"I'm closing in ten," Sakura spoke, without turning around.
And Shikamaru's mind tumbled around the fact that he was witnessing Sakura say anything. That she was alive, and there. They all were.
"Got it," Ino replied, starting in her direction.
Without thought or intention, Shikamaru felt his arm reach out and grab hers. Four years. Ino studied his grip, where he had undoubtedly left a trail of Sai's blood. But Shikamaru didn't follow her gaze, he was locked in the confusion of her eyes. Four years. Then the world ends. Was she even real?
"I need to go in and wake Naruto up," she was trying to get him off, speaking to him slowly, as if a child or a crazy person. But his hand acted of its own accord, an iron hold on the phantom in his wake. Maybe he was the dead one. Maybe she was here because he was dead, she was dead, and Konoha was fine. Shadows crept in his vision and something pulled him from behind. Shikamaru realized hands were trying to drag him away from Ino. A small frame, stern eyes, dark hair tied into buns. TenTen. But he didn't relent, didn't release, he was as unmovable as a moment caught in his technique.
"Hey, there, Shikamaru?" Ino was speaking to him again, "when I go in there, do you know what I should say to Naruto? How to pull him out?"
Her words were absurd and his mind failed to find answers. How was any of this possible? Four. Years. Every sensory ninja he could throw into the world couldn't find her. Her clansmen had searched. Choji had searched. He had searched. He had searched the whole world over. And suddenly she's there. His hand tightened, and she yelped. It wasn't possible. It was a trick.
"Don't bother," TenTen released him, "he's lost it."
"No risks, Ino" Sakura said.
"We need to take him out," from behind and Shikamaru was sure he felt a blade at his back.
"He's in shock," Ino spoke, "anyone would be."
"Nine minutes," Sakura continued.
Shikamaru's mind broke at this, he was being threatened? It wasn't them, it couldn't be. Suddenly back together and threatening him. They were fakes. Covered in Sai's blood. He felt this fake Ino's hand, trying to pull his down gently, speaking again, "I'm going to walk over there, next to Naruto. Go talk to Kurenai Sensei? She wants to hear about Mirai. You've been watching over Mirai, right?"
Absently, Shikamaru felt his hand fall at the mention of both names. She smiled and walked toward Naruto open on the table, right where she said she would go. And just behind, he could feel whatever sharp thing had been pointed at his back slip away. And just a little, for some reason he couldn't understand, he let himself believe. What if? After all, he had survived. Somehow, he had survived.
Just before she entered Naruto's head, he found the voice of a haunted man and a thought barely there. The thing Naruto wanted most in the world. The joy that would bring him back after losing everything, "tell him you're here. All of you. He's been searching."
Kurenai stared into oblivion, the autumn sun had lost its final ebbing glow on the horizon, and she didn't like it. Her eyes would never know the area in the light of day as well as Ino's mind could sense the world around, night would be worse. But Ino was needed to wake Naruto, so Kurenai held her cloaking genjutsu, without a ripple on the surface. Their safe house was invisible to passing eyes. Unless those eyes had sensory skills. They just needed to stay hidden a bit longer.
She recognized the sound of TenTen's run, always favoring her left foot, and gave a cautious glance.
"It's Shikamaru," TenTen explained, "he's acting weird, and we can't get him to leave Ino's side."
Kurenai felt herself frown, not even slightly surprised, "he hasn't seen her in four years. And you want him to just walk away?"
"Sakura says no risks."
It was almost absurd, she had known the boy his whole life, Asuma's prized student. But this was the life they lived. And it was Ino. She looked at her feet, "I'll take care of it."
Soon enough, there was a sound of slow footsteps, Shikamaru, caked in blood, following the custom illusion she had crafted: Ino joining the lookout team. The genjutsu encouraged him to say hi and he slowly fumbled words, "you wanted to talk about Mirai?"
At mention of her daughter, Kurenai felt her stomach drop, anxious for any word. But Shikamaru didn't start, and barely nodded when she asked if he had been taking care of Mirai. She tried a few other lines of entry, but the boy was lost to the world and his own demons. In no place to hold a conversation. He had just seen his home burn to the ground after all.
