Sasuke wasn't sure how he got back from the shack to the Hokage, or how late it was when he left, but he knew it was precisely 6:34 when he shut the door behind him, because Sakura tackled him into a bear hug and knocked him to the ground, since his line of sight was focused on the face of the large, old clock in the hall, too tired to even shift his gaze.
"Ohmygosh, Sasuke! Where have you been? We tried waiting for you last night, but it got late and you didn't come back and we all had to go home, and then Tenten came in to work today and said she had seen you last night, but didn't know if you found what you were looking for and wouldn't tell us anything! And then you didn't show up for breakfast or lunch today, and I was getting so worried!"
That's right; Sasuke had woken up after noon and gone straight over to the shack closely after, since his stomach had been too tightly nervous to eat, so he hadn't eaten anything in almost twenty four hours. All of a sudden, his stomach decided to remind him of that fact with a loud growl, causing Sakura to give a little giggle and jump off him.
"But I'll bet that you'll be wanting some supper, and I'm your girl for that! Just don't worry me like again," she said with a wink before scampering off to the kitchen, leaving Sasuke still slightly stunned on the floor.
Taking pity on him, Choji, who was manning the reception desk, left his post and extended a hand to Sasuke. "And you've now learned firsthand why we try to avoid either angering or worrying the monster known as Sakura. Don't worry: there shouldn't be any after effects other than extra-large portions at your meal tonight and a mother hen-like pink haired maniac fluttering around you for the next few days, but I reckon if you can deal with pissed-off ghosts, you can deal with anything Sakura throws at you."
Sasuke could only nod dumbly in response, and started taking a wooden step forward when Choji caught his shoulder and peered into his eye in concern. "Hey, are you okay? I mean, really okay?"
Shaking his head slightly to pull himself back into reality, Sasuke brushed Choji's hand off his shoulder and st"oood up a little straighter. "I'm fine, thank you."
Choji pulled back a little, looking slightly hurt. "You don't have to be so formal. It's just me."
But Sasuke brushed past him without another word, leaving him standing bemused and looking almost betrayed behind him. When he entered the dining hall, Sakura was hurrying towards him with a plate of food.
"So, Sasuke," she started chattering again as soon as she saw him, "Did you find what you were looking for last night? The thing that you dropped? What was it, anyway? It must have been pretty important for you to have gone out that late a night to find it-"
"I'm tired," Sasuke cut her off shortly, grabbing the plate from Sakura's hands before she could even set it down on the table. "I'd like to eat in my room, alone. I'll bring the plate back down when I'm done."
Like Choji, Sakura's eyes immediately filled with uncertainty and hurt, and she pulled back slightly. "Oh-! Okay… Just bring it back… whenever you're ready… I guess…" She trailed off as Sasuke abruptly turned his back to her and started walking away.
Sasuke's foot was barely touching the bottom step of the stairs when whispers, quietly but tensely hushed, exploded out from behind him, but he tried to pay them no mind. He was acting strangely; they were bound to be curious. It was as simple as that. And yet, he was hurt inside, but by more than the whispers. It was what he had learned that had caused his strange behavior that hurt him most of all.
Three spectral presences were waiting for him at the top of the stairs, but he ignored their questioning looks and walked through them, leaving them to stare after him and trail along behind uncertainly. When he reached his room, he left the door open for them in a clear invitation but didn't look back. Setting his plate down on the desk, he discovered that he had lost his appetite, and he slung his satchel over his shoulder and unto the back of the desk chair.
Behind him, the door swung shut, and Sasuke turned around to lock gazes with the three phantoms who stood there. Shino and Kiba were hanging back slightly, the backs of their fingers just barely grazing together, to allow Naruto to step forward and take the center stage.
"Well?"
A mocking half smile crept across Sasuke's face as he passed a hand over his eyes. "Well, I made it out alive. That's just about the most I can say."
"What did they do to you?!" Naruto demanded, balling his hands into fists.
"Nothing," Sasuke said with a hoarse laugh. "They did absolutely fucking nothing to me. Which just made it worse. Their auras were so thick… so black… I wasn't sure if I could make it out untainted. If they had fought me, I could have fought back. But we just sat there and talked for hours, and every minute made me fall a little more."
Shino and Kiba exchanged a quick glance before Kiba stepped forward. "Fall?"
"Into the blackness," Sasuke intoned in a dead voice, letting his head fall forward to rest in his hands. "If our auras go black, our minds go as well. I- I've seen it happen before."
He silently begged Naruto to understand without him having to say it, that Itachi's aura was the one that had gone dark, but he didn't want to relive that particular memory by telling it again. Not now.
The silence after this statement stretched out for a long time before Sasuke pulled his hands away from his face and looked up, watching the expressions of the three phantoms but refusing to meet their gazes. Shino and Kiba both wore sympathetic masks, but it was Naruto's that he wanted to see. The look in his eyes told Sasuke that he understood.
