Having spent the previous night getting his control of Sasuke's chakra to a basic academy level, Shikamaru woke in the morning feeling as if he hadn't slept. Cursing to himself, he grabbed one of Sasuke's shirts with the ostentatious Uchiha fan and quickly dressed for school. Hopefully, he could get Sasuke's help in approaching his counterpart after school ended. It didn't seem particularly likely that his younger self would just be his younger self. If this crazy situation had any rules, anyways.
Shikamaru was unsurprised but irritated at Ino's absence from school. Sasuke had probably decided to take matters into his own hands again and done something stupid and conspicuous. Shikamaru wondered what it would take for Sasuke to prompt an investigation into Ino's behavior. Probably no more than three days of Sasuke's arrogance and recklessness. Pretending to listen to Iruka's lecture, Shikamaru pondered his potential response if Sasuke got caught and implicated Shikamaru. Maybe it'd be best to confess everything and get help from more people to figure out what the hell happened. Except, Shikamaru didn't know who to trust. Everyone from the Hokage to his father to the civilian lady that sold bread to his mother could be the perpetrator.
Shikamaru stood up in the middle of class drawing the attention of everyone in the room. "Sasuke! Where are you going?" Iruka shouted as Shikamaru fled the room.
At discovering that Ino's mom had no idea where she was, Shikamaru went back into the apartment he had woken up in the last three days. To his relief, Shikamaru found Sasuke exiting the place as he arrived. Upon spotting Shikamaru, Sasuke scowled and ran off in the opposite direction. Shikamaru followed after him and caught up easily. Sasuke was faster than Ino after all.
"I thought we agreed to work together," Shikamaru whispered as Sasuke slowed down to a walk.
"We will. On some things. I'm not telling you everything," Sasuke said derisively.
"And I'm not letting you do something stupid like getting yourself interrogated when Ino's parents want to find out what's wrong with their daughter."
"I'm not going to get interrogated. Kids skip school sometimes."
"Ino never did, but that's not what I meant anyways. You confronted me in anger yesterday even though everyone knows that Ino is obsessed with you at this age-" Sasuke snorted at that. "-and I'm definitely not convince you can pull off acting like Ino. Especially since you don't even know what Ino's like."
"I know enough about what she's like," Sasuke said dismissively. "I'll just pretend I've reached my rebellious years. I hear that's a thing."
"Rebellious years?" Shikamaru asked incredulously. "I didn't realize rebellion involved dismissing everyone around you and acting like you don't care about anyone. Ino has a great relationship with her parents. They're going to get suspicious if she stops returning their affection."
Sasuke made a face. "I know how to act, Nara. Ino's parents will notice that she's slowly growing more distant from her parents. It happens."
"Not so suddenly," Shikamaru pointed out doubting Sasuke's acting abilities. He wasn't exactly the disguise and infiltrate kind of ninja. That hadn't been Team 7's role. They were the muscles, the fighters. While Team 10's skills involved subtleties best used in quick fights where they took their opponents by surprise or outside of fights altogether, Team 7 better handled those missions where head on fighting was guaranteed. They probably wore their headbands in view on every mission they took.
Before Shikamaru could vocalize his doubts out loud, Sasuke spun around in front of him drawing him to a stop. Sasuke latched onto Shikamaru's and gave him a smile that he had to admit was reminiscent of Ino's flirtatious smile. "Sasuke, did you know I have the top overall grades in the class? The two top students should stick together, don't you think?" Sasuke flipped Ino's hair over her shoulder and batted Ino's eyelashes at Shikamaru.
"Ok. That's creepy," Shikamaru said extracting his arm. Sasuke snorted and recomposed Ino's expression into a blank slate.
"I know. I didn't enjoy it either." Shikamaru wasn't sure if Sasuke was talking about his imitation just then or about Ino's flirtations in the past. He supposed it didn't really matter either way. He felt a little relieved in addition to being creeped out. His previous assessment of Sasuke's personality led him to believed he had too much pride to act in some of the sillier ways that an eleven year old Ino used to. Apparently, he was wrong.
"They'll still be things you don't know that Ino should know."
"Like what?"
"Like the names of flowers and their meanings. She runs her family's flower shop sometimes. And her previous experiences. You don't have her memories."
"No, I don't. I'll just avoid anything I should know. You can teach me the basics. You seem to know her well enough."
Shikamaru rubbed his forehead in exasperation. "That's why I'm trying to tell you we need to work together and you can't go running off doing whatever you feel like doing. If we're going to avoid detection, you need to act like Ino and I need to act like you."
Sasuke stared at the ground thoughtfully for a bit and then lifted his face to look Shikamaru in the eyes. "Fine," he said through gritted teeth. "I'll teach you my fighting style. You're on your own with my chakra. In return, tell me what I need to know about Ino. Or we could just approach Ino now and she can tell me herself."
