His Savior

"The next time you feel useless and impotent, remember what you are in fact doing in this very moment. And then observe your tiny, seemingly meaningless acts and choices coalesce and cascade together into a powerful positive whole." — Vera Nazarian


The large explosion shook the ground, sending him to his knees. His heart beat out of his chest. He had to scramble to get back to his feet, his body still not moving fast enough. The only thing on his mind was his father, and yet he knew the outcome. He knew the ending move before the explosion even happened. Tears were cascading down Ino's face, but he steeled himself. He had to maintain his composure, even if the destruction of the building, and the end of his father's life, rocked him to the core.

Shikamaru hated himself. He felt the anger; he bathed in the hostility. He knew, and understood, the emotions clinging to his heart and devouring his mind. He blamed himself. If he had done something. If he had fought harder. He wanted to blame Naruto, to spit on the boy's promise to protect the inhabitants of the village. He couldn't. He had no one else to blame, no one else deserving of the blame, so he blamed himself. Only after the battle did he sink to his knees in the rubble and allow himself to cry. Among the dead, he feared no judgment. Among the corpses, he felt at home.

There wasn't a body. There were no remains. So when Shikamaru finally had the ability to stand, when he finally made his way to the area where his father had been, he had no body to claim. The blast had likely burnt away flesh and bone. After such an attack, Shikaku failed to even exist. It was as if the man never lived at all. If it weren't for Shikamaru, one might assume that the man was nothing more than make believe, a being born of an overactive imagination.

Nothing could have described the pain, the burning, white-hot pain that coursed through his veins and circulated throughout his beaten body. He had lost so much, too much. The first thing he argued was the fairness of it all. Fate. Destiny. Damnation. He couldn't decide which avenue to take, for they all led to the same conclusion. He deserved better. He didn't deserve to lose his parents and his sensei-he didn't deserve to lose the small child he had sworn to protect. And yet he had. Shikamaru had no moves remaining. The game was over.

Shikamaru returned to the battlefield, the plain so littered with bodies, and he looked around at the survivors. They had nowhere to go, nowhere to seek shelter, so they mingled amongst the dead like trespassers. All around him, people were calling for medic nins, but the medics were swamped, overwhelmed with so many cases. Ino and Sakura were already covered in blood, their chakra dangerously low, but they kept moving. All the while, Shikamaru remained still. He could hear, but everything he heard made it sound as if he were underwater. The voices were muffled; the shouts were like whispers. Off to his left side, someone doubled over and collapsed, finally succumbing to exhaustion.

Clenching and unclenching his fists, he tried to relax, but he couldn't release the tension from his muscles. His body only knew the fight, even after the threat had passed. Without warning, he felt the bile rising to the back of his throat. He bent over and threw up all over the bloodstained ground, his stomach acid like another layer to the nightmare. He dry-heaved a few more times, just until his body was satisfied that he had nothing left to give, and then he shuffled a few steps. He had nowhere to go, so he took a seat in a small clearing and tried to look for something positive, some glimmer of hope. Finding none, he rested his forearms on his bent knees and watched the people fluttering about like drunken butterflies.

"We need help looking for survivors," Ino hurriedly spoke. Her blonde hair was lifeless, stained various shades from blood and dirt. Seconds passed between them before Shikamaru actually forced himself back to his feet. Before he took his first steps, she moved on to find more people willing to help.

They were drained of chakra. They were buried under rubble. They were layered, body on top of body. The first body he came across belonged to Neji. Shikamaru stooped down beside the body and felt for a pulse, and he felt a faint one, something that must have been overlooked. He wrapped his arms around Neji and pulled the man from beneath another corpse. He half-dragged, half-pulled until he found a clear spot to lower Neji back to the ground. For once, he felt like one of the others. He was the one looking left and right, trying to reach out to passing medic nins. His attempts failed, but he refused to accept failure.

"I need a medic! I found a survivor!" Normally, he hated yelling, but he had to yell. His voice had to carry over the other screams, the screams of agony and desperation. Without a response, he dropped to his knees and checked for a pulse again. Neji's heartbeat was slow, like the movement of gentle wings, but present.

With help unwilling or unable to respond, Shikamaru took off his flak jacket, folded it into fours, and placed it underneath the man's head. Shikamaru forced himself back to his feet and jogged in the direction of his former teammate. Ino looked ready to drop dead, but he needed her abilities, however minute, to help save their fellow shinobi's life.

"Shikamaru, I don't have time right now!" Ino immediately lashed out at him, having assumed he wanted something insignificant, but he overlooked her verbal lashing and directed her attention over to Hyuga Neji. "He's gone. I can't-I can't bring him back from the dead," Ino spoke, her voice clipped and yet pained.

"How troublesome," he muttered, forcibly guiding her toward Neji. "Can you help him or not? I can go get Sakura," he said, trying his best to gauge Ino's abilities and the time restraint.

"Hn," she huffed, "he's lost a lot of blood. I think it might be too late."

