My Toes, My Knees, My Shoulders, My Head

A/N: Actually, this isn't an author's note. This is a friend-who's-uploading-for-her-friend note. As you may already know, she doesn't have access to this account and have only forwarded me all the chapters for republishing. The blame for the late updates fall on me and me alone. :P She does go through the reviews and the PMs and I've never pretended to be her in any of the responses. For those asking her to edit or critique original stories, I think she's having fun but she's a bit busy so hang in there. They've been forwarded to her email.

Micena, I feel the exact same way. That's why I insisted on this getting republished after I discovered she had revised it during her free time. But she did keep me on my toes because there was always the danger of this turning bad.

Gustin puckerman, the revised version was finished four to five chapters ago and since you mentioned PTSD I've been looking into it (I already have the remaining chapters!) and I'm not sure if it's mentioned in the end but I think because she wanted to make the characters believable, signs of trauma was involved (I'm six chapters away from finishing this and my eyes are killing me!) And if you read the original version, you'd know that part that made you cry wasn't there before so when I read it I was also crying because he couldn't say he loved her but it was so obvious!

Pibinezz, I think she did her best to avoid this being sappy or tragic in spite of them being the two most obvious pitfalls of this fic if she ended up getting it wrong (being too emotional or servicing her readers and such). As I'm finishing reading the fic, I believe her aim was to make them face realistic consequences to their troubles and their feelings, hence there's a...okay, I'm not going to spoil it. :) Just wait and see.

To all those who review and PMs - especially the Guest who thinks this is addictive (I agree!) - thanks for the support. If you have questions or comments or anything you'd like to say to the author, leave a PM or a review. As a reader uploading this for the author, I now see how valuable feedback is even if I'm not the one who wrote this.

Enjoy!

Thirty - Four

Sakura / Tsunade / Shikamaru

Sakura:

Why not?

Simple: when stuck with a man in a mission for extended periods of time, never trust your emotions. Lady Tsunade taught me that proverb on my fifteenth birthday. Shikamaru - although he'd leaned in as though to kiss me in the forest - had withdrawn eventually in respect to his innate understanding of this saying.

Deprived as I'd felt of his touch, I didn't force him to verbalize his reasons. Mine, after all, was already coursing my logic and stabilizing me, slowly but surely assuring me that stepping back from Shikamaru was the correct move. At this rate, whether or not he returned to Konoha made little difference to his chances of survival. Emphasizing my childish whim to have him stay so I could assure myself that somebody in this twisted case would do her best for him would only hurt his feelings. He didn't need reminding that everybody was preoccupied with me.

As we stood apart in the forest, frozen by our mutual fear of what we'd gotten ourselves into, I thought he didn't need reminding that he was also too preoccupied with me to beg for his salvation.

Lady Tsunade's master in medicine had warned her about my kind of situation when she turned thirteen, but she never really understood its importance until she was sent to a mission with a male shinobi of a higher rank. The trouble they faced was political, and the bargain they wanted to make entailed her medical expertise. If the ally village - which should remain unspecified - would continue to adhere to their peace treaty with Konoha, Lady Tsunade would train their medics in the modern way of medicine and its proper application in the battlefield.

The war was bound to start soon. The ally village needed as much help as they could to prepare their troops.

With the burden on Lady Tsunade's shoulder, she became vulnerable to the greed and lust of human nature. She was a sea away from Konoha, from her family, and from her friends. The only person who understood her was a man she used to pass in the hallway of the Hokage Tower. He was a foot taller than her and twice as wide. His posture was unyielding, and his eyes were enchanting.

Lady Tsunade emphasized that aside from his physical appeal, he was clever and kind. Whenever she was on the verge of beating the amateur medics for being airheads, he would put his hand on her back and take control of the situation. It was that warmth on her skin - that warmth that softened her spine - that started it all. They lived in the small quarters the foreign village provided for them. It did not take long before she started yearning for that hand on her back to touch her elsewhere.

