Sorry it's been so long, but I've been without a computer this summer that could upload. That being said, I never abandoned my story, so I've been working on it the whole summer and am now almost done! You should be able to expect about an update a day until at least the main story is done (epilogues may take a week). Thank you to everyone who has been reading my story and supporting me! It really means a lot to me!

Addi out

The place the Akatsuki had asked Sasuke and Neji to search through for clues was an old library outside of town, its walls covered in wards so airtight, no ghost would ever be able to go inside. It was housed in a shack in only slightly better repair than the old Akatsuki shack, but one that was abandoned long ago and now populated only by rats and mold spores.

The books themselves were all old, older than even the tomes of the comprehensive library of the Hyuuga family, and gave off the undeniable scent of long-dead memories pressed between the forgotten paged of abandoned books, which mixed sickeningly with the cloying scent of plaster dust and the mold that thrived in the humid atmosphere. The air inside the shack was thick with motes almost as large as the grains of sand on Gaara's beach that flurried about Sasuke and Neji's faces with every breath they exhaled and rose up in greater multitudes every time a book was closed violently or a new shelf disturbed. All in all, it was an abjectly miserable place to work.

Their background knowledge of the spectral world had been innumerably helpful in picking over the tomes and deciding which ones would be useful, so their search had gone much faster than the previous tenant of the old library, but still slower than they would have liked.

It took five full days for Sasuke and Neji to find something relevant to what they were actually looking for, five days of constant searching, of sleeping alone, of fending off Neji's glares and Sakura's anger and of wondering if he'd made the right choice. But Uchihas were made to be cold, so Sasuke froze his face and didn't let his feelings show.

Most of the books were handwritten records of strange occurrences and old legends made almost indecipherable by age, so Sasuke and Neji didn't make the effort to try and read the darker scrawl of the more recent legends or the ones pertaining to specific ghosts. Those legends were probably caused by the Kyuubi, but not pertaining to its conception, so Neji and Sasuke ruled those books out easily. Naruto had told Sasuke that the oldest ghost is Konoha was about two hundred years old, which, if he was at the oldest age possible before he would fade and the Kyuubi was introduced, freezing him in place in Konoha, placed the introduction of the Kyuubi in about the late nineteenth century. With this narrowed down, Sasuke and Neji could ignore a vast majority of the books to the front of the old shack, which saved them a lot of time, but also placed them where the dust was thickest. It got so bad that Sasuke ended up buying two bandanas from a street stall for himself and Neji to tie around their noses and mouths so they could actually breathe.

They found their first clue almost by accident. Sasuke and Neji had started with records from about the turn of the twentieth century and worked backwards from there, but on the fifth day they reached the very earliest records from the eighteen twenties, when the town had been founded, without having found anything of value. At this discovery, Sasuke angrily slammed the book he was holding shut, then immediately regretted his rash action when it sent a plume of dust into the air, causing both his and Neji's millionth coughing fit that day.

"Sasuke," Neji complained, trying unsuccessfully to wave the dust away from his bandana-clad face. "Was that really necessary?"

Sasuke didn't answer, just plopped down dejectedly on a rickety old wooden chair they had found in the back of the library-shack. "I can't believe we didn't find anything at all!" He mourned, pulling his bandana off of his face and shaking it to clear the dust from it. "Five days of work, and what do we have to show for it? Nothing."

"The Akatsuki's spy has been looking for three years," Neji pointed out, also pulling off his bandana momentarily to shake it clean. "It's unlikely, even with our expertise, to find something in less than a week they they couldn't find in three years. Buck up, Sasuke. We knew skimming through like this would be a long shot anyway."

"Yes," Sasuke admitted with a sour expression, "but I thought we'd have found at least something, even if it was just the tiniest clue. We still have nothing to go on. And it was all boring stuff, too, not interesting at all! God, this was such a waste of time."

"True," Neji admitted, sitting down on the window ledge next to Sasuke. "The most interesting thing I found was this entry about a fox-breeding farm on an island that burned down, killing everyone except the daughter, who moved here. It was a really wealthy family, too, but the fire destroyed everything except the reputation of the family. Apparently they weren't very well liked. It was kinda like reading one of those dramatic little novels - what are they called? Penny dreadfuls?"

Something about the story struck Sasuke as familiar, and a frown slipped onto his face as he tried to figure out where he might have heard it before. When he finally placed it, a sinking sensation took over his stomach, and he clenched his hands.

