Shikamaru woke from his very manly faint to three pairs of eyes staring at him.
"He's awake," Neji noted unceremoniously, "let's get going."
At his side, Shikamaru saw Sakura finish closing his wound and Choji offering a hand.
Predicting the question, Choji spoke, "Neji used his eyes to figure out where the disappearing girl was going, so she appeared right into his fist attack and Sakura knocked the rock girl's head off."
In his head, Shikamaru added that they did all that with hardly a scrape. But sulking seemed just as girly as fainting, so he let it go. They were off again.
Further from the border now, the traps were less dense, and their team started to pick up speed again. The pace they had kept was brutal, and a slightly maimed Shikamaru was already starting to feel the effects. Neji had years of intensive team nine training and Sakura had the stamina of any gifted medical ninja, but Shikamaru felt tired, and he knew Choji was pushing his limits. Even still, they wouldn't stop, not with Ino's life tied to the clock.
It was Neji who called for them to stop. Initially believing it to be pity, Shikamaru had tried to protest, but Neji cut him off.
"According to our information, we will arrive at the destination soon. Then we will need to scout the area to ensure the lord actually lives under the land he publicly owns. Before we do, I think we should formally debrief, make sure we know as much as possible about what we're running into. And there is no point running into danger when half our team has already depleted their chakra."
Shikamaru didn't want to stop. But that little instinct - the one that knew when to shut up and think - was practically shouting at him. The irony of caring being that it makes you worse at helping when people need you most. Neji was right.
"Shikamaru," Neji addressed him directly, "I want you to tell us everything you remember from when the Historian visited our village."
He had gone over it, in his own head, a hundred times since they left the hidden leaf.
Like far too many days, recently, it began with lots and lots of paperwork from Kakashi. A man named Maita Yori, or as he preferred to be addressed, the Historian was visiting their village and Kakashi had practically made Shikamaru the planning committee. Holed up in the information division for three days, he had gone through practically every record in the hidden leaf about the feudal lord from the land of earth. There were hundreds of reports but not a single one was remotely helpful.
They told tales of excessive lifestyles, old men, and very tall buildings. But the reports lacked any information about their security team, traditions, traveling parties, or anything else that would be useful for planning a visit. And the string of reports that referenced The Historian, was a completely different mess of weird.
Shikamaru found it particularly bothersome that Hidden Leaf had decided to play host to the man. He wasn't even the actual feudal lord, he was a relative, a tourist. According to Kakashi, the order had come from their feudal lord, in the land of fire, who wanted to brag about how many heroes from the fourth Shinobi war lived in the leaf. For all their talks of peace, life was still secretly a game of checks and balances at the hands of childish old men.
Shikamaru had stared at his comically tall stack of useless reports. The Historian, whoever he was, had left quite the trail of rumors. They were impossible to make sense of, and Shikamaru had just given up trying to create a coherent narrative out of it. The man was charming, no he was creepy, no he was inspiring, no he was kind, no he was drunk and annoying. He had black, grey, brown, blue, no yellow hair. Different age reports, different habits, different traveling parties, different moods.
There were only two themes that repeated in the rumors, women loved him enough to leave everything for him and he was an extremely private guy who lived underground. Shikamaru buried his face in his arms and groaned, thinking seriously about how to get Sakura to take over his job. Then a voice popped into his head.
"Hey there Shikamaru!"
Go away Ino.
"You've been in there for days."
I'm working.
"Take a break."
Go away Ino.
"Who's the Historian?"
It's classified information.
"Well, too late, already saw it. And it doesn't look like you're making any progress."
You're not helping.
"No, but I brought lunch?"
He took the break. They sat in silence for a bit, under the clouds he wished he had the time to watch. But eventually, his mind had turned back to work, in the annoyingly circular way that his brain dealt with problems it couldn't quite solve. And since she probably knew everything anyway, he found himself thinking aloud.
"I don't know how we're supposed to prepare for this guy. Rumors make him sound like the world's most proactive ladies' man."
She had frowned while picking at her lunch, "and women just leave their homes and follow him?"
"Apparently they're in love," Shikamaru had replied.
"But he loves other people," she seemed to be concentrating very hard to figure this out.
"So do they. Several of the women are said to be married." More rumors, but ones that fit with the whole, popular with the ladies, theme.
"It has to be a jutsu, right?"
