CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
"Through the smoke, a silhouette I can barely see.
There's a man with an ax, standing in the rain
Looked me straight in my eye, this is what he had to say…"
"Never fall asleep,"
"You won't wake up."
Later, lives will be changed, and Team 9 will learn a new kind of fear. Let it be known that selflessness can hurt you.
Naruto did not have a single clue what the hell she'd walked in on, except from what she could see. Team 10 were hugging, teary-eyed, and Naruto had felt their distress as they'd passed by.
The distress was gone now, and Lee had made a fool of himself, so she was half tempted to just run off. She never wanted to intrude.
"Naruto…" Shikamaru greeted softly, his eyes bloodshot and clearly rubbed dry. She tried on a smile.
"Hey, Shika."
Making a confusing, kicked-puppy sort of whine, Shikamaru's eyes shone with tears. He crumpled, his shoulders shaking as he started violently sobbing. Naruto immediately raised her hands to look as harmless as possible, Tenten blinking wildly.
"Hey! D-don't cry, 'ttebayo! What's the matter?" She fretted, getting silence from his teammates.
"Uhm. We're gonna give you four some privacy.." Tenten spoke, roughly yanking Lee away by his collar. He had no chance to disagree.
Choji hesitantly released his two teammates. "Should I go?" Naruto asked them quietly, tone matching the melancholy between them all.
"No." Shikamaru said, hand reaching out to grab her wrist. Naruto allowed it. Ino looked up, giving her an expression Naruto couldn't name.
The silence made her stomach churn. Shikamaru's grip on her wrist didn't loosen.
She traded glances with Choji and Ino, Shikamaru hadn't lifted his head. "What's goin' on?" She asked them.
Ino sighed. "In fighting. I pushed buttons, we argued, and said some stuff none of us admitted before."
Naruto used her free hand to rub his back as he hiccuped. "I'm sorry." She said, empathetic to her friends. A small, insidious part of her wondered why they needed to hash it out here, of all places.
She couldn't lecture them though. High amounts of stress like this was straining her team, too. She doubted they were the only ones. "I understand. Anyone need to talk?"
Ino hummed. "I'm.. I'm okay," She affirmed, knowing she'd gotten all her frustrations out in their argument. Choji shrugged. He was only upset because his teammates were, he could blame that on his empathy.
"Shika?"
He murmured something unintelligible.
Ino sighed. "I'm gonna take a note from your teammates and give you two some privacy. Choji, you coming? You and Lee might get along."
Choji nodded eagerly, "Talk to you soon, Naruto.."
"Ino! Wait up! What scroll do you guys have?" Naruto questioned, rubbing Shikamaru's back still.
Choji raised his eyebrow questioningly. "Heaven, why?" The Yamanaka replied easily. Choji figured there must be a lot of trust between them. "Tenten has some spares on her. Ask for an Earth scroll."
Ino nodded firmly, too emotionally exhausted to question why they had extras. Some things you just didn't question, especially when Naruto was involved.
With no further words, Ino and Choji left the two alone.
"Lets, um, sit." Naruto suggested, Shikamaru agreed with her wordlessly. Naruto was forced to sit as he did, because the boy still hadn't released her wrist.
On the lush grass, Naruto sat beside him, looking at him with nothing but concern in her big blue eyes. She was needed here, and so she would do what she could. Shikamaru was her first ever friend.
Naruto would do anything for her friends. She would give everything, until all she had was gone. She would give the world.
"I'm sorry." He broke the silence. Naruto had never heard his voice tremble like this, had she?
No, wait.. She..
Flashes of a memory hit her, from her academy days. When she'd met him.
" You're a Nara, boy! You have no place being around a beast like that!" A teacher had lectured, screaming in the little boy's face. "Leave Shika alone! Don't take it out on him if you have problems with me!" Naruto yelled in return, holding onto his wrist like a lifeline. Takao sensei always did this to her. Always. She'd slammed her right hand on the desk as she spoke, something Takao-sensei took great offense to. "Don't talk back to me!" The teacher had struck her fingers with the spine of a giant book, causing them to crack morbidly. The teacher's face has turned green upon seeing the damage. Naruto bit her lip to keep back tears. She wouldn't cry. She just wouldn't. Shikamaru had grabbed her free, not-so-gnarled hand, and he'd run. They'd run together, out of the school, not even stopping by the nurses office. Her fingers throbbed with pain, and if she'd been sobbing, it never registered. They were swelling and bruising and the visage made the children's stomachs hurt. That was the first time they'd ever skipped. It was the first, and last, time Naruto had ever seen him cry.
