Intense fighting spread out all around him. In the midst of the clanging of blade smashing against blade, of the back and forth of angry roars, Shikamaru stared at Gengo.
“Are you saying that a world where shinobi are being persecuted is acceptable?” Gengo shouted, pushed to the edge. In his look of desperation—brow furrowed, blue vein popping up on his forehead—there wasn’t a shred of the divine solemnity Shikamaru had felt until moments earlier. Maybe it was because Shikamaru had been awakened from the genjutsu, but it really did look like all hint of ambition had vanished from Gengo.
“What are you panicking about?”
“What?”
“You’re so desperate, it’s pathetic.”
“Who…” Gengo faltered before a groan slipped out from between his clenched teeth. “Those who have gained superhuman powers, as the ninja have, are destined to be feared by normal people. This fear becomes discrimination, and discrimination begets control. If we don’t take a stand now, the ninja will be forced into ever more distress.”
“The thing is, I…” His spine cracked as he cocked his head to the right, his eyes never straying from Gengo. “I think it’d be better if there were no more ninja.”
“W-what are you saying?”
“Huh? You’re not a ninja anymore, are you?”
“Ngh…” Again, Gengo faltered. His ridiculous countenance brought a smile to Shikamaru’s own face.
“I mean, you went to all the trouble of bringing all these ninja together. You use this union, and you could have war under control pretty quick.”
“I-in the short term…”
“You’ll never know unless you try.”
Gengo’s hand reached up toward his own back, like he was grabbing something.
A kunai.
Shikamaru’s relaxed eyes grew tense. When they locked him up in that jail cell, he had been relieved of anything that might have been called a weapon.
“Shikamaru!” Temari’s voice.
Shikamaru glanced over to find something flying straight at him. The instant it came within reach, he reached up into empty space with his right hand.
A kunai.
Temari laughed.
A pause.
As he turned, he saw Gengo leap forward.
Space…
Shikamaru flew.
Sparks flashed as their kunai crashed into each other.
“It’s because there’s fighting that ninja like us exist.”
“Babbling fool,” Gengo said, voice full of violence.
Both fighters slashed with their kunai to try and shred the other. And then they were back on the ground again, maintaining the same distance they had before. Neither paused to glare at the other, however.
They kicked at the ground at the same time and raced toward each other.
Shikamaru thrust his kunai at Gengo’s face—a face contorted with bloodlust.
Their aim was the same. Gengo pushed his own kunai toward Shikamaru’s face.
Shikamaru tilted his head the tiniest bit to evade it. But the blade ripped a straight line across his cheek, a splash of blood dancing upward. In front of him, Gengo bore a similar cut on the opposite cheek.
Shikamaru grabbed Gengo’s outstretched wrist with his left hand. Similarly, Gengo caught Shikamaru’s right wrist in his left hand. They glared at each other, arms outstretched toward each other’s face.
“A single step to end all our fighting… That’s the alliance. First, the ninja come together, and then we push that circle out to bring in the daimyo and the citizens. Later on, when the world is one, us ninja are totally going to disappear. It might not happen in my lifetime, but it’s definitely going to happen in the lifetime of my children or grandchildren.”
“This world is too harsh for such idealism to actually work.”
“Isn’t that ambition of yours pretty idealistic?”
The corners of Gengo’s mouth were pulled up to the point where it was bizarre. It was much too wicked to be called a smile.
“It’s pointless to try and cast genjutsu on me.”
“Well, listen, Shikamaru. The greater the possibility of realizing it, the more value any ideal possesses. The ideal you state is like trying to grab on to the clouds. Your ideal and mine, the difference between them is like that between the heavens and the earth.”
“You’re pretty foolish, huh?”
“He who does not realize his own foolishness is the true fool.”
“So then that means you’re foolish, right?”
Gengo’s lips twitched.
Here he comes!
Shikamaru’s wrist creaked in pain as he thrust his kunai forward; Gengo had locked his joints with his left arm. Turning the wrist Shikamaru still clutched, Gengo pointed the tip of his kunai at the hollow of Shikamaru’s neck. Wrist still held fast by Shikamaru, he made deft use of his fingertips and pushed the blade toward Shikamaru’s neck.
Shikamaru had no time to dodge it. He twisted his body in the same direction his wrist was twisted and flew. Using Gengo’s right arm as an axle, he leapt, rotating counterclockwise. Evading the kunai and flying through space, Shikamaru’s feet came crashing in toward the top of Gengo’s head.
Releasing Shikamaru’s wrist, Gengo brought his left hand up to cover his head. Shikamaru’s power kick landed on Gengo’s arm, and a thick cracking sound filled the air around them.
That was not the end of it.
Shikamaru twisted the leg he had kicked out in defense and kicked with his other leg at Gengo’s side.
Gengo took a step backward.
Shikamaru hit the ground and kept moving. He quickly squatted down and shot out his right leg. He spun and swept Gengo’s legs out from under him, a copy of the Barrage of Lions that Uchiha Sasuke had shown him during their chunin exams, with a little spice from Naruto for the Uzumaki Naruto Barrage.
