"This was all a misunderstanding," the beekeeper told Shino, as he corked the jar for his guest. "So to beg your forgiveness, here is the best of my honeywine you asked for."
"Thanks so much," Shino told the beekeeper, taking the honeywine jar from his hands. "How much do I owe you?"
The beekeeper stood dumbfound over the stores of fermenting honey and rainwater he kept hanging in bamboo nets.
"Money?" he asked, confused. "That's funny. I almost forgot what a joke was. No, money means nothing to me here. Just take it. Call it a peace offering between us."
"I see," said Shino thoughtfully, realizing for the first time that besides he and the Beekeeper, no one else seemed to be running this strangely isolated village. Something about this honey farm and relentless fog felt off, and Shino was eager to get back to Kiba. "Well, if you could just point me toward the road back, I'd be very grateful."
The beekeeper stood silently, his face and emotion unreadable behind his beekeeping mask.
"There is no road back," he said. "You're trapped here...like us."
"What do you mean us?" Shino asked, confused. "Where are the others?"
"They're here," the beekeeper answered vaguely. "Lost, like us."
"But you can't be both here and lost at the same time," Shino pointed out the contradiction.
"It's just like I told you before. This bamboo grove is surrounded by something like a barrier. Once you step inside, there is no way to get back out. Try to leave and you'll only continue to wander through an endless fog. That's what this jutsu does."
"That's impossible," Shino said. "You really mean there's no way out?"
"The way you came here no longer matters. The way you'll get out doesn't matter either. There is no past or future for you anymore," the beekeeper said. "The fog is your home now."
How could that be?
Nothing is ever so absolute. If there was a way in, there had to be a way out.
If he could just remember the path the beekeeper led him in by, Shino could find his way back out to Kiba. But the fog overwhelmed and disoriented him, and no matter what direction Shino took in the bamboo grove, he ended up right back where he started with the beekeeper.
Tucking the honeywine gourd safely under his arm, Shino charged into the fog again.
"Scatter," he commanded his bugs, and a sea of black penetrated the gray fog around him.
But within seconds, his bugs darted back out from the haze, swarming around him dazed and disoriented like a stormy night hurricane.
An unbreakable jutsu, huh? That's not possible. That's because every Jutsu has a weakness. This one can't be any different.
If the fog confused his bugs and their ability to map the bamboo grove, maybe he could gather information from the local bugs of the grove to find a way out.
Kneeling down, he touched his five fingers on the ground, "Insect Summoning Jutsu."
Within minutes, an army of mites, aphids, Mealy Bugs, and ants came crawling from all sides of the grove to his summoning circle.
But each one mimicked the same message the beekeeper had gave him.
"There's no way out." "No sign of Kiba." "No path to the forest."
"How can that be possible?" Shino thought, scattering his bugs again to retrace his own footsteps from where he'd walked into the grove.
But recognizing that the only lingering scent of Shino was Shino himself, his insects darted right back to him.
Shino found it odd. Finding things in hiding was his expertise as a specialties ninja. So how could he be the one lost now?
He had to keep trying.
But if trying to get through the fog only led him in a circle, right back to where he started at the beekeeper's farm, then maybe this jutsu was creating some kind of barrier between him and the Sora-ku forest.
Maybe this whole bamboo grove was just one big bubble waiting to burst.
"In that case, I'd have to find a weak spot to break through," Shino reasoned, gathering his bugs like ominous clouds again, and sending them out to scout the treetops for the path back to Sora Ku.
If there was a barrier, at least one of them would confirm its existence.
"How is this possible?" Shino pondered the fog's contradicting anomaly. "How can this place be both a container and yet infinite? What kind of jutsu is this?"
Not long after, his bugs came swarming back to him, having nothing new to report.
"None of this makes sense. I got separated from Kiba a day ago. Hasn't he noticed I'm not there anymore? Why hasn't he come looking for me? Unless time is different in here too. One day in this jutsu is merely seconds out there in the real world," Shino thought. And then his stomach sank deeper when he realized how many days it would take locked in this jutsu before anyone remembered he was missing.
Would anyone even realize he hadn't made it to the wedding?
"How am I going to explain this to Hinata?"
"There is someone," Shino finally admitted to Hinata, as they sat together by a gentle creek after training. "But I can never tell her she's the one I'd challenge Pain for too. Why? Because she's in love with someone else. Now back to training. I'm going to help you get even stronger, so I won't have to worry about you next time I'm gone on a mission."
Hinata blushed. "Shino, I'm sorry I forgot your birthday. It's just, Naruto-"
"Don't be sorry, because I forgot it too," Shino lied to soothe her guilt, no matter how much her forgetting made him hurt.
"But still, I wanted to give you this," Hinata said, her hands gently reaching over Shino's messy brown hair to slip a fine chain over him.
"Red Rhodonite?" Shino examined the magenta and black stone pendant from the chain around his neck.
"For good luck, so I won't have to worry about you too," Hinata told him, blushing. "When you wear it, they say it attracts fireflies. Wouldn't that be a beautiful bug for your collection?"
