Fingers around My Toes
By Lapiz Liberty
Summary: Everyone thinks Inoichi erased Shikamaru and Sakura's memories to end the rebirth case. Little do they know that the fight is far from over, and this unlikely couple is at the heart of manipulating the people they love the most in order to protect them.
Chapter Seven
Shikamaru:
I didn't take my medicines today. As I fed Yutsuki her breakfast, I counted the hours before I'd be in withdrawal. Sure, I'd feel the burning in my pathways and may even be crippled in the middle of the road, but I missed the sharpness of my brain.
Yutsuki opened her mouth wide. She reached for the spoon and nearly cried when I took too long to feed her. She smiled at me while chewing; her fat cheeks blotched with pink.
Midway reaching for another spoonful, Yutsuki whipped her head towards the door and pointed at it. She rubbed the tattoo on her ankle with her other hand.
This was another reason I had to keep myself sharp. Dad was the last person I should ever underestimate. Now that the shock of my engagement had worn off, I could study the structure of his decisions from an objective standpoint.
Posting guards in our house was a clever move, but choosing a clan guard of all people to partner me with was too odd a choice to settle with. There were other minor clans with powerful Kunoichi the Pillars wouldn't object to, so why not make the offer to them? Marrying me into my own clan must benefit dad in some way if he was intent on pursuing this road.
Dad entered the dining hall just as Yutsuki predicted. He sat opposite me and complained about Uncle Toya singing like a drunk so early in the morning. "Your mother wants to torment me for something I did but don't know about. I'm certain of it, Shikamaru. Why else would she let Toya live here for this long?"
"I must've done something to annoy her, too." The truth of the matter was, Uncle Toya wasn't just here to recover from his recent loss. They invited him to remain here due to his incedible sensory skills and thought I wouldn't notice. When I was eleven, he broke down my bedroom door and claimed there was a suspiscious chakra nearby. Mum and dad stumbled into the room after him and we discovered Choji eating midnight snacks under his blanket. The poor guy cried until mum was able to convince him that he broke no house rule by eating whenever he wanted to. Dad informed Uncle Toya that the side-effect of the Akimichi clan's jutsus generated unusual amounts of chakra in their abdominal area, hence their appetiate. To make it up to Choji, he treated him to a barbeque restaurant at the expense of my birthday gift. I chuckled at the memory and said, "But I'm glad he keeps mum from stressing out on the Pillars and the engagement."
"He doesn't have the same effect on me." He tipped Yutsuki's head back and cleared her chin of food.
"Dad?"
"What, Shikamaru?"
"Why a clan guard?"
He paused from wiping her neck. "We've talked about this before. Have you forgotten already?"
"Find somebody else. Or I will. All we need is someone physically able from a decent clan," I said. "There's more benefit in that than to marry within our clan. Unless, of course, there's something you're not telling me."
Dad removed Yutsuki's bib and transferred her to his lap. "You're taking this marriage seriously?"
"Don't you want me to?"
"Then stop going to the Southern District, Shikamaru." He stood and turned towards the sliding door behind him. "That's one good start as heir of my clan."
I stared at the sliding door long after he and Yutsuki had gone. I wouldn't make sense of his accusation until that evening when we convened for another one of our secret meetings. Sanae and I bumped into each other in the corridor leading to the meeting room, and she warned me that Sakura knew I had a fiancé.
I barely had any chance to interrogate her when the ANBU opened the double doors for us. Inside, Sakura and Inoichi stood with heads bowed and hands flat on a political map of Konoha. Lady Tsunade told them about a law which protected the rights of farmers outisde our village. Inoichi acknowledge us with a curt greeting, but Sakura continued to encircle zones as per the open book beside her.
"What's happening?" I asked. The burning in my pathways had subsided earlier. I hoped it would stay subtle if only until this meeting ended. I needed my wits here.
Sanae nodded at the map. "You want to investigate it, after all?"
"Apart from the farmers encountering new bear attacks, ANBU reported seeing a cloaked figure roaming the farmer's territory and then fleeing west," said Inoichi. "The next day, a farming town at the perimeter of the Fire Country's border asked for our assistance due to an unexplainable death among them. The ANBU studied the tracks and, although there were many left by the same person to confuse us, one led to the direction of the same town that called our attention. I sent Tenten to study the corpse and ask around, and she confirmed the injuries were not from an animal. Tenten is unsure of what weapon it could be, given it were a weapon."