"Where's Neji and Shikamaru?" He asked abruptly to break the silence.
"Shikamaru went with Neji to help him get to the church to get the holy water, but we thought he'd come back after that. He must have stayed with Neji until it was safe to come back to the Hokage, so they're probably on their way now." Naruto fidgeted anxiously with the collar of his shirt as he spoke, as if he was afraid that Sasuke's irritation would be directed at him and not at the missing members of their party.
"I suppose we'll have to wait then. I'd rather not relive that particular experience more than once," Sasuke said with a sigh, and Naruto visibly relaxed. Frowning a little internally, Sasuke wondered what had gotten the ghost wound up so tightly.
After nodding silently in assent, Shino and Kiba took seats on the floor next to each other and began to talk quietly between themselves. Sasuke turned his attention to his meal, as unappetizing as it was to him then, and tried to choke some of it down while Naruto reverted to his child form and plopped himself down on the desk next to him to look on and offer encouragement. After a few bites, he put down his fork, unable to stomach any more of the food, which he knew must be delicious but still tasted like sawdust in his mouth.
"How's Lee?" He asked suddenly, and all three of the phantoms looked up at him.
"He's fine now, thanks to you," Naruto said quietly, not meeting Sasuke's gaze head on. "He's still a little weak, but he's awake and lucid now. Tsunade's still refusing to leave his side."
"That's good." Sasuke placed his hands in his lap, and found himself oddly fascinated by the way his fingers overlapped one another.
"Aren't you going to eat any more?" Naruto asked in the same quiet tone, and Sasuke suddenly recognized it as fear. Naruto was afraid of him.
"No," he managed after the shock wore off. What was wrong? Didn't they understand each other? Hadn't they told each other everything, trusted the other with every secret? Why was Naruto afraid of him? "I'm not really hungry."
"You should try to eat some more."
Sasuke tried to catch Naruto's gaze, to figure out what was going on in his head, but he kept his face turned pointedly away. Gently, Sasuke reached one hand up to touch his face, but Naruto flinched away. Trying not to show how much that hurt him, Sasuke carefully laid his hand against the ghost's cheek and turned his face so he could see into his eyes.
Immediately he understood. Naruto wasn't afraid of him; he was afraid for him, scared that what he had undergone had changed him. Giving him a weak smile, Sasuke let his hands slip from Naruto's face and picked up his fork again.
"I guess I could eat a little more."
The light returned to Naruto's gaze as Sasuke started shoveling food into his mouth again without really tasting it. It was still a sawdust meal, but he was finding he could stomach it more now. Under Naruto's watchful gaze, he cleaned the plate and placed the silverware back on top of it.
"I should probably take these back down to Sakura," he said with a sigh, not wanting to face the people he had come to call friends over the past month.
Naruto jumped down from his perch on the desk. "Do you want me to come with you?"
"No, I better do it myself."
Naruto retook his seat with a slightly disappointed expression, only brightening slightly when Sasuke patted him on the head. "I'll be back soon."
Leaving the three phantoms in his room, Sasuke walked to the top of the stairs, then paused, trying to gather the courage to make his way downstairs and come face to face with the people he wanted to trust. Had thought he could trust.
Cheerful conversation echoed up the wide stairwell, bringing with it a sense of comfort and loss at the same time. Still, hesitation caught hold of Sasuke, and his feet glued themselves to the floor, refusing to make the necessary motions to carry him down to the ground floor.
He might have stood there for a long time, frozen in indecision, if Sakura hadn't chosen that moment to walk past the bottom of the stairs carrying a basket of laundry and caught sight of him standing there.
"Sasuke? That you?"
Her voice galvanized him into action, and Sasuke started down the stairs. "Yeah, it's me. I brought back the plate."
"Good." As soon as Sasuke reached the bottom of the stairs, Sakura, having put her laundry basket down on the counter, grabbed his plate. He tried to turn back and escape the way he had come, but she seized his wrist with her other hand held him fast. "Not so fast, Spunky! You've got some explaining to do."
"Spunky?" Sasuke raised a single eyebrow at the adamant pink haired girl, unable to stop the small smile starting to creep over his features at her perfectly timed, undeniably Sakura remark.
Frowning, Sakura grumbled, "Well, what else am I supposed to call you what you act like you did? What's up, Sasuke? Is something wrong?"
The smile starting to form of Sasuke's face froze immediately, then slipped away like mud sliding off weathered wall and leaving an ugly stain behind. "I'm fine," he managed from behind his frozen mask, pulling against her grip.
But Sakura was refusing to let go, and gave a not-so-gentle tug on the wrist of her escaping prey. "You won't get away with this, Sasuke! I know something's up, and I'm not going to rest until I find out what it is!"
"Then prepare to be sleepless for a long time!" Sasuke snapped back, giving a sharp tug and yanking his arm out of her shocked grasp.
There was undeniable hurt in Sakura's eyes now, and it killed Sasuke that he was the one who put it there, but he had no choice. Not if he wanted to protect Naruto and the rest of the phantoms - and her as well.
