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 21

It was moments like these that Shikaku actively despised being a jōnin commander. He would gladly drop the position into a random shinobi's lap – it was yet to be determined who of his subordinates he hated badly enough to want to see them suffer to such a degree – if it meant not having to worry about people buzzing around him, waiting for orders, expecting him to coordinate.

"I will accept full responsibility for the situation," Aburame Shibi said. "Why? Because I have failed in my responsibility to guard the jinchūriki."

Shikaku wanted to sigh, and held himself back only so. "Don't be ridiculous, Shibi. It was your job to house him, not guard him. That's what my ANBU were for." Besides, now wasn't the time to throw around blame. It wouldn't get them anywhere. "Tell me again. There were no signs? Nothing to suspect his disappearance?"

"Nothing. Not until the explosion."

"I've been told."

An explosion on a nearby training ground just before it was discovered that the jinchūriki had gone missing? Even less logical people than Shikaku would agree that it couldn't be a coincidence. No, somebody had tried – and succeeded – to create a distraction, either to kidnap the jinchūriki or to allow him to escape. Shikaku wasn't about to dismiss any possibilities, but he strongly suspected the former.

He had believed the kid when he'd told them about being attacked, about being separated from the rest of his shinobi. Not only that, he had seemed perfectly happy with staying in Konoha until the matter was resolved. Why would he suddenly change his mind and escape the village he had asked for help in the first place? A kidnapping was far more likely.

Despite the deeply rooted hatred for jinchūriki, there were a multitude of people jumping at the opportunity to get one under their control.

That did not, of course, explain why or how it had happened right under his shinobi's noses.

"Join the scouting party in the forest," Shikaku said, finally giving the orders Shibi had been waiting for. "Take as many of your people as you can spare and use your clan technique to find their trail. Dismissed."

Shibi followed his instructions without another comment.

And of course, alongside the jinchūriki's disappearance, alongside the mess that could easily spiral into a political incident if they did not manage to sort it out, there was Shikamaru.

Inoichi leaped down next to him and Shikaku paused, lowering his voice. "And?"

"He's not with them, either. I'm sorry, Shikaku."

Shikaku closed his eyes. Inoichi and Chōza hadn't questioned him when he'd asked them to talk to Ino and Chōji instead of joining the scouting parties. It went against every protocol; his duty as jōnin commander was to put his personal issues aside and direct all his attention towards serving his village.

But how could anybody expect him to care more about some missing jinchūriki than his own son?

"You've asked all of them? Sakura? Kiba? Na–"

"Naruto too, yes." Inoichi's voice was solemn, for once void of any attempt to lighten the mood. He knew better than to try. "I've talked to all the kids his age that I could think of, including their parents. They'd have told me even if Shikamaru had tried to hide with one of them." He hesitated. "Shikaku. He's not here."

Shikaku dragged a hand over his face. If he were any less of a shinobi, he would have abandoned his task without a second thought. Why couldn't other people take on the responsibility when Shikaku had far more important things to worry about?

At least Yoshino wasn't in a position that held her back. She'd been one of the first to start scouting the village, although definitely not for the missing jinchūriki.

"Just keep looking," Shikaku said, and didn't specify who it was Inoichi was supposed to look for. He didn't need to.

"Hang in there, Shikaku." Inoichi left without another word. Shikaku appreciated that his friend didn't waste time trying to console him. It was the exact opposite of what he needed.

Shikaku took a step back, observing the village to mentally catalogue each of the teams he had sent out so far, and hating that he was not among them. So far none of them had even found a trace of either the jinchūriki or his son – not that Shikamaru counted as a priority for anyone other than himself and those close to him.

Shikaku hated it. He hated everything about the situation, but especially how utterly useless it made him feel.

"Shikaku." Only years as a shinobi could keep him from letting out a groan.

"Fugaku. As you can see, I'm a bit busy at the moment."

Fugaku ignored the jab entirely. "We've heard about the jinchūriki," he said, not talking around the topic.

"Are you here to question ANBU's capability to handle the matter?"

It was an open secret that the Uchiha had been sidelined during the Kyūbi attack, and while the scale did not compare, Shikaku wouldn't be the only one drawing parallels. But they had no time to argue about jurisdiction, not in the middle of a crisis.

"You are making assumptions," Fugaku said.

"What then? I need to get back to work." Normally, Shikaku would have taken more care being polite – relations with the Uchiha were strained as it was – but every second that he spent chatting was a second he could spend searching instead.