Until now.
She gasped, the memory foreign and unfamiliar. Had she locked it away?
"You have nothing to be sorry for.." Naruto told him suddenly, staring at her own left hand.
It was the same one he'd grabbed that day. The hand she'd held onto his wrist with. How could she forget something like that, when Shikamaru clearly remembered?
"Tell me what's wrong, Shika." Her voice was solid, firm, as she pushed back all her guilt. He needed her now. She could reflect later.
"Everything." He despaired, throwing his head back.
"Then tell me everything." The blonde pushed, looking into his dark eyes.
"Okay." He agreed, letting the silence hang for a few minutes. He made a strange noise, and then continued. "I just. Ugh. I'm such a fuck-up!"
"I made Ino feel like- Like I look down on her! And, and- She's changed and she's angry that I'm not doing more but I'm so tired all the time-" His sentences were broken, stuttered and falling over each other. Naruto listened with every fiber of her being anyway.
"No one helps me. Asuma doesn't teach us anything and my dad always just says, you're a Nara, figure it out. That's all anyone says! I don't want to be a Nara! I hate my brain!" He cradled his head in one free hand, tightening his grip on Naruto.
"I can't stop thinking, not ever. I think about every interaction, every word and movement and event until my head throbs. I just want to rest all the time because everything else seems so impossible."
Naruto moved closer to him, so their shoulders touched while he ranted.
"I- I neglect my friends. Ino, Kiba, Choji… You especially."
Naruto licked her teeth.
"I don't.. I don't know where Ino goes, or when she trains.. I don't know how she's gotten so much better.. And, and so distant! I never talk to Kiba and Choji… He's just so- Easy to be around. He talks about everything so I never have to ask how he is. I never do. It's so hard to be a good friend when all I can think about is how fucked everything is!" He was gaining some steam now, his volume raising a few notches.
"Being a ninja is so stressful. I never really wanted this. But no one cared. I was the genius heir so there was no choice. Even if I wasn't.. I'd be forced into it anyway. Shinobi clan's have to contribute a certain number of ninja to their village. I've never had the privilege to be anything except a career killer."
It hit her then, that she'd never thought of it that way. Ever. She'd always wanted to be a ninja, she never guessed that Shikamaru didn't.
"Not even just a killer. I have to be my dad ." He ground out, causing Naruto to blink. She'd always thought Shikamaru admired his father, but his tone suggested otherwise. "I… I love him, I just.. I never want to be him. He's miserable ."
"Really?" She asked quietly, tracing small circles on his back.
"Yeah. Him and my mom are only married because it was arranged. They don't love each other. They don't even get along. Mom's violent and dad's a misogynist. She hits us and he laughs it off as womanly emotions."
Naruto's face went deadpan. Good to know that such archaic ideas were still around, she thought sarcastically. "That's… not okay." She told him, rather obviously.
He hugged his knees to his chest. "Dad drinks the minute he gets home from work. He can't sleep at night if he doesn't. Mom doesn't care. I don't think she even likes guys sometimes." He said with a sad laugh.
Naruto swallowed. She had no idea. "Arranged marriages are so beyond fucked. I swear I'll ban them."
Shikamaru chuckled, "Still dreaming of the Hokage seat?" He asked.
"As always."
He smiled just slightly, tears still flowing. "I'm glad there's still a part of you I can recognize."
Naruto's face fell, "I'm so sorry," He apologized again. "What for?"
"Not sticking around. Not being a good friend… Letting you go off that day and never seeing you again.." He choked up, burying his head in his folded arms. "Shikamaru…"
"God, I'll never be a good friend, or son, or ninja. I don't deserve to be here, I shouldn't be an heir..." The brunet told himself, rubbing his eyes again. "I'll never be the man my dad wants me to be. I'll never be him."
