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Chapter Text

Almost three months. Three months since Asuma failed his student. Three months of tracking every fragments of news and information on the movements of the missing nin known as Kakuzu. Close to two weeks less than that total time frame, when they first had news of Shikamaru’s survival in the first place. 

Asuma breathes deeply through his nose. When he found the blood Shikamaru left behind. Signs of life. 

Other signs have led them to this particular bounty office. Reports of Kakuzu taking the head of a rogue nin or two in the area. They’ve been camping out for a week and now? It looks like it’s finally paid off. 

Asuma shifts uneasily in his tree perch, watching for movement. They haven’t been able to be at the bounty office directly, due to some outside interference. Interference enough to miss Kakuzu entering the office himself. But not enough to miss the apparent partner he’s been dragging around, a replacement for the ‘Hiden’ taken down. 

Someone sits on the steps of the bounty office, staring up at the clouds. A sick parody of the scene that stole his student away in the first place. It only lacks the characteristic Akatsuki coat of black and red clouds. His hands tighten about his trench-knives. 

That person, with their hair put up as it is, looks so much like Shikamaru. But that’s impossible. Shouldn’t it be?

He drops down from the tree to better check, after informing his teammates of the judgment call. As he walks closer, he sees...his impression isn’t wrong. It’s...

“ Shikamaru?” The name leaves his mouth without his input. 

“Asuma-sensei?” Shikamaru looks down, away from the sky, startled. There’s something off about his eyes, the whites of them. “What are you- you need to leave.”

The teenager stands. Only to shove at Asuma’s chest, as if to make him to go. Asuma bites at his cheek. Because this...

If he knows his student, he would be fighting with every bit of stubbornness to get away from an enemy. For him to not be, right now, even with his captor not in sight-

“What does he have over you?” 

“Nothing!” his student insists, with the same energy he would use to avoid team trainings. “It’s just- I can’t go with you and you have to leave. Before Kakuzu comes out.”

Kakuzu. The name is a cold jolt running through his veins, a reminder of exactly why Asuma and the rest of the squad are here in the first place. Their target and nearly impossible one to crack. But one they don’t need to, now that their true aim is present to be rescued. 

“Don’t worry, Shikamaru, we’re getting you out of here.”

He signals to Riichi, hidden nearby. A flicker of reflected light off a field mirror signals in reply, an assurance that the request for back-up has already gone out. Good. That taken care, he further looks over his student. Who doesn’t look well. Who looks corpse-like in coloring, actually, scars of some kind going down his neck. The whites of Shikamaru’s eyes are a murky dark brown shade. The color of dried blood. Why are they that color-

The door to the bounty office opens. 

“Shikamaru, your hearts-”

There he is. Their target, dressed in clothing that exposes curse marks and heavy stitching, lacking the Akatsuki coat entirely. Kakuzu himself. Green eyes narrow. “Konoha. Of course.”

The battle begins at once. Their enemy doesn’t hesitate, instantly darting into motion with the speed Asuma recalls, with the corresponding memory ache in his leg. 

They won’t last long against such a skilled opponent. But Asuma has one trick that will do for this situation, that he’s been working on. One that will bleed the enemy enough for backup to arrive. 

Perfect aim. He can hit Kakuzu from here. He slices. Wind arcs out. Layered over and over each other like a flower, meant to cut through armor and bone and flesh alike. To hurt as much as possible, to bleed as much as possible. 

But. 

Doesn’t hit.

Kakuzu. 

Instead, eyes widening in horror, he watches Shikamaru throw himself in the way. Receiving a direct flesh rendering cut to the gut. 

“What the hell-!?” Riichi reacts first. A reaction that the rest of the squad shares. 

Because what they see now is anything but natural. Instead of the expected blood and guts pouring out of the side wound, there are long dark fleshy tendrils. Tentacles not unlike that of a squid’s, jerking occasionally from the wound. What is even worse is Shikamaru’s complete non-reaction to the injury, moving back as if there isn’t flesh dangling from his torn open body. 

Even the missing nin reacts more, hissing out a curse as he darts to Shikamaru’s side. 

“Stupid brat! Don’t get in the way!” Without a pause, the man puts his hands to the hole and starts shoving the tentacles back inside. “It’s a pain enough to put you back together without you running into chakra wind blades!”

“Maybe you should put me back together better!” Shikamaru snaps, shifting from foot to foot. Kakuzu doesn’t even bother looking up from the mass he’s apparently tending to. 

“Stop. Moving.”

Impossibly even more horrific than the flesh mass is the ashes that Asuma sees breaking away from that open wound. The ashes that flake off of Shikamaru’s body, the color of his eyes, the cracks running down his throat, how he impossibly seems to feel no pain...all point to one conclusion. Edo Tensei. Asuma swallows the bile threatening to shred his throat. 

His student is dead and is being dragged around as some fucking trophy by the man who abducted and killed him. 

No wonder Shikamaru says he can’t come home. Under Kakuzu’s control, he literally cannot. It is up to Asuma now. 

Asuma steadies his stance. Readies his trench knives, warming them with more wind chakra. 

“As his teacher, it is my duty to put my student to rest!”

Kakuzu’s head slowly turns in his direction. There’s a heaviness to the air now, a malevolence not unlike killing intent. 

“This won’t take long.” Dark tendrils crawl back under covering skin, their owner rising to his feet. Away from Shikamaru, towards the closest enemy. Which is Asuma. The squad of three move into an attack formation, ready to take down their single opponent. Too late. 

Something catches. All of them. 

“Shadow Possession Complete.”

Asuma’s eyes move over to Shikamaru, in a familiar stance with the Rat seal. The only part of him that can move, under Shadow Possession. Shit, why didn’t he think that Shikamaru would be under standing orders, as a Edo Tensei summon? There’s a reason that the teen tried so hard to get him to leave in the first place. 

The missing nin must surely be grinning under that mask of his, as he lashes out with those tentacles of his, out of his shoulders, towards the direction of Asuma’s head. Gleeful at how useful his puppet is. 

“Don’t kill them, Kakuzu!”

The tendrils almost pause. Still moving, but now they move backwards, withdraw, as Kakuzu turns just enough to eye Shikamaru. Who continues to speak. 

“Asuma-sensei needs to get back to Konoha for his kid!”

“You know-?!” He chokes out the words, lungs working to cough out smoke no longer in them. About the pregnancy-?

Shikamaru sighs, heavy and dramatic, like he still needs to breathe. A cruel parody of life. “ Of course I know, Asuma-sensei, it wasn’t hard to figure out with all the clues you scattered all over the place.”

Clues only obvious to a genius, of course. He should have guessed that Shikamaru would put the pieces of what he was seeing together, to come to the truth. But it’ll be useless against a ninja as heartless as Kakuzu of Taki. 

“I know what you’re trying to do, kid.” The man has the audacity to sound amused, as Shikamaru begs for Asuma’s life. If Asuma could move, he would hit him for it. Instead he can only strain uselessly against a jutsu full of far more power than ever before.

“I’ve killed plenty of fathers. One more isn’t a hassle and you know that.” A hooded head tilts to the side, ever so slightly. “For what you want, say please.”

Shikamaru clicks his tongue, looking more annoyed than anything else at this point. A familiar breed of annoyance that Asuma faced for himself day after day. “Tck. Fine. Please.”

Kakuzu lays hands on him with far too much pleasure in those flat green eyes, and there’s nothing Asuma can hope to do about it. Unconsciousness would be a mercy, if Asuma didn’t go into the state knowing just how much he’s failed. At how much choice has been stolen away from Nara Shikamaru. 

~

Kakuzu puts the former Guardian Ninja member into unconsciousness with no small amount of satisfaction and irritation pumping through his hearts. A shame that the man gets to live, the price on Sarutobi Asuma’s head is a decent one. But the price it would extract from his relationship with Shikamaru...Kakuzu sighs, mask moving a bit to the motion of breath. Too high. 

The rest of the Konoha nin are less...noteworthy. The temptation is strong to kill Sarutobi in the face of that disappointment, but he resists. Mostly due to the eyes he can almost feel stabbing into his back from the kid’s direction. However, too few to be a true threat to himself, and Konoha would know that. Not complete fools, and their Hokage certainly is the opposite of an idiot. They must have called in reinforcements, like when Kakuzu first met Shikamaru. He spreads out his senses, easily taking in the rapidly moving chakra signatures. Ah, here they are. 

