When they return home and finish filing their mission report, the Hokage dismisses everyone—except for him.
Shikamaru exchange glances with Ino and Chouji, who look just as confused, just as concerned. After all, if he was going to be reprimanded for following the two Akatsuki members who had killed Asuma, then they should be too for going along with his plan. But Tsunade-sama had already done that before they left, and as everyone files out of the room now, she doesn't say a word.
He shifts on his feet, anxious. "Is something wrong?"
Tsunade-sama shifts the papers on her desk, moving all the clutter aside until there is a single sheet in front of her. He tries to read the paper upside down, but the writing is too small.
"You could say that," she says and then she lets out a sigh. "Kakashi, Naruto, and Sakura will find out in time, but I thought I should tell you first, alone."
Shikamaru's stomach tightens, the whole of his body tensing. Had something happened to Kurenai while he was away? But, no—if something had, what would Naruto and Sakura have to do with it? Kakashi may know about the baby, but the other two had no business knowing.
"Kurenai is fine," the Hokage says, catching the flutter of his eye. "The baby, too. We're taking precautions to make sure she doesn't stress herself too much with the recent events that have transpired."
"If you could get to the point, then," he says curtly. He doesn't mean to be rude, but if Kurenai and the baby are fine, and somehow Kakashi, Naruto, and Sakura are involved, then—
"It appears that," Tsunade-sama says, adjusting the paper in front of her, avoiding his gaze, "sometime while you were gone, Kagiru Ren left Konohagakure in pursuit of Uchiha Sasuke."
She says it mechanically, like she is reading right off a report. She may well be, because her eyes don't leave the paper that sits in front of her. Following the silence that falls between them, Tsunade-sama lifts her gaze to observe him. Shikamaru doesn't know what she finds, but the look of pity in her face makes him fix his posture, tighten his grip on his wrist behind his back.
"I don't…"
Tsunade-sama extends the paper to him and he takes it, reads over it quickly. There are only a few lines detailing when and how they believe she escaped, who they believe she escaped with, what her motives are. There is a formal issue to label her as a rogue ninja—an issue that he is glad to see Tsunade-sama has not agreed to.
He checks the time, says in a rush, "She's only been gone for a few hours. She couldn't have gotten far. I can assemble a team—Kakashi, Naruto, and Sakura. Or—or Yamato if Kakashi is too worn from the fight—"
"We're not sending out a recovery team," Tsunade-sama says, stunning him. Over his stuttering protests, she says, "I have reason to believe what Ren intends to do is the closest we will come to capturing Sasuke and bringing him home. I wish it didn't have to be this way, but—"
"She's not in the right mind for this kind of thing!" he snaps, the paper crumpling in his hand. The Hokage's eyes narrow at the tone of his voice. He knows better than to speak this way to the Hokage, but this is different. This is Ren, this is his best friend and— "What reason do you have to believe—"
"I am the Hokage," she says, sitting straighter in her seat, and though he is standing, he feels small in her presence. "The reasons I have are my own and, frankly, that you would even question them says something about your character. As someone who is close to Ren, I would have expected you to have a little more faith in her."
"But this isn't just some mission," he says. "This is Sasuke. He is dangerous, not only because of who he is, what he's been doing these past few years, but because of what he is to her. This bond that binds them," he says, and Tsunade-sama's brow rises, like she is surprised he knows about it. "This bond that binds them makes him especially dangerous to her. He could tell her to kill herself and she would do it, no questions asked."
Tsunade-sama's fingers press together. "Have a little faith, Shikamaru."
Have faith—in what? In Ren to be strong enough to fight the bond? In Sasuke to not ask her to do anything she would regret? That Ren will come back alive—that she will come back at all?
He asks to be dismissed, a request Tsunade-sama mercifully grants. He wonders, briefly, as he leaves her office, whether he should go behind her back and do as he did for his last mission. But this is on a different level all together. When it comes to Sasuke, everything changes.
Shikamaru comes to an abrupt stop in the middle of the corridor, the report on Ren's disappearance strangled in his hand. He smoothes it out, reads it over again, but there is nothing to give away where she might have gone, where they suspect Sasuke might even be. A search party would be useless, anyway.
And it isn't that he doesn't have faith; Ren is strong, he knows she is strong, and if it weren't for the fact that he could outwit her, she could easily overpower him in any and every fight. But he is angry, angrier than he can ever remember being because this one time, she has outwitted him in the worst way. She had picked the perfect time to leave, when he was gone, when Naruto and Sakura and Kakashi were gone, when there was no one here to possibly stop her, and during a moment when he should be happy, when an enormous weight should have lifted off his shoulder, he is again pressed with worry and discontent.
He should have noticed. He should have seen all the signs.
"Come back," she had said before he left. And she been more melancholy and serious than he had expected, had leaned on her tiptoes to reach his ear and whisper a soft declaration that she would have never made unless she thought she might never see him again.
"Come back," she had said, and he had been too caught up in himself to realize she had never promised to stay.