So this is sorta a recap chapter. This baby made me kinda sad to write, actually, cos I am reminded how much shit I have put poor Sasa-chan through. And to sum it up so plainly... ugh.

Also basically did no editing on this so apologies for bad writing lol

If I was honest, I wasn't surprised Shikamaru knew, or had guessed. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I'd always had the niggling suspicion he knew too much.

But the fact he was finally acting, rather than standing back and letting everything happen; it showed how grave our situation really was becoming.

Not that we ever could have imagined the true gravity of it, never in our wildest dreams.

"YOU TOLD SHIKAMARU!" Naruto almost screamed.

"Shut up! I did not tell him anything! I said I would tell him- he figured out by himself who you and I are!" I hissed, shoving my hand over his mouth. I'd brought Sasuke to Naruto and my apartment and had promptly told them the news.

Naruto appeared to be hyperventilating. Sasuke, however, simply looked thoughtful.

"What parts will you tell him?"

I hesitated. There was no way I was bringing up my past life obviously, but the rest was fair game to me.

"Should we leave out the truth about Kakashi?" Naruto asked, finally seeming to come to his senses.

"But then we would have to tell him about Itachi," Sasuke reasoned. "That's irrelevant anyway."

It was in that moment that I suddenly realised – there were things not even Naruto and Sasuke knew about me. Like the exact details of my time and indoctrination into Root, the mission during which I met Orochimaru, the massacre of Yurei, Lady and the Maidens – it felt like an age ago.

But if I wanted to explain everything, I had to start from the start. The very start. Then maybe we could piece together some shreds of evidence as to what Danzo and Orochimaru's true intentions were. It was unlikely, but I could hope.

"You two will be in danger," Sasuke pointed out quietly. "If anyone finds out…"

Naruto heaved a sigh.

"Ok, let's do this. Who cares about the stupid rules; this is about us and our comrade. I don't want to keep us a secret anymore either. I want to be myself. Even if it's just to one other person."

I understood, deep in my heart, exactly how he felt. I had grown tired of calling myself Sora, of pretending to be someone I'm not.

"Ok. Let's do this. And Sasayaki; you will tell us everything?" Sasuke asked, his voice wavering slightly.

Naruto turned to me, wide eyed, finally realising the implications.

"Everything?" he whispered breathlessly.

I nodded. If I was going to do this, I was going to go all out. I was going to go against Danzo's orders, and I would do it right. The thought filled me with equal amounts of triumph and terror.

However, there was one problem.

"Naruto, I need you to look at this."

And then I opened my mouth wide and showed them both the seal.

There was a silence, Naruto emitting an 'ahh' of realisation.

"That's why you could never tell us," he mumbled. "I think I can do something about this."

I cuddled with Puggy as we waited in the old house of one Orochimaru himself. Someone had obviously redone the seals and fixed the door since the last time we'd been here. It made me wonder what, exactly, had come of Mizuki this time around. Did he still come here for his strange, undercover dealings?

Naruto, Sasuke and I were huddled together on one of the beige couches to keep warm. It was freezing out; fog covered the village, dampening everything under its cold touch. We didn't dare light the fire in the hearth of the house, after all the chimney would alert anyone looking to our presence.

I was nervous. My heart beat in my throat. 10 minutes later there was a hesitant knock on the door.

Naruto went to answer. He had deactivated the fuuinjutsu surrounding the place, and he would reactivate it in order to give us a semblance of privacy.

However, when he came back, he was not only with Shikamaru but Ino and Chouji also.

I frowned.

"Shikamaru what-"

"We are a team," Shikamaru interrupted me before I could finish. "What you tell me, you tell us."

Naruto and I traded uncertain glances, but surprisingly it was Sasuke who spoke up.

"He's right," he said. "We need to trust each other."

Naruto and I nodded, and team 10 dragged the sofa next to our so it was facing us, and then they sat down.

Ino and Chouji looked overall nonplussed.

"Anyone care to explain what we're doing out here at four in the morning?" Ino grumbled irritably.

"We have something to tell you. Sora, you start," Sasuke motioned for me to begin.

I opened my mouth.

And I spoke.

When I was five, the brothel I lived at was massacred.

In retrospect, there was a reason I was chosen. The reason, I don't yet know, but there are hints of it in hindsight. I realise now that the reason I came onto their radar was because of my recent interaction with one Naruto Uzumaki. But we can get to him later.

In order to bring me in, this organisation cut my closest ties first.

Hence the massacre. It was easy for them to massacre my brothel; shady dealings always happen in the red-light district and a loss of one establishment wasn't really cause for any investigation.

And that was really the beginning of everything.