Shikamaru had been considering the same for a time but didn't know of any jutsu that directly played on emotions. Even genjutsus didn't normally manifest in such drastic real life changes. And his stack of files hadn't helped either. He faced her, "you tell me, when you poke around in people's heads, can you mess with their feelings?"
She had stared at him, as if trying to read his mind without climbing into it. "I can't make people fall in love," she finally broke eye contact and resumed staring at her lunch, "or think they're in love, that is."
"I figured," he sighed, she was probably as close to an expert on the topic as he was going to find. "Otherwise you would have had Sasuke whipped years ago."
She had started staring at him again, "are all the women from the other villages coming here?"
"No," upon receiving the announcement of visitation, Shikamaru had suggested that the lord travel with a small traveling party, for his safety. It wasn't true, but the lord had accepted his words like they were, "he's requested entrance for a group of five. That's four women. If the rumors are true, he probably has closer to a hundred."
"I wonder how he picks, if he really loves them all."
Shikamaru had found it strange how stuck she seemed to be on the details of loving multiple people at the same time. "We have no idea how he's getting these women to leave their homes, which means we have no way to prepare. We probably just need to do something about the women already in the leaf."
"What would make you leave your home?" She stared at him with wide eyes.
He considered her question, while he would have killed for a day off, or just an easier job in general, Shikamaru found he was pretty content with his little life. Friends, job security, someone who brought him lunch every now and then. Money, rank, land, none of it was appealing enough to make him want to go live in a hole in the ground. "Nothing this guy could give me."
She shrugged, "you don't even know what he has to offer."
That was true. But Shikamaru still doubted there was something worth leaving his entire life behind.
"What if I left," Ino was looking at the sky, "would you leave for me?"
Shikamaru studied her, curious what answer she was looking for. "Sure. To drag you back and hand you over to the Yamanaka clan elders. Let them deal with you."
"Hey! We all agreed to never tattle to the elders. If you do," she placed a finger on his forehead, "I'll make it smell like flowers like there, permanently."
She had run back to the hospital, always a new crisis to attend. As she left, he had reconsidered her question. What would make him leave - maybe there were a few things, a few people. Logically, if you made the terms extreme enough, everyone had something to lose. But he couldn't prove the Historian had that type of leverage over anyone.
Eventually, armed with no further information, Shikamaru set to evacuating women out of the village. He sent younger kunoichis out on missions, informed major clans to set curfews on their daughters, and shut down communal gathering locations. He arranged a dawn to dusk entourage of men to serve as the lord's hosts, full of war heroes. The Historian would be spending plenty of quality time bonding with Naruto.
When the Historian had finally arrived, to a village at half capacity, he was a bit of a shock. Despite the lack of tangible consensus, Shikamaru had taken to imagining an old, rich, pervert. But forget old history nerd, the man was young with handsome, long dark hair. He was cloaked entirely in black and looked at everything with minimal interest. He didn't keep to any conversation long and never seemed overly pleased with anyone or anything.
Shikamaru found he was most surprised with the way the Historian regarded the four women he traveled with. After taking the effort to collect so many, and not finding any other women in the leaf, Shikamaru assumed the lord would only be interested in their company. But he treated them with the same indifference as anything else during his visit. Rather, the women drew to him, eyes and words begging attention. More disciples than lovers. Shikamaru couldn't help but to be reminded of how girls had acted around Sasuke as children. But the Historian's entourage were all adult women, even if they acted like young girls.
The Historian stayed for six days, and Shikamaru kept spies on his every move. They were determined not to lose a citizen to his attention, but the problem never arose. By all accounts, he acted the perfect visitor. Courteous of accommodations, never making demands, never stepping out of line, never even mentioning the obviously strange demographics in the village. He gambled a few times, ogled a demonstration of ninja abilities, toured the city. But otherwise uneventful. Shikamaru had started to question the rumors.
Two days into his stay, one of his attendants fell ill. Shikamaru's spies had reported her as the oldest woman in the party - Akemi - a wind style user. Based on all other behaviors during his visit, Shikamaru had assumed the Historian would ignore the incident. But defying every expectation, the lord stayed vigil at her bedside for two days. Shikamaru remembered the care with which he watched her. Hauntingly, it was more loving than most couples he knew. Eventually, Sakura, one of the few women Shikamaru trusted explicitly to be able to hold her own against any man, had to reassure the Historian that his friend was receiving the best care the hidden leaf had to offer and would join him soon. The Historian took her lead and finally left to resume his itinerary. Of course, Sakura had been correct. The woman had re-joined their party late the following day, greeted by the Historian's returned disinterest.
