He wasn't... Alone, persay, he was just... Isolated. Yeah, isolated. Sighing, the shadow user shook his head in rueful amusement; denial had never been one of his skills and talents.

-0-

Relationships had never really been Shikamaru's thing. He'd had an on and off thing with Temari for a while, but in the end it hadn't worked out. She'd needed more love and attention than he'd been able to give and they'd broken it off eventually, agreeing they were better off as friends.

He hadn't even tried with Ino- if he couldn't satisfy someone like Temari, then there was no way he'd be affectionate enough for Ino.

After Temari, his love life went a little haywire. Dozens of one night stands, a fling here, a friends-with-benefits there, nothing serious. For a while he'd almost thought the thing he had with Tenten was going to work out, but then she'd broken it off with him when Neji had confessed. No hard feelings, as Shikamaru had always known where her real affections lied.

Then, the war had started and there was no time for romance. All there /was/ time for was death. Blood and death and fighting and killing. Offense, defense, strategy, plans. And after the war was finally over, his sanity mercifully and almost unbelievably intact, dating had pretty much just... Lost all appeal.

His father had died in the war and Yoshino had been inconsolable ever since. Barely moving, barely eating, barely talking, she'd been surviving- not living. After seeing what happened to his mother after losing the love of her life, Shikamaru gave up altogether on searching for love.

Inoichi, too, had died in the war and Ino had shut herself up in T&I division, quickly climbing the ranks as a merciless and sadistic torturer. She seemed alright, even going through various psyche tests, but something had broken inside her when her father died, and that something had never healed.

Chouji had lost his right leg and had since retired from being a ninja, instead choosing to run a giant restaurant and get hitched to a beautiful wife, leaving him with little time to spare in between taking care of his many children and running a restaurant.

Friends busy with their lives, parent and teacher dead, remaining parent good as dead, Shikamaru spent his time either alone or helping Kurenai raise her child- the second task becoming more and more difficult by the day, as the kid grew to resemble Asuma evermore in a painfully noticeable way. As such, the kid was nearing 10 years old now and Kurenai no longer really needed help raising the kid.

So yeah, he was pretty much alone.

Therefor when Naruto, who had finally achieved his dream of becoming Hokage, had asked for some volunteers for an experimental jutsu, Shikamaru had raised his hand.

-0-

Experimental jutsu, Naruto had said. Of course, what he meant, was that he'd found some dusty old scroll a secret compartment and that he wanted to test it out. Thankfully though, age had finally hammered some wisdom into his head and instead of trying it out on the spot and possibly risking his life or something just as important, Naruto had come up with a better plan. As Hokage, he couldn't test it out himself, as much as he wanted to, simply because of his responsibility to the village. Having one of his trusted ninja try it out and report back to him on the results though- THAT he could do.

"So what is this jutsu even supposed to do?" Shikamaru questioned with a sigh, exhaling a mouthful of smoke.

"No idea!" Naruto responded happily, showing him the scroll in which the jutsu was written down. Carefully examining it, Shikamaru deduced that- well no, with one cursory glance all he could tell was that the scroll was complete gibberish.

"This isn't even- what language is this?" He asked, looking back up at his old friend. Naruto simply shrugged, unknowing of the answer himself.

"If I can't read it then how am I supposed to perform it?" He questioned, truly only slightly irritated.

"There are instructions at the very bottom. I can't read it, but the drawings make it pretty clear."

And indeed there /were/ drawings at the bottom which explained what to do. Diagrams, pictures of handsignals and even what he was pretty sure was supposed to be a seal.

"So you still wanna do it?" The blond Hokage intoned, smile as radiant as ever.

Thinking it over carefully, Shikamaru nodded. If it was harmless, then he would get paid extra. If it killed him... Well, then it killed him and his mother would just have yet one more reason to be depressed, if she even reacted to the news.

"Let's do this."

Would turn into a time travel fic. I thought Shika would be a good choice with his general intelligence and all that.