As soon as he returned to Konoha, Shikamaru went back to work. He’d already had to squeeze his schedule and shoehorn in the time off to start with. He didn’t have any extra for lazing around the village.
Konoha had also been busy while he was away. It wasn’t as though his work would simply wait because he was not in the office. While he’d been in Iwagakure, three mountains of paper had arisen on the desk he’d so painstakingly cleared, so tall that they looked ready to topple over at any second. A mere three days away from this place, and this was what he came back to. What would happen if he got sick? The thought sent a chill up his spine.
We’ve got to rethink the approval process.
Too many things required a final stamp from Shikamaru. Once he had taken a look at the papers, he would pass about half of them on to Naruto. This was how daily business of the village was carried out, so he could only complain so much, but they had to make at least a few changes to the system. The burden on both himself and the Hokage was simply too great. At present, if something unforeseen happened to one or both of them, much of the village’s business would grind to a halt. They needed to bring on capable staff to spread out the approvals beyond just two people.
He scanned one document after another. These papers, dense with neat handwriting, were the crystallization of the earnest efforts put in by members of every department. It took him only a few seconds to scan each page and affix a stamp of either approval or rejection. He also made sure to remember everything he read so that he could point out contradictions or shortcomings if he were asked the reason for rejection later.
He was used to it. Every day, he was bombarded with paperwork, so his reading speed had increased. That was all there was to it.
I’m getting stronger at these sorts of acrobatics and nothing else.
Meanwhile, the techniques of a ninja’s core foundation were limited to his self-complacency, no matter how much he trained. He’d stopped going on missions more than ten years ago already. There was no way of assessing the potency of his techniques since he never executed them in an actual battle anymore. For all he knew, his son could be sharper than he was nowadays.
No, no. I’m his father. I haven’t lost to him yet. He didn’t have much confidence in this assessment, though.
“This is from the water department,” said a voice
“Just put it there,” he replied without looking up. More than two hundred people came and went from his office every day. If he had a conversation with each and every one of them, that alone would take up all his time, so he generally kept things brief.
As he worked through the piles of documents, he thought about Iwagakure. Thanks to Kurotsuchi’s well-timed interruption, he hadn’t been able to get anything from Ohnoki. Fortunately, his visit had only been a diversion. The real point had been to sneak in the team of Ro and Soku. The fact that they still hadn’t reported to him likely meant they’d been successful. Kurotsuchi was definitely hiding something. He was almost certain.
“Lord Shikamaru.” A woman’s voice came from the other side of the mountains of papers.
He pressed his seal onto a statement regarding the collection of garbage from the sanitation department. “What?” He did not look up.
“Do you have a minute?”
As he tossed the document into the “approved” tray, he looked between the mountains of papers to a young ninja with her hair pulled back in two bunches.
Kazamatsuri Moegi, the jonin who led Shikadai’s team. Had something happened to his son?
He stopped his hand and leaned back in his chair for the first time in a few hours. “What’s up?” He didn’t mention his son. Moegi’s team included not only Shikadai, but also Cho-Cho and Inojin. He didn’t want to be one of those parents who got overprotective and overemotional about“my son, my son.”
“It’s about Shikadai.”
He exhaled through his nose and looked straight up at her. “You’re his instructor. Everything relating to Shikadai as a ninja is up to you. I’ve got no business telling you anything.”
“I do appreciate you saying that. But would you perhaps allow me to discuss him a little with you today?”
I see. What could have happened that his father have to hear about?
Her round eyes shining with the strength of her will, Moegi began to speak. “Ever since the chunin exams, Shikadai and our team have been getting a lot of attention. We also have more B-rank missions now.”
The chunin exam finals weren’t solely for the purpose of recognizing when young ninja reached the rank of chunin, and the villagers of Konohagakure weren’t the only ones who came to watch; there were also large crowds of ninja from other villages, not to mention the daimyo from the Land of Fire and VIPs from other countries who made their way to the site in order to select skilled work partners. The finals were a place for people inside and outside the village to directly assess the abilities of each ninja. Performing conspicuously well in the chunin exam finals was the shortest route to great success as a ninja.