He signs follow-retreat to Shikamaru and the other easily follows his lead into the trees. Far in the opposite direction of the swarming Leaf nin. Quick enough to escape the net they’re attempting to weave, clearly not expecting that one of their targets willingly flees them. And as they leave, Kakuzu considers the pieces at hand. 

Would be for the best to avoid Fire Country for at least a decade. Allow the friends that Shikamaru still cares about die out on their own time. The real pain is in somehow doing that avoidance while convincing Shikamaru that it’s his own idea at the same time. Not a plan guaranteed to work for long, too clever for that. But patience. One thing at a time. 

Kakuzu knows all about patience, and when it’s best to employ. That patience got him Shikamaru, didn’t it?

Once they’re far enough, Kakuzu allows his running to slow to a stop. By his side, Shikamaru follows after. Good. This should be a safe enough spot to camp out, hidden burrows and caves sprinkled about the area. 

He turns his eyes to Shikamaru. Expecting some complaints about the harsh treatment of his old teacher. Shikamaru very carefully does not meet his eyes back. 

“What news did you get, from your contacts?”

Oh? Shikamaru doesn’t want to talk about the Konoha nin? Fine, he’ll allow the change in subject. Straight to business it is. 

“Deidara wants to meet us in some town over by the border to Hot Springs.”

As predicted, the kid’s head perks up and the hearts in his dead chest pulse. Always excited to see that adopted brother of his. Even in the middle of being upset with said brother, as Shikamaru promptly remembers, moving to fold his arms over his chest and narrow his eyes in that same upset emotion. Always so expressive, Shikamaru. Even in the muted tones of Edo Tensei, but Kakuzu likes to think that the usage of Earth Grudge Fear is helping in that. Adding more blood and nerves to work with. Speaking of...

He beckons. “Come here. I need to check the nerves after that moron broke through.”

“He’s not a moron, that’s Naruto,” Shikamaru complains, as he walks over. Allows Kakuzu to rest his fingers under his shirt, and for the tendrils of Grudge crawls out from underneath Kakuzu’s flesh into his own. 

“Only a moron attacks without accounting for all the pieces on the field.”

“Give Asuma-sensei some slack, Kakuzu, he thought I was a captured knight, not a-”

“Not an enemy rook?” Kakuzu finishes for him, feeling out for any tears and rips in the nerve endings, anything that needs to be patched back together. Wind jutsu might be more a threat than he thought, something to be accounted for in the future. 

Edo Tensei is an interesting jutsu in that it constantly tries to eradicate anything foreign to the original dead host. Thankfully, cancer is just as hostile back, leading to an ongoing war in Shikamaru’s body. One where Kakuzu occasionally has to step in, when Edo Tensei appears to be gaining the upper hand, enough to target the Water and Earth Hearts Shikamaru currently carries. But a war that allows Shikamaru to feel more than intense pressure alone, bodily feelings like heat and extremely light touch. In certain parts of the body, of course. With time, Kakuzu hopes it will spread to all parts. 

The wind energy from the Konoha nin appears to have not cut entirely through the upper layer of Edo Tensei-d skin to the cancer underneath. 

Kakuzu sits back on his heels. Good. 

“Everything good?” Shikamaru squints at him. 

“You’re in good condition,” Kakuzu says in acknowledgement, withdrawing his tendrils back under his skin. Normal iryo jutsu doesn’t work directly on corpses, even partially alive ones, so he’s had to do a lot of healing and diagnostics manually. A slow process but not one Kakuzu won’t lie about enjoying it. Something satisfactory about physically feeling what’s going on in the body.   

“You need to eat something,” Shikamaru insists, making to open one of their shared sealing scrolls to take out cooking gear. Kakuzu lets him, mostly because he’s right. Takes a lot of energy, and he’s feeling pretty hungry. Shikamaru can handle food tonight, if he wants to so badly. Wanting to feel useful, despite his own lack of needing to eat. 

A simple stew is what the teen settles on, using local forage. Kakuzu wolfs it down quickly, chasing the hunger away, so he can set about finishing up camp. He eyes the teenager already sorting through the camp sealing scrolls, searching for the right ones for Konoha style woods. 

If Shikamaru doesn’t do it first...

“Kid, sit down, I can handle that. Yes, that.”

As Kakuzu finishes the last of the necessary camp set up for the night, he lets his realization settle into him. A familiar pressure is absent. Shikamaru hasn’t come over to sit against him tonight. Hm. 

Since Kakuzu figured out how to reconnect nerves through dead flesh, Shikamaru has almost returned to his normal levels of comfort seeking. Almost being the key word, of course. 

There are times where he refuses to even look in Kakuzu’s direction, insistent on being alone like ‘a corpse abomination’ should be, as Shikamaru’s shouted at him multiple times in said moods. Set off by complicated mental traps Kakuzu can’t even imagine fathoming at times. 

Times like now, apparently. 

Kakuzu lifts his gaze to see Shikamaru squatted across the fire, hugging his legs to his chest. Dried blood eyes almost glow, intent on said fire. As he watches, Shikamaru’s hand reaches out into the fire’s heart. Holding his fingers in the fire until they burn to bone and then repeat, after the flesh rebuilds itself on said bones. There’s no scent of burning flesh, because that’s not how Edo Tensei works. There certainly is an outflowing of ashes that join the smoke, though. 

This again?

Kakuzu sits up fully, scooting across his travel futon, around the fire, to better reach for Shikamaru. Who looks up in time, from his combustion, to scoot away from his hand. 

“Leave me alone, ” the teenager snarls. 

“Don’t set yourself on fire,” Kakuzu rumbles back, “And I will.”

“It’s not like I’m damaging anything,” is the answering grumble. 

“You don’t know that, in your in-between state,” Kakuzu corrects, reaching out once more. “You constantly burning your fingers off over and over could be preventing Earth Grudge Fear from spreading into your hands.”

This time Shikamaru allows him to wrap a hand about his wrist. Tugging him closer to Kakuzu’s body, towards where he can cage Shikamaru in with his much longer arms and legs. Away from the fire, where the teen sulks, head thumping back against Kakuzu’s chest. 

That taken care of, Kakuzu focuses. Feels. Properly feels for the hearts he’s removed from his own flesh, to transplant into the much more dead flesh of a Edo Tensei summon. Of Shikamaru. 

Thump. Di-thump. 

Shikamaru’s hearts are pumping, out of tandem. A sign of emotional upheaval, of stress, when they do that, Kakuzu’s learned over time and a few tests.

What is the cause this time? Teenagers are so complicated. Probably not Konoha alone, they’ve been around other Konoha nin before. Kakuzu wracks his mind for the exact details of today until he hits upon what he thinks the answer is in this case. Ah right. Sarutobi Asuma. Apparently also Shikamaru’s team sensei. Try that line of thought. 

“I won’t kill him, your teacher. If you don’t want me to.” Irritating as that will be. 

“It’s not that.” Shikamaru lifts his other hand to his mouth, to bite uselessly at his nails. Uselessly, because said nails are too tough now to be bitten off. Kakuzu waits, patiently rubbing at a cold neck that gradually warms under his touch. 

“Why is Asuma-sensei still looking for me? He needs to go home, go back to Kurenai-san and get married and take care of his kid, not hunting for me.”

This again. This issue that Shikamaru has with seeing that he’s worth something. 

There are times where Kakuzu seriously contemplates making a serious attempt to burn one of the fucking Hashirama forests down. Take out a Konoha outpost or two hidden in the damned overgrowth of Fire Country. Maybe ruin some contacts of Konoha he knows the Toad Sage values. He may have taken his revenge from the Hidden Leaf long ago but... his eyes flick over the teenager leaning into his rubbing hands. For Shikamaru, he might make another try at it. 

He’d have no luck in convincing Shikamaru of that right, however. The kid’s still devoted to the people of his home village, even after everything it’s done to him, and Kakuzu’s certainly in no place to shout down loyalty to an undeserving home. 

“Why wouldn’t they want you, kojika? You took down the Akatsuki with your cleverness.”

There’s no longer a flush at the compliment, only a pick up in twin hearts beating. A speed that quickly decreases, as that single compliment isn’t enough to drive Shikamura from his dour mood. 

He leans into his hands, away from Kakuzu’s touches. “Now Asuma-sensei’s going to hunt you down so he can bury me. He’s too stubborn to give that up, not after his father was killed by Edo Tensei summons...”