As they were watching each other's reactions, each not quite sure how to proceed, the door suddenly slammed open with enough force to propel it into the wall with a bang. Without a care for the destruction he was causing, Neji strode through the door, tense anger radiating from his heavy stride and balled fists and an expression on his face that was furious enough to be bordering on murderous. A mere step behind him, Shikamaru floated leisurely in, looking almost amused and definitely proud of himself.
"Careful of the door," Sakura reminded him automatically, then turned and got a full look at him and stopped in surprise. "What happened to you?"
There was nothing overly messy about Neji's appearance, but his starched and ironed personality and rigid bearing was so at odds with the slightly rumpled air he was now giving off, he wouldn't have looked more out of his element had he walked through the door shivering and drenched to the bone. His suit jacket had lost its crispness and was covered with small bits of nature here and there, small twigs, tiny leaves, and scraps of moss all adorning the once pristine fabric. So, too, was his hair christened with little bits of the outdoors that decidedly did not belong inside or on the countenance of a rigid person such as Neji. A few locks of his long brown hair had escaped from the ponytail he so securely kept them in and were drifting about his face in slightly frizzy abandon. The material of his pants had, for the most part, escaped unscathed whatever attack of nature his jacket had sustained except for a small grass stain above his right knee and an even smaller dirt stain on the cuff of his left pant leg.
"Do not even ask," Neji hissed from between clenched teeth.
Sasuke didn't need to ask; Shikamaru's self-satisfied expression told it all. He had somehow gotten the best of the stuck-up boy, and Neji's outfit was a little worse for wear because of it.
Irritated or not, Neji's entrance made the perfect cover for Sasuke's escape, and he started backing up the stairs while Sakura was distracted. Neji stalked over to the steps, brushing past Sakura on the way, and that finally diverted her attention to the escaping Sasuke.
"Sasuke! I'm not done with you!" She hollered after him, throwing the plate down next to the laundry and stalking up the stairs after them both.
"Sasuke Uchiha, don't you dare walk away from me! I know there's something wrong, so why won't you just tell me? We're all here, and we all support you- do I need to remind you how none of us so much as batted an eye when you told us you were gay? Sasuke, just talk to us! Tell us what's wrong-!"
Slam. Sasuke cut her off by slamming to door to his room in her face.
"What the fuck, Sasuke!" They heard her scream through the closed door. "This isn't some damn soap opera! You don't need to slam the door in my fucking face! If you don't want to talk, fine!"
Steps stomped away from the door and down the stairs, accompanied by colorful cursing. Only when the sounds of Sakura retreating died away did Sasuke turn and face his audience of four confused phantoms and one pissed off Neji.
"You gonna tell us what that was about?" Naruto asked, hopping off of the desk and growing up to his teenage height and body.
"We have a rat," Sasuke announced, and everyone in the room froze. Even Neji lost his pissed off expression and took on one of fear. A little sadly, Sasuke fetched the jewelry box he kept the silver bracelets in from the closet and opened it. "Which means I need the bracelets back."
"Why?" Shikamaru snapped, a look of suspicion on his face, and the other ghosts also began to look angry. "Because you think one of us is selling the rest of us out? Because no one here would do that. We're a family, Sasuke."
"I know it's not any of you," Sasuke quickly said before things could get ugly. "When I was… talking… to the Akatsuki, it was one question I had that I made sure they answered. They confirmed my suspicions that they have someone on the inside, but I couldn't get anything else out of them besides the fact that whoever it was is still alive."
Realization dawned on all the ghosts' faces.
"That's why you pushed Sakura and Choji away," Kiba breathed, clutching Shino's hand a little tighter. "Because one of them…"
"One of them might be our rat," Sasuke finished for him grimly.
Neji was the only one still frowning in confusion. "If they have someone working for them already, why do they need us? That person could easily do the research they need for them."
"That's what they've been trying so far, but without any prior knowledge of the spiritual world their man is looking for a needle in a haystack. They want us to combine what we already know to weed out false information without having to chase down every red herring."
"There's only one question I have about this whole business of the 'rat'," Shikamaru said as Sasuke turned back around to face the room, a little bit of his lazy tone disappearing. "You said that the Akatsuki 'confirmed your suspicions' of one existing, is that correct?"
"Yes, that's right. They wouldn't have told me if I hadn't brought it up first."
Shikamaru's eyes sharpened, and he leaned forward, the first show of outward excitement he had made the whole evening. "That what, pray tell, was it that tipped you off to the fact that there may have been a spy amongst us?"
"This." Sasuke reached into his satchel and pulled out the scrapbook Naruto had found there that morning.
Everyone leaned forward expectantly, then leaned back again, confused when they saw what it was. Only Naruto's eyes lit up in understanding, and he clasped his hands together in a strange excitement that didn't match the seriousness of the rest of the group.