Sexual pleasure had the tendency to confuse the heart. They both thought that they were in love. The mission lasted for another three weeks, after which they were recalled to Konoha. The second they stepped foot in their home, everything changed. It was as if their eyes had been opened to the stupidity of their actions, and they never spoke again. Lady Tsunade found the love of her life on the months preceding the actual war, and she learned the difference between reality and fantasy.

"Don't fall in love while in a mission," I repeated this to Shikamaru, who was sitting on the chair next to me and tipping it back by pushing his feet against the window ledge.

He and I had returned to the house earlier with an awkward air between us. Until we'd had that confrontation, it wasn't clear exactly what we felt for one another. Or perhaps it was clear but we'd refused to acknowledge it until it was all we could see.

Ino had refrained from bullying me upon sensing the tension I was suppressing, and she had made extra effort to ease Shikamaru during dinner through casual conversation. She was capable of transforming our twisted situation back to a state of normalcy with just a few comical remarks, and while I was certain that this was mainly for Shikamaru's benefit, I had not minded. After all, Shikamaru loosened up faster with her around. There had been instances when he looked at her for a second too long and I felt the urge to walk out.

Naruto had asked if Shikamaru was going to sleep in the same room as I. He had looked at me, and I had answered that he had no choice. He needed to watch over me in case Kana manifested while I was asleep.

Naruto insisted on sleeping in the same room, pointing out that Shikamaru's advantages were unfair since he was not the only one helping in this case, and Ino had injected that she was the medic hence she should be the one watching over me.

In the end, the four of us slept in one room. Captain Yamato had found us bundled in multiple layers of futons and said that he had no intention of joining in our 'fun'. Once Naruto was snoring and Ino was flat on her stomach – the ultimate sign that she was deep asleep from exhaustion – Shikamaru shook me awake and tiptoed out of the room. Curious, I followed him to the attic.

Now we were sitting beside each other, our legs crossed over the window ledge. He said that nobody taught him that lesson about missions. It had always been about the battlefield and the political manoeuvres that shinobis could make against foreign villages and nothing about their relationship with their comrades and especially about their sexual appetites. "You're lucky she shared that with you before this mission. We can be ogling at each other by now."

I chuckled and took a sip of my hot cocoa. "It doesn't help that a part of me still confuses you for my husband. And don't use that word again – ogling. It's disgusting."

"Ogling."

"Shikamaru!"

"Sorry."

"Is the medicine working? I'm sure I did it right or else you'd be dead by now."

He sighed and put down his mug. "If I die tomorrow, it won't be your fault."

"Stop being such a pessimist."

"So you're saying that we're in the exact same situation that the Fifth warned you about?" He glimpsed me through the corner of his eye, and it bothered me that he couldn't look at me straight anymore.

"...I'm just trying to explain what I said in the forest."

"Tell me if that's what you meant."

"Yes," I grumbled. "Happy?"

He didn't look happy. "Therefore implying that anything we might feel for each other, regardless of how subtle or intense, is invalid."

I lowered my feet to the floor and massaged my thighs, pretending to be distracted by cramps. The silence eventually got to me and I said, "I suppose. Don't tell me that bothers you. You're the one who professed your infatuation for Ino. She's here now. Go for it."

He put his feet down and looked out the window, at the barely visible moon. "We shouldn't be spending time like this. I meant...alone like this."

I stared down at my empty mug. I nodded, even though he was the one who asked for me to be here. "I really can't stop you from leaving tomorrow?"

"I already agreed to a compromise, Sakura," he said. "I'll go but you'll be the one to tell everybody that I'm…."

"It's better for everybody to be aware. They'd also want to start considering what they'd want to say if it were- if it…if it were the last time they'd see you."

He chuckled. "How troublesome. Never been such a big fan of drama and long speeches."

"Hey, before I go back to our room, I was wondering if you'll write to your mum and dad."

"Why?"

"Heart conditions are tricky to cure," I said, gesturing to myself rather than to him because we agreed that we would refrain from physical contact – and even from referring to each other through actions. "You have to be careful with your emotions. That's why I told you about Lady Tsunade's 'words of wisdom'. Enduring this awkwardness between us will be worth my effort if you de-stress and absorb our situation with rational thinking rather than...whatever. You get what I mean. Sakura would have done this for Shikamaru – I-I mean I would have done this regardless of-of – I'll shut up now. It's really not about my affections that I'm doing this for you. I really don't want anything bad to happen to you – to Shikamaru. Okay, you look annoyed and I'm getting the urge to punch you. I'm going."

