G'day, I've drawn the photo Shikamaru got in the last chapter. It's on FB and I'll be drawing more too.

Also, the ending to this chapter isn't something I could pass up.

Stifling a yawn, he plopped down into the seat across from Choji. At least he thought it was Choji. He had only opened his eyes long enough to find the seat. With a grunt he asked someone to order him a coffee. The smell helped to wake him enough that he could open his eyes and find the cup.

"Why are you so tired?" Ino asked, sipping her tea.

"Long, long day, and night… and morning. I actually haven't slept. Dad and I have been working with Uncle Inoichi to try and create a plan of attack against Pain." He took a large gulp of his coffee only to singe his tongue. "Ar, hot."

He took the glass of water that Kurenai-Sensei handed him. "So you've had no luck?"

"Not really. The hostage and the body Lord Jiraiya provided us with have been helpful. Uncle Inoichi has looked through everything the hostage could provide about Pain, and Shizune and Lady Hokage have autopsied the Pain body. You would think we had a heap of information on the enemy now but unfortunately we don't. We spent all day coming up with strategies with little luck." With a sigh he ran his hand through his long hair.

"Shikamaru, is there any reason you've been leaving your hair down lately?" Ino asked after they had let the Nara man's words sink in.

"Naruto took my last elastic." He took a more tentative sip of his coffee.

"Why don't you just get it back off her?" Choji shrugged.

He frowned at his best friend. "Because she's not here. She went on a mission over a week ago. I don't even know when she'll be back."

"Serious?" Choji yelped. "How did we not notice?"

"Cause we don't see her almost every day like Shikamaru does," Ino laughed. "So where is she?"

"Can't say. Lady Hokage told me that Naruto was only given permission to tell one person where she was going. It's for safety so that the Akatsuki can't track her down."

"That's fair," Kurenai-Sensei agreed. "Just one question though. When did Naruto become a girl?"

Shikamaru took a deep breath, his eyes closed. "Well, that's another person whose been told. Naruto is female. Always has been, just has hidden it for safety reasons."

"Did Asuma know?"

"Um, yeah, he found out just before… the mission." Shikamaru cleared his throat.

"Oh." Kurenai-Sensei shook off her pain. "So you know that Asuma set you and Naruto up on a date once, right?"

"I knew it!"

"You and Naruto have been on a date?" Ino asked in surprise.

"I'm pretty sure they've been on multiple dates." Choji was easily ignored by Shikamaru.

"Technically no. Asuma-Sensei and I found Naruto suffering from chakra depletion and Asuma-Sensei invited her to have dinner with us, then he disappeared when I went to the bathroom. It wasn't really a date, more just two friends hanging out. I've tried to ask Naruto to go on dates with me but they always get misinterpreted."

"How?" Ino yelped.

"It's Naruto!" Shikamaru snorted. "That's why this time I made sure to actually use the word date when asking her out to dinner."

"And did she respond to that?" Kurenai-Sensei asked calmly.

"She went a little red but she seemed alright with the idea." Shikamaru paused. "This is weird to walk about."

"Get over it, I've been wanting to talk to you about this since I first started to think you two liked each other. Which I think was after one of your 'should have been a date'. Do you remember when Sakura and I saw you guys after you and Naruto had had lunch? The way you two were just so comfortable together, and she actually got you laughing and smiling in public." Ino smiled before it became strained. "But there is something Choji and I wanted to talk to you about?"

"My dad covered the talk when I was younger," Shikamaru joked.

"Funny, but I meant what you said to all of us at lunch last week." Ino sighed. "When Kiba made the assumption you and Naruto were dating you… seemed defensive. Choji and I know that's just how you react when embarrassed but if Naruto heard about it from one of the others; she might take it the wrong way."

Taking a deep breath, Shikamaru thought over what Ino said. He could easily see where Ino's worries came from. He panicked for a moment before he remembered the last time he and Naruto had seen each other. "I think Naruto will understand. We aren't dating. I wish we were, and I plan for us to be one day. I don't want to tell people we're dating, or that we… I don't even friggen know what we are. Naruto deserves to…" He sighed, searching for the right words. Unfortunately this delved into emotions, which he was horrible at verbalising.