Sakura flipped to previous pages of the book to double check her markings. "It was also within that time frame I scouted the village alone and felt something in the direction of the farmer's town, although it was too subtle I couldn't confirm if it was the same presence from the bridge."
I hoped to catch her eye, gauge where our relationship stood in this wreckage. "Were there records of the previous victim's injuries?"
"The town people are being stubborn." Sakura capped her pen. "They won't divulge our unit with further information. They're claiming we have no right to interfere with their lives unless they permit us."
I moved to her side of the table. She didn't shy away from me, although I knew this to be pride rather than a comfortable acceptance of me. It took only one look at the encircled zones on the map for me to understand their plans. "What? We're waiting for another kill that we have a political right to investigate?"
"That's the suspicious part," Sanae said. "None of the bodies were found on terrain that's politically ours - the very same places where the women usually linger for flowers and other supplies. Then again, there's a possibility the bears could have been wise enough to drag their victims across zones to prevent them being hunted down by shinobis with spears."
Inoichi drew an X where the town was. "They could either be lying or being manipulated into lying."
"We'll have trouble with the feudal lords if we meddle with them now given the circumstances," Sakura said. She folded her arms across her chest and asked me if I had a better plan than to wait for another kill, for it looked like the pattern would lead to one.
"What pattern?"
"The women are virgins with active chakra channels," Sakura said.
I turned to Lady Tsunade. "They're originally from a Hidden Village?"
"Migration isn't well handled nowadays. Men and women elope. Choose to live in small towns and whatnot," she answered. "We can't prohibit it like our founding fathers used to. It's been proven that there's no such thing as viruses or abnormalities developed when a person from a shinobi line produces a child with an average human. So yes, Shikamaru, we can try to trace back their lineage for any more clues as to how they're chosen but that would take a great deal of time and meddling with clans."
"I meant if we can prove their lineage then we don't need to wait for another kill." I tapped the X mark. "If this migration has been going for a long time, then there's a chance many of the people in this town are from a shinobi lineage from Konoha and we have a right to put them under interrogation."
Sakura gasped and collapsed on her seat. Lady Tsunade rushed to her side. I crouched next to her and asked what was wrong. She shivered but said it was nothing. "I felt sick for a moment. I'm fine."
"Baby kicking?" Sanae batted her lashes at Sakura and me.
Sakura flushed a deep red, but I could see more of it was from the pain than from Sanae's implications. "Maybe you need to rest," I said.
Sakura shut her eyes and held her stomach. "Tracing their lineage will take time, but we have enough people in our disposal to do that work for us, don't we, sir?"
Inoichi chose to follow her lead and proceed as though nothing happened to her. He rolled the map. "I'll handle this. It'll take about two weeks, but I hope to have progress on this matter in that amount of time. Now that we've decided on a course of action for that, I believe there's something else we need to discuss."
Lady Tsunade reached down to touch Sakura's abdomen. Sensing nothing wrong - or growing - she rubbed Sakura's back to diagnose her through such a simple action. "Ah, right. It's a recent discovery while we were having a meeting with Shikaku and the rest of the team."
"He's catching up, isn't he?" Sanae, for once, appeared threatened enough not to make fun of this news. Her lack of sarcasm doubled the weight of this burden on us.
"More than catching up," said the hokage, "he might put a question mark where we put a period to things."
Sakura stood at that, gawking at Lady Tsunad e in disbelief. "What do you mean?"
"Shikamaru's fiance is supposed to be a clan guard but he sounded sure that he could get from her intel that only scholars have," she said. "We didn't and couldn't go that far to solve the case by ourselves. Shikaku's initial findings would be the same as ours - of that, I have no doubt - but I'm worried this deeper well of knowledge might open a new facet to the answer that would require us to recalculate our solution."
It was my turn to sit. "That cant' be right. Scholars are near-sacred. A clan guard can't have any useful information."
Sakura whipped around to look at me. The paleness of her complexion and the agony behind her frown relayed my own fears from when we were still together. She knew as I did that if our findings were incomplete, our entire mission was jeopardized and I had failed to make us secure. "Are you sure, Shikamaru?"