"Ino thinks it's Asuma," he said as I was exiting the attic-turned-library. I held onto the doorframe and looked back at him. He shifted on his chair and added that he still had trouble accepting Asuma's death. He had never told anybody because it was stupid for him to be holding on to his loss for so long. Ino could be right. She understood the impact of losing someone so close to the heart. "If I failed to save Asuma...I guess I just convinced myself that there can be no way I can save the other people that matters." He smiled and then he frowned, turning over the mug on his palm for diversion. "This whole thing is a nightmare come to life. I thought that if I can make dad mean less to me, it would hurt less once he's gone. He's a shinobi. He's bound to die one way or another. But it just sounds wrong now. I don't think...I don't think he'll mean less if I punish him for lying to me."

"Shikamaru, they're human too." I stepped inside the room again and leaned on the wall, noting the wide expanse of floor between us. "What I think is that he could not have handled the box any better. Judging by the events that surrounded him and that Aiko Hyuuga, they had no better control over their situation. Your dad loved a woman and they had a baby and the baby died. Still, that didn't stop him from loving you, Shikamaru."

He placed the mug on the floor. He paced the room, his gloved hands behind his head. "I'm a fucking ghost of that baby."

"Maybe he had no choice," I said, shrugging. "You had to be named 'Shikamaru' or else remain nameless for the rest of your life. Heck, how many different names that start with 'Shika' can you create? You'll have to be creative so as not to ruin the life of your future son, buddy."

He turned around to face me, scowling. "Go to sleep. We're not talking about babies again. It's not healthy for you."

I ducked my head. "Resolve your issues," I said. "That will make saving you a hell of a lot easier for me."

He entered the dimmer parts of the attic, and for a while I was worried that he had vanished. It was only later, upon hearing him take steady breaths, that I realized how comforting the dark must be for him. Him and his shadows. Emerging from the dark, he licked his lips and put his hands on his waist. "Right now I wish nobody else has to know I'm dying."

"Shikamaru, there's no way I can save you by myself – not in my current state."

His eyes darkened and with one exhale, his entire physique seemed to deflate. My bones burned with the desire to hide him in my embrace, to let him cower from the world while his friends - the darkness - reigned in the sky. I knew how slow the comprehension of death was outside of the battlefield. In this fight, he had no way of creating strategies for evasion. Intellect was only as real as the next, physical threat. How could he fight a threat that was indeed physical, but that existed inside him?

This was the exact same pain I was still enduring with the rebirth, but somehow his pain seemed more severe. All he did was pull me from that pond. It was unfair what the rebirth was doing to him.

"Dying is different from death itself," I managed to say. "We're not quite there yet, Shikamaru."

"It seems so." He slumped on his chair. "Now shoo. You need to sleep."

"So do you."

"I'll follow in a couple of minutes."

"You sure? Or are you going to start on that letter after I leave?"

"Sakura, you're reminding me of mum's creepiness. Go."

"Nobody trusts men when they say they'll 'follow in a couple of minutes'."

"Women. What a drag." His voice cracked, and I took it as a signal to leave. Halfway down the staircase to the second landing, I perceived the softest cries I had ever heard in my life. His whimpers weakened my knees, and I had to bite my knuckles to suppress the raggedness of my breathing. I dropped to the steps, clutching the railings in time to prevent my fall.

A shadow broke free from the dimness of the corridor, and the figure of a man stood in front of me. Unfastening his jacket, Captain Yamato draped it around my shoulders and ran his hand across my back, quietly telling me to calm down. He warned me that he was going to carry me to his room. I could rest there and someone we all trusted would watch over me. It would do Ino and Naruto no good to be woken up at this hour of the night. Did I want him to talk to Shikamaru?

