AN: No, I'm not dead. Yes, I'm back. No, this story has not been abandoned. Nor have the others.
I cannot properly explain why it's taken me so long to update - not because of a lack of desire to explain myself, but rather because even I'm not entirely convinced by the narrative I've told myself to justify my absence. All I can say is that last year was rather rough in many areas of my personal life (as it was for many others, I imagine), and I didn't handle it well.
In addition, I might as well also mention that I've begun to write original fiction, which can be found at my FictionPress profile (same penname). Thus far, I'm only on chapter 2 of the main story I have posted there. Moreover, I've decided to try and regulate my updating schedule such that my main stories on FanFiction and FictionPress will be updated every Friday (perhaps a little bit of self-discipline will get me back on track?). I hope to keep to this schedule as much as I can, and will try to communicate any possible lapses through my profiles (by Thursday at latest).
As always, I am eternally thankful for all of you who read my stories, whether you like them or not. I cannot pretend that my work is universally adored, and it is honestly the constructive criticism that helps me develop as a writer.
Lastly, I would like to address the matter of Shuko - who appears to have become the single most hated character I've ever written (even as she isn't nearly as evil as some of my other OCs from other stories). However, I will do so at the end of this chapter, to forego taking up anymore of your time.
Thank you, and I hope you have a nice read! :)
Marquis Black
It was sad how slow this boy was, Shuko reflected as she watched the punch come ever closer towards her.
From where she was standing, Naruto might as well have been going through the attack in slow motion. She knew for a fact that other clan members, like Takeshi or her fellow elders, would've felt him moving even slower — standing still, even. The fact was that this boy was simply too young and too inexperienced to measure up to war veterans — hell, she wondered how Kakashi could stand facing such slow opponents even in training.
Still, she supposed it was adequate enough for a rookie Chunin.
Sighing, she easily sidestepped the attack, and then the follow-up one — good, Takeshi had beaten the kinks out of Naruto's flawed combat style. He was no longer pausing between attacks, but rather chaining them up one after another. She now put his chances of victory against her from 0% to 0.0000000001%. If he broke out Kage Bunshin, she'd have to revise those odds up to 0.01%. If he broke out Tajū Kage Bunshin, then it'd be 1%.
Shuko kept an impassive smile on her face as she easily swayed out of reach of every one of his attempted blows. The boy was fierce, but undisciplined, much like what she'd heard from her spies. His inability to keep his temper in check was certainly his greatest flaw. At this rate, all it would take to decisively defeat him would be a well-placed barb and a folllow-up attack.
In other words, he was weak.
"STAND. STILL!"
He was shouting now. How quaint. She swayed to the left and easily dodged the wild punch he'd thrown at her head, ignoring the far easier target to hit that was her torso. A duck prevented the follow-up kick from also smacking her in the face. She was beginning to feel as though the boy had an unhealthy obsession with hitting people in the face at this point.
It was a testament to how little a threat he posed to her right now that she had never once needed to lift both feet from the ground. Instead, she was by this point basically dancing around him, feet sliding across the rough ground in a show of exquisite agility and grace.
That was her secret of battle, of course. She was nothing like Keisuke or any of the other Elders. She wasn't physically strong, or naturally gifted in the ninja arts. Her skill lay in strategy, and in avoiding getting hit. So long as her enemies couldn't land a blow, she could direct the flow of battle.
She called it the "song of battle."
As long as she could follow the "rhythm" of a fight, she could easily tell where and how the battle would end. Once she knew that, guiding her "partner" towards the desired outcome was easy... assuming she could keep up, of course.
So, bereft of physical strength or particular ability in the offensive ninja arts, she opted for a focus on defence — in denial of target techniques. It worked well, though it was hardly perfect. There were more than a few foes even her prodigious evasion skills couldn't outdo — the boy's father had been one of them. She was fairly certain she would also fall to the speed of the Raikage and Kazekage. Based on her info, Kakashi was almost certainly in that category as well (she clocked the probability at 95%, ± 3%). There were more, of course, but Naruto's gosh-darned insistence to try and cave in her face was actually forcing her to pay attention, for once.
She ducked under another wild haymaker and lightly tapped him on the stomach as she swerved out of the way of another wild hit.
"You realise I could've killed you like...a dozen times thus far, right?" she pointed out calmly, ignoring the howl of frustration from her opponent. "And that I can keep doing this for a while?"
Naruto's "song" changed ever so slightly, but well within Shuko's predictions. His attacks became slightly sharper as he forcibly restrained his emotions, channeling his anger instead of just letting it run loose. Good. His chance of defeating her had risen to 0.000000001%. Now, if only he would…
"Kage Bunshin!"