Shikamaru remembered being in a very bad mood the day the Historian left. Some product of a bruised heart and the fact that his spies had learned absolutely nothing useful about the lord. In theory, it shouldn't have mattered. Just as long as he didn't take any hidden leaf women out of the village with him, the mission was a success. But Shikamaru had honestly been hoping to grow the leaf's information division on their most fickle national ally. Shikamaru had decided he didn't make for a very good planning committee.
After Shikamaru recounted the last of the disappointedly limited details from the visit, Neji spoke, "so, by all appearances, the Historian broke his pattern during his visit."
Shikamaru nodded.
Neji frowned in concentration, "of course, even though it looked like he broke his pattern, he did still leave with a Hidden Leaf kunoichi."
"One of the most powerful in our village," Shikamaru added, "lucky him."
"Are you implying that you think the Historian was somehow targeting Ino?" Neji asked.
"Suggesting," he replied vaguely. Shikamaru had to assume that the particularly clever Huga was already starting to form similar ideas. Because the strongest member of the Yamanaka clan would be a welcomed addition to any foreign nation, much less a man famous for collecting women.
"Sakura, you did say that Ino has never missed a deadline before. So The Historian wasn't the only one who broke his pattern," Neji mused.
The implication of this buzzed like bugs Shikamaru wanted to physically bat away. Ino was another person whose safety he had trusted explicitly. Not by any brilliant track record of character judgment on her part, but more for the three clans and hundreds of years of tradition that would track her down if she even tried to leave the leaf. He thought back to the last time he had seen her. It had been during the Historian's stay, she had been right there, with him. And yet, two days later, she had walked right out of the village, leaving no one the wiser. Well, he thought bitterly, at least one other person knew.
Neji turned, "Sakura, I want you to tell the group about Ino's mission."
Sakura hesitated before speaking, and Shikamaru allowed himself to silently hate her. She had known everything, enough to be keeping secrets even now. He was still angry that she had known about Ino's work when he hadn't and he was still angry that Sakura had let things get so bad without saying anything.
Neji spoke again, "I know you are not able to disclose everything, but you might be able to help us understand who we're facing and whether Ino had been set up. You might even be able to help us get her back."
Sakura looked at the ground, but eventually, she spoke, "in the official mission briefing it says that Ino was just trying to get information, that's not entirely true. It was a request from our allies, about as high up as you can go. Some of the women who followed the Historian were married to pretty powerful men. And those men wanted someone to hunt down the guy who courted their wives. But because of the lord's status, and the fact the women left voluntarily, nobody could publicly attack him. That's where Ino came in."
Sakura looked briefly at Shikamaru, as if to gauge his reaction before she continued.
Unfortunately, everything Sakura said made perfect sense. Apparently, the feudal lord from the land of fire had invited the Historian as a lure. The whole plan had been to get Ino into his party and have her assassinate the man from the inside. She would lead the women out then tell law enforcement that the guy had been keeping her against her will with some kind of jutsu and that killing him was the only way to escape. Then she would be pardoned and the women in his custody would return to their homes. No international repercussions of domestic troubles. Collecting information on the Historian and sending a hit team had been more of a backup plan.
After careful observation of the lord's traveling party, the leaf had selected Akemi, a woman who had been very open with personal details and their spies had slipped a minor poison into her food. Sakura carefully described Akemi, since they were all about to be searching for her body; she had long sandy curls, one crooked tooth, a smattering of freckles, big eyes, stood at Sakura's height, mid-forties, dark circles around her eyes, tattoos on her arms and ankles. Akemi was talkative, smiled a lot, and loved exploring the hidden leaf. Sakura thought her personality a lot like Ino's, easy to impersonate.
Once Akemi had been incapacitated, and her mental defenses at a low, Ino had entered her body. The lord's undivided attention in the hospital had been an obstacle, but only for a short time.
Ino, posing as Akemi, had walked straight out of the village to be welcomed into the Land of Earth with open arms. Perfectly according to plan. Or, at least, that had been the assumption until they failed to hear report of a village of women seeking refuge. Then Ino missed her deadline and her body started dying.