"Do you remember the name of the family?" He asked, trying not to let his mounting suspicion and panic show in his face or voice.

"Oozey-something, maybe? Sorry, I don't quite remember." Neji shrugged in apology.

"Was it Uzumaki?"

Neji's eyes lit up in recognition. "Yeah, that sounds about right. And the girl's name was Kushina, I believe."

A million things started running through Sasuke's head, but the loudest of all was the rumbling suspicion that it was too convenient to be true, but also to convenient not to be true. It couldn't be, his mind cried with delirious disbelief. It couldn't have been this close to us the entire time!

Standing abruptly, Sasuke barked, "Neji, does the Hyuuga family keep a list of all known families with some kind of generational gift?"

The sharply voiced question shocked Neji for a second, then he frowned. "Yes, we do. It's kind of a secret, though. Why do you ask?"

Sasuke ignored his question and asked another one of his own. "Do you have someone you could call to look up a name for you?"

"I can do one better: I have a copy of the list with me on my phone. All Hyuugas are required to bring it with them when they travel as a security precaution. Again, I ask: why?"

Sasuke locked gazed with Neji. "Because I want you to look up a name."

Neji's eyes grew wide with understanding and slight panic. "You don't think… You can't be serious!"

"I am."

"Why? What tipped you off?" Neji asked harshly.

"A few weeks ago, when I first came to Konoha, Naruto," - Sasuke choked slightly on the name - "told me something about his mother, how she came to Konoha after her entire family died in a fire, and how she was distrusted by the locals, not just for being rich, but because of something called the 'Uzumaki Fox Curse', something that Naruto still suffers in fear of, even though he doesn't know what it is."

"And you think this 'Fox Curse' is the Kyuubi?" Neji gasped.

"It's the only lead we have so far," Sasuke said a little regretfully. "I don't know what to think, but we don't have a choice if we want to get anywhere. Where's the book you read it in?"

"It's in my stack over there," Neji said, pointing to a large, tottering stack of books that looked almost ready collapse, and Sasuke almost groaned aloud. "It's a little smaller than the others and has a red cover, so it should be pretty easy for you to find while I look up the name."

Shaking his head, Sasuke reluctantly pulled his bandana mask back over his nose and mouth before diving into the stack of books as Neji pulled out his phone.

Twice, the stack almost fell over on top of Sasuke, but he managed to save it each time by way of some fancy footwork and contortion a circus acrobat would be proud of. Eventually, he spotted the spine of the book, which, of course, was buried underneath at least fifteen larger volumes. Gritting his teeth in annoyance, Sasuke took hold of the book and pulled, yanking it out from underneath all the other books. For a few seconds, he held it triumphantly in his clutches, then the rest of stack toppled over almost in slow motion, sending up a veritable plume of dust and the sound of cracking book spines as it landed.

"Really, Sasuke?" Neji remarked pointedly with a single raised eyebrow.

"Shut up," Sasuke snapped. "I found it, and that's all that matters."

"So did I," Neji said, and Sasuke's stomach plummeted. "Uzumaki: a wealthy family originally from Japan that immigrated to the States and to Maine in the early seventeen hundreds. They bought a small island and started breeding foxes to sell for their fur, eventually cutting themselves off from all contact with the outside world because of their curse."

"This is it," Sasuke said quietly. "It can't not be it. Damn it! It's been in front of me the whole time!"

"You can't blame yourself," Neji interjected kindly, lowering his phone to his side. "You couldn't have known."

Sasuke ignored him and sat back down in the chair, passing a hand over his eyes. "Just keep reading."

Clearing his throat, Neji brought his phone back up to continue reading. "Where was I?... cutting themselves off … no, after that… ah, here we are! Their curse: one Uzumaki every generation, starting with the death of the previous cursed family member, becomes a magnet and a channel for spectral energy, drawing all ghosts in the area to him and strengthening them. In this way, they are the opposite of families like the Hyuuga and the Uchiha, whose goal is to help ghosts fade and set them to rest, because any ghost in prolonged contact with the Kyuubi, as the cursed individual is known, will find it impossible to fade."

Sasuke shot out of his chair and grabbed Neji's collar in fury. "You had that information this whole time and didn't tell me?!"

Pushing Sasuke away, Neji spat, "There's over three thousand families from all over the world catalogued in this list; I don't know every single one, especially those marked as having died out!"

