The brush in Sai’s hand was dancing. No matter how many times Shikamaru saw a tiger appear as the tip of that brush raced along the scroll in Sai’s opposite hand, he was caught off guard.
He tumbled off the stage and into the midst of the enemy. He didn’t have time to concern himself with Sai at that moment. His mind was reeling: Why wasn’t his jutsu working? How had his cover been blown? Was Soku all right?
Dodging enemy attacks, he turned toward Gengo once more. In the corner of his eye, he saw Ro, a dozen or more revolutionaries bearing down on and trying to pin him. The Anbu member struggled fiercely, but with that many men on top of him, resistance was all but impossible.
The claws of the tiger Sai had drawn ripped into Shikamaru’s cheek. The plastic skin of his disguise peeled away limply.
“I’ll get that mask off and have you feeling better in no time, okay?” Sai said, an innocent smile rising to his lips. His hand didn’t stop. Several more tigers surrounded Shikamaru.
“Why are you—”
“This whole time, you’ve been talking like you know me.”
There was no way Shikamaru could tell Sai who he was. His enemy might capture him and discover his true identity, but he could never give it up himself. It was an ironclad shinobi rule.
Beyond the swarm of revolutionaries, he could see the stage—and Gengo on it, composed, arms crossed, looking down on Shikamaru’s desperate resistance.
I have to get back there. Just one more time…
He launched a kunai into the air to strike the heads of the ink tigers and flew after them. Behind him, the tigers dissolved into a spray of black ink.
He hit the ground running. An overwhelming number of enemies lay before him.
Can you make it? Shikamaru asked himself as he wove signs with both hands.
Countless shadows stretched out in all directions from his feet. It was the art of Shadow Stitching—a jutsu to pierce an opponent with a shadow transformed into a needle. He could produce an infinite number of needles, which made the technique perfect for taking on a large number of enemies.
He decided to aim for the tigers and the enemies around him. His shadows spread out in a fan formation, and after he sent up a silent prayer, they wriggled up out of the ground all at once and shot toward the enemy.
“Go!” Shikamaru shouted, a battle cry. The shadows abruptly bent up into sickles.
“Enough of this futile struggle.” Gengo’s voice slammed into Shikamaru from the stage. At that moment, the shadows hurtling forward lost all momentum and slithered back to his feet.
“W-what did you do?” he asked Gengo, with barely contained rage.
How can his voice reach this far? Who is this guy?
“Huh? I know that jutsu.” Before he knew it, Sai was standing in front of him, blocking the way. “Is that you, Shikamaru?”
“Sai, you—”
“It’s painful to watch this pointless squirming.” Sai made his brush dance even more vigorously, and an enormous white and black tiger, larger than any of the others, pulled itself up from the scroll. “You’ll understand too, soon enough.”
Sai thrust the hand clenching his brush toward Shikamaru, and taking that as its cue, the enormous tiger attacked, massive front paws high in the air.
“Bastard…” Readying himself, Shikamaru sent kunai flying at the tiger.
As he was about to leap into the air once more, something grabbed on to his right foot. And then, his left foot was caught. The revolutionaries. Robbed of his momentum, his face slammed into the ground, followed by several enemies throwing themselves on top of him.
“Someone as smart and capable as you not being able to see that the tiger was a diversion—you must be really confused.” Sai looked down on Shikamaru under a pile of the enemy, barely able to breathe.
Shikamaru saw a human figure behind Sai, slowly approaching.
Gengo.
“Take off the mask,” Gengo ordered the revolutionaries on Shikamaru’s back. A finger was jammed into the tear on Shikamaru’s cheek, and the entire layer of fake skin was peeled back.
“Well, look, it is Shikamaru, after all,” Sai said.
“So this is the genius of Konohagakure, Nara Shikamaru, hm?” Gengo said, sounding excited, as if he had found something he’d been looking for. His light-blue eyes, shining suspiciously, caught hold of Shikamaru and didn’t let go.
Smile on his lips, Shikamaru opened his mouth. “If you don’t finish me off right here and now, things’ll get scary later.”
“It’s fine. You will live with me,” Gengo said confidently, as a fist hit Shikamaru’s neck and he lost consciousness.
∞
The darkness was total, so complete he couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. Shikamaru intently tried to focus his mind, his thoughts. He had no idea how many days had passed, but judging from the number of meals that had been brought to him and the state of his stomach, he suspected it had been five or more already.
How had this happened? No matter how many times he tried to answer this question, he couldn’t get a handle on the big picture.
The problem had occurred before Sai showed up. Shikamaru had gone up to the side of the stage where Gengo was standing and sent his shadow out. However, his shadow hadn’t been able to reach Gengo’s feet; it had somehow lost its way. And then Gengo had noticed Shikamaru and Ro. He had called the two of them mice. This, despite the fact that they had completely transformed their chakra.
The man had easily fended off their jutsu, almost as if there had been a barrier around him that rendered ninja techniques ineffective. But could Gengo really sap the power of jutsu? Shikamaru didn’t know. But he was certain that some kind of effect had jammed both his own jutsu and Ro’s.
His shadow hadn’t made it to Gengo. And when he had tried to release his Shadow Stitching on Sai’s beasts, his shadow abruptly lost all power. The obvious explanation was that in both instances, Gengo or some effect around him dampened the power of Shikamaru’s jutsu. In all likelihood, Ro’s jutsu had also lost power or been weakened, which caused Shikamaru’s own chakra to mix in with that of the person he was disguising himself as and become a different chakra. It made sense that this had caught Gengo’s attention.
Jutsu doesn’t work on him.
Why?
There was no way that, in the brief time within which all this took place, Shikamaru could have collected exactly the information he needed to comprehend the true nature of Gengo’s power. Given that he had mere scraps to scrutinize, he couldn’t even come up with a guess. This irritated Shikamaru, and made him impatient.
“Ngh! Hngah!”
He could hear Ro groaning in suffering somewhere. A while ago, he had heard Soku’s struggling. Apparently, they were both being held nearby. Maybe they were being tortured and beaten; the voices he heard were always groans. But for some reason, he himself wasn’t being tortured.
“Sorry.” He threw the word toward the groaning Ro, even though there was no way the other man would hear it.
This was the result of his own hasty actions. Maybe he should have investigated Gengo more thoroughly before attempting to carry out his plan? That couldn’t have been the only chance they would have had.
He hit the cold stone floor. Over and over and over.
“Are you alive?” A voice came out of the darkness.
Gengo.
“Are you dead?” Gengo said, apparently concerned that no answer came back to him. But he had to have been aware that Shikamaru’s chakra was intact. It was just sarcasm; he knew full well Shikamaru wasn’t dead. “Seems that you’re eating well.”
Shikamaru ate everything he was offered, after checking that it wasn’t poisoned. Training to detect poison with a single lick was the most basic of basics for the shinobi.
You couldn’t quit eating—as long as you were alive, an opportunity would present itself, a moment when you moved or you died with a path left untaken. A ninja never gave up on life. A true ninja survived and executed their mission no matter what. Enduring and persevering, that was a ninja.
Which was why Shikamaru believed in Ro and Soku still.
“Now that you’ve spent a few days shrouded in darkness, perhaps you’re in the mood to be good and hear what I have to say?”
“I hate to tell you, but darkness and shadows are my friends.”
“Interesting fellow,” Gengo said, and laughed. “I’ll come again.”
His aura disappeared.
“Ngaaaaaaaah!” Ro’s cries began anew.