowly avoiding another well-aimed slash at his head. In desperation he tossed a shuriken in Hidan’s direction, which he easily avoided.

“Nice try, huntsman, but this is getting a bit pathetic, don’t you think?” he boomed boisterously.

“I wasn’t aiming at you, you idiot,” Shikamaru mumbled, before doing a back handspring to evade another one of Hidan’s blows. He was getting almost too tired to keep up the acrobatics.

“Then what were you—” Hidan was cut off by the string of explosions that occurred behind him, Shikamaru’s kunai triggering the sequence of explosive garlands he had looped through this part of the woods. Ideally, Hidan would have been at the center of it, exploded to bits just like he had been in the original timeline.

They were long past ideals, though. The most Shikamaru could do was get him near enough to it that he got blasted backwards, soot and fire adorning Hidan’s skins with fresh burns and garish face paint, his appearance edging closer to the demonic monster he became when his jutsu was fully activated.

“Fuck! That HURT,” Hidan whined, a baby when it came to pain as always. “You’re gonna pay for that, you purple-eyed freak,” he growled as he caught his breath, attempting to wipe away the soot on his face, but only succeeding in smudging it further.

Going against all his instincts, Shikamaru made himself laugh acerbically in the face of Hidan’s grotesque appearance. “Did you forget that your eyes are also purple, you asshole? I heard you weren’t very smart, but this is a new level,” forcing himself to stand as he rested his hand against his winded side. “And what kind of shinobi complains about pain?”

“A shinobi whose only purpose is to inflict it,” he hissed, before flash-stepping forward. Shikamaru could only muster half the energy he needed to meet his speed in dodging or parrying the blow. For one instant, he was lunging to the side, his abdomen exposed. In the next, his vest had a slash through it, exposing his undershirt and some milky white skin, and Hidan’s scythe had blood-red liquid dripping ominously on the edge, a fresh addition to the streaks of dried blood that had already made its home on the weapon.

“Oh no,” Shikamaru muttered feebly, slumping against the pile of leaves he had fallen against, looking for all the world like a man defeated.

“Oh, yes!” Hidan smiled lasciviously, stroking a finger lovingly against his blade. “I guess you’ve heard what this means,” he said gleefully as he swiped his leg along the ground, making his ritual circle filled with symbols that only made sense in the minds of religious sycophants. “Another sacrifice for my darling god! Just what I needed on my pilgrimage,” he cackled, before slurping his fistful of Shikamaru’s blood into his mouth.

Then he froze.

“What—what the fuck is wrong with your blood, half-y?” He coughed, his face twisted with disgust. “This tastes like sugar and acid.”

Game, set.

With a triumphant smirk, Shikamaru slowly rose to his feet, wiping his hands along his ‘wound’ as he did so. “That’s not my blood, you idiot,” he intoned, tilting his head back in condescension. “Haven’t you noticed all the bushes around us? You just drink a handful of baneberries. Blood red, beautiful,” and with a twisted expression, “and poisonous.”

Match.

Through pain-staking attention to detail throughout the entire fight, Shikamaru had been collecting the deadly, yet innocuous looking berries, and stuffing them into the pouch he had hidden within his shirt, which he had adjusted after the last time he had thrown himself backwards. The best plans always accounted for failures, even manufactured ones.

Besides. If the fake blood trick had worked the first time around, even if the application was a bit different, then who’s to say it wouldn’t work again on a younger, dumber Hidan, and a colder Shikamaru? Certainly not him.

If looks could kill, Shikamaru would be six feet under. But in their deadly dance, only one of them had actual dangerous eyes.

“I’m immortal,” he sneered, clenching his weapon with renewed purpose. “A few berries aren’t enough to forsake the gift given to me by Jashin!” And with a snarl he was leaping forward again, spinning his weapon around to snipe at Shikamaru again.

No, it won’t kill you, Shikamaru thought giddily as he dodged, using his legs to leap diagonally along the trunks of two trees, throwing kunai around Hidan has he did so. But…”It’ll certainly slow you down,” he finished aloud, lazily avoiding Hidan’s next sluggish swipe, now able to move more freely throughout the woods, strategically placing kunai where he wanted them, leading Hidan by the nose into the greatest trap of all.

“What did you do…to…me…,” Hidan eked out, every breath seeming to cause him some strain. His eyes were alight with rage and the beginnings of hate. Sorry, Hidan. I have more.

“Immortal doesn’t mean immune,” Shikamaru said slowly, now able to dart around more or less calmly, as Hidan continued to sluggishly advance, his chakra failing along with his coordination. He was still deadly, of course, but nowhere near the level he had once been. He was like a cornered animal, futilely fighting against the constraints of the cage growing around him with every breath. “Your body would have fought off the effects eventually. But it’s too late to save you now. This time, I won’t take any chances,” he said coldly, eyes flaring purple once again as his gaze narrowed in concentration.

Taking advantage of his diminished health, Shikamaru pushed out a burst of his own flagging chakra, sending out his shadow stitching tendrils once again, first ensnaring Hidan’s shadow and then moving inwards, snaking its way up his legs and his abdomen, and finally inching its way around his neck, and up towards his head.

“Hey, hey, hey! Let go of me!” Hidan protested, his eyes betraying, for once, an ounce of unease. “Keep your disgusting shadow claws away from me! In the name of Jashin!”

Shikamaru only huffed derisively. “I don’t know,” he said, watching as his shadows subsumed Hidan’s body, blending into his skin so that it looked like vivid, dark tattoos were laced around his body. “I think my darkness rather suits you.” It was definitely more pleasing than the inverted skeleton Hidan became when he activated his voodoo doll type jutsu. With Shikamaru’s interference, he now looked like the negative in developing film, a picture-perfect testament to his refined vengeance. The look of righteous indignation on Hidan’s face was priceless. Say cheese, you evil bastard.

“Shut up!” he barked back. “What makes you think your little puppet trick is going to work this time, when it failed so miserably last time, huh?”

Shikamaru only smiled as he placed his last kunai in formation, a makeshift circle with four distinct points surrounding them, with lines that formed triangles stemming from each point, traveling until they met Hidan’s body, trapped in the middle, right where he had led him. He suddenly seemed to notice his predicament, his brows furrowing in confusion as he eyed the myriad kunai that had been placed in weird shapes around him.

“The fuck is this shit?” he cursed violently, turning his head as much as the shadows allowed.

“By now you must know that I’m not stupid,” Shikamaru said in response, creeping towards him slowly, methodically, along one of the triangles. “I won’t be trying my so-called ‘puppet trick’ on you again, when it so clearly didn’t work. And usually, I would turn to my Shadow Illusion Garden of Good and Evil, but you’re one cracked egg short of a dozen, so I won’t bother to try that with you. So, congratulations! You get to experience something special, you monster,” he spat out with carefully suppressed vitriol.

Hidan’s gaze had narrowed with every word out of Shikamaru’s mouth. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he started, “but it’s weird, how you just called me a monster.” Shikamaru stiffened, but Hidan just kept going. “Obviously, you hate me. Such a useless emotion in the eyes of the one true god…but I’m used to it, from my sacrifices and whatever bunch of idiots are loyal to them. But you…you’re a professional bounty hunter, and I’ve never met you before. I would have remembered your creepy ass eyes. Where is all this hatred coming from?”

“You may not know me,” he replied, “but I know you. You’re a genocidal freak, a moral-less sycophant, a cheery berserker. But who really cares about any of that? What matters to me is that you’re the piece of shit that would help ruin my family and my friends if you had half the chance. And for that, more than anything,” he ended in a harsh whisper, “you deserve to be punished.”

“Oh ho?” Hidan said in vague amusement. “And what kind of punishment do you think you have the power to give me?” he asked in exasperation. “Although he’s efficient and calculating, I’ve never heard of the Half-Moon doing anything that could stand up permanently against me,” he said proudly, finally giving Shikamaru the bare modicum of respect in using his nickname.

If only it had been the correct one.

“The Half-Moon might not be able to,” Shikamaru said with icy irony, “but that’s not who you’re looking at right now.”

And with that, Shikamaru had reached his destination, right in front of Hidan’s confused, insulting gaze. “Do you know what we’re in the middle of right now?” he asked conversationally.

 “Your pathetic attempts at aiming?” Was that a waver at the end of his tone?

“No, I assure you, it’s all very intentional,” he replied calmly. “I would have thought you of all people would realize how important ritual placements are when focusing your chakra in order to do things you normally wouldn’t have the power and precision to do,” he continued with a raised eyebrow. Although he had never respected Hidan’s tactics before, the theory of excessive ritualistic concentration in order to enhance one’s own jutsu was validated by several theory books in Uzushio, and tested against his own experimental subjects.

Ah, he thought with growing sadistic amusement, watching the vague comprehension enter Hidan’s eyes. Now you’re beginning to get scared. But you haven’t seen real fear yet.

“Let me just tell you, since you’re obviously a little too dumb to guess,” Shikamaru continued. “It’s a compass. And this arrow I just walked down is pointing directly due south.” As he spoke, another shadow lengthened itself from Shikamaru’s own, the largest one he had dispatched by far. The ominous black smudge prowled across the ground, pinging against every single kunai in its path before reaching the edge of the circle, traveling around in a counterclockwise motion, spiraling inwards as it made contact with each and every kunai placed in all the cardinal directions.  

“A compass,” he reiterated, “spinning downwards, taking you to the hell that you deserve.” As his large shadow finally finished its circling, he sent the last few tendrils prodding into the fear and vision centers of Hidan’s brain, piercing them slowly.

“Wait, wait,” Hidan gasped, his eyes widening as if he finally realized something, much too late. “These shadows, your eyes, your words. You’re…”

“Yes, that’s right,” Shikamaru said cutting him off. He had never been one for dramatics before, but the situation seemed to call for it. He couldn’t help but revel in the moment. “Forget about Jashin now, Hidan. I’m not just your new god; I’m your Nightmare.”

“Fuck,” Hidan breathed out.

Shikamaru didn’t let him say anything else. Instead, he grasped him by the chin, forcing his mouth to stay open. As Hidan futilely struggled, Shikamaru grabbed a small knife from his sandal and used it to slice off Hidan’s wriggling tongue, blood spurting out everywhere as he choked on it. “Wouldn’t want you to tell anybody that,” Shikamaru said calmly, as if he wasn’t holding onto the man’s mutilated muscle. “My identity is a secret, after all. Not that you’ll be saying much of anything, after I’m done with you.”

Throwing the offending appendage away, he looked him straight in the eyes, purple on purple, and intoned “Shadow Illusion Garden of Despair” with finality, fully piercing his vital brain points, his other shadow swirling around on the ground beneath him. Unlike the Shadow Illusion Garden of Good and Evil, this technique didn’t utilize memories and insidious thoughts to torment the brain. Instead, it targeted the bodies physical basis of the emotion. Right now, Hidan’s brain was full of nothing but overstimulation, colors and sounds echoing in a crowded cacophony in his skull as his body’s fear response was triggered permanently without mercy to its fullest extent. He was beyond the help of fight or flight. Now he could only fall still, his mouth gaping open in an aborted cry, his eyes spinning around wildly and without sight as his body finally succumbed to the feeling of hopelessness that he had likely made every one of his victims feel, in the past and in the future.

Seeing Hidan like that, at his mercy in his shadows, mouth pouring out blood that leaked down his chin and into his neck, eyes wild as he succumbed to the terrifying mind-altering version of his doujutsu, made Shikamaru feel…odd. His chest was both full and empty, and his brain seemed to pound, but maybe that had everything to do with his chakra exertion, and nothing to do with the results of his actions.

But the feeling persisted when he shut off the jutsu, his eyes flickering back to black as his shadows slowly retreated back into himself, leaving Hidan a broken, bloody mess on the ground, surrounded by the kunai that had been his ultimate downfall. His mind would never recover, as far as Shikamaru could figure, but nothing in life was guaranteed.

