Chapter 44
Shikamaru has broken one of his rules—that to never underestimate his opponent.
He had thought he is winning when he figured it out and caught the real Naruto with a shadow neck bind amidst all those clones but then suddenly a red haze envelops the blond shinobi. First, a red tail, solidly infused with chakra, extends from Naruto's behind then it is followed by another one. The two tails swish to and fro, breaking and snapping the trees and pulverizing the stones that they hit. Shikamaru's jutsu is then immediately broken, forcing him to retreat.
Panting as he hides behind a large solid tree trunk, recognizing the greater odds that at any moment Naruto could find him. "Damn. This is getting more than troublesome," Shikamaru mutters to himself, trying to hide his chakra signature.
Shikamaru then decides to put more distance between Naruto and himself without him losing his vision of the blond shinobi. Shikamaru moves farther, running stealthily to one tree then to the next. After a while he leans on the latest tree trunk he's shielding himself with and looks to the side to take a glimpse of Naruto, now several hundred metres away from him.
Naruto prowls on the ground on his hands and feet, his body entirely covered with a reddish chakra that gives off the fearsome sound of something sizzling and boiling. Naruto's reddish cloak resembles that of a miniature fox with two tails and in his frustration the beastly Naruto gives off an animalistic angry growl.
Shikamaru had heard before that Konoha was attacked by the Nine-tailed Fox but it was defeated by the Fourth Hokage. It was then common knowledge that Konoha mourned the lost of its leader and a great number of loyal shinobis that risked their lives for the village. But it was not known that Konoha has its own jinchuriki.
For that's what Naruto is—a jinchuriki.
But Shikamaru had faced a jinchuriki before.
And knows that this fight is going to be a piece of…tough shit!
Tch, troublesome, Shikamaru again thinks to himself as he bends both knees, one knee touches the ground while the other is up as his leg supports one of his hands while he resumes his thinking pose, his thumbs, index and middle fingers oppose each other to form a circle.
Gaara, his brother, transforms bit by bit until he becomes the unstoppable beast—the one-tailed Shukaku—a giant raccoon that could flatten a mountain with a single sweep of his tail.
As a child, Shikamaru feared Gaara, the same as the others. In the past, if his little brother lost his temper and started to transform into a monster, the people around him cowered, including Shikamaru.
And when their uncle Yashamaru disappeared, Gaara had change for the worse. He started to kill indiscriminately as if the only way for him to live was to kill.
Shikamaru started to see his little brother as a real monster then. However, Shikamaru also remembered their mother, Karura. She died giving birth to Gaara. She gave her life to him, it must have meant something.
Shikamaru then begun to stay behind as the other shinobis and civilians ran for safety. But he knew better than to battle it out with the transformed Gaara. No, he stayed put, not to fight but to observe what was left of his brother.
And he was there, unwilling to just remain an observer, when Gaara was about to crush that troublesome woman.
It was due to that, that he stopped seeing Gaara as a mere vessel of destruction and started to see him as his brother—a little brother that needed his big brother's hand to guide him and tell him, 'Enough'.
Gaara's rampages then decreased in occurrence and he was better able to control the one-tailed Shukaku residing inside him. After which, without words being said, Shikamaru trusted Gaara during their training together that Gaara would be able to stop Shukaku from killing him.
Now, the situation is highly different. Naruto the jichuriki probably aims to finish him off but judging from appearance of just two tails instead of nine, Shikamaru concludes that it's only the start of the transformation. Shikamaru should stop Naruto while he has not attained his final form, otherwise, like Gaara, he will be unstoppable.
Shikamaru disrupts the O that his fingers have created with each other, stands up and glances at the sky that is now being covered by falling leaves as Naruto continues to thrash his tails searching for him. Shikamaru then makes a quick succession of hand seals.
First, the trees that are cut down by Naruto's tails are gathered by Shikamaru's invisible shadow thread jutsu. Suddenly, these tree trunks are assembled together, accompanied with a loud thud as each trunk stands beside the other, tied together by an unseen thread of shadow, to surround and cage Naruto.
Before Naruto can move his tails in retaliation, Shikamaru attacks again, this time with numerous thickened shadows appearing from all directions above the cage before piercing Naruto and pinning him to the ground.
Immobilized with the Shadow Sawing Technique, Naruto tries to free himself but, with the cage providing more than enough source of shadow amidst the deforested area, Shikamaru is able to hold the jutsu while he quickly creates a clone.
Shikamaru's clone then approaches the cage while Naruto mimics the real Shikamaru's action.
Naruto advances towards the slat that appeared when two of the logs separated on his cage. Next, he takes Tsunade's picture from his pants' pocket and gives it to Shikamaru's clone.
As soon as Shikamaru's clone gazes at the picture, he puffs out, leaving behind Tsunade's image gliding towards the ground as the logs that surround Naruto tumble one by one, pounding the earth as they fall.
Naruto is able to free himself from the Shadow Imitation Jutsu, baring his fangs as he growls furiously while something terrifying grows behind his back.
But Shikamaru has gotten what he came for; he has done it without giving his position away, the closed off cage has made sure of that. And now, as he runs as fast as he can he hopes he can still get away unscathed.
However, he has already calculated the chance of that happening—and it's fucking nil.
TBC
—oOo—
~6 2.12 27/11,1 3/12AF 7 2 2O~
A/N: Run Shika run!
I know it's a slow update but I'm still hopin' for reviews and crits for this chap :D