Kakuzu tilts his head. Now that he hasn’t heard, the Third Hokage’s death from Edo Tensei involvement. He supposes that would be a tool Orochimaru would use, seeing how Kakuzu browbeat his spy in the first place to bring Shikamaru back. 

“Who was summoned?”

Shikamaru frowns up at him apologetically. “The First and Second Hokage.”

Kakuzu can’t help how his shoulders reflexively tense. Of course it’s those bastards. But thinking on it, killing their own successor seems a far sweeter revenge than merely killing the tree bastard or the moon calf. Not bad, Orochimaru, though no way in hell Kakuzu would ever tell the man that to his face. 

Small hands reach up to smooth at his shoulders, to push the tenseness away. Kakuzu allows the touch, relaxing into it. The coldness of said hands doesn’t matter, only the feeling of the touch they bring. 

“So they’ll want you dead because they’ll think you summoned me, they won’t know about Kabuto or how he’s already dead.”

Kakuzu allows a curl on his lips, towards a smile, at the thought of that particular death. A motion enough to tug at his cheek stitches. 

“Maybe if we send Konoha my body, it’ll convince them to back off? No, that might buy time but they’ll hear news sooner or later about us...” Pleasant to hear Shikamaru think out loud. Most thoughts and clever planning are an inward thing but it’s been nice having enough trust between them that the teenager will want him to know what’s being planned. Very nice indeed. Kakuzu’s hearts (and Shikamaru’s original among them) thump in unison. 

He gently guides Shikamaru back to his bed with him and Shikamaru allows it. Out of that mood, good, thinking deeply like he truly enjoys. Kakuzu curls onto his side, and Shikamaru curls into the curve of his body, as they’ve been doing every night together. Shikamaru is unable to sleep, made so by his very nature, but at least he remains comforted enough by the warmth of Kakuzu’s body to remain there overnight. One day Kakuzu will have integrated Earth Grudge Fear enough that sleep will be an actual possibility, instead of a quality that Shikamaru constantly complains about missing. 

They definitely have the time now, to figure it out. 

Kakuzu sleeps and is content in it. Content with the small body that chooses to be pressed against him. 

Chapter Text

If Ino can really pinpoint where her trust in a world that made sense began to unravel (not that it was ever strong in the first place), it is in a rotten cave over a just as rotten body. The body of Yakushi Kabuto, to be exact. No risk of him returning. 

Because Kabuto is...splattered, for lack of better words on the state of his corpse. Head completely collapsed, punched through, brain splattered everywhere, ribcage ripped open. Very very dead. None of the healing tricks Naruto complained that Kabuto could play could fix this. However.

Sakura looks up from her examination, green eyes serious. “His heart is missing.”

“Missing? Isn’t it smashed like the rest?”

“No,” Sakura shakes her head, “The removal is...clean. It makes no sense to remove the heart to only destroy somewhere else in here.”

But where could that heart be? And why would it be taken in the first place, where the rest of Kabuto has been left to offensively rot? Questions that can only be answered by the bastard who stole away both Shikamaru and Sasuke-kun in the first place. Because it’s those tracks that led them here. 

Sasuke-kun is alright, for his condition, thank the gods above and below. But Kakuzu has completely disappeared, no further tracks to trace, even with Kakashi-sensei’s tracking skills at hand. And with Kakuzu’s disappearance, there is no sign of Shikamaru either. 

They examine the caves-labs a little longer, but not much longer, not when Sasuke-kun needs more extended medical help so badly. Some notes on Edo Tensei, promptly confiscated for the Hokage to look at. Other rambling nonsense on Orochimaru’s disappearance. Dead corpses, medically examined and clearly dead for much longer than Kabuto has been. Nothing to say why Kakuzu would be there. Or Shikamaru.

It’s a month later, after the death of Yakushi Kabuto, that Ino finds her world shaken once more. And knows, with all her heart, why Kakuzu went to those caves in the first place that month ago. The shaking begins with a simple phrase, said to her and Choji, from the mouth of an exhausted looking Asuma-sensei in the Hokage’s office. 

“Shikamaru is dead.”

“Asuma-sensei, you have to be wrong,” Choji says immediately, stepping forward. 

Asuma-sensei shakes his head wearily. “Kakuzu brought him back using Edo Tensei.”

His hand reaches up to rub at his face. For once, he’s not smoking, and the image is just wrong. 

Tsunade-sama frowns, hands fold into each other on her desk. “ Kakuzu used Edo Tensei? That is not in his listed capabilities.”

“But it is in Kabuto’s capabilities, who he visited and killed a month ago,” Ino adds. 

“Ah. I see. Still...” Painted fingernails rub against the wood top of the desk.The discussion doesn’t change much from there.  

There’s a funeral. 

No one on Team Ten attends it. Not when they don’t even have a body. Asuma-sensei and Choji go to train, to get stronger. Ino...she looks. She looks for information, facts, anything she can use about Edo Tensei. 

There’s not a lot of information available for Ino on Edo Tensei, seeing that it’s a forbidden jutsu. One that killed the Sandaime. No wonder Asuma-sensei is so bothered. 

To think about what a missing nin could be doing with Shikamaru’s trapped corpse... Nightmare material. Enough that Ino will, and does, wake up for several nights afterward over it, panting for a breath that her teammate can no longer take. 

Don’t worry, Shikamaru, she promises on those long nights, we’ll bring you home. 

I swear. 

~

Deidara hums to himself as he resists the urge to completely destroy the hot springs resort surrounding him. The fucking Moya nin, the tourists, the fact that Hidan came from here...ugh. Gross. The place’d look much better under the light of a good C4 mix, honestly. 

But he’s here for a reason. A reason that doesn’t involve wiping this place off every map, past and future. And that reason is currently...Deidara shades his eyes. Yep. That’s what he’s seeing. 

Shikamaru’s cuddling into Kakuzu’s side. Again. 

He can’t help but lift his upper lip at the sight. The pair, if possible, have gotten even more schmoopy without their cover. Makes Deidara want to barf at times, seeing that nonsense. Nonsense that he doesn’t really get why it’s still happening. Yeah, it was the cover the partnered pair were under, but still? Even after the Akatsuki’s nothing? Weird shit. 

They say Iwa nin are some of the best at holding grudges, as hard as the rocks they live in, and Deidara definitely lives up to that. Shikamaru-kun might be over the way Kakuzu treated him at the start, but Deidara will remember for him. For when the bounty hunter inevitably fucks up again. Like he did with the drowning mess. And by the way Kakuzu meets his eyes, looking away from Shikamaru, the older nin knows that too. 

A gentle push, at Shikamaru’s shoulder towards Deidara. Then he settles down, one knee pulled up, and takes out a book. The very picture of unbothered. Keeping an eye out. Good. He and Shikamaru can properly talk then, the first time since they finally killed Itachi.   

Shikamaru opens up with, “I have two hearts now. Kakuzu got me a water one.”

“New heart, huh?” Kakuzu’s technique is weird, and Deidara has no desire to understand how it works ever. But if it’s getting Shikamaru to look more alive before...

“Here’s the mask for it.” The teen lifts up his shirt before Deidara even has to ask to see.

Deidara squints at another example of Kakuzu’s creative attempts at some kind of animal for his Earth Grudge masks. “What’s that supposed to be, another kind of dragon?” A bit more green than the last one...

Shikamaru presses a hand briefly on the scale pattern along the edge that tapers into underneath his skin. “A snake, actually.”

Deidara squints harder. He supposes that he puts the vague pattern of a V along the edges, the scales, and the forked tongue together, it could be a snake. But..

“Shitty snake, un.”

Shikamaru chokes out a laugh. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad. But Kakuzu’s shark mask is even worse.”

“I’d have to see it to believe it,” Deidara declares, stepping back after one allowed swipe at the clay with his hand-tongue. Same taste as before, same clay. Old man knows what he likes and keeps to it, of course he would, that’s how old men are. If Kakuzu was serious about teaching Shikamaru how to make his masks, then Deidara’s gotta get in on that. See if there’s a clay that might work better for his little brother, or at least give Shikamaru a better artistic sense for the masks. Not that Kakuzu’s artistic sense is hard to beat in the first place. 

Shikamaru lowers his shirt and clears his throat. “What have you been doing?”