He came back from the brink once, and he killed Asuma with that, remember?

He grabbed Hidan’s own scythe from his prone body with zero resistance, and, after a half-second pause full of that unnamed feeling, he set to work.

Shikamaru had thought that the first swipe of his blade against Hidan’s body, severing his hand from the rest of him, would be more cathartic, bring about the same relief he had felt all those years ago, when he put this monster down the first time. But it was unsatisfying. All he felt was that same feeling that had been haunting him ever since he finished his jutsu. What was left in his heart except cruel humor, and culminating rage and… a whole lot of nothing? That’s what that was, that unnamed feeling. Nothing. Nara Shikamaru, Chinami Shikage, the Half-Moon, the Nightmare, the world’s most disappointing savior…felt nothing as he slashed Hidan to pieces, clumps of blood and gore sticking to his clothes and his surroundings as he separated the former Akatsuki member’s head and limbs from his torso.

Each cut, driven forward with the remaining dregs of his hatred, numbed his heart further, his mind pounding after each forceful jab like a reverb. Dismemberment of his own personal bogeyman should have made him feel something.

I should feel anything, right now, but empty.

Perhaps his hatred was never freeing. It had held him captive all along, and laughed in his face when he finally followed it to its natural end.

“But I ruined him,” he whispered long after he had made his final cut, sitting in a pool of blood that wasn’t his own, much like the monster he had valiantly come to slay.

And it accomplished nothing, his mind whispered back.

Absently, Shikamaru pulled out his canteen and poured water over his hands, ridding himself of some gore and traces of poisonous berry juice. Then he bit delicately into his thumb and summoned his foxes, his mind too blank to actually think of which ones he wanted to come. So, when Keiko and Kamaye, the bickering, juvenile foxes, children really in the timescale of a tailed fox, popped up to a scene out of Shikamaru’s bloodiest nightmares, the nothingness that had consumed him was quickly overwritten with horror.

“Shika-chan,” Keiko gasped, “What…what happened here?”

“I…I ruined him,” he blurted out. I might have ruined myself, a bit.

“But…” Keiko protested, before being nudged by Kamaye, who was very unsubtly shaking his head. The clever mischief characteristic of the young fox was completely missing, all trickery cast aside in the view of the bloody scene in front of them.

“Shikamaru-san,” he said solemnly, using his full name and the proper honorific. His name had never made him want to throw up before. “What would you like us to do? To help?”

Help. Help me.

He opened his mouth to speak, knowing logically what he called them here to do, to help him finish his dirty work, but he couldn’t speak. Apparently, the aftermath of rage was silence.

“You know about the secure burial sites Shikamaru-kun has been securing, don’t you?” a voice said from his back, instantly recognizable, and all the more terror-inducing to Shikamaru’s conscience. “Grab this man’s…parts, and scatter them amongst the sites. They should be identifiable by his signature seals. Be sure to separate the head from the rest of them. Hiroto will go with you kits, to supervise,” Takako finished, her vulpine face etched in authority. Hiroto, ever dutiful and ever silent, appeared behind her, bowing his head in deference to her command, before loping towards the shell-shocked, yet determined kits.

“R-right,” Keiko stammered, “we can do that.” Kamaye, now beyond words, simply inclined his head in agreement, before leaning over to grasp scattered limbs in his mouth and tails, Keiko following along.

Before Hiroto lead them away, he looked back at Shikamaru, his six tails arrayed behind him dripping in Hidan’s blood and gore. He looked disappointed, but whether it was in Shikamaru’s actions or in whatever look he saw in his eyes, he didn’t say. With a flick of his ear, he was gone in the next instant, the strangely silent fox kits following behind as they darted away with inhuman speed.

It was only him and Takako now, he white fur strangely radiant against the backdrop of shadows, trees, and deep crimson blood.

“Thanks for telling them where to go,” he said haltingly after he tired of her penetrating stare. “Hidan may be immortal when he’s able to put his body back together, but he still needs to eat and drink water to survive. Once his parts are scattered, it’ll be impossible for him to build himself back, and he’ll starve to death in a few weeks,” he rambled.

“I know, from your past-future timeline,” Takako replied frostily with an annoyed flick of one of her eight tails. “I saw it all, remember? I have seen every event that has made you who you are, little Nara. And I had concluded that you were a beast, much like us. But after this showing…I must wonder if you’re edging closer to being a monster, with every breath that you take.”

Shikamaru bowed his head miserably, the burning in the back of his eyes feeling suspiciously like tears. “A monster?” he repeated, like a complete dolt.

“A monster,” she affirmed tersely. “And I know you felt it too. Even the forces enmeshed in your tattoos felt you teeter on the edge. You didn’t feel a single glimmer of warmth from them throughout all this, did you?”

He hadn’t Shikamaru realized. In every other instance that he was in extreme distress, his mysterious seal markings had burned with intent. But this time, he hadn’t felt a single pang once.

He made a questioning noise, unable to find the wherewithal to speak again.

It was enough to prompt Takako to speak again. “Your hatred consumed you, until you could no longer hear voices of reason. Help, in any form, cannot be extended or accepted if a man…a beast…or a monster…has moved beyond the reach of hope.”

“What hope?” Shikamaru asked dully, the renewed sparks of a resurgent anger striking flints in his heart, his mind rebelling against her supercilious tone.

“Hope that there is a better, cleverer way forward, of course,” she sniffed imperiously.

“Sometimes,” Shikamaru grunted, pounding a fist into his thigh in suppressed frustration, “death is the only way forward.”

Takako’s ears flattened against her head. “Yes, for some, death is naught but an inevitable necessity. In the past month you pushed it further, from necessity to an artform, and still, I did not rebuke you. But now, with this Hidan fellow, and that Swordsman of the Mist, you have turned it from an artform into a cruel and sadistic game, for no one’s pleasure, not even your own. And that is what has prodded you further down the path of a monster.”

Shikamaru’s head was pounding. He had never wanted a cigarette more badly than he did at that moment. “They deserved it,” he snarled at her. “They were the true monsters, slaughtering innocents, women and children, for their own selfish gain. They didn’t deserve mercy.”

“Mercy and the absence of cruelty are two separate things, which I know you are smart enough to comprehend,” she snarled back. “If you use enough of your logic, then everyone deserves torture and vengeance. Do you think that none of your precious Leaf shinobi have ever slaughtered swaths of people for their own gain? All you’re doing is following the philosophy of Pain, who you so disdained. Don’t become like them, Shikamaru. I allowed you to sign our contract to oppose him, not join in his thinking.”

“Who am I supposed to become then, huh?” he roared desperately, clenching his fists, lips thinning as he stared at her impenetrable gaze. “The war,” punch, “the sacrifices,” punch, “the greed,” punch, “the devastation. How am I supposed to deal with it all and not become a monster?” his voice cracked on the last word, his thigh aching with the outward result of his own mental anguish. “Everyone I’ve ever known who faced this all went crazy in the end! Maybe…maybe feeling nothing is better than feeling everything,” he finally petered out, energy and anger dissipating with every word.

He was tired. Oh, so tired.

A soft tail tickled the curves of his cheeks, lifting away the tear that was unknowingly tracing his face. He looked up to see Takako’s expression had changed, sympathy and understanding cutting through her anger and disappointment. “Not all have gone crazy in the end, little Nara. What of the quilled girl, Hinata? She seems remarkably optimistic.”

Shikamaru realized in a burst of clarity, wide-eyed in a forest of blood, that he hadn’t thought about Hinata once since he had left behind the Bloody Mist. It was as if that place, or more accurately the rage that had reached a fever’s pitch in that place, had corrupted his mind.

Hinata, Hinata. She had been through the same challenges he had been, faced the same losses, seen the same horror. But she was still good, strong, and hopeful, even after everything. She had believed in him, in them. She was everything that Naruto had promised she would be, in that conversation in a cave that felt years, decades, centuries old.

And he was the monster of hatred that Naruto, and by extension Hinata herself, had always railed against.

Hinata. Hiyori. His partner in all this, their uphill quest to save the world, and more importantly, save some version of their friends and family. Perhaps she could save him from the sucking emptiness that had settled in part of his soul, that threatened to overtake his conviction to see the mission through.

If she found out about Hidan, the way he sought him out, toyed with him, broke him, slaughtered him without a thought towards mercy or justice, she would never forgive him. He couldn’t quite forgive himself. But now that he was thinking of her again…he could feel something other than empty anger filling him again. He craved her.

It was logical after all. Left alone, he was a complete disaster, a pillar of failure. But with her? He was…he was closer to the Shikamaru his dead father had entrusted him to be. Even if she could never forgive him, he needed her attention, her gentle affection, her familiar nostalgic presence, like a benediction.

I sound like lovesick fool.

Oh. Hinata…he loved her, he was in love with her, he thought suddenly, as much as he hated anyone, everyone else in this distorted past. As much as he now hated himself.  

I’m fucked. What a drag.

He said none of this out loud, but by the vague amusement and understanding he could see dawning in Takako’s face, he thought it wasn’t necessary. The crafty vixen could probably read his turmoil and realizations in his unguarded face and the fluctuations of his chakra.

“Now you see, don’t you, my little beast. There is still salvation waiting for you, before you become a monster,” she said wisely.

Shikamaru aimed a self-deprecating smirk her way, probably looking grotesque in his blood and gore mask, wild-eyed and disheveled from the fight he had picked. “I don’t know about salvation. But you reminded me of what I was really sent back here to do.” Protect Hinata. Save the village we called home. As if in answer, his chest and collarbone flared with a warmth he had briefly feared he would never feel again. “Thank you, Takako-san,” he whispered with a bowed head.

“Hmm,” was all she had to say in response. “Very well then. Follow me, little beast. You stink of rage and death. There’s a river near here that you need to dip yourself in gratuitously, before you even think of riding me away from this place.”

He had to agree. A bath was extremely necessary. As he collected his kunai from the ground, needing to wash them along with himself, as well as Hidan’s scythe, which he dropped, blood and all, into his pack with the storage seal, as proof of his bounty, he couldn’t help his thoughts from pointing towards Hinata once more.

My work here is done. I’ve snuffed out one of the Akatsuki and established my reputation as a bounty hunter. I clearly shouldn’t be alone anymore. It’s time that I start making my way towards you, Hinata.

Chapter Text

The town Shikamaru found himself hovering on the outskirts of was a backwater shithole. Calling it a town might have been too generous, in all honesty. From the hill that he crouched on, with Takako nestled on the soft grass next to him, the scrap of buildings that comprised all the visible signs of civilization couldn’t have been wider than his thumb when he held it up to his face. More of a scrapyard village, then.

But even a scrapyard village would have food and a place to stay. And, more importantly, innocent people to distract himself from his last human encounter, who could drench him with a stream of inane chatter and casual greetings, washing away the bloody imprint of his sins from his hands and removing the afterimage of gore and fear—terrible, intoxicating fear—from his eyes. Perhaps it would even displace his sick sense of glee, a remnant of perverse pleasure that attempted to wear down his guilt, settling in his mind like sticky, muddied silt at the bottom of a river. He was both deeply ashamed and eerily proud, his hatred of Hidan attempting to counteract his dismay at what he had become.

Who was he now, really? Certainly not the lazy cloud gazer of Team Ten. He hadn’t felt like the insufficiently ambitious chuunin ‘Nara Shikamaru’ in months.

And now I’m being wistful and dreary. Troublesome. Another sign that I’ve been slowly losing my mind.  

“How long are you going to think those deep, melodramatic thoughts, hmm little beast?” Takako growled playfully, flicking him in the head with one majestic tail.

It was like she took pleasure in needling him lately, always capitalizing on the second his stream of consciousness became slightly too morose, teasing him with carefully barbed words. It especially nettled when she echoed his own self-recrimination. He couldn’t get angry, though. She was, at least, calling him a beast again, instead of what he truly felt like in the darker parts of the night, when he was left alone too long with his thoughts. Monster.

Enough.