Of course not, Sakura. All I could promise was that I did my best during phase one, thinking all along that dad wouldn't have access to the scholars due to the Pillars' watchful eyes. He knew I never interacted with them concerning forbidden jutsus, hence the automatic cancellation of their relevance to whatever I did in my attempt to rescue her from the rebirth ceremony. "It doesn't make sense why he would assume I'd have performed a jutsu only scholars would know."
Sanae sat on the table and leaned forward. She pointed at me. "You, young man, told us it was through your grandfather that you knew those scripts."
"Yes, but if it's that confidential then my grandfather is not allowed to study it," I said.
"If it's so common, then why doesn't your father recognize it?" Sakura asked.
"I bet a part of him does," I told her. "But we all know he won't divulge anybody with anything he hasn't already concluded by himself. If I were him, I'd be looking into something else done in the pond or a reaction among the present elements to turn a complex but not a forbidden command into a weapon to pull you in the direction opposite the rebirth."
Sakura cast her eyes on her boots. I would've apologized for bringing it up - the rebirth still gave her nightmares - but I hated how she acted as though I was to blame for this endangerment of our team. The burden was there without anybody having to say it. When she would've once voiced her support, she now voiced her questions. And she did this all because I was stuck in an engagement I couldn't escape.
Lady Tsunade shared a glance with Inoichi. "Actually, Shikamaru, that's something Shikaku will have to investigate once all of this is over. Based on our last meeting, Shikaku is already suspecting it to be a forbidden jutsu. Why Michio broke his oath by probing it, we still don't know."
Sanae slipped off the table and onto her chair. She smiled at Inoichi and Lady Tsunade. "Orochimaru can capture Shikamaru and make him resolve it. He would need time, but he'll get his answer."
"Erasing the solution from them was to accomplish that exactly," said Inoichi. "To buy time in case he's abducted and - worse - pressued to solve it against the odds by putting Sakura's life on the line."
"My father could become a target as well," I said.
"I didn't involve him in this secret team in fear that he already was, Shikamaru," Lady Tsunade said. "That's another reason I can't postpone your engagement in spite of the threat of your fiance. Given they do discover something new, Shikaku would let me know first and I can handle it before their team takes the lead against ours and Orochimaru can get information. Besides, if it is a forbidden jutsu then we have to know why your clan concealed it even to their chief."
Sanae laughed. "Shikamaru, your confusion shows how little time you spend minding your clan's business. No wonder the Pillars are angry."
Lady Tsunade muttered under her breath that she wished Sanae would shut up sometimes, and then said, "I'm at least a little relieved to have guards in your house while we are at a critical point. Speaking of which, Sakura has already done a fine job of throwing Shikaku off our scent."
I watched her pained expression, waiting for her to explain, but it was Sanae who answered for her. "Shikaku noticed. He musn't have expected you to agree to the engagement, Shikamaru, and this little hitch in your stream of protest caught his attention. It would have been less suspicious if you hadn't sulked during the two weeks Sakura was away and she stopped being your medic. But when you submit to your father's plan soon after Sakura's return, it was bound to get him thinking. My spies told me he'd requested for Sakura's reports and he'd been reviewing books on handwriting. It's a good thing Sakura here does write reports affectionately for majority of her patients."
"Did he go to you, Sakura?"
Our commanding officers remained silent. She swallowed and looked me in the eyes. "I told him some truths. That I cared for you. That you were in deep pain whenever I melted the frozen chakra in your pathways. I made up a story about me agreeing to be your medic so there's no gossip about what you have to go through in order to get back into shape. But you...you were distraught and frequented the Southern District and I so happened to confront you and you requested a transfer to another medic that's why we're not in good terms at the moment."
I hunched forward and pressed the insides of my eyes. Tactically, it was the best move she could've made. She knew my father hated how I went to the Southern District before the rebirth case started. She knew she'd get a reaction from him and steer his attention away from his suspicions.
That's what stung.
She knew this was the one thing between clan chief and heir that strained our bond. He couldn't have me visiting the Southern District now of all times. There were other stories - other reasons behind a valid argument - but she chose that.
"Congratulations, Sakura." I removed my hands from my face and stood. "It worked. I now understand where his little outburst this morning was from. If we're done here, I'll have to go down to the Southern District to have witnesses in case dad probes this matter."