It didn't occur to me to question him until I was already sitting on his bed, folded like a ball – like a child – and gazing up at Kakashi. I turned towards the captain, only to find that he had already left the room.

Kakashi admonished me to sleep. He wasn't going anywhere. In fact, he was commissioned to have breakfast here. The captain was not supposed to disclose his location until the morning. Why did everyone believe that he was good at caring for children?

I crept off the bed and sat next to him on the floor. I buried my face on his shoulder and continued crying. "Are you sure you're comfortable there?" he whispered, worry evident in his tone.

I nodded, rubbing my nose on the thick fabric of his sleeve.

Tsunade:

My eyes could bear the sight no longer. It was, by far, the ugliest thing I had yet to witness and to participate in my entire life. Why did I have to do this? Why did the world continue to shove me towards monstrosity? I wasn't a monster. Orochimaru was.

We didn't have to do this to Sai if only I had managed to kill Orochimaru before.

Why was I so weak?

"I-I'm…I-I'm…" The words spilled from Sai's mouth along with blood from his beaten mouth. He dangled from the manacles that bound his wrists to chains extending down from the ceiling. A metal boulder sat next to him, its own chains binding his ankles and pulling him to the ground.

I swung my head to his direction, but downwards, so that all I had to endure was the blood he had been spurting since this procedure began.

Inoichi slammed his hand on the floor, shouting, "I can't hear you!"

"I-I'm Sai!"

"Nobody hears you, Sai!"

He hung his head low and blurted that his name was Sai, and he was a member of Root. That was what we had been forcing him to say. Were we happy? That didn't change the fact that he was actually Ryo, and he wanted to have his wife back. "Where is Kana?"

Inoichi formed a hand seal. The shinobis sitting in a circle around Sai followed his movements and seconds later, blue flashes of light emerged from the scripts painted across Sai's naked body, electrocuting him.

"Milady."

I craned my neck to see who had called me. Shikaku entered the Cage and remained in the darkness, conscious of the line on the floor where the shade ended. I realized that he was avoiding to be seen by Sai, considering how closely he resembled Shikamaru. I approached him and refrained from expressing my gratitude for the timely distraction.

"News?" I said.

He nodded. "I've spoken with Yamato. He delivered the scrolls that Shikamaru and Sakura had been working on, along with a narrative of how they reached their conclusions. It's a good thing that Sakura isn't in Konoha, or else we'll have no way of shielding her from becoming Danzo's guinea pig. You'd be amazed at the feat she pulled off to retrieve information from Kana. Yamato said he was following instructions from Shikamaru and had no idea what was happening between the two. It seemed Shikamaru have Sakura all figured out."

I glimpsed at the scene behind me and decided that I should leave before I lost control of my anger and stopped this necessary procedure. "My office. Now."

The Cage was another facility inside Laboratory Five that made the place the inferno it was. After our visit to the Nara forest lodging, Shizune and I transferred the entire truckload of case files from the Hokage Tower to my new office here – the same office that the Third occupied in his attempt to discover the extent of Orochimaru's insanity. If only he realized the stupidity of that attempt, he would have stopped long ago and avoided the reality that he failed with one of his students.

I pushed the door inwards and saw Jiraiya standing in front of the wall to the left with his arms folded across his chest and his attention focused on the photo frame.

I walked past him and headed straight to my metal desk. "Don't give me that shit, Jiraiya. We should have killed him when we were children."

"Don't be like that, Tsunade."

"Like what?" I flattened my hands on the layers of scrolls that Shikaku presented, lest I was tempted to assault Jiraiya. "Like mad? Have you taken a peek at the Cage? Maybe you should see what – "

"This is exactly what Orochimaru wants from you." He turned to face me.

"He wants everybody to be miserable. What's new?"

"He wants everybody – particularly you and me – to be miserable to the point that we actually consider madness as our only destination," he said. "This is exactly what led him to become a monster seeking eternal life. Don't let your anger fester."

Pinching my nose bridge, I took a deep breath and absorbed the contents of the scroll. "Explain these highlighted passages, Shikaku."

"These are routes, milady. Yamato completed this map and saw that it was patterned after Konoha's political boundary."