“Nothing much.” Deidara shrugs. “Testing new mixtures, making new art pieces, remembering what Itachi’s prissy face looked like when we killed him...”

He smiles at the recalled memory, content.

“How it’s like being alive again?”

Dumb question. Judging by how Shikamaru’s face screws up at him, ready to yell. What comes out is worse than a shout, hissed venom. 

“I don’t know, what would it feel like to be Sasori’s puppet?”

Shit. Deidara flinches at the thought, he can’t help it. Sometimes he still wakes in a cold sweat at night, frantically checking over his body, checking that he can move and that he’s still flesh and not wood...

A barb aimed to hurt. Shikamaru-kun really is good at that, isn’t he? But the teen isn’t right in the comparison. Deidara doesn’t think, at least. 

“Danna...” he swallows. “He’d hate if I did anything to my body he didn’t want. Like it was his and not mine. One time, I was gonna get some piercings and he was pissed, un.”

He glances over to Shikamaru. “Is Kakuzu like that, with his hearts?”

A hand rests over the mask hidden under his shirt as the teen thinks. Says, reluctantly, “No. Not that it matters like this. I’m an Edo Tensei, I’ll keep going even after my heart gets pulled out.”

“So Kakuzu can’t threaten you with the hearts he puts in you at all?” He pushes. 

“No,” Shikamaru says again. “He can’t.” 

There’s a mutter about he won’t even stop me from putting my arms in the fire, but Deidara ignores that for his own sanity. Sounds like an exaggeration and stupid on top of that. Why would Shikamaru do that anyway?

Shikamaru blinks his eyes rapidly. It takes a moment for Deidara to get what’s happening: he’s trying to cry. But as a living corpse, he has no tear ducts. Nothing that can come free. 

“Shit. No, no.” Or trying to stop crying? Crying that won’t come?

“Shikamaru-kun, it’s okay, ” Deidara attempts to soothe, reaching out to pat his arm.  

“I don’t get it. I’m supposed to get it, but I don’t,” Shikamaru pulls back, protesting...something. Which hell’s his brain at now?

“Get what?” He asks cautiously. Don’t need to be setting off explosive seals here. 

“Kakuzu’s the enemy, he took me, but-” Shikamaru shifts his head awkwardly to the side. “He brought me back. But Asuma-sensei wants me dead, he didn’t ask me, treated me like I’m a traitor and he saw . Why does Kakuzu care more than my village?”

The last question is almost a shout and Deidara can see Kakuzu’s head lifting up, reacting. He signs a quick stand down, handled, and the man does, thankfully. Not charging in to fuck this up more. Because another confirmation of Kakuzu giving a shit about him might break his little brother right now. 

Fuck. Fuck those shitty villages, each and every one of them. Fuck Kakuzu too, while he’s at it, but not as much, because at least the man’s trying. 

“It’s hard, nii-san,” the teenager chokes, “It’s so hard.”

Deidara tucks Shikamaru’s head into his shoulder, hugging him as hard as he can. The body that hugs him is, of course, cold. Stiff. Like a corpse should be, if not the strange pounding that’s more than a normal heartbeat emanating from his chest area. 

There’s one last thing Deidara can ask. A killing blow to the sadness he’s hearing, he hopes. 

“Did you ask him?” 

Shikamaru pauses. Swallowing to push down his choking. “What?”

“Did you ask him if he’d let you go?” Deidara repeats. Just like his little brother to miss the obvious, the rocks for the cliff. Cliffs are distracting, sure. But getting too distracted by them is how people get killed in other ways, make big mistakes. Like a mistake Shikamaru seems about to make here. 

“Wh- why would I ask him that?” Shikamaru throws up his hands. “He brought me back, he doesn’t want me to go back to being dead!”

Decent point. But Deidara doesn’t want Shikamaru going back to being dead either. And Deidara would... One of his hand-tongues licks nervously along his inner wrist. Deidara fights back the urge to swallow in turn. 

“If he said no, and you asked me... I’d help you.” He’d hate every second of it, currently hates every word coming out of his mouth, but they are words that he needs to say with how miserable his little brother looks right now. An offer to be made. 

“Oh.” Not many times Shikamaru has looked completely shocked, but this is definitely one of them. Standing there, just staring at Deidara. The complete lack of breathing or blinking is more noticeable in the lack of movement. 

Deidara asks another question, one he’s asked before and one he’s been internally dreading asking Shikamaru again. If only for the answer he’s almost certain he’ll receive.

“Shikamaru-kun... do you want to die?”

Shikamaru stares down at his hands. Absently, he turns them over, back to palm. Palm to back. “It would be easier if I wanted to. But...”

Deidara notes, across the distance, that Kakuzu looks briefly from his book, before looking down again. Pointedly staying out of whatever he might have sensed. Good. 

“When Samehada bit off my leg. And after that. I didn’t want to die. It hurt, but I wanted to...stay. Figure things out.”

A bitter laugh. “Isn’t that fucked up? Isn’t that perfect? That I only figure out that living’s not too bad after all right before I die for real.”

The dead fingers flex. Tendons move like they should in living bodies, something that even Danna’s puppets hadn’t been able to properly pull off. But then, maybe that was the point, in those puppets. Danna didn’t like the flaws of a human body, after all. 

Dead eyes roll up to meet Deidara’s watching gaze. 

“Like this...I can’t feel much. What’s the point of being around like this?”

“So if you could feel things again, properly, you’d want to live?” Stay?

The whispered answer is more than Diedara could hope for, seriously. 

“Yes.”

He whoops and hugs Shikamaru again. “Great! Then let’s get Kakuzu working on it, or maybe I can find some old notes of Danna’s that can help out, we can fix this, un.”

A small smile. “Thanks, nii-san.”

Shikamaru pats heavily at his back, pulling out of the hug quicker than last time. “I’ve got to go. Kakuzu and I have a meeting to go to.”

Deidara peers at him suspiciously. “What kind of meeting?”

“Some yakuza one. Kakuzu said he was going to introduce me to some of his contacts and I thought this was a good way to get a jump on that.”

He thought, huh? His choice, not Kakuzu’s. Good. Deidara relaxes, waving the teenager off. “Have fun pissing off the yakuza!”

He snickers when Shikamaru pulls a face at him (stiff as it is) before heading off towards where Kakuzu’s camped himself out under some fancy overhang. Upon seeing Shikamaru coming, the man stands up. Good. That’s handled. 

Deidara starts to hum again. Thinking. Wait, there was something else he picked up...Deidara tilts his head back. Thinking. Should he say something about those Konoha nin he saw earlier, following some noble like a line of ducklings? Nah. It’s probably fine. Not like they’d be able to do anything with Kakuzu in the room, anyway. 

One of those nin looked about Shikamaru’s age. Probably a classmate. If he doesn’t tell Shikamaru about her, the chances are good that he’ll get surprised into an honest conversation. It’ll be good for his little brother. Bleed out the poison of abandonment a bit. But maybe... he takes out some clay. Starts molding out wings, a beak. Warning Kakuzu, probably a good idea. Deidara can do that. 

Then he can start a new project! Never a dull day, as a free roaming artist. 

~

The Hot Springs courtier mission is expected. Happens like clockwork, on varying scheduled dates, every two years or so. This will be Ino’s first time on this mission, first time working under a more high ranked noble like this directly, but she’s ready. She’s prepared for this. And maybe, just maybe, this mission might get her more information on where Shikamaru is, closer to the underworld as it is. 

The mission is straightforward enough. Serve undercover, as Lord Supaku’s newly hired scribe, as her three teammates work as the more visual Konohan nin bodyguards. She will be scribing for him as he attends a meeting with a group of Fire Country-allied merchants. Nominally. 

Ino taps her fingers on the report, considering the truth of the situation. That many of these merchants are more akin to smugglers. Or connected to the actual yakuza. The Fire Daimyo’s attempt to keep some kind of eye on the criminal underworld of his lands. 

There’s a number of names on the list to watch carefully, but the most vital one is that of who holds the meetings: an older man who goes by Karuta. Most likely not the leader of the local yakuza groups directly, but certainly an individual of influence. Influence enough to have one of the Fire Daimyo’s court meet with him year after year. A court member, that before mentioned Lord Supaku, who requests the same number of Konoha nin for that appointed meeting, and always at least one Yamanaka. Why a Yamanaka? Well, rumor is that their employer likes the look of blondes. And blonde...Ino tosses her hair casually over her shoulder. Blonde she definitely is. 