"You could have at least had the foresight to look when you got here noticed how everything in this town has gone to shit!" Sasuke accused, stabbing an angry finger in Neji's face.

"Look, maybe your family isn't afraid of your little holy water and silver knife tricks getting leaked, but to a Hyuuga, information like this is our only weapon, so we guard it with our lives and don't whip it out at every little minor thing that comes our way!" Neji slapped Sasuke's hand away and glared at him. "Do you want to hear the rest of it or not?"

"Yes," Sasuke said tersely, sitting back down in the chair with a huff.

Clearing his throat slightly, Neji looked back down at his phone and continued reading. "In addition to increasing the number of ghosts in an area, the presence of a Kyuubi will increase the strength of the individual ghosts. Great caution should be used if a Kyuubi is detected, for his presence can exacerbate the powers of many types of dangerous ghosts and often draws in powerful spirits like a moth to flame. The Kyuubi can also jump start the process of creating the rare phantom by strengthening the spirit and mind of a specter. After death, the power of the Kyuubi flows to a relative of direct descent. The Uzumaki family is to be allowed their isolation and avoided at all costs. Note: bloodline died out in the early twentieth century. No known Uzumakis still exist today."

Sasuke had sprung back out of the chair and started pacing halfway through this speech. "Everything's making much mores sense now. When Naruto," - again, he flinched slightly at the name - "first told me about the so-called 'Fox Curse' of his family, he mentioned several things. The first was that his mother hadn't been allowed to take his father's name when she'd married him - she had to remain an Uzumaki - and likewise, Naruto had to take his mother's maiden name, not his father's. An unorthodox procedure by church standards of the time, but necessary because of the curse. And the unnatural fear the 'Curse' caused in the townsfolk: everyone knew about it, but no one knew just what it was. He found it strange, but it must have been the aura of the Kyuubi unconsciously turning people away."

"Even though we know the source of the Kyuubi now, it doesn't get us any closer to finding it," Neji pointed out. "Kushina's dead, Naruto's dead, the whole family's dead- it's a generational curse, Sasuke. There's no one left to be the Kyuubi."

Sasuke cleared a long space down the old library with a few well-placed shoves and started pacing back and forth with impunity, whirling with such abandon at each turn that he almost left the floor. "But it gives us something to work from. In the late nineteenth century, Kushina came to Konoha and she was the last Uzumaki alive, so it stands to reason that she must have been the Kyuubi at that point, correct?"

"It coincides with the first spike in spectral activity in Konoha, so that's a safe assumption."

"And she died in an accident over thirty years later with her husband and child," Sasuke mused. "With all the Uzumakis gone, where would a curse like that go? Would it just disappear?"

"That's unlikely." Neji folded his arms across his chest as he watched Sasuke pace. "With a curse as old as that one - probably at least ten generations or so - it would have gained an almost human-like ego. Curses like that don't just disappear; it'd have found something else to attach itself to."

"Like what?" Sasuke asked impatiently.

"Another person, most likely, but an inanimate object is also conceivable. It would depend on the situation and proximity to other people. If there was another person within a reasonable distance who was similar enough to the Uzumakis to be judged comparable, it would have jumped to them and started a new generational curse in that family, but without their knowledge. If there wasn't anyone suitable in range, it would have transferred itself to an object and latched on to the first person that touched it. Either way, it'd be almost impossible to track down now."

"There's one thing that's not fitting, though," Sasuke mused, scratching his chin idly as he thought. "Naruto and his family didn't die in Konoha; they were actually quite far away, or at least far enough so that the effects of the Kyuubi's curse wouldn't have been felt. That means that the curse must have traveled back to Konoha within a relatively short period of time. How long do you think the ghosts could last without its effects?"

"A year or two for the weaker ones," Neji guessed with a shrug. "Maybe five or ten for the stronger ones."

"Damn, that's too big of a gap to get anything concrete on." Sasuke bit the inside of his cheek in thought, then his eyes lit up as something dawned on him. "Neji, if, during the crash, Kushina had died first, would the curse then have been transferred to Naruto without his knowledge?"

"It's entirely plausible," Neji said with a frown, "but I don't see where that gets us. Curses like that need a living body to function; it would have left Naruto as soon as he died just like it left his mother."

"And so, we're back to square one," Sasuke sighed discontentedly, flopping back down into the chair. "We're still no closer to finding the Kyuubi that we were five days ago."