"That's the book I found in your bag this morning! Does that mean that whoever put it there is the Akatsuki's spy?"
"Precisely." Sasuke flipped the book open to show the first picture of the Hokage. "I knew I didn't put it there, so I took a gamble and asked the Akatsuki who their spy was. They wouldn't tell me, of course, but they did confirm that they had one and that he or she is still alive. They seemed pretty pissed at the person, too. Apparently this wasn't something that they were told to do, so he or she acted outside outside of their orders. Their man probably planned it out to get us interested in looking up the Kyuubi before the Akatsuki took matters into their own hands, and it backfired."
Shikamaru tilted his head back thoughtfully. "When was the last time you looked in your bag before you noticed it was there? Maybe we can narrow down who it could be using a time frame."
But Sasuke was already shaking his head. "I already tried that. I repacked it right before Sakura and Ino dragged me off to that crazy karaoke thing, and probably half the town was there. Everyone with a connection to the Hokage was there, including all the workers I don't know. It could have been anyone."
"Was there anyone who wasn't there?" Neji asked, finally getting over enough of his anger to participate in the conversation. Stealthily, Shikamaru reached over to brush a leaf out of his hair, but Neji caught the movement in the corner of his gaze and fended off the assault with a glare.
After a moment of consideration, Sasuke said, "Iruka, maybe. And Tenten, but we ran into her later."
"Iruka was there," Naruto corrected him. "He was sitting next to Kakashi."
"Then that puts us back to square one." Sasuke started to pace back and forth across the floor of his room, and everyone moved back a step to make room for him. "Which means we have to suspect everyone equally until we figure out who it is."
"Which is something we can do easily," Neji interjected impatiently. "Our families are used to working alone; this will be no different. The more important question still remains: now what do we do? Do we look for the Kyuubi or not?"
"We have to." Sasuke took a deep breath before continuing. "The Akatsuki gave me an ultimatum. We have two weeks to find out what they want to know, or they'll get their man to hurt someone here, someone we know but is completely ignorant of the situation."
The room erupted into an uproar, and Sasuke had to shout them down to be heard again. "Quiet, please! That's why I need the bracelets. It's harder to go after a living target because of the police, but you can't be prosecuted for harming someone who's already dead. Those bracelets make perfect bullseyes, so I need to take them back before any of you get hurt."
A subdued silence filled the room as they all absorbed the information, then Shikamaru stuck his arm out to Sasuke without looking at him.
"It was fun almost being human again," he said in a tone that sounded bored but held hints of real emotion, "but at the end of the day, we're still dead. It was nice while it lasted, but it couldn't be forever. So, thank you, Sasuke, for everything. I'm sure none of us will ever forget these last few days."
One by one, the other phantoms held out their arms as well, and Sasuke removed the bracelets as quickly as he could, trying not to watch their faces crumple as he took something intangible away from them. He hadn't realized exactly how much they had become attached to the bracelets and what they symbolized over the last few days. Even Kiba, who had been most vocal against wearing the bracelets when Sasuke had first brought them out, seemed to mourn the loss of its soft weight against his wrist.
His throat tight, Sasuke snapped the lid of the jewelry box closed, noting as he did so the way four pairs of spectral eyes followed the fastening of the clasp. After carefully making sure the clasp, which was solid silver to prevent spectral tampering, was fully shut and locked, he placed the box back into the closet and closed the door, locking it away from the world.
When he spoke again, Neji's voice was a little subdued. "My question still remains: what do we do now?"
Fixing his gaze piercingly on Neji, Sasuke asked, "What would you do?"
Shuffling a little uncomfortably, Neji answered, "I'd do the research, then trick the Akatsuki and hide the Kyuubi forever."
"And then what? Kill the Akatsuki?" Sasuke stopped pacing and folded his hands across his chest. "We don't have the supplies or ability to pull off something like that, Neji. If we had backup from both our families, maybe - maybe - we could pull off getting rid of a group of five Akatsuki. But we aren't. We're alone, and we'll stay like that, because you and I both know what would happen if we called for backup."
"They would wipe out any trace of spectral activity from this town," Neji said grimly.
"Wipe it out?!" Alarm filled Kiba's voice, and he squeezed Shino's hand a little tighter. "How?"
"I don't really know," Sasuke admitted. "I've never seen it happen, but I do know it's been done before. My father's been on a crew several times to do it."
"The last time it was done was before either Sasuke or I was born," Neji added. "It's only ever used as a last resort to clear an area of dangerous malignant ghosts because it also destroys any other spectral energy in the area."
"Us, in other words," Shikamaru summed up. "You're trying to protect us."
"They don't see ghosts as people," Sasuke explained. "We're taught that to distance ourselves so we don't get hurt. Even I was that way before… before I met all of you."
The room reverberated with a loud silence then, full of things unspoken yet understood, until Sasuke broke it.
"I agree that our first move should be to do the research, whether it is for their sakes or ours. We can figure it out from there."
