Naruto was speechless as he glared at the reports sitting on his desk. Hands still in his pockets, Shikamaru stared at his friend frozen before the papers he himself had written up.
“I-is the Land of Earth really…”
“This is reality right here. If you really think about it, it’s way easier to deal with an outsider enemy. The shinobi from different villages can pull together to fight an enemy like that. But real war’s not so simple as all that. Now the enemy are ninja just like us, from another village. Countries and villages have their own individual motives. The idea that all villages would cooperate is at best idealistic.”
Naruto gritted his teeth. He might have been the purest person Shikamaru knew. Naruto believed utterly in people’s ability to come together and understand one another. To his credit, Naruto’s lofty goodwill had indeed changed a great many people. He had even bridged the gap with his good friend, who had stepped off the path and become a rogue ninja, and gotten him to choose the path of living as comrades once more. There was no way that this Naruto would be able to quietly accept what Shikamaru was saying.
But Shikamaru needed Naruto to understand reality. People couldn’t live on ideals alone. Kurotsuchi and the Land of Earth had their own agendas.
“Why would they go invading another country now?” Naruto muttered. “If they’re having a hard time, they could just discuss it with the other nations. And if the daimyo can’t make something work, Kurotsuchi could talk to us at a meeting of the Five Kages. If they don’t have any good land, a country that can get plenty of food could help them out. I mean, that’s the whole point of the meetings. That’s the point of the alliance!”
Shikamaru felt the same way. The power of the alliance of the hidden villages of the five great nations rippled out to all the midsized and small nations on the continent now. If the alliance raised its voice, the ninja of the smaller hidden villages wouldn’t be able to ignore their call. The foundation was there to discuss and resolve any issue that arose.
And yet the Land of Earth had decided on an attack on the Land of Flowers and was trying to make the village of Iwagakure bend to its will. Human fragility and emotion were clearly intervening in a way that was unfathomable with logic alone.
“This is what old man Ohnoki said,” Shikamaru started, and Naruto lifted his face. “He said the world might be at peace, but a ninja’s a ninja.”
“A ninja’s a ninja…”
Shikamaru nodded silently.
If they just sat back and watched, the Land of Earth would invade, and the calm and peaceful life of the Land of Flowers would be destroyed by the ninja of Iwagakure. In which case, the Land of Lightning would intervene, given its many years of alliance with the Land of Flowers. So naturally, Kumogakure would also get involved in the struggle. If Chojuro’s Kirigakure ninja added their might to Iwagakure’s, then the chaos would be further accelerated. And it wasn’t as though Konohagakure and Sunagakure would stand by silently. They might all be dragged into a fight that could swallow the continent.
The Fifth Great Ninja War…
The unpleasant words flitted through his mind. If they were once again plunged into a great war, they wouldn’t be able to bring it to an end the way they had the last time. There was no external enemy to unite them.
Everything would collapse. Led by the daimyo, the five great nations would withdraw into the shells of their own countries, and the ninja of the hidden villages would be forced onto a path of blood, mindlessly felling ninja from other villages. And this unproductive fighting would continue for all eternity.
“Shikamaru.” The hero who had ended the great war looked up, his eyes full of sadness. “Whatever else we do, we have to stop this war. Our kids don’t know real war. For them, this peaceful village is the world of the ninja. Old man Ohnoki’s ninja and what Boruto and the kids think a ninja is are two fundamentally different things. I don’t want those kids to have to go through everything we experienced.”
The Hokage closed his eyes. What did he see on the backs of his eyelids now? Hyuga Neji? Uchiha Itachi? So many ninja had been lost in the fierce fighting.
The phantoms that rose up in the back of Shikamaru’s own mind were his father and master. The unhealed wounds that he had sealed away deep in his heart throbbed. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and put it in to his lips. There was no smoking in here, so he just held it in his mouth. He could feel his master close to him when he did. That man was always smoking. His shoulders were never tensed up around his ears. He’d given the grumbling Shikamaru the friendly push he needed.
“What should we do?” he asked Naruto, wedging the unlit cigarette between his index and middle fingers.
“We gotta stop Kurotsuchi no matter what.” The Hokage’s sky-blue eyes shone with the light of resolve.
When he held such clarity, Naruto was strong. And with his conviction he took off running. It was Shikamaru’s job to forge a path for the Hokage to run on. Naruto had the absurd strength to charge down any road, no matter how rough. But even if he knew where he was going, he didn’t necessarily know how to get there. It was up to Shikamaru to draw him a map.