Naruto suddenly hugged him, pulling him in. "I never want you to be. Your clan might, but me? Ino, Choji? No. We like Shikamaru, not Shikaku."
He trembled, desperately hugging her back. "There's nothing about me to like." His voice was so quiet he could barely hear himself.
"That's not true!" Naruto reprimanded. "You were my first friend. You were Choji's first friend. When no one else would give us a chance, you did."
She breathed in deeply before continuing, "Back at the academy, you refused to play Ninja with those kids when they wouldn't let Choji join. I remember. And.. And, you stood up for me, and when Takao sensei hit me… You skipped all the classes you had with him after. You always brought me with you."
She swallowed, her mouth dry. "You always shared your bentos with me, and when Kiba forgot his, you'd split it three ways. You'd rather we all eat than let one of us go hungry. I remember when Choji's mom started packing extra for us." She said with a laugh, "And you still offered, even when you pretended to be annoyed by it."
Pretended was an important word in that sentence. "I guess you were acting like your dad then, huh? When you pretended to be annoyed?"
Shikamaru nodded slowly, his head buried in her shoulder.
"And that day.. When Takao broke my fingers.." Naruto spoke softly. "You wrapped them for me."
Shikamaru made a noise, one speaking of anger towards himself. "I was too cowardly to take you to a nurse. Or to report him.. I.. I could've gotten him fired! I was just scared.."
"You were a kid! You did the best you could then, and it was the kindest anyone had ever been to me. Don't reduce that." She hugged him tighter, letting him sob on her. She hoped her teammates were okay. And not eavesdropping.
"I'm sorry everyone puts expectations on you like that. Your dad is a grown man, who's trapped in old ways. You aren't a coward for finding your own way to deal with a problem. You aren't your father, either, and I never want you to be."
She cupped his face with both hands, staring him in the eye with a look of determination. "Never, ever think you have to be him. You're better."
"I know you've always been told to wear his hand-me-down personality. I wish you wouldn't. It doesn't fit you."
Shikamaru sobbed again, and it was a while before he stopped. Naruto knew from Inoichi there was a world for all the feelings the boy had described; Depression. It afflicted all sorts of burnt-out shinobi. It just got to Shikamaru sooner.
Once he'd calmed down, she'd hugged him like never before, promising to keep in touch. "If you need me, tell Ino to seek out my chakra. It's easy to find. The tower is about a mile from here, and once that stress-induced fever goes down, you guys should head towards it." Shikamaru nodded, swallowing.
They both knew that one breakdown wouldn't heal him. But it was a start. A start towards dismantling the ideas his parents put in his head, a start towards leading him to better days.
"Love you, Shika. Rest up, and stay safe."
She'd left him then, feeling like a monster as she did. Stepping out of the little clearing Team Ten had claimed, her four friends waited on the ground.
"Choji, Ino… He needs you guys, he's really.. Depressed." She said, rubbing the back of her neck. Ino nodded, she'd come to the same conclusion after thinking it over.
The signs had all been there, yet she'd never noticed. Perpetual exhaustion, laziness, lack of aspiration… Those were major outside symptoms, yet she hadn't noticed. Some Yamanaka she was.
"We're going to work on it. Thanks, Naruto, I think he needed to talk to you." Ino told the group of shinobi, feeling suddenly like she may not need a new team after all.
Though, she decided then, if she ever had kids.. The Ino-Shika-Cho trio would never be forced on them.
"Yeah, thanks, Naruto.." Choji agreed, words lost on him. "Give him another hug, Cho. He needs it."
That, however, Choji could do. When words failed, touch wouldn't.
He nodded empathically. "Got your earth scroll?" Naruto asked them. "Yeah, Tenten had to dig it out of a scroll." Ino revealed, smiling slightly.
"Great. We're off, then. Gotta get to the tower."
"Oh, and guys… Just so you know, you aren't your dads. Or your moms, or your grandparents. You're you, and that's the way all of your friends like you. Don't let your clans keep beating you into a mold."
Goodbyes and hugs were exchanged, and the two teams were left to their own devices. For Team 9, their goal was simple on paper. Get to the tower. Help who they could along the way.