"You feel like Naruto deserves for you to do things right. Like, asking her out on a date, telling her how you feel, and not finding out from your mutual friends that you class you two as a couple," Choji explained with a small smile. "It's caring of you, and I'm impressed."

"I'm just glad you could put it into words cause I couldn't." Shikamaru looked around. "Have we ordered breakfast? Cause I was sort of asleep."

"No, we decided to wait until you were conscious. But if you want to order another coffee please put it close enough for me to smell." When the three Chunins looked at her, Kurenai-Sensei blushed, a hand going to her growing stomach. "I can't drink caffeine and I miss it."

Shikamaru laughed, making sure to order a coffee with his breakfast. Kurenai-Sensei tucked into her food eagerly for a while before stopping, looking at Shikamaru seriously.

"You obviously like Naruto, something I've known about for a while. I think there was a bet going on about you two among the senseis. But what I want to know is: why don't you just ask him… her out?"

With a dry chuckle, Shikamaru put down his chopsticks. "I'm not sure. Something is holding me back, I don't know what, but whenever I think about it I have this strong desire to strangle Sakura and Sasuke."

"That's weird," Ino commented.

"I'm aware. But it's a good hint at least. Plus I hate both of them. Sorry, Ino."Shikamaru shrugged.

"Shikamaru, you've literally never hidden the fact that you dislike them. And I suppose being in love with Naruto would make you bias. They don't treat her the best." Ino sighed.

"And yet she sees them as her friends." Shikamaru rolled his eyes before turning back to his breakfast.

"So, wait, you love Naruto?" Kurenai-Sensei said slowly, her eyes large.

"You know, ever since you got pregnant you haven't been as sharp minded," Shikamaru joked only to yelp. "Your hit is still strong though."

"And don't forget it!" Kurenai-Sensei warned as Shikamaru rubbed his arm.

/ / / / / /

Pages of information lay spread across the table. Every tiny detail was there. The Pain that Lord Jiraiya had managed to kill had already been dead for some time. From what Lady Hokage was able to gleam from the body, though the autopsy was not yet complete, the person had been simply a vessel of some kind. The working theory that the two Naras had were that the rods throughout his body had been some sort of receiver for a jutsu.

"Maybe we can destroy the receivers in the Peins and break whatever jutsu they're being controlled by," Inoichi grumbled, crossing his arms. "It wouldn't be easy but it's better than no plan."

"Except that the receivers are made of strong metal, that will be hard to destroy," Shikaku picked up the rod that Lady Hokage had given them to study, only to throw it back onto the table. "Not to mention that we would have to take on each Pain, one at a time, and from what that toad told Lady Hokage I doubt that we would be able to do that. We could go after the real one, though we would have to find out who it is first. It will mean casualties. Whoever distracts the Pains will die. They took down Lord Jiraiya, so the only ones who have a chance of surviving for a prolonged fight would be Lady Hokage, though her combat skills isn't as high as her healing abilities, and… Naruto."

"But it could take us forever to find the real Pain, especially since he is liable to stay out of the fight, like Naruto does when she makes clones to survey the area." Shikamaru sighed. "Am I the only one feeling like we're getting nowhere?"

A scream tore out of Inoichi's throat before he flipped the table in front of them. He shook with rage, as though that burst of violence wasn't enough.

"I'll take that as a no."

"They are after Naruto!" Inoichi growled, glaring at the mess. "When she was little she convinced Ino she was imaginary, and that she 'had to go away' so that she could cut all ties from my family. She didn't want us to carry her burden too. No matter how much I tried to get her to let me back in, she wouldn't. I can't let Pain get his hands on her. I don't care what I have to do, I'm going to protect my girls."

Inoichi's heavy words left the three men without words for a time. When the silence was finally broken, it was by Shikaku's deep voice.