“I’m not brooding,” he protested feebly, realizing a little too late that his awkward silence wasn’t helping his case at all.

Her foxy grin made him feel a little nauseous. “Did I say that you were brooding? You’ve lost your edge, little Nara. Now you’re just telling on yourself.”

He wondered, not for the first time, how exactly most of the women he befriended were able to slice him open and leave his emotions bleeding out into the unforgiving earth. It must have been payback for his ignorant, sexist comments from back when he was simply a know-it-all genin without a true understanding of his place in the ninja world.

Dear universe. I get it. I was an idiot. Please, stop teaching me this lesson. I have enough to learn already.

But still, despite the rampant teasing, he couldn’t help but feel grateful to his summon, crafty and cynical, but also loyal and wise, an amalgamation of all his old, departed friends. She could have left him behind after he lost his grip on the morality that was supposed to separate a shinobi from a missing nin. And yet, she had stayed. She had reminded him that he still had someone out there to lean on, in the midst of his own—admittedly brooding—darkness.

“Maybe I am telling on myself,” he conceded with a miniscule uptick of his mouth. “I just wanted to throw you a bone, before we went our separate ways.”

“Do I look like a dog to you?” she grunted in disgust.

“Well at its core, foxes are a part of the Canidae family, and so technically…”

“Finish that sentence, and I’ll personally reassemble that religious zealot for you.”

Even when threatening him, she was careful not to say his name and trigger him into a mindless rage, or worse, a smothering sense of despair. Wise. Loyal.

“Noted.” Thank you.

“Just so long as you understand.” You’re welcome.

He turned his gaze back to the scrapyard village, noting that nothing at all had changed, not that he was expecting much to, really. There was truly nothing to see here, in this little hovel in the corner of the Land of Fire, and scouting ahead was only an excuse he was using to stall for time. Takako was too conspicuous—and too finnicky—to cross over into the town limits with him. Once he finally worked up the energy to stand and walk forwards, he would be all alone again.

How he hated being alone.

“I should go, shouldn’t I,” he forced out of his mouth, feeling dizzy with resignation.

“It’s less a question of should, and more a question of must.” Her big head buffeted his shoulder affectionately, knocking him backwards half a step. “We’re both too old to have your hand held, kit. If you want to reunite with your little girlfriend and complete the mission you came here for, then you’re going to have to start by going into that village and working through whatever lingering darkness is shadowing your path.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said reflexively, months of denial and redirection rearing its ugly head again. And she probably never will be.

“Mmhmm.” Skepticism from an animal was painfully direct. He was beginning to understand some of Kakashi’s trials and tribulations with his ninken.

Despite all that, the old vixen was right. He had lost pieces of himself, and he needed to find them on his own in order for this journey to mean anything. And he needed to be at least partially put back together before he met up with Hinata again, for his own sake as well as hers.

“Right then,” he said, rising to his feet. “Time to enter the fray. You can go now, Takako-sama.”

“Thank you, I have been patiently lying in wait here, in desperate need of your permission, your grace,” she replied, stretching her legs luxuriously as she pelted him with sarcasm. But then, reassuringly, her gaze softened, her lip curling back down over her teeth, so she looked less intimidating and more…cuddly. Not that he would ever say that out loud, on pain of death. “Good luck, little Nara. Call on me when you have need, preferably when you’re about to do something fun and not unequivocally horrific.”

And with that she was gone, a cloud of dust her only parting gift.

Yes, he thought, women apparently exist only to plague me. Takako is as cutting as Ino and as reprimanding as my mother.

And yet, though they one and all vexed him, he couldn’t help but miss them all deeply, their absence creating a chilling void in his chest that only grew wider the more times he was left behind.

------------

The village—apparently unnamed, but colloquially known as the unnervingly poetic ‘Wanderer’s Repose’—had no guard, its paltry gate composed of half-rotted wooden beams and twisted metal, the door hanging wide open. Judging by the rust caked near the hinges, no one had bothered to close it in years. A place like this, simmering with equal parts resignation, rage, and despair, was the perfect cesspool for illicit affairs and unsavory dealings with morally dubious characters. He didn’t need his shinobi skills to sniff that out; the veneer of a typical outpost was barely maintained by the meager townspeople and some of the more jittery patrons, the ruthless and desperate element walking the streets with minimal shame.

From the master bingo book that he had been able to comprise, composed of ramshackle pages from the bingo books of the various bounties he’d collected in different villages and supplemented heavily by Hidan’s own, he recognized a few lower-level faces, B-class at the most. If he were in a more enterprising mood, he would have gone after them. But he already had a few bloodied fingers and a gory scythe in his possession, deep in a containment seal. He didn’t need to seek out more companions for them, especially not here, amidst packed dirt roads that thudded beneath his sandals, littered occasionally with trash and malnourished rodents.

He couldn’t stomach the indelicacy of it, not quite yet.

Thankfully, no one took any particular notice of him. Of course, people sized him up as they passed, knowing just by looking at his wild hair and narrowed gaze that, though he was slim and unassuming, with no shinobi headband, there was something about his demeanor and subtly flexing muscles in his forearms that spoke of a man they would be foolish to pick a fight with, especially in broad daylight. And so they continued, monsters and beasts, fodder and perfectly innocent strangers, drifting parallel to each other like ships passing in the night.

He came to a stop in front of the hallmark of any dump like this: the bounty office. If there was anything that drew suspect characters into a shithole of this caliber, it was the promise of money for ill-gotten gains, with very little questions asked.

Kakuzu probably made his fortune in places like this, in all the times he wandered away from the purpose of the Akatsuki. Asshole.

Grinding his teeth, Shikamaru sauntered through the door, doing his best to give off an air of nonchalant strength, his disgusted tiredness barely concealed. His facades had been failing him one by one recently, but at least this one seemed to be (barely) hanging on.

“Yo,” he started casually, ignoring the scattered other patrons who were lined up in front of him. He found that, despite his earlier yearning for human company, he didn’t want to waste any time on the degenerates in this particular corner of town. “I’m here to collect a bounty.”

The weathered, pockmarked face of the large man slumped over the desk was pointedly unimpressed. “You and everyone else. Get in line, kid.”

Ill-tempered grumbles rose in agreement. As if I care.

Shikamaru scoffed. “I don’t think any of these…distinguished gentlemen have anything as noteworthy as I do to turn in. You’ll want to see me first.”

It was times like these that Shikamaru envied the natural menace of clans like the Hyuuga, with their often unnerving eyes, or the Uchiha and their history of bloodthirsty craziness. Despite his issues with their family structures and contribution to the Leaf’s twisted histories, if there was one thing they were good for, it was establishing themselves as threats without a single word. The Nara were built more for lazy, unassuming stealth, deadly in a quiet way, and frequently overlooked. It was an excellent trait in a reconnaissance ninja, and worth jack shit in a testosterone-fueled face-off in bumfuck nowhere’s bounty office. His pale lavender tipped locks certainly didn’t help.

The clerk only snorted, his laugh nearly drowned out by the mocking whispers and jeers of the people he was attempting to skip over. “Yeah, you and every other upstart wannabe ninja hunter in the region. Park your ass in the back and stay there, if you know what’s good for you.”

Yeah, no, fuck this. With a quick motion, he unfurled one of his storage seals, activating it with simple hand signs. Within a single heartbeat, a long, gleaming, bloody scythe was being innocently twirled in his hands, some of Hidan’s purple tipped fingers falling to the ground, purposefully unattended. Each one made a sloppy, wet thud sound as they contacted the ground, making some of the wimpier element in the office flinch with every impact.

“Is that…is that the scythe of Hidan?” Thud. “That crazy worshipper of Jashin?” Thud.  “S-class nukenin?” Thud. The clerk stared at him with wide eyes, obviously up to date on the more dangerous missing nin in the bingo books.

Shikamaru grinned, somewhat coldly, but far less cruel than he would have only a few days prior. “Ah, so you recognize it.” It wasn’t a question. “Then I guess we can proceed with business then? Unless anyone else has any objections…”

Where there had once been loud sounds of derision, there was now only hurried thumping along the hollow bamboo floor as the patrons took hasty steps backwards to create distance between them and Shikamaru.

Oh, well. Adding more mystique to his persona wasn’t all bad.

“Uh…we don’t…what I mean is this is more of an outpost than a formal ninja village so…we don’t have any place strong enough to keep someone that dangerous actually imprisoned here, so—” the man rambled, before being abruptly cut off.

Looking pointedly at the scattered appendages littering the floor, Shikamaru simply raised an eyebrow. “There’s truly no need for that, old man. Hidan of Yugakure is…no longer with us.” At least not in one piece.

He put effort into hiding his wince at the reminder of little Kamaye’s face when he saw the carnage that was Hidan’s leftovers.

To his left, one of the cowed men widened his eyes, comically large against his thin and pallid face. “Wasn’t that guy supposed to be immortal? I swear his nickname was the Immortal Butcher.”

Shikamaru ignored him. “Can I collect the reward with what I have? The rest of his body isn’t available, I’m sure you understand.” It was common practice to get rid of ninja bodies to prevent any secret-leaking or jutsu stealing. The Fourth Great Ninja War had clearly shown that that practice wasn’t adhered to nearly as strictly as it should have been, but it was still widespread enough that the clerk should have expected it.

The man in question hid his unease with a cough. “Ahem. Right. Yes, the weapon and the…are those fingers?” At Shikamaru’s nod, the man muttered “Fuck me” below his breath before continuing with slightly more care. “Those should be enough. I gotta say, though, that this place is small; we definitely don’t have all the money that a catch like that rakes in. And we don’t have a bank for bonds either. We could send a messenger to Yugakure to confirm the capture and transfer the difference if you’d be willing to wait? Either that, or you’ll have to find another bounty office.”

Of course this decrepit town didn’t carry enough money for the bounty. In all honesty, Shikamaru didn’t care very much about the money. His solo journey was winding to a close, and once he met up with Hinata, they would soon enter their (almost) own village, where reputation and utility were of much greater importance than simple wealth. He had more than enough saved from his admittedly overenthusiastic bounty hunting anyways. But the prospect of carrying around Hidan’s paraphernalia for very much longer—and traveling alone on the road so soon after crossing the border into human civilization again—made something acidic crawl up his throat and settle in to burn.

“How long?” he asked, trying to gauge if he could stretch his arrival at his and Hinata’s agreed upon rendezvous point.

“A few days at the most.”

Not too bad. He shrugged, waving a hand uncaringly in front of him. “I suppose I can spend a couple more days here. If I book a few nights at an inn nearby, I trust you’ll be able to find me, Mr.…?”

“Yamada. The name’s Yamada,” he grunted. Shikamaru wondered if that was his real name. This town seemed like a place for reinvention. And for harboring personal secrets. “And yes,” he continued, “we’ll contact you about the arrival of your reward. If you take your…evidence with you, that’s all that’ll be needed to complete the transfer the day of.”

Shikamaru nodded, intuiting that this man wasn’t trying to cheat him. Good move. You couldn’t make it in a heap like this without being able to sense a predator.

“That’s fine then.”

Just as quickly as he had unsealed the items, he swept them back into the void of the storage seal, ending the sequence with the shorthand signs that Hinata had painstakingly taught him, amidst her studies to become a passable seal user.

“If that’s all, I’ll be leaving. I’m sure the rest of you will be glad to get back to business,” he declared in a lazy deadpan, clipping the scroll into his belt. He turned on his heel, sandals roughly scratching against the ground with the abrupt aggression of the action, ready to find a place to stay the night and freshen up from all the grime. Right before he could make a clean exit, though, the clerk piped up once more, his gruff voice comically hesitant.

“One last thing…sir. I’ll need to write down a name for the paperwork. What do you go by?”

Ah, yes. Shikamaru had forgotten, again, that his features weren’t nearly as famous as Hidan’s. They wouldn’t have known who he was from sight alone.

I barely recognize who I am, these days.

“Chinami Shikage. But perhaps you know me better as the Half-Moon.”

