A cat and monkey with white faces stood before him.
They were only animals from the neck up, however; from the neck down, both were human. On top of form-fitting, jet-black clothing, they wore the recently redesigned Konoha vests. The old vests had had pockets on both sides of the chest to store scrolls or ninja tools, but those had been taken out of the current version, and the end result was fairly simple. These vests were for a time of peace, befitting the end of the Great War and an era of cooperation among the villages.
Holes like deep caverns sat in the places where the cat and monkey faces should have had eyeballs. The mouths were shallow, upside-down Vs, the ends cutting into the cheeks. The cat had detailed red coloring below the cavernous eyes, while the monkey had a thicker red shadow on its brow, so that its eyebrows looked turned up in anger. Both had their hands pulled back and clasped together behind their hips. Both sets of dark caves were turned on Shikamaru.
“I think these two will meet your expectations,” Kakashi said, seated behind the desk. The cat and monkey stood on either side of him, the cat to Shikamaru’s right and the monkey to his left.
Their heights were drastically different. The monkey was a little taller than Shikamaru’s 176 centimeters. In contrast, the cat didn’t even reach his shoulder.
So the monkey’s a man, the cat’s a woman… It was clear from their builds.
“Take your masks off,” Kakashi said, and both reached up to their faces. The white monkey and cat’s faces were peeled off like thin skins, revealing the human faces below.
It was an Anbu custom to wear the white masks of animals. Because the bulk of the work they did was behind the scenes and dark even compared with other missions—things like assassinations and schemes and fomenting unrest in other countries—they had an almost visceral dislike of their identities being known. The majority of people in the village had no idea who belonged to the Anbu. There were any number of stories about everyday people nonchalantly going about their everyday business actually being members of the Anbu.
“The man is Ro. The woman is Soku.”
As Kakashi spoke, the two Anbu ninja turned toward Shikamaru and bowed slightly in greeting.
“A girl this age—”
“Like, unthinkable,” Soku said, cutting Shikamaru’s muttering off. “In the world of the shinobi, ability is, like, everything. I won my seat with the Anbu through my own, like, abilities.”
“Exactly right,” Kakashi agreed.
It wasn’t hard to see why Shikamaru was surprised. Soku was childish. He was certain she was at least five or six years younger than he was; he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that she had only just left the academy. Her cheeks, still cherubically plump, were somewhat red, and her thin lips were firmly pursed in a way that made him feel the tenaciousness of her will. Her fine eyebrows were raised at a severe angle, the eyes below them shining with fiery self-confidence. Her face vaguely reminded him of Temari when they were little.
“Not long after Hinoko left the academy, we noticed her talents and scouted her for the Anbu. She’s only fourteen, but she’s already been on a number of missions, and people inside the Anbu have total faith in her.”
“It’s not good to judge people on how they, like, look. And Lord Hokage, I told you not to call me by my real, like, name,” Soku said, puffing up her cheeks a little.
“Hinoko… That’s a really cute na—” he said, and Soku disappeared. In the blink of an eye, an orange nail touched his forehead, and he caught his breath.
“I, like, hate being called by my name. I’d like you to be careful about that.” Soku’s index fingers pressed between his eyebrows crackled with static, sounding like an extreme miniature of Kakashi’s Lightning Blade. Chakra burst from the top of her finger.
“Behave yourself, Soku,” said the man who had been wearing the monkey mask.
His name’s Ro…
Thick eyebrows, square jaw, he glared at Soku with stubborn, single-lidded eyes.
“This kind of thing is, like, key in the beginning. The one thing I’m, like, not interested in is being written off as a kid.”
“Sorry. I’ll be careful from now on.” Shikamaru apologized. There was no need to make this situation worse, not to mention that he had no time to indulge the girl’s obstinacy.
Soku shook her head, orange hair tied up on top of it, and shifted her gaze from Ro back to Shikamaru. “As long as you understand.” Leaving her back carelessly wide open, Soku stomped over to her original position and clasped her hands behind her once more.
“Ro is able to freely change the amount and quality of chakra in himself, and in anyone he targets,” Kakashi said, and Ro nodded slightly.
“Does that mean you can actually increase chakra?”
“Sharp question,” Kakashi noted.
“It’s a modification of the chakra from the point of view of what others perceive. Thus, even if my humble self were to multiply Lord Shikamaru’s chakra, your actual fighting power would not be any greater. A misapprehension would simply be generated in anyone with a perception of you. In other words, mine art takes no form without the relationship between the two opponents.”
He had a slightly old way of speaking. Combined with his craggy look, he came off like a samurai.
