A/N: This chapter will be the first of the final three chapters of the break between the preliminary and final rounds.
Alright, so…this chapter. I'm guessing most of you are gonna be smart enough to read between the lines, at least to an extent. The first scene of the next chapter will tie it all together.
As many of you have complained, I promise you that Shikamaru-centric chapters are about to drop off significantly. I just had a lot I needed to do with him character wise to wrap up his arc.
Time for Chapter 41
Enjoy!
Kakashi dragged his eyes across the page of his book as he sat upon a tree stump. He rarely missed an opportunity to catch up on his decidedly adult literature, and thankfully, he was afforded many chances day in and day out. His students had grown, quite exponentially so, but they were still children, and they still required rest. Currently, Naruto was sprawled out on the ground, breathing heavily. They were two hours deep into a rather brutal session. Five days remained until the final round including today, and final preparations were underway.
From a technical and tactical standpoint, both Naruto and Satsuki were fully equipped. Now, it was simply a matter of testing their conditioning. The pair had each drawn rather grueling matchups, and stamina was paramount.
'Shikamaru got lucky. That Temari girl operates from his preferred range. He doesn't have to change much to succeed.' the Jonin mused. He had seen little of his mellow student throughout the month outside of their once-weekly taijutsu drills. Even with such limited exposure, Kakashi had detected a significant amount of tension in him. He was on edge, and it was unclear why exactly that was. He was far from easily shaken, and his temper was limited. Whatever the Nara had gotten up to unsupervised, it likely wasn't trivial.
Cutting his eyes to Naruto, Kakashi stood up and cleared his throat to snap the blonde to attention. Sitting up straight with a groan, Naruto rubbed his lightly bruised cheek. Pocketing his orange softback, the Jonin folded his arms across his chest.
"I'll make you a deal." he began, visibly piquing his student's interest. Naruto nodded and motioned for the older man to continue.
"We're gonna spar again. You can come at me as hard as you want. If you can hit me clean twice, you can go home early. How does that sound?" Kakashi offered. It was an empty proposition for the most part. For all of his improvements, Naruto had only hit him flush three times across the entire month, with each blow being spaced out by at least several days. Regardless of its disingenuous nature, the offer had the intended effect.
"You're on." Naruto said, suddenly looking rather revitalized. Kakashi smirked beneath his mask. He was far from lazy, but Naruto Uzumaki was a teenager all the same. Convenience was the ultimate motivator. As the blonde assumed a taijutsu stance, Kakashi remained upright and calm.
"You can start us off whenever you like." he said. A moment passed with no further action. Once those brief few seconds had ticked away, Naruto pushed off of his back foot and charged forward. Kakashi easily read his initial movement. Stepping off to the side, the Jonin allowed Naruto to punch a hole through the empty air where his teacher had once been. Before he could fully pass by, Kakashi seized him by the back of his shirt and spun him around twice before tossing him straight up into the air.
Naruto recovered well, twisting his body and launching a pair of kunai down at the Jonin. Kakashi easily evaded both while maintaining a stable position. The Jinchuuriki wasted little time in attacking once more upon hitting the ground again. Having touched down right in range, Naruto dug a forceful punch down toward the Jonin's liver. Tucking his elbow down, Kakashi caught the punch on his arm and paid him back by spearing his knee straight up into the bottom of the genin's chin.
Naruto staggered back a step, but quickly resumed his assault. Measuring distance by outstretching his leading left hand and grabbing onto Kakashi's own left hand, the blonde yanked the arm down and attempted to fire a fully-loaded punch over the Jonin's shoulder. Unbothered by the admittedly reliable set up, Kakashi ducked underneath his swing and then froze him up by popping back up with an uppercut that clipped off the left side of Naruto's jaw.
Momentarily stunned, the blonde was unable to react to Kakashi reversing their grips and whirling around behind him. Bending his student's arm up into his shoulder blade, the older man shoved him forward and kicked him in the back.
"You have to think more than one step ahead. Basics are good, but layer them." he called out to the blonde, who had rebalanced himself and turned back around to face him. Nodding in understanding, Naruto blitzed again. This time, however, he stopped just short of a collision. While Kakashi did not show his hand as a result of the feint, the sudden break in rhythm did cause him to hesitate for a split second. Taking full advantage, the Jinchuuriki stepped in a foot closer and grazed him across the cheek with a spearing punch. Kakashi hopped back and recreated space due to having been touched.