"So it would be a bad thing to tell you that Shikamaru wants to sle –" He stopped speaking when a ball of paper hit him on the forehead, courtesy of his son.

"He wants to what?" Inoichi yelped, looking bewilderingly at Shikamaru.

"Nothing! Dad's just joking." Shikamaru glared at his father before there was a knock on the door. "Did the Hokage send someone to help us?"

"I hope so," Inoichi grumbled, looking at the overturned table as Shikaku went to answer the door.

"Oh, my, what happened here?"

Shikamaru looked over at Shiho, who was surveying the room. When her eyes landed on the Nara heir, however, she blushed, grinning at him.

"Just desperation," Inoichi sighed, righting the table.

"What are you doing here?" Shikamaru asked, frowning at the woman. "I don't see how a cryptographer can help us."

Shiho gave him a wide smile, the pink growing on her face. "Lady Hokage thought that a code breaker would be useful encase Lord Jiraiya left any other codes. But I'll help with anything, like lunch. Anyway you can use me."

He could feel his face being pulled into one of doubt and dread before he sighed. "I guess you can help us clean up the mess Uncle Inoichi made."

Having Shiho with them wasn't particularly productive. She kept standing close to Shikamaru, making him shift away from her repeatedly. Inoichi took to writing down every suggestion that they came up with, good or bad, hoping that they could find a spark of inspiration among them. After two hours that felt like twenty, they decided to take a necessary break. Shikamaru took the opportunity to get some fresh air and use the bathroom. As he washed his hands he looked in the mirror, noticing how his dark locks fell around his pale face. He shook his head. He had yet to buy new elastics because he was holding out hope that he wouldn't need one. Every morning when he pushed his hair out of his face as he got out of bed he hoped it would be the day that Naruto returned, with his elastic. At the same time he knew that it would be dangerous for her to come back when they didn't have a plan to fight Pain.

With a sigh, he dropped his head, closing his eyes. "I really wish you were here. You make things like this seem simple. You'd just come up with a harebrained scheme. Maybe that's what we need. Something that looks incredibly stupid on the outside… and a little on the inside. Unfortunately the Naras aren't known for thinking that way."

When he returned to the planning room he found only Shiho, who was looking at a picture of Naruto. Shikaku had brought it with him to help remind them why it was so important they had to succeed. His father had made sure to snap it when Naruto last visited, though she had herself look male first. He was also in the picture, under derris. The blonde had grabbed him, putting one arm around his waist to hold him in place. The other hand was reaching up to try and pinch his cheek. The picture captured the moment that he had grabbed her hand, turning a fake scowl her way. Shikamaru rather liked the picture, which is why he was not pleased to see Shiho trying to pocket it.

"What are you doing?" he snapped.

"Oh, nothing," she yelped, dropping the picture onto the table. "I just thought it was a good picture of you."

"It's a great picture of Naruto, to remind us why we are working on only two hours of sleep every day." He walked deeper into the room, fighting the glare that wanted to cover his face. "Shiho, what are you doing here? You aren't the Head of the Decipher team, and you don't know Naruto, so what do you want?"

Shiho smiled as she walked closer. "I guess I just wanted to spend time with you."

Before Shikamaru had time to react the woman lunged forward, kissing him. Her lips were dry and cracked, and she pressed them into his in an uncomfortable manner. It was thankfully short lived for his brain quickly took over. He pushed Shiho away, though not nearly as harshly as he wished.

"Sorry, you're probably are one of those guys who likes to make the first move. Oh, and why have you been letting your hair down lately, I prefer it back." Shiho tried to step closer to him, moving to push his hair off his face.

Shikamaru took a step back, holding up his hand. "I'm one of those guys that likes to know what's going on. And I'm wearing my hair down because the one I love decided to steal my elastic."

Shiho's smile dropped. "You love someone? And she's not me?"