"That's not true," Neji argued.

"How so?"

"We have more information now," he clarified. "In my family, information is considered the highest form of power. Even if we don't know how that information might become useful, it's better to have it than not."

"We're still not getting anywhere just talking about it," Sasuke pointed out.

All of a sudden, something hit him, something that had been nagging at the back of his mind, and he jumped up and snatched his satchel from the floor, stuffing the small red book inside it. "Neji, we have to get back to the Hokage! I have an idea!"

"What? What is it?" Neji had to run awkwardly to keep up with Sasuke as he darted out of the library. "Sasuke! Tell me what's going on!"

"The scrapbook!" He yelled over his shoulder. "It had pictures of Naruto and his family in it! What if it wasn't something to catch our attention like we thought, but a clue from the Akatsuki's spy?"

"That would mean they've gotten at least as far as we have in figuring this out!" Neji panted, trying not to fall too far behind Sasuke.

"But the question is, did they already tell the Akatsuki what they know?"

Both Sasuke and Neji froze in their tracks as the implications of the question hit them, and they shared a quick, terrified glance before exchanging hard nods and taking off again without a word.

When they got back to the Hokage, Sasuke and Neji darted up the stairs and into suite 2B without even nodding to Choji at the reception desk, who muttered, "Rude," after their disappearing backs. Without thinking, Sasuke flung open the door to his room with a bang, only to find that there was someone already inside.

Kabuto was standing at the foot of the bed, tucking the corner of the sheet under that mattress, and he looked up at the sudden intrusion. "Ah, young Mr. Uchiha. I was just changing your sheets for you-"

The world flashed abruptly red in Sasuke's vision again, and he snapped, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Kabuto's sharp eyes narrowed. "I work here," he said pointedly.

"Then why haven't I seen you around before?" Sasuke challenged, a hot blood rising under his skin.

"Because I normally work the ground floor," Kabuto explained clearly, his eyes flashing between Sasuke, who looked like he was going to explode from anger, to Neji, who looked apologetic. "Tenten usually does these rooms, but she's been sick so much that Kakashi's let her off for a couple of weeks."

"You know," Sasuke seethed, the air coming in hot pants from between his teeth, "I'm having a hard time believing that story. You wanna tell it to me again, just to be sure it's true?"

A cold glint appeared in Kabuto's eyes. "I won't repeat myself. You're being immature about this. If you'll allow me a few minutes, I shall be finished with my task and you can have your room back-"

Without warning, Sasuke launched himself forward and grabbed Kabuto's collar, slamming him into the wall and knocking down the framed picture hung there. The look in Kabuto's eyes showed only shock and surprise mixed with a little fear, but Sasuke couldn't help himself; his mouth and hands were no longer his own, under the control of his mind.

Shaking Kabuto, Sasuke spat at him, "It was you, wasn't it? You were the rat the whole time! Just confess it! I know it was you!"

"Get the hell off me!" Kabuto yelled, struggling uselessly against Sasuke's iron grip, but the Uchiha refused to let him go.

"Not until you confess it was you who left the scrapbook and who's been reporting back to them this whole time!"

"Sasuke!"

Neji tackled Sasuke from behind and managed to somehow drag him away from Kabuto, kicking and screaming like a lunatic.

"I'll remember this," Kabuto accused as he made his escape, slipping around the still flailing Sasuke almost escaping Neji's grip. Just before leaving, he yelled, "That was assault! I could get you put in jail for that!"

"Try it!" Sasuke screamed, but Kabuto was already gone. "Neji, let go of me! I need to go after him! He's the rat!"

"No, he's not!" Neji got both of Sasuke's hands trapped behind him in an armlock, hauling back on him when he tried to run out of the room after Kabuto. "He's not the rat! Sasuke, what's gotten into you? You're not acting like yourself at all!"

"Then maybe you never really knew the true me!" Sasuke roared, yanking himself free from Neji's grasp with a vicious twisting movement.

Neji was silent for a few long seconds, and Sasuke started to wonder if something was wrong with him. Then Neji shook his head slowly, and the only emotion radiating from him was pure disappointment.

"I thought you were different, Sasuke. I thought you were smart, like me. But you're just like them, aren't you?"

"Like who?" Sasuke spat, wiping saliva off his jaw from where it was dripping from his mouth.

