"Okay, can't you turn off your giant brain for one second?"
"Sorry, kid."
"No, you're not. This is the fourth game you've won and I know you're enjoying yourself."
"What if I am?"
"You're a cruel, cruel friend, Shikamaru."

While it was Akira's idea to play a few games with Shikamaru, she somehow forgot just how smart he was. She'd lost four games of shōgi to him and for some reason, she wanted to try again. Shikamaru told her she was a weird kind of masochist, which just earned him a kick in the shins.

"I swear, if we were sparring right now, I'd knock you out."
"Yes, you would, but we're not sparring are we?" Shikamaru said with a wry grin.

Akira groaned and fell back onto the deck. Shikamaru chuckled and stood up. He sat on the steps beside her, but Akira got up and pulled him away. Shikamaru had a habit of climbing a tree in his yard and onto the roof to stare at the clouds, and Akira had gotten sucked up into the habit of doing it whenever she was with him. The sky was incredibly blue, and the clouds looked like the cotton candy you would find at festivals. Shikamaru pointed one out and said that it looked Sasuke.

"It just looks like an angry blob, Shikamaru."
"Exactly."
"So rude," Akira said with a laugh.
"Hey, I know everyone's probably asked you already, but are you good?" Shikamaru asked. "You came back from the Land of Waves... different."
"Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Adjusting."
"What happened? You don't need to go into detail. Honestly, I don't want any details. I just want to know what you've been—"
"I killed someone," Akira said abruptly. "And not the person I intended to."
"Wow, okay. I thought you were going to tell me you got stabbed or something," Shikamaru said a little awkwardly. "Um, are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, I'll be okay. I've still got problems sleeping, but other than that I've gotten better. Actually, talking to my teammates, you, Kiba, Kai, even Kakashi-sensei has been really helpful."
"Even Sakura?"
"Yup. Actually, I talked to her first."

Shikamaru laughed.

"You've evolved. Going to Sakura for a heart-to-heart."
"Funnily enough, you're the last person I'm talking to about this."
"Don't I feel loved," Shikamaru said sarcastically.
"Honestly, I think it's because I'm most afraid of you," Akira chuckled. "You're just as honest as I am, and if I'd come to you first I think you'd just have smacked me across the face and told me to get over myself."
"And you didn't need that."
"No, I needed to process everything more or less naturally. I only talked to Sakura because she insisted I looked like I was dying or something."
"I didn't notice for a while. Maybe that's a girl thing."
"When did you notice something was off?"
"Couple of weeks ago," Shikamaru said. He pointed to a cloud and said it looked like a fish. "You were training so hard you busted up your shoulder, remember?"
"Yeah, and you, Kiba and Kai had to keep me restrained to the hospital bed so I'd heal." Akira sighed. "I was distracting myself with training. I still am... but not to that extent."
"Good."

Akira and Shikamaru spent the next hour staring at the clouds. They discovered some cats, a kunai, a few more angry Sasuke blobs, and even one that Shikamaru swore looked like the Hokage, but Akira just thought it looked like a plain amorphous cloud. There were a few playful jabs about some of the clouds being ugly and looking like each other, as usual, and then the two of them picked up small pebbles and gravel from the shingles on the root and took turns tossing them as far as they could.

"How is that training of yours going, by the way?"
"Good—great, actually," Akira said. She tossed a pebble across a few rows of trees. "Been practising my chakra control a lot."
"Sounds lame," Shikamaru said.
"You think everything is lame, you loser."
"True."
"I've also been experimenting with extending the reach of my chakra."
"The reach? You mean like make your chakra visible? That's hard to do."
"No, nothing like that." Akira sighed and frowned a little. "I haven't told anyone yet, but I'm... weird."
"I hadn't noticed."
"Thanks," Akira said sarcastically. "I mean that I can do something that I think is weird. Here, let me just show you."

Akira crawled to the edge of the roof and tried to spy any sort of source of water. When she had, she beckoned Shikamaru to the edge of the roof.

"Now, don't freak out."
"Have you ever known me to freak out?"
"Remember that time we went swimming in the lake and something slimy tou—"
"Hey, whatever that was it was gross, all right?" Shikamaru complained. "Just show me your magic trick."
"Okay, okay. See that glass of water on your neighbour's window sill?"

Shikamaru nodded and watched Akira stretch her arm towards the glass of water. Nothing happened at first, but then Shikamaru saw the water in the glass begin to swirl. And after it swirled, the water slowly rose from the glass and gently forced its way through the crack in the window. A stream of water trickled through and soared towards Akira, then balled itself in the palm of her hand. She turned to Shikamaru, whose wide eyes gave away his shock.

"Okay, I think the weirdest part is that that's water and you're an Uchiha," Shikamaru said.
"Isn't it? I just don't get it," Akira said with a loud sigh. "It started in the Land of Waves. I mean, I've always liked swimming and I've rarely been bothered by rain, but this is next level nonsense."
"It's so cool, though! And you're just..."
"I'm gathering up chakra and imbuing the water with it. By extension, I'm making the water a part of me."
"Does it work with anything other than water?" Shikamaru asked.
"Unfortunately, I've tried to test it on several other things, but it only seems to work with water. Right now, I'm working to mould my chakra and the water to form kunai and such."
"Who else knows about this?"
"Just Kakashi-sensei," Akira said. "He's been monitoring my progress. Unfortunately, since he has little to no experience with this... ability, he can't exactly train me."
"Eh, Sakura would accuse you of favouritism, anyway," Shikamaru sighed. He poked the orb of water. "That tickles."
"Yeah, you probably just poked some of my chakra."

All of a sudden, there was a loud booming noise and the neighbour's window's burst open. Taken by surprise, Akira tossed the orb of water into the air, and she and Shikamaru ducked behind the edge of the roof to hide. They shared a look of terror and then the orb of water that Akira threw landed on Shikamaru's head. Shikamaru gave Akira a deadpan look, and he watched as she forced herself not to laugh at him.

"Go ahead."

Akira burst out laughing and after a few moments, Shikamaru joined in.