Life could never be that easy, though, as the exhausted Naruto soon found out.
Stampeding over the vines and bramble across the ground, they weren't exactly moving in silence. "That was not what I expected.." Tenten said eventually, getting affirmation from her teammates.
"I was.. Not aware that all clans put so much distress into their heirs." Lee sounded rather introspective, and Tenten piped in. "Even after finding the truth about Neji, you thought it would be easy?"
Naruto hummed. "Well.. The way he spoke of the Hyuuga heir, she sounded spoiled. And I supposed his own troubles were a unique circumstance." He explained himself easily, and Naruto replied then.
"Haven't heard of a single clan that doesn't have something to make it a bad environment." Tenten definitely agreed, "I think they all have problems. Some more than others, I guess."
Lee made a noise of dissatisfaction, "It is disheartening to learn that those I have always desired to be, were not something to desire at all."
Naruto looked at him then, and then looked down. She'd wanted her own clan once, too. Technically, she'd had one. But, the Uzumaki were extinct now, weren't they?
"Yeah." She replied. "It only stands to prove everyone has their own battles!" Lee regained some of his usual vigor, and the four of them kept on.
It wasn't long before it was lost again, however.
"Um.. Naruto?" Tenten called, stopping suddenly.
"Yeah?" The blonde halted, looking at her teammates.
Tenten's face warped in a strange expression, one of concern and worry.
"Look up."
And so, she and Lee obliged, looking up.
Far above, groups of birds flew frantically to the east. Fast as they were, it was hard to track one specific bird, instead seeing it as a blurring horde overhead.
"They.. They're distressed." Tenten thought aloud, knowing bird behavior well enough to say so.
"It's not just them! Look!" Lee pointed to a swarm of mayflies, also heading east.
"The hell…" Naruto pondered aloud, just as a wild boar charged past them, with two babies following behind her. The hog squealed unnaturally as it passed, as if it were warning them.
The three exchanged looks of horror.
"Kai!" Tenten tried first, with Naruto following after. Lee pinched himself.
Nothing changed. Birds still flew east, and a bug crawled across the toe of Naruto's boot.
The leaves weren't rustling, but the Earth below seemed to tremble, not shake.
Preparing for another giant plant monster, they took each other's backs in the Sharingan Position.
A position named after the three tomoe in a sharingan eye, they all faced separate directions, backs facing only each other. All three of them felt goosebumps rise on their skin, hairs standing on edge.
Activating Mind's eye of Kagura, Naruto… Couldn't find the anomaly. She found various dangerous shinobi, sure… But nothing, absolutely nothing that could cause the animals to behave this way…
"There has to be an apex predator somewhere west of us." Tenten didn't say it, but she was urging Naruto to check there. And she was..
"I.." Naruto was at a loss, nearly. Until she felt it. A flicker of power, in the location of two familiar shinobi.
That flicker was gone as quick as it came, but the feeling it gave Naruto wasn't. It was pure dread, coiled up in her belly.
The two shinobi, Naruto managed to recognize. Sasuke. Sakura.
Her mouth went dry. "What is it, Naruto?" Lee asked, face twisted with concern.
"Team Seven, you know, Sasuke 'n Sakura?" She told her teammates, who knew only their names. Neither knew the two personally. "They're.. They're in danger, and they're so scared."
Naruto sucked in a deep breath, forcing their fear out of her. "We have to help them!" Tenten decided, with Lee quick to agree.
Naruto hesitated. She.. She wasn't sure what they'd be facing. And she told them so, but Lee shrugged her off.
"They're comrades!" He'd declared, and that was that. Naruto prayed silently. They'd be needing it. Not far from them, the crack of wood breaking dispelled their newfound silence.
In a forest full of enormous, thick trees, Naruto concluded one had just fallen. She didn't hesitate to summon four clones. One to scout ahead, and three to watch each of their backs.
It did nothing to comfort her.
It wasn't long until they landed in the scene. All of Team Seven was trembling before a lone Kusa shinobi.
"Oh, my, my, my…" The person spoke, velvety smooth. Bile rising in Naruto's throat, she was unable to stop staring. "It seems more playthings have arrived. Very well."