"If you were yourself, you wouldn't even need to ask."

"I am myself!" Sasuke defended, but his tottering stance and vacant eyes told another story.

"No, you're not," Neji said sadly. "And you won't be until you can regain what sanity you've lost."

"I haven't lost anything-" Sasuke tried to protest, pointing angrily at Neji, but his swinging arm displaced his balance, sending him tumbling to the floor.

The only thing Neji felt while looking at Sasuke was pity. Here was this proud man, still struggling with the ramifications of his pride, brought low. It was a spectral malady, he was sure of it, one that caused a deterioration of the mind, and he'd watched it take its toll on the strong Uchiha over the past five days.

It hadn't taken them five days to find the first clue; it had only taken two, but Sasuke had been too out of it to make much sense of it, and he'd forgotten almost immediately after, sparking the cycle they were in now. For the past four days, Neji had been having the exact same conversation with Sasuke, building a little more onto it each time, and it was starting to wear on him. In a moment of clarity, Sasuke had made the connection between the Uzumakis and the scrapbook today, but he'd devolved back into madness as soon as he'd spotted Kabuto in his room.

For once in his life, Neji was scared to admit he didn't know what to do. He was the thinker, but Sasuke was the planner, and with Sasuke this drastically out of the picture, he didn't know what action he should take.

He settled for the one immediately obvious to him: he seized Sasuke's arms and hauled him up off the floor, gently guiding him to the bed. When he let go, Sasuke tottered for a moment in the absence of support, then let the force of gravity take over his body and flop him down on the covers in a state somewhere between an epileptic fit and a coma. A line of whitened spittle trailed down Sasuke jawline, but he seemed relatively stable, so Neji chose that moment to back away and escape.

Why am I so calm about this? Neji wondered with a sense of detachment as he softly closed the door behind him as to not disturb the partially comatose Sasuke. I should be in full panic mode right now! Why am I not batting an eye?

Perhaps it was the abject hopelessness of the situation or the abruptness of Neji's involvement that was keeping him calm. Or maybe he was just in shock and had no emotions available to him. Whatever the reason, he felt oddly detached but connected at the same time, like an NPC programmed to stand in one place and not move, even when the city was burning around him. It was a frightening and liberating feeling at the same time.

The fright and freeness were mostly centered around the leadership position Neji never thought he'd have to take on. Though he was loath to admit it, he was not offered much field responsibly in the Hyuuga clan, so this was the first true 'case' he'd ever handled on his own, and he had the feeling he was failing miserably. But it wasn't as if he could just call for help, because if he did that, he could lose something important to him, something he'd recently discovered that meant more to him than he ever thought he could feel.

With a sigh and mixed feelings of euphoria and trepidation, Neji pushed open the door to the room he was staying in. The figure hunched over the chessboard in the center of the room didn't look up at the sound of the door latching behind him.

"How is he? Not any better, I presume from your expression."

"Even worse, if that's possible. He's foaming at the mouth now."

This did make Shikamaru look up. "That bad?"

"That bad," Neji confirmed. "I don't know what to do."

"Do you think any of his supplies could work on him? The holy water and rock salt and stuff?"

But Neji only shook his head. "Those things only work on spirits who are no longer attached to a body. Besides, Sasuke's not religious. Religious artifacts only work if you believe they will. It's kind of like a placebo effect."

"Interesting." Shikamaru's eyes narrowed, and Neji got the feeling that he was storing the information away for another time, and didn't quite know how he felt about it. "And you have no idea what could be causing it?"

"Well," Neji said slowly, "I have a few ideas, but nothing I'm sure about yet."

"Let's hear 'em, then." Shikamaru gestured to the empty space on the opposite side of the chessboard, and Neji sat down and idly made a move in the half-complete game.

This was the nature of the interactions between Neji and Shikamaru now, and he quite liked it that way. The stolen moments at the chessboard were like hidden shards of a covetous gem, and they had added up, over the last five days, to three full games and the half done one in front of them now, all of which Neji had lost but none of which he had minded losing. Shikamaru was just so good that it simply wasn't a possibility for Neji to win, and yet, somehow, they both enjoyed playing anyway, regardless that the outcome of the game was already decided before the first piece was even moved.

These thoughts shrouded Neji's mind like a kind of mystical veil as he stared blandly at the chessboard, not even registering Shikamaru's move until the phantom prompted him.

"It's your move."

