Bleach x DOS (2/?)
(People. This is the second update today to make up the lack of updates in Sept. Read the previous chapter for sparkles and flowers.)
...
When Shikako falls asleep that night, she doesn't wake up in a vastly foreign world like the shinigami guest speaker from the 10th Division said was wont to happen when a shinigami falls into their sword spirit's realm.
Instead, Shikako wakes up at home.
She knows where she is the moment she opens her eyes. The Nara Forest. She breathes in the earthy scents of dirt, vegetation and trees that mingles with the the sweet undertones of Hashirama trees that surround Konoha.
She could hear the distant rustling and steps of deer weaving between trees, the river some ways away, and the ground under her bare feet feels cool and moist.
Shikako is home.
Navigating through the forest, she arrives at the edge in no time at all, and beyond it is a grassy knoll and a familiar, terribly familiar house.
As she steps onto the grass, she feels the sunlight warmed air, and when she looks up, a bright blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds that promised good weather tomorrow and the day after that, and the day after that, and forevermore.
She is home. Only, she isn't.
But it is close enough.
If this is her zanpakuto's world, she wonders who her zanpakuto is. Heijomaru, or another deer summons, maybe. Or some other sort of anthropomorphic deer creature. Maybe an embodiment of shadows, or a representation of her fuinjutsu mastery? Or better yet, Shikabane-hime. Now that would be interesting to see. What does a Corpse Princess even look like?
This should excite her. The manga was great. The plot was interesting. The characters had unique talents and abilities. And Shikako is going to possess one such strange but amazing power.
But instead, she just feels so tired. It's not just her overpacked schedule. Her exhaustion isn't just physical. Mentally, emotionally, she's just so tired.
And being reminded that she is home but not, helps nothing.
The field is empty, but the house, her house- the one she grew up in with Shikamaru and mom and dad- The inside is glowing the same way she remembers it. She finds herself walking towards it without consciously commanding her feet to move, and it almost feels like she is truly home, like she is just returning from a long and taxing mission.
And when she is just about at the front door, she notices the smell of smoke. Not fire smoke. Cigarette smoke-
Shikako breaks into a run and really, she shouldn't have been surprised by who she finds.
"Hello, Shika."
Her twin barely glances at her from the shogi board set up in front of him, but he waves her over. He is in the middle of a game, but there is no opponent sitting in the cushion across from him. It's not unusual. Sometimes he played games against himself, or recreated ones he'd lost to their father.
Quietly, she sits herself down on his left. She isn't sure of where she is now. Her sword spirit's realm? But then, why is Shika here? Is he her zanpakuto? A manifestation of all that she misses and lost? Maybe she's actually communing with the dead. Or worse, maybe this is just a dream.
Strange, but she doesn't really feel... anything. Her heart aches, but it always had been since she woke up to her new life. Something is wrong with her. She'd suspected it, and now she has confirmed it.
"Smoking isn't good for your health," she says, just for old time's sakes.
Shikamaru rolls his eyes and lets out a puff of smoke. "What's the worse it can do. Kill me?"
Shikako flinches. He sounds like Shikamaru. He acts like Shikamaru. But is he? A dream. Is it a dream? Does it matter? Does anything? "I'm sorry. You were suppose to live," she whispers, staring at her hands which are covered in scars. Not kunai inflicted, but ones from poorly executed kido spells and katana blades. Her hands does not look like her hands.
"Well, I'm dead now," he replies nonchalantly, with no malice in his tone at all. Like being dead didn't bother him at all. As if he didn't blame her.
He should, oh he should.
This, she decides, is a lovely dream.
"You were suppose to live. You should've. In another world, you would've," she informs him, because even if this is not a dream (but what else can it be?), the information is useless. "In another world, you would've married Temari. You would've had a son. You would've-"
He shoots her a hard look, the same one she saw so much of during the Fourth Shinobi World War, the same look he had after dad said goodbye, the same look she couldn't meet because she should've done more.
"Would've what? Been happy?"
Shikako looks away. "Yes."
A silence stretches between them, and Shikako wants so much to just go away. She doesn't have her shadow anymore. Hiding isn't an option anymore. She forces down her fight or flight response and reminds herself that this is a dream, and what are the chances that she will dream of something this appallingly wonderful again?
"You didn't fail, Kako," he says quietly.
She jerks her head back and stares at him incredulously.
"You didn't. I was happy." Shikamaru shakes his head in exasperation. "Everything you think I was suppose to have, everything you think I was suppose to be, you didn't include yourself in that everything, did you."
"Because I wasn't suppose to exist-"
"In that other world, maybe. But you did exist in our's. There could be a thousand different worlds. Maybe I lived to the ripe old age of a hundred in one, or died during the Kyuubi's rampage in another. But they don't matter, because those worlds aren't our world, the one where I lived, you existed, and we were twins."
"Don't you care? If it weren't for me, if I hadn't been born and interfered-"
"Sure, maybe I'd still have two arms and that wife and kid you mentioned, but I can't miss what I never had, Kako. I had you, and I was happy. I was happy when we used to walk home together from the Academy, when you used to drag me along by the hand so I could cloud watch while we walked. I was happy when you started making up games that I could play without actually doing anything. I was happy when you destroyed that guy's career for insulting me. I was a bit pissed when you blackmailed me into a jonin promotion and when you kept on going on the most ridiculously dangerous missions, but I was happy then, too. I was even happy when you and Gaara started dating."
She frowned. "You glared at him whenever you saw him, during every single meeting. It made trade negotiations and inter-village relations very, very hard."
"I had a job to do as your big brother. Besides, I was happy when I was glaring at him, too," he told her unrepentantly. "You know, for a genius, you're not very smart."
"I'm not a genius. Not a real one."