Ah, there it was. 0.01% now, though he'd only summoned two more clones. Odd — her profile on him had thus far suggested a tendency towards reckless mass production. If he was limiting his clones at this stage, then there were two logical reasons for this...one: he was running out of chakra (statistically unlikely); or two: it meant that he was actually thinking about conserving his strength for the fight.
Interesting. Perhaps she had to add a +0.99%, -0.00% error margin to her calculations.
"Get her!"
This part was more familiar. Despite the increase in tactical awareness, Naruto's anger was still clearly fuelling his actions — even in that of his clones. Wild blow after wild blow rained down upon her, and she skillfully weaved her way between them without much hassle. In fact, she had still not been forced off her two feet.
"Better," she complimented him as she casually stepped through the incoming attack of two clones, causing them to overcommit and punch absolutely nothing. A quick sidestep allowed her to evade the follow-up back kick from both clones. She then ducked under an overhead roundhouse kick, and merely lifted a foot one feet in the air to avoid the simultaneous leg sweep from the original.
The ease with which she was dodging was clearly infuriating the boy, of course. For all his gifts, Naruto was still a teenager, after all. He punctuated his every word with a failed attack.
"HOW! ARE! YOU! DODGING! EVERYTHING!"
Shuko winked at him as she sidestepped another blow. "You're just too easy to read, Naru-chan," she teased, causing him to bristle at the nickname. "You might as well be holding up a sign telling me your next move, and the one after that, and the one after that."
The good news, of course, was that shinobi tended to grow out of that tendency by the time they achieved Chūnin. The bad news was that Naruto's initial shinobi education was so poor that he was behind in this particularly critical area. If he was allowed to keep these bad habits, then she calculated a 56% chance of him dying on a B-Rank Chūnin level mission or getting severely injured in some way.
Well, no time like the present to correct her juniors, she supposed.
"Tell you what," she offered as she dodged another blow to her torso. "If I can call the next ten moves you make, you'll hear me out."
She ducked another triple-team attempt by Naruto and his two clones before sidestepping the follow-up. "Sound fair, Naru-chan?"
Naruto merely growled in response, prompting a grin from Shuko. It wasn't a roar, or a negatory shout, which she concluded that, in Naruto-speech, was probably some form of reluctant/curious agreement...mixed in with a lot of anger.
"Good!" she exclaimed before smiling as she perceived his body tense tellingly. "Two clones from above while you sweep my legs, Naru-chan!" she called out, a fraction of a second before the attack actually materialised.
"Back kicks from the clones while you attempt an uppercut, Naru-chan! C'mon! Mix it up!" she called out next, dodging that one, too. To mix things up, she made sure to end her dodge by showing him her back. It would make the next call-out mentally devastating.
"Ooh! Nice plan. Hammer kick from above by one clone, a head-on charge by the other, while you attempt to flank me," she said with a smile as she all but felt all three Narutos freeze in their place, their bodies tense from getting ready to execute that exact plan. She didn't even need to turn to know he was staring at her in shock. She shot him a teasing grin. "How'd I do? Hit it on the nail, Naru-chan?"
"H...How could you possibly know that?" he asked, the anger still in his voice, but now diluted with shock and curiosity.
Shuko shot him a smile. "I told you," she said. "You're just easy too ready, Naruto." For once, she decided not to taunt the boy and used his actual name. Bodily turning around, she placed a hand on her hip and smiled tolerantly. "You've certainly got potential, and Takeshi-kun's obviously done quite the job training you, but you've got a long way to go before you can claim command over my kin and I, boy."
Naruto's eyes narrowed at the jab, but Shuko held her ground. "Didn't like to hear that?" she asked calmly. He was honestly no threat to her. "Keisuke and Heiyako might've believed they were protecting you by coddling you, but I'm not them, Naruto. I ain't got time for games."
The Uzumaki heir glowered at her as he raised a hand, the clones disappearing in a puff of smoke, while he pointed at the wrist where his restraining seal had once been. "Then explain the seal!" he demanded.
Shuko shrugged. "It was a test, obviously."
"A test to see if I could get killed?"
She sighed. "A test to see if you could survive."
"By cutting off my chakra?"
"Yes."
The glower gained another level of anger. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" he shouted. "I could've died! MY FRIENDS COULD'VE DIED!"
Shuko's gaze became steely. "If you had, you weren't worthy of leading our clan to begin with," she told him flatly. "And if they'd died, it would've served as a lesson for you."
