Inoichi had likely noticed something along those lines, it was understandable why he disliked me so much.
How did I ruin Shikamaru, I wonder? I couldn't help but ask myself.
...
And when this war will be over, the world once more remembering the might of Konoha, what then? Do our leaders know how it's going to turn out? How it's going to be like?
What weapons and techniques are going to be discovered and spread during this conflict? What nightmares are going to hunt the next generations?" I wondered out loud.
"At the end of the day, Shikamaru, the ones who order war are a child throwing a tantrum, and they do not know what they want beyond 'more power' or 'stability' or my favorite: 'the last war to end all wars'."
Finished my little monologue, I ruffled his hair, undoing his pineapple knot and granting myself an annoyed grunt."Good luck Shikamaru. We'll probably see each other on the field."
Once that I said my piece, I walked briskly toward my yurt, I had a few things to pack and preparations to finish, because in less than a week, I would go to war.
I awoke with a start.
"I remember that conversation." It had been part of the discussion of Hypothetical Situations I had forced my team to go through.
But not that way. That was a chat we likely would have had in case of a declaration of war, but twisted along with my fears and insecurities, and I didn't need to be from another reality to see that Iwa presence at the chunin exams had shot canon out of the window.
Am I going mad? I distractedly asked myself before taking in the wast Planes where the Elephants roamed. I looked at my companion, tall less than a couple of dozen meters tall.
The small (for its species) summon was eyeing me curiously, his tusks gleaming of a shiny red, but he didn't comment.
I ignored him for now, he would become much more talkative once he chose I was doing something interesting.
Maybe I am only having visions of what would have happened if I stayed at home. I thought, jumping slightly non my place and eating a mouthful of berries.
I would need my energy. I can only hope my back up plan works out.
I eyes mistrustfully the three scrolls sealing respectively the Shodai tge Nidaime and Orochimaru, before letting my gaze trailing over the Kusanagi and the Monkey contract.
My eyes stopped on another big ass scroll. In there, there was my first step towards an S-rank that didn't depend on Senjutsu.
"First thing first." I said, claiming back the wavering attention of the red elephant.
"Zoukatatsu, we need to study the Scrolls of Seals, and figure out how to tweak an active Edo Tensei."
...
( 21 May- year 13 AK )
( Shikamaru POV )
The room smelled of bitter medicines and ammonia, likely the result of an excessive zeal put into disinfecting the environment.
I never liked hospitals. I realized.
Not that ever needed one, I just know, that a time or reality in which I did not feel uncomfortable roaming the white halls could never exist.
I nodded to myself, content that my brain had explained my chosen words, before turning my head to my bedridden teammate.
Leaning heavily on my brand new crutch, I reached for the foot of the bed and took out Choji's papers.
Broken left fibula, broken right ulna, five lower right ribs broken, dislocated shoulder, concussion, punctured lung, shredded left trapezius. I read in my head, my eyes darting from each word to the wound it listed.
I sighed, at least there would be no long term repercussions.
I didn't know why I kept checking on the list, it wasn't going to shorten itself anytime soon, but somehow it grounded me.
It made it easier to ignore the thrumming pain in my left leg, if nothing else.
My chakra whirled abruptly, random checking for genjutsus and brushing over Choji's dimmed presence. He was stable, his slow, deep breaths reassured me, even if his own chakra didn't react to mine in the slightest.
"Chakra sensing has two faces." Daiki-sensei explained.
"The more obvious one, is receiving an echo of an active chakra system. There are a multitude of techniques for feeling that, the easiest one is having a chakra control developed enough to recognize the impressions that an active chakra system unconsciously imprints around you."
I remembered frowning at his explanation. I could understand a shogi match, the hidden measures behind the Wind Lord economic choices with the same ease I breathed. But putting together the wishy-washy half poetry sensei used to explain the inner workings of chakra had always been difficult.
"The other face, is showing your chakra to someone and gauge his reaction. Very few can mask such a reaction, because it's buried deep into our genes. Its the growl towards a new menace, the whimper that signals surrender, the roar of victory." Daiki-sensei had explained.
"Wouldn't flaring your chakra in that way alert everyone to your presence?" Ino asked.
"It's not chakra flaring." Daiki-sensei shook his head "But yes, anyone you used this on would feel your chakra, and their brains would go through synesthesia to associate these persons to an idea which identifies them. It's personal and unreliable, but impossible to mask."
"I don't get it sensei, can you, for once, not use riddles?" I had snapped.
Sensei had chuckled, chuckled! Like there was anything funny about it.
"It's like showing your face instead of offering your papers." Choji had butted in.
"Yes! It's a good way to put it, well done Choji!" Sensei had beamed.
"It's just my luck that I would figure it out only now..." I sighed.
"Figure out what?" A raspy voice asked.
I turned on myself, flaring my chakra again and relaxing immediately when I recognized the person that had startled me.
"You shouldn't be talking." I reprimanded her. Ino was limping through the door, a brand new crutch for her too, something to match her bandaged eye and the sling in which her left arm rested.
She rolled her eyes, before twisting her chakra in a familiar pattern.
I can talk a bit, you know, and my voice will return to normal in a couple of weeks. the voice I would always recognize as my more nagging teammate resounded in my head.