Starting slightly at the words, Neji shook his head to clear his thoughts and placed a pensive finger on the head of his knight.

"As much as I'd like to think I know, the Uchiha are a completely unique entity from the Hyuuga, and much of my expertise doesn't even apply to him. For example, the way the eyes of the Uchiha work vary greatly from the Hyuuga, even though we both have powers of spectral perception. The Sharingan of the Uchiha deals much more with the actual spiritual plane of existence, which makes them more susceptible to imbalances in spectral energy."

"Imbalances like the one caused by the Kyuubi?"

"No," Neji said with a frown, "that shouldn't have this much effect on him. The Kyuubi seems, for the most part, to be a benevolent entity. No, I'm talking about an even greater imbalance, one that would upset even the mind of someone ignorant on the world of ghosts."

"Like spending an extended period of time in the presence of a group of Akatsuki," Shikamaru finished for him, a glimmer of understanding lighting up his gaze. "His mood swings did start at about the same time, and I could tell that something was off about his aura."

"But that couldn't have been the only factor," Neji said slowly, moving his finger to the top of his rook. "The insanity didn't set in until after we started working in the old library. There's no way Akatsuki influence would set in that late. His brother-" He cut off abruptly, not sure whether he had the right to reveal any personal information of that situation.

"Tell me, Neji. If I'm going to be able to help you, I need to know everything I can." Shikamaru placed a reassuring hand on Neji's arm. "I'm not going to hurt Sasuke. I need to know to help him."

With a new resolve, Neji moved his finger back to the head of his knight and placed it with a sharp clack deeper into enemy territory. "His older brother had a similar encounter, but he went mad the second he walked away. The reaction wouldn't be delayed like that. Besides, Itachi's madness was different than Sasuke's is now."

"How so?"

"Itachi became confused and violent, and Sasuke's just… confused. His mind just isn't functioning normally, and that's because his aura is out of whack."

"Interesting." Shikamaru flicked a finger and moved a bishop a few spaces. "And nothing in the library would have caused this?"

Neji shook his head. "The wards shouldn't be strong enough to. The main Uchiha household has the same kind of wards around it, and he's visited that plenty of times. I also wouldn't be surprised if his own house had wards of the same sort. They only work, again, on spirits that don't have a body to anchor them."

"Hmm..." Shikamaru steepled his hands together, his brow furrowing in thought. "And there's nothing else you can think of? No major shifts or changes?"

"The only other thing I can think of is that he abruptly cut himself off from a spectral interaction, and his body might be going through withdrawal," Neji speculated, moving his rook to mirror Shikamaru's bishop.

"That can happen?"

"Altogether too often. He's been unnaturally close to Naruto these past few weeks, even going so far as to sleep in extreme close quarters, correct?"

A frown decorated the bridge of Shikamaru's nose with a delicate wrinkle. "Yes."

"Then his body has become used to constant spectral pressure, and an unusually strong pressure at that. This could be his body reacting to no longer having that pressure to press on and mold his aura. Though I've never heard of a case as bad or long lasting as this."

"If you're right, and that is the real reason, we need to keep it from Naruto." Shikamaru, in a bold move, brought out his queen and slammed it down almost in the center of the board, fixing Neji with a strong gaze. "He'll feel like this is all his fault, and that'll make him impossible to deal with."

Neji gave a harsh nod. "Agreed."

"You guys are assholes, you know?"

Both Neji and Shikamaru stiffened and swung their gazes over to the window, where Naruto was leaning against the wall with clenched fists.

"You were going to keep that from me? Just because you thought I couldn't handle it?"

"Naruto-" Shikamaru started gently, but Naruto cut him off with an extravagant sweep of his arm.

"I'm the one who first met Sasuke, I'm the one who befriended him and dragged him into this mess, and I'm the one who's been lying next to him when he's been sleeping for the past few weeks! I deserve to know what's going on!"

Neji stood up and tried to reach out to the distraught phantom. "Naruto-"

"No!" Naruto yelled, pushing his hand out in Neji's direction and sending a wave of pure power to knock him over. "I will not be quiet! I will not stand by when someone I care about is in trouble and hurting! If not being near me is hurting him, then if I just go see him, he'll get better!"

The warning bells started sounding in Neji's head, and he started struggling to his feet. "No, that's a very bad idea! Don't go near him right now!"

Naruto rounded on Neji, knocking him down on his ass again. "Why? Why can't I see him? It's going to help him!"