“So you’re able to change the amount of chakra,” Shikamaru said, nodding in agreement with Ro’s explanation. “Does that mean it’s possible to eliminate it completely?”
“It is.” Ro looked to be over forty from any angle; he had to have been at least twenty years older than Shikamaru. “It is also possible to allow you to determine any target and thoroughly sniff out the quality and amount of the target’s chakra.” Words like “sniff out” felt fairly out of place coming from this man and his formal speech.
“I think this is the optimal jutsu for hiding?” Kakashi interjected.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine. And the young lady here?” Shikamaru said, looking at Soku. The phrase “young lady” made her thin shoulders twitch upward. Apparently, she hadn’t managed to fully shed her childish self just yet. He couldn’t tell yet if this would be a strength or a weakness for this shinobi.
“Maybe it’s better if you just show him?” Kakashi said.
Soku nodded before turning her back to Shikamaru. The index finger of her raised right hand pointed out through the open window behind Kakashi. Shikamaru’s eyes noticed a sparrow flying along at the end of the invisible line extending from that finger. “My weapon is a chakra needle,” Soku murmured, as a flash of orange light shot out of her hand.
The sparrow was perfectly hidden in the shadow of the large pillar between windows. There was no way Soku could hit it if she released her chakra at that moment. Her chakra would hit the pillar instead and cut into the wall.
But no mark appeared on the pillar. And yet the sparrow outside emitted a high-pitched cry.
Shikamaru raced over to the window. Leaning forward, he stared at the ground below the area where the sparrow had been flying. The sparrow appeared to be dead.
“Appreciate it if you didn’t, like, get the wrong idea. I don’t, like, needlessly take lives,” Soku said, standing behind him. At the same time, the sparrow abruptly got up and danced off high into the sky. “Pierced the bit the chakra activates, so that sparrow’s several times livelier than it was before.”
“What about the wall?” Shikamaru asked, taking his hand off the windowsill and turning around.
The girl, still not finished growing to her full height, licked her thin pink lips while grinning innocently. “Once I aim and set my target, even if it leaves my field of vision, the chakra needle will, like, follow it wherever it goes. My needle won’t stop until it pierces its target.”
With Ro’s jutsu, they would erase their chakra, sometimes transforming it while infiltrating the enemy. And once they got nice and close to Gengo, Shikamaru would seal his movements with his own Suffocating Darkness. Then Soku could determine her target and deal the killing blow with her chakra needle.
It would be fine. They could do this.
“Can I ask one thing?” he said to Soku, as she looked up at his face and the daring smile spreading across his lips.
“Like, what?”
“Can you do something about that ‘like, like’ thing?”
∞
They’re coming…
Them.
The Oto ninja.
Orochimaru’s underlings.
No…
When did they start chasing me?
I’m the one chasing them.
There are people I have to save.
Uchiha Sasuke.
That creep manages to do everything perfectly.
But he’s still my comrade.
I am totally going to save him.
It’s my first time in charge. Failure is not allowed.
My friends…
My friends are being killed.
Choji.
Kiba.
Neji.
And Naruto…
I’m the only one left.
I’m surrounded by Oto ninja.
They’re sneering at me.
I’m sorry…
Everyone, I’m sorry.
I won’t fail again next time.
So please, don’t die.
“Please!”
Awakened by his own echoing shout, Shikamaru practically leapt up from his futon, his whole body drenched in sweat.
A dream. His first mission after passing the chunin selection exams. The mission in which he had rescued Uchiha Sasuke when he was about to go rogue due to Orochimaru’s machinations. Joining him were his classmates and Neji. As they pursued Sasuke, his friends dropped away one after another until, in the end, Shikamaru himself chose to entrust everything to Naruto for the final battle with the Oto ninja. As a result, Sasuke left the village, and all of his friends were injured. The first mission he had faced as a chunin, as a leader, ended in failure.
He put his palm to a forehead wet with sweat and took a slow, deep breath.
Why a dream like that? He had never actually seen that scene before, although the scars in his heart from that time still lingered even now. Whenever he fell to criticizing himself, it was the one incident he always remembered as his own greatest disgrace. He had never been backed into a corner the way he had been then.
Dreams were supposedly the manifestation of the deep psyche.
So then, am I being backed into a corner?
“It’s okay. It’ll be fine, Shikamaru.” Uncharacteristically reassuring thoughts turned into words spilling from his mouth of their own accord. His heart hammered in his chest. It didn’t look like he’d be getting back to sleep tonight.
He departed when the sun rose in the morning.