"You mean, play things by ear?" Shikamaru asked with a slight frown. "I don't know exactly how comfortable I'd be doing that. I like to know what I'm doing-"
"But I'm afraid that's not an option this time," Sasuke cut in. "We can't make a plan if we don't know what we're doing. As soon as we get some more information, we can make a more concrete plan."
Quietly, Neji added, "This isn't a game. Someone could get hurt."
Shikamaru flinched slightly, an abnormally vivid reaction from the normally stoic ghost, at the words that no one else understood, making it clear that they were for him and him alone. Almost idly, his mind grasping at anything to distract him, Sasuke wondered what had happened between the two of them when they had been alone together for the afternoon, especially considering Neji's irate appearance at the time of his arrival to the inn.
Standing up, Shino spoke for the first time. "Did they say anything else? Anything about the rest of us?"
"They seem to consider any other ghost besides them to be beneath them, which seems consistent with what happened last night." Sasuke inclined his head to Naruto, who gave a tight nod.
"That might actually work in our favor," Neji interjected. "If they underestimate you, that could make them overconfident and lead to them slipping up."
"So, in other words," Shikamaru said to the room at large, "In other words, we're the backup squad, the ace up your sleeves. But know this: we won't always be in the background. We will contribute as much as you. This is our home, not yours."
"But this is our job," Sasuke said quietly, not moving his gaze from Shikamaru's calculating one. "Our gifts exists to regulate the border between your world and ours. Staying out of this fight isn't an option for us."
Tension erupted in the room between the two heated gazes colliding from opposite ends of the crowd, and everyone caught in the crossfire moved swiftly but slyly out of the way.
With careful and deliberate enunciation, Shikamaru said, "I trust you, Sasuke. I would trust you with the fate of all of us in this room. But make no mistake about this: I don't like your methods. You are not superhuman or infallible; you can't do everything alone. Everyone here is working towards the same goal, and they deserve to be able to contribute an equal amount of work. From here on in, there will be no more stunts like the one you pulled this morning. Is that clear?"
The stoney set of Sasuke's face refused to move for a long time after Shikamaru finished his declaration. The thing that bothered him the most was that the hyper-intelligent ghost was right, and he knew it. Boy, did he know it. There wasn't a thing Shikamaru did that didn't smell of self-satisfied righteousness, and Sasuke hated it. He was a sideline player, the shadow master and the one pulling the puppet strings, never getting his hands dirty but always coming out on top. Like Shikamaru, Sasuke could also say that he trusted the phantom, but he didn't like his methods.
Finally, Sasuke averted his eyes and spat out one word. "Fine."
He had lost that round, and the smugness in Shikamaru's eyes confirmed it, stoking the fire of irritation in his gut. Out of all the phantoms, Shikamaru was the one he could stand the least. A gentle hand on the small of his back startled him into ungritting his teeth, and giving a quick glance behind him, Sasuke saw that Naruto was giving him comfort the only way he knew how: through a physical touch.
Clearly trying to diffuse the tension, Neji stepped between the two of them. "Well, I know the rest of you don't have to sleep, but us two humans do. It's getting late and we're tired; why don't we reconvene in the morning? I'm sure everyone's tempers will be much better after a good night of rest and separation."
Grasping at the escape, Sasuke quickly agreed. "Good idea. I know I could use some rest."
"We should keep watch."
Everyone looked up at Shino, not really sure if he was the one who had spoken or not.
"What, like post a guard?" Naruto asked with a frown.
"Humans are most vulnerable when they're asleep." Shino hunched down into his high collared jacket as if uncomfortable with the weight of everyone's gazes, but Kiba squeezed his hand and he was able to draw himself up again. "If we kept a watch, we could wake Sasuke and Neji if we noticed something off. That way, they could rest easier knowing that we're watching out for them."
"That's a good idea," Kiba interjected before anyone could argue otherwise. "If one of us stays with each of you and the other two take turns patrolling the other parts of the Hokage, we could keep watch over the entire building, and alert everyone else if they notice anything suspicious."
"Alright, I guess," Shikamaru sighed, folding his hands up behind his head. "But I don't want to be on patrol. I've already used up way more energy today than my daily allotment."
"That's alright; Shino and I can do it. We haven't don't much today except stay with Lee and Tsunade, so we could use the excitement." And with that, Shino and Kiba sank through to floor, leaving only Naruto and Shikamaru in the room with Sasuke and Neji.
"I call Sasuke," Naruto claimed, muckling onto Sasuke's arm like a determined limpet.
"Then I guess you're stuck with me," Shikamaru remarked lazily to Neji, whose face started to inexplicably turn a light shade of purple.
"I guess so," he snapped waspishly, again making Sasuke wonder as to what had gone on between the two of them that afternoon, before turning to Sasuke. "This is where I take my leave. Have a restful night, Sasuke."
"And the same to you."