The brief glimpse he caught of the shocked faces in the room let him know that even if they didn’t know his face, worn by sorrow and days of travel, they certainly knew of his name. Huh. So it really has spread farther than I thought.

Before anyone could say anything more, questioning or full of horror or contempt or anything in between, Shikamaru was gone, flash stepping away, finally reaching his limit with the unpleasant business of collecting the bounty of a man he had lost his morals for.

--------------

Considering how utterly crappy the village was, the inn that Shikamaru managed to find was surprisingly decent. Although, given that his last few nights had been spent in a rage-induced spiral in random forests and hillsides with nothing but a silently judgmental spirit fox for company, anything would be an improvement. But this seemed genuinely par for the course; the tatami mat floors were clean, if not a bit scuffed, and the sliding doors surrounding his room were enhanced with a fairly robust battery of privacy seals. He supposed that the town’s economy ran on discretion, but it was so rare to see half decent seals outside of a ninja village, especially since nomadic clans possessing shinobi knowledge had been hunted to near extinction in the years following the Second and Third Great Ninja Wars. Perhaps stragglers had managed to establish their homes and livelihoods in out-of-the-way places like these. Shikamaru wouldn’t be too surprised; the innkeeper had only given him the wary look of a woman who knew she was dealing with someone dangerous but ultimately not a threat, rather than the wide-eyed fearful gaze of a naïve civilian who thought shinobi were unhinged animals on the edge of snapping.

He took pride in only acting like that on rare occasions. Having a short temper had never been a particular Nara trait. Shinobi like them, possessing limited chakra pools but surrounded by idiots with kekkei genkais, had to be as meticulous and calm as a lake’s surface, leaving all the festering negative emotions to churn away underneath. His father had always told him he had been the best at it. But the days that he acted like a true Nara had passed, hadn’t they? The dark side of the moon had cast a shadow on his accomplishments, and he was now only half the man he used to be.   

Enough brooding, this is getting embarrassing.

With a sigh he deposited his bag of convenience store onigiri and edamame onto the floor next to his futon, slumping down onto the firm bedding a moment later, legs spread in a butterfly position on the edge of the bed. It was startling, how something as simple as sitting down in silence after a long and mentally taxing journey could shift one’s vantage point. While he had been constantly moving, plotting, and standing, the dragging heft of his mental state had draped across his shoulders like an animal fur: weighty, but manageable, almost an afterthought in the grand scheme of all that he had to plan and do. But sitting felt like giving into the burden, letting it drag him down to the ground so that he could feel, intimately, how small he was inside. The lights glimmering in the ceiling looked far, so far, from where he was. As he blinked, he could see spots dotting his vision, patches of blue green outlining dark blobs like a bruise. If he thought about it too hard, they looked a bit like the negative relief of the fingers he had taunted Yamada with.  

Fingers. He had fingers, didn’t he? He tore his eyes from the ceiling and tilted his head down, so that his gaze was directed at the floor where his hands were resting on his ankles. Yes, he had fingers. Fingers attached to hands that had torn Hidan into little bloody pieces in a frenzy. Not a frenzy of jubilee or one of righteous anger, just…a frenzy. Erratic and messy, like he was attempting to navigate the noise that was screwing with all the frequencies buzzing in his brain.

His fingers were dirty. He could see, now, how ineffectual his cleaning attempts had been in the past few days. There was dust and grime caked under his uneven fingernails and residing in the creases of his knuckles. His toes, encased in ninja sandals that had walked across far too many dirty villages, were in even worse condition.

Ino would have hated to see it. “Appropriate personal grooming is a vital part of being a ninja, you moron! How are you going to hold a kunai with infected nails and an uneven grip!”

He felt uneven.

And his mother was such a clean freak. Attempting to enter his living and sleeping space with so much dust and muck caked on top of him would have made Yoshino yell at him in the way that made his father’s spine freeze before he tried to tiptoe away from the scene of the crime. She might have even brought out the infamous ladle. “Shikamaru! You’ll have people wondering who raised you! Covered in dirt like a motherless child.”

He was. Motherless, that is. A child.

Were his fingers shaking? He couldn’t tell, exactly. They could have been, but perhaps his senses were off. His mind was staticky, the frequencies on a high-pitched whine that drowned perception out.  

Fuck. He was dissociating. He didn’t have time to dissociate.

But his fingers. They were dirty. If he concentrated, he could almost smell the blood that must be staining them somewhere, beyond the perception of his human, non-specialized eyes.

He should get himself clean. He should. He needed to. He promised Takako he would clean himself up, get himself together. So he should. “It’s not a question of should, it’s a question of must.” But the weight…the spots in his vision…the dirt. It was suffocating him.

How hard had it been for Sasuke to pick himself back up and walk with the Konoha Eleven, after spending so many years submerged in the mud pit of rage? To know that even if he repented, he could never make them the Twelve?

C’mon, you fool. You’re comparing yourself to that asshole now? Get the fuck up.

Clenching his hands into fists, he shut his eyes against the sight of his stains and stood up. His mantle redistributed its weight, becoming lighter and easier to manage as he found some short-term goal again. Slowly he let his lashes separate, revealing a new picture. His vision cleared of any dark bruised spots now that he was able to look, not up or down, but rather straight ahead.

That’s better.

Still. He really did need to get himself clean.

-------------------

The surprisingly decent ryokan also had a surprisingly decent communal bath. Even a place like this had to have one, he supposed, for which he was oddly grateful. It was Shikamaru’s first time enjoying a dip in a genuine bath house—not a stream, or a lake, or a pond—in…months. Perhaps even over a year, if he included his life before time travel. Uzushiogakure, while surrounded by salt water, had no functioning freshwater bathtubs. He and Hinata had subsisted on streams and cleanliness seals (of varying quality) during their three-month seclusion. It got the job done, for the most part, but nothing compared to the hot water and relaxing atmosphere of a bath house. Especially at an hour when no one else was around…or maybe no one wanted to be in his vicinity. Whatever the case, he slid into the uninhabited, warm water with ease, feeling a vague sense of physical contentment as he fully sunk in. Even the sting from the water sluicing through his cuts and bruises felt good, the aches and pains a physical reminder that he was real and could still feel the mundane.

He hated his hair these days, for the most part. The lavender color of his tips was only a painful reminder of the monster he had fought and the monster he feared she had made him become. It was more tolerable when it was wet. The color was closer to a dark purple than a pale lilac. He fingered the darkened strands that swirled in the pool around his shoulders absentmindedly, gently picking through small knots that had concentrated on his split ends. Due to his disgust, he hadn’t touched his hair beyond basic grooming for months, not even bothering to trim it. It was long now, longer than it had ever been, resting just past his collarbone when left completely down. He felt a chuckle trap itself in his lungs as he dropped his hair and tilted his head back to rest on the lip of the pool. Between his occasionally pale eyes, long hair, and general broodiness, he looked like he was copying Neji more than he had any right to.

He wondered if it were kinder, that Neji had died so early on in the war and didn’t have to suffer a slow and painful death like the rest of them. He had smiled as the rods pierced his back. So full of hope for them all, trusting that they would still win, and Naruto would protect Hinata in his stead. And then Naruto had left Hinata in Shikamaru’s hands, also smiling as he was pierced through.

Maybe he should have been left in her hands instead.

Groaning, he lifted a hand out of the water and settled it against his face, feeling the warm droplets slide across his brow and down his nose. His fingers, clean now, felt pruney at the tips as they massaged his temples. He drew his hand back to look at them more closely, watching the ridges that lined the valleys of his finger bed, twisted and turning through the damp terrain. It was almost hypnotic.

One second, he was sitting down and staring at his fingers, in the water this time rather than on a bed. The next second, as his eyes grew unfocused, he was trapped in a memory.

--

“Ne, Shikamaru,” Choji called, jostling him out of a well-earned hot springs nap.

Shikamaru peeked open one eye to stare at him, in a silent acknowledgement that he heard him and did not feel like hearing anything more. As per usual, though, his friend ignored his rudeness and just waded closer to him.

“Have you ever heard of personal space, Choji,” he sighed, aggrieved but not truly bothered.

Choji’s bottom lip stuck out in a pout. Paired with his chubby cheeks, he really did look a lot like a child. “Hey, why don’t you say that to Naruto? He’s draped all over you!”

It both was and wasn’t an exaggeration. Naruto was sprawled on his other side, arms long and stretched along the edge of the pool, invading the space of everyone in his radius, which was…actually just him, he realized. The others with them—namely, Sai and Shino—had migrated to the sauna affixed to the pool. While the bath they were using was one of the only ones still functional after Pain ripped through Konoha, it was small, meant to be a personal bath for some luxurious merchant rather than a large communal one, and the other boys had grown tired of being clumped together rather quickly.

Choji’s threats of letting a few rip might have had something to do with it too.

Regardless, Naruto really was quite close to him. He hadn’t really minded, when he was close to sleep, but now that Choji had brought it up…

He swung his head to the side and found himself almost nose to nose with Naruto’s questioning face. There were still a few cuts lining his whiskers and brushing against his lips, but they were healing even as he watched them. Such an obvious sign that he was a jinchuuriki, in hindsight.

“Why are you in my personal space, Naruto,” he asked, opening both eyes now so that he could see the other boy’s reaction.

It was a blinding grin. “Aww, Shikamaru, don’t be like that. I just fought Pain, you know! Everything hurts, so let me stretch.”

“You could always stretch in another direction.”

He pouted then, too. Shikamaru was always surrounded by children. “Why though? We’re friends, aren’t we?”

He had shared a popsicle with him, and they had mourned their mentors together. Of course they were.

He only grunted and closed his eyes again, swiveling his head back to face forward and stare at the steam wafting around them. They were almost like wispy clouds. But he didn’t move his body away, and he was sure Naruto took that as an affirmative, because he cried out “Yosh!” like he was still an academy student.

He could feel Choji grumbling on his other side. “You spoil him too much, Shika-kun. We’re friends too. I’ve known you since you were in diapers.”

And they had. They had known each other almost from conception. No Ino-Shika-Cho were ever born alone, even if they eventually died apart. That’s what the earrings now residing on his lobes symbolized.

It’s why he felt comfortable brushing past Choji’s light-hearted rebuke. “Is that really what you woke me up to talk about Choji? Don’t be troublesome.”

“Oh!” Choji cried, and he splashed in front of Shikamaru again with excitement. “Thanks for reminding me! I wanted to ask about prunes.”

At this, Shikamaru narrowed his eyes in a glare. “Are you really asking me about food right now?” he questioned incredulously, mouth twisting around the words.

“Well, one does not get so portly without constantly thinking about food,” Sai hummed ominously from the corner. When the fuck had Sai re-entered the room?

“Sai,” Naruto groaned, “Commenting on other people’s weight is not nice.”

“What would be nice is if you had a dick, Dickless.”

“We’re literally in a public bath you idiot, you can clearly see that I have a—”

Shikamaru slapped one hand over Naruto’s blustering mouth and gestured lazily with his other one for Choji to explain himself.

For his part, he didn’t look as offended at Sai’s comment as he usually would with anyone else. Sai was really a special breed. Being called portly by him was much better than being called Dickless or Ugly.

Ino had nearly started another war that day.

“I didn’t mean prunes specifically,” he protested, his rosy cheeks even more flushed than usual. “Well I guess I did. I was staring at my fingers, and they kind of looked delicious, then I realized it was because they looked like pickled prunes, and then I thought that was weird and I wanted to ask if you knew why they look like this.”

“Ooh, I know, I know! It’s ‘cause we’ve been in the bath too long, that’s what grandpa Third always said,” Naruto interjected.

Choji frowned. “But I’m not ready to get out.”

“Me neither,” Naruto agreed. “I never listened to gramps anyways.”

“We know,” Shino whispered from the corner, not that anyone really paid attention to what he was saying. “You were constantly causing pranks and mischief, against regulation. Why? To make your elders pay attention to you. But it appears that no one is listening to what I’m saying. Why? Because Sai’s vulgarity has overridden my presence, yet again.”