"Heed your tone," Fugaku said, but Shikaku refused to be intimidated by his glare. He almost expected a threat but was surprised when it didn't come. Fugaku's mouth curled like he was tasting something bitter, and his next words looked like they were dragged out of him painstakingly. "I am here to offer a favor. Manpower, to be specific."

Shikaku missed a beat. "Excuse me?" Had Fugaku just offered him help? It would have been far more in character for the Uchiha to jump at the opportunity to point out ANBU's error in judgement.

Although perhaps, the show of good faith was meant for Shikaku more than it was meant for ANBU, or even Konoha as a whole. Shikaku couldn't help but to wonder if their most recent agreement played part in it. If they were supposed to work together on such a delicate matter, some sort of trust between them was essential. Was this Fugaku's way of building that trust?

Fugaku looked away. "I've also heard about your son."

Shikaku couldn't help but stiffen. "And?"

Perhaps his tone had sounded a bit too defensive, because Fugaku's scowl deepened. "You need all the resources you can get. That's why I'm here." Fugaku paused, his mouth pulled down in what was almost a sneer. "My shinobi are at your disposal."

Shikaku was genuinely speechless. Despite Fugaku's expression that suggested he'd rather throw himself off a building than to repeat anything of what he'd just said, this was by far the biggest olive branch that had been offered between the Uchiha and the rest of the village in years. This wasn't a mere favor; if Shikaku accepted, it would mean a willing cooperation between the Uchiha police force and ANBU.

Even if Shikaku had wanted to, how could he possibly decline?

"I've sent teams of Aburame and Inuzuka to scout the surrounding forest," Shikaku said, trying to make his sentence sound like an offer, not like an order. "If you're willing, your support would be greatly appreciated."

Fugaku hesitated, then nodded stiffly. Shikaku supposed it was the best he was going to get.

Fugaku was about to turn and leap away – supposedly to inform his subordinates of their new task – but Shikaku made him pause one last time.

"Fugaku. Thank you."

Another hour passed before anything else of importance happened, another hour of agonizing waiting around and pretending to give his all in the ongoing investigation.

Then, of course, it had to get worse.

"One of the scouting teams managed to find a trail," Chōza said. His grim expression stood in stark contrast to what should have been good news.

"But?"

Chōza didn't look away, but it was close. "There were two sets. Two people going in the same direction."

Something cold and heavy sunk to the bottom of Shikaku's stomach. "The jinchūriki and whoever kidnapped him?" Ahh. Sweet denial.

"Unlikely. There may be more tracks that we have yet to find, but the two that we have don't belong to adults." Chōza paused, looking at Shikaku with a strained glance. "I'm sorry, Shikaku."

Shikaku closed his eyes, concentrating to keep his breathing rate even. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't. After everything that had happened, after everything that was still happening, this couldn't be part of it. Hadn't they been through enough already?

"Spread the news," he said, meeting Chōza's eyes and pretending like his hands did not tremble. "We might be dealing with a hostage situation."

Shikamaru was cold. He had been cold for hours. It was the kind of freezing, shivering cold that clung to his bones and made his body heavy and numb. It made his movements feel mechanic and wooden, like it wasn't him who was in control.

He couldn't even bring himself to care. There was no going back from this. They had made their choice – Shikamaru had made his choice – and now he had to live with it.

The silence between them, usually so calm and comfortable like a blanket, was jarred and filled with tension. Gaara had not had the same kind of reservations about leaving that Shikamaru had. He was already separated from his family – forcefully, not out of his own, free will – and he had no bonds that made his goodbye from Konoha painful like it was for Shikamaru. Aside from, perhaps, Naruto.

"We have gone far enough," Gaara said, finally. "They will not be able to catch up for quite a while. Let us rest."

Shikamaru didn't care to argue. He hadn't noticed before, but fatigue was crawling over his eyes and making his limbs heavy.

They chose a place high up in the trees, settling between branches and leaves that would hide them, but allow them to keep an eye on their surroundings.

"Did you make a sketch of the seals yet?" Shikamaru asked, because resting didn't have to mean doing nothing.

Gaara didn't answer immediately. In fact, when he eventually spoke, he ignored the question entirely. "Why did you insist on leaving immediately?"

