“Troublesome,” escaped from Nara Shikamaru’s lips as he flexed the fingers on his shadow prosthetic hand. “It doesn’t even have muscles. How am I feeling cramps that aren’t there?”
The Nara heir was currently doing the paperwork meant for the clan head to do. But Shikaku, in all his wisdom, foisted it all on his son instead, reasoning that he was already used to doing it whenever he was deployed and that it was good practice for when Shikamaru took over as clan head and Shikaku could finally retire and play shogi all day while drinking tea. The lousy old man.
Idly, Shikamaru considered getting his twin sister down here to help him but decided against. After the Fourth Shinobi World War had ended, and all the diplomacy and rebuilding required for the new, still somewhat uneasy real peace between the five major shinobi villages, Nara Shikako had finally lost all motivation and took on the revered Nara activity of napping, cloud watching and not working unless absolutely required to.
For Shikamaru, this was ideal. His twin was no longer risking herself getting stabbed, blown up, turned into a goddess, sucked into another dimension, etc. She was no longer working herself to the bone as if the world was going to end. Considering she was instrumental in preventing it, that was actually literal.
So now, Shikako spent her days napping, eating, playing with Kinokawa, coming up with new and terrifying seals, cloud watching and occasionally terrifying the Academy. He knew Iruka-sensei was exasperated about it but was seriously considering asking her to become a teacher since she also gave impromptu lectures whenever she turned up.
The irony wasn’t lost on him or the others. It took winning a war and world peace for Nara Shikako to finally stop working hard, whereas because of those two things, Nara Shikamaru was hard at work.
Yes, life was good now for Nara Shikamaru. His family and friends made it out of the deadliest war in the past century mostly unscathed. His sister was no longer working herself beyond death. And he had a relationship with the sister of the Fifth Kazekage. Definitely not how 12 year old Shikamaru saw his life going but 18 year old Shikamaru was more than content with that.
Hearing his baby brother giggle in the living room, Shikamaru channelled some chakra to his ears to hear what was going on.
In the living room of the Nara household, Nara Shikako was teaching her baby brother about the different types of butterflies that could be found in the Land of Fire. Or trying to, since he was more interested at the beautiful patterns on the wings.
“Nee, nee!” Kinokawa giggled. “Pretty!”
“Yes, the butterfly picture book Shino gave you sure is pretty, isn’t it?” Shikako said.
“Nee-chan is prettier,” Kinokawa said.
“But what about Ino-nee?” Shikako asked.
“Nobody is prettier than nee-chan!” Kinokawa declared as if it was the truth of the world and nothing could change it.
Shikako gave a self-deprecating smile at her baby brother. “But nee-chan doesn’t even have a boyfriend. Nee-chan can’t be that pretty if no boy has ever asked her out.”
Kinokawa gave her a look as if he was contemplating a particularly tricky puzzle. “Nee-chan doesn’t have a boyfriend? What about Sasu-nii and Naru-nii?”
“Oh, they’re like brothers to me,” Shikako said, hiding a shudder at the thought of developing romantic feelings for them. “Huh, maybe instead of waiting for someone to ask me out, I should ask someone out instead. Thanks, Kino-chan, you give nee-chan all the best ideas.”
“Eh?” Kinokawa had no idea how his sister’s mind went there. Nee-chan could be weird sometimes.
“Hmm… Nee-chan needs to check her wardrobe,” Shikako mused. “Do I even have anything that isn’t shinobi wear in there? Maybe kaa-san will be happy to come shopping with me.”
In the house’s study, Shikamaru felt his heart nearly give out at what he was hearing.
His sister, wonderfully oblivious to love sister, was finally getting interested in romance?
He was not ready for this. He thought he would never have to deal with this! His sister’s one true love were seals and explosions! As well as rewriting the rules of chakra and medicine as they all knew it. Well, the latter was more of a side hobby but still!
