They say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. I guess in a sense that's true, but it's actually just that you remember the things that were truly important in your life. The moments that stayed with you, regardless of whether you realised that they did or not.
This realisation might have been coming to me a bit late, but there was nothing I could do about that now. I looked down at the small pool of blood around my feet that was starting to get larger and larger.
My mind started to drift to all the people I'd seen die and who they might have been thinking of. With a pang I remembered Asuma Sensei's last moments and realised that he had been thinking of me, of us, of Team 10 right at the end. After all he had given each of us a last message. My heart throbbed in sadness at the thought that even though we had only known him for a couple of years, we had been that important to him. The pain in my chest surprised me, since the rest of my pain had long since grown dull.
I was curious as to who else I'd remember. Now that the edges of my vision were starting to turn black, I knew I didn't have much time left.
Of course my thoughts first drifted to the other members of Team 10. How could I forget the two people with whom I'd shared so much and had ended up spending most of my time with. Ironic that they wouldn't witness my final moments, considering we were even on the same mission. We had gotten separated in the fighting, each following separate enemies. I wondered if maybe it was actually better this way, so that they wouldn't have to watch knowing they couldn't do anything, like it was with Asuma...
My vision had by now become to blurry to make out any specific shapes. My mind flitted back to when we graduated from the Ninja Academy and the teams were being announced. I remembered Ino's heartbrokenness at not being together with Sasuke. When I remembered my own defeated sigh at being placed with Ino, I smirked, or at least tried to. I couldn't tell if I still had control of my muscles at this point.
The next memory that came to my mind, was when we were receiving our earrings from Asuma Sensei. We had, all of us, accepted them with scepticism, but since then, they had become something special to us. I had always thought they were some kind of good luck charm for us. Guess they ended up not being so lucky after all. I tried another smirk.
Talking of luck: I still had absolutely no idea how we managed to progress so far during the chunin exams. We were nowhere near the levels of the other teams. I thought back to that last fight. Temari had been so strong back then, but I had still managed to beat her. Well technically. Sure I had run out of chackra, but thinking back on it I had found a couple of ways in which I could have beaten her within those few seconds.
Ah Temari! She sure had changed a lot since then, though she was still the most terrifying person I knew. Despite her scariness I actually enjoyed spending time with her and she seemed to smile more and more every time she visited the village. I opened my eyes wide in wonder as i started to see a beautiful figure all in white appear before me. It was not difficult to tell who it was: A shining form with blurry edges, like an angel, with golden hair in her standard four pigtails and her teal eyes, looking down at me, laughing.
"Don't tell me the great Shikamaru is going to go down that easily. Guess you ended up staying a crybaby after all."
I thought back to when I had asked my father why he had married such a troublesome woman as my mother, and he had answered that she sometimes smiled gently. I felt another pang in my chest: "I'm sorry Mum, I'm sorry Dad, I never did introduce you to the girl I fell in love with. Come to think of it, I never actually ended up telling her either. She would have probably kicked my ass. What a drag!"
I smiled as I finally closed my eyes for the final time.