Naruto attempted the same tactic again, showing a commitment to cross the new distance before him, only to stop short. Unfortunately, Kakashi did not need to experience the tactic more than once to counter it in short order. Delaying his retaliation a beat, the Copy Ninja timed the blonde's true entry into range with a short, tight hook that caught Naruto square on the cheek. For all that he was tremendously durable, the combination of Kakashi's not-insignificant force as a puncher and the factor of his own momentum caused Naruto to wobble and fall to his back.
"I threw that a little too hard. Sorry, kid." Kakashi admitted with a wince. Naruto slowly rose to his feet. First, he propped himself up on his hands, then on one knee. Steadily, he stood up fully. As he did so, Kakashi's eyes widened slightly. A faint, translucent aura of red chakra was beginning to emanate from him. It was then that he saw Naruto's eyes. The irises retained their blue color, but a sheen of red shone at their edges.
"I'm alright." the Jinchuuriki said, his tone holding a slight edge. He appeared to be in control, at least to an extent. It was a fascinating development indeed. He had not fully succumbed, much unlike the incident on the bridge. He appeared to be straddling the line between control and a complete loss thereof.
"In that case, let's keep going." Kakashi said, waving him in. Caution was necessary, but the gap in strength between them was staggering at a baseline. Taking the prompt without hesitation, Naruto crashed forward. Cutting off to an angle just prior to engaging, the blonde attacked side-on. Kakashi caught his student's fist before it could reach his face. Undeterred, the blonde attempted to strike him with his free hand. The result was the same, with his fist being stopped and gripped.
Opting to test the state his student had attained, Kakashi widened his stance and pushed back against the Jinchuuriki. Naruto immediately answered in kind. Much to the older man's surprise, the genin matched him for strength. Or rather, the strength Kakashi was bringing to bear at present. Narrowing his eyes, the Jonin applied more force and pushed the boy back an inch. Naruto bared his teeth, revealing a small set of fangs. His fiery coating of chakra flared up to life, coinciding with an increase in fortitude.
'Is he controlling it? I can't tell for sure.' Kakashi thought to himself as they strained. Taking the most direct route of discovery, the Copy Ninja dramatically increased his output of both physical strength and chakra, allowing nearly half of his true strength to shine through. Naruto instantly buckled under the weight of his teacher's strength, nearly folding down to a knee.
"Just say the word, and we can be done." Kakashi said as the boy strained in futility. He then let go of the Jinchuuriki's hands and stepped back. Naruto flopped down onto his stomach the moment his counterbalance was gone. He looked completely spent.
"Take another rest. We'll work on Ninjutsu for a bit once you're ready." Kakashi said, turning his back and strolling back towards the stump he had been sitting on during the last break.
"W-Wait…"
Kakashi stopped walking and turned back around. What he saw was unsettling. Up on his feet again with his eyes downcast, Naruto's body was producing the very same red aura he had attained minutes earlier, but this time, it was far thicker. He then turned his eyes up slightly. They were blood red, not a hint of blue left in them.
"We can keep going." he said in a low growl. The burning fire rising up from his body then grew in both intensity and size. Naruto reared his head back and let out a feral roar. Acting quickly, Kakashi vanished from sight. He then reappeared behind Naruto and chopped him on the back of the neck. The blonde's eyes glazed over and his body went limp. Catching his student before he could faceplant, Kakashi breathed a sigh of relief as the crimson chakra dissipated into nothingness.
Laying the boy down on the grass, which was now seared black, the Jonin lifted up Naruto's shirt. The seal etched across his stomach was glowing slightly. Uncovering his left eye, Kakashi studied the inner workings of his student's chakra as best he could.
'It's fully intact. It's no looser than it was before. It almost looks like…he let the chakra into his system voluntarily.' he thought to himself with a frown. The fuinjutsu involved in the array on Naruto's stomach was far beyond Kakashi's level of expertise, and he knew it, but from what he understood of it, the seal was designed to allow a small amount of demonic chakra to saturate his system over time, allowing his body to acclimatize.