Shikamaru took the lack of an answer as a 'no', and unsealed pencil and paper from a scroll he had luckily remembered to bring. The trees threw dark shadows, but with a touch of chakra he could barely make out the drawings on his arms. "If we'd waited longer, we would have risked pursuit."

"You could have left a message. To try and explain."

Shikamaru copied the delicate symbols as best as he could, taking care to catch all of the details. Even without more than basic fuinjutsu knowledge, Shikamaru found himself intrigued by the masterful patterns. "And tell them what? There's not really an excuse we could have come up with that would have gotten them off our backs."

"Perhaps. But wouldn't anything have been better than nothing?"

Shikamaru lowering the pencil, but didn't look up from his sketch. "Even if it was the truth, who would ever believe us?" Shikamaru had gone through the variables, and there was no excuse in the world that would have allowed them to leave with Konoha's blessing. They would have given them the chance to lock them up permanently on a silver platter, and achieved nothing else.

He saw protest in Gaara's eyes, and sighed. "I'm sorry, Gaara. But I really screwed it up before you came." He paused, closing his eyes. "I'm pretty sure my dad was just about to throw me into an interrogation cell. Everybody was already so suspicious, it's… Anything I could have said would have only made them more certain. Leaving quickly was the only way, trust me."

He didn't want to think what this meant for his chances of return.

Gaara looked like he wasn't done protesting, but in the end he offered a curt nod. It was as much as Shikamaru was going to get.

A few moments passed while he finished the sketch, and he spent another few frowning at it after he was done. It wasn't like anything he'd ever seen before.

Shikamaru hesitated, the question heavy on his tongue. "Did Naruto tell us anything about them?"

He knew the answer, but his heart still sank when he saw Gaara shaking his head. This once, he wished his memory wasn't as good as it was, wished to have been wrong. But there hadn't been time for explanations. If there had, they would have understood less than half of what Naruto could have told them.

"Only what it would achieve. Not how it worked or in what way," Gaara said.

Naruto did not use the standard symbols that were taught in Konoha's academy – or any other kind of school in the five nations. Instead, he used a combination of Uzushio techniques and those of his own creation. They looked old-fashioned and foreign to Shikamaru's eyes, and he could thank his above average memory that he was able to pick out individual symbols.

It wouldn't help much in the long run: It was like knowing words in a foreign language, but being unable to put them together in a sentence.

Shikamaru paused as his eyes found a combination of symbols he recognized. "These are… dates, aren't they?"

Gaara leaned forward, tracing the area Shikamaru had pointed out.

Seals with dated commands were rare, but not unheard of. They were useful if done right, allowing skilled shinobi to create scrolls that opened only after a certain span of time had passed, and not for a curious Chūnin or client before the end of the mission was scheduled. Taking it one step further, a scroll could be set to self-destruct if opened early, securing it from being read if stolen.

Timed commands could also go horribly wrong if the sealmaster did not know exactly what they were doing. More often than not, the technique was simply not worth the effort and risk it required.

"There are two," Gaara said, pointing out a different part of the sketch.

"One of them has to be the date we arrived. And the second one… The one that we left?" But for what reason? The first date made sense. They'd needed a destination, a direction that the seals could pull them in. But why would it need the time they had come from? What did it matter, if it was merely the time they had left behind?

Shikamaru grit his teeth in frustration, hating that he was missing the expertise they needed to get a read on the seals. It took years of study to master the art, and without it Shikamaru – or Gaara – stood no chance of untangling Naruto's design.

"I don't understand why they're still here," Shikamaru muttered, thinking out loud. "Shouldn't they have disappeared after they achieved what they were supposed to do?"

"But it would somewhat explain the ripples," Gaara said. "If they are still here, that means they are still active. And if they're active, they must be serving some kind of function."

"Yes, but why?" Shikamaru frowned. "This can't be what Naruto had in mind. Obviously."

"A mistake then," Gaara said, as if it was that simple. "Even Naruto is capable of making them."

"Maybe." But Shikamaru knew that there had to be more behind it. A mistake, in terms of fuinjutsu, usually meant a minor explosion in the best case, and more often than not far more disastrous outcomes. The seals had worked – they'd brought them back, hadn't they? – so what were the chances that Naruto's "mistake" had only manifested after they had fulfilled their purpose?

"Maybe," Shikamaru said slowly, a thought taking hold. "Maybe they're more of a side effect."

Gaara looked up. "What do you mean?"