"There's something else," Sakura added after a pause. She hesitated, calculating exactly how much to share.
"What is it Sakura," Choji asked. He hadn't said much but had kept the same shocked expression the whole time Sakura spoke.
They watched her closely, and she finally spoke. "Ino knows a lot about poisons. Sometimes on missions, she can't risk leaving the body she inhabits with the knowledge that the leaf was involved. So she makes a simple poison and takes it before releasing her jutsu."
Neji frowned, "I thought the goal was to keep this body alive so that she could testify against the Historian."
"Yes," Sakura looked up at him, "that was the plan."
Shikamaru addressed her now, "but you still think she poisoned the body?"
"I don't know," Sakura looked frustrated, "but if for some reason she did poison her host then wasn't able to release the jutsu, it would explain why her actual body is dying and we couldn't treat it."
"So, knocked out, chained up, paralyzed," Shikamaru thought aloud.
Neji stared at him, "could you elaborate?"
"From our time training together," which Shikamaru now questioned as a reliable source of information, "Ino has never been able to release a full mind-body transfer without making hand-signs. If she wasn't able to move, for whatever reason, she wouldn't be able to get back to her own body."
"Shikamaru," Neji said, "you and I will create a two-person squad to locate and scope out the underground village, Sakura and Choji can watch and defend us if necessary. After that, we will develop a plan for infiltration. If what you suspect is correct, and Ino is just incapacitated somewhere, this will be a simple extraction mission. Four people in, four people out. I want to wait a couple more hours so we can travel entirely in the dark. Rest until then."
Shikamaru found himself a tree to sit under, thinking hard about what they would do. He was hoping their little scout mission would reveal a particularly clever way to get in and out of the underground city but wasn't overly hopeful. He really wished they had an earth-style user.
Sakura joined at his side and silently resumed her work healing his injury. He had almost forgotten that he was the only one who had managed to get himself injured already. He didn't stop her but didn't speak to her either. He was still angry, in the fully irrational sense. It wasn't Sakura's fault that Ino had chosen her over him to keep her secrets. But Ino wasn't there to be angry with, at the moment.
His mind wandered back to their innocent little conversion, that no longer sounded so innocent upon reflection, would you leave for me. Yeah, he would. Because whether he liked it or not, he cared so damn much, and she knew it. She had known since they were kids, even though she never let on.
He thought back to his own reaction after realizing exactly how much she knew. After a reasonable period of embarrassment, then irritation, then confusion, Shikamaru had eventually decided that his situation with Ino was actually perfect. Well, not perfect, but as close to perfect as a guy like him – profoundly lazy - could wish for. She had figured out how he felt about her and was pretending not to know anything at all. This, he decided, could have exactly three reasons. 1) She didn't like him but didn't want to hurt his feelings. While this was a bit of a bummer, Shikamaru would never technically have to go through the fun of being formally rejected. 2) She didn't know if she liked him and was confused about her feelings. Again, bit of a bummer, but her pretending she didn't know anything meant he never had to hear about it. Never had to deal with her going back and forth on the matter. Let her figure it out. 3) She liked him back but was waiting for him to do something about it. This, probably least likely, should have all been resolved the moment she figured out that he knew, she knew. He had chided the devolution of this logic to childish gossip passing. But still, if she knew, that he knew, she knew he liked her, that meant it was on her to bring it up. Probably.
For every reason, Shikamaru's course of action was exactly the same – do nothing. Which is why, he told himself, that the situation was actually perfect. He didn't actually have to put in any of the effort dealing with girls like other guys did. It wasn't like he didn't see her every single day, anyway. Sure, sometimes he wanted more, sometimes he wanted to slap himself for his own mooning. But then he would just remind himself how much misery Naruto and Lee went through for the bare minimum of Sakura's attention and feel once again reassured – he had the perfect situation.
He wasn't waiting on a girl, no, he was just doing nothing. His ideal.
Shikamaru reflected on this logic, wondering where exactly it had gone so wrong. Clearly, he hadn't accounted for how ridiculously confusing women were. Would you leave for me? Her words now a living challenge with life or death consequences. He would get her back, and he might still hand her over to the Yamanaka clan's elders. He found he had become used to the smell of flowers in his head.