They’ve gotten there pretty early, as a party, but not too early. Not be too eager to meet with the apparent scum of earth, that’s how nobles think. Ino sets up her scribing materials as her teammates take guard positions. Out of sight like proper ninja bodyguards, of course. As she readies the scrolls and ink, she takes a brief moment to survey the room. 

Round table in the center, two other scribes sitting off to the side like herself. Every chair is filled at the table currently, about eight different individuals. One chair seems to be very specifically empty, but she’s no Shikamaru to extrapolate what that means from a single look. So she settles her eyes on the head of the table. 

Karuta-sama. The host of this affair. 

He wears a well tailored suit, edged with gold and purple along the cuffs. Expensive. Showy. His eyebrows are bolded, over gray eyes, filled in and traced out in a dramatic black dye. New style, Ino knows. Also, in her opinion, very stupid looking. Especially contrasted with the more silvery hair the man has. Silver hair that’s actually an indication of age in Karuta-sama’s case, not of lineage. 

Everyone else in the room is much less important, but she notes them anyway. The more information the better, that’s- something’s behind the door. Something that weighs the air down, making it harder to breathe, for a second. A presence. One that opens the door to enter. She watches, from the corner of her eye, stooped over her papers. 

Someone new enters the room, stooping through the lowered doorway. A masked face, a hooded head, cloaked body, but one that Ino still knows. A surprise enough to almost get her to drop her pen. A face she knows from staring at its bounty poster. From what its owner has done. 

“Ah, Kakuzu-san, a pleasure to see you.” Karuta-sama waves a lazy hand towards an empty seat towards the end of the table. One that seems to have been left specifically open for this purpose, Ino soon realizes as that missing nin moves in that seat’s direction. Has been this entire time, from when he entered the room. Entered the room with...

Ino barely bites back the gasp in her throat, a shudder in her veins. Her fellow Konoha nin aren’t much better, chakra quaking at the unexpected sight though their faces remain outwardly still. The sight of Shikamaru following after. 

Stupid, stupid! She berates herself. The second Kakuzu appeared, she should have expected Shikamaru! Asuma-sensei said the man had been treating their teammate like a trophy, and one didn’t leave trophies behind to be stolen by someone else. Especially if they knew other people were after said trophy. 

Ino can’t stare, drink in the sight of her childhood friend, no matter how much she wants to. What she can do, is sneak peeks in Kakuzu’s direction, as a newly hired scribe would, afraid out of her wits by this large scary missing nin, and catch what little she can of Shikamaru that way. 

It’s a piece of unexpected luck that Shikamaru is lingering closely to Kakuzu, then. Fairly closely, enough for him to duck into the other’s space if he wanted to. Hmm.  

Karuta-sama’s bold eyebrows lift. “Ah, an unexpected guest! Is this your new partner I’ve been hearing about?”

“Yes.” Short. Nothing expanded on. Not even bragging about he’s taken a member of one of Konoha’s key clans, an heir to that clan. If Shikamaru’s a trophy...why not bring those details up? Ino almost scratches a hole in the paper, before correcting herself just in time. The pen’s fault, not hers, different from a brush, that’s all. That’s all. 

Kakuzu sits in the empty chair and Shikamaru sits on him. Twists so his legs sprawl across chair arm on the other side and lap, leaning up against Kakuzu’s upper arm and chest. Shikamaru, who at times flinches back from Choji of all people, from his hugs. Touching his kidnapper, sitting on him in such an intimate way like it’s nothing! Something is very very wrong. Ino can feel it in her gut. 

“Sometimes a man has to wonder...” A glint of interest in those gray eyes that Ino will definitely have to report on later. “What exactly the Akatsuki did to hire you, Kakuzu-san. I’ve heard all kinds of rumors, but perhaps your employers will enlighten me themselves?” 

“The Akatsuki no longer exists. Not to hire, not to oppose,” Kakuzu says curtly. He leans forward to knock his knuckles against the table, Shikamaru shifting easily to the side to allow him the gesture. “Are you going to stick to small talk all day, Karuta-san?”

Karuta-sama leans back into his throne-like chair, seemingly unbothered by the lack of respect the ninja shows him. Not even insistent on the honorific that Ino’s own employer had been fervent that they should always use, no matter what. 

“Always the same, Kakuzu-san, always the same. Yes, let us continue on with business.”

With that, discussion of the past subject (something on silk embargos) starts up again, most in the room occasionally glancing nervously in Kakuzu’s direction here and there. Kakuzu who does nothing, says nothing. With Shikamaru draped across him. 

Ino takes the minutes, her hands moving quickly as her mind whirls. She’s too directly positioned to communicate much to her teammates, but she knows they must be taking note of the situation themselves. Of how Shikamaru... is. Is here. 

She knows from her sensei’s report that Shikamaru is of Edo Tensei now, but it’s different seeing the sallowness to his skin in person. The darkness swallowing up his eye whites. But somehow he’s still lifelike enough that none of the non-ninja in the room will know that there’s anything wrong or off. More than the more inhuman ninja clans, anyway. 

He shifts and sighs like he’s still alive, seeking a more comfortable spot on Kakuzu’s lap. Rubbing at Kakuzu’s exposed wrist, on the arm closest to him, periodically-

Ino shifts the page, making it as if to turn it to start a new line of ink. 

No. Not rubbing. Tapping. Tap code, communication to Kakuzu. Hidden behind said wrist, but still clearly happening despite her being unable to catch the exact words being exchanged. Can orders really be that strict for Edo Tensei summons, enough to push Shikamaru to work so casually with an enemy like this?

For that matter, why is Kakuzu here? 

The discussion changes topics two more times before Ino finally puts the pieces together, horribly slow of her. Kakuzu’s reason for being here escapes her but Karuta-sama’s reason for having him here ...a show of force. A show of influence. See, I have an extremely dangerous missing nin present, what can the rest of you do in the face of that? 

Sake is poured out, by an older woman who probably serves as a spy for at least one faction in this room, if not multiple. Kakuzu is included, and the man easily reaches out for the small cup placed before him. 

But before those fingers can close around the cup... Shikamaru outright swipes it. Sips from it without hesitation. Even worse, Ino hears a low rumble come from the missing nin. Something that might even be called laughter. Amusement. 

“Holding to your promise?”

“I said I would, wouldn’t I?” Shikamaru snaps back, almost playful, and Ino doesn’t have to fight the urge to stare because everyone else stares too. “Be in charge of this.”

He sloshes the cup, sake almost spilling over the sides from the gesture. Straight after, her teammate takes another confident drink. Unafraid of possible poisons. 

(Because he’s dead, Ino, you know that.)  

Ino’s throat is dry. So very dry. 

“Ah, so it’s that kind of partner, Kakuzu-san, why didn’t you say? We would have provided a proper welcome,” Karuta-sama almost pouts from his seat, tilting his sake back and forth. The signs of amusement, small as they were, drain instantly from Kakuzu. Back to the seriousness of before, of this entire time. 

“Because it’s none of your damn business, Karuta.” Kakuzu gestures to the space between them, indicating himself and his spoken target. “You and I both know why I’m here and my partner is incidental.”

A pale dead hand lays itself on Kakuzu’s shoulder, as if to hold him back. The man instantly stills. Allowing the hand’s owner to lean forward onto the table itself, body angled in Karuta-sama’s direction. 

“Don’t worry about Kakuzu, he’s just in a bad mood. I don’t mind saying hello.”

“And a name?” Karuta-sama prompts. 

Shikamaru almost smiles. “Not for you.” 

Her friend leans back to almost nuzzle into Kakuzu’s neck, who is still glaring in the direction of Karuta-sama. 

That’s when Ino gets it. The nagging inside of her brain, the itch of why this outrageous acting of Shikamaru seems so familiar...He didn’t. 

(He did.)

The overwrought gestures, the wording, he’s copying what she does when she flirts for a cover! The nerve! A baiting Shikamaru with seeming overly jealous Kakuzu...It’s the exact same game that Ino’s supposed to play on her employer later, innocent Ino and overprotective Sao-san. Moves that might even be less successful due to this playing out before their eyes right now. The pen between her fingers nearly snaps, but at least she doesn’t throw it like her heart screams to. No teeth grinding either. 

Shikamaru! If you had to pay attention to anything about me, why that?!  