Was this because of the peace? Shikako no longer had things like the impending end of the world and getting strong enough to take on several S-rank missing-nin to deal with, so now she could finally have her long-delayed hormone-induced interest in romance?
Shikamaru mentally went through the list of males who Shikako interacted with regularly. And he didn’t limit himself to those within the Hidden Leaf. With the way things were now, intervillage shinobi transfers happened on a somewhat irregular basis. It was why his relationship with Temari wasn’t as big of an issue as it would have been even 5 years ago. Hell, Chouji was seeing a girl from Cloud.
No, focus on the matter at hand, genius. Let’s see. Males who my sister may be inclined to develop a romantic interest in and were within her age group.
Gaara the Fifth Kazekage. Hopefully not. Temari may never forgive him if he assassinated her brother.
Haku from Hidden Mist. He had already crowned his sister with a tiara made of his ice, twice! That made him extra suspicious.
Hyuuga Neji. He was pretty enough.
Inuzuka Kiba. No, that would never happen. Ever. No matter how cute the Inuzuka puppies could be.
Rock Lee. He sure hoped not. There would never be quiet in the house ever again.
Aburame Shino. They were awfully chummy together. And she doted on his little sister.
Sai. Assuming Ino and him weren’t as serious as they seemed to be. Unlikely but Shikako was the one to help him break his Root conditioning so who knows what emotional connection that created.
Shikamaru slammed his head onto his desk. Too many potential suspects. Not enough hard data. He would need to recruit help for this.
He was startled out of his thoughts by his sister suddenly appearing at the door.
“Ne, Shikamaru,” Shikako said. “How do I look?”
Shikamaru turned to look at his sister and wondered what odd genjutsu he had been trapped in. His sister was wearing a dress. Shikako never wore a dress.
It wasn’t a particularly revealing dress like the kind Kurenai-sensei had worn or some other kunoichi wore to accentuate their figures. It was quite conservative really. A nice forest green that covered her down to her knees.
It was once more at this moment that reality reminded Shikamaru that his sister was a young woman. Her normal clothes usually hid it, but she had in fact developed a figure. It wasn’t as curvacious as Hinata or Ino, but men would definitely still be staring.
“You are not going out in that,” Shikamaru hated how his voice sounded at that moment. It wasn’t voiced as a demand or a question, more like something odd he had no description of.
Shikako merely gave him an odd look, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to make of his question.
“Whatever,” Shikako finally said. “Kaa-san and I are going clothes shopping. Look after Kino-chan. We’ll buy back dinner. See you.”
“Bye,” Shikamaru weakly replied as his mother took his sister and giddily (his mother was never giddy!) led them out of the house.
Kinokawa chose that moment to walk into the study. Shikamaru absentmindedly lifted him onto his lap.
“Shika-nii, kaa-chan and nee-chan are being weird,” Kinokawa said, as if he had just made a major discovery and wanted to share it with everyone.
“I know, Kino-chan,” Shikamaru said. “I know.”
Shikamaru took a deep breath and schemed. His sister had finally noticed her hormones and was going to look for someone to ask out. He needed allies to keep this from happening.
His father was hopefully in. He was usually pretty cool with whatever his sister did, but that was because it was usually shinobi-related and not romance-related. He had no idea how he would react to this news, but he was banking on overprotective father who would murder every boy who looked at his little girl.
Sasuke and Naruto for sure. They were safe since they already had girlfriends and were also violently protective of their teammate.
Chouji for certain. If he wasn’t already seeing someone, he wouldn’t have minded him dating his sister too much. Alas, he knew it was never to be. Chouji had been safely in the friend zone since their Academy days.
Ino was the one he had to be wary of. No doubt, she would hear about Shikako’s sudden interest in romance and do everything in her power to help her. She would also be the one most likely to find out what he was doing and work to stop him.
Shikamaru leaned back on his chair, Kinokawa mimicking him on his lap.
“What a drag…”