By the time Shikamaru arrived in the great hall with his companions after descending the spiral staircase Gengo in tow, the clash between the revolutionaries and the shinobi was over. The moment Soku had severed the chakra in Gengo’s tongue, the genjutsu cast on the revolutionaries had also been released, which had apparently been immensely helpful in ending the fighting.
Despite the fierceness of the battle, there were fewer injuries than he would have expected for revolutionaries and ninja alike. Excluding a few critically wounded fighters, everyone had gotten away with scrapes and bruises. It would have been a miracle that no one had died, except this was actually the result of the Sunagakure ninja faithfully carrying out Gaara’s order to avoid killing wherever possible.
Learning of Gengo’s capture, his close aides let their shoulders sag, the will to fight draining from them. It was as though they had woken up from a fever dream and surrendered themselves to a tremendous despair. All over the great hall, ninja from Konohagakure and Sunagakure were restraining demoralized revolutionaries and attending to their wounds.
“Sai!” Shikamaru spotted his comrade in a group being cared for by ninja.
“Shikamaru…” Pulling himself up onto his elbows, Sai stared at Shikamaru with empty eyes.
Ino had filled Shikamaru in on the events of the great hall after he left as they came down the spiral staircase.
“Sorry.” Sai appeared to still be floating along in a half trance, perhaps the effect of being yanked out of the genjutsu through rather forceful methods.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s all over now,” Shikamaru said gently, as he crouched down to touch Sai’s shoulder. The supple muscle shuddered slightly, but Sai shed no tears. His heart was crying instead.
“I’m pathetic.”
“There was magic in his words. I mean, I almost fell into them myself. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry about it too much. You always take things in stride, never get too worked up about stuff. It’s one of your good points.”
“Thanks, Shikamaru.” A single tear spilled out of the corner of Sai’s wide-open eye.
“Go back to Konoha and rest a little. I’ll talk to Kakashi.”
“Thanks,” Sai said, and lowered his head.
Ino was standing to one side.
“Take care of him,” Shikamaru told her and stood up.
Ino closed her eyes and nodded heavily, before crouching down beside Sai as if trading places with Shikamaru.
Just as he heaved a sigh of relief, a powerful voice slammed into Shikamaru from behind.
“Shi! Ka! Ma! Ruuuuuuuu!”
Right. I totally forgot about this guy… Scratching his head, he turned toward the voice.
A fist filled his field of view.
His body shuddered.
Tumbled.
Floor, ceiling, floor, ceiling—the scene changed at a dizzy pace.
Six turns…
Even as this powerful force toyed freely with his body, Shikamaru calmly counted the number of times he spun around.
His backside hit the floor, and his body came to an awkward stop. As he sat there, the figure of the person who had swooped down on him leapt into view. He jumped onto Shikamaru like he was riding a horse, while Shikamaru planted his hands on the ground and tried to push himself up.
Hands grabbed at his collar and started shaking him violently, jerking his head back and forth and back and forth.
“You!” the man roared. “Why! Me! Just you! Always! Do this! Everyone! Worried! I mean, me! Gaaaah! You idiot!”
“Sorry, Naruto.”
“You seriously are a giant idiot!”
Desperately stringing choppy words together, Naruto tried to communicate his feelings. And the feelings he had toward Shikamaru hidden in those indistinct word-barks came through loud and clear. The fire that burned deep within Naruto’s heart made Shikamaru realize all over again how perfect he was as the leader of Konoha, a village crowned by fire.
“You’re supposed to be my officer, aren’t you?” Apparently, the apology and seeing Shikamaru safe had calmed Naruto down a great deal. “Anyway, this country’s all right now,” he declared, forcefully.
At some point, Sakura had come to stand behind him. “The ruling class here, these revolutionaries, are former ninja, so they all know Naruto, the hero of the last Great War. Once they learned he was here, there wasn’t a single person willing to go up against him. And then Gengo was captured, and they woke up from the genjutsu, so everything should be contained pretty quickly.”
The effect of Naruto on the world of ninja was boundless. Just as Sakura said, once they heard Naruto was there, the revolutionaries wouldn’t have gone up against him.
“Next time something happens, you come straight to me and tell me, got it?”
“Yeah.” Shikamaru lowered his eyes and nodded obediently.
Naruto took his hands off his collar and stood up. “C’mon.”
A strong hand was thrust out.
He grabbed it wordlessly.