Ino:
What sucked most for shinobis doing hospital work was that average medics recognized our superior ability to command patients returning from military duty - and to hunt them down if needed.
I had just finished assisting Shizune in a ten-hour major operation when Saya came running to me with the news that Watanabe had escaped the ER and was probably running around with a bleeding abdomen. Instead of scolding her for not grabbing the nearest shinobi to handle this emergency, I changed out of my scrubs and bolted out the hospital in search of that damn Watanabe.
I checked his apartment as per standard procedure and was not surprised to find it empty. With my temper restrained only by exhaustion, I stomped around a village half-asleep and belatedly realized there was only one place Watanabe could go to distract himself from his injury.
Traditional music echoed in the streets a long way before the Southern District came into view. The acoustics, combined with warm light from hanging lanterns, nearly made me forget why I came. Really, it wasn't such a bad place if not for the abundance of alcohol and the women who took advantage of men who'd had their fill.
I slipped past crowds of people with the occasional laughing men interlaced with women half their age. Some of them, I saw in the other side of town during the day. They were daughters of shop owners or orphans of fallen shinobis. Lady Tsunade could not have them arrested because there existed neither a syndicate nor proof of forced prostitution. They did this out of free will, but claimed they had no choice because they were in need. Our village was constantly in danger and losing men, and we were so short on funds and manpower that we could not alleviate these issues within our own people.
My steps slowed as I came upon a reflective surface in one of the restaurants. And here I was, I thought, looking down on them because I was lucky to have a father who would do anything for me.
A man's hand parted the curtain of beaded strings hanging at the main entrance. I had only taken one step forward when the man and I caught each other's gaze.
Shikamaru's left eye twitched. He slipped back inside the restaurant, but I grabbed him by the ear and dragged him out. "You!" I peered inside to check if there were barely-clothed women lingering about and saw only a singer on a raised platform and a bunch of waiters in kimonos. I retuned my attention to his face to look for kiss marks and check for swollen lips. Apart from his reddening face, he didn't look as though he'd been groping someone in the dark. "What are you doing here, Shikamaru? You, of all people, should not be seen in this area. Ever."
He rubbed his glazed eyes and sliced the air with his hand." Look, Ino, I didn't come here to fool around."
"It looks and smells like you came here for a drink and we all know where that leads."
"But I'm not drunk," he shouted above the noise of the hooting crowd behind him. He jolted, squinted at me, and asked whether Uncle Shikaku sent me to spy on him. I was going to hit him on the head if only I hadn't heard Watanabe yelling at the waiter to bring him another drink.
I looked over my shoulder and found him sitting alone outside a bar. On the round table were three shot glasses. I pulled Shikamaru to a corner and ordered him to stay until I returned. He crouched beside a trash bin and tipped his head back, gawking at the lanterns above him.
Sakura endorsed Watanabe to me four days ago after he was declared fit to be discharged. I took care of patients returning for check-ups and continual treatment of minor wounds, but Sakura still saw to it I had full access to their medical history and a summary of the missions they came from. Watanabe, apparently, had lost two of his closest friends upon his return from an S-class mission. He visited the hospital earlier today complaining to all nurses that the wound across his abdomen itched, after which I determined that his scratching required me to redo his stitching and his attitude necessitated a visit to the counselor.
I imagined what I would do to him. Smack him back to his senses and let him bleed himself unconscious. As I marched towards him, however, I was struck with the realization that the untouched shot glasses were for his two dead comrades. I had seen a picture of their team. The yellow bandana in front of one shot glass belonged to the girl, and the broken eyeglasses in front of the other shot glass belonged to the younger man.
My temper subsided. Perhaps I should handle this the way Sakura would.
Taking the empty seat to his right, I pulled up his bloody shirt and started healing his wound. "Do you seriously think they would be happy if you die from blood loss while inside the very village they died to protect?"
Watanabe yelped, raised the bottle of sake over his head, and lowered it upon recognizing me. "Hey, you're that blond chic who checked my stitches earlier, no?" He peered at his torn flesh regenerating and knitting together. "Can't you be quicker? I'm giving them a proper goodbye and you just had to interrupt!"