The person was entirely nonplussed about facing six genin, head-on, and completely alone.
Naruto knew one way to dispel her own fear. She opened that forbidden part of her, drawing out a trickle of kyuubi chakra.
Her tenketsu lit up like fireworks, and part of her fear was gone.
"You don't scare me." She lied.
The person chuckled. "You're free to tell yourself that."
Without so much as a blink, Naruto summoned easily a hundred clones to engage the enemy. "Pair up with a Naruto clone, everyone!" Naruto directed, bringing forth six more, which took position behind each of them.
Her clones were being dispelled in milliseconds, Naruto realized as her heart thumped in her ears.
We don't stand a chance.
And they all knew it, because it was hard for every single one of them to do anything more than tremble.
This was going to be a battle for their lives.
The wind blew her hair back. The battlefield was so strangely silent, as if the world waited in anticipation.
Lee wouldn't leave it waiting.
With a ferocious cry, Lee threw himself out first. Immediately he engaged the enemy in taijutsu.
The ensuing battle was done with such blinding speed, Naruto wondered if Lee had dropped his weights.
It couldn't be, because he was on the defensive. Lee was the best goddamn taijutsu specialist she knew, at least in their age group.
She was horrified.
She had to engage.
Withdrawing her senbon, she reappeared a hundred or so feet behind the enemy, trying to make him into a human pin-cushion.
Still engaging Lee, the kusa-nin made a clone to keep her at bay. Naruto's stomach clenched as a copy of the ninja rose from the mud beneath their very feet.
The clone stared at her, blank eyes and smiling face. Naruto never knew her favorite jutsu could be so unsettling.
Naruto moved first, rushing the clone to engage in taijutsu.
Even if she couldn't beat it this way, she could surely learn something.
It only took a few minutes of nauseating recognition, a few minutes of evading and narrowly dodging blow after blow, for Naruto to catch it.
That was her taijutsu style.
"Hebi." Was all she could say, her blood ice cold.
She leapt back, not paying attention to anything except she and the clone.
"Who- Who are you?!" Naruto screamed, desperately pulsing her chakra. Someone had to save them- They couldn't fight him, no. There was no chance.
"Kukukuku…" The clone in front of her laughed, slow and thick with mirth. Sweat rolled down her brow.
"So you get it?" Something wet- a tongue- licked up her neck and to her jaw. Naruto spun, using a senbon to administer a killing blow to the person's neck.
It melted, right back into the ground it came from. "Another clone?!" Naruto asked herself, only outwardly surprised. God, no. If it was him, he could clone-spam too, and fuck- Tenten? Sasuke? Sakura?!
"It's me, little one. And you.."
Spinning on her heel yet again, Naruto was face to face with the kusa-nin. No, with a sannin.
"They must warn you of me," His voice thicker than marmalade, he lifted her chin, staring into blue with his own frenzied yellows. Naruto was paralyzed.
Not a muscle in her body could move. At that moment, it was just him.
Snake and mouse.
The blonde couldn't so much as utter a word, not a sound. Her body was so frozen, her lip trembled and every single one of her hairs stood on end.
No other sounds registered, nothing but Orochimaru's voice. Not a rustle, or thud, not a battle-cry or scream, not even her own breath.
He hummed. "No. You're little Anko's student. You use my style…"
Naruto hadn't noticed the moment his hand had landed on her throat. She hadn't noticed when he'd began tightening his grip, cutting her airflow off further by the second. She'd never even noticed her feet dangling above the dirt.
Only when her vision began to spot, and nails dug into her flesh, did she realize.
"Someone should've told you stealing is wrong, girl."
Naruto hit the ground.
The last thing she heard was the piercing scream of a friend she couldn't name.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I don't know if you guys will take as well to this as the folks on AO3 did, but my interpretation for Shikamaru comes from traits he DOES present in canon. In canon, they manage to make his constant exhaustion and lack of aspiration quirky. I see more depth in it; He's the perfect image of a burnt-out gifted kid.
Reviews make me happy! Also, I update faster on AO3, so if you hate waiting, bookmark the story there. The chapters are better divided, so on AO3 this is chapter 17.