Too late. Shikamaru kneeled down on the other side of Neji and applied pressure to the large wound on Neji's chest, the wound that appeared so gruesome that it made Shikamaru want to vomit all over again. Dried blood was crusted on the outer edges of the wound, while fresh blood continued to pour from the center of the wound. Ine couldn't get the bleeding to stop, so she stood up and ran to get Sakura, leaving Shikamaru to continue applying pressure.

"You better not die on me, Neji," Shikamaru said through gritted teeth. "I refuse to lose anyone else."

Not long after those words, Ino returned with Sakura. The green chakra was warm and soothing, but Shikamaru imagined it was anything but soothing for Neji. He couldn't imagine the mending of skin, the graphing of bone.

"We have to get him out of here now. We'll take him to the field hospital. Shikamaru, can you carry him there? I stopped a majority of the bleeding, but he's got internal bleeding and broken bones. I think one punctured his lung," Sakura rambled on.

Taking in those words, Shikamaru felt as if he were losing everyone all over again. He'd found a survivor only to receive such negative feedback. Neji wasn't a survivor at all. Seeing Shikamaru's dazed expression, Ino pulled back and slapped him right on his chest. He forced himself to concentrate, something normally so natural to him, and pulled Neji into his arms. Ino broke off to check on Hinata, since she'd discovered a couple of survivors, and Sakura and Shikamaru continued to the field station.

"Stay with him," Sakura said, her voice firm.

"There are other survivors," Shikamaru said, his expression blank.

"We've scoured these grounds. Any survivors are centered in this area and they're in critical condition," Sakura continued, interrupted by Shikamaru.

"Like Neji," he frowned.

"He'll make it. He has to." Sakura gave Shikamaru's upper arm a little squeeze, and then they parted ways.

A number of medic nins scrambled over to Neji, instructing Shikamaru on where to place the severely injured man. Neji still had a pulse, but he appeared paler than he had on the battlefield. Shikamaru hadn't exactly seen the moment Neji was hit, but he saw the aftermath. He raised his left arm and wiped at his brow, removing the sweat and blood that had gathered there.

"You're bleeding," an older healer spied, "let me take a look at you."

"Tch, I'm fine," he dismissed her, holding up a hand to keep her away from him. "Just fix my friend."

"Your friend is unlikely to make a recovery," she sighed, standing back and watching her fellow medics tend to Neji. There was no privacy in the large tent, not with the number of beds and bodies and healers. There were shinobi everywhere, some dead, some suffering. "We will do our best though. We always do."

"How long is this going to take? How long until you know?" Shikamaru was already watching the medics work, but he began to truly pay attention to their movements. He watched the green chakra as it radiated from their hands to Neji's chest. The wound didn't look so gruesome, but the bleeding hadn't completely stopped.

Shikamaru turned around and walked out. He couldn't sit there and wait to hear whether Neji lived or died. His lungs were screaming for a cigarette, just something to hold him together when he felt like falling apart. He needed his cigarette to feel as if he had control over something, even if that something was only his health. When he moved far enough from the tent, he reached into his front pocket and pulled out a crumpled package of cigarettes. Some of the cigarettes were broken, some bent, but he found a couple that were still in good enough condition. He lit one of the cigarettes and placed the filter between his lips. From there, he watched the smoke as it drifted off into the night sky.

It took the medics hours to stabilize Neji, to say with certainty that he'd survived. By that point, Shikamaru had long ago finished his two cigarettes. He'd left to grab his flak jacket, having left it behind when he helped transport Neji to the field hospital, and he'd checked on Chouji. The man had been quite the warrior, but he'd ended up needing treatment for a broken leg. His team had limped through, despite their great losses.

"He's going to be fine," the same medic greeted him.

"Will there be any lasting damage?" Shikamaru forced himself to ask the question, knowing he needed the answer.

"We won't know for sure until he's up and walking, but I don't think there will be any lasting damage," the woman smiled. "He's lucky to have you."

"What?" Shikamaru blushed and opened his mouth to correct her, but she'd been called away to another case. So he stood there, his mouth slightly ajar, until he heard groaning. His head snapped to the left, in the direction of Neji's bed, and he watched as the man tried to sit up. "How troublesome," he muttered, slowly moving over to Neji's side. He placed a hand on Neji's shoulder and held the man down. "Take it easy. You just came out of surgery."

Neji started coughing then and he turned onto his side, curling up into himself. He looked so small, so vulnerable, and Shikamaru regretted the fact that he hadn't inserted so much concern and comfort into his previous words. Sighing, he stooped down next to the cot and rubbed Neji's upper back. It was a moment they both needed: Neji needed the comforting gesture and Shikamaru needed to provide the comforting gesture. Someone had survived. Shikamaru had managed to save someone's life.


A/N: So! I changed things to fit the story. I'm well aware of the fact. This story will focus more on the relationships between people rather than on action. If that's a problem, I'm really sorry! For disclaimer purposes, I don't own these characters, etc.