It went well.
His shins severely beaten, Gengo fell onto his backside. Shikamaru pounced. He crouched and brought his kunai to the other man’s throat. If Gengo tried to move even a millimeter, Shikamaru would kill him without hesitation.
“W-why don’t my words reach you?”
“Genjutsu only works on guys who’ve got a crack in their heart.”
“But everything you’ve said and done since that woman appeared, you’re nothing but cracks!”
“You really are a fool, huh?” Sighing, Shikamaru smiled at Gengo. “My heart is basically a bunch of cracks and gaps. No… Maybe not gaps, exactly. It’s like, my heart’s so full of gaps there are no gaps at all. Although someone as puffed up and full of himself as you wouldn’t get that.”
“Th-that—”
“Is staring you in the face right now, so get used to it. Your words don’t reach me anymore.”
Beads of sweat oozed from Gengo’s forehead.
“The truth is, I’d rather not be doing this. I’d rather be just living my life how I do. But…”
Those thoughts always smoldering somewhere in your heart, Shikamaru told himself, you cut them off here and now.
He was ready.
“It looks like I can’t live like that.”
People always ended up counting on him, so he had no choice but to do something. Every no choice had piled up and piled up and made him into who he was now. So it was hopeless. He was stuck. He had never really thought things through past this vague point, so he had endlessly remained unresolved, always half-baked.
He had been wrong, fundamentally and utterly wrong.
The only one who could take care of his dreams was him. And Shikamaru’s dream of a somehow just-right life had not come true. But wasn’t that okay?
Because Shikamaru had found a new dream.
“From now on, my life’s about building a world that’ll let all those guys who just wanna live lazy, hazy lives do exactly that. I’m going to end this fighting and bring this world together. And then I’m gonna make it a place where everyone dreaming of living a regular life without any special dreams can live how they want.”
He would protect the happiness of all those people and their ability to live just-right lives.
He was satisfied with this new dream of his; it was very him. All he had to do to realize it was to make Naruto the Hokage, become a master, train Mirai, and end up as a ninja who wouldn’t bring shame to his father or Asuma. It was the opposite of the order he had been working in. Up to that point, he had felt pressure from outside, based upon which he had set his own framework and tried to live within it without shame—which was exactly what gave rise to all the contradictions.
His own dreams couldn’t come from the outside world. The outside world was what lay beyond his own dreams.
“I’ve finally busted out.”
“So what does that matter?”
Shikamaru suddenly heard gentle murmuring from behind him, mingled with bloodlust. He leapt away from Gengo.
The claws of a tiger ripped through the air in the place where his head had just been. An ink-black tiger…
“I won’t let you kill Lord Gengo for such a lazy dream.”
“Sai!” Shikamaru pulled himself to his feet and faced Sai, who stood before him with brush and scroll at the ready.
“Lord Gengo! Hurry and set your will before these foolish Sunagakure ninja!”
“Mmm.” Gengo nodded and ran up the stairs, climbing to the throne in a single burst. “Hear me!” He spread out his arms. “All of you!”
A lecture.
“As if I’m gonna let you!”
“I won’t allow you to get in the way!”
Shikamaru went to climb the stairs, and Sai moved to block him.
“Go!” Sai’s brush moved, and a tiger surged from the scroll. This new tiger and the one that had tried to tear his head off came at Shikamaru at the same time.
From the top of the stairs, Gengo began to speak in a loud voice. Unless Shikamaru stopped him, the sand ninja would have their movements sealed by his genjutsu.
Something flashed in him suddenly.
“Listen, Temari!” Shikamaru shouted, not knowing where she was. “He casts genjutsu with words! Wipe out his words with your wind!”
“Got it!”
He heard her powerful voice from surprisingly nearby. In the next instant, fierce gales began to gust the length and breadth of the hall, overlapping and building on each other. Temari’s awe-inspiring winds drowned out anything Gengo tried to say.
Slipping past tiger claws, Shikamaru gazed up at the top of the stairs. Gengo was trying to set off for greener pastures, having grasped that his voice wasn’t reaching anyone.
“Dammit!” Shikamaru moved toward the staircase, but Sai’s sketched tigers stopped him.
“I absolutely will not let you pass!”
“Open your eyes already, Sai!”
“It is all of you who must open your eyes.” Sai was completely trapped in Gengo’s jutsu.
A gust several times stronger than any preceding it blew up from behind Shikamaru. The ink tiger became a spray and disappeared like mist.
“Leave him to me! Go after that guy!” Temari flew out in front of Shikamaru and faced Sai squarely.
“Temari…”
“Thank me later. Hurry!”
“Got it,” he said, and raced toward the stairs.
“Shikamaru! Stop!”
“Whoopsie! Your opponent’s right here.” Temari opened her fan to cut Sai off.
Shikamaru turned his gaze on the two of them once more before sprinting up the stairs, eyes unwaveringly forward.