Jiraiya joined us. He ran his hand across the highlighted passages. "True. But what for?"

"Eight targets," answered Shikaku. "Look at those encircled areas. Sakura found them by conversing with Kana in her head. They are targets, she told Yamato, and they were not meant to harm Konoha. Sakura argued that Kana was a victim of Ryo rather than an accomplice. However, it would not explain why Kana once told her to burn the map."

"The easiest way to find out is to send people to those locations and uncover the secret."

Jiraiya grunted and shook his head at the map. "You can't trust the ANBUs, Tsunade. Danzo is an expert in manipulating those in masks. Have you got chuunins and a couple of young jounins to send off? Ones you can trust? Nobody will mind if some young people are sent out to practice drills in Konoha's borders."

"That can be a valid excuse." Shikaku scoured the papers on his own desk and brought out a blueprint. "Shikamaru and I came up with the latest defence system that Konoha can practice in case of large-scale attacks. You can show your liking to this, Lady Tsunade, and declare that you want to assist in developing it further. You will need to send select shinobis to test its efficiency, and tomorrow is as good a day as any."

I smiled, disregarding how strange it must look in my worn out face. "Finally, a nice place to vent! I can get back at the council for their foul reaction on those damn changes I had to make in the prison management."

"Please, Tsunade, you can't be charged for murder," grumbled Jiraiya. "Wait until this case is over."

"Jiraiya, I'm ordering you to leave Konoha with Naruto tomorrow."

He arched his brow.

Shikaku's expression eased as he comprehended my intentions.

I lowered myself to the chair. "What we'll be doing tomorrow is very risky. I can't have you involved in this case anymore. You're done. Who'll take care of Naruto once I get in trouble? The Akatsuki can't have their way. Focus on that group of bastards while I take care of Orochimaru's shitty existence."

Sakura:

The part I hated the most about admitting the state of a patient was the silence that followed. The families I had to handle before always fell silent, but not for this long. I was not prepared for the shock that enveloped the room while we were eating breakfast. We were shinobis, and yet it seemed that the news struck us harder than it should.

Captain Yamato tried not to, but he was gaping seconds after I revealed the news.

Kakashi set down his chopsticks.

Naruto dropped the fish he was stealing from Kakashi's plate and stopped chewing the rice balls in his mouth.

Ino stared at me, unable to turn her head a few inches to her right to confirm with Shikamaru.

Shikamaru had stopped looking at me after I blurted that he was dying. We had agreed that I was going to be the one to tell since I was his medic, and I had warned everyone that they wouldn't like the news that I was about to share, but the paleness of his face did nothing to show that he was prepared for this.

I remembered his whimpers last night, after I had left him in the attic-turned-library. He must have refrained from telling Captain Yamato this fact during the conversation they had last night. Perhaps he had noticed the captain's presence beforehand and had contained his tears before his solitude was interrupted.

Shikamaru didn't want anybody to know that he had been crying about it.

Irritated, I pushed my plate aside. "Obviously, none of you heard that I'm also medicating him."

Naruto slammed his fist on the table, his teeth bared and his breathing ragged. "Why?"

"Why what, Naruto?"

"How come you're-you're suffering, Shikamaru?" Naruto scraped his chair back, about to stand but finding that he couldn't. "How can your heart be acting up? You were fine just days ago!"

"Calm down, Naruto," Kakashi said.

"How can I be calm?" He finally stood. He paced the length of the kitchen, declaring that Shikamaru was not going to die. "I can't understand what the hell went wrong! What happened, Sakura? I thought it was his pathways-"

"He jumped into the pond while the rebirth jutsu was still active. The rebirth doesn't know how to react to him, and since they can't revive another soul in him, perhaps its only choice is to kill him," I told Kakashi and Captain Yamato. "That's the only explanation I can come up with."

Kakashi glimpsed Shikamaru. "His pathways and later his heart, huh? You didn't expect this when you used your blood to counteract the jutsu, did you?"

Shikamaru coughed and wiped his mouth. Blood stained his lips. He pretended that there was no blood dripping from his fist.

