Second Chance

Summary: Shikamaru is back, war flashbacks and everything. But no matter how much foreknowledge he has, changing the future is not as easy as he thought. He couldn't very well explain why a 6-year-old would try and hunt down S-ranked criminals from an organization that isn't even known yet. His Hokage being set back to a snot nosed brat that reacts bewildered to any form of affection does not help. At all.

Meanwhile, the former Kazekage of Suna, loved by the public and constantly supported by his siblings is thrown back to being treated like a weapon, while said loving siblings look at him fearfully and avoid him as much as they can. And that doesn't even include the voice in his head, urging him to kill every step that he takes. He really needs someone to fix the seal this time around...

Chapter 13

Where was the line between paranoia and reasonable caution?

Over the course of the last week, the line between the two had begun shifting, blurring to the point where it was unrecognizable. Of course, paranoia suggested delusion and unwarranted concern – and surely none of Shikamaru's current worries were unwarranted.

Right? The signs were all there; there was nothing unnatural about his constantly flaring alarm bells. (But what if? What if he blew it all out of proportion, what if he was seeing shadows…)

Because now that he had noticed it once, he couldn't seem to unsee it.

Tiny cuts and bruises that he didn't remember getting.

The feeling of running into something that wasn't there.

Once he watched his mother cut herself while cooking, her knife lying on the table behind her.

Little, tiny things that everyone else frowned about and then forgot, dismissing them as nothing. But Shikamaru? He didn't have the luxury to do the same.

Somehow, in an unthinkable, impossible way, the old timeline was influencing them. Events that had happened Before but not now were clawing their consequences into what was supposed to be a fresh start, what was supposed to be better.

Like ripples in a pond.

It sounded insane, Shikamaru knew it did. But he didn't have a better explanation.

The implications of it made him sick with worry.

It didn't help that the academy served as a reminder every single day. Aiko wasn't supposed to be there: She simply felt wrong, and Shikamaru couldn't stop feeling on edge around her.

He had been beyond frustrated when Iruka had insisted on keeping him close during class. Not that he didn't understand it, but no matter how uncomfortable he was being around Aiko, it was nothing compared to leaving her out of his sight when his friends were with her.

Then again, at least something good had sprung out of that particular lesson.

"You want to do what, exactly?"

Naruto's expression was lit with a bright grin. "Train and get to the top of the class!"

"What for?"

"To become great and powerful ninja, duh!" Naruto looked at him as if that was the most obvious answer. "You should've seen what that guy Sasuke did with his kunai! He threw four of them at once and hit all of the bullseyes!"

That stole a grin out of him. "Sasuke, huh?"

"Yeah! Just wait, I can do even better than that, I've just gotta train even more than him!"

Shikamaru had to suppress a snort. Some things never changed. "And Sakura's coming too?"

"Weeell," Naruto said, sounding sheepish. "I invited her. And she said she'd think about it."

"Ahh." Shikamaru suppressed a wince. With her civilian parents, it was very likely for Sakura to have picked up on Naruto's bad reputation, more so than it had been for Chōji. And since Shikamaru wasn't friends with her at this point, it was also more difficult to sway her opinion.

All things considered, Shikamaru didn't think it likely for Sakura to actually show up.

Even so, he just couldn't say no to Naruto when he was already this excited.

"Fine, whatever." Shikamaru yawned pointedly. He had a reputation to keep up, after all. "Don't expect me to make much of an effort though. I don't care about doing well in class."

Naruto had already stopped listening.

"Whoo! It's gonna be awesome! We're gonna be the best shinobi ever, you'll see!"

And that was how Shikamaru found himself at training ground 4 with Chōji and Naruto, practicing with kunai Naruto had "borrowed" from the academy. ("They want us to become great and powerful shinobi, right? So there's nothing they can say about us trying to become stronger.")

Shikamaru was less than thrilled about the possibility of training becoming their new freetime activity – everything in him fought against the idea of his friends turning into child soldiers even sooner.

