( 12th December, year 13 AK )
( Shikamaru POV )
The convocation from the Hokage had come as a surprise, since he should have been free from the front lines for the whole month.
For chunins, regulations of wartime set 5 months on the front and a single month back in the village, either for reviews on the work done outside the safe confines of Konohagakure no Sato, for evaluations about a change in objectives, promotions, specialized training and whatnot.
In Shikamaru's opinion, it was done that way in order to remind to the shinobi what they were fighting for, and that Konoha's safety was their only chance to unwind.
That meant that Shikamaru should have spent a total of 5 months giving his all to the war effort. Should have. He repeated to himself, shaking lightly his head.
If because of his status in the Clan, because of the obvious skill showcased by Daiki when he took down Orochimaru and the two reanimated Kages, or something shady organized by people Shikamaru knew only through the pages left him by his sensei, he couldn't tell.
The only thing he knew was that after having played messenger with Kiri, he had been shackled to tents of command, learning the craft of the Master Tactician everyone expected him to be, and offering his ideas when required.
At the end of the day, it was the first time he returned to Konoha, since his last assignment had been stretched for a few weeks longer than protocol would have dictated. Shikamaru remembered growing up without war. It almost looked like a long stretch of time, but he remembered it like a drowning man remembers the last breath. Fleeting, gone a long time ago, and exceedingly meaningless.
Everything would have been difficult even without the secret instructions left him by Daiki-sensei. To be perfectly honest, he doubted that those were orders given to him by the Sandaime. Given the deceitfully casual questions that his parents, along with Ino and Chouji' ones, had made about Daiki, Shikamaru wouldn't be exceedingly surprised if everything had been made up by the Sage.
Even so, he had quite readily chosen to follow his sensei's lead. Not out of a sentiment of loyalty, for being loyal to someone who wished to use you for his own gains was exceedingly idiotic. And Shikamaru, while being accused of being many things in the course of his brief but full life, had never been called an idiot.
The Nara Heir had however understood the sharp difference that those few months of instructions under Daiki-sensei had carved between him and the rest of the population, shinobi and civilian alike. It was a shift in perspective, likely one on the same magnitude present between shinobi and civilian.
It made Shikamaru able of applying all of his considerable brainpower to not only the battlefields where the Higer-ups wanted his focus, but also on the internal politics of Konohagakure no Sato, along with the causes and consequences of the current war, which he understood had been in the working since the end of the previous one.
Keeping a secret what his sensei had revealed to him, besides coming with the uncomfortable flavour of keeping his own teammates in the dark (admittedly easier now that Ino was constantly on the front and Chouji kept on guard for this or that outpost), forced him to be careful when giving the reasons behind his plans.
He couldn't admit that he wanted to keep the war from reaching Ame because in there there was someone capable of deep-frying Jiraya-sama's ass without breaking a sweat now, could he?
It was with an impassible face that he walked in the Hokage's office, noticing the subtle differences that showcased the applications of wartime regulations, as well as the rule that forbade shinobi and civilians alike from smoking inside of the tower.
"Chunin Nara." Tsunade spoke when he was inside, closing the door with a twitch of a chakra string so thin that Shikamaru couldn't spot it even if he knew that it was there, "Do you know why you're here?"
Shikamaru lazily closed his eyes before opening them again: "I thought that this was my month off? Despite it being late, I as looking forward to enjoy the occasion of relaxing."
A snort shattered his hope without possibility of recovery: "Yeah, that would be true if you were a normal chunin, you're not."
"Is this again because nobody knows if Daiki-sensei is still alive or dead? I thought I was done with that part. And splitting my team wouldn't help you figure out if we knew or didn't either way." the Nara groaned: "We don't by, by the way, I thought that at this point it was obvious."
"And yet you don't seem too upset from the apparent death of your sensei."
"If the reports you've read are correct, there should be my declaration that until I can personally see Daiki-sensei's dead body, I'll think him alive and laughing at something inane."
"Something inane?"
"For Daiki-sensei, most things are inane." Shikamaru clarified his previous statement.
"Would it be inane for him assaulting the Capital of Kiri, and killing off the whole family of the Daimyo?"
Shikamaru straightened at the information: "He's been seen?"
"Oh, he made quite the spectacle out of it." Tsunade handed over the most recent copy of Kiri's Bingo Book.
"Ino won't understand..." Shikamaru sighed as he looked it over: besides a portrait picture of his sensei clad in his personalized version of the Nidaime Hokage's armour, was written his name, along with a series of notable kills ascribed to him. Besides Orochimaru, there were a couple of A-rank nuke-nins, and another info that made Shikamaru raise his eyebrows in surprise: "He defeated Hoshigaki Kisame?"
"He sold Samehada back to Terumi Mei, the recently named Mizukage of Kirigakure no Sato. Congratulations, your suggestion about what to do with Kiri have established a good rapport, which will give us a leg up for the rest of the war."
Shikamaru handed back the Bingo Book, since despite what they had written about his sensei, his experience made it clear that there was much more that hadn't been noted about his capabilities.
"You said: 'Ino won't understand', presuming you were referring to the Yamanaka of your team, which is making a name for herself might I add... do you understand what she won't be able to?"
"Sensei's whole let-us-pretend-to-be-dead-skitch?" Shikamaru asked for a clarification, "Because I have no idea why he would do something like killing the Daimyo in order to reveal himself to be alive. It doesn't quite make sense if his purpose was getting out cleanly from shinobi life, which was the main reason I supposed behind his hypothetical disappearance."
The flat gaze he received as an answer forced him to straighten his back once more: "I never knew sensei to be one to enjoy bloodshed, but then again, if I knew him well enough to suspect his defection, I would have dutifully reported him."
The answer was straight out of protocol, Shikamaru knew that much, as did Tsunade, if the exasperated sigh she let out was indicative of her actual mental state.
The Senju and the Nara both knew that as a genin, the latter couldn't have spotted anything that his sensei didn't want to let him witness, and that asking him about his sensei because of some hope of meaningful insight was grasping at the straws.
Fuck you sensei. Shikamaru thought with a tired sigh, the world was complex enough without you painting everything in shades of grey.
...
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