Previously:

Rumiko sat back down by straddling the branch, then swinging her legs back behind her and sliding down so she was lying on her front, looking down on her brother. He was only a few feet below her, and so his head was disappointingly out of her line of vision. She would had reversed her position on the branch, but something caught her eye--

--Through Shikamaru's mesh vest, she saw a complex black design etched onto his skin.

Like any intelligent ex-student of an academy for ninja, she recognised the pattern as an example of fuuinjutsu. And in her role as the defensive elder sister of a less than well-liked boy, she had heard many and varied accusations and denied them without considerations.

But – they must be – true!


Younger, she had explained to Shikamaru he could share her birthday, since his had been a bit unfortunate. Younger, she'd been more than able to pick up on the uncomfortable silences her brother had provoked sometimes just by existence, and defended him from them even when he didn't seem to care. People of her own age had been in a proverbial grey area when it came to certain decrees, and she'd overheard and overreacted to a lot of talk about Shikamaru, which she'd rationalised as bitterness about his birth – resentment of the presence of life among death.

She'd mostly forgotten all that, since leaving. But suddenly it all made a lot more sense.


She had jumped up, recoiled, and evidently startled him, because with a cry he fell back down the tree. She was all but unaware of this for a minute, before sense reasserted itself.

"Shit!"

She sprang downwards with an urgency-driven disregard for her own comfort she had rarely felt before; she'd spoken out loud when she'd said things were true. She hadn't meant that, and whatever the – seal? - on her sibling meant, she would no way agree with those bastards that insulted him.

Reaching the ground, Rumiko jarred both knees and collapsed ignonimously. Shikamaru had fallen directly down but landed crouched with a grace the academy had never been able to teach her. He had turned to look at her with an urgency of movement uncharacteristic of him.

"Shit, I'm sorry Shika-kun, I shouldn' speak before I think. I don't mean that!" She shifted into a half-kneeling pose, with one hand massaging her bruised ankle and the other supporting her weight as she leant towards him. He looked away from her.

"I was – startled. I wouldn't ever agree with other people about you, Shikamaru. Not ever."


Whether her sincerity reached him, she couldn't tell. Since she had left, Shikamaru's face had become even more impassive, and now it was a closed book to her. He got up, looked at her. She rose as well, wincing. He opened his mouth to ask if she was OK, but she pre-empted the question by walking back up the tree towards her belongings. He followed.

She congratulated him on climbing the tree a few minutes they'd both reached the top, but it was in a horridly flat apologetic tone. He hadn't responded.

The rest of the journey home was in silence. Rumiko stole glances at Shikamaru, whose face was blank. She wondered whether he knew what had startled her or not, whether he wanted to know. She remembered him curious about his birthday, about what his father meant by prejudice.


At dinner, neither made conversation. Rumiko's noticably downcast manner drew questions from her mother, but they were brushed aside. Shikamaru went to his room, still impassive enough that his parents could tell something was wrong. Flinging himself down onto his futon, he tried not to listen to the murmurs of muted speech, needing to exert a frightening amount of effort to stop himself speculating on what they were saying about him.

His head propped up by the wall, he found himself looking down at his stomach. The flesh visible through his mesh shirt seemed innocuous, though he'd reasoned already that chakra usage had... revealed something to her. His thought processes had been confused for that journey. He had used his sister's presence to stop himself looking down at whatever had – caused her to react like that.

He rolled over onto the bed, schooling himself to look up at the ceiling. Force of will, curiosity, and fear were a torturous combination. He got up, paced. Reasoned with himself. You have to find out sometime.


When Rumiko left the next morning, her feelings about her brother were mixed. Her parents had in actuality done little more than vindicate her unwillingly drawn conclusion of what Shikamaru was and why, but the knowledge was troubling. She genuinely didn't care about what she'd found out – even if only because she hadn't really processed the knowledge yet - being worried instead by how Shikamaru would deal with it. He had been restraining his expressions, keeping his face neutral. That wasn't a good sign. She couldn't tell whether or not he was upset by how she'd acted. She felt guilty that she was leaving now. She'd seen him and said goodbye, and sorry, but neither had mentioned the issue that was – surely -on both their minds. She hoped, sincerely, that he'd be all right.

She didn't realise until she was well outside the village that she'd forgotten to finish or leave the letter to her quasi-boyfriend.


That previous night, Shikamaru's mental confusion had scared him more than the possible conclusions.

He'd looked, as detachedly as he could, at his own life and the peripheral details. He'd deduced what Rumiko had seen and consequently assumed.

His mother had come to say goodnight and found him fixedly staring at the ceiling, been informed tersely that he was thinking, and been bid goodnight on leaving.

Half an hour later, he'd switched on the lamp, taken off his shirt, and used chakra to shift his body weight onto the wall so his head and arms were cushioned by his pillow but he was resting diagonally between his bed and the wall. The bizarre position (he couldn't generate chakra consistently without making the a hand seal, and with his hands in position across his chest he couldn't see his stomach) let him see the seal he'd known would be there, and he forced himself to stay there until he'd committed to memory the rough shape of the design around his navel.

By the time he'd done that, his heartbeat had almost gone back to normal.

Lying once more staring up at the ceiling, he resolved not to mention it to anyone. To pretend ignorance. He would much rather people – and for people, read: semi-hostile adults - didn't know how much he knew. His schoolmates... had no need to know. Chouji, arguably his best friend, would be curious only if he realised there was something to be curious about, and he, unlike Ino, hadn't considered the existence of a reason for the village's collective dislike of Shikamaru.

Ino... he sighed. She'd be troublesome if she realised he knew anything more about the whole issue. Telling her would be more of a pain than keeping it secret, though, because Ino had no sense of discretion, and while none of the other students knew him well enough to ask him why there was so much suppressed animosity towards him (except perhaps Naruto, who had never understood or cared about propriety), that didn't mean they wouldn't be curious. Would they care? Would they dislike him like the older generation seemed to?

If Naruto ever heard anything about this... He hoped the cheerful boy never would.

Naruto was two months younger than him, and had never known his father or his mother, who'd died giving birth. He wondered what the outspoken student would think if he found out the cause and consquence of his father's death.

The Fourth Hokage's child had always hated being seen as the son of a hero, and was known for loud declarations that he wasn't his father, he'd do better than him. Shikamaru shuddered when he remembered the blond coming to join him in his cloudwatching, uncharacteristically silent. He'd started talking to Shikamaru, complaining about how he'd been reprimanded for criticising his dad. Eventually, when his anger was worn out, Naruto had told his lazy companion, seriously, that he was proud to have a dad who was a hero. He just wished he'd hadn't had to die to be one.

Shikamaru wasn't going to sleep well.