Even though no one was really paying heed to Shino, it was as if he had summoned Sai to speak. “I heard the pruning was because residing in a hot spring for a long time allowed the barrier between the spirit realm and our realm to thin. As you make further contact with the ghosts of baths past, your fingers prune as they nibble on your soul, one morsel at a time.” Sai’s face settled into the creepy facsimile of a smile he had learned. “Don’t fret, chunky. You have more than enough to give away.”

Shikamaru could feel Naruto’s arm shiver where it was draped near his shoulders.  

“Really?!?!” Choji screeched. “But I don’t want to give anything away!”

Shikamaru couldn’t take the foolishness anymore.

“No, of course not really! The blood vessels in your fingers shrink in water to help you get a grip on things. Did none of you even bother to read a basic anatomy book?” he grumbled in exasperation.

Naruto scrunched his brow in thought before his expression suddenly cleared. “Oh! I have Sakura to do things like that for me! So, no!”

Choji nodded vigorously in agreement. “Between you and Ino, that isn’t really something I need to know on my own.”

Sai only smiled creepily, saying nothing after stirring the pot.

Shikamaru could only gape before he scooped up water in each hand and threw it in their faces. He hadn’t played around in a bath since he was a child but…really, his friends were just too stupid to let it lie.

Choji’s indignant sputtering and Naruto’s squawks trailed his footsteps as he went to dry himself off, in pursuit of a better napping spot.

--

It was one of their last good days before the war effort began in earnest, and he had to lead instead of laze. In the haze of his grief and pain, he had forgotten it. Hell, even if he hadn’t been grieving, he might have forgotten it. In the grand scheme of things, it was such a meaningless encounter.

But he could almost see them now, surrounding him in this empty pool. Naruto and Rock Lee and Kiba, roughhousing like idiots, Sai hovering with weird ass comments in the peripheral, Shino and Neji calmly watching and judging but not quite leaving either, Choji making plans with him to eat at a yakiniku place for dinner yet again. So unkempt and unruly, really a rowdy embarrassment, the whole lot of them.

He missed them. He missed them with all the fire he had left in him.

Maybe it was too isolating in this empty bathhouse after all.

He groaned again, shutting his eyes against their sense memories, unable to handle seeing a dream he could no longer reach.

Would this be a night of the past coming to haunt him? His mental shields had been lowering in his isolation and must have been finally shattered in the face of the horror show with Hidan, the excuses of ‘focus’ and ‘follow the plan’ and ‘business as usual’ that he had used to endure the months of training with Hinata crumbling into dust, betraying him for what he was: a weak man, with angry grief in his heart.

He had more productive things to think about, of course. There was something weird about the seal tattoos scrawled across his chest, something that clearly Takako had known more about than she was letting on. What did she mean by the idea that the seals had voices that weren’t reaching him? That implied some sort of…sentience in the tattoos, but the implications of that were near impossible. Although, there was that time that they burned, and I saw Naruto and Hinata’s features merge to yell at me…If he thought on it a little harder, he could almost form an outline of a picture of what was happening to him, to both him and Hinata. But the possibility of that truth ate at him like his memories did, seeping beneath the surface of his skin and straight into his chest’s cavity, cinching around his pounding heart. He apparently wasn’t capable of problem-solving, right now, with the memories of those he had lost haunting him. His family had been too lovely to leave him so lonely.

Perhaps Sai was right. Perhaps their souls were nipping at his own, too starved of life to realize they were killing him.

And that’s that defeatist attitude again. Pack it up and lock it away, Shikamaru. You have people to meet and promises to keep.

Slowly he leveraged his weight and stood up, taking the steps out of the spring calmly, grabbing a towel to wrap around his waist as he went. He didn’t have time for bath house ghosts.

--------------

The futon in his room seemed much more welcoming now that he was clean, and the lights were off. Or maybe it was that his loneliness had made him exhausted. No matter what it was, he fell into a dead sleep the moment his head touched his pillow.

Of course, he couldn’t escape the guilt-induced memories that haunted him, even in his dreams.

--

This time he’s younger, much younger. He never thought that the chaos that had ransacked the village after the Third had been killed and Sasuke had run away would ever be considered halcyon days, but there was something almost sugary sweet about this version of his world. Sure, he had been mired in his first failure, but everyone he really cared for was still alive to support him, and Naruto hadn’t blamed him, not even a little bit. The future still seemed to shimmer in possibility.

And Asuma was there, in Choji’s hospital room, a beacon in the middle of all the chaos.

An irresponsible, grieving, smirking beacon, but a beacon all the same.

“You’re looking a little skinny there, kid,” he stated simply, cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

Choji had only grinned back at him. “No one’s ever accused me of being skinny before, hehe.”

Shikamaru adjusted himself in the stiff chair he had been sitting in, the hard back digging into the injuries marring his sides. “Well, it doesn’t look right on you. We’ve got to make sure you eat, so no one can ever accuse you of that again.”

Asuma lifted his lighter to his face, letting the flame flicker over the butt of his cig before it finally lit in an amber circle, the smell of clove and tobacco diffusing into the air. “My wallet is still recovering from the last barbecue dinner I took you lot too, but I suppose this is as good a use for the Sarutobi fortune as any.”

No one commented on the fact that he was inheriting a large chunk of his father’s estate. Or why.

“This is a hospital, sensei,” Ino complained instead. “You’re not supposed to smoke in here.”

“Who’s going to stop me?” he snorted.

“A medic…or a nurse…or well, someone who works here,” Ino stammered, looking put out that her teacher was challenging her.

He only responded with a smirk that seemed to make Ino even more performatively irritated. “There’s only one medic who’s ever managed to make me stop smoking, and I haven’t seen her highness in years. Take it from me, royalty’s nothing but trouble. Mix that with a ninja? Pray you never meet her.”

That, if anything, only made Ino more curious. “A medic from nobility who can intimidate you? I’d love to meet her, actually. That’s much more my speed than you boys. If I want to catch up to Forehead, I need to become more like this mystery woman.”

“You’re already a royal pain in the ass, Ino, there’s no need to meet her,” Shikamaru muttered under his breath.

If looks could kill, Shikamaru’s name would already be engraved on the memorial stone.

Asuma ignored them both, shaking his head at a memory only he could see. “I think you’ll become a great kunoichi, Ino. But there’s no need to become a woman like that.”

“She’s strong, isn’t she?” Ino retorted stubbornly.

“Oh, of that there’s no doubt,” Asuma smiled wistfully. “She was one of my father’s students.”

“One of the Sannin?” Shikamaru interjected, impressed despite himself.

“Yep,” Asuma said, popping the ‘p’ as he took his cigarette out of his mouth and inspected it. “The slug princess herself. Beautiful, talented, and scary. And strong. But it’s a certain kind of strength, you know?”

Shikamaru only raised an eyebrow in question. He didn’t know, even if he could guess.

“It’s the kind of strength that makes her persevere in spite of loss…but isn’t enough to bring her back to the village,” Asuma sounded out slowly, uncharacteristically cryptic.

Ino slumped in disappointment. “Well, that’s no good to me.”

“It’s plenty good for me,” Asuma mumbled around another drag. “Who knows how out of control you’d become if she became your mentor too.”

“Sensei,” Choji called out, always eager to lighten the mood, “I can’t tell if you’re scared of her or have a crush on her!”

Asuma blanched immediately, glancing around in paranoia. “Don’t say that where Kurenai can hear you, Choji, or we’ll turn your ‘congratulations on being discharged from the hospital’ dinner into a ‘celebratory shogi tournament in honor of Shikamaru’s promotion to chuunin’ food-free non-dinner.”

“Not even a snack?” Choji cried out mournfully.  “How cruel.”

“Hey, there’s no need to punish me too, sensei!” Ino wailed, darting over to grip the jounin’s arm.

Asuma looked at them all solemnly. “Here’s another lesson for you all—”

Shikamaru rolled his eyes as he cut him off. “Do I still have to listen to your troublesome lessons when I’m no longer a genin?”

“Yes,” he hissed back. “And this isn’t even a shinobi lesson; it’s a life lesson.” He beckoned them all closer, and like well-trained puppies, they all gathered around.  “Listen: when it comes to women, there’s no telling where a pitfall could be. It’s up to you to sacrifice members of your group to save yourself in the battlefield of romance.”

Ino stared back at him incredulously. “That sounds like absolutely terrible advice sensei.”

Like a brat, he stuck his tongue out at her. “What would you know, you’re a woman. You operate under different romantic rules.”

Shikamaru couldn’t be too sure. He was willing to bet that Sasuke represented the biggest romantic pitfall of anyone he had ever met.

“What kind of terrifying women are you courting?” Choji asked in some sort of horrified wonder.

“The enticing kind!” Asuma declared with a triumphant fist.

“All I’m getting from this, Asuma-sensei,” Shikamaru groaned, throwing his head to the side to rest against his fist, “is that romance is an absolute drag, especially with a kunoichi. I’ve decided I don’t need it.”

Sakura and Ino’s longstanding crush on Sasuke had clearly come to nothing but ruin for them, and Kurenai had Asuma acting like an idiot in his student’s hospital room. Clearly romance wasn’t worth all the trouble. That wasn’t even mentioning Hinata’s painfully obvious crush on the equally painfully oblivious Naruto. Although, she did display surprising tenacity in the face of her inferiority to Neji, partially with Naruto’s encouragement.

Still, that example of shared strength seemed like an outlier. Case in point, his parents, the classic case of a nagging wife and a hen-pecked husband.

No, thank you.

Asuma, Ino, and Choji all shared a conspirational glance, before turning to stare back at him.

“What,” he muttered mutinously.

“One day,” Ino declared, “a woman is going to punch you in the gut, and I, for one, cannot wait to see it!”

Shikamaru sighed and crossed his arms, closing his eyes to escape the delighted amusement of his team.

What a pain.

--

Shikamaru opened his eyes into the darkness, feeling the wisps of his dream still swirling around him, blowing gently against the singular tear track marring his left cheek. He knew he had already acknowledged his melancholy reminiscence of days past would be dogging his steps until he reassembled his mental barriers, but acknowledging that something was happening and living through it were two very different things. All the inconsequential moments that had been built into monoliths of family, home, and safety were now blades wrapped in barbed wire, ripping into his flesh as they cut him. He and his team would never be together like that again, joking on the back of a tragedy. Now he had to face his failures alone. Or, well, as alone as he made himself.

The spectrals of Team Ten were right, of course, the know-it-alls. A woman really had punched him in the gut. Or perhaps that wasn’t a good analogy. His feelings about Hinata weren’t a sudden sucker punch, not really, even if the admittance was. His guilt and trauma from facing Hidan may have burst his bubble of faked apathy, but his feelings had been ballooning for far longer. He had avoided thinking about the curious warmth in his stomach for weeks, even months, dating back to before his solo adventures. He had studiously ignored the balm of peace that seeing Hinata constantly had given him, and dismissed the magnitude of the simple happiness he had felt doing a tai chi routine with her on the edge of the world. He had even more ferociously refused to acknowledge the ache her absence had wrought on his soul as he spent even more time away from her, first to experiment with his illicit techniques, and then to journey through the elemental nations alone, seeing trees and towns so full of the life Kaguya had wiped out, and yet still feeling so, so empty.

If he were honest, the seeds of affection had been planted long before they had ever awoken in Uzushio with altered bodies and fractured minds. Maybe it dated back to his fateful conversation with Naruto, the day they were sent back, as he extolled her strength and her kindness.  Or maybe it went even further back, after he had processed his lost possibilities with Temari and found that his heart hadn’t broken as jaggedly as he had feared. Perhaps it was during the myriad discussions he had held with Naruto and Sasuke as they made their desperate time travel plan and needed to decide who to send back and who to sacrifice to make it so. In an effort to be thorough, once Naruto insisted on Hinata’s place alongside him, he had placed her in consideration at the forefront of his analytical mind. It started as clinically as he could muster. But somehow, in thinking so much about her, analyzing her actions and demeanors and qualities, she went from a target that he dissected in terms of strengths and weaknesses, to a dear friend, to something soft and gentle that drifted like a feather through the corridors of his mind.