She could practically feel the anger coming off of him. It was like a nauseating pulse of vicious fury. The foul stench of primal chakra also told her how close he was to snapping. While she was personally curious as to the extent of the Kyūbi seal's restraining power, she was also wise enough to realise that unleashing even a single tail's worth of chakra in Konoha would have half the village mobilised and here in a couple of minutes.
"You crazy bitch!" he shouted, his pupils seemingly wobbling between that of a normal human's, and that of a feline. "I'll kil—"
"Kill me?" she finished for him, shutting him up. She stared him down for a moment before sighing and reaching for the fold of her kimono near her sash. Before Naruto had a chance to protest, she pulled it aside, showing off part of her bare torso.
And the ugly scar that ran along the length of her stomach.
"Tried that," she informed him mildly. "My kinsmen didn't much like that, though, so they managed to keep me alive."
She stared at his dumbfounded face for a few seconds, letting him soak it in, before letting the fold drop and reaching up to the folds over her clavicle. With a gentle pull, she let him witness the bare skin underneath...and the ugly, seemingly necrotic flesh that lay there.
"This was number two," she told him. "A bit of spider and viper venom, some nightshade...and a whole lot of acid." She added before letting the folds fall back into place...sort of. "Didn't take, either. My best healers spent three days trying to keep me from dying."
Naruto was stunned. "...What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked softly.
Shuko studied the would-be heir before her. He seemed calmed enough by now to hear her out. Figuring it was time, she privately made peace with her actions before letting the rest of her genjutsu fall.
To Naruto's eyes, not much changed in the old woman as he saw her image shift ever so slightly. She was obviously already at about her real age when she'd fought him — which was incredibly frustrating, considering it meant that it meant that a 70-year-old woman considered him slow. Still, he did perceive a bit more wrinkled skin than before, though his eyes finally settled on what had really been hidden away by the genjutsu.
Scars.
A lot of them.
Judging from the looks of it, there had to be at least a dozen scars on each of her wrists alone. If he, to borrow one of Shikamaru's complicated words, extrapolated that to the rest of her body, she had to be full of them.
And he knew that placement very well. He'd seen them enough times on the wrists of fellow orphans or street dwellers to recognise them on sight. Those weren't battle scars.
The realisation floored him.
"H...How many...?"
"78 attempts, by my last count," Shuko answered him simply, obviously guessing what he'd wanted to know. "I'm nothing if not persistent."
Whatever he had been meaning to retort died in his throat. 78 attempts?!
"I have very attentive clansmen," she added, preempting his next question. "And meddling, too, I suppose."
Naruto hesitated to ask the obvious follow-up question. From the look in Shuko's eyes, however, she was egging him on, daring him to ask. Between that and his own morbid curiosity, he swallowed as he gathered the courage to say what needed to be said.
"Why?"
Shuko smiled grimly before she raised a hand in a half-Rat seal and closed her eyes. In a poof of smoke that temporarily blinded him to her presence, she returned to her childlike appearance. She smiled at him as she came back into view.
"That's better," she mused aloud before motioning for him to follow her.
Reluctantly, he complied. As curious as he was, he didn't trust the infuriating woman, and nothing she'd done or said had remotely changed his opinion of her. Added to it, sure, but not changed it. Still, she had answers to some very pertinent questions, and he was nothing if not stubborn.
Eventually, Shuko motioned for him to take a seat next to her on a fallen log. Naruto took note that from their current position, much of Konoha was visible.
"Do you like this village, Naruto?"
The question threw him for a second before he rallied. Of all the conversation starters he'd been expecting, that hadn't been one.
"I love it," he admitted slowly, but firmly. "It's my home."
Shuko hummed thoughtfully at that. "I guess I can understand," she conceded. "I loved Uzushio because it was my home, too."
"Then why do you want to destroy my village?!" Naruto demanded, remembering what Jun had said at the Forest of Death. The older boy had blathered about some kind of betrayal Konoha had done against Uzushio, but that was all horseshit as far as he was concerned.
Shuko glanced up at him before shooting him a dismissive look. He could feel his blood boiling already.
"Because your home destroyed mine."
Her words froze him on his seat. He'd been about to shoot to his feet when Shuko had spoken, ready to rail at her again. Remembering his discussion with Shikamaru and Jun, however, Naruto glowered at her.
"Bullshit."
Shuko laughed bitterly. "Were it only so."
"Konoha wouldn't backstab anyone!" Naruto shouted, finally getting to his feet. Shuko matched his glare with a cold look of her own.
"It did," she told him flatly. "It stabbed my family — your family — in the back."