"If Naruto had screwed up the seal, it wouldn't have brought us here in the first place. Even if it did, even if we assume the design is flawed, but managed to bring us here regardless, it still wouldn't explain why the seals are still here."

Gaara nodded, slowly, showing him to go on.

"The only explanation I can think of is that they weren't supposed to disappear. Bringing us here wasn't their only purpose. And whatever it is they're still supposed to achieve, what if they're causing the ripples as a side effect?"

"You mean they are less of a mistake," Gaara said, thoughtfully as if to familiarize himself with the idea, "and more of an unwanted variable. Something Naruto had not thought of when he created them."

And something he was not here to correct, now.

"It's a theory," Gaara decided, "but how can we prove it?"

Shikamaru's eyes dropped to the ground. "I don't know." Gaara was right. Having a theory was nice, but they were a great way from proving it, much less finding a way to counteract it. They couldn't even say what it was Naruto had wanted the seals to do, if Shikamaru was right.

"We need help," Gaara said out of nowhere, and made Shikamaru look up.

"What?"

"We need help," Gaara repeated, his voice steady and his eyes determined. "We cannot do it on our own. We're missing the knowledge, the time and the resources."

"We're kind of missing the people to help us, too," Shikamaru said, not sure what Gaara was thinking. Naruto was young and didn't have his memories, and nobody else – that they knew of – had the knowledge they required. Even if there was, they wouldn't be able to help without knowing who they were, and where they were from.

"We don't need somebody with Naruto's knowledge," Gaara said. "Just a sealmaster prepared to take on a challenge. We know the basics of what Naruto discovered from Uzushio. We only need somebody willing to pool together our knowledge and make sense of them together."

"Wait," Shikamaru said. "You're not thinking of– You are, aren't you? Are you serious?"

"Tsunade helped me before. And she and Shizune didn't leave much sooner than we did. She should still be in the Fire Country, we will not get a better opportunity before she disappears again."

"It's a miracle she agreed to help you the first time," Shikamaru said. "What makes you think she'll do it again? And it still leaves the question how she's supposed to help us. How is anybody supposed to help?"

"We tell her," Gaara said, easily like there was nothing more simple in the world.

"We tell her," Shikamaru repeated, not sure if he should laugh. "Just like that? We find her and tell her everything?"

The thought alone was absurd. After everything Shikamaru had gone through to keep their secret, after all the trouble it had caused him in Konoha, now he was supposed to reveal it to somebody like it was nothing? Like everything that had happened up to this point had meant nothing?

"Tsunade is not allied to any village," Gaara said. "She said herself that she would not step foot into Konoha. She has no reason to exploit the knowledge, once we give it to her. There is nothing she would want to gain from it."

"Yeah, because she'd be convinced we were crazy. Why would she believe us? Why would anyone?"

"You have knowledge about her you shouldn't have, haven't you?"

Shikamaru hesitated. "I mean. I guess, but…" This was crazy. How could Gaara be so calm about all of it? How could he sit next to him, ever so collected, and casually speak about revealing their biggest secret to another person? Even if that person was Tsunade. Privately, Shikamaru was surprised that Gaara trusted her from the few interactions that they'd had. She must have made a huge impression on him, once she'd taken over as Kage.

"Even if our word is not enough," Gaara said, "we only need to convince her to study the seals. They will tell our story for us."

Perhaps they would have continued their discussion. Perhaps Gaara would have convinced Shikamaru of his plan, or perhaps Shikamaru would have convinced Gaara that it was foolish. Neither of them got the chance, because a sound from below, in the lower tree branches further into the forest, made both of them freeze. Pursuers.

Their eyes met and they communicated with a single, silent nod. Later.

They settled down in between branches, hiding themselves and didn't make a move, didn't make a sound. They would wait and see, rather than jump into action blindly.

The first words they could make out was a curse. A very colorful, very creative curse that was not muffled in the slightest and carried through the air for what sounded like miles ahead.

"Would you be quiet?" Another voice hissed, considerably quieter than the first. "Don't they teach you how to behave on a covert mission?"

"Oh, don't get your panties in a twist, Uchiha."

Shikamaru stiffened and Gaara looked at him quizzically.

"We're the hunters, not the prey. So what if they hear us coming? They won't escape either way. Not with dear Hazuki on the job." An affectionate bark was her answer, mixed in with her loud, enthusiastic cackle.