He respected her. Then he liked her. And one day, when he knew her, he loved her.

He wondered if Naruto knew even then, as they had brushed shoulders and talked back and forth about what they admired about Hinata, the girl meant to glue all their sharp pieces together. The membrane of his bubble of self-denial might have been constructed out of guilt rather than apathy. He had seen them kiss right in front of him, wildly romantic and sappy in a way he thought belonged to trashy novels rather than to real life, and he excused them both with a smile, letting them say goodbye to each other in peace. But Naruto never managed to properly say goodbye to him. And then he died, horrifically but also blissfully, because he was passing on the torch of both his hope and his feelings, getting to die after having gotten the girl while Shikamaru lived on in hatred and fear, with almost no hope of the same. In all scenarios he was bitter, and a bit jealous, but he couldn’t clearly say of who or why. It was all jumbled together, like the knotted yarn residing at the bottom of his mother’s oft neglected sewing basket. It settled awkwardly in Shikamaru’s head, and even his analysis could not hope to detangle it when he was still so stunted.

He hated him. He loved him. He loved her.

He loved her. It hurt.

And it hurt more that, in his love and his hate and his rage and his pain and his flailing hope, that he understood now, what had evaded him for years. What drove a shinobi to destroy the world? Their own fickle feelings, and the power to expel it on everyone in the vicinity.

Good gods. He really was sounding as bitter and delusional as Sasuke used to.

And that’s enough of that disturbing line of thought. It’s like I’m addicted to wallowing.

Now that he had opened himself up to the romantic feelings he had for Hinata, he wouldn’t be able to shove it back into a box. The knowledge burned him up from the inside, as fiery red has her hair was now, but the warmth was so much better than the cold block of ice that had been there before, when he was cutting a swathe through the Mist. No, he could never go back to that state.

But he could maybe forget how much its futility hurt him, for a little while.

Sitting up, he shucked off his sleeping shirt, sliding back into his mesh undershirt and nondescript black long sleeve that had become his bounty hunter uniform. He had to keep up appearances, after all. After he was finished getting dressed, he bit his thumb and pressed the blood onto the mat floor, smiling grimly when Hiroto, ever silent, popped into his room.

The seven-tailed fox tilted his head in question, nose twitching as if attempting to scent for blood.

Shikamaru supposed he deserved that.

“There’s no imminent danger, Hiroto-san” he bowed his head respectfully. “I’ve just decided to…trade in one vice for another, and I may be compromised soon. Could you stay here and guard my things? And remain on alert for any chakra signatures that seem overly aggressive or suspicious. You’ll be able to feel me still; I won’t be going far.”

The poor spirit looked confused and perhaps mildly disappointed—or maybe Shikamaru was just projecting—but he dipped his head in acknowledgement, ears twitching as he set them to work.

“Thank you,” Shikamaru murmured, before standing fully and heading towards the sliding doors. “I’ll be back.”

Although perhaps not soon. With Hiroto on standby, he was free to get absolutely shitfaced drunk at a bar for the first time in his life.

-----------

The only bar open in a tiny town like this doubled as a gambling hall. It was better to get all the addictions bundled up in one place, he guessed, and the drunker a person was, the looser their wallets were.

The night had already settled in on the village, but the room was already full to bursting. Every table was occupied, both in the immediate bar area and in the casino, and the bar counter was standing room only. Everyone was glaring and elbowing each other for their spot in line, although he found that the rowdiest ones parted like the earth had quaked when he walked past them. Whispers of “that’s the Half-Moon!”, “that’s that crazy bastard who killed the Immortal Butcher," and “Wow, his hair really is half and half,” followed in his wake.

“I guess my reputation really does precede me,” he muttered consideringly, pushing forward towards the bar.

The bartender widened his eyes at his approach, thin eyebrows twitching, but otherwise held himself together much more admirably than the apparent tough guys loitering around who were too scared to look at him for very long. Shikamaru already respected him more than the wannabe ninjas permeating the place.

“What can I do for you, shinobi-san,” the man said demurely, tilting his head ever so slightly to his left side. It was probably a nervous tic.

“Please,” Shikamaru sighed, resting his forearms on the countertop, “I’m just a bounty hunter. There’s no need to be so formal.”

He shot him a disbelieving glance, but otherwise didn’t stop cleaning out the porcelain dish in his hand. “Riiight….of course. Then what can I get for you…?”

“Shikage,” he grunted back. Better get more traction out of using that name.

“Shikage-san, then. Well, this bar has the finest rice wine in town, so take your pick!”

This is the only bar in town.

“I’ll take three bottles of the Ginjo sake from the Land of Iron, if you’ve got any,” he requested aloud, plucking names randomly from memory. He had never really indulged in drink before because his mother had always been so disapproving, but from his years working under Tsunade, he got familiar with a few details of alcohol. Namely, that Ginjo was for some reason preferable to Hanjozo, and that since the Land of Iron catered its merchandise to samurai, their drinks were much, much stronger. That was just about all he needed to know.

The bartender licked his lips nervously. “Well funnily enough, we only have three bottles of that left, and there’s a repeat customer that—”

“—and it sounds like that was exactly what I requested, so you have just enough to give me what I asked for. Right?” he interrupted. Normally he would feel a little worse about prodding at the man’s visible nervousness, but he was having a rough…life, really, and the Half-Moon already had a reputation for being kind of an asshole, especially in this town. There was no pressing need to repair his image. Besides, the man behind the counter probably served to criminals on a daily basis; it wasn’t necessary to be kind to him.

Keep telling yourself that, Shikamaru.

“Right, right, yes, right away then, Shikage-san,” the barkeep blustered, quickly pulling the green glass bottles from a cabinet and placing them semi-haphazardly on the counter. On another pass, he grabbed the porcelain cup he had been drying and placed it next to them.

“I’m s-sorry, we’re running low on the larger serving carafes,” he stammered, clearly more on edge now that Shikamaru had bared some of his teeth. Whoops.

“No need,” he grunted back, plucking the bottles and the cup in his left hand, while throwing out some bills with his right. “I’m not sharing anyways. Keep the change.”

Before he could answer, in thanks or in question, Shikamaru had already pushed back from the serving area. He didn’t come down there to socialize; he came to drink. With one well-placed glare, he chased away a spineless man from a dimly lit table in the back, and finally he had a place to sit back and indulge himself.

This’ll be fun.

One bottle and countless filled cups in, and Shikamaru was finally coming to understand the thrall of alcohol.

The first sip, quite frankly, had sucked. The taste of fermentation was strong, and the sharp smell transported him back to days and people he was actively trying not to remember. It wasn’t unpleasant enough to stop him, though. And with each subsequent sip, that evolved into gulps, and then into near swigs, the burn settled into warmth, and the smell seemed more sweet than bitter. The world started to blur a bit at the edges, and the cacophony of sounds from the loudmouths in the bar settled into a background hum that just brushed the edges of his senses. If it came down to it, he was still coherent enough to fight, but with his summons on standby, and the seemingly weak wills of his neighbors, he found no need to fight against the pull. It was nice, for once, for his overactive brain to stop picking at the threads of plans and missions. The sharp lines of the world were replaced with soft curves.

Hinata had soft curves.

Shikamaru blinked rapidly in surprise, feeling his face flush as he looked down at his empty cup (how did it get empty? He would have to pour more) in betrayal. “You’re not supposed to let me think about my problems right now,” he mumbled. “That was the whole point.”

Nothing another cup wouldn’t cure. Right?

He was wrong. The extra alcohol did nothing but make it worse. The alcohol heightened his awareness of the girl he had belatedly come to realize that he loved: the elegant slant of her cheeks and jaw, the nervous and gentle ring of her rare bouts of laughter, and the subtle gestures of patient care that had ever so slowly etched themselves into his memory. Was it more funny or sad that even in the midst of his drunkenness, his heart clung to her image like a kunai embedded in the trunk of a tree?

Oh for fuck’s sake, I’m a romantic drunk, aren’t I.

Halfway through his second bottle, he decided that this whole situation was actually very funny. The funniest thing in the world. Here he was, renowned bounty hunter, semi-omniscient time traveler, and all-around genius, drunk in a bar in the corner of a random shithole in the middle of Fire country, waxing poetic about a woman who was certainly still in love with someone else, someone better in every way.

It was a good thing that he hadn’t gone to sit by the poker table. He wouldn’t be able to bluff like this, and his luck sure as hell wasn’t going his way.

For some reason, the thought made him snort. “I’m always shit out of luck kid,” Tsunade would say. “And honestly, that’s the way I like it.”

And now he was thinking about his past. Again. At least under the filter of alcohol, the memories were more nostalgic than they were piercing, like his dream had been. Although, now that he was letting himself think about it more closely, the dream had probably pushed him down here, to this bar. His team had been the stars of his dream, but the main topic of conversation had been Tsunade herself. And, honestly, a gambling hall and bar crossover in a tiny hovel was just her type of place.

Shikamaru could feel the stretch of his lips pulling into a dazed smirk. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if…

A loud voice suddenly cut through the din of revelers, jolting him out of his train of thought.

“What do you mean you’re out of stock? Y’know that’s been my exclusive order, Kyo.”

There was no possible fucking way.

“Shishou, stop, you’re making a scene.”

He could almost hear Takako laughing at his expense. Fate is funny, little beast, isn’t it?

“I can make whatever scene I want! The dealers already banned me from placing any more bets. All I wanted was a drink to wash the disappointment away. And I had money to pay my tab! But noooooooo. Now they’re telling me some motherfucker took the last of my order. Who the hell did you skimp me for, Kyo?”

Shikamaru didn’t want to look. He really didn’t. But at the same time, he absolutely needed to. Feeling dazed beyond the power of alcohol, he slowly turned his head towards the bar, and was immediately assaulted with the sight of long blond hair framing a flushed face, the hint of a purple diamond appearing on a forehead that kept swiveling in and out of view as she turned. Next to her was a petite, pretty brunette, earnestly gripping her elbow with one arm while the other clutched a small pig.

Dear gods, it really was her. The Legendary Sucker herself.

Senju Tsunade.

The bartender was talking to her quickly, evidently an attempt to try and calm her down. “I sold it to him, over there in the back. The Half-Moon.”

That rat bastard sold him out. And now, with fierce hazel eyes, she was looking right at him.

“So, it was you who stole my sake, huh?” she growled, ignoring all attempts by Shizune to corral her. With every stomp of her sandaled foot, Shikamaru’s heart thudded in echo.

Stomp. Ba-dump.

Stomp. Ba-ba-dump.

Stomp. Ba-dump-ba-dump-ba-dump.

Stomp.

And now she was towering over his seat. Her fists were balled up at her sides, and she was blowing on a stray hair near her eyes that kept settling back down to rest at its original position. She looked pissed, in the way she always was when drinks and family were on the line.

“Well?”

Well, indeed. What am I supposed to do here? Run away? No that’s dumb. Stay? Fuck, this is ridiculous. But what the hell. I might as well lean into it.

Shizune seemed nervous, probably anticipating a bar brawl, but adrenaline and a full gauntlet of emotions—grief? surprise? joy? pain?—had tricked Shikamaru into thinking that he was rational and sober. He knew exactly how to handle this.

Almost against his will, his cheek tugged his lips up into a half-smile, and he nodded lazily at the bench across the table from him.

“Would you like the last bottle then?”

The patrons in his immediate vicinity all seemed to hold their breath. They were probably familiar with Tsunade’s antics and strength, if she had been loitering in this hell hole for a few days. And they were also all wary of him.