That being said, he and Gaara were only two shinobi. There was no guarantee that they would succeed in eliminating all threats toward the shinobi world by the time they became adults.

In fact, with both of them stuck in their respective villages, suspicious eyes around them everywhere (or maybe Gaara had been more successful in avoiding attention?), it was proving to be very unlikely.

It was becoming more and more probable that he would need his friends' strength. There were many shinobi – enemies and allies alike – that he couldn't compete with in raw power, so it could prove fatal to not have the powerhouse that was Naruto by his side.

Of course, the problem would never have come up had the old Naruto come with them in the first place-

No. Don't think about it.

His heart stung as he forced himself to pay attention to his different younger false friends.

"Try again, that last one was close!" Naruto said.

He didn't want to think about when and how they would need to use the techniques he showed them. About how they wouldn't be having fun then, wouldn't be cheering about a kunai well aimed, a new technique just waiting for them to try out.

"Awesome! You nearly got it, Chōji!"

They made it look like so much fun.

It wasn't; not knowing what would come after, knowing what exactly it was the academy was preparing – or supposed to be preparing – them for.

"My turn!"

It made him feel sick.

By the time noon came around, Shikamaru welcomed any kind of distraction; and it came in the form of Sakura and Ino.

"Sakura! You came!"

Sakura didn't seem to share Naruto's enthusiasm. She fell a step behind to hide behind Ino, gripping her friend's arm tightly.

A smile tugged at the corner of Shikamaru's lips. Seeing Sakura like this, shy and timidly hiding behind Ino, when he knew how confident and powerful she would grow up to be – it was adorable.

In any case, enthusiasm or not, she had decided to come after all.

Ino on the other hand looked less than thrilled to be there. "Shikamaru. Chōji." Her greeting was lackluster at best, and Shikamaru didn't miss that she hadn't acknowledged Naruto, only shooting him a wary glance.

Chōji waved cheerfully, unfazed by her attitude. "Hey, Ino!"

A quick mental throwback to his childhood and Shikamaru settled on 'annoying cousins whose parents kept making them hang out every other week' as their current friendship dynamic, and had to suppress a snort.

They didn't get time to say anything else, because Ino stepped forward with her arms crossed, demanding all their attention. "I wouldn't be here at all if Sakura wasn't so keen on training with you guys–"

"Am not!"

"–but if we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it right." She looked around with her chin raised, daring someone to object to her taking charge.

Shikamaru felt uncomfortably reminded of their early days as Team 10 and barely managed to bite back his typical "troublesome", knowing it would only attract her wrath. He'd learned early on not to fight Ino on her authoritative nature. He'd simply thought he'd left those times behind him.

Naruto, not having hung out with Ino before, didn't know that the easiest way to deal with her was to simply give in and go with the flow. "What do you mean? We're already training, see, we even got the real kunai from the academy!"

"You stole them?" Sakura frowned, torn between disapproval and anxiety.

"Borrowed! And it's only to become stronger, it's not like we're doing anything bad with them."

"What I mean," Ino said, raising her voice over Sakura and Naruto's squabble, "is that there's far more to being a powerful shinobi than just kunai throwing. And since we're doing that at the academy anyway, we could use our time much more productively."

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. He wasn't thrilled about where this was going, but Ino was right. However, she had never expressed this kind of sentiment the first time around, not that he knew of. "Why is this so important to you now?"

Ino shrugged. "It isn't. I don't really care about this stuff. I'm already good with kunai, and my dad teaches me clan techniques from time to time." She paused, her cheeks coloring slightly. "B-But if Sakura wants to become stronger, I'm gonna make sure she trains properly."

Shikamaru had to smile at that. Ino was aware of the disadvantage Sakura faced, simply by having civilian parents. As the children of career shinobi – clan heads, even – the three of them were bound to pick up certain things from their parents, while Sakura (and Naruto) had no access to additional training or education.

Not on their own, that was.

"Fine then." Shikamaru sighed. "What do you suggest?"

"Well," Ino said. "There are two things that are most important for a shinobi. The first is chakra control."