"Konoha is gone," he spoke slowly, as if pulling text directly from her mind.
In the dark silhouettes of sundown, Kurenai remembered Shikamaru as a young child. Lazily passing time under the clouds, slipping in and out of sleep between the petty gripes of a child. She placed an open hand on his back, not pushing for further conversation. There was nothing she could say, nothing she could do to explain. How could she expect him to ever understand why she had left, why a mother would walk out on her baby girl.
There were days her heart ached, and barely understood itself. The abstract choices to save the world first, when someone needed you at home. Not a day went by that she didn't vividly remember the agony of warmth lost when she handed Mirai over to her grandfather, causing the child to scream. Then one brutal step after another out of the village. She broke into tears, but only after they were on the road, and she heard the cry of a child after his pale blue rattle had fallen on the ground.
It was an intimacy beyond words.
So, she stood in silence by Shikamaru's side, offering a comfort she could no longer give to her daughter. Staring blankly into a frustratingly dark evening, and hoping with every ounce of her being, that the Toras wouldn't find them.
Just a bit longer.
Hinata watched as Lady Tsunade stitched Karin back together. She had grown quieter since Shikamaru left, opting to work quickly over barking repeated instructions. Still, Hinata knew she had another twelve chakra points to check on her own patient before doing the same. Before making her big request of the perpetually angry former Hokage.
Her hands had grown more confident since Guy's lungs strengthened, his chakra was flowing properly, and his body was coming back to life. Each tiny, delicate piece doing its part, growing strong again. She ran hands down the valves and organs, pressing chakra into any parts in need of repairs and quietly thanking each for working properly when her seal held.
"Complete waste of potential."
Hinata jerked at the voice at her shoulder, looking to where Lady Tsunade was watching closely, with crossed arms. "D-d-did I do something wrong?" She silently clocked where Sai laid, still open a few feet away, then studied her patient, looking for mistakes.
"You never trained to be a medic," Lady Tsunade pulled at a thread.
Still not sure if she was being scolded, Hinata did not resume her actions. Until Lady Tsunade sighed and said, "you did well."
Hinata finally understood and resumed her work. She had felt guilty, ignoring the former Hokage's attempts to find more students. But her clan had always maintained its own systems of healing, specially honed around the Hyuga style of attack and repair. And if she was being entirely honest, Hinata had never been able to escape the influence of the gossip. The expectation. The girl who stayed. But she should have helped, in any way she could. What if her teammates had needed field care? "I'm sorry my Lady," she said, "I should have learned from you. I know medics are supposed to be gentle and kind."
"Idiots," Lady Tsunade sneered.
Another response Hinata did not understand, "I'm sorry?"
"I've heard the rumors, idiots calling healing a woman's work," Lady Tsunade gestured to the final chakra point and Hinata followed the lead, "as if anyone would describe me as gentle or kind. My grandfather pioneered the field, but boys now won't touch it."
"Naruto can heal," Hinata spoke, not sure why she was defending him. He hadn't really encouraged anyone to learn medical ninjutsu either, keeping them in the field for almost two years straight.
"Naruto hasn't spent a day in the hospital learning medical ninjutsu, he just woke up knowing how one day," Lady Tsunade nodded slightly at the final repair and Hinata did not miss the gesture of approval, "I didn't say you were doing well because you're a girl, Hinata. It's your hands, you're good at knowing how much pressure to apply and moving quickly."
"It's the Hyuga technique," Hinata replied, lifting her hands slightly. She was done, and Guy was alive, "gentle fists. Just different instructions."
Lady Tsunade handed her the needle, "I'll talk you through sewing him up."
With careful stitching, Hinata thought about all the people she helped to evacuate over the last year. A race against the calendar itself, where direction was nothing but guesswork. It was nice to be able to fix something, anything. But she wanted to do more, for her friends. The last of her village. With her final stitch, she cautiously broached her request, "My Lady. Please, I want to bury Sai and Lee. They're my friends."