What in the world were an Inuzuka and an Uchiha doing together on a mission? Both kunoichi seemed varying levels of reluctant to be there, so Shikamaru didn't think he'd been wrong in his assessment that the Uchiha were in the middle of their (partly) self-inflicted isolation.

In either case, this would make their escape far more complicated. Inuzuka were too good trackers to try for a quiet getaway. Their best bet would be to incapacitate them and flee before backup could catch up – because their luck wasn't nearly good enough to hope for only a single tracking team.

Shikamaru caught Gaara's glance and formed hand signs the second he looked his direction. Gaara's only reaction was a frown, and only then did Shikamaru realize that Gaara wouldn't understand the hand signs Konoha's ANBU used.

Shikamaru hesitated – he didn't know any from Suna, either – then gestured more slowly, using few words and hand signs that would almost certainly be understood without having memorized them. Gaara agreed with a nod.

Hide. Attack if seen.

"Why couldn't they have stuck me with an Aburame instead?" the Uchiha muttered, and only earned an amused huff in response.

"Don't be like that. Remember, we're in the process of strengthening clan relations. That's gotta count for something, right?"

The words, still light and with humor in her voice, now had a mocking quality to them. She didn't sound like she believed in them, and Shikamaru wondered whose words she had repeated. Who was working on reintegrating the Uchiha into Konoha?

"I do not know what Fugaku-sama is thinking," the Uchiha muttered, easier to admit her scepticism without hiding it behind a veil of humor. "The order seems… sudden."

Their voices were closer now.

"Does that mean you're questioning it?" the Inuzuka asked, openly curious instead of accusing.

"No. It means there is a reason behind it that has not yet been shared with us. In time we will–"

Shikamaru tuned out the rest of the answer. Below them, now visible through the suddenly far too sparse tree canopy, the Inuzuka's dog tensed. Shikamaru froze as it sniffed the air. He leaned forward as it looked up to them.

They didn't give it the chance to bark.

Shikamaru threw himself at the Inuzuka, the sunlight casting his shadow down to her long before he reached the ground. He locked her movement so she couldn't look upwards and paralysed her dog with a quick, shadowy needle, improvising his lack of senbon.

He heard a grunt from beside him and turned, seeing the Uchiha reel back as Gaara blinded her with his sand.

A zooming sound from behind him and Shikamaru whirled around, a kunai clutched in his hand. He barely managed to block the Inuzuka's attack. With her neck still firmly locked in place to look the other way and one arm freed, the Inuzuka's muscles strained as she struggled to shake off Shikamaru's hold on her. He jumped on her back before she could succeed, wrapping his arm around her neck and squeezed, cutting off blood circulation until she went limp under his grasp.

He braced himself for the impact and held onto her even after he hit the ground with a grunt in case she was faking.

Finally, after he was sure that his opponent wouldn't get up in the near future, Shikamaru rose. Gaara had almost wrapped up his own battle. The Uchiha twitched weakly, her head and upper body encased in sand that was pressing down on her, and the sight might have been disturbing if Shikamaru didn't trust Gaara to know what he was doing. It still somewhat unnerved him, despite it.

He knew Gaara had finished when his sand trickled into a puddle lifelessly.

"Did she get a look at you?" Shikamaru pulled out ninja wire and began tying up the two Konoha nin. And the dog.

Gaara shook his head. "I don't think so. If she has the Sharingan, she didn't manage to activate it."

"Good." Shikamaru wouldn't be surprised if she didn't have it at all. From the looks of it both of the shinobi were chūnin – they would have put up more of a fight, otherwise – and there had to be plenty of lower ranking Uchiha who had never awakened their clan technique.

In the long run, it might not matter much whether or not the Konoha nin had seen them. Shikamaru wasn't naive enough to hope Konoha wouldn't put two and two together in either case, but he didn't dismiss the chance that with nothing more than two patchy witness accounts, they might theorize about a third party. Better to have them assume a kidnapping than realize Shikamaru and Gaara had left of their own free will.

Shikamaru paused, wasting a slightly bitter thought about when exactly this had become their best case scenario.

"Come on," he said, and with one last look, Shikamaru and Gaara left the two shinobi – and, hopefully, all other Konoha shinobi that had followed – behind.

A/N: Nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan. :P

My betas are Igornerd, To Mockingbird and PyrothTenka! Go check them out, they're all wonderful writers!

Please take the time to leave a review!

~Gwen