If things were as they seemed, Naruto had begun to fool around with a power he lacked a comprehensive understanding of. Shaking his head tiredly, Kakashi slung his student over his shoulder and turned back toward the bustling village to the north.
'Well, you didn't hit me, but you're getting out early anyway.'
Shikamaru Nara suffered from a number of vices.
He was painstakingly lazy, he was the polar opposite of ambitious, he was easily bored, and he was often more detached than he otherwise would have liked. An issue not attributable to the Nara, in most cases, was that of indecisiveness. Though he often took things slowly, he always made a decision. He always acted. He always followed through. It was in his nature. He disliked loose ends, as they almost always spelled future trouble. Currently, he was most certainly feeling rather out of character.
As he stared in silence at the door of the motel room, he found himself utterly stuck. What he was there for, in theory, was to take up the offer Temari had extended his way two days prior. He had lost a game of chess to a person other than his father for the very first time, and what little competitive spirit he possessed yearned for that mistake to be corrected. It was trivial, but it was a welcome distraction. The longer he considered it, however, the less sure of the decision's wisdom he became.
As harmless as such a thing seemed, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was walking a fine line. He scarcely knew the Suna genin, but he had indeed become intertwined with them by pure accident. Had he not chosen to be rude with his mother one particular night, he likely never would have learned of Gaara's treachery, and by extension, he never would have had a reason to spend time with the siblings. The reality was that he had learned, and he had acted. He had aligned with them out of circumstantial need.
While Temari's antics and advances were no fault of his own, he could not deny that she had at least forced him to be social, and whether by her design or not, he had grown to appreciate them. The connection was tenuous at best, especially in the case of Kankuro, but he now saw them as people, and he had learned the hard way that humanizing opposition was a swift road to painful choices. Haku had been a mistake, no matter how he currently felt. He was treading dangerously close to that same path simply by being before their door.
'It's just chess.' he thought to himself with little firmness. He still lacked the will to reach out and knock, or to turn and leave. It was a simple decision, and he was entirely split. For better or worse, his own say in the decision was promptly ripped away from him.
"Somebody looks a little stressed."
Flinching at the sudden interruption of his thoughts, Shikamaru looked to his left toward the end of the hall, where Temari stood. She wore a look of amusement on her face, with her hands on her hips and her posture relaxed. Walking away would now mean walking through her. With pursed lips, Shikamaru made up his mind.
"I've had a long day." he said wearily. The fan wielder slowly made her way down the hall, seeming to take her time on purpose to study him from an ever-closing distance.
"That makes two of us. I'm guessing you want your rematch?" she inquired, stopping just short of him. Shikamaru nodded and stepped aside from the door.
"If you're willing." he replied. Temari smirked and produced a key from the red sash on her waist, opening the door. The Nara was surprised to see that the lights were off, and that it was completely empty. Noticing his skepticism, the sand kunoichi beckoned him inside.
"Kankuro's in Baki-sensei's room. He said I snored too loud." she revealed, earning a dry laugh from Shikamaru as he stepped into the dimly lit room. Once they were both inside, Temari shut the door behind them and switched the light on.
"We still don't have a table, so we're playing on the floor again." she said, gesturing to the space between the two mattresses. The shadow user nodded and sat himself down on the edge of one of the beds as Temari retrieved the board and pieces from her travel bag on the opposite side of the room. Within a minute or two, the pair were seated on the floor, with their colors selected and their pieces in place. Alongside the board, Temari had also brought a pair of cups, as well as two separate containers of liquid.
"You can lead." Shikamaru offered, to which the blonde girl complied with a simple advance of one of her pawns. She then slid him one of the cups, which she had filled. Carefully picking it up from the thinly carpeted floor, Shikamaru sniffed it. It was water.
"What's in the other one?" he asked, sipping as he spoke. Temari, who had poured herself a cup from the second container, shrugged her lean shoulders.
"Sake. Well, our version of it. It's a little stronger than the weak crap your bars serve around here." she said casually, downing her shot of what Shikamaru now knew was alcohol.
