Naru, Sasuke and Sakura were walking through the market buying groceries. Sakura hoped that by having Naru help pick out ingredients and being able to evaluate the quality she would be able to overcome some of her food issues. Vendors were much less likely to try and screw her over when she had people with her, which they were more than happy to use to their advantage.

The week at the Hatake Compound and the support of her teammates had helped her tremendously and while she wasn't quite at the point where she was eating enough to gain back the weight she'd lost, she'd at least stopped losing more. She'd even managed to go over to Shikamaru's house for dinner with his family the night before, which everyone was really proud about. Shikamaru had mainly just been relieved to see Naru as she'd been avoiding him during her downward spiral. He could see that there was still something going on, but he was mostly just relieved to see that she wasn't spiraling down anymore.

Sakura could see that Naru was starting to get antsy as they approached the butcher. Meat was something that Naru would probably never be completely comfortable with given how bad her experiences with it have been, but that was all the more reason for her to be able to witness Sasuke inspecting and evaluating all of the meat that they would be using in meals. In an effort to distract her, and hopefully help her relax, Sakura asked, "So how did it go last night? You were a little light on the details when you got home last night."

Naru blushed, not meeting Sakura's eyes. "It was fine," she mumbled.

That was an odd reaction, Sakura thought, exchanging a look with Sasuke. Naru looked almost embarrassed.

"Do you think you'll go over again? I remember Ino saying her parents wanted to make any future boyfriends come over at least once a week."

Naru went even redder. "I'm probably not going to go over there again for a long time."

Feeling very protective Sasuke asked, "His parents didn't give you any trouble, did they?"

Before Naru could answer there was the sound of a throat clearing behind them and they turned to find Shikaku, Inoichi and Chouza standing behind them, looking concerned. Naru went white for a moment and looked like she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole.

Shikaku frowned at Naru's distress, mentally going over the previous night. He'd thought dinner had gone over fairly well. Naru had seemed to like the food being served and the conversation had flowed fairly well. He cleared his throat again. "If I or my family did anything to make you uncomfortable then I apologize. I certainly hope that nobody made you feel unwelcome in my home."

Naru couldn't look at anyone, her face was on fire and she was currently debating the merits of just running away from Konoha and never having to face anyone ever again. Sasuke could see how overwhelmed Naru was becoming and he nudged her shoulder. He still wanted to know what was going on and he hoped by now she would know that she could come to him for help.

Naru gulped down a breath and then a second. She squared her shoulders in defiance. She was Naru Uzumaki and she was not going to let a little embarrassment beat her!

"You didn't do anything," she assured Shikaku, who did not look like he believed her.

"In that case why are you planning to avoid coming over to my house?" Shikaku asked gently.

Naru sighed, still waiting for the earth to swallow her. "It's embarrassing," she whined a little, willing them to just let it be. She could see from the looks of continued concern and curiosity that no one was planning on letting this go. She swallowed; she would never be able to show her face in public again after this. "It's stupid," she mumbled, refusing to look at anyone. "It's just I was noticing how much Shikamaru looks like his dad and then I was looking at how different they are, and I just wondered if Shikamaru would look that good with a scar."

Naru buried her face in her hands, unable to look at anyone and missed the looks of shock on people's faces, the mild disgust from Sasuke (he preferred to stay out of his sisters' relationships) and the smugness from Shikaku. It was impossible to miss Inoichi's braying laughter as he collapsed to the ground as he choked on his laughter and hilarity.

Chouza looked at his teammates with disapproval as he walked up to the humiliated girl. He carefully placed a hand on her shoulder, gently urging her to look at him. When she finally did look up, he gave her a gentle smile. "You have nothing to be embarrassed about," he told her reassuringly. "It is completely normal for girls your age to think of older man as attractive. And you are correct that Shikaku and Shikamaru look a lot alike so it's completely natural for you to compare the two."

Naru was not really reassured, she didn't think anything could really help the deep humiliation she felt curling in her belly. Chouza could tell that Naru was reaching her limit and so he gave her shoulder a light squeeze and then backed off. Still looking a little smug (he still had it!) Shikaku coughed a little to make sure there was no trace of laughter in his voice before speaking. "I have to thank you for that," he said with a slight grin, "but Chouza is right, you don't have to be embarrassed. If you feel like you need to avoid me and Shikamaru for a little while then you can, but you are still welcome any time."

Naru nodded in Shikaku's general direction still not looking at him. Shikaku wanted to laugh at the situation, nobody ever warned you that kids the same age as your own son would one day have a crush on you, and instead turned to focus on his blond teammate, still howling with laughter as he beat his fist against the ground.