I went through brutal, relentless training. Not surprising, considering that Root is an organisation that ensures that the Hokage can turn a blind eye to the darker, messier resolutions a village must commit. Hence our village may pretend to be the most peaceful, kind village at the expense of a small population of it.

I was lucky, however; unlike most recruited into the system, I was given a primary target to watch over; Naruto Uzumaki, junchuuriki of the nine-tailed demon.

I don't know why such a thing was ordered. I think, however, that Root's founder, a man called Danzo Shimura intended for me to be a sort of secondary assurance to keep the nine-tails at bay, because he ordered me to be taught a chain style that can inhibit tailed beasts.

I feel he had other intentions too, but perhaps they were thwarted since his emotional training did not work on me.

In my first year of Root, I was ordered to go on a mission, because there was apparently information on S-ranked nin Orochimaru's latest hideout location. I can tell you now, I wasn't there because of my skill. I was bait.

Why? Again, I don't know. But I do know that this mission had a secondary objective that only the other Root member assigned to the squadron knew of. He went by the name Ushi.

I saw him pass a scroll to Orochimaru. I still can't say if he was acting alone, but under the circumstances I am most certain that it was Danzo behind it.

That is also the mission on which I met Itachi Uchiha. We were an odd squadron to say the least; Itachi was only a kid then, even Kakashi, Tenzo and Yugao were teenagers or barely past it. They were skilled, but still… to send us against an S-ranked missing nin? I have a feeling I wasn't the only one meant as 'bait'. In any case, you won't know Yugao or Tenzo; Yugao died on that mission, and Tenzo was taken away. As I said; bait.

Well, he took the bait, but not all of it. Not yet, in any case.

After that mission things looked up for me. I went to the academy, made great friends, was a prank artist with Naruto. Don't tell anyone, but we were the 'Demonic Duo' everyone always talked about. One day I hope we will return to our reign of glory when everything is said and done.

You might remember that I wasn't there a lot of the time. When I wasn't with Naruto, I was training with the teacher teaching me to restrain the Kyuubi.

Otherwise, I was helping the Gang, often with Naruto hence we wouldn't show up that often – it's been so long. I – well, we miss them. But they're another matter entirely.

But in any case, my time spent at the academy was fun but it wouldn't last.

Why don't you go on, Sasuke.

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.

.

A good friend of ours died when we were around 7-8 years old, for me he was my cousin. His name was Shisui Uchiha. You three might remember that Naruto and Sasayaki didn't have a great reputation back then; they were the ones that took the blame when he died, since they'd recently started hanging around my clan. They were shrouded in mystery for me, too, but I came to actually like them after a while, even if they can be idiots. And I knew it was not them that had killed Shisui.

I knew it wasn't my brother, either.

Naruto, Sasayaki and I used to spend time searching out this house we're sitting in now, trying to unlock its secrets. One of many. We haven't been back here in a long time. The last time we were in here, was the day before my clan was massacred.

You might remember that that was the day the Kyuubi was unleashed in the village for the second time. I won't go into detail about what happened, but Sasayaki and Naruto did not die, as the population was lead to believe. They were instead placed in Root – or returned to, in Sasayaki's case.

Since I knew the truth, they could see me occasionally, and could keep up their 'Demonic Duo' pranks and help with the Gang sometimes too. It was lucky; they weren't forced to stay in the program for life, but instead Danzo had to relinquish his power over them the minute graduation came by.

You remember the new transfers. Asahi and Sora. Well, you know now it was never Asahi and Sora.

Naruto, tell them about the exams.

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.

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Man, I was so excited when I heard the chunin exams were rolling around. It was like the best thing ever, 'ttebayo! But then it was almost instantly screwed up because someone had to go and piss off Sakura and request to be placed on another team.

But whatever. I could deal with it. I ended up with Sasuke and Sakura on my team, while Sasa-chan was with these two weirdos.

I figured Sasa-chan would be fine, cos sh- er, he's Sasayaki. But then that Yoroi guy turned out to be some kind of monster! I'm not kidding. I maybe even, um, unleashed the Kyuubi a bit when I thought Sakura died. That's what that feeling was that everyone was talking about.

Anyway, Yoroi managed to blow us all in different directions, so I ended up stranded somewhere when I lost control. But even in Kyuubi form, he could easily keep up with me! It made no sense. No genin could keep up so easily!

In the end he hit me with this weird, glowy fingers move that destabilised my seal. It created fuuinjutsu on my stomach that I couldn't remove myself because it required a jutsu base, not an ink base, and I haven't got around to those kinds of fuuinjutsu yet. Anyway basically I was knocked out after that, but the Pervy Sage I met yesterday managed to remove it so he really is the real deal.