But they didn’t need to worry. If there was anything that Tsunade liked—

“Well, when you offer something like that, I can’t say no! C’mon, Shizune-chan!”

—it was the prospect of a free drink.

Beaming, she plopped herself down on the bench, tugging a clearly reluctant Shizune down next to her. The death grip that Shizune had on Tonton almost set Shikamaru on edge; he knew if he made a single wrong move, he could very well find the little pig launched at his head, a technique that surprisingly hurt a lot.

If Tsunade could sense her niece’s trepidation, though, she was amazingly good at ignoring it. She had her arm outstretched, palm tilted so that he couldn’t tell if she wanted to shake his hand or to grab his half empty cup.

He assumed the latter. “I’m sorry ma’am, I didn’t get a serving carafe when I picked up my order. I wasn’t planning on sharing tonight,” he said, a sudden return of nerves turning him surprisingly polite. How wrong I was.

Tsunade only let out a belting laugh, the picture of youth and carelessness, her jutsu and already impressive drunkenness concealing the truth of her age. “There’s no need for all that formal nonsense! Drinking from the source is always better anyways!”

Without another word, she smoothly snatched the remaining full bottle from its lone spot in the center of the table, ripping out the cork with her teeth and immediately guzzling the strong sake down her throat.

It was objectively disgusting and Shizune looked at him, mortified, but all Shikamaru could do was let a wry grin slip through. I guess she’s always been a little unpredictable, huh.

After the world’s longest pull of alcohol, she finally separated the bottle neck from her lips, sighing in contentment.

“Ah, that’s the stuff,” she said dreamily. “No matter where I go, I can always count on this brand to hit the spot.”

Shikamaru happened to know that, even with its strength and its rice polishing ratio, this type of sake was far from top shelf, even if it was a frequent choice of hers. “Hmm, is that so?” he questioned, leaning his body back a little so he could take it all in. “I thought it was only ok.”

Tsunade’s face flushed, either from the rush of alcohol or from the dishonor Shikamaru was committing against her favorite drink. “O-Ok? Only ok?” she sputtered indignantly, the glare firmly back on her face.

She would have to do better than that to intimidate him. He had dealt with her moods at their absolute worst. “Yeah, only ok. It’s strong, I’ll give you that, but the flavor leaves a lot to be desired.”

He liked the effect, for now, but nothing could convince him that the taste wasn’t gross.

Despite herself, she looked grudgingly impressed that he had fired back at her, and lowered the intensity of her glare, only choosing to shake her head back and forth in exasperation.

“Psh, what would you know anyways?” Her voice took on a high pitched, mocking tone. “Look at you, you look too green to have even sprouted the first hair on your upper lip. I bet this is your first drink.” He did his best to hide a wince. It really was his first drink, not that he would be admitting it.  “A seasoned professional like me knows quality when she sees it,” she crowed.

More like she knew how to get the best ethanol content with her limited funds.

Shizune’s eyes were darting back and forth like she was following a duel. “Tsunade-sama! There’s no need to be rude to a man sharing his drinks with you, for free might I add.”

Tsunade only waved her off. “Yeah, yeah, well he shouldn’t have taken my sake in the first place. And to have the nerve to not even like it…” she trailed off in disgruntlement, taking another swig from the rapidly emptying bottle while she was at it.

“Shishou!” she cried out again, in vain of course. Tsunade hadn’t even managed to find her manners when she had been leading a village. Shizune certainly wasn’t going to convince her to get them while drinking with a stranger in a run-down casino bar.

Seemingly aware that her effort was futile, she turned her full attention back to Shikamaru, relaxing her arms around her pig as she let her mentor drink in peace. “I am very sorry, sir, to have exposed you to my mentor’s…lacking version of gratitude. I am very thankful for your hospitality,” she eked out, head dipping in an abbreviated bow. “Please accept my apologies and my thanks on her behalf.”

Before he could wave her sentiments away, Tsunade resurfaced from the bottle and found her voice. “Ah, Shizune, there’s no need to demean yourself to pay respects to some random bum in a bar, not in a town like this. Look at the way everyone’s afraid of him. He’s probably a criminal.”

Shizune startled, as if the thought was only just occurring to her. She was still so much younger, and so much less wise than she had been when he knew her.

“Are you a criminal?” she asked, eyes wide but jaw set. He could see her inching one hand into her sleeve, where senbon were no doubt hiding. 

Shikamaru lifted his hands in protest, wanting absolutely zero part in a battle with two highly trained medic nin. “No, no I’m not a criminal,” he protested, “I’m just a bounty hunter.” In this disguise, anyways. No one here needs to know about the Nightmare.

Tsunade’s eyes sharpened with interest for the first time, intelligence and curiosity flitting back into her expression before she could hide it away again. She was formidable, still, even at the height of her alcoholism. “A bounty hunter, hmm? A shinobi on his own, my my, how dangerous. I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you, skinny kid like you.”

“Thanks,” Shikamaru drawled dryly, feeling his eye twitch in irritation. “But it’s always best not to judge by appearances. I mean, look at you. Someone could easily come away thinking that you’re much younger than you really are.”

Her eyes sharpened even more as Shizune took in a sharp breath. He was a rodent, being stared down by an owl on the hunt. “Oh? And what has you thinking I’m that much older than you, brat?”

Because I know you better than almost anyone else.

“Other than the fact that you keep calling me brat? Your companion is clearly near my age, but she calls you shishou,” he said instead, careful to step around the minefield he had run headfirst into. “There’s no reason she would be calling you master if you weren’t already old enough to have reached mastery in some sort of skill.” He smiled and rolled his shoulders, projecting ease that he didn’t quite have.  “Besides, with the way you’re packing it all away, I have to assume you’re an older, professional bar fly. Unless you somehow started drinking from birth.”

The two of them stared at each other for several tense seconds before Tsunade broke first, lowering her eyes as she let out a disbelieving huff. Her eyes still gleamed ever so slightly with suspicion, but she seemed willing to let sleeping dogs lie.

It’s not as if she could possibly guess the truth.

“You’re observant, brat, I’ll give you that,” she muttered. “You must be a talented bounty hunter.” She took another drink before clinking the now empty bottle onto the table, one hand resting on the neck. She showed no signs of wanting to leave. He should have been more worried about it, but he was oddly happy that she was staying. In a starving portion of his mind, he didn’t want her to go.

Shizune eagerly took over the conversation again, seemingly glad that her mentor was no longer drinking and that no nefarious intent had been revealed. “Would we have heard of you then, sir?”

Shikamaru shifted uncomfortably, feeling the weight of their gazes on him, before sighing. There was no reason to keep his nickname under wraps, but somehow revealing it to them, women he respected, was much more nausea-inducing than telling it to the group of parasites who had attached themselves to the bounty office. “They apparently call me the Half-Moon,” he said, remembering vividly what Idate had said to him weeks prior.  “When you hunt bounties, you develop this cold, dark, single-minded rage. The dark side of the moon. It’s like you’re a two-sided coin, Shikage. And no one can tell which part of you is the dominant one.”

Tsunade would have been disappointed with his dark side, he thought. She had always wanted Naruto’s cohort to lighten the shinobi world. But maybe that was something only Naruto was meant to do.

Regardless of what the future version of herself would have thought, the current, drunk and abrasive version of Tsunade sitting across from him clearly had formed her own opinions of his mixed reputation.

“The Half-Moon, huh? I’ve heard about you. You’ve made quite a name for yourself, in such a short amount of time. They say you’re meticulous and cold, and as mercurial as the sea,” she pondered, sounding more derisive than her words implied.

“Yeah, well,” he said, lowering his gaze to the table. He didn’t want to be seen by her, especially not in that way. It felt uncomfortable, a flak jacket that didn’t fit. “People like to spread rumors.”

“That’s true,” she replied, tone irreverent, “but rumors don’t bloom in barren soil.”

His hands tightened into fists, but he didn’t say anything. What could he say, really? That she was wrong? That would have been a lie, and he had never tried to lie to his Hokage before, even this faint impression of one.

“I heard a rumor,” Shizune interrupted, her voice sounding awed rather than disgusted. At least I have one fan. “I heard that you’re here because you killed Hidan, the Immortal Butcher, and you want to collect on his bounty.”

He finally worked up the courage to lift his head again, looking at her eager expression. If he didn’t already know about Tsunade’s eternal youth jutsu, this is how he would have known that the two women were far apart in age. Shizune was still young enough to be charmed by romanticized tales of killers like him.

“That’s true,” he confirmed. “I submitted my request for collection today.”

Had that really been today? This day had almost overstayed its welcome, dragging him through years of memories, prolonging his melancholy.

“So what, you’re here to celebrate?” Tsunade snorted belligerently, smacking Shizune’s hand away when she attempted to tug on her mentor’s sleeve.

“No,” Shikamaru sighed, feeling a surge of honesty climb his throat, “I came here to forget.”

To forget his past, to ignore his future, to regret what he had become. In a crowded room with nothing but a bottle for company, he was hoping to find the key to just being.

The harsh laughter that came pealing out of Tsunade’s throat, shredding the solemn silence that had descended on the table, felt like it was responding directly to his thoughts rather than to his words, an indictment on his foolish intent.

It was silly, he supposed, to think he could escape in a bottle. It clearly hadn’t worked for her.

“Oh, that’s maybe the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” she gasped out, her laughter fading away.

“Sure,” he said dully, staring at her distorted image through the green bottle in front of him.

“Drunk and pining over a woman, huh?” she went on, sounding bored despite the ridicule inherent in her words.

Wait. What?

“W-where did you get that impression—” he stuttered, too stunned to shut down her assumptions. Seriously, how did she guess he had been thinking about Hinata before she came?

She rolled her eyes at him. “Oh please,” she said, “as if I haven’t seen this before. Always the same, a big strong guy laid low by a woman who wouldn’t give him the time of day, drinking away his pain. It’s so played out.”

“Uh huh,” he replied like a dope, completely dumbfounded. How did the conversation get here?

“If you’re a ninja, mind the three vices better boy,” she ranted on, completely railroading him.  “When I was in active service, all this wallowing wouldn’t have been allowed.”

Ok, that’s both rude and untrue.

After gaping at her incredulously with a no-doubt amusing, open-mouthed expression on his face, he finally mustered a rebuttal. “In the half hour I’ve known you, the only things I’ve learned is that you’re a drunk and a gambler. Where do you get off telling me about the three vices?” That was like taking advice on public decency from Kakashi.

Tsunade, seemingly shameless, only grinned. “I’m not a ninja anymore!” she cried out, lifting her arms in wobbly celebration. The bottle she had gulped down was finally hitting her. “This is sweet, sweet retirement.”

This was his former Hokage. A drunken lush running away from her responsibilities, talking down to him at a bar after he loosened his morals and his senses in a quest to save the world from threats she had spent so long ignoring. Perhaps that was an uncharitable assessment of her. But right now, with his tipsiness fading away without the constant reinforcement of more drinks, the humor he might have found in this before was gone. What felt true in the moment was his utter disappointment in himself and in those dancing on the grave of the memory of people he used to know.

Shikamaru scoffed, bitterness sharper than the sake coating his tongue.  “There’s no retiring from being a shinobi,” he huffed, a sneer crawling over to settle on his face. “There’s just an honorable death or a dishonorable one.”

Remember who you’re supposed to be, you coward.

Tsunade whistled, accurately sensing the barb for what it was: a recrimination on them both. “Damn, you’re a moody kid.” She swiveled her head and dug an elbow good-naturedly into Shizune’s side, seemingly pretending that her pale face was normal. “I hate dealing with sad drunks, it ruins the buzz. Don’t you agree, Shizune-chan?”

Her blitheness rang in his ears. It ruins the buzz. In a blink, another memory invaded his mind, this time one from the apocalypse no one saw coming.

--

“Who would have thought the end of the world would have so much alcohol,” Tsunade said, her face set with disappointment, wrinkles poking through her jutsu in a way that spoke to her exhaustion.