"After the academy gets out," Shikamaru said. "I'm not about to make more of a scene by bursting in the classroom and dragging my younger self out."
As the two trained together, Sasuke was as amiable as Shikamaru had ever seen him which meant Sasuke actually talked to him albeit snidely and only as much as needed. Sasuke made for a horrible teacher as did most people for whom things came easily to. They had trouble teaching someone how to do something right when they didn't understand how anyone could do it wrong. "It's not that hard. Just use your chakra at the right moment to speed up your attack so you can change the direction of your attack without the other person noticing," Sasuke lectured impatiently.
"Yes. Thank you," Shikamaru said rolling his eyes. He dropped the stance Sasuke had taught him. "The academy should get out soon. Let's follow… myself and corner him when he's alone."
"That's your plan?" Sasuke scoffed. "What happened to avoiding detection? I could have approached Ino myself if that was all you were going to do."
"Except we're going to ask her questions subtly to find out if it is in fact her," Shikamaru explained with what he hoped was more patience than Sasuke had afforded him while teaching him taijutsu. "Not storm up to her yelling 'What the fuck did you do?' where all our classmates could hear."
Sasuke stared back unbothered by the criticism. "I didn't yell."
"Either way, we're not doing that." Shikamaru started heading in the direction of the academy. "Let's go."
Shikamaru watched as his eleven year old self walked with Choji, hands behind his head in perfect imitation of one of Shikamaru's common postures. The Akimichi compound came up first and then Shikamaru's counterpart would be on his own. The imposter waved lazily to Choji as they separated and stuffed his hands in his pockets as he continued walking. "Now?" Sasuke asked.
"Just a few more seconds." Shikamaru waited a beat more to make sure the coast was clear and then signaled to Sasuke. They flanked the imposter casually walking beside him as they did so. For his the part, the imposter glanced boredly between the two before sighing.
"Don't tell me Sasuke's involved in this too," he pleaded.
"Like you aren't the one responsible," Sasuke hissed. "The only reason I'm not killing you now is because I'm giving you the chance to fix this."
To his credit, the imposter didn't even blink at that. "At least wait till we're somewhere more private before we talk about this," he said exasperatedly. Sasuke grunted in probable agreement. Finally, some sense, Shikamaru thought. He felt the urge to hug his imposter- himself?- just for being anyone other than Sasuke.
"We can go to m- Sasuke's apartment," Sasuke said bitterly. The imposter nodded in agreement.
Immediately upon entering the apartment, the imposter raised his hands in innocence. "Before either of you ask, I did not do this and I don't know who did."
"Yeah right," Sasuke growled. "Your clan is known for its mind transfers."
"I'm not Ino. I'm Neji."
"Fuck," Sasuke cursed. Shikamaru had to agree with Sasuke on that point.
"How many people are running around in the wrong body?" Shikamaru asked not expecting an answer. He could feel a massive headache coming on.
"Hopefully, just us four. I already sought myself out, and Ino is in my body. Everyone's bodies are answered for," Neji said. That was actually extremely relieving. Shikamaru didn't think he could handle continuously chasing down people trying to figure out who was who.
"I'm going to find her," Sasuke announced.
"Not so fast," Shikamaru said. "Think a bit. Do you really think Ino has the power to do this? The Yamanaka clan does short term mind transfers between two people that are in close proximity and that exist at the same time. This goes so far beyond anything a Yamanaka might do that it's hardly even related."
In quite the unSasuke-like way, Sasuke threw up his arms in exasperation accidentally managing to successfully look like Ino. "Then who? Who else does anything even similar?"
Shikamaru had no answer to that. Now that he'd followed the body trail to end up with all bodies accounted for, he was back to having no leads. Neither Ino nor Neji were capable of something like this and even if Sasuke was, he really didn't have any reason to do this. As far as Shikamaru knew, the only thing Sasuke ever wanted was to kill Itachi. He failed to see how this fiasco contributed to that.
Shikamaru set his sights on Neji. He needed to check his identity. Was there anything he would know about Neji that no one else did? "When we were on that mission in Mist with Ashane, what was the name of the civilian woman we saved?"
"Miu Kasaoka," Neji answered simply. Shikamaru wasn't sure if he was happy that it really was Neji. By all rights, he should be, but at least he'd have a lead if it were someone else.
Sasuke stared contemplatively between Neji and Shikamaru. He narrowed his eyes. "I see," he said. Shikamaru raised his brows in question. "This is another ploy to get me back to the village. You three made it so I'd stick around to be near my body. I'm still going to leave once I get my body back."
