Welcome to 2018!
Where's that gif of Mushu from Mulan rising up from the ashes being all like "I LIIIIVVVEEE!"? I need that gif.
Ahem. So. I keep accidentally putting this story on hiatus, and I'm sorry for that! The occasional reviews I still get keep it in the back of my mind, and recently a friend turned me on to a writing tool that has me sitting down regularly (okay, at least semi-regularly, at least this week) to write again!
Since my last new chapter posting, I've moved to China, made it from entry-level worker to trainer and manager, and worked my tail off in the process. (I do so miss my tail.) I've also moved apartment at least 3 times (maybe 4?) and changed computers once or twice, lost this fic's old files and found them again, and undergone various worldview and paradigm shifts in my personal life. (So sorry for the whiplash, but please do enjoy smutty Chapter 4 once again and smexy updates to Chapter...was that Chapters 9 and 13 with the flashbacks? ;) ) Also, Naruto Shippuden has finished but I haven't fully caught up to the ending.
This chapter gave me some (read: a ton of) trouble. So here it is, hammered out for better or worse.
Disclaimer reminders: I own nothing, and I do not condone human rights violations.
"So, now that your pretty scientist has seen the light of reason, let's work on you a bit," Shikamaru murmured as he turned to face the chuunin again.
Once he'd gotten the researcher - Tomori-san, he'd learned was her name - to realize what had been going on at the research facility, she had been weeping too hard to actually achieve anything with further questioning at the moment. He'd waved for Kakashi to come forward from the trees behind him, and asked him to take the young woman back to camp.
In her current state of mind, if she gets to know Sakura and Ino a bit, and even Chouji and Genma, guilt will probably make her more willing to share more later. He'd quietly asked Kakashi to ask the others to be 'as human as possible,' and to put her where she could hear their conversations about normal everyday things and see them clearly.
That had been several minutes ago, and Shikamaru figured Kakashi was probably back up in the trees behind him now as the afternoon wore on toward evening.
"She had no idea what she was getting into! You're being really unfair to her!" The chuunin grumbled.
"Am I?" Shikamaru asked him, settling again on the boulder facing the log and the river. "And how about you? Dragging her into something she had no idea about?"
"I didn't drag her into anything! She was already there when I got there."
"Really?"
The chuunin seemed to remember himself, and clamped his mouth shut. Shikamaru chuckled. He seems to still be speaking his mind more freely than before...That sedative may turn out to be the most humane trick I can keep up my sleeve in the future.
"Well, don't worry too much about it. I'm going to piece together everything that's going on eventually."
Still, the chuunin said nothing. It seemed he'd remembered this was an interrogation.
Shikamaru continued after what he considered to be a short, comfortable pause. "Well, it seems like you like her quite a bit. Had you met her before this assignment?"
Silence.
"She's pretty. Kind of arrogant though." Shikamaru fiddled with a pebble from the ground. "Have you known many scientists? Most of the ones I've met are pretty cocky."
More silence. Shikamaru rolled the pebble over the back of each of his knuckles on one hand, then flicked it to the ground and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees.
"Come on, man. You know I've got no personal grudge against you. But I do need to know who wanted to make me and my team into lab rats."
The chuunin didn't seem to be able to figure out where he wanted to look. His eyes kept wandering around the area, occasionally darting to glance at Shikamaru, but never quite meeting his eyes.
Let's change tack. "What's your name?" he asked.
The young man's brow furrowed slightly, and his gaze darted about halfway up Shikamaru's torso - about as bold as he'd gotten so far.
"There can't be any harm telling me what to call you. I'm Shikamaru."
His eyes fell back down to his own shoes, not looking quite as certain of his own anger as he was before.
"I'm pretty lazy myself. I really hate doing troublesome tasks, but I do enjoy watching clouds to see what kind of shapes they make."
The drug must be still taking effect, Shikamaru realized as the chuunin's eyes stole toward the sky, then dipped back to the ground too quickly to really catch a glance of anything up there. He's still coherent enough to realize he shouldn't talk to me, but he's also dazed enough to not be able to hide what he's actually thinking. The genius studied the captive's face, paying special attention to his light brown eyes - the pupils were quite dilated. I wonder what that means for his ability to string sentences together...here's hoping I haven't sabotaged myself by accident with this trick.
After a few moments passed, Shikamaru sat back on his makeshift boulder chair. Not all questioning needed to be so hostile, after all, and if this guy's reactions so far were any indication, then he definitely expected to be brutally interrogated. And there's nothing more useful than the unexpected to put someone off balance. Especially someone in a foggy state of mind.