Sasuke watched Neji walk out his door and purposefully shut it before Shikamaru got through, forcing the ghost to float through the solid wood after him. It was a petty move, extremely unlike the formal Neji, and Sasuke could only frown at its implications as Shikamaru gave him a look that said, "What else is new?" before leaving through the closed door.
As soon as they were alone, Naruto shoved Sasuke down into the chair and perched in his lap, pressing down hard on his shoulders to keep him pinned to the chair and staring deep into his eyes. "Alright, you've been off all evening. You gonna tell me the truth? What aren't you telling everyone else?"
"Nothing," Sasuke tried to deny, but Naruto placed a hand over his mouth with a hard glint in his eye.
"I want you to remember who I am and what secrets we've shared with each other, then I want you to tell me the truth. The real truth, not whatever twisted version of it you shared with everyone else tonight."
Then Naruto removed his hand from Sasuke's mouth and looked at him expectantly.
Sighing and passing a hand over his eyes, Sasuke said, "I was telling the truth, Naruto. Nothing else happened."
"Oh, yeah? Then why were you in there for so long?"
"Bartering for information took a long time, and there were a couple of things neither one of us wanted to compromise on that took a long time to settle. That's the only reason why it took so long."
"Like what?" The glinting light came back into Naruto's eyes. "What didn't they want to tell you?"
"Like their rat, and what they wanted the Kyuubi for," Sasuke said with a shudder at the memory. "It was stupid, too, when they finally told me: power, plain and simple. I wasted a perfectly good bargaining chip learning that obvious tidbit. If they only wanted it for something concrete, it would be much simpler."
"You sure that's it? That's all that happened? Because you can tell me anything, Sasuke. You know that, right?" Concern glittered from Naruto's vibrant blue gaze.
In lieu of a response, Sasuke pulled Naruto's head down and kissed him gently. The blond phantom came slowly but willingly, softening his strong grip on Sasuke's shoulders to let his arms slip around his neck.
"Don't avoid the question," Naruto groused, pulling back and resting his forehead against Sasuke's.
"It really is nothing," Sasuke said gently as he ran his hand through Naruto's hair. "Okay?"
The silence stretched on almost infinitely until finally, Naruto nodded.
"Okay."
"Good." Sasuke tousled Naruto's hair gently, and he floated out of his embrace with his tongue stuck out. "Because I can't stand it when you're irritated. You like to pull pranks on me then, and that never ends well."
"But pranks are fun," Naruto protested, twisting through the air over Sasuke's head and forcing him to look up to see him.
"Maybe for you, but they make for some awkward situations for me. Do you remember the time at the ice cream stand where I ended up having to get pistachio because you were goofing off?"
Naruto bit back a giggle at the memory. "That was fun. You liked it though! Even though it was nasty."
Reaching up, Sasuke grabbed Naruto's wrist and pulled him back down into his lap. "I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one."
"Hmm." Naruto settled down and snuggled gently against Sasuke's chest, and he hugged him securely there. Even though it was dark, Sasuke was filled with a warmth like sunbeams, and he again marveled at Naruto being like his own personal sun. There was a distance in it this time, though, a guilt, but not on Naruto's end.
A yawn suddenly forced itself out of Sasuke's throat and split his face wide open with its force, and Naruto immediately pulled him out of the chair and started pushing him towards the bed.
"Sleep," he ordered, giving Sasuke a particularly strung shove that sent him tumbling onto the bed, then pulled the blankets over him with a wave of his hand. "You need your strength."
Just as he was about to turn away and stand guard near the door, Sasuke reached one hand out from underneath the covers and seized Naruto's wrist. "...stay near me? Please?"
Giving a small, loving laugh, Naruto sat down on the edge of the bed and rested his hand on Sasuke's hair, gently running his fingers through the black strands. "Sure. Anything you want."
Those soft, half-corporeal fingers scratched soothingly against Sasuke's scalp, lulling him into a trancelike state. They were warm, but the warmth didn't spread to his body, and he felt cold even with the covers pulled up to his chin. The cold, he knew, was the result of the black dot on his soul that was steadily growing, a dot that Neji should have seen if his mind had been focused in the right place. A dot that had been put there by his time with the Akatsuki, and was getting bigger because he had lied to his Naruto.
The Akatsuki didn't just desire the Kyuubi because they wanted power; they wanted it for a specific purpose. Orochimaru had gone mad and split from the group because he had become obsessed with one goal: being alive once again. That goal had eventually led to his demise, at Sasuke's father's hands, no less, but it had left an impact on the group, so much so that they had decided to follow his dream in his footsteps. They wanted the Kyuubi because there was a chance that, using it, they could once more become human.
The illumination had only made Sasuke more confused as to what to do. Akatsuki were the ghosts of serial killers, and while their ghosts were more powerful than most, they still could never equal the power of a human. Bringing them back to life would be a disaster. And yet, some selfish, broken part of Sasuke's heart whispered, if they came back to life, they would never again perform experiments like the one Orochimaru had done that had driven Itachi mad, and no one would ever have to suffer his fate again.
