Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. However, the OCs do belong to me.
Beta: OpheliaOtterage
"Speech"
A note, emphasis on the word, thought, or flashback
"This man suffered too much. He hated all this, and somehow he couldn't get away. When I had a chance I begged him to try and leave while there was time; I offered to go back with him. And he would say yes, and then he would remain..."
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Pain, all he felt was pain in his whole body.
He took a shallow breath and winced.
Damn, it hurt.
Shikamaru glanced at his left leg, where white bone protruded from what was left of his severed knee – painted by the crimson beauty that was his own blood – the token of his approaching end.
Wasn't it such a burlesque, that the one that others had always perceived as weak had ended up being the one who died the last?
Even Naruto, the troublesome blond who had grown to be so powerful and had won everyone's respect, had died in the final battle against Sasuke to erase the latter's so called 'Curse of Hatred.' It was ironic after they had teamed up to protect the Shinobi World from total destruction, signaling the new era of peace and all of that idealistic rubbish.
What a joke.
But still, they moved on. The dead were buried or cremated. They rebuilt the village and they returned to their usual lives.
The same thing could not be said for Shikamaru, though.
Tsunade, the former Fifth Hokage, had lost her mind in the midst of grieving for Naruto. She abandoned Konoha and fled into a place that only she knew of, causing a vacuum of power in Konoha.
Thus, came the appointment of the new Hokage.
Every great village needed a leader, the sacrificial lamb that would have to die first in case something endangered the village. Naturally, Kakashi was offered the position, however, the man was too drowned in self-pity, believing himself to be a disgrace and unworthy of the title as he had failed to protect his comrades. Or so he said.
Things continued like that, bickering over who would be the next Hokage. Then one day, he, Nara Shikamaru –for reasons that even he was not sure of– was inaugurated as the Sixth Fire Shadow.
Although he did not want it, he acted professionally and fulfilled the Hokage's duty to the best of his ability. The least that he could do to honor the dead was making sure that Konoha was in a good hands. Admittedly, he felt quite lost at the beginning. There were so many problems to fix and so little manpower to fix them. It was by no means an easy process, but slowly all of his efforts began to pay off as things went back to normal. Konoha was functioning again and the political climate of the Elemental Nation finally had a somewhat amiable atmosphere.
Shikamaru let himself to be lulled into a false sense of security. He believed that the peace that each village kept on fighting for might not be so far-fetched after all.
For all of his genius-like intelligence, Shikamaru was still a naive fool.
Peace, after all, was a fragile thing. It was hard to maintain without a powerhouse like Naruto keeping the other villages in check. He could spy on his allies and keep a tight leash on his enemies if he wanted to. However, Shikamaru could not control human greed. He could not control the black bottomless pit that exhausted one's soul in an endless effort to satisfy one's need without ever reaching satisfaction. It was human nature to want more, to desire more, to seek more. Thus, skirmishes at the borders happened again. A race to create military weapons followed them, causing the growing tension in the political atmosphere of the Elemental Nation.
Then the Fifth Shinobi War broke out. It was an all-out war between the Five Great Shinobi Villages.
Not wanting to be left out, the Daimyōs and their allies, who were fed up with the shinobi, believing them to be the source of problems in Elemental Nation, formed another faction and joined in the chaos and hell that was the war, causing poverty and economic collapse.
It was not the first time that Shikamaru thought that Madara and Obito, despite their rather misguided methods, were right after all. Man sought peace, yet at the same time yearned for war. The selfish desire of wanting to maintain peace would cause wars and in turn hatred would be borne to protect love. It was an unending cycle of misery and death.
The war went on and on. There was no winner. What is there to win when people keep on dying left and right? When villages and cities alike are razed to the ground?
It was as society began to crumble and people started to kill each other for food and survival that everyone realized what they had done.
They had destroyed themselves.
What was once a dignified and civilized nation was reduced to animalistic behavior. Killing others became a daily occurrence, a normal routine even. It was kill or be killed. There was no place for morals or compassion.
You wake up. You hunt. You sleep. Repeat.
How far the mighty have fallen.
Pathetic.
Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki – widely known as the Sage of Six Paths – stared at the place that was once called the Elemental Nation with a pensive expression.
Hagoromo had thought that Uzumaki Naruto would have finally brought peace into the world, succeeding where others had failed. However, the reality was very far from expectation, as the young Uzumaki was dead and the world was in a state of anarchy.
He wondered that if things had been different, would there have been peace in the world?
Could peace even exist?
Had his mother been right after all?
His powerful gaze shifted to the floating spirit of the last Hokage, Nara Shikamaru. Hagoromo felt pity for him. The man's soul felt sad, lonely – empty... He had given the world his best and he deserved his final rest.
However... Hagoromo could not let that happen – not yet. Someone still had to fix the future.
Hagoromo had many things that he regretted in life. He had failed his duty as a father, as a leader, and he had failed to bring peace that he had promised the world. He was at his wits end and this man was his best gamble to make things right.
After all, it was only someone who was thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that could thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.
Shikamaru glared at the mirror with unrestrained hatred.
He was a weak and helpless child living in the Warring State period – a miserable time where the mortality rate was so high that children were taught how to kill once they knew how to walk and speak. Not only that, whoever it was that had shoved him into this container didn't even have the decency to put him in a male body. Now not only was he helpless, he was also a second class citizen – restricted in every sense of words. He could not even own a property.
He was shoved into this… this prison without a single explanation – no clue, no apology letter, nada.
They left him in this foreign time, literally screaming, very disoriented and thoroughly scared out of his mind, and of course, all on his own.
Everywhere he looked, foreign faces stared back at him. Even when he looked into the mirror, all that he could see was a foreign face staring back at him.
She was such a pretty little girl. Pretty girls had no freedom.
She would be the end of him.
He gripped the mirror tighter, as if choking it, hoping that the ghost inside would be choked too.
Those dark, murderous eyes stared back at him; taunting him.
What? You think you can run away from me?! I am you!
No, she was not him. That thing in the mirror could not be him.
Yes I am, the high-pitched voice gloated. Face it. You're stuck here, forever.
No, he was not. He would regain his freedom; someway, somehow.
You're in denial, the girl whispered sweetly.
Without thinking, he punched the mirror and broke it into hundreds of little pieces. Blood dripped down from his knuckles onto his unmarred palm.
Hurts, isn't it?
Shikamaru chuckled hollowly.
Who was he kidding?
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