"Charka? What's charka?"

"Are you serious?" Sakura stared at Naruto. "That's one of the most basic-"

"Hey." Shikamaru send her a warning look. Not that he didn't understand her exasperation, but unlike her, he knew that Naruto wasn't completely to blame.

"U-Um." Sakura squirmed under his gaze, shifting her weight uncomfortably. When she addressed Naruto again, it was with a considerably more patient tone. "Chakra is basically the energy that every shinobi has. You need it for even basic techniques, and you have to train your control over it in order to use them effectively."

"Oh! So if we learn chakra we can use cool ninja techniques?"

Sakura winced at his wording but didn't comment. "In theory, yes…"

"Awesome! What are we waiting for?"

"Ino," Shikamaru said. "Have you ever used chakra before?"

Ino pressed her lips together. "No, but-"

"Let's not do that then. Sounds like too much of a drag."

There was no way he was going to supervise four seven-year-old children – one of them being Naruto – during their first attempts at chakra control. Later, when they were a bit older and he had at least slightly improved mental stability – maybe. But now? Nope. No way.

"Aww…" Naruto pouted, flinching when Chōji put a consoling hand on his shoulder.

Sakura looked disappointed as well. "What's the second one? You said there were two things."

Naruto perked up at that. "Right! Say, say, what's the second?"

"Stamina," Chōji answered in Ino's stead. "Right? Chakra control doesn't bring you far if you can't keep up physically."

"Oh." Naruto deflated, having expected something more exciting.

Shikamaru on the other hand saw a way to keep his friends entertained with minimal chance of injury and/or mutilation, and jumped at the opportunity. "Sounds good!"

Chōji blinked. "It does?"

"Yeah! Sure, let's…" Shikamaru trailed of, trying to think of a harmless exercise that wouldn't bore his friends. "Let's play Ninja."

Ino stared at him. "Seriously? You want us to play a game?"

"Yeah, I thought we were here for training!", Naruto chimed in. "Besides, we already played that before."

"Well, yeah." Shikamaru smirked, lowering his voice so his friends had to come closer in anticipation. "But we're going to play the extreme version."

Predictably, Naruto's eyes widened. "The extreme version?"

"Yeah!", Shikamaru said, thinking up rules on the fly. "The most important change is that when you're hiding, you can't stay in one place for too long. You have to keep moving, so you're forced to think quickly. Also, whenever the seeker yells 'Lava Release' everyone else has three seconds to get off the floor to avoid getting burned, or they're out."

"It still sounds like a game to me," Ino said.

"So? Who said training can't be any fun?"

"I suppose it would be good exercise, if you have to be moving constantly," Sakura allowed.

Naruto, unsurprisingly, had no qualms showing his excitement. "And it sounds like fun! Let's do it, let's play!"

"Sounds good to me," Chōji said.

Ino admitted defeat with a long-suffering sigh. "Fine. Whatever, if you insist."

Shikamaru let out a discreet breath of relief. He felt like he'd dodged a Fire Release on this one.

Shikamaru volunteered to seek first, and he had to smile to himself at the sight of his seven-year-old friends pretending to be stealthy – more often than not he could see them peek out of the corners of their hiding places.

Soon Naruto took his place, having been too enthusiastic about the game to actually try and stay hidden, and Ino after him, not fast enough to escape Naruto's immediate yell of "Lava Release!" upon becoming seeker.

By the time it was afternoon, every concern about them wasting time playing games had vanished, evident in the constant laughter – or muffled curses – ringing across the training grounds. Even Ino looked like she was having fun.

Eventually Shikamaru found himself perched on a tree, sharing a grin with Sakura – who sat on the one opposite of his – when a gleeful "Found you!" announced Naruto. He still hadn't grasped the stealth part of the game.

Seeing Sakura leap over to another tree, he chose the other direction, and jumped off his own branch, onto the river below him.