"Yeah, because any other shinobi would've figured out the Hiraishin seal, created your Touch Blast, storage seals, the Shadow Hand jutsu, and made that City of Pillars in-what was it, eight hours?" He rolled his eyes. "Shikako, you were trying to do the impossible. Mold the world into one you thought we'd all be happiest in. Not just because you're only one person, but also because you weren't charged with ensuring everyone's future happiness. The pursuit of happiness is an individual thing. You've got to want it to have it, and it can't be handed to you on a silver platter by someone who thinks they know best, who thinks they've seen the best you can have-"
"I don't think that!" She didn't. She just wanted to ensure that everyone was at least as happy as they were in the end of canon. She did not see the best everyone could have. Neji, after all, had died, and that wasn't what she considered a good fate for anyone. "I just wanted to make sure I didn't make your lives worse than it was suppose to be! I knew my existence and intervention could do a lot of good, but the ripple effect, Shika. I could just as easily destroy so many lives! If I had slipped up, if I hadn't done this, if I had done that, I could've hurt a lot of people and destroyed so many futures. I just wanted to make sure that my existence wouldn't be that. I wanted to make sure I didn't make your lives worse!"
"Maybe, but it's rather presumptuous of you, don't you think? You, handing someone the future and happiness you think they deserve at the very least, like they can't get it on their own. Did you think we were all incapable of finding it ourselves without your help?"
Presumptuous, he said. Arrogant, he means. It's something that identifies Danzo. And... it also identifies her? She may not gloat over her victories like Danzo does, but arrogance, what is it but belief that one is more skilled, more important, more knowledgeable than others?
Her breath catches, and suddenly it's like there are claws squeezing the air out of her lungs.
She isn't anything like Danzo. But that's a lie. Danzo, who thought he knew what was best. Danzo, who became the shadows. Danzo, who wouldn't let anyone or anything stand in his way. It sounds like a great many people. (It sounds like her.)
All that separates herself from Danzo are her intentions and the lengths she wouldn't go to. She wanted to make sure the consequences of her actions were all positive. And as for what she won't do, murder isn't something she has a problem with, and neither is manipulation, so maybe the difference is that while she can be cruel and kind, Danzo is just cruel?
(Is this how Shikamaru thinks of her?)
"But," Shikamaru says sharply as he taps his cigarette against the rim of the ashtray. "Mainly, I think the main problem is that you still don't understand that you exist in the world we lived in. All of your plans, what you thought the future should look like, did you even think about where you'd be? You mattered, Kako. You still do. Were you happy living the life you'd lived?"
Was she happy? Of course she was. There is no question. "It was more than I could ever ask for."
"So you were happy. I was happy. We were all happy. You didn't fail your self-appointed mission to make us happy. Not me, not mom and dad, not Team 7, or Konoha or the world. You did your best, worked your hardest, and we were happy. You didn't fail. So stop blaming yourself."
Shikamaru grabs her hand and Shikako flinches because dad still died and worse, so did Shikamaru and he wasn't suppose to, and how could she not have seen the similarities?!
He doesn't let go. "You didn't fail," he says again.
Shikako bit her lip. "You shouldn't smoke," she tells him once more after another stretch of silence. "It irritates my eyes."
He twin smiles as he stabs his cigarette into the ashtray.
She'd made so many mistakes. If only she could have another chance. "Are you really Shika, or are you just my mind's creation of him? You."
"Does it matter?"
Shikako rubs her eye and shrugs. "It's a very nice dream, if, you know..."
"Don't know, and don't really care either. If I am real, then it's a little weird that I'm living in your head. If not, well, you have some serious psychological issues that I don't think even the entire Yamanaka clan could deal with." He pauses. "But, I do know things I'm pretty sure you don't know."
Laughter bubbles out of her. That is hardly proof, because there are likely a thousand and one things her subconscious knows that her consciousness doesn't want to consider. But Shikako is willing to pretend. It's a nice dream, after all, and she smiles. "I'm sure I don't want to know."
"Probably not," he replies with the same smile. Shikamaru nudges the king piece on his side of the shogi board back into it's square. "I want to finish the game."
And that is when Shikako realizes exactly what game he is in the middle of playing. The last game the both of them started before he was called away for a mission, then she was, and then life and the war got in the way, followed by death, and they never finished the game.
She grins as she shuffles over and makes herself comfortable on the cushion before immediately adding one of the generals she'd captured on her side of the board.
"You know, we are going to have to talk about this new hell we've been thrown into," he says as he moves his lance out of a corner. "I was hoping for the Pure World. Playing shogi. Tuning out Ino. Napping. Not working or worrying about the fate of everything. In the Pure World. Not wherever we are now."
"Hell? I think the Soul Society's rather nice."
He makes a face. "Bleach. What kind of name is that for a comic about sword wielding shinigami?"
"It's a manga Shika. Get it right."
...
A/N: (Wtf brain. It's suppose to be fluff. FLUFF. gawd.)
Whether Shikamaru the real deal, or not is really up to you. I'm not sure I will continue in that vein, but don't quote me.
What do you think about everything Shikamaru said? Accurate? Comforting? Right? Any ideas on what Division Shikako should join? Shikamaru probably wants her to apply to 12th, but we all know that ain't happening. Maybe.
lizyeh2000 asked if Shikamaru would make a bad zanpakuto (I think?). Shikamaru just needs some motivation. Like, a mad man, or several, trying to destroy Soul Society, and by extension, Shikako. Shikamaru is wary of this new world, and he is right to be. Shit's going to hit the fan, and this time multiple worlds are going to be at risk.
(Sorry about the time it took to reply. It didn't feel right answering a DOSxBleach question anywhere other than in a DOSxBleach chapter.)
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