And also, Sasayaki got this strange seal from Yoroi that even I can't decipher, but basically it's a tracking seal, chakra anchor and can be activated at any time to cause extreme pain.

So the hokage took him away to seal it, and that's when this Orochimaru guy appeared, right? And he activated the seal, so I reckon he's impersonating Yoroi! Sasayaki said that he threatened to kidnap her and the hokage did nothing about him even though he could have fought him then and there.

Well anyway, That's basically it. I guess we're telling you because we figured you guys could help us figure out what's going on. Something big is going to happen soon, I can feel it.

There was a silence for several moments, and then…

Ino burst out laughing. She laughed so hard she bent over at the waist, slapping her knee.

Chouji chuckled uncertainly, though his eyes were on Shikamaru, whose face was serious.

"Man how long did it take you guys to make up such a story? It's fantastic! But you don't seriously think we're going to fall for it, do you?" she asked, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.

The three of us exchanged glances.

"Ino," Shikamaru said quietly.

Her smile faded.

"It's impossible! First off, you two don't even look like Sasayaki and Naruto!"

Naruto pulled down his mask that hid his whisker marks and removed his contact lenses.

"I dyed my hair. We couldn't possibly return to the village as we were; people would have killed us."

No one missed the tears in his eyes; of relief or the pain of remembering, I don't know, but he wiped them away quickly.

I took off my silver sunglasses and removed my beanie, letting my white hair fall out. Then I clung to Puggy because had we done the right thing in telling them?

Ino was gaping.

"But… You guys were the Demonic Duo? Those guys were famous! Everyone thought they'd just taken a hiatus or something."

I was surprised that was the one detail she had decided to focus on.

"Ino. They are telling the truth. So much makes sense to me now, but it also leads to more questions. Like what is special about Sasayaki. What was the purpose of the correspondence between this Danzo man and Orochimaru? And if Orochimaru is impersonating Yoroi, why? And why did the Hokage do nothing about him?"

Ino was quiet for a long time as we discussed theories. I considered proposing the idea of an invasion, but there wasn't enough evidence for it, so I stayed quiet. Plus, even if I told them and they believed me, what could they possibly do?

One thing I was worried about was the fact that, now that Orochimaru was pretending to be Yoroi, who was going to be the Kazekage?

"Maybe Sasayaki has a hidden kekkei genkei," Chouji mumbled among the speculations.

But the suggestion was quickly shot down, because it was extremely unlikely.

"I think… this Orochimaru man… have you guys heard of the sannin?"

Everyone nodded. Of course. We'd all heard of the sannin.

"As far as I can remember, Orochimaru was the name of one of them. I heard that, when he left the village, the hokage spared him. Perhaps he still has feelings for his old student."

There was a bit of quiet after that.

"Not only that," Shikamaru finally continued. "I've noticed my dad has been very on edge. The hokage already knows something is coming. Whatever it is, he's planning for it."

There was a sigh of relief from Ino, and Chouji's shoulders relaxed. The hokage knew, or at least was expecting something.

But in the last timeline, him knowing hadn't been enough. The village had still been attacked, and the hokage himself was killed. Back then he know of Orochimaru's interference in the exams, yet as far as I knew he did nothing then and look where that got him.

Dead.

Chouji and Ino may have somewhat relaxed after Shikamaru's statement, but the rest of us knew better.

Just because he knows, doesn't mean terrible things won't still happen.

"So… what now?" Ino asked, after a while.

"We do nothing. There is nothing we can do; the hokage is likely doing everything he can for the moment," Shikamaru said grimly.

"He's right," Sasuke muttered darkly. "He must have something planned if he hasn't removed Yoroi form the exams yet. What are you going to do about your match, Shikamaru?"

"I will fight as per usual. We will be surrounded by Leaf's ninja, so should anything happen hopefully they'll be quick enough to interfere."

"You know… you could all drop out," Ino offered hesitantly. "I have a feeling that whatever is going to happen, it will be at the tournament."

Naruto stood up abruptly before anyone could say anything.

"Ino, we will not back down. If we quit, we may regret it after. Better us than someone who is oblivious. We are going to prepare, and we will fight, and whatever happens, we will be ready!"

I smiled crookedly. I was almost ashamed to have considered quitting myself.

"Dobe, using such big words," Sasuke said, though he was smirking slightly.

So it was agreed. And while we hadn't really come up with any answers, we were going to prepare for the worst, whatever that would be.

Even if it wasn't enough.

30 chapters woot! Can't believe it lol. Any theories about the answers to Shikamaru's questions?