"That doesn't mean I have to suffer it." I smirked, hastily retreating when I saw Ino taking a threatening step forward.
She calmed immediately in seeing Choji: I'll take this shift, go home Shika, you stink.
I surrendered immediately, we both knew the other wouldn't relent on this: "Send someone if..."
Go, Shika.
"Okay, okay." I uffed "Nagging woman."
I'll never thank sensei enough for having beaten the 'troublesome' out of you.
A sharp tang of pain-loss-lost-distance rippled through her chakra, drowning the moment of levity we managed to share with the dark certainty that was plaguing the days after the 'Betrayal', how the villagers had started to call the coordinated assault brought on Konoha by Oto, Iwa, and Suna.
"They didn't find a body." I repeated her for the umpteenth time.
"You felt that jutsu." Her raspy voice accused me.
"Everyone felt it, it was half a kilometer tall pillar of fire and wind. That stuff cooked alive the four that kept up the unbreakable purple thingy. It means shit, I'll believe him dead when I see his body." I shook my head "And then I'll just chant 'Troublesome' until he comes back from the dead to dope-smack me."
With those words and the uncertain ripple of relief across Ino's chakra, I limped out of the room, heading back to the Nara compound.
Doing twelve hours long shifts was possible only because of our wounds, that squarely placed us on leave.
I watched the destroyed buildings being rebuilt and the people shuffling around, shinobi and civilians alike.
Half of the academy students' time had been redirected to help moving rubble, their curriculum had turned in something much harsher than what I had endured when I was in their place.
It had been three days, and something was hanging in the air. Like everyone was sharing a secret that they did not dare utter out loud.
I spotted veterans with missing limbs taking up administration posts, freeing our able chunin to do whatever.
I looked to the artisans' district, measuring the thick clouds of smoke against what my memories supplied.
They are bigger. I realized immediately.
Nobody was saying it out loud, but I could tell, everyone could, really.
Yondaime-sama had spared Iwa after his overwhelming victory, and now they tried to strike back? Allying themselves with our previous ally and Orochimaru's village of all things.
I distractedly heard a man whisper something about Tsunade as Godaime, the way his feet were placed made clear that he was a shinobi.
"Once you see the propaganda, you can't close your eyes." Daiki-sensei voice echoed again in my head.
Konohagakure no Sato had turned into a very different beast from the one I had grown up into.
Is sensei alive?
Is it on orders?
Sensei went toe to toe against Orochimaru and the first two kage, what kind of mission would necessitate him off the grid?
Something did not make sense in my head, it felt like a pebble in the sandal, or a slightly askew painting.
There was something wrong, and it felt like an itch in my brain.
"Read the books written by our fallen hero! Just a week ago, the Publishing House of the Rising Sun had us know that every single one of their books had been written by Daiki-sama himself!" A man shouted from a small bookstore, a giant poster of sensei's writing hung above the door.
Yeah. Okay, sensei is alive. I deadpanned silently. The fucker likely had foreseen the awesome advertisement his heroic death would grant to his works.
I'll have to tell Ino.
I reached the compound and my family's home without anybody else to interrupt my thoughts.
Soon enough, I was in my room and fell on my bed.
Fuck futons, those are for people that do not enjoy sleep. I thought distractedly.
I sunk my face in the pillow, letting the darkness claim my sight.
I was bothered, for what was likely the first time in my life, I had difficulties in falling asleep.
Then I felt it, there was something under my pillow.
I slid my hand under the pillow and rolled on my back, taking out what appeared to be a leather-bound book, not particularly thick, with a single sheet of paper that somewhat stuck over the edge of one cover and onto the other, making it an obstacle that had to be tore in order to open the book.
My nose flared, taking in scents and whatnot, recognizing two contact poisons immediately, along with the smell of blueberry ink.
I blinked.
Sensei had us build immunity for those two poisons...
A memory came unbidden to the forefront of his mind, sensei used that ink when he hid a message among false ones for my team to find.
I fell into my well practiced routine, I shaped my chakra, feeling it fall behind and below, with that sensation that would be absolutely alien to anyone but a Nara, and I wrapped a tendril of shadow around my broken leg, thin threads shooting to the ceiling and helping me move myself to the edge of my table.
My eyes never left the slip of paper, where thin lines of ink were showing themselves.
"At its core, Fuinjutsu is somehow taking something, and placing it somewhere else, before taking it back in some form." Sensei was explaining."
Sure, the basic concept is easy enough to grasp, but there are a shit ton of reasons why not everybody and their mother can do anything beyond a simple storage scroll." he rolled his eyes.
I watched him with interest, my mind had been enjoying the seals he had me memorize, and I still had no idea why they would do what they did.
"The key, is language." Sensei said, and gone was his usual carefree expression, he had turned serious and cold. It unnerved me, it always did.
"Language?" I repeated to myself out loud.
The characters slid one over another for a second, and the paper crumbled into ash.
I felt my eyebrows shot upwards and for a second I felt cold, then the first cover followed the suit of the piece of paper that had kept it closed, crumbling and letting me read the first page.
He worded a lesson we had months ago to have me open this book now. I speculated, my brain hammering on the coincidence too hard for me to ignore it.
...
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