With incredible force, Shikamaru’s arm was yanked upward, and he was back on his feet in an instant. Shikamaru envied this direct way of doing things Naruto had, straightforward to the point of being overbearing. And it made him think, If it’s for this man…
“This is the end,” Shikamaru muttered.
“Huh?” Naruto cocked his head to one side.
He jabbed at Naruto’s chest with his fist. “This is the end of you acting like a kid.”
“Yeah.”
“You got some babysitting of your own in your future.”
“Who’s this kid we’re talking about?”
“You know, don’t you?”
They smiled quietly at each other.
∞
They decided to first return to Konohagakure to treat Sai and the two members of the Anbu. Shikamaru left Naruto and Sakura and the others to finish up in the Land of Silence. He could relax with Naruto in charge there. At any rate, as long as Gengo was now out of the picture, the rest would work itself out.
Some of the Sunagakure ninja also stayed, while the rest returned to their village. Once they left Tobari, they would all be traveling separate paths.
“I owe you one for this,” Shikamaru said to Gaara, standing in front of the large village gates.
The sand ninja returning to their village were lined up behind their leader, powerful faces sculpted by the desolation of the desert. All were smiling at Shikamaru; it was one of those tiny, everyday moments that made him feel like the world of the ninja had really started to become one.
“No worries. We still need you in the alliance. Don’t be so stiff, with all this talk of ‘owing’ and standing on ceremony. We’re friends, and friends would help each other out,” Gaara said, arms crossed. The Kazekage hadn’t always been such a garrulous man. He had been dangerous, oozing bloodlust, a face like a Noh mask no one could read any emotion in. And onto this man’s lips slipped the same gentle smile as the ninja of Sunagakure.
Behind Shikamaru were Sai, Soku, and Ro. And Ino and Choji. The ninja returning to Konoha were also lined up there. They all watched over the exchange with gentle looks.
“But I’m so glad,” Gaara murmured with feeling. “If my sister hadn’t been agonizing over it, we would have lost an important man.”
Next to Gaara, Temari looked up and off to the side and acted like she hadn’t heard anything. She was likely intending to hide her embarrassment, but the move lacked charm.
“Don’t worry about Gengo. We’ll bring him to alliance headquarters on our way home.”
“I’m in your debt in more ways than one.”
“And I told you not to stand on formality like that,” the Kazekage, who was tremendously popular with the ninja of the village, said, offering his hand. “Well, we’ll meet again at the alliance.”
Shikamaru also extended his hand. He firmly clasped Gaara’s, filled with such warmth it was almost hot. Gaara squeezed back just as firmly. “See you then.”
“Mm-hmm.” Releasing Shikamaru’s hand, Gaara turned and looked at his companions. “We’re going home.”
“Ooh-rah!” The ninja of Sunagakure raised their voices like a secret battle cry.
Shikamaru called out to Temari as she was turning away, so unconsciously it surprised even him.
Temari stopped where she was. The other Sunagakure ninja moved to stop as well, but once they saw that Gaara was signaling them to keep going, they began racing along the main street that stretched out from the gates. Tossing a look in Shikamaru’s direction, Gaara followed after them.
Leaving only Temari.
“Eee!” Shikamaru heard a high-pitched voice behind him. It was Soku.
Ignoring her, Shikamaru approached Temari.
“What?” Temari asked, with a sour look. Her eyes were terrifying.
After taking a deep breath, as if to bolster his spirits now that he was losing his nerve, Shikamaru tried to say what he was thinking. “All this…”
It was no use. He couldn’t say it.
“What?” Temari pressed, annoyed. Her body was still turned the slightest bit toward the main road behind her, as if she were trying to chase after her little brother.
“Thanks for all this.”
“Hmph!” Temari laughed through her nose, but Shikamaru continued, undaunted.
“How about we have dinner or something sometime?”
“What? You asking me out on a date?” Temari asked, tone casual but eyes deadly serious. She didn’t have a molecule of shame; she was completely unendearing.
Why am I asking a woman like this to dinner? Shikamaru asked himself.
“Yeah, I guess that’s the gist of it,” he said, without thinking.
But he had asked, and that was that. Or rather, he had called out to stop her because he wanted to ask her. Feelings he himself didn’t understand threw Shikamaru into confusion.
“A date, huh…?”
Almost as if she were sitting on a war council before a problematic enemy, Temari put a hand on her chin and gave the matter serious consideration.
“You don’t want to?” he asked, abruptly.
She stared fixedly at his face for a while before taking her hand off her chin and placing it on her hip. “What a draaaag,” she said.
The full smile she turned on him then was something very precious to Shikamaru.