I bit my tongue and focused all my chakra on my palm. Watanabe reclined on his chair. He put his arms behind his head as though sunbathing. Sakura was in my mind, telling me to stay calm because these people were hurt and needed medics to support them.
I took out two pills from my emergency med kit and made him swallow them. He beamed at me. This idiot probably thought I fed him with his maintenance pills which I bet he forgot to take also. Watanabe's smile faded as felt the effects just seconds later, and he made an attempt to grab my hair before his body gave in to sleep.
Shikamaru sat next to me. He asked if I'd be needing help carrying him back to the hospital. I waited until Watanabe's head dropped forward before saying, "We'll have to do it fast. I also fed him with a burst of saline for his drunkenness so it might make the sleeping pill less effective."
Shikamaru, although a bit tipsy, slung the man across his back and kept pace with me. I waited until we were out of the Southern District before saying, "You're not in bad shape if you can put that much weight on you when you're not sober."
"I'm not drunk, Ino."
"Yeah, whatever, Shikamaru," I said. "So are you going to tell me what got you visiting that place again?"
He pulled Watanabe further up his back, nose wrinkled at the stench of blood and booze. "I'm getting married. Haven't you heard?"
"...Makoto told me and Sakura the other day."
Shikamaru grunted. "I'm going to kill him. Or maybe Sakura will kill me first. Maybe I should find him tonight. What do you think? It's like my mind is fogged or something."
I would've laughed if not for the mention of Sakura. "Why's she gonna kill you?"
"No, Ino, I'm going to kill him."
"Sakura. You said Sakura. Why is she going to kill you?"
Shikamaru remained silent for a while. We passed the main road where only three shops remained open to accommodate the nocturnal people of the village, most of them shinobis either returning from missions or waiting to be deployed at dawn. Time dragged on in his silence. I thought my mind would explode. "Shikamaru?"
"She's not mine anymore." He cleared his throat. "My medic. Got into a stupid fight two weeks ago because...well, I supposedly come to the Southern District too often. You're gonna tell her and she's gonna kill me."
Right. Shikamaru was transferred back to Lady Tsunade's care after Sakura left for the jounin exams. I thought it was only until she returned from Suna. Sakura hadn't mentioned anything about arguing with Shikamaru. "I delivered Aunt Yoshino's favorite flowers yesterday to your house but you weren't there when I arrived. She was so happy. I'm guessing your parents don't know you're at it again?"
Shikamaru glowered at me. "At it again?"
Saya jumped up from the steps of the hospital at the first sight of us. She called Isas to help Shikamaru put Watanabe on a bed. Saya assured me that she could manage without further assistance.
Shikamaru dozed off in the rehabilitation garden while I was finishing a report on Watanabe. Knowing I couldn't send him home drunk, I bought food for us and got him hooked on a drip. He asked, after three spoonfuls, if eating here was allowed, and I said nobody would reprimand us at two in the morning. He took a strip of beef from my rice box. "How's your rebellion to your father going?"
"It's on-going," I said. "It won't stop until he breaks up with that woman. Anyway, my drama is not as dramatic as yours. It kinda makes me feel like you stole my spotlight."
"Wanna ask Inoichi to get you a fiance?"
I elbowed him. "I'm already happy with Kiba so no thanks."
"It sucks." He scraped out with his spoon every last bit of rice. "Instead of me introducing a girl to my parents, it's them introducing my wife to me."
I uncapped his bottle of water and handed it to him. "Try to see it in a positive light. It's your village she'll live in, and your friends she'll be forced to hang out with. Unless, of course, you plan to stay a recluse until you die. Choji and I are already beginning to think you're withdrawing from the gang."
"Sorry, Ino." He lifted the bottle to his lips, paused, and lowered it again. "These past months have been one of the hardest for me."
I wanted to tell him it wasn't easy for me either to see my first love and childhood friend subdued in the world of clan politics. "I can't fix your problem no matter how much I wish I could, but I can promise you we've got your back, Shikamaru. No matter what happens."
He bowed his head, shut his eyes, and plucked at his shirt. I asked if he was going to cry, and he said no. I saw his jaws tense and his breathing quicken.
"Shikamaru..." I put my hand on his back. "It's that bad, huh?"