Naru glared at Inoichi. She did not like being mocked and at this point he was just being a dick. A thought crossed her mind and a wicked smile crossed her face. Sasuke and Sakura both noticed the smile and wondered how badly Inoichi would be made to suffer before Naru decided to accept his apology.

The answer was a lot. Naru's plan had actually been brilliant in its simplicity. Ino had been trying to make overtures to try and bond with Naru and Yoshino was trying to get to know her son's girlfriend so Naru had been invited for a girl's day out with Yoshino, Ino, Ino's mother and Chouza's wife. Naru let Yoshino gently coax the story of why Naru had been avoiding her house out of her and the women had all cooed at the sweetness of Naru having a crush on Shikaku and being embarrassed by it. She made sure to mention how kind Shikaku and Chouza had been about it, making both of their wives silently promise to reward their husbands for their good behavior. Ino, of course, noticed the conspicuous absence of her father and asked what happened. To say the women were displeased would be a massive understatement.

The retribution was terrible. All of the wives were furious with the man and he'd been ordered to sleep on the couch until further notice. Ino had been the coup de grace though. Inoichi fiercely loved his daughter and he was extremely proud of the trusting relationship they had. Ino never hesitated to come to him for help with whatever she needed, and she never tried to lie to him. She'd told him flat out that she wasn't comfortable coming to him for advice anymore. She pointed out that Naru was a lot more mature than she was and if he laughed at her for something like a crush then what's to say he wouldn't laugh at her? She even summoned up a few tears as she asked if he ever laughed at her behind her back.

Inoichi looked like someone had gutted him as he tried to reassure his daughter, but Ino refused to budge.

All of this was reported to Naru by an impressed (and slightly frightened) Shikamaru. They were hanging out cloud watching, and he was updating her on the chaos she'd unleashed.

After she was done laughing Naru turned to face Shikamaru, frowning at the dark shadows under his eyes. She reached over, lightly stroking them, bringing Shikamaru's attention back to the present.

"You're still having nightmares," she said, voice sad. Sakura had been gently insistent on Naru opening up more to the lazy genius and she had obliged. Shikamaru had been wonderful the entire time, seeming to sense when she needed him to speak and when to be silent. However, since that night Shikamaru had been plagued by nightmares, his overactive mind conjuring disturbingly vivid scenarios based on the stories that had been shared.

"I'm surprised you're able to sleep at all," Shikamaru said. He was absolutely horrified just hearing about what had been done to the blonde, how much worse must it be to have lived it firsthand?

"Oh, I don't dream," Naru said almost flippantly. At Shikamaru's raised eyebrow she elaborated. "Dreams happen during REM sleep and it serves as a time to heal your mind and body. My healing is way accelerated though. It wasn't really supposed to be but there was so much draw against the Kyubi's chakra and so much of it was literally life-threatening wound that absolutely had to be healed quickly." Naru cupped Shikamaru's cheek, seeing the rage and pain at the scope of her suffering. "My body adjusted to the rapid healing. So, I don't go into REM sleep and I don't dream."

Naru flushed at Shikamaru's shocked look. She was smart, dammit! He didn't have to look so surprised to hear her say something so smart. So what if she'd just repeated what Iruka-sensei said when she'd asked him why she never dreamed.

Naru rolled onto her back to look at the clouds. Her body itched to do something, but she couldn't. She was still recovering from being without food for so long and the malnutrition had hit her hard. By this point she could mostly keep her meals down, but she couldn't bring herself to eat the amount needed to bring her weight back up. It was enough for the moment to just stop losing even more weight.

It was very strange having people who cared trying to help her. When she was younger Iruka-sensei was all she had and all too often he was going through the same thing she was. She wondered if he ever had problems with food too. Should she ask him? If he did, she didn't want to accidentally trigger an episode for him.

Naru was pulled from her thoughts when she felt Shikamaru's fingers start carding gently through her hair. Naru almost purred as she melted. She'd never known how good it felt to have someone run their fingers gently through her hair. Shikamaru liked doing it for her because he liked the reaction he got, and it was something that didn't require a lot of energy. Perfect for a lazy guy.

Naru closed her eyes, savoring the peace. Things were finally starting to calm down post-invasion, Tsunade taking a harsher stance than people were used to. The Sandaime had been a little chagrined to see how well the council had responded to the changeover. Tsunade had instilled rather harsh, though still fair, reparations for the Sand's part of the invasion.

Naru was keeping in touch with Gaara so as to keep an eye on the situation in Sand and look for the ideal chance to spirit the boy away. It seemed that without his father constantly sending assassins to kill him Gaara was finally able to live in peace. Now that he wasn't killing people on a daily basis (see: no assassins) the villagers weren't quite so on edge and were more willing to interact with the boy. Without the constant assassination attempts and hostility from everyone around him Gaara wasn't as desperate as he had been to get out. He wasn't ready to forgive anyone, but he was interested in finding out what it was like to live without being hated for what he was.