Ino knew the time dilation of mind work more intuitively than any of her techniques, and normally eight minutes would have been plenty, even if she was out of practice. But buried in the chaos of Naruto's subconscious, she wasn't so sure anymore.
If he wouldn't wake, they would leave him behind. No risks. But she really wanted this to work.
So, she would just have to figure out some way to get past the mounds and mounds of emotional trauma and abandonment all over his mind to find him and pull him out. She turned to a thought frozen, where a rampaging fox was moments from impaling Naruto's mother and father while protecting his newborn body. Eight minutes. It was possible… probably.
She released the moment and braced against the rush of grief, loss, and guilt. That last one gave her pause.
Guilt, survivor's guilt.
Passively, her own mind drew back to Shikamaru's words, Naruto had been looking for them. Shikamaru had been in shock, barely able to create a sentence. A million things left unsaid between them, and he couldn't form words. Still, she couldn't help but the genius in the room. The barely lucid mutterings of a genius. But still. If Naruto's guilt had been that strong for Sakura, Ino might have just found a shortcut.
Hardening her heart, Ino reached for that guilt and leaned fully into its current. And soon enough, everything was pink.
They were children, and Sakura was all smiles and flusters when her crush sat at her side. She cooed at Sasuke's perfection, but it's not Sasuke. "your forehead is charming," then Sakura was in pieces over the acknowledgment she never thought she would hear from a boy. Ino tilted her head slightly at the scene, a near kiss, then Naruto running for relief. To an outside observer, failed childhood antics, but Ino felt the current of guilt for the story Naruto started.
She pressed further, letting the story unfold, making a path to his heart. They were teenagers, and Naruto was watching Sakura from a distance, where she gently applied medical ninjutsu to her arm. He hurt her, he knows he hurt her, but he doesn't know how to talk about it with her. He doesn't know how to tell her that he's sorry, he doesn't know how to tell her he doesn't want her to hurt for him. So instead, he feels guilty from a distance.
Passivity and guilt together. Exactly what she was looking for, Ino pushed him, knocking him into the pages of the narrative of his mind. "I hate people who lie to themselves!" Naruto was livid, staring down Sakura standing in the snow, his own emotions spiraling. His rage, his grief, his desire, his guilt. How could he make her understand, she didn't need to lie? She didn't need to pretend to love him. She didn't need to make up stories to make him feel like things were fine. Things weren't fine! He tried to remind her that she loves Sasuke, and hindsight tinges the snow in the memory with colors of gray and green.
Ino didn't let it go, she recognized this one, the version Sakura held onto, she knew she was on the right path. Show me Naruto, why you regret this conversation.
His rage shifted, features aging up slightly, the weary lines of responsibility. But that same boy exploded when he couldn't find the right thing to say. "How can you even think of leaving Sakura! What if Sasuke comes back?"
Sakura was angry in her own right for this one, "why do I always have to be the one waiting around for Sasuke? I liked him when I was twelve! Why won't you let me grow up? Why does every part of me have to be about Sasuke?"
Ino felt Naruto reel as that sunk in for the first time, that perhaps Sakura didn't want her story to be about Sasuke. That maybe, just maybe, he had been sticking her with that story for so long, he had missed the moment when she moved on, "what are you saying," he asked, falling back a step as she made fists.
"I'm saying Sasuke isn't here, and that doesn't have anything to do with the Toras, Project Fade, or us," she turned, and Naruto felt a million miles away, "I will leave Naruto, if there's no other choice. I'm not Sasuke's keeper or a puppy waiting around for him to care. I am a ninja of the Hidden Leaf, and I don't need Sasuke's or your permission to do what I know is right."
Ino didn't need to push as Naruto watched her, he was already falling, already seeing her walk away, renouncing her name and her citizenship. He was hollow, angry, and guilty. And present. For the first time, she felt that presence and reached for it with both hands. It's a steep tumble, of tears and hate and guilt. But she found him, hunched behind the desk of the hokage, silently staring at Konoha in the light of the setting sun.
Shikamaru picked at the dried blood flecks on his hands running through it over and over in his mind, sequencing, assembling facts, filling holes. Completely ignoring the who, what, and how of it all, if. If. And really – IF -it was them. What happened?