She chuckled bitterly as she swept her hand out, gesturing towards the village. "Do you really think all this peace and quiet just happens, Naruto?" she asked him archly. "How many people do you think Konoha has had to kill and betray over the years just to make sure this little patch of our world remains safe and secure?" She shook her head. "If Uzushio could ever be accused of making a deadly mistake, it was in trusting Konoha to look beyond their self-interest."
Naruto stared at Shuko, unsure what to say. He was committed to his belief that Konoha had done no wrong, but her voice was...steady. Confident. If anything, she believed what she was saying. He was a good enough judge of character to know when someone meant what they said….well, most of the time. Alright, so just some of the time.
"What are you saying?" He asked her eventually. "That Konoha betrayed Uzushio because they were selfish?"
"I'm saying they betrayed us because it was convenient," she corrected him.
"How?"
Shuko smiled darkly at him. "You know how."
Naruto had a sinking feeling he did know how. It didn't take a genius to connect the dots between the alliance's invasion of Uzu and the reason for why Konoha failed to save their ally. At least, as far as someone like Shuko was concerned.
"Our seals."
Shuko nodded as she turned back towards the sprawling scenery before her. "That's my theory," she confirmed. "Konoha's always liked being big cheese. I can't imagine having a vastly smaller village equate them in military power being easy to swallow or tolerate."
"That's crazy!" Naruto protested. "Jiji wouldn't do that!"
Shuko eyed him skeptically. "For someone who's gone through so much in life, Naruto, you're remarkably optimistic about people."
Naruto smiled despite the gravity of their conversation, puffing up proudly.
Something Shuko quickly put an end to. "That's not a good thing," she informed him pointedly.
Naruto looked at her quizzically. "Why not?"
Shuko sighed. "Naruto, how long has the current Hokage been in power?" she asked.
"I dunno...fourty, fifty years?"
"46 years, to be more precise," Shuko corrected him. "But I digress. Naruto, how does a man stay in power for 46 years?"
"By being very good at his job?"
Shuko shot the boy a glare, clearly not really appreciating the humour at this time. "Power, Naruto," she corrected him sternly. "They stay Hokage because they have power. And no one, in the history of our race, has ever had power and not used it."
Naruto frowned at her. It was nothing he hadn't heard before from the likes of Shikamaru, who insisted that Naruto needed to grow up a bit and see the world for what it was. The difference was that he was more than occasionally able to turn Shikamaru to his way of thinking with his unbridled optimism.
He doubted the same would work here.
He plopped down on the trunk next to her, staring out at Konoha. "I've heard this speech before," he told her flatly. No sense dancing around the issue.
"Oh?" She sounded amused.
Naruto nodded. "You say the old man's used his power to put down threats," he predicted. "And then I say 'no way!' and then you prove it to me, and I get all shell-shocked before denying everything you say, but still with my doubts," he ended. He afforded her a glance then. "Is that pretty much how it was going to go?"
Shuko nodded with an easy smile. "Pretty much," she conceded. "Except for one thing."
Now it was his turn to be somewhat intrigued. "Oh?"
Shuko raised a hand and rubbed her index and thumb in very specific sequences — not unlike what he'd seen Maki do to practice her sealing — and a poof of smoke heralded a successful jutsu.
He waited until the smoke cleared before spying what she'd summoned — a scroll, by the looks of it.
"What's that?"
Shuko smiled, twirling the thin scroll between her fingers. "This is my proof, of course."
"Of what?"
"Of Konoha destroying our home," Shuko clarified, somewhat annoyed that he was playing dumb. The twirling stopped suddenly. "The testimony of every Uzumaki clansman who escaped the slaughter Konoha left us to."
"And you think I'll believe you just like that?" Naruto asked sceptically. He nodded at the scroll. "Unlike what many of my friends believe, I wasn't born yesterday. That could be a fake."
"It could," Shuko conceded. "It could also be the real thing. And it's easy enough to confirm. Just ask your Elders to confirm the writing and accounts therein."
Naruto eyed her sceptically. There was no way she wasn't running a game on him right now. Every instinct in his body told him to just throw the scroll on the ground and leave...but there was something to be said about curiosity, too.
As he afforded the scroll a glance, he noticed that, oddly, it seemed heavier than it looked. That was not altogether strange: in the ninja world, first impressions tended to be wrong. Yet, in this case, he couldn't help but wonder if perhaps the scroll seemed heavier to him because of what it represented, and not so much what it was.
Shikamaru would've been proud.
The fact was, he had to make a choice now. He had to choose between not believing this old woman who'd screwed with his head already and just throw this scroll aside — potentially throwing away real proof of his family having been betrayed — or choose to believe her, and potentially finding out that the man he trusted like a grandfather had perhaps been behind the destruction of his homeland.
