Title: Free.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Rating: T.
Warning: Character death and blood.
Summary[AU-ish, Shikamaru-centric ficlet Shikamaru comes home to an unexpected sight.
There's blood.
On the floor, on the walls, on his mother's favourite vase, on the photos lining the shelves, on the clothes left out to dry.
Most of the blood however surrounds his parents.
His mother's body is broken in two. Her spine snapped in half. There's a huge gash running from her neck to her pelvis. And the steadydrip-drip of blood as it continues to fall to the floor echoes in Shikamaru's head.
His father is worse. Pinned to the floor with kunai, needles, a sword and knives from the dinning table. His top is ripped open and someone has taken the time to remove his father's heart and make sure the man saw it before they dropped it in front of him. The look on his face is so utterly disgusted and frightened that it hurts Shikamaru just to look at him.
But he can't stop looking.
He can't turn away from the sight of blood on the floor, on the walls, on his mother's favourite vase, on the photos lining the shelves, on the clothes left out to dry, on his parent's dead and mangled bodies.
Shikamaru screams.
He screams and screams; salty tears running down his cheeks.
"You'll alert people to the fact that I'm here if you continue."
Shikamaru's voice dies out in a strangled whimper as the cold voice echoes in the room. Somehow louder than Shikamaru's own yells and the blood dripping to the floor.
The Nara doesn't turn though, still can't turn his face away from the horrific site, so the person steps into Shikamaru's line of vision instead.
Uchiha Itachi.
There's blood soaking the man's hands and the carving knife that's being idly twirled between pale fingers.
"Sasuke found me. When I asked he said you were the one that worked out where I was."
Itachi pauses, cocking his head to the side as he studies Shikamaru with red eyes. Red as the blood on the floor, on the walls, on his mother's favourite vase, on the photos lining the shelves, on the clothes left out to dry, on his parent's dead and mangled bodies.
"He said you were a genius; a fellow genius. That you had helped him find me so he could kill me."
He had told Sasuke but only so Sasuke could go with Naruto and the rest of his team. He didn't think that the Uchiha would of gone off by himself. He had thought that the other boy had learned his lesson by now.
"I found it interesting so I killed him and came to investigate you."
Itachi steps forward slowly, one step at a time. Leaving bloody footprints across his mother's hand-made carpet. "You really are a genius. But, like me, you were caged by Konohana's expectations."
The man pauses to gesture at the dead bodies of Shikamaru's parents. "I decided to help set you free."
Shikamaru opens his mouth and starts to scream again.
End Free.
Err . . . yes. Don't know where it came from but it came so, um, enjoy?