Ino thinks she’s got a truly commendable amount of control, to get through the rest of the meeting without any further reaction on her part. Even more control is needed to give a proper report to her employer, waiting with a tamped down vibration under her skin to be dismissed. So she can chase after who really matters. 

Two of her teammates come with her, a third, Izuno-san, remains behind to guard Lord Supaku. 

“Are you sure about this, Ino-chan?” Sao-san asks her, thick forehead crumpling in concern. “I mean, the missing nin is still with him. ”

“I only want to talk,” Ino assures him. “There’s enough civilians around here too, that even a missing nin won’t want to get into a big fight.”

A big fight that no one on the team would be able to do much on, is what she doesn’t say. It would be handy for her particular jutsu for there to be another Nara on the team right now, but...Ino mentally scowls. The Nara Clan has been...nervous lately, to volunteer their members to help the teammates of their former heir. Especially after Kakuzu took another Nara, to apparently serve as a sacrifice to bring Shikamaru back, from what Intel can most likely guess off of Kabuto’s Edo Tensei notes. 

She understands, she doesn’t really want to work with any Nara other than Shikamaru anyway. But also... cowards. 

She spots her target ahead, a familiar spike of ponytail bobbing up and down. She follows. Her teammates disappear off to the sides, hiding in case she needs support and cover. 

Shikamaru, alongside the missing nin, seems to be leading her off into a small marked-off area. Some kind of service tent. Perfect for privacy and also getting yourself killed, or a tail killed. Looks like her cover’s blown. Oh well. She calls out. “Shikamaru!”

He turns. “Ino?” 

Face to face with Shikamaru directly, it’s so hard not to flinch. Because everything about him is off now, his face stiff, his body so still. So much fewer of the tells she’s learned as part of her clan techniques and from being around Shikamaru so long. He’s changed now and Ino can’t say it’s for the better. Not when he’s dead this way. 

Kakuzu is difficult to face in a different way. It takes all of her training to swallow back her anger that this scarred man was one who caused Shikamaru’s death, if he didn’t kill him outright. Who was forcing Shikamaru to stay around in death. 

Cold green eyes look her over. After surveying the surrounding area, clearly picking out where two of her teammates are hiding. “Yamanaka. Teammate of yours?”

Shikamaru rolls his neck. A gesture that doesn’t mean anything now, neck not making a familiar popping sound. “Yeah, this is Ino.” He glances upwards at the man. “Mind giving us some privacy for a talk, Daddy?”

Kakuzu makes something that sounds like a sigh before stepping out of sight. Leaving Ino’s brain to spiral. Daddy. Daddy. In this context, Daddy has to be... Kakuzu?! His abductor?!

“ Daddy?” Ino chokes. Around her, she can feel her teammates reacting similarly, gentle spikes of shock in their chakra that could expose them if they’re not careful. Ino flares her own chakra, full of surprise, to cover any slips. 

No expected blush of embarrassment as Shikamaru realizes what he’s said. Only a forehead wrinkling up in a similar indication. 

“Look, it’s none of your business.”

She scowls at him. “The hell it’s not my business, Shikamaru, you’re my teammate!”

At that, he outright flinches. “Ino, I’m dead. That disqualifies me to be your teammate by default.”

If that is why he’s not fighting back? Not struggling to get back to Konoha, because Shikamaru thinks they wouldn’t accept him in his dead state? Her heart aches. She folds her arms over her chest. “If that was true, then Kakashi-sensei wouldn’t be visiting the memorial stone nearly every day.”

“That’s the honorable dead,” Shikamaru scoffs, his blood filled eyes narrowing in a proper glare in her direction. “I’m the exact opposite of that, walking around and being troublesome.”

He spreads his arms, indicating his entire body and form. A moving corpse just like he said, one that moves but doesn’t breathe. Uncanny. Unnatural. 

“If I did come back to Konoha, what would you do? Put me in T&I? Permanently kill me with seals somehow? Ino, what are you going to do?”

Ino tugs slightly at the end of her hair. The answer to that...she doesn’t know. There’s never been a situation like Shikamaru’s, she’s uncomfortably aware of. Not when the forbidden technique of Edo Tensei has always been a Konohan one. Oh, Ino really needs to talk to Sakura about this, figure things out with her best friend. And her best friend’s teacher, the best medic-nin in history. 

“We can talk to Tsunade-shishou about it.”

This time, when those dead dead eyes look at her, Ino can’t help but feel that the owner of said eyes is disappointed in her answer. Somehow. Before she can say anything, try and correct whatever she’s done wrong, a deep bored voice interrupts. One that she does not want to be hearing. 

“Are you done?” Kakuzu, of course. Come back from where he was lingering, not very far from their discussion, actually. No doubt concerned that Konoha would try to take Shikamaru back from him. Unfortunately something she can’t do today, no matter how Ino wishes she could. 

A shadow of a smile, across stiff lips. At Kakuzu. Further confirmation of what her teammate really means by using Daddy. 

“Yeah, for now.”

He turns to more directly face Kakuzu, to move. To leave her behind. 

“Wait-!” She reaches out, ready to grasp at Shikamaru’s arm. Another arm reaches out to bar her attempt. Another cold eyed stare directed at her. Measuring her. 

“You’re lucky, Konoha nin, that I have better things to do,” the man finally states. 

Better things to do, to do like Shikamaru, some inappropriate part of her brain blabbers. The rest of her is only grateful that her infiltration-focused team is not going up against a S-ranked ninja. Said S-ranked ninja reaches out to clamp a hand on Shikamaru’s shoulder, to gently push him along away from Ino. Vanishing into the ever present crowds of a Hot Springs entertainment sector.

(Shikamaru doesn’t even look back.)

Leaving Ino to sit in the aftermath, with her teammates already murmuring about everything they’ve heard. Including the Daddy part. Too late to stop them, the instant everyone gets back home to Konoha... The gossip will fly. 

There’s absolutely no way Ino can contain this! Damn you, Shikamaru! She rubs at her forehead, her eyes. Asuma-sensei will be so upset. And so will Choji, once she explains the nuance in Shikamaru’s apparent nickname for Kakuzu. 

Aaaagh! She really wants to scream out loud right now, express her frustration. 

So she does.

“AAAAAAH!”

Chapter Text

The first thought that Choji has, when he learns of the terrible fate that has taken his best friend is I was supposed to die first. Not him. Me. 

In the trios of Cho-Ino-Shika, it is always the Akimichi that die first. The frontliners, the protectors of their allies behind them. The duty of a noble for their vassals. If another dies before the Akimichi, upon the battlefield, then something has gone terribly wrong. Everything that has happened to Shikamaru is terribly wrong. From Asuma-sensei’s first report on Shikamaru’s death to Ino’s return now, after a report of a run-in with both Shikamaru and the missing nin that held him under his control. 

Choji holds an updated bingo book in his hands, and those hands shake. Because Shikamaru has a bounty in there now. One for dead. 

The bench he sits on, next to a family restaurant, leans downward slightly. Ino, sitting next to him. Finally back from her report, her report with news on Shikamaru. 

He looks up, and her eyes are full of unshed tears. What it is, it’s serious. At least the place he’s picked out to meet, no one will bother them, though he can see curious cousins peering over from restaurant windows here and there. 

“What happened, Ino? What can you tell me?”

“I-” She shakes her head. “It might be better if you don’t know, Choji. It’s bad. ”

“I know you think I’m soft, Ino, but he’s my friend too. You have to tell me,” Choji insists. 

Her blue-green eyes look at him solemnly. “It’ll only hurt you.”

“Then I’ll hurt for my friends.” He steadies his shoulders. “Tell me.”

Her hand creeps out, towards his laying on the bench. An unspoken ask for comfort, one that Ino rarely participates in, even less than Shikamaru. This is bad, then. Very bad. His hand closes around hers, swallowing up callused fingers. 

“What Asuma-sensei said, about Shikamaru being dragged around as a trophy...” She takes a deep breath. “It is that, but worse than that too.”

Ino lowers her head, allowing her loose bangs brush into her eyes. Venom enters her voice as she speaks. 

“That missing nin is interested in Shikamaru. Interested enough to force Shikamaru to love him.”

“Love him? Like he’s teaching a student?” It has to be that, his gut clenches. 

“Choji, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Romantically.” She scowls. “ Sexually. ”

His stomach hurts. It aches and burns, a lot like it did when he took the Curry Pill in his fight against the Sound Four. But Choji knows that his feelings are the cause this time. And feelings hurt more than any Colored Pill could.