"It's the blood seal." I bit my lower lip. "You were injured when you entered the pond, that's why your pathways are screwed and your h-heart...it all makes sense now. It's so so stupid of me not to have realized it much sooner."

"He should go back to Konoha!" Naruto announced. "Shikamaru, you're going back to Konoha right now!"

Ino pushed her chair back and walked out of the kitchen. Shikamaru wiped his mouth with his sleeve and followed her. We heard the front door slam shut.

Kakashi sighed. "Sakura, when did you know?"

"The evening before all of you came."

"How?"

"He was smoking and he suddenly vomited blood and-" I hunched over the table, holding my hair back from my face and focusing my strength there. "We were arguing. His heart condition showed no other symptom. Why?"

"Haven't you checked the condition of his internal organs yet?"

"His pathways are tangled and in really bad shape," I mumbled, looking down at my left hand, remembering how I had hovered it beneath his jacket and shirt while we were in the forest. "I couldn't check the state of his heart without affecting his pathways. They're coiling and obstructing a clear path to his heart. Chakra can't penetrate. He has to undergo surgery with the traditional machinations and all. Even then...as a medic, I don't think it will change the situation."

Naruto dragged my chair back so I was facing him. "Do it! We have to save Shikamaru!"

"The chance that he'll live is hardly twenty percent, Naruto!"

"Why?"

"He can't produce enough chakra to heal himself after the surgery, meaning he'll die instead with the stress of coping with the pain!"

"You can do something about the pain!"

I shoved him. He stumbled and hit the wall. "You don't understand anything! Shikamaru is a shinobi and a shinobi who has been in active duty for more than five years inevitably relies more on their chakra pathways rather than their bloodstream! Their red blood cells and white blood cells and plasma converge with the chakra and the pathways become responsible for the overall circulation of the nutrients in a shinobi's body! Shikamaru is not fuckin' capable of producing enough chakra to have the necessary nutrients and whatever shit he needs to heal himself after a surgery! Everything inside him is failing, Naruto! What the fuck can't you understand about that?" Grabbing his shirt, I thrust him up the wall and said, "You think that everybody can love each other and everything will be alright! You think it's that easy, Naruto? I tried to do something about the pain but we're against the odds! I'm no different. Do you want the truth? What we're doing here is just making the most out of the situation and evading death!"

Kakashi appeared to our left and swung his arm across my body, lifting me away from Naruto. "He understands, Sakura. Calm down."

Naruto slid down the wall, holding his neck, staring wide-eyed at me. Sweat rolled down the side of his face. The flesh that I had clutched was a bright red against his tan skin. His lack of reaction stifled the air in the room.

I folded over Kakashi's arm and gripped his shoulder to remain standing. He wrapped his other arm around me to hold me upright. Through the blur of my eyes I saw Naruto approach me. He took me from Kakashi's arm. "I do understand. I think I do. You're frustrated. It's just..." he took several deep breathes. "It's not time to give up. We have to try and save the both of you. Why can't you understand that the odds will always be against us? It's not the odds that matter. It's you and me and Kakashi and Shikamaru and Captain Yamato and Ino and Grandma Tsunade and...you know who else I'm talking about."

I stepped back, wanting a space to breathe in. He held my elbows, immediately steadying me. "But it isn't right! You don't know how scared he is of dying this way! You don't know him like I do!"

"Sakura." Kakashi settled his hand on my shoulder, capturing my whole attention. "What does Shikamaru want to do about it?"

Captain Yamato opened the window, letting a flurry of snow and wind inside. "I'm going after those two," he declared before vanishing.

I shook my head. "Shikamaru's not stupid. He knows our condition. He doesn't believe he can be given proper medical care in Konoha. Neither do I. But he's going back there anyway. He doesn't want to take the risk that he's causing me more harm than good because of my false perception of him."

"I see."

Naruto looked at Kakashi, then at me. "Another village. We can cure him in another village if Konoha is not a safe place for either of you."