Shikadai had cleverly snared Iwagakure’s Gaara’s treasured child Yodo with his strategy and secured the victory with his Shadow Paralysis jutsu. This appeared to have led to some praise. It was a fortunate outcome.
“An S-rank mission’s come to us at the request of a client,” Moegi told him.
“An S-rank? Out of the blue?”
Ninja missions were divided up into ranks of A, B, C, and D. The very highest rank was S. Normally, S-rank missions were assigned to jonin. Shikadai and his team hadn’t even made it to chunin, so this was not the sort of mission they could accept. The fact that the client could make them take it at a mere “request” meant that whoever it was, they were a fairly big deal.
“Can they do it?”
“It is an S-rank,” Moegi noted. “But they’d be bodyguards for the daimyo’s family. It wouldn’t be difficult.”
“Traps come dressed in bodyguard clothing, sometimes. Best not let your guard down,” he warned.
“I would never.” Moegi wasn’t the sort of ninja to talk about things like this for no reason. Something was off.
Shikamaru set a hand to the tip of his beard and asked, with hard eyes, “Did something happen?”
“Shikadai refused the mission.”
“What?”
“No matter what I say, he holds firm. All he’ll say is that it’s ‘a drag.’ Cho-Cho and Inojin tried to talk to him too, but he won’t listen.”
His son wasn’t the type to insist on things like that. Temari hated selfishness more than anything, so ever since he was little, Shikadai had gotten a serious earful whenever he insisted on his own ideas without thinking of other people. So why now?
“I thought perhaps you might know something, Lord Shikamaru.” Moegi lowered her eyes apologetically.
What she was really asking was whether something had happened at home. The answer was no. Or was it? He was in the middle of a cold war with his wife. He’d said he would make up the anniversary to her, but he still hadn’t done anything. Their conversations had devolved to the bare minimum. If Moegi was asking after changes in the family, that was definitely one.
Was Shikadai foolish enough to squander a chance like this over something like that? No. Definitely not. This was a normal fight between a married couple. Shikadai wasn’t such a little kid that he’d be so shaken up over that.
“Nah, I haven’t heard anything,” he replied.
“You haven’t?”
“What happened with the mission?”
“The client was apparently very insistent that it be our team,” she said. “But the liaison department explained the situation to them and another team was dispatched.”
That struck him, too. Why would they be so insistent on having Shikadai and his team do it?
“Would you ask Shikadai about it, Lord Shikamaru?”
“Okay.” Shikamaru nodded. “Sorry for the trouble.”
“Not at all.” Moegi bowed deeply and left the room.
Shikamaru stood up and headed for the roof. He laid down there and lit a cigarette.
“Honestly. What exactly happened there?”
The strangeness in Iwagakure, the mountain of routine work, and now even his son...
The clouds drifting in the sky spun round and round.
I’m so busy, it’s making me dizzy.
“That’s exactly right,” he muttered absently as he puffed on his cigarette. It was nearly midnight by the time he was able to go home. Temari and Shikadai were both already asleep. He walked down the hallway quietly and slowly opened the sliding door to his son’s room.
“Hey, Shikadai,” he called out to the pile of blankets.
“What?” his son replied sleepily, back still turned to Shikamaru.
“I heard you turned down an S-rank mission?”
Silence.
“Why?”
Silence.
“You got some reason why you don’t wanna answer?”
Silence.
“Hey, you listening to me?”
“I’m listening.”
There was no strength in his voice. Maybe it was because he’d been asleep, or maybe he felt guilty. Shikamaru blamed all the time he spent at work away from his family for his inability to read his son’s emotions, which seemed to grow more complicated with each passing day.
“So this mission, why—”
“’Cause it was a drag.”
“What?”
“It was a drag, so I said no.” His son’s voice took on a sudden note of anger.
“What kind of reason—”
“Just let it go,” Temari said abruptly, from behind him. When he looked back over his shoulder, his wife had turned her gentle gaze on him. “Shikadai’s got things going on, too. And he has an early mission tomorrow. Let him sleep.”
He let out a deep sigh to calm himself. “G’night,” he said to his son, whose back was still turned to him.
He got no reply.