Any other year of his life and the choice would've been easy. Laughably so. He would've told Shuko to shove it up her ass and leave, secure in his beliefs.
But ever since his family had returned, he'd seen and heard enough to know that sometimes good people did bad things. The trip to Nami had been proof enough of that, what with the soldiers turning on Gatou the moment they had a chance to be free of him.
"You're curious, aren't you?"
Naruto tried to ignore Shuko as she stayed right next to him on the fallen log they were sharing. Yet, for all her tricks, there was something about her that was compelling. Something about the way she addressed the past made part of him think she was being mostly truthful about what happened.
"You wanted to know why I've tried to kill myself so many times, right?"
And if Konoha had really been behind his family's destruction…
He scowled. His jaw set. His muscles tensed.
"Read it and find out."
He broke the seal on the scroll and pulled it open.
...then damnit all, he wanted to know.
"Naruto!"
Shikamaru scowled as he called out, yet again, for his friend. Apparently, the blond whirlwind of energy had never returned home after his practice session with Uzumaki Takeshi, and his cousins had come calling at the Nara compound to see if he'd been there.
Unfortunately, Shikamaru hadn't been able to give them a satisfactory answer, and though they left, he couldn't help but feel a bit concerned about his blond friend. It wasn't that Naruto was incapable of defending himself or anything, but rather that this sort of behaviour did not mesh well with his observations about Naruto's character.
Nor was it likely that the blond had simply "forgotten" to go home. He'd never known Naruto to be so absent minded that he'd missed the sun setting. If anything, his stomach would always make sure to remind him that it was time to go home.
Yet, after excusing himself from the compound, Shikamaru had made inquiries at Ichiraku's, and found that, puzzlingly, Naruto hadn't been there either. He'd tried a few other restaurants, but all had given him more or less the same answer, with varying degrees of hostility directed towards the absent blond.
He would've liked to correct many an attitude during those inquiries, but the villagers' attitudes weren't the problem, so he'd let that slide for now.
After an hour spent wandering about the village, he'd called on Hinata for help, providing her family with a plausible (if untrue) excuse for why she was needed. Team business, he'd said. Very urgent.
Yes, his teachers had sent him. No, he didn't have anything to prove that. Were they really going to cast aspersions regarding the Nara heir's credibility, though?
That had pretty much settled it, and in short order, he'd been granted the company of Hinata, whom he'd brought up to speed as quickly as possible as he resumed his search.
Obviously, the girl was overwrought with worry for her crush, but Shikamaru hadn't gone looking for her because of her feelings. She had a rather more useful skill he needed.
"Still nothing?" he asked as they moved through the dense woods that made up the perimeter of the training area where Naruto had last been seen.
The pale-eyed Hyūga heiress shook her head sadly, her bloodline limit activated.
"Troublesome blond," he grumbled. In the distance, he heard some birds squawking, and saw a shadowy figure leap across Konoha's rooftops. More Uzumaki, he imagined. He'd bumped into a few as they carried out their search — they were really not taking Naruto's absence well.
"W-What do you think h-happened?" his companion asked fearfully.
"I don't know," he answered as calmly as he could, not wanting to exacerbate her emotional state. Even so, it was a more truthful answer than he'd have liked to admit. He had no idea what had happened to make Naruto disappear like this, but whatever it was, he knew it couldn't be good. It wasn't going to be food related or training related...most likely, whatever it was boded ill for his friend.
They walked in relative silence for another few minutes before he heard the Hyūga heiress gasp in surprise. Instantly, he turned to look at her. "What? Did you find him?"
She merely nodded, pointing a trembling finger ahead. Shikamaru scowled — that was hardly the best sign to get.
He immediately set out in the direction she'd pointed out, not really paying attention as to whether she was following him or not. Whatever it was she'd seen, it had troubled her, and he wasn't about to leave his friend in danger.
What he saw when he broke free of the forest's borders, entering a sudden, small clearing he hadn't recalled seeing in the map, it took him a moment to realise what was wrong with this picture — and, by consequence, what had probably disturbed Hinata.
There were a few trees lying about, scattered, forming the basis for the clearing he was now standing it. From the looks of them, they had been torn apart by some sort of dull blade — as though someone had taken a hammer to them and just whaled on them until they broke.
And there, sitting on a fallen log, in the middle of this pseudo-clearing, was his blond friend, head bowed and back to him, but clearly the person responsible for this sudden act of violent deforestation. Even so, it had taken him a moment to recognise his friend.