"You're playing a strategy board game. Feels a little counterintuitive if you ask me." he pointed out with a raised eyebrow, making his own first move in tandem. Temari responded by cutting off his probe on the board.
"It takes the edge off. Like I said, today's been a little long. I need it." she shot back. Her eyes then drifted up from the board and settled on him.
"Not much of a drinker?" she asked. Shikamaru shook his head and leaned his cheek on the heel of his palm as he considered his next move.
"Only on New Year's with my dad, and that's just tradition. My mom doesn't let me do much." he explained. Temari grinned and nudged the bottle in his direction.
"Well, she's not around right now, is she?" she said pointedly. Her implication was obvious, as was her following play on the board. Taking one of her pawns easily, Shikamaru met her peering gaze.
"True, but I have a game to win." he said flatly. The blonde kunoichi's lip curled up in mild frustration at the position he had put her in on the board. He was playing entirely seriously, unlike their many previous games.
"Suit yourself." she said. For several minutes, the genin of opposing villages battled back and forth on the board, with heavy losses on both sides. Temari was clever and resourceful, and as it turned out, booze hardly dulled her intuition, but Shikamaru was simply superior.
"That's one of the best games I've ever played with anybody." the Nara said as he checkmated her, finally ending their taxing intellectual encounter. Temari groaned and ran a hand through her bangs.
"Don't patronize me." she grumbled, retrieving her pieces. Shikamaru cracked a smile. He was genuinely enjoying himself. Chess and Shogi were among his few talents, which was most of why he played both games so frequently, but he could always appreciate a challenge.
"I'm not. That was a lot of fun." he said simply. Temari shifted and laid down on her side, propping herself up on her elbow.
"At least one of us is happy about it." she said, taking another shot of sake from her cup, her fourth in total. Her expression then shifted from sarcasm to scheming.
"Well, you won your game. You gonna stop being a wimp and drink?" she pressed, her tone jabbing and humorous. Shikamaru eyed the bottle. Alcohol had seldom interested him. For most people, it was a social tool. Plenty of his classmates had begun drinking well before legal age for the sake of gathering. Shikamaru himself had never been particularly keen on stepping outside of his dull routine, and as such, had never seen the point.
"I think I'll pass." he said. Temari rolled her eyes, but did not press any further. For a time, they said nothing. The silence was rather comfortable, much to the surprise of the Nara. He felt neither pressured nor awkward simply being in the same room as the foreign kunoichi. Eventually, the void was filled by Temari.
"Tell me something, Shikamaru." she said vaguely, bringing the leaf genin's absently wandering eyes back to her.
"What's up?" he inquired. Pushing off from her elbow, the fan wielder sat herself upright again and crossed her legs.
"What's your family like?" she asked. It was an odd question given the context. Temari had never seemed to care much for small talk, and their relationship was tentative at most.
"My dad's a decent amount like me, I guess. Pretty laid back, likes naps, plays shogi and chess. My mom is a demon. She's loud, aggressive, and makes me do a bunch of stuff. I'm an only child, which is nice enough." Shikamaru said in response. A surprising amount of emotion quickly flashed across Temari's teal eyes.
"That sounds…really nice." she said quietly, seemingly lost in thought. Shikamaru's brow furrowed a tad. It was only the second time, but he had caught veiled emotion hidden behind her mask of sarcasm once before. It was true of most people, but there appeared to be more to the brash girl than met the eye.
"I'd ask about yours, but that wouldn't be a fun topic, would it?" he said ponderously. Temari laughed a bit, pouring herself another cup of sake.
"There's not much to say. My mother's been dead for a while, my father's a world leader, and my brothers are headcases. Well, Gaara more than Kankuro, but you get the point." she said. Though her words were casual and easy, there was a heavy undertone to them. The shadow user fiddled with a rook.
"You and Kankuro seem pretty cool to me, for whatever that's worth." he said. Temari smiled humorously at his words.
"You've got weird taste in people, then. All I've done is flirt with you against your will, and Kankuro hasn't said much at all." she said in a joking tone. Shikamaru set the rook down and met her eyes.
"The flirting's been…something, but playing chess was always gonna win you some points with me." he said. The sand kunoichi flicked a pawn at him, causing it to bounce off his forehead and make him flinch.