To turn back to the hard method? That would probably scare the kid plenty, but remembering his own personalized mental torture chamber, the most horrifying things Kakashi's imaginary interrogator had done were...well, obviously horrific. But they weren't what had finally broken him. Some of those times, Shikamaru had actually found his own resolve strengthened by knowing what was coming next, even if it was purely the determination not to let down Hinata for another ten seconds when she needed him most, and then another ten seconds, and then another. Maybe it was simply rage at the horrific, barbaric tactics, but whatever it was, it didn't require thinking once he'd known was was coming. Only endurance.
The most terrifying moments, on the other hand, had been when the interrogator did something totally unexpected. Something that forced Shikamaru to reevaluate everything he thought he'd figured out about the man so far, like the random whim to cut off and keep his eyebrows of all things, when a more purely brutal person would have gone for the more obvious tender zones or more common grotesque trophies. It showed complexity and intelligence, which, Shikamaru decided, seemed to be the difference between simply horrifying and truly terrifying.
And with the chuunin already being so apparently horrified of the foreign unknown enemy that he apparently believed Shikamaru to be, the lazy genius figured the best thing he could do to keep him off balance was switch it up by being a normal decent human being, and seeing what that did to the the kid's already sedative-addled brain.
Shikamaru waited a few more minutes, making a point of studying the clouds. He still kept a watch on the chuunin's expression from the corner of his eye, and after a moment, the chuunin seemed confident to look at Shikamaru for more than a split second. Probably because I'm not looking back at him anymore.
Shikamaru stretched. Then he scratched the back of his head absently. Then he reached for his canteen and took a lazy sip, then gestured it toward the chuunin.
"Thirsty?"
The chuunin started at the sudden interaction, though it actually hadn't been so sudden. He stared at the canteen for a beat, then gave a very small, quick shake of his head. His brown hair ruffled with the vigor of the shake, and Shikamaru shrugged.
"Suit yourself." He put the canteen away, then leaned back propping himself up on his hands. Then he gazed at the sky for another couple of moments, letting the chuunin study him.
"That one kind of looks like a parrot," he said eventually.
To his satisfaction, the chuunin hesitantly followed his gaze, though his eyes flicked back untrustingly at Shikamaru a few times in the process. It was obvious when he'd found the right cloud, because the chuunin's mouth laxed slightly open and then closed again. As the wind shifted the air, the clouds gradually meandered with it until the parrot was no longer recognizable as such. The chuunin's eyes stayed on the cloud until it was no more than a lump of shapeless cotton candy.
"Butterfly over there. That one." Shikamaru gestured with his eyes, and the chuunin followed his gaze more quickly this time. When he found the butterfly-shaped cloud, he nodded.
Next was a puppy rolling on its back, then a stick of dango. Shikamaru skipped pointing out one that kind of resembled a kunai. Then there was a girl's head with a short ponytail. Then a boot.
"So...you're really not gonna tell me your name?" he finally asked, still not looking back at the chuunin.
A couple of moments passed and the breeze rustled. It was actually quite a pleasant day, and Shikamaru found himself actually enjoying the picturesque evening river view as much as the situation could allow.
"Toju." The young man was looking at his feet again, and his voice was so quiet it was barely more than a whisper.
"Hn. Nice to meet you, Toju-san."
First hurdle cleared. Now that he's given me something, it's going to be a little harder for him to stay shut down.
"Don't hurt Tomori-san."
Shikamaru looked back at Toju, who was apparently not completely distracted after all. Hm. Interesting.
"I have no intention of hurting her or anyone else if I can avoid it."
Toju looked for more clouds, but the dusk beginning to creep in made it a bit difficult to see their exact shapes by this time.
"Why not?"
"Why not what?"
Toju's eyes drifted back to his own shoes. "Why aren't you planning to hurt...anyone?"
Shikamaru shrugged. "I told you, I'm lazy. I do what I absolutely have to to protect what's important to me, but that's about it."
"But..." he trailed off for a moment, and Shikamaru just waited. Eventually his foggy mind was able to piece together his question. "But we were a danger to you."
"Are you still?"
"Huh?"
"Are you still a danger to my team?"
Toju seemed perplexed by the question. His forehead scrunched as he considered. "I don't want to be. Maybe I'm like you."
"How's that?"
"I just want to protect what's important, too."
"Like what?"