He pressed the inner corner of his eyes. Tears skated down the length of his left hand. While he struggled to contain his sobs, I wondered if there was something else he was not telling me. I didn't think he had such a grand picture of what his family life would be like that an arranged marriage would cause this kind of reaction. I leaned my head on his shoulder as I listened to him cry. The longer I listened, the better I heard the sound of heartache.
Sakura:
I sat on the edge of the hospital bed with my knees pulled to my bare chest. Lady Tsunade's hand hovered along the length of my back, checking every possible source of the pain that came at me like blows.
"Apart from fatigue, there's no abnormality that could cause the symptoms you describe." She motioned for me to put on my blouse. "You've only felt it during our meeting?"
"Yeah. It knocked me down. Good thing there was a chair behind me."
"My initial diagnosis had been heartbreak but what you're describing is something else."
I zipped up my blouse. "I'm not heartbroken. I'm shocked and pissed off about Shikamaru's engagement happening so soon after our break-up, but that's all. We can't deny it's smart of of Mr. Shikaku to pull that off. Plus, I'm relieved Shikamaru won't lose his inheritance."
Lady Tsunade stretched her arms behind her and yawned. "You blabber too much nonsense when you're in denial, Sakura. You'll still be in a roller coaster of emotions for a while."
"I'm not heartbroken."
"It's okay to be heartbroken, Sakura." She slipped on her robe and checked her reflection on the mirror. She could've just asked me and I would've told her that her youth was still intact. "We sacrifice a lot of things in the process of securing our mission. Shikamaru might not appreciate it now, but any further attempt to postpone or evade his engagement would've tipped Shikaku about your relationship. Sanae saved our cover by plotting that confrontation between you and Shikaku. Your sacrifice led Shikamaru to agree to be married and now we can focus on other important matters."
More important matters, she meant. Everybody wanted to say it. There were more important matters than my relationship with Shikamaru, and now that it was out of the way, we could all proceed without tiptoeing around that fragile romance.
I went home still aching all over. Suna's claims against me might as well be true. This sting beneath my skin ebbed and flowed like withdrawal from an enhancing drug and, although I'd never experienced it myself, I had witnessed enough shinobis suffer through it.
One of them was Shikamaru.
I tossed around in my bed, unable to take him off my mind. We sometimes made him fast from food and meds during some tests to find out the true status of his body. He'd grip his hair and cry out, and I had to sometimes strap his arms to keep him from injuring himself. Whenever I was free to lock the door, I'd lay beside him and he'd embrace me until I was uncomfortable. He willed himself to overcome his pain with the assurance that I was by his side. I was never going to abandon him.
The same scene looped in my head throughout the following morning and made me feel as though I was getting over a hangover. While I made rounds in the hospital, I saw Shikamaru in each hospital bed and recovery room, in every testing lab and physical therapy area. The last person I visited before noon was Shikamaru's cousin, Makoto. His arm was healing as it should but, as per Emiko, he skipped his meds whenever he contributed to the plans with regards to the arrival of Shikamaru's bride.
It was so easy to inject him with a formula that would silence his tongue. I listened to him ramble on and on about the intricacy of a Nara heir marrying within his clan. It was such an honor to witness this event, as it hasn't happened in at least six generations.
I tapped my pen against the clipboard where his prognosis was. "It can't be that difficult that you should skip your meds. It's just a route and a couple of traditional ceremonies."
"You don't understand it because you don't come from our kind of clan." Makoto cradled his injured arm, smiling at the ceiling where he envisioned their plans unfolding. "This is history for us and a milestone for our future chief. The meds keep me hazy all the time and I can't have a hazy mind when all my intellectual prowess is required!"
And like that, it clicked. The offense of his remark about the insignificance of my clan took a backseat to the realization he helped me make.
Shikamaru, had he taken his meds, shouldn't have been stable and quick as he had been during the meeting. How he kept the pain of the withdrawal from showing on his face was beyond me. But it was something he would do - a pain he would endure for the sake of the team and our mission.
I dissolved Makoto's meds and injected him with it, lying that it was a strong pain reliever instead. He beamed at me with appreciation as I walked away. I gave him my sweetest smile because my revenge deserved it.
I switched to my casual clothes and left the hospital. Under the afternoon heat and my anxiety over Shikamaru's health, I let my feet lead me to where I could find him.