"Another village will not be able to protect them from Orochimaru," replied Kakashi. "It will be like inviting him to experiment on Sakura. Besides, we never saw this coming. Taking him out of the picture for treatment will do this case more harm than good. Danzo will have an opportunity to convict each of us once Shikamaru is gone – "

"-he won't!" said Naruto.

"If he does." Kakashi closed the window and remained standing with his back turned to us, motionless. "Danzo can use his absence to strengthen the opposition against Lady Tsunade. Without Shikamaru, we'll have no witness and consequently no chance to regain Konoha's trust after we lose it."

"Are we losing it, Kakashi?"

"Sakura, how long does Shikamaru have?"

"I-I can't tell."

"Yes, you can. Tell us."

I withdrew from Naruto, unable to bear the intensity of his gaze. "His heart condition is a ticking time bomb. I swear to you – no one can tell when his heart will stop beating altogether. What I can tell, though, is that it will be soon. The most we have is two weeks, and even that span will be too long for him to endure. Not with this rebirth case resting on him."

Shikamaru:

Ino and I stood abreast inside the greenhouse, watching the snow fall beyond the glass. I shifted my weight to my right leg and scratched the back of my ear. Ino glimpsed me. I looked at her.

"It doesn't show," she said.

"I'm glad it doesn't."

"Was Sakura upset about it?"

I shrugged, repressing the memory of her silhouette beside me. She had watched over me the night that I vomited blood. She may not have realized that the entire time, she was mumbling to herself that I would live. I wouldn't die. "I'm guessing Kana is."

"No, I asked about Sakura."

"I guess she must be disappointed that she can't cure my condition."

Ino put her hands on her waist and took a deep breath to calm herself. "Shikamaru, you're making this impossible. I'm asking because obviously, Sakura likes you. It's so obvious that I smelled it the moment I entered the house. She reeks of it."

"It's all Kana."

She showed me her trembling fist. "I'm this close to punching you. Shikamaru, I'm her best friend. I know what she looks like when she's afraid and ecstatic and –and in love. Kana may have contributed something but I'm sure those reactions she has when you're around is pure Sakura. And don't you deny having affections for her. I've been your teammate for so long I can tell that you're psyched by my ability to read you. But I don't care if you fall for each other or whatever, Shikamaru. Uncle Shikaku kept on shouldering the pain for his family that in the end, you all ended up more hurt than you would have been had you known the truth. My mother passed away without having told dad the things I made her tell me. I was so selfish that she had no time to love other people. I won't do the same thing to you. You're not going to die – I'll make sure of it – but you have to start acting now...just in case...you know what I mean."

I swallowed and rubbed my nape. "Just in case I die?"

She shook her head. "What I'm trying to say is that you have to prepare for the worst. As your teammate, the best I can do is to support you. Whatever you want, Shikamaru. We don't even know what's happening in Konoha."

"Ino." I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I straightened the words in my head. "What should I do? I've never had to consider these things before."

She held my left arm and squeezed it. "Settle your personal matters and then focus on the bigger battle. That way, no matter how the battle ends, you can be rest assured that you have no loose ends."

I chuckled, holding her hand over my arm. "When you walked out and I followed you I thought we'd be shouting at each other or something."

"I try to be as dramatic as I can be," she said, smiling at me. "But dad gave words of wisdom before I was deployed here. After Aunt Yoshino left our house, I asked dad if he thought she was correct – that something might be wrong with you."

"Mum's convinced that I was born with defects."

"Dad said that by chance you are facing trouble, I should remember that you're not clever enough to have control of the situation and that I should spend less time blaming people and concentrate on loving those I love." Ino shivered and pressed her forehead against our hands. "I want to cry so badly. I want to blame you for being reckless and putting others before yourself, but you don't need that now, do you? I'll get back at you after this case is resolved. Besides, you owe me. I was planning to be the first to break your heart."

"Wait 'till I become a jounin. I still have to ask you out."

"If you survive this case and become popular, I can lower my standards."

"That just motivated me to go on living, Ino."

We laughed together. I reached inside my pocket and felt for Kana's wedding ring - the ring that Sakura had worn – and remembered her saying that two people stuck in a mission for long period of time could never trust the emotions that developed between them. Apart from that, my heart was dysfunctional. How could I trust it?