The reason being the black, intricate tattoo that was pulsing angrily all throughout his back, its disappearing lines along his torso and shoulders insinuating their presence on his limbs. It didn't take Shikamaru much to connect the dots.
"Naruto."
The blond's head snapped up, and the sudden violence with which he turned, seemingly ready to visit violence upon him, shook Shikamaru. Yet he stood his ground. He would not abandon his friend in his time of need. Not now. Not as long as he had a say in it.
Yet, before Shikamaru knew what had happened, Naruto was practically up in his face, having moved faster than Shikamaru could've imagined possible for the blond, one arm pulled back, as though he was ready to punch the living daylights out of him.
Shikamaru didn't know what possessed him to stand still, but so he remained.
Naruto didn't throw the punch. "Are you also going to betray me someday, Shikamaru?" the boy asked, the deadened cadence of his voice chilling Shikamaru.
"Why would I do that?" Shikamaru asked as calmly as he could muster himself to be. Losing his cool here would be enormously unwise, he calculated, and Naruto was clearly in the middle of an emotional fit. A part of him hoped Hinata had chosen to backtrack back to the village to get help, while another, more selfish part of him wished she was nearby, ready to intervene if necessary.
Though that made him wonder if she'd be capable of stopping Naruto if it came to it.
"Konoha killed my family," Naruto spat, his fist still reared and ready to go, but now trembling ever so slightly. Shikamaru mentally cursed as he observed that, and noticed the tinge of red in his friend's eyes — Naruto was losing what little control he had left over his emotions. He needed to prevent that as quickly as possible before his friend did something he'd regret.
"That sounds awful," Shikamaru told him evenly, assiduously thinking through a possible contingency plan to neutralise his friend if it came to it. "Why don't we talk about it?" he suggested.
Naruto's angry glare faltered for a moment before reasserting itself, and suddenly Shikamaru felt the scruff of his shirt being pulled up by Naruto's free hand, pulling him up onto his tiptoes. Shikamaru grimaced — his friend had always had a distinct physical advantage over most of his peers, other than Kiba and Sasuke.
"You're trying to get into my head, Shikamaru," Naruto growled. "Stop doing that."
"I just want to know what you're thinking, Naruto," he countered, hoping that faint rustling he just heard was the sound of Hinata taking position somewhere within Naruto's blind side. "You're my friend. You're angry. Just tell me why."
"I told you why!" Naruto snapped, drawing Shikamaru in until he was practically face to face with his friend. "You...Konoha...you murdered my family! Your allies!"
"I believe you," Shikamaru told him earnestly as he subtly motioned with his hands for whoever was out there to make no move; he hoped they got the message. "But you need to explain it to me, Naruto, because otherwise none of this makes sense to me!"
"Shuko told me everything!" Naruto practically shouted into his face, chilling Shikamaru. Naruto had listened to that lunatic? That was bad news. Bad news on a monumental scale. But, as he tried to keep his grimace from showing, he reasoned that it also made sense.
It was like the final puzzle piece he'd needed had finally fallen into place.
Shuko had been overtly escalating her feud with Naruto for a while now. First, with the bet; then, by sabotaging his seal. Then, by sending in her goon squad after them. Next, she'd antagonised the clansmen he was closest to. And now, this.
Shuko was driving his friend up a wall, making him as emotionally frayed as she could, all for this one moment where she could work whatever plan she'd had in mind all this time.
This had been her endgame for Naruto all along. He was certain she had other plans in the works, but this had been her final move in the shogi game she'd been playing with her friend.
And Naruto had been checkmated.
"What did she tell you?" he asked, his famed reasoning skills reasserting their control over his disturbed mind. "Let me understand, so I can help you."
Naruto scoffed. "Why would you help me?"
"Because I'm your friend, Naruto!" Shikamaru snapped back in a calculated move. "Why else do you think I'm out here in the middle of the evening, looking for you?!"
That trick did it. Naruto abruptly let go of his shirt, allowing Shikamaru to fall back onto his feet. Straightening his shirt, he leveled a glower at his friend. "Honestly, you've got to be one of the most troublesome guys I know, but you're still my friend."
Naruto finally dropped his threatening fist, but Shikamaru spied the tattoo still pulsating angrily. Whatever it was, it was still very active.
"Shuko…"
"Told you everything. Yes, so you've said," Shikamaru interrupted him. "Tell me about it."
Naruto sighed and walked back to the trunk where Shikamaru had found him. For a moment, Shikamaru feared his friend would clamp up, as he'd usually done back in the Academy whenever he was troubled. Just as he was about to say something about it, though, Naruto picked up something out of sight, then turned to face him.