Shikamaru wondered if Ino would mind too much if he killed her body. "The three of us don't care nearly enough about you to do something this desperate," Shikamaru said bluntly. "Frankly, we don't care whether you live or die, and it'd be much simpler to kill you than to do whatever this is."
"You'd still do it if it meant following orders," Sasuke said.
"If it was a mission, Naruto and Sakura would have demanded to be involved," Neji argued. "They're the ones that give a damn if you come back or not."
If Sasuke cared at all that Shikamaru and Neji didn't care for him, he didn't show it maintaining a blank face. "I don't have any reason to believe you. It's the only thing that makes the slightest amount of sense."
"Alright. What are you going to do about it?" Shikamaru asked tiredly.
"I don't know. I'm going to figure out how you did it so I can undo it," Sasuke said.
"Alright. Let me know if you find anything." Sasuke sent Shikamaru a scathing look before leaving. Shikamaru deed a nap. A long one.
"Do you have any idea what's going on?" Neji asked reminding Shikamaru of his presence.
"Not in the slightest," Shikamaru muttered. "Do you know where Ino is?"
"She's training with my team."
"Without them suspecting anything?" Shikamaru asked skeptically.
"I taught her some things. We spent a lot of time together yesterday and Ino's good at pretending to be other people." Neji smiled slightly. Shikamaru swore Ino and Neji were secretly dating. The two spent a lot of time together since Ino reached chunin rank.
"I need to talk to her," Shikamaru said.
"We're supposed to meet up tomorrow. I'd say Sasuke should come too but I guess that's out of the question."
Shikamaru nodded in confirmation. "I'm going to the library to look up sealing. Want to come?"
Neji furrowed his brows. "Why sealing?"
Shikamaru thought of all the things he'd seen sealing do particularly sealing great chakra beasts into babies. And, of course, there was that weird monster transformation that came with Orochimaru's curse seal. Not to mention the creepy Hyuuga slave seal. Five feet away, Neji stood as a reminder of that even if he didn't look so much like a Hyuuga at the moment. Either way, Shikamaru knew seal masters were capable of extraordinary feats. It wasn't much of a lead, but it was all Shikamaru had. "Because I have to start somewhere," he answered.
As expected, Ino had no more of an idea of how the four had travelled to the past in each others bodies than any of the other three did. "Are you sure it's not Sasuke's doing?" Ino asked in between heavy breaths. Neji just finished giving her a practical lesson on the gentle fist.
"How does this help him kill Itachi?" Neji asked frowning slightly. Shikamaru tore his gaze away from Neji. It was way too disturbing to look at his own eleven year old face controlled by someone else.
"I don't know, but the Mangekyou thing messes with time, right? That thing Itachi does," Ino said flourishing her point by waving her hands about. Shikamaru chose to stare at the sky. It might not be as disturbing as looking at Neji controlling his body, but watching Neji's image use Ino's gestures and facial expressions caused shivers to crawl up Shikamaru's spine. Ino's characteristics just didn't match Neji's typical demeanor.
"The Tsukyomi manipulates the perception of time in the victim's mind. It doesn't involve actual time travel or anything related to mind swapping." Shikamaru kept his gaze sternly on the clouds. He could just imagine Ino scrunching up her face and tapping her lips something Shikamaru didn't think he could handle seeing on Neji's face in his current state of mind.
"You were looking at seals yesterday, right? Maybe Sasuke learned some sealing from Orochimaru," Ino suggested. Despite Shikamaru's determination to avoid looking at Ino-as-Neji, his eyes flitted to her in shock.
"Do you have some reason to believe Sasuke's responsible for this?"
Ino slumped her shoulders and shook her head. She was too expressive for Neji. That was the problem. "Not at all, but he's more likely than any of us three."
"But still not likely at all. There needs to be a motive. It's probably someone completely different, someone more powerful," Neji concluded. Shikamaru closed his eyes and leaned backwards till he lay down. They were doing the same thing Shikamaru had been doing since he woke up in a completely different time and different body. It was like he had one piece to the puzzle and trying to solve it from that one piece. He rotated and flipped it into every possible position in the hope that one of those positions provided some insight into what the other pieces were and how they fit together with the one piece he had. Never before had Shikamaru felt that his inquiry and pursuit for answers was so futile, but no matter how he twisted that puzzle piece, it didn't make up for the lack of every other puzzle piece.
"We need to figure out how to undo this. Our speculation of who may have done this and why is getting us nowhere. It's the how that's the most important and has the best chance of getting us out of this situation. And if we figure out how that leads us one step closer to the who and the why," Shikamaru said keeping his eyes closed. Maybe he should try sleeping again. Eventually, he'd sleep through this whole disaster, right?
"You don't know how strange it is to see Sasuke with your thinking expression," Ino said in a tight voice. Shikamaru snorted. It couldn't come close to as strange as Ino's mannerisms on Neji.