“He’s convinced Shikamaru not to come back home!” She throws up her hands. Sniffing, trying not to let the tears he can spot welling up fall. “And if he’s crazy enough to use a forbidden technique like Edo Tensei to keep Shikamaru from escaping him, who knows what Kakuzu will do!”

Calm Ino down, that’s what he needs to do. His fingers rub at her hand. 

“You’ll be able to find out what he’s up to, I know you can, Ino.”

“Right. I’ll figure out more. I can do that.” She puffs up her chest, already ready to go. Ino’s always been good at picking herself back up, they all are in Team Ten. 

Ino can take care of the information gathering, Choji knows what his role is meant to be on this team, has always been on Team Ten since the start. What he’s supposed to do. 

No, what Choji needs to do is get stronger. Work hard enough to eventually kill Kakuzu, so Shikamaru can be freed from his control. To take down a S-ranked missing nin will take teamwork. Serious teamwork. And plans. Choji nibbles at his lower lip. Plans Shikamaru’s level, plans that Shikamaru will not be able to make for them, or worse, might be making for Kakuzu himself.

Who knows what the madman could be doing to Shikamaru right now?

~

“Hold still, I’m almost done.”

Shikamaru holds steady, under the gloved fingers and tendrils of nerves currently poking at his tongue. Which he knows isn’t really his tongue, it’s a mass of twisted up muscles and nerves that Kakuzu’s somehow encouraged to grow up through his lower jaw to enclose his actual tongue. But thinking about that too long makes the hearts in his chest rock back and forth. Uneasy.

The urge to bite down on the fingers in his mouth is strong. He’s never sympathized with Kisame more. But he manages to hold still, until Kakuzu pulls out his fingers, seemingly satisfied with his work. Gloves are pulled off and disposed of. 

“Well? Did it work?”

“Let’s see.” Kakuzu unseals a bag of peanuts from a sleeve. Offers it to Shikamaru, after popping it open. Shikamaru carefully slides a nut out and puts it into his mouth. His teeth crunch down. For the first time since he came back from the dead, there is more sensation than pressure on his tongue. Or the chunk of muscle currently masquerading as his tongue. A sting of-

“Salt. I taste salt.” 

“Nothing else?” Kakuzu huffs out a breath from his nose. “I might have to look through civilian medical research at this rate...”

Shikamaru shakes his head. “I don’t need anything else than salt right now.”

Chips are mostly salt and little else. At least the ones that Choji likes are. 

Without something to taste, the extra muscle feels heavy in his mouth. He works his jaw back and forth. The movement is more than enough for Kakuzu to notice. Warm fingers press into the side of Shikamaru’s jaw. A welcome pressure. 

“Focus on putting it away, like you’re folding your own tongue into the bottom of your mouth. It will obey you, I grew it from your own nerves.”

Shikamaru half-closes his eyes, focusing. Using the same amount of focus he takes to find his shadow with his eyes closed. He feels something pull back, twisting into his gum line, and just like that, the extra muscle is gone. Folded away like Kakuzu said it would. 

“Good.” Kakuzu’s fingers pull away, satisfied. “That teammate of yours better appreciate all the work being put into this.”

“If it works correctly, then Choji won’t notice anything at all,” Shikamaru snaps. “Like how a tongue is supposed to be.”

“You would think that with the amount of work the damned Nidaime put into Edo Tensei he’d at least put some effort in preserving some taste buds,” Kakuzu grumbles back. “The technique preserves damn well near everything else.”

Shikamaru tactfully doesn’t point out that the Edo Tensei was meant to be used as a weapon and nothing else. Last time he did that, while shouting at Kakuzu, the missing nin woke from nightmares for a straight week . Something that had the words ringing his fault, his fault, in Shikamaru’s skull. Along with everything else he’s been...tactically putting off for later. 

Because now that Shikamaru’s decided that he wants to continue living, no matter how different being alive as an Edo Tensei summon is... he can’t keep pushing away the feelings he’s been having. The truth that he... Shikamaru rubs a finger along his lips. Biting fingernails that no longer break. He doesn’t want to go back to Konoha. Hasn’t for a while now, even before Itachi sliced him in two. 

It would be easier to blame Kakuzu for not wanting to go home. But it wasn’t Kakuzu that made him feel sick every time he walked through the doors of his house. It wasn’t Kakuzu that made him feel like he wanted to die. And it’s not Choji either. Never Choji.

That’s why Shikamaru has to talk to his oldest and best friend. Explain. In a different world, a different time, in one Shikamaru hadn’t died, chose to be by Kakuzu's side while alive...maybe he would have made a different choice. Chose to send a letter, chose to not explain in person, so not to ever have that temptation to return come up. But now...Shikamaru leans back, into Kakuzu’s touch. Fingers curling into his hair.

He’s dead. He’s an Edo Tensei summon. Konoha will never want something like him back, like how Taki doesn’t want Kakuzu back. They might try to bury him, but they won’t succeed. Not as long as Shikamaru wants to live. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Kakuzu says, stroking Shikamaru’s hair. His fingers find his way to underneath his ears, along his neck. A welcome warmth and pressure that makes Shikamaru feel alive. “You can leave them to wonder.”

“No, I have to at least let Choji know.” Shikamaru shakes his head, pulling himself free of Kakuzu’s touch with the motion at the same time. “And my body...”

“Your body?” Kakuzu prompts, after Shikamaru doesn’t complete the thought. 

Shikamaru hisses at himself, at the twisting he can feel only in his hearts. “I want my body to go back to Konoha.”

He taps his fingers together, thinking about his body. As much as he hates to, the matter of his body is...ugh, complicated. Because Shikamaru’s a different kind of alive, but there’s still a body needed to be taken care of, to get the proper rites. Faintly, he wonders if there’s some part of his soul that’s a deer right now. A deer living an uncomplicated deer life, wouldn’t that be nice. 

“You hand it over,” he decides, right then and there. 

They’ll hate Kakuzu, Shikamaru knows, for being the one to hand the body over. For that final confirmation of Shikamaru’s death. But they already hate him. Besides, it’s what the man deserves for abducting him in the first place. Bastard.

From the tilt of Kakuzu’s hooded head and the wrinkles around his eyes, the man already knows this and finds it amusing. Of course he does.  

“If your friend doesn’t take it, I’m claiming your bounty on it.”

“Sure.” Shikamaru waves a hand. “As long as I don’t have to see it.”

“That will be easy enough.”

For about an hour, they rest in an easy silence, Shikamaru cuddled into Kakuzu’s side. Waiting for the Konoha ninja that are supposed to be on watch tonight, according to certain yakuza sources. For one ninja in particular, positioned far enough from the others that Shikamaru should be able to have a private talk with him. His best friend. 

“The Akimichi’s here.” Kakuzu nods to the walled garden, his sensory abilities picking up what Shikamaru can’t. “You can still change your mind, you know.”

“No. I can’t.” It’s easy to make his way to the top of the spiked wall. Really, this garden is clearly meant for civilians, the amount of shrubbery that an enemy ninja could hide in is ridiculous. But it works for him, perched on the wall as he is. Tracking his friend. 

Shikamaru takes a breath he no longer needs. He drops down. 

~

Choji stands among yellow camellias, as part of his mission to guard these gardens from having a particular flower stolen (apparently?) when he hears a thump. The thump of a ninja jumping down, a ninja that isn’t bothering to hide. He twists, readying a kunai to throw at-

Choji blinks. It’s impossible but it is, who stands in front of him. “Shikamaru?”

Shikamaru looks different. More than just the eyes and skin of a resummoned dead body, he wears different clothes too. What looks like basic gear, under a larger dark coat. Impossibly in reach, impossibly there after Asuma-sensei has hunted for him for so long, alongside Choji and Ino. Choji reaches out to touch, to grab. He regrets the action almost right away. Shikamaru’s hands are cold. As cold as a corpse. Dark eyes, eyes that are almost holes in that flesh, reflecting no light at all, blink at him. 

“Choji,” he says, and the name sounds the same as ever, dropping from pale lips. “It’s good to see you.”