There had been a bomb.
The same attack that had been wiping the world's smallest towns off the map one at a time for two years.
Then the people in Naruto's office had been taken to some sort of safe house.
Shikamaru might have guessed some latent skill of the nine tails in self-preservation. But given what he had seen that day - Naruto in pieces on a medical table - maybe the better guess was that one of the girls got them out. So, what were they doing there?
Well, Sakura was clearly trying to save Naruto. Ino and Kurenai were out here guarding them. And TenTen, she had put a knife to his back. And just like that, Shikamaru's sequencing fell to pieces.
At his side, Shikamaru felt Kurenai stiffen, dropping her hand from his back, and shifting into a guarded position. Intensive training had taught him exactly how to interpret her movements, "what's wrong?"
She looked around, then brushed close to him. In a low voice she instructed, "when I say, I want you to run. Go back to Sakura and tell her I can buy her five minutes. Understand?"
Shikamaru didn't nod, he did not agree. He was already shaking his head, starting to protest, not losing anyone else to the shadows today, "I'm not leaving you and Ino."
But Kurenai wrapped him in a hug, and whispered, "I need you to trust me. It's going to be okay."
Trust.
Had she phrased it any other way. But that word was a weapon, and he slumped, feeling powerless. She squeezed just a bit tighter, "I promise I'll explain soon. I'm so sorry."
Gently, she let him go, ushering him a step behind her, assembling hand signs for a new genjutsu. A false breeze whipped from the north, and conjured figures robed in brown pushed through the bushes at a distance, attackers already on the trail. Then Ino dissolved to the wind. She wasn't actually there. Shikamaru turned back to the main house, trying to make sense of the chaos. Was she still inside? Had she ever been there? "Go," Kurenai instructed, and he ran.
Steps fell heavy, a mind without answers, a day that refused to conform to any type of reason. But footsteps found orders, and he pushed harder, trodding across the broken patio, into a room without enough light, setting eyes on Ino, kneeling at Naruto's side. Mind finally barely keeping pace with what was happening, it had been a trick. A trick to get him to leave the room.
Sakura didn't look up from where Naruto lay on her table and TenTen immediately took a step on the defensive, reaching for a sheath at her back. Were they really so afraid of him? Why were they trying to keep him from Ino? He didn't spare time to figure it out, "there's something out there. Kurenai says she can buy you five minutes."
"I need three," Sakura replied, evenly, "TenTen, see who's awake."
Never dropping her suspicious glower, TenTen silently pushed out of the room.
Shikamaru moved to where Ino was crouched. "Not another step, please," Sakura spoke as he started, "just stand nearby."
They were afraid. But why save people you don't trust? Why didn't they trust him?
TenTen returned, stepping between him and where Ino's body sat dormant, Lady Tsunade and Hinata just steps behind. Hinata was pleading, "Sakura if we could just stay a moment longer, we want to finish burying Lee."
Shikamaru hadn't seen Lee, but he had been in Naruto's office, so he must have been the first to die. Before…
"No. No point," Sakura replied, and Shikamaru saw Hinata physically bite her own quivering lip in protest.
"Karin and Guy?" Sakura pressed.
"Recovering," Lady Tsunade answered through teeth, clearly frustrated.
"Conscious?"
"No," TenTen answered, then pulled out a scroll.
Just outside, Shikamaru recognized the sound of combat. Whether real or illusion, their attackers were closing in. Finally, Sakura looked up from her work, her deep frown locked on Ino's still unconscious body, a nod to TenTen, then fixed on him. It was the first time in four years he had seen Sakura face to face, and something told Shikamaru he didn't know her at all anymore.
Ino knew she was running out of time. Mentally manifesting physically. Naruto's presence was trapped behind this stupid desk.
She knelt to his eye-level, desperate, "Naruto. Please! Just talk to me."
He didn't look away from the window, "she's gone."
Ino wanted to slap him, "I already told you! Sakura is not gone; she is right outside. You just need to wake up."