Shikamaru realized then, in the 0.2 seconds after landing on the surface, that standing on water was not, in fact, something his seven-year-old self was able to do. Another fraction of a second to sigh internally later and he interrupted the chakra flow to his feet, letting himself plunge into the river.

He took a moment submerged under water to question how this had become his life.

Swimming the short distance to hoist himself ashore, Shikamaru could see Chōji jogging towards him, eyebrow raised as a question. He sighed, unwilling to get up from where he was sitting on the river bank. "I'm good. Slipped from my branch, no big deal."

Chōji stopped trying to suppress a snort. "You look ridiculous."

He was in the middle of wringing out his ponytail when Naruto ran over to meet them.

"That was awesome!"

What.

"How did you do that?!"

Oh no.

Shikamaru stared at him, for once at a complete loss.

"Do what? He just fell into the river."

"Yeah, but he landed on top of the water, first! Come on, say! How did you do it?"

Damn. He'd been so quick. How could Naruto have seen? He must have been paying closer attention than he thought. Shikamaru swallowed, getting rid of the dryness in his throat. He could salvage this. He would–

"Impressive."

Shikamaru's blood froze.

"Hello, Aiko-sensei," Chōji said, polite as always and completely unaware of the state of panic Shikamaru found himself in. This could not be happening.

"Guys, what's going–" Sakura stopped halfway through her sentences, running towards them with Ino not far behind. "S-Sensei? What are you doing here?"

Aiko didn't take her eyes off Shikamaru. "...I came for the kunai. Ino?"

"W-What? Oh!" Ino all but sprinted to fetch the box of weaponry, recognizing Aiko's hand gesture for what it was.

"R-Right! Hehe, about that," Naruto started, rubbing his neck with a sheepish grin. "S-See, we didn't steal them or anything, I swear, we just thought we'd get a bit extra practice, y'know, for class?"

Nothing but a curt nod. Why wouldn't she look away? Shikamaru could feel sweat like icy needles on his skin.

Ino came with the kunai, holding the box out for Aiko to take under her arm.

What happened next set off every warning bell in Shikamaru's head, woke every instinct in his battle-sharpened mind. Everything screamed at him to do something, to act – and yet he could do nothing but stand there, frozen, watching as every paranoid thought of the past week was confirmed.

Aiko smiled.

None of his friends shared his distress, although most of them seemed tense – waiting for a scolding at the very least.

Little did they know that Shikamaru had single-handedly saved them from any punishment, having given Aiko something far more important to think about.

"I will see you." She walked off, taking the box of kunai with her.

As one, his friends breathed a sigh of relief.

"I was so sure she'd punish us for this," Sakura said.

Chōji nodded solemnly. "That was scary."

"Well, it would have been your fault!" Ino scowled, glaring at the boys. "How could you think stealing them was a great idea?!"

"But hey, hey!" Naruto bounced where he stood, unable to contain his excitement. "She saw! Aiko-sensei saw!"

She did. But in stark contrast to Naruto, that thought filled Shikamaru with nothing but dread. Even if he had any doubts about her motivation before, those had vanished with the look she'd given him.

Gleeful, nearly. Knowing.

"Saw what?" Sakura asked.

Shikamaru could have probably stopped Naruto from answering. But what was the point? By now it was only a matter of time, it was too late. He had failed. He had no choice but to roll with it.

"Shikamaru fell off a tree and stood on the water before he fell in! You still didn't say how you did it."

All eyes turned towards him, and Shikamaru shrugged. "It was a second at most, not a big deal. Honestly, I don't even know how I did it. Instinct, I guess?"

"Ah!" Sakura yelled, her eyes gleaming with the same excitement as Naruto. "But that means you used chakra!"

"I guess."

Chōji didn't say anything. It worried Shikamaru somewhat.

"Uh, uh! Maybe Aiko-sensei will teach you cool techniques, now that she knows you can!"

"I don't think she can teach a single student separately like that, Naruto," Sakura said, sounding not even half as patronizing as she had earlier that day.

"Look, I'm gonna go home," Shikamaru said, a pointed look on his dripping clothes. "It's getting late anyway."