Neji pointedly shut the door behind him, hoping that Shikamaru would get the hint and leave him alone. His hopes were dashed, however, when the irate phantom floated through the door with an expression of slight annoyance.
"Well, that was rude."
"Why are you here?" Neji hissed, pointedly putting his back to the phantom.
But Shikamaru didn't stop his forward momentum, floating through Neji, causing a swooping sensation in his gut, and turning around to give him an annoyed glare. "Because everyone else volunteered for the other guard posts first. I didn't ask to be put with you, you know."
"Yeah, about that. You're not fooling anyone." Neji folded his arms across his chest. "You were quick to announce that you didn't want to patrol, and you knew Kiba and Shino would take it so they could be together. Naruto would obviously choose to stick with Sasuke, so the only option left would be me. You played that one quite well."
A rare smile played about the corners of Shikamaru's mouth, flitting away almost as soon as it had come. "You noticed that, did you?"
"Of course I noticed! I'm not an imbecile! The only one who didn't notice was probably Naruto," Neji snapped.
"Hm." Shikamaru turned his back to Neji, then pulled his legs up so that he was sitting cross legged in the air, facing the window.
"Whatever." Neji sniffed. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed."
"Bullshit." Again, the sudden expletive made Neji jump. "You slept half the afternoon away. You're not tired."
"And whose fault was that?" Neji snapped. When no answer was forthcoming, he set his mouth in a defiant line and folded his arms across his chest, then went about getting ready to go to sleep.
Shikamaru's voice stopped him cold again. "Would it make you feel better if I told you that you were the only one who noticed?"
"What?!" Neji tried to jump in front of Shikamaru's gaze, but the ghost just frowned and floated a few inches sideways. "How could no one else have noticed? It was so obvious! It would be hard to not have noticed!"
"Maybe to you," Shikamaru said lazily, "but everyone else was focused on themselves."
"Even Sasuke?" Neji challenged, again getting in the way of Shikamaru's gaze.
With the air of one giving in to the demands of a small child, Shikamaru sighed and stood up so he was at eye level with Neji. "Naruto was too focused on worrying about Sasuke's strange behavior to notice - he's lying to us about something, by the way - and Shino and Kiba were too focused on trying to get the patrol together; why else do you think Kiba suggested it? If they think anything at all about it, they'll think that I refused patrol to let them be together. The only thing Sasuke noticed was your adverse reaction to everything I said and did tonight - which was totally suspicious, by the way; you weren't fooling anyone. Face it, Neji: you were the only who picked up on it, because you were the only one paying enough attention to me to notice."
A resounding silence filled the room as Neji absorbed all of this. "How do you… How do you know all of that?"
"Because I know people, Neji," Shikamaru said clearly, fixing his piercing gaze on Neji's own. "I know how people work, what makes them tick. I knew about Kiba and Shino's relationship before they did, and they've been dating for over two decades and Naruto only picked up on it yesterday. I had Sasuke figured out enough to decide whether or not to trust him with the span of a single game of chess. I know people, Neji, and I'm very good at what I do."
"And what about me?" Neji asked quietly, almost afraid to voice his suspicions.
Shikamaru's eyes lit up in smug delight. "Ah, yes. You. Here we come to the heart of the issue."
"Let me guess: I'm the one exception to your ability to pick people apart," Neji snapped. "Well, you can forget about whatever line you're trying to play off of that, because I'm not going to fall for it."
"And that's where you're not quite right," Shikamaru intoned lazily, stretching as if he had no concern in the world but regarding Neji shrewdly out of the corner of his eye. "Exception, yes. To my ability, no. You see, Neji, I know all about you, perhaps even better than you do. But it's all a lie. You, Neji Hyuuga, are living a lie."
"I'm not-" Neji started to deny hotly, but Shikamaru cut him off by seizing his shoulders and freezing him in place with that piercing gaze of his.
"You are living a lie, Neji, you just won't admit it to yourself," Shikamaru said with an intensity that Neji had never seen in him before. "There's something inside you, something buried deep in your past, that made you like you are. It's a persona that you've created, though, not the real you, and sometimes you slip up."
"When?" Neji asked, feeling a little lightheaded.
With the smile of a cat who has trapped the mouse, Shikamaru said, "This afternoon. Don't you remember?"
Without his bidding, the scene started to replay itself in Neji's mind, and he was lost in the memory.
Neji woke when the sun started to dip below the canopy of the trees, the sudden shade leaving him bereft of the comfortable warmth that had lulled him into slumber in the first place. As soon as this source of heat was lost, though, he became aware of another, lesser but still strong, source of warmth next to him. Cracking his eyes open, he saw that Shikamaru was laying next him, no longer gazing at the clouds, but gazing at him.
The thought made him smile in his drowsy state, and he asked sleepily, "Do I change shape if you keep looking at me, like the clouds?"
The question caused Shikamaru's eyes to narrow almost imperceptibly. "Apparently."