When Naru did he speed training with Lee and Gai she'd snuck out during her watch shift (she'd left a shadow clone) to visit Gaara and apply a more permanent seal to suppress Shukaku. The poor boy was finally able to catch up on twelve years' worth of sleep debt and it was doing wonders for his sanity. His siblings were even making an effort to try and bond with him. What they'd overheard between her and Gaara had really hit them hard and now they were trying to make up for twelve years of neglect. Gaara seemed to be thriving under their careful attention though he was still cautious, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Naru was just starting to drift off when every instinct she had started screaming at her to run. She bolted up, pulling two kunai from a seal on her belt. She felt Shikamaru react as well as she looked around for what had set her off. There were two large figured standing at the edge of the clearing, wearing black cloaks with red clouds. What set her nerves on edge was the slash through their forehead protectors. What were missing-nin doing in the heart of a Hidden Village?

"Naru Uzumaki," came the low, sultry voice. Naru's heart froze. That was freaking Itachi Uchiha! This was so far beyond bad, she needed to get out of there now. Right now, they didn't know what to expect so she needed to act quickly. She started spamming clones as quickly as possible. She knew she didn't stand any sort of chance of defeating him in a fight, but hopefully she could disguise her true purpose; the clones running off to get help and raise the alarm. The clones started throwing around the most destructive jutsu they knew. Hopefully, the explosions would draw attention and she might even get a lucky hit or two in. Discreetly, she transformed a set of clones to look like her and Shikamaru as she wrapped nature energy around them tightly. Despite the layer of protection, Naru still used every tip and trick she'd ever learned about stealth to avoid detection. She had a firm grip of Shikamaru's wrist as they moved as quickly as possible, Naru continuing to spam clones the entire time.

Naru almost wept with relief when Jiraiya and Tsunade appeared in the clearing. If the Hokage was here the ANBU were not far behind. She looked over to determine how best to escape without getting in the way of a fight and that was her big mistake. She accidentally looked into Itachi Uchiha's eyes. In the next second she was in a strange place she'd never seen before, but more disturbing was the complete lack of any nature energy to be found. Itachi looked almost surprised to see her. He recovered quickly though. In an instant Naru was chained to a post and Itachi was calmly approaching her with a sword. She barely flinched as the sword impaled her.

"Inside this world of Tsukuyomi one second equals threes days," the same sultry voice said. "Here I can take you apart again and again and there is nothing you can do to stop me."

Itachi was as good as his word. He took her apart over and over again in constantly changing ways. To his irritation, Naru did not break. She looked him dead in the eye with a steely-eyes resilience that he found quite disturbing.

Naru was not faring as well as Itachi thought. Naru was well-versed in blocking out pain and torment, but it had been many years since she hadn't had the comfort of nature energy to fall back on. It was bringing back memories of when she was younger and unable to hide.

Naru abruptly came back to herself in the real world. She never noticed losing her grip on the nature energy and drawing everyone's attention. A single tear slid down her cheek as she lost the fight to stay conscious, oblivious to the chaos that erupted when she fell.

XXX

There was absolute chaos when they saw Naru's eyes roll into the back of her head. Tsunade, Jiraiya, Kakashi and Gai attacked the two intruders while Asuma grabbed Naru and Shikamaru. He leapt away from the carnage, running deep into the village. He wasted no time barging into the Nara clan head's house, startling Yoshino and immediately putting Shikaku on alert.

"Guard her with your lives," Asuma ordered, staring Shikaku dead in the eyes to show how serious he was. He received a curt nod and then he was gone, back to defend his village.

Shikaku immediately left to secure the perimeter and alert his clan to potential danger. Shikamaru was left feeling completely helpless. For once, he could not think of a single thing to do. There was nothing he could do against those intruders and he'd been useless trying to escape. Now they were safe, but he was far too weak to try and secure his home's defenses. He didn't know what to do and he hated it.

Yoshino could see the frustrated helplessness in Shikamaru's eyes and put him to work grabbing pillows and chopping ingredients for dinner, anything she could think of. Really, he was too much like his father, he couldn't stand not knowing what to do or how to act.

XXX

Naru was in her mindscape, which surprised her. She'd only been brought here once against her will and she'd been on the brink of death at the time. After that it had always been a conscious choice. Despite the strangeness, Naru walked the familiar path to the seal, not hesitating for a second to walk through the bars and flop down against Kurama's side. She was absolutely exhausted, and it left her feeling like every wound she had ever had had been ripped open. She'd been left feeling raw and exposed with the resurgence of her food issues, but after three torturous days of memories she wanted nothing more than to rest. Kurama, knowing this, said nothing, but wrapped his tails around the girl as if to shield her from the world.