“If we’re going to stop Kurotsuchi, we’re gonna have to meet her and talk.”
“Yeah.” Naruto nodded emphatically.
Shikamaru flicked the tip of his cigarette with his thumb as he spoke. “This invasion of the Land of Flowers was decided on by the Land of Earth. Kurotsuchi’s not the mastermind here, it’s the daimyo of the Land of Earth. She’s just cooperating with him. So whatever we say to her, the invasion of the Land of Flowers is still going to go ahead unless we have a word with the Land of Earth’s daimyo and get his head on straight.”
“But if Kurotsuchi rethinks this, the Iwagakure ninja won’t move,” Naruto noted. “In that case, the Land of Earth won’t be able to go ahead with the invasion.”
“I highly doubt that Kurotsuchi has put so little thought into this that she would change her mind because you tell her to. She’s got her own line of thinking here. You know as well as I do that she’s not the kind of woman to blindly follow the daimyo’s orders.”
“Are you saying that Kurotsuchi wants war?!” Naruto stood up and slammed his hands down on the desk.
Shikamaru hadn’t seen him this angry in a while. Maintaining his own composure, he said to his overexcited friend, “Not the strangest idea, is it? A ninja who wants to fight?”
“Ah!” Naruto cried out as though something had just occurred to him. Then he turned to Shikamaru with a curious expression.
“What is it?” Shikamaru asked.
“Maybe it’s like Akatsuki or someone pulling strings behind the scenes. Like, they used a jutsu on Kurotsuchi and the daimyo of the Land of Earth.”
Akatsuki was the group of rogue ninja that had triggered the previous great war. They had intended to collect the tailed beasts scattered throughout the five hidden villages and use the enormous amounts of chakra they possessed to cast a genjutsu on every person in the world.
“Naruto!” he said in a forceful tone, rebuking his friend, before calmly continuing, “Kurotsuchi’s a talented ninja. She’s not going to get caught up in a genjutsu as easily as all that. As for the daimyo, she would have checked into that herself. If someone was pulling the strings behind the scenes, she would have already taken care of them. It’s easy to look for the enemy on the outside. It might be more comfortable to turn your eyes from reality like that. But you’re the Hokage. This is a problem of country and country, village and village. Don’t grab the easy lie of an external enemy to make yourself feel better. You have to face reality squarely and look for a way forward.”
“Right… You’re right. I know you’re right.” Lifting his face, Naruto nodded slightly.
“First—” Shikamaru started.
“A meeting of the Five Kages.” Naruto continued. And then he laughed. He had changed since becoming Hokage. He didn’t charge ahead on emotion alone the way he used to; he had learned how to figure out a way forward himself. Naruto had turned out to be a great Hokage.
Even so, there were still things only Shikamaru could do. Naruto was the shining sun of this village. Shadow always followed a powerful light. Shikamaru was that shadow, created by the Naruto’s dazzling sun.
“At any rate, we say we want to talk about Kurotsuchi’s motion from last time and meet again,” he said, cigarette hanging from his mouth. “Then you cut right to the chase and ask her about the Land of Earth. It’ll depend on how Kurotsuchi comes at you, but if we get it all out in the open, Darui and Chojuro will be forced to make a choice. It’d be bad if the meeting broke down there. We should probably talk to Gaara again beforehand.”
“You mean get him on our side?” Naruto asked.
Shikamaru shook his head. “We’re at best in a neutral position. We’re not standing with Kurotsuchi or the Land of Flowers and Darui. We ask Gaara to be in the middle too. If Konoha and Suna can hold fast to the center, no one else will be able to make any careless moves.”
“You take care of that then.”
“I’m on it.” And with that, Shikamaru had an enormous number of things to do: choosing a messenger to propose the meeting, deciding on a schedule, negotiating with Gaara. He probably wouldn’t be able to return home for a while.
“Hey, Shikamaru!”
“Hm?”
“Put that cigarette out!” Naruto shouted. “I told you I’d get mad!”
Without realizing it, he had lit the cigarette. “Oh…” Shikamaru stared at the trail of smoke. “What a waste. Okay, leave the rest to me.”
“You’re going for a smoke?!”
Shikamaru ran out of the Hokage’s office and raced up to the roof.