"What?"
"Nevermind."
Frowning slightly, Neji tried to shake off his concern and return to the warmth of before. He reached a hand up to brush the hair that had escaped from his ponytail away from his face, only to be surprised when Shikamaru's hand came with it. "Shikamaru? Why are you holding my hand?"
A slight chuckle from the phantom. "You're holding my hand."
"Oh!" Neji looked down at their interlocked hands, and was surprised to find that his hand was indeed holding onto Shikamaru's. "Sorry."
"Don't be." Shikamaru reach up with his free hand and brushed the errant hair away. "I like watching you sleep. You remind me of a fairy."
Neji wrinkled his nose up. "A fairy? Like Tinkerbelle?"
"Tinkerbelle's a pixie. No, I mean a real fairy, like the Druid spirits of ancient Celtic myth. A young, innocent boy, asleep on the forest floor. The likeness is uncanny."
"Except for the suit," Neji reminded him, poking him with their conjoined hands playfully. "That's not exactly period."
"I guess you're right," Shikamaru admitted with a soft smile.
They shared a gentle laugh together at their private joke, then Neji turned his gaze toward the sky. To his slight alarm, the sun was much lower in the sky that it had been when he had first closed his eyes.
"Shikamaru, how long have I been asleep?" He asked, panic starting to creep into his voice.
"An hour or so. I wasn't really paying attention."
"And you didn't wake me up?" Neji suddenly vaulted from the ground, desperately trying to brush off the evidence of nature from his clothes. "Shikamaru! Sasuke's already back at the Hokage, and here I am, God knows where! For God's sake, why didn't you wake me up? And why did you make me lay down here? I'm covered in this crap!"
Shikamaru didn't move from his spot on the ground as he watched Neji rant.
"I'll never get this out- Do you know how expensive this suit was? And it's in my hair, too… I can't believe this… Why did I let you convince me to do this?"
"Because you had fun," Shikamaru said quietly.
Neji stopped what he was doing and gave Shikamaru a long look, then shook his head and ignored the comment. "How long will it take us to get back to the Hokage?"
"Half an hour. Twenty minutes if we run."
"Half an hour?! Mother-" Catching himself just in time again, Neji balled his hands into fists and gritted his teeth. "Fine. Fine! Let's just get going."
"Your point?" Neji asked pointedly, his teeth gritted like they had been when his memory broke off.
"My point is that you really are like a cloud," Shikamaru said, his gaze flicking back and forth between Neji's eyes like a hyper laser beam. "You change right in front of me when I look at you long enough. You try to create your persona of this cold individual, but it's not perfect. People like you are irresistible to people like me, Neji. Your very existence makes me want to peel back your layers and expose the true you. And it will be more fun than I've had in decades."
"Fun? So this is just a game to you?" Neji tried to pull back, but Shikamaru refused to let him go.
"Everything is a game," he breathed, and Neji was lost listening to the faint sound. "Games can make a pointless existence feel like it has meaning again."
"People can still get hurt playing games," he gasped out, losing himself in that dark gaze.
Shikamaru blinked once, very deliberately. "What did I tell you? Not if you make the rules."
"So?"
"So make the rules, Neji."
It took Neji a few seconds to understand, but when he did, a grin crept across his face and he pulled back, out of Shikamaru's reach. "You know, I've been thinking about our game from earlier. What do you think about a rematch?"
A matching grin slipped across Shikamaru's face, and he pulled up the sheets draping off the bed to reveal a chess set already hidden there. "I thought you'd never ask."
"Just- no stripping this time," Neji said with slightly weak authority as Shikamaru waved his hand and brought out the chessboard, unconsciously tugging his shirtsleeves down a little more.
"I have plenty more kinds of chess to play," Shikamaru laughed, pulling out the pieces and arranging them on the board with his mind. "Black or white?"
"White."
"You catch on fast."
"If I didn't, you wouldn't have as much fun playing with me."
"Right you are," Shikamaru said, pulling the black set in front of him and arranging the white in front of Neji, who sat down opposite him at the board. "Well, how would like to play? Shots Chess is fun, but we don't have any vodka. There's always Interrogation Chess - that's a classic - but something a little more is required for tonight, and Truth or Dare Chess is too similar. Do you have any ideas?"
Neji bit back a smile as he suggested, "How about Riddle Chess?"
Shikamaru's eyes lit up in delight, as Neji had known they would. "Riddle Chess? I can't say I've ever heard of it."
"Of course you won't have heard of it. I made it up." The deliberate parroting of Shikamaru's earlier words back at him made an amused gleam cross his face. "It's just like normal chess, except when you make a capture, you also have to pose a riddle. If your opponent can't solve the riddle, then you take the piece, but if they do solve it, they take your piece."
"A game of wits within a game of strategy," Shikamaru practically hissed with excitement. "I like the way you make the rules, Neji. Very well, let us play your Riddle Chess. White moves first