In his hand was a scroll.
"I'll do you better, Shika," Naruto said. "I'll show you."
Shikamaru didn't have the time to process what he'd meant by that before Naruto tossed him the scroll. Catching it on instinct, he noticed that the wax seal had been broken — a seal that, based on the designs on the two broken halves, had been that of a whirlpool...the Uzumaki symbol.
"What is this?" he asked.
"The truth," Naruto said simply as he walked back to him.
Shikamaru frowned. That was a loaded statement, and one he wasn't too convinced by. More to the point, he'd seen Naruto grow wise enough by now not to believe whatever a stranger said to him at face value — especially not someone like Shuko. Whatever was in this scroll, it had to be quite convincing for Naruto to believe it prima facie.
"Hinata."
Naruto looked at him oddly before tensing as he heard the sound of foliage rustling. From somewhere to their left, he spied Hinata entering the clearing, looking quite nervous and shame-faced. Likely, she'd felt as though she were intruding in their moment.
He didn't have time for that.
"Hinata-chan? What're you doing here?" Naruto asked.
"She helped me find you, obviously," Shikamaru responded on her behalf curtly before looking over at her. "You heard everything?" She nodded shyly in response. "Good. Do me a favour and go back and tell them we've found Naruto and are on our way back," he requested/ordered her.
"But…"
"Hinata. Please," he insisted, cutting off her protest. For a moment, she looked indecisive, glancing at Naruto, then the scroll. Soon enough, however, she nodded once before casting a final glance at Naruto and then jumping out of site, the sound of rustling leaves quickly fading away.
"She was backup, wasn't she?" Naruto asked as soon as the sound had all but disappeared.
"Yeah," Shikamaru confirmed, not really wanting to lie to his friend. "Though, to be honest, there was a moment when I didn't know she was still around."
Naruto stared at him incredulously. "You gambled?"
Shikamaru made a face. "You make it sound like it's such a weird thing for me," he said irritably. "And it's not like you gave me much time to make a foolproof backup plan."
Naruto looked away, seemingly only realising the full extent of what he'd done just now. "Yeah."
Shikamaru repressed his need to make another, acerbic observation in favour of examining the closed scroll in his hand. He was still somewhat concerned about what he'd find there — would it mess with his mind, too? What if it was some sort of hypnosis jutsu?
He eyed his friend again. That tattoo was still there, pulsating. Had the scroll done that?
"Is this thing," he nodded at the scroll, then at Naruto, "going to give me a tattoo like that?"
Naruto blinked before looking down and then grinning sheepishly. "Ah, no...this was...something one of my clansmen whipped up for the Second Task that I never got to use."
"Because of Shuko's tampering with your seal?"
Silence.
"Sure, let's go with that."
Feeling a headache coming on, Shikamaru shook his head in disgust before refocusing on the matter at hand. Alright, so the scroll wouldn't give him a major tattoo that he doubted he would be able to explain to his parents. That didn't rule out other forms of markings or mind-tweaking that could be potentially detrimental to him.
"It won't hurt," Naruto told him softly.
"Will it mess with my mind?" Shikamaru asked in return.
"It didn't with mine."
"Would you know, though?"
Another sheepish grin. "Probably not, come to think of it."
Well, that was hardly reassuring. Still, as Shikamaru thought things through, he had to concede the point that Naruto was probably not the target of a genjutsu of some kind. Still, it didn't hurt to cover one's bases.
"I'm going to do a genjutsu release on you," he announced, bringing up his hands into the appropriate seal. "Just to make sure."
Naruto seemed about to protest, then shrugged. "Whatever you need to do, Shika."
The Nara heir nodded before focusing his chakra, then releasing it as he cried out, "Kai!"
He felt the burst of chakra. He knew Naruto had, too. Yet, his blond friend seemed unaffected. That implied two possible outcomes: either there had been no genjutsu to speak of, or the illusion was to powerful that Shikamaru's comparatively weak reserves wouldn't cut it.
He nodded at Naruto. "Now you do it."
Naruto shrugged and did as requested — again, no change in behaviour.
Which, arguably, was not proof of lack. Still, he knew his friend needed him right now, and if this scroll held some of the answers he needed to understand that Shuko woman's grand plan, then perhaps it was worth it.
It'd be like taking a dangerous gamble in shogi — one that could easily win you the match...or lose it. A desperation move.
He sighed. Maybe Naruto was a bad influence on him.
He raised the scroll and set his hands to open it. "Alright, let's see what this scroll has to say."
Naruto nodded encouragingly at him. Shikamaru tensed, then unfurled the scroll. He spied a really intricate jutsu formula for all of a split second before it was gone.