But knowing how much fireflies loved water, Shino didn't have the heart to tell her (again) that the Land of Fire didn't have enough rain for fireflies, and that this stone would have no affect on bringing him this rare coveted insect.
"I'll never take it off then," Shino said instead, slipping the chain hidden and safe underneath his coat. It felt light against his bare chest, which seemed to always flutter like kikaichū wings when Hinata was around.
Hinata blushed more, and it was like a kunai to Shino's heart, bound in the eternal silence of unspoken feelings and unrealized fantasies.
Showing himself mercy he dropped his eyes from Hinata's.
He sat in the stillness of nature, enjoying the silence with her by the creek, knowing this was the last time they would sit together as a team before her marriage to Naruto.
"Hinata," Shino finally said quietly, his eyes still on the creek in front of them. "The way you love Naruto... do you really think someone could love me that way?"
"I've been very lucky to have you as a teammate, Shino. You've taught me so much, and I still feel like the best of you is still to come. You just have to have confidence. If you just show her the side of you that you've been showing me all along, I know she would face anything to love you."
Shino doubted it.
"How can it ever be the same as you and me?" Shino thought to himself. "That's why I've decided to never marry. Love is like a Bikochu beetle. Rare and too easily taken for granted. I'm more likely to catch a firefly."
"I have to find a way out," Shino thought, wondering once again if the beekeeper meant to keep him prisoner here. "My friends are still counting on me."
"I told you, it's hopeless," the beekeeper said, when Shino walked out of the fog to him again.
"If this really is your jutsu," Shino faced the beekeeper defensively. "Then you are the only one who can break it."
"Kill me if you want to. I'm sorry to tell you that my jutsu can not be broken," the beekeeper replied. "Not even if you kill me."
"How is that possible?" Shino asked. "Have you lost control of it?"
"Originally, this mist contains a special component that makes people go astray," the beekeeper told him. "I too have no past or future. The shinobi life was never for me. I wanted nothing to do with the world out there anymore, and I needed no one to find me unless I chose to come to them. So when I made my jutsu formula, I incorporated a little of that hidden component into it."
"But that can't be the reason why the jutsu can't be broken," Shino said.
"I'm sorry," the beekeeper answered. "There is no way out. You'll have to stay another night here. Until you realize that the only future you have left is with us. Since there is nothing for you to go back to, I offer you a place in our beehive operation here. You are one of us now."
"One of you?"
"Despite our different clans and different politics, we are the same. That's why I took pity on you. We have both been lost for a long time," the beekeeper said. "At night they come without being fetched. By day they are lost without being stolen."
"What do you mean by that?" Shino asked.
"A riddle. If you can find the answer to it, you might have the key to finally breaking this jutsu," the beekeeper said. "Until then, you should be grateful for your new home here, where you are forever protected from heartbreak, disappointment, and sadness in the outside world. Our private utopia. You can finally know true inner peace here, without being enslaved by politics or wars. Why would you ever want to leave this place?"
"An existence without suffering?" Shino pondered. "But can that really be as meaningful as my life out there?"
"You'll forget your old life," the beekeeper assured him. "Why would you want to hang on to so much heartbreak? Can anyone really turn this offer down?"
"I'm not sure," Shino said. "Now that Kiba and Hinata have found someone, I'm alone again, facing the same feelings I did when Torune left me. It's always been us as a team...until now. I'm not sure if that means there's no longer a place for me. I don't have an answer for that yet. But it can't mean just giving up on my friends...even if their paths are different from mine now."
"But why haven't these friends of yours come looking for you? Seems that while you're trapped here alone in this jutsu, your friends have already forgotten about you. What use do you have for friends like those?" the beekeeper pointed out. "But, even though I don't understand why you still choose your friends over a life of no suffering, I will never forget the mercy you showed me in battle back then. If you after spending some time here, you still want to break the jutsu and go back to the painful existence you left behind, maybe there is a way I can help you. On one condition."
"So you do have a price."
"They say the secret to this fog is through hidden in that riddle," the beekeeper said. "I will help you find your answer, if you agree not to take revenge against the girl who attacked you in the forest. She is lost too, and her road back home is dangerous. I will help you find a way back to your world, if you help her find a way to hers. She deserves justice, not your punishment. No matter what it takes, promise me you will help her. That is my price."
"And what is she to you?" Shino asked.
"We'll just say I owe an old friend a favor," the beekeeper replied. "And this is how I've decided to repay my debt."
"I see. But even though I understand, it doesn't explain who she is or why she tried to kill me. I can not help her without knowing the meaning behind it. She is not apart of my original mission. Besides that, helping her might give her an opportunity to hurt others close to me," Shino said. "Without knowing who she is, or why she attacked me, why should I agree to your terms?"
"Because she is your only way out of this bamboo grove," the beekeeper said. "Do not take my offer lightly. Settling my debt means everything to me. And I will not tolerate you going back on your word once you've accepted my offer. I respect you of the Aburame clan for your power. But as a fellow bug user, I have come to respect your kind more for keeping your word. Until I can guarantee it, I can not help you solve the riddle. Which means you will be my guest here forever."