"Ino, is there a chance that I'm breaking your heart right now?"

"It depends," she said. "Are you referring to the fact that you like Sakura or the fact that you're unhealthy?

I squinted at the distance. I shook Ino's hand. "Why are they here?"

"Who?"

The door behind us swung open. We turned and saw Captain Yamato enter. He peered behind us – at the sight of the shinobis walking across the meadow – and announced that he came to collect us. Did we have any idea about visitors?

"We should meet them."

The three of us rounded the house and walked towards the clearing. Sakura, Naruto, and Kakashi were already standing at the entrance of the house, waiting for our visitors to cross the meadow.

"They're all here!" Ino trudged forward to get a better view of them. "That's Neji, TenTen, Rock Lee, Shino, Kiba, Akamaru, Hinata...Choji!"

Ino and I looked at each other, grinned, and marched amidst the snow to meet them. As we drew nearer, I saw that Master Jiraiya, Shizune, and Shikaku accompanied them.

Choji pushed past the snow and scooped Ino and me in an embrace. "Finally!"

Naruto and Sakura trailed behind us, waving at them.

"What are all of you doing here?" Naruto had to shout to be heard. "What's the dress code for? You guys look cool wearing white! I can hardly make you out from the snow!"

I scanned their group, noting the uniformity in their appearance and the earpieces hidden beneath their hoods. Shikaku met my gaze. I didn't look away. "They're going on a mission?" I asked, which silenced everyone. "They're going to hunt the targets?"

Neji stepped forward. His skin and his eyes, porcelain-like in nature, blended with the rest of his white suit so perfectly that it was difficult to see him amidst the forming blizzard. "Kiba, Lee, and I were on a mission weeks ago. Our objective was to capture an unidentified ninja roaming the borders of the Fire Country. The path he took revealed to us that he could have been searching for the targets. Kiba and Akamaru will tell us if the ninja's scent is still there."

"Hopefully," interjected Lee, "the targets haven't been found."

Sakura withdrew from the group. I pulled away from Ino and Choji. She walked towards me. "They know."

"We need the help," I said.

Shizune tossed a white suit to Captain Yamato. "You're coming with us. We're short on men."

The captain unfolded the suit and scowled. "I'm supposed to be guarding Naruto."

Master Jiraiya hooked his arm around Naruto's neck. "No, you're not. This kid is coming with me. We're going on a field trip! You and I, just like old times!"

"Whoa!" Naruto tried to lift the heavy arm off him. "I'm not going anywhere! I'm staying with Sakura and Shikamaru!"

TenTen handed Ino the same white suit. "Like Shizune said, we're short on men."

Before I could protest, Shikaku cleared his throat and explained the situation to us. "Naruto, you're going with Master Jiraiya – orders from the Hokage. The situation in Konoha isn't getting better and we can't have you getting caught in the middle of our politics. The Akatsuki will take every opportunity they can to get their hands on you. We won't take risks. Yamato, Ino, you are knowledgeable enough about the situation to help Shizune in supervising this mission and organizing the information you'll be acquiring – whatever the nature of those eight targets are. Kakashi will be staying here with Sakura and Shikamaru to complete the design of the rebirth jutsu. That's the plan and no one is straying from the plan."

Naruto freed himself from Master Jiraiya and stumbled towards Sakura and I. "Shikamaru!"

Sakura gripped my fingers and looked into my eyes. "You have to tell them," she whispered. "Everybody has to be ready, Shikamaru."

Shikaku drifted from what he was saying to absorb the tension in our group. "Did something happen?"

Master Jiraiya urged us to spit it out.

Shizune reminded us that we had no time to beat around the bush.

Neji mouthed an apology to me.

Sakura intertwined our fingers.

I closed my eyes, imagined Konoha, and opened them again. "The rebirth jutsu affected me but no foreign soul is being reborn in me, fortunately. It's just my heart. My heart will stop functioning soon, so we have to make things quick. I can only see this case through as long as I'm alive, and while that won't really be long, I'm not actually dead yet. We can still win this, right, dad?"