He was about to return to his very not-Naruto-like silence again, but Ino saw a slight shift of his eyes before falling back to the window. He had looked at his desk, so she started rummaging. Throwing papers around, upturning the drawers of his psyche. Until she found it. She knew from the wave of guilt she felt when she touched the pink envelope. Naruto didn't move and she tore the envelope open. And inside she found… A letter? She wasn't sure why she had been expecting something more exciting.
But as she started reading, she finally understood. Understood the path of memories that had led her here, why Naruto was trapped. They were the words he hadn't said. The message he had been trying to give Sakura for over a decade, but the words just never came at the right time. And when he finally found the words, he couldn't find her.
Ino decided the time for empathy was passed. She shoved the letter back into its envelope and tossed it in his face.
He flinched, holding out a single hand to keep it from falling to the ground, and stared at the space where he had caught it.
"Tell her yourself!" Ino ordered, "you finally have the chance."
Naruto's lip quivered, "it's gone. I was Hokage, and I let it burn."
Ino grabbed him on either side, shaking him, "Naruto! How many times are we going to go over this? We are trying to give you a second chance. You! Konoha! Everyone! If you would. Please. Just. Wake. Up!"
With absolutely no clue what clicked that time, Ino saw something brighten in the seventh Hokage's face. And when he returned the letter to its envelope and took one step forward, she knew they were finally getting somewhere.
Naruto felt his mind wake slowly, not sure yet if he believed the incredible was real, but never one to turn his back on hope.
Everything hurt.
His skin felt like it was burning all over again, ears ringing with the sound of shouting, battle nearby, stale air uncomfortable in his lungs, and his head felt like it would impound. But Naruto knew the final ounce of strength, how to stand after being beaten to the ground. So, he forced his eyes open, finally ready to face this head-on. And to his shock, the incredible continued. Sakura was there. She was actually there! And she was speaking, "almost late."
"How dare you doubt me!" in Ino's voice.
It was. It was really them. Naruto tried to push himself up, tried to get closer, a real look at Sakura. Just to know. He had so many things to tell her. But she pushed him down, "save that strength, next part's going to hurt." She nodded in a distance and Naruto saw TenTen. Next to Shikamaru and Hinata and granny Tsunade. Alive! There were survivors. He was about to call out for them when TenTen opened a scroll and a world of colors spun.
Naruto had the sense he was being ripped in every direction, and the pain intensified. It was all he could do to hold himself together, keep breathing. Until he collided with a brick wall. Or that's what it felt like happened. Head spinning, and about to throw up, Naruto vaguely looked around.
Ino was there, practically on top of him, telling him to hold still and doing something to his head. Where were they? It was freezing. And metal. And dark. As she squeezed past, Naruto rolled slightly, finding Sakura's foot, Shikamaru's hand, that same cold metal everywhere else. No space and no clear sense of up or down.
"Where are we?" He asked, trying to disentangle himself from the various limbs, but backing directly into an annoyed looking TenTen.
"We left Guy and Karin!" Hinata yelped, earning a harsh shush from Sakura.
Shikamaru followed, "we left Kurenai."
Naruto was about to ask if they had also survived and also what the heck was going on? But Sakura waived him down. He wished she would stop shushing him, he wanted to talk to her! Ask questions! He had things to tell her!
But she was shoving him back again, reaching across his chest for some sort of panel behind, and Naruto found himself transfixed in curiosity. He was unused to the proximity, especially after their years apart. "It's easier to show you," she said.
She gestured to Ino, "did you get them all?"
Ino nodded and Sakura finally looked directly at him with pointed green eyes. All at once, Naruto was seeing her through every regret, not able to make his words say what he wanted to say. He froze, her face a couple of inches from him after being out of reach for years. She gave a crooked smile and something broke deep inside, "try not to change anything, if you can stop yourself."
Then she struck the wall, and Naruto felt that nauseating pull ripping him apart again. He gasped, drawing arms and legs in, trying to keep it all together, tightly closing eyes. And only when the world had finished spinning and his feet were firmly planted on the ground, did he open eyes to his beautiful office view of Konoha in the heavy morning of a beautiful day. The air smelled of sunshine, fish dumplings, and stray cats.