"You're one of the weirdest people I've ever met." she said. Shikamaru rubbed the part of his skull she had bounced the pawn off of.
"Most people just say I'm boring." he grumbled, flicking one of his knights back at her. Temari caught the piece easily before it could hit her. She then shook her head.
"We wouldn't be here if you were boring. You're weird because most men would be tripping over themselves if a hot girl gave them half the attention I give you, and you just don't seem to care." she clarified. The Nara snorted.
"Some confidence you've got there." he retorted. Temari responded by removing each of her four hair ties, and letting her loose purple tunic slide down her shoulders slightly.
"I know what I've got." she said with a smirk, tilting her head off to one side. Shikamaru's face twitched slightly. It was far from the first time she had been openly suggestive with him, but it was the first time they had been alone. For that reason, he found both the way she looked at him and her body language all the more potent.
"You're looking a little red. Like what you see?" she pressed, leaning across the chess board slightly. She was still fully clothed, but beneath her tunic was nothing but a fishnet shirt. Looking away, the Nara scooted back an inch.
"You're skipping some steps." he muttered. Temari retracted back to a more normal posture, but kept her eyes fixed on him.
"Most people don't care." she said with a shrug. Slowly bringing his vision back to the Suna girl, Shikamaru swallowed a nervous lump in his throat. He was in choppy water, and he could feel it rising up to his neck.
"I'm not most people." he said bluntly. Temari remained outwardly unfazed, but a look into her eyes revealed a studious curiosity.
"Why be so stiff about it?" she asked quizzically. Though he opened his mouth to fire back, the shadow user quickly clammed up again as he searched for an honest answer. Truth be told, he was struggling to find one. Personal honesty mattered a great deal to him. He could not claim that a deep understanding was a requirement for extra steps when he had broken protocol for a girl he hardly knew. He could not take the high road of self-imposed chastity, as he was neither religious nor morally opposed to such things.
In truth, he simply felt overwhelmed. From Haku's sudden reentry into his life to his desperate gambit to prevent Gaara from spilling civilian blood, he had not been allowed to truly rest for weeks on end. He was tired, he was stressed, and he was tense. Looking to the floor, Shikamaru began fidgeting with a chess piece again.
"My life is complicated right now." he said honestly. Temari's expression softened to one of understanding. She then sighed.
"I can back off any time you want. I'm being forward. I get that." she replied. Shikamaru looked to the girl's left side. Surprising them both, he pointed to the bottle of sake.
"Pour me some of that." he said. Temari blinked in surprise, but did as she was told, briefly taking his cup and filling it halfway with the alcohol.
"What changed?" she asked curiously, handing the cup back to him as she spoke. Shikamaru took a long look at the liquid before downing it all at once. It tasted like sweetened vinegar, and it burned his throat. Somehow, he found it refreshing.
"I think I need it even more than you do, honestly." he said. He then handed her his empty cup again. Needing no further prompting, the Suna girl filled both their cups.
"I handle my liquor a lot better than I'm assuming you will, given that you don't drink. Don't blame me if you don't remember much by morning." she warned him lightly. Shikamaru rubbed one of his eyes and accepted his cup again.
"I think I'm finally too tired to care." he said, sipping the foul-tasting liquid. He was far from blind to the fact that he was almost certainly making a decision he would live to lament, but he suddenly found himself not caring in the slightest. Perhaps it was the alcohol now starting to course through him. Perhaps it was the fatigue of all he'd been through. Perhaps Temari had simply broken through his shell. Whatever combination, he was fully accepting of the morning's regret.
And so, he allowed history to repeat itself.
A/N: It would take an idiot to not understand the implications of the second scene. I am well aware that many of you are going to be very unhappy with me, and that's alright. It's part of storytelling.
But, before you crucify me in a review, consider two things:
Firstly, it's a moment of weakness, and I tried rather hard to present it that way.
Secondly, he's a teenager under a horrible amount of pressure, and if you've ever been around the age of 16-19, you know how terrible decision making can get when you're stressed and/or hormonal.
You're free to be angry either way. That's alright. I'll still keep my schedule, and I'll still update for you. The show will go on
Leave me a review if you're able, either way
I love you all
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