With a grunt, Shikamaru massaged his forehead. "I barely know you. The short amount of time we've spent together, my thoughts, every last one of them, was focused on helping Naruto, making sure he survives this. I don't know where you got this idea from, and I'm sorry if I appeared interested but I've only ever cared about one person my entire life."

"Oh." Shiho stood dumbfounded.

"If you want you can yell at me and storm out, I won't blame you," Shikamaru offered.

Instead she walked out numbly barely seeming to notice Shikaku and Inoichi at the door. The two men looked Shikamaru over, making him squirm.

"What?" he asked.

"I'm impressed with how you handled that," Shikaku commented.

Inoichi, however, rolled his eyes. "The fact that you were surprised she kissed you just shows you take after your father. He had girls throwing themselves at him and never noticed. You told me Naruto stole your elastic. I should tell you, if you hurt Naruto –"

"You'll hurt me, I know." Shikamaru sighed.

"No, if you hurt her, you will break her. The only thing that's kept her safe all these years are her walls. But if you get in those walls, or already are and then you hurt her, she will never recover from that. I'm not threatening you, I'm begging you to be tactful if your feelings for her change."

Shikaku snorted. "Please, those feelings are cemented. You should see them together. They're adorable."

Shikamaru groaned. "Don't we have a fight to strategise?"

That sobered his father up. They returned to their futile task, though this time Shikamaru tried to think more like Naruto, which gave him a spark of hope. Eventually it was decided that they needed more information. Shikaku went to see how the pre-autopsy was going, and Inoichi went to Lady Hokage to get permission to dive into the hostage's mind. He had hesitated to completely enter the man's mind, since the deeper he went the more likely that he was going to destroy the hostage's mind. However, with Naruto's life at risk, he decided it was worth leaving the enemy as a husk to get the information they needed. To do so though, he needed written permission from the Hokage.

/ / / / / / /

His uncle was given the approval to delve into the hostage's mind, though it had taken time. Shikamaru wasn't surprised by that. However, whilst Inoichi undertook the task, Shikamaru was assigned a new group to help him. Shiho and Sakura asked him to meet them just after lunch. He had to bite his tongue to stop himself from commenting how useless Sakura was in this regard. She knew very little about strategy but she did have the information from the toad that had fought alongside Lord Jiraiya.

He had officially reached the point where he was willing to state any idea that came to mind, hoping to at least gain information by breaking down everything wrong with them. He could only hope that Sakura would provide him with some sort of information he didn't have before or a strategy that he could pull apart to analyse its flaws.

"Alright," Sakura said, clapping her hands together as they all sat down, "I think we should start by going over what evidence and facts we have."

With a sigh, Shikamaru crossed his arms, getting ready for a long meeting. "Lord Jiraiya sent back three sources of information."

"Yes," Shiho agreed, not making eye contact with him, "mainly a ninja from the Hidden Rain, one of Pain's bodies, and this," she slid the picture of the code across the table so they could all see it, "a coded message."

"Inoichi is in the intel division," Shikamaru picked up the conversation, making sure not to add his uncle's honorific. "They're working on the Hidden Rain ninja. I'm sure he'll get information out of him."

"And Shizune has made the autopsy on the remains of Pain's body her number one priority," Sakura added, "I'm sure she'll learn something too."

"Plus we also have this message that we decoded with the help from Naruto. 'The real one's not among them.' That's it." Shiho kept her face neutral as she looked at Shikamaru.

"So now, we have to take all of this information and somehow figure out the mystery behind this guy that's called Pain. The mystery of someone strong enough to take down even Lord Jiraiya." Shikamaru remembered the first time he had met Jiraiya, by the riverside, and the power that radiated off the man in waves. The fact that someone who could take him down was after Naruto made bile rise in Shikamaru's throat. "Naruto told me just before he left that, according to the toad, one of the Pain bodies was a student of Lord Jiraiya's, as was the woman with them but that the Rinnegan wasn't an ability that either of them held. Lord Jiraiya didn't have a chance to pass on more information about the students. Do you know if Lady Hokage knows anything about them?"