"It's not going to help him!" Neji choked out, the pressure from Naruto's anger making it difficult to breathe. "It's going to make him worse!"

"Why?"

"Because his system is weak right now! In the state he's in, a power surge from you could really mess him up!"

"You can't know that!" With a shock, Neji realized that there were tears forming in Naruto's eyes. "I could help him!"

"You don't know that!" Neji yelled back.

Even Shikamaru stood up, the tension of the situation forcing him into an active role. "Regardless of the situation, giving someone a hit of something when they're almost clean is never a good idea."

Unfortunately, that proved almost less effective than Neji's tactics. Naruto immediately rounded on Shikamaru, a wave of power blasting through him as well, though he stood up to it better than Neji had. "I am not a drug!"

"Naruto, you need to calm down-" Neji tried, but Naruto cut him off again.

"I don't care what you say, if Sasuke needs me, I'll go to him! I left him alone with the Akatsuki-"

"We all agreed to leave him alone, not just you!" Shikamaru interjected, but Naruto rounded on him again, blasting more power at him this time, enough to make him stagger back a few steps.

"Quit lying to me!" Naruto almost screamed, grabbing at his temples and drawing in on himself in the corner. "I know it's all my fault! It's my fault Sasuke's like this, and I have to fix it!"

A wave of sudden panic surged through Neji; Naruto was a strong phantom normally, and the extra volatility from his sudden anger added a substantial layer of danger to the situation. The power blasts Naruto had let out were bouncing around the room and intensifying every second with his mounting fear.

"Naruto, you need to calm down! This isn't helping anything-" Neji tried to say, but Naruto glared up at him with wild eyes and sent another blast of energy, even stronger than the last, at him, slamming him back into the wall with enough force to make him see stars for a moment. Not sure if his eyes were playing tricks on him or not, Neji thought he saw Shikamaru's head turn toward him with an expression of worry and his mouth open the slightest bit, as if to call out his name, but the moment was over in a flash and Shikamaru turned his hard gaze back to Naruto, leaving Neji to wonder if he had imagined it.

"Naruto!" Shikamaru's voice broke out into the room like the harsh crack of a whip. "Get ahold of yourself!"

"I have ahold of myself!" Naruto screamed right back, his eyes a measure of the depravity inside his mind.

"No, you don't!"

"Yes, I do!" Naruto pointed an accusing finger at Shikamaru. "And to prove it, I'm going to go in there and make Sasuke feel better right now!"

With an angry toss of his head, Naruto turned sharply and strode towards the wall. Having just gotten enough wind back from having the breath knocked out of him, Neji managed to croak, "You can't…. Have to… stop him…"

Shikamaru's head twisted around sharply, meeting his eyes with his own, and in that split second when their gazes aligned, Neji felt a moment of complete understanding pass between them, and something, some barrier inside him, crumbled away to reveal a tiny part of his heart he had never noticed before. But the moment was gone almost as soon as it had come, and Shikamaru turned back and held out a hand in front of him.

"I didn't want to do this, but you've left me with no choice, Naruto. Shadow Bind."

As soon as the intonation had left Shikamaru's lips, a black cord, dark as a shadow and much thicker, darted out and grabbed hold of Naruto's arm, stopping him dead in his tracks. The cord twined up Naruto's arm and wrapped itself around his torso, holding him fast as he struggled against the bonds.

"The fuck, Shikamaru! What the hell is this?"

"You've always called me 'The Shadowmaster'," Shikamaru intoned expressionlessly, a look of absolute concentration on his face. "You just never understood how accurate that name really was."

The puppet master; the force in the shadows; the manipulator from the shadows; the manipulator of the shadows: the Shadowmaster. It fit, so securely and neatly that Neji wondered how he'd never noticed it before. The power radiating from Shikamaru was pure, unadulterated darkness, but not a cold, evil dark like that of the Akatsuki. It was, rather, the warm dark of a humid summer's night, muggy from the damp coastal air and enveloping Neji with a welcome and a promise of more sultry darkness to follow, if Neji was brave enough to step into it. Or perhaps that was just Neji's wishful thinking, but it still felt like the darkness was inviting him in, no matter the reason behind it.

This was no ordinary spectral power. This was - had to be - a hereditary power Shikamaru had kept after death, much like the pyrokinetic Akatsuki Deidara. Neji's eyes narrowed, a suspicion starting to form in his mind. What were the odds of finding a second family with a hereditary gift in the same small town?

