Hey. Here's another what if scenario for you. I got the idea for this one when Kakazu mentioned that Shikamaru would mount a bounty on his head one day. If he said that, then I can also imagine that he would think Shikamaru would be a good addition to the Akatsuki. It's shorter than the last one because this scene starts when Hidan has already made the final blow... or rather right when he makes the final blow... to Asuma.

What If Scenario: What if Kakazu decided that Shikamaru was good enough to join the Akatsuki during Hidan's fight with Asuma?

Taken

Shikamaru's eyes went wide as he pushed himself to move faster. Everything seemed to be moving so slow, and it felt like he was getting further and further away from the two in front of him. He watched the rod pierce Hidan's chest, right where his heart was, and Asuma's face frozen in horror.

"No. No! Asuma!" he cried out, tears welling up in his eyes, but tripped and ended up falling face first into the ground, sliding just a bit. He panted and slowly looked up to see Asuma just sitting there, staring wide-eyed at nothing, then coughed up blood before falling forward and hitting the ground, bent over his knees with his forehead on the ground. 'No. No. No. No.'

He laid there and slowly reached out toward his fallen sensei. "Asuma."

He watched Hidan pull his scythe out of his body and put the rod away in his robe. "All done here. How 'bout you?" he asked turning to Kakazu.

"Just give me a minute," Kakazu said as he glanced over his shoulder at his partner.

"Dang you," Kotetsu said. He was still tied up in Kakazu's weird, thick threads with Kakazu's hand still holding tightly to his throat. "Dang you."

Izumo, who was also still tied up and being strangled the same way Kakazu was, just grunted in pain with his eyes closed.

Shikamaru slowly got to his knees. "You… Son of a…" he started, then dashed forward when he got to his feet. "You're gonna pay for that!"

Kakazu threw Izumo back, not releasing him, and bashed the man into Shikamaru, making both shinobi slide across the ground.

Shikamaru couldn't move. His body was too exhausted, and the added weight of Izumo had him pinned to the ground. "Dang it. It's no good. I'm powerless," he said, his face scrunched up in pain and eyes closed.

Izumo struggled against the bindings on his arms and gasped for air, which made Shikamaru crack his eyes open and turn his head. Izumo's eyes were wide and he was trying to suck in air, but the hand around his throat cut it off completely.

"I… zu… mo," Shikamaru struggled to get out.

Kakazu's hand clenched tighter and Izumo struggled even more, but the lack of oxygen was too much and Shikamaru could see Izumo's eyes roll into the back of his head. After another few seconds, Izumo went still.

"No," Shikamaru breathed out. He turned to Kotetsu and saw him being tossed aside. He also wasn't moving. "Dang it," he grunted out as he pushed Izumo off of him and slowly sat up.

Kakazu had returned the hand that was holding Kotetsu back to his arm, and Shikamaru thought that he was recalling the other hand, but instead, the hand lunged forward to grab his neck and the thick threads wrapped around his body. "Gah!"

"Hey, Kakazu, what're you doing? Just kill him already," Hidan said getting bored of waiting for his partner.

Kakazu lifted Shikamaru up off the ground and pulled him quickly to him, his hand stopping mere inches from his arm. "We're not killing this one."

"Huh?" Hidan asked as he walked up to the man.

Shikamaru opened one of his eyes and stared down at Kakazu.

"This one has proven that he could be a great asset to us. It would be a shame to miss this opportunity," Kakazu explained as he bent down and picked up his briefcase.

"You have got to be kidding me," Hidan said, surprised but also a bit aggravated. "You're seriously going to bring him back with us?"

Kakazu maneuvered the threads to bind Shikamaru tighter, moving the boy's arms behind his back. The threads then pulled out of Kakazu's arm, a throbbing lump of something on the end, and fell to the ground.

Shikamaru's eyes went wide then felt the hand release its grip enough that he could breathe again.

"Just shut up and watch him while I take the cash cow into the collection office," Kakazu said as he walked over to Asuma's body.

"No. Don't touch him," Shikamaru said.

Kakazu ignored the boy and picked Asuma up with his one hand and casually walked back into the building.

"Stop!" Shikamaru yelled as he struggled against his binds.

"Man, that jerk," Hidan said, annoyed, but then turned his attention to Shikamaru and smiled. "You better count yourself lucky, boy. If it was up to me, you'd be a part of my ritual too."

Shikamaru glared at the man, but didn't say anything. There was nothing he could say. He looked over at Kotetsu, who still hadn't moved and focused on his chest. It didn't move at all. He looked behind him the best he could and did the same for Izumo, but again, there was no movement. He turned back around and closed his eyes. 'This is all my fault. Asuma, Izumo, Kotetsu, they're all dead, because of me.'

He tried again to get free of the threads, his eyes still closed. He felt the tears seep through his eyelids and fall down his cheeks.

"Hey. Don't start crying. It's annoying," Hidan said with disgust.

Ten minutes. That's how much longer it would be until backup arrived. He just had to hope that they would get here in time.

But it was only eight agonizingly long minutes later when Kakazu exited the building and walked up to them with two briefcases in his hand. "Let's go before their reinforcements get here," he said as he raised his arm and the threads of the hand shot back into the empty hole on the stub, the throbbing mass easily sliding in.

"Yeah. Fine," Hidan said. He swung his scythe onto his back and followed Kakazu.

Shikamaru tried one last time to struggle free of the threads, but they just seemed to tighten around him.

Again, it is a shorter one, but it was a scene that was part of another story that I'm still trying to figure out. I could make it a bit longer if you guys would want to see the back up teams reaction to everything, but that's as far as I would expand in this story. I want to save the rest of it for the story this was originally apart of. Let me know in a comment what you thought and if you want me to add Ino and Choji's reactions along with the rest of their team, as well as any suggestions if you have any.