Sakura shook her head. "She only told me that Lord Jiraiya didn't really talk about them, but he had stayed behind in the war to train them how to survive. That's all she really knew. The only students that Lord Jiraiya ever talked to her about were the Fourth and Naruto."

"Why haven't they done the autopsy already? It's been a month." Shiho looked at Sakura, frowning slightly.

"There were jutsu barriers they had to get through, and the body started to decay quickly, which Shizune had to put a stop too. It was how we discovered that the body was dead before Lord Jiraiya battled him. Whatever Lord Jiraiya did must have broken the jutsu controlling it. Then there were the rods throughout the body that Shizune wanted removed and studied before proceeding. I think she was taking a lot more care to not risk destroying even the smallest bit of evidence, since Lord Jiraiya gave his life to give us the body."

"It's for the best too." Shikamaru went to run his fingers through his hair, only to remember he had taken one of his father's hair ties that morning. The stress of trying to work out a strategy was making him hate having to push his hair out of his face so much. Part of him was also, foolishly hoping that it would cause Naruto to magically appear to steal his elastic again. "We need all the evidence we can get at this point. Anything could be helpful."

"At least Lord Jiraiya was able to take down one of the Pains," Sakura commented with slight lilt to her voice, as though she was trying to sound chipper. "There's only five more to go."

Shikamaru grunted. "The real one's not among them. Maybe his telling us the six Pains are all genjutsu. A jutsu cast by the female Akatsuki member who was there too. And she's the one who physically attacked Lord Jiraiya from the shadows." The moment he spoke he realised how idiotic that was. They had one of the bodies after all, they had to be tangible.

"No," Sakura snapped. "I think that's a long shot. According to Lord Fukasaku when Lord Jiraiya was killed he was stabbed by actual weapons from all six Pains."

"Hmm." He gained some comfort in knowing it took all six to take down Lord Jiraiya. If Naruto managed to obtain Sage mode then they could give her a fighting chance by taking down one or two of the Pains, or at least making sure she didn't have to fight all of them at once.

"Well he supposedly took down three of them but they resurrected. Does sound like some genjutsu illusion," Sakura said.

Opening his eyes, he looked at the pink haired girl. "With the Akatsuki common sense doesn't mean anything. There have been others who were immortal." An unpleasant shiver went down his spin at the thought of Hidan.

Shiho fixed her glasses. "Frankly, in any case what we should do right now is keep hypothesising until we get some kind of report from the others."

"You're right." Shikamaru wished there was more they could do, but unfortunately they were sitting in the dark.

"Let's get closer to solving Pain's mystery. At least a little before Naruto returns."

He looked at Sakura, trying not to groan. "That's what Inoichi, my father, and I have been trying to do. But so far we have had no luck. What about a puppet jutsu? Do either of you know enough on the matter to know if they can control dead bodies in the manner the Pains moved? Are the Puppet Masters able to talk through the corpses, see through their eyes? I'm not sure if the Pains actually talked to Lord Jiraiya or not but we should investigate the limitations of the jutsu anyway. We can ask Lord Fukasaka later if that theory will work."

"I don't know anything about puppet jutsus unfortunately," Sakura admitted as Shiho got up, walking over to the row of books at their disposal.

"I don't know much either, but luckily, there are some books here we can use." Shiho returned with four books that she dumped unceremoniously on the table. "This should at least tell us if corpses can be used in general for puppets, and then we can go from there."

Sighing, Shikamaru uncrossed his arms and pulled one of the books towards him. Whilst the two women started flicking through their chosen books he did what he always did with study, flicked to the back to see if the topic was mentioned. There was some mention of corpses, allowing him to flick to that page.

"Here's something." Shikamaru cleared his throat. "Whilst it is possible to puppet corpses they come with many limitations. A puppet, especially if it has been altered or hand crafted by the Puppet Master, has a variety of attacks, traps, and defences at the user's disposal. A corpse, however, cannot do such things. At most, under a skilled Puppet Master's hands, a corpse can almost appear to be alive and wield weapons like a ninja. They cannot perform jutsus though. Corpses can easily be dismantled during a battle, with the help of the natural decay that occurs after death."