"Like..." his eyes shifted a bit, away from Shikamaru. "...stuff."
Shikamaru chuckled on the inside. At least the chuunin was still coherent enough to remember that he was trying to avoid answering questions. Maybe time to switch it up again. Something vague, something unexpected. He let the silence stretch for a couple of beats.
"What's it like, back in your village?" he asked.
Toju looked at him with obvious puzzlement. Shikamaru leaned back on the rock, fully lying down on it this time.
"Mine is similar to this. Quiet most of the time. Some grass and trees. A couple nice spots to watch the clouds from."
Toju blinked. The question was written all over his face - he seemed to be trying to figure out what Shikamaru could possibly be trying to gain by asking such an irrelevant question. Shikamaru just waited.
"It's...similar, I guess?"
"Hn. You ever watch the clouds?"
The chuunin's eyes drifted back to the sky.
I wonder how much longer I've got left in this sedative.
"When I was a kid."
"What's the best view of them?"
Toju tilted his head. "Anywhere I guess. Maybe from the Top." He said it like it was a name of a place, and Shikamaru filed the mental note away for later.
"Sounds like it'd be nice."
"Mm-hmm."
They lapsed into silence again, until after a moment, Shikamaru shifted to get up. Toju tensed, but not nearly to the extent that he had before.
"Don't worry," Shikamaru said. "I think it's about time to head back to camp. I'm tired of being out here. How about you?"
Toju nodded slowly, still looking bewildered. Even in the fading daylight, Shikamaru could see that his eyes were still glassy and his pupils were still quite large.
Shikamaru made the hand gesture of forming a seal, but didn't actually mould any chakra. After all, Kakashi was no doubt in both visual and audio range. "That's just to signal in camp. My friend's going to come over to walk back with us. He'll be here in a second."
Toju's expression fell a bit, as if just remembering he were a prisoner. He looked hurt.
Shikamaru sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. Damn. Even when I try to take the high road and avoid violence, I still end up feeling shitty about it.
"I bet they've got dinner ready for us," Shikamaru mused as he turned and scanned the treeline for Kakashi to approach. "I'd untie you myself, but...you know. Situation being what it is." He shrugged apologetically. "You understand?"
Toju's expression was still open to read like a book. Disappointment, then acceptance, then something like sympathy spread over his features, one after the other. He nodded, and it was a big enough nod that Shikamaru read it as genuine.
The guilt twinged again. He really isn't a bad guy. I hope this tactic works with him - I may even pull a Naruto and end up with a new friend, if it goes alright tomorrow. Or at least a non-enemy.
After a very brief wait, Kakashi sauntered up from the direction of camp. "Hey."
"Hn," Shikamaru answered. "We're ready to head back."
Kakashi's visible eye smiled. "Alright."
Within a few moments, Shikamaru had untied Toju, and they'd found that he wasn't too groggy to make his way back to camp flanked by the two Konoha nin. He went willingly and quietly, and as soon as they were back, Shikamaru guided him back to a spot where he could see the scientist, but too far for them to really be able to talk easily.
Kakashi had done exactly what Shikamaru had hoped with the researcher, too. She was in a comfortable spot, as was the receptionist, though the two were still quite separate from each other. Tomori was now quietly watching and listening as Ino and Sakura chatted about the latest fashion, and Chouji had been roped into a game of poker or some such bad idea with Genma. The receptionist was slightly farther away, also on a comfortable cushion instead of the ground, but still had streaks of mascara down her pretty cheeks and looked like she still might do more crying at any time.
As soon as Shikamaru and Kakashi made their way back into the camp, Tomori subtly looked over her chuunin guard, as did Ino. Shikamaru noticed a brief look of surprise cross both girls' faces when they saw he appeared to be unhurt. He turned away to hide the involuntary eye roll he felt coming on.
The chuunin was asleep almost as soon as he tripped himself onto the bedroll they'd found and laid out for him.
"We'll save him some stew," Sakura told no one in particular as she stirred the pot that sat on the fire.
AAAAAANNNNDDDDD there we have it! The chapter that took me four years! (Geez, I am sorry about that. That's been a hell of a writer's block.)
I'm curious to see who's still around to bother reviewing, and I hope new readers will also enjoy (and review :D )
I've also got Chapter 17 written and I'm pretty happy with it (it's a return to brutality!), and I know my plan for 16. The writing tool I'm using these days is all about just writing *something* every day, so I expect this story to be a good focus for pounding out wordcount. :)