A crumpling noise. With disbelieving eyes, Choji watches as Shikamaru takes out a bag of chips. His favorite brand. Opens it to sit between them, to share. Like they used to do in the Academy. He knows he shouldn’t, could be poisoned, but still, he reaches out. Still he takes a chip and crunches it between his teeth. Salty as ever. Shikamaru also takes a chip and crunches down too. Like he’s eating it. 

Like what Ino said, him drinking though the body doesn’t need it anymore. Another way to fake still being alive. A lie that Shikamaru doesn’t need to perform for Choji, but of course he would. Of course he would. 

For a moment, Choji can almost pretend, that they’re just Academy students again, that Shikamaru isn’t a walking corpse, that Choji isn’t hunting down his murderer. But dreams don’t last forever. They never do. Potato chips always run out, in the end. With the almost empty chip bag sitting between them, Choji can’t delay any longer. Time to ask, time to act. 

Choji clears his throat. “Shikamaru, I want to help you. Tell me how.”

For a moment, his friend is silent. Only gathering up the chip bag, with its single remaining chip, before he says the words he’s carefully picked out. 

“I’m here to tell you to let me go.”

Wait, what? Choji blinks. Shikamaru...sure, his friend is lazy sometimes, bemoans training and getting involved, but he’s stubborn in his own way. He would never tell Choji to not take him back home. 

“Shikamaru, why are you saying this? Did Kakuzu order you to say that?” He peers around, looking for the missing nin. No one. Shikamaru must have gotten away, somehow. 

Shikamaru heaves out a sigh. “ No, Kakuzu didn’t tell me to say this. I have my own reasons.”

Reasons? Choji tilts his head. His friend takes that as an invitation to continue. 

“Because I don’t want to die. But to you,” Shikamaru lets out air once more, long and slow, his fingers pressed together, “I’m already dead.”

The fingers spread apart, moving away from each other in emphasis. 

“Konoha doesn’t need me, as a dead person.”

“But Kakuzu does?” Choji asks, unable to believe the implication under Shikamaru’s words. For once, his friend doesn’t push the topic away or change the subject, as he usually does with uncomfortable topics. Instead, he only nods once and answers with, “He brought me back.” Like that’s answer enough. 

Ino would immediately challenge those words, Choji knows. She’d take a stand and fight back using her knowledge of manipulation and clever wordplay. Choji isn’t her, though, so he can only let the words stand between them. Wanting to say no, that’s wrong, but unable to say it in a way his friend would accept. All he can do is offer a different idea, a separate one, that will hopefully draw Shikamaru back home. 

“I need you, Shikamaru,” he presses, stepping closer to his friend. 

“No you don’t,” Shikamaru rejects right away, also looking away. “You’re better off without me, Choji, without me holding you back.”

What? No, that’s not right! Why would Shikamaru think that? If anything, Choji’s been a burden on him, dragging him down in the Academy and in team training. 

“Shikamaru, you’ve always helped me! We’re a team, you’re not holding me back!”

Choji pounds a hand into his chest, reaching out for Shikamaru with his other. 

“I’m supposed to protect you! Because you’re-!”

My friend. 

Shikamaru’s eyes narrow dangerously. Signs of his temper about to go off. 

“Because I’m weak,” he bites out. “Is that it?”

Choji pauses, unsure what to say next. Which is the opening Shikamaru needs, words rushing out in a flood of clear anger. 

“I’m not weak, I just can’t fight without you or Ino, is that it? I can’t defend myself without people standing in the way?”

Shikamaru shoves at Choji’s chest and the motion is actually enough to rock Choji back, in a strength he’s never had before. Edo Tensei strength. 

“Konoha thinks I was taken because I was the weakest on the battlefield. But Kakuzu took me because he needed me, that’s the truth.”

There’s something wrong with Shikamaru’s eyes, his mouth, movement and pressure where it shouldn’t be. Inhuman and unnatural. 

“Tell that in your report to the Hokage.”

Shikamaru stalks off. Not far, but far enough to make it clear he’s not interested in talking any more to Choji. His friend stops somewhere in a cluster of red and yellow snapdragons. Not gone yet. He still has a chance to fix this. 

Something, Choji realizes under the pooling chill in his gut, had gone terribly wrong in Konoha. Something with Shikamaru that Choji had missed and shouldn’t have. Who had hurt him? He wracks his memory for answers. And the best answer he has is...did Shikamaru have a big fight with his parents before this? Choji knows the relationship between them isn’t the best, but that can’t be all there is to it. No, there’s something more to this. 

(Did Danzo-?) 

A mass, a pressure. Someone else is here, in the shadows of the garden wall that Shikamaru had come from, and it’s not one of Choji’s team members. 

“Shikamaru,” rumbles a deep unfamiliar voice.

Choji’s breath catches in his chest, on seeing who steps out of the shadows. A tall hooded figure he only knows from the bingo books he’s studied. Kakuzu. Of course he would be here too, tracking down Shikamaru. Will he hurt Shikamaru for daring to meet Choji? 

(He couldn’t bear it, if Shikamaru gets punished over this.)

Shikamaru looks alarmed, from what Choji can pick up from the stiffness of his face. 

“Don’t-”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. I only want to talk.”

Shikamaru eyes Kakuzu with no little sense of disbelief, but he steps over to the side, near the vine-covered walls, out of the snapdragons. Allowing Choji to face his captor alone. Kakuzu is a tall man, towering over Choji with both his height and the strange sensation given off by his heavy chakra. An invisible weight that has to be super heavy for even a non-sensor like Choji to catch it. 

Kakuzu slowly slides out a long rolled up object, from the inside of one of his sleeves. Not a weapon, though it could be a threat. Choji watches, taking in the details as the object becomes clearer to his eyes. It’s a body scroll. Why-?

“I have Shikamaru’s body in this,” Kakuzu says, without any lead-in, his eyes merciless.

Choji flinches, his eyes fastening to the once innocuous body scroll. The scroll being held out to him in a long dark hand. 

“Take it now or I return it for a bounty. Your choice.”

“I’ll take it,” Choji says hastily, reaching out to carefully accept the body scroll. It feels like it should be heavier than it is, for what it carries. 

“Feels like a waste, giving this over for free. But Shikamaru’s bounty is small change as it is.”

“My friend isn’t small change,” Choji says stiffly. Hoping that Shikamaru’s hearing what he says, that he doesn’t think Shikamaru’s weak. He’s never been, not with his smarts. 

“Konoha appears to treat him as if he is.” The statement is flat, like it’s not challenging what Choji knows is true, that Asuma-sensei, that all of Team Ten, all of Choji classmates- like they weren’t fighting their hardest to get Shikamaru back home. Choji steadies his shoulders, glares up at Kakuzu.  

“Shikamaru isn’t just money to be counted out. Not to us.”

Flat green eyes look him over. Judging him by some unseen standard. 

“Orochimaru, Uchiha Itachi...Konoha loses a lot of its geniuses, doesn’t it?”

Another question full of loaded implication, of look underneath the underneath. The idea that Shikamaru is just another lost genius. 

“Shikamaru’s not like them, he’s no traitor,” Choji says firmly. He knows his friend. His friend isn’t like any of those missing nin Kakuzu named. 

“Hm. Maybe Konoha should start taking better care of their geniuses. Before someone like me picks them up.” The words roll out in a smooth self-satisfaction. An emotion Choji’s fists itch to punch the man in front of him over. An attack that Kakuzu would definitely not allow to pass unchallenged. So he doesn’t, only shaking in place. Holding himself back. It’s difficult to tell what the missing nin must be feeling, covered from head to toe as he is, but Choji thinks he’s smug. To go with his earlier words and tone. 

“Done yet, Daddy ?”

Choji can’t help but flinch, knowing what that title means as Shikamaru uses it, over by the wall, as Kakuzu looks over. Shikamaru, who’s shaded by enough vines that he can’t see his face. Not properly. 

There’s hunger in Kakuzu’s gaze, as he looks at Shikamaru, and Choji hates every bit of it he can see. But he can do nothing, alone as he is. 

“Just finished, kojika.”

He turns his back on Choji, utterly confident that the Akimichi will not attack. Not with Shikamaru there, tucking himself into the missing nin’s arm once the man is in range. Hugging him. Then they’re gone in a smooth shunshin, gone from Choji’s sight in an instance. 

Leaving Choji with a sick feeling in his stomach and a body scroll in hand. Left behind, surrounded by tansies. He needs to talk to Ino, Asuma-sensei, his parents. He needs to figure out what went wrong. 

(What he did wrong.)