"So that answers many questions," Shiho sighed. "They wouldn't be able to perform any jutsus against Lord Jiraiya. Even if there was a jutsu on them to stop their decay, according to this book Puppet Masters rarely use more than one or two. There was one Puppet Master, a legend in her own right who used ten successfully without having to sacrifice tactics or skills. But if the six Pains were puppets I think Lord Jiraiya would have fared much better against them."

"Hmm, so Kankuro is actually more accomplished than I realised. But either way that destroys that theory." Shikamaru threw his book onto the table with huff. "Man, it would be easier if Naruto was here."

"I don't think that he would be able to help us," Sakura commented as Shiho removed the books from the table. "He's not very good at strategy."

"Shows how little you know about Naruto," Shikamaru grunted.

"I'm his team mate. I probably know him better than anyone else." Sakura rolled her eyes.

Shikamaru snorted. "Right, so it's not news to you that Naruto and I rarely go a week without seeing each other, except for when on missions."

"What?"

"Exactly."

Sakura huffed. "You just don't like me."

The man faked a gasp of surprise. "I'm impressed. Were you able to work that out on your own or did you have someone explain it to you?"

A sharp whistle filled the room, hurting Shikamaru's ears. He glared, looking over at Shiho.

"That's enough. Ino warned me of this." Shiho pulled something out of her pocket, sliding it across the table. It was the picture of Naruto and himself. "This is who you are here for. You are trying to find a strategy to keep Naruto safe. Now, Shikamaru, you were saying that you would find this easier if Naruto was here. Can you please explain your reasoning?"

"When I'm making a plan and can't find a way out of something, Naruto comes up with an illogical idea that just works. He sees things differently to me and it helps." Shikamaru sighed, sitting back and crossing his arms again. "But Naruto was in too much pain for me to ask for his help before he left."

"Alright," Shiho cleared her throat. "In my department we often have to think like the people who wrote the code. So let's imagine that Lord Jiraiya didn't die against Pain, that he got away but is… unconscious, and you are talking to Naruto about the fight. What would he say?"

Shikamaru thought over the scenario. He thought about what they knew about Pain. There were six of them, they all had orange hair, and metal rods through their body… he snorted. "At hearing that there are six of them Naruto would say that Pain is weak." When the women frowned at him he went on. "He would assume that they are clones and, considering Naruto has been able to summon hundreds for years, six would sound stupid to him… and it is."

"But they're not clones," Sakura stated.

"I know. But if you can control corpses as though they are real people, why only six? It's not like six is a formidable force. If they only use six because their chakra can't handle more, why go to your max? Why not only make three? And why would you bring back the three that Lord Jiraiya destroyed in the middle of a fight if it could take up your chakra?" Shikamaru smirked, looking at the two women, expecting them to both be on the same page as him. Instead he found blank looks. With a sigh, he went on. "Sakura, if Naruto only creates one clone, what do you bet would be coming next?"

"The rasengun."

"Exactly. The real Pain didn't choose the number six at random. My guess is that each Pain has a special technique, and that's why the three were resurrected. Their abilities were needed. And if I'm right that means that one of the Pains was the one doing the resurrecting."

"If that's true than we just need to discover which one it is and target that one first. It won't be easy but at least it will be doable." Shiho smiled at him, her eyes downcast and a blush on her cheeks. "I can kind of see how Naruto helps you."

Any reply he might have had thought of was cut short by the sound of explosions. Jumping from his seat he rushed to the window, throwing it open. There was smoke bellowing from over the village, fire erupting into the air.

"What the?" There was little doubt in his mind what was happening. The Akatsuki were finally making a move for the Nine-Tails.

Sooo, cliffhanger…

The next chapter is around half done though, so don't hate me.

R and R.