“There’s no one around to drink it all,” Shikamaru grunted, slumped on the rocky ground next to her. “Without demand, you just have an endless supply.”

She stared at the bottle in front of her brokenly, not bothering to pop the cork. “It doesn’t taste the same, with so many people gone.”

He wondered if the image she saw in the mirage-inducing smoke from the fire was Shizune. He wondered if she wished she could join her family in the Pure Lands. He wondered if he could go too.

“I guess it wouldn’t,” was all he could say.

--

That version of Tsunade would probably hate the woman sitting across from him right now.

“Well, I’m sorry to ruin your buzz,” he shot back sarcastically, “how fucking inconsiderate of me. I should be kinder to my elders, but it’s hard to care when they do nothing to deserve it.”

“Ho, ho,” she smirked back at him, the flash of her teeth the warning of a drawn dagger. “There’s the dark side to you, finally peeking through.”

Shizune reinserted herself in the conversation, as loyal as ever in her defense of her broken mentor. “There’s no need to say anything like that to her!” she protested, face ruby red but lips pale with anger. “You have no idea—”

“No, Shizune,” Tsunade said calmly, holding up a palm to stop her. “It’s alright. I was pushing him,” was it on purpose, to scope him out? “And he didn’t say anything that isn’t true. I haven’t done anything to deserve kindness. That’s why I’m better off traveling alone.”

“Don’t start this again, shishou!” she countermanded immediately, whipping her head around to stare in despondence. “I’ll never leave you alone!”

“I know you won’t,” she sighed softly, her eyes finally shifting from vindictively amused to sad. “It doesn’t mean I think you shouldn’t. It’s not good for someone so young to clean up after an older woman like me.”

She’s even admitting she’s old?

Shikamaru deflated, feeling some of his anger leave him as his body slumped forward a little more. He had tread on something he shouldn’t have, something private and painful and years old, that did not need his bitter commentary. This Tsunade wasn’t his Tsunade, and he had felt so deceived, to be confronted with one of his old mentors again only to find that she was still struggling to deal with her age-old grief, all without knowing the evils that her loved ones had yet to encounter, the evils he had been sent back to stop. Still, it wasn’t her fault, the not knowing.  No matter how unfair this was to him, she didn’t deserve to be told, indirectly or not, that she wasn’t meant to be loved. That burden was meant for him alone.

Looking at her though, clutching an empty bottle, halfway slumped between the bench and the table, unaffected by Shizune’s hand-wringing, he wondered if he needed to amend his thoughts. Here she was, drunk, bitter, and so very different from the radiant Godaime Hokage he had once served. What was the difference, really, between this past version of her and the person he was now: broken, bitter, and waiting for reconstruction from a golden boy who cared way too much? He was as useless to Hinata as Tsunade felt she was to Shizune.

But he didn’t have to stay that way.

“Loyalty isn’t something you earn or deserve,” he started slowly, quelling Shizune’s next desperate rebuttal. She had likely forgotten he was even there. I’m sorry, Shizune-san, for distressing you. “It’s something you just receive. That’s what I’ve noticed, anyways.”

Shizune looked dumbfounded, but it wasn’t that hard to understand, really, now that he had said it aloud. Loyalty, kindness, love. It was all laced together in his mind, these days, because what was Hinata made of if not those things?

Tsunade took his words as the apology he half-meant for them to be. “Just something you’ve noticed, huh?” she said softly, an ironic smile just lightly gracing her lips. “Well, maybe it’s true. You’re observant after all, didn’t I say that? But maybe you should listen to your own advice, instead of telling it to two random women you don’t know.”

Internally, he shook his head. If he couldn’t quite believe in having that loyalty for himself, he could at least believe in it for Tsunade, on Hinata’s behalf. She would have been gentler with her than he was, he knew.

“I’ll try,” he shrugged noncommittally. “But you bring up a good point. This conversation’s become a little too deep for strangers. What are your names?” He knew them, of course, and they had said them multiple times in this conversation, but in a scenario like this, it would be rude to just start using them so familiarly.

Besides, like this, younger and more brittle, they were almost new people anyways.

“Oh!” Shizune yelped as her eyebrows flew up near her hairline. “I was scolding others about manners when I completely forgot mine! I’m sure you’ve noticed already, but my name is Shizune, and this is my pet pig, Tonton.” The pig in question released a squeal in response to his name. “And, finally, this is my mentor, the Senju princess, Tsunade-sama.”

The Ino from my dreams would have been so excited to meet her.

“Shizune-san,” he greeted cordially, “Tsunade-sama.” Was it appropriate to call her -sama, even though she was neither his leader nor a fellow member of his village? It had come out so smoothly…well, it was too late to retract, in either case. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he continued. “A Senju, huh? My family used to speak of you all. A sister clan. I never thought I would meet any.”

He could tell that though the Senju name was well-known in the Land of Fire, she was genuinely surprised that he spoke of it so familiarly, like she was family. But she was.

“A sister clan, you say,” Shizune breathed, so excited that she didn’t wait for her mentor to say anything. “What’s your name, then?”

A good question.

“Shikage. Chinami Shikage,” he said simply.

Tsunade shook herself from her stupor, a considering look making its way onto her face. “Chinami, huh? Like those obsolete people from Uzushio? I thought they were all but gone,” she stated bluntly.

“Tsunade-sama,” Shizune hissed, looking aghast. “I thought you learned your lesson just now. What happened to tact?”

Shikamaru, rather than get angry again, could only laugh it off. She hadn’t said it to be cruel. “Yes, well, there are pockets of Uzushio survivors all over the continent. Actually,” he said tentatively, tapping his fingers, “after I’m finished collecting my bounty, I’m going to meet with one of them.”

Maybe it would be best to plant some seeds of knowledge here. Or maybe I just want to know what her reaction would be.

“Oh?” she replied, pursing her lips.

“Yes,” he said more firmly this time, “an Uzumaki. You might be more familiar with them.”

Tsunade visibly startled at that, sitting straight up for the first time since she barged into his table. “An Uzumaki?” she repeated in disbelief. “Now they I truly thought were almost all extinct.” Her expression turned wistful. “There was an Uzumaki in my family tree, you know.”

Of course he knew, more than she fully realized. Uzumaki Mito was a legendary figure as the first jinchuuriki, and she had been Tsunade’s grandmother. She had known her, personally. For the first time since he had come up with his and Hinata’s cover stories, Shikamaru felt a tinge of…something unpleasant. He had never felt guilty before for appropriating the name and abilities of a long dead people, and he didn’t necessarily feel guilty now, but he found himself wanting to be more cautious in the way he spoke of them to Tsunade, because she was actually old enough to have known the residents of Uzushio as people rather than as a facet of history or a performative concept of village-wide remorse, worn only as decoration on their flak jackets and not given further thought.

It must be painful, to be confronted with a forgotten piece of your family, even though I’m just a fake.

“Do you claim that lineage then?” he asked carefully, testing his boundaries.

“No,” she said sharply, shutting down any further inquiries. She must have seen the retreat on his face though, because she was less gruff in her next statement. “No, that bloodline isn’t mine to claim. I’m already shackled enough by the Senju. Still, I know I have a lost cousin, of sorts, who lays claim to the name.”

Shikamaru perked up at the unexpected conversation thread. “A lost cousin? Do you think it’s the same person I’m going to be meeting with?”

He knew it couldn’t be, but he wanted her to keep talking.

“I doubt the world is that small,” she snorted, “and I doubt you would know him if you haven’t set foot in Konoha yet. And there’s no way you’d be wandering around here like a lost puppy if you’d already been there.”

Shikamaru smiled slightly. She’s talking about little Naruto, then.  “The person I’m meeting is a she, anyhow, so you’re right that I don’t know them. But what’s this about Konoha? Should I be expecting to be kidnapped if I go near there?”

Shizune giggled. “I’d certainly hope not.”

She wouldn’t be laughing if she knew the extent to which Danzo had control of the village. He could see in Tsunade’s eyes that she silently agreed with the course of his thoughts, but she didn’t say anything. She was preserving Shizune’s innocence, still, in her own way.

“No,” she concurred, “nothing like that. The Leaf has just always purported themselves to be a home for all the lost members of Uzushio, because of that old alliance that had you calling the Senju a sister clan.” She twisted her lips in disdain. “It’s not like that really came to matter much in the end though, did it?”

“No, they didn’t come for us when we called for help,” Shikamaru acknowledged, keeping to his façade as the descendent of a survivor. “Still, it might be nice, if me and my partner could settle down and establish roots somewhere.” He chose his words deliberately, and was rewarded with a flicker of loathing in her expression.

“There’s certainly lots of roots to go around in that village,” she muttered, dancing around the truth. So she knows about Root too, and she hates them. Good. “But I wouldn’t believe in their promises. A place full of death like that couldn’t be a home for much of anybody.”

Shikamaru winced, reminded, yet again, that this wasn’t his Tsunade, ever loyal to her village. This was a woman in the throes of despair, and nowhere near finished with her journey to get rid of her bitterness. Quite frankly, it didn’t look like she’d even bothered to start. That delay in processing her emotions is probably why both her and Jiraiya ended up old, in love, and still all alone.

The story felt too familiar.

As of right now, however, that situation was beyond his ability to remedy. Grief was a personal trail that Tsunade would have to choose traverse on her own. All he could leave her with were words he had come to know in his months of rage and sorrow, words that had only formed when he came back to reality in a blood-soaked forest, words that had only settled during this conversation.

“A home is the people you know. That’s why it hurts so fucking much when you lose them,” he pronounced grimly. She probably thought he was talking about his ‘lost clan,’ and that was for the best. Who knows? Maybe he was.

Ino, Choji, Asuma, my parents, the Naras, the rest of the Konoha Eleven. All gone.

He could see the familiar streamlines of heartache flow across her face. Ah, she understood too, in a way. “I’ll drink to that,” she croaked, before lifting up the empty bottle, as if forgetting that she had already drained it.

“Shit,” she groaned. Maybe she did forget. “There’s too much gloom and doom here to be sober. I,” she announced, rising out of her seat, “need to acquire more drinks, and find a drinking buddy who’s less of a downer.”

I guess I deserved that one too.

Shizune bowed at the waist with pig in hand, embarrassed, but for the first time she didn’t contradict Tsunade. Ouch.  

Tsunade grinned, apparently pleased that she was getting away with her rudeness for once, and Shikamaru couldn’t lie and pretend that it wasn’t nice to see her moderately happy, even at his expense. “Well, it was interesting meeting you, Shikage. Safe travels and all that. And oh,” she added mischievously, “Good luck with your woman. Those Uzumaki are firecrackers, I can see why she had you pining here in the corner.”

He flinched. She had figured him out again, huh. Well, it wasn’t like he had been very good at hiding it. Point to Tsunade, she didn’t become Hokage based on nothing.

“Thank you, I guess,” he said, shaking his head ruefully as he stood too. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll cross paths again one day, Tsunade-same, Shizune-san.”

While Shizune blushed demurely, Tsunade only wrinkled her nose. “Doubtful.” With that she turned and headed for the bar, yelling for Kyo to give her whatever he thought was good enough to make up for her inconvenience.

He felt both relieved and disappointed as he watched her go. Doubtful? Oh, you have no idea.

Well, there was no need to spoil the surprise.

On his way out the door, he dropped the empty sake bottles in the bin, placing his neglected porcelain dish in the tray above it. Cleaning up his table was an appropriate way to make up for Tsunade’s terrorization of the bartender, wasn’t it?

Whistling, he made his way back to his hotel room, dismissing a relieved looking Hiroto as he got ready to turn back in for what remained of the night.

Maybe it was the remnants of alcohol, or maybe it was the realizations he had come to while talking with Tsunade—the purpose he had refound and the acceptance of his circumstances he was just beginning to understand. Whatever the case, when he set his head against his pillow, he drifted smoothly into a sleep unhaunted by dreamy memories, his chest pulsating with stuttering warmth for the first time since he set out after Hidan.