Across the room, Naruto's face had gone almost purple with rage during the amount of time Neji had taken to process this new information. Gritting his teeth angrily, he yanked viciously against the bonds suppressing his movement.

"Let… go… of… me!"

With a monumental heave, Naruto succeeded in tearing an arm loose from the dark cords, but they only loosened for a moment before Shikamaru clenched his outstretched hand and the bonds tightened around Naruto once again, biting viciously into his flesh.

"I won't let you go until you have calmed down enough to be reasonable!" Shikamaru declared, a line of strain starting to show on his forehead. "Don't try to fight me, Naruto!"

But Naruto didn't listen, wrenching back and forth against the bonds harder than before. "I said, let go of me!"

"No!"

"LET GO OF ME!"

With a final effort, Naruto sent a bolt of power at Shikamaru so strong, it blasted his control away and blew him backwards into Neji. The force of the impact forced Neji to his knees, almost cradling Shikamaru's head as the shadow bonds disappeared almost immediately, and he beheld with horror that Shikamaru's eyes were closed and his half-corporeal body lifeless. Naruto's expression was torn briefly between guilt and horror over what he'd just done to his friend and worry for the deranged boy next door, but when a choked gasping sound came through the wall, probably a result of the massive wave of power thrown out, worry won over guilt, and Naruto immediately turned and floated hurriedly through the wall, leaving Neji behind, holding the unconscious Shikamaru.

"Shikamaru?" He asked quietly, almost in a whisper, as he tried to shake a little life into the form that was starting to fade into incorporeality and slip through his fingers. "Wake up, Shikamaru! Please wake up!"

As if Neji's voice was all that was needed to call Shikamaru back, the phantom's eyelids flickered a little and cracked open, and a groan dragged itself laboriously from his throat. "What happened?"

"You blacked out," Neji informed him, helping him into a sitting position. "It was only for a few seconds or so, but you still almost gave me a heart attack."

"Hmm." Shikamaru tried to struggle back to his feet, but he couldn't muster the energy, and Neji held him down. "...Naruto's a lot stronger than I give him credit for. He took me by surprise."

"Shikamaru?" Neji asked uncertainly, tightening his grip almost imperceptibly on the phantom's shoulders, but Shikamaru noticed and narrowed his eyes the slightest bit.

"What?" He asked cautiously, the fight-or-flight instinct clear in his eyes. Or perhaps, in his case, the truth-or-bluff instinct.

"What was that black thing? It was… It was yours, right?"

Before the words were even out of Neji's mouth, Shikamaru's expression had closed off and become unreadable, his gaze sliding away from Neji's and his mouth forming into a flat line. Still refusing to meet his eyes or say anything, he pushed away from Neji and stood up, facing the wall and leaving Neji kneeling on the floor looking after him.

"You didn't want me to know," Neji surmised, standing up as well and closing the gap between the two.

A harsh laugh tore itself out of Shikamaru's throat, cold and without humor. "Don't feel special; I don't like anybody to know. I shouldn't have used it today."

"It's a hereditary power, isn't it?"

Shikamaru flinched visibly at that. "How'd you know?"

"Because I have one. I know how they work, and that's not a normal ghost power."

"Not a 'normal' ghost power," Shikamaru echoed wryly. "I guess you're right. We're all a bunch of freaks here."

"You're not a-" Neji tried to say, placing a comforting hand on Shikamaru's shoulder, but a loud thump from through the wall cut him off, and the phantom shook off his hand.

"I should've stopped him," Shikamaru said angrily, clenching his fist. It was the most upset Neji had ever seen the ghost. "I should've been able to keep him."

"It wasn't your fault," Neji said gently, replacing his hand on Shikamaru's shoulder. This time, the ghost turned and look at him, fixing him with a gaze that was both piercing and more vulnerable than he had ever seen before.

"Yes, it was," he said quietly.

Another loud thump resounded through the wall, followed by a few quieter thumps, as if someone had fallen out of bed and rolled a few paces, and both ghost and human snapped their gazes to the wall in concern. A fit of coughing echoed harshly through the barrier, then it dropped off into an almost peaceful quiet.

"Maybe he'll be okay without us," Neji suggested dubiously, hope flickering to life in his breast.

And that's when they heard Naruto's cry of horror.