"Aww." Naruto deflated, shoulders drooping and a pout on his face. "But we're gonna do this again, right? You gotta teach us the chakra thing!"

"There's nothing to teach. I don't know what happened, Naruto."

This day just kept getting worse. Shikamaru said goodbye to the others, fully aware that they would probably start talking about him as soon as he had left. He didn't miss that Chōji still hadn't said anything to him. He'd have to worry about it later.

For now, he'd have to brace himself for the consequences that were surely to follow. The question was: who beside Aiko would he have to deal with? He could make a few guesses: none of the options were pleasant.

It seemed like the ripples weren't his only worry.

He had nearly arrived home when something bumped into him from behind. Someone.

Shikamaru tensed, whipping around but forcing himself not to act rashly.

It was a woman. Young, dark-brown hair worn in a long braid, the symbol of the Uchiha proudly displayed on her shirt. And she didn't look too well: She was pale, having stumbled back a few steps after running into Shikamaru. Her eyes whisked around as if looking for something.

Maybe she was agitated from a mission turned-south? She was wearing civilian clothes, but even outside of missions most shinobi carried around too many issues for them to handle. They simply tended to be superb actors, as well.

"Are you okay?"

"F-Fine."

And just like that, without sparing him another glance, she hurried off.

Shikamaru was left standing in the street, with damp clothes, a knot of worry in his stomach and too many questions he couldn't begin to answer.

Uchiha Fugaku was enjoying a rare moment of peace. 'Rare', in this case, meant anything between 'most unusual' and 'he could swear Itachi had still visited the academy the last time he'd had a day off', so no one could really blame the clan head for taking just a little too long during his mandatory inspection.

That was the reason he found himself stood behind the handrails of the spectators' platform, peering into the training area and watching his shinobi as they went through the drills of their sparring session. The new batch of recruits for the police force was promising, and something about observing their training had always had a calming effect on Fugaku.

Especially during these times, with his responsibilities piling up to record heights.

The moment was broken by a shinobi materializing at his side, and Fugaku closed his eyes, unsurprised about his break being interrupted. Duty called.

"Uchiha-taichou." He hesitated, and Fugaku could feel a headache building up. It was one of those. "I've come to report–"

"Another incident?"

"I... Yes."

The lines around Fugaku's mouth hardened. "Who."

"Uchiha Totsu, sir. A chunin."

"Physical harm, or…?"

The shinobi looked like he was desperately trying not to fidget. "The other one."

Were he any less of a shinobi, Fugaku would have sighed in resignation. "Bring her in."

With his peaceful moment over, the tension that his position as leader entailed returned tenfold. He shot one last glance down into the training area, then turned to address the most recent cause of his stress.

On their own, the handful of incidents were no cause for greater concern, but their number was rising. They'd been lucky in one regard: so far all of them had occured within the village, as opposed to on missions, where the consequences could be more severe.

A moment of weakness, of distraction in the best case. Lethal in the worst.

And they still had no explanation. Fugaku hated wandering around in the dark, especially with their position in the village steadily deteriorating.

The kunoichi saluted before him. "Uchiha-taichou."

"What happened?"

She chewed on her lip, not quite meeting Fugaku's eyes. Her lack of composure proved her low rank. "The same as the rumors."

Fugaku scowled. Would he have to drag the details out of her? "You were within village borders?"

"Yes, sir."

"No mission scheduled for today?"

"No, sir. I've been on leave for a week, recovering from a leg injury."

It sounded similar to the others. Fugaku narrowed his eyes, determined to get to the bottom of it before their luck ran out.

"Tell me everything."

A/N: Shikamaru, desperately trying to distract his toddler friends from potentially dangerous ninja stuff: hAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF EXTREME HIDE AND SEEK

My wonderful betas are: Igornerd, To Mockingbird, PyrothTenka and darkerdeepdown!

Welp, looks like the plot is picking up on both ends. Let me know what you think! Please don't forget to review!

~Gwen

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