A bright light.
And Shikamaru and Naruto saw the clearing no more.
Post-Chapter AN: Two things from this chapter to get ouf of the way as quickly as possible before we get into the Shuko business.
1. How was Shuko able to predict Naruto's actions at the beginning of this chapter? Despite everything, Shuko is a shinobi with over half a century of experience under her belt. Being physically weak, it would make sense for her to thus focus her training on avoidance techniques and reading the opponent's moves in order to avoid a purely physical confrontation, which she would lose against a similarly skilled opponent. Here, she's just taunting Naruto.
2. Isn't Shuko too old to be able to fight like this? By that logic, the Third Hokage should've keeled over the moment Orochimaru began fighting him since she's just a bit older than him.
And now, finally, we get to the main discussion: Shuko as a character.
I want to preface this by introducing a few concepts to any of my readers who are not International Relations/Political Science students/graduates/autodidact. These are:
1. Realism: the International Relations theory that asserts that all interactions between states takes place within a stage of global anarchy, in which states are in constant, never-ending competition to accrue power. Political realists believe, for the most part, in 3 things as being critical to understanding International Relations: statism (the state is the only relevant actor on the international stage), survival (a government's duty in IR is to accrue enough power to keep itself alive), and self-help (no state ought to rely on another for survival). There are numerous sub-theories that you can look up, like neorealism, offensive realism, etc...
2. Liberalism: The International Relations theory that postulates that, despite states existing in global anarchy, they can regulate this anarchy by forming alliances, but always as a function of the accumulation of power for reasons of national interest. Thus, the United Nations, the European Union, and other global institutions are necessary not just as a means of fostering cooperation, but also to give its main backers enough power to remain secure. The notion of interest is particularly dominant in this theory. Sometimes called "idealism."
3. Constructivism: The International Relations theory that says that global anarchy is constructed - ie. we live in global anarchy because we created that anarchy and maintain it. Unlike realism and liberalism, constructivists believe that anarchy can be transcended, so long as social and global norms of appropriateness drive us away from traditional power politics. These norms, as attested by several political scientists, are the result of social processes that can be enacted by either individuals or states - thus, constructivists believe NGOs have a critical role to play in IR, unlike realists and some liberals.
With this said, here's why I introduced these concepts:
Shuko is a realist, in the IR sense of the word. In our world, she would be the student of Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes. She would think Jean-Jacques Rousseau's metaphor of the stag hunt to be the single, most convincing truism she's ever heard. She would look upon defenders of the liberal IR tradition as deluded fools. She believes the world runs on power, and nothing more, and acts accordingly to these beliefs.
However, bear in mind, Sarutobi Hiruzen is also a realist. A more reluctant one, to be sure, but he is a realist as well (at best, he would be a soft liberal; and I don't mean that pejoratively). Realists are those who employ the Henry Kissingers of the world (or, as you might know him in Naruto, Shimura Danzou, also a realist). They put little stock in alliances, believing them to be, at best, alliances of convenience rather than firm pacts (thus, why Konoha was able to react as violently and effectively as it did during the Suna invasion, and was later preoccupied with "maintaining appearances").
So when the Third Hokage and Shuko sit down and he decides to listen to her, he is not being OOC and ignoring what she's done. He's accepting that if Shuko has a plan to give him leverage over his political opponents (Suna, Mizu, Iwa, and Kumo), then he is both morally and politically obligated to hear her out, at least, from a realist perspective. If she's useful, he's duty-boundto use her. This explains why he never got rid of Danzou despite the trouble the man brought with him.
So where does Naruto fit into all this? Why is he being given the run-around? Because Naruto is an IR constructivist. In canon, at least, he begins more as a liberal, then turns constructivist the moment he decides to "change" the shinobi (ie. construct new norms). Here, he is still naive to the global politics at work, and this allows more ruthless people than he to keep him off balance. Yet, as this chapter and others should have demonstrated by now, he's slowly beginning to understand how far people are willing to go to win. This is a hard lesson that any successful leader needs to understand in order to function.
Without giving anything away from Shuko's final plan (which will be resolved by the end of this arc), I would recommend - even urge you to revisit Shuko's actions from the perspective of the theoretical frameworks I've introduced. It may help you understand both why she does the things she does, and what her final plan entails.
Lastly, I would like to point out that at no point in this story (or any others) will I be trying to tell my readers which of these frameworks is correct. Even IR scholars aren't 100% sure, as none of them seem to consistently explain why states act as they do in every situation.
Sorry for the political discussion. I'll leave you alone now. Thank you for your patience.
